A whole lot of execs, having figured out that a whole lot of people are beginning to use AI to do their jobs, are going to dispense with the middleman.

They won't care very much if the resulting work — writing copy, reviewing documents, forming relationships — is done with little care, and less quality. They're just going to see the dollar signs.

And then what?

Because we're already in an economy where people are stretched so thin that they're using buy now, pay later to pay for groceries.

That's a last resort.

They're maxed out in every other way.

They've tapped out their "credit," their incomes have cratered in real terms relative to eye-watering inflation, they have no real resources left.

What happens if you take an economy stretched that thin…and pull?

It breaks.

Those layoffs will lead to delinquencies and bad debt, which will cause bank failures, which will require the classic sequence of bailouts, shrunken public services, and lower investment.

And then we'll be in the first economic AI crash — right when it's supposed to be booming.

Those jobs?

They're never coming back.

A hole will have been ripped in the economy.

You can already see glimmers of what those jobs are — not really jobs, entire fields and industries will be decimated, and already are.

Those who are proficient in manipulating AI think they're clever for holding down four, five, six jobs at once — but the flip side of the coin is that they're taking them from other people.

You can see the writing on the wall.

Many forms of pink-collar work? Toast. Clerical work, organizational work, secretarial slash assistant style work.

And then you can go up the ladder. Graphic designers and musicians?

Good luck, you're going to need it.

Writers (shudder) and publishers and editors? LOL.

All the way up to programmers, who used to be, not so long ago, the economy's newest and most in-demand profession.

We can keep going, almost endlessly. Therapists? Check. Doctors — GPs? Eventually.

Even…all those executives themselves…who will fire today's pink-collar masses?

Probably.

And from there, you begin to see the scale and scope of the problem.

It's not that AI's going to "kill us all." We're doing a pretty good job of that, in case you haven't noticed.

But it is that AI is going to rip away from us the three things that we value most. Our economies, human interaction, and in the end, democracy.

I've taken you through the first, just a little bit. Let's consider the second, human interaction. Continue reading

• Umair Haque is one of the world's leading thinkers. He is a member of the Thinkers50, the authoritative ranking of the globe's top management experts.

Faith is our experience of God and belief is our attempt to express that experience in words and symbols.

When we attempt to describe our experiences of God, we necessarily express ourselves in the symbols, words, and rituals that are products of our culture.

All of our concepts and all of our experiential interpretations are shaped to a great extent by the culture and the language out of which they emerge.

There is no belief without culture; but there can be a culture without belief. This, of course, is the situation in which many people find themselves today: in a belief desert.

Right now a lot of my friends are talking about the Pew Research Center's recent report "Modeling the Future of Religion in America".

That September 13th report predicts that, if current religious membership trends continue, Christians could make up less than half of the US population within a few decades.

It estimates that in 2020, about 64% of US Americans were Christian but that by 2070 that figure could well be at about 54% or lower.

The rise of the "nones"

The group that continues to expand is what we call the religious "nones" - those people who, when asked about their religious identity, describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or "nothing in particular."

Researchers suggest that the United States may very well be following the path taken, over the last 50 years, by many countries in Western Europe, countries that once had overwhelmingly Christian majorities but no longer do.

In Great Britain, for example, the "nones" had already surpassed Christians; and they became the largest group in 2009.

In the Netherlands, the Christian exodus accelerated in the 1970s. Today about 47% of Dutch adults say they are Christian. And in Belgium, where I currently live, we have a population of about 11.58 million.

Just under 60% say they are Christian (most of them Roman Catholic) but less than 5% of them go to church regularly. Many unused churches are being converted into apartments, stores, bars, and restaurants.

Some observers blame secularisation for our current situation.

As a historical theologian, I understand the process of secularisation; but blaming secularisation is far too simple.

As my friend and Leuven graduate, Ron Rolheiser, often observed, "Bad attitudes towards the Church feed off bad Church practices."

For example: Catholic teaching still forbids women from becoming deacons, priests, bishops, cardinals or popes, misinterpreting Jesus' and his disciples' maleness as sanctioning an all-male liturgy and clergy. (Of course there were women disciples and women apostles.)

The Church also condemns homosexual acts as a sin and considers gay individuals as "intrinsically disordered."

