Epigrammatic Episodes

Some believe that the terrorist drama currently being played out throughout the world is not about religion at all, but the result of the West's historically destabilising influence over those they wish to manipulate. On the other extreme are those seeking to place blame entirely upon the Arab world and its historically aggressive religion.  In truth, both are to blame. The West's bullying politics encourages acts of retaliation,   and it's human nature to retaliate.  However the flavour of Islam preferred by the fundamentalists seems intent on using violence as a winnowing fork of division, inflaming society so as to create an Us and Them dichotomy; Muslim and non-Muslim; and to force the “moderate Muslim” majority to make a choice, to pick a side. But why is that? Why are Islamic terrorists, in particular, so predictably extreme? Who or what are they looking to for guidance in how to retaliate against their perceived enemies? Mohammed Muslims, ...

'We're a Christian Nation'. At best this refrain is used to imply that the Bible has influenced our Nations culture more than any other religious text in her history.  For Australia, this is undeniably true. However, the term 'Christian Nation' is misleading. For as much as the Bible may have influenced this nation, there is only one group within her borders that biblically can be called Christian, and they are those that believe in and obey the Bible's message.  Yet this nation contains a high and growing percentage of people who do not believe (and probably many more “believers” who merely give it lip service).  So the reality is we are neither biblically or statistically a Christian nation.  Instead we are historically a nation influenced by Bible believers.  Yet, though influential, the Bible wasn't given as a text book for establishing national law & policy. Rather it was given to believers as a means of reminding them of God's purposes...

Whether personal tastes, personality traits or sexual preference, we hear much today regarding “orientation”.   It is a word deriving from the Latin sol oriens , the rising sun, hence the direction of the rising sun, the east. Orientation literally means facing the east. Hence to become dis oriented was to loose ones sense of direction, to have an incorrect estimation of east. Nowadays, disoriented is commonly used to describe someone that is confused or muddled; someone or something that has lost their bearings, their centre, their purpose, their way. Throughout history many a traveller, convinced they were true to their course, discovered too late they were mistaken; some even paying the ultimate price for such misplaced certainty. Of course, the sun never moved (not in relation to earth). It is fixed, unchanging, reliable. Neither did the earth alter its orbit. It is not shifting absolutes that lay behind peoples misdirection, rather it is placing ones faith in the u...

Have you ever suffered pangs of uncertainty regarding your faith? For some, uncertainties can grow into agonies of doubt, wrestling with the believers earnest desire to be sure of their faith. How does one become certain about their convictions? Can one? Of course, 'agony of doubt' is not unique to believers. Uncertainty is also found amongst unbelievers, especially those that hold truth as criteria for their particular world view(s). Can we know the truth with certainty? Jesus certainly believed we could. He clearly said in John 8:32 that, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”  However, to understand the key to such certainty, one must read his words just prior to these: “ If you abide in my word , you are my disciples in deed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” This is a profound truth, that unshakable conviction can only come about as one proves the truth of ones convictions by living acc...