Re-enchanting... racial justice

Author, public theologian and speaker Chine McDonald tells of her own experience as a black woman in Britain and the way in which both culture and the church still have a long way to go in addressing racism.

Nick Jones

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

A women sits in beside a microphone taking.

Chine McDonald is an author, public theologian and speaker and the Director of Theos. Her most recent book God is not a white man: And other revelations told her own experience as a black woman in Britain and the way in which both culture and the church still have a long way to go in addressing racism.

How does the Christian story speak to these issues? Is the church just as complicit in racism as the culture around it? What has helped Chine to keep faith in a vision of a truly multicultural kingdom of God in which everybody’s experience and personhood is valued?

And Chine also tells Belle Tindall and Justin Brierley why she loves the music of Beyonce and the lessons we can draw for building a truly multicultural church.

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

Podcast

Culture

Death & life

Podcasts

Re-enchanting

12 February 2025

1 min read

Dame Sue Black: re-enchanting death

The leading forensic scientist talks with Justin and Belle about her work and our reluctance to look death in the eye.

Nick Jones

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

A woman guest on a podcast sits at a table with a mic in front, gesturing to the side with both hands.

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Professor Lady Sue Black is one of the world’s leading forensic scientists. Police forces, the Foreign Office and the UN have called upon her evidence in countless high-profile investigations. She is currently President of St. John’s College, Oxford, and in 2021 entered the House of Lords as a cross-bench peer.

She has penned numerous books, including the Saltire Prize winning All That Remains: A Life in Death and her latest book, Written in Bone: hidden stories in what we leave behind. In 2024, Professor Lady Black was also appointed to the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle – the highest honour in Scotland.

In this episode of Re-Enchanting, Justin and Belle speak to Sue about her first time working on a dead body, the stories that our bodies tell after death, her work in the wake of the Kosovo war and the 2004 tsunami, and - ultimately - how our reluctance to look death in the eye is profoundly hurting us.