People lose interest in institutional religion when they find that the Church's expressions of belief and what they hear from the pulpit no longer resonate with their minds, their hearts, and contemporary life experience.

When a religion speaks more in the name of authority than with the voice of compassion, it becomes meaningless.

Moving our spiritual journey forwards

We need to find ways to understand the Divine presence, not "up there" or "out there" but "here and now" at the center of all reality, because that is where we live, love, and think.

Perhaps we need to disconnect regularly from our cellphones and drop our earbuds. We need meditation times. We need a truly contemporary spirituality.

Animated by the life, message, and spirit of Jesus, we can then move ahead in our life journeys and accompany others in their own life journeys.

There are good examples if we look closely.

A Catholic pastor, whom I visited this summer, holds contemporary faith discussions in his home. He invites young women and men in their twenties and thirties to share, discuss, and reflect together with him about their faith and their life experiences.

Some other priests whom I know, and a good handful of bishops, are trying to "rebuild the church" by returning to a 1950's style Catholicism.

They now have Latin Masses, done with their backs to the congregation. Many of these are also contemporary book-banners. History warns us, of course, that people who ban books also ban people.

A healthy spiritual journey moves forwards not backwards.

Nostalgia is fun for a while, but there is no virtue in turning-back the clock. To become a religious child again would mean to abandon the capacity to think and make one's own judgments on the basis of critical principles.

That is why the upsurge of fundamentalism today is so dangerous. It is a narrow and closed vision, which most-often nurtures fear and aggression.

Valuing the past, but not living in the past

Thinking about our human life journey, I have always been greatly concerned about education. We must insist that broad-based and honest information be passed on to the next generation.

But I am particularly concerned about the formation of teachers.

Most students who fall in love with learning do that not because of their instructional materials and school curriculum but because they encountered a teacher who encouraged them to think - to reflect on life, to ask questions, and to search for answers.

When pondering our belief today we need to hear and to help people hear the "call" of the Sacred. We do this by interpreting and thereby re-creating the meaning and power of religious language.

The truly contemporary believer has one foot anchored in contemporary life and religious consciousness and the other in historical critical consciousness. We value the past but we don't live in the past.

Our communities of faith — our churches — should be centers of excellence where people can speak courageously about their awareness of the Divine Presence and where continuing dialogue and collaboration are patterns of life.

When we explore our belief - when we reflect in depth about our faith experiences - we necessarily express ourselves in the symbols, words, and rituals which are products of our culture. We also look for resonance and dialogue with tradition: with the theological expressions of earlier cultures.

Truly authentic Christian belief, of course, can never be simply the expression of one's individual and subjective experience. We are a community of believers - a faith community. We need each other.

Expressions of belief are the result of deep reflection about my faith experience, your own faith experience, and the faith experience of the community. As I told one of my bishop friends: "We need you but you also need us!"

Belief relies on culture but can never become locked within a particular culture. Nor can it just unthinkingly venerate any particular culture. Some Roman Catholic Church leaders, for instance, are locked in a late medieval culture and still dress and think that way.

Nevertheless, when belief becomes so locked within a particular culture that it is hardly distinguishable from it, we are on the road to idolatry.

Christian belief, because its focus is on what lies within and yet beyond our culture, is continually engaged in critical reflection and critique of the contemporary and previous cultures. Critical thinking is a Christian virtue. Growth is part of life.

And so we continue our journey.

• John Alonso Dick is a historical theologian and former academic dean at the American College, KU Leuven (Belgium) and professor at the KU Leuven and the University of Ghent. His latest book is Jean Jadot: Paul's Man in Washington (Another Voice Publications, 2021).
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

We are exposed more now than ever to arguments, claims and accusations of fault.

More, even, than the issue at hand is the question of who's at fault.

No-one is immune.

No matter what the extenuating circumstances may have been; no matter how irresponsible the complainant may have been; no matter how little real proof has been offered — the race to apportion fault is almost universal.

In the most tawdry of social media posts, in the only slightly less tawdry tabloids and the weeklies, in television and certainly in radio, the newspapers and even well-regarded industry magazines it seems that apportioning fault is key.

It appears that so long as we can identify someone who is at fault then justice is seen to be done, and so the matter will be addressed.

Fault can be attached to individuals, classes of individuals, nations, races, genders, clubs, companies and families.

