Eternity - June 2017 - Issue 81 by Bible Society Australia

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Number 81, June 2017 ISSN 1837-8447

Brought to you by the Bible Society

Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lucy! How Senator Lucy Gichuhi learnt to pray and really read the Bible

Being a single mother gets you killed

Survey: genuine faith a real winner

Refugees really need friends

NEWS

JUNE 2017

Obadiah Slope HI OLDIES: Nathan Campbell, a Queensland Presbyterian minister, Facebooked this composite picture of council members of evangelical group Gospel Coalition Australia. His summary of the composite: “It’s a university educated middleaged white man with glasses and a striped shirt (who looks like Scott Morrison).” He is right – except that middle-aged might have been kind. “I don’t know about your church, but this is not a common demographic at ours,” added Campbell. Obadiah wonders what if you did a combinedaveraged-out pic of the leaders of your group? (There might be a couple of Asian faces in there but, like the Editor of Eternity, the composites end up looking white.) RECYCLING RELICS: “The former Soviet Union built all these splendid halls for union gatherings and party congresses. So, in case you ever wondered what the historic role of communism was, it was to build buildings large enough for Pentecostal churches.” Historian Philip Jenkins on the countries where the church growth is explosive. MEMO TO TRUMP: Mark Galli, editor of Christianity Today (not a lefty mob), suggests “instead of being quick to speak truth to power, we might also, from time to time, speak mercy to the immoral. And if there is anyone who needs mercy, it is Trump.”

Results are in: Aussies admire people who live out a genuine faith TESS HOLGATE Three in four Aussies say they are turned off investigating religion when they hear celebrities or public figures talk about their Christian faith, a new national study on religion and spirituality has found. The results are part of the Faith and Belief in Australia report, produced by McCrindle Research, with Olive Tree Media, Christian Media and Arts Association, Christian Schools Australia and the

Ministry Training Strategy. But sounding a note of hope, the greatest attraction to investigating spirituality and religion is seeing people live out a genuine faith. According to the 2011 census, 61 per cent of Aussies identify as Christian, but McCrindle thinks that number is too high. The report shows 45 per cent of Australians identify as Christians, with a further 14 per cent identifying as “spiritual but not religious.” These people believe there is an ultimate

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E Please read the whole story at eternitynews. com.au/ faithstudy

meaning and purpose (36 per cent), and follow an inward journey of self-discovery (26 per cent). A recent Barna study also explored the identity of those who consider themselves “spiritual but not religious.” (Barna is a market research firm specialising in studying the religious beliefs and behavior of Americans, and the intersection of faith and culture.) “But straying from orthodoxy is not the story here,” notes the Barna study. “This feels expected. Sure, their God is more abstract than embodied, more likely to occupy minds than the heavens and the earth. But what’s noteworthy is that what counts as ‘God’ for the spiritual but not religious is contested among them, and that’s probably just the way they like it. Valuing the freedom to define their own spirituality is what characterises this segment.” More than half of Australians (52 per cent) say they are open to changing their views given the right circumstance and evidence. But this number drops dramatically to just 12 per cent, when we turn to those who are “very interested” or “quite open” to changing their current religious views. The results also vary widely across the generations, with 20 per cent of Gen Z (born 1995-2009) saying they’d be very interested or quite open to changing their views, compared with 12 per cent of Gen Y (born 1980-1994), and just 4 per cent of Baby Boomers (born 19461964). One Gen Y non-Christian

participant said, “I swap day to day, week to week, year to year. Sometimes it might be work related, or personal … when something isn’t going right and I want to go towards a positive path. I think a lot of other people my age do the same.” In a country where 45 per cent of adults never talk about religion, it is perhaps surprising that the most common reason that people are prompted to think about spiritual or religious things is through conversations with people. Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) are the only group to buck this trend, with global/national issues and a death in the family being more likely to prompt spiritual thinking. Gen Z (born 1995-2009) are the only generation to be significantly impacted by social media when it comes to thinking about spirituality and religion (32 per cent say it is their most significant source of spiritual thinking). 92 per cent of Aussies know at least one Christian (with 46 per cent saying they know over 11 Christians). But that also means almost 1.5 million Australians don’t know any Christians, with one in 10 Gen Y not knowing any Christians. Non-Christians who knew at least one Christian described them as caring (41 per cent), loving (35 per cent), kind (35 per cent), honest (32 per cent) and faithful (31 per cent). But Christians were also described as hypocritical (17 per cent), opinionated (18 per cent), judgmental (20 per cent) and intolerant (12 per cent).

Michael Jensen

Justine Toh

“The Reformation rediscovered the biblical emphasis on the word of God.”

“Full-bodied embrace of the refugee...is about recognising them as our equal.”

Quotable

School of Theology 13-14 September Gerald Bray, Tim Patrick, Rhys Bezzant, Martin Foord, John McClean, Dean Zweck, Mark Thompson and Ed Loane

moore.edu.au/events

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NEWS

JUNE 2017

Bible is not just a ‘white man’s book’ News 2-3

ANNE LIM AT SYDNEY WRITER’S FESTIVAL

In Depth 5-10

Australians have to stop thinking of the Bible as a “white man’s book”, historian of religion Meredith Lake told a sold-out session on The Good Book? The Bible in Australian Culture Today at the Sydney Writers’ Festival on May 25. Lake, author of The Bible Down Under, a students’ guide to the influence of the Bible in Australia, told the audience at Roslyn Packer Theatre that the Bible had come as a white man’s book, with many harmful consequences for the country’s First Peoples. “I think ... there are plenty of examples of destructive applications of the Bible to indigenous society,” she said. Lake was sitting on a panel with Lachlan Brown, a poet and teacher of literature and writing at Charles Sturt University, and Roy Williams, author of an upcoming biography of Arthur Stace, Mr Eternity. Asked by Bible Society CEO Greg Clarke to provide an example of the damage done by the Bible, Lake told the story of Aboriginal girl Boorong, who was adopted by the first chaplain, Richard Johnson, and became the first Indigenous Australian to have a substantial encounter with the Bible. “She encountered, in his house, writing, paper, the English language ... for the very first time, as well as all his theology. “When the officers are negotiating with Bennelong to try and get him to ...

Bible Society 11 Charity Feature 12 Opinion 13-16

In brief

Historian Meredith Lake at a bookstall at Sydney Writers’ Festival.

come up with some kind of neutral coexistence, Johnson and Boorong basically get used as political bait in that highly political scenario. “So his desire to share the gospel with her gets caught up in the whole colonial project of establishing British rule on this land, and I think this is an unresolved issue in our culture.” Lake pointed out that Indigenous

people had absorbed the Bible, reappropriated it and reinterpreted it. For example, William Cooper, an indigenous leader from Victoria, used his knowledge of the Bible – that God made all the nations of one blood and assigned to them the land they would inhabit – to push for Aboriginal land rights. “In 1938 he wrote to the Prime Minister saying ‘I’m an educated

black, I can read the Bible, the British Constitution is meant to be based on this – treat us as people and give us our land, which has been stolen.’” “He uses the Bible as a Christian Aboriginal man to push back at white society. It’s a very powerful argument … that white Australia still doesn’t really hear. And I think once we stop thinking about the Bible as our book, as a white book, and listen to other voices, we’ll actually have really productive national conversations about reconciliation, about the restitution of the land, all these kinds of things. “I think there’s an urgency to listening to these voices that come from an indigenous engaging with Scripture.”

BRAZIL’S SHIFT: Evangelical churches are expanding rapidly in Brazil, Charisma News reports. In favela communities, churches are gaining members partially by providing social services such as education, health care and security. Protestant Christians comprise more than 20 per cent of Brazil’s 200 million population, up from less than three per cent in 1940, according to Pew Research. BIG PRAYER: 1.7 million South Africans registered for a prayer meeting on April 22. The call to prayer, just six weeks earlier, came from evangelist Angus Buchan. He prayed for stability and justice. SCRIPTURE UNION TURNS 150: Meeting with 15 children in a drawing room in Islington, North London, inspired Josiah Spears to set up informal and simple Christian gatherings for children. The “Children’s Special Service Mission” he started later became Scripture Union.

