Richard Johnson Lecture

The Richard Johnson Lecture, named in honour of Australia's first chaplain Richard Johnson, is an annual public event that seeks to highlight Christianity's relevance to society and to positively contribute to public discourse on key aspects of civil life.

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2026 RICHARD JOHNSON LECTURE

Freed from each other:
Louise Perry on the divide between the sexes

Everyone who came to CPX’s 2026 Richard Johnson Lecture on Wednesday 4 November in Chatswood expected serious treatment of the advertised topic: the growing divide between the sexes. On that front, British author and journalist, Louise Perry delivered.

But no one anticipated Perry’s shoutout to rural men: her appreciation for the oft-overlooked (more so in cities, perhaps) men (mostly) who grow our food and fight our bushfires. Or how the efforts of this cohort represented, in miniature, the modern project to transcend human limits and free us from want.

Perry argued that the technological wizardry of the modern era and its gadgets – from the washing machine to Wi-Fi, from contraception to the smartphone – have been so good at freeing us that they’ve managed to free us of each other. This rather unexpected planned obsolescence has made men, especially, redundant.

In Perry’s estimation sex and romance is cratering, friendship is fracturing, cousins are in short supply, and the coming global fertility crash will deliver us into a poorer world of tomorrow. Over the course of the evening Perry politely, even merrily, dispensed with contemporary dogmas left and right.

The lecture and Q&A recording will be available on the Richard Johnson Lectures podcast from 1 December.

What our audience said

"A rare opportunity to engage in person with a subject matter expert at a 'personable' scale and to come away with new knowledge while inspired to search deeper."

"It helped spark interesting conversation between my friend and I."

"Been to a few of these now. Always good."

"Intellectually quite challenging ... without the adversarial approach."

1 / 4

About the Speaker

Louise Perry

Louise Perry is a British journalist, broadcaster, and author of the bestselling book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. Her writing and commentary have made her a prominent voice in contemporary debates about sexual politics, pornography, and liberal feminism, particularly through her critique of what has been lost – not gained – in an era shaped by sexual liberalism. She also hosts the podcast Maiden Mother Matriarch, which explores questions of politics and culture. Perry has spoken recently about how her sociological research set her on an unexpected path towards taking the claims of Christianity seriously.

Learn more

Related Reading

PODCAST

Louise Perry on why the Sexual Revolution let us down

The Sexual Revolution freed us from oppressive tradition right? Wrong, says Louise Perry.

ARTICLE

Good sex feels increasingly rare. We need to change that.

Recent terrible news stories of sex and abuse aren’t the only danger to ‘good sex’ these days. Justine Toh explains 'heteropessimism' in The Sydney Morning Herald.

OTHER MEDIA

How men and women fell out of love – and created a culture war

This essay by Louise Perry, featured on the front-page of The Australian Weekend Magazine, asks if marriage is the antidote to the political radicalisation of the sexes.