Say No! to GMOs and Roundup

Here is the paper

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2012.08.005

And here is the 12 min Youtube vid done as a sort of doco. It's good and accessible for non-specialists like myself (though the paper is surprisingly accessible too)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njd0RugGjAg

And here is a figure from the paper

These are results for mortality of rats due to eating gentically modified corn (top 2), genetically modified corn which was treated with roundup (it is roundup resistant, so the point is to kill the weeds, not the corn!) (middle 2) and Roundup only (bottom 2).

Dashed line is the control group (given non-GMO corn which is the closest relative to the GMO corn used), and then the other lines are different amounts of their diet (11%,22%,33%) GMO corn, or different amounts of roundup put in their drinking water.

So both roundup and GMOs cause alarming, gigantic tumours and eventually death. 

The deaths don't kick in until about month 4 for rats, and the studies done by Monsanto (the biggest food producer in the US, I don't think you can eat a single thing in the US without them supplying some part of the 'food', even Coke I'm pretty sure is full of corn syrup) were only ever for 3 months. Whether this is a coincidence or not, nobody knows.

Ally and I have often wondered what would happen if Monsanto suddenly ceased trading. They modify their seeds so that their crops don't produce reproducible seeds. This means farmers must re-buy seed from them each season. I think if they shut down, many many people would starve in the short term. They're the Google of food, if not bigger, and yet Google seem to be, as far as I can tell at least, fairly benevolent. There's a nice XKCD on Google's power/benevolence

http://xkcd.com/792/

Community Evangelism

At the moment I'm reading 'Total Church' and 'Everyday Church', both by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis.  There is lots in them that I like a lot.

In Total Church we are presented with a community rather than individualistic model of evangelism

Both these books talk about the importance of evangelism in community.  They propose that the model of church where people come to us is irrelevant in cultures like the UK and Australia because most people have no intention of ever visiting a church, so it doesn't matter how good the program is since people aren't coming anyway. 

Instead they propose a model of evangelism that takes place in community.  In order for this to take place these communities need to exist.  Tim Chester and Steve Timmis lead a  church called The Crowded House.  It's made up of what they call gospel communities.  These gospel communities are like large Bible study groups, but much more.  They're made up of groups of Christians committed to sharing their lives together.  These groups meet together several times a week for normal things as well as things like Bible study and prayer.  They share quite a lot of meals together as well.

When people in these gospel communities get to know non-Christians, then, when they invite them into their lives, they're inviting them into these gospel communities.  If I invited a non-Christian friend to my place for dinner, it would be done with other Christians there.  If we went to the park with our kids we would do it with other Christians. The idea is to evangelise in community.  

This means that people who are good at getting to know others but have no idea how to bring up the gospel in a conversation needn't worry too much about that, because others in the group can do it.  But those who are confident teaching and talking about the Bible but have no idea how to meet people needn't worry about it because others in the group can do it.  It also means that we can see others doing the things we are not good at and get ideas on how to do it better.

The evangelism primarily takes place when the gospel is clearly articulated to a listening audience.  But in this model it also takes place as lives are shared and unbelievers witness believers living in community in ways that seem impossible in our culture with our structures and priorities.  

I'm going to keep writing about this stuff and maybe share some things as we seek to make what is now our Bible Study group into a gospel community where we share our  lives with each other sand the gospel with unbelievers.

I'm interested to hear from others, though, what they've experienced in terms of meaningful community and sharing the gospel.

When Helping Hurts

I've recently finished reading 'When Helping Hurts'.

It's about how to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor and ourselves in the process.
Its premise is basically that poverty in its different forms comes about from broken relationships. First, our broken relationship with God and then with each other.

There are a few points from the book that I found helpful.

1. All people are experiencing poverty of some kind.  That we're materially rich doesn't mean we're not spiritually or relationally poor.
2. Christians should respond to all kinds of poverty.
3. God has a special interest in and heart for the materially very poor.  If we are followers of Jesus then so must we.
4.  Giving relief (usually in the form of money) to people without putting in place development to stop their need for dependance almost always does more harm than good.
5. Short term mission trips should be done through organisations and shouldn't include doing for people what they can do for themselves.  The chapter on short term mission trips is extremely helpful and outlines how many short term mission trips are well intentioned, but ineffective and then goes on to say how they can work with bigger organisations that can mobilise people quickly to move into effective ministry work.  Mercy Ships is a prime example.
6. Poor people and communities usually need development, which is long term and difficult and requires real commitment.

This is a great book and whilst outlining lots of problems, it offers alternatives that the authors believe can benefit individuals and communities.

Church Should Be...?

The following is a post about what I think church should look like.  It's mostly from a comment I made here.

Basically, I think that the model of church we follow is pretty unhelpful and puts focus on the wrong things and neglects things that should be priorities for us.
I presume that there are churches out there that look more like this than the churches that I've experienced, and I'd love to hear about them.

We're too focused on Sunday services.  Sunday services are great, but I don't think that they should be the main goal of the local church.  I think that Sunday services should be a time for the larger body of the local church to meet together and build each other up and to welcome in new members of the fold.  It's a good time to sing together, to read  the Bible, to pray and to model things like confessions and affirming what we believe.  I think it should be seen as a time of fellowship with believers for believers, but it should also be broad enough in its scope to be welcoming to most, if not all believers.  When we focus our time and energy on the Sunday service we focus only on ourselves and neglect the mission to spread the gospel to the nations.  I think that Sunday services should be the ministry of as few as possible so that the ministry of as many people as possible can be focused on spreading the gospel.

I think that every committed Christian should be in a small group and that churches need to be telling serious Christians that if they are committed to serving God in their local church that they should seek to do so through such a group. These groups could be the base for small groups of Christians working together in the community to spread the gospel.  I think small groups should be like a family.  They should live close to each other, for convenience' sake, they should spend time together reading God's Word and praying.  They should share meals together to build friendship.  They should be constantly engaged in working together to tell others about Jesus.

This model sees the small group working together to drive the spread of the gospel and disciple the Christians in the group, and the local Sunday church service, then, exists to build up, support, encourage and unify these groups.

You still need pastors to oversee, teach and protect the flock. But I think we should give more responsibility to lay people who are often just as talented, committed and able to help out.  The main difference is that those committed lay people also have an actual job and so they have less time on their hands.

I think that at the moment church is a Sunday and Wednesday thing for most people.  This is a travesty. How we can possibly read the Bible and think that a level of commitment for about 4 hours a week is appropriate is beyond me. 

My suspicion is that, at the moment, there are very few Christian adults evangelising to non-Christian adults.  This is a tragedy. 

There are more and more people who don't even know the gospel and who haven't really had it explained to them even though they live right next to Christians.  That is, we have an ever increasing number of people in our communities who are unreached and know exactly enough about God to condemn them to Hell.  We have failed them and can't afford to continue to do so.

Church right now isn't working.  I'm basically up for trying anything except what we're doing right now.  What I've written is what I'd like to try, but I bet others have better ideas than me.

Gay Marriage

My family and I all got a very nasty flu, so I haven't gotten around to reading unconditional parenting yet, fyi.


Today on Sunrise, Kochy and Melissa Doyle made a stand in support of gay marriage. For what it's worth, I support gay marriage. Defacto relationships are given legal status in this country, and I believe homosexual couples should be given the same. Furthermore marriage has been removed from Christianity, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing. 


Here's my working definition of marriage:
A lifelong commitment to a single intimate relationship.


With divorce an option perhaps I should remove the word lifelong. And without some ethical framework against polygamy, I should probably remove the word single. This leaves:


A commitment to an intimate relationship.


It's not terribly meaningful, but I think this is what the general population mean when they use the word marriage. If that's the case, then why not admit gay marriage?


