Program podcast

Australia’s very first interfaith network runs a thriving ‘faith tour’, with the cooperation of sixty or so volunteers and the myriad mosques, temples and churches in its cluster of ten suburbs. Join a busload of Catholic school students on tour and encounter elephant-eared Ganesha, the Buddha’s relics, and mosque dress code.

Australia pioneered the concept of free secular education in the 1800s, and the rest of the world followed. But today, around one third of Australian children attend private schools that are mostly Christian.Is the dream of our forefathers to ensure an egalitarian and secular education slipping away? Does God belong in the classrooms of our public schools? Kylie Grey examines the future of religious education in Australia, and whether God still has a role to play in our schools.

This Encounter in the Central Australian desert introduces Morris Stuart, a former pastor who was born in British Guyana in the Caribbean. He uses sacred music to help empower indigenous people, working with local choirs in Central Australia, Alice Springs and, most recently, with the famous South African Soweto Gospel Choir.

Encounter delves into the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of volunteering overseas.

Does Islam need a Caliphate? The extravagant brutality of the IS group in Syria and Iraq has Muslims worldwide saying that if this is the restored Caliphate, we want no part of it. But what about the idea of a “proper” pan-Islamic polity, established and run according to Koranic principles? How might it work – and how likely is it to happen?

If someone tells you to go to Hell, you’ve probably got a good picture in your mind of what you’ll find when you get there: Somewhere deep underground, devils with pointy tails, lots of fire and brimstone. But where does our western idea of Hell come from and why does it take this particular form? And what can Hell's most famous architect – Dante – teach us about living together in the modern world?

A tribute to distinguished poet, priest, scholar and educator, Peter Steele who died on 27 June 2012. Peter Steele’s poetry has appeared in seven volumes and last month his final book of ‘essays in poetry’ was published as Braiding the Voices. This program features Peter Steele in conversation, his poems, and reflections on the life and work of this notable Australian cultural figure.

A musical Encounter this week, as we join the Choir of Christ Church St Laurence for a service of Advent Carols.

Encounter delves into Buddhism's long history in Australia and how it has adapted to this land and its people, and it's not as peaceful as you might imagine.

Religious mystics have often experienced visions and trance-like states that they say come directly from God. But in the modern era, there's speculation that these figures may have been experiencing hallucinations brought on by epilepsy – and indeed many people today with similar neurological conditions say that their seizures can often come in the form of intensely mystical or religious experience.

When people talk about “The Asian Century”, they’re usually referring to the expected economic and political dominance of Asia over the next hundred years. But if the growth of Christianity in the region continues, then the 21st century could also turn out to be the Asian Christian Century.

Is religion intrinsically violent? Many atheists say yes - while many religious believers see their faith tradition as being about peace and harmony. This week we complicate both pictures.

There's a back story to the upcoming Meredith Music Festival (Australia's hippest festival?) about a woman whose life God 'interrupts'. That's the way Mary Nolan puts it.

A day in the life of Khaled Sabsabi - war refugee, visual artist, hip hop producer and much more.

Have you met Jason Chan the walking Buddhist monk yet? Find out about his journey from far north Queensland to Sydney walking barefoot.

The Muslim community in Australia is anxious: militant Islam is on the rise in the Middle East and spreading around the globe. The Australian government has reacted by increasing the surveillance powers of intelligence services. How are the new laws and the media hype impacting the Sunni Muslim community in Sydney, and what are their solutions to the rising discontent?

Does Islam need a Caliphate? The extravagant brutality of the IS group in Syria and Iraq has Muslims worldwide saying that if this is the restored Caliphate, we want no part of it. But what about the idea of a “proper” pan-Islamic polity, established and run according to Koranic principles? How might it work – and how likely is it to happen?

As ISIS militants continue their mission to purge Iraq of its minority populations, diaspora Iraqi Christians campaign in defence of those they have left behind. Who are these Christians?

Jewish communities across Europe are currently feeling the cold winds of history blowing, as the recent rise in anti-Semitic attacks stirs terrible memories. This week we trace the similarities and differences between then and now, via a walking tour of Prague, using Franz Kafka as our guide. Why Kafka? Because he was there last time it happened.

The 20th century was haunted by the figure of the enemy - that often spectral, but sometimes all-too-real threat to national well-being and way of life. This second of a two-part series explores the fundamental drama of ethics – how to discern whether a stranger is in fact an enemy, or a bearer of divine grace, and the way that the surprising and often unconventional example of modern "saints" can expand our moral vision.

Has the 20th century left Western society so overwhelmed by the threat of evil that it can no longer imagine the Good?

The law is set up to dispense justice and compensation. But justice doesn't always means the same thing to everybody - and for people who have been the victims of terrible crimes, compensation is far from being the end of the story.

Financial pressures are escalating for traditional Christian churches, as secularism rises and child abuse compensation payouts loom. Find out how the mission of the church is changing by the enforced sale of many of their buildings and properties to pay debts.

This Encounter in the Central Australian desert introduces Morris Stuart, a former pastor who was born in British Guyana in the Caribbean. He uses sacred music to help empower indigenous people, working with local choirs in Central Australia, Alice Springs and, most recently, with the famous South African Soweto Gospel Choir.

