Life & Faith

What our favourite companion animals can teach us about ourselves – and about God. 

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Are you a dog person or cat lover? You’re one or the other, apparently. 

Wth 69% of Australian households now owning a pet, according to a 2021 survey by Animal Medicines Australia, this week Life & Faith is pleased to get controversial: we reveal that Australia’s “two-pet” system has a clear winner. Dogs.

We speak to Barney Zwartz, long-time dog tragic, about the dogs in his life: the border collie-labrador cross Nessie, whom Barney dubs “Mary Poppins” because she is “practically perfect in every way”, and Lennie, a border collie-whippet who had a special connection with Barney’s late son Sam. 

What explains the human-dog bond? Is it dogs’ “hypersociability”? Or “exaggerated gregariousness”? Professor Clive Wynne, the founder of the Canine Science Laboratory at Arizona State University, just calls it dogs’ capacity for “love”. 

Barney draws on Professor Wynne’s Dog is Love: Why and how your dog loves you when discussing his own immensely popular columns in The Age reflecting on how heaven-sent dogs seem to be, given their loving, forgiving natures. But don’t worry, cat people: Justine demands Barney account for his outrageous quip in one of those columns that “cats, of course, are despatched from below”. 

Meanwhile, we borrow a snippet from Nick Spencer’s interview with philosopher John Gray about his book Feline Philosophy: Cats and the meaning of life. In this extract from the podcast Reading Our Times, John Gray ponders what cats reveal about the problem of human consciousness: we worry endlessly, while they don’t really seem bothered by anything.

So if you, a human animal, are weighed down by many cares, we hope this lighthearted look at what our pets can teach us about God, or what it means to be human, is as fun as a dog with a bone, or a cat toying with a mouse. Enjoy.

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Explore:

Barney’s columns about Lennie and Sam and Nessie (pictures included!)

Nick Spencer’s interview with John Gray about Feline Philosophy from the podcast Reading Our Times

Clive Wynne’s book Dog is Love: Why and how your dog loves you

John Gray’s book Feline Philosophy: Cats and the meaning of life

Benjamin and Jenna Silber Storey’s book Why We Are Restless: On the modern quest for contentment 

For centuries, all kinds of people have testified that Dante and his epic poem changed their life. 

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Midway along the journey of our life

I woke to find myself in a dark wood,

for I had wandered off from the straight path.

A 700-year-old epic poem may not be the first place you’d think to turn when life gets messy, painful, or confusing. But across times, cultures, and different walks of life, people say that reading The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri changed - or even saved! - their life. What is it that they find in this strange old book? 

In this episode of Life & Faith, Simon and Natasha hear from a scholar and also a few recent - and enthusiastic - readers of Dante about what this story of one man’s imagined journey through the afterlife (hell, purgatory, paradise) has meant to them. 

“Dante finds us in hard times,” says Professor Jane Kim from Biola University, who found herself returning to the poem during the peak of the pandemic. “I think for those of us who may be experiencing the proverbial midlife crisis or who may be feeling lost or stranded, Dante is reminding us that the midway point is the beginning of the epic, the middle is always the beginning of a new adventure.”

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Explore: One Hundred Days of Dante

Sexuality, consent and pornography might not be the first topic of conversation we’d raise at a dinner party. But perhaps we should! 

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Issues around consent, pornography and sexuality are a minefield to navigate for young people today and sometimes it’s hard to find helpful places to go to find help.

Daniel Principe, Youth Advocate and Educator at Collective Shout, is one source of information and encouragement for young people and his work is hitting a nerve.

What are ways to help young women and men flourish together when pornography and objectification are such powerfully warping influences and so hard to counteract. Daniel Principe is out in schools offering a different way to think and to be, and young people are lapping this message up. 

Listen to Dan tell something of his story, his passion for the subject and why he thinks there are things that can be done to help people find healthy and life-giving relationships that will serve both individuals and the common good.   

Despite the darkness of the subject matter, this is an uplifting and optimistic conversation.

