The Christmas season is a delightful jumble of traditions. Why are we singing about decking halls with boughs of holly, whatever “decking” means? Why isn’t, as one child asked, Santa in the nativity scene? Is Christmas a Christian festival or can anyone join in? There are four main traditions of the season. Each can be Read more
By taking on human form, God has violated our sense of the sacred. Since the birth of Jesus Christ we are presented with a God whom we must both adore and embrace. A God who holds all things in being but who is willing to submit to the limitations of our human fragility. An eternal Read more
St Matthew in the City is in illustrious company. Each time its priests Glynn Cardy and Clay Nelson commission a billboard they join a long line of popes and cardinals that have used provocative art to shift our thinking. Using images to shift established thought patterns is always a fragile endeavour as no-one, not even a powerful Read more
Advent. A time of waiting for “the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ” is the way the new translation of the Roman Missal puts it. Sounds great, but what does this really mean? “Blessed hope” for what, exactly? And what will the coming of Christ mean THIS year? If these words Read more
When I was a sweet and protected young thing in 1960s Australia, beggars were the stuff of legend. As I walked sedately to my lectures, an old chap would stop me every now and then and ask me for a bob. That was my sole experience, and my father was disgusted. You know what that’s all Read more
The last thing you need is cruisy police when there’s random violence on the streets of your city. Cruisy is not comforting; it doesn’t make the violence go away and it doesn’t make anyone feel safe. Only John Key can get away with it. What I want from the police and the mayor when people Read more
Workaholics who are trying to make up for an unhappy home life are deluding themselves, according to a study. Researchers found a link between how happy someone was in their personal life and how satisfied they were in their job – especially among the main earners in households. But this did not extend to anyone Read more
Preaching is not a highly esteemed activity. When people are accused of preaching they are held to be boring, moralising and bullying. Those qualities presumably were found earlier in sermons preached in church. They may also perhaps be discerned in articles on preaching. But the questions to which preachers are asked to respond usually have Read more
New Zealand has been given a huge wake-up call with the OECD highlighting it as the world leader in growth and income inequality, a policy analyst claims. The gap between New Zealand’s rich and poor has widened more than in any other developed country during the past 20 years, according to an OECD report. Figures Read more
I was stopped on Lambton Quay recently by an elderly Japanese gentleman, with a clipboard. He showed me the words TPPA and Pharmac. He was pleased that I did know about this, and that I was also aware of the Japanese people’s opposition to their government’s attempts to join in. All is connected… The Trans Read more