I Hope I Get To Meet Christopher Hitchens In Heaven One Day

Every time I listen to Christopher Hitchens, or one of the other four horsemen of the atheist apocalypse (Dawkins, Harris and Dennet), I feel myself taking a deep breath unsure if I'm about to hear some killer argument that will see my faith disappear in puff of logic. After all they are pretty smart people.

This time I was listening to Christopher Hitchens being interviewed by Tony Jones of Late Line fame.

He spoke as if many of the Xn people he spoke to argued that morality was proof of God or that God (via Xy for Xns) is what teaches us morality. I can't believe this kind of argument still persists. Hasn't any of the Xns pushing this line of argument read Matthew 25 or the parable of the Good Samaritan or any of the parables where moral thing being done by the non religious or religiously incorrect person is contrasted with the religious person doing the immoral thing?

His arguments about Martin Luther King I found less convincing mainly because of the way I read scripture. I think Hitchens sees scripture as like a law book where you can pick and choose bits equally with the whole thing needing to be in complete agreement with itself. This is completely understandable as this is exactly what many Xns do. Personally I've always thought of weird given that one of our major figures said things like "you have heard it said but I say..." (Matt 5:38)

I tend to view scripture as an on going revelation rather a law book. Xns who argue against picking a bit out of Leviticus to support a particular idea usually have their arguments reduced to something along the lines of "that's not loving and god is loving so we'll ignore that bit" I would argue that they're simply not taking scripture seriously.

As he spoke it reminded me how important it is to hear the voice of the heretic. Hitchen's may not be a believer but like previous heretics (Martin Luther or even Jesus) his voice needs serious thought.

Hitchens is not only the atheist and critic we deserve to have but are blessed to have. We need to agree with him that religion can be dangerous and open to abuse which under the right and fairly unextraordinary circumstances can be devastating. For example if we were to want exemption to discrimination laws it would not be carte blanche (as some Xns are arguing at the moment) but only for very specific reasons which wider society would be comfortable with.

There has been much post enlightenment theological thought but for the most part of of it seems to still exclusively reside within theological institutions. My hope is that The popular and lucid thoughts of Hitchens might challenge main stream Xy and force us to grow and change.

Jesus All About What?

Last month The Spirit of Things discussed the Jesus All About Life campaign. It's something I have to admit I've completely missed. Apart from a few friends who changed their logo on Facebook to a logo I could only just read if I squinted I haven't seen anything. None the less I got to hear all about it on this interview. What really struck me in the interview was this passage.

Rachael Kohn: Daniel, to be serious though, I mean isn't it a Christian imperative to change the world for the better? That is, being there for the people who live in very degraded circumstances?

Daniel Willis: Sure. And the thing about that is that in order to present that, or to go down that track, people actually need to be in a relationship with Jesus. So if they aren't already in a relationship with Jesus, then how are they going to bring that Christian value, that Christian ethic, that Christian morality to bear on the situations in another country? Just this morning, I was listening to a news broadcast about adoption, where they're adopting children from foreign countries, from Third World countries, and the devastation that that is causing, the wrong way that that's being approached.

Unless we have an understanding of who Jesus is, what he said, and how we should deal with one another, then we can't send people from our country out to deal with situations like that adoption issue because they might go out and do exactly what the other country was doing in exploiting that situation.

So this means that the only people who have a problem with Westerners ripping cute African kids out of their adopted families are Xns? I don't think so.

I find it hard to believe that Xn people are still stuck in a believe then act paradigm. It got me thinking does this person actually know any non Xn people? Personally most non Xn people I know well have strong ethical ideas. What they might not have is a spiritual framework to put those ethics in.

Maybe rather than ads thanking Jesus for V-neck guitars and sleep ins, an add like this might be more appropriate.

I want a cleaner planet,
I want to house the homeless,
I want to stop war,
I want to end injustice.
Jesus prayed "Your Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven"
Get on board with what God is doing and be part of changing the
world.

Church: A Definition

An organisation run by elderly men for elderly women.

Care of James Jupp on Late Night Live.

Sympathy for The Devil

I have never been a fan of Kyle Sandilands. But, I can’t help but feeling that in the furor over the incident on his breakfast show that some key things were missed. What was most shocking for me in the whole incident was not Sandilands reaction but...

1. That a 12 year old had been raped.
2. That a 14 year old was put under a lie detector test and asked questions about her sex life.
3. The question about her sex life was being asked by her mother who the daughter had already told about the incident.

I assume that after the revelation that she had been raped the "is that your only experience" question he asked was probably a way of trying to affirm that she was not sexually active teenager, which is what the mother's question was trying to find out. The incident was unquestionably badly handled but, in the heat of live comedy radio I think many might have done the same. I have some sympathy for Sandliands who is being crucified while all the other issues are being ignored.

