One could be forgiven for thinking that the current debate about gay marriage was between conservative Christians and everyone else. I know Christians who feel under fire in this debate because they are sticking to their principles despite what they feel is a significant amount of pressure to do the opposite - and this applies to people on both sides of the argument. NSW politician and ex-Premier Kristina Kenneally recently pointed out the irony that she, a married Catholic, was for gay marriage and our unmarried, athiest Prime Minister was against it. It seems you can't always assume a person's stance on one subject because of their opinion on others.
As someone with a reasonable interest in both society and politics, my prediction is that same-sex marriages will eventually become legal in this country, as they are in many others. It's only a matter of whether that will be sooner or later that is in question and then, no doubt, history will judge how we stand today. Perhaps God will as well.
What disappoints me in the meantime is the level of real debate that's going on. It's not just a matter of picking sides, but the arguments that you use to substantiate your position matter as well. If you're going to take a position for gay marriage, it's not enough to demonise the conservatives, to call them prejudiced and characterise them all as ignorant fundamentalists. On the other hand, those who are against gay marriage need better arguments than they're currently sprouting about the potential impact on families - there's a lot of stone throwing in some rather thin glass houses going on there. The frequent proclamations about a biblical standard for marriage could also be a little more humble and frankly, better informed by a reading of the Bible.
There are also very real questions about whether this is a religious issue at all. Legally, marriage is a secular institution that takes a wide range of cultural forms - you can be wed under a variety of religious banners or increasingly, choose to avoid a religious wedding at all.
Most importantly though, I think we need to pause and recognise the power dynamics inherent in this debate. We're talking about a decision that will be made by the majority that will affect a minority group. This minority group are frequently the victims of bullying, violence and discrimination. People who are same-sex attracted, particularly young people, also commit suicide in tragic numbers. This, at least, should give us pause before we weigh in and ensure that we've made a genuine effort to understand those who will be most affected. Whichever side you land on, try and voice your opinion carefully, thoughtfully and respectfully. We all deserve that.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Moving beyond dualism towards genuinely holistic mission
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and we’ve been stuck with that divide ever since. When we stop to think about it, we know that heaven isn’t really a place that’s ‘up there’. We’ve been sending planes, rockets and satellites that way for quite a while now with no sign yet of angels sitting around on clouds playing harps. The imagery remains powerful even though we know that it’s not meant to be literal.
Christians also affirm that God is present amongst us. We don’t believe in a deity that’s removed from creation but rather one that’s very much in the midst of ongoing, creative, loving, healing and reconciling activity every day. Yet, despite this we subconsciously reinforce the separation between what we imagine to be two separate worlds – the material one that we inhabit on a daily basis and the spiritual one, in which God is fully present, and for which we yearn.
We are keenly aware that the material world, including our physical bodies, lets us down all the time. So perhaps it’s only natural for us to pin our hopes on something else, something more enduring, something that we can only glimpse occasionally but which inspires us like nothing else can. So we withdraw into our inner world, into prayer and meditation. We disown the earthly desires of our bodies and lift up those who commit their lives to the disciplines of silence, fasting and chastity. We have a view of reality that looks something like this:
Our world is divided into two parts, the material being where most of our daily existence, including sin, dwells and the spiritual being where God and holiness is most clearly present. For the most part this isn’t a problem, in fact we’re not even aware we’re doing it, despite the fact that it’s continually reinforced in our language, our liturgies, our prayers, our songs, pretty much every aspect of our worship – private and public.
However, problems emerge when we first become aware of a resource limitation – time, talent, finance – and subsequently have to make choices about where we place what we have left. In The Salvation Army, our dual mission, which holds together evangelism and social action, presents a particular challenge to this worldview. In a situation where resources are finite, you have to prioritise and this dualistic understanding of reality can only be resolved in favour of those activities that fall under the spiritual category. How could one justify subjugating the spiritual in favour of the material? Furthermore, because the spiritual world has an eternal aspect and the material world is transient, any commitment of resources must be prioritised towards the longer term outcomes. In practical terms, it might be suggested that whilst housing or feeding someone are good and practical things to do, they should never come at the cost of a lost opportunity to win their souls for heaven. Of course, doing both might be the ideal but if one really has to choose – is there really a choice?
