Eternity - November 2013 - Issue 42

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NUMBER 42, NOVEMBER 2013 CIRCULATION 100,000 ISSN 1837-8447

From Atheist to Mere Christian

C.S. LEWIS

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NOVEMBER 2013

OPINION

The secret to being free

Obadiah Slope Conned: Obadiah rarely gets email from overseas. So when the manager of the Commercial Bank of Dubai tells me he wants to talk to me about the Bible Society I am tempted to respond.

That would be a big mistake I know.

So I resisted. This month the Church of Nigeria (which has almost as many members as Australia has Australians) had to issue a warning about imposter emails. It is sad that “phishing” emails of this type encourage Obadiah to think stereotypically about people in other countries. And when does this thinking shade into racism?

Untrue colours: Speaking of racism, Obadiah was teaching a Scripture lesson based on colours. Green is for creation, black is for the fall and sin, red is for the blood of Christ and so on—it’s a gospel summary. As we went through the colours, the lesson book told me to ask the children what each colour reminded them of. When we came to the dark page, an African boy simply said “me”. How would you have responded dear reader?

Chalking the talk: Chaplain at Boronia College in Victoria, Alan Silverwood, has told Eternity’s Sophie Timothy about his adventures chalking the word Eternity around Mebourne.

“When I worked with OAC Ministries (a group of evangelists), I learnt about Arthur Stace, Mr Eternity. As a result, I began to take my chalks around the streets where I live, and write the same message of challenge. It was usually early morning or later at night. I often added ‘seek God’ after the Eternity word, for those who might not have understood what the word was all about.” Obadiah loves this story—one criticism of our title has been that it might be “too Sydney”.

Al Stewart

Houseparents Bob and Ondy Alcorn

A middle way for Indigenous kids Suzanne Mitchell NT Christian Schools For Indigenous children in remote communities, the choices for secondary education are limited to either remaining in their communities which offer primary education or relocating to large towns to access secondary education. Woolaning Homeland Christian College offers a third option: secondary aged students receive an education of six terms a year of six weeks length, allowing them to regularly return to their own communities and retain strong connections to their families and culture.

With 40% of Indigenous students completing a secondary education and only 24% of students in remote communities having access to a secondary school, several government programmes have had varying degrees of success.

NT Christian Schools was approached by an Indigenous community in the Daly River region to develop a secondary college called Woolaning Homeland Christian College (WHCC).

The local Aboriginal communities expressed a desire for their children to

be able to live and learn in both worlds.

This meant learning literacy and numeracy, but also the life skills needed to function independently within the dominant western culture of Australia.

“We want our girls to think of our house as a loving home away from home rather than a boarding school, so they spend 36 out of the 52 weeks of the year with us,” says Jen, a house parent.

“Our purpose is to build relationships based on mutual trust, respect and care, encouraging these young adults to make informed and wise choices about their futures.”

WHCC consists of six family group homes with up to 10 students in each home. Christian house parents like Jen provide a loving, caring environment for these students.

NT Christian Schools are looking for committed Christian couples who believe God has a place for them working with Indigenous students, enabling them to see God’s love in action and gain a Christian education that will give them the skills to make a valuable contribution to the society in which they live. www.ntcsa.nt.edu.au

Self control is tough, especially now ... temptations have multiplied

Newcomers are down John Sandeman

Quote: “It was 1990 and an east African priest was on secondment with us. He preached in the college chapel. He posed a question. “‘Which gospel ... do you westerners want us to believe? The one you came with or the one you preach now? Which gospel?’

“I was horrified, not because what he said was not true.

“I was horrified because it was true.

“My east African brother’s question has nagged away at me ever since.”

Mike Ovey of Oak Hill College at the Global Anglican Future Conference.

There are less newcomers—defined as people who have joined a church within the last five years—in some key churches according to stats from the latest National Church Life Survey.

In the Sydney Anglican diocese (region) newcomers formed 12.4% of church attenders in 2001, but only 9.3% in 2011. Newcomers do not include transfers from another church, but does include “first timers” (with a non-church background) and returnees (coming back after a long absence).

“Other activist churches, like some Pentecostal groups, have seen a similar

We all want freedom, but here’s the irony: real freedom is found not in self-expression but in self-control. We live in a society that’s all about freedom to have or do or consume what I want, when I want. But a lack of restraint is not going to help you experience freedom. Why? Because, at the risk of asking the obvious, when I exercise self-control who is in control? Me. Not my appetites, not alcohol, not my peer group, not my hormones. Selfcontrol puts me in control. Selfcontrol sets me free. It’s obvious when you think about it. It’s also hard work.

David Akst’s book We Have Met the Enemy is an interesting read on every person’s struggle: “Self-control is tough— especially now, when more calories, sex, and intoxicants are readily and privately available than at any time in memory. But while temptations have multiplied like fast-food outlets in suburbia crucial social constraints have eroded.

Tradition, family, church and ideology have lost much of their capacity to circumscribe behaviour [and] financial limits, once a ready substitute for thrift have been swept away by surging affluence.”

In short, Akst reveals the reason that so much of the western world is embarking on “slow motion suicide” through calories, intoxicants, sex etc. is because we can. We’ve become selfconfident enough, wealthy enough and tech savvy enough to do whatever we want to do: “The crux of our problem with selfcontrol is the future and how much regard we have for it. Today the future looks scary, in part because we are so lax —about warming the planet, increasing our indebtedness, and eating ourselves into obesity. We can do a lot better, both individually and collectively.”

Self-control is all about the future and how much regard we have for it. The Bible speaks a lot about selfcontrol, not to deny us life, but so that we can have the best life. It’s because we have such a high regard for the future that we’ll act with self-control now. The Christian person lives a certain way now because of what they believe about the day of Christ. To be spiritual is to be self-controlled; it’s a fruit of the Spirit of God at work in those who follow Jesus.

trajectory,” says Dominic Steele, a Sydney minister who finds the figures “frightening”. But according to NCLS researcher Robyn Powell, the average newcomer figures have remained flat overall for the last few National Church Life Surveys (a church census), which happen every five years.

One explanation for this seeming contradiction is that this effect is concentrated on “activist” churches— those most keen on evangelism.

A fall in “returnees” was highlighted in a report to the Sydney Anglicans, which points to the falling rate of returnees further lowering the number of people in their twenties in churches.

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NOVEMBER 2013

NEWS

BRIEFS

Forgiving Bible Societies meet the Pope a bomber John Sandeman His mother, nephew, niece, uncles and a friend were killed in the bombing of All Saints Church, Peshawar, Pakistan last month but Aftab Gohar has forgiven the bombers. 120 people died in the church on September 22, and a Taliban-linked group has claimed responsibility. “...This is the message of Jesus Christ: on the cross he said: ‘Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing’, ...And we can pray for them—that God gives them wisdom so that they realise they are doing a wrong thing,” Gohar, a church of Scotland minister, told The Independent.

“I’m not superhuman, I am a human and it’s a natural thing that sometimes we get angry or we get upset...but we have learned this teaching and we have to try our best to follow this teaching, and that’s what I am trying to do.”

Rev Aftab Gohar is Minister of Abbotsgrange Parish Church in Grangemouth, west of Edinburgh, Scotland.

The BBC reports that Gohar was speaking after returning from a visit to his old family church in Peshawar where the massacre took place.

“There were 125 children in Sunday school that day,” he told the BBC. “My sister was teaching there. Forgiving is what we learn from the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why I forgive.”

Rev Gohar stressed that most Muslims had been “respectful and kindly” in the 130 years of the Christian Church’s existence in Pakistan—and displayed those same qualities after the tragedy.

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Bush Scriptures: Two additional Bush Scripture Advisors will be provided for country NSW. They will support existing teachers and raise funds to hire more. Bush Church Aid is providing $450,000 over five years to GenR8 Schools Ministries to make the new positions possible.

Allah banned: A Catholic newspaper may not use the word “Allah” to refer to God, a Malaysian appeals court ruled last month. “Allah” is used by some Bible translations in nations where the word predates Islam and has been used by Christians for several centuries.

Recognition: Aussie Christian company Olive Tree Media has been nominated for two international awards. Karl Faase, a Baptist minister who heads Olive Tree tweeted, “We’re really pleased”. The NRB Media awards are the biggest Christian awards for Radio and TV. Next generation: Empowering the next generation of Christian Indigenous leaders was the main aim of the Grasstree conference in Brisbane. Christian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders from across Australia went to Grasstree to remember they’re not alone in their work.

In Pakistan: Christians are under constant threat of attack. But the Bible Society general secretary in Pakistan reports a growing interest in the Bible. “All this negativity towards Christianity has led to more curiosity about it. We are distributing more Bibles—our distribution has increased to around 40,000.”

