sustain:if:able kiwi

Melbourne on mission

Monday afternoon I headed for Melbourne. I was keynote speaker at the Uniting Church Presbytery of Yarra annual ministers retreat, invited to speak for three sessions on mission.

• Mission today – a crash course on recent trends (culture, Spirit, Jesus, church) in non-Western mission and some implications
• Mission as fresh expressions – missio Dei, Luke 10:1-12 and how they might shape fresh expressions
• Leadership and mission – Mary and Elizabeth and how they might shape our imagination as leaders today

The first session was totally new, something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, to try and summarise trends in mission. So it was a fair bit of work, but a good excuse and it certainly helped in setting a mission framework for our discussions. (Although like all first times, the session lacked a bit of colour.)

The group were a good bunch – quiet, thoughtful, intelligent, diverse. In addition, the numbers and setting and sense of history with each other ensured some really excellent discussion. (And quite some interest in some of our mission training options.)

It proved a memorable trip. It started with the suggestion that I pick up a rental car, which made sense logically. But it did require driving in rush hour through a strange city and then 90 minutes drive into the country, to a fairly isolated retreat centre. It got dark, the night stormy and wet, blown branches strewn all over the roads, which got narrower and narrower. And the evening news that the ash cloud from the volcano in Chile had returned. And so my flight back was cancelled.

The result was an overnight delay and a missed Faculty meeting.

But some good time in casual conversation, which is always so valuable in helping me get my head in Australia.

mission really matters newsletter

Here is the 2nd edition (June 2011) of the mission really matters newsletter (an occasional communication from the Missiology stream at Uniting College intended to spark conversation, share resources and promote training). It includes an overview of mission progress in the last 6 months, some resources, comings and goings and upcoming events. If you want me to be on the e-mailing list, drop me a line.

study leave in UK?

I am wondering about taking 2 weeks of study leave in the UK, September 19-30.

I am due to give a conference paper (Emerging church 10 years on? a longitudinal study) at an Ecclesiology and Ethnography conference at Durham September 20-22. I am then due to input to Masters and D.Missiology students at Cliff College on Sept 27-28. So I’m looking for somewhere quiet to study (and walk) in the Northish of England in between.

I have a few thoughts (connect with Church Army Sheffield Centre or Lindisfarne), but thought I’d ask if there are any UK readers who might have suggestions.

Thoughts?

teaching Jesus today

“…Theologians are now primarily called to provide not a theoretical argument for Christianity’s plausibility, but an account of how Christianity can be part of the solution—rather than part of the problem—on matters that make a life-and-death difference to people, especially the poor and the oppressed. Kathryn Tanner, Kathryn. “Christian claims: how my mind has changed.” Christian Century 127, no. 4 (February 23, 2010), 40. 

This quote (hat tip Paul) haunts me, a call for those who teach, research and train leaders.

It was hugely important in the new VET Christology distance course I have been writing this semester and in my own thinking, including the Flinders University debate.

film review: Australian film Mad Bastards

A 500 word (monthly) film review by Steve Taylor (for Touchstone magazine). Film reviews of the most common contemporary films, each with a theological perspective, (over 60) back to 2005 can be found here.

Mad bastards
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

Mad Bastards begins as an Aussie version of Once were Warriors.

Flames flicker as thirteen year-old Bullet (played by Lucas Yeeda), tosses a homemade Molotov Cocktail onto a wooden verandah in outback Australia. Meanwhile Bullet’s absent father, Aboriginal man, (TJ as Dean Daley-Jones), is drinking and fighting his way through Australia’s urban decay.

To resolve the distance, Mad Bastards becomes road movie. Think Convoy, Easy Rider, Smokey and the Bandit. Or closer to Australia, Mad Max.

TJ hitches toward the vast expanse that is the Kimberley (an area of north west Australia twice the size of New Zealand), seeking his son Bullet, whom he abandoned at birth. A quest, both physical and metaphorical, in which the journey provides opportunities for redemption. Which for TJ will include facing the past, including his estranged wife (Nella as Ngaire Pigram), father-in-law (Greg Tait as local police officer Texas) and his indigenous culture.

What Mad Bastards lacks in polish, it gains in reality. Director (Brendan Fletcher) began with oral stories from indigenous people and uses mostly untrained local actors. It makes for some ham moments but in a manner similar to Mike Lee (Secrets and Lies) allows them to improvise, threading their own experiences through the script.

This is a real movie about a culture and a country on a journey. In the week of the movie’s release, one of the actors, Roxanne Williams, was convicted of murdering her partner in their Kimberley home. In the month of release, journalist Nicholas Rothwell wrote of “a crisis of grief … a spiritual collapse so deep it cannot be held back … as an entire culture, acting collectively, destroys itself. (Living hard, dying young in the Kimberley, The Australian)

Kiwi readers might find such social comment difficult to comprehend. Where Maori have a treaty and a common language, indigenous Australians are in fact many nations with no historic legal protection.

