One of the most beautiful passages in Scripture is the apostle Paul’s discourse on love in 1 Corinthians 13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give...
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald led with a gut wrenching story about the remains of 800 children found in a sewerage pit in Ireland. These were children who died while institutionalised at ‘the Home’, a place to which unmarried women who fell pregnant were sent in the 1920s-1950s. A journalist whose research broke the story commented: “When daughters became pregnant, they were...
When I was in Cambodia recently I heard about a place called Diamond Island. Filled with luxury apartments and houses, it is a world away from the poverty that marks the country. My first inclination is to ask “how can the residents of Diamond Island live like that when there are so many poor in their country?” But on reflection I realise that I should also ask the question of myself...
Ethics can be confusing. Christians debate gender roles, sexuality, abortion, euthanasia and much more, and despite having the same Scriptures before us, still manage to disagree. What’s more, the bible we open contains some weird and wonderful teaching. Try these on for size: If my brother dies without having produced a son, I am to marry his wife and we are to have a child who takes my...