Panel conversations in The Bright Field
You may not have voted for them, but the Conservatives are running the country. For the next five years. They ran on an austerity ticket and now we’re all taking the ride. So what are you going to do about it? Our panels – on debt, asylum and immigration, movement-building, welfare, benefits and Trident are all hosted against this backdrop. With this as their context, they ask: what are we going to do? Get all cross on social media? Or roll up our sleeves and do something more practical. These panel conversations are designed to foster dreams and visions of an alternative life under the rule of austerity.
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Friday
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS?
Chaired by Kit Beazley, Head of Finance at ethical bank Triodos
With ever-increasing indebtedness, is it time to rethink lending and borrowing altogether? Are there other ways to make the money go round?
With Anastasia French (Debt Trap, The Children’s Society), David Barclay (Church Credit Champions Network) and Rachel Lindley (Programme Manager at Five Talents).
In association with The Children’s Society
MOVEMENTS OF THE SPIRIT
Chaired by outgoing Greenbelt Chair, and community organiser Andy Turner
How come so many of us lost confidence in political parties? Don’t believe the system represents us? Aren’t convinced our vote
will change anything? But how come so many of us think new, looser, grassroots movements are more likely to herald the new world we want to see?
With Jeff Halper, Maya Evans, and Nick Coke of Stepney Citizen’s UK.
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Saturday
TWITTER VICARS AND THE SACRAMENT OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Chaired by Rhian Roberts, Greenbelt Trustee and Digital Editor for BBC Radio 4
Are you wearing your clerical collar online? How can you be a vicar on Twitter? Can you be a Facebook Father or a Snapchat Sister? Three well known social media lovers and working priests on managing the tensions.
With Revds Richard Coles (BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live), Giles Fraser (Guardian columnist and commentator) and Kate Bottley (star of Channel 4’s Goggle Box).
FAITH IN SCIENCE?
Chaired by Marika Rose
Skipping past the hackneyed science-versus-faith debates, this panel conversation acknowledges science as God’s gift and aims instead to focus on how we as communities, individuals and churches can galvanise a healthy celebration of, use of, and political frame and cultural story around science.
With Tom McLeish (Professor of Physics at Durham University), Neil Messer (Professor of Theology at the University of Winchester where his research and teaching focus on Christian ethics and the relationship of science and theology), and Lizzie Coyle from the Faraday Institute in Cambridge.
In association with Winchester University
THE REAL BENEFITS STREET
How did the government’s ‘benefit sanctions’ policy end up leading to hunger, destitution and desperation? Why are people on benefits being stigmatised?
Joining Angela Neville, author of Can This Be England?, will be Niall Cooper of Church Action on Poverty and Paul Morrison, author of the report Time to Rethink Benefit Sanctions – along with some who have been sanctioned themselves and taken part in the Real Benefits Street programme.
In assoc. with Church Action on Poverty
NUCLEAR: NECESSARY OR NONSENSE?
70 years on from the horrors of Hiroshima, the UK government is still in thrall to the nuclear option. Why does there seem so little appetite for seriously considering the benefits of scrapping nuclear weapons here? Is it time to recover the anti-nuclear stance once so strong in our faith communities? Or do we accept that nuclear weapons will always be with us.
With CND’s Bruce Kent, Emma Anthony of Fellowship of Reconciliation and Tim Wallis of Quaker Peace & Social Witness.
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Sunday
IS THE RIGHT TO OFFEND SACRED?
Chaired by think tank Ekklesia’s COO, Virginia Moffatt
From ‘Piss Christ’ to images of the Prophet, artists often use art to provoke, even if it causes offence. Defenders of free speech frequently suggest the right to offend is inviolable. But is it? How should we respond when the offended react with violence? Is there a fresh way forward?
With Prof Mona Siddiqui, Robert Cohen (Jewish blogger at Micah’s Paradigm Shift), Anjum Anwar (interfaith relations for Blackburn Diocese) and Joy Wallis (US-based ex-pat vicar and partner of Jim Wallis)
STAYING ALIVE: A CONVERSATION
Chaired by Ruby Beech
With Matt Haig, Katharine Welby-Roberts
Building on sessions that we’ve hosted at the festival over the past few years with artists like Bobby Baker and Jo Enright, hear author Matt Haig and disability rights advocate Katharine Welby-Roberts in conversation about how they have lived with and continue to live with mental illness and how it informs and affects their lives, work and relationships.
ASYLUM AND EXILE
Bidisha will introduce her work on asylum seekers and refugees, uncovering their life stories.
She will then be joined by Ilona Pinter, policy adviser at The Children’s Society and co-chair of the Refugee Children’s Consortium, Boaz Trust’s Dave Smith, and Australia’s Fuzz Kito for a panel. Bidisha is a writer, critic and TV and radio broadcaster specialising in arts and culture, social justice and international affairs.
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Monday
ISIS AND BEYOND: WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE MIDDLE EAST?
Chaired by Karen Chalk
With Bidisha, Jeremy Moodey, Jeff Halper
How should we understand the phenomenon of ISIS? What has fuelled its rise – is it the Sunni/Shia divide, foreign intervention, the Arab Spring or even the unresolved conflict in Israel-Palestine? What does it mean for the region’s minorities, including Christians? Islamic extremism dominates the way we see and think about the Middle East. But there is more to this important region than just ISIS. How can we see the Middle East in its broader context and how should we respond?
In association with Embrace
BODY SHOCK
With Judy Reith, Siobhan O’Loughlin, Joanna Jepson and Steve Chalke
With so much focus on photoshopped body images, is it any wonder that we don’t think we make the grade? How can we grow a healthy, relaxed attitude to the way we look as part of who we are?
IS TAX AVOIDANCE THE GREATEST BARRIER TO A FAIRER SOCIETY?
Following her performance, join theatre maker Caroline Horton and a panel of experts as they dig into the dirt around tax and tax avoidance.
With Mike Truman, long-time Editor of Taxation Magazine; Omar Elerian, director of For The Little People and Islands; David Haslam, founder of the Methodist Tax Justice Network; and John Christensen, and investigative economist and director of the Tax Justice Network.
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