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“No Country is Perfect” – the doctrine of sin and relativised wickedness

The Opinions

In response to being asked about the recent Amnesty International report which accuses Israel of committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, Prime Minister Scott Morrison replied that “no country is perfect.”

Feb 18, 2022

Tags: The Opinions, Australian Government, Scott Morrison

Women in Ministry

The Opinions

...who did God the Holy Spirit choose? Israel? Gentiles? Men? Women? Rich? Poor? White? Ethiopian? Cis gendered? Eunuch? Other?

Jan 13, 2022

Tags: The Opinions, Feminism, Uniting Church Australia, Women in Ministry

Holy Pathos, Subjectivity, and Pentecostal Feminism in the Global South

The Opinions

Who gains and who maintains power when the tune of emancipation is sung in one voice. What if there are multiple tunes? What if they’re all in a different key? What if only some of it is even music?

Jan 5, 2022

Tags: The Opinions, Feminism, Global South, Holy Pathos, Pentecostal, Pentecostal Feminism, Subjectivity

The Basis for Continuing

The Opinions

Over the years, the Basis of Union has introduced the Uniting Church to a language of faith that is Christocentric and optimistic, and yet flavoured with humility and grace.

Dec 2, 2021

Tags: The Opinions, Basis of union, Uniting Church Australia

Hope

The Opinions

“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness” a hymn believed to be written in 1834 by Edward Mote, a Baptist minister. Lovely sentiment, but is it this really how most of us would define our hope?

Nov 30, 2021

Tags: The Opinions, Advent, Hope

Jonathan’s Love and David’s Lament: Part 3

The Opinions

The ultimate example for the prioritizing of the personal over the political in the David-Jonathan material is Jonathan, who chooses love over power. The text goes on to suggest that such an ordering of priorities can save lives, bestow dignity, shame kings into right action and move gods to mercy. Beauty for ashes; the government of heaven.

Nov 25, 2021

Tags: The Opinions, David and Jonathan, Nika Hiraeth

Jonathan’s Love and David’s Lament: Part 2

The Opinions

The privileging of a political or theological-political reading of Jonathan’s love over and against a personal and potentially erotic and/or sexual reading arguably has less to do with the text itself and more to do with the imposition of heteronormative values upon the text.

Nov 19, 2021

Tags: The Opinions, David and Jonathan, Nika Hiraeth

Jonathan’s Love and David’s Lament: Part 1

The Opinions

Such reflections ought to unsettle the assumption that biblical views on sexual practice (which are, in any case, multiple and contradictory) are identical to views espoused by modern religious readers...

Nov 11, 2021

Tags: The Opinions, David and Jonathan, Nika Hiraeth

The Damning Precarity of the “Common Good”

The Opinions

‘What 1 Corinthians 12 insists is that we cannot give ourselves to the work of grace apart from giving ourselves to a community that gathers in defiance of the desire for authority and its associated virtues—decency, dignity, and honor.’

Oct 7, 2021

Tags: The Opinions, Common Good, Janice McRandal