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?