Actually I remember why I’m doing it (so I can help the poor children overseas and the well off travellers here) but I’ve reached the point where I’m doing the last of the 5 compulsory core units in the Masters – the one I’ve been putting off since I withdrew from it in 2008 (the first and only time I’ve ever withdrawn from anything!).

My textbook arrived today and it is thick and scary and boring looking.

Many of the other students commenting on the “class blog” (it’s quite a technologically literate unit, but that’s about the only good thing I can say) seem unduly enthusiastic about what seems to me to be a boring unit, irrelevant to my current position and the rest of the content in my degree. The assessment structure is also confusing, and seems biased against those who are not working in this specific field, as it asks us to relate the subject to our own “organisation” – my organisation is me, a nurse, and a couple of secretaries. We don’t have policies for climate change or pollution or whatnot!

The good news for some is that there is no exam but I’ll admit I am quite partial to exams. Where there’s a clear idea of what information needs to be learned I’m quite happy to learn it, regurgitate it in an exam, and then store it away somewhere deep in the recessses of my mind. On reflection though, it probably is a good thing there’s no exam as there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of clear facts to be learned in this subject.

The real good news is that it will all be over by the end of October, after which I will only have one more unit before I finally become a Master. And that one’s an optional one, so I can try and pick something that’s actually interesting and cool to do in early 2011. Just need to struggle through the next 3 months first…

It’s hard to overestimate the radical change facebook (and twitter to a much lesser extent) with the increasing availability of mobile internet, has had on our lifestyles in the last couple of years. We communicate with, and are connected to people, in a fashion that is completely new. Who could have imagined this sort of thing even 5-10 years ago?

Amazing.

Social Networking Stats (click for large version)

Music

• Midlake – Trials of Van Occupanther. Good 70′s style folk/rock album
• Brian Johnson – Love Came Down. Acoustic style worship album including cello and hammered dulcimer Sweet stuff.
• Hillsong – A Beautiful Exchange. Their new album is more of the same. Solid stuff but few standouts.

Books

• Malazan series – Stephen Erikson. First fantasy series I’ve read in years and one of the best, if most dense, I’ve ever read. After 4 books now I am hooked, and finally starting to follow some of the detailed back-stories. The endings of books 2 and 3 were very emotionally intense. Epic, brilliant stuff.
• The Reformation – Diarmid MacCulloch. Who knew a thick history book could be such a page turner? I’m currently reading this book and am enjoying it immensely. Good to finally get some balanced, in-depth story of a crucial turning point in history.

Movies - here’s a few I watched on the plane and in cinema recently

• It Might get Loud. Jimmy Page, The Edge, Jack White. If you don’t know who those guys are or the difference between Gibsons and Fenders then don’t bother. If you do know these things then this film is a must watch… I like the White Stripes but Jack White is out of his league with these other 2 legends.
• Anvil! The Story of Anvil. Great doco about a washed up Canadian 80′s metal band.
• Toy Story 3 – incredible conclusion to the trilogy. One of the few trilogies that just keeps growing with each installment. I must admit I got a little emotional here. Don’t bother with the 3D though – I don’t think it adds anything to the movie.

Places

• London. It rocks! Great city with a wealth of things to see and do. Say no more.
• Cambridge. If you ever get the chance to visit this University city then I highly recommend it. I was surprised just how much I loved this place. Heaps of brilliant architecture, quiet places to sit and reflect, and plenty of activities to take part in. Highlights include King’s College, Queens’ College and punting on the River Cam. Great place!
• Warnbro Church. Great vibe at present. Exciting times!

Shocking news. I used to walk past this Ethiopian Restaurant almost every day the first time I was in Uganda. It was very close to the guesthouse we stayed in. In fact in recent months as we became more interested in Ethiopia I often thought about that Restaurant and wished I had had dinner there…

News of terrorist attacks like this is always sad and disturbing, but this time for me it’s a little more so as I know the place

And thus far I’m impressed. I love the folders feature, although it took me a while dragging app icons around on my phone to get it all organized. Now I can get to all my apps so much faster, without swiping through pages and pages of icons. And I can also download heaps more apps to play around with. Yay!

One weird thing is that I’ve downloaded the iBooks software onto my iPhone, but can’t find the App icon anywhere. I can load the app by searching for iBooks on the search screen, but the icon is nowhere to be seen (and I looked in all my folders several times!). Weird and annoying.

I like the customisable backgrounds, little GPS icon and the new location services screen. Multitasking seems quite functional, and there is no hit in terms of performance, although I haven’t really pushed it too far just yet. In fact the whole phone feels considerably more zippy than with OS3.

For a good detailed rundown on iOS4, see this article from Gizmodo.

In other Apple related news, the Perth Apple Store opens this Saturday. Look forward to checking it out, but I’m afraid it will have to wait til I get back from my UK trip (leave next Monday).

