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Keywords: Stern Hu

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The devastated face of Aboriginal disempowerment

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 10 July 2014
    2 Comments

    Charlie is disempowered, but not powerless, not yet. He has quit smoking, and ritualistically burns cigarettes he bums from a younger man in the community. He'd prefer to hunt and forage rather than consume the 'whitefella junk' peddled at the local kiosk, though his emaciated body and persistent cough reveal that he has already suffered much from the 'poisons' introduced to Aboriginal culture since the arrival of Europeans.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Bushfires demand response-ability

    • Bronwyn Lay
    • 23 October 2013
    5 Comments

    Human land practices and increasing temperatures alter the earth, and are influenced by politics, law, philosophy and economics. In Lisbon, Western philosophy sought to sever God from nature; now we pretend that the fusion of humans and nature doesn't exist. The term natural disaster shouldn't be trusted. It is superstitious to think humans and nature aren't locked in a reciprocal relationship with political and ethical responsibility.

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  • RELIGION

    Church blame in the frame

    • Frank Brennan
    • 01 March 2013
    37 Comments

    There is a temptation to see justice, compassion and transparency as the obsessive concern of western liberals. They are much more universal than that; they are the contemporary, institutional rendition of gospel values. The unaccountable hiddenness of Vatican clericalism has reached its use-by date.

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  • RELIGION

    Resignation of a teacher-Pope

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 February 2013
    25 Comments

    When Joseph Ratzinger was elected many Catholics were surprised, some alarmed. They identified him with the stern disciplinary actions and doctrinal intransigence of the Congregation for the Defence of the Faith, and assumed he'd bring the same narrow focus to his leadership of the Church. The reality has been different. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Grace and intimacy in Les Miserables

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 13 December 2012
    5 Comments

    Valjean betrays a priest who has been kind to him, and the persistence of that man's mercy despite this betrayal sets the tone for Valjean's journey. The compassion and generosity to which he aspires contrasts with the Old Testament sternness of Javert, who is both driven and tortured by a dedication to divinely ordered justice.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Same sex marriage and the republic

    • John Warhurst
    • 04 October 2012
    20 Comments

    If same sex marriage continues to gain momentum around the Western world then the Australian debate will not go away. But should international interest fade then it probably will in Australia too. Whatever the future of the republic debate in Australia it is not of the same international character and therefore harder to sustain.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Parenting habits of Mormons and Catholics

    • Brian Doyle
    • 18 January 2012
    9 Comments

    In Mormon families, the first kid has to be a bishop or scout leader, and the second through fifth are trained fpr football. In the Catholic system, a family produces a priest or nun, a cop, a teacher, and a solider, after which the rest of the kids can be whatever they want, even Lutherans in some cases.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Putting the faith back into development

    • Duncan Maclaren
    • 27 October 2011
    3 Comments

    The development theory of 'modernisation' taught that old traditions, including religion, had to disappear for people to be 'developed'. This purely Western model is now seen wanting. All faiths put the human person, not economic theories, at the centre of development.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Insanity rules after ten years of war in Afghanistan

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 07 October 2011
    12 Comments

    Today is the tenth anniversary of the war on Afghan jihadists. We civilised Westerners decided we’d had enough of barbarians flying planes into our skyscrapers, killing thousands of our civilians. And hence we sent our own planes to drop huge bombs on their villages and towns.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Homeless Grace

    • Brian Doyle
    • 02 August 2011
    7 Comments

    She lived in an alcove outside Saint Brigid's Church. She had been an artist. She drank. She married a man who slept on the avenue, not near the church; he didn't like the church, said it talked to him at night in a stern rumble. He beat her. Her name was Grace.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    North Korea's human rights time bomb

    • Lucas Smith
    • 15 July 2011
    4 Comments

    As the world watches the ongoing catastrophe in Syria, state-sponsored destruction of a much quieter but no less brutal kind is afflicting North Korea. Even while the country anticipates next year's 100th birthday of state founder and 'Eternal President' Kim Il-sung, NGOs are reporting that it may have run out of food.

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  • RELIGION

    Pope's theory on clergy sex abuse

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 16 June 2011
    33 Comments

    Benedict uses large theoretical constructs to reflect on the condition of Western societies and the Church. This can simplify complex realities and provide a focus for reflection and conversation. But the weaknesses of this approach are revealed when he blames bad moral theory for sexual abuse by the clergy.

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