Sending "Original Sin" to Hell in a Hand Basket

I think I might no longer believe in Original Sin, Satan or Hell, or at least not in the way many Xns believe in these things. This is part one of a what will be a three part post exploring these ideas.

Original Sin seems the most easy and obvious one so I'll start with it. I've been mulling over this for a few days (which I know is not very blog like) and my initial thoughts were...

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Original Sin is mentioned no where in the Bible and is to me some what of a cop out way of explaining why we humans do bad things. I disagree with the notion that we are all born sinful. I think we are all born with the ability to choose to sin or not and we will eventually be given a choice where we choose badly. My 3 month old daughter who is not yet capable of those kind of decisions is therefore sinless at the moment. Like Adam and Eve we are born with the possibility of a sinless life. What is different is that post garden we are born with somewhat more of a disconnection from God than Adam and Eve. We are not walking around in a garden with God, we are walking around with humans, learning from humans and with the same capability to choose sin as Adam and Eve. Therefore it is certain that as long as we live long enough we will sin at some stage. It is possible to be human and not sin, and Jesus is the example of this. I think to say otherwise would be to deny Jesus humanity.

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I was not 100% happy with this paragraph having written it. The thing I don't think I was happy with was the word sin. So often I think sin gets boiled down to just wrong moral or ethical choices and to me it's just so much more than that. Lately I've started to think more in the musical terms of dissonance and harmony. It is like God is play a rhythm track to life and that we can either play in harmony with that or not. This analogy acknowledges that there is a great freedom being Xn, a freedom that transcends a list of do's and don’ts. The gift of the spirit can be seen as the gift of being able to hear that rhythm track. Further more, I think people can probably relate to the idea of being out of tune with God more so than being inherently evil. None the less there's still bits about my first paragraph I like. Original sin is not in the Bible, it denies our ability to chose to sin (if we're made to be that way by something other than ourselves) and is pretty much not helpful in any way as far as I can see.

World's Best Ever Budget Music Video

Chuck Palahniuk on Big Brother

With Big Brother over for another year and reality TV hitting the new lows of "Dancing with the Starts on Ice" and "Celebrity Survivor" (and celebrity really needs to be taken with a grain of salt) I am reminded about what Chuck Paulanick said about Big Brother in his novel Lullaby.

Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big brother's busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure you're imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed it's worse than being watched with the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.

Blue Like Jazz - Review / Reflection

Like Donald Miller I used to not like Jazz, mainly due to an early introduction to Dixieland jazz which I still loath. Also like Donald I was once mesmerised (after my school formal) by a guy playing Jazz on a saxophone on the street. It looked like he was busking but there wasn't any one around for miles. However not until I borrowed "A Kind of Blue" from my local library did I fall in love with jazz and John Coltrane in particular.

"Blue Like Jazz" is very easy reading, it kind of reminded me of the Da Vinci Code the way it could be digested so quickly. Miller is honest and reflective and will be someone who I can imagine can relate to people from many parts of the Xn faith. My problem with Blue like Jazz is that like Jazz Miller has taken a standard chart (jazz speak) or formula and plays a good solo over the top, but none the less he has stuck to the formula. That formula being:

1. Realise you are a sinner and need forgiveness
2. Turn to God become a Xn

There is nothing wrong with this formula but it's not the way that everyone makes their initial connection with God. As a ten year old I had been a Xn for over a year before someone told me that I should prayer the "sinners prayer". It wasn't that I didn't think that I was a sinner, it's just that not how I initially connected with God, and it was the same for my wife. Unfortunately all of the characters in "Blue like Jazz" connectr with God via this same formula.

A smaller issue for me was that I'm not sure if Miller really gives enough respect or understanding of other belief systems. For example at one point in the book he presents Xy as unprovable and illogical but says it works but, he disses Buddhism for being the same (I guess as it didn't work for him).

