Chapter 34
Bendigo Promotes Sunday Law
GROUP of citizens in Bendigo known as the Save our
Sunday (SOS) group, has petitioned the City of Greater Bendigo, Victoria,
Australia, to proscribe Sunday trading. As a result, a Referendum was
conducted to determine the will of the citizens. "The Save our
Sundays group has hailed a decision to proceed with a Sunday trading
referendum [on April 4] as a ‘victory for democracy.’" (Bendigo
Advertiser, 26 Dec. 1997) Whether or not it was a victory for
democracy, it was most certainly an alarming breach of religious and civil
liberties.
Keith Allen, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church
in Victoria "threw his support behind the campaign against Sunday
trading during a visit to Bendigo yesterday," (ibid., May 8 1997) and
Catholic Bishop Noel Daly and Uniting Church’s Kerrie Graham spoke
against Sunday trading." (Ibid.) The Uniting Church of Australia is a
1977 union of Congregationalists, Methodists, and two-thirds of
Presbyterians.
It would seem that these clerics possess little
understanding of the principles of religious and civil liberties. They
appear to have learned no lessons from history. Nor does each apparently
recall the fact that in centuries past, members of their denominations
suffered severely because majority religions forced their religions upon
them and thus breached their convictions.
Curiously, the chief opposition arose, not from those
religious organizations whose religious prerogatives would be breached by
the Sunday law, such as Sabbath-keepers (Seventh-day Adventists), members
of non-Christian faiths (such as Moslems), nor even from free-thinkers,
agnostics, or atheists; but from "Twelve Bendigo tourism and business
organizations." (Feb. 23 1998) Thus financial loss appeared to be a
greater motivating force than the potential loss of civil and religious
liberties.
Two Seventh-day Adventist laymen, Donald Wilson of
Meldiva and Lance McNeill of Bendigo were exceptions to this statement.
They wrote a number of letters setting forth their objections to city’s
leading newspaper, The Bendigo Advertiser.
Alerted of this crisis of religious liberty upon his
return from a speaking tour of Singapore and India, just one week prior to
the commencement of the postal vote, with the issue being judged to be
very finely balanced between those favoring and those opposing the matter,
Russell decided to take up the issue. Two advertisements were inserted in
the Bendigo newspaper and one letter to the editor written. The statements
in these media avenues were as follows:
Advertisement 14 March, 1998
(The postal ballots were posted out commencing 17
March, 1998)
SUNDAY TRADING REFERENDUM
March 16–April 3
OBJECTION NO. 1
This referendum has been promoted by Christians living
in the Bendigo District who are convicted that Sunday is a sacred day of
worship. They have organised their campaign under the slogan,
SAVE OUR SUNDAYS (SOS).
Thinking Christians, believers in other faiths, and
non-believers will ask themselves the crucial question before delivering
their vote,
SAVE OUR SUNDAYS FROM WHAT?
Since its founding, Sunday-worshipers in Bendigo have
possessed perfect liberty to:
Worship on Sundays,
Close their business on Sundays,
Refrain from shopping on Sundays,
Pursue their children’s education on days other than
Sunday,
SO FROM WHAT DOES SUNDAY HAVE TO BE SAVED?
We thank God and the Australian Constitution that all
convicted Sunday-observers in Bendigo possess their inalienable right to
religious liberty. This is true freedom. Wise statesmen 100 years ago
guaranteed this liberty in our Australian Constitution which was confirmed
by the citizens of our nation in an Australia-wide referendum.
Article 116 states:
The Commonwealth shall not make any law for
establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or
for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test
shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under
the Commonwealth.
DO THE CITIZENS OF BENDIGO WISH TO
CONTRAVENE OUR WISE CONSTITUTION—
% by establishing the religious
convictions of one segment of citizens?
% by imposing their religious
observances on others?
% by prohibiting the free
exercise of religion?
Seventh-day Adventists and Jews observe the Bible
Sabbath (Saturday) as a day upon which they refrain from business. They
do not seek to impose their convictions upon the other citizens of
Bendigo.
Moslems keep Friday holy. They too have
refrained from seeking to enforce their religious practice upon those
citizens of Bendigo not of their faith.
