Link Highlights | April 2018

Sunday, 13 May 2018 | Ethos editor

Link highlights – April 2018

Below is a selection of links to online news and opinion pieces from April 2018. To keep up-to-date with our posts, ‘like’ us on Facebook and/or follow us on Twitter.

The articles below are selected by the editor, Armen Gakavian, at his discretion. Neither the editor nor Ethos necessarily endorse the views expressed in these articles.

Aboriginal Australians

Kaley Payne writes: It took Brooke Prentis, a descendant of the Waka Waka peoples in Queensland, a long time to reconcile her faith in Jesus with her Aboriginal identity.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/how-brooke-prentis-learned-to-be-fully-aboriginal-and-fully-christian/

Australia needs community, says Brooke Prentis. “I believe if the Australian church embraces and empowers Aboriginal Christian leaders as teachers and leaders, we will see community thrive, our churches grow, and revival in this land we call Australia.”

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/opinion/aboriginal-people-do-community-differently/

Anzac Day

Andrew Hamilton writes: The tension between remembering those who died and celebrating those who fought makes the celebration of Anzac Day inherently controversial. It is seen by many to canonise military values. But the risk is less to glorify war than to sanitise it by allowing time and space to take away its physical reality and, with it, the sadness of war.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=55226

Paul Daley writes: This is my Australia. It’s a country whose reconciliation, whose true identity, will be determined by our capacity to look inward, by self-reflection, in order to parse the critical things that happened right here. But it remains, sadly, a country afraid to embrace the breadth of its history, the noble and the horrific, a country that clings to 1788 and Anzac at the expense of too much else.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/25/now-can-anzac-day-return-to-a-day-of-solemn-reflection

Paul Daley writes: Frontier wars almost certainly claimed more Indigenous lives than the Australian death toll in the first world war. If settler Australia is ever to deal properly with the legacy of frontier conflict, that comparison would be a good place to start.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/23/black-diggers-are-hailed-on-anzac-day-but-the-indigenous-great-war-was-in-australia

Geoff Thompson writes: The words “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”, uttered on Anzac Day, have nothing whatsoever to do with war. Wrenched from their context, Jesus’ words are used to legitimate certain cultural collusions. But there are some other words of Jesus which might speak into the war-torn character of every age: loving enemies and reconciliation.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/25/there-is-more-than-one-christian-lesson-for-war-remembrance

Stephen McAlpine writes: The Anzac Day worship experience shows no sign of abating any time soon. Not unless we find something as, if not more, transcendent to replace it.

https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/anzac-day-popular-secular-age/

Robyn Mayes writes: The Anzac legend remains firmly centred on the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign of 1915, and the sacrifice of “sons and fathers” in frontline combat. The place of women in this foundational story is also made clear – that of onlookers and supporters.

https://theconversation.com/women-have-been-neglected-by-the-anzac-tradition-and-its-time-that-changed-92580

Anne Lim writes: When he was director of the Anzac War Memorial in Sydney’s Hyde Park, Darren Mitchell was struck by the similarity of the dawn service on Anzac Day to Anglican liturgy. This led him to a fascinating journey through history.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/the-sacred-heart-of-anzac-day/

Martin Crotty writes: Anzac did not give birth to the nation, but the Anzac legend has had a nation-building and nation-sustaining effect.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/04/23/4834361.htm

Matthew Beard writes: In trying to emulate the character of warriors, have we afforded war a positive moral status to which it isn't entitled? Perhaps we need to look elsewhere for our moral exemplars.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/04/24/4834749.htm

Sarah Bachelard writes: Redemptive remembering cannot become self-satisfied or sentimental, because it involves being with the past such that we may be drawn into a more truthful and authentic future.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/04/24/4834648.htm

Architecture

Lisa Marie Daunt writes: It is the smaller, unassuming churches that made the greatest contribution to the formation of our post-war collective realm. Yet it is these churches' buildings that are under the greatest threat.

https://theconversation.com/uneasy-heritage-australias-modern-church-buildings-are-disappearing-94115

