Eternity - June 2014 - Issue 48

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NUMBER 48, JUNE 2014 CIRCULATION 100,000 ISSN 1837-8447

From graffiti to good news Civil disobedience and today’s Christian Hidden wisdom - rise of the mummy bloggers

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JUNE 2014

NEWS

Obadiah Slope Sometimes life takes on a theme.

On the same day as Pope Francis’ colourful statement that everyone, including martians and aliens should be baptised, the Melbourne International Film Festival announced its opening night film: Predestination. For a while Obadiah wondered whether the Presbyterian Church of VIC had splashed out on a film production.

But it turns out the thriller starring Ethan Hawkes is based on Sci Fi author Robert Heinlein’s All You Zombies and time travel. Well, time travel is arguably a Christian concept, at least travel out of time and into, ahem, eternity.

There’ve been some attempts to debate serious theological topics on Facebook lately, especially around the conservative and evangelical parts of Aussie Christianity. Is Obadiah the only one who thinks this might be one of the final nails in the coffin for the hip, happening image of Facebook?

Meanwhile in New Zealand the Anglicans held a General Synod (church parliament) and asked everyone not to tweet or blog during some closed sessions. There were some really hot topics discussed including gay blessings.

And guess what? No-one tweeted or blogged. Maybe they really are different from us over there.

For his sins Obadiah has been sentenced to labour in the Bible Society book distribution business. While thinking through how people buy Bibles, certain versions send signals: the NKJV (New King James Version) often sends the signal ‘Pentecostal’.

The HCSB (Holman Christian Bible) sends the signal ‘conservative Anglican or Presbyterian’—although it’s actually published by Baptists. Obadiah doesn’t want to make too much of these distinctions - it’s unhelpful to draw hard and fast lines, and there’s a lot of crossover. The NIV remains the best seller. And scripture teachers often use the easy to read CEV (Contemporary English Version).

Obadiah blundered in the last issue of Eternity, misspelling Tony McLennan’s name. He’s a passionate one-to-one evangelist who uses pictures on his mobile to engage fellow travellers on planes, trains, even the street. Get the pictures by contacting Tony at tmclennan@bibleleague.com.au Three popular Melbourne eateries (read: places of worship) have set up pop-up food stalls in cargo containers on Collins Street. St Ali, one of the city’s most influential cafes, has emblazoned its container with: “The Church of Secular Coffee.” St Ali is the patron saint of coffee. But what is secular coffee? Are Christians OK to drink it? The Apostle Paul would likely say yes, as long as we don’t join in the worship.

Rearranging the deck chairs Showing or building new boats? hospitality Tim Costello

Mark Hadley “For us, church planting was me and my family moving to Mackay,” says Jai Wright, the pastor of Mackay FORRESTDALE (PERTH) Evangelical Church.

Ollie & Nadia Heggers What followed was a prolonged struggle to connect with a highly transient culture shaped by fly-in/fly-out work patterns, but after four years’ effort the Wrights have had to move their congregation to a high school to accommodate the 50 members now attending.

Cases like the Wrights’ MOUNT BARKER (ADELAIDE) Clayton Fopp explain why for some years church planters have occupied a similar space in Australia’s Christian community to that of entrepreneurs and innovators in the secular world. Both are driven by personalities prepared to operate outside of an established system, try the unusual and make gains that were thought to be unachievable.

But if Australian Christianity is a slowly sinking ship, is church planting building new boats or simply rearranging the deckchairs?

Australia’s largest home-grown church planting network, Geneva Push is turning five, providing an opportunity to evaluate whether this strategy is effective in adding souls to the Kingdom. It has been associated with the planting of 45 churches across Australia over four years. It’s assessing a further 20 potential planters who plan to plant within the next two years.

One such planter is Anglican minister Pete Wood. He and his wife Liz planted a church in the new Western Sydney subdivision of Ropes Crossing. This year their church of 60 members celebrated its third birthday with the baptism of four new members.

Pete and Liz have bought a house in the middle of Ropes Crossing and are settled in for the long haul.

Ollie and Nadia Heggers from Western Australia reflect a familiar church planters’ story: determined planting where past evangelism has failed or efforts were thin.

“We decided we had to plant a church here because Christians weren’t present enough in the community,” says Ollie.

Four years of opening their house, conversations and connecting with community services has seen Forrestdale Gospel Community swell from 12 to 40.

Geneva Push research, analysing 151 successful church plants, suggests members of church plants

MACKAY Jai & Jay-Ellen Wright

ROPES CROSSING (SYDNEY) Pete & Liz Woods

HOBART (TASMANIA) Mikey Lynch

...is church planting the most effective way to reach the lost?

G N I H C T A M E N U J E: G N E L L CHA p to

ar u l l o d y r tched Eve a m e b ill AUD w 0 0 of 0 , h t n o $85 m the during 14 June 20

BOX HILL (MELBOURNE) Tim & Belinda Grant

display a greater vitality than those of existing churches across a wide range of indicators: a stronger sense of belonging, more ownership of the church’s vision, more intentional welcoming and a greater desire to share their faith. As a result, church plants have 9 per cent more ‘newcomers’— people who have not been attending any church for five years.

Most planters agree that churches needed to be designed to draw people to visit to learn about God. Clayton Fopp, the senior minister at Trinity Mount Barker on the outskirts of Adelaide says that’s why his church plant puts a high emphasis on adapting to reach its community. Forty per cent of his congregation have had no previous connection with church but feel at home in a culture constructed with them in mind.

“Everything we built in over time was included only if it would help us connect the people in this area with Jesus,” says Clayton.

Tasmanian church planter Mikey Lynch says church plants fulfil a vital role working alongside established churches.

“To some extent church plants become like the R&D department for the local region. Church plants are dumb enough to try things that everyone says won’t work—and then they work.”

And ideally, says Mikey, planters should be thinking “in such a way that [their church] will be on a trajectory to plant its own churches.”

It’s a strategy Clayton appreciates.

“We’re a granddaughter church—a plant from a plant. The churches we start, we want them to be committed to planting too. We want to say to our congregation, ‘It’s not about you.’”

The issue of asylum seekers remains a hot topic in Australia. In all the emotion of the debate, we can forget that this is about people’s lives.

Whatever our opinions are on the best way to deal with people coming to Australia to seek asylum, as Christians it is incumbent on us to love our neighbours as ourselves. It is part of loving God. Our model for doing this is of course Jesus, who was an asylum seeker himself. The Son of God was taken by his parents to a foreign land to seek safe shelter because it was too dangerous to return home (Matt 2).

While the Australian Government implements its policies on asylum seekers, there are many people across this country determined to play their own part by welcoming these people who are literally fleeing for their lives.

And it gladdens my heart that this movement is being led by Christians.

Welcome to My Place is a campaign run by World Vision, giving Christians throughout Australia the opportunity to show hospitality to asylum seekers and refugees during Refugee Week, which runs from 15-21 June.

Isaiah 58:7 reminds us to take the homeless poor into our homes.

This is what this campaign does. It is a wonderful chance to meet and get to know people whose lives are unimaginably different to most of ours.

Building relationships like this is not just good cross-cultural ministry; it is good for the future of our society.

It tears down barriers of fear and misunderstanding and it gives us an inside view of the horrors faced by millions of people the world over.

Here is what one asylum seeker in Melbourne said about what it means to have to flee your country: “When you lose your money and your job, you have lost something essential. When you lose your house, your family and your country, you have lost everything. But when you lose your language and culture, your soul is broken. It is like a spiritual dislocation.”

Please join a growing band of Christians across Australia who are living out the words of the prophets and of Jesus.

And as our Lord himself says in Matthew 25, “whenever you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.”