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Forced to send his grandson into danger A stream is teeming with biting black flies, in remote Africa. These flies carry the parasites that cause one of the world’s most horrible diseases, River Blindness. Every day, Dibelayi’s blind grandfather Fortunat faces a heartbreaking dilemma. The family needs water to survive, but this stream is their only water source. Fortunat would go to the stream to fetch water himself, but he cannot find his way. River Blindness has already stolen his sight. He is forced to send his grandson Dibelayi, knowing that any day the young boy could be infected with the same parasites that blinded Fortunat. Fortunat has never seen his grandson. He became blind before Dibelayi was born. That was when Fortunat was a strong woodsman, cutting trees, making boards and selling wood to support his family. When flies bit him while he worked, he considered them no more than a nuisance. Fortunat did not know that the flies were implanting tiny worms under his skin. “Lumps grew on my body,” he remembers. Inside these lumps, the parasites were breeding in their millions. They released toxins that caused unbearable irritation. “My skin was itching horribly. I scratched myself constantly. The itching never stopped!” People like Fortunat are so desperate for relief, they dig at their own skin, trying to cut out

Fortunat, who has gone blind from River Blindness, relies on his grandson, Dibelayi, to lead him around their village. the worms. This causes mottled scarring known throughout Africa’s river valleys as “leopard skin.” What the parasites did next are why this dreadful disease is called River Blindness. “I had parasites in my eyes. My eyes died. Everything is black.” Fortunat is terriﬁed that the

same suffering and blindness could happen to his grandson Dibelayi. So he asks, “Can you help him? My grandson is a person created by God. I hope he will never become blind like me.” Through CBM, Australians today have a unique opportunity to protect children like Dibelayi from River Blindness, with a medication

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of their donation multiplied seven times; so that every $10 donated becomes $70 worth of life-changing, parasite-killing protection. CBM was founded more than 100 years ago to follow the example of Jesus in bringing hope and healing to those living with disabilities in extreme poverty. Long known as Christian Blind Mission, CBM now works in many areas of disability and inclusion, but treating and preventing the injustice of suffering like River Blindness remains at the heart of its work. Every year CBM supporters, including thousands of Australians, protect more than 15 million people from River Blindness. To ﬁnd out more about how you can help save Africa’s children like Dibelayi from a disease that caused his grandfather so much suffering, poverty and irreversible blindness, visit cbm.org.au/bites. River Blindness causes unbearable irritation and then irreversible blindness. The Confronting Facts: ● A total of 18 million people are infected with River Blindness. ● 99% of these people live in Africa. ● There are 120 million people worldwide who are at risk of River Blindness. ● River Blindness parasitic worms live up to 14 years in the body, and those infected need ongoing medication to stop the worms breeding.

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JUNE 2017

IN DEPTH

‘You can never lose with the word of God’

Senator Lucy Gichuhi wants to talk Bible and prayer

JOHN SANDEMAN The interview is different from the start. It starts with an intense prayer time, which sends a signal that this senator is serious about bringing her faith to her new job in Canberra. Lucy Gichuhi was being sworn in on May 9 as the new independent senator from South Australia, replacing Bob Day. She has not joined Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives along with the other Family First MPs, (although that door is not closed). That sends a second signal: this lady will chart her own path. “How did Jesus find you?” I ask. “I believe that Jesus found me, knew me before I was formed in my mother’s womb,” says Gichuhi. She grew up with Catholic parents in a poor village on the slopes of Mount Kenya. “That is where my journey began,” she says, referring both to her journey as a believer and her

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journey from Kenya to a seat in the Australian Senate. She recalls village life: “As a young girl I remember it was a new settlement, just on the slopes of Mount Kenya. There were no people around us. It was not unusual for neighbours to be killed by elephants which came out of the forest. Those stories are common. “I have this story of going to school even though my parents knew for sure they could not afford the school fees. My father said, ‘You know what: you are going.’ At a time when girls’ education was not [regarded as] important in that part of the country my father said time after time ‘anything a man can do, YOU can do.’” Gichuhi believes that it was only “the hand of God” that led her parents to push hard to give their girls a way out. And her mother insisted they go to church. Gichuhi recalls that her mother would say, “You must be prayerful women if you are ever to escape poverty.”

“

They sent us to Christians schools even though they could not aff ord it.”

But Gichuhi says her Christianity has only fully blossomed late in life. “I went through life as what I call a ‘passive’ Christian.” She went to church almost every Sunday, met her husband William at university, and joined his Presbyterian church, The Church of East Africa. “I was in a passive mode, confident in my own ways, leaning on my own understanding.” “I came to Australia. And the first thing [to decide] is which church do we go to? I still had not got it at this point. For a long time I was going to Influencers Church

Who on what

[a Pentecostal church, in Adelaide]. But I am there for social and emotional reasons. And I love it because I love praise and worship. It did not get me – until 2012.” At that point, Gichuhi realised that she could feel an emptiness in her life. “I thought ‘what is lacking in my life?’ It occurred to me that the only thing I have not tried is my Christianity. When you are leaning on your own understanding you think you have tried everything – even though you have been doing nothing. “It was at that point, 2012, I lost my job – and my daughters were teenagers. And that was a crisis for me and my husband as well.” But Gichuhi resolved, “There’s no way I am going to do the second half of my life the way I did the first half. That is when I started the search.” That is when she asked a prayerful friend, whose life she could see was different, whether she could go to her fellowship. She said yes, and then Gichuhi

asked her to teach her how to pray. She also met up with her pastor, Zipporah, and told her everything. “I have been a Christian but I never have been close to God. He either lives or he doesn’t but this ‘in between’ – I am not doing it. “I said ‘I don’t even know how to pray.’ This is embarrassing. I am 50 years old. I have three children. I look like a Christian but I know I am not it.” Zipporah promised to begin by teaching Gichuhi how to pray. They went through the Lord’s Prayer, line by line, discussing what each line means. “I was taking notes. I still have that notebook of how to pray. For a long time I was just praying along the lines of the Lord’s Prayer and it was so powerful.” More personal trials followed. 2013 was another spiritually challenging year for Gichuhi when her mother died, slowly. “I travelled to Kenya, and sat with her as she continued page 6

17/05/2017 10:58:37 AM

IN DEPTH

“

Lucy Gichuhi

I had faith in God, that tomorrow we’d be okay.”

Lucy Gichuhi as a baby with her mother. Gichuhi. “It was pure theology. I thought ‘this is what I have been looking for all my life.’” It was two weeks of the book of John. “I could connect with it. In that two weeks I got it, how to study the word. “I don’t have to struggle to get answers. It’s better than asking your friend, your husband, your mother. I can simply connect with the word.” Gichuhi asked to be placed with a “South Australian and a