So long as someone is to blame, we seem to feel better about it.

I notice two outcomes of this assumption in general society.

Firstly, the "public square" has become even more empty than it was before.

Simply no-one, even corporates, wants to put their heads above the parapet in order to comment on something even remotely controversial.

The viciousness of the fault-finders is just too intimidating for the public to use the public square.

As G. K. Chesterton once said "We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press."

Secondly, the quality of public debate has diminished markedly.

Short of pointing the finger at the next sorry victim who must shoulder the blame, we seldom see a debate rise to the level of a gracious exchange of views, where different perspectives are given the dignity of having equal merit.

Debate has gone.

What we engage in is a shouting match from the outset.

Frankly, we are better than this and unless we move to change the nature of our public discourse, we will find ourselves not just less able to conduct ourselves intelligently but also far more open to believing the very worst view simply because it has been repeated most and with the greatest tone of complaint.

Hate speech laws will, I believe, only make this worse because they will provide a greater target for complaint against anyone whose views are not widely accepted in society.

This is very dangerous ground.

Jesus had a number of things to say about our speech which bring light to this issue.

The first is that by our words we build our world. Continue reading

• Richard Dawson is the Presbyterian minister at Leith Valley Church in the north end of Dunedin. He has been Moderator of the Presbyterian Church and at present leads the Combined Dunedin Churches Pastor's Community.

The past 50 years in the West saw a celebration of unfettered freedom. Citizens on both sides of the Atlantic were encouraged to liberate themselves from the relational constraints of family, history and even nature.

Now Covid-19 has highlighted our mutual dependence on one another and a desire for community.

President Joe Biden is now deploying unprecedented fiscal resources to repair the damage wrought by four decades of market fundamentalism.

First the $1.9tn American Rescue Plan to kickstart the economic recovery from the pandemic. This is to be followed by an enormous programme of investment aimed at infrastructure, research, net carbon zero, childcare, education and health.

Whereas Ronald Reagan in the 1980s saw government as the source of political and social problems, Biden considers it as the solution to them.

It is unclear, however, whether this new age of state activism will address the human need for community and belonging.

If national leaders want to strengthen their country's structural resilience, they need to ensure these transformational policies empower local leaders and civic institutions to revitalise their communities.

A politics that strengthens belonging can reverse the excesses of individualism without succumbing to the errors of authoritarianism.

Since at least the 1980s, citizens in the North Atlantic world believed a myth that individual autonomy, global markets, digital connections and higher incomes would secure individual happiness and aggregate wellbeing.

But the opposite has occurred.

In his New York Times op-ed in November 2020, Pope Francis put this well: "The pandemic has exposed the paradox that while we are more connected, we are also more divided. Feverish consumerism breaks the bonds of belonging."

According to the US sociologist Robert Putnam, civic-minded generations that survived the Second World War were replaced by generations that were "less embedded in community life".

In 2017, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, an expert on the long-term health effects of social connection, testified before the US Senate: "There is robust evidence that lacking social connection significantly increases risk for premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds many leading health indicators.

"Social isolation influences a significant portion of the US adult population and there is evidence the prevalence rates are increasing. Indeed, many nations around the world now suggest we are facing a ‘loneliness epidemic'."

The chief promoters of market fundamentalism such as the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek and the US economist Milton Friedman advanced policies that weakened anti-trust law, unleashed monopoly powers and centralised wealth in metropolises - the symbols of individualistic ambition.

The rural towns and smaller cities that were forgotten about became the electoral redoubts for right-wing populist parties, such as Rassemblement National in France or the Republican Party under Donald Trump in the US.

Building on the body of liberal political thought by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and John Stuart Mill, market fundamentalists reduced humans to "homo economicus", a rational, selfish animal in search of happiness in the pleasures of cheap consumer goods and wealth accumulation.

In his work The Master and His Emissary (2009), psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist argues that this reductive view of human beings has led to a "decreasing stability and interconnectedness" and the "destruction of local cultures" across the West.

"Homo economicus" is not only theoretically questionable but empirically flawed.

In 2001, a global study led by evolutionary biologist Joseph Heinrich and economist Herbert Gintis evaluated human behaviour across five continents, 12 countries and 17 different types of societies. It comprehensively disproved the theory of the utility maximising individual.