If you or your church is interested in hosting a Welcome to My Place dinner, you can visit welcometomyplace.org.au

It’s Time.

Partner with Leading The Way today and help take the gospel to your neighbour and the world.

All donations to the Australian ministry over $2.00 are tax deductible.

To find out more visit us online at www.leadingtheway.com.au or call 1300 133 589

JUNE 2014

NEWS

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Will Graham mines souls in Broken Hill

Making disciples in Indonesia

Sophie Timothy

Dr Beng Yeoh of Leading The Way

For a town of 19,000 people, Broken Hill sure can pull some big names.

A local Church of Christ minister approached the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association of Australia about running a training course in the town. Little did he expect Billy Graham’s grandson, evangelist Will Graham to set aside four days to headline a rally called REALITY: Discovering Life’s Purpose.

Jorge Rodriguez of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association says for a town of only around 300-400 regular churchgoers, there has been an encouraging response.

“Around 70 people have made commitments to follow Jesus, and the majority are first time commitments.”

“One of the people who came forward to give himself to Jesus had heard of the crusade on the radio in neighbouring Ivanhoe, and he had travelled 200kms on unsealed roads plus another 100kms on sealed roads to come to the crusade to give his life to Jesus.”

Jorge told Eternity an Italian backpacker also gave her life to Christ in tears while listening to a live broadcast inside the local Gloria Jeans café. He says she was planning to hitchhike to Adelaide when someone fed her, gave her something to drink and bought her a plane ticket to Adelaide. Then, on hearing the gospel, she gave her life to Christ. There are stories of taxi drivers, at-risk youth and locals who’ve not been to church in decades responding to the gospel.

Will Graham on stage in Broken Hill

Religious freedom claim for High Court Sophie Timothy A Christian Youth Camp has launched a High Court appeal over a decision which found it had discriminated against a group of same-sex attracted youth.

As a barometer of the extent of religious freedom in Australia, the High Court case will be closely watched by those in the church, Christian organisations, as well as human rights lawyers and people from minority groups.

Christian Brethren-owned Christian Youth Camps (CYC) was fined $5000

by VCAT in 2010 for discriminating against Cobaw Community Health Services, a group which wanted to run a suicide-prevention camp for 60 rural same-sex attracted youth at the site.

Recently, the Victorian Court of Appeal upheld VCAT’s decision, despite CYC arguing it should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of religious freedom under the Equal Opportunity Act. CYC argued it didn’t object to the group because of the sexual orientation of the campers, but because the group were advocating homosexual behaviour, which is against the beliefs and doctrine of CYC. But the court ruled that there was no distinction between discriminating against homosexual behaviour and discriminating against individual homosexuals.

Among the three judges deciding on the case at the Victorian Court of Appeal was Justice Robert Redlich who dissented against the decision, maintaining it was important religious organisations retained the freedom to protect their ethos. But he was in the minority.

The High Court appeal, if it proceeds, will clarify the extent of religious freedom in Australia and the place of anti-discrimination laws within the legal framework. Derrick Koh, President of the Victorian Christian Legal

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BRIEFS

YWAM Afloat Youth With A Mission’s YWAM Medical Ships has signed a lease to buy the MV Ammari for $1m. They need to raise another $5.5m for the ship which will provide training and medical services in PNG. info@ywamships.org.au Good news on TV Towards Belief, a video series produced by Olive Tree Media, won two awards at the recent Christian Media Australia conference on the Gold Coast.

The ten-part documentary series took out the Graham Wade Pilgrim Prize for best Christian product promoting the gospel. Executive director and host of the series, Karl Faase said, “We were seeking to respond to the belief blockers to Christian faith and belief across the western world.”

The IsaiahOne view Human rights group IsaiahOne’s Angus McLeay: In the appeal decision, the dissenting judge held that an exemption for religious conscience should have been applicable. Nonetheless, this same judge still concurred that CYC’s actions were discriminatory, and he characterised such discrimination as, “diminishing the self-worth and personal dignity of [people], and leading to ‘adverse psychological effects and social and economic disadvantage”. [para 441] Medical authorities agree that people like those in Cobaw’s program face rates of suicide up to 14 times higher than their peers.

Nicholas Wolterstorff, the eminent Christian philosopher, argues that rights bear corresponding responsibilities. What does this mean in disputes involving the right to religious freedom?

At a minimum it means that our responsibilities to others, based on the needs they have, should galvanise us just as much as our rights, and the benefits they may bring. In Scripture’s terms, it entails using every means at our disposal to act for the benefit of others - even at the risk of our own interests. (Luke 6:35; 1 Cor 9; Phil 2:4) Society* says if the High Court upholds the Court of Appeal’s decision, “religious organisations may have to compromise their core values in order to conform to these laws.”

“It is wrong that religious organisations, the ones often providing essential, self-funded support for the most vulnerable sections of society, are faced with such stark choices in what is supposed to be a liberal society.”

Derrick is hopeful the High Court will rule in favour of religious freedom, but says it’s not certain.

“While it is hoped that an appeal to the High Court could restore the balance of religious freedoms in our society, it also has the potential to leave a dangerous precedent against it.” *Derrick’s comments are his own and not necessarily representative of the Society of which he is President.

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Onstage Peter Costello, the former treasurer, was a keynote speaker at Melbourne’s Belgrave Heights Men’s Convention. He told the crowd, “There was a higher proportion of Christians in the parliament than in any other workplace I’ve been in, certainly more than the media.”

Nanjing calls After many years fundraising for Bible printing in China, Bible Society’s Geoff Warren finally got to see the Bible printers Amity Press in Nanjing.

He’s pictured here with an NIV you can buy in Australia at shop.biblesociety.org.au

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The ACL view Australian Christian Lobby’s Victorian Director Dan Flynn: This case shows that equal opportunities triumph religious freedom which is a concern to ACL. Christian Youth Camps and its employee, Mark Rowe, were fined for refusing a booking when, according to the dissenting judge, Justice Redlich, they were compelled to do so by their religious beliefs concerning marriage, sexuality and sexual orientation.

Justice Redlich’s judgment emphasises that if the religious exemption is restricted by judges this frustrates the very purpose of the exemption which is to protect religious freedom.

In 15 years, Paulus’ dMaker Ministries has planted over 1,500 village churches throughout their island nation. Their strategy is simple.

Using FM radio, they can reach large audiences. When the “air-force” has done its work, the “ground-force” is sent in to plant churches. To multiply the work of these church-planters, Paulus has partnered with Leading The Way to distribute solar-powered audio Bibles, called “Navigator pocket missionaries,” which are the “third-force.”

God has used indigenous church planters like Pastor Andreas to reach Sabu island villagers. By faith he went and the Lord supplied resources to build the church, which is growing in his grace.

In east Java, Susana, 42 is grateful for Radio Banyuwangi, part of Paulus’ radio ministry. She had drifted away from God but like the prodigal son, she returned after listening to radio day and night. She is grateful to Leading The Way’s Dr Youssef, whose teaching challenged her back to faith.

Paulus distributed the Navigator audio Bibles in Bali’s famed Kerobokan Prison. This has been a great help to the growing prison church led today by Aussie Bali-niner, Andrew Chan. For example, tough prisoner Ariel testified that after listening to God’s word via the Navigator, he “learned great lessons that motivated him to turn away from his old character.”

These are just three of many testimonies of tens of thousands of Indonesian islanders who have been impacted

by Paulus’ innovative “three-force” disciple-making ministry.

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JUNE 2014

IN DEPTH

Rise of the mummy bloggers Sophia Russell Imagine attending a dinner party where the conversation is a lively dance. One minute, you’re bantering about toilet training. The next, you’re learning about depression. Blink again, and you’re in a debate about public schooling.

