Beyond Belief

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BBC Radio 4 LW

Religion & Ethics

Series exploring the place and nature of faith in today's world

BBC Radio 4 FM

Beyond Belief: Out of the Habit?

Out of the Habit?

BBC Radio 4 - Beyond Belief, Out of the Habit?

With numbers waning, what's the future for Britain's religious communities?

Carmelite nun Lisa leaves her enclosed order after a monk asks her to marry him. With so few now living in religious communities, what's the future for Britain's monks and nuns?

"I put my pants and toothbrush in a bag, and I never went back."

On a wet and windy November night a Carmelite nun, Lisa, leaves the convent, her home for 24 years, after a monk asks her to marry him.

With so few people now living in religious communities, what's the future for Britain's monks, nuns, friars and sisters?

Aleem Maqbool brings together three people who have experienced life in a religious order to hear Lisa's story and discuss this question. Father Luigi Gioia is a former Benedictine monk, turned Anglican Priest and scholar. Sister Gabriel Davison is a nun with the Poor Clares in Arundel, West Sussex, a centuries-old Catholic order which had a recent surprise hit in the classical charts with an album of their singing. And Berwyn Watson is the new Abbott at the Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey in Northumberland.

The panel discuss what first attracted them to religious life and the benefits and challenges to life as a monk or nun. What is the purpose of monastic life, both for individuals, but also for the wider religious community and society? And what's the place of these centuries-old institutions in modern Britain?

Plus, what happened next for Lisa, and the monk, Robert?

Producer: Rebecca Maxted
Assistant Producer: Josie Le Vay
Editor: Tim Pemberton

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