Eternity - May 2015 - Issue 58

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58

Number 58, MAY 2015 ISSN 1837-8447

Brought to you by the Bible Society

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Would you bake a cake... for a gay wedding?

Stranger Faith than fiction v Works

A bullet and a Bible John Flader and Michael – aWW1 treasure Jensen on how we get to touring Australia Heaven

‘We do not want this cyclone.’

Stories from disaster’s frontline

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Infographic: How many overseas workers each local church supports 3.77 2.44

2.31

2.19

1.55

1.45 0.34

Anglican Extra note:

Baptist

Churches of Christ

Lutheran

0.34

0.14

Pentecostal

Presbyterian

Salvation Army

Seventh Day Adventist

Uniting

Note: 1. Data collected from Catholic churches were not used as support for missions was done at an institutional level rather than a local level.

2. Salvation Army data was confined to the Southern Territory only, representing approximately half the total Australian Corp numbers Source: NCLS Research Fact Sheet: Support for Overseas Workers Cat#1.14027 (c) 2014

3. ‘Support’ should not be interpreted as full support for a worker. Many overseas workers draw from several churches to attain full support.

4. The question referred to ‘workers’, not ‘programs’, and to overseas workers only. Some denominations have a greater emphasis on supporting workers elsewhere in Australia, or have a more program-based focus, which should be taken into account.

Aboriginal Bishop greets outback deal Taking faith to the office TESS HOLGATE

Nicola Gage/ABC

The new Aboriginal Bishop of South Australia, Chris McLeod, has welcomed a new deal in which the Federal government will pay the South Australian government $15 million to keep the communities in the remote APY Lands open. SA is the last state to reach a funding deal with the Federal government.

In early March, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said (of funding remote communities,) “What we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have.”

McLeod says, “the decision to consider the potential closure of remote communities was done with little consultation with the Aboriginal people involved, and with little understanding of and respect for the close relationship Aboriginal people have with the land.”

Under the new deal, the SA government will take responsibility for power, water, sewage and rubbish collection outside the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, while the communities inside the APY Lands will continue to be funded by the

Federal government.

Chris McLeod, a Gurindji man, was consecrated as Assistant Bishop earlier in April (see picture). “It is incumbent, I think, for Christians to be concerned about the treatment of Australia’s most marginalised people – the Aboriginal people.”

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Monday 4 May 7:15 pm – 9:00 pm 15 King Street, Newtown

Open Week Monday 4 May – Friday 8 May

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Senior High and University students can expore how to link their faith to their chosen profession at a seminar hosted

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“Faith and the professional life” on June 5 will feature John Anderson AO, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, as the keynote speaker.

Additional speakers include Professor Nicholas Aroney (UQ - academia), Steve Austen ABC612 (journalism), Mark Fowler (law), Gemma Roux (clinical psychologist), Anthony Herbert (paediatrician), Matthew Hutchinson (architecture), Grace Kim (dentistry) and Wendy Francis (politics).

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‘It is tragically ironic that the church of the West has come to be seen by many as an institution that misuses power.’

John Dickson – page 15

Asking me to take part in our cover story, on whether Christians should bake cakes for gay weddings (should they be legal in Australia) would have been a bad idea. My packet-mix sort of cake would have been rejected by any gay couple I know, and that’s not even taking into account what the icing would have looked like.

Just like when an American pizzeria was asked if they would cater for a gay wedding by a reporter, the real answer is, “No one is going to want us to do that.”

The cake story is just a cheeky way into a very serious issue of how Christians should live in a society where we are more and more unpopular, and where some feel as though some “rights” are being stripped away from us.

John Dickson has been thinking this issue through, going beyond the “cake” issue, to how we approach Scripture classes in schools. His take can be found in our Opinion section.

How Christians should behave in the public square is something we all need to think carefully – and imaginatively – about.

John Sandeman

News page 2-3 In Depth 5-8 Books Liftout Bible Society 10 Opinion 11-16

Obadiah Slope BUNGEE TIME: If you are selling bungee jumping, mention God and you will get more customers.

That’s the conclusion of a team of Stanford University Business School researchers reported in the New York Times. Stanford’s team found that mentioning God in the lead-up to an interview made people more susceptible to risky behavior, but not bribery. They offer the insight to marketers for free.

TO MINISTER IS TO SERVE: Disability housing lobby group Every Australian Counts shares a story of desperate homelessness and adds: “If this story doesn’t prompt ministers to take urgent action on housing for people with disability, what will?” Obadiah knows (or guesses) they meant Federal government ministers, but he thinks the sort of ministers you find in church need to take note, too.

NO MORE UGG BOOTS: When fashion designers Dolce and Gabbana, who were once a gay couple, spoke up for traditional marriage in the Italian magazine Panorama, gay news site LGBT Italia called for a boycott. Sydney’s Catholic Weekly commented, “It would be hard to object to the victory won for elegance if conservatives were to start wearing D&G.” GLASSHOUSES : Awful juxtaposition on the front page of Opinions, the WA Anglican magazine. (Found by blogger David Ould – see below):

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Gallipoli and the true story of the bullet in the Bible

In brief Thanks: Saturday, May 30 is the National Day of Thanksgiving. This year the focus is on fathers, people who work in finance (especially those in non-profits), and random acts of thankfulness. You could live out a thankful heart by offering a random act of kindness to someone less fortunate than yourself.

Thanksgiving.org.au

ANNE LIM It is just a little pocket New Testament in the French language.

But it carries with it a story of great faith, courage and tragedy.

Elvas Jenkins was a young lance corporal fighting at Gallipoli when shrapnel from an exploding shell hit him directly over his heart.

But the little Bible he carried in his shirt pocket came between him and death, stopping the bullet halfway through. Like many who survived Gallipoli, however, Jenkins later lost his life on the Western Front.

This Bible, which still cradles the bullet in its pages, has just returned from a pilgrimage to Gallipoli, where it was part of Australian Defence Force ceremonies commemorating the centenary of Anzac Day on April 25. Regimental Sergeant Major Paul Richardson liaised with ADF chaplains to work out exactly where Jenkins was when he was shot and held a little ceremony there.

It has now rejoined nine other wartime Bibles which are on display as part of Bible Society’s Their Sacrifice exhibition. The display is built around the remarkable stories of ten brave diggers and the book that sustained them through the darkest and most turbulent times: the Bible.

The exhibition was launched in Sydney and Melbourne on April 20. For the rest of the year it will be on a nationwide tour of Westfield shopping centres. For more details, visit theirsacrifice.com/tours

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Thanks Ramon: The Australasian Religious Press Association has named a youth award after Ramon Williams, 82, who has been taking pictures and sending out press releases for five decades. His press releases carry his motto, “Telling others what others are doing for the Lord.”

The bullet in the Bible: the subject of Bible Society’s new documentary.

A documentary, The Bullet in the Bible, is also available which tells the story of one man’s sacrifice for his country and the faith which spurred him on. It was produced over a period of 10 months, with the crew travelling to France and Turkey along with a current serving officer to retrace Jenkins’ Anzac journey using cutting-edge drone technology and beautiful cinematography.

As part of the filming of the

documentary, woodworker Geoff Cannings made a special box for the Bible from a branch of a tree at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. This tree was grown from a sapling from pine cone from the Lone Pine tree at Gallipoli.

“There was barely enough for the box, so I couldn’t afford to make a mistake,” says Cannings. Knowing he only had one shot at it, Cannings first made a concept box and then three prototypes before cutting

the real thing for the camera. “I was nervous. There was the double pressure of getting the cut right, and doing it correctly on camera.”

The Bullet in the Bible is now available on DVD from the Bible Society online bookshop, theirsacrifice.com and at the exhibition.

Churches that want to screen it may obtain a free copy from Chris Melville on chris.melville@ biblesociety.org.au

Home time: The Australian Christian Lobby backed federal Nationals backbenchers for a fairer tax deal for stay-at-home parents in next month’s budget. The Nationals’ senators support income splitting for single income families who currently pay $10,000 a year more tax than double income families earning the same amount. ACL Managing Director Lyle Shelton said, “The tax system should not penalise parents who wish to work unpaid in the home, particularly when children are young.”

Unbelievable: China is the least religious society out of 69 countries surveyed by WIN/Gallup International with twice the number of convinced atheists than any other nation (61%). Thailand was the most religious society, with 94% saying they followed a religion.

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TOM RICHARDS on silence after the storm TAMIE DAVIES on the Garissa massacre

Would you bake a cake for a gay wedding?

TESS HOLGATE When two conservative states in the US passed religious freedom legislation, they got hit with a massive backlash. The laws passed in Arkansas and Indiana, which attempted to allow businesses to not serve gay customers, have been labelled “anti-gay” and watered down after pressure from big

business (Apple, Wal-Mart) and lobbyists.

The most cited case study in this debate is whether a Christian baker should be forced to bake a cake for a gay wedding.

Christian bakers in North America and the United Kingdom are being taken to court over their refusal to bake and decorate a cake for a gay wedding, being accused of

discriminating against the client on the basis of their sexuality.

In Australia we are not in the same position. Currently, gay marriage is not legal in Australia, so our own national conversation about religious freedom is centred elsewhere.

Nevertheless, watching the legal battle play out on the global stage forces a little introspection upon

us. We ask ourselves, “What would we do?”

Should a Christian baker have the right to decide whether they will service gay weddings?

At Eternity, we polled a number of Australian Christians on their response to this question: “If gay marriage was legal in Australia, and if you were a baker, would you bake a cake for a gay wedding if

asked by the couple in question?”

We have not asked people about whether or not Australia should legalise gay marriage. Rather, we have sought to ask what Christians would do if they found themselves in the situation that is unfolding at present in the US and UK. Of those who responded, thirteen said yes. Only four said no. Here is a selection of their answers.

