1 year ago I wrote, ‘Immigration is a blessing’. At the time there was push back. Yesterday, The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, and Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton, Chief Minister of The Great Synagogue in Sydney, wrote a piece in The Australian. I want to affirm their basic thesis.
To read my latest stack, click on the graphic below
It’s Census time in Australia. My advice for answering the question on religion
Click on the graphic for my latest substack
My latest is a Happy 250th Annivesrary post for my American friends. It’s easy to crticise America today, but can we find reasons to be be thankful?
click on the graphic to read my latest substack
Could Christians take a leaf out of King Charles’ public book?
Click on the graphic for my latest substack
Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland’s recent series on the KK on ‘The Rest is History’ podcasts sounds an ominous dissonance.
A Conservative Christian Heresy. Click on the graphic to read my latest substack
Click on the pic to read my latest substack
Josh Frydenberg addressed the media and onlookers at Bondi Beach yesterday. The former Federal Treasurer is a Jewish Australian, and one who has been raising the alarm over anti-semitism these past two years. Yesterday, he delivered a must-watch speech. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr Frydenberg’s words are remembered in 100 years, either as a catalyst for change or as the warning that went unheeded. It wasn’t political grandstanding. There was pain in his voice, as well as anger and frustration. He gave a clarion call for Australia to rid herself of this ancient evil: antisemitism.
“Prime Minister, can’t say those words, Islamist ideology, if you can’t speak them, you can’t solve them.”
The gaslighting and bullying over the last 2 years have been staggering. Even as the blood congeals at Bondi voices are casting doubts and questions. When Dr John Dickson made a comment expressing anger at the persistent ‘tradition of violent jihad’, one prominent Sydney religious leader suggested he shouldn’t make such a link. On Tuesday, ABC’s Laura Tingle had the gall to suggest that the attack was not motivated by religion, even though the terrorists made that claim themselves with an ISIS flag draped over their car, and with Federal investigators confirming links with Islamic hate preachers in Western Sydney.
There is one word our Prime Minister has used, and it is being uttered by many politicians, religious leaders, and ordinary Australians alike is, ‘evil’.
It is evil. Name it. The targeted slaughter of Jewish men and women at Bondi Beach was an act of evil. There are many evils in our streets and suburbs, and yes in every human heart. There is something particularly abhorrent about what took place on the evening of 14th December. It is an ancient and wicked sin, and one that the world has yet to put to death. Even the murder of 5 million Jews in the holocaust was not enough to end this vile.
I would like to address the concept of evil. Why do we turn to this word, and what do we mean by it?
Calling out certain attitudes and actions as evil is more than a gut reaction. Evil is a moral category. It requires there to be a standard of goodness and righteousness. Indeed, for evil to be anything more than a sociological label that is used to explain how we feel about bad events, evil requires there to be a good God who defines what is right and true.
I grew up in Melbourne of the 1990s, and then in Sydney and Melbourne in the 2000s. In the society in which I walked, learned and worked, there was an underlying quiet, yet smug insistence from people too smart for themselves who alleged evil doesn’t really exist. I recall an article published by the ABC during the pandemic by a Zen Buddhist psychologist who argued that while death is not very pleasant but it’s little more than part of nature’s cycle.
Geoff Dawson asserted,
“If one’s view of the world is based on science, we are not special, we were not placed here by a God to be the custodians of the Earth (and if we were, we have let the Almighty down big time!) and like all other species, we will have our place in the sun.
We will die out, and other, more adaptable, life forms will take our place.
The myth that we are somehow special and will continue to live forever as a dominant species is based on a deluded human-centric form of existential narcissism.
We may wring our hands and our hearts may ache at the rapid destruction of wildlife that is happening right now before our eyes, but we never seem to seriously consider that we may go the same way.”
I guess Geoff Dawson is trying to be consistent. I quote him because his philosophical consistency is both revealing and repugnant. If all that exists in the universe is matter and mathematics, and there is no God, it is difficult to suppose there is ultimate right and wrong. At most, what we have are little rights and wrongs, where we agree some things are unacceptable, but only because there is a group consensus, not because there is a universal truth.
And yet we know that cannot be the case. Evil isn’t defined by a poll. Evil isn’t just a label adopted to soften the blow of what are uncomfortable but ultimately meaningless events. But to maintain the objective and universality of evil, we need a counterpoint of objective and universal truth. In other words, we need God. And not only God, but a God of utmost righteousness and goodness.
The Philosopher Alvin Plantinga explains,
”Could there really be any such thing as horrifying wickedness [if there were no God and we just evolved]? I don’t see how. There can be such a thing only if there is a way that rational creatures are supposed to live, obliged to live … A [secular] way of looking at the world has no place for genuine moral obligation of any sort … and thus no way to say there is such a thing as genuine and appalling wickedness. Accordingly, if you think there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness (.. and not just and illusion of some sort), then you have a powerful … argument [for the reality of God.]
Without God, notions such as love, compassion and grace also lose their moorings and essential status. Without Divine orchestration, what is kindness and compassion other than an evolutionary product to help us survive as a species? They aren’t inherently good and necessary; they’re cosmic luck. They’re chromosomal, chemical and cultural byproducts of evolutionary processes.
Again, we know that such thinking is nonsense. It’s not only cognitive dissonance, but moral and existential dissonance. We know justice and compassion are more than ways of describing our preferences, just as we know evil isn’t simply a way of categorising things we hate or are afraid of.
Our world requires a God who is above us and outside the universe: A Divine Being who defines right and evil, justice and compassion and who has shaped the universe to have and need these things.
We can categorically say Islamic Jihadism is evil. We can confidently say NeoNazism is evil. Why? Because existing outside ourselves and yet imprinted into the image dei is the God of love and goodness.
Like Sydney, Melbourne enjoys a large Jewish population. Melbourne is home to more Holocaust survivors than any other place in the world, other than Israel. Between my home and the city stand many Jewish schools and synagogues. My kids regularly played sports with and against local Jewish schools, such is the vibrant Jewish community in this part of Melbourne.
But Melbourne, and perhaps this is also true of Sydney, has relied upon hubris and false piety for far too long. How different we are today from William Cooper. A Christian man and Aboriginal leader, William Cooper stood in solidarity with the oppressed. With foresight, Cooper understood the unfolding evils in Germany and spoke up when most world leaders remained silent. On December 6 1938, William Cooper led a march in Melbourne to the German Consultant, in response to the infamous Kristallnacht, and condemned the “cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government in German.”
For all our pseudo-sophistry and boasting in our cosmopolitan and cultural greatness, travelling in our DNA are the same iniquities that have tainted all nations of old, including what was once considered the most ingenious and advanced culture in the world: Germany. We Aussies love to sing our own praises, with this gleeful myopia that sometimes shares more in common with Nero than with William Cooper.
This week, I am reminded of one of the books that both Christians and Jews hold as Holy Scripture, the book of Jeremiah. The prophet spoke in a time of immense upheaval and uncertainty.
‘We hoped for peace
but no good has come,
for a time of healing
but there is only terror.
You who are my Comforter in sorrow,
my heart is faint within me.
Listen to the cry of my people
from a land far away:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her King no longer there?”
“The harvest is past,
the summer has ended,
and we are not saved.”
Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
I mourn, and horror grips me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
for the wound of my people?’
(Jeremiah 8:15, 18-22)
Months ago, I reflected on the growing expressions of hatred echoing around Melbourne,
“The sad reality is, I don’t know if our fragile cultural cladding is able to resist the kinds of attacks on Jewish people we are now seeing. I think the jury is out, and that should cause us great concern for the future.”
Today, Jewish families around Australia are less certain about tomorrow. They are less confident and free. Their warnings and fears have become reality. That ought to bring great sadness to our land and shout a loud warning.
And yet there remains an unwillingness to learn the lessons of history. We struggle to use the right words or even understand them, because for so long we have stripped the world of ultimate realities and truths in exchange for personal preferences.
Sunday, 14th December, saw evil in its brutal force; religious beliefs fuelling hatred and mass murder. Whether it is the result of ignorance or fear or complicity, we have failed the Jewish community in Australia.
The words of Jeremiah resound loudly today, and yet that doesn’t have to be the end. 600 years after Jeremiah’s day, an elderly Jewish man lived in Jerusalem. We are told,
“Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him”
His eyes saw Jesus and he exclaimed,
“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of your people Israel.”