Talking the talk: Evangelistic missions to regional Australia in 2014 will include Billy Graham’s grandson, Will Graham, doing a mission in Broken Hill and visiting Hobart in May. A major Darwin mission will feature the Centre for Public Christianity’s John Dickson in August.

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“[The Pope] was delighted: The Bible and Family meeting took place in October this year in Rome.

‘Go ahead!’

United Bible Societies families...it’s up to us to work together he smiled. to make it happen,” said UBS Director Bible Societies around the world met General Michael Perreau.

His in Rome last month to form a greater Rev Dr Rudi Zimmer, Chairman of bond with the Catholic Church. the UBS Global Board, was one of four support During the ‘Bible and Family’ partparticipants in the meeting granted nership meetings between the United direct access to Pope Francis. He says is very Bible Societies (UBS) and the Catholic the Pope took time to hear about the Biblical Federation (CBF), the Pope meeting, his face lighting up when he precious called for an Extraordinary Synod of heard about the focus on making the to us.”

Bishops on the family and evangelisaBible available to families and encourtion to take place in October 2014, which greatly encouraged delegates.

The meeting included an audience with Pope Francis, to explore ways in which Bible Societies can work closer with the Catholic Church to get the Bible into the hands of more families.

“We warmly welcome the Pope’s commitment to bringing the Bible to

aging them to read it.

“I particularly showed him the Poverty and Justice Bible (Catholic edition) and the May They Be One Bible and explained that the Bible Societies are producing them with the full support of the Catholic Church,” says Dr Zimmer. “He was delighted: ‘Go ahead!’ he smiled.

His support is very precious to us.”

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NOVEMBER 2013

TESTIMONY

From gambling to the grace of God

Guangyao Un

Daniel Abou-Zeid’s testimony involves his father gambling them out of thirty homes and how he (literally) got lost and found Christ.

I was born in Geelong, with Mum and Dad in this dysfunctional situation: Dad was a compulsive gambler and coming out of a heritage of compulsive gamblers. In Lebanon, my Grandfather actually gambled away an entire street of houses.

The word that categorises my parents is extreme—with their compulsion and compulsive gambling. For 12 years of my life, Mum and Dad were nonChristians, and instead surrounded by compulsive gamblers and drug addicts and really scary Arabic guys. I’d come out at night and Dad would be sitting in a smoke-filled room and they would be drinking and gambling on anything.

And then he made it! He won a payout for an injury claim at work, so he didn’t need to gamble anymore. He had enough money. Life was set. But the compulsion took over and he gambled it all away: $23,000 in about two days.

As a result of his gambling, we lived in about 30 homes before I was 12.

Three brand new homes that we built, three restaurants that we’d owned: Dad gambled it away.

I can remember being a little boy upstairs in a house that we were renting and crying my eyes out because Mum and Dad would fight every single night.

Unfortunately for me, I grew up far too early.

One night I could hear screaming and pots getting thrown at about 11 o’clock.

And I remember running downstairs and screaming at both of them. That was a big thing to do. At that point, I know it wasn’t the case but I felt like I was taking my life into my hands.

Mum ran away from Dad three or four nights later. Mum woke me up about three o’clock in the morning and I had my little suitcase and we hopped on a plane and left Dad, and went to Geelong to live with her parents. Dad found out we were there and chased us down again.

The thing with Dad being a compulsive gambler is: he’s not an idiot. Gamblers are smart people with a dysfunction. So Dad had a lot of charisma—he would have made a brilliant salesman.

Mum and Dad split up about ten times.

But he was excellent at talking his way out of things, which I suppose was why Mum kept coming back to him.

It’s important to me at this point to mention how well-meaning Mum and Dad were. They loved me incredibly, but due to Dad’s compulsive illness and their situation, it wasn’t possible to provide a stable family unit.

When I was 12, we moved to a new house in Geelong and I moved to a new

That whole dysfunction Daniel Abou-Zeid’s father, in later years, with his grandchildren. of the school. I made this friend and I rememdidn’t mean it with all my heart. And so ber him saying he lived in number one.

I’d follow up with, “God, if you’re real, gambling So I rode up and down on what felt like you’ve got to make me mean this with every street and knocked on the door of all my heart, because I know I’m not. So side of number 1, and said “Is Adam here?” you’ve got to change it.”

And I couldn’t find Adam, but I found For four days I prayed the same thing. things this kid playing footy, and I said to him, But I was still the same: still angry and “I can’t find Adam, do you know where swearing. There was no life change. has been he lives?” And he said, “No, but you can That weekend, my friend’s Mum took play with me.” And we just hit it off. us to a bikers’ picnic, where all these broken It turned out that his mum was a motorbike riders went and camped. over our Christian.

It was a bizarre environment for a This kid was sport mad. His mum Christian to bring a young kid to. I don’t family. would take me to Laser-tag and all know about the wisdom of that now. kinds of fun stuff. It really was like the childhood I’d never had. And it spoke to me in a massive way: it opened my spirit up to hear what God was doing.

I loved sports like crazy. But something drew me into a heap of indoor conversations with this mum. I couldn’t stop listening to what she said about God. It blew me away. To the point that her son would go, “You guys aren’t talking about God again are you?”

And I didn’t have any regard for God. I was following in the footsteps of my father. My heart was full of rage and bitterness. The nicest way to put it is that I didn’t have love in my heart. I just had a growing hate and anger at life and people—abuse will do that to you.

This lady made one statement that stayed with me: “If you’re going to make a decision to follow God, you’ve got to mean it with all your heart. You can’t say, ‘Okay God, I follow you. Now come on, let’s see what you’re going to do.’”

That haunted me for weeks.

Afterwards, at night, I said a salvation prayer. I would say, “God, come into my life… forgive me my sin.” But I knew I

E H T N I O J R E B M E DEC ING MATCH NGE CHALLE

But I came back and a priest over the road had passed away. Even though I don’t agree with this now, my Dad said, “You’ve got to pray for that man over the road. You’ve got to pray for his soul.”

So I did. I had no idea what I was doing, saying, “God, I’ve got to pray for this guy.” Before I knew it—and I hadn’t intended to do this—I’d finished the salvation prayer. And I fell asleep.

I woke up, and all I remember coming out of me was, “I’m a Christian, I’m a Christian, I’m a Christian, I’m a Christian.” It just bubbled over. I ran out, yelling, “I’m a Christian.” Like I said, my family’s extreme. Even my salvation experience is a bit extreme.

My Mum and Dad just looked at me, because I changed interests every five minutes. I called the lady, and I said, “I’ve become a Christian, I’ve really done it.” She didn’t believe me. No one believed me for ages. Now I’m a minister, I think they get the idea.

It really did change my life. The most important thing was my heart changed.

The truth was: I had desires to hurt people. Overnight, God changed my

heart, my life and my desires.

How that happens is a theological mystery. But spiritually—once I was blind, but now I see—that’s the work of God. The real redemptive part of this story is my family. I became a Christian and that revolutionised my whole life. But Mum and Dad for four years after that thought I was being brainwashed.

I never thought my parents had hope of becoming Christians because they were so against God, and they would argue with me all the time.

But the truth was I don’t think I loved my parents, even though I thought I did. I was still carrying a lot of hurt and pain and those kinds of things.

But I would pray for them every week. When the church asked people if they’d like prayer, I’d go down every week and say, “Pray for my parents.”

But one day, God challenged me that I wasn’t loving my parents. I realised I still had hatred in there.

So I started doing acts of kindness: doing the dishes, cleaning my room. I changed what I was like at home, I tried to serve them a bit better.

Honestly, it was about a month later that they both gave their life to Christ.

They totally changed.

My Dad passed away in February this year, and I know that he had a faith. He and I had reconciled, and were good mates, and he’s been a great Dad to my brother and me. In Dad’s later years, he was very affectionate and generous: he emptied out his super so I could buy my first computer. He’d give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.

And that whole dysfunction of the gambling side of things has been broken over our family. We can’t take any credit for that. I can’t take credit for my parents and brother becoming Christian and changing their life. God changed my entire family, all because of something that I can take no control over.

Going into ministry was something I desperately wanted to do. I absolutely felt called to the ministry.

Now, for me, the difference is that I wasn’t raised in the church: this isn’t just a nice career. I know there are other people out there like me, and even if their life isn’t covered in abuse, we’re all equally lost.

I was fortunate enough to not have the arrogance of a nice life. My need for God was just so blatantly obvious, that it happened a bit easier. I identify with people’s brokenness. There’s a lot of brokenness out there, even for seasoned Christians.

And I know it’s about Christ and the redemption he’s bringing about in our lives. He’s restoring the earth. He’s restoring us, his church.

Daniel Abou-Zeid is the associate pastor at Catalyst Church in Ipswich, Queensland.

