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Hey Christian Girl

I love Feminist Ryan Gosling. As a meme, ‘Hey Girl’ is necessarily ironic and self-referential. I was delighted to discover Hey Christian Girl. It takes the old ‘Christian pick up lines’ idea to a whole new level. Some are hopelessly American but they’re all good for a laugh. As Jezebel […]

Mabo and the Great Advocate

For many of us Australians, to say ‘It’s Mabo, it’s the vibe’ may be more famous than the Mabo native title fight itself. To be educated about such an historic moment for Australia is one reason it’s worth catching Rachel Perkins’ drama about Eddie Mabo which screened on ABC this […]

Learning from Nanny

My Nanny died last weekend. I was in Adelaide speaking at a conference so I got to see her the night before. We’re currently in Adelaide for the funeral.  My family ended the death notice in the paper with my Nanny’s own self description, that she was ‘Completely His’.

How far can contextualisation go?

I believe in contextualisation, of putting off my own cultural baggage to take up another culture. I believe in it as an act of love, because it communicates the dignity of that culture and an act of humility, because it doesn’t assume that my culture is superior. People like Roberto […]

How do Africans read the Bible?

This weekend I started Philip Jenkins’ fantastic (and very readable) The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South. He traces the issues that have divided the global Christian world in modern times: gender, sexual morality and homosexuality, and looking for reasons for why ‘the West’ and […]