Life & Faith

From who gets an ICU bed to volunteering for a vaccine trial, ethics in the time of COVID is a complicated business. “Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that life is mostly ethically neutral unless we come across some catastrophe or other, or some really difficult moral choice. But when we look more closely - and this I think is what COVID has done - we realise that our values and our beliefs about the world, and what’s important, and who’s important, are making themselves present all the time.” Dan Fleming is the head of Ethics and Formation at St Vincent’s Health - so he’s been kept plenty busy this year. He speaks with Natasha about pandemic ethics - pandethics, if you will - including who gets prioritised when health resources are scarce, quality-adjusted life years, and what happens when a vaccine becomes available. Natasha also speaks with Ed O’Neill, an oncology researcher at Oxford University - who also put his hand up to be one of the first guinea pigs in the world for a COVID-19 vaccine trial. Both Ed and Dan draw on a particular ethical framework for the choices they’ve had to make in this pandemic year - one that conceives of people as made in the image of God, and centres on love of neighbour. “The neighbour to whom one is called first is the neighbour who's forgotten by everyone else. So today we might talk about priority populations, or poor and vulnerable groups. Different commentators use different language, so they might talk about the forgotten ones, or those who live on the underside … A unique feature of this framework is every person has the same value, objectively speaking. Every human person is enshrined in a special dignity. And that calls on us to think about, okay, well, in the context in which we find ourselves, whose dignity isn't being ensured? Whose dignity is not being served by our current context?”

Krish Kandiah tells us about the joys and challenges of caring for children in great need. 'Well, we got this call late on a Friday afternoon. And you know that the local social services are in trouble, because they're phoning us, and we've already got six kids in the house. So they say, "Well, Krish, and Miriam, we know you've already got a full house, but is there any way you can take another one?" And again, my wife's already saying yes. There's a pattern here, my wife is the yes person. And I'm like, suspicious, or worried, or nervous. So I just say, "Just tell me something about this child, so we can prepare." And they said, "We can't tell you much. All we can tell you is, he's a biter." And that freaked me out.' In this episode of Life and Faith, we spoke to Dr Krish Kandiah, a speaker, writer, social entrepreneur, and a prolific author of 13 books and counting.  He's also the founder and director of Home for Good, a UK charity finding loving, stable homes for children in the care system and for young refugees. Krish is tuned into the huge need for children in need of a home and speaks with positivity and vision around this formidable challenge.  Not only is he an advocate for family reunion, fostering and adoption, but he and his wife Miriam have also extended their own family through adoption and have fostered around 30 children in their home, over 14 years.  Their life is anything but boring and Krish speaks with passion about the incalculable benefit to children of providing them with a safe, loving environment. And it’s impossible to miss the infectious joy that these children have brought into the Kandiah home.   'I don't know of a more joyful experience than watching a child who had a really tough start in life, grow and flourish....I don't know of a greater joy than helping children have great moments in their lives knowing the trauma they've had in their past. So it's a great gift to the children, but weirdly, wonderfully, it's a great gift to you as well.' Krish Kandiah Home for Good Home for Good Book

Jazz, haiku, marriage: do limits hem us in, or make us more free?  “I've heard people say, ‘Oh, jazz must be easy. You can just play anything you want.’ But actually, jazz is very difficult, because you can play anything you want.” Whoever you are, whatever your life is like, freedom is something you probably want a little (or a lot) more of. But what is it?  “There's this paradoxical irony in which we imagine being free as being without constraint and having as many options as possible, and then that just becomes the recipe for our enslavement, our imprisonment, our addiction, and all of a sudden freedom means being enchained. There's a curious and sad paradox to it all.” Philosopher James K. A. Smith talks about being born to run, and the grace of finding home. Jazz musician and New Testament scholar Con Campbell explains the paradox of improvisation. Writer Laurel Moffatt talks about the constraints of the haiku form, and what becomes possible creatively within them. And Christine and Greg Olliffe, in their 50th year of marriage, look back on a lifetime of sacrifice and the enrichment that has come from it. Listen to Transit Jazz, “Just a closer walk with thee” Read (and look at!) some of Laurel’s haiku at Make Whimsy Not War or her writing in general at laurelmoffatt.com Check out James K. A. Smith’s book On the Road with St Augustine

John Stackhouse’s new book Can I Believe? is for the curious, and the hesitant. ”And this sad little figure in a remote corner of the Roman Empire becomes the leader of the most popular religion in the history of the world - which means it's the most popular explanation for everything ever in human history. Now, that's just really strange. We're just used to it, but it's a pretty weird story.” 84 percent of the world’s population is affiliated with a religion - but Canadian scholar John G. Stackhouse Jr would say that 100 percent of us are religious. His latest book, Can I Believe? Christianity for the Hesitant, invites us all to consider what we believe and why - and explains how he thinks the weirdness of Christianity fits the weirdness of the world as it really is. “If you think, for instance, of atomic and sub-atomic physics, think of certain forms of cosmology - there are all sorts of theories that I barely can even articulate, let alone understand, but I'm told by smart people that this is the best way to construe the data even though it's in many cases counter-intuitive. But they've tried the obvious explanations and they don't work as well as this really strange one. And that's what I think is the case with Christianity.”

