The Great Reformer: Pope Francis’s Pastoral Revolution, Two Years On While in Dublin recently, I stopped by the Jesuit community at Milltown to meet a man who had once taught Scripture in a huge college outside Buenos Aires, which was at that time run by the man who is now pope. Father James Kelly recalls […]

As an evangelical theologian and pastor, I want to say that ISIS is evil. Evil is a term we don’t normally hear in the media or politics, which is likely a good thing given our lack of public morality and civility these days. Indeed, judgementalism was condemned by Jesus, but is still often practiced by […]

41 men targeted but 1,147 people killed: US drone strikes – the facts on the ground By Spencer Ackerman New analysis of data conducted by human rights group Reprieve shared with the Guardian, questions accuracy of intelligence guiding ‘precise’ strikes: http://http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147

How ISIS Should Shape Our View of the Church and Its Mission Globally DECEMBER 4, 2014 / MARTIN ACCAD By Martin Accad I’ve been blogging and speaking much about ISIS in recent months. Last July, as we were beginning to get to grips with the savagery of the group, I tried to call us all, as […]

Tim Soutphommasane During the 1980s and 90s, one television show took on this premise in its most literal sense. Some of you may remember the science fiction drama Quantum Leap and its main character, Sam Beckett (played by actor Scott Bakula). Each week, Sam, a physicist conducting a time travel experiment, would fantastically leap into […]

The boats always come back – and when they do, Australia will have to draw on fresh reserves of cruelty Underlying Abbott’s pitch is the promise that after we’ve cut off any hope of refugees to live here and after we shipped them off to violent camps, the boats will stop. It won’t happen David […]

On the loss of the humanitarian significance of evidence in Australian Refugee and Asylum Seeker Policy Paul Tyson 1.     Introduction: The Significance of Evidence Evidence is never simply data.[1] In a governmental context, evidence is always significant data where the parameters of significance are defined by the political agendas which set policy goals. Further, when […]

As we fight the Islamic State and other extremists, there’s something all of us can learn from them. For, in one sense, the terrorists are fighting smarter than we are. These extremists use arms to fight their battles in the short term, but, to hold ground in the long run, they also combat women’s education […]

History will treat us ‘very poorly’ over its treatment of asylum seekers Oliver Laughland on Christmas Island theguardian.com, Friday 3 October 2014 05.36 AEST Jon Stanhope described the government’s asylum seeker policy as ‘unnecessarily hard-hearted’. Photograph: John Pryke/AAP Image History will judge Australia “very, very poorly” in relation to its treatment of asylum seekers, the outgoing […]

Qasim Rashid  09/15/2014 11:59 am EDT While President Obama reveals his plan to obliterate ISIS with force, and Bill Maher continues his ignorant rant to tie ISIS to Islam, New York Times journalist David Brooks provides the correct counter to ISIS in his September 4 column, “But, ultimately, [ISIS is] a spiritual movement that will have to be surmounted […]

Derek Flood Posted: 08/12/2014 3:56 pm EDT Updated: 08/12/2014 4:00 pm EDT Alarm and outrage has been growing over the mounting humanitarian crisis in Iraq at the hands of the Islamic State (IS) also known as ISIL (Islamic State of Syria and the Levant) or ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Christians in the region are being forced […]

The ancient Christian history of the Middle East has become agonizingly relevant. Cities central in that history appear in headlines in the context of fanaticism and mass destruction. The State Department’s maps of the latest atrocities coincide with the most venerable landscapes of Eastern Christianity. The city of Damascus in Syria needs no explanation in […]