Life & Faith

The Relationships Lab

Dr Jenny Brown explains wellbeing and maturity in the context of your “family system”. 
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“One of the distinctives about Bowen family systems theory is, it isn't about people who have mental illness and people who don't. It's about all of us humans struggling with very similar issues. … There's not really this distinction between the expert who's got her life together and the client who is seeking help.”
Dr Jenny Brown is the founder of the Family Systems Institute and the author of several books, including Growing Yourself Up: How to Bring Your Best to All of Life’s Relationships. She is an enthusiastic proponent of Bowen family systems theory - a theory of human behaviour that focuses on how our identity and wellbeing as individuals is a function of the relationship webs we are embedded within.
Drawing on her clinical experience, research, family background, and personal faith, Jenny joins Simon Smart and Natasha Moore for a conversation about adulting, birth order, responsibility, dysfunction, intensity, and the process of change.
“We grow our resilience and our responsibility and our coping mechanisms within the laboratory of our important relationships - even the difficult relationships. But if we avoid difficulty, if we avoid learning to hold our boundaries, manage our reactivity, our emotions getting stirred up … if we can do that in our original family, then we can do it anywhere. That's the real place of a good workout for growing the capacity to be a flourishing human in the world.”
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Explore: 
2021 New College Lectures, “Nurture: Confronting a Crisis”
Family Systems Institute
Growing Yourself Up: How to Bring Your Best to All of Life’s Relationships
Confident Parenting: Restoring Your Confidence as a Parent By Making Yourself the Project and Not Trying to Change Your Child
Bowen Family Systems Theory in Christian Ministry
The Parent Hope Project
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The Boy Who Keeps On Living

Sociologist John Carroll unpacks the ongoing appeal of the Harry Potter series.
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Nearly a quarter of a century after the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J. K. Rowling’s story of the “boy who lived” continues to capture the imaginations of children - and adults. 
The Harry Potter effect, it’s claimed, got kids reading again, got kids’ books selling at greater volumes, and made it possible for writers to produce longer novels for younger readers. 
John Carroll, Emeritus Professor of sociology at La Trobe University, makes a bigger claim: that Harry Potter makes Rowling the greatest contributor to the public good of the last 20 years. 
In this episode, he makes his case to Simon Smart. This conversation is for you if you’re a Harry Potter fan - but also if you’re not! It ranges from the materialism of our age and our death avoidance to the difference between a hero and a saviour, the importance of vocation, and our deep desire to live in an enchanted world.
“That's quite explicit in the Harry Potter books. I mean, the ordinary people, everyone knows, are called Muggles, and they’re mugs. Their lives are boring. Harry’s forced adopted family for the first 11 years of his life is terrified by basically the meaningless of its own existence. And in a sense, I think what's going on here is a warning to children: adulthood is at risk of being just like that, beware! The magic, the enchantment is in danger of going out of life.”
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Links:
John Carroll, “Harry Potter & the teller of truth”, The Australian, 10 July 2021
Wizarding World, Kids React to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

9/11: 20 years on.

Unwinnable wars, fear, discrimination: we sift the long-term impact of the September 11 attacks.
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It’s been twenty years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, when terrorist group Al-Qaeda flew two passenger jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City. Another plane hit the Pentagon in Washington DC, while a fourth plane – headed, it is thought, for the US Capitol – instead crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.
The attacks stunned the US and shook the myth of American invincibility. Military strikes on Afghanistan followed in October 2001 as then-US President George W. Bush demanded the Taliban, the country’s de facto ruling power, hand over Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks. 
The US-led ‘war on terror’ expanded to include Iraq in 2003, in search of its reputed weapons of mass destruction.
In August 2021, the Taliban reasserted control over Afghanistan just as the last American troops withdrew from the region.
As we mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 on Life & Faith, we speak to Mark Maclennan, an Australian tourist who found himself at the World Trade Centre right after it had been hit. 
David Smith, Associate Professor at the United States Studies Centre and the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney, summarises the impact of the event and its aftermath on the United States and beyond.
Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, artist Makoto Fujimura, and the work of Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, also feature in this episode.
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Explore:
Rowan Williams’ Writing in the Dust: Reflections on 11th September and its Aftermath
Interview with Makoto Fujimura
Interview with David Smith on US Politics and Religion

