Link Highlights | November-December 2018

Saturday, 29 December 2018 | Ethos editor

Link highlights – November-December 2018

Below is a selection of links to online news and opinion pieces from November and December 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.

Animals

Most Australians don't feel scandalised by the Melbourne Cup, even though the race that stops a nation is founded on a huge system of routine brutality, writes Benjamin Myers. But the work of Karl Barth offers clues to a Christian response.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/melbourne-cup-and-heartlessness-to-animals/10469624

Anthropology

Steve Fuller asks: What exactly is the basis for the privilege that is accorded to the 'human', especially in a world where both political pluralism and biodiversity are increasingly recognized and accepted ― all with minimal if any reference to religion?

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/humanitys-exceptional-standing/10474784

Art & Culture

You don’t have to include faith or belief when writing fiction, so why do we see religious themes crop up again and again in our most popular pop culture? God Forbid speaks with Justine Toh and Father Richard Leonard SJ.

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/godforbid/spell-books-spaceships-and-superheroes/10501472

Asylum seekers, refugees and migration

Andrew Hamilton writes: To distant observers the hesitation and delay are hard to understand. They ask how it is possible to look on idle and unmoved at children in despair when you are in a position to address the causes of their despair. What is it that enables us to pass by damaged children, untroubled? The answer may lie in the quality of our moral imagination.

https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=56956

Will Jones writes: As the latest Central American migrant caravan makes its way to its encounter with Trump’s troops, it seems as good a time as any to remind ourselves why national borders exist, why they are good, and why they should be defended. Why control immigration?

https://faith-and-politics.com/2018/11/12/the-moral-case-for-immigration-control/

Parable like the Good Samaritan, we are often told, are clear evidence of what the government ought to do about refugees. But Jesus wasn’t telling the government what to do, writes Martyn Iles.

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

Luke Richmond has never shared his experiences as a manager for offshore processing on Manus Island, until now.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/opinion/he-managed-an-offshore-processing-centre-and-says-its-time-to-get-kids-off-nauru/

Bioethics

A new edition of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy considers how the rise of agnosticism in Western societies has impacted on the discipline of bioethics. Xavier Symons writes.

https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/if-god-is-dead-where-does-that-leave-bioethics/12912

Civil society and discourse

Eighty-seven percent of Americans said that they feel the country is more divided than at any point in their lifetimes. In this time of polarization, we need to mobilize churches and faith leaders inspired by the peacemaking vision of the prophet Isaiah, writes Tim Dixon.

https://sojo.net/articles/research-shows-how-partisan-extremes-mask-exhausted-majority

Economics, finance & inequality

Eugenie Joseph writes: The risk of elevating relative poverty as a problem is that governments will become distracted from tackling real, persistent disadvantage in Australia.

https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/crying-wolf-too-many-times-on-poverty/

Warren Hogan and Gordon Menzies write: The best way to get bankers to behave well might be to bind them to a code of ethics, like doctors. We've tried ever tighter rules.

https://theconversation.com/a-tip-for-bankers-ahead-of-the-royal-commission-be-more-like-doctors-106927

End of life

The journalist wife of a Sky News journalist has written a memoir chronicling her reaction to her husband’s one-way trip to a Swiss suicide clinic. Michael Cook writes.

https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/wife-critical-of-journalist-husbands-trip-to-swiss-suicide-clinic/12893

Ros McDougall writes: Terminally ill patients in Victoria are set to be able to request a legal drug to end their lives. But strict clauses aimed at protecting patients and health professionals may actually prevent people from making that choice — even when it's their right.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-09/euthanasia-assisted-dying-in-victoria-enabling-choice-for-dying/10478420

Evil

Why are good people blind to unethical institutions? The problem of knowing what is right and what is wrong has been compounded by the double speak describing unethical conflicts of interest that are systematically imbedded in Australian institutions. Shann Turnbull writes.

www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=20025

Food

Our desire to experience the texture and flavors of creation reveals our desire and ability to know God through the world he’s made, writes Kendall Vanderslice.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/november/power-in-plate.html

Gambling

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/melbourne-cup-and-heartlessness-to-animals/10469624

Hate speech

Rae Langton writes: Hate speech can work to alter perception itself, so that we come to see our fellow humans as dehumanised or animal-like, so that we hear them as shifty, contemptible or dangerous.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/the-authority-of-hate-speech/10478626

