t-shirt talk

been thinking about t-shirts
youth group want some - something about sense of identity
found this one via larknews.com
i don't have many christian t-shirts, mainly coz they're tacky and stupid (i found one at vinnie's once, with "www.jesus.come". yup.

however i do like kurt's "i am not the messiah",
as well as threadless's arminianism v calvinism (h/t to elsie), on the front (as i remember), "i chose this t-shirt", the back with "this t-shirt chose me".

book list

i've had to compile two different book lists in the last week,
1/ for my college application form, listing "at least 5" Christian books that have influenced me, and
2/ for CBS Core, a suggested reading list, as the students start building Christian libraries for themselves

so what are the top 5 Christian books that have influenced you?

mine are:

1. The Myths of Science (ed. by Kirsten Birkett)
   
2. Knowing God (JI Packer)
   
3. Holiness (JC Ryle)
   
4. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (JI Packer)
   
5. Answers in Genesis - (tho this was remarkable for my early Christian growth, i look back now with sorrow as i see how they manage to pigeon-hole the creation v evolution debate)

the sword & the spirit

this morning i preached at St Bede's, Drummoyne.

i imagine the conversation between the archdeacon and my pastor went a little like this:
AD "hi. i need someone to fill in for me this sunday"
P "oh, right"
AD "yeah, so, who's your best man?"
P "sorry, he's preaching"
AD "well, you then?"
P "nah, i really need to be here"
AD "well, who's next on your list?"
P "yeah, he's busy too"
AD "you got anyone who can string two words together?"
P "um... i'll get back to you"

and then i get the phone call.

it was nice to speak to a different group of people, but, just as when i speak to our 8:30am congregation i always feel under-qualified to be speaking to people who've been Christians 2-3x longer than i've been alive!

it's always encouraging, therefore, to chat afterwards, as they share how the Word of God has been opened up anew to their ears.

i heard a great quote that makes sense of this, tho i am unaware who spake it;

the word without the spirit is powerless,
and the spirit without the word is weaponless.

a great encouragement indeed!

wishing for mercy

1/ apologies for absence of posting

2/ what place is there for critiquing the theology of the Bible?
FOR, we get our theology FROM the Bible, so when it says something we don't like, at what point are we able to say, "no, that's not how God is," without

for example, Jonah:
now, i've always read Jonah 2 as a great poem, expressing noble truths about God's character.
UNTIL, that is, i heard it critiqued, saying that Jonah was an arrogant man, presuming upon God, he had NO right to pray as he did, to just ASSUME that God was gonnaget him out of the lurch.

3/ so then, what do we say when reading, for example Lamentations (c/f many Psalms), which wishes atrocities upon atrocities, upon their enemies and neighbours for their nonintervention?

i would like to say, "that's wrong, you should be wishing them mercy, just as you desire mercy from God," because this attitude isn't so much redeemed in Jesus as refuted.

indeed, neither does Paul agree with this view, in Romans 14:10-12;

Why do you pass judgment on your brother?
Or you, why do you despise your brother?
For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God;
for it is written,
As I live, says the Lord,
every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

it all seems very log-in-the-eye to me.

greenies or goodies

with the australian federal election ever closer (despite howard refusing to officially call it - maybe he will, maybe he won't - what fun he must be having), i just thought i'd re-open the ole can-o-worms, Christians and the Greens.

i picked up a handy little "policy snapshots" brochure (from June 2007), and out of the 131 different policy agendas, there were only TWO that i thought were outright wrong. morally, i would have to disagree with those two points.

but, my friends, that leaves 129 points, where i am at a level of agreement, between 6-10 out of 10.

why am i saying this?
am i spruiking for the greens now? No.
am i going to vote for them in both houses? Couldn't say.

then why?
because i am sick and tired of uninformed self-appointed representatives of some imaginary "Christian community" writing off every single policy, again, 129/131 of which i think are quite reasonable, because of fear.

thankfully, that is not the way democracy works - the mainstream policies, especially for a minority party such as the greens, are the ones where they may gain any ground.

