On divorce and remarriage

An occasional paper by Rod Benson, 2006 [statistics revised 2014] Up to half of all marriages in Australia will end in divorce, and most divorcees remarry. For people facing the prospect or the reality of divorce and remarriage today, including many Christians, the Bible appears to offer conflicting or irrelevant advice, while the church may …

Racism and reconciliation

NOTE: I preached this sermon at the Murri Evangelical Church (a Baptist church) in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia, on the first anniversary of the 1996 Australian federal election which swept Pauline Hanson onto the national political stage. Ms Hanson’s seat of Oxley, since renamed Blair following electoral boundary changes in 1998, included most of the city …

Is conscience a reliable guide for ethics? (part 1 of 3)

As a seven-year-old, Dr David Whitten recalls his family holidaying at Katoomba’s Hydro Majestic Hotel. When the waitress served his breakfast of fried eggs, he noticed “something next to the eggs that looked like thin, crisp meat and was the source of a wonderful aroma.” “We don’t eat bacon,” his father said, and the waitress …

Corrupting technology

Corrupting technology: An integrity check on the organ transplant industry Abstract This paper discusses aspects of organ donation and transplantation (ODT) as an example of technology delivering significant health and longevity benefits to patients, but fraught with ethical challenges and open to incidental or systematic corruption. The paper outlines the main features of current ethical …