Australian Values

Roy and HG summed it up best when they said that if you want to test if some one has Australian Values you only need to ask two questions.

1) Do you like to drink?

2) Do you like throwing up in public?

The only reason to call for migrants to pass an Autralian Values test is to back handedly imply that our current crop of migrants would fail such a test. Racism is something that I think Australia will take a while to shake off. The dinasour of the white Australia policy has a long tail and it is still shaking vigourously. The one thing that makes our racism look even more ridiculous is that about every ten years or so we move to a new ethnic group to attack. Just before going into high school I remember reading "they're a wierd mob" (it was probably my first adult book) the stroy of an italian migrant. In High school I had an asain friend who was regularly told to "go home" and first hand how spitefull racism can be. Now it's people of middle eastern appearence. Next, who knows. As each new ethnic group moves hear they will struggle to settle in to our culture they will associate with people from their own culture and they will be ostracised by the rest of us. Yet a generation or two no one will be able to remember why this happened in the first place and we will have a deep appreciation of all that this new culture has brought to Australia even if it's as simple as some great new cuisnine and a batch of better soccer players.

So if you're new to Australia weclome


Exo 12:49 there shall be one law for the native and for the alien who resides among you.
Exo 22:21 You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
Exo 23:9 You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
Lev 19:10 You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.
Lev 19:33-34 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Lev 23:22 When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the alien: I am the Lord your God.

Lev 24:22 You shall have one law for the alien and for the citizen: for I am the Lord your God.

Num 15:29 For both the native among the Israelites and the alien residing among them—you shall have the same law for anyone who acts in error.

Deu 1:16 I charged your judges at that time: "Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien.
Deu 10:19 You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Deu 24:17 You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow's garment in pledge.
Deu 24:19-21 When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings. When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.
Deu 27:19 "Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice." All the people shall say, "Amen!"
Job 29:16 I was a father to the needy, and I championed the cause of the stranger.
Job 31:32 the stranger has not lodged in the street; I have opened my doors to the traveler—

Jer 7:6 if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt,
Jer 22:3 Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place.
Eze 22:7 Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the alien residing within you suffers extortion; the orphan and the widow are wronged in you.
Eze 22:29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery; they have oppressed the poor and needy, and have extorted from the alien without redress.
Zec 7:10 do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. Mal 3:5 Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
Mat 25:35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,

4 of 101 things to do as a churchless Xn - Computer Reflections

Name: Computer Reflections
Category: Connect
Size: Solo
Description: I posted about whether this was a viable thing a while ago and since then have given it a bit of a go. If your the kind of person who is stuck in an office all day Computer Reflections can be great way of escaping from the office for a while. A virtual cigarette break if you like. The way I like to use them is to read them and then go for a walk outside for a while. Although often I'll skip the walk outside which is a bit like trying to get fit by putting on sneakers but not going for a run.

Three computer reflections I've found helpful are...

Richard Rohr's Daily Reflections
Just a simple paragraph thought of Richard's every day. Richard is a Franciscan Priest and author. Simple and Short. Uses the clock on your computer to pick the date so you can look back at previous entries by changing the date on your computer.

Re:Jesus Reflection and Prayer
From the groovy dudes at Re:Jesus a U.K site and the least Catholic of the three reflections and the most elegant looking design with a very smooth flash animation. Has a morning, day and night reflections. The prayer exercise repeat themselves but it is a nice way to cycle through the scriptures.

Sacred Space (Irish Jesuits)
The longest of the three and the most clunky design, but try not to let that put you off. Follows a "The Presence of God", "Freedom", "Consciousness", "The Word", "Conversation" pattern and cycles through scripture with a new reflection every day.

Ritual, Doctrine and Story

A few weeks ago I started wrestling with an Andrew McGowan talk I heard on Encounter (the full transcript is here). He's a man who likes his Xy steeped in ritual and is not ashamed of religion (as opposed to religiosity). He argues that Jesus and Paul and the early Xns were religious and to claim to have a religion less or "spiritualised Christianity is a serious theological mis-step". There was something about what he said that seemed to hit a nerve with me particularly having recently seen the film Whale Rider (post about that here) and been enchanted somewhat with the rites and rituals of the Moari culture. I know of Xn churches near me where rites and rituals are big part of what they do yet, I still don’t feel like I don't fit in, with these more Liberal ritual orientated churches. Conversely feel less and less like I fit in with more Evangelical doctrine and belief orientated churches. (Evangelical includes many emerging churches who I think are often just re-imagining evangelicalism, which is a fine pursuit for an evangelical to go on.)