The Father Hood

Andrew McUtchen on the challenge and joy of the most important job he’ll ever have.
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Andrew McUtchen is the co-creator of The Father Hood, an online community that supports Dads to take on the challenge of being the best Dad they can be. Father to three girls aged 6,7 and 8, along with an older stepdaughter, Andrew believes this is the best time in history to be a Dad. 
Expectations of fathers have radically changed in recent decades. Andrew tells Life & Faith why that change is such a good thing. And why he wouldn’t have it any other way.
In this episode Andrew and Simon share some common threads in their respective upbringings, both being one of three boys with a Dad who was a minister. This leads to a discussion of the spirituality of parenting and the things to be gained by having your life turned upside down. And along the way they touch on wonder, awe and the power of appealing to our better instincts. 
"There's an opportunity to reconnect with spirituality through parenthood because ... suddenly your drives are self less instead of selfish and they're giving instead of taking and suddenly you just rediscover all this goodness in yourself."
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https://www.the-father-hood.com/
 

Achievement Addiction

In a world obsessed with success, plenty of us feel a compulsive need to achieve.
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We tell ourselves - and our kids - to try hard and never give up, for this is the secret to success. But by the time young people finish school, many students find it hard not to link their efforts and abilities with their identity and their self-worth with their achievements. 
CPXer Justine Toh’s book Achievement Addiction calls out our fraught relationship with success. In this episode, we talk about tiger parenting and its fixation on academic accomplishment and how meritocratic ideas associating success with effort imply that our wins and failures are always deserved. We also discuss other social cues showing the value we place on achievement - like the way former Australian Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey once described Australia as a nation of “lifters, not leaners” which distinguishes between those who contribute to the public purse and those who take from it. 
We also talk to Julia, a Sydney-based cardiologist, who wouldn’t describe herself as an achievement addict but who found herself striving for significance. She lets us in on what might be found on the other side of achievement. 
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Explore:
Justine Toh’s Achievement Addiction and other titles in the Re:CONSIDERING series.
Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Michael J. Sandel’s The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good

Meeting the Real Jesus

Journalist Greg Sheridan makes a compelling case for reading the Bible book by book and finding within those pages a Jesus as intriguing as he is attractive and compelling.   
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When journalist Greg Sheridan outed himself as Christian with his book “God is Good for You”, a friend challenged him to follow it up with something that would illuminate the living Jesus of the gospels. That was enough for Greg to commit to a couple of years soaking in the New Testament in search of a way to explain the Christian story to a people largely estranged from it. 
 
The result is Christians: The Urgent Case for Jesus in Our world.
 
Sheridan says of his reading of the Bible, “ ... it's so gripping. It's so immediate, it's so visceral … there's also a tremendous power to it”. Here is his attempt to convey something of that power, and he does so with a disarming honesty and wide-eyed enthusiasm. His aim is to point people to the life-giving words of Jesus and his early followers and the way that message continues to enthrall, challenge and inspire today.   
 
In this episode of Life & Faith Simon Smart speaks with Greg about the book, why he wrote it and the people who come to life within it.
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Christians: The Urgent Case for Jesus in our world by Greg Sheridan

The 400th Episode

Life & Faith marks a milestone, and gets a bit nostalgic. 
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This week is the 400th episode of Life & Faith! 
In this episode, Simon Smart, Justine Toh, and Natasha Moore get together (remotely) to swap stories of their favourite episodes, tech fails, meeting their heroes, and memorable surprises over the years of making the podcast. They also manage to cajole producer Allan Dowthwaite, the man who makes everything at CPX work, out from his preferred spot behind the scenes to answer a few questions in front of the microphone.
Join the team on a trip down memory lane with the ghost of episodes past, and enjoy Tim Winton making a joke at his own expense, Justine reflecting on spiritual seekers, Simon and Al recalling the least amount of prep time they ever had for an interview, Natasha admitting the most intimidating person she’s ever interviewed, and the novelist Christos Tsiolkas offering a powerful distillation of what Christianity (a faith he does not share) is all about.
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Episodes referenced in this episode: 
Hope Is Violent
Misadventures in Wellness
Murder Most Popular 
An Empty Plate
An Evangelical Election
Out of the Fishbowl 
He Had a Dream
Fear Is a Useless Thing
Wrestling Paul

