On being Progressive or Conservative – and Why it Sucks

September 22, 2011 By Matthew Tan

GK Chesterton once noted in 1924 on the growing convergence of all political opinion into merely 2 camps (namely Progressive and Conservative) thus: The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two... Read more

St. John Chrysostom on Drinking

September 18, 2011 By Matthew Tan

Long before Chesterton sung the praises of drinking, St. John Chrysostom, a Father of the early Church, had this to say about drinking in his Homilies on the Statues: Paul is not ashamed, and does not blush, after the many and great signs which he had displayed even by a simple word; yet, in writing to Timothy, to bid him take refuge in the healing virtue of wine drinking. Not that to drink wine is shameful. God forbid! For... Read more

GK Chesterton on Drinking

September 14, 2011 By Matthew Tan

At a recent conference on GK Chesterton’s distributism as a response to the Global Financial Crisis, held at Campion College Australia, a quote from a dramatised Chesterton was used from his book Heretics relating to drinking. In response to many Christian prudes who equate holiness with the avoidance of drink, as if drink was made by the devil, Chesterton writes: Dionysus made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. Jesus Christ also made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. ... Read more

Consumerism and Refugees

August 31, 2011 By Matthew Tan

Today, the High Court of Australia ruled as illegal a proposed “refugee swap” program between the governments of Australia and Malaysia, where new arrivals to the former would automatically be sent to the latter, and processed refugees from the latter be shipped over to the former. Many have been capitalising on the little media storm this decision has created. For the government, this is a disappointment that a great policy has to be scrapped, for the opposition, this is another... Read more

Text, Beauty and Community

August 26, 2011 By Matthew Tan

Neil Postman, an American media theorist associated with New York University, wrote a passage that should be of significance to theologians of culture who live in hypertextuated cultures (we forget sometimes that in a digitised world saturated with images, the underpinning strata is always what the sociologist Manuel Castells calls a “hypertext”). In his key work Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness, Postman remarked that To be confronted by…printed sentences is to look upon... Read more

World Youth Day Protests and the Universality of Economics

August 20, 2011 By Matthew Tan

One should find interesting that, in the face of a slew of possible arguments protesters could use against the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, the one that seemed to be most publicised in the media is the use of 50 million Euros of public money to fund the Catholic event. The fact that the economic argument seemed to be gaining traction even among Catholics should give one pause to consider the dominance of homo economicus even in the postmodern cultural... Read more

Religious Education in Secular Society: A View from Dr. Joel Hodge

August 19, 2011 By Matthew Tan

Dr Joel Hodge, a Systematic Theologian at the Australian Catholic University, recently wrote on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s The Drum, explicating some unexplained catch cries being circulated by the secular press – namely “secularism” and “tolerance” – in the debate over the role of religious education in Australia. As the secular media become more militant in its criticisms over the role of religious communities in school formation, Dr Hodge’s latest post is highly incisive and a valuable aid for the... Read more

The City and the Monastery According to a Protestant Poet

August 10, 2011 By Matthew Tan

A recent study was released that looked at the ill effects of city life that can be accessed here here. In light of such a study, the intensification of urban living ought to be a subject of theological reflection, and books such as Graham Ward’s Cities of God and TJ Gorringe’s A Theology of the Built Environment have provided some fruitful entry points for such a project. The American poet Kathleen Norris has made her contributions to this issue with... Read more

Evaluation on a Comedian’s Spiritual Journey on the ABC: Implications for Evangelisation

August 3, 2011 By Matthew Tan

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation recently began a series on the exploration of faith, spearheaded by comedienne Judith Lucy, who is also a lapsed Catholic. The first episode of the series explored what were ostensibly 3 Catholic figures: A priest who is an academic, an excommunicated priest and a Sister of Mercy. The blog Seeing Swans at Night gave a valuable insight into the pilot episode. The deciding factor in this series, says the post, is not the arguments that are... Read more

The State of Undergraduate Education: A view from the Front Porch

July 28, 2011 By Matthew Tan

Wilson Carey McWilliams from the Front Porch Republic has written extensively and very insightfully on university education in America and recently reposted a 2000 lecture entitled “The Undergraduate Learner: Challenges for a New Century“. This lecture focuses on a number of important themes, including the impact of cultural diversity in American education, educating undergraduates in a manner that ties in with Capitalism’s version of detachment, (which parodies the Christian), and the importance of inculcating a telos even as technical skills... Read more