Monthly Archives: November 2011

What Aussies think of Christianity

3 Replies

Steve Fogg has an informative piece on his blog about what Australians think of Christian faith (Stunning Research About What Australians Think Of Christian Faith).

He chose four points to highlight. Here is my edited version:

1. Seeing public figures and celebrities declaring their faith is a turn-off for many Australians …

2. People’s stories, seeing first hand people who live out a genuine faith, philosophical discussion were all somewhat attractive to approximately 50% of people who were non-christian and open to Christianity.

3. The tone of communication must not be in the slightest authoritative or even straight line …

4. Australians most preferred method on gathering information about religion or spirituality was through an information rich website …

I enjoyed the blog post (thanks Steve), and his concluding question is really the right one to ask: How would these insights impact the way you communicate?

My initial answer lands in two different categories: Aussie culture, Christian message.

Aussie culture
As an Aussie, my gut feeling is that these points are pretty right. We feel uncomfortable with overt personal ‘religious stuff’. We don’t always complain when a US citizen says ‘God Bless America’, but we do recognise how different from us that is. If someone tried ‘God bless Australia’ we’d jump under the table in embarrassment.

Though there may be place for public and less personal God-talk – a significant public funeral, or ANZAC day – these don’t appear to have much traction in changing lives. This agrees with point #2 about the value of personal contact.

What do we do with this knowledge? Don’t go against the grain of Aussie culture for no apparent reason. If possible, have a good website. Have great personal contacts rich in conversation. Don’t resort to celebrity endorsement of Christianity. Ask lots of questions, and listen intently to the answers.

Christian message
Some of the points create a potential problem. The Christian message is of divine kingship (Jesus is both Lord and Christ, Acts 2:36). This is a straightforward authority claim. Can we communicate this without appearing authoritative? I don;t think so.

Christian caring is also intensely personal: Paul reminded the church how he shared his very life with them (1 Thessalonians 2:8). Web pages are wonderfully helpful, but inherently cannot convey this personal urging and instruction.

This is why I said for no apparent reason. At some points, the news about Jesus does clash with Aussie culture. When it comes to communicating to Aussies – to anyone – there are times we will need to risk social gaffes. To never risk awkwardness is to guarantee miscommunication, for we will be editing out parts of the message.

So, my short answer to Steve’s question: get to know Australian culture really well and communicate appropriately whenever you can; know the message of Jesus really well, so you can choose to be awkward only when it is truly necessary.

 


 

Quick review, Cadel Evans, Close to Flying

Leave a Reply

Cadel Evans: Close to Flying by Cadel Evans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this (four stars), but might not recommend it to you to read (two or three stars). I’m writing a quick review to try and explain why. Maybe it’s to try and understand why!

I like cycling. I ride. I follow the professional sport. In many ways, much broad content of Close to Flying is not so new to me. But what I enjoyed was more of the back story to Cadel’s life, including the earlier mountain-biking years. I could almost have seen him competing at the Sydney Olympics – except that I chose to attend the women’s cross-country MTB rather than the men’s.

Yet, despite personal enjoyment, there are all sorts of problems in the book.

One, which may sound unfair, is that it’s quite out of date now that Evans has won the 2011 Tour de France. The whole tone is of a rider who has come second twice, perhaps missing his best opportunity. Of course, (you might object) what other tone could there be for a book written while the career continues? And that is precisely my point: it’s written mid-career, as seems to be happening for more and more sportspeople. If you take the risk to write early, you have to accept the risk of being dated very quickly.

The content is a touch ponderous and repetitive. OK, I get it that Evans was born in a remote part of the Northern Territory – but the book gives far too many versions of ‘look how far he’s come from Bamyili’. You told us. Move on!

The target audience is hard to discern. At times, very simple cycling ideas are explained. At other times very cycling-specific references are thrown in unexplained. On the same page as cycling cleats receive a paragraph of detail, there’s a throw-away comment about ‘the Festina affair’ – which is not explained until a later chapter.

Along this same line, and as a cycling follower, I could spot gross oversimplifications. The internal team dynamics of Cadel’s pre-BMC teams, and the Australian world championship team in 2009, have had plenty of press comment. Cadel is said to have contributed to this awkwardness. So, is it true? Were the reports malicious? What was going on? It’s unsatisfying to read the equivalent of a brush-off, that the Australian world’s team was simply ‘united’, while suspecting a deeper story.

Most notable to me, though, is the extensive use of first-person quotations from key figures in the book: Cadel, his wife, parents and trainers. I reckon the explanation is that it allows people ‘their own voice’. When it works, it’s brilliant – Chiara’s account of the final of the world championships on 2009 is outstanding. It usually does not work. Just because someone central to the story spoke does not mean their content is relevant, or their words well-crafted. Much of the quotations feels like filler. Do we need to know the names of restaurants people ate at?

