Is Supporting Same-Sex Marriage brave?

The whole same-sex marriage debate is an interesting case study in how one side of an argument brilliantly co-opted the debate and will eventually win.  That is, it seems obvious to me that same-sex marriage is inevitable in Australia (graphic comes from this article).

I've been fascinated how those in favour of same sex marriage how brilliantly co-opted phrases like 'marriage equality' and 'equal love'.  Phrases that quite frankly as an Australian it is hard not to agree with.  After all we're all supposedly equal in our egalitarian country!  How dare the government discriminate like this.  It is brilliant political and social campaigning and those who oppose same-sex marriage have been left looking unloving, hateful, oppressive even.  I'm not sure if there was a possibility of appearing any other way.

Another part of the campaign is that it is 'brave' to come out in support of same-sex marriage.  For example Barrack Obama is said to be brave.  On Twitter last night after Channel 10s The Project did a segment on same-sex marriage people said it was brave for people to support it.  But surely to be brave there requires some form of danger?  Surely to be brave holding your view has to threaten your safety in some way.  As far as I can tell it would actually seem more brave to voice your opposition to same-sex marriage.  For example it would have taken a lot of bravery if someone on The Project last night had spoken up to defend people who do not believe same-sex marriage is legitimate.  In the midst of their rhetoric of its time for people who don't agree with same-sex marriage to 'get into the 21st century' it would take a brave man or woman to stand up against that.  Likewise on QandA on ABC often I hear questions and comments, especially from the host, in relation to this issue that requires bravery to stand up against.  So the gay lobby have been successful at co-opting their 'equal love' mantra, thus making anyone who stands against equality morally bankrupt and totally unAustralian.  In doing so they cannot claim that it is brave to agree with this.  No it is brave to stand against this view.

On an Melbourne Anglican side note I read in an article today this quote:

Reverend Gary Bouma, from the Anglican Church in Melbourne, said the Marriage Act was discriminatory. "It's dehumanising to tell someone their love isn't right," he said.

I would be keen to know what the ArchBishop makes of Rev Gary Bouma's statement and if he thinks this to be an unorthodox position what will be done about it. I'd also love to know how the Anglican church deals with priests who stray off message.  Perhaps Rev Bouma is on message?  This is a pertinent issue for me as I continue to discern my call to Anglican ordination.

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Guy Mason is famous today

So today a local Anglican Melbourne minister is featured in a local secular mag.  See here and here

I'm grateful for this.  I'm thankful to God for the work he is doing through City on a Hill.  I've learnt lots from the many visits to Ridley classes that Guy has made and I'm friends with some of Guy's good friends.

But the danger for me today, public confession time, is that I want to be Guy Mason.  I want to be a famous minister.  I want success.  I want to go on billboards and get on the front page of magazines.  But surely this can't only be me?  Surely there are others who are happy about the success but who secretly wish it was them?

This is sinful.  This is pride.  Sometimes I tell myself it's because I'm jealous for God's kingdom to be made known.  But that can happen through people like Guy!  It doesn't have to be through you or me (on a big scale).  All of us need to use the gifts and talents God has uniquely given and serve him wholeheartedly and to the best of our abilities.  If you end up 'famous' like Guy, then it will be because God has humbled you.  If you never 'make it'.  You will still be a useful member of the body of Christ.  Serving in whatever capacity he's gifted you in.

I'm glad that from all my encounters with Guy I find him to be humble, quick to give God the glory.  City on a Hill is a growing church making disciples and getting good press for the Kingdom.  I'm glad about this!  But what I know even more is that every non-christian who reads the magazine article today will probably only be bought into a relationship with Jesus or a church if people like you and me, who aren't famous, get alongside them.  Ask them what they thought of the article, invite them to church, speak to them about Jesus.  If you do that today then you are fulfilling your call just as effectively as Guy!

God uses all his people for his glory.  You don't have to be famous.  Just faithful to serving in whatever capacity and through whatever opportunities God place before you.

