The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Navigating new laws on Conversion Practices: A Pastoral Approach to Compassion and Legal Compliance
What is permissible and not permissible under new conversion practice laws in New South Wales - with Neil Foster, Matt Aroney and Michael Stead
Sydney Anglican Bishop Michael Stead, who chairs Freedom for Faith, describes the new laws as the least worst that he has seen in Australia.
Associate Professor of Law at Newcastle University and author of the Law and Religion blog Neil Foster says the law is unnecessary, but better than has been implemented in other parts of Australia.
Professor Foster supports moves to ban oppressive or violent practices that are designed to change someone’s sexual attraction or impair gender identity.
However, Professor Foster says the laws (which have a criminal and civil component) can go beyond those bad things to areas where a minister is explaining the teaching of the Bible and wanting to help people to live in accordance with the bible.
Acting Minister of Watsons Bay Matt Aroney says he doesn’t think the new laws will impact his pastoral practice. Matt wants to turn down the anxiety levels. He encourages to choose thoughtfully to respond to the people in front of us with the love and compassion that Jesus has.
Matt applies the principles of his new book ‘Renovated: How God makes us Christlike’ to caring well for those Christians experiencing same sex attraction or gender incongruence.
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It is the pastor's heart and Dominic Steele. And today, understanding and living within the new conversion therapy legislation. Neil Foster, matt Aroni and Michael Stead are our guests. A local issue today in our part of the world, new South Wales, legislation was passed a couple of weeks ago to ban so-called conversion therapy. But what does it mean, this new legislation for Christian ministry practice today? In the lead up to the debate in Parliament, groups like Freedom for Faith were expressing concerns about key aspects of the legislation, of the legislation, but were also saying that the legislation was much better than laws passed in other parts of the world and other parts of Australia, particularly Victoria.
Speaker 1:Neil Foster is Associate Professor of Law and author of the Law and Religion blog. Matt Aroni is well Acting Senior Minister at Watsons Bay Anglican Church, having spent the better part of a decade ministering at Newtown in inner Sydney. And Michael Staird has several hats he chairs the interfaith group. Freedom for Faith, is the Anglican Bishop of South Sydney and is chair of the Anglican Pastoral Ministry, the Council of Living Faith, which cares for Christians experiencing same-sex attraction and gender incongruence. And a disclaimer. My term as chair of that Living Faith Council finished in October last year. Matt, I wonder if we could start with you and your pastor's heart. Almost a decade in Newtown. You've had a lot of experience caring for people Christian people, navigating gender incongruence or same-sex attraction. What do you want our hearts to be as we care for and love people in this space?
Speaker 2:I think in this space it's really important that we are experiencing the compassion that Jesus has for us in our complexity, in our diffuities, in our burdens as people and as pastors, and we really need to be also embodying that heart as we kind of move toward anyone who might be in front of us. So what does that look?
Speaker 1:like practically on the ground.
Speaker 2:Well, the thing I've noticed and the thing I've been wondering a lot about is that there is a lot of anxiety amongst pastors as we think about how to deal with this space and how to love people really well, and there's lots of things to be anxious about. We're anxious about doing our best work, letting down the people in front of us, kind of letting down our team. Lots of people are anxious or angry at us. Maybe, as a diocese in Sydney, some people are a bit frustrated at us. They've transferred their anxiety to us, and so when we sit down as pastors to care for someone, there's so much happening in our hearts, so much anxiety, and I fear that sometimes we're spending so much time on that anxiety that we're not our best pastoral selves. And so I think as pastors, we actually need to be aware of what's happening in our own hearts, naming those anxieties when they're coming up and actually choosing thoughtfully to not respond to them but respond to people in front of us with the love and compassion that Jesus has.
Speaker 1:Not respond to them, but respond to people in front of us with the love and compassion that Jesus has. Cool, I'm going to look forward to unpacking that a little more, but let's go first now to Neil. What is the legislation that's just been passed?
