By Rod Benson Three things give Christmas Island its reputation: phosphate mining (now in its last decade), the natural environment (who could forget those amazing red crabs), and the four detention centres where asylum seekers are housed while they await processing. The issue of desperate people trying to get to Australia in leaky boats deeply …
Is Australia a Christian nation?
By Rod Benson Four days ago the Rev Fred Nile made a stirring speech in the NSW Upper House on the subject of Australia as a Christian nation. American Christians often claim the United States as a Christian nation, founded by men who took their faith seriously and instilled Christian principles in the country’s central …
What it takes to act with justice
James William McClendon, Jr. A sermon by Rod Benson on Ephesians 5:1-2. I have a problem. I’d like to believe in God, and do what is right, but I’m uneasy. What if we can be good without God? And how do we know what is good and what is bad? Fortunately, I’m not the first …
T E Ruth and The Common Weal
By Rod Benson In 1918 the Australian Baptist Publishing House (ABPH) released a book by the Rev. Thomas Elias Ruth (1875-1956) titled The Common Weal: Eighteen Studies in Social Subjects.[1] The book included a foreword by Professor Meredith Atkinson of the University of Melbourne,[2] and was dedicated by the author to Arthur Black, “in token …
Speech at launch of Take the Time
I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet tonight, and pay respect to their elders past and present, and I extend that respect to other Indigenous people present here tonight. Greetings from the Baptist Churches of NSW and the ACT, …
All Told 