On the Way Podcast

The inordinate obsession with sex in Christian history and the recent toxic fixation of the church on issues around gender and sexuality has led to great shame, guilt and a lack of love and respect for our embodied experience and the gifts of sexual pleasure. It is also led to a suppression of healthy sexuality and a lack of conversation around what it means to have relationships of goodness and i...

St Paul has been often cast as an arch conservative. Douglas Campbell joins Dom, Peter and Sue to show how Paul has always been in the business of liberation. Douglas has devoted decades of his life to studying Paul and is determined to rescue him from his reputation as an authoritarian and recover the message of his writings as confrontingly, shockingly liberal and inclusive. In doing so, as this...

What would it mean if you were told from a young age that you needed to be sent away from parents, from home, from all that is familiar... because God required it? How do children understand such a sacrifice in the name of God, and how might it change their lives? The kind of thinking which led to such decisions reveals a great deal about the kind of god we worship and how we live. Dr John Chenowe...

Richard Holloway joins the podcast from Edinburgh to explore how the stories we tell ourselves create the rules we live by and the meaning we make of our existence. Richard tells some of his story as he looks at the narratives of the Judeo-Christian tradition and the way down the ages myth has morphed into certainties that have been destructive rather than liberating. How do we engage a rich and v...

Dr Janice McRandal joins the podcast to talk about relationships, family and gender norms in our culture and the misogyny that is present in our most personal social structures. Janice argues that unless feminism has a place in the home, in the everyday moments of our lives, there can be no feminism at all because the domestic is the political . At the heart of this conversation is a critique of t...

Dr Tripp Fuller, author, theologian and host of Homebrewed Christianity joins Peter, Sue and Dom from Edinburgh to talk about the big question of who is the one we call Jesus the Christ. What did God do in Christ that we couldn't do for ourselves? Tripp's latest book, Divine Self-Investment , explores an answer to that question that refuses to be confined to simplistic formulae but finds a place i...

On the Way has gone on the road to Toowoomba to celebrate the Season of Creation with The Rev'd Deb Bird during the Carnival of Flowers in the garden city. The Season of Creation restores the focus of our essential interconnectedness to all life on the earth and offers the opportunity to offer a response of lament, gratitude and hope in our sacred services and life of faith . This episode was reco...

What if life is an endless invitation? Rob Bell joins Peter, Dom and Sue to talk about the creative, life-giving work of Spirit, endlessly creating new forms and possibilities in the world. Rob is a speaker and author of ten books, including his latest, "Everything is Spiritual" where he explores his own faith journey and how ideas like connection, creation and the power of love have shaped his li...

Author and social researcher Hugh Mackay joins the podcast to delve into that most searching question, “Who am I, really?”  Peter, Dom and Sue join Hugh in conversation about his book, The Inner Self, exploring ways we hide from the truth about ourselves and find courage for the demands of love as we live into our true identity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dom, Peter and Sue catch up to chat about the way this time of crisis has been bringing into sharp focus the urgency of continuing to challenge the Christianity which has  throughout history been colonised by power structures and co-opted by empire. It seems that some of the veneer of "civilised society" has been stripped away, exposing the unholy alliance between church and power, ideology a...

The Rev'd Dr Sarah Bachelard joins Dom, Sue and Peter in a conversation about the creative possibilities of a contemplative life to ground us in the midst of uncertain times.  How do we find a way in times of anxiety to "be with what is", rather than try to resist what cannot be changed?  Join us as we explore the gifts of silence and stillness to help us to embrace the potentialities of...

Peter, Dom and Sue are joined by author and previous podcast guest, Jim Schirmer to talk about being the church in a time where we have to be disciples distanced from one another. What does it mean to be walking the way of the cross in a time of pandemic and to be resurrection people in a time of anxiety? Holy Week presents new challenges as we journey to the cross and the empty tomb in these days...

