Christian Hope

Penal Substitution Evidences the Godness of God

/ MurrayCampbell

“Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

in my place condemned he stood,

sealed my pardon with his blood:

Hallelujah, what a Savior!”

Man of Sorrows is a much-loved hymn that meditates on the wonder of Christ’s death for us. Like so many Christian songs that churches sing with conviction and praise, we are reminded of the intense beauty and grace of God’s sacrifice on behalf of sinners.

What happens though when a pastor decides to tell his congregation that the heart of the gospel is not only not the heart of the gospel, but is objectionable and not believed by him?  

A Facebook comment appeared on my feed yesterday that caught my attention, and so, in a moment of mimicking my greyhound chasing the rabbit. I followed. 

Now, I am friends with some of the local pastors and there are others whom I have never met or don’t know personally. What I discovered yesterday though made me profoundly sad. I love my local community and long for people to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, and grieves me when pastors and preachers espouse alternative gospels. In this particular case, a local pastor who is well known across Melbourne recently presented a series of sermons and blog posts on the atonement. The first message in the series was dedicated to debunking penal substitutionary atonement.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I’m sure Rob Buckingham thinks he is doing churches a service, but I found his commentary disappointing and misleading, and again sad. Sad, because the Gospel is good news and I fear Buckingham has turned it into bad news that needs changing. The message of the cross is considered shameful to many, but as the Apostle exclaimed, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God.  The significance of Jesus’ death on the cross centres on atonement. The Bible shows us many facets or aspects of the atonement: Christus Victor, reconciliation, example, and redemption are all aspects of the atonement, and yet at the heart of the cross is penal substitutionary atonement (PSA). This, Buckingham admits, he no longer believes belongs to the Gospel.

I will explain how this is the case shortly, but let’s first visit Rob Buckingham’s argument against PSA.

Dr Jones and how sexual ethics can change the cross

Buckingham’s opening question is this, ‘Did God kill Jesus?’, a line he borrows from Tony Jones. Buckingham explains how his own thinking has been influenced by Jones’ representations of the atonement. For those who don’t know the name Tony Jones (no, not the former ABC presenter), he’s a theologian who was part of the Emergent Church scene in the late 90s and early 2000s. The emerging Emergents saw the dust collecting in many churches and decided to make church relevant again. Sadly, we’re still paying the price today. Many of Emergent’s notable figures, including Jones, ended up seeing Christian orthodoxy as the problem and began dumping doctrine and ethics overboard faster than a hot air balloon throwing off passengers in order to gain more altitude. Jones, for example, came out in 2008 in support of same-sex marriage, long before Obama and Joe Biden realised the shifting pendulum. In 2012 Jones wrote a book, ‘A Better Atonement: Beyond the Depraved Doctrine of Original Sin’, outlining why he rejects not only original sin but also penal substitutionary Atonement. It is this material that Buckingham leans heavily upon.

I wanted to pause and mention Jones here because he’s emblematic of holding that two-barrelled deadly combination. This combination of rejecting PSA and affirming the new sexual ethics is commonplace.  If I was given $100 for every time I hear of another pastor/church supporting the new sexual milieu and later learning that they no longer hold to other Christian doctrines, especially PSA, I could retire next year! I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Indeed, my understanding is that Buckingham’s theology of sexual ethics has also changed and moved to closely align with current secular sexual ethics. There is a connection between what churches believe and teach on human sexuality and how they view the cross, and that means we can’t play that disingenuous game of ‘what we have in common is greater than any disagreement’ and ‘we share the same Spirit and body despite these differences’. 

If you doubt the connection, last month Buckingham wrote a separate piece where he explains, ‘How the Bible works’ and there he claims,

“This progression of truth is called the Arc of Scripture. Over time, the Bible shifts from the revenge mentality to a better way. The Bible’s arc shows how people’s view of, and relationship with, God has matured over time…. gender diversity, LGBTIQA+ rights, and dozens of other examples demonstrating that the Bible is not a static book.”

Back to his argument against PSA, Buckingham alleges it’s the Holy Spirit who’s told him!

“In recent years I have sensed the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit to find out if this really is an accurate representation of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, and I don’t believe it is”

While Buckingham suggests that it is the Holy Spirit who has changed his thinking, I think it’s best for Christians to stick with what the Holy Spirit has written. The Spirit of God doesn’t give mixed messages or contradict the Scriptures. After all, he is the author of all the Bible! The formula is as old as Eden, ‘did God really say?’

Penal Substitution is older than the Reformation

Buckingham introduces PSA with a reference to the Reformation. He suggests that PSA was ‘popularised during the Reformation’. He then later returns to discount another aspect of the atonement that he finds deeply immeshed in the Reformation. Maybe I’m misreading him here,  but it’s almost as though Buckingham uses Reformation as a byword to represent ideas Christians should avoid today. First of all, every Protestant denomination owes its existence to the Reformation. We are children of the reformation whether we like it or not. Second, Buckingham’s brief reference doesn’t do justice to church history. PSA has been taught and affirmed in Christian churches since the earliest days, indeed in the Scriptures itself. This single point is important because Buckingham is trying to build a case that conflicts with Christian churches extending from the book of Acts right through to today.

A thousand years before the Reformation, the Early Church Fathers taught, affirmed and wrote about PSA. Here are a few examples, 

“If the Father of all wished His Christ for the whole human family to take upon Him the curses of all, knowing that, after He has been crucified and was dead, He would raise him up, why do you argue about Him, who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father’s will, as if he were accursed, and do not rather bewail yourselves?” (Justin Martyr)

“Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by .the grace of His resurrection. Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.” (Athanasius)

“But as Christ endured death as man, and for man; so also, Son of God as He was, ever living in His own righteousness, but dying for our offences, He submitted as man, and for man, to bear the curse which accompanies death.  And as He died in the flesh which He took in bearing our punishment, so also, while ever blessed in His own righteousness, He was cursed for our offences, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment.  And these words “everyone” are intended to check the ignorant officiousness which would deny the reference of the curse to Christ, and so, because the curse goes along with death, would lead to the denial of the true death of Christ.” (Augustine)

Not only did the early church affirm and explain PSA, but so did Christian theologians throughout the early and high middle ages, the Reformers, and Evangelicals from the 18th through to the 21st Century. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, John Bunyan, John Owen, Martyn Lloyd Jones,  John Stott, and Tim Keller are but a few of the countless names who preached and believed that Christ died in the place of sinners and satisfied the righteous anger of God.

Definitions matter

Of course, in understanding what someone believes it’s useful to listen to their own words, because definitions and meanings can differ depending on the person. Buckingham suggests this definition of PSA:

“God loves you but is also angry with you because of your sin. Because God is just, he cannot simply forgive you. God’s justice must be satisfied. And so, because he loves you, he punished his Son instead of you. Jesus’ death on the cross appeased God’s wrath. You no longer need to bear God’s wrath if you believe this. If you reject this, you must take the punishment of God’s anger both now and forever. In summary, God killed Jesus for your benefit.“

There are several flaws in this description, not least the final phrase that Buckingham puts in bold. There is this glaring omission in this summary:  the Son is also God. This qualification matters immensely as I’ll explain below.  At this point, Buckingham seems to buy into the same fallacious view of the atonement that Steve Chalke and others have thrown around in recent years, suggesting that PSA is a form of ‘cosmic child abuse’.  Buckingham pulls up short of repeating that allegation, but he does say this, 

“What loving parent would punish their own child for the wrongdoing of another?”

