Review

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Re-enchanting

1 January 2025

5 min read

Our top 10 Re-Enchanting conversations

Podcast co-host Tindall picks her favourite episodes.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

A man wearing a hat sits at a table talking and raises both hands in front of himself to gesture

Disenchantment, that was the prediction. Well, it was ‘demagification’ (‘entmagisierung’), if we’re being specific. The idea - coined by German sociologist, Max Weber, and largely popularised by Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor – is that we’d lose our appreciation of the mystical things, the sacred things, and the transcendent things. We’d simply stop trusting them. Instead, we’d have our eyes glued to all that is rational, measurable, and material. The stuff that we make would be the stuff that awes us and meaning would become something that only our minds are given permission to conjure up. We’d be at the top of the pyramid; nothing beyond us, nothing above us, nothing more clever or able than us. This would be us - subject to the process of disenchantment. Thoroughly de-magic-ed.

That was the prediction.

And, one could argue that it’s happened - we’re there, just as we were predicted to be. We’ve arrived at disenchantment station with no need for all of that pre-modern baggage.

Or so it seems.

I’m increasingly sceptical that we really have scrubbed ourselves clean of the residue of pre-modernity, I’m dubious at the suggestion that there isn’t a hint of enchantment left on us. I wonder if we’re just pretending that’s the case – I also wonder if we’re getting worse and worse at it. I sometimes think that we doth protest too much. That’s my hunch, anyway. Either way, whether this disenchantment we’re living in was inevitable or has become some kind of self-fulfilling prophesy, its presence begs the question: are we happy about it? Or are we longing for re-enchantment? And, if we are craving such, where are we going to find it? Where can we go?

That’s the premise of Seen and Unseen’s Re-Enchanting podcast, the question written into the rock of each and every episode. We speak with a myriad of guests – those who are influential in all kinds of corners of culture - and wonder whether the Christian story is where re-enchantment might be found. Is it a place we can go when we’re yearning for a story that isn’t so secular? When we’re pondering the meaning of things beyond what we decide the meaning is?

I’m one of the hosts of this podcast (alongside Justin Brierley), and I really mean it when I say this – these conversations are special. They have so often infused my mind, settled my heart, piqued my curiosity, and shifted my perspective on… well… pretty much everything. They’ve done what they set out to do, they have enchanted me.

This year, we hit fifty episodes. To celebrate, I’d like to break down my top ten most re-enchanting conversations from 2024.

Joshua Luke Smith is at number ten. This conversation - with the poet, songwriter, storyteller, podcaster – reminded me of the art of noticing. It reminded me of the importance in seeing my life, as over-familiar as I am with it, as the backdrop to some truly miraculous things. I’ll never again kid myself into thinking that the mundane isn’t a mighty space.

Go to episode.

In at number nine is the creative force of nature, Jessica Oyelowo. As a singer, songwriter, actor, producer and documentary maker, Jessica had a lot to say on what it’s like to believe in a God who wishes to get his work done through you.

Go to episode.

I’ve always admired Krish Kandiah, so to get him onto Re-Enchanting was a little bit of an honour. His thing is hospitality – dedicating his life to hosting vulnerable children, asylum seekers, and people he vehemently disagrees with. This conversation is a culture wars antidote.

Go to episode.

I had an odd experience with this episode. As I was actually recording this episode, I was already looking forward to listening to it. Which I have, multiple times. Professor Iain McGilchrist is a psychologist and philosopher and well worth an hour (or seven, if you listen to it as much as I have) of your time.

Go to episode.

Ah, Elizabeth Oldfield. Mockingbird recently called her ‘your spiritual but not religious college roommate who keeps pushing Sally Rooney books on you and won’t get the hint.’ And if that doesn’t sell this episode to you, I don’t know what will. I’m not sure how to sum up this conversation, other than to say that it felt like medicine.

Go to episode.

I cried while recording this episode. It was so moving it made me cry in front of the world-renowned mega-big-deal scientist, Francis Collins. It’s not my finest moment, professionally speaking. But who can blame me? This was one of the most profound conversations I’ve ever had.

Go to episode.

Once or twice, I’ve left an episode recording audibly thanking God for making the person with whom I had just spoken. This was one of those times, Lisa Fields is thank-the-actual-Lord-worthy.

Go to episode.

And we’re in the top three. Up in third place is the notorious Rory Stewart: centrists rejoice! This episode actually didn’t involve me; I was sitting behind the camera, watching on in awe. Rory speaks with rev. Jonathan Aitken about their experiences with prisons (one as the Prisons Minister and one as a prisoner – Jonathan’s line), the current state of Westminster, and the role of faith in politics.

Go to episode.

In second place, but holding a particularly special place in my heart, is Claire Gilbert. Claire points us to the wonder of medieval mystic, Julian of Norwich. Who, in turn, points us to the wonder of God. The result was falling deeper in love with all three of them. Claire, and her beloved Julian, are a balm to the weary soul.

Go to episode.

This had to be number one. There was no question. Not a hint of deliberation. This conversation had me glowing for days, it was that good. Martin Shaw, renowned mythologist, wilderness devotee, lover of ‘the Galilean druid’, and, I think, the most extraordinary man I’ve ever met. This conversation – his stories and his thoughts – had me mesmerised. And, considering the amount of people who have spoken to me about this episode since, I don’t think I’m the only one.