Welcome to the world of mummy blogging, where technology savvy women – including a growing number of Christians – are reaching thousands of online readers with their everyday experiences as mums.

It’s hard to nail down how many mummy blogs exist in Australia, although it’s clear the genre is popular with over 2,500 bloggers – mostly Australian mums – registered with blogging network Digital Parents.

Female Christian writers are also getting in on the act. Some delve into niche areas such as childhood autism; others write longer think pieces for Christian readers.

Then there are bloggers like Jess Newman. The South Australian mother of four began blogging in 2011, after a conversation with God in her church’s crèche room convinced her to write about being a stay-at-home mum. Her site, Essentially Jess, is the quintessential mummy blog; a media hub with over 1,000 Facebook followers, close to 5,000 unique visitors a month, an Instagram account and sponsored posts featuring well-known brands.

Newman’s writing style is also typical amongst mummy bloggers: conversational, humorous and

authentic. She is passionate about helping people “see Jesus in everything”, making herself vulnerable through posts on self-esteem and surviving post-natal depression.

“Blogging is sharing how God works through your story,” she says. “I’m happy to expose my weaknesses on the blog if that makes God look better.”

Lisa Berriman, creator of Mummy’s Undeserved Blessings, agrees. Her blog, which has over 1,100 Facebook followers, has opened up many gospel opportunities for the mother of three.

Amongst posts on Michelle Bridges, her favourite brand of shoes and bedtime routines, Berriman shares how she became a Christian and her experience as a minister’s wife living in Canberra. “When I write about my faith, I’ll have questions from the Facebook community or friends who are intrigued by what I‘ve written…it’s an easy way to share the gospel with people,” she says.

This is partly due to the mummy blogging community. Berriman describes her readers as supportive and tightly connected; qualities she believes address the isolation mums can experience, as “you get to have a laugh during the day with someone you don’t even know.”

Author Cecily Paterson experienced this community while writing about her son’s autism. Her book, Love Tears & Autism, has continued as a blog (Autism. Mostly.), Facebook page and private online group - each engaging parents who, according to Paterson, “don’t want an expert’s forum on autism, but are just struggling along

with (autism) and knowing what to do with their kids”.

The same sense of support is found on explicitly Christian blogs. Although faith-based sites tend to have a modest readership compared to mainstream mummy blogs, they play a key role in encouraging Christian parents to live out their faith amidst the nappies and tantrums. “I didn’t have a Christian mum growing up,” reflects one reader, a mother of four. “Reading blogs by other Christian mums equips me to help my kids live for Jesus.”

One such blogger is Nicole Starling, creator of 168 Hours. Starling’s appeal to Christians is her down-to-earth approach to gospel-centred parenting, although she is conscious of appearing to have all the answers. “Usually the topics I’ve looked at have not been things I have been particularly good at,” says the Sydney-based mother of four. “I was terrible at showing hospitality when I wrote a series about it. I was writing about it in an attempt to think through how I could be better.”

Another well-known blog in Christian circles is Jenny Kemp’s quirkily named No Reading at the Breakfast Table. Although she favours a more haphazard blogging schedule, Kemp’s posts – which challenge commonly held worldviews – often spark online debate. “My most read post was one I wrote on our decision to send our kids to a government high school,” says Kemp, who has five school-aged children. “I can find it exhausting managing a discussion like that…but I haven’t taken the post down (it still gets a lot of hits every day)

Awakening peace and love and joy Recorded Hymns, Choruses, Bible Readings and Prayers – memories from childhood MemoryLink was created from an Australia-wide survey to provide comfort, encouragement and joy to ageing people, especially those suffering dementia, by using music and Bible verses to awaken memories of their early Christian experiences.

MemoryLink was developed by Pennant Hills Uniting Church using a player

by Megavoice with a grant from UnitingCare Ageing, Northern Sydney Region.

PRICE $68 For more information … email fsharpe@bigpond.net.au phone 02 9484 6197 or write to MemoryLink at Pennant Hills Uniting Church PO Box 902, Pennant Hills NSW 1715 For brochure and order form go to website www.pennanthillsuniting.org.au

MEET URGENT NEED IN

Sometimes [these discussions] are hard to have face-toface because they are such sensitive topics, but online it can be easier to express an opinion

because I think these are the kinds of discussions Christians should have more often. Sometimes they are hard to have face-to-face because they are such sensitive topics, but online it can be easier to express an opinion.”

Using one’s personal life to spark

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JUNE 2014

iStockphoto.com/patrickheagney

online discussion can be a precarious business. Privacy is a constant concern for mummy bloggers - most don’t share names or any specific details about their children. Julie Miller, a Sydney mum who wrote articles for big name bloggers as a speech therapist, made

her blog private once she found the content becoming “more personal”. “I wanted to protect my family and not second guess myself all the time, thinking is someone going to figure out where I live? Is this going to be embarrassing for my kids in the future?” she says.

Balancing online time with other responsibilities is another issue. While people vary on whether they see blogging as ministry (Newman feels it’s an area of ministry God has given to her; Kemp views it more as a hobby), most implement restrictions such as blogging only when kids are asleep, limiting time spent responding to Facebook comments and only writing posts on certain nights of the week.

Far more difficult, says Berriman, is dealing with negative comments, even

though readers are fairly respectful.

“My insecurity is the hardest part.

I invest a lot into my blog and for someone to hate it, pull it apart or not even read it…you’re really putting yourself out there and I guess I get scared I might say the wrong thing,” she says. Starling battles similar thoughts.

“When I first started blogging, I noticed that I’d get really down if no

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one commented on a post, and I’d get a real high when I wrote a post that got lots of attention. This is all pride.”

Their words are honest and raw, which is precisely what makes blogging so powerful. Amongst the online chatter, we see glimpses of a real Christian life, with all its frailties and triumphs. Now that’s a conversation worth joining.

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SPONSORED PAGE

Christian Blind Mission

Disability in the Australian Church Lindsey Gale (CBM) and Jason Forbes (NSW Presbyterian Social Services) This is an extract from a paper with the above title presented at the Theology, Disability and the People of God Conference in Auckland, New Zealand, 1-4 July 2013 In 2011, the fifth Australian National Church Life Survey was run – a very large cooperative undertaking, charting the health of the church.

In the year leading up to the survey, Lindsey Gale was involved on behalf of CBM, working with NCLS researchers to develop questions to uncover the presence of disability in the church, to establish how the church was going with accessibility and inclusion, and to get a benchmark for the future.

Church leaders were asked the following: Whether their church had a public statement expressing commitment to being inclusive,

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Whether their church provided education about disability and inclusion in any way, and

source: NCLS 2011

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Church attendees were asked: Whether they had a disability or connection with disability (family, friend or work-related), and

What provisions their church had to cater for disability-related needs – e.g. major and minor physical facilities, program provision, or a welcoming culture.

Whether they considered their church to be inclusive of disability, be it physical, sensory, intellectual or psychiatric disability.

In the above inforgraphic, we see that disability impacts nearly 50% of our congregations in some way – people with a disability make up almost 8 percent of church congregations, just over 18 percent are family members of people with disability, people employed in a disability-related area make up about 18 percent, and friends of people with disability account for around 10 percent of the congregation.

The remaining 51 percent of the congregation have no involvement.

When we considered almost 8 percent of church attendees have a disability we had to ask – how does this representation compare to the presence of disability in wider Australian society?

Above: Professor Jeff McNair (California Baptist University), Professor Kathi McNair (California Baptist University) and Dr Shane Clifton (Alphacrucis College, Sydney)

The number of people with disability represented in church congregations is much lower in comparison to wider society, where over 18 percent have a disability. The representation of people with severe disability is particularly low (2 percent, compared to 6 percent in the wider community l), however this figure

is unsubstantiated as the NCLS form is not accessible i.e. it does not provide alternative formats for people with print disabilities (including impairments to hand function, comprehension and reading ability, and vision).

