Nature versus nurture is an ongoing debate in the scientific community but what implications does it have for the spiritual life?
Is our identity, personality and behaviour fixed by our genes or is the raw material of ourselves molded by the environment into which we are born – our family, parenting, experience.
Likewise does a person’s spiritual origin determine what they look like or is it more to do with spiritual environment in which they live?Read More »
Faith in politics is much more on the agenda in Australia than it was a decade ago and so it is no wonder there has been intense interest as to the religious convictions, if any, of new Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Today she was directly questioned about religious faith and the future of the Christian vote in Australia during an interview on ABC Radio.
The Australian newspaper reports that Ms Gillard appeared to be ‘surprised’ when asked whether she believed in God and how she would court the Christian vote.
‘I’m not a religious person,’ Ms Gillard told the ABC, although she was quick to point out she had won a prize for learning Bible verses as a child in the Baptist Church. ‘I’ve, you know, found a different path.’
Read more of what she had to say at Australian Christian Voter.
As Kevin Rudd looked back today on his term as Prime Minister, one of his key memories, related in his speech, was the day when he said sorry to the stolen generations. Facing the assembled media, he looked up beyond them and out across the grounds of Parliament House. He raised his arm and pointed, as if he had a vision no one else could see:
‘They came in through there,’ he said with misty eyes. ‘The thing I remember… is that they were frightened… it was our job to make them welcome.’
Kevin, where has this display of humanity been? In any case, for your sake, I’m glad it’s back.
Meanwhile, the search is on for a definitive statement of Julia Gillard’s religious views. There’s not much out there and I haven’t read her biography. But I did find this from a Compass program in 2005:
Very little has been written about Prime Minister Gillard’s own religions convictions, if any, but she did have this to say on the ABC’s Compass program back in May 2005:
‘I think Labor has to learn how to connect with many of the elements of our new and growing communities. And certainly the evangelical or Pentecostal churches is one of those elements. And I don’t think we should be shy, even for those of us that value the sort of secular tradition that’s grown up within the Labor Party. I don’t think we should be shy of forging connections with those sorts of community groups.’
She was supporting Kevin Rudd’s growing connection to the churches and at least shows a recognition that this is a good thing. PH
Mike walked into the prayer meeting, bare-chested, track pants low and blue headphones from his Walkman dangling over his ears.
He sat in various locations, including spread-legged on the floor. The flow of prayer continued on around him.
While not phased by someone off the street suddenly appearing (relationship is a great leveller), there may have been a subtle shift in the group’s prayer to cover Mike, but not conspicuously.
Mike is a strong, nearly 40 man with partly shaven, partly spiked hair, a keen intelligence and the demeanour of an 11-year-old at a party. He can have an angry streak – I have talked him down from an Ice-induced rage on one occasion – but it was no where in sight this night.
‘Can I borrow your vacuum cleaner to vacuum my flat and then bring it right back,’ he said in a loud whisper to Patrick as the prayers continued. Pat quietly suggested they talk about it later.
He continued to find new seats and at times the music in his headphones was so loud, pray-ers had to lift their volume to compete. A gentle wave from one participant, suggesting he turn it down, was greeted with an obliging thumbs up.
As Mike got more jumpy, not in a disturbing way, but slightly distracting, I decided to invite him out to the kitchen for a cup of tea.
He gladly came. ‘Tea or coffee?’ I asked. ‘Tea,’ he said. ‘I like coffee but you said tea and tea reminds me of my grandmother. Can I have three sugars?’
I started preparing the tea and he asked me my name. When I told him he said, ‘I had an uncle named Peter. He was the shepherd of the family, that’s what my grandmother used to say. He was the only one to keep in touch while I was in gaol.’
‘That’s great, that there was someone like that in the family, who would keep an eye out for you,’ I replied.
‘Yeah it was good, although he did steal all the money I had saved up,’ he said. I was stunned by his gentle correction of my appraisal. ‘Well it sounds like he had a good heart, even if he made a few mistakes,’ I said.
‘Yeah, a good heart, even if it was false,’ he said, with no sign of malice. There was no way he was letting Uncle Peter of the hook even though he seemed well disposed to him.
Just as I was feeling a bit clever that I had successfully diverted Mike from disturbing the prayer team, he grabbed his cup of tea and said, ‘Can I go back out there?’ And before I had time to reply he took off, cup in hand, and I hurried after him with mine, realising I didn’t really want a cup of tea.
