Last year my eldest brother gave a speech at my father’s funeral. My other siblings and I had rhapsodised about Dad’s virtues. But my elder brother talked about Dad’s imperfections. He recognised that Dad was flawed like the rest of us. But the thing that impressed him about Dad...
Which Jesus?
As I survey the Australian church it seems to me there are three portraits of Jesus commonly found. I call them the forgiving Jesus, the empowering Jesus, and the just Jesus. These portraits shape our values, our mission, our ethics, our piety, our worship and our engagement with the world around...
It’s the Resurrection, Stupid
When I was growing up the death of Jesus Christ on a Roman cross was the defining centre of my understanding of Christianity. Jesus’ death was God’s solution to the estrangement between humankind and God that was caused by our sin. Our wrongdoing demanded punishment of the most severe...
On Healing
2011 was not a good year for my health. It began with the diagnosis that I have Parkinson’s disease and closed with the discovery that I also have Chronic Lymphoctic Leukemia (CLL). At age 45 I was considered young to have acquired both these diseases. Parkinson’s is a movement disorder...
Our Father
Jesus invites us to relate to God as "our Father". In this sermon series we explore what this means. In the latest sermon, March 4 2012, we ask what it is for God to be our disciplining Father.
Review: Remember the Poor. Paul, Poverty and the Greco-Roman World
Remember the Poor by Bruce Longenecker is a brilliant piece of work that comprehensively dismantles the notion that care for the poor was a marginal concern for Paul and convincingly demonstrates that it was rather a distinctive feature of Christian living in the Gentile Jesus communities. In the...
There’s a Whole Lot More to Our Environmental Challenges Than Climate Change
Listening to the public environmental discourse at the moment I hear a lot about climate change and little else. The reality is that climate change is but one of many serious environmental challenges confronting the world today. My attention was drawn to this by a 2009 paper “A Safe Operating...
Child Sponsorship Ain’t What It Used to Be…It’s Better
Many aid agencies have radically changed the way they run child sponsorship programs. Fifty years of experience has helped them see that the older model has some glaring weaknesses. New models seek to avoid those weaknesses and are proving much more effective.
Review: Creatures of the Same God.
A proper regard for animals is arguably a significant blind spot in contemporary Christian thinking. It is a blind spot Rev Dr Andrew Linzey, a member of the Faculty of Theology at Oxford University and Director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, has spent his life trying to correct. Linzey...
The Ethics of Sex: Deciphering the Debate Over Sexual Ethics
What is a Christian sexual ethic and how does it inform our approach issues such as defacto marriages and homosexual partnerships? This paper introduces the key issues involved in developing a biblically shaped sexual ethic, overviews different approaches and explores the ways key biblical texts...