Things Unseen: Recent Episodes
Things Unseen
Things Unseen grapples with a spiritual climate that no longer conforms to orderly patterns – with fewer of us attracted to formal religion, but many still believing that there’s more out there than meets the eye. Thought-provoking speech radio for people of faith – and those who just feel intrigued by the spiritual dimension to life.
In this special Easter episode of Things Unseen, Amir Suleman is joined by Sister Liz Dodd, activist, journalist, and author of Easter in Disguise, to explore how she is rethinking traditional understandings of Lent and Easter. Together, they reflect on the rare alignment in 2026 of Lent and Ramadan beginning on the same day, uncovering the shared themes of fasting, reflection, and charity across both traditions.
Challenging familiar approaches to Lent practice, Sister Liz invites a deeper vision of the season, one rooted not only in personal sacrifice, but in solidarity and meaningful action. The conversation also considers how these spiritual rhythms speak into a world marked by conflict and uncertainty, and what they might offer in response.
From Lent to Ramadan, this episode draws out connections across faith traditions, offering a thoughtful exploration of compassion, justice, and the enduring hope at the heart of Easter.
The post Faith, Fasting and Common Ground appeared first on Things Unseen.
Mina Shannon is a reality TV personality and broadcaster best known for her standout turn on The Traitors UK 2025, where her calm confidence, emotional intelligence and strategic gameplay made her the longest-standing traitor of the season and a firm fan favourite. Before television, Mina worked as a call centre manager in Liverpool, building a family life with her husband Liam and their daughter Luna. Since the show, she has stepped into broadcasting, joining BBC Radio 1 as a co-host on the Early Breakfast show — a full-circle moment for someone who once studied audio engineering and dreamed of a career in radio.
Raised between Uganda, Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool, Mina reflects on how constant movement shaped her adaptability, openness and ability to connect deeply with people. She speaks candidly about the emotional and moral weight of deception on The Traitors, navigating guilt, trust and judgement, and the personal cost of living a double life in pursuit of the game.
In conversation with Liz Adekunle, Mina also opens up about her Christian faith, her interfaith upbringing, and a spirituality that resists rigid labels. She shares her struggles with church culture, her belief in grace over judgement, and her curiosity about the unseen world — all while looking ahead with courage to a future in broadcasting, creativity and purpose.
The post Faithtime: Minah Shannon appeared first on Things Unseen.
Sacha Jones is a reality TV personality, businesswoman and broadcaster who rose to fame on Married at First Sight UK in 2024. A former Miss Birmingham and beautician, she once explored New Age practices before a dramatic encounter led her to embrace Christianity. In conversation with Liz Adekunle, she reflects on her upbringing, pageantry, and how faith transformed her life.
In this episode of Things Unseen, Mark Dowd and his guests explore the enduring relevance of St Dismas, the penitent thief in the story of Christ’s passion. Biblical novelist Rob Seabrook, ex-convict Michael Emmett and former prison chaplain Sue Culver share their perspectives on how the thief's story of repentance can inspire those in search of hope and transformation.
In 2012 Manga, a young Christian from northern Nigeria, was attacked and almost beheaded by armed men from the militant Islamist group, Boko Haram. The attackers forced Manga and his younger brother to witness their father’s brutal murder before turning their attention to them. Manga, now 33 years old, relates how that horrific ordeal has changed his outlook on life and strengthened his Christian faith.
Taj Uddin Ahmed and Nazia Khatun are both fitness coaches. As observant Muslims, they want to help people have a more fulfilling and healthier life, especially during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast between sunrise and sunset. So what’s the best way of keeping up an exercise regime and eating healthily during Ramadan, while also trying to focus on your spiritual life? Taj and Nazia join Amir Suleman at the Muscleworks Gym in Whitechapel, London, to share their best tips.
Have you lost a beloved dog, cat or rabbit – and after their death, have you ever had a sense that they were still around? In this podcast, we hear from people who are convinced that their pets are living on after their earthly death. Discussing these cases are dog owner Mark Dowd, Christian theologian and environmental campaigner Canon Dr Ruth Valerio, and Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, who believes his dog taught him how to be a better human.
Composer and conductor Leo Geyer tells the story of how he came across unfinished manuscripts in the archive at the Auschwitz death camp, and his determination to share them with the world. With Jewish soprano Caroline Kennedy and Hungarian Roma violinist Antal Zalai.© Sky UK/ Windfall Films
O Holy Night has long been one of the UK’s most popular Christmas carols, with Classic FM radio listeners declaring it their favourite for eight years in a row. But what is its magic?
In this montage of voices from singers and musicians, a priest, a Paralympic athlete and a historian, we discover how the tune and lyrics work together perfectly to create a song that is moving, uplifting and liberating in equal measure.
We find out how it originated in France and played a role in the country’s history of abolishing slavery – and why it still means so much to the descendants of slaves today.
And we hear why singing it at Christmas time has brought so many people so much joy.
Contributors whose voices you will hear in the podcast include:
Azariah France-Williams, priest of the Ascension Church in Hulme, South Manchester;
Elaine and Kevin Simpson, co-founders of the As One Community Choir, and members of the choir;
Karé Adenegan, Paralympic wheelchair racer who won two silver medals in Paris 2024;
Dr Helen McKelvey, historian and lecturer in French at the University of Glasgow.
The post A Carol for the Soul appeared first on Things Unseen.
Christian author, magician and comedian Steve Legg was told he had terminal cancer in April 2023. Against all predictions, he and his family were able to spend one last Christmas together that year; but Steve eventually died of his illness in September 2024, leaving wife Bekah and a blended family of children and grandchildren behind.
