The great project of the Enlightenment was to bring reason to the forefront.

No more would humans be held back by superstitions: the power of the mind was all that was needed for advancement.

Three centuries on though, and some people are beginning to think the pendulum has swung too far.

Have we become disenchanted? Perhaps there’s more to life than what reason can show us?

Meet our guest

Links

Special thanks to our season sponsor Zondervan Academic. Get discounts on MasterLectures video courses and exclusive samples of their books at zondervanacademic.com/undeceptions

Disenchanted Age was recorded live in Sydney in July 2024.

A transcript of this episode is available here. Please note that due to software not all exchanges between guests will be completely accurate.

Check out these links to what we discussed on the show

To Read

• Stan’s 2022 Easter article for the ABC – on forgiveness – caught the attention of Undeceptions’ favourite Miroslav Volf. Check it out here
• Here’s Stan’s weekly column, that he writes for the Saturday Paper in Australia
• Head here to get your copy of Stan’s Walkley Award Winning novel Talking To My Country
• Stan worked extensively at Australia public broadcaster, The ABC, before stepping away in 2023. Check out some of his work here
• Here’s a copy of Edward Shillito’s poem ‘Jesus of the Scars’

To Watch

• Here’s Stan, making sense of the “no” vote, following the Australian referendum on an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Voice to Parliament
• In 2023, Stan publicly announced he was stepping back from media commitments, and cited problems of societal division – to which he believed he was contributing. Watch his statement here
• Here’s Stan, speaking powerfully about the challenges faced by Aboriginal Australians, on the SBS program The Feed
• Across his celebrated career, Stan has reported from some of the world’s most challenging areas. Here he is, speaking on CNN, about covering the Syrian Civil War – it gives insight into his remarkable reporting ability

To Listen

• Here’s Stan’s remarkable Undeceptions Single – his reflections on the tragic Bondi Junction massacre
• Stan’s done loads of public speaking – such as this debate, published here by the Ethics Centre
• Here’s Stan, speaking more broadly about The Voice, and his future work, on the Human Cogs podcast
• Stan name-checks our favourite theologian St Augustine in this episode about the disenchanted age – so why not go back to our episode about him?

… and finally

• Here’s the CNN report of Stan’s incredible journey through Mongolia – during which the President of the country nearly knocked him out with the exotic food and drink!