Asylum seekers, refugees and migration

M. Daniel Carroll writes: Deportation that separates families once more flies in the face of a fundamental biblical principle, in this case to provide for widows and orphans. It results in the very predicaments that the biblical injunctions were trying to help avoid. And it is counter to the person of God and his design for the family.

https://cpjustice.org/index.php/public/page/content/PJR_vol8_no1_danny_carroll_family_matters_in_the_d

Michele Madigan writes: Commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, NITV re-screened Richard Frankland's 1993 documentary Who Killed Malcolm Smith? Watching it, it became totally clear to me about Manus Island and Nauru. Perhaps as a nation this violence, this contempt of the 'other', is in our DNA.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=55244

Child sexual abuse

Craig Hughes-Cashmore writes: Redress is not compensation. It is about acknowledging the harm caused and supporting people who have experienced child sexual abuse in an institution to move forward positively in the way that is best for them.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=55120

Civil society and discourse

The contrast between two of our most recent national shamings is instructive: the ball tampering scandal, and the Barnaby Joyce affair, writes Natasha Moore. What do the cricket scandal and the Barnaby Joyce affair - and Jesus - have to teach us about shame and self-righteousness?

www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-01/easter-jesus-australian-cricket-steve-smith-warner/9605028

Nick Spencer writes: The use of parables within political discourse is not only permissible but beneficial. While doing so does run the risk of alienating those who do not share its commitments, it can introduce depth into political discourse and effect a reconsideration of our fundamental commitments.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/03/22/4820401.htm

Criminal justice

Arie Freiberg, Lorana Bartels, Robin Fitzgerald and Shannon Dodd write: Government and judicial interventions into the decisions of parole boards display a progressive loss of faith in these independent bodies.

https://theconversation.com/political-interventions-have-undermined-the-parole-systems-effectiveness-and-independence-94248

Disability

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson writes: Conserving disability affirms human embodied variation and distinctiveness, not because it is the given, but because it is the good. It helps us imagine a habitable world: a world that wants me in it.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/03/22/4820502.htm

Diversity

Martyn Iles writes: If we have come to a point where we teach our children, through animation and song, that there are categories of people in our community to be resented and brought down from their pedestals of power, we are asking for terrible trouble. It stands in stark contrast to Christ’s message that what really matters is not privilege, tribe or birth. What really matters is the condition of one’s heart before God, and in that is great blessing.

www.acl.org.au/privilege_bridges_south_africa_and_identity_politics

Economics, finance & inequality

Andrew Hamilton writes: At the heart of Pythagoras' contribution was wonder at a world in which human intelligence could understand and handle such different phenomena as music, architecture and the stars through mathematics. The cult of numbers in a cruder form remains characteristic of public life today. The most revered numbers are economic.

https://eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54779

“We hear politicians say all the time that they would love to increase Newstart because it is too low, but that they can't afford it. “Our calculations show that what they afford is a matter of choice. When bundled together, the concessions they direct to the richest one-fifth of Australians are substantial”, Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers said.

Peter Martin writes: Tax concessions for the richest fifth of the population cost the budget $68 billion a year, a new analysis commissioned by Anglicare finds. Negative gearing, superannuation and capital gains tax, discretionary trusts and exemptions from the goods and services tax for private health and education.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/tax-concessions-for-wealthy-reach-68-billion-analysis-finds-20180325-p4z65u.html

Ross Gittins writes: The Senate’s passing of the Orwellian Welfare ‘Reform’ Bill will, in its first year, add to homelessness by cutting off payments to more than 80,000 people.

https://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/we-have-a-bad-case-of-misdirected-compassion-20180325-p4z64c.html

Tim Kroenert writes: For gay teens and those who known them, the film is vitally affirming. But there's baggage that comes with its treatment of these themes that undercuts its efforts to engage the experience of alternative sexual orientation. Simon may be gay, but he is also explicitly a privileged white man.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54846

Peter Martin writes: One of the architects of Australia's financial system, Ian Harper, has expressed doubts about the policing power given to one of the corporate regulators now under fire for failing to prevent fraud and deception by the banks.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/benefit-of-hindsight-asic-may-have-been-wrong-body-to-protect-consumers-20180424-p4zbec.html

