Eternity - July 2015 - Issue 60

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60

Number 60, JULY 2015 ISSN 1837-8447

Brought to you by the Bible Society

The Son of a Preacher Man:

Natasha Moore on Scientology

Peter Costello

reveals his favourite parable

Image: Dick Sweeney / dickseeney.com

Rebel turned Evangelist Greg Clarke says ‘Yeah!’

Image: Peter Neill (Flickr: u2-1 CC BY License)

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News page 2-4

Bible in the city

In Depth 5-7

TESS HOLGATE

Books Liftout

City Bible Forum, a businessfocused evangelistic group, has been busy organising a range of events around the country aimed at getting people to think about or reconsider Jesus.

In May, the Perth branch organised an evangelistic mock trial that attracted a crowd of almost 500. “Jesus on Trial” was a big success with a real WA Supreme Court judge Justice Kenneth Martin presiding over the “court”.

Christian and atheist barristers argued the case “Did Jesus rise from the dead?”

Meanwhile, two hundred people packed into an auditorium in Melbourne on June 19 to hear Professor Peter Boghossian and Dr Richard Shumack debate the ageold question: how do you know?

Boghossian is professor of education and moral reasoning at Portland State University. Dr Shumack is a research fellow with Centre For Public Christianity.

Boghossian called all faith-based beliefs “delusions”, and urged people of faith to “be honest with yourself and jettison your faith.”

Shumack said that in university philosophy departments faithbased processes are still considered plausible, and therefore not delusional. He cited scholars for whom “you can hold theistic belief by a reasonable epistemology.”

Anger became palpable in the room during question time.

Someone asked: “How do you know that the Bible is true? Can’t you see a story that is completely made up and false can still resonate with people?” A man asked, “Isn’t it wrong to threaten people with hell?

Especially children?”

Bible Society 8 Opinion 11-16

Obadiah Slope

God goes to the footy: Obadiah can’t remember when a church leader grabbed most of the front page of a capital city newspaper with a “positive” story. But ahead of the second State of Origin match (that’s NSW v Qld in Rugby League, for readers in AFL states), acting Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Rob Forsyth did just that with his prediction that Qld did not have a prayer: “God is on the side of the right, the good.” And as it turned out, he was right. Rob is pictured wearing a blues (NSW) top. But Obadiah could not help noticing that underneath his footy jumper he was wearing his bishop’s shirt which is sort of maroonish (Qld) in colour.

Title sums it up: Tweet Others as You Would Wish to be Tweeted is the title of a book and podcast from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

JULY 2015

Infographic:

Attitudes to Abortion

A sample of Catholic, Anglican and Protestant church attenders were asked the following question as part of the 2011 NCLS: What do you actually think about the issue of abortion?

This is their response.

City Bible Forum

“The God/no God debate has degenerated into a theatrical show of hyper-cognition.”

No one noticed or named the passions surging through the room. No one asked, or seemed able to answer, whether cognitive arguments against (or for) God are affected by our emotional investments.

The God/no God debate has degenerated into a theatrical show of hyper-cognition that has become devoid of any emotional intelligence. Perhaps a belief that we can solve the matter cognitively is attractive, because it promises purity of thought, instead of mess, ambiguity and uncertainty. But it won’t disprove God, or prove God for that matter.

In the end, the division we seek between cognitive thought and our emotional connection to what really matters needs to be bridged, not further divided.

34.2%

Abortion should never be permitted

44.1%

Abortion should be permitted under extreme circumstances

9.1%

Abortion should be more available

5.3% 7.3%

Abortion should be available to anyone who wants one Don’t know

(c) NCLS | 2011 NCLS Attender Sample Survey: Attitudes to Abortion number 01.14010

Quotable Michael Jensen

Page 12 “We must remember that we need to set a high standard for marriage.”

Natasha Moore

Page 15 “If anything, the more ludicrous the object of belief, the more impressive the faith of the person who manages to hold it fast ...”

SUPERTheology THAT’S CHANGING THE WORLD PhDs all the rage

The “divorce”: Whatever you thought about Nick Jensen’s opinion piece about “divorcing” if the marriage law changes, the reaction was breathtaking. More than 183,000 people have signed up to a Facebook event to celebrate the “divorce”, at time of writing.

It shows that even a suburban WEcolumn AVOID INVESTING IN: giveaway paper (that’s where Nick’s story started) can go cellmakes research around Embryonic the world. stem Which Alcohol & tobacco me want to be careful what I write here. (Nick responds to his many Pornography critics on page 13.)

Gambling

Weapons60. Obadiah feels This is Eternity they take at least a year out of him Child Labour each time so the paper is clearly Fast food ready for its seniors card.

TESS HOLGATE Sydney’s Alphacrucis and Moore Theological Colleges have joined the Australian College of Theology as one of only a few non-university higher education providers now authorised to offer their own PhD. CEO of Alphacrucis College and Associate Professor Stephen Fogarty says, “Offering a PhD and MPhil is an exciting next step for Alphacrucis in pursuing the goal to INDUSTRY FUND * GOLDthat RATING become a Christian university

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This way it is all up to

Until now, Moore College has produces influential leaders.” enjoyed partnerships with the www.christiansuper.com.au Vice Principal of Moore College us. We can have as many or as few University of Sydney and the and Academic Dean Colin Bale [PhD candidates] as we want. The ACTIVELY ofINVEST IN: Sydney Western says, “Overseas seminaries are keen WEUniversity only factor is whether or not we can where the PhD is awarded to take our graduates, but they’re supervise them.”

Community infrastructure through those institutions but comore keen if they have a doctorate.

Bale says that they’ve had a supervisedagriculture by the university and We see it as a mission objective on Sustainable number of students expressing Moore College lecturers. our part to fulfil the opportunity to interest in the new PhD, and are Microfinance Bale says, “The problem with train people for the ministry of the hoping to kick it off next semester.

Renewable energy universities is that we are always Word around the world.

Moore College is offering a Clean technology subject to whether the university “It adds another level of one-off scholarship as a way is willing to supervise. That may opportunity ... especially those of introducing its new PhD Microinsurance institutions involved in the training depend on a lack of expertise programme, covering course fees Social impact * of SUPER & PENSIONS or they might not have a spot people.” and $10,000 per annum for 3 years.

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WE AVOID INVESTING IN:

WE ACTIVELY INVEST IN:

Embryonic stem cell research Alcohol & tobacco Pornography Gambling Weapons Child Labour Fast food

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NEWS

JULY 2015

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A big step forward for RICE TESS HOLGATE

In brief KICKED OUT: Forty Catholic, Pentecostal, Anglican, Baptist, Uniting and Salvation Army church leaders were removed by security from Parliament House in Canberra after a sit-in prayer vigil in June. The group, part of the Love Makes a Way movement, is calling on both major parties to “have a change of heart” on asylum seekers.

“

HITTING A SIX: In a major collaboration of international Bible scholars, the new edition of the NIV Study Bible, which launches in August, has six Australians among its 66 authors. It’s a world class performance by Aussie theologians.

I’m longing to see much fruit for God.”

GOD’S WORD GETS FASTER: Bible Society translation projects are speeding up dramatically. To translate a New Testament took 15 years (on average) to complete if it was started from 1981-1990, 12 years if started from 1991-2000 and 8 years on average to complete if started from 2001-2005. But this year two NT projects have completed the translation stage in 3.5 years.

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHOC & SPICE

RICE is a movement that aims to revitalise the next generation to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. They seek to see Christians renewed in their faith, and to see many more come into a relationship with him for the first time.

They run study camps (RICE Twelve), renewal and prayer events (RICE Catalyst), and events with an overseas focus (RICE China).

This year as RICE celebrates its 13th year of proclaiming Jesus Christ to the next generation, they have taken a big step forward in appointing Steve Chong as their first employed movement director.

“The heartbeat of what we are on about has always been young people inviting friends, coming together in one big group to hear the saving news that Jesus loves them and has died and risen for them,” says Steve.

Their big event – RICE Rally – began in 2002 with only three youth groups. In ten years it grew to over 35 youth groups with 3500 young people gathered at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

“On the night [RICE Rally] we have singing, youth participating with their creative gifts through dance and drama, we have video, a Bible reading, prayer, a Bible message, all leading to the climax of the night where we call on kids to respond to God. “Rallies are things we tend to associate with an earlier era of gospel proclamation in times of

the great evangelists like Wesley or Whitefield or Billy Graham.

“When churches come together to proclaim Jesus it is a wonderful testimony to the world of what we stand for and what’s important.”

In a statement, the organisation said, “Since RICE’s inception, God has used Steve’s infectious passion for evangelising the youth of Sydney, coupled with his ability to mobilise young leaders, to form the heartbeat of what makes our movement what it is today.”

Al Stewart of City Bible Forum says “the RICE movement is incredibly important in that God has used it to capture the hearts and minds of thousands of young Asian Australians, and show them the Lord Jesus.”

Steve says, “I believe the RICE movement is on the cusp of a new chapter and we need you to pray that God continues to bless us and see his kingdom grow through this network.

“I’m longing for the next five years to see much fruit for God as young people are empowered in their faith and move from death to life as they meet the one who this is all about: Jesus.”

This year’s RICE Rally will be held on August 1 at the Australian Technology Park, Sydney. See ricemovement.org for more information.

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HEAVY HITTER: Kevin Vanhoozer is coming to Australia to give this year’s Moore College lectures in August. In his work Is There a Meaning in this Text?, Vanhoozer gives an in depth response to the challenges of Deconstructionism to biblical hermeneutics. In Sydney, Vanhoozer will examine the Protestant reformers’ understanding of the essentials of biblical Christianity.

