Surely this is a sign that we may now be in a property bubble.

I am wondering whether the recent signing of the Trans-Tasman Court Proceedings and Regulatory Enforcement Agreement was a motivating factor for the settlement. Once ratified, the agreement will allow certain civil judgments in one jurisdiction to be enforced in the other.

Given Mr Williams’ stated desire to play for the All Blacks, which will require him to enter New Zealand from time to time, having an adverse judgment from the Supreme Court of New South Wales possibly being enforced in New Zealand may prove very inconvenient.

Then again, I may be methodologically mad.

It is worth quoting at length (links are clearly mine):

… Happiness is not a function of our material wellbeing but, rather, of beliefs which shape values and attitudes and determine whether or not we have hope and whether or not we are in effective relationships with others. Those are the things that I think will determine the strength of the nation in the future.

I say to the House that, ultimately, the beliefs of the people will shape our society for better or for worse in the long run. That is of greater material interest to us all, including in government, because we are a function of a society that puts us here and supports us or chooses to withdraw its support. One of the reasons that I believe the government is absolutely right to insist on the better teaching of history is that it will help us to understand the consequences, for good and for bad, of different belief systems or of no belief systems. Whilst I would obviously recognise the need to separate church and state, I do think we need to put our young people in a position where they are better able to make judgements about what they believe and why and what will work for them and our society.

This year, 2007, is in fact the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade—not slave ownership itself; that took another 30 years to achieve—by the then global superpower, Great Britain. It is sobering to realise that just 200 years ago freedom was only a far-off dream for an estimated, according to the reliable historians—or the ones I would regard as reliable—90 per cent of humanity. Most of humanity was either in slavery or little better off in serfdom—and, of course, in our country, they were in irons.

The story of William Wilberforce and his supporters, as told in Amazing Grace, is a story of transformed lives transforming society. It is an astonishingly powerful story, the outcomes of which were of undeniably great benefit not only to those slaves who gained their freedom but to all of society as well. Our freedoms grew historically as we expanded our understanding of who belonged to the family of human beings. Our freedoms, I note in passing, will contract as we exclude people from the human family.

The ending of the slave trade came about through the first of the great human rights campaigns—perhaps the biggest of them all—and, arguably, the first major modern political campaign. It led directly to a further political campaign: to end the corruption of the electoral system in Great Britain, to enable in 1833 a truly representative parliament to act on the people’s wishes and to actually free the slaves—having ended the trade—whose owners were granted massive compensation. What for? For the loss of their goods and chattels. But we do not think of black people as goods and chattels anymore; we recognise them fully as members of the human family.

It is a very powerful story, yet only 500,000 people have been to see Amazing Grace. I wish every Australian could see it. It gives great and valuable insights into our society—into the condition that we confront as people. And as we confront our endless problems—terrorism, global warming, energy security and the epidemic of depression, as I have mentioned, that sweeps the modern age—we can, I think, learn a lot more from history than we have been doing to date. I am convinced that history shows us that a loss of the beliefs or, worse, a denial of the beliefs that a culture is built on will ultimately lead to the decline and even destruction of that culture.

Dawkins and Hitchins et al would have us believe that the problem is that we have not been secular enough. They would say that we ought to be more secular. As I see it, we gave secularism a great run in the 20th century. We tried atheistic communism and got 60 million dead in Russia and we got the killing fields of Pol Pot—and goodness only knows how many dead in China. We tried atheistic right-wing fascism in Germany and beyond and got the gas chambers and another 60 million dead. Today we are not so arrogant; we are beginning to question again. But I would urge that we learn the lessons of history when we seek out and respond to the truth. When we do not sit on the fence, we in fact will find that truth is available to us. I deeply and sincerely believe that. I think if Wilberforce were here today he would say, ‘Your society is not so different to the one that I have been active in, and the great truth remains,’—challenging us that the central figure in history said to us: ‘There is such a thing as the truth, and I am it and the way to God is through me.’ I put that challenge there. We are free to respond either way, but I say that as a society we should no longer go on ignoring it. We can no longer go on skirting around it, either as individuals or collectively.

