The Hunger Games: Closer To Reality Than Fantasy?

Being one of those stuck up people who generally looks down his nose at pop culture I tried to avoid the hunger games but over the last few days I sat down and read the first novel and I'm about to start the second. I loved the first third of the book and the world that Suzanne Collins creates. As I read I wondered if one of the reasons the book resonates with people is the way it echoes the current state of the world.

In the hunger games kids are dying for our entertainment. In our world whether it's kids making electronic devices, clothing in sweat shops or picking coffee and coco beans kids are dying for our entertainment. In both worlds there is a one in a million chance they can leave their oppression. In the Hunger Games it's winning the games in our world might be becoming a movie star (slum dog millionaire) or being discovered as a model. In both worlds the capitol (like our first world) has an excess of food and the districts (like our third world) is starving. In the hunger games it is perhaps more obvious the way that food is moved from one place to other. It happens in our world too but sometimes more subtly. Like when we  force a third world farmer to give up land previously dedicated to food production and replace it with coffee (if you drink one coffee cup a day you’ll need 9 trees just for your own addiction) or replace it with a water intensive cotton farm to make us t-shirts that will only last a season.

Perhaps most of all I liked the Hunger Games as it connects with my own anarcho-primitivist urges. The urge to reject all that the first world has to offer and hunt and gather food in the forest much like the book’s hero Katniss. Idealistic? Impractical? Of course! Just like ending slavery or ending apartheid was also impractical. I feel like so much of our technology is just like building our own tower of Babel and we are say to ourselves "nothing that we propose to do will now be impossible for us" (Genesis 11:6) I wonder if one of the reasons many people are not too worried about climate change is that many of us believe that if we were to run out of oil or, the world got significantly hotter that we will just find some way to get around it. We don't just wonder "will nothing we propose to do be impossible?” we believe it and we depend on it. I just don't share this confidence. That's why I'm not comfortable in the Capitol and long to live like they do or rather would do in District 12 without the oppression of the Capitol.

Common Prayer (A Liturgy For Ordinary Radicals) - Review

Growing up evangelical I never really got the whole reading prayers or having disciplined times for reading thing. As I've grown older and my beliefs have turned from black and white to grey and I've started to want some kind of ritual and structure in my life. After working for the Anglican church I felt like I really got to understand and appreciate why people loved liturgy. I also discovered I wasn't one of those people.

So, in many ways I feel like Common Prayer (A Liturgy For Ordinary Radicals) was written with people just like me in mind. It doesn't follow the church calendar but will remind you that Advent, Lent and Pentecost are coming up. There is a different morning prayer and Bible readings for everyday of the year and a bit on the life of a saint. Saints range from St Francis through to Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero and Mother Teresa. There is one midday prayer and 7 evening prayers (one for each day of the week). There are also a bunch of prayers / liturgies for special occasions and the music for 50 classic church songs.

It is truly a great resource and something I now use every day.

If you want to trial it for free visit the website commonprayer.net. I bought the book because I'd rather not turn on a computer three times a day and for a book that's nearly 600 pages it was really cheap.

Jesus Dojo, Mark Scandrette - Review

About a month ago I was lucky enough to win a copy of Mark Scandrette's new book Jesus Dojo care of the great guys at Homebrewed Christianity. Jesus Dojo is one of those rare magical books where once you've read it you give it to your spouse demanding she read it too. It was a radical yet gentle challenge to change my life and follow Jesus in a far more practical (rather than esoteric) way than i have for a long time. The kind of meaningful changes that you have to bring your spouse along with you on.

The book is part a guide on how to do church differently and part personal story as Mark and his church try to live it out a new way of being Xn. The book is based around the idea of a dojo. A karate dojo (where you've most likely to have heard the term) is just the place where you learn the way of karate and obviously it's very hands on. So there won't be lots of singing about karate followed by a long talk about karate. The Jesus Dojo is based around a series of experiments that participants do that come out of reading the gospels. So when John the Baptist challenges his followers to give up half of what they own that's what the participants do. Importantly the experiments are experiments they are not permanent changes or a set of guidelines, but they may lead to these. Sometimes experiments work wonderfully other times they don't. Either way there is plenty to be learnt.

So if you find yourself sitting in church thinking "Is this it?", "Has choosing to follow an incendiary revolutionary come down to badly singing some songs listening to some guy talk and then eat tea and biscuits?" Then this book is for you.

In short this book is friggin' awesome not just for what's in it but for what it will propel you to do in the future. The only downside is you'll have to convince some friends to join you on the journey.

Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile

My wife bought the book "Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile" on a whim, I'm glad she did and that she has such great intuition. The book traces the biblical story from Genesis to Revelation taking a "New Exodus" reading of the text. The book works through the pattern of oppression, liberation and exile in the biblical narrative. I really enjoyed the book because it was full of "ah-ha / groan" moments. "Ah-ha" because I discovered something new and "Groan" because it had been staring me in the face for years.

