Fiona Hobbs, anti-sex shop campaigner, Shepparton, Vic., Salt Shakers’ email, 24 May 2005:

We declare a blood-line around this city (shut the door), we cut off and resist every defiling spirit associated with the activities of Club X and forbid (bind) their activity and entry into our region. We ask you, Lord, to block every point of entry … Lord, we pray you send in your warring angels to fight and push back the enemy …

[And Lord, if you could protect us from any more of these Pentecostalist ravings, we'd really be ever so grateful.]

Australian Prayer Network Newsletter, 29 May 2005:

Study shows American Christian Teens Theologically Shallow … Thus far, telephone surveys reveal that young people have a broad fondness for religion, although their religious knowledge is labelled as ‘meagre, nebulous and often fallacious’ … In other words, teens were unable to coherently express their beliefs and the impact of faith on their lives. In addition, many participants appeared so separated from the traditions of their faith that they viewed God as a feel-good problem solver who merely existed for that purpose. There were no indications of an absolute, truth-based theology among the teens.

[Best news we've had this week. And are American adults really very different?]

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Filed in: Their Own Mouths

I keep reading that Labor frontbencher Kevin Rudd and some other ALP personalities are trying to draw closer to bodies associated with the Religious Right - for a detailed account of this go to www.abc.net.au/compass/s1362997.htm. Presumably the idea is to wean some conservative Christian voters away from the Peter Costellos and Tony Abbotts of this world and in that way regain some marginal seats lost at the last election.

In my view this policy is both doomed and counterproductive. It reminds me of Latham’s Tasmanian forests gambit, but it’s far worse.

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Filed in: Christian Right, Politics

Ros and David Phillips of SA run what’s left of the old Festival of Light, now re-titled Festival of Light Australia (FOLA). (Organisations like this seem to have several chiefs to every Indian: David Phillips claims to be FOLA’s National President, while Fred Nile in NSW says he’s the Director of the ‘Festival of Light - Community Standards Organisation’, but he doesn’t pay much attention to this body any more.)

I always knew that the Phillips were arch-patronisers. They seem to inhabit some far superior planet located about two kilometers from God, but they occasionally deign to favour us with their ineffable wisdom. They produce a publication called Light and in the May 2005 issue, they actually succeed in patronising Tony Abbott, something I thought impossible.

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Filed in: People, Sexuality

While some untutored Christian friends have denounced my suggestion that fundamentalists consign unbaptised foetuses to hell (13 May 2005), others have confirmed the accuracy of this position. In discussing the related question of whether those who die as babies go to heaven or hell, Rev. D. R. Niven of St George, Qld. makes the following unassailable point (New Life, 19 Apr. 1990):

We tend to think that babies will go to heaven by a different route than that of adults, when Jesus Himself [has] made it perfectly clear how anyone is to go to heaven. Jesus said: ‘Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’ (John 3:3).

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Filed in: Fundamentalism

Andrew Lansdown of Life Ministries WA is a prolific writer on topics of interest to the Religious Right. He has some strange ideas (for example, he believes that animals are morally responsible for their actions - Salt Shakers Journal, Feb. 2001, 13), but he is generally orthodox in his interpretations of the scriptures. I was surprised, therefore, when I came across this paragraph in a recent article he wrote called ‘Arguments against abortion’ (New Life, 28 Apr. 2005, 5):

Every human being has a right to life. This includes, of course, pregnant women. Consequently, on the exceptionally rare occasion when a woman is in mortal danger from the continuation of a pregnancy, her life cannot be forfeited against her will for the sake of the baby’s. Where there is a genuine conflict between the right to life of the child and the right to life of the mother it is legitimate to choose in favour of the mother.

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Filed in: Morality, Secularism

On 10 April (’How many gays in Australia?’) I criticised Bill Muehlenberg, National Vice-President of the Australian Family Association, for his rough handling of statistical material on this question. Having carefully read Juliet Richters’ and Chris Rissel’s Doing it Down Under (Allen and Unwin, 2005), a source of his stats, I would now like to criticise him for blatant misquoting as well.

Muehlenberg concludes the relevant section of his article as follows:

Incredibly, however, in the face of all this hard evidence to demonstrate the very low percentage of homosexuals in society, the two authors put this rather unscientific spin on things: ‘It is too simple to say “10 per cent of the population is gay”, but it is true that at least 10 per cent of the population is a little bit gay-ish’! (’Separating Myth From Science’, The Australian Family, Mar. 2005, 43)

In fact, what Richters and Rissel wrote was:

It is too simple to say ‘10 per cent of the population is gay’, but it is true that at least 10 per cent of the population is a little bit gay-ish, either in experience or attraction or both (my emphasis). (55)

This conclusion is entirely borne out by their statistics (see their Chapter 8) and is not ‘unscientific’ in any way.

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Filed in: Sexuality

You may have heard of Pastor Danny Nalliah from Catch the Fire (CTF) Ministries in Melbourne. He and his mate Pastor Daniel Scot recently ran afoul of Victoria’s controversial anti-vilification laws, but this didn’t stop Nalliah from contesting the Senate for the Family First Party. He was unsuccessful, but his running-mate Steve Fielding made the grade.

Danny Nalliah is a truly remarkable character and I thought you might like to know some more about him. For example, did you know he can heal the blind? - well, when he’s visiting Sri Lanka, anyway. Here’s the story, straight from the horse’s mouth:

At our first meeting in Colombo, a man totally blind for 17 years was brought up for prayer. Well, Glory to God, I placed my thumbs on his eyes and rebuked the blind spirit and claimed healing in the Name of Jesus. I finished praying and took my hands off. Instantly the man’s eyes opened up and he started shouting, ‘I can see, I can see!’ He then grabbed my tie and started telling me all the different colours on my tie. This really sent waves of rejoicing throughout the meeting. (CTF Ministries Inc., Newsletter, Sept. 2002, 2)

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Filed in: Evangelicals, People