Link Highlights | December 2017
Tuesday, 2 January 2018
| Ethos editor
Link highlights – December 2017
Below is a selection of links to online news and opinion pieces from December 2017. 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.
Reviews
Three fans - Morgan Lee, D.L. Mayfield and Matthew Loftus - discuss themes of power and violence in the Hunger Games series’, and wonder if anyone is really redeemed.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/november-web-only/what-hunger-games-taught-three-millennials.html
Skyler Huff, Jeff Fromm and Greg Vodicka writes: Hunger Games connects emotionally with its Millennial audiences by exploring themes such as collaboration, competence, cynicism, authenticity and love. The author, publisher, movie makers and marketers seem to have recognised the potency of this particular narrative to a generation ‘hungering’ for a heroine that fits their time.
http://www.millennialmarketing.com/2012/03/what-the-success-of-hunger-games-reveals-about-millennials/
Art
Alan Noble writes: “Charles Taylor’s work invites us to a much more complex - but much more insightful - conception of culture and our relationship to it. … But to learn to interpret and create cultural works in this way will require time, investment, and mentorship.”
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-disruptive-witness-of-art/
Michael Frost writes: Cogniet’s Scène du massacre des Innocents asks us to examine ourselves, to consider why this woman would be so scared of us, to examine the ways we have been co-opted by the forces of empire, and sided with the powerful over the weak and the poor.
http://mikefrost.net/greatest-christmas-painting-time/
James Whitmore writes: 2017 gave us a blockbuster female superhero, radical faerie realness rituals, and the 'frenetic flapping of male genitalia'. Here's what our arts critics made of all that.
https://theconversation.com/how-our-arts-critics-saw-2017-89359
Asylum seekers, refugees and migration
Michael frost writes: As followers of the Prince of Peace we are resolved not only to preach about turning the other cheek, but to practice it. For us, nonviolence shouldn’t simply be a strategy for social change; it should be a way of life.
http://mikefrost.net/nonviolence-strength-bringing-justice-power-together/
Nils von Kalm writes: I have long subscribed to the idea that the place where your passion and the world’s need intersects, there lies your calling. But I’m not so sure anymore that following Jesus is about doing what makes you come alive. Jesus calls us to be prophetic, and that, by its very nature, is hardly ever comfortable.
http://soulthoughts.com/what-the-manus-island-refugees-have-taught-me-about-following-jesus
Hwvar Knoshnow writes: I also happen to be a refugee. The term refugee has been used to instill fear into people. Yet they are human beings who have asked for our help and instead of welcoming them home we have used cruel policy to detain them. Our prayer is that the hearts of our leaders are softened.
https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/i-locked-myself-to-the-front-gate-of-kirribilli-house-because-i-too-am-a-refugee/
Paul Tyson writes: When the militarized interests of the nation trump the rights of citizens to challenge the actions of our government towards vulnerable ‘Others’, we are moving in a Nazi direction.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-tyson/towards-nazi-australia
Erin K. Wilson and Luca Mavelli write: The danger bound up with emphasizing people's identities as refugees is that we continue to see them only as labels or categories, which we fill with our own assumptions and preconceived ideas. In contrast, by emphasising their identity as human beings, we have more possibility of seeing them in their full complexity.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/12/22/4783613.htm
Would Christians today have deported Jesus? Daniel Jose Camacho writes that, for Christians who care about justice, it is easy for us to romanticize our own love and generosity towards "the immigrant" or "refugee" without further interrogating how we may indirectly contribute to their displacements.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/12/21/4783492.htm
Australia Day
Henry Reynolds writes: ABC Triple J to move the Hottest 100 from January 26 to January 27 has ignited controversy. January 26 marks one of the greatest expropriations in modern history, which took place at Sydney Cove. Why do so many Australians want to commemorate an act of egregious injustice?
https://theconversation.com/henry-reynolds-triple-j-did-the-right-thing-we-need-a-new-australia-day-88249
Charity and giving
Patrick West writes: Genuine compassion is a core Christian virtue. But the new culture of ostentatious caring is about feeling good, not doing good. It illustrates not how altruistic we have become, but how selfish.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Opinion/When-giving-is-selfish-feelgood-factor-squeezes-out-the-dogooders/2004/12/14/1102787085296.html
Bruce Wydick joins associate digital media producer Morgan Lee and editor in chief Mark Galli to discuss the biblical tension between generosity and accountability, fighting paternalism in development work, and how cell phones connect to fighting poverty.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/december-web-only/when-good-charity-looks-like-giving-out-cash.html
Child sexual abuse
Timothy W. Jones writes: The Royal Commission's final report revealed the staggering scale and nature of abuse uncovered in Catholic institutions. Its recommendations are breathtakingly bold. They provide the most comprehensive pathway so far, to redress and prevent abuse in an institution that has had endemic and catastrophic failures in this area. The Church’s survival as a public institution is dependent on its response.
https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-recommends-sweeping-reforms-for-catholic-church-to-end-child-abuse-89141
Tom Keneally writes: Where is the mourning for the dead innocents who, it is simple truth to say, cast their shadow at the door of every Australian cathedral and of many Australian churches?
