Dear friends,
Before we start our 2026 Two Ways News series on 1 Corinthians, we need to have an important discussion on Bondi and antisemitism. This is something that neither of us imagined would happen. Not all our listeners will agree with our views, but we hope the thinking and discussion is helpful grist to the mill.
Yours,
Phillip
Phillip Jensen: Over the summer, we did a series focusing on Acts 17. That should take us to our 2026 series on 1 Corinthians; however, recent events have overtaken the discussions we previously had, especially about nations.
Firstly, President Trump’s actions in Venezuela raise concerns about what is going to happen next. The same uncertainty arises regarding whether Trump may involve troops in Iran. Nevertheless, the concept of the state and its sovereignty has been challenged in light of the US’s involvement in the affairs of these nations. Of course, this is not the first time that such events have occurred; the US has, in the past, been in conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. The concepts of national sovereignties and independence are not now as steady as we may like to think.
More telling, though, is the tragedy in Sydney with the terrorist shooting of people in Bondi at a Jewish festivity, during which 15 people were murdered. This has raised several issues regarding terrorism, Israel, and Jews within Sydney.
Peter: For both of us, the Jewish population in Sydney was very much our background growing up. We grew up in a strongly Jewish area, to the extent that I once thought that most of the world was Jewish. My wife Christine was raised in Bondi, and as the terrible photos emerged of the shootings in Bondi, she was looking at the place of her childhood, and at the very people amongst whom she grew up. When Phillip and I were children, a Jewish married couple lived next door to us who were refugees from Austria; they had arrived just as the Second World War began, and our parents were very friendly with them. Therefore, we have a particular feeling for Jewish people, as we have always had Jewish friends and neighbours.
Phillip: Indeed. Though there was a consciousness of difference between ourselves and the Jewish community. For example, we attended Sunday school, but our Jewish friends attended Saturday school. But at our Sunday school, all our heroes were Jewish. I was on the side of Moses and David; it never occurred to me to think of the Jews as anything other than heroes. As a result, antisemitism never seemed like a psychological possibility for either of us.
Peter: But it was strange that amongst some who were very friendly with Jewish people, there was also a slightly critical edge to their friendliness. I can remember, for example, standing with someone when a new car went by. The person I was standing with simply remarked, “Jews.” In other words, the Jewish people were known to be very successful in a way that others were not. But that comment wasn’t an instance of antisemitism, because the person I refer to was very supportive and friendly with Jewish people. But there was a sense of difference which this person felt.
Another instance in which the difference between ourselves and the Jews was clear to me was when we read the Bible in school, and the boy sitting next to me didn’t have the same Bible as I did. He seemingly only had half a Bible. I asked, “Where did you get this from?” to which he said, “From Sabbath school.” That was when I realised that the Bible had two parts: the Old and the New Testament. The point is that from the very beginning of our lives, Jewish people have been present and admired. We’ve had many friends who are Jewish, and we love them.
Phillip: When you look at the history of Australia, the contribution of the Jewish community to the welfare of our society has been massive. For example, the first Australian-born Governor-General was Sir Isaac Isaacs. They were part of our Australian community, and although they seemed to us to have their oddities, it was not difficult to accept and love them.
Peter: Antisemitism was not something that we grew up with. But it is real, undoubtedly.
Phillip: Historically, antisemitism has been present across the world. Pogroms against Jews have occurred in different parts of the world at different periods of history. Sadly, even Christians have taken it upon themselves to attack Jews. It is a great evil that we cannot accept, that we should be treating people as less than citizens and as less than full humans because of their Jewish heritage, as has happened. It rose to its worst, of course, under the Nazi regime. Peter and I, having been born at the end of the war and raised in the light of new information coming out about the Nazi treatment of Jews, came to recognise the Nazis as the greatest symbol of evil. I wonder to what extent, 80 years later, the generations that have been born subsequently, or have come to our country, are not living under the light of the Holocaust in the same way that we were. Even though the Jews have maintained Holocaust history, I’m not sure that society has to the same extent.
Peter: I think you’re right. The history is still there, but I don’t think it has the same bite as it did in our generation. However, it is important to realise the origins and the growth of antisemitism in Germany, because this history feeds into the contemporary world.
Jews in Germany likely comprised about 1% of the population. Knowing this, you may wonder why the Jews were picked on. There were several reasons, but one of them, as mentioned by Christopher Browning in his book, ‘The Origins of the Final Solution’,1 was that while there wasn’t initially a deep antisemitism in Germany, there was, particularly among some people, a considerable antagonism based upon the sheer success of the Jews. At the end of the 19th century, in a number of European states, a more liberal attitude had emerged, and some of the old laws against Jewish people were abolished. The Jewish people were, at last, given full citizenship and allowed to progress – and progress they did. This created a considerable degree of jealousy and antagonism, often among deeply conservative people who were committed to German culture. That certainly fed into the success of Nazism.
