Violence Archives - Aussie Alt Christian

Will there be a 2023 Bonhoeffer?

The following is the written draft of a sermon I gave at Eastwood Uniting Church, Sydney, on Sunday, 19 March 2023, based on the lectionary reading John 9:1-41 – A man board blind receives sight. My focus was on v39, “And Jesus said, “I came into this world to execute justice—to make the sightless see and the seeing blind.” (Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible (pp. 2307-2310). Sheed & Ward. Kindle Edition.).

My inspiration for the sermon came from the dramatic events that are happening in the western world that, in so many ways, provide some parallels to Germany just before the horrors of Hitler’s reign. The sermon delivered varied slightly, and when I have the recording, I add it to the post.

Source: nakedpastor.com – by subscription

oOo

I have a blog site, AussieAltChristian.com.au, where I occasionally try to put up my thoughts. Looking at the frequency of my blogs, it would appear that I don’t have that many thoughts.

In this same season in 2017, I did a talk at the 8 am service, which then had me write one of those blogs, around the passage we have today.

This passage has become one of my favourite passages. Only the other week after a Uniting Financial Service board meeting, I caught up with a new board member, who is also a minister, and we chatted for quite a while. I think World Pride came up, and somehow this reading came up. I took him through my thoughts on the reading as modern-day story of Jesus calling us to stop excluding anyone based on our views of sin. Be they LGBTIQA+ people, disabled people, or people of different races or ethnicity.

As a much more learned theologian than I, it was so gracious of him that he felt he had learnt something new from our conversation.

But rather than re-tell that narrative today, I am always struck how at a different time and place, we can see something different in the same passages we have read time and time again. Also, you can read that other narrative later because it is online.

For today, I was struck by the end of today’s reading.

And Jesus said, “I came into this world to execute justice—to make the sightless see and the seeing blind.”

Throughout the Gospel, we are constantly called to love one another and do justice.

Sometime, doing justice comes at a cost.

Our Uniting Theological College will host the XIV International Bonhoeffer Congress in January next year. (https://www.utc.edu.au/events/xiv-international-bonhoeffer-congress-january-2024/) I have purchased a couple of books on Bonhoeffer, and they, like many of my purchases, are in the to-get-read pile, which seems to be forever growing.

So I don’t know the ins and outs of his history and theology, except perhaps what many of us know. He was a protestant minister in Germany, who unlike many of the church leaders of the day, started to align themselves with Hitler. He saw the problem and risks, particularly as the ‘Aryan race’ would naturally exclude the Jews, which suited many Christian leaders of the day.

Bonhoeffer did not accept this convenient theology, to help align Church desires with Nazi ideology.

“If “non-Aryans” were banned from the ministry, he argued, their colleagues should resign in solidarity and establish a new “confessing” church that would remain free from Nazi influence. The ideological and theological extremism of the German Christians provoked a backlash among more moderate Protestants, leading to the formation of the Confessing Church in May 1934.”

Without going into the full history of Bonhoeffer, he was eventually arrested and wrote his famous treatise in jail (sounds familiar!). His associates were connected to a failed assassination attempt on Hitler and, through connection, was charged, found guilty and hung.

Why is this relevant to us today?

I came into this world to execute justice.

A number of people in our congregations have been involved in drawing attention to the injustice of the Australian government’s treatment of refugees. Remember that under the UN Human Right treaty on refugees, a refugee shall be allowed to enter any country, not necessarily the first country, and be processed as a refugee.

Australia has a long history of acting in contravention of our international obligations, including from both sides of the political extremes.

More sadly for our international reputation, several former LNP ministers have been advising the UK government on our processes of “turning back the boats”, which recently led to the BBC’s most famous soccer/football commentator tweeting his abhorrence of their proposed legislation. He was stood down by the BBC. No other commentators would work, and a standoff ensued. At least he was protected in the end.

The Scottish Parliament passed several pieces of legislation to improve the human rights of transgender and gender-diverse people. However, the UK government decided to use its never used powers to overrule that legislation.

During World Pride, recently held in Sydney, Pitt Street Uniting Church was attacked by a group known as Christian Lives Matter on several occasions. Roseville Uniting’s notice board was attacked and damaged for welcoming visitors to Sydney. An Amplified event at a Catholic Church mass was attacked by the same group.

Over this last week, a UK anti-transgender activist, Kellie-Jay Keen, supported locally by Katherine Deves, has been speaking around Australia. It is alleged that her trip has been funded by conservative Christian groups from the USA. There were attempts to have her visa rejected given the nature of her talks, but that didn’t happen. There have been protests where ever she spoke. Yesterday in Melbourne, neo-Nazis came out in support of her, doing Nazi salutes on the steps of the Victorian Parliament House. The Victorian Police protected their movements whilst man-handling protesters.