The movie skillfully weaves in two further journeys, one therapeutic, another musical. Local cop, Greg Tait, responds to the violence and societal breakdown by starting a local men’s group. Sausages are devoured and no-one talks until Greg leads the way, sharing of his own struggles to parent and protect.

The musical soundtrack is a winner, made for the movie by local band, The Pigram Brothers and Alex Lloyd. Part calypso, part roots, part saltwater love songs, the band appear as actors in the film, traveling through the Kimberley, playing their quirky original music. It offers another thread in the road movie tapestry, upbeat and gorgeous yet at some dissonance with the themes being explored.

Curiously, the answer in Mad Bastards is baptism. TJ is told that while he does not belong to this indigenous community, he is welcome to become part of their lives. The next scene occurs by a river, where an elder stands, tipping water over TJ’s bowed head.

So begins transformation, as hospitality is offered, brokenness is faced and grace received.

Can there be good without God? an honest atheist response

Last week I was in a team of Christian theists, debating a team of atheists at Flinders University. The question was Can there be good without God? (Here is what I said and here are some reflections on the nature of a debate).

I realised over the weekend that I probably left my conclusion at home.  Here it is, part of an Easter sermon from 2009 – from an article, written for the UK Independent newspaper, by a man called Matthew Parris.  Titled As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God.

The article tells the story, of how Matthew grew up in Africa, became a journalist, declared himself an atheist and became a well known gay rights activist.

In 2008, he was invited back to Africa by a charity.  This is what he wrote: 

“travelling in Malawi refreshed …[a]… belief … I’ve been trying to banish all my life …. an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God. Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced …. [that] In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.”

Parris goes on to say how he used to accept Christian involvement in Africa only because it was practical.  Shame about the God stuff, the wierd Christian beliefs in things like resurrection.

Because at least Christians were doing something practical and useful. Let them carry on because they care for sick and teach people to read and write.

But, says Parris, he can no longer avoid the facts.  When you travel across Africa, says Parris, you I’m quoting again.

“Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers …  but more open … It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. [Yet t]heir work was … influenced by a conception of man’s place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.

resourcing Trinity Sunday worship: creationary ideas

A creationary: a space to be creative with the lectionary. For more resources go here.

Thinking about Trinity Sunday this week and began hunting the blog archive

• From 2004, some thoughts on Trinity and mission
• Making friendship bracelets in worship as an act of participation in Triune God
• A piece of Trinitarian doodling here
• A Trinity takeaway, 3 art pics folded into a one piece make this at home accessory
• Rublevs icon as a childrens talk
• Sand drawing as worship in a public (beach) space

ophans hit by another Christchurch shake

With a long weekend here in South Australia, team Taylor hit the Barossa. Today found us wine tasting at Langmeil. Which included meeting the Orphan Bank Shiraz, which has an amazing story. Over 100 year old vines were due to be demolished for a sub-division. Enter Langmeil wines, who embarked on a project to save each one – each dug up and moved.

I used to be involved in transplanting young apricot trees. So I have some idea of what’s involved – the slow cutting of roots through the autumn and winter, the uprooting with as much soil as possible, the careful transporting, the hope that all the work yields new buds in spring.

It was a wonderful story. Yet like any metaphor, it has it’s downside. As we tasted, yet another series of earthquakes were hitting Christhchurch. No lives lost, but more damage, more buildings collapsing, more trauma, more schools closing. The photo here is of shops directly across from where we used to live.

As I drove home, I reflected on the metaphor of transplanting. Once planted, an essential step is the compacting of soil, pressing dirt down hard. The aim is to minimise root movement, aware that any shaking in the new soil makes it harder for roots to regrow and for transplanting to occur. For us, team Taylor, it feels like every quake gives not just Christchurch, but us a shake as well. It takes our hearts back to our city, opens us up to grieving friends and family. It makes our transplant so much harder.

I realise it feels indulgent to complain, when we at least on this side of the Tasman we are safe and dry. Indulgent or not, it still doesn’t change the fact that transplanting is hard work, and harder when the earth keeps shaking.

Please pray for Christchurch tonight.

my book of the month: The German Mujahid

The German Mujahid is beautifully written by Algerian author, Boualem Sansal.

Three of our globals more difficult conversations are engaged – the Holocaust, Islamic fundamentalism, and multi-culturalism in the West. The carrier of these conversations are two immigrant brothers, who discover that their father, brutally killed in his Algerian village by Islamic fundamentalists, was himself a SS officer at Auschwitz. The use of narrative, mixed with diary entries are used to explore the unfolding complexities of contemporary life and what it might mean to speak for peace in cultures of intolerance.

The writing is superb, a searing portrayal. The characters are believable, unfolding in their complexity. (If I was being critical, I’d comment on the male-centric nature of the book, in which the voices of woman are very much pushed to the margins.)

