Eternity News - Issue 96 - October 2018

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Number 96, October 2018 ISSN 1837-8447

Brought to you by the Bible Society

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I’m begging you please pray for rain...

pleads 17 year old Skye from Wyandra, QLD

Photo: Tricia Agar

Three I was a views of slave to ScoMo alcohol

When our heroes fail

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NEWS

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Obadiah Slope LEMON AND LIME: Here’s a great explanation of faith and works from Steve Ellis, from “10 minutes to shape your day”, Bible reflections published to get Obadiah’s home church, St James, Croydon, Sydney into better Bible reading. “I have two citrus trees in my backyard.

One is a kaffir lime and the other is a lemon tree. The labels on the trees are long gone, so how do I know which is which? I know by whether each one produces lemons or limes. When my lemon tree produces lemons, it does not from that point on become a lemon tree; rather, the lemons show that it was a lemon tree all along. In the same way our good works don’t make us a Christian.”

OCTOBER 2018

‘Do we stay in?’ Uniting Church evangelicals ask

Opinion 11-16

Quotable Lucy Gichuhi on party turmoil

TEEN SPIRIT: Good news can come from anywhere – at least things Obadiah think are good news. The generally secular Conversation site reports the “AGZ” study of 1,200 teens that found 6 “Spirituality types”. The “This-worldly” group at 20% are the atheists. The Religiously committed group was 17% - larger than pessimists might believe. And the groups in between –“seekers” for example who self describe as religious are definitely not closed to faith. Good news? Obadiah thinks so. www. eternitynews.com.au/conversation

“I learnt that, as Christians, we are to put God above all else. ” Page 14 ACC Facebook

NEW RELIGION: thanks Google and me.me

In Depth 5-9 Bible Society 10

GLASS HOUSES: Was it only my imagination? First time I read a Sydney Morning Herald story the headline was “Bert and Ernie are not gay” but a couple of hours later it read “Sesame Street Twitter confirms Bert and Ernie are a gay couple.” Company says no, one writer says yes. All it proves is that the Australian parliament is not the only muppet show.

LOUD: There’s been some debate online after Michael Raiter, who heads up a ministry to help preachers, raised the question of whether loud worship bands stifle congregational singing. Covering a meeting of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations – a conservative group in the Uniting Church (UCA) – Obadiah could not avoid noticing that the band was quite loud but they were drowned out by the crowd’s loud singing.

Obadiah thinks the Methodist roots of the UCA might explain things.

News 2-3

The Assembly of Confessing Congregations met at Wesley Church, Sydney.

JOHN SANDEMAN The Uniting Church in Australia is now using two marriage rites that reflect “two equal and distinct views on marriage to honour the diversity of Christian belief among its members.” The process of making that work – or discovering it will be difficult – has begun with local churches deciding how the decision to adopt two forms of marriage affects them.

The conservative lobby group within the UCA known as the Assembly of Confessing Congregations (ACC) has announced that it “offers to congregations the role of a replacement assembly in the life of its confessing congregations.”

This largely symbolic act of protest targets the UCA’s National Assembly, which is the official peak decision-making body of the denomination.

Referring to proposals discussed at the ACC meeting held at Wesley Mission in Sydney, a pastoral letter from the UCA President Deidre Palmer states, “In recent days there has been some public commentary made about the possible creation of alternative conciliar and related structures within and outside the Uniting Church in Australia.

“I am concerned that members and those in specified ministry who adopt and/or subscribe to these statements, inadvertently or otherwise, will place themselves outside the church’s formal governance structures.”

If any congregation was to decide to leave the UCA, some other church leaders have offered to provide a place of refuge.

Eternity understands that none of these leaders are actively seeking out UCA contacts to defect.

“This is not a time for gloating,” Kamal Weerakoon, NSW Presbyterian Moderator, has written in their official magazine, Pulse. “This is a time for grief, compassion, and prayer. This is not a time to merely criticise denominations and institutions.

It is a time to care for the people who make up those denominations and institutions. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, shed his precious blood for them.”

Crucially he adds, “if a Uniting congregation leave, or are forced out of, their church property for holding traditional view of sex and marriage, please host them on your property if you can.”

The Anglican Bishop of Tasmania, Richard Condie tells Eternity, “We are already doing

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that with a Korean group that left a congregation that meets in a Uniting Church in Hobart.

The new group now meets in an Anglican Church building. We would of course welcome anyone else who needed to find a home.”

His colleague, Rick Lewers, Bishop of Armidale, says he would encourage his local church ministers and wardens (in charge of properties) to make any refugee congregations welcome.

Sydney’s Anglican Archbishop Glenn Davies has a more diplomatic response, critical of the UCA but avoiding any hint of suggesting congregations should leave. “The decisions of the Uniting Church National Assembly should be of grave concern to faithful Christians of all denominations.

“On my behalf, Bishop Michael Stead has been in discussions with the leaders of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations and others.

“We urge them to stand firm in the face of a departure from the doctrine of Christ and compromise with the spirit of the world by the Synod of the Uniting Church.

“They have our support and our prayers as they consider how best to continue faithfully proclaiming the gospel together.”

Hillsong goes solo Hillsong Church has become an official denomination withdrawing from the Australian Christian Churches (ACC).

In a letter addressed to the ACC network, Hillsong Senior Pastor Brian Houston announced the “global nature” of Hillsong Church had prompted the decision.

“We are now registered by the Australian Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages, as a recognised denomination with the ability to credential pastors in our own right,” Houston wrote.

“Two thirds of the people attending Hillsong Church each weekend live in countries beyond Australia. We have pastoral staff in 24 nations around the world, representing 123 campuses and locations, with 263 different church services on any given weekend. We consider it to be “One house, with many rooms.”

Wayne Alcorn, President of the Australian Christian Churches (ACC) has emailed its pastors saying: “Recently Hillsong Church advised its desire for a change in its relationship with the ACC. In a way, this can be likened to a child who has grown up and now has a larger life outside the family home.”

NEWS

OCTOBER 2018

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Jesus instead of footy REBECCA ABBOTT

Awakening Australia is aiming for 30,000 at its evangelistic event. for nationwide prayer “for the salvation of our families, friends and our country.” They are also inviting people to join in three days of street evangelism just prior to the event, where they will be handing out free tickets.

While Awakening Australia will feature Senior Leader of Bethel Church, Bill Johnson, as well as Bethel Music, Hagen is quick to stress it is not a Bethel event. In fact, he says Bethel is just one of “hundreds of support churches”, which also include the Salvation Army, ACC Victoria, several C3 churches, Victory Life Centre in Perth, Dayspring in Sydney and YWAM. He also notes the denominational diversity of other

Kris Egan

awakeningeurope.com

There are over 30,000 people packed into a stadium, all shouting in a deafening roar. But they are not at a footy final. Instead, this is an evangelistic event, and the crowd – including Christians and those who don’t yet believe – are chanting the name of Jesus.

This is, quite literally, the dream of Awakening Australia for their event at Marvel (formerly Etihad) Stadium on November 16–18 in Melbourne.

Associate Director of Awakening Australia, Daniel Hagen, explains that this “very clear, significant, impacting dream” belonged to Ben Fitzgerald, a former pastor at Bethel Church, California, and now leader of the Awakening movement.

After committing the dream to prayer – and on the back of several Awakening events in Europe over the past three years – Hagen and Fitzgerald (who are both Aussies) decided to bring the event Down Under. So far, over 10,000 people have booked for the three-day event, and Hagen is confident they will exceed 30,000 registrations over the next month. In particular, he is hoping that many people who don’t know Jesus will take up the thousands of free tickets on offer to them.

Reminiscent of Billy Graham crusades, the overall mandate of Awakening Australia is to win “100,000 souls in 2018”. In order to achieve this, they are calling

speakers, including C3’s Phil Pringle and Darlene and Mark Zschech from HopeUC. “We’re a ministry that is really there to serve local churches,” says Hagen. “The Awakening Australia event is an ecumenical evangelistic gathering. So we want to work with all different churches and denominations, with the one goal of winning souls and seeing them plugged into local churches. And also to see Christians strengthened and encouraged, and inspired to reach their unsaved family and friends and work colleagues – and really to see God move in our nation.”

But not all Australian Christians are embracing the event. In a Gospel Coalition article, Stephen Tan – pastor at Regeneration Church in Melbourne – describes it as “part of a hyper-charismatic ‘Signs and Wonders’ movement with its epicentre at Bethel Church”. Expressing his concern that the event promotes false teaching that compromises the gospel, Tan goes on to say it “has the potential to cause much confusion and spiritual damage to thousands of unsuspecting Australians”.

Yet, according to Hagen, this may not be the only Awakening event in our nation. While there’s nothing locked in yet, he says: “We’ve had a lot of interest nationally, in other capital cities too … I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more Awakening Australia events in the future.”

Christian Studies teacher Emily Liddell engages Abbotsleigh students.

CPX in school REBECCA ABBOTT High school students across Australia are engaging with the real-life history of the Bible by viewing clips from the For the Love of God documentary released by the Centre for Public Christianity (CPX). It has been screened in around 150 cinemas nationally, with almost 17,500 tickets sold.

“From the very early stages of making this documentary, we wanted to work hard at making it accessible and relevant for high school students, explains Anna Grummit, CPX’s Youth Editor.

The resources are available to download for free (www. publicchristianity.org/ftlogresources). They include a suite of short video segments from the doco (5-10 minutes in length) that

link with themed lessons plans.

One of the teachers using the school resources is Emily Liddell, the Christian Studies and Year 7 coordinator at Abbotsleigh, an Anglican school for girls on Sydney’s North Shore. Liddell has been using the documentary clips in her own Christian Studies and Studies of Religion classes. “I really appreciate that they ground the Christian faith in history.”

The documentary has also been well received at Carey Baptist College in south-west Perth, where the majority of students are not from Christian families. Jules Birt, the college’s head of Beliefs and Values, says.

