Jesus is not my boyfriend but maybe Larry Norman or Sinead O’Connor could be

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Larry Norman last week. Only Visiting this planet is probably the only overtly Christian rock album that I enjoyed listening to growing up. I still listen to it today It’s great. The first copy I had in high school was taped from a friend who has it on vinyl (I don’t think I could listen to it without expecting a jump in the needle on track four). My friend is non longer a Xn but still likes and listens to the album such is it’s quality.

I’ve recently discovered Sinead O’Connor’s Theology album lately which mostly consists of psalms, laments and other bits of the bible set to music. The difference between her songs and many modern day Xn songs is striking Her songs are much more likely to be a lament of someone suffering oppression than a pseudo love song. Take a listen to Aviad Cohen for a giggle and an idea of what this album is not.

The only thing that comes close to a "Jesus my boyfriend" song is "I don't know how to love him" and the point of that song is Jesus cant be loved like a man or boyfriend. The psalms and other parts of bible like song of songs and Job O’Connor sings from are not so much about the joy of knowing god but rather the pain of being human.

Samples of the lyrics include

"Out of the depths I cry to you oh lord
Don't let my cries for mercy be ignored”

or

“And he looks for justice but beholds oppression
And he hopes for equality but hears a cry
Jerusalem and Judah
This is God's reply

Sadness will come
To those who build house to house
And lay field to field 'til there's room
For none but you to dwell in the land
Oh in the land

And sadness will come
To those who call evil good
And good evil who present
Darkness as light
And light as darkness
Who present as sweetness
Only the things which are bitterness

For the vineyard of
The Lord of Hosts
Is the house of Israel
And the men of Judah his pleasant plant
Oh oh his pleasant plant

Oh that my eyes were a fountain of tears
That I might weep for my poor people

For every boot stamped with fierceness
For every cloak rolled in blood
Jerusalem and Judah
I'd cry if I could”

or

“Why did I not die at birth?
Expire as I came from the womb?
Why were there knees to receive me?
Or breasts to feed me?
Why was I not like babies
Who never saw the light?
Who lie with kings and counsellors
Who rebuild ruins for themselves”

These lyrics are unlikely to be found in the Koorong worship music catalogue but are in the bible. I wonder if Sinead has created an unsellable record that Xns and non Xns will avoid for different reasons.

When ever I think about Xn music and church music in particular I can’t help but think of an old theology lecturer who used to add the phrase "in between the sheets" after lyrics and song titles she would sing in church as a youngster. This is kind of fun to do next time your in church and singing…

How Great Thou art - in between the sheets
You are my King - in between the sheets
Softly and Tenderly Jesus is calling - in between the sheets
My God is so big - in between the sheets
What A Friend we Have in Jesus - in between the sheets
I could sing of Your love forever- in between the sheets

The other distraction that floods my mind when I hear most Xn music is my favourite south park episode “Faith plus one” when Cartman forms a Xn rock band. Here are some of my favourite lines from that show.

CARTMAN Think about it! It's the easiest crappiest music in the world, right? If we just play songs about how much we love Jesus, all the Christians will buy our crap!

CARTMAN All right, guys, this is gonna be so easy. All we have to do to make Christian songs is take regular old songs and add Jesus stuff to them. See? All we have to do is cross out words like "baby" and "Darling" and replace them with Jesus. All right, Butters, give me a beat. Okay, nice. Very nice. All right, Token, give me a smooth bass line.

Don't ever leave me, Jesus.
I couldn't stand to see you go.
My heart would simply snap, my Lord, if you walked on out that door.
I promise I'll be good to you, and keep you warm at night.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, why don't we just... shut off the lights. I love you, Jesus.

I want you to walk with me [the fans sway back and forth] I'll take good care of you baby. Call you my baby, baby! You died for my sins, and you know that I would die for you, right? What's the matter, baby? You tremble at Jesus, baby! Your love... is my life! You know when I’m without you, there's a black hole in my life! Oo-ohhh! I wanna believe. It's all right, 'cause I get lonely in the night and it's up to you to
Save me! Jee...sus...bay-by!

EXECUTIVE 1 We just have one question, though. We were looking over some of your lyrics, uh... "I want to walk hand-in-hand with Jesus on a private beach for two./I want him to nibble on my ear and say 'I'm here for you." Ih it seams you really love Christ.

CARTMAN Yes, we sure do.

EXECUTIVE 1 Well uh of course I do. I mean I just-

CARTMAN Well what's the difference?! You love Christ, you're in love with Christ, I mean, uh, what the heck is this??

