Easter Sunday: We don’t want no resurrection

My favourite resurrection scene is the one in Scorsese’s movie The Last Temptation of Christ, when Jesus calls Lazarus from the grave. I like to think that if this story actually happened, it happened as Scorsese pictures it. First off, Jesus is late. Because Jesus is always late. Like when Notre Dame almost burnt down. …

Good Friday: A face-off with anxiety at the edge of the ocean

Today, I walked alone to the edge of the ocean, to confront my cross. It's Good Friday, after all, it's what you do. But my cross isn't in the church. It's there on the beach, in the shadows of the cliffs, right on the line where the surf comes to the end of itself and …

Losing my religion: Why I am NOT a Christian writer

The first time I was told I wasn't a Christian because of something I'd written was after the publication of my first book, This Little Piggy Stayed Home: Barlow, Chambers and the Mafia. As the title suggests, it was about the Mafia, which I'd been investigating for my employer, The West Australian Newspaper, for more …

Shut up and listen: a ‘Christian’ response

What's an appropriate 'Christian' response to the white supremacist attack on the mosques in Christchurch on Friday — I mean, apart from our grief, or our support, or our kindness to those who are suffering as a direct result of the attack, or even those traumatised by it from a distance. Behind my question is the …

What’s love got to do with it: Theology and its defences against the dark arts

Towards the end of my very brief career as a theologian in a conservative, fundamentalist, NZ theological college, I had come to the sad realisation that theology, as an academic discipline, is unable — incapable rather than unwilling — to say things about love that art, even in its most popular forms, is more naturally …

Remembering Gracetown: How life looks from the ‘outside’

To this day I am fearful of cliffs and rugged west coast beaches because of what happened at Huzzas in Gracetown, Western Australia, on Friday, September 27, 1996. Twenty-two years ago.  After days of rain, the limestone overhang beneath which surfers had sheltered for years before heading out to the surf breaks at Huzzas or …

World cries out for cruciform love: a dialogue with Brad Jersak

I had a dialogue today with Canadian author and theologian Brad Jersak about the death of American evangelicalism, the retributive violence of the Trumpian-Christian worldview, and what theology might look like as it moves back into the public square and offers hope in these dark times. The following is a snippet: David: “What is the …