Cost: $70 – early-bird (ends Jul 31) | $90 – regular rate (from Aug 1) Monday 7 September 2015 The Gender Conversation is a one-day symposium, bringing together a rich mix of contributors to discuss issues of gender, theology and Christian living, from a variety of perspectives. We are aiming for genuine and stimulating conversation that deepens mutual understanding and respect, highlights common ground, clarifies points of diff erence, and unites us in a quest to learn from the Scriptures and live in the light of the gospel.

There are many wonderful stories that colour our world, but only one...

Worth Knowing by Heart.

HOSTS

CONTRIBUTORS

Edwina Murphy Lecturer in Church History

Dr Michael Bird Lecturer in Theology, Ridley College

Dr Karina Kreminski Lecturer in Missional studies

Dr John Dickson Author, historian and public advocate for the Christian faith

Dr David Starling Head of Department, Theological and Biblical Studies

Dr Patricia Weerakoon Christian sexologist

Dr Michael Jensen Anglican minister and author

Marg Mowczko Vice-president, Christians for Biblical Equality (Sydney Chapter)

Equipping the whole believer to take the whole gospel to the whole world

in churches 02 August

This Moore College Sunday, please pray for Moore College and partner with us to tell the world the story of Jesus. Visit mcs.moore.edu.au

120 Herring Road, Macquarie Park NSW 2113 (02) 9878 0201 enquiries@morling.edu.au www.morlingcollege.com

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JULY 2015

Quiz Worx: the puppets that preach ANNE LIM Rise Up and Rock is the name of a new album from Quiz Worx, which gives a rock treatment to well-loved Christian songs that children in previous generations grew up with.

This is the third album from a group that has toured puppet shows to schools since 1998 and was inspired by the positive response to a rocked-up version of Jesus Loves Me on the 2011 album, A Mighty Shout.

The first two albums put out by Quiz Worx were predominantly of original songs, but this third album updates classics such as This is the Day, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life and 1, 2, 3, Jesus Loves Me. Even the 1922 worship song, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, has been given a rock vibe, while Australian rapper Nobee One contributes a rap to Love the Lord your God. Featured artists include popular children’s singer-songwriter Colin Buchanan and songwriter and minister Ben Pakula.

“We’ve had really good feedback from SRE teachers, children’s ministers and parents since the album came out at the end of May,” says Quiz Worx general manager, Nick Koeck. “These are classic kids’ songs that I grew up singing, and my mum and dad grew up singing.”

The songs are aimed at primaryschool children, but can be enjoyed by pre-schoolers too. “It’s a lot of fun. We’ve been listening to it in the car and my five-year-old and three-year-old love it.”

(Left) Rise Up and Rock is the name of a new album from Quiz Worx. (Right) Colin Buchanan and Scruff the Dog. Quiz Worx estimates that it reached 50,000 children last year with its schools shows, which tour around Australia. It hopes to exceed that figure this year, and has tours upcoming to the north coast of NSW and southwest Queensland. The latter will take puppeteers Kim Meredith and Ros Hicks, along with puppets Gruncharina and Google, to

outback towns such as Lightning Ridge, Dirranbandi, Windorah and Cunnamulla during August.

“The schools have a very small number of kids, but we want to give them an opportunity to hear about and respond to Jesus, just as much as kids at the big city schools,” says Nick.

“The kids go crazy – they love it.

The team flies into a town by light

ANNUAL MOORE COLLEGE LECTURES

2015

plane, where someone picks them up, they do the show, then they fly to another town.”

Nick says plans are in place for another outback tour for next year, visiting places the group has never been before, and revisiting places it has already been in 2017.

“So we will visit a place every two years; we eventually hope to go yearly and add new places. It’s a

challenge but God has graciously opened doors for us to go to a lot of places. It’s a partnership ministry and we can’t do it without the believers who help us.”

Because most of its shows are staged around Christmas time, Quiz Worx is looking for more staff to help it reach about 30,000 children during the festive season. quizworx.com

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JULY 2015

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God chased Sally Lumpkin across the world, to the outback.

- Page 7

Left to right: Sammy, Sara, Sonny (the baby), Dave and Jamie Jensen.

Tough sinner finds forgiveness ANNE LIM Dave Jensen is a big bloke with a ready grin and an earthy manner.

But the youngest son of former Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen didn’t always cut such an imposing figure. As a teenager, he was so skinny that he was an easy target for muggers. So when young Dave joined the army, he took pride in his beefy build and his ability to brawl.

By the time he was 28 and living in Darwin, Captain Jensen of the Australian infantry was infamous for drinking, fighting and womanising. And he relished

his tough reputation, which only enhanced his credibility within his circle of mates.

“People looked up to me for it and I loved that,” Dave, 34, recalls.

“Because I used to be so skinny, when people started calling me Big Dave I loved it. Having the ability to punch someone out – I loved that. The adrenalin that comes in the middle of a fight is addictive.”

Within 18 months of joining the army, the social expectations and temptations of army life burned away any residual affection for his childhood faith. Rather than feeling guilty, he embraced the culture and “had forgotten who I was”.

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He had become the black sheep of one of Sydney’s most prominent Christian families, not because of any trauma in his upbringing – which was “loving, happy and sports-filled” – but through a strong desire to do his own thing and place himself above God. “I never had a moment where I said ‘I don’t believe’ because my whole life I would have identified as a Christian,” Dave told Eternity.

“But I certainly wasn’t born-again and I never felt anything more than a slight sense of guilt towards my parents if I lied. I never felt any residual effects of sin.”

Dave sees that he always had

a problem with telling the truth.

“My mother’s catchphrase to me was always ‘Love the truth.’ She wouldn’t say it to the others but she knew I was a liar about everything.

And that started to become a big part of my character – rather than fleeing from it, I embraced it.”

At 15 or 16, Dave started going astray in fairly typical teenage ways, such as “doing things with girls I shouldn’t”, and by the time he was 20 his girlfriend, a non-Christian, was pregnant. His father had just been elected Anglican Archbishop when Dave broke the news.

“It wasn’t solely telling my parents ‘We’re pregnant’ but telling

my parents, ‘Hey, I’m having sex.’

I was terrified of letting down my parents more than anything, I wasn’t terrified of their anger, more their disappointment. My innocence was gone. So telling them was a huge moment.”

Their loving and gracious response had a lasting effect on Dave, and carried great weight with him years later. “My mum walked into the pantry and banged her head against the wall. Dad just sighed, but then 30 seconds later they were saying ‘How is she? How are you? Are you OK? What can we do? How can we help?’ ” Being just a “kickabout” uni

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student, Dave decided to marry his girlfriend and apply to join the army. After 18 months of officer training he was posted to Townsville in north Queensland as an infantry officer and lieutenant.

By his admission, Dave was a “terrible husband” who was wrapped up in his work and didn’t give much to the marriage. When he was called to go to East Timor in January 2006, his wife told him the marriage was over and she was going to take the kids and leave.

His son was then one month old; his daughter aged five. “My mindset was ‘I’ll miss my kids terribly but good – I’m sick of hiding who I am; I want to be my own man.’ ” But when Dave returned from East Timor eight months later, it hurt that there was no hero’s return for him but only an empty house.

After his divorce Dave became an even harder drinker and fighter.

“There had always been a part of me that had been violent … and I started to get into a lot of pub fights ... I was the biggest womaniser and the worst part of it, looking back, was I was proud of it.”

Finally, one morning in 2009, Dave woke up in the Robertson Barracks in Darwin with a hangover. He had nothing planned for the day, so he opened up the laptop his twin sister had given him for his birthday. Instead of looking at pornography as usual, he clicked on links to some sermons his sister had looked up on YouTube.

“One of them was John Piper’s famous Don’t Waste Your Life sermon ... As I was watching, I was really overwhelmed that I was wasting my life. I was doing everything that I’d ever wanted to do but it all meant nothing.

From left: Brothers Dave, Michael and Stephen Jensen.

“I remember going and looking in the mirror and saying ‘What are you doing?’ I must have watched four or five hours of sermons.

Even though I’d heard the gospel a hundred, a million times before, I realised that no matter what I had done, no matter how far I had walked, no matter how much I’d rejected God, the cross of Christ was for me. He’d done it for me and the love of God shining through Jesus was more powerful than anything I’d done.”

The years of unbridled hedonistic living had finally caught up with him, and he wanted to stop lying about his guilt. “When I turned around and confronted what I’d done, I saw that without the love of God I was completely and utterly stuffed. Not only was my life a waste but I was going to go to hell.”

Dave called up army chaplain Tim Booker, and tearfully confessed what he’d become – “a whoring, womanising piece of work.”

“Tim said, ‘Dave, I know.’

“I said ‘What do I do?’

“He said ‘Get on your knees and repent before God, beg him to forgive you and come into your life.’

“I said, ‘I’ve prayed. I’ve asked God to become a Christian and he’s never answered. How do I know he’s going to answer?’

“He said, ‘Well, pray until you know that he’s answered.’ ” So Dave got on his knees by his bed and cried out to God for forgiveness. After praying for a very long time, he fell asleep in tears on the side of his bed. “There was no lightning, there was no thunder. But I awoke the next morning having the greatest sense

JULY 2015

of being loved and forgiven. And it wasn’t like times in the past when I appeased myself thinking, ‘Oh, everyone’s doing it, it’s fine.’ This was a genuine feeling of release that God had set me free.”

As he walked to work that morning, it was as if the scales had fallen from his eyes and he looked at the trees and felt the breeze, thinking “I know who did this.”

