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02/07/2012

BBC Radio 4 - The Voice of God

Richard Coles on the various ways that the voice of God is depicted, and what this reveals

The Rev Richard Coles explores the various ways that the way God speaks is depicted in literature, music, the theatre and film and what this reveals about our ideas of the deity.

The Rev. Richard Coles Richard explores the various ways that the way God speaks is depicted in literature, the theatre and film and what this reveals about our ideas of the deity. Coles is a priest, a broadcaster and was a pop star. Who better, then, to explore the different ways that the way God speaks is depicted within literature, theatre and film, and within sacred texts?

In the 'Book of Kings' the prophet Elijah is wrung by earthquake, wind, fire and thunder, but God is in not in any of these. It is in the silence following that Elijah hears God in a 'still, small voice'. In Britain Quakers have been listening for God in silence since the 1650s. This hasn't been how artists usually imagine the Almighty communicating. In the theatre and cinema God tends more to the Brian Blessed - or Brian Glover, pronouncing from on high, in the earthy demotic of Yorkshire, atop a fork-lift truck in a famous production of 'The Mysteries' at the National Theatre. With the cinema historian Matthew Sweet Richard explores the variety of divine utterance as depicted in popular culture. 

Muslims believe Allah spoke to Mohammed in Arabic via the angel Gabriel. One of his earliest followers was convinced of the truth of Islam by the language - it was so beautiful it had to be true. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit spoke through the Christian disciples, yet every listener heard their own language. Jahweh spoke to certain Jews, but they could never utter his name. 

Richard Coles talks to Rowan Williams, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury when this programme was made, the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks and the Muslim commentator, Mohammed Ansar, exploring their their faiths', and their personal experiences of the voice of the creator. 

Producer: Julian May

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