Author: Nathan Campbell

Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.

Beam me up… how many lasers would it take to take down the moon

XKCD‘s Randall Munroe is, I reckon, the smartest guy on the Internet. Hands down. His What If Blog continues apace, and continues to blow my mind with its diversity.

If you want your mind blown – check out this comic called “Drag” from a couple of weeks ago.

Today he’s hypothetically putting a laser dot on the moon – turns out it’s pretty difficult, and doing it properly will have some deadly results…

Make sure you find out what led to this point…

Ok, let’s mount a megawatt laser on every square meter of the surface of Asia. Powering this array of 50 trillion lasers would use up Earth’s oil reserves in approximately two minutes, but for those two minutes, the Moon would look like this:

a field of megawatt lasers covering asia fires at the moon

The Moon shines as brightly as the midmorning sun, and by the end of the two minutes, the lunar regolith is heated to a glow.

a man in a hat suggests trying more power.

Ok, let’s step even more firmly outside the realm of plausibility.

The most powerful laser on Earth is the confinement beam at the National Ignition Facility, a fusion research laboratory. It’s an ultraviolet laser with an output of 500 terawatts. However, it only fires in single pulses lasting a few nanoseconds, so the total energy delivered is about equivalent to a quarter-cup of gasoline.

Let’s imagine we somehow found a way to power and fire it continuously, gave one to everyone, and pointed them all at the Moon. Unfortunately, the laser energy flow would turn the atmosphere to plasma, instantly igniting the Earth’s surface and killing us all.

Also, check out what happens if the population of the world rocks up at Rhode Island and all jump at the same time.

Also, just for fun… there’s a really small paragraph of text on the XKCD home page that reads:

We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves.
The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
This is not the algorithm. This is close.

Here’s the fun answer about why it’s there.

October 2, 2012

10 propositions on the relationship between church, mission, and worship

This semester at college, in the wisdom of our curriculum setters, I’m doing some nicely overlapping thinking across three of my subjects – Church Ministry and Sacraments, Christian Worship, and The Modern Evangelical Movement . This is my attempt to integrate some of that thinking and give you some of the fruit of the grunt work I’ve put in on a couple of essays. I’ll post those essays at Venn Theology at the end of semester if you’d like to read more…

1. It starts with God – God is a relational God – both internally, within the Trinity, and externally – on his own mission – the Missio Dei (Mission of God in Latin). This mission is to gather a people to himself, who will glorify him for eternity – and he conducts this mission by sending Jesus and the Holy Spirit into the world.

2. The Church is on a mission from God – The church is the gathered people of God. We are instruments of God’s mission. United with Christ, equipped by the Spirit to take part in the gathering of God’s people. The church is a divine pyramid scheme – it exists to grow itself. Our union with Christ has an “incarnational” pay off, where when we act together as the Body of Christ we are being like Christ to the world around us. Mission is one of our primary tasks as a church, some have suggested mission is our human focused task, while worship is our god focused task,

3. This mission involves the proclamation of the Gospel in word, deed, and “being” by a priesthood of all believers– perhaps, after reading John Dickson’s Promoting the Gospel this week, “the promotion of the Gospel” is a better category. But we’re all on mission together. This mission will necessarily involve words, but it will also involve demonstrations of the truth of the gospel through how we relate to one another and the world around us as the people of God.

The church’s participation in mission to the world began in earnest with the calling of Paul (Acts 9:15), who defines his mission, which he invites his churches to partake in, as preaching Christ to those who have not heard (Romans 10:14-16, 15:17-21), as Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20, Colossians 4:2-6), to bring them to faith (Romans 10:17, 16:25-26, 1 Corinthians 9:19-23), and present them mature in Christ (Colossians 1:25-29).

The church is called to be different (Col 3:1-17, Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 3:18), and its conduct and ‘being’ is a fundamental part of its mission (John 13:35, 17:14-18, 20-23, 1 Peter 2:12, Matthew 5:14-16, Romans 12).

Some see social transformation as the content of evangelism, emphasising the incarnation and conflating “setting the oppressed free” with “proclaiming good news” (cf Luke 4:18-19) – but the preaching of the good news is what truly frees the oppressed.

4. While how we do and think of church (ecclesiology) and how we do and think of mission (missiology) are very closely related – they must be distinct – we can’t collapse them into each other. Many modern “missiologists” see the church exclusively as a tool for mission, so the social context of the church shapes church. If the church is incarnational, and is an entity equipped by God to do certain things (teach the gospel, administer the sacraments, “worship”) – then there are certain things that are non-negotiable even if they’re culturally weird. This is particularly true because part of how we define the church is by looking to the New Creation – where there is no mission to expand the church because the people are already gathered.

5. The Reformers worked with a “mother” analogy for the church. This is helpful. Though mission wasn’t a big deal during Christendom, and was more the role of governments who were understood as God’s tool for expanding the Christian state, the idea that the church is simultaneously responsible for “begetting” the faith of believers and nurturing believers is helpful – especially in the light of discussions and debates about who Sunday gatherings are for – where a dichotomy between serving believers and serving seekers has been unhelpfully pushed in recent times.