Christians are really hung up on this. We seem to want to make our own definitions. My definition of an appropriate intimate relationship under God is something like the first one I wrote down with the word heterosexual in it. However, when prodded, I have to admit that I think this includes the willingness to bring kids into the relationship, which some Christians don't agree with. And it is definitely lifelong in my book, which again many Christians don't adhere to. And there's a whole lot of stuff about laying down one's life as Christ did for the church, which I know a lot of Christians don't do (like me), and don't even try to do (unlike me). 


I'm confident that many homosexual couples tick many more boxes than a lot of 'Christians'. 


So my question is: in a secular society, on what basis do we fight against homosexual marriage? I can't think of a good one.

I received an email about this Sunrise stuff today, urging me to act. Something in the email which was repeated a few times, was that homosexual marriage robs children of the right to parents of both sexes. 


Now this I can stand behind, I think. On the one hand my previous arguments still apply, that there would be much worse heterosexual parents out there than most homosexual ones. But somehow I think you can make arguments based on nature. Homosexual couples cannot have children. Nature doesn't allow it. From an evolutionary point of view, I'd imagine there is a substantial part of our biological, emotional, and psychological development which is sex-specific. So while couples who can't conceive or go to term, but have a baby by IVF or similar, have been 'disallowed' by nature, the nature of things isn't against them, which is what an argument from nature is about. I think this is a strong argument. I don't know about the research, all I know is that any research I've ever come across about these sorts of things, it invariably becomes apparent that the natural order is vastly ideal because our evolution has made it that way. 


But is marriage necessarily linked to kids? It's not in my secular definition above...


Any thoughts?

Consuming Church

Every now and then I hear church leaders lament at the fact that people consume church and don't participate enough.

When they say this, I think that they usually mean that people don't participate enough in the Sunday service.  That they're not on a roster, I suppose.

I've been thinking a bit about this and it's easy to just agree, because its true.  There are usually a few people who do a lot in the Sunday service.  In a small church it's probably a higher proportion of the congregation helping out, but the bigger the church gets, the smaller the percentage of people who are doing stuff and the more noticeable it is that the burden of a Sunday service is shouldered by the few.

The last time I heard someone talk about this, I was sitting in a church (not my own) and one of the pastors sat there and lamented at the fact that there are not enough people participating in the Sunday service.  I then looked around at the church and noted that the room can seat about 200-250 people on the pews that are lined up in such a way as to all face the front.  In fact it's in a concave formation so that everyone isn't just facing the front, they're facing the middle of the front.

Of course people consume church; that's the way it's designed.  It's a show.  And we're kidding ourselves when we say it's not.  We can't sit people in rows facing the one or 2 people at the front and then whinge that not enough people are participating.  It's by design that we have a small amount of participation in the church service. 

And then the thing that frustrates me the most is that when these pastors and hard working lay people complain that there isn't enough participation in the church services, what they're really saying is that not enough people participate on their terms.  I don't see church leaders asking for men to get up and tell the congregation what they think about the Bible passage being studied.  That has to be left to a select few.  And not just anyone can lead groups or participate in ministries that see God's Word taught.  Only a select few are knowledgeable enough to do that. 

So what pastors and laymen who complain about this want is more people on rosters to set up chairs, operate the sound, prepare morning tea, and the like.  They don't usually want more people up the front.  What I think is that most people up the front want to keep the front for themselves and they want everyone else to work hard to keep them at the front.

I'm becoming disillusioned by the model of the local church that we follow and am seeing fewer and fewer reasons not to become increasingly so.  From the attitudes of pastors to the effort we place in building ourselves up on a Sunday to the lack of community involvement and ministering to the poor and the needy; it's a far cry from the church we see in the New Testament.

Smacking, rewards, and punishment

I'm going to blog my way through another book. This time it's Unconditional Parenting, by Alfie Kohn.



Lately I've been thinking a bit about rewards and punishment, and especially about smacking. We don't smack our kids. We gave Rose the occassional hit on the hand up until about 18 months, and now deeply regret it. I don't agree with smacking any more. I grew up thinking it was ok, partly because of the oft-quoted "spare the rod, spoil the child", and vague notions of the goodness and severity of God, the discipline of God, the wrath of God, the fear of God, etc.

For the record I am terrified of God. I need to think and pray about my theology of the fear of God as I read this book, together with my ideas about how much we should try to emulate God's fatherhood through our own, and in what way.

Taking "spare the rod, spoil the child" seriously, it seems that a good question to think about to begin with, is what do I gain from any particular form of discipline. Spare the rod is not directly about punishment, but about correction, ie. you'll do your kids a social/behavioural/moral disservice by not punishing wrongdoing. I think this is particularly poignant in these end times, because wrath will be dealt with on the last day, and has clearly been put in the hands of God, not me.

Another thing I want to think through is God's forgiveness. God is extremely long suffering, and forgiving. We like to say that God disciplines his children - where is that again? But then, how much? I sin pretty bad, every day, and how often do I get an Almighty smack? Rarely... Pretty much never. God is kind and merciful.

Well, I'll start the book tonight I hope. If my health holds up...
 

4. Christian Involvement in the Community is Paramount

This is a continuation of my first post on Church here.

It seems to me that our local churches are largely devoid of local community involvement.  I'm not even talking about social justice here and looking after the poor and the needy, just being involved in the community.  I know that there are exceptions, but there don't seem to be too many.

It seems to me that our time, money and resources mostly get put into the Sunday service.  The Sunday service should be a great time of strengthening and encouraging the body.  But it means that what we're really doing is putting our time, money and effort into the body and, then, what are we putting into the community that we say we're trying to reach?

My perception is that we are hesitant to get involved in community events and initiatives that are not run by us for the sole purpose of proclaiming the gospel.  This seems silly.  I know people who recently wanted to get their church involved in Clean Up Australia Day.  The pastor said no to organising it through church because it was on a Sunday and it might discourage people from coming to church that day.  There are so many implications that come from this attitude that it's hard to pick just one.  Is his hold on his parishioners so tenuous?  Is church numero uno when it comes to weekly priorities?  If so, why?

I live in Culburra Beach.  It's sunny here all the time and it's what God used to model Eden.  A couple of weeks ago we had a 'Love Culburra Beach Festival' because, well, who doesn't love Culburra Beach.  Our church didn't have a stall, although I know our pastor would've loved for us to.  I think that one of the main problems was that those of us who would have been willing to run one are already too busy.  This in itself isn't terrible.  Christians should be busy, I think, because proclaiming Jesus and loving others takes time and effort.  But is that what we're really busy at? 

I wish we'd had a strategic presence at the fair so that people who live in Culburra could put a face to Christians in Culburra.  I wish that we'd been there with people wiling to approach people there to ask them about Jesus.  Cold evangelism is tough and not the most effective, but it's not without its merits, particularly when you're trying it on people you're very likely to see around. 

I think that churches should run community activities and they should attend pagan run (like 'Clean Up Australia Day' or the 'Love Culburra Beach Festival') community activities so that we can have as many opportunities as possible to tell men, women and kids about the saving grace of God poured out through His son, Jesus Christ.

I even think we should have geeky shirts that are easily identifiable.  People expect us to look lame. Let's give them what they want. We may just find some people willing to talk to us about Jesus who we might not have otherwise met.

What do you stand behind?

A couple of comments on this blog lately, and things you hear around the place, have made me think about this question. And I'd like to make what I think is an important distinction.

Life seems to be full of circumstances where you must ask this question: Do I die on this hill, or do I relax about this? I hear this often said about

• Predestination
• Total depravity
• The use of money
• Social justice
• Hell

Ie. People think different, contradictory things about these broad issues, and the advice you're often given goes in the direction of "you must decide whether this is central, or peripheral; people can still be faithful Christians and think differently to you about this".

Whether or not I agree with this with regard to any of those issues listed, I think there is an important point I'd like to emphasise:

Partaking in sin is always sinful.

