Muslims are invading our land!

Beware of any Muslim you meet – they cannot be trusted! They are sneaky by nature. They don’t have loving families like we do – they just have children to populate the world with Muslims and to send them off to become suicide bombers.

Hmmm.

Does the above worry you? I confess it worries me greatly. Those words are the kinds of words I hear occasionally from people, both Coptic and non-Coptic. The thing that worries me most about them is that they are not Truth. As Christians, as followers of Christ who called Himself “the Way, the Truth and the Life”, we should be concerned with the truth above all else.

Now it is undoubtedly true that there are Muslims who are fanatical in their approach to their religion. Not in a nice way, that would make them pious and ascetic and full of works of charity (yes, giving to the poor is often commanded in the Quran), but fanatical in a way that says, “We are superior to everyone else and everyone else must submit to us”. Of course they don’t say it that way to themselves. To themselves, they say, “Our religion is superior to all others, and therefore everyone in the world must submit to Allah of Islam”.

Strange that they should take the foundational name of their religion, “Islam” and twist it so. It was meant to refer to a willing and free choice of the person to submit himself to an All-Powerful God. Instead, the fanatics twist it to mean forcing people to submit to God through submitting to them, here and now, politically rather than spiritually. That’s the fanatical fringe that gives Islam a very bad name. But they are only a minority.

Yes, it is very disappointing to see that often Muslim leaders do not stand up to this fringe and set them straight. For example, when 9/11 occured, I was incredibly disappointed that for a long time, no significant Muslim leader came out and publicly stated that this was an abomination and a disgrace to any religion. Instead, we heard Muslim leaders trying to change the subject and ask, yes, but why did the terrorists do this? Solve the problems of Palestine and you wouldn’t have 9/11s. Of course, this is ridiculous. It’s like saying to someone whose father has just been murdered by an irate neighbour (as was recently in the news) “Well if your father hadn’t expressed his opinion he’d be alive now – don’t blame the murderer!”

Put it another way: if Copts committed some horrible act of terrorism, what do you think Pope Shenouda and all the Coptic leaders would say? I’m pretty sure (going on past precedent) that His Holiness would immediately come out and condemn the violence, perhaps even excommunicate those who practice it or condone it. He would make it very clear that such violence has no place whatsoever in the life of a genuine Christian. I wish the Muslim leaders would do the same, and to be fair, they have moved a little in that direction in recent years, though not nearly enough, I suspect.

And yet, I fear that Christians have nothing to feel superior about here. The History of Christianity itself is strewn with horrible and vioolent acts, all perpetrated int he name of religion. Think of the Crusaders, the Byzantine army in Egypt after Chalcedon, Ireland of the 1970’s … Today we see clearly that this sort of behaviour is totally incompatible with authentic Christianity, yet the ‘Christians’ who performed those awful atrocities managed to twist their faith so much as to find support for their actions from it.

But put all that aside for a moment. What about the average Muslim ‘on the street’ so to speak. What has he / she to do with the fanatics? I believe the majority of Muslims are not in sympathy with the fanatical side of their faith. To wear the veil, to want to pray regularly every day, to fast and to go to the mosque – these are not acts of evil, these are acts of loyalty to their god, and this is not something to criticise. Considering what I wear out every day, I would be the last one to criticise a Muslim woman for taking the veil which seems so alien to Australian culture! And given the state of my facial hair, could I condemn the devout Muslim who grows his beard?

My exeprience with Muslims has taught me this – they are as varied a group of people as any other, and to stereotype them and pigeon-hole them is grossly unfair. We should take each individual for what s/he is as an individual. Certainly, there is a background of faith and culture that we do well to understand, but there are those who take the best of the Muslim faith and live by it, and there are those who take the worst. And many in between.

I recall that in Egypt soon after my ordination as a priest I encountered both extremes. On the one hand, is a group of little children, probably no older than 10, whose game of street soccer I walked past one day. They saw my clerical clothes and cross and stopped their game long enough to hurl abuse at me, and one even picked up half a brick and tossed it in my direction. Scary.

