This week is the 150th anniversary of the Eureka rebellion. In December 1854, in Ballarat, Victoria, small gold miners, angered by Government taxes in the form of miners' licences and heavy handed tactics by the police acting as licence inspectors, erected a barricade at a place called Eureka and staged a local uprising. They designed and flew a flag still used today, especially by unionist and anti-establishment groups.

Right now there is a huge Eureka flagflying from the flagpole in the centre of Canberra, where the Australian Capital Territory usually displays its flag. The ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope says the around 200 flags will be shown around the city for the next week to celebrate the 150th anniversary. "I think it's day when you can say the fight for justice, the fight for democracy and the fight for representation really reached its zenith and was successful in Australia at Ballarat 150 years ago," he said. Well that may be an overstatement; the rebellion was soon crushed and its impact was small. But the Eureka miners have a lasting place in Australian lore as as opponents of injustice and probably the only non-Aboriginal group in our history to stage an armed rebellion against government authority.

The original flag, carefully restored but still rather tattered, is now in the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery.Also known as the Southern Cross, it was first raised at the mass meeting of miners at Bakery Hill on 29 November, 1854. It was a huge flag, four times the size of a contemporary Australian flag and hoisted on a flagpole nearly 25m high. It became the miners’ focal point – they built their stockade around it and, led by Peter Lalor, took the oath beneath it.

Captain Ross, a Canadian miner on the goldfields, is said to have designed the flag. He was fatally wounded in the Eureka shootout and died next to the flag after being carried to it by a number of friends, including Charles Doudiet.

Tradition says that three women made the flag: Anastasia Withers, Anne Duke and Anastasia Hayes.

After the stockade was overrun, the flag was taken down by Police Constable John King, with pieces torn off as souvenirs. It remained in the King family for over forty years before being donated to the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery. The flag lay seemingly forgotten for 80 years. In 1973 it was restored by Valda D'Angri – the great-great granddaughter of Anasatasia Withers.

After 120 years the flag was once again open to public view when Prime Minister Gough Whitlam unveiled it at the Gallery.

During the bitter 1891 Queensland shearer's strike which, though it failed, is important in Australian labour history, the Eureka flag was flown again at the striker's camp in Barcaldine, Qld, and celebrated by poet Henry Lawson in the Worker of 16 May 1891:

So we must fly a rebel flag,
as others did before us;
and we must seeing a rebel song,
and join in rebel chorus.
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting
O' those that they would throttle,
They needn't say the fault is ours,
If blood should stain the wattle.

ABC News reports that the Senate has voted to display the Eureka flag in the foyer of the Senate chamber on Friday to commemorate anniversary. This decision by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate not to fly the Eureka flag outdoors at Parliament House. Labor Senator Gavin Marshall, says it is sad only some people at Parliament will be reminded of an important event in Australia's history. "'Every other state and territory Parliament will be flying the flag, it will even be flown overseas in some areas, and I think it is quite silly of the Federal Government to take the position that it's taken," he said. "It's an historic symbol, a symbol that we should be proud of, and we should be proud to fly it."

Meanwhile conservative Senator Brett Mason could resist the opportunity for a shot at his labor opponenets in the Senate yesterday. "It never ceases to amaze me," he said "how this simple yet powerful story has been stolen by those on the left of Australian politics and how a giant myth was created to portray the events in Ballarat those 150 years ago as some sort of watershed in the history of the labour movement, socialism and radicalism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet the fact that many Australians think of the Eureka Stockade as class warfare turned particularly violent tells us less about what actually happened than about the Left's dominance in shaping our country's perception of itself." Hmmm ... ?

James' daughter Kim Ho Jung returned to Korea from Australia nearly two years ago with a degree in graphic design and now is successfully established as a designer with the up-market Korean fashion house SSAMZIE. Working with other Korean designers, she has a hectic life, organizing exhibitions and parties. She is also preparing to publish a book with two other designers. Recently she was interviewed for Design Jungle, a design website produced by Korea's largest design company, Yoon Design Inc.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's 2004 Boyer Lectures. Each year the ABC invites a prominent Australian to present a series of talks on a social, cultural, scientific or political theme. In Tales of Two Hemispheres, Peter Conrad will chart our transformation from a place of punshment, seemingly disconnected from God, to a place with an desirable attractive life style. Australian artists have asserted cultural independence from the north and Conrad reflects on the evolution of our modern multi-culture. He will explore Australia's changing view of itself as a place "up over" and not "down under". So, South is up.

