Warwick Marsh, Founder, Fatherhood Foundation, Newsletter No. 126, 24 Jan. 2005, 2-3:

The passion of making love is a lot like hot molten metal. Kept within the channel of marriage this passionate love creates children and is the spiritual act of oneness that gives marriage its transcendence. When this hot passion spills outside the confines of a faithful marital relationship, it is a lot like the hot molten metal that spills out of the cradles at the steel works and explodes. What happens is always unpredictable and it can even cause death.

[Strong candidate for this year's 'bizarre analogy award'.]

Bill Muehlenberg, National Vice-President, Australian Family Association, ‘Kinsey: the horror story’, AFA website, Jan. 2005:

… Today we see the result of [the] social and sexual revolution: broken families, marriage disintegration, a tide of pornography, including child pornography, an epidemic of promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases, skyrocketing abortion rates, a crisis in teenage pregnancies, an explosion of rape and sexual assault [But wait, there's more!] and a tide of pornography, including child pornography, an epidemic of promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases, skyrocketing abortion rates, a crisis in teenage pregnancies, an explosion of rape and sexual assault and a culture that believes hedonism is the highest good, and self-control and restraint the greatest evil.

[Bill knows a lot about restraint, certainly more than he knows about proof-reading.]

Bill Muehlenberg, National Vice-President, Australian Family Association, ‘Disaster relief and religion’, New Life, 27 Jan. 2005, regarding donations to tsunami victims:

People [who donated] would be feeling fairly good about themselves and pretty proud of their generosity. But of course evangelical Christians have the prophetic job of pointing out some painful truths. All the good works and donations, while greatly appreciated, are the result of what theologians call ‘common grace’. That is, the fact that anyone does anything good is not due to their own good efforts, but simply due to the grace of God … Regardless of the monies donated, we are all, apart from God’s grace, sinners on the way to a lost eternity.

[Thanks for bringing us back to earth, Bill. Sackcloth and ashes, that's the ticket.]

Laurie P., New Life correspondent, 27 Jan. 2005:

If God was to tell one lie, this whole universe including God would disintegrate.

[Well, that should keep him on the straight and narrow.]

Helen Woodall, New Life editorial, 27 Jan. 2005, re the movie Kinsey:

… [Another] problem I have with glorifying [Kinsey] is the way he conducted his experiments. For example, he took a group of four-year-old boys, had them sexually stimulated for 24 uninterrupted hours and because they achieved organism [sic] decided that there was no such thing as paedophilia and that ‘cross-generational sexual contact’ was normal. He forgot to mention that some of the people stimulating these children were convicted paedophiles and that many of the children had to be tied down, ‘otherwise they would not respond willingly’.

[What a pity that no source is provided for this shattering information.]

New Life evangelical Christian weekly, front page story ‘Tsunami!’, 20 Jan. 2005:

‘May the God of the Christians help us now!’ That was the cry of many people as the tsunami hit in Aceh, Indonesia, yet many who cried out for help perished in the monster seas.

[No source is given for this claim, which opened New Life's extensive coverage of the disaster, and it seems absurd on its face. Muslims would pray to Allah, while Christians would not use the term 'God of the Christians'. And who was there to hear and record this 'cry of many people'? New Testament writers frequently lodged supposed sayings of Jesus in unlikely contexts and it seems that the custom has not died out.]

Clifford Wilson, veteran creationist, ‘A Christian reflection on the tsunami’, New Life, 20 Jan. 2005:

The tsunami indicates that the flood in Noah’s day really can be understood as a tremendous disturbance of nature. If at that time the whole earth was resting on just one tectonic plate which broke into seven plates, clearly there would be total disaster on the earth. With just a few centimetres of movement in the present disaster more than 155, 000 people have died. What almost incredible consequences there must have been when one complete plate was suddenly broken up into a number of pieces! Gen. 7:11 states that all the fountains of the great deep broke through the earth’s crust and the very ‘windows of heaven’ were opened up.

[Huge, undiscovered quantities of water beneath the earth's crust, somehow insulated from the magma and molten core, and lots more floating about in outer space, eh, Cliff? If you say so.]

Giselle Schmid, Member, Answers in Genesis Melbourne Support Group, Answers Prayer News, Jan.-Mar. 2005, 13:

I used to beat my head against a wall wondering why we lost all our young people [to acceptance of evolutionary theory] at about age 16. In the last few years, I’ve realised that age 16 (year 10) is when the schools start teaching evolution in depth. I have also discovered that some of the teachers actually identify the Christian students and make a special point of explaining the differences and difficulties in reconciling Genesis and the so-called ‘facts’ of evolution. It’s no wonder we lose them. I come near tears just thinking about it.

[Yes, and there's a name for this disgraceful practice, Giselle. It's called 'education'.]

Andrew Corbett, Pastor, Legana Christian Church, Tasmania and part-time anti-gay rights advocate, 5 Proofs for the Existence of God, Dec. 2004:

Skeptics may dispute the historical claim that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead but they do so perilously. This is because there is enough evidence to validate it and it is the point at which all of the history of Christ and Christianity rests. This means that if anything of Christ and Christianity is true then the Physical Resurrection of Christ is also true. The opposite is also true. If Christ did not literally rise from the dead then none of his history or teachings have any credence.

[How can someone fit so many false premises and non sequiturs into so few words?]

Reb Bradley et al., authors promoted by the Australian Festival of Light, extracts from Dating: Is it Worth the Risk? and similar texts - http://www.fol.org.au - see ‘Abstinence’ and ‘Resources’ sections:

Why do people feel so strongly about [courtship and dating]? Because the ‘dating game’ is such a dangerous game to play! Whether you are the predator or the prey, you are quite likely to be hurt by the recreational dating scene. Some may come out unscarred from the pit of snakes, but is that any reason to walk through it? …
Dating … in many cases, distracts young adults from their primary responsibility of preparing for the future; can cause discontentment with God’s gift of singleness; … teaches people to break off difficult relationships, conditioning them more for divorce than marriage; develops an appetite for variety and change, creating dissatisfaction within marriage; causes late marriages, leaving more time for falling into sins associated with singleness [Didn't you just say that singleness was 'God's gift'?]; promotes lust and moderate [!!] sexual activity, opening the door for fornication; creates a permanent endorphin-bond between two people who will not spend their lives together [What??]; creates a standard of comparison by which mates are first chosen, but after marriage rejected; lacks the protections and guidance afforded by parental involvement in courtship …

[Of course, rather than act on this advice you could always try living instead.]

Rev. Fred Nile MP, Editor, Family World News, Jan. 2005, 2:

Since the Federal election there has been criticism in the media and by some Christians and church leaders of the priorities of evangelical voters and Christian candidates. They claim the evangelicals were only concerned about a limited number of issues such as same-sex marriage, drugs, Christian schools, but ignored refugees, detention centres, the Iraq war etc …

The USA, UK and Australian liberation campaign of the Iraq people from the sadistic, murderous regime of Saddam Hussein was supported by the majority of Australians. It should not be described as a ‘war’ because a war is between the people of two nations as occurred in WWII. The Iraq campaign was against Saddam Hussein’s military machine, not the long-suffering people of Iraq …

[Thanks, Fred. 100,000 dead Iraqis agree that it's much nicer to be killed in a 'campaign' rather than a 'war'.]

Filed in: Their Own Mouths