The Longing
Stuff that didn't quite make it into The Briefing
Turning a Christian prayer into Muslim propaganda
Andrew Lansdown / July 2004
Eight years ago, on 23 January 1996, Pastor Joe Wright delivered a prayer to the Kansas House of Representatives in Topeka, USA. His prayer was remarkable for its courage and clarity in condemning many evils prevalent in American society and in Western societies generally.
Since its first utterance, ‘The Prayer of Repentance’ has been widely circulated among Christians. Indeed, in recent months, Christians in Australia have been emailing it to one another with admiration and for encouragement.
And now Muslims have adopted Pastor Wright's
Learning not to trust
Tony Payne / July 2004
There is a certain mystique about newspapers—the piles of identical bulletins stacked in the newsagent, the solemn blackness of the headlines, the ink on your fingers, the wrinkly familiarity of spreading it out in front of you on the table. I'm not sure how the combination works, but whatever the reason, I still find it hard not to believe what I read there. There is a gravitas, a kind of aura of trust, that seems to emanate from the pages. Surely if it's there in black and white, then it must have happened like that?
I think this
Book club reading guide
The Briefing / July 2004
Download this reading guide and distribute it to the members of your book club to facilitate discussion (PDF 48 kb).
Suggested reading lists for book clubs
Rory Shiner and Greg Clarke / July 2004
Rory Shiner's top fives
Top 5 Christian books
- Letters Along the Way by John Woodbridge and Don Carson
- Islam in Our Backyard by Tony Payne
- The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
- Knowing God by J.I. Packer
- The True and Living God by Kim Hawtrey
Top 5 fiction books (great literature that raises Christian issues)
- Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
- Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
- The Outsider by Albert Camus
- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Top 5 books about books (Christian and otherwise)
- An Experiment in Criticism