THE LUTHERAN April 2015

APRIL 2015

NATIONAL MAGAZINE OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA

Print Post Approved PP100003514 VOL 49 NO3

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15: 56,57)

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EDITOR/ADVERTISING phone 0427 827 441 email rosie.schefe@lca.org.au

LEST WE FORGET

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Brothers-in-law Phil Thamm (left) and Rev George Samiec walked the Kokoda Track last year with a group of family, taking seven days to complete their trek.

Phil is a soldier who normally worships with Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Belconnen ACT, while George serves as pastor at Ascension Lutheran Church in Suffolk, England. Sunday evening worship together with villagers in Ua-Ule was a special part of the experience.

phone 08 8360 7270 email lutheran.subs@lca.org.au

www.thelutheran.com.au We Love The Lutheran!

As the magazine of the Lutheran Church of Australia (incorporating the Lutheran Church of New Zealand), The Lutheran informs the members of the LCA about the church’s teaching, life, mission and people, helping them to grow in faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. The Lutheran also provides a forum for a range of opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editor or the policies of the Lutheran Church of Australia. The Lutheran is a member of the Australasian Religious Press Association and as such subscribes to its journalistic and editorial codes of conduct.

Photo: Jenny Samiec

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CONTACTS Editor Rosie Schefe 197 Archer St, North Adelaide SA 5006 phone 0427 827 441 email rosie.schefe@lca.org.au

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Executive Editor Linda Macqueen 3 Orvieto St, Bridgewater SA 5155 phone 08 8339 5178 email linda.macqueen@lca.org.au Design and layout Comissa Fischer Printer Openbook Howden

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Sue Sullivan

Mark Carter

Kay Simpfendorfer

Living Waters Lutheran College, Warnbro campus WA Principal Enjoys the beauty of God’s creation in people and nature Fav text: Psalm 62:2

St Paul’s, Oakey Qld IT representative for UNISYS Australia Enjoys computers and watching AFL Fav text: Genesis (creation story)

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They called it the Great War, the war to end all wars. They were mistaken.

This month Australians and New Zealanders commemorate the centenary of the Anzac landings at Gallipoli. Around the world there will be hundreds, even thousands, of speeches and events marking this milestone.

We’re doing it ourselves, in our own small way, through these pages.

Just 20 days separate Easter Sunday and Anzac Day this year.

But these few days encapsulate a world of difference. I’ve spent significant time this month sorting through images of the cemeteries of Gallipoli and the Somme—row after row of almost identical headstones. Graves of men who fought that others might live. I haven’t walked these rows, but friends who have done so tell me that they came away changed, humbled by the experience.

Looking at picture after picture, I can believe them.

I’m a child of the 1960s, so I don’t share the experience of saying goodbye to loved ones, knowing that they might never return. War has not come to our doorstep in my lifetime. For me, war has always been that little more remote, a concept rather than an experience. I know that’s not the truth for many people today. In the last 100 years many have come here to escape: to escape immediate war or threats of violence, to escape the rubble of defeat, to escape memories they can no longer face. When we talk about the distant experience of war, we need to stop and reflect that, for more and more of us, the distance is considerably less.

FEATURES 05 Last resort 09 The quest for myth and meaning

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14 Tough on the goat 25 A pastor and a soldier 28 Just listen

So are those cemeteries and memorials and remembrance ceremonies worth it? I can’t answer that question. All I can do is point to that empty grave and tell others about the peace which they too can find there.

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COLUMNS

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04 Heartland 15 Inside Story 18 Directory 19 Letters 20 Stepping Stones

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22 Notices 23 Reel Life 24 Little Church

But those graves. Those thousands upon thousands of mostly young men, many buried very far from home. Some are buried next to enemies. Some are unidentified. We say they fought for freedom. We say they fought for peace. We say they fought for the common good, for us. But still they died, and there they lie.

And we are still at war.

Far away, near Jerusalem, there is another grave. The grave of a man who died that we might live. Who, though he was sinless carried our sins, our guilt, so that we could be forgiven. Who died in our place. His grave is empty. Because he is the Son of God, not just a man. Because he rose again, defeating death. Now we too can live, because his sacrifice was the one the world needed most. His death, and, more astoundingly, his resurrection, brought peace to this world by reconciling us with God. It’s the kind of peace that countless bones resting under headstones could never have hoped to bring.

