Victoria: Churches locked out of Andrews pathway from lockdown
Here’s a media release from The Australian Christian Lobby:
Churches locked out of Andrews pathway from lockdown
19 October 2020
Victorians are relieved to see lockdown restrictions easing, but whilst retail and hospitality sectors can open from 2 November, churches and other faith communities remain in the dark about their future.
“From midnight 1 November, metropolitan hospitality venues can host 20 people indoors and regional venues 40,” ACL spokesperson Jasmine Yuen observed, “Yet church communities can not hold an indoor gathering.”
“In today’s daily press conference Premier Andrews justified the disparity by saying hospitality venues were heavily regulated. Allowing up to 40 strangers in a pub but zero members of a church community inside their own building is nonsensical and unjustifiable.
“The longer this trampling of freedom of worship goes on without making the specific epidemiological justifications public, the more it highlights how desperately religious freedom reform is needed.
“The sentiment of faith groups is clear, from a joint petition of 10,000 people of Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Presbyterian, Muslim and Hindu faiths, to 300 pastors and leaders who wrote to the Premier, all urging him to allow them to open. Faith groups provide an essential service for community health and mental wellbeing.
“Indoor church services with COVID-Safe Plans and contact tracing are safer than gatherings in public places. Churches have cooperated with the government for a long time to comply with the various protocols on food, hygiene, child safety, fire safety & emergency management et cetera. There is no reason why they can’t open in a COVID-Safe way just like restaurants and pubs.
“COVID-Safe church opening now is vitally important, particularly when people have been so lonely and isolated.
– ENDS.
Related:
295 church leaders urge Premier to open churches – 08 October 2020.
Conversion Therapy laws and religious freedom
“Australia has seen two recent initiatives by local Parliaments aimed at what are often called ‘conversion therapy’ practices.
No-one supports coercive electro-shock or other oppressive practices imposed on someone without their consent, to change their sexual preferences or identity. But the problem with the recent legislative proposals is that the laws do not target these practices alone (as to which it is hard to find any evidence of them occurring in Australia in recent years), but seem to reach further and to prevent religious groups sharing the teaching of their faith. …”
– At Law and Religion Australia, Neil Foster looks at some of the implications of the recently-passed Queensland and ACT legislation.
Concerns expressed over western Sydney council’s constraints on places of worship
Last week, the Member of Granville, Ms Julia Finn, delivered a Private Members’ Statement in NSW State Parliament concerning the Local Environmental Plan adopted by Cumberland Council last month.
Her 5 minute statement can be viewed here.
Gafcon Australasian conference 2021
From Gafcon Australia:
“The Board of Gafcon Australia, along with Anglicans from both the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia (ACANZP) and the Church of Confessing Anglicans Aotearoa New Zealand (CCAANZ), are pleased to announce a joint conference in July 2021.
While we can only dream of gathering together and travelling to other places now, we would like you to mark in your diary Mon 19th to Thu 22nd July, 2021, for this conference.”
Dr Ashley Null will be the keynote speaker.
– Pre-register your interest here.
Despondent Tasmanians need hope, not darkness
Here’s a media release from The Australian Christian Lobby:
“The Australian Christian Lobby encourages hope and purpose, even in the final chapter of people’s lives so that despondent Tasmanians would not choose to prematurely end their own lives.
‘The bill proposed by Mike Gaffney MLC is very concerning, as it goes much further than the current models legalised in Victoria and Western Australia. In those states, a person must be terminally ill and have only 6-12 months to live. Mr Gaffney’s bill expands the barriers beyond that, removing the terminal illness requirement. People who have an irreversible medical condition could access euthanasia,’ observed ACL Tasmania director, Christopher Brohier.
‘There is also no requirement for a psychiatric assessment. Lethal drugs could be administered to someone who is depressed or suffering anxiety,’ Mr Brohier added, ‘Under the bill, consultation on euthanasia could be by video link, a process with no rigour. Fortunately, telecommunications services cannot be used to promote suicide – though advocates are also looking to overturn that law as well.’
