Encounter
Encounter
Encounter invites you to connect intellectually, emotionally and intuitively across a broad spectrum of topics. The program regularly reflects on the religious experience of multicultural Australia, giving access to voices and experiences that are not often heard in the mainstream media. The series ...
2009-12-06 Hidden Histories of Eastern Christianity
Two new books challenge simple `majoritarian´ accounts of the religious characters of Indonesia and India and reveal hidden histories. The first ever English language history of Christianity in Indonesia traces the long and pluralist Christian presence ...
2009-11-29 An Irish Childhood
Wendy Barnaby travels to Ireland to investigate some of the many issues arising from this year´s Ryan Report. The Report is about conditions suffered by children in institutions between the 1930´s and the 1990´s. The twenty institutions examined were ...
2009-11-22 Black Fire on White Fire
Biblical Hebrew is an enigmatic language. According to Jewish tradition it´s the Holy Tongue, employed by God when he spoke the world into being. So how has the language of Torah shaped Jewish thought - and what does it say today, to Jews and non-Jews ...
2009-11-15 Corporate Social Responsibility
As the global financial crisis reverberates, this week Encounter explores how the seven deadly sins have been responsible for the collapse of many big businesses. What are the ethical frameworks some CEOs and educators are advocating now to form socially ...
2009-11-08 Gearing up - for the Parliament of the World's Religions
In December the Parliament of the World's Religions is coming to Australia. It's a sort of interfaith Olympics, with thousands of people representing all the worlds myriad religious faiths expected to gather in Melbourne - under the sponsorship of the ...
2009-11-01 Give Sorrow Words - Cancer and Communication
This Encounter is about the importance of sensitive communication with cancer patients and their families. The program features Brisbane psychiatrist Dr Jane Turner and her cutting edge educational work with nurses in cancer wards. We also hear from men ...
2009-10-25 Caring for the Soul of the Country
The sound of the digeridu, or Yidaki as it's known in North East Arnhem Land, has been adopted as a symbolic part of Australian culture.
But how well do non-Indigenous Australians understand the spirituality of traditional Aboriginal music and its ...
2009-10-18 Gaza: Morality, Law and Politics
In December 2008, following continuing rocket fire from Gaza, the Israeli Army invaded the Gaza strip. There were many dead and wounded, and a huge amount of property and infrastructure was destroyed. How are we to think about this sequence of events? ...
2009-10-11 Art for God's sake
For some time it´s been said that the professional art world in the West is aggressively secular - and that Christian art in particular is something of an embarrassment, unless it´s taking an ironic or hostile perspective. But things are changing.
2009-10-04 Taking down the fences
A story about land clearing, ecological damage and restoration in Western Australia. But it´s also a story of physical and spiritual healing that includes whitefellas and the land´s original inhabitants - the Noongar people.
2009-09-27 Buddhism and abortion
In this program we explore the contentious issue of abortion, from a Buddhist perspective. In the west the abortion debate is polarised but Buddhists in Asia hold both pro-life and pro-choice points of view at the same time. We find out about the ethics ...
2009-09-20 Glory be...for dappled things..
On 15 August 1969 the UK prime minister Harold Wilson ordered British troops to Northern Ireland in response to public protest against the Northern Irish government´s crackdown on the Civil Rights movement in the province. Years of violent conflict ...
2009-09-13 Pemulwuy on the Block
Once notorious for drink, drugs and violence, Australia´s largest urban Aboriginal community in the Sydney suburb of Redfern is today on the cusp of a momentous transformation. The story of how it got there involves a Catholic priest and a family of ...
2009-09-06 Charles Taylor and A Secular Age.
Charles Taylor is a philosopher in a grand style. His recent very big book, A Secular Age, sets out to describe us to our Western selves in a way that counters much conventional thinking. Ruth Abbey is a political scientist who runs an ever-growing ...
2009-08-30 East Timor: The Hungry Season
On the 10th anniversary of its historic independence referendum the new nation is fighting one of its oldest enemies—hunger. Joining the battle on the ground are hundreds of Australians—from small community groups to Caritas, the Catholic ...
2009-08-23 Violins, Laughter and Heaven´s Bread
How might the Christian doctrine of the Trinity guide a response to social problems today and how might Jesus´ last conversation at supper with his disciples inspire constructive sexual ethics? Timothy Radcliffe is an Oxford-based Dominican friar and ...
2009-08-16 The labourers are few
Catholic priests in Australia are overworked and in increasingly short supply, and this has prompted some dioceses to recruit clergy from overseas. But how ethical is it to take priests from countries such as India, where they may be needed? Is it time ...
2009-08-09 It's All About Hope
Victoria is planning for sustained drought. In its northern irrigation zones, which have been particularly hard hit, hope is hard won. Then it is sometimes shaky hope, built on doubt - about climate change for example and its long term ...
2009-08-02 Eco Asceticism
In a world which promotes luxury and excess as the norm Encounter explores living a simple life. We hear how people from three religious traditions have linked their concerns about Climate Change with the ancient teachings and practices of ascetics. As ...