Life & Faith

Rob Banks met his grand-aunt Sophie Newton once as a young man; when she died, she left him all of her personal papers, detailing her fascinating life as a pioneer woman missionary in China for more than thirty years. Rob and his wife Linda have turned the documents to good account in their book View from the Faraway Pagoda, which tells the story of Sophie’s work in empowering women, opposing the opium trade, and challenging cultural practices such as foot-binding and infanticide over a period which spanned the Boxer Rebellion, the Nationalist Revolution, and early communist uprisings. Rob and Linda discuss early twentieth-century China and the many challenges and legacies of this remarkable Australian woman.

Theories about the historical Jesus - whether revolutionary Jesus, Jesus being elevated into God by his followers, or Jesus’ wife - abound, and seem to hold an endless fascination for us. Darrell Bock is Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, and has written more than thirty books on biblical topics, including the popular Breaking the Da Vinci Code. He talks to CPX about some recent, and some perennially popular, theories that challenge traditional Christian ideas about Jesus and the Bible.

We all want to be free - but freedom proves a difficult concept to pin down. Simon Smart and Natasha Moore consider competing visions for genuine freedom, and review a new film, Freedom, which tells the parallel stories of 18th-century slave trader John Newton and an escaped slave a century later.

Our cuture is fascinated by food as evidenced by the vast range of food programming on our screens. On Life and Faith, Simon Smart and Natasha Moore discuss the cultural, social and spiritual elements of eating, feasting and fasting.

John Beckett is the national co-ordinator of Micah Challenge Australia, which is a coalition of Christian development agencies, churches and individuals that aims to deepen people's engagement with the poor and to help reduce poverty. He joined Life and Faith to discuss the Millennium Development Goals and the fight against global poverty.

This week marks 100 years since the start of World War I. Life and Faith discusses the process of remembering and interpreting an event on such a grand scale.

Nick Spencer is the author of Atheists: The Origin of the Species. The book is a history of atheism, which examines what has driven its growth and why it is a myth that atheism emerged because the rise of science made religion obsolete. He spoke to Simon Smart about the book and the implications of belief and non-belief.

Richard Shumack recently completed a PhD in Islamic Studies and has just released a book entitled The Wisdom of Islam and the Foolishness of Christianity. He joined Life and Faith to discuss the differences between Islam and Christianity.

Miroslav Volf is Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and Director of the Yale Centre for Faith and Culture. He is also the author of a number of books including A Public Faith: How followers of Christ should serve the common good. He joined Simon Smart on Life and Faith to discuss why religion cannot just be a private affair and what Christianity has to offer society generally.

Between 1940 and 1944 an isolated plateau in France became the scene of a remarkable rescue mission. The village of Le Chambon Sur Lignon and surrounding communities, sheltered refugees from all across Europe. Their local pastor, Andre Trocme, led a secret campaign to defy the Nazis, which ultimately protected the lives of around 3,500 Jewish people. Peter Grose has written a book about Le Chambon called A Good Place to Hide and he joined Life and Faith to discuss the what drove the villagers in their rescue efforts.