‘Then we have the horrifying spectre on the horizon if Mr Gaffney’s bill becomes law. He proposes, within 2 years of euthanasia being given to adults, that it be extended to children.‘
‘Do Tasmanians want more suicides or less?‘ Mr Brohier asked, ‘When you consider the tragedy of suicide and the many efforts being made to prevent it, the answer must be less. We reject calls to legalise assisted suicide in Tasmania.‘ ”
– Source.
Related:
Euthanasia: an unfolding national tragedy – Australian Christian Lobby.
Progression or Regression? – David Cook (on what’s happening in Victoria)
Progression or Regression?
David Cook writes:
On 1st December 2018, election night in Victoria, the victorious Premier, Daniel Andrews stated that ‘Victoria is the most progressive state in the nation.’
Having spent the month of February, 2020 in Victoria, progression is not the adjective l would have used.
How’s this for a ‘progressive list’:
- Abortions on request up to 24 weeks and on the agreement of two doctors, abortion allowed up to full term. A baby may be abandoned, legally, simply to die in the clinic.
- At the other end of the age spectrum, voluntary euthanasia, legal since July, 2019.
- Withdrawal of funding for Christian Hospital Chaplaincy service.
- Special Religious Instruction only available within strict curriculum guidelines and out of school hours, so not to disturb the secular nature of education.
- The Safe Schools curriculum in State Schools, promoting gender fluidity, and yet Victoria has the lowest rate of public school patronage of any state in Australia.
- Christian correspondence material available in every Australian and South Pacific nation prison, but banned from prisons in the State of Victoria.
- Proposed legislation which will make it illegal to promote gay or transgender conversion therapy.
All this in a State with some of our nation’s finest cultural icons, The MCG, The Rod Laver and Margaret Court Arenas, the finest collection of Australian art in the nation, more theatres per head of population than any other Australian city.
I am preaching in a Church in the central business district of Melbourne where my closest Protestant neighbouring Churches both unashamedly endorse the same sex marriage agenda of the state.
And the Premier, Daniel Andrews, who presides over all this, is a practicing Roman Catholic, one wonders when a Priest or Bishop will have the courage to place him under Christian discipline.
In Romans 1 the apostle Paul makes it clear that ‘the wrath of God is revealed from heaven’, he does not say it will be revealed in the future but it is being revealed now. (Rom 1: 18)
Why? Because humankind has exchanged the glory of God for idolatrous images, (Rom 1: 25) and worships and serves the creature rather than the Creator. (Rom 1: 25)
Idolatry is the lie (Rom 1:25) and God’s wrath is evidenced in that he gives mankind up to the fruit of that exchange.
Paul says, God gave them over
(Rom 1: 24) to uncleanness
(Rom 1: 26) to scrambled sexual expression
(Rom 1: 28) to debased mind
The mind, the attitudes, the worldview of humanity is thus under the judgement of God, the mind is counterfeit and incapable of making proper moral judgements. (Rom 1: 28-32)
Such a mind calls regression, progression!
The only hope is the new life, the new heart, which comes through the Christian gospel by the gift of God.
The moral man, Nicodemus, in John 3 must be converted to see or enter God’s Kingdom and the same opportunity and need is offered to the immoral woman who is offered living water by Jesus in John 4.
Paul makes it clear that due to the mercies of God we are given new minds, from which the judgement of God has been lifted and by the renewing of these minds we are being transformed.
We are people of a new mind, minds which are able to ‘discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect’. (Rom 12: 2)
Pray that Daniel Andrews will experience God’s mercy.
In one of the mid-week services here l preached on John 3, ‘Jesus and Nicodemus’ under the heading, ‘Why Daniel Andrews is wrong’.
Thankfully l am still free to preach in the Commonwealth of Australia if not, it is a quick car trip of 3 hours back to the border, to good old regressive NSW!!
