…the particular crisis facing all of us in Australia regarding the transmission of the Gospel in our times is that we are evangelising in the context of secularism. This living a supposed happy life without any reference to God is the real challenge to the faith today. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, our master teacher of the faith, continually draws our attention to the fact of secularism in Western countries.

He expresses the essential challenge in this way (from: Light of the World (2010, p.56)[:]

It is important for us to try to live Christianity and to think as Christians in such way that it incorporates what is good and right about modernity ”“ and at the same time separates and distinguishes itself from what is becoming a counter-religion.”

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Teen girls are turning to destructive behaviour such as binge-drinking, extreme dieting and self-harm because of the pressures of being forced early into an adult world, an expert in adolescent females says.

Author and founder of Enlighten Education Dannielle Miller said girls had become more aggressive and overtly sexual – in their clothes, language and actions – because of the society around them.

Ms Miller is one of the keynote speakers at Pearls of Wisdom this weekend at Shoal Bay, a conference marking the 30th anniversary of Maitland Newcastle Catholic Diocese Federation of Parents and Friends.

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It’s on for just 30 minutes a week and it’s taught in fewer than half of all public primary schools in Victoria, but religious education has the power to stir mighty emotions.

Steve Bracks and his education minister Lynne Kosky tasted its power in 2005 and 2006 as they overhauled education laws, and considered changing the rules governing ”special religious instruction” – religion taught by church volunteers and decried by opponents as indoctrination.

This unleashed a relentless campaign by the religious lobby to defend their patch.

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The leading opponent to the introduction of ethics classes in NSW schools, the Anglican Church, has reversed its position and says they should be retained, while the Catholic Church now argues they should not be removed as they have ”little impact” on the teaching of scripture.

The reversals come amid a stand-off over the classes between the O’Farrell government and the Christian Democratic Party MP, Fred Nile, who has threatened to block key legislation in the upper house if it does not consider removing them from schools.

The comments will be welcomed by the government, which yesterday rejected Mr Nile’s proposal that the classes be moved from being in competition with special religious education (SRE), or scripture, lessons.

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The NSW Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, made it clear where he stood on Islamic law as practised in Australia. ”When it comes to sharia ”¦ I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is no place in Australia for sharia law, full stop,” he said.

But the reality for Muslims might not be so clear cut. From the religious requirements for divorce to issues around seeking a loan, the detailed religious regulatory system of all aspects of life is practised by many in the diverse Islamic community.

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The legitimate place of religion in NSW government schools might be put at risk by the misuse of the National School Chaplaincy Program, the head of Sydney’s Anglican Education Commission has warned.

Bryan Cowling, the executive director of the peak body for the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, said well-established special religious education preserved the secularism of NSW schools while providing weekly faith instruction for those who wanted it.

But he told the Herald that chaplains – with the term’s religious connotations – might blur the distinction between faith and welfare, increasing the chance of misuse by proselytising, which might call into question access granted to schools for special religious education, also known as scripture.

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A magnitude 7.9 hit somewhere east of Raoul Island, some 1000 kilometers north northeast of NZ. Note this is an early report which may be subsequently revised.

Seriously ill people do not need euthanasia. We need better provision of palliative care aimed at managing symptoms and maximising function, especially as we approach death. Rather than help to die, the cause of dignity would be more greatly helped if more was done to help people live more fully with the dying process.

The proposals to make provision for a terminally ill person to request euthanasia, and a doctor to provide assistance to die, make it less likely that adequate efforts would be made to make better provision for palliative care.

Legalised euthanasia would give those responsible for funding and providing palliative care a political ”out” in that respect.

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Dr (Tracey) Rowland, the author of Ratzinger’s Faith: the Theology of Pope Benedict XVI and Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed, said many commentators have observed an affinity between the Anglo-Catholic approaches to liturgy and the Pope’s own liturgical theology.

“In particular, (Pope Benedict) is very concerned about what he has variously described as ”˜parish tea party’ liturgy, ”˜pastoral pragmatism’, ”˜emotional primitivism’, ”˜Sacro-pop’ and ”˜utility music’,” Dr Rowland told an Anglican Ordinariate Festival in Melbourne on 11 June.

Dr Rowland, a former Anglican, said that, in her personal experience, the barriers to full communion with the Catholic Church are primarily cultural rather than doctrinal.

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NATO acknowledged Sunday that an errant missile had destroyed a civilian home in the Libyan capital in the early morning, saying it may have killed civilians. It was the alliance’s first such admission in the three-month-long campaign of airstrikes against the military forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Reporters taken to the site and a nearby hospital saw at least five bodies, including those of a baby and a child. Libyan officials said at least four more civilians were killed.

The episode was NATO’s second admission of a mistaken strike in two days….

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Marriage rates have fallen so far in the past 40 years that what was once an institution is now largely a symbolic gesture.