On the other hand, was Muhammad, the grocer in the shop near the flat were I was staying. Whenever I would enter his shop he would actually ask all the other customers to please wait while he served ‘the man of God’. He explained that it didn’t matter that I was Christian. By honouring me in this way he was honouring God Himself.

And everything in between…

We have to be very careful about stereotyping people, foir this is a form of judging others, and a very subtle and sneaky way the devil leads us to feelings of self-righteousness and superiority and pride. Yes, we should rejoice at the beuaty and purity and truth of our Orthodox Christian faith, but not at the expense of putting down others. Nor should we condemn a person, passing judgement and sentence on them without ever really understanding who they are and what they are like, simply because they belong to a particular race or a particular religion.

That is not how God looks at us. He looks at the Christian and the Muslim and everyone else and asks, “What is the best this person is capable of?” And then He strives to bring us to that ‘best’. Do not look for the evil in people, but look for the good, and strive to be the hand of Christ that leads all people to Him who is Truth and Mercy.

Fr Ant

Well, wasn’t last Tuesday night interesting!

We had the pleasure of the company of four politicians, Rev Fred Nile (Christian Democrats, State), Edmond Atalla (Labor, Local), George Bilic (Liberal, Local) and Paul Green (Christian Democrat, Federal). We expected some fireworks, but not quite what we got!

The aim of the night was actually to explore whether sincere Christianity could be compatible with being a politician. Politicians get a lot of bad press these days. They are accused of lying, breaking promises, manipulating people and situations, being vain and so on. This is unfortunate, because most politicians I have met actually do strive to do a lot of good for their constituency, and do work incredibly hard to achieve it.

I think this side of the politicians came out last Tuesday – we found out how they deal with thorny ethical situations and how they do try to use their Christian ideals as the ‘compass’ by which to steer their decisions.

Unfortunately, something else also came out last Tuesday – the bitterness between the two major parties! Yes, George baited Edmond and Edmond fought back, and we got one of those classical ‘my party’s better than your party’ arguments going. Perhpas whoever said that you shouldn’t mix religion and politics was right! A pity, for that was the very thing we were trying to get behind, trying to see if one’s genuine ideals could be more important than playing the political game.

I wonder what you thought of it all?

I have often mused on whether our system of govrnment could be improved. Does anyone really benefit from all that time and effort and money that is invested into getting a party re/elected? Is it good for individuals to have to sacrifice some of their own personal ideals for the sake of ‘the party’? Or is it the only way to get enough people agreeing on something so that something actually gets done? If we abolished the party system, would our parliaments descend into a chaos of endless debates?

As Christians, we are meant to take an active part in the welfare of those around us. Having and effective and compassionate system of government has ahuge impact on the lives of everyone in this country. It was hoped that last tuesday might inspire some of our young people to consider entering politics in order to make a difference … if they felt that was their calling from God. I wonder now whether it might not have turned them off …

Fr Ant

Those of you who know me might know that I am interested in the stars.

The sky at night has always fascinated me, ever since I was little. I could lie for hours on my back on the ground just gazing up at that velvet dark blue canvas with the multitude of delicate sparkles of light and occasional faint wisp of silvery mist. I can totally agree with the Psalmist who wrote The heavens declare the glory of God …

I find many things to think about when I look at the stars. Their distance astounds me and humbles me. The closest star to us is Proxima Centauri, a little over 4 light years away. That means that the light we see from it today left the star over four years ago, in 2003, and has been shooting towards us all that time a tthe speed of light (300,000km/hr). The furthest objects visible in the most powerful telescopes, quasars, are 12,000,000,000 light years away. How big is the universe? Unbelievabley, mind-blowingly, unimaginabley HUGE!!! So how big are we, the great human race? We are nothing. We could blow up our whole planet and the universe wouldn’t even notice – we’d be no more than mosquito’s sneeze in the grand tale of time.

