This is a small rant about Australian Christians and their disconnection with their own history. It's a rant because so many assumptions are made on the basis of no information, and because how we see our history determines how we make decisions and live now. What we think of what happened form our 'blinkers' in the here and now. It's always good to know you are wearing blinkers and what they are.
But so many of us don't. We think...
1. That Australia has no Christian heritage to speak of, buying the very successful lie propagated by Manning Clark and others who have crafted Australian history to suit their secular or actively non-Christian agendas. The story of Australia is peppered with many people who were Christian and have a profound impact on the shaping of the nation. David Jones (of department store fame) was an active Christian, for example, and had an impact on society beyond merely economic stimulation. If you take the Christian data into account with the secular data, you bump into Christians all over the place, having an impact on all kinds of sectors in the development of Australia.
2. That Australian Christianity has never done anything. This is frankly ridiculous. If you have a society (as Australian society was in the early 19th Century), which is populated by a bunch of unmotivated, drunk, immoral people, you don't have a healthy society because nobody gives a damn about anyone else and there are no reliable structures which enable society to function well. The one group which consistently challenged this ethos were the Christians. If they hadn't challenged society and put their money where their mouth was and made changes to how society ran, lobbying Britain and sometimes just making changes, it is hard to see how Australia could have been healthy enough to start expanding and developing in the mid-19th century.
3. That Australian Christianity was so tied to the state that it lacked any possibility of impact on society. The only way you can run this argument is by ignoring people like Richard Johnson. Yes, he was a 'government employee' chosen by the Evangelical Anglicans in England. He was supposed to be paid, get a cow (for his family), a church and given various rights within the colony. He wasn't. He built his own house and church, grew his own crops, and got stones thrown at him as he walked down the street. One of the governors marched his soldiers out during his sermons each week. Why? Because he preached the gospel and spoke out against the immorality he saw damaging the people in early NSW. He also taught people how to read and thought Aboriginal people should be treated with dignity, even to the point of volunteering himself as a hostage in an early negotiation between the Aboriginal people and the English.
Sure there were other 'state employees' who did do a fairly dreadful job of preaching the Gospel and probably didn't even believe it. But to dismiss someone like Johnson (and later Marsden and others) is to deny evidence which refutes the conclusion that the state church hindered the work of the Gospel in the colony. Further, the absence of Johnson in the early colony would have rendered the colony without any Christian witness at all.
4. That there are no Australian heroes or heroines. Hopefully Johnson's example has already questioned this, but part of the problem with this is that we don't invest in Australian Church History. Our records are appalling. A basic introductory text on Australian Church History only stays in print for about 3 years and has a small run. Most of them are written by Anglo-Catholics or Liberals with a strong desire to negate evidence of Evangelical presence or impact in Australia. And primary source material has less hope of ever being published. So, we simply don't know very much about the missionaries on the goldfields, the bush preachers (inspired by Spurgeon), the men and women who started churches in the middle of nowhere, the ministers of some of the key denominations in some of the capital cities - the evidence for this is destroyed, lost, locked up in a library somewhere. Who knows what is really there? In America, it would be published. But we don't publish and buy what we don't value. And we don't value our Christian heritage because we refuse to believe it exists.
End of rant. It's hardly going to change anyone's mind, but it made me feel better.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Friday, 31 August 2007
Change
Change is weird.
It messes with your head in ways you don't expect. You get tired and can't work out why. You react in strange ways. Small extra changes throw you, so that you wind up depressed or anxious or listening to jazz.
There is rather a lot of change for us at the moment. There is also a very full schedule of goodbyes and packing and paperwork. The combination isn't too good, and I'm looking forward to getting on the plane in a little over two weeks and not having to do anything. I'm sure I'll be over it in after the first four hours, but the initial luxury of not needing to sort something out is attractive.
Tiny's arrival in about 16 weeks is the subject of even greater change, which while anticipated and joyous and so forth, is also substantial. I expect we'll just walk around like zombies for the next year till we get through it all. But we do the zombie walk really well, so everything will be fine!
It messes with your head in ways you don't expect. You get tired and can't work out why. You react in strange ways. Small extra changes throw you, so that you wind up depressed or anxious or listening to jazz.
There is rather a lot of change for us at the moment. There is also a very full schedule of goodbyes and packing and paperwork. The combination isn't too good, and I'm looking forward to getting on the plane in a little over two weeks and not having to do anything. I'm sure I'll be over it in after the first four hours, but the initial luxury of not needing to sort something out is attractive.
Tiny's arrival in about 16 weeks is the subject of even greater change, which while anticipated and joyous and so forth, is also substantial. I expect we'll just walk around like zombies for the next year till we get through it all. But we do the zombie walk really well, so everything will be fine!
Traditions
We have very few traditions. One of my favourites is the one where we eat pancakes with maple syrup and berries for Christmas breakfast before going off to church on Christmas morning.
There's another one which works really well, where we read to each other while we drive on long distances. We usually read Terry Prachett books, which lend themselves to being read out aloud and are easy to listen to while you drive (which is important because this full moon we're having is not bringing out the best driving skills in the general population). So, I ended up driving from Canberra yesterday while Levor read for the whole three and a half hours. He does the best voices! It was the good part of a really long day.