While this figure may not accurately represent the number in church, it very likely reflects the marginalisation of disability in the church.

The number of people with disability represented in church congregations is much lower in comparision to wider society

Our conclusion is that there is at least an 8 percent-presence of disability in the church, but that in the presence of various barriers (such as inaccessible NCLS forms), the disability voice is soft.

You may think of this figure as a volume knob that has been turned down – the voice is there, but it’s very soft.

From the results of the Church Life Survey, CBM will work with the NCLS to develop alternative survey formats for the 2016 survey make the disability voice louder and empower that voice.

For details of the NCLS survey, visit the CBM website: http://www.cbm.org.au/ content/our-work/luke14/ncls-results

Honest Conversations DISABILITY AND AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES

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Hear from a wonderful line-up of international and local speakers, who will address how your church can welcome people with disabilities too.

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JUNE 2014

MISSION

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John Sandeman

The electronic golden age we recorded them. We got a group of children together and they learned the children’s songs.”

Because Fenton Sharpe and the MemoryLink team used a community choir and a group of children for the choruses, the recording sounds like church and Sunday school. MemoryLink is a project of the Pennant Hills Uniting church in Sydney’s north; the choir and children’s chorus were sourced locally.

“We did a survey a couple of years ago and asked elderly people what Bible passages and prayers that they learned in their early childhood

A face that has been blank for weeks or even months, lights up

photo: Ian Corke

Fenton Sharpe ignores his flat white and says, “I’d like to tell you about Harry. Harry Edwards was my local MP. He was also known as Professor Harry Edwards when he was Deputy Vice Chancellor of Macquarie University. He was the MP responsible for starting the parliamentary Christian fellowship. But in the end he had advanced dementia.”

Fenton played Christian music, prayers and scripture to Harry using a device called MemoryLink—a small hand held, battery-powered player.

“Whenever I played it to him, his eyes would light up and he would be communicating again,” Sharpe told Eternity.

“Sometimes when you tap people’s early memories you can get them to be responsive and to demonstrate emotions they can’t do in any other way,” Sharpe says. “I got the idea that there might be a lot of people in that situation where they can no longer communicate with their loved ones. But they may well be able to communicate with the Lord.”

The MemoryLink device, about the size of a smartphone but much simpler to use, with large buttons, is programmed with prayers, hymns and songs, and scripture readings.

MemoryLink includes hymns like, “What a friend we have in Jesus” and “All things bright and beautiful”; choruses like, “Yes, Jesus loves me” and “Build on the rock”; and Bible passages like, “For God so Loved the world” (John 3:16) and “The Lord is my shepherd” (Psalm 23) and “Behold I stand at the door and knock” (Rev 3:20).

Sharpe says, “We decided we would record these in a way that was as close as possible to the sounds that would be deep in their memory. A local choir was formed and learned the 30 hymns and

they could still remember and that meant a lot to them. We got a list of 30 most remembered hymns, 30 most remembered children’s songs, and about 40 Bible passages. A big issue was how to distribute them.”

It was then that Sharpe teamed with Tom Treseder, who runs a scripture playback device company called Megavoice. It was no chance meeting; the two men had first met in primary school when they were nine.

Treseder brought his experience of producing easy to use audio scripture devices to the project. “We thought something as small as that and as simple as that might be the way to go.”

He has taken part in the trials that has meant Memorylink is ready to use. He describes bring memorylink into a dementia ward. “I put it on the table and play it, and remarkable things happen,” says Tom Treseder. “A face that has been blank for weeks or even months, lights up. Often a tear will come down their cheek. Often, though they have not spoken to anyone for a long time, they will begin to sing.

They words have been in their heads since they were an infant. They smile, and for a while they are obviously communicating” Memorylink: fsharpe@bigpond.net. au or 02 9484 6197

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JUNE 2014

TESTIMONY

Hip-hop artist tagged by God When 12 undercover police raided Peter Noble’s house in western Sydney he knew he was done. Scouring his house looking for photographs of graffiti, bolt cutters, hacksaws and spray cans, the police found enough evidence to charge him with 26 graffitirelated offences. He was just 19.

At the centre of the evidence were 20 train panels, which he’d tagged. In order to convict him, police had to get a train expert to assess the photos found at his house and confirm they were indeed photos of the side of a train, and a sign-writer to certify that yes, this was done by the hand of Peter Noble.

There seemed to be no way around it—he would go to jail.

Shortly after his arrest, a friend invited him along to Bible study.

Having grown up in a Christian home, he wasn’t a stranger to church, but he’d been living a double life. With nothing to lose, he went along. There he joined the group watching The Way of the Master, an evangelistic DVD produced in the US. “The presenter said, ‘If you died tonight, where would you be going?’

And I thought, man, I’d be going to hell. I was really hit with the weight of my sin.

“I went home that night and I was just shaking. I could barely put the keys in my car. I remember going home and weeping and crying out to God to save my life.”

In that moment, Peter recommitted his life to Christ.

“Not everyone needs to have 12 policemen raid their house to wake up,

but some people do. Some people need to go to jail, to have their life taken away from them, to realise that God’s trying to get their attention.”

Prior to his arrest, he’d become friends with a girl called Altamira who was a strong Christian. Peter says she played a pivotal role in helping him process what had happened, and encouraged him in his walk with God. “The process of turning my life around took at least a year and a half to break off relationships with different girls, and different graffiti friends, friendships that weren’t appropriate and just dealing with baggage,” he says.

While on bail, with a lot of time on his hands, Peter began to think about what he was going to do with his life and decided he wanted to be in the army. But first, he had to receive his sentence.

A year and a half after his arrest, it was time. Peter stood up in court.

“I looked the judge straight in the eye and I said, ‘I’m sorry that I’m here. I stand before you now, with my friends, family and pastors who all know me, to promise that you will never see me in this court again.’”

Amazingly, Peter escaped a jail term because of his intention to marry Altamira and join the military.

Instead, he was asked to complete some community service. “I didn’t get justice. I got mercy. I should’ve been given a suspended jail term but it didn’t happen.”

A month later, he married Altamira.

Six months later he joined the army and began his training at Kapooka in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.

While there he met Andrew Grills, an

army chaplain (now church planter in Geelong). Andrew met up with Peter regularly to encourage him in his faith, and his marriage, and it was Andrew who inspired him to become an army chaplain himself. But to reach his goal, he would need to go to Bible college.

After graduating from Kapooka, Peter sent the two police officers who’d been on his case a photo of his wedding and his graduation ceremony.

“They wrote back to me saying they’d put the photos up on their morale board at police central in Sydney. They said, ‘We never hear success stories like that’. Neither of them was Christian, but they were really moved by the change and one of them said he’d shout me a coffee if I came to Sydney and saw him.”

Peter stayed in the army for a few more years before discharging in order to go to Ridley Melbourne and get a Bachelor of Theology.

Just before he started college last year, the policeman’s promise came to reality. The two met up for coffee in Newtown, in Sydney’s inner west.

“Now he’s promised he’ll come to see me graduate with my Bachelor of Theology,” says Peter.

28 years old and with two children, Peter’s now half-way through his studies and it’s been eight years since the arrest; eight years since he picked up a spray can.

Apart from studying full-time, Peter runs the youth drop-in centre at St Luke’s Anglican Church in South Melbourne and has a busy hip-hop ministry under the moniker Nobee One. Last year he released his first album

How Great Thou Art after years of emceeing alongside his wife Altamira.

As part of their ministry, they’ve performed in juvenile justice centres, at Easterfest, high schools and done countless open air gigs in the city with his boombox made from a recycling bin, giving out tracts and preaching the gospel. He’s been invited back to Kapooka to perform 14 times.

