I've Worked Out Why I don't like Hillsong Songs... It's The Guitars

This Sunday I got asked to play guitar at Church. The usual players were away or doing other roles in the service. We were doing the usual mix of Hillsong type songs. I'm sure that they might not all be all songs that have come out of the Hillsong church but to me they sound like they do. That is, they all have that ubiquitous contemporary soft anthem rock sound which, it's fair to say, the vast majority of the congregation really seem to like. 

Anyway, Saturday night and I started listening to and learning the songs. All well and good, but then I tried to emulate the sound of the guitar. I've got an idea how to get the contemporary worship sound, compression distortion a bit of chorus. It's all very controlled, very understated, very clean. The guitar will never surprise you like a Jack White guitar riff, knock you off you feet like an ACDC guitar riff or make discordant noises you're not sure are supposed to be part of the song like a Sonic Youth guitar riff. No, the sound is predictable, controlled and anything but wild. And for me this is the rub. For me, the guitar gives so much emotional potency to a song that more often than not I feel like I know what a song is exactly about without understanding the lyrics. Niravna's Smells Like Teen Spirit is just one great example of this. 

The guitar is the source of all those wild raw emotions we posses that we would want to unleash but it's just too impolite to do so. In contemporary worship it's these emotions that must be subservient to the harmonious singing, the constant solid bass line and the triumphant drums (that sound like they are from the last song in a movie where everything works out fine). The problem is sometimes things in life are not harmonious, they are not constant and things definitely don't work out fine. That's when the guitar needs to scream and wail. It needs to scream and wail when we cannot and this is why I don't like contemporary worship music. It's not the lyrics (as obnoxious as they can be) it's the guitars. It's the suppression of those wild raw emotions that I cannot suppress, especially if I'm being honest before God. 

In the end I found a sound that was half way between Jack White and the contemporary worship sound. Apparently, according to one person, reminiscent of early Radiohead.

Your Denomination Is Dying

Census data is out and chances are if you’re a Xn in a church that is part of a denomination your church is dying. At the moment I'm with the Uniting Church and at the current rate the will denomination will be empty by 2046. To be honest this might prove to be an optimistic projection. The Xn social service agency that provides services to the community under the denomination's name might survive but the functioning body of Christians? I don't know.

A friend of mine said we should just work out how to die well. Of course dying well rather than surviving is no problem if you believe in resurrection.  But, we don't do that well. We will fight to the bitter end to hold on.

Personally I like the quote I've heard Pete Rollins cite "The only church that illuminates is a burning one." I suspect that the more we paid scant disregard for the institution the greater it's chance of survival. Imagine if the Roman Catholic church sold all their buildings, gave compensation to all the sex abuse victims then on top of that gave money to victims from other institutions who had not been properly compensated. This sort of radical move would both destroy and revitalise that denomination all in one go.

Maybe the question denominations need to ask is not how do we survive the membership decline? But, how can we burn and burn most brightly.

When Life Hands You Lemons Trite Sayings Are Infuriating

Sometimes life hands you lemons and you have to make lemonade but some days life hands you a steaming pile of dog poo and matter what clever cooking technique you apply no one will ever eat the dish you serve.

For many of us in the first world a trite saying is almost all we ever need to get over all the little hurdles life throws at us. But sometimes things are just hard and no amount of bootstrap pulling is going solve the problem. This week I felt like I was handed a pile of dog poo and asked to make a three course meal and no amount of "have you tried cooking it with..." is going to help.

Sometimes we need people to be around us and not cook the dog poo. To agree that tonight we all won't eat in solidarity we will suffer together because sometimes that is all you can do.

Sometimes in a world where pursing love, mercy and justice gets you crucified there is nothing you can do but be crucified. Be crucified and trust in resurrection.

A similar saying is “Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger” I recently heard Monica A Coleman answer this by saying, “sometimes yes but sometimes it makes you a weaker poorer empty shell of who you used to be.” Life can be harsh and it can be cruel and it can be damaging. For those of us in a more privileged background it can be easier to overcome adversity. For others it can be damaging and it is the damaged and the weak (the poor, the widow and the orphans – the phrase often used in scripture) that God calls us to walk alongside of.

My Faith Is Going Wild

I played Hoods up, The Low-Down Technified Blues by theillalogicalspoon to my wife. "just listen to the first verse" I said. 

I don't wanna get up for church in the mornin,
church in the mornin, souls alive!
Heaven come to earth and there won't be no church
we'll meet down by the riverside,
there we'll swim with all creation,
never get tired never bored,
don't worry someday there'll be no dam between us and our Lord  

She listened, smilied and said "that is so me". It is also more and more me too. Not just the "I don't want go to church" bit but, the sense that nature is where we commune with God. That it was nature in it's raw state (the wilderness) that the Israelites fled too (away from the civillised egyptians) and where John Baptised Jesus outside of the established civillised religion. It is where Jesus the discovers his mission. The more aware of it I become the more I see it in scripture, from the Cedars of Lebanon (that were cut down to build civilisations) to the tower of Babel which saw people move from a concentrated city population to spread out tribes. Even Cain's offering, a result of farming, was rejected in favour of Abel's hunting and gathering offering.

This sense of returning to the wild as a central part of connecting with the divine is never explicitly stated in scripture. It's just a constant under current. Even domesticated Paul says that we all have an understading of God not because of what God has done through humans and how clever we are or, because of how Xns love each other, or even because of the story of Jesus but, because we find God in creation in the wilderness.

My faith is not longer just about caring for creation but going wild in it.