Christian” politician when the time came for the practical experience part of her internship. The organisers placed her with Family First’s Senator Bob Day, just as the double dissolution election was called in 2016. He just squeaked home. “It was very exciting,” says Gichuhi of a big change in her life during her time in Canberra. But she is not speaking of working in the senator’s office. Rather, it’s her

prayer life. “I am getting to be prayerful – I did not forget the words ‘let your will be done,’” she says, describing her prayers during that time in Day’s office. She developed the habit of fasting a couple of days a week, and waking very early to pray, resolving to tithe her time. She recalls praying for her family, and what it would be like when the internship was over. “I go back home, and everything is calm. I had asked my pastor to ‘pray for my family.’ One daughter was not going to church at that time and I thought ‘I have to leave you in the care of God.’” Her church rallied around. “It worked wonders. By the time I got back home, she was going to church. “The chances of being elected number two as a Family First candidate, is zero point zero zero zero zero one per cent,” is how Bob Day put it when he asked Gichuhi to run on the 2016 Senate ticket. “I said ‘no worries,’” Gichuhi recalls. “I was just excited to be supporting him, and also learning more about politics. “This was the first time I started to feel very Australian. I started to engage with the issues facing Australia as an Australian. Sometimes as a migrant the body has arrived but all the emotions and beliefs are still in your country of origin.” After the election, Gichuhi

returned to Adelaide working in family law at the Women’s Legal Services. She was challenged in her prayer life to “prepare yourself,” and a “prayer warrior” friend delivered a message to her: “You need to get wisdom.” She decided to read the Bible cover to cover for the first time in her life. She drove to a Koorong store and bought one (having used a Bible on her phone before). Around that time, the news broke that Bob Day had financial troubles. “That broke my heart. I had come to know Bob. I know what it means to be one decision away from bankruptcy.” At first it was not clear what would happen about replacing Day, who resigned to take care of his building companies. Gichuhi just let the processes play out – and it took another High Court case. In fact, she headed back to Kenya to see her elderly father. By the time she returned, the issue of whether Gichuhi was still a Kenyan citizen also came up. As the legal process dragged on, Gichuhi read the Bible, getting up at four each morning, starting at Genesis. “You can never lose with the word of God. Whether I go back to law or not,” she recalls. “The last day I finished reading the Bible, the day I got to the last full stop in Revelation, is the day the High Court case finished. “I attribute it all to the hand of God.”

WATCH SENATOR LUCY GICHUHI AT

www.eternitynews.com.au/lucygichuhi

REG0334P_05/17

from page 5 died. It was difficult but once again the Lord came through.” When she returned to Australia, she was broke. Gichhui had had savings that were getting her through law school in Adelaide but her mother’s hospital bills and the travel took it all. “I was thinking ‘do I abandon law school?’ What would Mum have said?” Gichuhi knew what her answer would be: “Keep going. Don’t ever stop your dreams because of money.” “Miracles happened – now you can label these things as you want – but one of my husband’s nephews came to me and gave me $2000. I said, ‘there you go’. This is the money I used to do one-and-ahalf years of law school.” She cut every expense. She travelled on ‘interpeak’ buses which are cheaper in Adelaide. She walked when she could walk. “I remember there was one Christmas that I hosted the whole Christmas lunch using $200. I will never forget.” “Looking at my life – he has demonstrated it – that tomorrow you will be okay.” In late 2015, Pastor Zipporah was present for Gichuhi’s admission to the bar and introduced her to Adelaide lawyer and Christian, Mark Mudri, who has become a key mentor. Unwittingly he guided her towards a couple of key moves which led directly to the senate. Despite Gichuhi being keen to find a job as soon as she graduated, Mudri suggested a public policy internship in Canberra. “I will never forget the first two weeks of the internship,” says

JUNE 2017

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IN DEPTH

JUNE 2017

-31% -40%

Number of congregations 1990 - 2013

Number of attendees 1991 - 2013

35%

Active ministers of at least 60 years of age

Active ministers under 40 years of age

542

Median number of people at a church

UNITING CHURCH

Churches without children in the congregation

AT A GLANCE

what the numbers say ATTENDANCE

CHURCHES

-40%

-31%

Actual number of church congregations operational between 1990 and 2013

Estimate of total national weekly worship service attendance (all ages)

1991

2013

3,019

2,078

1991 1996 2001 2013 ADDITIONAL FACT The median size for a Uniting Church congregation is 35 people (including three children)

ADDITIONAL FACT Percentage of Churches Founded Pre/Post Union: Pre 1980 89% Post 1980 11%

NCLS Research 2013

COMPARISON 578,000 272,000 220,000 142,020

97,200 59,238

Catholic ACC / AOG Anglican Baptist

UCA

Seventh Day Catholic ACC Anglican Baptist UCA SDA

THE YOUNG

82%

Congregations who have less that 10 children attending services (1,720 churches)

10-19 11%

5-9 28%

26%

1-4 28%

0 children 1-4 children 5-9 children 10-19 children 20-49 children 50+ children

FACT SOURCE

ADDITIONAL FACT

Figures based on actual denomination’s stated statistics and compiled by Eternity News August 2015.

Congregations running a Sunday School 40% Congregations running a Youth Group 20%

biblesociety.org.au/news/ how-many-people-atyour-church

NCLS Research 2013

26% 28% 28% 11% 6% 1%

Samana’s mum couldn’t see a way out from leprosy and died by her own hand

Decision time for Uniting church JOHN SANDEMAN Forty years ago this month, a brave experiment and a dream of Christian unity fuelled the launch of the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA). Three denominations (groups of churches) merged to form the UCA – the Methodist Church was joined by most of the Congregational Churches, along with two-thirds of the Presbyterians. The hope that other Christians would join (the UCA chose to be called “Uniting,” a continuous verb, rather than “United” which is past tense) has not been met. The numbers in our side panel indicate continuing decline. Keith Suter does not claim to be a prophet, merely a futurist. Three years ago, this indefatigable scholar did a third doctorate in which he sketched out four scenarios – plausible futures – for the UCA. 1. Word and Deed: A Uniting Church with a small number of large parishes, providing spiritual activities and social welfare. 2. Secular Welfare: Uniting Church congregations fade away, but a large social welfare movement remains. 3. Return to the Early Church: UCA re-invents itself. 4. Recessional: UCA is wound up and its assets dispersed. “Of the four scenarios, the ones that seem to be coming into play most predominantly [are] number two – the growth of church welfare – and number four,” Suter tells Eternity. “It is quite clear that the congregations are shrinking, and the government continues to provide money for welfare work.” It is possible to find some of all four scenarios says Andrew Dutney, past President of the Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia and Principal of the Uniting College for Leadership and Theology in Adelaide. He says, “I really appreciate Keith’s work in laying out those scenarios.” The fact is that all four currently exist in the Uniting Church and

have for some time. There is no particular reason to think that is going to change. Dutney sees a possible flaw in Suter’s work – an assumpltion that the Uniting Church is “a whole, a particular thing. It kind of is and it kind of isn’t. It was always intended to have a plurality of expressions. “That is what it has come to be in the context of a significant decline in organised religion in Australian Society.” Among Suter’s “most likely” futures for the UCA is the gloomy Scenario Four – Recessional. Suter thinks the UCA already has been drifting towards it. “The scenario actually talks about two options – one is the Uniting Church does nothing and just haemorrhages. So what you’d end up with then is a flourishing welfare sector, in aged care, child care, Lifeline etc., but an increasingly reduced congregational side. So, by default, that will happen. “The other variation in that fourth scenario is that you get people in leadership positions, working with people throughout the system saying ‘we have a crisis on our hands’ and therefore we must devise an exit strategy, so that we do not simply bleed to death; we find ways of making the most of the situation. “That would have been my preferential variation of that fourth scenario.” Looking back at the origins of the Uniting Church may help find a future. In 1977, those joining together wrote down their vision in the “Basis of Union.” It was too fluid for some – mostly Presbyterians who stayed out – but Dutney feels that the potential of the Basis of Union is only just being realised. “There’s been a heightened interest in the Basis of Union from 2001 onwards. After things settled down from union, people were asking, ‘We have this vehicle; what can it do?’” “The Basis of Union was not trying to set up a new denomination in the Uniting Church. The Uniting Church was

