Religion
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The clear assumption by many politicians, public servants, and journalists, is that Australia is inevitably going down the path of “no faith”.
August 25, 2024
20 mins
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Before the new pope has literally said a word, his chosen name may speak volumes. Who will the next pope be? I would be delighted if the cardinals were to elect Gregorian alumnus Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's current Secretary of State Cardinal. He is certainly papabile, as the Italians say, but at this point speculation seems crass, or at least inappropriate
August 25, 2024
9 mins
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In March, the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended that faith schools no longer be permitted to preference enrolments and staff according to faith and witness, and that they be required to facilitate “alternate” views on religious and moral matters being taught in their schools.
August 25, 2024
27 mins
The latest
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A decade ago, George Pell was perhaps the best-known Christian—and Richard Dawkins perhaps the best-known atheist—in the English-speaking world. They debated each other on the ABC’s Q+A program on April 9, 2012, before a live audience.
August 25, 2024
13 mins
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While Islamic cultures draw on the Koran, Hindu cultures look to the Bhagavad Gita. and Chinese pay homage to Confucius, it is Judaeo-Christianity, especially the New Testament, that provides the West’s moral and spiritual compass. Foes of religious belief playing any part in politics can ignore that influence but they cannot deny it
July 31, 2024
6 mins
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Christianity does not inculcate fanaticism among its followers nor, to the point, a fearful and fatalistic apathy. Instead of inshallah. Free will is fundamental to Christianity. Predestination, which follows from God’s sovereignty over all things, must be retrofitted around God-given free will, never the other way around
July 27, 2024
7 mins
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When a religious group promotes left-wing causes, the emptier its pews become. This seems an unbreakable rule, yet those who propagate politics from the pulpit seem not to have noticed that the Greens and their like make poor guides on the path to salvation
June 10, 2024
10 mins
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One of the most striking developments in Australian society in […]
May 28, 2024
10 mins
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The Australian Law Reform Commission wants legislation that will dictate what people may believe and how they express those beliefs through faith-based institutions, especially schools and places of worship. Count on a precedent-setting show trial, and rest assured it will be Christianity in the dock, never Islam
May 16, 2024
14 mins
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'I have never met anyone else whose daily experience of horrendous evil lasted for the entire Second World War and played itself out in only two infamous death camps. It served to strengthen his desire to be an instrument of divine mercy and peace. For myself, I want to borrow from W.B. Yeats, and say my glory was I had such a friend'
May 5, 2024
6 mins
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Any society, including ours, is diminished by its disregard for those elements of our existence that are not immediately tactile or at least visible. Today, Easter Sunday, is an opportune moment to reflect that the rejection of the religious dimension leaves a void to be filled by every kind of crazy self-deception and tyranny
March 31, 2024
3 mins
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The Muslim leadership in Australia does not acknowledge one simple and incontrovertible fact, that Israel is central to Jews and Judaism, historically and today. Israel is not a dispensable ingredient in what it means to be Jewish, despite the marginal Jews who can always be found penning diatribes against it, especially for Al Jazeera
March 31, 2024
13 mins