Today I got a phone call from the police. A friend of mine had been listed as missing – did I know anything? Two weeks ago, I had sat in his loungeroom-come-bedroom listening to his news that he would be moving away. Moving to a place a couple of hours drive away. “How long til you move?” “Oh, could be any day.” It was: 2 days later I got a call from the nurse at the facility he’d gone to, a much better place for him to be than in a 1 bedroom flat in Long Gully. He’d moved so quickly he hadn’t time to let his family know, hence the missing report.
Even though I know he is in improved circumstances, I feel a wave of frustration rise and fall. What is the use of building relationships when they are constantly eroded by transience? I have, many years ago, resolved that long-term relationships were necessary to unveil the reign of God, whether among the poor or whoever. I had decided that speaking out the good news needed to happen on the platform of trust and respect.
But it’s a lonely stance. Often, those we relate to want to move on to something else quickly. This is the case whether we are among the poor who want to rapidly escape, or among the general population for whom the next best thing can’t arrive too soon.
How do we deal with transience, when our theology inspires us to grounded lives and longevity?
Here’s a couple of ideas:
(1) We rid ourselves of any heroism: our desire to be the ‘key’ people in others’ transformation can cripple us when we no longer have the opportunity to be that ’significant’ person.
(2) We re-member ourselves: “re-membering” is recalling the fact that we are members of a body, a movement, a people that is far-spread. We, as individuals, are not it. That should give us some hope in the face of transience. As the biblical saying goes: some sow, others reap, and we enter into each others’ labour. When we can no longer be a part of a person’s life, someone else will take up the labour.
(3) We recall the Trinity: relational mission struggles with the tension of ends and means. Is the relationship for the purpose of more effective evangelism, or so that the person will have a better life? Or is it simply for the sake of the relationship? I don’t think there is an answer to this one, but in the face of transience we need to remember the Trinity; the Godhead in which relationship is essential to the character of God.
This is a post out of the ordinary.
Some of you know that some of my income comes from donations kind people give me. This enables me to do work in my community in a flexible way, and gives space for things that governments probably won’t fund.
At the moment I’m trying to diversify my support base, and to help me do that, I need to know a few things about how people donate money.
I’d really appreciate if you could fill out the survey (follow the link). It’s anonymous unless you choose to give me your contact details. It is 10 multiple choice questions, and will take about 10 minutes. Cheers!
Click here to take survey
Last Friday, a Central Victorian teenager (19 y.o) was sentenced to 18 months in a youth justice centre for being involved in 3 high-speed pursuits in the past 18 months, a sensitive issue in Bendigo given our ‘hoon capital’ status. At this point, you are probably looking for a hyperlink to the news article in which I found this information, but I’m not going to give to it to you.
I’m not going to give it to you because this post is not about the rightness of the sentence (the young man is obviously a danger to others) but about the media’s role. The newspaper is tabloid-sized, and this story completely covered the front page with a photo of the man, plus his name in the headline. I realise that, given he is 18 and had pleaded guilty, his face and name can be published. The newspaper acted legally, but did they act ethically?
As we go beyond the headlines, we find that this man’s father was killed in a car accident 10 years ago. Suddenly he transforms in our eyes from a 19 year old hoon to a 9 year old boy discovering his father is no longer alive. Any superficial study of youth development tells us that parents, particularly fathers, are key to a young boy becoming a responsible adult. A $65,000 payout from the TAC was put in a trust fund after this accident. At age 18, the boy promptly wasted it in a predictable stream of prodigality. I think we can confidently assume that this boy has not had the opportunity to develop i
n a healthy way.
This newspaper’s actions are unethical. There is no public benefit served in publishing this story in this way. There is no benefit to the man found guilty. There is no deterrent effect, because any other so-called ‘hoon’ will see this as a special case because of his father’s death. The only effect is to stir up ill-feeling towards young people. Of course, this is not an isolated occurrence in the media. Young people doing stupid & criminal things are constantly in the news. In youth and social work this is called a ‘deficit approach’, in which the media chooses to highlight negative characteristics of young people. On page 13 of the same newspaper, Father Chris Riley (right) from Youth off the Streets spoke to 300 young people about leadership and character….putting that on the front page would have been fantastic.
Publishing this story is legitimate, but allow an obviously damaged young person the privacy needed to rehabilitate.
I read with trepidation that today, 2 young people have been arrested and charged over the Black Saturday fires in Bendigo.
