Columns

  • Are we sensitive enough to hear the cry of the poor?

    Jun 21, 2019

    The Orang Asli in Kuala Koh are suffering from some mysterious disease that has already taken 14 lives. Orang Asli in other parts of the country have been facing encroachment into their native customary land and conversion of forests to plantations for some time now. They are also worried about the impact of nearby economic activity such as logging and mining.

  • Equality and justice in the kingdom of God

    Jun 14, 2019

    Every year, the international charity confederation Oxfam provides its annual update on the state of the world and each time it makes for dismal reading. Wealth and income disparities seem to be growing ever-wider.

  • Faith, fear and death

    Jun 13, 2019

    A common soldier dies without fear; Jesus died afraid. Iris Murdoch wrote those words which, I believe, help expose an oversimplistic notion we have o

  • Young people give us hope for change

    May 30, 2019

    On 24 May, some 1.8 million people in 2,350 cities from 125 countries across the world joined in a global climate strike to highlight the urgency of doing more to resolve the climate crisis.

  • The problem of poverty in the kingdom of God

    May 25, 2019

    Many others were living off these peasants and fisher-folk who toiled from dawn to dusk. Farmers’ land may have been seized when harvests were poor. I

  • Language, symbols and self-understanding

    May 25, 2019

    A reporter once asked two men at the construction site where a church was being built what each did for a living. The first man replied: “I’m a brickl

  • Who goes to hell and who doesn’t?

    May 18, 2019

    Hell is never a nasty surprise waiting for a basically happy person. Nor is it necessarily a predictable ending for an unhappy, bitter person. Can a h

  • Shared prosperity for all

    May 18, 2019

    Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s “shared prosperity” agenda for 2030 could not have been more timely.

  • Beyond mysticism

    May 10, 2019

    “I’m a practisng mystic!” A woman said that in one of my classes some years ago and it raised lots of eyebrows. I was teaching a class in mysticism and asked the students why the topic of mysticism interested them.

  • Bread and fish: Thy will be done

    May 10, 2019

    The kingdom of God which Jesus proclaimed is so closely associated with food, even feasting and heavenly banquets.