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NOVEMBER 2013

BOOK REVIEW

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Billy Graham’s reason for Hope Kara Martin When someone is nearing the end of their life, you know that they are going to save their most urgent messages for the final few platforms they are given.

Billy Graham is in that place. His memoir Nearing Home is on the bestseller list still, as this latest book is released.

The Reason for my Hope does not hide the punch-line: salvation is a subtitle. Reading the book is like listening to the sermons at a Billy Graham crusade, although the illustrations have been brought up to date.

The cynical part of me assumes that much of this book has been co-written, since I cannot imagine that Mr Graham has been scanning YouTube, or reading trashy magazines for his most recent illustrations; however I do not want to take away from the man or the message.

I learnt a lot about communicating the gospel through this book, and he has a wonderful technique of using emphasis: “Hope is not a force; it’s a gift.

Hope is not a fantasy; it’s a certainty.

Hope is not a futuristic aspiration; it’s a faith builder.”

He has some wonderful stories included here. Like a Prodigal Son illustration from South America, where a son leaves and lives a fruitless life, returning at the time when his dead father’s possessions are being auctioned off. There is a picture of his father, and

he bids for it, but he is outbid by a woman. He approaches her and asks her why she was willing to pay so much for a picture of someone she doesn’t know.

She explains that the frame is worth a lot. He tells her his story and, moved by compassion, she takes the picture out of the frame, and an envelope drops out.

In it is a letter from his father assuring his son of his constant love and prayers, as well as a bank draft. The woman tells him: “Go and live a life worthy of your father’s name”.

This story is in the chapter on redemption, which follows some inspiring stories of rescue. Then comes some exploration of faith and culture, the contemporary angst. In that chapter is an old but classic quote from Methodist missionary E. Stanley Jones: “At the cross God wrapped his heart in flesh and blood, and let it be nailed… for our redemption.”

Graham tackles the victory of Jesus, and the living hope he gives. He takes the seven last words of Jesus on the cross and summarises what they tell us about Jesus and his mission: • Jesus the great forgiver: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

• Jesus the great saviour: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

• Jesus the great comforter: as he provides for his mother by linking her with his friend John.

• Jesus the great reconciler: pointing to what he endured to reunite us with God, by willingly separating himself, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

• Jesus the great thirst quencher: he who asked for a drink, was the one who

“He purchased my soul with his blood...

I know he is coming back soon.” promised us living water and eternal refreshment for our souls.

• Jesus the furnisher and finisher of our faith: “It is finished!”

• Jesus the great victor: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” By submitting to God, he was raised back to life, granting us victory over death.

Graham also has a series of quotes from famous people who testified to the significance of Jesus and his impact on history, including: Rousseau, Napoleon, Vincent van Gogh, HG Wells, historian and US Naval Secretary George Bancroft, Mahatma Gandhi, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Charlton Heston, Elvis Presley, Albert Einstein.

He tackles our need to belong, and is critical of the modern church’s attempts to attract people to the gospel.

He feels that there needs to be a greater emphasis on believing rather than simply belonging. He quotes an article on

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Finally, God becomes involved in lives only when needed.”

Graham points out the essential question is not, “What’s in it for me?” but “Is Christ in me?” We have to be willing to hand over our desires and rights to be transformed in him.

This flows into the next chapter on the reality of hell, where Graham points out that “Satan creates religion without a Redeemer. He builds church without Christ. He calls for worship without the Word of God.” This book is not without some theological idiosyncrasies: are our souls bits of God in us that he wants to buy back?

Is hell actually located at the centre of the earth? However, mostly it is classic evangelical preaching, with conviction and persuasion.

The book finishes with Graham’s own source of hope: “I will hear him call my name not because I have preached for more than seventy years. Not because I have done anything good … The Lord Jesus has heard my confession of sin, my acknowledgement of need, and he reached down and saved me. He purchased my soul with his blood…I know he is coming back soon. THIS IS MY HOPE. And mine. And yours.”

For more book reviews, and an interview with reviewer Kara Martin, go to biblesociety.org.au/book-reviews

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NOVEMBER 2013

How C. S. Lewis lost his faith Rory Shiner C.S. Lewis, the 50th anniversary of whose death we mark this year, was many things: a literary scholar, an author of children’s fiction, a popular Oxford teacher, a cultural critic, an essayist and an apologist for the Christian faith.

Lewis was also a convert. And converts are intriguing people. At their worst, of course, the convert can become a bore (just think of your last conversation with someone who has recently discovered Paleo dieting or Noam Chomsky), but at their best a convert is, like the Wardrobe to Narnia, a portal to another world: another way of seeing things. Converts hold out the possibility that we may have missed something.

Lewis converted to Christianity in his 30s, well into a career as an Oxford Don, and after a good 20 years of selfconscious, thought-through atheism.

And it happened in a climate of heightened scepticism.

Since the rise of the new atheism, it is probably true to say that our current apologetic climate has more in common with Lewis’ Oxford of the 1920s and 30s than it does with the postmodern relativism of the 1980s and 1990s. Indeed, new atheism’s scientism and positivism has deep intellectual and personal connections with Lewis’ Oxford.

How was it, then, that this bright young Oxford Don lost his faith in atheism and became a Christian?

Background and upbringing Clive Staples Lewis, a man once described as the best read man in England, was born in 1898 into a well-to-do and conventionally protestant Northern Irish home.

Little from his childhood seems to have impressed him about Christianity, and he came to consciously abandon it, without trauma or regret. The only thing from childhood that seems to have positively contributed to his latter faith was the experience of ‘Joy’—Lewis’ technical name for an intense experience of desire which would intrigue and puzzle him for many years.

Almost everything else in childhood disposed him against the faith.

Suffering—perhaps the most abiding challenge to Christian faith—was a first hand reality for Lewis. It was experienced from three main sources: death, school and war (in that order).

Lewis’ mother died of abdominal cancer when he was just 10. “With my mother’s death,” wrote Lewis, “all settled happiness, and all that was tranquil

He came to believe that the pagan myths were not and reliable, disappeared from my life.”

(Surprised by Joy, pg 23) totally Lewis’ father sent his still grieving to boarding school in England. He false, but son hated it—the bullying, the institutionsexual and physical abuse, the pointed alised homesickness. (Readers of Lewis’ fiction recall schools are dark places.) in their might As his most recent biographer Alister best McGrath has noted, Lewis’ descriptions of school vastly overshadmoments ofowthehishorrors experience of the war. Whether this was because of his relatively short to the army time or for other reasons, there Lewis saw real suffering in truth of iswar.noIndoubt the trenches of France he wit“the horribly smashed men still the story nessed moving like half-crushed beetles, the or standing corpses, the landof Christ. sitting scape of sheer earth without a blade of grass.” (C. S. Lewis, McGrath, pg 69) Lewis’ rejection of the Christian God was not, however, simply a visceral response to suffering. On the contrary, Lewis seems to have rejected Christian faith on rational grounds. An omnivorous reader of mythology, Lewis asked why our god should be thought real, when we instantly assume the gods of

mythology are not? Why should He alone be given the attribute of actually existing? Was it not more sensible to conclude that “all religions are simply mythologies invented by human beings”? (McGrath, pg 42). Surely, gods are simply products of wish-fulfilment.

When people today become atheists, it is often via the discovery of critical thinking by which they can be liberated from the religious ideas inculcated in childhood. For Lewis, it was the opposite. A rigorous, critical approach to knowledge was a feature of his upbringing and something that came to him through the tutoring of a man called Kirkpatrick (or ‘the Great Knock’), who taught Lewis in the years 1914-17.

To capture the influence of Kirk on Lewis, it is worth recounting their first meeting. Lewis had travelled to Surrey by train, and on meeting Kirk commented innocuously on how the scenery was more ‘wild’ than he had expected.

“Stop!” said Kirk with a suddenness that made me jump. “What do you mean by wildness and what ground had you for not expecting it?” (McGrath, pg 109)

Bible Society Australia commemorates

C S Lewis TODAY biblesociety.org.au/cslewis

Lewis says that answer after answer he gave was torn to shreds.

“A few passes sufficed to show that I had no clear and distinct idea corresponding to the word ‘wildness’, and that, in so far as I had any idea at all, ‘wildness’ was a singularly inept word.

‘Do you not see,’ concluded the Great Knock, ‘that your remark was meaningless?’”

Lewis expected him to drop it at this point, but he went on: “On what had I based my expectations about the Flora and Geology of Surrey? Was it maps, or photographs, or books? I could produce none. It had, heaven help me, never occurred to me that what I called ‘my thoughts’ needed to be based on anything. Kirk drew one more conclusion—without the slightest sign of emotion, but equally without the slightest concession to what I thought good manners: ‘Do you not see then, that you had no right to have any opinion whatever on the subject?’”

