Life & Faith

A detective and a scholar tackle the question: why are we all so obsessed with crime stories? --- “When I was a child, not everything was a detective story. Now it is, on television. And it’s almost as if we all want to know, we want to know the big question: who did it??”  Judging by the perennial popularity of detective novels and crime shows, and the current wave of true crime podcasts, it’s not a stretch to call our culture murder-obsessed. Why are these stories so fascinating to us? Is there something wrong with us? It’s a topic writers have long been drawn to, in essays like George Orwell’s “Decline of the English Murder” and W. H. Auden’s “The Guilty Vicarage”. In this episode of Life & Faith, Natasha Moore speaks with literary scholar and theologian Alison Milbank about the hold these stories have over us – and also Jim Warner Wallace, who’s been dealing with the real thing for decades in his work as a cold case detective.  “When you knock on the door of the neighbour of a serial killer, they’re l

Sixty years ago, MLK declared “I have a dream”. As Australia votes on the Voice, we grapple with racism.  --- It’s been 60 years since Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr. ascended the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., declaring that “one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers – I have a dream today.”  More than half a century on from King’s dream, where are we in Australia on the vexed question of race relations?   In this episode of Life & Faith, we speak to fellow CPXer Max Jeganathan, who’s recently written about the Voice and his own experience of racism in Australia – according to him, the “least racist” country he’s ever lived in.   Max was born into a Sri Lankan Tamil family with close personal experience of the Black July riots of 1983, a government-sanctioned program of racial discrimination against minority Tamils. His family wound up in Australia as humanitarian refug

An award-winning Australian novelist shares her experience of grief, chronic pain, great joy – and the supernatural.   ---  “As I’ve travelled the world and talked to endless strangers and asked them, did they ever have an experience they couldn’t explain? … I would have asked that question many, many hundreds of times. There’s been nobody who said no.”  49% of Australians say they never have a spiritual conversation. We think of ourselves as a very secular people – yet behind labels like “no religion” and “spiritual but not religious” lies a rich and varied (and sometimes strange) story.   Heather Rose is the award-winning author of Museum of Modern Love and Bruny – and now, the spiritual memoir she says she didn’t mean to write, Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here.  Heather’s life has been punctuated by encounters with the supernatural and intense spiritual experiences. In this conversation, she talks about nearly becoming a Buddhist nun, participating in a Native American Sun Dance, the beauty of her father’s Ch

Rob Stokes reflects on the joys and challenges of his political career, as well as his latest challenge – solving homelessness.   --- Simon Smart speaks with ex-politician Rob Stokes about public service and the most satisfying aspects of his life in politics. Stokes gives an honest account of not only the best aspects of being able to “get things done” but also the frustrations of compromise, the exhausting demands and the life of a politician. Ultimately Stokes encourages would-be political operatives to dive in with an attitude of service and sacrifice and urges us all to be more engaged in the political process.   His latest project aims to tackle homelessness, a challenge Stokes is remarkably upbeat and energised about.      Explore:  Faith Housing Alliance  

This week we take on a topic most of us want to avoid and find it surprisingly life-giving.   --- Sydney Morning Herald opinion editor Chris Harrison faced death as a teenager and lived to tell the tale. Listeners will find his account of returning to the sports field where, after being hit with cricket ball, he was clinically dead for two minutes, both moving and confronting.   This week we hear from Chris about that experience as well as from Marianne Rozario, the co-author of a report that was conducted in the UK into attitudes to death and dying. Rozario explains the way our feelings about death, dying and the memorialisation of those who have passed, have changed (and how they have stayed the same), and what all this suggests about us as human beings.   Justine and Simon are left to consider the way we process death and the loss of those we love and where we might find hope in the face of the harsh reality that is true of every life.   Explore:  Chris Harrison: “"I was clinically dead for 2 minutes. This

