Couldn't Help Noticing

Memorize this!

The most important verses Paul wrote are Romans 1:16-17. Here they are:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

They are the guts of the book. If you understand those two verses, you understand everything Paul has ever written. That's why when I teach my daughters to memorize Romans, it doesn't really bother me too much if they only memorize a small part of it. It doesn't really bother me too much if they forget everything else. But if they can at least file these two verses away before their sixth birthdays, they will know enough to be right with God.

Once they understand that the Christian life begins and ends with trusting God's righteous promises, they are, as we say in Sydney, laughing.

Beyond abortion

Britain's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology has suggested that the health profession should consider legalizing “active euthanasia” for seriously disabled newborn babies.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is conducting an inquiry into “the ethical issues raised by the policy of prolonging life in newborn babies”. According to this article in The Sunday Times, the inquiry wasn't going to consider euthanasia because it's illegal in Britain. But the College has managed to get the inquiry to consider euthanasia as one of the ways of “widening the management options available to the sickest of newborns”.

Let's be clear: we're not talking about non-resuscitation, or the withdrawal of treatment or treatment decisions, or any of the issues involved in artificially prolonging life. We're talking about active euthanasia.

The College's arguments in support of their proposal are the usual arguments used in this kind of debate—arguments based on the desire to reduce/avoid suffering for the affected person and their family. There's nothing new there.

What alarms me, though, is the boldness evident in their language. Gone are the attempts to disguise what they are really talking about by using language that makes babies sound like lifeless body tissue, and murder sound like a routine medical procedure. No longer are these people hiding behind words like ‘foetus’ and ‘termination’. We are now seeing full and frank discussion of killing infants and newborns. For example, take this quote from the College:

A very disabled child can mean a disabled family. If life-shortening and deliberate interventions to kill infants were available, they might have an impact on obstetric decision-making, even preventing some late abortions ...

Even more alarming is this, from Professor and bioethicist John Harris in support of the College's proposal:

We can terminate for serious foetal abnormality up to term but cannot kill a newborn. What do people think has happened in the passage down the birth canal to make it okay to kill the foetus at one end of the birth canal but not at the other?

Well, exactly. I wholeheartedly agree, but isn't that an argument for criminalizing abortion rather than legalizing active euthanasia? If this horrific language causes people to actually be horrified by the idea of killing babies, I'm glad that someone is being so bold and honest about what they are arguing for. As it is, I think it will just desensitize people so that “in the futility of their minds”, they will simply add to the number of babies already being killed (Eph 4:17).

Removal from office

Think of your dream job. Ponder for a moment why it would be such an ideal job.

Now think about how you would feel if someone unexpectedly replaced you in that job.

It would hurt, wouldn't it? But how badly? Would you put it on a par with any of these:

• dying young;
• leaving your children fatherless and your wife a widow;
• having your children go hungry and homeless, with nobody to show them any pity;
• having any prayer you utter to God counted as sin against you;
• knowing that your father and mother can never be forgiven for their sin;
• being so shamed and dishonoured that your descendants blot you out of the family tree.

Would you rank the pain of losing a job—even your dream job—in that sort of list?

King David does in Psalm 109. In that Psalm, he prays for God to deal with his accusers—those who are opposing him and falsely accusing him. He asks for God to bring them down. He asks God to deal harshly with these wicked people who are opposing God's appointed king with lies and hate.

Amongst these other curses listed above, David prays “may another take his office” (v. 8). It's an odd sort of curse for any of us who are anything other than basket-case workaholics.

But in Acts 1:20, Luke appropriates this curse to describe the fate that has befallen Judas, the betrayer of Jesus. All of a sudden, that curse takes on new significance. Judas is about to be replaced by Matthias in the office of Christ's apostle and witness. He has been denied the opportunity, not just of a lifetime, but of all time. He could have been one of the twelve men hand-picked to take the greatest message the world will ever know to the ends of the earth on behalf of the risen, conquering Messiah. Yet he had opposed God's appointed King and was removed as a result.

Perhaps we sometimes underestimate the privilege we have of being God's fellow workers in mission. What a curse it would be if we were removed from that office!

