The Christianity Today Book Awards

Christianity Today Awards

Let’s say you want to write a book. You’ve got a captivating story to tell or a compelling argument to make. You’ve got a gift with words!

That’s a good start! But there are other things you (probably) don’t have. Like easy access to paper and ink reserves, a commercial printing press, and a fleet of trucks to haul your handiwork across the country. Even then, more hurdles await, like convincing the people who run libraries and bookstores (and Amazon sales teams) to stock an item with your name on the cover.

Many write – books, e-books, kindles. Publishing is an instant business these days, particularly with Print-On-Demand services available. Here, the editor of Christianity Today reviews an extra-ordinary range of new books on Christianity. Be warned, these reviews go across the full spectrum of writing on Christianity!

Read more…

Loading

Kundeling Tatsak Rinpoche participates in Interfaith Conference at Vatican

Kundeling Tatsak Rinpoche
DHARAMSHALA, Dec 5: A well-known and young Tibetan Buddhist leader Kundeling Tatsak Rinpoche represented the Buddhist community at the All-Religion Interfaith Conference held in Vatican City from November 29 to 30. During the conference, Kundeling Tatsak Rinpoche had a personal audience with Pope Francis where he presented a book authored by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Read more…

Loading

Candlelight Vigil to shine a light on loss

Candlelight Vigil to shine a light on loss Suicide is a topic that many don’t speak of. The media, most have style guides that tell not to cover suicide unless it is hooked to a public interest issue. Yet, this silence, this loss, this trail of blame affects many people locally. Perhaps we might even say that something has been stolen from us, someone we love, we cared for, someone we knew, someone we went to school with. The We Listen Suicide Loss Support Group invites the community to light a candle in memory of loved ones during its annual Candlelight Vigil – at Ferrari Park, Mooroopna – on Tuesday, December 17.

Read more…

Loading

Green Saints for a Green Generation

Green Saints for a Green Generation - Book CoverYoung scientists, sisters, and theologians of the “green generation” reflect on “saints”, canonised and not, who offer hope and inspire us towards ecological action. “In the community of saints, all together are companions in memory and hope. Together, all together, they are becoming something strange and growing and great, instruments of change. Green Saints for a Green Generation taps beautifully into this dynamic for the sake of our suffering Earth, which cries out for no less”.

Read more…

Loading

International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

International Day for the Abolition of Slavery2 December every year is International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. Latest estimates by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) show that forced labour and forced marriage have increased significantly in the last five years. 10 million more people were in modern slavery in 2021 compared to 2016 global estimates, bringing the total to 50 million worldwide. Women and children remain disproportionately vulnerable.

Read more…

Loading

Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery in Australia

Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery in AustraliaInternational Day for the Abolition of Slavery occurs annually on 2 December every year. What is presented in this post are selections from a report on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery in Australia during the year 2022, as compiled by the Australian Institute of Criminology.

Read more…

Loading

Vatican to examine Spiritual Abuse as a crime

Vatican to examine Spiritual Abuse as a crimeThe Vatican may make “spiritual abuse” a formalized crime in Church law, rather than merely an aggravating circumstance of other crimes. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is forming a working group with the Dicastery for Legislative Texts with “the task of analyzing this possibility and presenting concrete proposals” on the matter, according to a paper from the doctrine office dated Nov. 22 and posted online this week.
Read more…

Loading

Who really was Māui, the demigod portrayed in Moana? And did Disney get him right?

 Like the Māui of Polynesia, he can shapeshift

In Moana, there is a mystique around Māui’s demigod status; he sits in the space between the gods and humanity. Like the Māui of Polynesia, he can shapeshift, wields a magic hook and is courageous.

Yet this Hollywood Māui would have no chance against the Māui of Polynesia, who is not a god to be worshipped, but a spirit – a set of characteristics identified through the actions of a person. Māui’s spirit lives today and can be activated by his descendants to do extraordinary things.

Read more…

Loading

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

25 November every year is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Violence against women and girls remains one of the most prevalent and pervasive human rights violations in the world. Globally, almost one in three women have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both, at least once in their life.

