Can Women - Or Men - Have It All?

This week Oscar winning actress Emma Thompson has stated that women can't have the perfect family and a career at the same time. They can't 'have it all'.


A day I remember with great vividness was in March 1997.  I was in training for the ordained ministry, and had a placement at Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School in Essendon (a girls school) under the supervision of the Revd Jean Penman.  One day at school assembly there was a presentation by the students to celebrate World Women's Day (March 8).  One of the students walked onto the stage one minute in a business suit, and the next she appeared as a mother holding a baby.  The triumphant message was:  "You can have it all!" The idea was that women should expect to be able to combine career and family with great confidence and even ease.

Personally I found the presentation  traumatic.  I do believe women can do amazing things, as great as any man.  They can and they do, all the time.  But I knew the message was a false one. Being the father of three young boys  (who were 7, 9 and 11 years old), and having watched my male and female colleagues juggling family and work requirements, I knew that virtually no-one can 'have it all'.  People have to make hard choices all the time about how they balance work and personal life.

I had also met a number of young adults who were poorly parented by 'absent' fathers who were so devoted to their work they had successful careers but lousy families.  Those men hadn't managed to 'have it all'.  I felt they should have sacrificed some career achievements for the sake of their children.

I had also found  that I couldn't have it all. There were work opportunities I could not take up because of family needs, and family opportunities that went missing because of work.  Much of my planning around the years of preparation for ordained ministry had been shaped by a need to make caring for my family my first priority. 

At that school assembly, me sense of trauma was for the students themselves, that they would grow up with unrealistic expectations of life, trying to cram too many things in, and getting badly hurt in the process. If they truly believed they could have it all, they might, for example, delay having a family until their late 30's or early 40's, when everything becomes much harder and riskier – including conceiving. On another level, people usually can't 'have it all' because opportunities in life are  competitive, and the race goes to the swiftest. It is not true that everyone can win every race, and people need to be able to find happiness without conquering all.

What I saw unfolding on the school stage just looked cruel to me. It seemed to me that the baby boomer teachers, who themselves had certainly not 'had it all' (although teaching is by no means the worst  profession for balancing work and family) were pushing their overblown and even hubristic expectations upon the students in their care. 

Making life choices can sometimes be incredibly difficult. If you choose A, then you must forgo B.  There is a sense of loss, even in choosing one career over another.  Training young people to have inflated expectations of life is a form of abuse.  They need to be equipped to make carefully thought-through choices, and know how to live with the consequences of their choices with grace and without resentment or a misplaced sense of entitlement.

It is  wrong to deny people opportunities or to force them to set their sights lower than they should. It is good to inspire people and encourage them to achieve great things. But being a healthy human being means learning what it means to live within one's limits.

I hope that young women are afforded more dignity and respect these days.

On Julia Gillard's Atheism

On Sunday 18 I was quoted by John Elder, a Melbourne Age journalist, concerning Julia Gillard's faith, or lack of it.  Elder gave the impression that my view on Gillard's atheism was rather more negative than it was. As he said to me "much got cut from everyone's remarks".

What I had written to Elder was:

"I think most people of faith recognise that we need leaders who are capable and honest. Just because someone is a Christian, or an adherent of any other faith, doesn't make them a a good leader or even a good person.

There are also prominent examples in the Bible of admired leaders, like Nebuchadnezzar, who were pagans, and both St Paul and St Peter tell Christians to respect authorities (even though they were pagans and were even persecuting Christians).

I don't think the question is really about whether someone believes in something or nothing.  It's about what the person actually believes in,  as much as the fact that they believe in ANYTHING.  ...

It does depend a lot on what you think of the religion itself. Some would be nervous about a Muslim prime minister, because many see Islam as a political system, and they would fear that the leader's faith will end up directing policy to reshape society towards the Islamic sharia.

Differences between religions aside, there is a monumental struggle of values going on in society between a purely materialistic view of the human person on the one hand — for which the philosopher Peter Singer has become the favourite pinup boy — and views which take the dignity of the human person as a God-given, and an absolutely non-negotiable value to be protected at all costs. Singer's ethics, which have become embedded in the policies of the Greens, could take humanity into some very dark places indeed. We are seeing this unfolding already.

If you believe we are all just lumps of dirt, the result of a series of evolutionary accidents, of course this affects how you value the dying, the unborn, the disabled, the environment, human sexuality and marriage.

Pure materialism will inevitably undermine human rights and erode justice, reducing the worth of people to what they produce or consume. We saw this very clearly in the bitter fruits of Marxist atheism, which treated human lives as the raw material for political progress. In the name of such 'progress', millions of lives were cruelly degraded and destroyed.

The big question in my mind about Julia Gillard is not the fact that she is an atheist, but what kind of atheism does she stand for? Will she stand up for and defend values which ultimately are based on Biblical ethical foundations, such as marriage, the right to life and the equality of all people before the law? Or will she march to the drumbeat of pure materialism?

The home values which have formed our Prime Minister – and which she has emphasised in her speeches – include hard work, the value of an education, optimism, and respect for others (that is, not thinking of yourself as superior to others, no matter what their attributes). These are good values, but what are they based upon? They sound a lot like the product of the Welsh protestant revival of a century ago, which reformed Welsh society, shutting pubs all over the country, and improving the lot of many. Such values as a protestant work ethic and the dignity of the human person, inherited from our forebears, are the fruits of the faith of preceding generations.

But the question is what legacy will Julia pass on to future generations, because even good values, if disconnected from their moorings in faith, do not easily or automatically replicate themselves. They can even be dangerous. An evil person can do a lot of damage through hard work and a good education.

These days the aggressive drumbeat of atheistic materialism sounds enticing and compelling for many. What I do not know is whether Julia Gillard is going to march in step with this increasingly confident beat, or will she more or less hold to the values of the Welsh Christian soil from which she grew but has now become disconnected.

So yes, I am uneasy about Julia. But what her legacy will be, only time will tell."

I have had a few interesting responses from atheists to The Age article. One person wrote respectfully asking whether my comments, as quoted, were taken in or out of context. An email conversation ensued, and we could agree on many things.

Someone else wrote what could best be described as hate mail. Some atheists assume that if you have faith, you must be a) an idiot b) a bigot, or c) both. This sentiment is  deeply held by more than a few in Australia. I am troubled by the intensity of this hatred which a minority of atheists seems to hold towards people with different views from their own.

I do remain curious about Julia Gillard's world view. What are her foundational values and beliefs – apart from derivative motherhood values like hard work, respect for others and optimism?  Upon what fundamental assumptions or presuppositions does she base her take on the meaning of life?

Take respect for others, for example. Julia Gillard regards this as a Good Thing. People can adopt this as a foundational principle of their own personal life-journey, but as a value, it is normally something secondary, which is based upon other beliefs. For example many Christians base this belief upon the idea that all people are made in the image of God, and so they share a universal dignity and worth, no matter what their race, ethnicity, language, religion, wealth or capabilities may be. I can see how a materialistic world view could produce different conclusions. For example, if you wanted to argue that it is our capacity for cognition which is the basis of human dignity (by this view a whale would have more worth than a snail because the whale is more intelligent) then you might conclude that an unborn foetus or a intellectually disabled person has less inherent worth as a human being than Mr or Ms Jo(e) Average. Abortion and euthanasia of the disabled might appear more reasonable to someone who evaluates human dignity in terms of the capacity for cognition.

What does our Prime Minister think about the meaning of life? This is a question I'd be keen to have answers for from any politician, but I'm particularly curious to know more about Julia's world view.

However, I'm not holding my breath to have deeper questions answered this side of the election.

Stan Nicholes' Passing - farewelling a St Mary's Parishioner

A funeral service will be held for Stan in St Mary's on Thursday 1 July 2010, at 10.30 am.

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Tennis coach and sports scientist Stan Nicholes dies, aged 91

FROM THE HERALD SUN, Friday 25 June.

Stan Nicholes has died, aged 91.   

AUSTRALIAN sport is mourning the death of Stan Nicholes, one its greatest figures. A coach and sports scientist, Nicholes is a member of the Australian Sport of Fame.