A record low 20,900 marriages took place last year, less than one-third of the number in 1971 and one half of the 1987 rate, figures from Statistics NZ reveal.

And Victoria University anthropology senior lecturer Diane O’Rourke sees no chance of those numbers heading back up again.

“People don’t need to get married any more to make a living or raise children. You have to specifically want to be married.”

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Bishop of Christchurch Victoria Matthews says Christchurch Cathedral has sustained significant new damage, with the famous rose window and most of the western wall lost.

She says it is now more likely that the cathedral won’t be restored to its original state, but built in a new modern form. However she says the cathedral will be at the heart of the city, wherever that is.

Read it all and I also recommend the accompanying audio link.

Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Peter Elliott, who addressed a Festival introducing the Ordinariate in Melbourne on 11 June, told The Record that there is momentum leading to the establishment of an Anglican Ordinariate in Australia with recent events in England and, closer to home, the Torres Strait.

“We have been advised that the Ordinariate will take shape here next year,” Bishop Elliott told an Anglican Ordinariate Festival in Melbourne on 11 June.

“I know that many, including myself, had hoped it would be sooner, but it seems best to take the necessary and somewhat complex steps slowly and surely, inspired and encouraged as we are by recent events in England and the interesting prospects for growth that that are already being revealed.”

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If we include euthanasia as an ”˜option’ in critical care we’re making the patient the problem and not the condition. Once we begin to cross that line, does anyone really believe that the ”˜cheaper, quicker option’ won’t begin to take precedence over good palliative care?

We should also consider the problem of elder abuse. As far back as 1994 a study in NSW found that something like 5% of people over the age of 65 were subjected to some form of elder abuse. Elder abuse has been called the epidemic of the century and is known to cost more than $2.6 billion in the US alone each year as the elderly are swindled out of their savings. Elder abuse can also be physical, emotional and even sexual and it’s not hard to imagine that, if euthanasia were an option, that vulnerable aged people might be swindled out of existence as well.

Readers will remember the famous case of Dr. Harold Shipman who, by his own admission, killed 600 elderly, vulnerable people in the UK by his own hand.

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Photos of St George’s Church, Linwood, Christchurch–take a look.

The Anglican Church is making a radical bid for new recruits by holding Sunday services in a city cinema.

Evangelical Christian churches started the trend to hold services at movie theatres at Chadstone, Northland and Eastland.

And now a mainstream church is ”bringing the church to the people” by offering teenagers and young adults a Sunday morning choice – Hangover 2 or the word of God at Hoyts in Melbourne Central.

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“Violence against women remains a significant social issue with a huge personal and social cost,” Bishop Philip Huggins, Chair of the Melbourne Anglican Social Responsibilities said today.

“Research by VicHealth has found that intimate partner violence contributes to more ill-health and premature death in Victorian women aged 15 to 44 than any other of the well-known risk factors,” he said.

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Monks and rabbis have stood alongside Catholics and Anglicans in Canberra to show support for the federal government’s plan to tackle climate change.

Leaders from the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC) met Prime Minister Julia Gillard in support of the carbon tax today.

Anglican representative George Browning said the group wanted to assist politicians to create good legislation and the message to Ms Gillard was that the issue was a moral one.

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I happened to catch this yesterday morning courtesy of the BBC News and when I showed it to family members last night the agreement was it was something else. Watch it all–KSH.

Twenty-eight religious leaders will converge on Canberra on 2 June to pressure the federal government to act on climate change.

Representatives from many different faiths, acting under the banner of the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC), will meet with Julia Gillard, Greg Hunt, Andrew Wilkie and around twenty other Members of Parliament.

Bishop George Browning, a member of the delegation, said the time to act is now.

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The Anglican Church’s disciplinary system will be challenged in the Supreme Court today, by two Newcastle priests who are facing being stripped of holy orders.

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A multi-faith rebuild of the quake-shattered ChristChurch Cathedral is unlikely, says Anglican dean, Peter Beck.

“It’s a holy place, a sacred space for people of all faiths, [but] at the heart of it, it is a Christian church. It’s the Anglicans’ cathedral.

“The Anglican Church was part of the foundation of this city and has been a living part of its growth and heritage for all these years and we have no intention of doing anything other than continuing to contribute to the life and spirit of our city.”

He said Christchurch was a multi-faith society, and the Anglican Church would work with other religions “in all sorts of ways ”“ but the cathedral will continue to be the cathedral”.

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Christine Bell, Manager of Salisbury Services, says gambling counselling is a highly specialised field. “Gambling counselling is a relatively young industry, only 15 years old,” she said. “Drug and alcohol counselling is well established over many decades, with many therapeutic inter-ventions being well tested and researched.” Christine says many people in the community don’t see gam-bling as a social problem, as it has often been seen as part of our recreational history. For a large percentage of people in our com-munity this can be so, however others see the opportunity to win ”˜large’ amounts of money which they believe can enhance their lives in many ways. “Gambling can become a problem for people, and this is usually seen around the time when it stops being fun,” Christine said.

