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.

Vocation

I've been thinking a bit lately about remunerative work and what is honouring to God.  It seems to me that there are a few areas in which Christians working is taboo, and the rest is fair game.  We seem to be ok with separating our Christianity from our vocation and I'm not sure that I'm ok with this. 

My thinking on this issue is quite immature and my ideas are not yet fully formed, so I would really appreciate comments from people telling me what you think.

1. I think that what you do matters.  Some careers have the opportunity to honour God, some don't.  We must choose one that does.
2. Why you do it matters.  I'm a teacher, so it's easy for me to be self justified about what I do.  I teach kids in a Christian school and try to incorporate Christianity into what I do however I can. But why I do it is as important as what I do.  I recently got a promotion at my school.  I get paid more, get more time off of class and have some extra authority.  If any or all of those things are the reason I do it then it's all for nought.  I didn't get into my career for the right reasons, but I intend to stay in it for the right reasons so that I might honour my God in my work.
3. Who you work for matters.  If you work for a corporation, business or group that is in the business of hurting people then you are a party to their corruption, greed or whatever.  Some companies are just plain evil and if you help them to do what thy do, no matter how trivial, then that brings no honour to Christ.  If you're not sure about your company then find out.  The old adage that we need Christians in all types of careers and workplaces seems pretty weak to me.  We need Christians to do work that honours Christ.  Period.  Secular vocation can do that, but we need to be careful.
4. Money is only moderately important.  It's so tempting to seek out the best paying job we can get.  We need to be able to make enough money to support ourselves and our families.  Beyond that, the money, really, should be largely irrelevant.  I struggle with this idea because money is so tempting.  But if we really believe that our treasure is in heaven then we will see it this way.

So I guess I should put it on the line and give a few examples...

Take accounting, for example.  It seems to me that lots of accounting work is really seeking to help greedy people have more.  That's not ok.  There are also lots of accounting jobs that help manage money for great groups and causes.  They usually pay less and are not at all glamorous.  But you can make a living off of them. 

If you work in a job that pays pretty well but takes up loads of time so that you have little or no time to pursue ministries then who are you serving?  It's no good having all these skills to make money for a company and yourself if you spend little time actually following Jesus and looking out for and loving others. 

Jobs are a great opportunity for us to meet people to love and tell about Jesus and a great place to learn skills to serve our world.  I think, though, that we should be careful with what we do, why we do it and who we do it for.

What do you think?

Basic Comprehension

Given that the name of this blog is Basic Comprehension, I wanted to share some things about what I've been thinking in my reading of the Bible lately.

I've been spending quite a lot of time reading and thinking about the gospels, in particular Luke's Gospel, which I really like and think is understudied by most churches, usually in favour of Mark and John.  I've also been reading and listening to quite a bit of stuff by Francis Chan.  Francis is not your conventional evangelical expositor.  He would not make a very good Sydney Anglican minister and he is welcomed in lots of circles that don't really get along with each other.  This surprises me, because the things he says are pretty tough. 

One of the things he does that I have been really challenged by is wonder whether Jesus meant what he said and said what he meant.  Jesus said some pretty crazily challenging stuff and Francis dares to think that he meant it pretty much as he said it.  To often I hear Jesus' words reduced to ideas where what he meant was... and the message of what he meant is quite different to what he actually said. 

The classic example is the rich young ruler in Luke 18 who comes to Jesus and asks him what he must do to inhert eternal life.  He obeys the law and seems to love God.  But when Jesus tells him to sell all he has, give it to the poor and follow Him, the man goes away sad because he loves his money too much for that.  Whenever I hear a sermon or explanation of this, the explanation seems to begin with 'Now, Jesus isn't telling us to sell ll we have and give it to the poor.  What the message really is..." and so we reduce it to a vague idea of the pursuit of God over money and feel good about continuing on living our lives as we are. 

As I've been reading through the gospels and wondering what Jesus realy wants of us when he says "Follow Me", I'm thinking more and more that he does ask some people to sell all they have and give it to the poor.  I need to be willing to be one of those people if it's asked of me.  (How you know you're one of those people is a different discussion)

I'm trying to read the gospels, especially, more and more with an attitude of 'What if Jesus means what he says and says what he means?  What would that look like in my life, and how is that different to how I live now?"  Or, if I think he doesn't mean what he says literally, why not, and am I just kidding myself so I can continue to live in sin?

Christmas

This post is a little late, I started it a while ago, and have been too lazy to finish it up until now.

I am often told that I am a bit of a grinch at Christmas time, but I don't think that it's true.  I really do like Christmas.  I think that it's a great time of year.  People are generally willing to think of others, which is nice and lots of people give away extra money in the form of gift cards for others in poor countries, which I really like as well.

I do have a few problems with the way that we do Christmas, though. 

The more that I think about it, the more I have a problem with Christians taking part in the idea of Santa Claus.  It's not the idea of lying to kids about an imaginary gif giver who breaks into your house to give stuff to kids that I hate so much (although there seems little to like about it), it's the very person of Santa that I have a problem with.

Santa has no investment in anyone's life, except as a checker of naughty and nice and a gift giver once a year.  Even the focus on naughty and nice has gone by the wayside in our culture.  He used to be a cautionary tale, where he was used to try to get kids to behave.  Now he's just this guy who comes once a year to give presents and we give kids a sense of entitlement to having him come and give them something.

We say that Christmas is about remembering the Son being born to reestablish us into relationship with the Father.  The gift of the son is a gift of renewed relationship.  Santa can't bring gifts of renewed relationships because by definition he can only bring stuff.  Stuff we don't need and stuff which, quite frankly, distracts us and our kids from remembering Jesus and the relationship he brings.

The other problem I have with Santa is that it takes only a small amount of thought to recognise that he neglects the poor.  Even in movies they often have to address this where Santa has not given presents to some poor kid, because we all know that there are plenty of kids who don't get presents from him.  But he always looks good in the end because this is the year that they get something.  How ridiculous.

I love Christmas because we can remember that Jesus came to earth to live and die to repair our relationship with God.  Maybe at Christmas time this year we can give each other presents that improve our relationships with each other, like time and experiences that bond us together, so that when we compare them to the gift that God gave we are in less danger of being struck by lightning.  Because I feel pretty uncomfortable comparing the gift of Jesus to a bike.