While this book leaves you worldly wiser, it also leaves you none the wiser as to how then to live in cultures of intolerance. The worlds of Hitler and Islam fundamentalism are penned so strongly, that any green shoots of resistance and hope simply struggle for life.

can there be good without God? some personal debate reflections

I have posted a few days ago my response in the Flinders debate – can there be good without God? I am still reflecting on some of the questions generated for me by the debate, which have kept me thinking and to which I want to pick up.

In the meantime, here are some general reflections.

1. The limitations of a debate. I find it difficult to simultaneously listen carefully and generate a response. So the temptation was to become flippant or search for a cheap soundbite to fill the air. Perhaps I’m a male (only do 1 thing at at time!) but it seems to me that the arguments of another deserve better and while a debate allows you to face the argument, I remain ambivalent about it’s potential to enable real dialogue.

2. It is hard to debate when you feel you are being caricatured. For example – when the multiple ways the church has understood atonement is reduced to “God kills his son”; when slavery in the Bible is equated to slavery in Africa; when the 39 books of the Old Testament, so diverse in genre and context, sacred to three religions, are reduced to “the angry God of the Old Testament.” But then perhaps I did the same to them – for example in my paragraph

“Do unto others alongside the “Darwinian” survival of the fittest of a Daniel Dennett. “Love your enemies” alongside Fran De Waal’s animal “empathy”. ”Greater love has no-one” alongside Sam Harris objective moral “wellbeing”

ie reducing three authors to a soundbite. Hence my 3rd point…

3. Are some ideas better engaged on paper than on a platform. For me, one of the most helpful resources in thinking through good and God was Miroslav Volf. His book Exclusion & Embrace is a reflection on justice, from a man who grew up in the Balkans, including the experience of torture. It is a close and critical read of leaders in modern and post-modern intellectual debate. Yet when I returned to it in preparation, I found it almost impossible to reduce to a few minutes. I might not be skilled enough. Or is that some discussion is simply better on paper than on a platform?

4. About 80 attended the debate. At the end, someone mentioned that their neighbour was one of 2000 attending a local pyschic fare that same weekend. An irony perhaps, a smallish crowd at a University arguing ideas, while many more in our culture are very comfortable with the idea that there is more to life than facts and intellectual debate?

once was lost but now am found: an ode to ecumenism

Confessions of a lost blue cup

Last week, I got lost. Someone kindly took me from Catholic World, transported me to Kitchen World and washed me.

Then, sadly, strangely, I was placed in a (Kitchen world) cupboard!

I wept for my owner in Catholic World. Alas, she heard me not.

Later, someone else opened the cupboard in Kitchen World. Seeing my attractive blue colouring, having no knowledge of my rightful owner, seeing no marks of possession on my pretty blue bottom, they filled me with coffee and took me to a new place, the broad and spacious halls of Uniting World.

Later, a third person collected me from a desk in Uniting World. Dirty, they decided to take me to Kitchen World. Suddenly a door in Catholic world opened. A cry was heard, “That’s our cup.”

Immediately, promptly, I was returned to Catholic world. I was lost (not stolen by Steve Taylor).

But now am found.

(For another ode to ecumenism, see I am a stealer of Catholic bread).

can there be good without God? here’s what I said

On Tuesday I was part of a team of 3, debating a team of 3 atheists, at Flinders University, between 3 -5 pm. According to one promotional flyer, “Come and watch a fantastic exchange on one of the most important questions ..The Atheist Foundation of Australia will be debating some of the State’s finest Christian thinkers.” (Finest! LOL)

Each side had 10 minutes per speaker. Each side was then invited to ask one question per speaker. General questions were then invited for 45 minutes, followed by closing arguments of 10 minutes maximum. Here’s what I said in my 10 minutes. Tomorrow I’ll post a few post-debate reflections.

Can there be good without God? My interest is ethical. How should we live if God is good; How would we live if good and God are separated? (more…)

If you’re a Christian and you support violence, you need to find a new name for yourself

Some great soundbites:

• If you’re a Christian and you support violence, you need to find a new name for yourself.
• Ghandi is so Christian he’s a Hindu.
• It’s in the book you hold when you yell at gay people.
• Nonviolence is Jesus trademark.
• It’s like joining greenpeace and hating whales.

Can there be good without God?

Tomorrow I am at Flinders University, in a team of Christians debating a team from the atheist Foundation. The topic – Can there be good without God? The other team are flying in from interstate (is this Atheist foundation taking prosletyzing seriously), and the largest lecture theatre on campus has been booked. I’m still not quite sure how I got involved, and I have grave misgivings about the forum of a debate to do much more than allow sloganeering.

But for the sake of taking a risk, tonight I will probably be up late reading (Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace, Rodney Stark, Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief, David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies) and thinking.

And who knows what tomorrow will bring?