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story. I hope I’d be brave enough never to bake for any authoritarian cause, including clumsy attempts by the state to enforce social harmony and silence honest disagreement.

Andrew Cameron Kara Martin Director, St Mark’s Theological Centre, Canberra My initial impulse was not to bake the cake, for the same reason as I’d not perform the ceremony. No real surprises: I hold to the usual conservative argument that we receive marriage in recognition of different genders coming together to be open to welcoming new life.

Every social drift from this practice lessens us, and there might be other kinds of pairings (like, say, a man onto his eighth marriage) that I’d abstain from assisting.

But my saying that isn’t the same thing as being a baker in the gay couple’s street. A baker is differently embedded into a community and isn’t charged to say tough things in fraught fights about whose love gets the recognition we call “marriage”. A baker might have to greet and serve these people in the years following this ceremony and feed any children they adopt. A Christian baker loves gay neighbors by serving good bread.

So maybe I’d ask if they’d consider hearing me out, over a coffee and a cinnamon bun, as to why I’d find it hard. But if they just didn’t get it, and only knew how to be angry at my reasoning, I may well go ahead and bake the cake.

If, however, the law presumed to give me no choice or say in the matter, then that’s a whole other

More info at:

Associate Dean, Marketplace Institute, Melbourne Would you only bake cakes for virgin men and women getting married? Would you not bake cakes for people who are greedy? Why don’t we turn this around? After all, Jesus hung out with sinners and prostitutes and Paul made tents in the marketplace.

We have such a hard time attracting people to our churches, why don’t we use such workplaces as the frontlines to initiate conversations, develop relationships, to demonstrate love and grace without compromising our own values?

We do not have to apologise for our faith, or the values we live by, but give people a glimpse of what the resurrected life looks like.

Anthony Venn-Brown

Gay Rights Ambassador Even if gay marriage wasn’t legalised I would still bake the cake for the couple should they be having a self-styled commitment ceremony.

Like any straight couple on that special day, the gay couple loves each other and are making a commitment to each other for life. Why would I not wish them every blessing and success in life together?

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75% of respondents said they would bake a cake.

25% of respondents replied in the negative.

Mike Bird Theology Lecturer, Melbourne Yes, I would bake one. If you are going to live in a secular and diverse society you have to be able to get along with other people even if you don’t agree with their lifestyle. If you want to live in a Christian bubble and only work with and serve Christians, fine.

But you can’t work in the world and then complain that people are worldly.

I think it is hypocritical for Christians to bake cakes for cohabiting couples, divorce parties, a Hindu wedding, but refuse to bake for a gay wedding, since it implies

Q: Would you bake a cake for a gay wedding? that their sin somehow justifies making them pariahs. I very much doubt that the Apostle Paul, an itinerant tent maker, would refuse to make tents for people if he knew that those tents were going to be used for religious and ethical activities that he disagreed with.

Michael Jensen

Rector, St Mark’s Darling Point, Sydney As I understand it, the cakerelated controversies have been direct and deliberate targeting by same-sex marriage groups with the aim of creating a situation in which they will look like the victims of discrimination. I don’t want to

step back from supporting those bakers who have been trapped and then bullied to go against their consciences on this.

In ordinary circumstances, however, I think I would make the cake, much as I would disagree with its use. My job is to make the cake to the order of the customer. I am not officiating at the wedding. I am not called upon, in the making of cakes, to make statements about whether I think the purpose to which the cake is to be put is a valid one or not. If that were the case, then to be consistent, a cake-maker should inquire as to the validity and wisdom of any and all weddings for which he or she is invited to make

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a cake.

Perhaps He is a well-known philanderer, and She is marrying him despite his intention never to give up womanising. Perhaps a scrupulous cake-maker shouldn’t make that cake, either. And since we are being scrupulous about who we are doing business with: were the ingredients of the cake made by happy cows and justly paid farmers? Was the chocolate fair trade? It isn’t wrong to consider the ethical implications of what we do with our work, our investments and our consumer choices, but it is important not to single out a specific issue for special ethical purity, and be blind to the demands of others.

Shane Rogerson

Minister, St. Matt’s Prahran, Melbourne Yes I would bake a cake for my gay neighbour whom I am called to love and serve. I would also build roads for her to drive on, collect his rubbish, treat her cancer and sell him goods and financial services just like I would my greedy heterosexual neighbour who regularly denies his workers their wages and dodges taxes.

I would not be able to call their marriage holy, but last time I checked that wasn’t a baker’s job!

Bakers should stick to the business of baking cakes and loving their neighbour with all their idolatries.

Ben Myers

Lecturer, Unitied Theological College Yes. Christian bakers can and should have their own moral convictions, but they shouldn’t

try to enforce these on the public.

Otherwise, to be consistent, they would have to start refusing their services to all kinds of customers.

Before long you would have to fill out a theological questionnaire before you would be allowed to buy a loaf of bread. Christians should engage with society not in a narrow fault-finding spirit, but in the joyous and generous spirit of the gospel. After all, the kingdom of God isn’t a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17).

No Claire Smith

Author I would say “no”. I understand the sticking point in the cases in the US and UK has not been baking the cake, per se (flour, eggs, etc.) but decorating the cake, which involves a creative activity of celebrating the marriage and relationship. It is this creative celebration that would be my sticking point too. There would be other cakes that I would also choose not to decorate, for example, if a buck’s party wanted a lewd image of a woman. I’m not sure there is necessarily a right and wrong answer to this question, and even then, it might come down to particular circumstances – even, for example, the type of decoration the couple wanted.

Karl Faase

CEO, Olive Tree Media No, I would not bake the cake.

The problem in the current combative culture of the West is that the gay lobby has an agenda in approaching service providers.

They are not seeking a service or a product but rather they have the motivation of entrapment. Many in the gay lobby are trying to make “examples” of people who refuse them service due to what they believe are bigoted and intolerant worldviews. In this environment it is more than reasonable to make a stand on your personal values to refuse to endorse a concept or moral position (gay marriage) that runs contrary to your deeply held religious or biblical views.

Everyone in our community has the right to their beliefs; it is important that a Christian world view which underpins personal values are just as valid as someone with a strongly held liberal view of sexual expression. In a free country, with freedom of religion and belief, it is as reasonable to refuse service to a gathering that you passionately disagree with as it is for a doctor to refuse to carry out an abortion or a website hosting company to refuse to host pornographic sites or for a vegan restaurant to refuse to cater for the local butchers’ picnic.

The refusal to provide the service of baking the cake for the gay wedding is a statement that all people ought to be free to chose how and when their services and skills are made available to another individual or group. If the provider feels that giving a service is in effect legitimising behaviour they strongly

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Gordon Moyes

oppose then refusing the service is a reasonable expression of free speech.

Lyle Shelton

National Director, Australian Christian Lobby I would respectfully decline.

Professionally aiding the celebration of a gay wedding would mean setting aside biblical teaching on marriage and endorsing a sexual union contrary to God’s specific instructions.

It also means abandoning biblical teaching on the nature of what it means to be human creatures made male and female in the image of God. From a social justice perspective, it means endorsing a family structure which deliberately requires a voiceless child to miss out on their mother or father.

David Ould

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Minister, Glenquarie Anglican Church No – I don’t want to participate in such a clear public approval of something I think is wrong and harmful. I’d be happy to provide any other cakes for general use.

Mind you, I wouldn’t expect a gay baker to provide something against their conscience either.

These basic freedoms are important for our whole society and if they’re eroded then we’re in a very dangerous place.

And, of course, the freedom to express our opinions and act according to conscience is ultimately the freedom to tell people about Jesus and for them to respond.

Gordon Moyes AC, head of Sydney’s Wesley Mission for 27 years and an elected member of the NSW Legislative Council passed away on Easter Sunday, 2015.

He built Sydney’s Wesley Mission into one of Australia’s largest welfare organisations, but was at heart an evangelist. As a minister in Cheltenham in suburban Melbourne, he said, “I started what became a habit for many, many years of making an appointment to visit one man every Tuesday lunchtime at his work and to have lunch with him wherever he ate his lunch. I only had two rules – one was that I would eat wherever he ate, and the other was that no-one would ever buy me lunch. I was not visiting for a free lunch but I was there to talk to the man about the significance of his work, of his role as a father and a husband, of any problems he had in his own life, of how he saw his relationship with God at the moment and if he would let me outline to him the facts of the gospel. Visiting those men every lunchtime became a sacred duty and a wonderful opportunity of sharing the gospel.

“Almost every lunchtime or at least once every second week I had the joy of seeing a man make a commitment to Christ and frequently this was then followed by other members of his family whom we baptised together.”

Full obituary at biblesociety.org. au/news/gordon-moyes

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Silence after the storm Tom Richards was on Tanna Island in Vanuatu as Cyclone Pam hit

“Pastor, we do not want this cyclone.

You must pray it away, I have heard that it’s category four.”

My wife, Margaret, and I arrived in the tiny community of Enefa, north-west Tanna two years ago from Australia with our four young kids in tow, so that I could teach at a Bible college.

At 7.48am Friday, March 13, I discovered that we had been on a yellow alert since 6pm the night before. I gathered the students together and read Job 38, prayed for our safety, sent all the students home who could make it back to their communities and gave the remaining two instructions to make our college ready.

I woke at 1am to a fierce wind whipping down our valley between the hills of north Tanna and driving water under the eaves and into the housing of our electric pump. I had the presence of mind to switch the electricity off, but other than that, with nothing but wind and rain and blackness to contend with, there was little more to do other than to retreat to the naivety of sleep.

It was towards the end of breakfast that things changed.

Margaret’s ears popped and the wind shifted to the north and intensified to a level that defied all adjectives. Pam had arrived.

Being inside a house while it is ripped by a cyclone is like crashing a car slowly. Very slowly. There was about six hours of it.