I’ve been puzzling over this situation for over 20 years now, since I first started working in Salvation Army social services and studying theology. For a while there, I was convinced that we just needed to get a better balance between the material and spiritual worlds and the activities that were associated with each. It wasn’t just that this way of seeing things inherently denigrated our social work – though in some ways it does. But I also had a nagging feeling that it didn’t quite sit with my experience. Sometimes at the end of a gruelling day, when I’d broken up a fight, listened to someone crying over their relationship breakdown and cleaned up someone else’s blood or vomit, I felt a sense of meaning and deep connection to life’s purpose that wasn’t always apparent sitting in my pristine uniform in church.
The spaces where the material and spiritual worlds meet are called ‘thin places’ in Celtic Christianity. In all forms of Christianity, including Salvationism, they are sacramental spaces. In fact, this is the purpose of all sacraments – they connect us between a physical reality in this world and the spiritual reality that sits behind it. It’s not magic, it’s mostly a presence of mind, a willingness to see the meaning and reality in a symbol beyond it’s present physical dimensions. Not just to see it, but to enter into it, to participate in it, if that’s at all possible – and our experience suggest that it is.
I went to a funeral in Zambia a few years ago where there were hundreds of people sitting on a hillside, singing, mourning and celebrating together. God’s presence seemed undeniable in that moment, so tangible that it would have been hard to believe that anyone there could have experienced it otherwise. Yet I’ve also experienced times when God seemed so far away that any such connection appeared either a distant memory or a hopeless fantasy.
Our fourth doctrine reminds us that Jesus was ‘truly and properly’ God and human. I suspect that one of the reasons that early church struggled with this so much was because of the same dualistic framework that continues to besiege us today. How can the divine be mixed with humanity? We still affirm the boundaries between the sacred and the secular, the holy and the profane much more convincingly than we are able to proclaim the oneness between them that is found in the incarnation. Is it possible that what we are saying about Jesus is more true about all of reality than I had previously understood? Is this the key to understanding the simultaneous transcendence and immanence of God? The more I dig into these questions, the more I have begun to see similar revelations breaking through right throughout the history of Christianity.
The beginning of this journey is starting to reject simplistic dualities. For instance, that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who always think in black and white, and those who can live with the large amounts of grey that inhabit our existence. Whilst there is some truth in this, like all generalisations it suffers when examined too closely. Sometimes dualisms are tempting because they pander to our tribalistic tendencies. We frequently fall into ‘us’ and ‘them’ ways of thinking. However, it’s possible to acknowledge the truth that underlies most dualisms without accepting that they capture the whole truth or that theirs is even the best (or only) illustration of the way things are.
Here’s another common way of thinking about our existence that might seem at first to be a bit more sophisticated than simple dualism but still reinforces the same paradigm.
This is a common way of thinking about holistic mission. We think about the various dimensions of a person’s existence (of course there are a multitude of ways of naming these and breaking them up, this is just an example) and look to find ways to address a person’s wellbeing in each of the areas. Truly holistic mission will ensure that a person is doing well in every area of their life’s pie chart. Sometimes this way of working can mean that someone coming for assistance might have five different people helping them with different aspect of their life! In our social programs, whatever we decide the spiritual segment means is what we assume the chaplain is doing (though I suspect very few chaplains actually see their work this way). The problem with ‘pentalism’ or any other ‘polyism’ is that it continues to reaffirm the separation of the spiritual from every other aspect of a person’s existence. Of course, when we look deeper we can also acknowledge that this isn’t just a false division for our spiritual dimension. Our emotional wellbeing affects and is affected by our social world, our physical health affects and is affected by our psychological wellbeing, etc.
Whilst the differences are important, the inter-connections are as well. This makes it harder to represent diagrammatically but I think something like this is getting closer to how I’m beginning to understand it and is a more helpful way to approach the development of holistic mission:
Again, the categories are debatable but they’re not really the point. In this case, by Mind I mean everything that we perceive as going on inside our heads – our personality, our thoughts, our emotions, our dreams, our fears, our sense of ‘self’, perhaps this is what some have thought of as their ‘soul’. By Creation, I mean the physical world outside our head including our own bodies. We invite an interaction between mind and creation every time we eat a piece of cheese or drink something sweet, when we exercise our bodies or when we enjoy the scenery on a bushwalk. Finally, the Social dimension encompasses all of our interactions between each other. It’s vital to the bigger picture and important, I think, to distinguish from the rest of creation because I suspect most people interact differently with other humans than they do with trees. All of this and the interactions between them make up who we are and have the potential to capture our life’s experiences. The space where each dimension bleeds into the next is highly permeable, like three pools of water running into each other – once the connections begin it is no longer easy to determine where one starts and another ends.