meant to be like an interim way of being church, on the way to the end of denominationalism. “It is not the Uniting Church that is called to be a ‘pilgrim people.’ Rather it’s Christians, whether Catholics, Reformed or Pentecostal – the church of God is meant to be a pilgrim people. Always moving forward to the promise of the fulfilment of God’s kingdom. “Around the country, there are people empowered by the Basis of Union to try new things and do new stuff. If our vision is to proclaim the mission of God and get involved in it, what does that mean in our local area?” Dutney cites the large evangelical Newlife Church on the Gold Coast (profiled on page 9) as a “tremendous example.” Newlife combines an evangelical ethos with community service. A good example of UCA’s social justice emphasis is the refugee ministry of Bankstown Uniting in South West Sydney (page 8). Both Newlife and Bankstown are examples of Suter’s Scenario Number Two. NewLife leads a small flotilla of similar largish “contemporary evangelical” churches in the UCA, like Seeds and Hope Valley Uniting in Adelaide, Pittwater Uniting in Sydney, and Logan Uniting just up the road on the Gold Coast. “Here’s a radical thought,” says Stu Cameron lead pastor of Newlife Uniting. “Let’s not just invest in missional activities of the Uniting Church, but of the kingdom. So, not just sell redundant properties, and live off the interest for our everdiminishing future; why not give it to a church plant of another movement that has the vision, has the passion, has the people, but does not have the property? That would truly be a living out of the Basis of Union, in my view. “The Uniting Church was born out of this pilgrimage theology – we never sit still, we move towards what God is calling us to. If we fully live out that vision, the future is full of possibilities. The Uniting Church vision is not based on perpetuating its own institution but of being an agent of change.”

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IN DEPTH

JUNE 2017

Refugees don’t want a handout, they want friends ANNE LIM Finding affordable housing in expensive inner Sydney is just one of the ways Bankstown District Uniting Church is helping newcomers from the Middle East settle into Australian life. Hundreds of families have made their homes in this part of Sydney’s southwest after entering Australia under the government’s special deal to settle 12,000 refugees from the war-torn Middle East. Led by its minister, Gaby Kobrossi, the church extends friendship to the new permanent residents and offers practical help with everything from learning English to seeing the sights. “Around this church we have maybe 500 [newcomer] families, most of them from Syria, and we do our best to build bridges with them,” says Kobrossi, who came to Australia with his Syrian wife from Lebanon in 2007. From standing guarantor with real estate agents to offering subsidised rents for church-owned property, Kobrossi and about 30 of his church members do their utmost to welcome the newcomers. The ministry includes teaching English, helping them find work, get a car or a driver’s licence and even taking them out by bus to beautiful spots around Sydney. “Housing is an issue,” says Kobrossi. “Renting is very expensive and I want to say to owners of houses ‘please keep the rate flexible for these people.’ Rent is increasing

“

Today I can understand why I am in Australia, for a time like this.” Gaby Kobrossi UNITING CHURCH AT 40

in an amazing way and these people can’t afford [it.] “In Australia, if you want to rent a property you need at least six months of history, so as a church we just talk to the real estate and tell them that we know the people and that we are responsible if something happens and because of that they say ‘OK.’” Being unemployed is a source of anxiety and stress for most of the people Kobrossi insists on calling newcomers. He says they stop being refugees or asylum seekers as soon as they arrive in Australia, when they become permanent residents.

“They feel like prisoners in their houses, afraid to go out because they can’t speak the language.” Finding work is a top priority if they want to lead a better life than the one they fled. While the new arrivals receive income support from Centrelink, they prefer to work and contribute to their new country, he says. “We use our connections, we use our friends here and we try to tell them ‘please can you find a job for us or at least volunteer work so these people can have experience to add to their CV?’ “Also we try to help them to get

the White Card so that they can work as a labourer in construction and that’s the field where a lot of the Syrian men are able to find jobs and a good income. That’s why many of them now stop getting the funds from Centrelink because they want to be independent and [they’re] working the full week and making good money. So when they find a job, when they are independent, they can really live a better life.” For this Lebanese native, who spent 20 years travelling around the Middle East while working for Bible Society in Lebanon,

the newcomer ministry comes naturally. “These people are our people … We lived such a life in Lebanon for 40 years of a civil war and we’ve been in a situation like this and I know very well how is Syria, how is Aleppo, how is Damascus and other villages – what kind of life they used to live. And they are here and today I can understand why I am in Australia, for a time like this. I’m here for these people and I’m with them every day.” Kobrossi says he started planning to welcome the newcomers as soon as the federal government agreed to issue the 12,000 special visas. But it was more a preparation of the heart than of practicalities. “To be honest with you, we are offering nothing. We are offering our time. We’re not offering food or furniture or money, we are offering our welcome, we are offering the word of God … and when we go back to the word of God we can see that this is the force of God to welcome everyone,” he says. “In our church we encourage people not to give donation – we don’t want their money, we just want their time. We just want people to mingle with them, people to say ‘here I am, I’m crossing over with you.’”

READ THE WHOLE STORY AT www.eternitynews.com. au/newcomers

PRESBYTERIAN THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE (Melbourne) is pleased to present

Biblical counselling & physiology INTENSIVE COURSE

7-11 August, 2017

Presented by Dr Michael Emlet (MD, MDiv) of the CCEF in Pennsylvania TOPICS WILL INCLUDE:

• Pastoral counselling and physiological disorders • Biblical anthropology and its counselling implications

• Psychopharmacology • Demonic possession and oppression • Various conditions including trauma, chronic pain, autism, OCD, menopause

Available for credit at undergraduate and postgraduate level, or audit for personal development. No pre-requisite or co-requisite For further information and to register, please visit ptc.edu.au/ma-intensives

IN DEPTH

JUNE 2017

Finding new life in the Uniting church JOHN SANDEMAN

Stu Cameron and Newlife Uniting, a church that’s nearly an island.

UNITING CHURCH AT 40 runs our playgroup, had one of the mums say, ‘I’d love to come to church’ and she asked, ‘Do I have to buy a ticket?’ It was a healthy reminder to me that a rapidly growing proportion of our society has no experience of church.” “Without trying to be trite, what is going on here is that God is at work” says Cameron. “What this church has been about since it started 23 years ago is creating the space that God can work by the power of his Spirit in people’s lives.” “It very much was a ‘field of dreams’ church, ‘build it and they

will come.” The local Presbytery (regional council) made a tough call to tell four small churches to come together, selling the church buildings and buying nine acres of prime waterfront land in a not-yetdeveloped part of the Gold Coast. Asked what is special about Newlife, Cameron nominates strong leadership – but not the sort of leadership that has all the ideas or makes all the decisions. “There’s been a strong focus on leadership. This church has had strong leadership across its life. There’s been seasons of challenge but right from the outset, people have prayed, and continue to pray every week that God would develop and send strong leaders here.” “I had a moment of revelation I suppose about a year ago, when I was reflecting on some of the more

R GIFT

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YOU

There’s a big car park with a clean white conference-centre-sized church behind it, with a modernlooking curved white roof – it’s not Hillsong but, if you squinted a little, it might be. In fact, it is Newlife Uniting Church on the Gold Coast. Lead pastor Stu Cameron heads a church which attracts 1700 people each weekend to the river-side campus, down the road from the main shopping centre of Australia’s fastest growing city. About 2500 to 3000 regard Newlife as their church home. The church has 110 small groups, runs the evangelistic Alpha course regularly, and 91,000 volunteer hours per year. It has grown 7 to 11 per cent annually over the last decade. Amazingly enough, about ten per cent of the UCA’s Queenslander church attenders go to Newlife. “I’d describe us as a contemporary evangelical church,” says Cameron. “Just like many in post-Christian Australia, it is a post-denominational church. “I’d describe the make-up of the church as the ‘unchurched’ (those with no experience of the Christian faith), the ‘de-churched’ (who have drifted out of the church for, possibly, 20 or 30 years – often baby boomer seachangers, looking for community), and the ‘overchurched’ (people who have been hurt by the Christian church; for example, by abusive leaders) “Some time ago my wife, who

