Eternity - November 2015 Issue

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Number 64, NOVEMBER 2015 ISSN 1837-8447

Brought to you by the Bible Society

Do we say thanks to God only when the sun shines?

The fight for religious freedom

Buying a pub for Geraldine Brooks finds Jesus King David’s Secret Chord

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NEWS

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Obadiah Slope MOONSTRUCK: If you are reading this, it means you have survived a number of predictions that the world would end round about October. There were blood moon predictions, but to be fair some of these predicted that the apocalypse was only beginning. A group known as eBible fellowship also predicted that Earth would “be destroyed by fire” in October according to their reading of 2 Peter 3. While Obadiah is pleased that eBible wants to take the Bible seriously, he wishes they would read Matthew 24:36: “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

*NEW LOOK JWS: The Jehovah’s Witnesses have made a policy decision to do less door knocking and more standing around. So if they have not visited you lately, it’s not that they’re ignoring you.

Increase overseas aid, Micah tells Canberra

Micah challenge

TRACT WARS: At the Temple of Commerce buying Scripture supplies, Obadiah was accosted by a friendly man who gave him a tract, The End of The Age. It warns the reader to be ready for Jesus’ return. Obadiah wonders if a nonChristian would plough through it. The group handing them out is called Jesus’ Disciples. They are quite good at handing out tracts with a smile, but their material is not as attractive as the magazines distributed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have taken to standing wordlessly outside railway stations.* Shouldn’t the good stuff look the best? Or is that the bias of an old art director?

NOVEMBER 2015

Raising their voices for justice for the poor: Micah Australia delegates ANGELA OWEN MICAH CHALLENGE From 10-13 October, hundreds of Christians from every state and many different denominations in Australia converged on Canberra for Micah Australia’s Voices for Justice gathering.

Over four days they gathered to worship, pray, train and lobby our nation’s leaders in support of Australia playing its part in building a world free from poverty.

In response to the federal government’s recent cuts to Australia’s aid budget, participants

called on parliament to increase the current level of aid spending to 0.3 per cent of Gross National Income during the next term (2016-2019). Christian advocates also urged political leaders to support the UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals.

This year’s event marked the public launch of Micah Australia, the successor to the Micah Challenge campaign which has equipped Christians over the past decade to help ensure Australia does its fair share to achieve the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

News page 2-3 In Depth 5-10 Books Liftout

According to Micah Australia’s National Coordinator, Ben Thurley, the global picture and the national politics relating to poverty and sustainable human development have changed dramatically over the past decade and it has never been a more important time for Christians to be strategic in prayer and action for justice.

Using prayer as a foundation for advocacy, the new campaign kicked off with candlelight prayer vigils across the country.

One vigil was held as the sun set over the lawns of Parliament House by participants, federal politicians, church leaders and local Canberra Christians.

Sarah Fear, who coordinated a prayer vigil at Penrith Baptist Church, said, “It was a great privilege to join with brothers and sisters across Australia as we prayed for this world.

“We live in a world filled with longing for peace, for love, for freedom and for a voice – for our cries to rise above the clamour of a fallen world and be heard by almighty ears. In the moments of quiet and stillness that rose and fell during our time of prayer I knew that Jesus was with us.”

Micah Australia is a coalition of churches and Christian organisations working for justice and a world free from poverty.

Visit www.micahaustralia.org.

Bible Society 12 Opinion 13, 15-20

In brief DROPPED: Gospel For Asia, a large ministry in India which has been supported by Australian donors, has been kicked out of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA). EFCA stated that GFA had broken five of its seven core standards, including misleading donors.

FRANCIS EFFECT: Distribution of Scriptures to Catholics has increased under Pope Francis. At the World Congress of Families held during his US visit, more than a million copies of Luke’s gospel were handed out. American Bible Society research shows that 67 per cent of Catholics in the US want to read the Bible more, a 50 per cent increase from a year ago.

CHART TOPPERS: Hillsong reached the number one spot on the ARIA albums chart for the second time this year with the worship album, Open Heaven/River Wild. The album was recorded at the church’s annual conference in June this year, with 25,000 people attending at Sydney’s Allphones Arena.

What everyday Australians think when they hear the following labels: Practising Christian

November 30 is just the beginning of your journey with Moore College.

Ordinary Christian

Protestant Christian

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More positive

Born Again Evangelical Fundamentalist Christian Christian Christian

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Less positive

Quotable Rory Shiner Page 5

“The Christian hope is not of immortal souls but resurrected bodies, a hope secured in the resurrection of Jesus.”

Apply to study at Moore College before November 30 to avoid admin fees. But that date is only the beginning of your journey - meeting new friends, being part of a community committed to growing more like Christ, engaging with God’s Word, and experiencing ministry and mission.

What will your journey be?

Apply today, and find out. moore.edu.au/apply

Andrew Cameron Page 15

“I have lately been struck by how tough life seems to have become for many Christians.”

NEWS

NOVEMBER 2015

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Ps Phil comforts Singaporeans

JOHN SANDEMAN

JOHN SANDEMAN

Eternity talked to Operation Rescue to find out what antiabortion campagner Troy Newman was stopped from saying by being denied a visa.

What is the main thing Troy wanted to say in Australia?

Troy hoped to share about the Center for Medical Progress and about the impact it has had in America.

David Daleiden came to Troy because he was one of the few in the US who understood the need to report and seek prosecutions when crimes had been committed.

They came up with a strategy to expose the illegal sale of body parts we knew was going on, but had no current evidence. From the beginning, getting evidence to support prosecutions was always the goal.

(Editor’s note: Daleiden founded the Centre for Medical Progress, a fake company used in an underground videoing operation that has portrayed Planned Parenthood, the major abortion provider in the US, as a harvester of body parts for medical researchers, and exposed the gritty reality of abortion.)

How have the Centre for Medical Progress tapes changed the abortion debate in the US? The videos far exceeded our

Phil Pringle, leader of C3, has comforted the members of Singapore’s City Harvest Church following an adverse court finding against its leadership. Six leaders of Singapore’s largest pentecostal church with a congregation of 17,000 have been found guilty of misappropriating $A25 million in church funds.

The money was alleged to have been funnelled into the singing career of Pastor Kong Hee’s wife, Ho Yeow Sun. The Straits Times reports that the six face varying counts of criminal breach of trust and falsifying accounts.

Judge See Kee Oon said the facts were undisputed: the accused planned to channel City Harvest Church (CHC)’s Building Fund through music firm Xtron, which manages Ho, for the Crossover Project.

The project was started by the church in 2002 to evangelise through Ho’s pop music.

Pringle is advisory pastor to CHC. He told CHC’s citynews. org: “Obviously, the verdict is very serious. I was initially shocked, and then deeply concerned for the families – I’m praying for comfort for them.

“I feel that even though the judge commended them for intending to do the right thing, he [found]

Flickr / American Life League

What Troy Newman wanted to tell Australia

Troy Newman, anti-abortion campaigner banned from Australia wildest expectations. We knew there would be interest, but it was really off the charts. Immediately, states as well as congress began calling for investigations and the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

State attorneys-general launched criminal investigations.

For the first time, abortion became a centrepiece for presidential politics and all GOP candidates for president issued statements denouncing PP. The videos have been included as a topic in the Republican presidential debates.

People for the first time were getting a glimpse of what the unguarded attitude really is inside abortion clinics, and were repulsed at the callous and cavalier attitude

that abortionists had towards dismembering babies and selling their parts as a product.

Because the political impact has been so great, it has kept the subject of PP in the news, so more and more people are learning about it every day.

Do you believe you have shifted public opinion, and what is the most effective way of doing this?

Yes, there has certainly been an outcry against Planned Parenthood’s practices. The vast majority of Americans support defunding it.

When the first video was released, Planned Parenthood was completely blindsided ... The CMP videos were the top story ... PP remains on the defensive now.

that the investment strategy of CHC was not acceptable to the law.

I think the situation was that he said, ‘You meant well, but you did wrong’.”

CHC has been a major centre for evangelism in Singapore.

Eternity understands that its large congregation has been built up by conversions rather than transfer growth. In 2014, 5005 people came to Christ through CHC’s evangelistic work, and thousands more rededicated themselves to follow Christ.

The church responded on Facebook: “The judge has rendered his decision and, naturally, we are disappointed by the outcome.

Nonetheless, I know that Pastor Kong and the rest are studying the judgment intently and will take legal advice from their respective lawyers in the days to come.”

City News, a Christian news portal run by the church, reported: “It had been shown in evidence that the church did not actually lose money in these transactions; in fact, the bond investments had been fully redeemed with interest. The defence team also showed that none of the six had benefited personally from any of the transactions.

“However, the court noted that the prosecution’s case was not the intent for wrongful gain but wrongful loss to the church.”

NOVEMBER 2015

E ADRA AUSTRALIA SPONSORED PAGE 4

All I want for Christmas…

JOSH DYE I can still remember the disappointment. It was Christmas time and I must have been about eight years old. Like every other kid my age I’d been counting down the days until I could finally unwrap my stack of presents.

The night before, I was so excited that I could barely get to sleep. When morning finally arrived, I bounced out of bed and woke my bleary-eyed parents.

We sat around the lounge room taking turns opening the presents.

Things were going well – until I got to Grandma’s gift. I tore off the wrapping paper to find … some roll-on soap. I was devastated.

Some consoling words from my parents did little to pick up my spirits. It was a crushing blow.

These days, my Christmas expectations are much lower.

And I’ve come to realise just how wasteful Christmas can be. We end up giving presents for the sake of it – many of them useless gifts no one needs. I’ve been challenged with how to make a meaningful impact during a time filled with so much junk.

I was recently in Papua New Guinea where I met a lady named August. She’s a mother of four who has just learned to read, write and sew clothes at a project run by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA). With the money earned from selling the clothes she made, she was able to buy her own sewing machine. She

August and her husband now work together to support their family and help their children realise their potential. also taught her husband to sew, and together they have started a small business. Things are looking a lot brighter for them as a family.

Talking to August made me think about what’s really important.

When I asked about her dreams, I was blown away at how modest they were. “I have my dreams for my children and what I want

them to become in the future,” she smiled. “I want them to become teachers, nurses and leaders.”

And the key? Education.

“Literacy helps us to realise bigger and better things that will help change our lives,” August said.

I was surprised to find out that the average Papua New Guinean gets only about four years of

schooling and earns an annual income of about $24001.

Gender inequality and unacceptable levels of violence present significant barriers to the nation’s development. Men are almost twice as likely as women to hold a paid job and they earn twice as much2.

Education is proving to be a

powerful tool in building mutual respect between men and women, and it’s showing progress in reducing violence as well.

August’s husband is now proud of his wife, “It is good for me to look after my family and to see my wife being a leader in the church and the community and to see her playing key roles. I am happy as a husband to support my wife.”

Best of all, August is now using her skills to help others – to shine her light so that others can thrive too. “Whatever I know, I must teach other mothers to learn what I have learnt,” she said. Her impact is likely to affect dozens of people in the village.

When I think back to my experience as an eight-year-old, I cringe. Christmas can be such a selfish time, but it can also be a time of giving, sacrifice and generosity. So this Christmas I want things to change.

All I want for Christmas is for people like August to have the opportunities I take for granted.

Eating three meals a day, drinking fresh water, being sheltered from the rain and attending school.

Join me in giving a meaningful gift this Christmas. By visiting adra.org.au/christmas or calling 1800 242 372 you can help people like August and her children realise their potential and thrive.

Josh Dye is media and communication coordinator at ADRA Australia.

1. United Nations Human Development Index

2. 2011 PNG Country Gender Assessment

Christmas is an ed uc at io n

One in four gifts received this Christmas will be unwanted. Some will be re-gifted but others will be left unloved, unused and eventually thrown out.

While gender inequality and violence remain major challenges in Papua New Guinea, it hardly feels right to waste limited resources on junk.

Educating women and girls, helps them to become respected and valued, enabling them to make a real difference for their community.

Shine your light this Christmas. Give a meaningful gift that will empower women and girls in the Pacific.

Give today at adra.org.au or call 1800 242 372 Joyce

East New Britain Papua New Guinea

NOVEMBER 2015

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IN DEPTH

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Graeme Clark Inventor of the cochlear implant avoids pride – Page 7

What! No pearly gates?

Rory Shiner suggests that the dead in Christ are in a better place but they are not yet in the best place ‒ with Christ and his people in the new heaven and the new earth.