6. Mission is worship. If worship is magnifying the work of God as we praise, glorify and serve him, and involves the sacrificial giving of ourselves and our gifts for others (which I think is the definition of worship) – then mission is a form of that. Perhaps the ultimate form of that in our time and space – though this changes in the New Creation.  Participation in the mission of the church, as a subset of the mission of God, can be understood as an extension of the God glorifying purpose of each individual believer for which he has given us gifts that we are to use to build the body.

7. Worship is God focused, but involves being “poured out” in the service of others – Paul frames glorifying God, worship, and service, as using one’s gifts to serve others (Romans 12:1-12, 15:14-17, 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5), and sees preaching the gospel as his service and priestly duty (Acts 20:19-27, Romans 1:1, 15:16, Ephesians 3:17, 1 Corinthians 9:15-18, Colossians 1:23-29, Titus 1:1).

God gathers his people to pour them out as gifts for others (Romans 12:1, Ephesians 4:1-16 (Especially if, following Carson, the church is understood as the “host of captives” cf the Levites (Numbers 8, 18)), Philippians 2:17, 2 Timothy 4:6).

Spiritual gifts are used in the service of others, to produce maturity (Ephesians 4:8-16, Colossians 3:12-17, Romans 12:1-16, 1 Corinthians 12, 14), and to proclaim the excellence of God amongst the pagans (1 Peter 2:9-12).

The language used of the church in these passages is the language used to define worship.

8. Worship is mission. This does not necessarily follow point 6, but when point 7 is introduced the argument becomes a little easier to make – the way the church worships God functions as a testimony to others, and thus, alongside point 3, leads to the conclusion that our explicitly God focused worship of God is part of our mission. Because it is part of who we are as God’s people, and who we are as God’s people is part of our mission. This is not its only function – because it is part of what it means to truly be human (if the chief end of man is to Glorify God and enjoy him forever), and we will continue worshipping after every knee has bowed to Jesus, and in the throne room of God after judgment – where there are no non-Christians to gather. But in the here and now – our decision to not worship ourselves, or our idols, is part of our testimony to who God is – and is the only right response to the gospel of Jesus’ Lordship.

9. So, Corporate Worship – the stuff we do when we gather – is also mission.  The tasks of the church – preaching, the sacraments, and ‘worship’ (in the what we do at church sense of the word) – involves making a clear and appealing presentation of the gospel of Jesus. Clarity requires some form of contextualisation. Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 14 seems to base the unbeliever’s response to the gathering in their ability to perceive the truth of the gospel in the clarity of the gathering – corporate worship, the sacraments, and identity shaping orientation in the form of the Sunday service achieve this goal, and simultaneously the goal of worship and mission – when they involve the gathered people of God sacrificially serving one another with their gifts in a manner that clearly demonstrates and declares the truth of the gospel of the crucified saviour. Both aspects of the “mother” role of the church are accomplished in this manner.

10. Clarity on what the gospel is, what mission is, and what worship is, should nurture Christians and encourage them to worship with all of their lives, by being on mission with all of their lives. The Sunday gathering of the church should do this, thinking of the church as the permanent community of God’s people, on a permanent mission, rather than just God’s people when they gather, and missionaries when they’re outside the walls of the gathering is also helpful.

None of this seems all that controversial unless you spend a bunch of time reading stuff by people who disagree with points 3, 4, 9, and 10. Most Christians agree with 1 and 2, while 5, 6, 7 and 8 are matters that are settled by how one understands what the church is, what the gospel is, and what worship is… the methodology I used in coming to these conclusions was largely to start with a look at how the Bible develops the concept of what it means to be the people of God, and how this people is called to interact with God, with each other, and with the world around them.

I think this is a pretty useful way of thinking about life, and church – and even stuff like music – does anybody have any qualms with the logic?

 

October 2, 2012

What Alan Jones and Mitt Romney can teach us about Public Christianity

It’s hard to believe that two almost identical situations have occurred so close to each other on the conservative side of politics. Alan Jones can’t have been ignorant of what happened to Mitt Romney when some graceless comments he made at function for party faithful found their way into the media. Which makes Jones’ simply awful comments about John Gillard even less excusable. If that’s even possible…


Image Credit: The Australian

Jones has apologised today, calling the remarks a “black parody” – and that’s the problem with “parody” – it’s almost impossible to tell the difference between “black parody” and the twisted things a shock jock thinks and chooses to express. Romney’s put down of almost half the people he’s hoping will vote for him will probably cost him any chance he had at the presidency.

But there are a couple of lessons here for anybody who speaks into a microphone, or in public, or even in semi-private, or private… first – there’s no such thing as off the record. Ubiquitous recording makes it likely that anything stupid you say in front of people will see the light of day. It’s not enough to not put dumb and damaging things in writing – you can’t even speak them if you don’t want people hearing them.

There is no private. No closed room. No off the record. And people will be quick to throw light on misdeeds. Even when you think you’re only talking to the in crowd.

The rule for company spokespeople used to be never say anything you don’t want people to hear in front of a mic or camera even if you think it’s off… the better principle is probably “never say anything you haven’t thought about that you don’t want being heard by everyone.”