“It gives us real world, real history examples as a springboard into a discussion about the teachings of Jesus.”

OCTOBER 2018

E CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY SPONSORED PAGE 4

What are Christians doing in politics?

Christianity in general does not have the comfortable presumed privileged place of respect that it used to. The traditional theological position of staying clear of both money (the love of which is the root of ‘all’ evil) and politics (the evil of which is the root of all money) both seemed to serve us well – but is it time for Christians to engage more in democratic political process?

The money question is always the most misinterpreted verse (it was the LOVE of money which is the root of MUCH (not all) evil), which the Pentecostals have turned on its head and shown that correctly managed, money is the root of much flourishing. So, if we are now (sort of) OK with money (try doing anything without it) what now then forpPolitics? I could be smug and say try doing anything without it, but that is too simplistic. If I told you there were deliberate moves by both major parties to remove “place of worship zoning” (the traditional Local Council zoning which has allowed churches to be built) and that only the influence of the Christian Democratic Party (CDP) inside Parliament preserved our (your) ability to plant churches, what would you say then?

With the drift of society away from church (backed up by ABS statistics), the need for direct representation is now a matter of urgency. During the 2016 Election I spoke at a number of church denominations including Catholic, Uniting, Coptic, Orthodox, and Advertisement

Craig Hall State Director CDP outside NSW Parliament after CDP Balance of Power votes secured defeat of proposed unregulated abortion Bill.

Pentecostal. Churches are increasingly inviting CDP to attend and speak on what we do.

But some may ask: “Why is government of such poor character and government policy so bad?”

The simple answer is because there are so few Christians in government. With Christians giving politics a wide berth it means we are ipso facto leaving it to the non-believers and hoping those non-believers will somehow gain a Godly special revelation and know what kingdom values to implement!

My mission and purpose for

the Christian Democratic Party is getting Christians elected to government and bringing a Christian influence into government policy, and the name of Jesus into Parliament House. Only direct representation will protect the church and revitalise the Christian roots of this nation. There is biblical support for Christians in (politics) government - Romans 13:1-7 “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God … for they

are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing”. The Old Testament too supports it: “For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders” (Isaiah 9:6).

These verses challenge the most common myths and objections: 1) no Christians in politics, and 2) (politics) government is not in the Bible.

Many priests and Ministers and pastors expressed to me that “the church has been caught sleeping” and caught off guard by a tide of anti-church societal waves. It was always oxymoronic to claim Christians should stay clear of politics, as it needs to be remembered that historically and until very recently the church was the government. Just being Christian is a political statement and Saint Paul certainly knew how political it was and Christ’s crucifixion was as political as it gets. Our vote is a power we casually give away when we vote haphazardly, or not at all.

My friend, an elected politician of 15 years, was dumped by his major party four weeks out from an election and despaired his situation was politically hopeless, but I offered to bring a team from my connect Bible group. So, this atheist/agnostic from a Communist leaning family went into campaign mode with a team of 15 Christians.

He won by three votes (every vote counts). It was such an extraordinary political win from hopelessness that he conceded

it could only have been God that made it happen – he is now a Christian. Paul was willing to be all things to all people, to win some; are we willing to allow God to use even politics to win some to Christ?

A Christian PM is a blessing, yet generally individual Christians struggle in a secular party system.

We need to reflect upon the fact that the erosion of Christian values has occurred under the policy decisions of the two major parties, and by voting for the status quo Christians are inadvertently voting themselves out of existence. Both major political parties began via minor party coalitions and have drifted from the Christian base from whence they came. A recent by-election saw 40% vote for minor parties, the majors are elected on just 30% of the vote – I see a third party on the horizon. The CDPs next push is for a Religious Freedom legislation Bill in NSW. God’s gold was always in the ground (Hag 2:8) but mostly pagans were the only ones willing to pick it up. Now Christians are more willing to pick up God’s gold and use it for Kingdom purposes, how about God’s government system which we call political democracy?

Craig L Hall is the State Director and National Director Federal Secretariat of the Christian Democratic Party. He has a Bachelor of Economics, M. Arts & Master of Research, and is completing a PhD in early Christianity.

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Saved from alcohol Naomi Reed page 8

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And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

(Luke 24:27).

Pxhere

How Jesus holds the Bible together The Bible is a library of books but it has one big plotline JOHN SANDEMAN The Bible tells us one big story, and Jesus is at the centre of it. Is that a statement of the obvious to you?

Why would Eternity risk boring you with wonderful but old news?

The idea that the Bible is one big story is a natural thought for many Christians, today. But in fact we are standing on the shoulders of giants. And many of the giants are Australians. Last month saw the passing of Donald Robinson a Bible scholar, and later an Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, who provided the thinking behind the rebirth of this way of thinking behind the Bible.

A rebirth, because Jesus himself on the road to Emmaus explained the idea that the Scriptures were a coherent whole, pointing to himself. “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Christian truth is often rediscovered.

Graeme Goldsworthy who was to become the main populariser of Robinson’s thinking described “a bolt of lightning” from Robinson one day at Sydney’s Moore Theological College in a piece for the Gospel Coalition (www. au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/ remembering-donald-robinson).

“Towards the end of our course a member of our OT class posed

the question of how “it all hangs together.” It took Robbie about ninety seconds to outline his concept of the structure of biblical revelation, and he himself was to repeat it thus in a lecture as three stages in the revelation of God’s kingdom: ‘First, the historical experiences of the fulfilment of God’s promises to Abraham up to the kingdom of David’s son in the land of inheritance; second, the projection of this fulfilment into the future day of the Lord, by the prophets, during the period of decline, fall, exile and return; third, the true fulfilment in Christ.’

I took this up as a foundational way of conceiving of the unity of biblical revelation with its central focus on the person and work of Christ.”

With this one comment, Robinson gave Goldsworthy a lifelong mission, to make the big picture view of the Bible accessible to all.

Goldsworthy’s According to Plan was the first in a series of books that influenced evangelical Christians across the world.

Decades later they still appear in “must read” lists.

“They re-emphasised the storyline of the whole Bible from beginning to end, and the unfolding plan of God’s salvation – and shaped the way you read every part of the Bible in light of the rest,” Ed Loane, lecturer in

Doctrine and Church History at Moore Theological College tells Eternity.

“I don’t think [this] was strongly emphasised beforehand. Preaching earlier on was just you preach from a text – say, I’ll preach on Jeremiah 31:31 – just this one text and that was it. You springboard off from there.

“Post the Robinson–Goldsworthy sort of thing, people preached from passages in the light of where they sat in their book, and in the light of where they sat in the canon [the whole Bible].”

Reading the Bible in this way has become known as “biblical theology,” named after a course Robinson ran at Moore College in the fifties and sixties and the channel for his thinking. “Biblical theology” does not simply refer to theology that reflects the truth of Scripture and is therefore “biblical.” Rather it refers to the theology that emphasises the storyline of the Bible, God’s saving plan becoming progressively clearer and fully revealed in Christ.

Biblical theology gives confidence to Christians who might have thought that the Bible is a collection of loosely related books, that they have a common theme and form a coherent whole.

The storyline of God’s saving plan, revealed through progressive revelations is the narrative arc that holds the Bible together.

It is a story about our Creator, our rejection of his rule and the Saviour who comes to rescue us.

A systematic theologian will gather everything the Bible has to say topic by topic, and historic theology studies what Christians have said through the centuries.

But biblical theology follows the storyline of the Bible, and for that reason is closer to the everyday Christian’s interaction with Scripture. Grasping the plot line of Scripture has helped generations of Christians to read it.

“Donald Robinson grasped and championed the fact that the Bible would attest to its own power and meaning,” reflects Greg Clarke, CEO of Bible Society Australia.

“This sounds convoluted at first, but he demonstrated how beautiful it is. Words written down by men may be God’s word written.

God would communicate with humanity by those words. It’s a marvellous thing to believe.

“He also saw the unfolding character of this Bible: it had to be treated as a curated collection of books to be understood by tradition and interpretation, the latter being informed by and informing the former. Even the oral traditions which became the Gospels were already ‘in accordance with the Scriptures, ’ that is the existing written Hebrew Scriptures. He knew the Bible needed to be taken as

a whole. And he taught that the whole needed to be rightly put together to discern its meaning.”

This view of the Bible as one big narrative, reflected for example in the Bible Society calling its Bible for schools “The Big Rescue,” is not universally held.

Some more liberal traditions for example will suggest the Bible contains competing and contradictory narratives, reflecting the views of differing factions in Israel’s history. Other Christians will simply take each piece of Scripture as they find it, sometimes verse by verse, as many have done over the centuries But for many Christians, “biblical theology” and the big picture view of Scripture has been a blessing. It has outgrown its Australian beginnings.

British evangelicals such as Vaughan Roberts (whose God’s Big Picture is a very readable introduction to biblical theology), and key American evangelical networks such as Crossway that publishes the ESV Bible have joined in the spread of this Bible reading approach.

“Whenever we have evangelical visitors from America, they continue to say how deeply indebted they are,” Loane tells Eternity. He gives Mark Dever (of Capitol Hill Baptist, Washington), and Peter Lillback, the President continued page 6

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from page 5 of Westminster Philadelphia, as examples. “Kevin Vanhoozer (of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a key author) said the writings of Goldsworthy were formative of his own thinking and theology.

“You kind of think ‘we are a little backwater at the end of the world,’ but it has had a big impact on very significant theologians around the world. That has been the consistent testimony.”

Australians don’t get much practice at honouring the contribution of our Christian thinkers to world Christianity.

Biblical theology is one key area where we should.

“The approach to biblical theology that Donald Robinson was so instrumental in developing at Moore College in the 1950s and 1960s, and which others like Graeme Goldsworthy and Vaughan Roberts have helped to spread around the world in the decades since, is something for which we give profound thanks to God,” Mark Thompson, principal of Moore College tells Eternity.