Homelessness & housing

A massive funding injection is needed into social housing and homeless services, says the former head of the St Vincent de Paul Society, John Falzon.

http://cathnews.com/cathnews/33621-everyone-needs-a-place-to-call-home-falzon

Justice

The gospel of Jesus Christ demands social justice but working for social justice is not the gospel, writes Michael Jensen.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/opinion/social-justice-meets-the-gospel/

Sarah Bachelard writes: I wonder if it is our very agitation that is somehow getting in the way, giving us the illusion of doing something while actually avoiding what was truly necessary.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/the-ego-driven-church-on-the-perils-of-christian-activism/10095104

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a prophet in a time of national destruction, exile, war and redemption. Jeremiah and Isaiah gave him story, metaphor and resolve to deliver his ferocious critique of slavery and hold out hope after 1865, writes David W. Blight.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/frederick-douglass-prophet-of-freedom/10493918

Patricia Fox, the Australian missionary nun who was forced to leave the Philippines when her visa was cancelled, rejects the idea that she infringed Philippines sovereignty by her outspoken advocacy for the country’s poor and exploited. Anne Lim writes.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/world/how-i-was-kicked-out-for-standing-with-the-poor-in-struggle-for-justice/

Law, human rights and free speech

On the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht – November 9, 1938 – Eternity pays tribute to William Cooper, an Aboriginal man who was the only person to stage a private protest against the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Matt Busby-Andrews writes.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/world/the-aboriginal-hero-who-stood-up-to-hitler/

Rae Langton writes: Hate speech can work to alter perception itself, so that we come to see our fellow humans as dehumanised or animal-like, so that we hear them as shifty, contemptible or dangerous.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/the-authority-of-hate-speech/10478626

Politics, society & ideology

Democracies need strong cohesion around a political identity. This provides a powerful temptation to exclude those who cannot or will not fit easily into the identity which the majority believes can hold them together. By Charles Taylor.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/democracy-and-its-exclusions/10467144

Eric Kaufmann writes: The Left needs to back away from excessive accusations of racism and dreams of radical social transformation. Conservatives should worry less about Muslims, Hispanics or the behaviour of other minority groups.

https://unherd.com/2018/11/can-anything-arrest-polarisation-west/

In his pivotal 1950 article, Danish philosopher Knud Løgstrup insisted that Christianity is not distant from humanism, because both treat the ethical relation of neighbour love as essential to what makes us human. By Knud Løgstrup, Robert Stern and Bjørn Rabjerg write.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/humanism-and-christianity/10466648

https://sojo.net/articles/research-shows-how-partisan-extremes-mask-exhausted-majority

Machiavelli’s debunking of traditional notions of virtue and vice was a necessary part of his broader contention that government should not serve the interests of the few best, but that it should serve the more modest desires of the many, writes Sam Dresser.

https://aeon.co/essays/the-prince-of-the-people-machiavelli-was-no-machiavellian

Religion in Society

The phrase that captures the heart of Smith’s thought is 'cultural liturgies' – the way in which 'repetitive practices … point our hearts in a particular direction and by doing so tell us who we are and where we belong'. Martin E. Marty explores the genesis and meaning of Smith’s insights into religion and culture.

https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/james-ka-smiths-cultural-liturgies

Holding to religion as a ‘higher loyalty’ is unusual in a Western nation like Australia we are by habit and custom used to the religious being subordinate to the secular, writes Jeremy Sammut.

https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/is-religion-a-higher-loyalty/

Richard A. Rosengarten writes: Truly to be absolved of one’s sins requires not only an examination of one’s conscience and the statement to a priest before God of one’s sins, but also penance and, crucially, 'a firm purpose of amendment'.

https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/firm-purpose-amendment

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/frederick-douglass-prophet-of-freedom/10493918

Geoff Thomson writes: The complexity Sheridan identifies in the relationship between Western culture and its Christian roots, or the detail he gives often inspiring stories of Christians, is simply absent from his account of Jesus.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/looking-for-jesus-in-greg-sheridans-defence-of-christianity/10639584

Religious Freedom

Joel Harrison writes: If religion is just an expression of the individual's pursuit of authenticity, and religious groups are simply vehicles for individual identity, it is difficult to accord these any special concern against the claims of non-discrimination.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/religious-liberty-and-the-ruddock-review/10473684

