Climbing the stairs

As you probably know, I'm a massive fan of Noel Pearson. In last weekend's paper he wrote yet another unsettling, visionary article in which he outlined three "key articles of liberal philosophy" which are passed by when it comes to Aboriginal affairs.1 They are self-interest, choice and private property.

He identified self interest as the fundamental driver behind all development and observed that the "great western embarrassment about self-interest . . . results in Westerners failing to understand that the means by which they secure their advantage, and thereby provide amenity to others, is through the pursuit of self-interest." He also argued that ownership of private property is essential for development - and the opposite of traditional Aboriginal communal ownership.

His conclusion was that if Aboriginal people are to prospere they will need to "separate the domain of communalism in our heritage, cultures, languages and identities from the domain of liberalism in our lives". He cited "countless examples of societies and peoples who continue to maintain communalist arrangements in one sphere of their lives, while maintaining a liberal sphere in their economic arrangements."

Any thoughts?


1 The Weekend Australian 24-25th July 2010, Commentary section, page 14

We'll see you when we get home

I hope this isn't disrespectful but I want to link to a blog about a little boy's life. His name was Edward "Teddy" Paul Bayliss and he was the son of friends of a guy whose blog I follow. He was born very early and died after only three weeks. The reason I want to link to the blog is because I found his Dad's attitude very beautiful and amazing. The posts are threaded with joy at having Teddy around even though the whole time things were grim, and there is such thankfulness at the blessing of Teddy's little self. I was also struck by his Dad's confident anticipation that his son would enjoy a wonderful life in heaven. Knowing Jesus changes everything.

The blog only has two pages, so short was Teddy's life. Here's the first and here's the second.

streamofconsciousness

It's ridiculously late at night, but I feel like writing. I've been sitting here for hours, slowly ripping or burning or whatever my CDs into itunes and enjoying a sharp thinking blog. Channel [V] plays in the background, a pastiche of colour, movement and sound. It's the eve of my rest day and my brain unfurls. I love this time but am always left a little disappointed. Sometimes I go into the city on Saturday and wander around between errands or whatever I'm there for. Basically my brain/heart/spirit love being confronted by lots of stimuli. But I always want to respond with the same creativity I have observed, yet I never quite know what to do. I still have some small hope that I might one day learn to be a poet - so, I still have some small hope ;-). Tomorrow I'm off to see my dear friend Joan who knows about things like narrative and metre and may just understand the difficulty I have using creative expression I either do not feel or have not yet envisaged. For now there are girls in Alice in Wonderland costumes, cocktail bars and disapproving older men. I don't know what the song is because the TV's on mute. The last of my loud CDs is uploading. It's raining again and I'd better let in the cat.

Each day I ask myself

The suburb where I live has its main shopping drag on the other side of the railway line to my place. Then there's a secondary line of shops on my side of the tracks. Lots of people drive past these shops on their way to other places, but almost no-one walks. So how is it that all these shops survive?!? Let me show you what I mean:

EcoSensual is one of the newer shops. It sells candles. I have never seen anyone go in.

As well as repairing watches and clocks this shop provides engraving and pearl restringing services and you can sell your scrap gold to them. Never seen a person go in.

Sydney Golf House is not all it could be. Ditto the customers.

The butchers was an art studio by the time I arrived and has since closed up. I would not get my teeth looked at by Doobov Dental Laboratory for any money. Nor would anyone else from what I can see.

You'd better hope the pavlovas are in better shape than the building. Again no customers, but I have at least seen people in there.

If anyone can tell me how these shops stay in business I'd be most grateful. They can't all be running drugs.

A little Fundy . . .

I find it emotionally difficult to read authors with whom I disagree . . . This is obviously something of a problem for my Bible college career . . . One of the things that turns me off theologians in particular is their quest for biblical schemata. I applaud their desire to think biblically about modern situations (say, democracy), but I often find that they analyse the biblical account using categories which, while not exactly unfounded, do not arise naturally from the biblical material. It's as if they're squeezing it into trousers that don't quite fit - the content's still all there but the presentation's changed. My preference would be to leave biblical themes and categories sitting as they are and to let them speak into the modern situation to whatever extent they do. If they 'fall short' in any way, I would prefer to use prayer and careful thought to guide my actions, trusting that God will have his mighty, shepherding hand over these faltering things.

Faith [feyth] -noun

Faith is putting all your eggs in one basket - because the basket is a lovely, sturdy one that you can rely on.

Hands up if you're middle class

I glanced down at my trolley the other day, and couldn't help but smile at how stereotyped I am.

Place and people

Hobart people make me feel at home. There's an instant, almost familial, relationship between us all. I think it's got to do with the way the city is bordered by the mountain and river. The landscape makes us look inward, turning to each other for community. Living in view of the mountain and river also means that nature is part of all our lives. We see the snow on the mountain and feel the chill of the winter air, and in summer we go camping in the national parks and swim at the beach. This makes Hobart people grounded, down-to-earth sort of folk.