Now where does spirituality fit in, I hear you ask? Well, I contend that it’s right there, you just need to know where to look. It’s there in Mind when we think about God, when we immerse ourselves in private prayer, when we wonder about the meaning of life, when we are feeling most desolate and alone, when we decide that we need to live differently, to live more fully, to building a better world. It’s there in Creation when we become aware of the beauty of all that surrounds us, when we stand in awe of the micro-organisms that help us to live and the incredible vastness of the universe that surrounds us, when we are thankful for the health of our body and for when we curse it’s limitations. We can begin to understand the social dimension as having deeply spiritual moments, each time we respond compassionately to a person in need, when we fall in love and refuse to rationalise those moments as merely the consequence of bodily chemicals, when we are moved to create a more just world because we don’t want anything to happen to others that we wouldn’t want for ourselves.
Of course, not all of life feels like a particularly spiritual moment. Some parts of life we experience as extraordinarily mundane – though even this can be subjective. For one person, there is nothing more dull than doing the dishes, while for another this is the supreme moment of relaxation. This is what it means for Salvationists to be ‘pan-sacramental’. It means that all of life is potentially sacramental in character. If God is really omnipresent, then all moments, all places, are capable of revealing something sacred. However, I’d be the first to admit that this doesn’t seem to be an even scale – some things seem to be more ready to open up those thin places that others.
So if you believe that God is compassionate, then a life full of compassion will be more likely to reveal God. If you believe that God is concerned about justice, equity and everyone getting a fair go, then invest yourself in these things. If you believe that God is love, then show love without reserve. Most of all, don’t be bound by dualisms that set us apart from other people, whatever they are. For if nothing else, God is a God of surprises and loves more faithfully, more indiscriminately and more fully than we can ever imagine.
Christians also affirm that God is present amongst us. We don’t believe in a deity that’s removed from creation but rather one that’s very much in the midst of ongoing, creative, loving, healing and reconciling activity every day. Yet, despite this we subconsciously reinforce the separation between what we imagine to be two separate worlds – the material one that we inhabit on a daily basis and the spiritual one, in which God is fully present, and for which we yearn.
We are keenly aware that the material world, including our physical bodies, lets us down all the time. So perhaps it’s only natural for us to pin our hopes on something else, something more enduring, something that we can only glimpse occasionally but which inspires us like nothing else can. So we withdraw into our inner world, into prayer and meditation. We disown the earthly desires of our bodies and lift up those who commit their lives to the disciplines of silence, fasting and chastity. We have a view of reality that looks something like this:
Our world is divided into two parts, the material being where most of our daily existence, including sin, dwells and the spiritual being where God and holiness is most clearly present. For the most part this isn’t a problem, in fact we’re not even aware we’re doing it, despite the fact that it’s continually reinforced in our language, our liturgies, our prayers, our songs, pretty much every aspect of our worship – private and public.However, problems emerge when we first become aware of a resource limitation – time, talent, finance – and subsequently have to make choices about where we place what we have left. In The Salvation Army, our dual mission, which holds together evangelism and social action, presents a particular challenge to this worldview. In a situation where resources are finite, you have to prioritise and this dualistic understanding of reality can only be resolved in favour of those activities that fall under the spiritual category. How could one justify subjugating the spiritual in favour of the material? Furthermore, because the spiritual world has an eternal aspect and the material world is transient, any commitment of resources must be prioritised towards the longer term outcomes. In practical terms, it might be suggested that whilst housing or feeding someone are good and practical things to do, they should never come at the cost of a lost opportunity to win their souls for heaven. Of course, doing both might be the ideal but if one really has to choose – is there really a choice?
I’ve been puzzling over this situation for over 20 years now, since I first started working in Salvation Army social services and studying theology. For a while there, I was convinced that we just needed to get a better balance between the material and spiritual worlds and the activities that were associated with each. It wasn’t just that this way of seeing things inherently denigrated our social work – though in some ways it does. But I also had a nagging feeling that it didn’t quite sit with my experience. Sometimes at the end of a gruelling day, when I’d broken up a fight, listened to someone crying over their relationship breakdown and cleaned up someone else’s blood or vomit, I felt a sense of meaning and deep connection to life’s purpose that wasn’t always apparent sitting in my pristine uniform in church.