"Thanks for your prayers, I've upped my medication"

"Thanks for your prayers, I've upped my medication" is the summary of what a friend said to me recently in one of those brief "we gotta leave in 2 minutes" exchanges. I've got no idea what the medication was but I'm going to guess it was antidepressant medication. It's one of the few medications we talk about "upping".

In a recent Richard Fidler interview Ethan Watters suggested is that one of the reasons there are currently so many people diagnosed with depression is that this is how our generation and our culture exhibits psychological distress.

There is something about what he said that really resonated with me. I suspect that for many of us who have suffered depression it is much more than just the medical explanation of a chemical imbalance in the brain (although it is of course that too).

For me, I believe I experience a psychological distress manifesting in depression when my spiritual ideals do not match my material reality. Which being an affluent white male is quite often. Jesus strongly confronts my own way of life and change is hard. This is perhaps one of the reasons Xns are tempted to divorce the "spiritual" world from the "material" world.

Surely, if any group of people should be struggling with depression it should be Christians. As my friend said "Thanks for your prayers, I've upped my medication" my urge to take the kids home trumped my urge to say we (a collective of Xns) should do something about this. This is pretty normal, it's also pretty lonely. But, if you're a Xn and you're taking Jesus seriously, I'm going to venture and say, it should be expected. If we are called to swim against the tied of what our culture dictates as "normal" we will have to expect some level of psychological distress.

Love and grace to anyone on, upping or about to start medication.

Building A Church Building, I've Realised I Just Can't Consent To It

About a month ago I put my hand up to say "Yes, I support the idea of building a church building". Since then I've been feeling like this was not the right thing to do. Over a couple of weeks I trashed around some ideas and wrote this to the head cheeses of the church I hang out with.

---

I’ve decide I can no longer support building a building. Not this building and probably not most other buildings. I have come to this conclusion not because of anything the leadership has done or decided but because of an evolution in my own thought about the issue. In other words  “it’s not you it’s me”.

In short, I have decided until such time as we have no other way of being church other than a way that costs us more than the cost of building a building; I would rather not build a building.

I have written a quick explanation of the thinking behind my decision which is mainly for my own benefit so feel free to skip it.

The church component of the building
In the past I have thought we have to build a building the question. I no longer believe we have to. The church in China, the early church and most of the churches I've been a part of have all thrived or at least survived without a building.

Not only is God of course outside of a building but God asks to worship God without a building. 

Exodus 20:24-26 You need make for me only an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your offerings of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. But if you make for me an altar of stone, do not build it of hewn stones; for if you use a chisel upon it you profane it. You shall not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness may not be exposed on it."
The eventual building of a temple was inherently problematic. Solomon resorting to slave labour is but one example.

When Jesus set up his ministry he went outside of the temple system and was baptised by John in the wilderness.

The early disciples had no desire to recreate a temple like building for their own worship instead using their own houses.

Today, house churches continue to thrive in places like China, many churches meet without buildings.

The community centre component of the building

I realise the building is much more than a place of worship but also a gift to the surrounding suburban community. Simply, out of all the needs that our world has I cannot in good consciousness prioritise the need for the people of our suburb to have a community space above so many others. The opportunity cost of this gift to the community of our suburb is what could be gifted elsewhere, like a "gift" for a community in the third world.

Nothing would make me prouder than being part of a church community that owned property that generated income which was given to those in need. Each week we could hang a picture of the hospital, school or housing our money had bought with "Church Building" written underneath it.

When I look at the cost of the building and compare that to the cost and hassle of hiring space I just cannot justify it.

In Conclusion

I realise that this is not the view of the rest of the church community and I have annoyingly come to this conclusion "mid process" so to speak when the question of should we build has already been resolved (although perhaps not irreversibly so). Therefore in future meetings I will abstain from voting.

The Real Education Divide (It's Not Public Or Private)

A slightly off topic post today.

Post Gonski report I've seen a lot written about the "educational divide" in Australia. Almost all of these articles, I think, falsely put this divide between public schools and private schools. There is a divide but it is not here.

From 2003-2009 one of the roles I had in my job was to give seminars in high schools. The topic (drugs and alcohol) was pretty universal so it meant I got to visit and interact with students and teachers from the most elite private schools through to students in the most notorious public schools.

At the time I had very young children so I was often thinking would I send my child to this school? Having been educated in a public school I always thought that this is exactly what I would do with my own children. That was until I came across the education divide.

There is an education divide and it is not across the private and public divide but purely across the socio-economic divide. Really there are three tiers. Tier 1: Elite private schools: these are the ones with high fees, each kid has to bring their own laptop and the year 11 excursion will be somewhere in. Tier 2: Public schools in affluent areas and low fee private schools. Tier 3: Public schools in poorer areas.

In my job it got to the point where I was pretty confident I could be helicoptered in and could tell which tier a school fell into. I've seen 2nd tier public schools with architecturally designed facades, landscaped gardens, excellent IT resources and even a gym (one good enough to charge the public to use). Above all these schools (public and private) had experienced teachers and students who have grown up in a family where education was valued, it was seen as highly important that students do well and students were asked to think about what university course they will do.

On the other hand I've seen schools in the third tier where there was a 10cm floor to ceiling gap a the staff room. A staff room where the broken fridge was used as a cupboard and the microwave was used to boil water because the kettle was broken too. I've been told not to use words on a  power point presentation for year 11 students because "they don't read" (yes that is a quote). The teachers were a mixture of new teachers (you can't just get a job at a school in an affluent area), not particularly good burnt out older teachers, and experienced older teachers who choose to stay at a school in a poorer area. These teachers often have low expectations for their students trying earnestly to funnel them in to a trade. They are often exasperated, teaching students who come from families who do not feel that they benefited much from their own education and don't believe their children will benefit much from theirs.

