Podcasts about lord rowan williams

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has published its final report. One of the key recommendations is for mandatory reporting of child sex abuse, even if that abuse is disclosed to a priest in a confessional. So, what are the implications for those churches with a confessional tradition where confidentiality is sacrosanct? William speaks to bishop Paul Mason, the lead on safeguarding for the Catholic Church in England and Wales. The Sikh community kitchens known as ‘Langar' are coming under pressure in the current cost of living crisis. As energy and fuel prices continue to rise, so does the demand for free food. Our reporter Nina Robinson visited a Gurdwara in Coventry to see how they are coping as they prepare to feed more than five thousand people over Diwali. The theologian, poet and former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Rowan Williams has gathered together one hundred poems from the last one hundred years which explore the themes of faith and belief, in ‘A Century of Poetry'. He discusses with William how can poetry help us in our spiritual journeys. And as the Conservative Party get set to appoint a replacement to Liz Truss as the next prime minister, William considers whether the notion of the common good has been lost in the melee of competitive politics, with Daniel Greenberg, the newly appointed Parliament commissioner for standards, Ann Widdecombe, former MP and Dr Alan Smith, bishop of St. Albans and convenor of the Lords Spiritual Producers: Jill Collins and Louise Clarke-Rowbotham Editor: Helen Grady

Sermon by The Right Reverend and Right Honourable Lord Williams of Oystermouth, Master, Magdalene College, Cambridge, at the Consecration of Bishops on Wednesday 3 July 2019.

Official Trailer for the book ‘God’s Biker: Motorcycles & Misfits’ by Sean Stillman Published by SPCK, 20 Sep 2018. ISBN 978-0281079421 https://spckpublishing.co.uk/god-s-biker-hb Available in stores and online in the the UK & internationally. Video by Norman Ivison at https://www.bowlandmedia.com Filmed on location at Swansea Airport, Wales. Soundtrack: ‘When I Survey’ – Trad. arranged by Bryn Haworth (c) B&S Haworth/BMH Music. Slide instrumental, from album "Time Out", www.brynhaworth.com, MP3 available from http://cdbaby.com/cd/brynhaworth Used with permission. View the entire track here: https://youtu.be/VQ7hlOeqvMc . Lyrics below for context What people are saying about the book: 'Sean has shown me constantly what lies at the heart of the Christian community.' Lord Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, in his Foreword 'Sean is a remarkable man with a wonderful story. His ministry resides among the margins, the outliers, the broken, the forgotten. Rides a mean bike too.' Rick Elias, recording artist and music educator, Nashville, USA. 'Sean's community of "glorious chaos and complicated beauty" changes lives. His whole story challenges us to learn from fragile people.' Roy Jenkins, broadcaster and Baptist minister, Cardiff, Wales. 'A fascinating account of how God's love shines in surprising places and touches unlikely people. Memorable and moving.' Ian Coffey, author and Director of Leadership Training, Moorlands College, Dorset, England. 'An extraordinary, authentic example of discipleship, and the honouring and validation of the radiant "broken jewels" on society's margins.' Stewart Henderson, poet, broadcaster and lyricist 'Raw and gut-wrenching. Read it with a box of tissues close by!' Mandy Bayton, freelance writer and speaker, Swansea, Wales. 'I put some miles on my bike alongside Sean back in the day, and he remains the kind of Christian and human being I aspire to be. Compelling.' Sean Gladding, author of ‘The Story of God, the Story of Us’, Kentucky, USA.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 4: Material Words - Language as Physicality When we analyse speech, we are not only discussing how words work. Speech also includes gesture and rhythm. As such, speech is a means not only of mapping our environment, but also of 'handling' our environment and its direct impact upon us (a point that can be illustrated with reference to studies of autistic behaviour). When we speak we create a new material situation. Correspondingly, we cannot actually think and 'represent' the reality of material situations without assuming an intelligent or intelligible form of some sort: 'mindless' matter is a chimera. In our physical involvement with the world, the natural order evolves a representation of itself. This observation casts some light on classical Christian reflections of the world's transparency to divine meaning - which Christians perceived as a symbolic cosmos, which was no less symbolic for being material. Recorded 11 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 6: Can Truth be Spoken? In what sense can we legitimately think about silence as a mode of knowing? We need to be cautious about using such a notion as an excuse for giving up the challenges of truthful speech. But it is true that, if what is ultimately most important is to be attuned to the reality that we invite to 'inhabit' us, silence may be the most appropriate means of representation. The challenge is to frame silence in order to render it meaningful; that is, as more than an absence of sound or concept. And to identify such deliberate and 'strategic' silence - in meditation, in music, but also in aspects of our habitual discourse - is to raise the question of how silence 'refers' and so puts all we say in a new, and questioning, light. Recorded on 14 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 1: Representing Reality When we speak about the world we inhabit, we do so in terms that go well beyond simply listing the elements of what we perceive; that is, we construct schematic models, we extrapolate, we invent, and we use our imagination. If we think harder about what is involved in representing things (rather than simply describing or replicating them), we may discern something more. We may discover that the way believers talk about God is closely linked to the ways in which what we call "ordinary" speech seeks a truthfulness that is more than simply replication. Moreover, we may understand how speech is regularly stimulated to do this in moments of linguistic crisis or disruption. Recorded on Monday 4 November at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 3: No Last Words: Language as Unfinished Business Intelligent life has something to do with knowing what to do next, and how to 'go on'. The focus of knowledge is not necessarily the would-be final, or exhaustive, system. We can learn something about the