“Biblical theology remains central to the entire curriculum at Moore College, from biblical studies and the study of Christian doctrine, to the grounding and development of skills in teaching the Bible and properly applying it to life and mission in the world while we await the Lord’s return.

Signature commitments like our passion for evangelism and for learning in the context of a learning community all arise from what we have learned from biblical theology.”

Fixing Canberra’s woman issue KYLIE BEACH Prime Minister Scott Morrison may be facing a crisis of female leadership in the Liberal Party, but there was no lack of female leadership in Canberra today. A coalition of key female Christian leaders visited the nation’s capital for meetings with Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and MPs from both political parties.

The historic visit brought together leaders from different denominations and organisations.

More importantly, the delegation put the concerns of Australian Christian women squarely on the record, as they met with Dutton, Senator Lucy Gichuhi, Member for Rankin Jim Chalmers and other federal politicians, expressing gratitude to the political leaders for their public service, and urging them to use their role for good.

CEO of Anglican Deaconess Ministries, Kate Harrison Brennan was part of the delegation. She explained that the leadership delegation was there about more than women’s rights.

“We see this as an opportunity to encourage our female representatives for their leadership but also to keep crucial justice issues – like poverty elimination and refugees – on their agenda.”

The delegation began the day with the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship, before meeting with representatives from both of the major parties, urging them to support the overseas aid budget

Catherine Thambiratnam, Sue Irwin, Vikki Howorth, Leigh Ramsey, Donna Crouch, Eloise Wellings, Julie Campbell and Kate Harrison Brennan. which provides for some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable families. Harrison Brennan said they encouraged representatives to use the foreign aid budget to empower girls, because it lifts whole communities.

“We shared our heart for the poor and to see Australia be a generous country,” Harrison Brennan explained.

With only 60 days to go until Universal Children’s Day, the group also advocated for the release of children and their families from Nauru. They joined their voices to those of more over 100,000 Australians who have called for kids to be brought to Australia from Nauru as part of the #KidsOffNauru campaign.

Harrison Brennan said the group’s focus was to communicate the perspectives of their church

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OCTOBER 2018

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communities about various issues, as well as their centrality within the Christian faith (as evident in Jesus’ gospel and God’s character). She described it as “a privilege” to meet with parliamentary leaders and to encourage them because “they need support too.”

The coalition included Donna Crouch (Hillsong Community Engagement), Eloise Wellings (Olympic Games runner and Founder of Love Mercy NGO), Colonel Julie Campbell (Salvation Army National Advocate for Gender Equity), Leigh Ramsey (Senior Pastor, Citipointe Church, Brisbane), Catherine Thambiratnam (Hillsong Church Aid and Development), Sue Irwin (Senior Pastor, The Grainery Church, Newcastle), Vikki Howorth (Social Justice Pastor, Seaforth Baptist Church, Sydney), and Kate

Harrison Brennan (CEO, Anglican Deaconess Ministries).

“This feels like a significant moment,” said 2016 Olympic finalist Eloise Wellings, who was part of the delegation.

“Too often, the church is known for its internal disagreements that become public, but to have women leaders joining together from across the denominational spectrum shows a significant act of unity and one that we hope will be an encouragement to the government and opposition.”

The trip was facilitated by Micah Australia Executive Director Tim Costello, who saw it as a “unique moment both to address cultural divisions and to unite women leaders who are influencing the country as Christians of influence.”

Costello has been something of an unofficial spokesperson for all Australian Christians for the last decade, showing himself willing to share his knowledge with others who are engaging with political decision-makers several times.

“This visit brings representatives across the church together to advocate for some of the most vulnerable citizens in the world by sharing our vision for a more generous and fair Australia,” Costello said.

Costello will return to Canberra later this year to lead Micah’s annual conference.

Declaration of interest: Kate Harrison Brennan is a board member of Bible Society Australia, publisher of Eternity.

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I am begging you: please pray for rain KALEY PAYNE

Tricia Agar

From her seat in a crowded hall on the Gold Coast, Skye Agar fills out a response form. She’s at a series of talks called “Masterclass,” run by Bible Society to encourage Christian high school students to continue in the faith and help them with some of the big issues they face at school.

But Skye has a bigger issue than those you might find at school. In a few weeks’ time, she’ll travel 1000 kilometres and over 12 hours back home to her family’s property in Wyandra, in outback south-west Queensland. And she knows what she’ll find there: drought.

Overcome with emotion, Skye writes a heartfelt plea on the back of the response form, hoping someone - anyone - might read it.

It’s a plea for prayer.

“G’day, my name is Skye. I am writing to ask you to pray for rain.

We farmers and graziers are in desperate need of rain,” she wrote.

“We have been in drought for six years and we are struggling very badly. We don’t usually ask for help much, but as a grazier’s daughter – my family have sheep and cattle – and seeing my parents suffer every day, seeing their livestock die from hunger is very depressing.

“I’m begging you, please pray.”

Back at the Bible Society offices, someone read Skye’s note and decided more people needed to hear her story. When I speak to Skye she’s back at her boarding school in Toowoomba. She’s

Skye Agar on her family’s property in southwest Queensland. been there for five years, and at age 17, this year will be her last.

She’s thinking of becoming a hairdresser. But what she’d really like to do is to have a property of her own. “I like sheep,” she says.

She’s grateful for her time at boarding school. In a way, she says, it’s shielded her from a lot of the struggles her family has gone through. The last good rain that fell on the family’s property, called Barbara Plains, was in 2012. No rain changes everything.

“It’s heartbreaking to see your animals starving,” she says. “And all your work just disappearing.”

Skye’s mum, Tricia, knows how hard Skye works around the property when she’s home. All three of her daughters put in the hard yards to help out and always have. “Any kid that’s raised in the bush ... their lives have been marked by drought,” Tricia says.

“Skye’s been very marked by drought. Her life really centres around it. She doesn’t come home for school holidays to kick around and do nothing. She’s got to work.

She’s straight up and straight out on the property. And that’s not just her, that’s most kids in the bush.”

Tricia has opened a pop-up shop called ‘Bush Kids’ to promote life in the bush. Her Facebook page (@ bushkidphotos) has over 43,000 followers. Her own children have been helping on the property for as long as she can remember.

“Mustering, fencing, branding, drafting, weaning. I do a bit of this, bit of that,” says Skye. “The jobs change a lot in drought. We’re feeding the animals by hand.

Chopping down trees to feed to the livestock.”

Skye says her dad “cops it the most,” out there all day every day on the land, having to see the very

worst of the weather’s impact on the animals he’s doing everything in his power to protect.

“I’m trying to find the words to describe it for you, but sometimes there just are no words,” says Skye.

The 89,000 acre property that is Barbara Plains is “a sight to behold” when there’s been rain, says Skye.

“It really is beautiful.” She likes to spend time in the house paddock, where a blanket of little flowers pop up after the rain. But that hasn’t happened in a long time.

“It’s dust and dirt now,” says Skye.

For Tricia, a sixth generation grazier, and her husband Jeffrey, drought is a humbling experience.

Whether the rain will fall is entirely out of their control. Tricia says she doesn’t know what they’d do if they didn’t have faith. “The weather keeps you very grounded.

It keeps you very humble indeed.

And you just have to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, because goodness gracious you could soon go AWOL in this country if you don’t!”

The financial strain in drought is an enormous burden to carry.

Tricia says it’s the fodder costs – paying for extra feed for the animals – that “go through the roof.” They have more than 400 cattle and 3200 sheep to feed, but there’s no grass. Trucking in hay and cotton seed is very expensive. “It can certainly get you down,” says Tricia. It’s one of the things they pray for when they go to church. Well, “go” isn’t quite accurate. On Sundays, the

Agar family gather around a phone screen and teleconference in to “Church of the Outback.”

Run by the Church of Christ in Queensland, Church of the Outback is led by Alan Frankham.

It’s a weekly telephone church service, where families like the Agars phone in and share prayer points, sing together and listen to a Bible teaching. Tricia says they almost never see anyone from their church face-to-face – the distances are too great. Barbara Plains is almost 130 kilometres from Charleville, one of the larger towns in the southwest. “It probably sounds pretty lonely to cityfolk,” she says, laughing. “But we’re not lonely here. This is life for us.”

Skye says she wrote the plea for prayer on the back of her response form back at Masterclass because she’d heard about other farmers from New South Wales and their struggles in drought.

“I just knew exactly what they were going through. And it struck me that there might be still people who don’t know about the drought.

To know that people know and might be able to help and pray, it makes me so much more hopeful.”

Skye says the things she finds the most difficult in drought are “seeing the livestock so thin, the ground so bare and the sky just so blue. The sky needs to have clouds.”

But she holds close to a saying of her dad’s: “Every day is another day closer to rain.”

And that’s what the Agars pray for you. Will you pray, too?

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IN DEPTH

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OCTOBER 2018

‘I was a slave to alcohol’ NAOMI REED I first met Richard Driver Jakamarra on a hot, dusty day in Tennant Creek, Northern Territory.

We were introduced by a mutual friend and then we walked into the Australian Indigenous Ministries (AIM) building and sat down on the front pew, where it was a tiny bit cooler. I asked him about his childhood.

“I grew up in Phillip Creek,” said Richard slowly, “in an Aboriginal settlement run by the government.

I used to milk the goats and eat bush tucker. We all did – the yams that grew along the creek. And my father, he drove the truck. His country was out west – Jipiranpa, out Willowra way. And I went to preschool and grade 1 there. But there wasn’t much rain, so one day the government put us all in a big truck and they moved us to Warrabri. That’s where we used to follow the old people around.

“They showed us how to hunt for kangaroos, and how to find bush tucker – berries to eat. Sometimes we caught zebra finches. We ate them up. And they showed us how to track the goanna. But also in that time I heard about the Lord Jesus.

“I went to Sunday school when I was at Warrabri, and then I went to Christian Endeavour when I was a teenager. I used to lead the singing sometimes. It was good.

