“Corporate Lifecycles: How and Why Corporations Grow and Die and What to Do About It” (Ichak Adizes)

It’s only a matter of time before Australia embraces same sex marriage, with the support and advocacy of progressive Australian clergy.

So what’s next? We all know it won’t stop at same-sex unions.

So who’s up for group marriage?

For weeks, Sydneysiders and Melburnians who believe menages-a-trois and other polyamorous relationships can be just as committed, loving and valid as marriage between a man and a woman, slaved away together to earn their place in the sun. They drew up plans, sawed wood, hammered nails.

Finally, in early March, it was ready: the first float celebrating polyamory to join the colourful flotilla in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Here’s some background to the movement for “poly pride.” They even have their own “community.”

The polyamorous community in Australia is a broad church, with the slogan of its very active website being “ethical non-monogamy”.

It is increasingly prominent, with organised groups in most capital cities that hold regular discussion sessions and social nights.

Polyamorists generally distinguish themselves from the monogamous gay community, and from those seeking kinky casual sex. Some also see themselves as different from heterosexual polygamists where the “hinge” member has sexual relations with the two of the opposite sex, but the two of the same sex do not have sex with each other.

Rather they may form, in polyamorist lingo, a “polyfidelist triad” in which there is an equilateral triangle of sexual activity.

Group marriage is not without it’s trials and tribulations.

A recent Australian legal case involved a man whose wife had left him for another man and a woman, and taken the children. When the trio set up house together, mingled their respective offspring, and shared the same bedroom, the jilted husband applied to the court seeking an urgent order that the children be removed from the “immoral” household.

But magistrate Philip Burchardt rejected the application, saying the threesome seemed to be “thoroughly decent and honest people” and “I do not regard the relationship . . . as being damaging to the children.”

What’s next after group marriage?

Melbourne-born Peter Singer is a world-renown ethicist, philosopher, and professor at Princeton University. In 2005 he was one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.

What does this great man advocate?

Singer argues that “mutually satisfying activities” of a sexual nature can occur between humans and animals.

I have a question for those progressive clergy and theologians who have rejected the plain teaching of Jesus. You have rejected the prophets, and apostles. You have rejected 2,000 years of church teaching.

How will you stand against the very forces you have allowed to be unleashed?

In June of 2002, the synod of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster (Vancouver, Canada) voted to authorise a service to bless same-sex unions. J.I. Packer was among the synod members who walked out in protest.

Why did I walk out with the others? Because this decision, taken in its context, falsifies the gospel of Christ, abandons the authority of Scripture, jeopardises the salvation of fellow human beings, and betrays the church in its God-appointed role as the bastion and bulwark of divine truth.

J.I. Packer

In 2008, Packer, one of Time magazine’s 25 most influential evangelicals, formally quit the Canadian arm of the global Anglican Communion citing “poisonous liberalism” in the church body. He and other evangelicals joined the newly formed (2005) Anglican Network in Canada.

J.I. Packer explains: Why I Walked: Sometimes loving a denomination requires you to fight.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.

Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire

From the BUV policy on Ordination: “Persons who engage in homosexual practice will not be ordained.“

I’m confused. The leadership of the denomination and it’s theological college do not have a problem with Baptist clergy or theological professors who are advocates for same-sex marriage. Yet the BUV will not allow anyone to be ordained as a minister who engages in homosexual acts.

This is beginning to sound like an echo of the downfall of the Uniting Church of Australia.

Watch this space. It’s a lesson in how dynamic evangelical movements unravel and decay.

Gary Lockyer was the senior pastor at Lilydale Baptist (1988-2002). This is an full version of his comment posted today providing background to the turmoil at his former church.

Steve, I was the Senior Pastor of the Lilydale Baptist Church for 14 years. It had already grown out of its ancient (1881?) but very small building and was meeting in the Senior Citizens Centre. In 1991 we moved into the first stage of the new building and then into the larger auditorium in around 1995.

My theological stance? Conservative Reformed. My personal motto has always been the old Youth for Christ one – “Anchored to the Rock; Geared for the times.”

The Church grew steadily (as you indicated) across all the age groups through those years. In 1996, we presented a submission to the Baptist Union of Victoria (BUV) “Ordination of Homosexuals” debacle that strongly affirmed ministry and welcome to homosexuals, but no unrepentant practising homosexuals in membership or leadership.

I recall that our submission was passed at a well-attended Church Meeting without a dissenting voice or vote. At the time, we had a number of refugees from the Uniting Church with us; the last thing they needed was the fear that their experience would be repeated! How quickly things have changed, with changes in both congregational and pastoral leadership.

I mentioned “debacle” with regard to the 1996 BUV Assembly that ruled out Ordination for a practising homosexual. I was one of the few who pointed out the inadequacy of any motion only based on the “opinion of the Churches” (subject to change) rather than based on a conviction that homosexual practice was a sin according to the Scriptures.

