The number of marriages in Canberra this year fell by more than 6.8 per cent as church influence continued to lose ground.

ACT Office of Regulatory Services data issued yesterday showed there were 1605 marriages in the ACT in 2008. By December 22 this year, only 1495 marriages had been recorded.

A comparison between civil and church marriages was unavailable.

But the Anglican Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, Stuart Robinson, said his church had performed significantly fewer baptisms, marriages and funerals over the past decade.

He said the decline of marriages showed people were electing to enjoy partnerships without any Church involvement or marriage celebration.

”People are not connected with communities which take marriage seriously,” he said.

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Church bells rang and Catholics rejoiced across Australia yesterday after the Pope approved a decree that should lead to Mary MacKillop, a beatified nun, becoming the country’s first saint.

Australians were celebrating the news of her imminent canonisation, but none more so than the people of Penola, a small town in South Australia where Mother Mary lived for many years and founded an order dedicated to helping the poor in 1866.

“We have been waiting all these years and praying for it. We are just walking on air today,” said Claire Larkin, who helps to run a centre dedicated to Mother Mary in Penola, where church bells rang for five minutes on Saturday night when the news came through from the Vatican.

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Elderly couples are buying each other suicide kits as Christmas presents, says controversial euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke.

Speaking at Tweed Heads yesterday on a new “peaceful pill” suicide method being developed overseas, Dr Nitschke’s comments sent right-to-life campaigners and church groups into a frenzy.

Asked whether it was in the spirit of the season to be publicising ways of ending life just a week before Christmas, Dr Nitschke said he was always going to attract criticism.

“Our main opposition is from religious groups who would still be getting outraged at Easter, or any other time of year for that matter,” he said.

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A diocese in Los Angeles has elected only the second openly gay bishop in the Anglican Church, reigniting an issue that has caused deep division.

Listen to it all (MP3).

The Morning Report show link is here in case it is needed.

The bishops reaffirm their commitment to the ecumenical journey with the Anglican bishops and communities of Australia. They express their gratitude to the Anglican bishops who have similarly reaffirmed their commitment to ecumenical relationships with the Catholic Church at this time.

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AUSTRALIA’S largest and most conservative Anglican diocese will tomorrow approve changes that would permit couples to marry in church, whether or not they are Christian.

The change to be passed at the Sydney synod tomorrow makes the diocese the 14th of the country’s 23 to approve the reform that would allow an unbaptised Australian to be married in church provided he or she meets the basic standards for civil marriage: a union between a man and woman voluntarily entered into for life.

The change was first mooted at the Anglican general synod in 2007. It has since been put to the different dioceses for agreement and will go back to the national synod next year. Of 16 dioceses that have so far considered it, 13 have agreed, including Melbourne and Adelaide, with Sydney to follow tomorrow, breaching the halfway mark.

The reform drops the “faith requirement” promulgated in 1981 that requires at least one half of the couple be baptised into the Christian faith (not necessarily Anglican).

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Children should be banned from watching television until they are 2 years old because it can stunt their language development and shorten their attention span, according to new Australian recommendations.

The guidelines warn of the damage done by sitting inactive for hours and advise that reading, drawing or solving puzzles should also be kept to a minimum.

For children aged between 2 and 5, time in front of the TV screen should be limited to an hour a day, according to health experts, in the first official guidelines on children’s viewing habits.

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There are four reasons why this covenant is not a good idea for Anglicans.

1. It is against the grain of Anglican ecclesiology (what we think the church is)

2. It is an inadequate response to the conflict in the Anglican Communion

3. In practical terms it will create immense and complicating confusion about institutional relationships and financial obligations.

4. It does not address the key fundamental issue in this conflict, how to act in a particular context which is relevant to that context and also faithful to the gospel.

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A National Church Planter’s Summit attended by 22 key figures in Australian church planting has managed to move forward despite denominational and cultural differences.

The summit, organised by church planting support network The Geneva Push, was held in Sydney from September 29-30.

It included representatives from a wide range of supportive organisations, including The Church Army, The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, Church Planting Australia, The Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, The Ministry Training Strategy and Moore Theological College, as well as key Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Reformed Church and Independent pastors from Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, New South Wales and the ACT.

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Quite something–watch it all.

“Providing a reality check, Radical Women spokeswoman Alison Thorne told the Melbourne rally that marriage was an oppressive institution designed to condemn women to lives of slavery, but same-sex couples should nevertheless be equally entitled to it. She then led the crowd in a chant: ”˜Kevin Rudd, ALP, we demand equality’.”

Wow, what a great quote. I am sure many fellow homosexuals wished she had simply shut up. And many may be kicking themselves for allowing the MSM to pick up on this juicy quote. Of course it says nothing new. Those of us who are not reliant on a censorious MSM know full well that many, if not most, homosexuals are not even interested in marriage.

