Link Highlights | August 2018

Wednesday, 19 September 2018 | Ethos editor

Link highlights – August 2018

Below is a selection of links to online news and opinion pieces from August 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 and Torres Strait Islander peoples

Anna Clark, University of Technology Sydney It is 50 years since anthropologist WEH Stanner gave the Boyer Lectures in which he coined the phrase 'the great Australian silence'. How far have we come since?

https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-great-australian-silence-50-years-on-100737

Richard Flanagan writes: Australia has achieved many great things as a state. But it will fail as a nation if it cannot find a way of admitting our Indigenous people, and our response to the Uluru Statement is key to this.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/05/the-world-is-being-undone-before-us-if-we-do-not-reimagine-australia-we-will-be-undone-too

Megan Davis, Cheryl Saunders, Mark McKenna et al. write: The Uluru Statement of the Heart confronts non-indigenous Australians with the full force of the moral claim that the First Nations rightly have on this nation's attention.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/05/26/4848714.htm

Abortion

Wesley J. Smith writes: Medical conscience allows patients to obtain morally contentious procedures from willing professionals, while also permitting dissenting medical professionals to stay true to their own beliefs and continue to serve patients and society. The principles of liberty and tolerance require no less.

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/culture-of-life/in-defense-of-medical-conscience-rights

Addiction

Jennifer Lamson-Scribner writes: Twelve-step programs often convey the contradictory message that although people are powerless over their pathologies, they are personally responsible for overcoming them. Is there a different approach? And what can churches do other than offering space for twelve-step meetings?

https://theotherjournal.com/2018/08/09/love-at-the-margins-a-preferential-option-of-care-for-people-struggling-with-addiction/

Ageing

Saul Levmore and Martha C. Nussbaum write: Bodily disgust and shame are now winning a battle that has been raging for decades. This has much to do with the specific type of stigma attached to the aging body.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/20/4886021.htm

Asylum seekers, refugees and migration

Samuel Berhanu Woldemariam, Amy Maguire and Jason von Meding write: The last thing national governments should do is abandon cooperative efforts to build stronger global responses to migration and refugee protection. The lives and wellbeing of millions of people depend on countries working together and prioritising humanity in their domestic policies.

https://theconversation.com/australia-and-other-countries-must-prioritise-humanity-in-dealing-with-displaced-people-and-migration-100664

Acclaimed correspondent Sean Dorney, who spent 40 years reporting from PNG, returns to the country to report for Foreign Correspondent.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/sean-dorney-returns-to-png-for-foreign-correspondent/10146608

Beauty

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/20/4886021.htm

Bioethics

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/culture-of-life/in-defense-of-medical-conscience-rights

Child sexual abuse

Melissa Davey writes: A former assistant taxation commissioner has said that it is unacceptable for churches that failed to protect children from sexual abuse to still have charity status nine months after the royal commission delivered its final report.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/13/churches-should-lose-charity-status-over-child-abuse-former-tax-head-says

Frank Brennan writes: There is no way I would want to defend a seal of the confessional so widely drawn as that defined by Archbishop Anthony Fisher. However, I do think there is a case for respecting the seal of the confessional tightly defined as done by the canonist Fr Ian Waters. But to do that, the Church would need to get its act together.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=56227

Clare Bruce writes: The Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, the Uniting Church and the Salvation Army have all applied to join the national scheme — but they have some steps left to complete before they’re fully registered, according to the NRS website.

https://hope1032.com.au/stories/life/social-justice/2018/redress-scheme-for-victims-of-abuse-four-church-denominations-signed-up-so-far/

Civil society and discourse

The rescue from the depths of the Tham Luang caves offers us an inspiring vision of human beings at their best as people from a multitude of nations, tribes, peoples and languages, as well as every economic status, put their hands to the plough.

www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au/?p=13568

John Inazu writes: We lack agreement about the purpose of our country, the nature of the common good, and the meaning of human flourishing. Yet Finding a modest unity across deep differences is not only possible but necessary.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/august-web-only/john-inazu-why-im-still-confident-about-confident-pluralism.html

Kylie Beach writes: It has been a tough few years for proponents of respectful disagreement in public forums. But this week philosopher and activist Dr Cornel West and author, journalist and political commentator Douglas Murray managed to discuss euthanasia, free speech and gay wedding cakes.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/culture/what-respectful-disagreement-actually-looks-like

