Q&A with Father Rod

In my previous article I mentioned the Father Rod, the famous priest from Gosford Anglican, did a Q&A session at the end of his talk.

Here's some more highlights from that:

The current refugee situation

He was asked about the current refugee situation. As coincidence would have it, he has written his view in an article for The Saturday Paper.

LGBT and Christian

He was asked by an LGBT person about the difficulty of being a Christian when church people tell you how bad you are for being LGBT - and LGBT people think you're crazy to hang out with church people (and get told how bad you are). She asked for Bible verses to counter the ones thrown at her by Christians.

Father Rod says the best thing you can do (in both situations) is be the loving kind person that you are. The kind of Christians that use cherry-picked Bible verses to back their point of view are generally not interested in a scholarly interpretation of the context of those Bible verses nor in hearing other Bible passages that might lead to a different conclusion.

Whether it's people inside the church accepting who she is, or people outside the church accepting her Christian faith, the best thing is to be a loving and kind person.

His famous signs

Father Rod was asked how he got started with his famous church signs. He had been asked to carry out a funeral service for a gay person, and the family were worried about negative reactions from the church.

It's a longer story but afterwards he put up the sign "Dear Christians. Some ppl are gay. Get over it. Love God" just for the local community and passers-by. It went a bit crazy on facebook and since then he has been putting up loving, but sometimes-controversial, messages on the church sign.

Did people leave? "Yeah a few left." (At this point I could imagine church treasurers vowing to stick with boring, forgettable messages lest they lose even one member).

But Father Rod hadn't finished. "A few left. Some don't like it, but stayed. But many more came."

To be blunt, he said "there's not much competition for churches that welcome everyone".

In a way that's really sad, but on the positive side, it's an opportunity for a church that's willing to live out a love-based faith.

Father Rod Bower on "Religious Freedom"

Father Rod Bower is in Brisbane this week/weekend and I saw him speak last night. The topic was religious freedom but afterwards he fielded questions on refugees, LGBT issues, faith struggles and his infamous church signs.

I urge Brisbane people to get along to his Friday night or Saturday. But be warned - just as Jesus was inclusive of people shunned by the society of his day, Father Rod has a reputation for being that way in today's world.

As a result, the people attending his events include people of other faiths (or none) and a variety of sexualities. If this would be too much for you, then perhaps you're not ready for these events. Otherwise, by all means go.

Father Rod's talk on religious freedoms

He began with a childhood anecdote. Whenever one parent would drive him and sister somewhere, there would be a race to see who could 'bags' the front seat - to be in the privileged position. He sees the religious freedom debate as Christians trying to bags the front seat of society.

Teaching of Jesus are inconvenient

Of course the teachings of Jesus are that we should give up the position of privilege and instead adopt a position of service. He referenced Jesus' parable about humility.

Freedom of speech?

Father Rod's opinion is that speech is not free. Someone always has to pay. Normally it's the voiceless, the vulnerable, the marginalised, the minority, the poor and the powerless. The interesting thing about the Folau case is that for once it is the speaker who had to pay the price.

What's the ICCPR?

The International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights allows people the right to their beliefs (ie religious freedom). Actions, however, are still constrained by law. In simple terms, Father Rod says it gives a person the right to believe in the Aztec religion if they want, but not to sacrifice virgins.

Religious exemptions

Already the church has certain exemptions which allow for it to discriminate. Catholics ordain only male priests because that's their religious belief - fair enough says Father Rod (though that's not his belief). But as for teachers in religious schools, he thinks it's OK that a teacher of religion should be required to have a certain faith but perhaps not for teachers of maths etc.

New laws?

Father Rod sees the proposed "protection" of religious freedom to be mostly protecting the worst of our religion (the hatred and bigotry) rather than the good. His view is that this will lead to catastrophic abuse. He says we're in jeopardy not because of persecution, but because of how we sometimes live out our faith in not-so-good ways.

Q&A with Father Rod

In the Q&A session, Father Rod used the analogy of being on a train. If you're on a train at the platform, and another train pulls in on the track beside you it can appear like you're going backwards. but it's just an optical illusion. If you look out the other side you'll see that the platform and everything else is just where it was. You've got a better reference point.

In his view, Christians have been used to having a privileged position of others in society. Now that things are becoming more equal it appears to some parts of the Christian community that they are going backwards. In other words, equality feels like discrimination. But in reality, they need to look out another window to get a better reference point.

It reminds me of Tim Costello's article about Christians needing to "calm down" over alleged persecution.

More of Father Rod's Q&A session will be in my next post...