When Father Bob Maguire was forced to retire from his South Melbourne parish, the community – and wider Melbourne – was devastated and outraged. Father Bob is an iconoclast, known for his radio and t…
Visiting from the United States for the Rationalist Society of Australia, Sean Faircloth speaks to the issues raised in his book Attack of the Theocrats: How the Religious Right Harms Us All – and…
Visiting from the United States for the Rationalist Society of Australia, hear Sean Faircloth speak to the issues raised in his book Attack of the Theocrats: How the Religious Right Harms Us All &ndash…
Privacy in the digital age is a hot-button issue, from WikiLeaks to who owns your Facebook photos. With Liberty Victoria, we present a hypothetical discussion encompassing the church, child abuse…
Death is the most personal of matters, but it’s also a political hot potato.Most of us don’t choose (or even expect) the way in which we die, but for the terminally ill, death is a looming certainty …
Death is the most personal of matters, but it’s also a political hot potato.Most of us don’t choose (or even expect) the way in which we die, but for the terminally ill, death is a looming certainty …
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Faith and Culture: The Politics of Belief was a four-day lecture series which took place from Thursday 14 to Sunday 17 June at BMW Edge, Federation Square.Curated by celebrated…
By Jeff SparrowIn Jeff Sparrow’s new book, Money Shot, he explores the relationship between porn and censorship, and what it reveals about our social values. Along the way, he journeys from the…
Over four days, our 20 plus speakers – philosophers and theologians, historians and writers, believers and non-believers – will consider what it means to be religious, and what role the voice of…
Over four days, our 20 plus speakers – philosophers and theologians, historians and writers, believers and non-believers – will consider what it means to be religious, and what role the voice of…
Over four days, our 20 plus speakers – philosophers and theologians, historians and writers, believers and non-believers – will consider what it means to be religious, and what role the voice of…
Over four days, our 20 plus speakers – philosophers and theologians, historians and writers, believers and non-believers – will consider what it means to be religious, and what role the voice of…
Over four days, our 20 plus speakers – philosophers and theologians, historians and writers, believers and non-believers – will consider what it means to be religious, and what role the voice of…
Over four days, our 20 plus speakers – philosophers and theologians, historians and writers, believers and non-believers – will consider what it means to be religious, and what role the voice of…
Over four days, our 20 plus speakers – philosophers and theologians, historians and writers, believers and non-believers – will consider what it means to be religious, and what role the voice of…
Over four days, our 20 plus speakers – philosophers and theologians, historians and writers, believers and non-believers – will consider what it means to be religious, and what role the voice of…
In this panel discussion (which opened our Faith and Culture lectures), series curator Raimond Gaita, Asma Barlas, Susan Neiman, Bernadette Tobin and Scott Stephens examine and expand on the ideas…
In his address to open the Wheeler Centre’s Faith and Culture program, series curator Raimond Gaita makes the case for why, in a world beset by religious conflict on the one hand and ‘the new…
Stanley Hauerwas, often described as America’s leading theologian, was promised to God from an early age: before birth, in fact.His mother, who was having trouble conceiving, made a bargain with…
In western Europe, ‘multicultural’ has become a dirty word.In Britain, the aversion to multiculturalism (and Muslims in particular) began in 1989, with the furore over Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic…
Moral philosopher and series curator Raimond Gaita introduces the Wheeler Centre’s free lecture programme from June 14-17, 2012, at BMW Edge, Federation Square.
Asma Barlas moves between worlds; she’s a ‘cultural hybrid’. Born and raised in Pakistan, English was her first language and she received a western education. She now lives in the US, where she has b…
Susan Neiman is an optimist; and a progressive. Hope is at the core of her quest to take back words like ‘moral clarity’ and ‘moral values’ from conservatives.Her book Moral Clarity (2008) is the…
Gay marriage, rituals and drawing inspiration from disaster: can we be secular and be spiritual? Is this a threat to the old guard? What will be destroyed if more people ask questions of religious…
In person, Jeanette Winterson has a somehow otherworldly appearance. Small and lithe, her short hair curling over her ears and at the nape of her neck, she resembles an elf or a pixie.Light-footed…
For full transcripts of all lectures plus audio and video of the events, visit our series archive.A four-day lecture series from Thursday 14 to Sunday 17 June at BMW Edge, Federation Square.A day or …
Chris Stedman is an atheist working to foster positive and productive dialogue between faith communities and the non-religious. Visiting from the States in advance of his new book, he charts his…
Chris Stedman is an atheist working to foster positive and productive dialogue between faith communities and the non-religious. Visiting from the States in advance of his new book, he charts his…
More than half of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims, and 60% of the world’s Christians, live along the ‘tenth parallel’. This latitudinal line, spanning the globe ten degrees north of the equator, is t…
More than half of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims, and 60% of the world’s Christians, live along the ‘tenth parallel’. This latitudinal line, spanning the globe ten degrees north of the equator, is t…
