Technology, Sin and Goodness

Last updated on: October 24, 2013 at 10:52 pm By Matthew Tan

The evangelical publishing house IVP Academic released the computer scientist Derek Schuurman’s Shaping a Digital World: Faith Culture and Computer Technology. The book is a highly important addition to a growing volume of theological volumes reflecting on the issue of technology from a theological standpoint, not the least because it is one of the rare volumes generated by a practitioner in the field of computer science rather than theology. Schuurman also provides one important nuance to theological reflections that either... Read more

What the Church Learns from Graffiti

Last updated on: October 16, 2013 at 8:23 pm By Matthew Tan

The street artist Banksy, who made a name for himself by making ironic stencils on urban installations all over England and overseas, has brought international attention to the resurgence of graffiti as an art form. Art critics and cultural analysts have given attention to the phenomenon, whether at the level of artistic merit, commercialisation and the renegotiation of public space. The Church, on the other hand, has given little if any consideration to it, very often preferring the sophistication and... Read more

Tracey Rowland on Beauty and Salvation

Last updated on: October 11, 2013 at 10:50 pm By Matthew Tan

The Perth-based Dawson Society hosted the John Paul II Institute’s Prof. Tracey Rowland, who gave a presentation entitled “What Did Dostoevsky Mean When He Said ‘Beauty Will Save the World'”. The presentation looked not only at the idea of the salvific power of beauty, but also tied in the consideration of the beautiful with some of the categories of medieval Thomism, as well as the overall project of the Nouvelle Theologie, in particular Hans Urs von Balthasar, Romano Guardini and... Read more

“St Evagrius of Pontus and Redeeming Time in Postmodernity” on The Other Journal

Last updated on: October 3, 2013 at 9:47 pm By Matthew Tan

An essay by the Divine Wedgie’s Matthew Tan was published on the American postmodern theological resource The Other Journal. The site is connected to the “Church and Postmodern Culture” series of books, which is published by Baker Academic. The essay looks at how “the noonday demon”, coined by the 4th century Christian ascetic Evagrius of Pontus, helps us understand the concept of time in postmodern culture. Rather than a neutral category, the essay argues that postmodern time is actually an... Read more

Food, Culture and Dirt

Last updated on: September 19, 2013 at 11:33 pm By Matthew Tan

Norman Wirzba’s Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating is nothing short of a treasure trove of rich materials for theological reflection. Ostensibly, the book is a theological reflection on food, but as those who spend a lot of time in the business of food preparation would know, there is more to food than what goes on in one’s pan. The production and distribution of things that land on our plates involves a whole matrix of social, cultural and political... Read more

Networked Loneliness: the Paradox of Smartphones and What it Means for the Church

Last updated on: September 12, 2013 at 9:23 pm By Matthew Tan

Smartphones are not just about the device and the user, and yet, what happens when civic spaces become saturated with this very logic? The website on place, The Atlantic Cities, published an article last year about the shift from traditional mobile phones to smartphones. In an interview Tel Aviv University’s Tali Hatuka, the article drew particular attention to the effect that smartphones had in privatising space. Our shared spaces, once seen as opportunities to engage one another (governed by certain... Read more

The Borders of the Eucharist

Last updated on: September 5, 2013 at 9:59 pm By Matthew Tan

Australia goes to the polls this week, and like many countries in the West, the issue of migration has (for better or worse) emerged as a key electoral battleground. Though the issue of migration has differing variations in different countries, what has tended to unite them all is the interlinkage between on the one hand the national identity of the destination-country and on the other the integrity of its state borders. Any breech of the latter – which is manifested... Read more

A Theology of Running Away: Available on Podcast

Last updated on: August 29, 2013 at 10:05 pm By Matthew Tan

Readers may remember an old post on A Theology of Running Away, where the theme of running away in pop culture was argued to be worthy of serious theological reflection. Whilst the post made some initial forays into the subject, it has been presented in a more developed form at the recent conference of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at Oxford University, under the chairmanship of Oxford’s Regius Professor of Divinity, Graham Ward (an interview with whom can be... Read more

Distributism & the Internet: The Case of B4RN

Last updated on: August 23, 2013 at 2:56 am By Matthew Tan

The BBC has this week provided one of those rare stories of encouragement in which a small isolated rural town in Lancashire, fed up with the failure of major IT companies to upgrade their existing dial-up networks to broadband, took the issue up on their own and began to do it themselves. As the report shows, the cooperative effort by the townsfolk to upgrade their own telecommunications required the volunteering of their respective expertise, from trench digging, to network design... Read more

Hope & the Assumption of Mary

Last updated on: August 16, 2013 at 2:57 am By Matthew Tan

The Second Reading in the Roman Catholic Mass for the Feast of the Assumption of Mary (taken from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 15) reads: Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.For since death came through man, the resurrection of the dead came also through man. For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life, but each one in proper order. Christ... Read more