‘Same-sex couple have marriage blessed in Albury Anglican church after two-year battle’

“It’s just before nine o’clock on Sunday morning and the bells are ringing out loudly at St Matthew’s church in Albury.

It’s already 25 degrees Celsius and the sun is beating hot and bright onto a small knot of people milling around outside. Among them are two men with matching cream linen jackets and nervous smiles. …

The two men have driven 10 hours from their hometown in the north of New South Wales after their own parish would not recognise their relationship. …

Albury priest Peter MacLeod-Miller, a long-time advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community, tells Sunday’s congregation that ‘we are celebrating a better, kinder world, and also a real change’.

He reads a letter from Bishop Clarence Bester, head of the Wangaratta diocese of which St Matthew’s is a part and which adopted a resolution to offer blessings for same-sex marriages in August 2019.”

– Report from the ABC. Base map: Anglican Church of Australia.

Earlier:

Sydney Diocese Response to actions in the Diocese of Wangaratta – December 10 2020.

“It would be naïve to think that mutually contradictory views on same-sex marriage can co-exist within our national Church. Pronouncing God’s blessing on a same-sex marriage is contrary to the teaching of Christ. It is therefore untenable to have some members of the Church purporting to declare God’s blessing in such circumstances. To pursue this course will not bring healing but will only lead to a collapse in the fellowship that binds us together.”

Preserving preaching Christ – with Michael Stead

From The Pastor’s Heart:

“The whole concept of a tolerant society is being spun around.

Sydney Anglican Bishop Michael Stead says there are moves afoot to block Christians from being able to say that ‘Christ is the only way to heaven.’

It’s also being claimed by Equality Australia that to say ‘marriage is between a man and woman’ is an offensive statement.

Bishop Stead says he wants to protect moderately expressed statements of religious belief. …”

– This is a very big issue. Watch or listen here.

Submission to Parliamentary committee on the Religious Discrimination Bill

From Neil Foster at Law and Religion Australia:

“The submission of Freedom for Faith to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into the Religious Discrimination Bill is now available for download here. I prepared the submission with input from other board members.

Submissions to this committee can be made at their website here, but only until 5 pm Tuesday 21 December.

There is also a short survey that the Committee have released which it would be good for anyone concerned with religious freedom in Australia to fill in before that same deadline.”

Image: Diocese of Sydney. (Emphasis added.)

Five misleading Untruths about the Federal Religious Discrimination Bill

“Would a Federal Religious Discrimination Bill (RDB) allow a nurse to say to a patient with HIV that AIDS is a punishment from God?

Would the RDB allow a disability worker to say to a disabled girl that her disability is caused by the devil?

Would it allow a doctor to refuse treatment to a gay patient just because he’s gay?

These are some of the claims being made about the Religious Discrimination Bill that’s before Federal Parliament. …”

– At The Gospel Coalition Australia Akos Balogh takes a look at some of the claims which have been made about the Religious Discrimination Bill.

See also:

Your voice needed on Religious Discrimination Bill – SydneyAnglicans.net.
Parliamentary survey open to all until Tuesday December 21.

UK Pastors write letter to the Government explaining they will choose God

“Victoria is not the only jurisdiction in the world to introduce laws prohibiting conversion practices. While Victoria’s The Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act remains the most extreme, both in the breadth of what is banned and in the criminal sanctions that are threatened, other Australian State and several countries have or are in the process of banning elements of Christian practice and belief.

The United Kingdom is introducing legislation to ban so-called conversion practices. More than 2500 pastors have signed a letter to the Government, explaining their position…”

– Murray Campbell in Melbourne draws attention to an important Christian response to proposed bans on “Conversion Therapy” in the UK.

(The website was over bandwidth last we checked, but an archived version is available here.)

Your voice needed on Religious Discrimination Bill

“Supporters of protection for religious freedom are being urged to take part in a survey by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, as the Parliament considers the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021. …”

– Here’s post from SydneyAnglicans.net on an important matter.

The survey referred to closes at 5:00pm on Tuesday 21st December.

The post also includes the questions from the survey.

Private prayers in Victoria a legal ‘grey area’

“I’ve written about The Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act numerous times given the extraordinary nature of this Government intrusion into the lives of religious Victorians.  In this post, I want to inform people of one further way these laws will encroach on religious and civil freedoms and commonsense.