He died at his Caulfield home today, aged 91.

A former weightlifter, Nicholes rose to international acclaim because of his work with Australia's most illustrious champions.

His clients included Olympic gold medallists Herb Elliott and Peter Antonie, grand slam tennis champions Margaret Court and Frank Sedgman and a host of AFL luminaries, including Tony Lockett, Ron Barassi, Tom Hafey and Kevin Sheedy.

As an athlete in his own right, Nicholes held the Australian record for the single arm swing of 81 kilograms.

The event demanded athletes swing a dumbell from the ground, between their legs, to above their head - using only one arm.

Nicholes retired from competition as a 32-year-old and set about changing the face of international sport.

"He was years ahead of his time," said tennis coach Bob Brett, whose credits include major victories with Boris Becker and Goran Ivanisevic.

"In 1945 or '47, a 15-year-old was sent by Harry Hopman to work with Stan. That 15-year-old was Frank Sedgman.

"People now talk about the importance of fitness and conditioning. Stan was doing it more than 60 years ago."

Hopman, Davis Cup's most eminent figure, used Nicholes' conditioning as a crucial edge in Australia's astonishing run of 15 Cup victories in 20 years between 1950-69.

Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe, Neale Fraser, Ashley Cooper, Peter McNamara, Paul McNamee, Darren Cahill, American Chris Evert, Croat Mario Ancic and Ukrainian Andrei Medvedev all worked with Nicholes.

Nicholes was involved in two Richmond premierships.

According to the Australian Sport Hall of Fame, Nicholes had a hand in the careers four Olympic gold medallists.

Nicholes was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his service to sport as a fitness consultant in 1986.

In 2000, he took part in the Sydney Olympic torch relay.

A Review of The Rage Against God, by Peter Hitchens, brother of Christopher Hitchens

