The best ideas are common property
One of my favourite urban walks anywhere in the world is the short walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Unfailingly, I feel my spirits lift as I join strangers crossing the old Coat-hanger, taking in some of the most stunning views the Emerald City has to offer. On Wednesday this week, I crossed the famous …
Continue reading "Reflecting on 25 years since the Bridge Walk"
Alasdair MacIntyre, one of the world’s great twentieth-century philosophers, died on Wednesday. He is best known for reintroducing virtue ethics as a viable alternative to consequentialism. He also saw his faith and his philosophy as mutually enriching. Reading the obituaries, I was reminded of this quotation from one of MacIntyre’s twenty books: Man is in …
The iconic end of Alasdair MacIntyre's most famous book, After Virtue: "It is always dangerous to draw too precise parallels between one historical period and another; and among the most misleading of such parallels are those which have been drawn between our own age in Europe and North America and the epoch in which the …
Continue reading "The iconic end of Alasdair MacIntyre’s most famous book"
At the close of many services of worship, a leader stands and, often with one hand raised, palm facing the congregation, he or she speaks words of “benediction.” What’s in a benediction, and why are they important? The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious …
Last week, I suggested that, in his inaugural sermon at the Nazareth synagogue (Lk 4:16-21), and in the Beatitudes which must have been taught very soon after, Jesus echoed the words of Isaiah 61:1-7. I said that Jesus came to change the world, to turn the world upside down, to right wrongs, to pour out compassion, …
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