It’s very easy to say that you were misquoted, taken out of context, speaking in parody – but at that point the damage is already done. It’s easy to make clumsy statements – to offensively compare people to the Nazis when they disagree with you, to make slippery slope arguments that disgust your opponents, or to draw unfortunate comparisons by linking different topics deliberately or otherwise… it pays to be careful with what you say, in any context. To “tame your tongue”  because it can be pretty dangerous – as Jones and Romney are learning the hard way, or as James puts it in his letter in the New Testament…

“5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

James prefaces that statement with a particular warning for people who are going to teach others – which I think doesn’t just apply to what ministers of the gospel say from the pulpit, but what Christians say when they speak as Christians in public.

“Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.”

This, on one level, is a pretty superficial solution – but it would’ve helped both Romney and Jones. A better solution goes to the heart of the matter. Verse 2 is also a great reminder that we’re all going to stuff up at some point – which is why it pays to apologise early, and often, and to be clear any time you speak that you’re speaking as a broken person only made clean by an external agent – Jesus.

The problem that Jones and Romney have exemplified, and the reason its so hard to swallow an apology after the fact – is that these guys haven’t been just pinged for wrong speaking, but for wrong thinking… the tongue, whether the brain is properly engaged or otherwise, reveals the heart. Or, as Jesus puts it in Matthew 15:

10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them….

17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person.”

This works in both ways – both Jesus and James are keen for words to be matched by deeds, and hearts… it’s no good speaking good words from an unclean heart, as a later interaction with the Pharisees (who approached Jesus to question what his disciples do in Matthew 15)… from Matthew 23 demonstrates.

First, Jesus instructs the people about the Pharisees…

2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them…

Then he turns to the Pharisees to proclaim a series of woes… here’s two of them…

25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

A better solution than “don’t say dumb or harmful stuff where people can hear you” is “don’t think dumb and harmful stuff” – get your internals right, and the externals will follow.

Like James said – we’re always going to stuff up. It’s hard to tame the tongue. The real solution for people in ministry or doing public Christianity is to base everything on the work of Jesus, and God’s grace, in the light of our brokenness – so that we’re known for the gospel, and can point to our own stuff ups as evidence of the need for Jesus’ help, and his words as the basis of our words. If we’re known for that, rather than known for banging on about moral codes that we’ll all inevitably break without a generous act of God and the Spirit, it gives us something consistent to point to when we apologise.

An apology is more believable, and easier to accept, if what is being apologised for is not consistent with everything we’ve said before – and this is where Jones and Romney are going to struggle – Romney has a reputation for being out of touch with the lower class, his wealth, tax records, the aloof and out of touch things he says about life for the everyman, are going to make it hard for him to move past his 47% line, and Jones has a reputation for saying crass and shocking things to make a political point, especially when it comes to Julia Gillard.

This too is why it’s going to be harder and harder for Christians in Australia if we’re not known as people who love God, love our neighbours, and want to follow Jesus – but as people who want to protect “Christian values”… especially when we inevitably misspeak, or aren’t quick enough to distance ourselves from those who do… there’s tremendous pressure on Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party to distance themselves from Jones, just as there was last week with Bernardi’s unfortunate contribution to the gay marriage debate.


Image Credit: SMH

As James puts it…

9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.

The aim is to use our tongue for the first, and avoid the second… while being wise (more from James):

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deedsdone in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

Incidentally – if you didn’t read verse 14 after reading verse 6 – you might think there was a contradiction between what Jesus says about the heart being what “defiles” – because James says the tongue starts fires that “corrupts the whole body,” while Jesus says the tongue reflects what’s going on in the heart. It’s clear from this verse that James thinks the heart is the basis of the boasting of the tongue… his argument seems to be that an untamed tongue poisoning both for the speaker, and those who listen…

That is all.

September 30, 2012

Why clarity matters when talking about homosexuality, same sex attraction, and identity

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s post about Vaughan Robert’s compelling interview about his refusal to be defined by his same sex attraction, comes this post from another Christian who is kinda, sorta, not really gay. This guy Bryan shares his testimony in a really clear and compelling way – and the more people like Bryan and Vaughan who do this without being stigmatised or bashed over the head by well-meaning Christians… the better the church will be able to pastorally care for those Christians struggling with this form of sexual temptation, and will help us offer a more hopeful future to members of the GLBTI community who are considering making Jesus their Lord, and the basis of their identity.

The title of this post only really makes sense in the context of my post from yesterday called “Why Christians suck at talking about homosexuality.” UPDATE: In fact – the title (Why other people suck at talking about Christianity and homosexuality) was bad. So I’m changing it…

Before looking at Bryan’s testimony and the bizarrely sanctimonious response it drew from atheists and liberal Christians let me just clearly say this…

The idea that sexual activity is the basis of what it means to be human is truly bizarre.

Think about it – not everybody gets to express themselves sexually – single people who are single by choice, happenstance, or necessity, children, the widowed, the divorced – these are all categories of people who aren’t necessarily able to fulfil whatever sexual urges they might have – and they’re truly human, and the idea that they’re any less human is patently ridiculous. Even worse is the idea any less able to experience Christianity – which is what I think must happen sometimes when we trumpet the relationship between marriage and the inner workings of the Trinity and suggest we understand God any better on that basis.