Reuters reports that during a service marking the 40th anniversary 40th anniversary, on November 21, of the Vatican Council II Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis redintegratio, Pope John Paul has singled out Anglican disagreements about homosexuality as an obstacle to Christian unity. "Unfortunately, we are faced with new problems, especially those of an ethical nature, where new divisions which impede a common witness have sprouted," he said. According to the Reuters reporter, "This was a clear reference to the crisis currently besieging the Anglican communion after the Episcopalian Church in the United States appointed an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire."Oh dear, here we go again, blaming the faggots for our troubles.The Pope apparently fails to mention that the greatest source of Christian disunity for many centuries has been his own office -- the Papacy. The Great Schism, in which the Eastern and Western churches split in 1054, had much to do with misapplication of papal power. Aspects of Roman doctrine unacceptable to Protestants are largely underpinned by papal pronouncement. Yet John Paul's Pontificate has seen a marked strengthening of centralised papal of authority within the Roman Catholic church.Please, your Holiness, set your own house in order before casting blame on a sister fellowship that is struggling to achieve an openness and acceptance that you have denied.

Looking for a really big read? Try the the new Oxford edition of the Dictionary of National Biography, just 60 volumes, about 50,000 articles and 60,000 pages. A snap at £6,500, or online for £195 per year. A magnificent work of scholarship and publishing, but I'll wait until the library buys one -- or I could put an extra room on the house?

After months of waiting, only one week to go before we move from here, just a short distance . . . to our new, larger, home, complete with an extra bedroom and a garden courtyard. Just in time for Summer!

Remembrance Day. War is foolish and obscene. But it's no bad thing to remember with gratitude those who sacrificed themselves -- or were sacrificed at the orders of others.

As part of a piece called "Dedication", from his Permit me voyage (Yale, 1934) James Agee wrote what must be one of the most horrendous curses ever written, against those who prolong conflict to profit from the arms trade.

To those men who, of all nations unhindered, to all nations faithless, make it their business to destroy concord and to incite war and to prolong it, for their profit in the commerce of armament: to those governors of nations who, in full knowledge of this, visit upon them neither punishment nor restriction nor disapproval, but are accomplices, exhorting and deceiving and compelling the men for whose good life they rule deliberately into death, and death's danger, and the shattering of flesh and spirit. Of these merchants and of these rulers may the loins thaw with a shrieking pain, and may there be slow nails in the skulls of each, and may lost winds of plague unspeakable alight like flies upon their flesh, here in this earth and by public arrangement, to the sweet entertainment of all men of good will: and in their death may the vengeance of God shock their flesh from their bones, and their bones off the air, and all that was of them be reduced to the quintessence of pain very eternal, from moment to moment more exquisite everlastingly, by a geometrical increase: unless by improbable miracle they repent themselves straightway and for good.

Notes on True Union in the Body?

Some time ago, the ' Anglican Institute ', distributed the small book True union in the body? to every Anglican bishop. The Institute is an 'educational outreach ministry' of Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church of Colorado Springs, Colorado, whose Rector, the Reverend Donald Armstrong is its Director.

Archbishop Gomez of the West Indies commissioned the booklet following the 2002 Summer School of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, which was a conference on 'The Future of Anglicanism'. The authors of True union in the body? are not stated.

The title is a play on words--the booklet presents a point of view about same-sex christian couples in the context of the body of Christ. But is also motivated by a concern to preserve unity within the Anglican Communion, believing that initiatives to allow the 'blessing' of same-sex unions may fracture the Communion.

One of the working groups at the Summer School discussed "The nature of communion" and issued the Oxford Declaration on Faith and Order, which is reprinted inTrue union in the body? The authors of the statement were: Bishop Maurice Sinclair, Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti, Bill Atwood, Bishop Anthony Burton, Bishop John Chew, Bishop Robert Duncan, George Egerton, Bishop Ron Ferris, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Michael Green, Richard Kew, Bishop Joseph Lee, Bishop Peter Lee, Archbishop Donald Mtetemela, Bishop Cyril Okorocha, Ephraim Radner, Archbishop Yong Ping Chung. The Statement expresses concern at the harm that may be done to Anglican unity, especially in North America, by proposals to bless same-sex unions.

Archbishop Gomez has been particularly vocal for some years in his opposition to blessing of same-sex unions, repeatedly cautioning that action to this end by the North American church would weaken its witness to the gospel and irredeemably damage the unity of Anglican Communion. Thus for example, he was one of a number of non-Canadian bishops who wrote to the Synod of the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada urging it not to adopt a motion that would allow blessing of same-sex unions.

