Orlando Massacre

Orlando Massacre

In thinking about the Orlando killings, John Donne's famous poem “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is pertinent: Every human death “diminisheth me”.

We may be, we generally are, blind to this insight. Our feelings for others, like the light from a candle do diminish rapidly with distance. The death of one close to us can be a grief to heavy to bear: Whilst news of the deaths of a million foreigners in a distant land barely makes an impact.

That “just is”. We probably could not function if it were otherwise. So am I being unfair to Donne if I suggest that his vision was more of a God's eye view of the world? Certainly he was, at this stage of his life a passionate Christian. I see this as a poem by a man who has glimpsed the heart of God. I don't think I am stretching things to say that he is depicting the feelings, not the human-of-this-world, but of the person who is coming to understand how God feels about things.

That is perhaps a long-winded way of stating my belief that a godly person would view the deaths of the victims in Orlando as an “every manne's death diminisheth me” moment. Having said that, I think what further reaction people displayed may be indicative. About the same time as this shooting, 19 young Yazidi women in Iraq were burned to death in cages for refusing to have sex with ISIS fighters. Clearly a martyrdom for their religious and moral beliefs.

In Woodend where I live both Mosul and Orlando are “over there” although of course culturally we identify closely with the U.S.A. However the news coverage of the fate of the Yzidi women was brief, whilst the coverage, not of the Islamic terrorist angle but the “gay” angle of the other was over the top. Indeed the local Anglican church here (no, I do not attend it!) flew the gay rainbow flag at half mast!

Perhaps I understate our news media's ethnocentricity. The Paris massacre, again by Islamic terrorists did receive huge coverage, and people holding vigils and lighting candles. But that is where it stopped. With Orlando there has been the unique addition of “gay rights”.

I think this says two things about Western social mores.

1. Homosexual culture, once taboo, has gone straight through being permissible to being a sacred cow.

2. It is on the way to becoming a shibboleth to trap and persecute Christians.

The word “shibboleth” may have gone out of currency. It came from one of the Old Testament wars. Soldiers of the defeated side fleeing the wrath of the victors had to cross the Jordan river. The victors held the fords. Both groups had slightly different accents. So the victorious soldiers demanded of any men trying to cross the fords that they say “Shibboleth”. The losers could not pronounce it properly, and were promptly killed.

In old Japan, villagers were routinely made to stamp on a crucifix. Christians would not do so and so were revealed – and killed.

We seem to be moving to a position where Christians will be identified and targeted (we are more civilised now than olden times aren’t we so they won't be killed) by being pushed to say that homosexual practices are not just an acceptable but a superior model of Christian behaviour.

Christians should be free to believe and to say that XYZ behaviours are sins according to the Bible even if they are socially acceptable.

Come to think of it the Bible calls “sins” a very great number of things that are positively endorsed by our society! Think about: drunkenness, indigence, gossip, greed, gluttony, envy, factional intrigues, abuse of power of market position, fornication, adultery, pornography (Jesus slammed even “looking at a woman lustfully”). As well as ones that are illegal such as: political corruption, false weights and measures, dishonest trading, stealing, murder, assault, slander, domestic abuse. And these are only the ones that come to mind as I sit here!

We are all sinners in need of a Saviour. We all have sins that recur like bouts of malaria to plague us. We have all made ungodly choices in the past that have left us scarred and left us in life situations that were not God's plan for us. Recognising things as “sins” is the essential starting point!

BUT and here is the big, big “but”: Fixing our messed up lives takes the wisdom and power of God as well as our commitment and … a very long time! What God chooses to fix first is his call! So for us “judge not lest ye be judged” is good advice.

SO : for Christians, naming any of this multitude of behaviours as “sins” is in no way derogatory of the person: it is more like welcoming them to Narcotics Anonymous …. “we are all substance abusers here, regardless of your drug of choice (“besetting sin” for us).

The Bible labels so many things as “sins” which our society accepts, that the presence of sexual intercourse between persons of the same gender in the list should be unremarkable!