nature of knowing if we think about the sorts of knowledge involved in physical crafts, where a good and credible performance makes ever new performances possible. This also reminds us of the significance of our having learned our language from others and of our developing our thinking through exchange and not simply soliloquy. We speak in the hope of recognition. And our language carries in it a moment of radical trust in the meaningfulness of what we 'exchange' as well as an awareness of how we are all answerable to what is not only the aggregate of what we all know already. Again, the notion of 'unconditioned intelligent energy' comes into focus. Recorded 7 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 2: Can We Say What We Like? Language, Freedom and Determinism. If speech is a physical act, is it ultimately something we must think of as part of a pre-determined material system? It is difficult to state this without contradiction. Indeed, once we recognise the unstable relationship between what we say and the environment we are seeking to put into words, we cannot treat speech as simply another physical process. Further, we cannot ignore the way in which speech is 'bound' to stimuli that it does not originate (if we did, we could have no conception of what a mistake or a lie was). We use our language in order to enhance or refine our skill at living in a world that both demands understanding and invites us into the awareness of an unconditioned intelligent energy. Recorded on 5 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 5: Extreme Language - Discovery Under Pressure One of the most complex aspects of our language is that we refine the patterns we create in it - by rhyme and metre and metaphor - in the confidence that through this process we will discover something about what our habitual language does not disclose. The language of art - and in striking measure the language of innovative theoretical science too - assumes that what we perceive is more than it appears, and that it 'gives more than it has'. The processes of rediscovering ourselves through the deliberate distortions and re-workings of familiar language (as we do in poetry, prose or scientific narrative) once again suggest a significant confidence in the bare practice of speech to transform understanding and the relation with what is real. What is encountered is essentially oriented towards something like communion or integration. Recorded 12 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language".Lecture 6: Can Truth be Spoken?In what sense can we legitimately think about silence as a mode of knowing? We need to be cautious about using such a notion as an excuse for giving up the challenges of truthful speech.But it is true that, if what is ultimately most important is to be attuned to the reality that we invite to 'inhabit' us, silence may be the most appropriate means of representation.The challenge is to frame silence in order to render it meaningful; that is, as more than an absence of sound or concept. And to identify such deliberate and 'strategic' silence - in meditation, in music, but also in aspects of our habitual discourse - is to raise the question of how silence 'refers' and so puts all we say in a new, and questioning, light.Recorded on 14 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language".Lecture 1: Representing RealityWhen we speak about the world we inhabit, we do so in terms that go well beyond simply listing the elements of what we perceive; that is, we construct schematic models, we extrapolate, we invent, and we use our imagination.If we think harder about what is involved in representing things (rather than simply describing or replicating them), we may discern something more. We may discover that the way believers talk about God is closely linked to the ways in which what we call "ordinary" speech seeks a truthfulness that is more than simply replication. Moreover, we may understand how speech is regularly stimulated to do this in moments of linguistic crisis or disruption.Recorded on Monday 4 November at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language".Lecture 5: Extreme Language - Discovery Under PressureOne of the most complex aspects of our language is that we refine the patterns we create in it - by rhyme and metre and metaphor - in the confidence that through this process we will discover something about what our habitual language does not disclose.The language of art - and in striking measure the language of innovative theoretical science too - assumes that what we perceive is more than it appears, and that it 'gives more than it has'. The processes of rediscovering ourselves through the deliberate distortions and re-workings of familiar language (as we do in poetry, prose or scientific narrative) once again suggest a significant confidence in the bare practice of speech to transform understanding and the relation with what is real.What is encountered is essentially oriented towards something like communion or integration.Recorded 12 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language".Lecture 4: Material Words - Language as PhysicalityWhen we analyse speech, we are not only discussing how words work. Speech also includes gesture and rhythm. As such, speech is a means not only of mapping our environment, but also of 'handling' our environment and its direct impact upon us (a point that can be illustrated with reference to studies of autistic behaviour).When we speak we create a new material situation. Correspondingly, we cannot actually think and 'represent' the reality of material situations without assuming an intelligent or intelligible form of some sort: 'mindless' matter is a chimera.In our physical involvement with the world, the natural order evolves a representation of itself. This observation casts some light on classical Christian reflections of the world's transparency to divine meaning - which Christians perceived as a symbolic cosmos, which was no less symbolic for being material.Recorded 11 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language".Lecture 3: No Last Words: Language as Unfinished BusinessIntelligent life has something to do with knowing what to do next, and how to 'go on'. The focus of knowledge is not necessarily the would-be final, or exhaustive, system. We can learn something about the nature of knowing if we think about the sorts of knowledge involved in physical crafts, where a good and credible performance makes ever new performances possible.This also reminds us of the significance of our having learned our language from others and of our developing our thinking through exchange and not simply