Eternity - September 2016 - Issue 73

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Number 73, September 2016 ISSN 1837-8447

Brought to you by the Bible Society

The selfesteem myth

I believe in Thousands of miracles new followers

Image: Scarlet Sky Studios

Today’s Heroes Gaming the Bible

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NEWS

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SEPTEMBER 2016

Gender latest

News 2-3 In Depth 5,6,8 Bible Society 9

JOHN SANDEMAN

Opinion 11-16

Obadiah Slope TWOFER: Obadiah has found it confusing enough that there are two very key Christian leaders both called Stuart Robinson (the former is head of Crossway Baptist and the other is leader of Canberra’s Anglicans). So he is dismayed to learn that lefty group “Common Grace” has appointed Scott Sanders as their CEO. Which is the same name but not the same chap as Scott Sanders who runs church planting coaching group Geneva Push.

BUCKLE UP: “On the edge of Sydney’s Bible belt” is where a Fairfax story located the set of Ten’s Bachelor series. Obadiah is not sure if Sydney has a real Bible belt – maybe it has a series of Bible patches. Melbourne definitely has one in the eastern suburbs. But what about the other cities?

MASTERFUL: The proudly lefty Guardian newspaper advertises masterclasses generally led by staffers. “How to run a purposedriven business” is scheduled for October. Obadiah wonders if they have hired Rick Warren.

Eternity stories on praying NRL players and the gay rights activist turned Christian advocate David Bennett have gone viral online.

To Eternity and beyond JOHN SANDEMAN Eternity is on a mission to build our online audience. With the help of a generous grant from the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation, we have enlarged the team to include two part-time videographers and a social media specialist, and the results of this extra energy are becoming apparent. Online hits such as a video version of our story about NRL players who pray, and an interview with former gay activist David Bennett have reached hundreds of thousands of people.

The plan is to provide content that is positive about Christianity and is “shareable” – good enough to

24th Saving Light Series A Series of Bible-based Lectures

share on social media to friends.

This answers one of the more difficult questions I was asked when Eternity the newspaper was first launched. A senior church leader issued the challenge of making the paper reach out beyond the “rusted on” church community.

We’re encouraging Christians by telling them stories of how God is at work in our country, but surely it would be even better to send the stories out beyond the settled Christian community?

This was hard to do with a paper distributed mostly at churches, and the question of how to meet the challenge issued by that leader has niggled for years.

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So whoever invented the internet has done Eternity a great favour.

Mark Zuckerburg in setting up Facebook wanted to reach girls on his campus, but he too has done Eternity another favour.

The last few months have been a time for experimenting with Eternity online. But now it is time to come clean and reveal our new address eternitynews.com.au – we are still Eternity News on Facebook and @eternitynews on Twitter – we invite you to journey with us. We know that many readers share the paper – it has a high pass-on rate.

We are sure that our online work will take the very good news even further.

Dr Mark Yarhouse has spent 17 years researching sexual identity development. Eternity caught up with him to find out more.

What does science tell us about gender dysphoria?

There is a lot we don’t understand about gender dysphoria. But we define [it] as the distress some people report when their gender identity does not align with their biological sex.

What does relating well to sexual minorities look like?

I think I am at my best in relating to sexual minorities when I take the time to listen to their experiences.

Even in cases in which we may disagree, it has been helpful to come to a better understanding of the challenges they have faced, and the conclusions they have reached.

When a child acts in ways typical of the opposite sex, what is a wise course of action for parents?

There is no easy answer and no “one size fits all” answer applicable to every situation. Many professionals would consider a “wait and see” posture. Even in cases in which the child is confirmed to be gender dysphoric, it tends to resolve on its own by the time that child is a late adolescent or young adult.

Yarhouse will speak at the Liberty Ministries conference. www.liberty.sydney/identity

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Enquiries: Alan Watson 0422 225 556 a.watson@unsw.edu.au or Adrian Jackson 0409 032 893 adrianjackson3@bigpond.com

NEWS

SEPTEMBER 2016

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Jesus gets thousands of new followers Paper dolls

KALEY PAYNE

Marty Portier / Flickr

Thousands of Australians have made decisions to follow Jesus at major events happening around the country.

In Sydney, at Australia’s largest Christian gathering – Hillsong Conference – over 1800 people responded to calls to consider Christ as their saviour.

“We pray that the [conference] experience lives well and truly beyond this arena but extends on into your churches, homes, schools and work-places. We believe that your best days are yet to come,” the church said on Facebook.

From the largest conference to some of Australia’s most remote Christian meetings, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association reported over 1000 decisions for Christ made at events held in Alice Springs and Mildura (in northwest Victoria) earlier this year.

Hillsong Conference 2016 Over a weekend in late May, evangelist Will Graham, the grandson of Billy Graham, preached to a crowd of thousands in Australia’s heart, in Alice Springs. The Reality events over two days were the largest Christian events to be held in the town,

and incorporated months of preparation and involvement by local churches, who are now tasked with following up those new to the faith. “The crowds that stepped forward in Alice Springs were so large that there were insufficient counsellors at times to individually

counsel all the enquirers,” said BGEA. Meanwhile, at the annual RICE Rally held in Sydney in August, founder and director of RICE, Steve Chong, also reported hundreds of young people being saved. The RICE movement is all about young people, and the annual evangelistic rally brings together thousands of people from youth groups across NSW, offering an opportunity for youth to bring their friends.

“No words can describe seeing young lives changed for eternity.

Witnessing people move from death to life is simply the best feeling ever and being an evangelist it makes my heart sing.

“Many gave their life to Jesus, some recommitted their life to Christ after walking away from him and all the while there was a party in heaven celebrating one of (if not the) largest harvest RICE has seen in 14 years.”

2016’s Christian Book of the Year JARED CATCHPOOLE A book about living with the longterm effects of sexual abuse has won the Australian Christian Book of the Year.