Mere Christianity

80 years on, Life & Faith charts the ripple effects of a much-loved book.
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“I got out a yellow pad, cause I’m a lawyer, and I would have two columns – there is a God, there isn’t a God; Jesus Christ is God, he isn’t God – I went down that, and I went through the whole rational process and I thought to myself wow … I’ve never gone into a courtroom and argued against a mind like this.”
On Wednesday 6 August 1941, a relatively unknown Oxford don fronted up to a microphone at the BBC in London to give the first of a series of talks that would evolve into what is probably one of the most influential books of the 20th century - one which continues to have ripple effects well into the 21st.
C. S. Lewis spoke to his fellow citizens, during a time of crisis and hardship, about the nature of reality, morality, human nature, God, and the meaning of life. Later he referred to his account of what he believed as “mere” Christianity - the faith that has been common to Christians everywhere and at all times, explained in ways that stirred people’s imaginations and satisfied their intellectual curiosity.
Mere Christianity has only grown in popularity, decade after decade, and in this episode of Life & Faith Simon and Natasha hear from a number of people who have loved this book and would even say that it changed their lives. 
John Lennox - like Lewis, an Oxford don and Northern Irishman - describes what it was like to hear Lewis speak in the flesh. Nixon’s “hatchet man”, Chuck Colson, who famously became a Christian just before going to prison over his role in Watergate and devoted his life to prison reform and ministry until his death in 2012, tells his story of transformation. And three young Aussies describe their own encounters with this still compelling book, 80 years on from its first incarnation.
“‘A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.’ So yeah, I wasn’t very careful. And let this happen … thank God.” 
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Explore: 
The surviving recording of C. S. Lewis’ original broadcast talks 
Chuck Colson, “How God Turned Around Nixon’s Hatchet Man” 
George Marsden, C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity: A Biography 

Millennial Malaise

You’re 30 and feeling meh about life. Bridie Jabour, The Guardian’s opinion editor, knows your pain.
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On New Year’s Day, 2020, Bridie Jabour, The Guardian’s opinion editor, published a column about millennial malaise: being in your 30s and somewhat dissatisfied with your situation in life. 
She’d attended a few dinners where women around her age were facing varied challenges: relationship breakdown, fertility issues, being a parent, starting a new job. Though everyone’s situation was unique, “they all seemed to be kind of melancholy and questioning it all,” Bridie said.
Bridie’s column sampled some of the experiences of her generation. It went viral overnight, racking up 600,000 views in a normally sleepy summer period. She received interview requests from New York, India, South America, as well as country Queensland. 
She seemed to have touched a nerve for millennials facing a unique set of economic and social circumstances: precarious work, delay in having children, soaring house prices putting home ownership out of reach for many.
But even aside from the challenges facing this particular generation of young people, Bridie recognises that what she’s describing is a “good old-fashioned existential crisis”. 
This interview covers Bridie’s take on work and the endless pressure to be productive, the spiritual lives of millennials, the question of whether or not to have children, why being wry is a millennial thing, and longing for meaning in a world where meaning, like everything else in life, is complicated.
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Explore:
Bridie Jabour’s book Trivial Grievances: On the Contradictions, Myths, and Misery of Your 30s
The results of CPX’s Easter 2021 Survey on Australians’ openness to a range of spiritual phenomena

Work/Life

The wrestle with busyness, productivity, balance, and tech easily becomes the story of our lives.
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“I don't like work-life balance. I think that it implies that work is a different thing from life. And I think that if we're doing work right, it's a part of life.”
Dr Jenny George cares deeply about people’s well-being at work. She is CEO of Converge International, which provides Employee Assistance Programs among other things. 
And Daniel Sih, as a productivity coach, pastor, and former physiotherapist, is all about helping busy people make space in their lives. He’s the author of Spacemaker: How to Unplug, Unwind and Think Clearly in the Digital Age.
Work/life balance, digital Sabbath, tech addiction, time management, working from home, inbox zero … these things have a profound impact on how we experience our lives day-to-day. Join Simon Smart and Natasha Moore for a conversation about what mental and spiritual health looks like in our high-pressure, hyperconnected moment.
“Actually we'll never get everything done, we'll never read everything we can do, we'll never be the perfect mum or perfect dad, or get through every episode of Netflix that we want to watch. It'll never happen in the digital age, and so that pausing allows us to say, ‘I'm enough, and it's enough, and mess is ok. Let's enjoy today.’”
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Check out Daniel Sih’s Spacemaker: How to Unplug, Unwind and Think Clearly in the Digital Age
Find out more about Converge International