For the last 50 years or so, H Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture has dominated most Christian thinking on the relationship between Christ and culture. Scott Newling examines two books which seek to break away from this paradigm.
Culture Matters: A Call for Consensus on Christian Cultural Engagement (more…)
It’s official: it’s appeared in the secular media, so it must be so. Australian Christians are struggling to read their Bibles. Here are some of the less than encouraging statistics reported in a recent article in The Sydney Morning Herald:
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Over the last year or so, my husband Dave and I have been thinking about the connection between evangelism and hospitality. We’ve become more convinced that while evangelistic events and other strategies have their place, they can’t be a substitute for real relationships with non-Christian friends. And hospitality seems to us to be a key part of creating and maintaining those relationships. (more…)
The Higher School Certificate (HSC) is a strange beast: apparently it is the biggest test you will ever face in your life. Whoever got that rumour going among the high schools has obviously never tried to understand a mobile phone contract. But the rumour lives on, and it can be used to generate pressure on the students—sometimes a pressure that is too great for them to bear. It is sad to see such high hopes placed upon an exam. It is even sadder to see those high hopes end in tragedy.
One of my favourite movies of all time is Finding Nemo. Okay, so I’ve got kids, and it goes without saying. But there is one moment in the film that causes many knowing chuckles in my household: it is when Dory turns to Marlin and says, “What is it with men and asking for directions?” Apparently, so I’ve been told told, it is possible for me to be like this on occasions. Who would have thought?
Last millennium, I got ordained as an Anglican minister, and Jean Penman, wife of Archbishop David Penman of Melbourne, presented each of my group of candidates for ordination with a copy of John Stott’s excellent book I Believe in Preaching. David had died suddenly, but the note from Jean said that David had originally intended to present this book himself. It was a great idea to have a book entitled I Believe in Preaching, especially as, quite frankly, most of us didn’t—including the leaders of the silent retreat that all the ordination candidates were invited to attend.
It is good sometimes to know that there is nothing new under the sun. The issues of risk and reward, sense and abandon, have always been with us. And God has always been asking us the hard questions. Here is a word from 1999 (Briefing #235) that could well have been written for this week. (Actually, it’s a word from about 30 AD that could have been written for this week!)
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Well, after a rather sluggish start, the other Sola Panellists seem to have gotten on board the credit crunch boat (and, in fact, Lionel stole the content of one of my intended posts—grrrrr!) So I am not sure how much further to push this topic. However, given that it was my idea in the first place, and that Peter is up to #4 while I am only up to #3, I am going to continue with my present set of ramblings about a Christian response to the credit crunch.
Okay, so they were quick to jump on his mathematical ability, but, despite the little thanks Russell Crowe received, his Aussie fans know that he almost solved America’s financial crisis for them.
For our regular blast from the past this week, I couldn’t go past the words of Brian Rosner in his book Beyond Greed (also printed in Briefing #250).
I was reading a poem recently by Gwen Harwood that went like this:
In the Park
She sits in the park. Her clothes are out of date.
Two children whine and bicker, tug her skirt.
A third draws aimless patterns in the dirt.
Someone she loved once passes by—too late
Last time I wrote, things looked bad. On Friday they hit rock bottom. The major governments of the world have ridden in like knights in shining armour, and Monday saw the biggest one-day bump in shares on Wall Street since 1939. However, I don’t think the problem is quite at an end yet. The reality is that the whole nature of the economy has changed. Big questions are being asked about about the fundamental viability of the ‘free market’ and, like it or not, in many parts of the western world we have just nationalized significant parts of the banking system. It is still a moment for Christians to be speaking about the obvious failure of the ‘gods’ of the modern world.
The world is falling apart. The Australian Federal reserve has slashed interest rates by one percent—the biggest official cut in interest rates in 16 years—in order to try and protect the economy from the ravages of ‘slowing growth’. The US Government is injecting $700 billion dollars into the markets, and has propped up failed bank after failed bank. European car makers are slowing or halting production. France, Ireland and Britain are headed towards (or are already in) recession. And despite the hasty assurances of key Australian politicians, it appears that Australia’s future may well be no better.
Principalities and powers: the controllers of our destinies—forces beyond ourselves.
But how ‘beyond’ ourselves are they really? And what is the ‘ourselves’ that they are beyond? The question of identity is a big one. The old ‘who am I?’ question has been around for as long as the human being. The question stays the same, but the answers appear to change, for better or for worse, in sickness …