I did get a bit frustrated at times as I felt the authors didn't completely follow through on their "New Exodus" convictions. For example on page 88 they briefly describe Jesus death as absorbing violence, sadly they don't go on to expand this into atonement narrative, but by next page are penal substitution style talking about the price paid etc... I coming more to think of atonement as like a multi faceted diamond. We need many theories to see the whole diamond if we just stick to penal substitution it's like looking at a plate of glass.

They also give a "biblical definition of sin" which seems come from left field. When they talked about violence, oppression and sin. It left me thinking is what is sin if not, violence and oppression.

I also wish that as they compared the Roman empire to the American empire that they would have talked about how that changed the way they lived too.

None the less, overall these are small criticisms. If you know of any one who wonders what Xy has to do with helping the poor. Or, thinks that helping the poor is not central to the gospel but just an aside for those who feel called, I cannot think of any book that would be a better place to start.As I said before I enjoyed the book because of the conclusions I came to and that I think is a testament to authors ability to retell the biblical narrative in such a powerful way.

I can certainly see this being one of those books that I lend out to lots and lots of people. Christians and Non-Christians. For me there is not much more of a higher compliment for a book than that.

Oh and I'd like to change the title to "Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church under Solomon" I'm not sure why it's the "church in exile" after reading the book it sounded more to me like the church under Solomon perhaps moving into exile. And I don't know if we're moving in to persecution as much as irrelevance.

The Life You Can Save

Peter Singer has a new book: The The Life You Can Save and accompaning website I heard him interviewed on Point of Inquiry and Late Night Live - Phillip Adams. His challenge to the world is to end world poverty and he's done the math to work out how much we need to give away to make it happen. The good news for people stingy like me is that it's hardly anything especiially for people earning a wage like mine. It's just one percent. If you think you can do that why not sign the pledge on the website, I was only the 481st person to do so.

Books for the Bible

A while ago I was asked what books influenced the way I read the bible. I had thought this would be an easy question to answer, just a quick glance of the book shelf. But it wasn't quite that simple. I suspect a lot of the impact various books had really depended upon where I was in my journey. None the less I had a scan of the book shelf and these books stood out.

• Mark Strom: Days are Coming. This is a book I haven't read for a long time. In a fairly succinct manner it goes through different biblical themes showing how they link up in diff parts of Bible.
• Manuscript Discovery: This is a way of reading the bible that really really helped me to read the biblical text afresh. It really needs to be experienced rather than just reading how to do it and is best done as a group rather than solo.
• Dave Andrews - Christianarchy: This book really helped challenge and then solidify how I view people who live outside or Xn orthodoxy.
• Shane Claiborne - The Irresistible Revolution, Not revolutionary when I read it but would have been if I read it 10 years ago.
• An awareness of glasses: One thing that's good to be aware of is that all of us have cultural glasses that affect the way we read the bible. So I like to challenge my glasses by reading authors who I know I've been brought up to have different points of view to. Two of my favourites have been John Spong's Jesus for the Non Religious and John Carroll's The Existential Jesus.
• Currently I’m part way through Tom Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God which I’m really enjoying and perhaps a good refuge if you find your faith being battered by unorthodox thought
• Finally, podcasts have been a great way to hear new ideas. some of my favourite podcasts include the now defunct? Emergent Village, The Nick and Josh Podcast, Doug Paggit and Radio National Religion podcasts.

Non Penal Substitution Atonement Analogy from Brian McLaren

I know it's been a while since I've banged on about atonement analogies other than penal substitution. But, everytime I do it seems to be the one subject that generates more emails (rather than comments) than anything else. In his latest tbook, Everything Must Change " Brian McLaren outlines a sickness model of atonement - which he describes as "emerging view", paralleled with the good old penal substitution - which he describes as "conventional view". What impressed me most was the succinct way that he packages the explanation, which I have written out below.

The Human Situation: What is the story we find ourselves in?

Conventional View: God created the world as perfect, but because our primal ancestors, Adam and Eve, did not maintain the absolute perfection demanded by God, God has irrevocably determined that the entire universe and all it contains will be destroyed, and the souls of all human beings—except for those specifically exempted—will be forever punished for their imperfection in hell.’

Emerging View: God created the world as good, but human beings—as individuals, and as groups—have rebelled against God and filled the world with evil and injustice. God wants to save humanity and heal it from its sickness, but humanity is hopelessly lost and confused, like sheep without a shepherd, wandering further and further into lostness and danger. Left to themselves, human beings will spiral downward in sickness and evil.

Basic Questions: What questions did Jesus come to answer?