“Many gamblers find it hard to control the time and money spent on gambling. “Part of the counselling is to find out what the client is look-ing for when they go into the gambling venue. Some go in with the expectation of losing a certain amount – problem gamblers go in expecting to win.” Once the motivation to gamble has been established the process of addressing the issues under-pinning the gambling activities and finding alternative activities begins. The problem is not just expecting to win on that occasion but also the need to win back or “chasing” prior losses.

Problem gamblers are often chasing losses to get their money back and when this does not happen they can feel desperate and guilty about it. Christine says only a small per-centage of people experiencing problems seek professional help. Many clients have to ”˜hit rock bottom’ or come close to it before they will seek help. The main reasons why gam-blers do not seek professional help are the social stigma as-sociated with having a problem, denial of a problem and people believing they can handle the problem themselves.

Read it all (article on page 4 of the pdf).

A leading Anglican church body wants the baby bonus scrapped to rein in population growth.

The church’s key advisory group wants the Gillard Government to scrap public incentives that increase the birth rate and to cut immigration.

It has described population growth as a taboo subject and the “elephant in the room”.

In a submission to a federal population inquiry, the general synod’s public affairs commission has proposed a halt to “any policy that provides an incentive specifically and primarily to increase Australia’s population, notably the baby bonus”.

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The Anglican church has taken a bold leap into the present, joining the widespread and heated debate over Australian population levels. According to one of the church’s key advisory groups, Australia’s population is growing at such an uncontrollable and unsustainable rate that the baby bonus should be scrapped.

Along with the baby bonus, the group wants all public incentives that encourage childbirth to be revoked.

We wonder if the Church will include marriage in its list of undesirable breeding incentives.

The Church is completely on the wrong foot here….

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In March 2009 the Public Affairs Commission released a discussion paper on key issues for Australia’s future, which recommended some responses to global and national environmental stresses. A summary of this paper is attached, with a reference to the General Synod web site where the whole paper may be accessed.

Now the Commission seeks to assist consideration of population growth in a way that is consistent with our Christian faith and it is hoped will encourage integrated responses. Population growth is a controversial and sensitive topic, and one about which many fear to speak publicly, but it is fundamental to the challenges we face, globally and in Australia. Globally there is concern about the projected increase in population from 6.8 billion now to 9.2 billion by 2050 (1). In Australia there is concern about the recent official projection that Australia’s population will increase from 22 million now to 35 million by 2050. Consumption and environmental impact increase with population. These population increases will be taking place in a finite world that has not yet been able to agree on reducing greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid potentially catastrophic temperature increase and climate change. There is hope: a serious debate about population growth has very recently begun in Australia. This paper provides a brief overview and encouragement for Christians to become informed on the issue and to contribute to the debate.

Read it all (20 page download).

Does anyone really want their children to be without a knowledge of that heritage? Think of the thief on the cross next to Jesus who asks him to remember him when he comes into his kingdom and how Jesus says to him tonight he will be with him in paradise.

Some stories are true because of the depth of life they contain. We should keep alive the story of Easter if we want our children to understand what’s going on in much of the greatest painting we have. It’s necessary if they are to realise why the words led to the music in Bach’s St Matthew Passion, one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. Or even to cotton on to the poignancy of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Mary Magdalene song in Jesus Christ Superstar, I Don’t Know How To Love Him.

No one has ever known what to do with Easter or with the Bible that shaped every straight and crooked step our civilisation has taken. How does the story go? The light shone in the darkness, but the darkness could not comprehend it.

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The feast of Easter, much more than Christmas, forces us to confront the reality of suffering and indeed innocent suffering.

A succession of natural disasters close to home and further afield pressed upon us. Huge floods up and down the Eastern coast of Australia (while the south west corner of West Australia is still in drought), repeated earthquakes in Christchurch and the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear threats in Japan have resulted in the deaths of many innocent people, continuing suffering for many survivors and the widespread destruction of property.

Our humanity is defined by how we grapple intellectually with the challenge of suffering and evil or refuse to do so; but even more by what we do in response to these catastrophes when they touch us or come close….

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A new billboard outside Auckland’s St Matthew-in-the-City aims to prove you can’t put all Christians in the same box, the church’s priest-in-charge says.

In response to recent Hell Pizza billboards advertising its hot cross buns with the tagline: “For a limited time. A bit like Jesus”, the latest St Matthew billboard reads: “Hell no, we’re not giving up pizza for Lent”.

Priest-in-charge Clay Nelson said the idea for the billboard came after reading a Herald story where Anglican Church media officer Lloyd Ashton said the billboards were “disrespectful to what a lot of people hold very dear…”

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