Thoughts on faith, culture, and public life.
Flags of the nations outside the United Nations Building in New York City. If you’re like me, you will often read the moral teaching of Jesus in the Gospels and apply it to your personal circumstances, or your immediate social relationships. Occasionally, we might reflect on biblical teaching as it informs our democratic vote, as …
Continue reading "The Jesus model of international relations"
Jan van Eyck, "Adoration of the Mystic Lamb," c. 1390-1441 In the early chapters of the Book of Genesis, there are four rivers. Two are unknown to us today; the others are the Tigris and the Euphrates, flowing through present-day Iraq. At the end of the Bible’s narrative arc, there is also a river. John …
He Qi, Peace, Be Still (1998) I can imagine it now: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese steps up to his despatch box in the federal parliament to claim Jesus as the hero of progressive politics: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” (Mt 22:21) – a tacit endorsement of big government as an instrument of …
On Thursday, the nation stopped to commemorate a National Day of Mourning for the victims of the Bondi terrorist attack. Today, in solidarity with Indigenous followers of Jesus, we pause to honour another Day of Mourning, reflecting on the dispossession and ongoing injustices experienced by Australia’s First Peoples, acknowledging our shared history, and renewing our …
Walter Brueggemann, one of the great Protestant theologians of the Hebrew Bible, died on Thursday, aged 92. Brueggemann is widely described as a modern prophet in the tradition of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. He possessed the ability to explain the meaning of the ancient text with clarity and precision, and interpret its prophetic …