I think the media can do better than concentrate on just one element of this story.

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.

Oh no he’s said too much, he hasn’t said enough

The ABC is loosing it’s Religion Report. The Religion Report is one of the few podcasts that I download every single week and it is consistently high quality and covers material I don’t see or hear any where else. It’s host Stephen Crittenden has always been fabulous. Some of the ABC’s religious segments can get a bit sentimental and schmaltzy but never the religion report. To quote Stephen Crittenden himself. “That such a decision has been taken in an era when religion vies with economics as a determinant of everything that's going on in the world almost beggars belief.” Come on ABC get your act together! For better or worse religion plays a big part in our world and the small half hour that the Religion Report takes up serves this role so well. For being outspoken Stephen Crittenden was stood down I almost laughed out loud when the following weeks show was half and hour dedicated too… Blasphemy

Click here to read and see the media watch story

If you're not happy about this why not email the ABC Board board@your.abc.net.au copied to the ABC Advisory Council abcac@your.abc.net.au

C.S Lewis Quote

My belief in god is something that I sometimes struggle with. I recently heard a quote from C.S Lewis that I can really identify with.

I believe in God just as I believe in the sun. Not so much because I see it (it's actually dangerous to look at it directly) but because in it's light I see everything else.

It reminded me of Exodus 33:20-23.

But," he said, "you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live." And the Lord continued, "See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen."

Even Moses only got to see the back of God.

Todd Hunter ex Alpha National Director and thief ;)

I haven't been so devastated since I was fourteen and designing a land based windsurfer, only to see a soft drink ad staring a land based windsurfer almost exactly identical to the one I was designing. The other day I was listening to a podcast by Todd Hunter ex US Alpha National director talking about his "three is enough" groups. These groups are based on the idea of "prayer, grow and serve" which is pretty much identical to my idea of "connect, grow and serve". I couldn't believe someone else had come up with exactly the same idea as me. After 10 minutes of devistation I got to thinking that since I think the whole "connect, grow and serve" thing is a good idea and that hardly anyone would listen to me but heaps of people will listen to him it's probably not such a bad thing. None the less he'll be hearing from my lawyers soon. ;)

Me on the News

If you've ever wondered what I do for work here's your chance to find out. This is a news story on the program I spend about 50% of my work life coordinating.

Tom Sine - A Call to a Pre-Industrial Village?

Thursday night I went to see tom sine speak. I've been a big Tom Sine fan for a while have 3 of his and Christine’s (his wife) books, and have often quoted passages in talks I’ve given. It was a little disappointing that the night was more of an intro tom Sine than a now you’ve read the book kind of talk. Probably the hardest thing was looking at the four types of "new conspirators" and realising I wasn’t even close to being one of them. The four types (with examples from Tom) are.

1. Emerging. Tom described this mostly in terms of groovy inner city types coming out of the alternative worship (I’m pretty sure the U.S emergents would consider themselves much more diverse than this) eg: Johnny Baker, Prodigal Project, emergent village.
2. Missional. eg: Lesley Newbigin, book "the missional church", Forge, Allan Hirsch. Often the groups have a worship time and small groups and no other programs for people in the church.
3. Mosaic. Multicultural church planters eg: the church "sanctuary covenant" and the book "the hip hop church"
4. Monastic. UNO, the book "companions with then poor", Viv Greigs, Word made Flesh, The Simple Way, Shane Claiborne and Camden house. Where people live on the same economic level as the poor.

The way I see these four is...

1. Emerging. I'm not sure if Perth has one and I'm not sure if I quite got Tom's definition (i'll have to read the book).
   
2. Missional. There are a couple of conscious missional things I know of in Perth in Brighton and Banksia Grove.
3. Mosaic. I don't think this exists in Perth .
4. Monastic. Perth's Peace Tree community is probably the only community Perth has like this.
   

The problem I have with these four types of community are...

• I can't afford to be a part of these communities, especially 1 & 2. Even the 4th one can be hard as the rent in some "poor" suburbs in Perth is more than the mortgage I am paying at the moment, and I'm not keen to get a job which is just a money job.
  
• It can be harder than it needs to be for others if they become Xn, when it involves being part of one of these communities.
• I already have too many people in my life and these communities would be adding more.
  
• People are slippery and move on. So what happens when people move out of the communities?
  

I can't help but think that all of the four models work on the basis of a geographical community of some sort and by default a desire to be part of a pre-industrial, pre-urban sprawl life. I’m not in a community in the above four senses. I’d love to be but I feel like I would be spreading myself too thin and would have to give other things up.

Below is a quick picture I drew representing many of the significant people and communities in my life.

