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Keywords: All Saints

  • RELIGION

    Buddhism's challenge to Christian churches

    • Jenny Stewart
    • 27 October 2014
    38 Comments

    Christianity is a warm, people-centred faith. Buddhism is cool and cerebral. Christianity offers narrative and prophecy of human failing and human glory. The Buddhist sutras are impenetrable discourses on the absolute. Yet Christianity in Australia seems to be fading.

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  • RELIGION

    Chords of community in a country church protest song

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 March 2014
    9 Comments

    The conflict began with falling church attendances and a decision by the Koroit parish priest to rationalise resources. Although Regina Lane describes in detail the battles to save St Brigid's, her book is far more than a protest song against the power of the Catholic Church. The larger stories embodied at St Brigid's, the immigrant groups who formed the first congregation and their relationship to the first Australians, have continuing importance.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Best of 2013: Sex and power in football and politics

    • Barry Gittins and Jen Vuk
    • 10 January 2014

    A young writer has crash tackled the ugly questions of non-consensual sex, coercion and the male privilege and misuse of power that can flow from sporting success. Yet when it comes to our football codes — let alone our political arena — a conversation needs to move beyond gender name-calling or the 'us and them' polemic.

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  • RELIGION

    Heed the voice of the wounded child

    • Moira Rayner
    • 15 November 2013
    22 Comments

    If it happened then, it could happen now. Unless we take children seriously as people, it will. Unless individuals within the culture of their institution see it as a duty to stick their necks out and challenge its culture, it will. Unless bishops and archbishops and cardinals and religious supporting them take personal responsibility for protecting vulnerable people ahead of protecting the reputation of their institution, it will happen again.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Father Bob, dissident prophet

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 17 October 2013
    20 Comments

    Father Bob is cast in a similar mould to Peter Kennedy and Bill Morris, those other earthy Australian clerics who according to the popular narrative were suppressed by the hierarchy for flouting outdated practices. This is an appealing narrative for a secular public that has become disillusioned with institutional religion, especially due to the sexual abuse crisis and inequitable practices regarding marriage and the role of women within the hierarchy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Holy Feast of the AFL Grand Final

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 27 September 2013
    3 Comments

    The Feast of the Grand Final has a great deal in common with celebrations in other religious traditions. Events such as Christmas and Easter are celebrations of the stories that help fashion the identity of Christians. Telling these stories each year helps us create our own new stories about the values or beliefs we follow. The Grand Final has its own stories that tell us about ourselves, as well as rituals that personalise those stories for each of us.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Sex and power in football and politics

    • Barry Gittins and Jen Vuk
    • 28 June 2013
    5 Comments

    A young writer has crash tackled the ugly questions of non-consensual sex, coercion and the male privilege and misuse of power that can flow from sporting success. Yet when it comes to our football codes — let alone our political arena — a conversation needs to move beyond gender name-calling or the 'us and them' polemic.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Abuse cover-ups perpetuated priestly mystique

    • Ray Cassin
    • 29 May 2013
    66 Comments

    One consequence of mandatory celibacy has been the creation of a priestly mystique: a notion that the priest is a man set apart. When bishops say that cover-ups were attempts to avoid 'scandal', they are really talking about their fear of what might happen if priests were no longer thought to be special.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A wild new pope

    • Barry Gittins, Brian Doyle and B. A. Breen
    • 12 March 2013
    8 Comments

    Man, yeah, I would be pope, if the phone rang, late at night, collect from the Vatican. Yes, I would, if I could do it right. I'd call a meeting of the Curia and say boys, we are letting women run everything for the next five years. Each of you gets a new boss in high heels.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Not judging Ned Kelly and Lance Armstrong

    • Michael Mullins
    • 21 January 2013
    16 Comments

    Discussion of whether Ned Kelly and Lance Armstrong are heroes or villains is a distraction from the more important big picture reality such as crime and justice in 19th century Victoria, and performance enhancing drugs in sport today. If we are preoccupied with judging behaviour, we will miss the opportunity to promote better laws that will make our society fairer for all.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Supermarket witches and the Australian pumpkin boom

    • Brian Matthews
    • 09 November 2012
    13 Comments

    Last week saw many people all over Australia observe a ritual that is entirely imposed, bears the magic and irresistible imprimatur of the US, and grows out of nothing in our own history, traditions or folk lore. What significance can Halloween have for Australians about to embark on their hot summer?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Obama and Romney's shallow thinking on drones

    • Benedict Coleridge
    • 30 October 2012
    3 Comments

    Obama has overseen an upsurge in the use of unmanned drones. This is one aspect of foreign policy on which he and Romney agree. But drone use raises difficult questions about the conduct of war, and there is no room for complacency or superficial reasoning. 

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