This is appalling. The idea that a person could be punished because of their religious belief and the idea they might be executed is just beyond belief.

The believer's cross is no longer any and every kind of suffering, sickness, or tension, the bearing of which is demanded. The believer's cross must be, like his Lord's, the price of his social nonconformity. It is not, like sickness or catastrophe, an inexplicable, unpredictable suffering; it is the end of the path freely chosen after counting the cost. It is not, like Luther's or Thomas Muntzer's or Zinzendorf's or Kierkegaard's cross, an inward wrestling of the sensitive soul with self and sin; it is the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the Order to come.

Sport is an important part of the Australian psyche. Anybody who thinks that sport is not part of the fabric of Australian life misunderstands this country quite dramatically.

How can you render the duties of justice to men when they may destroy you?

You are not prime minister of Australia because of some kind of process of divine selection. You are prime minister of Australia through the gift of the Australian people.

If I am wrong and you are right then the democratic process of the Australian community will vindicate you and condemn me.

If the tradition which claims that war may be justified does not also admit that it could be unjustified, the affirmation is not morally serious. A Christian who prepares the case for a justified war without being equally prepared for hte negative case has not soberly weighted the prima facie presumption that any violence is wrong until the case for an exception has been made.