Rory Shiner reveals where we go when we die

In around the year 150, Justin Martyr, the famous early Christian apologist, was defending the Christian faith in conversation with his Jewish friend Trypho.

They were talking about what happens when you die and the

differences between Jewish and Christian belief, and Justin said this to Trypho: For if you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, but who do not admit this … who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls when they die are taken to heaven, do not imagine that they are Christians.

It’s a measure of how far we have come (or how far we have fallen) that what Justin Martyr describes

as a set of beliefs that are not even Christian, for us are almost the taken-for-granted Christian points of view: that we have souls, that they are immortal, and that they go to heaven when we die.

By contrast, we have been seeing that the Christian hope is not of immortal souls but resurrected bodies, a hope secured in the resurrection of Jesus. What does this mean for our other beliefs?

When we say resurrected bodies,

what exactly are we talking about?

These bodies? New bodies? And if we are waiting for the resurrection, where are the dead now? And where does the traditional language of “heaven” fit into all this?

In this chapter, we take a little interlude to address these issues.

They come under three headings: 1. How are the dead raised?

2. Where are they now?

3. Wow – look at what happens

to those who are still alive when Jesus returns!

How, Now, and Wow. (See what I did there?)

1. How?

If we are talking about resurrecting these bodies, how exactly is that going to happen? We know what happens to dead bodies – how on earth can we imagine they will be resurrected? Or is that even on the table? Are we given

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new bodies? Or spiritual bodies?

Fortunately for us, it is this very question that Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 15:35: But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”

In the context it is a cynical, scoffer’s question. And Paul addresses it with a brilliantly simple but profound metaphor. He asks us to consider a seed: You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. (vv. 36-37) Think about the relationship between a seed and a plant for a moment. One is small, round and hard; the other is long, green and lush. If you were a new visitor to this planet, they might strike you as so different that a relationship between the two might not even occur to you. The transformation the seed undergoes as it becomes a plant is enormous.

So, too, the bodies of the resurrection will be transformed bodies. They will not be these bodies pulled out of their graves and dusted off to resume play. As [Bishop N.T.] Wright puts it, “A seed does not come to life by being dug up, brushed down and restored to its pristine seediness”.

Seeds and plants are unlike each other – but they are not unrelated to each other. They are not like football and beetroots, humpbacked whales and the Royal Post, oranges and life insurance – things from completely different spheres of life. On the contrary – amazingly, given the seeming differences – the plant and the seed are intimately connected. Indeed, everything that the plant becomes was already inherent in the seed.

The plant is not the rejection of the seed – it is its fullness. When a seed becomes a plant, it is a fulfilment of the seed’s ends and purpose.

So it is with the resurrection of our bodies, says Paul. The relationship with this body and that body is like that.

Paul goes on: “But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body” (v.

38). Each kind of body has its own glory or splendour. They do not compete with each other, but shine out as the glorious things they are.

“It is no shame to a dog that it does not shine, or to a star that it does not bark.”

According to the Creation account (which Paul probably has in mind as he writes this section of 1 Corinthians 15), in days one to three God created the light (day and night), the sky and the seas, and the land, and then in days four to six he filled those parts of creation with the bodies appropriate to them: animals for the land, birds for the sky, fish for the seas, and so on. And each kind of creature has its own kind of body – birds have one kind of flesh, animals have another, fish have another. There are bodies in the heavens – that is, the sky – and there are bodies on the earth.

What’s Paul’s point? “So it is with the resurrection of the dead” (v. 42). Just as our old bodies were made for the old creation, with a glory befitting the old creation, so too God will make new bodies fit for the new creation – bodies made perfect for the place they will be. Our old bodies are perishable, dishonoured, weak and natural; they will be raised imperishable, glorious, powerful and spiritual (vv. 42-45).

According to the Bible, there are two great bodies in history: the body of Adam and the body of Jesus. The one, Adam, the first man, was natural; the second, the

NOVEMBER 2015

The Lord’s Prayer has it right: “your kingdom come” (to earth) not “your kingdom go” (to heaven). last man, Jesus, was spiritual (v. 45).

“Spiritual” here is not being used in opposition to “physical”.

He means “spiritual” as opposed to “natural”. He’s talking about the body’s power source, not about its properties. It’s like a train powered by steam and a train powered by electricity. A steam train is not made of steam, but run by it. And if a steam train is converted to electricity, what changes is not the constitution of its body but the source of its energy. (If you happen to be a trainspotter and that analogy doesn’t work on some technical level, my humble apologies.) In the same way, our bodies are controlled by a natural power source in this creation, but in the new creation they will be powered by the Spirit of God. We who bear the image of the earthly man now will, at the resurrection, bear the image of the heavenly man then.

That’s the first question: How?

2. Now?

Second, where are the dead in Christ now? To find an answer, we will go first to the main New Testament passage that directly addresses the issue, and then we’ll sneak in on a few passages that don’t directly address the issue, but which we might be able to raid from the side for some suggestive clues.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 The passage that addresses this issue most directly is 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18: But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. (v. 13) The question, clearly, is the state of those who have died in Christ.

Quite probably, it hadn’t occurred to the Thessalonians that any of their loved ones would die before Christ returned. But since some have now died, they needed to swot up on the answer. For us, the answer is so obvious: they are in heaven – right? But that’s not what Paul says: For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. (v. 14) Do you see what he does? Where are the dead who died in Christ?

How should we think of them?

Answer: They have “fallen asleep” in him, and, at the resurrection, God will bring all those people

with Jesus. That is to say, they will be raised – which is confirmed in verse 16: “The dead in Christ will rise first”. Now, they are asleep in him; then, they will be raised with him. Either way, Jesus has them.

Overwhelmingly, the language used by the New Testament to describe the Christian dead is that they are “asleep”. And it’s not just that they are asleep, but that they are asleep “in the Lord”. Why does the Bible use the language of sleep? Two reasons, I think: firstly, because “asleep” shapes how we are to relate to those who have died in Christ. What do you do with sleeping people? Well, you don’t try to contact them. You don’t talk to them, but neither do you worry about them. If you want to talk to them, you wait till they are awake.

So, too, with us. Scripture forbids us from contacting the dead.

Rather, we trust that they are in the care of God, that God will raise them up at the right time, and that we will be able to commune with them then.

But secondly, being asleep is the perfect picture for resurrection.

Asleep, then awake. Horizontal, then vertical.

“

The night, then the dawn. We sleep, we lay down, knowing that in the dawn we will rise.”

What about heaven?

Why doesn’t Paul just say they are “in heaven”? Well, surprisingly for us, the Bible rarely (if ever) uses “heaven” in the way we use it. In the Bible, the word heaven/heavens almost always just means the skies.

Heaven is also used derivatively to describe “God’s space – the place where God is. So the Lord’s Prayer addresses “Our Father in heaven” (as opposed to our fathers on earth).

Some verses that may at first sight appear to use “heaven” in the way that is now so commonplace (i.e. to refer to our final home and hope) are, on closer inspection, doing something sightly different.

The early verses of Colossians, for example, speak of “the hope laid up for you in heaven” (Col 1:5). But notice that here heaven is the place our hope is stored, not the object of our hope itself. The same sort

of thing is going on in Matthew 6:19-20, where we are encouraged to lay up for ourselves “treasures in heaven”. This is not because heaven is where we will go to collect them, but because heaven is where God is keeping them safe for us (see also 1 Peter 1:4). When the Gospel of Matthew uses the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” it is as a synonym for the kingdom of God (“heaven” standing for “God” in the way “the crown” stands for the Queen, or “the turf” stands for the racing track). And, of course, the kingdom of God is the reign of God over his people. That’s why in the Lord’s Prayer we don’t pray “Your people go” (to heaven) but “your kingdom come” (to earth).

Sometimes our prayers are better theology than our theology.

But does the Bible ever use “heaven” to mean “the place where the dead in Christ go”, or even “our final home”? Well, not anywhere I can see. Because the truth is, the biblical hope is for a new heaven and a new earth. The biblical hope is that God will redeem this creation, not redeem us from this creation. It’s not that we will be liberated from this world, but that this world itself will be liberated, as Paul tells us (see Romans 8:21).

The idea that the dead are asleep has led some Christians to believe a doctrine called “soul sleep”. This teaches that there is no consciousness at all for the dead between now and the resurrection of the dead. Tempting though this approach is, there are a few passages that on balance seem to rule it out for Christians. Chief among them is Philippians 1:2024, where Paul says that to be away from the body (i.e. dead) is to be at home with the Lord. Paul says here that to be dead is “far better” (v. 23) – that “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (v. 21). Surely, then, Paul envisions some sort of conscious enjoyment of Christ before the resurrection? Similarly, in 2 Corinthians 5, Paul expected to be away from the body but at home with the Lord. And Jesus tells the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). Again, it would be surprising if that promise didn’t imply some sort of conscious enjoyment of God at the point of death.

So, where are the dead in Christ now? They are asleep, they are at rest, and they are with God. Are they in heaven? Well, I guess Christ is at the right hand of the Father,

and the Father is in heaven, so OK. But it’s not the language the Bible typically uses for the dead in Christ, and using this language carelessly today can import other things that we don’t want to say.

For example, when we habitually use the language of heaven for the final hope of those who die in Christ, we encourage a habit of mind that makes the resurrection of our bodies a kind of unnecessary addition to our hope, rather than the centrepiece of it.

Remember, Jesus says to the repentant thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in Paradise”.

The dead in Christ are in a better place; but they are not yet in the best place. The better place is with Christ, but the best place is with Christ and his people in their bodies, in the new heavens and the new earth. If I can put it this way, the dead in Christ still hope along with us. They are waiting, like we are, for a better day – for the day of resurrection.

For my money, the sort of language we should use of the dead who have died in Christ is captured in Revelation 14:13: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labours, for their deeds follow them!”

What is their situation now? It is blessed. Where are they now? They are “in the Lord”. What is their experience now? They are “at rest”.

Does the life they lived for Christ have any meaning? Yes, for their deeds will follow them. Beautiful.

3. Wow!

In 1 Corinthians 15:50-57, Paul predicts one more question: what happens to those who are alive at the coming of Jesus? If the dead are given resurrected bodies, well, that’s all well and good for them.

But what about those who are alive at the coming of the Lord? Do we, musical chairs-style, just get stuck in whatever body we had at the time of his coming?

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. (v. 50) Paul says that just as a body sown in the ground, a buried body, needs to be raised in power, so too the living – flesh and blood – cannot inherit the kingdom of God. That is, your body as it is now is not fit for the age to come. “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (v. 51). Not everyone will be dead at the coming of Christ, but everyone – dead or alive – will be transformed when he comes: “… we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (vv. 51-52).

Conclusion

Back to the seed. C.S. Lewis once said that if you could see now what your neighbour will be then at the resurrection, you would be so taken with them that you would be sorely tempted to bow down and worship. We will be changed, and we will be glorious. However, we won’t be beyond recognition.

We won’t look at each other then and say: “What?! I never knew you were… !?” No, we will look at each other then and say, I think, “Wow! Now that is what you were always supposed to be!” We will be most ourselves, most fulfilled, most who we were always meant to be, because then we will be like Jesus (1 John 3:2).

This is an edited extract from Raised Forever: Jesus’ resurrection and ours By Rory Shiner, Matthias Media, 16.99

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New ears to hear

Graeme Clark is world famous but avoids pride TESS HOLGATE

The University of Melbourne

It’s two days after his 80th birthday when I meet Professor Graeme Clark in his office at the Centre for Neural Engineering at the University of Melbourne. He still works there.

Professor Clark is the inventor of the cochlear implant, a device that can give hearing to a profoundly deaf person.

From early on, Professor Clark knew he wanted to “fix ears” – to give someone the ability to hear – but it would take him many years to achieve his goal.

Carrying this underlying hope, Clark enrolled in a PhD at the University of Sydney, looking at electrical stimulation of the auditory system. He hesitated to tell people – even his supervisor – what he really wanted to achieve.

“All of the physiologists at the best university at the time didn’t believe that it would work; one of the leading Americans had said that this would not work, and others had said so.

“I suppose I just felt led that this was my calling. I prayed about it, and so I had to leave it to God as to whether it would or wouldn’t work, but I felt someone had to do it properly.”

His faith in God has been a constant companion along this scientific journey: from a conventional church upbringing to his student days when he asked Christ into his life and had “an extraordinary experience” of the reality of God. “I said to myself, ‘It’s no good just reading the Bible and studying it – that’s theoretical. It might make some sense, but I’ve got to live it. If it doesn’t help and if it isn’t vital in one’s life, then it’s not really true.’”

