Religion News Selection

October 17 – 24, 2021

A selection of religion news stories from Australia

(Research: Greg Spearritt)

 

ISLAM

In Melbourne’s COVID hotspot, ‘anti-medication’ mosque leader Abu Hamza says he’s ‘upset a lot of people’ (ABC News)
Oct 21 – With tubes up his nose, the man can barely reach a whisper as he speaks in a 49-second video clip.

JUDAISM

Fighting anti-Semitism needs solidarity, not definitions (The Age, Melbourne)
Oct 21 – (Opinion: David Zyngier and Daniel Coleman) The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which Scott Morrison has said Australia will formally adopt, has been claimed by some commentators to be supported by “the overwhelming majority of Australian Jewry”. To the contrary, we write as members of the Jewish Greens, one of many progressive Jewish organisations which reject this definition.

Is it inherently antisemitic to criticise Israel? It may depend on who you ask (The Guardian, Australia)
Oct 23 – (Opinion: Michael Visontay) There are few accusations more loaded than that of “antisemitism”, and the taint weighs heavily in Australia.

POLITICS

Christian Lobby boasts religious freedom laws will include ‘Folau clause’ (Sydney Morning Herald)
Oct 24 – Australian Christian Lobby boss Martyn Iles has boasted the Morrison government will include a controversial “Israel Folau clause” in its looming religious discrimination laws, in audio that has since been scrubbed from the internet.

‘I am a survivor’: Australia’s newest senator on fighting for Aboriginal women and sacred sites (The Guardian, Australia)
Oct 24 – Australia’s newest senator, Noongar Bibbulmun Yamajti woman Dorinda Cox, strode into federal parliament last week to say she comes from a long line of powerful matriarchs and high on her agenda is an inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations Australian women.

RELIGION & SOCIETY

Juukan Gorge recommendations will help protect First Nations’ culture (Sydney Morning Herald)
Oct 21 – (Opinion: Jamie Lowe) First Nations Peoples, and our culture and heritage, have been under siege since the colonisation project in Australia began.

Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority says sacred sites could be damaged at McArthur River Mine, port (ABC News)
Oct 24 – Multiple sacred sites at a major Australian mine and nearby port are at risk of “damage” and “desecration” from current works and a proposed expansion, the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA) has warned in correspondence obtained by the ABC.

As some in the Western world reject traditional religion, they’re redirecting their faith — not losing it (ABC News)
Oct 24 – The language of traditional religion is as steeped in hierarchy as it is in history.