Life & Faith

Why does the Second World War continue to have such a strong appeal for us? “It’s the fudging of the truth that’s much more important than the actual lies … mythology is more difficult to get to grips with.” In summer blockbusters and bestseller lists, on internet chat forums and national debates, World War II is a cultural touchstone for us. Decades on from Basil Fawlty’s famous “don’t mention the war” bit, this is the war we just can’t stop mentioning. In this episode, Natasha tells a somewhat appalled Simon about the time she had a dream she interviewed Hitler for Life & Faith, and also has a more serious conversation with British historian Keith Lowe, author of (among other things) The Fear and the Freedom: Why the Second World War Still Matters. They discuss good and evil, a war criminal who later repented, the antagonism that many Holocaust survivors faced after the war, and the religious revival that followed in its wake.  And, of course, whether comparisons between the Second World War and Covid are valid. “People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, they want to part of a community - because that’s what they felt during the war.” --- Buy Keith’s book, The Fear and the Freedom Read Natasha’s article, “What do the stories we tell about the Second World War say about us?”

A Christian sets out to meet the Jesus of Islam – and a Muslim encounters the Christian Jesus. “The thing about Jesus is, if he was an idea or if he was a philosophy or if he was a character in a book, then yeah, we could all have opinions about him. But if Jesus is a real person, particularly if he's a real live person today that's interacting with the world, then we really don’t get to pick and choose what he's like … you just have to meet the person on their own terms, taking them as they come.” Years ago, when he was living and working with a Muslim community in Melbourne, Richard Shumack ran into a friend outside the local gym. The guy was wearing a T-shirt that read I LOVE JESUS on the front, and on the back BECAUSE I’M A MUSLIM AND SO WAS HE. Many people would be surprised to hear that in Islam, Jesus is revered as one of the prophets. Richard’s new book is called Jesus through Muslim Eyes, and in its pages he sets out to meet the Muslim Jesus. In this episode, Richard explains what the Muslim Jesus and the Christian Jesus have in common, how they’re different, and why it matters. Simon and Natasha also hear from Abdu Murray, an author and speaker with RZIM who has looked at Jesus through Muslim eyes and through Christian eyes. “Sometimes we made fun of it. Sometimes we thought, Those foolish Christians. How could they believe that a person who is trapped in a human body that needs to walk to get where it needs to go to and sweats and eats, and then eventually dies at the hands of the creation he created, how could this be the incarnation of God, the Almighty?” --- Buy Jesus through Muslim Eyes    

The working mums of lockdown have had to juggle everything. They’ve had enough. “The personal is political”, goes the feminist catchphrase. For one particular group of people—working mums—shutdown has made that very clear.  If women have been fortunate enough to keep their jobs in what’s been dubbed the “pink-collar recession”, they’ve also more likely been the ones juggling working from home while also home-schooling and parenting children. That’s also on top of any housework that needs doing—and, before COVID, Australian women already did roughly double the amount as men. Shutdown has mirrored these trends, according to a study of family life in lockdown from the University of Melbourne. In this episode of Life & Faith, we speak to Devi Abraham, a Melbourne-based writer, podcaster, and mum to two boys. She tells us what it’s like to go back into lockdown to fight COVID’s second wave, and how she is approaching it differently this time. We also hear from Natalie Ray, a mum and Christian minister in Sydney’s leafy north-west. She reflects on the ways that work often relies upon the flexibility of women to manage their schedules amidst the demands of family life. Being a minister, Natalie also has a few thoughts on why Christians, of all people, should value care. Hint: it’s got something to do with Jesus. — Read: Professor Lyn Craig on how little we value ‘women’s work’ Annabel Crabb on how Covid-19 has left women anxious and overworked  George Megalogenis on the “pink-collar recession” Watch: Annabel Crabb in conversation with George Megalogenis about her book The Wife Drought at The Wheeler Centre Connect: Contact Devi through her website, or through Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter  

What makes us such … apocaholics? What happened to all the utopias? It seems like the stories we tell ourselves about the future now – in blockbusters, bestselling novels, reality TV shows, and your daily news feed – are almost uniformly bleak, even dystopian. What is feeding our cultural pessimism? In this week’s episode, Simon Smart talks to Natasha Moore about her brand new book The Pleasures of Pessimism. They cover why we enjoy thinking about the end of the world, how they think they’d do in the event of civilisational collapse, and whether they consider themselves optimists or pessimists. Mark Stephens, CPX colleague and expert on the apocalyptic biblical book of Revelation, stops by to talk about uses and abuses of that influential text. And we draft in thinkers like Steven Pinker, Alain de Botton, and Nick Spencer to help us weigh the idea of progress and whether everything is getting better and better – or worse and worse. --- Buy The Pleasures of Pessimism here: https://www.koorong.com/product/the-pleasures-of-pessimism-re-considering-series-natasha_9780647530757 Watch the full Munk Debate on Progress here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUmBWB54riE&t=35s Listen to the full discussion with Nick Spencer “Same Species, Bigger Sticks” here: https://www.publicchristianity.org/same-species-bigger-sticks/

Professor John Lennox weighs up the benefits and potential pitfalls of AI and the implications it has for what it means to be human. In this Episode of Life & Faith Simon Smart talks to Oxford Professor John Lennox about his new book, 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. Lennox poses some vital questions of the AI enterprise, offering some warnings that the technology is vastly outpacing important ethical considerations. “I think any form of AI is like a knife. A really good knife can be used for surgery and it can be used for murder.” Lennox believes that the implications of AI are such that it is vital that philosophers, ethicists, theologians, cultural commentators, novelists, and artists are involved in the debate. He draws on the ancient Biblical text of Genesis in considering what is essential to human nature and what AI could mean for our futures. 

