Theologian and writer Stan Grant delivers a searing diagnosis of our times where chronic loneliness, runaway technological development, and fractious identity politics make bitterness the last real human emotion. He offers an antidote: imagination, re-enchantment, reconnecting with God, and human lives committed to doing the little things of the everyday.

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Stan is a public intellectual, writer, journalist, and, latterly, theologian. He has over 30 years of experience in radio, television, and current affairs, including as a foreign correspondent for CNN and the ABC. As a proud Wiradjuri man, Stan has grappled, publicly, and movingly, with the ongoing legacy of dispossession in Australia and the challenges faced by Aboriginal Australians. His lectures, books, and columns reveal an astonishing array of references, all delivered with poetic insight. These days, he is a distinguished professor at Charles Sturt University, and you can catch his columns in The Saturday Paper. His latest book is Murriyang: Song of Time.

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Check out CPX’s other podcast, Life and Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century. If you’d like to know more about CPX, our website is publicchristianity.org

Theologian and writer Stan Grant delivers a searing diagnosis of our times where chronic loneliness, runaway technological development, and fractious identity politics make bitterness the last real human emotion. He offers an antidote: imagination, re-enchantment, reconnecting with God, and human lives committed to doing the little things of the everyday.

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Stan is a public intellectual, writer, journalist, and, latterly, theologian. He has over 30 years of experience in radio, television, and current affairs, including as a foreign correspondent for CNN and the ABC. As a proud Wiradjuri man, Stan has grappled, publicly, and movingly, with the ongoing legacy of dispossession in Australia and the challenges faced by Aboriginal Australians. His lectures, books, and columns reveal an astonishing array of references, all delivered with poetic insight. These days, he is a distinguished professor at Charles Sturt University, and you can catch his columns in The Saturday Paper. His latest book is Murriyang: Song of Time.

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Check out CPX’s other podcast, Life and Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century. If you’d like to know more about CPX, our website is publicchristianity.org

Exiles at Home: what our contempt for nature is costing us.

Writer and activist Tim Winton reminds us that life on earth is a gift, a miracle we often fail to honour or even recognise. As we face an ecological crisis unprecedented in human history, Tim points to the critical need for solidarity - with the earth, our home, and with each other.

Tim’s literary career spans 40 years and 30 books for adults and younger readers. His books have been translated into 29 languages and won numerous awards including the Miles Franklin Literary Award four times and he has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Tim is also the writer, narrator, and executive producer of the nature documentary series Ningaloo that screened around the world in 2023. Tim lives in Western Australia.

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Check out CPX’s other podcast, Life and Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century. If you’d like to know more about CPX, our website is publicchristianity.org

Exiles at Home: what our contempt for nature is costing us.

Writer and activist Tim Winton reminds us that life on earth is a gift, a miracle we often fail to honour or even recognise. As we face an ecological crisis unprecedented in human history, Tim points to the critical need for solidarity - with the earth, our home, and with each other.

Tim’s literary career spans 40 years and 30 books for adults and younger readers. His books have been translated into 29 languages and won numerous awards including the Miles Franklin Literary Award four times and he has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Tim is also the writer, narrator, and executive producer of the nature documentary series Ningaloo that screened around the world in 2023. Tim lives in Western Australia.

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Check out CPX’s other podcast, Life and Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

If you’d like to know more about CPX, our website is publicchristianity.org

Rediscovering Hope. How we lost it. How we get it back?

You can hear her lecture in an earlier episode of this podcast, but here is Leisa, with Simon Smart, digging deeper into the topic.

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Leisa is a clinical psychologist who's been counselling and teaching for more than 25 years in workplaces, hospitals, and private practice. She recently completed a PhD on the shifting grounds of hope through Western history and philosophy, theology, and psychology.

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Check out CPX’s other podcast, Life and Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

Rediscovering Hope. How we lost it. How we get it back?

The future feels tenuous these days, uncertain … overwhelming, even. Hope might be scarce, but it's not lost. At least not with Leisa Aitken is our guide. Leisa is a clinical psychologist with 25 years’ experience in her field and she's just completed a PhD on Hope. For those feeling hopeful, and perhaps especially for those who are not, this is a great talk to hear – hope from the perspective of psychology, philosophy, and theology.

