Author: Alister Pate

I'm a minister in the Uniting Church in Australia, with two congregations: one in Northcote / Chalice, which now includes Cafechurch Melbourne, and one up the road in Reservoir, confusingly known as Preston High Street. I am

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Christianity Faith Religion sermons

Do Not Be Afraid

Imagine yourself a tourist in New York City on the 8th of November, 2001. You’ve gotten up early in the morning to take in the sights, and you find yourself gazing up at the enormous glass and steel man made mountains that were the World Trade Centre….. If even something as permanent seeming and invulnerable as the Twin Towers can come down, glinting in the sun one moment and a nightmare of ash and collapsed building materials the next – then what can you trust? What can you have confidence in?

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Christianity Faith sermons

The Book of Revelation and All Saints Day

What does the festival of All Saints have to do with understanding the Book of Revelation? Surely in this world come of age the time has come to turn our backs on such highly coloured images from our ancient past?

Or has it?

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Faith Philosophy Religion sermons

What do you want?

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Jesus asked James and John: “What do you want me to do for you?”

It’s a hard question – As the psychologist Abraham Maslow said: “It isn’t normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.”

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Christianity Faith Religion sermons Spirituality Spirituality in the Ordinary Suffering Uncategorized

Job: Suffering and Transformation

There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. Job 1:1 So begins the book of Job. It’s a kind of fairy story really. Job is an archetype of the good man. He has no […]

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Christianity Culture and Society deconstruct-reconstruct Faith Philosophy Uncategorized

Its melancholy withdrawing roar?

This blog post is part of a series (starting here) exploring what Charles Taylor can teach us about how faith and secularity interact in his (enormous) work A Secular Age. One of Taylor’s main points seems to be that there is a big story in our culture that Science inevitably replaces Faith. Matthew Arnold’s poem On […]

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Books Culture and Society deconstruct-reconstruct Doubt Faith Philosophy Religion Uncategorized

Charles Taylor and The Sea of Faith

Photo by Chris Reid, from Unsplash.com

The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world Matthew Arnold On Dover Beach […]

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Christianity Culture and Society Faith Spirituality

ANZAC Day, The Meaningful Cosmos, and Jesus the Cornerstone

When we look outwards, we see the wheeling, uncaring universe. When we look within we are stirred by the call to self sacrifice of ANZAC day. How do we make sense of our lives in a way that joins the little picture of my life to the big picture of the universe?

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sermons Spirituality Spirituality in the Ordinary Suffering

Grains of Wheat and Suffering

This is a complex passage, with a lot going on. Greeks want to see Jesus. But instead they go and talk to one of his disciples, who then finds another disciple, and then go to Jesus (with the Greeks?) Jesus then, instead of saying yes or no, makes the declaration that his hour has now […]

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sermons

John the Baptizer and Salvation History

The opening line of the gospel spells out our theme for today: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” This week we remember Jesus’ place in salvation history – the actual event of his coming into the world, in the context of the story of God’s dealings with the […]

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sermons Uncategorized Underappreciated and Uncool Culture

Jesus, Independence Day and Countercultural Hope

What can the film Independence Day and 911 teach us about Jesus’ mysterious, not to say alarming, apocalyptic language in his prediction of the fall of the Temple? Is there anything more countercultural than hope?