Values 2

A few more values that have come to me (mostly while in the shower) over the last couple of days.

7. Journeying together. There's so many important allusions in this phrase. The idea of journey immediately says that we're not 'there'. Epistemic humility. A sense of movement. Journeying together implies mutuality and equality. It seems to speak of questioning together rather than telling someone else 'the answer' which I have (and have entirely correctly).

8. Following God in the Way of Jesus. This phrase which Emergent types seem to use highlights the Christian character of the Way, but also its praxis orientation. It also seems to leave open the possibility that others may (genuinely) be following God in other ways - a notion that I am quite comfortable with.

Institutions 2

In a comment on my recent post about Institutions, I said that for me there was an important balance in being part of the institution but never feeling wholly comfortable as part of the institution. So I was interested to read Pete Rollins saying what seems like a similar thing in the Introduction of his new book, "The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief" (Peter Rollins), the preface and Introduction of which are available for free here. I'm now really looking forward to this book (to be released in June).

Values

I said I was going to post about the Uniting Church, and still plan to do that, but I've just been having some thoughts I wanted to capture about the things I do (or would) value in Church life. These are partly triggered by beginning to read Diana Butler Bass' book, "Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith".

These thoughts are fairly unformed as yet, but are still central to my thinking at the moment.

1. Reaching back — reaching forward. I think it's really important to value the whole, historic Christian tradition. Too many churches have lost a sense of their place within the broader tradition and have jettisoned any link with history or tradition. But at the same time, the past cannot act as an anchor, blocking us from moving forward into the new future into which God is calling us. We must be churches of today and even tomorrow — not churches of yesterday. I think one of the most important tasks for leaders in the church is to enable that creative tension between tradition and newness, between consistency with past visions and struggling into new visions, enabling the Church with integrity to reach back and reach forward.

2. Graciousness. Grace is clearly at the heart of the Christian gospel — what we experience from God and what we are called to. But for me the word 'grace' has so much baggage. Talk of 'tough grace' and 'cheap grace', and countless sermons supposedly on grace which seemed rather weighted towards condemnation, have all combined to sully the word 'grace' for me. But I find that reframing the central thoughts with the word 'graciousness', helps me to regain the sense of gentle kindness, strong self-giving, and absolute acceptance which is (I think) what grace has always been about. And so for me, a church ought, above all, to be characterised by graciousness.

3. Acknowledging historic and communal wisdom, yet being bound only by the law of love. I don't like the anything goes approach. I think it's important to hear what past generations thought was healthy and appropriate and acceptable. I think it's important to work out principles of living and shared understandings in community. But in the end, something in me rebels any time one of these historical or communal pieces of wisdom is solidified; when they become rules or regulations. In the end I think that flexibility to move within the law of love in any given situation is not just important, it's vital.

4. Hospitality. From welcoming the stranger, to living with the other, to caring for the enemy, hospitality is central to the gospel and to what the Church is called to be.

5. Involving. Church should be all about the encouragement of, use of and experimentation with the gifts of all God's people. Worship should be the same. I am so over the whole 'sitting watching people up the front do stuff' thing.

6. Breaking down the secular/sacred divide. Seeing God in nature, in culture, in others of other faiths and no faiths. A positive view of God's world and the future God is calling it into.

I'm sure there's a bunch more, but I wanted to get these out there.

Institutions

I'm just finishing reading Tony Jones new book, "The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier" (Tony Jones) and it's raising some questions for me. Namely, to what extent can emerging faith communities operate within the institutional church? This is a live issue for me as I'd love to be part of an emerging faith community, but I'm also a part of an institutional church - The Uniting Church in Australia. I'm a minister of the UCA, I'm employed by the UCA (and by the institution itself, not a local congregation), and I have promised to come under the discipline of the UCA.

One thing which gives me comfort is a tradition within the UCA of being a 'movement' rather than a denomination, but there's still a lot of denominational apparatus, let me tell you! Anyway, I'll keep thinking about it and in the next couple of posts I might try to delineate the things I really like about the UCA and why I think the Church would be poorer if there was no UCA. Then I might look at some of the 'emergent' values I hold and then thirdly how these two lists sit somewhat in tension.

Soooo tired!

Gosh, what with facebook and all this blog has nearly died! And I'm just so tired at the moment from work, a newly studying wife and a child starting school.

To be honest part of the problem is just not knowing why I'm blogging at all!

Oh well. Starting Monday I'm doing it as a discipline - once a day whether I need it or not and see what happens...

David Hicks and saying sorry

So Premier Mike Rann wants an unconditional "sorry" from David Hicks, and Gerard Henderson believes "The Hicks fan club is in denial".

It seems to me that many people miss the point at issue in this whole thing. David Hicks may well have done some stupid, misguided or even malicious things. It may well be that his actions were morally blameworthy or even legally criminal. No-one I know has said that Hicks is a model citizen or a moral example. But Hicks is a private citizen, and it is as a private citizen that he should have faced whatever sanctions (from social opprobrium to legal incarceration) were appropriate to his offenses. He does not represent the Australian people any more than any other individual Australian, many, many of whom also offend against societal or legal norms. He does not therefore 'owe' the Australian people a public apology in any meaningful sense.

On the other hand, our elected politicians do, by their own choice and by our electoral confirmation of them, represent us, and thus have a public duty to uphold the democratic ideals and legal principles of the country they serve. If they choose to deny such legal principles of long-standing for what has seemed to many to be merely political reasons, then they have offended against the public whom they represent and public apology is appropriate.

