Monday, October 13, 2008

Speak Up...



The Australian Human Rights Commission are inviting you to submit a response to issues of Freedom of Religion and Belief in the 21st Century in Australia. In particular they are interested in your responses to any or all of the questions in the discussion paper, as well as any other issues of concern. These questions are intended as a guide only, so respondents should not feel limited by these.

Go onto their website: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/frb download the form and write a submission!

4 comments:

Jason Au said...

Andrew Cameron is leading a coordinated Sydney Anglican response to this - hence my FYG chaplain is not around as much ... sigh.

I don't know exactly what he and they are going to do, but I'm guessing that "coordinated response" may include briefings and probably [cynicism]determination of a "party line"[/cynicism].

Anyway, he says that this should not prevent individual response. Respond away!

Russ said...

Hi Jason,

Actually, Andrew's been working through the material with us in Social Ethics. I don't think you need the cynicism.

From what I gather as an outsider, the Sydney diocese is such a diverse (and head strong??) bunch you're not likely to get too monochrome a response anyway.

And he's not working up one "official position". He's looking to work with all those who might be affected within the diocese (eg. Youthworks, Anglicare, Evangelism) and suggest helpful things to emphasise.

The challenge is to be able to speak to our society about these issues when it's such a different way of thinking than Christians are used to. We don't think 'rights', at least not with God in the picture. But that's our world's ethical language. To reject rights is to reject morality in most people's eyes.

Russell

Russ said...

EDIT: replace 'not with God in the picture' by 'not without God in the picture'.

Jason Au said...

As usual I forget that my personality doesn't come through my posting. I tend to be somewhat sarcastic/tongue-in-cheek/ironic/absurdist.

ANYWAY, I do actually appreciate what that group is doing because when I looked at that submission template, I wasn't sure what I wanted to say.