Bishop John

MEDIA ADVISORY:

BISHOP GETS HANDS DIRTY AT NEW CHURCH BUILDING WORKS

The Anglican Bishop of Tasmania, the Right Reverend John Harrower, will tomorrow get his hands dirty at the building works for the new Wellspring Church development in Sandy Bay.

With foundations currently going in, a section of the old hall will be removed to make way for new buildings.

The new $3 million Wellspring Church will adjoin St Peter’s Church in Sandy Bay and includes a 330-person worship centre, new meeting rooms and offices, as well as restorative works on the historic St Peter’s building.

The Church is being built to accommodate the rapid expansion at Wellspring, now one of the largest Anglican churches in Tasmania.  Wellspring Church currently has around 300 people attend each week and is home to a number of youth/student parishioners and a Chinese language congregation, with many international students.

Wellspring Church is the merger of the previous BayWest (St Peter’s Sandy Bay) and Holy Trinity North Hobart congregations in 2007.  Since the merger, numbers have grown about 40%.

Bishop Harrower said he was excited to see the new development take shape.

“Recently we have had significant renovations to Anglican churches and now we have the first new Anglican church building in Hobart since St Clement’s Kingston in the 1980s. This is a clear sign of a healthy growing local church.

“I’m delighted to be able to come and support this wonderful bringing together of our historic past with an exciting future.”

Bishop Harrower will be available on site at Wellspring Church (corner of Grosvenor and Lord Streets, Sandy Bay) at 10am, Friday 4 May.  Media are asked to come to the Lord St entrance to the building site.

Contact: Media Officer – Rev. Stephen Carnaby   0417 343 710

I recently signed this open letter to the Prime Minister, along with many other leaders, ambassadors, actors and so forth around Australia. Read the article “Famous Faces sign up in the battle for overseas aid” in the Sydney Morning Herald here. The article includes a link to the letter below with the many signatories listed below it. (This same article appears in The Age)

You can also listen to my interview on ABC radio from this morning on their website, it’s the 4th audio file, here.

02 May 2012

PRIME MINISTER – AUSTRALIANS KEEP THEIR WORD

Dear Prime Minister,

In the year 2000, Australia agreed to play its part in global efforts to halve the number of people living in poverty by 2015. Australians can be proud that, so far, their leaders have kept this promise made in our name.
John Howard promised to double Australian aid in 2005. And the Gillard Government has promised to further lift the levels of Australian aid to 0.5 per cent of our national income by 2015.

This commitment has been supported by both sides of politics, as it should be. This is Australia’s promise to the world’s poor, no matter who is in Government.

Millions of Australians, young and old, expect this commitment to be maintained. And millions more of those living in poverty are depending on it.

This is a question of whether Australia can be trusted to do what it says it will do.

Reaching the 0.5 per cent target means just 50 cents in every $100 of our national income will go towards our aid program. This falls short of the global target of 0.7 per cent, but it still means a lot to the world’s poor.

Keeping this promise on aid could save the lives of at least 800,000 extra people over the next four years.

Around the world more than 20,000 children still die each day because of diseases that can be easily prevented and treated like diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria.

Millions of people live on less than $2 a day in our neighbouring countries like Timor Leste, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

The money the Government has promised to spend on aid is desperately needed.

Australian aid levels are not generous by world standards – currently we are below the average when compared to what other rich nations give. We rank 13th on the league table of 23 rich countries that give aid. But what we do give makes a big difference.

Prime Minister, we hear this will be a tough budget and reports say that aid spending is on the hit list. But we cannot balance the books with the lives of the world’s poor.

We the undersigned, and the more than 2 million Australian households who generously support aid organisations each year, urge you to keep the promise to increase aid to 0.5 per cent by 2015-16.

It is up to you to prove that when Australia makes a promise, we keep it.

Below is a letter that I recently sent to The Honourable Wayne Swan MP, Federal Treasurer:

Dear Minister,

Australia’s moral obligation to the poor

I appreciate your service to our nation and the challenges that you face in managing our nation’s financial affairs.

