Author Archives: The Briefing

Making babies when sex just isn’t enough

Life

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Three things are never satisfied;
four never say, “Enough”:
Sheol, the barren womb,
the land never satisfied with water,
and the fire that never says, “Enough.” (Prov 30:15b-16)

Infertility is on the rise: current statistics say it now affects one in six couples.1 If you are not personally affected, you may know someone who is, and certainly there will be couples within our churches who are struggling with infertility. With the rise of infertility and medical advances has come in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Ethics for Christians can be highly contentious, and the process and implications of IVF are no exception. We write this article to share with you our story, our struggles, our theological conclusions, our sadness and our joy. We hope that this article assists your walk through the minefield of ethical issues IVF raises for Christians.
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The joy of infertility

Life

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In the midst of the grief and pain of infertility, Karen Galvin found joy and opportunities to grow in godliness.

In Briefing #262, Phil Wheeler wrote some pastoral reflections on infertility, entitling his article ‘A silent grief’. But I believe that infertility ought not to be so. In my experience, sharing the process of infertility with my Christian brothers and sisters has been, on the whole, a positive experience. However, infertility is a process—a process of coming to grips with the physical, emotional and spiritual issues that arise from this problem. The issues can’t be dealt with overnight, and often, when one issue is dealt with, another one arises.

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Diary of a ministry apprentice (Part 3): March to May-ish 2008

Pastoral Ministry

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Here is the third part of this six-part series written by Guan who, in his spare time, likes to think about things. He is married to the remarkable M,1 and by this instalment, has been doing ministry training (MTS) at the University of New South Wales (hereafter referred to as the ‘Uni’) for about four months. So far, he’s mostly learned that starting out in ministry and meeting people is exciting and inspiring when you begin to notice the way the gospel carves through people’s lives. This far in, the work starts to get easier. (more…)

“Jesus. All about life”, by Murray Smith

Review

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Jesus. All about life (Youth Edition)

Murray Smith

Bible Society NSW, Macquarie Park, 2009. 135pp.

Murray Smith has put together a smart and sassy little book called Jesus. All about life. This 135-page creation has an obvious connection with the evangelistic campaign of the same name, but Smith’s book is aimed squarely at teenagers. It’s the sort of book you could easily imagine sitting on a teenager’s bedside table (or, more likely, somewhere on the bedroom floor underneath a recently discarded jacket). (more…)

Can’t read? Won’t read!

Resource Talk

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There are some great resources around for reaching people with the gospel—books on apologetics like If you could ask God one Question and Naked God—books that explain the gospel clearly, like A Fresh Start and Christianity Explained—and, of course, there are Bibles and Gospels that we can hand to people to check it out for themselves. (more…)

Book review: “Christ and the future”

Review

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Christ and the Future: The Bible’s teaching about the last things
Cornelius P Venema
Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, 2008. 240pp.

True story: I’m at a bowling club, and a slightly drunk middle-aged man approaches, recognizing me as the local Anglican minister. We get chatting as he waits for his lift. I ask whether he has any church connections. It turns out his wife’s sister is married to a Baptist pastor. “Is that a fact?” I say. “Do you ever talk to your brother-in-law about what he believes?” He says he doesn’t see him that often, but he’s a pretty good bloke, and he did lend him a book recently, which he read. (Praise God!) “What did you make of it?” I ask. He says it was pretty interesting stuff; it was called Left Behind. Have I read it? (more…)

Surprised by grief

Life

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Grief, like joy, is full of surprises. Unlike joy, most of grief’s surprises are unwelcome, and make the whole experience worse. One of these surprises, I have discovered, is that grief addles the mind with lies and tricks—for example,

  • Am I a Christian?
  • I will never pray again.
  • What possible thing did I do to deserve this?
  • God has stopped speaking to me through his word.
  • Does God even exist?

They trip through the mind like so many bedraggled beggar children, creating confusion and clatter, and refusing to exit the premises.