It's a tautology, I know, but sometimes I think we forget this when engaging with particular issues. The two issues I have in mind, are ones which were raised on this blog in recent months

1. Abominable employment/economic/environmental practices overseas are the reason why we can get stuff so cheap. A corollary to this: We get cheap stuff because others pay what is lacking in the price with their health and well-being.
2. The systematic torture of animals is the means by which we get cheap meat.

Firstly, let me emphasise that for theological reasons, I think 1. is far worse than 2.. Nevertheless, in my opinion, these are sinful systems. I think that partaking in these systems is, therefore, sin. I don't think it's an issue of 'Am I willing to die on this hill', or 'Am I willing to put in the effort to eradicate this system from my life, let alone the world'. 

You may disagree that they are sinful systems, and that is a different argument. I'm raising these particular issues because I think they are sinful and they came up recently.

A counter argument I've heard is: 'There are lots of sinful systems, why single out this one'. This is a fallacy. The Christian life involves the eradication of all sins that we are aware of, and the continued awakening to even more sinfulness. We stand on a spectrum of sinfulness and we can only see so far. The call of the Bible, I'm convinced, is to move along that line, leaving sinfulness behind and all the while becoming aware of ever more sinfulness. I am not aware of a single concept in the Bible which promotes the idea that because of the magnitude and multitude of sins I am capable of and continually committing, judgment is withheld from some. This is nonsense.

Now 1. is very hard to eradicate from your life. In some ways I think you need to minimise it for a time as a sort of retrieval ethic. This requires more thought, so that's all I'll say about it for now. 2. is extremely easy: either pay more for meat that you know came from an ethical source, or stop eating meat. This means a chook will cost $25. It's impossible to raise a happy healthy chook for (much) less.

Anyway, I think our separation from, and intellectualising of some issues clouds our thinking about basic sin. If something is clearly sinful, then our partaking of it is as well.

This makes life very complicated. Before large scale transport and industrialisation happened, you sort of knew where everything came from and could, to a much greater extent, control it. Now it's really really hard, but it's about sin, not preferences and optional conviction, plain old sin.

Right?

Young people are the best ministers to young people

In my last post I wrote a little about a training day that I went to.  I was critical of the view that churches should focus on children.  I actually liked most of what the key speaker said.  There was one other thing he said, though, that frustrates me no end.

The argument goes something like this:
Since young adults are best able to relate to teenagers, young people should be the main ones who minister to teenagers.  Young adults are better equipped to minister to teenagers because they speak their language, read their books and listen to their music.  So since the teenagers can relate to them then they will listen to them more.  Conversely, since older people can't relate to teenagers and don't understand their culture, they are ill equipped to be effective ministers to them.
This is ill considered to say the least.

It's wonderful for teenagers to have young adults who are willing to speak into their lives and teach them about Jesus.  They can be immensely helpful and great teachers.  But I don't think that they're the best.

Teenagers need adults of all ages to be interested in them and to look after them.  They don't need people who can relate to them on a worldly, cultural level.  They need people who will love them, genuinely without reserve.

I love now, and have always had tremendous respect and affection for my grandparents.  They have no idea of the world I live in.  They can't relate to me in terms of the books I read, the movies I watch or the music I listen to.  The internet is still a great mystery to them so they'll never read my blog.  But they love me and they greatly desire for me to follow Jesus.  They have spoken greatly into my life and they have had much influence over me. 
For those of us who went to KYC, KYLC and the like, who could forget Dudley and Elizabeth Ford.  They helped many a teenager through difficult times.  Not because they could relate to them in their culture, but because they were willing to love them, to listen to them and to speak into their lives to encourage them to follow Jesus.

I know many great teachers.  I think that the very best teachers are experienced.  When I think back on my own schooling, the best teachers I had were older teachers.  Of course not all older teachers are great, but the best are experienced and older.  My most fun teachers were usually younger teachers, but they weren't necessarily the ones who were best for me.

It seems to me that what teenagers need isn't someone who can talk to them about their favourite band or tv show and relate it, in some way, to faith.  What they need is mature Christians who are willing to love them for who they are, see who they can become and work to mold them into faithful followers of Christ.  This completed work is beyond a young adult who is still not really mature themselves. 

Young adults are great youth group leaders and helpful in ministering to teenagers.  But if we want young adults of faith, maturity, character and substance then I truly believe we need to move beyond the model of the blind leading the blind and move to one where the seasoned veterans do the work of teaching, leading and encouraging our young people in their faith to follow Jesus in this world. 

I increasingly think that teenagers and young twenty-somethings should not be being paid as youth workers in churches.

Youth as a priority

I recently went to a training day for church.  It was interesting.

The main speaker talked about ministering to children.  Basically, his thesis was that children should be a church's priority because Jesus valued children and because 75% of Christians, according to the National Church Life Survey (or whatever it's called) in Australia, were converted as children.  Therefore, he says, it's children's ministry that's effective and it's children's ministry that we should be focusing on.  To say that this argument is preposterous is, I think, pretty fair.

The Bible passages that he used to introduce this were when Jesus says in Matthew 19:14  "Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.'"  And Matthew 18:3 which says "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."  


The problem is that these verses aren't saying that we need to believe like children believe.  I've often heard that we can learn from the faith of children.  At this training day the guy speaking basically told us that we can all learn something from my 3 month old daughter (who I was holding as he spoke) and that the way she depends on my wife and I is the way that we should depend on God.  There are ways in which this is true, but to suggest that we should have faith like a child has faith is crazy.  Children don't believe with reason and depth.  Their faith is child like.  It's based on very little, and, quite frankly, it's shaky at best.  It's not based on an understanding of the scripture.  They have little or no concept that they are sinners and deserve God's judgement.  Do we really think that Jesus holds a child up and then says to us 'be more like them.  They are faithful'.  My daughter is rude, selfish and uncaring most of the time.  She only thinks of herself because she only has the capacity to think of herself.  Her faith is immature because she is immature.  I don't strive to be like her in my Christian walk.  I want her to be like me (only better).  Not the other way around. 


When Jesus says 'the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these', he's saying that unless we understand that we are as lowly in position as a child, then we haven't understood the gospel.  Unless we know who we are and who God is and that we are better then no one, then we've missed the point.  And so he says that we should treat children with love and compassion.  Why?  Because God loves them.  We should treat each other with love and compassion.  Why?  Because God loves us.  We are child like because we are no better than a child.  We are not above them in and of ourselves.  In Israelite society poor children were the lowest in order and rank.  We have to acknowledge that we are the lowest in order and rank.  That's what Jesus means.  


As for saying that 75% of people are converted as children are converted as children so we should focus on children, that's preposterous.  This is an unqualified statistic.  It tells us what, not why.  And the why is very important.  How many of those kids are really convered by their parents?  Why aren't adults being converted?  Is anyone even telling them about Jesus?


It seems to me that we should model our ministry on the Bible, not the National Church Life Survey.  When the apostles preached, they preached to men, mostly and then women as well.  Men were converted and then they took care of converting their households.  This model makes so much sense that we don't follow it.  Who is missing in our churches?  Men.  Who aren't we reaching?  Men.  Who are we saying we should focus on?  Kids.  


I say let's tell as many kids about Jesus as we can.  Get into schools.  Start kids groups and educational clubs.  Run fun stuff so they can hear about Jesus.  Train our kids to tell their friends.


But let's put just as much effort into our peers.  We must not neglect adults because we think it might be fruitless.  That's crazy.  And we must tell men about Jesus.  And for that to happen then guys like me have to make friends with other guys and tell them about Jesus because that's the model that God has established to grow His church.  Not to help God because He needs our help.  He doesn't.  But because that's one of the ways we love others and Christians are people who love others and God is good to us in letting us be a part of the process of the salvation of others.

3. Evangelism is Everybody's Responsibility

This is a follow up to another post that I made here about church.

