What the Media Didn't Tell You About the Troy Newman Controversy

Unless you've been hiding under a media-proof rock for the last two weeks, you will have seen something that is becoming increasingly prevalent within Australia media.  I really struggle to call it as anything other than large scale censorship, or media-sponsored bullying.  In a society that theoretically champions 'freedom of speech' and 'tolerance', those holding any position that dissents from the leftist leanings of the media are shamed and silenced.  This in a country that previously applauded citizens who were willing to defend the defenceless and act upon the 'courage of their convictions', who used to give people a 'fair go' and when it comes to the recent Troy Newman controversy, it's easy to see just how very far from unbiased the Australian media has become.  

I'd really like to have a recap of a lot of the things that the Australian media didn't make clear.

Despite MP Terri Butler's apparent concerns, Mr Newman was not coming to Australia to incite "harassment and intimidation" or "vilification" of "women accessing reproductive services and professionals offering those services at medical clinics", but rather to partake in a nine day, five city speaking tour, during which he would talk about the "exposure of the sale of body parts from aborted babies at Planned Parenthood clinics in USA", as explained in all of the promotional material produced by Right To Life Australia, the organisation that sponsored and organised this same tour.  Right to Life Australia has a history of peaceful demonstrations, in which they seek to raise awareness of the implications of abortions for both mothers and babies, and to offer women the support that they need, if they decide to continue with their pregnancies.  Right To Life Australia said that they were hoping that Newman would "stir up debate", an assertion that was treated by Minister Butler as though the very act of discussing the greater implications of abortion was injurious to women, in and of itself.  

Minister Butler's allegations of "Mr Newman’s call for “abortionists” to be “executed”" was found to be unproven by Justice Nettle, the judge who heard Newman's case to have his visa reinstated, and that there was no evidence that his previous anti-abortion protests in the United States had been violent.  But let's not let the truth get in the way of a boots-and-all smear campaign.  It's surprisingly how easy these details are to bury within the censorial flourishes of a triumphalist article.  In a rare even-handed article about the whole situation in The Australian, Angela Shanahan reported, in perhaps the sole article that gave a right of reply to Newman, that Newman's comments had been taken out of context, “This was part of a semi-theological discussion on Old Testament view of punishment, which I do not support. In fact, I am against the death penalty.”

Regarding Mr Newman's premature return to the United States, this was not due to any of the claims made by Minister Butler being upheld, but rather, as Justice Nettle stated, "His detention and removal is entirely related to his decision to openly flout Australian law and travel to Australia without a valid visa."  This did not stop Minister Butler stating that the immigration department was right to cancel his visa, and that they welcomed this decision.  So, just in case you missed that, despite his visa being cancelled due to unfounded allegations, Minister Butler claims that this was a right and just thing to do.  I'm not sure that I share the Minister's sense of what is 'right'. Regarding Mr Newman's entry into Australia without a visa, Angela Shanahan again reported that, 

“ My wife and I [Newman] had been ­granted a visa over two months ago. I did not see the letter cancelling my visa, which is dated the September 30, which is the day after I left, until I arrived back home,” he said. His visa was cancelled electronically on September 29, the day he set out for his speaking tour.“The first I knew about it, I was already en route from home in Kansas. At the airline gate in Denver, I was told I had been put on the no-fly list. I assumed this was a mistake. I have no criminal record, and I saw no official notice. In fact, I saw nothing in writing until I ­arrived in Melbourne.”The Department of Immigration offered Mr Newman a limited visa if he signed a pledge not to cause violent disturbance. “I was happy to do this, but at the last minute the minister decided the technicality of arrival without visa prevented the ­arrangement.”

To be fair, Channel Ten's 'The Project' did briefly discuss the ethics of the possible censorship of Troy Newman, given that he has no criminal record.  However, this was almost lost among the predictable victory statement regarding his return to the United States.

Once again, let's not let telling the truth get in the way of a heavily biased story.  As for the original (and seemingly baseless, given the comments of Justice Nettle) cancelling of Mr Newman's visa, that decision was postponed, to be decided at the end of October.  Approximately 3 weeks after his planned speaking tour was scheduled to be held.  It is yet to be decided whether or not it was justly done.