Will the hierarchy acknowledge these facts, in humility and penitence? That the elders have sacrificed the young? That the dead and maimed are not merely to be cited with historical regret, and consigned to some roll of vanished misdeeds?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-16/tom-keneally-royal-commission-the-abused-are-many/9263368
Helena Kadmos writes: A group of lay Christians in Perth were so worried that our institutions might not wholeheartedly embrace the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse that we decided not to wait to find out.
https://eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54487
Anne Lim writes: ‘Your past is not the pathway to your future.’ Child sexual abuse survivor Mark Stiles was in a morass of anger and hate when Jesus spoke to him.
https://www.eternitynews.com.au/in-depth/gods-call-to-child-abuse-victim-turns-hate-to-love/
Patrick McGorry writes: The release of the report from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has created an unprecedented opportunity for Australia to dramatically reduce the burden of mental illness and all of its consequences.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/royal-commission-provides-an-opportunity-to-improve-youth-mental-health-20171217-h061fg.html
Ben Mathews writes: The royal commission has performed its task with distinction – now it is up to governments and institutions to ensure those efforts are matched with a redress scheme.
https://theconversation.com/the-royal-commissions-final-report-has-landed-now-to-make-sure-there-is-an-adequate-redress-scheme-89158
Paul Syvret writes: As Australia saw last week with the release of the final report of the royal commission into child abuse, we have for decades allowed our religious institutions to foster a culture of endemic abuse, where the most heinous crimes have been covered up, the perpetrators quietly moved elsewhere, and in which institutional reputation was more important than the wellbeing of the child.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/rendezview/the-catholic-churchs-denial-continues-to-run-deep/news-story/d9fb9398d98fbd3855fa29fb22d240b6
'Abused 30 times, or 3,000 times — how can you put a figure on that?' Survivors of institutional sexual abuse fear a system of monetary payments will see their abuse ranked by dollar value under a redress scheme proposed by the royal commission.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-18/fears-abuse-redress-scheme-will-bring-new-grief-to-survivors/9250810
Christmas
Tis the season for online shopping – which means a month of shipping. David M. Herold suggests 4 Rs of reducing your delivery footprint.
https://theconversation.com/sustainable-shopping-the-eco-friendly-guide-to-online-christmas-shopping-88252
Andrew Hamilton writes: The embroidery on the Gospel stories shows that, like the painter and the refugees treading through the dust and heat of the road to Egypt, God dreams of a peaceful world in which people and nature live at peace, villages are well watered, trees cared for, grapes hang in bunches, refugee children are fed, and angels help make art.
https://eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54404
Fatima Measham writes: The meaning of Christmas is found at Easter after all. What if time does have a moral arc, to borrow the words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and that it must be actively bent? What must give way? What must be born and reborn again and again in us?
https://eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54490
Craig Greenfield writes: The real war on Christmas is waged by those who claim the name of Jesus, while embracing the values of the Empire. And Mary's Magnificat - or the Freedom Song for the Poor - has only occasionally been recognized by the church for what it really is - a direct challenge on Empire - a letter of warning that the clock is ticking on our status quo. Yet, it has been banned all over the world by oppressive dictatorships.
http://www.craiggreenfield.com/blog/waronchristmas
Stephen Keim writes: The "war on Christmas" is a right-wing cultural tactic to suggest there's a conspiracy to change society as we know it.
Part 1 - https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/the-war-on-christmas-and-other--myths-returning-to-a-tabloid-near-you,11047
Part 2 - https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/the-killing-of-christmas-myth-part-two-australia-is-a-christian-country,11049
Laura Rademaker writes: Aboriginal missions were notorious for their austerity, but Christmas was a brief time of joy. While celebrations had a sinister assimilationist edge, Aboriginal people often adopted traditions into their own culture.
https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-dreaming-of-a-white-christmas-on-the-aboriginal-missions-88381
Robyn J. Whitaker writes: The inn, the shepherds, angels and animals: pretty much everything we think we know about the Christmas story is historically wrong.
I might be about to ruin your Christmas. Sorry. But the reality is those nativity plays in which your adorable children wear tinsel and angel wings bear little resemblance to what actually happened.
https://theconversation.com/what-history-really-tells-us-about-the-birth-of-jesus-89444
Larry Hurtado writes: The overwhelming body of scholars, in New Testament, Christian Origins, Ancient History, Ancient Judaism, Roman-era Religion, Archaeology/History of Roman Judea, and a good many related fields as well, hold that there was a first-century Jewish man known as Jesus of Nazareth, that he engaged in an itinerant preaching/prophetic activity in Galilee, that he drew to himself a band of close followers, and that he was executed by the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate.