Conventional View: Since everyone is doomed to hell, Jesus seeks to answer one or both of these questions: How can individuals be saved from eternal punishment in hell and instead go to heaven after they die? How can God help individuals be happy and successful until then?

Emerging View: Since the human race is in such desperate trouble, Jesus seeks to answer this question: What must be done about the mess we’re in? The mess refers both to the general human condition and to its specific outworking among his contemporaries living under domination by the Roman Empire and who were confused and conflicted as to what they should do to be liberated.

Jesus’ Message: How did Jesus respond to the crisis?

Conventional View: Jesus says, in essence, “If you want to be among those specifically qualified to escape being forever punished for your sins in hell, you must repent of your individual sins and believe that my Father punished me on the cross so he won’t have to punish you in hell. Only if you believe this will you go to heaven when the earth is destroyed and everyone else is banished to hell.” This is the good news.

Emerging View: Jesus says, in essence, “I have been sent by God with this good news—that God loves humanity; even in its lostness and sin. God graciously invites everyone and anyone to turn from his or her current path and follow a new way. Trust me and become my disciple, and you will be transformed, and you will participate in the transformation of the world, which is possible, beginning right now.” This is the good news.

Purpose of Jesus: Why is Jesus important?

Conventional View: Jesus came to solve the problem of “original sin,” meaning that he helps qualified individuals not to be sent to hell for their sin or imperfection. In a sense, Jesus saves these people from God, or more specifically, from the righteous wrath of God, which sinful human beings deserve because they have not perfectly fulfilled God’s just expectations, expressed in God’s moral laws. This escape from punishment is not something they earn or achieve, but rather a free gift they receive as an expression of God’s grace and love. Those who receive it enjoy a personal relationship with God and seek to serve and obey God, which produces a happier life on Earth and more rewards in heaven.

Emerging View: Jesus came to become the Saviour of the world, meaning he came to save the earth and all it contains from its ongoing destruction because of human evil. Through his life and teaching, through his suffering, death, and resurrection, he inserted into human history a seed of grace, truth, and hope that can never be defeated. This seed will, against all opposition and odds, prevail over the evil and injustice of humanity and lead to the world’s ongoing transformation into the world God dreams of. All who find in Jesus God’s hope and truth discover the privilege of participating in his ongoing work of personal and global transformation and liberation from evil and injustice. As part of his transforming community, they experience liberation from the fear of death and condemnation. This is not something they earn or achieve, but rather a free gift they receive as an expression of God’s grace and love.

Jesus for the Non-Religous: A Reflection

I've just finished reading John Shelby Spong's most recent book. Jesus for the Non-Religious. In part one of the book Jack (apparently that's what his friend's call him) dismisses the birth narratives including virgin birth, the 12 disciples, the miracles and the resurrection, which is probably enough to get most evangelicals to stop reading. It was an interesting exercise reading this book that I believe is pretty much a summary of much of Spong's thoughts. Spong is the liberal theologian that evangelicals to love to hate. Seeing I think of myself as liberal evangelical it was an intersteding read to say the least.

The Book is Divided into 3 parts. Part 1 looks at the supernatural stuff aroun d Juesus and trys to seprate the myth from the reality, part 2 looks at Jesus in his jewish context and part 3 looks at what it means to be Xn with the understanding of part 1 and 2.

Whilst many people reading the openng chapters on virgin birth, the 12 disciples and the miracles might find them confronting, as Spong dismisses all of them, I had this feeling of almost relief that at least he wasn't going after anything that was central to my faith. Although inexorably linked who Jesus was and what he encouraged others to be was always more important than what he did. That is in healing a leper, it was always more important than a social outcast was brought back into the community than a miracle occuring. His arguments around the birth narratives and and the 12 disciples I found particularly persuasive. Whether Jesus was born of a virgin (Luke 1:30-35) or a young woman (Isaiah 7:14) possibly out of wedlock (Mark 6:3 - where he is called son of Mary rather than Joseph), I don't think bothers me all that much. His arguments around miracles was so so and the arguments about the resurrection were least persuasive. I just couldn't see why the disciples would invent something that so quickly became the central part of their faith.

Part of Spong's central thrust around dismissing the supernatural stuff in the gospels is that different gospels have different slants and use different events or different takes on the same event to paint a slightly different theological point. For Example: There is no passover in John's gospel that's because Jesus is the passover. The turning of the tables in the temple is the climatic final event in Mark, Mathew and Luke but the very first event in John. On the cross Jesus three different last words "it is finished", "father in your hands I place my spirit" and "Father forgive them they know not what they do" depending on what Gospel you are reading. The Birth Narratives in Luke and Matthew are also good examples of these differences.

