Random Murmurings

That story

Stephen Garner's comment drove me to do some exploring - first via the net, then on my own bookshelves (ah, the inexpressible joy of having ALL my books out of boxes and on shelves!!!). The story referred to in my last post is by Harry Harrison and is titled, "The Streets of Ashkelon" (1961). The hero is an athiest Trader, John Garth, dismayed when a Catholic priest is delivered to the world on which he lives, a world populated by uniformly well-behaved beings who have never been 'lured' by any form of superstition and as a result are "happier and sane because of it." However the priest stays and following much discussion and reading of the Bible, the beings decide that they would like to believe, but need the help of a miracle - the kind of miracle which brings a whole world to belief. And so in eager anticipation they crucify the priest and bury him (having bound the Trader so he would not interfere), waiting for the miracle of resurrection to take place. Afterwards, Itin, a questioning alien asks the Trader whether they had done the right thing - whether the priest would be raised, to which the Trader answers negatively.

"Then we will not be saved? We will not become pure?" [asks Itin]

"You were pure," Garth said, in a voice somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "That's the horrible, ugly, dirty part of it. You were pure. Now you are..."

"Murderers," Itin said, and the water ran down from his lowered head and streamed away into the darkness.

God could have created aliens too: Vatican

The search for extraterrestrial life does not contradict belief in God, the pope's chief astronomer said on Tuesday, adding that some aliens might even be innocent of the original sin. [From God could have created aliens too: Vatican]

How bizzare. Wasn't there a Sci-fi story about just this issue? IIRC it's about a priest who ends up being crucified by the aliens who expect him to be resurrected and discover their sin when he hangs there dead?

Values 2

A few more values that have come to me (mostly while in the shower) over the last couple of days.

7. Journeying together. There's so many important allusions in this phrase. The idea of journey immediately says that we're not 'there'. Epistemic humility. A sense of movement. Journeying together implies mutuality and equality. It seems to speak of questioning together rather than telling someone else 'the answer' which I have (and have entirely correctly).

8. Following God in the Way of Jesus. This phrase which Emergent types seem to use highlights the Christian character of the Way, but also its praxis orientation. It also seems to leave open the possibility that others may (genuinely) be following God in other ways - a notion that I am quite comfortable with.

Institutions 2

In a comment on my recent post about Institutions, I said that for me there was an important balance in being part of the institution but never feeling wholly comfortable as part of the institution. So I was interested to read Pete Rollins saying what seems like a similar thing in the Introduction of his new book, "The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief" (Peter Rollins), the preface and Introduction of which are available for free here. I'm now really looking forward to this book (to be released in June).

Values

I said I was going to post about the Uniting Church, and still plan to do that, but I've just been having some thoughts I wanted to capture about the things I do (or would) value in Church life. These are partly triggered by beginning to read Diana Butler Bass' book, "Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith".

These thoughts are fairly unformed as yet, but are still central to my thinking at the moment.

1. Reaching back — reaching forward. I think it's really important to value the whole, historic Christian tradition. Too many churches have lost a sense of their place within the broader tradition and have jettisoned any link with history or tradition. But at the same time, the past cannot act as an anchor, blocking us from moving forward into the new future into which God is calling us. We must be churches of today and even tomorrow — not churches of yesterday. I think one of the most important tasks for leaders in the church is to enable that creative tension between tradition and newness, between consistency with past visions and struggling into new visions, enabling the Church with integrity to reach back and reach forward.

2. Graciousness. Grace is clearly at the heart of the Christian gospel — what we experience from God and what we are called to. But for me the word 'grace' has so much baggage. Talk of 'tough grace' and 'cheap grace', and countless sermons supposedly on grace which seemed rather weighted towards condemnation, have all combined to sully the word 'grace' for me. But I find that reframing the central thoughts with the word 'graciousness', helps me to regain the sense of gentle kindness, strong self-giving, and absolute acceptance which is (I think) what grace has always been about. And so for me, a church ought, above all, to be characterised by graciousness.