U LT I P

STOP River Blindness Today Stop River Blindness | 131 226 | cbm.org.au/bites

significant ministries we now have here. None of them started with a strategic plan. None of them started out of a pastor’s office. They all came out of a heartburst of a leader in the life of our church. “So, Crossroads – our ministry for people with disabilities, which is very significant – started with a couple that had a son with a disability and wanted to do something for him and for his friends. From a handful of people, that is now a ministry that touches 300 people every week. “Newlife Care was pioneered by a remarkable couple, John and Annette Tully, who worked at the margins of this church. A ministry for people coming out of domestic violence situations ws started by a couple of women in our church, not pastors or

leaders. Rahab Ministry, which visits women in the sex industry, was started by a couple of young women in our church.” He adds “whatever good happens here, is a work of God’s Spirit.” This Uniting church’s vision has four building blocks: Developing leaders; a healthy growing church; church planting; being a ‘lighthouse’ church that blesses others. Newlife already has planted two churches. Their Pacific Pines campus is now a separate church called Uniting North and, earlier this year, 50 people were sent to plant a new church at Burleigh Heads. Newlife has begun conversations about a plant in Brisbane. Such a move is radical in the UCA world because it crosses into another region. Cameron’s ‘lighthouse’ church vision is modelled on London’s Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB), the home of Alpha, which has planted or revitalised many new churches in the Church of England. The UCA has plenty of underused church buildings and a HTB movement to fill them again is in Cameron’s sights “It’s a crossroads moment for the Uniting Church,” he says. “One way is pointing towards a radically missional future for the Uniting Church, but the other one –I fear that if we are not courageous in this moment, we are in danger of having a very expensive funeral, where the assets we have, mostly in property, will be gradually sold off to manage our decline.”

IN DEPTH

JUNE 2017

What in the world is God doing?

Tim Costello on rediscovering control in chaos It seems our planet has reached a cosmic crossroad. Geopolitical unrest instead of peace has become the order of the day. Nuclear annihilation now seems to be a possibility with the likes of US President Trump, Russian President Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un seemingly poised to push the buttons for the world’s destruction. Civil war and tribal conflict rages unabated in South Sudan with thousands of people – mainly children – crossing the border into Uganda every day. Meanwhile, 20 million Africans – our brothers and sisters – are facing starvation at this very hour. The fragmentary nature of our experience shatters us into fragments. One minute the world is full of light, then suddenly it is full of dark. No wonder we want to cry. Yet God’s providence overrules

Children in Juba, South Sudan, just before a Sunday service in Munuki Church. all things. In Acts chapter 17, Paul says, “It is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything ... In Him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:25-28) God is not “out there’.’ He is, in the words of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the “beyond’’ in the midst of our life – a depth of reality reached not on the borders of life but at its centre. The way we view the world influences our thoughts, our choices and our actions. Providence means that God has not abandoned the world that he created, but instead works within that creation

to manage all things. When we see through God’s eyes, we view a world that he asks us never to give up on. It is sometimes the assertion of possibility over all probabilities; evidence of things yet unseen. The world may seem full of evildoers opposed to God’s purposes. We could be tempted to think that evil in the universe might derail God’s plans. Yet, all things are under God’s control. We can believe in God’s promises and then act to fulfil and embrace the purpose for which we were created – to carry out his will, to

love our neighbour, to fight for justice. We are to take part in God’s divine plan. No matter how difficult today seems, hope and faith always offer the chance for a new beginning. When we truly hope and trust, breakthroughs happen, The Bible is an account of miracle after miracle — of God’s continual working in creation to redeem and restore humanity. The call today is for Christians to reboot the imagination that will enable them to live in the world in the light of God’s divine and unfailing providence.

You are holding part of Eternity. If you check and you have 16 pages in your hands, you have not dropped anything - but you are still missing out. Each day, fresh Eternity material goes online – and a lot does not make it into the paper. Some can’t. Movie reviews on video, which begin this month, for example. Go to eternitynews.com.au John Sandeman

Personal identity

2017 NEW COLLEGE LECTURES

12-14 SEPTEMBER DR BRIAN ROSNER

PRINCIPAL, RIDLEY COLLEGE

Tuesday 12 September Opening Event – 6pm | Complimentary canapes will be served. Lecture 1 – 7.30pm Identity Angst: Unstable Foundations

MORE INFO

Wednesday 13 September Lecture 2 – 7.30pm The Relational Self: You are a social being

Thursday 14 September Lecture 3 – 7.30pm The Narratival Self: You are your story

ADMISSION FREE Register at newcollege.unsw.edu.au/events P: +61 2 9381 1999 | E: newcollege@unsw.edu.au | VENUE New College, University of New South Wales

JUNE 2017

BIBLE @ WORK

Hawa, 23, gave birth to a son in the Gado refugee camp in Cameroon. She was left alone after her father and brother were killed and her mother disappeared. ANNE LIM People living in far north Cameroon close to the border with Nigeria live in a state of fear. Terrorists of the Boko Haram Islamic sect have destroyed villages, killing or kidnapping many, and forcing others to flee for their lives. Thousands of people have sought refuge in desert camps near Maroua, the regional capital, while others have hidden in the nearby Mandara Mountains. “North Cameroon is continuously the playground of Boko Haram,” says Jacqueline Zoutene, Communications and Fundraising Officer for Bible Society of Cameroon. “In spite of a precarious calm observed for some time now, attacks, kidnappings and plunders are still going on amongst the populations.” Literacy may not seem the highest priority for people traumatised by a deadly terror group and who don’t know how they will feed themselves since they

can’t harvest their fields. As well as being separated from family members and not knowing where they are, they also fear infiltration among their ranks by members of the Islamic sect. But without literacy, they are cut off from the primary source of hope in such a precarious situation – the Bible. Among the 56,000 refugees in the sprawling, dusty refugee camp of Minawao are about 5000 members of the Mafa ethnic group and 1000 from the Podoko group, who are predominantly Christian. The Mafa have had their own Bible since 1989 while translation started last year on the Podoko Bible. But 40 per cent of Mafas are illiterate, 70 per cent of Podokos can’t read their mother tongue and almost 80 per cent of the 36,000 Podokos living in villages (as opposed to cities) can’t read French – the official language. This is why experienced literacy teacher Luc Gnowa, director of Bible Society of Cameroon, plans to lead the literacy programmes

in this area to allow people in the villages around the refugee camps to build their hopes on the promises of God. The Bible Society of Cameroon wants to train local facilitators to run the literacy classes, using the primers and the first Scripture portions which are already available in Mafa and Podoko. Bible Society also hopes to expand to this part of the country its Esther Project, a holistic ministry to help sexually abused girls and women restore their lives on a biblical foundation and achieve inner healing. According to one villager, to have a daughter who is a single mother is such a shame and a disgrace in Podoko society that a parent would take any chance to kill an illegitimate child and their mother. A university professor said he was almost killed because he had protected a single mother. Many are abandoned by their families. For the Mafas, having a daughter who is a single mother is seen as

a curse on the family. A pregnant woman is forced to marry or they are thrown out of the house. This situation is even more dire in the context of the Boko Haram attacks, but members of the Cameroon Army also rape women and girls, and nobody is allowed to talk about it, according to the chief of the refugee camp. The Esther Project would be a huge help and support for the local church, teaching its members about what to do to help the communities deal with such crises. Benjamin Yakana, manager of Radio Bonne Nouvelle (Good News Radio) in the national capital of Yaoundé, recently visited northern Cameroon. He reported that in the refugee camps and surrounding villages, churches have been burnt, pastors attacked and congregations scattered after Islamic extremist

attacks. Among the victims he met was a pastor called Enoch Bouba, who had spent four years in the village of Amouchide, 22 kilomeres outside Maroua. He said his daily life had been a nightmare. After establishing a church in a house, Enoch was thrown out after its Muslim owner was persuaded that his “sins in heaven are building up.” Enoch found another place to hold his services but Muslims threw rocks inside. Then he was asked in the street if he wanted to write a book on comparative religion, which he believed was a trap. “There is indeed persecution, but it is sly, and now the churches are organising themselves to protect themselves and avoid risks for their security,” noted a pastor active in inter-religious dialogue. Yakana was told that despite their suffering and poverty, most of the pastors remain faithful.

