Israel Folau comprehensively upstaged the recent election campaign. But both leaders fled from the issue of his sacking by Rugby Australia over his social media posts, despite its obvious importance to ordinary people.

Why does religious freedom matter...because it does matter, I think, from a Christian perspective.

While many of us (over 28,000) in fact, have signed ACL’s open letter of support to Israel Folau, Peter and Kath Stevens along with their friends have gone a step further and actually stood in public for Izzy. Last Saturday Peter and a group of friends stood near the busy Blackwood roundabout in Adelaide with a sign “Freedom of Speech in Chains.”

A wise man once gave me a valuable principle for life.

“If you want to really understand an issue,” he said with a furrowed brow, “you shouldn’t just try to learn as much as you can about it.”

He paused, then explained himself.

“To really understand an issue, you need to grasp the organising principle that lies behind it.”

Conversion can be described – wholly or partly – in many ways.

Repentance, faith in Christ, regeneration, new birth, salvation, made alive, translated, sanctified, washed… To name a few.

But a word that does not describe conversion is “therapy.”

The truth of Easter speaks to the very attacks which have overshadowed it.

As most will know by now, at least three Sri Lankan hotels and three churches were bombed during Easter services at the weekend. Roughly 300 are dead, 450 wounded.

We must pray for these people in the hour of their suffering, and for their persecutors, as Jesus reminded us to do.

But Sri Lanka speaks of a reality that’s common on the global scene.

Prostitution has always been a human rights violation.

Talk of prostitution and you’re likely to hear someone refer to it as the world’s ‘oldest profession’. Abolitionists however, who want to see an end to exploitation and trafficking refer to it as the world’s ‘oldest oppression’. Mind you, prostitution is not something that most people discuss in polite conversation. But talk about it we must, as the NT Government has released a law reform discussion paper on the NT Prostitution Regulation Act and they are asking for feedback from all Territorians on proposed changes that will normalize prostitution, brothels, and therefore, exploitation.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe…” (Rom 1:16)

There was once a society very similar to our own.

Children were seen as a burden. They were routinely left to die in the hours after their birth, for the convenience of their parents, in a primitive abortion-like practice.

Just because a law exists in a statute or precedent does not make it right.

Psalm 94:20 speaks of “wicked rulers… who frame injustice by statute,” making a clear distinction between what is right, and what is law.

Most people resonate with that idea.

“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matt 6:33)

It’s budget night. The election is about to be called.

The government couldn’t be happier about the timing, because many people vote with their hip-pocket.