This divide becomes even more pronounced with proliferation of low fee private schools. Many parents like me have chosen to put our kids in to a lower fee private school (a school chosen in part because it achieved similar Naplan results to the public primary school I went to as a child). This means that where there might have been 15 kids in a class who's parents have high expectations on what their child might achieve at school, there might be only 5. I believe this profoundly shifts the culture of a school. The greater the percentage of students who don't have a strong motivation to learn from home teachers either lower expectations or burn themselves out trying to motivate a whole class to do better. These burnt out teachers will eventually move to a school where this motivation is instilled in a higher majority of students - that is, usually a school in a more affluent area. As these things happen the reputation of a school falls and parents avoid sending their kids to the school. It's a spiralling ever widening divide.

Personally I am currently looking at moving out of the area I live in. Schooling is a big factor in the decision and when buying a new house I'll be adding the cost of two private school educations on top of the cost of any house outside the boundary a 2nd tier public school.

The Cheese Card: Christians Can't Write Scripts

I've seen some fictional Christian plays and watched some fictional Christian films in my time and they have all been bad. Last night I watched "The Grace Card". It had reasonable reviews, good production, reasonably good acting but the script... We (my wife who has a greater sympathetic tolerance to these things and I) couldn't bear to watch the end to see how even more cheesy things could get. The script was awful.

There were at least two problems with the script. Firstly, the inability to let the actors just silently act something out, without giving an extended dialogue including theological motivations for their actions. Secondly, and for me more striking, the Xn characters don't even remotely correlate with people I've met in real life. They are pious and serene beyond belief. Sure they'll often have some flaw to overcome but it's usually something others don't consider a flaw and by the end of the story you know how they're going to overcome it. Currently I have my fingers crossed for “Blue like Jazz” if that fails then I will only ever watch historically based films like Shadow Lands (CS Lewis), Amazing Grace, Luther, Romero and Molokai (these last two are brilliant). These films are often directed by non Xns who insist on catching the humanity of the people rather than the idealised theology of the people. Not only much more real but much much more compelling.

Victim Or Fighter?

A column in last weekend's Australian Newspaper gave the advice that people are either victims or fighters. This one central piece of advice was highlighted and put in bold in the middle of the article. I couldn't bring myself to read the article because this is exactly what I think is wrong with the world and exactly why I would rather opt out of those two options and be a hermit.

In every abusive relationship there is a fighter and a victim. Every victim is the victim of a fighter and every fighter is victorious only when there is a victim. It is a zero sum game. On average half the world will be victims and half will be fighters.

Obviously I don't want to be a victim but equally I do not want to be a fighter. I don't want to battle, to beat down, to victimise. Screw that. I'm happy to be a lover. I can do that. But if I can't do that I'll be a hermit a self sufficient conscious objector to the paradigm that says you must either be a fighter or victim.

The Hunger Games: Closer To Reality Than Fantasy?

Being one of those stuck up people who generally looks down his nose at pop culture I tried to avoid the hunger games but over the last few days I sat down and read the first novel and I'm about to start the second. I loved the first third of the book and the world that Suzanne Collins creates. As I read I wondered if one of the reasons the book resonates with people is the way it echoes the current state of the world.

In the hunger games kids are dying for our entertainment. In our world whether it's kids making electronic devices, clothing in sweat shops or picking coffee and coco beans kids are dying for our entertainment. In both worlds there is a one in a million chance they can leave their oppression. In the Hunger Games it's winning the games in our world might be becoming a movie star (slum dog millionaire) or being discovered as a model. In both worlds the capitol (like our first world) has an excess of food and the districts (like our third world) is starving. In the hunger games it is perhaps more obvious the way that food is moved from one place to other. It happens in our world too but sometimes more subtly. Like when we  force a third world farmer to give up land previously dedicated to food production and replace it with coffee (if you drink one coffee cup a day you’ll need 9 trees just for your own addiction) or replace it with a water intensive cotton farm to make us t-shirts that will only last a season.

Perhaps most of all I liked the Hunger Games as it connects with my own anarcho-primitivist urges. The urge to reject all that the first world has to offer and hunt and gather food in the forest much like the book’s hero Katniss. Idealistic? Impractical? Of course! Just like ending slavery or ending apartheid was also impractical. I feel like so much of our technology is just like building our own tower of Babel and we are say to ourselves "nothing that we propose to do will now be impossible for us" (Genesis 11:6) I wonder if one of the reasons many people are not too worried about climate change is that many of us believe that if we were to run out of oil or, the world got significantly hotter that we will just find some way to get around it. We don't just wonder "will nothing we propose to do be impossible?” we believe it and we depend on it. I just don't share this confidence. That's why I'm not comfortable in the Capitol and long to live like they do or rather would do in District 12 without the oppression of the Capitol.

Sunday School Lesson: Jesus Will Fill That Sad Hole In Your Heart

Yesterday I got to help run Sunday school. Having the ability to play guitar meant I got the easy job of doing the music. After the music I got to learn that if we have a sad hollow feeling in our lives Jesus can fill that void and make us feel better. To some extent I have found this thought to be true. My Christian faith has given me a framework to look at the world that can make everything seem that little bit easier to bear. But, as I got to the end of high school and beyond, whilst Jesus did seem to be somehow filling a sad hollow ache in my heart, that sad hollow ache continued to grow and grow, but Jesus's ability to fill it did not. There are plenty of parallel experiences. Finding a girlfriend, having a child, getting out of a bad job into a good job, even buying a new guitar. For a while the joy of these things buries the pain and sadness but the joy is limited. It is like in the picture of my life I get to zoom into that one new thing and all I see is joy. But, eventually I will zoom out I will take in the whole picture where that new joy is but one small part.

