Tag: politics

Dear Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

I have been so encouraged of late to see such sincere developments occurring between your nation and south Korea, as well as the United States of America.  I’m excited about the outcome of the upcoming Summit between you and President Trump later this month or in June.

Like many people around the world, I’ve been extremely concerned at the heightened tensions, over the past few years, between the DPRK and other nations.  The missile tests, threats of retaliation and all-out war have been alarming.  And so, we are heartened to see this willingness by all parties to sit down and have constructive talks that could lead to peace.

In all the things that need to be discussed and agreed to, I do hope that there will also be room in your country to consider greater freedom of faith.  According to Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute, “Kim Jong-un has greater visible interest in the welfare of his people and engages in greater interaction with them than his father did.”[1]  I think it’s admirable that you show interest in the welfare of your people, but I’d like to ask you about the welfare of people of faith, especially Christians like me.  There are between 300,000 and 500,000 Christians in the DPRK.  In 2014 the group Aid to the Church in Need published a persecution report which figured that some 50,000 Christians might currently be in the DPRK’s penal camps. [2]

I’ve read that Christians endure “violations of the right to food, life, freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, freedom of movement, as well as various violations associated with prison camps. Torture and inhuman treatment, arbitrary detention, discrimination, and enforced disappearances.”[3]  If these reports are correct, then they breach Article 12 of your Constitution which provides for freedom of religion.  I’m aware that there are five State-sanctioned Churches in Pyongyang.  May I encourage you to allow more churches to open and flourish in your country?

I realise that Christianity is viewed in the DPRK as representing the West, notably the USA, but I’d like to challenge that.  The Christian faith was born out of Judaism which originated in the Middle East.  The Bible is, in fact, an Eastern book and contains much that reflects the values of Asian culture.

The vast majority of Christians are peaceful people and are not in any way a threat to your country.  We uphold the law of the land, we are hard workers, we are not subversive, and we respect and pray for our leaders.  Christians are taught to “do to others as you would have them do to you” – the Golden Rule that is also one of the key tenants of Buddhism and Confucianism, the two biggest religions in your country.

Despite persecution, it is reported that Christianity is actually increasing in the DPRK.  That has been the story throughout history.  Many countries and empires have tried to stamp out the Christian faith over the centuries, but all have failed.  May I encourage you to see Christians as your friend and not your enemy?  The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will be all the better for it.

Kind regards,

Rob Buckingham

Senior Minister, Bayside Church Melbourne

 

 

[1] Song Sang-ho (27 June 2012). “N.K. leader seen moving toward economic reform”. The Korea Herald. Archived from the original on 3 July 2012. Retrieved 28 June 2012.

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2016/10/31/north-koreas-war-on-christianity-the-globes-number-one-religious-persecutor/#1f9866b56e37

[3] http://www.csw.org.uk/2016/09/22/report/3263/article.htm

 

One of the major problems I see in the world today is the politicising of the issues that face us.  Even Christian people get caught in this trap.  Let me give you four examples:

  • Climate change
  • Asylum seekers
  • Conservation
  • Racial and gender equality

When you read those words, it’s quite likely that you perceived them through your political worldview.  For example, when you see the words, “climate change,” some of you went “right,” and others leaned “left” in your thinking.  If you tend “right” politically you may see other issues as much more important than climate change – or maybe you think it’s a big con and not a real issue at all.  If you are more left or “green” politically, you will see climate change as a major issue and maybe even “the great moral challenge of our generation” to quote former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.

It’s the same with other issues.  On asylum seekers, some will go “right” while others will lean “left” and so on.  But for followers of Jesus a higher ethos comes into play because “our citizenship is in heaven” and, on earth, we are ambassadors of Christ who are to represent our eternal homeland in the here and now.  That’s why Jesus encouraged His followers (in The Lord’s Prayer) to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).  The focus of the entire Lord’s Prayer is what happens on earth.  Jesus taught His people to pray for God’s kingdom to come and for His will to be done, on earth.  God cares for His creation and He wants His people to care for it too.

The aforementioned is the filter Jesus’ followers are to use when considering their response and actions to life’s big issues.  Rather than making our reaction a political one, we are called to think with a heavenly mindset.  Take climate change as an example.  Instead of making this a political issue that leans to the right or left, why not make it a Biblical issue that reflects our care of God’s creation?  Let me ask you a question, “Do you think it is a worthy goal for humans to pump less pollution into the atmosphere?”  Whatever your political persuasion I’m sure you answered “yes”.  If God has given humanity dominion (rule; control) of the Earth (Genesis 1:28) then surely a Christian would take that responsibility seriously and do all they can to care for the planet God has given us?

Conservation then, is no longer the domain of the Greens but rather the responsibility of everyone.  The ethical use and protection of valuable resources, such as trees, minerals, wildlife and water, protecting their sources, and recycling, is something I do because I take God’s gift seriously, not because I vote for a particular political party.