12 ‘No power of hell, no scheme of man’

30 Bring Jesus

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32 World in Brief 34 Coffee Break

When I became General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in 2001, the Armenian archbishop, Aghan Baliozian, became one of my most valued friends and advisers. He was a passionate Christian, a great pastor to his people, and a thoroughgoing Australian, proud to live here along with his mother and sister. His diocese also covered New Zealand.

Both Kiwis and Aussies know that 25 April 2015 is the centenary of the Anzac landing in Turkey. That military debacle touched many of our families. One of my great-uncles, killed at 23 years of age, is buried at Lone Pine. We lost a generation of young men in that war, and it was hugely damaging.

Very few of us know, however, that 24 April 2015 is the centenary of the Armenian genocide. About 1.5 million people died—not so very far from where the Anzacs were dying.

Winston Churchill, at that time First Lord of the Admiralty (and therefore partly responsible for the massacre of the Anzacs), described what

Turkey did to the Armenians as an ‘administrative holocaust’. Today we would call it state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.

Adolf Hitler, when boasting to his generals about the invasion of Poland, is reported as saying, ‘Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’

Times change, but such is the way of war and politics that even though we attacked them 100 years ago, modern Turkey now joins us in Anzac events. Awkwardly, they still deny the genocide. The New South Wales parliament recently voted to recognise it. Turkey immediately banned NSW politicians, including the premier, from visiting Gallipoli.

This is so, despite all the scholarly evidence, including eyewitness accounts from Anzac prisoners of war, who saw some of what happened. Turkish pressure is so strong that only 21 countries have recognised the genocide so far.

Australia is not one of them.

Why would a church leader write about such things? Did you know that Armenia is one of the world’s oldest continuing Christian societies? In 301AD King Trdat III proclaimed Christianity as the state religion (and it has remained so ever since). That was before the Emperor Constantine became a Christian and before Rome became the centre of the western church.

Armenians and other Christians continue to be killed in countries like Syria. It’s happening right now, under our noses, but it passes largely without comment. Leaders and governments play on that. Adolf Hitler, when boasting to his generals about the invasion of Poland, is reported as saying, ‘Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’

Well, we should. When Anzac Day comes around this year, and we honour Australian and New Zealand diggers, we should also remember the Armenians. Many now live in countries like ours, but they continue to grieve deeply. Their loss continues. When we recognise and remember what happened, it will help us know why we should show compassion to the strangers and refugees who continue to arrive among us. The world is not a safe place. Our only safety is in Christ.

Armenians, and other persecuted Christians, know that too, in ways we can only imagine.

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© Tomalakis | Dreamstime.com - First World War Soldiers Silhouettes Photo

What Lutherans say about wielding the sword

Last resort

by David Grulke On 25 April, Australians and New Zealanders commemorate the centenary of the Anzac landing on the Gallipoli peninsula. We’ve learnt about the extraordinary circumstances those Anzacs endured through the stories the survivors told, the letters they wrote and the military records and transcripts of the campaign.

Today, the myth of Anzac permeates our culture. It airs a form of naïve sentiment, akin to that which fuelled the Vol 49 No3 P73

initial passion of those young Australian and New Zealand men. But the reality of war leaves no room for sentiment.

The horror it imposes upon the victims of its inhumanity is very different. There is nothing heroic or stoic about digging deep into the earth so that a stray bullet or an exploding fragment won’t penetrate deep into flesh, leaving one injured and maimed for life. In war, the lucky ones die; the wounded live on.

service or action. It is easy to adopt a righteous form of pacifism, excluding ourselves from the world on the basis that we belong to the kingdom of God. Understanding what war actually is, appreciating that it is perhaps the pinnacle of our sinful inhumanity inflicted upon ourselves, we can easily turn away and have nothing to do with any government or human collective that engages in such barbarity.

It is easy for Christians to oppose war and condemn any form of military

However, Lutherans respect the existence of the state as part of God’s The Lutheran April 2015

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© Oceanfishing | Dreamstime.com - Artillery - Photo

We remember with those who were with us, who shared the same experience of being in a place where life is cheap, short, expendable and obsolete

good order. We teach that there are two kingdoms. Christian citizenship exists in the heavenly or spiritual kingdom—God’s kingdom on the right—distinguished by the Spirit’s work of grace and gospel. The earthly kingdom—God’s kingdom on the left—has responsibility to govern and maintain order in a disordered sinful world. In this, it holds the enormous responsibility to wield the sword in protection of its people.