In our home, excited children were milling around in the “big room”, which serves as kitchen, dining, lounge and school room, laughing and playing when I heard the first of many cracks. I needed to whisper to Margaret, but had to shout into her ear to be heard over the wind, “I think the roof might be coming off.”

“Move the kids into that corner,” I said, and we all huddled on the small bed that we use as a couch and prayed, asking our God to look after us and thanking him for Jesus.

The cyclone shutters made it dark inside with no way of looking out.

And then our shelter was pierced by light as a sheet of iron was bent back and the remorseless wind hurled rain and other debris into our house.

We didn’t know it at the time

A family sit amongst their gathered possessions on the site of their ruined house the morning after Cyclone Pam. but we had lost our verandah. One section of it had sailed straight over the house complete with the concrete post weighing about 40kg.

Our wind turbine, which had a survival wind speed of 180km/h was ripped straight off its post. A land cruiser parked nearby was picked up and turned into the wind.

Pieces of iron continued to peel back on the roof and we retreated to the refuge of a bunk in a bedroom, where we prayed some more.

We kept calm for the sake of the kids with whom we huddled on the bunk. Sam (6), our oldest, who is interested in everything, was having a wonderful cyclone. Lucy (5), our bookworm, was worried at first and wanted to know why we weren’t running to another building. But once we explained how dangerous that would be, and she became convinced that we were looking after her, she was content to curl up with a book and a torch. Tim (3) just took it all in quietly and was happiest sitting close to a parent, and Annie (2) asked if we could switch the cyclone off.

I was concerned for the family’s safety, but never really in fear. The roof was coming away, but so far it had only torn as far as the first cross-beam. I knew that as the wind clawed its way in, it could take bigger and bigger helpings of

the roof, but so long as the iron was flung away from the buildings, we would be nothing but wet.

Had the timber in the roof been torn away with the iron, it would have been more concerning, as that could have resulted in wood falling down into the house, but still, I hoped the bunk bed might be some shelter. If things had got really bad, we had a frighteningly dangerous back-up plan. I had made up chest harnesses for the family and would clip everyone together to a rope and make our way to another building, if there was still one standing.

Beyond that, I knew in the eternal sense, that Jesus had our backs.

I guess it was that that helped to keep the fear at bay. Besides, when I had read Job 38 with the students, I had told them that since it is a righteous God who controls the world, we should choose to praise him regardless of what the cyclone brings, and it was time for this preacher to walk his talk.

Close to midday I spun around with yet another crack and saw a piece of iron peeled back to the second beam; a hatched opening for the monstrous weather to climb in.

But within fifteen minutes Pam began her retreat, as if her limits had been marked out, told, “No, not this time. No farther.”

I opened the leeward door to

reveal a foreign landscape, as if we had been washed up on the shores of a new land.

The trees were left naked, their clothing scattered, jumbled like a laundry basket. Distant ridges were brought near. The ocean seemed to rage at our feet. Not just because of the effects of storm surge, but because we were no longer separated by a leafy veil.

As the storm picked up again, Margaret and I began to prepare the kids for the new world which they would soon look out upon and would become their new home.

The hardest part of that was to tell Sam that his pet parrot and its cage were no longer there under the now nonexistent verandah. It wasn’t just that the cage was ruined, but that it wasn’t there at all.

The wind never again reached its original heights. In fact I wondered why it still bothered. There was nothing left to do. Everything that would fly had already fallen. Even the loose sheets of iron had all found trees to embrace, wrapping themselves around them, glad to find something more stable than themselves. Yet we had been spared.

Once the wind had returned to safer levels and the children were allowed out to explore their new land, I heard a sudden shout from Sam: “My parrot!”

He had heard a shriek from the rubble. It was the familiar voice of his parrot, Polynesia. Somehow she had escaped her teleported cage and found refuge in the wreckage of our laundry. Sam’s fog lifted.

Our friends’ houses had been flattened and their gardens had become something like left-over spaghetti bolognaise; a mess that could be eaten from immediately, but would soon be rotten scraps.

But like us, they responded with an overwhelming sense of gratitude that they had survived.

The next day we gave thanks to God with our community. We read from Psalm 46 and Luke 13. There was no point skirting the issue: the same God who saved our lives was the God who allowed our earthly wealth to be smashed. I visited our neighbours at what had been their houses and watched people pick their meager possessions from the piles of thatch and bamboo. I held hands with each family, prayed and shared in their sorrow.

The weeks that followed the cyclone were filled with plane sightings and rumours of help.

Foreign aid organisations came to help communities who were hardly helping each other. The cyclone, powerful as it was, hadn’t overcome village politics and inter-tribal rivalries. Cyclone Pam hadn’t blessed us with metaphorical cleaning out of the bush. No, that would take the power of the gospel, ministered with love into people’s lives.

But perhaps God had blown down some barriers. We experienced a new sense of solidarity with our community; a camaraderie which will not easily be diminished. We all had cleaning up and drying out to do. We all had to plant new gardens to provide fresh food in the months to come. We were all, for the time being, isolated from the world and shocked within ourselves. Yes, our house was standing while others’ had fallen, but that just gave us the chance to use our resources to help others.

Here on Tanna, new growth is emerging in the bush; fresh green on old wood. Perhaps too in our community we are seeing a fresh and fragile growth. It may just turn out to be a small twist in a greater narrative, but it is a narrative we share; a common story in which we found ourselves not the deliverers, but the graciously delivered.

Tom Richards is a missionary with the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu

They could have escaped if they denied being Christian Tamie Davies on the Garissa massacre According to news reports, when the gunmen arrived, their first target was an early morning Christian prayer meeting. Of 29 students there, just seven survived.

Kenya is a world away from Tanzania in some ways. To an Aussie they might seem awfully close, nestled one on top of the other in East Africa, but Africa’s bigger than it looks on a map, both in terms of geography and the cultural differences from place to place. So a terrorist attack in northern Kenya does not automatically affect the university students I work with in central Tanzania. But Garissa

wasn’t just a terrorist attack.

It was a terrorist attack on a university campus, which meant those who died were a lot like the university students I work with.

Moreover, Christians were targeted and the first to fall were those from the same family of student groups that we work with, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES in Australia, TAFES in Tanzania). For the university students I work with, these slain students were “our people”.

The day after the attack I was conducting a seminar on pain and suffering with TAFES students in Dodoma in central Tanzania.

It was a planned part of their Easter conference but it found new resonance in the light of the Garissa attack. We talked about the different causes of suffering

that we see in the Old Testament – suffering brought by God, inflicted

by Satan, experienced as a result of foolishness, etc. – and we added that in the New Testament there is another category: suffering for being a Christian. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

At Garissa, the role of the victims’ Christian identity seems fairly clear. We have reports of sorting Christians from Muslims, and even of Christians being shot immediately upon being asked their religion. I said to my students, “They could have denied being a Christian and escaped with their lives.” This broke the students’ silence. To them, it was outrageous, unthinkable, absurd, even laughable to shed your Christian identity.

Grief is a funny thing. It requires great sensitivity, and in cases like

Garissa, which have garnered some international attention, great cross-cultural sensitivity. A Kenyan colleague wrote on her Facebook page, “Must we keep sharing the photos of the slain students … Must we???” and overwhelmingly the respondents said, “No!” Though customs differ from tribe to tribe, the general advice I was given when I came to Tanzania in 2013 was that when you go to comfort the bereaved, you speak about normal things, anything other than the deceased, in order to take the mind of the grieving off their loss. Many Kenyans who commented on my colleague’s Facebook thread felt that the pictures were simply too sad. They did not want to continue to see them. In contrast, many of my Australian Facebook friends felt

the pictures must be shown to raise awareness as they felt the media coverage had been paltry, as if African lives do not matter as much as the French who lost their lives in the Charlie Hebdo killings.

There are very deep questions here, about how grief works in different cultures and how grief works on a global scale. This grief is not limited to Kenya, for the Garissa attack is a world event, but it is a Kenyan event in a way that it is not Tanzanian or Australian. We must learn to express solidarity that honours the slain and their families and their particular cultural background. We must learn to grieve with them without allowing our own grief to overshadow theirs.

Tamie Davis is a CMS Australia partner who lives and works in Tanzania with university students.

Books

Your special lift out supplied with Eternity MAY 2015

Fierce Convictions

by Karen Swallow Prior 9780718021917 $19.95

Paperback

Reviewed by Tess Holgate

Fierce Convictions One of the most remarkable stories in Australian Military History

On May 7, as the Anzacs came under heavy fire from the Turkish army, Jenkins was struck directly over 00 his heart by a shrapnel bullet from a 75mm field gun. It should have killed him, but his Bible acted as his shield. The bullet passed all the way through Revelation, the letters and Acts and stopped when it reached the gospels. This near-fatal experience did not discourage Jenkins, who was promoted to corporal and then sergeant, and when the Anzac evacuation was eventually ordered in December 1915, Jenkins was one of the last to leave. His story is now the subject of this incredible documentary.

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$

“Great adventures must begin somewhere, and here is as likely a starting place as any: this room, this schoolhouse, this lively imagination that even in its earliest years loved wisdom and words.”

In this book, Karen Swallow Prior traces the life and work of Hannah More, one of five daughters born to Jacob and Mary More in eighteenth-century England.

Though they were not a well-to-do family, his profession – a schoolmaster – enabled him to provide all his daughters with an education well beyond the standards of the time for girls.

Hannah would never marry, though not for lack of offers. Around 1767 Hannah became engaged to a gentleman by the name of William Turner, who over the course of their six-year engagement would back out of marrying her three times. Having conceded to continue the engagement the first and second times, after this third postponement Hannah refused to reinstate their engagement.

Turner continued to pursue Hannah’s hand, but was refused time and time again. Eventually he “offered an annuity as well as a promise to marry Hannah if she would agree to set a date one more time” (p. 36).

