It’s Australia day and Perth is in the midst of a record breaking heat wave. Thank God for air conditioning!

I have a love hate relationship with my country. As a born and bred citizen I’m allowed to. As someone who has seen a lot of the world I can do so with some perspective.

I love the freedom I have in Australia. I can travel without having to go through checkpoints or see armed soldiers everywhere. (Police don’t count, they’re armed with pistols and tasers, not machine guns, and are subject to investigation if they fire their weapon.) I love that I can freely and publicly worship and share my faith, and so can people of other faiths. I love that I have the right to public assembly and associate with whomever I wish. I love that I can freely express an opinion, even knock our most senior politicians, without fear of reprisal (slander not withstanding, of course).

I love the Australian environment, heat waves aside. We have low pollution and wide open spaces. I can visit a nearby national park or walk my dog for 3 kilometres along a nearby reserve. I can sit by a local lake and eat my dinner. I can go to a beach with clean water and white sand. I can grow veggies in my modest back yard. I can drive north or south and visit a spectacular variety of landscapes.>

love aspects of our culture. I like that we’re egalitarian and somewhat irreverent. I have access to my local parliamentary representatives. Men and women, old and young, Australian-born and immigrant can have a go. I thank God that the Chinese, Greeks and Italians saved us from British cooking. And I rejoice that persecuted Christians from other countries can find a safe haven in Australia.

I like our political system, more or less, and our balance of capitalism and socialism. No system is perfect because people aren’t perfect – neither the electors or the elected or public servants. But we have a stable political system, comparatively free of corruption. Any citizen can stand for office and vote. I like that a Governor-General could be a former Anglican bishop and a Prime Minister can be an Atheist. I like that we can have changes in government without blood being spilled.

I like our mixture of socialism and capitalism and that people can have a fair go. My kids can get a first class education and learn a musical instrument virtually for free. Ok, it costs hundreds, but that’s nothing compared to the real cost of education. Our system has made university accessible for millions without imposing crushing debt (there is debt, but it’s manageable).No one has to starve but you can become a millionaire. Our economy is one of the most robust in the world.

But I don’t like everything. In fact, some things are deeply troubling.

I hate the consumerism that competes with sports as our national religion and robs us of real soul, and has even infiltrated the church. I don’t like the isolation that has become a normal part of the suburban landscape. I don’t like the redneck, abusive bumper stickers I see on many cars – neither the xenophobia nor the disenfranchisement expressed in them. I don’t like the immodest dress I’m confronted with everyday or that it’s ok to dress shop windows with what would have been considered pornography a generation ago. I don’t like that we assume our politicians are lying to us – and that it’s a reasonably assumption. I don’t like the self-destruction I see happening among the young. The sad thing is the root causes often go unrecognized and as what the previous generations saw as dysfunction becomes the current generation’s normal, we can’t even admit there’s a problem.

I don’t like that political correctness and moral relativity has blinded us to evil and is eroding our system of government. That we cant just name sin and evil, even when it’s destructive nature is evident. I hate that doctors in Victoria could be forced to terminate pregnancies against their conscience (I’m not sure if the legislation was passed, but it was seriously considered). I hate that a religious anti-vilification law could be passed that removed the assumption of innocence (also in Victoria – later overturned by the courts). It’s not just the laws themselves, it’s the fundamental and dangerous shifts in values they reveal.

But let’s face it… there’s no where I’d rather live. (Except maybe New Zealand. My favorite person is a Kiwi. I’d pass up the wide open spaces for the mountains if their economy wasn’t stuffed. But NZ is practically a state of Australia anyway.)

In the end, it’s the people that make the place, and I’m thankful for a lot of people God has given me. I’m thankful for my wife, my children, my family. I’m thankful for friends. I love my church (it’s about people). I enjoy this community and city.

God bless Australia and happy Australia Day.