The Bachelor Australia continues to thrive and it’s all my fault. Ashley Thompson writes. Whether you like it or not, The Bachelor Australia makes Network Ten piles of money—thanks to well-educated middle-class Australians like me. Raking in 1.4 million viewers per episode, other well-educated middle-class females (who are not me) compete in glitterfied Gladiator-style arena for the “genuine” and definitely-not-fake, ...

DR ELIZABETH Boase and Dr Vicky Balabanski hold almost 30 published works between them, have two Bachelor degrees apiece and PhDs in their respective Testamental theologies: Dr Boase in Old Testament, and Dr Balabanski in New Testament. Though the Co-Directors of Biblical Studies at Uniting College for Leadership and Theology in South Australia have both proven to be extremely successful ...

Edited by Warren Bonett Scribe Publications, 2010 RRP $35.00 Reviewed by Merv Bengston. As a member of the Lay Forum I was interested to read how the book would promote atheism. It is an anthology, perhaps overly long at 440 pages, and comprises widely varying essays by 33 authors. The first essay gives an account of the achievements of some ...

Reviewed Rev Seforosa Carroll, Convener of Assembly’s Relations with Other Faiths Working Group Praeger Publishers, Connecticut, 2009 This four-volume set looks at the impact of September 11 on interfaith relations and world religions according to the following four themes: Religion, war and peace; Religion and human rights; the interfaith dimension; and spirituality. Each volume carries a theme, which is explored ...

Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 2008 RRP $59.95 Reviewed by Rev Dr Clive Ayre, who has a PhD in eco-theology and eco-mission and is Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast. One would hardly expect a book of eco-theology to be light reading, especially when the author is the Professor of Theology and the Biological Sciences at ...

Lion Hudson Books, 176 pages RRP: $34.95 I was pleasantly surprised by this concise historical coverage of a two millennia history. I wondered about the title, because nowadays the term is used sometimes apologetically and sometimes aggressively. However, I was impressed as the story of the Christians, in their many forms and in their diverse circumstances, was well covered, with ...

Blue Bottle Books RRP $24.95 A Spectator’s Guide to Worldviews provides a challenging introduction to various ways of looking at the world. A worldview is the framework or fundamental belief that shapes how we understand the world around us and the picture of our ideal world. The guide achieves its aim of presenting a balanced view of each ‘–ism’ that ...

ULTIMATELY, IT matters little whether the Uniting Church in Australia is in fact the first ‘home-grown’, truly indigenous expression of Australian Christianity. The only question that should concern us now is, have we been faithful to what has been entrusted to us? Thirty years ago, the Uniting Church had the chance to liberate itself from the tyranny of ecclesiastical inertia, ...

The United Church of Christ (UCC), often described as one of the socially critical Protestant denominations in the United States, has turned to television commercials and the Internet hammer home its message that it is an inclusive church. At the same time, the denomination’s president has accused the Institute on Religion and Democracy advocacy group of promoting a "neo-conservative agenda" ...