https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017/12/02/why-the-mythical-jesus-claim-has-no-traction-with-scholars/
Erin K. Wilson and Luca Mavelli write: The danger bound up with emphasizing people's identities as refugees is that we continue to see them only as labels or categories, which we fill with our own assumptions and preconceived ideas. In contrast, by emphasising their identity as human beings, we have more possibility of seeing them in their full complexity.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/12/22/4783613.htm
Would Christians today have deported Jesus? Daniel Jose Camacho writes that, for Christians who care about justice, it is easy for us to romanticize our own love and generosity towards "the immigrant" or "refugee" without further interrogating how we may indirectly contribute to their displacements.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/12/21/4783492.htm
Alison Milbank writes: Some Christians today find the doctrine of the Virgin Birth a difficult part of the Creed, worrying about DNA or seeing it as a denigration of sexual love. It flies against our modern world. Yet the Incarnation is even more incredible, more ridiculous, than the manner of its achievement. Christ hides where we would least expect to find him: in a manger, in a Virgin's womb.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/12/21/4783605.htm
N. T. Wright writes: "Miracle" - as used in controversies around the Virgin Birth - is not a biblical category. The God of the Bible is not a normally absent God who sometimes intervenes. This God is always present and active, often surprisingly so.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/12/28/3398969.htm
Barney Zwartz writes: It has been said that reconciliation is the virtue of the courageous, the response of the forgiven, the mercy of the just. From reconciliation more reconciliation can flow. But sometimes it seems too much to ask.
https://www.publicchristianity.org/christmas-a-time-to-reflect-on-reconciliation/
Justine Toh writes: Our move away from a world that admits the transcendent has left us naked when it comes to questions of absolute meaning and significance. And, as powerful and compelling as the rights discourse can be, it cannot do everything. It can guarantee tolerance and equality, but not love and embrace. And it cannot secure belonging and belovedness – a primal need that perhaps no earthly answer can fully satisfy.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/12/heading-home-this-christmas/
Whether you adore them or can’t wait until they’re off the playlist for another year, the popularity of Christmas carols has proven remarkably enduring. CPX’s Simon Smart, Natasha Moore, and John Dickson discuss why people continue to sing them – and the stories and ideas behind their favourite carols.
https://www.publicchristianity.org/life-and-faith-o-holy-night/
Simon Smart writes: Our disenchantment with Christmas mirrors a broader disenchantment - with Christianity itself. Let's remember what Christmas is actually about to counter the stress and sadness.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-24/can-the-christmas-story-counter-anxiety-sadness-disenchantment/9275328
Peace on earth, goodwill to all. If there’s any time and place to start building bridges between ideological camps, Christmas and family are surely it. Natasha Moore offers 3 ways to avoid dinner table conflict this Christmas.
https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/life/family/article/2017/12/21/3-ways-avoid-dinner-table-conflict-christmas
The first Christmas was a particularly brutal one for the holy family, and the biblical account of Jesus’ birth and early years is one of discomfort, poverty, and violence. CPX take a closer look at the fraught first Christmas, and how this festive season also offers solace and hope for people struggling to find Christmas cheer.
https://www.publicchristianity.org/not-so-silent-night/
Freya Higgins-Desbiolles writes: Bethlehem looms large in our minds with the approach of Christmas. But the reality for people living there now or tourists wishing to visit the ancient city remains deeply politically fraught.
https://theconversation.com/spare-a-thought-for-bethlehem-this-christmas-as-politics-and-tourism-collide-88573
Michael Frost writes: Cogniet’s Scène du massacre des Innocents asks us to examine ourselves, to consider why this woman would be so scared of us, to examine the ways we have been co-opted by the forces of empire, and sided with the powerful over the weak and the poor.
http://mikefrost.net/greatest-christmas-painting-time/
Lee-Fay Low writes: Christmas can be a stressful time for hosts and guests alike, and it's more so for carers of people living with dementia.
https://theconversation.com/how-best-to-celebrate-christmas-with-a-person-with-dementia-21110
Ed Mazza writes: “I don’t think Jesus would care much about whether we say Merry Christmas or not,” said Jesuit priest, Rev. Kevin O’Brien. “More important than just saying ‘Merry Christmas’ is to live it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/jesuit-priest-war-on-christmas_us_5a3761aae4b0ff955ad44697
Krish Kandiah writes: Here is the news: God deliberately planned to turn up at the wrong time in the wrong place. God is Immanuel. God is present. God is with us. But God is also hidden, set apart, unassuming.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/december-web-only/god-turns-up-in-all-wrong-places.html
Andy Flannagan writes: This Christmas, could we emulate my wonderful and mildly persecuted wife? Could we incline and train our ears to hear the political tone in the voice of the Christmas story? And moreover, could we refuse the easy answers of either abusing or eschewing power and instead walk the more complicated path of channelling it well? Much like the paradox of God as a baby.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/the.politics.of.christmas.how.to.listen.to.the.unheard.storyexecute1/121906.htm
Kaley Payne writes: “Even among Australians who practise a religion other than Christianity, 91 per cent are happy to see nativities, while 86 per cent of those who have no religious beliefs are also supportive, according to McCrindle.”
https://www.eternitynews.com.au/culture/most-australians-like-seeing-baby-jesus-in-a-manger-at-the-mall/
Mark Galli writes: if one believes that God is mighty enough to create the heavens and the earth and to raise Jesus bodily from the grave, how hard can it be for him to enable a virgin to conceive? Miracles happen. But was another miracle, one more gift of grace: Before Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary — without blinking, without doubt, without a moment’s hesitation — said yes.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/december-web-only/virgin-birth-whats-problem-exactly.html
Warwick Marsh writes: What is it about the Star Wars film series, conceived by George Lucas, that has made Star Wars the third highest grossing film series of all time?
