Adrian Rosenfeldt
Dr Adrian Rosenfeldt teaches at Melbourne University. He is a journalist, public speaker and the author of The God Debaters: New Atheist Identity-Making and the Religious Self in the New Millennium (2022).
Adrian's articles (8 total)
2 April 2026
What Good Friday and the Book of Job reveal about a world in crisis
Modern society assumes suffering can be solved through policy, technology and progress. But this belief leaves us unprepared for the reality that tragedy is an enduring part of human life.
8 February 2026
From Les Misérables to Trump – what happens when moral certainty hardens
Polarisation is often described as ideological. But its deeper cause may be moral – a loss of the capacity to recognise goodness in those who disagree with us, and the consequences that follow.
18 January 2026
Dangerously alive: summer, sharks and a ritual encounter with danger
A beach swim, a shark warning and a familiar summer ritual open up bigger questions about safety, fear, and what it means to feel alive.
22 December 2025
New Year’s Day and the promise that does not last
New Year’s Day promises renewal, then lets it slip away. That fleeting openness may be the point – not a failure, but a reminder about how meaning actually appears in our lives.
14 December 2025
Trembling before the religion of AI
We like to think we have moved beyond religion, yet our reliance on AI reveals a new metaphysics shaped by imagination, projection and fear. Adrian Rosenfeldt explores how digital systems have taken on the psychological role once held by the divine.
13 December 2025
Frankie Goes to Bethlehem: myth, music and the power of love
In 1984, Frankie Goes to Hollywood released a reverent nativity ballad that revealed how myth, music and Christmas still speak beyond belief.
30 November 2025
Led Zeppelin, my band that never ‘made it’, and the lost art of failure
Our culture treats success as virtue and failure as personal flaw. Older traditions – from Greek tragedy to Christian thought – saw failure as meaningful. Recovering that wisdom may be essential to living with dignity in an age of burnout.
24 November 2025
Net Zero and the metaphysics of anxiety in Australia
Net zero is not simply an environmental target. It has become a psychological and cultural anchor in a society that feels increasingly unstable.