Mike sat in various locations again, spilt and then finished his tea and became perhaps a little too animated during some passionate prayer.
Finally, the leader of the meeting wound things up and asked if he could pray for Mike. He readily agreed to the prayer and to a hand being laid gently on his shoulder. The prayer began, with Mike giving a whispered sub-text.
‘Lord, deliver Mike from a spirit of fear and a spirit of rejection,’ Rick prayed with strength.
‘Cook it up!’ encouraged Mike.
‘And we pray against the spirit of violence that troubles Mike.’
‘And that has disappeared,’ stresses Mike.
‘And Lord, let your love and your peace cover and fill him.’
‘Finally!’ Mike says.
With encouraging Amens, the prayer ends and Mike stands up, gazes around and with a big smile says, ‘That was great, and it was all true, all true. Look, I’m getting my goosebumps back, look at them all on my arms.’
Just another day at the church with no walls… PH
Names changed, true story. Creative non-fiction, Christian style…
As the debate rages over the trial of ethic classes as an alternative to Scripture in state schools, those in favour of the new program ask, in a smugly reasonable tone, ‘Why can’t the churches respect parents’ right to choose?’
As if that is all that is really at stake. As if this is really just about a choice between your child going to Scripture, ethics or having a half-hour break.
What it is really about, and why some churches are fighting so hard, is the final and complete secularisation of public schools, fueled by the rampant new atheism which views religion as poison.
No matter what politically correct sounding arguments emerge from both camps, at stake is the privilege of access to public schools.
The goal of the new ethic classes is to so threaten the status and viability of Scripture that it will eventually disappear.
Of course the Minister for Education will never say that, in public, nor the proponents of ethic classes. But you can hear it slipping through in an odd angry shot at the Anglicans or the Catholics during media debates, and it is rampant in the unofficial grassroots commentary.
My children attended a school that did not have Scripture, in which recognition of Easter and Christmas was completely secular. Christmas carols were out, ‘seasonal songs’ were in.
Parents of faith often felt under siege and so desolate was the atmosphere of the place, I eventually pleaded to be allowed to organise an assembly that in a light-hearted way, told the real Christmas story. One half hour in an entire year…
So what is at stake is not so much the to and fro over Scripture and ethics. It is the choice between a completely secular atheistic system or one where there is some decent recognition that people of faith exist.
But we shouldn’t be surprised by these battles. The secularisation of society has been raging for many years and, in reality, the institutional power of the church (which gave it the right to Scripture classes) has long been in decay.
Christian commentators such as Joel Edwards of Micah Challenge have said that the church needs to accept the demise of institutional power, and take up the opportunity of grassroots influence.
Newer churches, such as the Pentecostals, have never had institutional power which is why they have been so much better at grassroots influence.
Maybe the way to win the current battle, is for Scripture and the Christian communities of inner city to be so vibrant, so alive, so full of grace and power, so full of kindness and generosity and love, so authentic in relationships across dividing lines, that instead of relying on ancient privilege, they benefit from a new invitation to participate in schools, organisations and communities… PH
Weeks after posting a story about new three-dimensional imaging of the Shroud of Turin, Utterance continues to field search inquiries about the Shroud from around the world.
Another factor is the quest for faith or unfaith as some seek in the Shroud evidence of Jesus’s reality while others continue the quest to disprove him.
While Christ’s reality does not hinge on the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin (there are many other historical evidences), it is still a powerful symbol of faith for millions of Christians and a ‘thorn in the flesh’ for secular atheists.
Two recent Shroud findings are split between supporters and detractors.
A few young Christian men I know got together recently with the big highlight of their evening being watching Man vs Wild featuring Bear Grylls.
Turns out it was a more spiritual activity than they may have realised with Grylls revealing this month in Relevant magazine that he is a strong Christian.
The wild life adventurer who allows himself to be dropped in remote locations so that he can be filmed attempting to survive, says that he had a ‘natural’ faith as a child, although hasn’t always found believing easy.
‘It’s been kinda a wiggly, messy journey which is still continuing,’ Grylls told Relevant, a description that might also suit his TV show.
‘Christianity is not about religion – it’s about faith, about being held, about being forgiven. It’s about finding joy, finding home.’