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Listening to Light FM

In the last month or so I started listening relatively regularly to the Melbourne Christian radio station, Light FM.  My reasons for this were that I was sick of the sex and general unhelpfulness that was been endlessly pushed down my throat by other secular radio stations, (from song lyrics to show segments).  I thought I'd offer up a few of my reflections.  I'm not meaning to be offensive, nor am I intent on destroying the work of this station, nor do I hate Jesus.  I'm just reflecting, so please... if you're mum works at the station or something, I'm not having a go at her.

The tag line for Light FM goes something like this "great music and a message of hope".  My two major criticisms would be based on these claims.

1. "Great music" - perhaps the slogan should be we only play about 50 songs 3 times a day.  I found the music to be so repetitive that was one of the main reasons I can't listen anymore.  I reckon I heard Miley Cyrus singing about 'nodding her head like yeah and moving her hips like yeah' about 100 times in a week.  Randomly I also heard songs by artists like Five (hello 1995) played four or five times in a week.

2. "A message of hope" - My assumption was/is that the message of hope is that Jesus Christ has died for you and that through his death you can be saved from your sin and live the way you're were created to live.  That is worshiping God.  Problem is that from listening to Light FM I can only deduce that the "message of hope" sounded void of the gospel and full of morals: don't swear, maybe go to church, be nice, get some bible verses texted to you, be a good family man, avoid drugs and generally be nice.  That's the kinda vibe I picked up, I think I heard the name Jesus less than 10 times.  I'm not sure why the Christian station has to be devoid of the good news of Jesus Christ dying to save sinners?  I'm sure they would argue they don't want to turn people off.  But surely preaching a moralistic message turns the prostitute or corrupt lawyer off more than hearing about the fact Jesus wants to save them from their crap situation.  Surely speaking about how Jesus has done it all and we can do nothing but trust in that for our salvation is actually a much greater message, is actually a message of hope.

I have no doubt the people at Light FM are Christians and are trying their best.  I understand that it's difficult to work out the right balance of getting people to listen and turning them off.  But at risk of sounding arrogant I shall now offer two ways forward that I would think about pursuing if I were the CEO of Light FM.  I have no experience, but for doing some work on the Christian radio station in Hobart, and so offer these ideas as merely that, ideas...

Option Number 1: Go way more Christian.  Like the Australian Christian Channel on Foxtel.  Chances are 80% or more of your listeners are probably Christians/church goers anyway.  Why not play to your strength?  You could have good Christian discussion, good music, whatever.  Then someone might actually turn over to your station and hear a message of substance.

Option Number 2: Go way less "Christian".  Sure, play some Christian music and definitely screen out songs that are aimed at turning 12 year old girls into whores but stop broadcasting vague pithy statements that make Christianity look like a moralistic religion.  (Side note:  If you play a song by an artist because it's subtle, yet still about sex, and doesn't involve swearing, but the artist is well known for living a pagan life, then surely the message you send is just don't swear or sin explicitly in certain ways, and you'll be ok?) Anyway, then get some good quality funny people on your station.  Much of what Hamish and Andy do for example is hilarious and fine for airing on a Christian radio station.  Why not get some Christian people to be idiots for the sake of clean entertainment?  Then you're in the marketplace as a radio station with Christian ethos and wide listenership.

Are there other options?  Do you listen to your local Christian radio station?  What do you think of it?

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Introducing Andrew Reid

Andrew is going to be the new vicar here at Holy Trinity Doncaster where I work as the Youth Minister.

Currently Andrew is a faculty member at Ridley Melbourne (where I study). Here is his bio, ripped straight from Ridley's site:

Andrew is married to Heather and they have two married sons and one grandson. Prior to coming to Ridley in 2005, Andrew worked in IT while leading an independent evangelical church plant at Curtin University. He has also been the senior pastor of St Matthews Anglican Church in Shenton Park, WA, Anglican Chaplain at Macquarie University, and National Director of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES).

Andrew is also the author of a number of Christian books on the Old Testament, hermeneutics, and apologetics and has a passionate interest in helping people understand the Old Testament as Christian scripture and in training preachers. He regularly speaks at conferences around Australia, volunteers as an international facilitator for Langham Preaching, and has trained preachers in expository preaching in Australia, Pakistan, South East Asia, South America, and Papua New Guinea.