“After that, I left school when I was 14. Sometimes I got droving work on big cattle stations out east.

I used to ride the horses, and move the stock, with my mates. We’d sleep on swags and eat rations.

And then sometimes we got work up in Darwin, for the army. But then in 1967, everything changed.

Aboriginal people became citizens of Australia.

“I don’t know what we were before that, but in 1967 we became citizens of Australia. And that’s also when I started to drink alcohol.

“I turned away from the Lord because grog was available. I became an alcoholic. I knew that I was doing wrong things, and I’ve done wrong things in my life, but I couldn’t stop. I tried to give up the drink many times, in my own strength, but I couldn’t do it.

I was a slave to alcohol. I had jobs – droving and in the army – but I couldn’t keep them down. It was a big problem.

“And then one night I had a

Richard Driver Jakamarra shares his life story with Naomi Reed. drinking session and I was sleeping in my home. And someone came in through the window. He cut me with a knife around my neck. And when I came to, I was lying in the Alice Springs Hospital. They had taken me there in the Royal Flying Doctor aircraft. My wife Phyllis said there was blood everywhere.

And the doctor came to my bed and he said to me, ‘Richard, you are very lucky to be alive. If the knife had gone in another half an inch, you wouldn’t be here.’ And this sort of scared me; it frightened me.

“While I was lying there, all those things that I’d heard in Sunday school came flooding back to me. I knew about the Lord, and I knew what would have happened if I’d died. I was that far away from the Lord. But it was there that the Lord began to touch my life. He began to speak to me … I didn’t give my life to the Lord yet.

But it started. And then when I got home they invited me to the opening of the AIM building in Tennant Creek. And that’s when it happened … I went forward right here in this building and I gave my life to the Lord, and everything

changed from then – the grog, the work, everything.

“I had no desire to drink anymore, ever again. It was good.

“But then two years later, in 1986,” continued Richard, “I went blind … I had a brain tumour. I was only 36 years old. And Professor Fred Hollows, he took the brain tumour out, and I had a peace afterwards. But I thought, that’s it.

I’m blind. I can’t see anything. I’m no use to the Lord. I can’t preach anymore, so I’m no use to anyone.

It’s all over. That’s what I thought.

“But I didn’t know what was coming.” Richard paused and smiled. “In the hospital, a friend gave me some cassette tapes of the New Testament recorded by the Bible Society. I listened to them and I discovered I had a gift for memorising Scripture. So I began to memorise Romans and then I kept going. I memorised large chunks. I started sharing them at church and in small groups. And then I memorised even longer passages, and it helped people.

“And now I’ve been sharing the Bible like that at church for 32 years. In 1995, I was the speaker at the Katherine Christian

Convention. And in 2001, I was named the Tennant Creek ‘Citizen of the Year,’ for service to the Indigenous church.

“Prior to losing my sight, I used to help with the preaching, and I’d put notes on the paper, so I thought I would never be able to preach again. But the Lord proved me wrong. He gave me an amazing gift.

“From the beginning, my favourite Bible verse was Proverbs 3:5-6. It says, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.’

I first read that Bible verse after I lost my sight. It helped me more than anything. It helped me cope with the blindness. Lean not on your own understanding, it says.

“And there was one time I remember I was sharing with my friend and I was even thanking the Lord for my blindness. I know it is a very hard thing to do – to thank God for something you don’t like, but I knew I had to do it. And now I want to tell people about what the Lord can do in your life, if you give him the chance. Sometimes we feel

like we’re no more use to anyone … that it’s all over. Something has happened and it’s all over. But it’s not true; it isn’t over. If we let God work in our lives, he will. He keeps working. So keep on living for the Lord. Allow him to work in your life, and he will.”

We both smiled as Richard talked, and later that evening, as I said goodbye, I thanked him for the glimpse into his quiet, humble story, lived out in the red dust of central Australia. He wasn’t waving a big flag, saying “look at me.” He has just been looking to the Lord daily, and memorising Bible verses, and blessing his people, for decades.

It made me want to do the same.

This is an edited extract from Naomi Reed’s new book, Finding Faith – Inspiring conversion stories from around the world. (Authentic Media, UK.) Available online and in all good bookstores, such as Koorong.

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IN DEPTH

OCTOBER 2018

9

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Our most controversial Christian JOHN SANDEMAN Roger Corbett may be Australia’s most controversial Christian. He’s been a stunningly successful CEO and Chair of Woolworths, and chair of Fairfax too.

But it is his current role as chair of ALH (Australia Leisure and Hospitality) that draws a tremendous amount of extremely hostile criticism from fellow Christians.

That is because ALH is the largest pub chain in Australia with over 330 venues and, more to the point, 12,000 poker machines.

Fairfax media reported that in 2016 ALH pubs and clubs across Australia made an estimated $1.1 billion in net revenue from poker machines.

“Nationally, regular players’ typical poker expenditure amounted to roughly $228 million dollars over the year,” according to Australian Institute for Family Studies research in 2015.

“This equated to an estimated annual spend of $1,758 per regular poker player.”

Asked by Eternity if a Christian could run a gambling company, Tim Costello director of the Alliance for Pokie Reform and Executive Director of Micah Australia responds, “Well you’d have to ask that man that question.

My answer is ‘absolutely not.’

“Just as Christians needed to say, ‘well we treat our slaves well and we are kind to them, and we even preach the gospel …’ No! Slavery is wrong and a Christian could not, should not be owning another person. I personally believe that when we know that the devastation and addiction from pokies, particularly in the poorest postcodes with over 400 suicides a year – I do many of the funerals who suicide – I do not see how a prominent Christian can head a powerful pokies industry. For me it is unequivocal. I can’t see how a Christian can do that.”

In a letter to the editor published in The Sydney Morning Herald, Stephen Judd, who heads the independent Christian charity Hammondcare (but writing in a personal capacity), expressed a similar view but rather more pithily. “Roger Corbett, the chair of Woolworths subsidiary ALH, says it’s OK to have 12,000 pokies because they are legal. Using that moral compass, I guess we should stay tuned for Woollies to start running brothels.”

“Let’s call ‘marriage’, marriage.” Roger Corbett on the 7:30 Report in 2017 With such a long business career, it is hard to pick the best deal the companies led by Corbett ever made but the deals that formed ALH would have to be up there.

Here’s how The Sydney Morning Herald describes that deal: “At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney the then Woolworths boss Roger Corbett enjoyed a chance meeting with Bruce Mathieson, a Melbournebased pub baron who had been one of the first in the industry to recognise how much money could be made from the pokie machines that were then starting to spread through the nation’s local pubs.

“Corbett and Mathieson cut a deal and created a joint venture, Australian Leisure & Hospitality Group (ALH), to take over pub businesses in Queensland. ALH bought the Foster’s pub business, and in one move took over 131 pubs around the country.”

There is no doubt that Roger Corbett is one of this country’s most successful business executives. He was CEO of Woolworths from 1999 to 2006 which included setting up the ALH joint venture. He has been chair of two large companies – Woolworths and Fairfax – a former member of the Reserve Bank board, and sat on the board of Walmart, the USbased retailer that is the world’s largest company by revenue. In 2016 Corbett was appointed chair of ALH. He has also been a key player in

Christian circles. He is currently a Vice President of Crusaders, a schools ministry in NSW, ACT and WA, a former member of key committees of the Sydney Anglican Diocese and a former chair of the Shore School Council.

Corbett boldly declared he was supporting the “no” side in last year’s same-sex marriage postal survey, on the ABC’s 7.30 program.

“Jesus said that if you are ashamed of me one day I will be ashamed of you,” Corbett tells Eternity. “I am grateful to Jesus Christ that he is my Saviour and my Lord; I am in his hands.

“Well I have been involved in ALH since its origins. When the Woolworths board made the decision to join in partnership with Mathiesons in a small chain of hotels in Queensland and then later a national involvement, I was part of that board at that time.

“This has given me a unique opportunity, that is really afforded to no-one else, to be the chairman of this company and to use all my influence that I can possibly bring to make sure that in the delivery of those company’s services – serving liquor both on premises and off premises and also providing gambling services – that they are as responsible and as sensitive to the downside of both these products as they can possibly be.

Asked to specify what a patron would see different in an ALH pub, Corbett tells Eternity “I have

“

There is a great diff erence between being a rule maker and a player.”

Roger Corbett recently had the opportunity to sit down with all the regulators in Australia. And, being the biggest hotel company in Australia, the regulators look to ALH to set the standards. And many of them have a high regard for the standards ALH has achieved.

“For example we are the only hotel company right across Australia that has precommitment.

“Pre-commitment allows people to eliminate themselves totally from gambling, it enables them to pre-describe how much they will spend on gambling, or how long they will spend on gambling. This is the only chain in Australia that offers these services.

“We have trained counsellors in our gaming rooms to spot people who have problems in an endeavour to help them. We have chaplain arrangements with the

Salvation Army and others to support people who have a problem in this direction.”

Corbett draws a big distinction between his role as a business man, with fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders, and his critics’’ roles.

“There is a great difference between being a rule maker and a player. And I think some of the presentations of Costello, [former senator Nick] Xenophon and [MP Andrew] Wilkie and others are in the area of the rules. And if they want to change the rules and if the community wants to change the rules, well let the rules be changed.

But the attitude of the players – well they have to play within the existing rules.”

Eternity presses Corbett on whether he really is making a difference.

“First of all I ask myself two questions … I could always walk away from this. Would it make any difference if I walked away? Would it make it any better?

“The answer I think is ‘no.’ But do I make a difference by being there? I am absolutely confident that I do make a difference.

“One of the major reasons for me being there is to have influence and to give leadership in this direction.

“The community has voted that these services will be available.

That is not to us to control.

“My conclusion is that they [pokies] will be here for a long time yet. If it is not this form of gambling there will be another form of gambling. But we are absolutely responsible in delivering our services.”