I won’t comment much on the politics or policies discussed, but I’ll give my impressions of how the 2 leaders came across.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (Labor) was no surprise – he’s a smooth speaker although uninspiring and a little sleep inducing. Although this was a faith based forum and ostensibly Rudd was speaking to issues of faith, he didn’t really engage with the issues from a Christian or religious perspective. Rather he just used this as a brief hook into trumpeting his party’s policies and their particular version of recent political and economic history. We learnt nothing new about Kevin today, and nothing he said changed my opinion of him any further than it has already altered over the last 3 years.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott (Liberal) came into this (as he will the election proper) as a bit of a dark horse in my mind. I’ve never really seen him speak for any length of time, only in sound bites. The question will be if he can rise above the sound bites and convince the public of his qualities as a leader and as a person. Based on tonight, I think he needs to work on his oratory. His delivery was not great to start off with, a bit stilted, although he did get a lot better as he warmed up. I thought he engaged his specific audience of Christians a lot better than Rudd. He quoted scripture and dwelled more extensively on what it means to be a Christian in politics. This formed a much larger section of his speech in contrast to Rudd’s litany of policies (although he did get to that eventually). Abbott at least talked about his own Christian faith (including references to him as ‘The Mad Monk’) which Rudd failed to do. Abbott answered the questions in most cases just as clearly, and often more succinctly, than Rudd. However he failed to convince in his answer to the climate change question – I don’t think climate scepticism is going to win votes – he really needs to jettison this kind of equivocating language, even while he advocates a policy that may be less economically risky/or damaging.  But I said I wasn’t going to comment too much on the policies so I’ll leave it at that (just take the hint Tony – scepticism is not a vote winner).

I think Abbott had more to lose and gain from this evening. Rudd played it safe, showed us nothing new, and perhaps just further clarified people’s already formed (or forming) opinions of him. Abbott at this stage reminds me of one of the contestants in the early stages of Australian Idol – he’s got interesting potential, still seems a little awkward on the big stage and needs some coaching to hone his performance. He hit a few good notes and seemed to play to this specific audience better than the cut-n-paste speech of Rudd (change a few paragraphs and he could have made it to the athiests convention) but he also faltered at times. We’ll just have to wait and see how he goes in the final rounds and if he polishes his performance sufficiently to beat Rudd (or perhaps the wildcard contestant Julia Gillard – somehow I can’t even imagine her addressing a gathering like this?)

Very interesting weeks and months ahead in this country…

One disappointing note though – the questions did not give sufficient focus to global poverty. Really who cares about the Lord’s Prayer being said in Parliament or even the definition of marriage when billions of people are starving and dying from preventable diseases? I don’t want to say these issues aren’t important but surely they pale into insignificance compared to the level of suffering on a global scale? Poverty was tacked on to the end of the climate change question and neither candidate really addressed it (although Rudd at least did give foreign aid a brief mention in his speech). If only our developed world, our leaders, our churches, our people would wake up to this issue rather than blissfully ignoring it 99.9% of the time. Very sad that this wasn’t emphasized.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Stop asking God to bless what you are doing. Find out what God is already doing, cause it’s already blessed.”

I’m just going to quickly run through the final chapters of this book, and my brief impressions.

16. The Church – fairly solid ground here. McLaren sees the Church as school of Christlike love. We need to be Spirit saturated people who’s focus is on love. No major problems there.

17. Sexuality – Brian correctly points out that there are much bigger threats to marriage and family than gay people, and he sees this issue as a distracting scapegoat, blown far out of proportion. No arguments from me there.  Whether you buy in to his generally pro-gay bias will depend in general as to whether you come into this chapter already sympathetic to his hermeneutic and to gay-rights in general. Brian writes nothing here that will effectively convince anyone who is staunchly in the opposite camp, and many of those will consider this a shark-jumping point. Personally I understand his POV and where he’s coming from, and this chapter, although weak, is not a shark jump for me.

18. Eschatology – once again I come into this chapter already sympathetic to McLaren’s critique of premillenial dispensationalist theology and its’ influence on politics and society. However once again Brian will not here convince anyone who holds strongly to this sort of belief system. The alternative he sketches is hard to get a grip on and he is very close to that shark when he minimizes the second coming of Christ. For a much better treatment of this issue see N T Wright’s Surprised by Hope. I do like his little look at the book of Jonah though, which I’ve been thinking about a bit recently.

19. Pluralism – this chapter will possibly be crunch time for a lot of readers. McLaren rightly acknowledges all the harm done by Christians towards those of other religions (or other brands of Christianity) through the ages. He then races through a series of universalistic passages in both the Old and New Testaments. And then he comes back to his old chestnut of the “Greco-Roman mind” which by now I am getting a bit tired of and don’t think is as all-pervasive as he makes out. McLaren’s analysis of John 14 is interesting and makes some sense. I don’t strongly disagree with most of this chapter but I feel McLaren minimizes the uniqueness and singularity of Christ (and His church) in God’s plan for humanity. For many (perhaps the majority) of readers McLaren is flying over that shark at this point in the book. I am inclined to be a bit more generous but I’d still suggest (if I’m allowed to mix metaphors) that he is on thin ice. We do need a new kind of Christianity, but it still needs to be one where Christ is at the centre of God’s plan for creation, and where the church is the primary ongoing agent of that plan. I think Brian would probably agree with that, but he’s just not explicit enough about it – due perhaps to his (valid, but excessive) fears of offending others; or maybe it’s just his “temperamental preference for understating rather than overstating” (p 225) – I wish at some points he’d get over that!

20-22. What do we do now? – no major doctrinal controversies here, but I found myself getting cheesed off with Brian’s presentation of  himself (and his compadres) as the new Martin Luther. He uses a silly rainbow coloured illustration to discuss stages of maturation of the Christian faith, and advises against looking down or being condescending towards previous stages, whilst all the while seeming to do just that (at least that’s how it felt to me). He did improve in the final chapter where he gives practical advice to those who are pondering similar questions; how they should manage in their current churches/situations. Pretty sensible, practical stuff.

CONCLUSION

I’m getting a bit tired of all this now so I’ll be quick and blunt. The answer to whether or not Brian McLaren has jumped the shark here depends on the perspective of the reader. I realise that’s a very postmodern kind of answer but it’s true. If you are new to his work or to this whole “emerging” conversation (I think they don’t like that term anymore but I don’t have a clue what the new one is) or are coming in with preconceptions about what you expect, then you will most likely find McLaren to be quite scandalous and liberal and even difficult to follow – and I respect and understand that view. Bt for someone (like me) who’s been following Brian’s books and his journey over the last 10 years or so will not find anything too surprising or shocking here. I don’t have any major arguments of substance with this book (although I’m really not a fan of this Greco-Roman box he wants to lump most of Christianity into), my issues are more of style and attitude. I think Brian is preaching to the choir here; and I don’t think that choir is as large as he imagines. For Brian to connect with a larger Christian audience he needs to tread a bit more softly, celebrate and affirm our faith as God’s primary plan for humanity (not just one religion among many), and add a healthy dose of humility.

If we go back to the TV metaphor of jumping the shark, it’s the point at which the show’s decline begins. And that’s a diagnosis that can only be made in retrospect. I think maybe this could represent that point for McLaren (or maybe he reached it 2 or 3 books ago)… but I guess only time will tell if he drifts further and further away from evangelical Christianity, or if somehow he can bring it back and recapture the magic of his early books and achieve a broader, more valuable influence. I continue to watch with interest.

PS : can someone buy me one of these??

How awesome is that!

New Xbox-360 with Kinect

Perhaps most importantly, in this release they have fixed what I have always thought was the Xbox-360′s biggest flaw – no inbuilt WiFi. In an increasingly online world where people are wanting to play online, download demos, purchase games and content Microsoft have been shooting themselves in the foot by not providing an easy and instant way for users to connect their console to the internet either requiring an ethernet connection (which most people don’t have in their living rooms) or the purchase of a separate WiFi dongle. It’s been a real shame too, because Microsoft’s X-box Live in my opinion is a cleaner and easier to navigate environment than the PS3. Glad they’ve finally rectified this huge problem by including inbuilt WiFi.

Only main things I would have liked to have seen are user changeable generic hard-drives and inclusion of a Blu-ray drive. It is in this last area in particular that the Sony PS3 has any clear benefit over the Xbox. If Microsoft could have changed that then they would given themselves a big advantage.

See the post here at Engadget for more info…

He then goes on to look at the book of Romans. He views it as not being a systematic theology text but rather a letter to a mixed Jewish/Gentile church to foster unity in belief and practice, following in the steps of N T Wright and others. I’m already convinced on this point, however I don’t feel he gives Paul enough credit as a serious and structured thinker. McLaren seems to view Romans as a loosely dictated letter expressing his thoughts and feelings in a circuitous fashion. I disagree with this – Romans is a carefully thought-out and ordered treatise, just not in the linear fashion our Western minds can easily get a grip on, and with the goal discussed above rather than to expound a systematic theology of the gospel. See any of Wright’s work on Romans for a much better view of this.

Having said all that, in Chapter 15, Brian takes us on a quick fly through Romans which I found quiet clear and dare I say, systematic. Maybe I haven’t got my head totally around what these “re-readings” of Romans mean, but to me it still leaves us with the same result as before – a brilliant summation of the gospel that unifies Jews and Gentiles through faith in Jesus Christ. I do like the way McLaren and Wright and others dress it up, but it’s still the same old Romans underneath.

This brings us to the close of the first half of Brian’s book. No shark jumping yet.. but more treacherous waters potentially to come..

I’ve posted some of their tracks before, but here’s a couple more from their second to last album “Your Love Never Fails” The first is the title track, that I just cannot stop listening to. The second features the brilliant vocals of Kim Walker – especially in the second half it is phenomenal. I love the semi-goofy stage presence she has also, like she’s just worshipping God in her own way, not trying to impress others. Listen out for her laugh in there too… I love that song but somehow the lyrics of the second verse still seem a little inappropriate but judge for yourself. Regardless, I am hooked on this band at the moment. Just wish we could introduce new songs a little faster at church – there’s just so much I would love for us to do!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more, browse YouTube, check out their website, or even better, get hold of some of their CDs for yourself. Brilliant!