Phillip: Nazism also took hold of science. Hitler was very proud of creating a scientific society, but science at that time was heavily influenced by Darwinian eugenics. Out of Darwinianism came the sense of some biological systems being more “fit for existence” than others. Eugenics is the idea of ensuring that those who are “superior” breed and those who are “inferior” cease from living. This idea was popular not just in Nazi Germany. The concept of creating better quality people was popular across the world. It lay behind the issue of the Stolen Generation here in Australia: the idea of separating the “half-caste” Aboriginal people, as they were called, from the “full-blood”.
Eugenics lay behind a lot of what we now call racism. Today, ‘racism’ is a word that is used to cover a multitude of sins. If you don’t like someone, you may direct a racist comment towards them, which has got little to do with whether or not you believe they’re inferior to you on a biological basis. Whereas the Nazis argued that the Jews were ‘biologically inferior’ and should therefore be operated upon and killed. Add to that the geopolitical attitude towards the state of Israel, which was set up after the Second World War, to which people have very different attitudes. Antisemitism, through the Nazis, became focused on racism. For it wasn’t a rejection of their beliefs in the one God; it was the rejection of them as people. Subsequently, different people object to the Jews having a state. This has fed antisemitism leading up to the war of today. For a time when you and I were raised, antisemitism was severely looked down upon because that was immediately equated to Nazism. But in recent times, attitudes towards Zionism and the state of Israel have opened the doors again to people’s residual antisemitism.
Peter: I take it you’re saying that antisemitism has no place in Christian thinking. What was the attitude of Jesus, Paul and Peter in the New Testament?
Phillip: Of course, they were all Jewish; in fact, the first Christians were all Jewish. The presiding struggle in the New Testament was the question of whether you could be a Christian if you were not Jewish. Furthermore, the Jewish Christians saw Christ as the fulfilment of all the Jewish dreams, hopes, aspirations, and prophecies. Indeed, it was Jesus who not only fulfilled but also explained it and was the end point of the whole Jewish plan and the purposes of God. So the Christian is very pro-Jewish. In the sense of fulfilment, it changes our focus as Christians. We’re not theologically interested in Jerusalem, Palestine or Israel, for our city of God is above, where the Lord Jesus Christ reigns. So we talk of the New Jerusalem, but the New Jerusalem for us comes from heaven. So many of the Old Testament practices—the priests, the sacrifices, the altar, the temple—were all fulfilled spiritually in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we do not go back to that kind of Judaism, but we never reject Judaism because we know that our faith goes to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. It was God’s ancient people who led us into the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If God can make us Gentiles into his people, it is so much easier for him to make his ancient people into his people. Chapters 9 to 11 of Romans speak on those issues. Thus we have no right to ever despise, look down on, or reject God’s ancient people.
Peter: No, indeed. Though we may disagree deeply with their religion, we invite discussion and invite faith in Christ, as they have every right to speak to us.
This discussion has been stimulated by the awful shootings at Bondi. There have previously been killings at a shopping centre in Bondi Junction. What are the differences?
Phillip: Bondi Junction, for those who don’t know Sydney, is two miles away from Bondi Beach, where there was once a tram junction. But the killing at the shopping centre was the result of a man with mental problems. It wasn’t aimed at Jewish people; if anything, it was aimed at women. Whereas the Bondi Beach attack was aimed at the Jewish people celebrating Hanukkah out in the open air. It was conducted by two Muslim men who were advocating ISIS and killed out of their beliefs in the rightness of killing Jews. This is the extreme horror of antisemitism. But antisemitism in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, where Bondi is located, had been increasingly present for a while before that. The synagogue next to the church I attend always has 2 or 3 guards outside every Sabbath. Additionally, a protective wall surrounds it, and there are cameras on the wall surveilling everybody who comes in. We don’t have these measures outside the church, but they are present outside every synagogue in Sydney, as with the Jewish school. The massacre is just the end point, the worst of the worst, and it has finally provoked our government to take action against antisemitism. But I worry about how these actions are going into effect.
Peter: Of course, when something like this occurs, there is a general outcry, as people look to the government to do something. For example, we’ve had a haste to change the gun laws. There’s now a royal commission to be called, and an introduction of legislation against hate speech. These are thought to constitute an answer of some sort. All three of those things may have their strengths, though I doubt that they will be particularly effective. Looking back over many decades, I have found that royal commissions are often called to make people think that something is happening, yet not much happens in response. Changing the gun laws may be a good idea, but it’s not going to solve this problem, because people will still find ways to possess guns if they want to. The whole issue of hate speech certainly needs a great deal of thought before it’s introduced. We abandoned censorship many years ago, but now we’re in a sense reintroducing censorship of a different sort. Where will it stop? How do we define it? How do we know what people are thinking? How is speech linked to hate?
