What are the different ethical positions on using embryonic stem cells? Megan Best reviews the Australian debate of the past few years.

I expect that most readers were aware of the stem cell debate that continued through 2002. It culminated in the passing of federal legislation that decided the fate of excess human embryos which are stored in assisted reproductive technology (ART) labs around the country. The public debate surrounding the

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CASE ran a conference on Humans and Machines on 25-28 November 2004. Greg Clarke gave an opening address on ‘Imagining the Human Future’ (4.79 MB; 41:51).

Here is a valuable article from Tim Keller, senior minister at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, on the kinds of beliefs which prevent people from hearing the Christian message. There are plenty of intersections here with the attractive apologetics approach of CASE.

Every culture hostile to Christianity holds to a set of ‘common-sense’ consensus beliefs that automatically make Christianity seem implausible to people. These are what

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David Starling offers these notes from the diary of a pastor on what to make of the Mel Gibson passion film.

The violence
As everyone had warned me, it was a violent film - much more violent than I’m used to watching at the movies. Parts of the film I just couldn’t watch. In other parts, I had to keep reminding myself that this was a film, not the real thing, that the actor was just an actor and the blood was just make-up. Nevertheless, the fact

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How does a Christian ethicist rate the Australian government’s performance on asylum seekers?

In April and May 2004, a row erupted in Australia between the officers of three courts, and a Federal Government Minister. At the centre of the dispute were five detained children. Then in May, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission presented a report on its enquiry into children in detention in Australia. The dispute and the report highlight

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What happens when God isn’t looking? Greg Clarke looks at the connections between the death of God in modernity and the behaviour and moral universe of Modernist writers and artists.

"The fool says in his heart ‘There is no God’", according to the writer of Psalm 14. The Hebrew words translated as "fool" in the Psalms apparently refer not to someone’s intellect, but to their moral fibre. A fool is not an idiot, but a reprobate. He (or she) doesn’t

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The Re-enchantment of Nature, Alister McGrath, one of the most prolific of living evangelical theologians, turns his attention once again to the interface of science and Christian faith. As he notes in the introduction to this volume, this is a return to his roots—for McGrath was first a working scientist (in the field of molecular biophysics) before he turned to Christian theology. In this book he brings his two interests together, with a

I live in Sydney, which means I am compelled to live and breathe real estate. My interest is piqued by special newspaper supplements, home improvement television and the headlining news of adjustments in interest rates. Even social conversation is frequently hijacked by concerns of who is looking for what, and who is doing up which so that they can sell it for something else. The ‘built environment’ has so filled our horizons that we cannot see past

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In 1995, after completing my PhD on magic and the Reformation in England, I found myself being interviewed on talkback radio about witchcraft. It was a rather uneven interview: the interviewer was far more interested in one of the callers, a self-confessed witch, than she was in my academic research.

Most of the book is a collection of source material about witchcraft, including folklore, theology and legal writings; the best collection I have come

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Is genetic intervention likely to change our concepts of human nature? Professor of Anatomy, D. Gareth Jones explores the hype and the hope behind new forms of therapy, and ponders a Christian approach based on humility before the Creator.

Genetics and humility—a contradiction in terms? The world of genetics can be intensely misleading, since it lends itself to oversimplification. Images of ‘designer babies’, the rampant cloning of famous and