One of Hannah’s friends, a Dr Stonhouse, negotiated with Turner to accept the annuity rather than the promise. “At Turner’s insistence, the annuity was to be sufficient to allow More to pursue a literary vocation as compensation for the time she devoted to him” (p.

37). The sum was 200 pounds per annum, more than enough for a living and her own room.

From a young age Hannah delighted in words. The Protestant emphasis on the need for individuals to read the Bible for themselves had opened up a new profession for women outside the church and home.

They were now able to write. Not everyone was happy with this development, and the derogatory term “female pen” implied that “for a woman to write in such a serious, independent way was unnatural, perverse even, an act that went against her sex, and thus, her very nature … Professional women writers were often judged as though they were participating in that only other profession available to them: prostitution” (p. 42).

Hannah was not turned off by comments like these, her passion for writing was already taking shape.

Hannah soon made the first of many journeys to London, where she became acquainted with actor David Garrick and his wife Eva. The Garricks would continued...

Bullet in the Bible 9780647519349 DVD (60 minute runtime)

Also available:

15

$

00

Their Sacrifice 9780647519295 Paperback

Their Sacrifice is a collection of stories, prayers, hymns, poetry and psalms to help you reflect on the tragedy of war, the spirit of those who have served our country and the Book of books that went with them.

MAY 2015

B2

Counter Culture

New Morning Mercies

9781496401045

$19.95

Paperback

Welcome to the front lines. Everywhere we turn, battle lines are being drawn—traditional marriage vs. gay marriage, pro-life vs. pro-choice, personal freedom vs. governmental protection. Seemingly overnight, culture has shifted to the point where right and wrong are no longer measured by universal truth but by popular opinion. How are we supposed to respond to all this? The moment has come for Christians to rise up and deliver a gospel message that’s more radical than even the most controversial issues of our day.

by Paul Favid Tripp 9781433541384 $29.95 Reviewed by Guan Un

The Mingling of Souls 9781434706867

$19.95

Paperback

We are inundated with songs, movies, and advice that contradicts God’s design for love and intimacy.

Emotions rise and fall with a simple glance, touch, kiss or word. Against this cultural sway, Matt Chandler offers an eternal, counter-intuitive perspective on love from the biblical book Song of Solomon.

(Lamentations 3:22-23) This book of devotionals from Paul Tripp takes its title from the famous verses above, verses which are a note of grace amidst a biblical book that is filled with sorrow, judgment and lament.

Fitting then, that New Morning Mercies also sounds a resounding note of grace, amidst the sometimes ordinary genre of biblical devotionals, where the worst in class can fail to be either biblical or devotional.

Paul Tripp is an author and frequent conference speaker (he’s been to Australia recently), and professor at Redeemer Seminary. His byline says that he “works to connect the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.” With that ethos, he’s also written on family, parenting, and ministry life in Dangerous Calling.

Here, however he brings that focus to a year’s worth of short, easily digestible daily readings that will take you almost exactly the length of time it takes you to drink a morning cup of coffee. He draws from a long history of professional counselling, pastoral ministry and experience that lends his writing wisdom and a pastoral touch, but overall the focus is on the grace that comes through the gospel of Jesus Christ. This grace is applied in a number of ways throughout the readings: the idols of identity and control, the everyday sins that we can be so quick to overlook, the thought patterns that lead us away from the grace that we are called to.

See, here’s the thing. We wouldn’t need devotionals if we weren’t so daft. As people, we tend towards shortsightedness and forgetfulness. As enthralled as we can be with the power of the gospel on Sunday, if you’re anything like me, by Monday, you easily lose sight of what the Bible called us to do.

And this is where devotionals can do good: as a daily reading and reminder to focus again on what is good and true, gradually, you come to be reminded of the grace that you need. Every day.

The readings are broken up into summaries (short enough for Twitter), then Tripp’s short article, followed by a prompt to read a particular Bible passage. My only gripe here is that I wish Tripp brought us into the substance of the Bible verses a bit more than he does, either by having the verses printed, or by dealing with the text a bit more in his mini-articles. This is not to say that anything he writes is wrong; this is a minor complaint more about method than content.

Overall his style is casual and easy to read and I wouldn’t hesitate to give it to the carpenter in my congregation, as well as the lawyer. And like the best devotionals do, the continual prompts to look at the gospel of grace and see how it applies to each part of your everyday life has a way of seeping under your skin.

There is also a small question of audience. New Morning Mercies is an easy introduction for those who aren’t big readers. For those who want a devotional that will stretch you that little bit more, it may be worth checking Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening, or Carson’s For the Love of God. But for those who haven’t done a devotional before, or in a while, this is a good place to help you meditate on the Lord, he whose mercies are new every day.

Saturate 9781433545993

$24.95

Hardcover

Drawing on his experience as a pastor and church planter, Jeff Vanderstelt wants us to see that there’s more to the Christian life than sitting in a pew once a week.

God has called his people to something bigger: a view of the Christian life that encompasses the ordinary, the extraordinary, and everything in between.

Packed full of biblical teaching, compelling stories, and real-world advice, this book will remind you that Jesus is filling the world with his presence through the everyday lives of everyday people… People just like you.

$19.95

Fringe Hours

by Jessica Turner Softcover 9780800723484

Every woman has had this experience: you get to the end of the day and realize you did nothing for you. Perfect for any woman who is doing everything for everyone— except herself.

Fixing My Eyes on Jesus

by Anne Graham Lotz Hardcover 9780310327844

s

MAY 2015

B3

Killing Christians

by Tom Doyle

$19.95 Paperback

9780718030681

For many Christians in the Middle East today, a “momentary, light affliction” means enduring only torture instead of martyrdom. The depth of oppression Jesus followers suffer is unimaginable to most Western Christians. Yet, it is an everyday reality for those who choose faith over survival in Syria, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, and other countries hostile to the Gospel of Christ.

In Killing Christians, Tom Doyle takes readers to the secret meetings, the torture rooms, the grim prisons, and even the executions that are the “calling” of countless Muslims-turned-Christians.

After Acts

by Bryan Litfin

$24.95 Paperback

9780802412409

If you’ve ever wondered what happened to the biblical characters after Acts-from the well-known Matthew to the lesser-known Bartholomew-then this book is for you. Join Dr. Bryan Litfin as he guides you through Scripture and other ancient literature to sift fact from fiction, real-life from legend.

Skillfully researched and clearly written, After Acts is as accurate as it is engaging. Gain a window into the religious milieu of the ancient and medieval church. Unearth artifacts and burial sites. Learn what really happened to your favorite characters and what you should truly remember them for.

$22.95

$15.95 Fixing My Eyes on Jesus will encourage, uplift, renew, and challenge you on your spiritual walk each day of the year.

Jesus, the Temple and the Coming Son of Man

by Robert H Stein Paperback 9780830840588

Seasoned Gospels scholar Robert Stein follows up his major commentary on Mark with this even closer reading of Mark 13.

In this macro-lens commentary he walks us step by step through the text and its questions, leading us to a compelling interpretive solution.

from B1... prove to be some of her closest friends, and she would grieve David’s death deeply. Garrick introduced her to many of the great talents within his circle including the parliamentarian and literary giant Samuel Johnson, with whom she formed a close friendship.

Hannah spent regular time in London over the following ten years, but her affinity for the city diminished over a five-year period starting with David Garrick’s death, and ending with the death of her beloved friend Samuel Johnson in 1784.

In her younger years, Hannah loved to write for the theatre, producing the tragedy Percy, which was very well received in London. With the death of David Garrick in 1779 she gave up on both attending and writing for the theatre. She loved the theatre and she did not make the decision to give it up easily. “Her struggle suggests that of one for whom theatre had been a religious love, that of one who, in not knowing how to love it in proper proportion, felt it best not to love it at all. Having given up theatre More still recognised the power of dramatic literature and was drawn to employing that influence toward didactic ends” (p. 97).

The deaths of Garrick and Johnson were the beginning of the strengthening of her Christian convictions, of which she wrote: “The world, though I live in the gay part of it, I do not actually much love; yet friendship and kindness have contributed to fix me there, and I dearly love many individuals in it. When I am in the great world, I consider myself as in an enemy’s country, and as beset with snares, and this puts me upon my guard. I know that many people whom I hear say a thousand brilliant and agreeable things disbelieve, or at least disregard, those truths on which I found my everlasting hopes. This sets me upon a more diligent inquiry into those truths; and upon the arch of Christianity, the more I press, the stronger I find it” (p. 104).

Hannah was strongly influenced by John Newton, the famous author of Amazing Grace. A meeting with him in 1787 marked a significant step on her journey towards a more evangelical and personal faith. Newton had a similar effect on a young politician, William Wilberforce.

In the autumn of 1787 Hannah met Wilberforce, a man who wrote in his journal, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners” (p. 119).

In Wilberforce, Hannah found a counterpart. Joining the abolitionists as a campaigner, Hannah wrote and distributed pamphlets and poems on the evil of slavery.

Her literary skills were foundational in the battle, for it “was, in many ways, led by the poets – and other writers and artists – who expanded their country’s moral imagination so it might at last see horrors too grave for the rational mind to grasp” (p. 128).

Hannah became a member of the Clapham sect – a group of true Christian believers located in Clapham, four miles out of London. Women were not easily offered membership in societies like these, and it was a great honour that Hannah was afforded almost-equal status as the men in the group. The Claphamites were known for believing “not only in the Christian faith but also in the idea that serious Christian faith could actually make a difference in the world” (p. 164). They crossed class, party and creedal barriers in pursuit of their goal, with none of their number a more gifted conversationalist than Hannah. “She mixed comfortably and enthusiastically with rich and poor, churched and unchurched, and all in between” (p. 167).

