Can we do without organised religion? Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue 81

Churches are in decline, certainly in the western world. People tend not to turn to a priest for spiritual insight or advice. But is a lived relationship with the sacred and wisdom traditions denuded as organised religion disappears? In this Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon talk about religious institutions for good and ill. Rupert picks up on a new book by Alison Milbank, Once and Future Parish, to ask how churches can maintain connection with the seasons, place and community, and speak to the whole of our humanity in its rituals and rites of passage. The conversation explores why many people are wary of organised religion, and are inclined to treat religion more as a threat than a visionary promise. The perils of a privatised spiritual questing are set alongside the paucity of contemporary church life, though if it can be hard to live with organised religion, it seems also hard to live fully without it. ------ Dr Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. At Cambridge University he worked in developmental biology as a Fellow of Clare College. He was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and From 2005 to 2010 was Director of the Perrott-Warrick project, Cambridge. ?svd=81 ------ Dr Mark Vernon is a writer and psychotherapist. He contributes to programmes on the radio, writes and reviews for newspapers and magazines, gives talks and podcasts. His books have covered themes including friendship and God, ancient Greek philosophy and wellbeing. His new book, out August 2019, is “A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling and the Evolution of Consciousness“. He has a PhD in ancient Greek philosophy, and other degrees in physics and in theology, and works as a psychotherapist in private practice. He used to be an Anglican priest. Mark’s latest book is... A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling, and the Evolution of Consciousness