The next sections in the book (chapters 10 – 13) discuss God and Jesus, and their portrayal in the Bible. McLaren discusses an (for want of a better, and less loaded word) evolutionary understanding of God. As humankind moves through different developmental stages we view God in “developmentally appropriate” ways. McLaren continues with his sacred library view of the Bible and likens it to a collection of maths textbooks from the second grade up to college level. Just as second grader would understand the concept of negative numbers differently to a high school student, so humans have progressed in their understanding of God, and the library that is the Bible shows this progression. A very interesting metaphor and a concept worth pondering…

In the subsequent chapters Brian puts Jesus right where he belongs in the centre of his worldview. A couple of quotes are illustrative :

“God’s character is never revealed fully at any single point in the story, nor can it be contained simply in any list of propositions or adjectives derived from the stories of the past. Instead we can only discern God’s character in a mature way from the vantage point of the end of the story, seen in the light of the story of Jesus.” (p 114)

“for Christians, the Bible’s highest value is in revealing Jesus, who gives us the highest, deepest, and most mature view of the character of the living God.”  (p 115) (see also Col 1:15-20 John 1)

In the following chapter Brian acknowledges that we have constructed many different Jesuses and then goes on to give a valuable counter-cultural interpretation of Revelation. He finally gives a very brief sketch of what he believes to be the real Jesus, and it’s a vision I share – I just don’t feel that he gives enough space to fleshing out this sketch and why he believes it is right (see Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God or any other of his Jesus related books for better work in this department). Having said that, the following chapter where McLaren looks at Jesus in the Gospel of John, drawing out the aforementioned OT themes from Genesis, Exodus, and beyond, is very good indeed. A fine rebuttal against the Jesus who came for the singular reason of saving people from hell.

In these latter chapters when he discusses Jesus Brian isn’t getting extremely controversial, although some readers will find his discussion of the progressive revelation of the character of God through the Bible (with it’s ultimate clear vision in Jesus) to be disturbing. I can certainly see that it would take quite a profound shift for some people to come around to this way of thinking, however for me at least I find this line of thought quite intriguing… no shark jumping yet.

Just got this today after pre-ordering it a few weeks ago. Looks like a beauty!

It includes

• Bluray concert disc
• DVD concert disc
• DVD Bonus features
• 7″ single
• 32 page hardback book
• Tour program
• Stage design poster
• Guitar picks

Can’t wait to put this Blu-ray on! First U2 concert ever released in high definition. Hopefully this will tide me over until U2 finally grace our distant shores sometime in 2011 (as long as Bono has recovered from his back injury by then).

Queue AC/DC ‘Back in Black’ video here… but as I can’t access YouTube I’ll have to leave it to your imagination… or may some kind of Weird Al style parody – ‘Back in Blog’…

PS – another frustration with this place is the mobile service is appalling – phone drops out all the time – so if any of my friends ever need to contact me in a hurry you should simply email me or (if desperate) call the reception here.

But now we begin to cruise into potentially more treacherous waters as Brian starts looking at the Bible itself – how we read it and in what way is it authoritative for us today.

He starts off in chapter 7 by expressing his personal deep love of the Bible, before discussing some of the ways in which Christians have abused the scriptures over the years – from using it as a science textbook (the examples he gives are the faulty condemnation of Galileo, Darwin, and modern psychiatry), an ethical rule book, and as a justification for all sorts of violence and injustice. He then gives a detailed example of how the Bible was used to justify slavery before and during the American Civil War.

“In case after case in the past, there is a kind of Bible-quoting intoxication under the nfluence of which we religious people lose the ability to distinguish between what God says and what we say God says.” (p70)

In the next chapter McLaren looks at how Christians today tend to view and use the Bible, with a predominant approach being to read and use it like a legal constitution. This approach lends itself to a variety of misuses and abuses. McLaren proposes an alternate way of viewing the Bible :

“So whatever the Bible is, it is simply not a constitution. I would like to propose that it is something far more interesting and important: it’s the library of a culture and community – the culture and community of people who trace their history back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (p 81)

McLaren’s position is that a culture is defined in many ways by the questions it asks and argues about, and the library that we have been given in the Bible is our resource to wrestle with the most important theological questions. In the following chapter Brian looks at the book of Job and contrasts his approach with a (rather caricatured ) constitutional approach. He makes the important point that sola scriptura just doesn’t seem to work if the Bible is viewed in this constitutional fashion. How many differing interpretations, denominational splits and worse have we seen since the Reformation?