– Rev David Cook 18.02.2020
(David Cook has served as Principal of SMBC and also as Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia as well as in parish ministry. Inset photo courtesy St. Helen’s Bishopsgate.)
Submission on Second Draft of Religious Discrimination Bill
Associate Professor Neil Foster writes about the Second Draft of the Religious Discrimination Bill –
“In short, I think this legisation is an important step in improving protection of religious freedom in Australia, and the second draft is an improvement on the first. But I recommend some clarification or change of approach in the following areas:
- Defining Religious Belief – I recommend that the way that the courts should determine whether a claim to religious belief is justified should focus on sincerity rather than courts examining “reasonableness” ; I also think that the bar of “unlawfulness” determining what beliefs cannot be protected at all needs to be raised to mainly cover serious criminal offences;
- Who is protected by the Bill? – I suggest that the Bill ought to protect religious groups as well as individuals; in this context I think that the limits on protection based on the concept of “commercial activity” need to be removed, though I agree that the kind of organisations protected need to be limited in other ways;
- Who is bound by the Bill? – I agree that, as at present, both individuals and groups should be bound not to religiously discriminate; but I think the exemption given to government bodies from the provisions relating to religious free speech outside working hours should be rolled back;
- The limits of protection – I argue that cases where religious freedom can be over-ridden should be limited to those where it is “necessary” in protection of important fundamental rights, as spelled out in the ICCPR art 18(3);
- Protecting religious free speech – I argue that the good initiative protecting statements of religious belief in clause 42 should also be extended to “vilification” claims, so long as they do not contravene the limits set out in the clause itself and defined by the Commonwealth;
- Conscientious objection by health practitioners – I argue that the complicated provisions protecting conscientious objection to certain procedures by health practitioners need to be improved;
- The Religious Freedom Commissioner – I support this new position but argue that the person concerned should be clearly shown to understand the issues facing religious citizens;
- A note on charities – I support the current provision ensuring that advocacy of traditional views on the nature of marriage not disqualify a body from being recognised as a charity, and suggest a further change to make this even clearer.”
Giving thanks for Richard Johnson
This Australia Day long weekend, pause to give thanks to the Lord for the Rev. Richard Johnson, Chaplain to the First Fleet and first Chaplain to the Colony of New South Wales.
232 years ago this weekend, the First Fleet arrived at Farm Cove. 232 years ago next weekend, Johnson preached at the first church service at Farm Cove.
Read about Richard Johnson and pray that the Lord will call many into the service of Christ’s gospel in our land.
An Aboriginal Pastor’s message for Australia Day
“There’s a heartache still in this land,” says Pastor Michael Duckett of the Macarthur Indigenous Church as he shares a message for Australia Day, calling on non-indigenous Australians to remember the mixed feelings in the Aboriginal community about the day.
Speaking in a video titled The Ministry of Reconciliation, Australia Day 2020, Pastor Duckett gives a greeting in the indigenous Gumbayggirr language of the North Coast of New South Wales.
He said he hopes people will enjoy Australia Day but be sensitive to Aboriginal People…
– Read the full story, and watch the video, at SydneyAnglicans.net.
You could download the video to show in church on Sunday, Australia Day.
Thank-you Fireys as Sydney prays
“Sustained applause greeted Rural Fire Service Senior Assistant Commissioner Bruce MacDonald as he was introduced at a Prayer service at Sydney’s St Andrew’s Cathedral on Sunday 19th January for those affected by the bushfires. …”
– Russell Powell has the story of Sunday’s service at the Cathedral for everyone affected by the bushfires. At SydneyAnglicans.net.
Anglican Aid NSW Bushfire Appeal
“The Archbishop of Sydney’s Anglican Aid has launched an appeal to allow immediate response to the devastating bushfires raging in NSW.”
