Couldn't Help Noticing

Sermon illustration: giving your life

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald on 2 August tells of a man who gave his life for a fellow passenger in a plane crash.

The woman's sister said, “I can't believe that in this world, when so many people are so jaded, that there are people out there like that. He met Kimberley, as far as I know, that day. I would do that for her, but I can't believe that a stranger who just met her would knowingly give up his life for her.”

It's a great illustration of Romans 5:6-8:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

A modest revolution

Another one bites the dust. (A letter to the editor, that is).

This letter was written in response to an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald—see the article here.

Dear editor,

Jessica Valenti suggests that there is nothing revolutionary about modesty. Maybe not for her. But given that the sexual and marital mores of Western society have been turned upside-down in the last 40 years (as divorce statistics demonstrate), I think there is something revolutionary indeed about suggesting that we turn the world right-side-up.

Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, “Go, and sin no more”. That is truly revolutionary because it is a stern word with grace and compassion at the very centre of it. How many people today are capable of both?

Yours sincerely,

Gordon Cheng

Love your neighbour (and his pets) continued

Following on from Philip Cooney's CHN about RSPCA President Hugh Wirth's address to the National Press Club in Canberra, Briefing reader, Jennie Baddeley in Parramatta, Australia, wrote to point out to us that one of Wilberforce's friends, the Rev Arthur Broome, was key in the founding of the RSPCA. Broome was an evangelical minister in the Anglican church, and he threw himself into the work of the RSPCA by becoming their full-time secretary and bearing the financial burden himself in hiring other RSPCA employees (see Nigel Scotland, Evangelical Anglicans in a Revolutionary Age, p. 38, and RSPCA NSW History). She notes,

Bull-baiting, cock fighting and even hunting decreased after the society was set up. Suddenly there was a whole lot more accountability with regards to treatment of animals. It didn't solve the problem and there was much opposition, but I would say to Hugh Wirth that the establishment of the RSPCA, a society which benefits animals even today, was started by evangelicals and that they, as part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, have contributed something substantial here.

Wilberforce and his mates were living in a society which did not value human or animal life—where death and pain were commonplace, and exploitation was habitual, particularly in the upper classes. When Wilberforce stated that animals may be used by humans for any purpose, provided they are not mistreated, he was actually being radical for his time: he was trying to get it through to people's heads that other living beings matter, while at the same time making it clear that animals are still useful to human beings. To my knowledge, no other group was making any effort in this regard at this stage in European society, and the early evangelicals were seen as pleasure-destroyers who always had problems with everything.

We confuse the issue these days because it's hard for us to say clearly that we do value the lives of animals and that we care about the way they are treated, without being heard to say that we think the lives of animals are as significant as the lives of human beings. So we don't say anything, thinking that that's better than getting the gospel confused in people's heads or worse.

In any case, Hugh Wirth is not dealing in facts when he makes such extraordinary statements; if anything, the book of Proverbs, which is presumably part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, contains well-known statements that encourage the good treatment and care of animals, e.g. Proverbs 12:10: “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel”.