Mark Keown

I first heard the statistics concerning wealth distribution released by Oxfam the other day with horror. According to their study, the richest 62 people in the world have the same combined wealth as the poorest 50% of people in our world ($1.76 trillion USD)—that is 1,760,000,000,000,000,000, or 1.76 million million million dollars! In percentage terms, only 8.382375298816469e-7% (0.000000083%) of the people of the world hold the same as ‘the other’ 50%. Aside from statistics related to problems of death through violence (genocide, abortion, war, the Holocaust, etc), I can’t think of a statistic that has shaken me more. It is horrific. How has this come to pass? I did a bit of digging on the 62 and some—like Charles and David Koch from Koch Industries, the Waltons of Wal-Mart, the Mars who make Candy (mars bars, yummy)—are from the same families, so it is a little worse; it is actually 57 people or groups who hold this wealth (see http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:r...

I was working through John’s account of the Feeding of the 5000 in John 6:1–15 yesterday and realised something I hadn’t noticed. The miracle is the only one found in all four Gospels (Mark 6; Matt 14; Luke 9). As in the other accounts, in John, Jesus provides food for the whole crowd, which may have been as large as 20,000, as only the number of men is noted. John adds cool details. The disciples are there on the mountain with Jesus, so they are fed along with the crowd. He tells us that the loaves are barley-loaves, the bread of the poor, barley being cheaper than wheat. The fish are ‘small fish,’ which are perhaps pickled. A boy who can be anywhere from a little fella to a young man (the Greek is fluid) provides the food; a neat touch, also showing that there are children present. The food is worth around 200 denarii, which is two hundred day’s money for a day labourer. If we assume a NZ minimum wage for an eight-hour day (and they did longer days too!), that is something li...

As we launch into another year, 2016, I thought it would be good to make a few suggestions to a few people around the world in the hope that they may listen, that we could have a year of relative peace and prosperity on planet earth. Dear Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi, Please can you end this violent desire to take over the world? I admire your zeal, but sometimes zeal is misguided—and this is one of those times! Seeking world domination and the imposition of extreme Islamic ideals by violent force is stupid because you will fail and many will be killed as you try. People generally don’t respond to being told they have to follow a certain religion. Take it from us Christians, we have tried this, and it does not work! So, please give it up? Why not just lay down the weapons and say, ‘enough,’ end the conflict, urge your followers to do the same, and retire? Dear Donald Trump, As John McEnroe said, ‘you cannot be serious!’ Please just go back to your business and reality shows and leave glo...