If that’s not enough, Peter’s also writing a book about the intersection of theology and hip-hop.

“Every rapper is a preacher,” he says.

“The question is, what’s your sermon about?”

“I’m looking at the role of the emcee. Is a hip-hop artist performing at a church preaching? What’s the difference between a Christian who raps, and a Christian rapper?”

Last year, he was awarded a Mission Travel Group grant, which will go towards producing a new album.

“As a Christian, when you understand that the gospel is bigger than you and it’s something worth committing your life to, how could anyone not use their gifts to serve the church? You don’t own your own gifts.”

Looking back over his life so far, Peter says there’s no other way to describe what happened to him eight years ago other than that “Peter Noble died.” His former life is now foreign to him. “When I look back now, looking back at that mess, it’s so far away from me.”

But one thing remains true.

“God is just so merciful. I think over it all, I really see the mercy of God. I can’t find anything to boast in except in what God’s done.”

Photo: Corey Sleap

Sophie Timothy

Here is a challenge: listen, really listen Al Stewart I’m not a good listener. I could say it’s because I’m half deaf in my right ear (it’s all self-inflicted from a hobby, so no sympathy required!) Or I could be a bit more honest and say it’s a bloke thing. When I’m in ‘Newspaper Land’, or ‘TV Land’ I just don’t hear my wife or daughter start speaking to me.

But the real answer is, “Listening is hard work.” It takes eff ort, care and humility.

Effort in that I have to concentrate, care in that I need to engage with what someone is saying, and humility in that I have to believe that what they are saying is important enough for me to listen rather simply wait for a gap to say my piece.

You’d think listening would be one of life’s most basic skills and yet so many blokes just don’t do it. A male conversation ends up being two people taking turns to talk at rather than to one another.

But the Bible says that watching how someone listens is one way of recognising a fool: To answer before listening - that is folly and shame. (Prov.18:13) It’s pretty obvious that if I really listen to you I’m much more likely to learn what’s actually going on. It means I’m more likely to empathise with you, to see the struggles taking place even beneath

It is worth zeroing your ears in on what’s best

“I looked the judge straight in the eye and I said, ‘I’m sorry that I’m here”

9

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your words. It takes effort, care and emotional energy.

It’s also interesting that Jesus’ brother James links listening with being slow to get angry: My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. (James 1:19) If I actually understand what’s going on for someone, empathise where they’re at, slow down a little and think, I’m much less likely to get angry – especially if what they have to say is critical of me. In fact how you listen to criticism demonstrates how wise you are: Like an earring of gold or an ornament of fine gold is the rebuke of a wise judge to a listening ear. (Prov.

25:12) And with listening comes another mark of wisdom – speaking less.

The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone? (Ecclesiastes 6:11) And once we start listening, it’s worth zeroing your ears in on what’s best.

Again and again Jesus pleads with us to listen to him, and to his words because in his words we’ll find life. He says that when the dead hear the voice of the Son of God, “…those who hear will live.”

So here’s a challenge. Try for one day to really listen to what people say.

Listen, think, ask follow-up questions, understand what they are saying – then listen some more. You might be surprised at what you learn, and how it transforms both you and your conversations.

11

JUNE 2014

CULTURE

Perils of the box-set bingefest Mark Hadley It’s been a long day and you’re finally able to settle down on the couch in front of the TV for a bit of harmless storytelling. Better still, you’ve just come into the possession of the second season of a show you really enjoy. You watch one episode. It’s only 10pm, though, and the show was just so good.

Time for one more? Why not? Soon it’s 11pm. Episode two was even better than episode one! You begin to evaluate what it is you have on tomorrow - it’s Friday night, it’s Saturday night, it’s a slow day at work… “Let’s just watch the first fifteen minutes,” you say, and you’re back to the menu screen.

Welcome to the box-set binge.

The Australian televisual public was delivered a blessing and a curse within a few years of each other. The blessing: the ability to break the shackles of the network programming department.

The creation of the Digital Video Recorder allowed us to easily record a range of programs and watch them in the order we chose; the DVD box-set allowed us to cheaply purchase entire seasons and save space from those VHS cases. The curse was the effortlessness with which we could now consume programs previously curated by the calendar. In fact the user-interface for both DVRs and DVDs means we can now “Record all” and “Play all” with ridiculous ease.

You might not feel as though this is your problem, but let me ask: Have you ever finished off a program and felt inexplicably excited, regardless of

what’s going on in your own life? Or ever looked at the TV as a solution to the way you’re currently feeling? Have you ever said to someone, “I just want to watch something happy!” - and gone searching for specific shows? If television came in caplets rather than discs we’d recognise this process more

our anger. So too their pride, greed and arousal. In moderation, this might not be a problem. But the second problem is the enlargement of our appetites.

Thirty years ago prime time started at 6pm and ended around 8.30pm.

Now it extends as far as 11.30pm, and even beyond that. Our TV consumption

associate that sin with food, but Paul says to the Philippians: “For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly

easily. We are emotionally dosing ourselves, and there has never been such a thing as a good overdose.

Binge-viewing has two spiritual outcomes. The first is that it alters our moods. Neuroplasticity studies the neural pathways of the brain - those we regularly run down to solve our problems and make sense of the world around us—and suggests they can be altered by repetitive exposure to sensory input. The constant and close identification with characters and storylines can create actual neural shortcuts in our brains, connecting up new responses to myriad situations.

The anger experienced by a character whose life is nothing like ours, becomes

lasts longer because the industry aims to extend it in the same way a chip company sneaks up the size of oneperson bags. It is a science. Images every 2-4 seconds, mimicking the “refresh rate” of the human eye so that there is no need to look away from the screen. Spikes of longing or curiosity are written in at specific time-points to nullify commercial breaks and draw us back to the couch. Before you know it, 15 minutes of TV just isn’t enough.

The Bible addresses this problem, though we might miss it because St Paul didn’t own a TV. But you won’t have to look far to see him warning Timothy, the Romans, Galatians or Corinthians about gluttony. We

things.” (Phil 3:18-19) These Christians who bring Paul to tears have become worshippers of their appetites - their god is their stomach.

TV is not the problem. Storytelling is a powerful way of changing people’s perspectives. But beware your appetite ruling the remote. If you find you’ve downed an entire season of Call The Midwife, The Office or House Of Cards in a single week it should be cause for concern. Ask yourself what you were longing for 60 seconds before you settled in for that third episode - Peace? Relief? Meaning? Were you ever going to find it in a four-disc case?

Those things are God’s to give, not JB Hi-Fi’s.

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12

JUNE 2014

Suzanne Schokman

Scriptures amid the samba of times of grace and mercy.”

He’d be pleased to know that acts of service are very much part of Bible Society Brazil’s plan for the World Cup. Under their Joga Limpo or Fair Play Brazil banner, teams of volunteers will assist foreign fans navigating their way around the Portuguesespeaking nation. Pastor Arnaldo Sena is one of those helping to coordinate the large volunteer groups. “At least 500 people in each of the 12 host cities will welcome tourists at airports, bus stations and hotels,” he explains. “Our English, French and Spanish-speaking volunteers will serve as language facilitators, a great help for those making their way around our nation.

The visitors will be offered a Gospel of John in their language, if it’s French, German, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, English, Spanish or Russian.”

That will serve many of the 600,000 foreign fans expected to descend on Brazil during the soccer fest. John’s Gospel in Portuguese will serve local crowds—the three million watching or volunteering in the host cities.

