The subject of consent in sex has come to the fore again this week, both with stories in Australia and in the United States.
In this piece I argue that consent is essential and sex needs more that just consent for it to be safe and good. Click on the graphic to read
How we speak in public and online matters. Are we adorning the Gospel or uglifying the Gospel?
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The Ed Sheeran fiasco this week is an example of where our culture is at
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News of the Anglican Church of Canada writing liturgy for euthanasia patients is understandbly causing consternation. Then we realise that one of Australia’s largest denominations is doing the same.
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In 2026 my blog is migrating to a new platform.
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This weekend, I am having a mini break, which means it’s an opportunity to visit another church.
I love the church where I am a member and belong, but annual leave is an opportunity to visit other churches and be encouraged by what God is doing elsewhere.
We had originally thought that we would visit one of the churches in Melbourne CBD, but knowing police are overstretched and multiple protests were being organised, we thought it best not to go. Why add to the business? And who knows how long we’d be stuck in the city while protesters blocked intersections around the CBD.
So we visited Mentone’s daughter church, Regeneration Church in Clayton. It was lovely to catch up with old friends and encouraging to meet around God’s word and see how the church has grown since I last visited. It was a beautiful sight: a room filled with mostly 25-year-olds and representing so many different ethnicities, from all over the world and yet with one voice praising God and enjoying a deep sense of unity in Christ. I said to the pastor afterwards, ‘here [the church] is the answer to all of the friction and suspicion and anger in our community’.
It’s true, if you want to see a glimpse of what God is doing around the world today, go to your local church. If you wish to have a little taste of what life in eternity will be like, drop into your local church next Sunday and see where disconnected men and women from all backgrounds, jobs, education, ethnicity are finding joy and peace and love and life together through Jesus Christ.
Sometimes the music is happening, sometimes it’s out of tune. Sometimes the coffee is proper Melbourne, most of the time it isn’t. Sometimes the kids are noisy; often they are. The building’s architecture may be plain or striking, the preacher a great storyteller or simple words explaining the Scriptures. In these many different settings, from Clayton to Camberwell, from Pakenham to Preston, and from Mentone to Melton, church is like a breath of fresh air compared to the anx and rage filling our streets.
What a contrast with the clashing protests in Melbourne city today, where protests met with counter-protests, one volume of insult matched with further insult and even assault. Yes, many are probably marching for a myriad reasons, concerns over housing and cost of living, and fear of the unknown. But with the surprise element of boiling water burning you, these protests were already marked with signs of what they were about. When a protest is arranged under the banner, ‘stop mass immigration’, and then days out it’s described as defending ‘white heritage’ and denouncing Chinese and Indians in our country, of course, the march was going to go off the rails. So when a known neo-nazi is given a microphone and addresses the crowd from the steps of Parliament House, to the cheers of people below, what were you expecting to see?
A few days ago, Victorian Police expressed concerns that to deal with these protests, they were forced to take away resources from their search to apprehend a man who murdered two of their own and seriously wounded another only 5 days ago. Why would we create further strain on our police after the shocking week they have endured? And then, at the protest in Adelaide, a poster appeared, supporting the alleged police murderer.
Melbourne’s new Lord Mayor wants to claim the title of the ‘optimistic city’, but Melbourne is anything but optimistic or happy. Melbourne has turned into the nation’s protest capital, with weekly interruptions by protests and marches, often promoting the most insidious of causes. Our city is experiencing tumultuous divisions and doubts and fears. One solution often produces another misstep and further erodes public confidence and our social cohesion is increasingly tenuous. We are no longer the city we once were.
Jesus once warned,
“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” (Luke 21)
Tired of bad news? Exhausted by the negativity and fear? There is someone to whom we can turn. I’ve said it before, and I will keep on saying it: there is good news. There is really good news, and it can already be seen and experienced in Melbourne. There is something beautiful and good and happy taking place across our city where people from all manner of backgrounds are finding not a feeling of optimism but a happy and certain hope. To be sure, it won’t make the newspapers of 6pm news; good news stories don’t sell. But boy, do we need a better story than the ones filling every breaking news. As Jesus explained, what we get to see in our churches is tasted and seen in a million different cities and towns around the world and in a thousand languages and on a billion faces,
“This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”
“For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share”
Australia has a rich and wonderful history of immigration. It is not overstating the case to say that our great nation is largely built on the blood, sweat and tears of migrants. Australia also has a mixed and difficult history with immigration; from the treatment of Chinese settlers in the 19th Century, to the Irish and sectarianism, the arrival of Italians, the white Australia policy, to welcoming Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees and more.
Like in the United Kingdom and the United States, there are growing noises here demanding that Australia shut down mass immigration.
A march is being organised across Australian cities for next Sunday. I would never have known about it except for a couple of individuals plugging it on social media. The website claims,
“Australia is changing in ways most of us never agreed to. People are waking up to a country they barely recognise. Endless migration, weak leadership, and political cowardice have brought us here, and it’s time to put a stop to it.
Immigration poses exciting possibilities. Also, immigration always presents significant challenges. There are genuine questions to be asked of Islam, as there are of Christian Nationalism and other isms. Nations rightly have borders, laws, and citizenship that govern and give shape to a country. To be pro-immigration doesn’t mean zero borders and no caps on immigration. There are real and complex questions relating to social cohesion in Australia. Deciding on intake numbers and who comes into the country and under what conditions isn’t an easy task. If you have ever spoken with an immigration officer, you’ll understand that they take their work with utmost seriousness.
People are afraid, fearful of losing the known, fearful of losing identity, and fearful of the other. But is the answer to fear, demanding the end to large immigration? Is the answer to wrap ourselves around the Australian flag, close the borders and keep out those who look different from us?
There is a major problem with this ‘March for Australia’.
The problem lies both in its starting point and in its trajectory. In short, ‘March for Australia’ is grounded in fear, ethnocentrism, and at times racism. I’m sure many people who’ll be swept up in the march are not racists, they are Aussies concerned about their country, and they’re unduly jumping onto a movement who while willing to give them a voice, is promoting xenophobic and racist ideas.
When your slogan is, ‘Stop Mass Immigration’, you are in fact acting in an anti-Australian way, because Australia is a nation made up from the nations, and we have always been. Who among us isn’t a descendant of migrants? Who among us hasn’t brought our culture into our cities, both good and bad? Have we forgotten sectarianism? It’s more than that, it is this Christian notion of the dignity of every human being, loving your neighbour and welcoming the poor and oppressed, that gave moral impetus to welcoming people to our shores. We do not welcome them because they are like us, but because we are ‘the lucky country’, and, to quote our National Anthem, “For those who’ve come across the seas, We’ve boundless plains to share”.
If your starting place is ‘immigration is bad and we must stop it’, then what follows will almost certainly be unhelpful. If, however, we begin by affirming the goodness of immigration, then we can have a conversation.
The trajectory is already being shown. When I hear a promoter say that ‘Australia has too many Chinese and too many Indians’, that is racism. And that way of thinking is gross and an affront to huge numbers of Aussies of Chinese and Indian descent, and I take it personally on behalf of my family and friends.
As one friend pointed out, this march is essentially calling for a return to the White Australia policy.
Another person alleged that anti-semitism is the reason why we must clamp down on immigration. I have said more about anti-semitism than most Christian leaders over the last couple of years, and while there is an evil anti-semitic undertone among some Muslim people, most of the anti-semitism I see is from university students and old socialists of white European heritage.
To allege immigration must stop is to say something about our character and how we view the other. It is building a society based on fear, not grace, on protectionism, not generosity, on self-actualisation, not sacrifice. In that sense, it’s all law and zero gospel. Now, that may not bother the average unbelieving Aussie, but it should surely concern the Christian. What casts out fear? Not hate, it’s love.