Child, Arise! The Courage to Stand is described as a spiritual handbook for survivors of sexual abuse.

The book describes the emotions

triggered by sexual abuse and encourages readers, both victims and survivors and non-victims alike, to journey with the author.

Author Jane N. Dowling’s hope was that the book would reach as many survivors as possible so that they might know the transforming power of God’s word. “I believe it’s a journey, where one feels a deep

hopelessness and despair. The pain is overwhelming, but ... God’s word has a power to transform that pain and suffering into love,” she said.

Michael Collie, National Director of Sparklit, the organiser of the Australian Christian Book of the Year Awards, said an overflowing shortlist in 2016 was a great testament to the quality

of Christian writers despite the fact that Christian publishing in Australia still remains tenuous.

“The irony here is that Christian publishing as such in Australia is very fragile and quite weak.

Publishers are competing with big companies in the United States that enjoy an economy of scale which doesn’t exist here,” he said.

KALEY PAYNE Over 1200 people at 56 different locations protested outside the offices of Federal MPs and the Immigration Department across the country last month.

The protests were in the wake of leaked incident reports from the Nauru Detention Centre that detailed alleged assault, sexual abuse and self-harm attempts, particularly of children being held at the centre.

Christian advocacy groups Love Makes A Way and Common Grace encouraged protestors to make large colourful paper dolls, writing prayers or the details of the so-called “Nauru Files” which most upset them, and sticking them to the offices.

Now, the groups are asking Christians to continue the paper doll campaign, sticking them outside their homes, churches, in car windows and on the windows of the offices of their local MPs. “We want Christians to lead the charge and speak up for those innocent people in Australia’s offshore detention centres who have been subjected to inhumane conditions … We hope that the church can be a powerful, persuasive and loving voice of compassion,” said Matt Anslow from Love Makes A Way. lovemakesaway.org.au

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SEPTEMBER 2016

E MORLING COLLEGE SPONSORED PAGE 4

From Maintenance to Mission KARINA KREMINSKI One of the key concerns that I had when I was pastoring a church, was the nagging feeling that most of my time was being spent in the internal dynamics of the church rather than helping the church grow in its missional identity and function. Of course, as pastors and church leaders, we need to care for our congregations and attend to all the day to day issues of running the church. However, when I talk to my peers in ministry this seems to be a common concern among church leaders; How do we fulfil our duties, care for our congregations, keep up with all the administration as well as connect with our local neighbourhood and empower the church on mission? That is the challenge…

So that’s why I was so excited when I started my role at Morling College and was able to design a new course which would equip Christian leaders to help them move their congregations from maintenance to mission. The course will also help Christian leaders in the work place develop a missional focus in their organisation.

The result of our research and development throughout 2015, was the launch of The Master of Missional Leadership course at the beginning of 2016. It has been a wonderful experience interacting with Christian leaders in church and the corporate world, thinking

Karina Kreminski (right) with guest speaker Charles Ringma and Morling Students discussing Missional Spirituality. through topics around missional spirituality, leadership, Biblical studies and cultural analysis, in order to sharpen their skills as they lead their churches and organisations.

This course is especially designed for practitioners who want to grow their skills in leadership. This is not a course that will merely give you a lot of head knowledge but rather, it will equip the leader to put into

practice some of the skills they learn in order to reorient their congregations and workplaces around mission. When I speak to Christian leaders, they tell me that they feel a need for their churches and organisations to refocus around a missional identity, but they are not sure what that looks like or how to implement this process. While there are many books out there on the market that help leaders to make this

transition, I think that nothing beats engaging with a specially designed course for this purpose alongside peers who are also asking the same questions.

This is a very unique course in Australia, and one aspect that makes it unique is the project component. We ask our leaders to think about a context which they would like to see become even more missional, and then they develop a project that can

be implemented in that context.

The project uses the unique methodology of action-research which keeps the leader engaged with the people in that context, in order to learn from them about missional impact. Needless to say, the appeal of this project for practitioners is to be able to get into the field to see what is happening on the ground, and practice what they are learning with their peers at Morling.

Our post-Christendom context in Australia creates a need for a different mindset and body of practices today, both in the church and the work place, in order to be able to be effective witnesses in our community. On a Sunday morning what is the average Australian waking up and thinking about doing that day? I dare say it is not about going to church anymore. How do we lead in this new space in which God has placed us? Our hope is of course in the movement of his Spirit in our neighbourhoods, work places and society, however we can also steward the gift that he has already given us.

If your gift and role is in leadership then this is a course you can do in order to sharpen the skills that God has given you.

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SEPTEMBER 2016

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Anne Lim on keeping children safe online Scarlet City Studios

The Aetherlight: Chronicles of the Resistance is a new game for kids designed to engage them afresh with the biblical narrative.

Will you join the resistance?

KALEY PAYNE In Aethasia, my name is Laila Crinklespark and I’m asked to join the resistance.

“Lucky rules this land.

Automatons rule our lives. The old Aethasia is gone, fog taints everything. But a resistance is beginning.”

The Aetherlight: Chronicles of the Resistance is a new game for

kids designed to engage them afresh with the biblical narrative.

As Laila, I’m running around Aethasia completing missions for the resistance, which is working for “the Scarlet Man”. Lucky, Aethasia’s current ruler, has brought fog into the land. Fog corrodes the world and people’s minds. He tells his citizens that the Great Engineer, who created Aethasia, has abandoned them. But the Scarlet

Man seeks to restore the Great Engineer to his rightful place on the throne of Aethasia, to reinstate the land’s former glory and to save its people from the fog.

The game has been created

by Scarlet City Studios in New Zealand, a gaming studio spun off from a most unlikely place: an historic postal Sunday school ministry (PSSM). Eighty years ago, PSSM started delivering Sunday

school lessons to rural children in New Zealand. Today, an elderly NZ couple who did the Sunday school lessons themselves during World War II and then volunteered to mark the PSSM lessons as young adults, have primarily funded the game for the last five years to make a new vision of connecting children to the gospel possible.