The spaces where the material and spiritual worlds meet are called ‘thin places’ in Celtic Christianity. In all forms of Christianity, including Salvationism, they are sacramental spaces. In fact, this is the purpose of all sacraments – they connect us between a physical reality in this world and the spiritual reality that sits behind it. It’s not magic, it’s mostly a presence of mind, a willingness to see the meaning and reality in a symbol beyond it’s present physical dimensions. Not just to see it, but to enter into it, to participate in it, if that’s at all possible – and our experience suggest that it is.
I went to a funeral in Zambia a few years ago where there were hundreds of people sitting on a hillside, singing, mourning and celebrating together. God’s presence seemed undeniable in that moment, so tangible that it would have been hard to believe that anyone there could have experienced it otherwise. Yet I’ve also experienced times when God seemed so far away that any such connection appeared either a distant memory or a hopeless fantasy.
Our fourth doctrine reminds us that Jesus was ‘truly and properly’ God and human. I suspect that one of the reasons that early church struggled with this so much was because of the same dualistic framework that continues to besiege us today. How can the divine be mixed with humanity? We still affirm the boundaries between the sacred and the secular, the holy and the profane much more convincingly than we are able to proclaim the oneness between them that is found in the incarnation. Is it possible that what we are saying about Jesus is more true about all of reality than I had previously understood? Is this the key to understanding the simultaneous transcendence and immanence of God? The more I dig into these questions, the more I have begun to see similar revelations breaking through right throughout the history of Christianity.
The beginning of this journey is starting to reject simplistic dualities. For instance, that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who always think in black and white, and those who can live with the large amounts of grey that inhabit our existence. Whilst there is some truth in this, like all generalisations it suffers when examined too closely. Sometimes dualisms are tempting because they pander to our tribalistic tendencies. We frequently fall into ‘us’ and ‘them’ ways of thinking. However, it’s possible to acknowledge the truth that underlies most dualisms without accepting that they capture the whole truth or that theirs is even the best (or only) illustration of the way things are.
Here’s another common way of thinking about our existence that might seem at first to be a bit more sophisticated than simple dualism but still reinforces the same paradigm.
This is a common way of thinking about holistic mission. We think about the various dimensions of a person’s existence (of course there are a multitude of ways of naming these and breaking them up, this is just an example) and look to find ways to address a person’s wellbeing in each of the areas. Truly holistic mission will ensure that a person is doing well in every area of their life’s pie chart. Sometimes this way of working can mean that someone coming for assistance might have five different people helping them with different aspect of their life! In our social programs, whatever we decide the spiritual segment means is what we assume the chaplain is doing (though I suspect very few chaplains actually see their work this way). The problem with ‘pentalism’ or any other ‘polyism’ is that it continues to reaffirm the separation of the spiritual from every other aspect of a person’s existence. Of course, when we look deeper we can also acknowledge that this isn’t just a false division for our spiritual dimension. Our emotional wellbeing affects and is affected by our social world, our physical health affects and is affected by our psychological wellbeing, etc.Whilst the differences are important, the inter-connections are as well. This makes it harder to represent diagrammatically but I think something like this is getting closer to how I’m beginning to understand it and is a more helpful way to approach the development of holistic mission:
Again, the categories are debatable but they’re not really the point. In this case, by Mind I mean everything that we perceive as going on inside our heads – our personality, our thoughts, our emotions, our dreams, our fears, our sense of ‘self’, perhaps this is what some have thought of as their ‘soul’. By Creation, I mean the physical world outside our head including our own bodies. We invite an interaction between mind and creation every time we eat a piece of cheese or drink something sweet, when we exercise our bodies or when we enjoy the scenery on a bushwalk. Finally, the Social dimension encompasses all of our interactions between each other. It’s vital to the bigger picture and important, I think, to distinguish from the rest of creation because I suspect most people interact differently with other humans than they do with trees. All of this and the interactions between them make up who we are and have the potential to capture our life’s experiences. The space where each dimension bleeds into the next is highly permeable, like three pools of water running into each other – once the connections begin it is no longer easy to determine where one starts and another ends.Now where does spirituality fit in, I hear you ask? Well, I contend that it’s right there, you just need to know where to look. It’s there in Mind when we think about God, when we immerse ourselves in private prayer, when we wonder about the meaning of life, when we are feeling most desolate and alone, when we decide that we need to live differently, to live more fully, to building a better world. It’s there in Creation when we become aware of the beauty of all that surrounds us, when we stand in awe of the micro-organisms that help us to live and the incredible vastness of the universe that surrounds us, when we are thankful for the health of our body and for when we curse it’s limitations. We can begin to understand the social dimension as having deeply spiritual moments, each time we respond compassionately to a person in need, when we fall in love and refuse to rationalise those moments as merely the consequence of bodily chemicals, when we are moved to create a more just world because we don’t want anything to happen to others that we wouldn’t want for ourselves.