In Sydney I love the opposite of these. Sydney is full of strangers sure enough, but it's a wonderfully heady mix of strangers from many lands. And living in a city encourages people to look outward with minds open to the reaches of industry and creativity.

So anyway in cricket . . .

Seeing how as I'm an expert on raising missionary kids, I thought I'd pass on my two bobs' worth about how to settle them back into life in their (parents') home country. I reckon it would be massively helpful to buddy up with another family who have similiar aged children, and just spend a lot of time with them in the first few weeks. That way the other kids could teach your kids how to play the different sports and computer games, and explain the backstories of the latest TV shows.

He did this to demonstrate his justice

At a Sydney Writers' Festival event I attended a few weeks ago, Christopher Hitchens spoke about the gravity of misapplied words. The example he used was "child abuse", which he argued implies that all that is needed is repentence and forgiveness, when what is actually needed is justice for the "rape, torture and molestation of children". Leaving the language question aside, this example told me something about Hitchen's understanding of the relationship between forgiveness and justice. I hope that some day he finds out that in the death of Jesus justice was wholly served, and that it is only because of this that repentence and forgiveness are now available.

Prudes

We have become reverse-Victorians. They spoke openly about death but never mentioned sex, wheras we speak openly of sex but never mention death.


H/T Kirk

Over all

Paul Hiebert, a very clever man, came up with a dumb term for an insightful concept. He observed that people in non-Westerner cultures recognise myriad spiritual beings, which are regarded as very much involved in everyday life. Westerners tend to ignore the existance of these beings, and divide the world into an upper region (where God dwells) and a lower (where we dwell). And so he called the neglected realm of other spiritual beings the 'excluded middle'. The reason I think this is a silly term is because I don't think that the Bible gives us warrant to think of these beings as having their own special domain. Rather, the Bible speaks of God and his angels, and satan and his demons all in the one 'spiritual' category.

Anyway I wanted to say that when people from the non-Western world become Christians they really struggle to believe that God has power over the spirit world. So when they get sick they think this is somehow out of God's domain and they go to a witchdoctor for answers. But we Westerners do much the same thing - when we become Christians we really struggle to believe that God has power over the material world. So when our car breaks down we think that this is somehow out of God's domain and we fiddle around under the bonnet. God is, in truth, more powerful than all things and is ever in control of all things, and it is good for us to recognise this.


H/T Chris

Sexual temptation

David Cook did a guest lecture about sexual temptation in church leadership. I took notes (which is after all the point).

Ten reasons for vulnerability:

1. Your office is in an isolated location.
2. You have a close relationship with people.
3. You have access to peoples' bedrooms when they are sick. (The only other profession that has this privilege is medicine).
4. You may be subject to stimulating conversation (eg by people telling about
   their sexual past because they mistakenly believe that you're not subject to sexual temptation).
5. You're eager to please.
6. You're susceptible to criticism (and so seek affection and support in its wake).
7. You (and those around you) suffer from the myth of invulnerability.
8. You may have weakened relationships with your family.
9. You may have had inadequate training about sexual temptation.
10. Your leadership status may turn you into a sex object.

His suggestions for prevention were to:

1. Have a public office and be careful to use appropriate touch;
2. Remember your secure standing in the Lord;
3. Spend quality time with your family;
4. Know yourself;
5. Be professional (eg leave your office door open, limit conversations, don't
   give assurance of confidentiality, always be able to share things with your
   spouse);
6. Take responsibility (like King David did);
7. Be accountable to someone (end by asking each other if you've lied in the conversation).

Bold compassion

Ash explains why Christian social ethics can be championed in a spirit of love rather than panic:

No institution that is part of the created order can be destroyed by human disobedience. Human nonconformity leads not to the destruction of the order, but to judgment on human beings. No Christian movement needs to defend marriage: rather we seek to protect human beings against the damage done to them by cutting across the grain of the order of marriage.

Ibid, 82.

Changed

It's dangerous and fruitless to be more enamoured with searching than with finding. Ash says it well:

[H]ermeneutics is more than simple open-mindedness. It has been said that the purpose of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth at a meal, is in order to close it on something. So Thiselton adds the perceptive observation of Paul Ricoeur that hermeneutics must involve a double dynamic: on the one hand, the interpreter must be inherently suspicious, particularly of himself and his presuppositions, but on the other, he must be willing to listen to the text and to obey as he understands . . . . To sit under the text of Scripture is to be uncomfortable; we ought to be suspicious of any hermeneutic which renders us more comfortable. The command to repent and believe is fundamental to the gospel and we never move beyond its stringent discipline.

C Ash, Marriage: Sex in the Service of God (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2003), 79.

It's like . . .

Over the last few weeks I've preached the same sermon three times. David Cook said it would be a good idea. I was worried about losing my mojo, but he turned out to be right. The first time was in the midst of college madness and I didn't have time to think of any illustrations. Everyone commented on the clarity of my logic and structure. The second time I hardly changed a thing other than including some illustrations, and suddenly everyone was saying that my structure could be clearer. I guess this is because when you give an illustration everyone 'gets off the bus', and needs to be reminded where they were when they get back on again.