AUGUST 2019
KEN DUNCAN’S
BIGGER PICTURE WILL YOU BE MY NEIGHBOUR?
HOLY SPIRIT what the Bible says
A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE WORLD TODAY
IN THIS ISSUE
AUGUST 2019
KEN DUNCAN'S BIGGER PICTURE PAGE 32 Take a wider view
6 CURRENT
WHAT IN THE WORLD STEWARDS OF THE UPPER HOUSE What drives a Christian to become involved in politics? 13 YOUR SAY Social media speaks out on Christians in government 14 WILL YOU BE MY NEIGHBOUR? Change countries; change your perspective 4 6
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54
WELLBEING
20 EASING THE PAIN Is surgery the best
solution for back pain? 38 GO HEALTHY FOR GOOD Health news for every body 60 HOW TO GLOW FROM THE INSIDE OUT Foods that are good for you and your skin
FAITH
26 COMING HOME
God made families 40 THE HOLY SPIRIT What does the Bible say?
CULTURE
46 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING
TO LEONARD A grandmother mourns 54 WHY WE LOVE TO PLAY THE GAME OF THRONES Lessons from HBO's hit television show
SCIENCE & TECH
52 THE CUTTING EDGE What’s happening in
research, engineering and technology?
FUN
62 CROSSWORD & SUDOKU Have you been paying
attention? Yes, there will be a test! FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA 2
SIGNSOFTHETIMES.ORG.AU • AUGUST 2019
/SIGNSOFTHETIMES
FROM THE EDITOR
T
here comes a strange dilemma when we humans manage to sort out the basics of survival and have time to consider the world we live in—and the inner universe of the heart, mind and soul. While we derive pleasure from exploring deeper and expressing ourselves through the sciences, technology, sports and the arts, we’re too often left with the feeling that something is missing—sometimes it just seems so pointless. Tragically, some lose their lives through depression and suicide as these spiralling thoughts drag them down—Lenny’s story (page 46) is a sobering reminder of this. Others find a passion and follow it singlemindedly, as we see with a number of our politicians (page 6). Even fiction explores these themes—check out Mark Hadley’s Game of Thrones wrap up for a sterling example (page 54). The search for meaning and purpose has preoccupied human beings for millennia. King Solomon (900s BC) devoted an entire book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, to complaining about how pointless life seems and how his various projects, pursuits and pleasures failed to fill the void in his soul. It’s an experience paralleled by Australia’s pioneering panoramic landscape photographer, Ken Duncan, the subject of this month’s cover story (page 32). And, strangely, the conclusions that both Duncan and Solomon came to are strikingly similar. It seems that focusing on me, me, me, ends in misery. We need a higher purpose; a wider view. I pray this month’s Signs magazine will help you find it.
Kent
KENT KINGSTON Editor
VOL 134 NO 8 ISSN 1038-9733 EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER Brad Kemp EDITOR Kent Kingston ASSISTANT EDITOR Daniel Kuberek COPYEDITOR Tracey Bridcutt GRAPHIC DESIGN Nerise McQuillan Theodora Amuimuia PHONE +61 2 9847 2222 EMAIL info@signsofthetimes.org.au WEBSITE signsofthetimes.org.au ADDRESS Adventist Media PO Box 1115, Wahroonga New South Wales 2076 SUBSCRIPTIONS Kelli Geelan PHONE +61 3 5965 6300 Australia, $A26; New Zealand, $NZ26; South Pacific countries, $A41; Other countries $A51 Published since 1886, Signs of the Times is printed 11 times a year by the Seventh-day Adventist Church and is registered as a periodical. Seventh-day Adventist Church (SPD) Limited ABN 59 093 117 689 NOTE The inclusion of a person or their image within does not imply their endorsement of the Seventh-day Adventist Church or its beliefs. Unless otherwise stated, Bible verses are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, Anglicised. Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc®. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton. All rights reserved worldwide. COVER PHOTO: Selfies—Ken Duncan
@Kent_SignsMag AUGUST 2019 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES
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W
ELL B EING
Easing
THE PAIN
Chronic back pain is common. But when is it serious enough to consider going under the knife?
YURI ARCURS—GETTY IMAGES
BY SUVI MAHONEN
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SIGNSOFTHETIMES.ORG.AU • AUGUST 2019
O
n a sunny morning in July 2017, Gold Coast Titans second-rower Chris McQueen nervously lay waiting on a hospital gurney. He watched as the anaesthetist wiped his arm with an alcohol swab and winced as the needle of the intravenous cannula pierced his skin and slid up his vein. McQueen was about to undergo a cervical spine total disc replacement and anterior cervical fusion to help repair damage sustained through eight years and 154 first-class games of brutal tackling in the NRL. He had felt comfortable with his decision to proceed with the surgery but, as he lay bathed in the slab of fluorescent lights, a wave of what-ifs hit him. What if something went wrong? What if he was paralysed? What if he could never play another game of rugby again? Just then his spinal surgeon, Dr Laurence McEntee, entered the anaesthetic bay wearing blue scrubs and a clean-shaven smile. “We’re ready to go,” McEntee told McQueen, shaking his hand. “Any questions?” “Will I be any taller after you replace my disc?” McQueen asked. McEntee laughed. “Maybe by a millimetre or two.” After McQueen was wheeled into the theatre, McEntee reviewed the diagnostic images one last time—he could see the bulging discs and bony spurs that were causing pain and numbness down both his arms and keeping him from his beloved game.
