Elizabeth Oldfield: The Christian apologist on why she’s not afraid to quote poetry to the philosophers

Elizabeth Oldfield’s is a curious, provocative faith. 

In her teens, she converted to Christianity after an encounter with the Holy Spirit at the popular Christian youth festival, Soul Survivor. Then, almost a decade later, she changed her mind.

She discarded the “emotional, experiential faith” of her younger years after completing a master’s in theology and starting work at the BBC on a programme about the Old Testament. “It was reading the Bible that made it all fall apart for me,” she says, explaining how grappling with the “strange, spiky, complex” stuff, rather than just the encouraging verses Christians like to put on fridge magnets rocked her faith.

She felt like a fool for building her life “on something for stupid people”, but even in her attempts at atheism, Oldfield couldn’t seem to stop talking to God anyway. “I remember trying to say to myself: I don’t believe in God, and instead finding myself saying: I don’t believe in you. Everything that was renunciation turned into conversation. I was like: I’m not talking to you. I mean, you’re not there, obviously. And also, I’m not talking to you,” she smiles wryly. 

In time, Oldfield realised she wasn’t the first person to experience the dark night of the soul. She’s beyond grateful for the “smart Christians” who invited her to an apologetics event where she began to realise that “just because things had got complicated didn’t mean I needed to give up on [faith] altogether”.

It’s perhaps no surprise that God chose to meet someone with such a curious mind and a strong intellect so experientially in that big top all those years ago. If we believe in a God who sees the end from the beginning, perhaps he already knew what it would take to win her heart and keep her trust; that it would ground those big questions in an experience she would never be able to deny, and enable her to speak into places of influence with an intellectual rigour and deep love that could only come from an encounter that could not be explained away.

I’ve seen a lot of people hit the middle years, and faith either becomes a hobby, or they walk away from church altogether

So often in the Christian community, we hold those two ideas as polar opposites: there are those who think and those who feel. There is the word, and there is the Spirit. If you’re clever, bright and ambitious, you’re unlikely to also be empathetic, compassionate and curious. But Oldfield bridges those two worlds – and it shows in her work as a writer, speaker and broadcaster. 

She sits on apologetics panels with men who delight in using complex words and, instead of being intimidated or trying to compete, she quotes poetry and talks about her experience of God. She refuses to apologise or feel inferior, she says. Learning to lead as her authentic self has been a long journey, but she’s finally getting there.

After working as a researcher at the BBC, Oldfield led the Christian think tank, Theos, for a decade. In 2017, she launched a podcast called ‘The Sacred’ in which she talks to prominent people in the public eye about their “sacred values”. Guests have ranged from Zara Mohammed, leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, and atheist author and psychedelics user Jonathan Haidt to Catholic historian Tim Stanley and Christian rapper Guvna B. The project – her attempt to build bridges in an increasingly divided world – has drawn criticism from some Christians, but Oldfield has learned not to care too much about people who don’t want to understand what she’s trying to do. Having recently entered her 40s, what she wants, she says, is an honest conversation about what’s real. 

With this in mind, she’s recently written her first book, Fully Alive (Hodder & Stoughton) shaped around the seven deadly sins. Chapters range from lust and anger to wrath and greed in an attempt to thoughtfully engage with some of society’s most pressing challenges and deepest needs – and explain what the Christian faith might offer to those who consider it the last place to look for solutions. The frankness of the anecdotes – and the occasional use of an expletive – might shock some, but the book was not written for those already seated in the choir stalls, she tells me. It is the one she would have wanted to read when she was struggling with the tough stuff. The one that asks the hard questions and is prepared to give the even harder answer. 

Your book, Fully Alive, tackles a whole range of complicated questions and controversial subjects. You also swear in it a couple of times. What was the thinking behind it?

I was writing particularly for those beyond the Church, trying to say: “There’s treasure here,” but I honestly assumed that no Christians would read it. I think that gave me a lot of freedom. I managed to tune out those voices where I was worried about getting told off or saying the wrong thing – which is often how people feel in Church, and particularly women, frankly. 

But once I was in it, it became clear that there was no point writing a timid book. In order to cut through, it needed to be honest – in a way that’s borderline exposing at times. That was really scary. But also, I think, where people are really connecting with it.

Each chapter deals with one of the seven deadly sins, and what the Christian faith has to say to that. The chapter on lust is really honest! Did you feel nervous writing it?

I think that’s the fruit of feeling so frustrated at years of it not being a topic in church – or if it is, it’s talked about so badly. All those conversations were framed through male sexuality – basically men’s inability to constrain themselves and how women must not make that worse. I don’t think I’d ever read anything on female desire from a Christian perspective. I believe I’m made in the image of God, and so is my body; that pleasure is a gift from God. It can be used in really harmful ways but I’m just going to say it: Orgasms are a gift from God. It’s not an accident that this is something that we want.

Culture thinks we are repressed and judgy about this issue because we’ve not come to peace about it. We’ve not come to gratitude about it. We’ve not come to honesty and wholeness about it. And yet I believe the Christian sexual ethic is good. I believe the Church’s teachings around sex are for our good, if we can just strip off the accretions of toxicity. 

I didn’t talk about this stuff for the sake of being provocative or titillating. I talked about it because it’s humanising. I talked to some wise pastor friends, a theologian friend. I really did a deep discernment and reflection and, where I landed was: It feels important, for all the Christian women, and for all the people outside the Church who’ve been sold a bunch of lies about sex.

Actually, the backlash has been much less than I thought! I did think I might get cancelled as a Jezebel!