Yet to say that is now to be branded “homophobe” and pilloried. Worse may be around the corner. I think this is developing into a convenient shibboleth to identify genuine Christians and eradicate them.

From Doom & Gloom to Land of Hope & Glory

Doom and Gloom or Land of Hope and Glory

A lot of what I have been saying may look to be “doom and gloom” about the future. On the contrary as a Christian I -with millions of others – am a citizen of heaven, the real “land of Hope and Glory”.

I do want to advertise the seriousness of the threats facing the West. That is the true position

I also want to advertise the sure and certain hope that the God and father of our Lord, Jesus Christ will triumph. This is an important point not only for believers like myself, but also for sceptics. It is important for friend and foe of our Judeo-Christian culture alike. For the former it is a proper source of encouragement and strength – for foes it is not a threat, not a promise, it is just what is going to happen!

The point is that God really is all-powerful. As I wrote in the early posts God has let humans run with their choices – and the consequences. So we do not see him micro-managing the world. However he has – by the sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection of Jesus – done what was necessary to save humans from the eternal consequences. Also while he may not micro-manage, he does care intensely what happens, so he both continually works through people who chose to let him and also steps into history when things are going seriously bad.

The other factor, which I find most profound is this paradox: on one hand he cares about the well-being of people in this world; on the other he treats it as a selection ground for people to live with him in the next.

Jesus said “I am the Good Shepherd … I have come that you may have life; life in all its abundance”. Again wherever he trod as he preached: sickness, demon-possession and even death were rolled back. A powerful demonstration of his character, divine being, and concern for the ordinary people he rubbed shoulders with. Since then there is the continual chain of witness of people who have given him first place in their lives devoting themselves to helping other people, combating suffering and fighting against social evils like slavery, child labour and such like. So we have abundant proof of God's concern for human welfare here and now.

Also those who have let a personal relationship with Jesus blossom, know by repeated experience the sheer abundance of God's kindness, goodness and unearned generosity.

Sadly cults has arisen by preachers misrepresenting God's kindness for their own worldly ends. There have been snake-oil salesmen posing as Christian preachers from the beginning – just read Paul's exasperated outbursts in the latter part of 2 Corinthians! But in our time the “me” generation has generated a raft of distorted gospels encouraging people to “be in it for what they can get out of it”. Miracles? Sure I believe God still does them: to give his imprimatur to the gospel of Jesus, when he chooses that means. Actually from experience I know he sometimes does them just as gratuitous gifts to encourage his children … you might even say just “because he can!” But I also know he does not cure every Christian of every disease. To believe that requires rejecting the truth of ample evidence!

Perhaps we could picture God as a super-wise, super-caring parent. One that provided all good things necessary for the child, but did not spoil them. One who wanted the child develop their individuality, but still disciplined them. One who loved the child to be able go and play, but still made them stay in and do their homework.

The other side of the paradox is this: The New Testament has a major theme running through it saying essentially: “Our sufferings in this world are nothing compared to the glory to be revealed in heaven”. Paul even speaks of the opposition we encounter because of our Christian loyalty and outlook as producing a refined character. He uses the graphic image of it producing in us the dependability under pressure of the veteran soldier compared to the raw recruit.

So we are confronted with this scenario that even when evil seems to be winning, God still manages to work sifting out people. Giving them opportunity to choose Him rather than evil, and refining their character so that they will find it pure joy to meet him in person.

That has been a long winded way of saying this: God has already won the war, but individual battles may be won or lost depending on the people involved.

If those in the West do not chose to fight for the heritage they enjoy now, they may lose it. That would be a bad outcome for millions of people. But God would still find ways to let people chose him.

The Western Roman empire fell and went into the Dark Ages – but eventually emerged to what we see today. The Eastern Roman Empire won the battles at that time ans went on for nearly another thousand years, but then fell and is now Muslim. Who knows that a new empire, a benign one because it is Christian may emerge in China or Africa.

The point is this:

Like it or not God will win whatever happens to the West.

But we have a choice: To fight, under God, to bring our civilisation back from the brink.

For those who chose to fight, now that we have recognised the prospect of doom and gloom, we turn out faces to the land of hope and glory, and in its name consider what we can do.

What Happened to our Morals

What Happened to Our Morals?

There is a line in the film Sabrina where someone says of the multi-milli0naire: “He thinks morals are painted on walls and scruples are Russian currency”

Now this attitude is not just the province of the likes of the men and women who tipped us into the GFC, but have permeated our whole society. Personal morals, and the sort overarching moral scruples that can make company directors, executives, union officials and “ordinary” workers say something like: “This may be clever, it may be legal but it is immoral: I will not do it!” is rarer than diamonds.

A friend recently posted on facebook a speech by someone I had never heard of before: Rabbi Lord Sacks as he was accepting the Templeton Prize. Sachs was, far more eloquently than me, predicting the fall of the West if we did not change. One of the essential changes was to recreate a personal morality. The whole speech is brilliant and can be found on http://www.rabbisacks.org/danger-outsourcing-morality-read-rabbi-sacks-speech-accepting-templeton-prize/

Let me give you some excerpts: (emphases mine)

“... we have forgotten one of the most important lessons to have emerged from the wars of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth century and the new birth of freedom that followed. Even to say it sounds antiquarian but it is this: A free society is a moral achievement. Without self-restraint, without the capacity to defer the gratification of instinct, and without the habits of heart and deed that we call virtues, we will eventually lose our freedom.

That is what Locke meant when he contrasted liberty, the freedom to do what we ought, with licence, the freedom to do what we want. ... It’s what Washington meant when he said, “Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people.” And Benjamin Franklin when he said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” And Jefferson when he said, “A nation as a society forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.”

At some point the West abandoned this belief. When I went to Cambridge in the late 60s, the philosophy course was then called Moral Sciences, meaning that just like the natural sciences, morality was objective, real, part of the external world. I soon discovered, though, that almost no one believed this anymore. Morality was no more than the expression of emotion, or subjective feeling, or private intuition, or autonomous choice. It was, within limits, whatever I chose it to be. In fact there was nothing left to study but the meaning of words. To me this seemed less like civilisation than the breakdown of a civilisation.”

He then said he finally worked out what had happened in society. Morality had been “outsourced”.

a) Moral choices were outsourced to the market; good was what gave us what we wanted now, bad was what frustrated our desires.

b) The consequences of our moral choices were outsourced to the State.

“As for the consequences of our choices, these were outsourced to the state. Bad choices lead to bad outcomes: failed relationships, neglected children, depressive illness, wasted lives. But the government would deal with it. Forget about marriage as a sacred bond between husband and wife. Forget about the need of children for a loving and secure human environment. Forget about the need for communities to give us support in times of need. Welfare was outsourced to the state.”

c) Internalised “right and wrong” externalised:

“As for conscience, that once played so large a part in the moral life, that could be outsourced to regulatory bodies. So having reduced moral choice to economics, we transferred the consequences of our choices to politics”.

These changes, says Sacks, seemed to work for a while – even a generation or so – but their failure was inevitable, and their failure brought on the following problem (among other problems!):

“When you do, (delegate moral responsibility) you raise expectations that cannot be met. And when, inevitably, they are not met, society becomes freighted with disappointment, anger, fear, resentment and blame. People start to take refuge in magical thinking, which today takes one of four forms: the far right, the far left, religious extremism and aggressive secularism. The far right seeks a return to a golden past that never was. The far left seeks a utopian future that will never be. Religious extremists believe you can bring salvation by terror. Aggressive secularists believe that if you get rid of religion there will be peace. These are all fantasies, and pursuing them will endanger the very foundations of freedom. Yet we have seen, even in mainstream British and American politics, forms of ugliness and irrationality I never thought I would see in my lifetime. We have seen on university campuses in Britain and America the abandonment of academic freedom in the name of the right not to be offended by being confronted by views with which I disagree.”

“We owe it to our children and grandchildren not to throw away what once made the West great, and not for the sake of some idealized past, but for the sake of a demanding and deeply challenging future. If we do simply let it go, if we continue to forget that a free society is a moral achievement that depends on habits of responsibility and restraint, then what will come next – be it Russia, China, ISIS or Iran – will be neither liberal nor democratic, and it will certainly not be free. We need to restate the moral and spiritual dimensions in the language of the twenty-first century, using the media of the twenty-first century, and in ways that are uniting rather than divisive.”

I think this calls us to action! To find out what motivations and attitudes made our societies great: The Bible, the statesmen and moral thinkers whose works have survived the test of time. These are the ideals we need to re-introduce.

Aggressive secularism

Aggressive Secular 'Religion'

Today's post is out of the order I had in mind. This comes about because of two insightful but disturbing opinion articles in yesterday's “Australian” newspaper, which I read.

Both are by self-declared Roman Catholic writers. So they are approaching the problem from that particular perspective. They also then tend to conflate Christian faith with the institution of the church. Given that I differ from them in these respects, they have expressed very well the ideas that have been shaping up in my own mind.

The first is by Greg Sheridan, the paper's foreign editor. For those who would like to read the full article. It is online at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/greg-sheridan/christian-churches-drifting-too-far-from-the-marketplace-of-ideas/news-story/e641fab1f62b1a63b08cc1ec75634af5

His premise is that a new religion has swept what I have been calling “the West”. Extremely aggressive, intolerant of other viewpoints; it is modern secularism.

In his own words:

“In Western Europe, on the east and west coasts of the US, and in Australia, the new religion of aggressive secularism is on the rise, more self-confident and fundamentalist than ever.

Widespread, prolonged affluence has been more effective than oppression ever was in killing religious belief and practice. To take one figure almost at random, in 1954, 74 per cent of Australian Cath­olics attended mass each Sunday. Today the figure is substantially less than 10 per cent.
The churches cannot recognise and come to grips with their strategic circumstances. They behave as though they still represent a living social consensus.
They remind me of South Vietnam’s government in 1974. It over-estimated its strength and tried to hang on to all of its territory, including the long narrow neck of its north. It did not retreat to its formidable heartland in the south, which would have been vastly more defensible. Had it done so, it might have survived. Instead, the next year, the armoured divisions of North Vietnam invaded and Saigon lost everything.
Across the past 120 years, the Christian churches in Europe and Australia have lost every significant, long-term battle about social norms and legal measures to underpin them.
Consider just a few: birth control, no-fault divorce, abortion, Sunday trading, blasphemy, film and television standards, same-sex adoption and soon same-sex marriage, and no doubt euthanasia and much else. On some of these issues it was right that the churches lost. In these 120 years no victory was ever more than a temporary slowdown in secularism. While there seemed to be many tactical wins, the war was lost. In each case, the church misunderstood the extent and nature of its support and the long-term threat it faced.”

And pointing out that the secular religion was not going to tolerate competition from Christianity :

“The real danger now is the increasingly frequent direct attacks on religious freedoms. The Greens have called for an end to the exemption for religious bodies from the operation of anti-discrimination laws. This is a direct assault on religious freedom and indeed freedom of association. Christian schools would not be able to insist on hiring Christian teachers.
Yet no one imposes such restrictions on other bodies, such as political parties. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews [a semi-socialist] is not required to offer equality of employment opportunities to Liberal Party [conservative] members when he hires a press secretary.
The aggressive secularism of public culture has become increasingly a state religion in itself and will use the coercive powers of the state to enforce its new orthodoxy. Thus Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner was willing to hear a complaint against the Catholic Archbishop of Hobart for circulating a pamphlet of the Australian bishops entitled Don’t Mess with Marriage.
People should read this document. You could not imagine a more temperate, mild and respectful stating of the traditional Catholic view of marriage as being between a man and a woman. It stresses the inalienable dignity and respect with which every human being should be treated and opposes any discrimination against gay people. But in its view marriage is between a man and a woman.
The complaint was eventually withdrawn. But the fact it was entertained at all is a sure sign of the future. The process itself is the punishment. The process is designed to intimidate. Soon, apparently, it will be positively illegal for Christian churches to publish their traditional teachings.
The intolerance of Australia’s secular religion, which adds to legal harassment the effective tactic of ridicule and endless public abuse, is evident.”

