The Times We Live In

How about this for an opening line:

"Senior minister of a Sydney Anglican parish attacks High Court judge Michael Kirby"

Seriously, what did he do? Throw a punch, throw a Bible?
Where did it happen? The front steps of the high court? A backyard BBQ?

Oh, you mean he just wrote him a letter.

This is the sequence of events.

High Court judge Michael Kirby called himself an Anglican Christian on public radio.
Anglican clergyman Reverend Richard Lane heard the claim, knowing Kirby to be a publicly proud practicing homosexual Lane wrote a letter to Kirby.

Lane wrote a private letter to Kirby on the basis of his claim to be an Anglican Christian. If you call yourself an Anglican Christian you put yourself under the discipline of the Anglican Church.

Lane's letter was blunt and uncompromising. But it did not raise issues that Kirby had not raised himself on radio. It did not seek to humiliate or harm Kirby in any way and was sent for Kirby's good.

That it was written from a different set of assumptions to Kirby's is clear. That it offends the sensibilities of the Herald writer is clear.

What is less clear in the article is that it was hardly an 'attack'.

From the words quoted in the article it is clear that Lane did not vilify, impugn, belittle, abuse or in any way mistreat Kirby. He clearly showed the inconsistency between Kirby's claims and his practice.

Yet this is portrayed as a vitriolic attack.

These are the times we live in.

Mt 5:11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Jn 15:20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.