A more fundamentalist person would argue that everything in the two birth accounts happened and the gospel writers just picked and chose which events to put in their gospel. The problem is that there a many bits of the gospels that you just can't harmonize without some seriously difficult logical gymnastics. Spong on the other hand says almost everything is a literary device used to illustrate a point. The problem with with this is that almost every event in the gospels becomes a literary device to illustrate a point.

Personally I think each event needs to be taken on a case by case basis. The birth narratives, I can understand the argument that this is a period of Jesus life that the writers may have known little about, Paul for example doesn't talk about it, and it is conceivable that the gospel writers added these narratives. The Resurrection on the other hand was something that was something that from as early on as we know was central to Xn theology. To argue that it was not literal is fine but I, at least, need a better explanation of what was the the resurrection experience was that the disciples had that they could only write about in this way. Spong's explanation doesn't quite cut it for me.

I have a lot of empathy for Jack Spong. He is trying to wrestle his faith into the 21st century. He is a theologian who is a product of his time and place, Growing up in a fundamentalist, racist, sexist and homophobic deep south he has grown to see Jesus and the gospels as something which condemns all of this. He may not be quite as aware as could be helpful how much he is a theologian of his time and his place This is not to say that what he has to say is not valuable any less than to say that Liberation theology should be dismissed, because of the circumstance that it came from in South America.

The Truth, about what is history and myth in the gospels, I think, lies somewhere in between Spong and a more literalistic reading of the text.

The Second part of the book Spong looks Jesus in a Jewish context. No matter what you think of Spong's conclusions in part one I thoroughly recommend this part of the book, to any regular evangelical. If you can set aside the argument over whether the events (like the miracles) were invented to give colour to the theology or whether the theology came to describe the miracles, it is still worth reading. Spong's analysis of the Jewish overtones and illusions throughout the gospels is excellent and I'd challenge any evangelical to find fault with that. It is certainly something that I will re read again with a copy of the Bible, pen and paper in hand.

In part three Spong describes what it means for him to be Xn. I wish that this part of the book had been longer and more in depth. I think almost all of what Spong said about the essence of Xy is I agree with, this part of the book is really about how we live. He describes Jesus as a human portrait of the love of God. When it comes down to it this is really what is most important. I read this book because I when I hear Jack Spong say that the church is dying, it is sexist and and doesn't have a decent grasp of Xys Jewish roots I agree with him. His resolutions I may not agree but no matter what you think the third part of the book has a beautiful resonance to it and his writing style is almost poetic reminding of the writing style of Sister Joan Chitster.

So I recommend that you read the book it won't hurt it's just words on a page. Even if like me you don't agree with everything that Jacks says their is still plenty to learn even for a hard line evangelical.

Tagged? - The Pharyngula mutating genre meme

Arthur from Five Public Opinions has tagged me again. It seems that he has mistaken me as some kind of well cultured person. To see the rules of this tag visit his blog post. I'm supposed to pass it on but alas it looks like the evolution dies with the Xn ;) I'm just not a pass it on kind of guy. None the less I thought I'd post my answers as it gives some kind of insight in to me.

1. The best murder mystery novel in Magical Realism is…

Lullaby by Chuck Paulanik

(I mutated this from The best time travel novel in Magical Realism is…)

2. The best romantic movie in historical fiction is…

Brokeback Mountain

3. The best love song in industrial rock is…
We're in this together by Nine Inch Nails.

(I mutated this from The best sexy song in industrial rock is…)

If there are any Xn bloggers (or bloggers general even) who pretty much agree with these answers I'd love to hear from you.

Zen and the Art of long distance travel

Last week I spent over 18 hours sitting in a car traveling to towns in Western Australia. Much of that time I spent listening to Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance. Twice I have tried reading the book and both times I stopped reading before I had finished. Which I believe is not uncommon. Twice I have had complete strangers come up to me while I have been reading the book in public warning me not stop reading before the end of the book as they had done and to tell me how great the book was. So the long traveling seemed the perfect opportunity to listen to the recorded version and finally get to the end.

It was quite stunning to look at the vast West Australian outback whilst hearing descriptions of the American country. Pirsig Author of Zen... talks a lot about "quality" and the "classic" and "romantic" (or square and hip) split in ways of viewing the world. As I listened I could not help but see parallels between this and God and the scientific and spiritual ways of viewing the world. Pirsig asserts that quality is not definable and therefore not measurable or quantifiable in a classic or scientific sense, that is you cannot be objective about quality. Yet quality is not entirely subjective either. For example a majority of people will usually be able to distinguish between a quality song and a bad song or just a random group of noises. The same is true for all of the arts and much of human emotion. His whole argument takes 6hrs to listen to (and that’s abridged I think) so this quick summary does not to do it justice. None the less the analogy between God and quality was fascinating.