That’s a good thing to remember, for we sometimes think we are the centre of the universe. Sometimes we even think that of ourselves individually, not even as a human race. That’s just not true. The greatest among us is still no more than a little blip in this cosmos. Again, the Psalmist asks God What is man, that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You visit him? We could extend that to ask, What are the problems of man, that You should care for them? Yet God does care. The God who made this big, big universe shows me His love by caring for my tiny little problems in the midst of this huge cosmos, and I find comfort in the fact that He who moves the galaxies can solve my little problem pretty easily.

Lying on the ground at night, gazing into the depths of space, you can sometimes convince yourself that you are indeed on the surface of a planet hurtling through the void. Yet night after night, as the sun hides his shining face and the little specks of light begin to peek from behind their veil of light, you find they have not moved. In our lifetimes, the stars do not move. Planets do, and the moon does, and perhaps the odd comet or so, but the vast multitude of the heavens is there, day after day, unchanging, unmoving, fixed in their places, it seems eternally. No power hungry dictator, no mad scientist, no crazed anarchist can ever change them, or even touch them. It makes you realise just how feeble we are on this little planet, but I also find it a greatly comforting thought, for it reflects the unchanging steady nature of God Himself. I find the stars reassuring every night, in their regular places, and so also God reassures me every day, as I move through my human phases while He remains always a solid rock to navigate by.

Next time you happen to be outdoors at night, take a look up at the sky, and remember the One who created it for us, the most incredible roof anyone ever designed …

Fr Ant

The bloated body of a dead child in a suitcase, floating on the calm waters of a pond.

That story must rank among the saddest we’ve seen in recent times. It turns out to have been the result of a very disfunctional family. A young mother with three children from three different fathers. The exact details of what happened have yet to be revealed, but they are not hard to guess. My guess is that her home was not a happy home, nor a secure one. I could guess that the poor woman was having trouble coping, perhaps was using drugs or alcohol, and very likely was getting herself involved in very unhealthy relationships with abusive men. It is not unlikely that her childhood was not a happy one, with abusive or uncaring parents, and she ended up seeking affection and acceptance wherever she could find it.

And thus the cycle continued to repeat. The dead little child, I am sure, was not the first sad result of this cycle. And no doubt, unless something is done, her other two children (and any more she might have in future) are more than likely to continue the same sad cycle in thier own lives, and bequeath it upon their children, and their children’s children …

I know it sounds a bit harsh, perhaps even a bit fascist, but I sometimes wonder whether being a parent should require a license, like driving a car. Imagine what would happen if anyone could just jump into any car or truck and drive where they wanted. There would be some pretty bad disasters, because many people would not take the time and trouble to be taught how to drive safely and courteously. That is exactly what is happening to our society socially. Parenthood needs certain skills that must be learnt. Most parents learn those skills by modelling themselves on their parents, or on other close relatives and friends they admire, and they learn their skills the hard way: through trial and error. I am sure that some of you out there probably wish your parents had done a course or something! Most parents muddle through, get advice from grandparents and somehow, by the grace of God, produce pretty well brought up offspring. Some parents end up witht their offspring in a bag on a pond.

In the follow up reporting by the media , some startling statistics are emerging about the size of this problem. Here are a few:

- 240,000 calls are made to the The NSW Department of Community Services each year (1). That’s 657 calls a day, or roughly one call every two minutes, around the clock.

- one in 15 NSW children is now reported to DOCS (2).

Is our society really that sick? Is it falling apart right inside, where no one can see it? Occasionally we see the outward signs that society is declining. Murders, assaults and thefts are becoming more commonplace. It is no longer possible to do some of the things I used to do when I was young, like leave your bike on the front lawn, or for a child to go to the park and play with friends without parents being there, or leave your front door unlocked or windows open when you go out, or even walk in your street after dark. Perhaps these very obvious conditions are partially the result of this breakdown in our care for each other, especially the breakdown in the family.