The way forward is to remove the exemptions to discrimination law altogether; and replace them with a positive right for religious organisations to maintain their identity and ethos within a diverse Australian society, writes Robert Forsyth.

https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/ruddock-recommendations-already-out-of-date/

The Labor Party’s proposed amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act, currently before the Senate, will severely limit the freedom of religious schools and religious adult education institutions which train chaplains, missionaries and in Australia, reports the Institute for Civil Society.

www.i4cs.com.au/penny-wongs-bill-to-severely-limit-freedom-of-religious-schools/

While these amendments are a move in the right direction, there are still some serious concerns about their effect on religious schools and their ability to operate in accordance with their religious beliefs, writes Neil James Foster.

https://lawandreligionaustralia.blog/2018/12/01/government-amendments-to-religious-schools-bill/

Science

Giles Fraser writes: Metric, like other systems of measurement, is rooted in something entirely arbitrary. And more interestingly, that its global success is more a political imposition than a scientific discovery.

https://unherd.com/2018/11/globalisations-mistaken-rule/

Sexuality

How should Christians respond to the reality of intersex? Lianne Simon speaks with Jennifer Anne Cox about her book Intersex in Christ: Ambiguous Biology and the Gospel.

http://www.liannesimon.com/2018/11/05/intersex-in-christ-interview-with-jenny-cox/

Bryce E. Rich writes: Scripture, tradition, reason and experience emphasise the dignity of the human person, created in the image of God. If nothing else, they should caution us against hasty decisions that prioritise a particular biological phenomenon over the well-being of unique and varied human persons.

https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/male-female-and-transgender-notes-theological-anthropology

The Labor Party's National Secretary has released a consultation draft of its platform. The Australian Christian Lobby has raised concerns about the platform's wording around 'gay conversion therapy'. But Scott Higgins argues that these concerns are unfounded.

https://scottjhiggins.com/10158-2

Sexuality and Christian Schools

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-05/anglican-schools-right-to-discriminate-letter-opinion/10465276

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/07/most-humiliating-moment-of-my-career-anglican-schools-religious-freedom-appeal-misfires

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/culture/anglican-principals-call-for-new-freedom-of-choice-laws/

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/federal/we-are-sorry-anglican-school-backtracks-from-letter-on-gay-teachers-and-students-20181106-p50ed8.html

https://stephenmcalpine.com/analogue-christianity-in-a-digital-public-square/

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/archbishop-apologises-for-hurtful-letter/

It’s back to the future for Victorian conservatives, writes Stephen Williams.

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-gospel-has-spoken-religion-in-victorian-public-schools,12062

The style of debate coming from Australian churches usually proves one thing: slippery slope arguments tend to find themselves on the wrong side of history, writes Charlie Lewis.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2018/11/05/religious-rights-slippery-slope-arguments-are-a-broken-record/

Anglicans only want positive protection for their beliefs, not the power to discriminate against gay students and teachers, writes Glenn Davies.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/real-freedoms-will-end-the-broken-chain-of-exemptions/news-story/a3d9a50b92cfcf7e29f968f0b7a667f6

Sexuality and same-sex marriage

The Assembly of Confessing Congregations Uniting Church in Australia has put together responses from some UCA members to the 15th Assembly decision on Marriage and Same-Gender Relationships on Friday 13 July 2018.

http://www.confessingcongregations.com/news-views/item/responses-to-the-15th-assembly/

Will Jones writes: It is not so much in what the Oxford Bishops’ Letter affirms that the problem lies as in what it denies, or rather leaves out or keeps ambiguous.

https://faith-and-politics.com/2018/11/04/lgbt-inclusion-whats-wrong-with-the-oxford-bishops-letter/

Spencer Gear asks: What are the holes in Dr Robyn Whitaker's arguments against Margaret Court and Court's support for heterosexual marriage over Whitaker's backing of modern Christian families that include gay couples?

www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=20022

Timothy W. Jones writes: The marriage equality debate brought the rights of LGBT Australians to the fore - now we need to turn our attention to the ways they are still discriminated against.

https://theconversation.com/a-year-since-the-marriage-equality-vote-much-has-been-gained-and-there-is-still-much-to-be-done-106326

