A Time to Speak is a challenge to the churches in Australia to recover their prophetic voice; to engage with Australian society and systems, to reflect on the tradition of the ancient prophets and the teachings of Jesus.
Australia's national anthem assumes a fairness in the nation, a sense of equality, an invitation to share the richness and beauty of the land.By its very title, Making Australia Fair suggests that fairness is not yet a reality and challenges many of the social foundations that frustrate fairness and encourage inequality. The author gladly acknowledges the advantages of being Australian but argues that the country is not as fair as it needs to be and could be if only we would make a couple of challenging but essential, radical, ethical changes.He calls for changes to those central factors that determine our policies of capital-controlled economics, politics, systems of government, public finance, land ownership and social organisation.He challenges our current social identities, largely inherited from British institutions and based on privilege, wealth and power. And he contrasts this with traditional Aboriginal models, with their focus not on the individual but the community.He invites us - in the spirit of the Christian Gospel - to look beyond our narrow self-interest, to consider our connections to one another, our sense of belonging to the land and the planet; and offers alternative ways of being together, of learning from our Aboriginal guides and establishing a different kind of society that will truly make Australia fair.
How do Christians deal with sex in their lives? How do they witness the Good News of the Gospel in an area of human experience that too often in the churches has been associated with sin, silence, fear and shame? Even in Christian marriageservices, sex doesn't get a mention; in fact, the Christian tradition rarely discusses sex at all, whether before, during or after marriage.Christian Sex Today is a serious consideration of this omission, an exploration of how contemporary Christians can respond to the complex realities of how sex can be discussed, affirmed, celebrated and lived by people for whom the Jesus tradition promises life in its fullness, whether they are young, old, single, engaged, gay, married, divorced or widowed.Jason John brings to the task rare combinations of theology, biblical scholarship and academic qualifications in zoology. These gifts enable him to trace the evolution of sex over billions of years, its varied and different expressions, the development of its function within societies as life - including the human species - adapted to changing conditions and the pressures of survival and growth.The book takes seriously the teachings of the Christian traditions - from Old and New Testament - but asserts the limitations of these ancient sources, for example the limitations of their understandings of human origins, now vastly expanded thanks to the insights of cosmologists, geologists, evolutionists, geneticists and ecologists.Above all, the book is a genuine attempt to make sense of sex - in all its possible expressions - within a Christian tradition, and faithful to the good news.
Proclaim the message... be persistent, whether the time is favourable or unfavourable. 2 Timothy 4:2The sexual revolution at the heart of this book is part of wider and deeper developments happening in our world. It is a revolution that asserts the utter freedom of the individual to act and behave as if the vital traditions of religion and philosophy have no claim on how we live, especially in the area of sexuality that is so much part of our personalities and identities.The author, a Catholic bishop in Melbourne, traces the development of these ideas from the early days of the Enlightenment to our own times, in a context of the apparent failure of governments and even churches to defend principles of sexual behaviour and attitudes, honoured by timeless church teaching and social expectations.In such times, he acknowledges that Catholic parents and teachers need sound guidance about sexual ethics. He records the constant teaching of Popes and Councils and reminds us of their focus on the integration of sexual morality within wider, deeper contexts of human nature, marriage stability and family life.Above all, he brings a pastoral sensitivity to the task of helping contemporary Catholics understand their tradition, and offers sound strategies to affirm Catholic teaching about sexuality.He well understands that forces opposing such an approach are formidable but knows too that the message must be proclaims, however unfavourable. He encourages parents, families and teachers to recover a different, richer understanding of sexuality for our time.Reading this account of the sexual revolution may be a source of dismay, but Christian hope never fades. - Most Rev Julian Porteous, Archbishop of HobartThis is the beest book I have read on this subject. - Professor Tracey Rowland, University of Notre Dame (Aust)... a comprehensive treatment of the history and manifestations of this all-pervasive malaise, with hope-filled suggestions on how to deal with it. - Rev Fr John Flader, Sydney... very readable and sensitive and.. an important contribution to an ongoing and necessary discussion. - Dr Ron and Mrs Mavis Pirola, Former Members of the Pontifical Council for the Family
Don Garlits is a motor racing champion of more than 60 years. From pioneer of the sport, to elder statesman "Big Daddy" of drag racing, he is idolized by millions of motorheads. One such hero-worshiping motorhead is Warren Mills, who, in this book entitled: Don Garlits. The Enigmatic Hero, asks the question: Can a secular hero also become a hero of faith? The question of mixing sports with religion is vexed with paradox, if not contradiction. Garlits will unlikely fit your pre-conceived ideas of religion or spirituality. He is an enigmatic hero whose success is largely due to his Christian wife, Pat, whose encouragement and restraint enabled him to bridge that divides the profane and divine. Garlits is not the only contradiction in this story. There is another man who heroically merged the divide. Christian faith is about this God-become-man, friend of outcasts, Lord of the Cosmos who gave himself to save us, who cannot save ourselves. And because life itself is a paradox, this story is overlaid with yet another enigmatic voice. We hear the timeless wisdom of King Solomon and The Teacher of Ecclesiastes who grapple with the same confusion of issues we face today. With these three heroes in mind, the author tells Garlits' intriguing story, measuring the effect on his own life. And why? because he and maybe you, and many others follow in the footsteps of unlikely heroes, inspired to combined faith with passion to become more human.
