Worthy of Worship

"If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence—that God would not be worthy of worship…. The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only it comes from God… My thesis that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many… in the West…. [But] it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human non-violence [results from the belief in] God’s refusal to judge. In a sun-scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die… [with] other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind." - Miroslav Volf

What Australian Politics Looks Like

Make sure you turn the translator on...

My Country, Your Country

As we approach the first anniversary of Peter Adam's Australia: Whose Land? lecture, Alison has coincidentally finished her three part series: My Country, Your Country. It's worth checking out, particulary for the final post in the series. Here's an excert:

One quote made me stop in my tracks. It was a woman talking about how she had never really understood who she was because she had never been able to be with her own family in their own place. I wanted to be sick on the spot. Only fifteen minutes beforehand, I had been lost in my own memories of family, and the place that my family felt it belonged to. At what cost were these memories created!? Which Aborignal people were removed from Ebeneezer so that white people could farm? Which indigenous families were torn apart so that I could grow up safely with my own?

Under John Howard, people said that the stolen generation was not this generation's fault. Maybe that is true. I personally can't take any direct responsiblity for destoying countless Aborignal families.

But I was blind to the way that I personally have benefitted from the pain that many many others have suffered. That afternoon at Reconciliation Place, I realised. I am truly sorry.

You'll find the series here:

1. Thought 1
2. Thought 2
3. Hard Hitting Thoughts
   

Feast of the Transfiguration

Guest Post: Getting Social Policy Back on the Election Agenda

By Alison Moffitt. Also available here.

The Policy Unit released a report yesterday that is getting tons of coverage, which is very exciting for us. Nothing like a political media release in the middle of an election campaign. Unfortunately the kinds of issues it raises are not issues that the pollies are engaging with this time around. None of them have talked extensively about social policy or looking after marginalised, until Julia Gillard's announcement today about a new disability insurance scheme.

The report we released focused on three groups in society who are particularly vulnerable:

• people who access Emergency Relief (food, clothing, bills assistance etc);
• African refugees, many of whom struggle to settle because of housing problems; and
• ageing parent carers, that is, older people who are looking after adult children with disabilities. Many of these parents are ageing and developing their own health issues, which makes their caring responsibilities even harder.

So many outlets have run with the story. It's been rad. The best two I have seen so far are:

1. This article from the Sydney Morning Herald (If you don't read anything else, make sure you read this one.)
2. The news story put together by ABC TV, which aired at midday today and hopefully will be on air on tonight's news too. (My colleagues and I are in it!)

Other places to pick up the story include Channel 7, 2UE radio, ABC radio and Sydney Anglican Media.

If you can, please check out the report. These are very important issues to think about, especially if you live in Australia. You can find it here. There is a link to download the report at the bottom of the page.

How to Listen to the World

H/T Byron.

A Regional Refugee Processing Centre in...?

For the past fortnight public discourse in Australia has been dominated by the location of a potential regional processing centre for refugees. The Federal Government proposed Timor-Leste as their preferred location (a somewhat surprising move, least of all to the Timorese Government); the Opposition has promoted Nauru, home of the Howard Government's Pacific Solution.

But I would like to propose a third location for a regional processing centre: Canberra.

As one of the G20 nations, Australia is uniquely placed within our region to host a facility like this, much more so than either Timor-Leste or Nauru. Canberra is also an attractive location because of the Federal Government's executive power in the ACT.

Building a regional processing centre in Canberra would make an excellent contribution to other Government policies. Particularly what I have in mind is the Nation Building program that is currently underway. Canberra's refugee centre would clearly fulfill the goal of the economic stimulus plan: boost local infrastructure and support jobs. This is a win for Australia and the Federal Government. By building in Canberra, we would be supporting the local economy and saving "Aussie jobs" from being moved overseas.

And as a temporary site until the centre is constructed, the Government could use The Lodge. I've heard that's going to be empty until after the next election...

Death in America

According to Stanley Hauerwas, Protestantism in America is dying. Uniquely, America is the "exemplification of constructive Protestant social thought"; the first country where Protestantism did not need to define itself against Roman Catholicism. Bonhoeffer described this as "Protestantism without Reformation."

Which is why Hauerwas believes we are now witnessing the death of American Protestantism. Protestantism has been closely linked to the American national identity, "For Americans, faith in God is indistinguishable from loyalty to their country." This has project has been very successful - too successful according to Hauerwas, so that it is dying of it's own success.

