In One Ear

Invasion Day 2012

2012-01-26T19:08:00.000+08:00

I nearly left this up with out saying anything. I will let the song speak for itself. But let me list some reasons why I can not celebrate Australia Day.

1) Aboriginal languages and cultures are still dying, while we still insist that they speak English and conform to our European way of life.
2) Aboriginal peoples are denied the right to self determination.
3) As European Australians we do not admit that our own cultures are as much guests in Australia as the ones that come after us.
4) Refugees are being turned away, while both sides of politics do not want to freely allow boat people in. They can get away with this because the majority of Australians feel the same way.
5) While we may have said sorry for the stolen generations, our actions do not say sorry.
6) While we may have said sorry for the stolen generations, we have never said sorry for the many generations of genocide that went on before.
7) Because even my mates will scoff at Aunty Joy when she gives a welcome to country at an AFL match (the indigenous match between Richmond and Essendon), saying things like "it's our land now, we kicked them off it" or "can't they find someone more eloquent to speak for them".

I could sit here longer and rant longer, but it will just get me worked up. I want to see a day when Australian Aboriginal peoples are truly respected and valued for what they can teach us. When we have that attitude I think we will find that they are happy to welcome us to their traditional lands- mutual respect will be fostered. Until that day happens there will never be a true Australia Day.

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A little post script edit for the end of Invasion Day 2012- let Yothu Yindi have the last word.

Treaty now, treaty yeah!

Invasion Day

2012-01-25T19:00:00.000+08:00

As my way of protesting the continual systematic attack on Aboriginal Cultures in Northern Territory, I will not be celebrating Australia Day this year. I will instead be observing Invasion Day.

Happy Invasion Day 2010 from FOABP x FCAC on Vimeo.

Australian Aboriginal cultures under attack by Northern Territory government

2012-01-25T18:41:00.001+08:00

It saddens me to know that there is still very little being done in Australia to protect indigenous languages. I consider it to be a culturally dominant and patronising position that English be pushed as the first language in education. It should be pointed out that Australia does not have an official language at all and that legally all people are free to receive education in any language.
The Northern Territory are most guilty in their dismantling of bi-lingual programs in schools.
Evidence for this is cited here:
Australian Indigenous language funding

I have been prompted again to think of this issue after seeing this interview with a lady from the Iwaidja people in Arnhem Land of Northern Territory. A little funding from the federal government does not cover up the fact that Australian Indigenous cultures are still being systematically wiped out. It seems we have actually not learnt a thing in Australia. The apology to the stolen generations now seems rather hollow.

View the video here:

Iwaidja Ngabi Inyman from Bruce Birch on Vimeo.

Here is the letter that I have sent to Peter Garrett's office requesting an official conversation on the matter.

I will write more on this matter as the issues unfold.

To the office of Peter Garrett, M.P

Hello,
I am an Australian citizen currently living and working in Russia. I am a linguist with a B.A from Monash University (2000). My other qualifications are a Graduate Diploma of Language Description and Development (2009) and an Associate Diploma of Intercultural Studies (1998). I currently work as a linguist in the field of language revitalisation and maintenance among endangered languages of Siberian indigenous peoples in Russia.

I have some real and deep concerns for the state of endangered languages in Australia. My concerns are multi faceted and are connected with language, identity, cultural and mental well being, at both individual and community levels. Among my many concerns the one that falls directly in Peter Garrett's sphere of influence is the education of children in their indigenous languages. This issue is connected to English taking a precedence over indigenous languages.

I, along with many Australians was filled with tears, joy, hope and a very small measure of pride when an official apology was made by the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on behalf of the Australian Parliament to the members of the stolen generations, in February of 2008. My colleagues here in Siberia also took some hope that a national government would take the time to pay attention to indigenous issues. Many Aboriginal peoples were very appreciative of the apology and warmly welcomed it. At the same time many Aboriginal peoples reminded European Australians that their languages do not have tangible words for "sorry" (they are oral, tangible based i.e non abstract languages), and that our actions would show them sorry more than words.

I am concerned that the true spirit of sorry has not been grasped by the Australian Parliament (all parties), nor the Australian public. Our continual neglect of indigenous languages and insistence that English take a priority ahead of them is essentially the same mistake that was made with the stolen generations- that Aboriginal peoples be made to fit in and assimilate with the broader Australian population.

I have been aware of this issue for a long time, but a recent video brought it to my attention again. Please take the time to view it. http://vimeo.com/24300517 It is an interview with a woman named Joy Williams Malwagag from the Iwaidja people of Arnhem Land.

I would like to formally request a telephone conversation with Peter Garrett to discuss these issues. I do not anticipate being in Australia until 2013.

I am a concerned citizen who hopes my concerns are taken seriously. I once wrote to the former Primer Minister John Howard on issues relating to refugees. My letter never received a response from his office let alone the PM himself. I am hoping that your office takes the opportunity to excel the former Prime Minister in his lack of concern and a responsible attitude.

Yours in a spirit of genuine reconciliation for all Aboriginal peoples,

(Pasha).

#SOPA Free speech under threat. (Kill the Bill- "Stop Online Piracy Act".)

2012-01-19T11:45:00.000+08:00

I'm going to exercise my right to free speech while I still can. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but the western world has definitely taken a turn for the worse. There was some kind of Hitler like move taken to either (a) allow terrorists through the gate in September 2001 or at the very least (b) exploit the event to bring fear and severely curb civil liberties after the fact.

I'm kind of sick of the whole Republican vs Democrat debate. Both Bush and Obama have done as much to reduce civil liberties as the other. Fear is killing America and the virus is infecting us all. One of the founding fathers of America, Benjamin Franklin, said "any society that gives up a little liberty for a little security, deserves neither and will lose both." Every move made over the last ten years has served to chain Americans.

2011 was a monumental year for protests around the world. It was called the year of the protester by Time magazine. (Yet even Time magazine was caught not showing pictures of Arab protests on their cover in America, when they did everywhere else in the world.) No one doubts the pivotal role the internet had in helping protesters succeed. Yet when the Occupy Wall Street movement started in the US, they have been censored far more than any of the Arab protesters were. Why?

How is it possible that such censorship can happen in America, the "land of the free"? Many of the media companies are run by older people who are conservative and do not understand how the internet works. But there is perhaps something more sinister going on. At a very base level fear is controlling political decisions, but perhaps at a more sinister level there is a conspiracy for absolute totalitarian power going on. The record companies and film companies are also run by old conservatives who do not understand what the internet is even about.

The US Congress is now debating a bill called Stop Online Piracy Act. The stated aim is to protect copyright for the entertainment industry, but it will effectively cripple free speech in so many domains, rendering the internet impotent.

This You Tube video explains it well (unless it gets censored some time soon):

There are two possibilities here:

1) The entertainment industry is tired and outdated, yet the media moguls (Rupert Murdoch especially) have too much sway with congress, and so their petty whinge is killing free speech.

OR

2) The bill is actually a more sinister attempt to kill free speech, with copyright being used as a facade and a smoke screen.

As far as the entertainment industry is concerned, the tired people who run it should get with the times. Apple has done a great job of providing iTunes, an accessible way to buy music, movies and tv. TV and Movies are still way too expensive most of the time. Essentially the entertainment industry needs a new model.

What the entertainment industry has disregarded is the population boom in the world. The sheer population of the younger generation means that people's interests are far more diverse than they were 30 years ago. Personally I think that we should all create our own music and art and give it away for free. That is perhaps the direction things are taking anyway.

The internet has brought a revolution to the world. There are always counter revolutionaries or "luddites". It remains to be seen whether their attempt to censor the internet will be successful.

If I was American I would be doing all I could to protest this. As it is, I am an ineffectual Aussie, tucked away in Siberia. I hope my blog is powerful enough to make some people think.

Multiverse theory (parallel universes)

2012-01-10T23:43:00.001+08:00

According to quantum physics, if time travel is possible then parallel universes are possible. Quantum physicist have come up with a "multi worlds" hypothesis.

It goes something like this:

1) Today I make a choice that affects who I am for the rest of my life. Say perhaps I choose to accept a job offer. As a result I meet certain people, develop certain relationships, maybe even marry a certain person. My life takes a certain path based upon one decision. This could be thought of as a fork in the road. Whether I eat lasagna for dinner tonight is not really such a big decision.

2) Perhaps I go back in time ten years from now, or perhaps my son goes back in time and convinces me not to take the job. From that point onwards in my life a different path is taken. When my son returns to his time, nothing will have changed there though, I would still have chosen the same job, and he would still have been born. BUT- a new parallel universe is created where I take a different job, meet different people, maybe even marry a different person, or perhaps still end up marrying the same person.

Some argue that there are an infinite number of parallel universes. I don't quite agree with this. In quantum physics there are an infinite number of possibilities until an observation is made, with all of those possibilities collapsing back into one resulting reality.

I argue that a parallel universe can only exist IF and when time travel has occurred and IF and when a different decision is made at an important forking point. In such a scenario, if time travel has occurred multiple times, there are multiple parallel universes (based upon different dichotomous decisions), but still not an infinite number.

In the same way that an electron can be in more than one place at the same time (yet not being two electrons and not being two halves of one electron; --> see the "double slit experiment"), a person in two or more different parallel universes is the same person not different people. This means that even if there are multiple versions of the same person, ultimately they are still one person. In my opinion this person would be the one person before God.

In fact if one such version of a person tried to jump across from one parallel universe to the next the very act of observation would collapse the other parallel universe that person left behind, making the new parallel universe the reality.

This image goes some way to explaining the various paths a person can take. Many different choices can be made, but the more that are made the thicker the bunch of lines together will be, until there is just one thicker bunch of lines, one over all uniting identity and reality for a person.

I had previously thought I did not believe in parallel universes. My logic went something like this:

1) Apparently there are an infinite number of parallel universes.

2) If that is the case then there would have to be one where Jesus chose not to go to the cross.

3) This possibility could not be so, Jesus would not have done such a thing.

4) Therefore there can not be parallel universes.

Now I think differently:

1) There can be parallel universes, but each of them exist as a result of time travel.

2) There are not an infinite number, but only as many as have been spawned my time traveling choices.

3) Each of these parallel universes still collapse into the one, just as the electron collapses into one upon observation in the double slit experiment.

If you are interested in the double split experiment watch here:

Rain should not stop Twenty 20 cricket

2012-01-09T15:35:00.000+08:00

Two of the Big Bash League cricket games over the weekend gave me cause again to reflect on conservatism and how it is halting the growth of cricket. The games in Melbourne and Sydney were both cut short by rain.
On Saturday night in Melbourne the Renegades were chasing a score of 167 made by the Stars. After 8 overs the Renegades had made 3/58 and needed a further 110 to win at roughly 9 an over, which is still quite achievable in T20. The game was rained out. Using the Duckworth Lewis method, the Stars won by 11 runs. It would have been nice to know how the game would have played out. The crowd of 40,000 were robbed of the game they deserved to see.
Then on Sunday night a similar thing happened in Sydney. The Sixers made 117 off their twenty overs, which is not a competitive score in T20. After 5 and a half overs the Thunder were 4/29 in their reply. Four wickets would probably have slowed them down, but they only need 88 off 87 balls when the rain came.
Both of these games were meant to be the show case games in the BBL, where the two Sydney teams played each other and the two Melbourne teams played each other. Both were ruined not so much by the rain as they were by conservatism.

Test cricket is a complex game and over its history it has rightly been decided to stop play when ever rain would affect the wicket. When a bowling wicket gets two wet it can greatly affect the way the ball handles, giving the bowling side an unfair advantage over the batting side. In a game that lasts five days, and where very wicket is held at high value, it is important to make the game as fair as possible.

Twenty 20 cricket however is a very different game. It almost does not matter what the wicket is like, whether it supports spin or bounce, both teams play on the same surface. Wickets are taken at Twenty 20 level when batsmen make mistakes, such as hitting the ball high in the air to be caught, or when bowlers bowl tightly at the stumps and again the batsmen mistime the ball getting bowled. The game moves so quickly that these same mistakes can be made on any surface. Rain would affect these variables very little.

An important point of comparison is with football matches. Football matches of all codes are never cancelled due to rain. The strength of a league based sport is that the fans can count on a game being played week in week out no matter the weather. Twenty 20 is supposed to be a tough and exciting new game, it should not be subject to the same conditions as test cricket. It is a mistake to compare the two games so closely.

Cricket is an older sport than all codes of football. The question must be asked as to why cricket did not spread across Europe the same way that Soccer did. The answer can be found to this question by asking why Rugby did not spread at the same rate that Soccer did. Rugby is actually an older game than Soccer. In fact it was spreading around the world quite well in the 1860s and 70s. It was being played in many European countries before Soccer ever was. Rugby though was a sport marred by conservatism. Games were played at representative level and remained amateur.
Representative games were played for one's country or club, but only ever organised on a friendly one off basis. Rugby did not develop a league of their own. Soccer on the other hand developed a league in 1870. In 1888 the league was professionalised. Soccer professionalised before any other sport. This gave people the incentive to play soccer over rugby. Accordingly, games were played week in week out, meaning that a fan base built up. This did not happen in Rugby.
The simple reasons of soccer being centred around leagues and allowing the players to be paid saw soccer spread quickly across Europe, pushing rugby aside as the number one sport.

The same conservatism that held rugby back is also holding cricket back now. Cricket has been a representative sport until the advent of the IPL a few years ago. Most cricket purists have cringed at the IPL and now at the BBL. But it is league sport that offers the best chance for cricket to spread around the world. The representative model has already proven to move very slowly over the course of one hundred years.

The league model offers the opportunity for players from anywhere in the world to play at the highest level, without having to hope that their country will one day be good enough to play test cricket. The league model offers the opportunity to market the game in new markets such as America. Many an American has told me that they think the game of Twenty 20 is more exciting than baseball.

But the conservatism of the rule makers in cricket who will not allow games to be finished due to a little harmless summer rain harms the chances for the game to spread to markets that do not understand the history of the game. It also harms the viability of a league based game to fans who are not purists of the game in the way that test match followers are.

If football players can play in the rain, so can T20 players. Allow the game to evolve into something new under new conditions. Change the ball if necessary. Heck, even change the paying surface if necessary. If the game does not adapt it will die. Conservatism threatens to be the death of cricket.

The Future of Cricket

2011-12-31T15:13:00.001+08:00

The ICC really seem to be dragging their heals over the continued development of the game of cricket. The latest decision has been based on the financial concerns of their partners rather than concern for the future of the game.
The ICC had laid in place plans for a Test World Championship to be played in England in 2013. The top four ranked teams in the world would play off in two semi finals and one timeless test final. It would have been a spectacle to show case the most elite level of cricket in the world.
The current four top ranked test teams in the world are:
1. England
2. India
3. South Africa
4. Australia
Previously, Australia had been streets ahead of the rest, but they have now dropped back in to the pack. Recently Australia were ranked fifth behind Sri Lanka. A series win against Sri Lanka in August, a competitive tied series in South Africa and now a win against India at the MCG have shown that although Australia is playing catch up, they have not lost touch in remaining a competitive test outfit. In fact there may not have been a time when test cricket has been as competitive as it is now.
The ICC planned to stage the tournament in 2013, but ESPN Star Sports, who are the broadcast partners for the ICC indicated that they would prefer to broadcast a ICC Champions Trophy instead. The Champions trophy is a largely redundant tournament, considering there is still a ODI World Cup played. A Champions Trophy will yield 7 days of cricket in total. A test world championship would yield 15 days. Considering that the biggest market for watching cricket on tv is in India, it is surprising that ESPN believe that a Chamions Trophy would rate better.

This poor planning is rooted in a far bigger problem. There has been a perennial problem through out the history of cricket; the battle between conservatism and progress. Even from the early days in England there was a battle to stop gambling among the lower classes on cricket matches and to keep the game in the hands of the socially elite. When Australia (a nation with convict roots) defeated England in the first test match in 1877 it was seen as the "death of cricket" by many in England. It is interesting that the conservative forces in cricket have always been concerned about the game's "impending death."

The forces at play in England are interesting. In post war England much has been done to advance the game. The national team was opened up to working class players, which eventually led to a multi racial team. (England have been world leaders in equality- which seems quite contradictory to traditional notions of history.) One day cricket was invented in the 1960s in England. Then in 2003 Twenty 20 was also invented in England.
While England may have been the source of conservatism in world cricket in the past, that seems to have shifted. The ICC was originally a body heavily dominated by English and Australian representatives, based at the MCC at Lords in London. The ICC have now broken free of London and based themselves in Dubai. They have a strong Asian influence, but somehow they have carried with them the conservatism of old.

While England have provided the intellectual property for the last two cricket revolutions, Australia and then India have provided the momentum. World Series Cricket in the late 70s and early 80s made one day cricket the exciting contest that thrilled a new generation. The Indian Premier League has now brought the same thrill to Twenty 20 cricket.

People were once afraid that one day cricket would kill test cricket. But thirty years of prolific one day cricket around the world have not damaged test cricket at all. In that time the game of test cricket has sped up, thanks to the evolution of skills from the one day game. The popularity of test cricket has ebbed and flowed but it has overall maintained its appeal.

The ICC seem to be losing sight of the way forward in international cricket now. The glaring problem is that the calendar is overfull with meaningless contests. There is so much one day cricket played around the world, the games counting for very little. The World Cup itself has lost its appeal too. To some the way forward seems clear, but the ICC are stuck in the mud. Graeme Swann, a professional cricketer from England seems to be the first to publicly call for the sacking of the one day game.

A new plan:
Phase out one day cricket altogether.
-England has already reduced their one day games at domestic level to 40 overs a side.
-Australia have a 45 over per side game with split innings of 20 and 25 overs.
This experimentation is due to the 50 over game losing interest among the public.

Expand Twenty 20 cricket significantly.
The birth of the Indian Premier League and the Big Bash League in Australia has seen the prominence of the T20 game grow. The revolution in cricket is seeing the game switch from being a representative based game (club, province, state, country) to a league based game.
To keep things simple and allow the easy transition to a league based game, T20 should only be played at international level on rare occasions.

Only play T20 internationals as part of a T20 world cup, or as preparation and qualification games for such a tournament.

Create windows in the yearly schedule where T20 tournaments can be played and when international players are free to play also.

In Australia this could look something like:

- An 8 week window for the Big Bash League, with all Australian players available. (No ODIs, no Twenty 20 internationals.) This would create a demand for the league as the only variety of the short game available to watch.
- The rest of the Summer dedicated to first class cricket at state level and to test matches.
- A lead up period at the start of the season where all Australian team players play first class cricket for their state.

At Associate level it could look something like:

-Maintain the first class four day competition between the Associate nations.
-Encourage the Associate nations to compete in Twenty 20 leagues around the world. I.e Canada compete in the Caribbean competition (already occurring); Kenya, Zimbabwe, Namibia in an African Twenty 20 league; Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland in a European Twenty 20 league.

In short, the game should be simplified to two fields- First class cricket (including test cricket) and Twenty 20 League cricket (but with a World Cup, the same way that soccer has league matches and then internationals).

This change would allow for the Twenty leagues to flourish, which would actually expand the game at domestic level in all countries, while at the same time giving some of the focus back to test cricket as the premium international contest.

It remains to be seen whether the ICC have the foresight to allow for these changes. Their role is to be custodians of the game not motivated by their own financial interests.

Is time travel possible? (Einstein, Mallett and the Large Hadron Collider)

2011-12-15T22:26:00.000+08:00

I wrote very briefly back in 2006 that I think time travel is possible. I have always believed that time travel is possible. What I have not known is whether it could come about in my life time or not. I have never gone into this deeply on my blog, mostly because people do not like to entertain this topic. Some of my recent reading has led me to realise that it is an area of physics that is now being seriously researched. Finally I can begin to explore this topic.

Einstein's theories prove time travel forward is possible
Einstein opened up the possibility of time travel being a serious scientific concept through his two theories: the general theory of relativity and the special theory of relativity. The special theory of relativity says that when an object travels fast enough time slows down.

I.e Repeated experiments have shown the following:
- An atomic clock was placed on a jet plane.
- A corresponding atomic clock was placed on the ground, with exactly the same time.
- The jet plane flew in the sky at a speed approaching sound.
- When the plane landed, its clock was fractionally behind the clock on the ground.

As mentioned, this experiment has been carried out many times. There was nothing wrong with the clocks. This experiment was carried out by physicists seeking to prove Einstein's special theory of relativity. The pilot on those flights had actually jumped forward in time, although only by a very small amount.
Travel at much faster speeds would allow the traveler to jump even further forward in time. Consider a space ship that traveled out into space at close to the speed of light. Traveling at that speed for a journey of two years and back would occur while over 200 years passed on earth. This is based on exactly the same theory as the jet plane and atomic clock experiment. This a widely accepted theory in physics that says that it is possible to jump forward in time.

There is another method of jumping forward in time that is theoretically possible. Black holes can bend space and time, allowing a jump forward or back in time. Black holes could of course tear part what ever objects traveled through them.
Another method again is a worm hole. A worm hole is currently theoretical, but it connects two different places of space and time.

Building a time machine employing the physics of a black hole would require the ability to manipulate the energy of an entire star. So it is still very theoretical.

What ever the case, it must first be established that time travel forward has already been proven as theoretically possible.

Examples of time travel in every day life

I am sitting on the couch here typing my blog on the laptop. My son is currently sitting in another room playing with his toys. I can see him and hear him, yet he is actually in the past. The light traveling from him and the sound traveling from him take time to get to me. All people around us are actually in a different frame of time to our own.
Another example comes from the form of videos and photos. We are capable of watching past events that have been recorded on film or video. This would not be possible if the machine (video camera) that captures these past events had not yet been made. This means, that it is impossible for us to view events before the camera had been invented. The camera does give us a glimpse into the past, a sort of time travel for the brain.

Backwards time travel has always been refuted
Many have argued that although it is theoretically possible to travel forwards in time at great leaps, that it is impossible to travel backwards in time. There is however a modern physicist whose research questions this very notion. His name is Dr. Ronald Mallett, and he is a professor of physics at the University of Connecticut. He has an interesting story. His research boiled down says that gravity can affect time (as in a black hole), and that light can affect gravity. His research has been in black holes and lasers for much of his career. His theory is that light by affecting gravity, can affect time.

Mallett explains that light can make space swirl around, in the same way that a teaspoon can stir water in a coffee cup. If a cube of sugar is thrown into the swirling coffee it can be observed swirling around. In the same way a particle thrown into swirling space can also be observed.
Mallett theorises, that when such a machine is built it will be possible to send particles back in time, but only to any point when the machine is already switched on. I.e If it were switched on today, December 15h, 2011, then from any point in the future a particle could be sent back to today or any day after today. A particle could not be sent back to December 14th or any earlier day. This is much the same as the fact that film can not be made before the date that the camera was invented.

If Mallett successfully makes his time machine, we will not be able to travel in time as people, but it will be a significant leap in the theory of time travel.

The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

The Large Hadron Collider is a large underground tunnel 27 km in circumference, not unlike a synchrotron. Its designed purpose is to collide protons and other sub atomic particles with one another. It is hoped that many things will be discovered about the nature of sub atomic particles. Further than that it is hoped that layers below the sub-atomic such as the existence of a Higgs-boson particle can either be proven or disproven. It is also hoped that the nature of dark matter can be understood through experiments.
All of these experiments will no doubt bring far greater understanding to the nature of physics, giving greater context to the concept of time travel.
Before the collider was switched on there were some people who tried to take out legal injunctions against its procession. They claimed that the experiments could open up black holes that could suck the earth up. It is true that experiments at the collider could indeed create black holes, but none with any sufficient power to suck the earth up. It has also been postulated that the experiments could open up tiny worm holes.
And now for the slightly tongue in cheek question. Are they actually building a time machine at CERN in Switzerland?
(For now I am happy to take all experiments as above board. But I do find it uncanny that the Large Hadron Collider is capable of sending protons at "3 metres per second less than the speed of light." This sounds potentially like a very large model of what Dr. Ronald Mallett is currently attempting to build.)

It is actually possible that activities at the Large Hadron Collider could be paving the way for time travel to occur, by the creation of worm holes, or at the very least by a far deeper understanding of physics.

Conclusions
The physics is there to theoretically prove that time travel is possible. Personally I get excited by this stuff. The practicality for people to time travel could still be a long way off. The possibility of sending particles through time may not be far away. It may even be possible to send messages through time.
For someone to travel backwards in time, there would have to already be a working time machine on the date in the past. Therefore if someone claims today that they are a time traveler the easiest way to test this is to see their time machine.
The possible existence of wormholes however could contradict the theory that a time machine must be present in the past. It may simply be possible to travel through a worm hole. It may not be possible however to choose where and when these worm holes go, and if it is possible to return.

Russian superstition vs Cultural rooted western paganism (funeral practices).

2011-11-28T00:02:00.001+08:00

One of the good things about stepping outside of your own culture is that after a while it is easier to question your own culture. This past week I raised some mild concern for a couple of people when I mentioned that I am not planning to point out the errors of a particular Russian superstition to my neighbour.

For starters, what is a superstition? A superstition is basically a habit or a ritual rooted in ancient pagan beliefs. All cultures have them. Often Christians try to avoid practising them because we know that our faith should be in God, and we should not be motivated by fear. Superstitions are always rooted in fear. If we do not follow through on a superstition, there is a fear that the spirits will do something bad.

I was there when my neighbour's husband passed away. I was privileged to read the scriptures to the dying man and to pray with him and his wife moments before he died. I then witnessed a custom I had never heard of before, and so I was a little unprepared, but I came through it just fine. The widow wanted to cover the mirror in the bedroom where her husband had just died. I helped her do it. I wondered what it was for at first, and then quickly realised it was a superstition (other wise known as an old pagan practice). I did not correct her, I even helped her. Why? In the midst of her grief, it would have been a very insensitive thing to do otherwise. I even helped her, and firmly believe it was a way of showing her love, even though I disagree with the practice.

I have been asked by two people if I intend to explain to her how our culture does things, whether I will seek an opportunity within the next couple weeks to explain to her why the superstition is wrong. My answer to that question is no, for a number of reasons.

1) The orthodox church already calls the practice a sin. Nearly all Russians practice the custom though. According to my Russian teacher, all Russians practice it. To point out to her something which she already knows to be a sin is superfluous and self-righteous.

The practice is carried out because people believe that the spirit of the deceased may get confused and go to the wrong world through the mirror and get stuck there, unable to return and go on to heaven.