We may not, but God did and in doing so the Son wasn’t thrust onto the cross against his own volition and desire, he willingly went to the cross. 

In what is one of the most important volumes written on the atonement, Steve Jeffery, Mike Ovey, and Andrew Sach open Pierced for our Transgressions with this summary of penal substitutionary atonement and notice how it differs from Buckingham in tone and substance, 

“The doctrine of penal substitution states that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for sin.

This understanding of the cross of Christ stands at the very heart of the gospel. There is a captivating beauty in the sacrificial love of a God who gave himself for his people. It is this that first draws many believers to the Lord Jesus Christ and this that will draw us to him when he returns on the last day to vindicate his name and welcome his people into his eternal kingdom. That the Lord Jesus Christ died for us – a shameful death, bearing our curse, enduring our pain, suffering the wrath of his own Father in our place – has been the wellspring of the hope of countless Christians throughout the ages.”

Buckingham overlooks the vital piece of the puzzle, ‘God gave himself in the person of his Son’. The Triune God was acting in perfect unity and will on that cross. God himself is bearing the penalty for sin, out of love for sinful human beings. As true as it is that the Father gave his only Son, it is true that God is offering himself. As Donald Mcleod wrote, ‘God surrenders himself to the worst that man can do and bears the whole cost of saving the world.’

Does forgiveness require sacrifice?

Buckingham proceeds to argue that God can forgive sin without sacrifice. He says, ’“The cross was not needed for God to forgive people” (I think he’s pointing to life before the New Testament as an example of this). The problem here is that the claim isn’t true. Throughout Old Testament, God made provision for blood sacrifices to be offered for the sins of his people. Those sacrifices, as Jesus indicates at the Last Supper and as Hebrews explains, were a shadow pointing to the real and sufficient sacrifice for sin: the cross. 

Hebrews 9:22 states, 

“without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”.

Both prior to and following the events of Easter, Jesus himself said, he had to die.

‘The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life’ (Luke 9:22).

The verb, ‘must’, functions as a Divine imperative, reinforcing the notion that in God’s wisdom, he ordained for his Son to enter the world and to die on the cross.

PSA affirms the Godness of God

Rob Buckingham has a gift of clarity and he’s upfront in explaining why he can’t accept PSA. There are two reasons and in my view, both trip the alarm. I’ve already mentioned the first, his imagining that the Spirit of God has changed his min, and this doozy,

“This theory makes God somehow less than God. God loves you and wants to save you, but he can’t until his justice is satisfied. See the problem? It makes justice greater than God. Justice is in charge here, and God becomes its servant.”

There we have it. Penal Substitution clashes with Buckingham’s view of God. He has a certain view of God, and that means reinterpreting the Bible to fit that self-made portrait. He shares how God is good and gives good gifts to his children. Yes, he is and God does. But why must we choose between the two? Is God not both? Does God not demonstrate both anger and kindness, grace and judgement? The cross is the superlative example of where God exercises his justice and mercy, his love and wrath. 

Why divorce justice from God? Buckingham’s argument fails in this way: for example, according to Buckingham’s logic, the concepts of love and holiness and righteousness and truthfulness are also greater than God and therefore make God somehow less than God. Love isn’t hovering somehow above God. No God is love. God’s righteousness and holiness are not external entities that attach themselves to the eternal One. Does God contradict God? Can God act outside of his own character? Of course not. He is the God of justice and he acts in accordance with his righteousness. This is one of the sublime truths of the cross: 

“God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:25-26)

Does the Bible teach and affirm penal substitutionary atonement?

The answer is yes. Both Old and New Testaments teach that PSA is central to atonement and they do so by their employment of specific language (ie propitiation) and in the many symbols, metaphors, and images that are sprinkled across the pages of the Bible.

If I may  cite 3 examples here:

First, the temple was central in Israel’s life and key to ministry of the temple was the sacrificial system, and at the heart of the sacrificial system was the blood of an animal taking the place of the sinner to avert the wrath of God. Indeed, the most sacred day in the calendar was Yom Kippur. Kippur (or atonement), carries connotations of forgiveness, ransom, cleansing and averting God’s wrath, and this final aspect is clearly on view in the teaching about the day of atonement in Leviticus 16.

A second example is the Servant Song of Isaiah 53; it may only constitute a small part of this prophetic book and an even tinier part of the OT, but its significance is rarely overestimated. The Servant Song delivers more than a penal substitutionary view of the atonement, but PSA lays at the heart of its presentation of the work of God’s servant.

The four Gospels either explicitly quote or implicitly reference the Servant Song more often than any other OT passage. R.T France is correct when he talks about Jesus‘ repeated self-identification with the servant of Isaiah 53. Thus, the entire trajectory of Jesus’ earthly ministry as recorded in Scripture is an embodiment of the suffering servant whose life culminated in a cross and death, before climaxing in a resurrection:

“But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.”

A third example is Paul’s tome, the letter to the Romans. Paul explains that the primary human condition is sinful rebellion against a righteous God who is now revealing his wrath against us. No human effort can save us from this judgment, only the substitutionary death of Christ. The great turning point of Romans is that masterful exegesis of the gospel in 3:21-26, which spells out God’s gift of righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus Christ and by his propitiatory death on the cross. Throughout Romans, Paul explores the full gamut of the atonement, in all its facets and with many of its wonderful implications, but laying at its heart is PSA.

“With the other New Testament writers, Paul always points to the death of Jesus as the atoning event, and explains the atonement in terms of representative substitution – the innocent taking the place of the guilty, in the name and for the sake of the guilty, under the axe of God’s judicial retribution” (J.I Packer, Knowing God)

There is one point where I found agreement with Buckingham, and that there is no single dimension to the Bible’s presentation of the atonement. The Bible offers us richness in the significance of Christ’s death on the cross: from Christus Victor to example, and indeed penal substitution. Buckingham (and do some theologians) calls these ‘theories’. The weakness of the word theory (and metaphor for that matter) is that it can imply a disjunction between theory and reality.  This is why I prefer to use the language of facet and aspect to describe the different parts of the atonement. I think this matters because the cross carries more than symbolism, it affects actual judicious judgment, brought upon the Son in the place of sinful human beings. The cross brings real salvation and genuine reconciliation. We can no more speak of the cross as metaphor and symbol, as we would of the Federal Court of Australia sentencing a guilty person to prison. There may be symbolism and metaphor to be found, but the atonement cannot be reduced to those categories; it is an actuality.

The old rugged cross

Much more can be said, but I hope this is enough to help readers grasp what’s at stake with the atonement. I imagine Buckingham wants to give people confidence in the message of the cross, but denuding the cross of its power and refusing the Bible’s own testimony doesn’t build confidence. It strips people of the Christian hope. The world needs a God who judges and a God of mercy: that God should take onto himself in his Son my sin and its penalty, this is the kind of good news that saves lives and secures hope for the future. Of course, it’s controversial. The cross creates shame and embarrassment and disagreement, but the way forward isn’t to reframe the cross so that it fits more neatly with the wisdom of the Greeks and the morals of the Romans, Instead, let us cling ever tighter to the old rugged cross.