Few things could be as tough as the first Christmas after losing a close loved one. So how do you celebrate the Christian season of hope after such a devastating loss?
In conversation with Mark Dowd, Bekah – who herself has a strong Christian faith – reflects on how she experienced Steve’s final illness and death (the extra year Steve had was a “gift from God”) and how, despite her grief, she is able to look ahead to Christmas with hope.
The post The Toughest Christmas appeared first on Things Unseen.
Liz Adekunle is a Church of England priest – yet she dreads Christmas. For her it’s often been a stressful and difficult time, and there have been years when she’s had no one to spend Christmas day with.
Liz is not alone. Research has shown that nearly half of us have similar feelings, often because of the expense or pressure to spend Christmas time with family you may not get on with. So how, Liz asks, can those who do dread the season make Christmas better – for themselves and those around them, whether or not they are Christian?
So, in this edition of Things Unseen, she gathers together some people who can help uncover a more spiritual – and more relaxed and meaningful – side to Christmas.
Christian Comedian Paul Kerensa delves into how you can make new traditions to make it special for you, while Salvation Army officer, Jo Moir, explains how to her Christmas is about helping those who struggle the most. And Catholic nun Sister Gemma Simmonds advises on finding the still points in the season, even if you’re celebrating alone.
The post Dreading Christmas appeared first on Things Unseen.
In this FaithTime episode, Liz Adekunle meets Bobby Seagull, former University Challenge captain, maths teacher, and education equality advocate. Bobby opens up about his upbringing as an Indian Catholic in East Ham, his pivotal career shift from banking to teaching and his ongoing search for both spiritual and romantic fulfillment.
Swarzy Macaly is a woman of phenomenal energy: aged only just over 30, she’s got eight years of radio presenting under her belt, first for KISS FM and now as host of the BBC Radio 1Xtra weekend breakfast show and the voice of BBC Sounds.
Alongside that she’s campaigned for the victims of the Grenfell disaster, against racism and climate change and for many other causes. And she and her new husband, Chiko, are still finding time to host a weekly dinner and Bible study.
In conversation with Liz Adekunle, Chaplain to HM the King, Swarzy tells the story of how she found Christ in the middle of a shoplifting incident and how her faith has shaped many of her big decisions ever since.
She talks about her Guyanese-Mauritian background, her search for belonging and how her Christian faith helped her find a path out of hopelessness and insecurity.
The post Faithtime: Swarzy appeared first on Things Unseen.
In this FaithTime episode, Liz Adekunle meets Swarzy Macaly, BBC Radio 1Xtra weekend presenter, voice of BBC Sounds and campaigner for causes ranging from sustainability to the fight against racism. Swarzy opens up about how she found Jesus in the middle of a shoplifting incident, her search for belonging, and how her Christian faith helped her find a path out of hopelessness and insecurity.
Passover is one of the most important Jewish festivals, marking the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt and the start of their journey to the Promised Land – Israel. This year, the celebrations have an extra significance because of the Hamas attack on Israel in October and the subsequent violence unleashed on Gaza by Israel. In this Passover edition of Things Unseen, Amir Suleman, a Muslim, and Orthodox Rabbi Dov Cowan discuss the significance the festival holds this year, with Israel and Gaza at the forefront of everyone’s minds.
Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who sent Jesus to be crucified, is often seen as the villain of the story. But was he downright evil, or merely weak? In this Good Friday and Easter edition of Things Unseen, the Ven Liz Adekunle hears from a priest, a Christian author and a former homicide detective turned evangelist about how we might see our own actions reflected in Pilate’s story.
The retaliation by Israel in Gaza following the Hamas attack in October, has caused deep-seated anger among Muslim communities, including in the UK.As the Islamic holy month of Ramadan approaches, with its focus on compassion, charity, and prayer, how are Muslims preparing, given the strong emotions triggered by the Israel-Gaza situation?Gaza will not be far from people’s minds as they get together to break the fast in the evenings, and much of the community’s charitable giving this year will go to help the Palestinians.In this Ramadan edition of Things Unseen, broadcaster Amir Suleman meets Muslims of different ages to ask how they can find compassion, even for people they might regard as enemies.Joining the conversation are social psychologist Anita Nayyar, community worker Faisal Mahmood and university student Abdul-Roqueeb Salman.
In the film One Life, Anthony Hopkins plays Nicholas Winton, who rescued over 600 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Prague by sending them on what became known as the Kindertransport. For this podcast, Rosie Dawson welcomes two people who knew Nicholas Winton personally: Rabbi Jonathan Romain from Maidenhead synagogue in Berkshire, and Lord Alf Dubs, who was himself a Kindertransport child and campaigns for the rights of unaccompanied child refugees. Together with Sue Butler from Welcome Churches, a network committed to welcoming refugees and asylum seekers, they discuss what lessons the story of Nicholas Winton holds for us today.
The image of the Madonna and child appears on nearly every Christmas card and is at the centre of every nativity scene. But in most of these images, Mary looks European, a white woman with fair hair. Yet there are also Black Madonnas – and they’re often seen as particularly powerful. Liz Adekunle finds out about the rich history of the Black Madonna and her relevance to Christians today as they celebrate the birth of Christ.
Liz Adekunle, Chaplain to His Majesty the King, continues to meet celebrities who have been sustained by their faith during difficult times. Her guests in this episode of FaithTime are Carrie and David Grant, who are well-known for their work as vocal coaches, broadcasters and campaigners. From being struck down with illness to their experience of child-on-parent violence, the couple open up about their lives together and as a family and reflect on what their Christian faith has meant along an often difficult path.
