Faith and relevance in the 21st century
GetUp have been able to get their brilliant new ad about Kevin Rudd’s climate cave-in on TV. Watch it here:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq44eagwGDQ]
There was also a very good article in today’s Age about the importance of people power in the climate movement. I wrote about this in a post back in November. Throughout history real change has come through the movement of concerned people who had had enough and took a courageous non-violent stand.
In Australia this Christmas, we spent $1billion on unwanted presents. This further illustrates our society’s addiction to buying presents just for the heck of it at Christmas. As usual, the Murdoch press encourages people to have a whinge by prompting readers to tell them all about any shocker Christmas gifts they received. Thankfully only a couple of people have responded at the time of writing this post, and one of those was thankful for what they received.
It’s interesting that while we have returned so many presents, Boxing Day sales have been booming. One of the presents I received was Mark Sayers’ brilliant book, The Trouble with Paris. In this book, Sayers talks about ‘hyper-reality’ and the fact that, living in a consumerist society, we now believe the marketers who say that that next item is going to solve all our problems, and that retail therapy is all the panacea we need when we’re having a bad day.
This financial crisis is probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the church to make a very loud statement about the failures and the lies of the promises of consumerism. In a society that values ‘having’ Jesus says that life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions. In a society that values image and individualism, Jesus asks what will it profit you if you gain the whole world but lose your self in the process? It also goes back further than that, to the prophet Samuel when God reminds him that people look at the externals but God looks at the heart. Nothing has changed except that which we worship. The void in the human heart needs to be filled. Where our treasure is there will our heart be also.
Will the church take up the challenge to proclaim the good news of Jesus in these times of turmoil for so many? Many people will be disillusioned by these times, not least many in the church who have bought the message of health, wealth and prosperity. Now is the time for the church to be the prophetic, counter-cultural community that so distinguished itself in the 1st century. Jesus’ message is good news indeed for he comes to free us from our slavery to stuff so we are no longer conformed to the pattern of this world but are transformed by the renewing of our minds.
I’ve been thinking about what Christmas holds in store this year – and by ‘store’ I don’t mean Myers! But isn’t that just what Christmas has become? Every year we hear the plea from those of us inclined to a religious/spiritual view of life to bring Christ back into Christmas. My hope is that this Christmas, as the world goes through financial turmoil, we may know again that what we celebrate does not have to be more presents, that life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions.
This Christmas many people the world over are suffering, and this time it isn’t just in the developing world. The global financial situation has meant that many will come to this Christmas having to tell their children that mum or dad no longer has a job and therefore we can’t afford as many presents this year. If that is you, then this Christmas can be more meaningful than ever. Because despite the consumerist madness that still lures us, despite its clear failures, and despite the fact that with interest rate cuts and government bailouts, we are being told to spend up big, the truth is that Christmas is actually much bigger than that. This is a time when another One who suffered, the Suffering Servant himself, came into the world to relate to us in our human condition. This is a God who knows what we are going through, because he has been through it himself. This is a God who immersed himself in our world-weary lives, rolled up his sleeves and got himself dirty.
Christmas doesn’t have to be merry to be meaningful. So it was with the Christ-child. Born to an unmarried teenager in an occupied third world country, his birth was first announced to simple labourers who were herding someone else’s sheep. Jesus was associated with suffering from the beginning of his life to the end. The Old Testament foreshadows him as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. As we remember the genocide in the Congo we remember that Jesus too was the target of genocide. As we remember refugees fleeing wars for a foreign land, we remember that Jesus too was forced to flee as a refugee to Egypt. When we remember the despised and rejected ones in our own society, we remember that Jesus too was despised and rejected by his own people. And when we remember ourselves, with less money and more job insecurity, we remember that Jesus said blessed are you who mourn for you will be comforted.
The Prince of Peace came so that God’s kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven. To a world of suffering he offers hope, and to our troubled hearts he offers peace. May you know the peace of Christ this Christmas, and may he give you the strength you need to see hope in our troubled land.
In case we think that saving the planet is going to cost the earth, that electric cars are a waste of time, and that the most efficient power stations are big ones. This article is not from some lefty, tree-hugging magazine, but from none other than The Guardian.
It puts paid to many of the myths being propagated about how to tackle the great moral issue of our time. Alot of great stuff is happening throughout Europe, and in many, many cities across the US. But alas, Australia still lags behind on many fronts.