+ Can you help Bible Society fund this important work? Go to biblesociety.org.au/skill

One in five teenage girls in Cameroon * have been raped or abused. One of them was Leonie**, who says: “I thought God would not accept me, ‘dirty’ as I was. But now… I feel free from bondage.” Your gift to Bible Society’s Esther Project will help more girls like Leonie to heal, while protecting others from the same fate. We also want to start Bible-based literacy classes at the border, for refugees fleeing Boko Haram insurgents.

$43 helps a girl heal and prepare for the future. $70 will teach two refugees in a literacy class (Tax deductible).

1300 BIBLES – 1300 242 537 | biblesociety.org.au/cameroonep *One in five teenage girls aged 15-19 have been raped or sexually abused in their lifetime (UNICEF). ** Not her real name.

Flickr / UN Women_Ryan Brown

Where single mothers get killed

CHARITY FEATURE

JUNE 2017

Despair turns to hope for children TANYA PINTO “My purpose in life is to be a good person, as this is what I see the people at the Centre doing.” Veronyka is 12. She looks sadly out of the window with a face that portrays mixed feelings of insecurity and courage. Veronyka lives in Palanca, a struggling village in southern Moldova. She has known poverty all her life. Her mother, an alcoholic, who is often abusive, barely cares for her. Her father, now living in Ukraine, abandoned them several years ago. Veronyka’s elderly grandmother is now her carer. In the community of Palanca, about 150 kilometres from the capital of Moldova, live around 2000 people, just like Veronyka and her family. In 2013, the local church, led by Pastor Sergiu, was awarded a project designated to build a new Community Centre. Driven by compassion, Sergiu has been committed to God’s work in this community since he became a Christian. The greatest needs in this community are that of the children. Poor education, due to the lack of parental interest, alcohol abuse and poverty in general makes it difficult for children to have any interest in education. Mission Without Borders (MWB) is working with the local churches in Moldova to bring hope and develop this community as a whole. MWB is a Christian organisation committed to children, families and the elderly, who endure poverty and oppression in Eastern Europe places that the world seems to have forgotten about. As a result of its ministry, people in the villages can see that the impact of MWB is a positive one. Most parents from the community allow their children to attend Sunday school, summer camps and Christian input activities, even though they are not part of a local church. They are grateful that their children are involved in practical and positive activities that build their character and encourage them to make good life choices. The after-school activities organised by MWB aim to encourage better academic achievements and improvement in behaviour. MWB also provides

Veronyka and her grandmother are finding hope in Moldova, despite the poverty they face. hot meals to children from socially vulnerable families, often their only meal for the day. Children are given items they need, that their families cannot afford such as clothing, school supplies, hygiene items. Volunteers from local churches in Moldova help the elderly in the community with household activities as well as connecting with them through daily visits to community centres. Since her infant years, Veronyka has lived in her grandmother’s clay hut, on the outskirts of the village. It has only two small, dim rooms, and nowhere for her to do her homework. Veronyka’s outlet from this life of poverty has been the new Community Centre which she goes to after school each day. “The people are very kind,” she says, her eyes lighting up, “and the food is so nice compared to what I have at home. Here I can do my homework and I have a teacher who helps me. I feel more confident and my grades are getting better.” MWB Community Centres

like the one Veronyka attends, are refuges for some of the most vulnerable children in Eastern Europe. They are warm, safe and nurturing. In Palanca, over 50 children, all with difficult backgrounds, attend the Community Centre each day. They enjoy warm food, which they do not get at home. After eating, they go to the classroom upstairs where the teacher is waiting to help them do their homework. Then they have a Bible lesson where they learn about Jesus and His love for them. Those interested in sewing can learn new skills in the dedicated sewing room, and outside there is a playground for sports and fun. Pastor Sergiu, who is also the MWB Coordinator in Palanca village, says that the Community Centre helps these children to regain their dignity, develop skills in multiple areas and enables them to discover their passions. “The moment MWB started working here, the Centre became a refuge for many vulnerable

children. It is a great joy for me to see the impact on children like Veronyka and this generation of children as a whole.” “If they did not come here, they would be roaming the streets. Now we can give them direction in life and opportunities for their future.” The Community Centre is a life-line of hope in the Palanca Community, which was chosen by MWB for extensive community development due to its evident needs and its openness to receiving help. There has been great cooperation with the local church and authorities. The village has large areas of arable land, with access to irrigation. Last year an agricultural project was initiated in order to utilise the village’s existing potential. Eight families were involved in the project and the first harvest was collected last September. The families have an optimistic spirit as they are given an opportunity to achieve selfsustainability and growth. Ongoing

agricultural projects involve people from MWB’s Child and Family programs. It is planned to use some of the harvest to provide food for Palanca’s Soup Kitchen. Currently, MWB works in six field countries in Eastern Europe – Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovinia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine. Their ministries reach 127 communities caring for more than 10,000 children and supporting close to 2,000 families. During June and July, more than 4,000 children will have the opportunity to attend a MWB Summer Camp. Whether escaping from war, broken homes or deep poverty, the children who go to a MWB Summer Camp each year have a chance to experience joy, fun and learn about Jesus Christ, some for the very first time. Please pray for the forgotten children and families living in poverty in Eastern Europe. If you would like more information, visit www.mwb.org.au

Each month, Eternity will highlight a charity from the group bringing you this special page. MISSIONWITHOUT WITHOUTBORDERS BORDERS MISSION

STOP River Blindness TODAY Dibelayi gathers water where infected flies carry River Blindness... will you save children from the bite that blinds? Stop River Blindness | 131 226 | cbm.org.au/bites

Overseas relief and development Community care through Sydney churches Christian leadership training Your gift will have a real impact on people in need with at least 80¢ of every dollar donated going directly to projects.

www.anglicanaid.org.au (02) 9284 1406 Photo taken by Anglican Aid on location in Zimbabwe at our project partner, Honey World.

JUNE 2017

OPINION

How Christianity can stay strong in the West

Michael Jensen on smash your statues

The attitudes and actions of 5th Century monk Benedict of Nursia could set the best direction for 21st Christians, according to US author Rob Dreher.

Morgan Lee on the book US Christians can’t put down In his first years as a Christian, American writer and journalist Rod Dreher volunteered at a local soup kitchen. But he concluded that

the project wasn’t for him – and his time was likely better spent reading theology books. Over the next dozen years, Dreher left the Catholic Church, the primary dirver being his cynicism over covering sex abuse trials. “I realised upon reflection, that if I had spent as much time working with my hands in the soup kitchen as I did reading, my faith might have been stronger,” said Dreher. Dreher’s latest book, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation, shares a similar fascination with what constitutes a robust faith. The now-Orthodox Christian argues that that decline of religiosity and the rise of secularism are threatening the faith’s vitality in the West. What can rescue the church? Perhaps, “strategic withdrawal,” as modelled by the life of the Fifth-Century monk Benedict of Nursia, who pondered these questions during the fall of the Roman Empire.