Alom Shaha is a British–Bangladeshi film-maker, science writer and unabashed atheist. In The Young Atheist’s Handbook, he argues that regardless of the strictness of the traditions you are raised…
Alom Shaha is a British–Bangladeshi film-maker, science writer and unabashed atheist. In The Young Atheist’s Handbook, he argues that regardless of the strictness of the traditions you are raised…
Few thinkers have succeeded in bringing the world of ideas beyond the ivory tower with such clarity and grace as Alain de Botton. Since his breakthrough study of Marcel Proust, his work has touched o…
Few thinkers have succeeded in bringing the world of ideas beyond the ivory tower with such clarity and grace as Alain de Botton. In an event that extends one of the Wheeler Centre chief themes for t…
For almost two millennia, the Catholic Church has been the author and repository of some of the highest ideals of humanity. Yet, as humanity is flawed, so is the Church. Few would deny that the…
A push by parishioners of Father Bob Maguire to have his retirement delayed a second time has failed. The Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart has written to the popular priest that his…
In recent days, tragic events in Cairo’s Tahrir Square have overshadowed the previous gains of the Arabic Spring. The violence claimed the lives of 26 and injured some 300 more – all unarmed – after …
The online Australian-Muslim magazine Sultana’s Dream has just published its second edition. Editor Hanifa Deen introduces the issue with an editorial on the burqa, which to many Westerners has…
‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’, by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887, via WikiCommons
God has finally set a date for the end of the world. The apocalypse is set to take place o…
Its publication was a milestone in the making of modern England. For centuries, it was all the literature many English speakers around the world ever knew. It peppered our language with phrases like …
Joining us in this edition of Lunchbox/Soapbox is Dr David Tacey, Associate Professor and Reader in Arts at La Trobe University, where he teaches literature, spirituality and Jungian psychology.The a…
There’s been more grist to the mill in the debate around religious instruction in schools. Our Talking Point on Tuesday – ‘Should religion be taught in state education?’ – brought out some amazing r…
In a presentation to a federal parliamentary inquiry this week, the Islamic Council of Victoria has argued that the freedom to wear the Muslim veil is a true test of a society’s tolerance. The…
Image of crucifix via WikiCommons
Update, Friday April 8:All week we’ve been talking about the division of religion and state, particularly in relation to education. We…
Published to immense acclaim in France, under the title Jan Karski, The Messenger is a compelling and tragic story. An extraordinary novelised biography by Yannick Haenel about a man’s moral courage …
People of faith (and people without) came together to reflect on how their beliefs shape their attitudes to the afterlife.In partnership with the Melbourne International Festival, the Matter of Life …
People of faith (and people without) come together to reflect on how their beliefs shape their attitudes to the afterlife.In partnership with the Melbourne International Festival, the Matter of Life …
In this session, Sisters Maryanne Confoy, Janette Gray and Mary Coloe join presenter Sarah L'Estrange to talk about how their reading habits have influenced their careers and enhanced their lives.The…
Image courtesy of el7bara
US pastor Terry Jones has put away his gasoline and scrapped his plan to publicly burn the Koran, BBC News reports.The pastor from Dove World…
Hanifa Deen is fed up with writing about Muslims, reading about Muslims, defending Muslims and obsessing about Muslims in general but is having trouble getting off the ‘Muslim merry-go-round’. She…
Hanifa Deen is fed up with writing about Muslims, reading about Muslims, defending Muslims and obsessing about Muslims in general but is having trouble getting off the ‘Muslim merry-go-round’.In…
In partnership with the Australian Literary Review, editor Stephen Romei leads a panel through a substantial
discussion of the places where ideas and literary commentary meet.In the wake of several v…
In partnership with the Australian Literary Review, editor Stephen Romei leads a discussion of the places where ideas and literary commentary meet.In the wake of several visits to Australia from…
Image courtesy of Roman Gomez
Almost two out of three Australians identified themselves as Christians at the last census, which seems to create a large…
Novelist Anne Rice posted a message on her Facebook page last week saying “I quit being a Christian.”Best known for her Vampire Chronicles series, Rice’s reasons for leaving the church are not so…
Feminist and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali brought her controversial take on Islam to Melbourne. She spoke to Jennifer Byrne about her personal journey from Islam, how “multiculturalism is a form of…
Parish priest? Yes. Social advocate? Sure. Revolutionary? Maybe. Cantankerous? Definitely. Father Bob Maguire has become a living national treasure for his forthright opinions.In this…
Social advocate and parish priest, Father Bob McGuire has been described as a national living treasure. On his popular blog and radio program he challenges convention and calls for action on issues …
Our upcoming lunchbox/Soapboxer Father Bob Maguire had a busy weekend completing the Run Melbourne 5km walk in just over an hour, but at the cost of his mobile, the Age reports.During the course of …
As part of the IQ2 Debate series, Hanifa Deen argues that Australia has not escaped its racist past. She talks about how we borrowed our White Australia test from South Africa, vilified Chinese and A…
