Friday 23 December 2016

Christmas in the West

Christmas in the West


Secularists are trying to sweep it off the stage: Iislamists are trying to create carnage: but still persists.

I am writing this on Christmas Eve. This week has seen people massacred at a Christmas market in Berlin, a terror plot in Indonesia foiled, and a plot to massacre worshipers at the Anglican cathedral here in Melbourne foiled by police. There has been a notable lack of Christmas carols in public places. Yet it seem to me that people are starting to react against the grinches. People seem to be more open in wishing "happy Christmas" than last year. Maybe it is just my wishful thinking; but just maybe the tide of public feeling is starting to turn.

In today's paper there is a brilliant article setting our the Christian joy of Christmas. Greg Sheridan says it much better than I could so I will just paste in article for readers to look at.

It’s no miracle Christmas survives in the post-Christian west

And so this doleful year ends and Christmas is upon us, with an atrocity at a seasonal market in Berlin, with police foiling an ­alleged plan to attack St Paul’s ­Cathedral in Melbourne on Christmas Day, with the Canberra headquarters of the Australian Christian Lobby, Eternity House, being car-bombed, even though police say there was no religious motive, and against the background of a continuing religious and ethnic cleansing of Christians in the Middle East.
Christianity’s long ability to ­inspire both the love and the hatred of human beings ­continues.
In many parts of the world Christianity is thriving. It is on fire in Africa, expanding through the global south and there are many more Christians in China than there are members of the Communist Party.
But much of the West, with the partial exception of the US, is heading towards a predominantly post-Christian iden­tity. The main way Christianity is treated in public culture ranges from contempt and ridicule, to ­calumny and vilification, through to just being ignored and whitewashed from the public square, unless, very occasionally, it can be recruited to serve a fashionable cause.
Yet Christmas survives, even in the post-Christian West, as the most popular Christian festival, a symbol truly of universal appeal.
We all have our childhood memories of Christmas. For me it was midnight mass, black-and-white TV, presents at the foot of the bed, Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, the roster of movies we seemed to watch every year — It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, Going My Way — all long gone now.
It would take a fantastic curmudgeon to deny the happy sentimentality of Christmas, for much that is good is wrapped up in that sentimentality.
But as our society leaves Christianity behind, it is a pitiful fact the content of Christianity, and especially the content of Christmas, has all but passed out of collective consciousness.
Given that for most of the past 2000 years, until about five minutes ago, Christianity shaped Western civilisation, this sheer and wilful ignorance, entirely separate from the question of belief, is an extreme version of a perverse kind of intellectual self-harm. And to deny students especially any real knowledge of their own ­inheritance seems to mount perversity on perversity.
For Christmas, as traditionally understood in Western culture, is the most radical event in human history. The claims of the Christian religion, which centre on Christmas, are the most stupendous that have ever been made.
Consider just four of the most astonishing claims of Jesus, and of Christianity, arising out of Christmas: that Jesus is God and that God for a time was a child, that God alone is the principle of all goodness, that the devil is a real character always about and that Jesus can work miracles.
One common post-Christian way of understanding Jesus is to think of him as a good and kindly man who provided great moral teaching, a kind of early Mahatma Gandhi, and that others, ­especially the historical church, have attributed divinity to him that he never claimed.
The problem is this doesn’t ­accord with the facts at all. Jesus himself, and the Gospels generally, constantly claim that Jesus is God, not a messenger of God, not a teacher inspired by God, not an angel, still less the leader of a social movement, but actually God.
No other historical figure who founded a significant religion has ever made this claim. Therefore, as Christians used to point out, there are only three possibilities for Jesus. Either he was a deluded fantasist, a profoundly brilliant charlatan or indeed he was and is God.
One of the best ways to try to understand the cultural and historical import of Christianity is ­actually to read the Gospels. There are mysteries in them but overall they are abundantly clear on all the big points.
Did Jesus claim divinity? In St John’s Gospel, Jesus says: “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am.”
John’s Gospel, by the way, is one of the greatest works of literature in human history. Read it just for the literary experience, preferably in an older translation. Modern translators have tried to render the Bible in all the soaring prose of a telephone directory but even they cannot disguise the majesty and drama and sweep of John’s language.
In many passages, John refers to Jesus as “the word” and begins his Gospel thus: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.”
In Mark’s Gospel, when asked if he is the Christ, the son of God, Jesus replies: “I am.” Not much equivocation there.
