Life & Faith

Is the human race on an inevitable trajectory onward and upward? Not quite, says Nick Spencer. --- "We are the same species but with bigger sticks, and those sticks can be used to reach further and achieve more - but they can conversely be used to beat a lot more people. That is precisely the point. Were we to find ourselves under the same pressures of resource scarcity that our ancestors endured every single day, we would probably find ourselves less moral than we think ourselves to be." Is the world a better place to live today than it has ever been before? Some would answer this question with a resounding yes – like Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard. His latest book, Enlightenment Now: The case for reason, science, humanism, and progress, charts improvements over time across a whole range of markers – life expectancy, child mortality, wealth and poverty, war and violence, and more – and one of the central claims of his book is that we owe all this progress to the Enlightenment. Nick Spenc

Politics, religion, and being a good guest at dinner - or a good citizen in the public square. --- "The old edict in the UK is that there are certain conversations you avoid around the dinner table: one is politics, the other is religion. Seeing as I write on politics and religion, I don’t get invited to dinner very much." Nick Spencer says it makes sense to think that the combination of religion and politics in a conversation at a dinner party will be explosive – politics is typically about compromise, and religion, to many people, is all about not compromising. He suggests, however, that "you can talk about politics and religion without heading straight for the neuralgic issues". In this episode, Nick explores the ways in which people can mix politics and religion well. He also uses the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate ways the Bible has frequently been used (and misused), and often to great effect, by both sides of politics in the UK. On the left, it has been used to "justify bombing in Syria",

The gripping, often irreverent, sometimes hilarious history of the Bible in Australian culture. --- "It’s always been gloves off when it comes to the Bible in Australia." The Bible is the most popular book in the world. But this blanket statement hides all kinds of realities - it’s loved and pored over by some, it gathers dust on many shelves, and it’s hotly debated in parliaments and universities, at dinner parties and in churches. In Australia, across its history, the Bible shows up in surprising places. "A lot of people have an opinion on the Bible, and that’s been true historically too," Meredith Lake, historian and author of The Bible in Australia says. "So in a way it was an entrée to the great debates in Australian society, culture and history." In this episode, from convict tattoos to 19th-century feminist newspapers and an iconic Melbourne bookstore, and encompassing some of the more horrific and heartbreaking moments in Australia’s colonial history, Meredith Lake takes us on a biblical tour through

How a near-death experience helped one man embrace all of life – the beautiful, and the ugly. --- "Real faith is to trust God in the good and the bad." After officiating a wedding, David Robertson wasn’t feeling too well and broke into a cold sweat. He ended up lying on the ground in front of his church, in a pool of his own blood. Turns out, the Scottish church minister had contracted a virus that created two ulcers over a major artery, which had caused the bleeding. In hospital, his condition went from bad to worse. His lungs went down to 30 per cent capacity, he got pneumonia, and he needed close to 16 litres of blood product throughout his stay. His doctors told his wife: "it’s 50-50 whether he’ll live." It was a long and traumatic road back to health, but David is now very much alive and well – which is a miracle. In fact, his doctor told him that he doesn’t understand how David’s still alive, or at least not in a vegetative state. During a conversation with his doctor’s wife, David told her, "your husba

Astrophysicist Jennifer Wiseman on star-gazing, human significance, and the prospect of extra-terrestrial life. --- "If you fund some level of basic science, it lifts the human spirit, it tends to give people motivation to do other kinds of science as well, it feeds a lot of other worthwhile human enterprises." Jennifer Wiseman grew up in rural Arkansas, an experience which gave her an abiding love of nature – and introduced her to the wonders of the night sky. "In the case of astronomy I think it feeds into art and music and philosophy and theology and all kinds of things," Wiseman continues. "So I would say that, as human beings, we need some investment in these 'spirit-lifting' activities - and certainly exploring our universe is a very basic human curiosity that I think lifts the human spirit." It wasn’t until years later that she realised she could turn her interest in space into a full-time job. These days, she’s an astrophysicist … one who has a comet named after her. "Science is a wonderful gift and t

