Over at the Gospel Coalition I’ve written a piece, reflecting on an important ABC article that raises the issue of abuse toward women by ‘Christian’ husbands.
Culture
Victorian Greens banning the conscience
The Victorian Parliament is expected to commence debate on an assisted-suicide Bill next week, although the conversation has been taking place for many months already.
Two of the main issues that I have heard expressed concern the ethics of killing human beings, and the question of safeguards. In regard to the latter issue, Peter Singer (who is one the most notable global pro-euthanasia voices) recently admitted in a Melbourne meeting,
“Euthanasia without patient consent does happen in Europe. Don’t worry it happens here too.”
This week, however, another important area of debate has been brought to the fore by the Victorian Greens.
St Vincent’s Health Australia has made it clear that should euthanasia be legalised in Victoria, they will not be offering this ‘procedure’, given that killing human life contradicts their values. In response, Victorian Greens have asked the Government to review public funding of St Vincent’s if clinicians are banned from administering assisted suicide. How extraordinary that a political party would remove funding from a major health care provider on account that they refuse to assist patient suicide. Imagine living in a State where hospitals were forced to participate in killing patients; welcome to Victoria. In all probability, it is unlikely that the Parliament would support such measures, but this is yet another example of how far our society has moved in the dehumanisation project.
A Greens spokesperson then had the audacity to attack St Vincent’s hospital, accusing them of lacking compassion for the terminally ill and “condemning people to pain.” One can imagine what the doctors and nurses at the hospital think of such a repugnant comment.
I am a strong supporter of the Greens policy to ban Greyhound racing because of the appalling statistics of these dogs being euthanised. We own a greyhound rescue dog, and he’s a much loved member of our family. How ironic that the same political party not only support proposed legislation to encourage assisted suicide of human beings, they would also threaten health providers who find such action unconscionable.
What the Census reveals and doesn’t reveal about Aussie religion
If Tuesday’s headlines in the Melbourne’s media were anything to go by, the most important news coming out of the national census is that Melbourne is better than Sydney and we are about to become bigger. After all, you can’t dispute numbers! A closer inspection of the data however points out that Melbournians will have to wait a little longer for this prestigious non-title title, about 33 years!
A more important conversation has exploded across the country, that of the religious contour of Australia, or should that be, its lack thereof?
Lobbyists have begun spinning census numbers their way, for greater numbers supposedly means more social power and influence. However, statistics can be less useful than we are being led to believe, this is certainly true regarding the question of religious affiliation. The census is useful as a sociological exercise, for it is asking Australians to self-identify. Census data is the national collation of Australian opinion and self-allocated identity, but the numbers however may not always reflect what some are alleging.
Let us take the following two groups as an example, ‘no religion’ and ‘Christian:
No religion
Tosca Lloyd wrote a piece in The Age, with this headline, “End Australia’s Christian bias”. His was one of several examples of census overreach. It is truly an odd piece, take this comment for example,
“Does secularism commit the same offence, imposing the views of the nonreligious onto the religious? No. The advantage of a secular society is its tolerance of, and neutrality between, different groups and individuals in society providing they obey the law and do no harm.”
Lloyd equates the ‘no religion’ numbers with atheism, he wrongly defines secularism as non religion and therefore with atheism, he ignores the fact the the majority of Australians still identify as Christian (22% higher than ‘no religion’), and he doesn’t appreciate how many non Christians value much of the Christian heritage Australia has and would like this to continue, and he ignores the fact that atheistic secularism is not neutral but is frequently intolerant of other world views. Indeed, his own article reeks of intolerance toward Christianity.
I understand people feeling tempted to inflate numbers, but it is not a particularly rational response to the data. One senses from social media that some of our atheist friends have been looking for the knock out punch against Christianity, and they believe the census is just that. It seems that they don’t always know what they are swinging at.
The Australian suburb with the largest percentage of people ticking ‘no religion’ is North Fitzroy in Melbourne, with 47%. In an interview for SBS,
“Local councillor Misha Coleman said the high number of “no religion” responses may just have been a reluctance of responders in the area to identify with one particular faith.
“It’s more than privacy, it’s maybe a reticence to say they’re one thing or the other,” she said.
“Maybe people in the area don’t want to be defined, or categorised, or labelled as a particular religion.”
In other words, don’t conclude that ‘no religion’ always means no belief in God.
In the words of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS),
“Australia remains a religious country, with 60% of our population reporting a religious affiliation. However, the proportion of people reporting no religion, including people with secular and other spiritual beliefs, increased to 30% in 2016 – up from 22% five years ago.
The current state of the nation’s faith breaks along age lines. Older people keep their faith. Younger people tend to report ‘no religion’. This response was most common among younger people, with 39% of those aged 18 to 34 reporting no religious affiliation.
Part of the decline in religious affiliation is a general move away from the traditional Christian denominations. Nevertheless, 52% reported an affiliation with a Christian religion – predominantly Catholic (23%) and Anglican (13%). New South Wales and Queensland remain the most Christian states, but there is an overall decline in the percentage of Australians reporting their faith as Christian.
About 8.2% of us reported a religion other than Christianity, with Islam (2.6%) and Buddhism (2.4%) the most common.”
Christian
The census no more reveals the number of convinced atheists in the nation than it does the number of actual Christians in the nation.
The census assumes Christianity is defined in ways other than by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The only category offered is, do you self-identify as Christian, and with which Christian denomination? This is not a fault of the census as such, for ABS is simply asking questions through a different grid to that which Christians would use for working out such things.
Who is a Christian in Australia today? The census gives great laxity here. A individual may define their religion according to their cultural or family heritage. It may be that they were baptised as infants, or that their grandparents attend a church.The connection may be as tight or as loose as each person determines.
The percentage difference between the new census figures and those who regularly attend a church are vastly different, and the numbers of Australians whose membership is with an evangelical church is smaller again. Not that church attendance is the sign of being Christian, but it is a measure.
Again, it is beyond the scope of this census to determine, but decades of theologically liberal Christianity and spiritual soft drink Christianity have inevitably led to people turning away. If I held up a faded photocopy of a hand drawn chalk copy of Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’, drawn by me, and I tried to persuade people that this was a genuine Van Gogh, it would make sense that people were disinterested and skeptical. Who would want to believe in and follow Jesus Christ, given the fraudulent presentations so often given in Australian Churches?
One further question that was outside the parameters of the census relates to how evangelical churches are going in contrast to other Churches. While Christian denominations are overall witnessing decline, many individual churches are moving in the opposite direction. Evangelical Churches are not confined to any single denomination but are found within and across many Christian traditions. I’m using the term evangelical in the most basic way, to denote churches who uphold orthodox doctrine, and who preach and practice this faith. These Churches are Gospel-centred, Bible based, and active in evangelism. Such churches are regularly seeing growth not decline.
Australia is witnessing multiple changes in religion
There is not one religious shift taking place in Australia, but several:
1. Other religions are growing in Australia. This is primarily due to immigration, as opposed to conversion growth. There are of course a few Australian who formally convert to Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism, but the numbers of probably very small.
2. Cultural Christianity (or nominal Christianity) continues to decline. Despite this decline, more Australians than not, still see themselves as having some affiliation with Christianity. More than that, it is highly presumptuous for social commentators to conclude that only “Christians” are interested in upholding Christian values across the cultural and political fabric of the nation. To strip away these heritages that a derivative of Christianity will eventually leave our country naked and searching for a fig leaf to hide behind.
3. Younger Australians are less likely than older Australians to align with a particular religion.
4. Humanist secularism is growing (as opposed to a properly defined secularism which gives ample public space and freedom for religious views). There are probably more atheists, as there are almost certainly more agnostics, more self-defined spiritual-not-religious people, deists, uncommitted theists, and so on.
5. Evangelical Christian Churches are growing, and there are more of these churches starting across the country.
What now?
Atheists gladly proselytise, they even organised a public campaign prior to the census, urging Australians to tick the ‘no religion’ box. Now that the figures have been released, their recruitment drive is on again. Christianity is also a missionary religion and a persuasion religion. The challenge in previous generations was to evangelise nominal Christians, today’s opportunity is to love and serve and evangelise people from other religions and those who identify with none.
Christians should not be discouraged by the census, because understanding what our fellow Australians think and believe and value, is enormously helpful.
We can expect mainline Churches to continue downward. Churches that obscure or who redefine the good news of Jesus Christ will inevitably collapse into irrelevance. While this saddens us, it is also a good thing because we don’t need more Churches painting faded fakes of Jesus Christ. More than ever Australia needs Aussie Christians to be clear on the Gospel. We Christians need to believe, trust, tell and show our fellow Australians why and how the Christian Gospel is the greatest and most vital message we can ever hear. This is imperative, not because we are trying to hijack a census or attempting to retrieve some lost national identity, but because the life of each and every Australian matters, and God matters. The ultimate numbers crunch isn’t Census 2016, or Census 2021 or 2026, but the book that will be opened on the last day. And this book will be more revealing than any census, and we long for our fellow Australians to have their names printed there.
Genderism, Atheism, and Civil Discourse falls off the precipice
Last night on live television Clementine Ford called fellow journalist, Miranda Devine, “a c**t”. The ABC has today publicly apologised to Devine, although Ford has begun moving through the expletive vocabulary as people on twitter dare suggest that a civil society requires civil discourse.
The topic for last night’s episode of Hack Live was, Is Male Privilege Bullsh!t?” With such a cleanly articulated topic for conversation, should anyone be surprised that one of the program’s guests took liberty with language?
Only hours earlier The Age published a piece by Andrew Street, asking the question, ‘Why do atheists have to behave like such jerks?’
Andrew Street bemoans the behaviour of some of his fellow atheists including the likes of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Summarising a piece by Mark Oppenheminer, Street admits that such behaviours are a massive problem in the international atheist community. His particular and present concern is the treatment Clementine Ford has received since being invitated to speak at the Atheist Global Convention in Melbourne. Without question, the online abuse is appalling. Street quotes the moderators of the Convention’s Facebook page, ”we have been deleting specific rape and death threats as they occur… there have been substantial numbers”. There is no justification for such demeaning and disgraceful threats and language, and I’m pleased to hear Andrew Street confronting it.
Toward his conclusion, Street makes a swipe at ACL, trying to analogise ACL with the crude atheists attacking Ford. This comparison is sadly predictable, and greatly misplaced:
He writes, “It also means such groups end up much like the Australian Christian Lobby: filled with reactionary voices that don’t remotely represent the diverse community for which they’re claiming to speak.”
The Australian Christian Lobby may not share views on sexuality and marriage that many atheists hold, but they do not resort to vulgarity, and they are known for their advocacy for women against sexual exploitation. One may not agree with ACL but one cannot associate them with the kind of vitriol that Ford has been subjected to and has also dished out.
Street’s article is revealing, for he is rightly concerned about the attitudes and behaviour of his fellow atheists, but he doesn’t recognise how their creed gives no protection from such assaults, indeed atheism gives license to demean and hate. Not for a second do I think that this is a problem exclusive for atheism, we should keep in mind that the same can also be said of many religions.
While Street’s article doesn’t dig so deep, it helpfully reminds us that worldview matters and that from the heart we speak.
“For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (Matthew 12:34).
Much of Australia’s intelligentsia insists that there are few if any axioms and that ethics is mostly freelance. We cannot however do away with them and the most convinced anti-theist recognises that there are right ways and wrong ways to treat people. This deeply rooted belief doesn’t stem from atheism but from Christianity.
We often treat people in ways similar to how have been treated, and it is a vicious cycle. With a decisiveness and efficacy that makes the Hadron collider appear like recycled garbage, Jesus Christ broke the cycle. He showed us how to live and he lived that life on our behalf. He made himself a substitute, not returning hate for hate but enduring it on the cross. This grace and kindness does more than give us the example par excellence for public conversation, for he liberates the human heart from hate, as well as from pride that stems from forced adherence to cultural conventions. No doubt Christians have at times forgotten this good news, and even proven themselves unChristian by using speech that contradicts the character of Jesus Christ. This love given by Christ changes attitudes and behavior, such that we show respect toward those with whom we have significant disagreement, not because society demands civility, but because we wish to share this infectious love that God has given to us.
Anglican Yoga?
A story about yoga and the use of Church facilities broke today in the media. It seems as though much of the public are as confused about the issue as people are about the meaning of the cobalt blue rooster! There is however good reason behind the decision among Sydney Anglicans.
The Bishop of South Sydney, Michael Stead, has explained that yoga is incompatible with Christian belief and practice, and therefore should classes should not be offered within Church precincts. I tend to agree with my friends from the north.
Here’s a post from a few years ago, which although not touching on yoga classes on Church property, does highlight relevant points to the discussion:
“There are many Churches that organise yoga classes and many more Christians who use yoga at home. Even to ask this question may seem rather banal to many Christians today, but let me begin by explaining something that happened yesterday.
One of my sons came home after school and told us that they had taken a yoga class that day. Apart from the issue that parents were not made aware that this was happening (a mistake I’m sure that school won’t repeat[1]), I suspect the school was not aware of what took place during this session. The children were taught a number of different postures and to speak aloud various names. It is difficult to ascertain whether the children were simply being encouraged to learn the names of the different postures or whether they were being taught particular chants that can accompany the postures. My concerns were heightened when my 6 year old son produced a ‘magic stone’, given to him and one to every student by the instructor. Two pamphlets came home with him, one asking him to sign up to an after school yoga program, and the other explaining the value of the ‘magic stone’, to quote, “ask your magical stone to take away any of your worries, so you can sleep better at night. Or ask your magical stone to give you special powers”.
Yes, that’s right, without parental permission a stranger handed out little idols to the class (that’s what they are) and is encouraging them to pray to these stones for help and special power’!
Thankfully my son thought the whole exercise was, to use his word, ‘ridiculous’. But nonetheless he came home confused about what he had heard and been taught.
I hear some friends saying, ‘Murray that’s terrible but yoga doesn’t have to taught that way. It’s okay to do yoga’.
Can Christians practice yoga? I know some Christians who believe that yoga is demonic and should never be touched, and I know Christians who believe that yoga is fine and can be easily practiced without any pagan connotations.
I would like to offer these thoughts:
1. Yoga comes from ancient Indian religions.
Yoga’s precise origins are ambiguous. What we know is that it comes from India and has been practiced for centuries, and is intimately tied to paganism, Hinduism and Buddhism.
2. Yoga is not simply physical exercise.
The purpose of yoga is to attain union with the soul and therefore peace. It involves physical, mental and spiritual dimensions.
As Christians we do not want to delve into practices that are idolatrous and could introduce us to ideas/practices that undermine the beauty, sufficiency and truthfulness of Jesus Christ. But I know some Christians who will practice yoga and believe that they can adopt the physical exercises while keeping out the spiritual aspects that regularly accompanies yoga. I don’t use yoga, but I can appreciate how relaxation exercises can be useful, and perhaps it is possible to redeem these exercises from yoga’s pagan roots. But let’s be aware of the following:
It is often said that the yoga is practiced in ways that are divorced from Hinduism. One local yoga instructor in Mentone offers ‘Hatha yoga’. ‘Hatha yoga’ deals with, to quote, focuses mainly on the physical body as opposed to more spiritual yoga styles.’ Sounds ok. But further on the same web site says this,
‘Yoga develops all aspects of one’s being – body, mind and spirit. The body becomes stronger, more flexible, more relaxed and generally much healthier. See each class as an opportunity to nurture yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually.
And this,
‘Turn your mind inwards and focus on your own practice.’
‘Be kind and loving to yourself by accepting where you are. Remember to practise with a sense of ‘honouring and exploring’. Honour yourself and what you are capable of and explore where your body can take you. It is important to listen to your body and recognise your limits so that you do not injure yourself.’
So, spiritual free yoga is nonetheless designed to help you spiritually!
The Yoga Australia website explains.
‘Today, the most popular of these more recent approaches is generally known as a form of Hatha Yoga, and is considered to be the beginning or early stages of the process towards fullness of what Yoga offers.’
In other words, ordinary yoga is designed to be an initiation into real yoga.
3. Yoga is bad theology. Even when we leave out all religious connotations, yoga teaches us to look inside ourselves for peace, whereas the Bible clearly teaches us that we need to look away from ourselves and to Christ. Peace doesn’t come to us from meditation and looking inward, but it comes from God and is given to us freely through the cross of Christ. Yoga simply repeats the same old problem, but with hip pseudo-spiritual language. The Gospel of Jesus Christ exposes the folly of seeking peace from within and points us to the only true God who is able and willing to forgive and restore and bring peace.
Something that yoga gets right is that we are not purely physical beings, but the physical, mental and spiritual interrelate. But it calls us to seek peace from within and it calls us to pay homage to nature and to false gods in order to empower us to achieve this self-seeking harmony.
We are physical beings, and therefore physical exercise, even relaxation exercise, can be useful. While it is theoretically possible to empty these exercises of all their religious content and replace it with godliness, the dangers are many and often subtle. When there are so many great alternatives available to us, why bother at all? Take up a sport, go swimming, go for a walk, get a massage!
2 Musical Experiences from the USA
During a recent visit to the United States I managed to get a seat at the MET in New York for a performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In case you’re unfamiliar with the MET, the Metropolitan Opera is one of the most famous opera companies in the world, and conducting the performance was Placido Domingo, one of the finest classical musicians of the past 50 years. One reviewer wrote that this particular cast was one of the best ever assembled for a performance of Don Giovanni. On top of all that, no one has ever composed more exquisite and sonorous music than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Leaving aside the fact the Opera singers have the acting talent of an Australian soap opera, the music did not disappoint. There were a few stylistic and technical quibbles, but none to write home about. This was a rare opportunity to hear one the great musicians lead a superb cast in singing some of most sublime music ever heard on earth.
A few days later I was in Washington DC, and it was during this stay in DC that I heard music that made the Metropolitan Opera almost sound trifle. I spent 3 weeks hiding away in an apartment on Capitol Hill, working on a writing project. I occasionally slipped outside to buy food and to visit an art gallery or museum, and folk at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) were kind and generous, and constantly inviting me to various church events throughout the week (an offer very hard to refuse!). On Sundays though I wanted to be with God’s people, and at Capitol Hill Baptist everyone spends most of the day together; it was a great joy and time of personal refreshment.
They love to sing at CHBC, as many as 10 hymns in the morning service and several more during the evening service. As someone who was once a professional musician, and once given an invitation to sing with the Melbourne Symphony, I have a particularly high view of what can and ought to be with music, and yet I can say that at over my time at CHBC I have rarely heard musical sounds that have given me more joy and encouragement, such that 10 hymns was not enough; a 1000 voices singing to God and each other with heart felt joy and delight.
The musical accompaniment was simple and bare – an acoustic guitar and piano, and with 2-3 vocalists who were mic’d but only just enough so that they could lead the congregation through any unfamiliar passages and to keep time. The music is deliberately restrained, in order to elevate the role of the congregation sing, and hearing the people sing only encourages everyone to sing more.
I am not suggesting that this is how other churches should orchestrate music for church; I appreciate other genres of music in church and I have been part of congregations where the musical style is more contemporary, scored for a more full band, and musically more garnished, like a Mozart recitativo; such playing can encourage congregations to sing and be heard. However, in practice, the band and the way music is led from the front can inhibit and detract from congregational singing. Louder music isn’t always better. More professional music doesn’t equal improvement. More energetic (and charismatic) music leaders isn’t evidence of more godly or ‘successful’ music ministry. Not that such things are necessarily wrong, and I am proposing a false dichotomy between faithful music and professionalism, or congregational music and contemporary music, but if we cannot hear each other singing to praise God and to encourage each other with the truths of God, perhaps we should reconsider how we are doing music in church.
More important than how the music was arranged, it was clear that people believed what they were singing, and it was this belief in the words being sung that spawned such wonderful singing. Choose songs with superficial or bland lyrics, and we shouldn’t be surprised if the results follow suit. The words of every song were theologically rich and deep, and Gospel-centred, and chosen with care in order to assist the congregation prepare for and respond to God’s word. Unlike most churches today, there is no screen up front displaying the lyrics. Instead, everyone is given copies of the words and music in the bulletin on the way into church. Perhaps because I’m not used to paper anymore or maybe there is some didactic phenomena that I’m unaware of, but I found that in reading the word in front of me I was considering their meaning more carefully than when I follow words projected on a white screen.
The reason for sharing this experience is mostly because I loved the CHBC’s singing so much, and we should share stories and experiences that have encouraged us. At a time when so many negative and troubling news stories are coming out of Washington DC and Capitol Hill, just around the corner, in view of that famous dome, is a 1000 people, mostly 25 years old, whose voices are reaching heaven.
How are we encouraging our congregations to sing, not the band but the people to sing and be heard and encouraging one another with the truths of God and his Gospel?
“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” (Colossians 3:16)
Matthew Merker is one of the Pastoral Assistants at CHBC and over the weeks we sang one of his hymns, ‘He will hold me fast’. I’m looking forward to introducing it to Mentone Baptist in the near future:
“When I fear my faith will fail
Christ will hold me fast
When the tempter would prevail
He will hold me fast
I could never keep my hold
Through life’s fearful path
For my love is often cold
He must hold me fast
Chorus:
He will hold me fast
He will hold me fast
For my Savior loves me so
He will hold me fast
Those He saves are His delight
Christ will hold me fast
Precious in His holy sight
He will hold me fast
He’ll not let my soul be lost
His promises shall last
Bought by Him at such a cost
He will hold me fast
CHORUS
For my life He bled and died
Christ will hold me fast
Justice has been satisfied
He will hold me fast
Raised with Him to endless life
He will hold me fast
Till our faith is turned to sight
When he comes at last
(Getty Music)
The Composition that is Manhattan
Manhattan overwhelms the visitor; there is so much to see, taste, and do, that it is impossible to gather up all the possible experiences in a short space of time.
The first time I visited Manhattan was with my family and we spent 5 weeks here, living in an apartment on Greenwich St, in the Financial District. My current stay was a rapid 3 days, although I’ve managed to walk over 70kms through New York’s streets, avenues, and parks.
There is of course much more to New York City than the Borough of Manhattan, but this 21km Island is suffice to enthral a lifetime of imagination.
Street where I’m staying
How might one describe this metropolis?
There is no singular way to describe Manhattan, with all of its tones and expressive pluralities. As I walk through this city different music seems to harmonise with its buildings and people, and I would find myself swapping from one composer to another, depending the mood in that neighbourhood.
For example, on the Upper West Side (where I was staying) the sounds is Verdi, on account of the Metropolitan Opera being a close walk down the street. In addition, my closest subway station opens out at Verdi Square on 72nd Street
Harlem: Prokofiev, because Harlem is vibrant, dynamic, and complex.
The Upper East Side is all elegance, class, and intellect, requiring nothing less J.S. Bach and Mozart.
Midtown resonates with the call of Gershwin – bold and brash. The opening cry of the clarinet in Rhapsody in Blue reminds me of sirens rushing through 42nd second.
Gramercy is Haydn, because Gramercy is respectable but particularly memorable, but with one exception, the beautiful Flat Iron building.
Hell’s Kitchen: John Cage’s aleotorism may sounds like a freeing concept, but in practice it’s hell.
Chelsea: Tchaikovsky, for his swirling romanticism on a grand scale and yet carrying persistent longing for fulfilment.
Greenwich Village: Schumann’s playfulness.
Tribeca: The extravagance of Mahler; although bigger and grander isn’t always better.
The Lower East Side carries with it the plot of Puccini’s La Boheme, filled with optimism and poverty, and the eagerness of young artists.
The Financial District is definitely Stravinsky, because the drubbing pace is constant and hectic.
Battery Park: Handel, because one can’t walk through this southern most region of Manhattan and not imagine the world of Great Britain in the mid 18th Century, just prior to the American Revolution.
Turkey, Anzac Day, and Disappearing Religious Freedom
While Australia prepares to once again remember the Gallipoli landings, the very same day, April 25th 1915, brought Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to national prominence in Turkey. As the Australians troops waded ashore and clambered up the bluffs overlooking what would become Anzac Cove, the few Turkish defenders were gradually pushed inland, until reinforcements arrived led by Mustafa Kemal.
“I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die.”
With this extraordinary command, Kemal prevented the Australians from advancing further, and the two sides began digging into the ancient soil for what would become 9 months of death and horror.
Mustafa Kemal survived the war, entered politics, and in 1923 he closed the final chapter on the 600 year old Ottoman Empire, giving birth to a new and secular democracy. It would be a misjudgment of history to ignore the social and religious tensions that Turkey has balanced over that century, especially when it comes to minority ethnic groups in the Eastern regions of the country, and yet Turkey has avoided much of the turmoil and bloodshed that almost every other Middle Eastern nation has experienced over the same period.
As Australia commemorates Anzac Day, Turkey is on the edge of democratic suicide, as her people vote on a referendum that will introduce sweeping changes to their constitution.
Since the failed coup d’état in July last year, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tightened his control over the country. Many thousands of people have been imprisoned, journalists arrested, and Christian missionaries deported. Five months following the attempted coup, President Erdogan announced a referendum, proposing 18 changes to the nation’s constitution. In short, a yes vote (which appears to have won the day) will give the President new powers over judicial appointments, cabinet appointments, calling and dissolving Parliament, setting the nation’s budget, and all without need of Parliamentary approval. Opponents are concerned that genuine democratic freedoms are already slipping from the populace and should these constitutional amendments become law, Turkey will in effect become an autocratic state. Many people also fear that Turkey is transitioning from being a secular state with a Muslim majority, to an Islamic State with a non Muslim minority.
Prior to 1915, most Australians thought of Turkey as a far away land, filled with ancient history and splendour. From April 25th our history became enmeshed with theirs, and our blood mingled with their blood. Today, Turkey doesn’t feel so remote, and yet we may not automatically see the relevance of this week’s decision.
We would do well to remember that the tide of history has often set its course from this land where East and West intertwine. For six centuries prior to the Dardenelles campaign of 1915, the Ottoman Empire ruled over much of the Middle East and North Africa, serving as both a thorn and flower to Europe. For nearly a thousand years before the Ottomans, the grand Byzantine Empire flourished, a child of the Christianised Roman Empire. This clash between East and West is an ancient one, with Alexander the Great defeating Darius across Turkey, first at Grancius and then at Issus. A thousand years earlier, the shores of Turkey were the setting of Homeric poems and the tales of Troy.
As the sun sets over the Bospherus, we would be mistaken to think that Turkey’s situation is an isolated one, for all over the world we are seeing the expulsion of pluralist societies in favour of authoritarian secularism and religious monocronism. Both are absolutist and exclusivist, with the latter however showing transparency about their religious commitments and the former hiding them behind thin sheets of quasi intellectual and moral neutrality.
Jonathan Leeman is right when he asserts, “secular liberalism isn’t neutral, it steps into the public space with a ‘covert religion’, perhaps even as liberal authoritarianism. it depends on beliefs without conclusive evidence.”
At the beginning of the year I began using the phrase authoritarian secularism, as a way of making distinction between true secularism and what we now see being practiced in Australia. When our nation adopted the language of secular, as in Section 116 of the Constitution, the intent was that the State would not create or be controlled by any given religious persuasion. Today, the language has been hijacked by popularists who allege religion has no place in the public square, whether in politics or education and even in the workplace. Such a position is not derivative of constitutional law or of reason, but the sheer and persistent belief in unbelief.
My own state of Victoria is the sharp edge of progressive politics in Australia, and it is so because authoritarian secularism has substantial sway culturally.
What is happening is this: society has begun limiting free speech in order to push out beliefs that don’t fit the current cultural milieu, and the intent is to fill that space with the agenda of the sexual revolution. What is true of Victoria is true for most other parts of Australia, and is happening across much of the Western world. The tensions are not ours alone, but with no greater zeal in Australia than what we are witnessing in Victoria.
Christians are among those feeling these cultural shifts acutely because the movement is away from cultural Christian. This is not to be confused with Gospel Christianity for the two are not synonymous. Neither, however are they impervious of the other.
It is not as though the current Victorian Government is entirely anti-religion; rather, it wants a sanitised religion and for it remain outside public discourse. In other words, progressive politics wants religion controlled. There is clear evidence of this intent, as demonstrated, for example, by the proposed amendment to the Equal Opportunity Act last year. The ‘inherent requirement test’ would have required all religious organisations, including churches, to justify before a Government organised tribunal, reasons why it is necessary for employees to subscribe to the particular religious beliefs of the organisation. In other words, a Church could be held to account for refusing employment to a Hindu, and a Mosque find itself on the wrong side should they refuse employment to a Christian. Thankfully, the Bill was unsuccessful in the Legislative Council, being defeated by a single vote!
A pluralist society, which Australia is, only continues so long as those in authority allow alternative views to be expressed publicly. The fact is that a State Government, and a number of mainstream political parties across the nation, are not only questioning freedom of religious practice, but have begun issuing policies to quell views and practices that don’t conform to the new morality.
To the surprise of many, the global movement in the early 21st Century is not away from religion to irreligion or from faith to reason, but away from philosophical pluralism to both religious and secular authoritarianism. We are a long way from where things could lead, but we are no longer standing from the sideline and pontificating the possibilities. As Sherlock Holmes would say, ‘the game is afoot’. This should be of concern to global communities, not because pluralism is god, and not because we are moral and spiritual relativists, but because we believe that the State should not dictate religious belief.
As a Christian, I believe in persuasion not coercion. I believe in religious freedom for all, for if not for all it is not freedom at all. It is true though, Christianity can function and flourish in the midst of even ignominious regimes, because the Christian hope does not ultimately depend upon particular political structures, constitutions, and dictates. Our hope rests in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This victory-over-death hope gives us freedom to submit to a harsh Government, and freedom to dissent when they do wrong to a neighbour.
The people of Turkey are in my prayers this week. As we take note of this history turning land, we should not be ignorant of our own proclivities. Religious freedom is being contained and controlled from Canada to Cairo, and from Russia to Riyadh, and similar intent is now being verbalised politically and socially on our own shores. I am not arguing for freedom of religion as some ultimate axiom, but as scaffolding on which a healthy society may grow, by enabling debate and disagreement, and the contest of ideas.
NSW is removing Safe Schools. Could Victoria follow?
It was announced today that the NSW Government is scrapping the controversial school curriculum, Safe Schools. From July, not only is the Federal Government stopping its funding of Safe Schools, but the NSW Education Department will introduce an alternative program. The content of this new program is yet to be released, but early indications suggest that it will be a broader and more inclusive program, and one that does not depend on the now debunked gender theory.
Safe Schools is presented as an anti-bullying curriculum, and is designed to teach children acceptance of other children who are different to them. The emphasis however is on sexuality, and teaching a flawed view of sexuality and encouraging young children to explore these alternative sexualities for themselves.
Safe schools was originally an opt-in program, but it is now compulsory in all secondary schools across Victoria. Many primary schools have also signed up.
One of the chief authors of Safe Schools, Roz Ward, defined the curriculum’s intent as follows:
“Programs like the Safe Schools Coalition are making some difference but we’re still a long way from liberation,’’ she said. “Marxism offers the hope and the strategy needed to create a world where human sexuality, gender and how we relate to our bodies can blossom in extraordinarily new and amazing ways that we can only try to imagine today.”
