Sarah Irving-Stonebraker: re-enchanting the ahistorical age

In our age of self-invention, we are profoundly disconnected from the history that once gave us identity.

Nick Jones

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

A woman sitting in an empty church talks to the camera and gestures with one hand.

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Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is an Australian historian whose new book Priests of History: stewarding the past in an ahistoric age, says that, in our age of self-invention, modern people are profoundly disconnected from the stories, practises and history that once gave them their identity.

Justin and Belle talk to Sarah about re-enchanting an ahistorical age and about her own journey from atheism to Christianity as a young academic at Cambridge and Oxford in the early 2000s.

Visit Sarah Irving-Stonebraker's web site. https://www.stonebraker.com.au/

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Podcast

Podcasts

Seen & Unseen Aloud

15 September 2025

1 min read

We need nuance, and theology, plus the summer we turned romantic

Listen to Graham Tomlin, Henna Cundill, and Belle Tindall articles.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

A woman in a white dress stand in front of a large floral arrangement.

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About this episode

This week -, Graham Tomlin suggests we have much to learn about nuanced cultural debate from the writers of the Nicene Creed; Henna Cundill agrees as she explores how helpful studying theology is for encouraging compassionate, engaged debate in all spheres of life; Belle Tindall takes a deep dive into humanity's propensity for romance and marriage.

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Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief