Hedley Fihaki, minister at Mooloolaba Christian Church has been in touch with the Manly seven. they all attended his church when Manly camped in Queensland during the Covid period last year. Fihaki’s cousins are friends with some of the “Manly boys.” And lots of pictures of them are on his Facebook page. Fihaki is the National Chair of the evangelical Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the Uniting church.
I would like to say first and foremost that I continue to be very proud of the Manly 7 for making a stance on this matter under enormous pressure to conform, not only with the rest of the team, but with society as a whole.
What needs to be made very clear is that to make a stance on matters of ‘faith’ (in terms of freedom of religion) such as that marriage is the union of a man and a woman does not by any measure of logic make one by default a bigot or a homophobe.
Such illogical extrapolation of meaning is an abuse of the English language which leads to real consequences such as the reported advice by the police to the Manly 7 not to attend the game last night because of fear that those who actually believe this nonsensical view that the Manly 7 are ‘bigots’ and ‘homophobes’ might actually act out their beliefs by trying to injure the boys. The decision of the Manly Club has and continues to create a very ‘unsafe place’ for the Manly 7.
It is a grave injustice to misuse and manipulate the English language to give the illusion that the ‘LGBTI rainbow ideology’ is all about ‘inclusion’ while people of ‘faith’ are not only all about ‘exclusion’ but are also, by extension and by default, as already stated, bigots and homophobes.
Flowing on from this is the constant wrongheaded approach by those who promote the ‘rainbow ideology’ to try and make out that a person of ‘faith’ and their ‘religious views’ on marriage for example, are a source of ‘hate’ that leads to the high statistics on young people seeking to ‘harm’ themselves by way of suicide. Christianity in this sense is being deliberately and wrongly framed as a religion of ‘hate’ and ‘harm’ and therefore something to be ‘cancelled’. This is what the whole so-called “anti conversion therapy” bill is all about. Just look at the use of language here to create the worst possible image in one’s mind about the gospel or the Bible(and those who believe it) as being something that causes hate and harm to the vulnerable in our society and therefore needs to be shut down.
The consequences of the decision by the Manly Club to run with the new rainbow Jersey was clearly wrong because despite the constant preaching by the commentators who support the ‘rainbow’ ideology that it is all about ‘inclusivity’, the glaring and blinding fact remains – the rainbow jersey created division, real exclusion and unnecessary and heated debate along ideological lines rather than simply allowing ‘all’ the manly boys to play rugby. More the point, Manly was defeated by the Roosters and it was clearly evident, despite the Many teams best efforts, that the exclusion of the Manly 7 had real consequences on the teams performance and the actual outcome of the game, i.e. Manly 10 – Roosters 20.
I believe the real cost and fallout of Manly’s decision to go down this path, as some commentators are already predicting, have not yet been fully realised.
The final point that needs to be addressed is the issue of gambling and alcohol which many try to wrongly use as the basis for laying the charge of hypocrisy on the Manly 7 in terms of wearing a jersey that advertises Alcohol and Gambling.
The assumption is that it is a sin or wrong to drink and to gamble or that Scripture is against both of these.
Alcohol and gambling is not a sin! However, because of our sinfulness and therefore the way we as people abuse both alcohol and gambling, the warming is always or should always be added to ‘drink in moderation’ and to ‘gamble responsibly’.