2) The Russian (eastern orthodox- yet also rooted in paganism) practice of mourning is involved and quite long. There are prayers for the dead on the third, ninth and fortieth days; then at three, six, nine and twelve months. Mourning lasts for a year. To interrupt this practice of mourning is also insensitive. To say anything would have been as insensitive as telling someone in my own culture not to wear black to the funeral of a loved one.

3) The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, not me. My neighbour would already be aware that the practice is a sin. So planning a conversation would simply be more head knowledge and not actually assist the Holy Spirit in his job. I have learnt from past mistakes not to get in God's way. However, I will say that if the Holy Spirit prompted me to say something and opened up the opportunity, I most certainly would. But I don't intend to seek it out.

4) The practices of paganism are deeply intwined with the common practice of orthodoxy in Russia. So there is no use chopping off individual branches of an entrenched world view. Superstition being based in fear, can only be removed by God's love. "Perfect love casts out all fear." I like the way John the Baptist put it, "the axe must be put at the root of the tree." To address this one practice would be to cut off one branch or perhaps even just a twig, where hundreds of other practices still remain. Only a complete surrender to God's love will remove all of the fear that causes paganism in the first place. This is obviously the desired outcome.

5) Questioning the practice in Russian culture of covering mirrors upon death caused me to question my own culture. Why do we wear black at funerals? Most people would say it is to signify mourning. A quick point of comparison is that nobody at the funeral yesterday was wearing black. I have often felt that it is not necessary to wear black at a funeral and wondered why we do it.

Well it turns out, that as most things we do habitually in our culture, there is actually pagan roots to the practice.

What are these pagan roots?

The practice of wearing black at a funeral comes from the idea of wearing a disguise. People would wear black robes and hide their faces from the spirits. This was so that the spirit of the deceased would not get confused and enter the body of a living person, therefore preventing it from moving on to the next world. It was also believed that black would make them invisible to the spirits. Roman funerals were held at night for this reason. The practice of wearing black actually comes from Roman paganism, carried on to the Roman Catholic church, still found in protestant churches today.

Our practice of wearing black at funerals is to keep the spirit of the deceased from getting confused and not being able to move on to the afterlife. Sound familiar? It is exactly the same as the Russian practice of covering mirrors!

We far too quickly assume that our culture is more Christian than another. Western Christianity is in fact plagued by many practices that the Bible does not teach at all. The real challenge is to not assume that our culture is more godly, but to honestly seek what true godliness is, and seek to implement a biblical world view, which by definition is different from all others, including different from a Jewish world view.

Sources:

"Funeral Customs"- Springdale Cemetery and Mausoleum.

"Where did the tradition of wearing black at funerals come from?" - Big site of amazing facts.

"What is the origin of wearing black to funerals?" - Answers.com

"Why is black the colour of mourning in the western world?" - Funtrivia (This source apparently traces back to "Websters Encyclopedia volume 19, page 116.")

Barna, George, & Viola, Frank, 2002, "Pagan Christianity: exploring the roots of our church practices", Tyndale House.

(I must apologise for what seems like scant and flaky internet research on this topic. Being in Russia I am far from good resources, and often have to rely on the internet to do my research. On this occasion I was surprised how hard it was to find information. I have no doubt that anthropological texts would cover this topic with a much higher degree of academia, but unfortunately this is the best I can do. But four different sources, and one of them being a cemetery, lead me to be confident I have found the answer.)

Does God have the right to judge?

2011-11-23T13:16:00.001+08:00

I seem to walk that crazy path where I am capable of ticking off liberals, atheists and conservative evangelicals alike. I strive to know Jesus more in my life and to authentically walk the truth.

I have recently posted on a few topics that have some controversy in them. I would have though that some of my posts such as "detoxing from institutional church" or "the bible is far more oral than we think" would get some conservatives concerned. I am glad there have not been any arguments with such people, I am not really in the mood for an argument.

I am always in the mood for a genuine conversation, with genuine questions and people who listen. I am also required to listen in such a conversation.

That is why I was quite disappointed with some of the comments I received this week in response to my post "Did God order genocide?" One of those people turned out to be my cousin, and we have been able to have a good chat afterwards. We are able to continue to respect each other. The other was from someone who is a complete stranger to me, named Ruth. Ruth does not make herself contactable either. Ruth said some things which were quite attacking, and because she does not know me at all, actually turn out to be quite untrue. For the record, Ruth I am sorry for my sarcasm when I said to you "Angry at God are you?"

Ruth challenged me to respond to the story of the Exodus. I didn't feel like an argument going round in circles and did not respond to the topic in the comments. I am happy to have a conversation on the topic if it remains civil and unemotional. This is sometimes hard to do in a textual context because writing can so often be confused with the wrong emotions.

Before touching on this topic briefly I want to say one very major point. Does God not have the right to judge? Abraham actually had a conversation with God on this very topic. Abraham said to God, "will not the judge of all the earth do what is right?" This was a brave question of Abraham and one which God actually allowed him to ask, and one which God answered.

God most definitely does have the right to judge. God is the judge of all the earth. No matter how we might feel about that, God does know all of our hearts and motivations and actions. What puzzles me is why people think God does not have the right to judge us. This point of view fails to recognise that we are created by God (no matter your views on the creation debate- there are actually many scientists who are highly credible in their fields of biology and astronomy who believe in creation).

There is a human pride that says, "I am my own master and God has no say in my life." Just to make this point clear, people who often hold this point of view go further in their thinking to say that God does not exist, so that they do not have to answer to him.

God is very concerned with suffering and evil in the world. There are actually many times when God has intervened. Often God chooses not to intervene for one of two reasons. When it comes to suffering, he wants us as people to learn how to respond to the suffering around us. Ultimately we have to live in this world, so we must learn how to treat each other lovingly. God allows us to choose to do the right thing. It is actually the guilt of humanity when we cause suffering to occur and do nothing about it.

The other time that God chooses not to intervene is when it comes to evil. Sometimes God judges, and sometimes God delays his judgement. There will always be judgement in the end of course. On the occasions that God delays his judgement, God is patiently waiting and giving people the chance to turn away from their evil. And there are always plenty of warnings for people to turn away from evil.

So God may choose to delay his judgement, but he always has the right to judge.

Back to the Egypt story and that of Pharaoh. Pharaoh was given many chances to stop treating the Hebrew slaves harshly and to release them from their slavery. At the start of the story Pharaoh nearly did let them go, but he chose to harden his heart against God. I am no Hebrew expert, but I have heard enough Hebrew scholars explain that there is no doubting that Pharaoh chose this himself. God later on hardened Pharaoh's heart further to make the difference between good and evil clear.

An important consideration is that of culture, nations and individualism. In the modern, western age we are very individualistic. We can not imagine nations that were not individualistic (the vast majority of nations and of history). There can be no doubt that all of Egypt were against the Hebrews. So when judgement fell on Egypt as a nation this is not a strange thing or even wrong. (Once again, God does have the right to judge.) Each of the plagues in Egypt was actually a victory over the 10 Egyptian gods. It was necessary to defeat each of the Egyptian gods- the god of the river, the god of frogs etc, so that people would understand their gods had been defeated and so they would give up their pride. (For the atheist that mocks at these gods, the vast majority of human history has and does believe in deities. Atheism is the minor exception.)

That is about all that I feel like saying on the Egypt topic right now. But the essence of my response to the skeptic who is angry at God for judging, is that God does have the right to judge. He delays it sometimes, so that we have the chance to turn away from evil, but judgement always occurs in the end.

God is the judge of all the world, but he is also a good and fair judge, loving and kind. But he can not allow evil and sin to be ignored and unchecked. Those who do not want to be judged may of course beg to differ on this. I am happy to allow God to judge me, because I have the best advocate there is in Jesus.

Is God a fair judge? Did he or did he not order genocide?

2011-11-20T19:01:00.001+08:00

I discovered an article that is well worth reading. It deals with the problem of "alleged genocide" in the bible. I'll try to make this post short since the insights and exegesis are not mine.

This is the article. If you have any sort of open mind at all, please take the time to read all the way through it. It is long, but very thorough and very well researched:

Genocide in the Bible, argument refuted.

The summary of it is something like this:

1) God gave the Canaanites many opportunities to repent.
These were-
a) The forty years following Israel's exodus from Egypt.
b) The 400 years from when Abraham's descendants left Canaan, coming up to the exodus.
The Canaanites were fully aware of the judgement of God on Egypt. In fact Rahab is a really good example of this. Rahab tells the Israelite spies that they have heard of God's judgement on Egypt, and that their hearts melted with fear at a God powerful enough to defeat Egypt (who were the most powerful in the world). Rahab chooses the side of Israel, and she and her family are spared.
Rahab is also a good example of someone who did repent.

2) There are other examples of judgement in the Old Testament. In each occasion there is a LOT of opportunity for repentance.
a) Before the flood in Noah's day there was 120 years given for people to repent. Noah and his family were spared. (I.e not all were destroyed.)
b) At Sodom and Gomorrah, the people were given 25 years to repent, through the righteous warnings of Lot. Lot and his family were spared.
c) At Nineveh, the people were warned of the coming destruction by the prophet Jonah, and the people of Nineveh DID repent. God spared ALL of them. He is just.

3) In the case of the Canaanites they have a long list of societal wide rampant sins:

a) Every kind of immoral sexual relationship thinkable was occurring, people having sex with their parents, siblings, aunties and uncles etc, etc. Rampant incest.
b) That wasn't enough for the Canaanites, they had to have sex with animals too.
c) They were also homosexual.
d) They had cultic prostitution in their temples.
e) They sacrificed their babies to their god Molech.
f) They were systematic in their violence towards other nations around them.

They were viewed even by the other nations around them as particularly evil.

4) As said earlier, the Canaanites were give a long period of warning to repent. Some of them (Rahab and her family) even did.

God's plan was to drive them from the land, to disperse their culture so that their wicked ways would cease. They were to be subsumed by the many nations around them. Some of the people did indeed leave before the Israelites arrived. It was the people who refused to leave, who refused to repent of their wicked practices that were to be destroyed. These were the stubborn and most wicked who stayed behind, not the entire Canaanite people.
God told the Israelites to kill all the Canaanites that stayed behind, that is who refused to give up their wicked ways. These people would have taught the Israelites wicked practices. This was God's reason for removing the last of the Canaanites left behind.

God is very clear to the Israelites to leave certain areas of the land alone for descendants of Esau and Lot. The goal was never complete annihilation. The Israelites were also not meant to hunt down Canaanites who had already left the land.

5) The best example of God's fair practice is that the same judgement he carried out on the Canaanites he later carried out on Israel. God detested the wicked practices of the Canaanites and he warned Israel not to behave that way. Over the generations Israel largely ignored the many prophets that God sent them to warn them away from their wicked practices of idol worship and baby sacrifices. The Israelites practised the same sin as the Canaanites. Israel suffered the same judgement, first the northern kingdom of Israel was attacked by the Assyrians and the remainder carried off into slavery. Later the southern kingdom of Judah was attacked by the Babylonians and the remainder carried off into slavery.

It was only through the painful judgement of deportation, and many being destroyed that the Jews learnt what it really meant to be a righteous people.

Conclusion:

God never ordered the total destruction of the Canaanite nation, he ordered the destruction of the ones who had stayed behind. God's goal was for the Canaanite sin to be removed from the land so that Israel could grow into a righteous nation. When Israel did not do this, God also carried out a fair judgement on Israel. God treated all nations the same.

For any of us to say that the Canaanites did not deserve judgement is to say that (a) their sins were nothing and (b) God has no right to judge. God indeed does have a right to judge, he is always patient, he always calls on people to repent. Ultimately there are always some who are spared because they do repent.

It would also be wrong of us to say that our own nations will escape judgement if we do not cease our detestable practices. The rise of homosexuality, abortion and the approval of society towards these practices, sees us on a slippery slope in the same direction as Canaan and Israel. The Lord is patient, not willing that any of us should perish, and it is waiting as long as possible for us to come to repentance so that he would not have to destroy our nations. I really hope that our nations in the west do repent.

Conservative and Liberals: both in error in their approach to the Bible

2011-11-16T14:40:00.001+08:00

*Disclaimer: I completely believe that all the words of the Bible are true and are the authoritative word of God. (Having said all that, don't forget that Jesus IS the word.)

The Conservative Fundamentalist error:
- Scripture was written down by Moses in ~1400 b.c.
- All texts are to be understood in their very literal form.
- Any correspondence into this point of view is considered heresy.

The Liberal error:
- Most scripture in the Old Testament was written down after the exile, that is after 500 b.c. Some dates even get pushed as late as 140 b.c.
- Since scripture was written down so long after the events were purported to occur, they are really just texts that are made up to serve a political purpose.
- The texts can not be trusted as true, and have no bearing on the God of the universe.

I happen to believe that both of these positions are wrong. The two sides debate off against each other, throwing mud at each other thinking that the others side's agenda drives their scholarship. There is something significant though that is completely missing from the argument. Both sides of the argument are so embedded within a world view of literacy that they can not imagine another world view.

What do I mean by a world view of literacy?
Let me give some parallel examples from the modern world. Try asking a 10 year old to imagine a world without the internet, a 40 year old to imagine a world without the television, a 70 year old a world without radio, anybody you know a world without electricity or the car. Each of these people would find it hard to imagine such a concept. A time in the world when these things did not exist being before our lifetimes. There are still people around who speak of a different world so we can consider their claims with wide eyed wonder.

Consider a world without writing. Now such a concept is so much further removed than the birth of the car, electricity, radio, tv or the internet. In fact as we consider such a concept we only know of such a world from books and written records. None of us who comes from a world of literacy can easily imagine a world without writing. The world view of literacy so strongly pervades our thinking that some people draw the conclusion that the world is no older than 6000 years. Writing itself has its birth about 5000 years ago.

What is a world of orality?
The oral world is one where all knowledge is transferred to the next generation through the means of oral stories. Oral cultures have a strong structure to their stories. Their forms are secure and the stories do not get forgotten or lost. Oral languages use hundreds and thousands of elaborate word pictures to explain concepts. These word pictures link together easily in a chain. The story teller does not have to remember a string of hundreds of words, but rather a set of well known word pictures to tell a story.

What connection does the Bible have with orality?
Far more of the Bible is oral than we care to acknowledge. This means that many, many of the early stories were carried in oral form for centuries, even millennia. All of Genesis has its roots in early oral stories. Many of the stories right through the age up to King David are also oral stories. We from a literate world view need to be careful how we respond to this claim. We need to recognise that an oral text is not invalid in anyway. We need to realise that it carried great strength for the people who passed these stories on, more strength than it does for those of use who look the stories up in a book.

What about literary criticism and scholarship claims that the Old Testament was written in the post exilic period?
Peter Enns in his essay for the BioLogos Foundation says that:

...the Pentateuch as we know it is the end product of a complex literary process—written, oral, or both—thatdid not come to a close until the exile (586-539 BC) and post exilic period...

There are many source texts for the early books of the Bible. I tend to think that originally many of them were oral texts. Through out the history of the people of Israel, many of these stories began to be written down at different times for different purposes. It is hard to determine exactly at what point various texts and stories were written down. This is largely because they were then put through a final editing stage around the time of the exile.

Consider the stories of the Kings. Each time the story closes the chapter on the reign of a king the editor writes:
As for the other events of Solomon’s reign—all he did and the wisdom he displayed—are they not written in the book of the annals of Solomon?

This is because the writer(s) was working from source documents that recorded the activities of the king, called annals. These are very much like the notes kept in parliaments today. In Esther it talks about scribes, whose full time it was to write down everything that the king did. They had rooms full of documents. It would have been a massive task to put together texts like Kings and Chronicles. The writers basically sifted through the documents and included the highlights and lowlights (as the case may be).

So even if there is a late date of compilation of the old testament, this does not mean that the stories are not a lot older. It does not mean that they are not true.

The liberal error, based in a literacy dominated world view thinks that the stories only came into existence when they were written down. These are the seeds of disbelief. This error is a result of completely failing to understand the world view of orality and a long oral tradition.

The conservative error also thinks that the stories only came into existence when they were first written down. So they therefore must cling to a belief that a great prophet like Moses received the story from God and wrote it down in dictation style. This world view also completely fails to acknowledge the oral world view.

The liberals say "we know that the text was written at a date much later than the conservatives admit, therefore their claims are completely wrong". The fact is though, on one hand many stories are much older than conservatives admit (because they are oral), and on the other hand written down much later.

The controversy comes in most of all with the stories of creation. I have no doubt that these stories were oral tradition for millennia. This is easy to believe because there are many cultures around the world that also have creation stories. The striking thing is that there are many similarities in the other creation stories, from peoples who are removed from the middle east for many thousands of years.

Arguments are made from both the conservative and liberal side on how these stories should be interpreted. But when they are interpreted on an oral spectrum there is much that can be understood even in a scientific sense. I tend to think that the creation story of Genesis 1 says that everything was created from hydrogen. The word for hydrogen in the story is simply water. Read my earlier essay on this topic here.

The Old Testament is all about people interacting with God. Bono explains the purposes of the Old Testament very well:

I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery. The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that's why they're so relatable. But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like the journey from stern father to friend. When you're a child, you need clear directions and some strict rules. But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.

This is an excerpt from the book "Bono on Bono: conversations with Michka Assayas". You can read a portion of the interview here.

It is God's nature to work through people. He therefore does this as much as possible, not as little as possible. The same is true with how the Bible came together. There are many more people involved with the development of the Bible than we will ever know. All of the oral stories come together from the people who were in the midst of the action movie. There is nowhere in scripture that actually says that Moses wrote down all of the pentateuch/ Torah. We are not required to believe this to be a follower of Jesus. But as I said earlier, this does not discount the stories as being holy scripture still.

It should not be surprising that the Old Testament did not come together in its entirety until the post exilic period, the Torah in its current form at a similar time. When the people in the Bible referred to the "law" they were likely referring to the actual legal documents found in Exodus and Leviticus. Deuteronomy repeats much of those two books anyway. It is only a later term of Jews to refer to the law as all of the first five books of the Bible. I had always thought it strange that Genesis would be referred to as the "law".

The New Testament did not come together in its entirety until the fourth century. This does not make it any less true. Conservative Bible scholars readily admit that the New Testament came together in stages. There was a growing and common understanding of what scripture was, but it was only finally defined in the Constantinian era. People in the first century saw "scripture" as all of the Old Testament. People in the pre-exilic period would have seen scripture as a lot smaller, a collection of some stories and some writings. In fact they may not have even seen them as scripture apart from the actual law itself (the legal documents of Exodus and Leviticus). The rest of the stories may very well have been viewed as simply history. (We still view history books today from more recent times as true.)

I would loathe to be labeled as a liberal in my faith for writing this. I very much hold to all of the precepts of God's creation and the gospel and Jesus' death and resurrection. Before some protestants begin to try labelling me as a liberal, please consider what Catholics or Orthodox people would say of protestants. As protestants we do not recognise the apocryphal books of the inter-testamental period as scripture, even though they are true. Catholics and Orthodox people could easily turn around and label us all liberal in the faith for picking and choosing what we consider scripture to be.

The very concept of scripture is connected to the fact that it is (a) preserved from ancient times and (b) is true. The Bible is full of God's interactions with people and people's interactions with God, it is true. It does not need to be subjected to the narrow world view of literacy that says people practically dictated it from God. The Bible firstly went through the filter of messy human lives before it ended up on the pages we have today. The Bible we have today is a result of the intersection in world history between oral and literal cultures.

*(I feel I need to start writing disclaimers these days, in case people misunderstand what I write or say.)

Why did Jesus get baptised?

2011-11-13T22:32:00.001+08:00

Why did Jesus need to be baptised?

Jesus never sinned. I have always been confused about why he decided to receive baptism. I thought that perhaps it was to simply give us an example so that we would follow. The point in the story where Jesus is baptised though is basically at the end of John's ministry. John the Baptist has baptised all the people in Judea and Jerusalem, and then Jesus is basically last. So it wasn't really as an example for the people in his day.

John's baptism is for the forgiveness of sins, so this is still confusing. For the rest of us, we need to be forgiven of our sin. So what does baptism mean for us? For the rest of us it means a physical act of repentance. What is repentance? A decision to not sin in life. For those of us who have sinned in life (everyone except Jesus) this decision means leaving behind a sinful life, but also walking into a sinless life (of course we still struggle to be sinless). Think about it for a moment though- baptism is a covenant with God to live a sin free life. Jesus was able to make such a covenant. By getting baptised he was saying to the world "I am going on record to declare that I am living and will continue to live a sin free life before God, I covenant myself to be sin free." God's response to Jesus covenanting himself is immediate, "You are my son, who I love very much and I am very pleased with you."

Jesus covenanted himself to a sin free life. This is definitely an example, but it was a pre-requisite for his starting up the kingdom, his coronation if you like.

That's what baptism is for us, a covenant to be sin free before God and as such it is actually repentance in action. As such I can not see how a believer would not choose to take this physical step of making a covenant with God. It is an essential step in obedience to following Jesus.

The kingdom of God is found in the doing

2011-11-13T16:49:00.001+08:00

The kingdom of God is all about action. The gospel of Mark outlines this well.

* John the Baptist preaches repentance, that people should come to the river to be baptised. Action is required in response.

* Jesus comes to the river to be baptised, even when he does not need to be forgiven of sins. (But the state of sin free living is still required.) Jesus models action, he shows more than tells.

* Jesus calls people to get the kingdom started with him, to confess their sins and believe. But how were they to believe? Was it just a thought in the heart? Action was required. Belief came about by following Jesus. Simon, Andrew, James and John all decided to act in response and went with Jesus.

* Jesus cast out a demon from a man in the synagogue. The way had been prepared by repentance of sins and baptism in the Jordan, but Jesus then began to clean house. Jesus went through out the towns and villages of Galilee to all the synagogues casting out demons. This action of Jesus was the beginning of implementation of his Kingdom. Jesus also healed Simon's mother in law and the many people that came to Simon's house and later to Jesus' house in Capernaum. This action was also a demonstration of his kingdom.

I think there are some very telling stories about repentance in the gospels. One of my favourites is the story of the woman caught in adultery. As there is no one to stone her Jesus tells her to "go and sin no more". This is the action that is required from her to repent. Repentance is not actually the presence of a contrite heart. It is in the act of going away and not sinning that repentance is actually lived out. Baptism is also part of the physical action required to couple with repentance. Words are not enough. This is one of the reasons that formulaic prayers for becoming a Christian can be so hollow and mean so little. It is not the prayer that makes someone a Christian, it is the going away and not sinning and then the following of Jesus by affirmative action.

It is my opinion that little of the Kingdom of God exists in the landscape of the western institutional church. There is a formulaic teaching going around that people need to repent of their sins once, (because Jesus died for sins once and for all, there is a misconception that repentance is once and for all also) and that after this no real action is required. Christianity becomes a religion of words and good feelings, but no copying of Jesus' behaviour, the modelling that he gave to us.

It is impossible to build his temple (the one temple of all believers) in a place where the kingdom does not already exist. I know of very few places in my own experience where- continual confession of sins occurs, demons are cast out, the sick are healed, the poor fed, the lonely invited in. Most of the expression I have seen of Christianity is a hollow expression of ceremonies with little action followed up (these are not meant to be sweeping generalisations against the people I know who do these things, but they are usually no more than 5-10% of any congregation, sometimes less).

Building the church before building the kingdom is putting the cart before the horse. I do feel a little stuck as to doing this in my own life. But I also know that it is only when the kingdom is built that Jesus' true ekklesia will come to life.

What is the kingdom of God? (My church detox continues.)

2011-11-11T19:57:00.001+08:00

My season of detox continues and I don't feel as sick as I did before. I still have the odd pang of guilt when Sunday rolls around, but even they are starting to subside.

One of my problems is that when ever I hear the word "church" or "pastor" I cringe a little. The word "church" just brings up images of being chained to the pew (metaphorically for me, but there were some convicts in early Australia who were literally chained!), and not being able to participate. The word pastor (I have sympathy for them) still brings up images of a person overworked by the system, unable to release people into what God has for them.

I really appreciate Frank Viola and all that he is doing for the organic (church) movement, but I do respectfully disagree with him that we need to use the word church. Frank Viola has been in the organic movement for more than 20 years now, so the word no longer carries connotations for him, he is able to use it as it should be. But unfortunately when nearly everyone else hears the word we all get it wrong. I personally want to let the word rest for a generation or so.

Wolfgang Simson was heard to joke (while publicly speaking in Australia) "It was brave of you to invite a non-Christian today to speak. Today I am an ex-Christian, I'm just a follower of Jesus now." Wolfgang Simson is a dedicated follower of Jesus, but he is brave enough to let go of the label Christian (that carries so many incorrect definitions in people's heads). So surely I can be brave enough to let go of the label "church".

Some interesting twitter feeds have been coming through this week. A story of a new house church* movement springing up in Ecuador caught my attention. Have a look at The M Blog here to begin reading the story. It's good to know God is doing good things in so many places around the world. I draw encouragement from such stories to keep moving forward in obedience and faith that we are on the right path and that the Lord will raise up an organic movement of disciples in our midst.

I have been asking the Lord to show me what his kingdom is, and that is a slow unfolding process. I would like to record my thoughts on what I am learning so far. I have begun to tell oral stories from the gospel of Mark. I love the gospel of Mark because it is so fast paced and suspenseful. Most times when people make a movie about Jesus they usually choose Matthew or Luke because they want to tell his whole life story. Mark doesn't do this, he just gets straight to the point. A movie of Mark would be an action film or a "supernatural thriller from the other side" (the other side than from which most supernatural thrillers come!).

I have it in my mind and heart to tell the whole story of Mark in one go. So far I have told four of the early stories and begun to fill in the gaps.

River Jordan

The first story starts out with the wild camel hair covered, locust eating prophet preaching in the desert. The prophet John the Baptist preaches "say sorry for your sins, get baptised in the river for the forgiveness of your sins." There's something in this story that I had never really paid attention to before. ALL of the people of Judea, all the country towns and villages and ALL of the people of Jerusalem came out to the Jordan River to be baptised for the forgiveness of their sins. That's something to imagine, that ALL of the people came out. There must have been some that didn't, surely. Well later we find out that many of the pharisees did not receive this baptism. And because they had not received John's baptism they were unable to receive God's kingdom. (Luke 7:30.)

John is preparing the way for the Lord. How? He is baptising people for the forgiveness of their sins. This prepares the way for Jesus, so Jesus can get on with bringing his kingdom. This means that Jesus could not bring his kingdom to those who had not repented and been baptised. All of Jesus' ministry is actually to people who had already been baptised for their sins. I'm sure it's true that some of these people later on decided not to participate in God's kingdom. But for now, they were all in.