The Aetherlight is for the Minecraft generation. In what is

now officially my favourite job title, Tim Cleary is the “World-Builder” behind The Aetherlight. He tells me the game works in the same way a flannelgraph worked in Sunday school. “It’s like the teachers using felt characters on a felt board to help illustrate the biblical story.

This is that. A way of telling the biblical story to a new generation.

“We’re trying to invite young continued page 6

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SEPTEMBER 2016

Resistance

Scarlet City Studios

from page 5 people into the mission of God. It’s his story, not your story. But you have a place in his story. I think we can do that through a game in a really unique way.”

It’s a tough ask, considering The Aetherlight is an RPG – a “roleplaying game” – which are, in the world of gaming, made for users to build their own characters and shape that character to their choosing.

The Aetherlight is being released in episodes. Episode 1, launched earlier this year, is the story of a man named Alexander and his wife Selena, who are called from a faraway land to begin a resistance in a place called No Man’s Landing.

But they get it wrong. They misinterpret instructions from the resistance leader. Alexander tries to build himself a resistance, rather than a resistance for someone else – The Scarlet Man. He takes on an automaton boy instead of waiting for “the promised boy”. It is, at its heart, the story of Abraham from the Bible.

The first episode is about 20 hours long, if you do everything in the game that the world builder has left there. The second episode was released in August and is all about the story of Jacob and Esau, but in the game, the characters are Juliana and Edmund, and they run an underground racing airship league. The third episode is in development; an allegory of the story of Joseph.

So far, the game has had over 15,000 downloads mainly from New Zealand, Australia and the United States. Game makers

“We’ve got to stop telling stories that have no hope for the human race,” says The Aetherlight’s worldbuilder. estimate over 30,000 hours have been played worldwide. “It’s a social RPG environment,” says Tim. “You can play alongside friends, no matter which episode they’re in.”

Aethasia is a steampunk world.

Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction, incorporating design inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Think the fantastical machinery in Jules Verne’s Around the World

in 80 Days. Or the submarine, gadgets and imaginative weaponry in A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

“Steampunk is such a fascinating genre,” says Tim. “It’s not fantasy – fantasy is everywhere. It’s not dystopia. I hate dystopia, actually.

We’ve got to stop telling stories that have no hope for the human race.

It’s a place in between that lets us imagine alternative futures. And

it’s exciting because there’s lots of crafting elements that work well for gaming.”

As Laila, I can explore Aethasia and embark on side quests that seem never-ending. I can collect objects to make machines or tools, better weapons or funky outfits.

Targeted at pre-teens, Tim says the game builders have subscribed to the “George Lucas school of violence” – like in much of Star

Wars, the bad guys aren’t humans; they’re automatons. So there’s no bloodshed, just leaking oil. “It’s vandalism, not violence,” says Tim. For Tim, using allegory is a integral part of making the biblical narrative come alive. He grew up on C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series and Lord of the Rings. “I love trying to unpack huge truths within simple stories.”

The game, says Tim, is pretty explicit in its aim to reengage young people with the story of God. But for someone who might never have been to Sunday school or never heard a Bible story – an ever-increasing number – the game builders have built in lots of different ways to get at the meaning, including a “Resistance Academy”, where players can go to ask questions and explore the story behind the story. There’s an app that offers in-game rewards like outfits and resistance points (to level up) for completing activities that connect The Aetherlight and the Bible at a deeper level. And there’s a companion Bible to connect players to the Scriptures, in the same steampunk style and featuring some of the characters from the game, many of which are based on Bible characters themselves.

“We’re focused on the fun.

Because if the kids aren’t having fun in the game, they’re not going to get anywhere near the Bible,” says Carl Becker, the CEO of Scarlet City Studios, the creators of The Aetherlight. “We’ve designed the game to bring the Scriptures alive.”

Bible Society is helping spread the word about The Aetherlight in Australia. Go to www.biblesociety. org.au/discover-the-bible/for-kids for more.

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SEPTEMBER 2016

CHARITY FEATURE

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Online training to prevent harm to children ANNE LIM A key danger facing organisations that have responsibility for child safety is the misguided belief that “bad things couldn’t happen here,” says Jeff Mason, chairman of ChildSafe Australia.

“The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is full of examples where it couldn’t happen – but it did,” he said.

ChildSafe, established in 2007, provides training for organisations and individuals in how to develop and implement child safety programmes. It covers protocols for working with children and understanding abuse and how to recognise its signs.

Until recently, this training was usually available face to face, but now ChildSafe has responded to demand and developed a comprehensive online training programme.

Jeff says many small to mediumsized organisations, such as churches, not-for-profits, sporting clubs and recreational groups struggle to provide appropriate training for their staff and

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volunteers. It is often dependent on people being able to get together at set times in the year and in a particular location.

“This is why we have now developed and launched an online training course,” says Jeff.

“It is an exciting development and will make it much easier for individuals and organisations to receive appropriate training. It will bring quality harm prevention training to a wider audience.”

Online training is particularly useful for churches in remote and regional areas, and for smaller churches that find it difficult to offer training on a regular basis, comments Tania Watson, General Manager of CoC (Church of Christ) WA. “For our larger churches, which have a constant stream of people who need to renew their training, the online option is a great platform and allows people to take responsibility for their ongoing readiness to serve as a volunteer in ministry programs,” she says.

Jeff notes that one of the challenges to which churches should rise is developing the capacity to train “an army of

people who are engaged in society and know what to do if they see signs of abuse. I think we should be saying to every Christian, whether they are working with children or not, do this course!”

The course takes on average less than two hours to complete online, and can be done in stages.

