Religion & Ethics Australia Digest

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

No. 021, 21-27 January 2005  ² edited by Rod Benson

News reports

Abuse – sexual

Former federal Labor minister Bob Collins has been charged with 21 child sex offences dating back to the 1970s. Aust 25 Jan 05

Bioethics – embryo

In a setback for medical research in the US, all the country’s approved batches of human embryonic stem cells have been found to be contaminated and risky for use in treating patients. SMH 25 Jan 05

Citizenship

Australian Governor-General Michael Jeffery calls for greater emphasis on the teaching of “informed civics and citizenship” in order to bridge the divide between Australians and the democratic process. Aust 27 Jan 05

Environment

Australia and the US must be lured into a new, post-Kyoto Protocol agreement that halts global warming before it passes a calamitous tipping point, an international taskforce of business leaders, politicians and scientists warns. SMH 25 Jan 05

Eschatology

Tim LaHaye, coauthor of the Left Behind series, is furious that his publisher, Tyndale, is selling The Last Disciple, a novel with a distinctly different take on the Book of Revelation than that of the Left Behind series. LaHaye says he feels betrayed and told The Dallas Morning News, “They are going to take the money we made for them and promote this nonsense.” The Last Disciple, coauthored by Hank Hanegraaff and Sigmund Brouwer, teaches that most prophecies in Revelation have already been fulfilled. Christianity Today Feb 2005

Ethics – business – Australia

James Hardie Industries is under pressure to extend its $1.5 billion Australian compensation deal to thousands of asbestos victims in Asia and the Pacific. Aust 27 Jan 05

Evangelism

After 13 years as Chair of the Australian Lausanne Committee Mrs Robyn Claydon is handing over the Chair to Rev Dr Ross Clifford, Principal of Morling College, Sydney. Dr Clifford was previously Co-convenor of the Issue Group at the Forum on Religious and Non-Religious Spirituality in a Postmodern world. LCWE media release 21 Jan 05

Genocide

As the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp passes, The Australian’s leader ponders the puzzle of how fascism could extinguish decency and humanity in the most civilized parts of Europe. Aust 27 Jan 05

Auschwitz’s end was neither prompt nor compassionate, but a byproduct of other manoeuvers, writes Tom Luke, an Auschwitz survivor. “It is interesting to note that the ‘master race,’ aware of the monstrosity of its actions, tried to cover up the magnitude of its crimes,” he observes. SMH 27 Jan 05

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has declared that ordinary Germans were responsible for the Holocaust. Speaking to an audience including several Auschwitz survivors, Mr Schroeder said the horrors of the concentration camp could not be explained by merely blaming the “demon Hitler”. The Age 27 Jan 05

Health – general

A UN report points out that the “silent tsunami” of malaria kills as many people every month as died in the Boxing Day 2004 tragedy in Asia. SMH 24 Jan 05

Justice

After more than three years of being detained by the US military without charge, Sydney resident Mamdouh Habib has now been now damned without trial by Attorney-General Philip Ruddock. SMH leader 13 Jan 05

Mamdouh Habib was the victim of atrocities fit for a concentration camp, including being tied to the ground while a prostitute menstruated on him, his lawyer said. SMH 27 Jan 05

Politics – Australia

Conservatives no longer believe in Australia’s tiered federal system because the states were wasteful and inclined towards socialism, the Health Minister, Tony Abbott, has said. He told a Young Liberals conference in Hobart on Saturday that “Conservatism is sceptical about the state rather than enamoured of states. Conservatives believe in small government rather than many governments, especially when those governments seem hooked on state socialism.” SMH 24 Jan 05

A new push to create more states in Australia is coming from country people who think they are being ignored by the big cities that eat up all their taxes. SMH 25 Jan 05

A cross-party parliamentary forum is being established to push for an Australian head of state, pitting republican MPs against staunch monarchists such as John Howard and Health Minister Tony Abbott. The Australian has learned the forum has already attracted interest from a number of Liberal, Labor and Democrats parliamentarians determined to push ahead with a republic despite little public interest. Aust 27 Jan 05

“The case for constitutional change needs to start from scratch, because today the movement for a republic [in Australia] is in reverse.” Aust 27 Jan 05

Privacy

The phonecam and the mobile phone are making privacy advocates’ nightmares come true. Aust 25 Jan 05

Your mobile phone may be snooping on you. Like many technologies, the mobile phone enables new kinds of deception – and new ways to catch out the dishonest. Aust 25 Jan 05

Refugees

A 27-year-old Thai sex slave who cooperated with police by naming the traffickers responsible for bringing her to Australia has been locked up in Sydney’s Villawood detention centre because her information was not expected to lead to a prosecution. Aust 24 Jan 05

