Life & Faith

You don’t need to be a creative or an entrepreneur to share the human calling to make culture.   

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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.” 

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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? 

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“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.  

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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. 

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“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. 

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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 

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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. 

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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 

Can we possibly still trust each other across some of the bitterest divides of our time?  

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“We’re not going to live in a theocracy, we’re not going to replace the governor-general or a president with an ayatollah, a chief rabbi, a pope, or a Dalai Lama. The state must consider itself both neutral in religion and incompetent to adjudicate on religious affairs.” 

The Australian anthem may cheerfully assert that we are “one and free”, but periodic clashes show that we’re at a bit of an impasse when it comes to the question of religious freedom: is it legitimate, or just a cover for bigotry? Can we agree to disagree on fundamental things? What does it all mean for employers and employees?  

This episode of Life & Faith offers some framework thinking for what it would look like to get out of the rut of the culture wars and trust one another again. Theologian Michael Bird vividly sketches what secularism should and shouldn’t look like, and law professor Nicholas Aroney pierces beneath the turbulence of these culture clashes to talk about the fundamentals of love, trust, and hope in our life together. 

“All of us experience hurts, and I think we’re all tempted to respond by hurting others. But when we encounter love, it makes a very big difference – and I think that religion is very much driven by that. So if you don’t recognise that and you don’t allow room for that to blossom in your society in the small local ways just down the street, then you’re cutting off a source of support, a source of help, and even a vision for the future.” 

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EXPLORE: 

Michael Bird, Religious Freedom in a Secular Age: A Christian Case for Liberty, Equality, and Secular Government 

Doing the right thing can have consequences or rewards that last a lifetime. 

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In this episode we consider the price we are willing (or not willing) to pay for holding on to our principles. 

We speak with Max Jeganathan about our society’s apparent willingness to absorb higher costs of living in order to support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia. This dynamic is evidence that we are not only selfish consumers but rather moral agents sometimes willing to make sacrifices in order to do what’s right.  

Suzanne McCourt, author of the novel The Tulip Tree reflects on the complexity and ambiguity in the courageous and costly acts of her characters and their moments of altruism. 

And Mick Slatter tells the story from his youth of working on a building site and paying a heavy price for being honest when he was under huge pressure to fudge the truth for his boss. Was it worth it? Listen in to find out.   

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Explore: 

Suzanne McCourt The Tulip Tree (Text Publishing) 2021. 

Max Jeganathan The Cost of Living and The Cost of Principles  Eureka Street, 2022. 

John Stackhouse explores evangelicalism’s contribution to the world.  

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In this conversation John Stackhouse explains who the evangelicals are in history and who they are today. What are they like? What do they believe? What makes them so busy and active in the world? 

While lamenting some of the more regrettable failures of the tradition he belongs to, Stackhouse gives a convincing account of the contribution of evangelicalism in making the world a fairer, more compassionate and just place.

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Explore:

John Stackhouse's new book with Oxford University Press, Evangelicalism: A very short introduction

Andy Crouch has some questions about your relationship with your devices 

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Are you ever troubled by the way technology impacts our lives?

Andy Crouch loves technology, but he is concerned that we use it wisely. What are the ways modern technology might diminish our humanity and how might it help us to flourish?

In this episode of Life & Faith Andy talks about the difference between devices and instruments and it’s a distinction that might help change your life in positive directions. There is some wisdom here to help us be more deliberate and intentional about how our technology might serve us rather than enslave us.  

For many of us with a nagging sense of unease about our relationship with our phones and tablets, Crouch offers some hope and a way forward that is life-giving and uplifting.    

“I think technology is not helping us be what we actually maybe are meant to be, which is people who live with fullness of heart, soul, mind and strength.” 

“I love talking about this because it activates a sense of hope. I think we sometimes feel a little out of control in this technological world. And what I hear back when I describe this transition from devices to instruments is people actually feel very empowered to take charge of how they use their device.”

Andy’s latest book is: The life we’re looking for: Reclaiming relationship in a technological world 

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Explore some of Andy’s other books

• The Tech-Wise family  
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• My Tech-Wise life 
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• Culture making 
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Theologian John Swinton was Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland. He spoke to Life & Faith on the day she died.  

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John Swinton has been many things in his life: Mental Health Nurse, Presbyterian minister, academic and author. He was also Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland, a role his mother was especially proud of! On the morning he was due to come into the CPX studio news came through that Queen Elizabeth II had died.  

We talked about the Queen, her faith, and the role of Chaplain, that John briefly played. What made the death of this 96-year-old woman so profound for so many people? 

This topic led to a broader discussion about the caring professions, and spiritual care as a crucial part of any wholistic approach to true health.  

“... the way you learn how to be a decent person is by looking at decent people. And she always strikes me as a decent person that I have learned a lot from, even though … from a distance until relatively recently.”  

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Explore some of John Swinton’s books: 

 Dementia: Living in the Memories of God. 

• A Graceful Embrace: Theological Reflections on Adopting Children 
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• Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges 
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What does it look like not only to survive, but to thrive after trauma?  

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“Banksias, if you can imagine, they’ve got this woody core, with those eyes dotted around the core. So those eyes contain the seeds of the banksia tree, and these seeds – these pods – open up after the ashy heat intensity of a bushfire. So we really loved this metaphor because it represents our hopes for survivors who’ve experienced something incredibly painful and traumatic – like a bushfire can be – without minimising the severity of that incident, but also capturing the possibility for new life and beauty and hope.” 

Banksia Women is a domestic violence support service affiliated with St John’s Anglican Church Darlinghurst, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. It was born just as Covid was kicking off – which complicated what they do, but certainly hasn’t held them back.  

In this episode of Life & Faith, manager Keely Oste explains what it means for women to heal and even flourish after surviving domestic abuse. She talks about the needs, courage, and triumphs of the women she works with – and Shradha, who joined Banksia Women in January 2021, opens up about how it’s made such a difference to her, and to others. 

“The first basic thing was: I’m not alone in this. I think that was the biggest thing that helped me to not feel ashamed about the situation because it was not my fault, and I was not the only one - there were a group of women who were of different ages, of different ethnicities, of diverse backgrounds. And it still gives me goose bumps to see that so many beautiful women, so many educated women, so many middle-aged women and pretty young women are going through such things … and that gave me, like, 50 percent I was out of my pain, to see that I can get help from someone and my story can help someone else.” 

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Explore: 

Banksia Women 

If you or someone you know is experience domestic violence, please know that help is available. Here are just a few of the resources out there: 

• If it’s an emergency, call the police on 000 (in Australia)
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• Call the National Domestic Violence line (1800 656 463) to be connected to a support service
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• Call Full Stop Australia (1800 385 578) or 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) to be connected to a support service, receive free anonymous counselling, or for information if you are supporting someone who is experiencing domestic violence  
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