Creationism

Mike Archer writes: According to a 32-year longitudinal study of first year science students, belief in creationism has declined over time. What has brought about this shift?

https://theconversation.com/fewer-australian-university-students-than-ever-before-believe-in-creationism-101674

Criminal justice

Pope Francis has changed the teaching of the Catholic Church to officially oppose the death penalty, saying it can never be sanctioned because it “attacks” the inherent dignity of all humans. The new teaching says the previous policy is outdated and that there are other ways to protect society.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2018/08/03/pope-francis-catholic-death-penalty/

Mathew Schmalz writes: Pope Francis has declared the death penalty “inadmissible”, emphasising an ethic of forgiveness. But this act will probably only deepen the debate about whether Christians can support capital punishment.

https://theconversation.com/can-you-be-christian-and-support-the-death-penalty-101007

Anna Rowlands writes: Over the course of the last three papacies, the social teaching of the Church has become increasingly concerned with the question of the limits of the role of the state in pursuit of the common good. Pope Francis' recent comments about the death penalty must be understood in this context.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/04/4879584.htm

Development

Micael Grenholm writes: The vast majority of Pentecostals and Charismatics around the world deeply care about social work and poverty alleviation. Research even indicates that Pentecostalism is the largest movement for social justice that has ever existed.

https://www.christianpost.com/voice/pentecostalism-may-have-done-more-for-africa-than-all-aid-organizations-combined.html

Dignity

Jeffrey Brauch writes: For many years, evangelicals have proudly touted their pro-life credentials in opposing abortion and euthanasia. In The Dignity Revolution: Reclaiming God's Rich Vision for Humanity, Daniel Darling applauds this but insists that we must affirm the dignity of all humans in every area of life.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/august-web-only/dignity-revolution-daniel-darling.html

Discrimination

Noah Riseman writes: The 1996-97 Inquiry into Sexuality Discrimination was methodical and respectful, examining submissions which drew on questions of law, religion, ethics, morality and the lived experiences of LGBT Australians. Unfortunately, ideologies and politics derailed any hope of implementing those recommendations, thus shelving the report into the dustbin of history.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/15/4884039.htm

Economics, finance & inequality

https://www.christianpost.com/voice/pentecostalism-may-have-done-more-for-africa-than-all-aid-organizations-combined.html

Bankers, real estate agents, and mortgage brokers are among the most distrusted professionals in Australia, according to a new study. Australians place a high level of importance on ethics in society, with 87 per cent rating ethics as “important or very important to a well-functioning society”. Isabelle Lane reports.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/consumer/2018/08/17/ethics-index-2018/

Simon Cowan writes: Given Australia is in the top-10 most-equal societies in the OECD, inequality should be less important than poverty and disadvantage.

https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/inequality-isnt-australias-issue-poverty-should-be-our-focus/

John Sandeman writes: Roger Corbett has drawn a great deal of criticism for his involvement with the pokies industry. But Corbett says he has an opportunity to have a fair influence over the outcomes of the company.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/in-depth/australias-most-controversial-christian/

Education

Frank Brennan writes: The school funding battle has featured in the last two rounds of federal by-elections. Economics writer Ross Gittins has suggested the Catholics are trying to extract special deals. There are three principles of public policy at play in this ongoing saga, and the consistent and fair application of all three principles is a big political challenge.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=56164

End of life

"The euthanasia debate seems to have entered a faltering phase. A very un-Dutch thing has happened. We appear to be tongue-tied. The Netherlands – the country that, more than any other, wants to believe in every person’s right to voluntary death, the country that talks lightly about painless death as it were a money-back guarantee – is struggling with the dilemma surrounding dementia and death." Extract from a story by Henk Blanken.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/10/my-death-is-not-my-own-the-limits-of-legal-euthanasia

Ranjana Srivastava writes: In matters of life and death, doctors must strike a balance between confidence and humility. Our patients die from their disease, but they also die due to error, negligence, arrogance, misunderstanding and miscommunication.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/22/we-must-strike-a-balance-between-confidence-and-humility-in-matters-of-life-and-death

Richard Egan writes: Belgium seems to be treating the victims of child abuse by domestic violence, neglect and sexual abuse by killing them.

https://www.bioedge.org/indepth/view/euthanasia-in-belgium-updates-on-a-social-experiment/12791

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/culture-of-life/in-defense-of-medical-conscience-rights

