APRIL 2014
at your
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55
Number 55, February 2015 ISSN 1837-8447
Brought to you by the Bible Society
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Charlie Hebdo, we think you drew the wrong bloke
Jesus brings forgiveness
A new voice for Learning from Enough Collective ! Shout’s h g u o Christianity the Royal n is e Natasha Moore reviews a new masterpiece
Commission
big wins
NEWS
In Depth 5-8
Opinion 11-20
Obadiah Slope Married people are happier, and they are happier because they are married. They are happier than when they were single, according to a paper published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research. This new paper goes beyond the findings of other papers that claim married people are happy, and establishes that marriage itself makes a positive contribution to happiness. Studies of marriage, mostly conducted in Western, industrial societies, show that those who marry are happy, more social, better educated and have engaging jobs. To show that marriage itself makes a difference to happiness the authors had to construct their study in a way that eliminated these other factors. Economists Shawn Grover and John F. Helliwell (of the Vancouver School of Economics) used large scale data sets that measured life satisfaction, and that allowed them to fully allow for influences other than marriage itself. They found that marriage itself increased life satisfaction, and slightly more for females than males. “The difference between how people perceive changeable versus unchangeable decisions may be a mechanism to explain the higher well-being of the married”, according to the authors. Contrary to orthodox economic theory, which would expect that the ability to change a decision makes a person happier, the permanency of marriage is a factor in making people happy. The paper tells the story of one researcher who proposed to his girlfriend on the basis of his research and reported that “I love my wife more than I loved my girlfriend”. The life satisfaction of marriage is not a temporary effect, or one that lasts only for a set period, but it persists.There is a u-shaped dip in most life satisfaction studies, which reflects increased family and work responsibilities in the late twenties and thirties. But Grover and Helliwell found that marriage made
this dip in life satisfaction shallower. Having your wife/husband as your best friend doubles marriage’s effect on life satisfaction. This effect is stronger for women than for men. Grover and Helliwell point out that the results for spouses as best friends parallels studies that show the boost to life satisfaction that religion gives, due to the effect of having church friends. The authors report that marriage makes people happy in many, but not all countries around the world. “We find that marriage is significantly positively related with life evaluations in Western Europe (excluding the United Kingdom), United Kingdom, Central and Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States (including Russia), Australia, New Zealand, East Asia, North America and the Middle East & North Africa. Marriage is significantly negatively associated with life evaluations in Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. Marriage is not significantly associated with life evaluations in Southeast Asia and South Asia.” And in other good news about marriage it seems Australians are a faithful people. The Australian Study of Health and Relationships reports that in their 2011-12 survey 96% of people in a relationship expected that they and their partner would not have sex with anyone else. 57% of men and 71% of women said they had discussed this with their partner, and almost everyone (97%) who discussed this said they had agreed about it. These figures have increased since a previous ASHR survey: attitudes towards homosexuality have become more tolerant but the expectation of exclusiveness in relationships has grown. How’s life at home? New evidence on marriage and the set point for happiness, by Shawn Grover and John F. Helliwell, NBER working paper 20794 is available from ssrn.org
23% of Catholic respondents were unsure or neutral.
72%
Anglican
82%
Baptist / Churches of Christ
64%
Catholic
76%
Lutheran
84%
Pentecostal
62%
19%
Image & Data: (c) NCLS
QUOTABLE “Well,” he says, finally, “I lived in Uganda during the time of Idi Amin … and our archbishop was murdered by Idi Amin. I had to get out of Uganda because I had opposed Amin on a number of things which I didn’t think were ethically right … I know what persecution looks like. What is happening at the moment in England, it ain’t persecution.” Archbishop of York, John Sentamu on whether Christians are being marginalised by the sexuality debate in Britain in The Spectator magazine.
JOHN SANDEMAN
Other (85%), Pentecostal (84%) and Baptist / Churches of Christ (82%) were most likely to disapprove.
Agree / Strongly Agree
Books,Liftout
IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT SIMPLE FAITH and the Adelaide Festival of Arts can be mentioned together. And it is not often that a concert with a title like “Jesus’ Blood never failed me yet” appears on an arts festival programme. Gavin Bryars, a post minimalist composer from England will conduct the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra on March 15 in his piece by that name. Bryars recorded an elderly tramp singing a simple chorus while working on a film about men sleeping rough in London in 1971. The old man died before he could find out what Bryars had done with his singing. Obadiah has a soft spot for this music, and regards it as an example of how weak and foolish things confound the wise.
Attitudes to Same Sex Adoption by Denomination Uniting Church attenders were most likely to approve same sex adoption (19%).
Bible Society 9
BAD LANGUAGE Try as Obadiah might, Christian jargon still finds its way into this paper. But it is not just words like “synod” (Anglicanspeak for church parliament) or “oversight” (Pentecostal-speak for a local church council). Take the words “Bible study”, meaning a small group of people reading scripture together. Recently a small group of English-as-a-second (or third)-language people started to meet to find out the basics of Christianity. One of them wisely asked for it to be called a “Bible reading group”. Bible study, with its overtones of hard work or an academic approach, was seriously off-putting for them.
Infographic
Neutral / Unsure
News page 2-3
Marriage makes you happy: economists
FEBRUARY 2015
Disagree / Strongly Disagree
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2
Uniting Other Protestant
85%
Quotable We resist the lure of the black-andwhite, the urge to fit everything into concrete, comprehensible systems, with nothing left over. Natasha Moore – page 19
The Christian Church can and should occupy a seat at the political table, the big table ... and we should take it with confidence. Karl Faase – page 11
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NEWS
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New guide for doubters KALEY PAYNE A new book for people curious about the Bible will be launched next month. Written by John Dickson, it gives a bird’s eye view of the whole Bible from Genesis through to Revelation and encourages readers to ask the question: What might it mean for life if the Bible happened to be true? The book, titled A Doubter’s Guide to the Bible, is published by Zondervan and will be available from February 3. Dickson, a historian, minister and writer who heads up the Centre for Public Christianity (CPX), says the book is one you could put in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what to make of the Bible. “It is not an attempt to prove every trick bit in God’s word,” he told Eternity. “It’s more an effort to show how the biblical narrative suggests a view of the world, and a way of living in the world, that answers the deepest longings of our culture, of every culture.” Dickson says there are many who think the Bible might be important from a cultural perspective, and maybe even a spiritual one, but just aren’t sure whether it’s true or even relevant. But he believes every adult should read at least 100 pages of the Bible. In an interview in 2014, Dickson said that the
Bible’s classification as a literary classic should be impetus enough to read it for those who would never dream of opening the Bible for its spiritual value. He says A Doubter’s Guide to the Bible is not an exercise in “apologetics” – trying to prove the truth of the Bible – but rather a simple outline that invites people to look at the world with the lens of the Bible. The book is short: just over 200 pages. For a book that purports to summarise the Bible – a book that itself has over 780,000 words (depending on the translation) – this might seem like an impossible task with such a word limit. Dickson doesn’t think so. “The Bible has a pretty coherent narrative, so as long as you stay on track with the main story, you can summarise the Bible … it’s actually pretty easy.” So while Dickson admits there is lot of the Bible that readers of his book won’t get to hear about, they’ll have a good overview of the thread that runs throughout. “[The book] explains creation, fall, Abraham, the exodus, the Law, the kings and prophets, and how it all points to Jesus and the kingdom which restores us to God, to each other, and to the physical creation itself,” says Dickson.
An ordinary Christian’s response to the world’s need and God’s call to serve
VISITING SPEAKER
Libby
Libby (surname withheld) is coming to Australia to speak of God’s grace at work from over thirty years serving in a war-torn part of Central Asia. Her husband, Tom, was tragically killed along with nine others while returning from an overland trip to minister to people living in remote mountain villages. Tom worked in an eye clinic and Libby taught primary school. Together they raised their three girls and sought to make God’s love tangible to the people in their community.
Adelaide Sunday 1 March Sydney North Wednesday 4 March Sydney South Thursday 5 March
Brisbane Saturday 7 March Launceston Friday 13 March Melbourne Saturday 14 March
INTERSERVE.ORG.AU/TANGIBLELOVE
In brief Author John Dickson with his latest release A Doubters Guide to the Bible.
“If I’ve done my job right, your average thoughtful, nonchurching friend will have a good idea why the Bible is the most successful book of all time.”
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For this and other John Dickson books see our Book LiftOut
A NATION NEEDS PRAYER: Pastor Matt Prater, chair of the National Day of Prayer and Fasting says, “The aim of the organising team is to make it possible for more and more Australians to pray and fast for the revival and transformation of our nation.” The day will be held on February 15, 2015 in Canberra and around Australia. It will be followed by 40 days of prayer and fasting through the traditional season of Lent which leads up to Easter. nationaldayofprayer.com.au WHERE NEEDED MOST: Scripture teachers will be sent 14,000 free Bibles for use in schools in 2015 from the Bible Society. GOD IS NOT EVIL After his church lost 41 members in the Air Asia crash Pastor Mantofa of the Mawar Sharon Church in Surabaya said, “Some things do not make sense to us, but God is bigger than all this. Our God is not evil … help us God to move forward even though we are surrounded by darkness.” CALL HIM AL City Bible Forum (CBF) has appointed Al Stewart as its Sydney Director. Al has been an Eternity contributor and an Anglican Bishop. CBF has staged major national missions with Dr William Lane Craig and Professor John Lennox. It has ministry centres in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.
Moore College Distance education has re-imagined and re-built from the ground up the way it delivers solid Bible teaching for 21st century learners. For the first time you will be able to find everything you need online – course notes, lectures, resources, weekly quizzes, final exams, tutor groups and personal coaches. It’s all here, part of our complete family of Moore College Distance Awards. Because the PTC now has siblings.
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• Moore Access – For those who just want to learn at their own pace with online access 24/7 to six subjects with all the course notes • The PTC Award – Our new benchmark qualification for Biblical studies offers a choice of online and correspondence • The Introduction to Theological Studies Award – The gold standard for online learning includes everything Moore Access and the PTC have to offer in an Award that is the doorway to in-depth theological training
FEBRUARY 2015
E FEBC SPONSORED PAGE 4
Who listens to the radio?
