Category: Current Affairs

It has been 18 months since America elected Barack Obama to be it's president. His presidency began with a lot of excitement and anticipation, partly created by his inspiring messages about "Yes we can!" It has not been an easy run for him, with many complex challenges and problems … 

Gallup reported last week that the president’s average seventh quarter approval rating among Americans stands at 44.7 percent – its lowest point since Obama took office but still significantly higher than among Protestant pastors. A new survey by LifeWay Research indicates that 61 percent of Protestant pastors disapprove (47 percent strongly) of President Barack Obama’s job performance. The survey, conducted by phone Oct. 7-14, found that 30 percent of Protestant pastors approve of the president (14 percent strongly) and 9 percent are undecided. 

“If voting intentions and job approval measure similar things, the president hasn’t made many friends in the pulpits of America’s churches throughout the first year-and-a-half of his presidency,” Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, said.

Although Protestant pastors have strong personal opinions on political matters, 84% disagree with endorsing candidates for public office from the pulpit. 

Let's continue to pray for President Obama … 

Latest News: The US mid term elections have just finished and the Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives from the Democrats (Obama's party) and just fell short of winning control of the Senate. 

A Florida pastor by the name of Terry Jones plans on hosting a Koran burning event at his church to commemorate the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the USA – 9/11 (this coming Saturday). He is doing this to target Islam extremists. Protestors are rallying in various countries around the world and their are growing security concerns in the US. The move has been criticised by many people, including President Obama.Violent attacks of retaliation on innocent people could occur.

So what do you think? Is this an appropriate response by a Christian leader to Islam extremists? What would Jesus do? What happened to "love your enemies?" It sure doesn't help the cause of Christ and the reputation of His followers in our global village. 

What would you say to Terry Jones if you had a chance?

P.S. Latest reports indicate that the event has been cancelled … though we can't be sure (see report here).

Finally, after two and a half weeks of speculation and negotiation, we have a government – a Labor government led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Support from a few independent MPs has given Gillard the narrowest of margins. Labor's position on broadband and climate change were influential in the final decision. This has been Australia's first hung parliament since the 1940s.

Without doubt, Australia is a divided nation politically and only time will tell how well the new government will perform in leading the nation forward. Labor voters will be pleased with the final outcome while Liberal voters will naturally be disappointed. 

Whatever our personal stance politically and however we may have voted, as followers of Christ now is the time to accept the decision that has been made. Like it or not, Julia is our Prime Minister and we have a Labor government. Paul's words to the early Christians have fresh relevance for us today. Remember he was writing during a time when the Roman Empire was in power and Nero was the Emperor.

"I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth." [1 Timothy 2:1-4. NLT] 

Now is the time to continue to be salt and light in our world, showing we are Christ's followers by our love – for all people. Finally, let's remember what God requires of us … "O people, the LORD has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." [Micah 6:8. NLT] 

While those of us who live here in Australia wait anxiously to see who is going to become our next Prime Minister after such a close federal election, let's be sure to lift our eyes and realise that we are only one small part of what is now a global village. We live in a networked world and through technology we can be instantly aware of what is taking place anywhere on the planet. This can become overwhelming at times but we can also become numb and immune to the issues and suffering that others are experiencing right now.

God is clearly at work. He is building his church and expanding his kingdom, more often than not in in hidden and subversive ways. At the same time, we live in a fallen world where tragedy and calamity occurs every day, affecting someones life forever. Every now and then it pays to turn on a world news program such as SBS to avoid becoming overly Australia-centric. Right now we can think of 33 workers stuck in a mine in Chile, 17 million people affected by recent floods in Pakistan, landslides in Turkey and fires in the Philippines. That's in addition to wars taking place and our global economy still trying to recover.

What can we do? We can pray – for Christians, church leaders and workers in these places, and for those who do not know Christ to become aware of God's love for them … even during difficult times. Intercessory prayer (praying for the needs of others) enables us to partner with God and what he is doing … anywhere in our world. It also gets our eyes of off ourselves for a moment and on to the needs of others.

The voting is over and the 2010 Australian federal election has turned out to be the closest election result in our short history as a nation. No out-right leader has emerged yet and we may end up with a hung parliament. 

A few observations are clear: 

1. The Labor Party has had a large swing against them right across the nation, with many seats falling to the Liberals. Maybe the de-throning of Kevin Rudd has come back to haunt them after all. Julia Gillard looks a little shaken, to say the least. 