Zondervan, 2010. (Available in Australia at Koorong Books)
Review by Bill Muehlenberg, from CultureWatch
Atheist Christopher Hitchens has just released his memoirs, which has generated a lot of interest. His brother Peter has also released his story, but much of the media seems uninterested in the book. Perhaps it is because Peter has moved on from atheism to Christianity.
A largely secular mainstream media just does not know what to make of such conversions. It is happy to promote Christopher’s rage against God, but less willing to push a book which repudiates atheism and celebrates God’s existence.
In this brief volume Peter recounts his early turn toward atheism, and his later turn back to God. In it he also takes on the ongoing atheism of his brother. Although this is certainly a case of a house divided, it is not a polemical attack on his sibling’s unbelief, but a plea for some realism and rationality in this important debate.
The first half of the book recounts his own story, and how he became a devout atheist and Marxist in his teenage years. His story is in part a mirror image of what happened to Britain. From a great nation it has faded into obscurity, with a loss of saving faith and a loss of face-saving.
He tells how his generation largely abandoned religion, preferring instead the supposed liberation of atheism. He mentions how for twenty years he hardly ever met a religious person, and how all his peers shared in his unbelief. He is honest enough to admit that his rage against God was all about the elevation of self and hedonism.
He quotes a character in a Somerset Maugham novel: “He could breathe more freely in a lighter air. He was responsible only to himself for the things he did. Freedom! He was his own master at last.” This was the joy of his new-found atheism.
His experience of freedom was really antinomianism. Says Hitchens, “There were no more external, absolute rules. The supposed foundation of every ordinance, regulation, law, and maxim … was a fake.” He continues, “I did not have to do anything that I did not want to do, ever again. . . . I could behave as I wished, without fear of eternal consequences.”
This ‘liberation’ from moral law was supposed to mean freedom, but as he explains, all he did was move into bondage of self and sin. He went on a bender, indulging in debauched and debased rebellion. Shaking his fist at God meant living like a totally self- absorbed hedonist.
His story is the story of countless post-war Englishmen. A large abandonment of religion was coupled with a wholesale embrace of sensuality, irresponsibility and selfishness. The radical rebellion of the 60s was simply the fruit of this widespread rejection of God, authority and law.
But just as I too was once a part of this counter-culture, and now I look back in shame and despair at what I helped to unleash, so too Hitchens. He recalls his path back to God, and how he now regrets the libertinism and nihilism that his generation inflicted upon a once great nation.
He notes how his peers saw his return to God as incredulous, inexplicable. A person today can embrace any cause and engage in any activity, and we are supposed to celebrate this. But dare to affirm the Christian faith, and all hell breaks loose.
When he was a Trotskyite, celebrating the tyranny of Soviet Communism, he was seen as clever, hip and cool. But now that he realises what an abysmal police state the Marxist vision really was, and how a return to God is our only real hope of freedom and meaning, he is treated as a pariah and outcaste.
And of course his famous brother is one of these voices of misotheistic hatred. Blaming religion for all our ills is a reckless and foolhardy charge to make, but the atheist fundamentalists do not bother with actually making this case with hard evidence.
Indeed, as Peter shows, the atheistic regimes of the last century have been the real sources of death, bloodshed and barbarism. Yet his atheist brother cannot bring himself to see this. Thus Peter spends a number of chapters recounting the horrors of atheistic communism, and the dystopian brave new world that was the Soviet Union.
And he notes that all secular utopians must end up in the same way. By seeking to bring heaven to earth and create the new man, but without the help of the only one who can make this possible, we only end up enslaving ourselves. And that is why the secularists so hate Christianity.
They know it is the one thing that stands in the way of their coercive utopianism. Says Hitchens, “The Christian religion has become the principle obstacle to the desire of earthly utopians for absolute power.”  Indeed, because he lived in the Soviet Union for several years, he witnessed firsthand the cruelty and ugliness of state-enforced utopianism.
And he sees it all happening again in England and the West. As we abandon God and moral absolutes, the raw power of the state emerges. The vacuum created by the dethroning of God does not last long. It is soon filled by false claimants to the throne.
“Only one reliable force stands in the way of the power of the strong over the weak. Only one reliable force forms the foundation of the concept of rule of law. Only one reliable force restrains the hand of the man of power.” It is Christianity which offers a check against this power-worship, and acts as a brake on the rush toward the deification of man and state.
And Hitchens demonstrates how so many atheists are at the same time strident leftists. The dictatorships of last century clearly confirm this, but it continues unabated today. “God is the leftists’ chief rival. Christian belief, by subjecting all men to divine authority and by asserting in the words, ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ that the ideal society does not exist in this life, is the most coherent and potent obstacle to secular utopianism.”
With the widespread rejection of Christianity, all we have left is the power-hungry Muslims and the power-hungry leftists battling for supremacy. Both reject the message of Jesus as they seek to pursue their power grabs. Indeed, the “Bible angers and frustrates those who believe that the pursuit of a perfect society justifies the quest for absolute power.”
Peter is amazed that his brother has not yet grasped that “Utopia can only ever be approached across a sea of blood” and that “Atheist states have a consistent tendency to commit mass murders in the name of the greater good”. Indeed, “terror and slaughter are inherent in utopian materialist revolutionary movements”.
Hitchens concludes his book by mentioning a public debate he had with his atheist brother in 2008. He was pleased that it remained a rather civil affair, but his brother shows no signs of abandoning his atheistic faith. Yet he takes some hope: Christopher has abandoned his chain-smoking, which in itself seems to be quite a miracle.
If he can make this move, then perhaps he can also make a move concerning the object of his faith and devotion. Peter has made such a move, with telling results, and it is hoped that his brother will as well. In the meantime, what we have here is yet another atheist who has bit the dust.
There has been a steady stream of such conversions out of unbelief. Undoubtedly many more are yet to come. And as a result, many more books such as this will emerge. He concludes with these words: “On this my brother and I agree: that independence of mind is immensely precious, and that we should try to tell the truth in clear English even if we are disliked for doing so.”
Peter has certainly done that here, and his atheist detractors will as usual unleash their venom and hatred on him for daring to think independently, and for his apostasy from the religion of militant atheism. Well done Peter. We await your brother following suit.