None the less, I feel like I don’t fit and I think I have worked out why. It’s because I’m a post-modern person. For me ritual and doctrine come second and story comes first. By story I mean the big story of God’s relationship with the world. Now story is dangerous because it is slippery. Story is slippery because every story has an original historical context, it has an author with intentions, there is an intended audience all of which need to be taken in to account. Finally there is the reader. Each reader has different experiences and can relate to different aspects of the story in different ways. For this reason Jewish Scholars often speak of the Seventy Faces of Torah. You could read the same piece Torah and come away with seventy different ways of understanding it. That is simply the nature of story which is what the Bible is essentially. When Jesus says Love God and Love Others there is no list of exactly how to do that instead we are left with context specific examples and we have to work out how we can mirror those in some way in our own context. To make things simpler we devise doctrines and beliefs, to remind ourselves of what we know we devise rituals and rites. But they come second and are therefore somewhat more flexible. Not to say that we just toss away ideas that Xns have held for centuries, but we critic them with some reverence knowing they have been usefull to many before us but we none the less wrestle with them reinforce, revive, replace or reject them. We do this because story coems first. If you’re a post modern you’ll understand what I’m saying if you’re a modern you’ll be thinking this sounds awful dangerous.

Now, I’ll think I’ll spend some time reading the Bible and getting my teeth into the story.

Emerging Church: Just as bad as the Da Vinci Code?

In a recent Sydney Anglican article True Confessions of the Emerging Church the Sydney Anglican authors compare the Emerging Church to the Da Vinci code describing both as a "protest against biblical orthodoxy". Having met quite a lot of painfully orthodox Emerging Church type people I don't think anything could be further than the truth.

The Da Vinci Code and the Emerging Church have both come out of an environment where people have very little trust of authorities. The Da Vinci Code only works because readers have the ability to look over the flimsy historicity of the book because they have an overwhelming greater belief that the church is just the kind of organisation to hide things from believers in order to monopolise their faith. Similarly, Emerging Church types find it hard to blindly trust the authority of traditional orthodoxy, or traditional churches and their structures and perhaps have a belief that maybe we can connect to God ourselves and don't need a third party to help us do that.

It looks to me like Sydney Anglicans might be keen for people to (reformation style) have a Bible of their own to read, just as long as they are the ones to tell us all what it means. It looks like the Sydney Evangelical movement are still a long way from taking the great leap forward from modernity to post-modernity.

Friends At Last

After a bit of a misunderstanding Father Bob referred to me as his friend today in this reply to a post of his. Woo Hoo! Father Bob often refers to people as "your friend" so it's nice to see him refer to me as his friend. Any way I guess being misunderstood will be a constant problem being a Liberal Evangelical, and being someone whose ideas sounds familiar in some ways yet doesn't really fit the box those ideas usually come from.

Looks like another such person is Matt Stone who posted a comment on Father Bob's Blog. His gallery of church signs are very funny. The "Anal Convention" was amusing but the picture below is my favourite just because it makes you wonder about what sort of problems the congregation must be having.

Gay Marriage - Why Care?

Gay Marriage was on TV this week with a SBS's insight doing a show "Gay marriage", David from Big Brother talking about it and that other media powerhouse The Daily Len doing a post.

It's also an issue that has tends to get many Xns highly animated - still the only petition that a fellow workmate has put across my desk was one to stop gay marriage's being made legal. My questions is why do Xns care about this?

In this post I don't want to discuss whether I think homosexuality is right or wrong etc... See the Homosexuality the new leprosy post for my thoughts on that. What I'd like to look at is those people who do think it is wrong and ask why do they care?

At the very worst if you consider two gay people getting married a sin, it is a sin that two people mutually agreeing to commit that sin with each other and only affecting each other. We live in a secular state and in a country where there is a division between church and state. For anyone to have the right to enforce their values onto others when that behaviour has no affect what so ever on anyone else in the community that is tantamount to asking for a moral dictatorship. This is something I am sure Xns would rightly be against if their view was in the minority. C.S Lewis argued that if Xns were to grade levels of sin (which he advocated against) a sexual sin committed by two complicit parties would have to be considered a lesser sin rather than a greater sin.