Elsewhere in John’s Gospel, Jesus declares: “I am the resur­rection and the life. Whoever ­believes in me will live, even though he dies.”
Later, Jesus returns to the same theme: “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
The point of these quotations, and there are many others to the same effect, is not to convince anyone that Christianity is true but just to make clear the uncompromising nature of the claims Jesus made.
Jesus proclaimed that he is God and that, incidentally, God created all the universe.
These are the most radical and paradigm-shattering claims ever made in human history. They may be wrong but it is surely worth knowing something about them.
The other claim entailed there is that salvation, eternal life, is available only through Jesus. This leads traditional critics of Christianity to describe a jealous God, as though God were just one person among many but demanding all the attention.
Catholic Cardinal George Pell addressed this in his justly famous debate with the atheist Richard Dawkins. Asked if non-Christians could expect salvation and eternal life, Pell answered yes, anyone who sought the good and moves ­towards God might find salvation. Pell outraged some Christians and surprised some atheists, but this is the official position in the Catholic catechism. It shows that while the basic messages of the Gospel are clear enough, there is still a need for ­interpretation. The ­inclusive view of salvation rests on the sovereignty and authority of Jesus. He alone decides who ­approaches the father so it’s not up to anyone else to judge.
But there is a much deeper point. As Jesus frequently ­declares in his teaching, everything that is good comes from God. It takes only the smallest extrapolation to realise that when being asked to worship God, it is not just to choose one person, God, among others, but to choose the very principle of goodness. Since God is the principle of goodness, the jealous god is jealous that people should choose good over evil.
That is not everything that a Christian believes but it illustrates that the message of Jesus, at least as claimed by Jesus, is universal, it is for Christians and non-Christians alike.
Which leads to another ­piquant question: why do Christians believe in and practise Christianity if they also believe that non-Christians can find salvation? The answer is simple: ­because they believe Christianity is actually true, which is the only reasonable basis for any serious commitment to Christianity at all.
Two smaller but hardly less revolutionary, to modern sensibilities, features of the Gospels are the presence of the devil and the near ubiquity in the Gospels of miracles.
A little over 40 years ago, the devil made a big comeback in Hollywood through The Exorcist. Hollywood has never quite wanted to dispense with him as he’s such an arresting character. But now he’s right out of fashion. The recent Marvel Comics’ Doctor Strange movie felt obliged by the zeitgeist to give an entirely materialist explanation of the hero’s powers, which in the original had much to do with the ­occult.
But you cannot really believe anything of Jesus without believing in the real existence of the devil, for Jesus frequently talked about him and the devil is central to key Gospel episodes.
Pope Francis is immensely popular, in part because of his ­social justice messages. He is an Argentinian Pope who seems to ­interpret all economic matters through the very distinctive Argen­tinian experience. But of course, as the Pope himself often acknowledges, the Pope has no special authority on economics.
The media tends, however, to more or less ignore what the Pope says about religion, and he ­frequently talks about the devil.
Miracles are equally unfashionable. But in the Gospels, Jesus performs nearly 40 separate miracles. He spends a great deal of his time performing miracles. Intellectually, it is perfectly sensible to try to interpret the Gospels and not just read them without any ­interpretation at all. But as with all great works of literature, inter­pretation is entirely secondary to actually reading the work in the first place.
It’s pretty clear that unless the Gospels are absolutely full of lies, in which case the only reason for reading them is historical curiosity, miracles are a central part of the deal of the teachings of Jesus.
Of course, logically it’s hard to believe in God at all and not ­believe in miracles. Otherwise the proposition is God cannot do anything that we can’t do ourselves, in which case there is ­almost no meaning in the word God.
This is the quiet position of ­almost all believing Christians. Peter Costello, in his memoirs, ­attributes the recovery of his wife from a grave illness in part to the miraculous. Kevin Rudd, who I think quite nobly disclosed his Christian faith, was once asked point-blank whether he believed in miracles and answered point-blank that he did.
Yet in most circles, to assert a belief in miracles today would be to court instant ridicule.
The neglect of the wellsprings of Western civilisation in our education, and in our culture more generally, is one of the drolly miraculous elements of our own time. To desire not just to reject Christianity but to determine not to know anything much at all about it is weird and would be incomprehensible in any other field.
Though it is available to all cultures, Christianity built Western civilisation which, presumably, we still have some use for. Imagine wanting to continue to use a bridge but being determined to suppress the knowledge of how the bridge was built.
The wonders of Christmas are endless.


