Search results | Seen & Unseen

In the face of compassion fatigue, connecting with the humanity of a cause requires the artistic, not just the imperative. Belle Tindall reviews Clay and Canvas.

2023-04-22

How to disagree agreeably

Jörg Friedrichs

How do we converse passionately about controversial topics without falling out or falling into war? Jörg Friedrichs shares his insights after a difficult conversation with a colleague.

2023-07-21

Looking evil in the face

After viewing a new documentary on the Holocaust in Ukraine, a harrowed George Pitcher ponders his duty not to look away.

2023-09-07

Dealing with death – why the fuss?

Jane Cacouris

“No fuss” cremations are getting more popular. Not giving a formal space or process to say goodbye feels like a seismic cultural shift to Jane Cacouris. Part of the How To Die Well series.

2023-10-25

The lost art of dying well and what we can learn from it today

Lydia Dugdale

Living well in order to die well doesn’t simply happen. It takes work. It takes preparation. For All Souls Day, Lydia Dugdale asks if we are prepared for death.

2023-11-01

What they don’t tell you about when someone you love dies

Yvonne Tulloch

Sharing her experience of her husband’s death, Yvonne Tulloch charts grief’s journey and shares signposts to help. Part of the How to Die Well series.

2023-11-08

The month of May(hem) in Manipur

On the 27th May, Archbishop Justin Welby tweeted about the violence unfolding in Manipur. Belle Tindall re-winds the clock to May 3rd and tracks the events that led to his tweet.

2023-06-02

Away from home, cut off from home

As Refugee Week concludes, Belle Tindall moves beyond the headlines and learns the story of Azer and the thousands of churches who are providing a sense of home for those who have fled theirs.

2023-06-23

When to stand up in an increasingly insecure world

Ziya Meral

When war is ‘othering’ by other means, the brutal realities of our world can be overwhelming. Ziya Meral contemplates what it means to take a stand.

4 min read

2023-07-06

Centre for Cultural Witness Founder Graham Tomlin kicks off the Dignity and Public Service lecture series on Monday 30th October.

Creed

A close up of a blue sun dial on a church clock tower, with an abbey's windows behind it.

Building a stronger society lecture for Westminster Abbey Institute

Nick Jones

2023-10-15

Dialling down the drama in the science and religion debate

Andrew Davison

In the first of a new series, biologist and priest Andrew Davison explores the perceived tension between science and religion, and the role identities play.

2023-05-08

Millions of Ukrainians on the move set off an aid revolution

Simone Di Vicenz

Christian Aid’s Head of Humanitarian Policy Simone Di Vicenz argues the Ukraine war shows a change in approach is required to respond more effectively to global crises.

2023-05-18

An Acton nativity and a new crisis at Christmas time

Robert Wright

Inspired by a Christmas visit of Jose and Maria, West London churches aiding asylum seekers now expect a wave of evictions, Robert Wright discovers.

2023-12-12

The shadow under the Christmas tree

Roger Bretherton

Psychologist, Roger Bretherton, offers advice for those who find it challenging to spend time with the family at Christmas.
Part 1 of Unwrapping God This Christmas.

2023-12-14

Team Christmas and the three gifts of Christmas

Roger Bretherton

How can we push past the stresses of the festive season to rediscover the magic? Roger Bretherton tells us how he learned to find joy in being on Team Christmas. Part 2 of Unwrapping God this Christmas.

7 min read

2023-12-01

Column

A grey multi-story accommodation barge floats beside a dock.

There’s more than one way to lose our humanity

How we treat immigrants and how AI might treat humans weighs on the mind of George Pitcher.

2023-12-15

How children’s books challenge us to hope harder

Elizabeth Wainwright

Reading an award-winning children’s book challenges Elizabeth Wainwright much more than expected - to imagine and hope.

2023-12-29

A history of anxiety

Henna Cundill

Anxiety is not a modern problem. From ancient social discomforts to contemporary societal shifts, Henna Cundill explore how we think, and worry, about it.

2024-01-05

One life's relevance to today

Krish Kandiah

One Life is a historic story retold for today audience, highlighting the response of individuals, families and leaders. Krish Kandiah ponders what it can teach us about sanctuary.

2024-01-06

Think little: what villages teach about coming together

Elizabeth Wainwright

Elizabeth Wainwright explores the frustrations and encouragements of village life, real and virtual, and finds a need for communion.