Clark believes that hearing is the primary sense for a Christian. “It’s about understanding language, Scripture and the meaning of words. After all, ‘I am the Word,’ said Jesus. If you understand words you really understand what it is to be human, relating to God.” Aged 34, with PhD in hand, Clark took up a position as the first Chair of Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne. He held the position from 1970 until 2004.

The role required him to be a professor, surgeon, teacher, politician and fundraiser. At

Inventor of the cochlear ear implant, Graeme Clark: “When I hear a profoundly deaf child with an implant speak, it just blows my mind away.” the same time, he was trying to continue his research into electrical stimulation.

Clark was feeling a lot of pressure from the scientific community to publish his findings quickly because European and American researchers were beginning to seriously investigate electrical stimulation, and Clark needed to publish first to secure further funding for his research.

He was faced with a race against the clock to get his research finished.

“It was like David facing Goliath,” says Clark. “It really was.”

Clark found comfort in verses such as Philippians 4:6-7 during stressful periods: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

After several years of work, Clark tested a prototype of the cochlear implant on a human patient, Ron Saunders. The implant worked: Ron could hear sound. It was 1978.

IT’S MY

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But the heart of Clark’s work sought to give people speech understanding, not merely sound.

He says that at the time it was “relatively easy” to give a deaf person some feeling and experience of sound.

“But speech understanding requires much more specific targeting of electrical stimulation.

It requires a lot of sophisticated understanding of how the brain processes speech, which wasn’t really being done by all of those in the field,” he says.

And so Clark went back to school – in both Sydney and the UK – to learn more about how the brain works and how to enable someone to hear speech.

With the success of the prototype, Clark and his team were able to continue developing better implants, and since 1983, cochlear implants have been commercially available.

“When I hear a profoundly deaf child with a cochlear implant speak, it just blows my mind away. You asked me how it makes me feel. Well, it brings tears to my eyes.”

But not everyone is happy. The

deaf community has sometimes felt threatened by the invention and success of the cochlear implant, occasionally suggesting that its invention is destroying deaf culture.

“I have tried to understand the deaf culture ever since I did my PhD,” says Clark. “I did it at the University of Sydney opposite the deaf school, so I could see them using sign language.”

Clark refers to 18th-century French educator Abbé de l’Épée and the founding of the French Deaf School in 1760, saying, “I think that it has been important to give children an opportunity to communicate. It’s a very important thing to give them a language of their own.

“But times have changed, and now there is an opportunity for children to learn auditory verbal communication, which is enabling them to mix in the society and go to church, for example. [They can] meet with friends, have a whole range of Christian and non-Christian, believing and unbelieving friends.”

Accusations levelled at him over the years include that he, and the

Cochlear Institute, forced people to have an implant. He denies those claims.

“I understand they have a community and don’t want to lose that,” says Clark. “It’s important for them to have that sense. But more and more, that community is dwindling.”

Clark does not boast. Even when I give him the chance to say how proud he is of his achievements, he deflects.

“I had my pride very well dented years ago when I started this work because I got needled and tremendously criticised, so that at that stage any sense of pride was all gone. If you’re doing it through a faith commitment to God, then I don’t think there’s a case for that sort of pride.”

He has some advice for young people just starting out: “Never give up, that’s for sure. Spend time thinking rather than just doing. It’s important to think through things and have ideas.”

A recently launched biography, Graeme Clark: The Man who Invented the Bionic Ear by Mark Worthing, is available here: http:// www.iscast.org/node/1030

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IN DEPTH

8

NOVEMBER 2015

Blyth spirits: buying an

KALEY PAYNE

When two Christians walked into a pub, they weren’t the butt of an old joke. And they weren’t there to have a drink or a flutter on the pokies. They were the new owners, and they were there to stay.

Naomi and Jarrod Egan knew that God wanted them to do something big. But buying a twostorey country hotel, with saloon bar, gaming rooms, bistro, beer garden and 20 bedrooms, was not something they predicted.

In the beginning, the Egans didn’t know quite what they were looking for, to follow God’s call.

But with Jarrod’s experience at Teen Challenge and Lutheran Community Housing, and Naomi’s passion to help women considering abortion keep their babies, they had a few ideas of the kind of place that might help them continue their work on a larger scale.

“I guess we were looking for a big house, essentially. A place we could offer affordable housing and run a business to pay for that housing,” said Jarrod.

The Egans looked at the gamut of businesses that play a role in keeping a community together, thinking those would gain them a respected platform from which to make a difference.

“We looked at everything from small supermarkets to post offices to general stores. We looked at

Blyth’s gathering place since 1876: “You don’t have to drink alcohol just because you’re in a hotel.” several hotels. Everywhere we looked, the doors closed quickly,” said Jarrod.

With the Blyth Hotel, things changed. Price drops on the property made it more affordable and its size was promising.

“It’s huge – and we saw the potential,” said Naomi. “God opened all the right doors and, before we knew it, we were here.”

The Egans bought the Blyth Hotel within six weeks of finding it. First, they bought the business contained in the hotel with the intention of also eventually buying the freehold – the building itself – in the near future.

Blyth is a small town of just over 300 people in the mid-north of South Australia, about 130km north of Adelaide.

Like so many other country hotels, the Blyth Hotel, built in 1876, stands proudly and prominently in the heart of town.

When Naomi and Jarrod arrived in Blyth with their two young daughters, they knew a lot of work lay ahead.

“When we got here, the building was very dark. It was dirty; there was lots of lace and black. It was run down and the rooms upstairs hadn’t been occupied in many years,” said Naomi. “We’re turning it from a house of darkness to a house of light.”

The Egans certainly stand out.

The stereotype of an Australian publican is of a beer-drinking, cattle-dog toting, larrikin rather than a Christian.

“People don’t expect to walk into

a hotel and find a pair of Christians behind the bar,” says Naomi.

And, far from eagerly waiting by the draught taps, the Egans are discouraging excessive drinking.

“We’ve worked really hard on the responsible service of alcohol.

That’s something that’s never been done here before.”

Jarrod has driven patrons home and both Naomi and Jarrod have been known to offer water, soft drink, juice or coffee rather than a beer.

“People think we’re bizarre. We run a hotel but we tell them, ‘You don’t have to drink alcohol just because you’re in a hotel.’ ” Not just bizarre: it’s a strategy that possibly makes very little business sense. Once they have purchased the freehold, the Egans

will also be able to get rid of the four poker machines and the gaming room, another source of revenue. That plan isn’t widely known in the community, but it’s something particularly on Naomi’s heart. They will be the first things to go once the freehold sale goes through.

To compensate, the Egans are looking to build up other parts of the business, especially their bistro meal trade. In an average week, Naomi – who does all the cooking – will make up to 300 meals. She’s also making meals to give away, to people who are increasingly visiting because they have heard that the Egans might be able to help them.

The donated meals are paid for through a swear jar that sits

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9

outback pub for Jesus on the bar, which Naomi says helps patrons to think about their language and behaviour. They know that when they put money into the jar, it’s going towards the ingredients to make meals donated to the community.

“The longer we’re here, the more we’re getting people walk in asking for us because they know we want to help. They might be homeless or hungry. We feed them; we let them use our shower. There are so many people here who don’t feel loved, like they’ve got no one who’s interested in them. If you can love and support them, that’s grace,” says Naomi.

But not everyone has been pleased with the Egans’ plans and changes to the Blyth. It’s been three years since they made the move to the town, and the family still bears the scars of entering a community where the majority didn’t want them, or their God. “A lot of people don’t like us.

We’ve had our car vandalised; our children have been bullied. We’ve been harassed, and the hotel’s been broken into a few times. It’s been really, really hard,” says Naomi.

“Some days you think you can’t do it any more. It’s a lot of work and a huge amount of pressure to make this idea a reality, and then you’ve got people coming in and they’re so anti-Christian. But we know it’s not really them, it’s the spirit that works within them.”

A pub family: Naomi and Jarrod Egan and their daughters.

Naomi says neither she nor Jarrod was fully prepared for the attacks they would receive.

“I don’t think we really understood the spiritual side of what we were called to do.

We’re taking over one of Satan’s strongholds.

“The hotel in this community has always been run to destroy people’s

lives. We’re trying to change that.”

The Egans have worked hard to brighten up the Blyth both physically and spiritually. There’s new paint, Bibles in the bar, a prayer room, a Christian library upstairs and Bible study groups held each week. They started church in the pub on Sunday mornings to a warm reception,

though they had to put that on hold after a few months because running a church and a pub became just too much.

“Jarrod and I were working seven days a week. Our day would start at 7am, preparing for breakfast and cleaning this huge building, and would often end at 2 or 3 in the morning. We’re financially limited, and there’s not much money to pay for extra help. We’re running everything ourselves.

“So we decided to stop the Sunday pub church for a while so we could have Sundays off to go to church ourselves. We needed to be fed by God’s word, and be part of a supportive Christian community.

We were close to burn-out.”

The Baptist church in the nearby regional hub of Clare has been particularly supportive of the Egans’ work at the Blyth, from scrubbing floors to fixing the enormous leaking roof, to serving as prayer partners.

“There’s a whole lot more people involved in helping us and praying for us than you would see if you visited us at the hotel,” says Jarrod.

The Egans have a big vision for the Blyth and they’re praying for wisdom on which part of the dream to tackle first.

On the large property behind the hotel, they have plans for a youth shed – a place for young people in Blyth to hang out, giving them somewhere to go and

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something to do. There are also the 20 bedrooms upstairs in the hotel which remain empty. The Egans need to get the building up to fire safety standards and complete renovations. It’s a slow process – and an expensive one – but Naomi and Jarrod are patient and trust in God’s provision.

“We’ve had weeks where we’ve had $20,000 worth of bills to pay for the hotel and we didn’t have it.

We pray every morning as a family and we read the Bible before we start our day and we’ve found the more we press in to Jesus, the stronger our trust in him and the provision is always there.

“By the end of the week, enough bookings come in and the money is there. We’ve prayed and then the phone will ring and it’ll be a booking of ten or 30 or 50 people, which is just amazing.”

In three years, Naomi and Jarrod have seen fruit from their labour. Non-Christian people have sought prayer and many have asked what it is that keeps them going, opening up opportunities to openly share about their faith.

“Eventually I’d like to drop the ‘hotel’ from the business name,” says Naomi.

“Call it an inn or something that’s more like a meeting place.

A place where Jesus might hang out, and he hung out with lots of different people. That’s the place for the gospel to be shared.”

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IN DEPTH

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NOVEMBER 2015

KJV team worked as individuals KALEY PAYNE

Maria Anna Rogers

The earliest known draft of the King James Bible has been discovered in Cambridge.

Professor Jeffrey Allan Miller from Montclair State University in New Jersey made the discovery in the archives of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, UK. Two the college’s former Masters were part of the Cambridge-based scholarly team who worked on the King James Bible translation from 1604 to 1611.

One, Samuel Ward (15721643), is the author of the draft manuscript notebook that Professor Miller discovered.

The discovery of Samuel Ward’s draft notebook has been heralded as a major discovery for what is considered the most significant version of the Bible in history.

Speaking to Eternity, David Norton, emeritus professor at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, and a King James Bible scholar and author, said the draft was important “for showing a part of the work on the KJB happening: the scholarship and care that individuals brought to the project … ” Until now, there have been no early drafts of the translation process uncovered for the King James Bible. “The limited nature of what has previously come to light has left a lot to be desired, and many questions unanswered,” Professor Miller wrote in The

Big discovery: Samuel Ward’s draft notebook for the King James Bible Times Literary Supplement, where he announced his discovery last week. To have an early draft of any part of the King James Bible, “unmistakeably in the hand of one of the King James translators”, says Professor Miller, “points the way to a fuller, more complex understanding than ever before of the process by which the KJB, the most widely read work in English of all time, came to be.”

The translation of the King James Bible began in 1604 at the behest of King James I of England. The King commissioned

54 of England’s greatest scholars including Samuel Ward into six teams or “companies”. The teams were to create an “authorised” Bible that would cast off the King’s concerns of anti-royalist margin notes in the first English Bible translation, the Geneva Bible (1560), and would update the later Bishop’s Bible (1568). The Bishop’s Bible was prescribed as the base text for the new King James version.