I wish you all a very blessed and joyous Christmas 

 

Saturday 17 December 2016

Marriage and Normality under seige

The LBGTI Lobby

This acronym sounds like a bacon and lettuce sandwich with the lot, but is the current flag under which lobbyists of every sexual orientation other than normal heterosexuality is fighting. And fighting they are.

Not that long ago homosexual acts were crimes. Then the cry went up “what place does the law have in private bedrooms” and homosexual acts between consenting adults was de-criminalised. Fair enough in a secular state if it had stopped there. But it didn't. Granted many – perhaps most of the small percentage of the population who defined themselves as “gay” were content to live quietly with their partner.
But there was a vocal group who were incredibly, almost impossibly promiscuous and who were far and away the major group affected by aids. They mounted a brilliant and unrelenting scare and propaganda campaign. (I even had 80 year old widows and single ladies in my congregation afraid they would catch aids!)
One of the claims of this propaganda was that the general heterosexual population was at risk. This was backed up by stories from Africa. But in a medical journal I read that this did happen in Africa because there was such a high rate of promiscuousness coupled with a low availability of medical treatment that untreated venereal disease was endemic and gave rise to running sores so that there was an easy entry path for the aids virus. This was not the case in developed Western countries.
When I wrote this my parish newsletter I the 80's I was reprimanded by the bishop. The Anglican church had already been infected by the homosexual extremist's campaign.
Since then anti-discrimination legislation has made LBGTI's one of the “protected species” of identity politics while Christians have been “fair game” for attacks and vilification.
The movement has not stopped there. Films at first showed the good side of homosexuality – who could not sympathise with the pair in “the Birdcage” and as I said there were many like that who were just living quietly as best they knew how. But for the extremists it did not stop there. More gay, lesbian and bisexual characters appeared in films – I suspect far exceeding their representation in the general population. One we were acclimatised to that, overt homosexual sex scenes appeared.
On the political front there was the push for “marriage equality” that is to say they wanted homosexual marriage instituted by law – curiously at the same time that a very large proportion of heterosexual unions were de-facto rather than legally instituted. So much so that laws were passed to give property rights to de-facto couples breaking up the relationship.
Laws were then passed giving that same property rights as marriage entailed to breakup of homosexual relationships. But that was not enough. It had to be “marriage”. In many jurisdictions homosexual marriage has been made law, in others lobbyists are still trying.
While all sections the community was extending a “live and let live” attitude to homosexuals, the LBGTI extremists and the social progressives who had taken up their cause had no intention of reciprocating in kind. Anyone who wanted the word and institution “marriage” to mean “between a man and a woman” was immediately howled down, called a bigot and a homophobe and excoriated in social media – which sometimes cost the victim of this attack their job. There was no tolerance now of the traditional view or of those who held it. Religious tolerance – a cornerstone of modern Western democracy was to be suspended towards a Christianity that did not espouse gay marriage. (Islam was naturally exempt because it was – at a distance – the darling of the progressive left).
But again that was not enough!
Now curricula are being forcibly introduced into Australian schools by government mandate teaching children from kindergarten up that gender is “fluid”. There are no longer “boys” and “girls”. All “hetero-normative” expressions were to be avoided. Children were to be trained to at various times to chose to be one, and then perhaps at another time chose to be another gender.
Even government departments were instructed to avoid all hetero-normative words!
Added to this the idea of constancy “till death do us part” (even to a same sex partner) is completely rejected. Sexual immorality is assumed.
Mercifully there has been some public outcry, and the few non-progressive media have severely criticised these and there are some signs that governments may back pedal. The frightful aims of these social terrorists have been exposed. They want to destroy the institution of marriage (legal and de-facto) causing catastrophic damage to our society and cause incredible psychological damage and long trauma to our children. They may indeed be far more dangerous than Islamist terrorists!



For the survival of Western societies these dangerous dogmas need to be defeated.
Certainly kindness and tolerance to those few who choose a same sex partner. But no quarter for the ruthless fanatics with their complete bigotry and intolerance of all that is good.
We must restore moral virtue and the social necessity for marriage to be “between a man and a woman for their mutual support and joy and the raising of children to the good order of society” to paraphrase the Anglican Prayer Book.



Friday 9 December 2016

Marriage and Divorce

Marriage and Divorce

Marriage is one of the vital institutions of society. It is also an institution which has been under subtle but relentless attack in the West. If we don't want western nations to disintegrate, marriage and family must be reclaimed.

Divorce is traumatic. One other or both of the couple suffer very obvious hurt. For children, particularly in the mid years, the effects are most often devastating and often leave them emotionally scarred for life. Where children then come under step parents, the incidence of abuse increases dramatically. The hurts involved ripple out to the extended family – from grandparents having limited access to friends having to “take sides” and drop one member of the former couple. Economically there are costs as joint assets have to be split and often the family home sold also if the couple do not re-marry two households are more expensive to run than one.

Changes to the law making divorce much simpler may have caused more divorces, but were also introduced as a result of divorce increasing.

Many churches have loosened up on re-marrying divorced persons. This may sound cheeky, but I think churches were in error Biblically banning divorce altogether, an equally un-biblical now in accepting it to align with the spirit of the age.

Yes I know Jesus' words and I take them seriously. But note that when the Pharisees questioned him about divorce their question was more in the nature of “how much of an excuse do I need in order to divorce my wife?”. Jesus' answer was then in the form of “no amount of excuse will stop what you are planning to do (put away the old wife and marry the new) from being adultery”. This is strengthened when their reply “then why did Moses command ...” (of course they are miss-quoting Moses here – the command was to give the wife written proof if she was divorced) is met by Jesus saying “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard, but it was not this way from the beginning.”

So divorce was never God's intention for humans, but our fallen nature sometimes made it the lesser of two evils.

Among Jesus' followers divorce should be unnecessary. But even professing Christians can be unteachable sinful or cruel. There is an old saying – usually about a man: “street angel: house devil” In practice even in the church, let alone in general society, there are times where one partner is so abusive to the other (and or children) that to allow the innocent party a divorce is definitely the lesser of two evils.

On the other hand, Jesus made his opposition to gratuitous divorce abundantly clear. His position, as always, is at one with the Old Testament, with statements like “I hate divorce says the Lord”

So in every area of public life there needs to be asked “what can we do to reduce the divorce rate”

If as a society we were really concerned to reduce the divorce rate people in various walks of life should be asking the question “why do people divorce” and “Is there something that can be done to save some of these breaking marriages”

Here are a few thoughts I have had over the years:

As a minister I had people coming to me to re-marry after a divorce. I always went through the details of the breakup of the previous marriage with them. A thing that really hit me was that most of these breakups did not involve wickedness or cruelty or serious issues: they had simply allowed themselves to grow apart – until of course the inevitable happened to one or other. I so often felt that if someone had got hold of them early in the drifting apart and banged their heads together they would have gone on to have a happy marriage: So that is one thing that can be done: friends, family etc to reinforce “You are a single social unit now: do your socialising together, develop interests you can enjoy together …”

As a doctor my wife sees even more divorcees. Some had partners that were so abusive that the wonder is that they stayed so long – of course some of these had husbands who were so dangerously violent that they didn't dare leave. But the more common causes she says are unreal expectations, and the stress of modern life.