Finally, what about the speaking tour?  Surely Right To Life Australia have been left shame-faced and in the lurch, given the apparent deportation of their key-note speaker?  I am very happy to say that the tour has, and even now, still is going ahead.  Mr Newman's message regarding Planned Parenthood's illegal selling of aborted body parts has been delivered at each of the scheduled meeting, across the five cities, and nine days.  And, given the vitriol with which Mr Newman was met, it is perhaps for the greater safety of the speaking tour's attendees.  So, despite hand-dusting and assumptive claims that the tour has been "scuppered", it has continued on as planned; a fact of which I would have no clue, except that my very dedicated and lovely mother-in-law works for Right To Life Australia.

As I said at the beginning, silencing and shaming seems  to be very much an increasing trend within the Australian media.  Any voice that speaks out against a controversial issue is summarily declared to be bigoted and hateful.  I look forward to hearing the outcome of the hearing into whether the initial cancelling of Mr Newman's visa was in fact lawful, and how widely it is reported.  Particularly if it is found to be unlawful.

Photo courtesy of Facebook

I'm a Discriminatory Bigot: How the Media's Take on "Tolerance" Leads to Censorship and Name Calling

I have to level with you.  I've been in a state of semi-shock and disappointment for the last two days.  What happened two days ago, you ask?  I watched an episode of Network Ten's "The Project", and more specifically, a story by Gorgi Choghlan on Ireland voting to accept same-sex marriage.  Leaving the palpably biased reporting behind (60% of eligible voters voting, with a result of 62% isn't exactly an "overwhelming majority"), what really troubled me is Tony Abbott being labelled as "spineless" for standing up for what he believes to be in the best interest of the country (and I'm not a massive fan of Tony Abbott generally), and Steve Price (who I'm also not completely enamoured with generally) being shouted down for very gently suggesting that Gorgi should be careful not to demonise those who disagree with her position on same-sex marriage; or marriage equality, as the new and very loaded term is.  Steve went on to suggest that it should be put to a national referendum, if it is to go ahead, and I am very inclined to believe him, because despite all the noise in the media about the community having spoken in it's favour towards same-sex marriage, I've definitely never been asked.  Have you?

Anyway, with my frustration levels rising rapidly, I decided to make my feelings known on The Project's facebook page (see the comments posted in response to the video that was posted on May 25 at 18:18 and also under the video posted under the title "Is Australia being left behind on marriage equality", earlier the same day). This is where things really got interesting.  Poor Steve copped plenty of vilification from those who disagreed with him, while there was also a fair bit of outcry against Georgi for her choice of language in the story.  Besides several people being called "narrow-minded bigots", and I was told by several people that I "cannot" hold the view that marriage should be between men and women, because it's discriminatory, because it's "extremist religious propaganda", because it's ancient history and the list goes on.  I'm more than happy for people to disagree with me, and given the amount of media beat-up regarding the apparent wholesale sentiment of the Australian public being in favour of same-sex marriage, indeed I expect people to disagree with me.  What I am shocked about, is being told that I am not allowed to hold to a traditional view of marriage, and dare I venture to express that publicly, then I'd better get ready for a public shaming of my discriminatory, bigoted ways.

In the name of "anti-discrimination", it would appear that we are no longer permitted to hold an opinion that is contrary to the accepted majority position, and definitely not permitted to express it publicly.  I'm not sure about you, but that sounds a lot like censorship to me.  Possibly even bordering on dictatorship.  And this position is at the selfsame time, held by people who would also espouse the apparent benefits of "tolerance", which according to Don Carson no longer means "accepting the existence of different views", but the "acceptance of other views", as in "actually accepting another's position means believing that position to be true, or at least as true as your own." And I guess that also answers the question of why someone who considers themselves to be extremely tolerant (given the new definition) finds the need to shout down those with a differing opinion; because they can, in no way, accept the position of those who are against same-sex marriage to be equally valid.

