Opinion piece on Anglicanism in Daily Tele.

I just got an opinion piece on the Anglican crisis into one of the local papers, the Daily Tele.

Here's what I wrote:

Like all old style bureaucracies, the Anglican denomination worldwide moves at about the same pace as the friendly slugs on the morning kid's programme my youngest daughter likes to watch.

But at long last, it looks like something may actually be happening within the normally staid and stodgy Church of England.

So this week more than one thousand traditionalist Anglicans—including all of the Sydney Anglican bishops, and nearly 300 other bishops from Anglican churches right round the world—have gathered for an unprecedented meeting in Jerusalem for the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON). Media headlines in Australia, the UK and around the world have breathlessly and inaccurately heralded a split in the Anglican communion.

This is wrong.

As Anglican Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen said on Saturday, “You can’t split a marshallow.”

So what’s actually going on? Essentially this: Bible-believing Anglicans have finally reached the point where they want to reclaim Anglicanism from the accelerating decline in standard Christian belief within bits of the worldwide denomination, especially in the UK, the US and Canada. It’s a decline that’s been matched by a decline in numbers, and an increase in average age in many of the churches that have decided to walk away from the Bible’s teaching.

The departure has been on a range of key issues: whether the Bible itself can be trusted; whether Jesus actually rose from the dead; whether the eyewitness accounts of his life (the gospels) are even reliable; whether the message of the gospel can actually save us from God’s terrible judgement and bring forgiveness and change; whether in fact there is even a need for forgiveness and change—or whether God the heavenly senile grandfather (or grandmother, the same people would argue) will more or less just leave us alone while we live the way we please.

These are the real issues that the Anglicans at GAFCON in Jerusalem are concerned about this week. The trigger issue, however, was the election in 2003 of a practising homosexual, Gene Robinson, as bishop in the US diocese of New Hampshire. Anglicans are brilliant at politely avoiding controversy, but this was the Anglican equivalent of selling bacon-only burgers at the Jerusalem McDonalds, with a garnish of cow-dung just to make sure consumers got the point. Provocative to say the least, and guaranteed to bring a response.

Which is exactly what has happened. The response has been firm but gracious. Yes, granted that a handful of Anglicans in dying churches in the US and elsewhere want to ignore traditional biblical teaching. Let them do it. But don’t let them pretend that they are holding on to traditional Bible teaching. That traditional teaching talks about how, in the Christian gospel, we can be forgiven for our sinful behaviour—and then actually change! That forgiveness and change involves turning away, by God’s power, from all sorts of damaging things. Not just homosexuality, but marital unfaithfulness, other sorts of sexual immorality, selfishness, drunkenness, greed, polygamy, robbery, lying, cheating, abuse, violence, pornography addiction, racism—yes, even things as basic as dishonouring your parents. The Christian gospel demands we turn away from all of those things, and receive forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

It’s an old message, but it also happens to be a powerful effective one. Millions of Christians and Anglicans worldwide can testify to its power. It still works to offer hope.

And Anglicans who continue to believe in it have now said enough is enough. Quite a number of them have worked out that it’s time for Anglicans to refocus on that simple message of rescue through trust in the power of Jesus. They want that message to be taught and promoted in the Anglican church worldwide. Good on them.

Lots more to be said, of course, and some of it has been said back at the sola panel blog.

Pick up your rubbish! OK...but why?

Read this tonight:

To explore the interaction of moral sentiments and self-interest, Bowles begins with a case where six day care centers in Haifa, Israel imposed a fine on parents who picked their kids up late. The fine aimed to encourage parents to be more prompt. Instead, parents reacted to the fine by coming even later. Why? According to Bowles: "The fine seems to have undermined the parents' sense of ethical obligation to avoid inconveniencing the teachers and led them to think of lateness as just another commodity they could purchase."

from here.

And I thought, 'Exactly!'

When I was in year 4, aged 9, I remember Molly Muldoon, our teacher, berating us about picking up rubbish from the floor around us in the classroom because otherwise, the cleaners would have more work to do.

And I thought, how is that a problem. For one, they're paid to do it. So you're telling me that I should do for free what someone else has been paid to do. Why? Will I be punished if I don't? Will I feel better if I do?

For another, what if I do pick up the rubbish. What then? Aren't cleaners paid by the hour? I admit I didn't check this assumption, but hey, I was 9 years old and what do you expect. And anyway, I think the assumption was right, although I still haven't checked.