“It just makes good sense. It protects leaders and it protects organisations, but its primary driver is to look after our kids,” says Elliott Lauder, National Relationship Manager of ChildSafe Australia.

An advantage of online training is that organisations know when participants have completed the process, as they are required to undertake an assessment that demonstrates they have learnt and understood the content. At the end of the course the participants can receive a certificate. There is no need for the latest technology as the course can run across a wide range of platforms.

It costs $49 for an individual to complete the training course, but significant discounts are available for inquiring organisations buying multiple packs.

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A cow was an answer to prayer You don’t need money, only prayer, to start a Bible college.

That is the surprising lesson from research into the origins of the now flourishing Sydney Missionary and Bible College. SMBC as it is inevitably called, founded 100 years ago, was the first of a series of Bible colleges not affiliated with particular denominations (church networks) that sprouted in the mainland state capitals - important advocates for the Bible at a time when Charles Darwin and European liberalism had eroded faith during Queen Victoria’s reign.

Anthony Brammall uncovered the surprising history of SMBC in Out of Darkness published to mark the college centenary.

In 1916, Croydon, now an innerwestern suburb of Sydney, housed a flock of wallabies in the grounds of one of the grand houses that lined “pleasant country roadways”.

Benson Barnett, returned from service with the China Inland Mission, had a passion to train missionaries but no college and no money.

He set out from Adelaide, knowing only two men in Sydney, and saw an advertisement for Ooma, a large house in Croydon – ideal but, as Brammall points out, his funds were exhausted. When it came time to sign the lease he had a problem.

“The promise had been given to take the house, and the agent presented the agreement for

Ooma, a grand house in Sydney’s inner west, is today at the centre of SMBC.

signature. Should I sign it? Will he want me to pay in advance? If so I cannot do it, for I have not the money, nor do I know where any more will come from. Yes, he is asking for the rent in advance. Will he permit me to pay at the end of the month, I ask, and the fluttering heart is set at rest by an affirmative reply, ‘If more convenient.’ Why did he ask no questions? Why did he make no objections? I cannot tell. I only know that, a perfect stranger to him, he treated me, without knowing anything about me, with the greatest courtesy, and let me the property to my entire satisfaction. And I do not think he has regretted it, for month by month, the rent has been paid with

“

We had been praying about it, for we knew it was nearly due and we had no money.” the regularity of business.”

Out of Darkness has other similar stories of how prayer sustained the college. “As soon as the college began, the need for a cow to supplement their sometimes meagre meals was brought earnestly before God. One day in

May 1916, Benson Barnett stood on Ashfield Station, chatting to a friend and board member, Dr John Feild Deck. A keen Brethren man, Dr Deck lived in Ashfield, where he had established the successful Sydney Homeopathic Hospital in 1902. He was an avid and generous supporter of foreign missions, and one of the “patriarchs” of the Katoomba Christian Convention.

Six of Feild Deck’s eleven children became missionaries themselves: five in the Solomon Islands with the South Sea Evangelical Mission, and one in China with the CIM. Unaware of the prayers, as he was leaving the platform Deck asked Barnett if he wanted a cow. The unsolicited offer was accepted

with alacrity. A week later, he organised for one of the cattle from his Katoomba property to be delivered, alive and well, all expenses paid, to the college. There was great rejoicing.”

Prayer for provision was not restricted to special occasions – the daily needs of the college had to be prayed for as well. “Gas accounts were another continual source of anxiety, in which the Barnetts and the students repeatedly experienced the Lord’s timely and unexpected provision,” writes Brammall. “Gas was the fuel source for lighting, cooking and limited heating, so the quarterly bills were onerous – especially in winter.

“On a number of occasions noted

by Benson Barnett, the account arrived, with no money in hand to pay it by the due date. Yet time and time again, God provided.

“The first gas bill in 1916 was the forerunner of many such experiences. ‘The bill was left about four o’clock in the afternoon and was for £3/15/11. Of course, we had been praying about it, for we knew it was nearly due and we had no money put by with which to pay it. But that same day before the bill was left, a visitor who knew nothing about this need was at the house. As he left at about 10 am, he put four one pound notes into my hand for the work. He came from miles away from Sydney entirely on his own initiative.’”

Out of Darkness is available at smbc.com.au/store/smbc-press

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Lois Nadjamerrek (centre, in white) on the day of her ordination in 2013, West Arnhem Land.

After 30 years, the New Testament will arrive in West Arnhem Land KALEY PAYNE Lois Nadjamerrek has been working on translating the New Testament into the Kunwinjku language for over 20 years. “It’s coming to an end,” she tells Eternity.

When she started out as a Bible translator – working alongside Steve and Narelle Etherington, missionaries and Bible translators from the Church Missionary Society (CMS) – Lois says she didn’t know much about the Bible.

Now, she’s an ordained Anglican minister, a Christian leader in her community of Oenpelli (also known as Gunbalanya).

“My first work was translation work. I didn’t know about

becoming a minister. I didn’t really see what I was doing; doing the translation work, I was just learning to read the Bible and finding out more about it.”

“It surprised me when I started to read and learn for myself, and I thank God that the Holy Spirit was teaching me and showing me how to read in my own language.”

The Kunwinjku Bible translation has been in progress for almost 30 years. The Kunwinjku people of West Arnhem Land have been receiving the Bible bit by bit over that time, as booklets or Sunday school materials.

But now, the whole New Testament is finished.

Steve and Narelle Etherington

began serving the community as Bible translators in 1984 through CMS, working with many local translators including Lois. In more recent years, Bible Society has partnered with CMS to support the translation to its completion, offering translation consultants and publication assistance. The New Testament is expected to be published in early 2017.

“It’s going through a final spell check and is about to be sent to Bible Society,” says Steve.

Bible Society will publish the Bible, making the full New Testament available for the first time. It will also work on Bible engagement tools that help the community read it, including

resources for kids.

