Life & Faith

A candid conversation with Former Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, on career, politics, religion and leadership. On this episode of Life & Faith, Simon Smart and Tim Costello are joined by Malcolm Turnbull, the 29th Prime Minister of Australia. His recent autobiography, ‘A Bigger Picture’, is a riveting read following Turnbull’s life from his childhood in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, his colour...

We honour another class of “essential” workers during COVID: teachers.  “What I’d really love parents to know is that most of us, we’re invested in your children. This is such an important job because you’re developing human beings. We’re here to develop the most important thing in your life, your child.” Nigel was discouraged from becoming a teacher, but discovered it was the right fit for him. S...

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...

Author Tom Holland explores the revolutionary and   enduring influence of Christianity.  British writer, Tom Holland, has written many books, both fiction and non-fiction, on subjects ranging from dinosaurs to medieval history to vampires!  His latest book Dominion: The making of the Western Mind is a 500-page masterpiece. It's a story of how we came to be what we are, and how we think the way tha...

Renowned Australian author Christos Tsiolkas talks about the personal experiences that lead him to choose early Christianity and the Apostle Paul as the subject of his latest book Damascus. In this episode of Life & Faith Christos Tsiolkas, author of provocative and disturbing stories like ‘The Slap’ and ‘Barracuda’, speaks with Simon Smart about his latest novel, Damascus. Tsiolkas grew up in a G...

Women excel in one of two habits of successful entrepreneurs. But they’ll need guts for the other. “As one of my mentors says, ‘“When you come to the edge of mystery and you don’t quite know what to do, there’s like a little thing in you that can jump.’” Michaela O’Donnell Long graduated from college in the middle of a recession. No jobs were available, so she and her husband founded Long Winter M...

In 2020 more than ever, they’re everyone’s heroes: a celebration of the highs and lows of nursing.  Vasiliki planned to be a mechanical engineer, but put down the wrong code when she filled out her uni application. Lucy, who’s been a midwife for 20 years, fell in love with the idea of nursing when she was just six years old. Jesse has just started out his nursing career - in the middle of a global...

Possibilities and dangers from corona chaos. Will we emerge from the Corona crisis with stronger bonds and more united communities? What will it take to preserve solidarity and the re-ordering of our priorities? In this episode of  Life & Faith  Simon Smart checks in with Tim Costello as to how he is surviving ISO. Simon and Tim then talk to Tim Dixon, enduring Covid19 lockdown in London. Tim is t...

We might be “all in this together” but what does the Covid19 crisis mean for those on the margins of society? In this Life & Faith Simon Smart and Tim Costello discuss the impact of the Coronavirus on individuals and communities. Will it change our priorities and what will be the lasting impact? Tim considers the very real and detrimental effect of the economic downturn on the charity sector. And...

This Easter, we encounter incredible stories of forgiveness in the face of unimaginable suffering. Early in 2020, Australians everywhere were shaken by the awful news of the tragic death of four children - three siblings and one cousin - in Western Sydney, mown down by an alleged drunk driver while on their way to buy ice cream one summer evening.  But what struck everyone was the response of the...

A story of world records, and navigating a neurotypical world of work. “I used to think why are we so similar and yet our lives have turned out quite differently? I thought that she was just introverted at the time. Now, looking back, I can see how some of her autistic challenges were not being properly addressed, not being properly understood … I could see a missed opportunity for people like her...

Memoir, biography, and even confession: when we tell our stories, just who do we hope is listening? “We feel this impulsion to tell our story, to share our story, to bear witness to the mystery that is us, and to give it away. And that itself is a deeply risky venture, because it makes us so vulnerable.” What are we doing when we tell the stories of our lives?  In this Life & Faith , Simon Smart a...

It takes a village to raise not just a child, but also the teen parent of one. Bernadette Black fell pregnant at 16. Her dad had a public meltdown, but Bernadette decided to have the baby. One day, she flicked through a baby name book and looked up the meaning of her own name. Bernadette, it turned out, meant ‘brave as a bear’. “And I thought, “You know what? That’s just what I have to be. Somehow...

