Essentials

Details

Written by: Tony Nichols

Bishop Tony Nichols was one of nine from the Diocese of Perth who visited China in April. The main purpose was to visit the Amity Press in Nanjing, the largest publisher of Bibles in the world. The tour was organized by Dr Khoo Kay Keng and led by Archbishop Roger Herft. Tony, who admits to being a China watcher since his youth, reflects on his two visits to China, 50 years apart.

1963, first visit

Mao Zedung, ‘the Great Helmsman’, was at the height of his powers and piloting this great nation onto the rocks. Up to 50 million are thought to have starved to death in his ‘Great Leap Forward’.

Christians were no longer visible. They had numbered nearly a million in 1949 when the Communists took power. Church leaders had been executed or sent to labour camps. Church properties were confiscated and became factories or warehouses.

The Bible was banned (mine was confiscated). Christianity was declared to be a tool of Western imperialism. All Protestant churches had been merged in the ‘Three Self Patriotic Movement’ (TSPM) and placed firmly under Party control at every level. Subsequently, Mao’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ (1966–76) brought a further wave of persecution for Christians and plunged society generally into chaos.

Read more: Reflections on China Revisited

Details

Written by: Peter Brain

Peter Brain reminds us of the biblical foundations.

That there is an endemic confusion about our sexuality is clear in our society. So many are hurt by this confusion. Some nurse broken hearts as trust has been betrayed in serial sexual relationships. Growing numbers experience ongoing harm from sexually transmitted infections (evidenced by the alarming increase in chlamydia). Our deep longing for intimacy fails to find consummation since it is increasingly sought outside of the God-ordained parameters of a committed and mutually considerate, sexual relationship between a man and a woman, who are married to each other. Sex without commitment or even friendship can never deliver God’s gracious purposes.

The fundamental texts for the proper expression of our sexuality are to be found in Genesis 1:26–27 and 2:24. Being found in Genesis, they are creational, applying to all people of all cultures for all time. The two passages are found in the complementary creation accounts and teach us fundamental truths about ourselves, marriage and the sexual relationship.

Genesis 1:26–27 reminds us that God created both men and women in his own image, thus establishing our equality in God’s eyes and our dependence on God. The truth established here is that we are real people as individuals, independent of our being married or in a sexual relationship. Intimacy is not found primarily in our human relationships, but in our relationship with God. Procreation is clearly seen to be a reason for the male–female relationship, which is so clearly evident from our anatomical makeup. That same-sex relationships are unable to procreate is evident to all.

Read more: God’s intention for sexual expression

Details

Written by: Haydn Sennitt

Haydn Sennitt shares experience and insights for ministry with those with same-sex attraction.

In today’s modern, liberal, western cultures, what is the num­ber one issue dominating public discussion? Is it climate change, whaling, North Korea, or penal substitutionary atonement? While all those issues are important to differing degrees, par­ticularly the latter, none at the moment are as important as homosexuality. Discussions about it are occurring with gay abandon and show no sign of abating. Gay and ‘straight’, Chris­tian and non-Christian, young and old, liberal and conservative all have gay relationships on their radar. Its influence is occur­ring beyond western borders: South Korea is now considering proposed laws that ban discrimination against gays and re­cently the first Zulu same-sex wedding occurred. And although previously it was liberal churches that had embraced pro-gay theology, now other denominations are either embracing it or silencing God’s word on homosexuality, including evangelicals. Prominent American preacher Rob Bell recently announced, ‘I am for love, whether it’s [between] a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man… This is the world that we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.¹ Emerging church pioneer Brian McLaren last year married his son in a same-sex marriage ceremony. This is raising many challenging issues regarding evangelism, church life, and the future of Christian witness.

Read more: In and Out of the Gay Lifestyle

Details

Written by: Peter Brain

Bishop Peter Brain proposes friendship as the challenge to our idolatrous exaltation of sex.

‘Friends will go anywhere with you, friends share the good and the bad,’ is a truth that resonates with us all.
Kenny Marks’s song squares with God’s intention, ‘It is not good for man to be alone’ (Gen 2:18), the proverbial wisdom ‘there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother’ (Prov 18:24), and the longing of every human heart for a ‘kindred spirit’.

My reason for writing this article on friendship is the long held conviction that friendships are the antidote to loneliness and the means by which God would meet our deep longings for intimacy and by so doing keep us from adopting the wrong strategy of seeking this intimacy in sexual relationships prior to or outside of marriage.

If we are to win the battle of encouraging sexual fidelity, we must demonstrate the wonderfully positive benefits of a whole range of friendships given to us by our loving Creator. In so doing we will understand the God given purpose of our sexuality, and the restraints he has put on it.

Read more: Friendship

Details

Written by: Ben Underwood

Ben Underwood asks how Christians will respond to the way our society is thinking about homosexuality.
The youth minister at my church invited me to talk to the youth group about homosexuality from a Christian perspec­tive. I think this is a serious topic, and since it is difficult to turn on the TV or read the paper without encountering some­thing to do with homosexuality at the moment, it also seems to me that we should be thinking and talking about it in our churches. So, having done some renewed reading in the area, I went along to then youth group and talked for just under an hour about homosexuality to the upper high schoolers. Appar­ently they had never been so attentive. The following article is a (grown-up) version of that talk.

What is homosexuality?

Read more: Homosexuality

Details

Written by: Dale Appleby

Marriage and sexuality are still in the news. The same-sex lobby has not slackened its pace. One by one governments are changing the laws about marriage. Christians may feel they are fighting a rearguard action. Maybe we are. Certainly our place in society is changing. The hostile parts of our community seem to be getting bolder in mockery and insult. Some of it, no doubt, the church community has asked for. One of the difficulties is to be heard. Rational discussion seems quite difficult.
So this issue of Essentials attempts to discuss some of the matters again for the sake of our EFAC community. Ben Underwood examines homosexuality from a number of angles and has a very helpful set of responses to it. Peter Brain reminds us of the biblical foundations of sexuality and marriage. He also proposes friendship as a challenge to the continuing idolatry of sex.
Same-sex friendship is one of the rallying cries of the debate. But Christians don’t have any problem with same-sex friendships. These, together with opposite-sex friendships, are the stuff church is made of. The problem is the sexualising of such friendships—a grievous matter being highlighted in the Royal Commission and in various news reports of pastors who have affairs with members of their congregations.
Ministering among those who have same-sex attraction is provocatively discussed by Haydn Sennitt. Issues in ministry among heterosexual teens is helpfully canvassed in a review of Patricia Weerakoon’s book Teen Sex by the Book. Four new books on sex and marriage are reviewed by Cailey Raffel—and there are other interesting bits in this issue as well.
For a complete change, Tony Nichols reflects on his second visit to China after 50 years and observes significant changes both in the country and the church.

Dale Appleby is the
rector of Christ the King Willetton in the Diocese of Perth, and the new editor of Essentials