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Why I’m angry, sad and still full of hope as Tasmania moves to ban “conversion practices”.

For 42 years, I have lived as a Christian in Australia. The first 16 of those very much living out my parents’ faith before; at around 16-17, over about a year of having a series of experiences and intellectual breakthroughs, meaning I took on my parents’ faith as my own.

Faith That Shapes a Life of Service

The Christian faith has been, and continues to be, the engine room of my life. It is because of my faith that I seek to love all people even if I disagree with them. It is because of my Christian faith that I seek to be honest and hardworking in the different jobs I’ve had.

It is because of my Christian faith that I have studied at University and sought to understand more about how people work together (Sociology), governments operate (Public Policy), and then how to understand the rich heritage of Christian theology that shapes so much of the world in which we live (Master of Divinity).

It is the Christian faith that means, though I often don’t like it and many times fundamentally disagree with how it’s spent, I pay my taxes and don’t cheat on my tax return. It is my Christian faith that means I’ve cared for the old and the young, the sick and the dying, the confused and the struggling in many and various ways throughout my adult working life. I’ve worked with LGBTIQA+ people, people from a variety of racial backgrounds, people of great faith and people of none.

It is my Christian faith that has motivated me to be a good, faithful and law-abiding citizen of this great country which I’ve had the good fortune to be born into and it is the Christian faith that led me to Tasmania some 30 years ago with my parents.

There are thousands of people like me in Tasmania. Church-going, Bible-believing, good corporate citizens. We volunteer our time, we give our money, we work hard for our neighbours, whether they like us or not, to ensure that the place we live enjoys the best of God’s blessings and favour.

None of this is going to change for me, or I suspect for any of my brothers and sisters in the faith.

But I do believe we are entitled to be told why our unwillingness to affirm children’s bodies being mutilated, or our desire that people of the Christian faith express their sexuality as chaste singles or in heterosexual marriages, makes us worthy of a complaint, an investigation, or a court.

A State Confronting the Wrong Priorities

I also believe Premier Rockliff must explain why he seems to think the majority of Christians in his electorate and in his state are dangerous. He leads a state that is struggling with real crime. Tasmania has the highest rate of young people under youth justice supervision in Australia (AIHW Youth Justice 2024-25).

Over four years from 2020-21 to 2024-25, crime in Tasmania has risen by 44% (Tas Police 2020-21, 2024-25). Family violence offenders have risen by 10% (ABS), victims of robbery have increased by 139%, other theft by 61%, assault by 19% and sexual assault by 19% too (ABS).

As a state, we have a huge problem with real criminals doing actual harm, and yet our parliament, led by our Premier with his ideological friends and fellow travellers in the Greens and the ALP, is seeking to make my prayers for God to change people, and your conversations with your own children about how your daughter can’t become your son, possible offences.

Will Prayer and Parenting Become Grounds for Complaints?

Christians are not in the business of forcing people to believe. That is not the way of Christ. We will happily tell you how we think God calls you to live life to the full. We will share with you what God calls sin. We will advocate in a democracy for laws that line up with God’s standards of right and wrong. But at the end of the day, if we lose the day, we will keep on doing things God’s way.

We will not stop praying for people to convert to Christianity. We will not stop praying for God to change the lives of people. We will pray for the violent offenders to find grace. We will pray for the greedy corporations to have hearts of generosity. We will pray for world leaders who make war to seek peace. We will pray for those who are sick to find healing. We will pray for the power of God to change all sorts of lives. But we will never force anyone.

So today I weep for my state and this great nation that is Australia. As our Tasmanian parliament debates and looks likely to pass its conversion therapy laws, I awaken to a new reality not yet experienced in 42 years of my life. Under this bill, my prayers are only legal until someone decides they were part of a ‘conversion practice’. Even if the person asked me to pray for them. Under this bill, your conversations with your children about girls and boys enjoying the fullness and diversity that is the spectrum of the binary male and female sexes are only legal until someone decides they were intended to change their ‘gender identity’.

What a sad day. What a crazy day. My neighbours have voted into our parliament people who would make my prayers and my parenting a matter for a commissioner or a court. This is a dangerous day.

I am angry.

I am sad.

I am bitterly disappointed.

Legislation Cannot Silence the Hope of the Gospel

But I am full of hope. Because the Christian faith is the engine room of my life. And no matter what the parliament legislates, or whatever win Satan claims through their vote, they cannot undo the cross of Jesus Christ or the message of the gospel.

The Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 5:3-5 (NIV):

³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings,
because we know that suffering produces perseverance;
⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope.
⁵ And hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

42 years of Christian faith have taught me well and prepared me for this disappointing day. Should I suffer in jail or before a court, should my faith find itself outlawed, nothing can take away the powerful work of the Holy Spirit and the hope of glory in Jesus Christ.

Satan may celebrate when this law passes. But the war is already won. Jesus has beaten sin, Satan and death. And so Christians like me will continue to do what we’ve always done. To pray for lives to change. To love our neighbours as ourselves. And to work for the good of our city and our state, even if and when they call evil good and good evil.

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Republished with thanks to Faithful Fatherhood. Image courtesy of Adobe.