In one sense, I am glad that someone has been caught. The stupidity and malice of lighting a fire on that day is obvious, and I still recall with fear making my home safe and helping neighbours as the fire burned in Long Gully.
The lives are lost, the houses are burned, the land is scorched. Those things have happened and cannot be undone. People are rebuilding their homes and communities are licking their wounds together, and beginning to recover. It has been a time of unprecedented cooperation, imbued with a generous spirit.
As well as being a Long Gully resident, I am also a youth worker. I know many of the local young people, and their families, and I am checking through them in my mind, wondering if it is one of them. The condemnation that will rain down upon them and their families will be harsh.
As these 2 young people come to the Bendigo courthouse today, I pray that a spirit of pity would be there. It would be easy for us to persecute, rather than simply prosecute, these 2 young people.
Hear me clearly; if they are found guilty, they deserve punishment. Justice must be done. But it needs to be the kind of punishment, and the kind of justice, that restores them as full members of our community, with a sense of responsibility and care towards it, so that they may never again harm our community. If we persecute and punish them beyond repair, they will hurt others in return. Somehow, we need to discipline with love, a difficult task but we have seen the courage and strength that Victorians have. Let us bring that same courage and strength to our enemies.
Sex and politics – always such a winning combination. And politicians can’t win. If they have an extramarital affair, they are pilloried. But if they advocate abstinence, they are barbecued. Seems the only option for a politician is to shut up about sex (but make sure they have a stable marriage). Tony Abbott, Federal Opposition leader, found that out this week. For those not in the know, Abbott recently gave an interview with the Women’s Weekly in which he said the following:
I would say to my daughters, if they were to ask me this question, I would say … it is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly, that is what I would say.
The slapdown from the media and in the political arena was fairly rapid. Julia Gillard: “These comments will confirm the worst fears of Australian women about Tony Abbott”. Gabriella Coslovich in The Age: “If I were one of Abbott’s daughters I would be furious to have my value reduced to the state of my hymen”. Most of the responses centred on the desirability of bonking whoever you like without criticism.
Tony Abbott was trapped by the fact that politicians, like every public figure these days, must engage on a personal level as well as a political level. To challenge Labor, he must be liked by the Australian people, as well as having attractive policies. Hence the Women’s Weekly interview. However, Abbott’s insistence that the piece was a ‘personal’ and ‘not political’ doesn’t stand up either because the only reason we care is because he is a politician. Most of the hysteria whipped up on his comments is simply fluff that we can safely ignore. Many commentators simply don’t like Tony. Abbott is an abrasive politician, and those opposed to him will take any opportunity to denigrate him. This is to be expected, and Abbott shouldn’t be surprised. But there are a couple of interesting issues touched on in this episode.
The first is Is it valid for politicians to comment on so-called ‘private’ matters? I argue that not only is it valid, it should be positively encouraged. I want to know what my political representatives actually think, not just rely on carefully controlled media releases. One of the attractive things about Tony Abbott (bar budgie smugglers) is the unscripted nature of his public appearances. That could be spin too, but I prefer it to the airbrushed image that Rudd conveys. Added to this is the artificial separation between private and public issues. Rudd referred to this in his response to Abbott, opining that governments should focus on health, climate change and war-mongering, and leave the ‘private’ issues to individuals. I assume he means that sex is a private issue. That didn’t stop him writing a long essay on his religious faith before the election.
These issues are ‘personal’ but they are not ‘private’ in the sense of having no public interest. All relationships, including sexual ones, have to deal with the public dimension, even if it extends only to excluding the public. In fact, our definition of what is ‘private’ and therefore off-limits to politicians, god-botherers and in-laws, is quite fluid. For some, our voting choices are strictly private (though regulated by government), for others it’s our bank balance (though regulated by government), for others it’s our eating habits (though regulated by government). For others it’s our choice of school (though regulated by government). All our supposedly private choices are regulated to some degree by government. Even, yes, sex is regulated by government.