Liz Adekunle, former Archdeacon of Hackney and Chaplain to His Majesty the King, sets out to discover what people in the public eye have learnt about their faith during challenging times. In this episode, Amos Ogunkoya, one of the stars of the reality TV show, The Traitors, and Luton Town FC first team doctor, joins Liz for a deep dive into experiences that have moulded his Christian faith.
For most people in the UK, Easter means extra days off work, family time and chocolate eggs. So how can its message be heard afresh through nature and astronomy, stories and art? With Fr Christopher Jamison, a Benedictine monk, writer and Abbot President of the English Benedictine Congregation; and Bonnie Lander Johnson, a writer and Cambridge academic with a love of stories, history and nature.
The Prophet Muhammad was 40 when he began to receive the revelation of the Quran. In this podcast, journalist Remona Aly is joined by three guests in their 40s to discuss the deeper meaning of maturity in Islam, and how the ‘age of revelation’ is best lived - through innovative approaches, the love of walking, life-lessons and personal legacies.
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken bowls with lacquer and gold, which often makes the restored object more beautiful than the original. As a result, kintsugi has become a symbol of how human brokenness can lead to a new sense of inner wholeness and beauty.
What draws people from other faiths – including Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and Muslims – to sing in Christian choirs, even at Christmas? In this festive podcast, Zubeida Malik meets some of them during carol rehearsals to find out.
Writer Susie Stead describes how her 20-year friendship with Stephen, a man with profound mental health issues, challenged her perceptions about mental health and her own Christian faith. She also reveals how her decision to write a book about Stephen was to convince him that his life “did matter.”
Why is the Russian Orthodox Church supporting Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? Are the Russian President’s alleged religious motives genuine, and has the church’s endorsement of the war...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
When Christ’s bloodied body was taken down from the cross, his followers took very good care of it. Looking after the dead body of a loved one was normal then. So why is it, Mark Dowd asks in this...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Is there a clash between the generous hospitality that’s customary during Ramadan, and the self-restraint and solidarity with the poor also expected during the Islamic holy month? Remona Aly hears...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The writer and broadcaster Mark Dowd throws fresh light on a question which has troubled people of faith down the ages and remains ever topical in times of Covid, wars and natural disasters: why does...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The Gospels tell us little about the actual birth of Jesus. What would it have been like for a young woman, probably a teenager, to give birth for the first time far from home, with no medical help,...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang in China face serious restrictions during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, including a ban on fasting. Here, Uyghurs in exile in the UK recall what Ramadan was like back...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The Easter story is perhaps the ultimate rollercoaster narrative. And it has its fair share of heroes and villains, praised or condemned down the ages. But what about the behind-the-scenes Easter?...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Nearly one in five women in the UK are now childless at 40, many involuntarily. Among them was the writer and teacher Blanche Girouard, and she desperately wanted a baby. In this audio diary, she...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Sarah Niyazi was pleased to get her husband, Arif, home from hospital in February, following treatment for a severe autoimmune condition. Within days they were both ill, but her husband was worse....
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Journalist Remona Aly speaks to Islam scholar Abdal Hakim Murad, also known as Dr Tim Winter, about how to navigate the very different kind of Ramadan experience that Covid-19 brings – including how...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
In self-isolation at her new home in Virginia, former BBC religious affairs correspondent Jane Little reflects on whether the coronavirus pandemic could be a portal to a new world: one in which the...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
With churches closed and the coronavirus lockdown firmly in place, the UK faces a very different Easter this year. More and more people each day experience the sudden loss of a friend or family...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Among the saddest stories to come out of the coronavirus crisis so far is that of 13-year-old Ismail, who died without seeing the loving faces of his family around him. In this short reflection, Mark...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Former BBC correspondent Mike Wooldridge has reported first hand on many of the world’s worst disasters of the last few decades, from the famine in Ethiopia to the AIDS epidemic in Uganda. In this...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
It’s there on almost every Christmas card featuring the scene of Christ’s birth, and in almost every school Nativity play: the donkey, or ass. But look at the gospel accounts of Christ’s birth, and...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
“Mindfulness” seems to be everywhere these days. It’s often promoted as a way dealing with some mental health issues and reducing burnout. But with origins in Buddhism, how well does it sit with...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
For two weeks in October, members of the Extinction Rebellion movement are attempting to disrupt life in London and elsewhere to draw attention to what they say is an impending climate catastrophe....
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Concern over the environmental and welfare aspects of the meat and dairy industries is on the rise, but what about the world of fish farming? For those who want to protect the world’s oceans from...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Former Lord Mayor of Sheffield Magid Magid is joined by a team of fasting veterans to answer your burning questions on Ramadan – including the fasting rules, spiritual highs, spiritual lows, veganism...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
In the midst of a ferocious thunderstorm, Joe and Nick, two no-nonsense Irishmen, are carrying a body into a cave for burial. But their relief at getting out of the rain is short lived, when an...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Not long after Christmas last year, Abbi Banks died of leukaemia. With the grief still so raw, how can parents Tim and Liz and sister Debbie hang on to the Christmas message of hope as the festive...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Shaunaka Rishi Das, an Irish-born Hindu priest reflects on his wife’s suicide and its aftermath.