The symbol of shame is removed from Calvary Hospital

/ MurrayCampbell

On Sunday afternoon as the sun shone in Canberra, a shadow emerged as the cross was removed from Calvary Hospital. The blue cross that hung on the building front and centre, was taken down as the ACT Government prepares to take control of the Hospital Monday morning.

Calvary Hospital is (was) owned and run by the Catholic Church, along with the ACT”s only inpatient palliative care home, Clare Holland House. As of Monday, both will. be under the control of the Government, a government that is also preparing to introduce legislation allowing 14 year old children access to euthanasia. 

Whether it’s the youngest or the terminally ill, Catholic hospitals are renowned for believing in the sanctity of life. We don’t take the life of the unborn and we don’t assist the terminally ill to take their own life. As we sit fit to turn our backs on the God of the Bible, Western cultures are turning to ideas and practices that so often belittle the vulnerable, and in the name of ‘kindness’ or ‘choice’, we invite and protect their killing. 

Christian Churches have long been associated with hospitals and hospices. Indeed, Australia continues to rely upon these healthcare providers to carry the weight of caring for the sick, the injured, and the dying. Aussie society may be turning its back on Churches, but whether it’s education, social work, and medical care, we require the organisations that our churches have started and support.  Monday morning will see a hospital and hospice join the ranks of our post-Christian culture that perceives the message of the cross as objectionable and interfering with our preferred ethics of life and death, truth and lie. 

Calvary is a Bible word, describing the location outside Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified. The symbol of shame has been removed from Calvary Hospital by the Government. I’m not one for displaying religious images, icons, and crosses. We are a people of the word not iron illuminated icons. But leaving aside the question of physical representations of the faith, the sight of a government taking down the Christian cross is telling. It’s as though through the blindness or perhaps sheer arrogance of government officials, they think that removing the cross is a mark of progress. Far from it! 

The cross, now so familiar to the world, carries with it disdain and misunderstanding. For some, it is a fashion item to wear around the neck imbedded with jewels. For others, the cross represents an era of human history that we will do well to move on from. 

The cross has caused offence for millennia. The Romans understood the ignominy and shame attached to this cruel machine of torture and execution. More recently, ISIS crucified Christians in Syria and Iraq as an attempt to terrorise populations into submission. Philosophers and comedians alike continue to ridicule the cross, as though it’s worthy of a public mocking. 

The early Christians were aware of both the political and personal shame attached to the figure of the cross, as was Jesus. The Apostle Paul famously picked up on this theme of shame in his letter to the sex crazed city of Corinth. Writing to the Christians of Corinth, he said, 

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
    the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,  but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,  but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

The cross is the ultimate emblem of suffering and shame. The cross is also the symbol of salvation and life. For in that single death, our shame was taken by the one without, and he died the death that sinners deserve. The cross also confuses and collides and will not allow us to ignore it: we either embrace its message or push against it.

Perhaps there are internal politics going on between the government and calvary care that we are not privy to. But from the information that has been published and made public, it’s difficult not to conclude that there is something hideous about a government punishing an organisation for not welcoming death for young and old alike. There is no sophistry in denigrating the cross. There is no wisdom or pride found in removing Christian freedoms and stamping the authority of the State on religious institutions. What you call the stench of death, the believer finds the aroma of life, for in the crucified and risen Christ is the greatest stimulus for love for neighbour and care for society’s most vulnerable.

To build an ethic of medicine and care while rejecting the Lord of life is doomed to failure. But the long and dark road is likely to be littered with the bodies of the unwanted and the inconvenient. My mother died recently, following a long illness, and the care she received in both hospital and hospice was excellent and ensured her pain was managed. If hospitals are in short supply of effective pain management for the terminally ill, then we would do well to better finance and equip doctors and nurses for such essential care. 

As Jesus hung on the cross, gasping for breath, muscles contorted, and with blood, running down his fastened body, he cried out these words which have echoed through the generations, 

 “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Subsequent to public statements made including by Archbishop Christopher Prowse who explained,

“The very first thing a totalitarian government does, when it seizes Christian assets, the very first thing they all do … they take down the crucifix…When the religious cage is shaken by a wolf, when the cross … is taken down, we realise how important our religion is, when it’s under attack’,

The ACT Government and Hospital Board have each produced a statement, saying that it was the Hosptial who took down the cross and not the Government (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-03/former-calvary-hospital-becomes-north-canberra-hospital/102554384). The distinction in this case is little. It’s a case of semantics as the Govt has taken control of the hospital (despite Calvary appealing to the Federal Court to stop the take over). The removal of the cross is symbolic of this forcible snatching and bringing Calvary health under the control of the ACT.

As one friend has suggested, given the Government wasn’t behind the removal, are they now prepared to reinstate it?

The Grudge Match

/ MurrayCampbell

There are plenty of grudge matches fought out on football fields, cricket pitches, and tennis courts. There are teams we love to hate and athletes who infuriate us. To win, athletes and spectators alike need a certain intensity and killer instinct. However, once the final ball is bowled and when the siren blasts, you shake hands, give respect, and even renew friendship. 

Last night Channel 9 televised ‘The Longest Feud: Ian Chappell v Ian Botham“.

Ian Chappell and Ian Botham are two of cricket’s greats. As a young boy, I remember spending summer hours watching cricket on television. I’m old enough to have seen both of these cricket legends play. In 1977 (I’m not so old that I remember this incident!) At the Hilton Hotel in Melbourne, something happened which spurned a dislike between these men that continues even today. 

The original incident is very much a ‘he said’ and he said’ scenario, and I suspect we’ll never know the truth unless one Chappell or Botham fesses up. I’m in the same boat as everyone else. We weren’t present when the alleged ground zero event took place which has led to this nearly 50-year feud. As the documentary traced their history and interviewed them today,  the animosity between Chappell and Botham sounds and feel quite real. I, and presumably other viewers, anticipated that the documentary is one of those ‘bad to good’ stories, where hating parties find reconciliation. The program climaxed with the two men meeting in person to discuss their grievances. Everything was set for a manly heart-to-heart and where some semblance of common ground is found. That was not to be the case. 

When pushed to say something positive about the other man, Ian Botham managed to speak well of Chappell cricketing and captaincy prowess, whereas Chappell could offer nothing other than further insult. There was no agreement, no acknowledgement of wrongdoing and the verbal sparring was as heated as ever. 

One friend suggested, “Chappell is awful. Implacably so. From the earliest days. Botham is just laddish.” The summary resonates, although none of us really knows. While I suspect many viewers were left shaking their heads and thinking, seriously, makeup, shake hands and share a beer, in the real world the Chappell and Botham story isn’t so unusual. Fueds and grudges are about as ancient as history itself.

Genesis tells two stories of persons holding a grudge. 

There is Esau who held a grudge against his brother Jacob for wronging him.

Later there is Joseph whose brothers sold him into slavery. Years later, when their father died, they thought that their younger brother would take advantage of the moment to, ‘What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?”

