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Something Understood

Religion & Ethics

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry

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Something Understood: Can I Get a Witness?

Poetic Rituals

11/03/2018

Can I Get a Witness?

BBC Radio 4 - Something Understood, Can I Get a Witness?

Dr Sarah Goldingay examines the idea of what it means to be a witness to events.

Sarah Goldingay examines the idea of being a witness and how, far from being passive observers, we are inevitably implicated in what we have seen and have ethical responsibilities.

Sarah Goldingay examines the idea of witnessing in an age of 'fake news' and rampant social media. Pre-existing assumptions about what is truthful and who has the authority to speak it are being tested. So she asks what does it mean to be a true witness? 

"When witnessing we are not merely a spectator, passively watching, or an observer, trying to maintain a sense of distance, we witness with our whole selves. It is embodied, visceral encounter in both the initial experience and in the act of retelling." Sarah argues that to witness is not just about seeing and recounting, but is also to have an ethical and moral relationship to what's happened. To witness is to be implicated.

Music from the Specials, Chumbawumba and Oliver Messiaen and poetry from Thom Gunn, Liz Walder and Henry Dumas help Sarah in her quest for true witnessing, encountering the conversion experience of John Wesley along the way. She concludes "By starting to bear witness to the way that we tie our happiness to the conditions of our life-experience, Wesley explains we might begin to observe our lives in a loving way, to see God in all things and find long-lasting joy."

Presenter: Sarah Goldingay
Producer: Michael Wakelin
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4.

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