Yesterday in Sydney, according to the Star Observer “far-right Christian groups rallied to “protect our kids” against the “moral decay of society”, specifically the LGBITQA+ community. Rev Inkpin, minister at Pitt Street Uniting Church talked at a counter rally yesterday.

Some of the Pharisees who were nearby heard this and said, “You’re not calling us blind, are you?” To which Jesus replied, “If you were blind, there would be no sin in that. But since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

If we turn to the USA, in what are known as the “Red States’ or the states controlled by the Republicans, there is a pretty dire state of affairs.

States are banning books

African history (Rosy Parker is being eliminated)
Anything that could be considered affirming of LGBTIQA+ people and families.
In many states, all books have been removed from classrooms, whilst the central authority review and approve any book in a classroom.

One state has enacted legislation to outlaw the major opposing party, the Democrats.

Abortion bans, including for children who are raped, including raped by family members. There are penalties if people go to other states for medical assistance. Bounties are available for people who report those seeking abortions.

There are don’t say gay bills. This means a kid in, say, year 1, a child in an LGBTIQA+ family, would not be allowed to talk about their parents in school. Teachers are not permitted to provide any commentary about LGBTIQA+ people. So, for example, it would not be permissible to talk about Alan Turin’s important work in ending WWII.

In one state, they have replaced the board of governors of a ‘progressive thinking’ university, so stop any progressive lessons or activities. They have an act progressing around universities that could be used to ban.

Non-white fraternities and sororities
Courses such as:
- Jewish Studies
- Feminist theory
- Gender Studies
Abolish departments/facilities such as:
- Center for Black Students
- Center for Latino Students
- Center for Asian and Pacific Students
- Center for LGBTIQA+ students

Other activities are to ban medical support for transgender people, both children and adults, and in some states, forced detransition of transgender children and teens. One state proposes to allow a non-custodial parent to kidnap a transgender or gender-diverse child from the custodial parent and any other child in the family at risk by association and protect that non-custodial parent no matter what state they are a resident for. There are also pieces of legislation to charge parents who support their transgender or gender-diverse children with child abuse.

Why is this important to us here today?

A quote from Bonhoeffer:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
_{Bonhoeffer: https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/inspiring-quotes/20-influential-quotes-by-dietrich-bonhoeffer.html}

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Whilst many of us remember or have been taught elements of Nazi history, most of it has been focused on the Holocaust involving the Jews. They certainly were the largest affected community. However, we need to be reminded of some important little pieces of that history.

One of the early decisions of the 3^rd Reich was to control education in schools and universities.

One of the first acts was to burn 20,000 academic books and the associated medical records from the largest research on transgender people in the world in Berlin. They subsequently destroyed the institute. In many ways, medicine in this area is still impacted by that loss.

Minorities were made the outcasts, not only the Jews but also the disabled (who weren’t seen as useful economic units), the Gypsies, people of other faiths, the transgender and gay people. They were all interned Transgender, and gays were subject to medical experimentation and abuse, and an estimated 15,000 gays entered the gas showers and didn’t come out.

Finally, don’t forget the number of Australian lives that were lost fighting against this fascist regime in Europe.

These activities and legislation are being promoted by Christians in the USA and UK.

I struggle to see where the love and inclusion taught by Jesus are in all of these political horrors now underway worldwide.

“If you were blind, there would be no sin in that. But since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

I have often wondered who the modern-day Bonhoeffer in the USA and UK will be.

I am seeing plenty of young voices on TikTok but not a strong voice from a modern-day Christian Bonhoeffer.

We do have hope.

We have hope that with Jesus, love will overcome hate.

We have hope that with Jesus, love will overcome fear.

We have hope that with Jesus, love will call people to action.

Maybe the next Bonhoeffer will come from outside of the country of issue. Maybe they might come from Australia. Maybe from this very room.

Jesus said, “I came into this world to execute justice—to make the sightless see and the seeing blind.”

Maybe none of us will be the next Bonhoeffer. Still, I believe we are called to follow Jesus to execute justice and to make the sightless see the legislative and other hate growing around the world towards minorities, the non-Aryans, and to make blind those who are leading those activities.

Maybe today, you are being called to recall your knowledge of WWII to the younger generation or even to our politicians.

Maybe today, you are being called to take some action to speak up in discussions in your workplace, social groups or families about what is happening in the world.

Maybe today, you are being called to take more direct political action.

Maybe what is growing in front of our eyes, that needs to be seen, will need a community of Bonhoeffers.

To finish with another quote of Bonhoeffer:

“WE ARE NOT TO SIMPLY BANDAGE THE WOUNDS OF VICTIMS BENEATH THE WHEELS OF INJUSTICE, WE ARE TO DRIVE A SPOKE INTO THE WHEEL ITSELF.”
_{Bonhoeffer: https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/inspiring-quotes/20-influential-quotes-by-dietrich-bonhoeffer.html}

Let’s execute Justice! Amen.

by Jason Masters

Evangelism and the First Third of Life

Trigger Warning:
Includes Sexual Assult, Domestic and Family Violence

Since the last NSW/ACT Synod meeting of the Uniting Church in Australia, I have been thinking about the fantastic journey we are starting. One of the primary focuses is on people in their first third of life.

My meandering mind has also been looking at what lessons we should be learning from the COVID Pandemic.

I have been frustrated by many of our political leaders whose calling cry has been for the return to ‘normal’ as quickly as possible, whatever normal is.

The old normal was one of the defining factors for the spread and response issues to the pandemic. However, that is another long topic.

We have seen social construct issues through this pandemic as our society has become more I-focused rather than We-focused on. Jesus has been the clarion call for society being we focused, as seen in his clear summary to love one another.

As a church, we have to be challenging the old normal and provide leadership as part of the pandemic recovery to drive a better balance in society. This would be across areas such as distribution of wealth, access to health care (of all forms) everywhere, improving social connectedness, thinking of the people on the margins, either due to race, disability, being in prison, about homes for the homeless, health, drug additions etc. With this is ethical decision-making of governments, being driven by lobbyists and organisations with the largest donations for influence.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is shutterstock_635325116-scaled.jpg

As we reach out to people in their first third of life through evangelism, social justice activities, community engagement etc., I think our old normal may no longer be acceptable, relevant or useful. Do we need to develop something new? What are some of the old normals we need to contemplate and change our ways, thinking, etc.?

1. They know about Child Sexual Abuse

The people we are reaching out to, the youth, are very are aware of the recent history of child sexual abuse within religious organisations. The Uniting Church has not been immune from this. However, we have confronted our past with more integrity and a more victim-centred approach, but not perfectly.

Unfortunately, other denominations are still dealing with this horror. Often with a reputation of not dealing with victims ethically and campaigning against laws to make notification of child sexual abuse mandatory. Further, many younger people see that there has not been any real consequence around the years of abuse on children.

So, in moving forward with the younger generation, how prepared are we to talk about our past and that of the broader Christian Church in Australia and its horrendous impact on young people? What do we offer them now?

2. They know about Sexual Assault

2021 will go down as the year that sexual assault in our community gains much more comprehensive visibility. This visibility has come via the appointment of Grace Tame, a sexual abuse survivor and advocate, as Australian of the Year. Brittany Higgins who was raped in our Federal Parliament House. And finally, Chanel Contos’ whose survey identified the significant amount of sexual abuse that high school students have suffered (primarily in Sydney in the initial study), often in our wealthy private schools.

Our younger people are getting important information on sexual assault from many leading shows such as ’13 Reasons Why’ and ‘Riverdale’ on Netflix, and other series such as ‘Why’, ‘Skam’, ‘Split’, ‘Game of Thrones’, ‘Skins’ and ‘Euphoria’. The video below by YouTube content creator ravenclaw’s has drawn together a montage from these shows, which I have blended with another from creator zoe edits. This video also incorporated the sexual assault of young men. (Trigger Warning on the video content, sexual violence and graphic discussion).

In the 13 Reasons Why scene where Tyler tells Clay how he was raped, we see Clay’s consent to approach and touch Tyler, the victim. Many of our religious leaders fail on this essential step.

Further, Christian leaders have a history of saying to victims, focus on forgiving your attacker as well as forget it and get over it.

Importantly, Contos’s study brought into the public domain that our youth believe relationship and sex education in NSW schools is woefully inadequate. Our youth see Christian leaders have played a significant role in limiting relationship and sex education in NSW schools. Parents can withdraw their children from even this minimal education.

Mark Latham’s One Nation Party has a bill in the NSW Parliament to expand parents rights to withdraw their child from any lesson they view a controversial. This could include, for example, Aboriginal History that he sees as controversial. This bill has the strong support of many Christian denominations and Christian advocates.

So when our young people want to have robust, informed and detailed discussions on relationships and sexuality, how do we overcome what they perceive is irrelevant and 18th-century thinking and ideologies from Christians?