This highly acclaimed, speculative novel tackles the mind-body problem, and the mystery of consciousness.  --- If given the choice, would you agree to be uploaded to an entirely digital existence: freed from death, pain, and suffering – because freed from the body? Or would you remain human on a dying planet?  That’s the thought experiment behind Grace Chan’s speculative novel Every Version of You, a book that fleshes out our anxieties and fears – and also, desires – about technology and how it affects what it means to be human.  In Chan’s vision of the future, Australia in the 2080s has been ravaged by climate change. With the physical world in breakdown, people spend more and more time in Gaia, a digital paradise. But then the option to be uploaded to Gaia – indefinitely – becomes a reality. What will Chan’s characters choose – and what would you?   In this episode of Life & Faith, Justine Toh interviews Grace Chan about her novel, the winner of the University of Sydney People’s Choice Award at the NSW

Scholar and peacemaker Riad Kassis, from the perspective of a region in crisis, calls all of us to hope and generosity.   ---  “We talk about peace in our region; we have a greeting that says, peace be upon you, and we respond, and be upon you as well. But it is just a greeting. We would like to see it in practice.”   When Riad Kassis was a teenager, he and his family left their home in Lebanon during a civil war and took refuge next door, in Syria. These days, living back in Lebanon not far from the Syrian border, the situation is reversed: around 2 million refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war are now living in Lebanon, a country with a total population of 5 million.   This is just one of the crises faced by Lebanese people: economic collapse, the wake of the terrible explosion in Beirut in 2020, the pandemic of course, and the recent earthquake in the region have caused continual turbulence and hardship.   This week on Life & Faith, Dr Kassis describes what life is like in the midst of continual crisis

How the “invisible hand” of the market relies on the critical – and undervalued – work of care.   ---  “We need to put care at the centre of the Australian economy.”  Before Sam Mostyn headed up the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce, advising the Federal Government on ways to improve women’s economic equality, she gave a blistering address to the National Press Club about the long-ignored contribution of care – and the women who were mostly expected to do it – to national wellbeing.   Mostyn gave that address in late 2021 after months of lockdown, during which women did disproportionately more housework and childcare than men. Beyond individual households, feminised care industries full of “essential workers” – nurses, teachers, childcare workers, and aged care staff – also shouldered an extra load caring for vulnerable people through the pandemic.   Both kinds of work make up the care economy, or the paid and unpaid work of keeping people alive and well. It’s powered by women, and it’s typically taken for

The CPX team freaks out about AI, explores stories of “efficiency” run amok, and probes our tech utopias.    --- The apocalypse will be ... boring.  Or so says Charlie Warzel, tech journalist for The Atlantic. He means that AI won’t put you out of a job or take over the world, so much as overstuff your inbox and give you more mind-numbing tasks to complete.  Other people in the know about AI are less optimistic. Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather” of AI who resigned from Google in May, Sam Altman, the CEO of the company behind ChatGPT, and others have sounded the alarm: AI is progressing too quickly, no one knows exactly how it works, and without careful regulation it will upend life as we know it.   There are a lot of unknowns where technology is concerned. One thing we do know, though, is it makes for great TV, and stories and books.  In this edition of Seen & Heard, the CPX team debriefs on what they’ve been watching and reading.   Natasha takes us through the twists and turns of Amazon Prime’s Mrs Davis,

Jo Swinney grew up in family committed to environmental care and community. Her parents’ efforts to revitalise a small piece of land in Portugal eventually spawned an international family of organisations committed to conservation of the natural environment.          --- In this wide-ranging discussion, Jo Swinney talks to Simon Smart about growing up in a commune-type existence in Portugal where her English parents were committed to conservation and fostering biodiversity. And also community.  Jo left for boarding school in the UK when she was 13 and live a nomadic existence for many years before settling into marriage and family in England. The smells and sounds of her childhood in Portugal never left her and nor did her commitment to hospitality and creation care.   This is a conversation of touching honesty about family, friendship and the things that sustain us when tragedy strikes.  --- Explore: A Rocha Books by Jo Swinney A Place at The Table: Faith, hope and hospitality Home: The quest to belong   