It’s more bizarre for Christians to push a position like this when you consider that Jesus, and Paul, were both single (despite what a now debunked “ancient” papyri might suggest).

Anyway, here’s some helpful stuff from Bryan’s testimony, which I’d encourage you to read if you’re concerned for looking out for your brothers and sisters, and neighbours, who are same sex attracted. If we want to stop making it really hard to hear someone we love saying “I’m kinda, sorta, not really, gay” without jumping to judgment or solutions – we need to listen to those people who are brave enough to say it, and who put the kind of time and effort into clarity and tone that Bryan has…

I’ve had years to think about it: if someone asked if I’m gay, how would I answer?

Saying “no” risks people thinking I’m another brainwashed fundamentalist in denial, suppressing my sexuality to please my parents, my pastor, my peers. Saying “yes” risks people thinking I’ve assumed a gay identity, that I’m out and proud, affirming and celebrating the homosexual lifestyle.

Neither is true.

The reality is that I acknowledge my same-sex desires. I talk openly with family and friends about homosexuality, especially as it relates to my commitment to Christ. More importantly, I’m honest with God about my struggles with same-sex attraction. I don’t pretend the feelings aren’t there; on the contrary, I consider them very real temptations. The only denial happening here is self-denial, the daily charge to take up my cross and follow Christ (Luke 9:23). That’s the calling of every Christian, not just those who fight against homosexual desires. 

…

A more important question to answer is one that Jesus asked Peter: “Do you love me?” My answer is yes. A thousand times yes! By the grace of God, my love for Christ is greater than my attraction to men. Love enables me to pursue holiness rather than homosexuality. Love compels me to serve God rather than my own selfish desires, however “natural” they may seem. Jesus makes singleness, celibacy and everything else that comes with same-sex attraction worth it. Indeed, the life I’m choosing to live can hardly be called a sacrifice.

As I’ve grown in my relationship with God and trusted more in Christ’s finished work on the cross, I’ve learned not to define myself by sins or temptations. My identity is not bound to my sexuality, but to my Savior (Galatians 2:20). That’s why I don’t call myself a gay Christian; I’m a Christian who struggles with same-sex attraction. I haven’t given up hope that God can change those attractions. But I’m living in the reality that he has not, and he may not. In the meantime, my highest goal is not becoming straight, but knowing and loving Christ.

I like the idea, I think it was from Arthur at meetjesusatuni.com, that “straight” is actually a really unhelpful label and category for Christians – because we need to acknowledge that we’re all actually broken in the area of sexuality, as we are everywhere else, when it’s not something we submit to the Lordship of Jesus. There is no part of the life of the Christian that Jesus is not Lord over.

Bryan’s post isn’t a really popular point of view with people who either want to limit the Lordship of Jesus to a wishy-washy command to “love”… and with people who want to limit the Lordship of Jesus to nothing at all…

For a few years I’ve enjoyed the poking and prodding of Stuff Christian Culture Likes – but its increasingly becoming a home for people who aren’t just disenfranchised with Christian Culture, but with the church, and with Jesus. Steph from Stuff Christian Culture Likes posted a link to Bryan’s piece on her Facebook page, and the comments indicate that her community cares as much about sex as the culture they’re rejecting. They are as hung up on sex as the Christian moral lobby they hate so much – which they see wanting to control what happens in bedrooms everywhere. Here are some of the choice comments in response to Bryan’s post. There are very few about Bryan’s freedom as an individual to determine how his sexual orientation does, or doesn’t, define him… because they all believe that we can’t help but be controlled by group think.

” On the basis of that I would say gay and in denial; a denial brought on by being taught that there is only one right way to read the Bible.”

Which pretty much ignores everything Bryan says in his opening paragraph.

“I am so, so sad for this man that he feels that he must deny who he is to be “holy”. Also, it’s increasingly disconcerting that the fundamentalist way of viewing homosexuality is pushed as the “only right” perspective/theology, whereas there are many excellent theologians who have done great work in this area. Currently reading Wendy Farley’s “Gathering Those Driven Away”, which is an excellent book about the theology of embracing, supporting, and celebrating the GLBTQ community.”

This comment kind of misses the whole “take up your cross” part of Christianity. Denying who you are is fundamental to following Jesus, who even without the notion of a sinful nature (which we’ll get to in a second), provides a model that we’re called to follow, check out this bit from Philippians 2:

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!”

If Jesus gives up his whole life, and we’re called to have the same mindset, then who are we to say that sexuality is something you check in at the door when you’re following Jesus. Following Jesus means, at the very least, being prepared to give up your sexual expression for others, and for him.

Here’s the next one.

“”homosexuality” is an ambiguous term translated from an ambiguous text. Would you like to know what the writer intended for certain? Wouldn’t it make a big, big difference if the terminology used referred to, say, pedophilia instead of homosexuality?

Additionally, I was born and raised in a non-denominational background that taught that humans are inherently sinful and therefore need the mercy and salvation of Christ. It was understood that everyone was in a perpetual state of “sin” due to our “sin nature”; no one could ever be perfect, or they would not be human, and separated from god. 

So, yeah, it might be a sin according to a book that has been translated, interpolated, and edited over the course of thousands of years…but so is jealousy, greed, pride, being inhospitable, being cruel, etc. etc. Point being, every person that met in that church every Sunday, the whole room of them, was in a state of sin (of some degree or another – if the outward stuff won’t get ya, the thought crimes sure will) – so why single out a specific kind of sin and lay earthly punishments upon it?”

There are quite a few begged questions in there – people trying to muddy the waters on what the New Testament says about homosexuality are often pretty sketchy about the translation of a Greek word, and bring in arguments from its semantic range… it’s hard to justify that when the two disputed words are paired (in 1 Corinthians 6), and when they’re used by Jewish interpreters talking about the prohibitions of homosexuality before the New Testament is written. The argument against homosexuality in Romans 1 is an argument from creation. You can read more about this here… the real point that sits at the heart of the church’s ongoing objection to homosexuality is that it’s treated as an identity definer. If a person came to church and said “I’m a Christian adulterer and there’s nothing wrong with that” I hope they’d get pointed to the same passages and told that being a Christian requires a change of identity, and a movement away from being defined by the flesh, and our desires, to being defined by Jesus, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Where the reaction gets really interesting is where an ex-Christian atheist weighs in. He says much the same stuff, just with more pain. He ad hominems Bryan, introducing a claim that Bryan never makes (he simply claims to be somebody who has studied, and experienced, same sex attraction):

“declaring yourself the absolute authority on the 3 passing mentions of homosexuality (which are contextually mute on committed same-sex relationships) in the bible is pretty arrogant, especially for someone who is evidently untrained in biblical history, exegesis, Greek, Hebrew, or anything that might actually matter to the interpretation.”

He commits another fallacy when he launches a studs up two footed tackle at Bryan because the Bible is soft on slavery.

Know what is crystal clear in the bible? Slavery.

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you.  You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land.  You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT

As Sam Harris says, the bible got the easiest moral question of humanity wrong.  Why should we trust it on any other matter?

Firstly – this is fairly anachronistic. It imports the moral values we’ve developed after about 5,000 years of culture, led in many ways in the last 2,000 years by Christianity, into a world where slavery wasn’t just the norm, but a terrible thing – and it ignores the other laws about how slaves are to be treated. Would he prefer the command to be “kill all your enemies when you take their land” – you can argue the morality of taking land if you like, but again, we’ve got to be mindful of the historical context and the types of nations and armies that were around at the time… That’s why context matters. Slavery was an ancient reality, it’s great that it’s not a present reality – and we can trust the Bible’s moral compass because people better at reading it than this guy Patrick realised that the Bible made all human life something valuable (because humans are created in the image of God), and pushed people towards abolishing slavery.

If you argue from God’s creative act as one of the foundational point for Christian ethics, and understand the law as a tool for moderating behaviour rather than legislating ideals – then you’re left with the decision that homosexuality, and slavery go against the created nature of humanity. It’s not rocket science.

Anyway. We’re not going very well here – because slavery is a bit of a red herring, and the comparison is drawing a false equivalence. The Bible’s claims about sexuality are a demonstrably different issue to the Bible’s claims about slavery – and each should be considered on their own merit. Patrick is clearly a pretty hurt, and angry guy. It makes me sad that Christians have caused him this hurt. He blames Christians for all sorts of terrible things. But his real hang up with Bryan’s post is on the identity thing.

“How many people hear that God hates them because they’re gay? I’m sure you can rationalize it away (and in fact you did): “I still have a moral problem with lots of things that I do.” But guess what; homosexuality (see Step 2) isn’t a moral problem. It’s an identity, like your nose, hair color, or gender. Or your height.It’s not immoral to be tall, just like it’s not immoral to be gay.

Meanwhile I’m glad that you have unanimously declared yourself to be the only person in possession of this elusive ‘hope’ you seem so fond of.  What hope is that? The hope to live in self denial for the rest of your life, to be ashamed of an unchangable God-given inadequacy that can only be salved by a Jesus, the very one who said you were broken in the first place?”

It interests me that he lists gender there – given that gender is widely understood to be something you should change, surgically, if it doesn’t match up with who you think you are. But suggest a Christian can either change their sexual orientation, and not use it as an identifier, and wow.

“I wish that I could individually talk to every delusional person one-on-one for 5 years to explain to them how the hodgepodge of mythology they believe in causes repression, self-hatred, warped self-identity, and piles of dead bodies whose corpses could build cities of grotesque tribute to human’s imaginary friends through the ages.Religion is the cause, directly. The cause of gay suicides.  The cause of faith-healing deaths…

…We are the firstborn to consciousness in this little husk of dirt, and to teach our children, our family, or our friends that we should be ashamed of being exactly who we are is the beginning and end of an abusive, manipulative, emotional slavery the likes of which deserve the utmost contempt from every human being that has breathed air into their lungs.”