There a plenty of sins being committed by plenty of people every day but very few of these that Xns will try to change the law on. The sins that I think Xns should look to try and outlaw are the ones that involve one person's sin hurting an innocent person (like murder). Gay marriage simply does not fit in this category. So I just don't understand why it bothers people if we have gay marriage or not. In fact, I would like to see it available just so that everyone has the freedom to do what they feel is morally right even if people disagree with that as long as that act does not inflict on the freedoms of anyone of anyone else to act as they see morally right.

When it comes to Gay couples adopting kids, the logic of the fundamentalist Xn goes a little something like this...

1) Bad parents cause their children to reject their parents sexual preference and become gay.
2) All homosexual couples will bad parents.

Therefore...

3) We should only allow homosexual couples (inherently bad parents) to be parents if we are to stamp out homosexuality.

3 of 101 things to do as a churchless Xn - Pray During Breakfast and Dinner

Name: Pray During Breakfast and Dinner
Category: Connect
Size: Small or Solo
Description: This one's really simple but can be really effective. My wife and I have started doing this lately and makes a big difference to our day, taking out just a minute or two to pray first thing and last thing of the day. I try to at least thank God for one good thing and ask for help in one not so good thing.

Masculinity

There are Daily Richard Rohr reflections at the Center for Action and Contemplation. Today's reflections was this...

"Patriarchy and Masculinity"

Patriarchy and masculinity are not the same thing. Patriarchy is wounded and un-whole masculinity. If we believe that we are created in the image of God - "Male and female, God created them" - then half of God is what it means to be masculine. Half of God is what it means to be feminine. Anybody who only gives you half of that truth is only giving you half of the mystery of God. The journey for all of us is to find the opposite, the contrasexual. For men, this is called the anima, or feminine soul. Patriarchy is immature masculinity. Its' males who don't know their souls, who don't know who they are. So they overdo it. Whenever you see people dominating others, you know they haven't found their soul.

from Is There a Masculine Spirituality?

Masculinity is a strange thing so often expressed just as one's ability to dominate another. Be that physical strength, sporting ability or intellectual ability - how often has a man come in a conversation tired to trump the conversation by trying to say the cleverest thing. As an old uni friend bluntly put it masculinity is the ability to say "my d**k's bigger than yours". If your life is about dominating others or showing that you could dominate them if you wished, you become the kind of person that no-one feels like they can show any vulnerability, for fear of being dominated. Perhaps this is why some women act physically and mentally inferior to men in order to appeal to that dominating side. If we are telling people how all powerful and dominating our God is and how he demands us to submit to him, it is little wonder that men who have some sensitivity and women who are in some way empowered are just not interested in Christianity. We need to severely avoid this at all costs primarily because the more I get to know God the more I realise she's just not like this. :)

2 of 101 things to do as a churchless Xn - God is no Laughing Matter

Name: God is no Laughing Matter
Category: Grow
Size: Small
Description: Julia Cameron's book God is no laughing matter is a great resource if ever you want to get together whether a group of people and talk spiritual stuff. Great especially if the group aren't all Xns or are unsure what they believe and want to have the freedom to explore that in a safe way. In fact the times I have used it, it has been so good as working as a launching pad to talk about other stuff that the groups has stopped using the book by the fifth chapter or so because it has sparked enough things for us all to talk about and created an environment where people felt free to say what they thought as there is no agenda being pushed by the book. The format of the book is a short essay (short enough for one person to read aloud at the start) followed by a series of questions or activity. Amazon's preview of the book will let you look at few chapters as examples.

Black Dog Bites Again - Would Jesus get depressed?

Last month I wrote a post saying I was emotionally exhausted. That was the start of a difficult time for me that has once again lead to needing medication for depression. This blog has been a bit more active than usual and has served as somewhat of a diversion for me during this time. Alas not even the birth of a beautiful baby daughter could snap me out of it. Depression is not something new for me and even when I'm not depressed I have some what of a melancholic out look on life. Now that the medication has kicked and my mind is starting to clear some what I started asking myself some questions...

What sort of person gets depressed?
And
Did Jesus get depressed?

The first time I thought it might be a particular type of person that got depressed was about seven years ago while I was working in disability care. There were a great team of staff there but about half of us got on slightly better with about half of the groups who also tended to get on best with people from that half. After about six months of getting to know each other I discovered that the one thing we all had in common was that we were all on some kind of anti-depressant medication, and to my mind these people were all more empathetic and self aware. Just the kind of people I like.