Women particularly – and they more often than men now initiate divorce – expect their husbands to be everything and meet every need. Men can't. They can be good husbands and fulfil those needs but they can't be everything and fix every problem. So the women leave – only to hit the same problem over and over because what they have been led to expect marriage to provide is just not realistic. So how, as communities can we have young people grow up with a realistic ideal of what to expect to contribute and receive from a good marriage.

Stress in modern life. I don't mean the “old days were better” that, the Bible says is a foolish thing to say. But there are some higher or different stresses.

In my mother's day, middle class husbands earned enough that wives could stay home. Children came home from school to find mum waiting to hear all about their day, husbands came home to find dinner prepared. The importance of the wife and mother role was reinforced by the 50's movies and TV.

Now both parents have to work to maintain the same social position. Also the social and media pressure is on women to follow a career path. Obviously as my wife is a doctor I don't have any problem with women and careers, in many ways the opening up of these things for women has been very good: I'm just looking at the stress that has come with it. The importance of motherhood is played down, so children now spend long hours in child-care and after-school care and come home to a mother who is exhausted from the day's work. Husbands come home - and there is now hot dinner ready (for either of them!). So someone has to bath kids, cook dinner, and by then the evening has gone. All I am saying is that feeling too tired, burdened and not enjoying life makes escaping the marriage look attractive. Of course like all those things that used to be called “temptation” in the end it only multiplies the problems.

As a society can we change the expectation that working wives will do all the tasks their non-working mothers did? Can we re-discover the importance of parenthood, so that father or mother sacrificing several steps on the career ladder to stay home and rear young children is not resented?
Can more part time or shared positions be provided? I even think providing better highways to reduce time and frustration travelling to and from work would help.

Then there's the oldest cause of all: adultery. Some marriages survive it, some don't and many leave their husband or wife to live with the new man or woman. Currently as I see it social mores accept this and the world view constructed by our TV shows and films actually encourages it. This is a false world view, and the end result is a great deal of human misery, and as I said earlier, emotional harm to kids and even child abuse. But sex is a powerful temptation: to resist it ordinary people need all the support available, including social taboos, and the reinforcing of the true word view: adultery looks enticing but the end result is hurt. So there are things that could change in our societies that would reduce the divorce rate from this cause too.

What causes have you come across? How could they be made less potent?


Saturday 26 November 2016

What makes a Fair Trial

A Fair Trial.

The idea that people should have a fair trial before being punished is so ingrained that even quite despicable regimes often at least stage a “show trial” to make it look as thought this requirement has been satisfied. Even Pontius Pilate who as Roman procurator had no compunction in massacring protesters wanted to know what the charges against Jesus were, gave him an opportunity to answer them and had the charge on which Jesus was condemned to die: being “King of the Jews”; affixed to the cross.

Some readers may now say: “Aha, so you admit even pre-Christian (and non-Christian) peoples had some accurate ideas on justice and due process.” Well I do! And this is my reason: Justice is part of God's unchanging moral character, he is also depicted in the Bible as “Judge of all the world” and similar titles, so “fair trial” is a reflection in human terms of his character as Judge. Us humans were created in his “image and likeness” and since God is spirit, this must mean something other than looks. We are also fallen creatures, having as a race chosen to rule the world on our own resources rather than as God's viceroys. So the upshot is that all humans may show more or less of God's character and all humans may show lack of or warped versions of God's character.

In English based jurisdictions the Greek and Roman ideals have been much refined over time. On to this base has been laid a carefully constructed edifice by godly men and women whose life's work has been the practice and development of law.

Much of their work has been the practical outworking and application to their field of expertise of a Christian and perhaps Protestant world view. The danger today is that by a combination of ignorance, the reduction of Christian influence and immigration of non-Christians bringing very different world views, Western societies are in danger of losing this treasure.

What are the basic essentials of a due process in the English system?
a) To know who is accusing you and to be able to question them; to know the details of the charge(s), and to be able to answer them.
b) for the prosecutor to set aside their own “need to win”, to release all information to the defence, especially information which would help the defence.
c) for only evidence that is actually relevant to the charge be admitted, and hearsay and gossip to be excluded
d) for the judge to be independent and impartial
e) for some avenue for an appeal

the price of freedom is eternal vigilance” as the saying goes. So too with due process. There is always temptation for it to be abused. Governments may pressure judges for political reasons. Judges themselves may decide in accordance with their own political ideas, or for all sorts of bribes rather than on the evidence. Prosecutors may be so emotionally (or say in the US career wise) involved that they cross the line, hide inconvenient evidence or the like. Lawyers will try to bring in inadmissible evidence. In every jurisdiction there are historic cases trials which have been a perversion of justice. Unless people see these for what they are and protest then standards will inevitably slide.

