Santa's Elves Are Chinese Slaves

It's Christmas and this documentary reminds me of how I get to live such a luxurious life. Watching my wife work so hard (I'm a stay at home dad) and living in one of the lower socio-economic parts of my city it's easy to think that everything I have is purely from my (or my wife's) hard work. The truth is it's not. It's built on the back of slaves. We just can't see them. I'm wondering if, like Moses, it will not be possible to change the system from within. Maybe we to are being called into the wilderness, to disconnect from the luxury of a system built on the back of slavery. Will that be easy? Of course not. We'll be grumbling that it was easier to be a slave in the system than to live in the wilderness. The question of course is where is God calling his people?

Confession: I Support Child Slavery And Animal Torture

It was a Friday night - party night... Well, sort of, with two young kids "party night" means a DVD and some chocolate. The DVD arrived in the mail, the kids were in bed so I grabbed my skateboard to go and get the chocolate. And, there I stood at the supermarket in front of a huge range of chocolate. A huge range but only one had the blue and green fair trade logo on it. It belonged to a boring block of milk chocolate which unlike almost everything else was not on special. Only one piece of chocolate I knew did not have child slave labour involved in it's production. I did not buy it. In my justified that it's not fair that there is only one fair trade option and my wife would be disappointed if I bring back the most boring and expensive chocolate option.

Only hours before I was at another supermarket doing the weekly shopping. There I was faced with the option of expensive free range meat or cheaper innocuously unnamed meat. Meat that surely was produced in factory farming conditions. Chickens in battery conditions and pigs in stalls where they can't move.

So here I confess that I support child slavery and animal torture. I confess this because it feels horrible to write this and confessing is compelling to change my behaviour to match what I say I believe.

After 9 11 We Need An Angry God - Some Thoughts 10 Years On

The usual wisdom is that it was belief in an angry god is what caused a handful of people to get into planes and crash into skyscrapers and then caused a much larger group of people to get into many more planes and drop bombs on to people who lived in countries which were kind of close to the country where most of the first handful of people came from.

Furthermore, an often remarked criticism of the Bible is that in the God of the Old Testament is full of anger but the god of the new testament is full of love. This criticism is supposed to be a debate clinching argument because we, as a society, believe that you can't be both full of anger and full of love and that anger is an altogether bad emotion. If you were to hear someone say "my child has anger issues" no one will turn around and say "that's great you must be so proud". Instead there might be a bit of consoling about similar issues in their own children and how that anger might have been subdued through a combination of therapy and medication.

Our ideal citizen does not have "anger issues", our ideal citizen swims with the tide of the way the world is and learns to accept things as they are. Less than ideal citizens would include Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero and Jesus. All angry. Angry about the way their people had been treated by the ruling authorities. All full of anger and full of love. Key of course is that that they were angry and non-violent. And it is non-violence that is key to understanding the gospel.

As I look around at the litany of injustices in the world I am angry and I am sure God must feel the same. I contend that God did not just pour out Gods anger on Jesus making God satisfied and unmoved by the events of our world. Maybe instead God has channelled God's anger into an act of non-violence. The act of becoming a man and laying down his life for others in the crucifixion. An act that would be a window into a new paradigm a paradigm where violence loses and love wins because the grave could not hold Jesus.

God is still angry and God is calling us to follow the Jesus path of non-violence. Our anger is to fuel loving acts of non-violent action.

Like the terrorists on 9/11 I sense that something is unfair in the world and I want that to change. We both believe that God is angry about these injustices. The difference between us is that the anger of my God causes God to humble God's self to the form of a man who would act out love and not violence even if that meant death on a cross.

Ten years on if you are angry about 911 or about the west's response or that the 911 anniversary will receive more attention than starving millions in the horn of Africa, then join God and follow Jesus on the path of non-violent action in a new paradigm where violence loses and love wins.

