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Nov 27, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Meredith Lake |Alice Walker |Rohan Salmond |John Jacobs
What does a future of freedom and justice look like? Recently-deceased Peruvian theologian Fr Gustavo Gutierrez spoke about liberation from all kinds of oppression and God's preferential option for the poor. It's a vision that began on the fringes, but has wound up influencing the very centres of power in the Christian world. Fr Peter Smith is parish priest of St Columba's Catholic Church in Leichhardt and Promoter of Peace and Justice with the Archdiocese of Sydney.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Meredith Lake |Rohan Salmond |Alice Walker |John Jacobs
Is there a mantra that helps you meditate, or perhaps some music that helps you connect with your sense of the sacred? Music has a long and intimate relationship with spirituality, and has helped people throughout the ages and across faith traditions to access something of the divine. Cyprian Consiglio is a Camaldolese monk with the monastery of New Camaldoli in Big Sur, California. He is a musician and writer and the newly appointed General Secretary for Monastic Interreligious Dialogue.
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Aug 13, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Natasha Mitchell |Claire Slattery |John Jacobs |Marcus Hobbs
The end of the Cold War led many to believe that democracy had prevailed, but the alliances shaping the new world order are shaking that belief. So what led to this current era of superpower conflict, and what will the outcome of the 2024 US presidential race will mean for the geopolitical dynamics shaping the world? SpeakersDavid E.
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Jun 28, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Sami Shah |Nadyat El Gawley |John Jacobs
Can religion provide us with the peace in the Middle East that politics and war have so far failed to do? Nine months on from the beginning of the Israel-Gaza conflict, there’s no progress on a peace plan, and no end to hostilities. The death toll continues to rise, and the suffering grows louder. Many pundits, experts, humanitarians and journalists have tried to provide an analysis of the current situation.
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Jun 21, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Meredith Lake |Rohan Salmond |Hong Jiang |John Jacobs |Emrys Cronin
How do we make and find meaning alongside one another, in community? We live in a society that's becoming increasingly atomised in all kinds of spheres. But what might it look like if we, instead, paid attention to the social — and spiritual — dimensions of life together? Sharon Hollis and Charissa Suli each have unique life experiences that speak to this question, and they are both prominent leaders of one of Australia's largest faith communities.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Andrew West |Hong Jiang |John Jacobs
NSW police have declared a knife attack on a Sydney bishop to be a terrorist incident. The violence outside the church after the attack also suggests Australia isn't immune to social tensions, but are they common? Faraz Tahir was one victim in the almost unspeakable murder tragedy in Bondi at the weekend. Faraz was part of the Ahmadiyya community, a branch of Islam that suffers severe persecution in Asia and the Middle East. The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church has made it official.
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Mar 14, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Meredith Lake |Rohan Salmond |Hong Jiang |John Jacobs
Perhaps you've heard it said, "We are what we repeatedly do". The early Christian ascetics knew this, but you don't have to be a monk to cultivate good habits, replace bad ones, and — hopefully — become a better person. Dr Jonathan Zecher is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at the Australian Catholic University. He is a historian of Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire with a special interest in monastic literature and early Christian culture.
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Feb 18, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Natasha Mitchell |Karin Zsivanovits |John Jacobs |Matthew Crawford
A good story can literally change you — and the worldFiction is a literary seismograph for social conflict and stories can change reality. They have shaped human rights; they have helped fight domestic violence and discrimination. There is nothing like an innocent story!So, what can we learn from storytelling on how to talk about difficult issues like climate change and the growing social disunity with Western democracies?
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Dec 6, 2023 | 
abc.net.au | Meredith Lake |Rohan Salmond |Nadyat El Gawley |Emrys Cronin |John Jacobs
Artists have always been engaged in social and cultural change. But how possible is art in a time of crisis? What kind of art do crises require and inspire? Maissa Alameddine is a multidisciplinary artist and vocalist who grew up in Tripoli, Lebanon and now lives in Sydney. She works across photography, video, sound design and live performance, exploring themes of displacement and migration as a chronic injury.
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Aug 31, 2023 | 
abc.net.au | Meredith Lake |Rohan Salmond |Nadyat El Gawley |John Jacobs
The world Christians live in is changing, so Christian theology is too. David Bentley Hart — one of the world’s most prominent and influential theologians — calls elements of mainstream Western Christian thought “a psychotic fantasy”. Wow! In Australia, theological colleges grapple with environmental and postcolonial questions, and it might just change the church here going forward.