Citizens of this city who possess no religious
convictions whatsoever have not sought a referendum to empower the city
authorities to enforce work and business activities on those who do
possess sincere religious objections to such practices on their days of
worship. On what moral grounds then do Sunday-keepers seek the enforcement
of their beliefs?
THE ISSUE AT STAKE IN THIS REFERENDUM IS THE
PRESERVATION OF THE RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES OF EVERY CITIZEN OF
BENDIGO.
VOTE NO IN THE SUNDAY TRADING REFERENDUM AND
PRESERVE THE FREEDOMS OF ALL DWELLERS IN BENDIGO. LET BENDIGO SET AN
EXAMPLE TO AUSTRALIA AS A CITY WHICH BY VOTE OF ITS CITIZENS HAS DECLARED
ITS CITY TO BE ONE OF FREEDOM FOR ALL.
DR. RUSSELL STANDISH, BA, MB, BS (Sydney University)
MRCP (UK) FRCP (Glasgow)
FRCP (Edinburgh)
Victorian Candidate for Civil and Religious Liberties
in the recent Constitution Convention Election.
SEE ALSO SECOND ADVERTISEMENT IN BENDIGO ADVERTISER
MARCH 21 BEFORE CASTING YOUR VOTE.
OBJECTION NO. 2
SAVE OUR UNDENIABLE LIBERTIES (SOUL)
Bendigo citizens have the unique privilege to signal
their defense of FREEDOM in the present referendum. IT IS VITAL THAT EVERY
CITIZEN VOTE IN THIS REFERENDUM, for your civil and religious liberties
are at stake. This is no trivial matter.
These liberties have been bought over the centuries by
men and women who suffered imprisonment, torture, and death rather than
yield their inalienable rights to religious and civil liberties.
% John Bunyan (author of Pilgrim’s
Progress) spent seven years (1661–1668) in Bedford Prison in defense of
his right to practise and proclaim his religious convictions. He was a
Puritan. He followed the Calvinist theology akin to that of the
Presbyterian Church today.
% In 1661 John James was hanged,
drawn, and quartered in London because he preached on Saturday contrary to
the convictions of the majority.
% William Penn (founder of the
state of Pennsylvania) was only preserved from execution in 1670, for his
practice of preaching the Quaker faith in London, by the resistance of
four of the twelve jurors to convict him. These jurors suffered torture
and imprisonment for their stand.
The 1688–89 British Bill of Rights which is part of
the Victorian State Constitution emerged as a protection against such
persecution and compulsion. Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, Methodists,
Presbyterians, and other Sunday-keeping Christians all have a long and
tragic history of persecution for their faith.
Members of these faiths require and merit full
religious and civil liberties as much as do Saturday-keepers (such as
Seventh-day Adventists and Jews), Friday-keepers (Moslems), as well as
atheists, agnostics, and free-thinkers.
A PROHIBITION UPON SUNDAY TRADING WILL DEPRIVE EVERY
CITIZEN OF BENDIGO, IRRESPECTIVE OF HIS OR HER RELIGIOUS PERSUASION, OF
RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
Vote NO in the Sunday Trading Referendum.
Every breach of civil and religious liberties, however
piously supported and however little it may appear to encroach upon our
liberties, is a large step towards a state of coercion of conscience
which, in a large measure, our nation has happily rejected. Sunday-keepers
have as much at stake in this referendum as do all other citizens.
The words of Winston Churchill spoken on October 5 1938
in another setting, are full of challenge to the citizens of Bendigo as
they consider their vote in the Sunday Trading Referendum.
Do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the
beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first
foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year
unless, by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise
again, and take our stand for freedom as in the olden times. (Into the
Battle, p. 53)
VOTE NO IN THE SUNDAY TRADING REFERENDUM TO
PRESERVE THE RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES OF
% SUNDAY-KEEPING CHRISTIANS
% SABBATH (SATURDAY)- KEEPING
CHRISTIANS %
BELIEVERS OF NON-CHRISTIAN FAITHS
% THOSE WITHOUT RELIGIOUS
CONVICTIONS
DR. RUSSELL STANDISH, BA, MB, BS (Sydney University)
MRCP (UK), FRCP (Glasgow)
FRCP (Edinburgh)
Victorian Candidate for Civil and Religious Liberties
in the recent Constitution Convention Election.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
REMNANT HERALD PTY. LTD.
