If you are a woman in her 40s or 50s, living in an arid marriage or partnership, and are not having an affair or contemplating one, you are behaving unnaturally.

More and more women are allowing themselves to behave like my friend “A”, who, as soon as her children finished high school last year, walked away from her battle-scarred marriage, moved into her own place, commenced no-fault divorce proceedings, and joined the RSVP online dating service.

I didn’t see her for months, and when I did she looked trim and buoyant. She had a new boyfriend. “I’m behaving like an 18-year-old,” she said. She did look as if she was getting a lot of exercise. She met the new man on RSVP. She also had war stories about RSVP. One of her friends, a 60-year-old architect, received about 100 responses from women on the site.

This, by the way, is not a clarion call to infidelity. The key qualifying word in the opening paragraph is “arid”. Rather, it is a consideration of the way society treats and portrays the sensuality of older women, and why so many allow themselves to disappear into a great compromise built on habit, stability, security and obligation rather than how they really feel.

Read it all.

A LACK of priests and ministers in rural Victoria has forced farmers and teachers to take to the pulpit to conduct church services.

Ordained ministers from Australia’s three major Christian denominations are working more than 50 hours a week to meet the spiritual needs of rural communities.

But an ageing clergy and the tyranny of distance have left many rural parishes without a full-time priest or minister.

A recent study found that 14 per cent of rural Protestant and Anglican churches around Australia have adopted a lay church leader in the past five years.

Read it all.

Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material.

Online civil libertarians have warned the freedom of the internet is at stake, but Senator Conroy says that is nonsense.

He says the scheme will better protect children from pornography and violent websites.

“Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road,” he said.

“If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree.”

Read it all.

MAINSTREAM churches should use the same public relations methods as their evangelical counterparts to stop members defecting to more modern congregations or leaving the faith altogether, analysts believe.

Edward Butler, of industry analysts IBISWorld, said young people in particular were accustomed to being marketed to and traditional methods of religious promotion would no longer work.

“Young people tend to be much more media savvy,” Mr Butler said. “They tend to view things in a much more marketing-based manner.”

But Mr Butler warned against direct-marketing campaigns, saying a more subtle message, similar to those used by Pentecostal churches like Hillsong, were more effective.

Read the whole article.

THE Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, has exhorted Australians to follow up action on climate change and indigenous child welfare with prayer and says Australia’s leaders, including the Prime Minister, are accountable to the electorate, but more so to God.

Following the change of government last month, Dr Jensen said it would be wrong to think that government rested solely on the shoulders of Kevin Rudd and his ministerial cabinet. Under God, the new Labor Government had a responsibility to look outward and help its overseas neighbours in peace and war.

“What I once told John Howard is true of Kevin Rudd also: we all have a higher authority to which we are accountable and, ultimately, God has placed the government of us all on the shoulders of Jesus, the one the prophet Isaiah spoke about,” Dr Jensen said in his traditional Christmas message.

“That is a radical change of perspective. If we imagine ourselves as independent human beings who do not need God, the world will prove us wrong. Climate change, for example. It is right we take action but our own actions must be accompanied by prayer to the God who sends the thunder and the rain.”

Read it all.

Christian leaders have branded a television commercial depicting the baby Jesus tossing gifts back at the three wise men as tacky and offensive.

The ad for electronic goods retailers Betta Electrical recreates the Christian nativity scene, showing three wise men offering gifts to baby Jesus as he lies in the manger.

The commercial, which has angered Anglican and Catholic leaders, shows Jesus throwing gifts out of the manger as the words “Give a better gift” flash on the TV screen.

Christian leaders criticised the ad, calling it a tacky and offensive exploitation of religious imagery which perverts the true meaning of Christmas.

Read it all.

Australians believe the American hamburger and U.S. slang are infringing on their culture and they are “not at all pleased” about it, according to a survey released Monday.
The telephone poll of 1,213 people by the government-funded U.S. Studies Center at the University of Sydney measured Australians’ attitudes about their closest ally, the United States.