A poet tells the story of his faith unravelling - and being woven together again.  “One of my favourite sayings in the world, ’The fish in the bowl doesn’t know that it’s wet’ - that helped me to look back upon the fishbowl that I’d been swimming in.”  Performance poet Joel McKerrow’s recently published book Woven is not a book of cookie-cutter spirituality. It’s not a book of answers, or programm...

Sarah Williams explains how the mother of modern feminism fell off the pages of history. --- After her death in 1906, Josephine Butler was described as one of the “few great people who have moulded the course of things”. (For the record, she was also described by peers as “the most beautiful woman in the world”.) Yet how many of us have heard of her? A bit too feminist for later Christians, a bit...

How many people can say they work undercover to bring justice to some of the world’s most vulnerable people? --- “I thought I was prepared for this work, but I really wasn’t. My three years in India ... hardest three years of my life, of all the things I've done, including being in the Marines. But it's three years that I wouldn't trade for anything. You couldn't have paid me a million dollars a y...

Life & Faith brings you some personal snapshots from Australia’s bushfire crisis.  --- “The refuge was very hot, it was very smoky, and there was no power. It’s nighttime - or at least the sun should have been rising, but it looked like nighttime … At one stage a number of us heard dull thud explosions in the distance. They were gas bottles - houses - so symbolising another house had just gone up....

A Hidden Life, Jojo Rabbit , and their stories of ordinary people resisting the evils of Nazism. It’s Oscar season, and among the list of nominees you’ll find A Hidden Life and Jojo Rabbit , which ended up winning an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay . Stylistically, the films couldn’t be more different: A Hidden Life is Terrence Malick’s lyrical retelling of an Austrian farmer’s refusal t...

Yoga, mindfulness, and detox diets: religion for those who’d never be caught dead in a church? “Not everyone who goes to yoga is a spiritual seeker, but there is a lot of it (in yoga). I think yoga can make you start thinking about things, but it’s not really enough to fill that hole.” Brigid Delaney is a columnist with The Guardian and the author of Wellmania: Misadventures in the Search for Well...

The CPX team bring you a highlights reel of the year that was. --- Fear, murder, Masterchef, Aboriginal Moses, the moon: Simon, Justine, and Natasha sit down to mull over some of the stuff they got to talk about this year.    In this end-of-year special, the team narrow down their favourite anecdote; share some stories behind the stories they brought you; and nominate their most uncomfortable and...

Nobody ever remembers women writers - but playwright Jo Kadlecek wants to change that.  --- “In Parker’s case, I think creativity was a burden. I genuinely think she didn’t know what to do with it. She had these great outlets - helping start The New Yorker magazine, writing for Vanity Fair and for Vogue , writing poetry, being a theatre critic - but nothing fed her soul. It was a sad existence. Sh...

Community , transcendence and the music of U2.   --- "Music's powerful. It's probably in all of us more than we realise. You'll be humming (the songs), you'll be thinking about them. So there is something I think is special about that art form, that it touches something very human and spiritual in everybody. And, I don't know, there's a great power that music has than maybe even watching opera, or...

Almost a quarter of young Australians struggle with their mental health, says Mission Australia. --- “I think my generation, everyone wants to have it all together. If you’re at university, you need to be working a really busy job, you need to be doing really well, you need to have a social life. And so then when you’re not okay, people are shocked and there’s a bit of shame attached to not being...

As a lawyer, Senator, then priest, Father Michael Tate has thought long and deeply about vocation. --- “Every time a new Australian takes the citizenship pledge, that’s a great moment for me, because I wrote it.”  Michael Tate has had many careers. In this episode of Life & Faith, he tells Natasha Moore about several transitions in his life: from a natural conservative to a staunch Labor Party mem...

The McAlpine brothers have spent their lives navigating their similarities - and differences - and those of their various “tribes".    ---   "The twin thing is very important. And I understand that with my wife, who's also a twin - she has the same relationship with her twin: there's someone who's more important than your wife to you, who's your twin brother. And that's a funny concept to have, an...