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19487
Jen Pollock Michel writes: the best homes we make tell realistic, honest stories about the human condition on this side of heaven. They’re impermanent and imperfect, no matter how much we seek (or avoid) accumulation. Earthly homes are fleeting stars. Like the Wise Men, we follow them as a way to long “for a better country - a heavenly one”.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/december/this-christmas-minimalism-isnt-solution.html
Warwick Marsh writes: What is it about the Star Wars film series, conceived by George Lucas, that has made Star Wars the third highest grossing film series of all time?
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19487
Civil society and discourse
Rae Langton writes: Hate speech may work to alter perception itself, so that we literally come to see our fellows as dehumanized or animal-like, literally hear them as shifty, contemptible, or dangerous.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/12/06/4776371.htm
Joel Harrison writes: Respectful conversation requires more than attentiveness to the contours of a debate; it requires time, space and encounter - all things that were lacking in the compressed context of a postal survey.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/11/28/4772281.htm
Barney Zwartz writes: ‘Disagreement does not disturb me and, while I recognise the importance of history, G.K. Chesterton is right that tradition is the democracy of the dead. No three people can agree entirely on faith, let alone more than 2 billion Christians.’
Christians disagree on a lot - but is that necessarily a bad thing? What about truth?
Consumerism
Tis the season for online shopping – which means a month of shipping. David M. Herold suggests 4 Rs of reducing your delivery footprint.
https://theconversation.com/sustainable-shopping-the-eco-friendly-guide-to-online-christmas-shopping-88252
Paul Harrison writes: Rather than simply trying to trick people, the masters of marketing know it's much easier to understand and work with innate human flaws.
https://theconversation.com/the-psychology-of-christmas-shopping-how-marketers-nudge-you-to-buy-88011
Maria Tickle writes: In recent years, the rise of the minimalist movement has seen many people embark on a quest to learn to live with less stuff. So do minimalists, voluntary simplifiers or downshifters know something we don't?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-16/whats-behind-the-rise-in-minimalist-living/9258084
Jen Pollock Michel writes: the best homes we make tell realistic, honest stories about the human condition on this side of heaven. They’re impermanent and imperfect, no matter how much we seek (or avoid) accumulation. Earthly homes are fleeting stars. Like the Wise Men, we follow them as a way to long “for a better country - a heavenly one”.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/december/this-christmas-minimalism-isnt-solution.html
Disability
NCLS reports on church support regarding disability and mental health: Some 37% of churchgoers say the support they received from their church, regarding their mental health, was excellent or good. Another 46% say their church isn't aware of their mental health issues. http://news.ncls.org.au/2016-disability-inclusion-infographics
Diversity
Giles Fraser writes: It’s hard to think of a more varied group of people than the one that gathers at my local church. Surely a truly healthy society is built on this sort of diversity
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/28/etonian-trumpite-corbyn-church-diversity
Domestic violence
Kate Shellnutt writes: A new campaign called #SilenceIsNotSpiritual calls on evangelical congregations and leaders to speak up and act on behalf of victims of gender-based violence, who fear their stories will end up ignored or marginalized.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/december/women-speak-up-in-silenceisnotspiritual-campaign.html
End of life
Daniel Sinclair writes: Under Jewish law, the preservation of human life is a cardinal commandment: both suicide and self-endangerment are forbidden.
https://theconversation.com/what-jewish-law-says-about-suicide-and-assisted-dying-88687
Samantha Hutchinson writes: Its proponents cast the scheme as the most conservative in the world. Already, other state governments are eyeing off the legislation in preparation of euthanasia debates of their own. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and MPs who supported the legislation are adamant they’ve got the balance right.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/living-with-the-dying-law-euthanasia-tensions-linger/news-story/61ac43a6f175aed8e7f4ef9ed7eebb7b
Tracey Bowden writes: Michael Lee was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) 10 years ago, when he was 35 years old. Michael and his wife Joanna explain that even with a terminal illness, with good support and care, life can be worth living.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-18/what-does-michael-lee-think-of-euthanasia-motor-neurone-disease/9237024
Environment
Dr Mick Pope, based in Melbourne, is a climate change scientist, university lecturer and eco-theologian. The 48-year-old speaks about his hopes for the COP23 talks in Bonn, how the church is engaging with the issue and the message in his latest book, A Climate of Justice: Loving Your Neighbour in a Warming World.