Professor Miller said Samuel Ward’s papers had been catalogued in the 1980s, including the

notebook, which was labelled a “verse-by-verse biblical commentary … with Greek word studies, and some Hebrew notes”.

The part of the Bible referred to

by Ward was not specified, and no further study was done. But when Professor Miller looked more closely at the manuscripts, he discovered it was a sequence of running notes on the translation of the King James Bible’s Apocrypha. The Apocrypha was placed between the Old and New Testaments in the first version of the KJB and published with the rest of the King James Bible for 274 years. It was removed in 1885 amid controversy over whether the books were “God-inspired”.

Examining Ward’s draft, Professor Miller told The New York Times, “You can actually see the way Greek, Latin and Hebrew are all feeding into what will become the most widely read work of English literature of all time ... It gets you so close to the thought process, it’s incredible.”

Professor Miller says one of the most valuable insights offered

by Ward’s drafts is the ability to examine the interplay between individual and group translation.

It has historically been understood that the King James Bible was translated by members of a team working together. Yet Ward’s draft clearly shows the work of an individual rather than a draft that can be seen as the product of collaboration.

“It forces us to think harder about the extent to which all the companies necessarily set about their work in the same or even a similar way,” he said.

“The KJB, in short, may be far more a patchwork of individual translations – the product of individual translators and individual companies working in individual ways – than has ever been properly recognised.”

Professor Norton says Ward’s notebooks suggest that the rules laid down for the translation by King James I were not necessarily followed to the letter, something he has previously suggested in his academic works.

“It looks as if Samuel Ward was working as an individual on two particular parts of the Apocrypha,” Professor Norton told Eternity.

But he said he has asked Professor Miller if it’s possible that the work could have been preparatory work for an Apocrypha company meeting.

“Such questions matter if we are to reach a clear understanding of the expanding range of evidence about how the KJB was made,” he said.

Nevertheless, the finding is significant, giving scholars the opportunity to look closely at the translation of the Bible that has had what Professor Norton calls “unparalleled influence on English-speaking peoples’ religious consciousness, and an influence comparable with Shakespeare’s on the English language.”

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THE BIG PICTURE

NOVEMBER 2015

11

The dark heart of the Middle East MARK HADLEY

Director Michael Ware, left, is drawn into the evil he films in Only the Dead and Plato, but most likely the work of 20th-century philosopher George Santayana: “The poor fellows think they are safe! They think that the war is over! Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

Ware uses the thought to reflect on humanity’s seeming inability to leave violence behind.

His disembodied voice wonders whether we will ever be able to move beyond the sort of inhumanity that characterises the Taliban, al Qaeda and now ISIL. It’s not just the perpetrators or the

victims who are scarred by such extreme violence but those who report on it as well. Ware says his exposure to the terrorist leader’s atrocities wore away at his soul, reducing his essential humanity even after the terrorist’s death: “Zarqawi’s men kept on fighting, the dark idea he had unleashed, too powerful to contain. He showed us recesses in our hearts we didn’t know we had. I was just so twisted up inside. At some dark hour I became a man I never thought I’d be.”

Franco Pagetti

Only the Dead is both riveting and revolting – a film that should be viewed with extreme caution but viewed nonetheless. It contains footage that reveals the darkest heart of militant Islam, as well as the shadows in those who chase their stories and ultimately we who watch. According to the director, “We all have dark places, deep within. I discovered a place inside me I never knew I had.”

Michael Ware is an Australian journalist who spent seven years in Iraq working for CNN and Time magazine. Only the Dead is pieced together from the horrors he filmed.

The documentary covers part of the Iraqi insurgency when al-Qaeda and the group that formed the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were indistinguishable. What continues in Syria today is a mere reflection of the tactics learnt at the knee of infamous al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

First and foremost, the film is an examination of Ware’s own descent into the evil he was purporting to report on. The result is not only a disturbing revelation of the barbarous acts taking place at that time but the transformation of the normal people caught up in them.

“I felt [Zarqawi] had made me complicit somehow in his war. [But] if he was obscene, the dark idea of him was becoming perverse.”

The documentary takes its name from a quote variously attributed to General Douglas MacArthur

Ware reached this conclusion when he found himself filming the slow death of an Iraqi insurgent wounded by US Marines. His unrelenting camera work testifies better than his words to how unconcerned he had become.

It would be reassuring to believe the darkness Ware discusses is present only in the hearts of the fighters committing atrocities in the Middle East, that it is somehow a product of an aberrant religion, but this film won’t permit that conclusion. According to Jesus, it is not only the Islamic heart but the human one that is sick. Given the right set of opportunities, we are capable of any sin (Mk 7:21-23).

And if the illness is a spiritual one, then the cure is also. We may support diplomatic efforts and even military intervention, but they cannot transform the heart. Only the gospel will end that sort of conflict in the Middle East. However, seeing it conquer will take more courage and commitment on the part of believers than any taskforce aimed at mere civil peace. As the Apostle Paul concludes: “How can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14) See an interview with Michael Ware on publicchristianity.org

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The Dressmaker masterfully reveals Tilly’s identity is a jumbled mess. Her unresolved history of abuse and blame stop her from clarifying who she is.

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NOVEMBER 2015

BIBLE @ WORK

Literacy brings light Arati, left, and Sahana in their one-room hut in a remote village seven hours north of Lahore, where they eagerly study the Bible ANNE LIM The streets of Pakistan teem with rickshaws, ox carts, donkey carts, motorbikes and trucks, all weaving between lanes, leaving the slenderest of margins, while blasting their horn. I feel worried as our minivan almost clips a boy carrying a heavy load of boxes on a motorbike, but instead we roar past, overtaking a rusty bus with passengers squashed against the windows like sardines.

I am travelling at speed through the Bahawalpur District, in Punjab, a rich and green area of five rivers dotted with date palms, cotton fields and eucalypts imported from Australia. I am on my way to meet Sahana and Arati*, new Christians who are bringing the light of God’s word into their family and their mainly Hindu village thanks to Pakistan Bible Society’s Adult Literacy Programme.

There is no road to this village of mud huts, built on a tributary of one of the many canals constructed to divert water from the rivers, so we walk for about half a kilometre through a cotton field to reach it.

With no electricity and no

running water, Sahana and Arati’s lives are harsh. But their attitude is extraordinary. They speak fervently of the light that has shone on their village as a result of the Literacy Programme, funded primarily by donors from Australia.

Before she learned to read, Arati worked tirelessly under a hot sun picking cotton to earn just $1 a day. As a low-caste Hindu, she had little status and her life was a daily grind. As soon as she could read, she realised that the cotton buyers were cheating her by knocking off a few kilos from her weighed cotton.

“When they weighed the cotton, I believed what they said,” Arati explains. “But after studying I read the scales and I knew the actual weight and now the men can’t cheat us.”

But the beacon of literacy has changed Arati’s life in an even more powerful way. Through reading the Bible, she has learned of Jesus’ sacrificial love and found acceptance in God’s family.

“Jesus died for us, and there’s no one in the world who has died and risen again. We appreciate this love,” she says.

Arati credits her big sister

Sahana with sparking her desire to read the Bible. She says the whole family noticed a great change in Sahana when she returned to the village after living with a Christian family for three years in a nearby city. Through attending church with them she came to trust in “the alive God” and on her return shared her faith with family members, neighbours and friends.

“When Sahana came back she was different,” says Arati. “When she prayed early in the morning we had no idea what she was doing.

We thought it might be a magical charm. Then Sahana explained to us about Christianity. We were touched by the love shared with us

by Christians, so the whole family converted to believe in Jesus.”

Through their Christian witness seven of the 200 families in the village have now become Christian too. And their elder brother, who once mocked their Christian faith, and wouldn’t allow them to sing songs or pray in the home, is studying to be a pastor.

“There is a big change in our village since the start of literacy classes in our village,” Arati says. “We are very happy and our families are also very happy.”

After our interview, Arati and Sahana take me through the warren of dusty lanes to a colourful marquee, where 60 or so women in vivid dresses from about 15 surrounding villages have gathered to celebrate their graduation from the literacy programme.

The average age here is only about 20 but most are already married with a couple of kids and burdened with domestic responsibilities. Their success in the six-month course has not come easily and has required courage in the face of opposition, as a lively skit demonstrates.

Arati puts glasses halfway down her nose and sits on a chair to play the part of a mother who blocks her daughter from going to literacy class by keeping her at home to do the sweeping, the cooking and all the other domestic chores.

“What do you want to be educated for anyway?” a rich lady objects. “What’s the point? You’re only going to end up a servant!”

Another young woman sways on to the scene acting as the drunken brother demanding money for more alcohol, and when “he” discovers there is none, demands his sister hand over the household

gods to sell for drink.

As the daughter tries to placate her brother, a teacher (played

by Sahana) explains that if the daughter attends her free adult literacy class, life will improve for the whole family. They will fight less and have more respect for each other. And when anyone falls sick the daughter will able to read the label on the medicine.

After the skit it’s time for Anthony Lamuel, general secretary of Pakistan Bible Society, to hand out certificates and large-print Urdu Bibles to the teachers to give to their students. It is a time of hilarity and celebration as these women hoist their heavy load of precious Bibles.

As we are leaving, a female literacy teacher rushes up and hands me a note signed by a male teacher called Haroon. In it he pleads for the adult literacy programme to continue because “there are many more illiterate women” in this area. *Not their real names. + To help teach a Pakistani woman to read and become a beacon of God’s light in her community, please donate at biblesociety.org.au/ pakistanep

NOVEMBER 2015

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OPINION

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Hallelujah!

David’s Secret Chord +

Greg Clarke on the benefits of re-creation Michael Jensen takes saying “Thank God” seriously

Wikimedia / Gerard van Honthorst’s painting: King David Playing the Harp

Natasha Moore

Geraldine Brooks, author of Year of Wonders, March and People of the Book, has written a new novel about the life of King David. How might Christians feel about her retelling of this ancient story?

The afterword to Geraldine Brooks’ new novel, The Secret Chord, notes that “David is the first man in literature whose story is told in detail from early childhood

to extreme old age. Some scholars have called this biography the oldest piece of history writing, predating Herodotus by at least half a millennium.”

The life of King David, taken as a whole, is astonishing and tragic and glorious and disturbing. But like the rest of those enormous chunks of the Bible made up of historical narrative, it’s strangely

rare for believers to read it that way. We tend to engage with these stories piecemeal: chapter by chapter, over days or weeks, in sermons or devotions, as freestanding episodes holding the promise of nuggets of insight to be dug out and set on the mantelpiece.

We need constant reminders of “context” to be able to follow them – the who’s who, the who-did-what

(and to whom), the state-of-theunion for Israel at a given moment.

Needless to say, the novelist or the filmmaker approaches such narratives very differently from the careful exegete. Not that their efforts amount to heedlessness: much painstaking research goes into these retellings. Even if you lament the version of Noah’s ark or continued page 15

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CHARITY FEATURE

14

NOVEMBER 2015

Charities and human rights

The coming plebiscite on same-sex marriage will cause us to consider the boundaries of religious freedom within Australian law. In the August edition of Eternity, I directed attention to the potential impact of same-sex marriage on the charitable endorsement of religious institutions in Australia.

I did so having regard to the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Roberts in Obergefell v Hodges, the June 2015 US Supreme Court decision that found a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

The salience of the issue is demonstrated by the fact that the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC) has recently clarified on its website that where a religious charity “routinely” breaches antidiscrimination law, it is likely to be

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Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP

Mark Fowler on guarding truth Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher warns of “despotism” pursuing an unlawful purpose, and will not be entitled to charitable status.

In his address last month to the Centre for Independent Studies, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher, citing the case of bakers who were fined for declining to supply a cake to a same-sex couple for their wedding in Oregon, argued that, “democracy degenerates into despotism when it licenses such vilification of people’s conscientious beliefs.”

The right to religious freedom under Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which

Australia has ratified, applies to all, not just religious institutions and their employees.

However, as Associate Professor Neil Foster writes, “the only major provision in [Australian] antidiscrimination legislation designed to provide protection for religious freedom for general citizens (as opposed to religious organisations or ‘professionals’) is contained in the law of Victoria.”

Furthermore, last year the Victorian Court of Appeal held that the right to religious freedom did not extend to religious institutions when they undertake commercial operations. Such is inconsistent

with the extension of religious freedom rights to all within a community, as recognised under international law.

