Reminder of Launch of “Redeeming Flesh: The Way of the Cross with Zombie Jesus”

Last updated on: May 9, 2017 at 8:29 am By Matthew Tan

Readers in Sydney would probably have received notice of the launch for my little book Redeeming Flesh: The Way of the Cross with Zombie Jesus (Cascade Books 2016), organised by the Centre for the Study of Western Tradition at Campion College Australia in partnership with the School of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia. The book will be launched by the St. John Paul II Professor of Theology at Notre Dame, Tracey Rowland. Further event details are below:... Read more

God and Cigarettes

Last updated on: May 2, 2017 at 7:08 am By Matthew Tan

Five years ago, in an attempt to reduce smoking and its associated health costs, the Australian government mandated that all tobacco products be sold in uniformly plain green packaging, with the most prominent aspect of the packaging being a series of graphic health warnings. In debates leading up to the introduction of plain packaging, one of the arguments for the measure was to remove the romanticisation of smoking attached to the images and logos on the packaging. Those that used... Read more

Podcast: “A Theology of Pop Culture” with PEACEcast

Last updated on: April 18, 2017 at 9:18 am By Matthew Tan

PEACEcast, a podcast spinoff of PEACEtalks (which is in turn a seminar series hosted by St George Anglican Church in Sydney), kindly invited me to be the latest installment of its podcast series. Their podcast, “A Theology of Pop Culture“, featured your humble servant together with Dr. Joel Harrison, Lecturer in Constitutional Law at Macquarie University. Formatted more as a chat than a formal panel, the podcast spoke of the symbollic and ritual economy of pop culture and its obsession with... Read more

Launch of “Redeeming Flesh”

Last updated on: April 12, 2017 at 9:34 am By Matthew Tan

We are pleased to announce that Redeeming Flesh: The Way of the Cross with Zombie Jesus (Australian buyers can get copies here) will be launched on 23 May. After many unconfirmed sightings in the margins of newspapers, blogs and podcasts, we thought it is probably time for the apocalypse to be finally upon us. The launch will be held at the Sydney Campus of the University of Notre Dame Australia. The book will be launched by Notre Dame’s John Paul II Professor... Read more

The Laughing God

Last updated on: April 4, 2017 at 8:46 am By Matthew Tan

A problem many Christians face is being too serious. One can almost measure the level of (noticeable) public contributions by Christians on newspapers, network television and social media by the amount of negativity and even bile staining the page or the screen. At one level, this is understandable. Battling the powers and principalities of this world is not exactly a light-hearted affair. Be that as it may… See the complete post at The Catholic Weekly… Read more

Turning Towards Nil

Last updated on: March 28, 2017 at 8:06 am By Matthew Tan

A former colleague, a Latinist, one day pointed out the neoplatonic influences behind the creation of the word “universe”. The word, when broken down to its elements of “uni” (one) and “vertere” (to turn to), denote the universe’s orientation towards the neoplatonic One, that transcendent source of all that is in the cosmos. In neoplatonic philosophy the cosmos, having been generated by the One, is constantly orienting itself towards its source, and its life cycle is one of constant return... Read more

Playing for Eternity: The Sacraments of Pop Culture (Vodcast Now Available)

Last updated on: March 15, 2017 at 6:42 am By Matthew Tan

PEACEtalks, an initiative of St. George Anglican Church in Sydney, hosted the Divine Wedgie over the weekend for an evening of dinner and seminars. It was nothing short of an utter delight to be among a crowd that was so theologically and culturally literate, as well as engaged. With reference to resources as diverse as Marx and Aquinas the presentation, “Playing for Eternity: The Sacraments of Pop Culture“, looked at the relationship between pop culture and the sacramental economy. The argument ran... Read more

Derrida, Deconstruction & Salvation

Last updated on: March 7, 2017 at 7:57 am By Matthew Tan

‘Postmodern’ is a dirty word for Christians. In many parts of Christendom, it is associated with relativism, individualism and the jettisoning of tradition for the sake of the new or kitsch (sometimes justifiably so, from personal experiences). Not everyone sees the postmodern in this light. In a highly persuasive book entitled Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, the Pentecostal philosopher James K A Smith suggested that postmodernism – insofar as it is properly understood as being past-modern – can actually be a... Read more

Penances You Can Hear: Christianity, Pop Culture & Multiculturalism

Last updated on: March 1, 2017 at 7:37 am By Matthew Tan

Lent is upon us and Melbourne and Sydney readers have the opportunity to do their penances early , because the Divine Wedgie is hitting the road again. Melbourne The first penance, on 5th March, will be will be at the Church of All Nations (CAN) in Melbourne, a plant of the Uniting Church in Australia. Antony McMullen, who writes for the CoopShop, is working towards building a coop brewery for Australia and works for CAN, has put together a workshop entitled Who... Read more

The Mediated Self: Identity, Advertising & Eucharist

Last updated on: February 22, 2017 at 6:56 am By Matthew Tan

In The Life of Brian, the titular protagonist wanted to remind everyone that “we are all individuals”. Because of that, nobody needed to listen or be an extension of anyone’s will, never mind his own. In so doing, Brian had articulated one of the central pillars of Liberalism: that everyone was fundamentally a self-contained individual, with no ontological link with anyone else except via the artifice of a contract voluntarily entered into. To this, the crowd shouted with one voice: “Yes!... Read more