A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers ...Thus begins perhaps the most famous of the parables of Jesus in Luke's Gospel. But its very familiarity may have dulled its message, allowing us to read it as just another good story, one we've known from childhood, whose central character has become an everyday metaphor.Margaret Ghosn confronts our familiarity. She awakens fresh insights to the depth and challenge of the parable, a story at the heart of the gospel, a summary of what it means to be a disciple, a teaching about issues in society that continue to threaten us, a rejection of a comfortable Christianity that often fails to notice the needs of people at the edges of society.In a careful, informed exploration of the parable, she combines biblical and contemporary scholarship to remind us of the basic teachings of Jesus - about compassion, acceptance, inclusion and the overturning of conventional values - that were to be thevery marks of his followers in the communities called church.Samaritan Journey is Margaret Ghosn's second book with Coventry Press
The spirit of clericalism in an evil that is present in the Church today and the victim of this spirt is the people, who feel discarded and abused. Pope FrancisMany societies and institutions reflect a situation where one group of people leads a privileged life, rules over the rest, and are not accountable to others.In the Catholic Church (and other churches), this can be called clericalism. One group (the clergy) have all the power, authority and are not accountable to the rest. The rest simply accept that this is the way things are and have few and very modest expectations.Clericalism: Stories From The Pews records Catholic's experiences of clericalism and responds to those encounters in the light of the Gospel witness, the nature of priesthood, the documents of the Second Vatican Council, and the constant teaching of Pope /Francis. It also explores issues such as seminary formation, appointment of bishops and attitudes to women in church.Clericalism is a workbook for parishes where priests and people together can consider the mission and structure of the church and plan for ways in which grown up Catholics can be formed as Christian disciples with adult faith and integrity.
This is a fascinating story of a modern apostleship of practical love, led by one of the most impressive mendicant preachers of the twentieth century.
The Pope is first of all the pastor of the Church and sign of its unity. He can be a theologian professionally, or he cannot be, as it has happened for the majority of popes. ln both cases, in his teaching as well as in the choices he makes or in the orientations he offers, his teaching and his style are imbued with a theological perspective and ask theologians to confront with them.The collection "Pope Francis' Theology", calling upon the expertise of eleven theologians from various Countries of the world, aims at showing us what theology is at the base of such incisive words and such simple gestures with which Pope Francis has made us so familiar.They are eleven easy volumes, written in a captivating way yet able to show in a rigorous way the deep roots of his thought and action.Kerygma and Prophecy tries to trace the terms of the magisterium of Pope Francis that contain a sort of real "biblical theology", that is a vision of God and of man starting from Scripture. Indeed, his teaching is expressed in an authoritative way in the documents that in daily homilies, is due to one of the fundamental dimensions of the biblical theology, the kerygmatic one
'Are we there yet?' How many times have we heard this plaintive query - usually from the back seat of hte family car! This time, however, in How Good is the Golden Rule? (more a joyfulexclamation than a question!), the query comes toward the end fo a long journey whose destination isnone other than paradise. The well-known 'do to others as you would have them do to you', endorsed by Jesus, is the map to Paradise in the author's view. This Golden Rule is, as he put it, 'a universal divine command which provides the ethical foundation for all relationships and human aspiration.' Warren Mills brings seven decades of a personal faith journey to the task of proving his claim in an engaging, indeed inspiring way. The Golden Rule, while naturally based, becomes a gateway to God:: 'we learn about our relationship to God as an extension of our relationship with each other which is htebasis of all human satisfaction and hope.'
Born in 1901 Witold Pilecki is best known as a Polish Cavalry officer, WWII Polish Underground intlligence operative and resistance leader.In 1940, as the evil of the Nazi regime intensified, he volunteered for a mission which required getting himself imprisoned in the German concentration camp of Auschwitz to gather intelligence and expose its horrors to the world. In captivity he organised resistance and brought comfort to other prisoners.As the world grows in its awareness of the heroic life of Witold Pilecki we can see clearly why he can be rightly considered one of the greatest heroes of World War II, and indeed, the entire twentieth century.This extensively researched account of Wiltold Pilecki's life shares with us a story of great adventure, selflessness and virtue, one that cannot help but to inspire and enthral us.
Carl Sandburg, US poet and Pulitzer Prize winner, writes: 'Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away'. That is both true and false. Poetry is in one form an engagement with the Invisible, seeking to give it tangible expression. It is also a recognition of the hard facts of life; at once an act of disclosure, a reaching out in empathy, a sketching of a map pointing to our place in the scheme of things.There is no guarantee that poetry will make sense. Why should it? It can, however, communicate our human condition even if it evades our understanding. 'There is poetry', John Cage wrote, 'as soon as we recognise we possess nothing'. Poetry is necessary food that sustains us through time, through a journey of dispossession and discovery.The poems in Turning in Time invite a dialogue that seeks to push aside surface debris to capture hidden depths in our daily experience. A turn away from the obvious in order to advance reasons to look ahead hopefully. A quest to identify a source of light that can lead us on.To be a poet is to be a pilgrim sharing food with fellow travellers. It is always good to share a meal together.Religious/non-religious. Sacred/profane. Formal/free. Mythic/grounded. Spiritual/practical. All, and none, apply. Denham Grierson's collection will not allow us the easy tricks of made-up taxonomies. The collection just is what it is. And it will not submit to easy characterisations like 'from the heart', or 'rooted in mystery', or 'grounded in experience'. Again, all and none apply. There is work to be done here; no longer by the poet, but by the reader. The poem gains meaning and lives only through the reader's gaze, and the reader's engagement. Then, and only then, is the poem truly happening.From the Foreword by Karel Reus
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