Rotten Apples or Biased Barrows? Responding to the Banking Royal Commission, Gordon Preece argues that better regulation and the threat of longer sentences are necessary but insufficient. They cannot provide an inner moral compass or character, the virtues embodied in names such as Prudential or Provident, which are urgently needed if trust and transparency are to be restored.

http://tma.melbourneanglican.org.au/opinion/loss-of-moral-compass-behind-banking-scandals-270418

Elderly

Jennifer Pont writes: The #MeToo movement, exposing harassment and abuse through personal stories, was no surprise to me. I couldn't be less surprised at the scale and depth of subjugation women still experience. But we must also recognise that women's disadvantage is a continuum where sexism meets ageism.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=55175

Environment

Kylie Beach writes: For Christians, reports of the extinction of a rhino species are a stark reminder of the negative impact that humankind has upon the Earth’s creatures. They are also a call to re-examine what the Bible has to say about the responsibility Christians have to care for creation.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/opinion/should-i-care-about-all-creatures-great-and-small/

Evil

Catherine Marshall writes: The repository of a superfluity of victims' faces and their heartbreaking stories leaves visitors questioning how it is possible for a country to turn on its own people like that. Why do humans turn into killing machines at the behest of their leaders, and when will we allow it to happen again?

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54874

Food

Simon Carey Holt writes: Preparing and eating food is a beautiful ‘reminder that in the routine tasks and ingredients of the kitchen are the most daily pointers to our dependence, our human need, our frailty, and the connections that sustain us. No matter what else our days hold — whatever is glorious and important, hard and defeating, fleeting and trivial — when we cook we are brought back to life at its most rudimentary. We bow our heads and confess again that all of life is gift. All praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ’.

https://eatingheaven.com/2018/04/24/cooking-as-a-spiritual-practice/

Foreign policy

Clive Hamilton writes: The author of the controversial Silent Invasion argues it's not the book, but the reaction to it, that has highlighted something troubling in Australian intellectual life.

https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-keep-turning-a-blind-eye-to-chinese-political-interference-94299

Andrew Chubb writes: China scholars disagree on the extent of Chinese influence on Australian politics – but it may be there are more points of agreement than most scholars realise. We need to develop a careful understanding and management of the risks involved.

https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-chinas-influence-on-australia-beware-of-sweeping-statements-and-conflated-ideas-94496

Freedom

Jonathan Leeman writes: Once a people view themselves as their own highest authority, whatever they most value becomes their god. And that god will rule their nation.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/april-web-only/why-liberalism-failed-patrick-j-deneen.html

Gender

Michael Bird discusses race, politics and gender in America and beyond with Walter Strickland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZuIFYzYJHI

Lyn McCredden writes: Tim Winton's latest novel, The Shepherd's Hut, pushes the author's classic themes to the extreme.

https://theconversation.com/tim-wintons-answer-to-toxic-masculinity-god-94486

Tim Winton writes: "Boys and young men are so routinely expected to betray their better natures, to smother their consciences, to renounce the best of themselves and submit to something low and mean. As if there’s only one way of being a bloke, one valid interpretation of the part, the role, if you like."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/09/about-the-boys-tim-winton-on-how-toxic-masculinity-is-shackling-men-to-misogyny

Genocide

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54874

Hospitality

Lindsey Carlson interviews author Rosaria Butterfield: Hospitality is about meeting the stranger and welcoming that stranger to become a neighbor — and then knowing that neighbor well enough that, if by God’s power he allows for this, that neighbor becomes part of the family of God through repentance and belief. It has absolutely nothing to do with entertainment.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/april-web-only/rosaria-butterfield-gospel-comes-house-key.html

Identity

www.acl.org.au/privilege_bridges_south_africa_and_identity_politics

Michael Bird discusses race, politics and gender in America and beyond with Walter Strickland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZuIFYzYJHI

Indigenous affairs

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=55244

Islam

Colin Rubenstein writes: Daniel Pipes has been a valuable participant in Australian and global debates about Middle East politics and Islamism for decades, including during his most recent visit to this country.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/03/23/4821193.htm

Jordan Peterson

Akos Balogh writes: Jordan Peterson is now well and truly a public figure. Millions are flocking to him, and hanging on his every word - including many Christians. Why is he so popular?

www.akosbalogh.com/2018/03/28/whats-amazing-jordan-peterson/

Akos Balogh writes: What should Christians should take into account when thinking about Peterson? While there’s much to like, there are also things we should be cautious of.

http://akosbalogh.com/2018/04/03/what-should-christians-think-of-jordan-peterson/

Stephen McAlpine writes: Peterson looked beyond felt needs to deeper needs, and rather than provide a bait and switch to get people to pay up and attend, he went straight for the spiritual and emotional jugular. He had the courage to both maintain a firm but polite public demeanour, and to say things that result in equally public scorn, slander and deliberate misrepresentation.

https://stephenmcalpine.com/2018/04/05/jordan-peterson-and-the-courage-of-the-counter-intuitive/

Law, human rights and free speech

Frank Brennan writes: Archbishop Fisher's Easter warning was in part responding to the findings of the royal commission and in part to some of the submissions to the Ruddock panel on religious freedom. Being on the panel, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on particular submissions at this time. But I was shocked by the Archbishop's shrill tone.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=55119

Justin Campbell writes: Rugby union player and devout Christian Israel Folau’s views on homosexuality have caused a maelstrom of controversy. Pressuring corporations to pull their sponsorship to censor controversial views may not be an attack on free speech, but it creates a culture that's hostile to it.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19684

Kim Baker Wilson writes: “I remember being called a faggot, a hard punch to the left of my head, and a flash of white. … What some people see as freedom of expression, I see as a vehicle for hate and prejudice. I see a sanctioned target put on people who are often already doing it tough and made to feel less.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/20/dear-israel-folau-ive-already-been-to-hell

In his own words: Israel Folau explains his beliefs and the context of his statements about homosexuality and hell.

https://www.playersvoice.com.au/israel-folau-im-a-sinner-too/#jLWSI6cuGc7G0gFm.97

Literature

Wesley Hill writes: Marilynne Robinson seems much less interested in theology for its own sake than in theology for the sake of anthropology. Her celebration of humanity needs to be qualified with an emphasis on humanity’s fallenness. Indeed, laying more stress on human depravity might actually advance, rather than detract from, the humanism she wants to promote.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/april-web-only/marilynne-robinson-what-are-we-doing-here.html

Marriage & divorce

John Sandeman writes: One great myth about the effect of religion on Western societies has been smashed. New research shows that the Christian believers divorce at a much lower rate than the general population.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/world/divorce-does-faith-make-a-difference/

Martin Luther King

Tim Middlemiss writes: Fifty years on, the most fitting way to mark the life and death of Martin Luther King Jr. is not with platitudes and remorse, but with action. Though it may be difficult, though it may be divisive; we need to redouble our desire to live lives of practical love - speaking truth to power, meeting with the vulnerable, leaning into the messy and sharing ourselves beyond our comfort zone; answering together "life's most persistent and urgent question, 'what are you doing for others?’"

https://www.commongrace.org.au/remembering_martin_luther_king

Has America has reached a point where people are judged on the content of their character, rather than the colour of their skin, as her father famously dreamed? Conor Duffy speaks with Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2018/04/04/martin-luther-king-jr-50th-anniversary/

Tommie Shelby writes: Judged alongside King's transformative vision of racial equality and integration, Obama's philosophy proved morally deficient and uninspiring.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/04/03/4824916.htm

Richard Lischer writes: We have no one of his stature to set the mark sufficiently high for us – to illumine our national sins, inspire us with hope or tell us who we are as a people. Within the nationally prominent Black Lives Matter movement, no single voice has emerged to lead the way as King did.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/keeping-the-dream-alive-what-martin-luther-king-jr-would-think-of-black-lives-matter-today-20180407-h0ygie.html

Tommie Shelby writes: Judged alongside King's transformative vision of racial equality and integration, Obama's philosophy proves morally deficient and uninspiring. His vision failed to build interracial fraternity on the basis of overlapping material interests rather than on a shared commitment to justice.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/04/03/4824916.htm

Gary Dorrien writes: The civil rights movement led by King refuted America’s self-congratulatory story about its freedom-loving goodness, instead offering Americans an opportunity to confess and atone for the ongoing legacy of their nation’s original sins. Today we need the witness of King more than ever, for America never built a culture of atonement, and today our nation is wracked by consequences of the very problems that King devoted his life to ending.