In her mid-50s and suffering from depression, Shaunaka’s wife Keshava took her own life, with...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
After years of mental illness Guy Stagg embarked on a walk from Canterbury to Jerusalem, spending ten months on a 5,500 km medieval pilgrim route, a journey to the centre of the three Abrahamic...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Mango cake and chocolate brownies might seem a world away from politics and rising levels of anti-Muslim feeling. But Great British Bake Off contestant Ali Imdad is on a mission to counter negative...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Things Unseen travels through space and time for a close encounter between science fiction and faith. Steering the ship will be the writer and broadcaster Natalie Haynes, with crewmates Beth Singler,...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
How does belief influence the way people approach death? Why don’t those who believe they’re going to heaven seem that keen to go? And how is belief changing, in an age where tweets continue to...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
It’s hard to think of an issue which has seen a more profound change in attitudes over the last two or three decades. Nearly thirty years after the introduction of Section 28, the law which forbade...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The Angel Gabriel goes rogue in a bid to deal with the over-commercialisation of Christmas. A fresh and irreverent look at the knotty issue of Christmas and shopping.
The cast includes vocal...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
We like to think we don’t judge a book by its cover. But is that really true? Sally Phillips hears insights from Vicky Balch, a young woman who lost a limb in the Alton Towers roller coaster...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘In Christ Alone’, co-written by Stuart Townend, has been sung around the world, from underground churches to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s enthronement. Alongside the musician’s favourite Bible...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Babar Ahmad spent 8 years in UK prisons fighting extradition to the US. Having allowed his website to host articles supporting the Taliban he was eventually transferred to solitary confinement in the...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Harris J has been dubbed the Muslim Justin Bieber. With 100 million YouTube hits, and over half a million followers on Instagram, he’s taken the global Islamic music scene by storm. Here he talks to...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Former Tory Minister Baroness Warsi on balancing faith and fasting with life in the political arena and her views on multicultural Britain.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Carl Franklin is dead. But it’s not the end of the story.
Broadchurch actor Joe Sims stars in Nick Warburton's drama which reflects the themes of the Easter story in a modern setting. The fictional...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
One year on, what's the truth behind the West Trent tragedy? Broadchurch actor Joe Sims stars in Nick Warburton's drama which reflects the themes of the Easter story in a modern setting. The...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Presenter Mark Dowd quizzes the team behind our upcoming Easter drama - writer Nick Warburton, producer Paul Arnold and Broadchurch actor Joe Sims, who plays the part of Charlie Hammond. Together...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
At this time of year, millions of Christians around the world turn their minds to the events that took place in the “little town of Bethlehem” over 2000 years ago. Yet few stop to consider what life...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The writers of Channel 4’s Humans get together with Artificial Intelligence experts to plan the construction of our very own android, or ‘synth’. What rights should it have? Is it even a good idea in...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Regarded by many as one of the world’s most influential living theologians, Stanley Hauerwas has always been opinionated and outspoken, not least on his pacifist convictions. On a trip from his...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
If you put together everything that the Bible records Jesus saying as he was being crucified, you find there are seven sayings, or ‘last words’. As well as finding hope in what Jesus said, the...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Having begun his career with positive songs that affirmed his Christian faith, the Welsh singer’s music has become more nuanced. The self-proclaimed ‘liberal backslider’ talks to Alison Hilliard...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Astrophysicist and theologian, Revd David Wilkinson looks at a number called Omega. Omega is the name physicists give to one of several constants embedded in the laws of the universe which seem to...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Munisha has been working for many years as a lecturer and communicator for Buddhism. So she was used to explaining the central teachings of the faith, including the ‘4 Noble Truths’, which deal with...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
With a background in maths and physics, the Hindu teacher Jay Lakhani is fascinated by the concept of nothing. He traces the 7th century roots of the idea as a placeholder in counting systems, and...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Martin Palmer has spent decades exploring and translating Chinese historical and philosophical texts. For Things Unseen he explains the Daoist concepts of Yin and Yang and our role in maintaining...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The factual rigour of the world of numbers and maths, and the more intuitive nature of faith may not seem like a comfortable combination. But numbers have played a significant role in religious...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The Rev Kate Bottley came to national attention by leading a flash mob dance routine at a wedding. Since then her musings on the week’s TV on Channel 4’s Gogglebox, alongside her dog Buster and...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The storyteller Sita Brand separates the fact from the fiction of Zen meditation, and shares her favourite story about the way not to go about it. She explains that Zen Buddhist meditation is about...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Shaunaka Rishi Das from the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies reflects on the life lessons he learnt from the Yamuna, one of India’s sacred rivers. His memories include a close encounter with a snake,...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Following a chance remark from a Ukranian flatmate on the stereotypical characteristics of her neighbouring countries (sleazy Lithuanians, tidy Hungarians...), the comedy writer Paul Kerensa decided...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Sisters Caroline Clare and Susan Elizabeth of the Community of Saint Clare in Freeland, Oxfordshire, show us how they make communion wafers, from preparing the batter to using ‘the Church of...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Ian Knowles is an artist and founder-director of the Bethlehem icon centre. Most of his icons are created on wood, but his most famous icon was painted on the separation wall dividing Israel from the...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Faraz Yousafzai is the lead singer and guitarist of the folk-rock band, SilkRoad. For our A-Z, he gives free rein to his poetic side to draw out connections between physical vibrations (such as those...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
At the beginning of Lent we asked our listeners to look forward to the events to come in the Christian calendar – Good Friday and Easter. We set them a challenge to write haiku in response,...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Chine McDonald (nee Mbubaegbu) of the Evangelical Alliance examines why unity is important for people of faith – and why it need not lead to uniformity.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Journalist and broadcaster Emma Barnett on how her tactile nature led her to question the Orthodox Jewish laws that govern physical contact between wives and husbands.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Playwright, actress and artistic director Rani Moorthy reflects on the sari, a garment closely bound up with Hindu identity. She rejected it as a teenager, but has now made it the subject of a funny...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
We are setting our listeners a creative challenge - to write haiku, three line poems, about Good Friday and Easter. Here are full details of how to get involved, along with some taster haiku.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Fr Christopher Jamison, a Benedictine monk and former abbot, reflects on treating sacred texts as a delicacy best savoured slowly – and allowing them to challenge and transform us.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Ruth Scott has been an Anglican priest since 1994, yet a traumatic experience drew her to the silence which is at the heart of Quaker meetings. Here she explains why.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Ayisha Malik, author of the romantic comedy, Sofia Khan is Not Obliged, reflects on patience through the prism of Islam and how it helps answer life’s biggest question.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Christian gospel hip-hop artist Faith Child on how he draws encouragement from the Bible and writing gospel songs to overcome personal struggles.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