EXECUTIVE 1 Eh no but ih it appears you are actually... in love with Christ.

CARTMAN Well what are you saying? That, that you don't really love Christ??

EXECUTIVE 1 Uh, we'd just like to make sure the bands we sign are in it for God, and not for the money.

CARTMAN I resent that, sir! I have never in my life done anything just for the money! If I'm lying may the Lord strike me down right now.

BUTTERS Uhm, oh.

EXECUTIVE 1 That's- all we needed to know. Just, sign here and we'll get your album sold.

So what to do? I’ve been toying with the idea of trying out some blues songs in a church service I love Blind Willie Johnson and many of the gospel and blues singers of the first half of the last centaury. I’d like to sing some of them along with Paul Gioia’s music and Dave Andrews' songs. Maybe I’d like to try this to see if it’s communal singing that I don’t like or if it’s just the songs that churches tend to communally sing. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'll end with some great covers of Xn albums.

Chickens Ahoy!

We now have chickens. Three to be exact.

two of the three walking through the vegie patch

Scarlett does an egg inspection

the vegie patch, chicken run and compost heap

An inspiring atheist's call to appreciate how lucky we are

Cameron Reilly's a hardcore atheist and a great thinker with a big heart.

Reply on Seesmic.

This is a mantra that we all need to be saying to ourselves everyday, people sometimes shriek at the idea that I support a family on less than 50k a year and live in arguably Perth’s most bogan suburb. It’s so easy to start thinking I need a new car rather than one that’s 10 years old, I need to live in a nicer suburb, I need to regular go on interstate or even overseas holidays. This is all a meaningless chasing of the wind. The reality is I’m living the high life it’s just that I spend my time comparing myself to the people richer than me.

iPod – when all else fails

This week I had yet more problems with my much beloved and maligned iPod. Apple seems to think that their five Rs will solve everything. Sometimes it just doesn’t. If you're ipod won't even appear in itunes and it's telling you to visit ipod support then chances are apple's best advice will be to send your ipod in for repair, which if you live somewhere like Australia, will cost you only a few dollars less than a brand new iPod.

So I thought I’d publish my 6th and 7th Rs, for anyone starring at a very expensive paper weight. This all for windows so apologies to mac heads.

6th R: Reformat the iPod.
Make sure iTunes is closed. Go to “My Computer” and right click on the iPod drive, if it is there, and select format hard drive. Once it’s formatted unplug it, plug it in again and open iTunes. You will loose all your songs but itunes should treat your ipod as a brand new ipod.

If your iPod won’t reformat.

7th R: Reconnect the Battery. Open up the ipod. Yes this hard put it is possible, and does not need much force and should be done at your own risk. see this video to see how to open an ipod. my advice is be gentle. Once it’s open there will be some wires that go from the battery to a connection point. Again see the video to find where this is. Simply unplug and replug your ipod, put the casing back together then try reformatting it. As per 6th R.

All the best.

Is God Bigger than Christianity?

Recently I heard a sermon by Samir Selmanovic on the emergent podcast titled “finding God in the other”. I really seemed to resonate so strongly with this podcast. I wasn’t sure whether to write a review or write out the whole podcast verbatim. Instead I’m just writing out my thoughts from the podcast which includes some quotes, a few of my own thoughts and bits in between. To work out what’s original thought an what I’ve borrowed you’ll have to listen to the podcast.

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I've often felt Xns think that non Xns tend to struggle with church and Xns and not Xy itself. The idea is that if we could cut through all the churchy stuff (if we could have a churchless faith perhaps) then maybe we could have this pure Xy. When we see so many problems with “church” it’s not hard to think this way. But much of what I tend to write about in this blog is not “church” but Xy or theology. Perhaps the problem that people have with Xy is not church and Xns but Xy itself.

Samir Selmanovic describes Xy as a God or Christ management system. Something humans have created to manage God and keep control of God. At the start of the sermon he asks a series of great questions, some of which I have listed below…

• Is Jesus more than Xy? Or, is Jesus something that Xy has to submit to and serve?
• Has Jesus death and resurrection emptied everywhere else of grace and deposited it into just one religion, Xy?
• How can we have a genuine conversation about Jesus with non Xns if we believe they cannot know anything about Jesus apart from us?
• How can we (xns) talk to non-Xns if we believe God withholds a genuine experience of the divine from everyone but us?

All great questions.

