Year: 2010

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Cheap Grace

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a dude. I’m currently working on an essay on his theological ethics, probably my favourite essay of the year. Here’s a quote on ‘Cheap Grace’:

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace… Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheap jacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion thrown away at cut prices… Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer – 1937

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My problem with the proposed Ethics classes in NSW

The NSW Education Department have recently trialled Ethics classes as an alternative for students who are not currently part of SRE (Special Religious Education) classes. Lots of Christians and other providers of SRE have been lobbying for this to be reconsidered, seeing it as a potential threat to the ongoing provision of SRE in the school timetable.

While I agree with much of the lobbying that has been undertaken, my primary concern with the proposed classes is to do with the already existing school curriculum.

I have a double degree in Bachelor Arts/Bachelor of Teaching (Primary Education). For my major research project at University, I focused on ‘Morals, Values and Ethics in the HSIE (Human Society in its Environment) Syllabus’.

Providing the HSIE Syllabus has not changed since my studies and time as a School Teacher, at its core HSIE is already supposed to be teaching students morals, values and ethics. So to propose Ethics classes as an alternative to SRE is a failure of teachers and/or the system to adequately follow through on the ethical framework already integral to the HSIE program.

Those who are currently down with the HSIE documents, is this a fair call?

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100 Free High Quality WordPress Themes

If you want to make a website, go to wordpress.com and set one up for free. It’s easy. If you’ve done that and want greater flexibility, buy some web-hosting from bluehost and upload your own template. There are 100s and 1000s of free templates available for wordpress. Some a pretty average. The best way to sift through them all is to:

  1. Pay for a premium template. Start here for some good ones
  2. Check out the new gallery of 100 free themes over at Smashing Mag
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I’m Sorry Anna Nicole

“Men must have the political courage to work to end all forms of violence against women, especially the commercial sexual exploitation that is fueling sex trafficking. Male leaders have an enormous task, because their work will be done in a cultural context that has constructed their manhood around the pornification of human sexuality. Click on the link at YouTube [below] to watch an example of this leadership: Jonathan Walton reading his poem, “I’m Sorry Anna Nicole”, at a recent CATW event in New York on December 2, 2009.”

Find out more about the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)

(h/t ben via twitter)

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3 Tips for First Time (or Undecided) Voters

It’s time to get you vote on, tomorrow! I’ve posted a bunch of politics related posts in the last few weeks. You can read them here. I know lots of Christians who aren’t quite sure how to think through who to vote for. I think this is particularly for younger Christians who are voting for the first time and working out if they will vote for their parents party or a different one. It’s not too late to take an hour or two before you vote to think things through. My 3 tips for first time (or undecided) voters are the 3 recommended reading lists below.

1. Centre for Public Christianity | Federal Election 2010 – CPX regularly do a killer job at showing how Christianity intersects with all areas of life and society. I’ve only had a look at a few of the articles and videos, but their election 2010 coverage is comprehensive and very useful. They include the following areas of discussion:  Christians and Politics; Economics; Education; Environment; Family and Community; Justice; Refugees; and Politicians. Read/view more here.

2. The Box Pop | On Voting and Jesus – Steve Boxwell is one of my peeps from College. He single handedly coached our whole year through Philosophy 1, Philosophy 2 and Philosophy 3. He’s also the “politics guy”. Because lots of people regularly ask him questions about politics etc, he thought it would be good to punch out some blog posts this week with some thinking on “voting and Jesus”. Steve puts his cards on the table and says how he will be voting. Regardless of whether you come to the same conclusions or not, this series will help you think through lots of the issues. It kinda feels like that year 6 trip to Canberra! Read them all here.

3. FERVR.NET | Series on Voting – let me be honest, I only read the first post in this series, so the whole series could be a lemon for all I know! But I’m guessing it’s useful. FERVR.NET is a youth website I help write for, so these 5 articles might be the simplest and first stop for younger punks.

Happy voting.

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Young Christians Day Conference 2010

Scripture Union are again running Young Christians Day Conference, it’s coming very soon!! YCDC 2010 is on Saturday 4th September, 2pm-830pm at St Paul’s Chatswood (map). This year we’ll be looking at 1 Peter 4. If you’re in high school (or just out of high school) get your butt there! It should be a sweet sweet time.

Featuring: Toby Neal, Dave Miers and Chasing Light.

Check out the website for more details and to register.