I don’t know. I like Bryan’s version of reality better. I like a world that lets individuals choose how they’d like to be identified better than a world where you’re told your identity is chosen for you by nature, where you can do nothing about it. The atheist position pushes a more fatalistic view of identity than the Christian one. Here’s how Bryan concludes:

“Jesus is that hope. He came into the world to save sinners—gay, straight and everything in between. God reconciles us to himself when we put our faith in Christ, who died in our place so that we may be called righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21). That faith doesn’t take away our temptations—sexual or otherwise—but it takes away the condemnation (Romans 8:1). That’s the gospel. That’s a story that needs to be told. That’s why I’m talking now.”

September 28, 2012

Could this be the worst marketing song ever written and performed?

September 27, 2012

Vaughan Roberts on why the church sucks at talking about homosexuality

Vaughan Roberts is an evangelical. An Englishman. A minister at a growing church. He’s also same sex attracted. He recently revealed this in the foreword to a book he wrote, then he put out a press release and did this interview.

He’s a man who speaks with clarity, and sensitivity. He brings a much needed perspective (particularly needed in the English Anglican Church).

You can read big chunks of the release and interview at David Ould’s fantastic blog… but I particularly liked this answer to the question of why the church communicates a negative message on homosexuality. The whole interview is a worthwhile read.

“The problem is largely caused by the fact that most of our comments on homosexuality are prompted, not primarily by a pastoral concern for struggling Christians, but by political debates in the world and the church. We do need to engage in these debates, but it’s vital that we’re alert to the messages that some of our brothers and sisters may be hearing.

Media reporting often doesn’t help and can give the impression that we think this particular sin is especially heinous. Also, in countering the simplistic binary model of the world that people are either born gay or straight (or, occasionally, bi), we are prone to make overly dogmatic comments ourselves about causation and cure. These can be heard to imply that homosexual attraction is just a matter of personal choice. This only increases the sense of shame already felt by those who experience unwanted same-sex attraction and can leave them with the impression that this is a battle that is not safe to share with others in the church. I have become convinced, therefore, that we need not only a greater openness in discussing issues of sexuality, but also a more positive vision and presentation of the nature of faithful discipleship for those who struggle in this area.“

We need to be better at this.

September 27, 2012

Chuck Norris reads his own facts

I still think Chuck Norris, Bear Grylls, and Mr T would make an awesome line up at a Christian men’s convention.

Thanks to Tim.

September 26, 2012

How Mario should have worked

I’d play this. I mean. I played the original. But this looks better.

September 26, 2012

Is what’s happening in Scarborough fair?

On the surface this reads like an angry council being spurred on by some angry residents to persecute an Australian church…

Scarborough Baptist Church, in Western Australia, has been ordered to cease almost all its activities because their church property is only technically allowed to conduct religious services and childcare. Their media release says:

“On 18 September 2012 Scarborough Baptist Church received notification from the City of Stirling requiring the Church to cease all activities (including feeding the needy and running craft and pre-school dance classes) not defined by the City as “religious activities”. The penalty for not complying is an immediate fine of $1,000,000 plus $125,000 per day that the Church fails to comply.

Many of these activities are central to the Church’s pastoral role within the community, and have been operating in the church for years; the craft group, for example, has been holding weekly craft meetings for 35 years, and the evening service and community meal has now been running for nearly a decade.

The City of Stirling has failed to provide any evidence that Scarborough Baptist Church has contravened any local by-laws. Through this Direction, the City has taken upon itself the right to define what constitutes a religious activity. According to the City’s correspondence, religious activities exclude, among others: funerals, weddings, Easter services, youth groups, quiz nights to raise funds for local schools, fêtes and fairs to raise funds for world aid, and the provision of meals and services to the community.

It is the position of Scarborough Baptist Church, in accordance with the separation of Church and State, that local government officials not take it upon themselves to define what a religious activity is, be it in the context of a church, mosque, temple, synagogue, or other place of worship.”

I’m not a big fan of that last paragraph – I mean I understand where they’re coming from, but I think they assume a “separation of church and state” that might not actually exist in the form that they’re suggesting it does. However, the idea that local government officials shouldn’t be defining what a religious activity is is pretty sound.

There’s also some nice bits of the Bible to support what Scarborough Baptist are defining as religious activities – especially the bolded bits above:

From James 1:

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

And Mark 10, where Jesus is talking to a young rich guy.

“Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.””

Jesus makes it a pretty big deal towards the end of Matthew too, in chapter 25…

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Now. I don’t live in Western Australia, so I’m not exactly sure what’s going down here – but this seems to be a bit of a PR nightmare for the council, and a great opportunity for the church. Perhaps they should move their activities to a park or something while this gets sorted out… but at the very least they’ll be able to talk a bit about what it means to be a Christian – and how these activities relate to what Jesus taught.

The story is getting some coverage, and I guess we can expect to see more of it in coming days… here’s one of the fairly sympathetic stories from a West Australian outlet… where the plot thickens a bit… with two things:

The complaints were apparently initiated by the church’s neighbours… for what some might consider a legitimate reason.

“The council said it was obliged to investigate after receiving complaints from residents over late-night noise and antisocial behaviour such as urination in public…

… Health and compliance manager Peter Morrison said the council has told the church that it would consider changes to allow many of the activities if the church lodged the necessary applications and showed how it would address neighbourhood concerns.

“The church has refused to make any such application,” he said. “Any organisation, church or not, needs to make an application to their local government authority to conduct activities on premises.”

And the council is prepared to allow the church “conduct worship” if it fills out some paperwork.

Here’s what I’d be doing if I were the church in question.

1. Reach out to the neighbourhood. Mending bridges. Apologising. Offering the same love to the immediate neighbours that they seem pretty good at offering to the community at large. Deliberately.

2. Put together a teaching series on what “religion that God accepts” looks like – putting these on the website, and issuing a media release inviting the community along to experience “true religion”… even if they have to do it in a park. This gets the church’s position into the public domain as quickly, clearly, and proactively as possible.

3. Submit to the requests of the government and fill out the paperwork – and see what activities the council deems inappropriate.

4. Write an open letter to the mayor, sent to the local paper, outlining the church’s commitment to praying faithfully for, and serving the city, especially by lovingly pointing people to Jesus, and caring for them as he requires, with no request for special treatment, but a promise to keep on using whatever resources the church has to love and serve the community, out of the hope that they will see their need for Jesus through the love of his people, with a concluding statement that even one day’s worth of the fine will put the church out of business.

Obviously I’m not that church, and they have a much better idea of what’s going on on the ground, with their neighbours, with their finances, and how essential their activities are to their presence in the community. But it’s interesting to work from a non-hypothetical dilemma.

There’s an interesting take on the situation from a guy named Stephen McAlpine here, he suggests a couple of different solutions…

This could be a big deal, or it could be a small deal, either way – it raises some interesting questions about how to be the church in Australia and what it means to have a physical presence in a community.

UPDATE: There’s another good story from a couple of days ago that’s worth a read. I especially like these last lines:

Pastors and church members are adamant that they should be allowed to serve food under their licence to operate as a church, because feeding the needy is part of a religious service.

Seven-year-member Colin Rowecliffe says: “We are a church, and inherent in that is the approval to be a church and act like a church.”

We want to be a church that is community minded, that not only has bible studies and prayers but also does things in the community”.

“We don’t just try to do talk about what Jesus does, we try to do what Jesus did.”

Also, in the comments, RodeoClown shared a response that Scarborough Baptist issued after that first article. It’s worth a read in full… but some highlights:

“Peter Morrison’s comments regarding Scarborough Baptist Church gives the wrong impression that the church is being deliberately intransigent and seeks to put itself above the law. Up to now the church has had no evidence presented to us to indicate that we have breached any by-laws of the City of Stirling or laws of the state. Mr. Morrison refers to complaints about late night activities by the church. Our Sunday evening meal finishes at 8pm. with all the people dispersed by 8.15pm. at the latest. Once or twice a year we may have a meeting up to ten at night – which hardly constitute ‘late nights’. The complaints can thus not refer to the church’s activities and should have been dismissed.”…

…We have always sought permission for activities conducted outside our church buildings that may impact on the community. Furthermore, officials of the City of Stirling trained us on how to provide meals in line with health regulations at our Sunday fellowship and outreach services.

September 26, 2012

Cinema hires ninjas to silence unruly patrons

The days of people being noisy during a movie might well be numbered. Especially if this move by the Prince Charles Cinema in the UK to appoint movie ninjas takes off, and they’re given lethal powers.

You can buy your own Morphsuit and join the fun.

Via the BBC, and C|NET

September 26, 2012

A guide to promoting community events

I’ve spent the day putting together a White Paper for a PR client detailing how you might go about publicising and marketing an event. It’s useful stuff. I’m pushing for it to be something they give away, partly because I’d have to completely rewrite it to not breach any copyright stuff if I wanted to give it away from here. But in the course of my research I came across this guide from the Australian Government’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship for “Promoting Community Events Through the Media” – which does pretty much everything my paper does anyway, though in a slightly more basic way.

It’s a good starting point for churches thinking about getting some local media attention for their events.

There are a few other handy bits and pieces courtesy of Business Events Sydney. They have a nice little “toolkit”… which includes a guide to promoting events, and these two semi-useful pages:

September 26, 2012

Krosswerdz: taking Jesus to the hip hop community one beat at a time

I’m not an expert on Hip Hop. It accounts for about 4% of my iTunes library and that number is increasingly diminishing (at the moment Hip Hop with Banjo would be a winner).

But my friend Nat is. Nat aka Dsipl is, without question, one of my favourite people in the world. He’s a marquee for turning personal tragedy into an opportunity to help others – and though he has to stab himself with needles a few times a day, as a diabetic – he’s one of the most others focused people I know.

Nat’s involved with a group called Krosswerdz – they’re Hip Hop people who love Jesus (apparently, according to Nat when I asked him once – Hip Hop is a lifestyle, Rap is what you do)… They put on regular Hip Hop church services around the country. Aiming to connect with people who are that way inclined.


Image Credit: The Embassy

I went along to one of their meetings in Logan a couple of months ago – and they’ve grown their Brisbane gathering from single digits to somewhere around 60 people (probably more – I didn’t count) in less than a year.