Freedom to act in accordance with one’s conscience (including as informed, or burdened, by religious conviction) is at the root of the post-Enlightenment vision of the modern liberal state. The concern with antidiscrimination law is its potential to breach this fundamental citizen/state compact. The state risks abdicating its hard-won post-Enlightenment role as the champion of the individual conscience by proposing that the deeply held convictions of religious people may be compromised in the interests of preventing offence or in maintaining convenience of service supply.

And while the religious freedom rights of citizens in Australia are not recognised, even the limited recognitions that are offered to religious institutions are under challenge. Various submissions to the current Australian Law Reform Commission Freedoms Inquiry argue for the limiting or removal of exemptions granted to religious institutions in anti-discrimination law.

The 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta recently garnered the attention of the nation, with the document being celebrated as

a founding stone for our modern constitutional protections and freedoms. In the associated media coverage, it struck me that there was a near-total silence on the first clause of the 1215 Magna Carta: “quod Anglicana ecclesia libera sit” (“the English Church shall be free”). In its historical context, this clause was directed at preserving the church’s right to determine appointments to bishoprics, and hence the right to independently determine doctrine.

In 2012 the analogy to modernday anti-discrimination law was not lost on the US Supreme Court when, citing the Magna Carta, it unanimously upheld the right of a religious school to determine appointments to its staff as a fundamental expression of the right to religious freedom.

The ability of a religious community to determine and proclaim truth is central to the survival of truth in the conscience of its members and for the acquittal of its role in offering eternal hope to the wider community. Any removal of that ability would be a restriction on these historically hard-won liberties, which arguably are a cornerstone of the development of freedom within the Western legal tradition.

Mark Fowler is a director of Nevman and Turner, lawyer.

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NOVEMBER 2015

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Hallelujah! David’s Secret Chord from page 13

Wikimedia/ Jan Arkesteijn

the Exodus that comes out at the end, for the Hollywood producer or the bestselling author to deem them a worthy investment testifies to how engrossing – bluntly, how entertaining – the stories of the Bible can be.

There’s plenty in Brooks’ latest book for the fastidious believer to be miffed about, if they choose.

Predictably, she plays up the love between David and Jonathan as an unambiguously sexual relationship.

Gratingly, she drops the words of Ecclesiastes straight into the mouth of the boy Solomon. And, sure, she takes a few liberties with the chronology, massaging events into a sequence that’s more psychologically intelligible to the 21st-century reader.

But if we’re open to it, this fictional appropriation of David’s life has a lot to offer the Christian reader. Its very estrangement of the familiar – Brooks opts, for example, to use the Hebrew of the Tanakh for names; Shmuel for Samuel, Shlomo for Solomon, Yoav for Joab – can do us a great service, making off with our old familiar tales and characters and then giving them back, renewed.

The Secret Chord teased out for me threads in the Bible account that I’d never noticed before: the contempt that David’s eldest brother shows him (“I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is”) when he shows up

Saul and David from Rembrandt Harmensz at the Israelite front lines, soon to fell Goliath. The tragedy of his first wife, Saul’s daughter Michal, who is “given” to another man when David is driven into exile; when David becomes king and demands her back, years later, her new husband follows her, weeping, as she’s taken away. Brooks guesses at the life they’ve made together in the interval. The appalling toll of war; the strange battle between the armies of David and his son Absalom, of which we’re told that “the forest swallowed up more men that day than the sword.”

This is what the novel can do for us, that we struggle to do for ourselves as we encounter the efficiency and relative impassivity of the biblical account. Each

of these vital human beings – unstable, doomed Saul; the foreign princess Maakah, whose two children by David wind up as the “desolate” Tamar and the treacherous Absalom; impetuous Joab, commander of David’s armies – hopes and suffers through long years of heavy experience.

These stories are easily told in just a few lines or chapters that are nonetheless loaded with grief and meaning, and (often) faith, if we’re willing to seek it out.

The Secret Chord helps to make these fellow members of God’s people real to us; when we next return to the biblical story, we find that Brooks has dispensed with our need for the reminders of whose cousins or wives or allies everybody

is, because they now seem to us like people we know.

There’s much in the novel that’s confronting – as there is, if we take it seriously, in the original. The extreme violence and apparent cheapness of life, for example; the many, many dead who serve as collateral damage on David’s journey to the kingship and the consolidation of his power. (“Whatever it takes. What was necessary,” is the novel’s uneasy refrain.) The frustration and powerlessness of the women’s lives as well, and the tenuous power they carve out for themselves, or try to.

But there are beauty and power, too, especially in the music that suffuses David’s life and soul and city – Israel’s psalmist as much as her warrior-king, and ours too.

The story is told, appropriately enough, by the prophet Nathan (who really did record David’s life, according to 1 Chronicles 29:29), who is sometimes appalled at the king, but who also loves him, and is bound to him by the voice that speaks through him over the years.

There’s not much that’s appealing, really, about the God of The Secret Chord. Brooks, a Jewish convert, has written about faith in various guises in the past – not always in ways that other believers have been comfortable with. But these stories about the God of all people are, in a sense, the common heritage of all people, and it makes sense for those of us who believe them to be truth that many are drawn to them, whatever their faith. The Old Testament epic is a classic Hollywood staple; and

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rumour has it that an Apostle Paul movie (with Hugh Jackman in the starring role) is now in the works.

Writers from Charles Dickens to Norman Mailer and Philip Pullman have all felt compelled to try their hand at retelling the Jesus story. The quality and faithfulness of these accounts tend to be variable, of course; but barring the truly outlandish or malign, there’s almost always something for Christians to celebrate or appreciate – at the very least as a conversation-starter.

Not only do such retellings help to sustain at least a passing familiarity with the contents of the Bible for a generation with fewer and fewer opportunities to encounter the stories that shaped their culture so decisively, but the force of story lies in its capacity for inviting engagement, waking appetite, lodging in the heart and perhaps changing the mind.

The messiness of David’s life (and ours, for that matter), set against the patterns of the narrative which are also the ordering of God’s good plans and promises, provokes a deeper, more intuitive, more lifegiving response than a statement of doctrine on its own usually can.

To the extent that Brooks’ novel better equips us to respond that way, even its jarring elements can be a blessing.

Natasha Moore is a research fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity. For more print, video and audio material on the intersection of Christianity with contemporary life, go to publicchristianity.org

In praise of character Andrew Cameron on upholding one another

istock/ hidesy

I have lately been struck by how tough life seems to have become for many Christians. We’re in taxing, difficult workplaces. We juggle a hundred responsibilities. We have friends and causes and ministries to support. Our families need our attention, our churches call on us for help, and all while we grapple with the usual slew of sadness, sickness, disappointment, anxiety, rejection and heartache.

I’ve been visiting a few churches lately, of varying hue, and have sensed a dispiriting air. This surprises me, when so many of the people there are conscientious, hard-working and very committed to Christ. I blame no one for this, least of all the church staff. Indeed, they’re feeling it too.

So I wonder if the time has come to praise and honour and uphold one another’s character – consciously, intentionally and weekly (or at least monthly).

That doesn’t always sit well with evangelical Christians.

After all, we glory in Christ alone – his redeeming work, his rescue of us, and his majestic divinity. Surely our task in this is to confess our sins, to do the

next act of obedience, and never to glorify self (although that last has obviously dropped off our list, in the social media age, but I’ll save that rant for another time).

It follows that it seems wrong to celebrate achievement, or anything resembling achievement.

But then, our lives begin to seem like bottomless pits of activity, and black holes of obligation; and our lives together in churches become joyless and morale-sapping. And to me, frankly, that’s nothing at all like what’s seen in the Bible.

Someone asked me lately whether it would be wrong to guard one’s reputation, as if that

would be too self-focused. But a moment’s reflection reminded me how positively the Bible regards the way we are known in the world. The NT commends at least 11 “virtue lists”, such as those famous “fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5, or such as Jesus’ blesseds-are-those in Matthew 5.

The biblical authors hope for us to show settled habits of action and feeling that get summed up as “godliness” and “love”, so that we become people of “good report” in Philippians and “above reproach” in 1 Thessalonians and “blameless” in the Pastorals and subversive of pagan slander in 1 Peter, and “wise”

in the Proverbs and beyond. The Bible is loaded with what we mean by “character”.

“Character” always wins out over the long haul, even in the nastiest workplace, the ugliest family, or the most corrupt community. It never feels as if you’re growing it at the time. But every daily struggle to do right, to resist sin, to honour your promises, to resist lashing out, to resolve conflict, to care for those in need, to back those who do good, to think and read and write beyond your own horizon – God gives these moments, the Spirit uses them, and they all add up to someone who most people will

love, and who points to Christ. I know people like this, who live full and serving and God-honouring lives, and all the more when I know they don’t always like it yet don’t let that control them.

But why aren’t we pointing this out to each other, each about the other? Some hang-up is at work, I suspect, that we’ll make each other “proud”, or that we’ll be glorifying human achievement and not Christ.

Well, if that’s the way it works, Paul for one has a lot of explaining to do. “We always thank God for all of you ... We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thess 1:2-3) “Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love.”

(1 Thess 3:6) “Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you.” (Rom 16:19) Plenty more where that came from.

We’re definitely meant to be jubilant about the work of God we see in each other’s lives (especially perhaps, nowadays, for “endurance” in the face of hostility: “Greet Apelles, whose fidelity to Christ has stood the test.” (Rom 16:10) Sure, we’re not meant to talk up our own achievements: self-promotion robs us of the opportunity to notice and rejoice in others. But I reckon our lives together would be full of joy, within about six months, if we begin to praise God’s Holy Spirit-given works of character in each other.

Starting today.

Rev Dr Andrew Cameron is the Director of St Mark’s National Theological Centre, Canberra. http://www.stmarks.edu.au

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OPINION

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NOVEMBER 2015

“First they came for the Catholics…”

would be offended, humiliated, intimidated, insulted or ridiculed.”

In s 16, paragraph (c) says that “sexual orientation” is a “protected attribute”. It is claimed that a booklet that defends marriage as only between a man and a woman (which is, of course, the current law of Australia) has somehow “offended” or “humiliated” or “insulted” the homosexually oriented complainant “on the basis of ” that orientation, where a reasonable person should have known that the complainant would have one or more of these reactions.

I have discussed a number of features of this legislation, and why it might be regarded as constitutionally invalid, in a previous article. But the recent article from News Weekly raises other important issues, which are worthy of comment.

There are many areas where I agree with Robin Speed’s article.

It points out correctly that there is no express protection for freedom of speech in s 17; that in a recent decision of the Tasmanian AntiDiscrimination Tribunal, Williams v Threewisemonkeys and Durston [2015] TASADT 4 (30 June 2015), a religious freedom defence was rejected by the tribunal.

That tribunal also rejected the application of the important “defence” provision in s 55.

The article also notes, correctly, that the most natural reading of s 17 is not that a “reasonable person” would be offended but simply that the complainant was subjectively offended (a fact that is, of course, almost impossible to dispute). And as Speed notes, the question then is whether a “reasonable person” would have anticipated that “the other person” would be offended, etc.

However, I would like to note that the situation might not be

quite so bad as the article suggests.

It may be noted, first, that the final clause of s 17 may provide more leeway than at first appears.

Surely if the Archbishop did not know the complainant, it is difficult to argue that he, as a reasonable person, could possibly have anticipated that the complainant personally would be offended.

One possible interpretation of this clause is that the provision is really intended to operate only where the alleged respondent is personally acquainted in some way with the specific complainant.

Next, on the freedom of speech issue, while there is no explicit protection of free speech under the law of Tasmania or the commonwealth Constitution, the High Court of Australia has identified an implied freedom of political communication that will in some circumstances override state laws restricting freedom of speech on public issues.

In recent years the High Court has not hesitated to find state legislation invalid when it has breached this implied freedom.

For example, in Unions NSW v New South Wales [2013] HCA, 58 provisions of NSW law prohibiting electoral donations by organisations were struck down as invalid.

There may be more to be said for protection of religious freedom than the article suggests. It is important to put the case referred to, Williams v Threewisemonkeys and Durston [2015] TASADT 4 (30 June 2015), in proper context.

The case involved a complaint by a homosexual person that a document circulated in Tasmania giving statistics and information about homosexuality was offensive.

The decision at para [1] describes the document in this way: “This pamphlet stated that

‘homosexuality should not be tolerated’ and that ‘Scripture rejects homosexuality as utterly abominable’ and set out alleged statistics on lifespan expectations and causes of death for gay men and lesbians compared to heterosexual men and women.”