Given the financial constraints on the Federal Government at this time, I am concerned at reports that your Government’s promise to increase Australia’s aid budget to 50 cents in every $100 of our Gross National Income by 2015 is under threat.

In my role as a Bishop of the Anglican Church and a Director of World Vision Australia, I am aware of the great contribution that the Australian Federal Government’s aid has made and continues to make to poor people throughout the world.

Australia’s moral obligation arises from its wealth; we are one of the world’s wealthiest nations, and the dire needs in which millions of people throughout the world find themselves. We have a moral obligation to help those who are less well off than ourselves.

During my nine years in South America working as a missionary of the Anglican Church, I saw the calamitous effects of poverty on physical, social, economic, environmental and spiritual health. As a person standing in the Judeo-Christian tradition, I accept fully the challenge of responding positively to Cain’s question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

I therefore request you to increase Australia’s aid budget to 0.38% of national income in this year’s Federal Budget. I will rejoice when Australia is giving 0.7%, however I beg your government to ensure that we reach 0.5% of national income by 2015.

Yours sincerely,

John D Harrower OAM, Bishop of Tasmania

If you wish to send a letter or email to Mr Swan, then go to Make Poverty History for more information.

Where does ANZAC Day fit in a culturally diverse Australia?

This question is answered thoughtfully by Tim Soutphommasane reflecting on what ANZAC Day might mean for children of newly arrived immigrant communities. “They’d be asking those questions not because they find Anzac Day offensive or because their parents do, but because they  wonder  how they could be included in it.”

The article highlights the need for “a more  challenging national conversation. Not least one about what Anzac says about a  contemporary, culturally diverse Australia.”

At the ANZAC Day March and Service in Hobart we were treated to a fine example of 1. the inclusion of cultural diversity and 2. a challenging national conversation.

1. INCLUSION OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY was wonderfully demonstrated by boy and girl students from Turkey participating in the March and Service. Different perspective

A group of Turkish students joined this morning’s ANZAC Day march in Hobart.

Seven students from the Lisesi school in Istanbul are in Hobart for 10 days to learn how Australians commemorate the Great War. They are staying with students from the Hutchins School and St Michael’s Collegiate who visited Gallipoli last month.

Turkish student Berke Tekay says it is a great learning experience. “I’m looking forward to it because it’s the other side of the picture for Australia. I only saw my side of the picture in Turkey – how we felt about Gallipoli wars, so I’ll see your side, how you feel about Gallipoli wars.”

Hutchins Grade 12 student Damon Heather says the trip has given him a much greater understanding of war. “It’s opened my eyes to service people are doing today, it’s opened my eyes to that. It really takes a lot to commit to something like that to fight for freedom in your country.”

Hutchins School Principal Warwick Dean says the exchange program is about creating tolerance and understanding. “Here is a new generation of young people who belong to countries that who once were at war and are now friends,” he said.

Excerpt from ABC News article, Lest we forget: Tasmania remembers

2. A CHALLENGING NATIONAL CONVERSATION

Governor Peter Underwood used his last Anzac Day address before his term ends next year to call on Tasmanians to go beyond honouring the sacrifice of the fallen each Anzac Day.
“Anzac Day is a day on which we should also ask those hard questions about the meaning of wars, their causes and outcomes in order to become resolute about peace as well as resolute about fighting when fighting is a genuinely necessary and unavoidable act of self-protection,” Mr Underwood said.

From The Mercury, Tassie salutes ANZACS.

I am greatly encouraged by these two responses to the helpful question, Where does ANZAC Day fit in a culturally diverse Australia?

How would you answer this question? What has helped you answer/ reflect on this question?

A good friend of mine, Professor Ian Harper, recently wrote an article for The Australian: Atheists can’t see that faith complements science. Read the article here. (some news sites require registration, however if you copy the article’s title and google it, you should be able to read the entire article :))

While New Atheists take issue with Christians of all stripes, they reserve special vehemence for those who profess to be both scientists and believers. Such people are clearly more deluded than the average faith-head. The fact that this combination characterises some of the greatest scientists who lived, including Galileo, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle, not to mention modern giants such as Francis Collins, is held of little account.

Prof Harper supports the Reason for Faith Coalition – learn more on their website.