2024-01-08

Untouchable: experiencing discrimination around the world

Rahil Patel

In America it’s in the headlines, while in India it continues to influence. Rahil Patel explores caste discrimination and finds out who helped craft constitutional protections for those affected.

2024-01-10

After Angela: why Christian Democracy still works

Feeling somewhat labelled, George Pitcher unpacks why Christian Democracy still appeals to him, even in the UK, and explores its philosophical roots in the breathless thought of Jacques Maritain.

2024-01-11

Here's what Matthew Parris gets wrong on science disproving religion

Andrew Davison

Religion is not a by-product of evolutionary goals. Andrew Davison argues that our mental lives are more than a maelstrom of urges.

2024-01-12

Why we need a gentle radical revolution

Danny Kruger

Our social arrangement needs to prioritise human relationships, argues MP Danny Kruger.

2024-01-12

The visionary artists finding heaven down here

Jonathan Evens

Jonathan Evens explores a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.

2024-01-13

How to pick an economic approach that really adds up

Paul Williams

Assessing doughnut economics, Paul Williams asks what’s the economy for and who does it really serve?

2024-01-16

Wealth is worth? Questioning the immigrant experience

Krish Kandiah

Garnering yet more awards, TV series Beef expertly explores identities. Krish Kandiah revisits the K-wave drama.

6 min read

2024-01-16

M. Çiftçi explores the evolution of a historic and contemporary commitment to protect the vulnerable.

Ethics

While surgeons operate in the background a digital display shows numbers in the foreground

The expectations of an oath: lessons from Hippocrates

M. Ciftci

2024-01-18

The corrosive effect of profuse profanity

The coarsening of speech prompts Yaroslav Walker to remember that what you say influences who you are.

2024-01-19

More marches might just make the point about peace

Protest marches highlight conflict close to home, as commentators cast around for agents of peace. George Pitcher thinks he might just know who they are.

2023-11-17

A tale of two Septembers

Anush Petrosyan

The recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is already a twice forgotten war. Forced to flee twice, Anush Petrosyan describes the experience.

3 min read

2023-11-23

Column

Adrian Urquidez and Neal Presa

Three men walk down a path, the middle one talking and gesturing while the others listen.

From the barber’s chair: the friendships that open us up

Adrian and Neal recall and recount tales of friendships and what made them work so well.

2023-12-01

How an oppressed people are finding a home in Britain

Robert Wright

While repression continues in their homeland, Iranian converts to Christianity are building communities in the UK. Robert Wright meets with them.

7 min read

2023-03-14

Column

Three men huddle around a laptop and talk animatedly.

Depreciating human life: a year-end market report

The cold currency of trading hostages repels George Pitcher, who explores the casual acceptance that some lives are biddable against lives of intrinsically higher value.

4 min read

2023-12-01

Confronted with a question about belief, Henna Cundill found herself stumbling for words. She contemplates the link between our self-identity and what we can communicate.

A woman stops in her stride down a street and pensively runs her hand through her hair as she looks to the side.

For want of better words... the impact of the indescribable

Henna Cundill

6 min read

2023-12-11

From Elizabeth Bennet to Emma, Jane Austen’s heroines often consider their own character then change. As the anniversary of the novelist’s birth approaches, Beatrice Scudeler explores their author's prayers.

A head and shoulders portrait of a young woman inclining her gaze to one side.

Praying with Jane Austen

Beatrice Scudeler

2023-12-14

Navigating your reality of Christmas

Lianne Howard-Dace

Recounting how Christmas changed for her, Lianne Howard-Dace re-evaluates the story and experiences of the season.

2023-12-17

How to ruin Christmas

Natalie Garrett

Actor turned vicar Natalie Garrett, recounts the perils of being a Christmas Pro.

2023-12-17

Review

Upon his draped coffin, a picture of Shane MacGowan and a crucifix sit

The spiritual depths of the genius

Moved by his songbook and his funeral, Belle Tindall considers the source, and sacrifice, of Shane MacGowan’s genius.

2023-12-11

Wonder walls: will Manchester’s creativity save the city?

Matthew Porter

Manchester newcomer, and new bishop, Matthew Porter is bowled over by the city’s enrichening creativity.

2024-01-20

Why hold on to Veganuary anymore?

Trystan Owain Hughes

As commercial promotion of plant-based diets falter Trystan Owain Hughes digs for the real roots around a ‘reverence for life’.