Four million tracts and 20,000 of John’s Gospel have been printed. The Gospel’s introduction page draws analogies between sports and dayto-day life, helping volunteers to lead people into the Scriptures. A small army from 1,600 churches and

“When you’re not winning or playing well, he’s always there, and he gives us that joy, that feeling that we’re valuable.” Cacau Cameron Jones, part of an Athletes in Action mission trip heading for Brazil, concurs. “The World Cup provides an amazing outreach opportunity for sports ministries. Football (and sport in general) has immense power to break down cultural and religious barriers which can seem impenetrable. It brings people together, and then helps forge relationships and respect that lead to a platform for one to share their faith.”

Relationship is a key part of the equation for Steve Stubbings, National Ministry Development Director with Sports Chaplaincy Australia. He says there’s value in having Scripture resources available at sports events, though he’s not game for handing them out cold. “There must be relationship,” he explains. “The gospel arises out

Christian ministries will distribute Scriptures and engage with people during the World Cup. Steve Stubbings says that the tracts handed out may also come into play at a later time. “Leaving people with something that they can refer to later also has value. I’d leave them with Scripture, like a Gospel of John or Mark, and not a theological document.”

Handing out Scripture tracts is also a great way to reach visitors from nations closed to the Bible. For those who’ve never heard about Christ, it could be the start of a life-changing discovery.

“Some don’t even know who Jesus is,” says Stubbings, “so it’s important to raise awareness. People from Islamic backgrounds have a great respect for Jesus, so the gospels are a great way to promote a relationship with them.”

There’s another good reason to share the gospel at the World Cup. Amid the hoopla there are human needs and people who very much need the good news. As fans, teams and especially the players know, there’s a flip side. Brazilian-born Cacau (now playing for Germany) speaks in The Prize DVD from Athletes in Action, featuring Christian sports stars: “The pressure to win is constant…I don’t like losing, but things don’t always work out.

And that’s also how life is, and I have to say that God gives me the strength even in a difficult situation. When you’re not

Above: Fair Play Brazil is a movement coordinated by Bible Society Brazil. It’s mobilised volunteers from 1,600 churches and ministries to distribute Scriptures at the 2014 World Cup.

winning or playing well, he’s always there, and he gives us that joy, that feeling that we’re valuable.”

Cacau is joined by a good number of soccer stars who are open about their Christian faith. Kaká, Lucio, Adebayor, Falcao, Ze Roberto, Dirk Kuyt and Tim Howard are all soccer luminaries and believers. In years past —when it was still allowed— Kaká would rip off his jersey after scoring a goal, revealing an “I Belong to Jesus” T-shirt underneath.

Off the soccer pitch and on, the good news is being declared. Cameron Jones is thankful for how God has used soccer to help him grow, as well as to reach out to others through the game.

“I have seen first hand how it breaks down barriers and opens up conversations around faith, life and Jesus.”

That’s the goalpost for Bible Society Brazil at the World Cup— initiating conversations around faith through the simple offer of a tract.

Bible Society Australia is helping with printing and distribution costs for the World Cup Scriptures, and invites you to be part of this life-changing move. The World Cup is on for 32 days, and there’s amazing potential to reach people with the gospel. Let’s work to help those at the World Cup win a greater victory, no matter which team lifts up the golden trophy on July 13.

To donate to this project, please visit biblesociety.org.au/eternityappeal or call 1300 BIBLES (1300 242 537).

iStockphoto.com/Willard

On 12 June the world’s largest samba party begins: the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Soccer-crazy Brazilians are behind their nation’s bid for a sixth World Cup triumph, not impossible for the land that’s produced Ronaldinho, Kaká and Pelé. In the midst of this buzz, Bible Society Brazil is sharing the message of a more eternal goal by distributing Scriptures at the soccer tournament.

Soccer, and the Scriptures? Some may be doubtful about outreach at a sports event where peoples’ minds are not on the spiritual. Others argue that God works in all circumstances; Saul of Tarsus, for instance, was negotiating a dusty road when God intercepted him.

“I’ve served at many events like the World Cup,” says Jim Schmidtke, who’ll lead pre-game chapel with the US team in Brazil. “People are always more talkative around the events. It’s a wonderful chance to share the gospel.”

JUNE 2014

BOOKS

“How’s your week?”

Crazy Busy

by Kevin DeYoung Published by Crossway Available wherever good books are sold Reviewed by Kaley Payne “How’s your week been?” I ask a friend at church. It’s a banal question, so I expect a similarly bland response. But an experiment over several weeks sees ‘busy’ appear at least 70 per cent of the time, in some form. Or the look on their faces (often accompanied by a heaving sigh or crazy-eyes) makes the word redundant.

“Most everyone I know feels frazzled and overwhelmed most of the time,” writes Kevin DeYoung in his latest book Crazy Busy.

I’m trying in earnest not to use the word ‘busy’ in my greetings vocabulary.

It’s a difficult habit to break. And there’s a lingering fear that if I don’t say I’m busy, people might not know that I am, or think they’re busier than I am, which makes me feel… inadequate.

DeYoung’s book has struck a nerve.

He doesn’t lay out the definitive guide to overcome busyness, or suggest you should only work four hours a week, or give you a list of schedulers to plan out your life. Instead, he suggests a realistic vision for a less frantic, Christian life.

In world dominated by FOMO (fear of missing out), it’s no wonder we feel so frantic. It’s the curse of the affluent, according to DeYoung. “Because we can do so much, we do do so much. Our

lives have no limits.”

DeYoung isn’t the first to recognise this busyness epidemic. The New York Times calls it “the busy trap”, suggesting “busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness.” Harvard Business Review calls it just another “humble brag”.

What DeYoung brings to this discussion is the revelation that Christians were “made to be busy”. But it’s the type of busyness that matters.

Crazy Busy sets out a series of diagnoses—how you can tell that your ‘busy’ is not the good type.

Diagnosis #5 rang in my ears: You are letting the screen strangle your soul.

If you’ve never heard of ‘acedia’, it’s about time you did. DeYoung describes it as “purposelessness disguised as constant commotion”. How much of your ‘busyness’ is really constant distraction by digital means; the “endless noise” of the internet and social media? “The biggest deception of our digital age may be the lie that says we can be omni-competent, omni-informed, and omni-present,” writes DeYoung. “We cannot be any of these things. We must choose our absence, our inability, and our ignorance—and choose wisely.”

This book is only 118 pages. If you still think you’re too busy to read it, then you need to read this book fast, and work out why.

If you’ve never heard of ‘acedia’, it’s about time you did

13

A story of redemption Eyrie

by Tim Winton Published by Penguin Books Australia Available wherever good books are sold Reviewed by Kara Martin Tim Winton has been shortlisted yet again for the Miles Franklin Award, the award he has won four times before.

This time he is up for Eyrie.

The book tells the story of Tom Keely, introduced as a broken man: dependent on alcohol and pills to get him through the day. Gradually we discover that he was a successful environmental activist who is struggling to deal with a fall from grace. Falling is a strong metaphor through the novel.

He bumps into another resident of his unit block, Gemma Buck, an acquaintance from the past, and her six-year-old grandson Kai. Gemma is on the edge, trying to support the boy, who has seen too much. She works nightshifts and Tom is in fear for the boy left alone in the high-rise unit.

Not since The Turning collection of short stories has there been such a powerful and attractive portrayal of Christians, in Tom’s parents Nev and Doris: strong, compassionate, courageous, suffering. We hear of their conversion, their willingness to sacrifice and offer hospitality to those in need, and Nev’s doomed attempt to run a church along biblical lines.

In fact, the book is full of Christian symbolism and imagery. In the first

six pages alone there was reference to “Calvinist tolling”, a “gospel gasp”, “Philistine giant”, “leviathan”, a “flannel-tongued Jeremiah with neither mission nor prophecy”, “Pentecostal ecstasy in the air and to resist it was heresy”, “monastic discipline”, “consolation”, “gnashing”, and “more hellish updraught than pastoral uplift”.