After the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus he was led out into the desert for his forty days of spiritual battle with the devil. He won by the way. (An interesting footnote here, is that an Altai man in Siberia when telling his epic story of the gospel spent a lot of time on this part of the story, in fact more than the cross itself. For this man and his culture the battle in the desert was where things were won and decided, the cross was the payment of the bill so to speak.) But straight after that, Jesus is back again.

Lake Galilee

This time Jesus is at the Lake in Galilee. He is walking along. As he walks along he says to all those around him "Now is the time to get the kingdom started, say sorry for your sins and believe in the good news." Jesus did not need to tell people to get baptised, they had already done that. But confession of sins was still important. It seems confession of sins is an important part of receiving the kingdom and it's not just a one off event either. (Sometimes in evangelical Christianity it does become a one off event at the "point of salvation".) Jesus says this to everyone he sees. As he comes to Andrew and Simon they seem to respond to him, so he takes things further, "Come with me and I will show you how to catch people, not just fish." The same thing happens with James and John.

This is just the beginning of God's Kingdom though. The whole story of the gospels is wrapped up in Jesus showing and then teaching what the kingdom actually is. He doesn't spend a bunch of time showing what the church* is. (Not to say that the church* is unimportant, but that is more of a lesson for later. And really the church* is a collection of all God's people, who are already a part of the Kingdom. You simply can't have the true church* without the kingdom. Many have tried, and the result is a stale institutional church.)

Mark moves pretty quickly (a lot quicker than my blog!), and before you know it Jesus is casting out demons and healing the sick and telling people their sins are forgiven in front of legalistic know-it-alls. Jesus is demonstrating first of all what the kingdom looks like, he only bothers to unpack the teaching later on.

That's as far as I have got in my rediscovery of God's Kingdom. Hmmm, before I try to understand too much of the teaching perhaps I better get back out there and do some more of the doing, since that's how Jesus started things.

Now is the time to get the Kingdom started!

-----------------------------------
Church*- What is a good alternative for this word? There are probably many, mostly phrases, but that is the challenge of post-modernism, to bring clarity back to truth and definitions.

Ekklesia may be a good option, because it needs further unpacking.

A phrase that explains the concept would be something like "the people who belong to Christ in that town or city."

Have U2 already split up?

2011-11-07T15:21:00.002+08:00

"There has been a lot of talk lately" to quote Bono from Sunday Bloody Sunday. There has indeed been a lot of talk lately, and while Bono is notorious for talking too much, I think it might be time to consider what he is saying as serious.
Recently I watched the BBC documentary, "From the Sky Down". Some liked the film, others did not. I thought it was a very well made piece, although it did not seem to tell the whole story well enough of the period in time when U2 "dreamed it all up again" in their making of Achtung Baby in 1990/91. One comment from the film felt noteworthy to me. The filmmaker described the concept of a rock band as similar to the anthropological concept of a clan. The members of U2 clanned together in their early days and were a clan for a long time. They spent nearly all of their time together and thought and acted as a unit. This clan like mentality helped them to forge a deep bond which has seen them stay together much longer than many bands in rock history.
It has often been said that one of U2's strengths is their longevity. They have now been together as a band for 35 years. Bono jokes that being in U2 is like being in the mafia or the priesthood, you can only leave in a coffin.
During U2's time many bands have come and gone. Recently I have reflected on this. Many of my favourite bands over the years have now split up (or sometimes more politely "finished up"). Each time a band does this I don't seem to have the same inspiration to listen to their music anymore. I also get equally annoyed when a singer leaves a band to launch a solo career. This is counted as disloyalty in my book. This is one of the reasons I have never really got into Sting.
There has been a pattern emerging in the age of post-modernism. So many bands I can think of have now split up. Sure some of them have reformed, but they are just cashing in on the reunion touring phase of their careers. Such a list includes: REM, The Police, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Audioslave, Rage Against the Machine, Silverchair, Oasis, Crowded House, Midnight Oil, Extreme, Delirious, Powderworks, The Cranberries... the list goes on.
Due to the decline in the number of bands producing music these days, I have noticed that my iTunes is feeling a bit dry, lacking in new material. I was shocked to realise that the only new material I have bought this year is from Coldplay, and before that from U2 in 2009. What a lonely world it would be with only Coldplay to listen to. I do love their music, but somehow for me it only seems to make sense in a musical landscape that has hope in it. U2 provide hope in the musical landscape. Coldplay can not exist without U2 (in my opinion). Is it any wonder that Coldplay have waited to release their new album during a silent period from U2? The same can be said of Snow Patrol (another band I do enjoy).

So, back to the rumours about U2 splitting up. Neil McCormick claims there is nothing to worry about:
Fans worrying that Bono’s remarks suggest U2 are about to call it a day could not be more wrong. What he really wants to do, indeed what he feels he needs to do, is for U2 “to go away and create the album of their lives.” -Is it time for U2 to call it a day?

Guggi, one of Bono's close friend begs to differ. Guggi says, "I get the impression that they're thinking, and thinking very seriously about it (breaking up)." -Unforgettable fire flickering out as U2 ponder end of the road.

Who to believe more? Neil McCormick may be a high school friend, but if his film "Killing Bono" is to be believed, they have not stayed close friends as adults. Guggi is a close friend of Bono's and as such could possibly be believed more.

The debate has been started by Bono. Bono has said things like:
"I just don't know what we are going to do next."
"Does the world really need another U2 album, there are enough of them out there right now."
Perhaps the most depressing comments that Bono has made can be found here:
Audio recording, found on the Globe and Mail.
Bono says, "perhaps it's time to go home and go to bed." Edge has a chuckle and says "and then come back with something great." Bono disagrees with him in response.

It is very possible that U2 (or Bono anyway) feel that they have achieved everything that they set out to do as a band (and then some more). They are so successful now, and after 35 years perhaps they feel that there is nothing left for them to do.

I dearly hope that they are able to find new inspiration and come back in a few years time with something great. But, I am actually starting to have my doubts. Something that Neil McCormick said got me thinking.
Their fans may still like to believe that U2 live in Ireland and meet in the local pub or prayer meeting (hence the ludicrously inaccurate tax avoidance charge that keep being made against them). In fact, Bono lives mainly in New York now, The Edge in LA, Adam in London and only Larry remains a more or less full time resident of Dublin. They have all (apart from Adam) got wives and children who need time and attention. They have the kind of extreme wealth that ensures fabulous comfort. And Bono, their driving force, finds his time and energy much diluted by his sprawling range of extra-curricular interests and commitments, particularly political and charitable activities that inspire much antagonism in people who think a rock star should be in the business of making rock music.

I have always considered myself a dedicated fan of U2. But I'm not an Uber Fanatic. I have not and will not buy the Achtung Baby Deluxe 10 cd set for $400 or what ever price it is being sold at. But I do own every album, have been a fan since 1989, and have always seen the band live when ever I had a chance. But I confess, I was one of those fans that liked to believe they still lived in Dublin and regularly hung out at the Clarence Hotel. I was shocked, Neil McCormick burst my bubble when he told me that they live in four different cities in different parts of the world. Larry takes the prize for being the most down to earth, Adam was always a bit English anyway.

In "From the Sky Down" Bono remarked that when Edge got divorced it was the first cracks on their tight knit community, or the clan as the filmmaker put it. But with Neil McCormick's latest bombshell I now wonder how long it is since U2 already ceased to be a clan. I begin to think, "so what if they are still a band, they don't have that intense loyalty to one another that they once had."

Yes, U2 may come together to work againafter a year off, which I am sure they sorely need. But even when they do, will they have the same spark that they once had? It is the spark, "the whole being more than the sum of its parts" that has always made U2 so special. So if in the past they had managed to make 1+1+1+1=5 or even 10, now I fear that they are simply 1+1+1+1=4. They are no longer more than the sum of their parts if they live so far apart from each other. They are no longer a whole, just four individuals with a job.

Maybe U2 have already split up, maybe they are "separated" and now contemplating whether to get a divorce. I find this to be terribly depressing. I don't want to be stuck in a musical landscape with only Coldplay to listen to, and no genuine hope.

I am now taking a deep breath and holding it to see what the future holds.

Carbon pollution- my conspiracy theory

2011-11-03T16:53:00.000+08:00

And now for my conspiracy theory. Before I drop my bomb shell, may I go on the record as saying I am an environmentalist and I do despise pollution. I do believe in clean energy and I do hope for a cleaner tomorrow.

Here's my bombshell. Global warming induced by carbon pollution is a croc!

That does not necessarily mean I do no think that climate change could be occurring. But let me leave that argument for a little later. I am saying that I think the theory that says carbon and fossil fuels are causing the atmosphere to overheat, is a conspiracy.

Instead of stringing you along let me give my reason first and then attempt to back it up.

Here are some facts:
-Global oil supply will not last for ever. Pessimists say that oil supply is already in decline. Optimists say that the peak of oil production will come in 2020 or even a little later. After this point the amount of global oil supply will reach its peak for a season. Once its peak is reached there will be a decline. This is based upon a pattern that has occurred with all oil wells in the past. It is derived from a mathematical formula called the Hubbert Curve. At the point of this decline, the price of oil will begin to sky rocket and people will not be able to afford to drive their oil fuelled cars anymore. Then after that at some point the oil would run out altogether.

-The population of people driving cars in the world is exponentially increasing. This is only speeding up the imbalance between supply and demand when it comes to oil.

So the fact is, the world will run out of oil and people will not be able to run their cars anymore. Without some major long term structural changes to society, entire economies will cease to function as we have become ultra dependent on cars (not to mention the other purposes oil serves).

What is the solution to this problem?
The solution is to get people off an oil dependency on to other forms of energy. This is now so widely accepted that it seems a no-brainer. But it has taken decades of "education" to get people to hold this world view.
That oil is running out, I do not doubt. My theory however is that governments and oil companies of the world have known this fact for decades. In fact it has been known since Hubbert developed his curve in the 50s, and it was predicted that America would reach peak oil production in the late 60s, prompting the oil crisis of the 70s. That oil crisis of the 70s saw a major restructuring in the world- the rise of Arab Oil economies; the decision to make the US Dollar the currency of international trade; the decision to take gold out of the equation as a guarantee for the value of the US Dollar. And those decisions are the bedrock of the current financial crisis in the world.
So my conspiracy theory is that governments made a decision on a strategy to wean the world off oil. And the oil companies convinced the governments to time this strategy for when oil actually started to decline, so that they could still reap maximum profits before that.
The strategy decided upon was to convince the masses to stop using oil and to move to alternative energies. But how could they convince us? We are so car dependent that to simply stop using our cars is madness!!! madness I tell you!! And why would we voluntarily want to just pay more for alternative energies without a good reason for doing so. Positive incentives never seem to work either on people. So negative incentives had to be found.
It is easier to convince the world that we are all doomed. It is easier to convince the world to stop using oil, because if we don't we will kill our grand children. Negative incentives such as global warming and carbon taxes are invented to convince people that we need to switch to alternative energies. It is a weak claim to say- "just stop using the oil, because you will breathe more cleanly" or "just stop driving the car and get out and walk or ride and enjoy the sunshine."
But with fear as a motivator we are all convinced that we need to do something good for our planet. We don't complain when prices sky rocket, we don't complain where burdensome taxes are placed on us, because it is for the good of the planet and our grandchildren.

So we have been given a different reason to switch to alternative energies than the real reason.

The truth: We need to switch to alternative energies because oil will eventually run out.
The reason people would not believe this truth: It sounds fanciful, distant, and alternative energies have been far more expensive in the short term than oil.

The lie: Oil is killing our planet. We need to switch to alternative energies to stop global warming.

Some incriminating facts that expose the conspiracy:
-Governments have discouraged and forbidden development of electric cars for decades in the past. It has only been in recent years that they are allowing development to go ahead, neatly timed for a transitional switch over as oil supply declines.

-The Australian and State governments are not overly interested in increasing public transport. I.e if they believed that burning oil was damaging to the environment they could take far more effective action in the short term to reduce car usage.

-Very little is being done to switch to alternative energies in Australia. While oil is in danger of running out, there is still plenty of coal to go around in Australia. Coal fired energy plants are increasing, not decreasing. The plants that burn uncleanly are not being cleaned up.

-A carbon tax is simply a method to provide negative incentive, to help people believe the lie that carbon is the killer.

-Al Gore is one of the canaries in the mine that expose the conspiracy. His film "An Inconvenient Truth" is very out dated now because the predictions in it are not even coming true. He is a trader in carbon credits. Carbon trading stands to become a major world wide commodity even by 2015. Mean while Al Gore has a large mansion with multiple cars, and is constantly flying around the world. His actions do not line up with someone who believes in carbon induced global warming.

-On a recent trip to Finland I saw some of the hypocrisy that exists within the European Union. The EU is supposed to be the most responsible when it comes to combating global warming. Petrol prices are extremely high ($2.20 a litre) in Europe, being heavy on the taxes.
Yet I noticed a couple of glaring inconsistencies. In Finland infant milk formula comes in ready serve packages of one litre or even single serve 250ml packages. This means a lot of extra packaging is required, than simply using powder. The Finns have the cleanest water in the world, so water should not be a problem. So much extra energy is spent on all of that unnecessary packaging.
Finland have recently eliminated sea/ surface mail as an option. All mail must now go by air. But as air travel burns so much more fossil fuels than land or sea travel this seems a ridiculous decision to make.

If Finland really believed in carbon induced global warming they would not allow seamail to be eliminated, nor would they allow such copious production of packaging.

Finland has thousands upon thousands of lakes. They have more fresh water than they could ever possibly use. Yet they clean and recycle ALL of their water that they use. They are constantly telling people to use water carefully. A lot of energy needs to be spent on cleaning all of that water.

What about climate change?
I think it is still too early to prove if our climate is completely changing. But there are certainly some signs that point in this direction. But some facts should be taken into account:

-The magnetic north pole is moving in one steady direction away from Canada towards Russia at a pace of 55km a year. At the rate it is going it appears to be on a course to flip. Nobody can really say what affect this could have on climate. What we do know is that the magnetic poles have flipped before. We have also had times of major climate change in the past, both warming and cooling of the planet (and they were never affected by carbon pollution).

-The sun is producing an increasing amount of solar flares. Solar flares always account for hotter weather on earth. The sun is the source of all energy on earth. The sun is also responsible for our basic weather of Summer and Winter, based on proximity to the sun. It should be no surprise if the sun is actually the biggest influence in climate change. The sun is far more powerful than any change we can effect as humans.

Conclusions:
I do not deny climate change. I think it is affected by such factors as the movement of the magnetic north pole and increase in solar flares.
I do not think climate change is brought about by global warming, induced by carbon pollution.
We do need to move away from oil usage to alternative energies; but this is because oil will run out and because it's nice to breathe clean air.
Governments have been cooking up the global warming conspiracy for decades as a method of fear to convince us to transition to alternative energies, instead of us being caught in a crisis with no oil and no options.

I can't understand why people prefer to believe a lie and live in fear all their lives? There are far more positive reasons for change and we don't need to be held to ransom by controlling taxing governments.

Transforming Melbourne towards being car free

2011-10-29T17:25:00.001+08:00

A strong argument against the car free concept is the presence of existing cities and peoples' dependence upon these cities for their livelihood. Moving towards car reduced societies takes a two pronged approach. Building car free cities is for the visionaries and for the people with financial access to such concepts. These new cities will likely be beacons for the concept. The other approach needed is to gradually transform existing cities to move towards a more car free lifestyle.

Many European cities have begun this process. They are gradually introducing car free districts. Car free districts become centres of lively culture and usually attract people to their charm. The city of Melbourne in Australia could take a number of steps in this direction.

Melbourne as a city was extensively designed as a city before the existence of the car. The inner suburbs of the city would function much better in a way that is closer to their original planning.

Trams

Melbourne prides itself in its extensive tram network that covers the inner suburbs. The fact is though that trams and cars find it very hard to co-exist in Melbourne. Trams and pedestrians have right of way at tram stops. Cars must wait for them to start moving again before being allowed to pass. This often means that a car trip in inner Melbourne is not a lot faster than a tram anyway. Many Melburnians would be loathed to get rid of the tram network as Adelaide and Sydney mostly did. Trams are a part of Melbourne culture and its residents wish it to stay that way. A process of removing cars from inner Melbourne would help trams to flourish in Melbourne again. They could run at much higher frequency and make mobility on public transport very effective.

Map of Melbourne tram network

The spaces vacated by cars could be given over to bikes. To make the city more aesthetically pleasing it would not simply be a matter of bicycles riding on the roads that cars once drove on. This of course would be the case in the early stages. In more advanced stages though roads could be replaced by landscaping that includes grass, trees, bike paths and foot paths.
Arguments against the model
An argument against this might be that some people live too far from a tram stop. This can easily be tackled by installing extra tram lines on some roads between the major arterials, so that no residents have too far to walk to a tram stop.
Another argument pertains to how delivery of freight, retail and grocery goods would be carried out. It is important to move away from a car dominated paradigm, and remember that there was a world before the car. There were also deliveries of freight and goods in those days too. The best way to tackle this issue is to have delivery hub depots. Depots would use some existing railway networks and tram networks. From the depots smaller electric carts with special permits would carry out delivery to the final address.

Trains

Melbourne has a very good rail network. Unfortunately it is about as good as it was in the 1890s when it was world class, second only to London, more advanced than New York and Paris. It was better in the 1920s than it is now, some lines actually having been removed.
Trains also do not get along with cars very well. There are currently 182 level railway crossings in Melbourne. The Victorian government have budgeted $379 million towards the removal of railway crossings. They have ten projects planned. At close to an average of $40 million per railway crossing, the over all project to remove all of the railway crossings in Melbourne could easily stretch to and beyond $8 billion.
Many people would say that trains are interrupting the smooth flow of cars. A cursory look at history will show that Melbourne had all of its train lines before the car came along, so it is not trains that are interrupting cars. In fact the historical population growth of Melbourne largely coincides with the development of its railway network. It is now, when the railway network is not keeping up with Melbourne's transport demands that people are beginning to say that the transport network is breaking down. The fact remains that Melbourne was planned around its train networks and will only function well when depending on its train networks.
A friend of mine came up with a brilliant plan to remove all of the railway crossings in Melbourne. Instead of removing them one by one and putting in bridges (this is a very slow process that takes years), each of the railway lines in Melbourne should be replaced by underground tunnels. This could only be done in stages, one railway line at a time. It would create some pain for the residents in that region while the project was being carried out, but after the fact things would flow so much better. A complete new underground train line could be constructed for much faster trains, which would cut down travel times immensely and make them far more attractive than the car.
When a train line is put under ground there is then a lot of real estate available above the train line. This could be used for various purposes. Bike highways could be installed which would enable cyclists to get to the city centre in record time. Much of the land could also be sold, which would easily finance the entire project. Every train station could have retail, commercial or residential property installed above it. This would not prevent bike highways passing through.

This proposed plan does not remove any cars from Melbourne as such. What it does do is make trains and bikes a lots more appealing and efficient, which would cut down the number of cars on the road. The current model of putting bridges in at level crossings is not creating any real estate or revenue to pay for the projects.

Map of Melbourne train network

New forms of transport
As roads are vacated in inner Melbourne suburbs a lot of land will become available for other purposes. Some roads could have either trams put in their place or new underground rail lines to link up with the rest of the network. This would enable badly needed circle lines to be implemented, making connections easier on a trip across the city.

Other roads could simply be removed and replaced with bike paths, foot paths and park land. (Light electric carts could use these paths to access houses for deliveries with a special permit.)

Car free district phased introduction

The obvious place to start with a car free district is the central business district. From the Docklands development in the west to Spring Street in the east would be completely car free. There is plenty of public transport already in place to meet the needs of the district. Commuters who drive to the centre for work would feel inconvenienced at first. But an increase in frequency of trams and trains would mean that they could drive to a train station if they had a long way to travel.

A later phase of introduction would wait some years until people had adjusted to the new paradigm for the city centre. Eventually Melbourne could become car free as far as the tram network already exists. Once new underground train lines had been developed, expansion of car free districts could continue for decades to come.

It has taken a century for humanity to become as dependent upon cars as we have. It may take a century to wean ourselves off them again. It would certainly take decades to transform Melbourne completely.

Increased cultural vitality

Cities of the world that have begun to introduce car free districts have found that street life and cultural activities naturally begin to increase in those districts. People naturally begin to flock to these districts from the outside to enjoy the new vibrancy that occurs on streets where people are happy to be outdoors. The lack of car noise makes the streets peaceful and safe for people to be on.

When the central business district has this appeal for a decade or so, it will become more appealing to expand car free zones.

Car free cities

2011-10-28T14:46:00.000+08:00

[Blueprint for a nature immersed car free city.]

Imagine a city, town or region completely free of cars. Cities without cars are more peaceful, less pollutant by far, have closer social ties and are safer. Some are a reality, some are under construction, some are still a vision, some are quite science fiction. This list is a mixture of them all.

Venice
Perhaps the most famous car free place in the world, a city of canals and boats, home to 70,000 people.

Fes-al-Bali

Fes-al-Bali in Morocco is home to 150,000 people, but with a population density of 550 per sq. metre, it is very crowded.

Cheung Chau

An island near Hong Kong city, the majority of the city has streets that are simply too narrow for cars. The city have developed tiny emergency vehicles though. It is home to 23,000 people.

Old City Jerusalem

Old City Jerusalem is also a historical anomaly. Home to 35,000 people it does not have any streets big enough for cars to drive on.

Iquitos

Iquitos in Peru is not particularly safe for pedestrians, but it is novel and therefore fun to include in the list.

Masdar

Masdar is a new city under construction. It is located outside of Abu-Dhabi in the Arab Emirates. It will be home to 50,000 people and many clean energy companies. It will be the world's first completely energy clean city running on solar, wind and geothermal energy. At $22 billion, that is a fairly modest price tag for such a modern city. Hopefully it will create a blue print for new cities around the world.

Science fiction lily pad city- Ecopolis

Lobe city design

Designed by J.H.Crawford of carfree.com , the lobe city is based upon a concept of multiple districts each with their own metro underground train station. Each district then has a population of up to 12,000 people. All of their daily needs are met within their own district. A city made up of 100 or so districts would have a population of 1 million and take up to 45 minutes to travel across.

Why build a completely new city?

There are plenty of people who would love to live in a car free city. But there are also plenty of people opposed to such an idea. Instead of forcing people to transform old cities to car free ones, why not give people the choice of living in a new city better equipped for the purpose.

What is good or bad about the above cities?

Cities like Venice or Fes-al-Bali, Old City Jerusalem and Cheung Chau are steeped in history and culture and they would be intriguing places to live. Of course they probably have very few vacancies, and a move there requires learning a new language and culture.

A city like Iquitos would be unique and less congested than a car based city, but dangerous none the less with mopeds and motor bikes zipping everywhere.

Masdar is the most exciting prospect of the present day because it is a reality. I would be very intrigued to visit there once it is completed and see how it works. One thing Masdar is seriously lacking is nature. It is very concrete based in its environment. They however have worked very hard to make it aesthetically pleasing and the many fountains will surely make it a pleasant place.

The lily pad Ecopolis is novel and science-fictitious. I personally hope that such cities are never necessary, but having said that if people want to live on a lily-pad city it would certainly be very different. It would also be lacking in trees and birds.

The lobe design with multiple districts is a well thought out one. I might design a city differently none the less, but I think it is very likely to work. I would love to see somebody try it.

Another alternative?

There are as many alternatives as there are creative people in the world. My alternative though is a city based upon the idea of buildings and houses being merged with nature as much as possible. This would give the feel of living in a National Park, yet still have all the comforts of a modern city including the Arts and Sports.

My blue print for such a city is here.

A location for such a city?

There are many possible locations, but one such location is particularly appealing from an Australian context. French Island in Western Port Bay is already a car free zone. Seventy people live there and two thirds of the island is National Park. It has a rich Koala population that regularly exports Koalas to the mainland to keep the local population in check.

An ecologically friendly city could be built here that would not interrupt the flora or fauna at all. A high speed railway could be built from the island to the near by city of Melbourne, giving the residents of French Island access to the culture of a big city. The goal would still be to attract tertiary industry to the island so that residents could be employed there and have their community life there.

Imagine a city without cars (a city in a nature park)

2011-10-27T20:45:00.000+08:00

A parkland area in central Helsinki where there are very few cars. Houses and apartment buildings are amongst the parks and gardens. Being there recently reminded me of my dream for a carless city.

The Dream

For some years I have dreamed of a city without cars. I think the first time I did this was back in 2003. I had been living in the country side in Canada for a couple of years. I had grown accustomed to a quieter more peaceful life. I then returned to work in Melbourne, Australia. I did not have a car at first, catching the bus to work every day. As I would stand at the bus stop I would watch the cars rush by, and I would listen to all the noise they made. My first reaction was not "if only I had a car too" but rather "those tyres make so much noise, imagine if there was no noise coming from cars."

Imagine if there was no noise coming from cars. I looked at the trees and the birds, and whilst I was happy that they still existed in suburban Melbourne, I dreamed of living in a place where they would be abundant. I sat down and began to flesh out my ideas on paper. I dreamed of houses and buildings almost hidden amongst the trees. Some buildings could even be built into the hillside, if hills existed. Or some buildings could be landscaped to be a part of nature, perhaps partly underground with some grass and shrubbery above the house. A life that is lived closer to nature is a more peaceful one, but this can still be done with modern comforts.

I mapped out what my city might look like. It would have an extensive system of underground railways. This would make travel to any part of the city possible within a short trip of perhaps no more than 10-15 minutes. Above ground there would not be roads as such. Instead there would be many paths for people to walk on and for bikes to ride on. There would be plenty of park land where there are no buildings at all, but the over all feel of the place would actually be that of park land, where animals would roam freely.

Obstacles

A paradise is often too good to be true, and many issues would arise with building such a city from scratch. The first one that comes to mind is- how would deliveries be carried out. There are multiple possible solutions to such a problem. Deliveries could be carried out by animal if people desire to keep one. Deliveries could also be carried out on electric carts that would only be available with a special license purely for the purpose of delivery. These carts would even be capable of carrying building materials should a new building be constructed. An underground conveyor belt system complete with delivery chutes would also be possible, but likely a lot more expensive.

Another issue that arises is enticing people to live in such a city in the first place. People like to live in cities because of all the cultural activities that they offer. Setting up in a new city always costs people money too and would be a disincentive.

It is worth pointing out that the benefits of such a city would be a far less stressful life, but also of much benefit to the environment. So much energy is spent on making cars in the first place, and then they require so much energy to run, and they present dangers to people. Cars also take up so much of people's lives as they sit in traffic, destroying the social fabric of communities. (The city I currently live in regularly has two hour traffic jams.)