Nowadays, anyone who supports ‘family values’ is labelled regressive, narrow-minded – an old fashioned nerd. Get with it! This is the twenty first century mate!” Sex without responsibility, single mothers, teenage mothers, easy divorce … all these are now the quite normal and acceptable. The old Mt Druitt High School cared for its students by providing nappy changing facilities and stroller accesible classrooms for its female students who brought their children to school. And just recently, a school board in Portland, Maine USA approved that condoms be provided free to its students aged 11 to 13 (3). Very enlightened.

The net result of this enlightenment has been the breakdown of the traditional family, with its traditional roles, and with all the benefits that one traditionally got from it. Having adults who not only care for you, but care enough to give whatever time and resources you need to grow. Having parents who will sacrifice their lives for you. Learning boundaries, and feeling secure as you grow up and develop your personality. Feeling loved and accepted. I know that not all families are ideal, and that every family has its faults, but by and large, the commitment to the very concept of “family” has given society and individuals tremendous benefits. Just how tremendous those benefits are is now being revealed as the family begins to fall apart in our society and we see what life is like without it. A bloated little body in a bag on the pond …

Christianity teaches that the family is very important to our lives. A loving, life long, self-sacrificial committment by two people to each other is its beginning. That love is then lavished upon the little children who come to join the party, until they are ready to leave the nest and go on to make their own committment to someone. And underlying the whole process, the central committment of each individual to God, that takes us out of ourselves, and teaches us, by the example of Christ, that the goal of our lives is to lose ourselves and thus find life in the love of Christ.

_________________________________
(1) http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/help-came-too-late/2007/10/21/1192940905016.html

(2) http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/docs-under-fire-over-tyra/2007/10/20/1192301100090.html

(3) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303058,00.html

Speaking to some of our Year 12s on the weekend, I noticed a variety of attitudes, with only about 2 weeks left before the Moment of Truth.

Some students seemed pretty relaxed – either they know they’ve got it in the bag, or they don’t care, or they’re pretty good actors. Others though, were definitely showing the signs of beginning to crack up. So I thought this time I might see if I couldn’t bring a little cheer into this momentous period of their lives. If you’ve already been through all this, please let your younger fellows know that there IS indeed life after the HSC…

Now some of you may be aware (I don’t mention it that often) that I very strongly believe in that profound Biblical doctrine that is best summed in these words:

EXAMS ARE FUN

You will immediately recognise that my main Biblical foundation for this dogma is James 1:2

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials

Now some have very foolishly doubted the link between this verse and the HSC, but it seems as clear as the nose on my face to me (please disregard the times when there is a pimple on my nose and it is anything but clear). “Trials”, as you all know, are the last set of exams Year 12 students do before sitting their major Final Exams. That St James, back in the First Century AD, was aware of this is made very obvious if we consider some more verses from his Epistle. For example:

To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad: (1:1) is a very obvious reference to the HSC, being a test for Year “twleve”, which is conducted all over the state, with some students even sitting the exam at overseas centres – hence, scattered abroad. Later, he writes:

knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience(1:3)

Ahhhh. What is it now that produces patience? “testing”!!! How much plainer can he make it? Clearly this word, “testing” is to be identified with exam centres, and supervisors, and exam papers – all that stuff we associate with the word. And there’s more:

9 Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, 10 but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. 11 For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits. (1:9-11)

This is obviously a reference to the total worthlessness of your HSC mark once you have left school. Employers don’t care too much about it, and even universities are now steering away from using it as the criterion for choosing their students, preferring instead to depend on more accurate measures like UMAT (= Unrelenting Mental Agony and Torture) exams or interviews. Yes, the richest of UAIs will quickly fade away like a beautiful flower burned by the hot noonday sun of competition in the real world. Isn’t that a comforting thought!