The pokies issue has been heightened by the Tasmanian and South Australian elections, despite the declared anti-pokies parties losing each time. (In Tasmania, the ALP wanted to get rid of pokies, in SA the Nick Xenophon team wanted to cut them back drastically.)

“Massive amounts of pokies money actually buy an election,” Costello tells Eternity. “Spending ten-to-one for those parties that wanted to get rid of the pokies, they were out spent. So, it means that in NSW and Victoria with their elections, every journalist will be saying ‘Pokies in Australia – where we have 20 per cent of the world’s pokies – are our blind spot like guns are in America.’

“We all know about the NRA capturing politicians. We are now awake to the politician-capturing power of this money.”

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BIBLE @ WORK

A love of learning passed on to her children

“

Parveen attended women’s literacy classes run by Bible Society at her local church, like the one pictured above.

KALEY PAYNE As a young girl, Parveen woke every morning before the sun.

“Very early,” she says. “Before the cocks crow.” After her mother died, it was Parveen’s job to bring her father and brother breakfast as they worked in the cotton fields.

She made chapatis (bread) and walked the seven-kilometre round trip to the ploughing fields to bring them the food. When she left the house, it was still dark. When she got home, it was time to prepare lunch and walk again, this time in the scorching heat. Then dinner.

Parveen was forced by circumstance to grow up and take on the responsibility of running a household and feeding a family at a very young age. There was no time for school.

At 22, Parveen’s father arranged for her to be married to a man from a neighbouring village.

Parveen was lucky; her husband was kind. Like her father, her

husband was also a farmer, forced to leave school early to work in the fields. “A farmer’s son will be a farmer … no need to have higher studies,” said Parveen.

While education was not a priority for Parveen’s family, church most certainly was.

“My father did not ask us to go to the fields on Sunday, but strongly took us to the church,” she says.

But it was at church where Parveen discovered a longing for literacy. She wanted to hear God speak directly to her through his word, but she couldn’t read.

Parveen’s church has been working with Bible Society in Pakistan, running a Bible-based literacy course called “Beacon of Light” that’s aimed at teaching women to read.

“Only 15-20 per cent of girls in rural areas are given the opportunity to go to school. Most are married by 16,” says Anthony Lamuel, General Secretary of the Bible Society in Pakistan.

But if a woman becomes literate, she can be instrumental as a beacon to illuminate the family with the word of God.” Anthony Lamuel “But if a woman becomes literate, she can be instrumental as a beacon to illuminate the family with the word of God,” he says.

Parveen began attending the literacy classes at her church, with the permission of her husband. At

her graduation ceremony earlier this year, her eyes sparkled with excitement.

“It is cotton picking season, and it was very difficult for me to join the graduation ceremony because I help my husband to collect the cotton from the fields,” she said.

“Due to my desire, my husband allowed me to attend.”

At the graduation, Parveen was given a Bible of her very own. She has already begun to read it with her children.

“When I read the Bible with my family, my children listen very carefully because I read slowly.

When I make a mistake, my children laugh and enjoy it,” she says shyly, hiding her face with her hands and giggling.

Parveen’s ability to read has widened her view of life, and the lives of her children. Education, which was considered a luxury when she was growing up, is now something she believes is important for her children.

Give a double blessing of Literacy and God’s word *

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“My three children are studying at school which is very near to our home, and I plan to encourage them to have a good higher education, for spending a happy life,” she says.

“I am thankful to God that I can now read the Bible.”

Bible Society Australia’s Literacy for Life programme enables you to support Scripture-based literacy classes around the world, like those Parveen attended in rural Pakistan.

Conducted by Bible Societies working with local churches, the classes allow participants to receive a double blessing of learning how to read and write while also engaging with the message of the Bible.

A monthly pledge of $20 or more is tax deductible, and is all it takes to change the life of a woman in Pakistan, and her whole family.

+ If you would like more details, visit biblesociety.org.au/literacy

OCTOBER 2018

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OPINION

Karl Faase and Luke Nottage on the ‘safetyism’ myth A tendency for some students to shout down any idea or speaker that disturbs or offends them is becoming more frequent across universities in the US, but also now in other Western countries.

Feminist author Germaine Greer and LGBTI activist Peter Tatchell have been “no-platformed” in several universities in the UK. Recently in Australia, author and sex therapist Bettina Arndt had her lectures disturbed by protestors uninterested in engaging with any of her ideas, but rather yelling slogans and banging on doors.

However, her lecture at the University of Sydney had been given the go-ahead after it declared that: “one of the fundamental roles of the University is to be a place where ideas can be freely discussed, including those that some may view as controversial.”

USyd is also still negotiating with the Ramsay Centre over

its proposed donations to Australian universities to support programmes studying Western civilisation, despite Canberra’s Australian National University suspending negotiations earlier after some students, staff and unionists were disturbed that this would promote a radically conservative view about the superiority of Western culture.

USyd Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence defended academic freedom, arguing that the envisaged program is “not a kind of boot camp for preparing brainwashed neo-cons.”

Such tensions are not limited to Australian universities. There was earlier controversy over “Safe Schools,” and Greer was also recently “disinvited” from the Brisbane Writers’ Festival.

Many insights can be gained from a beautifully written and extensively researched new book, The Coddling of the American Mind. It develops critiques of an emergent “culture of safetyism,” affirming “emotional reasoning” and an “Us versus Them” attitude.

The authors are Jonathan Haidt (a moral psychology professor now at New York University Business School) and Greg Lukianoff (a lawyer committed to protecting free speech).

The book’s provocative subtitle is “How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.”

The new book on “coddling” or over-protection highlights

two similar problems that are increasingly taking hold in US society. They call them “untruths” because they contradict ideas found widely in the wisdom literatures of many cultures, as well as modern psychological research on well-being, and because these beliefs harm the individuals and communities now embracing them.

One is “the untruth of Us versus Them: life is a battle between good people and bad people.” They tie this view back to the human mind having evolved from living in tribes engaged in conflict, and criticise those nowadays (on the far left and far right) who exacerbate the tendency by engaging in “commonenemy identity politics.” Haidt and Lukianoff instead advocate “common-humanity identity politics,” epitomised by Martin Luther King Jr, who humanised opponents and appealed to common values.

The second problem identified, is “the untruth of emotional reasoning: always trust your feelings.” They see emotional reasoning as a very common cognitive distortion best addressed by insights from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, an empirically-grounded method that Lukianoff credits for having got him over suicidal depression.

Coddling adds also a third “untruth of fragility: what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.”

Lukianoff and Haidt argue that the human body (including the

“

‘safetyism’: a belief system in which safety has become a sacred value.” immune system) and psychological development need stimulus to grow properly. While lauding the great achievements of the late 20th century in making the US physically safer for children (and people generally), they object to “concept creep” resulting in “safety” now including more and more “emotional safety.” This generates a culture of “safetyism” – “a belief system in which safety has become a sacred value, which means that people become unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns.

‘Safety’ trumps everything else, no matter how unlikely or trivial the potential danger ...”

Causes of the three untruths

Lukianoff and Haidt argue that this “safetyism” is most evident in the generation of students who began to enter American universities around 2013. They tie this to research by psychology professor Jean Twenge. She found sharp differences within the

+

Flawed followers of Jesus Richard Shumack Page 13 Flickr / Rebecca Barray

‘No platforming’: the threat to free speech

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“iGen” – born from around 1995 – including the idea that “one should be safe not just from car accidents and sexual assault but from people who disagree from you.”

Lukianoff and Haidt also mention important research by two sociologists in the US, recently developed in a book entitled The Rise of Victimhood Culture. Focusing on universities but also making connections to wider society shifts, those authors see this culture as combining a tendency to take offence quickly but respond indirectly (via institutional or legal procedures).

This contrasts with the “culture of dignity,” still dominant in the West, where people became slow to take offence while developing indirect response mechanisms.

This notion, which we would add is closely linked to Jesus’ teaching about humbly turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:39), opposed the “culture of honour” in antiquity, where people were quick to take offence but responded directly (often violently).

Another driver behind the three untruths identified by Lukianoff and Haidt is the emergence of “negative partisanship” over the last two decades: political participation is more driven by hostility towards the other party than enthusiasm for one’s own.

Lukianoff and Haidt also observe that university students are responding with social justice activism to a series of dramatic continued page 12

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OPINION

12

OCTOBER 2018

Paul on tour Michael Jensen tries hard chat

Free speech from page 11

and (media-)visible political events over 2012-18, such as the “Black Lives Matter” and “MeToo” movements. Yet their response to these emotionally charged issues is tending towards “equal-outcomes social justice,” including regarding issues on campus such as genderbased quotas. This collides with the “proportional-procedural social justice” still commonly found in wider US society, which combines perceptions that what people are getting is deserved (an equal ratio of outputs to inputs for each person) and that all should get equal opportunities.

Australia compared

Australia may be fortunate in retaining a more egalitarian sense of justice, so there is less tension regarding emergent “equaloutcomes social justice” among the iGen and their educational institutions. There also may still be less political homogeneity and inter-party hostility than in the

that a guy rose from the dead, then really they don’t need to worry about political clout. They’ve got it already, if you see what I mean.

LISA ELLS: But the churches have all those schools and hospitals still, and they accept government funding. What about those?

PAUL: We never had those back in the first century! But we were committed to healing and to learning. We were trying to build communities of people who believed in learning about God from the writings, and who believed in care for the sick and the poor. So I can see where these institutions came from down the centuries since; it’s kind of a natural way for these things to go.

But still, they’re not the point of the Christ thing. When they become institutions, they tend to lose sight of the faith that generated the desire to help and they become big systems. But why did they start in the first place? What happened to that original desire that drove it?

I want to get back to that. I think that’s what Australia needs and the churches need right now.

