Good points from John which I think conclusively answer beliefs some (not myself) Christians may have that moral ideas and equality were absent pre 30-33AD.I've appreciate both standpoints in this Blog! I think the source of Jesus' & Paul's beliefs has to be founded in OT theology due to their context which was most certainly Jewish?

(James Thompson, on "Atheism and the Good Life")

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WOULD JESUS BE THOUGHT UNAUSTRALIAN?

Christian Values in Australian culture

Greg Clarke

I do a lot of writing and speaking on issues relating to the Christian faith. As I’ve travelled to various parts of the country I have discovered that there is a great variety of views about religion out there. While an easy majority of Australians still identify themselves as Christian in one way or another, when you talk to them one by one, a diverse set of beliefs emerge.

On one night, in Wagga Wagga, I met within the space of half an hour a practising Gnostic who followed the teachings of a particular modern mystical prophet, a practising Buddhist who had converted from Christianity because he thought it was too hypocritical, a bunch of Christians from local churches of various styles and creeds, and a visiting muslim student who was doing a study of the Bible’s historical accuracy. I met some rather zealous atheists, too!
  Some of us may be more certain about what Australian values are than what Christian values are.
 
 

I learnt that when it comes to religious beliefs, the statistics won’t always tell us the true story. To find out what someone believes, you have to ask them specific questions. I’ll come back to that idea later.

My touring also taught me that not many people know much about Christianity anymore. These days when we talk about ‘Christian values’, not too many of the Australian population really grasp what we mean by that phrase. Some of us may be more certain about what Australian values are than what Christian values are.

Part of the reason for this is that no-one knows much about the Bible any more. The teachers and academics all admit this is true. At the Australian History Summit held at Parliament House in 2006, Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Blainey highlighted the problem, as did a number of other speakers:

Many of the great statements and parliamentary debates, be it about Judas, 13 pieces of silver or touching the hem of government, mean nothing now. Yet to that generation they were made more powerful because they were metaphors chosen from the Bible. Somehow you have to bring back this knowledge irrespective of the vehicle you use.  

We can hardly expect Australians—or anyone, for that matter—to know what Christian values are without knowing the source of those values, the Bible. Christian values don’t emerge from nowhere—they are found in Christ himself. And we learn about Christ through the words of Scripture—without the Bible somewhere in its appropriate place within the education system, not only in the home, we will continue to have generations of citizens with little grasp of what Christianity really is all about. This is not a suggestion to proselytise in the classroom—far from it. It is merely the acknowledgement that in order to understand yourself as an Australian, you have to have some knowledge of the Bible.

Is there a charter of Australian values that is sufficiently similar to Christian values that Christians could happily sign on to it? In thinking about values, I am forced to ask myself the question—‘Would Jesus be thought unAustralian?— and it really has me stumped. Could Jesus sign on to a charter of Australian values?

Because it seems to me that I could pretty much equally answer it YES or NO. I really find it hard to come down on either side with an answer. I came to realise I had a major problem with the question itself.

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