Which way is up?

Sermon for the Ascension of Jesus (24 May 2009)
Eternal God,
the heavens are split asunder
and Christ once crucified is at your side.
As Jesus has opened the way to you for all people,
so may we declare the hope of eternal life
with the energy of the Holy Spirit,
and in the name of Christ the Lord. Amen.
Ephesians 1.15-23
Some years [...]

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The dark side of liberalism

An interesting article by Giles Fraser in Ekklesia on the way liberalism can imagine it exists independently of language, culture and tradition:
Few words are bandied about with such casual abandon as “liberal”. In contemporary theological disputation, it is often assumed that everybody understands what the word means. Yet it can refer to so many different [...]

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The Church of the Gerasene

Mark 5.1-20
Most Uniting Churches are named after their locality—so close by us, we have Kenmore Uniting Church, or Indooroopilly Uniting Church. Here, we’re Centenary Uniting Church because we’re located in the Centenary suburbs. And we all know that Anglican and Catholic Churches usually name themselves after saints—just down the street, we have St Catherine’s, for [...]

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Budget: still waiting for social inclusion

Yesterday, I drew attention to Eureka St’s take on the Budget, with three principles for it to be good news for the poor. It looks to be a disappointment.
Frank Quinlan, Director of Catholic Social Services Australia, was allowed into the ‘lock-up’ for journos (where no doubt he saw David Koch salivating over his papers). He [...]

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Budget day

The federal Budget comes down today, and it’ll be a toughy.
Eureka St’s John Warhurst has a great article in the final hours before the budget is delievered, which has these three principles from a Catholic (and I would say, simply Christian) viewpoint:

Catering for the needs and aspirations of all members of the community (the ‘common [...]

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Faith, hope and love—for a eunuch

Sermon for Easter 5 (10 May 2009)
Acts 8.26-40
1 John 4.7-21

…faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
This comes from 1 Corinthians 13, one of the best-known chapters of the New Testament. It’s been called ‘the love chapter’ and is often heard at weddings—and since Princess Di’s funeral, sometimes there [...]

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Chickening out from judgement

Andrew Hamilton has another good piece in Eureka St on whether God sends disaster in response to human wrongdoing. It seems to me that this is one of a number of areas in which there is a discussion within scripture, a discussion that consistently tends towards seeing God in a relationship of love towards the [...]

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No other Name

Still on leave—some friends are now looking at a draft of my thesis; of course, having handed it across, I find new deficiencies in short order!!
Rev Dr David Rankin kindly presided at morning worship today—here is his sermon:
Sermon for Easter 4 and Feast Day of Apostles James and Philip (3 May 2009)
Acts 4. 5-12
John 10. [...]

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