Of course, not all of life feels like a particularly spiritual moment. Some parts of life we experience as extraordinarily mundane – though even this can be subjective. For one person, there is nothing more dull than doing the dishes, while for another this is the supreme moment of relaxation. This is what it means for Salvationists to be ‘pan-sacramental’. It means that all of life is potentially sacramental in character. If God is really omnipresent, then all moments, all places, are capable of revealing something sacred. However, I’d be the first to admit that this doesn’t seem to be an even scale – some things seem to be more ready to open up those thin places that others.
So if you believe that God is compassionate, then a life full of compassion will be more likely to reveal God. If you believe that God is concerned about justice, equity and everyone getting a fair go, then invest yourself in these things. If you believe that God is love, then show love without reserve. Most of all, don’t be bound by dualisms that set us apart from other people, whatever they are. For if nothing else, God is a God of surprises and loves more faithfully, more indiscriminately and more fully than we can ever imagine.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Religion in the 21st Century: Thoughts on 9/11
In the 20th century, Christian theology was indelibly shaped by the impact of two World Wars. Many of the great theologians of this era were German, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was killed by the Nazis for his part in the resistance movement. It's difficult to fathom that any Christian could reflect seriously upon the Holocaust and not have to re-imagine Christian-Jewish relationships to protect our future from history's mistakes.
At the start of the 21st century, 9/11 and the subsequent 'war against terror' should have done the same thing for Christian-Muslim relationships. If anyone is expected to take religion seriously in the future then we have to be unequivocal about disowning those who use God to justify acts of violence.
It's also time we realised that rather than wait for the next time, we should be actively pursuing new interfaith understanding amongst all religions. Any belief structures, including Christianity, that claim an exclusive right to salvation will challenge this dialogue but they can't be an excuse for apathy, resignation or worse still, arrogance. Christianity is under threat and in some cases rightly so. We are being judged by our worst failures rather than our best successes. All the more reason to come humbly to the table of discussion with our brothers and sisters from different traditions all around the world.
I've written a number of times on this blog about Christianity and non-violence. At this time of reflection, the need for a broad recommitment to non-violence by religious people is clearer than ever. Christians have no excuse in this arena - reread the gospels if you're unsure about Jesus stance on violence and what happened to him. We should abhor violence with every part of our being. I don't buy the arguments that say that we sometimes need to use violence to stop violence. That's Caesar's way, not Christ's way.
It's time to step away from violence and warfare and to reaffirm all that is good about religion. The Charter for Compassion is a great start to this task. As we reflect today about what's happened over the past 10 years, let's commit to putting aside every form of tribalism and find new ways to come together for humanity's future.
At the start of the 21st century, 9/11 and the subsequent 'war against terror' should have done the same thing for Christian-Muslim relationships. If anyone is expected to take religion seriously in the future then we have to be unequivocal about disowning those who use God to justify acts of violence.
It's also time we realised that rather than wait for the next time, we should be actively pursuing new interfaith understanding amongst all religions. Any belief structures, including Christianity, that claim an exclusive right to salvation will challenge this dialogue but they can't be an excuse for apathy, resignation or worse still, arrogance. Christianity is under threat and in some cases rightly so. We are being judged by our worst failures rather than our best successes. All the more reason to come humbly to the table of discussion with our brothers and sisters from different traditions all around the world.
I've written a number of times on this blog about Christianity and non-violence. At this time of reflection, the need for a broad recommitment to non-violence by religious people is clearer than ever. Christians have no excuse in this arena - reread the gospels if you're unsure about Jesus stance on violence and what happened to him. We should abhor violence with every part of our being. I don't buy the arguments that say that we sometimes need to use violence to stop violence. That's Caesar's way, not Christ's way.