Humans value fairness and reciprocity just as much as they do their own self-interest.

Yet many of our national and international institutions function on outdated neoliberal models.

Without reform, our economic systems will continue to consolidate power into the hands of the tech monopolies, designed to maximise our selfish traits at the expense of mutual flourishing.

Local communities will continue to lose their main streets and the lifeblood of local employment. Workers will continue to get squeezed out by labour markets with fewer employers.

These results are a recipe for angry, disaffected voters frustrated with the endless failures of democracies to produce better lives.

Covid-19 provides an opportunity to rediscover our natural need for belonging.

Protective isolation and the closing of borders have thrown us back onto family and neighbourhood, community and country.

In 1943, the French philosopher Simone Weil wrote in her Draft for A Statement of Human Obligations, "The human soul needs above all to be rooted in several natural environments and to make contact to the universe through them."

For Weil, tracing a social philosophy back to Aristotle, this included "the real, active and natural participation in the life of the community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future".

To remove people from place and community is to destroy the very soil of their humanity. Continue reading

• Adrian Pabst is a New Statesman contributing writer.
• Ron Ivey is a fellow at the Centre for Public Impact.

At that time his wife took home a monthly salary of 12 million dong (NZ$785), much more than his.

Thinh ignored his relatives who advised him not to give up his job. They live with his parents, who are too old to care for their son, in Ho Chi Minh City.

"Now I both care for my child, do housework and run a laundry service at home to generate income, but my parents-in-law nag me to seek a job and support the family," the 35-year-old father said, adding that they tell him that as a man in a patriarchal society he must be the breadwinner and let his wife stay at home and look after the child.

Thinh admitted that he has an inferiority complex about his position in the family with his wife and picks quarrels with her about her relatives' complaints about him.

He said he plans to send their son to a Catholic-run daycare centre and look for a job but his wife, who is five months pregnant, asked him to take care of their second child after she gives birth.

"I feel disappointed with my wife, who tells me that she makes more money than me so she has the right to continue her work," he said, adding that she fails to acknowledge his sacrifice for their family.

"I am deeply ashamed of our problems and do not dare to tell other people including the parish priest," he said.

A recent social survey, "Men and Masculinities in a globalizing Vietnam," conducted by the Institute for Social Development Studies (ISDS), showed that over 80 per cent of interviewees agreed that women should do simple work and look after their families rather than build their careers.

The survey, which involved 2,567 men aged 18-64 from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the provinces of Khanh Hoa and Hoa Binh, disclosed little change in gender equality among men who claim that they have more abilities than women and are easily tolerated by the society.

ISDS director Khuat Thu Hong said men suffer from the burden of masculinity, have status as sole breadwinner on the brain and put themselves under pressure to show their firmness in front of women. Over 97 per cent of respondents said that they want to be the emotional and financial support of their spouses. Those who fail get stressful and consider themselves losers.

The findings revealed that 83 per cent of participants are concerned about the burden of supporting their families, while another 3 per cent admitted that they have considered suicide.

Over 30 per cent of participants in the survey experienced feeling lonely, 33 per cent feel weary and 16 per cent think they are failures.

Experts say many women are well educated and make more money than their husbands but their success hurts their spouses' pride.

Joseph Phan Van Huynh, 46, said he has grown weary of his marriage for years as his wife regards him as a social inferior.

Huynh, who has been married for 14 years, said his wife was a specialist in computer-aided design at a local newspaper and her salary was four times more than his. She made all decisions in the family.

"She asked me to support the children while she worked to buy a house," the father of three said. "I had no choice but to accept her request."

He said she quit her job and spends all time going out with her friends and doing charity work after she bought the house.

Huynh said he could not afford to cover his children's school fees, food and other family needs with his salary of 10 million dong per month. He has to ask for money from his siblings and ask them to prepare food for the children.

He said he asked his wife to share the family burden with him but she refused. "You are the breadwinner but could not buy the house. I already bought it. Now you must support the children. If not, you are not a fit man."

He said they no longer speak to one another.

Father Joachim Nguyen Thanh Tuu, an assistant priest from Vinh Hiep Parish in Ho Chi Minh City, said a Vietnamese saying goes "Men build houses and women build homes," so wives should treat their husbands humanely and kindly. Both have duties to work together and build their homes.

