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“For over 200 years, the different Christian traditions have watered the heartlands of Australian life, served the battlers, built communities, brought compassion to the suffering. … Our task is to ensure
that these spiritual waters continue to run strong and deep.”
- Archbishop George Pell
This is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. During the past week there have been some
notable statements on Jewish-Christian relations, and while some Jewish writers disown the commonly used expression ‘Judaeo-Christian’ we can safely say that, since Jesus was a Jew, we owe a good deal to the Jewish
tradition. It is therefore appropriate in this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity that we reflect on Jewish-Christian relations.
In his first public function in Sydney since his installation, the archbishop
named continuing respectful dialogue on important matters such as the defence of and the promotion of belief in “the one true God”, and the family as issues that Jews and Catholics could work on together. The
archbishop was addressing the NSW Council of Christians and Jews.
He pointed out that in the last 50 years, many more
people have come to say they profess no religious belief and “the spread of
secularism is putting significant stress on all mainline religions.”
As well as promoting belief, Jews and Christians could also co-operate in declaring their belief in the blessings of both motherhood and
children, said Archbishop Pell, who also saw some value in “limited, tight legislation outlawing incitement to racial or religious hatred.”
Rabbi David Rosen, president of the International Council of
Christians and Jews, also addressed the meeting. He said the last 35 years had seen a mind-boggling transformation in interfaith relations. From being regarded as a curse, his people had become a respected world
community. He stressed the need to fully search our understanding of our beliefs for we live at a great moment of history. We enjoy undreamt of possibilities, but also great dilemmas and moral challenges in science,
medicine, technology, human social relations, distribution of resources, and the raising of children, he said.
The rabbi spoke of the scriptural heritage shared by Christians and Jews, and quoted Pope John
Paul II: “Abraham and his descendants are called in Genesis to be a blessing to humankind. In order for us to be a blessing to humankind, we have to be a blessing to each other.”
But Jacob Neusner, in his
Jews and Christians: The Myth of a Common Tradition, is less positive. He believes Jews and Christians have to face up to their differences. We have no language in common, he says, and he discounts the scriptures we
share.
The conclusion? We need to respect the beliefs of others and honestly value each other’s religions, but it is naïve to expect much more.
WHAT PRICE THE WORKPLACE?
Women and the price working mothers pay to be in the workplace is in the news again. So why ever did women want to get into the savage workplace? For the same reasons as men, of course!
There were all
those men out there having an exciting time, meeting all sorts of interesting people, laughing, whingeing, bullying, dodging – in short, living!
And what were women doing? Cleaning the house, feeding the
baby, washing the nappies – all in a small house with no excitement, no mental challenge about it. Once there would have been a grandmother or sister or aunt to gossip with and help with the baby. But, no more. Not
in the doll’s houses we live in now with no room for anyone but the immediate nuclear family.
But there are other reasons for wanting to join the workforce too. The economic clout of money, of course!
But what a price women pay. Always rushing. Getting the children off to school in a rush, rushing to do the chores, then rushing to work. Then home again to children and husband, and yet more work.
Oh, for
the pre-industrial days when men and women worked at home. Life was hardly all sweetness and light then either, but, despite rhetoric to the contrary, this was a time when women and men worked together, and domestic
life and working life were not so separate.
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