Life & Faith
Episodes
Thursday Oct 30, 2014
Life and Faith: Halloween
Thursday Oct 30, 2014
Thursday Oct 30, 2014
Halloween is becoming more popular in Australia every year - but not everyone is happy about it. Some complain that it’s an American tradition; others, usually on religious grounds, object to the way it makes light of evil. Are there good reasons to celebrate this once pagan festival that (like Christmas) has been Christianised - then again secularised - and now very much commercialised? Life and Faith asked John Dickson for his thoughts on the meaning of Halloween - and the relationship of Christian believers to secular culture more generally.
Thursday Oct 23, 2014
Life and Faith: Origin Story
Thursday Oct 23, 2014
Thursday Oct 23, 2014
Origin stories - those accounts of beginnings that tell us who we are and where we come from - are often controversial. Debates about the Bible’s creation story and its compatibility with the theory of evolution can be especially so. Life and Faith spoke to Chris Mulherin, who lectures and tutors in the history of science, philosophy, and theology, and works with ISCAST (a group of Christians working in science), about how to distinguish the different strands of Christian belief about creation: Young Earth Creationism, Intelligent Design, and theistic evolution. The program also includes part of an interview with Oxford Professor of Mathematics John Lennox about how to read the opening chapters of Genesis, and concludes that sceptics do not need to choose between science and Christian belief.
Thursday Oct 16, 2014
Life and Faith: Rewriting Jesus
Thursday Oct 16, 2014
Thursday Oct 16, 2014
In September 2013, The Guardian declared that “Jesus is having a moment in literary fiction”. From Dickens to Norman Mailer, as well as a more recent crop of novelists, writers have been intrigued by the story of Jesus and have set out to explore its limits and possibilities in fictional form. Australian author Peter McKinnon asked himself the question: what would the character of Jesus look like in 1960s Australia instead of 1st-century Palestine? The result, The Songs of Jesse Adams, pushes the boundaries of our assumptions about Jesus with its reimagining of his life amidst the social, political, and musical tumult of the ‘60s.
Thursday Oct 09, 2014
Life and Faith: Life in the Old City
Thursday Oct 09, 2014
Thursday Oct 09, 2014
Arda Aghazarian lives in the Old City of Jerusalem, a place where the stark realities of living with conflict and religious difference are impossible to avoid. She has worked in radio and film, as well as with the YWCA of Palestine and the UN seeking to empower young women in places and periods of conflict. She wants people in the West to understand more about the religious and political complexities of daily life in Palestine, and came in to speak to Life and Faith about peace, justice, identity, bitterness, and hope.
Thursday Oct 02, 2014
Life and Faith: Sabbath Rest
Thursday Oct 02, 2014
Thursday Oct 02, 2014
Western culture tends to worship efficiency, which even creeps into our leisure time and challenges the possibility of achieving a good work/life balance. Life and Faith explores the concept of the Sabbath and considers what the benefits of taking regular time to rest might be.