The evangelical Christians who run New Life magazine probably consider themselves a highly moral group of people. After all, they spend much of their time fulminating against abortion rights, gay and lesbian rights, feminists, ‘evolutionists’, supporters of voluntary euthanasia and similar miscreants. Surely they themselves are ‘right with God’.

As with a number of conservative Christian journals, you can tell a lot about the core beliefs of the publishers and editors by reading the children’s pages. Here, the organisation’s basic ideas are distilled to their essence, untrammelled by the bodyguard of … I was going to say ‘nuances’, but let’s say ‘lies’ instead … that accompany similar articles written for adult consumption.

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Filed in: Biblical criticism, Evangelicals

Beware of anyone telling you that you need to adopt a ‘biblical world view’. Such a person is likely to be some sort of ‘dominionist’, an ugly word for the uglier idea that countries should be run according to strict Christian standards. If you’re not quite sure what these standards are, don’t worry - just ask your friendly dominionist and then do as you’re told!

There are a couple of dominionist gabfests held in Australia every year, one of which was recently conducted in Canberra by the American-based Summit Ministries. About 150 people attended and a good time was had by all.

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Filed in: Evangelicals, Theocracy

I’ve always had a special interest in evangelical pastors who claim to be able to raise the dead. I’ve written one article on this topic and I was starting to organise the material for a second piece when I came across this story in Pastor Danny Nalliah’s autobiography Worship Under the Sword (5th ed. 2005). Nalliah, who was born in Sri Lanka, heads a Melbourne Pentecostal group called Catch the Fire Ministries (CTFM) and the following was one of his early experiences:

I was informed of a girl in our factory that had fallen seriously ill. The next thing I knew, I was in this girl’s house … She was lying on a bed, there was no movement at all, her eyes were open, but the black portion of the eyeball had gone in … Then the village doctor came in and pronounced her deceased … Then the Holy Ghost told me, ‘Command this girl to come back to life, in the name of Jesus’ … at once, I commanded the demon of death to come out in the name of Jesus, and the people [assembled in the room] looked at me in amazement. As I finished the girl gave out a scream, ‘Hoooo, hoooo’, she said, as she shook her head left to right. Her hair started blowing up, just as if she had a fan behind her head. All the people sitting and crying around her jumped up with fear. I ordered them all out of the place. Not all of them knew Jesus and I knew that the demon would go into one of them if they stayed … I continued commanding the demon of death to come out, in the name of Jesus. The girl continued to hoot and struggle, but after about four or five minutes I shouted, ‘Get out and get up in the name of Jesus’. The girl got up and sat down … That day the whole crowd bowed down to Jesus. (pp.25-6)

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Filed in: Evangelicals, Pentecostalism

Sorry, but I just don’t have enough faith to be an atheist. They have to come up with such weird and exotic theorising, which any Joe Six-pack can see is patent nonsense.
- Bill Muehlenberg, What About Those Who Have Not Heard? (Discussion, 28 Jan. 2007, 5pm)

Bill is an evangelical Protestant of the Baptist persuasion. This means that he has enough faith to believe the following sensible and self-evident propositions:

In the time of the ancestors, a man was born to a virgin mother with no biological father being involved.

The same fatherless man called out to a friend called Lazarus, who had been dead long enough to stink, and Lazarus promptly came back to life.

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Filed in: Atheism, Evangelicals

While conservative evangelicals sometimes band together for some common purpose, they are really a collection of warring tribes. This is in the nature of Protestantism, which prizes one’s ‘personal relationship with God’ above all else. If your minister or pastor tells you one thing about Christian doctrine, and you have a bit of a pray about it and decide that he (or sometimes she) is wrong - well, congratulations, you win! This is not much of a recipe for unanimity and helps explain why there are tens of thousands of Christian denominations and sects scattered around the place. (For a very funny example of how these and related clashes can work out in practice, have a look at Ken Dempsey’s Conflict and Decline: Ministers and laymen in an Australian country town [1983], available in many libraries.)

