The Cross, Conversion Therapy, and the Countries Down Under

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“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…”

Ephesians 2:1-2A

Introduction

Recently, Australian news sources have been abuzz with plans for a bill outlawing conversion therapy to be passed in New South Wales. Though I do not think that we have any direct access to what the Australian bill contains, looking at our (New Zealand’s) conversion therapy act passed in 2022 will surely do some good.1 I will briefly provide an overview of the bill in this section, list two objections against our bill in the second section, and then address a deeper issue, namely the fundamental conflict of the Christian Gospel and conversion therapy bills.2

The explicit aim of the New Zealand conversion therapy bill is twofold: to “recognise and prevent harm caused by conversion practices” and to “promote respectful and open discussions regarding sexuality and gender.” A conversion practice is defined as a “practice, sustained effort, or treatment” that “is directed towards an individual because of the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression” and which is performed “with the intention of changing or suppressing the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

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Abortion and Peter Singer: Singing out of Tune

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“For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”

Psalm 139:13

It is not a controversial fact that life begins at fertilization.1 For instance, a Princeton University webpage lists fifteen academic sources that support this point. One of the quoted sources clearly states that “fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed”.2 An article from PubMed states that “Biologists from 1,058 academic institutions… assessed survey items on when a human’s life begins and, overall, 96% (5337 out of 5577) affirmed the fertilization view [human life begins at fertilization]”.3 I could go on.

So, the abortion debate is now centred on philosophical considerations. One case study will do. Peter Singer, Emeritus Professor of Bioethics at Princeton, answers whether he would save a mouse or human being from a fire: in “almost all cases [he] would save the human being”. Interestingly, the reason for this saving is “not because the human being is human” but because “it matters whether a being is the kind of being who can see that he or she actually has a life — that is, can see that he or she is the same being who exists now, who existed in the past, and who will exist in the future”. Singer’s criteria for something that is worth saving involves some kind of temporal awareness. To explicitly connect this answer to abortion, “no newborn baby is a person” because newborn babies do not have “a sense of the future”.4

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Of Toolsheds, Marsh-Wiggles, Atheism, and the New Year

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“…in your light do we see light.”

-Psalm 36:9

Of Toolsheds and Marsh-Wiggles

A few minutes before the dawn of the New Year, I found myself on a steep and crowded street that overlooked most of the Auckland skyline. Most people (I included) aimed phones at the skyline in anticipation. A vague countdown began, and then the vast horizon blossomed with fireworks. I was struck by the sheer number of people fixated on recording, swaying their phones to and fro like wands by which memory and atmosphere could be captured.

The aim of this article is an indictment of modernity. As Michael Ward states: “The incessant spiritual orchestration that accompanies [the universe], that actually constitutes it, and that is normally inaudible, is now also considered incredible. The cosmos therefore comes to be regarded as nothing more than a very elaborate machine when in reality it is tingling with life…'”1 Ward claims that the medieval conception of the universe as a “festival not a machine” is now beyond belief.2 Our world has become disenchanted. In the words of Saturn by Sleeping at Last, we have lost the reality of, “How rare and beautiful it is to even exist”.

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