A Protestant who grew up in Ian Paisley’s Northern Ireland, where any devotion to Mary was scorned; a cradle Catholic and former friar; and a Muslim who loves Christmas, but approaches Mary very much...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
What’s in a name? Rabbi Naftali Brawer considers the naming and not-naming of God, and explores the meaning of those names. He explains how the names he has used for God have charted his own...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Minna Salami, a blogger popularly known as Ms Afropolitan, explains how an automatic writing experience led her to explore mysticism, and why artists like Fela Kuti and Frida Kahlo have helped her on...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Alison Hilliard, a regular Things Unseen presenter, tells the story of Ethiopia’s astonishing rock-hewn churches, which were created in a mere 23 years in the 12th century and remain one of the most...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Khalsa Aid is a humanitarian relief agency which has helped destitute people in disaster areas from Haiti to Iraq and Bosnia. Its founder, Ravi Singh, was inspired by the teachings of the Sikh gurus,...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Jim al-Khalili is the son of a Muslim father and a Christian mother. He is also a public atheist - the outgoing President of the British Humanist Association - a science writer and broadcaster and...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Ruth Gledhill, who used to be the Times’ religious affairs correspondent and now works for the news website, Christian Today, reflects on combining her love of religion and journalism and has some...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
In this addition of our A to Z, Mohammed Ali Amla, founder of Christian and Muslim Encounters – an interfaith network that seeks to bring together academics and activists in shaping dialogue and...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
In this edition of our A to Z, the ‘Mail on Sunday’ columnist Peter Hitchens visits Trafalgar Square to get a perspective on a key time in the UK’s history. But he is not looking at Nelson. Instead...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Jason Smyth was born in Northern Ireland into a Mormon family. At the age of 8, he was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, which robbed him of his central vision, leaving him legally blind. Yet he...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Psychotherapist and priest Chris Scott on why he thinks it’s time to say farewell to God.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Lucy Winkett, rector of St James’s Church Piccadilly in Central London, reflects on how a C S Lewis quote, a story about the mother of Judas, the traitor, and even chocolate Easter bunnies contribute...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
A regular Things Unseen presenter, Mark Dowd is no stranger to doubt. In this edition of our A-Z, he recalls what happened when, as a young friar, he was overcome by it one Easter day.
He also...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Navid Akhtar is the founder and chief executive of Alchemiya Media – an online TV channel which aims to showcase the best of Islam and Muslim life. Navid is also an award-winning documentary producer...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
In the second edition of our A-Z of Things Unseen, the Revd. Sally Hitchner, chaplain at Brunel University London, reflects on the concept of blessing from a Christian perspective – and explains why...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
In the first of our A-Z of Things Unseen, Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg from the New North London Synagogue reflects on the concept of awe from a Jewish perspective – and argues that this sense of being...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
When her father Justin Welby became the spiritual leader of 80 million Anglicans, Katharine Welby-Roberts shot to social media fame as the ABCD, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s daughter. In...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The nation state: the best way we have to control the movement of people, or no better than a lottery for life's opportunities?
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Remona Aly challenges two of her Christian fellow Things Unseen presenters – Mark Dowd and Alison Hilliard – to join her in the Ramadan fast for one day.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
In April 1945, Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl emerged from the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau – the only member of his immediate family to survive the Holocaust. From this traumatic...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Coming to university can be a daunting experience. This is where university chaplains play an important role: they provide support and guidance for all students, of any faith and none. In this...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Is creating a piece of art an act of faith, even for those who have no religious faith in the traditional sense? How does myth inform the artist’s work? And how do faith, art and the unknown hang...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Leading geneticist Steve Jones discusses the relationship between scientific enquiry and religious faith with Catholic journalist Mark Dowd. Steve Jones admits to his atheism - quoting with approval...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Diane Foley is the mother of James Foley, the first Western hostage to be brutally killed by Islamic State. In conversation with Mark Dowd, she explains how her strong Catholic faith has helped her...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The 12 steps which form the backbone of Alcoholics Anonymous only mention alcohol once, but God features four times, along with references to a higher power and spiritual awakening. But what does...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Even those with scant religious knowledge will remember Moses as the man who led the Children of Israel out of Egypt. It is much less known that Moses is also one of the Five Great Prophets of the...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
You can have religious faith but not be protected from a sense of inadequacy, which may lead to fear of failure, even thoughts of suicide. In this programme, a 22-year-old Muslim medical student...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
74-year-old Quaker Shelagh Robinson is thoughtful, articulate and deeply spiritual. She also has Alzheimer’s. In this moving interview, she tells Remona Aly what her faith and community mean to her,...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
No fewer than 850,000 people in the UK are living with dementia. Yet even when short-term memory or the ability to operate gadgets are badly affected, the memory of what has been meaningful to the...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
At Christmas 1914, British and German soldiers on the Western front laid down their weapons, exchanged gifts and sang carols together. Some even kicked a football around. In this programme, Nelufar...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
One can have faith but not be immune to depression. Faith is no cure, not even a consolation. Yet 'poor theology' leads many to misunderstand, even condemn, the sufferer... and thereby only make the...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
At first glance, the teachings of Jesus seem a world away from the ancient Chinese religion of Daoism. Yet if you look more closely, there are striking parallels and historical connections going back...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Belief in angels is widespread, far beyond the Christian churches. Lorna Byrne – dubbed “a modern-day Irish mystic” – has attracted a huge following through her books on them. But what is behind...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
A childhood of religious indoctrination often leads to damage for those who try to escape it in adulthood. Psychologist Dr Marlene Winell knows all about this 'trauma', personally, and among her...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Sami Yusuf – dubbed Islam’s biggest rock star - explains to Alison Hilliard why despite his deep commitment to his own Muslim faith, he treasures certain passages from the Bible. He reflects on the...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Mindfulness – a Buddhist meditation technique aiming to achieve deep awareness of the present moment – is booming. Jane Little talks to Sharon Salzberg, one of America’s leading Buddhist meditation...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
What do Muslims today make of the Muslim contribution to the First World War, and what can they take away from this historical legacy at a time when Muslim loyalty to Britain is often questioned?