“Benedict founded a monastic order that over the next few centuries proved vital to preserving the faith in the West and laying the groundwork for the rebirth of Western civilisation.” Dreher recently spoke with Eternity about what he blames for the erosion of the Western church, whether Christians should attempt to change culture, and what will catalyse the next revival. What do you believe is currently threatening the strength of the Western Church? The outside culture is becoming more hostile to Christians but the response of the churches has been wholly inadequate to the challenge. We can follow the outside institutions of Christianity all we want, but if the heart itself is not being converted, informed and discipled in an authentically Christian way, when these winds of a post-Christian culture begin to blow more strongly, we’re going to collapse. In fact, that collapse is

already happening. It’s not a time to panic, but it is a time to read the signs of the times and see why young people are falling away from the church. What do people misunderstand about your argument? People say to me “You’re talking about withdrawal.” That’s not true. I’m all for Jeremiah 29 where God told the Israelites in Babylon to settle down, take wives and pray for the peace and prosperity of the city. However, God did not intend for the Israelites to accept the false gods of the Babylonians. When we look at Daniel and the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we see that they were serving the king ... But they knew where the line was to be drawn and they were going to their death before apostasy. Should Christians try to ascend to powerful roles and affect culture? This can be a dangerous game to play because once you get inside the institution and start to get a

taste of the power it gives you, you face certain temptations ... The calling for most Christians is to build up the local community and local church and their own families ... Over the next century, if the culture becomes re-Christianised or if there’s a revival, it’s not going to come from people plotting out how to make America Christian again. Rather, it will come from ordinary Christian believers and the local church and local Christian organisations slowly, slowly rebuilding from the ground up, building the faith from our families and spreading outward. Morgan Lee is an assistant editor at Christianity Today.

Please read the whole story at www.eternitynews. com.au/staystrong

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OPINION

JUNE 2017

Smash your statues Michael Jensen on why the Reformers had a smashing time

wikimedia/Hans Holbein

Smashing things can sometimes be exactly the right thing to do. I’ve just returned from leading a tour to Europe commemorating the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting the 95 Theses on the Castle Church in Wittenberg. It was a tremendous privilege to stand in places where leaders in the European Reformation had stood. As always with visiting places of historical significance, seeing things gives you all kinds of fresh insights. In particular, we were struck by the impact the Reformation had on church architecture and furnishing. Visit a Roman Catholic cathedral like St Vitus’ in Prague, and you will find it a dazzling visual display, with elaborate depictions of biblical stories and saints’ lives. The focus is clearly the ornate high altar and the most important act in this form of Christianity is saying of the mass. Visit the Grossmünster in Zurich, where Ulrich Zwingli preached up a storm in the 1520s, and you’ll find it almost completely bare of the kind of iconography found in St Vitus’. Stained glass has been reintroduced in the 19th century to some degree. But the centrepiece of the building is not the altar but the pulpit. An open Bible rests on the wooden table, which sits in a central position in the church. During the Reformation, quite a bit of smashing was done. Statues were defaced. Church furniture was removed. Colourful paint was scraped away. Time and time again, our tour guides would indicate that this was a great pity, and that much of beauty and value was lost in the 16th century. What barbarians those Protestants must have been!

John Calvin: “The human heart is a factory of idols.” And no doubt: some of the destruction was simple aggression against the wealth and power of a corrupt church order that was being renewed. Some of it was probably done just because some people like smashing things. But there was more to it than that. There was a vital principle at stake. For a start, we tend to look back at the destruction of images in the 16th century as vandalism of art – a bit as we would imagine the destruction of the Mona Lisa. But the idea of “art” then was not quite the same as ours. Statues and images were not “art” as we know it, but images designed to serve a theological understanding of how human beings connect with the divine. In this understanding, the Reformers saw a great spiritual danger for the people of God. The Reformation rediscovered the biblical emphasis on the word of God. It is by his word that God graciously speaks to his people; and

WHY ISRAEL?

it is to his word that they respond by faith. Remember the great opening commandments of the Ten Commandments. They spell out exactly who God is and how to worship him. You worship him and him only. It’s exclusive. But you can’t worship him, the one true God, by a means of your choosing. The spiritual danger of bowing down to images – even images allegedly of the true God – is that pictures of the invisible God necessarily distort his true character. He is not visible to the eyes precisely because he is not limited to a created form. To depict him by means of an image – however gloriously conceived by a human craftsman – would be to blaspheme against him, necessarily. To go further and to offer worship to the image is even worse. The problem here is that we human beings are lazy and idol worship is lazy. It’s the easier route:

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were the real thing and you were doing spiritual business via the medium of the image. In the sixteenth century, the stakes were incredibly high. There is nothing so awful to God in the Bible as idolatry. And yet, the people of God in Western Europe were being led astray to worship the true God falsely, as if he were just another pagan deity. Can you see why the Reformers argued so strongly that their churches should be cleansed of this gaudy bric-abrac, however fine? John Jewel likened these churches to a painted harlot – apparently beautiful on the outside, but spiritually ugly. He wrote: “God’s horrible wrath and our most dreadful danger cannot be avoided without the destruction and utter abolishing of all such images and idols out of the church and the temple of God.” I think he was right. If people are worshipping an image or a statue, or venerating it as if God inhabits it in some way, they are deceived, and it is no vandalism to destroy what deceives God’s people. We may look derisively at the Reformers from the distance of centuries, but they knew that the honour of the true and holy God and the salvation of human beings was at stake. But before you pick up your hammer ... our idols today are not for the most part the images and statues in churches. False worship comes to us in different guises. To embody the anti-idolatry of the Reformers would not be to conduct a raid on church property (in most cases). But they were vigilant about anything that led people to believe a connection with God is given to us other than the word of God concerning Jesus Christ. Do we have the same boldness to defend the people of God from distraction from the word of God? 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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to believe that the picture of God is what God is like makes him comprehensible and locatable. I think I know where God is and what he looks like. But every picture of him is wrong and prevents me from listening to him. As John Calvin said, “the human heart is a factory of idols.” There is no doubt from the Old Testament what the people of God ought to do with idols. Remember the golden calf that Aaron made? I am sure they were really beautiful works of art, and I am sure that the Israelites who bowed before them argued that they were worshipping the true God in these images and that they found them spiritually helpful. But the only right thing to do was to commit them to destruction. Smash them. This intolerance of idols is part of the New Testament faith as well. The only true “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) is Jesus Christ. But this is where most Christians haven’t in general been as radical as the Jews or the Muslims. Surely depicting Jesus is something Christians could and should do, because Jesus is the invisible God made flesh? Indeed, the stained glass windows of my own church building offer depictions of Jesus. The Elizabethan theologian Bishop John Jewel argues against even depicting Jesus Christ in an image or statue. Why? He says that such images must inevitably be distortions since we have no idea what Jesus truly looked like, and no image could depict Jesus’s divine nature. As he wrote: “As soon as an image of Christ is made, by and by is a lie made of him, which by God’s word is forbidden.” What is offered in a statue or picture is a falsehood. We know this because wherever you go in the world, you find Jesus looking racially like the locals – when we know he can’t have looked Swedish or Korean, but 100% Jewish. I am not so black and white as Jewel about this, but here’s the thing: before the Reformation, the images and statues of Jesus and the saints were, for illiterate people (which was 90% of people), the only way to learn about the deep truths of God. There was no preaching or reading the Bible aloud, in anything but Latin. And what occurred was that the images and statues were venerated as if they

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OPINION

JUNE 2017

Refugees are our equals

Justine Toh on learning from a stranger Flickr/Takver

If, during Refugee Week this month, I hear yet another refugee success story, I will both cheer loudly and silently wince. You know the kind of tale. The hero of this story goes from stateless, persecuted outsider to welcomed, included citizen: the successful refugee. They extol the virtues of their host nation and are profoundly grateful for the many opportunities it has afforded them. They declare their intention to gladly give back to the nation from which they so generously received. It’s not the story that is the problem – Deng Thiak Adut’s path from child soldier to human rights lawyer, and the opportunities Australia has afforded him along the way, is well worth celebrating. My issue is with the way such stories often unwittingly reinforce the expectation that the refugee must make good in order to justify their costly welcome by the host nation. Refugees must prove, in other words, that they weren’t a bad investment. Refugee Week’s laudable aim to showcase the “positive contribution” refugees make to Australian society can actually play into this cold calculus. It’s hard to avoid the implied logic: we should invest in others because it will eventually pay off. Not surprisingly, this unspoken