Plan of implementation

- Tax incentives for corporations, companies and businesses to set up in the new city. All would be tax free for the first ten years of the city's life. Following the first ten years there would be a gradation process. Full taxes would not be paid until the city was already 50 years old.

- A modern city would likely only have tertiary industry. Heavy scaled manufacturing if needed in the the vicinity of the city would happen outside the city.

- As corporations choose to set up in the new tax haven, workers would also need to be enticed. All residents of the city would be on a similar tax incentive scheme to companies. Wages would still be kept in line with the rest of the country, ensuring a tax minimum life for the new residents.

- (These tax incentives are necessary to entice people to try something new. Once the first such city got off the ground there would be a deepening desire from other people to join the new car free life.)

- Assuming both industry and workers are present in the equation, there needs to be other factors necessary to entice residents. Cultural facilities such as concert halls, theatres, entertainment complexes, sporting facilities for public participation and professional sporting stadiums would be built. Securing a professional sporting team to make the city its home would be a big part of the equation.

- The city would be built completely away from the car grid altogether. In the 21st century very fast trains exist that can travel to 400 km/h. Such a train would connect the city with the rest of the country. An airport would not be necessary, and would not fit in with the philosophy of minimising oil use in the world. If the city is on the coast of a country, then it would also be serviced by shipping.

Why plan a city?

The idea of planning a city from scratch is not such a crazy one. Cities have been planned in the past, and they are usually peaceful places to live. In Australia the cities of Adelaide and Canberra have been extensively planned. Adelaide is a far older city than Canberra. Both cities of course depend on cars, but even their planning has resulted in free flowing traffic, even if there is the noise to live with. Planning a city goes a very long way to making life there comfortable. The inner suburbs of Melbourne were planned, but the growth past that point has made for a messy city.

How would such a city be financed? From a variety of angles. Corporations would take part in building their share. They could even have shares in the city. Investors and entrepreneurs could put up funds, to which they would undoubtedly see handsome returns. It would of course require assistance from government, and it would of course require visionaries to build and invest in the dream.

Parting thoughts

The dream is a worthy one to see come to fruition. The world badly needs to be set free from the burden of cars. The world badly needs more environmentally friendly solutions for the future. The carless city could indeed be the city of the future and not a pipe dream.

I may be no real expert in city planning. I have taken the path of linguistics in my life. That does not mean I can not have opinions on issues of the environment and sustainable, ecological and healthy living. It is my humble hope that such cities will come about in the world. If you happen to be an entrepreneur or politician feel free to run with these ideas. Heck, even feel free to take the credit for yourself. I would just be happy to see it happen.

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Appendix issues:

Existent cities

But what of the cities that already exist? Surely they can not just be shut down and replaces by the city of the future? Well, no of course not. Existent cities would need to evolve towards being carless over time. Taking the example I know best, I will speak of Melbourne in Australia. I do not live in Melbourne anymore, but I do hear the complaints coming from there that the roads are buckling under the strain, as is the train system. Melbourne needs to bite the bullet at some point before things get better. All of the level railway crossings need to be removed from the city. (There are currently hundreds and they slow down traffic a lot.) Underground train lines should be put in where ever there are above group train lines. These lines could be newer and higher quality with much faster trains, cutting down travel time extensively. (The Moscow under ground Metro is a lot faster than the Melbourne above ground Metro.) The land above the railway lines could be partly sold to pay for the venture and partly established with "bike highways". Bike highways would enable cyclists to travel into the centre for work without having to fight traffic or stop for red lights. This is just one example of an evolutionary step that needs to be taken in Melbourne. In time, some roads could be replaced with more underground train lines beneath them and bike highways above them. Gradually the city could be weaned off its addiction to the car.

Location of new city

Where would such a city be built? Around the world different countries would afford different opportunities. Again, in Australia I can think of various locations for such a city. Australians are very coastal people. It would be a difficult draw card to build such a city without people having access to the beach. Suddenly that means that there are very few apparent vacancies around the country. But this is not actually true.

A variety of options exist:

- An isolated part of the South Australian or Western Australian coastline. This would require a lot of work to revegetate and irrigate. It is perhaps a good location for a future city, but may have drawbacks in drawing people there initially.

- A tropical part of the coast of Gulf of Carpentaria currently uninhabited. This would not have problems with vegetation, but not all are drawn to a tropical climate.

- The most densely populated state in Australia is actually Victoria. In some ways it makes sense to find a coastal location in Victoria. A location half way between Portland and Port Fairy is currently being used as farm land and has a highway going through it. The highway could be moved to go north of the proposed city. Portland already is a large deep water shipping port which could easily service the city.

Carfree cities already around the world

There are actually some places in the world that already are car free. Most of these came about due to historical reasons. Venice in Italy with a population of 70,000 is one such example. It exists on a network of canals. Fes-el-Bali in Morocco is the old part of a newer city. It is only a small area covering 2.4 kms by 1.6 kms, but has a population of 150,000.

Other such parts of the world are more often islands that never allowed cars in the first place.

Each of these historical places that are car free are however not immersed in nature as my proposed city is, nor do they have mass transit systems.

Finally, there is one modern city that is being established as car free. Masdar is near Abu Dhabi in the Emirates. It also will not be a nature immersed city, but it will be energy clean.

For more information on car free locations around the world there is a website worth reading: car free.com

There is also a list of car free locations around the world on wikipedia.

The genetic history and future of the human race: Africa the key to our salvation.

2011-10-03T03:35:00.000+08:00

It sometimes takes me a long time to develop my seed thoughts.

Reading and writing (literacy) is approximately 5000-6000 years old. Civilisation is approximately 5000-6000 years old. There are many people (young earth subscribers) who are deeply influenced by their literal/ literate/ literacy based world view. They find it hard to believe in a world before reading and writing existed. They find it hard to believe in a world before civilisation existed. They find it hard to believe in a world before the Bible was written down on paper. They are therefore limited in their view of the world to come up with statements such as "the world is 6000 years old". I consider it no small coincidence that their calculation of the age of the world is the same period as that of civilisation and literacy. If we can expand our thinking beyond a world of civilisation and literacy then the possibilities of explaining history broaden greatly.

With that preface I would like the permission from you the reader to speak of dates much older than 6000 years ago. I hope this does not offend you. Just remember, I interpret every word of scripture as true, but I do this in an oral sense. That is I know that many of the stories were constructed orally. For example, when the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, I am happy and comfortable to know that the Spirit of God hovered over the hydrogen gases. Hydrogen, being the first and most basic element, is the element from which all other elements come. All stars are made of Hydrogen. "We are all made of stars" has some truth to it. So, since the word "waters" at the start of Genesis can be used to refer to Hydrogen (and still be true, correct) this then helps explain how oral stories must be understood. When the oral story of creation was first told, there was no such word for Hydrogen, so water was the best word to describe Hydrogen, even though the story tellers had no idea what Hydrogen actually was. And in fact the word Hydrogen comes from the Greek Hydro for water. The two words are closely related. Water is made up of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. In such a context it is easy to see how a day need not be 24 hours. I don't want to enter deeply into that debate, except to say that a literal interpretation is not called for but an oral one is, especially since the story is many thousands of years older than writing itself.

I will now enter into the topic of the genetic origins of humanity. A while back we watched a documentary series from the BBC that spoke of the origins of humanity. There are still many questions in this field from a scientific perspective. It is true that the documentary series treated the ideas as fact instead of hypothesis, but there are still some interesting points to ponder.

My approximate take on the facts are as follows. Humanity itself is about 50 000 years old. Why? Scientifically it is postulated that speech is about 50 000 years old. Many linguists, psychologists and also philosophers argue that language creates identity and without language there is no identity. That makes a person who has no concept of language at all.... well... I don't believe such a person exists in the world, even Helen Keller had language.

At some point in our genetic past there is an important genetic dichotomy at play. Before getting to that I want to comment on the existence of "Mitochondrial Eve" a single human being from whom all modern humans are descended. Where ever in history this person is placed (up to 150 000 years ago) this is a very interesting fact. The existence of "Y Chromosome Adam" is also a very interesting fact. The fact that these two people are separated by millennia is unimportant when we consider the hypothesis that Noah could actually be the "Y Chromosome Adam". The stories of the Garden of Eden and Noah are likely separated by many thousands of years in true history.

Another interesting oral story has a genetic picture to highlight. The Y chromosome has a stick missing. From this stick comes another X chromosome. When God put Adam into a deep sleep he broke off a stick from Adam's one X chromosome and left behind a Y chromosome. From this chromosome stick he created Eve. That is, the "rib" in the Genesis story (the story of Gene-(tics)-is) actually a chromosome, not a literal rib. This is because oral people from many thousands of years ago did not have a word for "chromosome" but only understood such words as bones and ribs, as they understood the story that God gave them. The word "rib" in the Genesis story is an oral representation of the scientific "chromosome". This means the word "rib" is no less true, but a literal rendering of the word "rib" is actually incorrect. An oral rendering is required.

The genetic dichotomy I was referring to earlier? Some where in the genetic history of humanity there is a dichotomy between the people living in Africa and the people living elsewhere in the world. I personally think the location of Eden was either in Eastern Africa (possibly Ethiopia) or even off the coast into the now Indian Ocean. So this makes it easy to consider the "out of Africa" hypothesis. Everyone in the human race who is not African is descended from a small genetic pool. All of the people who are African are from a much more diverse set of genetic pools. I am satisfied that this is a genetic fact. DNA research has shown this theory to be sound. It in no way threatens the integrity of scripture what so ever. But it of course does threaten the (young earth) narrow approach.

This brings me to a very interesting set of new hypotheses. Since we (non-Africans) are genetically less diverse than Africans, it follows that marriage between an African and non-African will always produce a stronger genetic outcome than marriage between two non-Africans. That is, if every non-African married an African from now on, then their offspring would have much stronger immune systems. My hypothesis is that this increased immunity would go a long way to combatting disease in the world. Therefore, Africa is a key to medical security and the future integrity of the human race. We need Africa. Africa needs us.

A spiritual hypothesis can also be drawn from this. If Africa is the hope for the world on a genetic level, then wiping out Africa would be very dangerous for the world. Yet it seems that Africa is always under the most attack in the world. I personally think that the devil would like nothing more than to wipe out Africa, because by doing so there is a much better chance of wiping out the entire human race. So the intensity of the spiritual battle is centred on Africa. There are always more wars, famines and troubles in Africa than anywhere else in the world. The spiritual battles between the growth of the Body of Christ in Africa and the intensity of Black Magic is always at its strongest in Africa. The metaphorical (sometimes spilling over into literal battles) battle between the advance of Islam and the advance of Christianity in Africa is also more intense there than anywhere else in the world.

Africa is where it is at. Africa is key to the world's future. The twenty first century belongs to China and to a lesser extent India, on an economic level. But I think there will come a day when Africa will develop too. This may be a century away still. Perhaps the twenty second century will be the century of Africa in the world.

Hypotheses are fun. An oral understanding of the world opens up our thinking to many new hypotheses.

And so my seed thoughts continue to develop.

A season of detox

2011-09-04T21:37:00.000+08:00

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

This is a serious question that I am asking myself. Not because I think it a worthless thing to do, but rather because I really want to follow Jesus. I don't want to follow any man. I don't want to follow the church. I want to follow Jesus.

A major error in Christianity is that people are led to believe that to be a good Christian they must be actively involved in a church. But at subtle levels Jesus is pushed out of the church. Churches and people in them are so caught up with their programs, with convincing people to attend them, run them, financially support them, that they don't have any time left to actually follow Jesus.

I have long known the institutional church to be diseased with this structure of man, preventing the average person from fulfilling their priesthood in Christ. To be a follower of Christ means to also be a priest of Christ. As Jesus is the high priest, all of his followers must also be priests. If I can not be a priest of Christ, then how can I be a follower of Christ?

I desire to be a follower of Christ, therefore I desire to be a priest. To do this, I must be allowed to minister in the priesthood of all believers. Sadly the institutional church does not allow me to do this, and in the process prevents me from properly following Jesus.

I have decided to take a season to detox from the institutional church. I still very much love my brothers and sisters in Christ. I am not forsaking them. But I do desire that we can all minister to one another as our High Priest calls us to do.

In my season of detox so far, some lessons have gradually been coming to me. One was that I realised that in my time in the institutional church I had very few friends who were not believers. I had some, but very few. I was also quite bad at being friends with these people. I subconsciously expected them to conform to the sub culture of which I was a part. The sub culture judges people who are different. I now have more non Christian friends than at any time in my life. But something is different. I am sharing the gospel on some level with all of them. In the past I almost kept it a secret from people that I was a Christian. I think one of the reasons for this is that I am not afraid of having to bring these people to church. I can simply introduce these people to Jesus and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.

Part of the toxins that I have swallowed is that I have believed that by practice that I need to attend a ritual temple ceremony (the Sunday morning service) to follow Jesus. In fact, religious Christianity places a very high emphasis on this "sacrament". This has been such a central part of my belief that it is hard for me to imagine that I even can follow Jesus when not attending the temple ceremony. Of course this is a thousand times ridiculous. If I can not follow Jesus outside of the temple ceremony, what good is such a ceremony? My life must be made up of 24/7 passion and commitment to my suffering King.

So I think I am in another stage of my detox now. I am allowed to follow Jesus outside of the temple. I am allowed to Love the Lord my God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength. I am allowed to love my neighbour. I am allowed to exhibit the fruits of the spirit. Most of all, I don't need the endorsement of the temple religion to do so. I only need the endorsement of the King and High Priest.

I am free. But clearing toxins out is a distasteful experience none the less.

When was the world created?

2011-07-14T17:05:00.000+08:00

I have always been afraid to post about this topic on my blog, because I am afraid of getting in trouble with a lot of Christians I know for believing something different to them. It's not a major doctrinal point in my opinion. But recently I noticed a fellow blogger post on it, so I got some courage up. He's even quite a conservative evangelical (the kind I am afraid of getting in trouble with), so what the heck?

Here's what I had to post on his blog. I wonder if anyone will bother to respond to my thoughts, I'd love to start a discussion on it:

I am tired of people saying that they read Geneis "literally". It is not a literal text, it is in an oral text. As such it is full of oral devices and ancient oral world view. For us to force our literal world view upon an oral text is very bad analysis of a text indeed.
We can be guaranteed that when the stories of creation were composed the date of creation was not in the slightest bit part of the topic.

In our oral telling of these stories to some Sakha people here in Siberia, we actually started with the creation story of the garden, Adam and Eve. We then moved on to the next story in the garden, when they disobeyed and ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. Later we went back to the creation song in Genesis 1, where "everything God made was good." It was quite a surprise to our friends that everything was good, as the world we live in is not good at all. They found the second two stories easier to understand.

By the time we got round to the creation song about everything being good, they were ready to interact with this, as the other two stories had made sense to them. This is certainly what Genesis 1 is all about, contrasting the good and perfect Creator God from all the evil gods in the world around. (Not about when the universe was created.)

(Qualifier, "oral" still means true, just a different filter, a different part of the brain, a different way of viewing and describing the world.)

Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna

2011-07-11T15:14:00.001+08:00

My parents in law put this book in my hands a few years ago. It was a sample copy from their book selling business. It never made it on to their distribution line. Perhaps it has too controversial a sounding title?

I started to read it back then, but never continued with it. From my previous posts it is obvious that I have thought about topics of organic and home church for a long time.

More recently I bought Frank Viola's "Reimagining Church" on Amazon Kindle for the iPad. I began to read it, and felt really discouraged. Why? Because I so badly want what is written about in his books, in fact I have even had glimpses and tastes of "organic" or "open particapatory" or house church in my life in the past. But it just feels so impossible for this to happen where I live in Russia right now. I can't imagine any of the Christians I know being interested in organic church. So I put the book down. But I did sign up for Frank Viola's twitter feed. I did this, because he requested to follow me first.

Then Frank tweeted that his book was available on Kindle for $2.99 (it is now $9.99 again), I decided to get it. (I didn't bring many hard copy books here to Russia.) I seem to be a lot more frustrated with my church experience here in Russia, that I was again ready to read it. I also read Neil Cole's "Organic Church" while here in Russia.

One of Frank Viola's recent tweets was a quote: "Once your mind has been stretched it is impossible for it to go back to the shape it once was." Over the years my mind keeps getting stretched further and further....

I will not give a full review of this book here. What I will do is implore you to read it. Frank Viola and George Barna have done extensive research in backing up their claims in this book. They have hundreds of references in their bibliography and hundreds of footnotes to substantiate their premise.

What is their premise? That much of the practices we have in the modern institutional church are pagan in their roots and not biblical at all. The book calls us all to authentic worship and expression of the Body of Christ. They are very gracious in their approach towards the institutional church. They have some very important things to say. Everything they say is carefully researched and carefully lines up with scripture.

I know that I need to make a change in my life. I am completely and utterly stuck about how to do this.

I am now on to reading Viola's next book "Reimagining Church", which while full of hope will probably only make me sad about all that I am missing out on in my own Christian walk.

Help me Lord!

Mars Rover "Spirit" and Titan probe "Huygens"- both instruments of worship.

2011-07-04T20:26:00.001+08:00

Over the last couple days we have watched a couple of space exploration documentaries. The first was called "Death of a Mars Rover", produced by National Geographic. The second was "Destination Titan", produced by the BBC.

I am always fascinated by space exploration. I have the greatest admiration for the scientists who are involved in these endeavours. Some may think that their activities are a waste of time and that they are of "no earthly good." Nothing could of course be further from the truth.

It is an easy temptation for humanity to be short sighted. Much like in Christianity, people get focused solely on the salvation of the individual and do not stop to realise that God's purposes go way beyond salvation. God's purposes are to establish his eternal kingdom. Salvation is just like getting the citizenship certificate, to say nothing of the civil responsibilities, as well as dreams and aspirations of the King and his citizens.

In a similar way many people do not realise the value of exploring the universe. But I can think of few things of greater value. Space exploration has intrinsic value in itself. We have a duty to understand the universe around us. We have a duty to explore it. In fact this can even be worship. To learn more about God's universe is to glorify him for creating it. For this reason I have the greatest admiration for the scientists who work to explore the solar system and the universe- even if they don't agree with my premise.

Of course there could be far more practical reasons for space exploration. There are undoubtedly many minerals available in our solar system that could be used on earth and to further our exploration. But until we discover minerals that are in low supply on earth (or even non-existent on earth), space mining is on indefinite delay. There can be no doubting that commercial incentives would push space exploration at a rapid pace. Sometimes I feel that this is needed, as on the whole space exploration is moving quite slowly. I still find it a shame that a base has not yet been established on the moon. Science just doesn't seem to be a big enough motivator for the general public, although it is a very worthy cause.

In the two documentaries, remarkable stories were told of success against improbable odds. The Mars rovers were supposed to only last 90 days. But one of them lasted seven years, and the other is still going. Even the stories of their survival, for me are a clue that God is in favour and support of these scientific missions. I can hear God saying, "sure, explore as much as you can, I know you are looking for life in the universe and I know you don't want to be alone on earth, so keep looking, the more you look and the more you search, the more likely you are to find ME." I can hear God cheering along the endeavours to explore Mars and Titan.

The probe that was sent to Titan (in 1997) nearly did not make it. And it even came down to the last three minutes of energy on the probe for it to collect that data that was planned. Success came down to the last second. Now scientists are hoping to send a "boat like probe" to sail the seas of liquid methane on Titan.

The Mars Rover "Spirit".

The Titan probe "Huygens".

An artists impression of Huygens landing on Titan.

I remember watching a documentary on what earth would be like 10 000 years after the last human was gone. It was speculated that perhaps Mt Rushmore would be the last remaining evidence of humans. All other structures would have disintegrated and disappeared. What would someone think if they found Mt Rushmore's presidential tribute? It would have the same unexplained aura as does Easter Island or Stone henge. What does it say about our world? Perhaps it even says that America worships it's presidents.

But then it has been mentioned that the Mars Rovers will not decay as there is nothing to cause their decay, and that they will likely remain as they are for millions of years if no one goes to Mars. I think it is a far better testament to humanity to see us exploring the universe, than leaving marks of worship to presidents carved in mountains.

A subtle error: idolatry in the camp of Protestants?

2011-06-24T00:12:00.006+08:00

[Before I give my opinion on the topic of Evangelicalism vs Charismatism, I should give full disclosure of myself. (Full disclosure allows people to filter any biases that I have.) I invite you to read the full disclosure before or after my essay. It can be found at the end.]

I first joined an organisation with strong evangelical roots in 2000. I was a member of the Church of Christ at the time. Later in 2004 my wife joined with me, and we were evangelical Anglicans at the time.
The statement of faith of this particular organisation does something that many other evangelical bodies do. It lists its first item as:

WE BELIEVE that the Holy Scriptures, consisting of Old and New Testaments, were originally given by God, divinely inspired, without error, infallible, and are entirely trustworthy and the supreme authority in all matters of faith and practice.
I have no problems with the wording of this item as such, but I do have a problem with it coming before the Triune God in the statement of faith. This distinction is subtle, but very important.

Evangelicalism was born in the age of the modernist enlightenment. In the context of atheists arguing with logic that God could not possibly exist, protestants began to formulate their logical arguments of response. Christianity descended to these quarters, from something of mystery (God's ways and thoughts are not our ways; the Spirit blows where it pleases (John 3); no mind has conceived of the mysteries of the gospel (1 Corinthians 2)... etc), to logical systematic theology, ending up with such simple notions of "four spiritual laws" and the sinner's prayer.

Modern evangelicalism sought to explain all matters of faith. It sought to build a logical framework that could not be disputed. Step by step, the bible was dissected into easily understood and irrefutable logic. A point was reached where modern evangelicals could easily explain all things about God, as they understood the Bible in entirety. There was no room left for the Spirit to blow where he pleases. In modern evangelicalism the Spirit is only allowed to blow according to the strict formulas that are logically understood by a mathematical deduction of theology. In short, God was caught in a box, he had been captured, never again to be released.

I have often wondered why Evangelicals are so afraid of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps it is because rampant pentecostalism has exploited the Holy Spirit for its own materialistic gains, and hyper abusive spirituality. Or perhaps that is just an excuse on the part of evangelicals. Perhaps they are afraid of the Holy Spirit, because they don't want God to escape from the box, where he can easily be controlled. Evangelicals often don't seem to believe in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, even though this is frequently evident in Acts. They claim that conversion (at the point of the sinner's prayer) brings the Holy Spirit. Even in Acts there were believers who had not yet received the Holy Spirit, such as Apollos. (See my earlier post.)

I have had my times to examine how the evangelical culture of my organisation operates. This has most often been in the context of international conferences. The first of these times was in Europe in 2007. A speaker attended the conference to educate people living in Europe on how to relate to post modernism. People were asking questions such as "how can we communicate the gospel to these post modernists", while I just sat there and thought "hello, I'm sitting right here, I am already a post modern Christian." At the end of the question and comment time a brave man stood up and said something that shocked the whole room at the conference. He said, "we need to go the God beyond the scriptures." There was a collective gasp across the room. How dare he question the Evangelical God contained within scripture? (Sarcastic emphasis, my own.) In reality this man was not for a moment saying that he did not believe scripture, he was just saying that God is bigger than scripture, and that God still has freedom to move outside of scripture. Evidently he had struck an evangelical sacred cow.

I sat there cheering this man along as he spoke. Later he was made to apologise before the conference for his errant statements. I participated in a discussion with him and some other leaders of the organisation after the session ended. The argument was made that we can only know who God is from scripture. I disagreed. I argued that we can know God in the following ways:

1) Through the witness of God in creation.
For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (The Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans.)

I.e- not only is it possible to believe in God from looking at creation, it is also possible to recognise his eternal power and divine nature, and worship him accordingly. I would argue that this is the first witness that every human being receives, not scripture. As the Christian Astronomer Hugh Ross says "God's book of creation, and God's book of scripture will never disagree with one another." But it is very important to acknowledge that God has another "book" apart from the scriptures.

In the ensuing discussion I threw forth the question- "which Bible did Abraham read when he came to faith?" This is also a very important question. God taught Abraham how to have faith, and so forth he taught his descendants (of which we are a part).

I would argue that Abraham had God's book of creation, as well as the oral stories that make up the first 11 chapters of Genesis- the prehistory of the the Bible. This was indeed a lot. In fact we see from Genesis that Melchizidek had this same faith and so did Job who lived in the era of the patriarchs. But most of all Abraham had an active living relationship with the Living God. They related back and forth. Dare I say that he even had a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

2) Through the witness of the saints. This may be a bit scary for some evangelicals. It may even sound a bit Catholic or Orthodox. But think about it for a moment. Early believers in the Old Testament all talked about their belief in "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." It was the witness of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, by which they believed, not by a huge body of scripture that we have today. Think about how you came to faith yourself. My guess is that you received the testimony of another believer. This testimony was then confirmed by the Holy Spirit speaking to you, prompting you and then convicting you of sin and righteousness. I know that I came to faith this way myself. It was only much later that I began to understand about the Bible, and how it is useful for teaching and discipleship (2 Timothy). Even Paul, in the context of saying that Christ's death and resurrection are spoken of in the scriptures (he is referring to Old Testament prophecies) goes on to list the testimony of 500 witnesses who saw the risen Christ. (1 Corinthians 15). This witness of the 500 is paramount in establishing his claim for the validity of the entire Christian faith. "Without the resurrection of Christ, we are all fools." So Paul argues that we can be sure that Christ rose because of the witness of the saints. And to add a little fuel to the fire the writer to the Hebrews lists the Heroes of the faith who are our "cloud of witnesses" in chapters 11 and 12.

3) The witness of scripture. In reality, scripture becomes a good way to underline and confirm the witness of creation and the witness of the saints. Also, scripture is a collection full of the testimony of the saints, recorded for all time. Just as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, words spoken without love are as a clashing cymbal; in the same way words on a page do not impact the lives of others without the embodiment of the love of Christ. The words of scripture are as often used to falsely condemn others as they are to point to Jesus' love. This does not mean the words of scripture are somehow bad, it just means that when people do not act in love they have a way of twisting the words of scripture to their own ends. Jesus exhorts us that the world would know that we are his disciples by our love for one another. So even when we use the words of scripture, the testimony of the saints remains imperative.

When it comes to the Bible and God, which came first? It is nonsense to say that we believe in God because the Bible tells us so. This is circular reasoning (and even according to an evangelical framework of logic, must fail the test). The Bible is God's word spoken to us, for sure, but it is like a photo negative that needs to have light come through it for people to see it. The words of scripture are understood under the illumination of the Holy Spirit. We believe in God because of his witness to us through his creation. Later we believe in the Bible because it came to us from God, via the testimony of his saints through the ages. The Bible is a sure and reliable testimony because of the the first two witnesses. God spoke through the prophets. The prophets wrote the words on to the page. Through out the ages, and even today God continues to work through the Holy Spirit and though people. I believe in the Bible because it comes from God. I don't believe in God because it comes from the Bible.

These ideas become controversial in evangelical circles. An evangelical is usually comfortable with the words on the page, but becomes uncomfortable when asked to trust the Holy Spirit while closing the book. But God will never contradict himself, so it is possible for the evangelical to come back to scripture at a later time and find out that the things the Holy Spirit has said remain in the same vain. But we need to learn to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said "my sheep know my voice." Sometimes we don't have time to open up the book, and we need to respond to the voice of the Holy Spirit immediately in our lives.

Another moment at an international conference came recently. Sadly the speaker said something classically evangelical, and classically in error. He wanted to encourage evangelicals to seek the Holy Spirit more. But as his talk unfolded, this was not what he did. He pulled out two scriptures as his proof texts, and then put them through an evangelical filter:

Colossians 3:15-16 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

Ephesians 5:18-19 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.

The speaker then went on to explain that these two scriptures are so similar that they are essentially the same, and that therefore "the word of Christ" (which he explained is the Word of God; which is the Bible) fills us with the Holy Spirit in our lives. He used the texts to explain to us that reading the Bible more would fill us with the Holy Spirit. He went on to subtly twist these words and make people feel guilty for not having good enough "quiet times". Following his talk there were people in tears, repenting for not reading their Bibles enough. He had successfully condemned them through proof texting an evangelical maxim, that God can only be known through the Bible, and that if you are not reading it (as much as him) then you are not filled with the Holy Spirit. In my opinion his talk was nothing short of spiritual abuse. Pentecostals have been (rightly) accused of spiritual abuse. They have used their position of "touch not the Lord's anointed" to say what ever they please and exert power over people. But this was the evangelical equivalent of spiritual abuse. This man, because he was a "learned bible scholar" and speaking from the pulpit was not to be questioned. His interpretation of the Bible was the "correct" one, and with it he wielded great power. I was saddened and shocked. He had spent an entire sermon, with other proof texts too, telling people that the Bible is essentially the Holy Spirit. This fits into the evangelical trinity: Father, Son and Holy Book.

It is a subtle but grave error that evangelicals can often make. The Bible contains the words of God given to us via his saints. (Yes they are all true- I am not detracting from that for one moment.) But when the Holy Spirit is pushed aside and replaced by a book, this is nothing short of idolatry. This may be hard for people to see. But ask anyone- who is greater, God or the Bible?- the answer must surely be God.

Allow me to offer a different interpretation of the scriptures given. (Admittedly I also have my biases, but I surely hope that I am allowing the scriptures to speak instead of forcing them as my own proof texts.) At the time that Paul wrote his letters, the "scriptures" were what we now know as the Old Testament. When he exhorted believers to let the "word of Christ" dwell richly in them, what could he have meant? I would argue that he was not referring to words on the page. Many of those early believers would not have had words on the page. They would have had stories yes. But until Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote them down, they did not have access to many of those particular words of Christ. But they were not lost. They had the Holy Spirit! In fact, this was the whole point. Jesus told the disciples not to worry when he was leaving, because he would send the Holy Spirit to them who would lead them into all truth. Was this just for the disciples so they could then later write the stories down? No! It was for all believers, the Holy Spirit was abundantly made available to all flesh at Pentecost in Acts 2.
So this scripture is referring to the believers all getting together as priests, all sharing a word of wisdom with one another, all keeping one another accountable, all bringing songs to worship the King, all bringing words of prophecy to glorify the Lord and encourage one another. When they all did this together it brought a full, wholistic and broad body contextual representation of the body of Christ, with Jesus as their head. This was the actual Word of Christ. Just as John teaches us that Jesus is the Word made flesh, the full participation of all priests in the royal priesthood of all believers brings about the Word of Christ, Jesus incarnate, this time not as flesh walking but as the Spirit blowing amongst us. The Holy Spirit is the Word! The Bible is not the Holy Spirit. It is all a question of priority and sequence.

To remove any confusion, it comes down to our definition of the phrase "the word of God." The Word of God is a person. John teaches us this. The Word of God is not the Bible. The Bible is the words of God, but not The Word, that must be reserved for Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

DISCLOSURE:

I was raised in the Lutheran church. The Lutheran church is a liturgical church that recites the Nicene creed every Sunday. One of the things I like about the Nicene creed is that it declares faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while only mentioning briefly the scriptures in the context of Jesus raising from the dead. It also mentions that the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets (a reference to the scriptures). But the scriptures are never placed in priority before the Triune God.

My family flirted with charismatism and pentecostalism when I was a child. There was a charismatic renewal movement in the Lutheran church. This mostly happened outside of Sunday services in home groups and at retreat style camps. Over the years it did creep into some congregations. This happened more successfully in South Australia and Queensland. In Victoria the Lutheran church carried out a campaign against the charismatic renewal. Over a period of about 20 years they successfully "assassinated" all sources of what they believed to be heresy. This resulted in a lot of people being hurt and abused, including my parents. I left the Lutheran church at the age of 16 in this environment.

My teenage years included membership in a more rampant form of pentecostalism under the banner of the Assembly of God. I was actively involved in the youth group and Sunday evening services. It was in this time that I experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit and took on the concept of boldness for Jesus in my faith. In those years I erred on the side of boldness but lacked gentleness and respect. Over the years I learnt the importance of gentleness and respect for someone, when sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Never in my experience though have I rejected my pentecostal experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is still very much a part of who I am.

For some years I did subscribe to the notions of the prosperity gospel that are regularly preached in the pentecostal church, under the likes of Kenneth Copeland and many others. I now consider those doctrines to be in error.

In late teenage years I became involved with an independent charismatic church. It had a lot less hype than the Assembly of God. This church was on a devolving journey away from institutionalised religion. Over the years the pastor stopped calling himself a pastor, and simply became an elder, along with other elders in the fellowship. The building we met in evolved from hard chairs and rows, to couches and soft chairs in a circle. The style of worship evolved from one priest led to open participatory worship. People began reading books with titles such as "The Open Church". As a fellowship we began relating to an itinerant Apostle.

I was eclectic in my worship experience. For all the years that I went to the devolving open fellowship, I also continued to associate with hard core pentecostals at a church my sister attended. In those years I also experienced the "laughter phenomenon" that came from the Holy Spirit via the Toronto Blessing. While such experiences have not been normative in my journey- they continue to line up with my relationship with the Holy Spirit as a person who is gentle and loving, yet also extraordinarily powerful.

In my early twenties I left behind both the hard core pentecostal circles and the open church circles, and landed in an extremely post modern embryonic emmergent church. It was called South Melbourne Restoration Community, and was a member of the Australian Churches of Christ (a protestant denomination- not the Boston movement). This fellowship was led by the now famous Alan Hirsch and his wife Debra Hirsch, along with other leaders who are no where near famous, but desired after the heart of God also. My six years in that context led me through a lot of post modern questioning that has been very helpful in my faith. It enabled me to find synergy in all of my previous Christian experiences.

I still look back fondly on my years in South Melbourne Restoration Community. I consider them to be formative, but not conclusive in who I am as a Christian. Alan Hirsch used to talk about "simplicity before complexity" and "simplicity after complexity." We were all exhorted to wrestle with our faith, to go through the complexity and come out the other side into a deeper and purer simplicity. That is, a simplicity that is grounded in the Eternal God and an active relationship- having tested the truth, but not a naive simplicity that is founded in dogmatism- i.e accepting something as true just because other people say it is, and should never be argued with.

After my time in the post modern emmergent church, I moved to live in Saskatchewan, Canada, where I married my wife. At the time there were no such concepts in Saskatchewan. I sought out a Vineyard fellowship, which advertise themselves as holding the tension of the "radical middle." The Vineyard of course are far from perfect, still being an institutional church. We even currently attend a Vineyard fellowship in our city of residence. It often disappoints for its shallowness.

During this season in the Vineyard in Canada the actual fellowship began to implode under crises of personality in leadership. (A problem that should not exist if everyone is allowed to participate in ministering- but often exists when personalities compete for leadership.) My wife and I again became eclectic, attending the Vineyard sometimes and also the childhood church of my wife, the Anglican church. At first I resisted the Anglican church, because I had come to dislike the stuffiness of a liturgical church. But at such a small country side fellowship it became easier to slot in and appreciate the good things.

Upon returning to Australia, my wife and I sought out an Evangelical style Anglican church in Melbourne. This is the closest that I have come to being Evangelical. Many of the attitudes of people are quite evangelical, but not the same as the Baptist evangelicalism of America. The Anglican church in Australia is still a liturgical church, that recites the Nicene creed (even if the evangelical variety no longer do this every service).

The first covenant

2011-06-05T12:00:00.001+08:00

Our story telling has been continuing. A few weeks ago the story was a synthesis of Genesis chapters 1;3;6, Isaiah 14 and Revelation 12. It's my least favourite story in scripture.

As mentioned previously here on this blog, there is actually mention of the creation of the spirits (angels) in Genesis 1, but we usually can't see it through western eyes. But a more complete exegesis of scripture shows that the angels are referred to as stars also in Isaiah, Job and Revelation.

The initial purpose of the stars was to give light on the earth. Light? But surely the sun and moon give more light than the stars. This light is of course metaphorical and refers to guidance. But once a third of these stars fell from heaven (Revelation 12), they were then deceptive and no longer gave good guidance. Think of astrology. Astrology is based in the stars. Perhaps it was God's original plan to use the stars to speak to people. But as a third of the stars are now lying and deceiving, astrology can not be trusted. God tells people to stay away from astrology because it is now corrupted by the fallen angels. It takes a more holistic world view to see the spiritual and the physical co-inciding.

The first of these fallen spirits was the Morning Star. He said that he would ascend on his throne above all of the stars and above God himself. (Isaiah 14) This fallen angel fell from heaven to earth. He then took on the form of a snake. (This is not hard for non western animistic cultures to understand. Spirits can easily appear as animals.) This spirit in the form of a snake deceived Adam and Eve in the garden.

It is my thesis though that no other angels fell for a significant period of history after this. It was only in the days of Enoch that this fallen angel (who we now know as the first devil, or the father of lies) plotted further sinister activities. He lusted after the daughters of men (Genesis 6) and decided to take them for his own wife. (The Sakha even have this in their own ancient stories.) Instead of doing this alone he tempted other angels to do this with him. He came in the form of a dragon and tempted the angels. (Revelation 12) When he tempted them they too decided to take the daughters of men as their wives (Genesis 6) and then a great war started in heaven (Revelation 12) and they fell to earth, where they committed their terrible sin (Genesis 6), then taught magic and other evil things to the people on earth (Book of Enoch, quoted by Jude in the New Testament). They had the Nephilim as their descendants (the gods of various mythologies such as Greek and Babylonian mythology- Genesis 6).

The power of the spirits on earth increased greatly, and the evil of people also increased. This was what led God to destroy all people and the creatures living with them in the flood of Genesis 6-9.

In telling this story I made the comment that God had a plan to limit the power of the evil spirits. As I said that I realised I didn't even quite know what this plan was.

In telling the story of the flood it became clear to me what God's plan was to limit the power of the evil spirits. The power of the evil spirits was tremendously high on earth. People had entered into sexual intercourse with them and the demonic powers were rife. People may not realise it today, but I am convinced this is why sexual sin is an opening to demonic activity, even today. Sexual sin was the gateway sin that the demons used to bring the occult to earth.

God destroyed everything that the evil spirits had brought to earth. Noah is listed as a blameless man who walked closely with God. After the flood God makes some promises to Noah and his descendants, and then he establises a covenant. Up to this point in scripture there has been no covenant. There has been sin and consequences (curses) there has even been God's grace (in every major story- Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and then Noah). There have been prophecies of good things to come (a descendant who would crush the head of the serpent; Noah who would deliver people from the curse). But there has been no covenant before this point.

Each act of sin up to this point was a legal contract of bondage to the evil spirits. When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit they had knowledge of good and evil. The devil was then free to tempt them all he pleased. When people entered into sexual union with the spirits in Genesis 6, they were effectively signing contracts all over the place to give spiritual authority over their existence to the evil spirits. They signed all of their authority away, it was stolen from God. Noah was the only righteous one left, God had no alternative, the human race was nearly completely lost for eternity.

But when God made a covenant with Noah, it was permanent. The connection between Noah, his descendants and God was sealed. A covenant was made that could never be broken. Sure, sin still had significant power on earth, but the power of the evil spirits was limited. God re-established his claim to having authority of the people he made in his own image. (There is some argument to say that the Nephilim were not in God's image because they were the offspring of demons.)

It became clear to me. This first covenant that God established was God's first step in his epic plan of redemption. The first step to limiting the power of sin and the evil spirits. The power had not been abolished altogether, but God had taken significant territory back in his spiritual war with the fallen angels to completely recover his creation for himself.

Even today, as the power of sin can now be abolished because of the new covenant in Christ that we live under, there are more covenants to come that we have not experienced. Revelation 7 speaks of a time when there will be no more tears or suffering. That will be the ultimate covenant. God has taken much territory of his creation back through each consecutive covenant in scripture, but we can see that he has more planned in his plan of complete redemption for all of creation.

Things we can learn from the creation stories (creation of spirits, hydrogen).

2011-01-10T22:52:00.001+07:00

We have been sharing some oral bible stories with some of the friends we have been making. With one friend we have been looking at some stories about Elijah the prophet. That's appropriate for his life. With another friend and some of her friends too, we have been looking at the early stories in Genesis.

Each of these stories have been oral. Nothing is read. The stories are followed up by discussion and questions. (1) What did you like or not like about the story? (2) What can you learn about God from the story? (3) What can you learn about people from the story? Recently we added another question as it is appropriate- (4) What can you learn about spirits from the story?

I decided that the first story we would share would be the creation story from Genesis 2. There is actually more than one creation story in the Bible. Some people get freaked out by this idea. It doesn't mean that the stories contradict each other. It just needs to be remembered that they come from the ancient world and a different perspective than our own. The creation story in Genesis one has God speaking the divine word, that is creation by word. The creation story in Genesis two has God creating by action. God plants a garden, God forms the man from the ground and then breathes life into the man. God opens the man up and takes out part of his side, closes him up and forms the woman from part of the man. The story in Genesis two has people actively in the story and is a little easier to relate to as a first contact story.

Following Genesis two, we actually shared the story of the tree of good and evil on the next occasion with our friends. It was fun to listen to many of their insights- God is generous. This is our common story. We all blame each other like that in our own lives. Who was the snake? These insights and questions were prompted by the story and nothing else.

Before moving further into the "pre-history" stories of Genesis, such as Cain and Abel, I decided that it is probably important to tell the creation story of Genesis 1.

Over New Years we had some friends stay with us who live among an animist people. I handed a book to our friend called "Making disciples of oral learners." It made for some good conversation, and explains well what we are trying to do ourselves. A question came up during the reading of the book- someone in Nigeria was asking when the spirits were created. Apparently the people there then told an oral story from the Bible that addressed this issue.

The spirits are very important to animistic peoples. The spirits are very real every where in the world, but many western people doubt their existence and write it off as superstition. Many Christians can be included in holding this perspective. So I began to wonder how important it was to address this question before moving ahead with stories in Genesis.

When were the spirits created? I began scouring the bible and looking up what other people thought about the topic. Nobody gave a clear answer. Various scriptures can be found that show that God did actually create the spirits (such as in Colossians). So there is no doubt on this issue. But there just didn't seem to be a definitive scripture that showed when it happened. Some argue that Job 38 shows that they were already there at the foundation of the world:

Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?

Tell me if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its footings set?

Or who laid its cornerstone?

While the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

I don't think this shows that the angels were there at the actual foundation of the earth, but only during the process. This becomes a little clearer in the Genesis 1 story.

I had always thought that the spirits were created before the world. But there is no scripture to show this at all. In fact I think the devil wants people to believe he is special enough to have been created before the world. Consider for a moment some other stories in the Bible that refer to the devil or fallen spirits. Two that come to mind off the top of my head are Isaiah 14 and Revelation 12. In Isaiah 14 the devil is referred to as having been the "Morning Star" before his fall from heaven. In Revelation 12 he is called a dragon, but it is mentioned that this is the same as the "ancient serpent" from Genesis 3. We tend to think that since Genesis 3 is so early in the story that the devil must therefore have fallen before the creation of the world. In the Revelation 12 story, the dragon (who St. John confirms for us is the ancient serpent from Genesis 3) sweeps a third of the stars from heaven down to earth, after a war in heaven against Michael the archangel. These stars are of course the fallen angels.

A consistent fact that we can learn from each of these stories is that spirits or angels are synonymously referred to as stars at times in scripture. Even in the Job 38 story the morning stars are singing for joy. Why are they are called morning stars? Perhaps because they are born at the dawn of the world. People are born some time later.

I read the first creation story closely. Something jumped out at me. In Genesis 2:1, the NIV says that "God created the heavens and the earth and their vast array." I think they have actually left something out in the translation. Other versions say "God created the heavens and the earth, and the hosts there of." The word "hosts" is a little archaic in this context. But the word is translating a Hebrew concept that actually refer to an army or armies. Elsewhere in scripture the word is used in the context of "angelic hosts" or "starry hosts". Again there is a level of synonymity between "angel" and "star". So, it becomes clear that there is at least a reference to the creation of spirits or angels in the creation story.

When taking bible translation studies at SIL we learnt that it is ok to make something that is implicit in the text explicit, so long as it is in the text. I determined that the word hosts sufficiently explained angels in creation, and that there is enough else where in scripture to support this. So I explicitly expanded the line to say "God created the heaves and the spirits (hosts) that inhabit them and he created the earth and the creatures that inhabit it, he created them completely." I almost left it at that.

This seemed to be a good enough explanation. It satisfied me that there is at least a reference to the spirits being created in Genesis 1. It never bothered me that the serpent's cover is not fully blown in Genesis 3. The serpent is clearly a lying spirit, but it really didn't matter which spirit it was. The point of the story was not to give focus to this lying spirit but to show what happened in relationship between God and people. But of course the lying spirit still plays a big role.

One of the mistakes we make as westerners is to ignore the spiritual world. So often we just don't even see its existence. It can be right under our nose and we can still miss it. This is a big and common mistake that happens when westerners try to take the gospel into animistic cultures. Paul Hiebert called it "the flaw of the excluded middle." That is, there are three levels to be considered in the animistic world (1) God, (2) the spirits, (3) people. Often as westerners we only think about God and people and completely forget that the spirits exist, or at very least think they are not important and at worst think they don't even exist. (Every animistic person knows how real the spirits are.)

I had been reading the creation story and excluding the middle. But my eyes were beginning to open. Just as chapter 2 verse 1 showed me that the spirits are actually in the story, I started to look further.

Here are some of the things that became apparent to me as I read the story and prepared it for oral rendition. Aspects of a spiritual world view and a scientific world view.

* "The spirit of God hovered over the waters." The word waters seems to be inept to explain what happened at the start of creation. But is it really? This is an ancient story, carried orally for thousands of years before writing even existed. Water was the most basic element in the ancient world view. What is water made up of chemically? Two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Hydrogen is the most basic element as we understand the universe today. Stars are all made of hydrogen. All elements come from hydrogen. So in reality "The Spirit of God hovered over the hydrogen mass". Amazing as it may be, this ancient story still holds up to scientific scrutiny for those that want to see it.

* God separated the waters below from the waters above. Once again waters can broadly refer to all space matter. In this case, God is separating the hydrogen masses to form stars and planets. Yes, stars as we know them are created on day two, not day four as we think the story says. It is also on this day that the solar system and earth are formed. I am not bound by six 24 hour periods. The phrase "there was evening and there was morning" serves to delineate between the periods of creation and to show completion to God's task; i.e God did everything he intended to do that day and he did not forget anything.

Day four is the day that confused everybody. How could God make the sun and moon and the stars after he had already made plants in day 3? Our western intellects fail us here. We can only understand "literal" texts. We fail to understand ancient oral texts and the word imagery that is being used. This does not make them any less true, we just need to travel back in time X thousand years to when the oral story originated and wear glasses from that ancient world view to understand it. This is the day when seasons, days and years are marked. This is the day when the constellations were set in place. Constellations in the ancient world represented gods or spirits. Yes, this is the day when the spirits were created. Just as many other bible texts use the word star to be synonymous with spirit, so is the case in the Genesis 1 story. What was the purpose of the spirits/ angels/ stars? To give light on earth; i.e to be God's messengers of light, God's light bearers.

Keep in mind that everything that happens in the creation story in Genesis 1 is good. The spirits God created in Genesis 1 were good, they had not fallen yet. Things that happen in the spiritual realm may not be on a time line the same way that we understand. This is clear from Revelation 12 when the war in heaven happens after Jesus is born.

I contend from this story that no spirits fell before or during creation. Spirits were created on day 4 and then sang for joy (Job 38), their purpose being to bring light on earth. It is only in Genesis 3 that we see a spirit doing something sinful. At this point it is fair to say that the events in Isaiah 14 may have happened shortly before the serpent tempted Eve. Or it is equally possible the Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are simply renderings in the spiritual realm of what was happening simultaneously in the physical realm.

The next chapter in the story of the spirits happens in Genesis 6. I may write on that topic when we get to that in our oral story telling.

First century non-charismatic evangelicals? (Apollos the Egyptian)

2010-10-21T21:28:00.002+08:00

I've been reading Acts on and off. I love the raw excitement that is the book of Acts. Personally I desire this to be the kind of activity that occurs in my own life. And why not? Jesus said that we would do the same things and greater than him. He desires to show his love and power through the body of Christ, for his glory.

I came to chapter 18. Paul has become acquainted with Aquilla and Priscilla. Paul met them in Corinth and spent quite some time there getting to know them. He must have liked them so much that he decided to take them back to Ephesus with him. Altogether Paul spent three years living in Ephesus. Ephesus, in many ways became the center of the early church outside of Jerusalem. Notably after the destruction of the temple in AD 70 in Jerusalem, the Jews were scattered everywhere. At that point John ended up in Ephesus.

Aquilla and Priscilla carried on Paul's ministry in Ephesus in his absence. When Paul had already left them there, one Apollos came along to Ephesus. Apollos was from Alexandria in Egypt. Apollos knew his Bible very well. He was instructed in the way of the Lord and taught about Jesus accurately. But something was missing. What was it?

This is not to undermine Apollos' faith up that point. He believed in the Lord Jesus and had nothing wrong in his faith as such. Apollos had received the Baptism of Repentance, but not the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. In fact, this same pattern can be seen many times throughout Acts. Never does it say that these believers who had not received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit were wrong, but it does say that there was more.

Aquilla and Priscilla told Apollos about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and he humbly received it. So it seems that the idea of Charismatics and non-Charismatics also existed in the first century. Acts certainly seems to point towards the Baptism of the Holy Spirit being desirable.

Wouldn't it be great if such humility existed in the 21st century?

Mercy and Compassion

2010-09-09T08:56:00.004+08:00

I remember some years ago watching the news in Australia. It was a short story with an even shorter flash to an image of an orphan in Kazakhstan. The child had radiation sickness. There was a grotesque growth on the child's head. My heart broke instantly and I cried. "Lord, if you would have me do something about this, I will." I had no idea how God would answer this prayer. I still don't. I don't even know how it fits into the bigger picture of what I know God has already called me to.
Where I stand these days, living in Russia again I find myself desiring to be involved in acts of mercy and compassion. I'm not going to go into all the implications of that here, except to say that it still doesn't fit into what we are doing. But I feel that it has to somehow.
I am reminded of a potent Steven Curtis Chapman song. The first verse, chorus and second verse are:

I saw the face of Jesus in a little orphan girl
She was standing in the corner on the other side of the world
And I heard the voice of Jesus gently whisper to my heart
Didn't you say you wanted to find me?
Well here I am, here you are
So, What now?
What will you do now that you found Me?
What now?
What will you do with this treasure you've found?
I know I may not look like what you expected
But if you remember this is right where I said I would be
You've found me
What now?
And I saw the face of Jesus down on Sixteenth Avenue
He was sleeping in an old car, while his mom went looking for food
And I heard the voice of Jesus gently whisper to my soul
Didn't you say you wanted to know me?
Well here I am, and it's getting cold

I have listened to that song many a time, and honestly prayed prayers in response to it. "Lord, what would you have me do?"
More recently a lyric of Bono's has gotten through to me. It is from the epic song "Mercy" which is as yet unreleased (yes, we fans get our hands on unreleased songs), that they have started rehearsing on their 360 tour, and is likely to surface some time soon, to the immense excitement of hard core fans.

The lyric is: Love has got to be with the weak, only then love gets a chance to speak. I have commented before on my blog that Bono uses the word Love as a euphemism for God (i.e 1 John says God is Love). So paraphrased it means something like, God is with the weak, and only in that context is his voice fully and properly heard, only in the context of blessing the weak is God comprehended and understood, only in that context can God be known. It seems Steven and Bono agree, the way to know Jesus is with the weak.

This much I know, I have to do this. My linguistic calling is to the weak and the marginalised. But I think that there is more than that.

I've got the feeling that this chapter of the journey has not yet begun, but I know the Lord is calling me. I want to be obedient. Lord, help me to be obedient.

European Union (EU) show that they are racist towards nomads (Roma, Gypsies).

2010-09-04T15:22:00.000+08:00

I woke up this morning and read the news. Gypsy backlash grows in Europe caught my eye. I was shocked to read that the Roma people are suffering some serious persecution in Europe now. The French (not known for their racial acceptance of others) are destroying Roma shanty towns and expelling them from the country. But these Roma are free to travel where they like in Europe. It appears that Europeans have no tolerance for nomads.

Europeans claim to be the most enlightened culture and society on earth. Yet the French can not tolerate women wearing head covering (mind you covering one's face and head are actually different- and of course every woman should have the freedom to not cover her head). The Germans refuse to grant citizenship to Turkish people who have been living permanently in Germany for generations. A right wing party in Hungary wants to "detain Roma people in camps for life." Racism is alive and well in Europe. Europeans are not racist, so long as people are just like them.

Nomads seem to suffer persecution more than any other people in the world. People simply don't understand their culture. Nor do people understand the early age that Roma people marry at. This by the way is very common practice in many Arab villages.

I guess I should not be shocked. Europeans have only ever shown remorse for racism, but completely lacked in repentance. Many other non European cultures are just as guilty of racism.