Some of my early teaching as a Christian was dominated by a certain view of the “end times” that taught Jesus was returning at any moment, the world would end, and God would make a new one – so it wasn’t worth looking after this one.  Imagine if we used this logic in our daily lives?  One day I’m going to buy a new car and so I might as well trash the second-hand one I currently drive!  I have an old house now, but one day I want a new one, so I think I’ll light a fire on the kitchen floor and cook on it!  That sounds ridiculous – and it is – but this is how some Christians act toward the Earth of which God has given us care.

Praying “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” means that Christians will pray and work for peace and justice among all peoples and nations.  We strive for economic justice and equality between rich and poor, male and female; racial equality for people of marginalised communities; and protection for refugees and asylum seekers (and yes, I want secure borders, but that doesn’t give us the right to mistreat some of the world’s most vulnerable people).

These are not merely political issues that don’t affect my faith and me.  They are significant matters that should concern all of us who pray for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus taught his followers to live this way day-to-day.  In His Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:16).  Jesus’ people are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  Treating this world, and the people in it, with kindness, justice, love, mercy, and goodness reflects God’s nature and becomes a powerful force that attracts others to Him.  That’s the way He calls His people to live.

In last week’s blog I highlighted something that the church needs to beware of, that is, outraged Christians.  They write blogs and social media posts that others share with little or no fact checking.  All they do is distort the truth, create fear and lead to further outrage which creates an attitude of culture wars.  Outraged Christians see themselves as a minority that has to lobby and campaign for their rights.  How different this is to the way the first century Church conducted themselves in even more adversarial circumstances than we face today (read the Book of Acts).

In recent times, I’ve noticed another falsehood being shared and re-shared by the outraged.  This time it’s about the Doctors in Secondary Schools program introduced by the State Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews.  The outrage goes as follows:

Daniel Andrews’ government has launched a program that will allow students to bypass permission from their parents and receive medical treatment, including the pill, without their parents’ or guardians’ knowledge.  The quoted example is of a girl as young as 11 being able to get a prescription for contraceptives from school without the parents knowing about it.

As the father of three daughters, I’d certainly be concerned if this were true. So instead of sharing the outrage on social media, I did some homework and here’s what I discovered:

The people who are outraged are missing the primary purpose of this program that is all about improving the mental health of youth in Australia.  The Doctors in Secondary Schools program is not about providing an oral contraception service to adolescent girls.  As suicide is the leading cause of death for the 15-19-year-old age group in Australia (which accounts for 31% of deaths in this age group), this program aims at removing a barrier and improving the mental health of this vulnerable population.

Regarding the issue of whether a doctor can prescribe the oral contraceptive to a young person without the parents’ consent, the concept of “mature minor” comes into play. [1]

This idea of “mature minor” was first adopted in England after a famous court case in the 1980’s when a mother of five daughters (Mrs. Gillick) took the family doctor to court.  The court rejected her claim, and it was at that time the law was changed in England to reflect this.  Australia followed suit shortly after.  So it has been legal to prescribe the oral contraceptive to “mature minors” for more than 30 years.  This practice goes on in Australian general practices every day.  It is not a new thing.

What this looks like in practical terms is that very few adolescents under 16 would satisfy the definition of mature minors.  They often do not have a thorough understanding of the risks of entering a new sexual relationship (unwanted pregnancy, STIs, etc.) or the consequences of their actions.  What most GPs do is spend a lot of time trying to persuade the young person to talk to their parents and include them in the decision making process.  They also screen to make sure that someone is not coercing the young person into a sexual relationship.  Older teens would still need to satisfy the GP that they have a complete understanding of the risk and consequences of entering into a sexual relationship.  It would only be if the GP felt that the young person was definitely going to engage in sex that they would prescribe it on the grounds that the risks of pregnancy were greater than the harms of being on the pill.

The concept of mature minor also comes into play in schools.  It is the Department of Education policy that principals can declare a child to be a mature minor and to make decisions about their education.[2]  In the same way that principals would always have the young person’s best interests at heart, so too do GPs.  It would be a very rare circumstance that it was not in the best interests of the adolescent to have their parents involved in decisions about their education or medical care.  GPs want parental involvement too.

Have people been getting up in arms about the Department of Education policy?  NO!  Has it been the policy for years now?  YES!

So this outrage that’s been doing the rounds online is just another example of people getting upset about a new initiative that is not so new but has been occurring for years in a different form.  And maybe this new initiative might save a few lives as doctors, parents and the education department work together to help prevent unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual abuse, self-harm, and suicide as well as to diagnose and treat mental illnesses.

So how should we deal with outrage when we see it?