When a radio program called Narimon went to air in August 2014, the first listener call came from a woman named Josna, who said, “I am a retired sex worker. Now I am in charge of other girls. I heard your program with my friends and family. By this program I came to know the dignity of women.” Josna lives in the Changrabanda red light district, in the Siliguri corridor near the India/Bangladesh border. Siliguri offers access from Nepal, Bhutan, northern Bangladesh, the Himalayan foothills and the landlocked north-eastern Indian states, via a well-worn route for trade and human trafficking, to the megacity Kolkata in the south. Narimon and another program, Protyasha, are broadcast twice per week on All India Radio, Siliguri and All India Radio, Kolkata, in the Bengali language. The government-owned station has agreed to broadcast these values-based programs, written and produced by FEBC International in India, supported by donors of FEBC Australia and Feba UK. More than 260 listeners contacted the program teams to respond in the first six weeks. The dignity of women Kevin Keegan, national director of FEBC Australia, visited Kolkata in October. “In one area, women were displayed in medium-rise
buildings: the higher the floor, the younger the girls being offered. In general, girls are not treated with the same care and value as boys. If they survive their infancy, girls are seen as burdens on the family and may be sold into ‘service’, early marriage or sex slavery,” he said. “FEBC programs address those social issues in entertaining and compelling ways, perhaps with an expert interview on good parenting or setting up a small business as a beautician. Another program might feature the true story of a woman tortured by her husband and in-laws.” The program teams reinforce broadcasts with listener contact and personal visits where they distribute free radios. They connect listeners with local Christian communities: sometimes in secret if the woman is considered to be the property of someone else. “Radio is one way to reach the hardest-to-reach, the vulnerable and enslaved victims of trafficking, breaking into desperate situations with messages of hope,” said Rev. Keegan. The dignity of all people Dignity is not only for women of course. Amal is a 21 yearold small business owner, in Midnapore, about two hours from Kolkata. A frequent visitor to red-light districts, he responded
to one show that dealt particularly with alcoholism and prostitution. In November, the Kolkata program manager said, “Amal listened to our advice about a better way to live. He has stopped visiting prostitutes and stopped drinking alcohol. He has
requested us to continue the radio program for the benefit of many lives.” With the continued support of Christians in Australia, FEBC Australia will partner with India to ensure that listeners like Josna and Amal are not ignored.
Contact FEBC Australia www.febc.org.au Facebook (FEBC Australia) Twitter (@febcaus) Phone 1300 720 017 Email office@febc.org.au
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...for good news We live in a world hungry for God’s love, and His message of Good News. Even today, over 2.7 billion people have never heard the name Jesus Christ. In many of these places, radio is the only way to reach people.
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h g u Eno ! h g u o n e is
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IS COACHING THE ANSWER TO CHURCH GROWTH? with MARK HADLEY
Shouting makes a difference KALEY PAYNE “It takes a village to raise a child, but the village is failing us,” says women and girls advocate Melinda Tankard Reist. “The village is toxic. The culture is wallpapered with hypersexualised images. You can’t walk outside and not notice it.” As the co-founder of Collective Shout, an organisation campaigning to end the objectification and sexualisation of women and girls in media and advertising, you could say that Melinda has seen more than most when it comes to the worst society has to offer in advertising standards. But then again, it’s usually plastered on the walls for anyone to see.
2014 was a busy year for campaigners attached to the Collective Shout movement. Hundreds of thousands of people across the country have taken action in their communities against companies they consider to be “objectifying girls and women” to make a profit. Companies like Wicked Campers. The camper van company, popular particularly among backpackers, was the subject of a Collective Shout campaign in 2014 when mother Paula Orbea encountered one of the campers with her 11-year-old daughter on a suburban street in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney. The van’s slogan, scrawled in paint, read: “In every princess,
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It takes a village to raise a child, but the village is failing us.
there’s a little slut who wants to try it just once.” When her daughter got upset over what she’d read, Ms Orbea decided something should be done. “It is inconceivable that Wicked Campers choose to not only write the misogynistic “joke” but also then publicise it through their moving, billboard vans,” wrote Ms Orbea in a petition on the activist site change.org. “This is not good. I’m calling it out.” And so did 127,000 others, who signed the petition. Collective Shout got behind the petition, which asked Wicked Campers to remove all of their misogynistic messages within six months, using social media to get the word out. “Some people think, ‘What’s the use? A petition won’t make a
difference’,” Melinda told Eternity. “But on change.org, every time someone signs the petition, the offending company is sent an email. Wicked Campers received 127,000 emails. That would have driven them nuts.” The campaign received widespread media coverage, and the public support drew the attention of Greens Senator Larissa Waters who put a motion to the senate to condemn the company. It passed unanimously. Ms Orbea soon after received an email from Wicked Campers, apologising for the slogan and vowing to make changes to other slogans of an “insensitive nature”. But Melinda says there’s continued work to be done holding the company to account to make sure
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Shouting
Clockwise from left: • Julien Blanc’s pick up seminars cancelled and Victoria Police tweet the good news. • The Isuzu X-rated DMax Ute promotion. • One of the few Wicked Camper vans we can publish (edited). • The Lingerie Football League no longer shown on the free-to-air station Channel 7.
public sphere should not be seen as the “new normal”. “We can’t accept that this is just the way it is now. We can’t. It’s getting worse. Imagine what it will be like in another five years. If you tried to talk to your children about the images they see when they leave the house, you’d be talking to them about sex all the time. It’s time to do something about it.” Here are a few other “wins” Collective Shout have under their belt for 2014. - Notorious dating coach Julien Blanc forced to leave Australia: Blanc, who runs seminars teaching men how to “abuse, control and harass women” and promotes choking women, planned to tour Australia when his visa was cancelled by the federal government. A public campaign, including a petition with over 50,000 signatures was supported by Collective Shout, putting pressure on venues to pull out of hosting his events. Melinda says it was the largest campaign she’s been involved in to date. - Axing of the Lingerie Football League: Over 8000 signatures were collected petitioning Channel 7 to take the League off its schedule. “If men want to play gridiron they can wear protective clothing that covers their bodies. If women want to play, they have to wear lingerie and sign contracts allowing for accidental nudity,” Melinda told Eternity. In 2014, Channel 7 cancelled the deal, though they did not respond to the petition and no mention was made about public pressure.
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Image: flickr / John Pozadzides
its commitment to remove the slogans is carried out. Another collective win was initiated be a Queensland man who decided to speak out against an Isuzu Ute competition. Queenslander Dave Martin, a supporter of Collective Shout, highlighted the competition which positioned its new ute as the “X-rated D-Max Ute” and offered the chance to win “five hot nights” for “you and three mates” in Bangkok, Thailand. “It was promoting sex tourism,” said Melinda. “Thailand is widely known to be a hot spot for human trafficking and child prostitution. It hosts Asia’s largest sex industry,”. She cites the win – Isuzu withdrew the competition after over 3000 people signed the petition – as one of the most compelling of the year. “Initially they [Isuzu] said we had misunderstood the ad. But there was nothing to misunderstand here.” Melinda has seen an increase in organisations asking her to speak about the dangers of pornography and the objectification of women – including in churches. “We’re in a time when we’re seeing an unprecedented assault on the healthy sexual engagement of our young people. We’re raising boys with a sense of entitlement to the bodies of women and girls. We need a whole-community response to this.” She says pornography is the biggest battle for the community, in her eyes. But the hypersexualised images children, and adults, are forced to see in the
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OVERSEAS COUNCIL SPONSORED PAGE
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THE BIG PICTURE OF THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION All around the world the church is growing rapidly. With this comes a whole set of needs and challenges, the greatest of which is the supply of competent Christian leaders to ensure the church matures in line with the Word of God, and in a way that is sensitive to the local context. Overseas Council Australia (OCA) is a Christian organisation that supports quality theological training in the developing world. The vision of Overseas Council Australia is to provide the church with the leadership it needs in every part of the world. This mission is achieved through strategic partnership with over 250 Bible colleges and tertiary theological institutions in Asia, Africa, Pacific and the Middle East. OCA chooses to partner with colleges that have two priorities at the heart of their training: the Scriptures and the cultural context. Strategically, OCA focuses on training institutions with high quality programs, excellent academic faculty and a practical approach to mission. Theological students who study in their own culture and context are equipped to be Church leaders who are biblically formed, pastoral-
ly competent, and mission oriented. By training in country, Christian leaders are learning in a setting relevant to their future mission, with study grounded in the practical experience of church planting, evangelism and ministry. Already knowing the language and understanding the culture, students have a direct advantage in making their ministry effective for their own region or country. Through the relationship that OCA facilitates, Christians in Australia may be blessed by partnering with the next generation of church leaders in the developing world. Overseas Council Australia seeks to build the capacity of existing colleges by providing student scholarships, funding building programs, libraries and computers, and supporting senior faculty and pastors in further study. At this time Australian Christians have a wonderful opportunity to partner with the church in the developing world by assisting with the training of leaders. How God will lead his people in the decades ahead is anyone’s guess, but for now we have the chance to partner with our brothers and sisters around the world. Visit www.overseascouncil.com.au today.
Above: Barrack Olouch OCA sponsored faculty member, Nairobi, Kenya.
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Left: Stuart Brooking, CEO of Overseas Council, working with a partner theological school in Namibia.
At this time Australian Christians have a wonderful opportunity to partner with the church in the developing world by assisting with the training of leaders.
