Life & Faith

Greg Clarke's new book The Great Bible Swindle, argues that you cannot claim to be educated without a knowledge of the Bible. He came into Life and Faith to explain how the Bible has shaped our culture in profound ways and why it is therefore critical to understand the Bible to understand our literature, music, history, art and more.

Tim Winton is the best selling author of a number books including Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and The Turning. He spoke to Simon Smart about a number of topics including his new novel Eyrie and matters of faith.

The second part of Simon Smart's interview with Peter Hitchens in which he discusses his turn from atheism to Christianity.

Peter Hitchens is a conservative coloumnist and occasional foreign correspondent in the UK. He is the author of The Rage against God: How atheism led me to faith. CPX caught up with Peter at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas to discuss belief, morality and the way things are heading in the West

John F. Kennedy and C.S. Lewis both died on the same day an hour apart yet the legacies of both men live on. Justine Toh and Simon Smart discuss the two and the legacy that they have left.

There was a time when belief in God was assured and arguments for God's existence were about confirming what everyone knew to be true. However in the post-Christian West belief in God is increasingly considered to be an irrational belief. Michael Jensen joined Simon Smart and John Dickson on Life and Faith to discuss whether it is reasonable to believe in God in the modern world.

Life and Faith examines the way that whenever we eat, we are eating with other people. Ruth Dearnley, World Vision Australia's campaign leader for child protection and trafficking, discusses how the food we but in the supermarket can be the result of child trafficking and exploitation and what we can do to to combat this. Ruth Padilla DeBorst, World Vision International's director of Christian Formation and Leadership Development, shares her thoughts about what it means to eat in community and why Christians should seek to eat with those who are different.

The Turning is a unique cinema event. Seventeen Australian directors from diverse artistic disciplines each create one of the stories from Tim Winton's collection. The linking and overlapping stories explore the extraordinary turning points in ordinary people’s lives in a stunning portrait of a small coastal community. Simon Smart, who is a big fan of Winton's writing, watched the film and he joined Justine Toh to discuss it with a focus on one story in particular: a brutal, unsentimental but life-affirming account of a woman coming to faith.

Ruth Padilla DeBorst has been involved in leadership development and theological education in her native Latin America as a missionary with Christian Reformed World Missions for many years: first in student ministry with the Comunidad Internacional de Estudiantes Evangélicos (IFES), then with Seeds of New Creation, a ministry that trains for and promotes holistic mission in El Salvador. Ruth currently serves as Director of Christian Formation and Leadership Development with World Vision International. She came on Life and Faith to discuss the reasons behind church growth in Latin America in contrast to the decline found in the West.

William Cooper, of Yorta Yorta descent, spent most of his life in the Cummeragunja community where he was a spokesman for the Yorta Yorta in their ongoing battles for land justice against the New South Wales government. Just weeks after Kristallnacht he led a delegation to the German consulate in Melbourne to deliver a petition condemning the Nazis treatment of the Jews, which was the only private protest against the Germans following Kristallnacht. Matt Andrews joined Life and Faith to discuss what drove William Cooper to take action.