The film Amazing Grace, the story of Wilberforce and the abolition of slavery, has opened in cinemas across Australia. The film, despite some shortcomings, is…
One criticism often levelled against Christianity in particular and the Bible in general is that both have appeared to tolerate slavery. This objection is used…
It was the Spanish philosopher Santayana who once remarked that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. He knew that we could…
There is nothing like a regular supply of half-truths, misinformation and sloppy use of facts in making a case. But that is the regular practice…
Two recent events have highlighted the importance of clear ethical thinking on the issues of the day, and how we can learn from those who…
As I wrote in my previous article, William Wilberforce became a leading abolitionist two centuries ago because of his strong Christian convictions. Without his Biblical-based…
March 25, 2007 marks a very important anniversary. Two hundred years ago the British Parliament voted to abolish slavery, and on that date the Abolition…
Despite the by now routine and rather boring warnings about the end of the world as we know it, the actual truth may be quite…
Atheism has been around, in various forms, for some time now. At the risk of oversimplification, one can speak of three phases or periods of…
A lot of thought has gone into human mortality, and how we can prolong life. Less thought has gone into the question of why nations…
Encounter Books, 2000. In many ways the cultural revolution of the 60s has been as influential and momentous as other great social upheavals, such as…
Encounter Books, 2003. Revel is a bit of a rarity: he is a French intellectual who does not hate America. Unlike many of his elitist…
Spence, 2001. We live in an age where virtues have become vices, and vices have become virtues. What most societies shuttered at just decades ago…
The Melbourne Age’s regular anti-religion writer, Pamela Bone has issued another salvo against faith. Entitled “The most dangerous force in the world,” (Nov. 30), the…
The author of a recent piece in a conservative journal on the lndustrial Revolution provides a negative view of the period. But he is certainly…
Fontana Press, 1993. When Edwin Abbott wrote his turn-of-the-century minor classic, Flatland, he introduced us to a two-dimensional land where all activity was lived out…
Free Press/Macmillan, 1992. The tenet of cultural relativism has been around for quite some time. The cold war version went something like this: Liberal/leftists insisted…
Cambridge University Press, 1988. Just over a decade ago, one could ask whether the greatest threat to Christianity in particular and Western civilisation in general…