Perhaps this is what rubs me the wrong way about this Sunday school message. The messssage that we can keep living our lives exactly as we have been and continue to live our lives exactly as the world recommends and as long as we pop a Jesus pill every morning or put Jesus in our hearts everything will be fine. Maybe, we also need to repent. Not in just the moralistic sense (as it is so often exclusively framed) but in a wholistic sense to turn our whole lives around and live in a new way to question the long work hours, high mortgage, high consumption lives that have been handed to us. Maybe we don't need to just add Jesus to the picture but to follow Jesus means completely redrawing the picture.

Joy: A Reflection For A Small Group

Last night I went to a small group (Bible study) where we looked at the concept Joy (one of the fruits of the spirit).  We were asked to being something to share. This is what I brought.

---

Nothing makes me grown more than the concept of Joy. Being thankful or content I can do. Being at peace or having hope I can do but Joy can just get stuffed. When I hear someone sing "I've got that joy joy down in my heart (where?) down in my heart" I just want to slump and start singing "I've swept all my troubles under the carpet (where) under the carpet" or "I've put the world's problems out of my mind (where) out of my mind". 

We live in a world where every advertisement stars someone with an everlasting smile that we too can have if we buy a particular car or buy a particular brown fizzy liquid. Most films end with an everlasting smile on the face of the stars, a smile you too will have once a rich beautiful man sweeps you off your feet or once you secure your fortune and the girl of you dreams falls in love with you. 

I have found my dream partner and compared to most of the world and history I am insanely rich. I have bought hundreds of gadgets and toys to give me that everlasting smile and they have  not worked. When I look at the pain and brokenness of the world I can't help but be melancholic. Melancholic but thankful. Thankful because there but for the grace of God go I and for that I feel thankful and blessed.

Charis is the Greek word translated as joy. It is from the same root word that we get grace (charis) as in the grace of God. Another translation of joy could be "grace recognised" and that I can do. God's grace makes me feel thankful, content and at peace, just not joyful. Not in that everlasting smile sense of the world, not this side of heaven.

Road Tested Valley Songs: Peacemaking

A few Sundays ago I got to do four songs at church on the theme of peacemaking. Looking at your average church song list you could be forgiven for thinking that after saying "blessed are the peacemakers" Jesus said "what ever you do just don't write any songs about it". While hunting for songs on peacemaking, I was keen to avoid songs of the "Jesus gives me peace in my heart" variety. The four songs I chose were...

Down By the Riverside

D

I feel so bad in the morning,

                     A

I feel so bad in the middle of the day

  D                  G

I feel so bad in the evening,

       D                    G        A             D

That's why I'm going to the river to wash my sins away

(verse 1)

          D

I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield, down by the riverside,

A                      D

Down by the riverside, down by the riverside

                       

I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield, down by the riverside,

          A            D

I'm gonna study war no more

(chorus)

                G                                  D

I ain't a gonna study war no more, I ain't a gonna study war no more

                A            D                     G

I ain't a gonna study war no more, I ain't a gonna study war no more

D                                  A            D

study war no more, I ain't a gonna study war no more

(verse 2)

Well, I'm gonna meet with the prince of peace, down by the riverside (Oh)

Down by the riverside, down by the riverside

I'm gonna meet with the prince of peace, down by the riverside

I'm gonna study war no more

(chorus)

I ain't a gonna study war no more, study war no more

study war no m ore, study war no more

study war no more, I ain't a gonna study war no more

(verse 3)

Well, I'm gonna feast with my enemy, (Where?) down by the riverside

Down by the riverside, down by the riverside

I'm gonna feast with my enemy, (A-ha) down by the riverside

I'm gonna study war no more

(chorus)

I ain't a gonna study war no more, study war no more

study war no more, study war no more

study war no more, I ain't a gonna study war no more

© Traditional – arrangement Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Prince of Peace

G  Bm7  C  C/D 

G  Bm7  C

C/D          G    Bm7  C

This is the moment

C/D             G        Bm7  C

This is the time to pause

C/D             G     G/B     C    D             G  C  G

This is the time to understand and think of peace

C/D            G   Bm7  C  

Who can we turn to?

C/D           G      Bm7           C  

Who can we ask to put things right?

C/D             G     G/B       C       

Is there someone above the fray?

  D               G  C

A Prince of Peace?

G                       D 

Someone speak of the Kingdom

C                        G  C

And not the warfare State

G                     D       

Someone talk of forgiveness

C

And not this tribal hate

G    C          D    

This flesh that bleeds

C/D          G     C          D

These bones, these bones that break

C/D         G    C          D

This heart, this heart that cries

           C/D            G/C  D  C/D

There is a Prince of Peace        (Start verse)

Lay down your weapons

Lay down these eons of distrust

Lay down revenge that never ends

Please make this peace

In the name of the Father

In the name of the Son who bore our shame

In the name of the Spirit

Let there be peace

CHORUS

© Copyright Paul Gioia, 2002

Do Unto Others (The Prayer)

Oh lord must I do unto others,

 before they do unto me

Must I arm myself to protect myself,

 from pain and misery

oh no that is not the lesson i learnt,

 upon my mothers knee

When she told me to do unto others,

 only as I would have them do unto me

© Y.M. Barnwell

Carry Us Over

C               G               Am

Jesus turn this wine back in to water

   C                 G            Am    

So we can quench our poor thirsty souls

     C                G                Am

This dessert's dry as hell and getting hotter

        C             G                 Am

And the truth is only your love makes us whole

   C                 G                       

So carry us over the finish line

               Dm                      F

we can see the end but our feet are so tired

     C             G              Am 

It's Obvious we're useless on our own

   C                 G                       

So carry us over the finish line

               Dm                      F

We can see the end but our feet are so tired

   C          G         Am   

We don't know how to be sober

   C           G   C

So Jesus Carry us over

But if this wait is gonna kill me

well kill me then and bring me home to you

But if my destiny’s amongst the heathen

Well time me to your rope and pull me through

                C    G  Am

We want to come home

                C    G  Am

We want to come home

                C    G  Dm  F

We want to come home

                C    G  C

We want to come home

© Kelli Schaefer

The lasts song isn't about peacemaking but about struggle. If we are going to seriously involved in any kind of peacemaking it will be a struggle.