Another of Hannah’s great passions was the reformation of manners in English society, a project she began to consider important for both the lower and upper classes. In 1787 Hannah wrote a work entitled Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society. “Manners were understood to be more than mere surface matters; outward manners expressed and helped shape the inward spirit” (p. 204).

The book was devoured by the masses.

She followed up Thoughts with An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World. By one of the Laity.

This second was a more direct attack on lax religious convictions of the wealthy, and an appeal to them to reconsider proper moral convictions. She was the right person to make this appeal, as Newton noted, “your sex and your character afford you a peculiar protection.

They who would try to trample one of us into the dust will be ashamed openly to oppose you” (p. 208, original emphasis).

If that were all she did, her life would be utterly remarkable. But Prior traces her involvement in the animal protection movement, and her initiative in the establishment of Sunday Schools, the very foundation of public primary schools that educate children across England today. Prior traces Hannah’s work in thorough detail, and her life is one that many in our world today should know.

With all that she did, I am a little shocked that I had never heard the name of Hannah More until I picked up this book. Now, I would kind of like to be her. Eric Metaxas is right when he says that this is “a book everyone should read, a life everyone should know, and one that many should emulate.”

BOOKS

B4

MAY 2015

Treasury of First Bible

Bedtime Prayers

Little Stories for Little Hearts

This collection of classic prayers, as well as brand-new prayers by Max and Denalyn Lucado, will help parents who want to make prayer a daily part of their children’s lives.

Pocket Hardback Editions

A little collection of Bible Stories to begin your sharing with your little ones.

Her First Bible 9780310701293

His First Bible 9780310701286

$7.95ea

$25.95

9780718016319 Paperback

Really Wooly Little Book of NIV

Adventure Bible

Bible Verses $12.95

by Bonnie Rickner Jensen 9781400318063 Paperback

$39.95ea

was $47.95

Chocolate / Hot Pink 9780310729709

Chocolate / Toffee 9780310729693

So Not Ok

by Nancy Rue 9781400323708 Paperback

So Not Okay tells the story of Tori Taylor, a quiet sixth grader in Grass Valley, California. Tori knows to stay out of the way of Kylie, the queen bee of the school. When a new student named Ginger becomes Kylie’s new target, Tori whispers a prayer of thanks that it’s not her.

But as Kylie’s bullying of Ginger continues to build, Tori feels guilty and tries to be kind to Ginger. Pretty soon, the bullying line of fire directed toward Ginger starts deflecting onto Tori, who must decide if she and her friends can befriend Ginger and withstand Kylie’s taunts, or do nothing and resume their status quo. Tori’s decision dramatically changes her trajectory for the rest of the school year.

$12.95

Order online at specials.biblesociety.org.au mail to Locked Bag 7003 Minto NSW 2566 call 1300 139 179 For mail order, please include the item numbers and titles of products requested, as well as your contact and payment details. Also add postage costs to your total order (Orders $0-$30 Postage $6.95; Orders $31-$60 Postage $7.95; Orders $61-$250 Postage $9.95).

This book promotion is valid until April 30th, 2015 or while stocks last. All items in this catalogue are included in good faith from our suppliers. Any delays in supplier delivery may result in product being delayed or unavailable.

While we endeavour to use correct illustrations in this catalogue, final product delivered may have changed design without our notice. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars and include GST.

May 2015

THE BIG PICTURE

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TV is dead – long live TV! MARK HADLEY

Netflix describes itself as, “The world’s leading internet television network.” This is no idle boast.

During peak hours Netflix users account for more than 30 per cent of all internet down-streaming traffic in the United States. Is there any doubt its arrival in Australia means big changes on the way?

I’m not the first critic to consider this a brave new day for broadcasting. News services and print publications are currently weighed down with praise for streaming video services like Netflix, including local services Stan and Presto that provide instant access to every episode of everything interesting on TV, all at once. Phrases like “golden age” have been bandied about to describe the new state of affairs. Yet few pundits are looking to the horizon – this is not just an entertainment revolution but also a social one.

The amazing catalogues of Netflix & Co. will eventually become commonplace, but the implications for how we view them will be with us for a lot longer.

Make no mistake, what we are looking at is the triumph of greed over greed.

Commercial television networks survive on the basis of delivering eyeballs to audiences, and this has proved to be a lucrative business.

Greed led to the creation of three, five and seven minute commercial blocks as Seven, Nine and Ten mined the audience for all they were worth. The commercial networks even created artificial scarcity to string those same audiences along, holding back on international releases so that they would only be delivered when it was most convenient to their bottom lines. But the steady development of ad-free alternatives is stealing the network’s lunch. Seven and Nine managed to increase ad revenues in 2014, but only at Ten’s expense. The Australian reports the metropolitan free-to-air advertising market contracted by 3 per cent overall in the second half of that year. Yet ad breaks are lengthening even as audience frustration is growing. Is it any wonder Australians are opting for less abusive alternatives?

Netflix, Stan and Presto are the new paramours offering the same great shows and better ones, without the bother. Australian ISPs marked as much as 50 per

cent increases in usage – yes, half the internet traffic again – from the very day Netflix arrived. And this figure continues to grow, demonstrating we are about to begin a new love affair with this different form of television.

But, as I said, this is a triumph of greed over greed.

The way that Australians have responded to the ability to devour entire seasons in one sitting has required the creation of a new descriptor: binge viewing. We eat through our DVD box sets and television menus so fast now that there is little time to digest anything we see. Waiting a whole week to watch the next episode of our favourite show might have been artificial but it had the side-benefit of giving us time to think through, discuss and even challenge what it was we were seeing. The lessons

at the end of story-arcs could be savoured; now they are skipped as we move back to the menu to select the next chapter. If you’ve signed up for Netflix you don’t even have to bother. The next episode will play automatically in 15 seconds …

Of course not everything is as HD-rosy as it seems. Firstly, it’s worth realising that we may simply be exchanging one set of masters for another. The exclusive rights to flagship programs – Netflix owns House of Cards, Stan owns Better Call Saul and Presto owns Modern Family – means we may end up paying for multiple services in the same way we funded multiple commercial channels to watch what we want. Secondly, those new masters might end up being the old masters in new clothes. Free-to-air revenues might be punished by this seismic shift in viewers but Seven

and Nine are also heavily invested in Presto and Stan respectively and the logos may change but the game remains the same. Yet my greatest fears are for the viewer who can finally have everything they want, when they want it, without interruption. I’m concerned for the “on demand” Australians, particularly if they call themselves Christian. This is a good time to remember the Bible’s lessons on gluttony.

Traditionally we’ve associated the sin of gluttony with over-filling the stomach. However the Apostle Paul warned that any desire we allow to rule over us, however thrilling, threatens to sow a seed that will blossom in destruction – even amongst the seemingly saved: “For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of

the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.” (Philippians 3:18-19) Sign up for video on demand; it’s not a bad thing. You can certainly use it to program around much of the sinful rubbish broadcasters serve. But watch your remote, watch yourself. When the ability to view becomes the compulsion to devour then desire has given birth to gluttony, and that’s a new god that subtly threatens your sense of where you belong. Our citizenship is in heaven, not in the lounge room, and we eagerly await our saviour Jesus Christ, not the fourth season of House of Cards.

+ For this month’s film & TV reviews, visit biblesociety.org.au/eternitynews

OPEN NIGHT! Thursday 21 May 2015 @ 6:45pm Thinking about Bible & theological studies, teacher training, counselling, chaplaincy or taking a gap year after school? Come along to the Morling College Open Night and explore the different options!

Register online www.morlingcollege.com/events EQUIPPING THE WHOLE BELIEVER TO TAKE THE WHOLE GOSPEL TO THE WHOLE WORLD

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10

MAY 2015

BIBLE @ WORK

Katnon only just learned to read. Now, she’s helping others in her small Cambodian village by facilitating audio literacy classes run by Bible Society.

Too good to keep to themselves KALEY PAYNE Forty-five-year-old Katnon believes the Bible can change her village.

But to really have an impact, she knows people need to be able to read it for themselves.

A year ago, Katnon couldn’t recognise any letter in the Khmer alphabet. “It felt hard even to know the right words to speak, because I couldn’t read,” she says.

Katnon lives in a remote village called Tomnup in Kampong Leaeng, about an hour by boat from the nearest city province and another half an hour by tuk tuk (an auto-rickshaw) down dusty, broken tracks. The village church in the area is growing and the pastor has encouraged people to learn to read, working with Bible Society, which provides audio-based literacy classes.

The classes don’t require a teacher. Rather, a facilitator is trained to use an MP3 player that has recorded lessons across three levels of literacy. This way,

facilitators don’t have to know how to read themselves to be able to run the classes. Trained teachers are hard to find and volunteers even harder. This is a gatherer community; villagers eat what they grow, and hope to grow enough to be able to sell their produce to others. To supplement their income, families send their older children to work in factories and in the rice and corn fields. Knowledge and reading has traditionally not been a priority.

But Katnon signed up to one of the Bible Society classes. Six months later, she was well on her way to literacy. She could read her Bible slowly, but surely.

She was so excited at the changes she could see in her own life, and the confidence she had, that she felt she had to volunteer to help others learn to read too. She’s now a facilitator of Bible Society’s literacy programme. Katnon has 80 people in her class, across four villages. She runs eight hour-long classes every week.

Running the classes is helping Katnon cement her own learning.

She completed two of the three levels of the literacy programme herself before becoming a facilitator. But running the classes each week means she too can get better with her reading and writing.

“I hope even the old people can read here,” she says. “It will make them happy. They’ll be able to learn what is right and wrong in their lives by reading the Bible. And they’ll have a hope for the future.”

Katnon is one of thousands of people in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos who’ve benefited from the generosity of Australian Christians in funding literacy classes throughout the South East Asian region. And many, like Katnon, have turned around and passed on that blessing to others in their communities. To them, what they’ve acquired is just too good to keep to themselves.

