10 Years On...

Yes, its ten years on (not since my last blog post, but close...)... Ten years on since the world changed in profound ways as the result of the terror attacks on the Word Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the US. It's hard to remember life before the very bizarre "the war on terror" that followed and remains with us to this day.

One of the things that has changed, of course, is the perception of Muslim people in our world. 

Research has shown that there has been a dramatic rise in the levels of demonisation that Muslim people have experienced across the globe since the 2001 attacks. There seems to be a new xenophobia in town, or at least new expressions of old xenophobia that has been lurking not too far from the surface of our communal life. This developing mindset has coloured our own our nation's views on worthwhile pursuits like multiculturalism and the processing on asylum-seekers.

Personally, I don't know that many people who identify as "Muslim". I could count them on one hand. But when you know someone, it certainly cuts through all the xenophobia that swirls around you... When I was a school chaplain, one of the teachers at my school was a devout Muslim - a lovely, lovely man. One day, I was preparing to do some religious teaching in a class that this teacher was presiding over and he asked me if he could say something before I began. I wasn't too sure if I should let him (him being "Muslim" and all) but it was his class, what was I going to do? Besides, he was such a great guy... So, he spoke to the class for two or three minutes about the importance of God, and that even if God wasn't high on their agenda at the moment, if they listened, maybe later on in their lives their agenda might change and something they heard today might come back to them and be useful. He then handed back to me... but I was at a loss for words... I felt as thought the religion lesson had been well taught - well, it had been to me at least... 

I was so impressed with his words and his inclusion of me in his spiritual world. He had been far more gracious towards me than I would have been towards him. Something quite profound changed in me as a result of that exchange... It helped me to see that while we can spend a lot of time trying to work out who is "us" and who is "them, that mostly, I think, in a lot of ways, it is just all "us" out there, trying to work it all out and make the most out of our lives.

My encouragement on this suspicious anniversary is to go and hug a "them" today... Well, at least say "hi"... particularly if you are planning on hugging them next... Anyway, I'm sure you'll work it out...

Shalom

Steve

It's the End of the World As We Know It...

You might have heard that the end of the world  has been predicted for tomorrow... Harold Camping, a Christian radio broadcaster from  America, has made the call, after making a calculation of some kind  based on Biblical data. Unfortunately, in a pretty big hit to his credibility, he has been here before, predicting that the world would end in 1994...

...but it didn't, in case you were wondering why you are still here.

For some more info on this, you can watch a news video on the The Australian website by clicking here and/or go directly to the Family Radio website and read all about it (from the horse's mouth, so to speak) by clicking here... 

People are having a lot of fun with this, and it is hard to blame them. Having said that, this latest prediction provides an opportunity to ask the more serious question, "Where is it all actually heading?" The Jews of Old Testament times did talk about "the day of the Lord" - a time in the future when God would finally make everything that is wrong with the world, right again. A big part of this day would be  the judgement  of all people and the permanent establishment of God's new order of things... There are all kinds of theories about when this is going to happen and what it will involve, but most of the information used to work this stuff out comes from the New Testament book of Revelation, which is a pretty crazy read. You would have to be pretty game to make a hard call on anything based on the material in this book.

Jesus also referred to this "day of the Lord"; the time when the "Kingdom of God" would come once and for all. But his unique take on "the Kingdom" was that it was not just a future event to be expected or hoped for, but that is was something that was also happening in the present. He said things like "the Kingdom is near" and "the Kingdom is among you" and that he was at the centre of this activity. So, maybe Jesus' take on "the Kingdom" should inform our own take on the subject. Maybe we could focus on being a present day  outpost of the establishment of God's future rule over the cosmos. 

One of the things that Revelations does say about "the day of the Lord" is that there will be no more crying, sickness and death - that these "old things would have passed away" and that God will make "all things new". Now that sounds like something worth focusing on in the present. Let's get on with making God's future vision a reality in our own lives and world today.

That would bring about the end of the world as we know it and help to usher in a new world that we all might enjoy living in a whole lot more. 

You could say it might be like living in a kind of "heaven on earth"...

Shalom

Steve

     

A Flood of Questions...

Homes lost; businesses gone; babies torn out of the arms of mothers; parents washed away in torrents... For some, lives have been ruined. For many, life has been put on hold, at the very least... We are by now, quite familiar with the images and stories of the flooding in Queensland of the past week, and underneath the many questions we have about this natural disaster is one question really - "Why?"...

In the Old Testament of the Bible, people saw everything as ultimately being of God's doing; as part of God's plan that He was working out. Natural disasters were seen as judgements from God for some lack of fidelity or the general wrong-doing of a people. "Why is this happening?", people would ask. "We are being judged for our wrongdoing." would come the reply. As our scientific knowledge has grown, we don't see this view expressed as robustly as we once did, but it is still out there...

Even if God is not doing something deliberate by sending a flood to devastate a community, surely if God is GOD, He might consider doing something about stopping or diverting the flood waters, mightn't He...? "Why is this happening?" people ask. "God doesn't care, is powerless to help, or isn't really there." comes the reply. God is seen as distant, uncaring, impotent and maybe even just plan evil. In the existential sense, we are alone in this...