13 Reasons I'm Ashamed To Call Myself A Christian

The other day I heard someone start a sentence with "It's not that I'm ashamed of my faith it's just..." I wanted to reassure him that it was ok to be ashamed about publicly declaring himself a Xn, because I too often feel ashamed to call myself a Xn. Of course I didn't tell him that in front of the group... That would have involved me public declaring myself as a Xn.

I'm sure when I was a teenager there was a crappy Xn song some youth group friends played to me with the lyrics "no way I am not ashamed". I wanted to sing along but there was always something a bit awkward, and something I couldn't articulate as a young teenager. But now I thought I'd have a crack at articulating why I am ashamed to call myself a Xn.

I am ashamed to tell people I am a Xn because Xy is synonymous with...

1. Homophobia and a belief that sexual preference is a lifestyle choice some what akin choosing whether to drive a 4 wheel drive or a station wagon.
2. Right wing politics & Conservative American values.
3. An inability to think rationally.
4. An inability to understand how someone could think differently to me.
5. An inability to have fun.
6. A commitment to 1950s gender roles.
7. Such a strong disapproval of your sexual choices that I would be unable to be your friend anyway.
8. Being someone who is very easily offended.
9. Having no taste in music, literature or the arts. The only way something can become artistic or beautiful is by having a bible verse written below it or fish sticker on it.
10. Someone who would think it is more important to give a starving person a pamphlet explaining the gospel than some food.
11. Someone who believes their theological choices and beliefs make them a better person and the only reason you haven't made the same choices is that you are rebellious.
12. A belief that the earth is around 6000 years old and that climate change, like most of science, is a conspiracy theory.
13. A belief that God helps those who help themselves.

Of course these are not only things I vehemently disagree with but things I disagree on because of my Xn convictions.

Moral Exemplar A Theory Of Atonement For Now?

Tony Jones has a new short eBook out on atonement theories. One of the thing he points out is that different theories answer different questions. The Ransom theory, (think C.S Lewis The Lion the Witch and The wardrobe) answers the question of how we deal with the devil? (the white witch). The Penal Substitutionary theory, (this is the one you grew up with) answers the question how do we deal with sin?

I'm interested in asking is what is the problem are people dealing with now? And therefore, what is an appropriate theory of atonement to be using.

I'm going to suggest it's not the Ransom theory as almost no one is wrestling with Satan and Satan's power. Anyway, for the past 1000 years most Xns have not been comfortable giving Satan as much power over God as the Ransom theory does. Similarly, I don't think the Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory will be helpful as few people I come across are wrestling with sin. This is not to say that either are not true, in some way, they are just not particularly relevant.

Now, I know there are some "PSA is the gospel" type people thinking this is heresy and I'm sure if we were to ask the average non Xn did they think they were perfect, they'd say no. It's just that they just won't see themselves as so horribly depraved they deserve complete exclusion from God. Now the usual move from a PSA evangelist is to explain that God sees your relatively small list of sins as just as bad as being a serial killer paedophile, hence the non Xn person is deserving of complete exclusion from God. It's not a great argument. Partly because Jesus (who we're claiming is just like God) seemed pretty comfortable hanging with sinners but mainly because it just makes God look like a complete jerk.

With that little aside out of the way we come back to the question, what is the problem people are dealing with now? I'm going to suggest that the question many people are asking is, how do we live in the world? Now, I know that many (including Tony Jones in this homebrewed Xy interview) are looking for a way that Jesus death and resurrection might address the systemic sin in our world, but I don't think we're going to find that. I think it'll be hard to find a theory to address that in the same way that it was hard for early Xns, who under Roman occupation saw similar if not much more extreme examples of systemic sin and injustice.

Whether it's the Roman Empire or our much more elusive capitalist empire. We are still left with the question of how do we live? How do we live when most of our clothing is made in sweatshops and there is not an obvious alternative? How do we live when taxes are being spent on war but there is no way to redirect our taxes from war to health care? How do we change the way refugees are treated when both electable political parties treat refugees appallingly? I believe, How do we live in a broken, corrupt, fallen world is the big question of our age. It is the question particularly in the west because we are not mere serfs trapped within a oppressive feudal system. No, we have a sense of freedom, a sense of connectedness and and a sense of potential to affect change that is perhaps unprecedented.

With this in mind I believe it is time to revisit the earliest atonement theory, The moral exemplar. This theory is that Jesus Christ is seen as a moral exemplar, who calls us toward a better life, both individually and corporately. Tony Jones talks more about this in this post.

Part of the problem of the Moral Exemplar theory is that Jesus death and resurrection seems not only secondary but completely dispensable.  I'm not sure what earlier adherents of the theory would have argued but, to me it's completely indispensable. Here is why. For most of the people I talk to the question is not "What is good?" or "was Martin Luther King or Oscar Romero good?" (to name but two Xn heroes whose actions changed systemic injustice) instead the question is how can we do the same?