To concede that God like quality cannot be proven scientifically is perhaps obvious but the next parallel concession is that we cannot then confidently say that God possesses one or another characteristic, no matter how confident we may feel. This just like when we talk about a quality piece of art. I often feel that define particular characteristics of God and make doctrines and creeds around that we end up with a God akin to a piece of disposable pop music, guaranteed to be somewhat pleasant but really of little quality. I prefer to think of God as akin to a musical masterpiece (a song of great quality) and it is hard to define what makes it beautiful. With art and music the more we define what characteristics makes some form of art beautiful the more we limit it and limit the potential of the artists.

I’m not sure what this thinking means exactly or where it might lead. Like many of my ideas it’s something I’ll just try on for a while and see how it sits. Having recently sat with a group of people who where very confident in saying what God's opinion and desires were in some complex ethical situations (God's thought's on the matter often seemed to be very simple, black and white and a bit harsh and judgmental). This has made me all the more wary of trying to define God. I quite like what Jack Spong said about this matter. "A human cannot describe what god is like anymore than a horse can describe what a human is like." (or something like that)

To try and describe the experience of God is one thing. Establishing our own creeds and doctrines is where things can get shaky and is the breeding ground for religious fighting and fundamentalism. Can I be confident about God without pigeon holing God? I don't know. I'll try it own for a while and see how it feels.

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.

The Existential Jesus

I'm halfway through John Carrol's The Existential Jesus. I've yet to see any Xn publications or blogs do a review of the book, no doubt they won't be particularly favourable. Carroll certainly doesn't fall in line with conventional Xn doctrine or theology on some major issues. None the less I have found the book is absolutely fascinating if only because it is the gospel of Mark (primarily) being read by an intelligent man without years of church theological baggage behind him. This means his insights a fresh and confronting (much like I'm sure Jesus would have been). It has been incredibly useful to compare Carroll's insights with my current ideas about Mark. I like to think of the gospel of Mark as an old 3D movie (the ones where you have to where the glasses, one red lens and one green lens). My conventional ideas about Jesus are the green lens and Carroll's ideas are the red lens. As individual lenses they are not that helpful but using the two together is when the real magic happens. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a solid Xn faith and is looking for something to shake up their ideas about Jesus you may not agree with everything Carroll says but there is too much good stuff in their to just ignore it. Some intelligent sifting is required.

Although it's not a particularly major theme of the book (so far) Jesus' relationship with the church I've found particularly fascinating. It has got me thinking if this is what Jesus thought of the church in his day how might he see a role for church today. Maybe what happened in Acts is not the perfect model that many seem to claim. Maybe it has flaws too like King David's reign before it. I can feel a "churchless Jesus" post coming soon.

Do not talk about The Gospel of Fight Club

I remember the first time I got caught reading Fight Club. It was when I was studying Ancient Greek at a rather conservative Xn college. It was only the second lecture and I sat down next to a fellow student who I didn’t know, but none the less looked pretty much as conservative as everyone else in the class with their trousers and a button up shirts. As I was pulling my books out of my bag my neighbour spied a copy of fight club in my bag. “Are you reading Fight Club?” he said in voice that sounded somewhat horrified. Feeling like I’d just been caught with hard core pornography I turned to face my neighbour and expecting a rebuking of some sort. His face was not full of horror but excitement. He just couldn’t believe that he had found a fellow Chuck Palahniuk fan amongst the group. I dropped out of Ancient Greek but we remained friends and I even bought him the novel Choke for his birthday.

I thought of that story immediately when I read a comment on my previous post about Fight Club asking "How do I explain why I watch and love movies like Fight Club to everyday evangelicals (not that I am one)?"

My Solution is I don’t. I very cautiously tread ground mostly, avoid really saying what I think and then I write a blog post about it instead. I guess the real question is why Fight Club kind of films so taboo for evangelicals?

I think the reason why many evangelicals don’t like movies like Fight Club or American Beauty or music like Marylin Manson or Nirvana to name but a few is because evangelicals are usually very conservative and believe that Xy and Jesus is very conservative. For me this was summed up well by an evangelical friend who once said to me, something along the lines of, “I don’t understand why people don't become Xns. They don't have to change anything about their life for most people they just have to accept Jesus.” The assumption behind what he said is that most of us in the west are living Xn lives and all we have to do is just invite Jesus into our hearts and everything will be hunky dory when it comes to the big heaven or hell thing when you die.

I’d like to suggest that not only is Xy much more than that but also something quite opposite to that. The problem that I think evangelicals have with Fight Club etc… is that these movies are rallying against values of our western lives, I think Xy & Jesus is all about that. The Gospel of Mathew especially is all about Jesus clashing with the religious, social and political establishment of his day.

To me it's hard to believe that "family values" people follow Jesus when Jesus said things like...

• (Matt 10:35) For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
• (Matt 10:37) Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
  
• (Matt 12:50) For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."
• (Matt 19:29) And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.
  