Indeed, there has been a longstanding debate amongst homosexuals over the question of homosexual marriage. Some are in favour, some are opposed, and there are many options in between. As one example, one Victorian leader put it this way: “Obviously while there is a lack of unanimity about gay marriage, our human rights must be the same as everyone else’s. If someone wants to get married or doesn’t want to get married, it’s their choice.”

One Australian homosexual lobby group has actually split over this issue. Two committee members have resigned from the New South Wales Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, claiming it has not pushed hard enough for marriage rights. But the Lobby said that marriage reform was “not a priority”.

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Director of St Mark’s National Theological Centre and head of the School of Theology at Charles Sturt University, Professor Tom Frame, says churches must take some of the blame for the decline.

“The Christianity that most Australians have encountered is weak and insipid and in more than a few instances uninspiring and unintelligible, and the majority have no idea of what the Christian religion is offering,” he writes in his book Losing My Religion: Unbelief In Australia.

Professor Frame points to what he believes are three reasons for this.

“To some degree some churches are caught in a time warp, they’ve got the social and cultural forms of the 1950s and 1960s and have been unable to embrace the 1990s and the new millennium, so they do seem to be locked in time and their message with it,” he told ABC Online.

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“Rise stands for Restoring Integrity and Sexual Ethics,” explains Jessica Langrell, one of the conference organisers who describes the Conference as the start of a nationwide movement set up to challenge current sexual standards.

“But instead of opposing these standards we want to replace them with a new set that restores dignity to sexuality and human relationships,” she says.
The Conference which will run over two days will include workshops, group discussions, inspirational speakers and participation in a breakfast at Parliament House on 13 August to celebrate National Marriage Day.

Representing the young Australians at the conference, the organisers of Rise Australia will attend the 500-strong assembly of politicians and leading national marriage and family organisations for breakfast, and will have the opportunity to address the gathering.

“Our report to them will focus on how marriage today is under stress and how Rise Australia intends to counter this by fighting for a return of sexual ethics and traditional values,” Jessica says. “We see the breakfast as our national launching pad and a way for people to see that contrary to the popular image of teenagers and young people, casual sex is not for us and that there is a growing movement across the country intent on restoring dignity to relationships as well as sexual integrity.”

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Christian Rossiter has proven his legal right to die and declared himself a champion of other quadriplegics who no longer find life worth living.

An Australian state Supreme Court ruled Friday that a nursing home in the west coast city of Perth must respect the 49-year-old patient’s decision to starve to death.

His case adds to international arguments among euthanasia advocates, religious groups, lawyers and ethicists about where the state’s duty to preserve life ends.

“I’m happy that I won my right to die,” the former stockbroker and mountaineer told reporters from his nursing home bed where he is fed by a tube.

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Some secularists seem to like one-way streets. Their distaste for Christianity leads them to seek to drive it not only from the public square but even from any provision of education, health care, and welfare services. Ironically, intolerance of Christianity and Christian culture is proclaimed most often in the name of tolerance: Christianity must not be tolerated because of the need for greater tolerance.

At present, the most preferred means for addressing perceived intolerance seems to be antidiscrimination legislation. Across the Anglosphere and in many Western nations, the idea of antidiscrimination has shown enormous power to shape public opinion. It is being used to redefine marriage and to make a range of relationships acceptable as the foundation for new forms of the family. Antidiscrimination legislation, in tandem with new reproductive technologies, has made it possible for children to have three, four, or five parents, relegating the idea of a child being brought up by his natural mother and father to nothing more than a majority adult preference. The rights of children to be created in love and to be known and reared by their biological parents receives scant consideration when the legislative agenda is directed to satisfying adult needs and ambitions.

Until relatively recently, antidiscrimination laws usually included exemptions for churches and other religious groups so that they could practice and manifest their beliefs in freedom. That word exemptions is actually a misnomer, suggesting as it does some sort of concession from the state to eccentric minorities. These provisions are better described as protections of religious freedom””and such protections are increasingly being refused or defined in the narrowest possible terms in new antidiscrimination measures, with existing protections eroded or construed away by the courts.

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Perhaps it is partly out of a desire to avoid being labelled frauds when they stray from absolute fidelity that Australian politicians, unlike their American counterparts, have worn their religious beliefs lightly, eschewing ostentatious displays of faith or the use of religious precepts to justify or shape policy positions. While religion has not been entirely absent from Australian political debate (it did cause a split in the ALP), by and large politicians have preferred to justify their values and decisions by reference to their political philosophies. Australians seem wary of appeals to religious authority; research shows they are increasingly unlikely to claim Christian religious affiliation or to engage in religious practices.