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the respondent in this case, Mr Durston, was not legally represented and chose to make no submissions in his defence other than referring to s 116 of the Constitution (see para [23] of the decision.)

As previously discussed, the tribunal was justified in noting that s 116 does not directly bind state parliaments. However, a number of matters could have been put on Mr Durston’s behalf, which the tribunal did not consider.

Also, the Tasmanian Constitution Act 1934 contains a provision, s 46, that “guarantees” every citizen: “freedom of conscience and the free profession and practice of religion … subject to public order and morality.”

The tribunal, sitting in Tasmania and deciding a question of Tasmanian law, ought to have at least commented on the effect of this provision.

In addition, it is arguable that where state legislation is very broadly worded and there is room to doubt the extent of its operation, the “principle of legality” applies in the interpretation of that law.

One aspect of this is that it should not be assumed the parliament intended to interfere with fundamental human rights without explicitly saying so.

To return to the Durston case, the tribunal commented at [50]: “the tribunal finds no basis for the respondent’s reliance on a right to freedom of religion by way of response or defence to this complaint.”

For the reasons noted above, this finding, while arguably technically correct on the simple ground that s 116 is not applicable to Tasmanian law, should not have concluded the issue of consideration of religious freedom.

While it is true that comments have been made by the High Court that s 116 is “not, in form, a constitutional guarantee of the rights of individuals” (quoted at para [46] of the tribunal’s reasons), there seems no doubt that those whose exercise of religious freedom had been unduly infringed would have standing to challenge the validity of such legislation. In doing so they would indirectly assert a “right” to religious freedom.

It is also worth noting that, in the Australian legal system, the decision of a tribunal that is not a superior court is not “binding” authority. Hence other tribunals,

Last month I was in Mandalay, Myanmar’s growing, bustling second city, and also home to some of Asia’s poorest people.

Today’s Myanmar is a far cry from the country I saw after the devastating Cyclone Nargis hit in 2008. Myanmar is moving fitfully from dictatorship to a more open society but remains beset with social, political and environmental challenges.

The previous week, our Foreign Affairs Minister, Julie Bishop, was in New York, where Australia signed up to the UN’s new Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

The new goals follow the successes achieved through the Millennium Development Goals, in place since 2001.

At the General Assembly a few days later, Julie Bishop asserted a new direction in Australia’s foreign policy agenda – more ambitious, and explicitly expressing Australian values. Specifically, she committed Australia to promote the rights of women and girls, and to campaign for the universal abolition of the death penalty.

Too often today’s world sees faith as a source of conflict rather than inspiration for unity and progress.

But I think this comes from too

much focus on religious differences rather than on the power of faith teachings to move humanity forward.

In fact, faith has been a vital force in human progress. Even in seemingly secular Australia, I find most people still hold fast to core precepts that Jesus taught. They believe in the Golden Rule, and that the measure of a good society is how we treat “the least of these”.

Often they express their belief not in words but in deeds of kindness, charity and solidarity.

As a nation we need to walk the talk when it comes to living out our better values. Julie Bishop’s

The online journal News Weekly carried a recent article, “Appeal to freedoms will not avail for Archbishop”, commenting on a claim under Tasmania’s AntiDiscrimination Act, made against the Catholic Archbishop of Hobart, the Most Reverend Julian Porteous.

The author of the article, Robin Speed, President of the Rule of Law Institute of Australia, suggested in his opening paragraph: “The Archbishop of Hobart, Julian Porteous, is about to find out that in Tasmania there is no right to freedom of religious belief or freedom of speech.”

I agree that there is much to be concerned about in the claim being made against Archbishop Porteous.

Indeed, I think Christians of all types, Protestants and Roman Catholics alike, ought to be active in expressing their support for the Archbishop, for what he is facing is legal action for simply defending traditional Christian values that have been the basis of Western society for two millennia.

However, I have to say that the situation is not quite as bad as this otherwise useful piece portrays.

The facts of the case are that Archbishop Porteous circulated to parents of children enrolled in Roman Catholic schools in his Archdiocese, a defence of classical Christian marriage, the exclusive union between a man and a woman voluntarily entered into for life.

The booklet is a response, of course, to calls to introduce samesex marriage into Australia. “Don’t Mess with Marriage” is clear but also very respectful, and condemns upfront any ill-treatment of those with a same-sex sexual orientation.

However, a complaint has been made that by circulating this booklet, the Archbishop was in breach of the Tasmanian legislation, which forbids engaging “in any conduct which offends, humiliates, intimidates, insults or ridicules another person on the basis of an attribute referred to in section 16(c) … in circumstances in which a reasonable person, having regard to all the circumstances, would have anticipated that the other person

Tim Costello on why faith leads to human progress

Youtube / Archdiocese of Hobart

Neil Foster on a Christian’s right to speak out

Catholic Archbishop Julian Porteous of Hobart is facing legal action

and of course courts, are able to depart from the rulings of the tribunal in Durston.

Finally, is it a foregone conclusion that the defence under s 55 of the Tasmanian Act would fail? Section 55 relevantly provides that: 55. Public purpose The provisions of section 17(1) … do not apply if the person’s conduct is – … (c) a public act done in good faith for – (i) academic, artistic, scientific or research purposes; or (ii) any purpose in the public interest.

One could argue that it was surely in the public interest for the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Hobart to tell parents of children attending Roman Catholic schools in his diocese what the views of the church on marriage are, and what their children will be taught in those schools.

Even if one is in favour of recognition of same-sex marriage, surely it would be better that parents know what their children are being taught so that they can decide whether or not the issue is so important that they should withdraw their children from the schools?

In any event, it seems strongly arguable that the Archbishop’s actions were done in good faith with the public interest purpose noted above, and should fall within the s 55 definition (especially since the “public interest” should also involve consideration of the values of free speech and freedom of religion discussed previously.)

To sum up, the article by Speed is an important contribution to the discussion of this case, and functions as a wake-up call to those who may have assumed that mainstream Christian positions would be left alone. I am somewhat more optimistic than the author that this case might not succeed.

But there are many uncertainties.

Even if it were not the right thing to do anyway, purely pragmatic considerations alone ought to spur those who are committed to the Christian faith, or even simply to freedom of speech, to be concerned about this litigation.

Martin Niemöller, the German pastor who regretted his failure in the beginning of the Holocaust activities to speak up for the Jews, famously noted that by the time the authorities came to the Christians, there was no one left to speak up.

Christians around Australia ought to now be standing with Archbishop Porteous, and praying for change in the sort of law penalising mere “offence”, which seems to allow statements of this sort to be the subject of legal action.

Neil Foster is Associate Professor in Law, Newcastle Law School.

ambitious commitments are an encouraging start. But our treatment of refugees remains a rebuke to the Christian conscience.

Full reconciliation, constitutional recognition and closing the gap on Indigenous health are also vitally important.

And, of course, it is profoundly disturbing that one of the wealthiest societies in history has cut its aid program to the lowest level in decades. We can make a world of difference to children like those I met in Myanmar. We need to lift our gaze and think how high we can reach with kingdom values powering our flight.

OPINION

NOVEMBER 2015

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When should we thank God? Michael Jensen takes saying “Thank God” seriously

Mora & Leeroy

We were hearing reports about a recent theological college mission to a parish church. Part of the mission planning was a Saturday festival event on the church grounds. You know the kind of thing: jumping castle, face painting, music, stalls of secondhand stuff. Lots of evangelistic opportunities. It had been a huge effort to put it on and get it ready.

But then, black clouds started to loom with menacing intent; and various members of the team started gazing at the satellite pictures on their phones. This wasn’t just a few scattered showers. This looked like it was going to be one of those Sydney thunderstorms.

The evening before, the team had prayed for clear weather so that they could do God’s work, and introduce people to Christ.

But now, a few fat drops were falling from the sky. There was the unique smell of a Sydney storm, and the atmosphere changed. Was the whole event going to be washed away in the coming deluge? Would the petting zoo pack up and go home, and the man with the coffee cart decide that it was all hopeless and leave?

But the plump drops that fell onto the asphalt were not followed by any more. The black clouds rolled over the suburb where the church was, and dumped themselves on another spot closer to the city. Everything continued as planned, and a great time was had by all. People talked about Jesus Christ late into the afternoon.

And the person telling the story looked at us and said: “God was really kind.”

But the question that entered my head was this: what if it had rained, no hailed, on the festival?

What if it had simply pelted down all day long, and the day had been

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there ... but the Lord never abandons his people completely disastrous? Would you then say “God was really kind”?

Or was the rain evidence that God had forgotten to be kind that day, that he was really rather annoyed?

Or perhaps: he was being kind to the gardeners of the area that day but not to the evangelists at the parish church?

This story is just one illustration of a theological problem with the way we Christians talk about God acting in the world. We have what I would call a doctrine of “selective providence”. That is to say: we praise the name of God when the sick are healed, or when we succeed in our endeavours, when our church budget grows, or when the rain stays off our festival; but when things don’t go so well, we are mute. God appears to be in control of things when we like them, not so much when we don’t.

And secular journalists have noticed this, and it drives them crazy. Fairfax’s Peter Fitzsimons, for example, cannot contain himself when a Christian sportsman or woman thanks God for victory. First of all: is God really that concerned with golf or tennis? And secondly: what about the other athletes who competed, some of whom also call upon the same God? Did they somehow do something to offend the Almighty?

The late Sam de Brito wrote a piece in September about the San Francisco 49ers Aussie star

Jarryd Hayne and other American football players and their God-talk.

He referenced an episode in which the Detroit Lions safety Glover Quin said that God had intended for another player, Jordy Nelson, to tear his ligament.

Quin said: “I hated Jordy got hurt, but in my beliefs, and the way I believe, it was – God meant for Jordy to get hurt.” Jordy Nelson is himself a Christian, and presumably praying to God as well.

I recognise that a lot of this sloppy theological language comes from a combination of good intentions, from half-remembered Bible passages, and from the way Christians in general try to do God-talk. It is true that when we succeed at something or when something good happens to us, God is to be praised and thanked.

He is the good God, and the giver of good things. The intention, I think, is to communicate humility – not “I am so special because God has given me this success” but rather “the glory for my success doesn’t belong to me but to the one who gives it.” But it easily comes across as ugly triumphalism.

So how can we think better, and talk better, about the good and gracious God and his work in our lives?

We could do worse than turn to the book of Job, and begin with Job’s response to his suffering: Naked I came from my mother’s

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womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

This verse forms part of the funeral service in the Book of Common Prayer. We stand alongside the coffin of our friend or family member, and we recognise that not only is God to be praised in the midst of times of blessing and joy and plenty; but that he is also to be praised when there is loss, and grief, and sorrow.

One of the best contemporary songs, Blessed be Your Name by Beth and Matt Redman, takes us right into the middle of this thought from Job. It was written after the couple had experienced several miscarriages. I confess that I sometimes find this very hard to sing: Blessed be Your name When the sun’s shining down on me When the world’s all as it should be Blessed be Your name Blessed be Your name On the road marked with suffering Though there’s pain in the offering Blessed be Your name.

Can we really sing that second verse, in the midst of whatever life may bring us? Isn’t that just a kind of fatalism, where we encounter God as sometimes open-hearted

and generous and sometimes … well, not so much? This could sound like defeated resignation.

Why should God’s name be blessed when he takes away even life itself?

The book of Job edges us closer to a way of thinking about this. In the midst of his agony, Job says: I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God. Even in the midst of trials, God’s name is to be blessed because he is the living God who does not abandon his people. The world of trials and troubles is not the final state of things. We stand at the graveside and proclaim not just the power of almighty God but also the resurrection of the dead.

It is not just that God is in control, in other words, or “sovereign” to use theological terminology, but what he has done with this control.

And that’s where we should be zeroing in on the story of Jesus Christ. For that’s the Christian claim: not that we can see what God thinks of football matches or weather events, but that we know that God is gracious and compassionate, abounding in steadfast love and merciful beyond our imagining. We’ve seen the extent of that love in Jesus Christ, and we know that, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. Whatever happens on the earth, then, we praise God, not because we are resigned to our fate, or because we are scared that if we don’t praise him something worse will happen, but because the God of Jesus Christ is one in whom we can have real hope.

The condition of this world is broken. That things go badly for us in our time here is not surprising.

If we do enjoy the blessings of this life, then, yes, God be praised! But if and when we do not, then, God is also to be praised, for there is a mending to this brokenness.