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Remona Aly discusses with an eye surgeon, a firefighter and a head chef how it is possible to keep the 19-hour Ramadan in jobs as challenging and responsible as theirs.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Arguably, if controversially, we have a God-shaped hole at the heart of our post-Christian world.
What are the gains and the losses, and is the 'hole' increasingly being filled with consumerism,the...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Nelufar Hedayat explores with four Sikh guests what led so many Sikhs from British India to the trenches and battlegrounds of World War I, to fight a war which was essentially not their own. She...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Researcher and lecturer Mohammed al-Hilli provides a Shia perspective on why Sunni and Shia Muslims went their separate ways early in Islamic history - and what distinguishes the two main branches of...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Nelufar Hedayat explores cupping, a traditional Islamic practice, and Ayurveda, a holistic approach to health with roots in Hinduism. Are they pure make-belief or a valuable addition to health care?
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
A bereaved mother, with the army commander who ordered her child’s killing during South Africa's apartheid years, share with reporter and presenter Mark Dowd their extraordinary journey towards...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams discusses his favourite Bible passages. Speaking to Alison Hilliard, he explains the verses which for him “light up the landscape”. Bible readings by...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Remona Aly explores with Muslim, Jewish and Sikh guests whether having a name that gives away your religious identity can be a hindrance in the job market – and what you can do about it.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Genocide widow Lesley Bilinda on her journey through pain and betrayal to a more mature faith – and moments of resurrection joy.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Cambridge scholar Tim Winter, also known as Abdal Hakim Murad, provides a Sunni perspective on how the divide between Sunni and Shia Islam began, and what distinguishes the two main branches of Islam...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Lord Leslie Griffiths discusses his journey from a childhood in extreme poverty in Wales to a life peerage and becoming one of Britain’s most senior religious figures. Speaking to Alison Hilliard, he...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Rose Hudson-Wilkin discusses the Bible verses that have shaped her journey from Jamaica’s Montego Bay to her role as Speaker’s Chaplain at the House of Commons. Her selection reveals her passion on a...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Cherokee medicine man CJ Whitedeer provides a rare inside view of some of the astonishing myths, beliefs and practices of Native Americans. Jane Little has visited him in Arizona.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
In 1984, Labour peer Lord Smith became the first MP to reveal he was gay. He was appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in Tony Blair’s first cabinet and is now a life peer....
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Andrew Weil is America’s best-known doctor, the pioneer of “integrative medicine “- an approach that goes far beyond high tech interventions and drugs. To his admirers, he has managed to combine...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Muslim, Zoroastrian, and Humanist voices dispute the legacy of Religion: violence and war, links to power and privilege, oppression of women, or peace initiatives, changed lives and priorities, and...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Describing himself as “not particularly religious”, Tony Jordan, one of Britain’s top scriptwriters and former EastEnders writer, was behind the BBC’s critically acclaimed The Nativity. The drama was...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Cambridge Islam scholar Tim Winter, aka Abdal Hakim Murad, talks to Vicky Beeching about how Jesus is seen in Islam – and what role he played in his own decision to become a Muslim.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
A shaman undergoing a ritual burial and a Catholic attending mass seem poles apart – yet both rituals answer similar needs. Jane Little explores what makes rituals so compelling and meaningful....
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Growing up, Nicky Gumbel considered Christianity “intellectually unsustainable”, yet today he is best known as the modern-day architect of the evangelical Alpha Course. In this podcast, he uses Bible...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Open any newspaper, watch any TV channel, and stories of War and Conflict tumble from page and screen...
But can we trust what we read and see? Even when journalists work hard to separate facts from...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
On 17th October 2013, Things Unseen was launched at Southwark Cathedral with this panel discussion looking at specially commissioned research which revealed a strong undercurrent of spiritual belief...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Belief in post-religious Britain: more than half of us believe spiritual forces have influence on earth.
Read the report here - bit.ly/19Tn4pg
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Is it time to take a break from discussing women’s and gay rights in the Church of England and focus on the neediest in society? Roger Bolton throws out the challenge.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Vicky Beeching talks to Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish New Testament scholar who – despite teaching about Jesus in the Bible Belt – has never felt tempted to embrace Christianity.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Kevin Gosden tells Mark Dowd how, after his teenage son Andrew went missing six years ago, his Christian faith was challenged to the core.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Is there such a thing as the soul? And how do Near Death Experiences tally with the way Hindus and Christians understand the soul? Alison Hilliard and guests explore.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Could it be true that the dying see long-deceased “visitors” who come to take them to the next world? One neuropsychiatrist says yes. Alison Hilliard presents.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Politicians, journalists to blame - and Paralympics ‘won’t make any long-term difference’. Dougal Patmore reports.