So, to get down the root of it all, the real issue is not whether politicians should comment on ‘private’ issues, but Should government regulate relationships? And how should they be regulated? And, for the god-botherers like me, is there any validity in trying to persuade such regulation on the basis of my religiously-grounded beliefs?…stay tuned
A while ago I wrote on the Missionary Virtue of Talking Over People. In that prior post, I argued that:
Missionaries need to talk over people. Regularly. Frequently. With godly vigour and fervour. I’ve been through some soul-searching over this one, people, but the kingdom of God requires rudeness beyond measure, inconsideration like we have never dreamed of. Yes, we need to start interrupting monologues with witty comments and jokes. Brothers and sisters, divert the flow of verbal sewerage into the decontamination plant of conversational purity with well-placed questions. Ah yes, even questions that have nothing to do with the conversation whatsoever. Place a gag in those overworked gums of that child of God, fill that space where they drew breath with a barrage of your own trivial stories…
Well, maybe I got a bit sweaty about that one, a little extreme. So, in the interests of paradoxical truth, let me know speak of the opposite. Keeping my trap shut is a lovely phrase, which I’ve never thought about until now. ‘Trap’ being my mouth….now that’s an intriguing metaphor. What does my mouth entrap exactly? Most of the time, myself. Little wonder that short passage in James has become so famous.
Yet, I feel strangely unmotivated writing about shutting up and letting someone else talk. ‘Being a good listener’ has become such a part of “good” Christian identity that I am loathe to add to the mass, or morass, of verbosity about why we should listen and how we should listen and that listening to people’s stories will change the world. It’s all so…polite, which is probably why I vented my spleen previously.
But, I will manfully try to justify why keeping your trap shut is a missionary virtue:
- I don’t often have anything useful to say: in mission, you will often befriend people who are in pain. They may be isolated, unemployed, ill, mentally unwell, oppressed, abused, dirt poor; often simultaneously. I haven’t experienced this kind of enduring multiplicity of pain, my daily experience of hardship being lack of chocolate. Talking much in the face of this pain is harmful; the best we can do is make sure they know we’re listening
- When I do have something useful to say, it doesn’t need many words: in graced moments, the right thing worms it way through thickets of useless platitudes. Our words and the situation of the person happily congeal. When this happens, stop. Keep your trap shut. Say your bit and don’t wreck it by (my personal downfall) repeating the same truth in 3 other ways.
Well, that’s about all I can think of at the moment.
Bike Butcher, the social enterprise run by Ali Turnbull and Finn den Otter in Long Gully, has been getting some attention in the local Bendigo press. It’s one of 2 social enterprises in the Seeds Network – the second is the Urban Bean cafe in Norlane, run by the Urban Seed. In addition, the Seeds Bendigo mob has initiated a business forum for Long Gully. For a network primarily interested in relationship & hospitality, why are we supporting businesses?
For those of you who know me a bit, you will have heard me rave about “The Social Entrepeneur”, a book by Andrew Mawson, an English clergyman who turned his decrepit church into a centre for social enterprises – initiatives that are based on the following principle:
We know that every human being has a unique talent. By applying these talents in local communities it is possible to make them strong and vibrant instead of soulless and “deprived”. What matters is backing people before structures.
Andrew sought out people in his disadvantaged area who were passionate about an idea, and supported them to get it going as a business. I cried when I read his book. It wasn’t sad, rather the joy and hope that sang through his stories got to my heart. He was describing truly Christian community development.
Welfare Mentality vs Social Entrepreneurship
One of the sad things about Christian community work is that it often gets dependent on handouts, just like the people it aims to serve. Once dependent, we stick with programs that will ensure the transfusion of funds that we need. We eventually find we have strayed from our original purpose. We internalise the same Welfare Mentality that afflicts many of those we serve and become unable to break free of its bonds.
Social Entrepreneurship rejects this way of being and working. It starts with what people are passionate about, not what gains funding. It supports that passion, but always with the aim of self-sufficiency. I think this is incredibly important in poorer communities, because independence from outside help breeds confidence, dignity, responsibility and generosity. The constant supply of government benefits, cheaper housing, food handouts etc breeds apathy, boredom and self-loathing.
The Kingdom & Social Entrepreneurship
The links between God’s reign and social entrepreneurship need to be teased out. But some preliminary thoughts are:
- God created humans with passions and desires to create. Social Entrepreneurship taps into those passions and desires, whereas Welfare Mentality drains passion and desire from a person.
- Dependence, as in Welfare Mentality, is the flip side of domination. God did not create people to be dependent on others, but interdependent. Social Entrepreneurship enables people, especially the poor, to contribute to others as well as receive.
- God created humans with the need to give. Welfare Mentality focusses on receiving, which makes us bloated and unhealthy. The gospel motivates us to give, and when we do we find that feel more human than ever.
