How would you like to raise $22 billion for anti-poverty programs around the world? That’s not $22 million but $22 billion. Sounds impossible right? Well maybe not. Back in September 2000 world leaders, including Australia’s Prime Minister, gathered in Geneva and declared that the new millennium would be one in which we would forge a new world. We will spare no effort to free our...
Two days ago Sandy & I found ourselves travelling by speedboat to Selingan Island, a tiny island off the coast of Malaysian Borneo, famed for its turtles. We had just come from a night in Sandakan’s rainforest. There it was beautiful but I felt like an outsider. Here on the open water, with the buzz of an outboard in my ears and the salt spray across my face, I was right at home...
Watching the video I felt sick. It showed the plight of child miners in Tanzania. Terrified young children sent down poorly constructed tunnels doing backbreaking and dusty work; children robbed of the opportunity to attend school; robbed of the present opportunity to enjoy the carefree play of childhood; and robbed of their future. The video then cuts to a luxurious jewellery centre, selling...
I ran a workshop on child labour last week and was prompted to make this infographic. The situation is disgraceful. Check out the infographic and consider doing something practical in response. Head over to Baptist World Aid Australia, learn about the brilliant child centred community development program and sponsor a child to support the program.
The issue of gender roles is squarely on the agenda of many Christians today. To help people get their heads around the debate here is an overview of the major approaches. For my own view see this post [learn_more caption=”Complementarian View”] Complementarianism is the view that men and women have different but complementary roles to play in the church and marriage. God has...
Wandering around my hotel in Kuala Lumpur it is strange to see so many women dressed in long black robes and with their faces fully veiled, with just a narrow gap for the eyes (called a nijab rather than a burqa). I am used to seeing the faces of people around me, their smiles and frowns, raised or furrowed eyebrows, the kempt or unkempt nature of their hair, the tan of their skin, all at a...
Along with most Christians, I grew up believing that when I die my soul will leave my body and ascend to an immaterial realm called heaven, where I will spend an eternity with God. The only problem is, neither Jesus nor the Bible teach In recent years biblical scholars have argued that the bible does not see eternal life as us ascending to heaven, but heaven ‘descending’ to earth and...
The Bible contains statements about gender relations that sound harsh to modern ears – wives are called to submit to their husbands and women are told to keep quiet in church. How do we account for this? Are the Sydney Anglicans right that God has given men responsibility for leadership in home and church? And if not, how do we account for the biblical material? Were the biblical authors...
Growing up in the church I often heard people declaring that God had spoken to them. And they didn’t mean God had spoken to them in the general sense that comes from studying and understanding a bible passage. They meant God had spoken to them about something quite specific. Nor as far as I’m aware did any claim to have heard an audible voice. Rather they spoke of a still, small voice...
This weekend the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Sydney Anglican churches have a new marriage liturgy in which the bride promises to ‘submit’ to her husband. This reflects a conviction that the Bible sees leadership in church and home as gendered, and that while bible writers may have applied this in culturally particular ways, the underlying pattern is ordained by God for all...