Of him, Lewis said, “If ever a man came near to being a purely logical entity, that man was Kirk. Born a little later, he would have been a Logical Positivist.” (Surprised by Joy, 110) Lewis loved it. Through Kirk he was given a powerful way of seeing the world, a frame of mind and approach to thought that Lewis found so deeply satisfying. Kirk did not make him an atheist (he already was); but he gave him a way to be a fulfilled atheist.

By the time Lewis arrived at Oxford, his atheism seemed unshakeable. First hand experience of suffering, an account of religion as wish-fulfilment, and a rigorously logical and evidence-driven approach to knowledge. It all seems so water-tight. What went wrong? How did Lewis lose his faith?

There are several important milestones.

First, as an undergraduate, Lewis abandoned what he came to call “chronological snobbery”: the idea that the latest ideas are the best ideas.

Specifically, this meant an increasing suspicion of the logical positivism then fashionable at Oxford.

Secondly, (and relatedly) he became suspicious of the claim that the universe revealed by the senses was in fact “rock bottom reality.” What, said Lewis, about moral judgements? What about the experience of Joy? Beauty? Transcendence? Lewis has previously rejected all of these as tricks of the mind, but he now began to see them as real, and no less real because they weren’t scientific.

Indeed, strict positivism increasingly

NOVEMBER 2013

BSA launches C.S. Lewis site

in Atheism appeared to Lewis to be self-defeating.

The claim that ‘all true knowledge is falsifiable’ appeared to fail its own test, for by which means could that claim itself be falsified? And on what empirical studies could it possibly be based? For Lewis, positivism was not wrong, but incomplete. Positivism had announced itself as a great and brave “treaty with reality”; but for Lewis it was able to account for far less than it claimed. Lewis was now exploring the possibility that God, and eventually Christianity, could integrate both reason and imagination, both deliberation and desire.

Thirdly, Lewis’ experience as a reader began to eat away at his atheism. “A young man,” he once warned, “who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere.”

Lewis’ epistemic framework created for him a “ludicrous contradiction between my theory of life and my actual experience as a reader.” (McGrath, 134) He goes on: “On the one side a many islanded sea of poetry and myth; on the other a glib and shallow ‘rationalism’. Nearly all that I loved I believed to be imaginary; nearly all that I believed to be real I thought grim and meaningless.” (McGrath, 137) This idea of God-via-literature might seem a strange path to us, but Lewis is by no means the only one to have trod it. Several key figures of Lewis’ era, including G.K. Chesterton, Graeme

Green, Evelyn Waugh and T.S. Eliot all underwent profound conversions to Christianity through and because of their literary work. (McGrath, 133) Lewis similarly found something deeply wanting in accounts of human nature and experience that did not include God. One final stumbling block for Lewis was the problem of the myths. On Saturday 19 September 1931, Lewis talked long into the night with his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, whose solution took him through the impasse.

Tolkien shared with Lewis his view that Christ was the true myth. It was a myth in the sense that it was a story that addressed the imagination and helped one make sense of the world, but it was a true myth, grounded in the actual soil and reality of first century Palestine: it was the myth that actually happened.

For Lewis, this meant that he did not have to reject the truth and reality he found in the pagan mythologies. Rather than having to believe Christianity was the improbably true needle in the haystack of religion, he came to believe that the pagan myths were not totally false, but pointed in their best moments to the truth of the story of Christ.

God closes in For Lewis, the actual experience of conversion was not a sudden affair but more like a drawn out chess game in which God made a series of moves. Any individual move might have seemed

7

Kaley Payne escapable, but their accumulative effect rendered him in check-mate.

Lewis’ own account of how God moved in on him is about as far from an experience of wish fulfilment as you could imagine. He wrote: “Doubtless, by definition, God was Reason itself. But would he also be ‘reasonable’ in that other, more comfortable, sense. Not the slightest assurance on that score was offered me. Total surrender, the absolute leap in the dark, were demanded. The reality with which no treaty can be made was upon me. The demand was not simply ‘All or nothing’...It was simply ‘All.’” His account of the actual moment of conversion to God is justifiably in the canon of great conversion literature: “You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet...I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed, perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England…”

This was his acceptance of theism: his definite conversion to Christ came a little later, and by the end of 1931, C.S. Lewis was a Christian and went on to become perhaps the 20th century’s greatest apologist.

Rory Shiner is a minister at St Matthew’s, Shenton Park, in WA.

Bible Society Australia has launched a library of Australian C.S. Lewis resources to celebrate his life and champion his contribution to literature and to Christianity for many years to come.

The new online library compiles Australian articles, reviews, and analysis about C.S. Lewis, from explorations of Narnia to Lewis’ own conversion and his ongoing impact today.

50 years have passed since Lewis died—the anniversary of his death is November 22 this year—but his books are still selling, at a rate of approximately two million a year, and that rate is increasing.

“Lewis is now more popular than he ever was,” says Robert Banks, author and professor, speaking at a Sydney lecture on Lewis last month.

C.S. Lewis was, says Banks, a “friend who walked alongside” his readers to engage them with the heart and soul of the Christian message.

Bible Society Australia’s CEO and C.S. Lewis devotee, Greg Clarke, agrees, and hopes Bible Society’s new C.S. Lewis library will be a means to continue Lewis’ legacy for Christians across many denominations.

“There is great interest in Lewis among fantasy fans, apologetics gurus, literature lovers and Bible devotees...We plan to sustain and grow that interest on this new C.S. Lewis hub.”

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NOVEMBER 2013

IN DEPTH Greg Lake’s journey from youth pastor to immigration official on Christmas Island Greg Lake My journey from ministry to detention centre manager was a fairly simple one.

Towards the end of my diploma with Anglican Youthworks, I decided that I wanted to continue my theological education at a higher level. I knew I couldn’t afford that on my church stipend as a youth worker on the South Coast of NSW, so I resigned and took up a job with a bank.

Before long, I started to see my earning potential and career advancement as more than just a means to an end. I never did finish the Bachelor of Theology and instead went on to start a business degree.

Perhaps it was some sort of left over sense of civic duty that saw me shifting my focus away from banking. Keen to work in a job where more people would be impacted by my work, I started applying for jobs in the public service.

Immigration was the first job I got offered. I didn’t have any particular interest in (or even knowledge of ) the portfolio. At first, I worked in legislation and labour market economic policy.

However, after a short secondment to the Australian Senate, I started looking for something a bit more challenging.

That’s exactly what the department’s executive had in mind for me. Not long after indicating I was ready for a change, I was appointed to Christmas Island. * * * * * “Have you got any body bags? We’ve run out ...”

Those images of the boat crashing against the rocks at Christmas Island

‘Have you any body are etched in my memory. The only thing I will remember more was that frantic phone call from the hospital asking whether we had any body bags because they had already used up the 20 or so that they had in their stores.

In the weeks leading up to the crash, I had been heading into the office very early in the morning, sometimes before 4.30 am. Christmas Island was four hours behind Canberra time (because of daylight savings), so I would arrive in the office and get as much done while my colleagues were at their desks.

The summer swells had been really big and there had even been community bulletins for the Kampong residential area (opposite the jetty at Flying Fish Cove) warning against freak waves that could swamp the ground-floor apartments. All the asylum seeker offload operations and first day processing had been put on hold until the weather died down. Each morning, I’d head down to the jetty on my way to work to look at the conditions, trying to work out if the offload was possible.

On the morning of December 15 2010, I did just that—drove past the jetty (at about 5.45 am, a bit later than usual) and then went on to the office.

The swell was enormous and I knew as soon as I saw the cove, that we wouldn’t be doing an offload operation that day.

It was simply too dangerous.

Almost as soon as I parked my car and walked into the detention centre front gate, my phone rang to say that an unexpected boat had arrived. The Navy had missed it (as sometimes happened), and it was dangerously close to the shoreline. When the boat crashed

N C

against the rocks shortly after 7 am we had a disaster on our hands.

My role was to coordinate operational support through the provision of medical staff and supplies, logistics and welfare support (blankets, food, transport, etc.) and also personnel to help with the practical work, such as carrying the bodies off the Navy/ Customs RIBs (Rigid Inflatable Boats) to the triage centre where doctors were pronouncing people dead.

Despite all the practical help we

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I negotiated with people who had were able to provide that day, we still felt powerless. Like most Australians sewn their watching the TV, we were wondering how we’d reached the point where this lips sort of thing happened.

Getting a call for body bags was one together... of the worst experiences I had during my time working for DIAC. It was right up there with the call I got on Nauru (in early 2013) saying eight asylum seekers had sewn their lips together, and the call I got in Queensland (in 2011) saying one of the Afghan asylum seekers had

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bags? We’ve run out’

taken his own life. I knew the hospital only had about 20 body bags. So getting that call meant they had probably already exhausted their supply.

