Monthly Archives: October 2019

1 Peter 3:19: Proclamation to spirits in prison

By Spencer D Gear PhD

1 Peter 3:18-20 reads:

18For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water (ESV).

1.  Difficult to interpret

Martin Luther (AD 483 – 1546)[1] made a profound statement about this text in his commentary on 1 Peter:

This is a strange text, and a more obscure passage, perhaps, than any other in the New Testament, for I do not certainly know what St. Peter means. At first sight, the words import as though Christ had preached to the spirits — that is, the souls which were formerly unbelieving at the time Noah was building the ark; but that I cannot understand, I cannot even explain it. There has been no one hitherto who has explained it. Yet if any one is disposed to maintain that Christ, after that He had suffered on the Cross, descended to these souls and preached to them, I will not dispute it. It might bear such a rendering. But I am not confident that St. Peter would say this (Luther 2009, of 1 Peter 3:18-21, emphasis added).

These are among the most difficult verses in the New Testament to interpret. Commentator, D. Edmond Hiebert, observed, ‘Each of the nine words in the original has been differently understood’.[2] They are difficult because of these three questions that need answers:[3]

(a) About whom was Peter speaking when he wrote of the ‘spirits’ to whom Christ made this proclamation (v. 19)?

(b) When did this proclamation happen (v. 19)?

(c) What was the content of the proclamation? Was it a Gospel announcement or something else?

(d) When did these ‘spirits’ fall through disobedience?

Let’s examine some possibilities:

1.1 Christ preached to the dead

Those who interpret ‘the spirits in prison’ this way maintain that during the time between Christ’s death and resurrection he went to the realm of the dead and preached to Noah’s contemporaries:

This group is subdivided by various opinions on the nature of this proclamation. (1) Christ’s soul ministers an offer of salvation to the spirits. (2) He announces condemnation to the unbelievers of Noah’s time. (3) He announces good tidings [good news] to those who had already been saved (Blum 1981:241).

Briefly, let’s look at these 3 views. Firstly,

1.1.1 Christ offers salvation to those in the realm of the dead

This would possibly harmonise with that statement in the Apostles’ Creed:


 He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell
.
[4]

In 1 Peter 3:19 it states that Christ ‘went and preached to the spirits in prison’. Does this refer to Jesus’ descent into hell, as in the Apostles’ Creed? Not at all. I haven’t found any biblical evidence for that conclusion. There is no biblical support for Christ between his death and resurrection or between his resurrection and ascension going down to Hades/hell.

Some suggest that Christ in his spirit preached to Noah’s contemporaries. Let’s wait to see what the biblical evidence demonstrates.

1.1.2 Pre-existent Christ and Noah’s generation

The second interpretation maintains that Christ, before he came in the flesh at the Incarnation, ‘preached in the time of Noah to Noah’s sinful generation’ (Blum 1981:241).

1.1.3 Christ proclaimed to the ‘disobedient spirits’

This third interpretation identifies the ‘spirits’ as the fallen angels to whom Christ proclaimed his victory on the cross. When did this proclamation take place? There are two options: (1) During the three days when Jesus descended into Hades, or (2) During his ascension.

This third position seems to be the option that Peter teaches in 1 Peter 3:18-4:6. ‘After Christ’s death, he made a victorious proclamation to the fallen angels’. This is defended and developed in this passage that goes through to 4:6 (Blum 1981:241).

Kistemaker agrees:

Recent commentators teach that the resurrected Christ, during his ascension to heaven, proclaimed to imprisoned spirits his victory over death. The exalted Christ passed through the realm where the fallen angels are kept and proclaimed his triumph over them (Eph 6:12; Col 2:15). This interpretation has met favorable response in Protestant and Roman Catholic circles and is in harmony with the teaching of the Petrine passage and the rest of Scripture (1986:147-148).

See also Barnes’ Notes on 1 Peter 3 for a detailed discussion of v. 19.

