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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: The Retreating Roar

The Essay: The Retreating Roar: Episode 4: Patience

Religion & Ethics

The Retreating Roar

Episode 4

Episode 4: Patience

Patience

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, The Retreating Roar, PatienceClose menu

Madeleine Bunting discusses the decline of faith in the UK and with it a loss of patience.

Journalist Madeleine Bunting discusses the decline of Christianity in this country and with it the loss of the importance of patience.

No longer a Catholic or a practising Christian, journalist Madeleine Bunting would nonetheless argue that the decline of Christianity in this country has resulted in losses as well as gains. And one of the most 'damaging' is the loss of the importance of Patience.

Matthew Arnold's poem 'Dover Beach', speaking of 'the melancholy long, withdrawing roar' of the Christian faith, remains important, she believes. It has come to symbolise the dramatic loss of faith over the last century, and with it concepts and ideas central to Christianity. Much has been gained, but much has been lost, and sometimes the replacements are not so very different from the originals - but go by a different name.

Patience, Madeleine argues, is the most counter-cultural idea Christianity offers contemporary society, and as such needs to be rediscovered: 'Our lives now are about an addiction to speed; technology promises to take the waiting out of wanting; a consumer culture financed by debt offers instant gratification of every possible desire...'.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Journalist Madeleine Bunting explores the impact of the decline of Christianity in Britain

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