fruitful faith » politics

easy hard

Dale — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:56:57 +0000

quick reflections:

It’s easy to paint Islam as a) inherently evil/violent or b) docile/dormant and harmless – it’s hard to patiently assess what Islam is actually like.
It’s easy to tell a woman considering abortion a) that she’s a murderer or b) that whatever choice she makes is the right choice – it’s hard to journey patiently, lovingly, understandingly, etc-ingly, with not only the her, but the father, her family, her friends, her community in and through difficult and complex times.
(repeat with all kinds of issues…)

distance

Dale — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:17:33 +0000

So… I’m trying hard to be sensitive to people’s feelings, but how many blocks does this proposed mosque have to be away from ground zero before it doesn’t . . . → Read More: distance

legistlating morality

Dale — Sun, 02 May 2010 23:52:26 +0000

Every law that has ever been written “legislates morality”, because every issue is a moral issue.

Shame on the American, Bible-belt, Republicanist, sub-Christian sub-culture which taught me as a new Christian that vote for GW Bush was a vote for the ‘moral’ candidate. Yes – marriage and abortion are HUGE moral issues (of which I would expect the state to have more direct role in governing the latter, as it is – at its best – the protection of life itself), but are not the environment, foreign policy, the economy, education, etc. also moral issues!?

extremism

Dale — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 05:54:07 +0000

(via Frank –> (via eroosters) )

india: different

Dale — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:28:59 +0000

So I should probably post about my recent trip to India.

I could give a ‘what we got up to’ report of the work our team did (some still over – some still yet to go) on the new Freeset T-shirts building. But we didn’t only go as labourers – we went to observe as well. Kerry took us on a couple of ‘walks’ to see the areas around Freeset, and also we saw other bits of Kolkata as well. I suppose I’m more inclined to reflect on what I observed and the thoughts it brought to mind – many of which will still tick over in my head for some time to come.

Kolkata is dirty (except for the clean bits) and smelly (except for the non-smelly bits). They’ve got the latest technology (laptops, cellphones, etc.) but also way more poverty/beggars than many places (certainly developed/western places!).

I used to argue that people were happier in the 2/3 world (as opposed to ‘third’ world – 2/3 better reflects the balance of population and land mass). To some extent, this may well be true. But this doesn’t mean that many people wouldn’t choose a “1/3 world” lifestyle if they could. I sometimes assumed they would just want to carry on as they are, but that’s not true.

Take drinking water, for example. The water most of them drink carries disease. They would drink clean water if they could (and thankfully, the community around Freeset will soon have access to safe drinking water – though the issue of how to ensure it doesn’t contribute to inequality – the powerful taking all the clean water, etc. – is an ongoing issue).

Or take the controversial (or not, or in different ways, depending on where you’re from, influences, cultural assumptions, etc.) example of prostitution. The women are nearly universally pressured/forced/bullied/threatened/coerced into the trade by pimps, boyfriends or even husbands or family. Their bodies are turned (by others) into a commodity to support needs of all kinds (and all levels of legitimacy). These women would do something else if they could. Matter of fact, show me any any 12 year old girl anywhere in the world who would choose (apart from manipulation or coercion) to sell her body to strangers. Apparently, you can spot the new girls to the trade by observing the ones who aren’t smiling.

It is true that we cannot simply cut/paste our cultural sense of what is appropriate or not onto another culture. But I’m convinced that there are real and true modes of existence for the world that are better or worse than others. Some things are indeed merely cultural differences. But other things we just ‘know’ are better or worse than others. A lot of morality may well be grey, but not all of it.

On one of our walks, we stopped to play a game with some children – like 3-4. In minutes, the whole street population (it seemed) had gathered to watch – including (I’d barely noticed) an older drunk man. As we eventually moved on, a young man commenced giving the older man a hearty beating – young, angry fists connecting with elderly, weak skin/bone. Kerry (who later told us that it would have been due to their seeing the drunk man as an ‘embarrassment’ to the community – esp. with foreigners present – time to make an example of him) quickly broke it up and gently-yet-firmly – with fluent Bangla – rebuked the younger man.