More to think about here…
But for now, if in Geelong go to Urban Bean, and if you want to support Bike Butcher, buy a cool fixie.
In an effort to inject a smidge of reality into our family Christmas celebration, we’ve been trying to get hold of a quality nativity scene lately, and finding it pretty difficult. Australia is apathetic towards the Christian meaning of Christmas, so we’ve been looking overseas. Catholic countries in Central America do a roaring trade, and there are nativity scenes from many different cultures.
At the same time, I’ve been organising publicity for a Christmas Eve celebration, and wanted to find a nativity image for a poster. Corny, cliché, soppy are words that come to mind. Finally, I found one by Fritz Eichenberg, a refugee from Nazi Germany who became a Quaker. He also contributed many wood-gravings to the Catholic Worker.
This engraving is called “Christmas”, and I want to reflect on it briefly.
Firstly, apart from Mary and Jesus, the people’s characters are ambiguous. The figure on the right is probably Joseph but the trio could either be the shepherds (indicated by the sheep) or the three kings. Secondly, there is a combination of biblical story and an urban context. The scene is dark, Mary and Jesus sleep on a bed of hay, farm animals surround them (though not actually in the text) and an angel sings above them. However, the backdrop is urban and Joseph holds an oil lamp. This is a consistent theme of Eichenberg’s religious imagery. I immediately think of “Christ of the Breadlines”, in which Christ stands in a line of men waiting for food. Eichenberg repositions biblical stories and themes into poor urban scenes.
Thirdly, and most intriguely, there is an ‘underground’ meaning to this image, and that’s where it differs from any other nativity scene I can remember. Beneath the scene of familial bliss, albeit poor, is a disturbing scene. Literally under the floor lie 3 beasts, from left to right, 2 crocodiles or dragons and a pig. I’m not sure what the pig means (link to a Roman military cult), but I think the crocodiles represent Egypt. The Egyptians feared crocodiles so much because of their ubiquity on the Nile, that they had a god, Sobek, who was the deification of the crocodile. In some versions of Egyptian stories, he crawls out of the ‘waters of chaos’ to create the world. There are resonances with the Nativity story in a couple of ways. Egypt itself is the archetypal enemy of the people of God. The crocodile’s presence introduces the memory of freedom from oppression. It also brings to mind the holy family’s flight to Egypt from Herod’s massacre. Sobek’s creator status beings into view an ensuing battle of myths.
I admit that I could be reading a little into Eichenberg’s intentions here, but a the very least he is inserting a minor note into a peaceful scene, reminder of the violence that is soon to envelop the destiny not only of Jesus’ infancy, but of his life.
My mother takes listening very seriously. As she sat on the phone during another long pastoral conversation we would mimic her repetitive ‘mmm’ing gleefully. She modelled, and I learnt to listen to people carefully, and respond to what they say. My parents instilled in me the respectful practice of allowing people to say their piece without thinking of the next thing to say or interrupting with my similar, but more interesting, experiences. Listening well is important to me.
Which is why it pains me to say that, yes, missionaries need to talk over people. Regularly. Frequently. With godly vigour and fervour. I’ve been through some soul-searching over this one, people, but the kingdom of God requires rudeness beyond measure, inconsideration like we have never dreamed of. Yes, we need to start interrupting monologues with witty comments and jokes. Brothers and sisters, divert the flow of verbal sewerage into the decontamination plant of conversational purity with well-placed questions. Ah yes, even questions that have nothing to do with the conversation whatsoever. Place a gag in those overworked gums of that child of God, fill that space where they drew breath with a barrage of your own trivial stories…
Having got that mini-sermon out of my system, let me continue. In my neighbourhood, there are many people who cannot stop talking. It seems that once verbal momentum is gained, attempting silence is akin to inhaling while underwater. Some people are just glad to talk to someone who will listen, others have axes to grind, others are nervous, others have stories they wish to repeat now and forever, others want to dominate the situation or haven’t had attention like this in too long. All these are perfectly rational reasons for talking continuously.
So how am I to respond? Being in a neighbourhood where crowded houses, arguments and noise abound, my middle-class nicety of waiting for people to finish talking is a disability. I have to interrupt, I have to verbally counterpunch. If I don’t, I will have a ministry of nods and mmms. There are valid reason for talking over people:
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to get the conversation on an open track, because nonstop talking is often a defensive manoeuvre to keep the other person at arm’s length
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to teach dialogue, not only conversational but intellectual
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to enable the other person to see me as someone having a valuable contribution to their life, not so that my needs can be fulfilled, but that they can look to others for enrichment
nb. To be followed by a post entitled “The Missionary Virtue of Keeping Your Trap Shut”
Political Evangelism
This is the text of a talk I gave up in Bendigo last night. The pdf is here.