I think this is a great appointment for HTD, and I'm really looking forward to working for him, when he starts in May 2010!

See the official post on the HTD site here

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HTD in Christian Today

A report on our Vicar's resignation can be seen here

After 13 years of presiding over HTD, Reverend Barker reminisced with Christian Today Australia of the growth that had occurred at the church. He recounted how the Chinese Church started from a few attendances to a current Sunday Service packed with congregants.

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A big weekend at my church

On Sunday morning I was just making the last few photocopies of worksheets for our Youth bible study that runs during our morning 10am service. Our Vicar, Paul Barker (aka Senior Minister) walked into the office to ask me if I could bring the youth back into church after the sermon (we normally stay out for the whole service). So anyway, I'm thinking to myself, why? But I don't have to think long because Paul tells me it is because he is going to announce that he is leaving Holy Trinity Doncaster after just over 13 years of faithful service. He is going to be a missionary as a semi-itinerant theological lecturer in Asia, based in Malaysia. This has been something he's been doing for the last few years whilst also been Vicar here. It is a great gain for Asian theological education, and a great loss for the Melbourne Anglican Church.

Anyway, when he announced it at the 10am service, the mood was stunned, shocked and very sad. Many people were in tears. A testament to Paul's leadership I think. Testament to the fact that under his leadership this church has grown from around 200 people to 500, that over 300 people have been baptised through our Mandarin Ministry alone, and many of them are now back in China spreading the Gospel. He will be leaving our church on November 8. Big news!

So I guess this post is to say that there will probably be a lot of posts now as I reflect on what it is like to be at, and work for a church in transition from one leader to another. What are the difficulties, the joys, the frustrations... Apart from Paul who has been at Holy Trinity for 13 years, the rest of the staff are pretty fresh. Myself and Jono are in our second year here, Wayne is possibly into his 4th year.

It would be great if you could pray for us and the mandarin staff as we work extra hard in this time of transition.

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The church in Melbourne

Read this interesting article on Mark Sayer's blog about the church here in Melbourne. In it he quotes Phillip Hughes. I happen to own a copy of his book, Putting Life Together, which outlines how "Gen Y" expresses their faith or lack there of in Australia.

Social science is a vastly under used tool by the modern church I think.

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VCYC and Soul Survivor... What's the difference?

So today I'm led to wonder about the difference between two large youth conference/festivals that are run by Christians in Victoria.

One is called Soul Survivor.  It's big tag line on there brochure is:

Equipping you to live out your faith beyond the confines of a festival, church or youth group because Jesus affects EVERYTHING!

The other is VCYC.  It's tag line is:

Equipping young people with God's Word to impact their world.

Sound familiar?  Actually it sounds a lot like Soul Survivors tag line!  So what's the difference?  And how does a Youth Minister make a decision about where he sends his youth?  (Note: the church I'm at has a long history with VCYC so that's how I make my decision at the moment)

I thought I'd do a little bit of a comparison of each organisations advertising and say what I like and don't like!

VCYC

Things I like:

• They have pictures of people having fun on their home page of the website!  It's one of the first things you notice.  They also have a pretty cool promo video (which features me) so that gives them bonus points!
• It's pretty cheap!  Anywhere from $50 to $95 depending on your accommodation option!
• It is very obvious who the speakers are (I know 3 out of the 4) so I can trust what is going to be said, they have themed it the whole conference around Hebrews 12:2, fixing our eyes on Jesus, so I'm also pretty well aware of what to expect from the talks.
• They are not trying to be a big evangelistic event.  Sure some non-Chrisitan youth might come, but they are targetting this primarily at Christians.  I think this is a good move!