In all, about 50 people died that day. There was no part of what happened that wasn’t tragic. * * * * * Amazingly, the boat crash wasn’t enough to jolt me back into thinking seriously about how my work aligned with kingdom values.

I did have an inkling that perhaps I needed to think about my work and how it aligned

with my faith in Jesus a little differently, but I wasn’t ready to face that issue just yet. In the meantime, I was justifying my profession by helping to organise Christian asylum seekers to visit the Christmas Island Christian Fellowship on Sundays and setting up a system where members of the church could come into the Christmas Island detention centre to minister to those inside.

Following my stint on Christmas Island, I took up a position as Regional Manager of Queensland detention centres and Centre Manager of the Scherger detention centre in Cape York. After a stint back in Canberra working in a policy and administrative role, I was asked to come back into the detention division when the Gillard Government announced it was going to re-establish offshore processing. I was asked to take up the role of Director of Regional Processing Operations—providing Canberra-based operational coordination to all offshore transfers of asylum seekers.

It was during this time, when we were setting up the Manus and Nauru Regional Processing centres, that I really began to question working in such a role. The most challenging part of that position was when I was asked to select some people from family groups to be transferred to Manus Island.

My instructions (from the Minister for Immigration’s office) were to find families with children as young as possible (because we had to send a message to people smugglers that children, even young children, weren’t exempt). We couldn’t transfer children under seven, as they couldn’t be inoculated against Japanese Encephalitis or Malaria, so I had to choose children who looked young.

As I was looking at the names of these young children, knowing that I was sending

them to a place where they had no hope for the future, I found myself crossing an ethical line that I simply couldn’t live with.

I lasted in that job for just a few months before they sent me to Curtin Immigration Detention Centre and then on to Nauru as the director of the detention centre there It was when I was given those marching orders that I realised I’d become something of a specialist in running detention centres.

I knew how the detention contracts worked, I understood the legal issues, I knew how to develop good stakeholder relationships and I knew how to manage staff. But over time, I realised that running horrible detention centres where the most vulnerable people in the world were sent away to be ‘out of sight, out of mind’ to the Australian community wasn’t something I was overly comfortable with. * * * * * While on Nauru, I was faced with daily demonstrations by asylum seekers in need.

I was responsible for organising the medical evacuation of a man whose underlying psychological condition was made so much worse by his transfer to Nauru that he would experience perpetual psychosis if he wasn’t given a better level of care.

I sat and listened to the stories of Afghans who literally ran for their lives after watching their wives and children being killed in front of them. I wept with Sri Lankan Christians who had lost all hope. I negotiated with people who had sewn their lips as a way of expressing the feeling that they had no voice.

While I was on Nauru, I read Crazy Love

by Francis Chan. At the end of the book, Francis encourages his readers to ask the question “Is this what I want to be doing when Jesus returns?” He encourages us to think about whether the thing we’re doing

right now is where we want Jesus to find us when he appears in his majesty.

I was challenged by that idea. I realised that I had wandered away from a life defined by my faith—a life that sought out opportunities to share the gospel, to love people and to live in obedience to our wonderful God. I had slipped through a phase where money and career became the end game, and at Immigration found myself in a position where even the most horrific of incidents wasn’t enough to make me question my focus.

I realised that I didn’t want to be in that job when Jesus returned. I didn’t want to be looking back on this time in our nation’s history with shame at the part I played in locking vulnerable people in detention. I didn’t want to find myself in front of Jesus on that great day, explaining why I didn’t give the asylum seekers a glass of water (Matthew 10:42), explaining why I didn’t give voice to the mute (Proverbs 31:8-9), explaining why I treated the refugees with contempt.

I’m not saying the public service in general is a bad place for Christians to work—we need strong Christians in those important roles. However, I’d become a specialist in a field that is far from godly and, while there are people of integrity working in those roles, it is hard to see how on the one hand, a Christian can pursue kingdom values, while on the other hand, treating the vulnerable in this way.

Greg Lake resigned in April this year after finding an unavoidable conflict between his faith and his work. These days, he blogs at theimmigrationblog.com and shapes surfboards on the NSW South Coast.

He attends St Martin’s Anglican Church, Ulladulla.

DISCOVER A DYNAMIC PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN YOUR PROFESSION & FAITH Choosing to study at CHC has given me the opportunity to grow my understanding and knowledge, strengthen my beliefs and reflect on what Godly leadership is all about. Perhaps there will never be a perfect time to start – but the journey is definitely worth the effort.” – Felicity

On campus and external

10

NOVEMBER 2013

Grace and the Ten Commandments Michael Jensen

Gold and oozing honey: that’s pretty powerful imagery, especially in a culture with no refined sugar!

But what of Christians? What role is the Old Testament law meant to have in the life of Christian believers? How and on what day should Christians observe the Sabbath, for example? What does it mean for Paul to say “you are not under the law, but under grace?” Does he mean by this that grace and the law are in opposition to one another? In what way? Had the sweet taste of the law become suddenly bitter?

There are some pretty strong statements in the New Testament, particularly from Paul, about the law, suggesting in Romans 7:6, for example, that Christians “have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.”

The law made us slaves. It could not save us. The regulations and rituals of the Old Covenant were shadows of the things that were to come in Christ, and not by themselves able to save anyone.

When Paul introduces the fruit of the Spirit in that extraordinary passage at the end of Galatians, he also says “against these things there is no law”(5:32), as if to say law-thinking completely misses the point when it comes to the gospel of Christ.

This is a question that has proved

extremely controversial in the history of Christianity. Most Christian readers of the Old Testament will recognise that the Old Testament law is the word of God, and needs to be taken with all the seriousness that that implies.

Now, very few Christians teachers have suggested that the whole 613 precepts of the Old Testament law ought to be observed by Christians (though there’ll always be one or two!). In the first place, there’s clear New Testament evidence of the Jewish apostles feeling free to transgress against the food laws, for example. Likewise, the entirety of Paul’s letter to the Galatians is an argument to non-Jewish believers trying to convince them that they don’t need to follow the Jewish law or be circumcised in order to become Christians.

Usually people are selective about which parts of the law still apply to Christians, and how that might work.

Perhaps it is only the Ten Commandments that still matter. Or perhaps what we might call the ‘ceremonial’ laws are no longer relevant, while the more ‘moral’ and ‘civil’ ones are. (This division of the law into three can be found, for example, in the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion).

The trouble with that way of thinking is that it is not so easy to divide the Old Testament law into discrete categories.

Is the Sabbath law a moral or a ceremo-

The law itself is script that Jesus lives out. nial law? Isn’t all the law about right It is behaviour as an act of worship of the one true God? his story And at this point, some readers of the Bible have suggested that the Old Testain the ment law has no ongoing relevance for the Christian life—other than perhaps end. the way Jesus summed it up as love of God and love of neighbour (Mark 12:29-31). The fear is that the New Testament’s emphasis on grace will be compromised by any suggestion that there are still things that Christians are commanded to do. It is so easy for us to slip back into the kind of legalism from which grace freed us in the first place.

But there is an important biblical frame around this issue.

First, we have to remember that the word “law’” or torah, refers not simply to the commands of the Old Testament but to the whole of the first five books of Scripture, from Genesis to Deuteronomy. That means that the commands are not without a context: they are received in the middle of the narrative of the liberation and redemption of Israel from Egypt and their entry into the promised land. You can’t read the laws without the story, which is a story of the grace of God. The grace of God precedes the giving of the law, and not the other way around. It was never the case (as you sometimes hear) that in the Old Testa-

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Waiting for The Word / George Bannister

Jesus: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matt 5:17-18 NIV).

Paul: “For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14 NIV).

The church that I grew up in was not ornately built. In fact it was rather plain. This meant that the huge plaques pinned on the front wall stood out even more starkly.

On them was written the Ten Commandments in a kind of medieval lettering (which made them look all the more fearsome).

The story of the delivery of the Ten Commandments to Moses is no less dramatic than their appearance on the far wall of my church.

Moses comes down from Mount Sinai from his encounter with the holy God with his two tablets of stone to an awestruck Israel. The first time he does it, he smashes them in rage because he sees them worshipping the golden calf, and thus breaking the central precept of the law even as they receive it: “You shall have no other gods before me”.

It’s extraordinary stuff. The Ten Commandments are given to Israel— along with 603 others—not simply as a suggestion but as a rule of life in God’s land under God’s authority. This is what made them who they were. It was a distinctive moral and ceremonial pattern for their communal living, telling them what festivals to celebrate, who you could marry, what you could eat and what you should do when you had a period.

