Nomad Podcast

What if the deepest encounters with the divine are not dramatic or ecstatic, but quiet, steady, and hidden in ordinary life?
Mark Vernon returns to Nomad to explore silence, mysticism, and the search for God after disillusionment. Reflecting on his own journey through priesthood, contemplative practice, psychotherapy and spiritual direction, Mark speaks about finding a form of Christianity rooted less in performance or ...

In this conversation, Giles Goddard and Halima Gosai Hussein are joined by Natasha Chawla for a wide-ranging exploration of faith, change, and the unexpected places where different spiritual rivers meet. Drawing on their journeys within Christianity, Islam, and Hindu philosophy, they reflect on the traditions they inherited, the moments that reshaped them, and what it means to remain rooted while allowing faith to evolve.

A...

In this special episode, theologian and author Selina Stone reflects on one of the oldest and most unsettling human questions: why do the wicked prosper?

Drawing on scripture, history, and her own experience, Selina explores the anger, grief and moral disorientation that arise when cruelty and exploitation seem to flourish while justice is delayed.

Rather than offering easy answers, she invites us to stay present to these re...

Lucy Sixsmith joins Nomad to explore the world of Soul Survivor and the wider charismatic culture that shaped so many young Christians in the 1990s and 2000s. Drawing on her new book When the Music Fades, Lucy reflects on surrender language, “chosen generation” spirituality, and the subtle ways power can operate in spaces that feel warm, funny and down to earth.

Together we ask what happens when revival language, humility a...

Rupert Sheldrake joins us for a wide-ranging conversation that begins with psychedelics and quickly opens into bigger questions. Why do some experiences feel “more real than real”? What happens when the familiar boundaries of self dissolve, and the world returns charged with meaning, beauty, and presence?

Along the way Rupert reflects on his own encounters with psychedelics, the long ritual history behind them, and why he t...

In this episode, Tim speaks with feminist theologian and author Meggan Watterson about the Gospel of Mary and the Acts of Paul and Thecla — early Christian texts that didn’t make it into the New Testament. They explore what these stories reveal about the diversity of early Christianities, the formation of the biblical canon, and the ways women’s voices were preserved, reshaped, or silenced. What does it mean that some comm...

In this gentle and quietly unsettling conversation, Hiroko Yoda invites us into a world where spirituality doesn’t begin with belief, but with attention. Drawing on her Japanese upbringing and her book Eight Million Ways to Happiness, Hiroko reflects on grief, ancestors, everyday ritual, and the idea of “half belief, half doubt” — a way of living that makes space for ambiguity rather than trying to resolve it. From small s...

In this Nomad Revisited episode, we return to a 2017 conversation with Anglican priest, poet, and writer Rachel Mann. As the first trans person interviewed on Nomad, the exchange unfolds in a spirit of curiosity and vulnerability, with questions that are sometimes tentative and awkward, met by Rachel’s remarkable patience, clarity, and generosity of spirit.

The conversation explores identity as something lived into rather t...

This episode began life as our 2025 Patreon fundraiser — but we’re releasing it here, freely, on the main feed, with a new intro and two additional questions!

For this special episode, we invited last year’s guests to turn the tables and ask us whatever they liked. What came back was a rich, surprising mix of the playful, the personal, and the deeply searching. Questions came in from Rowan Williams, Brian McLaren, Selina St...

In this special episode, writer, priest and theologian Jarel Robinson-Brown reflects on the power of love in a world that so often feels fragile, unjust, and burning at the edges.

Drawing on the story of his grandmother’s resilience and tenderness, the radical imagination of Mary, and the embodied life of Jesus, Jarel invites us to see Christian truth not as a text but as a life — love made flesh, love that puts its body wh...

In this episode we speak with Anglican Deacon and writer Jayne Manfredi, whose work explores the female body as a place of truth-telling, theological insight and spiritual transformation. Jayne talks with striking honesty about midlife, menopause and the shifting experience of embodiment — the leaking, aching, changing realities many women learn to hide — and reflects on the Church’s persistent discomfort with women’s bodi...

As far-right movements gain visibility in Britain and beyond, many are drawing on Christian language, symbols and stories to justify exclusion and division. What happens when the gospel of love is co-opted by the politics of fear?

In this conversation, theologian and Baptist minister Helen Paynter explores how theology, scripture and nationalism are becoming dangerously entangled. She reflects on why parts of the church are...

Palestinian peace activist Sami Awad has lived his whole life under military occupation. He’s witnessed violence, loss, and deep injustice. Yet rather than turning towards hatred or certainty, he’s journeyed into a spirituality rooted in compassion, healing, and what he calls Christ consciousness — a way of seeing that refuses separation and fear.

In this conversation, Sami reflects on what it means to love your enemy amid ...

Over the last year, Tim and his eleven-year-old son Elliot have been quietly experimenting with faith at home — exploring a different spiritual practice each month and discovering what happens when faith is lived, not just discussed.

From gratitude and Sabbath to activism, creativity, and pilgrimage; from sawing coconuts and dismantling Hi-Fis to marching for their local library and hiding painted pebbles — they’ve stumble...

Many of us have left behind the religion we inherited. But what, then, are we reaching for? In this conversation, Celtic teacher John Philip Newell reflects on what he calls the Great Search—a deep yearning for soul, earth, and home at a time of ecological breakdown and religious collapse.

John Philip explores the tension between temple and wilderness, soul and ego, doctrine and direct experience, and reflects on the relin...

In this conversation, Joy sits down with eco-therapists Jenny Biglands and Vicky Broadbent to explore the growing field of ecotherapy, where nature itself becomes a partner in the healing process.

Jenny and Vicky reflect on their faith journeys, what led them into therapeutic work, and how moving outdoors has transformed their practice. They explore themes of power and vulnerability, showing how simply walking side by side ...

In this conversation, womanist theologian Selina Stone reflects on the hidden ways power is shaped by theology — and how theology, in turn, can be shaped by power. Drawing on her book A Heavy Yoke: Theology, Power and Abuse in the Church, she explores how divine calling, servant leadership, and spiritual authority can all become tools of control, especially in charismatic and evangelical settings.

But Selina also gestures ...

Halima Gosai Hussein is the former chair of the Inclusive Mosque Initiative. Giles Goddard is an Anglican priest and author of Generous Faith. On paper, their backgrounds could hardly be more different. But their paths converged through a shared commitment to inclusion — Giles in the work of building an open and affirming church, Halima through her leadership with the Inclusive Mosque Initiative.

In this conversation, they...

In this episode, Tim chats with author and activist Brian McLaren about his new novel The Last Voyage, a provocative and emotionally rich exploration of what might happen when the powerful elite try to escape a dying Earth and build a new civilisation elsewhere.

Drawing on decades of theological reflection and his recent work on collapse and ecological crisis, Brian reflects on what spirituality might look like at the end ...