The headlines got me again. Online Australian newspaper – first screen front page so to speak – a link to be clicked ‘Actor Chris O’Dowd says religions are as ‘offensive’ as racism’. I had two immediate reactions as I clicked on the link to…
The headline did its job. It got my attention. It was an article on the competing issues that surround val-ues and laws in a democracy. Religions have points of views and practices that go with them. For good order, all societies do. So what…
As I mentioned on Ascension’s Facebook, I thought there was an incongruity in our lunchtime book club discussion about ‘The Hiding Place’ by Corrie Ten Boom and our surroundings: sitting outside in the sun, enjoy a nice light lunch, good company, pleasant backdrop of…
The Christian’s place in the world has always seemed to me to oscillate between isolation or in-volvement; retreating from the world as much as possible or controlling the world as much as pos-sible. We grow up with mantras such as ‘living in the…
The joy of archaeology or fossicking is in the finding – especially a new find. It spurs people on to more. I can only imagine the excitement, joy, and sheer wonder as the Dead Sea Scrolls came to light – literally and also…
I do sometimes wonder what Jesus thinks of his Church. I know he is Lord of it. I know in reality there is one church – spread out across the varying denominations which have a wide variety of perspectives on aspects of theology and…
Commemorating St Titus is good to do. Commemorating how the early church followed Jesus, remembered Jesus and what he said as taught by the Apostles and eye witnesses and those they appointed to keep the message going (before the New Testament was written and…
It was conversation that was like sea foam – light, inconsequential, momentary – the type you have because you’re walking along side of someone or you’ve bumped into them at work. There’s no agenda other than pleasantries. So it came as a shock when…
The horror of the false accusation is well known. We rightly tense up and are relieved when a person behind bars is exonerated. Completely innocent and yet suffering punishment is a hell we imagine. (The fact that some prisoners remain imprisoned when they could…
In last week’s email to Ascension’s diaspora I mentioned that our recent Christmas and New Year celebrations had an arbitrary ‘man-made’ quality about them in terms of when we have them. Observing Jesus’ birth could happen at any time. (I suppose you might want…