soliloquy. We speak in the hope of recognition. And our language carries in it a moment of radical trust in the meaningfulness of what we 'exchange' as well as an awareness of how we are all answerable to what is not only the aggregate of what we all know already.Again, the notion of 'unconditioned intelligent energy' comes into focus.Recorded 7 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 6: Can Truth be Spoken? In what sense can we legitimately think about silence as a mode of knowing? We need to be cautious about using such a notion as an excuse for giving up the challenges of truthful speech. But it is true that, if what is ultimately most important is to be attuned to the reality that we invite to 'inhabit' us, silence may be the most appropriate means of representation. The challenge is to frame silence in order to render it meaningful; that is, as more than an absence of sound or concept. And to identify such deliberate and 'strategic' silence - in meditation, in music, but also in aspects of our habitual discourse - is to raise the question of how silence 'refers' and so puts all we say in a new, and questioning, light. Recorded on 14 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 2: Can We Say What We Like? Language, Freedom and Determinism. If speech is a physical act, is it ultimately something we must think of as part of a pre-determined material system? It is difficult to state this without contradiction. Indeed, once we recognise the unstable relationship between what we say and the environment we are seeking to put into words, we cannot treat speech as simply another physical process. Further, we cannot ignore the way in which speech is 'bound' to stimuli that it does not originate (if we did, we could have no conception of what a mistake or a lie was). We use our language in order to enhance or refine our skill at living in a world that both demands understanding and invites us into the awareness of an unconditioned intelligent energy. Recorded on 5 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 5: Extreme Language - Discovery Under Pressure One of the most complex aspects of our language is that we refine the patterns we create in it - by rhyme and metre and metaphor - in the confidence that through this process we will discover something about what our habitual language does not disclose. The language of art - and in striking measure the language of innovative theoretical science too - assumes that what we perceive is more than it appears, and that it 'gives more than it has'. The processes of rediscovering ourselves through the deliberate distortions and re-workings of familiar language (as we do in poetry, prose or scientific narrative) once again suggest a significant confidence in the bare practice of speech to transform understanding and the relation with what is real. What is encountered is essentially oriented towards something like communion or integration. Recorded 12 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 4: Material Words - Language as Physicality When we analyse speech, we are not only discussing how words work. Speech also includes gesture and rhythm. As such, speech is a means not only of mapping our environment, but also of 'handling' our environment and its direct impact upon us (a point that can be illustrated with reference to studies of autistic behaviour). When we speak we create a new material situation. Correspondingly, we cannot actually think and 'represent' the reality of material situations without assuming an intelligent or intelligible form of some sort: 'mindless' matter is a chimera. In our physical involvement with the world, the natural order evolves a representation of itself. This observation casts some light on classical Christian reflections of the world's transparency to divine meaning - which Christians perceived as a symbolic cosmos, which was no less symbolic for being material. Recorded 11 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 3: No Last Words: Language as Unfinished Business Intelligent life has something to do with knowing what to do next, and how to 'go on'. The focus of knowledge is not necessarily the would-be final, or exhaustive, system. We can learn something about the nature of knowing if we think about the sorts of knowledge involved in physical crafts, where a good and credible performance makes ever new performances possible. This also reminds us of the significance of our having learned our language from others and of our developing our thinking through exchange and not simply soliloquy. We speak in the hope of recognition. And our language carries in it a moment of radical trust in the meaningfulness of what we 'exchange' as well as an awareness of how we are all answerable to what is not only the aggregate of what we all know already. Again, the notion of 'unconditioned intelligent energy' comes into focus. Recorded 7 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 2: Can We Say What We Like? Language, Freedom and Determinism. If speech is a physical act, is it ultimately something we must think of as part of a pre-determined material system? It is difficult to state this without contradiction. Indeed, once we recognise the unstable relationship between what we say and the environment we are seeking to put into words, we cannot treat speech as simply another physical process. Further, we cannot ignore the way in which speech is 'bound' to stimuli that it does not originate (if we did, we could have no conception of what a mistake or a lie was). We use our language in order to enhance or refine our skill at living in a world that both demands understanding and invites us into the awareness of an unconditioned intelligent energy. Recorded on 5 November 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's New College.

Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of Language". Lecture 1: Representing Reality When we speak about the world we inhabit, we do so in terms that go well beyond simply listing the elements of what we perceive; that is, we construct schematic models, we extrapolate, we invent, and we use our imagination. If we think harder about what is involved in representing things (rather than simply describing or replicating them), we may discern something more. We may discover that the way believers talk about God is closely linked to the ways in which what we call "ordinary" speech seeks a truthfulness that is more than simply replication. Moreover, we may understand how speech is regularly stimulated to do this in moments of linguistic crisis or disruption. Recorded on Monday 4 November at the University of Edinburgh's New College.