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/racial-justice/redeeming-the-soul-of-america

Duke Kwon writes: Civil right leader John Perkins rights hero delivers his “final manifesto” on race and the church’s call to unity.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/april-web-only/john-perkins-one-blood-duke-kwon.html

Simon Smart writes: We are all painfully aware that King’s promised land still awaits African Americans. But fifty years on, it’s worth reflecting on King’s journey, his vision, and its promise.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2018/04/to-the-promised-land/

Mental health

Ben McEachen writes: As the entire world continues to improve its approach to mental health, Eaton further calls upon Christians to not diminish mental health issues – or use Bible verses about anxiety or worry, to urge people to “pull yourself together”.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/charity/mental-health-is-everyones-issue/

Morality

John Sademan writes: A first batch of submissions to the Federal Government’s Religious Freedom panel chaired by Phillip Ruddock have been made public – and it reveals a vast diverse range of opinion.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/religious-freedom-panel-gets-a-diverse-response/

Politics, society & ideology

Barney Zwartz writes: The squalid deception by the Victorian Liberals on Good Friday is a double insult: to democracy and parliamentary practice, and to the faith that the principle players claim to profess. To use Christianity to deceive Parliament is to insult all Christians and, much more importantly, God. What an elastic conscience these men must have.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/liberals-good-friday-stunt-a-double-insult-20180401-p4z7bc.html

Gene Veith writes: 'The conservative thinker Patrick Deneen has published a book entitled Why Liberalism Failed. My question is, “failed to do what?”. ... It certainly hasn’t solved all of our problems, and it certainly has introduced new ones. But who says a political system has to resolve all of our difficulties and put our culture in order?'

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2018/03/has-liberal-democracy-failed/

Dan Flynn writes: The shenanigans of Good Friday in the Victorian Parliament prompt us to ask: what has happened to integrity and a time honoured sense of Aussie fairness?

www.acl.org.au/is_the_race_to_the_bottom_worth_it

Will Jones writes: Our system of blended democracy and meritocracy ‘has the virtue of recognising the equality of all people, created in the image of God, with dignity, freedom and responsibility, while at the same time respecting the place of universal standards of truth and justice in government as well as recognising the formal requirements of an effective state’.

https://faith-and-politics.com/2018/04/10/what-does-christianity-say-about-democracy/

Jonathan Leeman writes: Once a people view themselves as their own highest authority, whatever they most value becomes their god. And that god will rule their nation.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/april-web-only/why-liberalism-failed-patrick-j-deneen.html

In Why Liberalism Failed, Patrick Deneen argues that the American political tradition of individual rights and libertie is responsible for much of what ails America today. Reviewer Jonathan Leeman agrees with much of Deneen’s critique, but suggests that liberalism’s fatal flaw is less a deficient view of humanity than a deficient view of God.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/april-web-only/why-liberalism-failed-patrick-j-deneen.html

Kent Dunnington and Ben Wayman writes: One Nation Under God? That American Christians have been conscripted by the outrage over the national anthem indicates a confused Christian identity and a misunderstanding of the nature of Christian unity.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/04/20/4833225.htm

Race and racism

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54846

Michael Bird discusses race, politics and gender in America and beyond with Walter Strickland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZuIFYzYJHI

Religion in Society

Dan Flynn writes: The shenanigans of Good Friday in the Victorian Parliament prompt us to ask: what has happened to integrity and a time honoured sense of Aussie fairness?