So here is a strange review. Quite a panning, because I don’t rate it as a good book. But quite a high rating because the subject and many details are fascinating to me, as a cycling fan.

View all my reviews

Versions of hard-hearted

Leave a Reply

A common biblical diagnosis: these people are hard-hearted and stiff-necked (eg Exodus 32:9). It means someone who is devoted to not being devoted. No matter how generous God is with appeals, nor how blunt in warning, there’s persistent refusal to respond to God with love.

They don’t need a cardiologist or physiotherapist. They need to be responsive to God. They God’s help in order to be responsive to God.

What I suspect – and would like to hear other opinions of – is that there are different types of hard-hearted. Here’s a quick classification.

Far away
This is part caricature, but a caricature willingly embraced. It’s the person who says, ‘I have no interest in God at all, and I am going to flaunt it.’ This person lives the stereotype of bad things: too much drink, relationships a mess, etc.

Hard-heartedness in this case is largely a love of the moment, of sensation. Why bother with God when it’s so easy to grab another stubbie?

Far away – nice version
This is very similar, but tries for a more cultured facade. It’s French wine rather than VB. Definitely this person has a stronger rational bent to the hardness. ‘It is inconceivable/irrational/peurile to entertain the idea of God.’

This hardness is a rationality that, ironically, is blind. It refuses to think except within its own pre-determined and comfortable boundaries.

Good and close
Now we’re getting interesting. This is a hardness that looks to have room for God. There is goodness, there is proximity to God-stuff, but below it all hardness remains. This person is quite upright in life. Perhaps a church-goer or religious in some way. Even if not, this person does not disparage those who do.

Yet this person will inflexibly refuse any suggestion of change in life. God, if there is one, does not do that. He wants the best for us, a settled and productive life. If anyone calls us to give up everything to follow the truth, you can be sure it’s not God.

Hardest of all
The most hard-hearted of all are people like me. I’m a church minister. The best place to escape God for many is in apparent service for him. If we look totally devoted, and if some costs are evident, we can make ourselves almost beyond question.

Think of the Pharisees in the New Testament, or the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. Think of the high priest who determined that murder of Jesus was a good idea. In the Old Testament, there’s a cluster of descriptions of the stiff-necked when God’s own people are with God himself at Mt Sinai (Exodus 32:9; 33:3, 5, 9).

In my experience, the most difficult group in which to get people to honestly open up for Christian help is a bunch of ministers. Everyday Christians are streets ahead of me in this part of godliness.

I have tried to ‘call out’ ministry friends over comments they’ve made or publicly posted. Never have I seen such prickly self-protection. And it’s so easy to justify, ‘I thought you and I were serving the same purpose!’ I shudder to think how often people have approached me with a view to necessary correction, but I’ve resisted.

The sad irony is this: busy servants of Jesus call people to repentance and divine transformation, and can be among the most resistant to repentance and transformation. (Of course, there is hope. Progress remains part of Christian leadership, 1 Timothy 4:15).

What do you think? Are there obvious types of hardness of heart that I have missed? Is there a better way to classify the dangers? I’d love to know your thoughts.

 


 

Pokies & local ‘giving’

1 Reply

I read this short article about our biggest local club, Albury Commercial Club, of which I am a member.

The club made a profit of nearly $3 million in the 2010-11 financial year. This was more than forecast, and allowed the club to eliminate bank debt. A good news story!

Then we find a spray against the federal government attempts to curb poker machine use.

“We cannot let this happen and the club industry is working extremely hard to make sure it doesn’t,’’ Mr Edmunds [board president] says in a report to the 26,275 members.

“The repercussions would be devastating.”

The CEO, Bruce Duck, agrees.

Members, via the media would be well aware of the problems facing
the club industry in May 2012 when the Federal Government has
given an agreement for the introduction of mandatory pre commitment
for poker machine players. This will be costly to introduce, will result
in large income deficits and will end the social structure of clubs we
currently enjoy, like most in the hospitality industry. I hope and pray
commonsense will prevail and we are allowed to continue to enjoy our
Club as we have in the past.

(This quotation is from the annual report to members – the last sentence of it appears in the newspaper article.)

How over the top. ‘Devastating’ and ‘end the social structure of clubs’ signal serious danger. Don’t they? Are these folk really interested in what’s dangerous? How about the danger – or even simply the financial cost – to a single family ripped apart by gambling addiction. Why is there no mention of this risk in the annual report?

It sounds like unalloyed self-interest.

I decided to look at the figures, since I was already reading the annual report.