Father Tuu, who offers marriage courses to young couples, said men have practical experience in dealing with problems even though they have low education.

He said he tells couples to accept one another's weak points and help improve them rather than criticize one another. "They should respect one another and do their best to support their families, not focus on one another's education and finance," he added.

Mary Tran Thi Hoa, who works at a bank in Kien Giang province, said her spouse has just finished high school and works on farms to support the family.

Hoa said in the past they had bitter quarrels about little things and her husband avoided decision-making and dealing with family issues since he had a complex about his education.

The 45-year-old mother of three said one time he left her and returned home while they were out with her colleagues. Her colleagues unintentionally talked about broken marriages due to different education between wives and husbands.

Two years ago, she asked her parish priest to allow him to serve as the head of a group of Catholic households and he turned over a new leaf.

"He leads daily prayer sessions at church, gives the Eucharist to Massgoers and patients, and gathers people to pray for dying people and support those who have wedding parties," she said. He is content to make friends with other people.

"I am happy that he actively works with me to prepare for our son's wedding ceremonies next month," she said, adding that a happy marriage is based on real love, not education.

• First published in UCANews.com. Republished with permission.

Religion is exploited both to obtain popular support and to launch a political message that is identified with people's loyalty and devotion to a nation.

It is taken for granted that people have in religion a common identity, origin and history, and that these support an ideological, cultural and religious homogeneity that is strengthened by geopolitical boundaries.

In reality, in today's globalized world, there is no geographical entity that can be defined as a "nation" that has within it a single homogeneous identity from a linguistic or religious point of view, or indeed from any other point of view.

Therefore, radical nationalism is only possible if it eliminates diversity.

It follows that a liberating deconstruction of nationalism is more necessary than ever.

Let us be clear: nationalism should never be confused with patriotism.

In fact, while the "patriot is proud of his country for what it does, the nationalist boasts of his country, whatever it does; the former contributes to creating a sense of responsibility, while the latter gives rise to the blind arrogance that leads to war."

The relevance of theological response to nationalism

What are the contours of nationalism that gains mythical status?

Effective nationalistic narratives usually mythicize history and historicize mythologies with great success.

Let us take the following passage by Johann Dräseke, written in Bremen in 1813, as an example: "All temples, all schools, all town halls, all workplaces, all houses and all families must become arsenals in defence of our people against all that is foreign and evil."

"Heaven and earth must unite in Germany. The Church must become a State to increase its power, and the State must become a Church until it is the Kingdom of God. Only when we have become devout in this sense, and we all unite in this devotion, and become strong in this unity, will we never again have to endure a yoke."[3]

Even a national sentiment as secular in some ways as that of the United States has cloaked itself in "religious" guise, with a kind of divinization of the founding fathers and a narrative centred on the special role and favour given by God to that people.

The parable of the Good Samaritan debunks the myth of nationalism that aims to build a nation on the rubble of some of its citizens and neighbours.

The commitment to become anyone's neighbour, as extolled in the parable, demands concrete steps.

In the period following the Second World War, the exaltation of the American way of life led to the apotheosis of national life, the equivalence of national values and religion, the divinization of national heroes and the transformation of national history into Heilsgeschichte ("History of Salvation").

As reported in La Civiltà Cattolica, some fundamentalist religious communities "consider the United States a nation blessed by God, and do not hesitate to base the economic growth of the country on a literal adherence to the Bible."

"Within this narrative, whatever pushes toward conflict is not off-limits."

On the contrary, "often war itself is assimilated to the heroic conquests of the ‘Lord of Hosts' of Gideon and David. In this Manichaean vision, belligerence can acquire a theological justification and there are pastors who seek a biblical foundation for it, using scriptural texts out of context."

An appropriate response to nationalism is an authentically religious response, that is, a response that, through theology, grasps the essence of religious discourse itself, deconstructing narratives and practices that threaten to be destructive rather than constructive, precisely like those of nationalism.

Theology is not only important but essential in deconstructing so many dangerous narratives and practices that dehumanize individuals and communities, such as the rhetoric and practice of religious-cultural nationalism.

Pope Francis has spoken about the role of religions in the face of today's dangers: "Religions, therefore, have an educational task: to help bring out the best in each person."

