An online survey of issues, events and ideas
Ian Carmichael / 19th July 2004
Interesting to read a report of American research into the effect on people of seeing the movie The Passion of the Christ.
What the report makes clear is the largely fleeting nature of the impact that big ‘media events’ like this film have. By the time of the survey, movie viewers had watched so many other movies and so much other TV that, for most, any immediate impact the movie may have had on them had dissipated or been lost.
Read the report for yourself and see Mark 4:1-20 beautifully illustrated.
Guan Un / 18th July 2004
Following on from this post, Briefing reader Murray Wale has pointed out that the film in question, My Foetus, will be airing for Australian viewers on ABC's Compass, Sunday 8th August, 10:15pm.
Gordon Cheng / 18th July 2004
Over the years, Christian politician Fred Nile has attracted more than his fair share of bile, invective and pure hatred from all quarters (who, for overseas readers, has an Australian public profile similar to that of morals campaigner Mary Whitehouse in the UK). In light of this, there is an absolutely extraordinary tribute to Mr Nile from a non-Christian journalist in Sydney's Daily Telegraph of July 14 2004. David Penberthy writes of Fred:
... he is arguably the most honest politician of his generation.
Knee-jerk lefties will argue that Hitler could also be commended for his honesty. Setting aside the fact that Uniting Church policy differs markedly from that of the Third Reich, the reality is that much of Nile's work has not related to moral issues, but the generally good government of the state.
His reflective comments in the chamber about his departure invited generous and genuine tributes from his colleagues across politics which showed the complexities of the man...
Where Nile differs from other religious politicians is that he is 100 per cent upfront about where he is coming from.
The Christian Liberals of the Lyons Forum; the blandly-titled, cross-party ‘Monday Night Group’; the Catholic conservatives in Labor ranks; and even Brian Harradine, who hates the accurate tag, “devoutly Catholic”—most of these MPs bristle at attempts to examine their faith and its link to policy.
Fred Nile is an open book.
Surely this is an example of the truth of the 1 Peter 2:12 principle at work:
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Gordon Cheng / 15th July 2004
Pamela Bone regularly writes for Melbourne's Age newspaper arguing that we don't need God to have morality. On 13 July she was holding forth in the usual way, with a teaser that read, “The Treasurer should realise the Ten Commandments have little meaning for this era.”
Under this, Ms Bone wrote,
I thought about Peter Costello's call to abide by the Ten Commandments, but couldn't get past the first: “I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Then I couldn't get past the next three: “Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image”; “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”; and “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”.
It is clear that before anything else, God's commandments are about shoring up God's position. Do people really, in this day and age, want to obey a God who, like a Third World dictator, insists above all on unconditional, absolute reverence to Himself (because it must be a him)?
And so on. I tried and failed for publication with this letter:
Pamela Bone wants us to snip God out of the ten commandments (‘Disregard the gospel according to St Peter’, Age, July 13), an understandable reaction as the classroom is always more fun if there is no teacher around to enforce the rules.
Unfortunately, leave God out of the picture and you are left simply with restrictive, oppressive, unpleasant and changeable secular moralism, with all the attendant problems of self-righteousness, hypocrisy and repeated moral failure. Leave out the God of the Bible and you also have a form of justice but no concept whatsoever of mercy, just a weak-kneed sentimentality and intellectual relativism. Well done St Pete, for reminding us where justice and mercy meet.
Gordon Cheng / 14th July 2004
Julia Black, an independent film maker, recently produced a documentary on the subject of abortion for channel 4 in Britain. Speaking of the experience she writes (in The Sun Herald, July 11, 2004)
I met people from both sides and what surprised me was how much language they shared. I would interview someone opposed to abortion one day and a doctor who performs abortions the next, and when I stripped away their moral views they shared many beliefs. They both marvelled at the first few cells that eventually form a human being and there was no difference in their respect for the foetus or their view about the unpalatable nature of abortion. This presented me with a problem: how could I admit that abortion destroys a life and still be pro-choice?
Well, one possibility of course would be changing your mind. But no, says Ms Black, before throwing responsibility for the dilemma back onto the pro-life supporters:
This is a difficult place for me to be, and I challenge the pro-choice movement to help me and others resolve the emotional contradiction that surrounds abortion when you look at the facts.
But there is only an ‘emotional contradiction’ if one begins from the point of taking the right to abort as fact, rather than as the simple assertion of the mother's rights over the child's. Remove this ‘fact’, and the contradiction disappears.
Having removed pseudo-fact, we can recognize the actual fact of God's love and care for the unborn. Ps 139:13-16 says:
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.