First of all, rather than respond to or repeat the information, check it out.  Get the facts and see if the outrage has any foundation.  Secondly, how about we (Christians) get outraged about the genuine injustices we see around us?  Where’s the outrage from the church about the mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers?  Where’s the outrage that leads us to help those who, for whatever reason, find themselves homeless on our city streets?  Let me hear some Christian outrage about domestic violence, human trafficking and the injustices faced by Australia’s Indigenous people.  Let’s start being incensed by the things that anger God.  Maybe then Australians will sit up and start to give some value to the Church again (instead of leaving it in droves) because they will see us not just looking after our interests but also the interests of others. [3]

 

[1]http://www.racgp.org.au/download/documents/AFP/2011/March/201103bird.pdf

[2]http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/principals/spag/safety/Pages/matureminor.aspx

[3] Philippians 2:4

In last week’s blog I mentioned a book I read while on holiday recently: One of Us by journalist Asne Seierstad. In it the author brilliantly presents the story of Anders Behring Breivik, the man who killed 77 people (and wounded many more) in the bomb attack and mass shooting in Norway on 22 July 2011. Breivik was a far-right “Christian” who committed these atrocities because he was concerned that Norway was losing its Christian values due to the policies of the left. That’s why he targeted the seat of Norway’s Government as well as a camp for up and coming leftist leaders.

When I mentioned this last week someone very quickly corrected me by telling me that Breivik is not a Christian, but he called himself one and acted out of his view of Christian values. Consider some of his beliefs …

• He advocated for the deportation of all Muslims unless they converted to Christianity, were baptised and given new Christian names.

• He prayed to God. On one occasion he wrote in his diary, “I explained to God that unless he wanted the Marxist-Islamic alliance and the certain Islamic takeover of Europe to completely annihilate European Christendom within the next hundred years he must ensure that the warriors fighting for the preservation of European Christendom prevail. He must ensure that I succeed in my mission and as such; contribute to inspire thousands of other revolutionary conservative nationalist, anti-Communists and anti-Islamists throughout the European world.”

• He encouraged the Church to be more forthright, priests to be more like in the old days and the reintroduction of teaching Christianity in schools.

• He viewed the execution of 77 people as a way of preventing the loss of “our ethnic group, our Christianity, our culture.”

• He described himself as “a militant Christian and not particularly religious.” He said, “We want a Christian cultural heritage, Christian religious instruction in schools and a Christian framework for Europe.” He claimed, “I’m a Christian, I believe in God.”

Breivik called himself a Christian, and yet any reasonable person would realise that just because someone calls himself a Christian doesn’t mean he is one. We expect a person’s Christian faith to reflect in a certain way in their life and that certainly doesn’t include the murder of 77 people.

Consider the following words, “In this hour I would ask of the Lord God only this: that He would give His blessing to our work, and that He may ever give us the courage to do the right. I am convinced that men who are created by God should live in accordance with the will of the Almighty. No man can fashion world history unless upon his purpose and his powers there rests the blessings of this Providence.” It’s an excellent proclamation that no Christian would disagree with. But these words were part of a speech given by Adolf Hitler in 1937. History is littered with examples like this. Consider the Catholics and Protestants who were blowing each other up in the Northern Irish Troubles or Joseph Kony (a radical Christianist and leader of The Lord’s Resistance Army) who called for the establishment of a severe Christian fundamentalist government in Uganda and other parts of Africa.

Just because someone carries the title “Christian” doesn’t mean they are one – anymore than someone who calls himself or herself a Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu but don’t live according to the tenets of their faith especially the Golden Rule.

I have a number of Muslim friends and they often tell me how embarrassed they are over the actions of Islamist terrorists. “Please don’t think we’re all like that,” they say to me. “They are not real Muslims and they don’t represent our faith.” My friends are peace-loving people who reflect many of the values of my own faith – they love their family and friends, they help those in need and they love their God.

Being a Christian is not just about wearing a badge or bearing a title. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commands” and He’d already taught His followers what those commands were – the love commandments: love the Lord your God, love one another, love your neighbour and love your enemy. The apostle Paul summarised it this way: “Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” A true Christian will live a life that does “no harm to a neighbor.” Anders Breivik did not live that way!

Extremism is at the heart of pretty much every distasteful and unpleasant thing that happens on this planet and every day we see glaring examples.

The fascinating thing is that those on the right think they’re always right, while those of the Left believe the right is always wrong!  Author Jim Wallis, in his brilliant book God’s Politics, summed it up this way, “The right gets it wrong and the left doesn’t get it.”  And those on the far-right are always criticising those on the extreme-left.  They refer to them as the PC Brigade, trolls, morons and idiots; they talk about the “lamestream media” while those on the left are no better.  They join in the unhelpful name calling with accusations of homophobia, Islamophobia (pretty well every kind of phobia you can imagine in order to shut down decent discussion).  They talk about right-wing nutbags, loons, hacks and thugs.

Extremism at whatever end of the political, religious or ideological scale almost always leads to disaster, pain, hurt or death. Consider the recent Dallas sniper, Micah Johnson, who killed five police officers, as well as the one carried out last year by Dylann Roof on a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that left nine people dead.  Both of these acts of deadly terrorism were motivated by extreme left-wing ideology.

