Their discussion is the third episode of The Big Conversation, a unique online video series from the Unbelievable? faith debate show. The two well-known media figures address the increase in people in the West who identify as ‘nones’ (having no religious commitments) and where they can find meaning. Derren Brown draws on his recent book Happy: Why more or less everything is absolutely fine to promote a Stoic approach to finding contentment while Rev Richard Coles draws on his own conversion experience of “meeting the resurrected Christ” as a “life changing” moment.
Brown, who requested Coles as his discussion partner having met each other before, has seen his own journey of faith go in the opposite direction to the TV Vicar. The illusionist lost his Christian faith as a young adult and became an atheist following his entry into the world of magic performance. In contrast Richard Coles, after a successful and hedonistic pop star career in the 1980s, converted from atheism to Christianity through a profound religious experience which led to him becoming an Anglican priest.
Their conversation reflects these opposing positions. When asked by host Justin Brierley if he had an existential crisis after abandoning his Christian faith as a young man, Derren Brown says, “I had one moment waking up feeling down, and had that moment of realising that I don’t have that…
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