Shame on you France, Italy and Hungary. Perhaps some Europeans will welcome their indigenous nomads and stop persecuting them.

U2 360 Moscow- post show reflections and thoughts on Bono's faith in Jesus

2010-09-04T14:51:00.001+08:00

I wrote a review for the U2 show immediately for U2tours.com. But for some reason it has taken me a while to get back in to a blogging mood. I think the show had such an impact on me that my head has been in a different space.

There can be no denying that so much of U2's material is focusing on God and the spiritual aspects of life. After the show I was reflecting on much of this and started looking at one of my favorite songs "Yahweh". It's a beautiful song of devotion to the Lord:

Take this soul stranded in some skin and bones, take this soul and make it sing
Take this city, this city should be shining on a hill
Take this city if it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart, take this heart, take this heart and make it break
Yahweh, Yahweh.
Yet some crazy people out there see fit to accuse U2 of writing a blasphemous song and have even gone so far as to accuse Bono of being a Freemason or a Satanist. Not being one to shy from the truth I researched this as much as possible. What follows is a stupid trail of forum threads with people spreading rumours. There is not a single comment from Bono that leads to any such speculation. On the contrary he continues to talk about Jesus and get ever bolder in his faith.

I dare say that the spiritual warfare is coming Bono's way. He is having such an impact of politicians and churches of the western world. Changes are being made. One of the texts flashed across the screen in Moscow at the 360 tour was "400 million saved from Malaria in Africa." But lest people think Bono is just about a social gospel, he is also guilty of sharing the gospel of personal salvation with his friends, other rock stars. Bono has been known to share the book "What's so Amazing about Grace" (by Philip Yancey) with Noel Gallagher of Oasis. He has also been known to share the gospel with Joey Ramone of the Ramones. As Bono said at the Boston Elevation show back in 2001, "Joey turned the song 'In A Little While' into a gospel song on his death bed," with Bono there in person.

It's my opinion that the devil is trying to throw some mud at Bono. If he can't seduce Bono into "sex, drugs and rock and roll" nor stop him from proclaiming Jesus and God's love and fighting stupid poverty to boot, then he will try to paint Bono with the stain of freemasonry. The same thing has actually happened to Billy Graham. Both Bono and Billy Graham have something in common apart from following Jesus, they have spent time in the company of US presidents. But the Freemasons officially deny that Billy Graham is one of them. They do acknowledge when people such as Bob Hawke (former Australian Prime Minister) are.

But Bono won't shy away from a fight with the devil. In their song "Get on your boots" spiritual warfare is in full swing. "Satan loves a bomb scare, but he won't scare you." I marveled at the fact this lyric was quite relevant for Moscow, after their Metro bombing earlier this year. Spiritual warfare happens on both the spiritual and physical planes. The devil likes to attack through literal war and blood through bomb attacks, but we need to fight back in prayer, not with further bombs. Bono understanding this says "I don't want to talk about wars between the nations," I.e "this is not a battle of flesh and blood" (Ephesians 6). "Get on your boots!" that is, it's time to go into battle boys and girls, but not with each other but with the devil, with principalities and powers.

Not having found anything of substance to back up the ridiculous allegations against Bono, I turned back to interviews with him and others about his outspoken faith in Jesus. You can read about Bono's proclamations on other sites. There's a great interview with Bill Hybels on You Tube (in which he does a good job of paraphrasing C.S Lewis' 'Liar, Lunatic or Lord'). There's also a good dialogue going on between Bono and Eugene Peterson, even though the two have not met personally. Eugene Peterson is a real fan of Bono's faith. Eugene Peterson calls Bono a prophet. I tend to agree. That's exactly the same thing a Russian friend of mine said to me the day after the Moscow show.

I'm going to steer clear of a few topics directly. But I will say that Bono said some amazing things for Russia. "We'd like to say a hello to our friend Mikhail Gorbachev who is here tonight. He started a new chapter in this great country's history, that I feel is still beginning in so many ways." Bono is ever the optimist, but this was prophetic for Russia. Followed by "I still haven't found what I'm looking for," I was stunned at the spiritual poignancy. I called out to the Lord and told him this was my prayer for Russia. The Lord replied and told me that the rain that night was his tears for Russia. There was much going on surrounding this show, which you can read about elsewhere. But don't think that Bono did not know what he was doing in getting Yuri Shevchuk on stage to sing with him, and also in singing Bob Marley's "Get up stand up."

The Lord spoke personally to me too through this show. Getting to go to see U2 was such a gift from God. I had decided previously not to make seeing U2 a priority in my life, so as to not make it an idol. I gave up all desire to see them in 2005/06 as we were first making a move to Russia. Seeing them in Russia now was something I would never have dreamed possible, something God made possible. As they were singing "Beautiful Day" God spoke to me clearly. I knew that it was a gift from God that I was seeing U2 in the first place. I had given it up and God gave it back. This was their first show ever in Russia, and it was a special one full of passion and energy. There's a lyric Beautiful Day that says "what you don't have, you don't need it now." God said to me, "see, I can give you a good gift any time I want to." I have often agonised over the fact that we can't buy a house, that although we save money it will never be enough for a house and it seems silly. But I also know that God is my provider and gives my family everything we need. God continued to speak to me, "I can give you a house anytime I want to, also, but what you don't have you don't need it now." I really like that God speaks to me through the music I like. It's pretty easy with U2 also, considering so much of their work is focused on God and spirituality.

I guess I don't need to give more of a review of the show as I did so on U2tours.com. But I will say that after being at a show, I am a renewed fan. I'm listening to their music non-stop. I'm finding some of their unreleased material on You Tube. U2 have new songs in the pipeline such as Glastonbury and new rock song, North Star (that he wrote with Michael W Smith- what was Bono thinking?) and Every Breaking Wave, plus the instrumental Return of the Stingray Guitar. I am hanging out for their new album, and really hope it will be Songs of Ascent (from the Psalms). As Bono says, they draw fishes in the sand for those that want to see. These days there seems to be a whole school of fish. For those that don't have ears to hear or eyes to see, some of them just sling mud. But as for me I'm getting on my boots.

Some more shots from the show:

U2 360 here we come! (Moscow show)

2010-08-17T19:17:00.004+08:00

(If you are looking for my comments and review after the show read here: Show review.)

Ok, I think I will allow myself to get a little excited now. It's been 12 years since I have seen U2 play live. The first concert I went to was Zoomerang (ZOO TV) at the MCG in 1993, and the second was POPMART at Waverley Park in February 1998 (one of the last events at Waverley Park before the stadium was decommissioned).
I missed out on Elevation in 2001 as they never came to Australia. Then for Vertigo, they were supposed to come to Australia at the end of 2005. We left the country at the end of 2005 and they did not make it to Australia for another year.
I never wanted U2 to be too important in my life, so I never tried too hard to make it work. It's better not to make idols out of things. Having said all that, U2 are my favourite band, and I have been a fan since 1989.

So I knew it was a gift from God that I am able to go to Moscow to see them this year. They have never played in Russia before. I already made a decision to be in Russia before I knew that they would be playing here.

Of course Bono has had his back scare recently. But the boys are back on stage and hopefully he will be ok. Then also the weather in Moscow has been atrocious due to a terrible heat wave and the devastating forest fires. Too much anticipation leading up to this gig. Of course the suffering that many Russians have faced is far more important than any U2 show.

But I will still enjoy it if it goes ahead next week and I don't have to cancel my tickets.

Enough babble. What am I hoping for from this U2 show? Apparently a mate and I will get together at a local pub for lunch and bump into a bunch of other expats. Then we'll make it to the stadium in time to get a good spot. If we get near the front I will be stoked, but I'm not gonna hang all my hopes on that. Their show is supposed to fill the stadium anyway.

I've been following their setlists recently. On one hand this may spoil things as I have an idea of what they will play. On the other hand, I want to rehearse and sing along to all the songs. :)

Some people have been complaining about their setlist. The fact is that the band can never please everybody with their list. Some have been complaining that there are not enough songs from No Line on the Horizon. Some have been complaining that there are too many songs from the Zeroes. Some have been complaining that there are too many songs from the 80s. (Yes that's right, there 'aint many songs from the 90s in the setlist.)

I happen to agree with the latest column from atU2.com, that although New Years Day is a fantastic song, it could be rested. Let me tear into the list and remove some more 80s songs. In fact I would keep New Years Day more than I would keep some others. 'I still haven't found what I'm looking for' and 'With or without you' could be left off and I wouldn't complain, although some others might be mad. Sunday Bloody Sunday is a fantastic song too, but I would live if that were gone. The only song from the 80s that is too sacred to remove is 'Where the Streets Have No Name.'

What I would like to see is a little more from Atomic Bomb and No Line. 'Sometimes you can't make it on your own' has not surfaced at all during the 360 tour, nor has 'All Because of You.' 'Stand up comedy' from No Line has not been played at all during the entire tour, nor has 'White as snow' (apart from Magnificent, they are my two favourite songs on No Line).

I do applaud the new material such as 'North Star' and 'Glastonbury' being played and I am looking forward to them. But while new material is being played, I am sure there are many other fans that would agree that it would be amazing if they pulled out 'Mercy' and played it live.

What ever they play, I am sure that it will be great. Having missed Elevation and Vertigo, I have a lot of catching up to do.

The coming Mongolian expansion and Muslims coming to Christ

2010-07-19T21:06:00.000+08:00

I've spent a fair bit of today sitting around listening to Wolfgang Simson talks. I was feeling really encouraged on Saturday after we were able to share the gospel with the family we visit every week for language learning, and a few hours of hanging out after our lesson. This new friend of ours had not appeared to be searching spiritually much before. But it seems the Holy Spirit woke up in her a memory of a time in her life that she was searching. Back when she was 27 she spent a large sum of money on a Bible, as it had previously been impossible to buy one. She read through the whole Bible and said, "This must have been written by my ** people group, as the ***(dominant people group) would never behave that way." Immediately the stories of the Bible spoke to her as if they were directly for her own people. We are praying that the Lord is reminding her of her spiritual search and that it is now restarting.

Sadly, I then got quite discouraged yesterday. Another friend of ours, who has so much potential to do huge things in God's kingdom is struggling with alcoholism. Despite initially appearing to be ready to do something about his problem, he is not admitting that he needs to. Until he takes the step of humility, he will be stuck in this stage that he is in. I don't know why, but I got my hopes up that he was ready to seek healing. At the moment, I'm feeling a bit lost for him, but will continue to pray. The Lord is a miracle worker and things are not finished for my dear friend.

Today was a day off, which means I haven't even done my homework. Arrgh. I was so tired I just lay there on the couch this afternoon and listened to Wolfgang Simson. His talks about God's revolution in the church were very stimulating and eventually had me on the edge of my seat instead of lying down. Wolfgang was getting excited, "if you want to know where the most number of people are coming to Christ in the world, it is definitely the Muslim world." Exciting stories of over 4000 house churches in Egypt and a new movement sprouting up in Iraq are just a start.

I remember a story that came back from the Lausanne Worldwide Evangelization Congress held in 2004 in Thailand. An Afghan believing husband did not know that his wife was also a believer. Muslims in Afghanistan were so afraid of persecution that they were hesitant to tell their spouses they believed. They both happened to be at an underground meeting together, and discovered that they were both believers. They had of course been maintaining their regular appearances. This means that there could be so many more that are maintaining their appearances, but beneath the surface they are believing in Christ. I like describing the Muslim world as a mountain. On the outside it seems formidable. But on the inside thousands of tiny ants are eating away, until one day the exterior will simply collapse when the Muslim world turns to Christ in its majority.

God is definitely doing exciting things in the world. I was talking to a friend who lives in Mongolia. Back in 1990 there were 2 known Christian believers in Mongolia. Today there are over 100 000 and the church is beginning to explode there. Mongolians are excited about their new found faith in Jesus. They have the highest ratio of believers from the church going out in mission of any country in the world. Many of them are going to their brothers in China. They are beginning to talk about going into Buryatia to their north. I hope they keep heading north after that, to the Siberian peoples. They are also talking about going west to Kazakhstan. In fact, the Mongolian Christians like to hang a map of the Mongolian empire on the wall and say "there is our mission field." Mongolian people are nomads and they aren't afraid to travel.

It excites me to think of this map. The Mongolians have a big view of the world. They are aware of the terror that their empire brought to the world. They are also aware of the healing message of Jesus Christ. I think it's a spiritual principle that the people the Mongolians hurt, they will need to bring the gospel to. This is what redemption means for the Mongolian people. It is probably a spiritual principle that applies to every nation on earth. An even more powerful spiritual principle, that of forgiveness, is when a people take the gospel to those that have hurt them. This would mean that the Koreans and Chinese should be seeking to take the gospel to the Japanese.

There are coming waves of expansion in God's kingdom. The devil is about to lose some big battles. Things are hotting up. That is why we live in such turbulent times.

Why World Cup Soccer / Football is a farce

2010-06-21T10:31:00.000+08:00

Many people will know that I am not much of a soccer fan. I've been feeling some regret for some of the harsh words I have said about the game in the past. So many people like this game, so I really should leave them alone to enjoy it, shouldn't I?
I told my friends that come world cup I would be a hypocrite. Here I am in Russia with little access to Australian sport. So when my nation plays in the world cup, it is the best I can get, so I settle for it.
As far as letting the world enjoy the game in peace is concerned, should I not be dismayed that a drachonian game is forced on the masses and that they are unaware almost that there are many either exciting football codes out there that can be played other than soccer?

Here is a list of my beefs so far this world cup, and I haven't being paying that much attention:

1) Tim Cahill was given a red card in the first game for Australia against Germany. All of the German players said he did not deserve it. Tim Cahill is currently Australia's biggest star. Australia was left with 10 players for the majority of the game, and sunk to 4-0 against this world champion side.
I hate the idea of the red card. In a moment the referee is judge, jury and executioner. Then Cahill misses the next game. To make matters worse FIFA refuse any right of appeal to a red card decision. This is authoritarianism on steroids.

2) If it wasn't bad enough what happened to Cahill, the same thing happened to Harry Kewell in the next game against Ghana. Kewell was removed from the game for the majority of the 90 minutes, there by greatly decreasing Australia's chances of winning and advancing in the world cup.

As far as hand ball is concerned, well my distaste for the hand ball rule goes right down to the roots of my historical dislike for the game of soccer in the first place. It is such a strict and ugly rule. If we have hands, why should we not be allowed to use them. Every other code of football allows use of the hands.

In the case of Kewell's hand ball, he did nothing deliberate, and therefore did not deserve a red card. He was punished enough with the penalty goal that ensued. But with the red card, three punishments were effectively handed out for breaking a rule that shouldn't even exist in my book.

Players can use their chests and heads, but if they use their shoulders this is somehow different? It is a very different thing from picking the ball up with your hands, which I believe is the original sentiment of the hand ball rule. The hand ball rule is simply Eton School snobbery in my book. (Eton School invented the rule in the early days of the evolution of football codes in England.)

Kewell and Pim Verbeek have both been quoted as saying he would have had to cut off his arm to avoid the handball. I think all soccer players should cut off their arms.... or effectively the rules of soccer are as evil as cutting off a person's arms.

3) So I have had my whinge so far about the persecution of Australia in this world cup. Us Aussies have been enjoying seeing New Zealand do so well in this world cup, and it is almost a consolation, that if Australia doesn't advance perhaps New Zealand will, and we can vicariously enjoy their success.

In last night's game I said to my wife that Italy would cheat to try to win, just like they did against Australia in the last world cup. New Zealand scored the first goal, and were on the road to glory. So what does Italy do? They feign another pathetic fall and score a penalty, that was completely unjustified. Either soccer referees are complete idiots or they are corrupt. My bet is with the latter. They were again bribed by the Italians.

At least New Zealand escaped with a draw which is still a moral victory, but it may not be enough for them to advance.

Penalty ... Italy's Daniele De Rossi falls to the ground after a challenge by Tommy Smith was judged a foul. Photo: Reuters

4) Lastly, Italy have proved that there are very few elite nations who are actually allowed to win the world cup. Sure enough there is a huge gap in skill and talent anyway, but even if they slip, they always have corruption on their side.
In all the history of the world cup there are only 7 nations who have won. Uruguay won back in the 30s when they hosted it and soccer was still developing as a sport. They are no longer a threat. England won in 1966, but always seem to be in disarray and are no real threat either. France won once on home soil in 1998. That leaves four genuine contenders at every world cup: Germany, Italy, Brazil and Argentina. France and England could be considered dark horses. Everybody else is making up the numbers. If any nation threatens to have a little bit of success like Australia or New Zealand then there are various official forms of cheating to push them back down.

Australia and New Zealand should just go back to playing Rugby... and AFL of course!

Beauty will rise- Steven Curtis Chapman (album review)

2010-06-09T00:28:00.000+08:00

I haven't been a Steven Curtis Chapman fan for very long. I remember a friend telling me years ago that I should listen to him. Somehow I never got around to it. I've just never been into solo performers that much. But it appears I was missing out.

The first album I listened to was All things new in 2004. I enjoyed that a lot. I remember sharing songs like Angels wish with people when they came over as dinner guests, it just seemed to hit me so powerfully. Even recently I remember God speaking to me in a very personal and poignant way through the lyric "come, come and know me now" in the song What now. Some how this man just seemed to have such an intimate relationship with God that he could touch chords deeper than others ever seemed capable of doing. I was convinced from these songs that this man really knew Jesus. Christianity was not just some religion for Steven Curtis Chapman, it was rough and it was challenging.

His next album This moment has had some seminally impacting moments in my life. After narrowly escaping death on the road, the song Miracle of the moment came on the ipod. I have written about this in another blog, but it was no small thing that God was speaking to me to live in the moment that he had given me. Steven encouraged me "if it brings you tears then taste them as they fall, let them soften your heart, and if it brings you laughter, then throw your head back and let it go". That was completely what I was doing in that moment. Never has one artist enabled the Holy Spirit to bring me to tears on so many occasions, through moments when God spoke directly to me. This has also happened with the songs Beautiful scars and Cinderella.

Cinderella is a real kicker. It's all about loving one's daughter as she grows up, because she will be grown up before you know it. The lyric "I know something the prince never knew" is so apt. When I asked permission from my father in law to propose to his daughter I knew it was a serious moment. I just didn't know what that means to a father.... until I had a daughter of my own. A daughter is such a precious gift to a father. Mine is particularly special, such a bundle of joy and she just never seems to run out of energy from the moment she wakes up in the morning until she drops off on the pillow. What made the song Cinderella so hard to listen to was that it was released only months before one of Steven Curtis Chapman's little girls was killed by a car, at the family home. What made it even harder is that this little girl was the same age as my little girl, just five years old. So I was really beginning to relate to this man. The lyric "all too soon the clock will strike midnight and she'll be gone" is so cutting because Steven could never have know what this would mean when he wrote that song.

I had enjoyed these two albums so much that I needed to buy his new album Beauty will rise. I didn't even stop to think what I was buying. I didn't take the time to remind myself that this mad had lost his precious little girl, and that this was his first release after the fact. My glass stomach was awaiting an almighty knock out punch. I forgot to cut Steven some "slack" when I first listened to his record.

The traditional Christian thing to do when I was a teenager was to plaster the liner notes with scripture references. This came in handy when trying to convince skeptical parents that rock music was ok. Reading lyrics was paramount, something you almost did before even deciding if the song was worthy of a listen. As my personal musical journey evolved, I stopped reading lyrics and just listened to the music. I only began to pay attention to lyrics if the music caught my attention for long enough. I only interacted with the lyrics if they were poetic and skilful enough. This gives credence that music should be art and not a preach fest.

So when I first "spun" (I don't spin too music too much anymore) Beauty will rise on itunes, I didn't pay much attention to anything at all. I just listened to it and just let it be. "Heaven is the face of my little girl"...began the album. "Ok, that's different" I thought and just let it go. After a number of listens I began to think, "hey this is a fairly melancholy and dark album." Lyrics like "I don't even want to breathe right now, all I wanna do is close my eyes" and "I am broken, I am bleeding, I'm scared and I'm confused" have a way of conveying darkness.

I must confess that something in me started to worry a bit for Steven. Was he experiencing doubt and despair in his life? All the while, it was in the back of my mind that he had lost his daughter. I knew this must have affected him. Of course I had no idea how deeply it can affect a person. That's the thing about suffering, you can only guess what someone else is going through from your own perspective. I heard some gasps for breath in his lyrics and could hear him calling out to God.

Then earlier this week, the whole shell exploded open for me. In the midst of my simple listening a lyric hit me dead between the eyes and completely floored me, "It was the day the world went wrong, I screamed until my voice was gone...". Hold on, that song is about the moment his daughter died... "And watched through the tears as everything came crashing down, slowly panic turns to pain." I began to listen properly to the song and it was so painful and I began to relate to Steven's emotions and experience.

Then the lid lifted for me. It wasn't just this song that was about the death of his five year old little Maria. Every... single.... song... on the album was about this. Wow. I had no idea. I was stunned to read that when he recorded this album he paid no attention to the listener, that he just wrote the songs as he needed to, and that not even his wife heard most of it until it had been recorded. That's just how raw and real this record is. Steven Curtis Chapman is being so completely vulnerable in releasing this album to the world. And I am so completely blessed by it. He is teaching the church and unbelievers also something that we all need to know. Suffering should not stop someone from knowing God's love. In fact Jesus meets people in the midst of their suffering. This might actually be the only real place to truly know who Jesus is. It was in Jesus suffering that he showed the depth of his love for us.

Through all of the darkness and pain in each of the lyrics, and not only the lyrics but the gut wrenching tones and melancholy melodies, there are moments of heaven breaking through. There are moments when Steven looks out of his deep pit of despair and actually sees the hope of glory for what it is. The hope of heaven is so real for him. The hope of seeing his little girl again, but even greater than that the hope of when all things are truly new, when all things are truly healed.

That's the thing of it though. So often we get caught up in this life as if it is all there is. But our lives are fashioned for eternity. We don't actually belong in this mess that is the present fallen world. We belong in the perfect place that the Lord has waiting for us. "Out of these ashes.... beauty will rise, and we will dance among the ruins, we will see Him with our own eyes... I can almost feel the hand of God reaching for my face to wipe away the tears, and say "It's time to make everything new".... It would take our breath away to see the beauty that he's made out of the ashes." Little Maria is now perfect in heaven, with a perfect and new glorified body. As Jesus said "unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, there can not be new life."

How great the pain, and how searingly difficult to understand, but it is through death and suffering that God brings about something new and perfect. This was what he did through Jesus on the cross and the resurrection that followed. This is what he has planned for each of us who dare to believe in this amazing God.

All of this album has moments of tragic pain in it. All of this album has moments of the true hope of glory, of eternal redemption, of seeing Jesus face to face. I am so touched that Steven has been able to hold on to Jesus, well that Jesus has held him so close in the midst of this.

This album is so intensely powerful and such a huge blessing. Every moment and every melody that climbs to heaven from the deepest depth is so very real. There is not one ounce of pretence. To me Steven proves that God can be known in suffering and dispels every critic who denounces the truth of Jesus.

If I were you, I would give it a listen, if you dare.

(I haven't even begun to do justice in this review to how great this record is, or how great the faith is of trusting in God. I just know it will inspire you beyond measure. I can't recommend highly enough that you buy it... go on off to itunes you go. :) )

Faith like potatoes- a movie review of your faith

2010-05-18T17:13:00.002+08:00

My sister gave me a DVD for my birthday at the end of March. I had a whole month in which I could have watched it. But with packed preparations for going to live in Russia I never seemed to fit it in. Melody and I eventually watched it on our third night in Russia, on our own out in a small Russian village.

I had already begun to feel the spiritual oppression here again, and of course I know why we are here, but still it was a little overwhelming and discouraging. If we had watched this movie while in Australia it still would have been encouraging but watching it here it received 10 times the value via the spiritual exchange rate.

The story of Faith Like Potatoes is tremendously inspirational. It left me praying that God would give me the gift of faith in my own life. I know that learning another language and communicating the gospel stories are necessary and important parts of the work. But I also know that people come to faith the most when God does miracles in their lives and cultures. Miracles are not an end in themselves. In fact Jesus was actually more concerned that people would be forgiven of their sins than that they would be healed. This comes out clearly in the story where the crippled man is lowered through the roof. Jesus says, "so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive your sins, take up your mat and walk!" But miracles have a massive impact that challenge people's world views to the point where they are prepared to repent of their sins. This is why I want to see God work miracles in people's lives, even through my ministry. This has become my prayer.

Does God always heal? Actually that's none of my business and none of my choice. But we have not, because we ask not. When we were in China I prayed for beggars on the streets on a couple of occasions. The first time God told me to pray for the woman. I did so in obedience and I know that he worked. The second time he actually moved on me to pray for a cripple to be healed. But I was too afraid. I was too afraid of what would have happened if the cripple was healed. It was in a subway train station. If the cripple was healed, pandemonium would have broken out and I would have had to disappear for fear of being arrested. Surely God is big enough to take care of those little details. So I repented of not praying for the cripple to be healed. That was before watching this true story movie.

Next time Lord, please give me the faith to not be afraid of the consequences but to trust you no matter what.

I've barely told you a thing about the plot of the movie, apart from hinting that there are miracles in it. That should be enough. It's well worth watching and should seriously challenge your faith.

