Thoughts on faith, culture, and public life.
Rev Dr Stephen Bartlett, under whose watch the Baptist denomination in NSW suffered schism over marriage equality. By Rod Benson The debate over same-sex marriage within the Baptist Association of NSW & ACT provides a revealing contemporary test of Baptist convictions concerning Scripture, conscience, congregational autonomy and associational authority. The immediate question was theological: must …
Continue reading "Marriage equality and the cleaving of Baptists in NSW"
Rev Dr Ross Clifford AM, long-serving Principal of Morling College, who led the conservative push against marriage equality among NSW Baptists. By Rod Benson Baptists cherish freedom, but no Baptist community can survive without boundaries. Churches confess beliefs, establish expectations of membership, recognise ministers and determine the purposes for which they will cooperate with other …
Continue reading "When Baptist convictions become hard boundary markers"
Southern Baptist minister and educator Edgar Young Mullins. By Rod Benson Historically, Baptists have often been described as a radical and dissenting people. Not primarily conservative or fundamentalist, but radical and dissenting. That is the historic Baptist DNA. The earliest Baptists emerged from the contested religious world of post-Reformation Europe, questioning inherited ecclesiastical arrangements, rejecting …
By Rod Benson Using a smartphone to scroll through social media is one of the characteristicย practices of contemporary life for billions of people. We reach for our phones while waiting for a train, sitting in a cafรฉ, watching television, lying in bed or during pauses in conversation. The practice satisfies several popular human appetites: curiosity, …
Continue reading "From marketplace to infinite scroll: A short history of human distraction"
Murray River mouth and Coorong lagoon system near Goolwa, South Australia. By Rod Benson One of the most significant principles in Catholic social teaching is the doctrine of subsidiarity. In broad terms, subsidiarity holds that responsibilities should be exercised by persons and smaller communities when they are capable of doing so, while larger institutions should …
Continue reading "Subsidiarity and Uniting Church ecclesiology"
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