• (Luke 14:26) "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

I remember when American Beauty (another one of my favourite movies) came out a Xn film review website gave it one of their worst reviews ever and another Xn website even went as far as to suggest that writer Sam Mendes was possessed at the time of writing the movie. Yet to me the film is just full of gospel parallels.

Lester Burnham is just drudging through his meaningless hell of a life. His one dream is to have sex with his daughter’s friend (a minor). Sex with a minor (someone less than half his age) is something that almost everyone would agree as wrong or sinful. Lester is both a slave to the system of western life and a slave to the desire to commit this sin. Along comes Ricky Fitz, a pot selling Christ like figure who’s rejection of his fathers unreasonable authority (Luke 14:5 Then he said to them [the pharisees], "If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?") and freedom from worry of money (Luke 12:24: Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!). He is the only one who is free to live life to the full (John 10:10: I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly) and sees beauty not in the blonde girl Lester lusts after but in a plastic bag blowing in the breeze.

Rikki (with the help of some high grade cannabis) sparks the change in Lester’s life a change where Lester ends up living a life that is both enjoyable meaningful. He tries to seduce his wife instead of masturbating, he starts to pay attention to his daughter instead of her friends and stands up for himself. This culminates when he is put in the position where he finally gets the chance to fulfil his original fantasy of having sex with his daughter’s friend and chooses not to. The film ends with a Lester smiling having found meaning and happiness.

Narratives like Fight Club and America Beauty are all about change and change means confrontation, and a good change narrative that makes us want to change will be confronting. My guess is that many evangelicals (perhaps like the Pharisees in Jesus time) just don't like this. I can remember once reading an interview with Marilyn Manson (despised by many Xns) and he said he wanted the world to end in an apocalypse so their can be the beginning of a new one that’s better. Take away the goth make up and that sounds a lot like what many evangelical Xns might say.

I know this post has been a bit long and rambling and has kind of avoided the original question "How do I explain why I watch and love movies like Fight Club to everyday evangelicals (not that I am one)?" I guess I'd like to say that it's important to remember that narratives like Fight Club are narratives or parables, so they won't be a 100% gospel and That's OK (the Matrix is not gospel and neither is everything Bono has ever said). If the films inspire you to be more like Christ, as Fight Club had done for me then keep reading that kind of book and watching those kind of films. It's probably the inspiring to be more like Christ that's going to be the best starting point if you're talking to an evangelical friend too.

The Gospel of Fight Club

I recently read and watched Fight Club, again both one of my favourite books and films. So I thought I might say a little something of why I like this story so much.

Darby Ray author of "Deceiving the Devil" describes atonement as “the reconciling, redeeming, liberating activity of God in Christ.” I think this is a pretty succinct and broad summary of atonement, covering everything conservative substitutionary atonement through to liberation theology and many other ideas. My guess is that we have too often in the west we have overly focused on the redeeming and reconciling parts and neglected the liberating part of the triad.

Overlooking liberation may have been for good reason. In the west we usually don't think of ourselves as being needed to be liberated. At best we see ourselves as the oppressors from whom others needed to be liberated. For me and many of my peers there is a feeling amongst us that the life of an oppressor is not something we chose but something we inherited. We were born into a world where it was impossible to buy a shoe that had not been made in a sweat shop and where third world inequality and environmental degradation was just seen as part of the natural order. An old friend of mine (white and male) once lamented that he wished he had been born black and female, then he'd at least know what to fight against. We are a generation who have an awareness that there is something wrong with the world. We love escaping into movies like the Matrix and TV shows like Buffy the vampire slayer where the main characters are the only ones who realise there is something really wrong with the world whilst everyone else just walks along like zombies.

Many people have sought to find Christ like atonement narratives in the Matrix and Buffy. Whilst they might be there I prefer to look in Fight Club. Where the Matrix and Buffy set up dualistic universes (a "flesh" reality and a greater "spiritual" reality) Fight Club does not do this. There is no overarching vampire or matrix that we need to discover and fight, rather the evil is being perpetrated by us and the systems that we comply with. In Fight Club Tyler Durden is the Christ like figure who walks into Jacks life. Tyler forces Jack to face the current reality of his world, the injustice, the love of money, the obsession of the trivial and to liberate him, an "heir of oppression" (my term) from that. There is much Xns can learn about atonement from Fight Club.

Here are some of my favourite Gospel and Fight Club parallels...

Fight Club

Only when Jack truly gives up his will to live is he saved.

Jesus

Luke 14:26. "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

---

Fight Club

Jack quits job and Tyler Durden destroys all that he owns.

Jesus

Matt 6:24-34. "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

---

Fight Club

Jack has no family, those around him following Tyler Durden and his followers become his family.

Jesus

Mark 4:34-35. "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

---

Fight Club

The first assignment for fight club members is for them to start a fight and loose.