3. Acknowledging historic and communal wisdom, yet being bound only by the law of love. I don't like the anything goes approach. I think it's important to hear what past generations thought was healthy and appropriate and acceptable. I think it's important to work out principles of living and shared understandings in community. But in the end, something in me rebels any time one of these historical or communal pieces of wisdom is solidified; when they become rules or regulations. In the end I think that flexibility to move within the law of love in any given situation is not just important, it's vital.

4. Hospitality. From welcoming the stranger, to living with the other, to caring for the enemy, hospitality is central to the gospel and to what the Church is called to be.

5. Involving. Church should be all about the encouragement of, use of and experimentation with the gifts of all God's people. Worship should be the same. I am so over the whole 'sitting watching people up the front do stuff' thing.

6. Breaking down the secular/sacred divide. Seeing God in nature, in culture, in others of other faiths and no faiths. A positive view of God's world and the future God is calling it into.

I'm sure there's a bunch more, but I wanted to get these out there.

Institutions

I'm just finishing reading Tony Jones new book, "The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier" (Tony Jones) and it's raising some questions for me. Namely, to what extent can emerging faith communities operate within the institutional church? This is a live issue for me as I'd love to be part of an emerging faith community, but I'm also a part of an institutional church - The Uniting Church in Australia. I'm a minister of the UCA, I'm employed by the UCA (and by the institution itself, not a local congregation), and I have promised to come under the discipline of the UCA.

One thing which gives me comfort is a tradition within the UCA of being a 'movement' rather than a denomination, but there's still a lot of denominational apparatus, let me tell you! Anyway, I'll keep thinking about it and in the next couple of posts I might try to delineate the things I really like about the UCA and why I think the Church would be poorer if there was no UCA. Then I might look at some of the 'emergent' values I hold and then thirdly how these two lists sit somewhat in tension.

Soooo tired!

Gosh, what with facebook and all this blog has nearly died! And I'm just so tired at the moment from work, a newly studying wife and a child starting school.

To be honest part of the problem is just not knowing why I'm blogging at all!

Oh well. Starting Monday I'm doing it as a discipline - once a day whether I need it or not and see what happens...

David Hicks and saying sorry

So Premier Mike Rann wants an unconditional "sorry" from David Hicks, and Gerard Henderson believes "The Hicks fan club is in denial".

It seems to me that many people miss the point at issue in this whole thing. David Hicks may well have done some stupid, misguided or even malicious things. It may well be that his actions were morally blameworthy or even legally criminal. No-one I know has said that Hicks is a model citizen or a moral example. But Hicks is a private citizen, and it is as a private citizen that he should have faced whatever sanctions (from social opprobrium to legal incarceration) were appropriate to his offenses. He does not represent the Australian people any more than any other individual Australian, many, many of whom also offend against societal or legal norms. He does not therefore 'owe' the Australian people a public apology in any meaningful sense.

On the other hand, our elected politicians do, by their own choice and by our electoral confirmation of them, represent us, and thus have a public duty to uphold the democratic ideals and legal principles of the country they serve. If they choose to deny such legal principles of long-standing for what has seemed to many to be merely political reasons, then they have offended against the public whom they represent and public apology is appropriate.

So whether (for the sake of argument) Alexander Downer can be said to have lived a more morally upright life than David Hicks is not the issue. David Hicks' mistakes or crimes are those of a private citizen and should be judged as such. The politicians who failed to stand up for his rights as an Australian are on the other hand guilty of an offense against the trust they took on as our elected representatives and should answer for that offense to the public they have wronged.

Bad Church Signs

Paul is having a thing about bad church signs in his blog.

The worst sign I ever spied (sorry I don't have pics) was one Sue and I saw when we recently drove past the conservative church in which we grew up. It read:

"Do you want your eternity smoking or non-smoking."

Now the thing that really burnt me up was that THEY BELIEVE THAT STUFF!

It's one thing to make a (poor) joke like that if you don't believe in judgement or hell, but for people who actually believe that most other humans will suffer hideous torture for all eternity to make a JOKE about it - that's cold, stone cold.

Night Out

Had a nice coffee and chat get-together with Paul "fishers,surfers and casters" Teusner and Matt "journeys in between" Stone. Good to catch up with some fellow bloggers - it might energise my own blogging a bit more.