St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral

We live in times that challenge hope. Climate change, pandemic, racism, war and injustice: in the face of these, where we find hope is an urgent question.

Susanna Snyder says hope is not just optimism that things will turn out alright, if not in this world then in the next, but is something much more present, supple and resilient. She will explore what hope is and isn’t, its surprising relationship with anger, courage, imagination and action, and how we can cultivate and sustain it in our own lives.

The Revd Dr Susanna Synder is Programme Leader for Short Courses, Director of Research, and Lecturer in Theology and Ethics at Sarum College in Salisbury.

A talk by renowned biblical scholar and womanist theologian, the Reverend Professor Wilda C. Gafney on the story of Hannah and Peninnah in the Hebrew Bible.

Professor Gafney is the Right Rev. Sam B. Hulsey Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas. She is also the author of 'A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church' and translator of its biblical selections, and 'Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to Women of the Torah and of the Throne'. She has completed the second volume of 'Womanist Midrash' focusing on women in the Former Prophets, which is expected later in 2024.

How do we build a movement of the people of God? If we turn to the earliest days of Christianity, we can find wisdom for how we can mobilise as Christians working for social justice today.

Drawing as well from the great Liberation Theologians including Gutierrez, Cone and Black feminist theologians, Anupama Ranawana examines the connections between climate, poverty, race and colonisation, and on the redemptive and restorative work of the Cross as good news for the planet as well as for all people.

Dr Anupama Ranawana is a theologian and political economist with research posts at St Andrew’s University and Christian Aid. Her latest book is A Liberation for the Earth: Climate, Race and Cross.

Kate Bottley talks about her own life and faith; about hope, being human, having doubts, getting through life’s hard bits, celebrating the great bits, and finding meaning and connection in it all.

Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral for 33 years, John Collins was a remarkable priest and social reformer who was one of the world's leading proponents in the causes of justice, freedom and peace. Discover more about Collins’ life, work and activism in this podcast episode.

Produced and presented by Douglas Anderson.

When St Paul’s was constructed under the stewardship of Sir Christopher Wren, it was by a male dominated workforce – almost exclusively male – except for one woman: Jane Brewer, who cast and polished the golden pineapple found on the Cathedral’s south west tower. Find out more about Jane, and the curious pineapple architectural details to be found all over London!

Produced and presented by Douglas Anderson.