Once McQueen was asleep McEntee secured his head to the operating table with long strips of duct tape. Then he put on a mask, scrubbed his hands, gowned and gloved and, taking a scalpel, made his first incision, being careful to avoid the Harry Potter Deathly Hallows tattoo splayed out on the burly man’s neck. Although McQueen, at 29, was relatively young to be having this kind of surgery, he was far from unique. In fact, McEntee himself had had a similar operation at only 28. “People don’t realise that spinal deterioration begins from their late teenage years onwards,” McEntee told me. “Generally, it’s a non-painful process with everyone’s spine wearing out at different rates.” According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, chronic back pain affects 3.7 million people and is the third leading cause of disease burden in Australia. In 2009 the direct healthcare expenditure on back pain alone was $1.2 billion. McEntee says it’s a massive problem. “It’s probably the number one leading cause of musculoskeletal disability, certainly in working-age people.” The causes of back pain are myriad, including muscle and ligament strain, inflammation, osteoarthritis, scoliosis and compression fractures secondary to osteoporosis. However, McQueen was suffering from another common cause: radiculopathy, also known as nerve compression. AUGUST 2019 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES
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FA IT H
COMING
God made families. We messed them up. But whether our families are loving or dysfunctional, we all understand the importance of belonging and the pull of home. BY LYNDELLE PETERSON
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HISPANOLISTIC GETTY IMAGES
HOME
I
love to travel. I love experiencing different cultures, food, places and faces. I love new experiences, unfamiliar streets and interesting languages. I love the rush of catching trains, running for planes and heading to new places of all sorts of colour and variety. I even love the packing and unpacking, the long-haul flights, the airline food and endless hours in transit lounges playing cards or searching for cafes where I can recharge my phone and use the free wifi. But by far my favourite part of the whole travel experience is coming home and walking through the international arrivals gate—the familiar Aussie accents that fill my ears, the recognisable sights, smells and sounds. Then, as I pass through the exit gate I’m confronted with an array of eager-looking people, each desperate to catch their first glimpse of a loved one who they may not have seen for a very long time. There’s a barrage of colourful flowers, homemade signs and balloons energetically bobbing around in anticipation. There are tears and embraces as the distance that was once between loved ones is no longer a barrier. It’s heartwarming—you see the very best of humanity and I always feel a deep swell in my chest as I walk through those gates. There’s something deeply comforting about the familiar. The familiar is what we are at ease with; the surroundings that bring peace, serenity and a sense of home. The AUGUST 2019 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES
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P RO LE FI
KEN DUNCAN’S
R E G G I B
PICTURE
Photographer Ken Duncan came to the world’s attention with his spectacular panoramic landscape images. But these days, he’s encouraging people to take a wider view. BY KENT KINGSTON
K
en Duncan is intense and excitable—a big man who favours bold floral shirts. His focus isn’t on his well-deserved fame as Australia’s pioneering panoramic landscape photographer, which has garnered him multiple awards, but on his involvement with the remote central desert Aboriginal community of Haasts Bluff/Ikuntji. And the dream of a giant cross.
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how it began
It probably shouldn’t be surprising that Ken has ended up passionate about Indigenous issues—his parents spent some years as missionaries in remote Indigenous communities. “I had beautiful Christian parents,” he says. “I had no excuses, but I was one of those rebellious ones—I had to go off and hit a few brick walls. When I
story with this. And that turned into a money-making thing; selling cameras and stuff. But I lost my passion—I got caught up in possessions and houses; what they call ‘success’. But I found that I didn’t own my possessions, they owned me; I was just feeling crowded in by everything and I thought, There’s got to be more to life.” It was a new model of the AUGUST 2019 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES
SUPPLIED BY KEN DUNCAN
left school I was told I’d be the least likely to succeed.” But despite the teenage attitude, Ken discovered something that would define his life. “I was 16 at a Christian youth camp—I took a black-and-white photo and then I processed it. And I saw this print that I’d taken that morning coming up in a tray, and to me that was an epiphany: Whoa, I can tell a
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CU
LT U R E
THE
GOSPEL
according to Leonard Through the anguish and depression that ended my grandson’s life, he caught a glimpse of a Father who loved him. BY ALETA BAINBRIDGE
Len and the author Christmas Len and 2018 the author, Christmas 2018
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the beginning
I held Thelma’s hand throughout the birth of my first grandchild. I was there when they placed that newborn on his mum’s breast, plump as a puppy, grunting from the amniotic fluid he’d inhaled. And into the breast of this newborn grandma there sprang a love and a bond that grew stronger as the years went by. Leonard was a beautiful child with blond curls and a sunny disposition. His blue eyes observed life with a wisdom beyond his years. His young mother had been seduced by
the charm and lies of an older man who’d conveniently disappeared once he’d realised she was pregnant. Angry, disillusioned and fiercely independent, Thelma set out to make her way in the world as a single mother. Lenny suffered much heartache from the insecurity and frustration that this life produced. More serious than the struggle to make ends meet was the unkind treatment that came his way by those men who were willing to be involved with his mother, but not her little boy. As children often do, Lenny blamed himself. His earliest memory was of riding his tricycle in a figure of eight around and around the driveway, while inside his mum and her boyfriend yelled at each other. “Grandma,” he whispered as he told me later, “I knew they were fighting about me.”