The Editor
Bendigo Advertiser Newspaper
Bendigo
Victoria 3550
Dear Sir
In my separate advertisements in the Bendigo Advertiser
of March 14 and 21, I have dealt with the secular aspects of the religious
and civil liberty issues in the present Sunday Trading Referendum.
In this letter I address the religious issues involved.
The basis for this Save our Sunday campaign is the sacred nature of Sunday
observance. But is Sunday worship a fulfillment of the fourth commandment
which enjoins Bible believers to keep the Sabbath holy? (Exodus 20:8) The
same commandment states that "the seventh day is the sabbath
of the Lord thy God." (Exodus 20:10, emphasis added)
The Bible alone must decide which day is the
seventh-day Sabbath. This it does unequivocally. Speaking of Good Friday,
Scripture states "And that day was the preparation and the sabbath
drew on. (Luke 23:54) Thus the Sabbath day was the day following Good
Friday. Further, speaking of Easter Sunday, the Bible records, "In
the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the
week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre."
(Matthew 28:1) Here Easter Sunday is clearly identified as the first day
of the week and the day after the Sabbath. Thus the Sabbath day is shown
to be the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Only Saturday
therefore can be identified as the Sabbath God declared to be holy.
Both Catholics and Protestants freely agree. The
Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine by Rev. Peter Geirmann,
says thus:
Question - which is the Sabbath day?"
Answer - "Saturday is the Sabbath day."
Question - "Why do we observe Sunday instead of
Saturday?"
Answer - "We observe Sunday instead of Saturday
because the Catholic church, in the Council of Laodicea (a.d. 336)
transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday" Second edition, p.
50.
Rev. Dr. Edward T Hiscox, author of The Baptist
Manual, says: "There was and is a commandment to keep holy the
Sabbath day, but that Sabbath Day was not Sunday. It will be said,
however, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred
from the seventh to the first day of the week. . . . Where can the record
of such a transaction be found? not in the New Testament—absolutely not.
. . . Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early
Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from the Christian
Fathers, and other sources. But WHAT A PITY that it comes branded with the
mark of paganism and christened with the name of the sun god, when adopted
and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to
Protestantism! (Source Book, pp. 513, 514)
Sir William Domville of the Church of England says:
"Centuries of the Christian era passed away before Sunday was
observed by the Christian church as the Sabbath. History does not furnish
us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed
previous to the Sabbatical edict of Constantine in a.d. 321." (The
Sabbath Or an examination of the Six Texts, p. 291)
The Presbyterian Christian at Work said this:
"So some have tried to build the observance of Sunday upon apostolic
command, whereas the apostles gave no command on the matter at all. . . .
The truth is, as soon as we appeal to the ‘Litera scripta’ [the
literal writing] of the Bible, the Sabbatarians have the best of the
argument." (Ed. April 19 1883)
The Methodist Theological Compendium states:
"It is true, there is no positive command for infant baptism . . .
nor is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week."
Dr. W. R. Dale (Congregational) in The Ten
Commandments, pp. 106,107, says, "It is quite clear that however
rigidly or devotedly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the
Sabbath."
The Lutheran position as revealed in the Augsburg
Confession of Faith states: "The observance of the Lord’s day
(Sunday) is founded not on any commandment of God, but on the authority of
the church."
Episcopalian spokesman Neander writes in The History
of the Christian Religion and Church, p 186: "The festival of
Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and
it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a divine
command in this respect, far from them and from the early apostolic church
to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday."
Since there is no biblical basis for Sunday-keeping,
the case for the abolition of Sunday trading possesses no religious basis.
In addition there is no moral mandate to enforce one’s personal
convictions upon all the citizens of the city.
Yours faithfully
/s/ Russell R. Standish
Dr. Russell Standish
BA MB BS (Sydney University)
MRCP (UK), FRCP (Edinburgh)
FRCP (Glasgow)
Only marked vigilance in the preservation of our
liberties will hold back the tide of return to the days when dissenting
worshipers will be increasingly persecuted for their firmly-held
convictions.
A final note on this referendum. The Save Our Sunday
initiative was soundly defeated by the citizens of Bendigo. Most citizens
of adult ages voted, though voting was non-compulsory, and by a margin of
approximately 35,000 to 10,600 the measure was lost. But God’s people
must be ever vigilant.
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