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Keywords: Theology

  • AUSTRALIA

    Pope Francis looks beyond hammer and sickle crucifix chatter

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 16 July 2015
    17 Comments

    The media declared Pope Francis not amused after Bolivian President Morales presented him with a crucifix superimposed on a hammer and sickle. It turned out that the design was from Jesuit Luís Espinal, who was captured, tortured and killed by right-wing paramilitaries in 1980. It depicted Christ's affinity with workers and peasants. Pope Francis was more interested in the reality of a crucified people than in discussing representations of the crucified Jesus.

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  • Reclaiming faith from the props of belief

    • David Tacey
    • 05 June 2015
    32 Comments

    'We were told to 'believe' that God could perform miracles, but this was a false lead in terms of what we now know about sacred discourse in the holy lands. This literalism was used against other religions to prove the supremacy of Christianity, but ironically it is what turned the majority of Europeans and Australians off religion as education has swept through Western nations in recent times.' David Tacey reflects on faith and belief. Andrew Hamilton replies.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Speak of the Devil no longer

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 20 May 2015
    19 Comments

    The Death of God debate raged on and off several decades ago. Now it's the Devil's turn. Medieval clerics believed he was everywhere. Earlier this year the General Synod of the Church of England decided it was time for him to retire, and have 'disappeared' him. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Grandmother is dying

    • Brian Doyle
    • 06 May 2015
    4 Comments

    There are two chairs flanking Grandmother’s bed and I am to sit in the chair by the window. That is the chair in which children sit and I am a child so. Grandmother is in the bed sleeping. I am keeping vigil. Mother says Grandmother is dying but she looks like she is sleeping to me.

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  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Behind Pope Francis' teaching about the poor

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 25 March 2015
    7 Comments

    A hallmark of Francis' papacy has been his calls for 'a Church which is poor and for the poor'. He has given new currency to the sometimes controversial concept 'preferential option for the poor', which has strong associations with Liberation Theology. Sydney theologian Rohan Curnow recently completed his PhD thesis and a book on the history and application of the 'preferential option'.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Oscar Romero's cinematic sainthood

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 12 February 2015
    6 Comments

    The late Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who as of this month is one step closer to beatification, has long been regarded as one of modern history's great champions of the poor. In 1989 he was 'canonised' on celluloid. The production has not aged well but is elevated by the late Raul Julia, whose conflicted, heroic portrayal of Romero is surely as iconic as the man himself.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Pope's Romero move could heal Latin American divisions

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 10 February 2015
    19 Comments

    Forces inside the Vatican stalled and blocked it for 20 years. But earlier this month, Pope Francis issued the declaration that Salvadorian Archbishop Oscar Romero was murdered 'in hatred of the faith' and not for political reasons. He is no longer officially suspected of being a Marxist sympathiser. In fact liberation theology itself has been undergoing a quiet rehabilitation during Francis' pontificate.

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  • RELIGION

    Francis moving Church from pale green to deep green

    • Paul Collins
    • 20 January 2015
    43 Comments

    Pope Francis has been hailed for his ‘rattling’ and ‘upsetting’ Catholic climate change sceptics and politicians. His predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI were ahead of most politicians on the issue, but essentially they underestimated the magnitude and urgency of the environmental problems we face. It is likely that Francis will make a decisive effort to confront climate change during 2015.    

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  • RELIGION

    Catholic Church returns to pluriformity of Vatican II

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 20 October 2014
    31 Comments

    Conservative elements were quick to criticise the interim 'relatio' of the Synod that opened the door to gay and other estranged Catholics. Undoubtedly there will be pushback, but the Catholic Church is going through something not experienced since Vatican II – a Church willing to debate topics once felt long settled, without fear or favour.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Thanks for nothing, Adam and Eve

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 04 September 2014
    13 Comments

    James Boyce claims that contemporary attitudes to politics, human origins, economics and human psychology can be understood only if we recognise the hidden presuppositions imported from the theology of original sin. Theories on human nature such as those proposed by Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud, Richard Dawkins and the US Founding Fathers, tried to emancipate people from religious ideas, but often unwittingly enshrined them.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The theology of Chris Lilley

    • Michael Mullins
    • 12 May 2014
    12 Comments

    The jury is out on whether Chris Lilley's new ABC1 comedy Jonah from Tonga gives a free kick to racism and other forms of discriminatory behaviour. The prejudices in Lilley's Jonah are depictions of the wounds of Australian society, not the attempt of a far-right ideologue to promote a stratified nation based on race.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Whose liberty matters as Dickensian budget looms?

    • Fatima Measham
    • 07 May 2014
    16 Comments

    French economist Thomas Piketty argues that current conditions have set us on track for a return to 19th century-levels of inequality. The Commission of Audit proposals suggest that the auditors and the Government are keen to expedite this neo-Dickensian era. It's all done in the name of 'incentives' toward 'personal responsibility', but this cannot remain coherent in the face of those who will be hit hard by the proposed suite of cuts and co-payments.

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