Progressive Christian podcasts

Looking at the stars and imagining what’s out there – and our own place in it as humans – is a theme that’s preoccupied our species across time, across cultures, and across religious traditions. Dr Mehmet Ozalp is director of the Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation at Charles Sturt University. Dr Jennifer Wiseman is an astrophysicist who studies the process of star and planet formation in our own galaxy using radio, optical and infrared telescopes. She is also past director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion.

Why is rest such a challenge in our culture, in our time? Tricia Hersey has made it her life’s work to advocate for rest – developing a rest practice herself, and guiding others in the same direction. Tricia’s work isn’t about self-care or individual wellness, and there’s no neat hack for recalibrating your work/life balance. Instead, she advocates for a radical, countercultural form of rest grounded in a theology of Black liberation. Tricia Hersey is a performance artist, community organiser and founder of The Nap Ministry – an organisation devoted to the liberating power of rest. Her book is Rest is Resistance: Free yourself from grind culture and reclaim your life.

The first interview in this episode with Anne Pattel-Gray first aired 29 May 2022. The Mabo decision was a legal and cultural milestone in Australia, but thirty years on, how has it changed theology? For decades Dr Anne Pattel-Gray has been calling for racial justice in and through Christian churches. She says Mabo “shifts our whole perspective of how we interpret the Bible, of how we do theology.” Aunty Dr Anne Pattel-Gray is a Bidjara activist and theologian who has been a key figure in the movement to decolonise Australian theology for decades. She is the author of The Great White Flood, which has become a landmark text in religious studies, and was recently appointed Professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Divinity in Melbourne. Rev Mark Kickett is interim National Chair of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress.

This episode originally aired 22 May 2022. Have you ever found yourself in a place where heaven and earth seem to meet? Sacred architecture and aesthetics can make a person experience the numinous, even in a building not set aside for a religious purpose. Also, Papua New Guinea’s Baha’i community, are about to open a new house of worship in Port Moresby. Watch The Architect and the Mosque on Compass. Read Ayla Lepine’s article about sacred architecture on The Architectural Review. Ayla Lepine is the author of Gothic Legacies: Four Centuries of Tradition and Innovation in Art and Architecture and Modern Architecture and Religious Communities, 1850–1970. More information about Papua New Guinea’s new Baha’i house of worship Official Site of the PNG Baha'i Community Rev Dr Ayla Lepine is an art historian and Ahmanson Fellow in Art and Religion at the National Gallery in London. Zha Agabe-Granfar and Saeed Granfar are part of the Baha’i community in Papua New Guinea. Saeed is the consulting architect of the new Baha’i temple in Port Moresby.

This episode first aired 5 June 2022. What does it take to re-green a desert? As it turns out, sometimes what you need is already in the ground right under your feet. Tony Rinaudo went to Niger as an agriculturalist and missionary and – almost by accident – began a regeneration practice now used across the world. Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration, or FMNR, cultivates the shoots of tree stumps that remain after land clearing. Tony Rinaudo is an agronomist originally from Myrtleford in Victoria who developed Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) while on mission in Niger in the early 1980s. He is now the Principal Climate Action Advisor with World Vision Australia. Ruth Jerotich is a farmer in the Baringo region of Kenya. She began practicing Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration on her family’s land five years ago and has become an FMNR ambassador in her community.

This episode originally aired 8 May 2022. an literature somehow bridge the visible and invisible realms? Meredith Lake speaks with Egyptian-American poet and aphorist Yahia Lababidi, whose work ranges across cultures, traditions and genres. Find Yahia Lababidi’s books here Listen to the Philosophy in a Nutshell series on The Philosopher’s Zone with David Rutledge Guests Yahia Lababidi is a writer, poet and aphorist. Originally from Cairo, in Egypt, he now lives in Florida, US. His latest book of poetry is Learning to Pray.

The South Pacific – the liquid continent – is one of the most religious places on earth. The overwhelming majority of people identify as Christians of one kind or another – so what does that mean at Christmas? Rev James Bhagwan is an ordained minister in the Methodist church of Fiji, and since 2018, General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches. The PCC is the peak ecumenical body in the Pacific - representing more than 40 different churches and national church councils, from across 19 different Pacific states and territories. Maria Komboy is a descendant of the Biak people of West Papua. She is a theologian and human rights advocate based in Jayapura, where she works in church and civil spaces to educate others about the basic rights of her people, and to advocate for peace and justice. For more on this topic, listen to God Forbid: Heaven on Earth: Religion in the Pacific.

As people around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas, Christians turn to the Gospels to read ancient accounts of Jesus. The gospel of John is the fourth gospel contained in the New Testament – and in some ways it stands apart from the other three, Matthew, Mark and Luke. From its famous opening words, “In the beginning was the Word”, its enthralled everyone from Origen to Bach to Dostoyevsky. The Gospels continue to inspire creative expressions of faith. Rev Professor Dorothy Lee is Stewart Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity College. She is co-editor of The Enduring Impact of the Gospel of John along with Bob Derrenbacker and Muriel Porter. Rev Canon Dr Bob Derrenbacker is Dean of the theological school at Trinity College. He is co-editor of The Enduring Impact of the Gospel of John along with Dorothy Lee and Muriel Porter. Anne Benjamin is a writer and poet who has spent decades reflecting on Jesus. She’s the author of After all this time: reflections on Jesus.