Those on the far-right are just as dangerous.  Of course we’re constantly confronted with the atrocities of Islamic terrorist groups such as Daesh, al Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Taliban and numerous smaller groups.  German police have recently carried out a series of raids, targeting people suspected of posting hate content on social media in order to tackle what police called “a substantial rise in verbal radicalism.”  Typical crimes included “glorification of Nazism and xenophobic, anti-Semitic and other right-wing extremism.”

Politically motivated hate crimes on the internet have increased significantly in the wake of the European refugee crisis, as well as attacks on refugee shelters that are often the result of radicalisation which begins in social networks.

But the extremes of the left and the right are not confined to violence and verbal attacks.  Consider Britain’s largest union, the extreme Leftwing Unite, that has adopted the policy of a universal basic income: a flat payment to all adults regardless of circumstances.  It’s basically the right to be lazy.

While I was on holiday recently, one of the many books I read was One of Us by journalist Asne Seierstad in which she brilliantly presents the story of Anders Behring Breivik, the man who killed 77 people (and wounded many more) in the bomb attack and mass shooting in Norway on 22 July 2011.  Breivik was a far-right “Christian” who committed these atrocities because he was concerned that Norway was losing its Christian values because of the policies of the left (more on this in next week’s blog).

I could go on but I’m sure you get the picture.  Extremes are dangerous and the sad evidence is that those who hold to extremes will only be entrenched further in them when confronted by facts that contradict their beliefs (this is called cognitive dissonance).

I believe Jesus calls us to extremes but not the kind that bring hurt and destruction.  Jesus calls us to extreme love, extreme forgiveness, extreme grace and extreme kindness.  It saddens me when Christian people cling to ideologies of the far-right or extreme-left because when they do, they rarely reflect the nature of God.  They cherry-pick from the Scriptures to back up their beliefs but their views are not endorsed by the main themes of the Bible (or the Qu’ran or any other Holy Book), which are summarised by the Golden Rule; the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated oneself.

If you find yourself at one of the extremes – whether you’re a Christian, Muslim, a member of another faith or no faith at all – can I encourage you to meditate on the Golden Rule found in every major religion and human culture.  Live your life treating others the way you’d like to be treated.  It starts with you and me and the world will be a much better place as a result.

 

I must confess that I find the American political system somewhat confusing and I often wonder at the Australian media’s preoccupation with it. Maybe it’s just entertainment value especially with some of the outrageous statements made by larger-than-life characters such as Donald Trump (a hybrid of Clive Palmer, Pauline Hanson and Jackie Lambie all held together with a hair piece).

But just last week in the midst of all the pizzazz and passion, promises and pontificating of the Presidential Primaries, came a breath of fresh air when Hillary Clinton talked about her Christian faith on the campaign trail.

According to the New York Times, Mrs. Clinton was speaking at a town-hall-style event in a school gymnasium, where she opened up for questions. Jessica Manning, a high school guidance counselor from Pella, Iowa, told Mrs. Clinton that as a Catholic and a Democrat, she felt conflicted: “I would say I am a Democrat because of my Christian values, but many of my friends would say they are Republicans because of their Christian values. So in these next few months as I am supporting you and defending you to my Republican friends, I am just curious, how you would say your beliefs align with the Ten Commandments and is that something that’s important to you?”

The question gave Mrs. Clinton a rare opportunity to speak at length about her views on Christianity and the Bible. Here is part of her response that I found incredibly inspiring:

“Thank you for asking that. I am a person of faith. I am a Christian. My study of the Bible, my many conversations with people of faith, has led me to believe the most important commandment is to love the Lord with all your might and to love your neighbor as yourself, and that is what I think we are commanded by Christ to do, and there is so much more in the Bible about taking care of the poor, visiting the prisoners, taking in the stranger, creating opportunities for others to be lifted up, to find faith themselves that I think there are many different ways of exercising your faith. But I do believe that in many areas judgment should be left to God, that being more open, tolerant and respectful is part of what makes me humble about my faith, and I am in awe of people who truly turn the other cheek all the time, who can go that extra mile that we are called to go, who keep finding ways to forgive and move on. Those are really hard things for human beings to do, and there is a lot, certainly in the New Testament, that calls us to do that.

The famous discussion on the Sermon on the Mount should be something that you really pay attention to. What does the Sermon on the Mount really mean? What is it calling us to do and to understand? Because it sure does seem to favour the poor and the merciful and those who in worldly terms don’t have a lot but who have the spirit that God recognises as being at the core of love and salvation.

So there is much to be learned and I have been very disappointed and sorry that Christianity, which has such great love at its core, is sometimes used to condemn so quickly and judge so harshly. When I think part of the message that I certainly have tried to understand and live with is to look at yourself first, to make sure you are being the kind of person you should be in how you are treating others, and I am by no means a perfect person, I will certainly confess that to one and all, but I feel the continuing urge to try to do better, to try to be kinder, to try to be more loving, even with people who are quite harsh.

