AP

On a quiet Sunday night, 14 December 2025, at Bondi Beach, Australia suddenly became witness to something of the horrors of the human heart, as a Muslim father and son armed with high-powered rifles murdered fifteen Jews, including one ten-year-old girl with the very Australian name of Matilda. At the time of writing, there are still another 27 in hospital, some in a critical condition. The terrible crime was both random and calculated.

The occasion was Hanukkah, known as the Festival of Lights, which is mentioned in the writings of Josephus and in the book of Maccabees. It was initiated to celebrate the overthrew of the Seleucid tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes IV in 165 B.C. The Second Temple was then rededicated, and the ancient Jews felt that a great darkness had been lifted from them. At Bondi in 2025 there was no blasphemous Antiochus Epiphanes (‘Epiphanes’ means ‘god manifest’), just two hate-filled cowards who presumably had convinced themselves that they were carrying out the will of Allah. And a great darkness fell on all who experienced it. To balance the picture, it should be noted that a Muslim bystander showed extraordinary courage in disarming the older of the two riflemen, and no doubt saved a number of lives.

In the immediate aftermath, there was an outpouring of sympathy and care. That is right and good and necessary; we are called upon to love our neighbour. To be human beings to one another, this cannot be rushed or minimised. On paper – as in this article – it can easily look that way, but in the pain of life, practical empathy must be given free rein.

Recriminations, however, will soon follow, and more will come. There will be Muslims, Jews and sentimental secularists who will seek to solve the problem of such violence with a slogan, or to capitalise on it and use it to bolster their own worldview. All kinds of solutions, or alleviations, will be advanced – tighter gun laws, less immigration, an education program on the evils of anti-Semitism, and the rediscovery of Australian values.

I was rather encouraged by the response of Nathan Lyon, the Australian cricketer, who was asked for his response to it all. He was realistic and modest: ‘our thoughts and our prayers are with them [the victims]. But nothing I’m going to say right now is going to make anyone feel any better, other than we’re thinking of them and hopefully they can get through this.’

At least Lyon spared us any breast-beating about Australian values. Australia’s leading media executives were not so caring. On succesive days -16, 17 and 18  December – they stood together in a shared full-page newspaper statement which was vacuous to the point of being embarrassing. ‘This is Australia,’ it intoned. What is Australia? A few excerpts will more than suffice: ‘It’s backyard cricket in summer and footy in winter. But more than anything, being Australian is about mateship. Our way of looking out for each other. Showing up. Stepping in … Targeting people because of their religion? Not Australian. Living in fear in your own community? Not Australian. Turning a blind eye when hate spreads? Not Australian … We are the land of the fair go. We are built on diversity. It’s what makes us strong …#StandUpToHate.’ We were then meant to sing a rendition of ‘True Blue’ – as if that would heal the broken hearted or soften the hard hearted.

The solution to the evil within is not to be found in the cult of self-worship. Platitudes fill us with delusions and ultimately drain us of life; the Beatitudes humble us and yet fill us with life. Australia is the land of 90,000 abortions per annum; the land of the Gay Mardi Gras; the land where Manning Clark wondered whether we have become ‘bored survivors, sitting comfortless on Bondi Beach, citizens of the kingdom of nothingness, who booze and surf while waiting for the barbarians?’

Some political responses may do something for a time, but the answer to the malaise of the human condition is beyond any parliament to solve. Civil peace is not to be despised; we are to pray for it (1 Tim.2:1-2). So far as it is possible, and it depends on us, we are to live peaceably with our neighbours (Rom.12:18). Yet far too many Christian leaders seem to think that social cohesion is what the gospel is about. It is not: ‘Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.’ (Luke 12:51)

Jesus kept the Hanukkah in the temple in Jerusalem (John 10:22-23). He is the substance of which the Festival of Lights and the temple are but shadows. Christ is the light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5) and the temple where the sacrifice for sin would take place and the victory over sin and death be won (John 2:19-21). Not in secularism, not in sentimentality, not in bread and circuses, not in Islam nor in Judaism, but in Christ, and only in Christ.

– Peter Barnes