There are ways we can look at being a Christian at work, which can help us reframe, to feel more positive about who we are, and help us glorify God at this time of year.

In a time when Western society is rapidly altering its image of marriage, the church is pressed to decide: Should we follow suit? The church is called to discern between the fading forms of this passing age and what is “good” and “acceptable” according to God’s will.

The catastrophe of Syria’s emptying and Europe’s and Australia’s contradictory attempts to respond was captured recently in an image. This was not the most influential, visceral image of three year-old Aylan Kurdi’s limp body face down on a Turkish beach. It was an Age cartoonist’s picture of Mr Abbott as lifesaver lifting some Syrians with one hand from the water and holding others under-water with the other.

All societies and cultures have laws against murder, based on the moral belief that it is wrong to kill an innocent human being. The right to life is the most basic of human rights. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this belief is based on humans being uniquely created in the image of God. But respect for life is not just a religious value, it is a foundational value of all societies in which reasonable people would want to live.

"Both in popular culture and Church, there’s often a radical distinction between faith and work, with work typically seen as bad. That’s an analogous distinction to the being and doing of humanity. But in Scripture, particularly John’s Gospel, Jesus’ experience of God’s love is interwoven with his labour in God’s love."

Pro-euthanasia advocate Julian Savulescu argued that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide should be legalised because they are not morally different from two currently morally and legally accepted medical practices. Dr Cooper-Clarke, a medical doctor (and ethicist with a PhD on this topic) critiques this claim.

From Eagleton’s grasp of Christian theology, and his confidence to resist the cultural embargo often placed over it, there is much to learn. It may be one of the ways theology, and deep discussions about Christianity, become genuinely public.

The centuries from the Enlightenment until the present have seen the decline of Christendom and the rise of liberal, secular, pluralist democracies. This has dramatically reshaped the place of the church in society and societal expectations around virtue.

Few moral issues facing us in our day require such careful navigation between treacherous hidden shoals of false virtues and well-intentioned folly as that of the mass movement of refugees. Fulfilling our calling to be both wise as serpents and harmless as doves is an immense, yet never more pressing, challenge.

The current cultural squeeze that Christianity is facing in the West risks sending God's people one of two extremes; to the barricades as culture warriors, or to the gated community as culture haters/avoiders. The former are determined to take the culture back, while the former are happy to give the culture back.