Our approach to refugees might cause them to see themselves as investments needing to prove their worth. demand to have been worth the effort generates a fair bit of resentment – even amidst all that gratitude. Just ask Iranian novelist and refugee Dina Nayeri, who granted intimate insight into this complex dance of emotions in a blistering write-up in The Guardian recently. She is both genuinely grateful for the opportunities she has been afforded by the United States, her host nation, and yet also angry that she feels a constant pressure to prove how thankful she for them. “Despite a lifetime spent striving to fulfil my own potential, of trying to prove that the west is better for having known me, I cannot accept this way of thinking, this separation of the worthy exile from the unworthy,” she writes. And yet Nayeri still marvels at how deeply she has internalised the demand to be grateful: she often feels a spontaneous urge to bow and scrape before airport immigration officials for welcoming her back into America. The problem, as Nayeri sees it,

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is that the refugee is never fully embraced by the host nation. She is not seen as an equal, since she has to deserve her welcome. Among those who only ever think of themselves as the “host,” she will only ever be seen as the guest. The guest always loses out in this dynamic – they are forever dependent on the generosity and tolerance of their host. And as she makes clear, gratitude entrenches this imbalance of power because it serves to allay any resentment or unease at the refugee’s presence. Thankfulness reassures the host that the refugee’s success was only possible through their benevolence, and so ensures the continuing favour of the host. Nayeri’s rage gives voice to those we aren’t accustomed to hearing from: the “ungrateful” refugee, as The Guardian dubbed her. Strictly speaking, though, that’s not quite right. It’s not that she’s unappreciative; it’s just that she insists that “a person’s life is never a bad investment” and that,

consequently, “there is no debt [for the refugee] to repay.” In short, she forces us to see her as an equal. That provokes the question: if she is just like us, then wouldn’t we also chafe against the silent, but insistent, demand that we earn our place in the nation – as well as the need to have to continually voice our thanks at being given the chance to do so? This kind of question is confronting, and made more so by the fraught state of refugee politics in this country. But can we imagine a way to recast the host-guest relationship along more equal lines? That shouldn’t be too hard for Christians – God’s reminder to the Israelites to love the foreigners among them was based precisely on the fact that they themselves were aliens in Egypt. Perhaps recognising our own strangeness is what allows us to unconditionally welcome the stranger among us. Such recognition is by no means a syrupy affair, but more likely to provoke a visceral reaction. Think

of the sting in the tail of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. Not only does the teacher of the law have to contend with the fact that true neighbourliness knows no boundaries of race, ethnicity, religion – or worthiness, we might add – the teacher also has to confront the fact that in this he has something to learn from the despised Samaritan other. Such an imaginative leap that puts both on an equal footing with each other would have required the teacher to face the other, in all their humanity, and not as a faceless member of a scorned group. He would have to make room for the other in his heart – a humiliating prospect! And yet such a challenge awaits anyone committed to living the Christian life. David I. Smith writes that being a Christian involves giving up a self-sufficient identity: “To be a Christian is … not to reserve for oneself the role of the host, the one who sets the table, but to learn to see Christ in others, to receive correction from them, to be joined to them, to learn from the stranger.” Hosts and host nations, in this redemptive vision, cannot afford to remain as “hosts” without being open to some kind of transformative encounter with difference, without learning from their “guests.” They cannot expect to extract a sum paid out in achievements or grovelling thanks over a lifetime. In a world dominated by relationships of exchange, calculation, and the desire to make a good return on investment, Christians have the power to imagine better. Full-bodied embrace of the refugee other is not just about letting them into the country (and that’s if we let them in at all) and offering them a chance to deserve their “place in the sun.” It’s also about recognising them as our equal, and giving them their place in our hearts and lives. Dr Justine Toh is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity. For more print, video and audio material go to www.publicchristianity.org

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OPINION

JUNE 2017

Greg Clarke on not being too hard on others My wife’s been nudging me about kindness for a long time, and I think I might be starting to get what she’s concerned about. It’s the quality we seem to realise is missing whenever some act of inhumanity occurs. Every time a tragedy occurs — the Manchester concert bombing being the latest as I write this — the ‘k’ word is always prominent. “We need to be kinder to each other.” “The world needs more kindness.” It’s there in lyrics, too; The Indigo Girls sing, “In the end, only kindness matters” and Auld Lang Syne has us vowing to “take a cup o’ kindness” at least once a year. And, of course, there’s the Glen Campbell classic, urging people to try a little kindness as an antidote

to narrow-minded bigotry. Coverdale coined the term ‘lovingkindness’ in the 16th Century to try to capture the way God loves his people Israel. It bundles together mercy, favour and crazy love in spite of everything. Lovingkindness will overlook a multitude of blindness, to paraphrase 1 Peter 4:8. But is kindness a bit soft? In an age where terrorist activity has become a daily expectation, surely we need to become more vigilant, more defensive, more protective, more aggressive in the face of evil. I don’t think so. At least, not as Christians. At least, not as the church of Jesus Christ. Perhaps there’s an argument for governments increasing security, cracking down on some liberties, and being more concerned about borders than we were some decades ago. But even if that were true, it is not how the church can behave. We follow Jesus, whose life is saturated with kindness. In fact, the only people that Jesus behaves ‘unkindly’ towards are religious figures, particularly those who are abusing their authority over people. Jesus’ interactions with people are marked by a willingness to see the person ‘behind’ the sin, to acknowledge the difficult circumstances that shape a

person’s decisions, and to give each person a second and third chance to turn from sin and towards him. Even hanging on the cross, Jesus is empathising with the criminals hanging either side of him, the soldiers who are killing him in ignorance as part of their duty, and the poor traumatised disciples who are witnessing his death. Kindness in the face of cruel death; it is as inspiring as it is bewildering. Lady Macbeth complains that her husband is “too full of the milk of human kindness,” which only argues for the importance of kindness if you know how the play pans out. A Christian can never be too full of kindness; there’s always room for more. In his new book, Love Kindness, the President of Biola University in California, Barry H. Corey claims that kindness is the forgotten virtue of Christianity, and if we want to represent Christ in the public square (and in our homes and churches), we need to change. In our desperation to stand for God’s truth and goodness, we have become known for unkindness. But according to Corey, “Bullhorns and fist shaking—mustering armies and using war-waging rhetoric—

wikimedia / Sergeant Kevin R.Reed, USMC

Try a lot of kindness In Iraq, a US medic bandages an injured enemy solder. are far less effective than the way of kindness, treating those with whom we disagree with charity and civility.” Christians need to make a shift, Corey says, from being soft at the centre and hard at the edges to the opposite: hard-centred theology, and soft-centred engagement with the world. In the end, kindness emerges from viewing yourself honestly. If you are a forgiven sinner, still struggling to walk in the way of the Spirit, still failing regularly and in need of fellowship, teaching, and mercy, then kindness should come easily. But we forget to view ourselves that way. We start to feel like we’ve got it sorted, or everyone else is failing around us and we are the Warriors of Righteousness. Even such a warrior should have kindness as a weapon. And his battle is not with his neighbour, but with the spiritual forces that oppose God. I think my wife’s point is

something like this: kindness is different to gentleness, passivity, being a wuss. Kindness can look very dynamic, very intrusive, very ‘front foot’, and even a bit aggressive. Calling out injustice loudly and angrily is, in fact, kind. Making a fuss on behalf of those who can’t speak for themselves is not annoying or ‘bleeding heart’; it’s kind. Kindness searches for the hurt that can be healed, the sorrow that can be comforted, the sin that can be forgiven. As Corey writes, “Kindness embodies courage, although courage does not always embody kindness.” It’s really up to each of us, within our own personalities and circumstance, to seek to imitate Christ’s kindness. The first step is to see ourselves in the light of Christ himself: sinners who are loved and forgiven. I can hear my wife: “Look intently in the mirror and remember who you are, and drink more milk!” Greg Clarke is CEO of Bible Society Australia.

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