Life & Faith

One of the defining narratives of the twenty-first century is the threat of global terrorism. It dominates the news cycle and is one of our society’s greatest fears. According to a recent Pew study, Australians consider the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) as the global threat they are most concerned about – 69 per cent of people responded that they were “very concerned” about ISIS, ahead of climate change and the economy. This response means that for most Australians, terrorism isn’t a vague global threat that we perceive from afar – it’s real, frightening and near. In this episode, we look at how terrorism affects people in our everyday lives.  Richard Shumack talks about what it’s like to live alongside Muslim people and being a part of their community. “Some people told me they hated me,” Richard says. Some of the people he worked with were grateful for his friendship, while others were bitter about their circumstances. Nevertheless, Richard says his first response is always compassion. Profes

“It’s a mixed blessing to see yourself in your kids,” says Geoff Broughton, the rector at Paddington Anglican Church in Sydney. He’s only half joking. As an adopted child, the first time he met a ‘blood relative’ was at the birth of his son. Watching his son grow up and take on his likeness stirred something in Geoff that he had never felt before – a desire to find out about his birth family. By age 40, Geoff realized that he had to make a decision. He went from saying, “I don’t need to know”, to asking “Do I never want to know?” If he waited another decade, it might be too late. In this episode, Geoff shares his story of reconnecting with his birth family and what his experience as an adoptee has taught him about the theological concept of adoption. Also, we consider the fact that Geoff’s positive experience of adoption is not what many children in his situation face. In Australia, 2013-14 figures show that more than 43,000 children were placed in out of home care. Compared to the 317 adoptions f

Nothing in life is certain but death and taxes. But if death is something we all face at some point, and grief is part of the human experience, we talk about them surprisingly little. In fact, it’s something we don’t necessarily do all that well as a culture. “The word death is not pronounced in New York, in Paris, in London, because it burns the lips,” wrote the poet Octavio Paz in 1961. His words still ring true today.  Some of us, like musician Phil Davidson, eventually find a way to deal with sorrow after the loss of a loved one. “I could hear the foghorns of the ships that were leaving Belfast harbour and going out to sea,” Phil says about that night after he last saw Agnes, his grandmother, alive.  “I was lying there just thinking about my grandmother, I could hear these foghorns, and I’m thinking these ships are kind of all lost at sea. I thought that’s a great kind of analogy of how I was feeling – I felt really lost at sea at that point, but she was also lost at sea as well.” So he got up a

“I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” You’ve probably said that before, or heard someone say that before. But Ken Wytsma won’t say it. And if he hears it, he won’t believe it. “Artistic ability is a talent some possess,” he writes in his latest book, Create Vs. Copy. “Creativity is a human trait.” In our fast-paced and rapidly changing world, it’s not uncommon to feel overwhelmed or anxious. According to Ken, creativity is one of the keys to break through the anxiety and flourish in leadership and life.  “Imagination not only helps us see more clearly what is, but what should be,” Ken says.  In this episode, Ken explains why creativity is an important leadership quality, explores the connection between justice and imagination, and tells us why fairytales are not just stories for children – they’re for adults too. More info about Ken Wytsma: www.kenwytsma.com.  More info about The Justice Conference: www.thejusticeconference.com.au.  Subscribe to Life & Faith: www.bit.ly/lifeandfaithpodcast. 

The Bible is the best-selling book of all time - today, over 100 million copies a year are either sold or given away for free around the world. It’s also had an immeasurable impact on the world, for better and for worse. In 2017, the Bible is getting its own museum. The Museum of the Bible is due to open in the middle of Washington DC, just a few blocks from the US Capitol and the Smithsonian, with a collection of more than 40,000 objects. What is the museum for? What will be in it? Why is it a good idea? Who should visit it and why? In this episode of Life & Faith, Simon Smart and Natasha Moore interview two of the key players in this process: Allen Quine, Vice President of International Relations for the Museum of the Bible, and David Trobisch, director of the collections, to get an idea of what the Museum of the Bible will look like. 

More than ever, left and right and ‘us and them’ seem like interminable divides, which makes it harder than ever to live productively alongside, and argue peaceably with, those with whom we disagree. What art is there to learning to disagree well, and what can Christianity offer in this regard? We speak to Scott Sauls, senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, and author of the book Jesus outside the lines: a way forward for those who are tired of taking sides.    

A Sydney siege survivor and the Anglican Dean of Sydney reflect on the ‘golden rule’ this Easter – love your neighbour as yourself.  “I honestly was freaking out. I thought I had a terrorist next to me.” Have you ever made a snap judgment based on how a person looked, or what a person was wearing? Kylie Beach was on a flight recently and the seat next to her was empty – but it wasn’t meant to be. Eventually, the flight attendants found the missing passenger and moved him back to his allocated seat.  “He was sitting a few rows back,” Kylie says, “and he was the stereotype of a Muslim-looking person.”  He was flustered, he was listening to voice recordings on his phone – he was not a terrorist. He just wanted to sit with his friend.  “If he had looked different, if he had been a white woman, I would just have not gone anywhere near terrorism.” Kylie Beach also happens to be Communications Director of Common Grace, a movement that seeks to connect people of Christian faith to social justice. At the time, she was