What happens when religious language reckons with racial injustice.   “The original sin of this country still stains our nation today,” said Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden in the wake of the police killing, in May, of George Floyd. The phrase “America’s original sin is slavery” is so widely used in the United States that it is practically cliché. But what does it actually mean? “When you call something sinful, you’re speaking to a transcendent moral norm. As a person of faith, I think that what America does isn’t simply wrong to other human beings. It offends God himself,” says Esau McCaulley, an Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College in Illinois, and the author of the forthcoming Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope. In this episode of Life & Faith, we explore the crossover between the metaphor of ‘original sin’ in discussions of racial injustice and the Jewish and Christian idea of human brokenness found right at the beginning of the Bible. Not only does the metaphor invoke collective wrongdoing, but questions of justice and restitution. We also invite Ray Minniecon, a descendant of the Karbi Karbi and Gurang Gurang peoples, an Aboriginal pastor and activist, to examine Australia’s complicity in a similar, but different, ‘original sin’: the dispossession of the indigenous people of Australia. “We’ve been living these lies for far too long,” Ray said, citing the declaration, not overturned until 1992 with the Mabo Decision, that Australia was terra nullius or ‘empty land’. “Until those lies are addressed, which are the sins of the nation, then how on earth can we start to work out a better future?” — Read Esau McCaulley’s New York Times opinion piece ‘What the Bible has to Say About Black Anger’ Buy Esau McCaulley’s forthcoming book Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope Follow Esau McCaulley on Twitter Listen to Ray Minniecon discuss self-determination and sacrifice on Speaking Out at the ABC

Oncologist and writer Ranjana Srivastava believes there is such a thing.   “Having watched countless people die, I do think that there are ways that you can make the end more peaceful for yourself and for those you love. I do think that there are better ways of dying.” How often do you think about your own death?  Ranjana Srivastava is a cancer specialist and the author, most recently, of A Better Death: Conversations about the art of living and dying well. She sees a lot of death - and the ways that our tendency to avoid talking or thinking about death serves us badly. In this conversation, Natasha Moore talks to Dr Srivastava about what the process of dying is actually like, what she wishes people knew about it, and what she’s seen religion do (or fail to do) for people at the end.  Natasha also speaks with Anglican minister Andrew Katay about death at a funeral, and what it means to be “ready” to die. “I think a good death is one when you're ready to die. You can put that more strongly and say: it really is one of the core central purposes of being a grown-up person that your death doesn't come as some kind of weird surprise to you. I cannot tell you the number of old people that I meet and talk with who are surprised by the reality of death.” --- Read/find out more:  Ranjana Srivastava, A Better Death: Conversations about the art of living and dying well WeCroak app Natasha Moore, “What does it mean to die well?”, ABC Religion & Ethics

We’ve all been learning some things about ourselves in lockdown. “There’s this other layer from my experience where there was this emotional exhaustion of video calls. I’ve never wanted to miss catching up with people, I’ve always loved it. And so the experience of having catch-ups with people and feeling really emotionally exhausted at the end of that was new. Potentially it’s the experience of an introvert more consistently! So feeling drained by catching up with people was surprising and in some ways disappointing and confusing.” Over the last decade or two there’s been a “quiet revolution” going on, in the words of Susan Cain, introvert and deliverer of one of the most watched TED talks of all time, “The power of introverts”. Where there was once a bias in favour of extroversion - in social settings, and in the workplace - now the pendulum seems to have swung the other way, and introversion seems to get a lot of the attention. In this episode, Simon and Natasha wander into the minefield that is personality typing, reveal their own complicated relationship with the introversion/extroversion distinction (and what it “actually” means), and ask people how their experience of self-isolation has been during Covid. And Robyn Wrigley-Carr, a lecturer in theology and spirituality, takes us back 500 years to unpack the inner life - and outward impact - of Teresa of Avila. She urges us all - introvert and extrovert alike - to be attentive to our own lives. “I think diversity and uniqueness of response is huge here, because there's no one way to live an effective life, and each of us works out how to do it from being in the nitty gritty of life and through engaging, and suffering, and hard stuff.” --- In this episode: How to Care for Your Introvert (language warning) The Power of Introverts

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 colourful career as a journalist, lawyer for Kerry Packer and merchant banker, and his turn to politics.    This book is much more than a political memoir; it is a candid and compelling insight into Turnbull’s life and the workings of Canberra.    Simon and Tim talk to him about this book, his eventful life and politics and religion in Australia.    'I really do believe in collective leadership. And I know a lot of people say that I've got a very high opinion of my own opinions... I do have a higher opinion of my own opinions, but I've always believed my opinions can be improved and advanced by listening to others... And it would get criticised sometimes by people in the press who would say, “Oh he's indecisive.” I said, “Where's the indecision?” What they're complaining about is that I didn't make every decision flying from the seat of my pants.'    https://www.malcolmturnbullbook.com

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. Sarah didn’t want to be an English teacher like her dad, but was hooked from the first time she stepped into the classroom.  When you’re a student, teachers can seem remote. But, as it turns out, they share the pain of their students. Evan says the death of a child is crushing for the whole school community. Marcel tells us the difference a kind word can make to a struggling student.  At face value, teachers instruct students. But many invest in students in ways that go far beyond the classroom - and they tremble at the impact they can have on young people’s lives.  In this Life & Faith, we pay tribute to another class of “essential workers” during COVID: teachers.