After 28 years, having grown up listening to much Bible teaching, he was no longer blind and deaf.

“It was amazing to think if Jesus had walked into my room when I was 27 years old with holes in his hands, and said ‘I am Jesus Christ the Messiah, I have died for your sins, I am true and I am real, I have come back from the dead so that you might live, follow me,’ I would have said ‘Jesus, thanks but no thanks. I do believe you but I want to follow myself. I want to do my own thing.’ It wasn’t a lack of evidence or a lack of belief that was stopping me following God, it was sin. God’s light had shone and I would not see ... Nothing can harness your appreciation of grace like having rejected it for years and then realising it’s still there.”

For about a year after his conversion, Dave continued to fall back into sin but with a newfound awareness of it. Unable to find a church in Darwin that felt right, he took a posting to Sydney, where his father pointed him to Church by the Bridge in Kirribilli.

“I really committed myself to going to church and going to Bible study because my word had meant nothing, I was such a liar, so I resolved for that to change, let my yes be yes and my no be no.” He became best friends with two men

AUSTRALIA FOR CHRIST

at church, who met regularly and supported each other.

Even then, he would still get drunk with his army mates and occasionally get into fights. But God gradually began to show him, through his Word and the example of others, what living with Christ as his king meant – sacrifice, putting others first, putting God first, and trusting that he’s in control.

“I remember drunkenly calling one of my friends at 2am screaming obscenities at God – ‘Why is he in my life? I don’t want him; I want to do what I want to do.’ This guy drove halfway across Sydney to pick me up from this pub at 2 o’clock, drunk. That was seeing the love of God in action.”

About 12 months after becoming a Christian, Dave experienced a second conversion – this time, to mission. “I realised how desperately I wanted to tell people … That wasn’t a hard sell for me because I knew how bad my life was compared to how good it is now. ” As he invited friends to church and talked to people about Jesus, he realised this was what he really enjoyed doing. So about three years ago, Dave left the army for a job as youth minister at a Christian school, where he still lives with his second wife and their two small children. “I discovered that ministry is what I really want to do.” So this year he began a theology degree at Moore College, the same institution that his father was principal of while he was growing up.

“I still daily struggle with sin; I’m daily reminded of God’s grace,” he says. “In the end it’s amazing that God has used my evil and my sin from the past in order to speak to people from a similar background.”

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TSCJun15

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I ran thousands of miles and Jesus found me Christ can meet us wherever we are, as evidenced by these two testimonies of those who’ve come to meet (or re-meet) Jesus in the outback, with the help of Bush Church Aid. SALLY LUMPKIN At 55, I ran away from South Carolina. I knew it was wrong as I stood in my kitchen with a friend and said, “I know the Lord doesn’t want me to do this, it’s not what he has planned for me, but I’m doing it anyway.” I believe I felt the Holy Spirit leave me at that moment, as if I’d learned nothing in the years of the Lord’s faithfulness.

I flew 12,000 miles to be with a man who wasn’t my husband or a Christian. I thought I’d left my unwise decisions, poor choices and all the injustice done to me, behind. I left my grown children, family and friends, intending never to return.

A year and a half later, I was trying to make a go of life without God as an American nurse in a remote Australian hospital. The relationship I’d hoped for became violent and hurtful. I was drinking daily and hiding, a lost soul.

But Christ was there even when I didn’t believe in him, or want him.

He did not give up on me. I found myself in a small congregation in Wickham, Western Australia.

I tried desperately to stay away, but the pull was too great. Tears flooded after a soul-wrenching

(Left) Sally Lumpkin, centre, with Richard Goscombe, second from right. (Right) Brian and Judy Underwood. service and I stood in the centre of the community hall crying from the deepest place within me, “I am the worst of sinners! I have rejected him and there’s no help for me.”

Despite my years with the Lord, I still didn’t know his death on the cross had given me freedom to return to him as the prodigal daughter. I couldn’t believe it was possible that anyone could love that much and I knew I wasn’t worthy of that love, 12,000 miles away, on the other side of the world. But Christ met me there.

That first day, Richard Goscombe, a Bush Church Aid (BCA) minister at Wickham Anglican Community Church took time to talk to me, invited me to read the Bible and pray. He assured me Christ was there whether I

believed or not. I attended Bible studies and joined the fellowship.

It was not an easy time, it was a battle to surrender, a heart freeing confession to the Lord.

During my time at Wickham, I was part of the music team and the music would carry me through the whole week.

Praise the Lord for his blessing upon those doing God’s work in Wickham. I pray ministry continues and God provides through the generous support of BCA. I pray for provision of a building for the church to worship in, that people’s hearts in Wickham are moved to know God and that the community is renewed in Christ.

Sally Lumpkin is now back in South Carolina.

BRIAN UNDERWOOD We came to the “Opal Capital of the World” in 1975 leaving behind a successful but demanding business. Coober Pedy was booming; fortunes made daily.

Opal was in great demand worldwide and prices were high.

Coober Pedy, then a town of 5000 hopeful young men seeking quick money, had a culture of drinking, gambling and recklessness that made Dodge City of the Wild West fame look tame.

Behind us we left comfort and a guaranteed income, to start a life isolated from civilisation in the hot dry desert. With hard work and a jack hammer we built a small but comfortable underground home. I don’t think we ever looked back as

we always had the feeling that with every stick of gelignite our fortune too would be uncovered. As time went by, however, our finances dwindled until we were basically broke.

My wife Judy had been raised Catholic and saw the need to make sure our children learnt Christian values. Against my will, Judy thought we should take them to Catacomb Church; they had an active Sunday School.

My first impression was of a healthy church with the preacher, Kerry Medway, promoting his beliefs very enthusiastically. But I didn’t want to hear any convincing messages.

The second visit to the Catacomb Church was a great turning point in my life and our family life.

Holding and reading the Bible that day made me realise my own ideas and theories were worthless. There was more to life than opal.

Judy and I have been part of this wonderful ministry since 1978. We have seen a number of ministers pass through, each bringing their spiritual gifts, each shaping our lives in some way.

Our little church is forever grateful for the prayers and support of Bush Church Aid supporters. The ministry here continues to change and touch lives daily.

Where and how God will lead us from here we don’t know but life in his service will never be anything but exciting and rewarding.

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JULY 2015

BIBLE @ WORK

Renewing hope in Iraq Bible Society distributed over 4300 emergency packages with food and hygiene products, 750 blankets and mattresses and 250 stoves for cooking to Iraqi refugees in 2014.

KALEY PAYNE If you talk to an average young person in Iraq, they’ll tell you they want to leave, says Mike Bassous, the head of Bible Society Lebanon who also oversees the society’s work in Iraq and Syria. “They do not see hope here.”

July marks one year since the Christians of Mosul (across the river from the ancient city of Nineveh) were told they must make a choice: convert to Islam, pay a protection tax, leave or die. A mass exodus of Christians had already begun after Islamic State militants seized the city in mid-June 2014.

The ultimatum served to flush out those who hadn’t already left, and it flung the plight of Mosul’s new refugees onto the world stage.

Today, Mosul is an Islamic State stronghold. The Christians whose ancestors occupied the city for centuries are gone. Most fled to Kurdistan, an autonomous region in northern Iraq, where they were crammed into refugee tents or camped out in churches and halls.

A Bible Society team has been

working in Iraq since 2003, one of the only home-grown providers of scriptures in the country. Mike Bassous, who leads the team, says they’ve always been interested in a “holistic ministry” in Iraq. He knows being a Christian in this part of the world is about as hard as it gets. “Jesus prophesied that we will have a very difficult life here.

He never said we were going to have peace and joy. No, we’re going to have hard times,” he says.

“He also said that we would be a minority; that we would need to be ‘salt and light’. We have to recognise that this is our destiny.

This is our purpose as Christians living in the Middle East.”

When news broke of an emerging refugee crisis in northern Iraq, Bible Society rushed to be of assistance. In the following months – with the help of supporters around the world, many of them from Australia – Bible Society distributed over 4300 emergency packages with food and hygiene products, 750 blankets and mattresses and 250 stoves for cooking. It distributed close to

5000 scripture portions to those refugees who requested them.

“Many people left everything behind when they fled,” says Mr Bassous. “Some didn’t have clothes or anything to sleep on.”

Today, most have a roof over their heads – thousands of prefabricated housing units were built to shelter the overwhelming number of refugees who flooded into the region. The basic physical needs of the refugees are being managed, still with considerable support from overseas aid.

But there are deep wounds among Christian refugees. The emotional and spiritual needs of the Christian refugees are something Bible Society now wants to address. “Every Christian family in Iraq has a story – a sad one.

They haven’t overcome this, they are still in trauma.”

He says almost every Christian he has met recently in Iraq says they want to leave. From the refugee camps in Kurdistan, many have left already to Jordan and Lebanon, and on to Europe, north America and Australia, looking for

a better life.

“One woman told me, ‘I don’t want my baby to be born and to have to live through anything that we have been through’, ” says Bassous. “How can you argue with that?” But the mass exodus of Christians from the region is crippling the local church in Iraq whose leaders remain committed to stay.

“The massive emigration that is now occurring is leaving my church and other churches weaker. This is a deeply sorrowful reality,” writes the Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil, in Kurdistan, Bashar Matti Warda.

“We who are part of the church hierarchy are very often tempted to encourage our parishioners to stay – keep the presence of Christ alive in this special land. But truly I and my brother bishops and priests can do no more than to advise young mothers and fathers to take all the necessary considerations into account and to pray long and hard before taking such a momentous, and perhaps perilous, decision.”

