Food For Thought is a public theology & Bible advocacy blog for Eternity from Sophia Think Tank’s David Wilson, who gathers top Christian thinkers to take a closer look at how the Christian faith addresses matters in society at large every week.

The dominant attitude toward the Bible in the world today seems to be that it is irrelevant to modern life as we know it.  Sure, there is a bit of vitriol around the traps about how it’s an evil book that incites violence, degrades women, and bans sex, but mostly it’s that the Bible is a quaint relic of the past.  ‘It used to be worth reading (so I’m told) but its way out dated now’.  I want to challenge that assumption.

Firstly, let’s take a look at today’s paper, on line of course.  In the Age there’s a story about a Melbourne City Councillor blowing the whistle on some Asian developers who two years ago tried to bribe their way into having some favouritism in planning decisions at Town Hall.  They were told that this is not the way we do things in Australia.  We read that and cry foul at the idea of bribery and applaud any action that refuses such an approach.  We’ve seen that before in sport betting and in business life and the revelation that it exists in politics is not a major surprise but we never the less decry it enough for it to be front page news and the lead story on talk back radio the next day.  This type of attempt to ‘jump the queue’ and gain some advantage without working for it is very un-Australian…and very un-Biblical too, but more of that later.

Then there are the stories about sexism that have been hitting the presses and airwaves all week.  No matter where you stand politically you have the chance to join in the chorus against sexism in all of its varied forms and agree that it’s wrong.  The vilification of a group of people (in this case women and girls) is inappropriate and will not be tolerated.  The outcry has even caused Macquarie and then Webster Dictionaries to broaden the definition of misogyny.  We don’t approve sexism in Australia.  The Age is reporting that the Prime Minister’s public approval rating has climbed since her attack on the Leader of the Opposition for his perceived sexism.

One of the biggest news stories in the media recently in Victoria has been the damning police report given to a parliamentary inquiry on sexual abuse and the Church. ABC News On-Line reports that Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton has told the inquiry that the Catholic Church is more interested in protecting its reputation than helping victims of sexual abuse.  No matter where we find it sexual abuse sickens us.  In the church (all ‘brands’ are implicated, not just Catholic), in halls of power, in schools and universities, in the Scouting movement…we just won’t put up with it. We cry for better accountability, stricter rules, tougher penalties because it infuriates us.

On the other hand we love good news stories.  We read of a fire fighter rescuing a child from a burning house or an ‘ambo’ giving lifesaving intervention on the side of the road to the victim of a car crash, or a young person battling the odds of leukaemia and encouraging others with hope and inspiration and we stand and applaud.  This is good stuff.  More!  More!

Where do the values that lie beneath these responses come from?  People from all walks of life and with very different world views agree that bribery, sexual abuse, and sexism are not the right framework for a healthy society and that bravery, self-sacrifice, and overcoming adversity are characteristics of wellbeing. Julia Gillard is reported by David Marr as saying, in defence of her ability to make ethical judgements: ‘As an Atheist, I certainly believe that there are ethics and values that I hold that people who are not of faith can hold and believe in passionately and understand to be right’.  In stating that she sees no great divide between the ethics of the believer and the unbeliever she acknowledges that ‘our culture is steeped in Christian traditions’ and that as a church-goer in her youth she can’t distinguish between the values she learned as a member of the Gillard family and the values she learned in church.

This is not the time or place to debate the Prime Minister’s track record on these matters.  My point is merely to acknowledge the truthfulness of her statement regarding the development of values in this Country and to lament that many, if not most, people in Australia today don’t see that the Bible has had an enormous part to play in the development of what we as a society both applaud and deplore.  Neither is this the time to debate the Church’s track record on doing a good job of living these values out over the 2000 years.  The point is still valid.  Why do we call bribery bad and bravery good?  Well, at least partly, because the Bible has had a hand in developing our value system as a Society.  In the Bible bribery and sexual abuse and sexism are denounced as signs of a sick society and are seen as dehumanizing while bravery, self-sacrifice, and perseverance through the hardest of times are presented as signs of wellbeing.  The same could be said of a myriad of other values that lie beneath the structures of our world, our beliefs and our behaviour.

The Bible – a quaint relic of the past? No, far from it.  It’s as relevant as the day’s news and speaks into all the issues that grab our attention on a daily basis.  I reckon it’s time we gave it another hearing in an intelligent and open debate.

Food for thought.