One thing I do know is this: if Simeon’s assessment is true, Divine consolation can be found. As much as we need evil to be more than a gut-wrenching sensation, we need a consolation that can plumb the depths of despair and pain and bring healing. He is who I am thanking God for at Christmas. And I pray my fellow Australians, even those who disagree with me, will also come to know this Divine consolation.
Last night our church building was packed with people, gathered to celebrate the birth of Jesus. While our evening was filled with laughter and joy and praise, what we didn’t know at the time was that a massacre was unfolding at Bondi Beach in Sydney.
Thousands of Jewish Sydneysiders gathered at Bondi Beach to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah. As they welcomed the festival of light, darkness descended as two men dressed in black opened fire.
15 people are now dead, with dozens injured, including 2 police. One of the gunmen is also dead, and his accomplice is critically injured. Police and the NSW Government were quick to announce this as an attack on Jewish people and an act of terrorism.
I am shaken. I am profoundly saddened. What has become of this nation?
I am angry, really angry. Damn those men to hell. Damn those who cultivate and stir hatred toward Jewish people, and those who excuse growing anti-Semitism in Australia.
Can we say that Australia is safe for Jewish people? If the answer wasn’t already tenuous, after last night’s terror, it is difficult to say yes.
Melbourne this year has borne witness to Neo-Nazis leading marches through our city streets. A prominent Neo-Nazi has addressed crowds in public. Arson at Melbourne’s Addas Israel Synagogue saw the building severely damaged 12 months ago. Jewish Aussies are regularly subjected to anti-semitic graffiti and verbal attacks on the streets.
To suggest Australia is safe for Jews rings hollow. It is too our shame.
Stories of heroics are slowly emerging. It needs to be said, given the likely identity of the gunmen, that one hero who emerged last night was a Muslim man who ran and tackled one of the gunmen, almost certainly preventing further loss of life. He in turn was shot twice and is now in hospital.
As hundreds of people came together at Mentone Baptist Church last night, we focused on the God who came. I talked about how hurt and harm naturally produce friction and distance. God knows how deeply divided our cities and suburbs have become. Something counterintuitive happened with Jesus; God determined to come closer. When God saw all the evil in this world and all odious motives and words and deeds, instead of walking away as he had every right to do, he came to us. He came in the most miraculous and vulnerable of ways. The Son of God didn’t come to take away life, but to lay down his own life so that we might gain eternal life.
The birth of Jesus was accompanied by such bright light, and the scene was also interrupted by a wave of evil and darkness. The Gospel of Matthew records the massacre of the innocents, when Herod chose violence and murdered the young of Bethlehem in his hunt to rid the world of the prophesied one.
Matthew turned to these Scriptures to echo the horror,
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
Today, there is weeping and great mourning in Sydney. This should not be. Why are we not surprised? We are shocked, and yet who is surprised by the blood soaking into the sands of Bondi Beach? Perhaps the location took us by surprise, but our fractured society is losing coherence as we struggle to find something that keeps us together.
Politicians, stop pandering to groups who advocate this bile.
Religious groups, expose and expel religious preachers who teach this evil.
How long must we watch city streets clogged with protesters shouting obscenities and anti-semitic slurs, all in the name of ‘freedom’.
This isn’t a left or right issue, for the hatred has its horns on both ends. It is a religious issue. It is an ideological issue. It is a heart issue, and evidence suggests we are not equipped to respond. Violence isn’t the solution. Vile social media posts won’t bring about peace and healing.
The Gospel of John records Jesus attending Hanukkah. While not one of the Festivals instituted in the Bible, this commemoration of the Second Temple’s restoration in the 2nd Century BC, had quickly found a home in the Jewish calendar. It is unsurprising that Jesus, a Jewish man, participated in this Festival of Light (John 10:22).
A light was snuffed out last night at Bondi Beach, and the light has grown dim around Australia.
Where will we find light to overcome the darkness? Political muscle and social goodwill have some but limited influence. Who can gaze into the soul? Who can outdo evil?
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Pray for the injured. Pray for the hundreds of victims who were present and witnessed last night’s evil. Pray for our emergency services who today continue to work and protect our streets, investigating last night, and attending to the wounded, both the physically and mentally hurt. Pray for our Jewish friends and neighbours. Check in on them. Assure them of our friendship. Pray for them.
As Hanukkah continues and Christmas approaches, my hope rests in the One about whom it is written,
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Lord, have mercy. Maranatha
The ABC is reporting that new Guidelines for NSW Health will crack down on hospital management who try to prevent abortions.
“Hospital managers and executives would be barred from blocking abortions because of personal beliefs, under new guidelines proposed for public health services across New South Wales.
A draft copy of the “termination of pregnancy policy directive”, obtained by the ABC, includes a new section that specifically deals with conscientious objection among those managing and administering health and hospital services.
The policy has been under review for more than a year and lays out requirements for individuals and institutions providing or assisting with abortion care.”
The ABCs language of choice is ‘abortion care’. While ‘care’ is also used in the Government Guidelines, the reporter can’t help but repeat ‘care’ more than 20 times in the article, as though saying it over and over again must make it true. But the hypnosis doesn’t work.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that ‘abortion care’ is an oxymoron of epic proportions. Care means to provide love and kindness, whereas abortion by definition requires the taking of human life.
Of course, ‘abortion care’, like its sister slogan ‘reproductive health care’, has become difficult to keep together as science reveals more about the little ones whose lives are removed during the early weeks and months of pregnancy.
The old argument, ‘it’s a clump of cells and not a human being’, is rarely used nowadays. The proof is in the womb. The more science reveals about life in the womb, the more we have to admit that the Biblical testimony is spot on,
‘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’
(Psalm 139:13-17)
And yet, the commitment to uncreating this wonderful frame persists to this day. So much so that NSW Health want to force hospital employees to act against their good conscience. Can you imagine the State forcing organisations to take a life against their conscience?
The ABC goes on to quote NSW Greens MP Amanda Cohn. Listen to the dishonest rhetoric.
“I’ve heard about instances of conscientious objection provisions being weaponised by department managers or hospital executives to then cause a whole department or a whole hospital not to provide a service,” Dr Cohn explained.
Weaponised? Let’s get this straight. According to Amanda Cohn, those who seek to save lives are ‘weaponising’ while those who wish to take a life are offering a service? It’s as though we’re now living in the Upside Down. It’s less George Orwell and more Aldruous Huxley. We’ve swallowed the soma. Of course my career and dreams, and lifestyle are more valuable than an unexpected baby! And we thought Molech was a demanding god!
Are we okay with the State forcing individuals to sanction the taking of human life under their care?
Meanwhile, in Victoria, pressure is mounting to expand the laws surrounding euthanasia. Sorry, ‘voluntary assisted dying’! What a surprise. Once the scent of death is caught, the bloodhounds and sharks won’t relent. In October of this year, the Victorian Parliament removed the ‘gag clause’, now giving Doctors permission to initiate conversations with patients about using euthanasia as an option for them.
From life at its beginning and at its end, our society has snatched the key of death and now claim the right to lock and unlock.
Stranger Things may have its Vecna, who appears as kind Henry to steal the children away. We have our own Henrys, and strangely, we not only protect but praise them.
Thank God the story doesn’t end here. The way to overcome the Upside Down is staggering and the perfect salve. I’m not looking to Houses of Parliament and to street marches. Christmas, of all thing,s points us in the right direction.
Christmas is less than 2 weeks away, the most poignant celebratory day in our Calendar. On Christmas, we celebrate the birth of a child, the child, the Son of God. We know that he was an unwanted child, so much so that the State interfered and try to have him disposed of.
God kept this little one alive. His mum and earthly dad also cared for him. Before his birth, while Mary was heavily pregnant, a Divine announcement came that shook the world and echoes with clarion goodness even today,
“Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
People tried to take Jesus’ life. In the end, he laid down his life for the sins of the world. That not only means the God calls out insidious laws for what they are, it means the God of grace and truth can do what our society cannot. Whatever our modern Henrys allege about life and death, the reality is, the scarring and guilt stick. Bad choices remain bad, and no dose of soma pills can change what the heart ultimately knows. But Jesus can.
Many a church will read John’s Prologue over Christmas, as will we at Mentone Baptist Church. The word has not lost its necessity and grace, no matter how much our culture may wish to have God dead and buried. Think it over,
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome.
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
One of the largest memorial services in American history has just concluded.
