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

• Greg Sheridan
• The Australian
• 12:00AM December 24, 2016

• Greg Sheridan

  

  Foreign Editor

  Melbourne

  https://plus.google.com/101372426793016687263

  

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 

 

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.

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?