On the same page appeared an article by Angela Shanahan, who in her regular contributions describes and shows herself a devout Catholic.

Her article concerns the innocently named “Safe Schools” program, which is about to be made compulsory in all schools by the State government. And that the concern is not that Roz Ward who led its development is a Marxist, but the damage it will do. It pretends to be be anti bullying but is transparently aimed at sexualising children from a young age and at that biasing them against heterosexuality. Objections by parents and churches have been summarily dismissed as “bigoted”. The point of crossover with Sheridan's article is where she details the targeting for destruction of the social institution of the family by what is in Sheridan's words the new secular religion.

“The issue was the damage that could be done by an extreme philosophy of gender fluidity and sexual libertarianism now embedded in the school curriculum. However, that Ward is a self-confessed Marxist is no great surprise. After all, where did all those Trotskyist activists at university in the 1970s go? They went into the environmental movement, the extreme feminist movement, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex lobby groups. They undermined the old Labor movement with its roots in the working-class family and formed a new set of green-left alliances to push their barrows. Within that ­alliance they can keep on deconstructing, breaking down social pillars.
And the strongest social pillar is, ironically, the family, the same conservative family from which the Labor movement originally sprang. The natural family is the No 1 enemy of every extreme ideology. Even today in Marxist societies the family plays second fiddle to the state. The state instructs and controls the family, not the other way around.”
“The queer gender theory that much of the Safe Schools program is based on is about breaking down the heteronormative view of the world and the natural binary view of sex. It is destructive of the natural family.”
find the article on: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/angela-shanahan/roz-wards-safe-schools-role-should-have-raised-red-flags/news-story/49eb3bf06d7810b40f77821e6e88d395
Linking back to the ideas I have taken from Hayek that morals are evolutionary in the sense that societies with ones that allow the necessary cooperation and coexistence of humans to function better eventually dominate; I would add social institutions to the list. For a start, the Family. Also though maybe down the list a bit, churches. Once you start knocking down the pillars that support our modern extended and complex society what do you think will happen?

Multicultural Madness 2

Multicultural Madness Pt 2

Perhaps I come across a bit anti-Socialist. Well I was, as many were, a raving socialist at university but that was many decades ago! You know the old saying: “Anyone who under the age of 25 who is not a socialist has no heart: anyone over the age of 25 who is a socialist had no head!”

Our problem now is that many grown-ups still hold views that are right out of the Communist play book. And as someone famous said: “A definition of madness is to keep doing the same things hoping for a different outcome” Perhaps “stupidity” would be more accurate. But the fact is that the Marxist - Leninist scheme has been tried again and again, always with the result of vastly increasing human misery and suffering! (Yes the Chinese have now under a Communist cum Capitalist system lifted millions out of poverty, but during Mao's “Great Leap Forward” 34 or so million people died of starvation!) So it seems almost unbelievable that people are again trying to dismantle the pretty functional system we have had in the West to bring in a supposed Socialist Utopia.

In case you may be asking: “what has this to do with “Multiculturalism?” the answer is: “Everything”.

The classic first stage of that creeping Communism better known as Progressive Socialism, is to destroy the existing system. Particularly to destroy the traditional morals and beliefs.

Multiculturalism has been a particularly valuable tool for achieving this.