2. Take note of these facts

screneRed-small The main purpose of vv 18-22 is stated in v. 18? What is it? ‘For Christ also suffered’ (NIV). This is further emphasised by the preceding verses (vv. 13-17).

screneRed-small  This is the teaching in v. 18 that provides the reason for patient endurance (vv. 13-17).

screneRed-small According to v. 18, ‘to bring you to God’ was the reason for Christ’s death.

2.1 Problems with NIV translation[5]

The NIV translates v. 18 as, ‘For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit’.

screneRed-small The NIV translates Spirit with a capital ‘S’. So, was Jesus’ body crucified and he was made alive ‘in the spirit’, small ‘s’? The ESV, Geneva Bible, LEB, NABRE, NASB, NRSV, and RSV translated as ‘spirit’ with a small ‘s’. Literally the Greek means, ‘Put to death in flesh, made alive in spirit’. Therefore, Blum (1981:242) gives this technical reason for rejecting the NIV translation

To translate one member of the antithesis [body vs spirit] as a dative of sphere or reference and the other as a dative of cause is inconsistent. It is best to take both as datives of reference (or “adverbial” or even “of sphere”) and to translate both “in the sphere of” (Blum (1981:242).

Thus the better translation of v. 18 would be one such as the NRSV, ‘He was put to death in [with reference to] the flesh, but made alive in [with reference to] the spirit’. Thus, grammatically, the small ‘s’ spirit is more consistent than capital ‘S’ Spirit.

3. When was the proclamation made?

Verse 18 says Jesus had been ‘made alive’, so this proclamation took place after his resurrection. I can’t find biblical evidence to support Christ’s ‘descent into hell’ between death and resurrection.

So Jesus must have gone to where these were located. We are not told where it was so we should not speculate. We can’t walk into a room of some confined space and discover these fallen, disembodied spirits.

The same verb, ‘went’, is used in verse 19 as verse 22.

4. What was the content of the proclamation?

Simon Kistemaker quoted Dalton:

What is meant by the word preached? The verb stands by itself, so that we are unable to determine the content of preaching. In brief, only the fact of preaching, not the message, is important. That is, we understand the verb preached to mean that Christ proclaimed victory over his adversaries. In his brevity, Peter refrains from telling us the context of Christ’s proclamation. We would be adding to the text if we should interpret the word preached to signify the preaching of the gospel. “Hence we may suppose with reason that it is the victory of Christ over His adversaries which is emphasized in 3:19, not the conversion or evangelization of the disobedient spirits.”[6]

4.1 The verb used tells something

The usual Greek word ‘to evangelise’ (euangelizw) is not used here but keryssw, which means ‘I proclaim/herald’. So the choice of the latter verb means that Christ came, not to preach the Gospel to spirits. What could that proclamation be?

There are no thoughts of salvation for lost angels in the NT (see Heb 2:16 and 1 Peter 1:12).

4.2 Who are the spirits (in prison)?

This is one of the easier parts to interpret. Verse 20 states ‘they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared’ (ESV). So at the time of Noah, these beings were disobedient and the Flood judgment came.

This judgment of the Flood is a warning to human beings that there is going to be a judgment of the disobedient, unrighteous world at Jesus’ second coming. This is stated in verses such as Matt 24:37-41 (ESV) and 2 Peter 3:3-7 (ESV). Noah’s ark that saved 8 people from the flood waters is a symbol of the salvation available in Christ right now.

First Peter 3:20 states who the ‘spirits’ are. They are those people who ‘formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water’ (ESV).

They were not angelic spirits but the spirits of the disobedient people who died at the time of Noah’s flood.

5. The nature of the prison

Eminent evangelical Lutheran scholar, R C H Lenski wrote of 1 Pet 3:19,

The Scriptures know of only one ‘prison,’ that confines ‘spirits,’ namely, hell, ‘hades,’ ‘the gehenna of the fire’ (Matt. 5:22; 18:9). To call this [prison] the realm of the dead; is to give a strange meaning to the word, ‘prison’ for all the dead are supposed to go into this fictitious place, the realm of the dead. Note 2 Pet. 2:9, 10, in fact all of 2 Pet 3:4-10 (Lenski 1966/2001:163).