Is God to be called kind if the sun shines on your church festival? Yes indeed! But it is misleading, I think, to call him kind as if he isn’t always to be known as the kind God. Should we thank him for our success? Of course. But we should not forget also to thank him in our failures.

Michael Jensen is the rector of St Mark’s Anglican church in Sydney and the author of several books.

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IN THE CLOUD

OPINION

NOVEMBER 2015

Editor’s letter As a result of our special appeal last month, many of you gave a donation to support Eternity newspaper.

For which I say a grateful “Thank you”. Is it possible to be more overloaded than we currently are with appeals to worthy Christian causes?

Hardly! With email it costs virtually nothing to broadcast a mission project.

The consequence is that Christians have to say “No” to more good things than ever before. We simply can’t support everything. Despite this, I’m firmly convinced that Bible Society’s Eternity newspaper fulfils a significant and unique service for the Australian Christian community that justifies your support.

Eternity brings encouraging stories and articles that stimulate theologically as well as calling attention to issues of national significance.

It’s a resource designed to help the cause of Christ and his people across the nation and beyond. And we’re proud of it.

Thank you again for supporting Eternity newspaper in our first fundraising drive and will you please include us in the list of valued mission causes that receive your regular support?

John Sandeman

Letters Spiritual warfare In response to the letter in the July Eternity mentioning “longterm burdens such as same-sex attractions”, I never had such feelings until God led me into the life of a lady who was bisexual.

Then one day thinking about her began to turn me on ... Now God is a spirit and so are the angels. Satan is a spirit; so are the demons. So every time I began to have (sexual) feelings for her I would ask God to bind and cast off those perverse spirits in his name, and the feelings would stop. I think we need to learn more about spiritual warfare and exercise our authority in Jesus.

Susan Carrey, Bilpin NSW

Let God answer

The best way, I believe, to answer questions about homosexuality is by using God’s holy word.

I have been a Christian candidate in four federal and three state elections. Answering people’s questions about homosexuality and abortion became a struggle for me.

Then God touched my heart to use his word to answer these issues. To say “God says … The Bible says …” and “Jesus says …” became my way to go with, I believe, real success.

Dave Vincent, Bidwill NSW

Thank you, reader We have received a lots of notes with donations to the Eternity appeal. Here are just two quotes:

“I just wanted to say thank you so much for Eternity magazine and for delivering it free of charge for the last five years. ... I hope our early uptake of the magazine helped in some way.”

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Our lights grow ever dimmer I agree with “The (un)popular route” by Karl Faase, Eternity, September.

In my youth I was taught that fornication was a sin. Fifty years on, I am now (sadly) able to date again. Only to discover that what was once totally unacceptable is now not only acceptable but expected – by many Christians!

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As Mr Faase states: “changing our values to suit popular sentiment” Really! God’s word hasn’t changed.

Do we have to fight for the right not to conform to this fallen world? Are we fearful to offend?

So we accept fornication and other sins in society once taught to be unacceptable. Our lights are getting dimmer and dimmer as God’s word is increasingly ignored or cleverly manipulated.

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OPINION

NOVEMBER 2015

19

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The race to uni status Paul Oslington on the changing face of Christian higher education

The race is on for the first non-Catholic Christian college to achieve full university status.

School of Theology and Sydney Missionary and Bible College).

Eternity readers may be aware that the institution featured recently in the newspaper, Excelsia College (previously named Wesley Institute but bought last year and renamed by Indiana Wesleyan University) is not the only college aiming to becoming our first non-Catholic Christian “normal” university. Nor is it even the closest to achieving that aim. Excelsia College offers bachelors’ and masters’ degrees in the creative arts, and in teaching. It has moved out of its temporary premises in Drummoyne and now operates out of a new campus in Macquarie Park.

Alphacrucis College with a $30 million high-tech campus at Parramatta, and new campuses in Auckland, Brisbane and Perth, has trained pentecostal pastors for 80 years. Its new education programmes are designed to equip Christian teachers for ministry in church and government schools.

I joined Alphacrucis three years ago to lead the new business programmes, including an undergraduate business degree and a unique combined degree in business and ministry. This combined degree equips ministers of any denomination to read financial statements, manage volunteers, deal with human resource and legal issues, etc.

The combined degree means that students can get credit for their previous degree from another college in theology, then complete our degree in two years part-time, either on campus or online.

At the next level, our Master of Leadership and Doctor of Ministry programmes have a mix of pastors, not-for-profit leaders and business people.

Avondale, the Seventh Day Adventist college on the NSW central coast that has operated since the 19th century, probably has its nose ahead in the race to become Australia’s first nonCatholic Christian university.

Avondale offers degrees in teaching, business and, importantly, a medical programme through links to the Adventist hospital in Sydney. An isolated location and a connection to a less well-known denomination count against Avondale in the race.

Other contenders such as Christian Heritage College in Brisbane and Tabor Colleges in

Adelaide and Melbourne offer a broad range of programmes but are well behind Avondale and Alphacrucis in research output and research quality, which are key requirements for university accreditation.

Colleges in the race are quite denominationally mixed. At Alphacrucis, for instance, our Principal and our Head of New Testament trained at Moore College, members of staff attend Anglican, Uniting, Catholic, Orthodox and independent churches, and our governing body includes Catholic, Sydney Anglican and pentecostal Christians. Our honorary professors include leading overseas pentecostal theologians such as Amos Yong and Allan Anderson, as well as a denominationally mixed group of locals including Edwin Judge, Robert Banks, Tony Golsby-Smith, Mark Hutchinson, Stuart Piggin, and Ruth Powell from NCLS. Not all students at these colleges are Christian. Alphacrucis, for instance, has a group of Muslim students in the business programme to whom we endeavour to be a hospitable as we can while being very clear about our Christian identity through our compulsory Christian Worldview course and in other ways. The same is true for several Hindu students.

As far as I know, none of the colleges in the race has a faith test for students.

“

Readers of Eternity should consider colleges such as Excelsior, Alphacrucis, Avondale and Tabor as alternatives to enrolling in business or teaching programmes at public universities.”

This will be even more so with the possibility (if the government can get its higher education reforms through the Senate) that government funding will be extended to undergraduate

students at these colleges on the same basis as students at public universities. I have worked in several Australian universities, and all of these Christian colleges are impressive places with excellent faculty and higher academic standards than many universities.

Alphacrucis, like Moore College, has been recently accredited to offer a PhD programme, and ours is available across all disciplines and to students of all denominational backgrounds.

However, like the PhD programmes of the Australian College of Theology and other longstanding theological colleges, they receive no government funding, even though all their PhD programmes must satisfy the same accreditation criteria with government body TEQSA as PhD programmes of public universities.

This puts the Christian colleges at a $50,000-$70,000 funding disadvantage, which translates to a fee disadvantage of about $30,000 over the duration of the PhD when competing with the often lowerquality PhD programmes offered by public universities.

Readers of Eternity should feel free to express their view about this outrageous breach of competitive neutrality policy principles – a breach that undermines the efficiency and fairness of our higher education system.

They might also mention to their local MP the outrageous exclusion of these colleges from even being able to apply for government research funding, such as Australian Research Council grants and various teaching development grants.

Aside from the public policy issues, another thing that would greatly strengthen the sector would be more cooperation among the colleges. Many have small think-tanks devoted to bringing theology into public policy debates, but under-resourcing and petty rivalries sometimes limit their effectiveness. College ventures into marketplace ministry suffer from similar problems.

In my view the greatest benefits from cooperation are in teacher training. Scattered and underresourced, and often very similar, programmes are offered by colleges. If 40 per cent of students attend non-government schools (mostly linked to churches); if teacher quality is the most powerful driver of educational

Flickr/Novartis AG

It is good to see Eternity covering higher education. Today more than 40 per cent of school students attend non-government schools, most of which are connected to Christian churches.

In higher education about 10 per cent (and growing) of enrolments are outside the government universities. Some are in theological colleges which were set up to train denominational ministers. A growing number are studying education or business at Christian colleges, some of which are moving towards university accreditation. There is a spirit of (mostly) friendly competition in the race to become Australia’s first non-Catholic Christian university.

The race may be decided sooner than you think because prospective Christian universities no longer have to pass through the category of university college in their journey from accredited higher education provider to university. University college looks like becoming a destination for private colleges with no research aspirations.

One institution that is already over the finish line is University of Divinity (formerly Melbourne College of Divinity), a consortium of theological colleges established in 1910. It gained university status from the Victorian government in 2012, just before the commonwealth took over responsibility for this, and has a special category “university of specialisation” to accommodate it in the Commonwealth Act. Aside from the status (especially important for international students) this gave it access to commonwealth funding for its degrees. The potential cost, however, of attaining this special funding access and status is marginalisation as an exclusively theological institution.

For instance, it had to sever ties with University of Melbourne as part of becoming a university in its own right.

This new category of university – called Australian University of Specialisation – is for institutions that can’t meet the requirement of at least three areas of study for “normal” universities.

The University of Divinity links a group of colleges mostly in Melbourne but also interstate including the Australian Lutheran College in Adelaide and Morling College in Sydney (also in the ACT). Another group of colleges awards degrees from The Australian College of Theology (ACT). It too has aspirations to become a University of Specialisation. (This group includes Vose Seminary in Perth and institutions that started as Bible colleges such as Melbourne

outcomes; if Christian witness in Australia is increasingly through Christian schools, hospitals and social services rather than congregations, then surely we should be getting our act together in teacher training.

There is scope for pooling resources, for better crosscredit arrangements that allow specialised options at one college to be taken by students at other colleges, for collaborative research efforts (especially on the Christian dimensions of teacher training). There would even be a case for a consortium of colleges seeking state or commonwealth government funding to kick-start this collaboration.

In this article I’ve focused on the colleges aiming to become Christian universities in the next few years, and there is further discussion of the engagement of the existing universities with theology in an article “Religion and Australian Universities: Tales of Horror and Hope,” The Conversation, February 2014, available at theconversation. com/australian-universities-andreligion-tales-of-horror-andhope-23245.

This also discusses the shortlived but excellent Macquarie Christian Studies Institute attempt to achieve what some of the Christian colleges are trying to do through collaboration with a university. Comparisons with overseas experiments are a subject perhaps for a future article, but we have to be very careful in view of Australia’s distinctive religious history and culture, and higher education regulatory framework.

I’ve not discussed two types of institutions in this article. The first is the longstanding theological colleges, which focus on training candidates for ordained ministry, such as Moore Theological College in Sydney. These are accredited to award degrees in their own right and have no reason to seek university status and may continue as well respected institutions.

(Editor’s note: Eternity understands that Moore may consider applying for University of Specialisation).

The second group of institutions are the theological colleges that have affiliated with universities, such as St Mark’s in Canberra, and the United Theological College, with Charles Sturt University.

They have gained the advantages of government funding and status but at some cost to their autonomy, and it remains to be seen what their future is once government funding is extended to non-university higher education providers. Perhaps some will leave their relationship of convenience with universities if they can be funded in their own right.

Readers who doubt the claims that Christian colleges discussed in this article offer higher quality undergraduate degrees than many universities might want to look at “Advanced Degrees in Condescension,” Quadrant online, October 2014, and “Bumcrack College Cracks Back” The Australian Higher Education online, 7 October 2014, available at www.theaustralian.com.au/ higher-education/bumcrackcollege-cracks-back/storye6frgcjx-1227082079764.

Professor Paul Oslington is Dean of Business, Alphacrucis College, and attends St Swithun’s Anglican Church, Pymble.

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OPINION

20

NOVEMBER 2015

Bruce Lee, sushi and the eighth day of creation Greg Clarke on the benefits of re-creation I was recently in Auckland, New Zealand, looking for a bite to eat. I stumbled across a fantastic example of globalisation at work in the “Bruce Lee Sushi Shop”. That’s the kind of business name that is only possible in the media-led, globalised world of the 21st century.

To start with, Bruce Lee, the great martial arts actor, is American-born, Hong Kong Chinese, and sushi is Japanese.

There’s already some cross-cultural positivity at work. Added to that, this store is in New Zealand, at the other end of the earth to either Asian country.

But the globalisation clincher was the sign on the door: “Open Mon-Sat, but closed on The Lord’s Day”. I haven’t seen a sign like that since my childhood in country towns, and it delighted me. Here was evidence that the worldview in operation by the owners of that sushi shop was neither Chinese, Japanese nor Kiwi, but Judeo-Christian. They believed in the day of rest.