Xengxaivang is 20 years old and from the Hmong minority people group in the mountains of Vietnam.

He was born into a Christian family but had yet to accept Jesus as his saviour as there was no reading culture in his family. However, four years ago, a pastor shared the gospel with him and he accepted Jesus from that time. He had a strong desire to know more and this pushed him to study theology so that he could teach others. Now his passion is to reach the lost so he is always ready to share the gospel of Jesus. He takes his Bible with him wherever he goes.

Xengxaivang is one of the lucky ones to actually have a Bible.

Twenty per cent of people living in Vietnam live below the poverty line (about US$2 a day) and millions more live only slightly above it. The price of a Bible is out of reach for most of them.

In response to the growing church in South East Asia, Bible Society is also working to distribute Bibles. Last year, 90,000 Bibles, 150,000 New Testaments and 100,000 Bible portions were distributed. Those who receive

Watch it come alive: Bullet in the Bible, the story of digger Elvas Jenkins and the Bible that saved his life at Gallipoli. “His life in the ultimate sense was preserved in the hands of God… though we know that what it said was more important to him than the physical volume,” says historian Dr John Harris.

Elvas’ story is one of ten featured in Their Sacrifice –the national touring exhibition, the book and the website. Each provides you with an opportunity to feel what it was like for ten brave diggers, finding comfort in their Bibles in the midst of trial.

DVD and Book each $15.

Available at the touring exhibition, on 1300 139 179, theirsacrifice.com/resource and shop.biblesociety.org.au For full tour dates, visit theirsacrifice.com/tours

them share the Scriptures with others in their family and in their community, and it’s estimated that in this manner more than 400,000 lives are impacted by the Bible.

Translation is another major part of ongoing Bible Society work in South East Asia. Bible Society is reaching out to eight of the main minority language groups in Vietnam by offering them the Bible in their own language. Some of these languages are also spoken in Cambodia and Laos. These translations not only engage people with God’s word, they are also helping to preserve their language in written form.

Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos are among Australia’s closest neighbours and the need for Scripture is great. Can you help?

+ To donate to literacy, Bible distribution and translation work in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, please call 1300 BIBLES (1300 242 537) or visit biblesociety.org.au/seaep

MAY 2015

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11

OPINION

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+

Michael Jensen on faith and good works?

Greg Clarke on the superhero craze

Do good works justify?

Statue of St Matthew in the first Cathedral of Rome, St Johns Lateran

A few weeks ago John Flader in The Catholic Weekly’s “question time” column clearly set out the Catholic view of justification by faith. It sounded very Protestant.

So we asked Michael Jensen what he thought.

Flader opens the batting on this page.

Dear Father, I have a Protestant relative who is constantly trying to convince me that we Catholics are wrong in saying that we need good works in order to be saved. He says we are saved by faith alone. How can I answer him?

This is the well-known question of sola fide, the Protestant belief in salvation by faith alone. Protestants typically believe that mankind is inherently sinful and can do nothing to merit salvation by works, so that we are saved only through faith in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us. It is his merits that save us, not our own.

We should clarify that Protestants more often use the term justification by faith alone, and in this sense we have some common ground with them.

What is justification? The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us ‘the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ’ and through

v. J. Matthew

Baptism.” (Rom 3:22; CCC 1987) We see here that by justification we mean the passing of the soul from the state of sin, whether original or mortal, to the state of grace.

This takes place not only when we are baptised, but also when we commit mortal sin and are reconciled with God through contrition and confession.

If we now ask the question, “Can good works bring about our justification?” the answer must be no. Only when we are in the state of grace can our good works be meritorious, that is deserving of an increase of grace and of storing up treasure in heaven.

When we are in the state of original sin before Baptism, or in the state of mortal sin after Baptism, our works have no merit.

It is the undeserved grace of God, won for us by Christ’s death and resurrection, that lifts us out of the state of sin.

For this reason the Catechism says: “Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favour, the free and undeserved help that

God gives us to respond to his call …” (CCC 1996) So in this sense, we can agree with Protestants.

But does this mean that our good works have no value at all in bringing about our justification?

No it doesn’t mean that.

While good works by themselves cannot merit justification, they do dispose us to receive God’s grace.

For example, an unbaptised adult or a person in the state of mortal sin, through his kindness, generosity and service to others along with prayer to God, prepares himself to receive God’s grace of conversion more easily.

And of course faith is fundamental, too, as Protestants teach.

In this sense the Catechism teaches: “Justification establishes co-operation between God’s grace and man’s freedom. On man’s part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the co-operation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent.”

(CCC 1993)

This faith, as the Catechism says, leads to conversion and works of charity, so that the person is better prepared to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit.

When we pass from considering what is needed for justification to what is needed for salvation, that is eternal life in heaven, we find that good works are absolutely essential.

It is Jesus who says so. For example, in answer to the man who asked, “Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?” he said, “If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” (Matt 19:1617) And in teaching about the final judgment, Jesus makes salvation dependent on works of charity: “Then he will say to those on his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food’.”

(Matt 25:41-42) Taking up these teachings, St James writes: “What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother continued next page

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OPINION

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MAY 2015

Faith and good works? or sister is poorly clothed and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

He goes on to say: “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone …” (Jas 2:14-17, 24) Summing up, to be saved we need faith but we also need works.

John Flader is a Catholic priest His Question Time column appears in The Catholic Weekly, Sydney, Catholic Leader, Brisbane and The Record, Perth.

Michael Jensen on the Protestant view of the role of good works “Must we bring that up again?

Some of the best Christians I know are Roman Catholics. Why concentrate on what separates us, instead of what brings us together?”

I hear this sentiment a lot, and in part I agree with it. The new age of Islamic persecution of Christians in Africa and in the Middle East has also meant a new surge of unity between Christians from historically divided churches.

Protestant evangelicals from the West have felt a solidarity with Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians who are facing dismemberment for owning the name of Christ.

Likewise, orthodox Christians of different denominations have found that they stand shoulder to shoulder in opposing theological liberalism and the rising tide of secularism.

Blood is certainly thicker than water.

Nevertheless, the difference remains between the Roman

Catholic Church and classic Protestants on the central issue of how we are made right with God, and pussy-footing around the subject achieves nothing. What we need is a peaceable and yet honest discussion modelling serious Christian disagreement – affirming agreement where it stands and not demonising the other party out of hand, but “speaking the truth in love”.

That’s why I was delighted by the tone of the article by Fr John Flader I read recently in The Catholic Weekly.

But in the spirit in which that piece was written, I should like to offer a reply.

So, what’s the issue?

Fr Flader is trying to clarify the Roman Catholic position in response to the classic Protestant Reformation claim that justification is by faith alone. In many parts of his short piece, Flader sounds as if he is agreeing with Protestants.

But one of the problems that has beset this discussion for centuries is that Roman Catholics and Protestants mean different things by using the same words.

This is especially true with the three key words in the discussion: “justification”, “grace” and “faith”.

“Justification”, as the Council of Trent of 1546 says, is a “translation from that state in which a man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace and of the adoption of the sons of God through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Saviour.” A person is “justified” when they are made holy, at the start of the Christian life.

On a Protestant account, justification is a legal term which indicates when a person is declared to be right (not made to be right).

This matters not just for the beginning but also for the middle and end of the Christian life. It is not merely how we accept Christ, but how we continue in him.

For Protestants, “grace” is God’s attitude of generosity and mercy to undeserving sinners. It is something you are shown. But in Roman Catholic teaching, “grace” is something that an individual possesses. It is a thing inside a person, rather than an attitude of God. And that’s not all. Roman Catholic teaching describes “faith” as an intellectual assent to the facts of the gospel. In the teaching of the Reformers of the sixteenth century, “faith” is more personal: it is trust in the promises of God declared in

the gospel.

These are pretty big differences, as you can see. It means that even though sometimes Fr Flader sounds like he is saying that Protestants and Roman Catholics agree, in reality the differences are being obscured by using the same word to mean different things.

So how does Fr Flader explain “justification by faith”?

First, he says that he agrees with Protestants that “good works do not bring about justification.” For that, the grace of the Holy Spirit is needed “to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us ‘the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ’ and through Baptism.”

It’s important to notice how grace comes to a human being in this account. In the Roman Catholic account, the sacraments are inextricably linked to the way we receive grace. As Fr Flader put it, we move from a state of sin to a state of grace “not only when we are baptised, but also when we commit mortal sin and are reconciled with God through contrition and confession.”

Second, Fr Flader argues that though “good works by themselves cannot merit justification, they do dispose us to receive God’s grace.”

As he explains it, that means that even though our good works don’t merit us receiving grace, they prepare us to receive it – like the ploughing of a field being prepared to receive the seed.

Third, Fr Flader distinguishes between justification, which for him means we are in the state of grace in the present, and future salvation.

As he explains it, we are justified – brought into a state of grace – which means we are now inherently holy. The good works we do will then be the basis for our future salvation. As he puts it: “When we pass from considering what is needed for justification to what is needed for salvation, that is eternal life in heaven, we find that good works are absolutely essential.”

Fr Flader then cites a number of Scriptures which appear to support this contention, namely that at the last judgment we will be accounted saved because of our good works – James, for example, who says that “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” In this way, he says, “to be saved we need faith but we also need works.”

What is the Protestant reply?

First, to be justified by faith alone is not simply the beginning point of

the Christian life but the whole of it.

It is not simply a description of how you move from one state to another, but how you remain with Christ in God. How do we remain in Christ?

By hearing afresh the gospel!

That is Paul’s constant method of pastoring people in his epistles – by reminding them of the grace which teaches them to stay in Christ and to be filled with good works.

