Post Drought Ahead

Well I might not be posting for a while as I have two questions I've been asked which I'm attempting make coherent answers for. One was asked by Cameron Reilly and is "What would it take for you to loose your faith and become an atheist?" the other is from a friend in another state and is "Is the blood of Christ symbolic or is the actual blood of Christ being shed meant to save us? and if so, how does it save us?" Both are big questions that I want to answer thoroughly. Although I'm hoping to have a fairly short answer to the atheism question there is a fair background information that I'd like to go along with it.

Demonology

This week at the Space we looked at Luke 4:31-42 and as a result I'm playing with an new definition of demon. A "demon" δαιμόνιον is any corruption of humanity that can't be explained otherwise. In Luke, 4:31-42 is the first time we come across "demons" δαιμόνιον. Here the possessed person is just shouting. In chapter 8 it looks like epilepsy, in chapter 9 it looks like a mental illness of sorts and in chapter 11 the person is mute, three things we would describe as sickness today. The Gospels often talk of healing the sick and casting out demons in the same breath so perhaps the two things are not as different as we might be tempted assume given medi-evil stories about demons. Anyway, just a thought to play with for a while.

My New Chandelier

Last weekend the wife and I went to a groovy coffee shop and sat under a groovy retro chandelier. Half and hour later we saw it in a shop. The result is below...

A sad comment I couldn't shake

Whilst at a different church to the one I usually go to someone said something to me I found really disturbing.

I've got a friend using drugs I've tried to tell him it's bad. All his friends except me are drug users. He can be a bit hard to like. There's no way anyone here (as in at his church) would like him. Only his drug using friends like him.

The conviction in his voice that there was no way any one at the church would like him, or entertain the idea of even meeting him was so strong, that I just got on with the practicalities of what he as one person could do. It was only when I was driving home the full impact of what he had said had hit me. I hope that he was wrong but even that he assumed that to be the case saddened me.

How bad have you got it?

This great new add for the 40hr Famine sharply and painfully contrasts kids who think they've got it bad with kids who've really got it bad.

Time Return to A Churchless Faith. Part 2

My toying with timetables and thinking about the idea of dividing life into the areas of Connect, Grow and Serve. Has lead me to the kind of break down of my life outlined below. It is all about trying to work out how to live as a Xn and what that means in a more practical and tangible way rather than something less tangible like "love God and love others" as well meaning as that might be. Below is what I now try to do and check each fortnight. Somethings are slightly more self explanatory or not worked out than others the rest I've added some notes to.

Connect with People

• Family: For me this means making sure I have a cup of tea with the wife every day
  
• Friends: For me that's going to start by inviting different friends over to dinner more often
  
• Geographic Community: At the moment that means walking around the neighbourhood and slowly saying hi to people
  
• Christian Community: At the moment that means connecting with people at the church I'm at.
  
• The Poor: At the moment I'm doing this through work
  
• Stranger: This is something I can't plan
  

Connect With God: this is closely connected with growing as a Xn, so things like reading the Bible I could put he but for the sake of simplicity I won't

• Pray: This is not structured but something I look back on just to check that I'm regularly praying
  
• Meditate: I try and make sure that I take time out at least once a week to do this.
  

Grow as a Christian

• Read the Bible / Xn books
• Listen to the Bible / Xn talks : At the moment I've been listening to a fair bit of Tom Wright. Mostly I do this on the way to and from work
  
• Go to the Space: The Reflective service I am involved in
  

Grow as a Human

• Read
• Listen to podcasts
• Play Guitar and Busk
• Blog
• Exercise

Serve

• Family
• Friends
• Geographic Community
• Christian Community: Mostly doing stuff at church
  
• The Poor: My Job
  
• Stranger: Writing Letters for Amnesty
  

Time Return to A Churchless Faith. Part 1

This Blog is a bit meandering at times. In my mind, at least, I have been trying to crystallise things a little of late. I'm starting to rethink what it might mean to have a churchless faith. What it would mean to have a holistic, self contained, independent faith. Before I get to this I thought it might be helpful to go over my own history to how I got this current point in my life.

