God Forbid

What is the place of religion in a pluralist society?
Australia calls itself a secular country, yet it has never been more religiously diverse.
Whether you're religious or secular, whether you support multi or mono-culturalism, it seems we all claim the authentic mantle of modern Australian identity.
Yet none of us agree on what it is, much less who owns it.
How should we grapple with our identity as a secular nation in a diverse and ever-changing world? 
GUESTS:Renae Barker, Senior Lecturer, UWA Law School, author of State and Religion: The Australian Story. 
Greg Melleuish, Professorial Fellow, Robert Menzies Institute; Fellow, Campion College. Co-author of Understanding Piety and Theology in the Culture of the West: The Poetic Life. See him in conversation at the Berry Writer's Festival in November. 
Enqi Weng, Research Fellow, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University. Author of Media Perceptions of Religious Changes in Australia: Of Dominance and Diversity. 
This program was made on the lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation

Generation Z is the first generation since the war to start out with less claim on the country than their parents.
You might believe this story is just all about economics. Negative gearing, property investment, supply and demand... 
But there's an older, even ancient, argument that says that says a country where people own nothing will eventually become a country where people are nothing.  
That owning property doesn't just confer wealth. It's moral training. When you own, you own up. This was the vision of Prime Minister Menzies who spoke of responsibility for "homes material, homes human, and homes spiritual". 
So was Menzies right? Does owning things make you more responsible, even a better person? Or is that the convenient story owners tell themselves, while the rest of us try to find this weeks rent? 
GUESTS:
James Vitali is a political theorist from Cambridge University, now a Conservative Party councillor in Dorset in the UK - His new book The Ownership Society: How Bourgeois values can save Britain. 
Max Jeganathan is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity. On the Labor side - He advised the Rudd and Gillard governments. 
This program was made on the lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation

Neuroscience is now spectacularly good at explaining how brains work. 
But there’s one thing it still can’t explain: why having a brain feels like something. Like anything at all!  
Philosophers call this the Hard Problem of consciousness.  
Is this gap in our knowledge something that science can never fully understand? Something intangible, even unknowable?  
Some say it's a life force, an essence, a soul. 
What, if anything, can religion offer this intangible? 
GUESTS:
Rev Antonios Caldas Coptic Orthodox priest and lecturer at St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College
Prof Neil Levy philosopher at Macquarie University and Oxford University

The Northern Territory is set to become the final Australian jurisdiction to legalise voluntary assisted dying (VAD). While thirty years of arguing comes to an end, God Forbid examines the wider conversations that are essential, but so often overlooked when it comes to voluntary assisted dying.
GUESTS:
Christoper Dudfield, Spiritual Care Practitioner, clinical leader and researcher.
Jodie Clarkson, retired teacher and community worker, palliative care outpatient in Mparntwe (Alice Springs).
Professor Charlie Corke, Senior Intensive Care Specialist, Barwon Health.
Further reading:Christopher Dudfield reflects on our obligations to the dying, even when we cannot endorse their choices, on ABC Religion and Ethics (18 August 2026).
WARNING: This episode of contains discussion of suicide, death and dying. 
Further informationHelp and support is always available.
Helplines (24 hours/7 days a week): Lifeline on 13 11 14 or 13YARN on 13 92 76. 
For bereavement support visit Compassionate Friends or call their National Grief Hotline on 1300 064 068.
This program was recorded on the lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation.

Mother Earth. Mother Mary. The "good mother." Is there a more impossible standard than motherhood itself?
Every culture seems to believe in a mother who is endless. Endlessly patient, endlessly giving, endlessly present. 
In Christianity she's Mary, the sinless virgin, the giving and eternal mother of the church. 
In psychology she's the "Good Mother", always available and calm, never faltering. 
In real life, she's the woman who looks like she's got motherhood handled, but who, if you asked her, would tell you she falls short like everyone else. 
Where does that ideal come from? What does it cost the women who try to live up to it? 
And what does it cost the women who, by choice or by circumstance, never become the good mother at all?
GUESTS:
Cristina Lledo Gomez Senior Lecturer in Catholic Systematic Theology at BBI – The Australian Institute of Theological Education. Author The Church as Woman and Mother
Dr Bronwyn Harman Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Edith Cowan University where she researches Australian motherhood and the "Good Mother Syndrome"
Sheree Joseph Sydney writer, Author of the new memoir Juicy