Can Australia’s “dreaming beauty” – our Indigenous languages – be reclaimed? Meet some people who say a joyful yes.   ---   250 years ago, hundreds of languages were spoken across this continent; today, only about 3 percent survive.   What happened in between is a familiar and harrowing story of dispossession – of land, lives, and culture – including a story of linguicide, or the deliberate killing of language.   Is it possible to revive a language that has been long dormant – that has “gone to sleep on country”, as Charmaine Councillor, a Wardandi-Balladong woman heavily involved in the revival of the Noongar language of southwestern WA, puts it?   In this bumper episode of Life & Faith, Charmaine and her Yamatji colleague Roslyn Khan describe what their language means to them, what the process of learning or relearning it has been like, and how they go about reviving Noongar – including by translating the Bible.   “It’s like when you’re riding a bike for the first time, and you’ve got your training whee

Nicholas Spencer insists the history of the relationship between science and religion is infinitely more interesting than the myths would have us believe.   --- Most things you ‘know’ about science and religion are myths or half–truths that grew up in the last years of the nineteenth century.  Nick Spencer takes these myths on in his comprehensive book, Magisteria: the entangled histories of science and religion. The history of science and religion is complex. It’s a story of religion at times inspiring scientific discovery and endeavour, and at other times stifling it.   And it’s a deeply human story that remains potent today as we continue to face the profoundly important question: “What is the human being?” And “Who gets to say?”   --- Explore  Nicholas Spencer, Magisteria: The entangled histories of science and faith  Nick Spencer Darwin and God  Nick Spencer Atheists: the origin of the species  Nick Spencer CPX’s Richard Johnson Lecture, “Where did I come from?: Christianity, secularism and the individua

A tender conversation about the start of life, the end of life, and quality of life.  --- 1 in 10 babies in Australia are born premature, and 15% of all babies will need some form of extra care at birth.   Today on Life & Faith, we venture into a place that will be unfamiliar to many – but all too familiar to some: the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU. Dr Annie Janvier is a neonatologist (she takes care of sick babies); she’s also a researcher and ethicist, thinking about difficult decisions doctors have to make, and trying to understand the perspective and experience of parents in the NICU.   And 17 years ago, she also became the mother of an extremely premature daughter. Violette was born at 24 weeks – and her mother discovered that knowing how a respirator works did not help her to be the mum of a baby on a respirator.   Annie shares some of the emotions that arise from being a parent in NICU; and some of the questions that arise – about life, death, disability, and meaning – for people in this si

“The Pill is a bad metaphysic”: Mary Harrington on says the pill has changed everything – and not really for the better. ---- “Is there something to be said for all of these things which I’ve been busy trying to dismantle? Because I’d taken it at face value that they were all just bad by definition.”  As Mary Harrington writes in her book Feminism Against Progress, she’s someone who has “liberalled about as hard as it’s possible to liberal”. In her 20s, she pursued maximum sexual freedom, non-hierarchical relationships, and communal forms of living. By the end of that decade, she experienced a “personal crash” that coincided with the global financial crisis. And she found she no longer believed in “progress”.  These days, Mary calls herself a reactionary feminist, one who is against “progress”. She disbelieves that we are steadily moving into a better and brighter future of freedom and human perfection. Neither does she believe that self-determination and liberation from every constraint is the path to that u

You have probably mucked things up once or twice in your life. Congratulations, you’re human. There’s hope for all of us in the Easter story. ---  This week, Simon Smart and Justine Toh tiptoe through the minefield of ‘guilt’, ‘sin’, and ‘morality’: three words and ideas that are offensive to the modern ear – no doubt partly due to the perception that Christians and the church have been all too judgmental of others.  The weighty, Christian baggage of these words aside – is there not something good about acknowledging the times we’ve hurt people and gotten things wrong? Simon and Justine discuss how The Picture of Dorian Gray, directed by Kip Williams for the Sydney Theatre Company, confronts viewers with the darkness of the human heart. And in discussing parenting fails and climate inaction, they explore the mismatch between the people we want to be and the people we actually are.  This episode of Life & Faith grapples with our human tendency to ‘muck things up’ – a sanitised version of author Francis Spu