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, dominic. So, as it turned out, it was called the Conversion Practices Ban Act. So interestingly, they haven't used the language therapy that's been a shift in that terminology and so it went through the New South Wales Parliament. It received what's called the Royal Assent on the 3rd of April and it's due to come into full operation in 12 months, so it will start operating on the 3rd of April 2025. So the act itself has two parts.
Speaker 3:It has, I guess, the purpose. Just to speak about the purpose of it. The purpose of it and I think what most people would support at a broad level, is the banning of sort of oppressive and violent practices that are designed to cause someone to change the sort of sexual attraction that they have or to somehow impair their operation of their lives as far as their gender identity goes. So there's sort of bad things that the legislation would want to try and stop. But I think one of the big problems is and we want to say good to that those are good things, it's good to stop those practices. The fact is that those practices are not current in the vast majority of Christian churches, as far as I can tell at the moment, and you know. But yes, sure, let's stop those really terrible, violent, oppressive, bullying type of practices.
Speaker 3:The difficulty is the way the legislation is framed. It can then go beyond those bad things and into areas where you're explaining the teaching of the Bible and wanting to help people to live in accordance with the Bible. So that's the big, that's the sort of big overall concern with it. Not that no Christian person that I know wants to see you know, people have electrodes put in their heads and force them to undergo therapy and those sorts of things.
Speaker 3:But there's a concern that the legislation makes it difficult to know how much you can tell people about the Bible's teaching and encourage them to obey it. So just broadly speaking, to outline the way the Act works, it's got a criminal component and a civil component. So the criminal component is the very serious sort of behaviour where you might end up in jail. It requires the commission of quite serious harm, substantial mental or physical harm or the endangerment of someone's life. So there are very few examples where that's available, but if that's happening then that could be subject to criminal prosecution. The other part of the legislation is what we might call the civil ban, which makes conversion practices unlawful and allows complaints about that to be taken through the anti-discrimination system in New South Wales, investigations and possible actions to be taken in that sort of area.
Speaker 1:Michael, you were involved in the lobbying with Freedom for Faith in the lead up to. What are you happy with? What are you unhappy with in the law as we've got it?
Speaker 4:I'd say it's probably the least bad bill that is. I don't think it's a good bill, but it's certainly better than some of the other alternatives around Australia.
Speaker 1:Well, neil said unnecessary to me on the phone. I think is that right, neil? Do you think unnecessary or necessary this bill?
Speaker 3:Oh well, to be honest, in my view, this is unnecessary. I think the sort of practices that are at that worst end of the spectrum are already either not being done and also prohibited by all sorts of other legal principles. So if you were to ask me do we need a conversion practices ban act, I would say no, but it's politically speaking. The government promised that we would have something like this. There are people with some concerns about it. So I think, even though I think the bill is unnecessary, I think what's been introduced is at least better than it has been implemented in other places. Let's come back to you least bad.
Speaker 4:Yes. So here's the areas where it's different to the Victorian bill. So if I use that as the model of the worst version of this bill, in Victoria there's a strong bias to gender affirming therapy. So for people who are experiencing gender dysphoria, if you're a medical practitioner and you assist them to transition, then you get a free pass. But if you wanted to do something other than that, if you wanted to encourage them to other techniques or to live within their biological sex, you have to demonstrate that it's necessary and that's a pretty high bar and that would, as I said, it puts a bias towards one kind of treatment over the other.
Speaker 4:The Victorian bill had no exemptions around parents, and so parents having a conversation with their children about sexual orientation or gender identity matters could find themselves subject to a complaint and in a tribunal. There were the not the kind of explicit exceptions for religious teaching in the Victorian Act, whereas in the New South Wales Act subject to some caveats which I think Neil will probably talk to explaining what the Bible says and saying to somebody and you should do that is actually explicitly covered in the New South Wales Bill explicitly covered in the New South Wales Bill, so I can encourage people to be sexually faithful to their spouses, to be sexually chaste until marriage.
Speaker 4:That's correct and again, unlike the Victorian Bill which includes sexual activity within the definition of sexual orientation, in New South Wales it doesn't do that, which means quite explicitly you can say to someone living faithfully to Jesus means not having sex before marriage, whether you're heterosexual or homosexual. So there are quite significant differences between the two acts.
Speaker 1:Where are you unhappy with what's been passed?
Speaker 4:unhappy with what's been passed. One of the significant exemptions which is in this Act. It allows people to respond to the genuine needs of a person before you and this is in response to the Premier's promise and other Labor politicians' promises prior to the next election, that this Act was not going to ban people of their own consent seeking out the kind of treatment that they were looking for. And so the person who is same-sex attracted, who comes to you and says, pastor, please pray with me because I don't want to act on these desires, that exemption is designed to cover exactly that scenario, which is good. It's appropriate that that should be an exemption. The uncertainty is around the word needs. We're a little concerned that at some point in the future, some court, five years down the track, is going to substitute. Well, I know the person said that they needed that prayer, but they didn't really need that. They're now changing their mind and so we were seeking some clarification. It wasn't just that it could be what a person requests, not just what they need to cover that explicit scenario.
Speaker 4:The example around parents is limited, so at the moment there's an explicit statement that says, by way of example, it wouldn't be a conversion practice for parents to have a conversation with their children. It doesn't cover guardians or grandparents or siblings or things like that. So there's areas or Bible study group leaders yeah, so again, bible study group leaders would have to fall within the religious teaching exemption. So the Bible study teacher who says this is what the Bible says If you want to follow Jesus, you should live that way. That's okay. More things which?
Speaker 1:are directed at an individual on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity become more problematic, automatic, matt. You were saying to me, though, that, as you reflected on this legislation, you don't think it's going to change your. I mean, having spoken to people for a long time on these issues, you're not feeling that, oh, I've got to stop doing this and start doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that was my first instinct. After I read the legislation. I thought was anything that I've done over the last 10 years going to be different? I actually thought no, nothing at all. The way I go about pastoring people would be exactly the same, and I think that's because the way we're summoned to pastor people is not in a coercive or bullying manner in any way at all. In fact, we are just walking alongside someone as the Lord works in their life, and that's actually a very gentle, careful, loving, gracious, kind kind of presence for people. That is just it. Just it doesn't, it's not changed by this at all.
Speaker 1:So take me into one of those kind of conversations that you might have with somebody struggling over gender identity or struggling in temptation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I like to invoke what I call the Bonhoeffer rule when I'm talking to people in this space. Bonhoeffer and his book Life Together are the last chapter on ministry, and you expect him to say, well, this is how you talk to people about Jesus, but he actually that's the second to last thing. The first thing is hold your tongue, be meek and then listen, and that's actually my first approach to this. There's a lot of listening that needs to happen.
Speaker 2:There is a remarkable amount of pain out there, some from these practices in the past that people have endured. Some from people feeling excluded from church because they just don't feel like they belong there, people who've had really difficult experiences with people of faith, or just from their upbringing and their family and their school. And Bonhoeffer says you know, people are looking for a listening ear, but they don't find it among Christians, especially ministers, he says, which is a bit brutal, but actually listening. God listens to us as an act of love. We're someone to listen first as well, and so I'm always there listening to people's story. Tell me what happened. I spend a lot of time walking with people, hearing their anger at church, their frustrations with people who've let them down, with comments they've heard in sermons that have really hurt them, and just listening and hearing those perspectives and bearing them with them.
Speaker 1:As you say that I'm just thinking of some comments from Mark Yarr House, and he said somebody starts to tell you their story and he recommended the first line that I reply with. Well, look, it sounds like I'm hearing you in Chapter 7, chapter 8 of your life. Can you give me Chapters 1 to 6? Of your life, can you give me chapters one to six? And I want to understand you as not a single issue person, but as a broader person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's exactly right. I think there's this broadening of pastoral perspective with people we need to take on. I'll never forget one person I was walking with. He became a Christian through reading Luke's Gospel with me before coming to church. He didn't know the Old Testament for the New Testament Kind of brand new to faith became a Christian. Wonderful story.