There's another one which works really well, where we read to each other while we drive on long distances. We usually read Terry Prachett books, which lend themselves to being read out aloud and are easy to listen to while you drive (which is important because this full moon we're having is not bringing out the best driving skills in the general population). So, I ended up driving from Canberra yesterday while Levor read for the whole three and a half hours. He does the best voices! It was the good part of a really long day.
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
O Pity and Indignation!
Note: The title is a rather scrumptious line from a Gerard Manly Hopkins poem and has nothing to do with the post
I've been thinking about pity this week. This was partly sparked by a lot of interactions with people whose lives look to me to be in tatters, and who are facing the consequences of choices they have made or are continuing to make. I know that they would scorn to change or to be seen to be 'wrong', and would be indignant at my thinking they could have made better choices. But I maintain my position: if they had done things differently, their lives could be better than they are. But at the same time, I feel tremendous pity for them, particularly some of them.
It makes a difference to how I treat them, I've noticed. I am far more generous towards them and think of things I might be able to do for them, compared to other people. I don't honestly think I can 'make up' for what they have done to their lives, but I am sad that these are the lives they have to live out. I can't change their minds or their choices, but I would like to make something better for them.
I continued thinking about this through the week as I stumbled across Mark 5 again, a series of miracles Jesus performs for three powerless people in Palestine. "Deserving" is really not a category Jesus uses much in his ministry. It seems that often his actions are prompted by the immediate circumstances in which he sees people, and often the narrative offers "moved with compassion" as the reason for his actions. In fact, you could really see the entirety of Jesus' actions and words in life and death as an outworking of this 'compassion'.
I think we often think of compassion as weak or sentimental, but it doesn't look like either in Jesus' words or acts. It looks strong and commanding. He will give compassion full flight and change the course of his teaching (ch 2) or his actions (ch 5), even where there is a cost to that. Having complete wisdom to follow God's will in all things is of considerable benefit here!
But I do think it has implications for us as we imitate Christ in our limited way. It frees us up to be compassionate without being manipulated. It means that 'duty' and our responsibilities can be hamstrung for the needs of someone, which cry out to us and move us. We can give things up for people, with no expectation that they will be changed by them, but because we care. We don't always have to be strategic. We don't have to be 'non-emotional' as though this trumps logic or is in opposition to it. Our compassion can drive us into the field of good deeds prepared for us in advance in Christ Jesus.
I've been thinking about pity this week. This was partly sparked by a lot of interactions with people whose lives look to me to be in tatters, and who are facing the consequences of choices they have made or are continuing to make. I know that they would scorn to change or to be seen to be 'wrong', and would be indignant at my thinking they could have made better choices. But I maintain my position: if they had done things differently, their lives could be better than they are. But at the same time, I feel tremendous pity for them, particularly some of them.
It makes a difference to how I treat them, I've noticed. I am far more generous towards them and think of things I might be able to do for them, compared to other people. I don't honestly think I can 'make up' for what they have done to their lives, but I am sad that these are the lives they have to live out. I can't change their minds or their choices, but I would like to make something better for them.
I continued thinking about this through the week as I stumbled across Mark 5 again, a series of miracles Jesus performs for three powerless people in Palestine. "Deserving" is really not a category Jesus uses much in his ministry. It seems that often his actions are prompted by the immediate circumstances in which he sees people, and often the narrative offers "moved with compassion" as the reason for his actions. In fact, you could really see the entirety of Jesus' actions and words in life and death as an outworking of this 'compassion'.
I think we often think of compassion as weak or sentimental, but it doesn't look like either in Jesus' words or acts. It looks strong and commanding. He will give compassion full flight and change the course of his teaching (ch 2) or his actions (ch 5), even where there is a cost to that. Having complete wisdom to follow God's will in all things is of considerable benefit here!
But I do think it has implications for us as we imitate Christ in our limited way. It frees us up to be compassionate without being manipulated. It means that 'duty' and our responsibilities can be hamstrung for the needs of someone, which cry out to us and move us. We can give things up for people, with no expectation that they will be changed by them, but because we care. We don't always have to be strategic. We don't have to be 'non-emotional' as though this trumps logic or is in opposition to it. Our compassion can drive us into the field of good deeds prepared for us in advance in Christ Jesus.
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Our House
In a timely answer to prayer, we were offered accomodation at Oxford last week. We'll be living in 'Summertown House' on Banbury Road - all very English and quite charming!
Here are pictures. Small but enclosed, which is good for keeping out the snow (not to be taken for granted) and close to both Wycliffe Hall and Oxford. Tiny (21 weeks old today) will even get to have his own room. (What we will do with the two single beds I'm not sure). We're grateful that our address is settled. It makes leaving easier, and may even mean I can negotiate the NHS and book into a hospital. (Though the way English bureauracy works I hold out little hope for accomplishing this!)
A bit over five weeks till we leave. Wow.
