Eternity - February 2018 - Issue 88

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Number 88, February 2018 ISSN 1837-8447

Brought to you by the Bible Society

It’s art for God’s sake

Phil Pringle on art and the gospel Religious freedom under question

Revealed: On the Revival frontline in the in Iraq top end

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NEWS

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Obadiah Slope TAXES, TOO: “So, I was watching Family Feud last night [are you still there?],” local blogger Steve Kryger confesses on Facebook.

The question was: “Name something you think about every day.”

The second most common answer was “death.” As Steve says, there’s a sermon illustration in that.

KEEPS YOU READING: The ESV Bible has a new edition with a long title: ESV Illuminated Bible, Art Journaling Edition.

It’s a handsomely produced Bible which they say invites “readers to creatively engage with and reflect on the beauty of God’s word.” A well known Biible reviewer Tim Challies explained that in words Obadiah could understand.

“The idea is for readers to colour in the main illustrations.” Or add their own even.

Obadiah did wonder if the colouring-in book craze would peter out before someone produced a big thick colouring-in Bible.

Apparently not. It’s expected in Obadiah’s friends at Koorong this month.

CHALK THIS ONE UP: Obadiah is bursting with pride that Mr Eternity, the book by Roy Williams and Elizabeth Meyer that shares the name on our masthead, has had over 11,000 copies despatched from the warehouse and a fresh printing of 5000 is on the way. The story of Arthur Stace and his one-word sermons – “Eternity” chalked on the pavement half a million times – lives on.

FEBRUARY 2018

Canberra looks at freedom KALEY PAYNE Submissions to the Religious Freedom Review will close on February 14. The review was called by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in late November, to examine “whether Australian law adequately protects the human right to freedom of religion.”

Former Liberal attorney-general Philip Ruddock will chair the review panel which also comprises Jesuit priest and human rights lawyer, Father Frank Brennan, president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Rosalind Croucher, former Federal Court judge Dr Annabelle Bennett and constitutional law expert Professor Nicholas Aroney.

The panel is expected to report its findings to the Prime Minister by the end of March.

The announcement of the review followed intense debate over religious exemption amendments to the same-sex marriage bill, which was passed in early December.

“There is a high risk of unintended consequences when Parliament attempts to legislate protections for basic rights and freedoms, such as freedom of religion,” Prime Minister Turnbull said in a statement in November.

“The government is particularly concerned to prevent uncertainties caused by generally worded Bill of Rights-style declarations.”

Freedom For Faith, a Christian think tank looking at religious

freedom protections in Australia, said it welcomed the “broadranging” Ruddock Review. But the think tank suggested the review’s terms of reference would not allow it to consider issues including freedom of conscience, speech and association, all of which are in need of protection for those holding to a traditional view of marriage in a world where same-sex marriage is

now legal.

Eternity is aware that Freedom For Faith is working on a submission to the review panel, drafted by Professor Patrick Parkinson from the University of Sydney. Many other submissions are expected to be submitted, including from the Australian Christian Lobby and Christian Schools Australia.

Sadly, women need this too

News 2-3 In Depth 5-8 Bible Society 9 Charity Feature 10 Opinion 11-16

Quotable

Michael Jensen

ONE80TC has run a long-term residential programme for men “wanting to overcome addiction and other life controlling issues” since 1974. It will open a women’s centre in May which will be located in Western Sydney. www.one80tc.org

“I think we need to think more carefully, because we tend to carry the burden of caring about everything and everyone. ” Page 15

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NEWS

FEBRUARY 2018

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Arnhem Land witnesses “revival” ANNE LIM A former didgeridoo player with the world-famous Yothu Yindi band is leading a Christian awakening across Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.

Bunumbirr Marika, who travelled across the world with Yothu Yindi in the ’90s, was inspired by a vision to form Yolgnu for Jesus after a period of depression. Bunumbirr’s missionary zeal was sparked in 2016 when Mark Greenwood and his wife, a doctor, were posted from Darwin to Nhulunbuy for three months.

Greenwood, training manager for Youth for Christ, started the Jesus School about three years ago, but had been discouraged by the lack of long-term fruit from outreach work with Aboriginal people, so he and his wife prayed that God would give them one or two people they could really invest in while in Nhulunbuy.

“Then a week later, I met Bunumbirr,” he says.

During their time in Nhulunbuy, the Greenwoods witnessed a transformation in Bunumbirr.

Bunumbirr explains that it was Greenwood’s teaching on identity that helped rekindle his passion for the gospel and reshape his life.

“Jesus didn’t come to save colour, he came to save souls.

And that’s who we are. We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus – all of us, the sons and daughters of the living God.” By the time the Greenwoods left Nhulunbuy, Bunumbirr had led four people to Jesus and had started to disciple them through nightly Bible studies. He then visited other communities in Arnhem Land such as Gapuwiyak and Elcho Island, thanks to support from Mission Aviation Fellowship, which gave him a 75 per cent discount.

In the three months after the Greenwoods left, Bunumbirr and his wife Vanessa led more than 80 people to Jesus in the Nhulunbuy region.

“That’s when he called me and said, ‘I need some help because there’s a lot of people encountering God,’” says Greenwood.

After meeting the new converts, Greenwood was convinced that they were genuine in their faith.

“There were people who had come out of domestic violence and drug abuse and were walking in freedom from those and consistently coming to these

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News brief SWEAT PROOF: The Australian Army has a new waterproof edition of the New Testament, complete with camo cover. It is produced on special waterproof plastic “paper” by the Bible Society’s printers, which means it will survive the heat and sweat of the places soldiers will take it. It joins a companion version that the Air Force received last year.

WILL’S BACK: Evangelist Will Graham, grandson of Billy will lead a “Celebration” in the WA Goldfields, May 18-20. Bill Newman will lead an evangelism event in Narrabri, NSW called “Come Together Namoi,” March 24-26. billygraham.org.au

Mark Greenwood, left, and Bunumbirr Marika, right, march for Christ in Nhulunbuy.

Bible studies. And we felt it was a significant fruit of repentance and conversion.”

By the end of 2016, with new Christians totalling more than 150, Bunumbirr asked Greenwood to hold a Jesus School in Nhulunbuy to teach and equip the new converts to take the gospel back to their own communities.

Greenwood estimates about 60 of the new converts came to the ten-day Jesus School last August, with up to 300 people coming to the night rallies, where another 40 people gave their lives to Jesus.

About 150 people were flown in from the homelands (outstations), Elcho island and Gapuwiyak.

While Greenwood prefers to call this movement an awakening rather than a revival, Assemblies of

God missionary Darren Steen, who has been living in Nhulunbuy for two years, has no such hesitation.

Steen says there are now groups of Christians in different communities – from Elcho Island and Gapuwiyak to Milingimbi and some of the homelands – who have continued to bring people to Jesus and help them change their lives.

However, Bunumbirr and Vanessa have faced a lot of resistance from traditional owners because they refuse to participate in ceremonies that involve worship of false idols and animal spirits.

“I really need prayers because there’s been people who’s resisting the gospel, resisting what Jesus is doing and what I stand for because of our traditions, our culture,” says Bunumbirr.

“I’m being called a white person because I’m walking away from my culture and straining against it.

“If there’s something that doesn’t chime with the word of God in our tribal laws, then that needs to go.”

There has also been scepticism about the genuineness of the revival from some leaders of the Uniting and Anglican churches.

“We want to train Yolgnu to disciple others and see them discipling each other – we want to try and change the culture. But you don’t see overnight results,” says Pioneers missionary Craig Fulton, based at Nhulunbuy But Steen insists: “These guys are just experiencing God in a loving way, just opening their hearts to Christ and saying ‘what do you want me to do, God?’”

Restart call for Aboriginal college ANNE LIM An Indigenous Christian leader says the Indigenous church is at risk of losing future leaders if the broader Christian community fails to fill an educational gap for Aboriginal men and women who want to go into ministry.

The Aboriginal Evangelical Fellowship is seeking church support for its efforts to revive the Bimbadeen Aboriginal Training College at Cootamundra in NSW. AEF chairman Neville Naden says Bimbadeen has not been functioning as a college for the past 20-odd years.

always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect. 1 Peter 3:15 [ESV]

“We want to see our people trained and we just don’t think our non-Indigenous colleges lend themselves to doing that with a lot of our people who aren’t educated to the level that they require,” he told Eternity.

“So we’re trying to fill the gap of education in terms of theological training for them in order that they might be able to take a step-bystep process into higher education theologically.”

Naden said the AEF had spoken with Stirling Theological College in Melbourne, the Sydney Missionary and Bible College (SMBC) and Moore College, also in Sydney,

about creating support units to help raise the academic level of Aboriginal students from Year 10 level to degree level.

“That’s what’s needed, but it’s hard for colleges to get their head around that, we’re finding, so they’re all geared to offer higher degree learning like PhDs, Bachelor of Divinity, and not cater for our mob, so we feel that there’s a need for a college to do that,” he said.

The Bimbadeen College could offer certificate and diploma courses as preparation for bachelor degrees at SMBC or Moore College, for example.

HARD TO BELIEVE: Barna group, known for research on religion, asked Americans “Who are you most likely to see as a credible news source?” Look who came top … and bottom.

27%

Friend or Family

39%

Reporter is the credible source for news

14 % Pastor I know

6%

Celebrity

6%

Famous Pastor

GOOD HEAVENS: Dr Jennifer Wiseman, an astronomer and a Fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation, a network of Christians in science will headline COSAC: the Conference on Science and Christianity, March 23-25 in Brisbane. She will also be a main speaker at the World Science Festival also in Brisbane. It is sponsored by ISCAST, a network of Christians in science and technology. www.iscastcosac.org DEATH IN NIGERIA: A mass burial on in January was held for 49 of at least 65 Christians killed in Muslim Fulani herdsmen attacks in Benue state, Nigeria that began on New Year’s Day. TAKE A LUKE: the third Gospel will be handed out to athletes and fans at the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, in April.

Special games edition is produced by the Bible Society. “The really good Christmas” a booklet saw 256,000 copies given away through churches and individuals.

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FEBURARY 2018

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Radio on mission: staying local, helping globally

Rev. John and Heather Lance are a humble couple who were uneasy having their photo taken for this story. Supporting FEBC Australia for over a decade they embody Matthew 6:3: when you do something for somebody else, don’t call attention to it.

As a young minister, John was always drawn to mission. When he met his wife-to-be, Heather, he knew she was a Christian nurse.

“She had this wonderful nursing ministry, so she wondered about marrying a minister.”

But Heather also shared his heart for mission: “When I was a young girl, before I met John, I applied to be a missionary. I was knocked back on medical grounds but my heart has always remained for missions. I loved my nursing ministry, but I loved John more!”

Once married, the couple ministered to many in Australia through churches in the Sydney diocese. Yet their heart for overseas mission remained.

How to minister in Australia and still reach the hardest-to-reach overseas?

“I always thought we’ve heard the Gospel so many times here, but others haven’t even heard it once!” said John.

They chose to support FEBC’s media mission using radio and

internet to inspire people to follow Jesus Christ. The simplicity and reach of the international organisation – more than 50 countries, in 130 different languages, for 2500+ hours a day – met John and Heather’s desire to reach and help people overseas despite ‘staying put’ in Australia.

“I love how FEBC reaches people by radio that our missionaries can’t even get to in person,” says Heather. After ten years of support, you can still hear the excitement in their voices. John’s face, as he explains FEBC’s radio reach, is a picture of amazement.

“Those radios get out there, they don’t have to learn the language, they don’t – like so many relocating missionaries – have to figure out a hot climate, or a culture. Programmers are local Christians so they understand the need of the community. Plus, you put a radio there and people gather around it! They get to listen to the Gospel in their heart language – and people gather as a community to hear it!” he marvels.

Cost-effective mission with impact $15 dollars keeps FEBC on air fifteen minutes – in which time hundreds of thousands of people can be reached.

came in from people offering to share the babysitting load,” said Victor. “One woman lived nearby, had her own additional-needs child, and they worked out how to share the caring burden so money could be earnt.”

The more we can be on air, the more frequently we can share FEBC’s friendly voices on radio, meaning many more relationships are built and more people come to know and love Jesus.

It is the regularity, the security of knowing a friendly voice coming daily on air that is part of radio’s impact.

Listeners say it feels like the programmer is in the same room or car with them, and that brings comfort, encouragement and more.

Even when the programmer isn’t speaking, listeners feel aware that other people they know are listening and experiencing the same thing as they are.

This is reported

by FEBC’s persecuted listeners in Yemen, or the refugees from Iran, or even those suffering after war in Ukraine.

Victor Akhterov, Director of FEBC Russia, shared the story of a talkback call from a distressed single mother of an additional

Rev. John and Heather Lance, FEBC Australia’s local radio supporters

needs child. “Where is this caring God of which you speak? Where is He in my life?” she asked angrily on-air. Then, praise God, the switchboard lit up. “Call after call

Join FEBC Frequency and head overseas In 2017, FEBC ‘took’ its Frequency partners to Russia, Ukraine, Mongolia, India and Malawi via webinar. Bi-monthly, Frequency Partners met with Victor, Bat, Kenneth and Amos, the directors from those respective countries, and asked questions directly. We are currently planning a March webinar with the team running FEBC’s Farsi radio ministry for refugees in Indonesia, Germany, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Thailand, and Malaysia.

Be encouraged by what God is doing through radio. Become an FEBC Frequency Partner for a $1 a day at www.febc.org.au/ frequency. We would love to take you closer to FEBC’s work live around the world.

Reach Out, Go Furtnehr er rt a P y c n e u q re F C B E F a e m co e B

Visit six FEBC fields via live webinar.

9 million listeners annually tell FEBC their lives have changed from our radio broadcasts.

It is the regularity, the security of knowing a friendly voice coming on air at the same time each day that is part of radio’s impact.

Keep FEBC on air. Become a dollar a day Frequency Partner.

Call 1300 720 017 or visit https://febc.org.au/frequency

Ask questions of our leaders across the globe.

March 2018: talk with FEBC teams reaching refugees via Farsi language programs.

Be involved in social programs across the globe that are changing lives and bringing hope.

Fields of work Transmission Sites Broadcasting Coverage

FEBC Australia - PO Box 183 Caringbah NSW 1495 Phone: 1300 720 017 | office@febc.org.au | febc.org.au

FEBRUARY 2018

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IN DEPTH

Painting with Phil Pringle

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ART SPECIAL Creative church Russell Lloyd page 6 Art led me to Christ.

Jo Chew page 7

“When Jesus was around, everyone was having a party. The dead were coming back to life, for goodness sakes,” explains Phil Pringle about why his artwork is full of colour and movement.

KALEY PAYNE When we first meet Phil Pringle, he’s walking through the C3 car park in Oxford Falls, in Sydney’s north. He says hello to everyone who walks past, as if he knows them. Perhaps he does know them.

Familiarity is not something you’d expect from the pastor of one of Australia’s fastest growing churches. Thousands of people turn up to worship at hundreds of C3 churches both in Australia and overseas. The church has an aggressive church planting strategy. Phil says he wants to see 1000 C3 churches by 2020. There are just under 500 churches now.

Born in New Zealand, Phil and

his wife Chris moved to Sydney in 1980 and started a church in a surf club. He loves the beach, and says he spends as much of his devotion time in the early mornings as he can walking along the sand, talking to God. But it’s Phil’s art that I’m here to talk to him about. His studio is in a demountable building on the other side of the carpark from the C3 Church auditorium. The room is classroom-size. Paint is everywhere, most likely the result of Phil’s “splat” paintings, when he, quite literally, throws paint at the canvas. The collection is meant to represent the “explosion of life.”

This man is busy. We meet him at 11am and he has delivered two

talks already. So, as with most of Phil’s activities I suspect, he paints quickly.

“The thing is more in stopping than in starting,” he tells me as he describes how he works. “My style is very quick.”

I asked Phil to paint his relationship with God. (You can see the full picture and our chat with Phil at eternitynews.com.au/ pringle). As in his painting process, Pringle says his relationship with God is often about learning to be still. As he deliberates on how to form the two figures in his painting - one of Jesus and one of himself Pringle says, “I could put Jesus’ arm pointing … but I think, sometimes it’s just

‘thereness’ that you’re looking for with God, rather than getting direction or a job to do.”

Pringle’s paintings are full of movement, a result in part of how quickly they are created. But they are also full of colour.

“I like colour,” Phil says, laughing as he forms pools of bright blue, red and yellow paint on a wooden palette.

“When I went to art school, all the commentators said that Michelangelo had attempted to portray God as subdued, dark, out of the picture, withdrawn, because he used all beiges and dark browns and ochres.

“But when the restorers came in and they started to suck out all the

impurities from the fresco, they found that he had used the most bright colours you could find.

“They discovered the wax and the soot from the candles burning up had gotten infused into the plaster and darkened the colours [in the paintings].

“I feel like that’s what religion has done to God. Made him dull.

He’s the killjoy, he’s the divine wet blanket on everything. He just comes down here to say, ‘hey, calm down everybody, the party’s over.’

“But when Jesus was around, everyone was having a party. The dead were coming back to life, for goodness sakes!”

Pringle laments what he sees continued page 6

IN DEPTH

Phil Pringle

Bring art back home

Why the Reformation should not make you fear art.

BOOK EXCERPT : EXCELLENCE IN LEADERSHIP

BY RUSSELL LLOYD

For a time, the church was the champion of artists and creators of all types. Walk into ancient cathedrals and you can see what I’m talking about. When the population was largely illiterate, these spaces told the stories of the Bible through their artwork.

They depicted Adam and Eve’s temptation, the fate awaiting sinners, and our need for salvation.

They would show the birth of Christ and the message of hope and the grace of God through parables. Art was the poor man’s Bible.

The buildings where people gathered to worship were themselves works of art glorifying God: immense spaces filled with the light from stained glass, galleries of mosaic and sculpture, ornate stonework, intricately crafted works of timber and iron, soaring columns and arches.

Architecture was designed to give a taste of heaven itself.

This year marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of the Reformation. A movement that not only impacted religious thinking and practice, but changed the church’s relationship with art.

With Protestantism came a sense of hostility towards religious art to the extent that some leaders removed art from their churches altogether, seeing it as a form of idolatry. Of course, there is a great deal more to the story, and I don’t profess to be a scholar of church or art history. Nevertheless, we are still recovering from the impact of the Reformation on the way the church approaches art and creativity today.

It wasn’t until I was at university that I realised this, as the church I grew up in, St Hilary’s Kew, brimmed with creative and artistic expression.

I recall Sundays as a kid, eagerly awaiting whatever creative expression the service held.

Dramatic pieces weren’t merely a part of children’s talks, but a way of engaging with Scripture and the world. Musical items – secular songs – were performed as people reflected on their words and

“

It is about imagination ... acknowledging that little idea in the back of your mind and bringing it to fruition.”

Prixel Creative

From page 5 as the church’s retreat from areas like art and music. “There was a period of time when the best art and music appeared to be Christcentred,” he says.

But Pringle also acknowledges that the church has had an attimes fraught relationship with the arts, pointing to the “bonfires of the vanities” led by Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola in the 15th century, which saw the destruction of artworks, sculptures, tapestries and musical instruments viewed as “objects of sin.” Savonarola campaigned against what he believed to be the excesses of Renaissance Italy.

“There’s always been this tension between the artist and the religious world,” Pringle says.

“But we did retreat. From everything: media, arts, entertainment, sport, politics, commerce. And we [Christians] have become a very irrelevant voice - a subculture - which we’re not meant to be. We’re meant to be salt in the earth. We make life tasty for people. We make life beautiful, the light on the hill that shows people the way.

“I’d like to do my bit to create a renaissance in those areas.”

He is doing that, in part, in the creation of C3 College, which includes a strong creative arts focus for artists and performers.

“I think there is a piece of art in everybody’s soul that should be developed,” Pringle says. “Whether it’s cooking, signing, playing a musical instrument. I think that bleeds into other areas of our lives and assists there, too.”

Phil believes his painting life helps his pastor life, helps his writing life. Pringle has written 17 books, is a sought-after public speaker and is working on that plan for C3 to plant 1000 churches.

He tells me it requires at least 10 different personas to do what he does everyday.

“There is a capacity to switch gears, if you find that ability. You can totally give yourself in one season to a thing, and then totally give yourself in another.”

Painting himself on the canvas to depict his relationship with God, Pringle says that Jesus has his arm around him and they’re “looking out to an unlimited horizon.”

“My arm is going to be … halfpointing,” he says, suggesting that he is often flummoxed by the plans God has for him.

“I’m asking God, ‘Really? Is this really what we’re going to be doing? I’m excited, you know? But, wow. Why me?’”

FEBRUARY 2018

meaning. Poetry and dance were a part of worship as much for their beauty as for their message.

The services were rich with photographic artworks and illustrations, images of places we had only ever read of to inspire and capture our imaginations. These formed the backdrop of times of teaching, prayer and worship.

Beyond the services, art shows and theatre productions showcased people’s gifts and encouraged others to explore their own.

I can’t say how much credit goes to Peter Corney [the vicar] for the innovation and artistic work that came out of St Hilary’s, and I

suspect he would baulk at the idea of taking any credit at all. But so much of the creativity I see rests on the permission to create that he gave to those he led and pastored.

Peter himself is an artist, a creator. Before he was called to ministry he worked as a cabinetmaker, and he continues to work with his hands, shaping and creating beautiful things from timber. Chances are if you drop by unannounced, you’ll find him out in his workshop, apron on, covered in sawdust. He has a taste for beauty and an appreciation for art, for what it takes to create and the power it holds.

Prize-worthy religious art KALEY PAYNE Two of Australia’s religious art prizes are back again in 2018.

Entries for the 65th Blake Prize opened in January, calling for artworks with a “recognisable exploration of faith, spirituality, religion, hope, humanity, social justice, belief and/or non-belief.”

The bi-annual art event, which awards $35,000 for the top prize, will showcase its finalists from May to July at its new home at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in Sydney’s south west. Winner of the 2016 Blake Prize, Yardena Kurulkur, depicted a 15-panel series, with terracotta replicas of the artists’ heart “decaying into

nothingness.”

“This work is an attempt to capture the erosion, resurrection and elusiveness of human life,” Kurulkur said in a statement.

The Mandorla Art Prize, also bi-annual, is held in Perth and is labelled as Australia’s “most significant thematic Christian art prize.” Entries for the 2018 award, the pinnacle of which is the Mandorla Award at $25,000, will close in March, with winners announced in June. Entrants must clearly demonstrate a direct relationship with the theme, based on Revelation 21:1-2: “And then I saw a new heaven and a new earth …”

There’s something profound about an artist’s ability to look at a piece of timber or stone, or a church community for that matter, and to see what shape it could take.

It’s a fundamentally different way of looking at the world. Through those eyes, everything holds meaning.

I think Peter was one of the first people I ever heard speak about finding God in art, and allowing God to speak through art. He showed me that beauty, in all forms, reflects the image of God himself.

We were made with eyes to see and ears to hear. We were designed to experience beauty and wonder.

We desire it as a result of our deep desire for the one who is the source of all beauty and creativity. And, somehow, art has the ability to connect with us on more than just an intellectual level. It’s incredible how a single piece of artwork can evoke such powerful emotion.

How an image can challenge those things that we struggle to even name. How an artist can capture something that is all at once beautiful, heartbreaking and comforting?

Of course, we should be careful not to replace the Creator with the created, or to begin to worship beauty itself. In the absence of God, creativity, art and beauty hold little value. But Peter recognised the power that they can have in helping people to engage with God. Available at koorong.com

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WHT 189 – 01/2018

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IN DEPTH

FEBRUARY 2018

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Art on Mars Hill

Baptism, but not as you know it

Jo Chew is an artist.

She is also a Christian.

For her, that is normal.

Finding Jesus inside a detention centre

JO CHEW

ANONYMOUS

Jo Chew at work in her studio. unknown god and their pagan poetry gives us a model for how we can engage with contemporary art.

Siedell writes: “St Paul, then, not only used the cultural artefacts at hand (altar and poetry) but in a radical move he also bent them toward the gospel, making them work for him and his audience as a means of apologetic grace. Altars to the unknown god are strewn about the historical landscape of modern and contemporary art. They are often remarkably beautiful, compelling, and powerful. But they have been too often ignored or condemned out of hand.”

This book is the result of choosing the way of St Paul: to take the cultural artefacts and to reveal and illuminate their insights into what they are only able to point to, not to name. But point they do, and they should be examined and celebrated as such.

Perhaps without knowing it, Emma had applied this principle, when she used my drawing to talk

“

We can learn to see how artists deeply and intuitively point to real and universal human concerns.” to me. She didn’t dismiss me as some brooding pagan, nor did she write off my work as an expression of my spiritual immaturity – a response St Paul could have had to the Athenians’ altars. Instead she saw a God-given awareness and longing in my drawing and she bent it toward the gospel.

Art has had a continued importance in my life. After high school, I went on to study Fine Art at university and to exhibit

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Jo Chew

One of the instrumental things in my coming to know Jesus was a drawing. It was a piece I was working on in year 11 – despairing and dark, and fairly typical of a creative teenager. Most of my artworks that year were largescale graphite drawings with lots of heavy repetitive line work. I still remember my grandmother’s response to the end-of-year exhibition. ‘Oma’ was very positive about my achievements – top of the class for marks – but was evidently a little concerned about the subject matter.

But one of these drawings, as it was still in progress, was noticed by a fellow art student. A Christian. Not somebody I knew or particularly cared to know. I grew up with no interaction with church and wasn’t particularly interested either. But in this work of mine, Emma saw Jude 1:23: “save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear.” Something that with hindsight was pretty obvious in the work.

And so, Emma set about trying to talk with me. We started meeting during breaks out on the lawns that surrounded my suburban public college. Over a matter of weeks Emma and I talked about art, about life and death, about the Bible, about Jesus.

She invited me to her church, and to a meeting in someone’s house where the conversation was entirely highjacked by my questions and concerns, probably to their delight as I was the only non-Christian there.

Over the next year my life changed entirely – and it all started with this encounter sparked by a drawing.

Recently I read God in the Gallery by Daniel A. Siedell.

It’s a collection of essays that intelligently argue for a more thoughtful and deliberate embrace of modern and contemporary art on the part of Christians. Central to the book’s argument is St Paul’s encounter at the Areopagus on Mars Hill. Siedell makes the case that Paul’s choice to engage with the Athenians’ altar to an

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my work; and galleries are always the first attractions on itineraries when visiting new cities. I’m the choir that Siedell is preaching to. But as our society becomes more immersed in images, and increasingly communicates and identifies through images, there is a wider need for Christians to interact with and embrace the arts.

Perhaps through a thoughtful and ongoing engagement with art – both the beautiful and the difficult – we can learn to see how artists deeply and intuitively point to real and universal human concerns.

Could art provide an invitation to recognise the deep longings and fears that we all share as the fallen creatures of a relational God who seeks us out? If so, like Paul, we might use the cultural artefacts at hand, and gently bend them toward the gospel. But first we need to understand our cultural artefacts, recognising in them a means of apologetic grace, and rather than a threat, to see in them a vast opportunity.

A baptism with a difference, using a wheelie bin as a font, meant a special day for Hakim (not his real name), as well as fellow Christian detainees and team members of Prison Fellowship Immigration Detention Centres ministry (in an Australian state we won’t name). Hakim was transferred from Melbourne to another state via Christmas Island about 12 months ago and on his arrival was invited to attend weekly Bible studies in the detention centre.

Coming from a Muslim background, Hakim had already begun to question why it was that Muslims killed fellow Muslims and hated Christians.

He had also been involved in a serious motorbike accident and believes God spared his life in order that he could meet some Christians and learn about Jesus Christ and Christianity.

After many months of study, Hakim was ready to accept Jesus Christ as his Saviour and sometime later requested baptism.

This took a further two months to arrange and eventually the baptism day arrived.

Pastor XXX gave a powerful personal testimony and message which resonated with many who attended including officers on duty.

The Immigration Detention Centre “baptismal font” has not changed. It is still a wheelie bin.

Other Christian detainees had organised the music and printed copies of the order of service for us.

Morning tea was served and all attendees had the opportunity to speak with Pastor XXX and mingle with Prison Fellowship team members as we celebrated this exciting event.

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IN DEPTH

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FEBRUARY 2018

I came back to God while running a brothel ANNE LIM For Nola Michailovic, running a brothel seemed like the logical conclusion of a lifetime of sexual abuse that began when, as a small child, she was targeted by paedophiles.

Nola intends to write a book about her dramatic life story and her steady decline from runway model to nude photography, to pornography and eventually prostitution.

Modelling is “a slippery slope for a lot of young girls and for me, unfortunately, that’s where it began – behind the camera,” she tells Eternity.

“It started with the photographers, and we all know that back in the day it was usually nude photography; it would start there and then it would [move] to porn and it’s a slippery slope.

I started out stripping in the beginning, so for me it was a steady decline.”

Nola says she turned to sex work after becoming a single mother while still a child, as a desperate way of getting enough money to support her children, who had special needs.

“My second son, he was born 15 weeks premature, so he was born the size of my hand, and he had a lot of health problems for the first 20 years of his life, so I found myself having to sell my body in order to put food on the table, and that’s due to domestic violence, family breakdown, the list goes on.”

“I’ve been [stranded] in a park with my kids, I’ve been put out on the highway, I’ve been left in the rain with my children, I’ve been locked out of my own home, you know, so it comes down to what are you prepared to do? I can’t say I did it because it was my dream job but because it was a matter of survival.

It was live or die.”

Nola desperately regrets her involvement in pornography because it is “out there” forever and her sons could find the footage.

“Oh my gosh, don’t do it, just don’t do it, because in ten, 15, 20 years’ time you might want that executive job,” she says.

“I wanted to go into the police force, into the prostitution taskforce; however, I was terrified about them finding out about what my history was.

“So there were dreams that I didn’t follow because I was fearful of things coming out … I just wish I had’ve had someone to shake me and go, like, ‘wake up to yourself, you’re worth more than that,’ because all it does is it devalues women, it dehumanises people and it causes massive problems, as we know.”

Nola took on the management of a brothel in Toowoomba, near Brisbane, two years ago, after losing her then partner to suicide.

“My journey was profoundly lonely and I guess that’s why I wanted to be that person for those women. I think it’s so important that women support each other,” she explains.

“As I was getting older it was something that I wanted to be a support to the girls that I was working with – because it is legal, [but] they don’t have the same

“

Nola Michailovic wants to help women leave the sex industry.

My journey was profoundly lonely and I guess that’s why I wanted to be that person for those women.” rights as a lay person, let’s say, that comes for medical treatment, being able to get a bank loan, basic things like that.

“So I progressed from being a sex worker to being the madam, so I have no shame attached to what I’ve done because I always came from a very pure place in my heart about the intentions behind what I was doing.”

While always feeling close to God from childhood, Nola says for a long time she was disappointed in God.

Nola’s journey back to the joy of loving and being loved by God began when a group of Christian women who reach out to those who feel trapped in the sex industry began visiting the brothel.

“That was weird, that was like the church ladies bringing the hookers half-time snacks and we would laugh hysterically about it,” she says about the women from City Women Toowoomba’s Rahab ministry.

“It’s like ‘Lord, have mercy, like what are these people doing?’ But they would show up week in, week out, and they just kind of kept showing up and we developed this kind of friendship. It was really weird – it was almost like you’ve got the lion and the mouse, you know – you’ve got the prostitute and the virgin [and] they’re friends – how does that even happen?”

Then last Christmas, the women dropped off a Bible at the brothel. “[It was] a pink Bible, it was really cool, and the girls started walking around with it and reading it and it became just like a common coffee table book,

“

The Rahab crew have done a really amazing job of breaking down the barriers.” you know? So the Rahab crew have done a really amazing job of breaking down the barriers between, I guess, the Christianbased community and the people that work in the sex industry – and it’s proof that we can be friends.”

After Nola started holding exit programmes to help women who wanted to leave the sex industry, she was bullied into resigning from the brothel.

She and her partner were considering buying a brothel when she was offered work at a Christian radio station. She now hosts the breakfast show each day

and absolutely loves it. This year, she is hosting a special “Fighting for our Daughters” segment on Friday mornings with anti-porn campaigner Letitia Shelton, focusing on educating about the harms of pornography.

“I think I’ve been given a voice for those that don’t have a voice, and I’m quite happy to stand up and educate people about what’s really going on in our society,” she says.

“We can pretend sex trafficking is not happening, we can pretend there’s not children being bought and sold, that there’s no boys and girls being abused right now as we speak. We’d be foolish to put our eyes down to our iPads and iPhones and pretend that it’s not because it’s alive and well – and it’s people like me that can stand up and go ‘this has to stop because they’re our future.’

“And I think that’s the reason God’s put me on the radio, is because it might be just one little thing that I say that saves a person, and if I can save one life, my job is done.”

FEBRUARY 2018

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BIBLE @ WORK

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On the frontline in the Middle East Amar was reading a Bible story for his children.

LINA MUSHARBASH IN ERBIL-KURDISTAN As a Christian, Amar faced persecution in various forms in his home town in the Middle East. As well as being barred from promotion to higher positions at work, he was forced by law to give Arabic names to his newborn baby.

“In 2002, I wanted to name my eldest Maroun, which is a Christian name, but the local authority refused, so I said, OK, and I named him Karam, which means generous in the sense of generosity from God.” Despite facing such discrimination, Amar waited until the last minute before fleeing the beautiful home he had built for his family. With his family and some neighbours squeezed into a car, they fled with only an hour to spare before armed extremists arrived in town.

“We were 12 people. Some climbed on top of the car,” he recalls. “Tens of thousands were

in the streets, leaving. It was an unbelievable scene – very hard to imagine everyone either driving or walking, old people, children and women – it was a mass departure.”

Now living in a refugee camp, Amar has lost everything but he is grateful for his family’s safety. At first he felt God had abandoned him and became uncertain about his Christian beliefs.

“I asked him: ‘Where are you?

Why did you leave your children to suffer?’ I stopped praying or reading the Bible for a year, but then with time I felt myself losing peace and happiness and felt useless. I thought about my family and children, so I prayed and felt that I am connected again to God and back to faith. I feel much happier and in God’s care.”

This month Bible Society is making a special appeal for help to Christians in countries where it is a challenge to practise their faith – a situation that’s difficult and discriminatory at best, and at worst, risky to the point of

incarceration, physical harm or death.

We can’t name these countries because of political and religious sensitivities, and Bible Societies operating there do so with great caution. In many cases, they are not able to fundraise for themselves, counting entirely on the support of other Bible Societies and their donors.

Bible Society was able to give Bushra, a mother and grandmother, a new Bible after she had to leave her home in the Middle East after enduring intense shelling from extremist forces.

“While we were following the news, we heard a sound of an explosion that hit a nearby house,” she says. “The whole house shook and there were dead and injured people. My children were on the floor.”

In a panic, Bushra grabbed a small bag with all her documents, and left in a car with her husband and six children.

“We were all crammed in one

car – me, my husband and my six children,” she recalls. “We left with only our casual clothes. We didn’t even have time to get water.”

All night and until the next afternoon, the family had nothing to eat or drink and it was very hot weather, but Bushra held on to the promises of God. “We were in a severe ordeal, but Jesus was backing us. He saved us and kept us safe, me and my six children,” she says.

Although she was tempted to lose her trust in God, Bushra says she sought and received strength from Jesus.

“I entered in a hard temptation in the beginning,” she says.

“The biggest gift was God’s love. Without our Christian brothers and sisters we could be losing hope. I sought strength from Jesus and stuck to my Bible.”

Bible Society Australia is asking for your support of Bible Societies that work in these countries that

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are in critical need. When we think of the freedom we enjoy, it makes sense to give freely to those who are not free to live as Christians.

Bushra was reading her precious Bible.

+ If you would like to give to the Oppressed Church appeal, call 1300 242 537 or donate at biblesociety. org.au/sustainep

of all religious discrimination is against Christians.

And many suffer without a Bible they can read for assurance and strength. Will you give $44 to provide a Bible each for four people in the suffering church?

Call 1300 BIBLES (1300 242 537) or visit biblesociety.org.au/sustainep to donate.

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CHARITY FEATURE

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FEBRUARY 2018

Not a trickle, but an outpouring of water!

LUCY LIM The people in Mutsvati, Zimbabwe used to walk 10 kilometres to draw water from shallow wells. The water in the wells was infected with water-borne diseases. Women from the village sometimes made this journey several times a day, carrying 23 litres of water on their head each time. In May 2017, this all changed. The village of Mutsvati (in Goromonzi, about 50 kilometres from Harare) now has water. The new borehole provides fresh water for about 7000 people in the area, supplying water to seven schools and 700 households.

The water is not just for drinking; it’s good for cooking, washing and even farming. Can you imagine how their lives are changed?

But how did it happen?

On the other side of the world a school boy, a 79-year-old man, a family, a church, a youth group, a school decided that they would do something to give water to this thirsty world.

And what you get is not a trickle, but an outpouring of water!

Here’s what happened. The boy listened to a guest speaker sharing about the need to provide clean water for bonded slave workers at Pakistan’s brick kilns. He was moved to donate some money. But this wasn’t enough, he wanted to do more. So he decided to

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James’ fundraising towards Waterworks for a Thirsty World allowed him to be a multiplier of grace and earned him a Fred Hollows Humanity Award (Canberra, October 2017). fundraise for water, to multiply the amount he could give. Every ten dollars raised turned into a hundred. Before long 11-year-old James raised over $1300.

And each story is the same, but of course, a bit different.

The 79-year-old man was asked by his friend to swim laps to raise money for water.

At first, he hesitated. He wasn’t so sure about the swimming bit,

and he wasn’t sure about asking his friends for money. But he did it. Ron was stoked when he raised $2425. He learned that his family and friends were excited about his effort and everyone wanted to support his effort to give water. A local radio station even interviewed him about it!

The church in Lane Cove ran a fundraising dinner. The youth group in Port Macquarie

organised a community car wash. The school in Dee Why ran a sponsorship fundraiser at their swimming carnival, and the family in Sutherland gave up drinking everything but water for a week. These are just some of the many individuals and groups who donated and fundraised to give water through Anglican Aid’s new water campaign Waterworks for a Thirsty World.

Launched in 2017, the campaign raised $230,000 towards water projects in various parts of the world. Working with trusted partners, Anglican Aid, through Waterworks for a Thirsty World was able to support water provision, water education and water infrastructure in countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Rwanda.

Waterworks is back on in 2018. Our projects support water provision, water education, hygiene and sanitation in countries including DR Congo, Ethiopia, Jordan, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia. Globally, one in nine people don’t have access to safe water, and one in three don’t have a proper toilet.

Lack of water means communities suffer and sustainable development is not possible.

Can your family raise $350 for hygiene and sanitation education at a school in Tanzania? Or can your church raise $1600 to install a water tank for a village in Rwanda? $10,000 is desperately needed to construct toilets at a new Bible school in the DR Congo. Can you be a multiplier of grace to give water to this thirsty world?

The official Waterworks Week is 10-18 March (in conjunction with World Water Day on 22 March), though you can fundraise throughout the year.

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

Act in Love Today, Change a Life Forever Improving the lives of people with disabilities in the poorest places on earth.

Learn more: my.cbm.org.au/donate 131 226 Charity feature FEB V2.indd 1

MISSIONWITHOUT WITHOUTBORDERS BORDERS MISSION

Senior Pastor: Without water, basic health is impossible.

Families suffer and communities stay impoverished.

Fundraise or donate individually or as a group.

Give water. Change a community.

SUPPORT OUR PROJECTS IN

DR Congo , Jordan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia

$30

WATER PROVISION

WATER EDUCATION

HYGIENE & SANITATION

CAN YOU HELP US IN 2018?

Fundraise or donate today.

waterworks.org.au

@waterworks.org.au

Discovery Bay International Community Church (www.dbicc. org) located in Discovery Bay, HK is seeking a senior pastor with: - a commitment to preaching, disciple making & evangelising - a vision to expanding an already strong children’s ministry - a plan for a growing missions ministry Interested candidates who subscribe to the EFCC mission statement, and have 5 years senior pastor’s experience, a seminary degree and Native-English fluency may apply by sending a CV to pastorsearch@dbicc.org

15/01/2018 3:03:08 PM

FEBRUARY 2018

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Flickr / Corey Oakley

OPINION

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+

Religious Freedom Special.

Mark Fowler, Natasha Moore, and expert panel.

Pages 12-13

What do we want? Freedom When do we want it? Now John Sandeman asks exactly what religious freedom means?

The young teacher was pregnant and unmarried so the Christian school sacked her. A church-based welfare agency put in a submission to a federal government inquiry suggesting that they should be able to keep LGBT people out of an aged care facility. And then there are the famous bakers who don’t want to create certain wedding cakes. A street preacher is taken before an anti-discrimination commissioner for summarising the Bible’s verses on LGBT people. A religious charity has been told that it can’t insist that its local leaders must belong to the denomination that founded it.

These are all real-world

examples that form the background to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull setting up an expert panel to “examine whether Australian law adequately protects the human right to freedom of religion.” The terms of reference ask the panel to: • consider the intersections between the enjoyment of the freedom of religion and other human rights, • have regard to any previous or ongoing reviews or inquiries that it considers relevant, and • consult as widely as it considers necessary.

It is fair to say that “consult as widely as necessary” is exactly

what a lot of Christian groups, ranging from conservative to liberal, are doing now. Eternity has spoken to a lot of them – and they are working through whether they are of a common mind. More rather than fewer submissions can be expected.

Here’s how our real-world examples worked out.

The young unmarried teacher stayed sacked. The school in country Queensland used the vehicle of an industrial agreement to support a code of conduct. It was robust enough to make the sacking stick. Leaders from church-based schools that this writer discussed the case with, were horrified at

how the school had handled things.

The welfare agency got a bloody nose just as Kevin Rudd replaced Julia Gillard when the Sex Discrimination Amendment Bill was passed. It banned faithbased providers from accessing their services based on their sexual orientation.

A gay cake case has made its way up to the US Supreme Court. Gay couple, David Mullins and Charlie Craig, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union are suing Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop, who is supported by the Trump administration.

In Tasmania, Cornerstone continued page 13

Seriously Good News Online

eternitynews.com.au

@eternitynews

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OPINION

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FEBRUARY 2018

Freedom: back to the future

the grave risk of becoming a replay of the same-sex marriage debate. It is clear that supporters of same-sex marriage being legal can also be supporters of religious freedom.

Christians have a history in Australia of opposing a bill of rights. Patrick Parkinson, Sydney University professor of law, recorded a long list of opponents to the National Human Rights Consultation in 2009. This includes the Australian Christian Lobby, Presbyterian Church of Australia, Baptist Union, Sydney Anglicans, and strong reservations from the Association of Christian Schools. The Catholics reserved their opinion. The Uniting Church and the Society of Friends (Quakers) were the only groups to give unqualified support.

All the above groups are now likely to support enacting a right to religious freedom, within a list of rights or not. There has been a big shift in Christian opinion.

The calculation Christians have to make is whether they will fare better under a group of rights (because just enacting one right seems unlikely) than the current situation where Christians appear to be losing freedoms (or fear they will).

But some groups will be nervous. Low-fee Christian schools have enjoyed a wide range of rights up till now. This includes our Queensland example of maintaining a code of conduct under industrial law. Some schools wish to insist that all employees are Christians. This means they go beyond the bounds of the current exemptions in anti-discrimination legislation which allow religious schools to employ only Christians using an “inherent requirements of the job” test. Some wish to insist that the gardener, catering and cleaning staff are Christians.

Other schools will wish the right to employ only Christians where they wish to – where they see somewhat of an “inherent requirement.”

There are some religious freedom rights that the vast majority of Christians will want to support. Freely preaching from the Bible, currently under challenge in Tasmania, is one. The ability to form a religious society, which was abrogated in Queensland, is another.

There are others, such as the freedom to employ only Christians in a school, where even theologically conservative Christians have different views.

wikimedia / Permission from www.wga.hu

as good, so I think it’s always a very two-edged thing, acquiring power – for any religious tradition, including early Christianity.”

These fateful first steps towards political dominance have a particular resonance for Christians today, as they watch the centuries-long project we now call Christendom recede ever further in the rear-view mirror.

Churches in the West are hardly facing a return to the bad old days of being thrown to the lions or set alight to serve as torches in Emperor Nero’s gardens. But as their overt political and social influence declines – for better and for worse – internal debate over the proper relationship of Christians to the wider culture is intensifying.

One question is how best to understand that culture. In biblical terms, this analysis is sometimes couched in terms of a more specific question: which city do we live in? Everyone agrees it’s not Jerusalem, the city of God – certainly not anymore. Lately, not so much Athens either, the (more or less) open marketplace of ideas. Babylon, then, the hostile overlords? Rome, the superpower demanding undivided allegiance?

Of course, whatever the results of the cultural analysis, the biblical response doesn’t change all that much. Paul in Athens engages

respectfully with the prevailing culture. The prophet Jeremiah urges God’s people, exiled in hated Babylon, to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you.”

And the early Christians in Rome, powerless, often excluded from civic life, periodically decimated by the murderous whims of the state? They served.

They loved their neighbours. By the year 250, this embattled minority was supporting 1500 destitute people every day. When up to 5000 Romans were dying daily of one of the plagues that ravaged the ancient world in these centuries, Christians stayed when others fled and cared for the afflicted at risk to their own lives.

In infinitely more restricted circumstances than those facing the modern Western church, the early Christians found plenty of scope – not, of course, without cost – for doing the things they believed God had called them to do.

Commentators like Andrew Bolt take Christians to task for being “cowed” by the prospect of a new “war” on Christianity, and urge them to stand up and fight for their rights. The call to arms – to fight fire with fire – could hardly be further from the vibe of the New Testament. How can followers of Jesus set about ushering in the kingdom of God using ways and means that their King rejected outright?

Jesus insists over and over again that those who come after him will face fierce opposition. Panic is unbecoming to people who have been abundantly warned of what’s to come; the curious mix of humility and fearlessness displayed by those first Christians offers a better way forward.

Of course there are always complexities to be unravelled and addressed. But at the end of the day, the program for following Jesus in “post-Christian” Australia is unchanged: Keep Calm and Carry On Loving Thy Neighbour.

Natasha Moore is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity. Visit www. publicchristianity.org

Natasha Moore farewells Christendom

The Vision of the Cross by Giulio Romano, Giovanni Francesco Penni and Raffaellino del Colle.

It’s one of the most famous conversion stories in history.

In the year 312, the Roman Emperor Constantine faced a decisive battle for control of the empire, at the Milvian Bridge to the north of Rome. The story goes that Constantine had a vision or dream telling him to fight under the protection of the Christian God. He achieved a dramatic victory over his rival Maxentius, and from that time forward declared himself a follower of Jesus Christ and sought to protect and promote Christianity within the Roman Empire.

The Battle of the Milvian Bridge was an unforeseen historical twist.

Up to this time, the cross would to most people have been a symbol of shame. To the harassed and persecuted minority known as Christians, it represented God’s self-giving, peace-making sacrifice.

For Constantine, by contrast, it appeared as a portent of military victory. One account of the battle reports that the emperor saw a cross of light in the sky, accompanied by a message: in this sign, conquer. Barely three centuries after Jesus’ death, soldiers fighting for the very empire that crucified him carried his sign into battle, painted on their shields.

From humility and determined

non-violence to conquest: Constantine’s conversion story enacts in miniature the larger shift he would initiate as emperor, not only making this marginal religious movement legal but granting Christians their first real taste of power.

It’s become common – dare I say, fashionable? – for Christians today to look back on this turning point as the moment when the early church lost its way. It hopped into bed with the state, was seduced by power and influence, chose coercion over love and respectability over radical service.

Only now, many feel, is the church finally getting back on track as a radical, dissident minority rather than a powerful political player.

Naturally, there’s some truth to this. But equally, the reality is always more complicated than the thumbnail version allows. Contrary to popular belief, Constantine (unlike later emperors) did not make his new faith the official religion of the empire, or force anyone to adopt it – the Edict of Milan in 313 simply granted full tolerance to Christianity, and to all other religions. It was normal for an emperor to promote his favourite god, and so the perks Constantine began to accord the churches were hardly surprising.

They also made it possible for

Freedom

From page 11

Church member David Gee who is a street preacher and Campbell Markham (Gee’s pastor) are before the Tasmanian AntiDiscrimination Commissioner for David’s preaching in a Hobart mall, and Campbell’s blogposts.

The Queensland branch of the St Vincent de Paul Society has been told by the State AntiDiscrimination Board that it is not a religious body, and so cannot require that local board presidents be Catholics.

If our real-world examples show anything, they show that religious freedom outcomes are messy, even unpredictable. This is despite Section 116 of our Constitution, which states that the Commonwealth may not make any law “prohibiting the free exercise of religion.”

But as George Williams, the Dean of Law at the University of NSW wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald, “Section 116 has proved to be a frail and ineffective shield.

Despite several attempts, the High Court has never been convinced to use this section to strike down

a law.” Williams adds, “Australian law fares poorly when it comes to religious liberty. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights spells out the international consensus on the need for protection. This is reflected in the national laws and constitutions of every democracy except Australia.”

It would be really unfortunate if the International Convention is excluded from consideration just because it became part of the rancorous same-sex marriage debate in parliament. Senator Brandis attempted to incorporate the first part of Article 18 (see below) as an amendment during the debate.

But the Convention’s articles are well worth considering in the more considered debate about religious freedom that we are now having.

Article 18 summarises religious freedom this way: Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.

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“

Constantine’s conversion story ... not only [made] this marginal religious movement legal but [granted] Christians their first real taste of power.”

Christian communities to scale up some of their routine activities, such as the social welfare for which they were already known.

“Undoubtedly Christianity changed”, says Teresa Morgan, Professor of Graeco-Roman History at Oxford. “It became more establishment. It became more interested in money. It became more interested in protecting itself and its own prestige because of being allied with imperial power.

“On the other hand, it acquired opportunities to do what it saw

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No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.

Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.

The desire for religious freedom to be a positive right – not merely a list of exemptions to other existing anti-discrimination provisions – will form the heart of a number of submissions to the Religious Freedom Panel.

George Williams and others such as the Greens (if either of them make submissions to the panel) will be arguing for a bill or charter of rights that will balance religious freedom against other freedoms. This is likely to save the religious freedom discussion from

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OPINION

FEBRUARY 2018

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Freedom: The schools question JOHN SANDEMAN Australia’s largest employer that deliberately hires Christians as a matter of policy in Australia may be the independent schools sector.

They hire many more people than churches. For this reason, schools form the front line when talking about religious freedom. Eternity asked “Should a Christian school be allowed to hire *only* staff who profess a Christian faith?”

CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS AUSTRALIA Schools are more than classrooms; not just teachers are involved in education. It truly ‘takes a village to raise a child’ and everyone in the Christian school ‘village’ must model and share their faith.

Everyone needs to understand the great story of hope and redemption we have in the gospel message and be able to share that hope with students and families in all the little daily interactions that occur.

The relationships in a Christian school, between teachers, other staff, students and parents are as important as the formal curriculum. All staff bear witness to Christ working in their lives.

MICHAEL KELLAHAN

FREEDOM FOR FAITH Yes, faith-based schools should be free to discriminate like this.

There is rational, appropriate discrimination as well as arbitrary, unjustified discrimination. A Christian school choosing to employ solely Christian staff isn’t irrational or bigoted. (Of course, many Christians schools will disagree with this hiring policy and

Flickr / Phil Roeder

MARK SPENCER

they have every right to do so.)

Choosing who will teach children and model Christian virtues is key to maintaining the Christian ethos and identity and mission of the school. This is an appropriate application of the rights of freedom of religion and association. If this positive right were guaranteed by law, then the need for exemptions which permit discrimination against a person because he or she has a certain characteristic would be greatly diminished.

JOHN COLLIER

PRINCIPAL, ST ANDREW’S CATHEDRAL SCHOOL, SYDNEY It is critical that schools which maintain an integrated approach to Christian Education be permitted to hire only Christian staff. An integrated approach to Christian Education requires all staff to be involved in the carriage of Christian faith as the school

seeks to minister to students and parents. Accordingly, each subject area will attempt to skilfully and authentically protect world views related to syllabus and texts from a Christian standpoint. Only staff who are Christian can fully conceptualise and grapple with this difficult task. The alternative, employing staff who do not adhere to a Christian position, is that words and lifestyle may undermine the Christian message of the school, causing confusion among students. Moreover, the lifestyle and Christian pastoral care of nonteaching staff needs to provide clarity emanating from the Gospel.

LYLE SHELTON

AUSTRALIA CHRISTIAN LOBBY It is vital that Christian schools remain free to positively discriminate in favour of staff who will uphold the Christian faith. It is vital that Muslim and Jewish schools also retain this

freedom. The only real pressure point impacting this long-held freedom comes from leaders of the same-sex marriage movement such as Rodney Croome and Alex Greenwich. Both men and their wider political movement are relentlessly lobbying to have this freedom removed. This would deprive Christian schools of their missional distinctive and rob many parents of their wish for their children’s education to be conducted in the context of Christian community.

ANGUS MCLEAY

Religiously-based organisations have a vital role to play in the civic life of the community. They work in the context of community norms and standards enshrined by general law. Religious bodies are afforded additional legal space for the expression of religiouslybased values and objects. Such space commonly takes the form of ‘religious exemptions’. These provide religious bodies the freedom to vary from community expectations in some areas of antidiscrimination law.

In circumstances where religious bodies feel it is necessary to do so, it is appropriate that they are explicit about how and why. In this way, religious groups will minimise unnecessary confusion or even possible friction with the community. Being explicit is especially important when bodies provide commercial and public services, and in the employment of staff.

Employment exemptions are especially controversial, partly because exemptions currently

apply in a wholesale fashion, rather than being tailored by religious bodies to their specific needs. In contentious areas, where the rights of others are at stake, religious bodies that wish to rely on exemptions may avoid confusion by expressly linking their values to exemptions, as is commonly done by other community groups.

Angus McLeay is an Anglican minister based in Melbourne. He writes and speaks on human rights and discrimination.

DAVID HASTIE

ALPHACRUCIS COLLEGE As part of Australia’s richly diverse suite of educational options, Christian-affiliated schools offer an alternative vision and mission for education, built along a rich ancient, unifying narrative about the world and self.

This has been hugely attractive to many Australian families, religious and non, with now 1.25 million enrolments in Christianaffiliated schools, the fifth highest percentage in the world. The right to exclusively hire staff who embrace and embody a unified vision lies at the core of cultural for any successful organisation.

Given the huge size of the sector, protecting this as an industrial right in Christian schools in particular, now lies at the core of Australian religious freedoms in general. Objections to it, as far as I can see, have little to do with education, but much about systematically stamping out Christianity from Australian public life. I suggest a civil co-existence, guaranteed by law, might be more useful for everyone involved.

Freedom: how the law keeps religion in school

Mark Fowler Qld’s positive example The proper place of religious faith in Australian private and public schooling will continue to be a source of disputation. As the new school year commences, it may be helpful for students and parents to have some awareness of the law and the human rights imperatives that are relevant to this discussion.

First, to the private school sector and the ongoing calls for the removal of exemptions accorded to faith-based schools in antidiscrimination employment law. It is important to characterise these appeals as they are.

If effected, these calls would remove the ability of schools to retain discretion over their leadership and employees. It would deprive them of the ability to define their character, goals and imperatives. It would remove the ability to control their unique voice to the wider society. In essence, it would remove the identity of the institution. There can be no greater threat to an association’s religious freedom rights than the total stateenforced removal of its religious character. Contrary to these calls, the European Court of Human

Rights has held that “the principle of the freedom of individuals, forming one of the corner-stones of [democratic] society, requires the existence of a possibility to run and to attend private schools.”

Calls for the removal of such exemptions breach what the ECHR has termed the “guaranteed … right to think freely” – the human right that protects against state-imposed uniformity and guarantees pluralism in the provision of education as a means to ensure freedom of thought within a society.

Human rights law demonstrates just how radical these calls are, evincing a deeply concerning divergence from the original democratic conception of freedom.

The second place in which the role of faith is contested is in religious instruction in the public schooling system. Last year the Queensland Education Department released a policy that prevented students who attend Christian religious instruction from sharing their faith. This unleashed some controversy, in what The Australian called a state “war on Christians.” The department’s response was swift – the documents were immediately removed and the offending passages amended.

Although the concern arose in Queensland, general principles may be gleaned from the experience. Provided allowance is made for local variation (a task I do not do here), much of the relevant law is applicable to all Australian jurisdictions.

The withdrawn directives that gave rise to the concern were

contained in departmental reviews of religious instruction materials.

They said “While not explicitly prohibited by the [relevant legislation], nor referenced in the RI policy statement, the Department expects schools to take appropriate action if aware that students participating in RI are evangelising to students who do not participate in their RI class, given this could adversely affect the school’s ability to provide a safe, supportive and inclusive environment for all students.”

The reviews then provided a series of examples of conduct that is inconsistent with the policy, including cards that share “the good news of Jesus’ birth.”

It was asserted that the blanket ban on “evangelism” was based upon the state’s obligation to prevent harm to children in its care, drawn from the general principles of negligence law. This however was inconsistent with a 2013 ruling, upheld on appeal to the Victorian Court of Appeal, that the sharing of faith by students who had attended religious instruction classes did not amount to a “detriment” to those with whom they shared.

If the absurdity of banning Christmas cards was not in itself self-evident, under the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Act “religious belief means holding or not holding a religious belief.”

To avoid discrimination, the Queensland Government would then also have to require teachers and principals to ensure that any child of any faith and agnostic or atheistic students were also prohibited from sharing their

beliefs. If this is the measure, it would seem to me that, in attempting to curtail the expression of one’s convictions on such foundational and personal matters, the state itself would breach the obligation to prevent harm to our children.

Looking internationally, the ECHR has upheld what one would have thought was the fairly non-contentious principle that “the possibility of pluralism in education … is essential for the preservation of a ‘democratic society’.” Indeed, such statements reflect Article 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Australia has ratified, which requires that state education prepare “the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all … religious groups.”

Furthermore, Article 14 provides that children enjoy the freedom of religion or belief. International human rights law recognises that the right to religious freedom enfolds the protection of the right to share one’s faith.

The ECHR has also recognised that a child’s right to religious freedom is not to be relegated solely to the time allotted to religious instruction, but instead applies across the entirety of the educational experience. It has also held that human rights law “does not embody any right for parents that their child be kept ignorant about religion and philosophy in their education.”

Importantly, the concern was not just limited to incursion upon the rights of children – the rights

of principals and teachers who would have been obliged to enforce the policy interpretation, possibly against their conscience, were also at stake. For these reasons, serious doubt was cast over the consistency of the departmental reviews with human rights, as internationally recognised.

Returning to Australia, the problem for the department was that our own High Court has held that “absent statutory or executive indications to the contrary … administrative decision-makers will act in conformity with” ratified international conventions.

Australian courts have also recognised that the common law right to religious freedom is subject only to parliamentary sovereignty. Importantly, as I pointed out to the current Commonwealth Parliamentary Inquiry into Religious Freedom, by its own acknowledgement the department’s statement had no grounding in parliamentary action.

On that basis, it was asserted that the reviews could not prevail against either the applicable international law, or the common law right to religious freedom.

If that wasn’t enough, the reviews also arguably contravened the right to free speech under Australian common law, and potentially the implied constitutional freedom of communication. With this many fundamental freedoms being asked to bow down before state diktat, it was clear that something had gone dreadfully awry.

Mark Fowler is a lawyer and doctoral candidate in law at the University of Queensland.

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Reset the agenda

Tim Costello on a rallying cry for justice and advocacy I am excited and honoured to have been seconded – with World Vision’s blessing – to my additional role as Executive Director of Micah Australia.

Joining me in this mission to advocate in the political, public and Christian spheres for justice and a world free from poverty is my former World Vision colleague Matt Darvas as Campaign Director of Micah. We share Micah’s vision to gather, inspire and empower Australian Christians as advocates, to share God’s heart for justice and raise a powerful voice with and for people in poor communities around the world.

There is no more direct call to action in Scripture than this powerful verse in the Old Testament, Micah 6:8: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” We are called to embrace all three requirements – justice, mercy and humility. The secular world’s idea of justice seems quite different.

When I observe some of secular Australia’s lack of thought over the plight of refugees, famine and genocide, some of the millennials’ obsession with taking selfies, and older Australians with more concern for house prices than homelessness, I am reminded

that walking humbly with God is the way the world is meant to be ordered. It’s about God on the throne, not self on the throne.

Displacing God is the definition of sin and moral failure. The great sin is displacing our relationship with God on the throne.

The true meaning of our lives does not derive from wealth, power, indulgence or religiosity, but from living fully in the moment and risking the pain of giving ourselves to what really matters – understanding that we are loved creations and that we must care for others.

I believe all human beings are wired for collaboration, connection, empathy and generosity. We need to see our

“

We are called to embrace all three requirements – justice, mercy and humility.” relationships with others as they really are – raw, wild and lifegiving. The message of Micah has never been more relevant than it is today. Many Christians are hungry for an agenda worthy of their commitment, energy and God-given gifts. It is Christians, especially Christian leaders, who must set the tone of compassion.

Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved. And Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken. He was radical and his followers should be too.

Jesus says that so long as ordinary people stand up for right and do not retreat before those who seem to have more power, righteousness will prevail.

Tim Costello is chief advocate of World Vision Australia.

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FEBRUARY 2018

When we disagree Lucy Gichuhi on nine ways to disagree well

1

I had to understand the new culture I came to when I moved to Australia before expecting my host culture to understand me. I was like the Berocca tablet that has just been dropped into the liquid mixture. I learnt that this shows respect to my host culture. It does not mean I agree with everything in the new culture, it just means we can communicate effectively. It begins to create a culture of honour.

It shows greater respect and the other person feels understood and becomes part of the solution. It doesn’t mean we have to agree with their viewpoint.

Respectfully seeking to understand is different from just blindly accepting or indulging in another person’s beliefs or their way of life.

2

Each one of us is a steward of what God has put in our life.

I grew up Catholic, got married and became a Presbyterian, then attended a Baptist Church and now I am told I am a Pentecostal.

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I don’t really know – neither do I care about this stuff. All I know is that I understand better how to lead my life God’s way with the valuable contribution of all these groups. I also know how important it is to Jesus Christ that we become as one as he cries out four times in John 17.

As a Christian I learned I had to shift my paradigm in order to see myself as a steward, agent and trustee of whatever God has put in my life – not as a controller, possessor or even owner of my situations or circumstances.

I have had to resign as the general manager of the universe many times.

3

I learned that I need to guard my mental and emotional freedom.

4

Find the root cause of the conflict. Many times, we are hacking at the leaves instead of the roots of the tree.

This brings me to an incident that recently happened in the senate where one of the senators put on a burka in an attempt to express herself.

In response, the Attorney-General George Brandis said about the stunt, “it has been the advice of each director-general of security ... that it is vital for their intelligence and law enforcement work that they work cooperatively with the Muslim community. And to ridicule that community, to drive it into a corner, to mock its religious garments is an appalling thing to do and I would ask you to reflect on what you have done.”

5

Preserve and take in the good.

What is good about Australia?

Our constitution (which is getting

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a work out at the moment), our electoral system, our legal system, our health system, our education system, our welfare system etc. Of course there are problems with all of these but, compared to most parts of the world,Australia shines.

6

Say “No” to the bad, stand for what you believe is right with strong belief and conviction. It is okay to say “No!” and stand by your “No” within reason.

I recently had an opportunity to disagree agreeably in the Senate.

I did not agree with the idea of requiring hardworking Australian permanent residents to pass an expensive university level English test to become citizens. However I am a strong advocate for everyone to become proficient in English.

The way that I disagreed agreeably was to personally appeal to the minister to lower the test to the everyday conversational level which he did in part, but not sufficiently.

7

Be in control of your belief system, your mental faculties and your convictions. They are worth fighting for. Mental and emotional control is the worst form of control. Unfortunately it appears in our politics, churches and other community circles and brings only resentment and division.

8

Forgive and forget where possible. Unforgiving people try to control other people so they can blame them for their own victim mentality with mental and emotional control.

9

Love people. This is the greatest of all things. We must love in freedom and responsibility – not in guilt or manipulation.

Sitting in the Senate as an independent senator, the art of disagreeing agreeably serves me well.

Lucy Gichuhi is the independent senator for SA.

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OPINION

FEBRUARY 2018

15

Lessons from self-help land Michael Jensen on how to manage what we care about

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We feel trapped by the demands that are pressing in upon us from all sides, unable to declutter our timetables, our homes, and even our heads.” whole book (despite the stream of profanities!). We make them the measure of our self-worth. Many of us overidentify with our emotions – which, as Manson argues, means that we justify everything on the basis of them. But, as he says: “Decision-making based on emotional intuition, without the aid of reason to keep it in line, pretty much always sucks” (p. 35).

Emotions don’t last, because the chemical states in our bodies that give us those emotions don’t last.

That means that happiness is only ever something we have fleetingly.

Which means that we will always be chasing the next thing that we think will bring us happiness.

We are better off realising that ultimate happiness, complete fulfillment, and an end to suffering are, humanly speaking, out of reach.

“

There’s one thing that I think Christians do find very difficult.

And that is: we are those who are supposed to care.

We are told not to refrain from love, but to love expansively.”

Happiness, says Manson, requires struggle. We need to fail.

We need to consider the process of achieving a goal, not just the desirable goal. Do you want a great relationship? Then you need to be willing to go through the painful process of confronting the truth and having the awkward conversations. You want to be fit? You need to embrace the gym. And so on. What Manson writes is actually not new. He draws on ancient teaching, like the teaching of Buddha and the Stoic philosophers. Not giving a f**k is not about not caring about anything. It is about choosing to care for the right things. I think there is much that is wise here, and in part an antidote to soul-pain of contemporary life.