Cardinal Wolsey on his deathbed in 1530 is reported to have said “If I had served God as diligently as I have done the king ...” Affairs of state, from real or imagined security of the realm down to prejudices or even vindictiveness of rulers have frequently in the past and down to the present resulted in courts perverting justice.

The Bible denounces such acts as crimes of the highest magnitude. First judges are warned that they are reaching a verdict under God, not a king, president, governor or to appease a public outcry. Then there case histories – I think Ahab and Jezebel is the classic – where God's hatred of perversion of the trial process is played out in real life.

The Bible gives approval to Jehoshophat's admonition to the judges he appointed “Consider carefully what you do because you are not judging for man but for the LORD, who is with you whenever you give a verdict. Now let the fear of the LORD be upon you. Judge carefully, for with the LORD our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery.”

King Ahab is frustrated that one of his subjects will not sell his family vineyard to him to use as a vegetable garden for the palace. Queen Jezebel, a former princess from Tyre is horrified: this is not how kings in her world act. She secretly writes to the elders of the town where this man Naboth lives instructing them to have Naboth falsely accused of blasphemy and executed. (interestingly also a modern occurrence in Moslem countries! The Christian governor of Jakarta has just been arrested on blasphemy charges ahead of an election, and in Pakistan a Christian woman has been sentenced to death for blasphemy for drinking from the same cup as Moslems). The town elders comply, and Jezebel on receiving their report tells Ahab to go and take possession of the vineyard because Naboth is dead.

God took this injustice so seriously that he sent Elijah the prophet to meet Ahab at the vineyard and deliver God's sentence on him and Jezebel. “where the dogs licked up Naboth's blood they will lick up your blood – yes yours. … (I will) cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel” and “dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel” These all happened, although there was a stay of execution because Ahab repented before God after Elijah confronted him. Someone famous said that although God reserves most judgement till the Day of Judgement, he gives some instances in advance as indications of what is to come. This instance – written in scripture for our instruction leaves no doubt that God really, really hates perversion of justice!

The Oxford Dictionary added a new word “Post truth” this year. It is not just in the realm of politics that truth suffers, and its not new – just more brazen. I know someone who as a barrister some decades ago changed their field of law because they were so sickened by the way so many litigants and witnesses in court lied without the slightest compunction.

False witnesses and false accusations have been around a long time – Potiphar's wife accusing Joseph of molesting her because he had rejected her advances – the false witnesses testifying against Jesus and so on. The Bible is once again absolutely clear on God's abhorrence of such things. The Biblical injunction was that false witnesses should suffer the exact punishment which would had befallen the accused person.

There is a brilliant story in the Apocrypha (Daniel, Bel & Suzanna) about this. Susanna, a virtuous married woman rejects the advances of two men who have been stalking her. In revenge they accuse her of adultery and testify that they saw her in the very act under a tree. She is condemned and about to be dragged out and stoned to death when one Daniel steps forward and demands to be allowed to cross examine the witnesses. He has one sent out and asks the other “what type of tree was it” and then sends him out, brings in the other and repeats the question. Of course without opportunity to get their stories straight they give conflicting answers. The lie is exposed, Susanna vindicated, and the two lying witnesses deservedly stoned to death.

I am not for a moment suggesting the rule of OT times should be in modern laws. However when perjury is rarely punished at all, and less and less of the population fear God's judgement on them if they lie in court, our justice system is in trouble.

Just one more item: Rules of Evidence

They have been developed over millennia (even a Roman emperor persecuting Christians ordered that anonymous denunciations were not to be accepted) to help achieve fair trials.

Humans are fallible, so even the best run trials may give the wrong verdict. One Judge Blackwood is famed for saying “I would rather release ten guilty murderers than hang one innocent man” People are right to be angry when a guilty person gets acquitted. But they often blame the rules of evidence saying things like “But if the jury had bee allowed to hear such and such piece of evidence they would have convicted ...” Possibly they would, but in another instance had they heard such and such a piece of evidence they would have convicted an innocent person! Nothing human is perfect but remember, it is God who said “Justice is mine: I will repay” the acquitted guilty person will not escape punishment! But to punish an innocent person is a great evil.



PS I have not been citing chapter and verse for scripture reference lately because with the Internet, particularly search engines like “Bible Gateway” it is simple to bring up the text on screen and then look at it in any other translations you wish. I am using the TNIV version


Saturday 12 November 2016

A Good Government Punishes Crime


Good Government Punishes Crime

Yes I know. Modernists want to cut “punishment” out of the dictionary - except of course for people who don't agree with them! They are wrong, and hypocrites at that.

It is one of those truisms that, like a pendulum, corrective measures often go too far in the other direction. In the 1800's punishments at home, in schools and worst of all in prisons were often brutal. In England writers like Charles Dickens awakened the public conscience to these cruelties. I won't labour the point since I expect nowadays the very thought of these sorts of punishments – often meted out for minor infractions - fill most people with horror.

I will claim however that we have gone too far the other way. Now we are being unkind in a quite different way by not appropriately whacking our children when they do wrong.