Image courtesy of dominikgolenia via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘We admire the Paralympians because they chose not to sulk or retreat into self-pity, or to use their problem as an excuse.’
Image courtesy of nickmilleruk via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
No, says Peter Hitchens. It’s a ‘sentimental belief’ that’s come back to haunt us...
Image courtesy of Photodeus via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Evidence piles up that cannabis harms us. Yet our laws have never been softer. Are we, asks Peter Hitchens, soft in the head?
Image courtesy of N.ico via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Politicians hope for a boost to the economy. Athletes look to a generation inspired to take up sport. Others see a resurgence of patriotism, and a greater confidence in who they are and in what they...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
They choose, target, groom, and harm children. So punish them as criminals. Don’t label them weak and sick men who cannot help themselves.
Image courtesy of Nick Atkins Photography via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
A success at the London Olympics, so let’s cash in and take them off the dole and employ them.
Image courtesy of Andy Wilkes via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘It’s public schoolboys and girls wot won them. Social mobility hasn’t just seized up, it’s gone into reverse; state schools’ lack of ambition betrays our children’
Image courtesy of ahisgett via...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
'We're firmly in the grip of glorious delusions'. ... admitting you can learn to love them while acknowledging the delusions they foster
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘Obama promised “out of this darkness a brighter day will come”; it won’t, of course, because he won’t do anything about guns and the culture of his society which, like ours, is becoming ever more...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Moral relativism of the worst kind: ‘lecturing others on human rights, while trying to escape responsibility for our abuse of them’.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘Self-control used to be a virtue. Now it’s thought of as dysfunctional. If we don’t display our feelings, it’s assumed we don’t have any’.
Image courtesy of Nick J Webb via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘Our rubbish tells more about us than our art, and so it is with this ‘puerile tripe and mummy porn’
Image courtesy of crawford.I via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
As its President accuses Britain of ‘naked colonialism’. This from a country of European immigrants ‘whose national policy has been to wipe out all trace of the people they snatched it from’.
Image...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
David Cameron supports it, Nick Clegg says ‘when’ not ‘if’, the Churches worry about canon law and sin, and gays are split between ‘bring it on’ and ‘this is not the time’. Heat and light in our...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘leaving judgment, intellect, and common sense at the door, and Instead fitting in with the vacuous as they glorify the vacant’.
Image courtesy of Damien Cugley via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
.....’partly selfish, partly economic, but especially moral: it’s about justice, social solidarity, and incentivising virtue’
Image courtesy of IanVisits via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
'It's one thing believing what is inherently unlikely, but what about believing something absolutely, obviously, and provably wrong?'
Image courtesy of More Good Foundation via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Public busybodies delight in the depletion of our vocabulary and the policing of our thoughts. ‘It impoverishes us all’.
Image courtesy of puuikibeach via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The King James Bible to every school ...’an empty gesture, potentially divisive, and a thinly-disguised attempt to tell teachers what to teach’.
Image courtesy of bookchen via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘In a healthy democracy, it’s every citizen’s right to be insulted... Freedom of speech is at stake here’
Image courtesy of Stephen Dagnall via flickr.com ©©
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
John Sweeney visits Ukraine to recall Stalin’s great famine with aged survivors, and to tell the story of two journalists – one who lied and won the Pulitzer, one who told the truth and was killed.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The pending Olympics are ‘an excuse for normalising the deployment of Action-men and women packing more heat than soldiers in Afghanistan’.
[Image courtesy of Trojan631 via flickr.com ©©]
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Our children are in danger, yes, but ‘from the jobsworth’s mindset, and from
the rule book untempered by common sense’
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘I hate cigarettes, but as they’re legal people must be allowed to smoke them whether or not it hastens disease...’ Politicians should not intervene.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘I often think that smug mums and dads will soon insist on pushchair lanes so that they don’t have to bother with us childless pavement pests’
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The mother of the Yorkshire Ripper’s last victim discovered the police cannot be sued for negligence. 28 years later, the situation is the same. This is a scandal – not least for rape victims, who...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The Berlin Wall, guarded for 28 years, saw many violent deaths and many ingenious escapes. Gerry Northam reports.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
How and why the Berlin Wall went up 50 years ago.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Hundreds of troops die, yes, but thousands of civilians.
And what do those soldiers – 404 so far – die for, exactly?
[Image courtesy of AghanistanMatters via flickr.com ©©]
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘Prostitution is a cause and consequence of women’s inequality... Men need to be educated out of the belief that paying for sex can ever be a right’.
[Image courtesy of Cédric Puisney via flickr.com...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Where exactly was common-sense while 'appropriately-trained personnel' had to be summoned to fish the body out of three feet of water?
[Image courtesy of Tomorrow Never Knows via flickr.com ©©]
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The clash on a call for legalised assisted dying, without fear of prosecution
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Net migration into Britain this year reached 250,000.
On one side of the Immigration debate, capped levels, earned citizenship, ID cards, and annual migration reports - on the other, open borders,...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘God exists, or doesn’t. It’s a 50-50 shot. Dawkins can’t call believers stupid for having taken a punt; after all, he did’.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘Gender specific school uniforms can cause serious distress’ – one more example of saying goodbye to reason and good sense.
