At the recent and throughly awesome MTS Challenge conference, Andrew Cameron made a passing comment about the unique perspective of Tasmanian Bible college students. He spoke a little hesitantly, perhaps afraid that we might feel patronised, but he needn't have - we love hearing serious talk about our uniqueness. (We are - that is, I am - not so keen on jokes about the same.) He said he couldn't put his finger on just what it was, so I've had a go.
I think that Tassie Christians bring three things to the Sydney scene. For starters, there's not many of us down here: in most circumstances you'd have to work pretty hard to live your life in a Christian bubble. We all go to school and uni with non-Christians and have plenty of workmates and friends who don't share our beliefs. We know what it is to stand up for what we believe and to make ethical choices; we know how people around us tick, almost without thinking; and we don't get our knickers in knots over peripheral issues.
We're also creative people. Not only creative, but eccentric. Or if we're neither, we're probably comfortable with both. The eccentricity comes of living on an island - it does something unusual to people, or perhaps it just attracts certain types. This gives permission for normal people to express their eccentric side. The creativity just comes from this place. I'm not sure why, but at least some of it has to do with the gorgeous beauty of this island. Anyway, these things enable us to come up with fresh ideas and approaches or fresh packaging of old ideas. And because we're familiar with oddities and grey areas, we're slow to jump to conclusions, to interfere or judge others, because, rather than doing something wrong, they might just be doing something wierd. So we give people space to be or to develop and change.
What do you say?
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- fional
- Fiona is a proud Tasmanian who now calls Chile home. Both Hobart and Santiago sit beneath mountains, but the mountains are very different and their cities too. With God's help, Fiona will help her Chilean sisters make sense of the Bible, get to know its Author better and learn what it means to live as loved, forgiven people.
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3 comments:
Fiona. This is a thought provoking post. Thanks for raising it. And I can see that, like me, you're a proud Tasmanian.
But I'm not sure if I agree with what you're saying here.
What Andrew Cameron might have been giving voice to is that he likes it when people (any people) come to his college who aren't from within the Sydney Anglican scene. They stand out as fresh and different because they haven't been bought up within "the institution."
And from what I have heard from and of Andrew Cameron he is a fresh and different kind of guy. Someone who thinks deeply and is different to many around him.
I can't speak for Andrew's experience of Tasmanians because I didn't go to MTC, nor did I hear him speak at the Conference you mentioned. But I can speak for me. And I did notice that as a visitor to Sydney Evangelicalism, there was a lot of insider assumptions and language used by the locals (I could give stories of my own experience here but that wouldn't be helpful).
So maybe Andrew appreciates that we have a different way of expressing our ideas (you put this down to our island creativity; I put it down to our separation). The same could be said for anyone who is from outside the usual pool and who hasn't learnt the Sydney lingo.
And as for creativity? I'm not sure.
Again, I can only speak from my own experiences in Tas and at SMBC.
But I don't think that Tasmanian Bible College students are any more creative than non-Tasmanian. In fact, the most creative people I knew in Sydney were Gen Y'ers who'd been brought up in the jungle of the city and who thought that a weekend away to Stanwell Tops was a trip to the end of the world.
And as a Christian growing up in Launceston I found that eccentricity was shunned. When you go into town you know that you're going to see lots of people that you know. So you try to fit in.
The anonymity of Sydney means that it's easier to be eccentric there. Almost nothing is considered too wacky.
This is turning out to be a bit of a nit-picky comment from me. Sorry about this.
But I'll keep going. Seeing as you asked :)
I'm not with you about the inherent difficulty that there is in living in a bubble in Tas. I think Tasmanians easily live in ghetto's. Many of the Christians I know went to a Christian school that was attached to the church they went to. And lots of them work in the family business with other Christians.
And, oh dear, I'm not with you about the non-interference with others or the slow to judge others either or the space to develop and change either.
And actually, I've heard myself and other Tasmanian's criticized by fellow MTC and SMBC students for not integrating enough with the Sydney crowd. For appearing "superior." For always talking about what we did back home. For being too stridently ... um ... Tasmanian.
Now I've done it. I've gone and depressed even myself with all that. Where that Nick Cave CD and the bottle of scotch...
Having said all of that, gosh I love being a Christian down here. It's not easy, At least it hasn't been for me. But I wouldn't want to be living anywhere else.
Whoah! Steady on there brother - you've just written a second post :P. But I appreciate your thoughts, and now I see that many of my observations may be unique to Hobart.
I still do think that Hobart people are creative, especially when it comes to experimenting with church structures and events. In Sydney, there seems to be an established way of conducting things and even the more creative things fall within certain boundaries. (Of course I'm not talking here about the innovators who got things like MTS going.)
I actually found Sydney to be a pretty conservative city (with the exception of Newtown) - unlike Melbourne where eccentricity has almost become a new conservatism :P
I think you hit on a somewhat different issue at the end. The problem with people who are - if I'm right - happy to sit with eccentricity, is that we may not know what to do with people who are straight down the line. We can be slow to judge the wierd people and quick to judge the conservatives. It's an ugly thing.
Yeah. Sorry about the prolixity.
I haven't lived in Melbourne so I can't comment. I'll just have to take your word for it.
But I found Sydney to be a pretty weird place to live.
And yes, your last paragraph identifies another way in which we as Christians can judge each other.
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