with Zara Janjua

Zara’s This Spiritual Life guest this week is the original people’s poet, John Cooper Clark. John shares his thoughts on Catholicism, his childhood love for literature, involvement with the 70s punk scene including The Sex Pistols, and struggles with addiction, plus the surprise enjoyment of becoming a father in middle age.

Derek Owusu was one of the first writers signed to rapper Stormzy's publishing imprint Merky Books. Derek joins Zara to discuss his new novel covering his relationship with faith and mental ill health, and his time spent in recovery institutions.

And last week, a statue of South African activist and leader Nelson Mandela was unveiled in Glasgow. Brian Filling, chair of the Nelson Mandela Scottish Memorial Foundation, explains the links between Mandela and Scotland’s largest city.

Zara’s Faith Forum panel this week are: Rev Dr Jared Stacey, a theologian and former pastor; Mona Siddiqui, professor of religion and society at Kings College, and Sydney Switzer, a freelance Jewish educator.

Together they look over some of the big stories of the week. Following the anniversary of the October 7 attacks in Israel, they discuss the meaning of the word Zionism in the wake of the Green Party of England and Wales’s latest motion that ‘Zionism is Racism.’

The failed attempt to execute death row inmate Christa Pike and the announcement that the Fort Hood gunman’s execution by firing squad will be livestreamed has shifted attention once again to the morality around the death penalty. Twenty-seven states in the US allow it – our panel discuss whether it's ever justified as a punishment.

And on International Myths and Legends Day the panel talk about what role they play in our lives and the stories we like to tell about ourselves.