DOES God have a sense of humour? In Beyond Belief: Divine comedy (Radio 4, Tuesday of last week), Canon Giles Fraser explored this with a Muslim stand-up comedian, Shazia Mirza; a lapsed Orthodox Jewish comic, Ashley Blaker; a Christian TV scriptwriter from a fundamentalist family, Dillon Mapletoft; and an American academic, Professor Shanny Luft.

Studying humour too closely seems to drain its magic, and the programme lacked genuinely funny moments. It did raise more fundamental questions about the state of comedy, sometimes without quite realising it. The comedians acknowledged that humour often traded on differences and the formation of in-groups and out-groups.

While we all want to avoid punching down, in an era of sometimes suffocating political correctness, it can be difficult for even the sharpest performers to find the narrow zone that is both acceptable and funny. The modern comedy scene would seem unable to cope with someone as taboo-shattering as Richard Pryor, much as he was referred to reverentially by participants.

Canon Fraser, to his credit, said that hearing that a topic was taboo — a particular holy book, perhaps — made it tempting to him. Ms Mirza replied: “I’ve seen what’s happened to people before me, and I’d rather not take the risk.” Fraser noted simply: “It’s a scary thing to hear.” Then all moved swiftly on.

Ms Mirza and Professor Luft said that there was no evidence that God had a sense of humour. Canon Fraser’s failure to challenge this left me rather nonplussed: the Bible is full of comedy, especially the bits of it that we inherited from Judaism. If you’re reading Jonah with a straight face, you’re reading it wrong.

The final episode of the current series of Moral Maze (Radio 4, Wednesday of last week) looked at inherited inequality. It was an unsatisfying programme, often losing itself in the thickets of inheritance-tax policy, or changes in family structure, while barely acknowledging the fundamental drivers of multi-generational inequality.

The natural instinct of parents to give their children every advantage possible was acknowledged, but not properly addressed; the fact that people start out with different talents was at best briefly nodded at — but no one asked why inequalities had spiralled so dramatically globally, in very different societies, over the past half a century.

Interestingly, none of the panellists or witnesses identified themselves as from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is telling that this seems not to have struck the producers — in a corporation supposedly committed to diversity and inclusion — as a serious lacuna. One interesting question that the programme did ask was why today’s rich act like proletarians: perhaps the better to hide their unfair advantages? A similar spirit might explain the recent fashion for ostentatious but empty inclusive verbiage.

Despite an interestingly diverse panel, this was a facile investigation that did insufficient justice to the show’s proud traditions.