Mike Paget on Abortion

I was listening to a sermon Mike Paget gave on abortion earlier this year at my old church in Sydney, St Barnabas, Broadway. I feel he had some really good comments to make. He went through why he thought abortion was not compatible with biblical Christianity, and why it was socially detrimental, citing many frightening stats. He then concluded with how he wanted to see his church responding to the issue of abortion:

It is my hope and prayer that we will see in this community more babies born to unmarried women than in the world around us, because it is my prayer that they will not choose to abort those children out of fear of shame. Because, friends, we will celebrate the birth of every one of these children, and we will celebrate the courage of every one of these women, because where there is repentance and forgiveness there is no longer any shame, and woe betide the person who imputes shame where God has paid with his blood to make it go away.

Christian communities tend to be pretty good at stigmatizing those who sin's are outwardly visible, rather than rejoicing what sin reveals the glory of grace, the continual opportunity for forgiveness. We can be so afraid that people will use grace as an excuse for sin, that we fail to practise grace.

Youth Decide

At uni and around this week, there has been a fair bit of promotion for an event called Youth Decide, organised by Australian Youth Climate Coalition and World Vision. The AYCC website explains:

Youth Decide '09 is a national youth vote on climate change. It is our best chance to send the government a strong message that youth want a say in their future - before it's too late. This December, at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, Australia has the opportunity to lead the way in a global action plan on climate change. A united youth voice will help comple the Australian government to lead the way in securing a strong global agreement.

You can be part of this historic moment, when young people around the nation will vote on our future. We need YOU to hold a voting event in your school, uni, TAFE or community. Together we can solve climate change!

I decided to check out the Youth Decide website and was really frustrated by it. Here is why:

1. The vote asks you to choose between three possible worlds: the first is a completely devestated world (where emissions are reduced from 1990 levels by 4-24%), the second is another crappy world (emissions reduced by 25-40%), and a beautifully preserved world (emissions reduced by >40%). Statistic provided show that the more emission are reduced the more perfect the world would be.
   Naturally, everyone, including myself, would prefer a beautiful world, but there is a massive problem in what is present by the Youth Decide figures. It shows the costs of not acting, but only dismissively mentions the costs of acting ("the short term economic costs would be higher [for World 3] than form World 1 and 2, however, much of the economic costs associated with climate change will be avoided").
   Imagine you go shopping and find a beautiful dress you would like to buy. Would you like to pay (a) $10, (b) $50, or (c) $300 to buy the dress? Well, obviously, $10 is the best option, and you would be senseless to opt for anything else. But what you are not told is that if you choose to pay only $10 then the dress you buy will have been made from cotton produced by Pakistani farmers who were paid a pittance, manufactured by child labour in the Philippines, and sold to you by a Sudanese refugee getting paid far below the minimum wage. Does knowing these social costs influence your decision? Well, I certainly hope so!
   The Youth Decide vote it fails to show a balanced view by dismissing many negative externalities of drastically reducing emssions. There would be huge social costs to changing our economy and way of life, but the website makes them sound neglible.
   
   
2. The webiste claims, 'Each world is based on the target that Australia sets as part of a global limit on greenhouse gases,' but this causal link between Australian policies and global outcomes is almost entirely fictional. I am not a climate change denier, but I am a skeptic in that I don't understand it enough to fully agree or disagree with the claim that human activity is the primary cause of change in climate patterns. But, even if we do accept that theory as true, not even the most extreme voices on climate change would suggest that global climate patterns are as dependant upon Australian government policies as Youth Decide implies. Perhaps, when combined with all other developed nations there is an argument to be made, but Australia unilaterally changed its policies without similar action by other major polluters is no means to the third world presented by Youth Decide.
   
   
3. The vote shifts ALL responsibility onto the government without acknowledging that the choices of individuals are also important. The kind of transport we use, the food we eat, the way we heat our homes etc. is all affecting emission levels to small degrees. I desperately hope the Australian government does not consider basing its policies on the preferences of 12-year-olds - particularly those basing their decisions on the evidence presented by Youth Decide - but a positive difference that youth could be encouraged to make is in their own personal ethics.
   
   
4. The developing world is completely ignored, in a horrendously paternalistic manner. The poor developing world is excluded from any role in the process of combating climate change - apparently they are too poor and weak to do anything. If this is a global issue, then it should be a global effort, not purely the directives of the first. The developing world, particularly China, makes a massive contribution to emissions and there needs to be consideration fof the part they may play in the solution.
   