The grudge isn’t a friend. It’s a form of anger (that may or may not have justified causation) that evolves and twists, creating excessive and unjust feelings and wanted responses. The grudge doesn’t want, ‘an eye for an eye’, but a head for an eyelash or foot for a toenail. The grudge is a form of bitterness whose taste sticks and refuses to let us go.

It takes a man to admit fault and to ask for forgiveness. It takes a man to offer forgiveness. Time can sometimes soften hearts and create space for healing and reconciliation. It can also the true that time calcifies the heart and makes us unwilling to budge and extend a hand of friendship. There are some offences so impactful and hurtful that reconciliation isn’t possible and without repentance, forgiveness isn’t possible. There are other pains caused by harmful words and actions that may dissipate with time and we can overlook them. Not every offence is a sin. Some sins against us are forgiven but the relationship is so broken that normalised relations can’t be rebuilt, although there is civility and an aspect of peace now lived. 

This is one of the staggering truths about Jesus; we caused him offence beyond measure, such that an eternity of hell is the fitting end. And yet, in insurmountable love and mercy, he grabbed all our offences and bore our punishment on the cross. Jesus was prepared to die for his enemies so that we might become his friends. That’s the kind of story ending we long to see. The world needs a super saviour with such integrity that he doesn’t compromise on righteousness and yet is able to restore us to peace.

Of course, this requires humility on our behalf. Not a weak or insipid capitulation to social pressure, but a strength that owns our own sins and says yes, to that blood-soaked cross where Divine mercy is given.

The Botham vs Chappell feud wasn’t good television. It was sad. The rawness of these men’s pride is all too common. If there’s any message coming from the program it is this, don’t carry a grudge to the grave. Seek peace while we may. This may be something to act upon in the immediate, and for other circumstances, this may take years. Yes, because we live in a world that’s screwed up, we may not find that place where forgiveness and peace are renewed; where and when we can’t, leave it with God. 

Esau’s grudge against Jacob continued, and the schism continues to this day.

 In the case of Joseph’s brothers, they asked for forgiveness. Joseph listened to their words and wept. He then said,

“Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.”

How much more has Jesus offered this message to us. 

For the sake of the children, we must offer a better way

/ MurrayCampbell

The forecast for Victoria is a wintry cold and damp. There will be moments of sunshine and blue skies, but thunder is already rumbling in the distance, preempting a storm of gigantic proportions. 

Living in Melbourne, predicting the weather each day is near impossible, let alone knowing what it’ll be like from one hour to the next. But the spiritual climate of the once ‘Garden State’  is in perilous shape. There is a storm approaching and I’m unsure if Victoria is prepared. 

Australian media are beginning to wake up to the fact that not all is well on the gender front. Something dangerous is taking place inside medical clinics and school classrooms, such that insurers and courts are now being warned to take stock and reconsider their policies and approaches. 

While the issue of gender dysphoria is nationwide, in 2021 Victoria introduced the world’s strictest and harshest laws against persons who fail to support gender transitioning. For example, parents must affirm their children who are questioning their gender and proceed with a gender transitioning plan. Failing to do so can see the parents charged with abuse. Also, if an individual struggling with their sexual orientation or gender identity asks for prayer, the person praying will have broken the law and can face a term in prison. If a Christian shares the Christian view on human sexuality with an individual, they can face criminal charges. On top of all this, the Andrews Government has recently reaffirmed its commitment to expand anti-discrimination laws in order to stamp out speech that doesn’t fit ‘accepted’ views on sexuality and gender. As one member of Victoria’s Legislative Council recently pondered, will it become illegal to state there are only two genders?

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com

Activists, HR Departments, and politicians have successfully stifled debate on this vital area of concern. Anyone who dares raise their hand to ask a question, let alone, offer a differing perspective, is quickly shouted down with an endless line of derogatory name calling. Let’s be honest though, there is some hateful speech. There are some truly awful words said by persons across the political spectrum and we don’t want to encourage or support those. But signalling concern over current gender thinking isn’t inherently hateful, and suggesting so is intellectually dishonest and morally lazy.  

Professor Patrick Parkinson is among the growing number of voices who are trying to bring common sense to the discussion. One need not agree with everything he says, but he is rightly pointing out that we need a better way to discuss what is happening to our young people. He writes, 

“The transgender movement has been based on one truth and a thousand lies.” 

“the notion that there are not just two sexes, or that it is actually possible to change sex or be “non-binary”, or the idea that every child has an innate gender identity that awaits discovery. Most people know these things to be nonsense, but in polite society we have been asked to pretend otherwise….activists aren’t able to agree on whether gender identity is fixed and innate, fluid or socially constructed. Fashionable ideas about sex and gender do not matter too much if no harm is done, but the medicalisation of vulnerable children and adolescents, with lifelong adverse consequences, deserves the most careful scrutiny”

Children who are wrestling with their identity and struggling to reconcile feelings with their physical bodies deserve our compassion and care. The speed at which young children are now encouraged to question and reject their gender is scary. In some circles, this is believed to be morally good. I think of one young woman who is socially ostracised because she isn’t experimenting with gender fluidity. To be heterosexual is thought of as repressive and uninteresting. More than that, once a child suggests discomfort, the social and legal funnel leads children down a path to hormonal treatments and eventual surgical removal of breasts and penises; this needs to be challenged.

The issue doesn’t end with gender; I am hearing stories of transpecism among children, where children no longer identify as human, but as cats and dogs and even trees. Most of these children may not be taking it overly seriously but in the pursuit of self actualisation, more glass ceilings need smashing. The current framework surrounding gender will struggle to attend to these children because if our truest self is what we feel inside, how can we deny their chosen reality? 

This year’s Australian of the Year is Taryn Brumfitt, a woman who is fighting to help children accept their bodies.  Brumfiit is highlighting a massive societal issue where children’s mental state is conflicting with their physical bodies.

”We really need to help our kids across Australia and the world because the rates of suicide, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, steroid use, all on the increase related to body dissatisfaction.”

Brumfitt argues that this relationship with our bodies results from ‘learned behaviour’. Key to her message is that “we weren’t born into the world hating our body”. In other words, our society is teaching and influencing our children to have negative thoughts about their bodies, which of course can lead to serious consequences. 

Australia has an uncomfortable relationship with the human body. There exists a sizeable disjunction between the message Brumfitt is advocating and what is now mainstream thinking about the human body. 

I don’t know Brumfitt’s views about transgenderism and how she makes sense of this new and sudden wave of bodily denial, but one thing is for certain, her calls to embrace our physical body is at odds with the ideology that is now sweeping our society and being forcibly taught and embraced from GP rooms to school classrooms and TikTok ‘programs’.

Our culture has adopted a modern day gnosticism, where the ‘truest’ self is divorced from the physical. We are taught that the real you isn’t the physical body you inhabit but the immaterial desire and feelings that one experiences in the mind.  Gender has been divorced from sex and personal identity cut away from physicality. We can’t of course reduce our humanness to physicality for we are spiritual and social beings and thinking and feeling beings. We are more than flesh and blood and DNA but we are not less than those things. 

We are witnessing a generation of young people who no longer feel comfortable in their own skin, but are now taught from school to TikTok that their physical bodies betray them, and they may well be living in denial of their true selves.