Is there any forum left in which those against same-sex marriage can be heard?  Certainly not on The Project, which, in no uncertain terms, labels those who hold my view as being discriminatory and intolerant without taking a moment to hear our position, let alone give it equal air time, because the LGBT voices are shouting the loudest.  We are being censored and demonised, without being heard, and yet we are the ones called discriminatory.  I am not afraid of people who hold to an LGBT persuasion (although I am labelled homophobic) and I have no desire to oppress them, but in fact am very strongly encouraged to love and care for them, by the scriptures that I hold to (that extremist, religious propaganda).  I do, however, have a different view on what constitutes a marriage.

Getting back to figuring out the whole same-sex marriage issue, I will be teaching my children that God made men and women for heterosexual relationships.  Just like I will be teaching them that sex is for within marriage.  I will also be teaching them that they have absolutely no right to judge LGBT people, or in fact anyone, because they too are far from perfect, and in need of a saviour, as am I.  Call me old fashioned, but I will also be seeking to teach them that they can disagree with someone whilst continuing to love and care for them, and without needing to call them names or shout them down.  If that makes me a discriminatory bigot, then so be it.

Photo by Crash:candy

Emerging From the Mists, and Other Undertakings...

Well, it's been quite some time since my last post - 8 months to be exact, and hopefully I won't have to begin every post with the start of this sentence!  Once again, so very much has happened in our family.

We have a new member!  Little Esther was born back in January (she's nearly 4 months old!) and after a fairly wild ride, I think things are starting to feel a bit more normal.  Well, as normal as they can be with a small baby who only ever wants to be awake for no longer than an hour at a time!  Despite feeling like a bit of a shut-in, we're evolving as a family, and we all love her bright chubby smiles and the giggles that are beginning to come.

Another big change has been Hannah beginning school, and Davey heading off to day care 2 days a week (it worked out to be just a bit more expensive than 2x 2 hour blocks of 3 year old kinder a week!).  Life feels a lot busier, when the kids are home, trying to make sure that I still have some quality and a decent quantity of time with each of them.  It's tough trying to figure out when to get housework done, in order to still be able to spend time with the kids!  It feels like there are a lot of competing priorities and methods of procrastination, and I know I don't always make the right choices, but I feel like I am finally starting to head into a brain space where I can consider things more clearly.

It's so sad how quickly spending time in God's word can be pushed aside.  I finally began meeting one-to-one with a friend from church this week, and I can actually remember feeling a bit grumpy about it, in the hours leading up to our meeting, because this was going to eat into my relaxing/tv watching/weaving (yes, stress apparently also leads to impulse purchases, as well as comfort eating, and I bought a vintage loom!) time!  How rude!  I'm so glad that we got to meet though!  What a relief to spend some time immersed in Ezra, and realising how quickly and disappointingly the Israelites slipped back into intermarrying with the nations around them, and disobedience, after God had intervened so obviously to bring them back to their land, and rebuild the temple!  What a reminder to me, not to tune God out with the soundtrack of the world!

I'm also trying to work my way through the "I Quit Sugar" program at the moment.  I'm 4 days into cutting out pretty much all fructose, and I have to say, it hasn't been as bad as I thought it might be!  I really miss fruit though, and am toying with the idea of adding it back in a bit earlier, but I guess I'll just stick to the plan for the moment.  Despite finding some of the recipes in the book pretty foul (you can add some egg to some quinoa and call it a macaroon, but it just isn't!!!), I'm quite interested in the research presented, and plan on looking into some other books on the sugar/fat issue too.  If what they're presenting is true, it's got some pretty scary implications for family health!  Bring on the whole foods.

Anyway, sadly this isn't particularly insight or inspiring, but more of a catch-up, and hopefully some motivation for myself to start putting together some of the posts that I've been thinking about for such a long time.  I hope that you're having a great year so far, and that we can spend some more time together!!

Just Talking

Well, it's been a long time.  We've been on a crazy, emotional ride. But enough of that for now. Today I'd rather talk to you about something that I've been thinking about for a little while now, and just not found made the time to share yet.  Evangelism.