Anyone trying to say what our culture entails is immediately howled down: “We are a multicultural society – you can't say that!” Even established customs are shut down in the name of multiculturalism: “You can't have Christmas Carols – it might offend the Muslims!” Of course it is not Muslims complaining but socialists of nominally Christian heritage!

Anyone criticising behaviour which up till now has been unacceptable in our culture is treated even worse: “that is a racist attack!” they howl using the New Morals where this ranks with sexist, homophobic and Islamophobic as the deadly sins.

A funny story on this: There was a spate of telephone scams going on a while back where the caller would claim to be from Microsoft informing you there was a problem with your computer, which if you let them take remote control of it they would fix. As you can guess, that ended badly for the victim. When I got – for the third time – a caller with an Indian sub-continent accent saying: “My name is Peter, I am from Microsoft ...” I replied : “It is people like you who are giving Indians and Pakistanis a bad name!” before hanging up. Later I got a call – with an Indian sub-continent accent saying: “My name is Paul, I am from the Taxation department ...” I said quickly: “I can't talk now, give me your number and I'll call you straight back.” Then I looked up the phone number of the real Taxation department and told them the story only to have the operator say after consulting her database: “Oh yes, Paul is one of ours” !

But many migrants, would fit in with the existing order if that were not hidden from them. Partly it is hidden because people are now afraid to say: “in our country we do it like this,” or “We don't do that sort of thing!” for fear of being vilified on social, or even mainstream media as “racist” because they have seen examples of this happening – even of people losing their jobs or having their companies boycotted.

I had a Chinese parishioner many years ago who complained to me how no one would tell him what the “right” way of doing things was. As an example he explained how you would address different people in the office you worked in. I can't remember the details, but the key feature was that it was rigidly structured on where you and they fitted in the hierarchy. As he said he was bewildered by the informality in our workplaces, but wanted to learn.

So this multiculturalism is not being kind to immigrants, quite the reverse. It is cruel to them by deceiving them into thinking it is better not to adopt the culture that makes this social order function properly. It is callous by using them – particularly the Muslims – as a human weapon regardless of the stock of social resentment this builds.

Migrants are being used as human weapons against the existing social order and against the dominant religion, Christianity. It really is a Socialist plot!

Muslims are encouraged to think that they and their religion are privileged in this country. Since many come from countries where they are privileged and Christians treated as second class citizens if not actively persecuted, and their religion is mandated and all others at least forbidden to proselytise, they fall for this ploy. Muslims then act a bit like spoilt children! But it is due to the scheming of social progressives of nominal Christian background to use them as a weapon against Christianity.

What we are seeing now on the Continent and particularly in Germany suggests that Socialist elements are using the same general plot-line but much more vigorously, aided by uncontrolled immigration from poor or war-torn Muslim countries. They talk as though they are “compassionate” perhaps they have deluded themselves that they are, but the end will be human disaster.

If you think “multiculturalism” means an accepting attitude to immigrants, and absorbing the best of their culinary and artistic traditions you are right to endorse it.

Tragically that is not how it is now being used. It is now a ploy to destroy the values, ideals, morals and mores essential to our countries' survival. It is particularly being used as one arm of a concerted attempt to destroy Christianity. But our modern democratic Western countries owe what they are to our Greek-Roman, Judeo-Christian traditions and beliefs, which have been painstakingly built-repaired-renovated over millennia. Destroy this and we sink into a new dark age.

Muticultural Madness 1

Multicultural Madness Pt1

Multicultural-ism has been in recent decades, the sacred cow of the “new” Western countries. The “old” European countries now seem to be taking this madness to its limit with uncontrolled borders.

Multicultural-ism is the doctrine whereby you have high immigration but instead of promoting integration of these new arrivals into the dominant culture you encourage them to maintain their old ways. In essence it is the end point of cultural cringe – you are in effect telling the new arrivals that they are coming to a land devoid of any customary ways of working together, devoid of a world view about what is right and wrong, and devoid of social customs and mores. It is for all parties a cruel lie!