Things I don't like:

• The prominence given to the speakers!  On their main poster that they send out for us to put up on the walls features very prominently at the bottom large photos of the 4 speakers and their names.  That's great for me as a Youth Minister in enabling me to make a judgement about whether or not I would want to support such an event.  However, I'm not so sure how great that is for advertising to young people.  First of all I doubt that many of my youth are really that aware of who, Steve Brown, Camille Imberger, Adam Hince or Kieran Carr are!  If they know who they are, then I'm not sure that they come for the speaking anyway.  Sure that's a very important part of what happens at these kind of conferences, but not sure if it's a drawcard for your poster.  You could still make it clear that there would be talks without plastering 4 unknown faces on your poster.  Unless they get Miley Cyrus or Barrack Obama to come and speak one year, the speaker is probably not going to be a drawcard to the average youth.

Soul Survivor

Things I like:

• Despite my previous point about the tag lines being similar, I really like the idea Soul Survivor is pushing of the 360 Degree Gospel.  I think that is a really effective way of getting across the message that the Gospel should have an affect on all aspects and areas of our life.  It gets across the notion of living a fully sold out gospel life very well.
• I also like how their brochure/poster says "YOU".  Eg. "It's all about equpping you to live out your faith..."  It makes it feel more like the youth are being personaly invited.

Things I don't like:

• I like their opening values statment on their website:
  

"The heart of Soul Survivor is to envision young people to capture first the vision of Jesus, and then his calling on their lives and then to equip them, train them and release them into ministry - so that they do it wherever they go, wherever they are. The Bible is our final authority on all matters. We want everything we do at Soul Survivor to be in line with the Bible, and in step with the Holy Spirit. We value Bible-based lifestyles, teachable attitudes and unity in the hearts of everyone involved.
We are committed to non-hype. We want to provide space and opportunity for young people to genuinely connect with God."

However, I'm not a fan of the ordering of the values under that.  Worship, Justice and Compassion, Evangelsim and Discipleship, Holy Spirit Empowered Lives and Ministry.  My alarm bells ring when I see social justice elevated above evangelism and discipleship.  In fact they get raised when anything is placed above them.  However, I guess they could be in a random order, but I doubt it.

• I don't see how registration can be so much more expensives than VCYC.  Minimum is $90 for an early bird and max is $130.  What do they do that is so different and requires so much more money?
• I also don't like how I can't find out anything about the speakers at the conference.  Sure 360 degree Gospel is a cool idea.  But who's going to convey that to the youth?

In the end I'm certain that God uses both Soul Survivor and VCYC to do great things in the lives of young people.  There probably isn't really that much difference between the two conferences and you would most likely hear similar things at both.  Maybe they should join forces?

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Abortion

There has been lots of debate in my new state of Victoria about new abortion laws that were been debated by the parliament. In the last few days they were passed by both houses of the Victorian parliament (see here). There have been strong reactions in the lead up to this bill been debated on both sides of the debate (pro-choice and pro-life). It is an emotional issue... it is easy to understand why.

What do these laws mean? They legalise abortion. As far as I'm aware a woman is now able to get an abortion for any reason up to 24 weeks (that's 6 months in). A 6 month fetus looks like this...


It seems difficult to me to argue that those 6 month old unborn fetus' aren't people. They look like little people to me. In fact, I'm led to believe that babies born 6 months premature can survive with close medical attention.

Another feature of these laws is that a nine month old unborn baby can be aborted with the consent of two doctors. A nine month old unborn baby looks like this...

Very human like in my opinion! In fact, I think that I was born about 3ish weeks premature, meaning I was close to being 8 months in the womb. I never made it to this stage before I was born... what's more is everyone reading this blog made it at least to 9 months. All of you could be legally aborted with the consent of two doctors now.

Issues
This is an emotive issue. But these are the two competing issues as I see it.

1. The right for a woman to chose
Australia is a Liberal Democracy. Libieraelism is concerned with preserving individual rights and maximizing freedom of choice for the individual. As a rule, Government should not restrict individual rights or choice. Democracy confuses Liberalism a bit because it opens up the possibility for the majority to abuse the rights of the minority. That is why we have courts and a constitution for example, which separate power and are aimed at protecting individuals rights being abused by the majority in power. As a general rule, I like the idea that Government's should be concerned with providing security which allows me to make whatever choices I chose. That is why I can chose to be a Christian and go to church and tell others about Jesus.