"More Americans may go to church than their counterparts in Europe, but the churches to which they go do little to challenge the secular presumptions that form their lives or the lives of the churches to which they go. For the church is assumed to exist to reinforce the presumption that those that go to church have done so freely. The church's primary function, therefore, is to legitimate and sustain the presumption that America represents what all people would want to be if they had the benefit of American education and money...It is impossible to avoid the fact that American Christianity is far less than it should have been just to the extent that the church has failed to make clear that America's god is not the God that Christians worship. We are now facing the end of Protestantism. America's god is dying. Hopefully, that will leave the church in America in a position where it has nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, all you have left is the truth. So I am hopeful that God may yet make the church faithful - even in America." - Stanley Hauerwas, The Death of America's God

Hauerwas is very pessimistic about the affect of American synthesis between evangelical Protestantism, republican political ideology and commonsense moral reasoning. I'm not sure if this is what will come to pass, but there would be ramifications not only for American Christians, but for the church universal. America has been a powerhouse for Christianity for several decades now. Most missionaries around the world come from the US. Many resources (academic and popular) are produced in the US. Would a demise in American Christianity adversly affect world wide Christianity? Or would it provide the church in the Global South with the opportunity to step-up, and as Hauerwas hopes, grow the American church in faithfulness?

Thoughts?

Where did this rank Australia amongst the world's nations taking in refugees?

Here is an extract from Clarke and Dawe 's take on asylum seekers. You can read the transcript or watch it here.

BRYAN DAWE: Well we might leave that one and move on I think. What percentage of the world's asylum seekers applications were made last year to Australia?

JOHN CLARKE: 98 per cent.

BRYAN DAWE: No that is incorrect.

JOHN CLARKE: 87 per cent?

BRYAN DAWE: No it was 0.5 of one per cent, Iggy.

JOHN CLARKE: Gee

BRYAN DAWE: Where did this rank Australia amongst the world's nations taking in refugees?

JOHN CLARKE: First!

BRYAN DAWE: No, think about this Iggy, half of one per cent of the applications made in the world were made in applications to come Australia. So where did that rank us amongst world nations?

JOHN CLARKE: Yeah, Second!

BRYAN DAWE: No, 33rd

JOHN CLARKE: Oh well a lot of countries are richer, you know, the rich countries can take lots of migrants.

BRYAN DAWE: No, no, Iggy if you take the GDP into account we're actually 70th. OK, what percentage of Australia's immigrants come by boat?


JOHN CLARKE: Oh about 98 per cent

BRYAN DAWE: No, down a bit

JOHN CLARKE: 83 per cent

BRYAN DAWE: Down a fair bit.

JOHN CLARKE: 66 per cent.

BRYAN DAWE: No down from 2 per cent

JOHN CLARKE: About 50 per cent.

BRYAN DAWE: No. I think this next question could help you Iggy. How do most people who emigrate to Australia arrive?

JOHN CLARKE: Oh they come in boats, sort of really small boats with a quite a high front.

BRYAN DAWE: No, the vast majority arrive by plane.

JOHN CLARKE: No they don't they come in boats I've seen them on television they're in little boats with quite a high front, they're sort of low in the water.

BRYAN DAWE: Hey Iggy have you ever seen an aeroplane on television?

JOHN CLARKE: Well, yeah I've been on an aeroplane.

BRYAN DAWE: And when was that Iggy?

JOHN CLARKE: When I came to Australia.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct!

JOHN CLARKE: Oh good I've got one right.

BRYAN DAWE: Which group has the highest rate of success in establishing that they are genuine immigrants: the ones who come on planes or the ones who come in boats?

JOHN CLARKE: The ones who come in planes.

BRYAN DAWE: No the ones who come here on boats.

JOHN CLARKE: Oh do they? I did well then.

BRYAN DAWE: You did very well. Final question Iggy. What's the point of moving the big processing centre for the boatpeople from Christmas Island to East Timor?

JOHN CLARKE: I've got no idea.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct and after that round you are still living in a country which was invaded in the first place and in which you've overstayed your visa.

JOHN CLARKE: Yeah well we won't be having any more of that will we?

BRYAN DAWE: No.

JOHN CLARKE: Not now I'm here.

H/T Byron Pictures: (1) From the ABC 7.30 report website; (2) www.syndesmos.net

On Scarcity and Generosity

"Greed presumes and perpetuates a world of scarcity and want - a world in which there is never "enough." But a world shaped by scarcity is a world that cannot trust that God has given all that we need. Greed, in other words, prohibits faith. But the inverse is also true. For it is in the Christian celebration of the Eucharist that we have the prismatic act that makes possible our recognition that God has given us everything we need. The Eucharist not only is the proclamation of abundance, but it is the enactment of abundance. In the Eucharist we discover that we cannot use Christ up. In the Eucharist we discover that the more the body and blood of Christ is shared, the more there is to be shared. The Eucharist, therefore, is the way the Christian Church learns to understand why generosity rather than greed can and must shape our economic relations." - Stanley Hauerwas, Can Greed Be Good? from the newly launched ABC religion website.