Secondly, the way in which we receive grace is strongly attached, in classic Roman Catholic fashion, to the sacraments, and in particular baptism. Baptism does not work as a stimulus to our faith, or as a sign of God’s work by the Holy Spirit, but as the actual means by which grace is to be received. The sacraments serve in this understanding as a kind of necessary conduit for grace.

A Protestant would point at this stage to the thief on the cross, to whom Jesus said, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” Surely, if anyone was justified, it was he; and yet, he was not the recipient of any sacrament. It was simply his faith that justified him.

This was true of the tax collector who was justified when he called out “have mercy on me, a sinner” – in contrast to the pride of the Pharisee. There was no sacramental process in place for him either.

Thirdly, Protestants have never – and could never – deny that Christians are called to do good works. That is the Bible’s teaching.

Indeed, Ephesians 2:8-10 says: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

To fit with the Catholic view, you would really have to say that Paul means something different by “works” in verse 9 than he does by “good works” in verse 10. If we are saved by our works, even partially, then we having something to boast about. But we don’t, according to Paul.

James famously says, “faith without good works is dead.” Quite!

No faith is worthy of the name that does not result in good works overflowing in abundance. If you are a Christian without good works: rely on Christ, and you will be eager to do some!

But it is vital to clarify the relationship between faith and good works. Classically, Protestants have described faith as the “instrument”

of our justification, and good works as the “evidence” for our justification.

What’s that mean? It means on the one hand that we are saved by faith alone, but that saving faith is never alone! On the other hand, it means that good works are the fruit of our justification, and of our final salvation.

That fits well with the words of Ephesians 2:8-10, and also with Paul’s account of Abraham’s justification in Romans 4, where Abraham “believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness”.

As you can see, on Fr Flader’s account of things, good works are part of the process of how we get saved. In other words, I think it is fair to say that they are not simply evidential for him – they are instrumental. Salvation is not simply evidenced by good works.

The difference between “evidence” and “instrument” helps us to understand how James can say “you see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone,” and for that to be coherent with Paul’s teaching that justification is only by faith. Justification is given freely to a sinner only by faith in the work of Jesus Christ, but that saving faith is evidenced in a person by good works.

This also makes sense of the passages that Fr Flader cites about the sheep and the goats and the rich young ruler. The exchange with the young ruler actually leads to the punchline, that without God, salvation is impossible! It actually undermines the possibility of good works playing a role in salvation.

In Matthew 25, the “doing this to the least of these brothers and sisters” is about how you receive the message of the disciples – that is, do you believe the gospel? It is not a description of salvation by the means of giving cups of water to the poor, but a picture of what happens when someone receives the gospel.

Does this sound like an obscure discussion? From the Protestant point of view, ascribing any role to good works in justification and salvation undermines the work of Jesus Christ on the cross for me. I will always be doubting whether I have done enough to merit God’s acceptance of me. It couldn’t get more central – and more personal – than that.

Michael Jensen is the rector of St Mark’s Anglican church in Darling Point, Sydney and the author of several books.

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OPINION

MAY 2015

13

E

‘No’ to changing our constitution Nigel Jackson on

NOT changing the constitution Eternity is running this article as a right of reply to several articles that supported constitutional change to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people.

John Anderson’s defence of the proposal that Aboriginal people should be recognised in the constitution (Eternity, March) is confused and inconsistent. He is right that many Australians do not want any change that might “open up disputes and court challenges and possible negative reactions from those feeling that one group is now being given favourable treatment.� But he does not show how constitutional recognition could be achieved while avoiding that danger.

His account of the constitution is misleading. This document is essentially a statement of how Australians wish themselves to be governed. It does not seek specifically to ensure that “everyone will be treated equally� in all contexts. On the other hand it does enshrine implicitly the principle of equity – the treating of all Australians fairly.

The proposed change to the constitution is a fundamental attack on that principle. Moreover, contrary to Anderson’s belief, it would involve treating some Australians (those not Aboriginal people) unequally - by favouring

Aboriginal people. Added to that injustice is the falsity involved in treating those of mixed Aboriginal and European ancestry as “Aboriginals� without qualification.

There are no grounds for granting such people special recognition.

Objections to constitutional recognition have been carefully expressed by many able and intelligent Australians. Former MP Gary Johns has edited a whole book presenting them – Recognise What? – as well as writing Aboriginal Self-Determination: The Whiteman’s Dream Turns Sour, both published by Connor Court.

Andrew Bolt in the Melbourne Herald Sun (29/1/14) has given a passionate explanation of them and warned strongly against the danger of a trend of political activism that could lead eventually to an Australian apartheid system.

Spokesmen for the Institute of Public Affairs have been prominent.

Quadrant from December 2013 to March 2014 published a three-part article by Frank Salter, an urban anthropologist and ethologist, on “The misguided case for indigenous recognition in the constitution�.

Former MP Wilson Tuckey on 17/9/14 published a letter in The Australian that is so important that I quote it in full.

Under the heading “No promise possible� he wrote: “The 1967 referendum, promoted as a simple process of bringing Aboriginal people within mainstream Australia, stands as a compelling example of why Australians must never support any such constitutional initiative again. Not only did the package not include a no case, but the yes case included a promise that this measure

would not be used to override state constitutional rights, but that the commonwealth and the states together would work in the best interests of the Aboriginal people. Within a few years, as the result of a High Court decision [Mabo] on a land title dispute between a Torres Strait Islander and the state of Queensland, the commonwealth government used this constitutional change to rewrite Australian property law in contravention of the states’ right to property management. Then followed a series of other measures aimed at restricting economic development in the states and used by white activists. There is not a politician standing today who can promise the people that even the most simple of constitutional changes can be limited in their future effect.�

Anderson hardly touches on any of these far-reaching analyses.

Instead we are given a series of sentimental appeals to our feelings.

Yes, some Aboriginal people at various times have been unjustly treated and that is regrettable. But this does not mean that Australians as a whole, both in the past and at present, have thereby engaged in a “denial of the core values� of the constitution, so that there has been some kind of nation-wide ethical violation of human dignity, leading to a moral requirement that its wording should be changed.

Anderson claims that change will “signal that we recognise there has been a problem�, that we must “offer the olive branch� of peace and

reconciliation and that change will take account of the fact that there are too many Aboriginal people “who feel unable to join in� the national life. These issues can all be addressed, however, without risky tampering with the constitution.

Anderson calls on Australians to be “sacrificial�, but we should refuse to sacrifice our national unity and stability to satisfy the ideological passions of idealists and others.

In 1982 the former communist Geoff McDonald published Red Over Black, in which he argued that the Aboriginal land rights campaign was being promoted for revolutionary purposes.

Christians will be well advised in this context to recall Matthew 10:16: “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.�

Wise rejection will lead to the prevention of harm. We should also be wary of the misinterpretation of Gospel passages for ideological purposes, as when Shayne Neumann quoted Luke 4: 14-19 (Eternity, October 2014): “the poor�, “the broken-hearted�, “captives�, “the blind� and “those that are bruised� perhaps refer to those (the great majority of persons) who lack a living experience and true insight into “the kingdom of heaven�, “the rich� being those who are not even aware of what they lack because they are stuffed up with worldly attachments. Such a teaching has nothing at all to do with the promotion of worldly ideologies.

Nigel Jackson is a retired teacher who worships at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Upwey, Vic

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OPINION

14

Tim Costello Life: always in season Australians often say Christmas and Easter happen at the wrong time of year. European Christmas traditions are all about winter, and Easter fits with spring. Most people go with tradition anyway, regardless of the season.

For Christians, Christmas and Easter are about new life and new hope. While the season may provide symbolism, it’s not really crucial. At Christmas we rejoice in the gift of a child, a living sign that God is with us. At Easter we mark in the crucifixion of Jesus the sacrifice that atones for all sin, and in the resurrection we have the ultimate assurance of hope, the literal and symbolic triumph of life over death.

In central Africa the seasons don’t vary much, but life and death are very real. Recently I was in northern Uganda to visit a brand new maternity hospital that World Vision has built. I was travelling with the principal donor who made it possible, a committed Christian who runs a successful horticultural business in regional

Australia. Over three days we were privileged to see mothers giving birth with expert care and support in comfortable and hygienic conditions. New life is wonderful and miraculous everywhere, but there’s an extra keenness of appreciation among people who have known extreme hardship and danger. This area saw vicious conflict over many years, including the use of child soldiers by the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army.

Northern Uganda remains poor but peace has created space for new possibilities. Partnership with World Vision, and our donors’ compassion and generosity has meant safer childbirth for women, and a more promising start to life for thousands of children.

Sadly, I returned home to budget season and to the devastating cuts to Australia’s aid budget. These cuts aren’t abstract – they mean closing programs that provide healthcare, better livelihoods, training and child protection, among other things.

Today’s Australia remains incredibly prosperous compared to almost any other place or time. But where is the vision and perspective needed to make best use of our extraordinary blessings? Where is the courage to lead, and the integrity to fulfil a promise once made?

Celebrating life should never be limited by the season. Like my friends in Uganda, we should give thanks and rejoice every day of the year that love wins. Individually and collectively, we should focus on what matters most, and prioritise life in all its fullness – the right of every child.

MAY 2015

Letters Please show compassion to chronic fatigue sufferers Sabbath I would like to thank you for publishing the article on CFS. (Eternity April) As a sufferer for the past 20 years to say I related to Sophie, and of course Leigh, would be an understatement. Everything described is true, and the particular “battle” of trying to serve the Lord with the gifts he has given me is always ongoing.

You step up to the plate because you are feeling ok only to pay the price a few weeks later, as once again, the fatigue hits you. I pray that many readers will take to heart this incredibly accurate article and show fellow sufferers the love that we all need.

Robyn Petty, Taren Point, NSW

Your article on “Chronic Fatigue”(April) really touched my heart. I have had CFS since around 1990. Sometimes it has been hell.