1982 - 1998: Happy regular church going dude. Maybe occasionally radical compared to some but always really safely in the church mold. In 1992 I moved to a new city where all of my new friends were non Xns. About halfway through 1992 I found a church to be a part of. Six years later in 1998 all of my friends were Xn and my entire life felt like it was self contained in what was a quite comfortable Xn ghetto.

1998 - 2001: Mid 1998 I moved to a new city with the intention of getting to know more people than just church people, which I did. I still wanted to be involved with Xns in some way so I became involved in a High School Xn outreach group. Now as far as these things go this group was pretty cool (even if I may say so myself). None the less, as the group we went through schools suggesting that students "Burn their plastic Jesus" and showing them how what Jesus said had more in common with Marilyn Manson and Kurt Cobain than they did with Fred Nile we started asking each other "Where are we sending these people to?" Often what we said then non church kids seem to like it more than the nervous church leaders. Throw into the mix that it was impossible slight loss that outreach was costing us we decided to call it a day and we became involved in "the church" hoping that somehow I could bridge the gap between mission and church.

2002 - 2005: I started work for a major denomination and studied theology at Uni. I learnt a lot from that job and have a lot of respect for those in the denomination but I'm not sure I did much to bridge the divide between the average Sunday pew sitter and those Nirvana listening high school students I met years before. The job was always part time and the second part time job I had to make living possible wanted me to work full time for them or quit. So I did.

2005: In 2005 I decided to try living a churchless faith. I hadn't really been going to church since 1998 but working for a denomination meant I was at a church most Sundays and studying theology meant I was always wrestling with my faith. Both these things had now ceased. I had heard of many people ticked of with "the church" who leave to do the stuff they wish their church was doing yet they end up doing less once they were out of church. So I decided to start this blog as a way of keeping myself accountable.

2006: In 2006 I started going back to a church because I thought it would be good to hang out with Xns again..

2007: I started getting frustrated with church, particularly the Sunday morning service so now looking at rethinking the churchless faith thing. I'm thinking what might an independent holistic churchless faith look like. Something that might naturally fuse church and mission but yet be something that other people frustrated with church or even the Nirvana listening high school student could follow without having to be needlessly frustrated. I know that Mike Frost thinks mission and Xy should be done with others but sometimes that's just not possible. Sometimes everyone you knew in your early 20's buys houses in suburbs you can't afford to live in or they move to the distant corner of suburbia that is nearest to their relatives and they are just as burnt out as you when it comes to trying some kind of Xn community again.

Personally I get my energy from being solitary rather than social and I'm sure there are others out there who can relate to this and feel odd and alone and are too burnt to risk throwing themselves into a Xn community again whether that be missional, churchy, emergent, both or whatever groovy label you care to name.

So, how can I live an independent churchles faith where I have the energy to connect with others, grow as person and serve others. My ideas on that next time.

How Not to use Powerpoint

Brilliant! The guy is Don McMillan.

Richard Dawkins and Dan Brown feeding off contempt for Christians

I think that in the last ten years two books have been more popular than most of us might have predicted. They are Dan Brown's "The Davinci Code" and Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion". The thing that both this piece of airport fiction and philosophy have in common is that they both undermine the authority of Xy. Brown presents Xy as being built on a lie and Dawkin's presents Xy as irrational. What I find interesting is how incredibly popular both that these books have been and that no one apart from Xns are trying to defend Xn belief and practice. Imagine if someone started attacking Jewish, black or homosexual people in a similar way. Lots of people would jump to their aid. People even jump to the defence of those on death row for horrific crimes or to the aid of people like David Hicks (me included on both of these accounts).

Thinking about this reminds me of how a friend of mine used to introduce me to his friends. At the time I was working for a church so he would explain this and that yes I was a Xn but that I was a "good guy", because my friend assumed that otherwise they would think I was a complete prat who should be avoided at all cost. Whether we like it or not people are over Xns. They wish we would just shut up. Dan Brown's novel long riddle with the premise that all Xns have bought into a lie is enjoyable because people can imagine the excitement of bringing down the entire Xn church with just one piece of information. Similarly Dawkin's arms people with the rational armour that makes people feel confident to logically the stupidity of Xn claims against Xns . People are yearning to have the power to shut Xns up, to tell them to go away and leave them alone.