LISA ELLS: So what’s your programme for change? Do you think the bishops and pastors will welcome you with open arms? The Anglican Bishop of Wagga Wagga has reportedly commented that he doesn’t want to see a Christianity that is “more Pauline,” saying that, in his words, “the church should stick to the teachings of Jesus, not Paul.”

PAUL: I wouldn’t want to argue with the bishop, on the face of it.

I am only here to promote Jesus – it’s not about brand Paul, as if there was such a thing. Unless he’s suggesting that there’s a contradiction between Jesus’ teaching and mine, because I’d dispute that with all my heart.

LISA ELLS: Isn’t Jesus more about a message of love, but your preaching was more fanatical, more about the rules?

PAUL: I am not sure even where to begin with that question. Have you read Jesus’ teachings?

LISA ELLS: I went to Sunday school, sure.

PAUL: Look, all I can say is: if there’s a difference between Jesus and me it comes from the situation.

US, despite all the shenanigans over recent years.

It is also not evident that there has been such a leftward shift across Australian universities, compared to the wider society, or such a strong sense of dread about terrorism or other threats.

Yet parallels exist. These help explain some of the incidents we mentioned at the outset, as well as burgeoning calls by students for “special consideration” in assessments or disability plans for the classroom, which increasingly are dealt with by university administrators rather than teachers. There are even stronger similarities in the rise of “paranoid parenting” highlighted by Lukianoff and Haidt, the decline of unstructured play time (somewhat offset, perhaps, by organised sport as Australia’s national religion), and the super-connected but emotionally fragile iGen.

they affirm the folk wisdom that we should “prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.” This includes allowing kids to take more risks and engage in “productive disagreement.”

Countering emotional reasoning, they invoke Buddha: “your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded.”

Undermining the Us versus Them fallacy, they recall the Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” This implies learning, for example, to interpret others in the best possible light.

How to respond?

Lukianoff and Haidt urge us first to raise “wider kids,” countering each of the three untruths. Against “safetyism,”

What would Jesus do?

The book has no index entry for “Jesus” or “Christianity” (only some for “Buddha,” “Jews” and “Islamist extremists”). But how could Australian Christians respond to those untruths? First, there is nothing in the Bible that says “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” That saying comes from atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and was later invoked by the Nazi regime. But the Bible

composite images from Wikimedia / Bartolomeo_Montagna

LISA ELLS: Paul the Apostle, once called Saul of Tarsus is on the Australian leg of his global tour. He joins me now in Sydney.

Paul, thanks for coming on This Morning.

PAUL: Pleasure. Good to be with you.

LISA ELLS: You’ve been called the founder of Christianity. Recent statistics show that the faith you’ve founded is losing ground in Australia. Does that concern you?

PAUL: Now, I’d never call myself “the founder” of Christianity (which is a word I’d never use, by the way). That’s simply not true.

The particular mission I had was to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the non-Jewish world in the West.

But I wasn’t the only one to do that.

LISA ELLS: OK, but are you concerned that Christianity is failing in Australia?

PAUL: Very much so, but perhaps not in the way you’re saying. For many people, Christianity has become something you attached to your cultural heritage – a matter of festivals and holidays, if you like. So, if you’re Greek, you celebrate Easter at such and such a time, and if you’re Italian or Irish or English, you celebrate it at another time. But culture and true faith aren’t the same at all, and in fact the minute we make our culture and our faith the same thing we run all kinds of dangers, we do all sorts of damage, because we think that God is Jewish, or English, or Greek. It’s tribalism, really, so I want to fight against that everywhere I see it.

LISA ELLS: But does that explain the failure of the church in modern Australia?

PAUL: Well, that’s a huge question, and I’ll get to that – partly, we shouldn’t assume that it’s a failure, not just yet. But see, the numbers of people who say, no, I am not a Christian, are growing because it’s become less usual in Western societies for people to think of their society as a Christian society, whatever that is. But actually, I don’t mind that, because I don’t think that is true Christianity anyway. That’s a kind of faith by inheritance, or, a genetic view of what religion is. “I’m a Christian because I am born that way, that’s my genetics.”

People used to think – I used to think – of myself like this. I was a Jew because I was circumcised, and born of the tribe of Benjamin and so on. But now I think of that as a terrible way to think about faith in God; it doesn’t work, not at all. You don’t belong because you’re parents belonged. At the heart of the Christian message is the idea of being adopted into God’s family, by faith. So if the numbers are falling that’s no bad thing if what we are seeing is a realisation that you can’t be a Christian just because of your cultural background.

Christianity is multi-cultural, not monocultural.

LISA ELLS: But still, surely, the falling in church attendance can’t be what you want to see? That’s got to mean less influence, culturally and politically? And this at a time when Christian churches are being criticised for their responses to child abuse, and for their attitudes to women and gay people?

PAUL: I want to see more people believe in Jesus Christ, sure. The churches? Well, yes, they’ve got a lot to be ashamed about. What can I say? It weighs heavily on me. I was urging the Corinthians to clean up their act in the 60s AD. They were a basket case, really; it was extremely painful and disappointing. But we had no influence back then and it was probably a good thing, because having cultural and political influence isn’t the point anyway.

The loss of influence might actually lead to a leaner and truer church, one that looks more like Jesus Christ. One thing the churches have to learn is that if they believe

I was writing to young churches that were living in the GrecoRoman world – Ephesus, Corinth, Rome. Jesus was teaching Jews in Israel. So, we covered different subjects, sure.

LISA ELLS: So what does the Australian church need to do to halt the decline?

PAUL: It needs to pay more attention to Jesus Christ. It may still decline in numbers anyway.

Probably will. But it will be more healthy if it’s more Jesus-like. It

won’t be more popular though, because mostly people want churches to be nice. It’s not our job to be nice, or to be relevant, or to get with the times. That’s what I’m here to say.

LISA ELLS: Well it will be fascinating to see what comes of it.

Apostle Paul, thanks for joining us.

PAUL: Thank you.

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

often teaches about taking risks, not being afraid, learning from discipline, and persevering in adversity (think of James 1:2-4).

Secondly, rather than relying on one’s feelings, Jeremiah (17:9) warns that “the heart is deceitful above all things.” When Jesus taught that it is more important to re-orient one’s inner being by accepting his grace, rather than religiously focusing on, say, food laws to try to earn salvation, he said: “it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly” (Mark 7:2122). Jesus also told us to think about what we are doing: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). This was one reason why Christians became path-breakers in supporting education and developing the sciences.

Thirdly, the apostle Paul wrote (like Solzhenitsyn, an atheist who converted to Christianity two

millennia later) about everyone’s inner struggle between good and evil (Romans 7). However, Timothy Keller explains how Paul’s “war against the law of my mind” (7:23) changes from one that is impossible to win (as in The Strange Case of Dr Jekkyl and Mr Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886) to a battle that is ongoing but cannot be lost, after accepting Jesus.

Still, following Jesus cannot mean seeing “us” believers as superior to “them,” as we all remain broken people, in a broken world that we are called to help restore. This self-understanding is linked to the counter-cultural willingness of the Christian church, from its earliest days, to extend love and care even to non-believers (explained in Jesus the Game Changer series, as well as the new documentary For the Love of God).

Karl Faase is CEO of Olive Tree Media. Luke Nottage is Professor of Comparative and Transnational Business Law, University of Sydney and a member of Heterodoxacademy.org and Gymea Baptist Church.

OPINION

OCTOBER 2018

13

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Flawed heroes of faith RICHARD SHUMACK discovers feet of clay

“

One such hero is Martin Luther King Jr. The unqualified star of the US civil rights movement, King was a brilliant, courageous, inspiring, man of faith.”

Pixabay / skeeze

How much does the moral quality of Christian lives commend following Jesus? Perhaps more importantly, how much do the moral failings of Christians denigrate following Jesus? The documentary we at CPX have just made, For The Love of God: How the church is better and worse than you ever imagined, wrestles with just this issue. And make no mistake, it’s a tricky – even disturbing – struggle. A key strategy of For the Love of God is to highlight a range of Christian heroes of the faith to commend the benefits of following Jesus. How successful is this?

One such hero is Martin Luther King Jr. The unqualified star of the US civil rights movement, King was a brilliant, courageous, inspiring, man of faith. Dr Cornel West describes him as “first and foremost a revolutionary Christian – a black Baptist minister and pastor whose intellectual genius and rhetorical power was deployed in the name of the gospel of Jesus Christ. King understood this good news to be primarily radical love in freedom and radical freedom in love, a fallible enactment of the Beloved Community or finite embodiment of the Kingdom of God.” King was unquestionably revolutionary. Unfortunately, he was also deeply and horribly flawed. His life was marked by stories of moral failure – especially multiple and persistent sexual infidelities. These flaws were bigger than just King. The revolutionary Christian civil rights movement

was dogged by allegations of drugfuelled orgies and paedophilia.

Every Christian should concede that the church is indeed a fallible enactment of beloved community. But, just how much fallibility can we allow? How flawed can we let our Christian heroes be?

Doubtless for some readers, nothing like this much. I have sympathy for anyone – believer or sceptic – wondering whether King’s persistent unrepentance in this area compromises any claims he had to be truly following Jesus.

King, of course, is not the only flawed historical hero of faith.

Martin Luther was deeply antisemitic.

George Whitefield owned slaves.

There’s the Bible too. There we meet King David the adulterer and murderer; Samson the philanderer; Rahab the prostitute; Jacob the deceiver; Peter the denier; we could go on and on.

Oh, and then there’s me (and probably you). Not the hero bit – the flawed bit. Like all these aspiring people of faith I struggle – and fail to struggle – with persistent moral failures. I am relentlessly disappointed with my faith gaps, with my lack of following Jesus in key areas.

Can any Christian avoid the charge of bringing Christ into disrepute sometime, somehow, somewhere? I doubt it. And if so, can the church point to anyone for unproblematic evidence of the benefits of faith?

I hope so, because the Bible seems to demand it.

