Category Archives: Opinion

Fr. Daryl McCullough—and Aboriginal Anglican priest from Western NSW—has written a turgid 4,000-word opinion piece in Eternity responding to my original 800-word article as to why Christian organisations should not engage in the use of indigenous protocols. He raises a number of significant concerns which I thought would be helpful to provide a response to help further clarify the issue (Proverbs 27:17). At its recent General Assembly, the Presbyterian Church of Australia discussed the use of Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country protocols. I was one of a significant number who expressed their personal concerns about doing so. The…

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has given an unusually emotional speech about people having the freedom to articulate ideas she doesn’t like. The German leader warned, “We have freedom of expression in our country. For all those who claim they can no longer express their opinion, I say this to them. If you express a pronounced opinion you must live with the fact that you will be contradicted. Expressing an opinion does not come at zero cost. But freedom of expression has its limits. Those limits begin where hatred is spread. They begin where the dignity of other people is violated.…

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Those of you who were correctly raised will remember watching the Princess Bride (if truly correctly then many times), a movie that despite all of its ridiculousness is one of the most classic fantasy love tales ever told. You may also recall how Vizzini the scheming kidnapper keeps describing situations involving the witty hero Westley that is happening before his eyes as ‘inconceivable’. Eventually, the honourable and loveable Inigo Montoya eventually says ‘You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.’ Ah, how classic, such a fun movie, but oh what a great…

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On this day in 1898, Clive Staples Lewis, one of the greatest intellectual thinkers of the twentieth century was born. To this day, C.S. Lewis remains one of the world’s best-loved writers. His masterpiece series, The Chronicles of Narnia, has sold over 100 million copies and has been transformed into three major motion pictures, with more reportedly to come. On a side note, few might know the name Caldron Pool finds its origin in the series. In 1944, Lewis wrote a column under the title Notes on the Way for the political and literary review magazine Time & Tide. One of his articles,…

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Social media giant Twitter has updated their terms of service to allow their users to discuss adult attraction to minors as well as share artistic depictions of nude children. The updated policy states: “Discussions related to child sexual exploitation as a phenomenon or attraction towards minors are permitted, provided they don’t promote or glorify child sexual exploitation in any way.” Follow Caldron Pool on Facebook, Twitter, and Parler! Twitter went on to allow for nude depictions of minors in certain instances, stating: “Artistic depictions of nude minors in a non-sexualized context or setting may be permitted in a limited number of scenarios e.g., works…

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Scottish Pastor, Richard Cameron, was suspended by church officials this week, until further notice, after “heckling” openly socialist, U.K. Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn, who has the potential of becoming the U.K’s next Prime Minister in the December election, was day two into his campaign trail in Glasgow, when according to The Scottish Sun, Cameron, a 60-year-old Church of Scotland minister, approached the Labour leader. Referring to Corbyn’s tartan scarf and his criticism of the United States actions against the late ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Cameron stated: I thought you’d be wearing an Islamic jihad scarf. Do you think…

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In the absence of Australian consumers having any actual influence on historical global climate variations, Greens MP for Melbourne Adam Bandt has decided to justify his incessant outrage and reframe our national guilt as “the third largest exporter of climate pollution in the world.” To confirm his outrage, he typed the last three words in all capitals – “IN THE WORLD”. There’s room to escalate though as he refrained from an exclamation mark or three. If climate pollution was an Olympic sport, Scott Morrison would be on the podium with a medal. PM can’t admit Aust is the 3rd largest…

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Both Welcome to Country—said by an indigenous person—and Acknowledgement of Country—which is said by someone who is not indigenous—have become a popular practice in the media, government and even in business. What’s more, Aboriginal smoking ceremonies to ward off evil spirits have become an integral part of the opening of the Australian parliament for the past decade. Significantly, a range of these ‘indigenous protocols’ is also being increasingly conducted at the opening of church services, ecclesiastical synods, graduation ceremonies, school assemblies, etc. But while the motivation behind it is well-intentioned, I believe that the rationale for doing so is fundamentally…

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It doesn’t matter if the ideology you oppose isn’t explicitly communicated in the first two films. If the train is destined to crash, then we ought to kill off any and all allurements back to the excitement of the carriage as quickly as possible.