How can we with our overwhelming senses of responsibility to get a good job, buy a house and a car, send our kids to a decent school, save for retirement and insure our health and our stuff. How can we overcome this all consuming reality and do something radical, something dangerous that might change the world? To do such things is too risky, too irresponsible. To challenge this way of thinking we need someone to break the current time space reality and show that reality is different, we need God to show us that what we think is reality is not actually reality. This, I contend is exactly what Jesus death and resurrection does for us. Like the red pill that Neo takes in the Matrix, Jesus opens our eyes to a new reality, a reality where the deaths of people like Martin Luther King and Oscar Romero are not deaths in vain. Where our greatest fear, death, is taken away and we are freed from spending all our time making our lives as safe and secure as possible. Indeed we are free to live in the radical way that Jesus did. "For freedom Christ has set us free".

Agnostics Anonymous Or Finding God By Embracing Suffering And Doubt

Hello my name is Chris and I'm an agnostic. I've looked at the proofs for and against the existence of God and I am under whelmed. Sure, if you have committed to one side or the other they can make you feel good about your decision but the reason loads of people are not flocking to one side or the other is that they are just not that compelling.

In the second temple period (Jesus time) Jews and Christians might have argued about where you could find God. For the Jewish people opposed to Jesus the one place God was guaranteed to be was in the heart of the temple, behind a huge curtain. For Christians (all Jewish) the place God was, was with Jesus. Yet, at the end of Mark's gospel the curtain in the temple is ripped in two and there is nothing behind the curtain. Jesus is on the cross, at his greatest point of greatest need, and after calling out "my God my God why have you forsaken me" there is no response and no reply. They are simply Jesus very last words in the gospel.

All Jewish people wanted their suffering at the hands of the Romans to end. The Pharisees hoped that compliance (and compromise) with Rome would end the suffering. The revolutionaries hoped that there might be some kind of Maccabean style uprising to end the suffering. Jesus followers, I'm guessing, were hoping for an expansion of Jesus healings and miracles that would somehow result in a takeover of Roman power and an end of suffering. None of these occur. Instead Jesus resolutely embraces an ultimate suffering in his death and he no longer believes God is with him. Despite feeling called to the cross he is now abandoned, swamped in doubt.

Having witnessed all this, despite having initially run away the disciples are inspired to emulate Jesus, give away all their money, give up their security and for most suffer execution. Sure the empty tomb helped them change their minds but, for many of the most confident Christians today (myself most included) our response to Jesus death and the empty tomb is to squirrel ourselves away in suburbia, put on a few Christians CDs and wait till we grow old and die hoping we get in to heaven. Hoping that even though the sinners prayer appears nowhere in scripture that praying this as a teenager was all that the call to follow Jesus could amount to. What if to follow Jesus, to pick up our crosses and follow means to follow Jesus in to both doubt and suffering?

Like Job and many of the prophets before him, for Jesus to be faithful to his call meant that he would go into a pit of suffering, despair and doubt. As they let go of all they thought God was they moved into suffering into confusion and into doubt. It is only when their actions trump their beliefs that they meet God face to face. I suspect this was true for Mother Teresa who faced dark nights of the soul, doubted the existence of God but carried on with her call, pushed through the suffering through the doubt and despair and again found God. Chuck Palahniuk writes in Fight Club, "you have to give up", "it's only after we've have lost everything that we are free to do anything".

I cannot help think that at the moment Martin Luther King declared he had a dream, but that he may not get there (aware very powerful people wanted him dead) he would of experienced doubt. A "God why have you forsaken me" moment. Oscar Romero when he declared "they can kill a bishop“ would have experienced the same. But above their belief in God they had a call, a call about what it means to be human, to live life to the full, what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and they followed this. 

To follow Jesus is to embrace love which which will lead to suffering, which will lead doubt. When we have given up all the comforts all the riches all the soft options that life has to offer and all that we have left is suffering born out of love that is when we will cry "My God my God why have you forsaken me" and in that moment, that is where, having followed Jesus, we will meet God.

My name is Chris I am an agnostic but I have a call, a call about what it means to be human, to really live, to experience life at its richest. That call is to follow Jesus. My hope and my faith is that one day by loving as Jesus did I will no longer be agnostic.

Kevin Rudd: The Man Who Should Have Been An Activist

Lots has been said about Kevin Rudd in the last couple of months. Some have reflected on his Xy and seen it as not much more than a political stunt originally to take the "Xn vote" away from John Howard. And, that Kevin's true, less than Xn, self came out in the way he unfairly dealt with people. I think something less conniving was going on. I think Kevin Rudd was a man of principles (probably not all that I would agree with) and passion and, in the world of slow moving politics that passion is easily corrupted. I think it might have been Tony Blair who once lamented that even though he was Prime Minister he still didn't have the power to get done the things he wanted to get done. I suspect Kevin Rudd found himself in a similar position and pushed himself and those around him to follow his own agenda - which I'm sure might have changed as quickly as it does for any of us. It was a recipe for burnout, clashes and eventually mutiny. For all that his apology to the stolen generation and avoiding of the GFC (albeit on excellent advice from treasury) should be remembered as two great moments.

I think Kevin Rudd just made the wrong career choice. I think he should have been an activist not a politician. Activists create the space for politicians to make the right decisions (Ched Myers). With his passion and the way he could wrap the media around his finger he would be great at raising awareness and creating the space for politicians to make the right decisions.

Giving Up Theological Certainty For Lent

I was asked by someone at church if I was giving up anything for lent. I said "no". Saying I'm giving up "theological certainty" just made me sound like a complete tosser. Which probably isn't too far from the truth.

Christians from the fundamentalist variety through to the liberal variety all tend to make statements with great certainty about what God is like and how God acts in the world. For 40 days (plus Sundays) I've decided to look at my own certainties and the certainties of others and say "maybe", "perhaps" or "I don't know". My life has become for all intents and purposes agnostic.

