Oh Really?

We Love the Australian Way of Life

A number of times I have heard Julia Gillard refer to the Labour Party's commitment
to protecting The Australian Way of Life," says a pastor of the Uniting Church of
Australia. Every time she mentions it, it comes capitalised and in quotation marks.
The most recent use [in the year 2010 HZ] was when she was out on the hustings
with Peter Garrett, announcing that should the Federal Government be re-elected
they would hand back Malabar Headland to the NSW State Government for public
use. This was, apparently, an excellent example of the Labour Party commitment to
protecting The Australian Way of Life. It appears that The Australian Way of Life is
best epitomised by families picnicking on parklands near the sea at the weekend.
The Centre for Work and Life at the University of South Australia, also that same
weekend, released the 2010 Australian Work Life Index. As it was reported in the
Sydney Morning Herald ("A hard-working nation that's losing its balance", August 1,
2010), more and more Australians are experiencing a working life that increasingly
impinges on the rest of their life.
When looking at the Australian way of life, there are several things to be observed

An addiction to gambling that sees us lose $18 billion a year;

Erosion of the traditional cornerstone of society, the family, as it is redefined

to include so-called alternate lifestyles, as it is redefined as living together
without marital commitment, as brokenness and domestic violence are at an
all-time high;

ANZAC Day as an occasion when young people around the country pay their
respects to Australians who have lost their lives in wars by going on drinking
binges (schoolies, when high school students celebrate their educational
milestone brings out the police force and hosts of counsellors in droves
around various tourist venues in the country);

Epidemic bullying on various relational platforms, from the physically

confrontational to the internet;

Per capita of the population among the highest rates of teenage suicide in the
world;

Satisfaction in the indefinite detention of small numbers of already vulnerable

and traumatised asylum seekers.

Multiculturalist confrontations and distrust among various immigrant

groupings;

Propagation of freedom of speech, as long as certain minority groups are not

offended;

An increased secularisation at the expense of Judeo-Christian virtues which

once marked the nation.

A blind extolling of the Australian way of life, which when considered closely is
not defined at all, ill-defined, or defined in terms of hedonistic pursuit of
creature comforts.

The news readers of several Australian television stations reported that

Australia had a great send-off of the year 2015, with Sydney spending 7
million dollars on spectacular fireworks and multitudes of Australians nursing
hangovers on the first of January. The first aspect was presented as
something we, Australians should be proud of, whereas the second point was
indulgently presented as being quite cute.

A few years ago, a survey found Britons were less happy than in the 1950s despite
the fact that we are three times richer. The proportion of people saying they were
very happy had fallen from 52% in 1957 to just 36%. It seems it cannot buy you
happiness. All around us we see a society that is deeply dissatisfied and obsessed
with getting ahead; whether its the next career move, making home improvements
or pushing our children to do well at school (this from Fisher, R., CrossWay Issue
Autumn 2010 No. 118). The findings are similar in other parts of the Western world:
Financial security, a sense of purpose in life, and good personal relationships make
up the "golden triangle" of happiness, is the finding of one of Australias latest wellbeing surveys. Interestingly, the lowest level of contentment, when looking per state,
was Western Australia, at the time of the survey (2011), the most affluent state of the
federation, whereas Tasmania was found to be the least discontented, even though it
was economically the most modest state. Markedly absent in the findings (which are
quite vague, lacking in definition) was contentment found in the realm of the
metaphysical, a close relationship with Jesus Christ, which might with some
justification lead to the conclusion that Christians are now officially, statistically, in an
Australian hollow of the myrtle trees (see below).
To help us learn contentment, we will be taking a short lesson from the book The
Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, by the Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs.
Burroughs reminds us that contentment is about the heart. It is an inward
characteristic. Contentment gives glory to God because it shows we trust Him to run
the universe. We show ourselves satisfied with his wisdom and goodness. The
Scripture gives awesome assurance to the Christian in this department, as our key
text informs us in Zechariah 1:7-11 where we may read, On the twenty-fourth day
of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the
word of the LORD came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the
prophet: I saw by night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and it stood among
the myrtle trees in the hollow; and behind him were horses: red, sorrel, and white.
Then I said, "My lord, what are these?" So the angel who talked with me said to me,
"I will show you what they are." And the man who stood among the myrtle trees
answered and said, "These are the ones whom the LORD has sent to walk to and fro
throughout the earth." So they answered the Angel of the LORD, who stood among
the myrtle trees, and said, "We have walked to and fro throughout the earth, and
behold, all the earth is resting quietly."

The LORD of all the earth is standing among the myrtle trees in the hollow, that is,
He is standing in the midst of His Church, even when she is in a hollow, at a low
point, with powers and nations towering over her. Matthew Henry comments that the
LORD is seated on a red horse, denoting how He is jealous over His Bride and
exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease. This is confirmed in verses 14
and 15. And indeed, she is the apple of His eye as may be read in Zechariah 2:8,
For thus says the LORD of hosts: "He sent Me after glory, to the nations which
plunder you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye.
The messengers of the LORD travel the earth and report that its inhabitants are at
ease, that is they are carnally secure, secure in their creature comforts. This is a
worry for those who care for Gods world, who are discerners of the times, and it
reminds them of what the Lord Jesus said when announcing the imminent
destruction of Jerusalem, referring back to the days of Noah (Luke 17:26, 27) a time
also when people were at ease, busy doing their own thing with no thought toward
God, resulting in annihilation. Furthermore, it takes only a quick look at the world
empires in history to notice how they came to an ignominious end: primarily, they
destroyed themselves from within as vices such as debauchery, homosexuality, and
other immoralities took their firm hold of societal modi operandi. Babylon is said to
stagger under its own burden of violently acquired wealth and weakening itself,
ready to be overrun by its previous conquests with ease (Habakkuk 2:7-8); Rome
was beset by internal termite destruction before the vandals overran it, the list goes
on.
There is nothing new under the sun. Erstwhile President of the USA Henry Ford has
been known to say that history is bunk, as he saw the study of history essentially as
a waste of time. A more intelligent view would be that those who do not learn from
history are wont to repeat it.
The Australian Way of Life, how many are the wise historians, how many are the
Issacharians (who had understanding of the times, 1 Chronicles 12:32) in our ruling
circles who understand where that way of life is heading? A Danish news reporter (on
the Cross Fire television programme, December, 2015) showed this understanding
when she commented in the context of the Wests dealings with Islamic countries.
She said, We will never come to an understanding with the Muslims of this world
with our increasingly secularised way of life, with our so-called democratic agenda,
because we have lost our frame of reference, we have lost our Judeo-Christian
moorings upon which we could dialogue meaningfully if not always agreeably with them.
The Australian way of life, it is dominated by a focus which was promoted in
debauched Rome, panem et circenses, bread and circuses. The Roman emperors
used this slogan and practice to placate the spoiled Romans. It is now enculturated
in the Australian way of life to distract the populace from the deeper issues of life, by
creating a cotton wool bed of indulgence, trivial pursuit, and avalanche upon
avalanche of entertainment. In the midst of this, the one and only Hope is the Lord
standing in the midst of the myrtle trees myrtle trees who in turn are to be the
conscience of this nation at ease, giving the only meaningful foundation to the
Australian Way of Life.

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance George Bernard Shaw (Irish
playwright, 1856-1950)