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'Talking about Silence' is a personal pilgrimage around an enjoyable paradox: that you can understand silence better if you talk about it. In his new series of essays, Diarmaid MacCulloch explores the many varieties of spiritual silence in human life and beyond, and what he's learned of its meanings in his six-decade career as a historian of religion.

In this essay, Diarmaid MacCulloch introduces us to the concept of the 'Wild Track' of the TV or radio interview, whose rationale in recording silence is that every silence is different and has its own personality. Diarmaid’s life-long research into the history of Christianity has helped him listen to the 'wild-track' of Christian silences, and how Christians have changed their minds on the subject of silence over time. In fact, the first Christians had little respect for silence: they experienced their God in noise. But in seeking to understand their disasters, they gradually saw how they might find their God in profound silence. Jesus’ life, as portrayed by the Gospel writers, is punctuated by meaningful silence. So, says Diarmaid, silence is built into the foundation of Christian history, and it has taken a multitude of wild-track byways over two thousand years.

Producer Melissa FitzGerald
A Blakeway Production