I’m back home after a long day, with a flying visit to London for my appearance on Premier Christian Radio, followed by lizardc‘s party.

The Premier show went well, I think. It’s all a bit of a blur in retrospect. They’re posting me an MP3 of the show, so I’ll put that up somewhere once I get my hands on it.

Paul Clarke, my opposite number, was friendly and interesting to chat to, both before and during the show. You can see why St Helen’s Bishopsgate made him an evangelist.

It was nice to get a friendly call from Steven Carr, as most of the calls and emails took the Christian side, as I expected. Steven’s question was why we can’t all have Damascene road conversion experiences, given that we’re told that God seeks us out as a shepherd seeks out a lost sheep.

The format wasn’t a in-depth discussion, but rather a rapid responses to calls and Paul Clarke’s points. We didn’t get to go back and forth on a topic, which was a shame but was necessary to stop the listeners getting restive, apparently. I think there was more to say about my favourite Biblical contradiction, for example. The other Paul gave the standard evangelical response to that, but I think I could have made my case better if I’d been allowed to respond to his response (1 Cor 7:29-31 seem conclusive to me, as I mentioned to triphicus in that thread).

I was told by both Paul Clarke and scribb1e that I’d done well in handling the callers. I’d already decided that it was important not to get angry or to deride the opinions of people, however much I disagreed with them. I hope I managed it.

It was an interesting experience, both for the discussion we did manage to have and for the coolness of being in a real live radio studio. Once the show began and my initial nerves had calmed, I enjoyed it.

I’ll write some more about it later, but right now I need some sleep.

5 Comments on ""


  1. I’ve just listened to the stream. I thought you handled yourself rather well – I just wish the program had been longer, to allow you and Paul to bounce back between one another. Overall it was a good even handed programme, I will be looking forward to listening to the next Unbelievable on Premier.

    You are very clear when you write and speak, have you considered writing an article similar in form to the legendary why I am not an inerrantist covering the reasons why you are an atheist? Specifically focusing on Evangelicalism as I know that is your area of experience. Personally I would find such an article really useful if you had the time to produce it.

    I’ve converted the original wma version into mp3 and ogg vorbis. Hopefully you’ll find those useful.

    Reply

    1. I suppose that the Losing My Religionessay is intended to be the sort of thing you describe, although it’s more of a testimony than an argument. Have you seen gjm11‘s latest one on why he’s not a Christian anymore?

      Thanks for converting those to mp3s. Do you mind if I advertise the files on your server on LJ, so people who didn’t hear it can listen to them?

      Reply

      1. Yeah I was hoping for something more of a series of arguments / points 🙂

        I haven’t seen gjm11‘s latest essay, although I will be looking at it soon now I know about it.

        Feel free to advertise the files. I thought you might want to rehost them on your own domain but feel free to link directly if you’d prefer that.

        Reply

      2. Actually I lie… I did read gjm11‘s essay but it I didn’t find it to be of the same depth as his earlier essay on inerrantism.

        After checking it again I see that your losing my religion essay is quite close to the style that I said earlier I was looking for. I still wish it was longer and more in depth though 🙂 It’s because you have such a good grasp of the arguments and can write so clearly that I live in hope that you will produce such a document 🙂

        Reply

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