https://www.sightmagazine.com.au/features/8205-the-interview-mick-pope-climate-scientist
On 7th December 2017, Deborah Storie launched the book, Ecological Aspects of War: Engagements with Biblical Texts, edited by Anne Elvey and Keith Dyer with Deborah Guess. The launch was hosted by Whitley College in Melbourne, with the support of the University of Divinity Centre for Research in Religion & Social Policy, directed by Ethos Director Gordon Preece.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1m2yjZy2AaY7xq4SaoW75pKA-8RmgAZ_-
Indigenous affairs
Warren Mundine writes: Indigenous disadvantage is driven by a lack of participation in the Australian economy.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/indigenous-disadvantage-is-driven-by-a-lack-of-participation-in-the-australian-economy/news-story/1779bc7009ce2db584448c118560f057
Hannah McGlade write: Today's child protection system still doesn't see the strength of Aboriginal culture and it risks repeating past wrongs
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-21/forced-removal-aboriginal-children-at-all-time-high/9277170
Zoe Staines writes: To Close the Gap, Indigenous Australians are the experts. Indigenous organisations are more likely to achieve outcomes because they understand local issues and have ‘skin in the game’.
https://theconversation.com/were-not-closing-the-gap-on-indigenous-employment-its-widening-89302
Human relations
Amanda Jackson writes: Can’t we redeem tender touch as a wonderfully positive experience? There is a big difference between inappropriate touching and touching that is caring and comforting. And, by rejecting the latter because of some destructive actions, we are missing out.
https://amandaadvocates.blog/2017/11/30/the-power-of-a-touch/
Justice
Marta Skrabacz writes: There’s no reason to judge the success of a protest by whether it achieved its desired outcome: the adage ‘it’s a marathon, not a sprint’ rings true. Effective change is a matter of increment; it has to happen at every strata of society. Protests bear the brunt of proving success, when the burden for change actually exists with the system they’re opposing.
https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54424
Law, human rights and free speech
Joel Harrison writes: Freedom in the Christian tradition is not merely the absence of restraint. Rather, we are truly free to the extent we are pursuing good ends. Our liberty is not therefore a matter of protecting a piece of territory or an inviolable space; it can never merely be a zone of autonomy. It exists to recognise and facilitate groups that cultivate solidarity, fraternity and charity. Groups, in other words, orientated towards the good.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/12/14/4780536.htm
Richard Ackland writes: It’s unthinkable to extend the “freedom” of churches when they have so conspicuously abused the freedoms they already have. Actually, there are strong grounds for a campaign to counter the expansion of religious freedoms and to reduce the ones that already exist. When you consider the hateful, cruel, bitter and downright false contribution of some religious voices during the recent same-sex postal survey, why would anyone want to give these institutions more open-ended “freedoms”?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/14/dont-extend-churches-freedom-when-theyve-abused-those-they-already-have?
Michael Kellahan, executive director of the think tank Freedom For Faith, explains how important the Ruddock Review is and why it could set the Christian agenda in Australia for years to come:
https://www.eternitynews.com.au/opinion/freedom-of-religion-is-on-the-governments-agenda-really/
Neil James Foster writes: In Australia there have been no such cases such as the famous Oregon wedding cake before the courts yet, but the potential is there. Attempts to learn from overseas experience and provide a clear legislative solution to the issues were defeated in the passage of the legislation enacting same sex marriage for this country. These are matters that ought to be considered carefully in the current Ruddock Inquiry into Religious Freedom.
https://lawandreligionaustralia.blog/2017/12/30/large-fine-for-refusing-to-supply-same-sex-wedding-cake-upheld-in-oregon/
Luther 500
Bradley Nassif, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, assesses Luther's famous doctrine of 'sola fide'. "The absence of the Orthodox Church in the Reformation debates of the 16th century is one of the great tragedies of Christian history. What might have happened if Orthodox churches had been party to the theological controversies that dominated 16th-century Europe?"
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/december/reformation-viewed-from-east.html
John Sandeman writes: Two major events this year have served to underscore an outsider’s status for Christianity – the marriage debate and the report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. For Aussie Christians, whether Catholic, Anglican, Pentecostal, Baptist, Presbyterian or Uniting, 2017 was the year when it felt that we ceased to count in the centre of power, and moved to the outskirts of society. So in that sense, this year we are all Protestants, even the Catholics.
https://www.eternitynews.com.au/opinion/the-year-we-all-became-protestants-even-catholics/
Media
Radio National's God Forbid podcast asks: can popular media be redeemed? And why is there so much religion in a media we’re told has never been more secular? With Justine Toh and Mark Hadley.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/godforbid/2017-12-03/9215756
Mark Woods writes: What's needed if religion is to be accurately represented, not just on the BBC but elsewhere too, is a recovery of a sense of its normality.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/can.the.secular.media.ever.understand.religion.why.its.harder.than.it.looks/121913.htm
Mission
Paul Hildreth writes: Cities are crucially important for the human future and for world mission. So starts the Call to Action in The Cape Town Commitment in its statement on cities. As recently as the 1990s, commentators announced the ‘end of geography’, and ‘a flatter world’, as technological change was meant to increase homogeneity and make cities less important. So why did this not happen?