Lutheran theology accepts that we live in a sinful and fallen world, and that societal evil must be checked. This is the task of the left-hand kingdom (government) whose first response must always be to seek peaceful outcomes. Only when these have been fully exhausted may the state employ lethal force to establish a peaceful and orderly life for its people. Lutherans believe, therefore, that military service is a good and noble Christian vocation. Today, almost 14 per cent of Australian Defence Force members indicate they are Lutherans. Lutherans also accept that some may choose 6

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to conscientiously object to military service because they cannot abide the potential for killing that is inherent in bearing arms.

The barbarity and absence of good order in war makes it a distinctly inhumane stain upon our sinful world.

It is naturally abhorrent to most people.

To compensate—and to establish some form of law and order—people have advocated the ‘just war’ theory.

Some Christians even advocate that this theory is founded on fundamental biblical understandings. The seed of ‘just war’ theory began with Augustine in the fourth century, was developed in detail by Aquinas in the twelfth century, and due to the elaborations of Francis de Vitoria (fourteenth century) and Francis Suarez (fifteenth century) evolved into the modern concept.

This theory basically says that a war is justifiable if it meets certain criteria.

These include: • it is the last resort • it is undertaken by a legitimate authority

• it addresses a wrong with the right intent • it will be successful • the peace it creates is better than what was previously present • it is proportional to the wrong it attempts to address, and • it distinguishes between a combatant and a non-combatant.

No war has satisfied all of these criteria.

For example, the 20th century became the age of total war. Two world wars were devastating. The World War II bombing of Europe inflicted more devastation and loss of life than the two atomic bombs the United States of America dropped on Japan. Wars that have raged since have seen civilian populations routed and massacred, not only by nation-states but also by their own people. Today we live in the age of terrorism. There are no borders or nations against whom a war can be waged, just individuals and small groups, capable of staging staggering acts of destruction with items we take for granted. It was, after all, two Vol 49 No3 P74

commercial aircraft that brought down New York’s World Trade Centre.

Lutheran theology accepts that we live in a sinful and fallen world, and that societal evil must be checked In reality, ‘just war’ theory is a false attempt to validate or justify the inhumanity we inflict on each other.

The immediate effects of war are always devastating for those directly involved. Detached from this reality, most of us witness the horror played out on 24-hour, seven-days-a-week television coverage in vivid colour. What this bizarre fascination hides are the lingering, lasting effects that remain Vol 49 No3 P75

with the victims—trauma that haunts combatants and non-combatants alike.

Alan Seymour’s 1958 play, The one day of the year, is a haunting tale of a family struggling to come to terms with Anzac Day. Alf, the father, gets drunk on Anzac Day; Hughie, the son, is disgusted; and Mum becomes the one in the middle.

Hughie has the benefits of hindsight, of information he gathered from books, and finds war ‘such a dirty thing I’d have thought as soon as it’s over you’d want to forget it, be ashamed, as human beings, ashamed you ever had to take part in it’.

not something we wish to remember or celebrate. Many veterans live with ever-present, vivid memories of what they experienced. We learn to cope.

We learn to get on with life. We learn to make the most of what we have. We don’t celebrate, we remember. We remember with those who were with us, who shared the same experience of being in a place where life is cheap, short, expendable and obsolete. Anzac Day is a therapeutic event that comes around once a year. For most veterans, it is the only time they will see others they served with, and remember the nightmare they endured.

I often ponder those words, and having been deployed with the Australian Army, I understand the angst some people feel. But Anzac Day is not a day of celebration of war. It is not a day for the nation to tell those of us who served how heroic they think we were. Anzac Day is a day for those of us who have been to war, who have been deployed into the bowels of man’s inhumanity, to remember those mates who didn’t come home. We don’t talk to people about what happened; it’s

As I was leaving army chaplaincy, a church historian asked me whether I was a pacifist. I said no, for I accept that we live in a fallen world, and that sin manifests in evil ways. When that evil threatens the safety, security, peace and wellbeing of people, governments have the responsibility to step in and protect them. Peace should always be the supreme goal. At times, though, violent, lethal force is required to protect the greater good. God has given that responsibility to the state. But the use of The Lutheran April 2015

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Peace should always be the supreme goal

force, the imposition of war, is always— and must always be—the last resort.

