Meet Chloe Cole, Alcohol Reform and New Conservatives
Good Morning and Welcome to this week’s Gospel and Culture update, by Alan Vink
Meet Chloe Cole, Alcohol Reform and New Conservatives
Monday 7th November, 2022
POV. The Alcohol Industry is probably the most powerful lobby group in NZ. It consistently blocks any moves by whatever Government that wants to reduce alcohol harm. That alcohol is a cause of great hurt and harm is no longer in dispute. Yes, it is time that the law(s) is changed.
Here are three things we as churches could do. 1) Support the call for legislative change and 2) give both moral and financial support to ‘Alcohol Healthwatch’ and 3) pray that a solution is found that focuses on protecting young people from the harms of drinking alcohol at to younger an age and certainly from drinking too much.
Chloe Cole - Activist and Educator
This young women is very courageous. Check out this 44min interview that Jennifer Lahl at the Center for Bioethics has with Chloe about her gender dysphoria and her decision to medically and surgically transition. She was put on puberty blocks, given testosterones, and at 15 had a double mastectomy. Listen and hear her thoughts on why this happened, how she came to detransition, and her advice to parents and to other young people.
POV. Pastors, this interview is particularly insightful as Chloe shares how she ended up transitioning. The impact of social media and the power of the ‘transitioning community’. I think it would be an excellent resource for a training night with your youth leadership team. Actually, I am in no doubt that many parents would benefit greatly from watching this.
COP27
Here is a very helpful explainer and background paper on COP27.
POV. I am in no doubt that we are facing a manmade (anthropogenic) climate emergency if not a climate crisis. I am also convinced that this needs all of us to understand this issue and do what we can to reduce carbon emissions if not eradicate them. Please note I am still trying to understand the role carbon has in our world. Further, I believe that this needs a truly bi-partisan, inter-governmental response from every nation on earth. And finally for now, I believe that we as Christians need to wrestle to the ground what it means to be a people who take seriously our God given mandate to be ‘good stewards of the earth’. That means the land, the sea and the air.