When you read Psalm 119, a kind of love song to the torah (the Hebrew name for the law), you get a picture of what the study and observance of the law might mean to an Israelite mind.

In Psalm 19, we hear these memorable words: The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul; the decrees of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple… They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb (Ps 19:7,10).

NOVEMBER 2013

11

My struggle for sexual purity Brad Emery

OR YO F E L B A L I A AV

Pretending sexually explicit material ‘doesn’t affect me’ is ignorance.

We need to accept that we are not ultra-spiritual automatons able to resist the onslaught of sexual material.

Pretending sexually explicit material ‘doesn’t affect me’ or that ‘being a Christian makes me immune’ is ignorance.

Every man must come to terms with their innate propensity to fulfil their sexual desires in a way contrary to the design of our Creator. Recognising that we are hardwired for attraction to sexual stimulation is not a sin, but the first step in the fight to be sexually pure.

The danger for us is if we dismiss the real, caustic nature of sexual sin.

Pornography, promiscuity, sex outside marriage, self-gratification through masturbation, explicit fantasising, ogling female workmates and ‘harmless’ flirtation all have an acute, driving motivation toward self. They are all outlets designed to serve one person: me.

Indulging in these avenues of pleas-

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ment people got in by works, but now in the New Testament, we are included by grace. It was always grace! And grace produces godliness, then as now.

What’s more (secondly), the laws themselves were not simply timeless moral truths for life anywhere anytime, but were a complicated symbolic system for teaching the Israelites about the holiness of God and of the need for being right with God. To live under the law was to know the character of the God of Israel. And not simply to know his character: it was to be called to worship him rightly, as he directed.

That’s why the Ten Commandments begin with commands to worship God and only him. Sadly, these are the ones people often forget. But the law also pointed forward (thirdly) to its own need for fulfilling or completion. That you had to make atonement for your sins showed again and again that the law itself was not sufficient to save.

This makes sense of Jesus’ teaching about the law. He preaches against legalism: those who think they have some grounds for ethnic and moral pride on account of the law are those he scolds the most. But the law itself is something he prizes. The law is the script that Jesus himself lives out. It is his story in the end. He understands inner purpose of the law, that it is about love of God and of neighbour. And he accomplishes its purposes, by bringing people into communion with God. So, is the Old Testament law for Christian living? The New Testament authors do make quite positive use of the law as a guide for the Christian life in some places. In James 2, for example, the author uses the Ten Commandments as a touchstone for his discussion of holiness. Paul repeats Jesus’ teaching about love as the central component and summary of the law in Romans 13.

But in doing so it is not as if he says that anything in the Ten Commandments would be contrary to Christian life.

And this is perhaps key: the New Testament is saying we are at a different point in the story. Holiness for the people of God looks different now because we are living in a new day, after the accomplishment of the law in the death of Jesus. But the law is not thereby made simply irrelevant. Is it Christian to worship God exclusively and rightly?

Of course. Is it now right to kill, or to commit adultery, where once it was not? Of course not. Love is a summary of the law, but love is not thereby simply exchanged for the commandments. The commandments, which are acted out in the life of Jesus, paint for us the colours of love.

“Why was I attracted to pornography?

I was a Christian, wasn’t I? Was there something wrong with me? How could anyone love me if they found out?”

This is a glimpse into my struggle as a man coming to terms with my sexuality.

Years of struggling have led me to believe that as Christian men, we need to get real and understand that we are in the fight of our lives to hold onto sexual purity. The first step is coming to terms with what it means to be a sexual man.

God designed sex to be powerfully pleasurable and the driver of intimacy between a married man and woman.

The entire book of Song of Songs is testament to the power sex has to unite two people. It is this power of sex to give pleasure and intimacy that has opened it to corruption in our broken world.

Men were designed by God for relationship. However, since the Fall, our masculine brain has been re-wired. The enemy has utilised the weapons of each age—from temple prostitutes to television advertising—to deceive men into believing relationships are defined by, and are fulfilled by sex. In our very core we have grabbed hold of this thinking and held tight.

Christian expert on male sexuality, Dr Allen Myer, describes a man’s brain as a chemistry set, and the chemicals engaged within sex are some of the most powerful. Testosterone, adrenaline, pheromones, and the natural opiates of endorphins and encephalins all come into play with sexual stimulation.

Years of struggling have led me to believe that as Christian men we need to get real and understand that we are in the fight of our lives to hold onto sexual purity.

ure to gratify ourselves above anyone else eventually becomes a psychological cancer that can take years to remove.

For young men, viewing pornography, even occasionally, can develop a warped view of women and sex. This can lead to disillusionment in marriage when a wife isn’t able to live up to the manufactured sexual fantasies of pornography. Left unspoken and unhealed, this damage has potential to tear marriages apart.

Or it can set a man on a long-term downward spiral into sexual fantasy, or in acting on his fantasies.

And no man is immune. Churches around the world have been ripped apart because one of the church leaders secretly indulged in pornography.

Even when Christian men identify and renounce the damage porn is capable of inflicting, the tender wounds, though healed by grace, are often pricked by needles of shame for years.

That’s why almost every book in the Bible warns of the dangers of allowing sexual sin to take hold. Sodom and Gomorrah, David’s sin, the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s epistles: the Bible clangs like an alarm bell about how seductive and destructive sexual sin is.

For Christian men, there is only one true course of action. We must engage in relentless, daily battle to be sexually pure.

Fighting a war requires understanding of the schemes of the enemy. 1 Peter 5:8 describes Satan as a lion ‘prowling around looking for someone to devour.’

That’s the enemy’s strategy: he wants us to believe we are unique in our sexual sin, that if anyone knew how deeply sexually sinful we are, they would cast

us out as a perverted monster.

He tells us that God’s grace is not enough to save us. That we are too far gone to be counted among God’s beloved children.

We can answer these lies by bathing in the ocean of God’s grace. Reminding ourselves as in Hebrews 10:22 that we have been washed with the blood of the King’s Son, will help us understand our sins have been thrown into the deepest sea, never to be retrieved. We stand firm as the adopted children of God. The fight for sexual purity is visceral, hand-to-hand combat. Day after day, we must engage in the mud and blood of our inner-selves so that painstakingly, with God’s help, we wrench our being free of the mire that is selfish, sinful, sexual expression. A half-baked masking of sexual sin in the form of sporadic behavioural change won’t cut it.

For men that may mean installing internet filtering software to remove the temptation. Or to disconnect our home internet or cable television so we don’t search for ‘sex-snippets’ to fuel sexual fantasy. It may mean our favourite social hang-out is a no-go-zone.

This is the battle we are marching into. The good news for Christian men is that we don’t have to fight alone.

There are books and practical courses that can help men support one another in the fight to reclaim sexual purity.

Our sexuality is not designed to be our master. It is a pure and perfect gift from our heavenly Father. As Christian men we are called to be realistic, and battle to hold it in that light.

Brad Emery is a freelance writer and goes to Church By the Bridge, Sydney.

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NOVEMBER 2013

Why China still needs Bibles Suzanne Schokman For years, Christians outside China found ways to smuggle Bibles into the country. Now that Bibles are legally printed by Amity Printing Company in Nanjing, some may miss the excitement of sending Bibles through stealth.

However, there’s still an acute need for millions of Bibles—enough to whet every missionary’s appetite—and there’s much that Christians everywhere can do to help.

“People think that China is a superpower,” says Jock Foo, Project Manager with United Bible Societies China Partnership team. “But the superpowers are Shanghai and Beijing. China’s 2010 census shows that fifty-one per cent of its population lives in rural areas. An estimated seventy per cent of China’s Christians are found in these areas.

Many people live in poor conditions and that’s the reality.”

In rural areas, 10 or more church members are known to share one Bible between themselves. It can cost a day’s wages to buy a Bible, and so owning their own copy is not possible for many.

Guo Xiao Hong, whose extended family of eight shares two Bibles, longs for her own as the children grow up.

“It’s important to have God’s word when

you’re bringing up children.”

The registered church in China says there’ve been about half a million baptisms a year in the past five years.

It’s estimated that the registered church grew by an average of 1 million Christians a year. Unofficial figures, estimating 90-100 million Christians in China, suggest larger growth. Either way, the church is growing by leaps and bounds, and so is the need for Bibles.

With your help, Bible Society Australia and fellow Bible Societies around the world are able to subsidise the cost of printing and distributing Bibles throughout rural China.

Around 3.5 million Bibles are printed annually by Amity, and a million are made available at very low prices. This helps those who long for their own Bible but cannot otherwise afford it.

Churches are asking for 2.5 million of these affordable Bibles, but the China Partnership cannot currently fund the shortfall. ‘If we don’t meet the demand now, the permitted Bible production volume for next year may be reduced.” says Jock Foo. “We don’t know when we may lose the opportunity to print this number of Bibles.”