With an increase in depression in western societies I'm not entirely convinced that my depression is just a chemical imbalance. I get the sense that many of us are frustrated with how the world is. We are struck by how much power we have in the west and how much the lifestyles we have inherited are damaging to the both people in developing countries and the environment and how difficult it is for us to change any of this in a meaningful way to make things better.

With depressives David, Job and the writer of Ecclesiastes before him my guess is that Jesus too got depressed. This quote from Luke really hits a chord with me.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

Luke 13:34

Here is Jesus expressing the simple desire of God to reconnect with his people. Surely out of all things the easiest thing for a hen to do is to gather her brood and if any one is going to be able to do that with Israel it's going to be Jesus, but he doesn't. Jesus is left with 12 disciples to try to carry on his legacy, one of whom is going to betray him and the most faithful who is about to deny knowing him. That is a depressing situation. Part of the challenge of being a Xn to me is to trust that God's plan is still going ok when it all looks crap from where I'm sitting.

1 of 101 things to do as a churchless Xn - Adopt a Grandpa/ma

I feel like for the last few posts I have gone a little bit theoretical so now's time to get practical. I want to make a list of 101 (or more) things to do as a churchless Xn. All posts like this will fall into the either Connect (with God) , Grow (as a Xn / human) or Serve (others) Category and Solo, Small (2-6 people) and Large (7 or more people) Size. I'll try and get an even spread. First up I'm going to start with something a little obscure to get the ball rolling...

Name: Adopt a Grandpa/ma
Category: Serve
Size: Solo or Small
Description: This is not always an easy one, but if you live some where where there are lots of older people around at least try talking to them. This is something I have had the pleasure of doing. It started one Christmas when I met my soon to be adopted grandpa walking our street looking for a friend (who lived on the street) to give a small Christmas present too. They weren't at home so my housemate (a Christmas orphan like me) invited him in for a cup of tea. We had a bit of a chat and said come back again if you are in the area, and he did. Pretty soon he was coming over just to say hello to both of us. It wasn't something I set out to do it just happened, so it's not a recipe for success. None the less there are plenty of people who could do with someone to talk to in our crowded world.

If you have any other ideas let me know!

Funky quotes about religion

tHere are some funky quotes about religion from the future of religion episode of the spirit of things

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feelings of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Karl Marx, 1844.

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

Edmund Burke, 1795

Religion’s in the heart, not in the knees.

Douglas Jerrold, 1830

Nobody can deny but religion is a comfort to the distressed, a cordial to the sick, and sometimes, a restraint on the wicked. Therefore, whoever would laugh or argue it out of the world, without giving some equivalent for it, ought to be treated as a Common enemy.

Mary Wortley Montague, 1752

No-one knows who will live in this iron cage in the future. Or whether at the end of this tremendous development, entirely new prophets will arise. Or there will be a great rebirth of the old ideas and ideals. Or if neither, a mechanised petrification embellished with a sort of convulsive self-importance. For of the last men of this cultural development, it might well be truly said, specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart.

Max Weber, 1920

So long as man remains free, he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully, as to find someone to worship.

Feodor Dostoyevsky, 1879

As societies become greater in volume and density, they increase in complexity. Work is divided, individual differences multiply, the moment approaches when the only remaining bond among the members of a single human group will be that they are all men. Since human personality is the only thing that appeals unanimously to all heart, since its enhancement is the only aim that can be collectably pursued, it rises above all human aids assuming a religious nature.

Emile Durkheim, 1897

Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life!

Lord Melbourne

Religion, which true policy befriends,
designed by God to serve man’s noblest ends,
is, by that old deceiver’s subtle play,
made the chief party in its own decay.

Katherine Phillips

Morals and Values

Philip Adams: columnist, broadcaster (Late Night Live) and atheist, has mentioned a couple of times that he has had religious people tell him that he cannot have morals of values unless he believes in a God. However, he says he can and I believe him. Further more, I think that people of faith (of any kind) need to have morals and values aside from God as well.

My hunch is that most Xns believe that they get their morals and values from God and that it is God that teaches them what is right and wrong. I think this way of thinking is flawed and in a worse case scenario it leads to someone believing that God’s morals and values are that killing others is ok and that suicide bombing will be rewarded which then means that suicide bombing is a moral thing to do. Although not like this extreme case I think that the run of the mill Xn can fall into similar traps. Evangelicals can fall into the trap of saying I think X is from God and therefore it is the right thing to do. Liberals can fall into the trap of saying X seems like the loving thing to do to me and God is loving so therefore it's what God wants. The problem in both cases is the belief that we as Xns hold the monopoly on morality and values and therefore do not need to listen to others.

