Here, Erica Dunmow, Chair of Urban Theology Union, explores the concept of Covenant through the Methodist tradition. Tracing the links between its emphasis on mutuality and its distinctive commitment to place, Wesley’s focus on social holiness and its mission to develop local leadership, she draws out vital insights for the churches as we focus on civic renewal for the Common Good. Looking at […]

KATE SHELLNUTT The rest of the country knows George Floyd from several minutes of cell phone footage captured during his final hours. But in Houston’s Third Ward, they know Floyd for how he lived for decades—a mentor to a generation of young men and a “person of peace” ushering ministries into the area.Follow @CTmagazine Before […]

11 DOROTHY DAY QUOTES IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE RADICAL, PACIFIST SERVANT OF GOD BY THE WEB EDITORS Dorothy Day held many titles over the course of her life: social activist, journalist, Catholic convert, mother, political radical, pacifist, servant of God … the list goes on. Day embodied what it meant to put faith into action for […]

What Scott Morrison might learn from Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia STEPHEN FOGARTY | OCTOBER 15TH, 2019 05:08 PM |  1 Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, was over the weekend awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. Since taking office in April 2018, Ahmed has been instrumental in ending the 20-year territorial dispute with […]

Stanley Hauerwas  EDITOR’S NOTE: Jean Vanier, the founder of the international L’Arche movement, died this week, on 7 May 2019. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas is a long-time friend of Vanier, and the two of them collaborated on a book titled Living Gently in a Violent World. Both Vanier and Hauerwas participated in a 2010 episode of Encounter, during which Vanier […]

Trevor L Jordan, PhD. To this day, it remains a mystery to me how the words and actions of an African American Baptist preacher from the Southern states of the USA could influence a young, white teenager from suburban Brisbane. The streets of Graceville in the 60s were not exactly seething with radicalism and dissent. […]

CHRISTIAN CENTURY – Cheap resistance is like cheap grace. It risks very little… In Maria Schrader’s 2016 biopic, Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig argues that “every gesture of resistance which is void of either risk or impact is nothing but a cry for recognition.” This is a useful bar to set for ourselves. Do our gestures of […]

When I think of how I can live my life well, I reflect on the life of my good friend, elder and mentor, Allan Halladay. Allan’s Story Allan Halladay was born on May 28th 1937 in Nipawin, a small rural town in Northern Saskatchewan, Canada. Allan said: ‘Like most small towns there was a co-op […]

A reflection on working for the Common Good by some British friends … For some years now, Together for the Common Good, along with other advocates of the common good, has been signalling that the current (social) settlement is no longer fit for purpose. In the past couple of years we’ve seen a decline of […]

Why I Left Westboro Baptist Church (TED TALK) What’s it like to grow up within a group of people who exult in demonizing … everyone else? Megan Phelps-Roper shares details of life inside America’s most controversial church and describes how conversations on Twitter were key to her decision to leave it. In this extraordinary talk, she […]

LAURIE GOODSTEIN NEW YORK TIMES – Protecting immigrants is shaping up to be a priority of the religious left, an amorphous collection of people and groups reflecting many faiths and ethnicities. It has been jolted into action by Mr. Trump’s victory and his selection of an attorney general nominee who supports a crackdown on immigrants… […]

Simon Smart I once had a fight with my wife over a Tim Winton book. Well, not really a fight, but let’s say, a spirited disagreement. We had both just finished reading Breath and she was more than a little annoyed at her erstwhile literary hero Winton, for what she perceived to be his overly […]