Australia

Chris Baker Evens 7-24-2009

Development is a word full of hope. It brings to mind water pumps and rice banks, bridges and education, smiling children and sky-scraping financial institutions. Yet there is a dark side to development.

On Friday, July 17th, at 4 a.m., this dark side showed its face when

Nate Bacon 7-15-2009

Only God would open up an opportunity for a Catholic from San Francisco to speak prophetically to the Prime Minister of Australia, at the Anglican Centre in Rome, on behalf of Cambodians about to lose their land in Phnom Penh. God cares that much about the poor.

This week has been eventful in Australia.
Jarrod McKenna 5-29-2009
"The Bible knows nothing about peace without justice," said that great prophet of joyful restorative justice, Desmond Tutu, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

Jarrod McKenna 5-01-2009
I rarely agree with Mark Driscoll. Yet he points to something when he said:

Andy Clasper 4-08-2009
The group of 20 leading and emerging nations met at the Excel Centre in London's Docklands last week in a meeting which Gordon Brown heralded as the dawning of a new world order.
Nathan Brown 2-13-2009
It has been described as the worst disaster in Victoria's history. Saturday was the hottest day ever recorded in the Melbourne region, following years of drought and weeks of heat wave conditions.
Jarrod McKenna 2-11-2009
That U.S. megaphone of amazing grace, Shane Claiborne, was recently moved to tears after witnessing a youth gathering in Australia.
Shane Claiborne 1-29-2009

It seems that much of our conversation as a Church is in a perpetual cycle of reaction. We are tempted to exaggerate the neglected truth, and end up making incomplete disciples, either social justice disciples without Jesus or Jesus disciples without social justice. Then there are those special moments where Jesus and Justice kiss.

Julie Clawson 1-28-2009
In December an Australian cell phone company refused to sell a phone to a stay-at-home mom because she didn't have a real job.
Jim Wallis 8-07-2008

One of the stories I first heard on my recent visit to Australia was about what helped swing the vote last November to Kevin Rudd, the new Labor prime minister. I read some new political data by veteran pollster and researcher John Black, who is respected across Australia's political spectrum. Black reported that the pivotal swing vote to Labor this time was among evangelicals and Pentecostals, especially in [...]

Jim Wallis 7-28-2008

Though it is winter in Australia, the sun was shining on Sydney Harbor, one of the most beautiful urban landscapes in the world. With the dramatic architectural lines of the famous Sydney Opera House outlined against the sky-blue horizon and reflecting on the glistening sea, I couldn't wait to hop the ferry to Manley and from there walk to the crashing ocean to watch the surfers climb the waves. I love this place, and though I was suffering a bit of jet lag from the 18-hour trip from [...]

Jim Wallis 2-15-2008

When Kevin Rudd was elected prime minister of Australia, I wrote that he was a committed Catholic who was thinking about how to apply Catholic social teaching to public policy. This week, on

Jarrod McKenna 2-15-2008

Black and white, we waited like I had waited in the mosh pit for Rage Against the Machine two weeks earlier. Yet the main feature on this day, a day that so many had been waiting for, working for, praying for, was just one word: "Sorry."


Matty is one of the many awesome kids in our neighbourhood who don't mind that we are white and often hang out at our houses. As one kid put it, "it's not [...]

Ryan Rodrick Beiler 12-14-2007

Jim wrote a piece a few weeks back about the new Bonhoeffer-quoting Aussie PM Kevin Rudd. Well, another fun fact is that he has appointed Peter Garrett, rock star turned environmental activist turned Member of Parliament, his new Minister for Environment. That's the Aussie version of putting Bono in charge of the foreign [...]