3. They know about Domestic and Family Violence

Our younger people are a lot more alert to the issues of domestic and family violence. Fortunately, at an earlier national Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, this has been recognised. As a result, a significant reflection on domestic and family violence within the Uniting Church is underway.

See the Assembly resources here https://uniting .church/dfv/ and the Assembly resolution on Domestic and Family Violence at this link https://mk0unitingchurcq6akw.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/09-Domestic-and-Family-Violence-15th-Assembly-Resolution.pdf .

However, many young people still hear Christians saying that victims of domestic and family violence should remain in their marriages or families. They hear that, above all, they should forgive the abuser rather than seek refuge and safety. Unfortunately, too many young people have already had their lives devastated by domestic and family violence.

The broader Christian churches have a history of being on the side of the abuser rather than the victims.

So as we reach out to people in the first third of life, how do we demonstrate the reality of our recognition of domestic and family violence to those who are victims, know victims, or are socially aware of these issues our role in this area in the past?

4. They have Friends and Relatives who are LGBTIQ

Most young people will know someone who is LGBTIQ and realise that, unlike the views of many Christians, they are not inherently disordered and sinful people. The majority also expect that LGBTIQ people can marry a person of their choosing.

Their experience of LGBTIQ people is often one of two, either an LGBTIQ person with a level of depression or joyfulness.

For those that suffer depression, this often stems from their family, usually based on religious dogma.

The other end is a fully alive, joyful and engaging person. Their families and friends fully accept them without any reservation.

They hear the Christian message of love for one another but see the lack of love and inclusion of LGBTIQ people in most churches. Often the only time they hear of churches is where there is some negative view towards LGBTIQ people, based on exclusion rather than inclusion.

Further, they are aware that the Mark Latham “parental right’s bill” which has support from some in the NSW Government, is designed to ensure that transgender and gender diverse kids in our schools are erased. The proposed legislation will have the effect that if a school staff member provides any support to a transgender or gender diverse child they will be sacked. If that person is also a teacher they will have their teachers license revoked. The majority of support for this bill has come from Christian churches, other faiths and Christian lobby groups.

This article demonstrates some of the messages those against transgender people often use as one example. https://medium.com/prismnpen/trans-women-are-not-abusing-children-religious-leaders-are-f23f018732bc

So how do we reach out to young people in our societies and communities when even within the Uniting Church in NSW/ACT when outr congregations don’t have a consistent position around LGBTIQ people?

The risk is that due to that inconsistency, when young people may have doubts about their safety for themselves or their friends about a local congregation, they may never engage.

Concluding Comment

As we in the Uniting Church NSW/ACT start executing this first third of life strategy, just as with COVID, I believe our old normal will not cut the mustard. We need to consider developing a new construct and consider if our theology is still sound as we navigate this vital mission?

I don’t have the answers now, but I know these are the questions we need to consider.

o O o

10 October 20201, Sydney

Gay Hate Crimes – the Australian Version – A Play

Tonight formally ends Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras 2020 for me. The Parade and the After Party were on the weekend, but I couldn’t fit in all I wanted to see in plays, theatre (I didn’t get to any exhibitions!) over the 2 -3 weeks of the Mardi Gras season. Fortunately, a couple of plays associated with Mardi Gras started the season before, and some, such as the play I saw this evening, continue afterwards.

My final play was “Our Blood Runs In The Street”[1] put on by Redline Productions, and a beautiful little theatre in Woolloomooloo, just outside the CBC, attached to and underneath a pub – the Old Fitzroy. The play runs until 21 March 2020, and I would highly recommend you see it.

I knew some of the story from my volunteering at ACON Health, and also from that being aware of the NSW Upper House Inquiry [2] “Gay and Transgender hate crimes between 1970 and 2010 – 57th Parliament.”

This inquiry follows on from ACON’s report – I”n Pursuit of Truth and Justice: Documenting Gay and Transgender Prejudice Killings in NSW in the Late 20th Century – shines a light on the suspected anti-gay homicides that occurred in NSW from the 1970s and 1990s.” [3]

Given that I didn’t come out until 2015, was married in 1995, and hid my sexuality for most of my life, there were a couple of things that struck me.

Firstly, there is a connection for me, not here in Sydney, but in Adelaide, where I grew up as a child until I finished university. The first time I became aware of the word homosexual, I was nine years old, already knowing I was different, but not why, and this event didn’t help. Adelaide University senior lecturer, English born Dr. George Duncan died on 10 May 1972 after he was bashed, his body thrown into the Torrens River, where he drowned.