For the Etheringtons, the finalisation of the project means they can retire after a lifetime of service. But there is much to be thankful for.

“The most encouraging thing that has happened in this project is seeing some of the Aboriginal Christians really hanging in there despite difficulty, growing in Christ and using some of the translation, too. They’re the things that make us happy,” says Steve.

For Lois, the arrival of a full New Testament in West Arnhem is a momentous occasion.

“God has a special job for me. I’m not a very important person, but God has called me to be faithful in

More than 20 Indigenous Scripture projects need your help.

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this work.”

“Our language has been given to us from God, so sharing the word of God in my language so the people can hear God calling them in their heart language is very important.”

“I keep thanking the Lord. I’m looking forward to the celebration of the Kunwinjku Bible coming to my homeland. The time has come for my people to hear a lot more about God and the love given to us through Christ.”

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11

OPINION

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Self-esteem and self-surrender JOHN SMITH Surrendering my life to God, long ago, was the wisest, most fruitful and most fulfilling decision I ever made. This, in part, is what Jesus meant when he said, “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.” (Luke 7:33) The belief that we are the “masters of our fate” and “captains of our soul”, is embedded deeply in the psyche of the postmodern Western world. From this point

of view, to think otherwise is to diminish our sense of self – to risk doing irreparable damage to our precious self-esteem. But the experience of countless people who, trusting in Jesus, have followed the path of willing surrender to God is this: by surrendering themselves they have truly found themselves – and the sense of purpose and fulfilment they have been seeking all their lives.

Of course, when it comes to surrendering ourselves, it is critically important that the one to whom we surrender is worthy of our trust. For many, the horrendous results of so-called holy wars and modern jihad would make surrender to any cause other

than self-interest seem like a very risky proposition. Whether we are committing ourselves to citizenship of a nation, a romantic or business relationship, or to a higher power, mindless surrender without a moral and relational framework is never healthy. But when we place our trust in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and surrender ourselves to him we can be assured that we are safe.

Being a Christian does not call for a suppression or denial of everything that makes us the unique human beings we are.

Healthy identity exists in the context of the mutual giving and receiving of our individual uniqueness. Self-surrender

Michael Jensen ponders the miraculous Greg Clarke on the examined life Lisa E / Flickr

John Smith is an international speaker and commentator and founder of God’s Squad Christian Motor Cycle Clubs.

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incorporates concern for human justice and caring about and connecting with our neighbour.

In its noblest form, it is about unconditional love. Theologian Robert Hillman in his book Healing and Wholeness wrote: Ultimately, being true to one’s real self means … serving [Jesus Christ] in loving, free obedience and then serving others in his name, even to the point of being prepared to lay down one’s life for them. But it does not mean having low self-esteem and a poor selfimage or being a “doormat”. In humble gratitude, the Christian stands at his or her full height as he or she is aware of being, in Christ, a unique, infinitely loved and gifted

personality. Thus the hallmark of the healthy self is humility, but not self denigration … there should be a sober, realistic acknowledgment of strengths and abilities.

Hillman goes on to say that those who surrender themselves in this healthy way will have the confidence, with God’s help, to assert themselves when appropriate. But, in humility, they may also at times choose graciously to lay aside what may be considered their rights in order to fulfil a higher purpose.

The perfect example of selfsurrender, true humility and sacrificial love is surely Jesus, who “being in very nature God continued page 12

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OPINION

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Self-surrender

from page 11 … humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross.” (Phil 2:6-8) Over the past three decades, enticing yet potentially damaging “myths” about self-esteem have become so deeply entrenched in popular culture that many accept them as truths and guides for life.

They have infiltrated parenting, teaching, the media, celebrity culture, advertising and even religion. High self-esteem is touted as the key to achieving success and happiness. Not surprisingly, this has contributed to an escalating trend towards self-obsessed individualism, which I believe is against our very nature as human beings created by God. It is not in our best interests as individuals or as a society.

The “it’s-all-about-me” myth is an example of this. Taken to its extreme, it means wanting untrammelled freedom to do as I please, when I please, regardless of the wishes or needs of others and the consequences of my actions on them and wider society.

For those of us who follow Jesus and are called to be in the world but not of the world (John 17:16,18), it is all too easy to be influenced by the self-focused messages that bombard us every day. Over time, Christian faith can be reduced to a life that is focussed on self rather than a life of willing surrender to God and service to others.

In contrast, the lives of many famous Christians we respect and admire exemplify willing surrender of themselves to God’s good purposes. A prayer attributed

to St Francis, which begins “Lord, make me a channel of thy peace”, was quoted in full by Mother Teresa when she addressed the United Nations in 1985. Here is a snippet: Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted, To understand than to be understood, To love than to be loved.

Who could doubt her deeply felt sense of self-surrender. No hint of a pre-occupation with herself and her self-esteem there!

Compare this with the viewpoint expressed in the song My Way, which emerged as a Frank Sinatra hit in the 1960s and is still popular today. The person depicted not only boasts that they have been able to chart their course through life without leaning on other people but also proudly declares their independence from any power beyond themselves.

The contrasting worldviews expressed in these two lyrical examples epitomise a choice that confronts each one of us. I can carry on doing it my way as taught by the myths of self-esteem: I can be my own “god” and devote my life to exalting myself. Or I can choose to acknowledge a power greater than myself and willingly surrender to living his way, that is, God’s way.

Edited extract of Beyond the Myth of SelfEsteem: Finding Fulfilment by John Smith with Coral Chamberlain (Acorn Press; 2014).

SEPTEMBER 2016

Tim Costello on what the Good Samaritan would do about Manus and Nauru What question should an Australian Christian who claims to follow Jesus be asking in 2016?

Who is the neighbour that you are commanded to love as yourself? It’s almost the same probing question Jesus put to an expert in the law two millennia ago after telling the Good Samaritan story that boldly challenged ethnic and cultural divides.