2. The Liberal Party has made a remarkable comeback, after losing the nation's leadership a few years ago. Who would have thought that this would have occurred so quickly after Kevin Rudd's historic win over John Howard and his resultant high popularity rating even up to just twelve months ago. Tony Abbott has pulled off quite an achievement. 

3. Like it or not, the Greens Party have emerged as a legitimate third party in our nation. They will hold the balance of power in the Senate and will be a force to be reckoned with in the years to come. Their appeal to the younger generation and to swinging voters disillusioned with the major parties is only growing. 

4. If a government can be formed, there will only be a slight majority. Maybe this isn't such a bad result after all, as governing will require a greater degree of partnership and collaboration OR maybe it will just be difficult to get much done at all. Only time will tell. 

5. The Christian vote continues to emerge as having a significant influence around election time. See a report about this here.

6. Finally, at times like these, it is good to remind ourselves that God rules in the daily aspects of our human lives, including politics. He puts one leader up and takes another one down. Everything and every one is under his ultimate authority and power. His will will be done. I can sleep on that.

The Liberal Party of Australia has been the opposition party since losing the 2007 federal election. Prior to that, it had held power since the 1996 election. At the state and territory level, the Liberals hold government only in Western Australia. The Liberal Party was founded after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party. When in government, the Liberals usually govern in a coalition with the National Party. 

Tony Abbott is the current leader of the Liberal Party with Julie Bishop as his deputy. For more background on Tony Abbott, click here. For more details about the history, structure and policy of the Liberal Party of Australia click here. For more information about the current Liberal Party, visit their web site here.

The Australian Labor Party has been the governing party in Australia since the last federal election in 2007. Labor currently governs all states and territories other than Western Australia. Labor is the country's oldest political party, having been founded in 1891. 

Julia Gillard is the current leader of the Labor Party and the Prime Minister of Australia. The former Deputy Prime Minister became Prime Minister on June 10th, 2010 when former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stepped down, after losing the support of his party. She is the first female Prime Minister and the first not to be married. For more background on Julia, click here.

For a full overview of the history, structure and policy of the Australian Labor Party, click here. To learn more about the current Labor Party, visit their web site here.

 The Family First political party was founded in South Australia in 2002 and spread nationally in 2004. The Family First party has not sought to promote itself as a Christian or church-based party but rather as a party with a primary focus on looking out for families.

Family First currently has four members in parliament, two in SA, one in NSW and one in Federal Parliament – Steve Fielding, who was elected in 2004.

Steve and his family attend CityLife Church. However, I do not act as Steve's policy adviser. We have casual conversations from time to time about various issues but as a politician he is there to represent the views of his party and he is accountable to the Family First Board of Directors.

To find out more about Family First and their policies, visit their web site. You can also ask questions or give feedback directly to Steve or any other Family First members using the contact details on their web. Like every political party, they are always looking for volunteers around election time.

The Australian Green's Party is gaining more and more interest here in Australia, especially amongst the younger generation who seem to be looking for an alternative to the Labor and Liberal political parties. It is estimated that the Greens could win anywhere between 10-16% of the Australian vote. There is also a high probability that they will hold the balance of power in the Senate after this election, which will place them in a very influential role, much like Family First member Steve Fielding has had over the last term (Family First does still have a chance to be re-elected if enough people vote #1 for them with their Senate vote). 

Overall, people tend to love the Greens or hate them. Herald Sun journalist Andrew Bolt is not too keen on them, nor is Salt Shakers or Bill Muhlenberg. In contrast, Jim Reiher, a follower of Christ, joined them a few years back and is running for a seat in Latrobe at this next election. You can visit Jim's BLOG here and click here for a personal profile.

Personally, I would be concerned at the refusal of the Green's Party to honestly answer 18 of the 24 questions put to them by the Australian Christian Lobby on a wide range of very important policies.

To check out the Green's Party policies for yourself, visit their web site here. As Christians we are called to discern and vote accordingly. 

The Australia federal election is just under two weeks away (Saturday, August 21st). Every election is a very important time in any nation and as followers of Christ we should take our responsibilities as citizens seriously. Voting is a privilege and we should be diligent in our research of each candidate and the various political parties vying for our support.