Political Evangelism – the good news in the public sphere
Once upon a time, a young man in Europe was in court. His father, a wealthy textiles businessman, had taken him there because he had stolen some silk from his father’s factory, sold it and used it to fund some property development. During the public hearing, he renounced his father’s wealth, stripped off his clothes and strode away, naked, promising to serve ‘Lady Poverty’.
A while before that, another young man led the respected people of his nation to the rubbish dump, and informed them that they were responsible for a coming catastrophe. He told that they had filled the land with innocent blood, and that in return they would experience a military siege so terrible they would turn to cannibalism of their own families to survive. As a finale, he held a clay pot above his head and smashed it – “This pot is the house of Jerusalem and the house of Judah”.
The first young man was Francis of Assisi, and the second young man is the prophet known as Jeremiah. They were both prefiguring and continuing one of the most common practices of Jesus, which I call Political Evangelism.
Definitions
I realise I am using two words which are contested – often used for many different purposes. So let me define them.
By “political”, I mean:
By “evangelism”, I mean:
Political Evangelism, for the purposes of tonight is: Acts of public witness to the good news of God and his reign
Politics and Religion
Tonight I want to explore what place political evangelism might have in the life of the church, and in the interaction of the church with the surrounding public. We are often told that “religion and politics don’t mix”. The witness of the Bible and Christian history says that such a viewpoint is inaccurate, and also impossible. The problem is not that religion and politics mix, it is HOW they mix.
Tonight I will focus on one element of that mix – that of publically declaring (in word and deed) the good news. There are so many others ways that Christians act politically: from letter-writing to the clothes we buy, from how we make decisions in church to how we vote. Every act and decision we make is political, because human life is about allegiance. Who will we be loyal to? is the question to which the Christian answer is “Jesus is Lord”, not simply in a general sense but in a specific sense. Is Jesus our Lord in our finances, our employment, where our kids go to school, the kind of toilet paper we buy, how we produce and eat food etc etc etc .
I don’t have the whole picture, nor do I regularly do what I am going to talk about, but it’s something that I think needs to be thought about in the church, and acted upon. Also, I have my own political persuasions, but this seminar is not meant to be about my particular beliefs. I think that Christians of all political persuasions should be acting publically and politically. Again, the argument is not whether doing so is warranted – the argument is about HOW we do so.
Biblical Examples of Political Evangelism
Apart from the Jeremiah example, there are plenty of biblical instances of public acts of witness:
Let us look at 3 of them, and for each I will look at what constitutes these acts of public witness: the setting, the symbols, the showing & telling, the consequences and why they are political and evangelistic acts.
1. Jeremiah 19 – the clay pot
2. Matthew 12: 9-14 – illegal healing
3. John 12 – messianic battle
This story is one of the most obvious examples of Jesus acting in public and political way. Let us look at the sequence of story:
So, in summary, political evangelism:
Political Evangelism in Christian history
Political Evangelism Today
When Crown Casino was being established, a small movement existed to call attention to its degrading social effects, and the inappropriate relationship between the government and the casino owners. Each Sunday, we got together outside the site and prayed. We had a banner, and talked to people who approached us. We had T-shirts made up that communicated our message and also used the Crown Casino logo in a humourous way. We had a plenty of verbal abuse hurled at us, but also plenty of people who agreed with us.
I found this to be a good experience, but also a hard one, not least because of the reactions of Christians I spoke to about it. From those conversations, I began to think about the barriers to political evangelism.
Barriers to Political Evangelism
Acting publically and politically is difficult for all of us. There a few key barriers to Christians acting publically and politically.
1. FEAR:
2. PRIVATISM: this is the belief that religious concerns are separate from political concerns, therefore Christians should keep their faith out of the public sphere.
3. QUIETISM: this is the belief that ‘making a fuss’ in public is unproductive, and that the general public will be alienated from Christianity by public acts of witness.
4. THE POWERS AND FAITH
Conclusion
Public witness to God’s kingdom is clear throughout the Bible and in Christian history. The questions is not whether to do it, because that has been answered, the questions are WHEN and HOW.
from → Politics, Public Witness, Social comment