So whether (for the sake of argument) Alexander Downer can be said to have lived a more morally upright life than David Hicks is not the issue. David Hicks' mistakes or crimes are those of a private citizen and should be judged as such. The politicians who failed to stand up for his rights as an Australian are on the other hand guilty of an offense against the trust they took on as our elected representatives and should answer for that offense to the public they have wronged.

Bad Church Signs

Paul is having a thing about bad church signs in his blog.

The worst sign I ever spied (sorry I don't have pics) was one Sue and I saw when we recently drove past the conservative church in which we grew up. It read:

"Do you want your eternity smoking or non-smoking."

Now the thing that really burnt me up was that THEY BELIEVE THAT STUFF!

It's one thing to make a (poor) joke like that if you don't believe in judgement or hell, but for people who actually believe that most other humans will suffer hideous torture for all eternity to make a JOKE about it - that's cold, stone cold.

Government Advertising

I haven't been watching evening TV much since our move (too busy). But tonight Suzie and I sat down to watch a bit of mindless entertainment, and there must have been almost a dozen government ads in the space of 4 or 5 hours. I am disgusted at the way the Howard government shamelessly uses public servants and our money to try to advance their political ends.

I am particularly chagrined at the way they try to dress up their deficiencies in IR legislation and global warming by trying to portray themselves as totally opposite to what they have previously said and done.

I was mad enough that I gave toward a GetUp! campaign to fund an advertisement about Global warming during the AFL Grand Final.

You might like to see the ad...

Reading

I am currently in the middle of "How (Not) to Speak of God" by Peter Rollins and "A Heretic's Guide to Eternity" by Spencer Burke, Barry Taylor (ooh, I do like the way Ecto 3's Amazon Helper makes those links up automatically!) and I must say that I am finding both books stellar! I'd love to get involved in a reading group going through them in some detail.

I've also rediscovered my Sci-fi library, after unpacking a bunch of books that have been in hiding since we went to London (ie 10 years ago), and am halfway through "Refugee (Bio of a Space Tyrant, Vol 1)" by Piers Anthony; after which I'll be tackling books (series) by Harry Harrison, Christopher Stasheff, Ursula Le Guin, E.E. 'Doc' Smith, James White, David Eddings and a ritual re-reading of all my Perry Rhodan and The Destroyer books (over 100 vols in each series!).

My wife worries that she will never see me again...

Moving

Well it's been a big week. Last Monday the removalists picked us up from sunny Cowra. They arrived at about 8.30am and left about 3.30pm. Airlie and I left at 5.30pm. Suzie left at about 7.00pm after cleaning the house (we're trying to sell it). Then a week ago today the removalists arrived at 9.00am at our new house and 3 hours later, left with the furniture in place and a mountain of boxes in the garage. We've been unpacking, cleaning, unpacking, cursing, unpacking and sleeping ever since.

Of course no move (and change of job) would be complete without a telecom fiasco, so of course I've had one, with my brand new mobile number turning out to belong to someone else who was very upset when suddenly their phone stopped working and I started getting their business calls! So I'm still waiting for the new mobile number, after which my business cards will have to be reprinted and all our friends and family will have to be sent a "Whoops those new contact details have changed already" email.

A nice thing is that my new employer pays for my internet access at home. A not-quite-so-nice thing is that it is 1/3rd the speed of the connection I used to have. Oh well, one of the first things they want me to look at is revamping the website. After I've done that (to show my IT 'cred') I'll ask for an upgrade of the Internet account - even if I have to pay the difference myself!

My new MacBook Pro is yet to arrive so in the office at the moment I am struggling to use the old computer which was left on my desk - MS Outlook on a Pentium 3 processor with a 15" monitor - Ugggggggh! If the Mac doesn't arrive soon I may expire!

Today was a 'down' day - I spent most of the day looking after Airlie while Suzie had a well-earned rest. Tomorrow I brave the Office again to get some important setting up stuff done and to look regularly and forlornly at the parcel delivery area for a package marked 'Apple'.

Testing Ecto 3

I've had it sitting around for a week or so, but this is the first time I've gotten to test out Ecto 3 which is in public beta (actually perhaps it's public alpha).

One of the things which looks nice is a media panel like the iLife apps to drag and drop photos, movies and audio. Here's a shot taken recently of Airlie, our adoreable daughter.

Other changes are not yet obvious.


Osama Jesus and Mary in a Burqa

So there's this art prize for religious artworks and some of the entrants include Mary in a Burqa and a picture of Jesus that morphs into Osama.

Past President of the Uniting Church, the Reverend Professor James Hare, thinks that the artworks are offensive. Both our leading national politicians jumped on the bandwagon to criticise, without of course doing anything like looking at the artworks!

But I must say that I thought they were great! Artwork is meant to make us think, to provoke and to arrest interest, to juxtapose unlikely elements in order to cause people to contemplate. I think both pieces provoke genuine searching about the way in which different religions or groups of people view people like Mary, Jesus or Osama. We are provoked to consider both the similarities and the differences between Jesus and Osama, their lives and ways of achieving goals. We are made to wonder how images of Mary are used to support cultural norms or religious dogmas in Islamic or Christian contexts. We are led to think about the veil and what it represents positively or negatively.

Personally I think it's great that artists like this push us to explore the unexplored boundaries of thought, and I wish that we had politicians who would more often give a reasoned response and less often give a knee-jerk response.