Passover was a bloody business. The Jewish historian Josephus informs us that around a quarter of a million lambs were sacrificed each year during the festival; an overstatement to be sure, but indicative of the scale of butchery involved. In his account of the Last Supper, Mark places Jesus and his disciples together in the midst of the chaos.
Have you ever tried to break a bundle of sticks? One stick on its own can break easily, but bundled together, they become almost impossible to break. This same resilience can be found when we acknowledge we are social creatures who are reliant on each other and benefit from cooperation.
Despite this, we have largely swallowed the rhetoric that ...
It’s part of human nature to secure identity by rivalry, building barriers, erecting implacable oppositions of ‘us’ and ‘them’.
We tend to define ourselves in terms of what we are that the ‘other’ isn’t or in terms of what we are not, compared to what the ‘other’ is. In ...
By Penny Mulvey
Imagine a world in the not-so-distant future where Christians and Muslims and people of other faiths and no faith work together, holding to their own distinct perspective, but listening and honouring the other, to organise ‘a common world’.
This was the vision presented by Croatian Protestant theologian, Miroslav Volf, at the Rethinking: A Public Faith conference, held ...
“I have a lofty tree upon one of my estates at New South Wales. It stands upon the summit of a hill. When I first took possession of the land, this tree was surrounded with many more. It appeared from its strength and stateliness that it would stand uninjured for ages. I removed all the rest and left it to ...
I always thought responsible travel was a good idea. The thought of going to a multinational resort, à la Club Med, has never appealed to me. The kind of resort where the western tourist is enclosed on the best beach, very separate from the ...
By Larry Marshall
The Uniting Church’s Uniting Through Faiths project was recently involved in a major initiative aimed at bringing together the divided community of Sri Lankans living in Melbourne.
This large, multi-faith and multi-lingual community of educated and successful Australians is beginning ...
With the closure of the United Faculty of Theology at the end of 2014, the Uniting Church Theological College will seek an independent future under the new name Pilgrim Theological College, an accredited institution of the University of Divinity.
The new name emerged after several hours and rounds of discussion. While it has been accepted and approved, there have been ...
In 2012, Tasmanian couple Grant and Anthea Maynard, with their three young daughters in tow, spent 10 months as UnitingWorld volunteers at the Matthew Rusike Children’s Home located in one of the poorest suburbs in Zimbabwean capital of Harare.
I read the ABC Religion and Ethics blog by Scott Stephens the other day. It was written in the context of the testimony given by Cardinal George Pell before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The subject matter was ‘The Religion of the Humble and the Peril of Institutional Atheism’.
Nearly six months ago my beloved partner died unexpectedly, tragically and traumatically. At the time I was coordinating the response group to Uniting our future. I was immersed in the grief and loss that resulted from the proposed sale of properties.
Among the properties being sold were the buildings of the second congregation I served as minister which resulted in ...
In April I conclude seven years as National Director of UnitingWorld to take up congregational ministry. As I look towards that role, one of my first thoughts concerns how I will enable the congregation to engage globally.
