A couple of weeks ago, I outlined some facts about exploitation in the growing of cocoa for chocolate (see My pleasure, their misery?) and at the same time wrote to two prominent chocolate manufacturers expressing my concerns and asking them to make more concerted moves to only source cocoa from growers who were paid a […]
The Australian Labor Party, which forms the present Australian Government, is having its national conference, where policy ideas are discussed and decided. This year, one of the “hot” topics for discussion is gay marriage. (Technically, I think the proposal is a change to the Marriage Act, which currently specifies marriage is between a man and […]
In Barriers to belief I reported that the biggest barrier to non-believers was the many much-publicised cases of sexual abuse within the church. How should christians respond to this?
A short time ago, I posted on poverty and the growing world population (Christians and world poverty), and about the challenge of deciding how to respond (How much to save the world’s poor?). Let’s start with something small which most of us can do this week, or this year.
It was a beautiful sunny day in Sydney today. I went for a drive in the country and visited the Berry markets. (For those unfamiliar, these aren’t fruit markets. Berry is a former dairy farming town 2 hours south of Sydney, which has reinvented itself as an art and craft town. Once a month, they […]
Last post I raised concerns about world poverty in the light of the world’s population reaching 7 billion people. But how big is the need, and how much would it take to bring some relief for those who most desperately need it?
Those of us who are christians in the western world are currently facing one of the biggest ethical challenges we have ever faced. Consider the following population graph – the world’s 7 billionth person is about to be born.
Last weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald carried two opinion pieces on greed, ethics and a “broken” western society that presented a disturbing picture.
Earlier today, in God without religion?, I referenced a book which warns us that religion can lead to us getting “caught up in obeying Old Testament laws instead of experiencing New Testament freedom.” In a comment, Julie suggested otherwise: “The biggest problem with religion is that Christians can get caught up in experiencing New Testament […]