For all this I doubt anyone around me would have noticed. I've still prayed, still read the Bible, still gave money to people in need and have not binged on sex, drugs and rock n' roll. With all the theological uncertainty in the world I am still asking myself, "What does it mean to be human?" and, "How best might I live?" In answering these questions I still find myself turning to the Xn story.

Maybe when talking about our faith to others it might be worth ditching the theology, trying to convince people of what we believe about God, sin and death and stick to the material reality of how we live and why we turn to the Xn story to inform that?

Valley Songs: Reverend Vince Anderson

Every so often I make the mistake of thinking that my Valley Songs collection is a closed cannon. Then right under my nose I discovered the Reverend Vince Anderson. I say right under my nose because I've been listening to the Revolution sermon podcasts for the last year or so and Vince is the co-pastor and occasional sermon giver there. He's quite talented at the sermon thing so my assumption was his music wouldn't be all that great. I was wrong. Watch this...

Pretty friggin awesome right? and his sermons are great too. Listen to this Sermon by Vince about Exorcism.

Although I decided to start The Filthy Jesus Experiment before discovering Vince I am now even more inspired. He describes his music as "dirty gospel".

My other favourite YouTube video of his is a cover of Johnny Cash's "Water in to Wine" I love Johnny Cash but was never a fan of this song. Now, thanks to Vince, I am.

You can hear Vince talk about his music here an interview on Heritage Radio.

If you search through the Valley Songs Pages on the side bar of this blog you will find the lyrics and chords for these two songs.

Christus Victor - Alternative to Penal Substitutionary Atonement

Usually I don't just copy and paste other peoples stuff. But, Tony Jones wrote such a great summary of Christus Victor, an alternative understanding of the Atonement, I've reposted it below. You can read it on his blog here.

In 1930, a relatively unknown Swedish bishop and theologian revived an understanding of the atonement that had largely been forgotten for 1,000 years. Gustaf Aulén’s book, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Atonement was translated into English the next year, and it’s stayed in print ever since.

The Christus Victor model, Aulén argues, was the predominant theory for the first millennium of the church, and it was held by the majority of the church fathers whom we still revere. Along came Anselm and changed the game — for reasons I’ve written about before and will discuss in an upcoming post — and CV was relegated to history’s rubbish bin. Until Aulén.

Today, CV has had something of a resurgence. ;) That’s been led by Greg Boyd – who’s personal brand was called, until recently, Christus Victor Ministries — and others.

CV falls under a broader umbrella called the Ransom Theory. In this understanding, the original sin of Adam and Eve placed all of humanity under subjugation to Satan. Christ, the second person of the Trinity, came to Earth and died, giving his life as a ransom for many.

At this point, CV may sound like the penal substitution model that many of us grew up with. But that’s where Aulén said we’re wrong. The early church did not understand the death of Christ as paying a penalty in some transactional sense that only God’s son could pay. The crucifixion is not, in that sense, cosmically necessary to reconcile God and humanity.

Instead, Christ’s death is God’s victory over sin and death. God conquers death by fully entering into it. God conquers Satan by using the very means employed by the Evil One.

Thus, the crucifixion is not a necessary transaction to appease a wrathful and justice-demanding deity, but an act of divine love.

God entered fully into the bondage of death, turned it inside out by making it a moment of victory, and thereby liberates humanity to live lives of love without the fear of death.

It’s a beautiful thing, the crucifixion, in this view. And, for those of us who are robustly trinitarian, it maintains an egalitarian view of the Trinity — one in which the Son and Spirit are not junior partners in the atonement.

The Filthy Jesus Experiment

I'm starting a band. A gospel band. A singing, hollering, foot stomping mess of a band that is taking the back-door to heaven through the drinking holes of hell. To raucous for the church we've been thrown out on the street to preach the lost gospel of down and out, love and laughter and a beer for everyone.

The band will be called "The Filthy Jesus Experiment" It will be gospel music like it was being played to a bar room of prostitutes, drunks and con-artists.

At the moment all I have is the seed of an idea but I'm excited I think it might have legs.

Tiny Houses, Minimalism and Junk

Lately I've been addicted to looking at tiny houses and reading about minimalism. I'm begging to feel weighed down by all my stuff.

For example, I have books on my shelf that I know I will never read again. Books like the beauty myth by naomi wolf (that i somewhat pretensiously used to give women as a 21st present). It was a great book a book that made me look at life in a new way but I will almost definitly not read again. But, I tell myself it "says something about me". It's a memory of something that was a turning point in my life. No one is going to walk out of my house saying "at first i thought you were a shovanist pig but then i had a look at your book shelf..." For what it's worth I may as well pass it on to someone and then photo copy the spine on to a packet soup box and stick that on my shelf.

And so it goes to other areas in the house. A jacket that I used to wear to work, not something I'll wear out but a good smart casual kind of look when you're wearing a shirt but not a tie.

Like the book I keep items like these because they might one day come in handy. Usually I think "I might be able to pass this onto someone one day". One day when Libraries no longer exist and when opshops won't exist. Opshops were me and a hundred other poeple have donated jackets like mine.

After a fairly sizeable cull of stuff about 6 months ago. I'm looking at stuff that I thought then was to valuable to just give away or sell. But it's just stuff taking up space. Stuff that reflects who I am as a person. Which is great if I'm not around or if I'm likely to forget who I am. But that's not going to happen.