https://www.lausanne.org/content/lga/2014-03/commitment-to-the-city-responding-to-the-cape-town-commitment-on-cities
Nationalism
What is the relationship between an ethnic group and its home country? The Bible suggests a certain permanence of nationhood in the divine schema for human society. What should we take from all this? Will Jones argues that there needs to be a revolution in the minds and attitudes of European peoples towards their home countries, their cultures and their concern for self-determination as peoples and nations, expressed in radically altered approaches to immigration, citizenship, culture, fertility and family. The alternative seems extraordinarily bleak, as European peoples face becoming minorities – stateless nations - in their home countries.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2017/europeans-making-stateless
Politics, society & ideology
Dennis Altman writes: Conservatives are often critical of 'identity politics' for silencing dissenting views. But on ABC's Q&A on Monday night Malcolm Turnbull presented a very narrow vision of national identity.
https://theconversation.com/how-conservatives-use-identity-politics-to-shut-down-debate-89026
Alex C. Smith writes: To some, he is a bigoted extremist, propagating harmful lies; to others he’s a profane heretic, undermining the inerrancy of Scripture; yet to others, he is a brave hero, a prophetic genius daring to speak the truth. But one thing is clear: Jordan B. Peterson is gaining followers and enemies at an exponential rate.
https://reforminghell.com/2017/12/18/jordan-peterson-hero-or-heretic/
Religion in Society
Will Jones writes: There is an important restriction on the role religion may play in politics, one which explains why Christianity is not like Islam and does not endorse theocracy. However, it is important to characterise this limitation correctly, as otherwise we risk falling into the opposite error, more common today in Western liberal democracies, of unduly limiting the role of religion in public life, and shutting out the Creator from the active role he seeks in his creation.
Religious freedom does not therefore rule out a public role for religion, including significant influence in public law and policy, provided that role is limited in ways which safeguard conscience and the rational foundation of public law. To steer and not to stipulate, to clarify and not dictate – that is the framework which general revelation provides to special revelation for public purposes, for the engagement of religion in politics.
https://www.psephizo.com/life-ministry/where-is-the-boundary-between-religion-and-politics/
Ng Kam Weng writes: State bureaucratic control has proven to be destructive for the church when the paternalistic authority of the crown emasculates the power of the clergy and suffocates spiritual initiative from the laity. Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government was an exercise to defend freedom for the church to manage its internal affairs and to fulfill its spiritual vocation, providing four reasons for religious tolerance.
https://ethosinstitute.sg/religious-tolerance/
Ian Keese writes: For the last few months The Australian, through its Op Ed pieces, has been waging a campaign on the behalf of God, or at least the Christian God. But while formal religious adherence is declining, what about spirituality? And is Australian society actually worse than fifty years ago?
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19466
Were Christian missionaries good for liberal democracy? Natasha Moore writes that statistical modelling and deep-dive historical analysis suggest a robust causal link between the presence of missionaries during the colonial period and the health of nations today.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/12/05/4775745.htm
Mark Woods writes: What's needed if religion is to be accurately represented, not just on the BBC but elsewhere too, is a recovery of a sense of its normality.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/can.the.secular.media.ever.understand.religion.why.its.harder.than.it.looks/121913.htm
The experience of the Jewish community in developing a strong counter-cultural religious community over millennia is instructive for Christians. Seth Kaplan's Benedict Option II: The Jewish Example. Four keys to sustaining strong, countercultural religious community has been influential for many.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/benedict-option-ii-the-jewish-example/
Tristan Ewins writes: In the light of the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse some people are claiming a general redundancy of Christianity, or even religion in general. How are we to respond these claims?
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19480
Sex
Roland Chia writes: The philosophical, ethical and social issues generated by the advent of sex robots or sexbots have received serious attention by roboticists and ethicists in the rapidly expanding branch of ethics called roboethics.
https://ethosinstitute.sg/sexbots/
Jessica Bennet writes: Women and men learn early that playing hard to get is what’s appealing, and part of that chase is saying “no” — and then ultimately relenting.
‘It is a kind of sexual nuance that most women instinctively understand: the situation you thought you wanted, or maybe you actually never wanted, but somehow here you are and it’s happening and you desperately want out, but you know that at this point exiting the situation would be more difficult than simply lying there and waiting for it to be over.’
