What causes wars?

"The greatest menace to our civilization is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness - each only too delighted to find that the other is wicked - each only too glad that the sins of the other give it pretext for still deeper hatred."  

Christianity, Diplomacy and War (1952)

Sir Herbert Butterfield

former Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University

Why did Vietnam become communist?

There are probably a multitude of reasons.
But, watching the movie Indochine showed me that the brutal and heartless colonial rule of the French created an environment that would have been a good breeding ground for communist sympathies.
Unfortunately, in the movie the only role of the church is handing out food to refugees.

How should Christians respond to the poor?

I am looking forward to a TEAR one day conference in Brisbane Heart for the Poor to be held saturday May 18.
One of the speakers is Charles Ringma.

How should Christians engage the university?

Terry Halliday is a leading scholar on the sociology of law. In 2011 he gave a very challenging talk Engaging the University at the World Congress of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES).
He compares three different models for engagement of Christians with the university.
Pietistic vs. Apologetic vs. Dialogic.
This is probably the most inspirational talk I have heard over the last few years.

[Aside: I first met Terry 25 years ago when he taught a sunday school class at First Presbyterian Church in Evanston, Illinois, which I attended for 18 months.]

There is also a great series of very short videos where Terry is interviewed by Mark Labberton, the incoming President of Fuller Seminary.

A Dialogic Approach

Integrating Work and Christian Faith

The Courage to Face Intractable Issues

Where Faith and Political Action Meet

Christian Faith and Human Rights

How Can Locals Acquire Global Perspective?

Pitfalls and Pietism in America and Abroad

The Wisdom That Comes from the Church Universal

Living as a Christian in the Public Sphere

Christian astrophysicist talks about the Big Bang

This friday lunchtime my colleague Professor Michael Drinkwater is giving a talk "The Big Bang: a scientific and philosophical revolution" at the Centre for Science, Religion, and Society at Emmanuel College. Details are here.
I am really looking forward to it.

You can watch two videos of Michael discussing the age of the universe and his Christian faith on the Centre for Public Christianity site.

A self-evident truth?

The Declaration of Independence of the USA states

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. 

On the one hand this statement reflects the Enlightenment thinking of the authors such as Thomas Jefferson. The notion of certain things being true because they were "self-evident" was celebrated and claimed.
[Aside: A classic case was Euclid's axioms of geometry, which turned out to be actually assumptions that are not universally valid.]

On the other hand, the statement reflects the presuppositions of a Biblical world view and the Doctrine of Creation. The idea that "all men are created equal" goes against most world views that have been dominant throughout history and even today in some cultures and religions. The idea of equality and human rights is not "self-evident" or "discovered" but is actually a profound truth that was revealed to the author of Genesis by the Creator God.

This point was nicely made by Dave Pitt, in a recent talk at church.

Did God break up the Soviet Union?

This week some would be saying Margaret Thatcher did it!

Vinoth Ramachandra has a nice post Discerning Providence discussing the tricky issue of discerning God's involvement in historical events, both positive and negative. Which events might be identified with God's judgement? Which with the advancement of the Kingdom of God? For which do we simply not know?

Vinoth ends

The confusion of Kingdom hope with secular Progress has often been challenged. But the confusion with optimism over our own private projects, our nation’s prosperity or the numerical growth of the Church seems to be rarely addressed.