Podcast
Podcasts
1 min read

Holly Ordway: re-enchanting... Middle Earth

Why Tolkien’s world of hobbits, elves, wizards and warriors continues to enchant so many in our world.

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

a woman seated in front a mic, looks to the left will gesturing both hands to the right.

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Holly Ordway is a scholar of English literature who is a professor at the Word on Fire Institute in the USA and Houston Christian University. 

Holly has written about literary and imaginative apologetics, edited and annotated a volume of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry, and has also gone on to publish major books on the works of one of her literary heroes JRR Tolkien. These are the award-wining Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages and the recently published book Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual biography.

Today we’ll be exploring Holly’s own journey and why Tolkien’s world of hobbits, elves, wizards and warriors continues to enchant so many in our world.

Visit Holly's web site.

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

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Podcast
Creed
Life & Death
1 min read

Lydia Dugdale: the lost art of dying

New GodPod episode. How well do we deal with our own death? What is a ‘technology-dependant death’, and should we want it?

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

A medieval book illustration of a person dying in bed.
A 15th Century ars moriendi, or ‘art of dying’ image.
Basel University, via WikiCommons.

How well do we deal with our own death? What is a ‘technology-dependant death’, and should we want it? Just because we can prolong our lives, should we?

These are just some of the questions pondered by our three presenters – Jane Williams, Micheal Lloyd and Graham Tomlin – along with physician and ethicist, Dr Lydia Dugdale.

Lydia talks the presenters through the historical shifts that have caused us to go from speaking about death openly and honestly, to having a newfound societal imagination that tells us that ‘death won’t come to us’ – and why that’s a problem.

This is one of the most thought-provoking episodes of GodPod yet.

 

For more about Lydia and her bestselling book – The Lost Art of Dying: Lydia S. Dugdale (lydiadugdale.com)