TheGeoffRe(y)port

The day that Steve Bracks (former Victorian Premier) resigned, he said that part of what he was proud of was that during his time in Government, they had changed the conversation to one around education, healthcare, blah blah. Now regardless of whether or not you agree that he did that, the point is a valid one. If you control the conversation, you control what is perceived to be valuable.

I think part of the reason that it appears the federal government is likely to lose the upcoming election is that they are no longer able to dictate the conversation with regard to media. Howard has used lots of the same lines as he used against Latham and Beazley, whereas Rudd at least seems to be offering something that sounds different enough that he has been able to change the way that the conversation is dictated.

Today is Blog Action Day. It’s a day when thousands of blogs all over the world, in all kinds of genres and niches are posting about the environment. In fact, you are reading one of those very posts. Because the conversation has changed. Where before the conversation around environmental concerns were mostly from the edges, or at least how much giving a token consideration to the environment would cost economically - it is now the mainstream that is talking about ways to take seriously the challenge to leave this earth in the same condition we start with.

As Christians, it’s time we stopped hiding behind ignorance or apathy and start trumpeting the cause of the environment. Because doing something about God’s creation is a kingdom purpose. And when the wider conversation aligns with the principles of the kingdom we have a responsibility to amplify that voice. We need to get behind people like Tri Robinson who are advocating the cause of the environment.

But even more - we need to get out there and do something. Whether it’s making lifestyle choices that can cut down on your transportation, limiting your use of extra plastic bags, choosing slightly more expensive but carbon-neutral energy options. Despite what Kermit might say - it’s relatively easy being green.

…comes from Paul at “One for the road“:

It is clear from some comments left on the internet that some Christians feels that you can clearly not reconcile the claim that Jesus is the only way to God with the fundamental tenant of Islam that there is no God but Allah – therefore it is impossible to be both. …

If you can be Jewish and a Christian can you not also be Muslim and a Christian? Indeed the attraction of say the 5 pillars of Islam, the disciplined life of prayer etc is something that can be intrinsically attractive as a way of practicing faith – and can be related to the rules of faith by Christian religious communities/orders (e.g. rule of St Benedict).

A question closer to home for me to ask myself would be can I both be a follower of Jesus and a worshipper of consumerist individualism? (Full post here - “Can I be a Christian and a Muslim”)

Well, I feel busted.

OK, I’m angry. And what’s more, I’m likely to make you angry. Possibly for the same reason as me. Possibly because you vigorously disagree with what I say. Either way. But here’s the back story:

After Scott and Christina kindly posted a link through to the video of the Australian Christian Lobby’s big politician thing “Make It Count”, where there were a whole bunch of church leaders at the National Press Club in Canberra, as well as being simulcast all over the country via online streaming. It was a pretty big deal and we had both Howard and Rudd addressing the issues they saw as affecting and being particularly relevant to christians. Thousands of people across Australia were watching, and I certainly saw a lot of value in hearing what the two leaders had to say.

And both leaders said a number of things that were of value. However, for some reason, there was only one thing that the crowd felt was deserving of spontaneous applause. It wasn’t a humanitarian measure that prompted spontaneous applause, nor was it mentions of conscience votes on stem cells, RU486, or comments on refugees. Instead, this room full of christian leaders believed that the only moment most worthy of spontaneous applause was the moment when John Howard mentioned his involvement in the amendments to the marriage act to enshrine in law the standard of marriage being between “one man and one woman”.

I was already fairly worked up after hearing that, but I was pushed just a little further while I was listening to the Kevin Rudd, question answer part and heard the National President of the Australian Family Association ask Kevin Rudd for an assurance that he would not support an extension of “de-facto” relationship status to include homosexual relationships.

I was pretty ticked off. For starters, here’s how I’d see the issue of marriage in relation to homosexual relationships. For my thinking, there are two parts to what happens in a marriage: there’s a change in legal status (complete with a bunch of legal rights, particularly in the event of death of a spouse), and there is a spiritual dimension to marriage: the spiritual unification of two people. Now I strongly believe that homosexuality is a sin, and I also strongly believe that churches should not be holding weddings between homosexual couples. But I fail to understand why a country who has on the whole accepted that people are in homosexual relationships, is not willing to grant the legal dimension of marriage to couples wanting to commit to one another for life.

OK, so that’s my position. But I understand that for some people (including probably the majority of christians), the notion of compromising the institution of marriage, even if only in a “legal” sense is an unacceptable position. I’d like to hear why, but I want to make another point first.

De-facto relationships. To use the old-fashioned term: “living in sin”. At the moment in Australian law, couples in a de-facto relationship are given more “rights” (in the same sense as we talk about legal rights in marriage) than any form of homosexual relationships. So the part I cannot understand is why we’re so determined to ostracise homosexual couples to the point that we’re not even willing to give them the same status as couples whose only real commitment to one another is that they are living together. It defies belief. Both situations are against the teachings of Christianity. So why is the Australian Family Association so frightened of “compromising the family” in this way?

Just thought (particularly if you’re an RSS Subscriber who tends not to visit the actual site) that it might be worth drawing attention to the very valuable, insightful (and at times quite personal) comments on the “Theology of Contraception” post. It’s been impressive to see the quality of responses there: I didn’t realise this would hit quite on such a rich vein of opinion. So if you haven’t read them (or read them back when there was only a few comments there instead of 21) I advise a perusal. You can also check out Bec’s contribution over on her blog.

And it’s worth highlighting that Kate (wife of Rohan, all round nice person) has written a paper on the subject which they’ve kindly posted up on their blog. Set some time aside and read through properly, because she’s got some pretty solid thought there and it’s worth reading through.

“Roman Catholicism believes in sexual intercourse not only for procreative but also unitive intents. Wife and husband surrender themselves to one another and come to a fuller knowledge of one another.Contraception, it follows, is wrong because it divides the procreative from the pleasure principles.”

The above quote comes from a thought-provoking post from Scot McKnight on Jesus Creed - “Augustine on the Protestant Sex Ethic”. So as someone who has never had to worry about potential theological implications of contraception in the past, but is drawing ever closer to a time when such questions become relevant; I wanted to hear what some of my very learned and wise readers believe on the issue. As McKnight pertinently asks: “In your community of faith is there any discussion about contraception — or is it either simply ignored or assumed as legitimate for the Christian? How realistic is the procreation theory of sexuality? the “unitive” or “communion” theory?”

In my experience we’re doing a pretty OK job of talking about a theology of sex outside of marriage, and we’re even starting to get closer to pre-marital sex is not God’s idea of a good thing, but I wouldn’t need to worry about a second hand to count the number of times I’ve heard any discussion of theology around contraception amongst protestants. I’m sure part of that has to do with the stage of life I’ve been at, but I’m also wondering if that’s a reflection of a wider trend.

So I’m after practical theology from the married peoples out there and completely theoretical thoughts from those of us who are single. Thoughts on contraception and what that says about your view on sex itself? Thoughts on “the pill”? I’d love to hear any of it; if only to spark some discussion in an area that I think tends to be a little bit neglected.

Mohammed Haneef is likely to be held in detention indefinitely for one of two reasons: because he is the cousin of a terror suspect in Britain, or because he gave his cousin a SIM card before he left the country. And it’s not at the hand of a judge, who granted the man bail, but at the hands of our Federal Government who is so desperate to be seen to do something to stop the hemorrhage of public confidence that they are willing to dispose of central democratic principles such as the independence of the judiciary. To call this an over-reaction to the threat of terrorism is an excessive understatement. This is a national disgrace.

(video of Kevin Andrews’ press conference can be found here)

Had Paul and Jas over at Bec’s house last night and got involved into a really interesting chat (as tends to happen when little Paulie is around), surrounding the practicalities of what it means to submit to leadership. Now as it turned out we eventually reached a point of working out that the specific situation Paul was describing might not have been about submission, but nevertheless it’s an interesting area to be exploring.

Basically Paul presented a fairly straight down the line, authoritarian perspective on what it means to submit to leadership: Leader states the decision/direction/whatever that the ministry is heading in and submitee goes along with that direction. Which at a very basic level has to be an accurate description of submission. Under an especially strict interpretation though: you don’t ask questions, you don’t offer suggestion. And the places that model takes you to seem to me to be deeply frightening: you end up “venting” about leaders because feelings of discontent need to get out somewhere. You end up putting on the “sure, no worries” face while you stew inside. And we create a self-perpetuating cycle of dishonesty and inauthenticity. And we end up leaving leaders feeling like they need to be making all the decisions, regardless of whether or not they are the people best equipped to make the call.

So here’s the model we/I proposed. Submission doesn’t mean pretending that you always agree, nor does it mean storming off because you disagree with decisions. I think that submission needs to be about communicating the areas you disagree with: both in terms of ideology and theology as well as in purely emotional and personal matters. Then trusting your leader with how you really feel: not dressing it up with grand reasons why you’re right when the real issue is just that you’ve been hurt. Having done this, you trust your leader with everything you’ve communicated: letting them hear and consider your beliefs and emotional attachment and believing that they will balance that against everything else in the situation and pushing forward with the direction the leader opts for: regardless of whether or not that’s the choice you’d have made.

I realise this is an exercise in idealism, and there are big costs: time spent communicating being a really big one. And some issues or problems with decision making are going to be so small that just a shrug and a chuckle are the best response, but it helps to remove the insidious pattern of whispering and undermining that seems to happen around any leaders. And it does require that you have leadership who are willing to listen, hear what your saying and make genuine evaluations taking into consideration your point of view without being a doormat. But I really feel that the centrality of honesty in this model gives it a really good shot of making the deliberate decision to submit to authority a helpful and productive part of life in the church rather than a burden that needs to be worn.

