In Our Time: Religion

Feb 27 2025 129 ep. 41 mins 64.2k

In Our Time: Religion Podcast artwork

Discussion of religious movements and the theories and individuals behind them.

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

Pope Joan

Feb 27 2025 46 mins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a story that circulated widely in the middle ages about a highly learned woman who lived in the ninth century, dressed as a man, travelled to Rome, and was elected Pope.Her papacy came to a dramatic end when it was revealed that she was a woman, a discovery that is said to have occurred when she gave birth in the street. The story became a popular ca

Karma

Jul 18 2024 50 mins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the doctrine of Karma as developed initially among Hindus, Jains and Buddhists in India from the first millennium BCE. Common to each is an idea, broadly, that you reap what you sow: how you act in this world has consequences either for your later life or your future lives, depending on your view of rebirth and transmigration. From this flow differen

Julian the Apostate

Apr 18 2024 50 mins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the last pagan ruler of the Roman Empire. Fifty years after Constantine the Great converted to Christianity and introduced a policy of tolerating the faith across the empire, Julian (c.331 - 363 AD) aimed to promote paganism instead, branding Constantine the worst of all his predecessors. Julian was a philosopher-emperor in the mould of Marcus Aureli

Karl Barth

Jan 04 2024 55 mins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. Karl Barth (1886 - 1968) rejected the liberal theology of his time which, he argued, used the Bible and religion to help humans understand themselves rather than prepare them to open themselves to divine revelation. Barth's aim was to put God and especially Christ at the centre of Chri

Julian of Norwich

Nov 16 2023 50 mins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the anchoress and mystic who, in the late fourteenth century, wrote about her visions of Christ suffering, in a work since known as Revelations of Divine Love. She is probably the first named woman writer in English, even if questions about her name and life remain open. Her account is an exploration of the meaning of her visions and is vivid and bol

The Dead Sea Scrolls

Jun 01 2023 48 mins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revelatory collection of Biblical texts, legal documents, community rules and literary writings. In 1946 a Bedouin shepherd boy was looking for a goat he’d lost in the hills above the Dead Sea. He threw a rock into a cave and heard a hollow sound. He’d hit a ceramic jar containing an ancient manuscript. This was the first of the Dead Sea Scro

The Ramayana

Apr 06 2023 49 mins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic which is regarded as one of the greatest works of world literature. Its importance in Indian culture has been compared to that of the Iliad and Odyssey in the West, and it’s still seen as a sacred text by Hindus today. Written in Sanskrit, it tells the story of the legendary prince and princess Rama and Sita, an

John Donne

Feb 09 2023 51 mins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Donne (1573-1631), known now as one of England’s finest poets of love and notable in his own time as an astonishing preacher. He was born a Catholic in a Protestant country and, when he married Anne More without her father's knowledge, Donne lost his job in the government circle and fell into a poverty that only ended once he became a priest in the

Angkor Wat

Jul 21 2022 49 mins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the largest and arguably the most astonishing religious structure on Earth, built for Suryavarman II in the 12th Century in modern-day Cambodia. It is said to have more stone in it than the Great Pyramid of Giza, and much of the surface is intricately carved and remarkably well preserved. For the last 900 years Angkor Wat has been a centre of religio

Comenius

Jun 16 2022 56 mins

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Czech educator Jan Amos Komenský (1592-1670) known throughout Europe in his lifetime under the Latin version of his name, Comenius. A Protestant and member of the Unity of Brethren, he lived much of his life in exile, expelled from his homeland under the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and he wanted to address the deep antagonisms underlying the w