Whether we approve or not, whether we are invested in the story or not, the assassination of Charlie Kirk has dominated the news cycle and continues to do so today, with his memorial service taking place in Glendale, Arizona.
The papers and social media are speaking about very little else. It’s not that this is the only thing that matters today, but there are moments in history that capture the public imagination in ways that coinciding events do not.
It’s clear that there were two narratives running through the memorial service, and we mustn’t confuse them as being the same or necessarily belonging together. I want to pull apart the politics that were present and the gospel that was also present.
Several members of the Trump administration spoke, including the President. Donald Trump gave a speech in which this line has already gone viral,
“He [Charlie Kirk] didn’t hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them – that’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I HATE my opponent and I DON’T want the best for them.
I suspect the President said these words with a certain tongue in cheek. He was bringing a moment’s levity to what was a very sombre occasion. At the same time, that does seem to be his modus operandi. But of course, Trump’s words are not his alone; this is the norm and assumed posture across religions and ideologies and politics. Whether it is fascist or anti-fascists or left or right, and most of the middle, we think ill of those who disagree with us. That the President is saying so with knowledge of the truth isn’t laughable, it’s woeful. Doubling down on hate doesn’t resolve the growing friction and factions that are disintegrating our societies. That leaves us with a game of power where the loudest, fastest and strongest aim to take charge and impose their will on the rest of us.
Trump, the ever populist and pragmatist, may well use whatever movement that helps maintain momentum. That’s a problem, as it was when previous American presidents co-opted Christian language and concepts to promote their own ethics and agendas.
On Saturday, I gave a lecture at the Reformed Theological College, where I outlined 3 principles for doing public theology:
Christian pundits, commentators and pastors would do well and serve our congregations and the unbelieving public by recognising and practising those distinctions. Of course, the differences are not always perfectly clear and it is true that the gospel of Jesus changes every part of us, but nonetheless, we will do well to avoid those trappings. Why? In part, because the gospel is too important to be confused or co-opted by red or blue or green.
Merging the Christian faith with politics is fraught with dangers, and that’s true across the political spectrum. If you think that your particular position is exempt from that rule, that only exemplifies the very problem. It doesn’t mean every political ideology is equally true or good or respectable. Of course not. How we value the unborn really does matter. How we view migrants and the poor matters. And many other topics.
As I said earlier, two narratives were present in the memorial service, and it is the second one that I hope shines the most.
Charlie Kirk’s pastor, Rob McCoy, gave a clear presentation of the good news of Jesus. He said.
“Charlie knew … at an early age … he entrusted his life to the Savior of the World. . Jesus came to this earth, was tempted in all ways, yet was without sin, was crucified upon the cross…”
“His blood was poured out because blood must be shed for the remission of sins…And His death upon that cross was sufficient for all the world’s sins, but only efficient for those who, like Charlie, would receive Him as their Savior.”
Can we say an Amen to those words?
Erika Kirk then addressed the crowds and uttered the impossible word,
“I forgive him…I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and it is what Charlie would do.”
“The answer to hate is not hate,” she said. “The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love – love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
This is the message our polarised world needs to hear. I thank God that God has not judged me according to every word I have said and every thought I have entertained. I am eternally thankful to God that he forgives sinners such as me. And grasping this gospel does something to us, where Trump’s words disappear and where love and forgiveness take shape.
What is so sad and troubling is that I know our culture well enough to see how this is going to play out in the media and social media: most people will simply double down on their prior commitments and attitudes. People are so entrenched in their ideological preferences that we will read the room as our glasses are glued onto our faces, and we are unable to see any other perspective. MAGA supporting Aussie conservatives will criticise me for my posture here and progressive Aussies will criticise me for not damning Charlie Kirk to hell alongside the President.
Reality is almost always more complicated and nuanced. One does not need to elevate Charlie Kirk to the status of Stephen (Acts 6) or label him ‘ult right’. The Christian truth is that sinners are saved by grace alone on account of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus alone. Anything else is hubris.
Here is a thought: regardless of our political leanings, if God uses the gospel preached at Charlie Kirk’s funeral to convince some people of God’s saving news through Jesus, will we rejoice or will we resent & grumble like Jonah in Ninevah?
MurrayCampbell.net 