Life & Faith

Awarding winning journalist Michael Ware talks to CPX about his film “Only the Dead.” This documentary recounts Ware’s many years reporting on the very front lines of the war in Iraq and describes being confronted not only with human darkness in those he filmed but that within himself as well. Ware saw some of the best and also the worst that human beings are capable of. Despite coming very close to losing his life many times and suffering the associated trauma of war, Michael Ware has managed to return home to build a life in Australia. He is forever changed, but able more than most, to recount the layers of complexity and tragedy that is the Iraqi war and its ongoing consequences.

In Captains of the Soul: A history of Australia’s army chaplains, Michael Gladwin tracks the role of chaplains as they’ve served and supported countless troops in every campaign where Australia has served abroad. He provides a fascinating insight into how chaplains went about their work providing spiritual and pastoral care to the soldiers in their charge. Michael’s book recently won the 2015 Australian Christian Book of the Year Award.

Trevor Hart speaks to Simon Smart about art, theology, and imagination, covering the relationship between art and the Church, the idea of God as an artist, human creativity, and the way art points us to the divine.

We live in a world that enthrones romantic love above all else – often to the detriment of friendship. On the program we explore the spiritual dimensions of friendship and pay tribute to this often sidelined love.

If young people struggle with depression and anxiety, how can faith help? Psychologist Collett Smart talks about wellbeing, resilience, and the role of belief and community in lifting the spirits of our young people.

Tom McLeish is a theoretical physicist at Durham University and the author of Faith and Wisdom in Science. In this interview he talks about what he loves about science, how the history of science goes much further back than we usually think, and why a “theology of science” can be a very useful thing.

It’s widely assumed that colonial missionaries destroyed local cultures in the effort to convert people to Christianity, but Robert Woodberry’s research – which was at first roundly rejected, but is now the recipient of numerous academic awards – bears out the remarkably positive democratic effect missionaries had on the places they went.

As editor of the ABC’s Religion & Ethics website, Scott Stephens spends his days trawling through the best of contemporary theological and ethical thinking. But the story of his life, as lived so far, proves just as intriguing as the material he daily immerses himself in—featuring a brilliant but paranoid Republican father, a peacenik mother who exposed Scott to a love of art and literature, and a sojourn in the Solomon Islands as a teen that brought him to Sydney and set Scott on his current course in life. It’s a fascinating tale told in two parts.

As editor of the ABC’s Religion & Ethics website, Scott Stephens spends his days trawling through the best of contemporary theological and ethical thinking. But the story of his life, as lived so far, proves just as intriguing as the material he daily immerses himself in—featuring a brilliant but paranoid Republican father, a peacenik mother who exposed Scott to a love of art and literature, and a sojourn in the Solomon Islands as a teen that brought him to Sydney and set Scott on his current course in life. It’s a fascinating tale told in two parts.

Pope Francis says there are more martyrs today for the Christian faith than at any other time in history. It’s estimated that Christians are the victims of 4 in 5 religiously motivated attacks around the world. Hear Mike Goor of Open Doors Australia talk about the organisation’s work to support beleaguered people of faith.