You aren’t special. Feelings are fleeting. Failure is good. Suffering is valuable. But Manson’s lifephilosophy also is familiar to readers of the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. From the Teacher, we learn that the things we dedicate ourselves to pass like the morning mist. Our lives are often filled with frustration and sorrow; and pleasure, when pursued, is like a cul-de-sac. We are forgettable and easily forgotten. Everything that so occupies us now will pass away. Learning these truths is, paradoxically, the path to being satisfied with what we do have.

But there’s a theological edge to Ecclesiastes that is missing from Manson, Buddha and the Stoics.

While all of these writers are refreshingly realistic about death, in Ecclesiastes death is not the end in itself. Death opens us up to the judgment of God, who places the limits on our existence. This, says Ecclesiastes, “is the conclusion of the matter: fear God and keep his commandments, for this is duty of humankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment” (12:13-14). This means that there is a significance to what we do, since God will judge it. What we do in life more than “echoes in eternity” (to quote the Stoic philosophy of the movie Gladiator). It is remembered by our maker. It is not we who give meaning to things.

Rather we submit to the meaning that God gives to things.

We are in one sense “special” since God made us in his image and Christ laid down his life for us. But this is never to lead to a sense of entitlement, since the model we have of Christ teaches us to give up our entitlements.

When Jesus rebuked James and John – who were after the best seats at the table in Jesus’

kingdom – he overturned the notion that anything in the Christian life could look like the personal exceptionalism of our contemporaries.

But there’s one thing that I think Christians do find very difficult. And that is: we are those who are supposed to care. We are told not to refrain from love, but to love expansively. And I think we need to think more carefully about this, because we tend to carry the burden of caring about everything and everyone. We are not to be uncaring about the suffering of the innocent, or the injustice that blights our world, or the inequalities in our own neighbourhoods. We can’t walk around with a “don’t give a f**k” attitude, because plainly, we are supposed to. Aren’t we?

Manson’s response would be “caring that much is killing you, and so you need to be selective.”

That’s wise. But Christians have another way to manage caring.

When we recognise that we serve a God who is both sovereign and loving, we know that we don’t have to be sovereignly loving. God has his eye on what we don’t. We don’t have to bear the burden of the lost world on our shoulders, since he has it in hand. We can cast all our anxieties on him, since he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). And this actually liberates us to join with him in his work to transform the world and to experience his joy, even amidst many trials.

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

pixabay / Myriams-Fotos

Even though the US Declaration of Independence says that human beings should be free to give themselves to “the pursuit of happiness,” it turns out that happiness may not be a goal worth pursuing.

That’s at least according to a spate of recent books that are crowding the self-help shelves in our bookshops and turning into best sellers.

This is going to be an awkward article to write for Eternity, because the title of more than one of these books contains words that don’t as a rule appear in these pages. I am talking about Mark Manson’s book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F **k, Sarah Knight’s book The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F **k, and Fabrice Midal’s book The French Art of Not Giving a F*ck.

The in-yourface titles are unmissable and very successful marketing. It’s hard to miss them in the bookshop!

But they also tap into a sort of repressed anger and anxiety in potential readers – an emotional cluster that is part of the zeitgeist.

We feel trapped by the demands that are pressing in upon us from all sides, unable to declutter our timetables, our homes, and even our heads. So many things worry us: Will my daughter get a job?

Will it turn out that I’ve worn the wrong thing today – gone too informal when I should have put on a tie? What if I don’t get the best deal with the phone company? What if that person goes uncorrected on Twitter?

It is hard to separate out the important from the trivial. Our emotional selves aren’t wise in what they choose to care about. I can lay awake at night worrying about my friend’s cancer; or I can toss and turn fretting about what to have for breakfast. (Or is this just me?)

So what’s to be done? What is the new life philosophy that is being suggested by these books? I thought I’d dig down into just one of these, and see.

Mark Manson’s book The Subtle Art of … is a confronting read, especially if you don’t like the F-word. But it is also personally confronting. This is not fluff y self-help. It’s direct and at points brutal. We need to understand some pretty blunt truths. For example, you are not special.

What! That’s right. Manson challenges one of the dogmas of our age, namely, that each of us is special and has a special calling in life. From about the 1970s on, parents and teachers were told to concentrate on building the

precious self-esteem of the children in their care. Christians even got in on the act, as Manson notes: “Pastors and ministers told their congregations that they were each uniquely special in God’s eyes, and were destined to excel and not be average” (p. 43).

The trouble with this is obvious.

First of all, it isn’t true. Secondly, it is a very damaging philosophy.

You are not exceptional. And especially, you are not entitled to a happy and prosperous life without doing what it takes in terms of hard work and sacrifice. And even then, you are not entitled to it.

I encounter this sense of entitlement and deluded self-belief all the time, in grown-ups who should know better. There are people I’ve met who are in their mid-40s who are still chasing the dream of an easy but wealthy and famous life, but who don’t appear to be doing anything much at all.

As Manson says: “People who feel entitled view every occurrence in their life as either an affirmation of, or a threat to, their own greatness.”

What Manson shows is that it’s our emphasis on feeling special and good about ourselves. It makes us unable to actually look at the negative parts of our character and improve on them, because we have been educated to deny that they are actually there.

This has also led to the alarming lack of resilience amongst a generation of students, who can’t bear to read books that they may deem offensive. If we measure everything by how it makes us feel, then when we encounter a view that upsets us, we start to act as if our human rights have been denied.

Emotions, says Manson, are overrated. This may be the most “blasphemous” thing he says in the

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FEBRUARY 2018

Greg Clarke on the best win of all It does feel good to win. There’s no denying it. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but even winning a coin toss against one’s own pre-schooler gives one a bit of a lift. Or is that just me?

I don’t think it is just me; humans are in fact designed to strive to win. Whether it is clambering over your siblings to get the preferred seat at the dinner table, or improving your spelling, or becoming the biggest encourager in the church, we like to strive to be “the best.”

So are these instincts aspects of our corrupted nature? Or are they part of the image in which God created us? The answer is a bit of both, but we are often not very honest about it. Since humility is such an honourable Christian virtue, we tend to emphasise our

anti-competitiveness when we talk about the issue. Let the last be first, and the first, last, we say. “Oh no, you go first. No, you.”

But we still behave most of the time in order to win. We still strive to improve our skills, give advantages to our family members, reign supreme in debates, be first car out of the traffic lights. We “run to obtain the prize,” as the apostle Paul writes. We’re competitive types.

Is this misguided? Parts of the Bible’s teaching are very clear that greed is not good, and placing your confidence in wealth or your own abilities is a road to ruin. Striving to “bigger and bigger”, as the Lorax would say, leads to the Rich Fool’s dilemma: it doesn’t stave off mortality. It can also be a major stumbling block to loving your neighbour.

But striving and competing have their place: overcoming the world, conquering sin, striving for godliness, pressing on towards perfection, are all virtuous Christian behaviours. Winning is fine; rivalry is the thing to which the Bible objects. Crushing others for your own benefit is not on, but winning is fine. It’s complicated.

And it’s even more complicated when we think about the ways you can win in life. So much of it does seem like “luck.” From the genetics lottery, to the people you stumble

across, to being the recipient of the random door prize. It’s why competitions of chance are so attractive to us.

I asked a bunch of Facebook friends whether they knew someone who had won a major prize in a competition. Many people did (I didn’t, so now I’m wondering why!). I asked how the win had affected the winners’

“

Winning is an instance of grace .”

lives. I expected a lot of people to tell stories of grief, along the lines of, “he won the Lotto, but lost his wife and family” or “he thought the prize would make him happy, but it just increased his misery.” But that just didn’t happen.

Most people conveyed delightful stories of people who had enjoyed wonderful overseas holidays, paid off debts, given money to needy friends, or found a new hobby as the result of an unexpected win.

The emotional landscape ran from happy to elated. Nary a word of woe among them.

Winning felt good.

Of course, gambling is a

profound social illness, and this article is not promoting it. Rather, I’m noticing how thrilling it is to win, how happy it makes us feel, and how it lifts us out of the ordinary grind to imagine a life more worth living. Especially when it is unexpected. And I think I know why: it’s grace. Winning is an instance of grace. Whether you won the University Medal in Medicine after years and years of intense study and sacrifice, or you won a car in a guessing competition, both are instances of grace. The medal came your way because you were given by God the abilities required to learn, concentrate and persevere. The car came your way because, well, providence and grace – that’s what “luck” is to a theist.

And this sense of grace is what we are all hoping for. Rather than the incremental gains of labour and toil, we are all hoping for the grand, elevating, wondrous life.

The unexpected but dreamedof happiness, comfort and fun.

We are longing for the heavenly realms, where life is better and good things happen and the limitations of who we are and where we come from are tossed aside in favour of greatness.

There is nothing wrong with this. It is what we were made for.

And it’s what the gospel of Jesus provides. Salvation in Christ

wikipedia / Witty lama

Take the win with grace

A university medal award for outstanding academic performance. gives us access to life in all of its fullness. For some of us, that might commence in the here and now. We may experience the grace of God in loving family lives, in our working success, our well-being and well-offness, or in our aesthetic satisfaction. But for all believers, we are guaranteed to experience this grace as we head unstoppably into the new creation, where an everlasting sense of that winning feeling will prevail. All because of the creating and redeeming God’s grace towards us.

It’s why the concept of inheritance works so well to explain what a Christian has received. We are accepted into the inner family circle of God, such that we inherit everything that belongs to that family. It’s all ours – we’ve won it all – not because we deserved it, but because God acts towards us with grace.

An inheritance that will never diminish, never end, never be anything other than delightful.

What a win.

Greg Clarke is CEO of Bible Society Australia.

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