Category Archives: Current Events
kevin rudd is a happy little vegemite
Wondering what you think of this video, leaked on to YouTube on Friday (Sorry to my non-Australian readers for the Australian political content).
[UPDATE: Due to there being some confusion as to why this video was posted - I am interested in the implications this video has for Australian politics and the related 24-hour news cycle. Why is our media enthralled by a video of a politician swearing when there are far more important things going on in the world, including in Australia's domestic politics? What does it reflect about the climate of domestic politics?]
reflections on piper’s “masculine christianity”
Hello readers! It’s nice to be back on board life.remixed after a week of work travel – apologies for the gap.
Since I’ve been away for a little bit this post will be reflecting on an event from last week. Though it is a little old, I feel that this event deserves some treatment, particularly since I have been asked about it a number of times.
On Wednesday last week the Christian Post ran a story entitled John Piper: ‘God Gave Christianity a Masculine Feel’. It reported that Piper, at the 2012 ‘Desiring God’ Conference (which he founded), declared “God has given Christianity a masculine feel.”
The full transcript of the sermon records that Piper, speaking to a room full of pastors, backed up this claim by saying:
God has revealed himself to us in the Bible pervasively as King, not Queen, and as Father, not Mother. The second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son. The Father and the Son created man and woman in his image, and gave them together the name of the man, Adam (Genesis 5:2). God appoints all the priests in Israel to be men. The Son of God comes into the world as a man, not a woman. He chooses twelve men to be his apostles. The apostles tell the churches that all the overseers—the pastor/elders who teach and have authority (1 Timothy 2:12)—should be men; and that in the home, the head who bears special responsibility to lead, protect, and provide should be the husband (Ephesians 5:22–33).
The sermon goes on, concentrating largely on the ‘masculine’ life of 19th-century English bishop John C. Ryle. I will refrain from quoting it at length (click the link above for the full text). Much has been written on other blogs, so I will simply offer some points of interest as to why I think Piper’s claims are simplistic, exegetically sloppy and ideologically-driven. Read the rest of this entry
beyond survival day: reflections on australia day 2012
This post is of the kind I dread most; a subject about which I am deeply convicted, that I find hard to form into a coherent discourse, and that I know will win me few friends.
However in light of the current subject my discomfort is jovial at best, and I would do well to remember that.
January 26 is a day of celebration for most Australians, of our history, identity and future. However in remembering our history many Australians prefer to screen out those episodes that do not paint the colonisers in a venerable light.
Aboriginal Nations (Click to Enlarge)
Exactly one year ago I wrote a post entitled Happy Invasion Day, a reminder of the fact that this land was taken from its first peoples. Since then I have come to prefer the label “Survival Day”, a commemoration of the fact that despite the recent history of this land the Aboriginal people are still here. Whatever the label, I can no longer celebrate Australia Day in the same way I have in years past; I cannot celebrate only the positive aspects our history knowing the pain and suffering of innocents on which it is built. Both must be acknowledged.
I do not wish to speak on behalf of Aboriginal people, for I am aware I have no right to do so. But I am also aware that Read the rest of this entry
God doesn’t care about tim tebow more than 7 million dead children
About two days ago I learned who Tim Tebow is.
Since I’m Australian I am not exposed much to American Football, so I apologise to my American friends for my ignorance.
Additionally I apologise to my Australian and other non-American friends who simply don’t care.
My exposure to Tebow did not result so much from football per se as much as from Christians getting mega-excited about the new Christian-sportstar on the block who reportedly once touted the Bible passage John 3:16 on his eye-black.
One of the things I have seen in the news (and on my Facebook feed) over the past couple of days is Tebow’s “miraculous” 316 passing yards on Sunday during the NFL playoffs. Here is how CBS, the American television station who aired the game, reported the event: Read the rest of this entry
our time is running out: the importance & death of time
As New Year’s passes and we enter into 2012 we find ourselves ducking and weaving to dodge the plethora of resolutions that will, by statistical accounts, mostly fall to the ground by January 20th.
Despite the overwhelming failure of New Year’s resolutions to affect change in our lives we continue to make them year after year. Why?
In our mind there is something special about particular times. We make resolutions on New Year’s because in our minds it is a time of new beginnings, of fresh starts. Read the rest of this entry
sodom and gomorrah: punished for homosexuality?
Saturday just gone was an important day in Australia for LGBTQI* people.
The Australian Labor Party (the current government) voted on its policy position regarding same-sex marriage at its National Conference; it voted to change its platform in support of changing the Marriage act to include same-sex couples.
In addition was a rally held in the Sydney CBD, with somewhere between five to ten thousand participants, calling for marriage equality in Australia.