PARTNER WITH THE LEADERS OF TOMORROW As the centre of Christendom shifts from north to south, there has never been a more important time to train people for Christian ministry in their own culture and context. Hon John Anderson,
Chair of Overseas Council Australia
TRANSFORMINg LEADERS, cHuRcHES AND NATIONS Overseas Council Australia facilitates an international sponsorship program which recognises the value of supporting national students who become the future leaders of the church throughout the developing world. Each year ten thousand new leaders graduate from colleges supported by the Overseas Council network. By funding nationals to train in their own context, the church is provided with competent Christian leaders for sustained growth. By training Christian leaders in their own culture and context, the value to the kingdom is unparalleled. For just $167 per month, you can support a future leader in training. Call our Sponsorship Program Coordinator, Linda Peterson, to discuss sponsoring a student or investing in theological education around the world.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: p 1300 889 593 www.overseascouncil.com.au
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FEBRUARY 2015
MARK HADLEY
Image: supplied
America’s legendary Vince Lombardi epitomised for a previous generation the sort of battle-hardened coach it took to put a player with potential in the right place and give them the mindset to succeed. “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary,” he would bellow at his beloved Green Bay Packers. But it’s no longer just athletes who are searching for this sort of challenging mentor. “Everyone needs a coach,” says computer genius Bill Gates. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.” Human Resources departments in major companies now look to coaching as a standard tool for developing the potential of entrepreneurs and executives, and the message is sinking into ministry circles. Australian church planting network Geneva Push says Australian planters are looking for experienced individuals who will help them to succeed in the spiritual arena in which God has placed them. “If we are going to do church planting well in Australia we need coaches who understand and connect with Australian culture,” says Craig Tucker. Craig is responsible for developing coaches for Geneva Push’s nondenominational network. As a New South Wales Rugby referee and a coach for up and coming referees, Craig is uniquely situated to reflect on the key
Craig Tucker (right) in action refereeing a rugby game. (Insert) The six key attributes to being a Gospel coach.
Are you a gospel coach? parallels between sporting and spiritual mentors. “The surprising thing about coaching a referee is that the most important thing is character,” he says. “It’s not hard to learn the rules and get fit. What really takes development and coaching is how to make decisions under pressure and deal with conflict. The same can be said of ministry coaches.” He is in charge of mentoring Geneva Push’s existing network of 55 coaches who are currently responsible for guiding church planters through the challenging decisions associated with the first three years of their new work. Craig says Geneva’s ministry coaches go through regular training
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to evaluate ministry problems, pick up on ministry problems, and help the planter head them off before they undermine a ministry. Like sporting coaches, Geneva ministry coaches build a relationship with planters on the basis of regular meetings that measure a number of criteria including spiritual, relational and physical fitness to gauge a planter’s progress. But Geneva Executive Director, Scott Sanders, says like the best sporting relationships it’s not a “one size fits all” approach. “Ministry coaching is intensely personal,” Scott says. “Team coaching can be helpful but experience has shown it’s not as fruitful as an individual relationship based on regular personal
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planting is you get to think about, ‘How do I reach people in this particular cultural context in this quarter of the city, state or this part of Australia?’” Craig says. “And so a church planter needs to think really like a cultural missionary. It is vital that he has a coach who understands that context as well.” Unlike sport though, Craig says if a planter matches themselves with the wrong person it can lead to more than a bad year. “A bad referee will ruin your game, maybe your season if it’s a crucial game. But church planting is about the work of eternity. A whole lot more is at stake.” Craig will be travelling across Australia in February and March
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NTIS ID: 90862
interaction where coaches have built up the trust to share ideas and often say the necessary hard words.” As a network, Geneva Push supplies approved church planters with a personally matched coach who has experience with the type of church they are establishing, and the culture they are working in – the “game” and the “playing field”. “The whole genius of church
to run Gospel Coaching clinics for ministry workers interested in picking up coaching skills. “Our coaching days will give people a model and some skills for coaching in their ministries in general, in a way that will help them develop leadership and train God’s people for ministry,” he says. Craig believes that Gospel Coaching is not just for congregational leadership but is part of equipping all God’s people to serve. “What we want to do first of all is raise the bar on that coaching. Think about the quality of that and the intentionality of that,” he says. “Also, as the number of church planters grows we really need to recruit and train well another generation of Australian church planting experienced coaches to coach the next generation.” The Geneva Push network has supported close to 50 fledgling churches since its foundation in 2009, including the planting of 50 new works. Craig’s coaching team will be a vital part of that support system as the network prepares to partner in the planting of a further 20 churches in 2015. “A mentor is usually someone who is older and wiser, but not very intentional and highly relational. At the other end of the spectrum is a trainer. A trainer focusses on getting someone skills,” Craig says. “But a Geneva coach aims to be someone in the middle. The relationship is going to be relational. But it’s also going to be about getting the church plant working. It’s holding those two things together.” Information about the Geneva Gospel Coaching Clinics is here: genevapush.com/events.
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BIBLE @ WORK
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SEE MORE ONLINE biblesociety. org.au Rwanda’s 1994 genocide left a nation impoverished. Bible Society is working on the deep, divisive wound among its people that is the biggest obstacle to progress.
Hope on Rwandan streets SUZANNE SCHOKMAN They survive by their wits on Rwandan streets – homeless, uneducated and with little sense of a future. For Rwanda’s street children, success means being able to find food for the day. Thirty-eight-year-old Hakizimana Patrice knows what it’s about. He spent his childhood begging on the streets, thankful for any kindness shown. Although education in Rwanda is mandatory for those aged 15 and under, Patrice fell through the cracks – and he’s not alone. UNICEF reports that in 2012 there were 590,000 orphans in Rwanda, indicative of today’s numbers. Several factors like AIDS have deprived them of anything approaching a normal
childhood. But “normal” itself has been a challenge for Rwanda – a nation still reeling from the genocide of 1994. Race-based riots destroyed homes and infrastructure. For 100 days old tensions boiled over and people ran rampant killing those who’d been their neighbours. The riots left many families without a breadwinner. Older children left school to help with family income. Others had no class to go to as schools had been burned and teachers killed. For many Rwandans, school became a place associated with death. While a million people lost their lives in the riots, education was one of the most tragic victims of the Rwandan genocide. But in makeshift classrooms across the nation, Rwandans are
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Education was one of the most tragic victims of the Rwandan genocide. learning from the Bible about a God who makes all things new. Bible Society Rwanda works with local churches to provide Scripture-based literacy classes. More than 85 per cent of Rwandans profess a Christian faith, but God’s voice comes alive
to those who read his written word for themselves, for the very first time. It brings home to them the reality – and practicality – of forgiveness, and how God wants us to let go of shackles from the past. Bible Society Rwanda has received so many good reports of people moving on and rebuilding their lives that it’s asking for help to extend the literacy classes to more Rwandan districts. Literacy classes are also helping those who were not around in the genocide, but who suffer from its lingering impact on the economy. Bible Society holds classes for street children, teaching them how to read and also helping them with practical skills. Former street kid Hakizimana Patrice took the opportunity with both hands,
and today makes a decent living. Typical of others who’ve participated in the course, he’s now helping others to climb out of the pit of illiteracy and poverty. The programme has been running for eight years, but there is still much more to be done. This year, Bible Society Rwanda aims to train over 1200 literacy tutors, who will then teach almost 17,200 Rwandans to read and to rebuild their lives. It’s hard to imagine how a nation torn apart by civil strife could possibly heal, but change is happening, and the Bible is at the heart of it.
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Please give the gift of literacy and new beginnings to Rwandans. To donate please call 1300 BIBLES (1300 242 537) or go online: biblesociety.org.au/eternityrwanda
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FEBRUARY 2015
CULTURE
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‘I have a dream’
Enter the cranky, uptight God MARK HADLEY One of the joys of Christmas is not only receiving gifts but sharing them. This Christmas I received a copy of the very first Dr Who episode, and I got to share it with my wife! Oh, how we clapped our hands with glee … well, one of us anyway. Yet even as I watched that first blue police box creak and crank in and out of existence I realised most people today wouldn’t find that the hardest thing to believe. Film and TV have a way of reshaping not just their characters’ perceptions, but their viewers’ as well. Consider the female leads from that classic production. Your choices would be a schoolteacher who was forever screaming, “Oh, I can’t go on!” or the high school student to whom the Doctor was regularly saying, “Don’t be such a stupid girl!” But thanks to 50 years of big and small screens we’ve progressed to far stronger heroines like Frozen’s Elsa and Anna who are not only brimming with confidence – “Yes, I’m alone. But alone and free!” – but they can sing and dance as they save the day. Film and television are large and small mirrors, sometimes reflecting the world around us, at other times reflecting the world we would like to see. They constantly refine our views of nations, relationships, right and wrong. The Muppets Most Wanted taught kids Europeans take too many holidays. How To Train Your Dragon 2 suggested the best way to get a separated mum and dad back together was to surprise them with each other, then let love do the rest. But 2014 was a particularly good year for cultivating our picture of God. In The Lego Movie, the ordinary construction worker Emmet is recruited to stop the evil tyrant Lord Business from glueing
the Lego universe into eternal stasis. However we soon realise Lord Business is just the brick incarnation of “The Man Upstairs”, the Creator of all Lego life and, in reality, the uptight father of a small boy who just wants to play with his dad’s collection. Will Ferrell’s godlike character posts rules all over his creation like “Off limits!” and “Do not touch!” He’s uptight, angry and out of touch with his son. Sure he bought and built the Lego sets, but he’s forgotten they’re not just for him. Real happiness will only occur when this Creator lets his children become creators too. And this wasn’t last year’s only revision of The Man Upstairs. Last year’s boy blockbuster Transformers 4: Age of Extinction showed us Optimus Prime and his Autobots on the run after the American government decided the only good alien was a dead one. There were plenty of bad guys to choose from. Scientists had mistakenly brought the evil Megatron back to life, the CIA was running a Tranformer kill-squad called Cemetery Wind, and the government was being assisted by Lockdown, a merciless alien bounty hunter. But Optimus’ real ire was reserved for the bad guys behind the contract killer: his Creators. “This message is to my creators: Leave planet earth alone – because I am coming for you!” The “Creators” apparently don’t like species mixing things up, and they had built Optimus to do what he was told. All that the heroes of Transformers 4 want is for their authoritarian masters to leave them alone so they can become “not who we are but who we can be.” In this story the Creator isn’t just frustrating or out of touch, he’s the enemy. Too harsh? Let’s round out the year that was with its biggest
religious release… Exodus: Gods and Kings brought the epic story of the deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt back to the big screen. The kids might have The Prince of Egypt but Ridley Scott introduced us to plagues and miracles the likes of which we’d never seen. He also introduced us to a new version of this unreasonable, untrustworthy God. Moses would encounter his Creator in the form of a petulant child who would throw tantrums when he heard Pharaoh was passing himself off as divine. God was confusing and cruel, driving Moses out of his mind, and the most reasonable line in the film would come from King Ramses’ mouth: “Who would worship a God who kills children?” The Uptight Worrier, the Despotic Controller, and finally the Evil Child … We’ve come a long way in a comparatively short time from The Ten Commandments’ voice of authority, even Bruce Almighty’s mild-mannered Morgan Freeman. The power of the big and small screens lies not in their talent for entrancing the eyes but their ability to fill the vacuum between the ears, particularly where kids are concerned. Not teaching our children what we think about God leaves a gap which producers, directors and scriptwriters are happy to fill. The boy or girl without any contrasting opinions is more likely to just accept what they see. But the son or daughter who has been armed with a well-thought-out picture of God, who is regularly exposed to what the Bible actually says about their Creator, and who daily sees their parents treat him as reality rather than fantasy, will be free to enjoy the spectacle these movies provide – and still recognise these childish images for what they are.
