Couldn't Help Noticing

Music to raise the dead

Apparently Madonna may have to change the venue of her concert in Moscow because authorities fear that students at the university next door might accidentally fall out the window in their enthusiasm to hear her (source). It just goes to show that listening to the material girl will not bring the dead to life, even if she is decked out with a crown of thorns and hitched to a wooden cross. On the other hand, listening to Paul's preaching on the true king, who bore the crown of thorns and the wooden cross to take away the sins of the world, will certainly bring about the resurrection of those who are perishing. Poor defenestrated Eutychus would certainly agree (Acts 20:7-12).

Using your gift

I was talking to a friend (who shall remain nameless, but was quite likely to have been my wife) about whether or not she was a good speaker. “Of course you are”, I said. “I've thought that since that national student conference in 1992, where the chairman froze up under the stress and you had to stand up at a minute's notice to summarize, thank the speakers and conclude the proceedings.”

“Well, I suppose I'm good at it,” was the reply, “but I've always been suspicious of my motives. I enjoy speaking and I'm worried that I'm not doing it for the right reasons.”

Switching easily and naturally into smug mode, I said, “You're right. You're not doing it for the right reasons. The Bible says that your motives are bad. But doesn't that just mean you should pray for forgiveness, ask God to change you, and get on with the job?

‘In fact, have you considered the possibility that by sitting on the gift for all these years, you've been disobedient and other people have missed out on what you had to offer? God gave you the gift for building up the church. You should have a go.’

“You scum”, she or he responded (I'm still not giving away whether it was my wife). “I'll think about it.”

The Bible assures us that we are sinners who need forgiveness. That situation doesn't magically change when we become Christians. We are always, as Martin Luther said, simul justus et peccator—at once justified and sinful. But in spite of who we are, God gives us certain gifts for the building up of his church. He is pleased, and his people are strengthened, when we use what we have—not self-indulgently because we want the recognition, but for God's glory and the good of others.

Spare a thought

Spare a thought for the parents of Jenni Murray, a radio broadcaster and host of BBC 4's “Woman's Hour” show.

Murray has spoken out in favour of changes to the law to allow assisted suicide. She is quoted as stating that “the last thing she wanted was for her children to suffer from her being desperately ill”. She is also reported as saying that she “does not want to look after her sick and aging mother, and plans to end her own life when she becomes a burden to those around her”.

So why do I feel sorry for her parents?

Apparently her mother suffers from Parkinson's Disease, and is currently being cared for by her father. As if that is not burden enough, should they need any assistance in the future, their daughter is publicly implying that to ask for such assistance would be unfairly imposing on their children. As far as I can see, Ms Murray's statements clearly point her parents in the direction she thinks they ought to go.

Murray is also quoted as saying that “the law against assisted suicide is supported by a ‘religious minority’ who hold to an outdated moral view that human life is inherently valuable and that children have a legitimate obligation to care for elderly parents”.

If these quotes are accurate, then one can only despair at the lack of intelligence and ethics of someone who is supposed to provide quality journalism and thought. Such views are simply evil and foolish.

Read reports in The Times, The Telegraph, and at LifeSite News.

The life we’re prepared to kill for

Following the recent approval of the ‘abortion drug’ RU-486, and now with stem-cell research and therapeutic cloning once more on the agenda in the Australian parliament, it is tempting to see our society as sliding into a ‘culture of death’.

William McClay, over at First Things, sees it slightly differently, and I think rightly:

Abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, the cannibalization of embryos—all these things are linked, but they do not reflect a desire to promote death per se. Instead, they reflect a world in which the overwhelming desire of the sovereign individual will to have its way, and to order and manufacture a world it can live in without let or hindrance, is regarded as the chief source of value, or at any rate the value that trumps all others. They reflect a view of life that trivializes death, precisely because it fails to understand what life is.

Our society is not in love with death, but infatuated with a particular vision of life—an autonomous, individualistic life, in which my happiness and fulfilment is the supreme value. This is the vision that gave us feminism, the sexual revolution, ‘no-fault’ divorce and ‘greed is good’. And now it's the philosophy that is promoting the destruction of human life through embryonic cloning in the service of improving the freedom and health of other individuals.

It's a vision of life that will happily bear the collateral damage suffered by others (unborn babies, the children of our marriages, the sexual partners we cast aside), so long as my own personal freedom and flourishing is not threatened. Our culture is so in love with it, it's happy to kill for it.

A straight Schluter

Economist Ross Gittins wrote a great article about another economist, evangelical Michael Schluter, in The Sydney Morning Herald. Dr Schluter argues something surprising for an economist but unsurprising for a Christian—that we should consider sacrificing economic wellbeing where it impinges on our relationships.

My letter to the editor was martyred in the letter editor's bin, but it will rise in glory to meet 72 other unpublished letters in the world to come:

Dear editor,

Ross Gittin's excellent opinion piece (“Another way to make our lives richer”, SMH Aug 16), quoting economist Michael Schluter, omitted one crucial piece of information. It is very hard to understand or explain Dr Schluter's surprising economic views without recognizing that he is a Christian. Indeed, given his view that the Old Testament provides a worthwhile paradigm for economic life, many of your readers would probably label him as an extreme fundamentalist.

In the current debate about religious ideologues, Michael Schluter is another extremist to throw into the mix. His deviant views lead him towards economic proposals that support and encourage warm and happy family relationships and social networks. Fundamentalists like that we can use.

Yours etc.

You can find details of Dr Schluter's book, Jubilee Manifesto, here.