Will the real Jesus please stand up? John Dickson’s new book is a quest for the historical Jesus. --- “The real Jesus in the sources is far more interesting. The Jesus there is striking, dangerous, intriguing, beautiful, bizarre, scary, and incredibly comforting. You just can’t pin him down. That’s the great thing about the historical Jesus – there’s no way of fitting him inside a box.” In this episode, we explore the major portraits of the historical Jesus and what they might mean to us today. “I think he’s the best card Christians have – maybe the only card. People are generally positive towards Jesus and it’s partly because there is a vague memory of a true aspect of Jesus, which is that he rebelled against the religious authorities of the day. That just resonates with people.” --- John Dickson was a speaker at the Sydney Writers’ Festival earlier this year. You can find out more about the festival here: www.swf.org.au  A Doubter's Guide to Jesus: An Introduction to the Man from Nazareth for Believers and

Two Aboriginal women give their first-hand accounts of growing up on Christian missions. --- "I do a lot of praying. I just got to hand it over to the Lord. He understands what I’m going through and how I’m feeling. He went through a lot of grief himself and it must still break his heart to see the way some of us live." Ngardarb Riches is a Bardi Jawi woman from the West Kimberley Coast of Australia. Aunty Maureen is a Barngala woman from South Australia. They’ve both lived on Christian missions, and they’ve both experienced the good and the bad that Christian missionaries and the government have done for Aboriginal people. The bad includes the decimation of Aboriginal culture and language, and the removal from their land. "My two eldest brothers went together to one boys’ home in Adelaide, my three youngest brothers went together to another boys’ home in Adelaide, and my two sisters went to a foster home in Adelaide," Aunty Maureen says. "The missionary said, 'could you take the other, the oldest girl?' And

Social researcher Hugh Mackay on building a more compassionate and less anxious society. --- "Some public health experts are now saying that loneliness is a greater risk to our public health than obesity." Hugh Mackay, one of Australia’s leading researchers, believes there’s something wrong with the state of our nation and the lives of its citizens. "You can look at specific factors in individual cases and say, this person is anxious because of rent stress, or because of job insecurity, or because of relationship breakdown, or loss of faith … but when you’ve got epidemic proportions, I think you have to look at society," he says. "We need to live in communities that sustain us and nurture us, protect us and give us a sense of identity. When we feel cut off from the herd, anxiety goes up." In his latest book, Australia Reimagined: Towards a more compassionate, less anxious society, Hugh Mackay addresses some of the forces at work in our communities - including disappointment in political leadership, loss of fa

The greatest facepalm of the Crusades - and more stories of crusaders turning on other Christians. --- "Three days was the accepted period of a sack in the Middle Ages. They sacked it for a little bit more than that … it greatly damaged the city of Constantinople. And that ultimately was the end of the Crusade. It had never raised a sword against the Muslim, but it had actually conquered and destroyed the greatest Christian city in the world." When it comes to the sins of the Christian church, the Crusades are one of the first things that come to mind. The scholars point out that a lot of what we think we know about the Crusades is off the mark - but sometimes, the reality was even worse than people think. In this episode of Life & Faith, we’re looking at a lesser-known aspect of the Crusades. It turns out that not all Crusades were against Muslims - nor did they all take place in the Middle East. For example, the sack of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) occurred in 1204. The taking of this great Chri

The hungry, the sick, the imprisoned - or as the Knights of Malta called them, "Our Lords the Sick". --- "The Knights Hospitaller, as they were known, got permission to set up the first hospital in Jerusalem. They were connected with the Crusades and they were a sovereign military order. Why? Because they had to, in the course of their work, actually defend - sometimes with the sword - their work of being Hospitallers." Iain Benson is a Professor of Law the University of Notre Dame in Australia, he’s worked on human rights charters around the world, and he’s also a member of the Order of Malta (also known the Knights Hospitaller, among their many names). Traditionally, their chief vow was "to honour Our Lords the Sick". It’s a strange phrase, but what it means is that when they look at a sick person – any sick person, rich or poor, Christian or Muslim or Jewish – they see Jesus, their Lord. So, they care for him or her. When Jesus says "whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me" ... the Knights Ho

