Readers' letters: North-South pipeline threat
Euthanasia - the Physician Assisted Dying Bill
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North-South pipeline threat
Our entire river system is on the point of collapsing; we cannot afford to stand still and let the Brumby Government deliver 75 billion litres per year out of the catchment. This will decimate our communities, schools, fire brigade, school buses, churches, the environment, and all social activities that country people need. It is our livelihoods and our children’s futures that are at stake.
On top of all this continuing controversy of building the North South pipeline, country people feel growing uncertainty that their future existence is being taken out of their control, with their water allocation and security of the future being uncertain. This unfortunately has already started an accumulating amount of anxiety, depression and ultimately suicides in rural communities.
You, the understanding people of the city, can help us by supporting us in our lasting efforts to secure Melbourne’s future water requirements by choosing alternative options, like connecting to the Gellibrand River in the Otways, which actually delivers 296 billion litres into the sea. This option would be so much more efficient than taking the farmers’ and the environment’s livelihoods away by pumping water over the Divide. Pumping will in fact create an additional 150,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases (the equivalent of 38,000 new cars on our roads annually) into the atmosphere.
Another option is water from Tasmania, as the hydro dams are releasing water, which could be stored and piped to Melbourne. These storages are 600 metres above sea level – a pipe could be laid at the bottom of Bass Strait and water would gravitate to a Melbourne reservoir. There would be no pumps, no greenhouse gases and no effect on the drought-stricken areas north of the divide.
Laurie Maxted
Durham Ox
Pyramid Hill/Boort
GAFCON offensive
I have read with great interest Archdeacon Condie’s report of the GAFCON Conference which was circulated around the Diocese. I am sure that he found the conference in Jerusalem an uplifting experience. Any gathering of a large number of like minded people tends to be pretty exciting. (And don’t forget the well known condition, well documented, as the Jerusalem Syndrome!) That GAFCON met in Jerusalem despite the Bishop of Jerusalem’s great unease is problematic. It was also interesting to learn that an Australian Archbishop asked to attend this Conference – but was refused an invitation; that says a lot.
Whilst the Conference might have been uplifting, we have to remember that it was called as a protest against, and a boycott of, Lambeth. That Archbishop Jensen described Lambeth in The Age as a ‘gathering of Bishops with rose coloured glasses and drinking tea with the Archbishop of Canterbury’ can only be seen as a gross insult to both Abp Rowan Williams and the rest of the Communion. So I hope that Mr Condie will forgive those of us who find the whole GAFCON thing offensive, and we look to and pray that Lambeth will strengthen our ties and help us to be a ‘broad’ Church.
The Revd Graham Reynolds
Anglican Parish of Box Hill.
Development or aberration?
Regarding Marcelle Drummond’s comment (TMA June) on Fr Ramsay’s Williams’ recent letter (TMA May) that she found the statement that ‘ontologically, it is not possible for a woman to be a priest or bishop’ as ‘hilarious and hurtful’ – it should be noted that these ‘remarks’ are not Ramsay Williams’ private opinion, but rather the acknowledged standard of the Universal Church, upheld by those Churches claiming to be truly ‘Apostolic’.
Anglicanism has always claimed that it does not exist in a vacuum, but is a true part of the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’ and all Fr Williams has done is to make a succinct and accurate summary of a core element in the orthodox practice of the Sacrament of Holy Order.
The obvious truth that the ordination of women to priesthood and episcopate, is a definite innovation (without any undisputed historic precedent) to the concept of Holy Order needs to be kept firmly in mind. The question of whether this innovation is a natural development or an aberration is so crucial that Anglicanism generally had made tortuous attempts to hold both ‘integrities’ in tension within the one Communion.
As a traditionalist Anglican who is making every attempt to stay within the Anglican Church of Australia even though it has broken with the orthodox praxis of Holy Order, I find it difficult if anyone should find my very existence (and that of my integrity) the object of scornful laughter or indignation.
Regarding the Diocesan Protocols – they miss the point of the issue entirely. The heart of the matter is not gender, but orthodoxy.
The Revd Dr Ian N Hunter
Essendon
An enduring moral dilemma
The film review “Can torture be justified for our protection” (TMA July) stirred memories of a huge moral dilemma, and worries about the enormous problems faced by a small group of people.
