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How do we know that what we call knowledge is knowledge? How do we know that we know? The two books I have been reading here are both about kinds of knowing. Suzie Sheehy is a particle physicist from my old stamping ground, Melbourne University. Sheehy’s story is of passionate hunters for nothing less than the meaning of everything.
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'.
'Rohan provides a detailed and accurate analysis and history of the word games that have gone on between the Vatican and the Latin American bishops and theologians wrestling with the concept of the preferential option for the poor.' Frank Brennan launches The Preferential Option for the Poor: A Short History and a Reading Based on the Thought of Bernard Lonergan, by Rohan Michael Curnow.
A self-absorbed teenager contributes to the road death of a pedestrian, then seeks to assuage her guilt without actually accepting responsibility. One teacher attemps to mentor the girl in her dilemma but is too accepting of her flirtatious advances to be considered a disinterested advisor.
Lay Catholic theologian Neil Ormerod's approach was strongly coloured in the early 1990s when he and his wife Thea became activists on behalf of survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
One of Australia's most eminent theologians, Redemptorist Anthony Kelly, believes that what currently feels like a global breakdown of beliefs and culture may actually be the beginnings of a breakthrough to new forms of belief.
Even if we understand the intelligiblity of an automobile, we can still drive badly. With the GFC, the argument is not that better theories will ensure everyone behaves properly, but that without a proper economic theory even people of good will cannot work to achieve the good.
Sixty years ago, Jesuit Bernard Lonergan developed an analysis of the boom and bust cycles of economy. He often asked, 'Where were the Christian counter-parts of Karl Marx, sitting in the British Museum voraciously reading and relentlessly studying about political economy?'
Hitchens, like The God Delusion author Richard Dawkins, views belief in God not just as quaint, but as a sign of intellectual bad will. The age of muscular evangelical Christianity has been replaced by the age of muscular evangelical atheism.
Too often, generic statements about missionaries colluding with colonialism and destroying indigenous cultures are presumed to say all that needs to be said. Detailed study of mission history is essential if we are to move beyond the clichés.