This is the opposite of "the rigid and fundamentalist reactions on the part of those who, through violent words and deeds, seek to impose extreme and radical attitudes which are furthest from the living God."

The universal saving will of God

The Old Testament texts are quite ambiguous with regard to nationalism.

On the one hand, they support Israel's religious-cultural exclusivism and its related feeling of being favoured by God; on the other, they depict the vision of God's universal love for all peoples.

That is, on the one hand, we have the so-called "trajectory of royal consolidation," aimed at fostering, defending and justifying the role of the Jewish ruling class and its theology.

On the other hand, we have the so-called "trajectory of prophetic liberation," characterized by authentic criticism of the idolatrous lifestyle of the rulers, with the prediction of judgment, punishment and subsequent reconstruction of Judah as the sign of a universal providence of God.

In fact, the prophets relativize Israel's exclusive proximity to God: "Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel? says the Lord. Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?" (Amos 9:7), thus deploring a purely exclusive vision, with the repeated evocation of the "mixture of races" that characterizes Jewish history,[7] of the pagan king Cyrus who is "the chosen one of the Lord" (Isa 45:1), of King Nebuchadnezzar who is "the servant of the Lord" (Jer 27:6), and of God, who is not God of his people "only from nearby, […] but also from afar" (Jer 23:23).

Reading these texts within an overall picture of justice and God's love as they are revealed by the Christ event leads to the unequivocal denunciation of all oppression and exploitation of any human being in any circumstance.

Any vision that is not set at this height certainly goes against God's universal salvific will.

The ‘neighbour' instead of nationalism

It is enlightening to consider the parable of the Good Samaritan (cf. Luke 10:25-37).

Its impact comes from the prominence given to a Samaritan instead of to a (good) Jew.

While criticizing the priest and the Levite for their narrow-minded religiosity, the parable could have exalted any poor Jew. Why does it exalt a Samaritan instead?

The new category, that of the "neighbour," is an antidote to nationalist self-justification. The neighbour does not coincide with the co-religionist and the compatriot.

The parable of the Good Samaritan debunks the myth of nationalism that aims to build a nation on the rubble of some of its citizens and neighbours.

The commitment to become anyone's neighbour, as extolled in the parable, demands concrete steps. Continue reading

Ironically, for those who identify as Catholic, greater courage may be required.

Catholic bioethicist Bernadette Tobin writes: "In order to understand the teachings of the Catholic Church in relation to questions about the beginning of life, we need to identify and appreciate the one idea that informs all of these teachings.

"This is the idea that the life of every human being is, in and of itself, valuable or sacred."

For Catholics, the unconditional respect due to human life begins when an ovum is fertilised.

Embryos become children not by some addition to what they are, but simply by developing further as the kind of beings they already are.

No matter how undeveloped or damaged the potentialities of a human being may be, that life is sacred.

This view runs counter to that of many people for whom the embryo is nothing more than a ‘clump of cells'.

‘How can we possibly accord the same moral status to a group of cells as to a person?' it is asked. Continue reading.

John Kleinsman is director of The Nathaniel Centre

Source: The Nathaniel Centre

Image: Marist Messenger

But just as we condemn the excesses of capitalism, so we should give credit to those who selflessly put their money to good use. They are opposite sides of the same coin.

In any case, philanthropy is not the preserve of the very rich.

On the contrary, research indicates that poorer people contribute proportionately more of their income to charity than the wealthy. And even those without money can be generous in other ways - for example, by giving their time as volunteers.

According to the 2013 World Giving Index, 40% of New Zealanders donate time to good

For ordinary New Zealanders, there have never been more ways to contribute.

Community foundations exploit economies of scale by pooling individual donations, which, on their own, might be too small to make a difference.

Websites such as Givealittle harness the power of crowdfunding.

And at the top of the philanthropic food chain, large trusts and foundations are establishing strategic partnerships and collaborating on large-scale, long-term projects, notably in education and conservation.

Underlying all this is a growing recognition that issues such as unemployment, pest control and social disadvantage are beyond the resources of the state on its own.

Philanthropy at its most effective can strike at root causes where the welfare state can often do little more than provide Band-Aids.

Rather than being seen as relieving the Government of its obligations, it should be viewed as an important adjunct to the state and an indispensable part of what we know as civil society. Continue reading.