Poor People Ain't Like They're Supposed To Be

According to an article in the West Australian last month (Thurs 27th) I live in the only "affordable" shire in Perth. In other words I live in the crapiest shire in Perth, the one that no one else wants to live in. Now I could get all high and mighty about how Jesus walked amongst the poor and all the Christians reading this should do the same by moving into my shire. But the honest truth is if I had the means I too would move away from the poor performing schools, crappy playgrounds, cars doing burnouts and the sounds of AC-DC and Cold Chisel blasting out of the backyard stereo at 2am in the morning.

Although all these things might be irritating my real problem is that poor people ain't what they're supposed to be. Poor people are supposed aware that they are in need, they are supposed to see how that i could help them and they are supposed to ask for or accept my help when i offer it. But they don't. there's as much chance of that happening as you (dear middle class reader) asking for mechanical help from your one bogan neigbour even though you know he completely rebuilt an engine from scratch. The problem is my neighbours and I just don't have that much in common. So it's hard to sustain a chat in the street let alone do anything practical. They don't want my help or my friendship. For now I'll have to settle for being the guy who gives away eggs, can tie a tie for, has a computer that connects to the internet and can print, photocopy documents.

I've Accidentally Become A Pacifist

I'm sure there was a time when I used to believe in the need for armed forces and that at times these would be the best way to resolve conflicts. As I’ve grown older I’ve grown even less conservative and now I’m a pacifist. I don't when this happened I only really thought about it the other day. It just crept up on me. As Toni Campolo puts it “I can’t think of a circumstance where Jesus would pick up a bayonet and run it through someone”. If we are called to be like Jesus then why would we live differently. Jesus with all the supernatural power of God was murdered like any garden variety insurrectionist. His passive resistance resulted in his own death and that, is the danger of deciding to follow Jesus. To follow Jesus is to walk to the cross.

Slumdog Millionaire Review

In the 10 months I had off from blogging I finally got around to joining the rest of the world and watching Slumdog Millionaire. I didn't like it. All fiction happens in a universe that the story teller creates and it's the job of the story teller to draw us in to the world of the story so everything that happens becomes believable. Dan Brown's the Davinci code does a great job of this, so much so that I was disappointed when I came across the gaps in the story’s theological and historical explanation. Slumdog is built on these premises: If someone just gets lucky enough then they too can get out of their situation. The implication is we're all in control of how are life turns out regardless of the where we are born.

It's classic American dream mythology. The evils that the characters face were not inequality, poverty and disease resulting from the systemic injustice that created the slum (which is really the great evil that slum dwellers face). Instead, the evil was a handful of gangsters. To me it felt like the slum setting was not necessary almost like an elephant in the room. Maybe for me feel good movies are a time to forget about systemic injustice for a while and I just couldn't do it in this one. Not when that injustice isn't being confronted in some way. I can hear my mum saying "for goodness sake, It's just a story!".

In my opinion Kevin Mcloud's documentary Slumming It did a much better job of capturing the beauty and horror of the slum. He walked away wanting to make the slum more sanitary and the work practices safer, but there was a joy and community amongst the people that the first could learn a lot from.

Refugees

I've written to both Liberal and Labor candidates in my electorate telling them I'm disappointed with their policies on refugees and I haven't heard a thing back from either of them. Frustrating. I could post statistics about the issue but two funny guys works just as well.

I Want To Do

Inspired by Fox Mulder's "I Want To Believe" poster and a recent viewing of the film Ghandi.

Dividing and Outscourcing the Kingdom of God

I think this will be my final reflection on the holes in the social services sector for a while. I recently met someone who went to a Christian social service agency looking for help. As I heard his painful story of being knocked back by several agencies because he did not quite fit their categories for help and the quite severe situation he now found himself in I couldn't help but think that although now his problems were big enough that he could access help he needed some help at least two years ago. But, there isn’t a free service for people who are "worried about what might likely happen in the future". I find this so frustrating the system is really irritating me and unfortunately I am not one of the movers and shakers who can influence any change either.

