Life & Faith Centre for Public Christianity

The ex-Rolling Stones journalist throws open the door the devil hides behind. Warning: not for kids.
The devil’s best trick, according to French poet Charles Baudelaire and/or criminal mastermind Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects (1995) was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.  
Randall Sullivan’s new book, The Devil’s Best Trick: How the Face of Evil Disappeared, argues that despite our sceptical age that dismisses the existence of the supernatural, evil is at work in the world, and can’t be dismissed as the product of a bad upbringing or warped psychology.  
In this interview with Life & Faith, Sullivan, the author and former investigative reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, tells us about his miraculous conversion experience, recounted in his earlier book The Miracle Detective: An Investigation of Holy Visions.  
He also spills on his new book, which took him 20 years to write, and his experience of coming up, close, and personal with the divine... and what felt like a malevolent presence in the Piazza Navona in Rome.  
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Explore:
The Devil’s Best Trick: How the Face of Evil Disappeared
The Miracle Detective: An Investigation into Holy Visions
Randall Sullivan’s Wired article on Michelle Gomez, the world’s best bounty hunter (paywalled)
A short Thinking out Loud column quoting Randall Sullivan in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in 2024 

With despair on the rise and hope in short supply, children’s literature offers people of all ages a treasure trove of wisdom.
Dr Amanda B Vernon is a literature expert who believes that children's stories are not just for children. In this interview with Life & Faith, Amanda talks about how stories written with children in mind often shed light on deep human needs, including our longing for justice, agency, truth, wonder and redemption through suffering. From Alice in Wonderland to Harry Potter to Winnie the Pooh, Amanda explores the joy, the wonder and the enduring wisdom of children’s literature.
Explore:
Amanda B Vernon’s website: www.amandabvernon.com
George Macdonald’s, ‘The Fantastic Imagination’
Neda Ulaby's NPR article on "protopias"

Darrell Bock fears the church in the U.S. is in danger of losing its distinctiveness. How might it recover? 
The United States is a divided country, and this year’s presidential election will bring that into sharp focus. Darrell Bock is a New Testament Scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary and the Executive Director of Cultural Engagement at the Hendricks Center.
Life & Faith interviews Darrell about the divisions in the U.S. and how tribal and ideological they have become. Darrell is concerned that the church has increased this polarisation with its misplaced loyalties, and by creating a social atmosphere that does not deal well with difference. Darrell believes it has been a mistake for the church to become an extension of a political arm, and that younger people have left the church in droves as a result.
Darrell sees a great need to return to a sense of welcome and care for the marginalised, as a distinctive marker of the love of God.
Explore: 
The Hendricks Center 
Darrell Bock books (there are many) 
Breaking the Da Vinci Code: Answers to the Questions Everyone’s Asking  Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ Gospel of Luke Commentary 

The spirit of our politics feels negative and harmful. Michael Wear believes the improved spiritual health and civic character of individuals can change that.
“We belong to a political party because we believe things, we should not believe things because we belong to a political party”.
Michael Wear is the author of The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life. In this episode he talks to Life & Faith about his desire to cultivate a more healthy and vibrant political and civic life in his country that is wracked with polarisation and enmity across the political spectrum.
Wear is under no illusions as to how large a challenge that is but remains committed to making a contribution towards a healthy pluralism.
He also has huge reservations about the way in which faith has been captured to further political, rather than religious, outcomes. Wear think there is huge danger in Christianity being instrumentalised as a means of advancing one set of political ideas. Instead, faith should be about the flourishing of all society.
Explore:
Michael Wear’s latest book The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life.
Michael’s previous book Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama Whitehouse About the Future of Faith in America.
The Centre for Christianity and Public Life 

The headlines are grim, and the world feels apocalyptic. It’s time to become the people the world needs right now.
“I don't know how to fix climate change or geopolitics, but I know what I'm called to do, which is put my roots down deep into love and be growing up, be becoming the kind of person that the world needs.”
Elizabeth Oldfield is the author of the book Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times – and turbulent our times are. Climate anxiety, political polarisation, social unrest, and diminishing attention spans haunt our days. Also present, but perhaps less obviously so: our gnawing spiritual hunger and desire for connection with ourselves, each other, and maybe even what Elizabeth calls “the G bomb”: God.
In this interview with Life & Faith, Elizabeth talks about “steadiness of soul” in an increasingly chaotic world and what it means to live in a small, intentional community or “micro monastery” that can fit 18 people around the dinner table. The conversation also covers how Elizabeth has managed to cultivate a space for profound chats across social divides in the podcast The Sacred, and what it meant for Elizabeth to flout careerist dogma and quit her stable, secure job to rest and lean into a different way of life. 
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Explore:
Elizabeth Oldfield’s book Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times
Her letter about leaving her job that hit a nerve with people
Her Substack newsletter Fully Alive
The Sacred Podcast

A philosopher and a butcher dig into what we should and shouldn’t eat, and why.
“As society has shifted away from being in close proximity to farms and food production, people are increasingly concerned about where their food’s coming from – the condition under which animals are raised and reared, and certain farming practices, [such as] pesticide use and the effects that that may have on the environment as well as on human health.”
Philosopher and sociologist Chris Mayes has thought about eating a lot more than most of us (which if we’re honest, is already quite a bit). The ethics of food involves a whole raft of factors: not only the treatment of animals and the environmental impact of production, but also the treatment of workers and the impact of the growth of pastoral land on indigenous peoples.
“In Australia it seems natural that we would have sheep, and natural that wheat would be here, but in thinking of the obviousness of those practices and products here, we forget their role in dispossessing indigenous Australians – the way that the expansion of sheep, particularly throughout NSW and Victoria in the early to mid-nineteenth century, was coinciding with a lot of these most brutal massacres.”
Chris considers what it means for lamb to be Australia’s national cuisine – and how you make Scriptures that rely on the language of sheep and shepherds meaningful within a non-pastoralist culture.
Then: Tom Kaiser is Simon Smart’s local butcher. Perhaps unusually for a butcher, he thinks people should eat less meat. He sells meat products that many would consider to be expensive in what he calls the “Masterchef era”.
“Affluence definitely plays a big part. They can afford to have the product that they see on TV. We know for a fact that we wouldn’t be able to charge the price, nor have the same model we have in different parts of Australia. … Ethics is obviously multi-layered. It comes to personal beliefs. It comes down to knowledge.”
Explore:
Chris Mayes’ book Unsettling Food Politics: Agriculture, Dispossession and Sovereignty in Australia
CPX’s new podcast The Week @ CPX