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The quote below, taken from Tolstoy’s ‘A Confession’, reads like a critique of the leviathan that is social media: We were all then convinced that it was necessary for us to speak, write, and print as quickly as possible and as much as possible, and that it was all wanted for the good of humanity. And thousands of us, contradicting and abusing one another, all printed and wrote — teaching others. And without noticing that we knew nothing, and that to the simplest of life’s questions: What is good and what is evil? We did not know how to reply,…

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Izzy Folau is in the news again for saying something offensive. This time it’s not because of something he posted on social media but what he said in church. If you haven’t done so already, take the time to listen to his twelve-minute sermon before reading any further… However, this time it was not only those in the unbelieving media who were quick to pour scorn n Folau, but many within the Christian Church were eager to distance themselves as well. Everyone from the Prime Minister Scott Morrison—who said that Folau’s comments were “appallingly insensitive”—to Brian Houston who wrote on…

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The story goes that a student of philosophy was asked in an exam to prove a chair which had been placed where everyone could see it at the front of the exam hall did not exist. Students were expected to discuss the 20th-century philosophers who posited ideas about subjective human existence and questioned our relationship with reality. But this two word complete response, if the urban legend is to be believed, received top marks for its reflection of the possibility the chair was an illusion of the examiner’s mind. If you’re a person who tends to vote right of centre…

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Some readers may have struggled with the drought for years, and now, especially in NSW and Queensland, may be confronted with the more immediate threat of fire. Television brings the story to the wider population, but it tends to have a deadening effect too. To watch uncontrolled fire for a minute, then sit through an advertisement for something one does not need, and then, worse, have to endure an ad for Bride and Prejudice, would desensitise anyone’s moral sensibilities. Given all that, what is the Christian to make of what we call natural disasters? 1. We are to do good…

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Last week, Ellie Goulding, an award-winning British singer, decided to rethink a scheduled performance in support of The Salvation Army’s “Red Kettle Kickoff”, at an American Thanksgiving Day NFL Show. The decision was made in response to an Instagram follower falsely accusing The Salvation Army of discriminating against the LGBT community – claiming that the organization was employing passive euthanasia against the homeless: So sad to see Ellie supporting them :// they’re extremely homo/transphobic, literally to the point of letting queer homeless ppl die. Wish she had done some research beforehand or something.” @angelsporch The comment was a reaction to…

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Israel Folau is back in the headlines again after suggesting Australia’s drought crisis and the recent spate of bushfires are a taste of God’s coming judgement. The comments were made during a sermon Folau recently preached at his church in north-west Sydney. Video taken from the service and posted online on Sunday shows the former rugby star urging Australians to repent of their sins and revert the laws that made it legal for same-sex couples to ‘marry’ in Australia. “These bushfires, these droughts, all these things, they’ve come in a short period of time,” Folau said. “You think it’s a…

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Conservative commentator Allie Stuckey testified before a Congressional hearing on Thursday, saying that as a mother, a woman, an American and a human being, she is horrified by the violence that is carried out against the defenceless unborn. In her opening address before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Stuckey said: “I am here today as a mom, fighting for a future for her kids in which rights are not dependent on whether a person is wanted, but upon their humanity. I am here as a woman, who believes that female empowerment, equality and freedom are not…

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One of the best and brightest conservative commentators, Rita Panahi, said something unusually absurd on Twitter – and that’s saying something. Worse, leftist abortion-without-limits apologist Leah Torres called her on it, and she has a point. Here’s the conversation’s context. Past Pellowe Talk guest, Dr Ash Saleh challenged Dr Torres which scenario necessitated an abortion at 8 months gestation. Dr Torres claimed, “The medical scenario of ‘I’m 8 months pregnant and my life is in danger if I continue this pregnancy.’” She also complained that the doctor described ending a living human’s life as “killing” – evidence it’s hard to win the Dumb Tweet of…

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It’s widely acknowledged that the oldest known custodians of this sunburnt country routinely burned the bush in their care for it. This habit not only mitigates the immense, centuries-old risk of devastating bushfires resulting from tonnes of dry fuel on the ground, but it also stimulates ecologically necessary new growth in the regenerating bushland. However, extreme environmentalists, have gotten a stranglehold on forestry and vegetation management, especially in the Eastern states. Former Western Australia Senator Christopher Back was CEO of the Bush Fires Board of Western Australia and said, “Long-experienced forestry managers would regard 5 to 8 tonnes/hectare of flammable fuel as the…

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An anti-Christian LGBT group from Spokane, Washington, have reenacted an antebellum, chattel slavery auction, using cut-outs of outspoken Christian leaders, who are actively opposed to abortion and Drag Queen Story Time. The LGBT group, Spokane United Against Religious Extremism and the Church, targeted 500 Mom Strong founder, Anna Bohach and pastors from ‘The Church at Planned Parenthood’ in an October fundraising event for the industrial abortion platform, Planned Parenthood. According to Anna Bohach  (an activist against the sexualization and exploitation of children), the black slavery-era mock auction took place during a ‘Halloween themed drag show.’ Recounting the event in an…

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Former High Court justice Kirby’s nasty and hostile opinion letter warns religious freedom will let people publish opinions which are… nasty and hostile. “Religious freedom bill ‘will sustain nastiness and hostility’, Michael Kirby warns”… or at least, that’s what the headline in The Guardian article warns. Allow me to interpret that for you. “The God-given social liberty to disagree, debate, articulate and act in accordance with individual convictions (a.k.a religious freedom) will sometimes be used by people who aren’t very happy and they may say some things a nicer person wouldn’t.” What former High Court justice Michael Kirby is really saying is…

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