The result is that a significant percentage of 18-24s (some studies suggest it’s as high as 30%) no longer believe they are heterosexual (embodied beings attracted to the opposite sex), but rather they are spread across an imprecise and growing spectrum of self-defining and often bodily denying sexuality and gender. 

Many girls and boys now undertake psychological and medical pathways to transition away from their physical sex. The number of young people beginning hormonal medications, psychological treatments, and eventual surgical mutilation of the body, is skyrocketing. We are talking about an increase in gender dysphoria by 1000% in just the space of a few years. Call me, Wiliam of Ockham but this drastic and sudden increase cannot be explained by natural selection. There is something else in the water. Indeed, the iceberg that looms beneath the surface is rightly scary and we are ill equipped to do little more than chip away at it. 

Do we see the confusion? Here I say confusion because one wants to think the best of people‘s intentions. Parents who see their children in torment will do anything to find relief. And so if a doctor or counsellor says transition, then I understand them trusting the advice of the professionals. But surely there is also an ear of hypocrisy as well. How can we preach on the one hand, ‘be comfortable in your body’, and then insist on the other,  ‘you can reject your body and have it mutilated and permanently altered’ in the name of this gnosticism?

In her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, journalist Abigail Shreier explores the transgender phenomenon. She blames an ideology that has captured the heart of Western cultures. It’s what Carl Trueman refers to as ‘expressive individualism. Gender expression has become the trend, and because it’s now described in terms of human rights,  no one is allowed to question, doubt or help adjust a child’s sense of identity. 

Those living with discomfort and disconnect with their bodies need our care, not hatred, our kindness not our complicity with a dehumanising project. As much as awareness of these issues helps and as much as positive thinking and imaging may benefit youth as they learn to live in their body, I think Christianity has something to add.  The Bible gives us what I believe is an even better message, one that is more secure. The ultimate resolution doesn’t lay in the self, for the self is existentially unstable. If the best of me can fail and disappoint, what about the rest of me? If this was not the case, we wouldn’t have a generation of Australians journeying down this dangerous and harmful pathway to physical destruction and mental anx. The Bible gives us a better story and greater hope. 

Psalm 139 exclaims, 

“For you created my inmost being;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

    I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

    when I was made in the secret place,

    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

    all the days ordained for me were written in your book

    before one of them came to be.”

Grounding our personhood in the knowledge that we are wonderfully made by God, is liberating and securing. But the Bible’s story doesn’t end there. The Scriptures also acknowledge ways we often hide from ourselves (and from God). The Bible points out the realities of the darkness in the world and in our own hearts. The story however doesn’t end with darkness and despair, for the Scriptures move us to the culmination of the story, 

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—  and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason, he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Hebrews 2:14-18)

There is a constancy in our world of body image flaws and troubles. There is an anchor for all the spiritual and material wants and sins. This Jesus, the eternal Son of God, didn’t abandon the body; he became human for us. He entered the physical and spiritual turmoil that fills the world, taking its sins and shame in order to bring redemption and life. He understands. He makes atonement. He helps. That is a good news message for Australians today. 

My encouragement to those in the halls of power in Victoria, is this, for the sake of the children, pause the aggressive divorce that is being forced between mental health and physical appearance. Even now,  some of these kids and their parents are realising that while they were promised much they have been betrayed in the most egregious way. It is no wonder that insurance companies and legal minds are ducking for cover as the storm clouds approach. But is there the political humility and moral will to admit wrongdoing and change course? 

Part of this article is originally published earlier this year, ‘why Australia has a body image issue”

Eulogy

/ MurrayCampbell

Marsali Ashley was born at Ryde Hospital in Sydney some years ago, to Cyrus and Etti Ashley. I say some years ago because my mum belonged to a generation where sharing one’s age wasn’t the done thing. Having been born some years ago the family moved from Sydney to the Hawkesbury River where she spent much of her childhood. My mum is the youngest of three children. Robert and Ken are her older brothers.

One of my earliest memories is of visiting my mum’s dad (my Granddad) in Sydney and him playing the bagpipes for us. It was a Scottish crazed family, hence my mum was given a Gaelic name, Marsali.

My mum’s mum died from cancer when she was 16. My mum soon left school and home to live in Sydney. In 1961 she moved to Melbourne where she lived with her grandmother and aunt. It was during the 60s that my mum started attending Mentone Baptist Church. She became a member and served in many different ways including with the youth and Girls Brigade and helping raise money for missionaries. 

It was during those formative years that my mum decided to go to Bible college and serve overseas as a missionary. She looked back to those years with great fondness. My mum studied at MBI, today known as MST. Following the completion of study in 1969 she joined APCM now Pioneers in PNG. There are lots of acronyms here, FYI!

It was in Papua that my mum met a fellow by the name of John Campbell who was there for 12 months to help with building and engineering projects with the mission agency.

While both mum and dad originate from New South Wales, when returning to Australia for their wedding day they chose Melbourne. For as Sydneysiders eventually admit, Melbourne is better. The wedding was held at Mentone Baptist Church, with the great Alec White marrying them.

The plan was to then return to PNG after further training but God had other plans. In 1977 we moved to Wodonga where my Dad became a teacher at Wodonga Technical School. 

My mum and dad have 3 children. Penelope and myself were born here in sunny Melbourne, and our baby brother Ian arrived just up the road from home at the Wodonga Hospital. Those 14 years spent in the country were pivotal for our family. 

We have many fond memories of those years.

While dad taught us to shoot, mum cooked the rabbits for dinner. We would spend days out bush and wanderings on friend’s farms, collecting blackberries, mushrooms, apples, and the odd cow. 

We loved our family holidays to Queensland and a highlight every year were our trips to Melbourne. My mum may have come from humble means but she also had expensive taste. We would lunch at Georges in the city (what was then Melbourne’s equivalent of Harrods). We would shop and enjoy a taste of the finer things that can be appreciated in this world. I suspect it was those visits that gave me a love for Melbourne, the city where we would all settle down to raise our own families. 

We returned to Melbourne in 1992 to finish school, where we lived in Burwood and my mum worked in aged care. We attended Camberwell baptist church where I met Susan, and where my mum was reacquainted with Susan’s parents whom she first met 25 years earlier.

Our mum encouraged us to excellence whether it was with schooling, music, drama or sport. While some of her reporting of our achievements contained a touch of hyperbole, I know she was thankful to God and proud of us. Whether it is Penelope with her drama classes or Ian playing cricket and water polo or me learning how to iron a shirt. 

I understand that my mum could be a little tricky at times. Like all of us, my mum had her flaws but the greatest gift she and my dad gave Penelope, Ian and I was the good news of Jesus. From the youngest age, I recall us going to church every Sunday. We often read the Bible together at dinner time and prayed. Mother would give words of encouragement to look to Jesus and trust him. 

We are thankful to God that that’s what our mum and dad have done for us. To give us a love for God and his word is a life well lived.

Our mum was Grandma to 8 grandchildren: Harry, Archie and Imogen, Hannah, Beatrice and Heidi, Olivia and Jasmine. She was very proud of her grandchildren and in her final days, she spoke of her love for them and how proud she was of them.

We know mum is now alive in the presence of God and enjoying him forever; not on account of her own righteousness but Christ’s perfect sacrifice on the cross. 

In her final weeks, we have been reminded of these words of the Apostle Paul, 

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far;  but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.”

The Christian cannot lose. It’s not because we are better or more deserving, but because mum trusted Jesus she is now with Christ, which is better by far. This is my Dad’s hope, and Penelope, Ian, Matt, Rachel, Susan and I share this hope. And I pray that it will be your hope also.

Tim Keller’s life and death point us to a great hope

/ MurrayCampbell

I have decided to write a few words about the death of Timothy Keller, realising that many words will be composed over the coming days about Manhattan’s Pastor. 

Few evangelical Christians have not been influenced by Tim Keller in some way over the past 30 years. While he preached for New Yorkers and planted churches for New York, his Gospel-centred teaching has impacted Christians all around the world, including Australia. 

I first heard the name Tim Keller in June 2000 at the annual Evangelical Ministry Assembly in London. The topic of the conference was church planting, and the speakers included Dick Lucas, D.A Carson, John Chapman, Phillip Jensen, and Tim Keller. Yes, the theological spiritual meal those days surpassed the menu at Eleven Madison Park. Keller’s preaching didn’t contain the charisma and firepower that was present among some figures on the platform, but over the years I began to increasingly appreciate and understand the hows and whys of his teaching ministry, and to learn from him.

I’ve only met Tim Keller once, and it was a conversation on a sidewalk in midtown Manhattan; it was brief and unassuming. Over the years I have read some although not all of his books. Making Sense of God may well pass the test of generations like CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Another book, The Prodigal God has remained with me, helping shape my own heart before God and the manner in which I am seeking to learn to write and teach.  I am forever grateful for the ways Keller has helped me think and write, not through the prism of left or right, progressive or conservative, the legalist or the antinomian, but in that better space filled with God’s truth and grace, his righteousness and his love. Indeed, I haven’t needed to read every Keller book and listen to every Keller sermon to understand his theological heartbeat because he was all about Jesus and helping people to see and grasp and believe the greatest story the world can know: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. By digging deeper into the treasure of God’s good news helps us see the key to Keller’s mission and ministry. 

Many will be mourning his death today, and understandably so. The world will see few Tim Keller’s in a generation. But then again, and going back to his heartbeat, what motivated Keller and what his ministry oozed with, was the same beautiful and powerful Gospel that is at work in the lives of all who trust in Christ. His unique and influential ministry is extraordinarily ordinary in that once, and that is what made it worthwhile. 

I am also grateful for the way Tim Keller helped uncover and encouraged a new generation writer by the name of Christopher Watkin. While I’ve had the joy of knowing Chris for 9 years and been deeply impacted by his thinking, few knew the name until Tim Keller read Chris’ book, Thinking Through Creation. Last year, Chris Watkin’s, Biblical Critical theory was published. Tim wrote the Forward and in it he explained how he had waited for years for someone to come along and write this book. Time will tell, but Biblical Critical Theory is already considered to be one of the most important books written this century. Thank you Tim Keller for encouraging Chris and in Christian service helping the world find more Christian truth to be read and grow and benefit.

The reason for writing this short reflection about Tim Keller is less about talking about Tim Keller but to offer a corollary point. Because you see, my mum is currently in palliative care and we don’t expect her to live out the day. She has been unwell for a very long time and the last 4 months have been particularly difficult for her and my dad. We have been called into the hospital numerous times over the last few weeks, as staff expected her to pass any moment. As I write, my mum is still alive although her final hours are coming to an end. But you see, my mum trusts and believes the same Jesus as Tim Keller. Her hope isn’t in her own righteousness but knowing that Jesus died and was raised from the dead. And that makes all the difference. It really does. 

My mum never wrote any books and will certainly not receive an obituary in the New York Times, but like Keller and a billion people around the globe today, she is known by God. That fact is both the great leveller and elevator.

The Apostle Paul famously wrote, 

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!”

The Christian cannot lose.

Our age of self-realisation isn’t producing great volumes of satisfaction, hope and life. We are more frail and fearful than ever. Among both the great and the small, the known and the little known, there really is concrete hope that frees us to live well today and be certain about eternity

Tim Keller’s son, Michael, shared on social media yesterday that his dad say, “I’m ready to see Jesus. I can’t wait to see Jesus. Send me home.”

I know my mum is thinking those very words as well, and I pray that others too might not just find some vague solace in the comforting words, but the living hope that is for all who come to the Lord Jesus.

The true significance of King Charles’ Coronation

/ MurrayCampbell

Westminster Abbey is England’s storyteller, and indeed, perhaps that of 1000 years of Western Civilisation. The stone floors and walls, her columns and stained glass windows are filled with the memory of the world’s timeline since that of Edward the Confessor. Every corner of the naive from floor to wall, is covered in the markers, statues and tombs of Britain’s greatest. There are Kings and Queens, soldiers and poets, scientists and Prime Ministers honoured and remembered.

The Abbey is an extraordinary place to visit, especially when the crowds are absent. I recall one evening I was there to attend a concert. Afterwards, people left hurriedly while I gave myself a few moments to look up and gaze upon this giant memorial to the past. I found myself able to then walk down the Abbey without people brushing passed and interrupting the silence with nagging little chatter. There is something weird and wonderful about walking on stone and marble where Edwards and Elizabeths, Richards and Henrys once trode.

The coronation of a British monarch isn’t an everyday event. It has been 70 years since the last British monarch received the sceptre and crown at Westminster Abbey. The coronation of a King may no longer carry the political and cultural weight of centuries past, but the event remains to impress, inspire and unify.  

There is a tinge of sadness tied to today’s coronation, for the new King reminds us of the death of the great woman, Queen Elizabeth II. Her death may well turn out to mark the end of an era; not only the divorce with the 20th Century and the end of the Empire (with all the ills and goods associated), but also the age of Western Christianity. 

There is something awe-inspiring about pomp and circumstance. No doubt, there are republicans and complainers across Australia, and even inside the United Kingdom criticising the pageantry and tradition that will fill the coronation service of King Charles III. 

While changes have been made to reflect multi-faith realities of 21st-century Britain, the service remains deeply Christian. For example, the coronation service takes place in a Christian Abbey, the very same place where English Kings and Queens have been crowned for nearly 1000 years. The Scripture readings and the prayers and the oaths are Christian in words and meaning. While there are some theological question marks over connections made between an English monarch and that of Kings David and Solomon, there is a right link established between God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the rule of the new monarch. The King serves under God and serves the people under his watch.

There is something weirdly wonderful about this ceremony: from the music and liturgy to the symbols of State and the oaths, and the seriousness and awe that will envelop each moment. This service pushes our hearts and spirit beyond the ceiling and sky and makes us ponder heavenly realities. 

In a rush to eradicate the centuries of police and traditions, we can lose something that is important for the present and our future selves. The paucity of the materialist frame is exposed and filled with the light of prayers and defining words of God and accountability to the One who rules from heaven.

“Therefore, you kings, be wise;

    be warned, you rulers of the earth.

11 

Serve the Lord with fear

    and celebrate his rule with trembling.

12 

Kiss his son, or he will be angry

    and your way will lead to your destruction,

for his wrath can flare up in a moment.

    Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” (Psalm 2:10-12)

I remember Stephen Mcalpine writing a piece some years ago, explaining why millennials are turning to more traditional forms of Christian worship. In the race to be contemporary and relevant, we too readily disconnect ourselves from the past and become the boat that’s lost its mooring. We need to place our souls and something in a schema that is bigger than just me.

Nick Cave is one of a few select Australians invited to attend the coronation. When news broke that Cave had accepted the invitation, some of his fans were bewildered and annoyed. They couldn’t understand why this super cool non-conforming rock star would attend what is about as traditional and conservative an event that will probably take place this year. 

Nick Cave responded in an open letter, 

This “will more than likely be the most important historical event in the UK of our age. Not just the most important, but the strangest, the weirdest”

I hold an inexplicable emotional attachment to the Royals – the strangeness of them, the deeply eccentric nature of the whole affair that so perfectly reflects the unique weirdness of Britain itself. I’m just drawn to that kind of thing – the bizarre, the uncanny, the stupefyingly spectacular, the awe-inspiring.

And as for what the young Nick Cave would have thought – well, the young Nick Cave was, in all due respect to the young Nick Cave, young, and like many young people, mostly demented, so I’m a little cautious around using him as a benchmark for what I should or should not do. He was cute though, I’ll give him that. Deranged, but cute.

So, with all that in mind, I am looking forward to going the Coronation. I think I’ll wear a suit.

Love, Nick

The true weirdness isn’t in the crowning of a man named Charles, but in the words of the Bible about The representative man to whom all Kings and Queens and people owe their allegiance. Strangeness meets realness in the man who was crucified and raised from the dead.

The true significance of King Charles’ coronation may well be found elsewhere, in Africa. In what is even more strange (in an amazing way) are the events that took place in Kigali Rwanda, only 3 weeks ago. The meeting place may have lacked the splendour of Westminster Abbey, and there were few monarchs, presidents and celebrities in attendance. However, that meeting will do more to reach the heavens and the earth, than the enthronement of King Charles III. While world media ignored this meeting of global Anglicans, with time I suspect it will have greater influence in the shaping of things to come. 1400 Anglican leaders, representing around 85% of worldwide Anglicans, declared that the Archbishop of Canterbury had lost his spiritual authority over the church. Indeed, all 4 instruments of communion were declared broken.

It is difficult to think of another event in the past 500 years that carries such importance in the Anglican Communion as the recent GAFCON meeting.

William Taylor of St Helen’s Bishopsgate (London) said, 

“Canterbury has walked away”

Rico Tice from All Souls Langham Place stated, 

“We really are serious…we are serious because this is a first-order salvation issue”.

During the ceremony, the King will be asked this question by the Archbishop of Canterbury, 

“the Church established by law, whose settlement you will swear to

maintain, is committed to the true profession of the Gospel, and, in so

doing, will seek to foster an environment in which people of all faiths and

beliefs may live freely. The Coronation Oath has stood for centuries and is

enshrined in law.

Are you willing to take the Oath?”

The King:

“I am willing.” 

His Majesty will take an oath to a church, that while is established in law, has divorced herself from the true profession of the Gospel on account of her bishops and their wayward teaching. Sadly, the Church of England has abandoned the faith once for all delivered, and the vast majority of global Anglicans no longer see themselves in communion with Canterbury.

But why mention such a contentious issue on a day like this? First of all, this is truly historic. Second, we are witnessing a shift of in the world but we mustn’t conflate the failure of Westminster with the demise of Christianity.  I suggested last year that with the death of Queen Elizabeth, we are perhaps marking the end of an era in the beginning of something new. With her passing, we are probably witnessing the closure of the 20th century and British imperialism (with all the bad and good that came). More so, Her Majesty’s death may serve as a bookmark, signalling the shift from West to the 2/3s World, and with this, a work of the Holy Spirit that sees Christ’s Church ground firmly in the soils of Africa and grassland and jungles of East Asia. 

The coronation of King Charles III will pound with echoes of eternal truths, but living faith in the living Christ is more likely found in unlikely places: in Kigali and Lagos, in house churches across China and Iran, and in the favelas of Brazil. And yes, even in the ordinary suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. To break the materialist glass ceiling and grasp. To find mystery and awe that meets real life, visit a local church and hear the greatest story.

There really is hope: Why Easter is such good news

/ MurrayCampbell

Sadness, shock, anger, disappointment, frustration, and despair. Such feelings are not uncommon in our streets and suburbs. Of course, there is much for us to enjoy, and opportunities abound for most people across Melbourne, and yet more and more data suggest that a cavity exists in many lives and it is only growing with time. 

In the extraordinary musical, Les Miserables, Fantine sings a song that haunts. The words tell her story. It is a story of lingering hope. It is a story of desperate hope that fades. It is a story that too many of our neighbours and friends resonate with, and perhaps even yourself.

I dreamed a dream in time gone by

When hope was high and life worth living

I dreamed that love would never die

I prayed that God would be forgiving

Then I was young and unafraid

And dreams were made and used and wasted

There was no ransom to be paid

No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night

With their voices soft as thunder

As they tear your hopes apart

And they turn your dreams to shame

And still I dream he’d come to me

That we would live the years together

But there are dreams that cannot be

And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be

So different from this hell I’m living

So different now from what it seemed

Now life has killed the dream, I dreamed

In our search for hope, we are often urged to look inside ourselves or to carry on and push through barriers. On other occasions, we are encouraged to hold onto relationships or careers as though these can secure contentment and peace. What happens when these things fall apart or fail? What happens when we reach all our goals, only to discover that they cannot fulfil the burden we placed upon them? 

Easter really does give us the answer. Maybe that sounds a little too Christian for you; an unimaginative and prosaic offering.  I don’t mean the long weekend or colourfully wrapped chocolate bunnies and eggs. I’m referring to the historic events that took place just outside Jerusalem about 2000 years ago. Even today, with all our latest gadgets and knowledge,  the world hasn’t overcome the irresistible story of God who gave his life for hopeless and helpless people. 

Over Easter, my church is exploring (as will churches across Melbourne) the good news story that never dies or fades or disappoints. On that cross, the darkest dark fell upon the Son of God in the place of a sinful world. On the Sunday morning, a light more brilliant than the dawning of the sun pierced history and continues to shed light on millions of lives across the world. 

Our Bible text for Easter Sunday this year includes these breathtaking words from John’s Gospel, 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” (John 3:16-21)

Notice, how God is described as recognising there is something not right in the world. Also, note how these verses assume God doesn’t agree with every want and desire and activity we pour our lives into; it’s as though we’re not the standard for righteousness. At the same time, there is a profound love spoken and expressed.

A lot of Aussies have given up on Church. Millions have discounted Christianity. When we’re being honest we can understand why this is sometimes the case, given the horrors uncovered in some church buildings and lives of clergy. At the same time, most churches aren’t playing games of pretension and hypocrisy, but they are filled with ordinary people who are convinced by the power and goodness of the God who has loved the world.

Many of our dreams cannot be and some ought not to be. But life cannot kill the greatest dream: God is forgiving. Jesus has paid the ransom. 