Those working tirelessly to distribute Bibles in China need your help to finance Bible printing. When a Bible

distribution van arrived at Ding Jujin’s village, it was met with joy. Ding’s old Bible was well-worn. “I had read it so much I did not know how much longer it would last. I wanted to study so I could teach people, but this was becoming a problem.”

When he was given a new Bible, he said, “This is a precious gift; we will take good care of this gift, so the Bibles will last us, and we can continue to help others blossom in grace.”

Another impact poverty has on rural China is illiteracy. Many a Chinese Christian is unable to study the Bible and to check for themselves everything taught or heard.

Hazel Southam of the British and Foreign Bible Society visited Shaanxi Province and was told that cults were a big problem facing the local church.

“People can’t read,” says Southam, “so when someone tells them that they’re from the true church, they go along.

Why not? It’s common to attend church one day and a cult the next. And until you can read the Bible for yourself and work stuff out, you’re not going to know who’s telling the truth.”

Bible-based literacy classes in four provinces made possible by Bible Society donors worldwide are helping to change that. 73-year-old Giu Ying, who

Churches are asking for 2.5 million of these affordable Bibles, but the China received a Bible after the literacy course says, ‘‘I’m happy now that I can read and write. I wasn’t able to understand Partnership the Bible passages and stories, but now cannot I can understand them better.”

Having left school at 15, farmer Han currently Xiao Ling jumped at the chance to attend a literacy class. “I wanted to learn fund the to read so that I could understand the truth. Now I feel a real joy in my spirit.” shortfall.

Besides growing people’s faith, the classes help them fend for themselves.

“Learning to read builds confidence,” says Southam. “It helps with your business, and you’re unlikely to be cheated by middlemen. And if you can sign your name, you can get the small government pension for the elderly. That could make the difference between having enough to live on, and not.

“So perhaps it’s no wonder that the villagers in Zhu Lin, Shaanxi are packing the church out every weekend.

“This is life-changing stuff.”

If you’d like to extend a hand and enable Bible Society Australia to support the literacy and Bible distribution work in China, call 1300 BIBLES (1300 242 537) or visit biblesociety.org.au/eternityappeal to donate. Donations to the literacy part of the appeal are tax-deductible, but every dollar sent for Bible distribution will help change lives.

MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK

LEND A HAND, DONATE NOW! Reach out to the mass of people, who long for a copy of the Bible, in rural China.

Donate online: biblesociety.org.au/eternityappeal or phone: 1300 BIBLES (1300 242 537)

NOVEMBER 2013

13

Hollywood provides its own plotline Review by Mark Hadley Every human society has accepted ways of behaving backed by a particular worldview. These views are open to challenge, but the changes can be subtle. If one of my boys wants to propose a change to the amount of sugar he’s allowed to have of an afternoon, he’s more likely to see how close he can sidle up to a mound of muffins before he gets challenged. All the way, often enough, and he’s achieved social change. When society sidles up to social change, you’re more likely to see it happen in films long before it reaches the public forums.

Children’s movies provide one of the most interesting indicators of social change. In every story there is a hero with a barrier to overcome, but what that barrier is depends very much on what producers visualise as the problem that will resonate most with their audiences. Over the past two decades we’ve sat in the dark and seen Hollywood sidle up to and heroically step over a number of significant social boundaries.

And thanks to their edging we’ve collectively come to consider those barriers irrelevant.

One of the first to fall was racial prejudice, a barrier built from the ethnic caricatures villains use to keep a hero in his place. In Disney’s Aladdin (1992) our champion musically railed at the idea of being a “street rat” and we eventually discovered he was actually a “diamond in the rough”. In 2001, kids discovered that just because Shrek was a filthy, green ogre it didn’t mean he couldn’t have a heart of gold. And in 2007, Ratatouille taught us that being a gutter-dwelling vermin shouldn’t preclude you from a place in a five-star kitchen.

Another easy obstacle to overcome were society’s expectations. In A Bug’s Life (1998), the ambitious ant Flik proved that a lowly worker could save everyone by defying the collective. It happened again in Happy Feet (2006), when we learned with Mumble that dancing was just as good as singing, regardless of what grizzled elders might say. And last year Monsters University taught us that not even the scaled Dean of Scare School had a right to limit who could climb under a kid’s bed.

Probably less welcome, though, have been those films that targeted a parent’s right to direct a child’s life. Family expectations came under fire in 2010’s How To Train Your Dragon when a Viking dad failed to understand his son’s insights. Likewise, 2012’s Brave taught us that mums who compel their daughters to recognise their royal responsi-

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bilities will only ruin their relationships.

In fact, parental fears could qualify as a wholly separate barrier to happiness.

Finding Nemo taught us that parents needed to trust their small fry, The Incredibles told kids their mums’ fears were likely to be unfounded, and Hotel Transylvania emphasised that it was better for dads to keep their fangs out of their daughters’ love lives.

Now don’t get me wrong. Movies do a great job identifying barriers that need challenging. Fantastic Mr. Fox does a good job demonstrating the risks we run when we make our dreams more important than those we love. But that’s a rare occurrence. The age of individualism has resulted in storylines that have mounted comic cases for ignoring every form of authority that comes in conflict with a child’s heart. But in 2013 Hollywood is hurdling a barrier it once helped to build.

This year two films will question whether nature itself has a right to challenge our aspirations. In Dreamworks’ Turbo, a snail called Theo dreams of being super-fast. His brother Chet tries to convince him that speed isn’t an option for a mollusc. There are certain basic realities that can’t be overturned, and your birth is one of them: Theo: “It’s in me!”

Chet: “No, it’s not!”

Theo: “Says who?”

Chet: “Mother Nature! And the sooner you accept the dull reality of your life, the better.”

But it’s more than a matter of defying social conventions when Chet brings Mother Nature into the argument.

Using bright, simplistic characters, the writers of Turbo suggest that just because someone is born a snail, it doesn’t mean they have to stay one. Let that sink in. Then ask yourself, who decided that the snail should be a snail in the

first place? And so Mother Nature becomes the polite alias for any force saying we were created to be a certain way.

A similar storyline emerges from Pixar’s Planes. Dusty Crophopper is a farm aircraft who dreams of more than spraying pesticide on the wheat fields of small town America. His construction is against him, but he’s determined not to let that get in the way of entering the Wings Around The World race. In Planes Dusty and his supporters set their sites on exceeding the limitations of their designs: Franz: You’re an inspiration to all of us!

Dusty: All of us?

Franz: Yes, all of us who want to do more than we were built for.

It seems fairly encouraging for Dusty to dream to overcome his build, but by making the implied designer the barrier, Hollywood teaches our kids to question a different sort of wisdom. I’m not suggesting a malevolent conspiracy to attack the Bible’s teaching on topics like homosexuality or gender reassignment. That would be attributing far too much villainy to the writers of Turbo and Planes. But it’s worth considering how the increasingly strident demands of individualism filters down into the world of children’s entertainment. The advantage for society, the collective experience of family, the wisdom of elders and now birth itself all have to bow before what I feel inside to be true.

I do want my boys to think very carefully about the restrictions society places on people simply because they are man-made rules, and so are subject to sin and error. But they’re able to do that with confidence because, first of all, I’m teaching them that there is a Creator who sits above our earthly intelligence, and whose decisions they can trust above everything else.

The Counselor Review by Ben McEachen

When society sidles up to social change, you’re more likely to see it happen in films.

People love corruption. Witness the response last month to the final episode of TV series Breaking Bad. The culmination of its fifth season attracted 10 million American viewers. Australia claimed the dubious honour of leading the world in most illegal downloads of the episode. Somewhat appropriate, given Breaking Bad centres on corruption: specifically, one man’s journey from high-school teacher to drug baron.

During the past few years, Breaking Bad has grown from a cult following to an international phenomenon. Part of its appeal is the unflinching presentation of an everyday guy’s descent into depravity. But Breaking Bad isn’t alone.

Need more corruption? Ridley Scott’s latest film, The Counselor (released November 14), follows a lawyer who gets involved with drug trafficking.

Starring Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt, The Counselor sounds almost underwhelming. Why? Because we’re used to seeing role models, or those charged with preserving social boundaries, turning to the dark side. Be it on screen (Training Day, to Boardwalk Empire) or in real life (police corruption, to child-abuse atrocities), our suspicions about authority being misused are often vindicated.

Such pessimism breeds from that place in all of us, where we revel in the imperfections of others. We know our own flaws, yet feel smug when we consider we’re not as bad as them. But that’s just excusing sinful behaviour we know we should correct in ourselves. As Galatians 6:7-8 honestly warns, if we continue to do that, corruption will be our own reward. What’s to love about that?

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NOVEMBER 2013

OPINION

Does Jesus change you?