Making Jesus famous

2010-05-13T21:47:00.000+08:00

Maybe I'm a slow reader, or maybe I just digest things slowly. I am meandering slowly through the prophecies of Isaiah- the gospel of the old testament. That's why my blog is called "in one ear". Things go in and get stuck inside for a long time before coming out again. The final chapter had already struck me with the climax of God's glory been made known in all the earth. In the build up to this climax a few pieces of the puzzle have been falling in to place for me.
This morning Melody and I were reading chapter 26. As I read through Melody said "didn't you read this chapter yesterday?" It sounded familiar. :) But as I read I wanted to keep reading, it sounded different to yesterday. Things were jumping out at me all over the place. After such a rapid succession of ideas and understanding, we decided to pray through the chapter, point by point that had struck us.
So often scripture has been something for personal application. But then how should verses like- 'Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith', be interpreted? This is not something that I can act on as an individual. This requires action from a nation, that a nation itself may become righteous. Sometimes we can become so consumed in our western individualistic lifestyles that we do not believe it possible or even right for a group of people or a nation to act together. But I believe it to be God's desire. Still, how can I act on this scripture? I can pray for it to come true, for my own nation and for the nations that God has called me to.
The salvation that the LORD has won for us is powerful. It is to be our strength. In fact Isaiah describes it this way- 'We have a strong city, God makes salvation its walls and ramparts.' Salvation is to be our defence against all forms of spiritual attack. Such attacks can come in the form of discouragement, struggles, sickness and even depression. But we have a strong city to live in. It's God's desire that all nations would live within his holy city.
There are lots of things in this chapter that can be prayers in our lives. "The path of the righteous is level, O Upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth." This is a promise and a great prayer to pray. Lord, make us righteous like you and make our ways smooth. God can open doors for us in life, according to his will. We have seen this so many times recently, that I am beginning to think that God wants this to be a pattern in our lives. This idea is echoed in verse 12, "LORD, you establish peace for us, all that we have accomplished, you have done for us." This can also be our prayer. It reminds me of all the things the Lord has done in recent times to get us here. The Lord has accomplished this, he has established peace in our lives.
Verse 8 struck me the deepest. "Your name and renown our the desire of our hearts." This is a simple thing to say, but a far deeper thing when true. This has become my prayer. My prayer that my desire would truly be that Jesus would be famous in all the world. My prayer that it would not only be my desire, but that it would come true. My prayer that this would happen in the land in which i live, to the indigenous peoples to which I am called, that Jesus would indeed be famous amongst them. I have a feeling that when this is true, that they will believe also. It's not my job to make anyone believe. The Holy Spirit draws people, but it is my job to make Jesus famous. That's my desire, that's my vocation.
There are many more thoughts developing in me in response to this song of praise in Isaiah. But I guess they will have to churn around inside a little while longer before they rise to the surface coherently.

Intimacy vs Formalism

2010-04-30T11:57:00.007+08:00

Anybody who knows me knows that I am not a formal person. The only time in my life that I actually enjoyed wearing a tie was in high school, which was kind of weird. I don't own a suit, in fact when ever there is a wedding or a funeral I inevitably have to buy dress pants as they never make the cut when I am moving around the world.

I guess it's no secret that Australian culture is also less formal than some other western cultures. This can certainly get Aussies in trouble at times when relating to some Europeans and North Americans. And I am certainly one of the casual Aussies around. I'm not saying that everybody has to be like me, far from it. But I would like to explain in some way why I prefer deep and intimate relationships to formal and distant ones.

There is a bit of a thought process going on that has been latent but recently has risen to the surface. I guess I really have been listening to a lot of Steven Curtis Chapman recently. His musical genius is probably the most significant music that Melody has brought to our marriage (she doesn't listen to as much music as me). Just recently one of his songs hit me square between the eyes.

It's called Beautiful Scars:

Sit here wth me, tell me your story
Even if it breaks my heart
Let me see your scars

Shame will whisper
Although we can't listen
Cos these are the stories
That make us who we are

And I love who you are
And your beautiful scars
Your Beautiful scars
Reminders of the wounded love that has carried us this far
Beautiful scars, turning the marks of our pain into beautiful scars

For us bruised and broken, for us he was forsaken
Our wounded healer, suffered to set us free
See in his hands and his feet

Beautiful scars, beautiful scars
Reminders of the Saviour's love that has carried us this far
Beautiful scars, turning the marks of our pain into beautiful scars

See in his hands and his feet

There is something incredibly intimate about this song. Just to imagine sitting down with Jesus and him telling me the story of the pain and sacrifice he went through to redeem me. To ask to see someone's scars is a very intimate thing to ask. But would Jesus hold back from such a request? No. In fact he invited St Thomas to touch his hands and side, to which St Thomas responded "My Lord and my God!" Jesus invited intimacy. We know that he had very close friendships with all of his disciples. Does this intimacy stop with the disciples though? I don't believe so. The LORD God walked in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden to fellowship with Adam and Eve. He had intimacy with them. Sin broke this intimacy. This broke God's heart. Adam and Eve had to wear clothes to hide their shame. This was also a reminder of the intimacy lost between them and God.

Ever since that fatal day many thousands of years ago the Lord has been working to restore intimacy with us. He allowed formalism at times, as a concession to our weaknesses; we see this in the structure of the tabernacle and temple. But this is not where God was most pleased. He was most pleased when people like King David worshiped with everything that they had. When David danced before the Lord he was naked and unashamed. (I'm not actually advocating a nudist movement here.) The key is that he was unashamed, and sought intimacy with the Lord. We know that David was a "man after God's own heart." Isaiah goes on to prophesy against the formalism of the sacrificial system saying that

"Who ever sacrifices a bull is like one who murders a man, and whoever offers a lamb, like one who break's a dog's neck; whoever makes a grain offering is like one who presents pig's blood and whoever burns memorial incense like one who worships an idol. They have chosen their own ways, and their souls delight in their abominations."

So it is my theory that God is seeking intimacy with us. Jesus taught us to call him "Abba Father", that means "Daddy." He didn't teach us to call God "Sir" or "Your excellency." Now of course when Jesus taught these things it turned the Jewish world view on its head. I think Jesus would turn the church on its head today and that we have strayed a long way closer to calling our heavenly Father "sir" than "daddy".

To me formality in relationships is the opposite of what Jesus teaches us. Jesus desires intimacy with all of us. He doesn't just desire that we have intimacy with him, but that we also have intimacy with one another. To me formalities get in the way of intimacy, especially when the "professional" nature of a relationship puts up barriers to intimacy. I know there are some that will not agree with me. That's ok. I just wanted to put up my case as to why I do not seek formality, but rather intimacy in my own life.

I remember years ago I told the Lord that I wanted him to "use me." It was as if I was applying for a job. Four years later the Lord said "you want to be used by me, but do you want to know me?" He was telling me that he was not interested in a professional relationship, in giving me a job. He told me that he wanted intimacy with me a thousand times more than anything else. He took away all the things I proposed to do for him, and asked me if that all came crashing down, would I have a relationship of intimacy with him.

I guess that's who I am, the Aussie Sentimental Bloke, who likes intimacy, mateship, loyalty, redback boots, and hates suits and ties, professionalism and formalities. I prefer a good old fashioned yarn over documents in triplicate any day. I am oral, not literate in my approach to the world....

Let the nations fill the LORD's temple

2010-03-25T06:46:00.004+07:00

I have been reflecting on Isaiah recently. I think I'd like to do some more of it. Isaiah excites me as a prophet. It's stunning to realise how much prophetic insight the LORD gave him. He saw some things that the other prophets just didn't.

The Lord revealed to him in chapter 14 how the devil fell from heaven. The Lord revealed in great depth that the Messiah would suffer. This wasn't exactly what many Israelites expected. But then again many Israelites were far too busy worshipping pagan gods to be interested in what the Lord actually had to say to them.

The Lord revealed some down right controversial things to Isaiah. So controversial in fact that it got him sawed in half. How about this excerpt from chapter 66.

And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem.... And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites," says the LORD.

Levites from other nations? How can that even be possible. Aren't they supposed to be from the tribe of Levi. It just goes to show how serious the Lord is about people from all nations worshiping him in his kingdom is.

The chapter starts out with this piece of poetry.

This is what the LORD says:
"Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
Where will my resting place be?

Has not my hand made all these things,
and so they came into being?"
declares the LORD.

I had always thought of these verses along the lines, "we will build a temple for you Lord through our praises." It sounds nice, but this is not what the verses are talking about. The questions are rhetorical questions. The LORD is saying, "could you possibly build a temple good enough to glorify me?" Follow this up with God denouncing their sacrifices and you would have to say that he is tired of their false worship in Jerusalem. Could he even tire when we worship him falsely? What are our motivations?

The LORD is saying, "look, I'm sitting here in the heavens on my throne, and I'm so big that my feet are sitting down there on the earth. You couldn't possibly build a temple good enough to glorify me, but I have. I have already built the temple, it's all of my creation." If the LORD has built a temple the size of the universe then it needs to be filled with his glory. As it says in Habakkuk...

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,
as the waters cover the sea.

The whole temple needs to be filled. Who is supposed to fill this temple that God has made? Isaiah goes on to answer this question later in chapter 66, well the LORD does through Isaiah's words.

"I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those who survive to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations. And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the LORD -on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and camels," says the LORD. "They will bring them, as the Israelites bring their grain offerings, to the temple of the LORD in ceremonially clean vessels. And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites," says the LORD.

People from all nations, will come and worship at Jerusalem. Possibly this is a picture of the new Jerusalem prophesied in Revelation. What ever the case, the temple is not full until people from all nations are worshiping the LORD in it.

I like this spin on the verses at the start of chapter 66, I think it is a more accurate interpretation, and when you think of it, it's a far more exciting one, to think of all nations worshiping the LORD.

There's still over 4000 unreached people groups or nations in the world today. Let's fill the LORD's temple with his glory, with the praises of thousands and thousands of nations, peoples, tribes and languages. This is what mission is all about. I hope it excites you. It sure excites me.

Why I quit facebook aka... Myface or Spacebook

2010-03-24T13:04:00.003+07:00

Yep, that's right I deleted my account. It wasn't easy to do I can tell you. There used to be a simple function under account settings, but it is now hidden deep within the dungeon of their administration. Even when I did "delete" I was informed that there is a 14 day cooling off period. If I were to log in within the next couple weeks, it would be as if nothing happened. But I'll show them! I have kicked their narcotic I tell you.

Facebook is a bit of a social experiment gone wrong. I have found myself in far too many debates with people over the last few years. Some people love a good debate. Some can't stand it. The simple fact is that many people use facebook for their own reasons, but if they are different to your own, then they are not quite compatible.

It is far too easy to say things that you would never quite say in real life. That is, the thought may be the same, but it is often phrased differently on facebook. I have certainly done this, that's for sure. Too often I have taken my opinion and thrown a little bit of a spin on it to ruffle people's feathers and try to get a debate going. This has had some distasteful consequences.

In short, I am aware that I have offended people with my opinions at times. I have never been one to hide my opinions in life, and have also been overly enthusiastic in wanting others to understand me, and even agree with me. In short, I am humbled and apologetic for causing this hurt to people, some that I know about, and some that I don't. I only hope that I have the chance to apologise properly to those that I have hurt.

Now that facebook is gone, I'm happier. :) No more banal triviality for me. No more consuming myself in various debates, all the while feeling a little sick about it. Life is more peaceful again. I can feel the soft breeze of reality blowing back in to the room. I can blog again. I really need to blog again. It's a thousand times more therapeutic for me, and I know that there will always be some that will want to interact with me.

In real life there is always the chance to speak back instantly. In real life respect is mandatory (in my book anyway). The recent experiment called "Chat Roulette" shows just how far the virtual reality world can go, deep in to places where people have no anchor for their psyche, and will undoubtedy get lost in a treacherous outer space squall.

I'm getting back to the Nescafe ads, LOL in person.

Blogs are second best hey?! :)

The gospel is for Christians too

2009-10-11T14:56:00.007+08:00

If you check my facebook profile you will see that one of my "interests" is holiness.
I put that there as opposed to some of my hobbies, because even though I have them, I am genuinely interested in being holy. The thing is, it seems rather elusive at times in the Christian life. Think about it, holiness means being like God, it means being free from sin.
There have been many times in my life when I have wished to not be enslaved to sin in my life. Take Romans 7 into account, Paul wrestles with the idea that each of us returns to sin, even though we don't want to. One thing he does not do is mention the frequency of return to sin. I would have a guess that overall the Apostle Paul was probably a holy guy. Sin probably did not enslave him very much. I take his word for it when he encourages us to be "slaves to righteousness."
Then my mind drifts to John's first letter. He talks about the person who says they have no sin, as being a liar or essentially having no place in fellowship with God, as they are deceiving themselves. Yet at the same time he says that anyone who continues to sin can not have fellowship with God either. Hold on, isn't this a no win situation?
I do tend to think that there is a way to win. It has more to do with the fact that we no longer need to be slavesto sin. But we therefore have a problem. In my opinion, there is much slavery to sin in the church. There are many people who are burdened down by so many things that are not dealt with. I guess I don't want to go too far with this in one post, because I am a work in progress. But let me say that there is a way for genuine change in our lives. So many of us leave things unconfessed and unforgiven in our lives. These can be hidden sins, or they can simply be things that we refuse to admit to ourselves are actually sin. But when we sit down with the true counselor, the Holy Spirit, He begins to speak to us about these things, and we had better be honest.
Holiness is possible in the church, but not without honesty before God. Why not sit down with your Creator and have a chat together.
Reflect and pray the words of Psalm 139:

Search me, O God, and know my heart
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

God will likely reveal things hidden and people unforgiven. We have a mediator in Christ Jesus who goes before the the Father for us and guarantees us forgiveness for our sins, and victory in our lives.

These words from 1 Corinthians 15 can become true in our lives:

Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?

For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power.
But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Who is like our God?

2009-09-30T17:22:00.001+08:00

Who is like our God? Who is as Holy? Who is as strong?

A Trekkie nerd's worst nightmare

2009-05-09T06:43:00.002+08:00

I'm still watching the credits as I write this and I must say that I loved the new star trek movie. There's gonna be some very mad purists out there.

Spoiler alert.......

No Trekkie can complain, for the enterprise of the star trek franchise now has an alternative universe.

"Syler" was excellent as Spok. The presence of Leonard Nimoy on the film authenticated the new direction. In fact it was Leonard Nimoy as "future Spok" who gave the logical refute that no Trekkie could disagree with as to why we now have a different star trek universe to the one we have known.

The Romulans are the terrifying evil ones in this 21st reinterpretation of the 1960s classic. The movie starts out with the birth of Kirk but I'll leave some things to mystery by saving the circumstances.

Kirk as a boy driving a speeding car was a hoot, especially with "Sabotage" as the sound track.

Kirk is ever the rebel and a likable character. In fact he is far more likable than the 60s version.

The big spolier.....

The Romulans destroyed the planet Vulcan. 10,000 Vulcans survived, Spok amongst them who is now "the member of an endangered species".

And the brilliant thing is that there was no attempt by the writers to bring Vulcan back by the end of the movie. Poof, it's gone and it ain't coming back either.

Those Trekkie nerds must be pulling their hair out right now!!!!

I can't wait for the next installment.

3.5 stars.

Sound Relief- Midnight Oil reform

2009-03-14T19:11:00.005+07:00

Is this a sign of my age? Why was I not at the MCG today to see Midnight Oil play? Well a friend and I considered going but baulked when we were not able to get good tickets, and decided against being up the back somewhere. Frankly, I'm glad that I didn't get drenched all day in the rain, and would probably be coming down with a cold right now if I did.

But I'm still a little disappointed to have missed Midnight Oil play. On one had I console myself from the fact that it would be turning the clock and living in the past to see them play now. I did see them play live 6 times, three of those in spitting distance from Peter Garrett in clubs, so it's not like I never experienced the Oils. And there was no "Oils! Oiiiiils!" encore given tonight, so I think all the younguns didn't have a clue what to do. All the old fans seem to have stayed away. Our credit cards did the talking earlier on.

Still it's worth mentioning their set and what I thought of it as I listened on triple J.

1) Redneck Wonderland- I was pleasantly surprise by this opener. I didn't expect that something more recent in their canon would be given a run. And alas, it was the most recent song they played, released in 1998. Nothing from their ultimate release, "Capricornia" made it into the set. I sure am pleased that I could farewell them after Capricornia in Edmonton in 2002.
2) Read About it (1982)- Certainly kept up the rocking pace of Redneck wonderland. Good choice.
3) Blue Sky Mine (1990)- The pace slowed a bit for the third song, I was hoping they could pull out a trifecta of heavy rockers. "The company takes what the company wants..... (CSR and the Unions have let you down) .... whose gonna save you?" Why the Labor government of course.
4) Star bangled banner/ Advance Australia Fair, instrumental. What gives? Was this an introduction to US Forces? Nope, a politician would never be so brave.
5) One Country (1990) Well this song couldn't have been left out could it. But what about "My country, right or wrong?" (1993)
6) Beds are burning (1987). Another compulsory song, but I wish it wasn't. Anybody who doesn't know Midnight Oil knows this song, and it was far from their best. I'm not saying I dislike, just that it took up space that other songs could have filled.
7) King of the Mountain. (1990) I loved this song in school, but it doesn't stand the test of time, something better could have been chosen.
8) The Dead Heart. (1987) Another compulsory song, but one that deserves to be included. Good choice.
9) The Power and the Passion (1982). Another compulsory song, but also a good choice. I disapprove of the lyrics change though. Apparently Pine Gap is allowed now (no mention in the song) and we should all head of to Mc Donalds for a Big Mac after the show (also no mention). Politics, bleh.
10) Best of both worlds (1984). One of my all time favourites. Excellent choice for the final song, I was waiting for it.
11) Since they had broken the 10:30 curfew anyway, why not play an "encore". Don't know how they knew to without anyone screaming "Oiiiiils!" "Sometimes" (1987) was another excellent choice from Diesel and Dust and ample proof that there are plenty of better songs out there than beds are burning.

Noticeable absences- nothing form "Earth and Sun and Moon" (1993) or "Capricornia" (2002). (I have no illusions that "Breathe" (1996) was popular. The set started out as promising, and finished off well, but was a little weak in the middle. US Forces should have been in, as should have the lyric "Flat chat, Pine Gap, in every home a Big Mac." It seems politics has softened Peter Garrett too much. I understand his need to tow the party line, and that he is pragmatic in trying to reach some of his goals instead of none of them, but this gig surely was a conflict of interest from the guts that old Pete used to have.

Oh well, I guess we are both showing our age.

No Line on the Horizon- U2 spell out l-o-v-e (review)

2009-03-06T15:46:00.011+07:00

I was born, I was born to sing for you,

I didn't have a choice but to lift you up,

And sing whatever song you wanted me to,

I give you back my voice,

From the womb my first cry,

It was a joyful noise

Only love, only love, can leave such a mark

But only love, only love can heal such a scar

Justified till we die,

You and I will magnify The Magnificent, Magnificent

Who said that U2 were irrelevant? Who said that a rock band has to stop producing records because they are no longer in their 20s or 30s? At 49, U2 have matured to a new level, and I am so glad that they haven't stopped producing and creating new music. Bono has previously said that "if they make two crap albums in a row, then they will quit." Well the new album is pure brilliance and is captivating me so quickly I am falling in love with music and God all over again.

Their latest album No line on the horizon, came out this week. It is brooding, dark and deeply, deeply spiritual. Much of it is written in haunting melancholy, minor scales with melodies that soar above the mountains through the clouds and up into heaven itself. There is sooo much in this record that I can not begin to possibly justify it here with the review it deserves.

The album is full of powerful harmonies that just seem that much deeper than before. Bono and The Edge have formed their own gospel choir, this is most evident on "Moment of Surrender." They seem intent on leading the "girl with the hole in her heart" into eternity, or as they call it, the place with "no line on the horizon." From this rocking opening, yet minor scale track, we are jerked into a pounding yet ominous bass line that is not unlike the church bells or shofar.... a call to worship, as the lyrics above are written.
Bono is more and more unabashed of his love for Jesus with every record that U2 put out, and from the lyrical contributors it appears that some currents are moving through the other band members too. The lyrics to "Magnificent" hark back to "All because of you" but they are just so much more mature. In the former he sings "I was born a child of grace, nothing else about the place" in the latter this grows into "I was born to be with you, I was born to sing for you." It is a realisation that we are created to worship God. The song pulls me deep into worship, and for those who don't it surely highlights the hole in their heart.
Moment of surrender is Bono's attempt at soul. Bono always claimed that he wanted to be a soul singer, and as hard as this has been for him, "Surrender" is a valiant effort in which U2 come very close. The chorus line sees Edge and Bono filling out the soul choir nicely, trying to express "the rhythm of their soul". My favourite lyric in this song is "I was speeding on the subway through the stations of the cross, every eye looking every other way, counted down 'til the Pentecost, at the moment of surrender...."
I have yet to connect deeply with "Unknown caller", it is still growing on me.

Bono continues to implore us to see the truth "how can you stand next to the truth and not see it?" which seems to be a reference to when Pilate said to Jesus, "what is truth?" when he was standing right next to him. But Bono is careful not to spell out the truth too clearly, so as not to spill the beans. I appreciate this approach, and think it is a powerful way to draw people to God, to leave some mystery in the search. But if one were to think that Bono is ashamed of God then think again, he is somehow at once very clear but still cryptic on Stand Up Comedy.
"Get on your boots" seemed like a throw away song as a single. It appeared to be a simple rock song, that U2 were determined to keep the rock genre alive and well, a basic "Vertigo part 2", but as a part of "No line..." it fits better. The harmonies of the chorus "You don't know how beautiful you are" are consistent with the rest of the record. The lyric is a call of love from God to the listener. The fun rock song that it is, it leads into another fun rock song with the key to much of Bono's lyrics over the years.
"Stand up Comedy" keeps you believing that this band will rock on for another generation, and that with every passing moment Bono is about to explode with the gospel. "I can stand up for hope, faith, love, but while I'm getting over certainty, stop helping God across the street like a little old lady." As if to say 'look out world I'm gonna get even more bold for my God', "come on you people stand up for your love." And in a moment Bono surprised me, because he did something I wasn't expecting, he lifted the lid on his favourite lyrical euphemism, as he sings "God is love". Apply this formula often in a U2 song and the lyrics will read in a revolutionary way, as in "Window in the Skies"- The schackles are undone, the rule has been disproved, the stone it has been moved, all debts are removed, O can't you see what our love has done, love left a window in the skies. But there are so many other songs that have God as the centre of them for 'those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.'
"Fez- being born" is almost a musical track. U2 have only come close on one other occasion "October". Don't ask me to explain the lyrics to this song, except it is a powerful lead in to "White as snow."

"White as snow" is my favourite song on the album at the moment. It is supposed to be the words of a dying soldier in Afghanistan. It reaches deep inside of you and yanks your heart out, leaving the desire to find a heart as white as snow.

Where I came from there were no hills at all
The land was flat, the highway straight and wide
My brother and I would drive for hours
Like we had years instead of days
Our faces as pale as the dirty snow

Once I knew there was a love divine*
Then came a time I thought it knew me not
Who can forgive forgiveness where forgiveness is not
Only the lamb* as white as snow

And the water, it was icy
As it washed over me*
And the moon shone above me
Now this dry ground it bears no fruit at all
Only poppies laugh under the crescent moon*

The road refuses strangers
The land the seeds we sow
Where might we find the lamb as white as snow*

As boys we would go hunting in the woods
To sleep the night shooting out the stars
Now the wolves are every passing stranger
Every face we cannot know
If only a heart* could be as white as snow
If only a heart could be as white as snow

Love divine is God himself, the lamb as white as snow is Jesus the perfect sacrifice, the waters washing over are baptism, the poppies are the opium fields in Afghanistan, the road refusing strangers is the Taliban as wolves attacking the lamb. "If only a heart could be as white as snow" is multi-layered, it's a prayer for the Taliban that they would find Jesus, it's a seed of longing for all who listen to U2 but don't know Jesus, it's a desire of longing for Bono who wants to be as pure as Jesus, and for every believer who listens who wants to be pure too. Only the lamb as white as snow can make our hearts white too.

"Breathe" sees Bono throwing himself into the task with abandon, stuck in the dirty gutters but staring at the sky remembering the "grace that I found, I can breathe." "Cedars of Lebanon" is the story of a reporter in the middle east, told in the first person.

The records "All that you can't leave behind" and "How to dismantle an atomic bomb" were full of joyous major chords, with songs such as "Beautiful Day" and "City of Blinding Lights." But the world is a darker place now. It is descending into confusion, with no apparent light at the end of the tunnel. "No line on the horizon" reflects this mood. Perhaps the title is as much referring to the fact that there seems to be no end in sight to the world's troubles. But it is not a hopeless message of despair, it is reflective grief, with much hope hidden within. It resonates with the way I feel about the world today, that so many can ignore the truth when it is staring them in the face. At the end of the 20th century, we looked back on a century of death and destruction, and as we have entered the 21st, we are teetering in uncertainty. Certainty can be found in only one way, in the lamb as white as snow.

What in the world is going on? (Terrorism, natural disasters etc)

2009-03-05T07:01:00.008+07:00

For Australians this Summer has been a terrifying one. We have faced the worst bushfires indeed natural disaster this nation has ever known. Three hundred people perished in these fires. Whole towns were wiped out. These communities are still trying to process this tragedy and are still living in a state of emergency. The fire danger however is now over. People will begin to try to return to a normal life. Much of urban society will now return to a normal life.

At a community level people are really hurting. Recently in King Lake a Christian service held in a tent saw 400 people turn out. For a population of 1400, many of them dislocated to other parts, this was a huge turn out. I have no doubt that the need and hunger for God has greatly grown in Kinglake and in Marysville too. It is my particular prayer for both these communities, that as they rebuild Jesus would be at their centre, and I have every confident hope that this will actually happen.

But at a national level we have completely rejected God. Have a read of this in my previous article Australia, I call on you to turn to your God. I fully believe that God is loving and compassionate and that he calls out to Australia. As St Peter writes: The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. God waits for the day that Australia will turn to Him, and that he will be glorified. I think there are arguments that the gospel has never permeated Australia. (See my article: The gospel in my heart language.

There is a lot more going on than bushfires in Australia though. There is a world economic crisis that has everyone spooked, and there are now genuine fears that the world is heading for an economic depression. If this follows the trends of the 1930s, then I think that animosities between nations will rise to the surface, and the differences will be pronounced. Former economic partners will become military enemies. This is the breeding ground for war. As yet, people have not turned to God as a result of economic concerns. During world war 2 in Australia, churches were packed as people became concerned about what the future held. In times of serious hardship people called out to God. I wonder how bad things have to get before people will turn to God this time.

Earlier this week the bushfire crisis in Victoria came to an end. There had been significant shame on the part of the government that they felt they had not done enough to warn Victorians about Black Saturday. I do remember the warnings though, and no blame is necessary for these fires. They are a natural tragedy of the world we live in. This week however, high winds were predicted for Monday evening, Tuesday and Wednesday. I had been following the progress of the fires, so as to know how to keep my family safe if they should move toward where we are living. On Monday morning, amidst all the media hype on the bushfires I went down to the CFA control centre in person, to seek further advice on conditions the following day. I learnt that they were hopeful of containing the fires very soon, and that although they had concerns about the wind, the media were blowing things out of proportion and causing people to unnecessarily panic. They were annoyed about this. I took a different perspective on the fires from that point onwards. I knew their location about 30 kms away, and would still keep an eye on things, but I was a lot more calm.