Environment

Marc Hudson writes: We didn’t “solve” climate change 20 years ago, when it was merely wicked. We are less likely to solve it now that it has grown harder as well as more urgent.

https://theconversation.com/emissions-policy-is-under-attack-from-all-sides-weve-been-here-before-and-it-rarely-ends-well-101103

Hothouse Earth: Ruth Valerio asks: with the world facing a climate change tipping point, how should Christians respond?

https://www.christiantoday.com/article/hothouse-earth-with-the-world-facing-a-climate-change-tipping-point-how-should-christians-respond/130170.htm

Marc Hudson writes: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has abandoned the emissions-reduction component of his signature energy policy, in the latest chapter of a brutal decade-long saga for Australian climate policy.

https://theconversation.com/the-too-hard-basket-a-short-history-of-australias-aborted-climate-policies-101812

Mick Pope writes: One of the major criticisms of Christianity from an environmental perspective is that it is hopelessly anthropocentric. But this can only be sustained by ignoring the Bible's own teaching and tenor.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/27/4888420.htm

Scott Sabin writes: The gospel is for everyone – from poor dirt farmers to environmental activists. It is good news that God cares about all that he has created.

https://www.lausanne.org/content/whole-earth-evangelism

Father’s Day

In 1909, Sonora Dodd sat in a Mother’s Day church service in Spokane, USA. The seed of an idea was planted in her heart for what we now know as Fathers Day.

https://hope1032.com.au/stories/life/relationships/2018/did-you-know-the-christian-inspired-origins-of-fathers-day/

Gambling

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/in-depth/australias-most-controversial-christian/

Gender

Candace Sutton writes: The “greatest story ever told” had a few pivotal figures whose significance have been all but wiped from the record, for one reason.

https://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/how-jesus-female-disciples-who-made-christianity-happen-were-wiped-from-history/news-story/b398dbb1e22d44e9b20b2f82ebea9516

David Wheeler-Reed writes: Early Christian writings and texts all refer to God in feminine terms. Limiting God to masculine pronouns and imagery limits the countless religious experiences of billions of Christians throughout the world.

https://theconversation.com/what-the-early-church-thought-about-gods-gender-100077

What does the Bible say about the roles of men and women in the Great Commission? With frankness and humour, David Hamilton unpacks the opening chapters of Genesis to explore how partnership was God’s idea from the very beginning.

https://www.lausanne.org/content/team-for-the-great-commission

Homelessness & housing

Rebecca Abbott writes: In an unassuming corner of a busy Sydney street, a crumpled figure lies sleeping on a park bench. The statue of the Homeless Jesus’, unveiled by St James, is the latest in a series of about 100 Homeless Jesus statues throughout the world.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/have-you-seen-homeless-jesus/

‘‘I think it’s part of what Jesus would want us to do,’’ he said. ‘‘Caring for the poor has always been part of the mandate of the church." Carolyn Webb reports.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/lord-it-s-cold-outside-the-homeless-people-sleeping-in-churches-20180823-p4zzf6.html

Islam

Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a woman and a Muslim today? Through a detailed global picture of the contemporary women’s mosque movement, Morya Dale unveils implications for Christians in how we might better engage with Muslims, especially those who are women.

https://www.lausanne.org/content/lga/2016-07/engaging-womens-mosque-movement

Jordan Peterson

Andrew Gleeson writes: One of the most disappointing features of the current polarisation surrounding Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson is that there is yet to emerge any genuinely constructive evaluation of his work, one that would enable us to get a better sense of both its actual strengths and weaknesses.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/30/4889940.htm

Law, human rights and free speech

Poll suggests religious freedom push is having an effect Standing beneath the cast aluminum statue of Lady Justice in the Department of Justice’s Great Hall, Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a bold statement last week: “Many Americans have felt that their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack.”

https://religionnews.com/2018/08/06/poll-suggests-religious-freedom-push-is-having-an-effect/

Jared S. Burkholder writes: Despite the fact that evangelicals have been part of the American establishment, they have come to see themselves as persecuted and in need of religious freedom protections. Many within today’s Anabaptist communities — the heirs of the original religious freedom advocates — would beg to differ.

https://thehermeneuticcircle.com/2018/07/30/anabaptist-critiques-of-evangelicals-and-religious-freedom/