BEN MCEACHEN Let’s cut to the chase: Selma is a fantastic film. 2015 has hardly warmed up, and what will be among the year’s best films has arrived. Selma revolves around several key events in 1965, which radically changed the civil rights landscape of the USA. However, this arresting, inspiring portrait of important history gives particular focus to the renowned man who led a world-changing movement. Bizarrely, few films have been made about Dr Martin Luther King Jr – despite racial warfare being a steady theme of American cinema. Selma does an admirable job of fleshing out King’s psychological and personal life, while also examining the dramatic events he was at the core of. But Selma’s rare offerings do not end there. Christian moviegoers are resigned to the fact that most mainstream movies do not attempt to directly involve or support what they believe. Selma does. Various facets of Christianity are woven throughout, largely adding up to a motion-picture source of encouragement for those of King’s faith. For unlike similar biopics such as Amazing Grace or Unbroken, Selma doesn’t dilute the actual spiritual pulse of its central figure. Applause. Among other examples of Christian inspiration flowing from Selma, servant-hearted leadership and cooperation within the body of Christ are elegantly trumpeted. Witnessing how King – and his close-knit team of fellow activists – go about steering a national uprising, can seem as if Jesus’ own management instructions are being enacted. “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles dominate them, and the men of high position exercise power over them,” outlined
Jesus, in response to the disciples’ scuffle about power, position and greatness. “It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.” As recorded in Matthew 20:28, Jesus goes on to explain why Christian leaders must behave with such humility and selflessness. Because Jesus himself “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life – a ransom for many.” Although Selma includes more testimony to God’s sovereign control and might, King’s convictions evidently echo God’s own son. The God-man who wielded power – for the best of others. Selma depicts King and others putting their own interests first, even when they would rather not. Intermittently revealed is the great cost of civil rights activism, to King’s marriage. Selma could have included much more about King’s alleged adultery, but other incidents and confrontations demonstrate the revered leader as a flawed, questionable human. However, he also models how influence and force should be applied relative to the authority figure being addressed. The power King came to possess merges tellingly with the Christian unity he subtly promotes. King calls upon believers to stand with him, to uphold the equality built into those bearing the image of God. Fighting for such basic recognition involves many people, coming together. Many were Christians and Selma often indicates what the body of Christ can achieve when its various gifts are exercised for the good that God purposes (1 Corinthians 12). Indeed, Selma suggests it’s entirely possible for Christians to be who they are called to be, when they dedicate themselves to that cause.
Sign up to Eternity’s NEW weekly e-newsletter and WIN! Win one of five (5) double passes to see ‘SELMA’ and get weekly ‘Eternity’ news stories in your inbox. It’s a win-win! Head to biblesociety.org.au/win to enter. Competition closes Monday 9th February at 9am. Winners notified via email.
FEBRUARY 2015
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OPINION
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MARK FOWLER Responds to the Royal Commission NATASHA MOORE on a literary masterpiece
Image: iStockphoto.com
A seat at the big table
I can still remember attending large extended family gatherings as a child. The meal was simple – nothing like the exotic creations of Masterchef, but large servings of wholesome country food. The group would be made up of ten or more adults and even more kids. The meal times had many traditions but one was where you sat to eat. The adults and parents all sat at the big table, while the kids had various other options ranging from a small table, to outside or whatever suited. What was clear was where you did not sit, and that was at the big table! As I entered my teenage years a significant change occurred. I was invited to sit at the big table. It was a sign that I was now taken just that little bit more seriously and it influenced my steps towards maturity. Our society has a big table. It’s called national politics and it involves the debates that define the future of our nation. Over the last 25 years, it has become
Karl Faase on finding a voice for the Church increasingly popular to suggest that the Christian Church no longer has a “place at the big table�. These opinions are heard from both inside and outside the Church. From the inside, there are theologians and Christian writers who contend that our rightful place is on the margins – that for a variety of reasons we no longer
deserve a place at the table. From the outside, the Church is told by politicians that faith and belief is a personal and private matter, and therefore has no place in our community debate. It seems like popular opinion, from both inside and out, is suggesting the Church does not have a place at the big table. I would like to contend that we should resist this push. The Church in Australia has every right to be part of the community’s most significant discussions, for three good reasons. Firstly, it is the history of our nation. It is clear from history that our nation has been built on JudeoChristian ethics and morality. Modern democracies are built on a clear understanding of the dignity of the individual and the equality of all people. This means every person deserves a vote and every vote counts. Most Australians would be oblivious to the fact that the equality of all people did not exist until the teaching of Jesus. This is a Christian ideal and one
which shifted humanity’s ethics and underpins the democratic process. It could be argued that without the teachings of Jesus, we would still be ruled by the elite classes who believed that they were entitled to dominate the rest of us. In saying that, I am not suggesting a reinstitution for Christendom but at least a clear understanding of our history. Secondly, where history may not be significant, demographics are. When asked about religious status in the Australian National Census of 2011, 61 per cent of Australians ticked the “Christian� box. While regular church-going Christians might think that many people don’t understand what that actually means, it does show that Australians are still willing to indicate allegiance to Christianity. Despite the general perception that few Australians actually attend church on a regular basis, and those numbers have fallen, it may not be as dire as it first looks. There is certainly a growing sense
that our new religion is sport. McCrindle Research shows that over a period of one month, the four major football codes of our nation (NRL, AFL, ARU and the A league) have a combined attendance of 1.6 million. Over the same period of time, 3.4 million Australians attended church. Two areas of rapid growth in Australia over the past 30 years have been in Christian radio and religious schools. McNair polling says that each month, 3.3 million Australians listen to Christian radio, and of these, between 40 and 60 per cent don’t attend church regularly. There has also been growth in the number of Australian families sending their children to Christian schools. Jennifer Buckingham, Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies, in her paper, “The Rise of Religious Schools�, explores the growth of religious schools in Australia. By international standards, Australia has a higher percentage
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OPINION
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The big table
of non-government schools that have religious affiliation – 94%. This is close to 30% of all schools. Between 1976 and 2006, the largest growth in school attendance, (growing from 12% to 28%) was families sending their children to schools outside the traditional Anglican, Catholic or government system. The majority of this growth has been in low-fee Christian schools. I don’t suggest that all listeners to Christian radio or families sending their children to Christian schools adhere to all that is said and taught. What is key though is that they do not change stations or withdraw their children from schools because of the Christian values of the station or institution. Thirdly, the Church can confidently take its place at the big table of politics because of its contribution to the community. Recent research by Pareto Fundraising has revealed that four of the top five charities (based on fundraising income in 2012/2013) were Christian-based. In the book Driven by Purpose: Charities that make the difference (2012), authors Stephen Judd, Anne Robinson and Felicity Errington look at the history of non-profit organisations in Australia. They observe that 23 of the 25 largest charities and nonprofits are faith-based. The Church contributes to the Australian community in very significant ways, and on that basis alone, we deserve that seat at the big table. The Church in Australia and Christians generally have too readily accepted the argument that our place is relegated to the private faith lives of people in their homes and families – quarantined to a place of personal choice but not public policy. When the role and influence of the Church is compared to the union movement, the greens or the gay rights lobby, all of whom have an entrenched seat at the table, they have no more value-adding credentials than does the Church. The Christian Church can and should occupy a seat at the political table, the big table, the adult’s table, and we should take it with confidence. This is not an attempt to grab power or influence. It’s the opportunity to contribute with grace, a heart of service and commitment to the good of every person, especially the powerless. Karl Faase, CEO of Olive Tree Media
The tussle between Church and State in the West lumbers back through Jesus’ direction to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to give to God what is God’s, to the contest between the kings and prophets of ancient Israel. However it would be deeply misconceived to see the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse as the latest bout in the fight between Church and State. That being said, the Commission’s findings do bring into stark focus an age-old question: “What is the telos (to use the ancient Greek term for the ‘ultimate aim’) of the Church?” The Royal Commission is required to make “recommendations that will provide a just response for people who have been sexually abused and ensure institutions achieve best practice in protecting children in the future.” To that end, the Interim Report of the Commission released mid last year discloses that the Commission is considering, as examples of its work, recommendations on programs that teach children how to recognise and report abuse, on institutional accreditation schemes and on the elimination of obstacles to institutional responses to reported abuse. By mid-2014 the Commission had heard complaints against more than 1000 institutions, including government agencies, private companies, churches, and faith-based and community organisations. One of the pivotal roles of the Church, on the injunction of Christ, is its call to be salt to the world, a purifying and preserving influence. In certain periods within the history of the West it has acquitted this role with vigour, to the extent that at times I wonder if the State has come to rely on the smell of salt emanating from the cathedrals. In the drama between Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, Oxford Professor Oliver O’Donovan reads the following truth: “Empire cannot articulate to itself its suppressed knowledge of its own fragility; the king as dreamer knows something that the king as ruler cannot repeat.” Here is the Church playing its role in speaking a truth to the State that is too fearful for the State to admit. The uncovering of sexual abuse by persons with authority in the Church has cut many of the faithful with a deep dismay. If the Church senses its own nightmare in this, it is the question as to whether it has failed at an existential level to be itself. To illustrate why, let me draw an allusion from ancient Greek philosophy.
