21 Mar Words for the week…until I think of more!
Hi everybody!
Fair warning…this could get a touch long…so grab a coffee & settle in!
1st – I’ve been in touch with Bishop Robert Bartholomaeus of the NSW District of the LCA & confirmed that Pastor Tim Zanker died last Thursday after experiencing a heart attack. I don’t know more than that other than funeral details are pending with Bishop Robert & former Bishop Mark Lieschke presiding. Tim’s father, Pastor Clem Zanker still resides on Dalman Parkway so many of you still have his address & now’s a good time to express your condolences & support Tim’s wider family in your prayers. “Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.” – Psalm 90:12
2nd – Zoom Bible Study Catch-up — Friday – 24th March 2023 @ 1:00 PM — Join Zoom Meeting — https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83586782734 — Meeting ID: 835 8678 2734 — We’ll be looking back over the extended reading from John 9:1-41 from Sunday
3rd – PICNIC – immediately following worship this Sunday the 26th at Apex Park. Come to worship ready to enjoy the day together! Bring some food to share and whatever you think you’ll need for the park (chairs, toys…sun safe stuff) Weather won’t stop us….if it rains we’ll “picnic” in the Hall.
4th – Living Water Prayer Morning – Saturday 1st April – 10:00 a.m. for about an hour in the Guide Hall.
5th – Holy Week & Easter worship…We’ll have the schedule available this week in the bulletin but I want to get in early on something…
Philippa has created some masterful Reader’s Theatre-style presentations of the gospels for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday & Easter. They REQUIRE multiple voices. That’s where YOU come in. Living Water needs MULTIPLE people to read at each of these services. Please do not assume “someone else” can do it. No excuses…please put up your hand & talk to Philippa. It’s not like reading the Jerusalem phone book…it’s pretty straightforward. YOU can help.
It was great to see a good crowd of Living Water folks out at CSU last Friday night to listen to Dr Michael Bird’s presentation. I had the opportunity to join a breakfast gathering at Melba’s that morning and get a preview of his talk for the evening. One big positive takeaway for me was his suggestion that Australia needs to codify in some way legislation that is similar to Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights. He advocates some (as yet undetermined) framework for ensuring that faith & matters of belief are free from coercion & that people of differing belief develop ways to disagree without viewing one another as enemies. Those are worthy if lofty goals and there is no clear consensus on how to achieve them, and he didn’t really provide a path forward for doing so. He also encouraged us to take what we see, read, hear in the major market media with a high degree of scepticism. On those points we definitely agree.
I was, however, disappointed at various points in his embrace of “secularism” and it’s supposed ability to provide a level playing field for both religious & non-religious people. He’s well aware of the intrusion of the secular society in which we live inhibiting & intruding into areas of Christian belief but seems to hold to the notion that there is a way past those “battlegrounds.” I believe those areas of conflict between faith & secularism are unavoidable & will only get worse for Christians under increasing secular influence in society. It is the secular government of Britain that now makes it illegal (₤ 100 fine) for praying silently & without causing a disturbance in front of an abortion clinic. It is the secular government of Victoria that makes praying with or offering resources to help someone resolve a sexual identity confusion illegal. It is the secular cultural environment of Victoria that cost Andrew Thorburn his role as CEO of the Essendon football club. It is secular government & secular culture that decries as “hate speech” any public profession of Biblical sexual morality, particularly with regard to how young children are educated in public schools. So…yes, I disagree that “secularism is good for us.”
We all sort of sense that the “public square” (that place of public behaviour, morality, ethics, taboos, policy & political discourse) is not neutral ground. Someone determines things like who marries whom, at what age people can offer various consent, or how workers are to be paid & treated. We live in a western democratically oriented society that grew out of the soil of Biblical Christianity. Lutheran Pastor, Richard John Neuhaus wrote back in the late 1980s, “Politics is in the largest part a function of culture; and the heart of culture is morality. The heart of morality is religion.” He went on to argue in his book, The Naked Public Square, that without a shared religious point of reference, no society can debate or resolve conflicts in values. There’s a reason Dr Bird couldn’t really offer a way forward…the 21st century is not functioning from a shared point of reference. We’ve pretty well dug the Christian foundations out from under our public “house” & wonder why things appear to be crumbling.
Dr Bird also seems to assume that secularism is “a-religious,” or “irreligious” – that is it functions without a religious of faith-based stance. I think the passion, zeal, and fervour used to defend various public viewpoints today in the post-modern & post-Christian culture look every bit as religiously fanatical as the Inquisition or Isis. The trans-fellow who told the reprehensible joke about Jesus on the Project a week or so ago is as rusted on to his ideology as the staunchest Pharisee we meet in the New Testament. Pick any area of public enthusiasm today, try to politely disagree with an adherent…
Finally, I’m always disappointed when people mis-interpret the US Constitution; especially scholars. Nowhere in the US founding document do the words “separation of church & state” appear. The US Constitution simply does not do that. What the 1st Amendment DOES is expressly forbid the US Government (at any level) establishing a government sponsored expression of faith. The 1st Amendment is called “the Non-Establishment Clause” for that reason. The US Constitution creates a framework for wide freedom of faith or rejection of faith. His example of President George Washington quoting the Bible in response to an inquiry from a Jewish Rabbi is the best example that “church & state” are still united and operative in President Washington, but that union creates a place in the US of free expression for all other faiths. Western democracies only grew from Biblical Christian moral & cultural “soil.” What Dr Bird extolled as “secular” governments of the UK, Australia, France, the US & Canada are really examples of Christian-faith-based governments that have cut their Christian moorings and are adrift on the secular sea awash in a cyclone of anti-Biblical values. We’ll see where that leads in the next years. I continue to pray for and work for revival in the best possible Biblical sense.
Now that you’ve drunk a whole pot of coffee…be richly blessed this week. Find ways to offer comfort & encouragement & a word of hope grounded in Jesus somewhere to someone.
John
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