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 …
From marketplace to infinite scroll: A short history of human distraction
By Rod Benson Using a smartphone to scroll through social media is one of the characteristic practices of contemporary life for billions of people. We reach for our phones while waiting for a train, sitting in a café, watching television, lying in bed or during pauses in conversation. The practice satisfies several popular human appetites: curiosity, …
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Subsidiarity and Uniting Church ecclesiology
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 …
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Rethinking the future of the Uniting Church
By Rod Benson The Uniting Church in Australia has undertaken many reviews and reorganisations since its inauguration in 1977, but few have matched the breadth or potential significance of the Act2 Project. Act2 is arguably the most consequential attempt in recent decades to reconsider the structures, governance, theological formation and mission of the national Church. …
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Does the Bible teach total depravity?
Vittore Carpaccio, "Saint Augustine in His Study," 1507. A biblical reconsideration of the views of Augustine and Calvin By Rod Benson I’ve been reading Rutger Bregman’s 2019 New York Times bestseller, Humankind: A Hopeful History, and it has me questioning my views about human nature and Christian anthropology. Of course, this is a good thing because engagement …