If we truly were salt and light I wonder how well these books would have sold. If people say Jesus is OK but I just don't like Xns it means that Xns are not following Jesus. I know this a bit of a whinge and I'm not sure what to do about it but I think Xns as a collective need to realise this and sensitively and appropriately respond with love and mercy.

Fined for demanding Fair Trade Coffee?

I was listening to David Marr on Late Night Live talking about his view that the Howard government policies have stifled freedom of speech and corrupted public debate in Australia. The one thing that really disturbed me occurs at 12:20 in the podcast. When in response to the anti mulesing campaign on Australian sheep that...

Peter Costello says he's going to amened the trade practices act so that you can actually prosecute people who are trying to get up morals boycotts, who are trying to encourage customers not to buy things on moral grounds, Like, you know, not buying stuff from France during the atomic bombs or only buying coffee from people who pay fair rates for coffee growers. Peter Costello is going to make that a criminal offence, you're going to be able to be fined for it, this is what he says.

So are you ready to be fined for demanding fair trade coffee? I hope that this kind of idea never sees the light of day.

Cherry Picking Fence Sitting Moderates?

I recently saw the Richard Dawkins Documentary "Root of All Evil? Part Two: The Virus of Faith" . Although for most of the time Dawkins somewhat frustratingly took easy potshots at extremist fundamentalists he does briefly address more moderate Xns and asked are they just cherry picking and fence sitting? He saw them as just taking the nice bits of the Bible and ignoring the rest. Which he criticised as being a some what fuzzy halfway point and he thought you should either take the whole thing (like literalist fundamentalists do or leave it all).

So are moderates, like me, just cherry picking? I don't think we are and here's why...

There are two ways to read the Bible one as a law book and the other as a story. If you read it as a law book then all bits are as valid as each other and should not contradict each other. On the other hand if you read it like a story then characters and ways of doing things will change. For example, if I was to "read" the film the Matrix like a law book then I could say that the character Neo was a clueless, nervous computer programmer. I could prove this by playing the first 10 minutes of the film. If you have seen the film you'll know that this is true but only the start of Neo's journey where he ends up saving the world. The same is true of the Bible, which is the story of God's relationship with humanity.

In the Bible the climax of this story is Jesus and I call myself a follower of Jesus rather than a follower of the Bible. This doesn't mean that I ignore the Bible or cherry pick the nice bits rather it means that I read the Bible through the lens of Jesus. So, when I hear God promise Israel a king I think of Jesus as servant king rather than some all powerful ruler. When I see a Xn protesting about homosexuals being given to the right to a marriage ceremony I don't join them because I just can't see Jesus doing that. It means that I see Jesus Sermon on the Mount as more important than the rules in Leviticus given to Israel while they are in the desert. If two things in the Bible contradict or, something goes against my gut instinct of what is right, Jesus is who I turn to. Jesus the climax of the story of God and humanity.

Cherry picking and fence sitting I don't think I am. I just try to fight for the things that Jesus saw as important. Things that bring good news to the poor, things that release those who are captives help those who are blind see and end oppression. (Luke 4:18)

The Donnas

Having been a huge music fan all my life it's rare that I stumble across new music that I like, but every so often I do. Recently I herd The Donnas "Take it off" on the radio, it took me back a few years to 2002 and was just great staright up and down rock. I listened to some more of there there stuff and then bought there two most recent CDs. These girls really know how to rock. I know that the pussy cat dolls and other such pop is supposed to be sexy even if the music isn't very good. I have to say these girls are way sexier than and any gyrating bootylishus pop and RnB babes could ever hope to be.



This is the Donnas in concert touring on there second last album.



The vocals might be a little road weathered but the energy and music is fantastic.

How much does it cost to get an Alter Call response?

For the recent Impact World Tour in Perth the 1.5 million dollar event (this figure doesn't include the extensive volunteer time) had 2448 people respond to their various alter calls. That's $612.75 per person. I have no idea how to evaluate this or what to compare it too. But, I thought it was worth sharing none the less. I bravely or stupidly predicted this would be a waste of time. 2448 is a hard number to ignore. My first question is how long term will those commitments be? My personal experience has been that 25% last a week to a month and 25% last a month to a year and 25% won't last past the end high school if they are a student. My second question is could we have spent the money on something better?