Let me stress here “culture” is so much more than food and folk dancing! You can dress up in tartan kilts and do Scottish Country dancing, Irish feet-only dancing, put on a ten gallon hat and do American Country & Western, be a fan of the Waltz, or saucy South American dances and so on and still belong to the dominant culture. In fact these just become “add-ons” of choice. You can cook in exotic food styles, and still belong to the dominant culture – in fact you will find all these food styles just go mainline and even get improved. When I tried pizza in Italy I was quite disappointed! I kept thinking: “They should come to Australia and learn how to do a real pizza.”

When we allow ourselves to think of these things as “culture” we are only scratching the surface. We are also making a huge mistake. These superficial things have spread through the entire country – regardless of actual ethnic origin. They have been a real boon. But it is a very different story if we look deeper into what “culture” actually entails.

Culture proper consists of things like the ways of thinking which are built in to our language, our view of the rule of law, how we value human life, “manners” - that social lubricant of day to day dealings with other people, and the actual rules (written and unwritten) which have evolved to make our particular society function as well as it does.

People want to come to live ion our country presumably because they think it is better than their own. One reason for this is that our society functions better. (Another of course could be – as in the case of an invasion – because they want to plunder it!) But let's stick with first one for now.

If the people in our own country who have been so loudly advocating multiculturalism have not understood the implications one can hardly expect the immigrants to. So, unlike the immigrant waves of the past who integrated and took on our culture (in the true sense) and worked hard to give their children a start in the land of opportunity, these modern immigrants hear us saying that they should carry on just as they did in the old country, there are no new customs, ideals or rules here, and will destroy rather than build up our countries.

The old way of integration worked.

In one parish I had there was a very large Italian population. Often there were four generations. The old grandmother who had been brought out by her family – dressed in black and probably didn't speak English. The the ones who had come as adults, Italian names, dark skinned, still had an accent. Their children probably born here, still Italian given name, no accent, often risen the ladder through education and enterprise and as likely as not married a non-Italian. Then their children, with the currently popular Aussie names and indistinguishable from other European origin people. Sure in the early post WWII times there were real racial tensions. The “Dagos” used knives in fights which then was un-Australian. Italian boys were violently protective of their sisters, but conversely mis-understood Australian female fashions as indicating loose morals. But they learned to fit in over time. Melbourne is said to have a Greek population second only to Athens, but they are all thoroughly Australianised.

There is a gorgeous scene in the film “Kindergarten Cop” where the very young class of children are at the festival picnic and all reciting the Gettysburg address: “Four-score and seven years ago our fathers …..” and then when the camera scans the group you see an incredibly diverse ethnic mix! Every time I have seen that film it has struck me that it illustrates the proper way to treat immigrants : “You are one of us now, and this is our shared heritage, and this is how we behave”

More next time

Loss of the Good Neighbour

"the Pioneer" by Frederick McCubbin (who's country painting cottage is in Woodend where I live!) Illustrating the harshness of pioneer life in Australia

Loss of Good Neighbours.

Jesus defined the ideal of “good neighbour” with that wonderful parable we call the Good Samaritan. He also put in a punchy saying “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

Of course Jesus was not saying anything new. Way back in Deuteronomy there are a multitude of – I was about to say “rules” but they are more in the nature of examples of the sort of actions required to fulfil the rule of neighbourliness. Interestingly they include enemies as well as friends which is something Jesus said a lot about!

So first of all we have the sort of thing we expect towards someone who is part of our nation, ethnic group, religion, church, club, locality etc.: “If you see your fellow Israelite's ox or sheep straying. Do not ignore it but be sure to take it back to its owner” (Deut.22.1).

Remember how I quoted Hayek in his book “The Fatal Conceit” saying that he thought traditional ethical rules evolved – by the simple mechanism that communities who had rules that made them more functional out-competed ones who did not. Now of course I believe the ones in the Bible were God-given – but that in itself implies that they work – and it is easy to see how in a rural subsistence community this rule makes the community more functional. It also makes it easy to explain why other communities may have developed similar rules – they found ones that worked! Also from my experience of God I expect that he gave people in ancient societies who were trying to work out “good” rules a nudge in the right direction!