(image courtesy Storming the Gates of Hell)

Another commentator wrote: ‘The prison confining the unbelieving spirits is not a reform school, but a penitentiary for life’ (Engelder 1945:381).

It is not clear whether Jesus did the preaching to spirits in prison at the time of Noah or at the time of his Incarnation.[7]

However, the prison refers to Hades and Gehenna/hell. See Prov 27:20; Matt 5:25; Luke 12:58 where ‘prison’ is a type for hell.

In hell, so this is taken, in Proverbs 27:20; compare with Matthew 5:25 Luke 12:58, where prison is mentioned as a type or representation of hell. There are similar expressions in 2 Peter 2:4-5; Jude 1:6.

6. Two main understandings

From the time of the early church fathers until the twenty-first century, there have been two main interpretations of 1 Peter 3:19:[8]

6.1 Firstly, Jesus preached to the departed spirits NOW in prison.

Our Lord, through Noah, preached repentance to the people of Noah’s time. There is no association with the doctrine of ‘descent into hell’ in this interpretation.

6.2 Secondly, what Jesus did when his body was in the grave.

This is the most popular interpretation from the Fathers to Luther and a large number of contemporary interpreters. It is claimed that ‘this is the most natural construction to put on the words “in which also” (i.e. in spirit)’. It is associated with Jesus’ being ‘quickened in spirit’.

So, he went from his death and the spirits were alive when Christ preached to them. His spirit, ‘disengaged from the body’, went to the place of other disembodied spirits and proclaimed certain news. The content of this proclamation was not stated but 1 Peter 4:6 (ESV) points to Gospel preaching:

For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

The prison is not ‘a place of safe keeping’ for both good and bad spirits. Although ‘prison’ is used 28 times in the NT, not once is it a place of protection but twice (Rev 18:2) it is used as ‘a cage’.

7. Conclusion

Verses 18-19 demonstrate that Jesus was put to death with reference to the body/flesh and was made alive with reference to his spirit, thus pointing to Christ’s death and resurrection.

The proclamation made is not of the Gospel because of the verb used kerussw (not euangelizw). It is an announcement – maybe of the victory by Jesus – to those unbelievers who did not obey with repentance in the time of Noah. However, the exact content of the proclamation is not stated in the text.

Congolese town crier

Jesus did not descend into Hades and make a Gospel proclamation to the fallen angels. However, he went to the ‘prison’ where deceased spirits were and made an announcement like a town crier would do in the first century.

‘The spirits in prison’ refers to the people who had died and were now in hell/Hades, awaiting judgment. The prison is a representation of hell. However, the people in the ‘prison’ are those who did not repent in Noah’s day and died. Their spirits went Hades.

8. Works consulted

Blum, E. A. 1981, ‘1 Peter’ in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (vol. 12), Frank E. Gaebelein (gen. ed.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Engelder, T 1945. The Hades Gospel, Part 2. Concordia Theological Monthly, June, 374-396. Available at: http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/EngelderHadesGospel2.pdf (Accessed 30 October 2019).

Hiebert, D E 1984. First Peter: An Expositional Commentary. Chicago: Moody.

Kistemaker, S J 1986. New Testament Commentary: Exposition of James, Epistles of John, Peter, and Jude.[9] Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic.

Lenski, R C H 1966/2001. Commentary on the New Testament: The Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers (© 1966 Augsburg Publishing House).

Luther, 2009. The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained (Tr. E H Gillett). The Project Gutenberg EBook (online). Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29678/29678-h/29678-h.htm (Accessed 10 September 2019).

9.  Notes

[1] Dates from Encyclopaedia Britannica (2019. s.v. Martin Luther).

[2] Hiebert (1984:226) (in Kistemaker1986:141 n 54).

[3] The first 3 questions were suggested by Blum (1981:341).

[4] Christian Reformed Church 2019. Apostles’ Creed (online). Available at: https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/creeds/apostles-creed (Accessed 9 September 2019).

[5] These details are from Blum (1981:242).

[6] Dalton (1964:155) (in Kistemaker1986:142 n 59).