For at least 51,100 women in 2023, the cycle of gender-based violence ended with one final and brutal act—their murder by partners and family members. That means a woman was killed every 10 minutes.

Read more…

Loading

Regional Australia has welcomed Iranian Bahá’ís with open arms

A gathering organised by the Baha'i community in Ballarat, From Ballarat to Townsville, Coonamble to Bendigo, Broken Hill to Coffs Harbour, rural and regional towns around our country are among the hundreds of communities home to Iranian Bahá’ís working alongside Bahá’ís and their friends of all backgrounds to build vibrant communities founded on the faith’s message of unity. But here’s the thing: if we were in Iran, where the Bahá’ís are the largest non-Muslim religious minority, we would be persecuted for promoting such a message. We would have our properties burned to the ground. We would be denied access to an education and have our businesses closed. We would have our cemeteries desecrated.

Read more…

Loading

Labor’s watered down hate speech laws fail to appease faith groups

Attorney General Mark Dreyfus Labor has substantially watered down proposed hate speech laws, but is nevertheless facing a religious backlash, with claims it would turn Australia into a police state by creating “thought crime”. The Australian Christian Lobby, the Catholic Church and Christian Schools Australia are among faith organisations to make submissions to the legal and constitutional affairs committee inquiry about the laws.

Read more…

Loading

Today he is a high school football player. Soon he’ll be a Buddhist lama in the Himalayas

U.S.-born Buddhist lama, Jalue Dorje
“He has one foot in the normal high school life. And he has one foot in this amazing Tibetan culture that we have in the state of Minnesota,” said Kate Thomas, one of his tutors and the teachings coordinator at Minneapolis’ Bodhicitta Sangha Heart of Enlightenment Institute.

Read more…

Loading

International Day for Tolerance 2024

International Day for Tolerance 2024The International Day for Tolerance is an annual observance day declared by UNESCO in 1995 to generate public awareness of the dangers of intolerance. It is observed on 16 November. Tolerance is an expression, a behaviour, an attitude, a value of non-violence. It expresses peace in the community and the capacity to live together with differences. In 2024, this day focuses on encouraging dialogue and understanding, particularly among young people, to build a more inclusive future.

Read more…

Loading

Daily Prayers and Meditations for Climate Change – COP 29

COP29

The 2024 Climate Change Conference began in Azerbaijan on November 11. On each day, Prayers and Meditations will be held for the welfare of our Earth and for the welfare of all who have suffered the impact of climate extremes. We will pray for our Earth, we will pray for our Cities, we will pray for our forests, and we will pray for all life-forms on Earth and in the Seas. The weekly prayers up to 5 November have been exceedingly well supported. Now, we continue for the duration of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, daily. All welcome to join.

Read more…

Loading

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese celebrating Diwali and Bandi Chor

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese celebrating Diwali and Bandi Chor

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese posted a few photos on his X handle of himself celebrating the Bandi Chhor Divas, a big day for the Sikh community, on Friday (November 1). Albanese visited Sydney’s Murugan Temple where he celebrated Diwali with the Tamil Australian community. “Deepavali celebrates the victory of light over darkness”.

Read more…

Loading

Pope’s child protection board urges transparency from Vatican sex abuse office and compensation

Pope Francis’ child protection board  issues a report

Pope Francis’ child protection board called Tuesday for victims of clergy sexual abuse to have greater access to information about their cases and the right to compensation, in the first-ever global assessment of the Catholic Church’s efforts to address the crisis.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors issued a series of findings and recommendations in its pilot annual report, zeroing in on the church in a dozen countries, two religious orders and two Vatican offices with detailed analysis.

Read more…

Loading

Only love will save humanity, pope says in encyclical on Sacred Heart

Sacred Heart of Jesus

 

Addressing a world faced with consumerism, division and artificial intelligence, Pope Francis urged faithful to “return to the heart” in his new encyclical, “Dilexit Nos” (“He Loved Us”). “In a word, if love reigns in our heart, we become, in a complete and luminous way, the persons we are meant to be, for every human being is created above all else for love. In the deepest fiber of our being, we were made to love and to be loved,” the pope wrote.

Read more…

Loading