It would be wrong to suggest everyone who supports the program views Safe Schools as does Roz Ward, but it is telling that one of the chief architects has admitted that Safe Schools is less about anti-bullying, and is designed to educate and influence a new generation of children to the values of marxism and to its accompanying sexual ideology.
One year ago, the Federal Government made numerous changes to the curriculum, following widespread concerns regarding the appropriateness of material and the promotion of third party websites whose content could not be approved.
The Victorian Education Minister responded by saying, Canberra was caving in to the bigots, and announced Victoria would not implement any of the amendments.
At the start of this year, the NSW Government introduced even more overhauls, including that gender fluid theory could no longer be taught in schools.
Only Victoria has made Safe Schools compulsory for schools. Each school can decide how much of the curriculum they wish to use, but the material to be used must be that which is set by the education department. This makes sense, except that Safe Schools is, to quote Professor Patrick Parkinson from the University of Sydney, ‘dubious’, ‘misleading’, and ‘containing exaggerated claims’.
Concerns over Safe Schools has received some bipartisan support in NSW, with Labour MP, Greg Donnolly saying,
“Politicians in one state do not generally take kindly to colleagues in another state giving them advice. There can be exceptions but the unwritten rule is that if you stick your head out and give advice across the border, you are likely to get it knocked-off. With that said, let me now give some advice to my Labor colleagues in Victoria.
The Safe Schools program that the Victorian Government is imposing on public schools in that state is political poison. While it may be just starting to show up in focus groups and other polling activities undertaken by the Labor Party, do not underestimate its malignancy. When it fully manifests, it will be like a fully laden freight train that you will not be able to stop.
The problem for the Premier and the Minister for Education is that the Safe Schools program from the get-go was never about anti-bullying. It was about inculcating into school children hard edged sexuality and gender ideologies. The same ideologies that are examined and debated when undertaking Gender Studies units at university. The same units that such students elect to do by choice; no compulsion or requirement. Not only are these ideologies being presented to school children as a matter of fact i.e. sexuality and gender are not to be understood in any other way, but parents are being kept completely in the dark about what is being presented to their children and by who.”
As it stands, there are children in Victorian schools currently transitioning on account of what is being taught, despite best medical practice stating that most children with gender dysphoria will grow out of it by adulthood and will happily conform to their birth gender. Many Victorian families are being pressured because they cannot subscribe to the curriculum, and feeling pushed out of the public system. Children who believe heterosexuality is normative are labelled as sexist, and the program is built to reframe their thinking until they believe that all sexual preferences and practices are legitimate human expression, and perhaps they might wish to explore these for themselves.
Being a Victorian, I understand our reluctance to listen to our northern neighbours. After all, has anything good ever come out of Sydney? I totally get why Victorians build rhetorical walls to keep out this colony of convicts. Listening to a New South Welshman may sound like a Banshee singing Justin Bieber, but on this occasion we Victorians are fools to ignore such sage advice.
Mr Andrews and Mr Merlino, as a Victorian and parent of 3 children, I strongly urge you to re-examine your position on Safe Schools, and the unscientific and harmful gender theories now being forced upon our children. It’s ok to once in a while redress mistakes and poor policy; humility is in fact a virtue that we value in our political leaders. In winding back ‘Safe Schools’ and aspects of the ‘Respectful Relationships’ program, we do not have to wind back the clock on caring for children who may be working through issues of their own sexuality. We want to see them safe and flourishing, and this is achievable without having to promote ideology that is demonstrably skewed and unsuitable for the classroom.
Should Victoria introduce laws permitting doctor assisted suicide?
Who can live and not see death, or who can escape the power of the grave? (Psalm 89)
Pastoral ministry is one of the few professions where you get to travel with people from birth through to death. It is a privilege to minister to people who are facing their final weeks and days. Sometimes it is a brief period of illness, other times it is an elongated time of suffering. I have known people in their final days who were keen, not to die, but to see their suffering come to an end and to see their hope in Jesus Christ realised. It is an extraordinary privilege to sit beside a person who in approaching death is joyful and at peace. I have also witnessed people wrestling with their own mortality and doubts of what lies beyond death. A pastor’s care in such circumstances also extends to a spouse, to children and friends. Indeed, for many pastors, these relationships are not merely ‘professional’, for those whom we serve are much loved, and they are our friends and family.
Several members of my family work in the medical field, including my wife who worked as a nurse for 10 years, spending much of that time caring for patients with terminal and chronic illnesses. On more than a few occasions she would come home after a shift in tears, having witnessed a patient die.
I wanted to begin by mentioning the above contexts because it would be wrong to assume I am writing from a distance. Indeed, I appreciate that there are many personal stories, from people who hold to various views on euthanasia, and while these stories are all important, stories alone are not suffice for creating law.
If there is common ground to be found in the debate on euthanasia, albeit a rather morbid commonality, it is agreement that death is a terrible reality in the human experience.
It is no small thing for the State to legalise killing another human being
It is of paramount importance that we recognise that the State exists not only to protect life but to enable human flourishing. Similarly, our health system exists to save human life and to bring healing of body and mind. Introducing a law that permits taking a human life is no small thing.
Physician assisted suicide not only contravenes the very purpose of our health system, it would require medical professionals to discard both the Hippocratic oath and the Declaration of Geneva. Such a law would introduce to society the morality of taking human life, legislating that our society condones the killing of another human being. Again, this is no small and insignificant line in the sand.
Dr Michael Bird recently made the astute observation that Victoria could potentially have two hotlines: one for suicide prevention, and the other, suicide permission. The conflict is clear for everyone to see.
Palliative Care as a better option
I am not unsympathetic toward those who wish to end their lives; I hate human suffering and long for the day when it will desist forever. I do not, however, believe that euthanasia is either morally right nor is it the only option available for terminally ill Victorians. We have been led to believe that the only choices available are either ongoing treatment or euthanasia, but there is a third option, and one that avoids unnecessarily prolonging a patient’s life and avoids actively killing them, palliative care.
Palliative care is designed to provide the greatest possible comfort for patients, without undue intervention and causing protracted suffering.
Dr Megan Best is a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney Medical Faculty and works as a palliative care physician in Sydney. In a recent article, Dr Best has argued that a better way forward is to provide adequate resources for palliative care. She says,
“While services such as palliative care and hospice can do much to relieve the distress dying people experience, many still do not have access to it. We must do better.”
It is a travesty that many Victorians cannot currently access proper care that they deserve and need at such an urgent time.
Similarly, Dr. Ian Haines is a medical oncologist, and he believes,
“Like Andrew Denton and others who have observed unbearable suffering in loved ones and the terrible failures of modern medicine in the past, I had once believed that euthanasia was the only humane solution.
I no longer believe that.
The experiences of countless patients and families should be the inspiration for continuing to improve palliative care, for general introduction of advanced care plans and not for euthanasia with its openness to misuse.”
In other words, our Government would do better to invest properly into palliative care, providing the kind of support patients and their families need at such a time.
Unsafe safeguards
The model of euthanasia being considered in Victoria is that which is currently practiced in Oregon, USA. The process involves a Doctor prescribing a lethal capsule to a patient who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months.
In a report recently published by the Health Department in Oregon, are a series of startling revelations regarding doctor assisted suicide in Oregon: First, 49% of patients state as a major reason for taking their own life, the belief that they are being a burden to their family. Second, once the doctor has prescribed the capsule containing secobarbital or pentobarbital, there is no guaranteed follow up in patient’s home where most are said to take their life, with no safeguards to ensure only the patient can consume the lethal dose. Third, patients with non-terminal illnesses have been given access to these lethal drugs and taken their own life.
Both Dr Megan Best and Dr Ian Haines, are among numerous medical professionals who believe the introduction of euthanasia will lead to abuses and even to amendments and extensions down the track.
Dr Best explains,
‘It upsets healthcare providers when their patients are distressed. Don’t tempt them. You can’t rely on the rules. It is not possible to write a law that can’t be abused. That’s why euthanasia bills get defeated in parliament. Because, even though we ache for those who are suffering and desire to die, we feel responsible to protect the vulnerable who would be at risk of dying under the legislation if it were to pass. Surely the worth of a society lies in how it treats those who can’t care for themselves.’
Does this not at least raise questions in our minds, if not grave concern? If medical professionals working in palliative care are already communicating that the rules will be broken, we ought to take notice.
And for to those who allege slippery slopes are mythical, have they not looked to Northern Europe, and seen how euthanasia laws are now regularly broken and expanded, to include killing children, killing people with mental illness and dementia and even gender dysphoria?
Behind the debates on many ethical issues including euthanasia, is what is known as utilitarian thinking, most notably advocated by Professor Peter Singer. Utilitarian ethics ditches belief in the inherent value of every human life, and instead determines moral good by what the greater number of persons believe will maximise their happiness. In other words, for example, killing unborn children is a moral good when the mother believes the child will not add to her own happiness. This is one of the chief reasons why the number of children with Downs Syndrome has decreased significantly in Western societies because the vast majority are now killed in the womb.
There are Parliamentary members across the spectrum who are expressing support of a Bill legalising assisted suicide, and similarly, across the parties are members who disagree and are concerned. We have all heard heartfelt stories being told from different viewpoints, but we must judge what is right. There is an overarching principle with which the State of Victoria must decide, is it the role and right of Government to introduce law that permits the killing of human life? If so, what promises will be given that no further legislative changes will be made in the future?
When society cuts our humanity away from the imago dei, we always slide down a path toward dehumanisation. Bringing the two together again requires humility and more. It requires the loving actions of God to restore and heal this broken image. Is this not the wonder of the Easter event?
If the moral compass of our State is utilitarian ethics, which certainly appears to be the case, then further expansion of euthanasia laws is almost inevitable, as is happening across many countries who’ve already taken the pledge to kill. Indeed, I have already been informed, on sound advice, that the Bill shortly to be presented to the Victorian Parliament will be in the first place be a conservative pro-euthanasia Bill, but the intent will be to extend it 3 to 5 years down the track.
When we begin defining the value of human life by the kind of utilitarianism pursued by Peter Singer and others, we should not be surprised to find ourselves in a few short years permitting and even pressuring the expungement of all manner of people whom society deems a burden. I realise all this sounds rather Stalinesque and outrageously impossible; we would never traverse such dreadful ground. But look to Belgium and the Netherlands, and consider how our own society has already deemed moral, killing unborn children, and possibly now, those who are at the end of their days.
“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.” (Job 38:16-18)
Are we prepared to cross the line, or instead, can we do better by providing improved and greater resources in palliative care?
MurrayCampbell.net 