Here are pictures. Small but enclosed, which is good for keeping out the snow (not to be taken for granted) and close to both Wycliffe Hall and Oxford. Tiny (21 weeks old today) will even get to have his own room. (What we will do with the two single beds I'm not sure). We're grateful that our address is settled. It makes leaving easier, and may even mean I can negotiate the NHS and book into a hospital. (Though the way English bureauracy works I hold out little hope for accomplishing this!)
A bit over five weeks till we leave. Wow.
Tuesday, 7 August 2007
Faith
Levor has just finished preaching through a series on 'Faith'at College. I guess you would call it a series, though the first sermon was on Genesis 15, then Romans 4 and today's was just on 'faith'. The first two were exegetical; today's was topical. I think it was a very good series for a number of reasons:
1. It was good to stop and think about faith. It's easy to come up with different definitions which capture elements of faith, but which don't cover the complexity. So, 'believing God's promises' leaves out the fact that when we have faith in God we genuinely engage with God; it isn't just a cognitive exercise. It was good to realise the insufficiencies of most of my definitions and hopefully to do more justice to faith whenever I speak about it.
2. Being reminded about the central place of faith, while being reminded that the fact that faith is central actually makes God central was great. Faith isn't an end in itself, but a look of desperation at one's own resources which calls out of us a cry to God. I guess in that sense faith is foundational for prayer. Not that faith makes God do things, but that prayer is the practical outworking of seeing oneself clearly and knowing the need for God.
3. I really enjoyed the insight that unbelief is not just a mere rejection of 'facts about God', or God's promises, etc. But unbelief is also a rejection of the goodness of what God promises. So when we have faith in God, we both believe God, and also see great value in what he is giving us or promising us (like the guy who sold his stuff to get the pearl of great price).
4. Faith is Christ-shaped. It pivots around the work and promises of Christ, and is based on union with him. So Christian faith is unique, because it is intimately related to Christ and his death for our sins, and for all he gives us when we trust him.
There is more I haven't captured, and this is mostly from this morning's sermon, which rounded out the exegetical sermons nicely and was uniquely Levorian. I really enjoyed the series, and I think it was well worth doing.
1. It was good to stop and think about faith. It's easy to come up with different definitions which capture elements of faith, but which don't cover the complexity. So, 'believing God's promises' leaves out the fact that when we have faith in God we genuinely engage with God; it isn't just a cognitive exercise. It was good to realise the insufficiencies of most of my definitions and hopefully to do more justice to faith whenever I speak about it.
2. Being reminded about the central place of faith, while being reminded that the fact that faith is central actually makes God central was great. Faith isn't an end in itself, but a look of desperation at one's own resources which calls out of us a cry to God. I guess in that sense faith is foundational for prayer. Not that faith makes God do things, but that prayer is the practical outworking of seeing oneself clearly and knowing the need for God.
3. I really enjoyed the insight that unbelief is not just a mere rejection of 'facts about God', or God's promises, etc. But unbelief is also a rejection of the goodness of what God promises. So when we have faith in God, we both believe God, and also see great value in what he is giving us or promising us (like the guy who sold his stuff to get the pearl of great price).
4. Faith is Christ-shaped. It pivots around the work and promises of Christ, and is based on union with him. So Christian faith is unique, because it is intimately related to Christ and his death for our sins, and for all he gives us when we trust him.
There is more I haven't captured, and this is mostly from this morning's sermon, which rounded out the exegetical sermons nicely and was uniquely Levorian. I really enjoyed the series, and I think it was well worth doing.
Tuesday, 24 July 2007
Oops
Such a long silent time. Will it ever end?
The essay has been handed in (a whole month ago now). We have visas (only for a year); we have plane tickets. Our boxes have been shipped. The MAC Conference is over. We didn't make it to Brisbane but were sick for two weeks instead. We had 3 days holiday, during which we discovered that Levor is exhausted. We have plane tickets to Brisbane for a weekend in August. Levor did a mountain of marking. These activities have gobbled all our time over the last month.
Still to do... lots of admin type things so we can leave the country. An immense amount of catching up with people before we leave. A women's retreat this weekend (at which I am speaking three times). A lot of emails to respond to. Trips to Brisbane, Canberra and possibly Melbourne to sort out. Another women's retreat in August to plan and sort out sermons. Organising, packing and storing our stuff. And Levor has more marking.
I thought the time after the essay would be relatively relaxed. I am officially delusional.
The essay has been handed in (a whole month ago now). We have visas (only for a year); we have plane tickets. Our boxes have been shipped. The MAC Conference is over. We didn't make it to Brisbane but were sick for two weeks instead. We had 3 days holiday, during which we discovered that Levor is exhausted. We have plane tickets to Brisbane for a weekend in August. Levor did a mountain of marking. These activities have gobbled all our time over the last month.
Still to do... lots of admin type things so we can leave the country. An immense amount of catching up with people before we leave. A women's retreat this weekend (at which I am speaking three times). A lot of emails to respond to. Trips to Brisbane, Canberra and possibly Melbourne to sort out. Another women's retreat in August to plan and sort out sermons. Organising, packing and storing our stuff. And Levor has more marking.
I thought the time after the essay would be relatively relaxed. I am officially delusional.
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