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/sunday-review/when-saying-yes-is-easier-than-saying-no.html
Sexuality
John Sandeman talks to David Bennett on how to love the gay community: “The way you can love the gay community is by not being a lukewarm Christian. But by being a Christian that is living in that sacrifice. That grace-motivated sacrifice of the self.”
https://www.eternitynews.com.au/opinion/how-should-christians-love-the-gay-community/
Sexuality and same-sex marriage – mainstream / non-Christian perspective
Dennis Altman writes: Same-sex marriage has passed the Senate to much fanfare and celebration. But will its passage change the way we think about human rights and democracy in Australia?
https://theconversation.com/how-the-same-sex-marriage-vote-will-impact-on-human-rights-and-democracy-88323
Paula Gerber writes: Australia legalising marriage equality does not necessarily mean LGBTI people enjoy all of the same human rights as heterosexual people.
http://theconversation.com/australia-has-finally-achieved-marriage-equality-but-theres-a-lot-more-to-be-done-on-lgbti-rights-88488
Melissa Kang argues that, with the ‘yes’ vote, the mandate to deliver inclusive sexuality education in schools is more pressing than ever. LGBTQI+-inclusive sexuality education should embrace diversity in the classroom, the staff-room and in whole-of-school policies.
https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/sexuality/agenda/article/2017/12/08/opinion-we-have-marriage-equality-now-we-need-lgbtqi-inclusive-sexuality
Simon Copland writes: The success of same-sex marriage should give us space to think more about broader issues of both queer and other forms of oppression in our society. Now it is up to us to work on ways to deal with these forms of oppression. These issues should just be a starting point. Marriage equality is not the end of the road.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2017/dec/08/marriage-equality-has-passed-but-theres-more-to-be-done-for-a-fairer-society#comment-109450044
Alastair Blanshard writes: The persistent dream of a Greek “gay utopia” is one of the constants in gay and lesbian historical imaginings over the last 200 years. Yet the Greek attitude to same-sex attraction was not nearly as permissive or free as many have assumed. And they tolerated the violent sexual abuse of men and women in a manner that nobody could countenance today.
https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-myth-of-the-ancient-greek-gay-utopia-88397
Sexuality and same-sex marriage – Christian perspective
Andrew Hamilton writes: The government has appointed a panel to report what legislation may be necessary to safeguard religious rights in light of changes to marriage laws. Given the conflictual nature of public conversation, it may be helpful to step back from this particular issue and to reflect on human rights more generally.
https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54402
Andrew Hamilton writes: The relationship between the right of people in same sex marriages to freedom from discriminations and the right of people to religious freedom is not conflictual but complementary. The rights of both flow from the demands of human flourishing. Balancing these rights demands first of all mutual respect. Legislation may also be necessary to safeguard disputed rights and to mark the limits of their claims. But legislation is a blunt instrument and is no substitute for respect.
https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54402
Neil James Foster writes: Same-sex marriage is now legal. What are the immediate implications for religious freedom and other “law and religion” issues?
https://lawandreligionaustralia.blog/2017/12/07/australia-adopts-same-sex-marriage-law-and-religion-implications/
Stephen McAlpine writes: For all the talk of slippery slope arguments, when it came to it the same sex marriage decision in Australia was not a slippery slope. It was a precipice after all. The recent vote was a decision – no matter what was claimed before – about the direction of sexuality in our culture, not just who could marry who.
https://stephenmcalpine.com/2017/12/10/the-slippery-slope-was-a-precipice-after-all/
Akos Balogh writes: From same sex marriage, to euthanasia, from gender fluidity to eroding religious freedoms, we’re experiencing seismic shifts in public morality and worldview. How are Christians to respond?
https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-to-survive-the-moral-revolution-what-you-should-know/
Neil James Foster writes: Can a Christian secondary school require that its teachers not openly advocate a sexual lifestyle that is contrary to the Bible’s teaching? Can an Orthodox Jewish preschool ask its teachers to live in accordance with Orthodox moral principles? Can a Protestant church refuse to hire someone to act on its behalf in political advocacy when that person does not share their religious beliefs? These are all issues that have come up in recent months.
https://lawandreligionaustralia.blog/2017/12/20/religious-groups-and-employment-of-staff/
Slavery
Andrea Tokaji writes: If you have eaten chocolate, drunk tea, worn a cheap cotton shirt or eaten seafood, the chances are you have taken part in slavery in raw material supply chains. The proposed Modern Slavery Act is the next step Australia can take to support the eradication of slavery in our business supply chains, and has the opportunity to curb demand for exploitation, curb gender based violence, and to end the sex trade.
https://www.lexisnexis.com.au/en/insights-and-analysis/rule-of-law/2017/why-australias-proposed-modern-slavery-act-does-not-go-far-enough
Social media
Mal Fletcher writes: The social media juggernaut Facebook has reportedly acknowledged engagement with its platform may potentially affect cognition or emotional wellbeing.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19481
Technology
Roland Chia writes: The philosophical, ethical and social issues generated by the advent of sex robots or sexbots have received serious attention by roboticists and ethicists in the rapidly expanding branch of ethics called roboethics.