Bassous believes Christians in the region need to regain

their hope, through the Bible.

He is praying that many of the Christians still in Kurdistan will reassess their God-given purpose in being “Christians of the Middle East.” “Many of [the refugees] will never be able to leave Iraq. They don’t have the finances or they don’t have the connections outside of Iraq. They will have to remain.

And they have a choice: do you remain and be here, hopeless?

Or do you remain and have your wounds healed, seek hope and become a witness for Christ, wherever you are?”

It’s a choice Bassous believes the scriptures can speak into. “Let’s rediscover our purpose and look to God for why he has placed us here,” says Bassous. “For how long? Some might ask. But only God knows.”

+ Bible Society thanks its generous donors for supporting our 2014 Appeal for Iraq and Syria. We are continuing support for Christians in the Middle East in 2015, particularly in Lebanon and Israel. For more: biblesociety. org.au/projects-international

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Books

Your special lift out supplied with Eternity JULY 2015

I get by with a little help...

At first glance it might seem like Ed Welch is trying to put himself out of business. A professional counsellor, Welch wants to teach others to act in love in “everyday counselling situations” – but he thinks absolutely anything is an “everyday counselling situation”.

“As a professional, I appreciate the wisdom that accumulates with experience, on the one hand. But on the other: professionals are less the answer than people think.”

Welch observes that the primary thing a professional counsellor offers that’s different to, say, a wise friend, is a scheduled time every week. But he also recognises that without a network of supporters around a person suffering hardship, all the professional counselling in the world might not make much of a difference.

“Sure, experts can be wise. But I have experienced how the Lord uses a larger body of people who have more wisdom than they realised.”

That’s the basis of Welch’s new book, Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love. In some ways, it’s a simple book for Christians about how to be a friend. But it’s also a challenge to be deliberate in your friendships, for the sake of Christ.

Welch’s basic premise is that we all need help – it’s just part of being human to be needy.

“Our own neediness serves other people,” Welch writes. To be able to help others best we must recognise our own neediness.

Skipping this step, says Welch, continued over...

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I get by with a little help... (cont) puts humility at risk. We’ll think our job in helping others is to “dispense answers” instead of humbly walking side-by-side with a friend, familiar with their feelings of neediness and the vulnerability of transparency that comes when asking for help.

Speaking with Eternity ahead of his Australian speaking tour this July, Welch said that if someone’s asked you for help, his sense is that you’re doing something right in this space.

“We ask those for help who don’t gossip, who speak well about others when they aren’t around, who show humility in their own lives and who love wisdom,” said Welch. “I would say that if somebody is asking you for help, they’re seeing something of Christ in you.”

Yet being asked for help could trigger several responses. The first is a puffed-up sense of pride: perhaps you have it together more than you think, if someone thinks

you’re worthy of helping them. The other is paralysis: what could I possibly do to help this person?

Welch says both responses are ill-founded.

“It’s a great gift to be able to know the things that are on a person’s heart,” he says. “But when you see yourself as some sort of expert – as the person who has to give the answer – sometimes we can become really foolish. We lose our footing.”

But thinking we have nothing

to offer our friend in need is just as unhelpful. Welch says that instead of feeling paralysed in that type of situation, we should recognise that it’s actually a good way of approaching problems.

“If somebody comes to you and lays out something in their life that’s just really hard and you’re completely dumbfounded about it – to me, that’s perfect. The nature of being a Christian is to recognise we don’t have all the answers. And then to call out to

JULY 2015

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aving the megachurch J.D. Greear ivers. Key volunteers. Some of his and friends. And that’s exactly how he

ny churches focus time and energy people and counting numbers, the f the church, Greear says, isn’t how you can gather. It’s about training nd then sending them out. The true uccess for a church should be its city, not its seating capacity. cost to this. To see ministry multiply, hurch leaders must sacrifice large stead encouraging and empowering ve, not inside the church, but out in

the Lord in our neediness. What a wonderful thing to model to that friend in need.”

Indeed, the key difference between how a Christian friend might offer help to a friend, and a non-Christian friend is precisely that: prayer. “How can I pray for you?” is the one question Welch believes a non-Christian would never ask.

“That question is revolutionary.

At one point, the world consists of my problem and it’s

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When bestselling Christian author Naomi Reed agreed to write The Plum Tree in the Desert, she was feeling the emptiness of grief after a very close friend had died of cancer.

It was the end of 2012 and she and her husband Darren had just returned to Australia from their second term as with cross-cultural ministries in Nepal, where Naomi had started her writing career in 2005 with My Seventh Monsoon.

“At that time Darren and I were having a hard time because one of our very closest friends, who had been with us with Interserve in Nepal, was diagnosed with a brain tumour and he died that year, quite young, leaving teenage girls.

It was just a very sad time for us … and we were struggling to keep going.”

So when Interserve International director Paul Bendor-Samuel asked Naomi to write a book of stories of faith and mission from the past 25 years in Asia and the Arab world, she thought it would be encouraging to find out how people in the field managed to keep doing God’s work even when times were hard.

“They trust in the same God that I trust in, so if they can keep going through their struggles, I can as well,” she remembers thinking.

She adds: “What’s so important about reading and sharing each other’s stories of faith in God is this lovely effect where you can be in a situation that is entirely different but you gain strength and encouragement because it’s a shared human walk.”

In her first email to prospective interviewees, the author asked the missionaries about the difficult experiences they had endured and was amazed by the litany of disasters.

“They’d been through bombings and health epidemics and near rape, rocket attacks, being held at gunpoint, death in the raw, being forced to leave the country, witnessed the murder of their colleagues – just a horrendous list of things.

“So my next question was ‘So what have you learnt?’ And it was all about the goodness of God and his kindness and what it means to persevere in mission, to trust him, to keep going even when life was hard and men were barging through the door. They said, ‘Even then, God is still God and we can trust him.

this microscopic issue that’s consuming me. But that one question: ‘How can I pray for you,’ expands reality so I can see things more clearly. All of a sudden we find ourselves beginning to scan scripture, because that’s instinctively how we pray. What are the promises of God that are especially relevant right now, that I can call on? I realise that my problems are lived out before God, and he’s the one who helps.”

The importance and power

by Naomi Reed 9781780781419 Paperback

Interview by Anne Lim

We are all sinners, we are all hopeless but we are hopelessly loved.’ And I thought this is the book for me!”

Completing the project was a juggle for Naomi, with her oldest son in the last year of high school and her husband finishing a PhD, “but God does give you the enabling support you need in order to do it.”

It took her a year-and-a half to complete the interviews with ten missionaries in the Arabian Peninsula, Southeast Asia, North Africa, the Central Asian Republics and the Tibetan plateau.

But the resulting stories were dramatic.

For example, Naomi spent two days following a dentist in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, as he visited clinics, community health centres and orphanages, and saw the training he had given to local dentists.

“Then he described that during the previous 10 years he’d had a brain haemorrhage, he’d had treatment back in Korea, then he came back to Bishkek and was assaulted and robbed in the carpark, and had to go hospital.

Then he had a serious car accident, head-on at high speed, and he needed hospitalisation again. Then his daughter had a reaction to a hot noodle and she had brain operations back in Korea. Then they came back to Bishkek and that was when two revolutions happened and they had to close their clinic,” she recounts.

“Then the dentist said, ’This is showing me that it’s not my work, this is God’s work and it’s in my weakness that he displays his immeasurable strength over and over again.’ ” Another inspirational story concerned a woman living a very isolated life in a desert in North Africa. Her husband was a GP and she home-schooled their four boys.

“For 10 years she just felt her ministry was so small. She was in her house in the desert with her kids and she made one friend in that whole time.

Over the years they just had a cup of tea together every morning over this green-and-white tablecloth. It was a police state, it was against the law to share the gospel, and she could have been kicked out of the country. But one time she just decided she wanted to read Psalm 139 with this local woman and the lady just responded, ‘Ah! Is that what God is like?’ And she wanted to know more, and so they started reading the Bible – and this lady became the

that Welch attributes to that one question opens up the possibility that maybe “Christian counselling” is not something that need be left to the professionals, like a counsellor or pastor. As Christians, we can all pray.

Unless your church has just 15 people in it, church pastors can’t possibly be the primary helper for those in their churches who are struggling. Instead, Welch says, it’s time for pew-sitters to pay attention.

first Christian in that entire country. After that, within a couple of years they had 200 believers and there was the birth of a local church in this time.”

For Naomi the most encouraging common thread as the missionaries looked back on their years of service was that “God works through our weakness and our grief.

“It’s so amazing that all of the stories had this sense of weakness, of hardship, and yet God at work in the middle of that somehow. I think it’s almost a mystery, we don’t understand it, but we can testify to that’s how God is with us as well, and I think that’s what engaged me most.

“I found it encouraging because in Australia, and wherever we are in the West, we can feel like we’re not doing very much compared to the people in the mission field, who are seeing miracles all the time. We’re all the same; we’re all just serving faithfully in the place where God would have us.

“It doesn’t matter where we are in the world. God uses us to spread his amazing message of love and forgiveness.”

The Plum Tree in the Desert will be launched on July 11 at St Peter’s Anglican Church in Weston, Canberra.

“Inevitably, the number one person on the ‘help’ list when a person is having a difficult time is a caring friend.” But for all those who do ask for help, there’s plenty more who may never do so, but who need help all the same.

“Waiting for someone to ask for help seems to miss the way that the Spirit and the triune God moves towards us. We should be asking how we can help. We should notice when something’s not right with our friends.”