www.acl.org.au/is_the_race_to_the_bottom_worth_it

Amanda Jackson writes: Hawking reasoned that man had to invent God because we needed to understand the world, but now we can rely on human reason and science. Am I then a fool for loving the revelations of science whilst also believing that everything cannot be understood by the power of reason?

https://amandaadvocates.blog/2018/04/05/what-has-religion-ever-done-for-me/

Peter Sellick writes: The troubled relationship between theological and state power goes back to ancient Israel and the eventual failure of its experiment with kingship.

www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19645

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/03/22/4820401.htm

Geoffrey Robinson writes: Despite attempts to import its ideas, evangelical Christianity has never held the same political appeal in Australia as it does in the United States.

https://theconversation.com/why-the-australian-christian-right-has-weak-political-appeal-93735

Tim Costello writes: Christianity was always meant to be about love not fear, encouragement not condemnation, and justice not just moralistic rules. That’s the message we need to get across in the public square.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/opinion/what-the-church-should-be-about/

https://theconversation.com/uneasy-heritage-australias-modern-church-buildings-are-disappearing-94115

Meredith Lake writes: Does it matter if Australians are becoming less familiar with the Christian scriptures? I would argue that, even aside from matters of faith, a working knowledge of the Bible, and a critical skill in interpreting it, remain extremely useful.

https://theconversation.com/why-our-declining-biblical-literacy-matters-94724

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/04/20/4833225.htm

Science

https://amandaadvocates.blog/2018/04/05/what-has-religion-ever-done-for-me/

Sexism and #MeToo

Karina Kreminski writes: An unintended consequence of the #MeToo movement is that some men are feeling tentative in their interaction with women. They are concerned about being misrepresented — despite the fact that they might not have done anything wrong. So where do we go from here?

http://www.missioalliance.org/should-men-mentor-women-even-after-metoo/

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=55175

Linda Wight writes: In the much awaited second season of the TV series, Offred is more openly defiant than she was in Margaret Atwood's novel. Still, the first two episodes remain true to the themes of Atwood's book.

http://theconversation.com/first-look-season-two-of-the-handmaids-tale-extends-atwoods-novel-in-our-metoo-moment-95041

Sexuality

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54846

Libby DownUnder writes: We don’t normalise having cancer and we don’t normalise medical conditions, yet society is normalising transgenderism, which trivialises my grief and pain. ... With the exception of a tiny minority of genuine cases of gender dysphoria, children are not capable of experiencing gender dysphoria. I myself a genuine case of gender dysphoria, did not experience serious gender dysphoria until my teenage years.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/11/im-transgender-please-dont-normalise-trangenderism/

Sexuality and same-sex marriage

Neil James Foster has presented a paper on the topic to a group of Christian health professionals in Newcastle on the topic: Same-Sex Marriage and Christian Health Professionals.

https://lawandreligionaustralia.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/same-sex-marriage-and-christian-health-professionals.pdf

Social media

Sarah Joseph writes: In some ways, social media has been a boon for human rights – most obviously for freedom of speech. But those newly empowered voices are not necessarily desirable voices. Worst still, human rights abuses might be embedded in the business model that has evolved for social media companies in their second decade.

https://theconversation.com/why-the-business-model-of-social-media-giants-like-facebook-is-incompatible-with-human-rights-94016

Susan Browning writes: Most days begin with a groan and a vague rolling out of bed after a lot of denials. It’s a rude awakening. The beauty that paints the sky and has the power to transform our hearts... and here we are missing it.

https://hope1032.com.au/stories/faith/christian-living/2018/discovered-went-screen-fast/

Steven Hill writes: Virtually every month, it seems, new controversies emerge swirling around Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter and other Silicon Valley companies. The latest, which involved allies of Donald Trump swiping personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users in the US presidential election, is yet another window into the nature of these companies.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/the-orwellian-danger-of-facebook

A. Trevor Sutton writes: Why is Facebook is so problematic? The answer lies in the Christian concepts of human depravity, original sin and concupiscence. God only knows what Facebook will do to us in the future. Yet we know enough already to approach this technology with the awareness that it has been designed according to our sin.

