Life & Faith

What our love affair with food reveals about us; and navigating a modern no-no: judging others.---Life & Faith is 450 episodes and counting, and we’re about to hit a million downloads. We’re excited to mark the milestone – even we’ve forgotten all the things we’ve ever talked about. That’s why we’ll occasionally dip into the Life & Faith archives this year and bring you two conversations from the vault.  This time, we’re hearing from chef Alex Woolley, Simon Smart and Justine Toh on the pleasures of eating, our love affair with food, and what feasting can tell us about the spiritual life. After the break, we tackle a modern taboo: do not judge others. It’s a notion that comes to us from Jesus but has taken on a new life in our times – especially online, where people condemn each other all the time. Steve Liggins joins Simon and Justine to talk about a very human dilemma – why we hate judgemental attitudes, and yet are often guilty of them ourselves. 

Christopher Watkin is an expert in cultural theory – and thinks the Bible yields the best one we've got. --- “If all we think of when we hear the term critical theory is something like critical race theory, then we tend to think of ourselves as some sort of SWAT team parachuting down into society to deal with one particular spot fire, and then airlifting ourselves out at the end of it – without realising that there are lots of different ideas in culture that are connected with each other and that rely on each other and that sort of form an ecosystem. And in order to understand any particular part of it, you've got to see where it fits in the whole.” Does the term “critical theory” or “cultural theory” make you nervous – or make your eyes glaze over? Christopher Watkin, a lecturer at Monash University and author of the book Biblical Critical Theory (and a CPX Associate), argues that theory isn’t just for academics, nor merely a political hot potato. He says it's about reading the world and everything in it – which makes it an everyone thing. “That’s the origin of cultural critique, isn’t it? It is the ability to say not simply ‘I don’t like things as they are’, but things as they are are either unjust or not right or cruel.” In a conversation that touches on globalisation, the profit motive, radical justice, the nature of society, and a God of “superabundance”, Chris makes the case for why he thinks looking at our culture through the lens of the Bible makes the most sense of reality as a whole. --- EXPLORE: Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory 

Pilgrim Hill is an off-grid, family-run hostel in the beautiful Huon Valley, Tasmania.  --- “We have these people coming into our community every single year, and they’re a huge part of our economy and they’re a huge part of our community, but they're not really seen by the Australian public.” Christina Baehr was a professional harpist, and Peirce Baehr planned to be an academic. But after they fell in love and got married, they decided instead to pursue a different dream: to create a place together where travellers could come from all over the world, be cared for, and have a place to think through the deeper questions in life.  Pilgrim Hill is an off-grid, family-run hostel in the beautiful Huon Valley, Tasmania. The Baehrs – along with their nine (yes, nine!) children – love living close to the land, and they love showing hospitality to the fruit pickers and others who come to their valley. In this conversation, they tell Life & Faith what led them to choose this life, and why they find it so fulfilling. “People come here and some of them have only ever lived in cities. I remember at one point taking somebody on a walk to the veggie garden, and they clearly couldn’t recognize any of the plants … and I was like, this is a carrot, and they were looking at this green foliage thinking I had lost my mind – and then pulling it out of the ground and just the gasp of astonishment. We get people like that, but we also get people who come here specifically because they want to try out this lifestyle, and so that’s exciting.” --- EXPLORE: Find out more about Pilgrim Hill 

Sheridan Voysey is very familiar with the pain of broken dreams – and the beauty of what can come next.  --- “Life is not made of straight lines. Nothing in nature has straight lines – that’s a human-created invention, the perfectly straight line. All else in creation has a curve, it has a kink, it has a twist … and here I am expecting life to go from Point A to Point B in a nice straight line.” After the last few years of curveballs and cancelled plans, you may well be wary about making new plans and dreaming new dreams for your life.  Writer and broadcaster Sheridan Voysey has learned the hard way the pain of a broken dream – and where to go from there. In this conversation about the highs and lows of life, he tells a story of childlessness, giving up a cherished career, and the flourishing that can be found in a life we didn’t plan – including the remarkable twist of his wife Merryn being in the right time and place to help save six million lives.  “There’s a wonderful proverb: Hope deferred makes the heart sick. And gosh, we now know that when that hope is deferred and deferred and deferred, and another month and another month and another month, and you don’t get what you desperately want, your heart can really become sick. You try that for ten years. But there’s a second part to that proverb that we often forget, and the second part goes: but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. That doesn’t mean the same dream – it can actually be a different one.” --- Explore: Resurrection Year: Turning Broken Dreams Into New Beginnings The Making of Us: Who We Can Become When Life Doesn’t Go As Planned 

What qualifies as a Christmas movie? And what version of Christmas do they offer? --- It’s the final episode of Life & Faith for 2022! And time for Simon Smart, Justine Toh, and Natasha Moore to talk Christmas movies past and present: the films that stand the test of time and those that don’t; the borderline cases that feature Christmas but may or may not count as Christmas movies; and some new contenders for the title of Christmas classic. The team discuss Violent Night, a cinema release that sees Santa caught up in a Christmas Eve hostage situation – picking off mercenaries one by one in a Die Hard-type situation while also having his own faith in Christmas restored. They’ve also seen Spirited, Apple TV’s take on A Christmas Carol starring Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell, and have a … spirited discussion about the film’s preoccupation with redemption. Are people naughty or nice? Can they change? And how might Christmas come to the rescue? --- Discussed in this episode: Violent Night (out in cinemas now) Spirited (available on Apple TV)  Love Actually Ted Lasso Christmas episode 2021 While You Were Sleeping Die Hard   2022 Life & Faith episodes mentioned: A Good Look in the Mirror Ice and Isolation Forgiving the Unforgivable  