The lawyer rightly answered that the neighbour was the one who showed mercy to the man left for dead on the Jericho road; a stranger from a different tribe.

When it comes to the refugee question, who would want to be the hypocrite who steps to the opposite side of the road to avoid caring for someone in real need?

A key non-negotiable component of Jesus’ gospel is to reach out to the excluded, the poor and those in despair. And to protest injustice.

Surely then, it is time for all of us who love our Bibles to raise

Manus Island regional processing centre loud voices about the arbitrary and seemingly indefinite detention of asylum seekers – who have committed no crime – in oppressive and remote offshore prisons in the Pacific.

The recent release of leaked reports detailing more than 2000 sickening incidents, including sexual abuse, assaults and attempted self-harm in Nauru’s “processing centre” should be the tipping point for Australia to recognise its legal and moral obligations to asylum seekers.

There is still no definite timeline

for the closure of Manus Island and no clarity about the future of those detained there. The only promise given is that they will never be allowed to settle in Australia.

The ignoble tactics used to deter asylum seekers and the conditions under which the innocent are punished in offshore prison camps are a stain on our nation.

Operation Sovereign Borders is bad policy. We have been told that indefinite detention even for those found to be refugees is the only way to stop the boats and stop people drowning. Neither the former defence chief, Angus Houston nor John Howard believe this to be true. As Prime Minister Howard quietly resettled refugees from Nauru in New Zealand and Australia without the boats restarting. We now know that it’s the policy of turn-backs and regional cooperation that stops the boats not sending people mad in indefinite detention.

It is time to end the imprisonment of people who have been detained just for trying to reach the safety of Australia and are now being denied hope of a better future.

We are not suffering a refugee crisis. We are suffering a moral crisis. And we must all speak out.

I am proud that some churches and church leaders have been at the forefront of protest and the speaking of truth to power about our awful treatment of our neighbours.

The issue strikes at the heart of our faith. For those who claim the label “Christian” the choice is clear.

Like the Good Samaritan, we must see the need and get personally involved.

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OPINION

SEPTEMBER 2016

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We all have bloody hands

Every Christian who is prepared to give an account of his or her faith – and the Apostle Peter tells us this should be all of us – has heard the charge that religion is behind most wars and that it promotes violence.

Both accusers and defenders often get this fatally wrong. The former tend to exaggerate and conflate all sorts of complex political and economic influences under religion, partly because it is easy and partly because it is useful.

Defenders often deny that religion, at least their own, can be guilty because it condemns violence. This version of the “no true Scotsman fallacy” – no Scot would do that, and if he did then by definition he could not be a Scot – is still very common with Muslims who deny that Islamic terrorists can be genuine Muslims.

William Cavanaugh, Professor of Theology at Chicago’s De Paul University, shows that this defence fails on two counts. First, it’s impossible to separate religious motives from the mix to make religion innocent and, in trying to do so, defenders fall into the same error as their accusers.

How can you separate religion from politics within Islam when Muslims themselves make no such separation?

Second, any religion is not merely a set of stated beliefs but a way of life, and how its adherents actually live in the world cannot be separated from the religion.

Religious people can be violent generally and even in the pursuit of their religion. The Crusaders may have misappropriated their faith, but it was their stated motive, just

wikipedia / Jmquez

BARNEY ZWARTZ on the myth of religious violence Archbishop Desmond Tutu demonstrates religion’s capacity to promote reconciliation. as it is for Islamic terrorists. Faith cannot be dismissed.

Cavanaugh, who last month gave the 2016 Richard Johnson Lecture in Sydney for the Centre for Public Christianity, observes that religion – an activity, after all, carried out by humans – is not innocent of violence or other human failings.

Where the critics err, he says, is in suggesting religion is more violent than secular ideologies.

On a 2006 visit to Australia, Cavanaugh alerted me to a strange argument by distinguished American historian Martin Marty.

In the 1940s, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States were beaten, tarred, castrated and jailed because they believed that followers of Jesus should not salute a flag. To Marty, this is evidence that religion has a particular tendency to be divisive and therefore violent.

He writes that it “can be perceived by others as dangerous.

Religion can cause all kinds of trouble in the public arena.” For Marty, religion refers not to the ritual pledging of allegiance to a flag, but only to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ refusal to do so.

There is clearly something wrong here. Surely the obvious conclusion is that fanatical nationalism can cause violence. Marty blames religion because he is seduced by this myth of religious violence that is so deeply entrenched in Western society.

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Cavanaugh argues that this myth plays a valuable role for secularists.

It helps them marginalise Christians and demonise Muslims, and creates a blind spot about violence by the West. It confirms an “us” (the rational, peace-making, secular West) against a “them” (violent fanatics in the Muslim world). “Their violence is religious, and therefore irrational and divisive. Our violence, on the other hand, is rational, peace-making and necessary. Regrettably, we find ourselves forced to bomb them into the higher rationality.”

In fact, the division between religious and secular found in much modern political debate is a modern invention to separate religion from culture, politics and economics. If it can be separated, it can be separately attacked.

Yet religion is notoriously impossible to capture in a definition. Must it include God or gods? If not, Buddhism and Confucianism qualify but so do secular faiths such as nationalism or ecology.

The sociologists, political scientists, historians, theologians and others who have written since 9/11 attacking religion as violent just pretend this difficulty does not exist. Then they claim religion is prone to violence because it is absolutist, divisive, and/or irrational. They ignore overwhelming evidence that

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secular ideologies and institutions can be just as absolutist, divisive or irrational.

But when they try to separate secular from religious violence, they refute their own distinctions.

Marty lists five “features” of a religion, and then shows how politics shares all five: both focus our ultimate concern, both build community, both appeal to myth and symbol (for example, national flags, war memorials), both use rites and ceremonies and both demand certain behaviours. In showing how closely intertwined the two are, Marty ends up demolishing any theoretical basis for separating them.