Jesus

Matt 5:38-39. "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;”

---

Fight Club

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We are all part of the same compost pile." Tyler Durden

Jesus

Matt 7:1-5. "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”

---
Fight Club

Tyler Durden destroys Jacks apartment, and destroys the buildings of credit card companies in order to make everything go back to zero so that non one is in debt.

Jesus

Luke 18:22. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."

Author of Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk. Has also written the books Survivor, Invisible Monsters Choke, Lullaby, Diary and Haunted. They are all really good.

Tom Sine bringing back old memories

It's been a while since I first stumbled across Tom Sine in the bargain bin of the local Xn bookshop.

Whilst doing some tidying up recently I cam across this quote which I used to read out to churches whilst working 3 days a week as a youth ministry coordinator for 6 churches and 2 schools. With some of the churches being up to 30 minutes away from each other it was as difficult a job as it sounds. None the less it was a great learning experience and it gave me a respect for a mainline denomination that I had not had before.

As I suspect is the same with many churches, part of the problem for a lot of the churches I worked with was a desire for youth ministry to happen but not a great desire from people in the church to do it. I routinely visited the churches of a Sunday morning and would be asked to speak. On one round I thre this great quote from Tom Sine's Mustard Seed vs McWorld book in to the talk.

What we have done, I am convinced, is to succumb inadvertently to a dualistic model of discipleship. In spite of all the talk about Christ’s 'Lordship', everyone knows that the expectations of modern culture come first. Everyone knows getting ahead in the job comes first. Getting ahead in the suburbs comes first. Getting the children off to their activities comes first. And we tend to make decisions in these areas pretty much like everyone else does - based on our income, our professions and our social status.

Essentially most western Christians unquestioningly allow modern culture to arrange most of the furniture of our lives - forty to eighty hour work weeks, single family detached housing, congested timetables for our lives and children. Over the last fifteen years I've seen Christians becoming busier and busier which means that they have less time left over for prayer, church, ministry or even family.

We're racing into a future in which McWorld wants an even larger chunk of our time and money, which means even less left over for the things of faith.

On the other side of this dualism, following Christ is too often trivialised to little more than a devotional lubricant to keep us from stripping our gears as we charge up the mountain trying to get ahead in our careers, the suburbs, and our children's activities. Following Christ is for too many of us reduced to a little more than fifteen minutes in the morning and two hours on Sunday and we wind up with a highly privatised and spiritualised piety that is often largely disconnected from the rest of our lives.

We permit modern culture as part of the deal to define our notions of the good life and better future. As a consequence our lives are too often driven by the same manic aspirations that propel McWorld. No wonder we are exhausted. Modernity calls the tune and we dance.

It was a lot of fun reading this quote. There was a kind of safety in reading something someone else had said rather than saying something myself. I could see a few parishioners squirming with discomfort and priests smiling with joy. The memory of that alone compelled me to share it again.

Banksy

I have just discovered the joy that is Banksy, Graffiti artist, dissident and revolutionary. I am reading his book "Wall and Piece". It has inspired me to think particularly of how much of our public space is polluted by advertising. Advertising that is misleading, degrading and insulting and I'm over it. It only takes a day of being conscious of it to realise how all pervasive it is. I decided a while ago not to put Google adds on this blog, and not just because hardly anyone reads it.

Some of the quotes from the book I love are...

The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. it's people who follow orders who drop bombs and massacre villages. as a precaution to ever committing major acts of evil it is our solemn duty never to do what we're told. this is the only way we can be sure.

Once upon a time there was a bear and a bee who lived in a wood and were the best of friends. All summer long the bee collected nectar from morning to night while the bear lay on his back basking in the long grass. When Winter came the Bear realised he had nothing to eat and thought to himself 'I hope that busy little Bee will share some of his honey with me'. But the Bee was nowhere to be found - he had died of a stress induced coronary disease.

The human race is an unfair and stupid competition. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some people are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It's not surprising some people have given up competing altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk food and shout abuse. What we need in this race is a lot more streakers.

Only when the last tree
Has been cut down
And the last river
Has dried to a trickle
Will man finally realize
That we cannot eat money
And reciting old proverbs
Makes you sound like a twat

Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can't even finish my second apple pie

People abuse you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
However, you are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Screw that. Any advert in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't owe them any courtesy. They have rearranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.

We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles, In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves.

The quotes are great but the artwork is where he really shines. See pictures check out his website or buy the book.

Critical Child Rearing Mistake No. 3 - John Pilger

I've started reading John Pilger to my daughter. She seemed to loose interest after just a few pages. Have I introduced Pilger to early?


