I first read 1984 in 1985. Orwell’s great novel was assigned by my school curriculum for analysis and sober reflection, as it should be for every student in every school. If you have not yet read it, know that our world can turn from bliss to unimaginable horror in less time than it takes to …
Scotland calling: The enduring appeal of cultural heritage
We are all shaped by our parents’ heritage. When one is descended from immigrants, the cultural heritage is often complex. This heritage, and the degree to which it is lost or maintained over time, is one of the more intriguing features of postcolonial societies such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. My …
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Is the Pope the Vicar of Christ?
Growing up in the same fundamental religious denomination as novelist Ken Follett and poet Patricia Beer, I was taught from earliest days that nothing good could come from the Catholic Church. My paternal grandmother, for example, a superb mimic, would occasionally regale us at the Christmas dinner table at Wahroonga with humorous anti-papist rhetoric. On one occasion, in …
Theology and imagination in Robert Musil’s works
Robert Musil is one of the least widely read of the great European modernist writers, yet his work occupies a distinctive place in twentieth-century intellectual culture. His fiction is neither conventionally religious nor militantly anti-religious. It explores the spiritual exhaustion of modern civilisation, the collapse of moral certainty, and the persistent human longing for transcendence …
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The Marrow of Theology and the Marrow Controversy
The Marrow Controversy and the “Marrow Men” are frequently confused with the theological work The Marrow of Theology, but the two are historically and conceptually distinct, despite sharing the word “marrow” in their titles. The confusion is understandable because both emerged from the broader Reformed and Puritan world and both sought to articulate the essential substance …
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