As you can see it's a friggin' mess. I link with people from school four different work places including my current one, church, uni, school, various networking groups. On top of this there are clients I meet through work and people who I am trying to connect with in my local suburb (which at the moment is proving difficult) and people through the web. My relationships with people non Xn and Xns alike tend to out last the community in which they start whether that be geographical or work or another interest. This is just a reality of the society I find myself in.

In my very first post I said that a churchless faith meant that I would still be part of a community. But, by the above four definitions I fail. My life is more like a node or a website than a community. Tom said you can't be an effective Xn without community, this is something I stewed over for a long time. I wonder if it might be that we not called to be in community but to be love. Don't get me wrong community is great and I'd jump at the chance to be a part of any one of the above models but not at the sacrifice of the relationships and people I am serving at the moment.

I wonder if one of the reasons why the mega church works is because it works (probably not consciously) in an suburban sprawl environment.

Anyway, these communities are great but I'm looking for something that will transcend my current environment and I will be able to live a meaningful impactful counter cultural life without having to also be part of a pre-industrial village.

Oasis

I've just watched the film "The Oasis". The story of the Salvation Army Oasis Youth Center shot over 2 years, it is marred by both tragedy and hope and for me really captures what it means to be Christ in the world, and has inspired me to check out the Salvation Army church. You can watch or download the film here.

Art by Numbers

Artist Chris Jordan has put together a series of art works titled Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait. The full series can be seen here. My favourite two pieces were Barbie Dolls and Prison uniforms. All pieces visually depict different things Americans use, spend, throw away etc.. Which I'm sure is not too different from Australians.

Barbie Dolls, 2008
which depicts 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006 (click on picture to see full size)

Partial zoom (click on picture to see full size)

Actual size (click on picture to see full size)

Prison Uniforms, 2007
Depicts 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005. (click on picture to see full size)

Partial zoom (click on picture to see full size)

Actual size (click on picture to see full size)

TV frustration

Last night I sat down hoping to see the first episode of Weeds season 2. I don't what a lot of TV and this is the best American or UK TV drama for the last couple of years. This week was the first time I saw it mentioned in the paper and channel 9 has not advertised it what so ever and they have buried it at 11pm on Monday night. Alas it was episode 5. Previously I have whinged about the delay in screening programs like six feet under and Weeds. In America Weeds is up to Season 4. Mostly I can put up with waiting for a TV show to arrive put it's the lack of advertising combined with putting it in obscure time slots and the occasional out of order running of programs. Shaun Mcaileff explains how channel 9 does it's programming in this clip - you have to fast forward to 2:05 to see it.

Surely this pain could be easily averted by setting up an email service where viewers are emailed a reminder when their favourite shows return? Having missed out on the main character getting married and her son getting his girl friend pregnant I can either give up on the show having missed so much of the back story or try an hire the DVDs or download the episodes. If I get either of these formats for the first half of the season why not the second half as well.

My second gripe is the shows TV actually show. If they are not buried at 11pm they are ignored completely. The Flight of the Conchords is a prime example of this (see clip below). Surely with two New Zealanders in the lead role we could try and claim that the show is Australian like we did with the band Crowded House. Instead we are inflicted with more crime investigation "NCIS vs CSI in Kentucky" or whatever is the latest variation.

Again I'm forced to find the show elsewhere. The easiest probably being to watch it on you tube, on a tiny screen having to find the next part of the program every five minutes. painful to say the least. The internet isn't killing TV, TV is killing TV.

Back on the Father Bob Podcast.

Today I had the pleasure of joining Father Bob and Cameron Reilly for the 76th Father Bob Podcast. I don't think I did much talking, which I think is what tends to happen when you're not in the room with the other two people that you like listening too. Plus I'm not good at talking over the top of others, I"ll never make a good politician.

Atheists can say dumb things too

I've just listened to the podcast of the Sunday nights with John Safran and Father Bob show (I'm a bit behind). On the show they interviewed Ian Bryce, NSW Campaign Manager of the new 'Secular Party'. To see how a secular party might do things differently to a religiously influenced party they asked how he would make a decision about something like abortion. He said they would use the utilitarian principle, the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Given that if both parents don't want the child and say only the child is keen to be alive then that's not going to change whether the child is a 2 day old fetus, 30 weeks into the pregnancy or 2 weeks after they are born.

Surely it would be better say something like we'd measure when the fetus becomes a sentient being and won't allow terminations after that, or some other measurable scientific principle. I'm usually groaning because I hear Xns saying dumb things, so it was nice to hear that atheist are susceptible of falling back onto a dogma too.

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.

Guest on the Father Bob Show

Lucky me got to be a guest on The Father Bob show this week (still my favourite podcast) . You can download the show here.