Speaker 2:I remember having a conversation with him once where he said, matt, I cannot write Jesus as my next of kin, by which he was saying you know, I know there's this life that I could live with Jesus, but there are these practicalities.
Speaker 2:I don't know how to live this life. Who am I going to write on the hospital document to call when I'm in trouble, like who's going to be in my corner? And it really sunk into me that there's this helpful, logistic, practical helping that we need to be doing alongside people to help them live a life of faith that goes down to where to live, what city to live in, what job to take, and those aren't issues that are to the side of kind of handling your sexuality. They're actually really important to your flourishing as a person and therefore your ability to walk in the complexity of your life. And so we need to be thinking about the whole person and helping them in whatever way they want help from us, and not thinking as pastors that that's unspiritual, because us helping them as a person is helping them in their walk, in their life of faith.
Speaker 1:Michael, we were chatting before and you said there are some things the law permits, some things the Lord doesn't permit and some areas that are gray. Do you want to just give us some headings there?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So in terms of the things which are permissible, it's permissible to teach what the Bible says.
Speaker 1:It's permissible to then say and we're talking big group, small group and one-on-one. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4:So I'll qualify that slightly. There is a way in which you could teach the Bible and it actually be a conversion practice. That's in my little grey areas in the middle, but generally speaking, you could, without fear or favour, say this is what the Bible says and if you want to follow Jesus, you should live that way. And you could say that, as you say, to a whole room full of people or just one-on-one. To a whole room full of people or just one-on-one. You could encourage someone to say faithfulness to Jesus means obeying him with your sexuality. And since you're not yet married, that means not sleeping with somebody that you're not married to. And again, that's not in heterosexual marriage. So that's straightforward.
Speaker 4:The kind of things that you, the general rules that you could have as a church, such as as a church, we believe that we believe what the Bible teaches about gender, that sex is a male-female thing, that gender derives from our sex and that those in leadership in this church ought to present their gender identity in line with their biological sex.
Speaker 4:If that's a general rule that you have, or you have a general rule that says that we want Christian leaders to be faithful to the Bible's teaching about the expression of our sexuality. And then you have rules that say people who don't live like that can't be Bible study leaders or leading church or something like that. If you are consistent in the way that you apply that, then that wouldn't be a conversion practice either, even though it would mean that somebody who is in a same-sex marriage and if that was the reason why they, you said, couldn't be a community group Bible study group leader you can't be a community group leader. That wouldn't be directed at that individual because of their sexual orientation. It's the application of a general rule. So all of those things are spelled out in the legislation.
Speaker 1:And Neil. Does that apply equally in the school situation?
Speaker 3:Yes, there's a very explicit exception saying something, not conversion practices, where you're dealing with general rules and educational institutions under Clause 3.4 or Section 3.4. So, yeah, it does seem like the government has taken into account that issue.
Speaker 1:Now let's come back to the not permissibles that issue.
Speaker 4:Now let's come back to the not permissibles. So at the other end of the spectrum, the things that the Act is explicitly targeted at are actions directed at an individual seeking to change their sexual orientation or gender identity, and particularly that's not being sought by the individual. So if I say I'm going to pray for you that you might be released from the spirit that is causing you to be homosexual, I'm going to pray so that you will turn from gay to straight, to use that kind of language, that's exactly what the bill is designed to address, because that kind of practice has been the thing that's caused harm in the past. The reality is that it's one thing to say if you are same-sex attracted, don't act on that out of faithfulness to Jesus. It's another thing entirely to say Jesus' will. For you is to change your sexuality from gay to straight. And if you just believe Jesus, hard enough, if you just pray this prayer, you'll change.
Speaker 4:That pastorally is wrong most of the time. I'm not saying that God can't do miracles, but that's in the category of the miraculous transformation for most people. But that's in the category of the miraculous transformation for most people. For most people, their sexuality is strongly homosexual, strongly heterosexual. To promise that God will change, that is not a promise. That's in the Bible. There are people whose sexuality is not at one of those extremes. But they may change, but promising people. They may change, but promising people.
