News

Published: 14 April 2020

A Christian baker who had a legal victory in the Supreme Court is being targeted with a third lawsuit over his refusal to bake cakes which push LGBT ideology.

Jack Phillips, a baker in the US state of Colorado, is being sued for refusing to bake a “gender transition” cake. 

Phillips rose to prominence when in 2012 he refused to bake a “same-sex wedding” cake.

The first legal action went all way to the Supreme Court which, in 2018, handed down a 7-2 decision in his favour.

The Christian Post reported:

The Supreme Court ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission has been seen as one of the more important modern religious liberty cases to reach the high court. Though a decisive majority of justices sided with Phillips, the scope of the ruling was narrow in that it focused on the Colorado Commission's lack of neutrality. The high court did not weigh in on the deeper conflict between anti-discrimination statutes and the free exercise of religion and free speech.

A later second action against Phillips, for refusing to bake a “gender transition cake” – blue on the outside, pink on the inside – was not pursued by the state after the baker countersued.

However, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Phillips:

The same attorney who filed the second complaint has filed another lawsuit against Jack in state court. This latest lawsuit seeks monetary damages and attorney’s fees from Jack. If successful, it could bring about financial ruin for Jack and his family.

But that shouldn’t happen because Jack serves all people—he just can’t express every message or celebrate every event that’s asked of him.

And he shouldn’t be forced to.

No American should be bullied or banished from the marketplace simply for living and working consistently with their faith. But this new lawsuit threatens to do just that.

The state court heard oral arguments in the current (third) case last Thursday.

The Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a motion for it to be dismissed.

Published: 11 April 2020

Ahead of the forthcoming Easter commemoration, please allow me to share the following often overlooked civic and political implications of the Last Supper.​
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Appreciation of the profound civic implication of the Last Supper requires a recognition of the meal's basis in the Passover. That commemoration from the time of Moses recollects God's judgement on a pagan nation whose leaders resisted the divine plan and persecuted Israel. 

Published: 09 April 2020

By Charles Newington

In Christian church services across the world, the story of the crucifixion of Jesus will be read again this Good Friday. This year, as the world is in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, the suffering of Christ will have special significance.

One of the all too frequent tragedies of this pandemic is that so many people are dying alone or in the company of strangers, while their loved ones wait anxiously and praying for their recovery.

This is a special grief – that of not being close at hand when one’s loved one passes away. It seems an unforgivable absence.

What weight has been laid on the shoulders of health workers who become de facto family for the loved ones of the dying. How hard for them to convey a sense of the dignity and love of the dying when all around them are other people needing the same care. The health-workers on the front line are truly deserving of the nation’s gratitude.

I have been reflecting on the death of Christ and those who stood close to him in his final hours. Luke’s Gospel tells us that his mother was there, her sister, another friend and Mary Magdalene. Then a little further away stood John, the apostle in waiting.

Rome chose its most brutal and uncivilised form of execution for those who challenged or endangered its authority and social order. There is absolutely nothing to commend crucifixion. It was barbaric, excruciating and deliberately terrifying, sending a clear message to all that they should not mess with Rome. What Mary saw as she stood close would have been unrecognisable as her beloved son, disfigured and lacerated. What a model of a mother’s love.

With his dying breath Jesus gave John the responsibility of caring for his widowed mother – mindful of her part in his conception, birth and natural life. He commits her to the disciple with whom he had the most personal connection. John took her into his own home and cared for her as his own. What a model of a loving son.

Another person there was Mary Magdalene whom Jesus had liberated from the torment of seven demons. She was there in his final hours, she assisted in his hurried burial and returned again three days later at first light to attend to the customs for entombment. As she wept in the garden because of his missing body, the risen Christ made himself known to her. Her response was to fall in front of him and grab his feet.  What a model of a devotee.

The central figure, the crucified one, was in his suffering and death providing the world with a solution to the alienation and inexplicable suffering of human life and death. Why do we suffer? Why is God so distant, especially when we need him most? Why do we exist? There is no one-liner that carries the full scope of all that took place in Christ’s death. If we find it hard today, imagine those who stood close to the flayed frame of their Lord and Son on crucifixion day.

It was for us all – to settle any score, to pay any moral debt, to forgive any crime no matter how horrifying, to save any soul no matter how lost. The apostle Paul wrote “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sins against them…”  The perfect Saviour.

In this time when we are being reminded of our own mortality, I encourage you to make this truth your own by the simple, heartfelt confession: “In Christ’s death, God was reconciling us all of us to himself, not counting our sins against us. I believe this applies to me and I’m thankful to God.”

Grant us all grace O’ God, to live these brief lives in loving dignity and thankful service. Amen.

Published: 07 April 2020

The headline from Australian Doctor (2/4/20) reads, “GP suspended for ‘endorsing genocide’ on social media”.

Free speech is one thing; incitement to violence is another. If Melbourne GP Jereth Kok has used social media to endorse genocide, then the decision by the Medical Board of Australia to suspend his registration is justified. If he has done no such thing, then the Board has acted disgracefully, wrongfully defaming Dr Kok and destroying his medical career.

We can judge for ourselves which is the guilty party.

Below is the one and only post in which Dr Kok refers to genocide, of the thirty or so posts presented by the Board to the recent Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal appeal. Dr Kok shared this dossier of posts with a couple of support people last year and I can confirm that this is his only statement alluding to genocide.

Context is everything. Kok is commenting in 2012 on an article by Christian social commentator Bill Muehlenberg entitled, “When Aid Money becomes Killing Money”. Muehlenberg objected to the Australian Labor Government joining other Western governments in funding abortions in poor countries. He argued that “what we really have is coercive utopians from the West working overtime to decimate the populations of poor overseas nations” and quoted a pro-life leader from the US characterising such policies as “population control aimed at poor dark-skinned women”.

The staunchly pro-life Dr Kok posted this bitterly ironic comment:

Thanks to “family planning”, developed nations (Europe, Japan, North America) are in steep decline and are facing an impending financial and economic crisis that comes with an aged population.

See for example what is happening in Japan: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12296077

Soon, our civilisations will be vanquished, and the Earth will be overrun by Black people. The solution is clear: we must take “family planning” to poor countries and exterminate them before it is too late!

Jereth Kok

Anybody with a reading age above 12 can tell, in context, that this is irony, a rhetorical device by which Kok scorns the decadent West for exporting its culture of death to poor countries. The Medical Board, however, asserts the exact opposite: that Dr Kok’s comment is an endorsement of genocide! Incredibly, the VCAT agrees, headlines come out about Kok endorsing genocide and both his reputation and career are trashed.

How can the Medical Board of Australia perpetrate such an absurd injustice? The Board has gravely defamed this GP and owes him an immediate apology and public retraction.

David van Gend is a GP in Toowoomba