T
urns out Grylls is an avid supporter of Alpha, a 10 week introduction to the Christian faith, written and presented by Nicky Gumble of Holy Trinity Brompton.
Gumble, a mentor and friend, says of Grylls, ‘I think Bear has a very simple faith. And simple in the good sense of the word. It’s a strong personal faith and he lives it out in his everyday life.’ PH
PS. Man vs Wild screens on SBS Mondays at 8.30pm and SBS says ‘the program has performed strongly since its debut with an average audience of 535,000 metro viewers.’
If several billion God believers can’t dint the unbelief of an atheist, perhaps just one family member’s faith might make the difference.
Christopher Hitchens is famous for his book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and is one of the poster boys of the new atheism secular liberalism. He was a special guest of this month’s Sydney Writers Festival as he promoted his memoir Hitch-22.
But while Christopher has been busy debating Christians and even threatening to have the Pope arrested, his brother Peter has rediscovered faith and published The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith.
As the Hitchens brothers’ books battle for bookstore ascendency, we see a microcosm of the struggle between belief and unbelief in the world.
While most atheists will cite logic and reason for the reason of their non-belief in God, behind this for many is a personal religious atrocity that has led them from grace. For Christopher Hitchens it may just have been the brutal, even sadistic regime he encountered at a church boarding school from the age of eight.
And while brother Peter went through his own atheistic ‘revelation’ it was not to last and his book now attacks the blind spots and flaws of atheistic argument.
There is no doubt much more to run in the story of these two men’s lives, and it is a reminder that wherever darkness seems to flourish, a resilient light is close at hand. Pray for Christopher and Peter Hitchens, that both would find themselves beneath the grace of God as they play a part on the world stage.
An excellent article on the belief and unbelief of the Hitchens brothers appears in the Fairfax media today . It is written by Simon Smart, the head of research and communications at the Centre for Public Christianity. PH
God gave a clue to his reality during our bus trip to the ‘In defence of God’ session of the Sydney Writer’s festival today (May 23).
Running late due to bus delays, we were worried about missing the session until our bus driver got lost in the Rocks and pulled over randomly to let us out – right in front of our destination, Sydney Theatre, instead of the actual bus stop two streets away! God is providential, generous and has a sense of humour…
As we gathered with the unfaithful – the session was chaired by an atheist and featured a lapsed Episcopalian – we found we had more in common with the other speaker, the Iranian-American author and scholar, Reza Aslan.
While Eric Lax, author of Faith Interrupted, lamented his fall from faith (I believe he’ll be back though), Aslan launched an attack against the new atheists. He described their behaviour as being as fundamentalist as some of the religious people they hate. He also reminded the audience that despite a century of violent secularism, the number of religious adherents had risen from half to two thirds of the global population.
Aslan was challenged by a few questioners but was able to mount a good defence for God before the brief question section was wound up. He even began his talk by referring to the blogs that had questioned why an atheist, lapsed Episcopalian and Muslim were leading this session, with no Christian authors present. I take it from this, that he has read Utterance!
In the long run, however, there was inability of all panelists to consider a God who is a personal, tangible reality in our lives with the chair Louise Adler asking for a more concrete definition of faith and God. It wasn’t forthcoming and this was because no one had been invited to speak who actually believes in God this way. It was a timely reminder that atheists and agnostics are searching for something to lovingly but powerfully challenge their unbelief.
A good place to start might be to invite New York minister and author Timothy Keller to next year’s Sydney Writer’s Festival. In the meantime, read his book, The Reason For God – Belief in the age of Scepticism. PH
Listen to a short section of Reza Aslan’s defence of God:
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| Reza Aslan.mp3 |
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Trial ethic classes competing with Special Religious Education (SRE) in 10 NSW Schools appear to have caused a drop in SRE attendance of between 30 and 70 percent.
Suburban schools such as Hurstville and Baulkham Hills North are at the higher end of these figures with the explanation that parents at inner city schools had long before withdrawn their children from scripture, while in the suburbs it is a new phenomenon.
As an aside, this is another example of how the intellectualism and ideas of the inner city filter through to the rest of society, by one means or another. This is a good reason for the existence of strong, robust, authentic inner city churches that engage intelligently with their community. Not surprisingly, seven of the 1o schools in the trial are in the inner city with three of these in the electorate of Balmain whose local member is Education Minister Verity Firth.