Stephen McAlpine writes: Nearly twelve months on we're in the throes of all sorts of confusion and counterclaims as to what that vote actually meant.

https://stephenmcalpine.com/the-precipice-one-year-on/

One year on from the legalisation of same-sex marriage, it’s worth us reflecting: what has changed over the last 12 months? And how might we act in this new environment?

http://akosbalogh.com/2018/11/18/has-the-sky-fallen-in-the-ssm-yes-vote-one-year-on/

Spirituality

Barney Zwartz writes: Our lives are complicated and in many ways opaque to our own understanding, and we live with tensions or paradoxes between many priorities and principles.

https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/faith-20181110-p50f7t.html

Sarah Bachelard writes: I wonder if it is our very agitation that is somehow getting in the way, giving us the illusion of doing something while actually avoiding what was truly necessary.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/the-ego-driven-church-on-the-perils-of-christian-activism/10095104

US politics

https://sojo.net/articles/research-shows-how-partisan-extremes-mask-exhausted-majority

Veganism

Tani Khara writes: More and more people are adopting plant-based diets in Australia and other western nations. But also seemingly on the rise is resentment towards vegans and vegetarians.

https://theconversation.com/why-do-vegans-have-such-bad-reputations-103683

War – Remembrance Day

Rebecca Abbott writes: This Sunday, churches will play a key role in marking the centenary of Remembrance Day, as their bells ring in unison with others around our nation, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, other parts of Europe and the United States.

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/current/ringing-in-the-armistice-centenary

Margaret Hutchison writes: Australian authorities sent artists to the WW1 battlefields to interpret and commemorate war. But unlike similar schemes in Britain and Canada, ours neglected the war experience at home and the perspective of women artists.

https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-australias-war-art-scheme-fed-national-mythologies-of-ww1-106454

Rick Sarre writes: It's time the Australians who voiced vociferous opposition to war in general and conscription in particular were commemorated as an important part of our history.

https://theconversation.com/its-time-australias-conscientious-objectors-of-ww1-were-remembered-too-106169

Romain Fathi writes: This year marks 100 years since the fighting stopped in the first world war. The commemoration of the armistice, Remembrance Day, remains potent but is also changing with the times.

https://theconversation.com/100-years-since-the-ww1-armistice-remembrance-day-remains-a-powerful-reminder-of-the-cost-of-war-103232

Pioneering women of science helped us win the Great War. They have lessons for us today. By Patricia Fara.

https://unherd.com/2018/11/women-erased-history/

Our God is one who brings peace to hearts and calls us not only to stop violence but to seek reconciliation, says Archbishop Justin Welby.

https://www.sightmagazine.com.au/news/10775-100-years-after-world-war-one-reconciliation-is-key-in-remembrance-says-justin-welby

A century on from the end of World War I, Life & Faith looks back on the toll the conflict took through the prism of one man's life - and death.

https://www.publicchristianity.org/the-bullet-in-the-bible/

War, peace & nonviolence

Michael Frost writes: His full name was Erueti Te Whiti Te Whiti-o-Rongomai III and even if you’ve never heard of him, Te Whiti was an astonishing leader and one of the international founders of passive resistance, or nonviolence direct action (NVDA).

https://mikefrost.net/hes-the-father-of-nonviolent-protest-and-youve-probably-never-heard-of-him/

Welfare

Eugenie Joseph writes: The risk of elevating relative poverty as a problem is that governments will become distracted from tackling real, persistent disadvantage in Australia.

https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/crying-wolf-too-many-times-on-poverty/

Women

Storytellers in Hollywood Westerns used to draw the same simplistic picture – women on the frontiers of white settlement were either virtuous wives and homemakers bringing civilising values or bold bar girls with revealing clothes and little virtue, writes Amanda Jackson.

https://amandaadvocates.blog/2018/11/22/gods-police/

Work

In toxic work situations, Kara Martin advises: stay, pray and persevere as long as you can, especially if you have good support. But what if the battle is impacting on your soul?

https://www.eternitynews.com.au/opinion/surviving-a-toxic-workplace/

Youth

But in a world that is loud and busy, I found mass almost therapeutic. A time without technology to quiet my mind.' Mikki Cusack writes.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-23/im-a-millennial-and-catholic/10634948