Reading "the new rulers of the world" whilst on holiday was great. It reminded that we live in the media age and not the information age. Information like the fact that indigenous Australians receive 75c for every dollar spent on non indigenous Australians of federal health care funding and 25c for every dollar spent on non indigenous pharmaceutical benefits is just not readily available. Instead, media stories about indigenous people squandering millions of health dollars is ussually what I get to hear. I'm not sure if my daughter quite understood this important distinction though.

Author writes rebuttal to review on obscure blog that hardly anyone reads

A few months ago I wrote a review / reflection on Brad Jersak's book Can you hear me? This week I got a comment from someone called Brad Jersak. At first when I read the name I assumed it was a prank but then he's not exactly the sort of high profile person that others would try and impersonate, so I'm assuming that it's actually him. Seeing that I have quite a small blog audience (see tips for keeping your bog audience small) I'm pretty sure his agent didn't call him up and say "Hey Brad, have you heard what is being said about your book on the a churchless faith blog, You better reply quick!" I'm guessing he or a friend might have googled himself. In a bizarre Google anomaly when I tried searching for "Brad Jersak" "Can you hear me" review my blog comes up fifth! just behind amazon. Sadly for Brad his own site comes in at ten.

My reply to him is here.

Brad Jersak: Can You Hear Me? (part 1) - Review / Reflection

I was asked by my wife to read this as some friends of hers had read it and got a lot out of it. At the moment I've got through Part 1 (of 3) but thought I'd post some initial thoughts here.

Firstly, I'm not one adverse to the idea of listening to God. I try to do 3 sessions of silent meditation each week in order to listen to God.

My first overwhelming impression is that his theological exposition in the book is woeful. This starts with Jersak’s interpretation of John 10 which kind of underpins the book. Basically takes what the gospel writer even describes as a “figure of speech” (John 10:6) to mean that the follower of Christ can literally hear Jesus voice. The book (so far) is full of similar ways of reading scripture like confusing "The word" as expressed by Jesus in the gospels with the charismatic understanding of "a word". I found this is very frustrating.

None the less I put this behind me. Just because someone has a bad biblical exposition doesn't necessarily mean what they have to say is bad. This is something I honestly believe. Besides, the little blurb on his "Kissing the Leper" book looks pretty good.

The book is not all bad by any means I thought his section on the ways of hearing God (Invitation, Scripture, Teachers, Worship, Conviction of Right & Wrong, A Burden for Others and Prompting) was quite helpful. My problem is not the idea that people hear God but rather exactly how that happens and how we should expect that too happen.

Let me start by explaining how I think we hear God. I‘ve have alluded to this a little in my previous “Me and God like a Jazz Band” post. My thought is that God is playing a jazz rhythm track and we are playing a solo. So like a jazz musician we can play in harmony with that track or in dissonance, but even when we are playing in harmony there is a huge amount of freedom in what we play. So for me hearing God is really about hearing that rhythm track and responding in harmony to that in a me kind of way.

The difference between what me and what I think Jersak is saying is that I have a backing track to which I improvise where Jersak is looking for a particular set of notes that God wants him (us) to play. Hence he gives examples of being told by God to talk to a particular stranger sitting in a coffee shop or get off a road just before a truck is coming. Now I don’t deny that this is possible my worry is when people expect this to be the norm, because my experience is that for most Xns this is not the norm. Nor should it be. To me this is like the difference between having God's Spirit and having God's instruction. If you think of someone doing something in say the spirit of Martin Luther King (MLK) you could imagine what that might be like (and there would be endless possibilities of what that might look like). They would not necessarily use words by MLK. It would be a combination of the essence of MLK and the person doing the thing. To receive instruction is just to do what someone says. To me to have God’s spirit and to listen to God is not about getting direct words from God (although at times this can happen) it’s about hearing that rhythm track and playing something appropriate. In fact as we grow as Xns you might expect to hear even less direct instruction from God, just like a music student might.

When Jersak asks “Is that God or just your imagination?”. My thought is that it's both. To me our imagination in prayer is like listening to a complete jazz song and asking is that the solo or is that the rhythm track? They cannot be separated. I fear that Jersak does that and belittles humans in the process. One example is when he describes Nicola Telsa’s vision of Alternating Current as a vision from God. I’d argue that in fact that was Tesla’s idea, an idea discovered because of the way God had created him but none the less his idea and his imagination. Imagination is great and important for Xns. Imagination is the conduit between what we know about God and how we apply it in our context. Imagination is how we ask what would Jesus do in this situation? Otherwise Xns would be turning up to weddings and trying to turn water into wine or sitting at home waiting for a vision about which tie to wear.

As you can see this has been a hard book as it’s made me do lots of thinking. It’s a book with many things in it that I agree with just not from the angle that those things are being presented. None the less I will keep listening to God but I won’t be expecting any specific instructions, I won’t deny that it’s possible, all I won’t to do is be in harmony with my creator.

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.