Just what religion is he?
I can only hope that the newspaper report of the Easter sermon of the Dean of Perth is wildly inaccurate. If there is even a modicum of accuracy, the man needs to be immediately removed from his position.
This quote gives you an inkling of the sort of view he is reported to have espoused:
“The idea of God suffering and dying to pay off some fictional debt makes a travesty of God,” Dr Shepherd said.
“(Good Friday) is the day of suffering and death. Not suffering and death undergone by Jesus to square off some Shylockian deal.”
“Our God isn't a God who needs satisfying ... atonement of ourselves and God is not a settling of accounts, not a secret deal that is supposed to restore our relationships with God to what it was at the beginning.”
“Whether we are repentant, unrepentant—whether we ask for forgiveness, or not—God couldn't care less.”
Dr Shepherd said God suffered along with the world, and the idea that God would punish humans through acts of nature, such as the Boxing Day tsunami, was obscene.
Is it possible to misrepresent the Christian message any more than this?
Dr Shepherd will one day discover that the debt we owe to God is not “fictional”. For his sake, and for the sake of his flock, I hope that day is sooner rather than later.