https://ethosinstitute.sg/sexbots/
US politics
Alon Ben-Meir writes: As we approach the end of Trump's first year in office, it seems appropriate to survey his performance and his outlook for the future.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19488
War, peace & nonviolence
Marta Skrabacz writes: There’s no reason to judge the success of a protest by whether it achieved its desired outcome: the adage ‘it’s a marathon, not a sprint’ rings true. Effective change is a matter of increment; it has to happen at every strata of society. Protests bear the brunt of proving success, when the burden for change actually exists with the system they’re opposing.
https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=54424
On 7th December 2017, Deborah Storie launched the book, Ecological Aspects of War: Engagements with Biblical Texts, edited by Anne Elvey and Keith Dyer with Deborah Guess. The launch was hosted by Whitley College in Melbourne, with the support of the University of Divinity Centre for Research in Religion & Social Policy, directed by Ethos Director Gordon Preece.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1m2yjZy2AaY7xq4SaoW75pKA-8RmgAZ_-
Dr Maria J Stephan and Susan Hayward from the US Institute of Peace take us into the world of peace building. Discover whether non-violent movements actually work, and explore the role that religious faith plays in making and maintaining peace.
https://publicchristianity.org/library/a-history-of-non-violence
Year in Review / New Year
Sunanda Creagh and Lucinda Beaman speak with author and social researcher Hugh Mackay, who says fragmentation was among the key themes of a troubling year. But he has some concrete suggestions on how we can do better in 2018.
https://theconversation.com/speaking-with-social-researcher-and-author-hugh-mackay-on-2017-a-really-disturbing-year-89445
John Sandeman writes: Two major events this year have served to underscore an outsider’s status for Christianity – the marriage debate and the report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. For Aussie Christians, whether Catholic, Anglican, Pentecostal, Baptist, Presbyterian or Uniting, 2017 was the year when it felt that we ceased to count in the centre of power, and moved to the outskirts of society. So in that sense, this year we are all Protestants, even the Catholics.
https://www.eternitynews.com.au/opinion/the-year-we-all-became-protestants-even-catholics/
Michael Courts and Amanda Dunn write: 2017 has felt like a chaotic year in Australian politics, and one in which policy progress has been swamped by other distractions. We can only hope that 2018 is calmer and more productive.
https://theconversation.com/citizenship-scandals-same-sex-marriage-and-foreign-interference-dominate-the-messy-politics-of-2017-89225
James Whitmore writes: 2017 gave us a blockbuster female superhero, radical faerie realness rituals, and the 'frenetic flapping of male genitalia'. Here's what our arts critics made of all that.
https://theconversation.com/how-our-arts-critics-saw-2017-89359
Young people
Stephen McAlpine writes: ‘Millennial evangelicals are not all that interested in church just looking like anything else, but with spirituality. Much was made of how we have to make church life just look like ordinary life. Millennials don’t want that. They want difference. They want strangeness. They want liturgy. They want a sense of the spiritual drama. They want sermons not talks!’
https://stephenmcalpine.com/2017/05/12/millennial-evangelicals-and-church/
Michael Hobbes writes: Contrary to the cliché, the vast majority of millennials did not go to college, do not work as baristas and cannot lean on their parents for help. Every stereotype of our generation applies only to the tiniest, richest, whitest sliver of young people. And the circumstances we live in are more dire than most people realise. What is different about us as individuals compared to previous generations is minor. What is different about the world around us is profound.
http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millennials/
Three fans - Morgan Lee, D.L. Mayfield and Matthew Loftus - discuss themes of power and violence in the Hunger Games series’, and wonder if anyone is really redeemed.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/november-web-only/what-hunger-games-taught-three-millennials.html
Skyler Huff, Jeff Fromm and Greg Vodicka writes: Hunger Games connects emotionally with its Millennial audiences by exploring themes such as collaboration, competence, cynicism, authenticity and love. The author, publisher, movie makers and marketers seem to have recognised the potency of this particular narrative to a generation ‘hungering’ for a heroine that fits their time.
http://www.millennialmarketing.com/2012/03/what-the-success-of-hunger-games-reveals-about-millennials/
Chris Wilterdink writes: Hierarchy that separates youth ministry from the church at large, leaders from their youth, etc. interferes with young millennials' ability to meaningfully connect in a ministry setting. Ministry and the church, much like other brands, should offer opportunities to have a voice, co-create and collaborate.
https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/a-wizard-the-hunger-games-a-divide-in-the-millennial-generation
Meredith Schultz writes: The independent rootlessness of emerging adults presents potent opportunities for the practice of hospitality.
“Hospitality creates a brief hour of the Millennium. For modern pilgrims, it is a proximate response to the problem of displacement and an act of hope in the God who has gone to prepare a place for his people. Encounters with hospitality are what Lewis calls “pleasant inns” along our earthly pilgrimage, but they only serve as a reminder and guarantor of glory. We await the feast that never ends. Blessed are the homesick, for they shall indeed come home.”
http://farefwd.com/2013/12/blessed-are-the-homesick-hospitality-for-mobile-millennials/
Russell Grenning writes: My father was given to dark mutterings about the general state of young people today while my mother could hardly conceal her delight at the news.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19484