Dalam Alkitab, surga adalah tempat di mana Tuhan tinggal, bukan tempat kehidupan kekal. Namun seiring berjalannya waktu, hal ini telah menjadi tercampur aduk dengan gagasan tentang surga dan keselamatan abadi.
Not only is the claim that sexuality is central to Christian orthodoxy dubious, but it’s unclear same-sex sexuality has always been condemned by the church.
Warlpiri Elder Wanta Jampijinpa Pawu interprets the Southern Cross, not as a contested symbol of identity, but as a summons to unite First Nations and non-Indigenous people.
It is not unusual that Morrison talks about prayer in his responses. But we might expect more than just prayer from a devout Christian who also happens to be prime minister.
Communion – including drinking the symbolic blood of Christ – is a spiritual act, not a medical cure. To argue otherwise is a dangerous corruption of Christian belief.
Australians have always preferred to keep their faith private, and politics “out” of religion. But the two are intrinsically entwined, and always have been.
The things we find hard to balance during COVID-19 – individual freedoms versus the group, accountability versus blame, science versus personal beliefs – are centuries old and deeply human.
Had Trump read the text he held, he would have found a story of liberation for slaves, a divine preference for the poor, and a damning critique of any empire that oppressed its people.
For people of faith, for whom communal prayer and service are central to their beliefs, the need to stay away from each other is particularly challenging.
Belief in the eternal virginity of Mary has inflicted damage to women, who can never attain her sexless motherhood or unsullied ‘purity’. Yet in the Gospels, Mary is strong-minded and courageous.
In the societies the Bible was written in, masculinity was the ideal. So it’s astonishing there are moments of gender subversion and gender diversity found in the Bible’s pages.
While some conservative Christians view Halloween as “devil worship”, finding a way to honour the dead is an important tradition in our generally death-denying society.
Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity