From the Dean | 24th December 2011

In 2003 the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s atheist press secretary famously said “We don’t do God”, even though Mr Blair was known as a believer.  Apparently, in 2011 the current Prime Minister, David Cameron, is not under the same media constraint. For celebrating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, Mr Cameron has spoken quite openly about religion in Britain. And he has gone on the attack on behalf of the Bible and Christian Britain. (http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/king-james-bible/)

He argues that tolerance is not to be confused with secularism and that genuine liberalism has more values than individual liberty. “Moral neutralityor passive tolerance just isn’t going to cut it anymore.” “Put simply, for too long we have been unwilling to distinguish right from wrong. ‘Live and let live’ has too often become ‘do what you please’. Bad choices have too often been defended as just different lifestyles.”

These social comments flow from his address commending the Bible because as he says: “The Bible is a book that has not just shaped our country, but shaped the world. And with three Bibles sold or given away every second… a book that is not just important in understanding our past, but which will continue to have a profound impact in shaping our collective future.”  Pointing to the way the Bible permeates “every aspect” British culture, language, literature, music, art, politics, rights, constitutional monarchy, parliamentary democracy and welfare provisions, he states quite boldly “we are a Christian country. And we should not be afraid to say so.”

But what of Australia? Are we a Christian country?  Do we want to be? If not – then what kind of nation are we and what do we want to be? We do not have a state Church like Britain. But just like Britain, so much of our culture is inherited from the Bible. As Mr Cameron rightly observed: “The values we treasure… are Christian values. And we should not be afraid to acknowledge that.”

While Britain is formally Christian, its pursuit of “moral neutrality and passive tolerance” has been every bit as strong as Australia. It is the only nation where I have been reported to the police and chased by journalists for reading the Bible at a public meeting!  Mr Cameron is quite clear that the move to make Britain a ‘value free’, liberal, secularist, multi-cultural state just hasn’t worked. As he says “Those who say being a Christian country is doing down other faiths…simply don’t understand that it is easier for people to believe and practise other faiths when Britain has confidence in its Christian identity.”

But we in Australia still labour under the intellectual bullies and secularists who deny our Christian heritage, imposing strict disapproval on anybody who wants to stand for morality and censorship on those who wish to speak for Christianity. Our media and leaders still ‘do not do God.’

Nobody can speak on a moral issue without commencing “I’m no prude, but…” or “I like a little flutter myself, but…” or “everybody overindulges in alcohol at some time, but…” as if being immoral is the necessary precondition for the right to express a moral view.

And ironically it is especially at Christmas that Christianity is being censored.

In this week’s opinion pages an associate-professor, spelt out his scrooge like disdain for Christmas: “There is plenty to loathe about Christmas; from the tedious rounds of workplace parties, to the obscene garbage we buy as gifts, to the cynical attempts by Christians to hijack the whole fiesta for their own religious ends.”  It is reminiscent of the Canberra shopping centre manager objecting to a pastor’s request for his church to sing some carols because “[expletive] Christians want to take over Christmas”. The pastor said, “I’d always assumed that the ‘Christ’ bit in both words might serve as a clue”.

Even my favourite Herald journalist, Ross Gittins, wrote this week: “One (principle) that's particularly apposite at this time when we celebrate the birth of Santa is: help others instead of yourself.  Somebody who had nothing to do with Santa once said it was more blessed to give than to receive. Turns out he was right.” Why not mention Jesus by name and source the quote (Acts 20:35)? And if Jesus’ teaching turns out to be right, isn’t it worth exploring more rather than dismissing him with a joke?

Why is our society so embarrassed about the Christian foundations of our culture? From the inanity of “Seasons Greetings” and “Santafest” to the stupidities of academics insisting on the nonsense called BCE (Before Common Era) instead of BC (Before Christ) – we are disowning, discrediting, and denying our culture. And how can a prodigal society regain the social capital of an inheritance they have wasted?

Mr. Cameron’s speech made clear this is not a matter of party politics but of the truth of who we are and of what we need to do.  For as he says “the Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today. Values and morals we should actively stand up and defend. The alternative of moral neutrality should not be an option. You can’t fight something with nothing. Because if we don’t stand for something, we can’t stand against anything.” 

So I hope you will join with us not only in celebrating our Lord Jesus Christ’s birth this Christmas but also in proclaiming Him to our nation in the coming year – the year of our Lord 2012.

From the Dean | 19th December 2011

Christmas and New Year resolutions have a great problem in Australia – summer holidays.

Each year we hear again the great news of Jesus’ birth for our salvation and enjoy singing his praise, being with his people, hearing his message and laying our burdens before him in prayer – and then the summer holidays hit. And with the summer holidays comes a disturbance in routine and a forgetfulness of all our resolutions.

It is the same with New Year resolutions – they are not made in the regular routine of life but in the height of holiday festivities. It is the time of year when we travel and catch up with family and friends. The office runs on a skeleton staff and the children are being entertained at home.

In one sense this is the best time to make life-changing decisions. For we are free from the normal busyness to think out again ‘where are we going?’ and ‘why are we doing what we do?’ In another sense this is the worst time to effect change because our holidays have already changed everything and we are so removed from what we will need to change in the regular routine of life. By the time we return to work we have usually lost the resolve to bring about change and so our old habits kick in and we return to our old trusted mould of getting things done.

The festivities of the end of the year and the holidays that follow are a wonderful release from the drudgery of life. They relax and re-energise us for the coming year. Even the frantic busyness of getting everything done for Christmas and organising the New Year’s Eve party focuses our attention creatively away from the usual and mundane. But it is the resolutions to change that suffer at this time.

Yet it is at Christmas and New Year that we make resolutions. It is more than deciding to diet whilst in the midst of over-eating. The season forces us to stop and think about the year past, catch up with the extended family and old friends, and give more time to the children as they finish one stage of their education and look forward to the next.

Christmas is more than the bonhomie of wishing everybody happiness. It confronts us once more with the place of God in our life and plans and, our place in God’s life and plan. So many of us return to remember he who gave his life for us. And in the memory decide we really should do this more often. We really should find out more about the Bible. We really should get the kids to church and Sunday school. But then summer holidays, then preparation for ‘back to school’ and the routine of busyness takes over again.

It is somewhat akin to the lepers that Jesus healed (Luke 17:11f). There were ten of them, isolated from the rest of the community by their dreadful affliction. Each one required to call out that they were “unclean” before they came into contact with other people. Lost to their family and friends and facing a fearful future. They seemed to be under the judgement of God. They begged for mercy from Jesus and were told to show themselves to the priest; the regulatory requirement for being declared cured and accepted back into society. In obedience to his word, they headed off and as they went they were healed. But only one of them returned to say thank you. Only one of them remembered the man who had mercy upon them. Only one of them turned to praise God. And he was an outsider to Israel for he was a Samaritan; the enemy of the Jews.

As the carol says

                “We hear the Christmas angels

                the great glad tidings tell -”

And we pray

                “O come to us, abide with us,

                our Lord Emmanuel”

But then we forget. We do not mean to forget. It is not our intention to forget. It is just that life gets busy and we are overwhelmed with the things we have to do, and then there is January and the summer holiday season. And life’s demands squeeze out our good intentions.

It is not hard to imagine the joy and excited busyness of the nine lepers. They had to get to the temple. It was some distance away.  And then there were the family members to tell and rejoin, and the business or farm to contact to get back their job. It wasn’t necessarily that they were ungrateful but most likely too busy to express their gratitude or to praise God. Too busy to find out who this man was who could cleanse leprosy with a simple command. Too busy to meet the man who was God. Too busy to hear of even greater news that Jesus gave to the Samaritan “Your faith has saved you”.

How typical it is of us at summer time. We think for a moment of the God who made us and came to earth to save us. We ponder again our life in the light of his mercy as we sing the wonderful words of the carols. We decide that this year we are going to do something about him. And then the reality of summer holidays takes over – and as Jesus says in his parable of the sower: “And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them” (Mark 4:15).

Better to be an outsider who turns back to praise God than one of his people who goes on ignoring or forgetting him.

(You may wish to reproduce this piece in your church bulletin or use as a handout this Christmas. Please simply acknowledge the source as phillipjensen.com)

From the Dean | 28th October 2011

This week the Daily Telegraph announced that the Islamic group, MyPeace, is going to start advertising on TV. This is the group that a few months ago placed large billboards claiming, “Jesus: A prophet of Islam”.

Christians should welcome this innovation in the usual fare of TV advertising. Australian Christians can be saddened at the symbolism of a further de-Christianization of our culture. Some Christians will be understandably outraged that our Lord’s name can be suborned to serve a false religion. But it is important not to react out of our emotions, but to see the larger picture.

There are no grounds upon which to ban these advertisements and to try and do so would only cause harm. Australia’s Muslim citizens have the same rights as any other citizen. Some have been born here and know no other nation. Excluding them from access to public media, even if possible, would only sow discontent. Aggrieved and persecuted minorities are vulnerable to the extremist movements, such as those within Islam. Furthermore, the Australian’s sense of fair go and support of the underdog would draw people to their cause. Rather than censor Islamic advertisements, Christians should be asking why Islamic countries do not allow Christians the same freedom of expression.

The public media is a commercial forum in which all citizens should have equal rights to participate. If you are willing to pay the money, you should be free to say your message. There is censorship of advertising but it is only of proven harmful substances e.g. tobacco and of offensive material e.g. pornography. If we start placing religious advertising in the category of harmful or offensive, then all religious advertising will be placed under a new regime of critical scrutiny. The moment we start censoring some messages, we run the risk of being censored  ourselves.

However, as our advertisers operate commercially they are already promoting harmful and offensive material. We have just become inured to it. Many products are sold using completely irrelevant soft pornography, and many products, such as alcohol and gambling, have clear harmful effects in our society. But even more harmful is the constant materialistic hedonism, which assures us of life’s meaning being found in purchasing things which are new, bigger, brighter and better. This message has done considerably more to undermine Christianity in our society than advertisements that claim Jesus as a prophet of Islam could ever do.

Presumably, the aim is to make Islam more mainstream and acceptable in society rather than convert people to Islam, for the message that has been used so far is self-defeating. If Jesus is a prophet of Islam there is no need for Christians to become Muslims – by following Jesus’ teaching Christians would apparently be Muslims already! This is clearly and manifestly nonsense, for if that were true why is Islam so hostile to Christianity? Why would Muslims who become Christians be so persecuted if they were just following one of Islam’s prophets?

If Jesus is a prophet, why do Muslims refuse to follow his prophecies about his death and resurrection? He made them repeatedly. They are in each gospel account. There is no evidence that the texts have been tampered with. Even the completely cynical, unbelieving Jesus Seminar accepted his death as historical. It is impossible to read the New Testament without his death and resurrection dominating the argument.

No Christian would ever devise an advertising campaign like this, but under the sovereignty of God, it may well turn out for the good, as more people are confronted again by the claims of Jesus.

As an advertising campaign it could be used to encourage Muslims to listen to Jesus’ prophecies. Indeed as Muslims wish to acknowledge Jesus as a prophet, Christians should offer copies of his prophetic life to our Islamic neighbours so that they can read for themselves what he did teach and do, and how starkly different he was to Mohammed. Mohammed entered Mecca at the head of an army, while Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey.

The advertisements may well stimulate conversations with non-Muslims, with whom we have long wished to share the great news of Jesus.  It provides the opportunity to show what the prophet Jesus actually taught and how his death and resurrection fulfilled not only his own prophecies but those of the Old Testament as well.

These advertisements bring open debate into our society on the subject dearest to the Christian’s heart: Jesus Christ our Lord. Christians have no need to fear open debate and inquiry about the truth of the claims of Christ. We do not need to protect our Saviour, his claims will win out. For he is not a prophet of Islam but a prophet for Muslims and more than a prophet – he is Immanuel – God with us.

From the Dean | 21st October 2011

Hospitality is a sacred duty and joy of the Christian. 

God’s commands are unambiguous: “seek to show hospitality” (Romans 12:13); “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Peter 4:9); and “Do not neglect to show hospitality” (Hebrews 13:2). In addition, hospitality is part of the qualification of the elder (1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:8).

The word translated ‘hospitality’ is derived from “love of strangers or foreigners”.  It is the opposite of xenophobia it is philoxenia. And the command in Romans 13 is to pursue hospitality – to actively look for it.

Furthermore Jesus promises the reward and blessing upon those who will show hospitality, especially hospitality to those who come in his name. “Whoever receives you receives me… whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward” (Matt 10:40-42). The third letter of John commends hospitality, especially that shown to missionaries and condemns those who refuse to welcome brothers (3 John 5-10). 

It is therefore startling to read in John’s second letter: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works (2 John 10-11).  For some scholars this seems inconsistent with John’s emphasis upon love, and his consistent reminder of the commandment that we have from the beginning “that we love one another” (John 13:34, 1 John 2:7, 3:11, 4:7-12, 2 John 5). They have had real difficulty in accepting this teaching of the scriptures.

The Rev C.H.Dodd was an ordained Congregationalist minister and a world famous New Testament scholar of the mid-twentieth century. He was a Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, given the responsibility of training generations of church leaders. In his commentary on 2 John 10, Professor Dodd wrote that John had “incautiously expressed himself”, and recommended that we “decline to accept the Presbyter’s (i.e. John’s) ruling here as a sufficient guide to Christian conduct” so “rejecting the Presbyter’s ruling upon this point as being incompatible with the general purport of the Teaching of the New Testament, and not really consistent with the teaching of these epistles themselves”. Jesus’ love and death were for the whole world and so it is not “possible to exclude from its operation even the most obdurate heretic”. Thus we must keep on speaking terms with people “however disastrous their error may be”.

But Professor Dodd’s problem was not really John’s inconsistency. His problem was the “harsh note” that John’s teaching sounded “in our ears”. It was neither Christian nor English to ostracize people whose opinions we dislike. To “stigmatize any ‘advance’ as disloyalty to the faith” was to “condemn Christian theology to lasting sterility.”

So how does a Professor of Divinity, a New Testament scholar and an ordained clergyman explain his rejection of the teaching of the New Testament?  Simply by finding a context, outside the scriptures, that would make the Biblical command temporary, local and no longer applicable. It’s a method used to follow the world, rather than the word. It’s not hard to think of disputes, where even so called Evangelicals, use this method.

To discount the clear teaching of God’s word, professor Dodd suggested that John’s advice was for a “situation of extreme danger to the Church”, a situation of “being overwhelmed by a plausible and pseudo-Christian theosophy”, a time when “it was touch-and-go” so that “It is possible that the boycott of heretics was the only policy that could have succeeded in preserving the distinctive witness of the Church”. 

However, professor Dodd admits “we do not now know exactly” how close the emergency was, only that there are “hints” that it was touch-and-go. Presumably the chief hint is the command to boycott false teachers – though that would be rather circular. It is also hard to square the ‘hints’ of being overwhelmed with John’s clearly articulated confidence in the future, seen in the first three verses of 2 John or in 1 John (e.g. 2:20-27, 3:8, 4:4, 5:4).

By this method of so-called ‘scholarship’, John’s commands are reduced to “emergency regulations…in the hour of stress”. Furthermore, on the axiom that “emergency regulations make bad law”, John’s commands are completely rejected for today. It was only ever advice for a particular situation and not of permanent value, except as a “starting point for any discussion of the problem”. Indeed, according to Professor Dodd, while it is ‘possible’ that the boycott was the only policy left to deal with the crisis, “Yet we must doubt whether this policy in the end best serves the course of truth and love, upon which our author lays such stress.”  So even as an emergency regulation it was doubtful!

This method of dealing with politically incorrect scriptures enables people to maintain some degree of orthodox Christian standing while disagreeing with Bible. Yet this is exactly the kind of problem that 2 John is dealing with, people who come in the name of Jesus but teach a gospel different and even contradictory to his. A generation after C.H.Dodd argued against John’s boycott, British establishment scholars and churchmen published the scandalous books Honest to God and The Myth of God Incarnate. They were scandalous not only because they denied the very heart of Christianity, but also because they were written by men who were paid to profess the faith, not undermine it.

Christians must be hospitable, but not naïve. We are not to let false teachers abuse our hospitality to promote false gospels. The creation of purported historical scenarios to re-contextualise the clear teaching of scripture is a false method that evangelicals must avoid. An evangelical is not one who professes belief in the Bible as the word of God, but one who, without twisting it, lives by what it says (2 Peter 3:16, James 1:22f).

From the Dean | 14th October 2011

The Maritime Museum in Pyrmont has an exhibition of Captain Robert Scott and his Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole. Next year marks the centenary of the sad and yet profoundly heroic deaths of Scott, Wilson, Oates, Evans and Bowers.  They succeeded in reaching the pole but were beaten by the Norwegians by a matter of days. On the return trek they all perished - the last three were only eleven miles from a food depot that could have saved them.

The death of these men took the British Empire by storm. In that strange way of British culture, the failure to win and the heroic nature of their deaths seemed to make their efforts even more magnificent. Throughout the century, their final days, the sacrificial death of Captain Oates and the quotable letters and diary have been taught to successive generations. It is still a moving story that captures the imagination. Later questions and debates about the wisdom and skill of Captain Scott, have not detracted from the inspiring narrative of character that these men demonstrated as they battled the elements on their heroic endeavour of discovery.

The Maritime Museum exhibition while recounting again the failure of the race to the pole, points to the successful side of the expedition: the scientific exploration.

The race to the pole captured the popular imagination, as the moon landing did in the 1960’s, but the important and principal work of the Terra Nova expedition was the scientific research, which was an unambiguous success story. The leader of that work was Scott’s friend and second in command, Dr Edward (‘Bill’) Wilson.

Dr Wilson was a classic Edwardian ‘Boy’s Own’ hero. He played football and rowed. He loved the outdoor life, travelled widely, and from childhood was always collecting natural specimens. He gained first class honours in natural science at Cambridge and went on to London to train as a doctor. He was a gifted and extraordinary artist whose paintings of nature were not only aesthetically beautiful but more importantly for his scientific work, extremely accurate in detail. His social conscience led him to working in a London mission amongst the poor, where he contracted tuberculosis in his twenties.  His knowledge and studies could have him listed as a polymath; his life-style and achievements could list him as a Renaissance man.

One other thing always mentioned about Dr Wilson, though with frustratingly few details, was his deep Christian commitment. It grew in his time at University and led to his work in the London slums, where he taught Sunday School. He joined in the St Barnabas Guild to further explore the inter-relationship between his faith and the practice of medicine. He contemplated being a missionary in Africa. He is also noticed for consistently living out his beliefs, especially in his generosity and asceticism. The degree of his asceticism sounds less than Biblical but without reading his own understanding of Christianity, it is hard to know why he was so self-disciplined.

It is completely in character with his Christian beliefs and completely contrary to the mythical war between science and religion, that Dr Wilson would lead one of the great scientific expeditions of his time.  As the website dedicated to him recounts, “Wilson came to care little for originality and greatly for Truth, whether scientific, moral, artistic, spiritual or physical. Every aspect of life became, for him, a part of an indivisible Divine Truth”. In this he sounds normally Christian.

However, unless you are a ‘history of science’ buff, the Scott expedition is a story of hardship, heroism, pathos and character.  And in this respect Edward Wilson stood out in a way that commends the cause of Christ. Towards the end he wrote to his parents “looking forward to the day when we shall all meet together in the hereafter. I have had a very happy life and I look forward to a very happy life hereafter when we shall all be together again. God knows I have no fear of meeting Him--for He will be merciful to all of us.” Scott left a letter for Wilson’s parents describing the end of their son’s life: he was “everlastingly cheerful and ready to sacrifice himself for others, never a word of blame to me for leading him into this mess… His eyes have a comfortable blue look of hope and his mind is peaceful with the satisfaction of his faith in regarding himself as part of the great scheme of the Almighty.” Scott said of him "Words must always fail me when I talk of Bill Wilson. I believe he really is the finest character I ever met." 

Yet more interesting and intriguing is the indirect evidence of the impact of Wilson on Scott, as can be seen in Scott’s final letter to his soon to be widow. In it he talks of their son in a way that almost describes Wilson. "I had looked forward to helping you to bring him up, but it is a satisfaction to know that he will be safe with you...You see I am anxious for you and the boy's future — make the boy interested in natural history if you can. It is better than games. They encourage it in some schools. I know you will keep him in the open air. Try to make him believe in a God, it is comforting.”  Scott was not known as a believer and his phrase about believing “in a God” does not speak as a Christian – but he noticed the comfort that such belief brings.

It is believed that Scott was the last of the three to die. His arm resting on “the finest character” he ever met – his Christian friend Edward Wilson. But Wilson may not have been the only witness of Christ to Scott, for intriguingly the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography talks of the choice of the final team to go to the pole, mentioning “the two muscular Christians, Bowers and Wilson”.

From the Dean | 7th October 2011

In the last year, two pastors have caused sufficient international concern that the White House has spoken about them. But only one has been mentioned in the Sydney media.

Both pastors profess to lead Bible believing churches. Both have come into conflict with Islam. Both have been criticised by their own governments.

Yet, in many respects, they are very different. One operates freely in an open society while the other is imprisoned by an Islamic regime. One is proud of the actions he is accused of, while the other suffers from trumped up accusations. One is an embarrassment to the Christian cause; the other is a hero whose stand for the gospel gladdens the heart of all who love the truth.

This time last year the media was full of Pastor Terry Jones - the Florida Charismatic who threatened to publicly burn a Quran. At that time he was talked out of it – even President Obama called upon him to desist. However, earlier this year he went ahead with his plan in front of a congregation of fifty members, gaining yet more worldwide media attention.

While acknowledging the right of free expression, Christians were embarrassed and critical of this pastor’s actions. It was offensive and unnecessarily provocative. It led to riots and deaths in Islamic countries. It didn’t accord with the teaching of the scriptures that “if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). Idolatry is always wrong but destroying idols doesn’t remove them from peoples’ hearts. Burning a Quran may show that you don’t fear it or even respect it, but it doesn’t convince anybody of its errors. Paul eschewed worldly methods of warfare in his attempt to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3f).

Now the world’s attention has shifted to another Pastor, Yousef Nadarkhani. His problem was attempting to register his church in Iran. He became a Christian when he was 19. Now in his early thirties, he is married with two small children and is the pastor of an evangelical church with about 400 members.

According to international media reports, Pastor Nadarkhani, was imprisoned in 2009 and in late in 2010, was condemned to death for apostasy. He is accused of evangelizing and baptizing people. On appeal he has been given three chances to renounce his apostasy and return to Islam. On each occasion, he has resolutely refused to renounce Christ or to acknowledge Muhammad as the prophet of God.

Unfortunately, confusion reigns over the details of the legal process. The Sharia law and the Constitutional law seem at odds over the issue. International pressure seems to have reduced the threat of an imminent execution. The charges have suddenly changed and though the court records only mention apostasy, he is now accused of being a Zionist traitor, a rapist, an extortionist and a brothel owner.

Western governments haven’t been duped by this confusion but have denounced the proceedings. The British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, is reported as saying:

"I deplore reports that Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian Church leader, could be executed imminently after refusing an order by the Supreme Court of Iran to recant his faith."

This demonstrates the Iranian regime's continued unwillingness to abide by its constitutional and international obligations to respect religious freedom.

"I pay tribute to the courage shown by Pastor Nadarkhani who has no case to answer and call on the Iranian authorities to overturn his sentence."

And a White House spokesman has condemned the conviction:

“Pastor Nadarkhani has done nothing more than maintain his devout faith, which is a universal right for all people. That the Iranian authorities would try to force him to renounce that faith violates the religious values they claim to defend, crosses all bounds of decency, and breaches Iran’s own international obligations.”

As yet, I cannot find any reference to Pastor Nadarkhani’s plight in the Australian public media. Searching the ABC and SMH websites gives no results. Even the SBS website, supposedly concerned not just for Australian but world news, has no reference to this case. Australia is being kept in the dark about this appalling attack on religious freedom and life threatening attack on an Evangelical pastor.

Why is this story not being told? It’s a story of the land from which many of our refugees and boat people are fleeing. It’s a story of great interest to the Australian public – not the least to Australian Christians. It’s a story of enormous drama as a man, standing by his principles, fights for his life. It’s a human interest story of personal pathos as a man is called to put his principles before the safety of his wife and young children. It’s a tale of great courage where a man repeatedly refuses to recant in the face of imminent execution. It’s an example of a man of principle all too rare in our world today. Why is it not being told in the Australian media?

Our media is interested in Iran. It recently reported about the young American hikers who had crossed over the border of Iran and were released from prison. Their carelessness, capture and eventual release were headline stories. But the much more morally important story of Pastor Nadarkhani is ignored. Why?

The media were quick to tell the tale of the lunatic fringe, of an American backwoods Christian pastor burning a Quran. It caused a stir all around the world - in part because the media went to such lengths to report it. But somehow, in Australia, they don’t tell of the Christian pastor who refuses to recant his beliefs on pain of death, in front of one of the most tyrannical and oppressive regimes of the world – surely that is a story worth telling. Does this illustrate our media’s incompetence, or bias, or political correctness or just plain censorship?

Please pray for Yousef, his wife Fatemah, and their sons Daniel (9) and Joel (7).

-------------------------------------------------------

(Update  from Phillip Jensen, 11/10/11 - Since publication of this article a friend has pointed out to me that there have been some references to this story e.g. SMH did have one article on this matter on 2nd October. My searching failed because of the different translation of Yousef and Youcef. I still cannot find it on SBS though I am glad to see that it has subsequently appeared on the ABC website in the form of my article. My failure to find these articles does not affect the basic premise that the local media is seriously unbalanced in spending so much copy on the publicity stunt of a fringe extremist pastor Terry Jones and so little on the centrally important moral issue of pastor Youcef/Yousef Nadakharni)

From the Dean | 30th September 2011

Recently ‘the Church’ has been criticised for not speaking out on the Federal legislation aimed to help problem gamblers cope with poker machines. It’s strange how ‘the Church’ is not to speak into the public forum unless it’s going to say what its critics want to hear.

While all churches are concerned for the welfare of society and, in particular, the vulnerable problem gamblers and their families, there is no agreement concerning gambling itself. Life is complex and the best way of minimizing harm is very difficult. Churches and denominations are not perfect in their desire to help society any more than clubs and hotels are only evil. Some denominations believe in, and are funded by, the proceeds of gambling. Some are generally opposed to gambling though they see the odd raffle as harmless. Others are opposed to any and every form of gambling.

The Bible does not discuss gambling per se, but the tenth commandment on covetousness makes gambling impossible for those who would follow God’s law. The problem with gambling is not taking risks (life always involves risk taking), but the unloving action of desiring other peoples’ wealth and seeking to ‘win’ it from them. Some activities, like being adventurous in business or making a profit from our labour, may or may not involve covetousness – but gambling always does, as covetousness is the raison d’être of the activity. My lack of love or my desire to gain other peoples’ wealth is not excused by their similar consent to enter a game of loveless greed. That the game is played impersonally through machines or by large institutions such as lotteries, again makes no difference to my sinful desire for other peoples’ wealth.

Denominations and churches that actively accept gambling are in a difficult position in opposing gambling in clubs and hotels. They can share in the condemnation of not caring for problem gamblers but critical questions will be asked about their contribution to problem gamblers.

Because Bible based churches oppose all forms of gambling, we are not given much air-time in the media, for our opinion on controlling problem gambling would be simply to abandon gambling completely – something our society refuses to contemplate.

However, opposing gambling absolutely, does not mean that prohibition is the only option. It is only sensible to attend to symptoms even if we are unable to address the disease that causes them.

The symptoms of the disease have been very well documented over the last decade. There are a large number of people who are addicted to gambling, in particular to the poker machines which are designed to captivate the unwary.  The results for these people and their families are devastating and the recovery programmes cannot keep pace with, or solve the problems. Evidence is now being advanced to show that loan sharking has been used to enslave some of these unfortunate addicts to a life of crime especially associated with the illicit drug industry.

Any mechanism that will help protect the problem gambler has to be welcomed by those who wish to minimize the damage that is being done to individuals and society.  Whether the particular mechanism that is being proposed will help has yet to be seen, but the vigour with which the clubs and hotels are opposing it suggests that it will be effective. That it comes by way of a political compromise and exercise in power grabbing does not nullify the possible effectiveness or benefit of the measure. It is just a shame that the government has to be held to ransom, before it will do something for the good of our society.

Addicts by nature are in denial. They will assure anybody who asks, that they haven’t got the problem and if they have then it is harmless; they could give up if they wanted to, and anyway it helps them deal with other aspects of their life. They certainly don’t want anybody to help them, especially in any programme that will inconvenience their present independence, life style or addictive behaviour.

This description of addictive behaviour fits not only the individual addict but also the clubs and society at large. For the professional sporting bodies, hotels, clubs and governments have all become addicted to poker machines and gambling proceeds. Their denials and arguments are the same as any addict. Their blindness to moral argument is breath-taking. The argument about all the good they do to society with the money taken from poor addicts is pathetic. If these things were so good we should raise taxes fairly to provide them, rather than stealing the money from the weak, the poor and the vulnerable. The amount of money they spend in community welfare is dwarfed by the amounts they take from the unfortunate - and line their own pockets with – to say nothing of the good public relations that this ‘community welfare’ buys them.

Forcing addicts, like the government and clubs as well as the gamblers, to act differently will not solve their addiction, but can reduce some of the pain and suffering their addiction causes to themselves and others. The legislation under discussion will not solve the problem, because it is only addressing one symptom of a deep seated disease.

The problem is not ‘problem gamblers’ or poker machines. The problem is not even gambling. The problem is covetousness and that cannot be solved by legislation. 

Covetousness is the idolatry of materialism. A society that turns its back on eternal truth, and seeks to live by secularism or atheism, will not address the idolatry of materialism. People may decry greed and the empty shallowness of materialism, but economic materialism is just the fruit of philosophical materialism. Without God there is no reason to live for anything other than possessions and pleasure. So only by the exercise of crass political power will the society concede to such a small and uncertain step in harm-minimization. It’s a bandaid on a cancer but better a bandaid than an open sore.

From the Dean | 23rd September 2011

He was wearing a black t-shirt with white writing on it proclaiming himself a member of the atheist club. His shirt and the message it bore were stark and confronting. 

I was speaking at a lunchtime public meeting on a university campus when I saw him – or rather his shirt. There was no doubting the sincerity and earnestness with which he held his viewpoint. However, his shirt made it clear that he came not to listen, but to argue.

Whether by accident or purpose, the Christians were advertising their meetings with similar black t-shirts and white writing. Our message was as confronting and stark as the atheists. But when it is your own message the volume with which you shout seems a lot quieter than those who shout at you.  

Advertising your position on your clothing (the modern equivalent of the sandwich board), gives little sense of engaging in conversation, dialogue or discussion. It says you believe you have the answer and want to tell people. You are not in questioning mode, wanting to join with others in discovering the truth or learning from them what they may know. You are in the teacher role, knowing what others need to know.

Self-effacing humour is widely used to build rapport with an Australian audience. Being self-effacing more than just connects speaker and listener in sharing the humorous absurdity of the human condition. It shows that we do not take ourselves too seriously. It establishes our egalitarian credentials.

In a similar vein, expressing doubts, questions, admission of failure and inadequacy is a way to win the confidence of the audience. It can build a bridge to the hearer in a way that confrontation establishes a vast chasm between speaker and hearer. It demonstrates humility, openness to fact and evidence, willingness to change our mind and engage in inquiry; it is the same way that we want the audience to respond.

This then can be a culturally sensitive way to reach our audience – an example of becoming like the people that we want to reach with the Gospel (1 Corinthians 9:22).  So we become open, humble, honest inquirers to reach the open, honest inquirers of the world. And many speakers can testify to the greater warmth of reception they have received by adopting such a practice. But prophets and evangelists should not expect or desire to be well received (Matthew 5:11-12, John 15:18f). While, wherever possible, we are to live at peace with all people (Romans 12:18), there can be a desire for human acceptance and approval that is quite unbecoming to a minister of the gospel (Luke 6:26).

Furthermore, being well received in public debate is not the same as communicating your message. While all manner of people have argued with great subtlety of mind and diplomacy of language for causes like atheism and feminism, it is the Richard Dawkins and Germaine Greer’s of this world, with their ‘take-no-captive’ approach, who have forced their issues onto the public agenda and brought about a shift in culture. Their opponents may not like them, and they may embarrass their friends but their crude advocacy has had an enormous impact. This does not mean that Christian preachers should model themselves on these advocates, but the pragmatic argument of effectiveness in communication must take their success into account.

But the real problem with self-effacing humility is hypocrisy. It’s one thing to crack jokes against yourself because you do not take yourself seriously, it’s another thing to ‘put it on’ purely to win an audience. Similarly, it’s one thing to invite the listener to instruct the speaker with their bits of the jigsaw puzzle of life, it’s another thing to feign ignorance to gain a hearing. In the end truth will out – people see through the phoney.

But there is a deeper hypocrisy that undermines this style of evangelism. It’s the lack of belief that uses ‘effective evangelistic bridge building’ to mask itself by conceding to our opponents, avoiding the hard and unpopular truths, critiquing our allies instead of our adversaries, and so soft-pedalling our message as to distort it. By the time we have qualified what we believe, recounted how we learn from other religions, and are embarrassed by Christian history – it is a little hard to hear the unique claims of Christ and the need to repent, or gain any impression that we are real in our commitment to Him.

Why, if we believe in the truth of the Bible, do we spend most of our time trying to soften its message to accommodate it to modern sensitivities? Why do we reject the Bible’s teaching on the sinful blindness of the debaters of this age, who use their cleverness not to discover truth but to hide from it (Romans 1:18-32, 8:5-8, 1 Corinthians 1:18-20, Ephesians 4:17-19)? Are they not veiled by the god of this world from seeing the truth (2 Corinthians 4:3)? We may reason and try to persuade people of the truth of the gospel (Acts 17:2,17& 18:4), and be ready to give answer for the hope that is ours in Christ Jesus (1 Peter 3:15) – but in the end the gospel is a proclaimed truth not an optional opinion for humans to sit in judgement upon.

Dr Lloyd Jones wrote against debating the gospel - for the gospel is not open to debate. It is not for people to sit in judgement of God, for we are under the judgement of God. Professor Lennox recently said in Sydney that he does not aim to win debates but to use them to give a credible explanation of the gospel. Our task is not to be quarrelsome or argumentative (2 Timothy 2:24), but it is to declare God’s announcement of the truth as servants of those to whom we speak (2 Corinthians 4:5).

Black and white t-shirts are loud advertisements – too loud for private conversation. But hiding them under our jumper risks the hypocrisy of people not willing to nail their colours to the mast.

From the Dean | 9th September 2011

I am reading the latest John Grisham novel: The Confession.  Grisham is a writer who knows how to get the reader turning pages quickly. He usually pulls you along at a healthy pace. But in this particular novel he adds to his usual techniques, the impending execution of an innocent man. So the pages turn even faster as the reader feels there is no time to lose in solving the problem.

It was Samuel Johnson who noted that: “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” But it is not simply the anticipation of disaster that concentrates the mind. Disaster itself focuses our faculties upon the matters of significance.

With wealth comes the acquisition of meaningless and tiresome possessions. With suffering comes evaluation of what really matters in life. It is in the bush fire and the flood that we have to choose the things that really matter to us: family and human life above possessions, and even pets; the irreplaceable photos and memorabilia of life above the gadgets and technology for which we pay so much.

The writer of Ecclesiastes observed: “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth” (Ecc 7:2-4).

This is not for a moment to say that suffering is good or death is desirable. The wisdom we gain comes at the cost of pain and horror. It is the wisdom gained by seeing the evil in suffering and the wickedness of death. It is the wisdom that we learn from the awfulness of this world’s cruelty.

This week SBS aired a show, which recounted the disaster of September 11. They interviewed some people who were involved with the disaster. The sobering lessons they learnt were profound. None would choose to go through the horror of the experience but all learnt to evaluate life, their priorities, their family, friends and themselves differently. 

For many atheists, the problem of suffering, especially unjust suffering, is the greatest argument against the existence of God. They usually fail to notice that it is an argument, not against the existence of all gods, or the supernatural, but only against the God of the Bible. For it is the personal God who loves and is good and just, who is being called to account for the suffering of the innocent. Other gods that people worship are not necessarily loving, good or just – some like Moloch could be almost the exact opposite.

Herein lies the problem for the atheist. For without the Biblical God there is no basis for complaint that things are unjust or evil. As Richard Dawkins wrote in 1995, “The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”  A world of ‘pitiless indifference’ cannot view any action as evil or good. In this atheistic framework, the ‘evil’ of the terrorists whose hatred led them to die killing strangers was no different to the ‘good’ of the firemen whose love led them to die trying to save strangers;  “there is…no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

In contrast, the Christian can name evil for what it is and be appalled that in God’s world there should be such suffering and pain. The Christian mind can wrestle with the moral order of the universe that is so awry as to see thousands of ‘innocent’ people die in a few moments of dreadful agony. For us, it is not simply a matter of the random chance of a pitiless, impersonal universe and the survival of the fittest. It is not surprising then that we find atheists, not in the troubled and painful life of poverty and difficulty, but in the wealthy societies of pleasure seeking ease.  This is just as Jesus predicted: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:17).

Christians may not have all the answers. However, because we have God, we have the questions and some deep and profound answers that enable us to cope with life and face evil without flinching. So C.S. Lewis wrote in his book The Problem of Pain: “God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world”.  Helen Keller who was both blind and deaf wrote: "I thank God for my handicaps, for through them I have found myself, my work, and my God."  And Dr. Edward Wilson, who died with Scott on the journey back from the South Pole, wrote: “This I know is God's own truth, that pains and troubles and trials and sorrows and disappointments are either one thing or another. To all who love God they are love tokens from him. To all who do not love God and do not want to love him they are merely a nuisance. Every single pain that we feel is known to God because it is the most loving touch of his hand.”

Even more significantly, Christians can entertain the pain of evil, for we are the people who worship the God we murdered. Our knowledge of God and of ourselves is not found purely in the pleasures of his creation but more particularly in the suffering of our Saviour: the ultimate in innocent and unjust suffering. For in Christ are hidden “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3).

From the Dean | 2nd September 2011

It was while I was serving on my children’s Parents and Citizens’ Association that I saw how much the “P&C” really stood for “Political & Correct”. Every latest fashion in political correctness drove the decisions. Many of the policies that teachers wanted to implement were opposite to what the majority of the parents wanted. However, to oppose the agenda was to be politically incorrect.

The difficulty of being a Christian in such an environment was not so much the issue of raffles and gambling; that was actually straightforward. No amount of argument would convince the P&C to miss out on the easy money of gambling. The importance of modelling good eating meant the canteen only sold ‘healthy’ food. But there was no way for that logic to be applied to fund raising by gambling.  So we made our protest, donated an equivalent amount of money, and were dismissed as religious nutcases – harmless and ignored.

The difficulty of making a Christian presence was far greater at the level of the politically correct. It was the days of the high water mark of feminist ideology. So there was to be no differentiation between the boys and the girls. We were assured that at the primary school age there was no physical developmental difference between the sexes. Academic ‘Studies’ were cited from leading physical educationalists that proved there was no difference. We were also told that our old fashioned stereotyping of sports into male and female was having a deleterious effect upon our daughters’ development. So there were to be no differences between the sports that they played. All the teams were to be mixed.

It just so happened that there were no men on the staff to coach rugby league so the school dropped that brutish and violent sport for one with better physical educational outcomes. The teachers knew that some of the boys were disappointed but that was just the result of the media’s promotion of league and parental stereotyping of sport.

But little boys and little girls are different. Certainly, every generalization has its exceptions. For example, men are taller than women but there are some women who are taller than some men. But the exception does not negate the truth of the rule that men are taller than women. Nor should exceptions disprove that boys and girls are different. We need to be careful not to turn generalizations into the kind of stereotypes that will not allow exceptions to be exceptional. We must also make sure that we do not push the difference to such an extent that we make either boys or girls into second-class citizens. The Christian argument for our equality before the law comes from our equality in creation and redemption. Men and women are together created in God’s image and there is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus, for we are co-heirs of eternal life (Genesis 1:26-28, Galatians 3:28, 1 Peter 3:7). 

But it is still true that boys are different to girls. God did not make us as hermaphrodites, but as males and females (Genesis 1:26-28). And the differences between the sexes are more profound than those needed simply for procreation. These differences do not commence with marriage or adulthood or puberty – they are in the make up of little boys and girls. While it is wrong to overemphasise the differences, it is an equal mistake to underemphasise them, or worse, to deny their existence as was the fashion in the 1980’s.

Recently, one of Sydney’s leading feminist journalists wrote about raising boys:“I had silly ideas. I was one of those arguing 20 years ago there was no difference between little boys and little girls. I have had to eat my words. I learnt you do not inject sensitivity into boys by making them play with dolls or by crushing their boisterousness. What were we thinking?” (SMH 27^th Aug, 2011).

My attempts to speak out against those policies and the feminization of our local public school fell on deaf ears. The need to help girls get ahead was such a mantra of the time that any attempt to help boys’ education was viewed as a chauvinistic backlash that had to be resisted to the death. I soon discovered that parents’ views were welcomed only when they concurred with the current ‘correct’ fashions.

But our school was spared the worst of these politically correct ideologies by the competing political correctness of multi-culturalism. There were several ethnic groups represented in the school and though the Anglo-Saxons were predominant at the P&C, we were not in the majority within the school. One father spoke up for his ethnic group with a simple argument that won the day. His argument ran: “I have two daughters in this school. In my culture, where lots of the parents come from, little boys do not play with little girls. My daughters are not going to play with boys.”

It was a non-negotiable argument. It allowed for no exceptions. The feminists spluttered about tolerance, people’s rights, girls’ developments and shifting social values – but to no avail. Nothing was shifting his commitment to his culture.  And in the world of the politically correct, multiculturalism trumped feminism. So segregated sporting programmes continued in the school (though not rugby league – nothing could save league from the feminization of education).

Yet political correctness is always changing. And yesterday’s argument will not necessarily win today’s debate. So later this week another columnist in the same newspaper wrote about certain politically incorrect Jewish and Islamic practices. She wrote: “Our desperation to avoid intolerance allows intolerance to thrive. Our determination not to offend means we tolerate the thoroughly offensive.” These practices were not matters of “cultural relativism” but “moral relativism”, and were “profoundly dangerous to a free and fair society”.

So questions are now being asked about multi-culturalism - that most politically correct of social philosophies. Without a clear moral compass, that exists outside our culture, we will always be tossed to and fro on the currents of the P&C.

A different article on the P&C can be found here.

From the Dean | 26th August 2011

Preachers love powerful metaphors. A popular one today, in some circles, is to call sin idolatry. It is as old as the New Testament where Paul calls covetousness idolatry (Colossians 3:5).  But Paul was doing it in the context of literal idolatry.  When all sin is analysed as idolatry, the concept of idolatry is undermined and the metaphor loses its power.

In the world, both ancient and modern, people use statues, artefacts and religious rituals to worship false gods.  They also use false representations, made by the arts and crafts of human imagination, of the true and living God. So outside of Christianity there are charms, crystals and statues, offering of fruit at the shrine of the ancestors and burning candles, incense and joss sticks. And inside Christendom there are still people who approach God by means of all manner of statues and icons, rituals and techniques of worship, incense and candles.

The classic of Old Testament idolatry was the golden calf.  By it the people represented the gods who brought them out of Egypt and had a feast to Yahweh (Exodus 32:4-5). It was just the very thing that God had forbidden in the commandment: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exodus 20:4).

Idols always fail because they misrepresent God. By his word, God has revealed himself as the powerful creator and sovereign king of heaven and earth – the loving Father in whose image humanity was made. But idols are always dead, immobile, dumb (in both senses of the word) and powerless. The idolater has to care for and carry his idol while God cares for and carries his people. At every significant point the idol is dissimilar to God and so misrepresents him.

Idols also fail because, as aids to worship they are a disobedient alternative to the worship of God in spirit and truth. The only ‘way’ to God is by his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:6), no other way needed. The risen Lord Jesus poured his Spirit, the Spirit of his Father, into his people so that Christians are the temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19, 1 Peter 2:4f). Pure and undefiled religion is visiting widows and orphans in their affliction and keeping ourselves unstained by the world (James 1:27) for living righteously has always trumped living religiously (Isaiah 66:1-5).

Idols also fail to recognise God’s plan for humanity especially the Lord Jesus Christ.  Just as a statue misrepresents the living God it also misrepresents the creatures made in his image and likeness.  Romans 1 points out the folly of humans worshipping things less than themselves. Just as Jesus has a wonderful play on words when he asks “whose image (icon) is this” on the coin and challenges us to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s while we are to give to God what is God’s. Ultimately the failure to see the image of God in humanity results in the rejection of Jesus who is “the image of the invisible God.”

But does this mean that we should never create artwork that in any way represents this world?  Christians are not forbidden visual representation of the world and are not committed to an aesthetic wilderness. The beauty of Islamic geometrical designs puts a lie to the accusation that opposing idolatry commits one to aesthetic impoverishment. While the Bible’s teaching warns us to consider the power of the visual – it does not forbid art per se. Indeed there are artefacts described in the Scriptures even in the temple of Solomon. And even in the wilderness God directed the making of the bronze serpent and called upon those bitten by a serpent to look to it as Moses held it up (Numbers 21:9). Yet this is a cautionary tale, for the bronze serpent, that symbolised Jesus being lifted up for our salvation (John 3:14), became an idol that had to be destroyed in Hezekiah’s day (2 Kings 18:4).

So when does a work of art become an idol? The old litmus test was to remove it – if nobody complains it holds little significance for them and can be returned but if people complain it probably is an idol. Of course it depends on the nature of the complaint. But when people say that they cannot worship God without the object it certainly has become an idol for them. That is why ‘religious’ art in church buildings, which are associated with a concept of worship, is considerably more dangerous than the same artwork hanging in a public gallery.

However, the simple litmus test of removal is not the only indicator of idolatry. Over-reacting to questioning can indicate an idolatrous commitment. The over-reaction is usually expressed in an unwillingness to listen to the question and to accuse the questioner of rejecting the practice wholesale. So to question the suitability of a particular artwork is taken to indicate a complete rejection of all art. The questioner is deemed a Philistine or Puritan iconoclast of limited experience and a narrow unspiritual mind. Over-reaction like this is often an indicator of dependency on something other than Christ.

Such over-reaction also helps understand the usefulness of seeing our attachments as ‘idolatry’.  For today there are certain touchy subjects, for example miracles, music, emotions, career, that are often met with the over-reaction: “you do not like or believe” in miracles for today, or the value of music, or the place of emotions or the role of work. These are not matters of sin, but if our attachment to them is too great they can be expressions of idolatry.  And idolatry is sin.

From the Dean | 12th August 2011

The growth of Christianity comes from the centre not the margins. Christianity grows from the heart by the gospel of Christ, not from the edges by political alliances with other organisations. Like our unity, Christian growth is forged by our common experience of Christ, not by ecclesiastical coalitions.

God unites us by the death and resurrection of his Son, declared to us in the gospel and made effective in us by spiritual rebirth. We are to maintain this unity of the Spirit by our love for one another and by our common mind and understanding (Ephesians 4:1-6, Philippians 2:1-11).

In Christ, the divisions of humanity are overcome. We “are all one in Christ Jesus”. We all share in the one and the same Spirit of the risen Lord Jesus. “There is one body and one Spirit - just as we were called to the one hope that belongs to our call - one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 1:4-6). This common experience of Christ unites Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, and Scythian (Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11).

Consequently, Christianity has a missionary focus, reaching out and welcoming in people of every background, for our standing is in Christ and not in ourselves. The welcome we extend is the message of God’s gospel: of Christ crucified and resurrected; of repentance and regeneration. For in this message we are reconciled to God, and He to us, as we are to one another, without respect of persons.

Sydney is a marvellous city for Christian mission, for the multicultural nature of our city enables us to welcome peoples of all nations and ethnicities in the name of Christ. We enjoy the wonderful privilege of free speech to share with others the amazing news of Jesus’ death for the sins of the whole world. People, who, in their home culture, are unable to have the message of God spoken to them, have free access here to the gospel of salvation.

This circumstance gives Christians the opportunity to liberate ourselves from the cultural accretions of our Church practices and return to the core message of Christ crucified. For, if we are to cross cultures to reach people with the message of Christ, we have to be willing to forego our own preferences for the sake of others’ salvation. We often hear the stories of overseas missionaries doing this, but it is now time for Christians living at home to undertake the same process. But we do not forego our culture in order to adopt other people’s culture or to create a new compromise culture. We forego our culture so as to clarify the core message of Christ. For wherever growth happens or unity forged, it will be God’s work of bringing people to new life in Christ Jesus.

It is out of that unity in Christ that the church grows. And it is out of that growth that the church is united.

There are other ways for churches to grow, but not for Christianity. Individual congregations can grow by any number of adaptations: more attractive programmes, better advertising, clearer goals, a simpler, more accommodating message, or greater social involvement, etc. Congregations often grow through demographic changes in their locality, by charismatic leadership, by transfer from other churches and even biologically by growth in families.

Denominations, organisations and movements can grow by associating with other groups. There is an ever-present pressure for widening our appeal by working with others in some peaceful collaboration, minimizing differences and avoiding controversy. This can give warm positive public relations, not only with those with whom we disagree but also with society as a whole. And our society wants unity, peace and nationalism to be our religion. But the short term growth advantages and positive public relations of working with those with whom we disagree, is always undone by the loss of gospel clarity leading to the long term weakening and decline of the organisation. In the short term the organisation may grow but Christianity stagnates.

The growth of Christianity comes from people being saved. That happens from hearing the word of Christ (Romans 10:15). By all means we need to change ourselves to welcome strangers with a clarified core message of salvation. But we must not change God’s message in order to expand our organisation. By all means we must live at peace with others (Romans 12:18), living quiet industrious lives (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12) and not being quarrelsome (2 Timothy 2:24) – but in all this we are called to be holy and not to tolerate false teaching or immorality (Revelation 2:14-16, 20-23).

The world takes a census, of our numbers, size and influence but it does not know what it is counting. For the institutional size of a Christian denomination or church tells you little about its growth or impact. We will not have greater effect in Australia by being in a bigger organization, but by being a more Christian one.

This creates an ambivalence amongst Christians that is seen in the pendulum swings of Christian opinion. We want to be clear on the gospel, but we also want to be part of society in order to proclaim it. So we become more accepting and accommodating of society and fail to declare the gospel accurately or we become more purified and separate from society and fail to share the gospel with anybody.

The solution does not lie in working collaboratively around the margins to involve and include fellow travellers into our midst, nor by withdrawing into the safety of the holy huddle of our uniform home culture. The Solution lies in the sacrificial love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our thinking must be his thinking – of going into the world to voluntarily lay down our lives for the salvation of others. This is what brings Christian unity and the growth of Christianity.

From the Dean | 5th August 2011

I do not understand ethical investments. As a concept it goes back centuries, to the Quakers and the Wesleys using money for good not evil. But in our context it is becoming increasingly confusing.

On a simple issue I would not invest in a company engaged in illegal activities. There is no way I would want to be a partner in loan sharking, slave trading or selling drugs.

I also would not invest in a company engaged in immoral activities like gambling, prostitution or producing pornography. The difference between immoral and illegal is small. The illegal is immoral, that is why it is declared illegal. But there are some “legal” activities that trade in immorality. Prostitution is legal, but I would not want to be a part owner of a brothel.

Similarly I do not want shares in a company producing known harmful products like tobacco, asbestos or pornography. Again, the difference between ‘immoral’ and ‘harmful’ is small. Sometimes what makes something immoral is that it is harmful. Were we not told that climate change is “the greatest moral challenge of our times”? But once we move to harmful products, where do we draw the line? Should we be concerned ethically over the environmental damage done by the companies we invest in? And what of companies that promote unhealthy materialism, using spin to advertise and promote rubbishy items of no real value to the consumer?

And what about our company’s employment practices? We live in a fairly regulated industrial environment – but still poor people are forced to work unseasonable hours for the sake of the wealthy. But that is nothing compared to companies making profits out of sweatshops in the third world. Even if we do not invest in such companies, we still buy their products. We enjoy cheap prices on clothing and other items because they have been made under work conditions which would be illegal in Australia. In some lines it is very difficult to buy any other products than those produced overseas.

If that was not all, how much information can an investor realistically have about their company’s practices? It is quite possible to unknowingly invest in a company that illegally taps people’s phones and immorally invades their privacy. Who would have predicted when they bought shares in a large retail grocer that they would wind up owning pubs and poker machines?  And what is my superannuation company investing in? Or who is my bank lending my money to?

It is not possible in this world to separate ourselves from the contamination of sin all around us. It is not really possible to separate out some part of the economy as pure and ethical. George Bernard Shaw’s play “Major Barbara” presented the ethical dilemma of the donation of money to a Salvation Army Officer by her arms dealing father. Does war profiteering so stain money that it cannot be used for the good of humanity? Money flows through our society doing good and ill and it is impossible to track its progress, only dealing with good notes and ignoring bad ones. Indeed, the whole system creates the wealth and health of our society, such that without it, we could not feed or house the population. Third world sweatshops are truly appalling but what is the alternative – starvation?