Tim Costello brings a lifetime of experience to bear on the question: why is compassion so complicated? “You won’t find anyone who actually says humans shouldn’t be compassionate. It then gets messy because we soon discover that we have different objects of compassion, priorities for compassion. It’s fascinating to me that, whether you’re on the right or left or in between, you will validate your political stand by appealing to compassion. So it is the universal benchmark - and yet, we still divide. And often divide quite bitterly.” Tim Costello has spent decades trying to understand compassion - what it is, how it works - and also trying to live it out. His new book in CPX’s Re:CONSIDERING series is called The Cost of Compassion, and it sums up the lessons of a lifetime working with and for the vulnerable. In this conversation, Tim tackles a few of the big questions: why is compassion so complicated? In an age of news overload, what do we do about compassion fatigue? And who is compassion for - who benefits from compassion, and who gets to show it to others? “The misunderstanding that we often have about poverty and wealth is that people in extreme poverty are only recipients. I’d worked as a Baptist minister in St Kilda, and I’d discovered in an Aboriginal woman called Eva, who was the Mother Teresa of the streets of St Kilda - her giving away her last dollars, even though her pension cheque wouldn’t come for a week and she didn’t know how she was going to eat. And her joy - she had a Christian faith, she suffered from schizophrenia … she was a classic street woman, and she was the model of Jesus. So I actually knew this, in the joy in her life and the utter poverty by Australian standards of her life, even before I joined World Vision.”  --- Buy The Cost of Compassion: https://www.reconsidering.com.au/ 

81% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Will that be the case this November? In the second of our two episodes on the upcoming US election, we explore the statistic that 81% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. According to a Pew Research report released in July, as many as 80% of white evangelicals indicated that they would still vote for him in 2020. We ask what ‘evangelical’ even means, and consider the possibility that Donald Trump acts as a kind of representative - even a strongman - for evangelicals who feel increasingly out of step with the secular mainstream. We explore how race factors into the mix as well, and questions of power and influence. Again, we’re joined by experts from the US to weigh in on the discussion: Amy Black, Professor of Political Science at Wheaton College in Illinois; Lisa Sharon Harper, author, activist, and the founder and president of Freedom Road; Andy Crouch, author, speaker, and the former editor of Christianity Today, America’s flagship evangelical magazine.  In this episode, we also hear from Kristin Kobes du Mez, Professor of History at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the author of Jesus and John Wayne: How white evangelicals corrupted a faith and fractured a nation. — Explore Kristin Kobes du Mez’s book Jesus and John Wayne: How white evangelicals corrupted a faith and fractured a nation Lisa Sharon Harper’s book The Very Good Gospel: How everything wrong can be made right  Amy Black’s book Honoring God in Red or Blue: Approaching politics with humility, grace, and reason Andy Crouch’s book Playing God: Redeeming the gift of power Elisabeth Dias’ New York Times article ‘Christianity will have power’  Pew Research’s report indicating as many as 80% of white evangelicals would still vote for Donald Trump

A polarised country, a politicised faith - and how both are playing out in the US election. The bitter divides between Republicans and Democrats this US election season reflect a much bigger story.  In this first of two episodes on the election, we explore the white evangelical embrace of the Republican Party and why Black voters - including Black Protestants - tend to vote Democrat. We also cover the way the breakdown of social trust, as well trust in institutions, makes this the most unpredictable election ever. We talk to Amy Black, Professor of Political Science at Wheaton College, Illinois; Andy Crouch, author speaker, and former editor of Christianity Today, North America’s flagship evangelical magazine; and Lisa Sharon Harper, author, speaker, and founder and president of Freedom Road, a consultancy training churches and other organisations in racial justice. — Explore Andy Crouch’s book Playing God: Redeeming the gift of power Our full interview with David Smith, Senior Lecturer in American Politics and Foreign Policy, at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney Robert Putnam’s book American Grace: How religion divides and unites us  The full audio of Tim Dixon’s 2019 Richard Johnson Lecture: Crossing the Great Divide - Building bridges in an age of tribalism. Audio of the Q&A session is also available. 

On the 20th 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 playing in front of packed houses cheering the home team on, and what this event did for Paralympians generally. And Simon Smart gets all nostalgic remembering his experiences going to anything he could get tickets for.   

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating’s 1992 “Redfern speech” laid out a challenge to extend opportunity and care, dignity and hope to the indigenous people of Australia. Nearly 30 years on that challenge remains. We have not yet succeeded in finding justice, wellbeing and a clear path for reconciliation and full inclusion of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people in the life of the nation. Keating called for building blocks of change. The story of Gawura school might well be one of the better examples of what he meant. Born out of a visit to South Africa by then Headmaster of St Andrews Cathedral School, Phillip Heath, Gawura is a school for indigenous children within a larger school in the heart of Sydney. It’s focus on indigenous culture, language and community provides a home for inner-city indigenous kids to thrive in an environment where they feel at home. What started as a risky venture full of obstacles and challenge has proven to be a haven for learning and the flourishing of indigenous students. And the school itself has become a gift to the wider school community. This is a good news story worth hearing.   

Are people essentially good or flawed? We review Rutger Bregman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History. In 1965, six Tongan teenage boys were marooned on a desert island for more than a year. But they didn’t descend into savagery, Lord of the Flies-style, once civilisation had been stripped away. Instead, they worked together, grew their own food, and sang and prayed together each day. In Humankind: A Hopeful History, Dutch historian Rutger Bregman draws on the story of those boys to argue that humans are essentially good. We are more cooperative than unrelentingly selfish and cruel, Bregman says. It’s a case he builds by drawing extensively on the human sciences: psychology, social psychology and evolutionary biology.  But not theology. In this episode of Life & Faith, we interview Beth Felker Jones, Professor of Theology at Wheaton College in Illinois. We ask her to explain the Christian take on the essential nature of human beings, and how Christianity holds in tension the better (and worse) angels of our nature. — Read: Rutger Bregman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History