This episode is sponsored by Zondervan's new book Person of Interest: Why Jesus still matters in a world that rejects the Bible by J. Warner Wallace.Meet Our GuestsNigel Biggar: Regius Professor of Moral & Pastoral Theology, and Director of the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, & Public Life, University of Oxford.Andrew Hastie: Australian Federal Member for Canning and Assistant Minister for Defence. Former Officer, Australian Defence Force.Mike Bird was one of our 'phone a friend' guests for this episode. He wrote The Story of God commentary for the Book of Romans for Zondervan and is a lecturer at Ridley College.Jarrod McKenna was another of our lovely 'phone a friend' guests for this episode. He is an advocate for non-violence direct action.For our full show notes and links to everything we mention in this episode, go to undeceptions.com.

This episode is sponsored by Zondervan's new book Why is there suffering? by Bethany Sollereder.Download the transcript for this episode here.Meet our GuestThe Rev Dr George AthasGeorge is Director of Research and Lecturer in Old Testament and Hebrew at Moore Theological College in Sydney.Featured MusicMichael Levyis a composer for the lyre. His music is a blend of some original ancient melodies and some of his own creations. His arrangements for solo lyre are based on reconstructions of some of the incredibly rare, actual surviving written music of antiquity. We played two of these reconstructions in our episode, with permission: Ma Tovu and Kandel's Hora. You can find out more about Michael's work, and listen to more of his music at ancientlyre.com.Yamma Ensemble is an Israeli world music group who have a beautiful love of the Hebrew language and ancient instruments. We played parts of their live recordings of Psalm 104 (see below) and also a track featuring the ancient Shofar, based on the Mi'mekomcha, a Jewish prayer. All music used with permission. For our full show notes and links to everything we mention in this episode, go to undeceptions.com.

Some would say that an ancient faith like Christianity won’t survive outer space -- especially as we explore further than we ever have before. This episode is sponsored by Zondervan's new book 'The Theology of Paul and His Letters' by Douglas J Moo.  For the full show notes, with links to everything we mention in this episode, go to undeceptions.com.

Download the transcript for this episode here.COMPETITION!We’re celebrating our 500,000th download this month - half a million! And so, with the help of our major sponsor, Zondervan, we are giving away a book pack of five of Zondervan’s newest titles. We’ll throw in a copy of my new book Bullies and Saints AND an Undeceptions T-Shirt.To WIN, all you have to do is leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (what used to be called iTunes), take a pic of the review and send it to us. Producer Kaley will pick the best-written review on October 25 (and I mean ‘best-written’ not necessarily most glowing). So be quick, you’ve got two weeks! LINKSMeet our guests: Sam Allberry, author and pastor.Ronald Sharp, author of Norton Book of FriendshipRead Sam Allberry's book Seven Myths about Singleness and find his other books here.Here are the links to all the studies we referenced in this episode: Death of a close friend: Short and long-term impacts on physical, psychological and social well-being, PLoS ONEFriendship enriches your life and improves your health: Mayo ClinicThe State of American Friendship, 2021 American Perspectives SurveyMore on Plutarch.Read the Tu Fu poem, To Wei Pa, A Retired Scholar, translated by Kenneth RexrothLearn more about the Book of Proverbs, and read it for yourself.Read more about the debate over anti-semitism in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, in this article from the Smithsonian Magazine.Read about David and Jonathan's close friendship from the book of 1 Samuel.Read more about Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep from Ancient Egypt in this New York Times article.Further Evidence that Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were Twins, Journal of Ancient ArchaeologyLearn more about the friendship between King Richard I and King Philip II.Here's The Guardian's article about whether Jesus was gay. Read Ronald Sharp's article, Mateship, Friendship and National Identity for the Australian Book Review.Never seen Crocodile Dundee? It's probably about time...Learn more about CS Lewis' 'four loves'.Listen to previous episodes of Undeceptions with John and his best mate, Ben Shaw (who died in June 2021 after a battle with cancer).