Pentecost and the Gift of Other Languages

This is one of the more 'unusual' stories in the New Testament.  On the Day of Pentecost (Shavuot), the Holy Spirit comes upon 120 of Christ's disciples gathered in Jerusalem, and they spontaneously begin praising God.  What is remarkable is that all the people in the streets around hear this praise coming out in their own native languages - and these bystanders were from all over the Roman Empire, Jews come to celebrate Pentecost in Jerusalem, who spoke a multiplicity of languages.

What is the meaning or significance of these 'other languages', also referred to as glossalalia and speaking in tongues?  Peter's sermon at the time says this fulfils a prophecy in Joel that your 'sons and daughters will prophesy' (Joel 2:28-32).  Presumably this just means that the words the disciples were uttering were given them by the Holy Spirit.  This was not prophecy as in 'foretelling the future' or prophesy as a word of rebuke to the nation or a call to justice.  The words God gave were pure praise.

Some have suggested these 'other languages' were a kind of missionary gift: a marvellous short cut to language proficiency.  C.T. Stud was an English cricketer who played at the 1882 test match with Australia which gave rise to the 'Ashes'. Studd became a missionary to China as one of the 'Cambridge Seven' (see photo). These young men all went out as missionaries after studying at Cambridge.  Studd prayed for a supernatural gift of being able to speak Mandarin Chinese, on the model of Acts 2, but ended up having to follow the usual laborious route of language study!

No-one takes this interpretation seriously today.  There is no suggestion in the  New Testament that people were given additional language skills, e.g that when Paul speaks of speaking in other languages, what he meant was that he had  an additional language to use in his preaching.  In fact there is no evidence even on Pentecost day that the disciples understood what they were saying – the miracle was reported to be in the ears of the listeners, who recognized their own languages come from the disciples' mouths.

Another explanation is that the languages were a kind of mending of Babel: instead of speech being confused after Babel into a multiplicity of mutually incomprehensible languages, God was removing language barriers.  This is a repair of the effects of sin, a kind of eschatalogical healing of the world.  However the focus in Acts 2 is not  on people communicating with each other. Rather the disciples are crying out praise TO GOD – who would understand them anyway.  The others who just happened to be  listening in were – completely unexpectedly – able to understand what they were saying in their own native languages.

Another explanation of the languages links them to a Jewish belief that at the giving of the law on Mt Sinai (celebrated at Pentecost), God's voice was heard in 70 languages.  This was believed to be the total number of the world's languages (actually there are thousands). If God spoke on Mt Sinai in multiple languages all at once - because the law was given for all the nations – then it would be no surprise when the Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost of Luke 2, that the Spirit's voice was also heard in all known languages.

The interpretation I prefer is that the 'other languages' represent a renewal of creation.  The truest and ultimate purpose of the gift of speech is to praise God.  Sadly human beings use this gift for much baser purposes, such as slander, cursing and telling lies. However Psalm 2 states that God ordains praise from the mouths of infants and babies (Psalm 8:2).  In the book of Revelation, the vision of the heavenly city has God's people speaking –   in praise and worship to God.  The gift of other languages on Pentecost was an in-breaking of this eschatalogical purpose for human language.  It was God 'ordaining praise' and renewing the purpose of speech.

In both the New Testament and contemporary experience, the phenomenon of 'other languages' is associated with two functions.  One is spontaneous praise, rather like the accounts of Acts (Chapters 2,  10 and 19).  The other is prayer, which is more in focus in Paul's writings.  Such prayer is also a manifestation of the Spirit's voice, as God himself prays through us (Romans 8:26).

Both praise and prayer are God-directed speech acts, and are also described in the Bible as God-breathed.  By this line of thinking, the 'other languages' of the New Testament represent an in-breaking of God's future, through the renewal of language as an anticipation of God's future renewal of all creation.  This manifestation is an example of what the writer to the Hebrews calls a foretaste of heaven and the powers of the age to come (Hebrews 6:4-5).

For more on this subject, and  last Sunday's sermon on the pentecostal manifestation of 'other languages', see the audio recording at Tongues of Fire.