Almost all past US presidents have been openly religious, and close to half of them belong to the nation’s major Protestant denominations. “It’s always better to be something than nothing,” Dr David Smith says when it comes to presidential candidates expressing their faith. In this episode, Dr Smith explores the influence of religion in the 2016 Presidential primaries and beyond, and unpacks the complex relationship between faith and politics in the US. Dr David Smith is a Senior Lecturer in American Politics and Foreign Policy at the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre. More info about the US Studies Centre: www.ussc.edu.au Subscribe to Life & Faith: http://bit.ly/lifeandfaithpodcast

The Easter story, as it is typically told,starts with the death of Jesus on the cross and ends with the Resurrection. But what happened after? This was the question that screenwriter Paul Aiello and producer Patrick Aiello that sparked the idea for their latest movie, Risen.The story that unfolds is told through the eyes of Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), aRoman tribune who is investigating the disappearance of Jesus’ body.  “The Christian will know this story,chapter and verse,” Paul Aiello says, “but Clavius stands in for the modern man.” In this episode, Paul and Patrick Aiello talk about the writing process, casting Jesus, and why theResurrection is still an important story to tell. 

We want young people to have a healthy sense of themselves but artificially inflating their self-esteem, argue its detractors, is not the way to go about it. We speak to John Smith, author of Beyond the Myth of Self-esteem: Finding Fulfilment, and psychologist Collett Smart about where true self-worth might be found. 

The availability of online pornography has been called one of the biggest unconscious social experiments ever conducted. Research has shown that more than 90% of boys under the age of 16, and around 60% of girls, have visited a porn site online, and this exposure is having significant effects on the way that children and teenagers think about their own sexuality and relate to one another.  Liz Walker is one of Australia’s leading experts on the harm that pornography does to kids. She became addicted to pornography herself as a child, and is the founder of the Youth Wellbeing Project. She has just published a children’s book to help parents talk to their kids about the problem of pornography, called Not for Kids, which you can find at www.notforkids.info. This episode of Life & Faith addresses this all-but-silent public health crisis, and draws on interviews with a number of experts who gathered in February 2016 for a symposium on “Pornography and harms to children and young people” at the University

Simon Smart and Natasha Moore discuss some of the films nominated for the 2016 Oscars: The Big Short, Brooklyn, 45 Years, and Spotlight. Each of them talks about things we don’t really want to talk about - or offers viewers a moral dilemma to muddle through.

We discuss two myths of the modern age: a reliance upon pop evolutionary psychology that seeks to account for human behaviour via an appeal to our evolutionary past, and the ‘sex myth’ that links our individual worth and value to our bedroom antics.

Our first Life & Faith podcast for 2016 gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse into CPX’s new documentary about the good, the bad, and the ugly of Christian history. It’s called For the Love of God: How the Church is better and worse than you ever imagined. 

In light of a Church of England survey that found that as many as 4 in 10 British people don’t believe Jesus was a real person, historian John Dickson explains why the academy is in no such doubt that Jesus existed. We also discuss the meaning and significance of the Christmas story today – and why it absolutely matters that there was a baby in the manger.

If stories in the American news media are anything to go by, free speech is under assault on American college campuses. On this Life & Faith, we discuss this recent trend, as well as the banning of the Lord’s Prayer from UK cinemas, and explore the implications of excluding certain ideas from discussion.

Domestic abuse within the church dominated headlines early in 2015. On this Life & Faith we speak with Sandy Grant, who is heading up the Task Force to address Domestic Abuse within the Sydney Anglican Diocese, and speak with Barbara Roberts, survivor of domestic abuse, victim advocate, and author of a book on abuse and divorce within the church. If you are experiencing domestic abuse, we urge you to please seek help. Australian resources: If you are in immediate danger, ring 000. Ring the Respect Line for counselling, information and support 1800 737 732 or see www.1800respect.org.au You can also visit Safe Steps Family Violence Response Centre online at www.safesteps.org.au or call 1800 015 188 Visit Barbara Roberts’ blog A Cry for Justice for information, education, and stories particularly relevant to a Christian context www.cryingoutforjustice.com

On the occasion of the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, we talk about modern slavery with Jenny Stanger, National Manager of the Salvation Army’s initiative The Freedom Partnership, and explore slavery in the biblical context with John Dickson, historian and co-founder of the Centre for Public Christianity. For more information on The Freedom Partnership, see endslavery.salvos.org.au    

In The Life of I: The New Culture of Narcissism Anne Manne has written a sobering, and at times depressing, account of the way that our hypercompetitive, capitalist culture is making us more narcissistic: eager to seek our own interests at the expense of others. In this podcast she talks about what narcissism is, its negative effects, and what role religion and politics might have to play in producing empathy—what she regards as the antidote to narcissism. 

Awarding winning journalist Michael Ware talks to CPX about his film “Only the Dead.” This documentary recounts Ware’s many years reporting on the very front lines of the war in Iraq and describes being confronted not only with human darkness in those he filmed but that within himself as well. Ware saw some of the best and also the worst that human beings are capable of. Despite coming very close to losing his life many times and suffering the associated trauma of war, Michael Ware has managed to return home to build a life in Australia. He is forever changed, but able more than most, to recount the layers of complexity and tragedy that is the Iraqi war and its ongoing consequences.