http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/greg-clarke/ Dr Greg Clarke is co-founder and Director (with John Dickson) of the Centre for Public Christianity. His doctorate is in literature, with special interest in how theology is discussed in the arts and humanities. Greg has written books and studies on topics ranging from the Bible to sex to The Da Vinci Code to the end of the world.  He is author of over 200 articles and reviews in publications such as The Sydney Morning Herald, Southerly, kategoria, Books and Culture (US) and onlineopinion.com.au. Greg splits his time between writing, academic work and public lecturing, and is primarily interested in talking about the importance of Christianity for understanding the meaning of life.Greg is married to Amelia and they live in Botany in Sydney’s south-east with their three children. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/pantera-is-not-just-a-heavy-metal-band/ Growing up, I thought of Pantera as a heavy metal band. That was before I read the Greek philosopher, Celsus whose anti-Christian writings are recorded by the Christian writer, Origen. Around a century after the composition of the biblical Gospels, Celsus wrote various works opposing Christian doctrine. One writer describes Celsus as “the first Nietzschean”, such was his vehement objection to the traditional (and historical) teaching that Jesus of Nazareth was born of a virgin, taught and ministered around Galilee to much acclaim, and was then crucified by Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, and seen alive again three days after his death. Among Celsus’s claims about the fallacies of Christian history is the report that Jesus was fathered by a Roman soldier called Pantera (Origen, Contra Celsum, I:32, 34). This is the first known mention of this view, so we can’t know how prevalent it was (it was later picked up in some Jewish writings). However, it is attractive to those who would like to ‘domesticate’ the Christmas story. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Clarke) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/pantera-is-not-just-a-heavy-metal-band/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/pantera-is-not-just-a-heavy-metal-band/#item4766 Thu, 23 Dec 2010 18:45:31 +0000 Greg Clarke | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-big-merino.-the-big-prawn.-why-no-big-jesus/ So, the Polish have beaten the Brazilians for the biggest Jesus yet. Yep, they’ve toppled the Christ the Redeemer statue, producing their own 36 metre high statue, and knocking off the famous one by adding a three metre high gold crown. Rumour is that Brazil is going to add an even taller Pope’s mitre in response… I always thought the ‘Big Thing’ was a bit of an Aussie phenomenon. Our particular kitsch aesthetic means that anything that should be small (a prawn, a banana, a merino) is made into a tourist destination by being big. But apparently it’s a global phenomenon: there are big things everywhere—there’s a big axe in New Brunswick and a big thermometer somewhere in California. I guess the concept of being ‘monumental’ rests on the idea that size matters. I can’t think of many small monuments. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Clarke) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-big-merino.-the-big-prawn.-why-no-big-jesus/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-big-merino.-the-big-prawn.-why-no-big-jesus/#item4440 Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:40:05 +0000 Greg Clarke | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/saints-be-praised/ An old friend once called me a ‘saint’, such was his lack of insight into my character. On another level, I knew what he was saying, because Christian believers are calling each other saints all the time. Even the worst sinners call each other saints. It isn’t our inability to face reality; rather, it’s the way we interpret that word. The impending canonisation of Mary MacKillop has brought the concept of sainthood into the contemporary spotlight, and it has to be admitted that it looks kind of strange. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Clarke) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/saints-be-praised/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/saints-be-praised/#item4228 Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:50:51 +0000 Greg Clarke | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/book-burners-are-rattled-by-weapons-of-mass-instruction/ It took an Australian to go through with the whole religious text-burning threat. Brisbane lawyer, Alex Stewart, decided it was a good idea to burn pages of the Koran and the Bible and then appear to smoke them in his now infamous YouTube video. Probably a Queensland thing. Different religions react differently to having their texts assaulted. Famously, British muslims in 1989 led violent rallies of protest at comments made about the Koran in Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses. Copies of the novel, and effigies of the novelist, were burned across England. Catholic archbishops burned Protestant Bible translations during the European Reformation. Jews burned New Testaments in Jerusalem in 1980 in obedience to teachings of the Babylonian Talmud. There are some stunning book burnings in the Bible itself. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Clarke) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/book-burners-are-rattled-by-weapons-of-mass-instruction/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/book-burners-are-rattled-by-weapons-of-mass-instruction/#item4027 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 18:55:24 +0000 Greg Clarke | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/blaming-god-for-the-pakistani-floods/ The floods in Pakistan are too enormous to comprehend. The equivalent of 85% of the Australian population has been made homeless in just a couple of weeks. The death toll is not yet known. The nation has been turned upside down. These events made it hard even to take seriously the news reports this week on the ‘floods’ in the Sydney suburbs of Paddington and Carlingford, in which residents lost sports cars and Sex Pistols memorabilia. There are tragedies, and there are tragedies. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Clarke) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/blaming-god-for-the-pakistani-floods/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/blaming-god-for-the-pakistani-floods/#item3945 Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:40:11 +0000 Greg Clarke | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-place-of-the-bible-in-modern-society/ Quentin Bryce may have entertained the Masterchef crowd, but she declined to use the enormous Lord Hopetoun Bible printed in 1901 by the Bible Society for the inauguration of Governors-General. However, no offence or protest was intended; in fact the opposite: she wanted to hold her own modest-sized Bible instead. The Acting Governor-General, Marie Bashir, opened an historic Bibles exhibition in Sydney last week because Quentin Bryce was in Fromelles where, among her duties, she returned a fallen WWI digger’s pocket-sized New Testament to his side. The Bible is still very close to the centre of public life in Australia, even if there is occasional strident objection to the appropriateness of its use. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Clarke) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-place-of-the-bible-in-modern-society/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-place-of-the-bible-in-modern-society/#item3630 Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:40:02 +0000 Greg Clarke | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/morris-gleitzman-and-christian-mother-goose/ I can’t remember how I stumbled across it, but it has really threatened my Christian faith. It’s a book unlike any other, challenging my worldview and giving me nights of tossing and turning in a cold sweat. The book is The Christian Mother Goose Book by Marjorie Ainsborough Decker, and it’s enough to make anyone an unbeliever. No doubt in good faith, Mrs Decker has ‘improved’ the nursery rhymes you and I know from childhood into ones she feels better communicate the Christian message. So, ‘Lavender’s Blue, Dilly Dilly’ begins: Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly Lavender’s green Teach me to say, dilly, dilly John 3:16. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Clarke) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/morris-gleitzman-and-christian-mother-goose/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/morris-gleitzman-and-christian-mother-goose/#item3128 Sun, 23 May 2010 18:50:56 +0000 Greg Clarke | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Schools-ethics-debate-is-testing-the-patience-of-Job/ The current debate over teaching ethics in NSW public schools would test the patience of Job. That phrase won’t make sense to most NSW pupils, and it is for that reason we need more time, not less, for teaching Scripture in our schools. The Bible is clearly a central text for understanding Western (and not just Western) culture. And yet Bible literacy is in a woeful state, not only among students, but also among teachers and public figures. Recently, on the fabulous ABC TV music quiz show, Spicks and Specks, it took around a dozen pure guesses before any of the six panellists—all cultured people—could identify where a biblical character came from. I remember super-smart Jewish doctor friends who asked me where in the Bible they could find the story of Noah. And don’t get me started on the biblical illiteracy of the current rock-star atheists, who can hardly tell their Scriptural right hand from their left (that’s from Jonah ch.4 verse 11). feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Clarke) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Schools-ethics-debate-is-testing-the-patience-of-Job/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Schools-ethics-debate-is-testing-the-patience-of-Job/#item2886 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:50:42 +0000 Greg Clarke | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/pulling-the-other-one-on-the-life-of-jesus/ The latest in the endless string of novels about Jesus has just been published in the UK (due out here in May). It comes from the pen of Philip Pullman, the author of the fantasy series His Dark Materials (a film was made of the first novel in the series, The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman alongside a polar bear). Pullman has already stated that it’s a novel, and needs to be kept in the category of imaginative retelling. But I recall that Dan Brown said the same thing about The Da Vinci Code, and it didn’t stop millions of people revising their view of Christian history as a result of its wildly entertaining (and historically ridiculous) reconstructions of the life of Jesus. I feel it is fair to speculate that Pullman likely hopes people will revise their view of Jesus as a result of reading his novel. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Clarke) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/pulling-the-other-one-on-the-life-of-jesus/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/pulling-the-other-one-on-the-life-of-jesus/#item2758 Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:54:59 +0000 Greg Clarke | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-australian-jesus-of-reg-mombassa/ If Green Day sang that the Jesus of American suburbia is a lie, Chris O’Doherty (aka Reg Mombassa) offers a surreal Aussie equivalent: the Jesus of our suburbia is a regular guy, eating a pie, wearing a tie, with a third eye. Mombassa was a member of iconic Australian rock band Mental As Anything before becoming one of Australia’s most recognisable visual artists and helping to establish the fame and fortune of the Mambo surfwear brand. The release of Murray Waldren’s beautifully-produced biography of Mombassa, The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa, highlights just how prominent Christian, or ‘neo-Christian’, themes are in his artwork. Lauded as a pop culture artist, Mombassa self-identifies in a more religious fashion: “It’s like being a priest. To some extent, it’s a calling”, he tells Waldren. His “Self portrait with beard and plastic ring”, painted last year, is an obvious Christ-figure, with the ring as a halo. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Clarke) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-australian-jesus-of-reg-mombassa/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-australian-jesus-of-reg-mombassa/#item2269 Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:00:01 +0000 Greg Clarke | Author bios | The Punch