   
5. The Youth decide website claims to have referenced 'the most credible science available,' by which they seem to mean the Stern Review and the Garnaut Review (the two sources chiefly cited). Again, I don't know enough science to really make adequate comment, but there is a lot of literature out there that suggests they may not be the 'most credible science'. It may or may not be significant that neither Nicholas Stern nor Ross Garnaut are scientists either. But, as a brief aside, a saw one criticism which was fairly interesting, addressing the claim that higher carbon dioxide levels would reduce food supply and plant life. Apparently, higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere has been shown to lead to much higher crop yields and faster reforestation. Cutting carbon dioxide levels plant growth, pasture yields, and livestock productivity, contrary to the picture presented by Youth Decide. But I wouldn't trust myself as a critic of science, so you probably shouldn't either.

I am glad that the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and World Vision want young people to be thinking about the issue fo climate change, but Youth Decide is a disgrace to these organizations.

dub-ya

The other day I watched W., Oliver Stone’s biographical film on the rise and fall of President George W. Bush. It has some good acting, and great comedy, but I found it hard to get around the politics of the film. It is completely patronizing in its attitude towards Bush, and pretty unforgiving.

The film cuts between a young Bush, wild, alcoholic and aimless, and Bush during his presidency, with repeated suggestions that – even though he appears to have changed, sobering up and finding a drive – at his core he is the same weak, reckless boy looking for his father’s approval.

Stone’s Bush is very emotionally vulnerable – always searching for reassurance. And this is his motivation for the presidency – he needs to earn his father’s recognition, he needs to hear the crowds cheering him, he needs to be recognized as the boss. Other than problems with insecurity and his ego, Bush is also presented as pretty dim-witted, reckless, irresponsible and, worst of all, religious. I don’t know if it was intentional, but Josh Brolin’s depiction of Bush is also really annoying. His one redeeming feature is his sincerity.

Others in the Bush administration are equally repulsive in the film: Condoleezza Rice is a spineless suck-up, whose only role in the administration is to feed Bush’s ego; Dick Cheney is completely unethical and spiteful; Donald Rumsfeld is a blind idealist. The exception is the sympathy given to Colin Powell, who, though perceptive and honorable, eventually compromises his beliefs in supporting of the hapless Bush.

I wasn’t hoping for something even-handed, and I certainly didn't want a story of glory and triumph invented for Bush, but I do tire at what seem like cheap shots at the guy. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t cut out for presidency, but he did have his moments.

I don’t think he was as self-serving as Oliver Stone makes out – I think he really cared about freedom, justice, America, and God. Frankly, the guy could be inspiring in his vision. Like in his speech at Goree Island (a place infamously associated with the American slave trade):

In America, enslaved Africans learned the story of the exodus from Egypt and set their own hearts on a promised land of freedom. Enslaved Africans discovered a suffering Savior and found he was more like themselves than their masters. Enslaved Africans heard the ringing promises of the Declaration of Independence and asked the self-evident question, then why not me?

In the year of America's founding, a man named Olaudah Equiano was taken in bondage to the New World. He witnessed all of slavery's cruelties, the ruthless and the petty. He also saw beyond the slave-holding piety of the time to a higher standard of humanity. "God tells us," wrote Equiano, "that the oppressor and the oppressed are both in His hands. And if these are not the poor, the broken-hearted, the blind, the captive, the bruised which our Savior speaks of, who are they?"

Down through the years, African Americans have upheld the ideals of America by exposing laws and habits contradicting those ideals. The rights of African Americans were not the gift of those in authority. Those rights were granted by the Author of Life, and regained by the persistence and courage of African Americans, themselves.

Now in Obama era, it seems Bush’s sole legacy is the failed Iraq War and all those old Bushisms, and as important it is to learn from the former and enjoy the latter, surely there is cause for balance.

For example, consider this:

Many people saw the 2004 presidential election as pitting Americans who are religious against those who are not. An article by Steven Waldman in the online magazine Slate provides some perspective on the divide:

"As you may already know, one of America's two political parties is extremely religious. Sixty-one percent of this party's voters say they pray daily or more often. An astounding 92 percent of them believe in life after death. And there's a hard-core subgroup in this party of super-religious Christian zealots. Very conservative on gay marriage, half of the members of this subgroup believe Bush uses too little religious rhetoric, and 51 percent of them believe God gave Israel to the Jews and that its existence fulfills the prophecy about the second coming of Jesus."

The group that Waldman is talking about is Democrats; the hard-core subgroup is African-American Democrats.

Bush wasn’t elected by political or religious extremists – post-9/11 he had an unprecedented approval rating of 90%. Obama has his work cut out patching up the holes Bush left behind, but let’s keep some perspective.