So, I think you have to keep asking yourself, if you are a person of faith, what is expected of me and am I actually acting the way that I should? And that starts in small ways and goes out in very large ones, but it’s something that I take very seriously. So thank you for asking.”

What an honest and stirring response from Hillary Clinton. The answer was obviously not prepared beforehand and so it seems she spoke from her heart and, as Jesus said, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

The Tall Poppy Syndrome is one of the not-so-good things about our Aussie culture. It’s one of the few leftovers from our convict past. We love the battler; we cheer them on and tell them they can succeed – but woe to them if they really do! Once they make it we sit back and criticise them – “who do they think they are?” According to golfer Greg Norman, the tall poppy syndrome indicates jealousy of someone else’s success.  Norman explains that if someone in America bought a sports car, then other Americans would say “nice car”. However, if someone in Australia bought a sports car, other Australians would scratch it.

And that’s what happened – again – to our new Prime Minister in recent times (the same thing happened back in 2008 when Malcolm Turnbull became leader of the Federal Opposition). The first thing the media (and opposition) jumped on was Mr Turnbull’s wealth – as if one can’t be a politician and wealthy at the same time! In fact, it took opposition leader Bill Shorten just 25 days after Malcolm Turnbull came to power to bring up the money issue!

In 2008 not only did we have a wealthy opposition leader; we also had a very wealthy Prime Minister. Kevin Rudd was arguably the wealthiest Prime Minister we’d ever had. I admit his wife mainly earned the wealth but they, as a couple, were (and still are) extremely well off.

Malcolm Turnbull has made his fortune as a merchant banker and through some particularly savvy dot com investments, especially in Ozemail, in the 90s.  He invested $500,000 and walked away with $60 million a few years later.  His current net wealth is $186 million (up from $120 million in 2008), which means he isn’t a one hit wonder. He’s managed to maintain and grow his riches through many years. That’s a matter of wise investment and good financial planning.

The questions I want to ask are these:

  • Why is Malcolm Turnbull’s (or any other politician’s) wealth an issue?
  • Do we only want poorer people running the country?
  • If so, what should be the cut-off point of a person’s wealth at which they are disqualified from being in public office?
  • If they have more than this amount should they give their money away in order to be qualified for the job? Would you do that?

Instead of seeing Malcolm Turnbull’s wealth as a problem we should see it as a great blessing. Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull have successfully managed their own affairs and that is one of the qualifications for leadership (see 1 Timothy 3:5). Australia is a trillion dollar economy that needs to be managed by people with financial skill.

Over the years I have had the privilege of meeting and chatting with many of our politicians from all political persuasions.  I have found that they are not in office for money – in fact they are paid very meagrely considering the responsibility they carry, the work they do and the hours they keep. They are, for the most part, men and women who have a tremendous heart for our country who could be earning much more in the corporate sector. Let’s not penalise them for what they have but rather appreciate them for what they do.

I sit here still in shock at the execution of eight people by the Indonesians.  I had still hoped – against hope – that the authorities would see reason and allow these men to live, in prison, to continue the good work they had been doing since being rehabilitated.  But no, the executions went ahead.

For some people, that’ll be the end of it.  Some people don’t care. Others are glad it’s over because they’re fed up hearing about it in the news, after all, “these guys were hard-core drug traffickers and knew the risks over there.”  “Let’s not forget how many lives they would have ruined if they weren’t caught.”  And that’s true.  I wish all drug traffickers were caught; and I wish they got the people higher up the chain rather than just the drug mules who are often victims themselves.

One guy said, “They would never have come to know Jesus if they were not in this position.”  Really?  So you know the future and what would happen if things were different?

Another person wrote, “I won’t be losing any sleep they were scumbags.” Well those “scumbags” were someone’s son; someone’s brother; someone’s friend.  They were our friends who’d we’d got to know a few years ago and worked alongside to help with the projects that were reforming and rehabilitating 100s – if not 1000s – of other prisoners.  We’ve had the privilege of meeting many of these reformed people over the years – people who are now out of jail, off drugs, holding down good jobs, getting married, having kids and being responsible members of society.

That’s the sad truth here.  You see Indonesia has the death penalty in place for drug traffickers.  Indonesia also has a massive drug problem (so obviously the whole death penalty thing is not working as a great deterrent to the traffickers or users).  Indonesia needs help with its drug problem.  What they had in Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were two men who were helping to reform drug users, traffickers and other prisoners.

So, if you have people helping you achieve your goal of reducing drug crime you get alongside and help them right?  You find out what’s working and develop those projects in other prisons.  You resource them because what they’re doing is helping reduce the drug problem in your country.  That would make sense wouldn’t it?  No, not if you’re the Indonesian President.  You take these men (who were helping you reduce your country’s massive drug problem) out onto a lonely island in the middle of the night and shoot them.  There.  End of problem, right?  Wrong.