Download the transcript for this episode here.COMPETITION!We’re celebrating our 500,000th download this month - half a million! And so, with the help of our major sponsor, Zondervan, we are giving away a book pack of five of Zondervan’s newest titles. We’ll throw in a copy of my new book Bullies and Saints AND an Undeceptions T-Shirt.To WIN, all you have to do is leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (what used to be called iTunes), take a pic of the review and send it to us. Producer Kaley will pick the best-written review on October 25 (and I mean ‘best-written’ not necessarily most glowing). So be quick, you’ve got two weeks! LINKSGet to know our guest, Professor Xi Lian. Read Professor Lian's book, Blood Letters: The untold story of Lin Zhao, a martyr in Mao's China.You might also like to seek out Professor Lian's other relevant books Redeemed by Fire: The rise of popular Christianity in modern China and also The Conversion of Missionaries: Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in China, 1907–1932.Meet our other guest I'Ching Thomas. Read I'Ching Thomas' book, Jesus The Path to Human Flourishing : The Gospel for the Cultural ChineseRead more about Daoism (or Taoism).Get a broader background on Chinese religion from National Geographic. More on the All Souls celebrations around China.Dig deeper into the idea of 'Actionless Action' or 'Wu Wei' here.Read the Analects of Confucius.Find out more about Christianity in communist China in this article from The Gospel Coalition.Winfried Corduan's book Neighbouring  Faiths is referenced by I'Ching Thomas about polytheism vs monotheism (amongst other things).Read more about Christianity in China from this article from 2020 in The Economist. And this from Time about the imprisonment of a pastor Wang Yi (who led one of China's most well-known underground churches).Here's more about the 'sinicization of religion' in China from the Lausanne Movement.Read this article from the New York Times about China's 12 core socialist values.Christianity's growth in China is hard to predict, but Professor Fenggang Yang from Purdue University has given it a crack, estimating that China will become the largest Christian country in the world by 2030.

COMPETITION!We’re celebrating our 500,000th download this month - half a million! And so, with the help of our major sponsor, Zondervan, we are giving away a book pack of five of Zondervan’s newest titles. We’ll throw in a copy of my new book Bullies and Saints AND an Undeceptions T-Shirt. To WIN, all you have to do is leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (what used to be called iTunes), take a pic of the review and send it to Producer Kaley at kaley@undeceptions.com. We'll pick the best-written review on October 25 (and I mean ‘best-written’ not necessarily most glowing). So be quick, you’ve got two weeks! LINKSRead the CNN report about the happiest country in the world for 2021.Watch the full report from VICE News on whether Finland is actually  that happy. This one's from 2019 - Finland has been the happiest country in the world for four years running.Read a little more from 20th Century philosopher Bertrand Russell on the conquest of happiness from Brain Pickings (one of those websites you'll get lost in ... see you next Tuesday).Meet our guest, Miroslav Volf.Read more about one his courses at Yale, 'Christ and the Good Life' here.And check out the centre he helped set up, the Yale Centre of Faith and CultureWatch this video chat between Volf and his teacher, Jürgen Moltmann (who John calls "one of the great theologians of the 20th Century)Read Flourishing by Miroslav Volf.Read this New York Times article, 'The other side of languishing is flourishing. Here's how to get there.'Languishing, by the way, is the emotion that the NYT reckons may just be the dominant emotion of 2021. Good thing you've listened to this episode, then.If you want to read more about Asceticism, go here.Other Undeceptions episodes mentioned in this ep are: Everyday Sacred (Ep 47), where we talk to Andrew Wilson and Tish Harrison Warren about finding God in "stuff". Guilty Conscience  (Ep 39), where we speak to Tyler VanderWeele towards the end about the health benefits of forgiveness.Mental Health (Ep 38), where we speak to Tyler VanderWeele on the impact of religious communities on mental health.Social Capital (Ep 5), where we to Andrew Leigh about the benefits of religious communities not just on individuals but society more generally.More on Francis of Assisi here. Or read his writings for yourself, here.The Michel Onfray quote, "Religions' glorification of a fictional beyond prevents full enjoyment of the real here below. They establish death on earth for the sake of eternity in heaven and seek to promote self hatred to the detriment of the body" is from The Atheist Manifesto. More on Dionysus, here.Meet our next guest, Tyler VanderWeele.Tyler heads up Harvard University's Human Flourishing Program.His latest book was published in 2021, called Measuring Well-BeingYou can find most of Tyler's research on religion, health and flourishing here.For an introduction on Aristotle, the Oxford Very Short Introduction series is good.Read (or re-read) Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.

This Henry Lawson poem, though written in the Australian outback in the 19th Century, still captures what a lot of people see as wrong with Christianity and what they wish it was like.

Shabnam Safa was just 15 years old when she arrived in Australia as a refugee. As a young child, her family had fled war-torn Afghanistan to a refugee camp on the border of Pakistan where she grew up listening to stories of the terror of life under the Taliban. She spoke to John Dickson about her distress about the Taliban retaking control of Afghanistan and her fears for her home country. As so many of us watch from our lounge rooms, is there anything we can actually do to help those fleeing danger?

Author and highly sought-after speaker Sam Allberry talks us through 'intersectionality' and ponders the wisdom and boundaries of this way of bestowing moral authority. "Just as those who stand at an intersection can see in more directions than those who don't, so too - according to this thinking - those at the intersection of multiple minority and victim groups have more insight to bring to society." 

Today is the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a series of coordinated terrorist strikes in the US that killed almost 3000 people and changed the world forever.  Our guest for this single, Hans Kunnen, was one of several Australians in New York that day and has told his story many times over the last 20 years. But what struck us about his story was not how close he was to the action, or how he described the flames, the smoke, the hurtling bodies.It is how he talks about the kindness of a stranger - the hope amidst the chaos of what was the most traumatic day of his life.