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Leisa is a clinical psychologist who's been counselling and teaching for more than 25 years in workplaces, hospitals, and private practice. She recently completed a PhD on the shifting grounds of hope through Western history and philosophy, theology, and psychology.

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Check out CPX’s other podcast, Life and Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

Out Of Sight: Attentiveness in a Dismissive Age 

You can hear his lecture in an earlier episode of this podcast, but here is Scott, with Simon Smart, digging deeper into the topic. 

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Scott is the ABC’s Religion and Ethics online editor, and the co-host, with Waleed Aly, of The Minefield on ABC Radio National. His book On Contempt is published by Melbourne University Press. 

Read Scott Stephens’ Uncivil Wars, written with Waleed Aly for the Quarterly Essay 

Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century. 

Free To Be Me? The Forgotten Story of Religious Liberty 

You can hear her lecture in an earlier episode of this podcast, but here is Sarah, with Simon Smart, digging deeper into the topic. 

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Sarah is Senior Lecturer in History at Western Sydney University. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Cambridge, after which she was a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford then Assistant Professor at Florida State University. Her book Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire, published in 2008, was awarded The Royal Society of Literature and Jerwood Foundation Award for Non-Fiction. 

Sarah Irving-Stonebraker’s book, Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire 

Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century. 

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Tim is co-founder of More in Common, an international initiative which has published some of the world's leading research on the drivers of polarisation and social division. He has worked as chief speechwriter and economic adviser for two Australian Prime Ministers and has helped start and grow social movement organisations around the world that have worked to protect civilians in Syria, address modern day slavery, promote gun control in the U.S., and engage faith communities in social justice. 

Tim Dixon’s organisation, More in Common 
 
Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century. 

Where Did I Come From? Christianity, Secularism, and the Individual 

You can hear his lecture in an earlier episode of this podcast, but here is Nick Spencer, with Simon Smart, digging deeper into the topic. 

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Nick is Research Director of Theos Think Tank in London. He has written for The Guardian and The Telegraph and has been described by The Economist as “like a prophet crying in the post-modern wilderness”. Nick is the author of several books including Atheists: The Origin of the Species, and The Evolution of the West: How Christianity Has Shaped Our Values.  

Some of Nick Spencer’s books: 

• Atheists: The Origin of the Species 
• Darwin and God 
• The Political Samaritan 

Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century. 

Is Christianity Bad News for Women? 

You can hear her lecture in an earlier episode of this podcast, but here is Amy, with Simon Smart, digging deeper into the topic. 

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Amy is a Senior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and is a widely sought-after speaker who has addressed audiences at the White House and the UK Parliament. She regularly appears on TV and radio to comment on a variety of topics relating to the Christian faith. Her doctoral studies focused on the British novelist, essayist, and “Christian humanist” Dorothy L. Sayers, and she is the author of several books, including Where is God in all the Suffering, and Why Trust the Bible? 

Some of Amy Orr-Ewing’s books: 

• Is the Bible Intolerant? 
• Where is God in all the Suffering? 
• Why Trust the Bible? 

Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century. 

The Myth of Religious Violence 

You can hear his lecture in an earlier episode of this podcast, but here is William, with John Dickson, digging deeper into the topic. 

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WIlliam is Professor of Theology at DePaul University in Chicago. He holds degrees from Notre Dame, Cambridge, and Duke University, and has worked for the Center for Civil and Human Rights at the Notre Dame Law School. His areas of specialisation include political theology and economic ethics. He is the author of The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology, The Roots of Modern Conflict, and Field Hospital: The Church’s Engagement with a Wounded World. 

Some of William Cavanaugh’s books: 

• The Myth of Religious Violence 
• Field Hospital: The Church’s Engagement with a Wounded World 

Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century. 

The End of Faith: Has Science Made Religion Redundant? 

You can hear his lecture in an earlier episode of this podcast, but here is Peter, with John Dickson, digging deeper into the topic. 