Leonardo Blair writes: Canada's Trinity Western University will no longer require students to sign a Community Covenant agreeing to abstain from same-sex and other relationships outside marriage between a man and a woman. However, faculty, staff and administrators will still have to sign it.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/canadas-largest-private-christian-university-drops-ban-on-same-sex-relationships-226803/

ACL’s Managing Director Martyn Iles and Executive Director of Christian Leadership of Canada Derek Ross continue to discuss about how changes to legislations, including to Freedom of Religion laws have affected the plight of all religious people in Canada.

https://www.acl.org.au/religious_freedom_is_for_everybody

Will Jones writes: Unwarranted curtailments of religious freedom by courts and others such as in Canada and Scotland will continue as long as the public culture remains stripped of its religious foundation. Christians need to be at the forefront of restoring to public life expressions of the first duty of the moral law – to honour the Creator of the universe – not least through religious freedom, the better to secure freedom for all.

https://www.christiantoday.com/article/religious-freedom-feels-the-heat-from-growth-in-atheism-and-irreligion/130301.htm

Moral philosophy

David Roberts writes: Allowing for luck can dent our self-conception. It can diminish our sense of control. It opens up all kinds of uncomfortable questions about obligations to other, less fortunate people. Yet coming to terms with luck is the secular equivalent of religious awakening.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/8/21/17687402/kylie-jenner-luck-human-life-moral-privilege

Nationalism

Chris Barker writes: For Philip Gorski, Trumpism is not an unprecedented phenomenon or even a particularly surprising one. Trump instead represents a secular form of religious nationalism.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/14/4883567.htm

Politics, society & ideology

Stephen Messenger writes: The near total hegemony the left enjoys over academic institutions has turned them into tribal communities, in which most people think more or less the same way, and in which there is almost no one left to push back against the questionable orthodoxies that have metastasized there. Michael Rectenwald’s new book, Springtime for Snowflakes: ‘Social Justice’ and its Postmodern Parentage, chronicles the ideological climate of elite universities.

https://areomagazine.com/2018/07/30/springtime-for-snowflakes-social-justice-and-its-postmodern-parentage-a-review/

Julian Meyrick, Robert Phiddian and Tully Barnett write: At a time when even accountants are looking for a more compelling understanding of value, it is imperative that the arts – where individual experience is central – resist the evangelical call of quantification.

https://theconversation.com/beyond-bulldust-benchmarks-and-numbers-what-matters-in-australian-culture-101459

Adrian Pabst writes: Liberalism is fuelling a populist revolt because liberalism's secular outlook is rejected by people who long for the fraternity and sacredness that liberal individualism and commodification undermine.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/23/4887164.htm

Race and racism

Tim Soutphommasane writes: Racism creates doubts and divisions, and it drives its targets into retreat. Where the seeds of racism are planted in political speech, they will bear bitter fruit in society.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/08/4880987.htm

Matthew Lesh writes: The political left's obsession with identity politics undermines the critical social norm of treating people as individuals, triggers an angry reaction which feeds white identity politics and increases divisions in our society. Tim Soutphommasane’s comment that ‘race politics is back’ makes things worse, not better.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/16/4884465.htm

Religion in Politics

Chris Barker writes: For Philip Gorski, Trumpism is not an unprecedented phenomenon or even a particularly surprising one. Trump instead represents a secular form of religious nationalism.

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/14/4883567.htm

Dale Hanson Bourke writes: In the middle of the violence of the Northern Triangle of Central America, a Christian mayor has united the townspeople of San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán in their quest to keep the municipality free of the violence and upheaval that surrounds them.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2018/august/central-america-gods-mayor-in-guatemala.html

Religion in politics – Scott Morrison

Anne Davies writes: A Christian and regular attendee at his Pentecostal megachurch, Morrison is a social conservative who led the charge on Australia’s tough immigration policy. But, having stood with former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull until his leadership was in tatters, Morrison emerged as the preferred candidate of the moderates.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/24/who-is-scott-morrison-churchgoer-behind-australias-tough-line-on-immigration

John Sandeman writes: While many of Australia’s PMs have been Christian, or deeply influenced by Christian teaching, Scott Morrison marks the first time a member of a “new” church has reached that office. The others – Anglican, Presbyterian and Catholic – have been members of longer established branches of Christianity.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/scomo-australias-first-pentecostal-pm/

Bruce Wearne writes: The practical outworking of Malcolm Turnbull's - and the Liberal Party's - incoherence has now taken 15 years but it is happening and with a petulance that threatens much more than just the seat of Wentworth.