In response to these events many Christians I know on Facebook posted comments critical of the push for the recognition of same-sex marriage.
Some, on both sides of the argument, were reasoned and thoughtful, recognising that there are in fact different viewpoints on the matter. They merely sought to offer an opinion in a respectful way.
Others were not so gracious.
But what struck me most was the amount of Christians posting quotations from the Bible, completely out of context and, by my judgement, absent of any form of exegetical investigation.
Something that I found fascinating was the repeated quotation of verses pertaining to Sodom and Gomorrah. Read the rest of this entry
misogyny on the radio: the kyle sandilands episode
Warning: The following post contains explicit quoted material that may offend.
Late last week Kyle Sandilands, a well-known Australian breakfast radio host, made headlines all over the country.
In response to a news article by a female journalist about the unpopularity of his new television show, Sandilands launched into an on-air rant:
Some fat slag on news.com.au has already branded it a disaster. You can tell by reading the article that she just hates us and has always hated us …
… What a fat bitter thing you are. You’re deputy editor of an online thing. You’ve got a nothing job anyway. You’re a piece of shit …
… This low thing, Alison Stephenson, deputy editor of news.com.au online. You’re supposed to be impartial, you little troll …
… You’re a bullshit artist, girl. You should be fired from your job. Your hair’s very ’90s. And your blouse. You haven’t got that much titty to be having that low cut a blouse. Watch your mouth or I’ll hunt you down.
Within days 20,000 people had signed an online petition calling for sponsors of Sandilands’ radio show, and also the radio network on which it appears, to drop their support. So far at least 16 sponsors have pulled out in varying capacities.
Much has been said about this event in opinion columns throughout the weekend, so I will not add to the cacophony.
What I do wish to add however is some thoughts about the underlying misogyny reflected in Sandilands’ comments. Read the rest of this entry
asylum seeker stories from villawood
On Saturday some friends and I went to Villawood Immigration Detention Centre to visit some Tamil Sri Lankan asylum seekers and refugees currently housed there.
I am somewhat hesitant to post this story lest it look like I am attempting to portray myself as somehow heroic. Nothing could be further from the truth since a single visit does not make me particularly compassionate or generous.
I am not going to bang on about how bad the conditions were, since visitors are confined to the visitor area and thus I did not see the living quarters etc. In saying this I think that, against my assumptions, Serco was doing a reasonable job at running the facility given that they are simply out to make a profit. My belief is that the Australian Government, with its awful policies, both past and present, is to blame for our shocking treatment of asylum seekers. I have written about this elsewhere, so back to the story.
After spending over two hours with these young men I was struck by the similarities between them and myself. Read the rest of this entry
thoughts on islamophobia and fundamentalism
Anders Behring Breivik
How easy it is for Australians to jump to the conclusion that Islamic extremists are responsible for all forms of terrorism. The latest tragedy in Norway represents a prime example of this.
(In saying this I do not mean to in any way negate the scope of the tragedy, or divert attention from the horrific 91+ deaths of mostly young people; I merely intend to discuss one aspect of the issue from the point of view of this blog’s theme.)
The New York Times claimed that initial reports focused on the possibility of Islamic militants (with, it seems, no credible evidence for this).
The UK’s Guardian suggested that, “The most tempting and immediate conclusion was that it would be a jihadist group,” (again with no credible evidence).
Australia’s Andrew Bolt put his suspicions out in the open Read the rest of this entry
oh the idolatry: humanity, injustice & climate change
Even if the deniers were right – which is impossible to credit on rational grounds – the core argument of [A Moral Climate] is that the fossil-fuelled global economy is dangerous to planet earth and to human life, not just because it is warming the climate of the earth but because it is deeply destructive of the diversity and welfare of the ecosystems and human communities from which surplus value is extracted and traded across highways, oceans and jetstreams. The rituals encouraged by the recognition of global warming – turning off lights, turning down the heater, cycling or walking instead of driving, holidaying nearer to home, buying local food, shopping less and conversing more, addressing the causes of fuel poverty locally and internationally – are good because they are intrinsically right, not just because they have the consequence of reducing carbon emissions. Such actions correct modern thoughtlessness. They sustain the moral claim that it is wrong to live in a civilisation that depends upon the systematic enslavement of peoples and ecosystems to the high resource requirements of a corporately-governed consumer economy. …
… Actions which will have the effect of mitigating climate change are also actions which reaffirm the embodied relationship between inner desire and the outer world of what Christians call Creation. For this reason such actions are intrinsically good, and will promote flourishing even if, as a minority of dissenters suggest, greenhouse gases are not the primary driver of global warming.
- Michael Northcott, A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming, 273-274. Read the rest of this entry
