Ringing Bells for Children on Nauru

There's some good thoughts in this opinion peace by Richard Glover: Richard Glover Broadcaster and Sydney Morning Herald columnist February 14, 2020 — 4.00pm The rains have come but let's hope they don't wash away the memories of this terrible summer. They haven't for the animals – not yet. Up at our bush block, the kangaroos crowd around the few remaining structures. They are thin and bedraggled by rain. The little ones, in particular, don't run away. There's nowhere else to go, just an endless carpet of black ash, stretching for many kilometres in all directions. One tiny fellow looks up into my camera as if to say, "What am I meant to do now?" The Green Wattle Creek fire tore through this country, reducing over a quarter of a million hectares of startlingly beautiful bush to a blackened wasteland. The only remaining feed lies in the few metres around each building. In saving each shed or house, the RFS also saved a narrow apron of drought-weary grass. It's this the kangaroos are relying on, and why they're clustered close around each isolated building in a way I've never seen before. They work away at what's left of the chewed-down grass. Sometimes there's a lump of sweet potato left out by the locals. Our back deck is heavy with kangaroo scats, the result, I'm guessing, of the night they sheltered close to the house as the fire pushed in from all sides. Below that deck, there's now a wombat in residence – not the best news for the foundations, but, as part of the species who helped cause all this, who am I to question his choice of evacuation centre? Straight after the fires, the gum leaves turned white. They looked – and sounded – like paper. When the wind came through, they shook like a Japanese paper wind-chime; it was the eeriest sound you can imagine. Now, five weeks since the fire raged through, the leaves have turned russet. A puff of wind sends them falling to the ground. Australia's trees are not deciduous, right? They are now. It feels like mid-fall in North America. In a few weeks' time, it really will be autumn, but a strange autumn that will masquerade as spring. After so much rain – about 100 millimetres in a few days – we'll have a surge of growth. It's rain, not flame, that kindles what Dylan Thomas called "the green fuse". Already, deep in the forest, a handful of trees are sprouting green, tiny leaves clustered on the trunk, luminous against the matt black of burnt bark. The trunks ooze a white foam which, in the heavy rain, is driven into the streams that run hard along the dirt track outside our place. It looks like someone has spilt a bottle of detergent, but the white foam, I'm later told, is a chemical compound, rich in saponins. An optimistic narrative will be hard to resist once the green shoots return. When rain comes after drought, the eucalypts shed the chemical to help the rain penetrate the dry soil around their base. Isn't nature wonderful? Yes, but here lies our peril. Can we indulge our wonder while not discounting our worry? Can we repeat our customary phrase – "the bush will recover, the people will rebuild" – while also remembering the rage, panic, terror and pain of this terrible summer? We can comfort ourselves by endlessly quoting – as our politicians love to do – the words of Dorothea Mackellar: "I love a sunburnt country … of droughts and flooding rains." Or we can read Henry Lawson's poem about the Paroo, a river which, in drought, grows so insignificant that Lawson's hapless travellers step over it, oblivious, but which then floods back into health. (Early this week: 2.29 metres and rising). Or we can chuckle over John O'Brien's Said Hanrahan , written in 1919, with a farmer's complaints about drought, replaced with his complaints about flood, with the same mournful mantra: " 'We'll all be rooned', said Hanrahan." The fires, nearly all of them, are now out. The rains have come, although not everywhere. Communities are tighter, more united, bound by a million moments of bravery and kindness. Everywhere, there is bottomless gratitude for the firefighters. But nothing will bring back the billion animals, birds and reptiles lost in this state alone – nor the frogs, fish, platypus or insects not included in what scientists say is a conservative estimate. And nothing, of course, will bring back the 34 Australians who lost their lives. Some trees will recover, some won't. Ground cover will return, but will it be in the form of weeds or native grasses? In some places, the fire burnt with such intensity, the seed bank will be destroyed. Rainforests, ill adapted to fire, may never recover. An optimistic narrative will be hard to resist once the green shoots return. That tiny kangaroo, now too exhausted to escape my camera, will soon, I hope, be bouncing away with its mob. And yet this terrible summer should remain a line in the sand. It should remain a call to arms. It should be confirmation – if confirmation were needed – that, in a world of climate change, Australia is the canary in the mine. The bush will recover. The burnt towns will be rebuilt. Our job? We must remember this terrible time - and the promises we made to ourselves, right at that moment we were ringed by flame. The world must change. How about now?

