Author: BBC Radio 4

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks back 500 years to the moment Martin Luther challenged the power and authority of the Catholic Church.

Peter Stanford brings to light the character of this lowly born German monk in a new biography.

Prior to Luther, for a thousand years the Catholic Church had been one of the greatest powers on earth, but in her study of the Italian Renaissance the writer Sarah Dunant reveals how bloated, corrupt and complacent it had become. Dunant also explores the role of the Church in the home, in a new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Madonnas and Miracles, before the Reformation swept away such iconography.

The historian Alec Ryrie charts the rise of the Protestant faith from its rebellious beginnings to the present day, while the sociologist Linda Woodhead asks whether the defining characteristics of Protestant Britain, such as the freedom of the individual, national pride and a strong work ethic are still relevant today.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Image: Boy falling from a window, 1592 (c) Museo degli ex voto del santuario di Madonna dell'Arco.

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe delves into the world of transhumanism, a movement whose aim is to use technology to transform the human condition. The writer Mark O'Connell has explored this world of cyborgs, utopians and the futurists looking to live forever. Raymond Tallis seeks to wrest the mysteries of time away from the scientists in his reflections on the nature of transience and mortality. Laura Tunbridge listens to the late works of Beethoven, Schumann and Mahler to ask whether intimations of mortality shape these pieces, while the mortician Carla Valentine uncovers what the dead reveal about their past life. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe delves into the world of transhumanism, a movement whose aim is to use technology to transform the human condition. The writer Mark O'Connell has explored this world of cyborgs, utopians and the futurists looking to live forever. Raymond Tallis seeks to wrest the mysteries of time away from the scientists in his reflections on the nature of transience and mortality. Laura Tunbridge listens to the late works of Beethoven, Schumann and Mahler to ask whether intimations of mortality shape these pieces, while the mortician Carla Valentine uncovers what the dead reveal about their past life. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Amol Rajan talks to Sayeeda Warsi about how far Britain's Muslim community is viewed as 'the enemy within'. As the child of Pakistani immigrants who became Britain's first Muslim Cabinet Minister, Baroness Warsi is in a unique position to explore questions of cultural difference, terrorism, and 'British values', and to explore how society can become more integrated. The economist Paul Collier has spent his career looking for solutions to seemingly intractable problems: in his latest book he focuses on the Syrian refugee crisis and argues for the establishment of special economic zones where displaced Syrians could work and benefit their host countries. The philosopher Roger Scruton develops his ideas of human nature by concentrating on our relations with others, bound together in a shared world. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Start the Week is at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead where Tom Sutcliffe explores the pace and rhythm of life - from the heart-stopping moments to the sleep of the innocent.

His guests include Russell Foster whose work on circadian rhythms sheds light on the mechanisms of our body clocks and sleep.

The crime writer Denise Mina is more interested in counting the bodies than counting sheep, as she revels in the psychological undercurrents in her latest thriller.

The cardiac surgeon Stephen Westaby understands the delicate balance between life and death: he has saved hundreds of lives, holding each heart in his hand and feeling its beat.

The mathematician Eugenia Cheng considers what it means when that beat goes on forever, with her study of the infinite.

Producer: Katy Hickman.