[7] A T Robertson. Available at: https://www.studylight.org/commentary/1-peter/3-19.html (Accessed 30 October 2019).

[8] These 2 points are based on Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers. Available at: ibid.

[9] Note that this commentary does not present continuous numbering but reverts to new numbers with each Bible book. The numbers for Jude are continuous with 1 & 2 Peter.

Lazarus and the Rich Man (illumination from the Codex Aureus of Echternach).

Copyright © 2019 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 31 October 2019.

Pink bird in a branchPink bird in a branchPink bird in a branchPink bird in a branchPink bird in a branchPink bird in a branchPink bird in a branch

Dams needed. Who sends the rain?

Deism damns how to fill dams

Tractor on drought-ravaged farm in Guyra, NSW. (Photo: Guyra’s water reserves dried up earlier this year. (ABC News: Caitlyn Gribbin)

By Spencer D Gear PhD

A friend copied me into his email to the Federal Treasurer of Australia, the Hon. Josh Frydenberg:[1]

Thankyou for your newsletter and for the concern you show for Dino the Stanthorpe Apple Grower suffering from the effects of drought. This concern is admirable but without action it is as meaningless as the Green’s political party concern.

Dino is suffering because of a failure to supply Water. It is the responsibility of Government to ensure that sufficient water is stored to meet domestic, industrial, irrigation and environmental needs.

Unfortunately we have to go back to the 1960’s Ord scheme to find evidence of Federal Government active intervention to supply water on a large scale. Tony Abbott talked a lot. ALP is only concerned with their voter base which no longer includes farmers.

Tino is suffering because past governments have failed to build dams not because it is not raining.

The 1940’s and 1950’s Bradfield scheme if implemented would have solved the problem. Vince Gair was advocating this scheme in 1950’s and I personally heard Dr. Colin Clark praise the scheme.

As an absolute minimum to show true support for Dino please organise for a full investigation into the scheme with an undertaking to build if viable.

My reply was: There’s no point in building dams unless the Lord God Almighty sends the rain.
We should have people in droves, who believe in the power of prayer, flooding our churches to pray for rain. Of course we need national repentance. See: Australia is in deep trouble: Droughts, floods and fires

His comeback was:

I am not on the same wavelength as Spencer’s response to me.

I personally do not think God interferes with the running of his creation and I see our lack of rain as a natural part of that creation. Our failure to store it however is a failure by humans and has nothing to do with sin other than greed when allocating government resources.[2]

1. Which theology did he promote?

His was the God who created the world and left it running and did not involve himself in the creation any longer. The problem is a human one where not enough dams have been built and water stored.

He provided zero explanation for the lack of rain, except it was a natural part of what happens in our world.

Is this the God of the Bible in action or has he gone to sleep.

1.1 Deism damns how to fill dams

Who or what sends the rain so that we have water to store in dams?

Image result for symbol Deism public domainYours is the God of Deism. My understanding of creation is one where ‘God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords’ sustains the universe (1 Timothy 6:15). God the Son sustains ‘all things by his powerful word’ (Hebrews 1:3).

Why does the world continue to exist? It is not because he set it running and then doesn’t interfere. Rather, Scripture is clear: ‘For in him [Christ] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together‘ (Colossians 1:16-17).

The Bible does not support your view that God does not interfere with the running of creation. Instead, God is active in holding all things together in creation, including the sending and withholding of rain.

For the Israelites under the Old Covenant, Amos 4:7 states: ‘I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up’.

God is not the weak absentee landlord. He continues to be active in his creation. He is the God of action and not inaction when it comes to sending the rain: ‘He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous’ (Matthew 5:45).

1.2 Atrocious reasoning

What do you think his come back would be to my exposure of his Deism? It was simple: ‘Thank you for your reply. I have removed you from my e-mail contacts. You should get nothing from me from now on’.[3]

Instead of dealing with the negatives and positives of his Deist beliefs, he resorted to removing me from his email list.