Asked to judge the influence of American culture on Australia, 67% of respondents said they were “not at all pleased” about the prevalence of U.S.-style fast food in Australia. Australians ranked fast food second only behind U.S. foreign policy as an issue they were “very worried” about.

The survey did not ask respondents for specific examples, though fast food chains selling burgers and french fries are more common now in Australia than the once-ubiquitous corner store selling fish and chips.

A further 52% said they were very unhappy with the influence of “the American language” on the way people speak, which could easily now include phrases such as “Hey, buddy” instead of “G’day mate.”

Read it all.

A west Australian medical expert wants families to pay a $5000-plus “baby levy” at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.

Writing in today’s Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child’s lifetime.

Professor Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, called for condoms and “greenhouse-friendly” services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits.

Read it all.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates one in four women in this country will remain childless for “a wide variety of reasons ”¦ these range from lifestyle choices relating to the pursuit of education and a career, to a preference for a life without children”.

“For some, the cost of raising children, in terms of both time and money, is a barrier, while for others, health concerns such as fear of passing on a genetic defect to a child are contributing factors,” reports the bureau in the 2002 Australian Social Trends study.

I do not have children and I am not ruling them out altogether, but as I get older, the sacrifices faced by my friends who have taken the plunge seem ever more daunting.

Read it all.

Stephen Crittenden: Welcome to the program.’

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist’. They’re the words of the great Brazilian theologian Dom Helder Camara, but they might just as well have been aimed at Federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott, who says the Catholic church’s criticism of the government’s WorkChoices legislation is ‘socialism masquerading as justice’.

In a speech to the Institute of Public Affairs, Mr Abbott said that the churches should butt out of politics, and that if they spent more time encouraging virtue in individual believers, and less time demanding virtue from governments we’d have a better society.

Well Tony Abbott has often been critical of Catholic social justice agencies like the St Vincent de Paul Society, and in recent times of Bishop Kevin Manning of Parramatta who says the Howard government’s IR laws are immoral. But the Minister says Industrial Relations isn’t a moral or religious issue at all. In fact he says a political argument isn’t transformed into a moral argument simply because it’s delivered with an enormous dollop of sanctimony.

Well not surprisingly, Australia’s church leaders have hit back. The Reverend Tim Costello has described Mr Abbott as ‘displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of Jesus and Catholic teaching’. And Archbishop Peter Jensen says he ‘defines virtue too narrowly, as though it’s merely about personal morality’.

Well in a few moments we’ll hear from leading Catholic historian and social justice advocate, Bruce Duncan, but first to Tony Abbott himself. And in this interview, recorded yesterday, Mr Abbott says if people are doing it tough in Australia, it’s their own fault because of the unfortunate personal choices they’ve made, or it’s God’s fault, but it’s not the fault of the Howard government.

Mr Abbott, thanks for your time today. In the late 19th century when Pope Leo XIII advocated on behalf of the rights and conditions of working people, he was labelled a socialist, and he responded that his opponents didn’t understand the difference between socialism and Christianity. Do you understand the difference?

Read it all.

Boy: I’ve had no contact with religion anywhere in my upbringing. Both my grandparents were very secular, my parents were very secular, so it’s almost religion to me, and growing up in sort of North Canberra, all my friends have been secular, so it’s almost like an abstract thing for me, I’ve had almost no contact with it throughout my entire life so far. I’ve never been to Church, like to a mass, or anything like that. So I suppose it’s all a bit of an intellectual thing, I don’t think religion is a particularly good force, I think it does a lot of bad in the world, sort of increases I suppose intolerance and bigotry in sort of within the community. But on the other hand people can believe what they want, I just don’t think it has a particularly positive force on lots of parts of society anyway.

I think don’t that the sort of moral high ground that religion proposes is valid at all in our society, I think most of the things have come despite religion through free thinkers and those things, and I don’t think the individualistic thing, I think that it’s equally there especially in Judaeo Christian religions, there’s that real focus on individual morality and individual sinning, it doesn’t see the wider picture, so I mean while everyone here at this table might be living in sin in terms of religious ideas, I think most of us want to try and make the world a better place.