http://johnmenadue.com/bruce-wearne-has-the-party-ended/

Stephen Johnson and Max Margan write: Scott Morrison is now the most powerful parishioner to emerge from the Hillsong Pentecostal mega church after being sworn in as Australia's 30th prime minister.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6093385/Scott-Morrison-Hillsong-churchs-powerful-parishioner-Lara-Bingle-famous.html

Laurence Barber writes: Morrison spoke at an ACL conference in 2016, where he took the opportunity to defend comments by Eric Metaxas, who described the progression of LGBTI rights as equivalent to the rise of Nazism.

http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/national-news/australian-christian-lobby-declares-support-scott-morrison/171345

Kate Galloway writes: Regardless of one's politics, the loss of Bishop from cabinet should be a wake-up call, prompting reflection on how our socialised norms work together with our institutions to keep women from power. We need women — and far greater diversity in other respects also — at the table, making decisions.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=56297

Annabel Crabb writes: "This is the problem for women in politics. Their gender does not explain — as Julia Gillard so memorably observed at her own final press conference — everything about what happens to them there. But it sure can bowl up the odd googly that men don't have to face."

www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-28/julie-bishop-women-in-politics/10174136

Stephen McAlpine writes: 'What I think people are actually calling for, although they probably don’t articulate it very well, is for Scott Morrison to make a “human rights” decision on the issue of asylum seekers, rather than a Christian decision. What’s the difference between these two things?'

https://stephenmcalpine.com/do-we-really-want-our-christian-prime-minister-making-christian-decisions/

Rick Rojas writes: Mr. Morrison and his faith represent a break with tradition in Australia, where politics has long been ardently secular. He is the first prime minister to come from one of the country’s growing evangelical Christian movements, leading many experts and voters to wonder how his Christianity might affect various issues, from foreign policy to social policy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/world/australia/scott-morrison-evangelical-prime-minister.html

Clare Bruce writes: ‘On one hand, he supported the national apology to Indigenous Australians in 2008, and spoke in his maiden speech about God’s qualities of “loving-kindness, justice and righteousness”; promising signs for voters who care about social justice. Yet at the same time he took an incredibly tough stance on refugee policy in his role as Minister for Immigration and Border Protection under Tony Abbott.’

https://hope1032.com.au/stories/life/news/2018/new-pm-scott-morrison-a-genuine-christian-who-wont-backstab-but-a-harsh-stance-on-refugees/

Kylie Beach writes: Manus and Nauru is now a single issue uniting most Christians in criticism of the Government, with ACL's Martyn Iles calling for a humane solution to those people who he describes as “languishing on Manus and Nauru, with no hope".

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/the-issue-that-could-lose-scomo-christian-support/

Religion in Society

Jonathan Merrett talks with Alan Noble, author of Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age, about his vision for a reformed Christian witness that is competent to address the needs of our present age.

http://jonathanmerritt.com/the-christian-call-to-be-culturally-disruptive/

Stephen Pardue writes: Supporters of Bob Dreher’s ‘Benedict Option’ contend that it is essential to evangelical public engagement in an increasingly post-Christian environment, while critics have argued that this would constitute a consequential failure of nerve and a tactical misstep. But missing throughout this discussion has been serious consideration of the virtue that Saint Benedict highlighted most prominently in his Rule: humility.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/august-web-only/benedict-option-humility-public-engagement.html

Damian Ruck asks: We have known for decades that secular countries tend to be richer than religious ones. Finding out why involves unpicking a complex knot of cognitive and social factors. Was it the secular chicken that came first, or the economic egg?

https://theconversation.com/religious-decline-was-the-key-to-economic-development-in-the-20th-century-100279

Recent research has gone beyond drawing the usual correlations between community development, religious faith, and poverty relief that have existed since Max Weber’s study on the Protestant ethic to look at the causative factors in this relationship.

http://www.religionwatch.com/putting-max-weber-to-the-test-on-the-protestant-ethic/

What has caused the decline of Christianity in the West? Is it reversible? And why does it matter? Roy Williams reviews Greg Sheridan’s book, God is Good for You, and Stuart Piggin and Robert Linder’s The Fountain of Public Prosperity.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/god-is-good-for-you-by-greg-sheridan-fountain-of-public-prosperity/news-story/96d3b5ec4b26996ecab8fcb0ddbfe962

