I was stood by the door waiting for someone else to arrive when a refugee banged on it. I was annoyed. It wasn’t opening time yet and it’s always awkward explaining that across a language barrier. I took my time coming to the door and fiddled with the key, hoping my body language would set the tone for a short conversation.

“We’re not open yet”, I said as I cracked the door open and felt the chill of the early December cold snap.

The Iranian man looked me earnestly in the eyes, thrust a heavily laden shopping bag into my hands and said in a heavy accent:

“I’m sorry, I can’t come today”.

He flashed me a grin that showed his missing teeth, leaned over to hug me, turned his bike around and rode off up the hill.

I’d known Ebrahim (not his real name) for a few weeks – maybe a month – since another refugee had introduced me to him. I’d heard rumours of his generosity, but this was my first experience of it.

I shut the door to the church against the cold, and as I locked it my mind wandered back to an interaction with John Barclay – a professor at Durham University. I was a PhD student at the University of Nottingham at the time, and he was a world-leading theologian who had been invited to give the Firth Lectures. It was as close as you come in academia to meeting a rock star.

He came to mind as I closed the door because in those lectures, he argued that one of the key reasons the first Christian communities grew was because they practiced risky generosity.

The first followers of Jesus were likely poor enough that they relied on each other to get by: you can borrow my coat today because I’m going to need your saucepan tomorrow. That was not unusual in the ancient world and lots of communities were generous in that way.

What made Christians unique was that they were much more willing to risk including outsiders – they were willing to give to people who they didn’t know well enough to be able to rely on them giving back.

I retreated from the door wondering what had just happened and whether Ebrahim would get a decent meal today if he couldn’t come to our drop in. But mostly, I wondered why he was being so generous and I was so stingy. I mean, one of us is rich by almost any metric – and it’s not Ebrahim.

As I turned round, I saw Sami (not his real name) across the room. He’s been around longer than Ebrahim and has actually been helping us by translating sermons into Farsi for other Iranian refugees. He was already inside because he was helping us today.

They show up with gratitude, and give generously of the very little they have. They practice this risky generosity with no guarantee of return.

I know a bit of Sami’s story – how he has arrived in the UK seeking asylum because his family found out about his faith and suddenly he was no longer safe in his own home. I’ve seen the scars he got from living through that story. And yet, when Sami manages to find a way to work under the radar to supplement the pittance he’s living on and make his days more meaningful, he is as generous with what he earns as he is with his time.

There’s something striking about the risky generosity I see in Ebrahim and Sami. I can’t imagine living through what they’ve endured, but they show up with gratitude, and give generously of the very little they have. They practice this risky generosity with no guarantee of return – not least because the church is so mindful of being taken in by a sob story that we make big demands before we’ll baptise or send letters of support for anyone. It challenges me. Despite the fact that I’m the rich one, my asylum seeker friends seem closer to the attitude of the first Christians than I am.

It particularly challenges me when I then read stories about small boats, Home Secretaries and Rwanda. Because somehow people like Ebrahim and Sami seem to go missing in all the debate.

I’m not in a position to solve immigration, and I’m not for a second pretending it’s not complicated. But I thought about Ebrahim, Sami and John Barclay again when my children’s CofE primary school told me what they were teaching my boys about British values and Christian values. It’s probably no surprise that there was no mention of this kind of risky generosity that was in fact a hallmark of the first Christian communities and that I think I’ve seen in these brothers from another nation. I think that’s a shame.

There’s no doubt that the Bible talks clearly about God providing for his people –wealth is not bad, and Jesus’ call to give it all away came to one particular person rather than to every follower. But God’s own generosity runs like a thread throughout the story told in Scripture.

Maybe that’s why Paul writes that ‘God loves a cheerful giver' . The original Greek word translated ‘cheerful’ there is hilaron and we get the word ‘hilarious’ from that root. It might not be funny, but within the conversation we tend to have about wealth it is surely laughable for Ebrahim to give away a bag full of goodies when he has nothing? It’s risky, certainly: better to hold onto the money as you might need it next month if the Home Office moves you without warning again. And yet, he gives.

And because he gives, he challenges me. If John Barclay is right – and I think he is – Christians have always been the kind of people who take risks to welcome others into their community. That makes no sense if you’re trying to keep your own food and energy bills down in the face of inflation. It’s laughable, in fact. But apparently, that’s the kind of giver God likes – a hilarious one!

I think he likes that kind of giver because when he looks at them he sees the image of his own generosity. After all, according to Genesis, that’s the image humans were made to carry. Seeing Ebrahim and Sami giving reminds me that for all the complexity of the immigration debate these are human beings. Their risky generosity challenges me to live up to the actual values of the first Christian community.

Review

Change

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.

Join with us - Behind the Seen

Seen & Unseen is free for everyone and is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you’re enjoying Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Alongside other benefits (book discounts etc.), you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing what I’m reading and my reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin

Editor-in-Chief

Find out more and sign up