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www.collectiveshout.org

Last of the Romans: Reimagining Masculinity, restoring virtue 

1800 Respect or 1800 737 732

Men’s Referral Service or 1300 766 491

Lifeline or 13 11 14

Steph Judd was a healthy, sporty and musical teenager when, unexpectedly, things that she could, up until then, do naturally and easily, suddenly became physically difficult, and then, eventually, impossible.

Steph has now had about 15 years to process a significant physical change and adjust to living with a disability. But she has learned plenty of things about herself and picked up some wisdom along the way. Her thinking and writing on the topic of our limitations offers a counter-cultural approach to engaging not with our “potential” but the things that limit us. 

Steph believes there is something vital about coming to terms with those limitations and hence our humanity. In wrestling with her own limits, and accepting her vulnerability, Steph has found she has been opened up to relationship, community and a connectedness that might otherwise have eluded her.

This is an honest, refreshing and challenging conversation that cuts against the grain of our culture’s obsession with “maximising” our potential and shrugging off human limits.

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Read Steph on “The Gifts of Our Limitations”

Steph writes about Dignity in Aged Care

Listen to Steph’s Lecture for ADM on The Dignity of Our Limits

Tim Dixon illuminates the forces across the Western World that are driving us apart and the challenge this presents for how we live together in pluralistic societies.

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Tim Dixon gave CPX’s Richard Johnson Lecture in 2019, and in this extended podcast we revisit the timely insights we gained from Tim that night. This speech turned out to be eerily prescient given all that came to pass in the years after it was delivered.

In a lively and engaging presentation, we are reminded of the perils of public conversation that is overrun with a spirit of contempt. Our democracies are precious and fragile, and Tim believes there really are things we can do to preserve them. 

He offers realistic initiatives that help us withstand the forces of division and strengthen the social glue that healthy societies require. Might faith communities have something unique to offer in this regard? Tim Dixon believes so.

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Explore:

Richard Johnson Lecture

More in Common

On May 21, Australians won’t simply elect a Prime Minister but the nation’s “comforter-in-chief”. 

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Bushfires, floods, and pandemic: Australians have weathered plenty of crises over the last few years. Who do they look to in times of trouble – and what do they want from those who lead them?

In this Life & Faith, we explore an unofficial but significant part of any political leader’s job: their responsibility to not only steer people through a crisis but also comfort them with empathy, compassion, and wisdom. 

Regardless of whether we have a Prime Minister or a President, we also want our leader to be a pastor to the nation.

Tim Costello, Senior Fellow at CPX, explains the role of the pastor and how former Australian Prime Ministers have inhabited that role over time.

Erin Wilson, Professor of Politics and Religion at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, explains how “civil religion” – the intertwining of religious symbols and language with the political state – accounts for the “priestly role” of national leaders.

Mike Baird, Former NSW Premier, gives an insight to the pastoral role he played during the aftermath of the Lindt Café Siege in Sydney.

We also hear a few American presidents in that “comforter-in-chief” mode and sample the stylings of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in this area as she prepared New Zealanders to bunker down in the fight against Covid-19.

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Explore:

Want more on civil religion? Read Erin Wilson’s article for CPX 

Hear more about what Mike Baird has been up to since leaving politics

Listen in on Part 1 and Part 2 of Life & Faith’s interview with Tim Costello as he looks back over a long career advocating for social justice 

To sacrifice for Queen and country is one thing, but would you lay down your life for an enemy?

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This week we are repeating an episode that first aired in 2017 when, like this year, Easter and Anzac Day were very close together.

“Australian service men and women serve for their Queen, their country and their comrades. They do that willingly, and they do that well. But Christ laid down his life for his enemies, which is just an incredible thing to do when I think about it.”

As a member of the Australian Defence Force, and a Christian, Colonel Craig Bickell is all too familiar with the reality – and cost – of sacrifice.

In this episode, we asked him about Easter and Anzac Day, what Christian faith has to offer the profession of arms, and how he remains hopeful even in the face of the darker side of humanity. Also, he shares his own journey of faith involving a girl, warrior’s guilt, and a stained-glass window.

