Life & Faith

Dr Jenny Brown explains wellbeing and maturity in the context of your “family system”.  --- “One of the distinctives about Bowen family systems theory is, it isn't about people who have mental illness and people who don't. It's about all of us humans struggling with very similar issues. … There's not really this distinction between the expert who's got her life together and the client who is seeki...

Sociologist John Carroll unpacks the ongoing appeal of the Harry Potter series. ------- Nearly a quarter of a century after the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone , J. K. Rowling’s story of the “boy who lived” continues to capture the imaginations of children - and adults.  The Harry Potter effect, it’s claimed, got kids reading again, got kids’ books selling at greater v...

Unwinnable wars, fear, discrimination: we sift the long-term impact of the September 11 attacks. ------ It’s been twenty years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, when terrorist group Al-Qaeda flew two passenger jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City. Another plane hit the Pentagon in Washington DC, while a fourth plane – headed, it is thought, for the US Capitol...

Andrew McUtchen on the challenge and joy of the most important job he’ll ever have. ------ Andrew McUtchen is the co-creator of The Father Hood, an online community that supports Dads to take on the challenge of being the best Dad they can be. Father to three girls aged 6,7 and 8, along with an older stepdaughter, Andrew believes this is the best time in history to be a Dad.  Expectations of fathe...

In a world obsessed with success, plenty of us feel a compulsive need to achieve. ------ We tell ourselves - and our kids - to try hard and never give up, for this is the secret to success. But by the time young people finish school, many students find it hard not to link their efforts and abilities with their identity and their self-worth with their achievements.  CPXer Justine Toh’s book Achieve...

Journalist Greg Sheridan makes a compelling case for reading the Bible book by book and finding within those pages a Jesus as intriguing as he is attractive and compelling.    ------ When journalist Greg Sheridan outed himself as Christian with his book “God is Good for You”, a friend challenged him to follow it up with something that would illuminate the living Jesus of the gospels. That was enou...

Life & Faith marks a milestone, and gets a bit nostalgic.  ------ This week is the 400th episode of Life & Faith!  In this episode, Simon Smart, Justine Toh, and Natasha Moore get together (remotely) to swap stories of their favourite episodes, tech fails, meeting their heroes, and memorable surprises over the years of making the podcast. They also manage to cajole producer Allan Dowthwaite, the m...

80 years on, Life & Faith charts the ripple effects of a much-loved book. ------ “I got out a yellow pad, cause I’m a lawyer, and I would have two columns – there is a God, there isn’t a God; Jesus Christ is God, he isn’t God – I went down that, and I went through the whole rational process and I thought to myself wow … I’ve never gone into a courtroom and argued against a mind like this .” On Wed...

You’re 30 and feeling meh about life. Bridie Jabour, The Guardian ’s opinion editor, knows your pain. ------ On New Year’s Day, 2020, Bridie Jabour, The Guardian ’s opinion editor, published a column about millennial malaise: being in your 30s and somewhat dissatisfied with your situation in life.  She’d attended a few dinners where women around her age were facing varied challenges: relationship...

The wrestle with busyness, productivity, balance, and tech easily becomes the story of our lives. --- “I don't like work-life balance. I think that it implies that work is a different thing from life. And I think that if we're doing work right, it's a part of life.” Dr Jenny George cares deeply about people’s well-being at work. She is CEO of Converge International, which provides Employee Assista...

Michael Wear talks about faith, politics and having Barack Obama as a boss.  ------ Michael Wear worked in the Obama White House for 3 ½ years in the office of Faith Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships before heading out and leading religious outreach on President Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012 and then directed religious affairs for the president’s second inaugural. He is an expert on the...

The plight of the Tamil family from Biloela makes us ask: could we do refugee politics differently? ------ The story of the medical evacuation of four-year-old Tharnicaa Murugappan to a Perth hospital from detention on Christmas Island has struck a nerve in the Australian community. Tharnicaa, her sister Kopika, and their parents Priya and Nades are facing deportation to Sri Lanka after Priya and...