Go to episode.

I defy you to listen to any one of these conversation and not consider yourself re-enchanted. Go on, I dare you.

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Change

Community

Masculinity

13 June 2025

5 min read

There’s a simple solution to society’s lost boys

Mentoring the fatherless helps and heals

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

A teenager slumped against a sofa plays a video game

Zach Wear on Unsplash .

What if nearly every major social pathology could be halted upstream? What if there was evidence to suggest that they commonly flow from one singular factor? What would we do – would we sit back and wait for the State to intervene, pointing to where we know the problem is beginning? Or would we wade up that stream ourselves, and start damning up the current?

Richard Kay and Robert Mansel Lewis have chosen the latter option. They are the founders of Chapter2, a charity that offers mentoring for boys aged seven to 16. And they have identified fatherlessness as the factor that is linked to many major social pathologies to be found in Western society today.

Earlier this year, the Centre for Social Justice brought out a report called Lost Boys. It found that2.5 million children in the UK do not live with a father figure, and that just under half of young Britons grow up with one biological parent, more often than not their mother.;

Back in 2013, the numbers were strikingly higher in low-income areas, with 65 per cent of children aged 12–16 in the bottom 20 per cent of income households not living with both birth parents – this was 26 per cent higher than in better-off households. What’s more, when children were aged three, the chance of them being in the bottom income quintile was 21 per cent if their parents were married, and a massive 81 per cent if they were in lone-parent families.

So, we can already see a clear line drawn between fatherlessness and poverty,. Chapter2 (informed by the work of psychologist, Stephen Baskerville) also point out that fatherlessness is linked to alcohol abuse, drug abuse, truancy in school, incarceration, and mental health difficulties – all among young boys, in particular.

There’s a smorgasbord of factors and influences that are making it increasingly complex to be a ‘healthy’ and ‘happy’ man right now. “You don’t even need to put the word ‘toxic’ in front of ‘masculinity’ anymore, Kay points out. “It’s just assumed. If we need to ask what healthy masculinity is, people really don’t know.”

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in a coffee shop with ‘boys will be... what we teach them to be’ emblazoned on the side of it. It feels as though multiple destructive forces are making a beeline for young men right now, and we’re panicking. We’re manically trying to halt a fast and violent flow - but what if we waded upstream?

That’s what Kay and his colleagues are trying to do. The charity’s mission is to

bring good men into the lives of young boys who are living without a father. These men – all volunteers (?) - are committed to being there for the long term (two years, minimum) and to build a trusted friendship. That’s it: the beginning, middle, and end of the mission.

I was struck by the radical simplicity of it. Young boys get referred to Chapter2 through social services, schools, and by family members or guardians – they told me that referrals have never been something they’ve had to work hard to gather. Which is pretty heart breaking in itself.

The reality is, the fatherlessness crisis isn’t going to be solved by State-led intervention, and nor should it be. The solution lies in community living as it should do. It can be helped by the smashing down of hyper-individualism and the dismantling of our obsession with the nuclear family. It can be eased by reminding ourselves that it really does take a village to raise a child. Oh, and that we’re the village. When we spoke, Kay talked about his initial reluctance to found a charity that does this work, weary that it somehow relieves us all of our responsibility to live wide-open lives. Chapter2 is working toward a world in which the mentoring of young, fatherless, boys is normal, not a last resort.

I like that.

The longevity of Chapter2’s goal is pretty counter-cultural, isn’t it? We’re a commitment-phobic-culture. That’s pretty anti-love-your-neighbour, right? But the only way to respond to the wound of abandonment is by showing up – relentlessly, consistently, self-sacrificially. It’s the art of staying – come what may.

I was told that this takes the boys a little getting used to; that Kay and Mansel Lewis warn the men they’re training that there will come a point when the boys will try and push them away, assuming they’ll leave sooner or later and feeling more comfortable having that happen on their own terms. It’s a symptom of the abandonment wound, I guess. But the men stay, and the boys begin to trust them.

And here’s the other biggie for Chapter2: there’s no agenda. No goals. No solutions. No fixing. Just presence - consistent presence.

Again, I was struck by how foreign that must feel to the boys. Everybody else in their life needs and wants something from them – better school attendance, better behaviour at home, less trouble with the police – and rightly so. But the Chapter2 mentors are only interested in the boys’ company and trust. They’re not trying to fix them, they’re just trying to know them – if there are no measurable changes, they’ll still show up. Zero conditions.

The poet, rapper, author, and pastor, Joshua Luke Smith, often talks about a father as being someone who will

‘bind up your wounds and catch you when you fall’,

because that that’s what every young man needs – someone to care enough to do those two things. Because hurt people tend to hurt people. So, wounds need to be bound before they become ‘an excuse to wound others’. Again, it’s all very upstream, don’t you think? It’s very Chapter2-esque.

One Chapter2 mentor recently received a Father’s Day card from a boy he’d built up a relationship with. Another young boy who’d been arrested twenty or so times in twelve months eventually realised, thanks to his mentor, that it’s not worth getting into trouble. His mentor, he said, ‘is someone he can trust, he’s consistent and he knows he cares about him’.

This is community living as it ought to. Is this also the solution to the pandemic of fatherlessness?

Find out more

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