2024-01-23

Witnessing the unseen: why cave art captivates us

Iwan Russell-Jones

Iwan Russell-Jones recounts the discovery of stone age art that still connects 30,000 years after its creation.

2024-01-24

We need to weep over the wreckage of mental illness

Rachael Newham

While its now OK to talk about mental illnesses, we need to weep over the harm caused and how we’ve tried to treat them, writes Rachael Newham.

2024-02-01

When Jesus walked in Leicester Square

Natalie Garrett

As the The Chosen’s latest series premieres, Natalie Garrett analyses the TV show’s appeal.

2024-02-01

Diary of an invisible war

Lika Zakaryan

As her journalism career started, Lika Zarkaryan’s home town was invaded. She kept a diary as she reported and recalls the experience of an invisible war.

2023-03-14

On war fighting

Owen

Why do soldiers go to war? There are a thousand different answers writes Owen, a serving soldier.

2023-03-23

Just War and Just Peace

Christine Schliesser

As the Ukraine War passes another milestone, can any war be considered just? Christine Schliesser explores Just War theory and a possible path to Just Peace.

2023-03-16

Where it's dangerous to believe

In the symbolic heart of a liberal democracy, a list is revealed of where it is dangerous to believe. Belle Tindall reports on the annual World Watch List.

2023-03-14

Updated: the war that we’re not seeing

Nagorno-Karabakh remains the epicentre of a complex and ongoing conflict, Belle Tindall probes at the way religious identity is being continually targeted.

2023-09-20

Northern Ireland’s imminent danger is distraction

Andy Flannagan

Distraction damages much more than your concentration. Its consequences could cost Northern Ireland its future.

2024-02-07

Truth decay: lying will destroy us

Simon Burton-Jones

The British way of doing things extends to more than an unwritten constitution. Simon Burton-Jones argues it includes how we lie.

2024-02-06

It’s OK to be angry about this, right?

Anthony Baker

Anger's real gift is the desire for action.

2024-02-19

Intermittent fasting? Try the 5th century playbook

Julie Canlis

Lent is upon us – those 40 days of voluntary masochism that we moderns have mercifully put behind us. Or have we?

2023-03-14

Swords now, ploughshares later

Tom Simpson

There’s a moral case for investing in defence capabilities right now.

2024-02-23

Shall the tyrants win?

Michael Bird

Understanding Navalny's death.

2024-02-23

Why should society care about the persecution of Christians?

Ryan Gilfeather

Believers revere martyrs, but others are also inspired by sacrifice.

2024-02-23

It's a miracle that ITV's drama-docs tell gospel truth

What we need to ask of the well told stories that move us.

2024-02-29

Letter from Lviv

Iryna Dobrohorska

Loss, resilience, and a hope one day to count blessings not missile intercepts.

2024-02-27

A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics

Jonathan Evens

Does Adam Steiner’s rappel into Cave’s art help us understand its purpose?

2024-03-01

St Kilda: sketching sanctuary and struggle

Alastair Gordon

A remote Scottish island’s many meanings catch an artist’s eye.

2024-02-28

When tradition deserves a break

Upsetting a convention caused uproar, so is it right to break with tradition?

2024-02-26

Dignity: why people matter

Charles Foster

How dignity underlies our ethics and law.

2024-02-29

Politics needs some deep stirring emotion

Henna Cundill

In politics, the struggle between our reason and desire is a fair fight.

2024-03-05

Flourishing a way out of poverty

Jane Cacouris

Is it just for rich people who have nothing to worry about other than feeling a bit happier?

2024-03-08

We’re ignoring Nigeria's hellish underbelly

Chris Wadibia

Why the West averts its gaze from anti-Christian violence there.

2024-03-04

Why are sportspeople so superstitious?

Jonny Reid

Routine and rhythm help performance, but sporting superstition begs a question, writes Jonny Reid. Who do we really think is in control?

2023-09-16

Winning the emotional whole in elite sport

Jonny Reid and Graham Daniels

As the pressure builds at Wimbledon, Jonny Reid and Graham Daniels reflect on the psychology vulnerabilities sports stars face.

2023-07-12

The Oscars and ourselves

Beyond the shiny escapism, the awards spotlight all our stories.

2024-03-11

Riding from darkness to light

Graeme Holdsworth

Long-distance cycle rides give Graeme Holdsworth time to contemplate traveling from light to darkness and back again. And, to grapple with the wordless way our bodies do what they were created to do.