“Does the Bible alone provide enough clarity to resolve all questions, as a good constitution should? No. We have no reason to believe it was ever meant to do that, as much as we’ve tried to force it to do so. From all sides it becomes clear that the Bible, if it is truly inspired by God, wasn’t meant to end conversation and give the final word on controversies. If this were it’s purpose, it has failed miserably. (This fact must be faced) But if, instead, it was inspired and intended to stimulate conversation, to keep people thinking and talking and arguing and seeking, across continents and centuries, it has succeeded and is succeeding in a truly remarkable way.”  (p92)

I won’t go on because it’s hard to summarise what Brian is saying without regurgitating the whole chapter, but ultimately he presents us with a Bible that leads us to an encounter and experiencing of the living God. This is where he finishes up :

“This approach, if you haven’t realized it yet, defies both conservative and liberal categories…But here’s what I hope: that this approach will not try to put us under the text, as conservatives tend to do, or to lift us over it, as liberals often seem to do. Instead, I hope it will try to put us in the text—in the conversation, in the story, in the current and flow, in the predicament, in the Spirit, in the community of people who keep bumping into the living God in the midst of their experiences of loving God, betraying God, losing God, and being found again by God. In this way, by placing us in the text, I hope this approach can help us enter and abide in the presence, love, and reverence of the living God all the days of our lives and in God’s mission as humble, wholehearted servants day by day and moment by moment. Even now.” (p 96-97)

I’m sure many will not agree with McLaren’s approach, and he acknowledges as much in the text, but it does seem to be a useful way of thinking about the Bible, albeit possibly unsatisfying to our modern minds. Some may say he’s already become the shark’s breakfast, but from my perspective McLaren is far from jumping just yet.

As I wrote this post, this song by Bruce Cockburn came on my iPod, which seemed kind of appropriate :

Click here to view the embedded video.

I read the Bible often
I try to read it right
As far as I can understand
It’s nothing but a burning light

Tom Wright: message to the next generation from krish kandiah on Vimeo.

.

The following 2 chapters are where McLaren sketches the alternative to the Greco-Roman framework, which he casts as an authentic Jewish way of reading the Bible, beginning with the creation narratives and moving on. He sketches the narrative of the Old Testament in 3 broad sweeps. Firstly the book of Genesis sets the foundation an serves as a kind of prequel (McLaren likens it to Star Wars Episode I or The Hobbit – good analogies!) to the main story which begins in Exodus. Genesis is a story of sacred creation and reconciliation where humanity begins a journey of maturation within God’s good creation but with each stage of “human progress” new opportunities for evil and injustice arise. He talks of a simultaneous ascent of humans from hunter/gatherers – nomads – city dwellers – empire builders while at the same time there is a descent away from innocence into new depths of depravity. Throughout this process, in the stories of Adam, Cain, Noah, Babel, Abraham, Joseph etc God is active. This is great stuff. One of the clearest expositions of this narrative theology I have seen. Here’s a few bits I underlined :

“In this world there is not one isolated moment of ontological shift from state to story: it’s all story from beginning to end, and likely before and after as well. God doesn’t respond to a loss of perfect status with a furious promise of eternal condemnation, damnation and destructions. God doesn’t pronounce the perfect state ruined and the planet destined for geocide. The experiment is not a failure.” (p48-49)

“This is a classic coming-of-age story, filled with ambivalence – a childhood lost, an adulthood gained. So the human journey can be equally seen as a tragic descent into evil, in increasing complexity and severity. Each step of socioeconomic and technological ascent thus makes possible new depths of moral evil and social injustice.” (p51)

“God refuses to let evil go unchallenged, then then God acts with surprising Mercy”. (p52)

“Finally, after eleven chapters, this repeated pattern of human stupidity and divine fidelity opens into something new: God calls Abraham and Sarah an imues them with a new identity as the father and mother of a nation  who will be blessed in order to bring blessing to all nations. It is absolutely essential to notice what God is doing: not damning and rejecting all nations and exempting one from damnation, not hating all nations and loving one, not privileging one superior nation to conquer and rule all others, but blessing all nations through one, choosing one to bring benefit to all.” (p53)

“God is faithful to Joseph, and through Joseph God is gracious to Egypt, and through Joseph God is even gracious to Joseph’s wicked, Cain-like brothers. Joseph is blessed not to the exclusion of anyone, but for the blessing of everyone. Blessing triumphs. Goodness triumphs. God triumphs.” (p54)

In the following chapter McLaren then looks at how the narrative develops through Exodus – God challenging evil in it’s systemic and personal dimensions, and providing liberation. The third element in the narrative is the hope of the “peaceable kingdom” – a dream of peace and justice which flowers briefly in the united kingdom of David and Solomon, and later is expressed in the longing hope of the prophets. McLaren is careful to emphasize that this hope is not simply one of a distant future, but one relevant to the here and now :

“If we are people who live in the Genesis narrative of creation and reconciliation and the Exodus narrative of liberation and formation, what if we were to receive these images as a vision of the kind of future toward which God is inviting us in history? What if we saw them less as an eternal destination beyond history and more as a guiding star within it, less as a literal description and prediction and more as a poetic promise and hope, less as a doctrine to be debated and more as an unquenchable dream that inspires us to unceasing constructive action? What if we saw them as a good future unfolding in time, not a perfect state beyond time?” (p62)

Great stuff, and McLaren continues with more about the hope that is held out in the Old Testament. I could quote plenty more brilliant passages that stood out to me if I had the time. So far, McLaren’s portrayal of the Biblical narrative of God and his people is compelling and inspiring, but it lacks one key ingredient : Jesus. I’m sure he will get to that later in his book and I’ll be interested to see the place McLaren gives to Jesus Christ in the schema. And that will be one of the key features which determines whether or not McLaren is jumping the shark, but thus far he remains on pretty solid ground as far as I’m concerned.