To fully discuss the arguments ofTrue union in the body?would be tedious and repeat much of what appears elsewhere -- especially as one would have to comment not only on the authors' views but also on their sometimes poor characterisation of their opponents' views. However, I have made a short summary as this publication may continue to have an unhelfpul influence for some years (see below).  I do agree with the writers that it is far from clear what the church would be doing in 'blessing' a same sex union. I would add that the church does not 'bless' anything, but rather that it seeks (invokes?) God's blessing. For many gay and lesbian couples, I suggest, the question is not really about 'blessing'. We do hope, however, that our fellow church members may acknowledge committed, monogamous God-fearing relationships, mention them freely in conversation and feel free to celebrate them.

Summary of the arguments ofTrue Union in the Body?

The authors write from a concern that the response of the Anglican churches to homosexuality, and in particular to the question of recognition and blessing same-sex unions, "threatens to divide Anglican churches in the West and fracture the whole Anglican Communion."

They hope that their paper, "will strengthen the Church's unity through facilitating charitable dialogue and mutual listening within a Communion firmly committed to upholding orthodox, biblical sexual morality in its public teaching and ceremonies and its pastoral practice." (p.47)

The authors argue that the desire to recognise same-sex unions comes mainly from the West. Although this desire may come from in a commitment to pastoral care and outreach to gay and lesbian people, the authors suggest that it is threatening to the churches outside the West who sense a "corruption of the Church's biblical teaching by an imperialist, consumerist and highly sexualised culture". (p.48)

The authors find that "Opposition to the legitimisation of same-sex unions is rooted deeply within Scripture and Christian theology", especially because of (1) a biblical understanding that we are created in the image of God as male and female and (2) the "created institution" (p. 48) of marriage between a man and a woman. There is "no scriptural warrant", they argue, for the church to change its "traditional" view the church that rightly ordered sexual desires requires a choice between (heterosexual) marriage and abstinence.

Those who seek change, the authors contend, base their views primarily on what they see as be new and better fuller knowledge the phenomenon of same-sex orientation. But, they go on to argue, this remain uncertain from a biological or psychological perspective. Regardless of the findings of science, however, this in itself could not legitimate revising the Church's moral teaching. (p. 48). The church's teaching, "must instead be shaped by the gospel's account of human nature-as created, fallen and redeemed in Christ." (p.48)

The authors set out their understanding of the Biblical teaching, which they conclude leads to a clear disapproval of homosexual conduct. From this they conclude that the church's ministry "to those who understand themselves as homosexual must (like all its ministry) be one which repents of past failures and seeks to be reshaped by the gospel of God's grace."(p. 49)

Even if a persuasive biblical and theological case could be made for the blessing of same-sex unions, the authors say, there must be respect for "traditional Anglican formularies and polity before altering rites and ceremonies with an appeal to alleged rights of 'local option'." In view of the Lambeth 98 decision and Article 34 of the Thirty Nine Articles, it is argued that change to enable the blessing of same sex unions would be schismatic and of dubious validity.

Among all the reponses to the Windsor report,I am particularly impressed by an article "Institution over Inspiration?" by Bishop Paul Marshall of the Diocese of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania), published online in The Witness. Bishop Marshall says:

While I am glad this report recommends no draconian actions against anyone, I am still deeply saddened by it. I perceive water meeting oil: an essentially institutional response to what claims to be prophetic movement. Contrary to its stated desire, the report seems to impose a curial solution, elevating institution over inspiration in the absolute sense.

We must find less institutionalised ways to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

The history of Christianity is the history of different groups of people with different traditions, beliefs and practices who form the mass that we label 'Church'. The trouble begins when one group claims exclusive right to the title and shuts out all those who will not conform to its model. In the Celtic tradition of Christianity, which long resisted the attempts to conform its teaching and practice to the Roman model, the Holy Spirit is not represented as a white dove, tame and pure, but by a wild goose. Geese are not controllable, they make a lot of noise and have a habit of biting those who try and contain them. Geese fly faster and further in a flock than on their own. They also make excellent 'guard dogs'. Gay and lesbian Christians know that God's spirit is not a tame dove but a wild goose, free of ecclesiastical attempts to control and confine it, that makes its home in the most unlikely places. The Spirit comes not in quiet conformity but demanding to be heard. And its song is not sweet to many. This Spirit drives people together, demanding that they support and travel with each other. And it often forces those on whom it rests to become noisy, passionate and courageous guardians of the gospel. -- Editor's introduction to Daring to speak love's name, ed. Elizabeth Stuart (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992), p.15.