How do you raise kids who see the world’s problems, and believe they can do something about it? ---  “I guess I'm concerned that kids are becoming depressed and overwhelmed by the big problems that they see in the world. And I think if we just leave it at that, they will grow up with a worldview that says, ‘The world's a wreck. There's nothing I can do in it. I might as well just watch Netflix.’ W...

A former Yale professor on the clever but morally clueless students pursuing an elite education.  ------ In 2014, William Deresiewicz’s book Excellent Sheep: The miseducation of the American elite and the way to a meaningful life became an instant best-seller. The former Yale professor called out the way that elite American universities produced “excellent sheep”: clever, highly credentialled, and...

Mike and Steve Baird grew up as sons of prominent Australian politician Bruce Baird. Both recently moved from corporate roles into the not-for-profit sector. ------ Mike Baird had a successful career in banking before going into politics – eventually  becoming the 44th Premier of NSW. He returned  to banking after ten years in politics but recently moved to become CEO of HammondCare – a large Chri...

Think “scientific” and “creative” are opposites? Physicist Tom McLeish begs to disagree. --- “We forget, in science, that what we call the scientific method is really only the method for a tiny bit of science. It's the only bit of science that there can be a method for, which is testing out and checking our hypotheses when we've got them. The really crucial step in science is to get good ideas goi...

“As a junior doctor I went to Ethiopia to work with my aunt in the desert area, and we were just wandering around the desert with camels, treating people under trees and shrubs and things in 50-degree heat … You’d have to sleep with a guard with a gun because the hyenas get quite close, so every now and then you’d get woken up with a gunshot and this hyena yelping off in the distance. And then a b...

In the latest book from the CPX team, Mark Stephens asks: why is it so hard to think well? --- “Pretty much, this book is a recount of all of the ways that I’ve failed at thinking. So it’s really a confession from start to finish, because we’re all susceptible to this.” Thinking is one of the most basic and obvious things we do - but that doesn’t mean we do it well. Mark Stephens says it’s actuall...

Makoto Fujimura and the healing power of art and faith --------  Acclaimed artist Mako Fujimura talks to about the connection between beauty, art and faith. A particular emphasis is on the Japanese tradition of Kintsugi which repairs broken bowls, reassembling them with lacquer and then covering that in gold. The whole idea is that it takes broken things and not only restores them but makes them m...

Why do Austen’s novels inspire an almost religious fervour? --- “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight spot,” declares a character in the Kipling short story “The Janeites”, in which a group of soldiers in the trenches of World War I bond over their shared love of Austen. Today, Austen fandom approaches levels of devotion unrivalled by almost any other author. At the same time, her s...

If Jesus offers wisdom for how to live, how necessary is the “Son of God” stuff? --- “I do think Jesus is a much more challenging figure than he is often presented to be. And a lot of the challenges he presents I think Christians find it quite hard to really look square in the eye.” Julian Baggini is a philosopher, an atheist, and the author most recently of The Godless Gospel: Was Jesus A Great M...

An aerospace engineer and an astrogeologist discuss the whether and why of space exploration. --------- "For all these wonderful technologies, for all these incredible achievements that you see – rockets that can be reused, drones that can fly long missions, every discovery by the Hubble or the Kepler – there’s this realisation that when all the really, really good stuff comes along, I’m going to...

In light of the chaos surrounding the U.S. presidential election we ask John Stackhouse and Nathan Campbell to reflect on the place of Religion in Public Life ----------- The story of the politicising of faith in the U.S. has a long backstory. Some would say the storming the Capitol building in Washington was the culmination of a complex narrative that has roots in the backlash against 1960s liber...

The CPX team debrief on their latest reads, TV binges, and podcast discoveries. --- It may not surprise you to know that the nerds at CPX spend a lot of time inhaling the books, movies, podcasts, and binge-worthy TV series that shape and reflect our particular cultural moment - and debriefing on them around the proverbial office water cooler.  This week on Life & Faith, Simon, Natasha, and Justine...

The most famous witch hunt in history – and how it speaks to our moment. ---  “There were always personal issues at stake in Salem and, I think, in all witchcraft trials. We can talk about larger-scale issues like economic change or political conflicts, but witchcraft accusations always started out of conflicts between individuals.” Donald Trump may declare his impeachment(s) “the greatest witch h...