Couldn't Help Noticing

Pay attention

Couldn't help noticing another good sermon at church on Sunday, this time on the beginning of Hebrews.

The preacher began the sermon by pointing out what a noisy world we live in, with a barrage of voices competing for our attention: telephone marketers, TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, email, SMS, web sites, ads on billboards, ads on buses, ads in buses, school newsletters, political parties, environmental groups, ... you get the idea.

But the message that the writer to the Hebrews wants us to “pay closer attention to” is the message of the Gospel—a message even more significant than the message delivered in the past through the angels. More significant because Jesus is more significant.

It is an important reminder for the times we live in. With the clamour of voices competing for our attention—many of them with millions of dollars spent to ensure that they grab our attention—it is a battle not to “drift away” (2:1) from the message of Christ and not “neglect” our great salvation (2:3).

Compassion bypass

I wrote this (unpublished) letter in response to a dreadful story where a confused, injured Australian citizen was deported to the Phillipines by mistake.

Dear editor,

The wrongful deportation of Vivian Solon makes me angry. Australia is a country where we are too quick to judge refugees, with a government and a trigger-happy bureacracy that is too swift to deport and too slow to show kindness to children in detention. Thank God for a Phillipine church that showed mercy.

Yours etc.

Oh me of little faith

For the past week or so, I've been on Moore College mission at Campsie Anglican Church. The multicultural diversity of the area is reflected in the different activities run by the church—ESL classes, conversation café, a “Cultural Night” and even the Sunday services (one of which was conducted entirely in Mandarin!) Many of the people I met knew very little English so steering the conversation onto the topic of the gospel was even harder in the face of these linguistic barriers.

I was reminded once again of just how massive the task is to reach the nations with the good news about Jesus—how privileged we are to participate in this work—and how impossible it is to do any of this without God at the helm. Even though we were at the church for only eight short days, we saw people drawn to the gospel—turning up at the church completely out of the blue—wanting to find out more about Jesus or to get their questions answered. It was comforting and tremendously encouraging to see God at work in this little corner of the world.

No regrets, part 2

Further to the CHN below, interesting to note the recent report by LifeSite News of a new study in the USA with the catchy title: “Association of Virginity at Age 18 With Educational, Economic, Social, and Health Outcomes in Middle Adulthood”.

“Adolescent virginity has a significant impact on well-being in middle adulthood,” Reginald Finger, M.D., M.P.H., says. “We found that men and women who were virgins at age 18, when evaluated approximately 20 years later, had about half the risk of divorce, had completed about an additional year of education and had annual incomes nearly 20 percent higher than those who were not virgins at 18.”

The article, published in the Adolescent and Family Health journal, is available online by subscription.

No regrets?

The latest NSW Health ‘safe sex’ campaign really makes my blood boil. The ads have been running on our televisions since 28 February, and they finished airing late April. The slogan of the campaign is “Safe sex. No regrets”. The campaign brochure tells us that safe sex = using condoms and/or a range of other things during sex to “reduce the risk of catching or passing on STIs (sexually transmitted infections) or HIV”. If you do this, you will have “no regrets”.

So, essentially what they are saying is that sex is a purely physical activity. It doesn't affect your emotions or your long-term wellbeing except, of course, if you end up with some unwanted infection (and I notice that pregancy is listed—in between HIV and STIs—as one of the undesirable things safe sex can help to prevent). As long as you can prevent that, then you can have plenty of sex and you'll have no regrets.

Is this a joke? I can't believe this is seriously what our government wants to teach our youth (and since the pictures in the TV ad and the brochure are all of 20-30-year-olds, I assume that's who they are targetting with this message). In the entire campaign, there is no mention of the non-physical negative effects of sex—things like low self-esteem, inability to trust people, sex becoming meaningless, people not treating each other with respect, extremely painful relationship breakups, etc. Are these things not worth preventing too?

Safe sex. No regrets? I doubt it.

To view the television ad, read the brochure, or see more info, visit the campaign website.

You can also write to the NSW Health Minister (details here) if it makes you as angry as it makes me.