melancholic
The textbooks tell us that loud noises and violence raise the levels of anxiety in the gentle soul who feels helpless amid the turmoil. This sense of frustration can become a deep-seated anger. Anger turned outwards is displayed in violence, but anger turned inwards can metastasise into depression. Leonard was an easy victim for those peddling weed. They assured him that it would sweeten life and ease the nightmares that filled his nights with terror. In a letter to his uncle, Lenny wrote: “I am of the opinion that I am a melancholic with a loud voice. AUGUST 2019 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES
SUPPLIEDSUPPLIED BY ALETA BAINBRIDGE BY ALETA BAINBRIDGE
I
t was the call we’d most dreaded. I heard Thelma’s anguished voice clearly across the surging ocean that separates us: “Please pray, Mum! Lenny’s battling for life. He hanged himself. We’re waiting for the paramedics.” My response was calm; it’s my way when there’s a crisis. Only God hears the silent scream. He heard it that day. He heard the agonised pleas of a family begging Him, “Please give Lenny another chance.” He saw a group of young people gathered in a park after church as they prayed and rallied around Richard, Thelma’s brother, urgently pleading for Lenny’s life. He marked how earlier that day, Lenny’s sister, Angie, had dropped into the prayer box at church a note saying, “Lord, I’m praying today especially for Lenny.” I know that every prayer ever prayed for Leonard was presented to God in those last moments of his life.
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LT U R E
Why
WE LOVE TO PLAY
THE
GAME
OF
BY MARK HADLEY 54
SIGNSOFTHETIMES.ORG.AU • AUGUST 2019
IMAGE—HBO
THRONES
W
hen you play the game of thrones, you win, or you die. There is no middle ground. So says Queen Cersei, summing up the ethos undergirding the eightyear drama that was Game of Thrones (GoT). The series’ success has been credited with everything from cementing the popularity of fantasy as a television genre, to encouraging video piracy across the planet. However viewers came to it, though, the series has achieved an audience in the hundreds of millions, making it one of the most popular TV shows in history. Earlier this year the final, record-breaking episode settled who will sit on the Iron Throne and the question can finally be asked: Why did we love it so much? A word of assurance and warning for laggard viewers first. There will be no spoilers from season eight ahead, so readers sharpening their Valerian steel can put down their whetstones. For those who are yet to start watching, though, you’ve had eight years to catch up, so you will have to forgive me if I drop the odd secret from the first seven. By the time its final season went to air, GoT was already sitting on an average viewership of 10 million viewers per episode in the United States alone. DVD and Blu-ray collections have also broken all of producer HBO’s first-day sales records—and expected to do so again with the release of Season 8 to Blu-ray by the end of the year. And on the darker side of the ledger, Bit
Torrent trackers revealed that a single 2012 episode had been downloaded more than 4.2 million times, roughly equal to its broadcast audience. Paid licence or illegal download, however you slice it, television viewers have loved the epic battle over the mythical kingdom of Westeros. GoT has not been short on industry approval either. Review aggregators Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have consistently awarded it a status equivalent to “universal acclaim”. GoT also won scores of commendations since its debut, including five Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Peabody and 47 Emmys, making it the most awarded show in Emmy history. Probably most telling of all, the language of GoT has found its way into popular vocabulary, with phrases like “Game of Thrones” being used to describe the Syrian civil war and Khaleesi emerging as a popular girl’s name in America. The trouble is, this success just shouldn’t have happened in the West, where individualism, feminism and sexual tolerance are constantly celebrated. GoT is awash with explicit nudity, violence and sexual abuse, especially towards women. Progressive publications and liberal commentators have decried its content as “senseless, objectifying imagery” and “torture porn”. Its writers have defended their choices by saying the content is truthful to both history and human nature, where such things are disturbingly common. Regardless, audiences have continued AUGUST 2019 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES
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