This piece comes from the editorial of the current Listener.

Source: The Listener

Image: ADLS

Internet memes generally take the form of an image over which text is written and are, for the most part, intended to be humorous, often using sarcasm, pop culture references and puns to relay an idea or simply poke a bit of fun.

Professor of Communication Heidi Campbell, who specialises in the intersection of new media, religion and digital culture, along with a team of graduate students, analysed six different cases of Internet memes: "Advice God;" "Buddy Christ;" the Christian Meme Facebook page; Mitt Romney/Mormon Memes; Muslim Memes on Facebook; and "Tweeting Orthodoxies," memes on an Israeli-Jewish Facebook page.

The study "Reading Religion in Internet Memes" was published in the Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture.

"Internet memes tend to boil down complex ideas into broad generalisations that can express popular assumptions or biases about religion, so that images and messages about religion often become over-simplified or distorted in memes," Campbell explains.

"This helps highlight what people see as important or problematic in religion."

She says religious Internet memes are created to emphasise both affirmations and critiques of God and religion. Continue reading.

Source: Tamu Times

Image: Andrea Terry

218. Peace in society cannot be understood as pacification or the mere absence of violence resulting from the domination of one part of society over others. Nor does true peace act as a pretext for justifying a social structure which silences or appeases the poor, so that the more affluent can placidly support their lifestyle while others have to make do as they can. Demands involving the distribution of wealth, concern for the poor and human rights cannot be suppressed under the guise of creating a consensus on paper or a transient peace for a contented minority. The dignity of the human person and the common good rank higher than the comfort of those who refuse to renounce their privileges. When these values are threatened, a prophetic voice must be raised.

219. Nor is peace "simply the absence of warfare, based on a precarious balance of power; it is fashioned by efforts directed day after day towards the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God, with a more perfect justice among men".[179] In the end, a peace which is not the result of integral development will be doomed; it will always spawn new conflicts and various forms of violence.

220. People in every nation enhance the social dimension of their lives by acting as committed and responsible citizens, not as a mob swayed by the powers that be. Let us not forget that "responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation".[180] Yet becoming a people demands something more. It is an ongoing process in which every new generation must take part: a slow and arduous effort calling for a desire for integration and a willingness to achieve this through the growth of a peaceful and multifaceted culture of encounter.

221. Progress in building a people in peace, justice and fraternity depends on four principles related to constant tensions present in every social reality. These derive from the pillars of the Church's social doctrine, which serve as "primary and fundamental parameters of reference for interpreting and evaluating social phenomena".[181] In their light I would now like to set forth these four specific principles which can guide the development of life in society and the building of a people where differences are harmonized within a shared pursuit. I do so out of the conviction that their application can be a genuine path to peace within each nation and in the entire world.

That's what I say, of the controversial, hate-mongering founder of the Westboro Baptist Church.

But something tells me Fred Phelps already thanked God plenty of times for Fred Phelps, given the two were on such apparently close terms.

After all, it was Phelps who so graciously enlightened the rest of us that "God Hates Fags," with the signature placards of his extremist Kansas church.

"Thank God for Aids" and "Thank God for Crippled Soldiers" are other examples of their reaction-baiting extremities, with which they've picketed strangers' funerals and public events for the past two decades.

God, according to Phelps, was so incensed by homosexuality he punished America with the 9/11 attacks.

Perhaps if God had done his homework, he might have enlightened Fred as to the irony of printing his hateful messages on rainbow-coloured card.

It's unlikely many of us lost much sleep at the thought of Fred Phelps slipping away.

At 84 years old, just a day before his followers picketed Lorde, the pastor died on Thursday night, no doubt stammering some carefully considered theology as his final hateful words. Continue reading.

Jack Tame is TVNZ's US Correspondent, host of Newstalk ZB Saturdays, and NZ Herald on Sunday columnist.

Source: NZ Herald

Image: TVNZ

Sarah received treatment for her addiction in prison, and had frequent contact with mental health professionals, but she has never successfully gone without heroin for more than a few days, despite repeated efforts. She funds her habit through state benefits, loans from her mother, and theft. Her father died when she was three. Her mother raised her on her own, working two jobs to make ends meet. Her mother was and is her only stable source of support. Sarah hates herself deeply.

