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Hey Facebook: You Don’t Fact Check Satire (Hey Bible Readers: Don’t Do the Same Thing)

Recently, Facebook has been forced to admit that it made a mistake when it penalised the Babylon Bee for distributing fake news. A spoof article from the popular satirical Christian website was fact checked at Facebook’s request by David Mikkelson, the founder of Snopes.com. When Mikkelson flagged it as containing false facts, the Babylon Bee … Read more…

Why Hebrew narrative could teach Hollywood a thing or two about interesting female characters

Preparing for this semester’s lectures on the Former Prophets I’m struck by how compellingly three dimensional the female characters in Hebrew narrative are. While the men are, almost without exception, deeply flawed, weak, or abusive (often all three), it’s hard not to admire these women of God… five of my favourites from today’s reading (what … Read more…

What is a Christian, anyway?

Donald trump says he is, the Pope says he isn’t, so who is right, who gets to decide, and what is a Christian anyway? One of my friends has recently moved to the US and it’s interesting hearing his reflections on the battle for religious labels within the US presidential election. Whether a candidate counts … Read more…

Conflict Resolution at Christmas

Tools for conflict resolution at Christmas

In a classic 1997 episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza receives a card at Christmas time from his father which says “Happy Festivus”. Jerry and Elaine force him to explain that his father invented a holiday for their family called “Festivus”. As a secular Jewish man he wanted to experience all the main features of Christmas, … Read more…

Greens v Catholics: this just got interesting

So hang on, a Greens candidate is taking the Catholic Bishops to court for explaining to Catholics what Catholics believe about marriage. Well this just got interesting. Tasmanian Greens candidate Martine Delaney has complained to the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner about the Catholic Bishops writing a booklet supporting traditional marriage (titled “Don’t Mess With Marriage” – bam! … Read more…

The (surprisingly) worst leader

It’s leadership recruitment season for many ministries. Whether you’re lining up growth group leaders or a treasurer for 2016, no doubt you have given some thought to finding men and women with the three (or four, or five) “Cs” – character, conviction and competency (and maybe commitment and chemistry if you’re picky). Here’s a thought … Read more…

Of course you don’t go to church

I want to begin with an observation: we want community as much as ever, but we are finding it increasingly hard to know where to get it. Young Australians report that family and friends are the most important thing to them – more important even than personal independence. And yet they are much less likely … Read more…

Please manipulate my emotions

There is a great deal of suspicion of emotional manipulation. Sometimes I think that suspicion is justified. A friend told me a story about a church where the keyboard was hooked up to an electric shock machine, and just at the right moment the keyboard player would hit the button and people in the front … Read more…