Facing the truth of abuse Mark Fowler on why Christians must assist and not hide anything from the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse The extent to which early Church theologians were influenced by Greek philosophy in their theories of the Church has at times been hotly contested by theologians. Saint Augustine was so taken with seeming parallels between Platonic insight and Christianity that he theorised that the teaching of the Israelite prophets may have reached Plato. Plato reasoned that all beings have an ideal form in a preexisting world, that their existence here is but an opaque reflection of that form, and that their reason for existing is to perfect the expression of that form. It has been argued that controversial third century theologian Origen drew upon Platonic thought in formulating his teaching on how the Church of this world would be made perfect and complete on the return of Christ. The Bible conceives of the Church as a creation of God. Both its telos and its nature originates in his edict. The purifying power of repentance is a defining attribute of its nature. Repentance is foundational; it is the very precursor to the birth of the Church. Repentance is also necessary to the Church’s ongoing existence; through it the
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Church continually recalibrates its focus back upon its telos through repentance at a communal level. To the extent that the Church has failed to protect the innocent in her care, she has failed to uphold her God-given role as purifying and preserving salt. To draw a strained Platonic allusion, she has failed to live according to her perfect form, her God-given nature. By not living out its raison d’etre, its reason for existence, it has not been itself, if we say “itself” is as God has described its ideal form, as his bride, that will be revealed in purity on the return of Christ. Here is the heart of our dismay, in these matters the Church has fallen monstrously short of what we know she should be. The claim that the Church has failed to acquit its heavenly calling is not new to our generation. As far back as 1066, William of Normandy justified the Norman invasion of Britain by a purported need to purify a corrupt British church. Henry VIII’s nationalisation of the assets of the Church after the Pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was, at least publicly, justified in part by a growing critique by humanists and
reformers of many of the practices of the medieval Catholic Church, both on account of its corruption in places, and also on account of a belief that religion should confer more obvious public benefits. So how does the Church fulfil its telos and its nature in response to the work of the Royal Commission? In the interests of justice, and to protect children in institutional care today, the Church must assist in the bringing of perpetrators to justice. The Commission, through its investigatory role, holds a central means to seeing this justice done. The Church, as preserver and savourer of truth must approach the Commission’s work in a genuine attempt to understand and fight for the innocent aggrieved. It can also see in that work opportunity to receive learned wisdom on how to prevent any such evil into the future. The Church should, as in all things, approach the work with a concern to ensure its true nature is lived out. It must face reality with the absolute certainty that its nature is to stand for the innocent and for justice. It does this in the interests of justice for those harmed and to protect those in its care now. It does this to be itself. Here Paul’s analogy of the old “self” warring with the new takes on some institutional relevance. The Bible teaches that the believer is fashioned anew in the image of Christ. The believer has been given a new nature, which the Holy Spirit will reveal over time. The old character wars with the new, but the terrifying but powerful process of honesty and repentance forges a new eternal character. This process is terrifying, because forgiveness first requires the conviction that can only flow from admission of the full depth of our depravity. It’s powerful, because the depth of that depravity cannot exhaust the far greater depths of God’s forgiveness. The power of the cross exhausts heaven’s just judgment on evil. This leads us to conclude that if the Church fails to approach the findings with honesty, it risks missing out on forgiveness. It also fails to live out the most fundamental of Christian convictions, the universality of heavenly forgiveness for the truly repentant, and it fails to play its role as a witness to the nations. Charged with holding out a vision of eternal hope, the Church’s response to the Commission will determine if it can carry out this purpose. Mark Fowler is a practising lawyer and a doctoral candidate in law at the University of Queensland.
OPINION
FEBRUARY 2015
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‘We will remember them’ Bible Society launches ‘Their Sacrifice’ campaign
KALEY PAYNE
Image: Sophie Timothy
In the year Australia observes the centenary of Gallipoli, Bible Society Australia is launching a campaign to honour and remember the courage and sacrifice of those who served, and continue to serve, our country, and the book that accompanied so many into conflict: the Bible. Titled Their Sacrifice, the campaign presents 10 stories of courage, camaraderie and faith, spanning from the Boer War to Australian troops in Afghanistan. The campaign is based around a national touring exhibition, showcasing the Bibles that travelled to war. “These Bibles still bear the scars of battle,” says Chris Melville, Bible Society Australia’s campaigns manager. Visitors to the exhibition, starting in Sydney at Westfield City on April 20 and then touring across the country, will be able to see Bibles like that belonging to Lance Corporal Alan Broadribb which he inscribed after days of wading through knee-deep mud with his beloved horses on the Western Front of World War I. “The forward trenches were simply ditches filled with a slimy mud in which men stood, over
their knees, day and night. The mud and deep shell holes were a nightmare for the drivers and horses,” reads Broadribb’s story in the exhibition and on the campaign’s website. After falling ill in the trenches, Broadribb sat with men in hospital who had “ lost their limbs
or eyes or their minds ... I read to them from the little Bible Society Bible when I could,” he wrote in his diary. Also on display is the Bible belonging to Elvas Jenkins, who fought at Gallipoli, and whose French New Testament stopped a bullet from piercing his heart. His
Bible still holds the bullet today. “Nothing can compare to the comfort and strength experienced by Alan Broadribb and Elvas Jenkins – and many others like them – while reading and sharing the word of God during the darkest times of war,” says Mr Melville.
Bible Society Australia is producing a range of publications to observe the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli, including a Centenary Bible and a book of stories, essays, psalms and hymns to help readers reflect on the peace and hope provided by the Bible during times of conflict. A documentary following Major Ian North of the Defence Force as he travels from Australia to Gallipoli and France to uncover the riveting story behind “the Bible with a bullet in it” is also in its final stages. Bible Society Australia is in negotiations with TV networks to broadcast the documentary nationally. And in April this year, Bible Society’s regular Daily Bible service, which provides a short Bible verse and reflection each day via email, will begin a special ‘Gallipoli’ Bible study series, with 30 days of Bible readings around the theme of God’s sustaining presence through conflict. Governor of New South Wales, General David Hurley, will officially launch the Their Sacrifice campaign in March. The campaign website, where visitors can read the full stories, is now live with the first exhibition tour details. Visit theirsacrifice.com for more.
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OPINION
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FEBRUARY 2015
Goodbye work, hello study As many of us slowly get around to putting 2014 to bed, there are some who aren’t looking back to the year past, but ramping up for the year ahead. They are incoming first year Bible College students, and here, some of them share their excitements, fears, and hopes for their fast-approaching time that will be spent living alongside other believers, and learning from the Word of God.
Jayesh Naran In 2014 I worked as a ministry trainee for two churches: Mitchelton Presbyterian Church and its church plant, Village Church, both in Brisbane. In 2015 I will be studying at Queensland Theological College doing a Masters of Divinity. During my traineeship I decided that I should become a pastor, because God has given me gifts of teaching and preaching, and I enjoy teaching people his Word. I know that to teach people the Bible most effectively, I need to study theology. While at college I’m hoping to nut out the question, “can born-again Christians fall away from the faith?” The case of Saul in 1 Samuel 10 makes me curious, despite the different circumstances he was in. I am a little nervous about falling behind and failing assignments. But I’m most excited about studying with my new wife Jess and growing in knowledge of God’s Word together with her.
Dave Chiswell
In 2014 I was a ministry apprentice with the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students Christian Union group at Deakin University in Burwood, Melbourne. In 2015 I will be studying at Ridley Mission and Ministry College. Over time I noticed that the guys and girls on the staff team at Deakin who’d been to college had a much better handle on the Scriptures, and were much better equipped for ministry over the long haul. I wanted the same tools and
Emily Shaw
skills that they had, and college seemed like the best place to get it. My biggest hope for my time at college is that I’ll be able to develop a really good “big picture” understanding of the whole Bible, and how it fits together. I’m nervous about learning Greek. Definitely nervous about Greek. But I’m really excited about getting to know the people in my year, and developing a great environment where we’ll push and encourage each other.
In 2014 I worked as a high school classroom music teacher and as a piano teacher at a studio. In 2015 I’ll be starting Bible College at Trinity Theological College in Perth. I’ve always wanted to go to Bible college to know God and the Bible better, and when I quit my job in 2014 I thought, “why not go to college next year?” My husband and I decided that 2015 was a good year for me to study. I’d like to discover more about the people who wrote the Scriptures, and about the people who put them together and formalised Christian doctrine. I’m a little nervous about keeping up with all the readings, but I’m really excited about understanding God and his Word better, being better equipped for serving, and doing it alongside other people.
Sebastian Meredith I spent the first five months of 2014 working and raising money. The remainder of the year I spent in Northern Thailand teaching English and preaching the gospel message through villages and messages of encouragement to churches. In 2015 I will be attending Melbourne School of Theology. The mission trip to Thailand made me very eager to learn more and have more in-
depth answers to the questions I was asked. I’m especially keen to think through the best methods of evangelism. That is, how can I comfortably initiate a life-changing conversation with any person? I’m only really nervous about starting and settling in to my new routine. I’m looking forward to applying the knowledge I gain to glorify my Lord.
Natha Middlemas In 2014 I worked as a teacher of English as a Second Language to adults. In 2015 I will start studying at Vose Seminary in Bentley, Western Australia. I came to Christ in April last year and since then I’ve become more and more curious about scripture. I want to study scripture in an environment where I can gain an understanding of its context, and in a structured way that hopefully prevents me from becoming too overwhelmed by the things I don’t understand, but rather provides me with an opportunity to explore those things with others. I hope that studying theology will challenge me to love
in ways that I haven’t known about or didn’t understand before – to question the ways of the world, to deepen my understanding of God and to seek Christ in all aspects of my life. I find it hard to be nervous about something without also being excited about it. I’m both most nervous and excited about deepening and developing my knowledge of Christ through scripture, and about the conversations I will get to have with my lecturers and classmates. Such exploration is as much exciting as it is terrifying. I’m both nervous and excited about the way coming to know Jesus more will affect me.
Jenny Chen In 2014 I was a MAP (Ministry Apprentice Program) trainee at Holy Trinity Adelaide. My main ministry was teaching the Bible and pastorally caring for Mandarinspeaking women. In 2015 I plan to attend the Bible College of South Australia. I don’t think I was the one who made the decision to go to college, I think God called me when he transformed my life through Christ. During my time doing MAP, I realised I needed to work on my Bible knowledge. Sometimes I struggled to easily point people to a specific passage that could have been helpful for their situation. Although I could always follow it up later, I often wished I could have done it on the spot when I was talking to that person. I’d like to know where the Chinese people came from, because they’re not mentioned in the Bible. I also want to think about how Christians can read and apply Chinese culture (Chinese medicine, philosophy) to their Christian worldview. I’m nervous about so much sitting! I have done many years of study completing my PhD, so sitting to read and study really is a challenge for me now. Even so, I’m really excited to learn more about God and dwell on His words!