A study by the Melbourne political scientist Anna Crabb provides some confirmation that this deliberate separation of religion and politics may be dissolving – at least among MPs. Her analysis of parliamentary speeches of prominent federal politicians from 2002 to 2006 showed MPs were increasingly likely to appeal to religious beliefs to explain their positions. Conservatives were most likely to make such references but Labor MPs, including Kevin Rudd, came close to matching them.

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The stance [Kevin] Rudd and [Malcolm] Turnbull are taking may be unpopular, but not everything in politics is about popularity. Obviously they have decided in this case it is more important to protect the persecuted minority of Australians who identify as bigots, a minority whose lifestyle is under attack.

Sorry, I shouldn’t use “bigot”; apparently that’s not politically correct these days. I’ll be rapped over the knuckles by the thought police. I’m sure they prefer to be called something euphemistic like “People Living With A Need To Exclude Other People From The Institution Of Marriage Because It Makes Their Own Marriages Seem More Special”.

Even though laws have been tweaked to remove many forms of discrimination against gay couples, neither major party is willing to go all the way. They are not prepared to follow the radical lead set in godless, radical jurisdictions such as Belgium, Canada, Spain and the US state of Iowa, out of concern for the sensibilities of the 36 per centers. The philosophy is something akin to saying: “Hey, gay people, you say you want some chocolate? Have some delicious no-frills carob drops. I don’t want to eat them myself, but I’m sure they taste just like the real thing.”

It may just be possible to find a solution which respects the values of both the majority and the minority in this debate. And to this end I would like to propose a novel legislative solution: what if the Government introduced gay marriage as an option – but didn’t make it compulsory?

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

I am writing this in the midst of a great prayer meeting. The Chapter House is crowded with people calling on the Lord for our city and our nation. We are not so much praying for our churches, but for the mission field by which we are surrounded.

I can’t tell you how much joy there is in the room, for that is the strange fact ”“ we find every excuse possible not to pray and not to meet for prayer, but when we do, the Lord’s presence is manifest and the Lord’s people build each other up. More importantly, we have the Lord’s specific promise to hear and respond to our prayers in his name.

Next time we have this opportunity to join together in prayer ”“ say ”˜No’ to the evil one who always wishes to frustrate our prayers, and readily join together to call on the name of our great Lord!

Read it all–a great reminder.

Regina Hill is single and has just turned 38 – the age when her fertility is about to go into steep decline. Single motherhood does not appeal to her. And if she does find a partner in the next year or so, she does not want to rush headlong into parenthood.

But the business consultant wants to keep the option of motherhood open. So, like increasing numbers of thirtysomethings in Australia and around the world, she has opted for a treatment originally designed as insurance for women facing fertility-damaging cancer therapy.

She is about to pay almost $12,000 to have unfertilised eggs extracted from her ovaries and then frozen and stored until she has a partner and is ready for parenthood.

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…times have indeed changed: in a former time, social pressure and shame would have pushed most people in the direction of pre-marital abstinence. People would have lived out a Christianised ethic in their sex lives, but on the basis of conformity to social norms. And the dangers, especially for girls, of misbehaviour were very severe. Without reliable contraception or easy access to abortion, self-control was a necessary weapon against the terrible stigma of teen pregnancy or worse. Religious teaching of course played a part, but in a negative sense: reminding people of the terrible eternal consequences of misbehaviour rather than the possibility for grace and forgiveness.

Now social pressure runs the other way. 75% of people think pre-marital sex is fine. Religious groups are in decline. The public square is saturated with sexual images. It is thought normal and healthy to experiment with sex outside marriage, so long as you don’t hurt anyone. It is ”˜part of a life’ – felt to be part of really living. Girls and boys are taught that to be a full person you need to express your sexual self, not exercise restraint.

This is where a theological account of human nature needs to come in. Whereas before, conformity to social norms made celibacy humanly possible, the new context makes it (for many people) humanly impossible. And this is where just telling people to try harder, or getting them to make pledges, or take cold showers, is bound to fail. Or it gives them false hope in their ability to master themselves. It trusts too much in the flesh over which we have in the end so little power – without the Spirit of God. If you are a youth leader wondering how on earth you can tell your young people to keep their hands off each other, well let us acknowledge the reality of the situation: it is impossible. It is impossible because of social convention, because consequentialist arguments don’t convince, and because human flesh is weak.

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Climate change expert Ross Garnaut believes the federal government is on the right track with its climate change policies.

At a public discussion on the sustainability of the future, hosted by the Anglican church in Melbourne, Professor Garnaut praised the government.

“It’s a great relief to me that the government has put the 25 per cent by 2020 target back on the table,” Mr Garnaut told his audience.

“It would have been a regretful thing in the international context if we did not set a very ambitious target.”

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While they might seem like odd bedfellows, [Richard] Holloway actually has much in common with [Richard] Dawkins, who is famous for his outspoken views about the non-existence of a supreme being and the irrational nature of religious faith. Holloway has written 12 books, including Godless Morality, which was controversially denounced by the then-Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey after its publication in 1999 for daring to suggest it is not necessary to be religious to be moral.

