Religion & Ethics Australia Daily

A twice-weekly public affairs review from the Centre for Christian Ethics, Morling College

No. 019, 17-20 December 2004  ² edited by Rod Benson

News reports

Abortion

Journalist Frank Devine reflects on various aspects of the recent debate on abortion, and acknowledges his own “essentially anti-abortion opinions.” Aust 17 Dec 04 *

Anti-discrimination

Christian churches are divided about a ruling by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal that Catch the Fire Ministries, and two Christian pastors, vilified Muslims at a church seminar in 2002. Judge Michael Higgins found in favour of the Islamic Council of Victoria. Some evangelical churches and agencies condemned the ruling, but members of the Catholic and Uniting churches, as well as the Jewish community, welcomed the decision. SMH 18-19 Dec 04; Aust 20 Dec 04

Bioethics – organ transplantation

Early organ transplant recipients were regarded by many as freaks, and recipients were likened to cannibals. It is 50 years this week since the world’s first successful organ transplant took place when Richard Herrick received a kidney from his twin brother Ronald in Boston, USA, on 23 Dec 1954. The man responsible, Dr Joseph Murray, was awarded a Nobel prize for his efforts, but critics accused him of “playing God.” Australia’s first successful organ transplant took place in 1961. SMH 20 Dec 04 *

Christmas

Santa is being left behind as Australian churches attempt to lure families back to a distinctively Christian celebration. Aust 17 Dec 04

The Australian’s leader argues that “the idea that multiculturalism and the “Christ” in Christmas are necessarily at odds is a furphy. But also, “as shown by the decision by St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Melbourne to offer parents the opportunity to have their children’s pictures taken with baby Jesus in a nativity scene, many devout Christians feel that Santa has had too good a run, at their Saviour’s expense.” Aust 17 Dec 04

The religious right in the US, encouraged by the re-election of George W. Bush, and claiming that “political correctness is offending millions of Americans,” has begun a new offensive against secularism with a campaign to put Christ back into Christmas. SMH 18-19 Dec 04

Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, Robert Forsyth, said Sydney’s Carols in the Domain, which attracted over 100,000 people on Saturday night, was a sign of an increasing sense of folk religion in society. Aust 20 Dec 04

Education – school

Compulsory religious studies would be dropped in favour of lessons on human society and the environment under a plan being considered by NSW school authorities. But Jewish and Christian groups warned yesterday that ending mandatory teaching of religion to primary school students would increase intolerance and division. Inspector of primary education Margaret Malone said the syllabus was too specific and the curriculum was over-crowded. Weekend Aust 18-19 Dec 04

Environment

Crunch time is approaching in negotiations on climate change. “With revenues from coal expected to hit $9.9 billion, Australia cannot simply accept that the cap and trade emissions trading system envisaged by the Kyoto protocol – which does not bind the world’s largest emitters, the United States and China – is the only way or even the best way to ameliorate global warming.”

AFR 18-19 Dec 04 *

Big business has never warmed to fighting pollution. But now there’s money to be made and the world wants in on the deal, writes Louise Williams. SMH 18-19 Dec 04 *

Alan Oxley, chair of the Apec Study Centre at Monash University, argues that it is time for Australia to look at life after Kyoto. AFR 20 Dec 04 *

The Howard government has distanced itself for the first time from the United States’ hardline attempts to stall international action on global warming. SMH 20 Dec 04 *

Ethics – medical

Advocates of natural childbirth like to say that pregnancy is not a disease and generally does not require hospitals or doctors. However, such admonitions do nothing to slow the trend to caesareans. The number of caesarean births in Australia in 2002 jumped to 27 per cent of all births. Figures for NSW show that elective caesareans clearly outnumber the emergencies, and doctors say that a growing proportion of electives are for non-medical reasons. SMH 20 Dec 04

Evangelism

Referring to the Victorian vilification verdict, a missionary wrote that “[Many Christians] living in Muslim countries have been seeing hundreds of Muslims meeting personally with Jesus Christ and experiencing Him as Lord and Saviour for many years. We have never had the opportunity to tell them the ‘truth about Islam’ as that would quickly end our ministry in these countries. Instead we can only tell Muslims the ‘truth about Jesus,’ showing his power and love by deeds and see what the Holy Spirit can do in their lives. Of course this seems very limiting and unfair, but actually it works! . We must face the political reality in which we find ourselves and get on with the job as wisely as we can.” Teen Challenge Kazakhstan

Freedom of speech

Opinions are divided as Tasmanian timber group Gunns embarks on a lawsuit that puts freedom of speech to the test. Gunns served writs on 20 individuals and organisations on 13 Dec, claiming that environmentalists, including Greens senator Bob Brown, had conducted a conspiracy to injure it and interfere with its business by unlawful means. “Gunns are now using a tactic developed and perfected in the United States, called SLAPP, that is, strategic lawsuits against public participation,” Executive Director of the Australia Institute, Clive Hamilton, said. “But they have made a very big mistake. It’s one thing to frighten mums and dads and small companies, but it’s another to take on the entire environmental movement and an Australian senator.” AFR 17 Dec 04 *

Homosexual rights

Canada’s Supreme Court ruled on 9 Dec that the federal government has authority to define marriage, and that gay unions are constitutional. The court also ruled that clergy could not be required to perform same-sex ceremonies. Six of Canada’s ten provinces already allow gay marriage. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and the Catholic Church oppose gay marriage, while the United Church of Canada, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, supports it. CS Monitor 20 Dec 04

Humanism

Paul Monk writes on what he views as John Carroll’s “irrational anti-humanism.” AFR 17 Dec 04 *

International relations

The resounding re-elections of George W. Bush and John Howard present Australian foreign policy-makers with an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is to press Australia’s national interest in the Asia-Pacific region, where the world’s emerging superpowers and economic dynamos – China and India – reside. The challenge is to fix the mess in Iraq and the Middle East – or bale out without antagonising the US. SMH 18-19 Dec 04

Politics & faith – Australia

Prime Minister John Howard has welcomed the emergence of Family First Party, and outlined a new focus on families and a compassionate approach to single parents on welfare. “They seem very good people,” Mr Howard said of Family First. “We will work with them despite the fact that we have got the majority [in the Senate] in our own right.” SMH 18-19 Dec 04

Pornography

Tough rules aimed at protecting children from adult mobile phone services, expected to range from “blue video” to “sex text,” will require potential users to first show photograph identification and request access in writing. A draft regulation on adult and premium services, released yesterday by the Australian Communications Authority, bans content which has been rated X or Refused Classification by the film and video censor. MA or R content will be limited to phone numbers prefixed 195 and 196, and available only to users aged over 18. The Communications Authority said 16 companies – including Telstra, Optus and Vodafone – had already reserved adult numbers. SMH 18-19 Dec 04 *

Roman Catholic Church – Australia

More than 50 of Sydney’s Catholic parishes may be asked to share priests to overcome a growing clerical shortage. The practice is already common in rural areas. Sydney has 167 active Catholic priests and six deacons to serve its parishes. Only priests can say Mass, hear confessions and anoint the sick. SMH 17 Dec 04

Terrorism

Acts that we rightly label as “terrorism” do occur (and we certainly need to protect ourselves from them), but what the west is facing is a growing political insurgency. Terrorist acts are but a small tool to gain the psychological upper hand in a broader political struggle. The Guardian 10 Dec 04

Virtue

The rise in the proportion of students attending private schools is partly attributable to a reaction to what Labor’s Lindsay Tanner called the “negative social consequences” flowing from the “liberation battles of the 1960s and ’70s” – dysfunctional family life for so many, drugs, street children, overcrowded jails and so on, writes deputy director of the Sydney Institute, Anne Henderson. People are seeking safer communities and safer codes to live by – all of which religion provides. “But something else is at work here . Forced back [from the protection of institutional career paths] to individual skills for survival, people are focused as never before on self-development and on personal goals that require discipline and aspiration. Character building is seen as central to success . And religious faith, with its emphasis on codes of behaviour, all ready-made and tested, attracts those who are eager to improve their lives. Aust 20 Dec 04 *

Welfare provision

The complex array of welfare payments could be streamlined into a single working-age benefit under a renewed push by the Howard government to encourage the jobless, disabled pensioners and single parents to get into work. Aust 20 Dec 04

Other items of interest

For many Australians, participation in traditional forms of worship and church activities is no longer meeting their needs or aspirations and they are gradually letting go of their church involvement. But new forms of “being church” are emerging – alternative communities that are distinctively Christian but “post-Christendom.” And some mainstream Churches are supporting these experiments, reports NCLS Research. http://www.ncls.org.au/default.aspx?docid=3385

Perhaps high-profile philosopher Antony Flew isn’t a post-atheist after all. Here’s what he is reported to have said in response to revelations that he has embraced theism.

http://www.rationalistinternational.net/archive/en/rationalist_2004/137.html

Rod Benson outlines Friday’s verdict on an important religious vilification case in Victoria, gives his own opinion and summarises other immediate responses to the ruling.

http://jmm.org.au/articles/14138.htm

“Anywhere where religion is the central topic, it seems that the polemical dimensions of the intellectual life are swept under the rug, or treated as the kind of embarrassment that reasonable people ought to pretend isn’t there. If this is true in general wherever religion is studied, it is even more true where different religious traditions are studied, or where representatives of different religious traditions are brought together under the same institutional roof for conversation. Why, in such contexts, should there be a repudiation of the agon, the struggle for truth?” Paul J. Griffiths writes on why we need interreligious polemics. http://print.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9406/articles/griffith.html

David M. Mills responds to D.A. Carson’s critique of the “emerging church” phenomenon presented as the 2004 Staley Lectures in February 2004. http://www.kevers.net/mills_staley_response.pdf

Author Helen Garner, writer Margaret Simons and historian Ken Inglis talk to ABC Radio National’s Mick O’Regan about what they consider to be great journalism. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/stories/s1266519.htm

Former foreign correspondent Christopher Kremmer relates his encounter with a Hindu hijacker; psychoanalyst, Shahid Najeeb, provides a classical analysis of fundamentalism “from the couch”; and Rachael Kohn examines Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ as a fundamentalist film. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/spirit/stories/s1266809.htm

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