This is a fictional case study, based on the real addicts I come across in my work. But when you picture Sarah, who do you see? One person might imagine a violent and depraved young woman, who has chosen to live on the edge of society and is responsible for her drug use and crimes. Another will see a suffering soul, someone who can't control her desire for heroin and can't be held responsible for the harm she perpetrates on herself or others. Of course, both images of addiction are stereotypes that a moment's reflection should dispel. They polarise and capture our collective imagination. In reality they stop us from facing hard truths about why people become addicts. Continue reading

Sources

• Aeon
• Image: Hawaii Island Recovery

Stephen Dedalus
Class of Elements
Clongowes Wood College
Sallins
County Kildare
Ireland
Europe
The World
The Universe

Most of us will, no doubt, remember writing a similar extended address as children, following through the logic of this series of ever-larger locations. The last two entries in Dedalus's list are, obviously, redundant in any real address. Only an alien sending a postcard home from another universe would think to add them. We are all, in some loose sense, ‘citizens of the world', or at least its inhabitants.

And yet, as adults, we don't usually think about much outside our immediate surroundings. Typically, it is our nation that defines us geographically, and it is our family, friends, and acquaintances who dominate our social thinking. If we think about the universe, it is from an astronomical or from a religious perspective. We are locally focused, evolved from social apes who went about in small bands. The further away or less visible other people are, the harder it is to worry about them. Even when the television brings news of thousands starving in sub-Saharan Africa, what affects me deeply is the item about a single act of violence in a street nearby.

Life is bearable in part because we can so easily resist imagining the extent of suffering across the globe. And if we do think about it, for most of us that thinking is dispassionate and removed. That is how we as a species live. Perhaps it's why the collective noun for a group of apes is a ‘shrewdness'. Continue reading

Sources

• Aeon Magazine
• Image: Globalization and Autonomy

It seems somewhat careless for the Church to lose so many believers and rather a setback- and does it mean that in politics we need pay less attention to faith?

The census asked the voluntary question, "What is your religion?". In 2001, 71.7% replied they were Christian. In 2011, that figure had fallen to 59.3%. Meanwhile, those declaring themselves of no religion (not necessarily the same thing as being atheist) rose from 14.1% to 25.1%.

The ONS notes that the 2011 Census data are similar to other surveys of religious belief: it quotes the 2011 Annual Population Survey which showed 63.1% of the population is Christian, 4.8% Muslim, and 27.9% have no religion.

Much depends on how you view the 2001 figures and so the difference in 2011. It was not the case that in 2001, 71.7% of people were regular churchgoers and neither in 2011 was 59.3% of the population. The data measure religious affiliation, not activism. What we might call active Christians, those who attend church, have always formed a smaller, but still significant, proportion of the population.

For example, in 2007, Tear Fund, a Christian international development charity, conducted a survey (of 7,000 people) which found 15% of adults attended church at least once a month, with 10% attending weekly (this would equate to almost 5 million), and 26% attended at least once a year, equivalent to 12.6 million (the survey found 53% of adults called themselves Christians).

Demos, in its Faithful Citizens report published this year, found 13% of people said they belonged to a church or religious organisation (which includes other faiths). Continue reading

Sources

• Stephen Beer in Left Foot Forward
• Image: The Guardian

Lord Sacks said that advertising only made shoppers aware of what they did not own, rather than feeling grateful for what they have.

He insisted that a culture in which people cared solely about themselves and their possessions could not last long, and that only faith and spending time with family could bring true happiness.

The Chief Rabbi's comments are likely to raise eyebrows because he singled out for blame Jobs - the co-founder of Apple who died last month - by likening his iPad tablet computers to the tablets of stone bearing the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses.

With regard to churches, Beck reads the data as suggesting that Facebook and other social media are replacing what he believes is the "main draw of the traditional church: social connection and affiliation."

Beck is certainly right that church is no longer a central gathering place for the majority of believers and seekers. And, it seems, too, that Facebook has taken up much of the chat about "football,… good schools,… local politics," and other matters that Beck sees as the "main draw" of routine ecclesial practice in days gone by. Yet the sneak peek Beck offers of his own research appears to undermine the argument.

Read ELIZABETH DRESCHER Facebook Doesn't Kill Churches, Churches Kill Churches