  • Total income, $35,954,883.76
  • Donations to worthwhile causes (phrase from Mr Edmonds’ report), $476,066.16
    This is 1.3% of total income
    It is a 12.5% increase on the previous financial year
  • Poker machine income $26,752,597.99
    This  is an increase of 7.5% over the previous financial year
  • Other expenses, to compare with ‘worthwhile causes’
    Promotions – Zodiac gold & members $1,186,127.20
    Entertainment of members, happy hours, etc $918,476.00
    Members’ lucky draw $421,858.96
    Poker machine duty $9.087.586 

My conclusion is that the club is doing well financially, yet its community contribution is marginal. It’s a business, a not-for-profit business, whose prime concern is financial liquidity. To the extent that there is community-building, this is a function of the people involved (in their sporting clubs, etc), as well as a little money going to good causes. Equally, however, the dedicated commitment to retaining pokie revenue is community-breaking.

When the Commercial Club board speaks against regulating the pokie industry, they do not speak for me.

 


 

The jump from the text

1 Reply

When I read the Bible – like reading anything – I struggle against wandering concentration. For some reason, I develop intense interest in the grass outside the window or the small cobwebs around the light fitting.

That’s bad enough. Possibly it’s disrespectful. Even worse is to actively choose a Bible reading method that sets distraction as the standard and as essential.

This is what I call wandering from the text. It’s when we stop truly listening to what is written, and listen instead to something of our own imagining.

Here are a couple of ways to go wrong in this way.

Theological liberalism is the approach that gives priority to human reason, over authoritative revelation. It often asks what is reasonable or logical, what we might consider possible. It frequently displays great intelligence, I believe, but elevates us and our ideas above God and his word.

Liberalism still looks at the Bible. Yet it wanders from the text.

In reading John’s gospel, for instance, this approach tries to reconstruct what was happening when it was written. John was not written by John, but by the Johannine community – and they must have been facing pressures internal and external which are reflected in the text.

Or Daniel is not a book that tells anything about a real Daniel in a real situation of exile. It is instead a fiction created to explain the current situation of the shadowy author (and his community).

Or Deuteronomy has nothing at all to do with Moses and post-exodus Israel. It is instead about the exile many centuries later, and written as a theological explanation for the situation of defeat and dislocation.

Simple Christian piety can see clearly that liberalism has jumped from the text. But, ironically, can jump even further. While liberalism jumps from text to imaginatively-reconstructed historical setting, pious readings jump from the text directly to us.

This approach takes the text seriously – as personal guide – but not always seriously enough to listen to what it actually says. So, for instance, a pious reader will know Jeremiah 29:11 (about ‘the plans I have for you’), but know nothing of why Jeremiah spoke those words at the time. The verse becomes, instead, a way to help me in unemployment/illness/etc.

Whatever the comforting intent, we’ve jumped from the text. And made ourselves the centre!

What should we do? Slow down, to read, listen, and understand what the text is saying. Listen to the whole, not seek crumbs of information for my own personal use. The benefit: we will hear God’s word better, we will understand the historical situation a little more, and we will be better able to receive the comfort that comes from listening to God.

 


 

Relating the Old Testament to New

Leave a Reply

The Bible has two parts, conveniently named the Old Testament and New Testament. The difference? The Old leads up to the birth of Jesus – the New picks up after the birth of Jesus. Jesus is the swing point for the whole Bible, just as he is the meaning of the Bible (see John 5:39-40).

From www.freedigitalphotos.net. Hover for specific link

This all means that Bible readers need to consider how the two testaments relate to one another. (This is different from considering the relationship between parts within one of the testaments like, for example, between Judges and Nehemiah). The Bible itself gives the analogy of shadow and reality: “the law has but a shadow of the good things to come” (Heb 10:1).

Here are some other images or illustrations that might capture something of the relationship. None will capture it all, and each has different strengths. Also, I’m sure they’re all pinched from other people!

  • Blueprint, then finished building
  • Outline, then colour and detail
  • Miniature painting, then full-scale work of art
  • Scale model, then full-size reality
  • Dress rehearsal, then actual performance
  • The building blocks collected, then the building blocks assembled
  • The pre-release song sample, then the whole album available for download
  • Topographic map, then the landscape
  • The new contained, then the old explained (or the new hidden, then the old revealed)
  • The overture, then the symphony
  • Foundations, then structure
  • Skeleton, then body
  • Preparation for war, then the battle won
  • Prophecy, then fulfilment
  • View through a telescope, then view up close
  • The ticket and booking confirmation, then the journey
  • The diagnosis and prescription, then the treatment and cure

Do any of these mislead? Are there any I’ve missed? What do you think of the whole idea of relating the testaments? Please go ahead and contribute in the comments below.