Nancy Campbell, ‘From Our Home to Yours’, Above Rubies, Mar. 2007 (distributed Jul. 2007), 2, quoting from a letter she has received:

Thanks to your ministry I am a more patient and loving mother. I finally understand what it means to be submissive to my husband and have repented of my sins in this area. I am joyfully embracing my role as mother, teacher, wife, cook and housekeeper. We have repented of our sin of birth control and my husband had a vasectomy reversal in July 2005 …

[Ma'am, the only sin of which you need to repent is slavishly following the advice in Above Rubies.]

Nancy Campbell, ‘Standing Power’, ibid., 8:

The morals of this world are going downhill,
Against God’s Holy Word and His divine will,
No longer black and white, it’s now mushy grey,
God’s eternal absolutes many shun today.

[Please, Nancy, spare us your abysmal poetry. It just has to be satanically inspired.]

Sarah Brown, Fortville, Indiana, USA, ‘Children are the enemy’, ibid., 21, regarding recent social developments:

Feminists proclaimed that it’s the children who ultimately keep women from experiencing true independence … Women turned to violent acts of war to eliminate or remove children as necessary. Unborn children were the easiest enemies to eliminate and every legal abortion became a victory in the march for women’s rights … Every empty home and empty womb became a tribute to feminism.

[Could anyone actually believe this? It looks like something out of Kafka.]

David Clay, comment on The Bible, slavery and morality, 28 Jul. 2007:

Thus it is not inconsistent for a Christian to have a slave, whether it be biblical times, colonial times, or even today in the name of employment; providing that the Christian obeys the scriptural teaching on how they are to treat their slaves, or employees for today’s sake.

[Funny how quick fundamentalists always are to defend slavery. Modern Christian Reconstructionists would like to see the practice reintroduced today, although somehow I see them coveting the role of slavedriver rather than slave.]

Judith Bond, Glen Alpine NSW, letter in Sunday Age, 29 Jul. 2007:

Harry Potter, both the book and movie, lure people away from good and right.

[Judith, most other religious right people gave up on Harry after about book three. Some of your colleagues even defended both the books and the movies. Who do you think you're going to convince at this late stage?]

Mrs Fran Fragar, letter in New Life, 19 Jul. 2007:

Unbelievers need to hear that there is hope in their despair and helplessness.

[Speak for yourself, Frannie. We're doing all right here, thanks for asking.]

Ron F. Suter, ‘Beijing’s “Temple of Heaven”‘ (book review), New Life, 19 Jul. 2007:

The earliest Chinese written characters … are made up of elements (’radicals’) whose meanings clearly reveal an early knowledge of Genesis history. That includes Creation, the Fall and the Deluge … [It] is clear that the godly writings of the earliest Chinese sages … affirm that the Lord Jesus is the one who can fulfil the hopes and dreams that have been expressed publicly throughout much of Chinese history.

[I once saw Ron arguing in favour of creationism at a Christian meeting. Not a pretty sight. He's extremely defensive, gives the impression of being rather unconvinced about what he's saying, and the audience cut him to ribbons.]

Nick Foord, comment in Longer life, better life, eternal life, CultureWatch, 15 May 2007:

Our time on earth is very short compared to time in eternity where there is no ‘time’ … I would much rather live life to the full now, and forever in eternity …

[Sorry, Nick. I can almost cope with 'time in eternity where there is no "time"'. But if there's no 'time' in eternity, there's certainly no 'forever'.]

David Skinner, comment in Playing fast and loose with the evidence, CultureWatch, 15 June 2007:

May I suggest that you who live in Victoria identify those who have unelected power and influence in government and who have an agenda that is anarchist, Marxist, feminist, secularist, atheist and who have a deep hatred of the family?

[David, you left out, '... and who barrack for Collingwood'.]

Bill Muehlenberg A Review of Letter from a Christian Citizen by Douglas Wilson, CultureWatch, 31 May 2007:

… [I]n atheism, there is no rhyme or reason for anything. Crap just happens and that is just the way it goes.

[Another compelling argument against atheism from Mr Sophistication.]

Frank DeRemer, ‘Good approach misapplied to get “analogical days”‘, a review of C. John Collins (2006) Genesis 1-4 …, Journal of Creation (Creation Ministries International), Vol. 21(2), June 2007, 38:

Consider the authors of the Bible excluding Genesis. A little reflection indicates that they were almost all eyewitnesses of the events reported, or careful interviewers of eyewitnesses, or careful historians compiling such accounts. Why would Genesis be any different?