But Jesus went further didn't he. With comments like “You have heard that it was said, 'love your neighbour, hate your enemy' but I tell you love your enemies ...” (Matthew 5:43) And of course the Parable of the Good Samaritan drives home this very point.

Now I don't know how the “hate your enemy” had wormed its way in to people's thinking in Jesus' time – it certainly was not in the Old Testament – quite the opposite! :

“If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off be sure to return it. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen under its load, do not leave it there, be sure to help them with it.” (Exodus 23:4)

Once again if one were just looking from the perspective of “survival of the community”, this is a really good and functional rule to have! However it is not a rule that sits well with human nature! That alone probably answers my question “How did the 'hate your enemy' bit creep in”. So in this case it is a rule that works – and if you were a modern employer you would not be happy about animosity in the workplace which meant that one employee would not help another with a work problem! But this is often what happens – to the detriment of the company!

So once again we can say: “a rule that works” so it could evolve. But in this case we can say two more things:

1) It runs against human nature, so it requires either extensive “socialisation” to it as a traditional custom, good manners or the like, with sanctions against breaking it. Or an imminent threat where they clearly must cooperate in order to survive.

2) Jesus linked it to God's own character “Love your enemies … that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good...” God's love for us who were his enemies is a theme I enjoy contemplating – but for now I had better stick to this script. This gives us the insight, as I have said before of Christian morals being both derivative from God's own character and being like “maker's instructions” that we do well to follow! “But wait there's more” Real Christians actually want to be like Jesus, and have his Spirit to help them – so they are at a practical advantage in implementing “love your neighbour” That is of course not to say they score 100%!

In the West Millennia of Christianity, even if often of rather poor quality, had worked some of this into the cultures. True mostly inter- rather than intra- clan or family! But that often in by-gone times was the locus of community. Our large scale community or “extended order” as Hayak calls it, is modern.

In pioneer countries like the U.S. and Australia this was aided by sheer necessity. I read a sociological study of a small U.S. farming community in the 50's about 70kM from Washington DC

which was disturbingly similar to my then parish 70 kM out of Melbourne! In this study they observed that there was a strong code that people helped each other when one had difficulties on their farm. Interestingly they observed that there was never any payment but that over time such favours were scrupulously repaid in kind.

In Australia pioneer farmers in the 1800's faced a hostile environment. Cooperation and helping others without question: because you might need help next was essential. No luxury of scorning enemies there! Even in my youth it was expected that if you saw someone in trouble you would help them – whether it was a bogged car, a non-English speaking immigrant about to swim at a beach where the sign said “Dangerous rip – no swimming” or whatever. Without regard to who they were. I also remember that no payment was to be offered for such help – that would be considered an insult – people had done what decent people do.

This latter point: a rule that you helped people regardless of who they were, generally having never met them before or likely to again – this is necessary for the :”Love your neighbour” to work in modern mass society. We are not functional as clans any more, hardly functional as small states any more, we will rise or fall as much, much bigger social units!

Let me stress this: We live in mass societies. People we depend on do not in general have close personal relationships with us. People we need to treat as we would have others treat us may may just be a name or a face to us, if that. So for a functional society we need a general rule observed by all towards all.

Now in my memory all this has been collapsing. Self contentedness has become the norm. In many it approaches total self absorption: such people care nothing for others needs but expect everyone to rush to fulfil theirs.

Many are trying to create little groupings – family, civic action group, things of this nature, within which the rule generally applies. They are in fact going back to precisely the state Jesus was criticising in the Good Samaritan!

If the West is not to become increasingly dysfunctional on yet another front – until it implodes or is superseded by a more vigorous culture Jesus' teaching needs to become our general creed:

“Always treat other people the way you would like people to treat you”