Soon after my 13th birthday in 1975, homosexuality was decriminalised in South Australian in 1975, around the time of major trauma in my family over my involvement with another boy. My father’s severe dislike for Don Dunstan, the Premier who brought about this change, plus I suspect his own war experience, meant that he was not supportive of this change at all.

In 2020 his murder has never been solved, and it is thought by many that members of the SA Police Force were involved. In the coronial inquest, members of the SA Police Force refused to answer questions. [4].

While this play (and other TV series on SBS) focus on the gay murders in Sydney, there is a history of the same in Adelaide also, and SBS has produced a web series on their summary of informaiton, “Out of Sight – Untold Story of Adelaide’s Gay Hate Murders.” [5] That was my town.

Each year post-Orlando Massacre, people in various places will read out the names of those that died in that horrendous gay hate attack in Florida. Candle Light vigils are still held to remember those who died in the AIDS crisis.

For me, one of the powerful parts of this play was to hear the names and the date of death of the some 80 or so people of the gay hate murder spree in Sydney.

Whilst some of the choreography of the play, I wouldn’t say I liked the overall presentation of the story was compelling.

Excepts of recordings of listening devices of criminals already in jail to gather more evidence of other gay crimes they committed.

The play explored the probably underreporting of transgender murders in Sydney (and Australia).

We were reminded that the NSW Police, in the case of an American student, determined that it was suicide without collecting any evidence. Three coronial inquiries later, the State Coroner determined that his death was a gay hate crime, some thirty years after his death.

Other stories, of bashings and attacks, and the LGBTIQ communities unwillingness to go to the Police because couldn’t trust the NSW Police, they either didn’t care, may have supportive of the attacks happening or may have been involved.

As I look back over my time in Sydney arriving in 1991 after spending time in Melbourne post-university, I have little or no awareness of these murders.

So I have begun to think, who else is complicit in all of this.

First and obviously the NSW Police Force who it appears failed to investigate these (and possibly more murders) actively.

Secondly, where does Christianity come into this? The Sydney Anglican Church was well on its way of being a leading anti-gay religious community in Australia (and has expanded that activity globally). The Catholic Church which has historically had strong political ties is also notoriously anti-gay. While Australia’s third-largest Christian denomination was progressing on LGBTIQ acceptance during this period, there were still strong pockets of resistance, and significant parish have had (and still have) a significant anti-LGBTIQ stance.

The NSW Police and religious have had a long relationship and did the religious leaders in Sydney put any pressure on the NSW Police Force to not focus on these 88 or more murders?

Thirdly the media. There remain influential groups within the media who are clearly of homophobic and/or transphobic. You only have to look at the ongoing campaign of News Corps “The Australian” with its very regular and unbalances articles running since about July 2019 against transgender youth. There were some journalists who researched and considered these issues, but how did 88 murders go unnoticed by the media? If it these murders had been of almost any other group (probably with the exception unfortunately of Aboriginal people) at that point of time, there would have been a significant outcry. But it was only the murder of the gays.

The families of these victims will never have a sense of finality (as the play said closure is not appropriate here, because you can never close of these events in your lives) until these murders are solved. Unfortunately, with the progress of time, the lack of evidence maintained by the Police, this is getting increasingly unlikely. One hope is that as many of the murderers were likely teenagers, they are now probably in the ’40s or 50’s as life moves on, maybe for some of them, clearing up their conscious is something they might do. Somehow, I think that is a hope too far, but we can always hope.

“Our Blood Runs In The Street” is a play that people should see, particularly our younger members of our society, LGBTIQ and straight. Some rights still need to be achieved, particularly when governments around the world, including our Federal Government in Australia who want to wind back LGBTIQ rights. The winding back of rights will inevitably lead to increasing violence against the LGBTIQ community, starting with verbal abuse, and that may well escalate to the return of significant physical violence and deaths.

And it is those same churches, the Sydney Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, and other conservative Churches in Australia that are rightfully seeking anti-discrimination laws for people of faith, but are also wanting a sword to attack others. They wish to withhold employment and health care from people they don’t approve. They want the right to intimidate LGBTIQ people and others in our society. Where in Christianity is the justification for having a right to intimidate others?

These are the very attitudes that were part of the framework for setting up the environment where there are 88 unsolved murders of gay men in Sydney.

This is why this play, at this point of time, is so important.

[1] https://www.redlineproductions.com.au/our-blood-runs-in-the-street

[2] https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/committees/inquiries/Pages/inquiry-details.aspx?pk=2562

[3] https://www.aconhealth.org.au/report_into_historic_gay_hate_murders_calls_for_justice_and_healing

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-41964671

[5] https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/feature/out-sight-untold-story-adelaides-gay-hate-murders