By dividing the Kingdom of God into churches for the soul and professional government funded agencies for physical, mental and emotional help we have done damage. I am all too aware of some churches that have inappropriately tried to care for people with various problems that needed professional help. I am not suggesting that we replace mental health professionals with a couple of nice Xn people praying for someone, not at all. Their must be a third way where the people can become integrated into a community whilst getting professional care.

Social Services – Picking Low Hanging Fruit

I blogged before wondering if we had sold compassion to bureaucracy. One of the things that happens in social services is that governments put out tenders for grants. Agencies compete for these grants aiming to give as much bang for the buck as possible. The best way to do this of course is often to help the person who is easiest to help. This means it is not in the agencies interest to help difficult people or people who fall outside of their target group, let alone help someone who’s problems do not coincide with the core function of the organisation. So a homeless, unemployed, drug using person would need to be seeing about a dozen or so different agencies. I know this is what happens because one of the the things people our agency meet need help with is trying to make sense of all of those agencies. If you have ever been to Centrelink for anything you’ll know how difficult that is, so this person it becomes ten times more difficult. With each service only wanting to or able to deal with a discrete part of the person’s whole problem the whole person is often ignored.

I'm not sure why I'm feeling so disenchanted with the whole social services sector at the moment. There are so many people in it with great hearts doing great stuff. I just feel like they are being ham strung and I'm kind of over that.

We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: A Theology Of Spirituals

I remember a friend of mine playing “Do Lord” at a churchy conference and apologising for the incorrect theology in the song. Like many old spirituals it looks forward to being whisked away. Tom Wright devotees will say that the song should be about resurrection and “Kingdom on earth as it is in heavan” minded people will argue that we need to start bringing the Kingdom of God to earth now. This particular had mostly people who would agree with both these tings, me included. I still sing these spirituals and in fact more so as my personal thrology has moved away from a “let’s all get a ticket to heaven” orientation. Not only because they are great tunes but because I appreciate the theology.

It’s easy to talk to a middle class western person, like me, about resurrection and re-creation. I can look around at my beautiful (slightly flawed) surroundings and imagine how this could be made perfect. For the poor of the spirituals living in terrible conditions this is much harder. Given the conditions they were in a recreated earth would be so different from what they knew that they might as well call it heaven.

Similarly, the thing that stops me being a part of some kind of kingdom of God change in the world is most usually my own apathy. For the poor of the spirituals they were powerless, the best they could hope for is that one day God would step in rescue them and take them to a better place. Which I might say is a recreated earth but I’m sure they would stand aghast at call heaven.

So I will continue to enjoy singing my “theologically incorrect” spirituals because I want to remember not only the tunes of these people but the conditions that they lived through that produced this wonderful music. For me it is a way for a brief musical moment of joining in solidarity with the poor.

Have we sold compassion to the bureaucrats in return for putting our badge on it?

Last month I had to talk to a volunteer in my organistaion who had given a homeless girl shelter for the night and explain to her that she was not allowed to do this under the organisation’s policy. It’s been bugging me for weeks. Basically the volunteer acted like a Good Samaritan by taking in someone in a very desperate situation with no one else left to turn to. As well as being homeless, she had been assaulted along with, like so many people we see, a myriad of other problems. The volunteer looked after the girl as responsibly as possible, given that it might be a risky situation (just like the original Good Samaritan story). I so feel like a member of the religious establishment telling her off for not doing things the “orthodox way” which would have meant merely giving the girl a number to call in the morning and saying best of luck fending for yourself tonight. Certainly if I was in the volunteer’s situation and followed the official guidelines I would be finding it hard to live with myself right now.

This has got me thinking about the way that the church has developed social agencies which are then funded mostly by government bodies who then put restrictions, like the above, on agency activities. The church feels good because we feel like we are reaching out to people via these agencies. The government feels good because social services are being provided. The only people who don’t feel good are those who are actually in need. Having known someone who has died on the streets of Perth I know that it could have been quite possible that the girl in need could have died or even killed themselves if our volunteer had not stepped in.

I think we have sold compassion to the bureaucrats. As Xns we need to get our hands dirty, we need to take risks caring for people who could rob us hurt us. Of course we need to take as many precautions as possible, but if we wish to leave compassion to risk averse bureaucrats then we have to be honest and say we wish to erase the Good Samaritan parable from the Bible.