AND the policies i object to are not the ones they push. they are not the ones in the one page summary.
the things in the summary are crazy things such as,

no nuclear power in australia (they want to invest in green energy, the very thing the federal government has removed funding to in quantities that just aren't funny any more),

no new coal mines,

cutting carbon emissions by a substantial (not tokenistic) amount,

conservation of old-growth forests,

public dental care,

bridging the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous australians.


the list goes on. with more of the same outrageous statements.

perhaps were it not for the climate of fear, australia would not be in the state it is today.

keep praying for our politicians. and one another.

seriously, john

i found this pic at crikey.com.au and was a little underwhelmed.

for, while the sentiments are true, honour, where honour is due, should always be the call of the day.
so, attending the anti-APEC rally on saturday, my friend dave's sign expressed our sentiments exactly:

"Howard, you're pathetic."

a roman emperor, let alone great senator of the republic, howard is not.
nor will he be remembered as such.

for those interested, i just wore my usual THE GOV'T LIES. t-shirt (which i've worn at my uni graduation, as well as once, completely by accident, whilst praying particularly for the government at church!).

my sincerest apologies

now truly in the dizzying heights of blog-stardom, i've been tagged by Byron to participate in a meme, started off by a site called Christians Confess. The directions are as follows:

Apologize for three things that Christians have often got wrong. Your apologies should be directed towards those who don’t view themselves as part of the Christian community. Alternatively, apologize for things you personally have done wrong towards those outside of the church.

Post a comment at the originating post so others can keep track of the apologies.

Tag five people to participate in the meme.

If desired, send an email with the link to your blog post at the Christians Confess site, giving permission for your apologies to be added to the website.

here goes (deep breath):

1. I'm sorry that Christians are at once too different, yet at the same time not different enough
   
   
2. I'm sorry for disunity upon schism upon rift upon anathema upon persecution, among earthly representatives of Christ's Church
   
   
3. I'm sorry, when it comes to the things that matter, that Christians are overwhelming the world with timidity, and deafening it with silence.
   

i tag Sam, Kurt, Elsie, Hayley and Mark (get back on the horse buddy!)

buffy and friends and friends

i'm supposed to be writing a talk this week on angels and demons.

C.S. Lewis writes in 1941:

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”

(C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Barbour and Company, Inc., 1990)

i believe the same can be said regarding angels.

although i did read on a site discussing the theology of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that several people working on the show did become Christians, in no small part due to the constant discussion of heaven and hell, angels and demons.

if only my youth group kids were old enough to have watched the show, i could justify doing a talk all about how dodgy the Buffy theology is!

O'Donovan and Boney M

when Henry Schaefer did the New College lectures a few years ago, i was trying hard to concentrate. when i read the transcript of his talk, i was riveted!

therefore, let me say how much i am looking forward to reading Oliver O'Donovan's three talks for this year's NC lectures, Morally Awake.

for a clear recollection of the talks, please look at Byron's excellent blog.
when the transcripts are up at the NC website, i do of course hope to read them and comment on them.

possibly, missing the first two talks, as well as the poor acoustics, and being out of the line of sight also contributed to my poor attention on the night.

however, one of the times my ears really pricked up was, after his castigation of Aristoteleans for their unthinking spontanaeity, he mentioned the shift found in Psalm 137 (the one made famous by Boney M).

i can hear you singing along now, "by the rivers of Bablylon..."
but it really is a horrific psalm. after the 6 verses of moving lament, the psalter gets angry. really angry. of the Babylonians, they say (i really could not imagine this ever being sung),

Blessed shall be he who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock.

now, whether he was unwilling to quote this, or just assumed we knew of it, it really is shocking.
yet understandable.
that the people of the exile, who were being tormented with song-requests by their captors, lamenting the loss of their land, their temple, and possibly their God, seemingly lose their resolve, and wish the harshest of punishments, on God's vessels of his punishment for Israel's idolatry.

but such shifts, i guess, are what makes me question people's resolve. to what extent are we responsible when we see such spontaneous shifts in our characters?
to what extent should we hold others responsible for their own such shifts?

please don't take this as an accurate reconstruction of the talk! the two things may've been completely unconnected in the talk, and the further reflections on the psalm are mine alone. as i said, when the transcripts are up, i can get the context to his mentioning of the psalm! stay tuned...

un-sane

With all the discussion about the philosophical reasons for Christianity, i thought i'd share these afore-alluded-to thoughts from Arthur C. Clarke (i basically re-read the book and couldn't find it, till i realised it was in a post-script!).

for the ignorami, Clarke is the author of 2001 A Space Odyssey, 2010, 2061, 3001, as well as countless short stories, science-fact as well as fiction novels. a very thoughtful guy.

but anyway, here is the quote, his final word, as it were, finishing off the odyssey series:

Finally, I would like to assure my many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim friends that I am sincerely happy that the religion which Chance has given you has contributed to your peace of mind (and often, as Western medical science now reluctantly admist, to your physical well-being).
Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy. But it is best of all to be sane and happy.
Whether our descendants can achieve that goal will be the greatest challenge of the future. Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future.
Arthur C. Clarke
Colombo, Sri Lanka
19 September 1996

From the Valediction in his 3001 The Final Odyssey

the question remains for those who may be un-sane (ie a religious believer of any shape or form) and un-healthy - why?

i still like his books tho...