Was Kerry imposing his Western values onto them? I think not. I think some things aren’t as complicated as others may be. I think they understood – and even respected – his actions.

The Hindu caste system was behind this and other inequalities we saw (and seeing the inequalities in India made me more aware of inequalities in so-called ‘egalitarian’ NZ…). Widows in India lose their entire identity and worth (in the past, a practice called ‘sati’ was common – but is now outlawed apparently – where widows would throw themselves onto the burning graves of their dead husbands). Again, I don’t oppose this simply because it’s not American or Kiwi, but because I genuinely don’t believe it is right that a widow need be stripped of honour and dignity. One truly amazing and inspiring woman, Mina, had just lost her husband, and even though she has turned to Christian faith, she is still struggling massively with feelings of un-worth and uselessness.

That’s probably as good a place to stop as any for this rambling, unstructured post. I may post again on other things, and I apologise (sort of) for the philosophical/ethical bent to this so-called ‘report’ on my trip to India, but it’s just what came out as I typed. Cheers.

nz bus, etc…

Dale — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:17:03 +0000

Some random thoughts about NZ Bus, the atheist bus ad campaign and complaining persons (NZ Bus is currently not going to run the ad in response to public criticism)…

I personally am not afraid of the campaign, and would argue that it is not offensive, and should therefore be allowed to run as any other non-offensive ad (I’ve met an atheist whose t-shirt read: ‘Militant atheist: there is no god-damn god, god-dammit’; which would, for me, be too offensive for a bus ad… and possibly for a publicly-worn t-shirt? Which raises some of the ethical questions below…).
Perhaps those persons complaining about this (or any other) ad are just as entitled to do so as are the atheists who are complaining about the current decision of NZ Bus?
Where do we draw the line as to what is a human-rights issue and what is not? The idea of living in a society in which vandals, rapists and murderers are ‘discriminated’ against is surely less worrying than the idea of living in a society in which religious or anti-religious ads (in general) are unallowable due to a few people expressing offense?
As someone responding to the interview this morning on Breakfast Show on TV1 implied (possibly/probably with a sarcastic example?), should we be shocked if NZ Bus opted not to run an ad from a company named ‘strip of meat’, complete with ‘strip’-ping topless women? Again, my view is that the atheist ad is infinitely less offensive that that example, but it does raise the question, no?
I also can’t help but point out that without taking seriously (as having some ‘weight’ or ‘authority’) the goal (telos) of –for example– peaceful respectfulness toward neighbour (or similar), there is absolutely no reason to deny any racist, bigoted or discriminating ad campaigns (i.e. ‘Maori suck eggs!’ etc.).
I’m still amiss as to how one can get a prescriptively passionate ‘ought’ (ethic) from a prescriptively indifferent ‘is’ (ontology). I.e. – “At bottom, there is no meaning in the universe, but this is an outrage!!! And my outrage is more justified than the outrage of those who have the exact opposite view!!!”
I reckon NZ bus should not be enslaved to a dictate to allow every single ad campaign to run, though I also don’t think they should be ‘free’ to discriminate against groups.

activist theologian

Dale — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:17:04 +0000

I picked up a copy of Gustavo Gutierrez‘s ‘A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation‘ for a) my growing interest in the biblical theme of ‘Freedom’/'Liberation’, and b) the ‘Themes in a Missional Spirituality’ block-course I’ll be taking this semester at Carey Baptist College – with guest lecturer – and author and theologian – Charles Ringma (very exciting!).