I thoughtfully replied:

So you are unprepared to deal with your unbiblical view of God. Instead of dealing with the issues with your Deism, you removed me from your mailing list. You have used an Appeal to Invincible Ignorance Logical Fallacy. It involves a situation where …

the person in question (you) simply refuses to believe the argument, ignoring any evidence given. It is not so much a fallacious tactic in argument as it is a refusal to argue in the proper sense of the word, the method instead being to make assertions with no consideration of objections.

Deleting me from your email list demonstrated your use of this fallacy.
I hope that one day you’ll be able to man up to a critique of your Deism and see its distance from Christianity.

2. What are the beliefs of Deism?[4]

God made the world and does not interrupt its continuing with supernatural events. Thus, the statement by my friend, ‘I personally do not think God interferes with the running of his creation and I see our lack of rain as a natural part of that creation’.

There are several forms of deism. Some of their basic beliefs include (Geisler 1999:190):

clip_image002God is not interested in the world he created.

clip_image002[1]A second brand regards God as having a continuing interest in the universe but is not interested in whether people act morally or not.

clip_image003A third view maintains God governs the universe and is interested in the moral actions of people, but nothing happens after death.

clip_image003[1]Fourthly, it understands God regulates the world, expects obedience to his moral law in nature with rewards and punishments for the wicked.

Deists object to orthodox Christianity over their views on:

  • God (the non-Trinitarian God of Deism);
  • Origin of the universe;
  • Relation of God to the universe;
  • Miracles;
  • Ethics;
  • Human destiny;
  • History.

B A Robinson (1999-2018) of Religious Tolerance summarised the beliefs of Deism. They include:

clip_image005It’s a natural religion that believes in God’s existence, purely on rational grounds.

clip_image006It does not rely on revealed religion, religious authority or any holy texts.

clip_image005[1]So Deism is quite different from Judaism, Christianity and Islam because these 3 religions are ‘based on revelations that Jews, Christians and Muslims believe mostly came from God to prophet(s) who then taught it to humans’.

clip_image005[2] It’s a ‘bottom-up’ faith, which means it was created by humans about God. Deists regard revealed religions as ‘top-down’ for the reason ‘their followers believe that they were created by God and delivered to humans’.

clip_image005[3]Faiths that are the opposite of Deism are Atheism because it does not believe in the existence of God or gods. Another opposite is Theism which is ‘seen in the beliefs of most Theists who conceive of God as a deity who is all-present, all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing and has a personal interest and involvement in every human on Earth’. Robinson explained:

Many Deists reason that everything that exists has had a creator — from a wristwatch, to a television set, to the Internet itself. Thus it is logical that the universe itself must have been created by God:

2.1 Positive contributions of Deists

With such a low view of God and a perspective that is contrary to the Scriptures, how could I contemplate any positive benefits by Deists? Geisler (1999:191) states these three:

  • The importance of reason in considering matters of faith (cf. Isa 1:18; Acts 17:17; 1 Pet 3:15); claims made about miracles and supernatural relation need verification.
  • The existence of God is reflected in a Designer of the cosmos.
  • Exposing religious deception and superstition.

2.2 Critique of Deism

What are the major objections to this view of God and the universe?

2.2.1 Admit creation but refuse to accept lesser miracles

A being who could [as deists believe] bring the universe into existence from nothing could certainly perform lesser miracles if He chose to do so. A God who created water could part it or make it possible for a person to walk on it. The immediate multiplication of loaves of bread and fish would be no problem to a God who created matter and life in the first place. A virgin birth or even a physical resurrection from the dead would be minor miracles in comparison to the miracle of creating the universe from nothing [as deists believe]. It seems self-defeating to admit a great miracle like creation and then to deny the possibility of lesser miracles (Geisler 1999:191).

2.2.2 Scientists and natural law

Scientists’ views on natural law have moved past the Deists’ understandings. The Deist view is outdated as scientists regard the natural law as general today and not necessarily universal. Natural laws indicate how nature generally behaves but it is not fixated on that response.

If God created the universe for the good of his creatures, it seems that he would miraculously intervene in their lives if their good depended on it. Surely their all-good Creator would not abandon his creation. Instead it would seem that such a God would continue to exercise the love and concern for his creatures that prompted him to create them to begin with, even if it meant providing care through miraculous means (Geisler 1999:191).