Why, then, I hear you ask, must we suffer this pain? What’s the point?

Well, the point is actually more: the points. Here are my reasons for hanging on, doing your very best until the end, and diving over the line as hard as you can:

1. For many of you, your UAI will decide your future. Sorry. That’s life.

2. You might surprise and amaze yourself with what you can actually do if you really have to. Believe it or not, what you have to learn for the HSC is pretty measly compared with what you are going to learn at Uni, TAFE or work. The only thing that makes it seem so hard is the pressure of what’s riding on it. Take that away, and you could do it with one hand tied behind your back, with a blindfild on, and while rubbing your tummy and patting your head whilst all the time whistling “Bananas in Pyjamas” in Croatian. (please don’t comment on that sentence. It makes no sense to me, either).

3. You will learn a lot more than calculus and chemistry. You will actually develop really useful things like character, inner strength, faith, patience, calmness under pressure, stamina, self-confidence, resilience and much more. Some of the most important lessons you learn in Years 11 & 12 DON’T appear on your certificate.

4. You will enjoy your holidays an awful lot more if you don’t have a miserable dark cloud hanging over your head and following you wherever you go, with the words “You didn’t try very hard, did you?” stamped across it. It can really take the fun out of everything you do. Including sleep.

5. Many others have trod this path and run this race before you. They stuck it out to the very end – are you gonna let them get away with thinking they’re better than you??!!??

6. God loves you, no matter what.

7. We love you, no matter what.

Is that enough? I’m looking forward to seeing you all at the HSC Liturgy this Saturday 6th October 8:30-10:30an, followed by our traditional pre-exam HSC breakfast (sort of like the Grand Final Breakfast, hey?). The Fathers will be there to offer you their words of encouragement and support (and take any last minute confessions!) and to resuscitate anyone who conks out.

The days to come won’t be easy:

But there’s nothing to prevent them from being enjoyable…

By the way, for a little light entertainment, you might enjoy the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CN7VW-12zs

But don’t spend too much time watching – you’ve got work to do!!!

Fr Ant

Thank you Tony for your comment and the links you suggested. I found the Alvin Plantinga essay very interesting. He very accurately indentifies some of Dawkins’ most glaring errors of method and logic, but his arguments in response range from the totally convincing to the pretty shaky.

Alister McGrath has written a short book in response to Dawkins’ The God Delusion in particular which is pretty strong, but a little too short! However, his previous books on the general topic of Atheism in the 21st century will satisfy the hunger and curiosity of those who want a deeper and more detailed dissection of the emptiness of today’s atheist philosophy.

One of the main faults in all of these atheist evanglists’ position is a very simple ignorance of a critically important fact: they insist on claiming that they, and all of “Science”, are totally objective – like a computer or a machine or a methematical equation. they believe that when they consider evidence they do so without any bias and with a pure and undiluted cast-iron commitment to finding the truth, whatever that truth may be. Even if they don’t state this in black and white (some do, some don’t) you can see it in their words and attitudes as clearly as you can see the sun on a sunny day. This, they believe, gives them a sort of credibility that sets their conclusions head and shoulders above those of others who are silly enough to still have religious faith.

My problem with this is that no one, no human being is that objective. Our nature does not allow us to be, and those who come closest to it have to work incredibly hard on themselves for years to build into their thought patterns even a semblance of true objectivity, when it comes to questions of philosophy or theology. One of the more objective atheists I have come across are mathematician Roger Penrose and Mind Specialist Sir Robert Winston, both of whom have a healthy respect for those who reasonably hold religious views, and both of whom cringe at the kind of bombast that people like Dawkins put out.

The fact is that whenever we look at a piece of evidence, we are doing so with a raft of pre-assumptions. Those pre-assumptions must necessarily colour the conclusions we draw from the evidence. Our minds are too limited to be able to genuinely consider ALL the possible interpretations of a given set of data, so we take the easy way – begin by considering the interpretation you feel most comfortable with, and see if you can make it work somehow. We will only ever take the considerable trouble of testing out alternative interpretations if our first interpretation is proved totally wrong.