However, the issue of my involvement in unethical financing has been brought home to me with a development of a brothel in Camperdown.  Not knowing my involvement, I wrote of it a few months ago when news of its development and listing on the stock exchange was made public. (See The Brothel and the Academic)

Prostitution has been legalised on the grounds that it ‘cannot’ be stopped and without legalisation there is no protection for the prostitutes or control of the spread of certain diseases. Prostitutes’ health and safety could not be assured unless brothels operate under government regulation. If ever there is a group of victims who need protection from exploitation and abuse it is the women who have been brought and bought into this industry.

While some people see no moral problem with prostitution and while the ‘sex industry’ and its ‘sexual service workers’ are trying their best through media spin to make it socially acceptable – there is little doubt that the community considers it deeply immoral. Very few people want it to operate next door to them and, who wants, hopes, plans or trains their daughter to join the trade? It is repugnant to all family values. However, being legal means it can trade publically, advertise freely and raise finances through banks and other public institutions. And there is my problem.

Some years ago I deposited a small amount of money in a building society. It was taken over by a larger building society, which was then turned into a bank. This turned my small investment into shares. When my bank was taken over by another bigger bank I became a shareholder in the old Bank of New South Wales currently called Westpac. The bank does not consult with its minor shareholders about its investments. So it was only when reading the newspaper I discovered that Westpac is the principle financial backer of the brothel in Camperdown.

Does this mean to invest ethically I must have nothing to do with banking? Does it mean I should sell my shares or protest at the Westpac AGM? Is it illegal for the bank to refuse, for purely ethical reasons, to invest in a legal, commercially viable, and very profitable business? Would such morally discriminating board members be accused of discrimination? It would certainly be discriminating, indeed ethical – but are boards allowed to discriminate or be ethical? And if they are, why is the Westpac board so unethical as to enter into the wickedness of promoting prostitution? 

Is it only the individual or can we also ask society: what does it profit to gain the whole world and yet forfeit your life?

From the Dean | 30th July 2011

Last weekend’s bombing and shooting in Norway is awful. The pain and suffering of the innocent citizens and their families is incalculable. The actions were more than painful, they were wicked and evil. There is no excuse.

While there is no excuse, we still search for reasons. From the outset of media commentary, people have been struggling to understand the reason. We want an understanding that somehow distances ourselves from the perpetrator – “for we would never do such a thing”.

So the first step in analysing the reasons is to describe the perpetrator in some terms that distinguish him from us.  He is insane, or a Muslim, a terrorist, a fundamentalist, a right wing extremist or a left wing radical, a Nazi or a Marxist. These are some of the lenses through which we look at the evil of the human heart and distance ourselves from it at the same time.

This time the man has published a long document detailing what he stands for and the reasons for his actions. But before it was read, media deadlines had to be met. People needed an explanation to help them process the information - to make sense of what happened. So the journalists fell back to their usual metaphors, paradigms and narratives by which they make sense of the world.  Without any evidence they gave the reason for the unthinkable.

At first sight it had all the hallmarks of Islamic extremists. Norway has troops in Afghanistan and bombing has been a common method of Muslim terrorists. Here surely is the next episode. How easy it is to blame all evil on others – on Muslims. But on this occasion the criminal is not a Muslim. Just the reverse, he is anti-Islamic trying to drive Muslims out of Norway.

On Facebook he describes himself as “Christian”. But that does not make sense of his actions, for Christians do not normally bomb and shoot their opponents. So the media used a favourite story, labelling him: “a fundamentalist Christian”.  

To the secularist mindset all religions are the same – they are ‘not us’ but superstitious nonsense. Secularists make no attempt to differentiate between religions, for ‘they all have the same intellectual architecture, the same psychological pathology’.That is why journalists apply a word like “fundamentalist” to any religion. It is a generic term that means something like “an extremist who actually believes and lives by their religion in the full flower of its irrational, unenlightened, supernatural, superstitious literalism.” The origin and development of ‘fundamentalism’ as a vilifying swear word is ignored. A few years ago I complained to the National Portrait Gallery in London that to label Wesley and Whitfield “fundamentalist” was questionable to say the least but as an historical label put them in the wrong country in the wrong century!  To find out more about this see “Fundamentalism” on The Chat Room http://phillipjensen.com/video/fundamentalism/

To the secularist media’s prejudice, fundamentalist religion is a good explanation. To them, ‘religion causes war’ – especially when people believe their religion. So cultural, tribal religion is considered safe but fundamentalist religion is dangerous. ‘Religions as markers of our heritage and culture are fairly harmless and vaguely interesting – but as a belief system, religions are deceitful, divisive and dangerous.’ So religious tolerance and multi-cultural broadmindedness mean that all should be free to practice their religious rituals in privacy and peace but woe-betide any who would want to actually believe their religion, shape their life by it, or use it to critique the belief system of secularists!

However, as the week wore on people read the writings of the Norwegian perpetrator and it became abundantly clear that he is not really Christian. He wrote: “If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian”.  This is no fundamentalist Christian, nor even a religious Christian, but purely a tribal, cultural Christian – the kind secularists find mildly acceptable. 

So other explanations have to be found: insanity, right wing conservative politics and the like. Each explanation labels him as somebody ‘other’ than us, somebody that we can distance ourselves from. But of course he is just like us. That is the terrifying part. He is like us. He looks and dresses like us. He is the-boy-next-door, educated, well-mannered, seemingly no threat to anybody. The only difference, of which we can be sure, is that he went about bombing and shooting people, and we don’t.

Could a Christian commit such atrocities? Yes, of course a Christian could. Not as a result of commitment to Christ but rather in defiance of his Saviour. It would be an appalling denial of his Lord.  But yet, in keeping with the Bible’s teaching on the universality of sin, anybody is capable of terrible wrongdoing. For the Bible warns that all people are sinful.

Nothing should surprise us when it comes to humanity’s capacity for good or ill. Humans are the creatures made in the image of the God of truth and life who have chosen to follow the god of lies and death. The sinner is not ‘other’ - he is me. It is the naivety of secularists that teach ‘all people are good and we should have faith in human nature’. Utopias have the unrealistic myth of human perfectibility where all people learn to live in harmony without tribalism, envy, greed or fear. But this man’s fear of others arouses our fear of others – others, like this man.

From the Dean | 7th March 2009

It is dangerous to shoot sacred cows. We all get upset, irrationally and emotionally when something we hold as precious is attacked. 

The more irrational our attachment the more anger is engendered when our favourite bovine is assailed.

One of the ways to test if something has become an idol is to remove it. If nobody notices or complains, it can safely be restored. If it is declared to be “the end of civilisation as we know it” - it is fairly safe to assume it has developed idolatrous importance to people.

There are all kinds of idols of our politically correct age which are subjects we dare not speak of lest we upset the social equilibrium of the community. Viewpoints that are not allowed an airing because they create such a backlash.  There is the “love that dare not speak its name” that is now so frequently shouted from the housetops that nobody is able to demur in so much as a whisper without being bullied into silence.

Within modern Christianity there are several subjects which it is considered offensive to question. It almost does not matter what is said on these subjects, people take offence and misunderstand the point being made. It is almost as if they expect to have their idol attacked and so look for ways to misunderstand what is said.

Two such subjects are miracles and emotions. They find expression particularly in the topics of healing and music. To speak on these subjects without affirming totally what other people are doing, is considered to be taking pot shots not just at a cow but at Daisy the much loved family pet. 

It does not matter how often you profess to enjoy your emotions and love music, it matters not how much you profess your belief in miracles and pray for healing - if you voice any reservations about current conventional wisdom in the smallest detail you are perceived as totally opposed to them. Only an unreserved affirmation of all things emotional and all things miraculous keeps you within the bounds of a true believer.

Music

Some years ago I heard an absurd anti-Christian song being played in a supermarket. I found a copy of the words on the Internet and used it as an illustration on the following Sunday’s sermon. The outcry of people astonished me.  Many of the congregation clearly loved this song and found my attack upon it offensive and hurtful.

Now I confess to possibly being insensitively aggressive in my exposition of the stupidity of the song’s lyrics. However I was speaking to a Christian congregation and assumed it reasonable that they would not be seduced by this musical nonsense and would have shared my view of anti-Christian songs – but they were just as astonished at my view as I was at their reaction. My view was even dismissed by some as another example of my well-known antipathy to all emotions and musical expression.

Miracles

It is much the same with miracles. There is a fixed convention in some circles that either you believe in miracles (and are therefore part of the Charismatic Renewal movement), or you do not believe in miracles (and are opposed to the work of God’s Spirit in the world today). 

It has been reported to me that all Moore College lecturers in the last thirty years have been Cessationists (ie people who teach that all miracles stopped with the Apostles and early Church). 

I have known all the lecturers for the last forty years and have never once heard one of them teach this viewpoint. Any questioning of miracles, or even of a miracle, is seen as an attack on the Charismatic Renewal movement and a denial of the work of God’s Spirit today. 

Even though our Lord himself warned that: “False christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect.” (Mark 13:22), and that people will come to him on the last day saying: ” ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:22-23).

So with all the fear and warning of the dangers of shooting sacred cows in mind, let me raise my sights at a very common holy bovine.

Intellectual discourse

One of our generation’s greatest sacred cows is the enlightened view of intellectual and rational discourse. There is the desire in some emotionally deprived people to imagine that by the control of human reason we will be able to know God, or disprove His existence, or live a morally and theologically correct life. This emphasis can distrust those things emotional or miraculous; things which are unable to be controlled or fit into our understanding.

There is the desire that the scholar, the intellectual, the academic theologian, will be the official and authoritative interpreter of God or the Bible. 

The Pope and his Cardinals replaced the Holy Spirit but now the Professor and his academy are replacing them. There is the thought that if we know Greek and Hebrew and the ancient world’s cultures then we will be able to say precisely what God meant in the scriptures.

However, the weight of scholarly opinion is actually very light. Evangelicals have for so long been cowed by the bully boys of the Academy that we find it almost impossible to blow any raspberry at the intellectual pretensions and foolishness of those who think they are wise.

The painfully exacting scholarship of Evangelicals is largely censored and ignored. If an unbelieving academic makes a false claim about Christianity, Evangelicals will have to spend twenty years disproving this nonsense. In the meantime a newer generation of academics will arise who do not believe their predecessor anyway. We are constantly playing catch-up in a game that nobody wants us to play.

I have lived through the teachings of Tillich and Bultmann, through the New Morality and the New Perspective. They have all proven to be empty shells trying to distract God’s people from confidence in the Gospel. It is important not to be too fussed at the latest ideas. Following intellectual fashions has been fashionable since the time of the Athenians who “would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new” (Acts 17:21). The fashions come and go but Gospel truth does not vary.