The possibility of supernatural revelation through Scripture cannot be excluded if one admits to the possibility of miracles.

C S Lewis wrote: ‘A naturalistic Christianity leaves out all that is specifically Christian’ (Lewis 1947/2012:108).

2.2.3 Abuse is no excuse

Because some religious people have abused religious beliefs on miracles and other Christian beliefs does not make it legitimate to reject miracles. One bad tomato or even a bad bag of tomatoes does not stop people from eating tomatoes.

There have been abuses in science. See: Uses and Abuses of Tuskegee. That should not and has not prevented our engagement with the scientific disciplines.

An all-powerful, all-knowing God could conceivably overcome these problems. At least such problems should not rule out the possibility that God has revealed himself, either verbally or in written form. Again, the evidence should first be consulted
.

The deists’ case against Christianity and the Bible has been found wanting
. What anti-supernaturalist has adequately answered such Christian theists as J. Gresham Machen, and C. S. Lewis?… They have built an extensive and solid case from science, philosophy, and logic against the belief that miracle stories in the Bible are necessarily mythical
.

For example, [Thomas] Paine’s[5] belief that most of the books of the Bible were written by people other than the ones who claimed to write them and written very late is still proclaimed as indisputable fact by many critics. But there is not one credible shred of evidence that has not been rejected for good reason by archaeologists and biblical scholars. More than 25,000 finds have confirmed the picture of the ancient world given in the Bible 
. There is sufficient evidence to support the authorship claims and early dates for most biblical books (Geisler 1999:192).

3. Conclusion

I found it interesting to have interaction with a friend whose belief is that of Deism. When I exposed that, he cut off communication with me.

In the above, I’ve discussed the positives and negatives of Deism when compared with biblical Christianity.

The foundation of a Deist world view is not based on Scripture and the God who intervenes with our world.

My view is that my friend’s statement summarises the despair of a Deist world view: ‘I personally do not think God interferes with the running of his creation and I see our lack of rain as a natural part of that creation’.

4. Notes

[1] It was dated 6 October 2019. Typographical errors have been corrected.

[2] Received 15 October 2019. Typographical errors were corrected.

[3] Email received 15 October 2019.

[4] Based on Geisler (1999:189-192).

[5] See Thomas Paine details at Thomas Paine 2019. Biography (online). Available at: https://www.biography.com/scholar/thomas-paine (Accessed 16 October 2019).

5.  Works consulted

Geisler, N L 1999. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books.

Lewis, C S 1947/2012. Miracles: Do They Really Happen? London: William Collins (a division of Harper Collins).

Robinson, B A 1999-2018. Deism: A world religion. Religious Tolerance (online). Available at: http://www.religioustolerance.org/deism.htm (Accessed 15 October 2019).

Copyright © 2019 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 19 October 2019.

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Cane toads and religious freedom

A prominent animal welfare group wants people to stop clubbing cane toads.

(image courtesy Katherine Times)

By Campbell Markham[1]

I consider this is the finest Christian assessment I’ve read of Australia’s draft Religious Discrimination Bills 2019: Religious Freedom Laws and Cane Toads. See Religious Freedom Bills to read a copy of the 2019 draft bills in Australia.

It is written by Campbell Markham, minister of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, Hobart, Tas. who knows from personal experience what it is like to be the victim of ‘existing anti-discrimination action’.

He had to ‘face Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commission over online blogs referring to the gay lifestyle as “distressingly dangerous” and having “appalling health risks”‘. After conciliation, the anti-discrimination case was dropped.

If you were encouraged by Campbell Markham’s analysis of the draft Religious Discrimination Bill 2019, why don’t you contact him with a word or two of encouragement? Contact: [email protected]

Notes

[1] This information was copied from Campbell Markham’s blog by Spencer D Gear. His blog may be located at: http://campbellmarkham1970.blogspot.com/ (Accessed 13 October 2019).

Copyright © 2019 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date:13 October 2019.

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