Compassionate Conservatives

Way back in Briefing #51, in a kind of proto ‘Couldn't help noticing’ column, we noted the interesting findings of Gary Bouma's book The Religious Factor in Australian Life. Bouma was discussing the results of an extensive ‘values survey’ that measured (among things) how tolerant people were, as indicated by their willingness to live next door to certain ‘undesirable’ groups (such as people with criminal records, people of different race, homosexuals, heavy drinkers, and so on).

When the results were correlated with religious affiliation, the outcome confounded popular stereotypes. Of the five religious groupings used in the survey—Roman Catholic, Anglican, PMU (Presbyterian, Methodist, Uniting), Right-wing Protestant and No Religion—by far the most tolerant were the Right-wing Protestants, and the least tolerant were those who had ‘No Religion’.

A new book has come to a similar conclusion—this time in relation to generosity and compassion. Who Really Cares: America's Charity Divide—Who Gives, Who Doesn't and Why It Matters by Arthur C. Brooks shows that when it comes to shelling out to charitable causes, red-necked, free-market-loving, Bible-thumping conservatives give considerably more than blue-state, bleeding-heart, make-poverty-history liberals. The average ‘conservative’-headed household gives 30% more to charity than the average ‘liberal’ household, despite earning 6% less annually. Of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average, 24 were won by George Bush in the 2004 presidential election.

And the biggest single predictor of charitable generosity? Religiousness. (Read a review of Brook's book.)

Telling the truth can be an offence

(From Briefing reader, Roslyn Phillips, National Research Officer of Festival of Light Australia.)

The long-awaited decision on an appeal by two Christian pastors may have been handed down on 14 December last year but the full implications have yet to hit the nation's headlines. The pastors had appealed against a decision by Judge Higgins of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) that they had vilified Muslims. The alleged vilification had occurred mainly in a 2002 seminar on Islam conducted by Pastor Daniel Scot, but also in a Catch the Fire Ministries newsletter and website article published by Pastor Danny Nalliah.

Three Victorian Supreme Court judges—Nettle, Ashley and Neave—upheld the pastors' appeal, saying that Judge Higgins had erred in interpreting the law. In 2004, Judge Higgins decided that the pastors' presentations about Islam were unbalanced. The Supreme Court ruled that secular courts cannot make theological judgements, and, in any case, truth and balance were irrelevant. Justice Nettle said, “[S]tatements about the religious beliefs of a group of persons could be wholly true and completely balanced and yet be almost certain to incite hatred of the group because of those beliefs” (source). Justice Neave said,

It is ... possible that a person may make true statements about the characteristics associated with a religion eg ‘Muslims have a duty to proselytize’ which may, in particular circumstances, incite hatred. Section 11 of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act ... does not provide that the fact that words are true takes them outside s.8 of the Act. (Ibid.)

In effect, Justices Nettle and Neave said that laws against inciting hatred, contempt or ridicule can make it an offence to tell the truth where the truth would portray a religion or race in a negative light.

However, Justice Nettle drew a clear distinction between inciting hatred against Muslim beliefs about the Koran, and inciting hatred against Muslims. He said that Judge Higgins had not adequately acknowledged substantial parts of the seminar, newsletter and website article which encouraged listeners and readers to love and respect Muslims and their culture. It should be noted, though, that the other judges did not agree on all points.

The pastors' trauma may be far from over for the complaint against them has not been dismissed—it has been sent back to VCAT where a different judge will reconsider the evidence. But for other Australians, the trauma may only be just beginning.

Anti-vilification laws have been passed in one form or another in parliaments across the country during the past 10 years or so. Victoria enacted the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act in January 2002. Section 8 makes it an offence to “engage in conduct that incites hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of, that other person or class of persons” on the ground of their race or religion. Other states have similar laws relating to the grounds of race or religion and/or sexuality. The South Australian government, for example, is now proposing a law covering over a dozen different grounds, including sex, sexuality, marital status, lawful occupation and area of residence.

However the Victorian Supreme Court has now told us that it could be an offence to tell an unpleasant truth about a person or group on the ground of their race, religion or sexuality. Defamation laws were made uniform throughout Australia only last year. All such laws now state that “truth or substantial truth” is a full defence. So why is truth irrelevant in laws against vilification? And why are church leaders largely silent on this important issue?

Was it not Jesus Christ who said, “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32)?