Tim Costello

A Garage Christmas Guangyao Un

James’ ... main point is that faith without works is dead World Vision Australia

The American Christian author Greg Boyd has a new book called Benefit of the Doubt. In it he challenges the common idea of faith that many Christians have been taught. This idea says that the more psychologically certain you are, the greater your faith. If you are less certain, your faith is weaker.

A problem Boyd sees in what he calls “certainty-seeking faith” is that it has led many Christians to incorrectly interpret the doctrine of being “saved by faith” to mean that we’re saved by feeling certain about a set of beliefs. In his opinion, this explains why studies show that the faith of most Americans has little impact on how they live. To a large extent, the same is sadly true of Australia.

A passage used to support certaintyseeking faith is James 1:6-7: “You must believe and not doubt … those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord”. A problem occurs, though, when we take a passage like this out of context. James, of course, devotes a lot of his letter to faith, his main point being that faith without works is dead (James 2:14-26).

This leads us to Abolitionist Sunday.

This year it is being held on Sunday November 24. It will be a day when Christians across Australia come together to raise awareness and take action against the injustice of human trafficking and slavery. There are many Christians who

Churches across Australia will speak out against slavery on Abolitionist Sunday have worked tirelessly for the abolition of slavery. One of them was Charles Finney.

Finney was a fiery revivalist preacher during a time called The Second Great Awakening in the USA in the 19th century. He is known for inventing the altar call, where people come forward to publicly declare their new faith in Christ.

But what many people are not aware of is that Finney really invented the altar call to sign people up for the abolition-

ist movement. For Charles Finney, faith and justice were inseparable.

This year we are calling on Christians around Australia to be ambassadors for the abolitionist cause. Greg Boyd says that real faith cannot but radically affect every area of our life. I pray that this year’s Abolitionist Sunday will bring out the true faith in each of us.

Let us, by our works, show our radical faith in Christ on November 24.

Find out more at bit.ly/15N8n2D

Sydney-based worship band, Garage Hymnal, are releasing an album of Christmas hymns, entitled Lowly.

Greg Cooper, guitarist for Garage Hymnal, admits that a lot of carols are well-worn which is why they took a different approach, culminating in the unusual album name.

“That title really came out of a lot of the hymn lyrics that we were looking at. It’s very different to the usual, commercial idea of Christmas.

“There’s a song on there called ‘Infant Lowly’ which is where the title comes from. For me, I enjoy the lyrics of that song, because it draws on the aspects of the lowliness. The way we’ve produced that song is fairly dark and contemplative. For me, that song is one that really speaks to me.”

In line with that track, the album and its selection of songs “focuses on Jesus and the way in which he came to earth—what his incarnation means for us.”

There are ten songs on the album, mostly reworkings of traditional hymns to original music. While it contains two traditional songs: ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain’, and ‘The Holly and the Ivy’, the others are more obscure.

Garage Hymnal have also commissioned a Christmas animation of one of the songs.

“The aim of the animation is to equip churches with an item for their Christmas services that they might not be able to do by themselves.”

For more, visit garagehymnal.com.

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Letters

Tatts, romances and phones

More on tatts People tattoo themselves with what’s really important to them - such as the name of a loved one. So before we dismiss tattoos, it’s interesting to note that God’s got tatts—He’s got your name and mine tattooed on his palm—Isaiah 49:16.

Also, Jesus is well-acquainted with body-piercing.

Philip Uren, Thornleigh, NSW.

A great issue I recall reading, at the time when Eternity would have first began appearing on tables in vestibules around the country, a criticism that ran something like: “for a paper named Eternity it doesn’t contain much about eternity”. Even if that particular critic only occasionally picked up your paper I’m sure by now he feels that his comment was perhaps a bit premature. This is especially true for the latest edition which tackled one of the great issues that faces all of us, at some time, who would live the Christian life i.e. is my walk to be a single one or a partnership? All the articles were a great encouragement and helped focus our thoughts on this subject with eternity in mind. I got some chuckles out of Joanna Hayes’ article on internet dating and was again fortified by Michael Jensen’s contribution which countered the world’s matrix and its ongoing

objective of squeezing us into it. This edition was not only for the single, yet to be married younger Christian but also spoke to that growing demographic of middle-aged divorced Christians who are now revisiting all those same issues and asking the same questions about singleness and marriage.

Stephen Fry, Hoppers Crossing, Vic.

Romances When I read Simone Richardson’s article on Christian romantic fiction in Eternity’s October edition, I wondered from where she had obtained her novels. I assume they are from USA’s Bible belt, as the three negative remarks she made about romantic fiction are not reflected in any of the novels I have read.

Ms Richardson may not be aware that Australia is responsible for many good works of Christian fiction—both romantic and otherwise—which do not reflect the negative take she freely pinned on all of them.

I have never read a Christian romance novel that “explicitly [taught] that God has someone lined up for each of us”. I guess it could be said that they may imply it, as the book’s protagonists usually end up together, but I have never read one that has explicitly taught this point of view.

Ms Richardson’s third remark was that Christian romances are bad because they try to teach us God’s

sovereignty, instil Christian values and promote Godliness. Is this really a bad thing? Isn’t this what the preacher does at church every Sunday?

As C.S. Lewis said, ‘“Any amount of theology can now be smuggled into people’s minds under the cover of fiction without their knowing it”. This can happen in all forms of fiction, and I have definitely seen it in Christian romantic fiction.

Lynne Stringer, Camp Hill, Qld.

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Why am I becoming so sceptical about fundraising phone calls from charities?

In recent weeks many persons representing very deserving charities, have exhorted me to change from being an occasional donor to a committed monthly donor, however small. It is definitely the “flavour of the month” in fund raising.

I would perhaps listen more attentively if callers would identify themselves and tell me their relationship with the organisation they represent, including whether they are volunteers, working on commission, or paid employees.

They do appear to have access to my history of donations. Then they might bother to check whether the call is at a convenient time for me.

“Retired person” (Name and address withheld upon request)

ago this month. There will be an exclusive group that have read his science fiction—and a bigger group that have read The Inner Ring and who learned to be suspicious of exclusive groups. We all owe him a great debt. John Sandeman

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NOVEMBER 2013

Whose future is it, anyway?

Greg Clarke your future, but the future of God’s creation. When you start to see yourself not as the central figure of the future, but as a beloved participant in God’s future, your present troubles become less depressing.

While your own pathway may be bleak, creation’s pathway is not. Your life is brief, short and usually painful; but the Lord’s plans are being fulfilled, and cannot be thwarted. They involve the end of pain, the defeat of death, the reign of peace, the pleasure of company, the satisfaction of plenty, the wealth of nations, cities of splendour, and the presence of God (all images from Revelation 21). The theme from Old Testament prophets to the close of Revelation is that God is bringing about a “new heavens and earth”, a cosmic renewal, and the biblical imagery of it is grand, peaceful and lovely.

Even so, little-ole-me is not left out: as “new creations” in Christ, we are being custom-fitted to be part of this wonderful future which God has begun and will complete. We start to live now,

... the Lord’s plans are being fulfilled, Feasting and hoping: our delight to be part of God’s story. and as followers of Christ, in a way suited to lens of Scripture. All we can expect now the coming new creation. We try to live is to walk in the Way of the promised cannot be as if we are home already. future.

Paul makes it plain to us that if the The Bible’s message is simple: to have thwarted. only hope we have in Christ is for a hope in the future, it needs to be less better life here and now, we are to be pitied (1 Cor 15:19). That’s not the deal; that’s not how life in this world plays out. All this talk of victorious living, greater blessing and prosperity— friends, we have to revisit it through the

about you and more about what God is doing and your delight to be part of it.

When you lift your eyes from your own situation to see what God is doing, it is incredible just how much hope can flood into a heart.

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From Julie & Julia

How much time do you spend imagining a better future for yourself? I suspect it’s quite a bit. You think about when you will buy a new dress, or what life will be like after you have finished studying. You dream of the children you will have, the house you will build, or just the day when you will fit into your jeans again.

It’s just very human to imagine the future, and to be optimistic about what it holds. We call it hope.

But, in reality, the future on earth for each of us is most likely worse than the present! This bleak thought can be backed up by one simple fact: we are all headed for the grave. But before then, the vast majority of us will succumb to an illness, suffer a misfortune or (if we are lucky) find ourselves in a nursing home slowly fading into the background. We might manage a few highlights, a couple of ‘mountain top experiences’, a win here or there. Perhaps we’ll get to string out our successes over a few decades. But that’s about it. As the great wave of time overwhelms us, and the dreams drown, we wonder whether we matter, why we are suffering so much, and when it will all end.

Which is why the Bible consistently teaches us that the most liberating of human experiences is to imagine not