... and still a Christian

the sequel to the prequel, ie the second of Greg's talks discussing Christianity and Atheism was again very helpful in understanding why, in the light of present (and past) debates around atheism and agnosticism, how a thinking person could remain a Christian. let alone a theist!

another talk, another list; this time, the reasons for still being a Christian:

1. it shapes you, but it's not a straight-jacket
   sure, you don't want to discount the influence your upbringing has had on shaping you, but even Dawkins has to admit that he's been able to break free of his memes (even though he's claimed the only reason anyone is a theist is because we're unable to break free of our history, see here for what seems to me to be a contradiction)
   everyone has to have a time when they're able to forge their own path, choosing not to blindly go where many have gone before, but opening their eyes, to discern where their foundations and assumptions truly lie.
   
   
2. just 51% possibility of the existence of the Other makes the resurrection a possible option
   it is to this 51% chance that we THEN bring any other evidence, ie the gospels, contemporaneous writings, archaeological evidence, sociological patterns etc
   
   
3. "living towards death" (c/f Heidegger) gives us meaning and hope
   with anything else, any meaning has to be injected from outside, creating one's own meaning. which is fine, it's simply without foundation.

come back at me if you want (mum and mark, unless there are indeed other readers out there - if so, GREETINGS!)

not an atheist

on sunday we started the first of two talks on atheism by Greg Clarke, of the newly formed Public Christianity Australia (or whatever it's supposed to be called).

of the many things he talked about, perhaps one of the most helpful was the classification of atheism into four drawers;

1. philosophical atheism
   that is, it makes sense, logically, that there is no god. Arthur C. Clarke (no relation, i believe), succinctly put it, that it is un-sane to be a theist.
   
   
2. sociological atheism
   the crutch idea - we need a god so we don't have to take responsibility for our own actions, think for ourselves etc - but surely we as a race have matured beyond this primitive need for a god.
   
   
3. darwinian atheism
   evolution = no god. or something like that. whatever. (thanks Ken Ham for all your great work in equating (in scientismists' minds) the scientific method with irreligion!)
   
   
4. ethical atheism
   perhaps where we can feel guiltiest. believers should be known for having all things in common, distributing for the poor as they have any need, caring for the widows, the sick. sure we can point to those who do do this, but that we have to point it out is a blight on us, as we do not, by our selfless works, make God's name known and praised among the nations.

i think that (4) was by far the biggest take home point for me, apart from the great apologetic thinking through of why not become an atheist?, ie, that we need to keep repenting for our unbelief, for living lives that don't necessarily show we have been saved from anything, to be anything.

looking forward to next week's installment, why i am still a christian

is it just coincidence that layman is a homonym for lame-man (as in ~'s explanation)?

a tale of two psalms

so psalm 105 and 106 both start similarly:

105:1 Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! 2 Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works!

106:1 Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! 2 Who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord, or declare all his praise?

but whilst ps105 spends the next three dozen verses recounting the marvelous work of God in his people, ps106 takes a different tack:

7 He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth. 8 He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, 9 the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, 10 which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, 11 saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.”

6 Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.

even the time in Egypt looks okay, until you contrast it with 106:

37 Then he brought out Israel with silver and gold, and there was none among his tribes who stumbled. 38 Egypt was glad when they departed, for dread of them had fallen upon it.

7 Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. 8 Yet he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make known his mighty power. 9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry, and he led them through the deep as through a desert.

they were well provided for, and thankful:

39 He spread a cloud for a covering, and fire to give light by night. 40 They asked, and he brought quail, and gave them bread from heaven in abundance. 41 He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river. 42 For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham, his servant.

19 They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a metal image. 20 They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. 21 They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, 22 wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. 23 Therefore he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.

and were brought into the promised land:

43 So he brought his people out with joy, his chosen ones with singing. 44 And he gave them the lands of the nations, and they took possession of the fruit of the peoples' toil, 45 that they might keep his statutes and observe his laws.

34 They did not destroy the peoples, as the Lord commanded them, 35 but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. 36 They served their idols, which became a snare to them. 37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; 38 they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. 39 Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds.

and are giving thanks to the Lord, but for different reasons:

45b Praise the Lord!

47 Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. 48 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord indeed!

scripture help?

in my 4th semester of scripture teaching, the kids keep coming up with absolute corkers
from years 4 and 6, the current lot of questions are:

How can Jesus be both Joseph’s and God’s son?

How is Jesus in the line of David if he's only been adopted by Joseph?

Why are the genealogies in Matthew and Luke different?

What's the go with Jesus' tomb?

(after hearing Goliath was 3m tall), how can we really trust what it says in the Bible?

i've got some ideas for most of these (the Jesus Family tomb is ok), but i really don't feel like i've got "knock-down answers" for all of them

any advice would be helpful!

thanks blog-community!