Which is why the Federal Government is considering introducing a charter of rights.  And why not? It sounds like a great idea. Why wouldn’t you want freedom and a fair trial (not to mention a gun in your handbag)? But actually, I think an Australian charter of rights is a really bad idea. Here’s why.

In Australia, laws are made by parliament, which is made up of people we elect. Every three years we get to decide if we like the laws they made, and get rid of them if we don’t. So the parliament makes good laws.

The laws are then applied by the courts. If you break the law, a court decides which law you broke, and how badly, and what should be done about it. So courts get to interpret laws, but they never get to change them.

The only exception is the High Court. The High Court protects the constitution (the one law, the law to rule them all), so if any law made by parliament contradicts the constitution, the High Court can get rid of it (i.e. decides that the law is illegal).

A charter of rights changes all this. An Australian charter of rights would work a bit like the constitution – it would be above all laws, another law to rule them all. If we had a charter of rights, it would be the High Court’s job to decide not only whether a law is constitutional, but also whether it contravenes our rights.

This sounds ok, until you think about how it would work in practice. A charter of rights would mean that the High Court could take any law parliament made and decide that it was against our rights. Say parliament made a law that religious schools were allowed to employ only members of their religion. The High Court could then say, no, Australians have a right to equal employment opportunities. The law is against that right, so it has to go.

That’s not a problem in itself – maybe Australians should have equal employment opportunities. The problem is that a charter of rights gives the High Court, a group of seven judges, the power to decide what becomes law in Australia and what doesn’t. High Court justices are not elected, and once they’re on the bench, they’re there for life. I’m not saying that the justices would necessarily abuse their power. But in a democracy like Australia, it should be up to our elected representatives to make the laws, not the judges.

This is why High Court appointments in Australia aren’t really a big deal. When the government appoints a new justice, it may get twenty seconds on the TV news, or an opinion piece in the paper, but not much more. In the US, the appointment of a Supreme Court justice is talked about for months. Newspapers, blogs, talk shows and commentators discuss in the most minute detail every possible idea in the head of every possible candidate.

Americans do this because they know that a new Supreme Court justice is a new law-maker, with more power than most elected officials in Washington. The Supreme Court can knock down any law the American government makes, and they do it all the time. And they can do it because of the Bill of Rights.

We don’t need this in Australia. We are protected without a charter or rights. We enjoy as much freedom as anyone else on earth. We elect the people that make the laws, and then get rid of them if we don’t like it. That’s the way it should be.

“A common argument, attributed among others to C.S. Lewis (who should have known better), states that, since Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, he must have been either right or else insane or a liar: ‘Mad, Bad or God’. Or with artless alliteration, ‘Lunatic, Liar or Lord’. The historical evidence that Jesus claimed any sort of divine status is minimal. But even if that evidence were good, the trilemma on offer would be ludicrously inadequate. A fourth alternative, almost too obvious to need mentioning, is that Jesus was honestly mistaken. Plenty of people are.”

There’s lots in this paragraph to make me cranky. It’s patronising, smug, and historically misleading. But its main problem—almost too obvious to need mentioning—is that Dawkins’ fourth alternative to Jesus as ‘Lunatic, Liar or Lord’ is not merely ludicrously inadequate, but blatantly, spectacularly, laughably wrong! Honestly thinking that you’re God when you’re not isn’t some new category—Lunatic, Liar, Lord, or Look I honestly thought I was God and what do you know it turns out I’m not—it’s a textbook case of lunacy! How has Dawkins not seen this? (And what was his editor doing?)

There are literally hundreds of errors and misrepresentations in ‘The God Delusion’, but this is the worst that I’ve come across. You don’t need to know anything about history, philosophy, or religion to recognise it. All you need is half a brain and 30 seconds—on a bad day. So why does a brilliant man like Dawkins appear to believe it?

In Ephesians 4:18 Paul says that those who don’t trust in Jesus “are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” It seems to me that Dawkins’ problem isn’t fundamentally intellectual—in many ways he’s a brilliant man—but when it comes to God, hard-heartedness makes you stupid.

Thinking more about the bushfires and floods that have devastated our country recently…

 It’s pretty hard for us, in civilised Australia, to comprehend something so terrible happening to us. Sadly, we’re used to hearing about such natural disasters and their human cost from nations with limited infrastructure, corrupt governments or high population density. It’s so easy to think we’re protected by our culture and man-made structures, and it’s difficult to admit nature can simply come and wipe it all away, leaving us defenseless.

Equally, it’s difficult to admit that before our righteous God we are guilty and defenceless. As Christians, though, until we recognise the just wrath of God we don’t fully appreciate the awesomeness of what Jesus has done in saving us from it.

‘Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!’ Romans 5:9

picture by james michael hill on flickr

Last week I listened to podcast and one of the stories was about how they are developing technology to screen unborn babies for autism. This allows parents to choose to continue the pregnancy or terminate. The man interviewed was a clergyman from Wales, the father of a child with severe autism. His responses to the many difficulties faced by his family were full of love and based in a deep faith in God’s wisdom, goodness and provision. It’s refreshing to something like that in the media – if you want to listen subscribe to the BBC’s ‘Sunday Religious News’ podcast here (the interview is on the Jan 18th episode).

photo by Hamed Saber on flickr