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Filed in: Catholicism, Evangelicals, Sexuality

Every week spews forth a new crisis in what is laughingly termed ‘the worldwide Anglican communion’. ‘Worldwide Anglican shambles’ is more like it. This week saw the US Episcopal (Anglican) Church electing a woman as its leader, thus setting off a frenzied conservative outcry. But in an effort to stave off expulsion from the ‘world communion’, the Episcopalians also issued a fawning promise not to consecrate any more openly gay bishops. (Church tries to head off ejection)

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Filed in: Evangelicals

[There are] two million American children with an incarcerated parent. [And jail is] exactly where we will send [those children] one day if we do not begin to reform the criminal justice system. We must re-evaluate who we lock up, why we lock them up and how we lock them up …

We need to challenge ‘three-strikes-and-you’re-out’ laws and mandatory minimum sentencing, responsible for filling 60% of our federal prisons with drug offenders, many of whom have no prior criminal record for a violent offence … (New Life, 8 Jun. 2006)

So who is this weak-kneed, namby-pamby milksop campaigning to flood the community with social vermin? Convicted Watergate conspirator and now fire-breathing conservative evangelical Charles Colson, that’s who.

You see, Colson spends most of his time ranting against abortion, gay and lesbian rights, IVF, pornography and a whole lot of other things with which he’s totally unqualified to deal. But he did spend time in prison and he’s learnt a lot about the problems faced by prisoners through his Prison Fellowship organisation.

So when it comes to involving himself in an issue he actually knows something about - yes, you guessed it, Chuck Colson turns into a liberal!

Filed in: Evangelicals

The Australian evangelical weekly New Life has functioned for several years as an unofficial clearing-house for Religious Right groups and individuals. Fred Nile, Salt Shakers, ACL, Australian Family Association and lots of other ‘godly’ people and organisations could always get some space on the letters page or have their media releases printed verbatim.

Strangely enough, according to Rev Bob Thomas of the New Life board, it’s also over the last few years that:

… it has become increasingly difficult to maintain the viability of the newspaper and a point has been reached at which the present publishing schedule, format and staffing level can no longer be maintained. (’Time for a change’, New Life, 1 Jun. 2006)

The upshot is that New Life will become a fortnightly news magazine produced by a small, ‘near voluntary’ editorial team, which to my untutored eye looks to be chockfull of creationists.

The decline - and, I suspect, encroaching demise - of New Life is not a good sign for conservative evangelicalism in this country. It’ll be mildly annoying for this columnist too, as the journal provided a useful weekly roundup of Religious Right news and quotes.

All things considered, though, no great loss.

Filed in: Evangelicals

David Barnabas Zwartz BTh (ACT) Dip Journalism (Wellington), known to his pals as Barney, is the religion editor of the Melbourne Age. But he also hideth several gleaming lights of his under a bushel, such as his close association with the Australian Presbyterian magazine and a lectureship at the Presbyterian Theological College (’Many stories of faith’, New Life, 22 Sept. 2005). Barney also confesses to have been pursuing a PhD at the University of Melbourne ‘since the early paleozoic period‘. (’Just call me Doctor’, Age, 22 Sept, 2003) Murray Adamthwaite, an occasional contributor to Salt Shakers Journal, claims that while the editor of the Age ‘is about as humanist as they come, … its religious affairs editor is nevertheless a thoroughgoing Presbyterian evangelical‘. (www.evangelical-times.org/articles/mar04/mar04a17.htm)

Now, I don’t care whether Zwartz is a Presbyterian or a Calathumpian, but I expect to be told clearly and often by the Age where its religion editor stands in the theological spectrum. In other words, I’d like Zwartz to ‘declare his interest’ much more openly and frequently, not just in the backwaters of the Australian Presbyterian or the Evangelical Times.

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Filed in: Evangelicals, People

Bill Muehlenberg, recently-departed National Vice-President of the Australian Family Association (a National Civic Council front) is now describing himself as ‘a freelance culture missionary standing up for God’s standards in the secular world.‘ Bill, we can’t tell you how grateful we all are that you condescended to spread the Good Word in our rude and godless land. You are evidently much better qualified to do so than any of our local bumpkins as you do not seem to remain for long with any of the groups that you join. May I apologise on behalf of those poor sinners for their shameful failure to discern your true worth, and may you continue to enlighten us concerning the nature of God’s standards which are apparently known only to Americans, and especially to you. Amen.

Filed in: Evangelicals, People