Consider the following observations.

1. For many industries, the Australian market is simply too small to sustain anything more competitive than an oligopoly. This is contributed by the country’s big physical size and small population, which result in more industries to exhibit characteristics of natural monopolies when compared with other economies.

   Notice how in Australia there are only a small number of large competitors in key industries. Examples include telecommunications (Telstra and Optus), supermarkets (Woolworths and Coles), banks (the Big 4, sustained by government policy), department stores (Myer and David Jones) and domestic airlines (Qantas/Jetstar, Virgin Blue). It is interest to note how Ansett collapsed shortly after the arrival of Virgin Blue.

2. This means the players are able to price discriminate to maximise profits. This largely explains the tabloid current affairs shows’ complaints about grocery prices from the same chain being so different among different suburbs in the same city, much more greater than the difference in transport costs. People in affluent areas with little competition are charged more for groceries than those in less affluent areas, or areas where stronger competition exists (e.g. Aldi). And this is all perfectly legal.

3. Some players seek economic rent quite boldly. Good examples of this include the telecommunications and international airline industries. Players in these industries defend public and vigorously their power to set prices. Whether this sort of behaviour benefits the consumers is unclear.

4. Simple supply and demand still explain a lot. Petrol prices are higher on weekends and public holidays because it is likely that more people want petrol on those days. It’s probably uneconomic (cost-wise) for petrol companies to ramp up production for such a short period of time in such a short period of time. This is probably a more feasible explanation than collusion or price fixing among petrol companies (although this can’t be ruled out without a thorough examination).

God is not man, that he should lie,
  or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
  Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfil it? Numbers 23:19

Just food for thought.

The thesis can be summarised as follows. The economic system in the Old Testament Israelite society has the following features:

• Almost completely free markets
• Codified property rights
• Limited government
• Low, flat rate taxation
• Restrictions on land transfer (reversion to original owner’s family every 50 years)
• Restrictions on lending (prohibition of interest, cancellation every 7 years)

Mills concluded:

Hence the biblical model had a strong underlying current of concern for the poor. Yet its approach to the distribution of wealth and income was radically different from the familiar approach of redistributive taxes and welfare benefits. … Its aim was to ensure that everyone, even the poorest, was able to gain access at some time in his or her life to the means of production (in this case, land); that no-one was in debt or debt bondage for more than seven years; that the primary responsibility for care of the poor was the extended family and local community; and that no-one could entrench their wealth through simply lending money at interest without risk.

Are there any benefits in adopting aspects of this system to the current economic system?

This article suggests that the College Council is seriously considering various (rather large) educational sites in Sydney, including UTS’ Kuring-gai campus, University of Sydney’s Cumberland campus, greenfields in outer Sydney or even the proposed education precinct at Sydney Olympic Park.

Interestingly, there not that much mention of Liverpool, where it all began.

The community service could take many forms, from being an army cadet to helping with chores at the local retirement village. It could be helping community groups or churches or charities.

If it goes ahead (realistically I doubt it), I wonder what evangelistic opportunities having young people being “forced” into churches would bring.

Yes, I know that the transcripts for the Boyer Lectures are available free from the ABC web site, but I bought the book anyway. It so happens to include an extra chapter not part of the radio lectures.

It looks like that the review will be quite lengthy, so I will place a snip here.

Preliminary observations

If you have been following what’s been happening in Sydney Anglicanism over the past few years, you wouldn’t be surprised about the topic of this year’s lectures.

The title of the series, The Future of Jesus is really a misnomer. The Scriptures make it quite clear what the future of Jesus will be, e.g. 1 Corinthians 15:20-28. What is really being discussed here can be found in the following quote from the final lecture:

I am not really worried about the future of Jesus without this nation to support him; he will survive and prosper. But I am deeply concerned about the future of this nation without Jesus.

This sets the tone for the rest of my review.