Read it all.

Catholic schools in Australia are at a crossroads, according to a policy document released last week by the bishops of New South Wales and the ACT, a document which is focused mainly on retaining Catholic identity and improving the standard of religious evangelisation in Catholic schools.

But perhaps there are forces at work that the bishops would rather not talk about. Ever since the 19th century the Australian bishops have fiercely guarded the autonomy of their parish schools, but these days, more and more socially disadvantaged Catholics are being forced out into public schools because they can’t afford the fees; while more and more middle-class, non-Catholics, are enrolling.

Well the Secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Education, Archbishop Michael Miller of Canada, has just been in Australia to speak at a conference on the future of Catholic education. He says that if Catholic children are being forced out of Catholic schools because they can’t afford the fees, then there’s something wrong with the funding arrangements. In fact he thinks Catholic schools should be fully funded by the government, with no school fees.

I asked Archbishop Michael Miller what made for a successful Catholic school.

Read it all.

SYDNEY’s Anglican Archbishop, Peter Jensen, and his five assistant bishops have rebuffed the worldwide leader of the Anglican Church in his attempts to heal the bitter division in the international church over gay bishops and same-sex unions.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, had issued invitations to 800 Anglican bishops to attend a conference of Anglican primates next year in Britain.

But Dr Jensen and his bishops have delayed responding to the invitation, issued personally by Dr Williams, saying they hesitated to sit at the same table as those who supported the consecration of gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions.

Progressive Anglicans have accused Dr Jensen of seeking to embarrass the head of the Church of England.

Read it all.

Liz Wells( Eurhythmy teacher from Glenaeon): Eurhythmy brings forth into the visible what would otherwise usually be audial and would usually be internalised, so it is a medium by which the viewer is able to perceive and see visually aspects which are otherwise not visible.

Geraldine Doogue: Steiner education progresses according to how a child evolves, physically, spiritually, and intellectually. In the early years, emphasis was placed on actively developing physical and mental skills through making things, and mental arithmetic. We were unable to show children in these kindergarten rooms because younger children aren’t exposed to technology such as computers and TV.

Stephen Crittenden: A grab from the ‘Compass’ program on ABC-TV in 2002.

The Victorian Education Department is in the middle of a growing controversy about the Steiner method. In recent years, Steiner has been adopted as an alternative curriculum strand in a number of the State’s public schools. At first it happened under the radar and against Education Department policy. But last year the Department’s Deputy Director, Daryl Fraser, released new guidelines approving Steiner as an optional stream in some schools.

But some parents say the Steiner method is really concealing a spiritualist philosophy, and that it’s not appropriate for inclusion in a secular public system.

Steiner’s educational ideas are based on the spiritualist philosophy he founded, called Anthroposophy. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church defines Anthroposophy as ‘a system based on the premises that the human soul can, of its own power, contact the spiritual world’, and says the concepts of reincarnation and karma are central to it.

The 20th century Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge is less kind. It says Anthroposophy is ‘reminiscent of the decadent intellectualism of the Weimar Republic’.

Some schools, such as Footscray City Primary School in Melbourne are now deeply divided. Jenni Lans is a parent at the school who has kept her children out of the program.

Read it all.

In the latest release of the 2006 National Church Life Survey (NCLS) on Tuesday, the Sydney Anglican Diocese’s congregants are getting younger and are being integrated into church life.

The survey showed a significant rise of 4 percent in the current period from 3 percent of total teenage attendants in 2001. This rise is used as a benchmark for Australian Churches.

Reverend Zachary Veron, the incoming YouthWorks CEO, has attributed the rise in youth attendance to the diocese holding the Bible as the ultimate authority and placing an emphasis on sharing the message that Jesus is Lord. On average, he said, this approach had a higher youth attendance compared to a liberal approach.

