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Centre for Public Christianity

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Centre for Public Christianity

Promoting the public understanding of the Christian faith.

02/11/2026

Got your ticket yet? This is your last chance.

The stage is set at Chatswood Concourse, and tomorrow night Louise Perry joins us for the 13th Richard Johnson Lecture to ask how men and women might yet find their way back to each other.

Limited seats are still available. Visit publicchristianity.org/revolution

Wednesday 4 November, 7:30 -9:00pm
Chatswood Concourse Theatre

01/11/2026

Social media makes us hyper-aware of rejection. So what happens when AI makes us not aware of it at all?

Psychologist Leisa Aitken says it’s too early for the research to give us answers, but she has a concern about what we might be training ourselves to expect from the people in our lives.

She’s one of five guests in this episode of Life & Faith, sharing how AI is changing their work, and what they’re most keen for and most worried about.

🎧 LISTEN: bit.ly/4isfdHz or wherever you get your podcasts.

29/10/2026

"Men and women have to learn to get along. One way or another."

In less than one week, Louise Perry will deliver our annual Richard Johnson Lecture for one night only live in Sydney, asking the question 'Is it time for a new s*xual revolution?'

Have you bought your tickets yet?
bit.ly/rjl2026

WEDNESDAY 4 NOVEMBER
7:30-9:00PM
THE CONCOURSE THEATRE, CHATSWOOD

29/10/2026

Bluey has been recruited by One Nation.

It’s shocked fans of the ABC series where Bluey laughs, learns and plays with Mum, Dad, Bingo, Bandit and Chilli.

The One Nation version of Bluey is not so fun. One episode shows Bluey being run over by a car driven by politicians, and it’s implied that she takes the wheel herself to mow down the same politicians.

Thierry Groensteen, an expert on comics, describes the power a cartoonist has to ‘abbreviate’ a person’s character with ‘several pertinent lines’. Just a few pertinent lines and a cartoonist has the power to give us Bluey with all her verve, energy, and curiosity. But real-life Mums and Dads are feeling uneasy that a beloved childhood icon is being recast in a violent and vengeful world of politics.

One Nation defends its cartoons as satire. But it recently removed the Please Explain video where Jacqui Lambie explains that ‘I can’t laugh because of my pr*****ed vagina’.

It’s not that cartoons should never satirise politicians. For Groensteen, satire is a ‘natural vocation’ of the cartoonist who encourages critical reflection on public issues.

But is the Lambie cartoon actually satirical? Or is it bullying? Lambie looks dishevelled and hysterical, a contrast to the cool-as-a-cucumber Pauline Hanson. The reference to Lambie’s prolapse also revives ancient stereotypes that link a woman’s womb to her mental health.

The old ‘sticks and stones’ saying isn’t true. Words hurt us. Cartoons can, too. Especially when they recruit our inner bullies and make it personal. And when they invite children to stop laughing, learning and playing, and to take to the wheel of a joke that has political violence as its punchline.

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This special edition Thinking Out Loud was written by Danielle Terceiro.

Image source: YouTube / Pauline Hanson's Please Explain

28/10/2026

What does your psychologist, teacher, or pastor think about how AI is transforming their job?

“I think we may have created something that will end up shaping us more than we shape it.”

Is AI a revolutionary tool or an existential threat? A watershed moment in human history or an over-hyped bubble? Is it radically enhancing or fundamentally degrading our lives – or neither?

There’s a lot of confident commentary out there, and the CPX team ... has thoughts. But in this episode of Life & Faith, rather than making any pronouncements or predictions, we thought we’d simply go and ask some people to tell us some stories. We reached out to a few friends of CPX in various fields to hear how AI has impacted their work so far, what they’re most keen for or concerned about, and how their pre-existing beliefs and commitments shape what they see when they look at this new(ish) technology.

Listen in to these conversations with psychologist Leisa Aitken, psychiatrist Neil Jeyasingam, school deputy principal Sarah Golsby-Smith, economist and academic Gordon Menzies, and Presbyterian pastor Nathan Campbell on the why, when, and how of both embracing and resisting AI.

🎧 LISTEN: bit.ly/4isfdHz or wherever you get your podcasts.