It's time to step away from violence and warfare and to reaffirm all that is good about religion. The Charter for Compassion is a great start to this task. As we reflect today about what's happened over the past 10 years, let's commit to putting aside every form of tribalism and find new ways to come together for humanity's future.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
The Problem of Expertise
I've been thinking recently about the place and value of specialist knowledge in The Salvation Army. It seems to me that sometimes it's difficult to find the right place for expertise in our structures. How can we better demonstrate the value of expertise and experience in particular subject areas? I think there are two areas of challenge to consider in relation to this question:
Firstly, our hierarchical organisation places inherent value upon officers and more specifically on officers with good generalist skills and the ability to adapt to new circumstances. Because officers move from place to place on a reasonably regular basis, and because each appointment has (sometimes dramatically) different expectations and demands, the 'best' officers are those that can do a bit of everything. It's much more useful to have wide rather than deep experience as an officer. The higher up you go, the more diverse responsibilities you have, the more your generalist, 'jack of all trades' experience assists you to fulfill your role. Officers who 'pigeon-hole' themselves into particular areas of interest or skill can end up restricting their scope of ministry (though sometimes this is their intention!). Yet, it seems to me that we often don't know what to do with the expertise that these officers have developed. Their knowledge and understanding is always filtered through the lens of the generalists, sometimes at multiple levels. What we do with the expertise of our employees, soldiers and volunteers presents an even greater challenge.
Secondly, it seems to me that we can be suprisingly democratic when it comes to the value of knowledge and education. I realise that I'm potentially putting myself under fire here as some kind of academic snob but I'm becoming increasingly aware of the times when all opinions on a matter are valued equally despite the fact that one may be based on a gut feeling, ignorance or prejudice and another may be based on years of study, experience and research. To be fully honest, depending on where these various opinions fit into our hierarchical structures they may not even be valued equally. I want to be clear about this - I don't think that education is the only way to understanding, nor does it necessarily always lead to the right answers. There are lots of smart people with little education and lots of highly educated people that seem to say and do plenty of dumb things (myself included at times). However, I can't help but wonder if we hold all opinions equally why anyone would bother pursuing any education at all? Surely there are benefits to delving deeply into subject matter for both the individual, their ministry and our movement as a whole?
How can we better use and value our subject matter experts?
Firstly, our hierarchical organisation places inherent value upon officers and more specifically on officers with good generalist skills and the ability to adapt to new circumstances. Because officers move from place to place on a reasonably regular basis, and because each appointment has (sometimes dramatically) different expectations and demands, the 'best' officers are those that can do a bit of everything. It's much more useful to have wide rather than deep experience as an officer. The higher up you go, the more diverse responsibilities you have, the more your generalist, 'jack of all trades' experience assists you to fulfill your role. Officers who 'pigeon-hole' themselves into particular areas of interest or skill can end up restricting their scope of ministry (though sometimes this is their intention!). Yet, it seems to me that we often don't know what to do with the expertise that these officers have developed. Their knowledge and understanding is always filtered through the lens of the generalists, sometimes at multiple levels. What we do with the expertise of our employees, soldiers and volunteers presents an even greater challenge.
Secondly, it seems to me that we can be suprisingly democratic when it comes to the value of knowledge and education. I realise that I'm potentially putting myself under fire here as some kind of academic snob but I'm becoming increasingly aware of the times when all opinions on a matter are valued equally despite the fact that one may be based on a gut feeling, ignorance or prejudice and another may be based on years of study, experience and research. To be fully honest, depending on where these various opinions fit into our hierarchical structures they may not even be valued equally. I want to be clear about this - I don't think that education is the only way to understanding, nor does it necessarily always lead to the right answers. There are lots of smart people with little education and lots of highly educated people that seem to say and do plenty of dumb things (myself included at times). However, I can't help but wonder if we hold all opinions equally why anyone would bother pursuing any education at all? Surely there are benefits to delving deeply into subject matter for both the individual, their ministry and our movement as a whole?
How can we better use and value our subject matter experts?
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Why fight the Church on homosexuality?
Today is the International Day Against Homophobia. It might be a good day to reflect on how much simpler my life could be if I would only stay quiet about the 'issue' of homosexuality and the church. Yet, I don't think silence is the vocation that I've been called into.
I'm sure people wonder why a heterosexual man would spend the time and energy that I have done campaigning for greater understanding and acceptance of gay and lesbian people within the church and more specifically within The Salvation Army. The answer is pretty simple really - I keep witnessing people being hurt by ignorance and prejudice and I refuse to allow this situation to continue unchallenged.