If God is not there, then we are still left with the questions of "Why?" We can  strip the whole event of any meaning and talk about La Nina, flood plains, flood mitigation levels and dam management, and while there are concrete answers there to be found to our questions, they don't completely satisfy the yearning behind them. Our hearts still twitch for a deeper answer; for some meaning to the events and their consequences. We still want to know, "Why? Why? Why?"...

On one level, the answers to the question of "Why?" seem beyond our reach.  We may never fully appreciate "Why?" such things happen. But at another level, people seem to have instinctively found a response that is fitting for the moment...

Q - "Why?"

A - 7000 volunteers lined up on Saturday to help strangers across the city - more than the Brisbane City Council could handle...

Q - "Why?"

A - Lines of people, neck deep in water, removing precious possessions to higher ground for strangers, at risk of injury and sickness...

Q - "Why?"

A - Countless stories of people risking their own lives to help strangers or to reduce future life-threatening risks to others... 

Q - "Why?"

A - The lady who turned up to New Farm the other day with a plate of muffins for the volunteers working in that unit complex...

You know what I'm talking about. You've seen and heard all the stories... The best answer to the sometimes sob-ridden question of "Why?" has been presented over and over in the past week. There will be plenty of time to discuss all the other stuff over a beer later on...when all that smelly mud has been cleaned up...

Shalom

Steve

Turn the Other Chook

This is one of the best tag lines I've ever seen / heard / read... and for a great product / cause.

Given that Christmas is coming, Tear Australia has once again launched it's "Arguably the World's Most Useful Gifts - Christmas 2010" catalogue to give folks a non-consumerist option for their Christmas present buying this year.

Here's how it works...

Check out the link and have a look around the site. "Useful Gifts" is not limited to buying useful gifts at Christmas time, there are ways contribute throughout the year and even the opportunity to run your own "Useful Gifts" shop.

Check it out...

Shalom

Steve

Heaven Can't Wait

There is a lot being written about spirituality and religion at the moment – even if most of it is negative or dismissive. This weekend, the Weekend Australian Magazine published an article called “Heaven Can Wait” by Johann Hari. With the tag line, “It’s time to get over the myth of the hereafter” (or something like that) it’s not too difficult to work out the direction the article takes.

It’s a mixed article. It suffers from the foibles of a lot of atheistic writing – it has a lot of “straw man” set ups; weak arguments with large holes; a convenient and creative historical account of the development of ideas; language designed to make anyone who is even considering there might be an afterlife feel like a mindless zombie; and most of all, it suffers from that classic rationalistic, atheistic assumption that anything you can’t see, tag and classify, isn’t worth considering and reflecting on... The good thing about the article however, is that it provides us with a challenge to reflect upon our beliefs about heaven and how these beliefs impact upon our lived out lives.

When most people think about heaven, they think about a future, disembodied, other worldly existence in the presence of God and all the other “saints” that goes on forever (and many also see clouds, wings and harps somewhere in the picture). But the interesting thing is, when we look at what the Bible says when it talks about the “age to come”, it talks about God coming and making his dwelling place on earth among his people (Revelation 21: 1-7). It seems that heaven might not be the end of the world after all, and that God is committed to renewing this world and this life, and making sure that all that has been lost to God and the cosmos through sin is won back once and for all. This view of heaven is amazingly affirming of this world and this life, and we see the first evidence of this in the very physical resurrection of Jesus, celebrated at Easter.

The other thing that is worth noting is the way Jesus talked about heaven. He spoke a lot about the “Kingdom of Heaven” and said things like “it is near” and that “it is among us”. He taught about this, told heaps of stories about this and lived out the vision of this in the community of people he set up around him. This is where Hari’s main argument really falls down. “Heaven can’t wait”!!! When heaven is seen as a future, disembodied, other worldly experience, then there is a real danger that the concept can at best, be of no use to us, and at worst cause harm to us and others. But when we conceptualise heaven as Jesus did, as a future hope that can be lived out in the present, then it becomes a potentially transformative vision worth living out – especially one that can be “good news to the poor” (because the last will be first “in heaven”)...

When Jesus taught us to pray, he put it to God, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth like it is in heaven.” Jesus was committed to and working toward God’s vision of Shalom – God’s cosmic groovy-ness where everything is at is should be - and that is a vision just might be worth living for in this life, and carrying forward into the next.

Shalom...

Federal Budget 2010 - How will the world's poor fare?

TEAR Australia's "ChangeMakers" advocacy group, have released an article entitled "Federal Budget 2010 - How will the world's poor fare?". It talks a bit about the budget in general, about Australia's overseas aid commitments, and makes some suggestions about some political action we could take to help the world's poor through political action.


As a Christian person, I think my decision on who I vote for in the next election should be heavily influenced by how the party approaches its commitments to the world's poorest people.

Anyway, take a look and see what you think... if you dare...

Shalom...