St Michael's Uniting Church in Australia - Have Your Say

Have Your Say

New Faith throws out the Ten Commandments

• Adrian Suttie
  2nd October, 2008
  1:51am

  I think that any "New Faith" is on shaky ground if it is founded on false statements such as "THE TEN Commandments, one of the most negative documents ever written." The first few commandments are summed up as "Love the Lord your God" and the remaining commandments are summed up as "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Matthew 22 & Romans 13). Murder, adultery, theft, covetedness and lies are hardly prescriptions for a positive life. Even if you disagree with the warnings against idolatry, the Ten Commandments fall well short of being "one of the most negative documents ever written". I suspect that this campaign has been a mischievous attempt to generate publicity while being careless with the truth.

• Cameron
  2nd October, 2008
  1:37am

  I am pleased that this address has been given. I have often been unable to question my Christian faith as I grew up. The other Abrahamic religions - the Jewish and Muslim traditions - allow the free thought as part of the the development of one's personal faith. The capacity to think freely is part of the 'jihad' or spiritual struggle. It is part of the lead up to the 'Bah Mitzvah'. I am pleased that Dr McNab has been able enunciate his views. I am continuing to be interested in the sermons online as I cannot often attend St Michael's in person due to regular work commitments.

• John Abbate
  1st October, 2008
  6:54pm

  For those wishing to know more, this Sunday's address (5/10) by Dr Macnab at St Michael's is entitled "Searching For Ten New Commandments. Join The Search!"
  
  I'd say that's an open invitation to an ongoing dialogue aimed at defining the values we need to embrace in order to make this century better than the last. The recent elevated level of discussion in this forum is quite encouraging from that perspective.
  
  Ralf Kluin's claim that the 613 other ordinances of Mosaic law are the bedrock of the Australian legal system is not entirely correct. While it is no doubt true that the British legal system follows some of the spirit of Mosaic law, its exclusions and modifications make it a rather different thing. For example, our system doesn't enshrine different laws for servants and masters, nor does it contain ordinances dealing with the ritual sacrifice of rams and oxen, nor does it condemn witches to sure death, just to mention a few.

• DAVID WARD
  30th September, 2008
  3:24pm

  My late mother Hilda Ward travelled from Frankston South, just one street from Mt Eliza for 20 years to listen to Dr McNabb, both the 9am service in what is now mingary and the 10am service in the main church.
  
  What made an crippled 60 plus arthritic old lady drive that 80 minute journey every Sunday, passing at least 50 churches on the way. ??
  
  It wasn't the "Fear of the 10 commandments", but rather to hear a great man talk about the beauty of your own life, and living that life free from fear and negativity that so often was and still is preached in so many of those 50 churches she drove past.
  A religion that "scares" people of their evilness and sin through its doors will not survive the next 50 years, the positive message of Dr McNabb will.
  
  David Ward

• Wayne
  30th September, 2008
  2:06pm

  I've read a lot of John Spong, and find even greater comfort in Francis McNab's words. I sense the lack of truth in traditional texts, and intellectually, I'm unable to accept supernatural stories which were required in earlier times, but I also sense SOMETHING else in us all. This is like religion for grown-ups. Congratulations and I'm salivating at the thought of more to come. I am anticipating something to believe in again.
  Wayne

• Ian Batty
  30th September, 2008
  8:15am

  Bravo!
  Since we cannot know the world as it really is, we have adopted the strategy of telling ourselves stories about the world. It is possible to believe many things about the world and to create many stories - the dazzling array of creation myths is proof of just how varied our world views are.
  
  What we *do* believe becomes our faith, and our faith impels us to action.
  
  What do the Ten Commandments tell us about our neighbours? To not envy them. No more.
  The concept of "a hungry child shames the whole village" is alien to the God of Moses. We are told to "honour thy father and mother", so we find ourselves drifting towards a loose collection of insular, asocial families, huddling together and being unable to heed the cries of those around us.
  
  Maybe worse, we learn nothing about the simple truth that we live at the top of a food chain. Unless we respect and nurture the natural resources on which our very lives depend, we will bring ruin on the world about us, and we will fail. History catalogues example after example where we have neglected, overexploited and ruined the natural world about us, and our civilisations have failed.
  With no commandment to remind us of our intimate connection with all living things, we have come to believe that only humans have souls, and that, therefore, only humans have the right to the Five Freedoms.
  
  Indeed, it's worse than that. Even some other humans (those "others" who continue to defy our God-given right to spread His commandments to all humanity), fall prey to our "no soul" ignorance. The use of torture against terrorist suspects is a damning example of the specificity and fragility of our regard for other human beings.
  
  We could adopt a new regard for the world about us, and we could use either (or both) of two paradigms.
  
  Religious: all things contain Spirit and are deserving of respect. Each time I act, I ask myself "will this action cause harm to myself or any other part of creation?" We can only live noble, worthwhile lives by considering the results of our actions and exercising restraint over our natural desires to exploit and dominate the world about us.
  
  Scientific: the world about is is a massively complex, interwoven network of animate and inanimate entities. We can only survive and lead worthwhile, peaceful lives by regarding the natural systems that make our lives possible, and acting so that they prosper and bear us up with the least impact possible.
  
  ... and Jesus' injunction to "love God and love thy neighbour as thyself" is surely a sound and acceptable place to start.
  
  Ian.