Stupid Fundamentalist of the Week

Occasionally I see someone doing something so unbelievably stupid in the name of Xy that I bypass all emotions of anger or embarrassment and start to laugh. Last night was one such occasion. ABC's Lateline had a news article about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech University massacre at the end of which was an interview with Linda Mcguire from the "Tommie Zito Ministry Evangelist" group. She said...

We came here to encourage but most of all the reality is that some of those students who were shot are in hell today and I wanted to come and let the other students know that (we didn't, they didn't) some went to hell but they didn't have to go to hell that we have a choice that we can say yes to Jesus because he is the only way to heaven.

Unbe-frickin-lievable.

Although the Bible only records Jesus weeping at the death of Lazarus, does this woman really think he would have got around to some kind of fire and brimstone preaching if he didn't raise Lazarus from the dead.

The Enlightenment Is Not Godless

I've got a little behind in my podcast listening of late and stumbled across the Radio National's The Ark's podcast called The Enlightenment Is Not Godless. Rachael Kohn talks to Wayne Hudson who argues that most of the philosophers from the enlightenment were not anti God. They certainly critiqued the current state of the dominant religion and some were atheists but it wasn't the death of God for all intelligent thinkers. Of course this doesn't affect the legitimacy of atheism or Xy, just an interesting bit of history.

Invade Rage

Rage are offering people the chance to host a night. All you have to do is send in your 20 favourite video clips. Here are my quick thoughts of the 20 songs I'd choose and why (in no particular order and bound to change by tomorrow).

1. Ship Song - Nick Cave: First time I saw made me realise that good music was being played in the 80's (all my friends were listening to Bon Jovis' Slippery when wet) and the little children like cherubs floating around Nick Cave at his piano was just mesmorising.
2. Here it Goes - OK GO: Yes I know you've all seen it but it's still the best budget video ever made.
3. Sweet Child of mine - Guns 'n' Roses: They were the Moses of Grunge. They paved the way for everyone else to go into the promised land but failed to get their themselves.
4. So Real - Jeff Buckley: This was the first song Jeff Buckley song I heard that made me stand up and take notice of Jeff Buckley. And, the monkeys on and the bike is great
5. Ghost of Texas Ladies man - Concrete Blonde: Just because it has the line "Ecto plasmic lover from the other side" and I can still see Johnette Napolitano's bass line crawling across my bedroom ceiling
6. Television Drug of the Nation - The Disposable Heroes of Hipocracy: This is the song that turned me on to rap
7. Hide your love away - The Beatles: One of the few Beatles song that has a proper video
8. Sues Last ride - The Dirty Three: I first heard the Dirty three live on Triple J and thought it was Neil young. Then I saw them perform just after the horse stories album in between a Blondie cover band and Scatterbrain (remeber "Don't call me dude"?). They were amazing, I've been a fan ever since.
9. Underground - Ben Folds Five: After too much grungy guitar this song was such a breath of fresh air. It was like Billy Joel's bastard son had learned to rock
10. To Bring you my love - PJ Harvey: I had to have on PJ Song
11. 77% - The Herd: Australian accents and great political rap at a time when American rap seemed to be all abut bitches and money.
12. Get Free - The Vines: In 1997 (I think) a friend handed me a demo tape of a band who wanted to play support with my band. The song on the tape was great and they played support for for us. Years later I saw them play support with You Am I, I said hello to Craig and congratulated him on a great set and he remembered me as the guy with the homemade red guitar. Little did I know that just two weeks later NME would be calling them the best thing in rock since Nirvana. And I even handed them back the demon tape so they wouldn't have to go to the expense of making another one. D'oh!
13. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana: Like everyone else who had to grow up listening to Rick Astley and Jason Donavon this song was
14. Mark of Cain - LMA: a beautiful ballad disguised as heavy rock.
15. Thursday - Morphine: Like Ben Folds great to hear a no guitar band.
16. Fake Plastic Trees- Radiohead: Still can't remember what was more surprising the silliness of the name of the song of the beauty of the music.
17. Kool Thing - Sonic Youth: I fist heard this song in the Hal Hartley film "Simple men". The coolest and weirdest dance routine in a film ever. I would love it if rage could play that instead of the real clip. When I did see the clip I was convinced I needed to join a band with a female bass player
18. Everybody Hurts - REM: A beautiful powerful video
19. Jesus Built my Hotrod - Ministry: This clip always seemed to be on when I first started watching rage and the song always reminds of Rage. At first I thought it was just weird noise now I like it.
20. Killing in the name of - Rage Against The Machine: This song just blew my head off. So much power, passion and energy.

I'll hold off till the end before entering becasue I know I'll change my mind. Let me know if you think I've missed anything.