Evangelism is everybody's responsibility.  Sometimes I hear from people that our responsibility is to promote the gospel, not necessarily to tell it.  Basically what I think they are saying is that we should live overtly and explicitly as Christians, but that we shouldn't try to force conversations about Jesus.  Our main responsibility to tell people about Jesus, then, is just to have an answer to the hope that we have.  This idea comes from 1 Peter 3:15.

I think that this idea is wrong.  We are called to be people who unashamedly and without hesitation seek to tell as many people as will listen about Jesus.  It's all of our responsibility all of the time. 

Just because we're not all evangelists doesn't mean that we don't all have to evangelise.  We wouldn't say that if our gift isn't hospitality that we don't have to be hospitable, so why do we think that this excuse is any good when it comes to evangelism.

My problem is that I'm terrible at doing this.  I work at a Christian school and every day I get to tell kids who don't believe in Jesus about him.  I don't only get to, I'm really required to.  What a great job.  I'm also starting up my robotics club again this term and I'll get to tell kids there who don't know Jesus about him as well, which is also great.

My problem is, though, that I'm not telling anybody else at the moment.  I need to be telling men and women in my community about Jesus.  We need to tell kids, but we need to tell adults as well.  In lots of ways it's much easier to tell kids, and we're often pretty well practised at it.  The same isn't true of adults.  Who are you meeting with, praying for, and opening up the gospel to?  For me it's only kids.  I need to find some adults.  I used to have soccer, but I'm taking a year off.  It seems to me that men talk best when they're working together.  So maybe I should join some other commuity organisation to get to know some guys.  Maybe we should just run more bbq's at church.  But I need to be telling guys in my community about the love, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, anger, righteousness and justice of God and the sinfulness and depravity of man.  I'm pretty sure that whilstever I'm not doing this I'm not showing any love to my neighbour.

This thinking has come through a host of other experiences that I'll post about later, but I am interested to read comments of people who are telling adults about Jesus.  How do you do it?  How do you bring up Jesus?  How do they respond?  How do we reach men for Jesus?  I fear that the answer really is just as simple as opening our mouths and speaking up and that this simple fact is a terrible indictment on us.

Jesus held nothing back and did not grasp his throne, but humbled himself to humanity, and then to torture and death just so that he could have us as his own.  Yet we fear slight embarrassment and awkwardness so much that we don't share the precious, life saving gospel that God has graciously entrusted to us so that we might be a part of building his church.  Let's suck it up, man up and go out and tell people.

Eating Animals V: "I just don't care enough"

One commentator, Jenny, has mentioned a couple of times, the genetic modification of animals and vegetables, together with the amount of drugs and things animals are given, and pesticides etc put on veggies, which we then ingest.

I have been hesitant to blog about this, because it's mainly about us and our health, and what we are doing to our bodies. It's like making soft drink illegal. It's a good idea, but the fact is, I think, that people are willing to ingest antibiotics (something like 5X more than they do from getting sick), just by eating meat. And people are willing to eat the remnant poison on our veggies. And people are willing to eat the inevitably diseased meat, and put up with the occasional stomach bug and presumably altogether worse health. This is all for the sake of cheaper meat and veggies, and in the case of soda, taste and sugar.

In short, I think that cruelty to animals is a black and white, right or wrong, moral issue. Ingesting less healthy things than possible is a really big difficult issue (eg, soda), and one I don't know enough about.

This brings me to my topic. Yesterday I mentioned our now-not-so-new-found vegetarianism at a lunch (in a pleasant way, I promise). Someone (with a degree from Moore, if you would like to know that), said 'I know someone else who is a vegetarian because of treatment to animals, but I just can't bring myself to care enough'. I've heard this one a lot.

Now, it's not a little bit of cruelty I'm talking about here. It's systematic torture to millions of animals at any one time across the world. And it's purely for the sake of money, there are no other issues. It's sadistic. Perhaps he doesn't realise the extent of the cruelty? Or perhaps he really doesn't care about animals suffering.

I don't think this is an issue of loving animals. It's a simple matter of inflicting pain and suffering for the sake of my pallet and wallet. Pain and suffering is bad, especially if you're a part of it.

Graham has been blogging about labour practices overseas from time to time on this blog. This is an enormous issue, and we as a society have been guilty of simply not caring enough about that. I don't think a Christian would ever say 'I just don't care enough' about this issue, though in practice, we so often don't. So perhaps with this in mind, I shouldn't be surprised?

But... What am I missing here?

Eating Animals IV: Pigs

My perception of pigs growing up was that they are fat, lazy, disgusting animals. It turns out this was just a result of the way I've seen them farmed.

Pigs are like Babe, or Wilbur. They like to run about, they're sociable, curious, and as intelligent as dogs.

If you've ever seen a pig in a pig pen, this is not the impression you get. They lie there, hardly able to move, if they're a sow then their young are running about near their teats and you wonder how they don't get squashed.

The reality is, that pigs are confined to pig pens so that they cannot move. Often, they can't even turn around. The consumer does not like to eat fit pig, and, like chickens, the battery method only seems to positively affect productivity. Their bone density decreases, they live in their own filth (no, pigs do not like this) and thus pick up all sorts of bugs and diseases. They're permanently in pain, partly because of selective breeding, and partly because they're unable to move. They get covered in sores (think bed sores from long term hospital patients).

The litter, in a proper factory farm, are kept in battery cages, stacked atop each other. They defecate on each other. The runts of the litters (~10%) are killed. By far the most common way that this is done is that they're picked up by their hind legs and slammed against the concrete.

Because of the density of the farming, a large scale pig pen will be surrounded by a dozen poo-lakes. These are so deep and disgusting that people have died by losing consciousness when near them and falling in. Nearby villages often end up with contaminated water, and the poo often gets sprayed into the atmosphere. People's health and even lives are subsidising the cost for our cheap bacon. In fact, in a proper factory farm, in the pens, if the power goes out so that the ventilation is turned off, you'll die in a matter of minutes. Asthma rates among kids of pig farmers is as high as 50%.

Not allowing pigs to run about, sleep in groups, do the things they naturally want to do. Forcing them to stay in holding cells where they develop sores and their bodies waste away (well, all except their meat). Selectively breeding them so that they're in constant pain, and also, by the way, extremely susceptible to stress - apparently high stress response = good meat, so a 'modern' pig can have a heart attack just from being moved between pens, or from a truck arriving outside the pen. All of this is so so wrong.

The sad fact is that my exposure to pig farming as a kid, confirmed much of this in Australia too.

So we have well and truly crossed off all unhappy pig meat. If our family eats delicious bacon, it's from a farmer where we are confident of the treatment of the animal, and therefore, only for special occasions because of the prohibitive, yet reasonable, price.

2. Churches should have less paid staff

This is a continuation of a couple of previous posts.  The first is here.

I think that churches seek to have too many paid staff.  I fear that we're turning ministry into a professional venture and that we're pushing the layman out of the ministry of the word.  I don't understand the reasoning for our model of ministry and I think it's unbiblical.

I don't understand why we should pay people to tell others about Jesus.  I don't understand why we're
professionalising being a Christian.  I do understand that we need ministers who are paid.  But we have to understand that we don't pay them to do a job.  We pay them so that they don't have to have a job.  We seek out men who are leaders in the church community and we pay them so that theyhave time for the local church that they wouldn't have otherwise.  These men should be leading a team of other men who do work so that together the church is administered, the gospel is preached and the community is looked after.  I don't really see why, in your average small church, we should have more than one paid minister. I don't see why themain ministry of that minister has to be preaching.  This idea has some basis in the Bible, but that doen't make it biblical.  If you have capable lay preachers then let them preach.  If a minister's a talented preacher then by all means prach every week, but if not then do what you're good at and let others do what they're good at.  I've seen too many great ministers who are wondeful at looking after and encouraging Christians struggle each week to preach to think that this works.