Indonesia woke up yesterday morning just a little poorer.  They lost eight people who had reformed under its prison system and because of political pressure and a need to increase political popularity they killed them.

What’s even worse, they were about to kill an innocent woman as well.  Mary Jane Veloso from the Philippines had always claimed an international trafficking gang tricked her into bringing 2.6kg of heroin to Indonesia from Malaysia five years ago as she chased a nonexistent job as a domestic worker.  The Indonesian justice system found her guilty and was about to kill her.  At the last minute Cristina Sergio, suspected of recruiting Veloso, turned herself in to authorities in the Philippines.  The Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, granted a reprieve to Veloso.  They were about to kill an innocent person.  Right there is a good reason to be anti-death penalty.

And right now there are other innocent people who have been punished by the deaths of eight – their family members and close friends many of whom will live with grief and sadness for the rest of their lives.  In a way Indonesia shot them too.

I am angry at the injustice and hypocrisy demonstrated by the Indonesian authorities, but I will channel by anger into energy to continue to advocate against the death penalty, to help those in prison to reform and reform others, to help people out of poverty that often leads them into crime in the first place, and to give pastoral care to those who are affected by drugs.  I will continue to lead our church community at Bayside Church to show justice, mercy and love to a world so desperate for the genuine love of Jesus.

If you’d like to read more of this subject click on this link: https://baysidechurch.com.au/why-the-death-penalty-is-wrong/

The Victorian State election is coming up on Saturday 29 November.  That gives us a month-long political campaign during which we will hear of many promises from all parties that will seek to buy our vote – all with money that we don’t have.  So, particularly as a Christian, what should I consider on polling day?

I’ve heard some well-intentioned (but misguided) Christians say that they don’t vote because they believe in leaving the choosing of a government up to God Himself.  It sounds spiritual but doesn’t take into account that God isn’t registered with the Australian Electoral Commission, and neither is Australia a Theocracy!

Listening to others you would think that God – and Christianity – is always on the side of conservative politics.  But sometimes the “Right” gets it wrong.  That doesn’t mean that Jesus would necessarily be a labor voter either – nor would He always condone voting for a Christian politician. Some politicians who’ve identified as Christian have brought embarrassment on the church and the Name of Jesus by ostracizing the broader community that God loves and Jesus gave His life for.

So, for whom should we vote on November 29?  Let me provide four guidelines for you to consider:

  1. Remember that you’re ultimately voting for your LOCAL member not the person who will become Premier.  Why not contact your local member(s) and ask them two or three questions on issues that concern you? Then vote according to your conscience.  (Mentone Baptist Church is hosting a “Meet the Candidates” evening from 7.30 on Monday 10th November).2
  2. Resist the temptation to criticize your leaders.  That doesn’t mean that we can’t disagree or engage in vigorous debate, but it does mean that we choose not to turn the debate into a personal attack.  Politicians are human beings, they are people, and they are fallible. Most of them are very good people who have a desire to make this state a better place.  The Bible instructs us to respect, pray for and challenge our leaders (see Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17; Exodus 22:28; 1 Timothy 2:1-4).  When the apostle Peter told his readers to “honour the king” he was speaking of Nero.  He didn’t say they had to agree with him or even like him but they were to honour the position he held.  Let’s resist the temptation to engage in the popular Aussie pastime of pollie-bashing.
  3. Realize that Jesus came to initiate the kingdom of God. He came for much bigger purposes than Australian politics, but that doesn’t mean He is disinterested in our country. He loves Australia; He loves people, He loves His creation. The entire Bible echoes God’s love and concern for people. In Micah 6:8, the prophet reminds us of three things that God wants to see reflected in every life and thus in every nation: “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”  Social justice, mercy and humility feature highly in the will of God for humanity.  Jesus’ Golden Rule is also an important consideration, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12).  So our voting should not just be about selfish concerns of personal comfort.  Our vote should support those who will reflect love and care towards the poor, the homeless, the marginalised and the oppressed.  If we were in their place how would we want others to treat us?  Who do you think has the best credentials and policies for managing the economy, developing education & health services, and caring for the environment, the disabled, single parents, the homeless and so on?  I understand that it’s hard to actually work out who will uphold these values the best but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least try.
  4. Access and complete the ABC’s Vote Compass at http://www.abc.net.au/news/vic-election-2014/vote-compass/

Vote Compass is an educational tool developed by political scientists. By answering a short series of questions you can discover how you fit in Victoria’s political landscape.  It will tell you which party is right for what is important to you.

I encourage you to prayerfully and intelligently consider your vote on November 29, and appreciate the fact that you live in a country where you get to vote. Make your vote count and show up on polling day.

I’ve taken the title for this blog from an article in this week’s BRW magazine. It’s a refreshing and inspiring article about some asylum seekers who arrived on our shores by boat and have become major contributors to Australian society. It’s an important article because so often “boat people” are typecast in a particular, mostly negative way.