Down With Materialism

Picture this... a picture of a green V8 4WD with biggest engine ever built. With the slogan "lets all go green"

Or perhaps, a man in office with deodorant on his desk and a bevy of scantily dressed female secretaries around him. With the slogan "for men who'd like a bit more sexism in the work place"

Or finally, simply an array of products made out of material (all imported from countries with labour laws far less stricter than ours) all on special with the slogan "down with materialism".

This last scenario is actually a real ad from Ikea. I can only assume that makers of the add were so convinced that the overwhelming majority of readers are so addicted to materialism that no one would complain let alone be offended (unlike the other scenarios). The add is now quite old so the ad makers were right. Our collective desire to to buy and own more and more and more stuff is not even up for debate. In a finite world with a growing population I just can't help that for people like me (in the richest 10% of the world) that's nothing short of insanely selfish to not be thinking about how me might curb our materialism.

The Worst Kind Of Blog

The blogs I find most irritating are the ones that are updated sporadically. Sometimes it's every second day and then sometimes there are months between posts. This Blog is one of those blogs. If you would like to avoid both missing posts and regularly checking a site that hasn't been updated you can follow me on twitter @churchlessfaith, subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe to get an email every time I post something new (you will not get an email about anything else).

Hanging The Washing Out Like A Real Man

From John Piper to Mark Driscoll there has been a bit of buzz of late about gender and God. Rachel Held Evans put out a call for blokes to respond to these (particularly John Piper's) views so I thought I'd add my voice to the growing throng. I've written some things in the past about my view about what the Bible says about gender here.

However, to be honest, beyond the whole biblical exegesis I just don't get the whole gender divide thing. Rather than thinking Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars I've always been inclined to think Women are from Earth and men are from Earth. People are different from each other and in any close intense relationship (like a marriage) those differences will become really obvious really quickly. Although I haven't asked, I'm going to bet that homosexual couples experience the same amount of difficulties and communication problems as a heterosexual couples does.

To be fair I'm not a typical bloke. I stay at home while the wife works. I've always done the sewing for the family, I now cook, clean and do all the domestic chores. My wife (like many husbands) is a better cook than me but I look after the washing much better than she ever did. I am generally more patient with the kids but hopeless at noticing mess around the house. At parties I'd hang out with the mums and talk about the kids rather than hang out with the dads and talk about sport or work (I did this even when I was working). When I hear some off the things the playgroup mums complain about things their husbands do they are often things that my wife does as well (although I prefer not to divulge my wife's faults - which are going to be far fewer than mine anyway). Things like not knowing where a particular item is kept although I've told her half a dozen times. These are really just a product of me being at home all the time and her being at home a heck of a lot less. At no point have I thought of myself as less male even though I don't have all the stereotypically manly traits.

Similarly, when the biblical writers attribute God with male traits I tend to think of them just as traits that happen to stereotypically belong to a male or in some passages traits that stereotypically belong to a female. I don't think of God being Jewish and therefore look down on anyone who is not Jewish. I don't think of God as free and therefore look down on people who are slaves. Although it'd be easy to pull out verses describing God as Jewish or free there is no point where we would think of God as not being able to engage with gentiles or slaves equally. Or that these categories would make these people so different that they should have different roles in the church community or there should be some kind of hierarchy when they relate to each other. No, in Jesus there is no Jew, etc...

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28)

Valley Songs - Compiled

It's been about four years since I started collecting "Valley Songs" - the kind of church songs I like to sing and usually the antithesis of "Hillsong" songs. Well now they are all neatly sorted on their very own pages. Most have you tube videos attached as well as lyrics and guitar chords and, the occasional song has guitar tabs too. 

Listed Below they are also one of the first things on the side bar too.

Valley Songs A-C
Valley Songs D-G
Valley Songs H-I
Valley Songs J-N
Valley Songs O-R
Valley Songs S
Valley Songs T-Z
 

Enjoy, and please let me know if you ever use any of them.

Rest And Skipping Church

Yesterday we skipped church again. Why? "It" just doesn't seem to fit with our family and "It" is placing too many demands on us.

The only problem with the above statement is that "It" does not refer to the church we hang out with. Rather "It" is the culture that we live in. My wife is out the door by 7:30 and back home around 6. Although it'll be later over the next three nights with after hours meetings. She's a teacher and a really good dedicated one. Now I know that plenty of people work similar ridiculous hours, that really, is the point. My daughter is in year one does speech therapy, is creative, imaginative loves being outside and struggles to do school desk work (like, I suspect, many 5 year olds). My son has Autism and is supposed to be at school 5 days a fortnight and at a therapy Kindy two mornings a week (but because the nearest centre to us is an hour away the morning will last around 5.5 hours).  Me I'm a stay at home dad who's studying part time. The one thing that we all have in common is that at the end of the day and week we are all exhausted. And, we will be facing a weekend of birthday invitations for both kids, church, family to visit and friends to catch up with. On top of this is all the usual around the house projects we'd like to do. That's without any weekend team sports or similar activities.

Our family has one stay at home parent and just two kids, which is much easier than many, but I feel like I'm dragging our family from pillar to post with little opportunity to sit down and hang out or have our kids complain "Dad, I'm bored".

So, this year I have added a new activity to our hectic schedule. Rest. A morning an afternoon and a night of unplanned family hanging out time preferably all on the same day. So far (for two weekends) we've stuck to it and "Rest" is already written in the diary for the rest of the year. It means that when we get invited to too many things on a weekend we'll just have to decline. Yesterday, it was church that got the flick. Next time, I'm not sure. All I know is "rest" will not be leaving the diary. On the seventh day God did not get up early and set up to play music at church nor did God drag the family to a birthday party of a some child that God's child hardly plays with at school. God rested. This year whether it's Saturday or Sunday or a combination of both this year our family will rest.