Soundings

Lonely teenage girl showing a paper with a text of THERE IS NO GOD In November last year, The Straits Times reported that, according to Attorney-General George Brandis, Australia is experiencing an“alarming emergence” of religious intolerance. “Members of the Christians faiths”, Australia’s top law officer reportedly said, “are routinely subject to mockery and insult by […]

The unprecedented emergence of religious fundamentalism and fervour across the globe in the final decades of the last century has led to the demise of the so-called secularisation theory proposed by philosophers and sociologists in the 1960s. Instead of being made obsolete by the seemingly unstoppable advance of secularism, the religions are experiencing something of a […]

“Soundings” is a series of essays that, like the waves of a sonogram, explore issues in society, culture and the church in light of the Gospel and Christian understanding. In November 2010, Fr. Christian Mbusa Bakulene and a parish worker were walking to St. John the Baptist Church in Kanyabayonga in the province of North […]

In June 2011, I wrote an article for The Straits Times on multiculturalism in Singapore at the invitation of The United Nations Alliance of Civilisation. In the article, I argued that the Government’s approach has succeeded in fostering social cohesion in multi-racial Singapore. I suggested that the Singapore model could provide insights on how the […]

The recently-concluded Synod on the Family (4 – 25 October), a historic meeting of 270 bishops from around the world at the Vatican, published a report on some of the most controversial issues surrounding marriage, divorce and sexuality after three weeks of “rich and lively dialogue”. Pope Francis convened this summit in order to “open […]

“Soundings” is a series of essays that, like the waves of a sonogram, explore issues in society, culture and the church in light of the Gospel and Christian understanding. In its ‘FAQs on Sexuality’, the Health Promotion Board (HPB) of Singapore seems to base its understanding of human sexuality substantially, although not exclusively, on the […]

Rear view of business man hands busy using cell phone at office desk, young male student texting on phone sitting at wooden table Since its inception about 40 years ago, the Internet has revolutionised our lives in innumerable ways. It has made possible access to a huge amount of information on almost everything under the sun, […]

In June this year, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that same-sex marriage is legal in all US states. This means that the 14 states that ban same-sex marriage must now not only recognise same sex marriages that have taken place in other states; they must also grant marriage licences to gay and […]

In June this year, the much-anticipated encyclical by Pope Francis finally appeared. Unlike papal encyclicals in the past, which were addressed to the Church, Pope Francis’ circular epistle is directed at the whole human family. The reason for this departure is clear: the fundamental concern of this new encyclical has to do with the ecological problem, […]

ink pen and aged paper parchment On 3 Feb 2015, the British Parliament voted 382 to 128 in favour of legalising a technique in assisted reproductive technology known as mitochondrial replacement, after much heated debate. The UK is the first country in the world to legalise this treatment that would result in children with three […]

Orientation Concept – Analogic Compass Abandoned on the Rocks The American sociologist Peter Berger is perhaps one of the most interesting scholars of secularism and religion. In his book The Sacred Canopy published in 1967, Berger presented the famous secularisation thesis which postulates that as modernity advances, the influence of religion will diminish and eventually […]

According to an article in the May issue of The Scientist, an international team of researchers has successfully synthesised from scratch one of the sixteen chromosomes in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Despite altering one-sixth of its base pairs, the scientists found that the yeast cells from artificial chromosome SynIII were indistinguishable from the original version. […]