FEBRUARY 2015
OPINION
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2015 college entrants dive into the Bible Kylee O’Neill In 2014 I was very excited to be part of the first Bible college at The Grainery in Tighes Hill. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to study again in 2015 but four days before college started, I was offered a scholarship. That was a real answer to a prayer. I hoped that Bible college would help me grow in wisdom and knowledge. Bible college has helped me delve more deeply into God’s word and the study of theology. This in turn has allowed me to feel more assured of my beliefs, my faith and have my commitment strengthened. One question that I have been thinking about is “What is
Samuel McDowell
In 2014 I finished my training as a GP, and then worked as one, in Sydney. In 2015 I will start studying at Sydney Missionary and Bible College. My wife and I decided to go to college because we are looking to serve God in cross-cultural ministry overseas. We have a heart for taking the gospel to a place where it has not yet been proclaimed. One of the steps we are taking to prepare for this is to get a solid biblical and missions foundation. I’m especially excited about exploring the question: “How do we wisely and accurately interpret God’s word?” At the moment I have that anxious anticipation that one has before embarking on one of the great adventures of life. It will be a big life change in many ways for our family, but one we are very excited about. I’m thrilled to have the privilege of delving deeper into God’s word on a full time basis, and I’m really looking forward to going on this journey with the other students at college.
God’s will or God’s plans for my life?” I am still discovering that God sometimes delays his clear-cut answers to cultivate our trust in him alone and not on our own wisdom. In 2014 when I first started Bible college I was nervous because I wasn’t sure what to expect. This year I am also nervous about trying to balance being a mum to a young family, working and doing Bible study. But what excites me most about Bible college is studying God’s word and developing a deeper relationship with God. Bible college has helped me grow in faithfulness, spiritual maturity/growth and biblical knowledge.
Karen Nivala In 2014 I worked full time as a speech pathologist with children with physical disabilities. In 2015 I plan to study full time at the Brisbane School of Theology. Between 2010 and 2014 I spent a total of nine months volunteering in a small village in rural Tanzania. It left me with a debt on my heart – I felt I needed to do more but I wasn’t sure how to do it. I starting looking at my options, including courses in international development, however I kept coming back to building on my faith. I want, God willing, to develop my understanding of God to learn how to better convey it to others. I’m not quite sure where it will lead but I know it’s a necessary step on the way there. I have been nervous about a lot of things building up to this year including telling people who don’t understand, putting my speech pathology career on hold, and making sure the funds are there. But that nervousness has made me pray and my relationship with God is all the better for it. I’m most excited about learning, growing and being challenged in my faith. As I’ve been discussing my study plans, people have come out of the woodwork, sharing stories of their theological studies. They have this knowing look of excitement for me. I look forward to knowing more about what that means.
Andrew Court In 2014 I worked full-time at Life Anglican Church in Quakers Hill, Sydney as a ministry apprentice. 2014 was my third year spent as a husband, my second year working for LifeAC and my first year as a 23-year-old. In 2015 I am beginning my studies at Moore Theological College. I’m nervous about the transition from worker to student. This coming year will be very different in terms of how much of my time is devoted to coal-face ministry work and how much in the books. I’m anxious to get this balance right. For me, the decision to go to college is an investment towards a lifetime of ministry. At the moment I’m really interested in the idea of truth and revelation. To what extent can you arrive at a knowledge of God through practical reason? Can human minds find truth without God’s revelation? Is all truth God’s truth? I’m keen to do some rich thinking about my faith and to come out on the other side even more amazed by the love of God.
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OPINION
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FEBRUARY 2015
The man in seat 12C TONY MCLENNAN
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Andrew* in the plane: I rushed to the airport after a very full weekend of preaching and teaching at a very large church at Reedy Creek on the Gold Coast. Mercifully my seat was the window seat with no one to occupy the middle seat. Meanwhile the man who had occupied the aisle seat studied his computer. “Do you live in Sydney?” I asked. “No,” he said, “ I am just going there for business.” “Pity to have to travel on a holiday [Australia Day],” I said. He nodded glumly and went back to work. Soon the engines’ thrust reminded me that we were on an aircraft and as we hurtled down the runway and lifted into the sky, I asked the Lord, “If you want me to speak to this man, help me Lord.” It wasn’t long before the meal came round and it was down tools as we snacked on biscuits and coffee. “Tell me,” I said, “have you ever wondered what is the point of life?” He looked at me vacantly. “There is no meaning to life,” he said. “Oooh!” I said, “what happens when someone dies?” “That’s easy,” he replied, “they go into the ground and it’s dark forever from then on ...” “I see ...” I said slowly, “How can you know for sure that that’s the truth?” “Who can know?” he said
wearily. “Well,” I said, “do you think it’s possible that there is a heaven and a hell? That God exists and that somehow we are supposed to have a relationship with him?” He said, “I was brought up as an atheist. I come from a communist background and I don’t have any idea about what you are talking about. My wife is religious but I never seem to be able to get it. I just don’t get it at all.” “I understand,” was my concerned reply. “Look, let me
show you something.” And with that I showed Andrew The Way of Life presentation on my iPhone beginning with the question: “Do you believe that a person could know for sure that he is going to go to heaven when he dies?” Andrew peered at the iPhone and sat up as he leaned over to look at the picture of the frowning sky with that question in white text above the cloud. “How could anyone know that for sure?” he said with a searching tone.
And with that we progressed through each picture and I explained that we can’t make ourselves good enough for God and that all have sinned including both he and I. I showed that the reason people don’t know God or feel his presence is because sin cuts us off from him. We progressed through the frames and Andrew grew more and more intent on what was being discussed pausing to ask questions and discovering the wonderful
truth of the good news. When we came to the part where I showed the picture where it said at the base: “Christ died for our sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring You to God ...” [1 Peter 3:18] Andrew stopped me and said: “How do I get into this?” I said, “You can pray and ask God to reveal himself to you with this prayer ...” And then I showed Andrew the prayer of salvation and added, “You know, Andrew, the Bible records God as saying that ‘whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved’?” [Rom 10:13] I then showed him a prayer in The Way of Life and with that, Andrew, a man in his forties bowed his head with me and invited Jesus to be his Lord and Saviour. Fast forward a couple of months later and I was back in Brisbane and I met Andrew in a shopping centre one morning. I had called him and had sent him a copy of Beginning with Christ. Andrew had learned all five assurance scriptures off by heart. Later on a Navigator friend of mine followed Andrew up and gave a good report. Footnote: I rang Andrew not so long ago and I asked him how he was feeling. “The difference in my life since we prayed on the plane is nothing short of huge,” he said. Really that says it all. If you’d like to find out more about The Way of Life, contact tony.mclennan@businesslife.org. au
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OPINION
FEBRUARY 2015
whom Christian faith came as a dramatic personal experience in her youth. This kind of experience was celebrated at the church she attended at the time. Laura could remember vividly the feelings of exultant joy and deep gratitude: the impression of at once being in the presence of a holy God – holy to the point of being terrifying – but of knowing too that she had been forgiven everything. To feel this was to feel deeply and personally loved. She would pray without having to think about it. She felt conscious of God at every step. That feeling had long ago disappeared as youth had given way to adulthood: to work, marriage, parenthood, with all the attendant joys and hardships. Laura juggles the daily routine on half a night’s sleep. Church is still part of her life, but that overwhelming feeling, and the certainty and the joy that came with it, seem to have faded. Sometimes, she wonders whether she really believes in God anymore; and prayer isn’t something that comes to mind that much. I think Laura’s experience is familiar to a lot of Christians in mid-life. I’ve known people to give up the faith because that feeling of inner certainty has faded, or because some other inner certainty has appeared and taken over.
One response to this would be to say, “Well, Laura’s faith is only subjective. If she’d known about Christ more objectively – if she’d known more of the truth – then she wouldn’t have trusted so much in her own inner experience.” That is one very common response to a very experiential Christianity. But it is inadequate. The Christian faith does hit us, if we really believe it, not simply in the head but in the heart. Surely the epistles of the New Testament tell us this! Churches which overemphasise experience may be in error, but at least they see people truly converted. The church which denies the experiential aspect of the gospel may produce apologists, but it won’t produce Christians. What we ought to see is churches that cultivate the affections of people like Laura while also seeking to deepen her understanding of her faith. The initial overwhelming moment of being loved by God ought to mature into a love of God experienced in all the avenues of life – whether in the changing of a baby’s nappy or in the morning commute to work on a wet Tuesday. How to do this? Of course, we pray for a powerful work of God’s Holy Spirit, so that Laura and others like her feel increasingly assured and joyful in their faith in Christ. But humanly speaking, this
is where the rhythms and habits of regular Christian worship can help us in that long journey from flourishing youthful faith into the emotional deserts of middle age. Our culture despises repetition as inauthentic and hollow; but the repetition of the words of a liturgy can be the opposite. Repetition allows words, and the acts that they perform, to become part of us. As we confess, or give thanks, or praise, or recite the ancient creeds, we are practising these Godward acts so that they become second nature to us. We develop the habit and the language of living together with God. Laura also ought to become aware that though the Christian faith includes her sublime experience, it is also much bigger. Her experience was anchored in a reality that is outside of her. The Christian faith involves not simply the personal story of Laura and God, but it marvellously includes Laura’s story in the story of God and his people. That means that a church meeting ought to draw us to those who are around us, and those who have gone before us. We are drawn together to meet with God as people of God – the communion of saints, not the saint. The experience of being a Christian over the long term is to become aware of the love that
God shows us through other people, and of the opportunities he gives us to share his love. The analogy of marriage is hard to resist here. Falling in love lasts, they say, barely two years. But in a successful marriage, these feelings give way to deeper and more complex feelings. A good marriage is rich in trust, affection, and laughter; there is space for tears as well as for silence. Much of it is boring and forgettable, but that’s where marriage is to be experienced – on the plains of the everyday as well as in the mountains of the momentous. It is possible to think that those heady days of being in love were the real thing and to regret the passing of that whirlwind of feelings. But to do that is to forget that you have actually something far more real and substantial, and possibly to fail to take possession of a deeper experience that is on offer. So it is, we may say, with our relationship with God. It is not that we shouldn’t seek, or speak about, our experiences of God. But to be known by, and to know, the God of Jesus Christ is to know a God who is near to us and loves us not only in our joys, and in our griefs, but bizarrely, even in our numbness. Michael Jensen is the rector of St Mark’s church in Darling Point, Sydney and the author of several books.
