Features

“Honour older people as we do our own aged parents, and care for other’s children as one’s own.” (Ancient Chinese proverb) “It takes a village to raise a child.” (African proverb) THE ANCIENT wisdom of China and Africa can sometimes be seen and heard running up and down the aisles on Sunday or sitting in the comfy chair at home ...

ONCE EVERY four years the world watches as elite athletes push their bodies to the limits of what is humanly possible and compete for the title of Olympic Champion. But these athletes are not only putting their bodies to the test, they are also putting their mind to the test. Elite sportspeople push themselves beyond breaking point, beyond the point ...

THE CONTEMPORARY church often quotes the experience of Jesus mixing with prostitutes and publicans. Our denominational forebears directly engaged the personal moral debates of their day, yet churches today rarely discuss the impact of one of the fastest growing industries: pornography. Uniting Church agencies hand out material on ethical investment at business seminars and on social welfare and justice at ...

MANY STEREOTYPES have a basis in fact. According to health authorities, the traditional wisdom that Australian men don’t like to open up about their personal problems is accurate. The growing awareness of men’s health issues has served to break some of that silence, as blokes find support when they can talk with others who have ‘been there and done that’. ...

ERIC IS a tradie. He’s an intelligent 35-year-old bloke with a successful business in a complex and dynamic industry. In the fourth pew from the back, Eric is reminded of the apprenticeship lectures at TAFE college and he’s falling asleep twenty minutes into the Sunday sermon at River Gum Ridge View Estate Uniting Church. According to Redcliffe Uniting Church’s Rev ...

A WOMAN once confided that she wished her husband would come to church with her. He was a farmer and there was always something to do when you are on the land. She died unexpectedly. After that her husband attended worship every Sunday. The style of worship hadn’t changed. The farm still needed attention. Central Queensland Presbytery Minister Rev Kaye ...

Ask Patrol Minister Peter Harvey to describe his work, and the answer may not be what you’d expect: “Generally, I make a nuisance of myself for God,” he says. In a nutshell, that means getting himself involved in just about everything he can in the Flinders Patrol area, 300,000sq km of sheep and cattle grazing properties, some mines and a ...

DO YOU remember where you were when JFK was assassinated or Princess Diana died? Can you still see the grainy image of Neil Armstrong stepping on to the moon? How about watching, live, as the second plane flew into the World Trade Center? Television news brings the world to us. Our knowledge and opinions of the world are shaped by ...

Leading academic Peter Horsfield says Christianity doesn’t just use communication. Everything that Christianity is and does is an act of communication in a form available in the wider culture. When that wider culture of communication changes, Christianity itself is changed. THE QUESTION we ask about the effects television has had on Christianity are no different from questions that can be ...

A public lecture by internationally recognised New Testament scholar and outspoken commentator on popular culture Professor Robert Jewett is available for DOWNLOAD HERE. Professor Jewett has been a most influential commentator on the Apostle Paul’s writings and has written many books on religious and cultural history, and particularly the application of biblical themes in the movies. Professor Jewett visited Brisbane ...