He told Christian Today Australia: “Anglican churches in Australia which hold the Bible as the ultimate authority over our lives as God’s written word to his created beings, and therefore place an emphasis in their ministry on Bible teaching and sharing the message that Jesus is Lord with others, on average have many more young people attending church than most Anglican churches which have a more ‘liberal’ approach to the Scriptures.”

He also said that if any Anglican churches abandon the authority of the Bible over our lives, then young people will usually abandon them.

Dr Philip Selden, Archbishop Jensen’s Executive Officer, described the latest result as “very encouraging” in the Sydneyanglicans.net, but acknowledged that more work is required since a third of Sydney Anglicans aged between 19 and 25 were not satisfied with their church.

From Christian Today (Australia).

Another commentary about the data regarding religious belief and church growth / decline from Australia can be found here

From The Age:

Nevertheless, young Australians are generally less religious than older ones. Among those over 65, only 7.9 per cent have no religion. For those aged 15-34, 8.6 per cent belong to other religions, and 23.5 per cent say they have no religion.

“The mainstream strongholds are literally dying, and the evangelical/Pentecostal churches are the growing edge,” Professor Bouma said.

In mainstream Protestant churches, more than 20 per cent are over 65, compared with 7 per cent of Pentecostals, and 13 per cent of Catholics and the general population.

But the commitment of those in church is higher, according to Professor Bouma. “The mainline churches had echoes of empire ”” in the ’50s it was proper to be Anglican. In the ’80s, Anglican numbers had dropped, but a higher percentage were actually in church.”

Read it all.

The Dalai Lama has just completed a tour of Australia, boosting what is the country’s fastest-growing religion. Australia has more Buddhists per capita than anywhere else in the Western world. From Sydney, Phil Mercer reports on how this religion has moved beyond Asian immigrant communities and into the mainstream.

Tibetan nuns chant traditional prayers – an increasingly common sight in Australia.

There are about 350 thousand Buddhists in the country in this mainly Christian nation, and government census data indicate that number is up almost 80 percent from 1996. The Buddhist population eclipses the size of Australia’s Muslim population.

Mark Allon an expert on Buddhism from the University of Sydney says the faith’s roots here were established by settlers from Asia.

“We have many immigrants from Buddhist countries. Many Asian immigrants recently and even historically – they brought with them Buddhism,” Allon said. “So among those communities you have an interest in Buddhism, a preservation of their religion and culture. Then you also have an interest among the wider Australian community, non-Asian community, resident community, in Buddhism and that has been going on now for almost 100 years.”

Read it all.

Cardinal Pell said all members of parliament should reject the cloning of human embryos for experimentation and destruction.

“No Catholic politician, indeed no Christian or person with respect for human life who has properly informed his conscience about the facts and ethics in this area should vote in favour of this immoral legislation,” he said in a statement.

“If this bill is passed, the enemies of human life will soon be back with further proposals, disguised with sweet words and promises of cures, to roll back the few remaining barriers to the regular destruction of early human life.”

Cardinal Pell said NSW should not simply follow the commonwealth’s lead in overturning the therapeutic cloning ban.

“The Catholic Church in NSW, through grants and through its hospitals and research institutes, is a promoter of ethical stem cell research on adult and umbilical cord stem cells,” he said.

“But allowing scientists open slather on human embryos for unethical research is not the best way forward.”

Read it all.

Church leaders are calling on NSW politicians not to support the overturning of a ban on therapeutic cloning.

A controversial bill to overturn the current ban on stem cell research, also known as Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, is due to be debated in the lower house of state parliament on Tuesday.

MPs from both sides of politics will be allowed a conscience vote on the legislation, which would allow therapeutic cloning but maintains the ban on human reproductive cloning.

If passed, the legislation would bring NSW in line with the Commonwealth, which overturned a ban on therapeutic cloning in December 2006.

But both the Anglican and Catholic churches are asking MPs to vote against the bill.

Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell said all members of parliament should reject the cloning of human embryos for experimentation and destruction.

“No Catholic politician, indeed no Christian or person with respect for human life who has properly informed his conscience about the facts and ethics in this area should vote in favour of this immoral legislation,” he said in a statement.

Read it all.