It is from this sort of perspective, I assume, that 'pro-choice' advocates approach the abortion debate. Governemnt should not, in their view restrict the rights or ability to chose that a woman has.

This leads to a number of issues which are under my second major competing issue.

2. The rights of the fetus
To figure out your answer to this question, you need to figure out what a fetus is. Clearly it is has the potential to become a human. Is it a human? Does it have the same rights as born humans? Those photos of a 6 month and 9 month fetus make the baby look very much like a human to me. So clearly this leads us to asking another question... What is a human? Do we define human by looks? Or by something else? Perhaps we define it by characteristics... like self-reliance, or self awareness, the ability to think critically... But then I think we would have to be prepared to 'abort' this...
So defining what is a human and when it has rights seems to be a matter of drawing an arbitrary line somewhere. Do you draw it at birth? Or at some point during pregnancy when the fetus looks more like a baby than a blob? Or at conception? I can't see how using man made humanistic categories this debate could ever be settled in a properly rational way.

What does God say about what makes a human human? Genesis tells us that we are human because God created us that way. When do we become a human? Psalm 139:13 says, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." Which suggests to me that we must say that human life begins in the womb... probably at conception.

Baby v Mother
So what about when the rights of two human beings compete? This is complex for the humanistic liberalist! They seem to solve it in the case of abortion by not treating the fetus as a human. But I'm yet to see their category for coming to such a conclusion well articulated. I can certainly sympathise with someone who is faced with the choice of having an abortion or facing a very dangerous pregnancy which could lead to that woman's death.

A Christian Response...
This leads me to one of my main problems with the Christian response to this bill. We are in danger in becoming non-pastoral in our debate. By this I mean we are having an emotional debate about something as though it were just intellectual, and by doing this we could well be placing barries to the Gospel in front of hurting could-have-been mothers because they hear nothing but judgment from us. In saying this, I am in no way advocating silence on the matter. But I am led to wonder if we leave grace out of our abortion debates? It is one thing to strongly articulate your oppostion to a parliamentry bill. To advocate good reasons why the bill is not a good idea. But it is another thing to give way to our emotions and start calling people murderers.

I have heard a number of prayers which have labelled this bill murderous. I think that God does not like abortion, but He loves people who've had one. I believe he knows their pain and cries with them, he knows their brokeness and longs to heal them. And as Christians, he has given us the wonderful privellge of being messengers of this news to these hurting could-have-been mothers. We need to remember that having an abortion is sin, just like living for stuff, or lying, or being sexually perverted is sinful. They are all symptoms of people living against God. An abortion doesn't make someone more or less saved or unsaved. And when a person who has had an abortion asks Jesus to become a Christian their prayer only needs to be like any other person, "forgive me for living my own way and help me to live Your way." Not, "sorry for living my own way and having an abortion, please help me to live Your way."

I'm not angry that this bill has been passed. I'm sad that it was ever proposed. I'm sad that it got past, but I'm left to wonder, does it ultimately affect Christians primary responsibility? (which I take to be bringing the Gospel to the world). And I have to answer no. Just because parliament legalised abortion doesn't mean we can't preach the Gospel, doesn't mean we can't run free counselling services, doesn't mean we can't help people through a very emotional and tough time for them. It doesn't mean I deal differently with the girl in my youth ministry who's had an abortion or with the Christian kid who is getting picked on at school, or the boy with self-esteem problems. And it doesn't change their need to know Jesus or my ability to pray for them, rebuke them and encourage them.

So, I hope none of you have had an abortion. But if you have. I hope you come to know the love and forgiveness available to you in Jesus. Forgiveness that you need, not because you had an abortion, but because you have lived life your own way, not God's way. I can't even begin to imagine the emotional turmoil that you might have felt in coming to your decision, or after your decision. I can't imagine what it would be like to feel alone and feel trapped with a pregnancy. But God does. I hope that I am helpful to your recovery, not a barrier. I'm sorry that Christians (myself included) have made you feel judged, without knowing the first thing about you. God knows you, and I hope I can help you discover the God of this world, the God who made you and who loves you.

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