It is so rich with biblical references that I wonder if those less familiar with Scripture might have an experience that is significantly less rich.

What is universal is the story of a broken man, feeling like a failure in the face of his heroic father, trying to recover his sense of masculinity, and awaken parenting instincts as he connects with Kai. In a Centre For Public Christianity interview, Winton describes complex and vulnerable Kai as “an unwitting agent of grace”.

Some may enjoy the less subtle aspect of the book, as Winton uses Keely’s voice to rail against environmental degradation. It is consistent with Keely’s character, but too forced to me.

I read this book in two hours, so drawn in by the suspense. The ending is not as ambiguous as some of Winton’s past novels, but it is not a complete or neat resolution, and some may still feel dissatisfied. Yet, Winton always delivers a slice of messy life, rather than the neat cake we might want or pretend life to be.

(It is) the story of a broken man, feeling like a failure

14

JUNE 2014

OPINION

Michael Jensen second. Paul is this saying to Christians living in Rome - a tiny minority of religious dissidents, exposed to the possibility of marginalisation and persecution.

The Roman Emperors were not nice democratic government ministers who were accountable to the people and committed theoretically to engaging in conversation with their people. They were not convinced of moral principles like “human rights” or “equality”.

In fact, the book of Revelation will demonise Rome and its emperors, seeing them as malevolent forces, which will be ultimately overthrown.

Rome is a beast.

And yet, Christians are called to “submit”, “honour” and “obey”.

How can this make sense when a government may be pursuing a course of action that is in direct opposition to the will of God for the world? How can we possibly submit to the Emperor who may command us to offer sacrifices to him as God? How could a Christian in North Korea possibly “honour” and “obey” the regime that is there - a regime that has caused untold suffering to its people and relentlessly persecuted Christians?

After all, we must obey God rather than human beings. That was Peter’s comment to the Sanhedrin in Acts 5 when he had been forbidden to teach the gospel. What?! And it reminds us of a number of instances in the Bible of disobedience to rulers and authorities.

For example, Miriam did not hand over the baby Moses to the Egyptians under orders from the Pharaoh to kill the newborn Hebrew boys.

The book of Daniel is a particular case in point. Daniel and his friends give no heed to the commands of the Babylonian rulers to bow down to their idols, or to pray to no one but the Emperor alone.

The Christian martyrs of the first few centuries likewise did not cave in to the demands of governors and rulers that they commit acts of false worship.

But there’s much to learn from the manner in which these exemplars of faith went about their disobedience.

They did not show disrespect to the ruler in each case - in fact, quite the opposite. They have the clarity that comes from the knowledge that the rule of the human ruler is only a second-tier

authority; he rules because God allows him (or her) to rule, and for no other reason. Therefore he is not to be feared, if the Christian does the right thing that honours God, because it is God who ultimately rewards the righteous and punishes evildoers.

Clearly then, the idea of Christian civil disobedience is not completely absurd. When obedience to God contradicts obedience to the government, there’s no question what a Christian is called to do.

We might however complain that these instances from the past are so clear cut: it is either a case of disobey a clear command of God or obey it, and the Christian can only choose the one and repudiate the other, surely.

Fast forward to a democracy like Australia and things aren’t so easy. The lines are not as easily drawn. There is no one forcing Australians to worship idols. There is no one asking us to sacrifice to false gods or be killed.

What’s more, the biblical instances were cases in which the person simply carried out worship of God as normal— praying when praying is banned, preaching when preaching is forbidden.

The contemporary examples involve cases where some Christians have judged that a great evil is being perpetrated in our midst by the governing authorities and that, though the ordinary channels of persuasion and debate and legal appeal are still open, the just outcome is clearly not being achieved by these.

The arrests have taken place because the Christians concerned have actively sought to be arrested, not for worship but for trespass. But still, given the necessity for obedience to God above humans, the need to act out of love even when it is at cost to ourselves, and the examples from the Bible, we should not rule out other instances of civil disobedience entirely.

How can we then think through a case for a possible act of civil disobedience by Christians in a secular liberal democracy in which dissent is legal and there is freedom of religion?

How can we act wisely?

First, the cause has to be profoundly serious. The Christian will always want to recognise and support governmental authority. The Christian is no anarchist, and so it is only with extreme reluctance that a Christian person should break the law of the land.

How can the seriousness of a cause be judged? There are any number of instances in which injustices and infelicities are committed by even the best governments.

flickr.com/kateausburn

Recently a group of Christian leaders - including a friend of mine - walked into the office of the Minister of Immigration, Scott Morrison, sat down and conducted a prayer vigil.

They stayed until they were arrested for trespass and taken to the police station. Later, the charges against them were dismissed. As Eternity reported at the time, the protesters saw themselves engaging in a “non-violent act of civil disobedience in the form of a prayer vigil.”

Their cause? To highlight the plight of the more than 1,000 children living in detention centres in Australia - or in centres controlled by Australia offshore.

It’s a good cause, and there has been sadly little attention given by either this government or the last to this terrible situation. The Australian populace seems to be saturated by apathy and self-interest. There’s a good deal of inertia surrounding these innocent children and the evil being committed against them. And we are responsible.

They are, as the Bible would say, “the alien within our gates” who, by dint of their presence among us, are our kith and kin.

Did they do the right thing, when in the eyes of the law they had done the wrong thing? Is there a Christian case for what is classically called “civil disobedience”, even of the non-violent variety—even when it is just praying in an MP’s office?

It would seem, at least at face value, that the Bible is pretty clear about the duties of Christians as citizens. In the first place, they are to be taxpayers.

Although Jesus was taking a bit of a sideswipe at Caesar when he said it, he certainly urged his disciples to “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Mark 12:17).

Paul repeated this in Romans 13; and more, he showed that the paying of taxes to governments is a necessary part of submitting to their authority, which is given by God for the preservation of society: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established,” he writes. And obediently paying taxes is part of submitting to the authority that God has established.

The flipside is that disobedience to the authority of the emperor is a rebellion against God himself: “Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”

Now let’s think about this for a

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When should a Christian engage in civil disobedience?

How do we choose which “hill to die on”? Because of their doctrine of sin, Christians will subject their own judgment to the scrutiny of the Scriptures and their brother and sister Christians, and will, I think, not be hasty.

Second, the legal and political channels of appeal must be prioritised.

Respect for our government means that we ought to seek a solution to any situation from within the system we have been given - which normally allows for discussion and review.

Now, let’s not be naïve; we all know that big business interests and political corruption and pandering to populism mar the political decisionmaking process in our country and lead to unjust outcomes. Nevertheless, the preference for the legal is deeply Christian.

Third, the planned action should be non-violent, should minimise, where possible, the bother to the police, and should involve accepting, not avoiding, the legal consequences.

The bombing of abortion clinics in the USA clearly fails this test. The model of the martyrs of the Church - and of Daniel, Peter and Jesus - is that they did not evade the legal consequences of their disobedience, but rather accepted them willingly.

Even given these considerations, Christians may disagree about the right course of action in the face of ongoing injustice in our land.

Hopefully, however, they will agree that it is right to speak out against the evil that we so readily normalise in our society, not as those who are morally superior but as those who know the depths of divine forgiveness, in the name of the God who is both merciful and just.

Michael Jensen is the rector of the St Mark’s Anglican Church, Darling Point and is the author of Pieces of Eternity.

His Twitter handle is @mpjensen.

Pray-ins at politician’s offices are the latest way to protest refugee policies.

Top: “Love makes a way” protests at Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s electoral office.

Below: Police called to a pray-in at Immigration Minister Scott Morrison’s office.