'Texts and Traditions' takes a brace of texts that have found new, 21st century interpreters. Studies of a 19th century manuscript of Hindu deities, the statutes of confraternities in 16th century Bologna, and a 10th century manuscript copy of some of Pope Gregory the Great’s sixth century letters throw surprising light on the present. Or is it that the present illuminates the past?

On the centenary of the outbreak of the WWI, we focus on the men and women known affectionately as ‘padres’, chaplains who have served the Australian Army officially since 1913. At the heart of the program is the untold story of one of Australia’s earliest WWI padres, an Anglican minister who by war's end was Major The Reverend R.H. Pitt-Owen.

Tasmanian Rob Cordover had motor neurone disease and in 2009, before he could choke to death, he died with medical help. That help can get you 14 years’ jail in Australia. His wife Nica, their kids, and their helpers still can’t be sure the police are not coming.

This week we explore the early history of Muslim immigration to Australia, focusing on the connections between Muslim immigrants and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. A story of surprising encounters and unexpected histories.

As Indonesians made their democratic voting choices in 2014, they were also flagging a way forward for the nation's significant Islamic education sector and its key institutions, the pesantren, the madrasah and the State Islamic universities. In Encounter, find out about pesantren, and hear of an ambitious dream for Indonesian Islamic higher education as a new global centre for Muslim intellectual life.

Everyone seems to think they know what karma means, but Buddhists and Hindus are facing challenges today due to a misunderstanding of karma and its twin rebirth.

No-one really knows how old Zoroastrianism is. Herodotus makes mention of something like it in the fifth century BCE, but Zoroastrianism almost certainly pre-dates Judaism, and may even be older than the Vedic tradition which gave birth to Hinduism. Surprisingly, the adherents of this ancient religion believe their theological goal to be still incomplete.

Jews often say that Judaism is about "deed, not creed", and that the ethical question of how to live is far more urgent that the theological one of what to believe. Why then does Judaism have such a rich history of thought and philosophy? And what is the origin of the stereotype of the "Jewish intellectual"?

In recent years, Muslims in the West have come under increasing pressure to practice "moderate" Islam - i.e. an Islam that embraces the various legacies of the European Enlightenment, which include secularism and a certain kind of rationality. But is a moderate or "reasonable" religion one that sells itself short?

First in a three-part series on faith and reason. Religion comes under fire from atheists because it's supposedly irrational, requiring the believer to sign up to propositions that amount to nonsense. How do—or how should—faith and reason interact?

Encounter visits the underside of Los Angeles, where the United States' economic recession is biting hard into the lives of the poor and the marginalised.

For several decades, Peter Sculthorpe has been Australia's most prolific and profiled composer. In that time he has developed his own vision for the spiritual and moral dimensions of Australia. In conversation with Florence Spurling, Peter Sculthorpe takes us from Tasmania to the many places his music and spirit have since travelled.

The third program in Encounter's archive series. In January 1988, Australia was getting started on its Bicentenary celebrations - but in indigenous communities, many were wondering just what it was that they were supposed to be celebrating. This program visits the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, and hears reflections from local indigenous people on 200 years of trauma and triumph.

Shakespeare has acquired quasi-religious status in Western culture and beyond. But how do we trace the religious threads in Shakespeare’s own life and work? and why have his plays become so influential?

The first in a month-long series of programs from the Encounter archives. This week: an extraordinary story of grief, courage, resilience - and unexpected joy, as a Melbourne family comes to terms with their son's severe injury in a road accident.

He was seen in person by more people than anyone else in human history. Pope John Paul II brought the Catholic Church to the world as the second-longest serving pontiff, and was beloved for it. On the eve of his canonisation by the Vatican, we ask - what forces shaped this man? And what sort of legacy did he leave the world?

First in a two-part series on the two-part Papal canonisation that's about to take place in Rome. This week: Pope John XXIII, the man who fifty years ago began driving the locomotive of Catholic Church reform by inaugurating the Second Vatican Council. But who was he? And how is his influence being felt in the Church and in secular society today?

On a slow boat journey from Constantinople to Venice in the early 15th century, scholar and papal diplomat Nicholas of Cusa set modern scientific method in train when he conceived of the value of ignorance as a means towards knowledge. The more one learns of one’s unknowing the more learned one is.

In this year of the 100th anniversary of World War I —the 'founding catastrophe' of the 20th century—we look at life for German Jews before, during and after the Great War.

Encounter delves into the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of volunteering overseas.

Our cultural obsession with body image is often blamed on the media. But from the story of Eve and her suspect desire for forbidden fruit to the persistence of such ascetic traditions such as fasting, Christianity has influenced the ways in which we shape our bodies in the service of transforming our souls.

If someone tells you to go to Hell, you’ve probably got a good picture in your mind of what you’ll find when you get there: Somewhere deep underground, devils with pointy tails, lots of fire and brimstone. But where does our western idea of Hell come from and why does it take this particular form? And what can Hell's most famous architect – Dante – teach us about living together in the modern world?