JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021
WHERE IS GOD
in the pain of systemic injustice? WHERE DID THE UNIVERSE COME FROM?
WHICH "MILK" IS BEST FOR THE ENVIRONMENT?
A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE WORLD TODAY
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WHAT IN THE WORLD LOGAN’S RECYCLED GROGAN AUSTRALIA
THE DOMESTIC CAT PROBLEM NEW ZEALAND
Conservationists are concerned about dwindling numbers of Banded Dotterel birds following domestic cats attacks. 17 of 22 nests were found destroyed, abandoned or with eggs eaten during the bird’s breeding season in Kaikoura’s South Bay. Local cat owners are being urged to keep their pets indoors, as research estimates 1.4 million felines kill 18.76 million animals each year.—RNZ, Forest & Bird 4
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WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, SHELLIE EVANS—FLICKR, PXFUEL, IAEA IMAGEBANK—FLICKR
Human excrement could soon be turned into energy, according to a plan by Queensland’s Logan City Council. A plant expected to cost $A17m will generate electricity by running faeces through a furnace and treating biosolids. The council believes the process will save ratepayers $500,000 each year, which is currently spent on running wastewater operations. The human waste energy initiative is part of the council’s plan to be carbon neutral by 2022.—ABC
MILKING PLANTS Experts say the PLANT-BASED
MILK INDUSTRY’S continual growth—
DAILY MICROPLASTIC CONSUMPTION
currently 7% of Australia’s
WORLD
Researchers in Ireland have found baby bottles made from polypropylene could be releasing up to 1.6 million microplastic particles each day that are then ingested by babies. Scientists have called for further research into microplastics and their long-term effects. They have also encouraged parents to rinse out sterilised bottles with room temperature water.—Wired
milk consumption— shows the public is
BECOMING MORE HEALTH CONSCIOUS.—Inside FMCG
What the SOY AND ALMOND MILK industries are WORTH in Australia, across 24 businesses. —IBISWorld
Almond milk demand HAS GROWN FROM 20% OF THE DAIRYFREE MILK
RADIOACTIVE WATER RELEASED? JAPAN
Reports suggest Japan could release 1.2 million tonnes of cooling water stored after the Fukushima disaster back into the ocean. The radioactive water has been stored since 2011, but the country is hoping to free up space and dismantle the inactive plant. Questions have been raised about Japan’s environmental commitment after the country also withdrew from international whaling agreements.—Forbes
industry TO ALMOST HALF within
five years. —IBISWorld New Zealand is launching PLANTBASED and 100%
RECYCLABLE PACKAGING
for milk, made from sugarcane.—Scoop NZ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES
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COMPETITION
The natural human impulse is to bunker down and look out for Number One when times get tough. But is that actually the most effective response? BY MARK DELANEY
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OZGURDONMAZ—GETTY IMAGES
VS
Cooperation IN A CRISIS
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W
ELL B EING
Weight-training—it’s not just for the boys. And you’ll be surprised at the range of health benefits that come from being stronger. BY LEESA BRIONES
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SECRET SUPERPOWERS OF
G N I D L I U B H T G N STRE
fo r w o m e n
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raditionally, weightlifting has been seen as a man’s activity. Many women shy away from it, worried that they will become too muscular and masculine. However, this is a misconception based on female athletes whose “fitness” regime involves extreme workouts or even performance enhancing drugs. Dr Darren Morton, internationally recognised lifestyle medicine expert, explains: “Men want to become ‘bulky’ and still find it hard, even though they have a lot more testosterone in their system! It isn’t something women normally need to worry about.” Strength-building through lifting weights can help women to reach their health goals, such as losing weight by reducing body-fat percentage, toning and shaping. Weightlifting—whether it involves free weights (barbells and dumbbells), fixed weight machines, or just lifting your own body weight—can increase both confidence and quality of life long-term. Ten benefits of strength training are explored below, including some that may be surprising—keep an eye out for the one on osteoporosis. Note that I’ve used terms interchangeably—weightlifting, strength building, resistance training. Same thing.