The history of science (and the practice of science today) offers a myriad of examples that prove this is universally true. You need only to look at the lengths to which Ptolemy and his intellectual children went to prop up the theory that the earth is the centre of the universe. For 1,500 years, the most incredible gymnastics of the mind were required to explain how the sun, moon and planets move in the sky, assuming they all orbit the earth. Even when Copernicus came up with the simple (and true) explanation that the planets and earth all orbit the SUN, the scientific establishment of his day rejected it. Why? Because his theory didn’t work? NO, it worked just as well as Ptolemy’s in predicting where these heavenly bodies should be. Because it was too complicated? No, it was far, far simpler than Ptolemy’s model. The simple fact is that the greatest minds of that age had other reasons for wanting the earth to be at the centre of the universe, and this bias prevented them from seeing the truth.

If scientists today wish to pretend that they are free of any such bias, then it is truly they who are deluded. You need only read Dawkins’ opinions on religious organisations, his utter contempt for people who have a religious faith, his characterisation of religions as child abusers because they teach their children to follow their faith from a young age (I am not kidding – he devotes a whole chapter to this accusation), to understand that he is anything but an objective scientist. He has a huge weight of prejudices that clearly affect his judgment. It is the prejudice, not the evidence, that makes Dawkins so strong a defender of atheism.

Of course, this means that those on the other side of the argument are also prejudiced. Yep. That is true. But the difference is that we know that, and admit it to ourselves and to others. Yes, a Christian is biased towards believing in God – it’s called faith. We have to have a prejudice of some kind, and we happen to have chosen this particular prejudice for a raft of good reasons that I won’t try to squash into this little blog. But the fact that we know that we’re prejudiced, that we admit it, and that we even know exactly what the nature of our prejudice is, means that we can allow for it in our examination of evidence. And, we can ask ourselves honestly, “If I didn’t have that prejudice, would I see this evidence differently? And if so, how?”

Again, I emphasise: it is only because we know our bias that we can control for it. A scientist like Dawkins who is unaware or refuses to acknowledge his bias cannot control for it, and will therefore often draw the wrong conclusions. This is exactly what he has done in The God Delusion.

PPFM

Fr Ant

It was blessing to attend the COYA Skit Competition last night and enjoy the marvellous talent, imagination and humour of the youth of Sydney. All the skits were of remarkabley high quality – I can’t wait for the DVD to come out! The turnout was also amazing – I don’t recall ever seeing that many people packed into Petersham Town Hall.

Of course, the highlight of the night was our dedicated troop of stittists (or should that be ’skitterbrains’?) who carried off their little drama with confidence and poise. Especially graceful was that diving tackle on poor Bishoy – way to go Ben! Bishoy’s hospital bills will in the mail.

It was another wonderful demonstration of what you can do when you work together, putting aside the ever-present temptations of the human ego and the lure of petty disagreements, and working as one for a common goal.

As usual, though, being the incurable perfectionist that I am, I will make a few humble suggestions:

1. Beware the evil devil of pride! After every success, he lurks nearby with hungry stmach and a drooling mouth. Please don’t give him a chance. Remember St Paul’s steadying words: “7 For who makes you differ [from] [another]? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive [it], why do you boast as if you had not received [it]?” Which leads to the next point:

2. Whilst friendly rivalry between Churches is nice and lots of fun, I trust that you are not taking the rivalry too seriously? We are all, after all, one body in Christ. I hope you all would have been just as happy for any of your brothers and sisters from other Churches had they been blessed with winning.

3. Finally, I give thanks to God from the depths of my heart for blessing me with being able to serve people with such kind and loving hearts, enthusiasm and zeal, strong faith and weird sense of humour.

Long live Hanafy and Hanafeya!!!

PPFM

Fr Ant