Life & Faith

Marilynne Robinson on the beauty, ingenuity and tragedy of being an exceptional human. --- The human brain is the most complex object known to exist in the universe. This is the thought that Marilynne Robinson begins many of her classes with. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and acclaimed essayist is a Professor at the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop. "I want to encourage my young writer...

How one couple found love, peace and hope, while seeking asylum in Australia. --- "With courage let us all combine." This is the theme for Refugee Week in Australia. It’s a phrase taken from the second verse of the Australian national anthem, a verse that also includes these words: "For those who've come across the seas, we've boundless plains to share." It’s not hard to see a disconnect between t...

Our literature is not as diverse as our streets, schools, playgrounds and offices. --- "I grew up in India and now I have Australian citizenship; and I feel like I’m Indian and Australian, I don’t feel like I have to choose. I feel I am a migrant, but I also feel at home here." Roanna Gonsalves is the author of The Permanent Resident , a collection of short stories about the migrant experience in...

The number of people who have "no religion" is rising in the West – but what does this mean? --- While statistics suggest that religion is in decline across most of the West, being irreligious is perhaps more complex than it seems. In the UK, for example, only 25 per cent of people who claim to have “no religion” are atheists or agnostics – but even within this group there is a mix of spirituality...

There’s sadness and hope on the long road towards Aboriginal recognition and reconciliation. --- "He said to me, 'never forget you’re an Aboriginal, but do the best you can in a white man's world'. So that’s what I’ve tried to do. With the help of the Lord Jesus." Every year, National Reconciliation Week celebrates the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. The theme for 2...

An ex-con’s journey from prison, to a stint in the Army, to holding High Anglican Mass in London. --- "I was never an angel, that’s for sure. I started to steal … but I wasn’t very good at it. I constantly got caught." At just 15 years of age, Reverend Paul Cowley found himself in prison - and after his short stint, just under 12 months, Paul knew he never wanted to return. So, when he was release...

The illustrious life of Dorothy L. Sayers - novelist, woman of letters, and public Christian. --- "… a woman is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences, and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual. What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person." Words...

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 bec...

The Corbetts arrived in Everton ready to fight losing battles - but they’re winning some too. --- "Listen to me. You’re grown-ups. This is bad. You are being bad unless you do something about it." The words of a seven-year-old kid living in Everton, Liverpool. He had just drawn a picture of an empty plate, with the outline of Africa and Liverpool over the top of it. "Because I’ve heard kids in Afr...

Nothing is off limits when it comes to social media - not even religion and politics. --- "On social media, you get a mix of baby pictures, sentimental quotes, and Instagram photos. So it can be kind of jarring to see someone who has a very impassioned point of view that you vehemently disagree with." They say you shouldn’t talk about politics or religion in polite company. But with social media,...

To sacrifice for Queen and country is one thing, but would you lay down your life for an enemy? --- "Australian service men and women serve for their Queen, their country and their comrades. They do that willingly, and they do that well. But Christ laid down his life for his enemies, which is just an incredible thing to do when I think about it." As a member of the Australian Defence Force, and a...

It’s often said that religion is a cause of war - but can it also be a cause of peace? --- "Part of what makes religion such a powerful motivator in support for peace, is also what makes it a powerful motivator in support for violence." An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This principle of retaliation, that a person who has injured another should be penalized in a similar way, and to a similar...

Why the Bible is more than a religious text - it’s a book that gives meaning and unites people. --- "The Bible can be a place of unity between Christians and Muslims, Christians of different hues, Christians and non-Christians … it’s a public book around which we can unite." In the face of scepticism and ignorance in the West, and religious conflict elsewhere in the world, the Bible remains the be...

As Mongolia turned from communism to democratic rule, this man turned from atheism to faith. --- "In Communism, you’re basically living under fear. But whatever I read from the Bible, it gave me this sense of freedom from fear." When Batjargal Tuvshintsengel was nine years old, he was recruited to read Communist propaganda on Mongolian state radio. Then, in the early 90s, as Mongolia was becoming...

Phil Camden has Motor Neurone Disease but hope lights his path in the shadow of death. --- "It’s strange because for the first little while you’re thinking: at least we found out what it is, we can work on it . But then they tell you there’s no known cause or cure – and you’ll probably be dead within 27 months." When Phil Camden was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, he was told that he would g...

Showing love to the vulnerable, drunk and disorderly on the streets of Melbourne. --- “I was never good around drunks. I’d rather just walk the other way, dodge around them and have nothing to do with them. Since I’ve started doing the Street Pastor walks, I’ve grown. I’ve learnt that they’re just ordinary people who have either made a mistake or have gone too far and they need help – and we’re in...

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 t...

Putting aside the politics to talk about the real struggles some men and women face after abortion. --- "It’s usually surrounded with secrecy, it’s not something they talk about casually like they would that they’re going to go get a breast implant and there’s a bad job done or a botched surgery. Because of the shame that a lot of the women do feel, it’s not inherently experienced as an empowering...

A Jesuit priest finds himself in an unexpected role as consultant on a Martin Scorsese film. --- "What would you do for them? Pray? And get what in return? Only more suffering. The suffering only you can end, not God. I prayed too, Rodrigues, it doesn’t help. Go on. Pray. But pray with your eyes open." These are the words of Father Christavao Ferreira from the film Silence . Based on a novel by Sh...

Facing the death penalty, Myuran Sukumaran chose to create art that pointed to redemption and hope. --- "This is a story of redemption. This is a story about a person who, under really extreme circumstances, changed the way that he was living his life." On April 29, 2015, Myuran Sukumaran was executed by firing squad in Indonesia. He had been arrested 10 years earlier for smuggling heroin, and was...

Alister McGrath, one of the world’s leading historians of science, explodes some common assumptions about science, religion, and atheism. --- "I am very skeptical about these simplistic arguments that we only believe what we can prove. It’s not right. We can prove shallow truths, but the deep truths which give life meaning and value – they lie beyond proof." Alister McGrath, the Chair of Science a...

An unwed mother-to-be. A husband contemplating a quickie divorce. A host of glorious angels visit a group of lowly shepherds. A star appears and a group of wise men follow it. Laurel Moffatt tells us why the Nativity story still surprises, and delights, her today – and how she turned it into a play. “It’s a whole series of scenes that are just bizarre and delightful and kind of hilarious and wonde...

Finding your soulmate at a sing-a-long. Escaping domestic violence. The dedication of a chair. The tense world of succession planning. These are just some of the wonderful – and sometimes quirky – stories of life and faith we’ve gathered from the Australian Outback. Journey with us to Broken Hill as we speak to the Flying Padre and the Founder of the Living Desert Indigenous Church, as well as som...

Persecution – suffering and dying for what you believe in – is something that Christians have faced from the start – from the days of being thrown to the lions! Today, Christians in Northern Iraq have abandoned their homes and fled for their lives, or they have been captured and killed by ISIS. Nik and Ruth Ripken have set out to uncover why people hold on to their faith in places where they face...

When people say that we live in a secular society, what does that really mean? In this episode of Life & Faith, we explore the original meaning of secularism and track its development to the present day. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson kicks us off with a few reflections on what people really think about religion. Legal philosopher Iain Benson, whose writing on secularism has been...