The Australian Christian Lobby has done us an excellent service by compiling the various viewpoints of each party on a wide variety of issues. See their web site here, which includes a recent interview of Julia Gillard who was not the Prime Minister at the June 21st Make it Count event in Canberra, when the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd addressed church leaders from across the nation.

In addition, be aware that each voter gets two votes … one for the House of Representatives and one for the Senate. The Senate vote does not determine whether Labor or Liberal win government but rather who holds the balance of power in the Senate (for instance, that is how Steve Fielding from Family First became a Senator at a recent federal election with only a small percentage of the overall vote). 

Please make an informed vote and let's continue to pray for our nation of Australia, a country filled with opportunity for the church to be the hands and feet of Jesus.  

P.S. For an interesting pre-voting exercise, visit news.com.au Voteamatic 2.0.

 

Last week I received a phone call from Barney Zwartz, a journalist from the Melbourne AGE newspaper. He wanted to get my pulse on the upcoming federal election. We had a 5-10 minute conversation together and talked about a range of issues. In his actual article, I ended up with one quote …

"Mr Conner, senior pastor at Melbourne's biggest church, CityLife, said he was not concerned by Ms Gillard's atheism: 'Primarily you are looking at them to have what it takes to run the nation' – but felt Mr Rudd's dumping would cost Labor more than the party realised."

In fairness to Barney, he didn't have space to quote everything I said or give the full context of the statement he did quote. Of course, any time you are quoted by the media … there is always the possibility of misunderstanding. I have had emails from a few people about my quote asking me whether I was suggesting that people should vote for Julia Gillard and whether I didn't think faith for a political leader was important. Neither of those are true. I was thankful for the opportunity to clarify myself and will do so in this blog post.

First of all, my personal approach and our approach as a church at CityLife is to be politically neutral, in that we don't tell people who or what party to vote for. We encourage prayerful and diligent research, so that followers of Christ make intelligent use of their privilege as an Australian citizen to vote for those who will govern us. So, never have I said and never will say, "Vote for Julia Gillard" … or anyone else for that matter.

Discussion has come up about Julia's atheism and whether any potential Prime Minister who does not have a Christian faith should be considered as a possible candidate to vote for. It is an issue worth thinking about. Let me paint a scenario for you …

Continue reading “Does the Prime Minister need to be a Christian?” →

Julia Gillard became the 27th Prime Minister of Australia on June 24th, 2010. This occurred after the resignation of Kevin Rudd. Julia had served as the Deputy Prime Minister in the Rudd Government. She is the first woman Prime Minister in Australia and the first to have never married. She is also a red head – bring on national ranga day! 🙂

Discussion has taken place concerning the ousting of Prime Minister Rudd, but let's not forget that Rudd did a similar thing to Kim Beazley and similar situations have occurred in other parties. Political leadership is not for the faint of heart.

Although brought up as a Baptist, Gillard has recently declared that she is not religious and has no belief in God. Some people believe that this will alienate her from the Christian vote, though not everyone feels this way. At least she has been honest about this matter, without trying to present something she is not, just to get more votes.

Julia has already demonstrated decisive leadership during her short time in office, immediately dealing with the mining tax issue and promising to move forward on the asylum seeker and border protection controversy as soon as possible. She has also confirmed her commitment to protecting the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, a commitment welcome by the Australian Christian Lobby who has done much work on this matter.

Only time will tell what kind of a Prime Minister Julia will become, especially in relation to her and her parties policies and values, and how they will shape her leadership. Whatever your political persuasion may be, let’s be sure to uphold Julia and our government up in prayer at this important time in our journey as a nation (1 Timothy 2:1-4).

Kevin Rudd was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia. Under his leadership, his party won the November 2007 election against former Prime Minister John Howard. As the new leader, he made major announcements about climate change, education, a national broadband network, and health. He will be remembered for a number of things, including his reading of an apology to the Indigenous Australians for the 'stolen generations.'

Mr Rudd started well, gaining fairly broad rapport with the general population and giving some inspiring speeches. Over time, his popularity declined and he didn't deliver on a number of his promises. Was this due to an inability or lack of discipline to implement change or did he lack internal support for his change agenda? Whatever the case, it became clear that he had lost the support of key factions within his party and on June 24th, 2010 he stepped down as the leader of the Labor Party. He became the first Labor Prime Minister not to complete his first term in office.