Why not visit a church this Easter? Perhaps open a Bible and read the Easter story for yourself (Mark chs. 14-16; John chs. 18-21)*

————————————

* You can read the Bible online for free. https://www.biblegateway.com/ is one of many great websites that allow us to search and read any part of the Bible)

Melbourne is filled with rage and it should grieve us

/ MurrayCampbell

We are living in an age of outrage. No matter where we find ourselves on the political spectrum and no matter where we land on a myriad of moral issues, navigating anger and abuse is becoming normalised. This indictment on our society isn’t a sign of progress but an alarm signalling that we have deep-rooted problems. The issue isn’t just that people disagree on important matters, and do so strongly, but that people feel unable to disagree for fear of retribution. 

Last weekend Melbourne witnessed scenes that shocked us. Neo Nazis standing our the steps of the Victorian Parliament House, saluting their vile gestures and shouting obscenities. As aghast as Melbournians were by this sight, there were a multiplicity of reactions and stances made around the broader events on that Saturday in Melbourne city. The organised women’s protest has since gone to other Australian and New Zealand cities, this time without interfering fascists but with even more vitriol and violence conducted by counter protests

Despite the insistence of some of our political leaders and media personalities, it is possible to believe several things are true all at once. Indeed, I’d argue that it’s sensible and necessary. For example, all of the following are possible:

  1. One may not support the women’s march (for a variety of reasons) and yet support concerns raised by women attending the march.
  2. One opposes neoNazism with every fibre in one’s body.
  3. One disagrees with the Premier and Opposition Leader who wrongfully (and slanderously) labelled the women protesting with Nazism (the Nazis were the group of men who hijacked Spring Street from the women protesting).
  4. One opposes popular gender theories on scientific, moral, and theological grounds
  5. One wants good for Victorians who don’t see themselves comfortable in their biological bodies.

I think very few people want our city of Melbourne marred with violence and ugly protests. We’ve seen them in the past and sadly such events will appear again in our streets; it’s human nature. However, the one sight that filled the news and left us groaning was the group of around 20 men parading outside Parliament House in balaclavas, with Nazi salutes and shouting unrepeatable things at other protesters. Why the Government allowed this group to protest at all, and at the same time and location where two other (opposing) protests were taking place, boggles the mind. 

I understand that the original plan was for a women’s protest on the steps of Parliament House. A rally was organised in support of women’s rights, and this then met with a counter protest in support of trans activism. The already tense scene was then crashed by what was a crude gang of thugs, who were either pretending to be or actually representing Nazism. 

My understanding is that the women’s protest was alerting people to the fact that many women are feeling increasingly marginalised and under threat by a new ideology that is sweeping the Western world. A hundred years of progress for women seems to be taking a sharp decline, leaving many women feeling vulnerable and maligned. 

Can one imagine 10 years ago, women protesting in our cities against the mistreatment of women, only for counter-protests to shame them and for political leaders to condemn them? It is quite staggering. The writing has been on the wall for some years, however. The sexual revolution has been underway for 70 years and it continues to follow its natural course of undermining sex and gender and removing anything that gets in the way of self-actualisation. A movement that achieved some good is bearing much fruit that is harming women. In that sense, the latest chapter of the sexual revolution has feminist roots. And so we have reached the point where it’s near impossible to answer the question, ‘what is a man and what is a woman?’ Indeed, even asking the question is often deemed offensive and will have you hauled before the HR department at work.

Professor Richard Dawkins believes that what is a man and what is a woman are basic and incontrovertible facts. In a recent interview with Piers Morgan the world-renowned microbiologist said, 

“As a biologist, there are two sexes and that’s all there is to it.”

“Sex really is binary”.

Richard Dawkins is able to get away with defending this brand new ‘heresy’, but most women (and men) cannot. As Premier Daniel Andrews has demonstrated on numerous occasions, if you transgress the latest gendered religion, he will call you the meanest and worst names he can think of and get away with in public.

It’s not only issues of sex and gender, but there is a gamut of important social issues today where finding rigorous discussion and respectful discourse near impossible to find.  We are living in a polarised world and fault lines are appearing everywhere. If you want to be on the ‘right side of history’ (which is code for keeping your job and reputation), without pausing one has to employ the strongest rebuke at social dissenter, and failure to do so may cause us to doubt your moral credentials. 

It’s becoming the norm for all kinds of community and business groups to expect total affirmation and support, and failure to do so means one thing: you are a hate-filled and anti-everything nazi loving awful human being! Of course, that may be the case, but most likely, the labels are untrue. But what is truth? Mud sticks. 

Slinging mud at people you disagree with and don’t like is easy. Anyone can do that. And sadly, sometimes that mud stains, stinks, and stays. 

The Bible has some fairly strong things to say about our words, For example, Proverbs 10:18 says, 

“Whoever conceals hatred with lying lips and  spreads slander is a fool.”

Psalms 15 says,

“Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent?
    Who may live on your holy mountain?

The one whose walk is blameless,
    who does what is righteous,
    who speaks the truth from their heart;

whose tongue utters no slander,
    who does no wrong to a neighbor,
    and casts no slur on others;

who despises a vile person
    but honors those who fear the Lord”

Using words liberally and losing isn’t something God treats lightly. The Apostle Paul cautions against responding to verbal insults with more of the same kind,

“when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment” (1 Corthinians 4:13). 

Paul was a regular target for insult and assault. He didn’t enjoy the mischaracterisation that he regularly experienced, and he fought hard to not respond in kind. Rather,  it caused him to lean more heavily on God and to respond as the Lord Jesus responded to his critics and crucifiers. 

The right to protest is engrained in Western liberalism and it is an important freedom, albeit one that I choose not to exercise (with one exception many years ago). I personally think there are better ways to communicate concerns but I also recognise there can be power and persuasion through the force of numbers. Then again, pro-life marches in Australia often outnumber other protests and yet they rarely make the news. 

Leaving aside the question of whether protests are helpful or not, last weekend’s protests and the response since are yet another example of how our culture has turned into the ouroboros.  We are chasing our own tail and trying to bite it off! We are slowly destroying ourselves as we deny essential realities about the world and about ourselves. And we have lost the ability to communicate hard issues with grace, gentleness, and respect. It’s as though some bright spark read Romans 1:18-32 and thought to himself/herself, what a brilliant pathway to progress! But this isn’t progress, it is a dangerous game of power and bullying and it is hurting real people who are struggling with real issues.

Jesus once asked a group of intellectuals, “Haven’t you read…that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female…”

Can you imagine Jesus standing in Melbourne City and saying these words today? He was willing to say the unpopular thing. Jesus was also known for his great compassion. He didn’t renege on truth or on grace.

Above all, our city of Melbourne needs to relearn how to listen to the One who came from heaven and who was crucified out of love for us. But giving up hubris and putting on humility isn’t an easy path to take, but it is a necessary one if we have any chance of finding redemption. Shouting and demeaning is easy. Listening, speaking well and showing grace is hard. Until such time that we recover these Christian graces, I suspect we are going to face more trying times ahead.

And so for my final plea, Christians of Melbourne, don’t buy into the rage. Resist it with all the strength God gives and offer a better pattern. Perhaps no one will listen for now. But eventually, a day may come when the road of rage ends its course and people no longer know where to turn. So be that presence where people can turn. But they probably won’t turn up to our churches or ask those deep questions of us if we’ve already signed up to angry and spiteful mobs that are controlling our public discourse today.