The Wife's New Tattoo

Here's proof that my wife is way cooler than me.

Today she got a tattoo that, according to her, "Didn't even hurt!" (That's what two emergency Caesareans will do to your pain threshold)

It's Ancient Hebrew meaning to "cry out" typically against injustice. Eg: Numbers 20:16 "and when we cried to the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt."

I always thought she was cooler than me and now she's got proof.

Watchmen and Trying to Solve the World’s Problems

Recently a friend and I went to see the Watchmen and have a coffee where we planned to solve the world problems (that’s kind of what we always talk about doing).

Reviews for the Watchmen seem to be either 1 star and below or 4 stars and above. I can see why the film splits people. It looks and sounds amazing and is very faithful to the original text, which has rave reviews itself. However the watchmen universe is a hard one to get your head around and immerse yourself in.

The film ends with an event that galvanizes enemies together to achieve a common goal. Over coffee my friend and I wondered why is it that we can't get along or work together without some galvanizing event. Why is it we are full of compassion for people who are homeless because of the recent bushfires in Australia but probably don’t think twice about people homeless in our own city. Or why is it that when you go on a camp or similar that a disparate group of people can get along like best friends yet when you take away the camp yet when they leave that camp they'll get on as badly as everyone else. It’s as if we are able to put differences aside in some circumstances but prepared to come to blows over them in others. Why aren’t global warming and poverty similar galvanizing events that make us forget our petty differences?

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.

Best Place to Live

According to a Bankwest Survey after growing up in the best place to live in Australia I am now living in the 481st best place to live. With only 590 places to choose from that's quiet a fall. I am slowly growing attached to where I live, but it's been hard to get attached. Getting to know the neighbours has been tricky, our lives and interests are often so different. I’ll soon be doing some garden retic for one neighbor and a Resume for another. Small steps. Most places I’ve lived in it's taken me 5 to 7 years before I’ve felt comfortable there and I suspect it may take longer here as my work stops me from being around at normal social hours. I'll be missing another BBQ this Saturday for example. There is always the temptation to climb the suburban ladder and move somewhere "nicer" or more affluent but when I ask myself where would someone like Mother Teresa or Shane Claiborne live the answer would be here and not somewhere "nicer".

The Global Table

If the global Xn community sat at the same table what would Paul say? We live in a world where we can transport foods and goods from one corner to another with almost as much ease as the Corinthians could transfer food from one side of the communion table to the other.

When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord's supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk.

1 Corinthians 11:20-21

Corporate Sin, Initial Thoughts

Do you remember the teacher who used to hold back the entire class for detention because they weren’t able to find the culprit. The idea was that the threat of doing this might cause at least one class member to oust the culprit. Of course it never worked. Everyone sat in the classroom angry at the teacher rather than being angry at the culprit (often someone they didn’t even like).

Why does this happen? I’ve been thinking about the idea of corporate sin and wondering if the same thinking and action is behind classroom corporate detention is behind corporate sin.

Here’s a typical scenario. Many people know that some clothing is made in sweat shops, most of us are appalled by it and most of us (myself included) do very little about it. We don’t so much talk about our own inaction or the inaction of other individuals but prefer to blame “the system” or the government or some other teacher like authority. I realize the analogy isn’t completely parallel but I do think there is something to be learnt, perhaps. I’m just not sure what.

Making "Make Affluence History"

With the arrival of a new child blogging has become a bit slow. None the less I have continued to have a life outside of blogging and changing nappies at 2am. I've recently been inspired by the idea of Make Affluence History as a necessary shadow of the Make Poverty History campaign. I decided to make some Make Affluence History clothing. Sticking with spirit of the Making Affluence History the jumper is an old work jumper that is no longer used and some old brown tracksuit material and some old thread.

Front Before

Back Before

Front After

Back After

Luke 18:22, for those of you who have never learnt it as a memory verse says...

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."