Today is the Queen’s Birthday holiday. Yet I suspect that not many of my fellow Australians will give much thought to the Queen nor her birthday. For most today is just another public holiday. Nonetheless, this public holiday always arouses my republican inclinations. I find it odd that Australians have a foreign monarch, for the institution is inherently un-Australian. It is elitist – only...
There’s a lot of angst in our community about the levels of debt we acquired during the global financial crisis. Yes Australia invested a lot of money stimulating the economy. What if we hadn’t? Listen to what happened elsewhere. Joe Stiglitz, a Nobel prize-winning economist writes in the book The Price of Inequality The 2007-08 financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed...
Today is my wife’s birthday, and it causes me to reflect on the extraordinary people we get to share life with. Sandy and I have been together since we were eighteen years old. She is without doubt the great love of my life, and I am humbled by the fact that she chooses to spend her life with me. I want to say words that sum up who she is, but whatever I come up with seems inadequate. How...
One of the perplexing things about Jesus is that he critiques the Pharisees for neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness, but appears to do the same himself. Mercy? Yes he has that in spades. Faithfulness? You can tick that box too. But justice? If justice is getting what you deserve, whether reward for doing good or punishment for doing evil, it is remarkably absent from the ministry of Jesus...
The last decade or so I have really enjoyed reading the works of “Jesus scholars”. They are part of a movement often described as “the quest for the historical Jesus.” The quest starts with the assumption that the Jesus pictured by the biblical writers and church tradition is quite different to the Jesus who walked the earth. So they try to peel away the layers of...
In the last few years I’ve noticed a shift in the language of politically engaged Christians. Increasingly rare is talk of Australia as a “Christian” nation whose heritage must be preserved and increasingly common is talk of “the common good”, with Christians asking how they can contribute to it This is a welcome change. I don’t think it’s possible for a...
Good Friday is the painful vision of humanity at our very worst. I am horrified by what I see there. A good man extinguished. A man who devoted his life to doing good, to healing the sick, welcoming the outcast, forgiving those broken by their guilt, honouring the shamed, standing with the poor and challenging those who kept them poor. His goodness was met by the most cynical abuse of power;...
Natalie Jean Wood died in her Surry Hills home sometime between 2003 and 2006. Her body lay undiscovered until July this year. For more than eight years no-one noticed she was gone, no-one missed her, no-one mourned her passing. I wonder if the same thing could happen in my street. I live in suburban Australia. The village, a world where communities were small and neighbours shopped, socialised...
Does it blow your mind that the image you are looking at is 28 million years old? Well, not the image precisely – that was taken by the hubble telescope just a few years ago – but the moment it captures. The Sombrero Galaxy is 28 million light years from earth. That means it takes 28 million years for the light it emits to reach us. So when the Hubble telescope snaps a picture we’re seeing...
This year when I wish people a happy Christmas, this is what I will mean. I wish you the deep happiness that comes from knowing and being known by your Creator; that comes from living thankfully, acting hopefully, and loving lavishly as you join your God in creating a world where injustice yields to justice, violence yields to peace, greed yields to generosity; and that sees you cherish this...