I stressed the foolishness of “locking the front door” of Ordination (a questionable practice anyway) while pointing out that the “back door” was standing unguarded; a Church could call an unordained practising homosexual as a Pastor. The only “discipline” if this was to happen? The BUV would advise that he / she could not be ordained! That’s a forceful blow with a limp lettuce leaf!

With a few others, an attempt was made that night to add the words “or approve of homosexual practice” as a bar to ordination. The amendment was overwhelmingly lost. Worse, we were laughed at openly in the Assembly by some as we attempted to point out the futility of forbidding the practise of homosexuality while allowing its advocacy. What is playing out now at Lilydale is the logical and totally predictable result of that horror of an Assembly.

I am not proud of it – more greatly embarrassed! (and I’ve had my own valley to navigate in the mean time) – but so disorienting was the experience that night that I have never been at a BUV Assembly since.

My heart breaks for the people at Liydale and what they are going through. And I’m not feeling too good about seeing a Church that I served with commitment in this situation. Buy now it should have been established as a strong and vital regional Church with a clear witness to the faith once delivered. May God grant a miracle to see it still get there.

Gary

Here’s my reply to Gary.

Gary

Thank you for your well written and godly response to the situation at Lilydale Baptist.

I googled you and found your response to Pastor Danny Nalliah’s shameful comments following the Black Saturday bush fires which claimed the lives of 173 Australians.

Again, a well written and godly response.

Nice to see you defending the gospel of grace against attacks from the religious left, and the religious right!

Blessings

Steve

On Saturday the ruling Labor conference committed the Party to a policy of support for same-sex marriage. The move was supported by a rainbow coalition of activists including member of the clergy.

History teaches us that this is not the end of a long battle, just a pause before the next push begins. What was unthinkable a decade ago will soon become a reality in Australia and other parts of the Western world.

Brace yourselves for new campaigns—polygamy, group marriage and whatever our foolish hearts can conceive.

We shouldn’t be surprised. We live in a broken world. Sin has taken its toll on the most precious of God’s gifts—our sexuality. It’s why Christ came to rescue us from the guilt and shame.

Or maybe there’s another way. Perhaps there can be salvation without the need to face our sin. Could we remake ourselves and save ourselves from the burden we bear?

Could we recreate God in our image? Could we dictate to the Almighty our standards of sexual behaviour? Could we bow before our preferences and desires?

Yes we can.

How can I, a heterosexual who’s been very happily married for 50 years, tell anyone else they don’t have the right to form a loving, committed, lifelong union and enjoy the fruits of marriage as I have done? Marriage is not a club to be restricted to some. Like the Gospel, it is a blessing to be shared.

Rev Dr Rowland Croucher
Baptist Minister

Recognizing same-sex unions will help return marriage to its rightful place in society.

Rev Matt Glover
Baptist Minister

We haven’t even really begun to ask what role the affirmation of the ‘homosexual’, the ‘intersexual’ and the ‘transsexual’ might play in awakening the church to its full glory as the body of Christ.

Dr Keith Dyer
Professor of New Testament
Baptist Theological College

I cannot understand how a man can appear in print claiming to disbelieve everything that he presupposes when he puts on the surplice [clerical robe]. I feel it is a form of prostitution.

Clive Staples Lewis, 1963
Mere Christian

In religion, Liberalism may be characterized by a progressive discarding of elements in historical Christianity which appear superfluous or obsolete, confounded with practices and abuses which are legitimate objects of attack. But as its movement is controlled rather by its origin than by any goal, it loses force after a series of rejections, and with nothing to destroy is left with nothing to uphold and nowhere to go.

TS Eliot

Haven’t you read, that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.

Jesus
King of Kings, Lord of Lords

I guess that means, No we can’t.

The governing Australian Labor Party will introduce a private members bill to legalise marriage between same sex couples. The move is largely symbolic. The bill will most probably be defeated—this time.

Meanwhile some Australian denominations are tripping over themselves on this issue.

A number of pastors and leaders within my own denomination, the Baptist Union of Victoria (BUV) have for years supported the ordination of gay clergy, and same sex marriage. Their exegetical gymnastics are truly impressive.

There has been very little public discussion or debate on the issue.

Progressives, who tend to inhabit denomination headquarters and the college, don’t have the support of their constituency. Conservatives, who tend to lead the healthier growing churches, don’t want the publicity that conflict would bring.

The great irony is that the progressives can’t survive without the funds provided to the denomination, and it’s institutions, by the conservatives.

It reminds me of the quote attributed to Lenin, “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we hang them.”

We’re one big happy dysfunctional family.

In contrast, the Baptist Union of NSW will have none of this foolishness. They are clear on what the scriptures teach on human sexuality and marriage. The get on with the job of making disciples and planting churches, in which they are making impressive progress.

Compare this to the division and distractions that will impede the mission of the Lilydale Baptist Church for years to come.

The BUV is a case study of a movement well into decline, headed for decay if it doesn’t do something. If you have any doubt, study the history of the Uniting Church in Australia and weep.

Matt Glover, freelance cartoonist and pastor, is an advocate for same-sex unions.