The BRW article tells the story of people like Huy Truong who arrived in Australia on a boat carrying 40 other Vietnamese people in 1978. He was just seven at the time. Twenty-one years later he founded the gifting site wishlist.com.au with his wife Cathy and two sisters. They sold it last year to Qantas and he is now a private equity investor.

Tan Le also came by boat with her mother, three-year-old sister and 70-year-old grandmother. Le was just four years old. Speaking of the dangerous boat trip to Australia she says, “If you think there is any other chance of surviving in a reasonable, meaningful way, you wouldn’t choose such a difficult path and venture into the unknown.” People escaping the prospect of imprisonment, persecution, torture or death because of war, their faith or their race will take drastic action to secure safety for themselves and their families. I would, wouldn’t you? In 1998 Le was named “Young Australian of the year” and is now co-founder of Emotiv, a producer of headsets that read brain signals and facial movements to control technology.

Nathan Werdiger was a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. He arrived in Australia in 1949 as a humanitarian migrant and subsequently founded the Juilliard Corporation, one of the biggest landlords in the Melbourne CBD.

In 1947 Frank Lowy (Westfield founder and Australia’s second-richest person) was a 15-year-old refugee from war-devastated Slovakia. In a speech last year he described himself as a “boat person,” one of 700 who escaped Europe in a rickety tub designed for 70. He arrived at Sydney airport on Australia Day 1952. He was 21.

Each of these people expresses concern over Australia’s over-politicizing, and current harsh treatment, of asylum seekers. Many of Australia’s boat people, past and present, come from places where there is no formal queue to join. One of the solutions to this is for Australia to establish processing facilities in South East Asia where the Immigration Department could assess people’s claims and then re-settle genuine asylum seekers in Australia or other nations. This has the potential to stop the people smugglers who are currently profiting hugely from the illegal traffic of people and are responsible for the drowning deaths of many.

This would also end the current detention of people on Islands like Manus and Nauru, as well as the harsh policy of releasing asylum seekers into the Australian community without giving them the right to study or work. This policy does nothing to support our economy (in fact it is imposing long-term costs on Australia) and only causes further damage to those who are already traumatised.

Huy Truong says, “There’s no better way of humanitarian relief than to give people the opportunity to earn their own keep and feel proud about being a contributor to their society.”

Frank Lowy adds, “To imagine a better life for you and your family and to make the leap of faith required to leave behind all that is familiar calls for a special kind of courage.” Australia has greatly benefited from the courage of these four people (and many others like them). What if they had been intercepted in Australian waters and sent to Manus Island? They would have missed out and so would we!

For further reading check out:

How refugees changed Australian business

Boat People: A Christian Response

As I write this blog on Wednesday 31st October 2012, Hurricane Sandy (dubbed “Frankenstorm”) has smashed into the American northeast, leaving 16 dead, millions without power and parts of Manhattan underwater.  Conditions remain dangerous as this one-of-a-kind storm moves inland bringing blizzard conditions and massive amounts of snow.

While Sandy is still blowing cold air, predictably we have a “Christian” preacher blowing hot.  Author and chaplain John McTernan has said God’s judgment of gays caused the hurricane.  On this website http://defendproclaimthefaith.org the preacher says the storm must be God’s judgment on gays, and punishing the president Barack Obama for coming out in support of marriage equality.  He also believes “America has been under God’s judgment ever since George Bush Senior signed the Madrid Peace Process to divide the land of Israel in 1991.”  McTernan said: “Obama is 100% behind the Muslim Brotherhood that has vowed to destroy Israel and take Jerusalem.  ‘Both candidates (Obama & Romney) are pro-homosexual and are behind the homosexual agenda.’”

His reasoning for this is that it has been 21 years since the “perfect storm” of October 1991.  He says, “21 years breaks down to 7 x 3, which is a significant number with God. Three is perfection as the Godhead is three in one while seven is perfection.”  The online preacher also blamed Hurricane Isaac on homosexuals.  He said gay festival Southern Decadence was to blame, as God was “putting an end to this city and its wickedness.”

It saddens me greatly that every time there is a natural disaster somewhere in the world there’s always at least one self-proclaimed Christian minister who will get up (after the event) and pinpoint the reason for it – and it’s always God’s judgment and it’s usually because of gay people.

I disagree with these judgment preachers for three main reasons:

Firstly, New Testament prophecy isn’t about proclaiming the reason for a disaster after the fact.  In Acts 11:27-30 a prophet by the name of Agabus “predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius).”  Armed with this knowledge the Christians gave financial gifts in order to help those who were affected by this famine.  Please note that there is no inference in this prophecy that this event was God’s judgment on anyone.  In His love, God gave a warning so that His people could be ready to help NOT judge.