I still have this strange tension about this book in my mind, that can be best explained by saying I'd give the book to my more conservative Xn friends but not my liberal Xn friends and not my non Xn friends. But don't hear me say the books bad, it was an autobiography that was enjoyable in the same way that a good airport novel is but also unsatisfying in the same way they are. It was really nice to near someone play the standard evangelical Xn chart or formula the way he does and his self deprecating attitude certainly is an asset. I think being a little more self deprecating about what he believes and a bit more research into and respect of what others believe will help him flourish into an interesting Xn author.

Dreaming of a New Flag

This morning I woke up having dreamt that we got a new Australian flag. The Union Jack was gone and the Aboriginal flag had taken it's place, well sort of. I reckon it looks kind of cool.

Addition made on 10:53pm August 23rd 2006

In a comment on this post Unordered suggested something like this...

and since photos can't be put in comment I've added it to the original post.

Context Context Context

Well I'm sick so I decided I'd spend the day mapping out the history in the Bible (as you do). It's something I've wanted to do for a long time as I'm always keen to understand the context of when something (especially the prophets) was written and what was happening at the time. So for example if a prophet says "look at Babylon" I want to know is that Babylon at the height of it's power of after it's demise. You can view my handy work here. Most of the dates are care of Dennis Bratcher.

Annual Review

Well it's just past the second anniversary of "a churchless faith" so I thought I'd do a bit of an annual review or audit.

Things for the year (in no particular order) include...

1. I became a dad. This has been an amazing experience. There is nothing better than saying hello to someone first thing in the morning and have them smile and kick there legs with excitement because they are so pleased to see you.
2. I'm regularly going to the same church. They meet every 2nd and 4th Sunday so it means I can play with other things too. I still struggle with church as much as I did in my first post but I think I owe it to my fellow Xns who are actually going to church to hang out with them too. The other things I've been playing with haven't been going so well. With myself and the other main player in the alternative church thing having a baby it's kind of lost steam before it started. We're now going to try and work out what to do. The two families recently got together and had dinner and read a chapter of God is no laughing matter, which I enjoyed, I'd love to do more of that.
3. I'm half way there to going vegetarian and hope to be there by Christmas.
   
4. I've started Meditating - with thanks to world community for Xn Meditation and there podcasts on meditation I'm now doing this 3 times a week.
5. TV: I bought a bigger flashier one i blame the world cup.
6. I've started somewhat of a spiritual time table or more accurately a spiritual time budget that, for the last couple of weeks, has helped me do more of the things I want to do and less of the things I don't want to do
7. A Veggie Garden! The veggie garden needs more love and more knowledge but I'm getting there.
8. Green Power. I can't afford solar so getting my electricity from natural renewable sources straight from the company has been a great alternative, and it's not that much extra.
9. Doing spiritual stuff with my computer: I started off a Sceptic but now I read Richard Rohr's Daily reflections every week day.
10. I've started praying at breakfast every day.
11. Adult Godly play is still something I'd like to do. It's on the back burner, not forgotten about.
12. Six degrees of iPod seemed like a good idea but then I lost interest
    
13. I bought some Fair trade shoes. I try to buy second hand when I can and fair trade when I can but often the option and labelling is not available.
14. Depression came back again, and I still need medication at the moment I've also started having recurring dreams about being attacked by animals or people every night. If you know what this means let me know.
15. I still have a mobile phone but have discovered I have a voice mail service so it's staying turned off more often.

There is probably a lot more as I've been a bit rushed. Let me know if I've left anything off.

Fat and Rich?

Obesity and being overweight is one of the few things in the world were it’s still ok to look down your nose at someone in that condition. The reason, I think is because it’s generally assumed that over weight people are that way of purely of their own doing that it’s the curse of rich westerners with too much money indulging in volumes of food that people in poorer countries could only imagine. The only problem with the logic of this argument is that you would therefore expect people in the richer parts of Australia to be fatter than those in poorer parts, but, this is not the case. In fact it's the opposite. I live in a town that was once featured on a dodgy night time current affairs show as having a particularly high rate of overweightness and obesity. It is also a poorer lower class area as well. Living here it’s easy to understand why people have chips and gravy for lunch and a large pizza for dinner. It’s because chips and gravy is $2 and a large pizza can be just $4.95 if you have the right discount voucher. That is cheaper than even most home made options, let alone healthy home made options. The reason for increase in obesity is not that we have so much money that we just eat ourselves silly, it’s because for many who are poor and uneducated the diet is easy and affordable.