I’ll admit Brian McLaren has been somewhat of a hero of mine. Reading his books earlier this decade was very illuminating and inspiring. Here was a guy who was willing to think intelligently through issues, ask difficult questions and not simply respond with pat answers. Often he responded with no answers at all, just further questions. This was a guy who was generous in his orthodoxy (to steal from the title of one of his better books) – he was willing to embrace the good in all the varied versions of Christianity out there whilst still retaining  solid orthodox beliefs at the core of his faith. It was through Brian that I have been introduced to others who have become key influences of mine  - people like Scot McKnight, Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson, Bruce Cockburn, and especially N T Wright. His “A New Kind of Christian” trilogy of ‘fiction’ I still rate very highly. I enjoyed listening to his sermon podcasts from Cedar Ridge Church a few years back.

But since the early 2000′s, especially since he left Pastoral ministry, Brian’s writings have left me less inspired and more disturbed. He seems to be getting less “generous” in his attitude to run-of-the-mill evangelical Christianity, more and more condescending towards the majority of Christians, and more and more embracing of alternative faiths. And while I generally don’t disagree with him on  many of these issues, and resonate with his politics and his critiques (especially of the more right wing fundamentalist wing of American evangelicalism), I have found myself more and more irritated with his negative tone towards Christians and his excessive fawning towards other faiths.

SO now comes a moment of truth as I’ve started reading McLaren’s latest book “A New Kind of Christianity.” This is a book that has attracted quite a lot of criticism from what I’ve seen on the net, even from some who have previously been in Brian’s camp. Reading this book will tell me if McLaren has finally jumped the shark or not….

Click here to view the embedded video.

Introduction

Thus far I’ve read the first 30 pages and have not found anything that has seriously bothered me. I couldn’t help being a little bit bothered reading McLaren’s little bio, detailing his faith journey and how he wound up being a reluctant “controversial religious leader.” I don’t think it was intended to do so, but it came across as just a little arrogant.

I’m not planning on giving a detailed, step-by-step review of this whole book but I’ll post a few stand-out quotes and some of my impressions/feelings.

Here’s a few bits that caught my interest for various reasons :

“people who says something called the ‘sinner’s prayer’ in response to an evangelistic invitation, or who join a new church – 90 percent of them are already lifelong churchgoers. That means that over 90 percent of the so-called new convers come from the 40 percent of the population who are already ‘in the choir’ and less than 10 percent from the ‘unchurched majority’.” (p4)

A sobering statistic and worth considering as we consider the way our churches work. I would just note of course that the 40/60 churched/unchurched ratio would be quite different here in Australia – more like 20/80 or even 10/90!

“the irony that heterosexual people were damaging marriage at a furious pace without any help from gay couples.” (p7)

Can’t argue with that. If there is a ‘threat to traditional marriage’ it has nothing to do with gay people, rather it’s an epidemic of weakness/selfishness within marriages themselves, even within the church itself, a point emphasised in a chat I was in the other day.

“our religious traditions can be seen for what they are. They are not simply a pure, abstracted, and ideal ‘essence of Christianity,’ but rather they are evolving, embodied, imperfect, and sometimes pretentious, and each of which is often beautiful and wonderful, renewable, and serviceable too.” (p27)

This is the generous McLaren of old, and I really appreciate this perspective – seeing the positive in each tradition along with the imperfections – and seeing that our own traditions are not necessarily any more pure than others. Unfortunately this is about as ‘generous’ as he gets. On the previous page he tars “Christians of all denominations” with the brush of being :

“not a continuing faithful embodiment of Jesus, but rather a Disney-esque simulacrum, sometimes a tired fossilization, in some cases a comic parody or tragic catastrophe or veritable travesty, when compared with the vibrant life and way of Jesus” (p26)

I love his vocabulary there but I think he’s being a little too harsh when he puts all Christians in this box. Many churches/denominations may fit this bill but undeniably the Spirit is moving in the world today and there is plenty of the “vibrant life and way of Jesus” to be found. I found the recent book I read by Paul Wallis to be much more generous on this point. While he was promoting a quite specific and unusual (to our modern mind) way of doing church (‘New Monasticism’) he was also able to see the positives in the other styles of church he had been involved in, reserving criticism primarily for corrupt institutional structures.

Before I wind this up, I’ll get back to a couple of quotes I liked.