For me the statement that really nails the problem with Xy is this. "Xy has problem with credibility because it doesn’t know how to exist for the sake of something greater than itself"

In the same way that Xns are scared of extreme Muslim fundamentalists who can’t see that God might be bigger than their understanding of Islam non Xns are scared by Xns for the same reason. Just because (usually) Xns are not involved in violent activities if we do not believe that God is larger than Xy then the Xn God can not to be trusted. It means Xns are saying “we possess God”. Samir Selmanovic puts it like this, "People are rightly afraid of any religion that will not accept it’s place at the feet of the mystery or will not kneel down at the mystery of God with others". It is our duty to humbly submit to the mystery of the divine. Anything less is arrogance.

We can still speak of Christ. But we need to acknowledge that Xy is a living breathing movement of God. It is both glorious and broken. There will never be and has never been pure Xy, not even in the first centuary, where Peter and Paul argued about whether you could be uncircumcised and Xn.

I think the beauty of the Gospel would shine through much more if Xy, the interpretation of the gospel, took a back seat. If you have ever had anyone tell you the definitive meaning of your favourite movie or song you’ll know how much this just ruins the movie or song. This is so often what Xy does to the gospel.

Perhaps not only would the gospel shine but Xns might shine too. When we see ourselves as the only ones with access to God we will never seriously entertain the idea that a non Xn could teach us something new about God. If we are not open to God apart from through the God management system known as Xy then we are not humble and we won't trusted.

Jesus is a peculiar God to follow. He died for something greater than himself, there was something more important than himself. God emptied himself through Christ for the world. If we believe that God is only with Xy then God has emptied himself to the world through Christ and Xy has emptied the world of God.

In Acts 17 Paul sees God (an unknown God) in a pagan religion. This is an invitation to dialogue. Paul even finds God in their own tradition. “Your poet’s say…” much the same way that we might find God a U2 song or Matrix film. But would we quote from Hindu text or some other tradition because we found God in that?

At the end of the sermon, Samir Selmanovic asks the simple question- "would rather be in another religion and accept Jesus in substance or be a Xn and accept Jesus only in name?" Another great question. I can imagine many people giving a "yes, but..." response.

In John 1:9 Jesus is the light to everyone, there is non salvation outside of Christ but there is salvation outside of Xy. Imagine a Xy where non Xns who are saved (eg Matt 25) is not an annoying anomaly. Not an appendix to a statement of belief but is at the center. What are we afraid to lose? I suspect we are afraid to loose the control which comes with any God management system.

Any way enough of my rambling listen to the podcast here.

God and Time

This is a follow up post, or perhaps the prequel post that probably should have come before the Predestination Does Not Exist post of a few days ago.

1. Is it possible to know the future and for the future not to be fixed?

This possibility was suggested by some of the commentators of my Predestination Does Not Exist post. I just think that probably highly unlikely. I can’t see how it’s possible for someone (including God) to know the future and the future not to be fixed. If someone knows the future then they can articulate it. So, for example if I knew what was going to happen to you at 4pm tomorrow, then unless it is fixed and happens then I don’t know the future. I know that I’m not God and God can do things that I can’t, but none the less this just doesn’t make sense.

2. Is God outside of time?

This is certainly what the ancient Greeks thought. Greek Thought is like this: "God is perfect love loving himself perfectly. God is unchangeable unmovable and unaffected by human wisdom, thought or action."

If God is outside of time then I think that it means that God does not change his mind. If God knows what is in the future then you then future is fixed and if the future is fixed then he can’t change his mind.

Yet God does change his mind.

Exodus 32-34: In Exodus 32:14 God relents from punishing Israel over the Worship of Golden Calf because Moses convinces him not to.

Jonah 1:1-2, 3:1-10 and 4:1-4: God changes his mind from punishing Nineveh because they turned from their ways. Not only does God change his mind but told Jonah one thing but does another. Which Jonah gets very annoyed about.

Genesis 18: God changes his mind again and again as Abraham argues about sparing the righteous in Sodom.

God relents, grieves and repents. All emotions which I think cannot be genuine if God knows the future.

One of the things that is hard about proving all this is that there is nothing in the Bible explicitly saying something either way. I’d like to know why is this the default view? My guess is that we have often integrated ancient Greek ideas about God with Hebrew ideas about God without even realising.

Even if you are a fence sitter on whether God is out of time or not then you’d at least have to agree that holding the two ideas (God can see the future & the future is fixed and God is outside of time or God changes his mind) together is at very best difficult and convoluted. Here I go back to Ockham’s Razor (the right answer is usually the most simple) and I prefer the simpler God is inside time rather than outside time. Particularly as neither position is said explicitly in the Bible.