I had the privilege of meeting Mr Rudd a number of times in Canberra and he visited our church once before he became the Prime Minister. He always came across as a genuine, likable and sincere person. Behind the scenes, the story seems a little different, as there was a lot of staff turnover under his leadership and claims of occasional anger outbursts. This is concerning, as good leadership requires both competence and character (see blog article by Rob Buckingham on 'Leaders Behaving Badly').

Whatever your opinion of Mr Rudd, being ousted from leadership as he was would be a painful  experience for anyone to have to go through. Mr Rudd deserves our sympathy, our gratitude for his overall service to our nation, and our prayers as he moves forward into his next season of life.

P.S. Click here for some reflections by Tim Costello, CEO of World Vision, on Mr Rudd leadership.

Last week saw the swearing in of the 44th leader of the United States of America as Barack Obama officially began his role as president.

President Obama's inauguration and speech can be viewed on You Tube by clicking here. A full transcript of his address is available from the New York Times web site (click here).

Not everyone likes Obama. There are concerns about his policies on a number of important issues, including abortion (see Jim Wallace's recent article on this). President Obama is not perfect. He is not the messiah. He needs our prayers and God's wisdom. He plays a crucial role at this important time in world history.

Overall, I thought President Obama's inauguration speech was very inspiring. Here are some of the things I really liked about it …

1. Obama addresses the crucial issues head on – war, the economy, health care, education, the environment, energy, nuclear threat, terrorism, and world poverty. He names the challenges and refuses to ignore them. He brings them right out into the open where they can be discussed and where decisions can be made. Leaders must always clearly define the current reality. 

2. Obama offers hope over fear. He said, "… the challenges are real, they are serious, and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time … but .. they will be met." People need hope and leaders need to be dispensers of hope. See the music video 'Yes We Can' for an example of hope-filled words.

3. Obama has an global interest and perspective, which is essential for a leader of one of the most powerful nations of earth. No doubt, his Kenyan father and the number of years he lived in Indonesia have helped this. Although I love America and spent 10 very enjoyable years of my life there, there is a still a tendency in American culture to be somewhat insular and to think that America is the world. The fact that they call their national baseball finals the 'World Series'  is a classic illustration of this. The fact that fewer than 10% of Americans have a passport or have traveled outside of the US also doesn't help (a statistic from the book The Extreme Futureby James Canton, PhD). I believe that Obama will help to change this.

4. Obama calls people to a spirit of service – "a willingness to find meaning in something greater than ourselves."  It's a call to kindness, selflessness, honesty, hard work, loyalty, tolerance, courage, and responsibility. Government and leaders can only do so much. People must rise to the challenges of their time and be the kind of people that make the world a great place to live.

5. Obama seeks to lead for the 'common good'. He said, "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth." As the president of an entire nation, his role is to create an environment where diversity is valued, where religious freedom is preserved, and where open dialog can take place. Christians currently living in places where there is no freedom of religion would love to hear this said by national leaders.

6. Finally, Obama speaks with confidence but without arrogance. He models a graciousness and a humility that is important for all leaders. He honours the past. He acknowledges God. He makes it clear that government exists to serve the people and not the other way around.

If you'd like to know more about who Barack Obama is, where he has come from, what makes him tick, and what his policies are, then I'd recommend his book The Audacity of Hope.

P.S. Pastor Rick Warren from California's Saddleback Church prayed at President Obama's inauguration. For responses to his prayer, click here.

Today is Australia Day– an annual celebration, held every January 26th, of the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, marking the colonisation of Australia by Great Britain.

Having just read the book The First Fleet by David Hill, it is amazing that our nation, as it is today, even got started. England was sending convicts from its overflowing prisons to America when America's sudden independence (on July 4th, 1776) closed that door. Other locations were discussed, with Botany Bay being a last resort. The long trip out from England was marked by frequent crises and challenges, let alone the first few years of trying to establish a colony in such tough conditions. Although intending to make peaceful relations with the local Aborigines, the arrival of the First Fleet no doubt became detrimental to these first Australians.

Reverend Richard Johnson was the chaplain of the First Fleet and he held the first church service on Australian soil on Sunday 3rd February, 1788. His sermon was based on Psalm 116:12 – "What shall I render unto the Lord for all that he has done for me?" To learn more about Australia's Christian heritage, click here.

Our nation may seem small and insignificant to many but I believe that God has a purpose for it. As Australians, let's celebrate our nation today – it's heritage, it's diversity, and it's future.