Tim Winton talks to Life & Faith about his new novel Juice. Tim Winton is one of Australia’s most loved writers. He is also well-known as an environmental activist and defender of landscapes and fragile ecosystems. And now, as a grandfather to 6 children, he is clearly deeply concerned about what we might be leaving behind to them and those who come after them. His lates novel, Juice, is set in the distant future, a time when climate catastrophe has wreaked havoc on the globe....

Living out one’s commitments and beliefs is the most political thing we can do, says theologian and public commentator Michael Jensen. Politics, both here in Australia and around the world, feels increasingly existential as we angst over whether our political tribe, or the other side, will gain office. In this episode of Life & Faith, we get public commentator Michael Jensen to set us straight: how do we solve a problem like the ultimacy of our politics – the fact that it feels as though...

The US will soon choose its 47th president. Peter Wehner, former Republican insider, explains the national mood.  In the week before the 2024 US presidential election, perhaps the most consequential election in this year of elections, we hear from former Republican speechwriter and evangelical Peter Wehner on what has happened to the party he used to call his own. Wehner served in three Republican administrations. He explains how President Ronald Reagan’s vision of America as a “shining city...

Sarah Irving-Stonebraker makes a case for history as a key part of understanding who we are and where our lives find meaning. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker says we are living in an ahistoric age – where we are increasingly ignorant of the past and therefore less equipped to understand ourselves and those around us. In her latest book Priests of History: Stewarding the past in an ahistoric age, Sarah urges her readers to attend to history; to seek to understand the past – it's people and events....

Investigative journalist Nick McKenzie explains what drives him to risk huge amounts to expose injustice and corruption. Nick Mackenzie is a 14 x Walkley Award-winning investigative journalist who has uncovered some of the highest profile cases of corruption in recent Australian history. Nick has exposed the local mafia, Crown Casino’s links to criminal figures, political donations by Chinese interests, national security issues, foreign bribery by the Reserve Bank and other companies. Most...

Author Shankari Chandran believes storytelling may be our most powerful weapon in the search for hope, truth, empathy and justice.  Shankari is a Sri Lankan Thamil Australian author. Her third novel Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens won Australia’s most prestigious literary award, the Miles Franklin, last year. In this interview with Life & Faith, Shankari shares her story, her inspirations and the power of storytelling as a carrier of hope, an antidote to injustice and a catalyst for...

Research uncovers the secrets to thriving as individuals and communities.  What are the ingredients of a life that will help us to thrive as people? How do we go about cultivating those ingredients? What does it mean to truly flourish as a person? Policy makers are interested in these questions. So are educationalists. And as individuals it’s a topic that we increasingly seek answers to. People these days are very focused on wellbeing and what will aid or hinder that. Tyler VanderWeele’s...

In a money-hungry world that's focused on profits, ethical impact investing seeks to re-introduce compassion and benevolence to our system of buying, selling and money-making. Sam Richards is the Managing Director of Brightlight, an investment firm that seeks to do more than simply make money. Brightlight - along with a growing number of family offices and individual investors - seeks to use financial markets to improve social and environmental outcomes for real people in real communities. In...

Life & Faith producer, Allan Dowthwaite, takes over the studio to mark 500 episodes of amazing conversations. Allan Dowthwaite, CPX’s media director, normally runs the recording studio for the team. But in this special episode, marking twelve-and-a-half years of the podcast, he’s commandeered the mic as your personal guide to Life & Faith’s greatest conversations, organised into the following categories for your listening pleasure. Links are included to any episode you want to listen...

On the 24th anniversary of the Sydney Olympic Games, we look back at what made those games so special. Simon Smart and Mark Stephens ask what these kinds of events can tell us about who we are as human beings.  Former Olympics Minister Bruce Baird talks us through the hair-raising bid process and the joy of seeing the whole thing come together so well. Veteran sportswriter Greg Baum outlines what he found so special about Sydney 2000. And seven-time Paralympian Liesl Tesch recalls the buzz of...

Reconstructive surgeon Tertius Venter tells Life & Faith how his life changed forever when he saw how much he could impact the lives of desperate people. Dr Venter is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon who spends 8 months of every year volunteering his time to two charities helping the poorest people on the planet get surgery they’d have no hope of getting were it not for people like him. Over 20 years ago Tertius went on a mission to The Gambia in West Africa where a hospital ship was...

Trevor Cooling explains how educating the whole person lays foundations for the ‘life worth living’. Professor Trevor Cooling has spent a life time in education, in universities and also public and independent schools. Here he talks to Life & Faith about why teaching worldview is a crucial skill students need to learn as they engage in a pluralistic society. We discuss the true purpose of education, the lessons that are life-long and where religious education fits, even in a culture that...