We are sending them undisciplined into a world where reality can be unforgiving: Drink-drive and someone dies; be rude or insubordinate and lose your job; and so on. We ban corporal punishment at schools and end up having to employ security guards to protect teachers from violent students. Not to mention unruly students blocking lessons for those who want to learn.

What I am saying is not new. Bernstein in “West Side Story” included a satirical song where the young gang members tell the policeman it is not their fault they are hoodlums: its society, its their parents, its everyone but them.

In criminal matters, there is on one hand academics and left-liberal churches advocating greater leniency on offenders and on the other in the community a widespread angst that the courts are not protecting the ordinary citizen, and are not adequately punishing criminals.

Last week there was the surprise (for some people!) result of Donald Trump as president elect of the U.S. I think this exemplifies the two camps I am talking about, and indicates a groundswell of feeling that there has not been “good government”. For any readers who would like to see an analysis of this that I believe hits the nail on the head I recommend http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/trump-win-breathes-fresh-life-into-globalismnationalism-debate/news-story/1dca93b3b707c59b478a2ac3fe0e5544

On the other hand, “rule of law” is infinitely better than the lynch-mob. And our ideal of “justice tempered with mercy” is infinitely better than the “Sharia courts” with their gruesome punishments and disregard for justice that we have seen in Islamic State and seen popularly demanded even in countries like Pakistan and Indonesia. So what sort of principles can we mine from the Bible?

1. Governments have a duty to God to punish wrongdoing.
Rom. 13. is the classic statement which includes secular governments. In particular v.4b “(rulers) are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on wrongdoers.” Contrary to modern theory, punishment is on the agenda as an aim in its own right!

2. Punishment without pity of some crimes is vital for a society.
Ancient Israel was a nation in a unique relationship to God as his “chosen people”. No nation today has that privilege and obligation! (God said to them : “You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins” ) I would be happy to concede that it applies to the Church Universal and that the governing bodies of individual denominations and congregations should take the injunctions of Deuteronomy to heart! So for instance, church officials who shielded pedophiles on one hand and theologians who denied the truths the Church has believed everywhere for the past two thousand years on the other but did not heed “show them no pity ... but expel the evildoer from your midst ... that such a thing may not be done in (your church) Israelto paraphrase a host of texts, should expect to suffer the full force of God's anger on Judgement Day.

Apostasy was something which put ancient Israel's existence at risk because of their special place in God's plans. Thus in Deuteronomy 13.8 and 19.15 (and many other places) the command that if even a loved one tries to lead one away from Yaweh : “do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them.  You must certainly put them to death.Please do not get me wrong! I am not suggesting liberal theologians and pastors should be stoned ! However they have destroyed the faith of many and turned many churches into mere political action groups – they should have been expelled: instead they have taken over and worked to drive out true preachers!

There are some crimes which a secular government must punish without mercy so that
Then all Israel (citizens) will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again”. As an example. In Sydney (Australia) some years ago there had been a number of viscous rapes by Lebanese gangs. The government introduced very harsh penalties for “rape in the presence of others” subsequently a group of Lebanese youths were convicted and given very long sentences. These gang rapes ceased.

The current scourge of “home grown terrorists” is another example in point
They should be considered traitors and courts should sentence them accordingly. Also there should be a strong push and community education for their families, friends and congregations to put their duty to the country way ahead of their sympathy for their co-religionists and so not shield or spare suspected terrorists in their midst but to show now pity in giving evidence against them to the proper authorities.

NEXT: DUE PROCESS in criminal trials


Sunday 6 November 2016

Law Courts

Good Government provides Civil Courts.

One cannot read far in the Old Testament without coming to the firm conclusion that justice is something very close to God's heart

Just a few texts to make the point: “I Yaweh love justice: I hate robbery and wrong”. “(God) looked for justice but saw bloodshed: for righteousness but found cries of distress;” “But you have turned justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground” “But his (Samuel's) sons turned aside to dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice” (so God had them killed)

And the Mosaic Law hammers the necessity for justice at great length. Again just a few quotes: “Do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd” “Do not deny justice to the poor in their lawsuits” . “Do not pervert justice or show partiality: do not accept a bribe”. “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.

One of my favourites is this one: “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favouritism to the great” I think it speaks to the modern phenomenon of “affirmative action” which boils down to seeking to redress historic wrongs of discrimination against minorities by present day discrimination against the majority. Surely a case of “two wrongs don't make a right”. But here in scripture both wrongs are condemned as perversion of justice!

But to start, as they say, from the beginning. Good government must provide law-courts – both criminal and civil. Many of the above quotes clearly assume some sort of trial scenario – be it the elders gathered at the city gate or the king or an appointed judge. The question is not the composition of the court but its performance. It must deliver justice by God's standards.

The Bible is really clear on the necessity for civil courts, even for “the people of God”. This may come as a surprise for many modern Evangelicals who see Paul's condemnation of members of the fledgling Christian church at Corinth dragging one another before the pagan magistrates as forbidding all civil suits. But his horror can easily be explained in terms both of the shallowness of their conversion experience this behaviour displayed “you are defeated already” and what it made pagans think of The Way (Christianity). Imagine today a small Christian community in a Muslim land – would you think of taking your disputes to the local Sharia court? (This may be to harsh a comparison since Paul was well served by pagan magistrates such as Gallio, and Paup later said “King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate to stand before you today as I make my defence ...”