Seems Like an OK Guy to me

He was a poor orphan and grew up a pagan before finding God. People were angered by his message about God's goodness, and the responsibility that human beings had to respond to that goodness and that mercy by taking care of the poor, and the weak and the sick, the orphan, the widow and by redistributing one's wealth. He was pushed out of his home land saying 'Everything that you see behind me is useless, it's worthless, it's just wood and stone, it means nothing',

He had been preaching for about a decade or so, and during that decade had managed to amass some 70 followers, which is kind of pathetic, if you think about it. So he had a very small group of followers, and he took them with him to create a new kind of society.

This was an era in which the only kind of societal structure that was understood outside of kinship was in a tribe, and the only way you could be a part of a tribe was to be born into a tribe. What he tries to do is recreate society from the ground up. His tribe is one that you don't have to be born into, you can just simply join by following a religion and it's moral teachings. And so therefore it could expand without limit. It didn't matter what ethnicity you were, your kinship wasn't important, your connection or tribal affiliation meant nothing.

His society was not only one in which ethnicity and kinship no longer mattered, it was not only one in which all members of society had an equal access to that society whether you were an orphan or whether you were wealthy, and most importantly, it was a society in which women were for the first time given rights and privileges which they had never conceived of before, the right to own their own properties, the right to inherit property from their husbands and their fathers. Before this time, women could not only not inherit property, they were themselves considered property, and so they would be inherited by their own sons or by other male members of their family. And also most importantly, the right to divorce their husbands, which was something that women never had.

He returns to his home town to the ancient pagan sanctuary, this pantheon really of all the multiple gods of the region, and to cleanse it. He removes all of these idols, he destroys them in front of everyone, and he sanctifies, he re-dedicates it to God. He rededicates it to his new religion of Abraham.

He is Mohammed the founder of Islam. I've have often heard it said that Muslims and Xns have few things in common apart from the heritage of Abraham. Looks to me that we might have plenty to talk about. The above are all quotes taken from the interview with Reza Aslan on Radio Nationals' The Ark.

Watch out it's Democrat's Web Survey!

Forget about refugees or the rights of indigenous people, according to the volume of emails in my personal and work inbox there is a far more pressing issue. The Australian Democrats, who have no influence on either the senate or the house of representatives, are doing a web survey!

Click here to view the survey

The Survey is about God and Government and has been accused of being biased and anti Xn. Personally I'm not sure if the survey is biased, and even if it is it doesn't stress me too much. What the survey does do is raise some genuine valid concerns that the Democrats obviously have which include...

• Church business, like Sanitarium a 7th Day Adventist company that is most famous for making weetbix , and the CD producing arm of Hillsong, enjoy have a tax free status (according to Steven Mayne) and this is not fair to other businesses.
• Chaplains & Religious Education teachers do not need any qualifications to do their job.
• If Church groups that take over public services (like health and welfare) and choose not to offer some services does this mean that those services may become unavailable or at least restricted, and would be a change in democratically agreed upon public policy by stealth.
• Who gets to choose what gets put in to school curriculums. Shouldn't scientists decide what goes into a science curriculum.
• We currently do not have any official split between church and state unlike the USA.

Whilst some in my inbox have labeled this an attack on Xy. I cannot help but think that it shows genuine holes in the way that we as a church have operated, holes that we need to address.

Emo Fashion News

"Red, black and a splash of white with no more than two items featuring vertical stripes, and a fringe to the top of your nose" is the new "black, red and a bit of white with at least one item featuring vertical stripes and a fringe to your eyes".