Speaker 1:Just to check. Then a pastor who said to a congregation member, a congregation member struggling with a porn addiction, I'm going to pray that you will not look at pornography this week. Yeah.
Speaker 4:That's okay, that's fine, because that's about actions. It's not about trying to change. It's not saying I'm promising that you're going to change an underlying orientation Just to absolutely support that.
Speaker 3:that's in contrast to the Victorian law, as Michael mentioned before, where the Victorian law seems to define sexual orientation so broadly that it covers almost any sexual activity you might engage in. But we have a much more defined and I think you know definition, sensible definition of sexual orientation in the New South Wales law which refers to this ongoing sexual orientation or attraction towards people of a particular sex.
Speaker 1:And then Michael unclear.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I think particularly the issues to do with gender identity are going to be the ones which are most fraught in practice, because, whereas you can make a distinction between saying if you are same sex attracted and you want not to act on that, then I can pray for that. Transition is that people have already you have usually begun a process of of transitioning and therefore what, explicitly or implicitly, you are doing is actually suppressing the expression of that gender identity. If somebody who is biologically male but wants to present as female unless you are doing it in one of those exemptions that I've already mentioned, that is, we've got a general rule here about how we present in church it's probably going to fall into the category of suppression. So to give you an example, two 16-year-old boys at school. One turns up wearing a dress and his mate says to him blokes shouldn't wear dresses. If that's not, that statement in and of itself would be a suppression practice and therefore subject to a complaint.
Speaker 1:What are you going to be, or what are you advising as a bishop in the church, what are you advising ministers to do in those situations then?
Speaker 4:I think be really clear Somebody who comes to youth group.
Speaker 4:Yes, I think be really clear that what we are doing is not just stating an opinion, but actually talking about what the Bible says. So you need to be especially careful to explain. This is what the Bible teaches about human sexuality, about sexual, that the sexes are male or female and that gender is an expression of that. And, on the basis of that, for those who want to follow Jesus and his teaching about these things, it means seeking to live in accordance with our biological sex rather than our felt sense of gender identity. It's going to be, you're going to have to step through that kind of explanation. You can't just have unguarded comments about gender identity. Particularly, gender identity will be more fraught, I think, than sexual orientation.
Speaker 1:Matt, what thinking have you done about our ministry from the pulpit as ministers in this space?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we need to be very careful about our assumptions when we're preaching, for a number of reasons, I mean you spoke a moment ago about somebody being offended by something they'd heard in a sermon.
Speaker 1:Help me on thinking about how to do it well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think that's really helpful. I think one of the dangers for us with this legislation is that we'll feel that one-to-one space is a bit more cramped pastorally and that might encourage us to be maybe even a bit more firm from the pulpit in response, and I think that might be a temptation and a danger for us, because our preaching from the pulpit can either open gracious space or close it down for people. I think often and a lot of same-sex attracted Christians in churches I've talked to feel that when their life and what they're working through is brought up in a sermon, it's generally only brought up negatively or they're just not mentioned at all, and so the issues around their sexuality are kind of social issues or abstract issues, but not personal ones, and so they leave church feeling condemned and like they have no idea what to do with their life. Give me an example of doing it well.
Speaker 2:I think when we're doing it well, what we're doing is being very clear about the grace of Jesus that it actually is equal for all people, regardless of what is happening for them, that if they want to move toward Him and follow Him, then that is open to them, and not assume that people know that Most people I know who are conflicted in their sexualities coming to church expect rejection and condemnation from the church. And we need to be on the front foot saying you can come to Jesus weary and burdened as you are, and accept his rest and be on the front foot and not assuming that they know that, but being positive and also giving them a positive vision of life to live. Not just mentioning them in connection with a passage that speaks of them and a pattern of sin, but talking about how they might positively live a positive vision for life, how they might set up a kind of forward-facing faith, not just a negative one. I think is part of that.