He ends the Conclusion with this:

We must be careful not to fall into intellectual self-satisfaction, into a kind of triumphalism of erudite and advanced ‘new’ visions of Christianity. The only thing that is really new is to accept day by day the gift of the Spirit, who makes us love – in our concrete options to build a true human fellowship, in our historical initiatives to subvert an order of injustice – with the fullness with which Christ loved us. To paraphrase a well-known text of Pascal, we can say that all the political theologies, the theologies of hope, of revolution, and of liberation, are not worth one act of genuine solidarity with exploited social classes. They are not worth one act of faith, love, and hope, committed – in one way or another – in active participation to liberate humankind from everything that dehumanizes it and prevents it from living according to the will of the Father. (p.174)

freedom

Dale — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:38:56 +0000

I’m really appreciating how significant the theme of freedom is in the Bible.

Freedom is opposed to compulsion, captivity or slavery.

Utterly free of compulsion, God freely acts to create and sustain a free creation, particularly free and dangerous human beings, which constantly, continually and consistently become enslaved, manipulated, captive or otherwise enslaved to and by various kinds of anti-freedom things (aptly summarised as sin and evil).

The work of Creation is a risky yet grace-filled work of giving freedom to that which is created. But then there’s the work of Redemption.

Utterly free of compulsion, God freely acts in many ways to lead his creation, particularly humans, out of bondage, captivity and slavery and into freedom. The Israelites are freed from slavery in Egypt, and are given a Law which instructs them how to be free – the anti-enslavement people, the counter-compulsion people, the bondage-breaking people.

Paul, writing in the 1st century to a community at Rome, writes, however, that this freedom-oriented Law Code was unable to make them truly free, and that it had actually served to make their enslavement all the more obvious. For human beings to be truly and fully free, their hearts and minds must be freed first. For Paul, this freedom – a liberation which the whole creation waits eagerly for - happens by way of a wholly new kind of Law, which he calls the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.

Christians are to be freed from all that enslaves them, and to stand firm in that freedom and not be held by any possible thing that could enslave them. Sin itself and the various schemes at managing, decreasing, hiding or otherwise ‘fixing’ sin (in short: ‘religion’, Jewish or otherwise) both drive humans deeper and deeper into bondage, self-un-control, frustration, un-peace and slavery. With brotherly yet passionate (and often stern!) affection, Paul continually guarded his loved ones to not be enslaved to anything – food, sex, ideas or religion to name a few.

The vocation (note: a freely given and freely received vocation!) for these freed people is to be God’s vessels of freedom-bringing in God’s world. To be used by God to release those who are held captive by any and all things that enslave them.

* * *

As I spend Christmas, New Year’s Day and my wife’s birthday in my home country of the United States, I am struck by an irony. Many (not all!) American Christians are worried about whether or not United States Law will reflect their beliefs.

The irony is not that I disagree with the desired outcomes. The irony is the methods by which they imagine them to be realised. Sermons, Books, Websites, Newsletters and Radio Programmes all across the country warn Christians not only of the demise of the nation, but also of the means of rescue – political muscle.

I am not advising withdrawal from the political realm (quite the contrary, actually), but merely am calling to remembrance Paul’s conviction that true freedom does not come by way of any Law or any sin-’fixing’ schemes, no matter what country or race they are attached to.

I am persuaded to believe that for Paul, the worst news would not be that abortions happened to be legal or even government funded (or that same-sex couples had the same state tax status as male/female couples). I think Paul might well be more saddened by the failure of the Church to trust God to bring true and complete freedom to the world – the kind of freedom that cannot come through Law (religious or national).

Is this a pro-abortion stance (or pro-homosexuality for that matter)?? Absolutely not. It is merely an attempt to remember that true Freedom comes not through sin-’fixing’ systems. I don’t think American Christians need to choose between democratic process and spiritual transformation – I’m definitely a ‘both/and’ kind of person. But at the end of the day, a Christian puts their ‘eggs’ in the ‘basket’ of the freedom-bringing Gospel of Christ. A law can be changed easily enough –especially in the States!– if enough Christians persuade each other to vote the same way on a given issue. But changing a heart – freeing a human being… now that takes something else.

owned

Dale — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:41:17 +0000

Have you ever thought about what it means to say that you own something?