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What should being a Christian feel like?
Michael Jensen Head and heart together for a lasting faith Even though we live in a culture that says that it prizes logic and reason, it is striking how often we appeal to our feelings as the ground for certainty about the important things in life. This is especially true in the realm of what we might call the “personal” – our choices in relationships, our decisions about where to live and even our voting preferences are based on what feels right more than on the basis of what is the most rational decision. We may even use reason to justify something that feels right to us, but it is the area of feeling that is where the decision is made. Advertisers know this, which is why they only very rarely put a logical argument in front of consumers. It is far more important to them to appeal to (for example) nostalgia, or loyalty, or envy, or anxiety, or nationalism. These feelings can exert a powerful influence on us, if we are to be honest. We do not usually choose our life partners on the basis of a calculation of advantage to us, or to our families. That is not the way in we do things in Western culture, because for us authenticity arises from free decisions, and certainty comes from within us. How do I know that she is the one? I know it in my heart. Or do I? The problem is when the feelings that gave the initial assurance of love fade. If they do not turn into a bond of deep affection drawn from shared experience, the relationship has lost the very thing that appeared to make it real. The trump card is feeling: if I’ve “fallen out of love”, or if I’ve developed true feelings for someone else, then I must follow the call of my feelings. Feelings are almost sacred. For some people, becoming a Christian is a lot like falling in love. It can be associated with a powerful, even overwhelming sense of the presence and reality of God. The feeling of being intimately known – and deeply loved – is at once joyful and liberating, and inspires an extraordinary hope. The truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ, even though they describe events that happened before I was born, are profoundly personal. You might call them “existential”. And that’s why the best Christian hymns engage us, not simply in rational reflection, but in personal appropriation of the gospel. “Amazing grace – How sweet the sound! – that saved a wretch like me” is a declaration of a truth that the singer knows from deep within herself to be true. My experience was something like this. Growing up in a Christian household I knew what Christian faith was. But it wasn’t until I was 16 that I realised it was true for me. And that realisation was then a matter for great joy and confidence. It changed everything to know, not just that Jesus Christ died on the cross, but that he died there for me and for my sins. But what about when the feelings disappear? I have spoken recently with a woman (let’s call her Laura) for
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OPINION
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FEBRUARY 2015
Does God’s rest still need a special day of the week? Debate: Eternity started a discussion on the seventh day last month. James Standish says the Sabbath is still a blessing I read Michael Jensen’s beautifully written piece on the Sabbath with interest. He refers to the Sabbath as a foreshadowing of Christ. In this he is only half right. The Jews had two different kinds of Sabbaths: weekly Sabbaths and annual Sabbaths. The failure to make the distinction is the basis of much confusion. The weekly Sabbath was instituted by God at creation (Genesis 2:2-3). It was then confirmed in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8). Jesus clarified how to keep the Sabbath (Mark 3:4) and early Christians followed his example of Sabbath celebrations (Acts 16:13). The weekly Sabbath does not foreshadow Christ’s coming, but rather was instituted explicitly to commemorate God’s creative power. Listen to the words of the Fourth Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy …” Why? “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8-11) The weekly Sabbath harkens back to creation, not forward. So how is Michael partly right? Because there were also annual Sabbaths that were part of the Jewish ceremonial cycle, some of which pointed forward to Christ’s coming (see, e.g., Leviticus 23:7-8). The reason Christians like Eric Liddell, whose courage was captured in Chariots of Fire, refused to work on Sabbath was that they correctly viewed the weekly Sabbath command as relevant to Christians today, just as the other commands found in the Ten Commandments are (e.g., the command to honour parents, refrain from stealing, lying or
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killing, etc.). They did not believe they were saved by keeping those commandments, but believed keeping those commandments is a natural reaction of receiving Christ’s grace (see Romans 6:1-2). The passages Michael quotes about confusion over which days to keep, refers to the annual Sabbaths, not the weekly Sabbath (Romans 14:5-6). How can we know that with confidence? Context. For Jews to abandon weekly Sabbath-keeping would have created an enormous controversy in the early church. It would have dwarfed the welldocumented controversy over circumcision – a controversy that is referred to extensively in Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians. And yet there are only a couple of ambiguous passages that are pointed to as evidence of the abandonment of the Sabbath – one of the Ten Commandments. The cited evidence doesn’t hold water. Not only is there a compelling lack of evidence that the Sabbath was abandoned in the New Testament, there is a compelling body of evidence that the Sabbath was retained. The book of Acts, which tells the story of the Christian church after Christ’s return to heaven, mentions the Sabbath explicitly nine times. In every single instance, it is clear that it is referring to the same weekly Sabbath as followers of God kept from creation. And these Christian Sabbath celebrations were not limited to synagogues. For example, early Christians
met together on a river bank one Sabbath (Acts 16:13). Why does this all matter? First, Michael correctly laments our collective loss of a weekly rest. As Christians have turned away from Eric Liddell-style Sabbath observance, they have lost something very precious: time to connect with God, with families and with our community. In the rush towards a 24/7 world, we are “rich and have need of nothing” but have lost our families, our mental health, and our faith in the process. While celebrating Sabbath on any given day of the week may sound good, how are families and church communities meant to connect if everyone is off on a different day? God knew human beings need a coordinated break when we can fellowship together. That may be one of the reasons he gave us the Sabbath. But it isn’t just what the Sabbath gives us; it is what it says about our hearts. “If you love me,” said Jesus, “keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) The question of the Sabbath is all about love. The Sabbath isn’t a burden for me or my family: it is by far and away the best day of the week. We don’t keep the Sabbath to earn God’s grace; we keep it because we have God’s grace. And it is a fabulous blessing. Why not give it a try? Turn off the TV Friday night, drop your work and study, your bill paying or home improvement projects. And just spend 24 hours in communion with God, your family, your church community, God’s creation and your friends. By sunset on Saturday, you’ll feel
like a new person. And, I suspect, you’ll understand why Jesus said the Sabbath was made for us (Mark 2:27). Why not accept his gift? James Standish is Director of Communications & Public Affairs Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific
Michael Jensen says Christians are free to choose It was great to have James Standish’s considered and courteous response to my piece about Sunday. In my piece I argued that the Christian use of Sunday (or “the first day of the week”) as a day of gathering had a traditional but not a normative significance as a celebration of the resurrection going back to the New Testament, and that it was not a transferral of the Sabbath as such. Further, I argued that while the principle of a day of rest was a good and just principle, the practice of the Jewish Sabbath – that is, Saturday – is not a command that pertains to Christians (though of course they are free to celebrate it if they wish, and many do). In James’ reply he argued that there were in fact two types of Sabbath in the Old Testament – annual Sabbaths and weekly – and that only the first type, which in some cases James says anticipated Christ, was abrogated in the New Testament. The trouble is that this division is nowhere actually to be found as such in the Old Testament, and nowhere does the New Testament recognise it.
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Early Jewish Christians maintained their custom of keeping the Sabbath as they maintained their prayers in the temple and the practice of circumcision. But Gentile Christians, while free to take up Jewish customs, are not under obligation to do these – even those that were commanded of the Jews in Scripture. The warning of Paul’s letter to the Galatians is not that circumcision or Sabbath keeping are wrong per se, but that these may prove a tempting and deadly distraction from justification by faith alone. For the Jews, the Sabbath looked back not only to creation (Ex 20:11) but also to their redemption as a people in the Exodus (Deut 5:15). It was about their identity as the people of God. And it forced you to look back but also to look around with gratitude and to look forward in hope (Isa 66:23, Psalm 92) – especially when you weren’t living in the land any more. That hope has come, embodied in Jesus Christ. Christians also look back, around and forward. But they do it in a Christian way. They remember the cross and resurrection, and they have baptism and the Lord’s Supper as their ways of doing this. As a result, in Christian history, almost no Gentile Christians have read Scripture as encouraging them to keep the Jewish Sabbath (since their identity as the people of God is based not on creation and exodus but on new creation and atonement), while still maintaining that the principle of rest has an ongoing significance post-Christ.
OPINION
FEBRUARY 2015
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Discovering a voice of faith Tim Costello Stepping outside the safety of our tribal walls We live in a time of amazing connectivity. Never before have we been so wired together, living amidst a constant flood of instant communication. But the world isn’t quite a global village yet. We’ve conquered physical barriers of distance, but walls of our own creation still stand – walls of ignorance and misunderstanding, of isolation and disconnection. Ironically the internet has helped fuel a new tribalism, because it’s so easy to find and stick with a narrowly-defined group of people who share our own interests and values. We find a similar trend in our churches – like-minded people gathered together, giving us comfort and security. We feel safe inside our own walls, happy in our comfort zone. But the comfort zone isn’t where we are called to be as Christian disciples. Discipleship means following Jesus and practising all he taught, including the “impossible” ideas like loving your enemies and turning the other cheek. Discipleship means that instead of seeking comfort we need to be feeding the hungry, healing the sick, visiting the prisoner – not just people like ourselves, but whoever and wherever they are – because as disciples we see that the image of God is in everyone. Jesus told his followers to “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father.” (Matthew 5:16) I think these familiar words are key to understanding how discipleship, and leadership, work in the Church and in the world. It’s always tempting to choose the easier way, and enclose ourselves in our own small, comfortable world. And so to follow our calling we need to constantly renew our commitment and take stock of what we’re doing. This month leaders from some of World Vision’s partner churches will gather in Melbourne. I’m looking forward to sharing a time of prayer and reflection, energy and ideas as we tackle the challenge of thinking and working “beyond our walls”. I hope you will join us in spirit, wherever you are.