This is what Lutherans believe. Our statement on this topic [reference below*] affirms that our first response is to be people of the gospel, but when evil arises and threatens our peace and security, then governments have the burden of wielding the sword.

Those who serve in today’s Australian Defence Force are small in number compared with those who served in World War I and World War II, but they have endured things that many of their forebears could not have imagined.

That’s the nature of war: its horror is specific to time and space; it is specific to the individuals who experience it and who somehow endure. As you ponder this Anzac centenary commemoration, remember in your prayers those still alive, who have served in wars and conflicts 8

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since Gallipoli. Remember in your prayers too the 1600 Australian Defence Force members currently deployed overseas. *War, peace and conscientious objection to service in war LCA Doctrinal Statements and Theological Opinions, 1987 (LCA website lca.org.au) Rev Dr David Grulke served with the Australian Army for 24 years, initially as a soldier, then as a military chaplain. He deployed into East Timor in 2002 with the 3rd Battalion (Paras), and retired as a senior chaplain with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 2014. His wife Ruth served in the army for twelve years. David’s father is a Vietnam veteran and his brothers have served within the Australian Army.

He is now the pastor at St Luke’s Lutheran Church, Albury New South Wales.

FURTHER READING: War, peace and conscientious objection to service in war LCA Doctrinal Statements and Theological Opinions, 1987 (LCA website www.lca.org.au) Can a war be considered just?

Rethinking the just war theory David Grulke, Lutheran Theological Journal 38:3, December 2004 On killing: The psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society, Dave Grossman 2009 The Just War revisited Oliver O’Donovan 2003 Living by the sword: The ethics of armed intervention Tom Frame 2003 Even wars have limits: The law of armed conflict Gretchen Kewley 1984 Vol 49 No3 P76

Is Gallipoli the new Golgotha?

The quest for myth and meaning

by Nick Mattiske

Christianity has a long—some would say indispensable—history of pacifism. At the very least, followers of the one who asked us to turn the other cheek should be wary of war and its promoters. This anniversary year, as we are bombarded with war imagery, in a climate where the television industry, breweries and sporting codes all cash in on the Anzac legend, how can we Christians be critical of war without disrespecting the war dead?

How do we remember them without glorifying war?

First, we need to avoid oversimplification, including the idea that the Great War was inevitable, or that it was simply a case of sober Britain responding to German hotheadedness. Lately, some fine research has solidified into books such as Gordon Martel’s The Month That Changed the World, which covers the month after Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in Sarajevo. Martel surveys the complex political and diplomatic manoeuvring as multiple European powers with their elaborate system of alliances and agreements delicately moved around each other, eventually becoming hopelessly entangled. Or so it seemed. There were opportunities to halt the march, with many working Vol 49 No3 P77

frantically for peace, even though in the end they were lost opportunities.

A select few wielded power undemocratically, and often secretly.

This was accentuated by erratic and eccentric personalities, such as the German Kaiser, who was, at various stages, a sabre-rattler, a peace-activist, and maddeningly indecisive. Like most people, these elite were contradictory.

They played dangerous games while fully aware that millions of lives were at risk.

One persistent myth is that these figures couldn’t envisage the extent of the coming Armageddon, but they could— and were horrified by the prospect—but in the end a mix of fatalism, inability and pride succeeded in making their

nightmares come true. War is not simply the product of impersonal forces but of sinful human beings.

Australian historian Douglas Newton argues that Britain’s participation in the war was far from unavoidable, but that some in government were more than reluctant participants. Prime Minister Asquith’s liberal cabinet was split, and early on most were desperate for peace (which would have, of course, kept Australia out of the war). But the great debate was steered and ultimately silenced by the warmongers, not least among them Winston Churchill. His egotism and brilliance may have been vital in World War II’s dark days, but before Britain entered World War I The Lutheran April 2015

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his posturing and pre-emptive naval manoeuvres worked against peace. It is unsettling to read him describing guiltily his excitement about the upcoming catastrophe. Conservatives in the press and parliament also pushed for war because they saw it as cowardice to keep out of the war and, importantly, they saw it as a way to strengthen Britain’s empire. While moral arguments were trumpeted in the press, more selfish, imperialist arguments were discussed in private. On the flipside, Newton shows how Britain’s anti-war movement has been largely written out of history, giving the impression that all Britons supported going to war.

