Couldn't Help Noticing

Dear US Customers

We are excited to keep moving forward in our efforts for a US distribution center, and we're expecting to have it up and running by the end of this coming summer. If you visit www.matthiasmedia.com.au/US_newslist and sign up with your e-mail address, we'll keep you updated as to what's happening with our US branch of operations, as well as providing you with information about our new resources. In the meantime, feel free to browse our online store and learn more about our ministry resources. A good place to start would be to download our 2006 Resource Guide (2.6 Mb, PDF).

Explaining Christianity and homosexuality

Last month we had the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras hitting the streets. It's a challenge trying to summarize the Christian opposition to homosexual practise in a way that makes sense, but is also short enough for a letter to the editor. Here's one I sent that missed out. Nonetheless, we should keep writing to newspapers about this as we have opportunity. Militant homosexual politics isn't going to go away in a hurry...

Dear editor,

Contrary to James Pilkington (Letters, SMH 4 Feb) Jesus does speak against homosexuality. He does so when he says of the Old Testament law, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them...not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished”. This includes of course the stern Levitical prohibitions against homosexuality. The Old Testament laws were indeed “fulfilled” by Jesus' obedience to them and by his death on the cross. As a result many temple laws, and laws about eating raw prawns, no longer apply. But no change with respect to the Bible's attitude to homosexuality is ever suggested—quite the opposite, in fact.

The reason Jesus didn't speak even more clearly on this issue is that no-one was promoting gay sex as a viable alternative to marriage as established at creation. If there had been an annual Jerusalem Mardi Gras, with floats featuring loud protests against well-known homophobe Pontius Pilate, we may well have heard more on the subject.

Yours etc...

We used to be friends

Once upon a time boys played at being blood brothers. Once upon a time girls swapped hand-made friendship bracelets and wore them until they fell apart. Now it seems the line between friendship and romance is blurring, and the friendship part is losing. In an article about sexuality and film at SydneyAnglicans.net, the (unnamed) author comments,

In When Harry Met Sally, Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) famously explained to Sally (Meg Ryan) that men and women could not be friends. The reason? The sex bit always gets in the way.

Friendship between people of the same sex also seems to be heading for cinematic extinction. In a sex-obsessed media the concept of a deep and loving sexless relationship is becoming an enigma ...

Have we forgotten how to be friends or how to depict friendship?

(From ‘Anything Goes?—Sex and Cinema’)

To me it seems we have forgotten. We've gone from Anne and Diana of Anne of Green Gables, who exchanged locks of hair and vowed to be “bosom friends” forever (without sniggering over the “bosom” part), to the bare-breasted lesbianism of Rita and Betty in Mulholland Drive. We've ditched the amiable partnership between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson for the unrequited passion of Jack and Ennis in Brokeback Mountain. Even the friends of Friends couldn't keep their relationships strictly Platonic. And there have always been those who like to speculate that David and Jonathan, or Jesus and his disciples were really homosexuals.

But if we lose friendship, we really do lose, simply because of its nature. As C.S. Lewis points out in his chapter on Friendship in The Four Loves,

Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend. The rest of us know that though we can have erotic love and friendship for the same person yet in some ways nothing is less like a Friendship than a love-affair. Lovers are always talking to one another about their love; Friends hardly ever about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest. Above all, Eros (while it lasts) is necessarily between two only. But two, far from being the necessary number for Friendship, is not even the best. And the reason for this is important.

Lamb says somewhere that if, of three friends (A,B and C), A should die, then B loses not only A but “A's part in C”, while C loses not only A but “A's part in B”. In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets ... Friendship exhibits a glorious “nearness by resemblance” to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah's vision are crying “Holy, Holy, Holy” to one another (Isaiah VI, 3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, HarperCollins, 1978 [1960], pp. 58-59.

In a world where the focus in relationships is on finding Mr or Miss Right, we need our friends more than ever. Even if we are married, we need friends, for it a well-established fact that a marriage cannot meet all our needs (and nor should it). We need friends we can confide in, we need friends we can relax with and have fun with, and we need friends who will support us—who will let us call them at three o'clock in the morning when life isn't going so well and who will catch us when we fall. And our friends need us to do likewise for them.

So let's not forget. Let's keep that line between romance and friendship firmly drawn, and save ourselves from this present state of confusion so we can look forward to an eternity with God—and each other.

Be silent

Be silent, all flesh, before the LORD, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling. (Zech 2:13)

What a chilling image. Quaking-in-boots territory. You'd want to know where you stood with him, wouldn't you?

Psalm two said so, part I

Where the blessing of Psalm 1 revolves entirely around the individual, the blessing of Psalm 2 is cosmic in its scope. It appears at first as a political plot (“the nations rage...the peoples plot...the kings of the earth...the rulers”). But ultimately, the whole of creation is swept up in the rule of God's chosen King. The lack of a clearly identified author or subject of the Psalm only emphasizes this cosmic dimension. The Psalmist declares:

“He who sits in the heavens laughs ... then he will speak...I will make...the ends of the earth your possession”

The King at the heart of Psalm 2, ruling with all the authority of the only God, is revealed as none other than Jesus in Mark 1:11. Psalm 2 is applied to Jesus here, along with (unexpectedly) Isaiah 42:1, a verse which speaks of a servant of absolute humility.

Absolute humility and absolute power: revealed in Jesus, who becomes king by offering the refuge of his death.

“Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.“

(Psalm 2:12)

The disciples in Acts 4 understand the timeless nature of this Psalm and have no hesitation in applying its truths to the rulers and politicians of their day, Herod and Pontius Pilate. We may accept that the blessings of Psalm 1 apply in our small corner. Can we also accept that the blessings of Psalm 2 apply throughout the whole of creation? Let the politicians tremble, indeed—and let us take refuge in him, not in those who seem strong in the world's eyes.