I think that too many ministers and assistant ministers and youth ministers and children's workers only really serve to professionalise something that is all of our responsibility.  They create in groups and out groups. 

I don't like the idea that the leadership of the church is the responsibility of a few and that there is so much opportunity for pew sitting from church members. 

I think that the sharing of the gospel is everyone's responsibility.  I hear ministers and church leaders lament that their parishioners aren't telling people about Jesus, but they're not sharing the responsibility of teaching within the Christian community with their parishioners. 

I think we should have a hard look at the way we do church.  I think that we talk big about spurring one another on, encouraging one another and sharing the load, but then we hire men and women to do what we should all be sharing together.

There's a place for paid ministry.  But do we really need so many?

1. It's the Leaders' Fault

This is a continuation of a post I recently made here.

In it I expressed my dissatisfaction with church.  Not my own local church, but our experience of church as a whole across Australian evangelicalism.  Then I suggested a range of statements that I said I'd expand on.  The first is that the leaders of the church are responsible for its state and it's their responsibility to turn it around.

The first thing worth noting is that leader doesn't equal minister.  Whilst the minister is a leader in the local church he is not the only one, and so shouldn't shoulder all of the responsibility.  The minister has to be willing to relinquish authority and control of certain things and others need to be willing to take it up.  I think that a minister who doesn't allow others to lead presumes too much about his authority.

I hear from people in churches all the time that '20% of the people do 80% of the work'.  This really annoys me.  It annoys me because the people saying it always think they are the 20% of the poor, overworked Christians.  My first response is that being faithful to Jesus is hard work.  Get over it.  My second response is:  If you don't like it then do something about it.  It annoys me the most when I hear ministers say this as though it's a fact of life and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

I think that there are loads of Christians sitting in pews who are keen to do something, but never do.  It's not always their own fault.  Sometimes they are people whose gifts and talents are just underutilised in the chuch.  How many churches have you seen where the tradesmen who come along are mobilised and used to do good work in the community to get to know and help the lost?  Or are they just called upon to fix something in the church when it needs doing?  There is a big difference between these two things and the worth that they have.  Are we helping people to use their gifts in real, gospel ministries or are we relegating people to the back lines and support roles so that they are really only left to feel worthless in the mission of the church except to support the keen beans who are good at speaking, academics and teaching kids?

In the interests of keeping this post short, here's what I think without much qualification.  If you agree or disagree, please post a comment as to why.

1. Everyone should have the opportunity to participate in front line, gospel ministries in the church.  Jesus entrusted the gospel to us all, it's not up to the leaders of the church to pick up who's worthy to engage the lost with the word.  Take the opportunity to let people have a go and teach as they go.  No one's perfect, but good training and a little trust and faih that God will do what He said He will (build his church) goes a long way.  Don't let the guys who mow the lawn think that they are not welcome to speak the Word in your church community.  Jesus let some fishermen with crazy ideas take the lead in His church because the Holy Spirit is mighty and effective.

2. It's a leader's responsibility to inspire others to action.  If a leader can't do that then they have no business bitching about others and their unwillingness to participate.

3. Have a whole heap of varied ministry opportunities available for people to participate in. The Sunday service isn't the most important part of the week, nor is the participation in it a gauge of the usefulness of a Christian. 

4. Serve your community by helping them in practical ways so that you might share the gospel with them.  Participate in community events.  You will have parishioners who want to organise this.  Let them.  If no one wants to do it, then don't.  Run with what you've got, but encourage participation.

5. Not everyone has to do everything, but everyone has to do something.  Communicate this and let people know.  Do't neglect Christian responsibility.  Light a fire in others that makes them see that the lost are lost and need to know Jesus now.  To do this you yourself need to know it.

6. Jesus has appointed some to lead and others to follow.  Leaders should lead and others should follow.  If you're trying to lead and no one is following then stop trying to lead for now.  Maybe try again later.  If you feel you have something to offer your local church in terms of leadership then speak up.  Maybe you've been overlooked.  Maybe there's a reason.  If you don't get the response you're happy with then pray hard about it.

7. Be a church that prays.  A lot.  About a lot of things.  This is what I find hardest and need to work on.

These are some of my poorly ordered, possibly incoherent thoughts.  What do others think?

Eating Animals III: Chooks

Ok, I think we all already know this, deep down. But it's easiest to forget about it!

There are two types of chook (used in factory farming, I mean), broilers and layers.

1. What happens to male layers?
They are killed asap. There are many ways. On Jamie Oliver (I hear) there was a farm visit once. The farmer drafted the males and females, and the males he put in a container and they all dropped dead. Gas. Other ways:

• They are placed in a tube, fall through a series of pipes until they reach an electrified plate. Apparently this is the most common method (in the US at least)
• They are placed in a container without gas, and left to suffocate, those on the bottom first, and slowly, eventually, those further up. 
• They are sent through macerators (great word!) = a mulcher.

So almost half of all layers are killed asap after birth. Without such ridiculous selective breeding, the males could just be broilers right? But who wants to pay for a chook that takes a long time to reach maturity, eats a lot in the meantime, and then doesn't provide big fat thighs and breasts?

Oh, and they're de-beaked. This protects the farmers, and other chooks. With the treatment they get, a lot of chooks go a bit crazy, and even cannibalistic. So better to de-beak them eh?

2. Who raises chicks?

Obviously layers can't raise their own chicks, they must keep laying. And broilers are killed on about day 40 of their life. And anyway, raising one's own chicks is inefficient. 

Chicks are placed in the tens of thousands in big permanently light rooms (light encourages eating) with little warm lights spaced evenly about. They crowd around the heaters, because it's kind of like mum's warmth, and are fed drugs and food through a tube. The drugs I'll get to.

3. Then what?

Once they reach maturity, at about 18 weeks, layers are put in a dark barn (sometimes completely dark 24/7) and a very low protein (almost starvation) diet for 2-3 weeks. Then the lights are cranked up, 20 hours a day, and the diet is turned to high protein. And she'll immediately begin to lay. A layer will lay 300 eggs a year, which is 3X the number she does in nature. This is because of selective breeding and the unnatural manipulation outlined above. 

4. Battery and Free-Range (US - is Australia better? I don't know)

Whether battery or free-range, layers will tend to have about an A4 page of space to themselves. Broilers have more like a square foot. Free-range can mean a vast barren yard with the chooks packed in side-by-side. Literally it requires 'access to the outdoors', which if you use your imagination, and remember they're farmed in lots of several tens of thousands, could mean anything at all. 

Safran says 'I could keep a flock of hens under my sink and call them free-range'. 

5. Grotesque

Broilers are not fit for this world. If they're allowed to live beyond adolescence they lose the ability to walk, and they eventually die from their incredible growth rate. They have been selectively bred not for their own health, but for farming benefits, and this is appalling. 

It's good that they're killed at 40 days then right?

Well, the problem is that life sucks for those 40 days. By the time they reach day 40, they're all having trouble walking (and so presumably are in pain), and apparently a percentage of them can no longer walk or are having so much trouble that it's obvious they're in a significant amount of pain. They're drugged so as to avoid infections, because their living conditions are so cramped and disgusting. In fact, they're given antibiotics, daily.

If you go to the doctor, they will be hesitant to prescribe antibiotics unless you really need them. The reason, of course, is that bugs adapt to the drugs. Farm animals are given drugs when they're ostensibly healthy! This is a significant problem for the control of disease.

6. Death

Layers are killed at one year, because they stop producing eggs at such an alarming rate. There's probably a layer rescue program near you, where you can get your hands on a retired layer. 

Broilers are killed at 40 days for their meat. In the US, poorly paid (think illegal or fresh immigrants) scoop up the chooks 5 at a time by their legs and jam them into transport containers. 30% of these chooks arrive at the slaughterhouse with broken bones. The turnover for these workers is >100% per year, because the job is terrible and plays havoc on your body. If you do it for a lifetime you'll lose the adequate function of your hands, and you may need pain relief to sleep.