The wonder of the Christian message is that God includes the outsider. God’s only Son gave his life to welcome into God’s Kingdom the very people who do not belong and do not deserve citizenship. God’s Gospel is about grace, kindness, love of neighbour and for the nations.
While the Gospel and the Parable of the Good Samaritan do not outline an immigration policy, they are doing something deeper and broader. If Jesus died to save people from Morocco and Mexico, and from China and Chad, surely this changes the way we will view these image bearers of God.
Yesterday I posted a comment about immigration as a blessing, not a curse. One of the problems with my interlocutors yesterday is that as soon as I said, ‘immigration is a blessing’, they read it as saying I’m advocating for open immigration, even though my very next sentence stated that immigration brings challenges. They can’t seem to distinguish between no borders and generous immigration. But this march isn’t calling for generous immigration, according to many comments I’ve read; they want Muslims, Chinese, and Indians kept out of our country.
We are a nation of plenty. We are a nation of extraordinary wealth and prosperity. We are also a society wrapped up in red tape and layers of bureaucracy that make even simple decisions near impossible (ie solving housing). I find it interesting how Jesus didn’t say, ‘Let me come and help out so long as it doesn’t cost me anything’.
What especially stood out to me was the fact that a couple of Christians think that this march is a good idea. First of all, this protest would require you to skip church. Sure, it begins at midday, but for most people, that means missing church. If a movement or march requires you to miss church, do you think its origins are of God? Second, do they really believe that changing government policy will save our nation? That’s not a Christian answer.
Several years ago, Russell Moore was asked a question about Muslims moving into the community and wanting to build a mosque. Moore not only espoused a Baptist view of religious freedom and toleration, he also said this,
“That doesn’t turn people into Christians, that turns people into pretend Christians and sends them straight to hell. The answer to Islam isn’t Government it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the new birth that comes from that”.
Russell Moore is right.
Ephesians ch. 2 makes it clear that God’s reconciliation plan isn’t accomplished through Government or political means, but through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This kind of Jesus reconciling brings disparate people together; it unites the great divide between Jew and Gentile.
“remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household”
If you think Australia will be saved through less immigration, you have missed the gospel, you probably won’t enjoy heaven, and you’re behaving more like the Levite than the Samaritan.
Jesus didn’t side with the Sadducees (who might be described as Roman conformists) nor with the Zealots. Modern-day Australian religious zealots may be feeling and seeing social discord, but rather than bringing reconciliation, they add to the discord.
Next week’s march is no more Christian than many of the protests that belong to the left-edge side of culture. Those already caffeinated on rage and scribbling out their placards for the march, will probably not like what I have written. If anything, the rage temperature will increase; perhaps it is a self-fulfilling prophecy!
However, if you’re one of those followers of Jesus who are troubled by social divisions and the fracturing we are witnessing in our streets and suburbs, press closer to the gospel of Jesus and believe God’s purposes through his son.
If you have issues with Islam, as I certainly do, love your Muslim neighbours, don’t hate on them; invite them over to your home for a meal with the family, don’t ostracise them. Invite them to Church and make them feel welcome, because they are.
Our Church is hoping to begin a ministry next year to migrant families in our community. Why? Because we want to serve them and we want them to know the good news of Jesus, just as someone once shared with us.
I love how yesterday in Western Sydney, a Sydney Anglican Church hosted a conference. It was given the name, ONE FOR ALL, and Archbishop Kanishka Raffel preached on the gospel that crosses cultures. Australia needs more of that.
If you hear people saying that there are too many Chinese or Indians or whoever in our country, call them out.
On Sunday, 31 August, go to Church as you ought, worship God with his people from among the nations, love each other, and hear again how the gospel of grace is our answer.
Update: the Melbourne march was attended by people from many different persuasions. However, the march was led by a group of self-identifying neo-Nazis, and a prominent neo-Nazi spoke from the platform to address the crowd.
I love the footy. AFL is part of Melbourne’s DNA, and it’s one of our most successful exports to the rest of the country. But I don’t love AFL that much that I want to sell my soul. Our streets are awash with domestic abuse, where women (and children) live in fear and where indescribable things take place. As a society, we are meant to be learning and improving, even with the likes of Andrew Tate and Doug Wilson espousing their grotesque language and imagery. And then the AFL announces with pride,
‘I know what we need: let’s display our sport to the world and entertain the masses with a man who raps about demeaning women.’
Last month, the Carlton Football Club wore orange on their match-day jumper to promote gender equality and the prevention of violence against women. Well done, Navy Blues, our season may be a failure but this one was a win. Two weeks later, AFL CEO Andrew Dillon announced that Snoop Dogg would headline the AFL Grand Final entertainment.
How does the AFL square their stance on violence against women while inviting Snoop ‘let me find another vile word to say about women’ Dogg, to be the headline act on Grand Final day?
Bewildering is one word. If the rapper has genuinely repented and changed his life around, that’s one thing. We should and do believe in forgiveness. However, Snoop Dogg is on the record saying that while his attitudes towards women have changed, he doesn’t regret the songs he once wrote (and which continue to be played millions of times every month).
Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. is one of the biggest names in the music industry, and the sporting world seems to love him, from the Super Bowl to the Olympics, and to the world of Menulog!
He certainly has charisma and a thing for wearing sunglasses, but I doubt these are the reasons why the AFL is paying Snoop Dogg a truckload of cash to perform at this year’s Grand Final.
The dude is a singing misogynist, with lyrics so explicit in their sexism and degradation of women, if the AFL paid me what their paying the Dogg, I still wouldn’t share the words here. Those who know his songs know exactly what I mean, and those who don’t are better off. The issues don’t end with his songs, but with a litany of allegations and cases that have been brought against Snoop Dogg since the mid-1990s.
What kind of artist could we promote for families on Grand Final Day? What kind of music will help younger men think well of women? What kinds of songs tell us better stories? Is there no one available in our big big world who can sing, dance and perform? Even silent Snoopy the Dog would be a better choice.
Andrew Dillon, we’re not pooping on the party; we just don’t need Snoop Dogg, or a 100 other hip hop gold wearing, pyjama wearing artists who make Pablo Picasso look like a PG rated artist.
This is yet another example of our sex confused culture. It’s kiss cam all over again, with Coldplay singing, ‘I used to rule the world’. Condemn the CEO…but love is love…The poor wife…but he’s embracing his inner self…such betrayal….but this is a consensual relationship…
We don’t want to give up on the sex hype and yet it is leaving behind a very long trial of harm.
By the way, if you’re wondering how men should relate to women, it wouldn’t hurt to pay more attention to the old book. The old book isn’t so old. Its relevance is just what we need in our age of utter confusion about gender, sex and relationships. Take ,for instance, this advice that the Apostle Paul gave to a young bloke named Timothy, “Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.”
Or these age words written to a man named Titus,
“encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned.”
I guess it’s not sexy enough, not enough risk and hormones letting fly.
Or take the story from the book of Judges, when Israel responded to the horrific incident of a woman being raped and murdered: they went to war against the offending tribe.
Will wise heads prevail? Will the allure of profit win the day? Or will we pay and praise a misognist in front of our daughters, mums and wives?
Melbourne has been rocked this week with 2 men charged with abusing little children. 1200 children are now required to be checked for STDs. Imagine the horror for these families? How do people begin to process what has happened?
In this episode of my new podcast, I want to address the question of evil, and needing a God who judges and who hates evil even more than us.
Or listen on Apple Podcast – https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/episode-3-evil-in-melbourne/id1504044662?i=1000715507939
Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/episode/0uuIqzbk2Q6aqsEVGQA6Dj?si=ea124dbda07b44c5