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=56164

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/13/churches-should-lose-charity-status-over-child-abuse-former-tax-head-says

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/august-web-only/john-inazu-why-im-still-confident-about-confident-pluralism.html

Frank Brennan There is no way I would want to defend a seal of the confessional so widely drawn as that defined by Archbishop Anthony Fisher. However, I do think there is a case for respecting the seal of the confessional tightly defined as done by the canonist Fr Ian Waters. But to do that, the Church would need to get its act together.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=56227

Sam Sinha writes: We can say, without much reservation, that the contributions made by individual Christians and Jews laid the foundation of the West. But, should we praise their religions for this?

https://conatusnews.com/western-culture-judeo-christian-values/

In response to the article, ‘No, Western Culture Did Not Come from Judeo-Christian Values’, James Hurst writes: Western culture does not have a monopoly on human rights or freedoms, and Christianity is not the only source for these principles. And many Judeo-Christian values challenge Western values.

https://beggarstogether.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/judeo-christian-values-and-the-west/

In 1909, Sonora Dodd sat in a Mother’s Day church service in Spokane, USA. The seed of an idea was planted in her heart for what we now know as Fathers Day.

https://hope1032.com.au/stories/life/relationships/2018/did-you-know-the-christian-inspired-origins-of-fathers-day/

Sex

In Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, Mark Regnerus argues that the birth control pill and the rise of internet porn decreased the cost of sexual access so substantially as to affect a fundamental shift from a world in which sex served higher goods to a world in which sex is the higher good.

www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/08/22299/

Wesley Hill writes: For hundreds of LGBTQ Christians to gather for three days to encourage each other to remain faithful to historic Christian teaching on sex and marriage could easily be read as self-hating, not to mention oppressive. How could something this counter-cultural have gained so much momentum?

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/08/revoice-and-a-vocation-of-yes

Sexual abuse and #MeToo

Amanda Jackson writes: Christian leaders – overwhelmingly men – are willing to compromise the character of God whom they say they serve, to satisfy their own desires for power and then lie to protect their jobs, their colleagues or their power.

https://amandaadvocates.blog/2018/08/28/an-open-wound/

Sexuality

www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/08/15/4884039.htm

Sexuality and same-sex marriage

https://www.christianpost.com/news/canadas-largest-private-christian-university-drops-ban-on-same-sex-relationships-226803/

Avril Hannah-Jones writes: The narrative that the sexuality debate pits LGBTIQ members of the church against Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress and culturally and linguistically diverse members has been revealed for the 'fake news' that it has always been.

www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=56288

Social media

Facebook is all for community, but what kind of community is it building? Research has shown that large social platforms like Facebook can reinforce problematic social hierarchies and prejudices around gender, sexuality and race, writes Jennifer Beckett.

https://theconversation.com/facebook-is-all-for-community-but-what-kind-of-community-is-it-building-101254

My Facebook life is not me; it’s a better version of me. Even though I try not to post only about sunsets, talented children and victorious Bible verses, it is inevitable that my life on Facebook has fewer cracks and less boredom than my real life.

https://amandaadvocates.blog/2018/02/07/my-facebook-life/

Technology

www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/08/22299/

Transparency

https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/consumer/2018/08/17/ethics-index-2018/

Toby Walsh writes: This isn’t the first time employees of tech companies have raised ethical concerns about the impact of their work. It may be time then to reconsider the modern corporation.

https://theconversation.com/holding-big-tech-companies-to-account-do-their-employees-have-the-power-101734

War, peace & nonviolence

In July 2017, 122 nations adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Tilman Ruff asks: How is the Treaty faring one year on? And why has Australia not joined?

http://www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au/?p=13554

Women

https://www.lausanne.org/content/lga/2016-07/engaging-womens-mosque-movement

https://www.lausanne.org/content/team-for-the-great-commission

Work

Toby Walsh writes: This isn’t the first time employees of tech companies have raised ethical concerns about the impact of their work. It may be time then to reconsider the modern corporation.

https://theconversation.com/holding-big-tech-companies-to-account-do-their-employees-have-the-power-101734

Youth

Eliza Griswold writes: The separation of families at the border, climate change, and various progressive causes have galvanized young Christians.

https://www.newyorker.com/news-desk/on-religion/millennial-evangelicals-diverge-from-their-parents-beliefs