“we sense in the gospel a perpetual fountain of youthful newness, an ongoing advent, a constant beginning, a continually generative genesis, always fermenting like new wine, a tide that rises, wave by wave.” (p28)

“Our faith is vain and self-centered if it only brings blessing for us or to us. It also must result in blessing that flows through us to the world. Good thinking (orthodoxy), good being (orthopathy), and good relating (ortho-affinity) must interact with and express themselves through good work and practice (orthopraxy) in the world, the creation that God made, loves and will never abandon on betray.” (p 29)

Amen! Now those are the McLaren of old, the original Brian who got me so inspired all those years ago! If he can only keep coming up with this sort of thing we can leave that shark alone and keep this boat of Christianity motoring in more productive directions. There’s still a long way in this book to go, but McLaren hasn’t jumped that shark just yet…

Today we received our letter of approval from the Western Australia state Adoptions Committee stating that we have been approved to adopt an overseas child aged up to 36 months with normal or additional medical care needs.

Ethiopia flag

This was the culmination of a lengthy process for us starting in July last year (actually it really began way back in 2006 during/after our first adventures in Africa, but that’s a longer story). We went to an information seminar last July, followed by a series of several in-depth education seminars, which seemed to be designed, at least in part, to scare people away from the idea of adopting.  Then through March this year we had 12 hours worth of interviews with a psychologist in our home.  She then wrote a detailed 30+ page report about us, which was fortunately quite favourable. This report went to the State committee  at the beginning of June, and we received their formal approval letter today. This means we’ve now successfully jumped through all the hoops on the Australian government side thus far, and we begin the long wait to be allocated a child from our chosen country, Ethiopia. This will probably take another 3-4 years, but it is very difficult to predict, as the Ethiopian program is in a transitional phase at present.

Thus far it’s taken nearly a year, about $3000 and many many hours of our time to get to this point. And we’ve actually had a fairly quick and smooth run through the process compared to many people. In the future we have another few years of waiting, mountains of paperwork, costs of another $40,000+ (including government fees, airfares & travel costs, time off work etc etc), and that’s all before we begin the challenges of introducing a traumatised Ethiopian orphan into our  Australian family.

So adoption is not for the faint hearted! But we still firmly believe it is worth all this and more, to be able to share our family with a child who otherwise would not have a family, to give love to a child who desperately needs it. And hopefully this will be a fulfilling journey for all of us.. I’ll keep you posted, but I’m so happy to have reached this stage which is such a key step on our long journey

This term comes from a book I’m currently reading, The New Monastic, by Paul Wallis. Paul defines chain reading simply as “that you let each book you read introduce you to the next.” (p24)

This is something I’ve done many times over the years – discovering a new book or a new author from a quote or reference in another book I’ve been reading. It’s a great sort of intellectual journey to go on, exploring the influences behind what you are reading (and I think my journeys have taken me to similar places to Wallis’ character in his book). It’s also an endeavour that is much easier now than it would have been in years gone by, thanks to Amazon.com – however the ease of chain-reading or book-surfing (my own phrase combining book buying and web-surfing – especially where one heeds the “you might also like” recommendations from Amazon) makes for a quite expensive habit that I’ve had to cut down on recently

While I’m on the topic of Wallis’ book, I’ll give a preliminary recommendation. I’m only part way through but finding it very interesting – it’s a “novel” about a pastor’s journey of discovery through different ministries and Christian traditions. Once again, although not a pastor myself I resonate with some of the character’s explorations (albeit on a fairly superficial level on my part). The book stands in the tradition of Brian McLaren’s “A New Kind of Christian” trilogy in that it’s probably best to not read it primarily as a narrative, but more that the fiction is simply the vehicle the author uses to get his point(s) across. And also like McLaren’s books, it makes you wonder how much of it is autobiographical.

Speaking of McLaren, I have his latest book sitting on my shelf waiting to be read, but I’m almost reticent to do so. After finding the New Kind of Christian trilogy and some of his other books from that period to be incredibly stimulating and inspiring I’ve become less and less satisfied with the directions he’s taken in the last few years. From the reviews I’ve seen on the net thus far, it worries me that  with this latest book he might have well and truly jumped the shark. I guess the only way to find out for sure is to bite the bullet and read it… unless of course Wallis’ book sends me surfing off in some other direction.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m not sure about the rest of this guy Tim Hawkin’s clips though, “Cletus Take the Reel” might appeal to fans of Carrie Underwood, but at all costs avoid the “I Don’t Drink Beer” clip – it’s just plain bad on so many levels ;P

On a similar topic, this reminded me of another great worship related “info-mercial” : Me Worship…

Click here to view the embedded video.

And to round out this triumvirate of worship related humour, how could I neglect this classic song “Jesus is a friend of mine” by Sonseed! (the thing is I still can’t decide whether this was intended as a joke or not? but it’s hilarious nonetheless)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anyway I obviously haven’t quite got all the epi stuff out of my system, as this afternoon I found myself browsing a site with detailed demographic data for our local area. This may sound incredibly boring or nerdy to some but I found it fascinating. So if you live in the Rockingham area and have a bit of a nerdy bent, then check out the site here : http://profile.id.com.au/Default.aspx?id=313

It proves a point to me though that you can’t just blindly trust the statistics, and a bit of local and/or background knowledge is essential. For example if you look at the stats for religion it says that 58% are Christian (48,000), however I’d be amazed if even 10% of that number go to church regularly. Knowing a bit about what the local churches are and roughly how big they are helps me know how seriously to take those statistics…

As Benjamin Disraeli  said : “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”

“The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, who offer their collective influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.”