I've lost count of the number of people that have told me how they used to be a part of the church but when they awakened to a differing sexuality, they were excluded - some quickly and cruelly and others slowly frozen out. My heart breaks when I hear of the violence inflicted on gay and lesbian people because they are different. I wonder why followers of Jesus, instead of welcoming these marginalised folk, seem to be the chief proponents of highlighting their difference, legitimising prejudice and 'othering'. I am deeply saddened when I hear of occurrences of self-hatred, self-harm and suicide amongst LGBT people, many of whose misconceptions of their own self-worth have been driven home by 'well-meaning' Christians.
So, while LGBT people continue to be the victims of intimidation, bullying and violence, I'll fight.
While Christians hide their prejudice behind a handful of out-of-context scriptures, I'll fight.
While the church remains closed to my gay and lesbian friends, I'll fight.
While love comes second to man-made rules, I'll fight to the very end.
I'm sure people wonder why a heterosexual man would spend the time and energy that I have done campaigning for greater understanding and acceptance of gay and lesbian people within the church and more specifically within The Salvation Army. The answer is pretty simple really - I keep witnessing people being hurt by ignorance and prejudice and I refuse to allow this situation to continue unchallenged.
I've lost count of the number of people that have told me how they used to be a part of the church but when they awakened to a differing sexuality, they were excluded - some quickly and cruelly and others slowly frozen out. My heart breaks when I hear of the violence inflicted on gay and lesbian people because they are different. I wonder why followers of Jesus, instead of welcoming these marginalised folk, seem to be the chief proponents of highlighting their difference, legitimising prejudice and 'othering'. I am deeply saddened when I hear of occurrences of self-hatred, self-harm and suicide amongst LGBT people, many of whose misconceptions of their own self-worth have been driven home by 'well-meaning' Christians.
So, while LGBT people continue to be the victims of intimidation, bullying and violence, I'll fight.
While Christians hide their prejudice behind a handful of out-of-context scriptures, I'll fight.
While the church remains closed to my gay and lesbian friends, I'll fight.
While love comes second to man-made rules, I'll fight to the very end.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
The Evolution of Humanity
Maybe my head is stuck in a Star Trek inspired, science fiction utopia but I'd like to think that humanity has the potential to evolve. I don't just mean that we finally do away with our appendixes (appendices?) and tonsils but that our relationships evolve beyond what they are now. Of course, I don't just mean interpersonal relationships but global relationships; the way we treat each other (actively and passively) all around the world.
Anyone with an eye on any form of media this week has been inundated with news and opinions about the death of Osama bin Laden. I understand why people might want to celebrate this but I'm also saddened by the idea that human beings might celebrate another person's death as well. I feel like we should be better than this. How can it be that by murdering a murderer we make ourselves any better than they are? Is it just about numbers? Does the killing of thousands justify the killing of one (not counting for the moment the others killed in last weeks raid and all those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq)? Surely if humanity is to survive, we need to grow beyond violence.
I know this has theological implications and these are worth thinking about. I actually think that all forms of religion need to embrace non-violence as an essential characteristic of their existence. Unless they do, religion has no place in the future of humanity.
Anyone with an eye on any form of media this week has been inundated with news and opinions about the death of Osama bin Laden. I understand why people might want to celebrate this but I'm also saddened by the idea that human beings might celebrate another person's death as well. I feel like we should be better than this. How can it be that by murdering a murderer we make ourselves any better than they are? Is it just about numbers? Does the killing of thousands justify the killing of one (not counting for the moment the others killed in last weeks raid and all those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq)? Surely if humanity is to survive, we need to grow beyond violence.
I know this has theological implications and these are worth thinking about. I actually think that all forms of religion need to embrace non-violence as an essential characteristic of their existence. Unless they do, religion has no place in the future of humanity.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Making Disciples - Rethinking the Bigger Picture
The heart of the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20) is the call to make disciples of all nations. This imperative is one of the most recognisable hallmarks of evangelicalism and also one of the stated mission intentions of our Territory.
When I first became a Christian, I was ‘discipled’ by mentors who spent much time helping me to interpret the Bible, explaining doctrine to me and guiding me towards good, Christian behaviour. Without doubt, they had their work cut out for them and any judgement about my subsequent failure in any of these respects is no reflection of their effort, competence or character. For a long time after this, I assumed that ‘making disciples’ really just meant ‘making Christians’ and perhaps implicitly that ultimately came to mean ‘making people more like me’. With a little more age and life experience behind me, I can now see how wrong I was.