If your friend’s problem is overwhelming, we do what comes naturally to us, says Welch; “We start enlarging the number of people involved. A wise person is going to say, ‘I don’t know what to say, but I know somebody else who might be helpful. Why don’t we ask them, together?’

“We can be certain that God will guide us as we do this,” says Welch. “We all have the Spirit, and the Lord sees fit to use all of us in the lives of each other.”

JULY 2015

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THE BIG PICTURE

JULY 2015

9

Mr Holmes, I presume MARK HADLEY Do you read and re-read the works of Arthur Conan Doyle?

Will you naturally gravitate to any production that involves an Agatha Christie character? Faced with a real-life crime, do you begin to think like Philip Marlowe and talk like Inspector Clouseau?

In short, are you a mystery junkie? Then Mr. Holmes is just what you’ve been waiting for – the last hurrah of fiction’s greatest detective.

Set after the Second World War, Sherlock (Ian McKellan) inhabits a sprawling farmhouse in a remote part of Sussex with his housekeeper Mrs Munro (Laura Linney) and her young son Roger (Milo Parker). He is a grumpy, demanding curmudgeon who resents the deerstalker-wearing character created by his deceased friend John Watson.

However at 93 his bitterest regret is the slow loss of his mental faculties. Before he dies Holmes is determined to put to rest his greatest unsolved mystery – the one that led him to abandon detective work altogether. But how can he hope to solve a case that’s sinking into a sea of forgetfulness?

Mr. Holmes is somewhat like Memento in the way it steps backwards through the detective’s memories, slowly assembling the fragments of its mystery until a most unexpected villain emerges.

Ian McKellan stars as Sherlock Holmes, fiction’s greatest detective, in Mr. Holmes, in cinemas from July 23.

However the goal of the film is not so much a clear conviction as a conviction of conscience.

Sherlock has spent his life priding himself on his detachment.

“My feelings do not matter – the facts are all that are important,” – yet he comes to realise that his single-minded devotion to the intellect has not only separated him from the world: it has been the

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cause of great harm. He may have solved any number of diabolical mysteries but he admits to Roger he has missed the path of angels: “Do whatever it takes to calm and comfort others – this is the duty of every human being.”

Or, as Jesus puts it, “Love your neighbour as yourself,” (Mark 12:30-31) the commandment that comes second only to loving God.

For further information contact Sondy Ward meloffice@reachbeyond. org.au or Dale Stagg CEO dstagg@reachbeyond. org.au You can also view our website at www. reachbeyond.org.au or call toll free on 1300 653 853.

Mr. Holmes is not a Christian film but Sherlock’s realisation is a biblical one.

Believer or non-believer, if we intend on doing anyone any good, we must begin and end by loving them.

Otherwise all that is left is pride’s clanging gong.

ON SCREEN FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD It began life as a serialised story, transformed itself into a novel and has since graced stage and screen.

Now Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd arrives in the 21st century to challenge young women to choose what is right over what gives the greatest pleasure.

Carey Mulligan stars as the heroine, Bathsheba Everdene, a proud beauty with a strong independent streak labouring in the rural Wessex of 19th century England. There she meets the stolid and dependable small-hold farmer Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) who, smitten, proposes in a direct and unromantic manner. However Bathsheba is “far too wild” for matrimony. Like her biblical namesake, Bathsheba is an object of affection that sets up conflict between key characters. Beyond her obvious beauty, men are drawn to a nature that will not submit to the expectations of her age. It’s Gabriel who, true to his name, provides Bathsheba with God’s true plan for men and women.

When Bathsheba finally surrenders her will to him, he points her to a standard that rises higher than her own comfort or wishes: Bathsheba: Tell me what to do Gabriel.

Gabriel: Do what is right.

+ For full reviews, visit biblesociety. org.au/film-reviews

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Under God, James Macpherson is trying to build a church network Queenslanders can feel welcomed in to.

TESS HOLGATE Calvary Christian Church in Queensland was established back in 1924, but today it is a multi-site church spread over five locations, with around 3500 people meeting together each Sunday.

James Macpherson is the lead pastor, and is based in Townsville, the original location of Calvary Christian Church. After taking over leadership of the Townsville church in 2007, James took on the leadership of a church on the Sunshine Coast, then planted a campus in Cairns, acquired an existing church in Emerald, and

most recently planted another campus in Yeppoon. He hopes to plant another campus next year in Rockhampton.

“In Cairns we started with four people two-and-a-half years ago, now we get 500 on a Sunday. Well over 150 of those are people who came to Christ at church in Cairns.

“On the Sunshine Coast the council get us to run their carols by candlelight for the whole city, which draws around 15,000 people. They [the council] decided they wanted more Christian input, so they opened up a tender and we won it.”

The church also runs a school in

Townsville, and has its own college aimed at training more people for leadership and Christian ministry.

Originally from Victoria, James admits that the decision to plant churches all over Queensland hasn’t been a strategic one: “It’s just that we had the opportunity and the fit has been right.

“I think most people don’t have a problem with God or Jesus; most people have a problem with church. Our passion is to establish churches that people want to go to; churches where they can find the message of Jesus in a relevant, dynamic way they can relate to and get involved in.”

There was a soft launch in April, but this month The Gospel Coalition Australia (TGCA) will be formally launched at an event in Brisbane.

TGCA is an alliance of reformed evangelical Christians. In the US, TGC features big name preachers and writers such as Don Carson, Kevin de Young, Tim Keller and John Piper.

The Australian Council hopes TGCA will unite all Christians around the core of the gospel. Some of the Australian leaders are Peter Adam (Vicar Emeritus of St. Jude’s Melbourne and former principal of Ridley College), David Starling (lecturer in New Testament at Morling College, Sydney), and Gary Millar (principal of Queensland Theological College).

More people from Sydney accessed the US Gospel Coalition website in 2014 than any other city outside the US, which sparked a plan to create TGCA – uniquely Australian content for Australian Christians.

TGCA Council Chair and Principal of Queensland Theological College, Gary Millar, says, “the purpose of TGCA is to encourage people to gather around the gospel, to be clear on

the gospel, and to encourage one another to get the gospel out.

“In many parts of Australia, people are recognising the need for reformed evangelicals to work together effectively. We’ve been very encouraged by the response.

I think people have welcomed the initiative, and the effort to give a reformed evangelical perspective on life and ministry in Australia from an Australian perspective.”

So far, TGCA has a council and a website. Beyond that there isn’t anything, yet. Millar says, “we’re working out how to serve the church best. We can see multiple ways in which we potentially might serve the church, but we don’t want to duplicate things. We’re aware that the needs of each state and territory are very different.”

The formal launch will be held at 7pm on July 23 at Brisbane City Hall. Millar says it will be a “significant moment in the life of the church in Australia.”

Internationally renowned scholar, Bible teacher and cofounder of The Gospel Coalition in the US, Don Carson, will be in town for the week and speaking at the launch which aims to celebrate unity in the gospel.

For more information, and to buy tickets, visit australia. thegospelcoalition.org

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JULY 2015

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OPINION

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Nick Jensen on bearing hate and speaking up

Speaking at the Centre for Independent Studies, Mr Costello cited a parable in the Gospel of Matthew.

Peter Costello’s favourite parable The Hon Peter Costello AC, former federal treasurer and current chairman of Australia’s Future Fund spoke at a Centre for Independent Studies event in April on the topic of the Parable of the Talents. He says that the Bible suggests we should be expected to make our own decisions and live with the consequences. Here are some excerpts from his speech.

PETER COSTELLO Matthew’s Gospel chapter 20 verses 1-15 records a parable told by Jesus.

A parable is a story with a higher meaning. There is always a point or a moral to the story in a parable.

Most of us hearing this story would feel some sympathy for those who murmured against the householder. How unfair that labourers who worked only one hour were paid the same as those who worked all day? The first lot of workers complain they were treated no better than the latecomers, when in the magisterial language of the King James Bible, they had “borne the burden and heat of the day”. So much for effort. It would have been hot in the middle of the day in that Middle Eastern vineyard.

So those who worked twelve hours feel they have been underpaid. Quite likely they also think that the latecomers have been overpaid since they were only hired at “the eleventh hour”. This expression is now an English idiom, which means doing something just before it is too late. Leaving things to the eleventh hour – study for an exam, campaigning for an election – means leaving something so late

as to nearly miss doing it at all. The last lot of workers just scraped in for payday.

Whilst we are thinking that something unfair is going on here, the tables are turned to illustrate a deeper point. A parable always has a higher meaning.

Before I come to that let me ask you to notice what is not the moral of the story. This is not a story designed to advocate comparative wage justice. It is not trying to suggest the labourers form a union to agitate for better terms and conditions. It is not trying to say that Palestine should set up a Fair Work Commission. Jesus’ point is not to suggest the householder has done something wrong. He seems to think it is perfectly sensible for the householder to say: “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?”

The response to a comment like that these days would be a picket and the demand for an apology.

But the whole point of this story is that nobody has been wronged.

Each labourer has received his entitlement. The early ones were entitled to no more and the later ones were entitled to no less. The terms on which they were hired have been honoured. One labourer’s entitlement is not rewritten in the light of what others have accepted.

An offer is made to each individual who decides for himself whether he wishes to take it up. The reward is set by the individual’s agreement.

People are free to enter contracts of their choosing. The honouring of the contract is all any party can expect. This is the classic doctrine of “freedom of contract”.