• isobel
  29th September, 2008
  4:48pm

  In todays terms this sounds too good to be true. No need for a commitment to God. Make up your own way of living and fit it loosely around some wishy washy great sounding ideas. The problem is when it all starts to unravel you only have yourself to pull yourself out of it.
  A person who loves God and CHOOSES to follow Christ and be lead and inspired by the Holy Spirit
  gladly seeks His way of living and being. He will sustain through whatever comes our way. I would rather depend on a God who loves me than nice sounding words with no substance.

• Andries Snoek
  28th September, 2008
  5:55pm

  Like Mr David Volk, I would like to know where I can find what dr McNab has really said about the Ten Commandments and more. It all looks to me as a storm in a teacup. I regard myself a 'Christian', but do not accept all what 'the church of all ages' wants us to accept. Much of that is dated, if not outdated.
  It appeared to me as remarkable, that when the Dutch Prime Minister, prof. JP Balkenende, visited Melbourne, he went to the church of dr McNab, and not to a Reformed Church, which has a Dutch tradition. Yet, Mr Balkenende is regarded in the Netherlands as an orthodox christian, though with a bright view. Please, enlighten me!

• George Galanis
  28th September, 2008
  8:59am

  I found myself coming back and re-reading Ralf Kluin’s post several times. There is a very Nietzchean theme in what he writes. So I will try here to highlight the Nietzchean essence of what Kluin is saying:
  
  The evangelical-fundamentalist movement in politics is a very retrograde step. It is an attempt to go back to the apparent security of our childhood, where somebody else who knows better than us (a symbolic parent) is looking after us. Clearly that is a false security.
  
  But to completely abandon the excellent aspects of our values is not the way either, that would be throwing out the good with the bad.
  
  We are in an era which is like Nietzche’s tight-rope walker. We, the human-race, can choose to take control of our destiny. In short, we are in a position to “will ourselves to power”. But there is both danger and opportunity in taking this control. In critically examining the “Ten Commandments” St Michael’s has grasped Neitzche’s balancing bar, and is taking a step out into the abyss.
  
  We have already seen the dangers in taking control into our own hands. We have seen the human race slip up and fall. Just look at ancient Rome, look at Stalin and Hitler. These were not slip ups by a few “bad” people, these were examples, of the whole human race slipping up and falling into disastrous carnage. But look at the opportunities. If the Human Race gets its act together, and wills itself to power with an effective set of Commandments it could wipe out poverty and the Master-Slave mentality that is so pervasive! Now wouldn’t that be something!
  

• Ralf Kluin
  25th September, 2008
  10:21am

  Sir, The Ten Commandments including the 613 documented "subordinate commandments" in the five Books of Moses (Mosaic Laws) in the Holy Bible are always under threat, every hour every day, but they remain, in my opinion, the bedrock values by which Australians seemingly govern themselves. You only need to examine the Australian constitution, the oath of office taken by law, and it expresses equality of certain rights, amongst other things, concerning society's freedom of worship.
  
  According to my research, since the creation of the neolithic '7' Laws of Noah, the age of the shepherds; the Mosaic laws coming out of the empire of Egyptian Pharos allowed for the Hebrews to reinvent themselves according to monotheism as ascribed to the person Abraham and as written in the Holy Bible. I'm not aware of any evidence to indicate that Jesus of Nazareth, during Roman Empire Rule, in the current land of Israel, ever deviated from the Mosaic laws; rather, he, in my opinion, provided the means by which every human being could own these hallowed values. In this way we have evolved as individuals to conduct ourselves in dignity, according to our mores, with our neighbor.
  
  In this sense I would describe The Ten Commandments as an ancient form of a modern 'bill of human rights'.
  
  Furthermore, in my opinion, during the 1920s, the upper-middle class peoples, in order to maintain ownership of capital, educated many of their elitist ilk, turning them into what I describe as right wing fascists, with the many of their leaders in the established churches hanging onto their monetary coat-tails.
  
  In 1920 Germany, due to the impact of economic constraints, caused after the first world war, the Nazis came to power, and with their well documented followers, some living in Australian at that time, and globally, and led by Adolf Hitler, worked tirelessly to destroy the Mosaic Laws.
  
  Of course under Joseph Stalin, the Mosaic Laws had already been destroyed.
  
  Had the Nazis succeeded, the outcome could have been that a man or women in leadership, in the then western industrially developed world could have confirmed themselves as "god" on earth, as was the case with certain Caesar's during the period of the Roman Empire.
  
  Even today, we see people in public, parading themselves in this elitist fashion. If we are to maintain a humane democracy, our education underpinned by proven established values must be most carefully guarded and with the advent of "populist christian religion" we will have unintended consequences. You only need to look at the religious situation in the USA.
  
  If the bedrock of current values that permeate our Australian every day quality of life today were to be attacked, It would come from sheer greed leading to absolute power. Look out for people with populist ideas, like some in the current Liberal/ National Party? As they seemingly prevent the proper redistribution of wealth by good economic policy from the taxes created by all workers, by introducing policies which reduce wages, and retain policies which encourage greed, policies which attack peoples dignity to earn a good education, a solid health care and retirement system and so on.
  
  You see, when you ignore poverty you ignore the laws of "God" and stifle good environmental and social development. The Howard stunt concerning the stolen generation was a prime example. I have no time for people like The Family First, or for representatives who follow policies which say, "greed is good" and so on. Nor do I have any time for so called 'churches of God' which express themselves as elitists.
  
  Sincerely
  
  Ralf Kluin
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