On the Need for Science to be Human

"Science needs to remain human in that sense, to be self-aware of itself as human science, aware of incompleteness, aware of the joy of non-fulfilment. And at that level at least, science is bound to be operating with an image of humanity itself as a life form attuned to truth and to growth. Metaphysics, perhaps, or even worse, faith; and yet it is hard to see how the real life of the scientific enterprise can be sustained without that image of what is properly and joyfully and fulfillingly human. Recognised or not, the resonance of this with the life of faith is worth noting. Faith, our Christian faith, presupposes that we are indeed as human beings attuned to truth and to growth, made by a God whose love has designed us for joy, and discovering that this directedness towards joy mysteriously comes alive when we look into the living truth, the living wisdom, of the face of a Christ who drives us back again and again to question ourselves so that we stay alive."

- Rowan Williams, A Homily for the 350th Anniversary of the Royal Society.

Philosophy Readings?

My friend Tim Smartt is running a seminar at AnCon on Christianity and Philosophy.

He's looking for recommendations on what to read for the seminar.

I think you should head over to his impressive blog - insane angels - and make a recommendation.

IFES and Evangelicalism

Several church history books I've read recently have commented on the remarkable resilience of the worldwide evangelical movement. The notice that evangelicalism was particularly strong following World War Two, but was predicted to die out by the 1980's with the rise of western/liberal culture. Instead, evangelicalism seems to have grown and strengthened. The historical commentators usually give several reasons for this, but one that is often overlooked is IFES, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.

IFES is the global association of national movements which in turn are constituted by groups like the EU. IFES was formed by 10 national movements in 1947; it now has more than 150 national members. According to Billy Graham:

"Everywhere I go I meet Christian leaders whose lives have been touched by IFES' emphasis on biblical evangelism and discipleship.”

I've been preparing a prayer meeting for IFES at AnCon. The more I've read about IFES, the more I've realised that they have a strong claim for a growing and influential evangelical movement. There are over 500,000 students connected to IFES groups. According to the 2008 IFES Annual Report:

World Vision estimates that up to 90% of their leaders worldwide have been formed through an IFES affiliated movement. In some countries in French speaking Africa, for example, up to 80% of church leaders say the same.

If you want to know more about IFES, I recommend you read the short and accessible book by Lindsay Brown, Shining Like Stars.

A Letter to Kevin

Dear Kevin,

It was a surreal experience to watch you in tears on television today. It reminded of a day in '91, when another Labor PM cried at press conference having being ousted by his party.

You came to my attention a few months before you toppled 'Bomber' Beazley when you wrote about Faith in Politics. You lauded Dietrich Bonhoeffer for resisting totalitarian power and offered a vision of Australia that matched his integrity:

'The time has well and truly come for a vision for Australia not limited by the narrowest of definitions of our national self-interest. Instead, we need to be guided by a new principle that encompasses not only what Australia can do for itself, but also what Australia can do for the world.'

Little did we know that you would soon be in a position to make Australia the light on a hill you dreamed it should be. I was in Parliament House the day you became the Opposition Leader, and started you meteoric rise to power. Your high numbers in the polls was matched by the higher moral authority you took in the campaign, annihilating The Coalition.

Your election on my 23rd birthday seemed to offer Australia a fresh start, as we emerged from several long years under the Howard Government. Kevin07 very quickly turned into Kevin 24/7, as your punishing workload delivered: an apology to the stolen generation; ratifying Kyoto; workplace reform; a briefly more humane response to refugees; leading the nation through the GFC; attempted tax and health reform; an 'education revolution'; withdrawing troops from Iraq; social inclusion; an increased regard in the community of nations...all in two and a half years.

But it all started to unravel when your rhetoric - well actually when your rhetoric became incomprehensible and bore no resemblance to the visionary oratory of 2007. Your government backed down on core election promises like climate change and refugees and that new federalism you once promised. You had seemed so unassailable, but with a rabid new leader on the other side of the treasury benches the polls turned against you. And so did your party. Out-flanked by the factions you had banished on your accession to the top-job, your were whacked by your deputy and a fellow Nambour boy; a wasted PM.

It happened very suddenly didn't it? I'm sure you feel it was sudden. How is it that the outrage over 1975 hasn't prevented the backroom party hacks from removing the elected PM?

So it is that I sit here tonight with a familiar melancholy feeling looking over a letter a received when I was seven. I hope you too enjoy spending more time with your family.

Sincerely,

Matt

Resurrection and Science

"By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it..." Rev. 21.24

I studied an Arts degree at Sydney Uni. To be more precise, I majored in Ancient and Modern History. So, as I'm back at uni now serving alongside the postgrad/staff faculty of the SUEU, I don't pretend to know much of what the science guys I meet with are saying when they start talking physics. An I'm often annoyed and frustrated by the arrogant, modernist faith placed in scientific knowledge and achievement. It's a mean metanarrative right?

However, a fascinating thought was explained for me tonight as a talked to a friend. Is the resurrection's affirmation of creation (c.f. Oliver O'Donovan's Resurrection and Moral Order) also an affirmation of scientific inquiry into creation? My friend has written a 2000 word paper on this topic, which I'm yet to read, but if anyone else has thought more seriously about this than I have, I'd love to hear what you think. Especially if there are any scientists out there.