A confronting - and deeply personal - look at the roots of racial division in the US. --- "We still live under the long shadow of the plantation. Indeed, freedoms have been spread to a larger group of people over time, but that spread has been at the cost of ongoing oppression of black people in ways that have become very apparent thanks to video cams and cell phones that betray the brutality of the police state that we sometimes live in as black people." Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown. Alton Sterling. These are names familiar across the world: the names of African-American men – three of many – who died after being shot by white men. Those who shot them have all been acquitted of their deaths, sparking national outrage and re-igniting the old debate on racial profiling and civil rights. In this episode of Life & Faith, we asked Professor Albert J. Raboteau from Princeton University, an expert in the African-American religious experience, to walk us through the history of race relations in the US, and the

Jim lived through the Troubles. He takes us on a very personal tour of this fraught history. --- "When I used to get up out of bed in the mornings, my first thought was: how do we avoid being murdered, by the murder gangs? Also, how do we avoid the British army? And also, how do we attack the British Army? The change being today, when my kids get out of bed in the morning, they say, well ok, we have to go to work to get our mortgage paid. You see the change?" It’s been 20 years since the Good Friday Agreement ended the 30-year period of conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. Jim was 8 years old at the start of the conflict, so 1998 was the first time in his life he really remembers seeing peace. These days, he takes cab tours around Belfast – which is how Simon met him, in the course of filming a segment on the conflict for our documentary, For the Love of God: How the church is better and worse than you ever imagined. The Troubles is often cited as evidence that Christianity inevitably causes di

John Lennox on where science came from, religious violence, and God talk in post-Soviet Russia. --- "You probably believe in gravity - are you aware that nobody knows what it is? You believe in consciousness; no one knows what it is. You believe in energy; no one knows what it is. You believe in time; no one knows what it is. And yet they believe in these things." John Lennox is a Professor of Mathematics at Oxford, a scientist, a Christian, and - as he finds reason to point out in this interview - not John Lennon. We interviewed the good professor for our documentary, For the Love of God: How the church is better and worse than you ever imagined. In this episode of Life & Faith, we play an extended version of our in-depth discussion on topics ranging from the old chestnut that Christianity has opposed science, to visiting Russia in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. Here are some highlights. On the rise of modern science from the 15th and 16th centuries onwards: "They came to the conclusion aptly e

Master storyteller Tim Winton on unlikely friendships, masculinity, and grace. --- “Hope deranges us. Hope breaks things and breaks things down. In order to change, things must be broken.” Tim Winton’s latest novel, The Shepherd’s Hut, opens with a quote from American poet Liam Rector’s “Song Years”: “Change is hard and hope is violent”. Continuing the Winton tradition of celebrating the lives of outcasts (or, the “people with bad teeth”), the story focuses on the life of a neglected, abused teenage boy on the run. He finds himself in the unforgiving Australian wilderness, where he strikes up an unlikely and awkward friendship – with an exiled priest. “They’re at each other, but they’re dancing around each other, they’re trying to figure each other out … they’re teaching each other, they’re educating each other, they’re unconsciously nurturing one another … they’re stuck out there together, and they realise that they need one another to stay alive.” In this episode, we speak with Tim Winton about what draws h

The story of one of the most elusive, controversial, and misinterpreted figures in ancient history. --- "The film does navigate a very intimate relationship that Mary has with Jesus, and an immense love she has for him both as a human being and as a divine person. Ultimately, what these two do together is far more profound than a marriage, or a relationship - it’s something far greater." Mary of Magdala is one of the most elusive, and often misinterpreted, figures in Christian history. The Catholic Church mistakenly deemed her a prostitute for several centuries, and it has been suggested in some popular fiction that she was Jesus’ wife. But Garth Davis’ film Mary Magdalene represents a deliberate attempt to rehabilitate her image. "Jesus was the first person who actually saw Mary for who she was and acknowledged it," Garth says. "Everyone else around Mary, even though they loved her and supported her, thought there was something wrong with her. Jesus was the person who gave her the courage to follow her calli