That dreaded 'E' word that seems to strike fear into the hearts of so many - quite sadly, I might add! So what new thoughts can I possibly have to add to this subject? Some new tool or method for making it easier or less daunting?  Not at all.  Quite the opposite actually.

Now, please don't misunderstand me.  I'm not saying that different evangelistic tools don't have their place, because they certainly do!  Two Ways to Live, for example, is brilliant, especially for new Christians (and some long term!) to learn and make sure that they have really understood the gospel - and certainly to share with other people too!  What I am saying, however, is that I think we can tend to over formalise the idea of "Evangelism".  We can take it out of the realms of being prepared to share the hope that we have (1 Peter 3:15), and elevate it to something akin to a magical unicorn hunt, where we feel as though only those who have been trained in this very specific art have the skills or the courage to capture the elusive unicorn.  

We can get so worked up about it, and so formulaic in the way that we try to talk to people about Jesus, that we just plain make it weird.  I mean, most people are happy to talk about the things that they are interested in, but I think both with over course-ising it (ooooh, now there's a terrible word that will never take off!), and often with us just expecting people to react badly to the news that we're Christian, that we can come across incredibly unnaturally.  Now I am more than happy to acknowledge that not everybody has the spiritual gift of evangelism (1 Corinthians 12), but just because I may not be blessed with a specific gift of helping, for example, that doesn't mean that I can't help pack the chairs away after our weekly church family gathering.  And more so for evangelism, because of verses like 1 Peter 3:15, where we are all called to "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect."  And I'm relatively confident that for the vast majority of us, who have been through an AFES group, or go to a decent church, we ought to be incredibly well equipped to give a very clear answer to anyone who asks us about our faith in Jesus!

So how can we do this?  I think we need to just be normal, and talk to people about God, as we would also talk to them about other things/people that we love.  To paraphrase the advice of my friend Ben Pfahlert, it's best to try to let people know that we're Christian as early in the relationship as possible - even just mentioning that we went to church on the weekend if someone asks how your weekend was.  Getting it out there early makes it less awkward later on (I remember the amusing reaction of a work mate that I'd been having coffee with for quite a few weeks when I mentioned I was a Christian - she immediately tried to do a mental catalogue of all the things she'd ever said to me, in case I might have been offended!), and also sets you in their minds as someone they can possibly go to if they have questions about God etc (I got a sterling opportunity with the same work mate, some months later, to give a full explanation of exactly why I am a Christian).  

If we can work on not seeing evangelism as an added extra to the other things that we do, or to church life, but can talk to people about God normally and naturally, as the opportunity arises, I think we will make much greater inroads into sharing the gospel with our friends.  There's even an Ed Stetzer statistic that 61% of non-Christian people in their 20's would say yes if a friend offered to study the Bible with them!  Conversations may not always go super well, and we may not always see people turning to God, but it's got to be worth the effort.  And if we Jesus has given his very life for us, I think we can weather some potentially awkward conversations.  What do we really have to lose, when our friends potentially have everything to gain?  Let's just start talking!!!

Photo by Moyan Brenn on Flickr.

Location, Location, Location: Part Two

Our possible home buying saga continues.  Hopefully we will find out this Monday if we can get a loan or not.  Our new mortgage broker seems confident.  Oh, it almost seems like too much.  Part of me hopes that they say no, so that we can finally just settle in here and not be looking around anymore.  You would think that I could just wait and see if we get the loan or not, but it turns out that I am both an obsessive and a  compulsive researcher - it's true, I looked it up.  It's quite tiring, being driven by that feeling of needing to know what our potential options are, in case we do get the loan.  And the speed with which the property market is rising is quite frightening.  It really feels like we could get priced out of the market before we even have a chance to get into it, or we could buy a lemon with massive issues, or someone else might get it first, or we could hate the area, or we could...