Anyway. Nat released a video today. I like it, and this seemed as good a time as any to plug Krosswerdz.

September 25, 2012

Wikipedia to author: we need a secondary source

This is broken. Wikipedia won’t take an author’s word for what his novel is about… The beauty of this piece on the New Yorker has become the secondary source Wikipedia requires.

“I am Philip Roth. I had reason recently to read for the first time the Wikipedia entry discussing my novel “The Human Stain.” The entry contains a serious misstatement that I would like to ask to have removed. This item entered Wikipedia not from the world of truthfulness but from the babble of literary gossip—there is no truth in it at all.

Yet when, through an official interlocutor, I recently petitioned Wikipedia to delete this misstatement, along with two others, my interlocutor was told by the “English Wikipedia Administrator”—in a letter dated August 25th and addressed to my interlocutor—that I, Roth, was not a credible source: “I understand your point that the author is the greatest authority on their own work,” writes the Wikipedia Administrator—“but we require secondary sources.”

Here’s the Wikipedia article incorporating Roth’s denial.

“On September 7, 2012, Roth wrote, in the The New Yorker, an open letter to Wikipedia in which he stated that his novel was based on an incident in the life of his friend, Melvin Tumin, professor of sociology at Princeton. According to Roth, Tumin noticed midway through the semester, that two students enrolled in one of his courses had not attended class or contacted him. He asked the class (as does the character Coleman Silk) about the missing students: “Does anyone know these people? Do they exist or are they spooks?” Tumin then learned the students were African-American; he spent several months providing depositions to clear up suspicions regarding his use of the sometimes racially charged term “spooks“. Roth notes the irony that Tumin was a noted specialist in race relations.[12] In response to the claim that The Human Stain was inspired by the life of the Anatole Broyard, Roth wrote that he barely knew Broyard, and, “Neither Broyard nor anyone associated with Broyard had anything to do with my imagining anything in ‘The Human Stain.'”[12]“

September 24, 2012

Jesus v Horus (and Zeitgeist)

So there’s this movie called Zeitgeist. It’s popular on YouTube. It’s old. It questions the originality of the claims Christianity makes about Jesus.

It’s not very good history.

It resurfaced recently as a silly cartoon infographic circulating on Facebook and elsewhere.

If the claims in this infographic were accurate it’d be a great reason to rethink following Jesus.

But they’re not. I did a little reading when this popped up on a friend’s wall. Here’s what I found…

It’s a shame hardly any of the statements about Horus are even remotely close to being true, and most of them are based on some non-scholarly comparative religion by a guy named Gerard Massey that has even been debunked by skeptics – there aren’t any references to Egyptian papyrii, hieroglyphics, or recordings of the Horus legend, of which there are actually many competing accounts, that back up the claims made, and the comparisons on the basis of what is generally agreed about Horus stories are so vague that they’d apply to anybody people want to worship as a god…

Ignoring the odd origin stories of Horus (there are many, some involve Osiris being raised, others involve Isis conceiving Horus from the dismembered body parts of her husband, which I’d argue makes the virgin birth claim untenable, also the idea that Iris was still a virgin after a significant time period of being married to Osiris before his death is frankly, quite quaint…), there are other obvious problems.

The Christmas day birthday one just isn’t true – the mishmash of calendars being used and developed by different cultures not withstanding – in Egyptian mythology Horus is born on one of the five epagomenal days (the days added to the lunar calendar to make up a year). These were added to the end of the year – but the year started in either July or August, not January. So the last five days weren’t the last five days of December, but days in July, or August…

Also, Christmas was a deliberate takeover of pagan festivals, it wasn’t until about 300AD that anybody seriously suggested Jesus was born then, and it’s not a particularly serious suggestion given the complete lack of evidence.

If these very simple claims are very easy to debunk, and they appear to be – though admittedly there’s a lot of competing claims about Horus that have been compiled as though there’s only one Horus narrative, and there’s a few merges going on between Horus and his father Osiris. The best one being the resurrection one – which confuses Horus with his father Osiris. Who wasn’t crucified, but nailed into a coffin…

If this is the kind of thing that passes for educated atheist interactions with Christian beliefs then it makes me sad.

There’s no doubt that both Christianity and prior to that, Judaism emerged within, and mostly against, other cultures with competing religious views and accounts for the creation of the world, and their particular culture’s special place within it. There’s also no doubt that Christianity deliberately responds to alternative claims using familiar terminology, so, for example, just about all the titles used for Jesus were actually used for the worshipped Roman Emperors – because Christians were making a deliberate comparison between Jesus and Caesar.

Most Ancient Near Eastern religions involve Gods and their offspring – none push quite the same human/divine paradigm that Jesus is claimed to have pushed (fully God+fully man), and none of them hang quite so much on the full humanity, with divine parenthood, of the saviour figure.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the real God would present himself in a manner expected by the people of the day, especially if it’s a manner described years before in the Old Testament.

Here’s a nice little bit of extended scholarly debunking of Zeitgeist from CPX.

Zeitgeist: Time to discard the Christian story? from CPX on Vimeo.

September 24, 2012

Stephen Fry on grammar nazis and language

September 23, 2012