Besides in the West we are still nominally Christian and our legal systems are founded on Judeo-Christian principles. They may badly need reforming. Lawyers may have subverted ideals of justice to become mere mercenaries – just without guns! But for all that in my experience, the 'secular' law courts have much higher ideals of justice than church tribunals and the like.

But on the necessity for civil courts Deuteronomy 25 commands the ancient Israelites: “When people have a dispute they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.

With the astronomical cost of litigation these days, in general people would be better served listening to Jesus words (although I think he actually meant we should make peace with God before judgement day!) “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court, otherwise...”

However since we are talking about good government, the necessity remains for provision of civil courts to settle disputes impartially. In some places there are state tribunals where lawyers are not required and there are no “costs orders” against the losing side, which in the matters the tribunals deal with makes access viable for ordinary people.

If we look at countries like the United States, and to a slightly lesser extent Australia in the light of the verses above a reformation of the legal culture is obviously desirable. Of course if we look at many other countries they are, at least in the short term beyond redemption. A newspaper columnist here recently wrote “There is in China nothing we would recognise as the rule of law”.

As societies … We have convinced ourselves that every misadventure has to be someone else's fault: and we want to sue them. As nations we need both to learn to take responsibility for our own bad choices, and to accept that life is not fair – accidents happen.

As lawyers … we need to be … well, miraculously changed, which probably requires a deep religious conversion experience – but maybe a few can change the culture and hence the many!

1. Less litigious. The problem here is oversupply of practitioners: so less litigation = less money. 
One lawyer related to me that he told all his clients who wanted to sue someone:
“It's like this if you go to court: if you win – you lose and if you lose you are up the creek!” (“up the creek without a paddle” may be an Australian expression, but the meaning is clear.).

Not all are like that. Here there have been a spate of class actions instigated by big law firms that years after multi-million dollar settlements have given big bonuses to the partners but nothing yet to the clients. In one case there was a big settlement and the law firm said it had all been used up in its and the financier's fees!

2. See themselves as servants of the court (or “justice”) not just of their clients. That is supposed to have been the ethos in British derived jurisdictions. Now the vibe seems to be “only your client's case matters: do whatever it takes to win.”

There is probably a great deal more required in tort reform, but as in every aspect of society, it needs people who are experts in that field who have also had their consciences sharpened by a knowledge of the character of God to laboriously work out the changes.

NEXT TIME : Criminal Justice


Saturday 29 October 2016

A Good Government Provides Police

Police

It goes without saying that in any human group, if there are to be effective rules or taboos these must be enforced by some means. It is also obvious that as the size and extent of the group increases, the means of maintaining and enforcing will become more complex and likely institutionalised.

Take the simple case of a family. Most parents set rules for the children. These may be quite arbitrary like “brush your teeth before bed”, “wash behind your ears” “eat your vegetables” or any of a host of domestic policies. As every parent knows, if these are not enforced – they are not obeyed! Even if the enforcement is a simple “you don't get dessert until you've finished your vegetables”.

Issues can also be much more serious. In Genesis we read that after the entry of sin into the world it soon produced the worst crime: murder, when Cain killed his brother Abel.

In modern times cities have grown exponentially, bringing new demands in crime prevention. So the first professional full time police force in the world, as distinct from military units protecting the state, was the London Metropolitan Police in 1822. Interestingly, this force was distinctively non-military in character, and police wore numbers to identify them so that they were individually accountable for their actions. This really was starting the tradition of policing to “serve and protect” even if that slogan had not been invented.

In modern large scale populations, life as we know it would not be possible without an effective police force. For those who may think this is exaggerating, let me give you an example.

In October 1923, police in Melbourne Australia went on strike for six days. I think the number of police on strike was about 600. During that time social order quickly broke down. There was widespread looting and mobs took to the streets overturning trams and causing general mayhem. Order was only restored when some 2,000 citizens quickly sworn in as special constables and armed with cartwheel spokes cleared the streets by force.

Human beings are sinners. For some: internalised morals aided by fear of social disgrace will keep them mostly on the straight and narrow. Though even for upright citizens the knowledge that there are radar speed cameras about has a noticeable calming effect on their driving! However the spectrum grades from there right down to violent sociopaths indifferent to law, morals or human suffering.

A mantra drummed out from about the 70's has been “violence achieves nothing”. It is of course nonsense! Violence stopped Hitler and Hirohito. If men and women of that generation had not taken up arms the world would have all become slaves of one or the other. However like much nonsense it gains credibility by repetition. We need to remember that modern mass society is impossible if we do not have police able and prepared to “out violence” the gangsters and the sociopaths in order to serve and protect the population.

Do we need systems to weed out corrupt police? Yes of course, all humans are sinners so there will be bad police. Do we need limits on police activities. Of course, there will always be a balance required between what would promote suppression of crime and what is necessary for individual freedom. On the other hand it is easy for armchair critics – the “Black lives matter” movement is a current example – to forget the “fog of war” problem. It may later transpire that it was only a toy gun that was pulled and aimed at police. For the officer looking down its barrel there had to be an instant life-or-death choice.