[The truth is almost the exact opposite of what Frank is claiming here. We have few, if any, reliable eyewitnesses of particular biblical events, and we have no idea whether the 'careful interviewers' and 'historians' were either 'careful' or 'historians' as we currently understand that term. It's much safer to regard the Bible as a series of partisan political speeches than as an accurate account of events.]

Chase Nelson, ‘Evolution’s theological underpinnings’, a review of Cornelius G. Hunter (2003) Darwin’s Proof: The Triumph of Religion over Science, ibid., 40:

Here lies Hunter’s fundamental argument against evolution: living things simply don’t look like they evolved.

[Er, ...very profound.]

Jonathan Sarfati, ‘Anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce: Christian hero’, ibid., 126:

…[W]hy is there no command in the Bible to free the slaves immediately? Because the commands in the Bible … [e.g. Ephesians 6:9] would subtly undermine the institution [of slavery] far better than a slave rebellion.

[Jonathan, that is the weakest argument I've ever seen from you, and I've seen some lulus. Isn't your god supposed to be omnipotent? He could have done away with slavery in the blink of an eye.]

[The next five quotes all come from Australian Family Association (AFA) Family Update, Vol.22, No.3, July 2007]

Angela Conway, AFA National Spokesperson, ‘World Congress of Families: Angela Conway reports’, 2-3:

… [O]rdinary businesses are losing large amounts of productivity time as their workers get sucked into pornography … Decent kids from decent families are being sucked into pornography …

[Charming turn of phrase there, Angela.]

‘Other contributors at the Congress’, 3:

Jacek Pulikowski, Polish academic and family counsellor, stressed the role of the father. He defined successful marriage as one where the man makes the major decisions and the woman the minor ones.

[I wonder how his wife defines it.]

ibid., 3:

Phillip Longman, US, stressed the depopulation of Europe as well as the fact that religious people have 15-20% more children. Eventually, he argued, the anti-family ideologues will die out and pro-family religious people will inherit the earth.

[Ah, religious complacency, combined with a stunning non sequitur. Great news for secular humanism.]

Angela Conway, ‘More Advertising Standards Board fiascos’, 4:

[The Advertising Standards Board] did not regard the juxtaposition of clothed men with underwear-clad women as warranting any finding of nudity or other grounds on which to uphold complaints.

[Angela, your dictionary must contain a very strange definition of 'nudity'.]

Mary-Louise Fowler, AFA National Vice-President, (also sister of shoot-from-the-hip Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan), quoted in ‘ISP filtering to protect children’, 11:

… Combined with the revelation that around 80% of downloads from the internet are pornographic, you don’t have to be Einstein to see that we are in for a huge escalation of sexual abuse - in fact it is happening now. Opt-in filtering options will not protect our children because too many people are addicted to pornography. [Filtering] has to be mandatory.

[To my knowledge, this is the first time that the AFA has clearly stated that adults will not be allowed to opt into adult internet content if AFA's proposal for mandatory ISP filtering goes ahead. R.I.P. freedom of information.]

Matthew Mulvaney, comment on CultureWatch Feminists speak only for themselves:

Feminism is opposed to Christianity. The Christian belief that wives should submit to their husbands is contrary to a feminist’s beliefs. God has a plan for how people should lead their lives and feminists do not respect it.

[Thanks for your candour, Matthew. Now get your own dinner.]

Pastor Sean Nolan, Director, Young Christian Democratic Party (CDP), ‘Young Christian Democrats - “Youth With a Vision”‘, Family World News, Jul. 2007, 12:

… [We] are looking to put in place a structure of Young CDP Youth Committees in each electorate across NSW … The purpose of these committees is to tackle the local issues that are affecting the youth in the local area. This could take the form of a pray for rain day …

[Looks great, Sean. And we're sure you have lots of ideas just as good!]

Elaine Nile, wife of Fred, ‘Elaine’s Perspective’, Family World News, Jul. 2007, 5:

For many, we can look back to our youth and remember happy days of family life - parents, happy home … We didn’t have the problems of youth suicide, drunkenness, pregnancies, drugs etc. They were OUR days - good days.

[Has she started wandering away from home yet, Fred?]

‘Prayer Focus’, Family World News, Jul. 2007, 8:

[Pray] for revival in Australia, especially NSW.

[At long last, some common sense from Family World News.]

David Phillips, Festival of Light Australia, letter to supporters, 4 Jul. 2007:

Many members of parliament depend on us for the vital research and arguments they need to resist the advances of the homosexual lobby.

[Only too true. Except 'research' isn't exactly the right word for it - although the correct word does have the same number of letters.]

Filed in: Their Own Mouths