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Mental toughness and the living God

Life

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Michael Clark, Australian cricket team vice captain, recently confounded his critics by scoring a career-best 168 in a test match against New Zealand. He had every excuse not to. Before the match, he’d had a week that had included a broken engagement to a celebrity model, a dash across the ditch, time away from training, public accusations of lack of focus and commitment, and intense media scrutiny because of it all. But contrary to his detractors’ doubts, it seems that Michael Clark has got mental toughness!

I’m told ‘mental toughness’ is something that frequently appears as a goal of military training. That’s no surprise; we don’t want those defending the nation to wither at the first sign of difficulty or opposition. There’s an equivalent in the world of parenting and education that parenting gurus and school advertisements call ‘resilience’—the emotional ‘surefootedness’ to survive failure and disappointment that parents want instilled in their children to equip them for life.

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When does life begin?

Thought

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These Saturday posts are looking at past Briefing articles on ethics, infertility and in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in anticipation of the subject of the next issue of The Briefing. First, we grappled with Michael Hill’s question of how much (and whether) humans should meddle with God’s creation. Then Kirsten Birkett showed us what happens when science and technology, ethics and morality, and human rights rub up against one another. This week, Andrew Cameron deconstructs some of the rhetoric surrounding the 2002 debate in Australia about when life begins:
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Interchange: The God who meets our needs and his Son, the perfect saviour

Thought

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David McKay has raised two important issues about the idea of an impassible God that, I think, would naturally occur to many people confronted with the idea. And so we’re going to bump one of Martin Shields’s excellent concerns out in order to highlight another excellent issue raised by David:

One question I have is about the incarnation and exaltation of Jesus. I understand that one of the wonderful benefits of Jesus’ incarnation and exaltation is that God became Man and that Jesus remains forever an exalted Man. He is God but he is truly human. One of the things I take from Hebrews is that we have a great high priest who is a perfect man who is interceding for us. It is nice to know that he had the experience of being a man like us. He suffered and was tempted like us, but he was triumphant over all this suffering and temptation. He never sinned.

But I would have thought that it is important to know that he still feels for us now as an exalted Man. Has he retreated from sharing truly in our experiences and become impassible again? The more I think about it, the more this doctrine makes God to be cold and unfeeling.

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‘Missional lifestyle’: A basic framework

Everyday Ministry

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On a church camp recently (not our own church, but another one), I had the chance to take part in a discussion with a group of women about what a ‘missional lifestyle’ might look like for us in our various life situations. (My husband Dave was involved in a parallel discussion with the men.)

Stimulated by that discussion and a few of the loose ends left over at the end of it, I thought I might turn my thoughts into a short series of blog posts on the subject. I’ll do my best to write in a way that isn’t fixated on the things that are particular to my own situation. Instead, as far as possible, I’ll try and think the issues through in a way that opens up the conversation to other people in different life circumstances. But if the examples along the way tend to be a bit ‘mums-y’ at times, I hope you’ll understand and forgive!!

The basic framework for the conversation at the camp went like this:

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Science and ethics collide

Thought

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If you’ve just joined us, this next lot of Saturday posts will focus on the thorny landscape of ethics, infertility and in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in keeping with the subject of the next issue of The Briefing. Last week, Michael Hill worked through the question of how much (and whether) humans should meddle with God’s creation. This week, Kirsten Birkett looks at what happens when science and technology, ethics and morality, and human rights rub up against one another:
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Interchange: When God uses a word, it means what it says

Thought

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(This post is the second responding to feedback on Mark’s series on impassibility. Read the first.)

Martin Shields’s second point is, in my view, the most important of all. He argues that God is no Humpty Dumpty from Through the Looking Glass:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

(Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, Macmillan, London, 1871, chapter 6.)

Most of us agree with Alice that large anthropomorphic eggs sitting on walls don’t get to use words with completely different meanings. Words mean what they mean. And that’s Martin Shields’s second great concern:

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