In November last year I was invited by the Evangelical Theological Association to present a paper at their annual conference in San Antonio on same-sex relations. I was one of a team of four, brought together by Zondervan Publishing House to write a book, which has since been published: Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the ...
FRIDAY FORUM
From Thursday next week the public can make submissions on the City of Melbourne Council’s move to virtually ban homeless people from living in the CBD.
The proposed laws, which were endorsed by a narrowly carried vote of councillors this week in a heated public session, will allow authorised officers to more readily move people ...
For this week’s Friday Forum Robyn Whitaker and Sean Winter respond to an article in the The Age by Barney Zwartz on the Christian approach to the Trump presidency.
In The Age (22/01/17) Barney Zwartz argued that his Christian faith instructed him to pray for US President Donald Trump and to trust God’s sovereign purposes. It is not that simple.
Carla Wells reflects on the impending Trump presidency.
On the night of 8 November, 2016, in the Bay Area of San Francisco, there was an eerie silence in the air. Left-leaning election hopefuls – the strong majority of the local population – stared in shock at TV screens as the results trickled through.
FRIDAY FORUM – YOUR VIEWS ON THE NEWS
In what has become something of an annual January tradition, the Meat and Livestock Association’s advertisements promoting lamb are bound to cause controversy.
Since 2005, when former footballer Sam Kekovich labelled people who don’t eat lamb as ‘un-Australian’, the ads have been accused of sexism, racism, colonialism ...
I was invited to write this piece on the morning of 9 November, when the election result was still unknown.
I had visions – no, fantasies! – of writing about what it felt like to have the first female President.
The result feels like a ‘sucker punch’ that has knocked the wind out of me. And the taste of ...
‘Mission’. The term excites a range of passions.
More often than not, the popular conception of the term is linked to colonisation. Mission is something negative. Something which, in worst case scenarios, accompanies invasion, manipulating those in the most vulnerable circumstances to become enculturated into an identity not their own. This change in religious belonging, it is further argued, makes ...
For Equality gives strength, in all things and at all times. Meister Eckhart.
Feminism: The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of equality of the sexes. (Oxford dictionary)
To be a feminist in the context of being a follower of Jesus is to affirm diversity, protest discrimination and advocate equality for all.
Much of the business of Synod 2016 concerned the future of the Church based on proposals relating to Major Strategic Review. Discussion was at times emotional, as Synod members grappled with changes that would decide the future of the Church. Then one young woman, Karen Sooaemalelagi, stood up to remind the Synod that the future of the church was actually ...
Election campaigns, even if they run for eight weeks, are a democratic delicacy. For a while there is some extended focus on matters of public policy. As Christians we bring a commitment to follow the Way of Jesus, as best we can understand and discern that.
Uniting Justice Australia (UJA) has assisted us, again, by preparing a ...
In July Professor Musa Dube will visit Melbourne at the invitation of the Centre for Theology and Ministry and the synod’s Intercultural unit. Prof Dube is a sought-after post-colonial feminist theologian and lecturer in biblical studies at the University of Botswana.
She is the author of numerous articles published in journals, books, encyclopaedias and magazines. Her provocative ...
The mob violence in Melbourne during Moomba may give the semblance of a race related riots because the youth involved came from predominantly African (Sudanese) and Islander backgrounds.
Seen through the eyes of race we will only misdiagnose the problem and fail in addressing the core issues. Some perspectives have already been offered in the ...