The media were not calm though. They were hysterical. I wonder if the Victorian Premier was overcome with fear also. He is a man who refuses to call on God for help. On Monday evening the Victoria Police sent out an SMS to 5 million Victorians warning them about the bushfire dangers. In my mind this was mass hysteria. People were afraid. I turned on the radio, that was supposed to be broadcasting the cricket, to hear the emergency broadcast instead. Their job was to report on potential dangers, but there wasn't enough to report, because things were more calm than they would admit. I was annoyed that I could not listen to the cricket. Then I heard talkback callers calling in about their fears of job losses. A large Australian clothing company is moving their operation to China, and laying off 1800 workers. Hold on a minute, this was supposed to be an emergency broadcast but instead they were talking about job losses. It was at this point I realised that people needed a way to express their fears, but still not calling on God.

Government had been boasting at the memorial service about how well we pull together, but did not call on God for help at all. Essentially as a nation and a state we were saying "we don't need your help God, we can go it alone." This of course saddens God. But I believe his response was "Oh really, you think you don't need my help, well I will show you that you really do." Then God sent high winds, but they calmed down. People were afraid and in his grace he has now sent us three days of rain, and the fires are all but extinguished. It was God's way of saying "see, you do need my help, you can't do this alone." It has only been since the rain has come that the fires are ending. God is waiting for us to come back to him.

Two days ago a huge tragedy struck international cricket. International cricket teams have stayed away from Pakistan for over a year now for fear of terrorist attacks. They were justified in doing so. Two days ago terrorists directly attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team as they were on their way to a stadium in Lahore Pakistan. This shows an escalation on the part of the Taliban in their boldness to destabilise Pakistan. The Taliban control around 75% of Afghanistan, and the mountainous region of Pakistan. They are determined to control both countries and to get their hands on nuclear weapons that the Pakistan government how hold. On one level this is highly alarming, as the Taliban begin to be gaining the upper hand. But on a spiritual level something else is occurring I believe.

When God's kingdom advances the spiritual enemy gets scared. Demonic forces believe that they control a piece of ground and all people who live there. They have done so for millenia. These same demons know that their punishment is coming at the end of this world, and that they will suffer eternally in hell. So long as they can delay that time, they can delay their punishment. How can they delay this time? By preventing the nations from worshipping Jesus. For as Jesus promised, that when all nations come to know him, the end will come and he will return.

There are changes happening in the Muslim world, but they are beneath the surface. More and more come to believe in Jesus as their Saviour, but they have to be careful for their lives. There have been many stories of people having visions of Jesus and coming to faith. God is drawing the Muslim world to himself. I once heard the story of a husband and wife in Afghanistan. They were both Christians, but neither knew of the other's faith. One day they both turned up to the same underground meeting and discovered they both believed. They were joyously able to share their faith with one another, even if they have to be very careful in public.

I liken the Muslim world to a mountain. Inside the mountain there are many little ants eating away at it. Each time a new person in the Muslim world becomes a Christian, an ant digs another tunnel in the mountain. Each time two believers discover each other another tunnel is joined up. The veneer is still Muslim and people still have to be very careful. One day though, there will be more Christians than not. The mountain will be riddled with tunnels and it will eventually collapse. The veneer will be gone and people will have the freedom to believe. The same will happen in China, but I do not know which will happen first. But I actually think that there are some exciting things happening in the Muslim world, and that it could happen sooner than we think. Have a look at this exciting set of stories from Afghanistan.

When God's kingdom advances, the enemy gets afraid. The spiritual enemy reacts the only way they know how, they lash out in physical violence. These are the kinds of actions we see happening from the Taliban and Al Qaeda in terrorists attacks around the world, whether that be in New York, London, Mumbai or Lahore. This violence is terrible, but it is also a manifestation of a spiritual battle that is even hotter. One day the regime of violence will end and God's kingdom will come.

God is calling to the Muslim world, and I believe that people are responding. God is calling people in Australia too, people in King Lake are beginning to respond. When will the nation? When will other western nations respond? I don't know, but much of what is happening today in the world is one of two things: (1) God calling to people to turn to him (economic disaster) or (2) a violent manifestation of the spiritual battle (terrorism).

National Day of Mourning- Australia, a nation found wanting (Black Saturday bush fire tragedy)

2009-02-23T05:02:00.007+07:00

For the last two weeks I have been grieving for the loss of life and suffering here in Victoria, due to the tragic bushfires that struck on February 7th, known as Black Saturday. 209 people have officially died in the fires, although it is thought that the final death count will be well above 300 people.

Many have grieved in this time. Many would ask about God's role in all of this suffering. I know without a doubt that God has been grieving too in this time. God is well acquainted with suffering. God entered this world in a very real and human way. He became a human in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus died a very cruel death, and faced much suffering in the lead up to his death. He suffered for our sake to pay the price for our sin.

God has not been absent in this time of suffering for Victoria. Every time that people have called out a desparate prayer in the last two weeks, he has been near and acting to answer people's prayers. But why did God allow such suffering then? At once this is a complex and simple question. Complex, because suffering is always so hard to understand. It is even hard to understand how Jesus' suffering could be effectual for us, but it is. Simple because there is an explanation, even if it is not pretty. I see the simple explanation as this: Long ago people sinned, and God could not allow sin in his presence; this sin brought decay and death into the world; the planet earth is sick as a result, not all is as it should be. Tragedies and natural disasters occur because the world is sick, it has a disease, suffering is inevitable. This does not mean that God does not care. God does care and has indeed intervened for there to be an end to suffering. That is a complete story in itself, that I have only alluded to here.

But I want to draw the attention to Australia as a nation. There can be no doubting that Australia is a post-Christian country and is far from God. I have a thesis however that Australia (the quintessential working class, descended from the convict spirit Australia) has never really heard the gospel. The church has always been known as a distant authoritarian structure of the upper and eventually some of the middle class. The church has never been something that working class Australia has been able to relate to, nor has the church ever taken the time to relate to working class Australia. So in a sense it is not strange that much of Australia does not have a good relationship with God. In the words of Kenny (recent Australian comedy movie) "if God shows up mate, I will give him my full attention." This could easily be extrapolated that the evangelical church in Australia has taken little time to show up in the culture of working class Australia. There is certainly a large cultural divide there.

It would have been my hope that people would turn to God through the tragedy of the horrifying bush fires that struck two weeks ago. The response of Australian society though has been that "we can and we will rebuild." Don't get me wrong, yes it is good and right to rebuild, but it is not good to have the pride to think we can do this all by ourselves.

I attended the memorial service at the Rod Laver arena yesterday. It was an important opportunity for Australia as a nation to grieve the loss of so many lives. However, there was almost less grieving and pausing than there were affirmations of human strength and our ability to rise above any adversity that strikes us. If we stop for a moment though, we have to remember that some of these fires could not be stopped. We did not have the human strength to stop fires leaping 30 kms in 6 minutes. We were exposed as vulnerable and fragile. We are weak on this planet, and do not have the strength to face every danger.

My heart has been grieving for the last two weeks for the loss of so many lives, and the pain of so many families. God has been grieving too. But yesterday my heart grieved on a deeper level, for a nation without God. God was given only cursory mentions yesterday. No mention was made of the fact that he too has suffered. No mention was made of the fact that he shares our pain in this time. In short, God was not allowed to fully participate and show his love and compassion for us as a nation. God was censored yesterday. But it goes deeper than that.

My wife turned to me during the service and said "what does it take for a nation to turn to God?" What does it take for people to admit that we are weak and that we can not do it without God's help. The over riding religious paradigm yesterday was that we as humans can triumph without God's help. The presence of various religions were there, but they were ALL impotent. None of them actually offered a voice of true hope in God's love. They were found wanting. I found it particularly embarrassing that neither the Catholic or Anglican Archbishops could not actually offer a message of hope. Kevin Rudd himself actually had more positive things to say than them. Of course I expected nothing of the Uniting Church moderator who could not even bother to take the time to mention the name of Jesus (surely their realisation as a humanist liberal religion has come), nor a Buddhist abbess who neither had a message of hope.

I don't actually expect that the nation of Australia would somehow have miraculously fallen on its knees and worshipped God with abandon yesterday. But surely a simple cry of "help!" would have been enough. I actually think that if as a nation yesterday some leaders (any leader, please) had taken the time to simply ask God for help in getting us through this crisis, that something special would have happened. A simple cry of help from the Prime Minister or one of the Archsbishops (even the Buddhist, but that wouldn't be possible as Buddhists are atheists) would have started a transaction with God that would have opened a new day for our nation.

We are found wanting as a nation. Kevin Rudd says that we passed the test, because we have pulled together in unity. But that unity can never be complete until we ask God for help. If we think we can go it alone, then we are found wanting.

The most telling moment for me was an eerie one. In the thick midst of pluralism a young man was called forward to play the Jewish Shofar. A watered down description was given, platitudes about the Jewish new year and a call to prayer were given as an explanation of its purpose. This is inaccurate. The Jewish Shofar is used as a call to Worship. I have played a Jewish Shofar before, and I have gotten a sound from it. It fills the room, with an all encompassing trumpet call that speaks to the deepest depths of our souls. When the young man stood yesterday to blow the Shofar, he tried at least ten times to get a sound from it, but nothing but sputters came. Now I am sure that they would not have asked someone to play it that was unable. At first I thought it was embarrassing that he could not play it. But nobody in the arena (well very few) would have known that he failed to make the Shofar play. I then realised what was happening. The Shofar is a call to worship the LORD. As a nation it would have been a call to worship. It would have been the beginning of the transation of which I spoke. If we had have called on God as a nation for help, then he would have responded by calling on us to worship Him. But we could not call out for help. Sadly, (but I completely understand why) God would not call us to worship either. I fully believe that God did not allow the Shofar to blow. It was eerie. Most people in the arena would have had no idea.

God is not punishing our nation. I don't believe that his time for judgment is now. There will be a time for judgement, but I actually think that God reserves this for the end of our lives. Hebrews 9:27 explains this simply : "Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement." God is waiting for our nation to call to Him. He loves us and has compassion for us in our suffering, but he will not force himself upon us, he will wait patiently. Again the question remains, "what will it take for us to turn to God as a nation?" Perhaps war, or economic depression?

Last evening we had a time of prayer and worship back at Kangaroo Ground with some of the other students. We took some time to pray for Australia, a nation without God. As my wife prayed, she admitted that she would like to pray for rain, but that she had a sense that God is even more concerned that Australia would turn to him. There is a very telling promise in scripture, that I think is timely for Australia. It comes from 2 Chronicles 7:14 "If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." This is a promise of good things, not of punishment. But it will first take humility from Australia, not pride as we have been showing recently. God is waiting and will act when we turn to him.

We have now had 12 years of drought in Victoria. Our water reserves in Victoria are below 30%. The fires have furthered damaged our water catchment areas. We are facing a dire time, of potential water shortage. Water is the essence of physical life. Our spiritual lives as a nation, at least in Victoria are progressively void. In a symbiotic kind of way, the sicker we get spiritually as a nation, the sicker the land gets.

How long will we wait before we turn to God? I hope not too long. The land is getting sicker. What will it take for us to turn to God as a nation? I hope that it will not take more suffering for us to wake up. But I fear we are quite deaf, and that worse tragedies are yet to come, be that economic depression or even war (that seems to follow such trends).

Australia I call on you, turn to your God.

Australia's darkest hour- Black Saturday bushfire tragedy

2009-02-11T08:25:00.001+07:00

I have hesitated to write about this because I don't in anyway want to sensationalise this horrible tragedy. Victoria and indeed Australia is in the midst of its worst ever tragedy and national disaster. I have lived in Russia and Canada and at times felt that I was becoming something other than just Australian, but at the moment I feel the pain of being an Australian in a very deep way.

We have had drought for some years now. The land is very parched and dry. Just recently we had the worst heat wave in 100 years. Then to top it off on Saturday we had the highest temperature record for a capital city in Australia at 46.4 C. Where we are living it almost certainly was 48 degrees in the shade. There were high northerly winds of around 80 km/h, basically coming from the desert regions of Australia. With these kinds of conditions it almost inevitable that there will be fires somewhere.

I have grown up with a psyche of bushfires in my mind. I was in grade 3 when the last tragedy struck, the "Ash Wednesday" fires of 1983. But as a city boy, I never really connected. I felt safe. The fires were never going to reach us, deep in suburbia. This was always my subconscious thought through the years. I felt sorry for people who faced bushfires. But in some way they accepted the risk, as part of the location of where they lived.

On Saturday, it was just too hot for us to stay at home. It was too hot to be outside so we did not go to the swimming pool. We drove to the Greensborough library, and funnily enough did some study in the air conditioning. The AC was struggling to keep up, but it was ok. At 5pm we went for pizza at La Porchetta. It was still burning hot. The winds were burning Abigail as we walked from the car to the restaurant, and she really didn't like that. We sat for an hour and a half, relieved in air conditioning again, enjoying a nice meal with gelato. Some 20 kilometres away, people were facing hell.

At 6:30pm we left the restaurant, the air had cooled to about 30 degrees, and there were some drops of rain in the air. Melody looked in the sky and said "is that dust or smoke?" I replied, "oh, I hope it's not bushfires."

We drove back to our home in Kangaroo Ground. At 30 degrees, I was moaning about the "fake cool change." But some 20 minutes drive north of us, people were burning, literally.

It wasn't until I sat down on Facebook, that I noticed someone had written in their status, "I can't believe that 14 have died today in the bushfires. "Oh my goodness" I realised, "something bad has happened".

I turned on the radio that evening as I often do, and it was wall to wall bushfire coverage. Warnings were being given about imminent urgent threats. People had to decide whether to stay and defend their properties, or to leave and flee. By this point the towns of King Lake and Marysville were completely ablaze. People knew that there could be bushfires, but it actually happened so suddenly, that some had no chance of escaping. In the high winds, burning embers covered 30 kilometres in 6 minutes. This was akin to an earthquake. The people caught in the epicentre of the fire were completely stuck.

I stayed awake half the night listening to the radio, and thinking that it wasn't that far from where we lived. I began to connect with people's stories, in a way that I never had when I lived in the city. "This could have been my family" I began to realise. I was terribly confused and starting to feel people's pain.

In the morning before leaving for church, I heard that there was an alert message for Hurstbridge. This meant that they could possibly face fires within a few hours. On Sunday morning the temperature had dropped to 20 degrees and the winds had died down. But the major damage had already been done, and there were many fires still burning. We packed a bag with our computers and passports and a box of photos not yet scanned. (Our lives are so minimal that it was so easy to decide what to take.) We would not return that day until we knew it was safe.

At church, yes we prayed for victims of the fires. But I had this sense that the reality had not really hit. Throughout the day the death toll started to climb. 26, 45, 66, even up to 100. What kind of tragedy had just struck? There was a ring of fires circling Melbourne and many other dangerous fires throughout the state. In the afternoon, we were at my parents, and I was making calls to the CFA and looking at their website trying to understand the situation.

We did return later that evening when it became clear that Kangaroo Ground was safe. There were still and indeed are fires to the north of us. Some of them are becoming contained, and the wind is blowing from the south.

The last couple of days I have been quite shaken. I feel people's pain. I feel like I can hear the cries coming down the road from the north. There are so many people who have lost loved ones. I have felt a deeper love for my own wife and daughter than I have known before as I realise how precious they are and I how blessed I am to have them alive with me. I have found it quite difficult to concentrate on my studies.

The national response has been swift and appropriate. Both the Premier John Brumby and the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd have poured out emotion to people and on tv. They have been fine leaders and I can not fault them at all in how they have handled this tragedy. Kevin Rudd has been hugging people and having them cry on his shoulder. The Aussie "sentimental bloke" (a famous Aussie poem) is alive and well.

The Country Fire Authority made up of volunteers has worked ceaselessly and tirelessly to combat the fires. They are heroes of immense proportion. There have been many personal heroic stories, such as an 18 year old taking a bulldozer through the bush to rescue his trapped family.

Australians band well together in tough times, and this is surely a cultural strength. But it is also a weakness. The effort to help those suffering has been unanimous. People have given a lot of material goods and money. But there is also a temptation to cope with the suffering by getting to work. I am afraid that we will not mourn properly as a nation. I have contacted a key person in the Anglican church to get a message through to the Archbishop, that perhaps we could have a day of mourning for the sufferers. We need to pause and feel their pain. It would be an equal tragedy, if we just got on with our lives and forgot their loss. Up to 300 people are thought to have perished now. The official toll is close to 200.

My hope is that all international people I know would be able to identify with Australia's pain. Please pray for our nation. Please pray for people who have lost loved ones. Please pray that people would find God in their loss.

We are ok, we continue to keep an eye on things. Our biggest concern is for the ones who are victims.

This is truly Australia's darkest hour.

I knew I wasn't out of touch

2009-02-02T09:54:00.005+07:00

In recent years I have tried keeping up with modern music and have found it increasingly more difficult to do so. Truthfully I have lacked the desire. I have often wondered if this is because I am aging or because there is nothing of real quality out there. Some would argue that it is because of my age, but I will lay out my case.

Groups like Jet and the White Stripes just don't do it for me. All they are doing is rehashing 60s music. Today's i-generation may not have heard 60s music and so it is new to them, but really it's uncreative. I just asked a 23 year old today what she listens to, and the first thing she mentioned was Michael Franti. "Well" I replied, "I was watching him play when he was "The Disposable heroes of hipropisy," that gained an impressed response from her, and validated my sense of not feeling 'out of it'.

In 2008 the only music I added to my collection was the latest albums from- King's X, Delirious? and Coldplay. In 2007 it was Radiohead (barely listened to In Rainbows), Silverchair (loved Young Modern) and Vineyard UK's "Love Divine." This year I'll add U2's "No line on the horizon" in March, and maybe not much else.

It's not that I don't want to listen to new music. I do. I have enjoyed a bit of Snow Patrol over the last couple of years, some Jack Johnson and some Audioslave. But let's face it, none of them are from the younger generation. Silverchair are probably the only musicians who are younger than me that I listen to. Perhaps the younger generation don't cut, or simply are not mature enough.

Then I stumbled on this short article in yesterdays Herald Sun called "Today's music is dull" by Eleni Hale:

Generation X thinks today's music is rubbish. Baby boomers are angry that songs from their youth are repeatedly ripped off and ruined.

And even Generation Y thinks their parents' music is more meaningful than theirs.

A study into the music views of each generation by McCrindle Research found many believed today's tunes lacked staying power.

More than 50 per cent of 1300 people surveyed said today's artists and their music would be forgotten in a decade.

The study was launched to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the plane crash that killed Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper and Buddy Holly on February 3, 1959.

The crash inspired Don McLean to write the very successful song American Pie.

The study found most Australians, including Gen-Yers, believed songs from the '60s and '70s were more memorable and meaningful than today's music.

Baby boomers said they deplored hearing songs from their youth remade by modern bands - the most hated cover song was Madonna's version of American Pie.

I feel validated. Maybe that is why U2 are still as big as they are. They have no competition. Although I must admit that "All along the watchtower" was the lowest point of the career, which is a good lesson in being creative with your own material instead of trying to rehash old stuff.

Global financial crisis- where has all the money gone?

2009-01-31T07:15:00.003+07:00

The global financial crisis has got many thinking. In fact it has many worrying quite a lot. It has got me thinking, but thankfully not worrying. Where did all the money go?
There have been great losses on share markets across the world. This apparently was brought about my financial institutions collapsing due to bad losses on credit. Simply put they lent out too much money, or more accurately lent out money to people who could not repay the loans. These bad debts have triggered the crisis. There is no doubt that the greed of many banks in the US is to blame.

I have always thought of money as a finite resource. I am sure that many have thought the same. But I am coming to change the way I understand that concept. It used to be that a nation would only print as much money as represented the gold that they had in reserve. Back in those times, money was a finite concept. To go even further back in history, people had gold and silver coins, and there were no banks. Of course they could always find more gold in the ground. How things have changed in todays world.

Money is now a relative concept, not finite. It is fitting that such a concept has come about in a post modern world. The house of cards that is the US economy is crashing down. The rest of the world have been attaching our own economies to the US economy, and now the whole thing seems to be crashing down. Recent news reports have said that the global economy has now come to a complete stand still. This means that there is no net economic growth in the world, in fact there are losses, and this is what economic recession is.

But what is economic growth anyway? Well it represents productivity in a society, be that national or global. So there are some tangible things to attach the concept to. On a tangible level we have seen factories closing all over Russia and China. They are no longer productive. (India is still productive and I believe Canada is too.) If there is no product then there is no money. It's a little like if there is no wheat then there is no food for us to eat. Just like there can be a bumper crop of wheat some years, there can also be a bumper crop of money.

A bumper crop of money is when banks reap big dividends. People pay back their loans. Companies post big profits and their value soars. Essentially this means there is more money around to work with. Yes it is true that banks fictitiously create money, but this is only a part of the picture. In today's global economy money needs to be circulated. None of us need to hold on to the money all the time, so it is circulated around for some one else to use. It's a bit like a game of musical chairs. And just recently a whole bunch of chairs have been taken away.

Where did all the money go? Not into the hands of some other person. The money simply disappeared, burned in a fire, got washed away out to sea. Since there is less money to circulate, companies can not afford to pay their staff. This means that productivity goes down. Since there is less money to circulate, people become afraid to spend and then consumer demand drops, so productivity is in essence no longer needed.

Three quarters of Australia's economy depends on consumer spending. I am confident that many other western economies are built on similar principles. If we all spend our money happily then it will circulate and demand for productivity will go up.

Recently Kevin Rudd (Australian prime minister) thinks he knows the solution. He says that it is time to bring an end to traditional capitalism, and that a new age of social capitalism needs to begin. It sounds like a big experiment to me. Somehow I think the SRC School president does not know what he is talking about. Australia's economy is headed for a major deficit and a deep recession. The word depression is not on people's lips yet. But I think that is now a possibility.

Spend your money happily. It may be worth nothing tomorrow anyway.

Cheating in the game of Twenty 20

2009-01-22T15:59:00.002+07:00

What the heck are NSW thinking? Brendan Mc Cullum has never played a single game for NSW before, but now they feel they can recruit him for the Twenty 20 final this Saturday. Yes it is true that a state can select one international player, but that was really a rule intended for when a player would stay a whole season, such as Imran Khan and Ian Botham did in the past.
Twenty 20 is still at representative level, but the competition is a little like a league. There is a bluriness between the two at the moment. It is my guess that the rule will change after they are given a big stretch by NSW this week. Still they have gotten away with it this time, and gone against the spirit of the game.

Australia, South Africa and New Zealand are in talks about starting a Twenty 20 Super League in 2011. If all players are available for all of the competition it should be a huge hit. There will be 3 teams from RSA, 3 from Australia and 2 from New Zealand. I am glad that something will finally happen. The stocks in cricket will go up in Australia over the next decade. The Super League may start out small, probably with teams in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, but will undoubtedly expand when there are more media friendly stars known to the public.

When such a league starts NSW can recruit Brendan Mc Cullum, but in the mean time, they are practically cheats.

Vertigo part II..... oops "Get on your boots" (U2 review)

2009-01-20T17:44:00.005+07:00

It's that time again, it comes around every four years or so. It's U2 time. I always love the day when the new U2 single comes out. I get a hold of it as soon as possible (in the past that meant waiting to record it on to a tape off the radio; I did this for "The Fly", "Beautiful Day", "Electrical Storm" and "Vertigo") but now it means downloading and putting it on the iPod. Then I proceed to listen to the song 50 times over or so, to the amusement of my wife.

Actually my first listen this time was on U2's website. It disappointed at first, because it just wasn't loud enough on my computer. But as soon as I transferred it to the iPod and plugged into the stereo at full volume, it impressed immediately.

This song is really in exactly the same vein as Vertigo. But hey, Vertigo was a fun song, and the rest of Atomic Bomb was a serious album. Boots, is just as fun a rock song, with a few meaningful lyrics thrown in..... to boot. I sometimes wonder if U2 are the last rock band on the planet when I look at the charts these days. Thank God for 'em, they're keeping it alive, and Boots actually truly does rock, hard and fast. I don't have to explain the music much, just give it a spin, oh I mean a mouse click.

My favourite lyrics at the moment are- "Satan loves a bomb scare, but it won't scare you." It seems to me that Bono is suggesting Satan is behind all those scary things out there in the media a la military and terrorist action. Metaphorically the devil does try to create bombscares in our lives, but with the love of Jesus, he's all talk. This leads me to the chorus- "You don't know how beautiful you are." Immediately this lyric said to me, that God's love for us is much bigger than we can imagine. Bono has found a way to weave God's love and protection into his lyrics once again, in a way that sneaks up on most.

This song itself gives us no indication of what the record "No line on the horizon" will be like. Apparently we are to expect the epic, weird and Arabic style scales in the album. Most U2 albums come with a lot of pre-hype, but still I will be pre-ordering mine. (Otherwise I'll miss out on the bonus tracks).

Rock on!

Can you hold down the Pleiades?

2009-01-18T16:27:00.003+07:00

Have a look at these stars for a minute. How beautiful they are, how huge they are. This is the Pleiades constellation. God challenged Job, "can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?" The Psalmist declared of God, "He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name."
I sat and watched a documentary tonight about the stars. The Milky Way itself is full of hundreds of billions of stars. If each star were counted, 1 per second then it would take 2500 years to count them all. That is how huge our own galaxy is. Yet there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the Universe. How huge is God, that he created all of this? As I sat and watched the documentary and took in some of the numbers and images and realised how small I am, and yet how great God is, things fell back into perspective for me. This amazing and great Creator God loves me and the whole world so much that he gave himself as Jesus on the cross to pay for my awful sin.
His love is so great, he has made me clean. And he is so great that as my life is in his hands I have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Now that's perspective.

Mugabe must go

2009-01-16T18:29:00.003+07:00

It's been quite a while since I have talked about Mugabe. Every day he makes me sicker.

Dear Lord, please bring an end to this evil man's regime and do it soon, any way that you must.

Where to start? Thousands are dying daily from cholera now. Eighty percent of the country are in abject poverty. The only people who have any money are his army. Just today he has issued the "trillion dollar banknote" series. If you think that sounds crazy, it was just last week that the billion dollar bank not series was released, but those notes have already lost value.

Recently Mugabe told a gathering of African leaders that he would never give up Zimbabwe, and that he "owns it". We have long suspected that he believes that, but to hear it is the absolute pits. I guess the west is standing by wanting African leaders to do something about him. South Africa have dropped the ball. Jacob Zuma is implicitly to blame. Desmond Tutu has even admitted that South Africa have lost international credibility for doing nothing.

I didn't write on this topic during the last Zimbabwe election, because I hoped beyond hope that Mugabe would step down, but he did not. The power sharing arrangement has been a farce.

I really don't want to write about this again until he is gone, and I pray that is very soon.