There is currently considerable and heated discussion and controversy in the media and in the churches around issues of gender and sexuality, religious freedom, freedom of speech, how we read the more controversial verses in the bible, and how we should apply biblical teaching in our wider society. It concerns me that many Christians are focusing on the relevant verses in the bible to the exclusion of other biblical teachings – particularly those of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Regardless of whether we read the bible in a fundamental evangelical way or more liberally, we must not take verses out of context of the rest of the bible. Of course, we should have religious freedom and freedom of speech; but as Christians apply those freedoms and relate to other people, we must do so in a way that complies with and lives out all of the teachings in the bible. It particularly grieved me recently to hear a Christian say (speaking about homosexuals), “We must condemn them!” This is not what the bible says – quite the contrary. Firstly, the bible teaches us that we must not be self-righteous - thinking that I have salvation while others, who don’t conform to my way of thinking and being, don’t! In Galatians 6:7-18, the Judaizers were claiming that obedience to the law (particularly circumcision) was necessary for salvation. But Paul says, ‘… what counts is a new creation.’ As I understand his teaching, we become a new creation when we invite Jesus into our life and receive the Holy Spirit. And salvation is determined by whether I have accepted or rejected Jesus, i.e. having a belief in Jesus as the Son of God, recognising that I (along with all people) have sinned, putting my faith and trust in Jesus and inviting him into my life. It would be self-righteous of me to claim that someone else has not done this, and so is condemned while I am saved. Another issue is that Jesus has commanded us not to judge others - making judgements about who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. One of the reasons that Jesus commands us not to judge the salvation of others is because we are all guilty of sin, and God does not differentiate between types of sin or degrees of sin. So, Jesus says, “why do you judge another’s sin when you are also a sinner?” (Matthew 7:3 and Luke 6: 41) Another reason why we must not judge others is because, as John 12:47-50 tells us, the judgement will come at the end of time and the basis of judgement will be on whether the person has accepted or rejected Jesus. And only God can make this judgement. You and I cannot know the heart of another. And you and I are not to make a judgement that somebody’s sin is of such a nature or degree that they will not receive salvation. Most importantly, Jesus also commands us to ‘love your neighbour’; our fellow beings - all people – no matter who or what they are. This we are told is to be an active seeking to do good to all people, which is certainly not what we are doing when we judge, exclude, and condemn some people. This is certainly not what we are doing when we speak hateful words and vilify people on social media. As we engage in the conversations, let us do so in a way that will bring glory to God and not be self-righteous, and not judge another’s salvation. Let us remember that we are justified by the cross of Christ and God’s grace, and not apply some other criteria for salvation. And let us obey Jesus’ commandment to love all people, seeking to do good, and not be hypocritical in what we say and do.

In Australia, gender inequality continues to be a major barrier to the realization of rights and access to opportunities for girls and women. Deep-rooted structural and systemic gendered inequalities, and societal attitudes and traditions around gender roles and power, have resulted in unequal status of women and girls in Australia. For example, recent media reports have highlighted concern over the issue of inequality for working women in financial and superannuation benefits. Recent statistics indicate that 40% of older single retired women live in poverty and experience economic insecurity in retirement. And women over 55 are the fastest growing group of homeless people in Australia. Young women too, are becoming increasingly represented among people experiencing homelessness, primarily due to domestic violence of some form. You can find the statistics on abuse of all forms against women on many websites, and they are quite disturbing. There are wide impacts arising from gender inequality. This includes the profound and long-term toll on women and children’s health and well-being, on families and communities, and on society as a whole. There are also increasing financial costs upon the Australian economy. And more importantly, violence against women is a fundamental violation of human rights, and one that Australia has an obligation to prevent under international law. But it is not only for human rights, economic or legal reasons that Christians should speak up against gender inequality. As disciples of Christ, we are expected to follow Jesus’ example on how to treat others, including women. Jesus demonstrated concern and compassion for women which was quite radical for his time. In Christ we are all valued equally and as we claim in our Parish purpose statement, ‘We believe that everyone is a person known and loved by God; and should be supported to know their intrinsic value, and to become the best that God intends for them.’ Sadly though, I think that much of the gender inequality in Western society has been supported by how we have interpreted the bible. Literal readings of the Old Testament with its accounts of the Patriarchal Hebrew society, and taking verses of the bible out of context have contributed to the belief that men are created to be superior to women, are to have authority over women and may treat women as possessions. In addition to Old testament scriptures, we might think of verses such a 1 Corinthians 11:3-10, where Paul says that, ‘ the husband is the head of his wife …’ and that women must cover their heads as a symbol of the authority of man over them, if they are going to pray or prophesy while in church; and in 1 Cor 14:34-35, he goes further, saying that ‘ women should be silent in the churches’ that they are ‘… not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate …’ according to the law. And then there are the verses in Ephesians 5:22-24 which say, ‘ Wives, be subject to your husbands … for the husband is the head of the wife’ and that ‘… wives ought to be, subject in everything, to their husbands’. I remember a man using these verses to justify beating his wife with a broom handle. Of course, such men ignore verse 25 which says, ‘ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her …’; in other words, a sacrificial love that bestows blessings upon the beloved. As we read the verses from 1 Corinthians, we must remember that Paul was addressing a particular issue that existed in a particular societal context, i.e. propriety in public worship. He was not addressing male-female relations in general. And in Ephesians he is speaking about mutual submission, i.e. yielding one’s rights to support and grow the relationship – he is not speaking about obedience! To take such verses out of the context of the rest of the bible and out of context of the society in which such guidance was intended is to misuse scripture. And using such scriptures to support gender inequality is something that we must not condone. We ought to be concerned about the increasing abuse, homelessness and inequality of women. Taking Jesus Christ as our example we ought to speak against such injustices and take any opportunity to address gender inequalities and empower women and girls.