[Image courtesy of Chris Millett via Flickr.com ©©]
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Preventing ‘sneakily enhancing’ a school’s ranking with ‘soft’ subjects is a good move – but don’t put all the blame on schools
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
9 billion pounds for the sake of a tenth of a second, or a sponsorship deal...
And, as for the ‘legacy’, well, just consider the fortunes of Greece.
[Image courtesy of davehighbury via Flickr.com...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
‘Did nobody tell the energy secretary that on many of the coldest days the wind does not blow? That the wind is not a reliable source of power?’
[Image courtesy of Davie Dunn via Flickr.com ©©]
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Daughter killed. Born-again Christian who has forgiven those responsible. Mary Colwell reports.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Brother of Michael, 17, shot dead. He hasn’t forgiven the soldier responsible. Mary Colwell reports.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Best friend killed next to him. Formerly commander of the junior wing of the IRA; now vice-chair of the Police Board. Mary Colwell reports.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Her brother was shot dead. Mary Colwell reports.
[Image courtesy of Mary Colwell. All rights reserved. ©]
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Former General of the Apprentice Boys; today, lives in the all-Protestant The Fountain, set up after Bloody Sunday. Mary Colwell reports.
[Image courtesy of Mary Colwell. All rights reserved. ©]
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Forced out of her home in the unsettling days that followed; now a peace and reconciliation worker. Mary Colwell reports.
[Image courtesy of Mary Colwell. All rights reserved. ©]
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
At the age of 11, he saw the coffins lined up. He became an IRA activist; today, he’s a community development worker. Mary Colwell reports.
[Image courtesy of Mary Colwell. All rights reserved....
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Uncle shot dead; three months earlier he was blinded by a soldier’s rubber bullet. Founder of Children in Crossfire. Mary Colwell reports.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Sister of victim Jackie, whose body was carried by friends and priest Edward Daley, waving a white handkerchief. Mary Colwell reports.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The priest who administered the last rites to victim Jackie, 17, amidst gunfire.
An iconic photograph captured the scene. Mary Colwell reports.
[Image courtesy of Mary Colwell. All rights...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
A senior judge calls Muslim preacher Abu Qatada ‘a truly dangerous individual’, yet still we cannot insist that he is exported and tried in his home country...
[Image courtesy of :Dar via...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
At a time when racism is in the headlines, why the media silence on ‘disturbing instances of racism against Jews’?
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Aid goes to Evangelicals, not us, accuses voodoo leader.
In the rebuilding after the earthquake, Evangelicals bring aid to a country said to be 80 per cent Catholic and 100 per cent Voodoo. With...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
WENDY ROBBINS ON PROTECTING OUR KIDS ... from sexually-explicit songs in the charts
‘My children are 7, 9, 12. They singalong to pop song lyrics like “‘sex in the air, I don’t care’. I don’t...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
GLOBAL WARMING: DOES IT MATTER?
The clash between reducing emissions and development.
A climate summit in Durban has ended with agreement to bring down carbon emissions to save the planet. A...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Complaining is part and parcel of our everyday existence. Usually it’s personal, trivial, and not to be taken seriously. But sometimes it’s bigger than that. The question is: are there any tips...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
So why no debate on the assumptions behind the more apocalyptic forecasts? Example: the UN forecast 50 million climate refugees by 2010 – where are they?
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
To worry about our NHS medical records being handed over to drug companies is not naive left-wing rights rhetoric.We need reassuring that ‘we’re not going to end up as lab rats’.
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Occupy London protests… the birth of people-powered politics? A gathering of non-toilet trained hippies? Or one expression among many from people who ‘feel cheated’? Louisa Bolch decides.
[Image...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Britain is the fat champion of Europe; the PM is considering a so-called fat tax. But it’s our choice, it’s our business, it’s not the government’s job to tell us how to eat. It’s another example of...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The ‘F’ word is ok, just cheery badinage. ‘Black, in what is thought to be the wrong context, induces apoplexy. Another sign, says Buerk, of ‘a vertiginous decline in civility…a growing coarseness in...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The News of the World became the biggest-selling newspaper by printing as much sordid detail of people’s private lives as it could grub up and get away with. But, remember, ‘we loved it’.
[Image...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Yes, bankers have ‘nationalised their risks while privatising their rewards’ – but the St Pauls’ protestors, ‘spoilt children of capitalism, living lives beyond the dreams of previous generations’,...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
As the 7 billionth human being is born, one problem, says Michael Buerk, underpins nearly all others in the world, but it’s the one we don’t talk about: ‘There are too many of us’.
[Image Courtesy...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Britain’s ethnic minorities call our country’s care of the elderly ‘horrible’ and ‘a betrayal’. For them, it’s culturally taboo for strangers to look after the elderly – and they also see the...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
There are 200,000 abortions every year in the UK. Is that too many? Shouldn’t you be able to ask the question without being labelled a nutter? But, in the end, is it the wrong question? Emma...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
We’ve got ourselves into a mess over human rights, says Michael Buerk, especially those enshrined in law. Human rights are not god-given. Human rights don’t come from some natural law. They’re not...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
The war in Iraq claimed many thousands of victims, but forgotten among them were the multitude of religious minorities. First, they faced persecution. Later, many were killed. Finally, thousands...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
Wendy Robbins on Europe’s ‘holocaust’ obfucators’ – growing in number and arguably more dangerous than ‘deniers’
[Image courtesty of KS7 @ www.deviantart.com ©©]
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.
John Sweeney on the ‘useful idiots’ who promoted propaganda, rather than listen to the cries of the tyrannised
Stalin was responsible for 10 million deaths in the Great Famine, but among those who...
Things Unseen. For people who have a faith, and those who just feel there’s more out there than meets the eye.