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Peter is currently an Australian Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland. Before taking up that post he was the Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. He has published extensively in the area of intellectual history with a focus on the historical interactions between science and religion, and has authored or edited six books, including The Territories of Science and Religion. 

Some of Peter Harrison’s book: 

• The Territories of Science and Religion 
• The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science 

Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century. 

His topic was A Public Faith: Serving the Common Good, and you can hear the lecture in an earlier episode of this podcast, but here is Miroslav, with John Dickson, digging deeper into the topic. 

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Miroslav is Founding Director of the Yale Centre for Faith and Culture, and the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School. He has written more than 15 books, including Exclusion and Embrace, A Public Faith, and most recently For the Life of the World. 

Some of Miroslav Volf’s books: 

• A Public Faith 
• Exclusion and Embrace 
• For the Life of the World 

Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century. 

Disconnected: Why technology keeps disappointing us

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Andy Crouch is a partner for theology and culture at Praxis, an organisation that works as a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship. He is an author of many books and his latest is The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming relationship in a technological age

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Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

Andy’s book: The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming relationship in a technological age

This episode is sponsored by International Justice Mission

Disconnected: Why technology keeps disappointing us

Technology promises so much — and truly has transformed our lives — but somehow it never quite delivers.

Drawing on an older vision of human beings as heart-soul-mind-strength complexes, designed for love, Andy Crouch makes the case for applying our scientific knowledge in a way that restores things that are in strangely short supply in our technological age: real connection, relationship, and hope.

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Andy Crouch is a partner for theology and culture at Praxis, an organisation that works as a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship. He is an author of many books and his latest is The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming relationship in a technological age

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Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

Andy’s book: The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming relationship in a technological age

Out of Sight: Attentiveness in a Dismissive Age

We commonly hear that the times in which we live are “unprecedented”. Not entirely without justification, when we consider the proliferation of technologies that flood our waking hours.

Yet beneath the busy surface of our media-saturated age, there lurks a temptation that is in no way unprecedented: the old temptation to live superficially – which is to say, inattentively. Like Shakespeare’s King Lear, we increasingly crave affection, fear irrelevance, are unsure who to trust, and so banish those who might wound us “out of our sight”.

The eyes are a moral organ. The contemptuous gaze can wither; the attentive glance gives life. At a time when so many distractions can cloud our vision, Scott Stephens urges us – in the tender words of the loyal Kent, in King Lear – to “see better”.

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Scott Stephens is the ABC’s Religion and Ethics online editor, and the co-host, with Waleed Aly, of The Minefield on ABC Radio National. His book On Contempt is published by Melbourne University Press.

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Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

Free To Be Me? The Forgotten Story of Religious Liberty

"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion", reads the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But how did we get here?

Freedom of religion - or of no religion - is grounded on liberty of conscience, an idea with a back-story most of us are unaware of. In recovering this story, historian Sarah Irving-Stonebraker takes us all the way back to the ancient Middle East, and on a whirlwind tour through Europe, the Americas, and Australia, and asks: does the notion of religious liberty still have currency today?

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Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is Senior Lecturer in History at Western Sydney University. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Cambridge, after which she was a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford then Assistant Professor at Florida State University. Her book Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire, published in 2008, was awarded The Royal Society of Literature and Jerwood Foundation Award for Non-Fiction.

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Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

Crossing the Great Divide: Building Bridges in an Age of Tribalism

The Western world is seeing a collapse in people’s faith in institutions, democracy, and even each other. Societies are fractured; political norms upended. Polarising debates centre on issues of identity, values, and belonging, and tribal voices muzzle the notion of a common good. In many countries, religious faith is becoming just one more marker of tribal division. Tim Dixon offers a vision for how we might reunite increasingly fragmented societies.

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Tim Dixon is co-founder of More in Common, an international initiative which has published some of the world's leading research on the drivers of polarisation and social division. He has worked as chief speechwriter and economic adviser for two Australian Prime Ministers, and has helped start and grow social movement organisations around the world that have worked to protect civilians in Syria, address modern day slavery, promote gun control in the U.S., and engage faith communities in social justice.