JUNE 2014

15

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Letters

The ABCs of the ABC

On Good Friday I read Philip Brooks’ letter regarding Mark Scott. Mr. Brooks criticises programs like Q&A, believing them to be “heavily biased against conservative Christian views”.

He levels this complaint against Mr Scott’s lack of influence.

The irony of this accusation, on a day where we reflect on the death of Christ, who had committed no crime, yet suffered at the hands of authorities who at the time who were heavily biased against “Christian views” is not lost on me as I read this letter.

Christians are called to live in the world, but not to be of it. There will always be derision, hatred and worse levelled at us. Even on the ABC. Even on Q&A. The Bible teaches us to expect this. This is hardly the result of a lack of influence by Mr Scott.

Mr Brooks is right to point out that the portrayal of Chris Kenny by The Chaser as being a breach of public decency, however he criticises Mr Scott who is the only person as yet to actually offer an apology. Furthermore, he quickly conflates comedy programming with journalism. In this I would point to the independent audit of Lateline and 7.30 stories, which found just 4 of 97 having some kind of attributed bias.

Can the same degree of error be said for other broadcasters and tabloids?

Mr Brooks protests that “the ABC is a haven for leftist views”. However, God is still not Democrat; Republican; Green; Liberal; National or Labor. As Abraham Lincoln reminds us, “My concern is not whether God is on our side. My greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”

As Christians, rather than deriding the ABC for not being more ‘Christian’,

we should be praying that Mr. Scott will hold fast, and be faithful to the task in what must be a challenging role for a Christian. And rather than avoiding programs like Q&A, we should encourage our brothers and sisters to appear on and be audiences for these programs, in spite of the derision they may face, and that in doing so, pray that they will speak with grace and peace.

Craig Fotheringham, Gladesville, NSW

Enlightenment Michael Jensen is right (‘The Enlightenment’, April Eternity) to argue that the Enlightenment was over-confident about the power of reason to resolve human problems.

As he says, reason “is certainly not the whole of us.”

Nicodemus was operating with reason when he asked Jesus how on earth a man can be born a second time. He did not know that Jesus was speaking from a complete understanding of human nature, knowing that our human individuality, as we normally perceive it, is a transient mask, or series of masks, veiling divine truth in its majesty from our comprehension. Nor did Nicodemus grasp that Jesus was speaking symbolically—using the language of ‘earth’ to discuss the reality of ‘heaven’.

However, Jensen may overvalue the Enlightenment. It is by no means clear that the development of modern science has been an overall blessing for mankind, or that democracy is superior to aristocracy (it seems, as

Plato warned, to lead to oligarchy and tyranny, as we observe in our own time); and other movements, such as the Renaissance and Romanticism may have been more fruitful.

Jensen may also overvalue the evangelical movement. Despite its insights, there is reason to fear that it has become a gigantic cult of its own, and that other aspects of our sacred tradition need to be reemphasised - metaphysics, mysticism, contemplation, the awareness of the sacred lying beyond all words and forms, which, by their worldly nature, are limited and limiting.

Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, VIC

Top Speakers Have just begun reading the latest edition of Eternity, which is delivered to my workplace (Everyman’s Welfare Service).

I felt compelled to let you know of two Asian speakers who are keynote speakers at a conference in Sydney in August. They are Rev. Edmund Chan and his wife is Ps. Ann Chan. It is an IDMC (Intentional Disciple Making Conference) and this year the topic is Cultivating Your Inner Life.

This will be the 3rd IDMC conference to be held in Australia.

Please google and check out the website so you can share with your readers and maybe even come along yourself!

Edmund’s conferences in Singapore sell out as soon as they are advertised (and thousands attend)!

Louise Hochwimmer, Bandiana, VIC

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16

JUNE 2014

Bloomsday on the literary Church Calendar June 16 is part of the ‘Church Calendar’ for those who are into Irish literature.

It is Bloomsday, the day on which the fictional character Leopold Bloom takes his ‘odyssey’ around Dublin in James Joyce’s extraordinary epochshaping novel, Ulysses. Joyce’s 1922 book is a splendidly experimental, hilarious and cryptic reworking of Homer’s Odyssey. Where Homer roamed the earth on his epic voyage, the anti-heroic Leopold roams the streets, pubs, brothels and churches of Dublin in just one day (across 800 pages of scintillating but demanding writing).

James Joyce sums up much of the modern era of artistic endeavour. His writing is a wrestle between authority and freedom, reality and imagination, conformity and sensual play. In Ulysses, he toys with the seriousness of history by reconstructing it within the apparent silliness and unimportance of one man’s day about Dublin. No big epic, just little domestic duties, he seems to say. No large story (like the one the Bible tells), just small, individual tales.

The impulse behind this comedy is in fact a deeply serious one. Joyce was distressed about God, death, love and relationships, and his writing is a response to that distress. We see this in numerous places in his novels and stories, as well as his sometimes torrid personal correspondence.

“How I hate God and death! How I like Nora!” Joyce wrote as a young man

Greg Clarke who was angry with religion and with mortality, and longed for deep, intimate connection with another human being - his future wife, Nora. His rebellious spirit might just be dismissed as raging youthful hormones. Or it could be condemned as opposition to the things of the Spirit in loud favour of the flesh.

But perhaps there is a more sympathetic and productive view of what it is for which Joyce is crying out.

Joyce’s assault on traditional religion and his ridicule of the church were accompanied by a longing for deep, interpersonal connection, freedom, love and lasting meaning.

It’s a combination of desires that we find only too often in not just writers and artists, but in so many average Aussies today.

In Joyce’s Ireland, the Church was (rightly or wrongly) associated with suppression, control, and inhumaneness. From the kinds of newspaper headlines and Facebook posts that I currently read on a daily basis, attitudes to churches in Australia (rightly or wrongly) aren’t so different.

Some of Joyce’s, and today’s Australian’s, frustration might be relieved by a more biblical, less ‘churchy’ and institutional,

understanding of the Christian faith. When Christianity is all about restriction, conformity and institutions, it generates resentment in those affected or simply looking on.

Instead, when Christianity is primarily about our relationship with God; when it celebrates the peace, grace, joy and goodness on offer in this life; when it is understood to be an advocate of good food, good friends, good fun and even good sex; then, the disgruntled Joyces start to pay attention again.

When Christian faith is cast in its positive light, as a gift of the God who “so loved the world”, it is more likely to be celebrated. It is about God befriending sinners, best demonstrated through the example of Jesus. It’s about God’s love for us, even as we hate him - a teaching that even the most sensually driven of characters needs to take seriously. It’s joy, not killjoy. It’s cause to rejoice, Joyce.

On 16th June each year, I like to read a little from Ulysses, have a good meal, and then thank God for his great big ‘Yes’ to us in Christ which gives such lasting pleasure when compared with the bawdy ‘yes’ that ends Joyce’s novel.

The impulse behind this comedy is in fact a deeply serious one

Above: The fictional Leopold “Poldy” Bloom for whom Bloomsday is held in recognition.

Left: Author James Joyce.

CRAIG OTT is professor of mission and intercultural studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

He is a consultant to national and mission leaders in over forty different countries. He was a church planter and church planting consultant for 21 years in Germany. Craig’s fields of expertise include theology of mission, contextualization, church planting, and missionary methods.

Craig and his wife Alice live in Chicago and have three grown sons.

MIKE RAITER is a preacher and trainer of preachers and a former principal of the Melbourne School of Theology. Mike began his career as a high school teacher in Sydney and later in Pakistan, and after theological training in Sydney he returned to Pakistan to teach at the Zarephath Bible Institute. In 2012 Mike launched the Centre for Biblical Preaching, an independent specialist training institute for preachers hosted by St. James Old Cathedral in Melbourne. About a third of his time is spent internationally, delivering training and workshops in preaching, through CMS.

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