What happens at the slaughterhouse is for another day. 

The life of a chook is crap. We have absolutely no respect for life when it comes to these guys (well, girls mainly). This is all fuelled by our hip-pocket, and that's something I'm pretty ashamed of. Ally and I are not eating chicken at home any more, unless the animal is family-farm, transparently raised. But we can't afford that kind of chook, so I think that's it.

This is torture. I don't see what else it could be called. I'm no animal lover. I just believe we have a basic requirement of respect, and this is lacking... completely lacking.

Eating Animals II: The otherness of fish

When you catch a marlin, or any other heavy game fish, you use a huge metal hook (wolfram alpha disappointingly couldn't tell me the name of it) to lift the fish into the boat. How is it attached? You swing it hard into the fish's head, under their neck, through its eye. This is after reeling it in for a couple of hours till it has nearly died of exhaustion.

I've never caught a big fish, and i now realise I never can.

When you catch a little fish, you do something pretty similar. You stick a sharp metal spike in the fish's mouth, down it's throat, or sometimes on its body somewhere. You then do battle with it for 10s-10min+. It must be terrified. Surely this could be called torture? Once you've brought it in you should kill it straight away. If you put it alive in a net or a cool-box, it will slowly drown.

I've caught many little fish (probably 5-10 for every one I've kept and eaten, by the way, if part of your counter-argument includes 'we've gotta eat'). I'm not sure that I can do this any more either.

Safran emphasises the 'otherness' of fish. We don't care if fish suffer, because they live in a whole different world to us. They're very difficult to relate to. However, fish are intelligent, social animals, who most certainly feel pain.

I'll get to commercial fishing another day, but for now, I need to work out whether I can ever go fishing again. I think probably not.

Church

This is a quote from the book 'Radical' that I posted on about a week ago.  It's about what church is.

“ Children and the elderly, students and workers, men and women all joined together in a body that is united with other followers of Christ around the world in a practical strategy to make disciples and impact nations for the glory of Christ. A community of Christians each multiplying the gospel by going, baptizing, and teaching in the contexts where we live every day. Is anything else, according to the Bible, even considered a church?”

I'm a bit disillusioned with the way we do church at the moment.  It all seems pretty inadequate.  I don't mean that my own church is particularly terrible, I think that most churches aren't getting it right.  It seems to me that church is mostly a case of Christians getting together on a Sunday to meet, read the Bible, pray, hear the Word explained and sing a few songs.  At my church at the moment we have a goal to get all members into a small group where people meet together regularly to pray and wrestle with the Word.  This is all great stuff, but it's only a really small part of what church should be.  What's happened to churches that we have to have as a goal that Christians will meet together to encourage and build one another up?  If we can't find time to meet with our brothers and sisters outside of an hour on Sundays then we're too busy with other things and need to reconsider our priorities in this world.

I think that a local church aiming for these things (attendance at church and attendance at a small group) is aiming low.  Really, really low.   The church is a community.  More than that, the church is a family. We're a family that should be doing everything we can to grow and to bring others from outside, in the cold, inside into the warm.


But that's not how we behave.  We bicker and fight with one another.  We show that we don't want just anyone to join our community, we only want a select few who we deem worthy.  We rarely, if ever, tell people about Jesus.  There are individuals who care for and take part in the community around them, but collectively, as a church, we're devoid of participation in our communities.


I think that our churches should be, as David Platt puts it, 'A community of Christians each multiplying the gospel by going, baptising and teaching, in the contexts where we live every day.'  But they're not.  We're too institution focused.  I hear people asking questions like 'how can you serve your local church?'  This seems like a good question, but it's not.  Much more appropriate questions are 'how can you serve Jesus?' and 'how can you serve your brothers and sisters?' and 'how can you serve the unbelievers in your community?'  The local church is an institution and we don't serve institutions, we serve our God and each other.  If we insist on asking this question we should ask 'how are you serving in your local church?'


So I want to propose some things that I'll expand on in later posts.


1. Leaders are to blame and they're the ones who have to turn things around.
2. Churches should have less paid staff.
3. Evangelism is everybody's responsibility.
4. Christian involvement in the community is paramount.
5. Evangelism is not more important than active concern for the poor and provision of material and earthly needs.
6. Concern for the poor is not more important than evangelism.
7. Holiness matters.
8. All Christians should administer the sacraments.
9. Christians should work with Christians from other churches.
10. Church leaders should be less afraid of their parishioners working with Christians from outside their church.
11. Churches whose meetings are all about property and money are worldly and not nearly as concerned with the things of the kingdom as they should be.  They will most likely be ministry ineffective.

Eating Animals I: Why not eat dogs

I have started reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.

My delightful wife got it from the library for me. However I have recently been convinced that I should probably be buying books rather than borrowing them, so perhaps I should buy it.

Anyway, I'm a slow reader, I'm usually reading between five and ten books very very slowly at a time, and so I thought I might blog my way through this one.

Safran (from now on I'll call him this, apologies to the man if he prefers S-F) argues for eating dogs. What's the difference?, he points out. Pigs can show affection, fetch balls, and whatever else dogs can do. In fact, cows and even chooks are apparently just as capable as dogs (intelligent is the word we usually use, I suppose). He points out that many cultures around the world, and throughout history have eaten dogs. From an ecological point of view, hundreds of millions of dogs in the US are 'destroyed' each year, so it's just a waste not eating them. In fact, dealing with all that meat is a significant environmental concern. Much of it is processed and fed to livestock! Cut out that weird, wasteful, middle step, and just eat the dog meat yourself.

Why not?

I must say I was sold. We should be eating dogs, it's an ecological crime not to.

Of course, the dogs will keep coming up. I think it's largely for one reason: it's considered immoral, and in most cases is illegal, to treat dogs the way we treat farm animals. If you torture a dog, you can go to prison. If you permanently lock a dog in a dark room, confined to a cage not bigger than itself, I hope you can go to prison, but if not, I'm certain that nobody will like you. I could go on.

So why the double standard?

Reading this book has coincided with my being quite ill. I can't eat much, and I respond very badly to meat at times. I have been eating almost vegetarian (something we've been planning to do but never actually did for a couple of years now). So this book is particularly interesting at the moment, even though the illness is completely irrelevant. But if I become vegetarian for two simultaneous reasons, then I suppose it's twice as likely to stick?

Incidentally I should mention that I don't want to misrepresent Safran, and I apologise if I do, and at the beginning of the book he says this is not a book advocating vegetarianism...

Radical

At the end of last year I read a book by an American minister called 'Radical: Taking back your faith from the American dream'. 

It's short and easy to read.  It's written in accessible language and is pretty easy for anyone to read.

I was challenged by this book to consider how I'm living for God in this world.  Like 'Generous Justice' by Tim Keller and 'Crazy Love' by Francis Chan, I was challenged to think about whether my life is really just a sell out and whether or not my ideas are being defined by the Bible or my culture.

I think that the way I live my life is too defined by my culture.  My views on money, in particular, are prone to be very heavily influenced by the society in which I live as opposed to the God whom I serve.  I still think of my time, my family and my home as my own.  They're not. 


Too often, I think, we read the Bible as if it doesn't mean what it says.  We read what Jesus has to say and then we tell ourselves that that isn't what it means for us today, it's what it meant for them back then.  Or just one person back then.  But we call ourselves evangelicals, which by definition means that we take the Word seriously as our highest authority.

I'm trying to read the Bible through with fresh eyes and thinking 'What is Jesus says what he means and means what he says?'  It's pretty shocking and confronting.  Christianity isn't meant to be a whole lot of fun, nor is it easy.  But it is worth it.  In every way, a thousand times over.

I strongly encourage you to read 'Radical'.  It's challenging and inspiring and finishes with a challenge that is a good step into taking your faith seriously.