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Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

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This episode is sponsored by International Justice Mission

Where Did I Come From? Christianity, Secularism, and the Individual

It's obvious, isn’t it?

Life should be respected. We should obey the rule of law. Humans have inalienable dignity. People are of equal worth. Freedom is good. Science is legitimate. And - as Life of Brian reminded us - "we are all individuals"

Except that it is far from obvious.

Nick Spencer is on a quest to rediscover our origin stories, and what makes the West the West.

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Nick Spencer is Research Director of Theos Think Tank in London. He has written for The Guardian and The Telegraph and has been described by The Economist as “like a prophet crying in the post-modern wilderness”. Nick is the author of several books including Atheists: The Origin of the Species, and The Evolution of the West: How Christianity Has Shaped Our Values.

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Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

Is Christianity Bad News for Women?

The 2nd-century Greek philosopher Celsus famously dismissed Christianity as a religion of women, children, and slaves – that is to say, not to be taken seriously. But Christianity is much more likely to be condemned today, not for being a religion of women, but a religion against women. If gender equality mattered to the early church, what happened to it? What does Christianity’s chequered treatment of women mean for its credibility today? And is the Christian faith a force for the oppression of women, or for their flourishing?

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Amy Orr-Ewing is a Senior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, and is a widely sought-after speaker who has addressed audiences at the White House and the UK Parliament. She regularly appears on TV and radio to comment on a variety of topics relating to the Christian faith. Her doctoral studies focused on the British novelist, essayist, and “Christian humanist” Dorothy L. Sayers, and she is the author of several books, including Where is God in all the Suffering, and Why Trust the Bible?

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Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

The Myth Of Religious Violence

It’s a widely held assumption in Western societies that religion has a peculiar tendency to promote violence. Indeed, much of our domestic and foreign policy assumes this – but is it a fair assumption? Are religions more inclined to promote violence than things like nationalism and access to oil? What even counts as “religion”? And what role have “secular” ideologies as well as “religious” ones played in fomenting violence? American philosopher William Cavanaugh offers some provocative arguments.

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William Cavanaugh is Professor of Theology at DePaul University in Chicago. He holds degrees from Notre Dame, Cambridge, and Duke University, and has worked for the Center for Civil and Human Rights at the Notre Dame Law School. His areas of specialisation include political theology and economic ethics. He is the author of The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict, and Field Hospital: The Church’s Engagement with a Wounded World.

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Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

The End Of Faith: Has Science Made Religion Redundant?

The conflict between science and religion seems entrenched, even inevitable. But is it? Peter Harrison is one of the most important scholars working in the area of science and religion today, and he challenges our understanding of what has historically been meant by the concepts of "science" and "religion" - and reconstructs the true history of their turbulent relations.

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Peter Harrison is currently an Australian Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland. Before taking up that post he was the Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. He has published extensively in the area of intellectual history with a focus on the historical interactions between science and religion, and has authored or edited six books, including The Territories of Science and Religion.

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Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

Volf’s upbringing in Croatia as the only Christian in a school of 3,500 was pivotal in the development of his faith. A victim of intense and sustained interrogation by the government of then communist Yugoslavia, much of Volf's work focuses on forgiveness and reconciliation. He maintains that the Christian vision of the world entails the possibility of overcoming the past for both the victim and the perpetrator of wrongs. 

His topic for this lecture was A Public Faith: Serving the Common Good

While the place of faith in the public square is a contested, and contentious, subject, and many opponents of religion would rather it remain a private affair – and some believers are tempted to agree – Miroslav Volf believes faith can contribute to human flourishing for all people.

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Miroslav Volf is Founding Director of the Yale Centre for Faith and Culture, and the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School. He has written more than 15 books, including Exclusion and Embrace, A Public Faith, and most recently For the Life of the World.

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Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

He was perhaps Australia’s first exponent of Public Christianity!

The Richard Johnson lecture, named in his honour, is an annual public event that seeks to highlight Christianity's relevance to society and to positively contribute to public discourse on key aspects of civil life.

This podcast is produced by CPX. Please also check out our other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century, and if you’d like to know more about CPX, our website is publicchristianity.org