Christian faith, politics and culture

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anne McElvoy and guests explore the intersections between Christian faith and political decision-making and look at some recent dramas which explore the impact of belief.

Chine McDonald is director of the Christian Think Tank Theos, Mark Lawson is a writer, broadcaster and theatre critic of Catholic journal The Tablet, Prof Anna Rowlands is St Hilda Professor of Catholic Social Thought & Practice at the University of Durham, Dafydd Mills Daniel is a Lecturer in Divinity at the University of St Andrews and Sam Tanenhaus, has published a biography of influential American conservative thinker and Catholic, William F Buckley Jnr. called Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America.

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Transcript

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0:00.0	Can I just say?
0:01.5	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.
0:04.0	It's such a wonderful listen.
0:05.6	So nice.
0:06.5	There are loads more like it on BBC sounds.
0:08.8	Different paces, different heights.
0:10.6	The roof is buckling.
0:11.9	Where you can also listen to live sports commentary.
0:14.2	It's right foot goes for goal.
0:16.7	And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories.
0:21.7	The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession.
0:25.2	And she's had to live with that.
0:26.8	So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion.
0:29.7	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.7	Sort of expecting that every week now.
0:35.8	BBC Sounds, music, Radio, podcasts.
0:39.5	Hello, I'm Anne McElvoy and this is the Arts and Ideas podcast.
0:43.3	Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair's head of communications, famously said, we don't do God
0:48.7	to discourage his boss from talking about his religious leanings.
0:52.8	He wasn't alone in the late 90s and the early 2000s
0:56.0	in trying to box faith off from active politics
0:59.0	as a side issue, maybe even a bit of an embarrassment.
	...

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