Now the moral of the story is

that when it comes to the kingdom of heaven, the person who has laboured all his life is on the same footing as the person who makes a deathbed confession “at the eleventh hour”. You are either in the kingdom of heaven or not. And those that have been there longest cannot turn around and complain that the latecomers get the same reward. The Jews who obeyed the law for generations were not to complain when the kingdom of heaven was thrown open to Gentiles, even though, living under the Mosaic law, they had “borne the burden and heat of the day”.

I will leave aside further theological reflection. The point I want to draw is that Jesus, in this Bible story, puts a very high value on the idea of contract. A contract – a labour contract no less – is here used to illustrate the way that the kingdom of heaven works.

Shock, horror: God is likened to an employer. A contract is used to illustrate the way in which God deals with his people. Once people make a contract they are expected to abide by it. Sometimes the common law has been said to respect the “sanctity of contract”.

All through the Bible we see the theme of covenant between God and man. There is the old covenant with Adam, Noah, Abraham and Israel. Eventually there is the new covenant through Christ.

Under the old covenant there are mutual obligations. And to disregard the covenant, to break a contract, is a serious thing. Human beings, being fallen and sinful as they are, are always falling short, breaking their covenants and contracts. When they do, it ends

badly for them. But it is in the nature of God to keep a covenant. […]

I suggest the English common law doctrine of contract grew out of the Judeo-Christian notions of covenant and obligation.

Those lawyers and judges who developed it were culturally and religiously steeped in the Bible.

At the time, they thought they were developing law according to biblical principles. Sir Matthew Hale, author of History of the Common Law (published 1713) claimed, “Christianity is parcel of the common law of England.” In his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1768) Sir William Blackstone claimed that natural law is “dictated by God himself ”. […]

In the parable it is the householder who asks: “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” In the modern world it is not up to the householder (the employer) to decide these things.

It is not up to the labourer either.

It is up to the state to decide these things, just as it decides so many other things about how a person lives and works. The state also decides what part of the wages will be left to the labourer to spend or save after it has taken out their taxes and prescribed payments for superannuation.

The modern mind might doubt the existence of God, but it sure believes in the presence of the state.

In a post-Christian society the state stands in loco Dei. […]

Now a modern might look back on Sir Matthew Hale or Sir William Blackstone and say they were

merely products of the times. They echoed the laissez-faire attitude of the day and assumed it to be Christian.

Is it not entirely possible that the same could be said of today’s opinionmakers? Is it possible that today’s theologians with their belief in state power and government intervention are just reflecting the spirit of the age?

I once heard a Christian leader say that one of the reasons for reading the Bible is it speaks to us from a different time and a different culture. Stripping out time and place, including the vanity of moderns about themselves and their assumed superiority over previous generations, can lead us to truths that are universal. That’s why I am fascinated by this parable in the Gospel of Matthew.

Could this parable be illustrating a truth that is in short supply today? Could it be suggesting that people should be expected to make decisions about their lives, including economic decisions, and be expected to live with the consequences? Could it be telling us that a big part of being human is to make choices and to live with the consequences? Could it even be that we need no nanny-state to watch over our behaviour and to protect us, in our own best interests, from the consequences of our own actions?

I have heard plenty of sermons extolling the “prophetic” view of the world and how much the welfare state should be doing to make lives better. I can’t remember ever hearing a sermon on Matthew’s Gospel chapter 20. Forgive me therefore for giving one!

Centre for Independent Studies

Greg Clarke is saying a rock ‘n’ roll ‘Yeah!’ to God

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OPINION

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JULY 2015

Divorce: what the Bible says Michael Jensen says divorce is one of the “thorniest” issues.

Bjoern Meyer

When Katrina decided to leave him, Geoff felt like he had contracted a severe illness. Only, no one was sending him Get Well cards. That was the really awkward thing about it: the church community of which he was a part started to treat him oddly – giving him a bit more distance than he was asking for. Then one day, the pastor called him in and told him that, as a divorced person, he wouldn’t be leading a Bible study in future. Mind you, Geoff didn’t feel much like being a Bible study leader, so he accepted the decision.

Jessica had married Rob after only dating for a year. She had felt deeply in love. Rob was a passionate and even intense guy and was touchingly protective of her. Only, once they were married, things took a turn for the worse.

Rob became verbally abusive and his sweet protectiveness turned into a bitter jealousy. When he lashed out at her physically, she felt that he had put a fist through the coloured window of her dreams.

She packed and left immediately.

However, her pastor told her to go back and work on the relationship.

It had taken till his late 40s, Kevin thought, to really find himself. He’d been married already. The first time was to the girl he’d met at uni, Karen, and that had lasted 15 years before just seeming to fizzle out. Neither of them had put up much of a fight, even though they had two kids.

Then there was Angela. He’d met her at the office. He thought he’d outgrown the character flaws that blighted his first marriage – the inability to say what he felt, the tendency to the snide comment, the moody absorption – but he hadn’t. They didn’t marry, but

lived together. It only lasted two years. Since then, he’d started attending church more regularly.

He’d experience a renewal – or was it a discovery? – of his faith. And then, he was introduced to Jo. Here at last was a person who completed him, and whom he seemed to complete. He wondered: could marriage work this time around, and should he as a Christian be even contemplating it?

Divorce presents one of the thorniest issues for Christians and for Christian communities.

Of course, many divorced people know this, which makes it worse.

Who wants to be someone else’s thorny issue, after all? There are a diversity of approaches to divorce and remarriage, even within the same denomination. Churches make rules about marriage and remarriage for good reason; and yet each and every case involves flesh and blood people and the agony of a failed marriage. Each of the stories above involves a unique set of circumstances.

So what are we to think? What guidance does Scripture give us?

And how can grace be shown to triumph over law, without the ideal of Christian life-long marriage being undermined?

Jesus, it seems, speaks very directly about the issue in Matthew 19:9: “Whoever divorces a wife, except for sexual immorality, and remarries, commits adultery.”

Is Jesus saying that the only right cause for divorce (and possibly remarriage) is sexual unfaithfulness? One view would be to say: yes. Many Christian commentators and pastors have felt that divorce is only permissible for Christians on the grounds of adultery. Some have said that, even in this instance, remarriage is offlimits.

Yet this reading is strangely at variance with Paul’s more flexible policy in 1 Corinthians 7, where he allows a spouse who is abandoned by a non-Christian partner to remarry – he says that they are “not bound”. (1 Cor 7:15) That language – “not bound” – also indicates that, in biblical thinking, the assumption is that legitimate divorce means “free to remarry”.

I have been prompted to rethink the issue by the work of Dr David Instone-Brewer from Tyndale House in Cambridge, whose landmark work on the issue – and pastoral advice – is contained in his Divorce and Remarriage in the Church (IVP, 2006).

Instone-Brewer notes that, when Jesus forbade divorce except for immorality, he was responding to the question that the Pharisees had posed “Is it lawful to divorce a wife for any cause?” (Matt 19:3) What’s going on here? There were in Jesus’ day a set of rabbis who had interpreted the text of Deuteronomy 24:1 as meaning you could divorce your wife for … well, pretty much any reason you could find. She’s got a little (to sound a bit Dr Seuss about it) tubby, or naggy, or saggy?

Divorce her – it’s fine. Any reason you can find. It was a kind of ancient “no fault” divorce.

In response to this challenge, Jesus is clear. No, he didn’t agree with the idea of divorce “for any reason”. What Deuteronomy 24 meant was that there had to be a lawful and genuine cause. And if you didn’t have a lawful cause, if you’d exercised the very loose reading of that text, then you’d not actually been faithful either to your spouse or to the Bible. In which case, Jesus’ words would have made you feel somewhat awkward.

But, as Instone-Brewer points out, the Old Testament did allow divorce on other grounds than adultery. Exodus 21:10-11

make provision for divorce on the grounds of neglect. A spouse had the right to be taken care of materially and to be loved in a marriage.

It is not a surprise then to learn that Jewish marriage vows of Jesus’ time contained these rights in them, as well as a vow to maintain sexual faithfulness. And this is the basis for the concept of marriage we find in Christian services, with the promises “to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live”. Neglect of these promises invalidated the marriage.

This is extremely significant, because it helps us to see why physical abuse is definite biblical grounds for divorce. It is not “cherishing” your partner. Sadly, I have heard pieces of Scripture used to keep an abused spouse from leaving the marriage – for example, Paul’s direction that “a wife must not separate from her husband.”

(1 Cor 7:10) It is important to recognise the context of Paul’s command: he is urging Christians not to abandon marriage out of concern for purity or from a desire for a holy singleness (see 1 Cor 7:1).

Let me say it again, to be perfectly clear: spousal abuse is an entirely biblical ground for separation and divorce.

In attempting to stand against the trivialisation of marriage and to stand for persistence in marriage, the Christian community and its leaders should not be heard to be insisting that a person suffering physical or emotional abuse has to stay to be further victimised.

So how are church communities and those that pastor them to help in these often traumatic and complex situations?

Like Jesus and Paul and Moses, I think we must remember that we need to set a high standard for marriage. Marriage matters, and it is God who unites a man and woman and makes them one flesh.

The unity of marriage is profound.

The promises of Christian marriage are not for “as long as our love shall last”, but “until we are parted by death”. For that reason, “marriage is not to be entered into lightly” – and neither is it to be ended flippantly.

A couple I know have persisted through some very difficult decades of marriage when in fact there may have been grounds for divorce on the basis of neglect.

Many couples in our “no fault”

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OPINION

JULY 2015

era would have separated. But to meet them now is to find them to be warm and mature companions.

There’s something deeply Christian and God-honouring about this persistent endurance.