Where did they get this idea? Of course, it comes from the teachings of the Bible, which was already a well-travelled book a long time before sushi came to New Zealand.

In Genesis chapter one, we learn that God created the world and then rested from his labour.

It’s a very important teaching throughout the Old Testament, shaping the notion of Shabbat for Jews even today. And it is explored in his usual radical fashion by Jesus in the New Testament, where he declares himself to be “Lord of the Sabbath”. (Is it any surprise that the religious leaders of the time found Jesus so challenging?)

In the book of Hebrews, we are taught that the notion of rest is

far more profound than getting a good night’s sleep and downing tools for a day: “There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:9-10).

This Scripture tells us that the work of creation extends into the future; although God rested from his work, there is still a more eternal Rest to look forward to.

After the work of creation, we enter a new phase of reality: rest.

The new creation, the re-creation, will be recreation. We are headed towards the same destination as God: rest. Bring on that Rest!

And this is a future that we don’t want to miss out on; the passage goes further to urge us to “make every effort to enter that rest”. In fact, its message is very strong: rest or perish. It’s joy or judgment.

The notion of rest takes us very close to the heart of the Christian vision for the universe. The point of life is not working every day as hard as you can until you drop. It’s not

about making more things endlessly, ever increasing your productivity and efficiency. It’s not about being more successful, busier, than all your friends, and always so tired that you have no time for anyone.

The point of life is to find our way into lasting recreation and rest.

Christians believe that the universe is headed towards one great big Day of Rest. One eternal Long Weekend. History will wrap up in a new time zone, with a new sense that we don’t need to keep performing, keep producing, keep running harder and harder.

No, we will simply, joyously rest.

Because that’s what God did, and that’s what he has planned for his entire creation.

Who would have thought that a New Zealand sushi shop with a Chinese name would be advertising on its sign the secret to the future of the universe?

N.B. Greg does not receive any free sushi from the aforementioned honourable establishment!

Greg Clarke is CEO of Bible Society Australia.

Bible Stat 2014 saw the highest number of printed Bibles ever distributed by Bible Societies around the world. Nearly 34 million full Bibles were distributed.

Books

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This book is a delightful retelling of Bible stories according to the advent tradition known as the Jesse Tree. Each day of advent is celebrated with a Bible reading, a beautifully illustrated Bible story, questions for family discussion, and a simple activity for further reflection as you begin making your own Jesse Tree.

The Jesse Tree is inspired by the prophecy of Isaiah that “a shoot will spring forth from the stump of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots.” The daily readings lead us from Creation through the Old Testament stories and the descendants of Jesse until finally the “Father-King” sends the long-awaited “Son-King” (Jesus) to rescue us.

This is more than just a children’s book. Ann is a gifted storyteller who draws together symbols and fills them with meaning for all ages. Those who read One Thousand Gifts will know that Ann has experienced many years of grief and pain. Perhaps this helps her draw out the deep emotional side to Bible stories. The real sorrow and joy found in these stories can resonate with our present pain and invoke in us a greater longing and yearning for the return of the Son-King, the same anticipation we experience each Christmas.

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Women of the Word Jen Wilkin

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Many Christian women find great encouragement and joy in and through women’s Bible studies. However, popular Bible teacher Jen Wilkin is concerned that sometimes we let our emotions rule our study of Scripture and forget that the Bible is primarily about God, not us. Challenging hungry women to go deeper in their study of Scripture, this book will help you refocus your efforts on feeding your mind first and foremost. Whether you’re young or old, married or single, this accessible volume will energise and equip you for Bible study aimed at transforming both the heart and mind.

Treasuring Christ Gloria Furman

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Motherhood is tough, and it often feels like the to-do list just keeps getting longer and longer every day no matter how hard we work to get ahead. From grocery shopping to soccer practice, running a household is exhausting, making it hard for us to experience true joy in the midst of the craziness of life. In this encouraging book for frazzled mums, Gloria Furman, a pastor’s wife and mother of four, encourages us to refocus and reorient our vision of motherhood around what the Bible teaches. Showing us how to pursue a vibrant and ever-growing relationship with Christ – even when discouragement sets in and the dirty laundry is still waiting to be washed – this book will help you treasure Christ more deeply no matter how busy you are.

The Fringe Hours Jessica Turner

The Book that Made Your World

by Vishal Mangalwadi 9781595555458

A cheerful-looking Indian gentleman gazes at me with an open smile from the back cover of his handiwork, The Book That Made Your World. I resisted the challenge for months, put off by its thickness and an online excerpt, but still attracted by the subtitle, How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization. Then the in-laws read it, praised it, and gifted it, so I had to get started.

The author, Vishal Mangalwadi, was born in India and educated in secular universities and Hindu ashrams. How does this benefit the Western reader? It means that we get to view our culture through a set of glasses we may have never worn before. And the view revealed

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God

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In this practical and liberating book, Jessica Turner empowers women to take back pockets of time they already have in their day in order to practise self-care and do the things they love. Turner uses her own experiences and those of women across the country to teach readers how to balance their many responsibilities while still taking time to invest in themselves. She also addresses barriers to this lifestyle, such as comparison and guilt, and demonstrates how eliminating these feelings and making changes to one’s schedule will make the reader a better wife, mother and friend.

Dispatche from the Fr Tim Keesee

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$19.99 You may have read Eric Metaxas’ popular biographies of Christian men and women, or watched some of the VeggieTales shows that he scripted. Now Eric has written a refreshingly down-to-earth book that takes questions about God seriously enough to get silly (where appropriate). Wonderfully conversational and often very funny, this book joins you in wondering about questions such as: How can a good God create a world that has evil and suffering? Is God anti-sex? What’s the real story on miracles? If God is everywhere, why go to church? Isn’t God too busy running the universe to care about the details of my day? What does the Bible say about things like UFOs, ESP, and the afterlife – and what about Bigfoot? These questions (and many more like them) get straight answers while avoiding confusing theological jargon. Metaxas describes it in this way: “I wanted it to be informal and conversational – to start a conversation that would go on far beyond these pages. I wanted to make the idea of a conversation on the subject of God inviting and, dare I say, even fun.”

The Case for Christianity Answer Book Lee Strobel

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Seven Women is vast, tremendous, and invigorating. We come face to face with the question – what would our society look like if our founding fathers had not believed the Bible?

Recounted in the chapter about the Bible’s effect on the family, we find Mangalwadi at his farm in rural India. He and his Christian colleagues are serving the poor in the village by teaching them preventative medicine.

After some time spent with Mangalwadi and his team, the villagers pass the judgement, “You Christians are very immoral.”

Taken aback, Mangalwadi replied, “What do you mean? How are we immoral?”

“You walk with your wives holding their hands. Our wives walk at least ten feet behind us. You take your sister-in-law to market on your scooter. Our wives are too modest to (do that), and they cover their faces in front of our fathers, uncles, and older brothers.”

I won’t spoil the story for you, but the rebuttal

Against the Flow

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was a revelation to me, speaking loudly of the beauty of God’s work in cleansing men’s hearts, and making a rich family life possible.

With lively detail Mangalwadi also examines music, literature, education, wealth, the concepts of compassion and heroism, and a score more. He opens the door and takes us down to the basement so that we can see how “the modern West was built by people who dedicated their lives to what they believed was divine, true, and noble.”

It has been a year since I finished reading Mangalwadi’s book. Time has dimmed my memory of its contents, but not of the impact it made on me. I want all of my children to read it, and I have bought multiple copies as gifts. It has a prime position in my list of Top Ten Everyone Should Read, but also enters another list – Books I Will Read Again, despite its width.

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Biographies are powerful books to read, and this book of seven short biographies does not disappoint. These women come to life in the pages of Metaxas’ book, informing the mind, warming the heart, and inspiring a response in our own lives by the choices they made and the way they lived for God. Metaxas’ wish is that the stories of these women “help you to see yourself and your own time and world all the more clearly.”

Arranged chronologically, the lives of these woman pack a significant punch. Joan of Arc, a 15th century teenage girl who was faithful to the incredible call of God on her life, which took her away from everything familiar in life. Susanna Wesley, who dedicated her life to her family with extraordinary results, and who maintained a fierce commitment to her devotional life with the Lord. Hannah More, who used her literary gifts and her love for people to influence the course of society in regard to ending slavery and living moral lives. Mother Maria of Paris, who even as an orthodox nun wanted above all to love and care for the poor and destitute as their mother, including the Jewish people during the war. We are shown the courage and faithfulness of Corrie Ten Boom during the years of World War II and afterwards, modelling Christian forgiveness in unimaginable circumstances. Rosa Parks, who took encouragement and direction from her faith in God and whose stand on a city bus was one of the catalysts for the Civil Rights movement in the US. And finally, Mother Teresa, who so wholeheartedly and earnestly cared for the poorest of the poor, as she lived out her faith in God. Metaxas notes that we often feel falsely superior in our own era. This really struck home to me, and reminded me of how important it is to learn from those who have lived faithfully before we were born: “We need to delve into the past to know that we have not progressed to any point of perfection and objectivity, and in examining the lives of these seven women, we are doing just that.”

Daniel’s story is one of extraordinary faith in God lived out at the pinnacle of executive power. It tells of four teenage friends, born in the tiny state of Judah about 26 centuries ago, but captured by Nebuchadnezzar, emperor of Babylon.

Daniel describes how they eventually rose to the top echelons of administration.

Daniel and his friends did not simply maintain their private devotion to God; they maintained a high-profile witness in a pluralistic society antagonistic to their faith. That is why their story has such a powerful message for us. Society tolerates the practice of Christianity in private and in church services, but it increasingly deprecates public witness. If Daniel and his compatriots were with us today they would be in the vanguard of the public debate. What was it that gave that ancient foursome, Daniel and his three friends, the strength and conviction to be prepared, often at great risk, to swim against the flow? This is the latest book written by John Lennox, a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College. He lectures on Faith and Science for the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and has participated in numerous public debates defending the Christian faith.

The Case for Grace Lee Strobel

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A Doubter’s Guide to the Bible John Dickson

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Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing

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Why would a 21-year-old nursing student be interested in reading a kids’ devotional? We like to complicate Christianity. While the knowledge of God and the Bible and its application to our lives have endless depth, it’s easy to get lost and sometimes even trapped in a tangle of peripheral topics that end up eclipsing the core of the gospel message. Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing brings us back to this essential core. Using childlike language and heart-warming illustrations, Sally combines Scripture, the wisdom of some of Christianity’s well-known heroes such C.S. Lewis, Joni Erickson, and Corrie Ten Boom and personal experience to deliver a powerful testimony of the Father’s heart. Every page leaves you reassured and encouraged. I find myself coming back to it again and again. It truly is a book of thoughts to make your heart sing!

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The International Children’s Bible is a musthave Bible for all children. It has been such a blessing in our various children’s ministries.

The ICB has enabled us to open up books like Romans and Zechariah to the children in our children’s church. We’ve loved this version so much we’ve purchased enough copies so that every child in our SRE classes and Kids’ Club has their own copy to read. We’ve donated this Bible to our local school libraries so that children can read it for themselves.

I use the ICB as the basis of all the programmes I write for the various children’s ministries in our church (available at www. kidswise.com.au). This version is the recommended Bible in the Bible Reading Plans we produce for the families in our church (http://mbm.church/community/kids).

Unlike other children’s Bibles, this version (formally known as the New Century Version) is a translation, not an interpretation. It has a reading age of seven years. While it keeps things simple, it does not water down big truths. Its strengths are both its clarity and accessibility.

There are very few Bibles for children that I promote without any reservations. This is one.

I tell the parents in our church once your child reaches seven years of age, every child needs this Bible on their bedside table.

Sandy Galea is the MBM Children’s Minister at Rooty Hill Anglican

2016 Peace and Joy in the Psalms Adult Calendar 9780647519363

$2.95

Order online at specials.biblesociety.org.au mail to Locked Bag 7003 Minto NSW 2566 call 1300 139 179

For mail order, please include the item numbers and titles of products requested, as well as your contact and payment details. Also add postage costs to your total order (Orders $0-$30 Postage $6.95; Orders $31-$60 Postage $7.95; Orders $61-$250 Postage $9.95).

This book promotion is valid until November 30th, 2015 or while stocks last. All items in this catalogue are included in good faith from our suppliers. Any delays in supplier delivery may result in product being delayed or unavailable.

While we endeavour to use correct illustrations in this catalogue, final product delivered may have changed design without our notice. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars and include GST.