Guests: Leisa Aitken, Neil Jeyasingam, Sarah Golsby-Smith, Gordon Menzies, Nathan Campbell
Hosts: Simon Smart, Natasha Moore

27/10/2026

We have a collective anger management problem. After the attack on Helen Haines, our national conversation about hostility – verbal, physical, and political – points to this difficult truth.

While social anger is multi-faceted, our Federal Police Commissioner and ASIO Director have linked the anger on our streets with the anger on our screens. The digital age is the perfect storm. A lack of accountability for what we say. A lack of proximity to those we attack. And an online algorithmic environment that rewards extreme emotion.

When online outrage boils offline, we find ourselves needing signs reminding us not to be abusive on buses, on trains, and in supermarkets – an embarrassing indicator that public civility is on the ropes.

Christian author Frederick Buechner wrote that of all the sins “anger is possibly the most fun…to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come…in many ways it is a feast fit for a king.”

Anger sounds like an easy dopamine hit. But then comes Buechner’s punchline: “The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”

Anger destroys its source and its object. That’s why the Bible equates it with ‘giving the devil a foothold’ and calls on people to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

Psychologists suggest that the three most destructive anger-propelling narratives are: seeing ourselves as victims; seeing those with whom we disagree as villains; and seeing ourselves as helpless. Avoiding these narratives – online and offline – won’t be easy. But a senseless attack on a sitting MP can be more than a wake-up call. We can make it a turning point. We must. Or the skeleton at the feast will be us.

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This week's Thinking Out Loud was written by Max Jeganathan.

25/10/2026

Muscular was not the synonym for "meek" we expected.

But according to Max Jeganathan's latest interview with Ben McEachen on Hope 103.2 Mornings, that's not far wrong. At the very least, it captures the idea that meekness is immense strength, under control and directed to a purpose.

🔗 LISTEN: https://bit.ly/4sy1m71

20/10/2026

A Gen Z s*x recession, rising rates of loneliness, heteropessimism: something is rotten in the state of relationships between men and women.

Hear Louise Perry live in Sydney on the revolution in human connection we need.

Get tickets: bit.ly/rjl2026

20/10/2026

With the attack on Independent MP Helen Haines, who are we becoming?

Yesterday, a 43-year-old man rammed his Toyota LandCruiser into Haines in regional Victoria, pinning her against another car before a local barbershop owner heroically restrained the driver.

Australia’s geographic isolation and our middle power status means we often feel insulated from turbulence abroad, from violence on Paris’ streets to assassination attempts in the US.

This is lunacy. The Bondi terror attacks happened almost a year ago and the spectre of political violence has escalated in recent years. Labor MP Josh Burns’ office was firebombed in 2024. Small Business Minister Anne Aly revealed she received 19 death threats alone last week after the ATO banned credit card payments for tax bills.

Admittedly, the motives of Haines’ attacker aren’t fully known. But collective grievance has been simmering for years. Factors include online extremism, economic strain, declining social trust, that feeling of racing just to stay in place. The fact that anger goes viral like nothing else. People feeling powerless and resentful while increasingly unable to deal with difference can be potentially explosive.

If we’re going to take political violence seriously, we need to weigh our words carefully.

Those disposed to political violence may believe actions speak louder. But words are a superpower of the social contract since they enable the existence of a diverse but peaceful community. What we say to and about each other is a litmus test of our hearts. Our words prime us to love, hate, tolerate, or vilify those with whom we disagree. When we abandon persuasion, political violence isn’t far behind.

We can’t afford further fracture, a complacent ‘she’ll be right’ approach, or more thoughtless, threatening words dashed off in anger. It’s on us all to take words seriously – and speak up.

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This week's Thinking Out Loud was written by Justine Toh.

18/10/2026

Ghosted. Left on read. Matched and then... nothing. 📱 Sound familiar?

It's easy to blame the apps, but Louise Perry says there's more going on, and it's leaving men and women more suspicious of each other.

In last week's special episode of Life & Faith, Perry gets into why finding someone has gotten harder, even though most of us still want the same thing in the end.

Want to hear her in person? Louise Perry is this year's Richard Johnson Lecturer, speaking in Sydney on Wednesday 4 November, and tickets are now available.
publicchristianity.org/revolution

🎧 LISTEN: bit.ly/louise-perry-podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

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North Sydney, NSW

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Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

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