The Enneagram helps us ask questions like: who am I, and is who I am good?

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I strive for perfection. I am prepared for any disaster. I seek out experiences that I know will make me feel happy or excited.

Have you heard people say “I’m a seven” or “oh, that’s because you’re a five” … if you’re not familiar with the Enneagram, a model which describes people in terms of nine interrelated personality types, that will sound like gibberish. And if you’re into the Enneagram, you’re probably very into it!

In this episode of Life & Faith, the CPX team venture into the world of the Enneagram. Simon Smart invites Justine Toh, Natasha Moore, and producer Allan Dowthwaite to take the test, find out their types, and re-examine what they think they know about themselves and their relationships. And Sandra Van Opstal, author of Forty Days on Being an Eight, explains how understanding herself as a “Challenger” has changed her approach to advocacy, parenting, and her own sense of self.

“The Enneagram’s main focus as I understand it is to help us understand our motivations – what's happening on the inside. And so for me, I'm asking the question: who am I, and why do I do what I do? They're questions of intention, questions of identity. Way beyond any label someone could put on us is the question of who are we, and why were we created this way?”

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Explore:

Check out the Enneagram Daily Reflections series from IVP

Take the Enneagram test from Truity

A plumber, a pastor, and a pilgrim forge poems out of what’s right in front of them.

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She will keep you like she keeps the Sabbath.    

Did you know that 21 March is World Poetry Day? Do you … care?

In this episode of Life & Faith, we speak to three poets about why they write poetry, and find out how intimately linked to real life their words actually are.

Sit back and enjoy a feast for your ears as Erin Martine Sessions, Drew Jackson, and Jonathan McKeown bring you poems they’ve written about (respectively) an ancient city; about mass incarceration and the fight for justice; about mushrooms and motherhood. 

From very different starting points, all three wrestle to give words to the realities of the world around them - however beautiful, overwhelming, devastating, infuriating, or even repulsive.

“Plumbing has really given me a physical connection to both work and my own body that has forced me to come to some kind of reconciliation between this flighty mental side that just wants to remove itself from all the awkward matter and stuff that you have to deal with in the physical world at times … there's a lot of very physically disgusting stuff plumbers get to deal with on a daily basis. So for me, working out some kind of synthesis, which I think is what selfhood is really about … to do that in your own experience is I think part of the process of becoming the self that you are.”

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Explore:

Read more of Erin’s poetry

Check out Drew’s book God Speaks Through Wombs

Check out Jono’s book Genesis 

From Roman emperors to modern PMs, Life & Faith tackles the fraught relationship between church and state.

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“At the end of the day I am quite happy that the throne-and-altar accommodation was shattered, and that the church does not wield that kind of power.”

Dust-ups between religion and government are rarely out of the news for long. Sometimes church and state seem too cosy, sometimes they’re fiercely at odds. What has this relationship looked like, and how should it look?

In this episode of Life & Faith, Simon Smart and Natasha Moore trek back to the dramatic beginnings of the church-and-state relationship in the West with Emperor Constantine, make a brief stop among the medieval heights of Christendom, and consider some wisdom for all of us living in a post-Christendom world.

All brought to you from some of our favourite and most eminent voices on the topic: Miroslav Volf (Yale), Teresa Morgan (Oxford), Nick Spencer (Theos), David Bentley Hart, and more. Along with cameo appearances from the perennial classic Yes Prime Minister.

“So the ideal candidate from the Church of England’s point of view would be a cross between and socialite and a socialist?”

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Explore:

Sir Humphrey explains about The Church of England | Yes Prime Minister

Miroslav Volf, On private Christianity [NEEDS LINK]

Teresa Morgan, On the Emperor’s new religion

Teresa Morgan, On the conversion of the Empire

Teresa Morgan, On the double-edged sword, power

Sarah Coakley, On lament

Nick Spencer, On popes and power

David Bentley Hart, On minority Christianity

Joel Edwards, On speaking up

Craig Calhoun, On doubt and certainty

Browse For the Love of God: The Interviews