What is an artist doing working for NASA? Dan Goods on the beauty and vastness of the universe. --- "I had one grain of sand, and that represented our galaxy. What was cool was that I could have someone at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory drill a hole a tenth of the size of the grain of sand into it - and that little, tiny hole is where we live." The universe is a vast and beautiful thing. We know more about it than ever before, but there’s still so much to discover. Dan Goods is a Visual Strategist for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and his job is to make the universe just that bit more comprehensible through art – like drilling a hole in a grain of sand, or creating retro travel posters for other planets. For example, the tagline for the planet Kepler-16b? "The land of two suns … where your shadow always has company." In this episode, Dan shares his enthusiasm for the mystery and wonders of the universe, and why he can never stop being in awe of the world around us – and beyond. "Awe has to do with vastn

How Florence Nightingale, Hannah Marshman, and Harriet Beecher Stowe changed the world. --- March 8, 1917. As the world is in the throes of a brutal war, tens of thousands of people gather in the centre of the Russian capital, Petrograd. They’re on strike, for "bread and peace". This day marked the beginning of the Russian Revolution. Four days later, the Czar abdicated, and women were given the right to vote - because the protesters that started the Russian Revolution weren’t male workers, they were mostly women. The Governor of the city said the crowd consisted of "ladies from society, lots more peasant women, student girls and, compared with earlier demonstrations, not many workers." We now use this date every year to celebrate International Women’s Day. In this episode, we remember and celebrate the achievement of women in all areas of life. Meet the woman who professionalised nursing, revolutionised health and sanitation, and wrote a book protesting the oppression of women in her time: "To have no food f

An exploration of one of the most central questions of our culture: who am I? --- "All of our lives have unscripted moments, things that don’t go according to plan." You do you. It’s one of the more recent variations on an old motivational theme. Follow your heart. To thine own self be true. Write your own story. But how well do we really know ourselves? How much control do we have over the script of our lives? "The odd thing is that even though there’s such a weight of importance put on knowing who you are and acting accordingly, a lot of people don’t know who they are anymore," says Brian Rosner, author of Known by God: A Biblical Theology of Personal Identity. In this episode, Brian tests the limits of the solitary journey to "find yourself", and explores the idea that we need others to define ourselves – including God. "There was a sense in which knowing God had been something that removed, from my point of view, futility,” Brian says. “It gave me a sense of purpose and direction." --- Brian Rosner’s book

An atheist, a Taliban leader, and a teenager fighting cancer respond to the Bible. --- "At the heart of one of the most violent regimes the world has known, there was someone who was wanting to read the Bible but had never had the opportunity." The Bible first made its mark on Amy Orr-Ewing’s life through her then-atheist father. He was told that the only reason he should become a Christian is because it’s true. "But my dad thought religion is about superstition and wish fulfilment - truth and God are opposite categories." He eventually came to change his mind, but he taught Amy that she would have to make up her own. "Growing up in Britain as a Christian, I was always the only churchgoer in my class at school," Amy says, "there was a tremendous amount of peer pressure to disbelieve." At 15 years of age, Amy was diagnosed with cancer - an experience that clarified some of her questions about faith, Jesus, and the Bible.  "Here was an opportunity to vocalize what I was feeling. Frustration with God, questions,

Why the world needs refugee organisations - both secular and religious - to work together for good. --- "There’s also this implicit assumption [in Western societies] that religion is somehow the source of all conflict. What that forgets is that religion is often also a source of peace - it’s an inspiration for people to engage in peace-building activities." According to the UN, an unprecedented 65.6 million people around the world have been displaced, of them 22.5 million have official refugee status, and of those, half are under the age of 18. The numbers are staggering - and the work of nations and organisations that help and support refugees all around the world is monumental. Erin Wilson is Associate Professor of Religion and Politics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and one of the editors of The Refugee Crisis and Religion: Secularism, Security and Hospitality in Question. The book details the ways in which the current global refugee crisis intersects with important but largely neglecte