Interesting programme on Radio 4, Beyond This Life, in which Tim Gardam, Principal of St Anne’s College, Oxford, confronts our response to death in 21st-century Britain. He deals with what he describes as ‘modern confusion about death’, especially among secular people, summed up by one interviewee like this: “I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in heaven.” Gardam talks about secular beliefs as a mish-mash of pantheism, folk religion and superstition, contrasts them unfavourably with the ‘clarity and directness’ of the Moslem way of death, and pitches literal Moslem interpretations of the Koran against evolving and increasingly fuzzy Christian interpretations of the Bible, especially in matters of final judgement, heaven and hell. He concludes by looking forward to next week, when he will visit the National Funeral Exhibition and discuss our present day terror of oblivion.
Not how I see it, but you may find food for thought. Listen within the next 6 days here.