Anyone spot the problem in this picture? Got it yet? Yep, after hundreds of flights, and an equal number of safety instruction demonstrations before the flight takes off, you know that you are supposed to put the oxygen mask around your mouth and nose. You did know that right? These passengers on the unfortunate Southwestern Airlines flight this past […]
Transparent waste recycle bins. So we can see what you/others are throwing away. Coming to a suburb near you. An inner-city or coastal suburb near you if you live in Perth, or actually coming to you if you live in one of those suburbs. There’s a good idea in there somewhere, probably down near the bottom under […]
In the aftermath of the media storm that engulfed his comments about homosexuality on Instagram, rugby union star Israel Folau has had a long, and personal article published in online player’s journal Player’s Voice Folau’s great crime in the eyes of the Sexular Culture was to answer a question about homosexual activity in the negative. […]
The resignation of Bill Hybels from Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago this past week follows the dispiriting pattern of mea culpas we have seen in the secular world, when issues of impropriety are exposed. Something creeps in to the church, a bracket creep in which the church edges its way towards the crisis management […]
So Israel Folau has not been sanctioned by the Australian Rugby Union for his tweet about those unrepentantly practicing homosexual behaviour ending up in hell. It’s been a merry dance for all concerned. And Folau has managed – just – to stay ahead of the pack. Following a meeting with the ARU it was stressed […]
I’ve noticed the Mazda ads in the bus shelters the past few days. “Be moved like never before” they cajole, offering me a level of transcendence usually reserved for love or religion. The TV ad has been around since mid-2017 and features a series of dancers, floating around the new Mazda CX-3. Visually stunning. And […]
Fake news is not a new thing. Consider this: Abraham Lincoln was a woman! That John Wilkes Booth sure took things to extremes. Or what about Tupac? Quite why that bad boy would settle for NZ when Sydney is just across the water is beyond me. But it proves fake news is not a new thing. […]
Constantinople, unlike the ancient Roman pagan cities, had no arena. It’s something Peter Leithart points out to those who blithely say “Oh it’s the end of Christendom, and thats a good thing. All that expectation that everyone was Christian, blah, blah, blah”. That’s a cheap and cheerful and less than academic response to Christendom. However […]
The Australian cricket team is dead to me. Shouty, potty mouthed Dave Warner and his antics looks tame at the moment. In these crazy topsy turvy times, when who’s to know what’s right and wrong, tampering with the cricket ball to give your out-played team an advantage is black and white wrong. Whoever put opener […]
I loved Larry Norman. The Jesus Movement godfather was the spirt and soul of the Boomer-led shift away from political conservatism and religious fundamentalism that were features of the US church back in the 60s. And he was a huge music figure even outside the world of Christian music. There’s a great photo of him […]
I didn’t watch the Winter Olympics. Love the summer games, but the winter games leave me, ahem, cold. But I gotta say there’s something about that crazy event curling that even gets me watching. You know the sport? I’m not sure why it’s a thing, but somehow you can represent your country at it. I […]
Billy Graham met the Queen many a time in his life. But now in his death he has finally met the King. I loved the easy manner in which his relationship with the Queen is portrayed in that wonderful Netflix series The Crown. It is warm and intimate. Graham was granted an honorary knighthood by […]
What do the Sex Pistols and the Bible have in common? They’ve both been subjected to government bans. In 1977 The Sex Pistols released their version of God Save The Queen, in ironic and chaotic celebration of the Silver Jubilee of the British sovereign. The BBC decided to ban it. The song went to #1. […]
The courage to be counter-intuitive is rare, but necessary. And increasingly rare, and therefore increasingly necessary in this brittle, brutal media-saturated world. This struck me listening to Jordan Peterson (him again!) on Richard Fidler’s excellent ABC Conversations program, a podcast that has three million subscribers. Three million subscribers. Think about that. Three million subscribers listening […]
And Jesus said, “If anyone would be my follower, he must click “like” and follow me. It’s that time of the year again. The time of the year when Facebook memes about Easter start popping up. I was particularly taken with the meme with rather kitsch 1950s Norman Rockwell feel to it, of Jesus struggling […]
Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him and said, “Prophesy to us, Messiah. Who hit you?” Of all of the passages describing what the religious leaders and their crowd did to Jesus before his crucifixion, it’s the verses above that get to me the most. The description […]
It’s hard to believe this painting, or more precisely, fragment of a large altarpiece, is more than 400 years old: It just looks so modern. El Greco’s The Opening of the Fifth Seal (from Revelation 6) was painted for a church in Toledo, Spain in 1608, and now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art […]
The goal of the church is not to help the modern city to flourish. Well, not insofar as the modern city views flourishing. The goal of the church is not to seek the welfare of the modern city. At least not insofar as the modern city understands its welfare. That sounds anathema to ears marinaded […]
Jewish children rarely have peanut allergies. Come to think of it, very few people in my primary school had peanut allergies either. There we were in the playground, hair to our collars, flared corduroys, white hi-tops, dreaming of the days when the internet would be invented, and stoically eating peanut butter sandwiches at lunchtime. Every […]
Would you be willing to financially support my writing ministry in 2018? I’m now in the sixth year of blogging at stephenmcalpine.com and in that time the readership has grown exponentially. My blog has been an effective platform for engagement with Christians – and others – about the nature of the times we live in, […]
Jordan Peterson is like the planking craze of 2011; just two months ago no one had heard of him, now he’s an international meme. Planking (remember that?), was the crazy act of lying down in an equally crazy place (some people just call that “sleeping it off”). It looked a little something like this: It […]
The latest ABC promotion for the Mardis Gras event in Sydney this weekend is indeed a thing of beauty. And that’s a promotion on the ABC ME site, not the adult site. ME is for young adults, though the ABC would have to admit that most of the kids in this promotional video are still […]
