The appointment of George Pell to a position in the Vatican (as a budget-cutting manager) reminds us of the interminable debate about the power of Catholic conservatism in Australia. Back in 2010 I wrote the following for this blog (and it was published on a Deakin site that has since disappeared). Events since then have […]
Christianity and politics
The role of Christianity in politics is debated. Max Weber offers guidance when he declares that: the dominance of magic outside of the sphere in which Christianity has prevailed is one of the most serious obstructions to the rationalization of economic life…capitalism could not develop in an economic group…bound hand and foot by magical fetters…there […]
The false friends of ‘liberty’
Who would be a better prison warden: a simple moral person or a very intelligent member of the Institute of Public Affairs? A media report describes a recent meeting of conservative notables at a ‘Foundations of Western Civilisation’ event, organised by the Institute of Public Affairs, at which they rallied against the evils of ‘relativism’. […]