The point being, though, that if I delayed them the micro-millisecond that it would take to pick up whatever it was the teacher had thought that I dropped (and the floor was invariably clean, because really, what do you drop in a classroom during the course of an average day) and if all my classmates had dropped the same quantity of stuff that I had, then couldn't it conceivably push their cleaning duties into the second hour, thus guaranteeing them a few extra dollars of pay? And isn't that a good thing? These guys have families to feed, and maybe they wanted to take them to the movies on the weekend or for a trip to Luna Park or something. Sure, they would be a bit annoyed at being late home for dinner because I hadn't picked up whatever it is you drop on a classroom floor when you're 9 years old, but wouldn't they be sitting on the Big Dipper at Luna Park that weekend thinking, if I hadn't got that extra hour of overtime at Epping Public School this week, I couldn't of afforded this.

And anyway, let's say I dropped some pencil shavings or a tissue—and why would I, because the pencil sharpener was in the corner of the room, and we all used handkerchiefs in those days—then even if I picked it up, wouldn't the cleaner's broom go over exactly the same area that I had just cleaned, only more effectively? So I'm not sure I could have made the cleaner's job go longer, even if I wanted to.

For me, thinking through all this stuff, there was a strong moral argument for finding something I could drop on the floor and ensuring (insofar as it lay in my power so to do) that those cleaners and their kids—for all I knew, my classmate buddies—could enjoy a few extra hours of fun that weekend, or maybe just an extra dollop of sauce on their meat pies.

In the end I just looked at my shoes for a moment, grabbed my bag like everyone else and marched off out the door and into Norfolk Rd.

1970. Not a bad year.

Chuck steak

So cheap at Carlingford village.

So we bought 2 kilos on Friday, stuck it in the fridge. This morning before church I got it out, sharpened up the knife and diced the meat, remembering how my mum always expressed amazement at how it shrank to half the size when you stewed it slowly, so I cut it twice as big.

Straight into the slow cooker that we bought the other day, 2 beef stock cubes dissolved in a cup of boiling water, 6 carrots chopped, and then had to get the girls ready for church so off we went.

Came back did stuff, went and bought onions, red wine was cheap as, so got a bottle of cleanskin something or other. Chopped the onion, fried it up, this was lunchtime, into the slow cooker with a big splash of the red. About an hour and a half ago, maybe two, threw in four chopped zucchinis, tasted, added salt.

An hour later, and, we just had it for dinner with mashed potatoes. Amazing. I hardly even chopped off any fat from the chuck when I chucked it in this morning, only did it because I felt I had to.

Climate change: nothing will happen

At Federal policy level, that is. Here's why:

The truth is that one of the central reasons for which Kevin Rudd won the election (his pledge to take serious action to slow climate change) is deeply inconsistent with another (his pledge to do all that he can to keep fuel and food prices low).

From here.

Iemma's gone

Morris Iemma's gone, but unless the Libs do something incredibly stupid, it won't save NSW Labor in the next election.

Another!

Another! Beautiful...Syd-dey mid widter day.

Except I've god a cold.

Polygamy

Phillip Jensen speaks about it here. If there's no problem with homosexual marriage, there's no problem with polygamy—is there?

Euthanasia bill for federal parliament

Bob Brown, Greens MP, is planning to present a private member's bill in Federal Parliament. The report from the SMH is here.

Bob Brown has been a consistent advocate of this. But since when did a vote for the Greens become a vote for euthanasia? Why is it so?

Hairdresser

'Specializing in cutting, colouring, foils, blow dries'

Okay. So can I just clarify here—is there anything you don't do?

I mean, if someone came asking for a crew-cut would you knock them back on the grounds that, technically, it's not a cut but a clip?

'I'm sorry, we can't give you a crew-cut. We are specialists in cutting, colouring, foils and blow dries. Now go away.'

What was my thesis about?

Dunno. Already forgotten. But this gives one significant clue.

Defiant birth

Nicole has a sobering quote from a book about medical eugenics on her blog.

Beethoven's Missa Solemnis

Our choir [update: without me!] is singing Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. (Check a page of the original score here (scroll down) and watch 7 minutes of Leonard Bernstein conducting it, here). It is not so much knockin' on heaven's door, as raising an army and trying to lay siege; a massive piece of work—90 minutes, 160 choristers, four soloists, expanded orchestra and we've got less than a month before the two performances. We're singing for the Pope when he comes out for World Roman Catholic Youth Day. There will be a lot of learning between now and then.

It's a mistake to lay siege to heaven, of course, and I don't know what Beethoven was thinking when he tried. Probably something rather hubristic. "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force." (Mt 11:12) But for those who put their trust in Jesus alone, the door to heaven already stands open.

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this."

-Revelation 4:1

The true heavenly vision puts Beethoven's grandeur in the shade.

Costello

Will Peter Costello stay or go?

The memoirs will make interesting reading, and they come out in October. Brendan Nelson still has a few months left in him.

