As a young girl in the 1960s, I attended a Catholic boarding school. The nuns could be scary. When they walked the wintry and un-illuminated corridors of the convent, their knee-length rosary beads jangled…
It has been reported that Michael Adebolajo, one of the two suspects in the case of the Woolwich murder of a British soldier on Wednesday, is a Muslim convert. There are significant issues regarding the…
How much would you pay for a grilled cheese sandwich? $6? Maybe $7, if it was deliciously fresh and you were really hungry? In 2004, Diane Duyser from Florida, USA sold a ten-year-old grilled cheese sandwich…
Yes, Tony Abbott is right. There is something unattractive about a university allowing public meetings at which attendees are segregated by sex. But hang on a moment: is this not the normal arrangement…
The fallout from an event at the University of Melbourne where women and men were asked to sit separately has been intense. The media coverage so far has focused on the issue of segregated seating in a…
This morning, Australian Catholics awoke to the news that black smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. The seat remains vacant, there is no Pope. By now many of us will have learned through…
It might come as a surprise to most Australians that our religious education system is not only out-moded but is doing damage to students, families and teachers. Special Religious Instruction (SRI) is…
The story is almost unbelievable: a king buried for five centuries under what is now a car park, identified through mtDNA analysis with the last surviving matrilineal descendants of his sister. But it…
A little over a century ago, our first prime minister told our first parliament that “the doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of the Englishman and the Chinaman…
Twenty years ago, Anglicans in Australia and England independently passed legislation to allow for the ordination of women as priests. Now the Anglican Church of Australia has just appointed its fourth…
Last month, a Victorian tribunal found that the state department of education did not discriminate against children opting out of Special Religious Instruction (SRI) classes. The plaintiffs – parents who…
There is a long and dishonourable tradition of religious prejudice in American presidential elections. Catholics running for office have borne the brunt. Democratic candidate Al Smith was subjected to…
In the wake of the violence sparked around the world by the anti-Islam video entitled Innocence of Muslims, the debate about the need for anti-blasphemy laws has re-emerged. The Organisation of Islamic…
South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi’s comments about gay marriage have caused an uproar. Today he was forced to step down from his position as parliamentary secretary to Tony Abbott. But are they representative…
It’s not often I find myself agreeing with Archbishop Peter Jensen. But his latest foray into the public space was right about at least one thing: it’s time for a serious, grown-up discussion about the…
In the small print in my Qantas in flight magazine I noticed that Qantas is now raising money for Mission Australia. Mission Australia runs a number of useful and worthwhile programs for the disadvantaged…
After last week’s High Court challenge verdict on funding chaplains in schools, religious education is back in the headlines. The role of religion in Australian schools has been vigorously debated for…
AUSTRALIA BY NUMBERS: The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released the first batch of its census data. We’ve asked some of the country’s top demographers and statisticians to crunch the numbers on…
Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity