The best ideas are common property
The question of how Christians ought to live has occupied believers since the earliest days of the church. The New Testament repeatedly links faith in Jesus Christ with transformed patterns of life, calling followers of the way of Jesus to love God, love their neighbours, pursue holiness, embody the character of Christ, and seek to …
Continue reading "Catholic and Protestant approaches to ethics"
Ethics is the disciplined study of how human beings ought to live. It asks enduring questions about right and wrong, justice and injustice, virtue and vice, duty and responsibility. More profoundly, ethics seeks to understand what constitutes a good life and what kind of persons and communities we should aspire to become. While every culture …
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 Big Brother is coming for you, and read it before it is too late. [Spoiler alert. …
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 …
Continue reading "Scotland calling: The enduring appeal of cultural heritage"
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 …
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