Wouldn’t it be great if these technologies caught on in Australia to the extent that we actually became a world leader in this area. We are a privileged country and we have the resources to show the way in renewable energies.
This article is drawn from Chris Goodall’s new book, Ten Technologies to Save the Planet.
This was the week that I lost faith that the Rudd Government might really be different. With their pathetically inept announcement of emissions reduction targets that have confirmed the death of the Great Barrier Reef and the Kakadu wetlands, this Government can now be compared to the lost years of the Howard Administration. In my view, that is not something to be proud of.
These emissions reduction targets show a frightening lack of leadership. My first thought was that the announcement comes across as nothing but a political decision, designed to please everyone and offend no one. However I am encouraged by the tidal wave of response from environmental groups and various media across the country who are deeply offended at the Government’s cowardice.
The world needs more than this. The problem with pleasing people, again the polluting industries, is that you might get people onside for a time, but in the end nothing actually improves.
The only conclusion one can draw from this announcement is that the same lobby groups that John Howard was enslaved to, now have Kevin Rudd firmly in their grip. It would be interesting to hear some inside reports about this, in the same way that Guy Pearse, a Liberal, heroically tried to bring down John Howard.
These thoughts came to me one day when I was sitting in the car waiting for my wife. It was a rare time for me to sit, be still and reflect. This is what I came up with:
The older I get, the more I realise how much I don’t know about the Christian life. I feel like I’m still searching. I don’t think I’ll ever feel like I’ve found the answer. But I believe in a God who, when I give myself to him, slowly conforms me into his image, transforms me into his likeness.
I’m quite content with being like this. A former pastor of mine called it a holy dissatisfaction with life. It’s like when we spend our whole lives scrambling to the top of the mountain only to find there’s nothing there anyway.
Life is not about the destination. It is about the journey. The journey matters more than arriving at the destination.
This Saturday 6 December is the Global Day of Action on Climate Change. Friends of the Earth have created the clip below to get people talking and commenting on YouTube about the climate:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7mETr1SqXk]
Have a look at the clip and then leave a comment. With the UN climate talks in Poznan going on, the more people who raise their voices about this, the better.
Check out my latest sermon – preached on Sunday 23 November at St Martin’s Lilydale. It takes a look at the first section of Paul’s letter to the Ephesian believers and then links this with the parable of the sheep and the goats.
As another Christmas rolls around and the consumerist madness hots up again, chocolate will be high up on the consumption list. The Don’t Trade Lives campaign has created a new call with the title, “Big Chocolate, Just Say: YES!”
To date, global chocolate manufacturers have failed to meet their own undertakings to eradicate child labour from the industry. As a result, the Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia are unable to guarantee that chocolate consumed in Australia is free of child labour.
A new clip on the chocolate issue has been created a new clip on the chocolate issue. Check it out below and let it inform your Christmas chocolate purchases.
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=nVo9Gn4TPZk]
With the inherent weaknesses of unfettered market capitalism being exposed in recent months by the global economic situation, socialists have been trumpeting the apparent downfall of this economic system. And well they might. I have already explained my views on unregulated capitalism. However, on the cover of one left-leaning publication was the proud headline ‘Capitalism is bankrupt; socialism is the only answer’. I think the first part of that headline is correct and the second part is not.
Socialism is no more the answer to humanity’s problems than capitalism. While capitalism survives no the backs of the poor, the history of socialism survives the same way. Any look at the atrocities committed in Eastern Europe since the Second World War have shown that. While socialism as an idea is fine – public ownership of the means of production, in practice it has limited freedom for its own citizens.
At the centre of socialism lies the idea of the utopian society being achieved through the work of humanity, unaided by any higher power. The classless society is a great idea, outlined in Acts, but it can never be achieved as long as humanity works on its own.
Human hearts need changing and no human economic system can ever do that. Martin Luther King, talking about communism, said that it
thrives on the grand illusion that man, unaided by any divine power, can save himself and usher in a new society.
Socialism does not take into account the fact of humanity’s tendency toward selfishness. Bono has said that the 20th century is not a good advertisement for atheism. What does atheism have to do with it? Well, socialism is based on a secular vision of the new society, a kingdom without a king. The 20th century proves once and for all that a kingdom without a king will eventually fall in on itself.
For more on Dr. King’s views of a Christian response to communism, see his Strength to Love, pp 97-106.
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