I’ve always loved movies about the movie-making business. (My favourite is The Player starring Tim Robbins.) I particularly like those scenes where the young, green scriptwriter is pitching his movie idea to the fat cat producer: “It’s Pretty Woman meets King Kong; it’s Thelma and Louise meets Blazing Saddles”. And the movie mogul just sits there, puffing on his cigar, and asking, “Yes, but does it have a sex scene?”
Author Archives: Tony Payne
Up front and The Sola Panel
Couldn't Help Noticing, Sola Panel
Talking about Total Church (Part 2)
Review, Sola Panel
The same thing or the new thing
Up front, Sola Panel
I once was sitting with the inestimable David Jackman in an airport, which is where we often seem to meet, and I asked him what the big challenges were, looking ahead for The Proclamation Trust. He paused a moment and then said in his characteristically gentle and mellifluous tone, “You know, I think it’s to keep on doing the same thing we’ve been doing for the past 15 years”. (more…)
A hitchhiker’s guide to the underworld
Thought, Sola Panel
What is the underworld? What are evil spirits and demons? Should we fear death and the devil, and does Jesus really make a difference with these things? Tony Payne talks to Peter Bolt, author of Living with the Underworld, to get some answers.
Social action and the Last Day
Free Briefing subscription offer. But hurry!
Judging by the site stats, which we have been keeping an eye on (but not obsessively), The Sola Panel has lots of readers from Canada and the US. Here’s a deal I thought you should know about.
Of coffee, gospel and social action
Well, my little piece on FairTrade coffee has ignited plenty of discussion and debate—not only about the pros and cons of the FairTrade movement, but about social action, doing good and political involvement more generally. It is to these latter questions of theology and principle that I now want to turn (although ‘turn’ sounds rather too grand—as if I am about to give myself to a lengthy and learned disquisition).
Smell the coffee
A recent edition of Southern Cross (our diocesan newspaper here in Sydney) featured an extended and very positive series of articles on the Fairtrade movement. Fairtrade is a ‘think global, act local’ sort of initiative which involves consumers in the West attempting to improve the lot of poor and exploited farmers in the third world by buying ‘Fairtrade’ products. By buying certified ‘Fairtrade’ coffee, for example, you ensure that a higher income flows to the cooperatives that produce it (usually 10% or so above the market price). There were stories about Christians who have become involved in the Fairtrade movement, and strong encouragement for churches to get involved—not only as a means of adding valuable momentum to the whole movement, but as a culturally attractive way of building links with our community and sharing the gospel.
The same thing or the new thing
I once was sitting with the inestimable David Jackman in an airport, which is where we often seem to meet, and asked him what the big challenges were looking ahead for The Proclamation Trust. He paused a moment and then said in his characteristically gentle and mellifluous tone, “You know, I think it’s to keep on doing the same thing we’ve been doing for the past 15 years”.
Can we?
Couldn't Help Noticing, Sola Panel
In the fascinating rise and rise of Barack Obama, we see a resurgence of what the Americans call ‘liberalism’ and what we Australians don’t really have a decent name for, apart from the vague designation ‘leftist’. It’s a moral and political philosophy that takes an optimistic view of mankind and the human heart, and believes that if we all start afresh, work together, and change the way we do things, then together we can build a better America, a better Australia, a better world. Yes, we can. (more…)
Talking about Total Church (Part 1)
Review, Sola Panel
The Briefing in action
20 years ago in April 1988, our first child was born: a daughter. Like most first-time parents, we had discussed ‘the name’ at length, but almost as soon as we saw her tiny but perfect little frame, we knew what we would call her. She was a gem (and still is). We called her ‘Gemma’. There was another birth in our family in that same month 20 years ago: a little periodical was born. And the name was also a subject of much discussion. We didn’t want to call it anything too fancy or too pretentious, but we didn’t want to call it anything too predictable either. We wanted the name to say something about what the fledgling publication was and wasn’t: it wasn’t a newspaper or news magazine, attempting to report on what was happening in the world (the Christian world or otherwise), and it wasn’t just a special interest magazine for the Christian lifestyle, like Cigar Aficionado or Better Homes and Gardens. We wanted to convey that this new little periodical aimed to inform and equip Christians for life and ministry in God’s world—that its aim was not to entertain or divert, but to inspire action. (more…)
Introducing: The Sola Panel
The word ‘blog’, I gather, is a contraction of ‘web log’. I’ve been reading blogs on and off for a couple of years now, and it seems to me that ‘blog’ isn’t the only new word we need to describe what goes on in the ‘blogosphere’. Other handy words might be ‘binane’, ‘brudeness’ and ‘bwaste of beveryone’s time’.
Fight the good fight (part 2)
Life, Sola Panel
Under what circumstances, and in what manner, should we critique the views of others?