The Horn of Africa is one of the hottest and poorest regions on earth, and it’s home to a semi-nomadic community, the Afar. Valerie Browning is an Australian nurse who has given up her own way of life to live and work with Afar people for over 30 years. War in the horn of Africa has had a devastating impact on the Afar. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes just in the last two years – a small number of Afar now live in Australia as refugees. Valerie Browning AM is an Australian nurse who has lived and worked with Afar nomads in northern Ethiopia for more than 31 years. She is one of the founders of the Afar Pastoralists Development Association and was awarded an Order of Australia in 1999 for service to international humanitarian aid. Mohammed Salih is president of the Afar Community of Queensland, a group of nearly 60 people living in the greater Brisbane region. He grew up in Eritrea before moving to Australia as a refugee.

Do you have an enemy? Even if you do, you might not want to admit it, or say who! Melissa Florer-Bixler has thought a lot about enemies, especially in the political context of Donald Trump’s presidency. It gets complicated for her, because she is a pacifist Christian. How do you deal with enmity, when Jesus commands you to love your enemies? The solution isn’t always understanding and reconciliation. Melissa Florer-Bixler is pastor of Raleigh Mennonite Church in North Carolina. She is the author of Fire by Night and How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace.

At the beginning of 2022, flooding in South-East Queensland and the Northern Rivers of New South Wales upended the lives of thousands, including the area’s diverse religious communities. Hear how the area’s Sikhs provide aid even though their own gurdwara was inundated, and how the Jewish community practices hospitality as best they can in the lead-up to Pesach. Watch Fire, Flood and Resilience on iView. This episode originally aired on 10 April 2022. Guests Amar Singh is founder of Turbans 4 Australia, a Sikh charity that was among the first organisations to deliver outside help to flood victims. Neville Singh is a retired banana grower in Murwillumbah and member of the local gurdwara which was flooded last month. Daniel Harris is administrator of the Facebook group Shevet (Tribe)

With the latest round of UN climate talks wrapping up recently, it’s a good time to ask a fundamental question: Who are we, in relation to nature? What kinds of relationships bind us to other beings, like trees? Maybe even amid climate change we can approach nature with celebration – even veneration? Dr Mahesh White Radhakrishnan is a musician, an ethnomusicologist and anthropological linguist at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and a member of the group Hindus for Human Rights – Australia and New Zealand. They are also part of the ABC’s Top Five Arts media residency program. Their music can be found on YouTube. Louise Fowler-Smith is the founder of the Tree Veneration Society in Australia and author of the book Sacred Trees of India: Adornment and Adoration as an Alternative to the Commodification of Nature.

Where are you going? Journeys take many forms: Moving away from your parents’ house, being a tourist in a foreign land, or going on a pilgrimage to a site of profound spiritual significance – and all have a transformative effect on our lives. Dr Giselle Bader has a PhD in religious studies from Sydney University. Her research looked at fourth century pilgrimage to the holy land, including the pilgrimages of women like Egeria and Paula, and how accounts of their journeys have been received over the years. Sarah Malik is an award-winning journalist and author of Safar, a new collection of Muslim women’s travel stories.

How important is music to you? Does it have a sacred quality in your life? From contemporary Catholic theology to the goth icon Nick Cave, music speaks to the soul in ways other media does not. Dr Lyn McCredden is emeritus professor of literary studies at Deakin university in Melbourne. Read her essay about Nick Cave’s book Faith, Hope and Carnage in The Conversation. Dr Greg Clarke is a former CEO of the Australian Institute of Music, and before that, of the Bible Society of Australia. Dr Maeve Heaney is a consecrated missionary of the Verbum Dei community and director of the Xavier Centre of Theology at the Australian Catholic University in Brisbane. She’s also a singer songwriter and the author of a new book called Suspended God: Music and a Theology of Doubt.

Frank Wilczek is a Nobel Prize winner, and earlier this year he was named the 2022 Templeton laureate as well – a recognition of his spiritual as well as scientific curiosity. He’s a scientist, renowned for theorising the strong force in atomic nuclei, but more basically he sees beauty as perhaps our best guide to truth. Frank Wilczek is Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at MIT, the 2022 Templeton Laureate, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize and author of several popular books including A Beautiful Question and The Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality.

The Flinders Ranges in the semi-arid outback of South Australia is one of the oldest places on earth and the cradle of Adnyamathanha culture, ceremony and language. In addition to being an ancient place of cultural and spiritual significance, it’s the site of a recent archaeological discovery that rewrites Western understandings of the history of human habitation of the area. Terrence Coulthard is a senior custodian of Adnyamathanha culture and language who compiled the first Adnyamathanha dictionary, published in 2020. He is administrator of Iga Warta. Dr Giles Hamm is one of the key researchers working on the Warratyi Rock Shelter, and the lead author of the Nature article Cultural innovation and megafauna interaction in the early settlement of arid Australia. The ABC published a report when the Warratyi Rock Shelter was first rediscovered. Read more about the Warratyi Rock Shelter on the Flinders University website.

Women, where they speak and what they say, has been a hot topic for nearly 2000 years of Christian history. Modern moves to empower women to teach and preach in churches can seem opposed to ancient Christian texts, but the early church was far from unified about “a woman’s place”. One-hundred years on from the landmark decision to licence Anglican women to preach, and 30 years on from the first ordination of Australian women as Anglican priests, how easily can women raise their voices in the church? And what happens when they’re prevented?

In this messy old world, we all find ourselves on the receiving end of harm. But then – sometimes it’s us, we’re the one in the wrong. How do we face it?

In the past it’s been a joke to put Jedi as your religion on the census, but there are people who practise Star Wars-inspired faiths quite seriously. It turns out, people really do take things from fiction and incorporate them into their spiritual lives, either as modern mythology, or even as full-blown religious systems.

The Satanic Panic was a time of incredible anxiety in the United States – and Australia. This special feature examines how games like Dungeons and Dragons and books like Harry Potter became unlikely villains in a war over religion, politics and imagination.