In the middle of 1942, a huge German army of some 20 divisions including Panzers, was believed to be concentrating in Russia, North of Turkey. At that stage Rommel had driven the 8th Army back across the desert to Alamein, at the gates of Alexandria and Cairo, and just a step away from the Suez Canal.
What were Hitler’s strategic plans? Was he contemplating a drive through Turkey, aimed at Suez and the enormous oil fields of the Middle East, supported by a fresh offensive by Rommel to over-run the weakened 8th Army and occupy Cairo and Alexandria?
At that time Allied intelligence received information that a German agent was on a train travelling through Turkey, destination Baghdad. As soon as the train reached Affrine, the first stop after Turkey, the German was arrested. He was carrying a Gestapo pass, the first seen by the Allies. It was photo-copied and flown immediately to England. The German was brought to Aleppo, where he was questioned, not very gently, for several hours by various intelligence agencies.
Finally, it was determined “You won’t get anything out of him” and he was taken around the back of the hut and shot.
Fortunately I was not involved, but when I heard of the incident it worried me, and has continued to worry me, especially in today’s context, when well meaning but ill-informed people raise doubts about the USA prison Abu Ghraib and Australia’s handling of terrorists.
There must be some limits, but if your husband, your son, or your brother was in the 8th Army in 1942, how would you view treatment of special prisoners?
(The Hon) H. Murray Hamilton
Port Melbourne
Promise to Israel stands
Dr Lindsay Wilson (‘The Promised Land – not given forever’ TMA, July) has an unfortunate reading of biblical promises. Regarding God’s promise to Jews to have the Land of Israel as an everlasting possession, he claims God’s use of the word ‘forever’ doesn’t actually mean forever. If true, it doesn’t give much hope that God’s promises to us through Jesus mean forever! He also writes that biblical Israel’s possession of the land was conditional. God makes clear that Israel’s right to the land as an eternal inheritance is different from Israel’s right to possess the land. The first is unconditional, the second is conditional. (However, Isaiah makes clear that twice Israel would be removed from the land and twice it would be restored. Amos prophesied that once Israel was restored for the second time it would never again be destroyed.)
As Dr Wilson points out, Romans 9-11 doesn’t mention a future physical restoration of Israel, but that’s because Romans was written before the temple was destroyed and the Jews exiled. Paul didn’t write about a physical restoration because it wasn’t on people’s minds, as Jews were still living there. Finally, Dr Wilson makes the valid point that the modern “state of Israel is not the same as the Old Testament theological entity of Israel”. While true, he substitutes modern Israel with Jews, writing, “this does not imply that any modern Jewish political group or nation can inherit the promises made to the people of God in the Old Testament”. Here, he is fundamentally wrong.
The modern state of Israel is a manifestation of modern politics (is modern England the same as in the time of Rufus the Red?), but the people running Israel are the same Jews on whom God’s promises to all humanity centre. Let’s remember that of the four covenants God made in the Old Testament (to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David – with a fifth, new, covenant being fulfilled by Jesus), only the Mosaic covenant was conditional. The other three promises were all unchanging, eternal and unconditional. Finally, none of this excludes justice for Palestinians. But so far, Palestinian attempts at self-determination have been at the expense of Israeli lives, and Palestinian media, school books and the like point to an almost universal Palestinian desire to replace Israel, not live alongside it. When this Palestinian goal (and violent attempts to realise it) changes, Israelis will be much happier ceding land for Palestinian self-rule.
Annette Meller (Australian Christians Supporting Israel)
Ivanhoe
Dispense with episcopal vestments
Regarding Bishop Darling’s appointment (TMA July), I found it rather odd that the Diocese does not supply, as a matter of course, the so-called ‘episcopal accoutrements’ for its new bishops. Why should friends and relatives dip in for what are really ‘tools of the trade’?
Secondly, I suggest it’s time the Anglican Church dropped the traditional cope and mitre gear – a hangover from centuries ago. Apart from the cost, this sort of garb helps those outside the church to ridicule church leaders more easily. In addition, it entrenches the idea in the minds of many people that the church (Anglican and Roman Catholic in particular) is living in the past. I don’t see why this type of dressing-up is needed, especially if it promotes a negative view of the church. The purple shirt should be enough, even on ‘ceremonial’ days.
Peter Fagg
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