What a great concept! Harnessing the wisdom of these experienced leaders, including the likes of Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson, Desmond Tutu, Carter, Mandela and others.. plus there’s an empty seat held for Aung San Suu Kyi… Too often we are guilty (myself included) of ignoring the wisdom of those who have gone before us. In this case these are people of great stature with tremendous wisdom and experience to offer, and yet they are now for the most part out of the systems where what they say needs to be tempered by political concerns. Giving people like this a collective voice to address the key issues of fighting injustice and making peace is a wonderful concept and I look forward to seeing what fruit this group produces… I’ll be watching their twitter feed henceforth.

Anyway better get back to study… highlighting one sentence on page 1 of my notes is not going to help me pass this exam

Psalm 33:3 is a bit of a motto of our team… (in fact the whole of Psalm 33 is pretty cool)

Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully, and shout for joy.

So here’s a sneak preview of a song that a few of us are getting into at the moment, which may be one of the next cabs off the rank…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anyway I start work at the brand new surgery on Tuesday. Reception opens Monday and I’ll pop down then to start getting my office organised. I had first choice of room, so I think I’ve picked the best one in the place. It’s going to be quite exciting working in a shiny new place, and the company who own it seem to be very keen to accomodate my preferences for most things. Over time I’m hoping to get more and more serious about travel medicine, as well as continuing to do a lot of work with kids and mums etc.

But for now, a busy weekend ahead and in the midst of everything I have to fit in more study for my Epidemiology exam on Monday week… if you see me updating this blog lots it means I’m slacking of in my study

Anyway check out this video of The Queen’s opening of Parliament…

His latest book is After Your Believe :Why Christian Character Matters. At least that’s the US title. In the UK and Australia it’s called ‘Virtue Reborn‘ which is such a comparatively lame title. I’m glad I got the US version. For some reason, even though he’s English, the UK artwork and often titles of Tom’s books are never quite as good as the American ones.

Anyway it’s an excellent thought provoking book which walks the fine line between faith and works, between legalism and permissiveness to answer the question in the subtitle – why does Christian character matter? What is the theological and philosophical foundation for Christian virtue?

I’ve found it a little slow going as I’ve just had so much else going on with my work (changing jobs next week), university (Masters assignment due this week and exams in two), family (recently we finished our intense adoption assessment – now just waiting on the verdict in the next couple of weeks), and church (busy leadership team trying to find a new Pastor and keep the church running; also co-ordinating the worship team) – hence I don’t feel I can personally give a coherent review of Tom’s book. I’ve really enjoyed it but it’s been far too stop-start.

Fortunately, another of my favourite authors and bloggers Scot McKnight, has written an excellent review of the book, so check it out here. Well worth reading, both the review, and the book, if you want to have your thinking stretched and your character grown.

Here’s a great passage from the book that kind of gets to the heart of what he is saying :

The fundamental answer we shall explore in this book is that what we are “here for” is to become genuine human beings, reflecting the God in whose image we are made, and doing so in worship on the one hand and in mission, in its full and large sense, on the other; and that we do this not least by “following Jesus.” The way this works out is that it produces, through the work of the Holy Spirit, a transformation of character which functions as the Christian version of what philosophers have called “virtue.” This transformation will mean that we do indeed “keep the rules” – though not out of a sense of externally imposed “duty,” but out of the character that has been formed within us. And it will mean that we do include “follow our hearts” and live “authentically” – but only when, with that transformed character fully operative – like an airline pilot with a lifetime’s experience – the hard work up front bears fruit in spontaneous decisions and actions that reflect what has been formed deep within. And, in the wider world, the challenge we face is to grow and develop a fresh generation of leaders, in all walks of life, whose character has been formed in wisdom and public service, not greed for money or power.

The heart of it – the central thing that is supposed to happen after you believe, the thing we call a virtue in a new, reborn sense – is thus the transformation of character.

For a treasure trove of other great content from N T Wright, visit his unofficial homepage.

As I’ve listened to the CDs I’ve been reading through the wikipedia entries for each album so as to discover more about what the band were going through as they recorded each song. Currently I’m on All That You Can’t Behind, and I discovered a fascinating easter egg on the album cover that I was never aware of. If you look at the sign in the airport on the left it says J33-3⇛ whereas the original photo released to the press says F21-36. Now my copy has the J33-3 but it was interesting to see a few pictures with the other cover when I did a Google image search,

According to Wikipedia the J33-3 is a reference to one of Bono’s favourite Bible verses, Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” God’s own phone call, according to Bono – now isn’t that cool?

Here’s the album covers so you can see for yourself :

The original photo (I’d be interested to know if anyone actually has a copy with this on?)

The J33-3 version (which is the one I have)

If you want a more detailed first-hand account of it, ask me some time next week…