So - rather than this be an exercise in me making myself feel holy and theological, interact. What’s wrong with this model? Does this pay enough respect to the position of leaders? I’d love to hear what strikes you about this thinking because I know that it’s in no way complete.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Scott and Christina let me loose on their congregation, and I had a chat about the interaction between Nathan and David. You can have a listen here - “Nathan and David: 24th June 2007″. There’s a bit of a shaky start, but hopefully it ends up being worth a listen.

Scott McKnight describing the Sermon on the Mount: “Jesus simply doesn’t think everyone wants to follow him; in fact, he thinks many don’t.” It’s obvious, and yet I don’t think I’ve ever heard it articulated before. Maybe this changes our instinct to try and “bludgeon” people into the kingdom who are quite certain that it’s not for them, and instead evangelise in a way more akin to offering truth rather than convicting sinners. Just a thought.

I picked up a book from the Forge National Summit which I’d heard a little bit about: David Tacey’s “A Spirituality Revolution”. I’m only about a quarter of the way through, and I’m not sure that I’ll end up reading it all – once I’ve got the “big idea” behind non-fiction books like that I tend to find that the rest is the much less interesting details – but there is something deeply intriguing about what Tacey describes and proposes.

David Tacey is a lecturer at LaTrobe University, and he is renowned for his first year spirituality subject where most of the classes are (according to my third hand source) just about having undergrad students talk about their feelings towards spirituality. From the undercurrents of those discussions, Tacey has done significant amounts of research and become quite the go-to-academic for study into spirituality in Australia – and specifically the trends in spirituality amongst young people.

Tacey holds that the trend away from organised religion has not coincided with a lack of interest in spirituality: quite the opposite. He believes that young people in particular in western societies are experiencing a re-invigoration in curiosity and exploration of spirituality, as people seek to account for the questions of spirit they are unable to find answers to in the scientific worldview. In many ways, because organised religion has become associated with the same “a+b=c” approach to spiritual matters it is dismissed out of hand by these new type of spiritualist seekers, because it fails to account for the personal, spiritual journey they find themselves on.

Tacey almost mourns our inability as the church (as well as other religions) to embrace what he calls “the mystery of the spirit”, instead choosing to rely on our systematic theology, and a rule based understanding of interaction with the Living God, which sells short the experience of interaction with the creator of the universe: reducing it to that which can be understood within the realms of human comprehension. Tacey seems to describe religion as being first about self-sustainability, rather than guiding and respecting the spiritual walk of the individual: particularly when the individual experience sits outside traditional parameters for understanding of interaction with God.

In a nutshell: he’s right. And wrong. There’s little doubt that churches: whether they Anglican, Catholic, Baptist or Vineyard; have failed at being accommodating and helpful for just about anyone who doesn’t sit within our (conservative) parameters for understanding God. Churches ought to be a place where questioning and probing is not seen as an indicator of immaturity, or just purely as a step towards “crossing the line” and becoming a Christian to be made into a clone of everyone else in church. Instead, questioning and curiosity must be a reflection of the natural reaction to encountering a mysterious God. It means not holding so closely to creeds and dogma that finding any truths about God not found in the church tradition is no longer considered a heresy. It means loosing our grip on the status and standing we have individually to show the humility to comprehend not having the full picture.

Ultimately this is not just what Tacey is prescribing, but the same call as that of Brian Mclaren, Campolo and (for my reading) C.S Lewis. And I like it – I think it makes beautiful sense and I think that if churches can actually start believing that the truth of Jesus lies not only in the hearts of its own tradition, but that the law of God is written on the hearts of all men – we might be able to learn some of what it is to draw close to God.

But there’s a flip-side, and it there is undoubtedly some real danger in the grounding behind some of these ideas; and I believe they open up the prospect of doing damage to the message of the kingdom of God. Because if we follow the path that Tacey would set out for us: to show almost limitless respect and reverence for the individual journey of all we encounter, we run the risk of falling into a cult of individualism, self-aggrandisement and pick-and-mix theology. That’s not to say that this is the only endpoint for such an approach

It seems to me that the only way to “respect the individual spiritual journey”, give space and credence to the inherent mystery of God, whilst remaining followers of Christ in much more than just name, is to do this thing in community. Not community in a “meeting together once a week for 2 hours”, but community that shares their experiences of encountering Jesus, shares their struggle and sacrificially serve one another.

If we can allow people, in that environment of living for one another in such a real way, help people to explore the mystery of who Jesus is, of who God is, and of the ways that his spirit does indeed live within us – we might end up leaving the religion behind and just be chasing after the kingdom of God.

(Disclaimer: I know that this is way too long, and that most of you won’t get through all of it. If you have – I appreciate you wading through my waffling!)