Belief - Series 4 - AN Wilson

Joan Bakewell talks with public figures, artists and thinkers about what they believe and why. She talks to writer, journalist and cultural historian AN Wilson, whose attitude to religion has fluctuated over the years. His most recent book, Our Times, takes a scathing look at Britain since 1953 and believes it has changed so much as to be unrecognisable. He puts these changes down to, among other things, mass immigration, a decline in church attendance and a loss of any sense of being a nation. Wilson has supported and attacked religion in almost equal measure throughout his work and life. Initially heading for a vocation in the church, he left theological college after a year and embarked on an academic and writing career. In the 1980s, he argued that society should live without religion and published books on both Jesus and St Paul, professing profound scepticism. Yet the death of his mother and his own journey as a parent, have seen him distance himself from such writings. Nowadays, Wilson is to be found in church on Sundays and welcomes a society that embraces religion. But not, fundamentalist forms of religion, which he says, are on the increase and are to be feared.