Argument

In the introductory lecture, Jesus and his future, Jensen made the observation that while Jesus’ influence on modern Australian culture is prevalent, he is not readily acknowledged or well known. Jesus in his historical context seemed so far removed from modern society, so why the influence? What does one make of his constant pronouncements about the future coming of the kingdom of God?

The second lecture, Jesus, religious genius or failed prophet, introduces a number of alternatives. One is to reduce Jesus to a great moral teacher (“religous genius”), although this does not take care of his pronouncements about the kingdom of God. Another is to see Jesus as a prophet, although the problem remains that the kingdom of God he preached has not yet come (physically), thus “failed prophet”. The third way would be “Jesus’ reply”: The kingdom has arrived.

If the kingdom has already arrived, what brought it forth? This leads to a discussion on Jesus, was he miraculous? One may dismiss a priori that miracles are impossible, and even if one does not, the fact that Jesus was crucified shows that he was a failed prophet. But then again, it was Jesus’ very crucifixion and subsequent resurrect that let loose the kingdom of God, as prophesied in the Old Testament.

The fourth lecture, *Jesus or Caesar, the choice of martyrs, examines two examples of Jesus’ influence exhibited in the kingdom of God, martyrdom and the church.

Although it has been shown that Jesus has been so influential in history, the kingdom has proclaimed has not “fully come”. This is the subject of Jesus and the millenium, will he never come back?. The discussion particularly focussed on the influence of dispensational premillenialism on American foreign policy in the Middle East, and how it does not really fit into the biblical-theological framework. What, then, is the value of those promises about the future of the kingdom? That depends on the promisor.

The series concludes with Jesus, freedom and the choices we make, which deals with the concept of freedom. The discussion contrasts between individualist consumerism (the prevailing view of freedom) from both what was the original philosophies of the major political parties in Australia, and the freedom offered by Jesus. This freedom is one of choosing to do good, to serve others and to be mutually dependent.

An extra chapter not included in the lecutures, Jesus and the question of faith, deals with the concept of faith, and in particular faith in Jesus.

Comment

I did not come to the lectures with any expectations at all. While I am familiar with the subject matter, I do realise that this is supposed to be an intellectual discussion in a secular context.

Overall, I found the exercise stimulating, particularly for “less widely read” person like me. I like to see the interactions between the Christian worldview and other prevailing worldviews, for it confirms the soundness of Christian thinking. God created this world, after all.

It will be interesting to see how non-Christians will react to these lectures. News coverage has not been spectacular by popular standards, but it may be so for an intellectual series like the Boyer Lectures. I don’t know.

Nevertheless, sometimes I find the logic difficult to follow, particularly in between chapters/lectures. I’ve never read a set of radio lectures before, so it might be due to the medium itself more than anything.

Buy this book, or read it for free at the ABC web site. If you are willing to spend intellectual energy, you will probably find it stimulating.

1. Submitting to God through submitting to and praying for the authorities (e.g. Romans 13:1-7; 1 Timothy 2:1-2)
2. Submitting to God despite the authorities (e.g. Daniel 3:8-23; Acts 5:17-32)

It can be particularly interesting in a democracy when, at least theoretically, we are the authorities.

Thus it’s useful that the New College Lectures for 2005 is on the topic of the relationship between church and state.

Of particular interest is John Anderson’s contribution. Rather than asking whether the church should involve itself in politics, he asked whether the state (in its liberal democratic form) can survive without the church.

In a developmental sense, the Western liberal democratic State is indivisibly reliant upon a Biblical view of humanity, the individual, community and responsibility. Historically, Christians (e.g. the Clapham Sect) have contributed significantly to the State.

For the future, this must continue. The Church must have a distinct world view that allows it to contribute thoughtfully and theologically to public life. It is a world view that must understand the State temporally, contribute widely and have relationship as central. For Christians to fail in this area would neglect the State to which we have a responsibility.

There was even a media release.

Do read the transcripts of the four lectures in full.

EDIT 4 October 2006: Fixed links with new New College web site.