Education - Public vs Private

I am a teacher at Nowra Christian school.  It's a real life Christian school.  Last year our HSC results were the best in the Shoalhaven.  In publicising this fact our principal is being very careful to make sure that everyone knows that we aim for high results but that our priority is raising kids to love and serve Jesus.  From a marketing point of view this attitude is a disaster and it's largely why an Anglican College close by has so many more kids than us (they shamelessly flaunt results and minimise their Christianity).

Since my first daughter was born I've been thinking about what I want for her in a school.  I do want her to go to school.  I think that if all you want for your child is great results then home schooling is the way to go, but I want more than that for my daughters.  But what is that?

I often hear from Christians what a shame it is that Christian schools exist.  Some Christians I know are militantly against any independent school and some others think that they are just unnecessary.  Over this summer I met a Christian guy at the beach and when I told him where I worked, his immediate response was 'Oh, I don't agree with Christian schools.' He then went on to say that a public school was fine for him and that his kids all went to public schools and they're fine, so all kids should go to public schools.  This argument is ridiculous.  I hope that he actually had other reasons that he didn't share.

Often a big reason I hear against Christian schools is that by taking Christian kids out of public schools you take away the opportunity for them to evangelise to their non-Christian friends.  This argument has some validity.  The problem with it, though, is that we're imposing on our kids an expectation that they will do something that we don't do ourselves.  My experience of most Christian adults (myself included, I'm ashamed to say) is that really talking about Jesus to their friends is pretty rare.  So our kids have no model.  Although that's not exactly true.  They do have a model, it's one of being ashamed, apprehensive and quiet when it comes to proclaiming Jesus as Lord and calling others to repentance.  So one of my problems with this argument is that we are asking our kids to do something that we ourselves aren't willing to do.

My next problem with this argument is that we're feeding lambs to wolves.  If we are to say that we want our kids in public schools so that they can tell their friends about Jesus, how many of us are going into the school with them to help.  How many of us are in the classroom helping out with reading groups, helping on excursions, teaching scripture ourselves.  The answer is not very many.  Instead what tends to happen, I think, is that we send the kids to school and have very little idea of what's going on in the classroom.  This is ill advised in any school, but when your kids are under the direct instruction and influence of non Christians for the greatest part of their day, surely we want to be as involved as we can.  So if you argue that you want your kids to evangelise to others then what are you doing to help them, at home in your teaching of them, in the community in your modelling how to speak to peers about Jesus and in the school, helping them to tell their friends about Jesus?  I know that there are a few parents who do this, but they seem so few and far between as to make them almost invisible.

I know that if I send my daughters to the local public school that they will be well supported in that school community by my wife.  She models telling kids about Jesus to our daughters, she is already actively involved in the school telling kids about Jesus both in and out of school hours and she fosters relationships with peers so that they might consider how to know Jesus.  My eldest daughter sees all of this and is involved in it too. (My wife isn't perfect, she'd be the first to admit that, but it's undeniable that she works hard for Jesus)  Having said that, though, I also know that if I send my daughters to a public school that most of their friends will be non Christians, they will have mostly, if not all, non Christian teachers propagating morals, ethics and a world view which is totally opposed to our own.  Those teachers are a danger to my children as they want them to be more like them and I want them to be more like Jesus. They will hear only the most basic gospel presentations for 1 hour a week (if that).  They will be actively encouraged to consider all religions or no religion as possible truths.

If I send my daughters to my school then they will be able to pray in class and with their teachers.  They will hear from the Bible every day.  They will be encouraged to follow Jesus.  They will have some non Christian friends and mostly Christian friends.  Every one of their teachers will love and serve Jesus and will actively discourage them from seeking out other religions as possible truths.  On the down side, they may find it hard to make other meaningful friendships with kids in the community and might not have as many opportunities to present Jesus as saviour to people who don't trust him in their schooling years.  But they will be being prepared for ministry in school, being trained up to go out and serve.

I think that arguments for and against public and private education are often simplistic and unhelpful.  I would like to see Christians who are against Christian schooling really consider whether or not they are being fair and the same for Christians who are against public schooling (although I don't see that many of them, even working in a private school).

I'm interested to know other people's thoughts.

How western culture has defined Christian love; or How we're greedy, selfish and loveless

This post is a confession.  It's also a challenge; to myself and to others.  If you're a Christian and you read this and you disagree with it then please tell me.

I have a bent toward social justice.  It started a few years ago and has been increasing as I've considered whether or not Jesus could possibly be pleased with the way I live in and view the world.  I've also become increasingly frustrated with churches I attend as they seem to operate blind to the needs of the poor in this world. 

A few weeks ago I spoke to the congregations of my church about purchasing Fair Trade chocolate easter eggs.  The idea was that my wife would order eggs for people to use as their easter eggs and we would have them delivered to is and pass them on to those who ordered. 
To say that the congregation's response to the offer was disappointing would be an understatement.  2 people took up the offer without me badgering them later.

The reason I care about the response to the easter eggs has nothing to do with the fact that people didn't buy easter eggs from me.  Some people just don't buy easter eggs and that's fine.  It's the people who do buy them and will just go to the shops at easter time and get whatever they want who bother me.  Their choice shows no discernment or forethought.
The fact of the matter is that much of the chocolate available today is farmed by boys who have been either kidnapped or sold into slavery to work in another country.  The are treated poorly, they are not paid a wage and they are denied access to their families, to education, to health care and the things that we would call basic human rights. It's impossible to know what chocolate is made from slave farmed cocoa, but we know that most companies deliberately know nothing about where their beans come from so that they can maintain plausible deniability.  Since the market price of cocoa is so low, the only farmers who survive to make a iving are those who are willing to use slave labour and pay very low wages to their other workers.  This means, then, that most chocolate farmed is farmed by means which, if we saw them happening in Australia, we would stop them.  Fair Trade is not a perfect system, but it seeks to apply measures of accountability to the farmers they buy from whilst paying them a price for the beans that means they can reasonably meet the expectations (no slave labour, reasonable wages, no forced overtime, regular days off of work, etc.)
That workers are being treated poorly in this industry isn't something that has just come to light; we've known about it for a long time.  The question is, then, should Christians care?  And if they do, does buying chocolate that we can reasonably assume is the product of slave labour make us culpable?  Obviously my opinion is yes, we should care, and yes, participation comes with culpability.

James 5:1-5 seems pertinent here:
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

This passage should be written on the walls of every Australian Christian's house.  We are rich.  When we participate in a system that we know oppresses others, we become oppressors ourselves.  To say this displeases Jesus is putting it too weakly.  When James says woe to these rich oppressors, it's not a slap on the wrist, he's calling God's full wrath down on them.  When we participate in the purchase of chocolate, coffee, clothing, rugs, cotton, and whatever else comes at the cost of slaves and fair treatment of workers, and we have even the slightest inkling that the people who produced it may be being treated so, we ourselves become complicit in the act and we displease our God whose children are suffering for the sake of our wallets.


Another situation in my church recently also bothers me.  We have come into some money in our church and the Parish Council decided to put the money aside for a children's worker and a youth worker.  Some of it has also been given away to ministry to Aboriginal people in the Shoalhaven, which the Sydney diocese has seen fit not to fund any more.  Due to recent circumstances God has been gracious enough to provide us with people willing to oversee the children's ministry without being paid to do so.  We also already have faithful people working in these ministries to make sure that the kids in our community hear about and are invited to trust in Jesus.  So we don't need to continue looking for a children's worker.  So then, what do we do with the money that we had set aside for a worker?  We could use it for another worker to do something else, we could use it for building maintenance, we could save it, we could give it away, we could do any number of things with it.  Let's say, though, that the congregation decides to give it away (as unlikely as that is).  What should it go to?  What's best?  Here, in the culture of the Sydney Anglican Church, the answer seems obvious.  If you choose to give money away, you give it to the preaching of the gospel.  Any person's greatest need is to know Jesus, so until that need is met, all other needs are secondary.  This sounds good, and it's usually the option we go with.  It seems biblical to put eternal salvation ahead of worldly comfort, even if it means that some die sooner of preventable diseases.  And to an extent I agree.  Only I don't actually live like that.  No one does.  And it's not biblical.  So we have to stop reasoning like that.