Legislation you need to hear about

This is an email I got today from the Uniting Church WA Synod Social Justice Unit.

Dear friends, Something dangerous is about to happen to the very heartland of Aboriginal Australia - and neither the traditional owners, nor you, have been warned.

Under the guise of promoting economic development for indigenous Australians, the Federal Government wants to ram through new legislation this Tuesday that actually jeopardises future generations of Aboriginal livelihoods. It's quite possibly the most important law you've never heard of.

The law will amend the iconic Land Rights Act, stripping away power from one of the only true representative bodies, the Land Councils, while pressuring Aboriginal communities to hand over control of their lands for 99 years. With profound disrespect, many of those who this new law affects most have not even been told.

Only your senators can put the brakes on this legislation, to allow time for real debate and understanding. Tell them now these seismic policy changes are too important to rush through.

www.getup.org.au/campaign/StoptheLandGrab

While the government claims the 99-year leases are voluntary, traditional owners are being cajoled into signing away their rights to their land just to secure basic services that we all deserve, like houses and schools.

The original Land Rights Act was an iconic piece of bipartisan legislation. This is a rush job - scarcely understood and widely contested. A scant one-day Parliamentary inquiry should not be permitted to rubber stamp a policy that will leave four generations without land or leadership. Even Government senators expressed 'alarm and concern' at this totally inadequate debate.

Tell your senator to delay the vote until they have done their due diligence as lawmakers, and sufficient time has been made for the traditional owners to be properly consulted.

www.getup.org.au/campaign/StoptheLandGrab

The Northern Territory is flourishing with indigenous culture and living languages. Yet, all Australians know there are also many deeply confronting problems - and all parties agree we must urgently find new ways forward in partnership.

Land is the best asset that Aboriginal people have for economic development. Not one Australian economist has argued that taking land or leadership away will deliver positive economic results - even the conservative Minerals Council of Australia thinks the Government is on the wrong track with its attack on Land Councils.

The economic case has not been made. The social consequences are untested. And traditional owners have been excluded from this decision hat will deeply affect them for generations. Please help stop this before it's too late.

www.getup.org.au/campaign/StoptheLandGrab

Thank you for taking urgent action, The GetUp team.

It's times like these I wish I had a popular blog that lots of people read.

Happiness is a Warm Hut

Last month The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Vanuatu one of the worlds poorest nations is in fact the happiest.

This is not a consumer-driven society. Life here is about community and family and goodwill to other people. It's a place where you don't worry too much.

Maybe we have a lot to learn from these people.

Isaiah Wide Shut

With much thanks to my iPod and my newly purchased copy of the TNIV on MP3 CD I've started listening to the Bible on the way to work. I've got through Luke, John, Philippians, Ecclesiastes and Isaiah. The church I'm going to at the moment is doing a series (just 4 weeks) on all of Isaiah and I thought I'd give myself a heads up by a least listening to the whole book. After listening to Isaiah (and a few other books) it got me thinking about the many sermons and bible studies I'd been too and how bad we are as Xns at reading the whole of a book. Isaiah is a great case in point. Written by three authors covering different time periods, using apocalyptic prophesy and written at accomplished different time place and culture to ours, it's surprising we make any sense of it at all.

Our faith is set in history and therefore we need to know

• when a book is written
• what time was the book set
• what genre the book was and what does this mean
• who it was written by
• to whom was it written
• what was happening in history when the book was written (who is in power, what was the state of God's people at the time)
• what was happening in history at the time the book was set (who is in power, what was the state of God's people at the time)

I've always found Stephen Miller's How to get into the Bible a really easy starting point and manuscript discovery a good way to read the bible too but, I think I'd like a website or book where you can go from the smaller detail giving context to just passages of text to bigger picture of history where you can see how books and history fit into the big scheme of things, like the dividing into the northern and southern kingdoms and times of exile for instance. This is why we tend to gloss over the first (old) testament, it's just too hard to read without a context or a knowledge of the genre in which it is written.

Whinge post over :) Sorry