What vision of a full and flourishing life can we offer the young men in our lives?  Justine Toh interviews Simon Smart about his new book The End of Men? Simon wrote this book after observing that boys and men are struggling in many ways—socially, emotionally, and at school. Boys are finding it difficult to understand their place, and wondering if there is something inherently toxic about their masculinity. Simon explores a more holistic understanding of what it means to be a man, and the...

The ex-Rolling Stones journalist throws open the door the devil hides behind. Warning: not for kids. The devil’s best trick, according to French poet Charles Baudelaire and/or criminal mastermind Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects (1995) was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.   Randall Sullivan’s new book, The Devil’s Best Trick: How the Face of Evil Disappeared, argues that despite our sceptical age that dismisses the existence of the supernatural, evil is at work in the world, and...

With despair on the rise and hope in short supply, children’s literature offers people of all ages a treasure trove of wisdom. Dr Amanda B Vernon is a literature expert who believes that children's stories are not just for children. In this interview with Life & Faith, Amanda talks about how stories written with children in mind often shed light on deep human needs, including our longing for justice, agency, truth, wonder and redemption through suffering. From Alice in Wonderland to Harry...

Darrell Bock fears the church in the U.S. is in danger of losing its distinctiveness. How might it recover?  The United States is a divided country, and this year’s presidential election will bring that into sharp focus. Darrell Bock is a New Testament Scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary and the Executive Director of Cultural Engagement at the Hendricks Center. Life & Faith interviews Darrell about the divisions in the U.S. and how tribal and ideological they have become. Darrell is...

The spirit of our politics feels negative and harmful. Michael Wear believes the improved spiritual health and civic character of individuals can change that. “We belong to a political party because we believe things, we should not believe things because we belong to a political party”. Michael Wear is the author of The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life. In this episode he talks to Life & Faith about his desire to cultivate a more healthy and...

The headlines are grim, and the world feels apocalyptic. It’s time to become the people the world needs right now. “I don't know how to fix climate change or geopolitics, but I know what I'm called to do, which is put my roots down deep into love and be growing up, be becoming the kind of person that the world needs.” Elizabeth Oldfield is the author of the book Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times – and turbulent our times are. Climate anxiety, political polarisation, social...

A philosopher and a butcher dig into what we should and shouldn’t eat, and why. “As society has shifted away from being in close proximity to farms and food production, people are increasingly concerned about where their food’s coming from – the condition under which animals are raised and reared, and certain farming practices, [such as] pesticide use and the effects that that may have on the environment as well as on human health.” Philosopher and sociologist Chris Mayes has thought about...

The astonishing technological progress humans have made sometimes raises the warning that we shouldn’t be “playing God”. Nick Spencer from Theos think tank disagrees.  In their book Playing God: science, religion, and the future of humanity, Nick Spencer and Hannah Waite insist that contrary to the warnings to avoid “playing God”, human beings are in fact a God-playing species and have a responsibility to ‘play God’ well.    They examine remarkable advancements we have made in technological...

Bill Bennett, director of the film The Way, My Way and Camino legend Johnnie Walker Santiago reflect on the spiritual riches of going on pilgrimage.   “I see this walk as an 800km long cathedral”. So says Australian filmmaker Bill Bennett in the film The Way, My Way, which depicts Bill’s experiences walking the Camino de Santiago. The Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St James, is a network of pilgrimage roads and paths running through Spain, France, and Portugal, leading to the cathedral at...

This dreaded disease seems to strip away everything that makes us, well, us. A chaplain and a psychiatrist remind us of the human at the centre of the diagnosis. --- The ‘d’ word – dementia – is one that everyone fears. It seems to strip away everything that made that person with the disease the person we once knew. It’s easy to lose sight of the person, the human at the centre of the diagnosis. Today, 420,000 Australians live with dementia, a number projected to double in the next 30 years,...

Mercy Aiken tells Life & Faith of the joy-filled, yet painful life of Palestinian Christian, Bishara Awad. Bishara was a child in Jerusalem when his father was shot and killed during the Israeli-Arab war of 1948. The story of his life and that of his family provides a sobering portrait of life in Israel/Palestine during decades of war, violence, tension and dashed dreams for those seeking a peaceful resolution to conflict. Somehow, Bishara, a Palestinian Christian and community leader,...

Asuntha Charles has lived in some toughest places in the world. And she’s loved it. Long As a young woman, Asuntha Charles stubbornly defied her culture to advocate for vulnerable women and girls. That determination never left her as she dedicated her life to voiceless people in not only her native India, but places like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sudan and Iraq. Here she tells Life and Faith about her extraordinary life of service and care for people who needed that care most. And we...