World famous atheist, Christopher Hitchens, once said of the bible, “The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.”

Hitchens and others often use selected texts from the Old Testament to maintain that God must be cruel.  There are parts of the Old Testament that give that thought some credence but all of scripture needs to be read in context and with an understanding of when it was written, by whom and for whom.  Hitchens and others always conveniently leave out of the discussion, all of those beautiful texts in the OT that speaks of a loving, forgiving and compassionate creator.  We got one of those beautiful insights in the first reading at Mass yesterday.  It was from the Exodus story after Moses received the Ten Commandments from Yahweh.  When God ‘passed before him’, Moses proclaimed that ‘Lord, you are a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and faithfulness’.  In the passage we read yesterday, Moses acknowledges to God that his people are often ‘a headstrong people’ and Moses begged his God to forgive their faults and to adopt them as his heritage.  That is not a bad God to believe in!

The Voice Referendum – following up on my thoughts last week on the Reconciliation Week, during a car trip to school, to my horror, I discovered that I have in my house a person who will be a first time voter come the Voice Referendum later this year.  When I enquired about what his position on the Voice Referendum was, I didn’t get much past, ‘What Voice?”  Apparently, the issue hasn’t trended strongly on Tik Tok yet!  Fr Frank Brennan, for whom I have a bit of time for, has written a book called “An Indigenous Voice to Parliament”.  It is short and an easy read.  He has devoted two chapters in the book to outline both the For and Against cases for the Voice.  I will try to get my first time voter to read this (link below).  I hope others might as well.  This is an important issue for the country and voters need to be informed.

An Indigenous Voice to Parliament - A Yes No Case

Shalom College Formal 2024 – the College is looking to move away from our traditional Formal date to Saturday 31 August 2024.  This move is being mooted to better fit in with the assessment schedules we now have with ATAR.  The Year 12s will have completed IA3 assessments and this date will be just before Mock Exams are due to commence.  I am very keen to hear from any family who would see this as a major problem before we would put this into our Calendar.

College Formal 2023 was another outstanding success. Congratulations to all of our Year 12 students who attended and their families. All did themselves proud. Huge thank you to so many for making such a significant event go so smoothly.  Amongst so many others, Ms Stacey Murdoch and Ms Tracey Shears who diligently taught our, initially ungainly, Year 12 students to grace the dance floor so well.

‘Legally Blonde’ opens this week.  The cast and crew have worked so hard to get this show ready.  I have no doubt it will be a wonderful showcase of Shalom talent – again.

Mr Dan McMahon
Principal
mcmahond@shalomcollege.com