War is not simply the product of impersonal forces but of sinful human beings Charles Bean, the man chosen to write Australia’s official war history, wrote that the ‘whole’ of Australia was for war, but this is demonstrably not true. In Australia too there was great debate. The Labor party split over conscription, and, as in England, the fervour of the press was not always matched by the people. But in the middle of an Australian election campaign, neither political side wanted to look soft or display anti-British sentiment. Again, personalities were dominant. Governor-General Ronald Munro-Ferguson, through whom all negotiations with Britain had to be conducted, was imperialist and prowar, and hoped rather than simply thought that war was imminent. As with Churchill’s manoeuvring, Newton suggests that Australia’s insistent offers 10

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of unconditional support (which the anti-interventionist colonial secretary in London tried to fend off) before war was declared, may have actually helped to tip Britain over the edge. Australians did not simply ‘heed the call’ but were itching for a fight. Why? Australia was fearful of its Asian neighbours and wanted to stay close to Britain. And as a young country, she wanted to prove herself. Even clergymen praised the fortifying nature of war; hence the birth of the idea that the Anzacs ‘made us’ as a nation.

For much of the 20th century Australia wanted to forget the Great War. At other times, commemoration was argued for, lest we forget how brutal and futile war is Though one might think the Anzac legend has always held a prominent position in the Australian psyche, Carolyn Holbrook’s research shows how rocky Australia’s relationship with it has been. For much of the 20th century, Australia wanted to forget the Great War. At other times, commemoration was argued for, lest we forget how brutal and futile war is. Even returned servicemen were wary of a focus on only the heroic aspects, which one veteran warned kept a ‘war spirit’ alive.

And while commemorating Anzac Day was meant to warn against the ‘lunacy’ of war, some veterans were appalled that by the 1960s it was becoming an excuse for ‘quaffing beer’.

Holbrook also shows how over time the racism and imperialism that pulled many Australian fighters to Europe was replaced by a celebration of egalitarianism and mateship, and a telling of the Anzac story as the defining moment in our history— despite the fact that mateship was something the diggers brought with them, not something they found on the beaches of Gallipoli.

Our faith gives us critical distance. We can see the fallibility of human beings and the taint of sin.

In our increasingly secular society, we need founding, sacred myths, and Gallipoli has now become Australia’s Golgotha. But Gallipoli is not our one moment of redeeming sacrifice. If we think that the Anzacs saved or made us once and for all, we approach making them into idols. They are not gods, but human beings, from whom war brought out both good and bad.

Respectful remembrance should take this into account. In glorifying the Anzacs we also run the risk of agreeing with the warmongers that the slaughter was somehow necessary for Australia to mature as a nation. But the diggers repeatedly concluded that the slaughter was pointless. Commemoration should respect the dead, remind us that they didn’t need to be dead, and prompt us to do all that we can to prevent further war dead.

Our Christian faith gives us critical distance. We can see the fallibility of human beings and the taint of sin. One of the delusions leading to catastrophe Vol 49 No3 P78

was that human structures—Europe’s series of formal and informal alliances— would maintain a balance of power and discourage war, but these turned out to be towers of Babel. Our faith also allows us to be wary of the nationalism that is heightened by war and which encourages citizens to view their country as always in the right. One of the remarkable aspects of the Great War is how both sides thought God was on their side, and how this somehow also sat alongside social Darwinist ideas that the fittest empire would survive. The Christians of the early church swam against the current by putting God above Caesar.

Likewise, modern Christians are called to question violence wherever it rears its head, rather than fall in line with a militaristic culture.

during the Peasants’ War was that injustice cannot be righted by resorting to violence. We Christians can do our part on Anzac Day, and every day, by remaining vigilant against exploitation of the dead, by remembering that their deaths were tragic—not unavoidable and necessary—and by remembering

that Jesus calls us to operate by means that are different to those employed by the rest of the world.

Nick Mattiske is a member of St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Box Hill Victoria. You can find his blog at coburgreviewofbooks.wordpress.com

FURTHER READING: The Month that Changed the World, Gordon Martel, Oxford University Press The Darkest Days, Douglas Newton, Verso Hell-Bent: Australia’s leap into the Great War, Douglas Newton, Scribe Anzac: The Unauthorised Biography, Carolyn Holbrook, Newsouth Publishing

This may seem impractical, and Luther is often invoked here as some sort of pragmatist when it comes to the necessity of war. But Luther too saw war as ghastly, and one of his points Vol 49 No3 P79

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