So why do I care?

Well I had a friend whose wife felt that predestination meant that God knew her future and whether she would end up in heaven or not. So her conversations with God would look something like this.

Human “God do you know if my friend will become a Xn?”
God “yes I do know that”
Human “why should I pray for her to become a Xn?”
God “praying is for you not for me”
Human “well what’s the point if you already know already know what’s going to happen? What about me what will happen to me?”
God “I know what will happen to you”
Human “Do you know if I will fail my exams”
God “I know what will happen”
Human “So what’s the point in praying for help if you already know what’s going to happen?”

This obviously is not a very inspiring portrayal of a relationship with God. I know not everyone feels like this but if you ever do please consider the God inside of time view of God before you chuck the idea of God.

We Said Sorry

We said sorry, woo hoo! Thanks Kevin. Now all we need to do is get Brendon Nelson to say sorry for the way that he said sorry.

Concert Junkie

Here is where I get to show my age. The weekend before last I got to go and see a couple of great concerts. On the Friday night a friend and I went to see The Police. Despite my friend's wife telling us to watch out for all the fans with zimmer frames, they were frickin’ brilliant. Three amazingly talented people creating something bigger than its parts. This bootleg via smuggled sounds will give you an idea. I’ve never been a big fan of sting and I left with the this thought. What do sting and a dangerous criminal have in common? All is right with the world when they are with The Police.

Then on Sunday I was off to the Big Day Out. Rage Against the Machine (RATM), Bjork, Billy Bragg, Kate Nash, Tom Morello, Regurgitator and Silverchair were my highlights. Bjork had a band member who played something that looked like the radar out of the Millennium Falcon and needed runes from the Gandalf’s back pack to make noises. It not only looked strange - I just couldn't work out how the friggin’ thing worked. As much as RATM and Bjork were big loud and fantastic, I was somewhat surprised with how much I enjoyed Billy Bragg (solo), Tom Morello (solo) and Kate Nash. Particularly Billy Bragg, the guy from Anti-Flag and Kate Nash singing “New England” and then Tom Morello, Billy Bragg and the guy from Anti-Flag singing “Beds are Burning”

Forget About Heaven

What will happen to you when you die? This is the classic evangelism question and for me typifies why many people just don’t connect with Xy. While Xns are asking what will happen when you die?, everyone else is asking how will I live tomorrow?

The more I read the gospels it strikes me that Jesus spoke more about now than an after life. The Kingdom of God was breaking into the world now. Jesus said "Now the kingdom of heaven is at had". Whether it was the Rich Young man or the Tax Collector, Jesus effect on people was immediate life transforming it was not something that they could hold on to for later. It was not only immediate but often counter intuitive, those with much being asked to give it up to follow Christ and those rejected from society being embraced or made embraceable.

I’d like to forget about heaven for a while and concentrate on tomorrow.

For the few interested I will get around to doing a post on God and Time soon I've got a few posts in the waiting in the wings that will come out first and I'm keen not to hurry it as much as the last post.

Predestination Does Not Exist

I've been meaning to post about this for a while and after a recent chat with a friend I’ve been inspired to do so. My friend told me how he was at party were a theological student, a stranger, asked him if he believed in predestination and went on to explain why he did and that the more he studied the bible the more he was convinced of predestination. I am not.

Predestination is the idea that your life and relationship with God is all preplanned, just waiting to unfold. This idea is based on a few false precursor ideas.

1. God is outside of time.
2. God is all knowing and all powerful.
3. Since God is outside time, knows everything including the future and God is all powerful, we do not have the power to change the future.

I think these 3 things are not biblical ideas. If you believe them it is not possible believe in prayer or free will as you have no power to change your destination. I’ve heard some explanations trying to reconcile this which usually involved some pretty amazing mental gymnastics or stories about two train tracks look like they meet but never actually do.

So here are my thoughts.

1. God is not outside of time.
2. God does not know the future.

Instead God makes plans for the future. God even repents of things done in the past. God does not know the future, God has made some plans and promises and is pretty good at keeping them. We have free will, not just the illusion but actual free will.

Finally the actual bible verse from which all of this predestination talk actually comes from is Romans 8:29. In this verse we are just predestined to become more like Christ. This simply means if you become Xn you're going to become more like Christ as God's spirit works in you. So this one passage is actually something fairly simple rather than some huge new radical concept through which the rest of the bible must be explained.

I know this is a short post given the topic. I’m happy to expand if people want.