Yet through all my suffering I can praise and thank God because he does not make mistakes – God allowed me to get CFS. He goes through all my pain, my fatigue and my feelings of not being a complete person, or a “good” father, “good” husband and “good” Christian. I know I am all three but CFS often tells you different.

I am 68, teach Scripture in 5 schools, do voluntary work with Christian Blind Mission and Compassion Australia (my wife and I sponsor a sweet little girl) and can still be a helper in my church’s children’s club. My wife of 36 years supports me wonderfully. She hurts to see me suffering. What saddens

No!! you can’t have the cake with the two men on it!

... that pink icing is full of food colouring.

Thankyou Ps Phil Littlejohn for a thoughtful interpretation on the covenants in the Old and New Testament.

Considering the seventh-day Sabbath was instituted at creation long before the OT covenant with Israel was instituted, I can’t really see the relevance, but yours is a popular interpretation. My question to that though would be, “Why then do you keep Sunday holy which has absolutely no Scriptural basis whatsoever?” If you are going to abandon the concept of a seventh-day Sabbath, then why not completely abandon it on the first day too?

Daniel Matteo, Associate Pastor, Cairns Seventh-day Adventist Church, QLD

Reconciliation

me is the many teenagers/young people who get CFS. They suffer much. Please help them, believe them and encourage them.

Dave Vincent, Bidwell, NSW

While it was good to see an article addressing the important issue of constitutional recognition of First Australians, there is a concern by some that it will be little more than the image on the front cover – an Aboriginal flag band-aided onto Australia’s. Thinking of the lecture

by Rev Peter Adam, “Australia, Whose Land?” the question of what is right and just when making recompense for national past sins must be thought through by the church. Will constitutional change be a blow to any form of treaty or sovereignty for Aboriginal people?

Joel Saunders, Brisbane, QLD

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OPINION

MAY 2015

15

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The art of losing well John Dickson on taking up our cross and bearing shame.

Lisa Thornberg

As I write this piece, I have two strong, potentially contrary, Christian themes in my head. One comes from a recent article by US lawyer and Iraq War veteran David French arguing that Christians need to “man up” in the public square. The other comes from that recent story of Coptic Christians dying at the hands of ISIS on a Libyan beach, as they declared their faith in “the Lord Jesus Christ”.

Should we strive to be “men” (excuse the sexism) who demand our rights, or should we learn how better to lose well for Jesus?

Of course, there is a truth at both ends of the spectrum. No one can deny that God’s word urges us to be bold, never to fear speaking his truth to a world that hates us.

Equally, the Bible insists we are to speak and act with “gentleness and respect”, always willing to bear scorn cheerfully. Wisdom is knowing which truth applies when, and to what degree.

Some Christian writers and leaders may well believe that the faithful are too “mousy” about their rights in a civil society. Sometimes I agree. Mostly, though, my greater concern is that a good part of the watching world believes the very opposite. For many today, Christians have a reputation for abusing power – claiming entitlements over society that are historical more than deserved.

Today, it only takes a hint of the “bully” persona of the church to evoke all the evils of Christian history – the Crusades, the Inquisitions, and so on.

Think of the way some have conducted themselves in the gay

“Resurrection comes only after death. Winning often involves losing.” marriage debate. To be clear: I firmly hold the classical Christian view of sex and marriage. I’m on the record defending it in public.

But sometimes I fear we leave ourselves open to the appearance of being a legislative bully, of coming across as though we have a greater right to be heard and heeded than anyone else.

Or think of the debates over religious instruction (SRE/SRI) in state schools. It sometimes sounds like we think it’s our “right” to be teaching the gospel to Australian children; but surely it is a “grace” that state governments have legislated an invitation to Christian volunteers to educate students in the faith that has shaped the West?

Then there is the catastrophe of child sexual abuse, compounded by our institutions’ responses to it.

The Royal Commission has proved that sometimes – not often, but sometimes – the church of Jesus Christ has been cruel, defensive and self-protective.

Any mention of these real (and occasionally imagined) acts of bullying evokes all the evils of Christendom. As a result, our voice in the public is muted, because bullies don’t get a hearing. And, tragically, any words we might offer on behalf of our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world fall on deaf ears, because bullies don’t get to cry foul about bullying. The church’s reputation

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makes it almost impossible for some Westerners to believe that there is such a thing as widespread oppression of Christians.

The central section of Mark’s Gospel repeatedly makes the point that followers of Christ will be distinguished by their willingness to serve and suffer. In Mark 8:2734 the disciples confuse Jesus’ status as Messiah with a cause to win. But the Lord tells them it involves taking up a cross and bearing shame. We turn the page and Mark 9:30-37 again records Jesus speaking frankly about his death, yet the disciples respond by having an argument over who among them is the “greatest”.

Jesus points to a little child and insists that the kid represents God better than the apostles. And just when you thought the message was loud and clear, Mark 10:32-45 narrates Jesus’ third prediction of his suffering. And the disciples again imagine they are on the way to messianic victory: “give us seats at your right and your left in your glory,” asked James and John.

Jesus responds with one of the clearest descriptions in the gospels of the character of Christian activity in the world: “Those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever

wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45) The cross of Jesus tells us that in God’s kingdom the way of greatness is the way of service and suffering. Resurrection comes only after death. Winning often involves losing.

Courage and boldness are givens of the Christian life. I do wish more of us were stepping out into the public square with our heads held high graciously explaining the truth of Christ in this secularising world. But that is only part of our duty. If society rejects our case, we should not respond with an air of entitlement or demanding our rights. We should never be sore losers. No group in society should be better losers, more cheerful sufferers, than followers of the crucified Lord.

In February this year 21 Coptic Christians were executed by ISIS on that Libyan beach. It received worldwide attention, for a moment. Less well known is that the brother of two of the young men was interviewed on Egyptian Christian TV channel Sat-7. His name is Beshir and he thanked the extremists for leaving the sound on in the propaganda video of the beheadings. The video went viral around the Middle East. Many of the victims could be heard praying to and declaring their faith in “the

Lord Jesus Christ”. They are a “badge of honour to Christianity,” said Beshir. “Since the Roman era,” he continued, “Christians have been martyred and have learned to handle everything that comes our way. It only makes us stronger in our faith because the Bible tells us to love our enemies and bless those who curse us.”

It is tragically ironic that the church of the West has come to be seen by many as an institution that misuses power. This is partly the world’s bias. The church is a big organisation, with a long history, out of step with society at some points. We’re an easy target. But we don’t help ourselves when we are heard speaking with an air of entitlement, or allowing godly boldness to morph into simple arrogance.

How can we possibly hope to convince Australians that Jesus Christ came to serve, suffer and save them, if we are thought of as bullying, grumbling and grasping for cultural ground? Only when we are known for denying ourselves and taking up our public “cross” will we begin to look like the gospel we hope to proclaim.

So, sure: Man up, Step up, Keep your chin up. All that. But in doing so, please let’s not forget the ancient Christian art of losing well.

Dr John Dickson is the Founding Director of the Centre for Public Christianity and the author of numerous books.

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OPINION

16

MAY 2015

We don’t need another hero Greg Clarke is not shopping for a cape love a player’s courage and strength.

But then they yell at the referee, or do something unmentionable in a nightclub, and all those heroics come under question. The hero and the villain are like Jekyll and Hyde before the rugby league judiciary every week.

This desire for a hero is very close to the human heart. Perhaps it is part of our desperate need to be rescued, or our hope that someone out there has everything under control. Perhaps we need to know that where we are weak, someone else can be strong.

But the urge to be a hero is also powerful within us. Deep down, I’m convinced people want to be heroes more than villains. I remembered this again recently when watching a news story about some runabout teenage bloke who rescued an old man from a burning car following

MikeJaszewski

“He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” (1 Peter 2:22) The explosion of superheroes in today’s culture took me by surprise.

Weren’t they the obsession of the early days of the modern world, before every one of us was zipping around in planes and surfing the world on the internet? Yet, now every second film seems to involve someone flying up, up and away in spandex. From the Fantastic Four to The Incredibles (can’t wait for the sequel), every superhero has a complete range of merchandise to demonstrate just how much they have taken over culture.

But today’s heroes, both in real life and reel life, can be hard to distinguish from the villains.

There are drug dealers who are praised for their resourcefulness.

Violent bullies who are held up as role models. Footballers who get worshipped no matter how gutterbound their behaviour is between games. How are we meant to know who the good guys are anymore?

At one level, this is good.

The perfect hero can be kind of uninteresting and hard to believe.

Everyone has a flaw, don’t they?

Everyone is covering for something or exaggerating their abilities and character in one way or another.

Heroes in today’s culture are certainly the warts and all types.

We see it on the sporting field. We

“Today’s heroes can be hard to distinguish from the villains.” an accident. Talking to camera, they were elevated, slightly surprised at themselves, and feeling like better versions of the emergent adults they had disliked in the mirror that morning. They might talk like badboys, but given the opportunity to rise to a need, they were elated to be good guys.

The seed of heroism lies within, waiting to be watered. But it already contains the villainy that can overwhelm its growth and taint its flowers. It seems that we

are destined to bounce between these poles, hero and villain. When tempted to villainy, it’s worth remembering what it feels like to be celebrated rather than reviled.

When you give in to temptation, the consequences ring out for generations to come: ask any thief, liar, murderer, adulterer. Anyone, really. But when you are a lifesaver, carer, rescuer, giver or friend, your good deeds echo in the heavens and (the Bible tells us in Matthew 5:16) bring glory to God the Father.

In the end, I think we all hope to be heroes rather than villains. But we’re just so unreliable. As is every other hero we’ve seen on screen or watched in action. Thank God there is someone to step in for us at just the right moment, with just the right superpowers to save us from ourselves.

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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16/04/2015 12:30 pm