The reason I say that none of us live like that is that in our own homes we don't give up the basic necessities of life for the sake of the gospel being preached.  Nor do we ask the rest of our families to, be they the family that lives in our house, or our extended family.  No, we provide for their needs first, and then far beyond their needs.  Then, usually, we take stock of what we have left and, maybe, give a little away.  But we have high expectations of that little we give away and don't want to see it wasted.  After all, it doesn't go that far.

Then, on a Sunday, we have the gall to call each other brothers and sisters in Christ.  We say that our Christan family is our most real family and the bond that binds us is stronger even than blood.   This is true, but we live as if it isn't.  We justify watching our brothers and sisters perish due to starvation by saying that the most important ministries are Word ministries and that the preaching of the gospel is paramount.  But this isn't how the early church operated.  They were so generous with each other that no one was in need.  Indeed, in the whole Roman empire the emperor Julian, wanting to eradicate Christianity spoke of the difficulty of doing so when Christians put everyone else to shame with their generosity by looking after their own poor and the Empire's poor.  When plagues ripped through Europe, it was regularly Christians who would say and care for the sick at great persona risk.  Sometimes bishops commanded their parishes to do so, and under strong, compassionate leadership they reduced the death toll considerably in some areas.  They didn't abandon the area so that more Christians could live to preach the gospel, they gave material aid at the cost of their lives and no one would dare say they did wrong.

Today about 30,000 people will die of starvation related illnesses.  None of them are in our blood families, and we are busy in church building new buildings, employing more people, sponsoring Christians to give up their jobs and go to preach in already Christian countries.  And yet lots of those suffering are in our family.  Our real, eternal family.  They share with us the same brother who gave up his life so that we might know him.  I know that I am part of the problem.  I'm greedy and selfish.  I give too little and keep too much.  I readily show that I love my wife and daughters and then I show that I am complacent toward my brothers and sisters in other countries who really need my help.

We need to understand that one day we have to meet Jesus face to face.  In Matthew 25 Jesus talks about the sorting of the sheep and the goats.  Those who lived compassionate lives are sheep and enter heaven.  Those who don't are goats and go to hell.  Either we believe Jesus that the mark of a true Christian is love, mercy and compassion, or we dismiss his words and call him a liar because we are saved by grace and we can do nothing to lose our assured position.

Then, after we've met Jesus we have to meet our brothers and sisters.  Our true brothers and sisters.  And I'd hate to think that I should have to embrace men and women as brothers and sisters who had suffered and died needlessly in this world and I had done nothing to help them.  We are the rich man in Lazarus and the rich man.  We have the word and we ignore it while Lazarus dies at our gate while we debate how to build better buildings, employ more people and facilitate more people giving up their jobs to go overseas and preach to the converted.

We can afford to give more.  Our churches can afford to give more.  I am extremely confident that of the money I put in the plate at church, not one cent of it goes to feeding the poor.  This is a travesty and it goes against everything that is suggested in the model of the early church.  This is a call, to myself above all, for communal generosity.  Our lord gave us everything he had.  He praised the woman who gave everything she had and saved nothing for herself.  We don't even get close to that, but want to be considered faithful.  We talk about God wanting us to enjoy good things as though the good things God's given us are money and stuff and not relationships and creation.  And when we say that we say that God doesn't want our poor brothers and sisters to enjoy good things, only us because we don't share what we get, we are too busy enjoying it.  We, as collective churches in Australia are greedy, selfish, loveless and faithless.

So what are we going to do about it?

Love

This post is a rant.

There are 2 things that I hear Christians say about love that really annoy me and I want to share them.

The first is that as Christians we are called to love each other but we don't have to like each other.  The last time I heard this was in a church meeting when I proposed that if we wanted to be a growing community we should first be a loving community.  This is a terrible idea (that we don't have to like each other, not that we should be a loving community).  I would hate to think that Jesus would ever say to me that 'although I love you and died for you, I really quite dislike you."  I don't know how we can say that we love people but don't like them and won't spend time with them.  That's not love.

The second thing that people say that seems to me to be fairly ill considered is that 'hate is not the opposite of love, indifference is.'  This is silly.  Of course the opposite of love is hate.  Love and indifference are certainly incompatible.  Indeed, indifference may well be an opposite of love (although I don't think it is).  But to say that hate is not the opposite of love is no true.

As far as I can tell love might be able to be defined as the activity of seeking good for the object of your love despite cost and consequences.  Jesus, when he looked upon his creation, had the attitude of 'If I can just have them then it will all be worth it.'  We are his treasure, the object of his love and he actively seeks our good by giving his own life so that we might have relationship with him.  Love is aggressive and active and selfless.

Hate, on the other hand, it seems to me, is actively seeking ill for someone.  Hate crimes, for instance, are born out of an emotion so strong that it causes you to act and do harm.  I dare say that we use the word hate more often than we should.

Indifference is passive and does no harm.  Although harm may come out of it as a secondary consequence at times, the indifference itself hurts no one.

Now I understand that when people say that the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference they are often trying to say that not loving people enough to bring them the gospel can lead to their harm, but that's no reason to get it wrong.

So...
When you love someone, you have to like them.
Hate and love are opposites.  Indifference toward others is a sin, but it's not the opposite of love.

Thoughts?

Prodigal God

I recently read a book by Tim Keller called Prodigal God.  It's only a short read, and is relatively easy to read.  It's written to be able to make sense to new Christians, and even non-Christians who are keen to try to understand what the gospel is all about, but it's also very relevant to other Christians as well.

In the book Keller contends that the main character of the story of the prodigal son is not the prodigal son at all, but rather the older son.  He highlights that the two sons, both the younger and the older are outside of relationship with the father, but the father reaches out to them both.  The younger son responds with humility and begs for his father's forgiveness, which the father freely gives, and not only forgiveness, but favour.  The older responds with bitterness and anger that what is now his is being spent on the reckless younger son whose sins have been grievous.

Keller proposes that the audience who is listening to Jesus tell the parable is an audience of older brothers, not younger brothers, and that it is the older brother who constitutes the main point as the story ends with him outside of the party, not yet having decied whether or not he will come in.  Jesus wants the Pharisees and teachers of the law who are listening to this to identify with the older brother and to decide whether or no tthey are going to come to the party.  God has come to them, in their time and place, to offer his grace. 

The story of the younger brother is marked by his leaving his life of disobedience and taking back his place in the family, which he did not earn or deserve, and was offered freely by the father.  The story of the older brother is marked by the cliffhanger of his unresolved rebellion from the father due to his perception of what he deserved and, indeed, what his brother deserved.

I found this book pretty challenging because I have a lot of older brother traits that I always need to take care to ensure don't turn me into the older brother sitting out in the cold.  I don't hate the institution of religion, I'm pretty conservative in my ideas, I don't have many flights of fancy.  I'm pretty content staying in the one place plodding along with my family, working hard in my job and my church.  This kind of lifestyle lends itself towards an attitude of entitlement and a feeling of superiority over those who display younger broter traits, who I tend to think are largely irresponsible. 

The simple fact of the matter is, though, that Jesus loves the younger brothers and the older brothers of this world and calls us all to repentance and to change to be more like Him and like He wants us to be.  By God's grace I (hope) I am becoming less like the younger brother and more like Jesus wants me to be. 

Prodigal God is a great book to buy, read and pass on to others.  It's challenging and thought provoking and, as always with Keller, it's pretty spot on.