(a house) A: “Are you a home owner?” B: “Not totally – the bank owns most of it.”
(a rock) A: “Hey give me my rock back!” B: “I saw it first, it’s mine!”
(land) A: “Hey, American Indigenous tribes! Welcome to your new home – we like to call them ‘reservations’!” B: “New home? What’s wrong with our current home?”
(etc.)

In one very real sense, humans simply see things and claim them for their own. Whoever gets to the bit of land first ‘claims’ it – the kid who sees the rock first can say it’s ‘mine’ – etc. We snatch up bits of stuff (trees, iron, land, water, air, animals, other humans, etc.) and declare them to be ‘mine’/'ours’/etc.

Without some concept of ownership/possession, things such as ‘trading’, ‘sharing’, ‘buying/selling’, ‘stealing’ and ‘borrowing’ have no meaning at all. But still, everyone I’ve ever known lives their life as though the concept of ownership is actually meaningful. We get insurance, car alarms and watch dogs for our houses, cars and veggie gardens (or if you’re protecting ‘your’ nation, you probably get a military with bullets, explosives, tanks, ships and planes, etc.). We all take ownership seriously.

Philosophically, ownership is based on a distinction between our (subject) ‘self’ and at least one (object) ‘other’. I have a friend/acquaintance who believes that there is no real ‘other’ to reality – that all reality is ‘self’ (if we’d only just develop/cultivate our collective self-awareness, etc.). Not only is the concept of any kind of relation-ship (which is always between a ‘self’ and an ‘other’) made impossible, it also negates any meaningful notion of owner-ship.

The only sense of ownership which can even possibly/partially be retained on this view would be a sense of a collective, universal ‘self’ which ‘self-owns’ everything… or should we rather say ‘self-owns itself’?? Any division of reality into ‘this’ or ‘that’ part(s) which then comprise a whole(s) is necessarily a division into which the self/other distinction instantly leaps. As you can (hopefully) see, even if some people find it fashionable to speak/write like this, I’ve not yet met anyone who finds it possible to live like this. Actually, one can’t even go very long speaking/writing like that without contradicting themselves – probably sooner than later.

Not surprisingly, I find the Judaeo-Christian tradition/philosophy/worldview to be far more useful, reasonable and intuitive. It takes personal and corporate human ownership seriously, but places them both within the context of ultimate or divine ownership. The stuff we ‘have’, we are really only ‘looking after’. Our universe, our planet, our rocks, our trees, our skies, our seas, our beasts, our beauties, our race and races, our brains, our bodies… our entire world belongs ultimately to the Creator God, who entrusts it all to us as stewards to look after it.

The charge to the primal human pair in the Garden of Eden story reflects humanity being given its job description or vocation: ”Tend and keep the garden.” We are given the task and responsibility to do everything from astronomy and economics to biology and electronics; from sociology and psychology to ecology and geology. God’s world of space and time, of matter and meaning, of black holes and bonobos, of planets and people, of sex and supernovae, of courtrooms and cancer wards, of playgrounds and prisons, of bluebirds and babies is to be cared about and cared for.

peace on earth

Dale — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:24:33 +0000

Watched Joyeux Noël again with my wife – a truly great film, based on true events of one of the WWI Christmas Truces.

Apparently, the Germans first decorated their trenches with Christmas trees, and belting out Christmas carols – the first/main one is thought to have been ‘Stille Nacht’ (Silent Night). This prompted some (English) carol singing from the British side. This led to more singing, coming out of their trenches and meeting and conversing with one another, exchanging of gifts (whiskey, cigars, chocolate, etc.), sharing a Communion Service together (!), helping one another bury their dead, football (‘soccer’) games, and various other acts of kindness.

It’s a tremendous story, and it’s worth your time reading some of the letters from the troops describing the events.

May peace rule our hearts!