So now it’s time for the intellectuals to join forces with the musicians and the healers to cry foul. For does not the mind matter to God? Are we not to learn and teach? Are we not to love God with all our mind? Yes of course we are.  Just as God heals the sick and those who are happy should sing praise. (James 5:13).

From the Dean | 22nd July 2011

There is no virtue in poverty but affluence is not the answer.

Heaven is pictured in the Bible as wealth not poverty. Even in this world, God has richly given to us all things to enjoy (1 Timothy 6:17). Paul said of God “he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17).

But mindless acquisition of wealth creates affluence. Affluence is when a treat becomes trite and a luxury becomes a habit. The trouble with affluence is that it is self-defeating. The more we possess the less we value what we possess and the more we are ourselves possessed by our possessions.

Affluent tourists cherry pick the bits of culture that fit in with our affluence and imagine that we have crossed cultural boundaries and become world citizens. We fail to see that a little bit of art, possibly a religious statue or a ‘genuine indigenous’ piece of bric-a-brac displayed in our home is nothing more than our own culture of affluence. When affluence imports culture it evacuates it of its value and distinctive character.  A Chinese restaurateur complained that although he had over 100 dishes, westerners always ordered the same two or three and claimed how much they enjoyed Chinese cuisine.

Similarly, wealth removes the seasons from us and so reduces the rhythm of life and the joy of anticipation. Seasonal fruit such as cherries, oranges and nectarines can be imported and delivered to us all year round. Our refrigerators and freezers can deliver whatever food we wish without any reference to the season of growth. So the rhythm of life is removed from our consciousness. We no longer look forward to something with gleeful anticipation or remember anything with nostalgic pleasure – for everything is immediately available. Certainly it is pleasurable to be able to have whatever you like whenever you like it, but you cannot have that and at the same time enjoy the rhythm of life and its seasons, the anticipatory longings or sweet memories.

By our affluence we can air condition our weather - from the house to the garage to the car to the office - never moving out of the same temperature range. We have lost the joy of warming up or cooling down for we are always 22 degrees comfortable. The brisk chill on a winter wind or the balmy breeze on a summer’s day is lost to us as we sit in perfectly controlled and conditioned air.

Affluence exercises on the bike and treadmill in the gym without the inconvenience of the wind, sun and scenery. We can gain the cancerous possibility of a solarium suntan without the sand, salt and surf of the beach. We can travel the world for work, socialising with our spouse via Skype while warehousing our children. We can communicate at all times electronically and are constantly contactable by clients and customers on our ball-and-phone. We own houses and apartments, but know no home. We know and are known by more people than ever but the only friends we trust are our trainer and therapist. We are the world travellers who have forgotten where we came from and have never worked out our destination.

So what antidote is there to affluence? It is not the materialism of atheistic secularists. Their philosophy feeds the materialism of our life style. For to them there is nothing more to life than the good life on earth. But placing our affluence in perspective requires living for something greater than ourselves and greater than this world. The carbon pricing debate illustrates this difficulty, as the motivation for sacrifice is ‘the environment’, ‘the future’, or ‘your (non-existent) grandchildren.’

Some forms of Hinduism, Buddhism and the new age Spirituality find the antidote in the denial of this world and its physical pleasures. They reject not only the creator but also reality – specifically the reality of God’s creation.

The Bible’s antidote comes from viewing the creation as good, created by God to be received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:3f) and created for us to enjoy and to share with others (1 Timothy 6:17f).

So here are two of the Bible’s antidotes to affluence: thankfulness and generosity. They are not separate antidotes but inextricably bound to each other; for our thankfulness to God is for his generosity and his generosity arouses our generosity towards others. These antidotes contribute towards contentment and the removal of envy. They help us see beyond both immediate gratification and our own self-interest.

God’s grace, or generosity, is a key characteristic of his nature which he displayed in his prodigal creation and his salvation of prodigals. His creation is prodigal in its wealth and beauty. His patience with us, in our wilful rebellion, is beyond any reasonable justice. His grace and mercy in sending his Son for our salvation is the love that surpasses knowledge – the riches of his glory. It is with good reason that he is called “The God of all grace” (1 Peter 5:10). It is impossible to know God without being overwhelmed by giving him thanks and praise for who he is and what he has done.

And what he, by his gracious generosity has done in loving and forgiving us, must find its place in our treatment of others. ‘God loves the cheerful giver’ (2 Corinthians 9:7). ‘Forgive our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors’ (Matthew 6:11). ‘Beloved if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another’ (1 John 4:11). This turning of sinful human values on their head is seen in God’s command: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather do honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Ephesians 4:28).

Working in order to give to others is not only the opposite of theft but also a wonderful antidote to anyone’s affluence.

From the Dean | 15th July 2011

I do not generally seek advice about marriage from celebrity models, but I could not help noticing that Christie Brinkley said she’ll “never get married again”. 

It wasn’t so much this bold claim that drew my attention. After four failed marriages and a very messy divorce case it’s only sensible to forswear marriage.  However, it was her reason for renouncing marriage that was interesting. “I learned in my divorce that marriage is ridiculous. You take a vow but you don't get brownie points when you honour your vow and the other person doesn't”…“The court doesn't recognize that. It's like, 'All right now, let's see how we're going to divvy up the kids.’ Well, obviously, the one that didn't break the vows should be the role model, but no.”

Here is the end point of the ‘no fault divorce’ regime. It was introduced into Australia in the 1970’s. The problems involved in proving fault, even manufacturing evidence of fault, and the cost, acrimony, and difficulty of divorce was addressed by the simple ‘no fault’ 12 month separation rule. It did not solve fights and quarrels about property and children but it simplified the process for dissolution of the marriage.

The legislation retained the definition of marriage as “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life", but effectively gutted it of any meaning. For the promises you make, as you voluntarily enter into this union, no longer mean what they say. Your ‘solemn vow and promise’, often made in the sight of God, is to be united exclusively for better, for worse till death parts you - but the reality is quite different. No longer is adultery a fault that frees the innocent party. You can keep or fail to keep your promises – there is no fault. Furthermore, you are only committed to stay with each other as long as you want to. You can leave whenever you want for whatever reason suits or pleases you. The only limitation is that you will not go through a similar agreement or wedding with somebody else until a year has elapsed from your separation.

Today in Australia, notwithstanding the legal definition, the de facto definition of marriage is “a community recognized voluntary sexual union of a man and a woman that will not allow another similarly recognized union until after twelve months separation”.

Consequently, many people see little point in formalizing their union with a wedding or any legal recognition – at least not until children are born. Even members of the Royal Family have modelled cohabitation prior to marriage and woe betide anyone who would question their actions.

By the turn of the century, a Federal Government report (“To Have and to Hold”, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, 1998) demonstrated the disastrous effects that go with this new pattern of relationship - the increased instability of de facto marriages, the deleterious consequences for the children and the massive cost to the community. The clearly documented increase in family instability was demonstrated to be not good for Australia or Australians. But such a report had no impact, for the heart hears its desired deceits.

It was not the law alone that brought about this social change. It was the consequence of the community moving from a Christian culture to a materialist culture, especially through the sexual revolution of the sixties. But the law does many things, including framing the parameters and structures of society, as it educates and informs the citizens.

It took a generation for the implications of the new divorce law to affect not just divorce but marriage itself. Christians warned that the logic of the divorce legislation would undermine marriage though the direction and magnitude of the shift was not predicted. Nobody at the time imagined that forty years after the passing of the legislation, the majority of couples would live together prior to, or without ever getting married, and as many as one in three children would be born out of wedlock. But changing the basis for divorce changed the real meaning of marriage and, for many people, has effectively made marriage redundant.

So now again we have a minority wishing to address their problems by changing the nature of marriage. The homosexual community is a much smaller minority, than those who were seeking easier divorce and they are not facing legal or financial discrimination, for their issues have all been dealt with in recent legislation. Their motivation for changing marriage is to gain social acceptance of their lifestyle.

However, such a change is self-defeating as it will only further diminish the distinctive value of marriage and its place in society. It will not immediately change our relationship with our spouse, but over time it will further erode the fundamental place that family life has in our nation. It is a further rejection of the Christian culture but it is also, and more importantly for our parliamentarians, a further undermining of the family structure on which all stable societies are built.

Here then is a great paradox. At this time when the community has, by simplifying divorce, so redefined marriage as to say that it is of no real value (“only a piece of paper”), some people feel their relationship will only gain value if it is recognized as a marriage.

From the Dean | 8th July 2011

The advance of ‘science’ is sadly being compromised by political polemics.

This is a matter of sadness for Christians because the modern scientific endeavour arguably comes from the Reformation’s commitment to truth and the Biblical view of creation, and humanity’s place within it. Arising primarily in the Protestant world of the 16^th and 17^th centuries and freed from Aristotelian rationalism, the Bible opened the importance of the creation itself as worthy of study and the importance of truth derived from experimentation.

The word ‘science’ originally meant knowledge but slowly developed over time to mean ‘a systematically organised body of knowledge’, then ‘knowledge of the physical or natural world’ and finally to ‘an experimental method of acquiring such knowledge’. 

But with the shift in meaning of the word ‘science’, has come the changing emotional attachment to the word. To most people, the proof of the scientific pudding has always been technology. As scientific discoveries have been turned into practical and useful technology, the standing of scientists in the community has risen. From wonder drugs to aerospace, from computers to refrigeration, the advance of technology has vindicated science in public opinion. So much so that the scientist is held in high regard and esteem and ‘science’ is a word that carries great weight of authority and power.

In the 1960’s when I was studying for an Arts degree, every subject commenced with an explanation as to why and how it was a science. The scientific study of History, Psychology, Economics, Geography and even English meant we were not studying Arts but “Social Sciences”. It was amusing that nobody studying Chemistry, Physics or Biology had to be given lectures about the ‘Art’ of their discipline. The advertising industry soon caught on to the power of the word for science was used to ‘prove’ the virtue and efficacy of every product from cosmetics to sporting equipment and detergents.

There was even a desire to create the scientific society, where all decisions were to be made on the basis of demonstrable scientific reasoning. Politicians still appeal to ‘evidence based’ decisions, even though the evidence is not possible to gain and what evidence is available is routinely ignored. Society is often too complex to gain predictive evidence. There is no laboratory to adequately experiment on human social changes. Human values are outside reasoned experimentation. And vested interests ignore clear evidence, e.g. against tobacco, alcohol, gambling, adultery, etc.

But of recent times the politicisation of science has undermined its credibility in the community. In one debate, the ecological catastrophists’ claims about global warming and our contribution to it, has enabled sceptics to cast doubt about science and scientists. In another debate the arguments of evolution and intelligent design have been used by atheists and theists in such a way as to compromise the standing of science itself.

