Bill Muehlenberg, National Vice-President, Australian Family Association and book reviewer for Australian Christian Lobby, 17 Aug. 2005:

Every day new anti-faith outrages are taking place and the obvious question to ask is, ‘How long before Christianity is outlawed altogether?’

Run a nice cold shower, Bill, and stand under it for about half an hour.]

Richard Egan, WA State President, National Civic Council, ‘Some Fundamental Problems with IVF’, The Australian Family, July 2005, 20:

No one has a right to access reproductive technology because no one has a right to acquire a child.

[By extension, any expenditure designed to achieve conception constitutes the attempted 'acquisition' of a child. Bad luck for the lingerie, wine and soft music industries. And if a condom slips, should the offending couple be charged with 'negligent acquisition'?]

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Filed in: Their Own Mouths

[Professor Werther] fails to recognise … that there is a historical content to the Christian faith, not just blind belief.
Emeritus Professor Allan J. Day, Melbourne Age, 11 Aug. 2005

Day made this comment in his contribution to a recent public debate about so-called ‘Intelligent Design’ theory. Many Christians make a similar assertion i.e. that, unlike most other religions, Christianity has a firm historical basis, with an implication that its claims are therefore entitled to special respect. But what exactly do people such as Professor Day mean by terms like ‘historical content’ and ‘historical basis’?

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Filed in: Biblical criticism

3. Andrew Evans

Andrew Evans, founder of the Family First Party (FFP) and since 2002 a Member of the South Australian Legislative Council, looks and talks like anyone’s grandpa. It’s hard to believe that this friendly old gaffer is a senior player in Australia’s Religious Right - but you’d better believe it.

Evans was born in India to missionary parents about 70 years ago. When he was 11, the family moved back to Australia and after a period of time, Andrew ‘came to an absolutely undeniable conclusion that the Bible was true’ and decided to become a pastor. You can read all about his career in his maiden speech to Parliament, delivered on 9 May 2002 - but suffice it to say that he rose to become the National Superintendent of the Assemblies of God (AOG) in Australia and held that position from 1977 until 1997. He was then appointed World Secretary of the AOG and also became a member of the World Executive of the Pentecostal movement, which has a total following of around half a billion people.

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Filed in: Pentecostalism, Politics

In February 2005, Mrs Maria Korp, aged 50, was choked by her husband’s mistress and left for dead in the boot of a car parked near Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. She never regained consciousness, and on 26 July Victorian Public Advocate Julian Gardner, Mrs Korp’s legal guardian, authorised the cessation of her artificial nutrition. (Korp died on 5 August.)

Gardner made it clear that he had reached his decision after months of consultation with Mrs Korp’s family and two separate teams of doctors, including palliative care specialists. As Korp was a Catholic, he had also sought the advice of her priest and a Catholic expert in ethics. In his public announcement, Gardner repeatedly stated that Korp was ‘dying’ and that tubal nutrition had been ‘prolonging her dying instead of sustaining her life’.

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Filed in: Catholicism, Voluntary Euthanasia

Did you know that the world is positively teeming with demons? They’re all over the place, rebelling against God, performing evil acts and ‘possessing’ human beings - even some Christians. Many, perhaps most, fundamentalists and Pentecostals believe that this is true and a lot of them are doing something about it. The ’something’ is called ’spiritual warfare’.

As Spirithome.com explains:

‘Spiritual warfare’ is the struggle to have life in this material world reflect as much as possible God’s loving governance. God is in charge, but there is an enemy that is in full-scale revolt … As with the unseen God, the forces behind the revolt are unseen, non-physical and supernatural. They lust after power in the world of visible, material beings.

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Filed in: Fundamentalism, Pentecostalism