4 min read

2023-06-05

What impacts has artificial intelligence had on society, past, present and future? Simon Cross explores just where have our machines got us.

A complex of linear and metal parts in a machine-like sculpture.

Machines and their ghosts

Simon Cross

13 min read

2023-03-16

An AI summit’s prophecies need to be placed in the right philosophical register, argues Simon Cross. Because being human in an AI age still means the same thing it has for millennia.

An AI generated image of robot skulls with bulging eyes on a shelf receding diagonally to the left.

The summit of humanity: decoding AI's affectations

Simon Cross

11 min read

2023-10-30

Explainer

In a world of intelligent humanlike machines, computer scientist Nigel Crook take a deep dive into the hard problem of defining consciousness, spirit, heart and will.

A Victorian medical bust showing the brain with labels in German.

Is an AI worthy of personhood?

Nigel Crook

12 min read

2023-11-02

When it comes to sex, AI is destroying the connection.

A garish tinplate robot lists to one side.

Frankenstein’s bed partner: AI and sex

Lauren Windle

10 min read

2024-02-21

Review

A man in a red shirt slumps in his seat while a computer screen shows a dialogue screen

Lights! Camera! AI-action! - five AI films to watch

From an oddly-sweet, sweetly-odd film of oddness, to one of the best action films ever made, Yaroslav Walker’s hand-crafts his top five films about AI.

2023-11-01

Creative Artificial Intelligence generates a disquiet within. Daniel Kim explores why it confronts our humanity.

An AI-created painting of a scene comprising a lap top user holding their face, with candles in the foreground

Dethroning creativity: why does AI art make us feel so icky inside?

Daniel Kim

14 min read

2023-03-14

Explainer

Retracing the history of transhumanist thought, Oliver Dürr peels off the varnish off 'TESCREAL' to find the taint of eugenics.

A montage shows skeletons with lamp shades instead if heads beside a fence-like division.

Transhumanism: eugenics for the digital age

Oliver Dürr

2023-08-30

Have our worries changed over time?

Katherine Amphlett

A pep talk to teachers reveals whether our fears are age-old or not.

2024-03-13

Temperance: neurotic vice or self-control for future benefit?

Barnabas Aspray

We’re better at bravery than temperance, just when we need that self-control more than ever.

6 min read

2024-03-15

Those programming truthfulness can learn a lot from mortality.

An angel of death lays a hand of a humanioid robot that has died amid a data centre

What AI needs to learn about dying and why it will save it

Andrew Steane

2024-03-14

As AI takes on tasks once exclusively human, we start to doubt ourselves. We need to set the balance right.

In the style of an icon of the Council of Nicea, theologians look on as a cyborg and humanoid AI shake hands

Here’s why AI needs a theology of tech

Oliver Dürr

2024-03-19

Asylum row pits Church against State

Steve Dew-Jones

From Westminster to Weymouth, the church incurs the wrath of statesmen.

2024-03-13

Always under pressure

Now condemned, the latest incidents of church burning in Pakistan are indicative of a continuing deeper pressure Christian communities face.

3 min read

2023-08-25

Explore more on artificial intelligence and living

Nick Jones

As AI constructs our future, explore its impact and understand its key themes.

1 min read

2024-03-12

The beliefs that made Jane Austen and her world

Beatrice Scudeler

A ‘fashionable goodness’ lay at the heart of the author and her writing.

2024-03-22

Letter from the Balkans

An audience with a crown prince tells the story of troubled lands and resilient inhabitants.

2024-03-21

Removing pain’s barriers to healing

Katherine Amphlett

How do we open the window to let the air in?

1 min read

2024-03-25

AI might just help us with life’s dilemmas, if we are responsible.

Two construction workers stand and talk with a humanoid AI colleague.

We’ll learn to live with AI: here’s how

Andrew Briggs

2024-03-26

Perpetually present in Palm Springs

Beatrice Scudeler

A movie's time loop explores the meaning in the mundane.

2024-03-06

The Zone of Interest’s peripheral vision of evil

Director Jonathan Glazer bests Spielberg thanks to a quality of attention.

2024-03-08

Don't try and cope on your own

Katherine Amphlett

The company of those who care helps when handling traumas.

2024-04-02

Scorsese’s fusion

Sonny Tindall

The director's whole canon is infused with religion.