Andrew Kulikovsky, ‘A reliable historical record’, Journal of Creation, ibid., 23:

… [I]f the Old Testament is such an accurate and reliable history of the Hebrew people, then it should also be regarded as an accurate and reliable history of the creation of the universe and the creation of man.

[But Andrew, the Old Testament is not an accurate and reliable history of the Hebrew people, and even if it was, it would not follow that it was necessarily accurate and reliable in any other way. Apart from that, you've sold me.]

Cameron Horn, ‘Unmasking the media’ column, Family World News, Jun. 2006, 6:

How’s this for an election platform – legislate away Christian freedom of speech, legalise all abortion, legalise gay marriage, legalise gay adoption and other experimental parenting … and Government-sponsored gay lifestyle promotion to school children. Not in Australia? Well, maybe not – only in Victoria. The way the Victorian Government is thumbing their nose at the spirit of Federal law, one must question that state’s place in the Commonwealth of Australia.

[Cameron must live in a parallel universe.]

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Filed in: Their Own Mouths

Many Jewish people think that the Christian Right is basically well-disposed towards them. After all, conservative Christians in both America and Australia strongly support the bulk of Israel’s foreign and domestic policies as well as providing plenty of tourist dollars.

In fact, however, most Christian fundamentalists and other conservative evangelicals foresee a brief but violent future for the Jews. When Jesus returns ’soon’, Jews will either have to convert to Christianity or die, generally in battle or through plagues and famine. There will be no Jews in Jesus’ millennial kingdom.

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Filed in: Biblical criticism, Christian Right, People

According to the Christian Right, families are the closest thing we have on earth to the heavenly social order. Every member is devoted to all other members and there’s nothing we’d rather do than promote their interests through our own self-sacrifice. So I had to laugh when I read these comments about wills and children in the Melbourne Age ‘Money‘ supplement (Margot Date, ‘For their own good’, 12 Jul. 2006, 12):

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Filed in: Family Values

Good evangelical Protestants are supposed to ‘tithe’ i.e. give (at least) ten per cent of their incomes to ‘God’. But what does this mean in practice?

According to recent surveys (Ellison Research, reported in Australian Prayer Network International News, 10 Jul. 2006), a majority of American Protestant pastors say that the tithe should go to ‘the local church’ (i.e. to the pastors). But only about one-third of their congregations agree with them. Indeed most congregants believe that a Christian’s tithe need not even be limited to religious groups or causes.

And only a minority of those churchgoers who believe that they should give their tithes to the local church actually do so.

And then, of course, there’s the question of whether the ten per cent tithe should be calculated on pre-tax (gross) or post-tax (net) income. Churchgoers are split about 50-50 on this one, but not unexpectedly the clergy plump heavily for the pre-tax option. One pastor (hopefully?) pointed out that, ‘When we calculate our tithes based on net income, we put the government ahead of God’.

Isn’t Christian unity a wonderful thing?

Filed in: General

Melbourne’s Salt Shakers group, led by Peter and Jenny Stokes, has the reputation of being one of Australia’s more puritanical Christian Right organisations. It came as a shock, therefore, when they appended a paper entitled ‘Understanding Propaganda’ by Dr R. Winfield to their e-newsletter of 6 Jul. 2006.

Winfield’s main message was that the Academy Award-winning film Brokeback Mountain was nothing but a vehicle for pro-gay and anti-family worldviews – in Winfield’s own words, ‘one of the most blatant propaganda pieces of recent times’.

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Filed in: Christian Right, Sexuality

Christian Right groups always attract their fair share of health cranks. The North Queensland Pain Help Centre, based in Mareeba, recently had this published in the Fatherhood Foundation newsletter (3 Jul. 2006):

… One issue you raised is the addiction to coffee, mine is still high! However, there is an upside to coffee, pardon the pun, we are putting it in the wrong end!!!!!!!!!!

A Dr Gerson at the turn of the century used coffee enemas to treat pain and cancer very effectively. Its ability to detox the body is amazing – http://www.gerson.org/

Oh boy, so coffee enemas are an effective treatment for cancer. You learn something every day. But you’ll learn more if you go here – http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/gastro.html – or here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerson_therapy.

As for the North Queensland Pain Help Centre, I suggest that it can take its own advice, pretend it’s a cup of coffee and … oops, remember you’re a lady, Angie.

Filed in: General

Self-selected readers’ and viewers’ polls were all over the place when it came to the ACT gay civil unions law. When Christian Right groups ran concerted campaigns, the polls they targeted indicated strong opposition to the legislation, while other (less tainted?) polls showed majority support.

A scientifically-conducted ACNielsen/Age survey indicated that 45% of those polled supported the ACT laws while only 34% opposed them. This support peaked in the 18-39 age-group with 56% of the sample backing the legislation.

Religious Right groups continue to squabble among themselves about how best to proceed in their ongoing campaign against gay unions. Some want the ACT Government to settle for a form of civil registration while others want the Feds to obliterate all state laws that recognise gay unions in any way whatsoever. But Canberra doesn’t seem interested in taking the matter much further. A spokesperson for Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock said recently that the Government now believed ‘that the definition of marriage is quite clear and enshrined in the common law …’ (Annabel Stafford ‘Poll finds half say “yes” to gay unions’, Melbourne Age, 20 Jun. 2006)

Filed in: Politics, Sexuality

Several media outlets recently ran readers’ and viewers’ polls regarding the future of Channel 10’s Big Brother program. Many Australians up to and including Prime Minister Howard had been scandalised by an incident involving unsolicited sexual horseplay, and renewed calls for the show to be banned.

The poll questions generally required a yes or no answer e.g. the Melbourne Age asked its readers, ‘Should Big Brother be axed?’, reporting the next day that the relatively large number of 11,990 votes had been received. 69% voted Yes and 31% No. (Age, 4 Jul. 2006) Most similarly-worded polls in other sections of the media produced comparable results.

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Filed in: Censorship

Terry Lane, a Melbourne religious and political affairs commentator, recently wrote a brief article about the biblical attitude to homosexuals (‘Better to run away than burn in hell’, Melbourne Sunday Age, 2 Jul. 2006).

Lane began by quoting Paul’s letter to the Romans:

God gave them up to dishonourable passions. (Er. God made them do it? – T.L.) Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another … [T]hose who do such things deserve to die …

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Filed in: Biblical criticism, Sexuality

A critic of this website – sadly, there are such people – recently entreated us to use less ‘invective’ against the organisations we so justly criticise. Now, apart from an occasional (very witty) jibe, I don’t think we do throw much invective around here, if you take ‘invective’ to mean ‘abusive rhetoric’ (Oxford dictionary).

Our critic’s missive implied that Christian Right groups do not themselves employ invective against their opponents, as would indeed befit followers of ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’. I tried to bear this in mind as I glanced through the latest issue of Fred Nile’s Family World News (FWN) (Jul. 2006). But I’d only reached page 2 before I came across this:

The failed ACT Government ALP leader, Jon Stanhope, has made a complete mess of the ACT … in every area of society – morally, socially and economically. (Fred Nile’s editorial)

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Filed in: Christian Right, Family Values, Sexuality