#1 You may have met “that” trainer at the gym who finds amusement
ANDRESR—GETTY IMAGES
HIGHLY EFFECTIVE FOR WEIGHT LOSS
in making you pay penance for your favourite treats by pushing you to run like a gazelle on the treadmill until your lungs feel like they’re going to burst and your muscles are screaming. My personal discovery was that I don’t run like a gazelle; when I tried the treadmill, I ran like a JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES
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FA IT H
I WILL BE
Baptised!
How far would you be willing to walk to be baptised? How about in the middle of the winter with chest-deep snow on the ground? BELTERZ—GETTY IMAGES
BY JERIS BRAGAN
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O
n Friday, March 16, 1956, Edie Hall, age 12, pressed her nose against the window and tried to see whether the storm had stopped. In the background, she heard her mother, Elsie, shuffling through a collection of music albums. Soon Del Delker’s gospel hymns flowed from the battered record player. Edie took a deep breath, savouring the fragrance of dinner cooking. Briefly, the sweet scent of wood smoke and tomato stew overpowered the anger, hatred and violence that smouldered inside the cluttered and dilapidated farmhouse. Edie scrambled into her boots and jacket, lit the old kerosene lantern hanging by the door and pushed the front door open for a better look at the snow. A blast of Arctic air sliced through her jacket as she stepped out into a blizzard. All month long it had snowed, covering the village of Lisbon Falls, Maine, with more than a metre of snow. Edie could barely see her father’s truck parked a few metres away. Blown by fierce winds off the North Atlantic, snowdrifts climbed higher and higher. Inside, she could hear her father, Charley, screaming at her brothers. “I’ll put this stick upside your head!” he roared. Two contradictory experiences framed Edie’s life. First, there was violence, seizing her like a steel bear trap. Her father was an angry, vicious man. He beat his farm animals with clubs, particularly the horses, until they screamed. Worse, he beat her three older brothers with anything handy—if he could catch them. Half blind and increasingly crippled JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES
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WHERE IS GOD
IN THE
OF
pain
SYSTEMIC INJUSTICE?
If your perception of the church is gilded cathedrals and televangelists fundraising for an upgrade to their private jet, you might wonder whether the God of the Bible really cares about those who are forgotten and abused.
SRDJANNS74—GETTY IMAGES
BY AMY ORR-EWING
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BIG
QU
E STI O N S
h e r e di d WTHE universe COME FROM?
Why the Big Bang eventually goes bust, universe-sized bubbles pop and string theory has cosmologists tangled up.
T
he cosmic home that we live in is astonishingly beautiful and vast. Just think of the pictures of exquisite planets, galaxies and nebulae that NASA has beamed home for us. Pause for another moment to reflect on the fact that the observable universe is 93 billion light years across. The reality, though, is that there
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is a vast realm of cosmic space and time beyond the observable universe which we will never be able to peer into, even with the most powerful telescopes that we could ever build.
a brief history of cosmology
For thousands of years, some of the greatest minds in the world
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BY SVEN OSTRING
Puzzled by a "big picture" question and want an answer? In 2021, Signs of the Times magazine will be sharing fresh perspectives on life’s most contentious mysteries, with new authors each month examining objective evidence to present a case for Christianity.
believed that the universe has always been here. This included the Greek philosopher Aristotle, but goes back even further to Babylonian and Hindu myths. If the universe has always been here, it seems fairly easy and straightforward to conclude that the universe did not need to have a cause. Problem solved. But is it really
that easy? Doesn’t your curiosity invite you to dig deeper? In 1714, it was this curiosity that led German mathematician Gottfried Liebniz to mull over the fundamental question: Why is there something rather than nothing? Surely it is possible that, at some point, the universe did not exist. But JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES
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FA IT H
YOU ARE
Needed!
What do you do well? What do you especially enjoy doing? Most importantly, how can you use these gifts to make your church even better?
AARONAMAT—GETTY IMAGES
BY NANCY CANWELL
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