Bishop of South Sydney, Rob Forsyth, said he was ‘not surprised’ by the result, saying it proves that the ethics classes will be far more contentious in the suburbs than in the inner-city.
‘It proves that the P&C and St James Ethics Centre were wrong when they claimed they were merely providing an alternative to SRE for non-religious parents. This course is genuine competition for SRE. We are losing parents who claim to be Christians but are somewhat ambivalent and easily swayed by the directions given by school authorities,’ Bishop Forsyth told Anglican Media.
He said his most substantive concern is that the Department of Education has been using its authority to encourage parents to ditch Christian SRE in order to recruit more students for the ethics classes.
It used to be the respectfully named Umbrella Grass that rolled in on a westerly wind and stacked up against farm houses like a dusty, dry dump of snow.
But a new wispy villain is covering the land, and it’s a grass aptly known as Hairy Panic. While there is some evidence that its seeds were collected and ground for food by the Wemba Wemba people of the Murray River, today it is better known for covering houses and highways and giving over-indulgent sheep the often fatal Yellow Bighead disease – no further details necessary!
Enjoying the west of NSW for a few days, scenes such as the one pictured above are commonplace. And while rural NSW has experienced the best start to a growing season for years, it has now been some time since the refreshing rains earlier in the year and perhaps there is just the first itching of the old hairy panic creeping in for some farmers.
When a big part of the success of what you do is completely outside your control, panic can quite easily roll over your life, cover familiar landmarks and stow away in hidden corners.
Of course, city folk are just as prone to the hairiness of panic and all of us often respond by strictly controlling what we can to help us cope with what we can’t.
Another option is a spiritual and emotional trampoline to put our feet above the panic and provide the joy and freedom of trampling on our hairy foe.
Faith in God is many things and it may just be the trampoline we need to jump-start an overcoming of panic, anxiety and worry, making it small and opening up the sky to hope and possibility. PH
If your ear is aching, it probably has more to do with a fast approaching federal election than the onset of winter.
But don’t give up now – it’s time to cut through the wordfest and consider seriously how Christians should act as the nation decides its immediate future. If you are passionate about issues ranging from R-rated games to refugees, millenium goals to marriage support – you need to keep your ears and eyes open!
An excellent opportunity to do this has been organised by Australian Christian Lobby who have confirmed June 21 as the date for the Make It Count election webcast.
Make it Count 2010 will see Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott address Christians and answer questions from Christian leaders in a live webcast to churches throughout Australia from Canberra’s Old Parliament House.
A similar event held before the 2007 federal election saw John Howard and Kevin Rudd address 100,000 Christians meeting at 846 churches across Australia.
ALC hopes to triple those numbers in 2010 – to register your church visit www.australiavotes.org . PH
Fixed someone up with a new set of clothes
Managed not to step on gangrene toes
Helped two friends avoid coming to blows
Some conversation about nobody knows
Marvellous it is how God’s love flows
PH
If anyone in Australia has learned something about the giving and receiving of forgiveness, it is Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton.
Lindy was convicted in 1982 of killing her baby daughter Azariah while camping at Uluru in 1980 before being finally exonerated six years later. In that time, Lindy was judged wrongly not only by many in the police and court system, but by at least half of our nation, which was divided over the subject of her guilt or innocence.
Yesterday, Lindy, along with her second husband, Rick Creighton, was a guest speaker at St Ives Baptist Church as part of that church’s innovative Spirited Australians program. Forgiveness was a key theme.
Her visit attracted media attention, partly because Lindy Chamberlain will always be, to some degree, public property in Australia and partly because of revelations made during the talk.
Rick Creighton spoke of a young woman who was so convinced that Lindy had killed her baby, and so outraged, that she got herself convicted of a minor offence to get into the same Northern Territory jail where Lindy was serving a sentence for murder.Read More »
When Lady Ga Ga sought a way to heap praise on her musical inspiration, Grace Jones, she said the 80’s singer and model was like her ‘Jesus’.
This might indicate that beneath the provocative (euphemism) performances and costumes, Lady Ga Ga is still within reach of her Catholic upbringing, even if unconsciously. Lady Ga Ga (Stefani Joanne Angelina) was educated at New York’s Sacred Heart school.
Once again, Jesus finds his way into the most unlikely of places.
As for Grace Jones, apart from the fact that Jesus has everything to do with grace, it is unclear as to what other similarities can be drawn.