Jesus said “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Listen, too, to how

the Apostle Paul describes the fallible enactment of beloved community that we call church: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

We need to get this clear. Moral behaviour really does matter for the witness of the church to the truth of the gospel. The gospel doesn’t simply promise a ticket to heaven. It promises God’s enlivening, empowering, transformative presence by his Spirit. If the gospel of Jesus is true, then Christians must necessarily

be in the process of being transformed, changed, grown in Christlikeness. But the reality of a process implies necessarily that Christians are not there yet: that they remain flawed.

This has a crucial bearing on how we regard our Christian heroes. But this bears primarily, I suggest, not on how we regard their flaws, but on who we regard as heroes.

For me, the true Christian heroes are those in whom I see not togetherness, completeness or exemplariness. It is those in whom I see the deep, radical, supernatural, relentless pursuit of change.

One of these heroes is named

Sam.* He is a middle-aged, single, unemployed, Middle Eastern, Assyrian Christian who has lived the last 40 years with schizophrenia. He is paranoid of everyone, and many things. For years, I was the only person he allowed into his home. Each time I visited he greeted me with a large carving knife held to my chest in warning – just checking that I wasn’t an enemy disguised as Richard. We met to drink coffee, sometimes share a meal, to read the Bible and to pray. For this man of faith, it was an act of love not to attack those around him, not to stick the knife in (literally). It was a sign of massive transformation to build even a single friendship. It was a thing of glory for him to open his home.

Of course, Sam is just one of my heroes. I am surrounded by so many more in my own fallible enactment of beloved community.

My local church is packed full of flawed, persistently failing sinners (like me), who meet week by week to doggedly pursue divine transformation into people who love better and shine more. It is a community, both ordinary and revolutionary, and in any number of unspectacular, un-famous acts of care and service I see the reality of Christ.

Is this enough to commend following Jesus to a sceptical world? Is it enough to compensate for the litany of dramatic public failures?

It is enough, I think, if we uphold the right heroes; if we value the right things in our heroes. It is enough if, like Jesus, we celebrate poor generous widows (Mark 12:41-44) and compassionate soldiers (Mark 8:5-13), more than extraordinary preachers or best-selling worship leaders. It is enough if we rejoice in being communities of change more than of excellence. It is enough if our heroes display the longings that Jesus describes as belonging to those of the kingdom: a mourning over fallenness and a hunger for righteousness. *Not his real name.

Richard Shumack is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity and Director of the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology. The Centre for Public Christianity offers a Christian perspective on contemporary life. www.publicchristianity.org

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OPINION

14

OCTOBER 2018

The civic gospel

Frances Fitzgerald’s timely book The Evangelicals points out that in the American civil rights period the most theologically liberal Christians were the ones most likely to engage in politics. Now it’s the reverse.

The ultra conservatives have adopted what Fitzgerald calls the civic gospel – the view that America, founded as a Christian nation, has fallen away and that

pixabay_quinntheislander

Tim Costello on an unholy war

the faithful have to take aggressive political action to safeguard their own rights, to legislate private and public morality and to restore a Christian heritage.

In this “holy war” against secular humanism, some on the conservative side have transformed evangelicalism from a spiritual to a political movement pushing for greater protection for “religious freedoms” – based on nostalgia for a mostly mythical past – through the raw exercise of political power.

This has resulted in an unholy matrimony between church and state that has, at least in America, placed the cross next to the American flag and wrapped Christianity into a package that restricts abortion and LGBTI rights while championing insular patriotism and greater defence spending.

This is an interesting test of the gospel message. In my understanding, Jesus, executed by the state, did not have armies or

argue for greater legislative power for his followers to combat moral decay. The rot sets in when the church places its faith and focus more in Caesar and his kingdom than in Christ and his reign.

We might have to re-evaluate what we place our trust in. What gospel are we faithful to? What must we maintain and defend?

If our security is based on something that we fear can be taken away from us, we will constantly be on a false edge of

security. Religions built on fear must keep preaching their fears to survive. They do injustice to the mystery of faith, the importance of a spiritually transformed life and the notion of Christianity as a global rather than nationalistic reality.

The message of hope from the cross transcends nations. Universal faith scares many conservatives so trans-nationalism, abortion and LGBTI rights have them gnashing their teeth.

I am pro-life and pro-diversity because my God created all diversity. The Book of Revelation reveals that the only Christian nation in the world today is the one gathered “from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

Churches must do more than hold their ground. They will have to fill a hunger for meaning that many feel. And that possibly means returning to the same gritty universal faith that existed in the early days of Christianity.

The leadership challenge: 2 Chronicles 16

Lucy Gichuhi on the crisis in the party room In August 2018 I found myself in the midst of one of the most tumultuous weeks I have ever encountered in my political career.

Despite the intense pressure during the leadership challenges, I knew for sure I could not lean on my own understanding. At such times I remind myself that the steps of a righteous man or woman are ordered by the Lord.

It was a time to be still and know that the Lord our God is Lord.

I reflected on the story of King

Asa in 2 Chronicles 16. Asa was the king of Judah. When Asa found himself besieged by his enemy, Baasha the King of Israel, he made an alliance with BenHadad causing him to break his own treaty with King Baasha. Asa gave Ben-Hadad gold and silver from the temple’s treasuries and his own palace to buy support and allegiance. The seer Hanani told Asa he should have relied on God instead of people to save his leadership. Asa became angry with the seer and had him locked away. He also ran a brutal campaign of oppression against some of the people in Judah.

I learnt that, as Christians, we are to put God above all else.

He alone should inform our next move. You may find yourself in a difficult situation and are tempted to work your own way through.

But we risk getting it all wrong, as exemplified by Asa’s actions. The seer reminded Asa that when he had previously relied on the Lord during a mighty battle which he was sure to lose, God provided the victory. It is time to look back and reflect on all those instances

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honour his authority. Accordingly, I could not sign the petition calling for a challenge.

What does it look like to honour a person in authority? Romans 13:1-5 says that we are all to be subject to governing authorities because all authority comes from God. It means to respect our leaders and allow them to lead with the authority that comes from God. It means putting our own ambition aside so that we can serve our governing authorities effectively.

Honouring God before people means we don’t make any deals which do not glorify God. As soon as we make a dishonourable deal, we are compromised and our independence and credibility is diminished. In short you become compromised and lose the most fundamental freedoms of all – freedom of conscience as you soon realise you have a new master and allegiance.

During the challenge, it became clear to me that our new prime minister did not move against the one placed in authority above him. Scott Morrison honoured

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where God has directed our steps.

During the leadership challenge week, I found myself in a position where it was difficult to know who to rely on. Everyone seemed confused and under pressure. I came to realise that I could not face the unfolding drama by myself or rely on my own strength.

What was happening was out of my control, but the important thing for me to remember and reflect on was all the other times I have faced life’s storms. When I turned my eyes to him, regardless of the storm going on around me, I knew he would lead me through the valley. I chose to reflect on the voice of God instead of the voice of humans and this helped me get through the day.

To rely on the strength of God when you feel weak is to honour him. It is the hardest thing to do, but the right thing to do.

The second point is that as Christians, we are commanded to honour and pray for those in authority above us. I understood what this meant for me. Malcolm Turnbull was the prime minister of the day and I was called to

the authority of the former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull and put his own ambition aside. I will never forget that press conference where he put his hand on the former prime ministers shoulder and said, “This is my leader.” It was only when Malcolm Turnbull stepped down that Mr Morrison was able to put his hand up as a contender for the leadership with the full blessing and support of his former leader. This was the beginning of something dramatic and miraculous.

In Philippians chapter four, the Apostle Paul encourages the church in Philippi to, “not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

It was an example of a week where I could not lean on my own understanding. A week I shall never forget.

Lucy Gichuhi is a Liberal senator for South Australia.

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OPINION

OCTOBER 2018

15

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Three views of Scott Morrison Lyle Shelton on a conservative view of new PM

Brad Chilcott The PM viewed from the left

Michael Murphy was lead pastor at Shirelive (now called Horizons Church) in Sydney’s Sutherland when Scott Morrison and his wife Jennifer arrived in the congregation.

“I met Scott and Jen just prior to that. We began a friendship when he was fellowshiping at a church in the city and he was looking to come to a church in the Shire when he moved down there about 12 years ago,” Murphy tells Eternity.

“The Shire” is what Sydneysiders call the peninsula upon which the church building, a big white oblong a couple of blocks from the railway station, sits. “The Shire” is a nickname sometimes used with affection, sometimes not, but always with a slight tinge of Tolkien.

“We built some really strong relationships with mayors in the Shire. We were sometimes called upon to do disaster relief. One time when we had one of the bad bushfires through the Shire we had 300 firefighters sleeping on our floor. We were wondering where we were going to put church on the Sunday.”

“Kevin Schreiber who was mayor at the time had become a great friend. We had a desire to help and support political leaders no matter their political persuasion. We knew most of the federal and state members. Bruce Baird, who was the local member before Scott, was a close friend. So the relationship between Scott and I was kind of a natural thing, and for our church to embrace him and Jen when he was just a backbencher. And we started the journey from there.”

Horizon Church has quite a long history for an Australian Christian Churches or Assemblies of God church, founded in 1949.

Under Murphy, who had become lead pastor ten years before the Morrisons showed up, the church became younger.

It “changed its methodology to reach the community more completely, not changing the core message. The church is conservative theologically. I’d call it ‘a contemporary spirit-filled church but with an age-old message that doesn’t change.’ We want to embrace the power of the gospel to transform a life.”

“If you came to the church it wouldn’t be that different to an alive Baptist church or something like that.”

Murphy now has a good perspective on denominations working as a leadership consultant, across denominations and across the world. “When we left five years ago and handed the church over to pastors Brad and Alison Bonhomme there were a couple of thousand people with an average age of 25.”