The laws will come into effect in February 2022. Churches are supportive of some measures contained in these laws, but the Act goes well beyond what is reasonable or right. …

Private prayers are considered a ‘grey area’ by the VEOHRC (Victoria Equal Opportunity Human Rights Commission). If that doesn’t make your eyes pop out of your head and roll down the hallway, what will?”

– Murray Campbell in Melbourne issues further warnings about Victoria’s new “anti-conversion” law.

Anglican Church of Canada trial liturgy for ‘Journeys of Gender Affirmation and Transition’

“The Anglican Church of Canada has developed a trial liturgy for ‘Journeys of Gender Affirmation and Transition’, to be used to bless the ‘gender transition process’. …”

– The Anglican Samizdat draws attention – and provides a copy of the trial liturgy.

Expelling students from religious schools based on sexual orientation?

“Current press reports suggest that the Federal Government is contemplating a change to the provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 which allow religious schools to operate in accordance with their religious commitments, in the area of decisions about students.

This is being proposed to allay fears that the recently introduced Religious Discrimination Bill will impact on LGBT students. …”

– At Law and Religion Australia, Neil Foster has a helpful suggestion.

Voluntary assisted dying bill passes lower house of NSW Parliament

“The voluntary assisted dying bill successfully passed the lower house of parliament, with 52 MPs in favour and 32 against.

Both Premier Dominic Perrottet and Opposition Leader Chris Minns were in the chamber to vote against it. …”

– Report from ABC News.

Australian “conversion therapy” laws and religious freedom

From Neil Foster at Law and Religion Australia:

I recently presented a paper to a legal seminar which summarised the effect of three Australian laws on “conversion therapy” and their impact on religious freedom. The paper can be downloaded here: “Religious Freedom, Australian ‘Conversion Practices’ Laws & the Enforceability of Court Orders“.

Image: Diocese of Sydney.

The Green Captivity of the Church

“Even as I pressed the send button I knew it was a risky moment. And so it proved to be.

As soon as the article was published on a Christian website, there were cries of ‘heretic’, ‘he should lose his job’, ‘how unloving and unChristlike’, ‘cancel him’!?

What was the crime? What heresy was I expounding?

I had dared to suggest that perhaps the Climate Change debate was not over, and there were lots of questions that still had to be answered, and that we should approach the subject with a great deal more humility. …”

– At The Wee Flea David Robertson has republished a piece he wrote for AP (Australian Presbyterian magazine).

See also this article to which he links:

The Church must preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, not climate change – William Philip, The Tron Church, Glasgow.

Biden Administration seeks to strip right from Christian Colleges to operate according to Historic, Christian Beliefs on Gender

In his The Briefing for 18 November 2021, Albert Mohler warns about “a moral revolution of unprecedented nature”.

Listen here. He covers the topic in the first 9 minutes and 40 seconds.

“Forcing Religious Institutions to become coercive extensions of State power”

“…The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has filed suit against the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate. The case is now formally known as The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary vs. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The suit has been filed before the Sixth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. Now, we entered that suit along with the sister institutions to take a stand for religious liberty. Because that vaccine mandate, handed down by the administration, would effectively turn religious institutions into coercive arms of the administrative state.”

– In his The Briefing for 10th November 2021, Albert Mohler reveals that The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is going to court over vaccine mandates in the US.

See also:

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary v. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

From Meat to Meta: Facebook’s Disincarnate Dreamworld

“I knew that I found something about Zuckerberg’s invitation to the metaverse profoundly disturbing, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was about Facebook’s new incarnation that made me so uneasy. Then I realized: the problem is that it is not an incarnation at all. …

Zuckerberg’s utopia is one without bodies, without the material, without weight. It is Exhibit A in what Charles Taylor calls the modern prejudice for ‘excarnation,’ the idea propounded by Descartes and others that we need to distance ourselves from embodiment in order to arrive at a clear understanding of things.…”

– The Gospel Coalition Australia has published this thoughtful piece by Chris Watkin reflecting on last week’s announment from Mark Zuckerberg.

(Image: Practical Wireless, July 1974.)

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