I now understand making disciples more clearly as being about getting people to follow in Jesus’ footsteps – to live like Jesus lived, to do the kinds of things He did. Though the gospels suggest that Jesus spent more time with some of His followers than others, He never restricted His ministry only to an ‘in’ group. Apart from the twelve, it appears that His wider group of disciples included all sorts of people: men and women, Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free people. Jesus was radically inclusive in both His table fellowship and His mission. When He is warned that others are taking over His group’s mission, He responds “whoever is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40; Luke 9:50).
For me, discipleship begins with caring for people. There can be no doubt that Jesus did plenty of this. He feeds the hungry, heals the sick and embraces social outcasts. His compassionate care towards people is experienced as so radical that it transforms lives. People are not the same after an encounter with Jesus. Many of them want to join Him in this life changing mission, even though such discipleship may come at great cost to themselves.
However, Jesus wasn’t just a ‘do gooder’. He spent much of His time preaching as well. The subject of His preaching was usually the Kingdom of God. Jesus wanted people to think about what the world would be like if God ruled it, instead of Caesar. Jesus’ religious tradition taught Him about a loving, compassionate God who was concerned with distributive justice. Under Caesar, the rich and the powerful were well cared for but under God’s rule, all would share in the abundant resources of creation so that no one missed out.
The poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger from foreign lands were all people of special concern in God’s kingdom. Jesus didn’t just comfort those who were suffering with a promise that things would be better when they died, He demonstrated that things could be better now. Those that followed Him became part of a radically inclusive movement for social change where distinctions between rich and poor, clean and unclean, holy and profane were swept away by generosity, love and compassion. His intention was to reform society, not just to condemn it, withdraw from it or give up on it.
Making disciples is much more than just making people believe the right things. Discipleship requires more than we can ever give on Sunday alone. It’s a life changing orientation that calls us into a world changing vocation.
When I first became a Christian, I was ‘discipled’ by mentors who spent much time helping me to interpret the Bible, explaining doctrine to me and guiding me towards good, Christian behaviour. Without doubt, they had their work cut out for them and any judgement about my subsequent failure in any of these respects is no reflection of their effort, competence or character. For a long time after this, I assumed that ‘making disciples’ really just meant ‘making Christians’ and perhaps implicitly that ultimately came to mean ‘making people more like me’. With a little more age and life experience behind me, I can now see how wrong I was.
I now understand making disciples more clearly as being about getting people to follow in Jesus’ footsteps – to live like Jesus lived, to do the kinds of things He did. Though the gospels suggest that Jesus spent more time with some of His followers than others, He never restricted His ministry only to an ‘in’ group. Apart from the twelve, it appears that His wider group of disciples included all sorts of people: men and women, Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free people. Jesus was radically inclusive in both His table fellowship and His mission. When He is warned that others are taking over His group’s mission, He responds “whoever is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40; Luke 9:50).
For me, discipleship begins with caring for people. There can be no doubt that Jesus did plenty of this. He feeds the hungry, heals the sick and embraces social outcasts. His compassionate care towards people is experienced as so radical that it transforms lives. People are not the same after an encounter with Jesus. Many of them want to join Him in this life changing mission, even though such discipleship may come at great cost to themselves.
However, Jesus wasn’t just a ‘do gooder’. He spent much of His time preaching as well. The subject of His preaching was usually the Kingdom of God. Jesus wanted people to think about what the world would be like if God ruled it, instead of Caesar. Jesus’ religious tradition taught Him about a loving, compassionate God who was concerned with distributive justice. Under Caesar, the rich and the powerful were well cared for but under God’s rule, all would share in the abundant resources of creation so that no one missed out.
The poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger from foreign lands were all people of special concern in God’s kingdom. Jesus didn’t just comfort those who were suffering with a promise that things would be better when they died, He demonstrated that things could be better now. Those that followed Him became part of a radically inclusive movement for social change where distinctions between rich and poor, clean and unclean, holy and profane were swept away by generosity, love and compassion. His intention was to reform society, not just to condemn it, withdraw from it or give up on it.
Making disciples is much more than just making people believe the right things. Discipleship requires more than we can ever give on Sunday alone. It’s a life changing orientation that calls us into a world changing vocation.
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