When it comes to violence, secular religions such as nationalism or ethnicity (think Rwanda or Yugoslavia in the 1990s) have hands as bloody as any religion. How many Christians would be willing to kill for their faith? How many would be willing to kill for their country? Surveys in America show that the nation-state attracts far more absolutist fervour than Christianity. Many Christians there endorse slaughter on behalf of the nation.

If this myth about religious violence is incoherent, why is it so widely believed? Because it’s so useful. In domestic politics, it helps silence religious believers, who are told their faith is a private matter and must be kept out of

politics. In foreign politics, the myth helps reinforce and justify Western attitudes, especially towards Muslims. It enables us to demonise Muslims as primitives unable to separate religion and politics, thus cementing the “us and them” attitude and letting the West sanitise its own actions.

So there is indeed a case for religion to answer when it comes to violence. But what is often left out of such discussions is religion’s extraordinary capacity in the opposite direction – to promote and build peace, reconciliation, understanding and generosity.

Christ’s teachings about loving our enemies, doing good to those who hate us and turning the other cheek are profoundly counterintuitive, but they have changed the world. They provide an aspiration and a praxis.

A prime example is South Africa, which could have easily degenerated into sanguinary civil war after the end of apartheid.

Instead, motivated by their profound personal faith, President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu gave the nation its Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Lisa Schirch, a US professor of peacebuilding, has written that the commission “successfully guided South Africa through the perilous post-war context and created an atmosphere safe enough for perpetrators to ‘confess’ the truth of their crimes in exchange for amnesty”. It also limited the sporadic outbreaks of “street justice”.

“Religious leaders hold a tremendous ability to influence people through moral language that resonates with people’s basic values. In South Africa, the call for people to reconcile became a surround-sound campaign, with preachers linking faith with political transition every week and on radio stations across the country. … In many ways Christianity infused the entire TRC process.”

Religion is about relationships, and so is solving problems of violence. One thing Christians know is that “peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” (James 3:18) Barney Zwartz is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Public Christianity.

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OPINION

SEPTEMBER 2016

15

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I believe in miracles Michael Jensen on how God intervenes in our world sandid / pixabay

In case you hadn’t noticed it already, the Bible is a book that claims supernatural events have occurred in history. Through Moses, Yahweh called down plagues on Egypt, held back the Red Sea and provided food and drink in the desert. The prophet Elijah was able to demonstrate Yahweh’s power through the burning of a sodden altar at the showdown on Mt Carmel. Elisha brought a dead boy back to life.

In the New Testament, the miracles are if anything more highly concentrated. Jesus is not simply a teacher and a prophet: he is a miracle worker. He heals the sick, he casts out demons and he has an extraordinary power over the natural world. He walks on water and he calms the storm.

He brings life to a little girl and to his friend Lazarus. The miracles recorded in the Acts of the Apostles tend to mimic his.

It almost goes without saying that the whole Christian gospel relies on a miracle: namely, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. A Christianity without the miraculous becomes simply a tepid moralism.

Since that great intellectual movement called the Enlightenment in the 18th century, miracles have been increasingly thought of as an embarrassment to Christian faith. This embarrassment has not decreased.

This was for two chief reasons.

First, as it became increasingly possible to understand the operation of the laws of nature, it seemed more and more as if an appeal to the supernatural was the way the ancients coped with things that were beyond their understanding.

The twentieth-century New

When the God of Scripture performs supernatural acts, he does not do so because he is not otherwise in control.

Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann once wrote: We cannot use electric lights and radios and, in the event of illness, avail ourselves of modern medical and clinical means and at the same time believe in the spirit and wonder world of the New Testament. And if we suppose that we can do so ourselves, we must be clear that we can represent this as the attitude of Christian faith only by making the Christian proclamation unintelligible and impossible for our contemporaries.

This is a challenge which bears taking seriously. Reports of miraculous events are not easy for our contemporaries to accept, and we have to understand that we understand the world in a very different way to the ancient writers who reported miracles to us.

Secondly, it seemed theologically difficult to imagine the great creator God, the maker of the “spacious firmament on high” (to quote Addison’s hymn) would dirty his fingers by sticking them somewhat crassly into the midst of human affairs. It simply seemed beneath him.

The Scottish philosopher David Hume was the greatest critic of the miraculous of his day. He wrote: Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death,

though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country.

Hume’s argument has been criticised for being circular, which indeed it is. He defines a miracle as “that which has never happened in the common course of nature”.

Since a miracle by definition cannot happen “naturally”, Hume pretty much defines the possibility of a miracle away.

The only exception he allows is if the reported miracle were to be witnessed by a sufficient number of people of honesty, intelligence and education.

I don’t think Hume’s argument is a good argument, but his intuition – that reports of miracles are to be treated with scepticism, not incredulity – is right.

But the Bible is far more reticent about the miraculous than we might suspect. I am certainly not the first to observe that miraculous events are clumped around the two great salvific moments in the Bible – the Exodus, and the coming of the Messiah. The career of David, for example, is not marked by the miraculous in the same way as that of Moses and Jesus.

And the reactions of the writers of the Bible and those about whom they write suggest that they are “amazed” at what they see when

they witness a miracle. Which is to say: they already have in place implicitly what Hume thought was a discovery of his age, namely, that supernatural events are simply not the ordinary way things work. They aren’t in the ordinary run of things, and the ancients knew this.

I’d like also to pick away at a couple of other threads in thinking about miracles in the Bible. The first is that the Bible uses words to describe these events which are very deliberately chosen. John uses the word “sign”. For him, Jesus is not simply displaying superpowers, but communicating to people through symbolic actions. Turning water into wine wasn’t just a party trick (though it was certainly appreciated by those who drank the wine), it was an act that was meant to convey a message.