"It's not clean unless it's Pine-o-cleen"

I've used Pine-O-Cleen maybe once in my life, could be twice.

Guess I'm not clean then.

Aye, laddie

We love to impairsonate Scottish uccents frae taem tae taem.

Jane McGrath

Wife of cricketer Glenn McGrath, has died.

Balance of power

Here's an opinion piece from the SMH from one of the senators who will hold BOP—the Balance of Power—in the Federal Senate from July 1.

Good to see him mention his opposition to poker machines.

When Roman Catholic senator Brian Harradine held BOP, he was able to assist in holding the line on some abortion laws, and what sort of material could be viewed on TV, among other things.

Hej allihop! Swedish midsummer!

Ja, det ar idag.

Svenska midsommar.

You know you want to be there!

Fuelwatch

Not going to say anything about the economics of it, but John's nailed Kevin Rudd here.

Canadian Courts and kids

This Canadian judge is absolutely nuts.

From the article:

First, the father banned his 12-year-old daughter from going online after she posted photos of herself on a dating site. Then she allegedly had a row with her stepmother, so the father said his girl couldn't go on a school trip.

The girl took the matter to the court - and won what lawyers say was an unprecedented judgment.

Al Mohler comments here.

Playing with kids

Very cool post from Trevor Cairney about playing with kids.

Most of my playing with the girls consists of barking 'Turn the TV off girls! Go and jump on the trampoline!"

Euthanasia and murder

The jury's verdict is now in.

From the article:

TWO women who say they were helping an Alzheimer's sufferer fulfil his wish to die, have been found guilty of killing him.

This is interesting:

The complex case was full of twists and dramas, many kept from the eyes and ears of the jury.

While jurors were told of Justins's alleged financial motive - Mr Wylie had changed his will a week before his death in her favour - they had not been told that his partner allegedly had a female lover in Germany.

If this is true, it doesn't seem irrelevant to the case!

I also wonder at the wisdom of Dr Philip Nitschke, the euthanasia advocate who acted as a witness in return for immunity from prosecution. His view, according to the article, is that we should be pressing on with allowing cases like this to be treated as euthanasia, and that in the meantime people who would like to be euthanased and suspect that they have Alzheimer's should not go to the doctor.

Sola powered mobile phone rechargers

So obvious when you think about it.

A friend who runs the local electrical goods place told me he's selling them now.

So there you are Fifi—Father's Day. What, 2 and a bit months away?

The other obvious thing for when the power grid goes down is the wind up radio, but we have that.

Masters

God willing, I'm resubmitting my thesis tomorrow. Finished, I think.

Thanks for those of you who've prayed. This is the finallest of final deadlines, so I'm pretty sure that's it.

Another!

Beautiful...Sydney winter day.

Barack Obama and abortion

Barak Obama supports the lifting of legal restrictions on abortion. Here is a useful summary of his views, in his own words and based on his voting record.

Justin Taylor has a useful post on the subject here, including this quote from Richard Garnett:

Obama's "full-throated, unqualified support for abortion rights, do not seem to provide a basis for concluding that, in fact, he would be willing to do anything to "discourage" abortion, other than to support social-welfare initiatives which he would support in any event. . . . [T]hese programs and efforts will come packaged with a roll-back of the few pro-life legislative and executive-branch victories that have been secured during the past decade or so.

There are other issues, of course. But this is a worrying one for people who believe that abortion unequivocally means the taking of human life.

"I love surprises!"

"I love surprises!"

-Gordon the Garden Gnome, this morning on ABC Kids.

Why? On what grounds do you love surprises? The bubonic plague was a surprise. Still is, for those who catch it. The explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle was a surprise. Our dog weed in the lounge room yesterday. That was a surprise.

This idea of loving surprises seems to be a remarkably stupid attitude with which to approach life. Why are are we teaching it to little kids?

They never pray on Gordon the Garden Gnome, either.

A cloudy night

A cloudy winter night covers a house like a warm blanket.

George W. to convert to Roman Catholicism?

According to this report George W. Bush may convert to Roman Catholicism after he leaves office.

From the article:

Several Italian newspapers cited Vatican sources suggesting that Mr Bush may be prepared to convert. One source told Il Foglio, an authoritative newspaper, that "Anything is possible, especially for a born-again Christian such as Bush."

We shall see. Personally, I've often wondered how far George W's claims to be an evangelical Christian have had political considerations in view, and this report doesn't do anything to remove those questions.

Thanks to Tim Challies for the link.

Gay 'wedding' in Church of England

Reported by the SMH, here.

Meanwhile, the Anglican Church in Perth has problems of its own, with the Dean of the Cathedral denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the Archbishop failing to take clear action, as correspondence with David Ould on the Stand Firm site shows.