In any case, Jones wants nothing to do with Ga Ga and turned down an offer to perform with her. ‘I’d just prefer to work with someone who is more original and someone who is not copying me, actually,’ the 61-year-old said.
She was not heard to comment that no one has been able to copy Jesus, because he is ‘the only Begotten’ and worthy of our worship.
Lady Ga Ga’s last brush with Jesus was when she wore her hair in a kind of Son of God halo effect with a skimpy blood-red outfit and was widely reported by celebrity magazines as ‘looking like Jesus’. I think not… PH
With critics claiming the Pope’s reputation has been shipwrecked by his inaction over the clerical abuse of children, His Holiness visited Malta last weekend to commemorate the 1950th anniversary of the Apostle Paul’s shipwreck near the island, an event recorded in the book of Acts.
Interestingly, the two issues came together on Malta when the Pope met with eight Maltese men, victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Pope Benedict promised them with tears in his eyes that the Catholic Church would seek justice for paedophile priests and implement ‘effective measures’ to protect young people from abuse.
While this meeting had not been foreshadowed by the Pope, he gave three other powerfully relevant reasons for his visit to Malta.
It takes faith to begin and faith to end. Come to think of it, it takes faith to keep going in between. That about covers it… PH
Imagine you were asked to rate your current life between zero and 10 and your life in five years time? As you chose a number to describe your sense of wellbeing now and prospects for the future, would you be thinking of how you are feeling today (not enough sleep last night… stressful meeting at work today…) or rather the underlying factors (good health, housing, employment, stable government, personal freedom). How might your faith affect your view?
Social researchers at Gallup have collated a global snapshot of wellbeing using data collected in 155 countries or areas since 2005. Gallup classifies respondents as ‘thriving,’ ‘struggling,’ or ‘suffering,’ according to how they rate their lives based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale:
Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time? (ladder-present) On which step do you think you will stand about five years from now? (ladder-future)
According to separate research, people tend to answer these questions from the perspective of life evaluation (judgements of life) rather than daily affect (feelings). It is called a self-anchoring scale because it allows people to interpret their wellbeing from their own perspective rather than external measures such as how much money they earn, levels of education or political conditions.
In other words, if the research is to be believed, people across the globe are saying, ‘this is how I feel about my life’ not on the basis of ‘I have a headache today’ but on the basis of ‘I feel my life looks like this’. A poor person in Africa might actually feel very happy in the midst of their poverty but when stepping back and assessing their prospects, they realise they are up against it and so report low ladder scores. A rich person in Denmark might be feeling gloomy in the midst of their wealth but when stepping back to view their life, realise they have plenty to feel confident about.
So what were the results of Gallup’s global wellbeing research? It reveals a vast divide that underscores the diversity of economic development challenges around the world.
Two members of the Reserve Bank Board, one of Australia’s most powerful economic institutions, gave clear personal testimony to their faith in Jesus Christ in the lead up to Easter.
Speaking at Wesley Mission’s annual Easter breakfast, the Reserve Bank governor, Glen Stevens, was asked about his belief in God, to which he replied:
‘I would say that despite claims to the contrary there is a God. This is worth checking out and the critical issue people have to deal with is – was Jesus Christ who he claimed to be. If he wasn’t then you can forget about it; and if he wasn’t then I am living in a fool’s world.’
This is my take on connecting with our community this Easter.
‘Christian tradition, pagan festival, money-making exercise… what exactly is Easter?
If it is about someone dying on a cross, and rising from the dead, why?
If it is supposed to have something to do with me, why? If it is supposed to change the world, why?
Easter 2010 at Eternity Christian Church is an opportunity for asking and answering questions; for reflecting, belonging and celebrating.
You may leave with as many questions as you came with or you might just feel you found something…’
The painting is by Canberra artist Ben Sherwood who did this pastel on cardboard piece in about 30 minutes during an Easter service at Newtown Neighbourhood Centre quite a few years ago (if your out there somewhere Ben, drop me a line!) It now hangs in our church and is one of our favourite works of art.
We borrowed the Good Friday Candlelight Service idea from a church in Port Macquarie (saw their posters one year) and it works nicely with the quieter, reflective feel of Good Friday.
Anyway, beyond all the ideas, the spin, the occasion – we really do long to see the mystery of His cross and resurrection undone in our own hearts and for others too. PH
utterance 