Feeding the five thousand was meant to echo the feeding of the people in the wilderness in Exodus, and thus link Jesus’ identity to Yahweh the God of Israel.

In Matthew, Mark and Luke, the word chosen to describe what we call “miracles” is roughly translated as “acts of power”. Once again, they are a signal of something about Jesus himself, not simply demonstrations of trickery. “Who is this, that even the wind and the waves obey him?” asked the disciples. And the answer once again is: this is the man of Yahweh.

The miraculous acts of the Synoptic Gospels often serve to

establish Jesus’ true humanity, rather than his divinity. That is: we see him fulfilling the divine commission to Adam in the garden, to rule over the creation as God’s representative on the earth. This helps us to see that the division between “natural” and “supernatural” is not as straightforward as we think, since the “natural” is not what it once was on account of the fall. What we know as “natural” is not what was originally “natural”. What we see in Jesus is not a disruption of the natural, but a restoration of the truly natural. What could illustrate this better than his resurrection from the dead?

This way of thinking may help us with thinking about spiritual gifts. In the contemporary world, inordinate emphasis has been placed on supernatural gifts as evidence of true spirituality.

However: gifts like healing, exorcism and prophetic words are known in non-Christian religions as well (and even among those with no religion at all). We are better to understand these gifts as part of the normal human way with the world. What makes them “spiritual” (if they are) isn’t their “miraculous” nature: it is that they are done in the name of Jesus and for the building up of his church.

But we still have to think about the complaint that the miraculous acts of the Bible are an embarrassment to the grandeur of God and his providential action in maintain the universe. Nick Cave sang that he didn’t “believe in an interventionist God”.

We need to consider the real form of these so-called interventions. When the God of Scripture performs supernatural acts, he does not do so because he is not otherwise in control of events. He does so because of the communicative power of the intervention. It is almost always to reveal his identity to people not simply as creator – the miracle of creation, which should be miracle enough, is all around us – but also as redeemer. He is not simply distant, but enters the world to remind us that he is not far from every one of us (Acts 17).

These events do not embarrass or belittle him: they reveal him not simply as the God of remote power, but as the God of saving love.

Michael Jensen is the rector of St Mark’s Anglican Church in Sydney and the author of several books.

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OPINION

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SEPTEMBER 2016

Maybe Socrates was wrong and the Bible right

Greg Clarke is feeling grateful

wikipedia_Dimsfikas

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” So said Socrates, according to Plato. Socrates would rather die than live without philosophy; and because of his philosophy, that’s exactly what befell him. In 399 BC, he was forced to drink poison for the crime of corrupting the youth of Athens with his ideas.

Perhaps more philosophers should be brought to account for their hideous crimes.

For all my university years, I was convinced Socrates was right.

You had to be examining life to make it truly worthwhile. It was the express duty and pleasure of humanity to dig into life’s mysteries, to submit the self and world to scrutiny, to be more than an animal, to be an animal that perceives itself and wonders what a marvellous thing life is.

Anyone who didn’t sit back and ponder where they had come from and why was being lazy and subhuman. Their life wasn’t worth its unexamined is-ness. They were a waste of time and space.

Now I’m not so sure.

The more life goes on, the less valuable this whole “examination” business seems. The teacher in Ecclesiastes was spot-on: “I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind!” (Ecc 1:13) And this heavy burden of examination leads not to mental liberation, as educators suggest, but to something more like imprisonment: “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.” (v.18) Discovering the world in science, literature, maths or philosophy can be a peculiar pleasure. I get great enjoyment out of learning something new, or progressing my understanding of one subject or another. It’s a joy. Except when it’s not, and the intractable problems of life overwhelm the fun. Fires destroy sunsets; evil and suffering oblate happiness; disease beats medicine in the end.

And philosophy, well that’s a maze within a maze.

So, if examining life isn’t the key to living well, what is? Perhaps

If examining life isn’t the key to living well, what is? it is being grateful. Gratitude is possible in almost any situation, even when reflecting on life brings too much sorrow.

There is so much to be grateful for. Take my morning for instance: I enjoyed a banana for breakfast, I watched the wind in the trees, I stroked the cat. I wrestled my young son, I admired my wife, I listened to a classic pop song on the radio and my feet got tapping.

I’m so grateful for each of these experiences, and I know not everyone has the chance to enjoy them. I’m grateful that I do.

But meanwhile, while my tastebuds were enjoying that banana, my troubled mind was elsewhere, pondering refugees and crime and illness and the impending climate catastrophes.

The unexamined bit of my morning was enjoyable, appreciative and calm. The examined bit was depressing. The unexamined bit reminded me of God’s goodness; the examined bit made me feel like questioning God’s very existence.

Alain de Botton, the popular philosopher, famously said that one

of the disappointments of atheism is that there is no one to say thank you to. For Christians, we are drawn to give praise and thanks to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. The target of our grateful affections is clear.

Ecclesiastes teaches that when God gives us what we need – food, drink, friendships, work to do – along with the chance to enjoy it, we have a better chance of living well than burying our minds in the universe’s imponderables.

These pleasures are actually a coping mechanism for human beings trapped in the tragedy of the fallen world. The person who can focus on gratitude for the good things will be happier than the philosophically minded: “They seldom reflect on the days of their life,” says Ecclesiastes, “because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.” (Ecc 5:20).

As more of a ponderer myself, I find this teaching challenging to accept. But it does also offer hope.

Life’s worth is not found in endless examination of its meaning, but in grateful acceptance of its gift.

It also means that God is not so easily found in the realm of the philosophers, but in the pleasures of the family dining table, the cat on the stool, and the feeling that you did a decent day’s work.

Greg Clarke is CEO of Bible Society Australia.

Bible Stat Brazil has the gold medal for Bible distribution: 7.5 million Bibles in 2015.