Holloway left the church in 2000 after suffering a crisis of conscience. Although he now refers to himself as a “Christian agnostic”, he still keeps some ties with his erstwhile profession.

I’m still a member of the Christian community as it carries many beautiful values, tropes, metaphors and narratives. I’ve changed my mind so many times in the past that I now handle what I say with a certain provisionality. I’m not done yet – who knows where I’ll end up? – but one of the things I have learned is the virtue of uncertainty. If you absolutely know the mind of that mystery you call God then it leads you to do terrible things because, of course, God is on your side.

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At least 25 per cent of the services and care for people with HIV/AIDS in Africa is provided by the Catholic Church. While the role of a church is different from government, which has to legislate and organise for people of all religions as well as those without, both are required to respect the evidence and good moral values in the programs they deliver.

Catholics are not obliged to protest publicly against every harm minimisation program, even when the church urges her members not to participate. In the same way, governments and non-Catholic aid agencies can and will continue to hand out condoms in HIV/AIDS programs, although the evidence suggests they may on balance be exacerbating the problem.

But all of us who want to help prevent and reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS need to respect the evidence about what helps and what doesn’t. And the evidence is that it’s not condoms which make the crucial difference, but the choices people make about how they use the gift of sexuality.

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MORE than four in 10 Australians who do not consider themselves “born again”‘ still believe Jesus rose from the dead, while one in 10 does not believe he existed.

These were two of the surprising results from an independent survey of 2500 people, said noted author and church historian John Dickson, the co-director of the Centre for Public Christianity in Sydney.

The survey, to be published today, found that out of the 85 per cent who did not identify as born again – including those of other religions – 45 per believed in the resurrection.

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REPRESENTATIVES of Beaudesert’s Anglican and Catholic parishes arrived together for the joint Act of Repentance at St John’s Cathedral in Brisbane capturing the spirit behind one of the key sesquicentenary celebrations of 2009.

Catholic parish priest Fr Bernie Gallagher and Rev David Lunniss, of the Anglican parish, made the trip with 24 of their parishioners by bus, sitting together in the cathedral later for the event.

Nearly 500 people attended the Act of Repentance on March 27 at St John’s Cathedral. A combined choir from St John’s and St Stephen’s Cathedral took part.

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THE first task for the leaders of the Group of 20, who will meet in London on April 2nd, will be to do no harm. Don’t fall out over whether Germany and China are spending enough public money to get the world economy going. Let’s not have a row over how to run the IMF. And spare us a tirade against “market fundamentalism”.

The second task is to do something useful. Ideally, the G20 would boost government spending, partly by giving the IMF more money. And it would take five minutes to shunt the re-regulation of finance into groups that can deliberate now and act later, when there is more time and less ire: the last thing to fear from Wall Street today is irrational exuberance.

It is the third task that is being neglected. Publicly, the G20’s leaders would be shocked, shocked if anyone were to turn against open markets. Even so, trade is collapsing and an insidious protectionism is on the rise (see article). As the storm rages, the London summit looks like offering nothing but pieties. The trading system needs more than that.

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THE first Australian priest to be sacked from his parish for being “not in communion” with Rome has defied the Catholic hierarchy by promising to conduct Mass as usual this weekend.

In a decision that is likely to reverberate throughout the Catholic community, the Archbishop of Brisbane yesterday fired Father Peter Kennedy for unorthodox practices.

Father Kennedy, of St Mary’s in South Brisbane, allows women to preach, blesses gay couples, denies the Virgin birth and claims the Church is dysfunctional.

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An Ancient religious enmity is at the centre of a new conflict in the Sydney bikie scene, with a new gang comprised mainly of Sunni Muslims warring with a group of bikies with a Shiite Muslim background.

While detectives continue to investigate the February 4 bombing of a Hells Angels clubhouse in Crystal Street, Petersham, police and other sources are indicating that the city chapter of the Comanchero is involved in an escalating feud with a new club, Notorious.

The president of Notorious is a Lebanese-Australian with a long-standing association with a bikie from a colourful Sydney Sunni Lebanese family. The two are among Sydney’s original “Nike” bikies – sporting white sneakers, fashionable T-shirts and clean-shaven instead of the traditional boots, dirty vests and bushy beards – and both are from Sunni families from Sydney’s west.

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The death count is expected to surpass 200 in the aftermath of the most devastating wildfires in Australia’s history. More than 1,800 homes have been destroyed, and now a man has been charged with arson in one fire that killed 21 people.

Host Scott Simon speaks with Richard Glover from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for an update on the devastating wildfires.

This is a fantastic interview. I still casn’t wrap my mind around the scale of the problem. Listen to it all.