I am so thankful that I know that God is looking after us, no matter which way it goes.  He's already given us better landlords that we could have imagined, let alone asked for!  More and more I am realising that if I didn't have hope in God to rest upon, and to know that I can bring all my anxieties to him because he wants me to (he doesn't just deign to listen to them!), I would be one very stressed out little black duck.  Thank you God for listening and taking up my burdens!  More about my epiphany regarding what to do with complaining next (it's not really very ground-breaking, but it was to me at the time!).

Location, location, location

We've been looking at houses for sale lately.  (Theoretically, at least) we would like to buy one.  Have you ever bought a house?  What a storm of conflicting priorities!  How many bedrooms?  How many living areas? What suburb? Brick or weatherboard? New or existing?  Close to schools?  Which schools? And it's not just a matter of choosing which of these things, but weighing how important each of them are as well!  Not to mention, what is actually available for what we can afford?  And all of this before we've even confirmed that a bank will lend to us (hopefully we'll find that out tomorrow - eeek!)!

*Sigh!* We've found a house that we do quite like, and apart from putting in a bathtub and a dishwasher, it seems pretty much ready to just move straight in to.  I find I am so torn though - do we need another bedroom and a second living area to make doing ministry at home easier, or am I just being swayed by what the world (or what some denominational guidelines) says I ought to have for a family our size?  I'm pretty sure that the early church didn't have at least 4 bedrooms, a study, 2 living areas and a walk-in pantry!  Oh ho, it's an interesting, and over-researching ride!  I am a little bit on tenterhooks to hear what our mortgage broker says, hopefully tomorrow, and then who knows what will happen by the end of the week!

If you've bought a house, how have you gone about weighing up all of these different considerations?

Photo by I see Modern Britain on Flickr

The Big Push South

It’s been some time.  An awful lot has happened since my last post.  Let me fill you in.  College is done.  What sounds on the face of it, like it should be a great cause for celebration, is filled with some very mixed feelings.  John finished up in mid-November, and on the 6th of December, a truck came and loaded up all our worldly possessions and drove off.   Destination: Melbourne.

So on the 7th of March, it will have been 3 months, and I still quite keenly feel the loss of our college and Sydney church communities.  Even though we’ve moved closer to our biological families, it really does feel like we’ve left family behind.  I’m definitely struggling with discontentment at the moment, and I think perhaps this will be a pattern for me, moving into different places/situations, until I feel more established in the community and figure out more fully, what my role is. 

The same thing happened when we moved to college.  Poor John bore the brunt of my feelings of resentment that he got to go off and have a fabulous time studying theology with his new friends, while I had to stay home and “do the housework, and look after the baby”.  By the time we had Davey in second year, I was more than glad that I didn’t have to go out and work or study, but got to stay home and raise our lovely babies.  Oh how fickle my feelings are!!

Now, this is definitely not to say that our time in Melbourne hasn’t been without blessings!  John has taken over as the lead pastor of City Unichurch (name currently in negotiations), and we’ve largely felt extremely well welcomed and been so excited to see the amazing ways that our new church family serve the Lord and each other, as well as having a few visitors too!  We’ve had heaps of family support, are enjoying the extra space of a 3 bedroom house with a big yard and a supply of apricots, figs, lemons, walnuts and gorgeous roses.  Hannah is loving Kindergarten and Kinderballet.  All of the kids are pretty excited about our new playgroup too (which meant a serious meltdown when we had to leave, because they loved it so much!).

We all miss our college and Sydney church family and poor little Davey still cries about it sometimes.  It’s a little bit hard to cheer him up sometimes, when I’m feeling pretty sad about it myself.  I think I have a really big cry overdue (I’m such a girl!).  But last week was quite a good week, going away to Apollo Bay and having a chance to regroup and enjoy each other before John’s RMIT FOCUS work started in earnest this week.

I’m praying that the God who has already given me more than I could ever hope or imagine will help me to remember this truth, and move past these feelings of discontentment.  I’m praying that I can soon understand my role in this new stage of life, and support my family well, as we continue to change and grow.   I’m praying for new friends in our local community and that God can use us powerfully to build his kingdom here in Melbourne.

Image by alexbuitlr on flickr.