Divorce, as I am sure many of the divorced will recognise, can be a costly exercise in every sense – personally and materially. In the throes of a marriage breakdown, it is hard for people to think with clarity about their situation.

Pastors need to be particularly sympathetic to the abandoned, the neglected and the abused, and recognise the stigma that often comes with being a divorced person. Just as people are proud of getting married, and share the photos with everyone, so people feel shame when marriage fails.

In the case of Jessica, then, the pastor and the church community, should have offered her support and as much help as possible.

In the case of Geoff, there needs to be a patient and sympathetic approach, which recognises his trauma and helps him to heal from his abandonment. There may well have been things he did in the marriage that contributed to its failure, which he needs prayerful help and a reminder of God’s grace to address. It may be appropriate for him to have a rest from a ministry position while he does this.

For Kevin, things are more complex. Were I his pastor, I would be asking: do you have any unfinished business in those previous relationships? Have you asked for forgiveness? Are they suitably provided for? Do we have grounds to believe you when you make the marriage vows this time?

That would be just the start.

As in every part of life, in the failure of marriages we are called to enact the graciousness and righteousness of God. That is the balance we are invited to strike.

We have to make our judgments as imperfect and sinful human beings, in the midst of a broken world, with the word of God and the character of God as our guides.

But the gracious and merciful character of our God is our hope that, even as we bumble our way forward as best we can, we do so in anticipation of his final and perfect judgment.

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

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‘If the world hates you, remember it hated me first’ Tim Costello can see signs of hope

A Facebook event set up by those who disagree with Nick Jensen has over 183,000 followers (at last count).

NICK JENSEN It is a strange thing to go viral, and overnight become one of the most hated couples in the world.

This is what happened with my latest opinion piece about how my wife and I were unwilling to remain married under the state if it redefined what marriage is. The piece of writing has now been read by millions around the world, and if personal attacks were grains of sand I would now have my own private beach.

This has not worried us though.

When I first became a Christian at 17 I understood that my value was in God and not what people think and say. If I walk in his truth, then I should have no fear. In all honesty this is only on a large scale what has happened to anyone in the last five years who has come out supporting traditional marriage being upheld by the state.

What I do think is important however is to clarify some misunderstandings of my piece and intentions, as it appears that there are some who are quite confused by our position. More often than not it seems that many are simply reading the headlines or stories around my piece, rather than what was actually expressed. Here therefore is an attempt to clear the air, and allow judgments based on a

fuller understanding.

Firstly, has been the understandable problem around divorce. Some Christians have been confused as to why we would do something that is described in the Bible as against God’s intentions.

Here we need to make a distinction between “state law” and “God’s law”. Often these two line-up, but sometimes they don’t. What we mean is that we would only be divorced under state law if it changed what marriage was, but would still be married under God’s law. This is not to suggest that any other marriages would be somehow less valuable if the state changed the law, but, for us, we have decided we would simply not be able to partake in any redefinition.

Secondly, despite the headlines, this was never intended to be a media stunt, threat, or an act of protest. I simply wrote an opinion piece about what we believed about marriage and a logical ramification of that belief. It was unanticipated that it would reach this level of interest, but I was happy to take the opportunity to explain why we believed what we believed. This is something we decided many years ago and the reason we went public was to try and add some depth to the debate.

Thirdly, my piece was not meant to be defeatist about the

attempted legislation around same-sex marriage. It was simply encouraging people to think about broader consequences of such a legal change. I believe that the best situation is where the state supports a true definition of marriage, and I even think the tide is turning on this issue in Australia. I would encourage people to continue to get involved in lobbying their politicians to hold onto this foundational social good, but at the same time to have serious discussions around their response if change comes.

I don’t regret writing the piece.

My intentions were to simply communicate truth with clarity, share our personal struggle and inspire other Christians to engage. Even in light of all that has happened I don’t think I would change a single word. Everyone may not agree with us, but what I do hope is that Christians take the time to debate thoughtfully and gracefully the questions I have raised.

Nick Jensen is the Director of the Lachlan Macquarie Institute – lmi.org.au – which helps develop Christian leaders in public policy.

A more detailed analysis of Nick’s answers to questions from Christians around this piece is available on the Bible Society’s website: biblesociety.org.au

Hope is the indispensable tool for a professional optimist. But hope isn’t wishful thinking or an abstract belief that everything will turn out right. Rather, it’s grounded in a faith perspective that tries to apply the lens of Jesus’ teaching to make sense of the world, read the signs of the times and find those moments when God is ready to act through us.

We live in a troubled world. Even as progress makes life safer and more rewarding for millions, we are beset with crises – conflict, environmental collapse, economic troubles, political division, social exclusion. The global economy has never been more powerful, yet many feel it makes no space for them. In Australia, we see a budget process that too easily degenerates into a fight for sectional advantage, instead of being a moral document that embodies a common commitment to lifting people up to live the best possible lives.

But at home and abroad, the crisis is not primarily of resources or capacity, but of understanding.

We are not using the right tools and methods to measure and appreciate what’s happening. Too often we make bad decisions that lead to disaster because we apply the wrong scale of values.

We falsely imagine that removing an evil equates with achieving a good. But often that means treating symptoms instead of systems.

Peace is more than the absence of war, and identifying what’s wrong is only the beginning of implementing a cure.

Walking with Jesus and listening to him, we rediscover truths that get lost in the material world. We remember that a love-centred worldview transforms everything.

If we truly hear Jesus’ words in 1 Corinthians 13 we remember that with love all is possible, without it all is empty.

We live with multiple crises but we are not helpless or hopeless. The signs of the times are also signs of hope. But we need to stop and listen to Jesus’ language of love, and only then can we find the right “time for every purpose” and build on what’s best.

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OPINION

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Letters On baking cakes and not baking cakes I was appalled by “Would you bake a cake for a gay wedding” in the May Eternity. I was also amazed that 75 per cent of your respondents said that they would bake a cake for a “gay” wedding.

I read the “for” respondents reasoning carefully, and still disagree with them. Some were interesting and worth consideration. Others were at best “straw men” situations, or the reasons for compromise, because of their fear of what will happen if they don’t, which simply means that they are scared of public opinion. I believe that it is time for the believer to stand up and be counted on these issues, or we are going to be over-run by error.

I wish to compliment those who had the fortitude to stand up and be counted. All were good but especially Karl Faase.

As to the “straw man” issues of other reasons that perhaps we should not bake cakes, I agree.

Maybe we should be standing up to greedy people, and sexually active pre-marriage couples etc. etc. We have to do all we can to stand for truth at all costs.

Regardless of all the empty promises that many are making that churches won’t be forced to marry “same sex” couples, I believe that it won’t be long now before marriage celebrants (especially ministers etc.) will be forced to make a decision: to compromise with this proposed new law, or get out of the marriage game altogether.

There are Presbyterian ministers here in Queensland already contemplating foregoing government sanctioned marriages.

JULY 2015

It is a small world after all

“I’m thinking less ‘what would Jesus do’, and more ‘Cain and Abel’. ”

If this occurs. “May their tribe increase!”

It seems to me that, in the main, we are scared to be called “homophobic”. Of course, we are not, but the truth never stopped a good story-line in the press.

Edward J. Free, Deception Bay, QLD

A big change It was good to read Hadyn Sennitt’s response (Eternity, June) to the interview with Wesley Hill in the April edition. Hadyn has experienced remarkable change in his own life, which is a wonderful testimony to God’s grace and power.

However, we cannot prescribe the healing other people should experience. I know two people personally who have experienced miraculous healing (one of them my son), but life seems to teach us that God often says “wait”; our request for healing will not be granted this side of heaven.

Unlike Haydn, I believe a person can call themselves “alcoholic and Christian” (to use his example), because whilst being saved certainly includes a process of sanctification, it does not necessarily mean being delivered from all of our physical, biological or psychological problems. The church needs to continue to wrestle with how to minister to those who experience long-term burdens such as same-sex attraction. Simply describing such burdens as “sin” is not the appropriate response.

Allan Starr, Pastoral Worker Liberty Christian Ministries Inc. Rozelle, NSW

Sabbath again In his defence of the Galatian heresy, SDA Pastor Daniel Matteo (Eternity, May) points out that “the seventh-day Sabbath was instituted long before the OT covenant.”

In other words, its basis is creation.

What he conveniently overlooks is that in the rehearsal of the Ten Commandments before the children of Israel entered the Promised Land, the basis is no longer creation but redemption – “Remember ... the Lord your God brought you out of there with an outstretched arm.” (Deuteronomy 5:15) When Christ rose he ushered in a new creation by the redemption he had secured for those he came to save.

Not only was the seventh day superseded but the eighth day foretold in the circumcision ritual had come to pass.

Just as Israel was not to return to the yoke of bondage, neither are today’s believers. “We stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith

Correction Thank you for printing my letter in the June edition of Eternity.

By way of correction, the date when Constantine first passed a law to put Sunday above the Bible Sabbath was 321 AD. This was confirmed in the middle of the fourth century by the church at the Council of Laodicea.

476 AD, the date I quoted was the fall of the Roman empire.

Sorry about that, my remembrance of dates in history was never the greatest, even at school, and I’m way past that time now!

Brenda Kinkead, Cherrybrook, NSW

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SHINES 2015 APPEAL

This is the edition of Eternity when it seems like the Christian world is rather small. We have two Costellos and three Jensens in this paper so we are arguably over quota on both. In mitigation, can I point out that only two of the Jensens are related – the odd one out is Nick. If we have done a good job, readers will find all the material contributed by either Jensens or Costellos to be worth reading.