I have felt more discipled in three years of living in community than in the entire rest of my Christian life

You live in an intentional Christian community with your husband and children, and another married couple. The idea of communal living seems to be growing in popularity – why do you think that is?

It’s something the Church has always done, whether in monasteries and convents, or in more informal ways. It feels like the logic of the New Testament, and particularly the early Church in the book of Acts, should draw us into lives of mutual care and sharing what we have. 

In some cultures, it comes more naturally. In the West, we’ve been too shaped by high prosperity and high individualism. We’ve got our own little castles, and we see each other at church or home group, but we’re not in and out of each other’s lives. We’re worried that the house doesn’t look like it looks on Instagram, or we’re not a good cook. Habits of hospitality require vulnerability. 

There is an increasing hunger, certainly outside the Church, that’s driven by the loneliness crisis, a climate crisis, a housing crisis. People know that the way we live is not helping us flourish. The Church has this heritage of how to do it well but, for a long time, hasn’t been grappling with it. My sense is that’s turning. 

In the New Testament, we have these extraordinary guidelines for what it might mean to submit to each other, to seek each other’s good, to be emotionally and spiritually mature enough to live up close with each other. I have felt more discipled in three years of living in community than in the entire rest of my Christian life.

Why do you think that is?

My theory of fully aliveness is connection: with our own soul, with God, with each other and with the earth. In order to have that intimacy, we need to be seen and see each other; we need to know and be known. 

[For example]: deep intimacy with God through prayer. Practices of prayer are easier when you have the scaffolding of a monastic rhythm. We were up at 6:45am [this morning] praying, even though it was freezing and I did not want to and I was super-grumpy. It has helped me grow in spending more time with God, because I am accountable to other people. 

They see me at my worst. I see them at their worst: our sins, wrestles, struggles, where we are not in freedom, where we are not in wholeness. It feels like we’re constantly calling each other higher. We’re constantly being iron sharpening iron. I don’t know a better way to grow.

What do your weekly house rhythms look like?

Several mornings a week, we gather to read the Bible, have silence or pray. That’s slowly going up as my tolerance for early mornings goes up! We’re now at three mornings a week. That’s about all I can manage. 

Once a week, we have a house night, which is just about relationships and fun. Once a week we have an admin meeting. Once a fortnight, we have an open table dinner, which is a practice of hospitality. And once a month, we have a house day. One of my biggest pieces of advice for people wanting to do this is: You have to have as much fun as you have conflict or admin, because if you don’t invest in joy and relationship, you don’t have the capacity to deal with the tricky stuff. 

What made you want to explore the idea of living in community?

It was a strong sense of being aware that, going into our 30s, living a life that takes the radical call of the New Testament seriously; it’s really easy for that to be pushed to the edges of life. 

I hope that’s not judgy, but I’ve seen a lot of people hit the middle years, and [faith] either becomes just a sort-of hobby, or they walk away from church altogether. Particularly if you have young children or other caring responsibilities; you’re just surviving. I just felt: What is the scaffolding that we need to keep growing? 

You recently wrote about taking part in a debate with Dr Rowan Williams and two atheists, and what it was like to be the only woman in those spaces. Is that something you’ve found challenging during your career?

When I first got the job at Theos, it threw me for several years. I’d go to gatherings where it was mainly male leaders, and more than twice I got mistaken for the coffee girl! That took a bit of figuring out. Then I just relaxed into it. I was like: God put me here, so I’m just gonna have to be myself. Largely, that’s how I feel now.

When it’s four men and one woman, and they’re all male philosophers, that one I found really difficult. For a long time, ‘Oxford debating society male’ was what intelligence meant, right? When we heard [the word] ‘smart’, that’s what we thought of. Breaking out of that and going: I don’t actually need to prove myself. I just want to be faithful – and letting it be strange and uncomfortable to be quoting poetry when everyone else is talking about analytic philosophy…I’m growing into that!

You’ve interviewed everyone from singer Nick Cave to naturalist Chris Packham on ‘The Sacred’ podcast – what have been some of your favourite moments?

Always when there’s a real, intimate moment. I’ll ask a question, and I can see there’s something spiritually alive happening in the room. I interviewed Professor Tom Shakespeare recently. He was an agnostic Quaker, and a Christian friend invited him to read the Bible every day for a month and promised him that something would change. And something did. He stopped in the middle of the podcast. There’s this long silence which, in radio, we don’t really know what to do with, but he was welling up. I could feel the Spirit in the room, so we left it in. 

I’d go to gatherings where it was mainly male leaders, and more than twice I got mistaken for the coffee girl!

There are often moments where someone just feels listened to, and then they’re able to be vulnerable about something quite tender. I love those moments.

You often interview people from very different worldviews to your own. What do you say to Christians who are concerned you’re giving people from other religions and belief systems a platform?

Honestly, I’ve got to the point where I don’t bother responding…it doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m just like: What is the work that is mine to do, God? And then I try to tune out everything else, because you can drive yourself mad worrying if people are annoyed with you. I’m just not interested in it anymore.

If all human beings are made in the image of God, they are beautiful, dignified and glorious. And if we believe that God loves everyone, how are people supposed to encounter the fragrance of Christ if we run screaming from them or just throw rocks at them from a distance? How is that the Great Commission? 

It feels like the endemic temptation of our age to think we are better than. The Church is supposed to be a hospital. It is for people who know their brokenness and need; when we pivot to self-righteousness and judgement and finger-pointing at people who are also children of God, I think we risk our own souls, and we need to take a lot of care with that.   

To hear the full interview listen to Premier Christian Radio at 8pm on Saturday 1 March, or download ‘The Profile’ podcast