https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/social-media-and-sin

Guy Brandon writes: The personal information we share online is being deployed to shape opinions that impact our identity, to influence our relationships, and to negatively impact our ability to disagree well. As Christians, therefore, we cannot be apathetic about its use – and its exploitation.

https://www.licc.org.uk/resources/social-engineering/

Craig Detweiler, author of Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age, makes a compelling case for viewing self-photography as more than an exercise in vanity. For Detweiler, selfies can be pregnant with spiritual meaning and yearning.

www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/april-web-only/sacred-gift-selfies-craig-detweiler.html

Sport

Stephen Liggins writes: Where do we get our ideas that sportspeople should be "sportsmanlike"? The appeal of good sportsmanship remains strong amongst many people, but in our culture it is increasingly disconnected from the underlying beliefs and practices that helped produce it.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/rendezview/the-lesson-our-cricket-team-needs-to-learn/news-story/45896e14906cce7199962c1aee961bf9

Frank Brennan writes: Steve Smith and David Warner know they have done wrong and they will pay heavily for it. Yet they are seeking forgiveness. They yearn for redemption. They wish all this had never happened. They want a fresh start. They're looking for Easter.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=55115

Eddie Synot writes: The Commonwealth Games opening ceremony sought to present Australian history as a seamless 65,000-year progression into a modern, welcoming nation. But a protest outside the stadium challenged this simplistic story of progress and reconciliation.

https://theconversation.com/the-commonwealth-games-opening-ceremony-highlighted-the-chasm-between-indigenous-representation-and-reality-94492

Colin Tatz writes: In a throwback to the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, preparations for next month’s event on the Gold Coast are forcing the homeless to move out of town. Women who run soup kitchens for the poor and indigent have been told to close their shops until these “friendly games” are over.

https://theconversation.com/the-commonwealth-games-of-exclusion-what-are-authorities-so-afraid-of-93488

Glen Anderson writes: Sport used to be about building character and mental toughness through competition and, yes, failing. The recent ball tampering incident may speak to a deeper sporting malaise in Australian culture.

www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19655

Eternity's John Sandeman explores a range of responses from Christians to rugby player Israel Folau’s comments about sexuality and hell.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/should-israel-folau-be-silenced/

Natasha Moore and Tim Dean join join Josh Szeps to discuss Australian cricket debacle and other cheating scandals. Should we forgive, forget or pull up stumps and go home?

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-people-vs/the-people-vs-cheaters/9626430

US politics

Brett Colasacco writes: "Truth and falsity are functions of the degree to which a given proposition does or does not affirm the cohesion of the political religion, including the sacredness of the Führer’s office. Moreover, any utterance that demonstrates a willful disrespect for external, supposedly objective moral/ethical standards and principles of truth-verification can be received as an act of faith in the inner-worldly community, a sign, or sacrament, of mystical union.”

https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/what-trumps-lies-have-do-political-religion

War, peace & nonviolence

Mark Thiessen Nation and Stanley Hauerwas write: From the time Dietrich Bonhoeffer first became aware that he was a pacifist, he discovered he was so because of Jesus Christ; his pacifism and his Christological convictions were inseparable. So was he really arrested because he was involved in efforts to kill Hitler?

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/04/19/4832688.htm

Work

Rebecca Cassells, Alan Duncan, Astghik Mavisakalyan, John Phillimore and Yashar Tarverdi write: Despite relatively stable and low levels of unemployment, workers are increasingly concerned that their jobs are at risk.

https://theconversation.com/precarious-employment-is-rising-rapidly-among-men-new-research-94821

Kate Galloway writes: Employable Me follows a group of neuro-diverse young people as they search for meaningful work. The insights the program offers are a call to think about the world of work and the role of employment as a social good rather than a purely economic one, and how we make employment more inclusive.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=55166

John Bottomley writes: The reality of work factors in suicide is not fully understood by a traditional occupational health and safety focus on work systems. There is a cultural problem in western economies with our beliefs about work.

https://crosslight.org.au/2018/04/28/the-hidden-tragedy-of-work/

Young people

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54846