I'm not holding my breath for productive dialogue: "His comments came as police confirmed they were investigating an incident in which supporters of Family First allegedly hurled eggs at Greens party members after screaming obscenities at them and declaring that lesbians were 'witches who should be burned at the stake'."
and "Mr Joyce said he was deeply disturbed by a leaflet published by a Family First Victorian Senate candidate, Danny Nalliah, of the Catch the Fire Ministries. 'Spot Satan's strongholds in the areas you are living - brothels, gambling places, bottleshops, mosque, temples - Freemasons/Buddhist/Hindu etc, witchcraft,' the leaflet says." Full story at: http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11004623%255E36596,00.html Cheers, Jonathan Rob Bos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Interesting development in Saturday's election: up to 250,000 >Australians voting for the Family First party. Their senator may even >hold the balance of power! >My fist reaction was: what a strange name for an overtly Christian group >(primarily AOG) in the light of some of the less than complimentary >things Jesus said about families (Luke talks about the demands of >discipleship entailing hating your father, mother etc!) And are we not >called to seek first, not family, but the kingdom of God!? That may mean >not necessarily signing up to the values of society (economic growth, >national security, the nuclear family etc as ulimate goods), but being >committed to the outcasts and forgotten ones, as Jesus was. My >understanding of the reign of God and baptismal living have always >pushed me to voting for the left end of the political spectrum. >I then wondered if this was another "family values" push that would give >single mums, gays, those incapable of having children etc a hard time? >And what would an overtly Christian group say about families of other >faiths? >So I checked out their website: http://familyfirst.org.au/policy.php. >Indigenous Australians, refugees and asylum seekers, the war Iraq and >the environment were some of the bits I checked out. While many of their >policies are vague and obviously need lots of development, they do >actually talk about social justice etc. A surprise for me was the >acknowledgement of a diversity of beliefs, traditions and values in >Australian society. >I suspect that dialogue rather than caricature may be more productive. >Does anyone have any more first hand experience of the party and its >leaders? Did any Insights list members vote for them? Should some of us >join, encourage further theological reflection and help them to sharpen >their policies? Are there aspects we should warn people about? >Rob Bos > __________________________________________________________________ Switch to Netscape Internet Service. As low as $9.95 a month -- Sign up today at http://isp.netscape.com/register Netscape. Just the Net You Need. New! Netscape Toolbar for Internet Explorer Search from anywhere on the Web and block those annoying pop-ups. Download now at http://channels.netscape.com/ns/search/install.jsp ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