Secondly, the Bible teaches that God always removes His people BEFORE He judges the ungodly.  Lot and his family were taken out of Sodom before the judgment fell, Noah and his family was safely in the ark before the flood.  Abraham got it right when he said to God, “Far be it from you to do such a thing – to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike.  Far be it from you!  Will not the judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25).  I know many Christians who have been affected by Hurricane Sandy.  It is not the judgment of God.

Thirdly, right now is the time of God’s favor not vengeance or judgment (see Luke 4:19; Isaiah 61:2).  There will be a time of judgment in the future, but right now is the time of grace and a message of good news of Salvation to EVERYONE.   People like John McTernan seem to miss this truth, and their unbiblical proclamations end up turning people away from God rather than to Him.  That saddens me greatly.  How about you?

The first boat arrived in Darwin in April 1976.  Over the next five years there were 2059 Vietnamese boat arrivals with the last arriving in August 1981.  The arrival of 27 Indochinese asylum seekers in November 1989 heralded the beginning of the second wave.  Over the following nine years, boats arrived at the rate of about 300 people per annum—mostly from Cambodia, Vietnam and southern China.  In 1999, a third wave of asylum seekers, predominantly from Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, began to arrive—often in larger numbers than previous arrivals and usually with the assistance of ‘people smugglers’.

It is my opinion that the Australian public – largely due to media bias – are largely uninformed about this issue and are unnecessarily reactive as a result.

Firstly, it’s important to understand that, compared to the rest of the world, Australia’s boat people “problem” is relatively small.  In the US, for example, it is estimated that more than 500,000 illegal aliens arrive each year.  Similarly, parts of Europe struggle to monitor and control the large annual influx from Africa and the Middle East.  In comparison in 2010, 134 boats arrived unauthorised in Australia with a total of 6,879 people on board (including crew).  Though considerably more than the seven boat arrivals in 2008 with 179 people on board, in comparison with Europe and the US this is still a small number.  In the year 2000, when approximately 3,000 boat people arrived in Australia, Iran and Pakistan each accepted over one million Afghan refugees.  In fact, the burden of assisting the world’s asylum seekers mostly falls to some of the poorest countries.  In 2009, for example, Pakistan was host to the largest number of refugees worldwide (1.75 million), followed by Iran (1.07 million) and Syria (1.05 million).  These figures should help us gain a healthy perspective of the small nature of Australia’s asylum seeker “problem”.  The truth is that there are far more important issues that our politicians and media should be responding too and spending money on – such as health care, infrastructure, taxation reform and care of our aging population.

Secondly, the majority of asylum seekers actually arrive in Australia by air with a valid visa and then apply for protection sometime after their arrival.  In the last year illegal boat arrivals made up 47% of asylum seekers – an increase of 16% on the previous year, but still less than half.  In spite of this, political and media attention only focuses on those arriving by boat.

A Christian response to refugees and asylum seekers should be twofold.  Our first response should be inline with the Golden Rule: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12).  In this statement Jesus is teaching His people to put themselves in the shoes of others – to be compassionate and proactive.  Have you ever tried to put yourself in the place of a refugee?  What must it be like to feel that you cannot stay in your own home, in your city, in your country because staying will mean violence, starvation, persecution, or death?  What level of desperation drives a person or a family to leave the home they love and pay big money to get on a dodgy boat in order to get to Australia?  How would you like to be treated by others if you found yourself in this situation?  Australia demonstrates its compassion by allocating 13,000 places annually to asylum seekers.

But compassion doesn’t mean we have to be a soft option.  Jesus also taught people to “be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16).  We do have a duty of care to refugees – but we have an even greater duty of care to those who already call Australia home.  I have no doubt that the majority of those seeking asylum in Australia are genuine refugees, but I also don’t doubt that there are some who will not be a blessing to this nation.  Asylum seekers need to be carefully processed as to their health, safety and identity (not an easy job when many deliberately destroy their passports).  Only after careful processing has taken place should genuine refugees be granted asylum in Australia.  Those who riot, burn detention facilities, and demonstrate other anti-social behaviour should be deported without question.  We do not want to import people who behave in this manner when they don’t get their own way.  Asylum seekers also need to be educated on our culture and values so they can easily assimilate here.

The other area that requires shrewdness is in our dealings with the people smugglers themselves.  These people are greedy at the expense of the most vulnerable.  They care little for refugees; they care greatly for getting rich.  The penalties for people smuggling were increased last year but these increases don’t seem to be a deterrent so far.  People smugglers are bringing refugees to Australia at an increasing rate and somewhere between 200-300 of these refugees have lost their lives at sea.  More needs to be done – in cooperation with nations like Malaysia and Indonesia – to cut this crime off at the source.

This is a complex issue and one that is not going to be solved quickly or easily.  In fact with an increase in global conflict even more people will be forced to seek asylum in safer places like Australia.  We have a responsibility to help these troubled people; we also have a responsibility to make sure Australia continues to be a safe place for its citizens!