They are passing laws about these things, which hardly constitutes an answer. The government doesn’t solve all of our problems, any more than the public service can; this is a problem for every one of us. We need to step back, and we need to ask ourselves what is happening in the way our nation is constituted that such an event could occur. We need to ask, “What aspects of the way in which our nation has developed may have contributed to it?” As our listeners and readers know, I’m not a young person, nor am I optimistic, but I did previously think to myself that the placement of guards outside the Jewish schools and synagogues was overdoing things. I thought, “This is Australia. We are not going to see something here like what they are suggesting.” How wrong I was. What is there about our nation that such a thing could happen? We must look deep within our own hearts, because it’s got more to do with what’s going on in the heart of our nation and the individual than with policies and laws.
Phillip: Generally, we need to do something about this. It is not right that people need to have guards outside their schools and synagogues. Things need to change, and we do need to investigate. The Royal Commission is the way to investigate the contribution that our government and its policies have made towards this issue. They will assess whether in the last few years, particularly since October 7th of 2023, we have acted rightly, or whether we should have clamped down on certain demonstrations. However, such a solution is like putting band-aids on a cancerous growth. There’s a fundamental problem that we have established, and seemingly, the solution being offered is to change the gun laws.
I have never owned a gun, nor do I want to. But changing the gun laws is not going to prevent such things from happening again. During the investigation, police found explosives left in a car; changing a gun law won’t prevent people from leaving bombs in cars. But the problem is not simply the band-aid solution to the cancerous growth. I’m afraid of overreach in what the government is doing. In trying to solve a problem, they create more problems. Some years ago the government enforced upon us the philosophy of multiculturalism, in opposition to the policy of assimilation. But when one person, by their culture, feels justified to shoot into a crowd of a group exercising a different culture, it is evident that multiculturalism has not worked. However, when laws are brought in against hate speech and about social cohesion, we may wind up with a society similar to the Soviet Union under Stalin. That’s exactly what the Gulag Archipelago was about; it enabled persecuting people for the strangest of reasons. It is what allowed the government to send anti-Soviet thinkers to Siberia.
Overcoming our present problems by immediate knee-jerk government regulations does not build trust. But trust is what used to exist in Australia. In the suburb we grew up in, I once counted that there were 11 synagogues. There was no guard outside any one of them, nor were there defensive walls or gates.
Peter: That’s why I was silly enough to think, “Why do they have all those guards outside?” In the Australia I grew up in, we could trust each other. Where did that trust come from?
Phillip: It came from the fact that we were a monoculture, and that monoculture was heavily influenced by a Judeo-Christian understanding of rights (or responsibilities) as to the truth of justice. We can’t go back to it now, because it has been undone. But we’re not going to go forward just by putting more regulations in place. Rules and regulations are not only an expression of a lack of trust; they also undermine trust. The government is wrong in thinking that it can somehow stop hate, for it’s the gospel that stops hate, that changes and transforms humanity. If we don’t teach a religion in our society that promotes love, then we must not be surprised when hate becomes part of society.
Peter: Christianity is a religion that promotes love and also teaches that every human being is a sinner. One of the nonsensical teachings of secularism is that human beings are “basically good”. We are not basically good; we need to be transformed by love. Knowing this doesn’t make me a perfect person, and it won’t make a perfect society, but it is nonetheless vital. We used to say that recent migrants would be new Australians. I love migrants, but we need them to become Australians with that basis in the Judeo-Christian ethic. We also need not only a recognition of human sinfulness, but a spiritual reformation. We need the gospel again.
Phillip: Indeed. It is important to remember that the world we grew up in was still sinful. But the concept that there is no right and wrong, because all cultures are equal, and we need to respect them and value them equally, is not true.
Peter: I agree. This is an enormous subject which we need to come back to sometime. But as a final question to conclude this week’s episode, which way do you vote?
Phillip: I vote by secret ballot!
The politics of how you implement culture—which is really implementing religion—are open to question and to agreement. There is no right Christian vote. As a minister of the Christian religion, I don’t tell people how I vote, and I do not encourage other ministers to tell people how they should vote.
Peter: Do you mean you don’t even tell your own brother how you vote?
Phillip: I don’t even tell my own wife how I vote, and she certainly doesn’t tell me either!
The Australian voting system is, I believe, a great voting system, but a key aspect is the privacy of the vote, where I can express between me and God what I believe are the best mechanisms forward. It is important to remember that policies are only mechanisms, and other people would skin a cat differently, so to speak.
Peter: There is a deeper issue here too. That is to say, if you vote one way for your entire life, I wouldn’t say that’s not Christian. The country we live in is a country where Christians are perfectly free to vote as they wish. Some Christians will vote one way, and some Christians will vote the other way. We are not living in a country which has been torn apart by these differences, and that principle comes from somewhere. I would say it comes from the Bible.
Phillip: Unfortunately, party politics are becoming more ideological and more fanatic, so that there are certain people who will not speak to others because they vote the other way. That’s unhealthy. Part of the Australian culture that we wanted new Australians to join into was this wonderful democracy, which is not in the countries that most of them came from, but it is here. We express our differences in the ballot box, not with guns on Bondi Beach.
Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, 2007 (Bison Books)
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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