Human grasp on knowledge is both enormous and fragile. Enormous because, created in God’s image, we can, by working together, rule God’s world (Genesis 11:6). But fragile because, in our sinfulness, we not only are divided amongst ourselves (Genesis 11:7f) but also turn our back on knowledge and are self-deceived (Romans 1:18ff, Ephesians 4:17f).

To argue a position on the basis of ‘science’ or worse, the ‘consensus of scientists’, may bolster the position but does so at the cost of science itself –for the power of science lies in its ability to change opinion by demonstrating evidence. It is evidence that is king in science.

Certainly the evidence we look for and accept most easily is woven into our already organised body of knowledge. But evidence can overturn our already organised body of knowledge.

Certainly the consensus of scientists around the world should not be lightly discounted but the evidence of one scientist (or even a non-scientist) is as important as the collective understanding of the many. The narrative of modern science is built on stories like Galileo overthrowing the Aristotelian collective that dominated the academy in his day.

The nature of scientific knowledge is conditional, never final. It is always possible that new evidence will be found, or a new way of understanding our existing evidence will arrive, that will change our present conclusions.

The nature of scientific inquiry is that the evidence is public and, wherever possible, the experiments are repeatable and predictable. Not all science deals with experiments and predictions, some of it has to do with the unique past.  But scientific knowledge only includes claims that can, at least theoretically, be falsified or investigated by independent observation.

Scientific methodology is a very powerful tool in what it can investigate but has limitations as a method of knowing the truth. It is not designed to investigate everything. Claiming too much for science can undermine its credibility. It cannot tell me whether my mother loved me, nor explain the subtle imagery of a poem. Though it relies heavily on maths, pure maths itself is arguably not a science.

Christians are concerned for truth and so should value and defend science as an enterprise. It is a way of thinking and discovery that accepts gladly disproof of our views on the basis of evidence.  As such it is opposed to censorship and open to listening to alternative views. It is open to reason and more concerned with arguments and evidence than institutional authority and tradition. It may not be perfect, nor does it claim to give exhaustive or even final knowledge but it is the most honest, open way forward that humans have developed.

However, when groups with particular vested political interests use science to promote their view, it is science itself that comes under attack. When ‘evolution’ and ‘intelligent design’ are weapons in the hands of atheists and theists, it is very hard to weigh accurately the evidence. When catastrophists and sceptics discuss global warming, the truth is lost in politics and sadly for us, science itself gets a bad name.

From the Dean | 1st July 2011

One of the difficult balances for Christians is holy bridge building. Holiness is God’s demand that we are separate, distinctive and different to the world around us. Bridge building is our exercise of reaching out to others with the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. To do either has its difficulties, but to do both at the same time is extraordinarily difficult. The easy and false way is to choose one or the other: to join the holy huddle or to become worldly.

The Bible is both world affirming and world denying. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16) is matched by “Do not love the world or the things of this world" (1 John 2:15). This tension can be resolved by arguing that God’s love for the world shows the extent of his grace, and that the things of this world we are not to love are limited to “the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride in possessions”. For the world is God’s good creation: “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4) and it is the doctrine of demons to say otherwise. But just as we are to avoid the doctrine of the demons, we are also warned not to think as the nations of the world do: “you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Ephesians 4:17-18).

One of the newer areas for Sydneysiders to work this balance out is the relationship with, and evangelisation of, our Muslim neighbours.

They claim that “There is only one God and Mohammed is his prophet.” while we claim that “There is only one God and Jesus is his Son”.  Clearly we are in disagreement about Mohammed and Jesus, for even though Muslims say they believe in Jesus as a prophet of God, they will not replace Mohammed with Jesus as the prophet nor would they call him God’s Son.

But can we build a bridge on the basis of believing in only one God?  Muslim preachers want to build the bridge there, claiming that we worship the same God, though they with clearer understanding since their prophet’s message is not distorted and is God’s final revelation to humanity. But do we worship the same God? Or do we worship a different God, even though we agree there is only one and he is the creator of all things. Is Yahweh Allah?

Would it be right, for example, to publish a special Muslim version of the Bible using ‘Allah’ instead of ‘God’? Arabic Christians and their Bibles use the word Allah to refer to God for the word Allah was the Arabic word for God long before Mohammed came on the scene. He did not introduce this word into Arabic as a revelation from God. It is the Arabic word for God or more precisely “the God”.  

Allah is not technically a name, though if there is only one God and you address him by this word, over time it becomes his de facto name. It is like the Hebrew word for man: Adam. When there was only one man and he is spoken to as “man”, Adam becomes his name.

In Arabic Bibles, ‘Allah’ is the word to use for God, but what of building bridges to English speaking Muslims by using ‘Allah’ in an English Bible?  Here a few of the problems in this bridge building exercise.

First, Allah is not an English word, so it is no longer an English translation.

Second, it is quite unnecessary, for even Muslims know the word ‘God’ and will say to us “There is only one God and Mohammed is his prophet” instead of “There is only one Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.

Third, there is the problem that though Islam claims to believe the Old Testament prophets, it doesn’t accept their revelation of God’s name as YHWH.  Islam has 99 names for Allah but YHWH is not one of them, even though the prophets use the name YHWH over 5000 times in the Old Testament.

Fourth, Allah has 99 names and at the same time no name, for he is not personal in the same way as YHWH. His names are his attributes and characteristics, but not his revealed person with whom we relate.

Fifth, the name Yahweh reveals God’s glorious mercy and justice in Exodus 34, which is completely different to Allah’s concept of mercy without justice.

Sixth, there is the problem that a Muslim invests into the word ‘Allah’ everything he believes about God – both the right (he is the creator) and the wrong (he has no Son). He also invests into this word his submission and his association with Mohammed. Putting ‘Allah’ into the English Bible will not help his understanding.

Seventh, Islam’s bridge to us is that we have the same God but we have a defective understanding. But it is not our bridge to them, for they do not have the same God. It is more than Allah is not a father – it is unmistakably and unambiguously revealed that Allah is neither begotten nor begetting. Allah did not and would not create anything in his image – that would be “shirk”. Jesus is the image of the invisible God and the Son of the Father. To deny the Son is to deny the Father (1 John 2:23).

We are created in God’s image and reborn as his children. Muslims at best are loved slaves of Allah but never sons of the Father God – because their God is different to ours.  Muslims don’t know Allah as YHWH.

From the Dean | 24th June 2011

The “slippery slope” argument is a well-known defence used by conservatives to oppose change.  It has several metaphorical forms – such as the camel’s nose and the frog boiling.  As an argument in logic it has no particular force.  It’s not a matter of logic so much as a defence against unwanted changes.  Even then, it has fairly fundamental weaknesses.

The most famous critique describes it as “deciding against doing good now, for fear of leading to bad things later”.  So the slippery slope argument becomes a justification for wrongdoing: out of fear of consequences we choose to continue with doing wrong, or at least choose not to make a change to do what is right.

Furthermore, the slippery slope argument assumes inevitability.  It assumes that if the camel gets its nose in the tent more of it inevitably will follow.  But human actions are rarely inevitable and it’s sometimes possible to prevent foreseeable bad consequences.

Usually the argument jumps to the alarming end of the slope – the unacceptable, even unthinkable, consequence of change.  This can be a fear tactic but can also be a form of the reductio ad absurdum argument – where there is agreement about the total undesirability of an outcome and the connection of the present proposal with producing that outcome.  But to be sustained it has to be agreed that the end point is undesirable, that the present proposal will lead to the undesirable outcome and that there is no holding position between the present change and the final outcome.

With all these difficulties it may be surprising that people so often appeal to the slippery slope or one of its many versions (frogs, camels, dominoes, precedent, etc.).  But the experience of life, the intuition about human nature and the knowledge of history persuade people of the incremental way in which society is changed.  The high-minded arguments against censorship in the 1960’s have opened the floodgate of pornography of which the pro-censorship groups warned.  Home computers have taken pornography well beyond the most dire warnings of the sixties.

Furthermore as society moves away from essentialist morality about right and wrong to a utilitarian outcome-based morality such as harm minimisation, so the argument of expected or predicted outcomes becomes more important.  Why change the laws on drug use or gambling if there is not an expectation of better outcomes?

So, in a culture of ‘live and let live’, when should we pay attention to the slippery slope warnings and when should we dismiss them as alarmist and irrelevant to the morality of the present case?

One of the chief warnings to pay attention to is the use of the word “movement”.  For the very nature of a movement is the desire to bring about an ongoing change.  Its end point is not always clear, but its goal is reached through multiple actions heading in a particular direction.

So the “Charismatic Movement” of the 1960’s aimed at transforming the mainstream churches by re-introducing the Pentecostal experience.  Such a movement couldn’t half-transform a church – thus the many half-way houses that conciliatory Christians suggested, all failed.  Either a church embraces the movement or rejects it, accepting some of it inevitably leads to accepting more, because it is not a single issue but a reforming movement.

Similarly the Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW) presented more than a single decision.  It was an attempt to change the nature of the relationship between men and women in every aspect of church life.  Intentionally each concession leads to the next demand for a change till ultimately all gender distinctions are removed.  Ordination as presbyters was only a step towards consecration as bishops and that is only another step to the exclusion of all opponents to the movement.  Proposed legislative half-way houses never worked, for wherever MOW has succeeded, its opponents have been subsequently excluded.

Another way of recognising the top of a slippery slope lies in the nature of the argument for taking the first step.  If the first step requires a change in the nature of moral discourse, other consequences are likely to follow.  This was true in both the Charismatic and women’s ordination issues.  They both involved a call to significantly change Christian argument.  In the Charismatic case it was a move away from the Bible interpreting our experiences to our experiences interpreting the Bible.  Once that is allowed there is no end to the changes in theology that are possible.  In the women’s ordination issue it was also a case of re-interpreting the Bible – this time in terms of culturally determined hermeneutics that either changed the meaning of New Testament teaching or made it no longer relevant to modern times.  Either way the logic was such that other theological conclusions, notably the acceptance of sinful behaviour such as homosexuality, could not be resisted.  Just as the acceptance of women’s ordination has lead to the exclusion of all opponents so it has lead to the acceptance of homosexuality and the persecution of its opponents.

Another marker of a slippery slide is the nature of the immediate change.  A change in opinion will not have the same effect as a change in practice or personnel.  To accept as genuinely spiritual, a practice that only some Christians have experienced, cannot but divide the church – establishing two kinds of Christians.  To ordain women as presbyters or consecrate some as bishops cannot but divide diocese and denomination, creating ‘no-go-zones’ for those whose conscience binds them in opposition to such a development.

These issues are easy to see now, for the slide is demonstrable.  The Charismatic movement has split the evangelical world.  The ordination of women has ushered in wholesale persecution not only of its opponents but also those who oppose homosexual behaviour.  The predictions were ignored – the reality has arrived.  What is important is to rightly anticipate the effect of other proposed changes without being either conservatively alarmist or naively indulgent.