Speaker 1:Now you've recently published this book, renovated how God Makes Us Christlike thinking about transformation. We were talking about transformation as being a super helpful overarching rubric for thinking about the progress, for godliness, for the person who's same-sex attracted, but also the person well, everybody, you just give us that, yeah yeah, so this is part of kind of broadening the lens on what god is doing in someone's life and treating me not just as a single issue person, but 100 like, if you if you.
Speaker 2:The bible gives us lots of metaphors for how to think about how someone changes, like putting on on clothes or kind of shifting our focus or putting our mind on things above.
Speaker 2:But the richest metaphors in scripture around transformation, and when Paul uses that language he talks about becoming like Jesus, like in Romans 8, where Jesus we're becoming many sons and daughters of him, being drawn into his likeness.
Speaker 2:Or 2 Corinthians 3, where we behold Jesus and become like Him. And I really like this picture of transformation because it's positive. I'm walking forward in my life to see more of Jesus and to become more like Him. And so I can sit down with anyone and talk about their life, talk about the loneliness they're wrestling with, talking about their isolation, talking about the shame they feel, point them to the person of Jesus, his work for them, his about their isolation. Talking about the shame they feel, point them to the person of Jesus, his work for them, his love for them, and help them become more like Him. That's kind of something you can do with anyone in any part of their life, and the Holy Spirit's already there doing it with them. And so I find that rich and helpful and gentle and forward focused in a way that kind of unlocks transformation for people and change in the Christian life.
Speaker 1:Michael, how are you encouraging people, through living faith, to work that out?
Speaker 4:I think to put a lot of what Matt has suggested into practice is to see the ministry that we're doing is supporting people as they work through and move closer to Jesus, rather than forcing change on people or requiring change of people, leaving space for people to move towards Jesus at their own pace.
Speaker 1:So my role as a pastor is sitting alongside people.
Speaker 2:I think that's right. In 2 Corinthians 3, paul's emphatic All of this is from the Spirit. He bookends the verse with it. The ministry he's talking about is not a human ministry. It's a divine ministry of transformation, making us like Jesus. When I think of pastoral care, I think of my job is sitting alongside someone with whom the Holy Spirit is working. I'm not the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit's in them, working with them. My job is to see that work, point it out to them so they can see it and experience God's presence, and encourage them how to respond to Jesus and to the Father and to kind of embrace that work in their life. That's God's work, not my work. We need to separate those two. That's a really helper anxiety to talk about His work and our work and we're just sitting there watching, praying, thinking and encouraging them on their trajectory toward God.
Speaker 1:So I mean you've used the word transformation or renovation. Just what's the difference between that and conversion? Because they're both change words.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, transformation in the New Testament, metamorphosis is the kind of the word that it's become. It's changing from one thing into another, but the other thing is Jesus. It's a picture of us not just turning to God, say, and turning from one way to another way, but becoming something else in Jesus, and that actually all humanity is on that trajectory toward becoming like Jesus and they have a choice of whether to accept that journey or not by coming to the Lord Jesus. And it's just a bigger picture of what human destiny is. It's bigger than sexuality, bigger than any one part of life. Why don't you?
Speaker 2:lead us in prayer about us in church caring for people well, Sure, oh gracious and loving Heavenly Father, Thank you for being with us as we journey in our own sexualities and wrestle with what has happened in our own lives. To walk faithfully and fully with the Lord Jesus. Father, we pray that you would help us cast our anxieties upon you. That you would clear up our hearts and our headspace and fill them instead with the compassion of Jesus. That we might be present to the people in front of us, listening to them, loving them and leading them more deeply into the presence and love and life that is in Jesus Christ, Father. That we might be more like him day by day. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen, Amen.
Speaker 1:My guests on the pastor's heart Matt Aroni he's the acting senior minister of Watsons Bay Anglican Church and previously served at Newtown in inner Sydney. Neil Foster is associate professor of law and the author of the Law and Religion blog. And Michael Stead, anglican bishop of South Sydney, also chairs the interfaith group Freedom for Faith and the Sydney Anglican Pastoral Ministry Living Faith. My name's Dominic Steele. You've been with us on the Pastor's Heart and we will look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.