For anyone wishing thought provoking discussion of problems surrounding modern policing I thoroughly recommend watching a few seasons of the TV series “Blue Bloods” which features a (fictional) three generational family of New York police.


Saturday 22 October 2016

Good Government: Armed Forces

Good Government: Defence

Illustration 1: Hezekiah's Tunnel in Jerusalem


Even the worst “governments” understand the importance of this. A drug baron or crime boss who cannot defend their turf against competing gangs does not stay in business! A ruler whose country is overrun is no longer the ruler and generally no longer alive.

However there are also good reasons why good governments should see defence of their people against external attack as a primary role.

It is just a fact of history that peoples who were not able to defend themselves have been overrun by more aggressive peoples. Occasionally they were allowed to become vassal states of an expanding empire. More usually they were plundered and or carried off as slaves. Other times they were simply exterminated or driven out of their homeland.

In the Biblical narrative there are examples of both success and failure of rulers defending their people.

The well worn Bible stories of the Judges, Samuel, Saul and David indicate the essential need for rulers who could lead an army in a mileau where surrounding peoples and nations were persistently attacking the ancient Israelites. The account of Hezekiah shows a king applauded in scripture making careful preparation for defence including digging a tunnel to bring water into Jerusalem and holding out at God's command against a terrifying encircling army. On the other hand Jeremiah depicts the sad fate of the nation under king Zedekiah, who having been sworn in as a vassal king rebelled against his overlord, and rejected both God's command and the opportunity to surrender.

So defence is primarily about protecting the population. Always this means being prepared for war. Generally it means displaying an attitude that if push comes to shove you can and will fight. Sometimes it means surrender in the face of overwhelming odds.

These days some hate the once familiar Bible stories. Many years ago after giving a children's talk in church about David and Goliath. Afterwards I was roundly abused by one woman who certainly saw herself as a “born again” Christian”, her message was “I don't bring my children to church to hear stories glorifying war!” I think it both a great mistake to try to cut inconvenient buts out of the Bible, and a mistake to underestimate God.

God is the ultimate reality. We frequently delude ourselves: He sees perfectly. We pretend: God is Who he is.

So in the affairs of this world. If scientists are right, then God brought about what we see now both with a breathtaking superabundance – millions of galaxies and also he rought life on earth to what we see about us with “the terrible arithmetic of necessity”. Hunting and killing is an inescapable part of the animal world. (in heaven this is overcome: “the wolf will lie down with the lamb” etc.)but on earth "Nature is red in tooth and claw".

This “terrible arithmetic of necessity” applies in human affairs too. Specifically because human beings are sinful. Wars will happen because this side of heaven there will always be people who will start them. So it is a defective view of God to discount to Biblical instances where God supported warfare and gave military prowess and tactical support and advice to soldiers. It is similarly a mistake to reject the place in modern society of military virtues and effective armed forces.

But at the same time, it is also a grave misunderstanding of God's character to ignore texts such as “blessed are the peacemakers” and God's denunciation of all manner of war crimes and of starting wars to increase one's boundaries!

On the topic of people starting wars, history is full of megalomaniacs who tried to conquer the world. School history lessons seem to give these more attention than peaceful rulers, and give scant attention to the enormity of the human suffering they caused.

Think Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte and all the others from our history lessons. What effect did they have on the sum total of human happiness?

Coming to more recent times there is a prickly question: What about Western colonisation of the New World?

Many present day American Indians and Australian Aborigines look on these events as “invasion”. Europeans at the time simply saw it as migration to an under-utilised (or even “empty”) land.

Modern progressives have promoted the former view to the hurt of both races. For the indigenous peoples it has engendered a feeling of grievance and victim-hood that has crippled them. For the population-at-large it has engendered at feeling of national guilt bordering on a self loathing of our own culture which has enabled progressives to successfully attack the cultural pillars of our society.

For all pre-scientific cultures, there was a mythology which constructed a world view and explanation of “life the universe and everything” Most cultural practices and rituals of daily life were tied to this mythology.

As soon as primitive culture came into contact with modern scientific culture there was a confrontation of world views. This was not an attack or part of an invasion strategy it was just the inevitable result of being exposed to scientific ideas which “burst the bubble” of  mythological explanations.

It is just “sociology 1.01” again that this exposure to modern scientific explanations wreaked havoc with their cultural identity. Everywhere this happened the results were similar: culture shock, despondency, social breakdown and alcoholism. It is all terribly sad: but no one’s fault.

The real fault now lies with the people trying to keep aboriginal peoples as “pet primitives” rather than integrating them into modern society. Their old culture cannot co-exist with modern, the old cosmology cannot cannot compete with modern science: so all that happens is that these poor wretches are kept in a state of perpetual culture shock. Kept in an inescapable world of despair, dysfunction, unemployment, family abuse and alcoholism.

England provides a success story, from what really was an invasion!

In 1066 William the Conqueror invaded England. It was a rich prize and wealth and lands robbed from the inhabitants were distributed among his Norman supporters. However after hundreds of years of intermarriage all are simply “English people” with no one claiming “I am a Saxon descendant and I want reparation from the descendants of the Normans”.