Image: worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/
Pastoral letter from Bishop Mark Short to the Anglican Parish of Cobargo
Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, Mark Short, has sent this pastoral letter to the Anglican Parish of Cobargo. In this fire season across Australia, each loss is locally felt, and this is one.
January 1 at 12:27 PM ·
Dear sisters and brothers of the Parish of Cobargo,
I write as your Bishop at a time of shared loss and grief.
You have lost treasured buildings, valued homes and beloved friends and neighbours. Many of you have faced overwhelming situations and have worked selflessly to care for others .
The Bible assures us that God is close to the broken-hearted and it is right and healthy to grieve. The Bible also assures us that in Jesus Christ God is able to bring restoration and hope. This journey of hope will take time, and it is a journey we will make together. Be assured of the prayers of the rest of the Diocese and our readiness to work with you as, with God’s help, we renew and rebuild.
Almighty God,
In your wisdom you have so ordered our earthly life
that we must walk by faith and not by sight:
give us such trust in your fatherly care
that in the face of all perplexities
we may give proof our faith by the courage of our lives;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. APBA, p465
In the love of Jesus,
+Mark Short
The Bishop’s pastoral letter includes the prayer, written by the Dean of St Andrew’s Cathedral, The Very Reverend Kanishka Raffel, to be read on Sunday:
“Lord of all days and years, and time and eternity, You made this land and have blessed us with its riches and beauty.
You are a refuge to all who seek your shelter, our strong defence in trial and tribulation.
Send rain we pray to extinguish flames and heal our land.
Mercifully protect life and property.
Give help and hope to our neighbours assailed by fire.
Comfort and provide for those who grieve.
Uphold those who suffer loss,
Give peace and hope to those bewildered and broken-hearted.
We thank you for men and women of courage and selflessness.
We thank you for brave communities of care and support, We thank you for those who share your comfort and hope, We thank you for those at a distance giving and praying.
Lord, you sent your Son so that we would know your power to save, your presence with your people in this world of turmoil, and your promise to renew the whole creation. Turn our hearts to you, that we may have faith for this day and hope for eternity.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
“St Saviour’s Church Quaama in the Parish of Cobargo. Locals tell me that the bell-tower always appeared to be the most rickety part of the structure. Yet it still stands [top photo]; a reminder that in the most challenging circumstances our call to summons people to find comfort and hope in the Lord Jesus Christ endures. Thank you for your prayers as the communities of the Diocese face a difficult weekend.”
(With thanks to Ramon Williams for forwarding this letter and images.)
A Prayer for protection amid bushfire emergency
“Archbishop Glenn Davies has appealed for Christians to be in fervent prayer as New South Wales enters a State of Emergency because of bushfires raging around the state.
As the state of emergency was declared, at least 17 people had died in Australia and more than 1,400 homes have been destroyed in bushfires since October. Three bushfire fighters have lost their lives in New South Wales.
Archbishop Davies wrote to churches noting that many, especially in the Wollongong Region have been arranging special prayer meetings as well as practical offers of support to those affected.
“Our January Sunday services will give us all an opportunity for bringing our prayers to God for his mercy to flow, and indeed for rain to fall.” Dr Davies said.
The Archbishop issued a special prayer, which asks for protection for the firefighters…“
– The full prayer is available at SydneyAnglicans.net.
Related: At the time of writing, the CMS Summer School at Katoomba is still going ahead.
Church leaders use Christmas message to spread hope for the new year
“Millions of Australians have today celebrated the spirit of Christmas with family and friends.”
– Report and Image from Seven News Sydney (on Facebook).
Second draft of Religious Discrimination Package released
“The Commonwealth Government has released a second version of its draft legislation dealing with religious discrimination issues, for further comment before it is formally introduced into the Federal Parliament in the New Year. There are a number of important changes from the previous drafts which in my view make it a much better package of amendments. But there are areas for improvement…”
– At Law and Religion Australia, Associate Professor Neil Foster, shares his response to the updated draft legislation.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…