The most controversial might be Nick Jensen’s piece on how a small column in a suburban paper suggesting he might “divorce” his wife to avoid living under a new marriage law went viral. Christians as well as the secular critics have given a robust response.

Running this piece in Eternity is not necessarily an “endorsement”. Rather, it reflects our desire to be a place where the “politically incorrect” will get a home.

Enjoy the mix in Eternity dear reader, we hope we are not predictable.

John Sandeman

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OPINION

JULY 2015

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Cruise control: Scientology secrets Natasha Moore on believing the impossible

Janet Lackey/flickr

In one of her many bewildering encounters with the madcap inhabitants of the world through the looking-glass, Lewis Carroll’s young Alice famously tells the White Queen that it doesn’t matter how hard you try, “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” the Queen responds sympathetically. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

To many, the White Queen’s cheery approach to fact and belief perfectly captures the intellectual contortions required to persist in any sort of religious faith in the modern world. If anything, the more ludicrous the object of belief, the more impressive the faith of the person who manages to hold it fast in the teeth of reason, evidence or common sense.

Watching the new documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief – open-mouthed, I might add, for the whole two utterly appalling hours – has given me a new appreciation for this perspective on religious belief.

You couldn’t make this stuff up. Or, if you’re L. Ron Hubbard, prolific sci-fi novelist, shrewd and charismatic showman, classic megalomaniac, and revered founder of Scientology, that’s exactly what you could do.

The doco is built on extensive interviews with former Scientology members – several of them from the executive, the organisation’s inner circle – as well as archival footage of decades of stagy Scientology conferences, interviews with Hubbard himself and with superstar Scientologists Tom Cruise and John Travolta, and even (because my jaw hadn’t quite made it all the way to the floor yet) a music video from 1990 that alone

Going Clear is the most recent documentary on the inner workings of the secretive Scientology church. merits the price of admission.

Scientology is infamous for its mercenary structure, courting of celebrities and wacky dogma, but this no-holds-barred exposé consistently astounds.

It’s the details that are most telling. There’s a contract signed by “Sea Organisation” employees (the name survives from the days Scientology consisted of a group of devotees sailing the Mediterranean with LRH, apparently looking for lost treasure??) that commits them “for the next billion years”.

“Secret materials”, handwritten by LRH and kept in a locked briefcase reveal Scientology’s creation myth, but only to adherents who (pay enough money to) attain the level of “Operating Thetan III”. The creation story lays out a tale of distant planets, overpopulation, cryogenics and volcanoes, and an overlord called Xenu (who, notably, had featured in the science fiction of Hubbard’s younger days). The alleged abuse of senior members who had fallen under suspicion and were consequently locked in a trailer known as “the hole”

for months on end and made to carry out tasks like cleaning the bathroom floor with their tongues.

The church of Scientology has denied many of the film’s claims, and sought to discredit the “apostates” who dish most of the dirt on their experiences as members of 10, 15, some more than 20 years’ standing. These kinds of films often pack a good proportion of their punch by reporting the worst stories from the most embittered ex-members; but this one certainly gives a convincing impression of corrupt power laid bare and cruelties done in darkness being brought into the light.

Yet for the Christian viewer, there’s a sense of unease as well.

While Scientology’s talk of alien invaders or the traumas of past lives may strike me as patently absurd, at the same time I’m reminded of the comments readers make when I write publicly about my own faith – jibes about “sky gods” and “flying spaghetti monsters” and unicorns, products of a rationalism that automatically puts the resurrection or the

Genesis creation story in the same category as Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.

I’m horrified and outraged by the manipulation and abuse portrayed in Going Clear. But have Christian leaders never committed comparable acts – never sought to control those in their power, or suppress dissenting voices?

Sitting in the cinema, inside my glass house, stone in hand, I thought: no wonder some people have effectively been inoculated against any and all religious claims. No wonder that they find it easier to simply dismiss any hint of the supernatural and view the attempt to distinguish between one religion and another as on par with arguing for the plausibility of, say, the werewolf over the centaur.

Of course, nobody’s as absolute an empiricist as they may like to think. Very few of the choices we make can be based on anything like scientific fact: the news or history we accept as accurate, the people we allow to fix our cars or mind our kids, the doctors whose advice we follow, the friends or

family we let in on our secrets and hidden selves – these are calls we make by a very different process of trial and error to what happens in a lab. We are deeply reliant on authority; our lives are shot through with trust, of varying force and firmness.

Watching Going Clear and pondering trust, I thought about L. Ron Hubbard, and about Jesus, and started to feel on more solid ground. The film offers a portrait of a man who lied about his war service – whose claim to have sunk submarines was pure fantasy, and who was relieved from his command after accidentally shelling a Mexican island. A man who blackmailed his wife into marrying him, beat and threatened her, kidnapped their daughter and then called home from Cuba to tell her he had cut the child into small pieces. A man who is quoted as saying that the only way to make any real money was to start a religion (and never pay tax again).

Jesus, in glaring contrast, was the man who had no place to lay his head; who counselled a rich man to give away all his money to the poor; who severely rebuked his disciples when they treated children as an inconvenience, or sought power for themselves, or resorted to violence to defend him or his movement. Who called his followers to care for the needy and dispossessed, to love and pray for their enemies, to forgive as God forgave them and love their neighbour as themselves. And who gave up his life for those who had rejected and despised him.

The documentary calls for the church of Scientology’s tax exemption to be revoked. The reason such laws exist, it notes, are because the religions that benefit from them are expected to use their resources for the public good – a goal it suggests is in no way served by Scientology’s hoarded billions.

It’s an accusation often flung at Christians in Australia as well – with much less justice, as anyone aware of the church’s record in education, aged care, and relief work across the country will concede. The more closely Christians resemble their founder, the less traction such complaints can muster. May the quiet, faithful, far-reaching service of the church make our faith look less like a blinkered determination to believe the impossible, and more like a deeper, truer reality.

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OPINION

16

JULY 2015

Let your ‘yes’ be ‘Yeah!’

Warning: this column contains glowing references to U2 which may be offensive to some readers.

Greg Clarke is rocking and rolling an Atomic Bomb (hint: the answer is love). In this song, the singer imagines himself visiting a seedy nightclub, where the meaninglessness and trashiness hits him so hard that he can barely stand. He steadies himself by gazing at a cross hanging around the neck of a dancing girl. “Your love is teaching me how to kneel,” the singer “prays” at the end of the song, before the final line: “Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah…!” (actually 15 “yeahs”).

This last line grabs me, because it is the “shouting affirmation” of what is truly meaningful in the midst of that hedonistic, capitalistic nightclub: the “yes” that Christ offers to us fallen human beings through his vertigo-stopping sacrifice on that first-century cross.

Rather than banal rock lyrics, the

SteBo/ wikimedia

It’s the greatest lyric in rock and roll: “Yeah!” It’s the grand affirmation, the word of exuberant celebration, of heartfelt commitment, of faith and fun, if I can put it that way. Think of The Beatles (“She loves you, yeah yeah yeah”) or Yello’s mid-80s synthhit, Oh, yeah. It’s the human soul crying with happiness.

A 2013 study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the word that brought about the most success in business meetings was “yeah”, because it indicated agreement, warmth and trust between the negotiating parties.

I started thinking about “yeah” because of rock band, U2. I know some people can’t handle Bono’s sunglasses, or seemingly liberal views, but I confess that they minister to my heart in song very frequently. If you can bear with the analysis, I think there are at least three very educational “yeahs” to be found in U2’s lyrics that just might help us with our daily walk in faith (and you don’t need to know the songs to get the benefit).

The first is the “Get Things In Focus Yeah”. This can be found in their song Vertigo, on the 2004 album How to Dismantle

U2 performing one of their concerts in their 360° tour in Gelsenkirchen, Germany on August 3 2009.

15 yeahs are a faithful confession.

The second is the “Love Rescued Me Yeah”. There’s a lineage from John Newton’s Amazing Grace to U2 singing with the recently deceased B.B. King, When Love Comes to Town. This song begins with a chant of “yeahs” (10 this time), before telling a story laced with biblical imagery of someone “lost at sea” until “love rescued me”.

The singer is hopelessly grateful that he “jumped on the train” when “love came to town”. Again, the image of Jesus on the cross completes the song and makes the divine origin of the love very clear.

The “yeahs” at the beginning are yeahs of blessed relief that God would save a wretch like me. Yeah!

The third is the “Relax, God is God Yeah”. On U2’s most recent album (the one delivered unrequested into your iTunes library), there’s a song called California. Its subtitle is “There is no end to love” and this is the singer’s theme: in order to cope with the grief and sorrow of the world, we need to know that the love of God is even stronger. Love is stronger than death, as Solomon tells us. In delivering that line in the song, the singer pauses to add an emphasis: “All I know, and all I need to know is there is no, yeah, there is no end to love.” The single “yeah” that occupies that pause could only be sung by someone confident that God will deliver. It’s

Bible Stat Around the world, Bible Societies distribute 32 million Bibles a year.

like the confident “yeah” that builds rapport in business meetings, or links friends together (“yeah, mate, no problem”) and theologically says, “Yeah, life is suffering, but God is bigger than that, and I trust him.” It’s the very relaxed “yeah” of faith. It’s the right response to Christ’s sacrifice, to being forgiven, to seeing hope in the midst of trauma and debauchery, to grabbing hold of the lifebuoy before it floats past. And knowing you have been grabbed. Yeah!

And you thought rock and roll was for the kids.

Greg Clarke is CEO of Bible Society Australia and author of the 2014 Australian Christian Book of the Year, The Great Bible Swindle.