Resources

The world’s two biggest uranium miners have joined the throng of international suitors vying for a stake in the massive Olympic Dam mine in South Australia, holder of one-third of the world’s known uranium. Aust 27 Jan 05

Roman Catholic Church

If the Catholic Church wants to tackle falling priest numbers, it will allow the ordination of women, writes editor of OCW News, Ann Nugent. SMH 27 Jan 05

Sex

As a new biopic starring Liam Neeson shows, when sex researcher Alfred Kinsey revealed what Americans liked to do in the bedroom, the nation was stunned. Nicki Gostin reports. The Age 9 Jan 05

Southern Baptist Convention

Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, accused the Baptist World Alliance of being unresponsive to Baptists in the Third World, and said last week that SBC leaders plan to meet this summer with Baptists in Eastern Europe and other countries “more in sync with us.” After media reports suggesting Southern Baptist leaders are starting a new organization to rival the BWA, Land issued a clarification. “It’s not so much so an alternative organization or structure, but it is an alternative way for international Baptists to relate to one another,” Land told The Christian Post. EthicsDaily 24 Jan 05

Spirituality

One church has shown other institutions how to bring in new recruits, writes Lisa Pryor. “Whatever its faults, Hillsong does show that many young people are searching for meaning. If we want a society where young people feel welcome in places other than shopping centres and cinemas, traditional institutions must work hard to embrace them.” SMH 24 Jan 05

Tax reform

Canberra should cut tax rates and thresholds to allow taxpayers to keep more of their money, argues federal Liberal senator Mitch Fifield. Aust 27 Jan 05 *

Terrorism

Nicholas Rothwell argues that, with churches firebombed, bishops kidnapped and new threats delivered daily, Christians in Iraq were safer under Saddam Hussein than under US occupation. there are about one million Christians in Iraq, and they suffered no special persecutions under Hussein, perhaps because his long-serving foreign minister Tariq Aziz, a Chaldean Christian, was able to protect their interests. Aust 25 Jan 05

Theodicy

Tim Costello reflects on lines from The Silence of the Lambs where Hannibal Lector asks Agent Starling, “Look at me, Agent Starling. Can you stand to say I am evil?” “I think you’ve been destructive. For me it’s the same thing.” “Evil’s just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it’s that simple. And then we have fire, and then there’s hail. Underwriters lump it all under ‘Acts of God.'” Costello observes that this dialogue between Starling and Lector illustrates two points. First, that evil is a problem not only for the church, but one that psychiatrists, sociologists, geneticists and criminologists have yet to fathom. Secondly, this exchange reveals that we have long ago given up on the idea of God as the direct author of rain, hail and storms. EthicsDaily 19 Jan 05

Vilification

“The reaffirmation of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie is a depressing reminder of the yawning gap in values between the democratic nations of the world and the hardline theocrats who rule Iran . If Muslim leaders in Western nations feel their religion is being slandered, they have robust anti-vilification laws to which to appeal. By avoiding those channels and appealing to hatred and intolerance instead, they would only add fuel to the fires of intolerance on the other side, and leave the rest of us wondering why they choose to live in societies whose most fundamental values they reject.” Aust 24 Jan 05

Violence

For some kids, school can be a place of fear and loathing. Wendy Champagne reports on the growing problem of bullying in Australia, where one in six children is bullied. SMH 27 Jan 05

Worship

The Pentecostal style of worship is a hit with young people, and now other churches are getting into the spirit, writes Brigid Delaney. SMH 21 Jan 05

Other items of interest

Writing as a Christian, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Security Kevin Rudd argues that notions such as ‘family values’ must not be hijacked by political parties such as Family First or the federal Coalition. http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,11674869,00.html

Lynne Baab discusses modern Sabbath-keeping myths. http://www.alban.org/weekly/2005/050110_KeepingtheSabbath.asp

Thorwald Lorenzen writes on the recent Indian Ocean tsunami. http://jmm.org.au/articles/14196.htm

Philip Christman writes on John Gardner, Martin Amis, and the ethics of the novel. http://www.christianitytoday.com/books/features/bookwk/050124.html

VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer discusses teaching children morals through television and the widening values gap between makers and viewers. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/104/32.0.html

In the context of college campus ‘naked parties,’ Frederica Matthewes-Green suggests that three common strategies to check sexual ‘liberation’ no longer work. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/002/14.48.html

Our children’s sex is not something to be screened but gratefully received, a Christianity Today editorial claims.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/002/18.29.html

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