An online survey of issues, events and ideas
Gordon Cheng / 22nd December 2004
/ The ones they wouldn't publish!
Matt Wade wrote this excellent article on greed and Christmas for the Sydney Morning Herald.
In an attempt to make further gospel mileage, I wrote this rejected follow-up letter...
Dear editor,
It's not often that a report in the SMH could be labelled as genuinely wise, but this is exactly what Matt Wade's critique of Australian greed is (SMH, Dec 10). I am regularly astonished at how rich we have become in the last 40 years, and how our great wealth seems to have accelerated our greed, rather than slowed it down. As we become richer we become less and less thankful, so that the gift of God's own Son at Christmas is, perversely, seen as something to be somewhat ashamed of in our multicultural society.
Gordon Cheng / 21st December 2004
/ The ones they wouldn't publish!
They did publish a letter on Santa in the paper. But it wasn't mine...
Dear editor,
Santa and Jesus ought to make a truce (Santa vs Jesus, SMH Nov 29). The original Santa was a 4th century Turkish bishop, Nicholas of Myra, mythologised for his extraordinary generosity. If you want an illustration of God's undeserved grace through Jesus Christ, it is hard to see how you could go wrong with Satan, er, Santa Claus.
Gordon Cheng / 21st December 2004
Philosopher Antony Flew, possibly the leading atheistic philosophical thinker of the 20th century, has renounced his atheism in favour of non-christian theism, as this interview outlines.
If this were a soccer match with the prize being Flew's conversion to belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, it would still be a score of 0-0 with play progressing in injury time. But it ought to be a matter for prayer, and could be a useful piece of information in conversation with our non-Christian friends.
Gordon Cheng / 20th December 2004
In a recent Washington Post article (free registration required), Charles Krauthammer has written on the effects of pluralism on Christmas celebrations.
Krauthammer cites several recent cases: Schools in New Jersey and Florida banning Christmas carols, the mayor of Somerville, Massachusetts, having to publicly apologize for calling a ‘holiday party’ a ‘Christmas party’, and malls in Florida banning Nativity scenes whilst displaying menorah's for Hanukah. (The defence for celebrating Hanukah over Christmas was that Hanukah celebrates a battle, not a religious event. Notwithstanding the fact, says Krauthammer, that Hanukah celebrates the most religious of all events: a miracle.)
Krauthammer makes the following points:
Firstly, attempts to de-Christianize Christmas “are as absurd as they are relentless.” More than 80% of Americans are Christians, and Krauthammer estimates 95% celebrate Christmas.
Secondly, how fragile must the religion be of those for whom the hearing of Christian songs at Christmas time threatens to undo all they stand for? Not Muslims and Jews, who are overwhelmingly unthreatened by it, and whose own continued existence in the US relies on it being a society that allows the public celebration of religious events. Indeed, the only minority group to be obviously offended by it appears to be the secular humanists.
Thirdly, Krauthammer argues that it underestimates the robustness of the American experiment in religious toleration, degenerating it into a stance of “petty defensiveness”.
And all this from a man whose favourite Christmas memory was doing extra shifts at the Massachusetts General Hospital to cover his gentile colleagues.
Gordon Cheng / 19th December 2004
/ The ones they wouldn't publish!
With the upcoming release of the Kinsey movie (13th January), about the sex criminal Alfred Kinsey who masqueraded as a researcher, expect to hear more about repressive Christians in coming months.
In the meantime, we try to get the message out...
Dear editor,
Oddly, both the upcoming Kinsey movie, and the SMH puff piece from John Patterson, omit any reference to Kinsey's research on child sexual response, which can only have been gained through the sexual abuse of children. Given that the man wanted to encourage sexual openness and indulged in it freely, isn't this is a strange omission? It makes me wonder if the ideas promoted by Kinsey are as honest and healthy as claimed.
Still, what would I know? I'm only a Christian father with a genuine concern for my wife and three daughters, so I'm bound to be wrong about this.
