When I think of Ethiopia I think of the terrible famines and emaciated human beings of the 1980s. The Ethiopia of 2012 is still desperately poor but making great strides in improving the well-being of its people. Since the turn of the millennium per capita economic growth has averaged just on 6%, double that of Australia. In the last five years the average has been 7.2%, the highest in sub...
By any measure Bangladesh is one of the poorest nations on earth. Sixty four million Bangladeshi’s live on less than $1.25 a day; forty three percent of children are under-nourished; five percent of children die before their fifth birthday; almost half the population lack access to decent sanitation. The human stories behind these statistics are heart-breaking. But there is good news...
I recently discovered one of the best kept secrets of the 21st century: There is no longer a “third world”. We are accustomed to dividing the world into rich and poor, with the poor nations, the “third world”, ruled by corrupt dictators, going nowhere and trapped in poverty. This may have been the case in 1960 but today nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, a group...
One of my favourite songs is the “Logical Song” by Supertramp. Or if you’re a generation younger than me you might remember it as a cover by the German techno band Scooter. When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, it was beautiful, magical And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily, joyfully, playfully, watching me But then...
Just about every Australian Christian I know has a prosperity theology.We find it abhorrent to suggest that God wants us to be rich but then speak of how ‘blessed’ we are in Australia. Meanwhile we live as if we believe God wants us to be rich, gladly renovating our homes, buying new cars, traveling overseas and investing in super so that we can continue all these things in our...
Sick of hearing bad news about global poverty? Here’s five of the best news stories you’ll ever hear. 1. In your own lifetime you have seen an entire nation, South Korea, lift out of poverty. In the 1960s South Korea had poverty rates to match Bangladesh and Malawi of today. But now South Korea is one of the world’s rich nations; 2. A number of nations are following in South...
Wandering through the National Art Gallery a few years back I learned something important about life. The gallery was filled with two types of people, solemn-nodders and bewildered-head-shakers. The solemn-nodders spent long periods of time in front of each painting, chins cupped in hand, ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ emanating from their mouths. They got art. The bewildered-head...
Have you ever have had one of those days where everything that could go wrong seems to go wrong? Mine began with a 4.30am rise for a 6am fight to Brisbane, necessary because I had missed my flight the previous afternoon. The meetings in Brisbane went well, but when I arrived at the airport it all started falling apart. My flight was delayed, first for an hour, then for a second hour. When I...
“Dear Scott, This is the hardest letter I’ve ever had to write…” So began a letter I received a week after a Moore College student reunion. I had recently completed a Masters thesis and shared with a former classmate that it had raised challenging questions for me about some of the Christian teachings I had always believed. This disturbed my classmate to the point that he...
I’ve only ever preached one sermon that somebody walked out on. It was the early nineties, I was in my early twenties and fresh out of theological college. I was preaching on the Lord’s Supper from 1 Corinthians 11. As a child I had heard the words of this text read hundreds of times. At each communion service came the solemn reminder, “whoever partakes unworthily east and...