His church, Lilydale Baptist, is in turmoil. They’ve only just found out via this gay website or maybe this one?

A church meeting to deal with the issue was cancelled a few days ago. A newspaper report states confidently that Pastor Matt has the numbers.

I’d be surprised.

Matt assured the reporter that his church members were not “homophobic,” just a bit uptight about public displays of affection between gay couples.”

[Ed. I suppose if any church members were "homophobic" they may need psychiatric treatment. Homophobia is not to be confused with homilophobia (fear of sermons) or homichlophobia (fear of fog), or hobophobia (fear of beggars). Anyway, let's hope there's counselling and medication available for any sufferers out there].

I remember Lylidale Baptist as a thriving evangelical church of around 400 people, once active in planting churches like this one.

The article states that “Lilydale Baptist has a strong community presence, offering financial services, counselling, an opportunity shop [pictured above], cafe, food bank and welfare assistance. Besides the usual youth and play groups, it has a Burmese congregation and a Tuesday night meeting of ‘hard-core” music fans.”

All these ministries were set up before Matt arrived by previous pastors who were evangelical.

Lilydale Baptist is in trouble. Expect the church community shrink, and the ministries above to become unsustainable, if they aren’t already.

The tragedy is, this was all avoidable.

If you want to know what decline and decay looks like at a local church level, this is it. This story is being played out all around the western world, in mainstream churches, missional churches, theological seminaries, and denominational headquarters. The drift starts with the clergy who are less likely to uphold biblical orthodoxy than ordinary disciples.

Matt is not the only well known Baptist leader who has come out publicly in support of gay marriage. What has happened at Lilydale is part of a general trend in the local denominational leadership.

The slide gains momentum because nobody wants to admit there’s an elephant in the room.

Decline and decay is always the result. There may be a time lag. But there are no exceptions.

You foolish Lilydalians. Get back to basics.

UPDATE

The Baptist Union of Australia has made it’s position clear by defining marriage as  the union between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life, although not all Baptist pastors, college lecturers and denominational executives agree.

UPDATE

Paul Kelly, editor of the Australian, on the political and social agenda behind the push for “marriage equality.”

UPDATE

Rev Matt Glover is no longer the minister at Lilydale Baptist Church. The Age newspaper reports that he had been “sacked” at a “secret meeting.” Rev Andrew Woff, acting Director of Ministries for the Baptist Union of Victoria (BUV), denied Rev Glover had been sacked. Although Woff agreed the process was not “all fair.” On behalf of the BUV, Woff stated, “He [Glover] is a competent and gifted minister, and there is no reason he can’t be called by another church.”

So where does the BUV stand on same-sex unions?

When Saffie the Wonderdog and I take our morning walk, we head out along the creek at the bottom of our street that leads to Blackburn Lake.

Along the way there’s a gum tree whose fortunes we have been following for the last few years. The tree fell on hard times. Literally. It began with a lean, which became increasingly serious.

Into the fray came whoever it is who looks after ailing trees. They built a system of supports to save our tree. But a new problem emerged. The tree was now so low to the ground that it was a danger to anyone walking, or cycling under it.

Imagine the headline in the local paper: Falling tree crushes mother, baby, and puppy dog!

Warning signs were erected either side of this danger to humanity.

That was not enough to satisfy the public liability insurers, so in came the heavy machinery and excavated the pathway below our propped up, ailing tree. They brought in crushed rock and relaid the path so that mother, baby and puppy could pass safely.

Hundreds of dollars has been spent in the fight to save our tree. Meanwhile it continues to decline, and is all but dead.

Imagine, if instead, the tree had been allowed to fall, and then cut up for firewood. They could have planted hundreds of new trees with the money saved.

Here’s the lesson Saffie and I have been pondering . . . .

How many of us are wasting our lives on the worthy cause of propping up what needs to die, instead of planting for the future?

It’s a serious thing to sack a seventy year old priest. The Catholic church has a shortage of them.

Yet it strikes me as strange that someone who doesn’t believe in the Trinity, the virgin birth—who doesn’t believe Jesus ever existed—should want to be a priest, or should even expect to remain a priest.

Father Kennedy has found a new faith supported by the Socialist Alliance and other activists. He new faith that rejects the notion that Jesus ever existed, or that God listens when we pray. He has rejected the idea that God intervenes in human affairs, citing the horrific massacre in Norway. How can God be good and powerful if he allows such tragedies to happen?

He hasn’t lost faith altogether. He still believes in “the beauty of life and the goodness of people.” I’m not sure how long that faith can last when confronted with the reality of human evil such as we have witnessed in Norway.

I would rather live with unanswered questions, and put my faith in a God revealed in a crucified Savior. Jesus was crucified on a very real cross, by real soldiers, in real history.

A sign outside St Mary’s read, “Everyone has a place in the church. Every person without exception should be able to feel at home and never rejected.”

It seems there is one person who was not welcome in Father Kennedy’s church, his name is Jesus of Nazareth.