Life & Faith

Loss forces us into barren places. But even there, something new can be born.

When life takes a turn – when you’re diagnosed with a chronic illness, when things spiral out of our control – we're forced into some uncomfortable places. Liminal places.

The word ‘liminal’ comes from the Latin word meaning ‘threshold’ or ‘doorstep’. When you step over a doorway, you cross the dividing line between the inside and outside of a house. A liminal space, then, is a boundary marker between the end of something, and the beginning of something else.

The experience of suffering is one such liminal state in life. It forces us to shed ideas about ourselves that no longer fit our changed circumstances. In this episode of Life & Faith, we bring you the stories of two people who’ve found themselves living lives they weren’t expecting. We explore how they’ve made sense of what has happened to them, and who they are becoming in the process.

Paul Gallagher is an author and journalist who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2016. He tells us that the term Multiple Sclerosis means ‘many scars’, and how he’s come to claim that ‘my scars are my human ministry as much as my spiritual ministry’.

Adriel Booker is a speaker and author whose latest book is Tethered to Hope: The Quiet Kindness of God in Crisis, Change, and the Spaces In Between.

This is a conversation about the twists and turns life takes, how crisis changes us, and how it introduces us to the people we didn’t know we were.

EXPLORE

Paul Gallagher’s website, featuring his post ‘How to stay happily married, in under three hours a day’ and why he’s ‘not scared of machines taking over’

Adriel Booker’s website,

Adriel’s book Tethered to Hope: The Quiet Kindness of God in Crisis, Change, and the Spaces In Between

Adriel’s book Grace Like Scarlett: Grieving with Hope after Miscarriage and Loss

John Inazu joins Life & Faith to help us think about how we might live peacefully and productively alongside people with whom deep disagreement is inevitable.

In increasingly, polarised times, the art of disagreeing well is one more of us are going to have to learn. And that is a skill that is not easy to master.

Law Professor John Inazu is an experienced guide in helping people live well in complex, pluralist environments where we mix with those we sometimes profoundly disagree with. How do we navigate contested spaces without descending into conflict and violence? Can we separate a bad idea from the person who holds it? And might we even learn from that person?

His emphasis on the relational aspects of our civic life is especially pertinent.

As a Japanese American whose grandparents were sent to internment camps in World War II, John has a perspective worth hearing on identity, patriotism and the things that can bind a community or a country together.

Explore:

Learning to Disagree: the Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect.

Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference

A butcher, a wife, and a harpist walk into a Life & Faith episode.

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Distant from us in time, place, and culture, is there any way for a 21st-century person to truly access the world of ancient texts?

Leviticus, Psalms, and Song of Songs are among the oldest books we have as humans. They’re important to Jews and Christians as part of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament; they’re important to scholars of the ancient world, and they’ve been important to our culture. But they’re also quite hard work, right?

Enter Phil Bray, Sophia Wisdom, and Kamina Wüst: modern readers of weird old books, whose personal experiences as 21st-century people have given them surprising ways "in" to these words from thousands of years ago.

Phil trained as a butcher, and his practical expertise has made the arcane world of priests, altars, and animal sacrifice in the book of Leviticus come alive for him. Sophia longed to play the harp as a little girl; now, that’s what she does for a living, and her music opens up an often hidden dimension to the Bible (especially the Psalms). And Kamina’s life – and marriage – have been changed by what she calls the “weird, sexy book” of Song of Songs. She even has a verse from it tattooed on her.

You might not want to take up butchery, learn to play the harp, or get married specifically as a way of unlocking these old books. But we hope that the enthusiasm and insightfulness of these three readers will encourage you to take a fresh – or first – look at some ancient, weird, cool texts with plenty still to say to us today.

EXPLORE

Wisdom Harps

Kamina Wüst’s books on Song of Songs

Phil Bray’s book Leviticus on the Butcher’s Block

Read Psalms

Read Song of Songs

Read Leviticus

As Americans celebrate 250 years since the birth of the USA, we ask what the American project has delivered and what its future might be?

Life & Faith examines the 250th anniversary of the USA. What were the founding ideals? How much have those ideals been realised? What might the future of the union be?

And what about the contribution and implications of the religious layer to this story. Is, or was the United States ever, a “Christian country?” Well, it’s ... complicated. It takes some untangling.

To sort through the complexity we are joined by historian Mark Noll, Bible Scholar and Cultural Commentator Darrell Bock and expert in American politics and foreign policy David Smith.

Explore:

Mark Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

Mark Noll, America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilisation 1794 - 1911

David Smith, Religious Persecution and Political Order in the United States

Ralph Jackman left a successful career in sports broadcasting to become a teacher. He didn’t expect that choice to land him behind bars.

Ralph had been a sports reporter for 25 years but felt he needed a change and in his early 50s trained to become a teacher.

That might be tough enough of a transition, but Ralph’s first appointment was to Melbourne’s Parkville Youth Detention Centre teaching literacy and numeracy to boys on remand. He was teaching some of our country’s most damaged and vulnerable boys.

Ralph has written about that experience in his book Detention: A Rookie Teacher. The Toughest Prison School in Australia, where he narrates some amazing experiences he had in that environment. Jackman shows how being extra creative, as well as personally honest and vulnerable was necessary to make a connection with the boys.

He also tells of the reason he came to be a whistle blower against a system he felt was badly failing those in its care.