Shirelive wanted “to reach all generations, but with a strong children’s ministry, a very strong

Scott Morrison was among several MPs from Labor and the Coalition to offer prayers at the annual Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast in Canberra last May. When it came to his turn, he asked the audience to join in praying for farmers suffering in the drought. Within days of becoming PM, Morrison was on the ground in western Queensland.

I joined ACL in mid-2007 and chaired a Meet Your Candidates Forum at Cronulla when Morrison was first running. He was the most impressive by far and made no secret of his Christian commitment.

In his maiden speech Morrison continued to give bold witness and declared Australia was not a secular country; it was a free country. Brilliantly expressed, this was a salient message to those trying to push Christianity out of the public square. It is even more relevant as the new PM struggles to restore freedom of speech and freedom of religion in the aftermath of same-sex marriage.

The Steve Bradbury-like ascension of Scott Morrison to the position of prime minister amidst the tumult of Australia’s most recent leadership spill was met with widespread celebration from fellow Pentecostals and other evangelical Christians. One of our own in the Lodge! I saw “the Great Southland of the Holy Spirit” appear numerous times in my social media feeds as Christian leaders and their flock welcomed our new national leader.

Much of the adulation seemed to avoid what to me seems to be the obvious question – how does this Pentecostal prime minister’s policy record and political approach align with Christian belief about the character and the Jesus that Christians aspire to emulate - and the vision for a better world that the life of Jesus was an example of? Like the evangelical embrace of “pussy grabbing” President Trump in the United States, will it be enough for Australian Christians that a leader claims the identity of Christian or will we pause to ask, respectfully, “what would Jesus do?” about the many challenges facing Australians that the prime minister has the power and influence to have impact upon?

Scott Morrison set himself a standard in his first parliamentary speech, referencing Archbishop Desmond Tutu, among others, as a Christian leader he would model his leadership on. Quoting Tutu, he said, “We expect Christians ... to be those who stand up for the truth, to stand up for justice, to stand on the side of the poor and the hungry, the homeless and the naked, and when that happens, then Christians will be trustworthy, believable witnesses.”

I’d agree with him wholeheartedly and my hope would be that it is to this aspiration that Christians would hold him to account. His record on people seeking asylum, unemployed and under-employed Australians, Australia’s international aid obligations, our appalling treatment of First Nations Australians and our commitment to our LGBTI neighbours has thus far fallen far short of this noble goal.

Indeed, Prime Minister Morrison’s chosen mantra of “a fair go for those who have a go” is an Australianised version of the very un-Jesus-like cliche “God helps those who help themselves” and lacks an understanding of both the dynamics of power and privilege and the systemic flaws in Australian society that result in poverty, marginalisation and disadvantage for so many of our fellow citizens.

Brad Chilcott is the founder of Welcome to Australia, a movement cultivating a culture of welcome for asylum seekers, and the pastor of Activate Church in Adelaide.

Wikimedia / Kristy Robinson

Michael Murphy on the view from the Shire

Scott Morrison youth ministry, regularly present in a number of the high schools and so forth.

“We were pretty active in our community ministry. We had a counselling and medical centre for example. We really tried to help people and their families.

We had the down-and-outs and the up-and-outs and everything in between. It mirrored the population of the Shire – middle Australia with people who are pretty sports crazy.

“Sometimes I would bring the football score of the Sharks somewhere in the liturgy on a Sunday ... Its not suits and ties.

We’d wear jeans and polo or teeshirts. We encourage ‘come as you are.’” That matches the Sharks-topand-baseball-cap-wearing images we have seen of the new PM. “There were no favours asked for even as he started to get into ministry portfolios. He and Jen would sit up in the bleachers.

She’d be involved in kid’s ministry.

He was really just one of the congregation.”

“The down-to-earth Scott you see, that I think is starting to come through and people are warming to a bit, is actually, genuinely him.

“I saw something he put out about strawberries and he made a little statement, ‘I am cooking a curry and Jen is doing a pav.

And she’s going to throw some strawberries on it.’ That is actually who he is.”

Talking about what it was like to have an increasingly prominent person in the congregation, Murphy says “the primary role of a lead pastor or minister is to look after them and their family.

When a Christian takes on a high profile role there can be a tendency to kind of ‘claim’ them and to forget that they are leading for the

whole community and not just your denomination. So I put some thoughts on Facebook for people to consider. It’s basically ‘pray for him before you preach at him.’

“That is not trying to shut people down; they have freedom of speech. But I saw the early signs of some grandstanding. We can all have different views on policy. He is in the party room and I am not.

“My attitude is if I am helping him and Jen to keep focussed on why they are doing what they are doing, and their spiritual journey in Christ, then that foundation will form his policy. I know not everyone would agree, but I wouldn’t see my role as inserting influence in policy. Now, as a style of church, we definitely encourage people in the marketplace.

“In fact about three years before Scott arrived – someone reminded me the other day of this because I had totally forgotten about it – I had actually spoken over our congregation and said that I believed community leaders and even a prime minister would come out of our congregation. That wasn’t necessarily prophetic but something that was informed by our theology that says ‘serve God in the marketplace, in key leadership roles, in the arts, in sport or in the church like I have.’

“Like any prime minister he’s got a big tough job. I want believers and the readers of Eternity to empathise with that.”

Michael Murphy was lead pastor at Shire Live /Horizon Church for 18 years, after 12 years as associate pastor at Hillsong Church. He runs Leaderscape Consultancy, coaching leaders in the corporate and church sectors. He is chair of the Alphacrucis College council.

He was interviewed by John Sandeman.

“

In his maiden speech Morrison continued to give bold witness and declared Australia was not a secular country; it was a free country.”

Despite sitting out the marriage campaign, he has now committed to personally take charge of dealing with the consequences of the loss. But getting his divided party to agree will be difficult.

Fifty-two percent of his colleagues voted with the Greens and Labor against the freedom amendments put forward by Senators James Paterson and David Fawcett in the aftermath of the plebiscite.

On asylum seekers, Morrison has gone down in history as the man who stopped the boats – and the drownings. But he denied Julia Gillard her chance by opposing Labor’s Malaysian solution.

Like Steven Bradbury, Morrison skated through the chaos of the failed Peter Dutton coup to take the prize.

Politics is a brutal game. I know he will value our prayers.

Lyle Shelton is a former managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby. He is now a Queensland senate candidate for the Conservative Party.

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OPINION

16

OCTOBER 2018

Power currents in the age of the #hashtag

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, but what about new power? Could new power renew humanity? That’s the view driving the work of Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms in their recent book, New Power.

Heimans co-founded the social movement GetUp! and is an expert in using technology to build campaigns around social issues.

Timms is a renowned community organiser and philanthropist, responsible for “Giving Tuesday,” an antidote to the US Black Friday’s consumerism. It takes place on 27th November (see www. givingtuesday.org.au).

Heimans and Timms detect a

not competition, and the aim is to share power as widely as possible and achieve change because of that breadth, rather than concentration.

We are all “us.”

The best contemporary approach to power, the authors argue, is to deftly move back and forth between the old power of influence, intervention and currency and the new power of participation, cooperation and current. Leaders and organisations who can blend these powers will do best, and their success will build a “fullstack society,” a computer coding metaphor for a culture where participation is deep and pervasive, rather than an occasional viral tweeting experience.

There seem to me to be many, many lessons for Christian communities in this shift in the nature of power. Some are easy to see; others will take a great deal of care and thought to sift through.

The easy ones include a recognition that the old power structures have by and large failed us. Churches as institutions have often become instruments of secrecy, hiding wickedness and failure, and finding it almost impossible to change. And yet, we are called to participate in communities, to be more than individuals.

Wikimedia / Chris Rand

Greg Clarke on blending the old and the new

major change in the way power works in the technological age.

In the old age, currency was power: some people had it, and they had the power. But today, current is power: it flows like water or electricity, runs in many directions, and its volume determines its impact.

The authors provide a range of compelling case studies to demonstrate the way that technology, particularly the interconnectivity of the internet and social media, has upended power relations. From the charity sector (remember the Ice Bucket challenge?) to services (Uber, AirBnB, etc., etc.) to justice movements (#MeToo), it’s hard to find a sector of society that hasn’t been affected by the new ability of the average person to publish their views, participate in petitions of various kinds and place pressure on the old power structures of politics, business and institutions.

Heimans and Timm’s vision depends on a changed view of “them and us.” In the old power age, progress takes place via competition. People try to acquire the most power they can in order to become the “us” of the equation.

“Us” is a small group. In the new age, energy is found in cooperation,

Remember the Ice Bucket Challenge?

Can we blend old and new power effectively to develop the “fullstack” churches we need today?

The trickier ideas to think through concern how the voice of the people relates to the belief structures of the Christian faith.

After all, there is a power structure to Christianity, with the triune God holding the “currency” and we creatures owing everything to that God. It isn’t democracy. We don’t ultimately get to decide what’s what by hashtag.

Heimans and Timms point out that the current Pope is a fascinating example of new power operating within an old power structure. When Francis was elected Bishop of Rome, he immediately enacted several symbols to represent a new

relationship with power. He refused to wear the traditional papal cape, he did not ascend a throne, and he asked the assembled faithful in St Peter’s Square to be a blessing to him, rather than he to them.

Of course, here the Pope was following in the footsteps of Jesus himself, who humbled himself to serve humanity, in obedience to God the Father, and “did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.” It’s all in Philippians 2, a passage of Scripture that speaks directly into the new power discussion and has been going viral since the middle of the first century.

Greg Clarke is CEO of Bible Society Australia.

Bible Stat One in five Bibles distributed by Bible Societies in 2017 were downloaded from the internet.

Photo: Ramon Williams | Worldwide Photos

The Bible Society Australia Board gives thanks to God for the life and ministry of Donald Robinson, former Anglican Archbishop of Sydney and father of current BSA Chairman, Anne Robinson.

Our sympathies are with the Robinson family and friends as we mark the passing of a man for whom the Bible was precious and revered.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones” Psalm 116:15

9 November 1922 – 7 September 2018

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