On March 25, it’s Tolkien Reading Day: a day to enjoy all things Tolkien – including what makes The Lord of the Rings so beloved.  --- “… above all shadows rides the Sun”.   That’s a line from a song that the hobbit Samwise Gamgee sings to give him hope at a critical moment in J R R Tolkien’s epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings. Sam is stranded in the dark land of Mordor and Frodo, his master, has been captured. Their quest to destroy the one ring of power looks hopeless. But hope is not lost.   Kaitlyn Facista, who runs the online fan community Tea with Tolkien, says that this belief is what draws people to The Lord of the Rings: the hope that helps people persist through dark times.  On Tolkien Reading Day, observed on March 25 every year, Kaitlyn enjoys reading Tolkien’s writings along with other similarly devoted fans. The poem quoted above – “In Western Lands Beneath the Sun” – is a particular favourite.  In this interview with Life & Faith, Kaitlyn explains the significance of March 25 within the wor

Bruce Robinson knows more than most about the impact of suffering on human beings. But he also knows about resilience and joy in the face of life’s biggest challenges.    --- As a doctor, Professor Bruce Robinson has been on the front line of Tsunami-ravaged or earthquake-devastated poor regions of Indonesia. And as a lung specialist and expert in asbestos-induced cancer, he has had decades of experience breaking bad news to patients.   His book, Behind the tears – understanding, surviving and growing from suffering, is a practical guide to dealing with suffering – either our own, or that of someone we care about – in a positive, life-affirming way.   Here he shares hard won wisdom about what helps and what doesn’t and ways we can all prepare for the inevitability of grief and pain.    ---  Explore:  https://www.brucerobinson.com.au/suffering/ 

Cynthia Banham barely survived a brutal plane crash. She speaks about trauma, suffering, and hope.  --- It was supposed to be a routine assignment. Back in 2007, journalist Cynthia Banham was sent to Indonesia by the Sydney Morning Herald to cover a visit by then Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. But tragedy struck. The Garuda flight she was on crashed on landing at Yogyakarta International Airport. 21 people were killed. Cynthia survived but with terrible injuries, including a broken back and life-threatening burns. She wound up losing both her legs. It’s been a very long and painful road to recovery, one Cynthia has written about in A Certain Light: A memoir of family, loss and hope.   In the years since, Cynthia has become an academic, pursuing doctoral studies and a Masters in International Affairs. She also became a mum.   In this raw interview with Life & Faith, Cynthia talks about rebuilding her life after trauma, her hard questions about God and suffering, and what has given her hope

What our love affair with food reveals about us; and navigating a modern no-no: judging others. --- Life & Faith is 450 episodes and counting, and we’re about to hit a million downloads. We’re excited to mark the milestone – even we’ve forgotten all the things we’ve ever talked about.  That’s why we’ll occasionally dip into the Life & Faith archives this year and bring you two conversations from the vault.   This time, we’re hearing from chef Alex Woolley, Simon Smart and Justine Toh on the pleasures of eating, our love affair with food, and what feasting can tell us about the spiritual life.  After the break, we tackle a modern taboo: do not judge others. It’s a notion that comes to us from Jesus but has taken on a new life in our times – especially online, where people condemn each other all the time. Steve Liggins joins Simon and Justine to talk about a very human dilemma – why we hate judgemental attitudes, and yet are often guilty of them ourselves. 

Christopher Watkin is an expert in cultural theory – and thinks the Bible yields the best one we've got.  ---  “If all we think of when we hear the term critical theory is something like critical race theory, then we tend to think of ourselves as some sort of SWAT team parachuting down into society to deal with one particular spot fire, and then airlifting ourselves out at the end of it – without realising that there are lots of different ideas in culture that are connected with each other and that rely on each other and that sort of form an ecosystem. And in order to understand any particular part of it, you've got to see where it fits in the whole.”  Does the term “critical theory” or “cultural theory” make you nervous – or make your eyes glaze over? Christopher Watkin, a lecturer at Monash University and author of the book Biblical Critical Theory (and a CPX Associate), argues that theory isn’t just for academics, nor merely a political hot potato. He says it's about reading the world and everything in it