More cliché riddled drivel. Without those very real myth makers who have fought in all those wars Boko Harem would be the norm and no doubt Jim would be a very pious mullah. It takes hard honest men without the endemic delusions of "Progressives" and other such parasites to stand between evil and civilisation. ANZAC glorifies those who protect, not the manner in which they have to. War is brutal, nasty, cruel, sickening and many other similes, it is just better than the alternative.

What a pile of drivel.

My understanding of ANZAC Day is that it is to remind people what utter hell the First World War was and by comparison other wars are and how we should do whatever we can to avoid wars in the future.

As Chamberlain demonstrated in 1939, appeasement is not always the best policy.

I found the positive comparison of a ficticious event in Easter with the reality of the stupid invasion of Turkey at Gallipoli tended to detract from the authors arguments about myth making.

Yes, certainly many wars are unjust, but not all wars. What chance would pacifism have as an effective policy against the Nazis or the Japanese during WW2?

The author is able to freely practise his religion in a liberal democratic society because the West was militarily capable of resisting Muslim attacks during the Middle Ages and the fascists and communists of the 20th century. There's evidence that human societies are becoming less violent, however there's still a long way to go before we arrive at a pacifist Utopia. Pacifism has only survived as a philosophy because people have gone to war to protect the kind of society that allows it.

The author is too selective in his accounts of both ANZAC and Easter.

Yes, ANZAC is a myth, and like all powerful myths it is capable of very different, even seemingly contradictory, interpretations. Those who see it as a reminder of the horrors of war that should never be repeated, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those who honour the dead for the sacrifices they made. It is impossible to say that one is right and the other wrong, and it is rather arrogant of Jim to say “I believe Anzac day is not about honouring the dead.” Perhaps he doesn’t believe so, but for others it has very different meaning.

Likewise, while I have great respect for Walter Wink and likeminded theologians, it has to be said that for much of Christian history the Easter story has been precisely a “myth of redemptive violence”. Penal substitution theory, the vicarious suffering of the Saviour for others’ sins, the necessity of Jesus’ crucifixion for human salvation, and imagery of “washing in the blood of the lamb”, reinforced cultural concepts of noble and necessary sacrifice that were bound to spread beyond the church.

If our thoughts turn to noble and saving sacrifice at Anzac time, so soon after Easter, it’s not hard to see where the cultural roots of these ideas might have been nourished.

Hmmm Tonto Thinking

Tonto say - Thank Christ theologian Wink wasn't able to publish this drivel on Anzac Day (there being no OLO post that day).

Tonto also say this theologian's observations are disrespectful when theologian say "temple like structure of the Canberra War Memorial in one direction and the likewise religious steeple above the new parliament in the other direction."

Tonto asking - "Is Canberra therefore city of pubes between erections?"

Tonto typed while Planta praying.

Hello, do you know how can I post my topic on the forum ??
Could you please teach me how to do it ?