This is Common Era, a podcast from LAB/ORA Press where we bring two guests around our table to delve into questions about spirituality in an age of change. What commonalities do we share between different faith traditions? What does the future look like for the spiritual communities we call home? Common Era is a conversation on justice, racism, power, and much more besides.
What does our current era of change mean for the future of spiritual communities? How are our spiritual 'homes' changing? Why are old traditions finding traction with post-church audiences? What does a monastery look like without walls?
Common Era is produced by LAB/ORA Press, which is a new independent book + podcast publisher run by the Passionists in England and Wales. The Passionists are themselves a worldwide movement within the Catholic church, dedicating themselves to radical solidarity with the suffering of the world.
Annmarie Lewis OBE is a leading business and justice consultant - sought after in the fields of Justice Systems, Strategy, Business/Organisational Development and Design and Executive Leadership. Having previously founded her own award winning social enterprise, and consultancy business, she is also an accomplished academic, trainer and executive coach. Her passion and specialisms are within the youth justice sector, where she has worked across the entire spectrum of end to end justice, spanning 25 years.
A classically trained pianist, Matshidiso Mohajane is also a composer, arranger and singer-songwriter. With a background in human rights law, her passion is to use music and creativity to promote human rights and justice-based projects. Matshidiso also has a podcast Holding Up the Ladder where she interviews people about their creative processes.
Annmarie Lewis & Matshidiso Mohajane
In this episode Matshidiso and Annmarie discuss the sense of justice - and injustice - that has been an unavoidable part of their lives, through their own lived experiences. Annmarie shares her journey towards working professionally in the justice space, in prisons and with youth in particular. She begins to talk about the struggles for young people in the prison system, the circumstances that bring them there, and the importance of representation, as a black woman in those places.
Justice is increasingly a word at the forefront of our social conversations, but like any word it's subject to interpretation and misunderstanding. In this episode Annmarie and Matshidiso talk about a Biblical view of both justice and fairness, how these have influenced our legal systems, and yet how they might differ from what we expect.
Annmarie and Matshidiso begin this episode redefining and clarifying the definition of racism, and the very concept of different races among human beings. Looking at racism as a mechanism of maintaining power, they break down the differences between racism and prejudice; or the classification of people groups; or the pre-judgments that might come about from people who have suffered at the hands of others.
In the New Testament of the Bible, the church is often referred to as a Body. In this episode, Annmarie and Matshidiso draw on this language to consider the lack of action on racism from the church in the UK, explaining why we should expect the church to look different from other institutions. They discuss why this is so important specifically in a white-majority country like the UK, the radical ideas that are open to us to take, and why the love of God is so necessary to achieve change. At the centre of this is power: will we live to see a church, and followers of Jesus, prepared to give up comfort and power to address the sins of the past?
In this episode, Matshidiso and Annmarie put the very concept of crime and punishment under scrutiny. If the prison system we've created is ultimately a failure, what kind of approach could take its place? The conversation moves from the need for acknowledgment of wrong, and consequences of that wrong, to establishing a humane, case-by-case understanding of criminality that views offenders truly as human beings made in the image of God. In particular, Annmarie brings her 25 years of experience in the youth justice space to deeply challenge our presumptions about crime and a whole section of society that we find convenient to forget about.
In this final episode of the season, Annmarie and Matshidiso return to an ongoing theme: what does a just society really look like, and how can we get there? To bring all the threads together, they ask how the church can lead the way in demonstrating a justice mindset, and what questions we need to ask ourselves. Ultimately, it all leads back to the radical love of God, who is the very basis of our justice laws and our sense of right-ness: how can we represent that love and justice in our everyday selves?
David Benjamin Blower & Nicholas Postlethwaite
What does this current time of change mean for spiritual communities? How are the traditions that we call 'home' changing, along with our relationships to those traditions? David and Nicholas talk about their current spiritual worlds, the relationship between faith traditions and power, and what might happen when communities put that power aside.
Is there a bigger story to be found behind the sense of decline felt by some faith traditions? What positive visions of the future could we find in place of those anxieties? David and Nicholas talk about the narratives of decline in the traditions they grew up with, the idea of giving away your 'treasures' without asking for membership, and how to take up the roles of undertaker and midwife: not only allowing change to happen, but taking part in ushering it in to the world.
We're in an era where different faith groups are drawing on one another's wisdom and traditions. In some places there seems to be less suspicion and more openness between these groups than ever before. David and Nicholas talk about this flow of influences, how it's affected them, and conversely, the search for belonging or 'home' in a fixed spiritual tradition.
The last few years have seen a surge of interest in monasticism, rules of life, liturgies, and other orthodox practices - in many unexpected circles. At the same time, the daily life of Catholic Orders are little known to outsiders. David and Nicholas talk about the history behind them, the rise of 'new monasticism', and the tensions between hierarchy and autonomy that lie behind the whole concept.
Pope Francis would be one of the influential Catholic voices in recent years reiterating the need to step outside our known world, and reframe it through the eyes of those on the margins of society. Nicholas and David talk about the places they've lived and their attempts to adopt a new narrative, where they themselves are not at the centre; as well as discussing the politics involved in self-awareness, privilege and ideology.
What does it feel like to be on the threshold of change - at significant moments in time? What's the feeling of being caught between the pressures of the past and the demands of the future? Nicholas and David discuss the challenges of creating space and authentic conversation in those moments, and they share their own experiences of that place, where change is occurring and relationships are put under pressure.
What exactly is coming to an end at this time? And how do we feel about those things ending? Perhaps we need to learn to hold healthy funerals, so that change can be acknowledged and mourned, rather than creating bitterness and division. David and Nicholas share what they think might be dying in this time, and how we might learn to be good undertakers of that process, alongside being midwives of the new things coming to life.