My thought is that morals are not from God, because “morals from God” are used to judge other people. Rather morals are aside from God and what humans use to judge God. Surely this is why (if you are) you are a Xn. I am nota Xn because God performed miracles or has power and authority over me. Rather I am a Xn because of the love through action that God has shown to me particularly in Jesus. Or, because of the values and morality that God has demonstrated to me. This is why I respect the God I find in Jesus.

Maybe God doesn’t tell what is right and wrong but shows us how to live right and helps us to live right through forgiveness and by demonstrating love in action in Jesus. The big struggle in life is not work out what is right and wrong but how best to do what is right. Most people want to help people in the 3rd world but what is the best way? Lend them more money, give them more aid and then is that the kind of aid where we go in and do it all for them or do we take a more hands off approach. One right thing to do – help others. One big ocean of grey when it comes to how do we do that? This is why I think the Bible is more story than rules and quite often the rules (take lots of Leviticus) are culturally specific. The beauty of the stories is they to show us how to love in creative contextually ways and this is what we need to be and do. Love in creative and contextually appropriate ways, which will always mean reinventing the wheel, but that it was relationships are all about. Just because Dad liked a John Pilger book for Christmas doesn’t mean mum will. The way we stand out is the way we love not the morals and values we tell others they need to have.

Motivational Speaker Shoots Self In Foot

For those of you who are into this sort of thing this is probably a bit late and has been around the web for a while. But as a not big web surfer I came late and found it hilarious. In short and undercover agent (and weapons expert) giving a motivational talk on the danger of firearms shoots himself during a presentation. What made the video of this so funny to me was the presenters dogged persistence to not only carry on with the presentation after shooting himself but to use the shooting as an illustration on the danger of firearms. “The show must go on!”

See it at…

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0411061foot1.html

Whale Rider

Last Sunday Night I got to watch "Whale Rider" again. An absolutely extraordinary film that blends myth and reality beautifully. I was struck by the Gospel analogies in the story.
• There is a prophet who doesn't look like what people are expecting and doesn't do what they are expecting.
• There is a Death and Resurrection (of sorts) that is all about forgiveness
• There is a doubting Thomas
• And the prophet has a deep respect for the religion yet shakes it up as well.

Watching "Whale Rider" and seeing the Maori tradition started me yearning for some more tradition in Xn life. This is something that we have not passed on well. Evangelical churches don't really have this at all and the mainline churches seem to have traditions that, to me, seem to connect more with the medieval period. Having grown up evangelical I have a strong connection to New Testament expressions of faith – baptism, shared meal etc… Only because I have read about them rather than practiced them. I think we have lost these practices. In mainline churches Baptism has become infant baptism and a shared meal has become a wafer and sip of wine. In evangelical churches Baptism has become a prayer you say and communion has been down graded and seen as something too religious or ritualistic to make central to our Xn practice.

I guess that leaves me with a faith based on a series propositions free from ritual and religion. I get the feeling sometimes that my evangelical upbringing has handed me a bone devoid of meet and that mainline churches around me are offering me a bone wrapped in Tofu. Like many people who identify as “emerging church” types I’m starting the journey of playing with rituals and religious practices to put some meat on my spiritual bones.

It's a girl!

Today was was the birth of our first child, a girl, Scarlett. She's beautiful. This is her about five hours old. Words cannot begin to describe how I feel. Maybe I'll try on a later post...

Direct Debit Welfare

There have been some calls recently for "Direct Debit Welfare" were welfare recipients have 30% of their payments made straight to rent, electricity and food. The idea being that people won't then spend this on food rather than on alcohol or other non essentials. My wife recently seeing a family of seven share a just one pizza because they couldn't afford any more after having spent about $50 on alcohol. I can sympathise with why people might think this way.

See... News article 1 and News article 2

Issues of Nanny welfare aside what bugs me is that underlying this implicit assumption that 30% of welfare payments would be enough to pay for rent, electricity and food. I am not on welfare and I pay 56% of my income on rent, electricity and food. What's more having been on welfare I know that rent, electricity and food takes up at least 60% of the weekly budget. 30% would be lucky to cover just rent.