The story of what happened when one family decided to live simply so that others could simply live. ---The rising cost of living is forcing hard questions upon plenty of Australians: can we afford our lives? More to the point: is our way of life sustainable – for us and the planet?  Jonathan and Kim Cornford and their two daughters are an Australian family leading a fairly ordinary, middle-class existence in the suburbs of Bendigo, Victoria. But through a series of small changes over the past 20 years, this family of four has reined in their spending – and earning – in order to live more simply.  These days, Jonathan and Kim both work part-time, they volunteer and donate to good causes, and they have the time to be around their kids. They also only send one bag of rubbish to landfill each week and use less than half the electricity consumed by the average Australian family. They may live on ‘less’ but according to Jonathan, they’ve gained so much ‘more’ in the process.  The Cornfords live by a vision of ‘everyday economics’ – one informed by their Christian faith. Jonathan points out that the words ‘economy’ and ‘ecology’ both stem from oikos, the Greek word for ‘house’ – which helps us to recognise the multiple and interrelated ‘households’ we inhabit. This Life & Faith, we’re training our gaze on the household economy, and why it makes good spiritual and material sense to live within limits.   Explore Jonathan’s book Coming Home: Discipleship, Ecology, and Everyday Economics.  Manna Gum, the non-profit organisation Jonathan runs. Justine’s article on all the economies, published in Eureka St 

You don’t need to be a creative or an entrepreneur to share the human calling to make culture.   ---Here at CPX, we’ve been raving about Andy Crouch’s work on technology lately. But in this Life & Faith conversation, we revisit Andy’s earlier work – especially his influential first book Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling.  Andy tells us why he believes all humans are called to be culture makers: people who make culture or who are drawn to make something of the world. This creative calling is for everyone, he says, not just the creatives or the entrepreneurs among us.  We also sample Andy’s thoughts about Christianity in the United States and get into the weeds of why we’re so down on power these days, or why we suspect that an influential person or institution will be corrupted by power.  As Andy explains, the problem isn’t so much power, but the way powerful people and organisations refuse vulnerability. “True power always involves an element of vulnerability – if I want to bring something into being in the world that will have any kind of life to it,” Andy said. “But the moment you create life, you take a risk. So all creative power, which I would see as the deepest form of power, involves an element of vulnerability.” -- Explore Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk, and True Flourishing  Listen to Andy Crouch’s Richard Johnson Lecture Disconnected: Why Technology Keeps Failing Us 

It’s often said that religion is a cause of war – but can it also be a cause of peace? ---“Part of what makes religion such a powerful motivator in support for peace, is also what makes it a powerful motivator in support for violence.” An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  This principle of retaliation, that a person who has injured another should be penalized in a similar way, and to a similar degree, forms the basis for many codes of justice around the world. But Jesus had a radically different approach.  Turn the other cheek, and go the extra mile.  In this episode of Life & Faith, we dive into the world of peace building with Dr Maria J Stephan and Susan Hayward from the US Institute of Peace. Discover whether non-violent movements actually work, and explore the role that religious faith plays in making and maintaining peace.  --- Explore: These interviews were for our documentary, For the Love of God: How the church is better and worse than you ever imagined.  Why Civil Resistance Works by Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth 

An author and an abbess reflect on the solace of nature and the art of stillness in a noisy world. ---“We need the tonic of wildness,” wrote American author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau in Walden, or A Life in the Woods.  What is that tonic – and why is the natural world something of a cure?  Dr Eleanor Limprecht discovered ocean swimming during lockdown. She’s also the author of The Coast, a work of historical fiction about Alice, a nine-year-old girl with leprosy who’s sent to live with her mother in a lazaret (leper colony) at the Coast Hospital in Sydney – today's Prince Henry Hospital, which was originally a hospital for infectious diseases. The ocean becomes a source of solace for Alice – as it turned out to be for Eleanor. She tells us about her first ocean swim and the overlaps between Covid and The Coast, since she finished writing the novel during lockdown.   We also hear from Abbess Hilda Scott or Mother Hilda of Jamberoo Abbey on NSW’s South Coast. She tells us about the Desert Fathers and Mothers, early Christian hermits who pursued their religious callings in the wilderness. They have much to teach us, she says, about the search for silence in a noisy world. -- Explore:Dr Eleanor Limprecht’s latest novel The Coast Eleanor’s discovery of ocean swimming during lockdown Jamberoo Abbey 

Journalist Greg Sheridan on why he can’t stop talking about his Christian faith ---Greg Sheridan has been the Foreign Editor at the Australian newspaper for 30 years. He’s known for his vast knowledge of domestic and foreign affairs – analysing and writing about Australia’s relationship with Asia, and including the rise of China, the U.S.’s influence in the world, the changing geopolitical landscape that has shifted so substantially during his career.  Sheridan is a regular guest on Sky news but also the ABC.  Until recently he was less known for his Christian faith but has written two books about this now, “God is Good for You: a defence of Christianity in troubled times” and “Christians: the urgent case for Jesus in the world.”  Greg shares with Life & Faith his most recent thoughts on faith in public, and the religious landscape in Australia and around the world.  Never shy of controversy, Greg is happy to wade into topics others might rather avoid. ---Explore Greg Sheridan's Books: Good is Good for you: A defence of Christianity in troubled times Christians: the urgent case for Jesus in the world