A capacity for mystery comes with the territory, really, for Christians. As the limited people of an infinite God, we resist the lure of the black-and-white, the urge to fit everything into concrete, comprehensible systems, with nothing left over. But nor do we simply shrug (“it’s a mystery”) and ignore what we can’t hope to fathom. The depths – of God’s grace, of his might or mercy, his calling, his justice, his will – may be inexhaustible, but that doesn’t keep us from joyfully losing ourselves in even the shallows. Marilynne Robinson has pondered the mysteries of life and of faith more than most – as have John Ames, the old mid-Western preacher we first met in her novel Gilead (2004), and his wife, the inimitable Lila (2014). Much of Robinson’s latest novel winds its way among the byways and beaten paths of Lila’s past, or rather her reflections on her past: being taken up, as a neglected child, by ugly old Doll, with her own chequered past; wandering year after year with a band of tramps, working in the fields, sleeping in the open; storms, storms, violence, prostitution, and crushing loneliness. And then, arriving in the town of Gilead, and – in one of the most beautiful twists of contemporary fiction – finding herself the wife of the kind old Reverend, carrying his child and living an existence she can’t quite grasp as her own. Indeed, “existence” is a deeply charged word in Lila. The rootless wanderings Lila
Natasha Moore of CPX reviews a new masterpiece looks back on, an outsider not only to “normal” community but to “normal” structures of meaning as well, reveals to us the thousand thousand ways in which interpretation criss-crosses our lives, makes them intelligible to us. From her lone year of schooling as a child, Lila knows to marry up the cornfields and orchards and dust she tramps through with the words “the United States of America”, but it’s in Gilead that she first learns there even is such a word as “existence”, that there are words for the things she feels and wonders about, or for the birds (“pelicans”) that come to the river in their hundreds but that nobody eats. The poet W. H. Auden suggests that, in keeping with our Adamic right and duty to give names to things, it’s only those things we have names for – down to flowers or animals – that are quite real to us. Thoreau: “With a knowledge of the name comes a distincter recognition and knowledge of things.” Lila probes the very foundations of this human way of ordering our ex-
periences – the unmediated data of our senses – by ideas, by language, of making meaning out of apparent chaos. Of living by faith and not merely by sight. One of the most remarkable things about this novel, in fact, is the strange intimacy between the reality Lila has experienced and the one she finds in the Bible. The metaphors and parables and larger-than-life episodes of Scripture, which can feel a million miles away from the modern, middle-class existences of so many of its readers, to Lila simply name the things she knows already. Ezekiel, she finds, “knows what certain things feel like.” The baby weltering in its blood, taken up by one who chooses to love it; the “whoring” of Israel; what it means to be “a desolation and a reproach” to people – these are what she knows of existence. And the glory of the Lord, great storms and fire. “It could be that the wildest, strangest things in the Bible were the places where it touched earth,” she muses. Lila’s exegetical methods wouldn’t be taught at any Bible college. And her “theology”, as she struggles towards an understanding of how the gospel can be true and yet leave everybody she ever knew and cared for untouched and unrescued, is unorthodox too. But the insights of Lila – that “the Lord is more gracious than any of us can begin to imagine,” that there is goodness at the centre of things, that God looks after the strays (“especially the strays”) – are
profoundly orthodox, in spite of the universalism they inexorably slide towards here. If we don’t struggle, as Lila (and Lila) does, to reconcile the vast, unplumbed grace of God with the unmeasured suffering and the condemnation of unnumbered people, then do we not have much to learn yet about the heart of God himself? Lila’s life has been mightily unlike her husband’s, or his neighbours’. All of their lives are foreign to us, as ours would be to them, or to our own ancestors. And yet the Bible is, somehow, like all of them, and truly foreign to none of them. It is right, surely, for Lila to wonder how grace might fill the gap between the sheer ignorance and unrelenting hardship of those she grew up with and the starkness of the doctrine of hell and the narrow gate. And it’s right, too, for the appallingly abused and oppressed of our world to cry out for, and to expect, a real and final judgment. For the glory and justice of God to be larger, far larger, than our grasp of it. “Life on earth is difficult and grave, and marvellous,” the Reverend, Lila’s husband, writes, and reads aloud to her. “Our experience is fragmentary. Its parts don’t add up. They don’t even belong in the same calculation.” Some mysteries seem only to deepen the more we know and experience. But, as Lila comes to realise, “Eternity had more of every kind of room in it than this world did.” It is the mysterious grace of God that makes mystery ultimately bearable, and even beautiful.
Letters
What balance? Karina Shim’s letter (December Eternity) shows a great simplification of a complicated problem. It is not the biblical command of men having to love their women that is neglected in Christian groups but rather the command of women to obey their husbands (Eph 5:24–25). Indeed, anyone preaching the latter may find himself heavily criticised in and outside the church or even end up in court nowadays.
Many problems have their roots in lack of gratitude towards God. Women’s lib thought they had the answer by giving women a lot more power. But ever since the Christians took that on board things have gone downhill fast in Christian circles with a low divorce rate compared to the world suddenly catching up with it. Broken families have resulted in more crime and hard to control people. Harry Kloppenburg, Thornlie, WA
Je suis Charlie (I am Charlie) is a slogan protesting against the massacre of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo’s staff. Because we are horrified at the slaughter, Je suis Charlie. At the same time, we can’t be Charlie. As The Guardian
has pointed out, to run their satirical material is to adopt their editorial values. We cannot do that, although we offer a little advice on our cover, which is modelled on Charlie Hebdo’s cover published after the attack in Paris. They bravely said Tout est pardonné (All is forgiven) with an
“Oh the plank? It’s for aesthetic eff ect”
image of Mohammed. We can’t forgive the terrorists on Charlies behalf. We are not Charlie. Eternity has to be itself. We can point out that Jesus brings forgiveness to those who seek him. Our delight is to tell stories of how Jesus changes lives, especaily in Australia. John Sandeman
www.biblesociety.org.au
A national newspaper for Australian Christians, Eternity is sent free to any church upon request. Eternity is published by Bible Society Australia (ACN 148 058 306). Edited by John Sandeman. Email. eternity@biblesociety.org.au Web. www.biblesociety.org.au Post. GPO Box 9874 In your Capital City
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OPINION
20
FEBRUARY 2015
Love letter from a perplexed stranger Dear 21st Century world, It’s getting weirder living with you, as a Christian. Is it us, or is it you? It’s weird like I imagine it might have felt back in the days of the Roman Empire, with Nero lighting us up on posts and tearing us limb from limb for a bit of fun. Weird in an “I think they are trying to get rid of us” way. Weird in the sense that we are starting to think that you may genuinely have no idea what we are on about. The American theologian, Stanley Hauerwas said near the end of the last century, “My own view is that within a hundred years, Christians may be known as those odd people who don’t kill their children or their elderly”. He seems to have been right, except for the timeframe. He said it in 1998; it’s starting to sound accurate now, just two decades on. The strangeness of Christianity is becoming more obvious. Strangely, we extend the hand of friendship to those who are against us (or, at least, we should). Strangely, we persist in believing there is more going on than our eyes can see and hands can touch. Strangely, we argue that human beings need help to thrive, and we can’t just look after ourselves. Strangely, we keep supporting the chronically ill, the dementing, the hopelessly disabled, the untouchable (again, I add, at least we should). Christians keep denying the priority of economic rationalism, instead exceeding our quotas on
Greg Clarke on being weird and the butt of jokes altruistic resource use, abundantly loving and exorbitantly caring. We don’t account for time in six minute lots. We ‘waste’ ourselves on lost causes. We keep telling Nietzsche he was wickedly mad when he said we were pitiable because we “have preserved too much of what ought to perish”. Most days we are the butt of jokes; that’s been the case since antiquity. But some of us around the globe are suffering much worse assaults than that. Driven out of our homes, tortured, forced to recant our faith or die. I guess that has happened on and off for centuries, too, depending on where you live. But the stakes seem very high at the moment. That kind of suffering isn’t happening to us here in Australia (is it?) but we certainly have a growing sense of not being all that welcome. We are getting talked about as if we are somehow “the problem” and that
society would be far better off if we could be removed from public view. Some say we have no place in the classroom, as if learning about Christianity is too dangerous for children. Others are worried about our influence on social institutions such as marriage, where our way of doing things doesn’t seem as attractive as it once may have been. Still others want to take our special celebrations out of the public calendar – Christmas, Easter, that kind of thing. It’s a pretty clear way of telling us that you don’t really want what we have to offer. But I have to admit it is confusing. The messages are mixed. It’s confusing, because so many Aussies still seem to love the impact that Christianity has had on the nation overall. We love our charities, the vast majority with Christian roots. We love to emphasise the “fair go” and “mateship”, both deriving to some extent from the Christian social tradition. We think loving thy neighbour makes good sense, and we will soon remember the value of laying down one’s life for one’s friends on Anzac Day. Aussies still seem to love these christianised values. Confusingly for some, many of us Christians do in fact hold respected positions of influence in Australian society. We are army generals, governors, university vice chancellors, business leaders, mining magnates, premiers and
prime ministers. We are novelists, musicians, artists and poets. And yet, to acknowledge the faith that shapes us is considered unacceptable for those in positions of power. It is as if our faith is something that needs to be hidden away, lest it stop us doing our job “properly”. But many of us are motivated to service and good deeds by that very faith. It’s frustrating to be silenced about the very thing that matters to us most. Although lots of young people really don’t know who Jesus is, or what the Bible says, or what it Ginger & Fred (Dancing House) Prague, Czech Republic by Vlado Milunić & Frank Gehry norto/flickr
means to call yourself a Christian, they are nevertheless interested in the things we are interested in. They talk about justice, or ending poverty; about forgiveness and redemption. They feel that there must be “someone up there”; they look to the heavens for guidance. These are our kinds of things. It’s confusing to be silenced and rejected, but appreciated at the same time. Dear 21st Century, it leaves our relationship status reading, “It’s complicated”. Thanks for having us, anyway. We like you, much of the time. We like this world, because we think of it as God’s good creation, just in need of a lot of TLC to get back to where we started (maybe even better). We are frustrated that the goodness of the world doesn’t get acknowledged, and the good Creator doesn’t get thanked. And we are baffled that we seem so unwelcome now, when we really do have your best interests at heart and we think we can help you with your (our) problems. Could it be that we Christians just need to explain ourselves better? Are we the problem after all? Or is being perplexed strangers just our biblically-appointed lot, and it is time we accepted it as normal? I guess it is both us and you, dear 21st Century world. Greg Clarke is CEO of Bible Society Australia and author of the 2014 Australian Christian Book of the Year, The Great Bible Swindle.
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