Nancy Campbell, ‘From our Home to Yours’ (editorial), Above Rubies, Nov. 2006 (distributed Feb. 2007), 4:

Most Christians limit their families to one or two children, which is a belief-system rooted in humanism and feminism. It doesn’t come from the Bible.

['Belief-systems' seem to be breeding like rabbits in evangelical literature. Family planning is apparently a discrete 'belief-system' now. What about having sex, Nancy, is that a 'belief-system' too?]

Louise Shaw, ‘Dress to Please’ (part of a longer piece titled ‘Husbands Need Encouragement’), ibid., 6:

Recently I have begun to honour my husband by dressing more femininely and lovely to look upon. I wear far more skirts than before.

[Three at once, do you mean?]

Brian Pickering, Australian Prayer Network, ‘National Solemn Assembly Update #5′ (email to supporters), 13 Feb. 2007:

I remind us all … that at the end of the 2005 season of prayer, during which many areas in the nation received drought-breaking rains, that the rains stopped when the prayers stopped and we fell into even more serious drought than existed before the season of prayer began.

[Aha, so it's you and your inconstant pray-ers who are to blame, Brian! Just so we know. And, look, it's all very well to pray for rain next month when the weather people say we're going to have some, but how about doing it at the start of a forecast El Nino season and see how you go?]

Warwick Marsh, Fatherhood Foundation, email to supporters, received 14 Jan. 2007:

John Eldredge identifies six stages of manhood: Boyhood, Cowboy, Warrior, Lover, King and Sage …

[Just my luck. I peaked at Cowboy.]

Dawn Eden, ‘former groupie and free-love addict’, as quoted in Bill Muehlenberg The High Cost of Free Love, 15 Jan. 2007:

Whatever [Germaine] Greer and her ilk might say, I’ve tried their philosophy - that a woman can shag like a man - and it doesn’t work. We’re not built like that. Women are built for bonding. We are vessels and we seek to be filled …

[I distinctly recall Greer referring to this, most disapprovingly, as 'the spittoon theory of womanhood'. And, Bill, what are you doing quoting words like 'shag'?' Are you trying to corrupt us?]

Bill Muehlenberg, ibid., Discussion, 30 Jan. 2007, regarding the recent outbreak of ‘upskirting’ in Melbourne:

[Ben Green], [y]ou argue that it is common sense to say upskirting is wrong. But the fellow doing it obviously did not think it was wrong. How, under your system of moral relativism, can you say you are right and he is wrong on this issue?

[Bill, do you seriously believe that people committing these crimes 'obviously don't think they're wrong'? Surely they know very well that their actions are wrong, but hope that they can get away with them? As for your qualms about 'moral relativism', why don't you rob banks? Not because of the biblical commandment against theft, but because you know quite independently of this that robbing banks is extremely anti-social and therefore wrong.]

Mary Lou Corboy, Glenrowan Vic., letter in News Weekly, 3 Feb. 2007:

Mr [Damian] Wyld heaps great praise on the film ‘The Nativity Story’ … At last, his review eventually touches on a ‘few minor errors’, including that mother and child cry in pain at birth. According to Catholic Church doctrine, the Blessed Virgin Mary was immaculately conceived without the stain of original sin. As such, she was not subject to the penalties of sin and therefore would not have experienced pain in childbirth which was one of the punishments of [Adam's Fall from Grace]. To accept otherwise is to deny one of the most profound doctrines of the Catholic faith.

[Mary Lou, you sound like a bundle of fun. How about a date?]

Jack Sonnemann, Australian Federation for the Family, letter to subscribers, 17 Jan. 2007:

Visit [the Federation] website at www.Ausfamily.org …

[Jack, I've often wondered, how does one guy become a 'federation'?]

Warwick Marsh, Fatherhood Foundation, email to supporters, received 18 Feb. 2007:

Good news! Some parts of the East Coast have had their best rain in many years. Who says that prayer does not work?

[Which is more likely? That some rain should fall during an El Nino event? Or that a deity should alter the laws of physics in response to supplication? It's a tough one, all right.]

Hakuo Yanagisawa, Japanese Health Minister, quoted in ‘Fury at Japan MP’s baby gaffe’, Melbourne Age, 30 Jan. 2007:

Japan’s Health Minister has angered female voters by describing women as ‘birth-giving machines’ …

[I once heard a Right to Life Australia speaker describe women and girls as 'baby-carrying machines'. Different times, different cultures, same degree of offensive imbecility.]

Jim Crotty, Sunbury Vic., letter in Age, 30 Jan. 2007:

[Voluntary] euthanasia, being a form of suicide, is a coward’s way out and therefore is not ‘dying with dignity’ … [I]f more people held some moral or religious values they would understand how euthanasia attacks the very sanctity of life.

[Jim, you should take comfort from the fact that modern palliative care successfully relieves agonising pain - most of the time. Have you ever watched a loved one die in untreatable pain? If not, spare us your harsh and - yes - cowardly judgments.]

Garth Penglase, CultureWatch contributor, Is Marriage Finished? discussion, 27 Jan. 2007:

This is sort of like the Roe vs Wade decision - ‘[L]et’s stop the alarming (but unsubstantiated) threat of widespread backyard abortions by allowing abortions over the counter …’

[Boggle!]

Peter Stokes, Salt Shakers, Briefing Notes and Prayer Overheads, Feb. 2007:

One … missing factor in the widespread debate about so-called ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’ is that God is left out of the picture. Our God, who can control the wind and rain, make the sun stand still, and hush the storm.

[Peter clearly accepts the literal truth of the 'Joshua's long day' biblical tale, whereby God made the sun stand still for a day so that Josh could have a longer go at his enemies. Could someone explain to Peter the consequences for life on our planet of the sun standing still?]

Australian Prayer Network (APN) International Newsletter, 5 Feb. 2007:

Gospel frees a city from gangs, drugs and witchcraft - A … dramatic story comes from San Marcos, a suburb of San Salvador that has been considered the most violent city in the nation. Gangs, drug transactions and witchcraft were festering and polluting everything within reach … [S]ome of the pastors in the city mobilised young people from their churches … For three months the Church fasted and prayed, asking God to transform their city and the lives of its citizens … By January 2002, the National Police declared San Marcos violence-free … [M]iracles began happening in the city …

[Maybe if we fast and pray for three months, APN might stop printing rubbish like this.]

Odette Spruyt, ‘There is no need to die in pain’, Melbourne Age, 5 Feb. 2007:

… [T]he fear of death may be greater than ever before in our youth-oriented culture. Perhaps we need to slow down. In our rush to the finishing line we are failing to see … the daily courage and dignity of the ill in the midst of incontinence, pain, tears and grief …

[Thanks Odette. Most encouraging. Look, you can have all the incontinence, pain, tears and grief you want, but can the rest of us have our peaceful pill?]

Peter and Jenny Stokes, editorial, Salt Shakers Journal (SSJ), Feb. 2007, 2:

Today, in Australia, our Christian heritage is under threat like never before; our universities are occupied by the same Humanist/Marxist ideology that gave rise to Nazism and Communism last century.

[That Personal Chair of History may yet elude you, Peter.]

Emma Hughes, ‘Resistance thinking in practice’, SSJ, Feb. 2007, 6-7:

Coming out of a fairly sheltered Christian school where there was always an identifiable ‘accepted’ opinion, university presented major challenges.

[Like, for example, using your brain?]

After spending four years [at university] I am convinced that there is no possibility of the curriculum being neutral. Of course, there will be different challenges with every course, such as evolutionary theory in a Science degree.

[Yes, I can see how ridding the Science curriculum of evolutionary theory might present a slight problem. Perhaps if we all fast and pray for three months?]

Salt Shakers, ‘World News - Abortion: Togo’, SSJ, Feb. 2007, 19:

Togo has succumbed to United Nations pressure and expanded access to abortions to include abortions for rape and incest.

[Dreadful, isn't it? Not enough Christian missionaries, that's the trouble.]

Filed in: Their Own Mouths