Explore:

Detention: A Rookie Teacher. The Toughest Prison School in Australia

Meet winemakers and brothers(-in-law) Daniel and Theo, who make good wine and have thought deeply about why.

What’s it like to win best in the world at the ‘wine Olympics’? Do you need a degree to make great wine, or will Google get you through? Is wine only for snobs? And what do grapes suggest about God?

Daniel Chaffey Hartwig and Theo Engela are the brothers-in-law behind Chaffey Bros Wine Co. In this celebratory episode of Life & Faith, they talk about the ups and downs of winemaking (mostly the ups), and why they think it’s a natural fit for people of Christian faith like them to be in this business – despite certain stereotypes! Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that wine is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, and Daniel and Theo can definitely get on board with that idea.

Whether or not you’re a wine drinker, we think you’ll enjoy this episode about work and family; loving what you do, but knowing you're not in control of it; and what wine can teach us about life. So pull up a comfy chair and raise a glass with us to the goodness of wine.

Explore:

Chaffey Bros Wine Co

Author, radio host and columnist Richard Glover talks to Life & Faith about his career, the joys of radio and why ordinary life is so special.

Richard Glover was the host of ABC Radio Sydney’s drive program for 26 years, retiring from that role at the end of 2024.

He is the author of 18 books including 3 for kids. He has a regular Saturday column at the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age which he’s been doing for over thirty years.

He started out as a cadet journo for the Herald and has been a foreign correspondent and news editor there.

In all of his work – whether it be on the radio, his weekly column or the books he has written there is an inquisitiveness about the world and other people, a generosity of spirit and good humour.

He really is a much loved figure in, especially Sydney’s public life.

He speaks to Life & Faith about highlights of his radio career, why communication and humour have been so important to him and what things most nourish his soul.

Explore:

Richard Glover’s Website: https://www.richardglover.com.au/

In a world where we are inundated with options, it feels as though everything rides on making the right choice. Enter decision paralysis.

LONG From TikTok influencers to productivity bros, there’s no shortage of people today doling out lifehacks. But there’s a difference between generalised advice from online gurus and the specific guidance we want for our lives – especially when we’re faced with weighty decisions, like what to do with our lives, where to live, how to push through a difficult time.

Alan Noble, an Associate Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University and the author of To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times, has talked to many young people navigating such questions, and understands, firsthand, the anxiety of feeling adrift in a sea of options while also feeling pressured to make the right decision.

In this interview with Life & Faith, Alan speaks into the existential overwhelm and choice paralysis people feel, what T.S. Eliot’s image of ‘a heap of broken images’ has in common with the scattered life advice on offer today, and what it would mean to revisit older notions of ‘virtue’ and ‘character’ to help us make sense of how we should live.

We also speak with Sofia, Brodie, Jordan, and Ana. Each tells us about a significant life decision, or challenging circumstance, they’ve faced lately, and what they’ve learnt from the experience. Sofia, 22, and Brodie, 21, have transitioned from university study to the workplace. Jordan, 25, tells us about navigating a career setback. And Ana, 43, tells us how life took an unexpected turn when she became a newlywed at 40, and fell pregnant last year.

Through their stories, we experience not only the difficulty of choosing well but grappling with uncertainty since, as Alan writes in To Live Well, ‘you can’t wait for certainty before you act’. Along the way, the stories of Ana, Jordan, Brodie, and Sofia each have something to teach us about being courageous – with ‘courage’ or ‘fortitude’ being one of the virtues.

Explore

Alan Noble’s To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times

His other books On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living

You can sign up for his Substack newsletter here

We think we’re fully human when we’re independent of other people. We couldn’t be more wrong, says Leah Libresco Sargeant.

Is dependence taboo?

We may be happy to lend a hand to others, but we probably squirm at the idea of asking for help ourselves. In a world that prizes autonomy and independence, it feels almost shameful to be dependent.

Which is partly why Leah Libresco Sargeant got pushback from her publisher about putting the ‘d’ word – dependence – in the title of her book The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto. (Actually, as she tells Life & Faith, every word in that title proved controversial).

The word ‘dependence’ was especially tricky, says Sargeant, because we resist the idea of someone ‘taking from someone else’ without being able to pay them back.

But this is the very idea Sargeant, a Catholic thinker and author, is trying to defend: ‘There are periods of our lives where we receive from others and where we can’t pay back, and that’s a normal period of a human life’.

Sargeant points out that when we operate with a faulty anthropology – a false picture of the human – then the world only works for those who conform to that false image. If we believe that a full human life is an independent one, we’ll stigmatise dependence.

But this is untrue, since every human begins life completely dependent on others. It also leaves out vast swathes of people – including women who, for a variety of reasons, are more exposed to the need of others. Which is partly why our conversation begins with the striking claim Sargeant makes on the first page of her book: ‘The world is the wrong shape for women’.

Explore

The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto

Leah Libresco Sargeant’s Other Feminisms Substack newsletter

Interview featuring Leah Libresco Sargeant in conversation with Helen Andrews on Ross Douthat’s podcast Interesting Times

Changing careers can be tough. Is it worth the risk?

Shifting careers into something completely new, especially if you have been doing a job for a long time, can be a daunting prospect. But it can also be immensely rewarding. In this episode of Life & Faith we speak to three people who made radical changes in their careers and lived to tell the tale!

A hairdresser trains to be a nurse. A singer shifts to art teaching. A customs agent becomes a paramedic.

What did these changes involve? What was the motivation? Was it all worth the pain? And where do we find the deepest satisfaction in our work?