In the midst of the coronavirus crisis, what are healthy ways of responding? How do we find ways to be community and be the best humans we can be in a time of anxiety?  Like everyone else, Dom, Sue, and Peter are just coming to terms with the rapidly changing face of a pandemic. In this conversation we are joined by The Rev'd Dr Ann Solari, Deacon at the cathedral and GP who offers medical ca...

What is truth? Are our opinions and beliefs being driven by narratives of which we are only dimly aware? What is the role of good journalism in revealing current events and the stories of people we may never know but whose lives are connected with our own or our nation’s story? Peter Greste joins Dom, Peter and Sue to talk about that time in an Egyptian prison, the courage to insist on the f...

Is the West dying for a better story? In this special live podcast recorded at St John’s Cathedral, organisational psychologist Dr Neil Preston joins Dom, Sue and Peter to discuss whether the West has forgotten how to tell its story, and how the crisis of meaning can be traced to the loss of a shared narrative. If this is true, how can the loneliness of an individualistic culture be resisted...

We all carry with us the ego ideal of ourselves and the New Year can be a time when we put more energy into striving to live into that image. But there is also the part of ourselves which is far from our ideal and which we would all rather not face. What does it mean to encounter and make peace with our shadow- as an individual, a community or a nation? Dr George Trippe returns to the podcast to e...

In our final interview from the Byron Writers Festival, Dom Fay and Sue Grimmett are joined by Tim Costello to talk about the kind of faith that begets hope, leading us to live everyday lives of love in the ordinary but also in the challenging days before us both individually and as a society. This conversation speaks into the religious freedom debate, the history of ideas in the West, and how we...

Bruce Pascoe, author of Dark Emu , is popularly recognised as Australia’s most influential indigenous historian and responsible for challenging and revising established accounts of pre-colonial history that depicted Aboriginal people as ‘nothing more than spear-throwing nomads.’ Bruce joins the podcast at the Byron Writers Festival to talk about the ignored and suppressed history...

In the second of the series of recordings from the Byron Writers Festival, Jess Hill joins Sue and Dom to talk about domestic abuse and the systems that enable perpetrators. The conversation explores the frightening realities behind the statistics and how our communities can confront the fear and violence that is present in so many relationships. Jess Hill is an investigative journalist who has be...

Episode 40- On the Way: How did we get here? Politics, Democracy and Liberation with Jeff Sparrow In the first of this series of recordings from the Byron Writers Festival, Jeff Sparrow joins Dom and Sue to talk about the ideologies of our times that are driving popular political, cultural and religious rhetoric, and how we can reclaim our voice in truthful conversations and liberating community a...

How much of the way we practice our faith is imported? How much does our expression of faith reflect a church engaging with the land and embedded in indigenous culture? The Rev’d Glenn Loughrey, First Nations person and Wiradjuri man, joins Peter, Dom and Sue to explore how the church can break away from its colonial history and colonising structures and live into an expression of good news...

Have you ever wondered how faith might affect your everyday decisions about what you eat? Our food has an impact on not just our own bodies, but on all living things on earth, the environment and how we are able to share justly the resources of life. Professor David Clough joins Sue and Dom to talk about the impact of eating animals and animal products, what we need to know about meat and dairy pr...

Sometimes the most important thing we can do is tell our story, in all its messiness and vulnerability. John Rolley’s story travels the deep terrain of identity, vocation and belonging and captures poignantly the struggle of a man seeking a life of integrity and wholeness in cultures where that seemed impossible. This story shows how the search for belonging is the same journey as that to yo...

Music communicates in a language that is experienced more powerfully than the spoken word. John Bell joins Dom, Peter and Sue to explore the way music can powerfully shape and change not only our experience of worship, but also how we understand ourselves and God.  What do the songs we sing tell us about what we really believe and how we think we should live? John is a hymn writer, composer,...

What do William Shakespeare and the Church have in common? Perhaps it is to do with the big questions explored and in the way, at their best, they both address the human condition, hold a prophetic role in society and speak truth in both direct and mythological forms. Dr Rob Pensalfini joins the podcast to talk with Dom, Peter and Sue about some of these biggest questions, tracking the ways theatr...