Expand or Restrain?

I usually enjoy British journalist George Monbiot. His recent article in the Guardian from the Copenhagen Climate Conference is definitely worth reading. He argues that political fault lines now lye beyond liberal/conservative and are better labelled, expanders and restrainers. He argues that now, more than ever, we need to exercise restraint in how we live. We cannot expand endlessly, we cannot continue to (ab)use our planet the way we are used to. He takes a swipe at those expander's (and their copies of Atlas Shrugged that they cling to) who believe there are no limits for their growth. We need to move from an 'Age of Heroism' towards an 'Age on Accommodation'.

The problem, which Monbiot does mention, is that at heart humanity is desperately trying to pursue its 'better angels', as Lincoln put it. This is difficult for us creatures, in the hyper-real, consumer capitalist, liberal society in which we live. I would not be the one to cast the first stone to the expander's. Even now I'm thinking of all the 'things' I want to own. But what does that all matter? Even if the world doesn't end in my lifetime? No, Monbiot is right, this issue is so much bigger than Climate Change, it is about defining ourselves as humans. I don't know how else to end this post, than with the words of 1970’s Anglican Kenyan-theologian, John Mbiti, who coined a famous statement of humanness. It is expressed in terms of sharing: “I am because we are, and since we are therefore I am”

Amen.

Where the Wild Things Are

On the weekend I went and saw Where the Wild Things Are. It was a really good movie, a great story of the wild/raw emotions of childhood, the frustrations and easily triggered happiness, sadness, anger. I couldn't remember much from the book. Only that Max went an island to escape family and then kind of danced with the Wild Things and he was the king of them or something like that anyway. The film fills or expands on this plot substantially, with Dave Eggers helping to write the screenplay. It worked wonderfully, with a really captivating story which is actually rather scary. From the massive crashing waves Max has to negotiate to get to the island, to the unpredictable nature of the Wild Things, with one, Judith, being particularly edgy with Max. In truth, the film is remarkably sad. In my mind, the part which resonated most with myself and childhood, was the idealism/belief that things should be "ok, normal, fun and happy", for me that represented mom, dad, family all together. Change comes like a rushing wind on childhood, blowing down even the most well constructed fortress.

The film also resonated with a conversation I had with my brother. I showed him a kids toy which said something like, "for good child development" or something similar to the whole "baby Einstein" thing (which research has shown doesn't actually do anything). And my brother replied, all you need for child development is a good stick (or something to that effect). This film is one really good stick, putting wild rumpus physical adventure and childhood together. Where they should be.

Ugandan Gay Witch Hunt

Andrew Brown from the Guardian has reported on a shocking and terrifiying bill before the Ugnadan government which would turn even discussing homosexuality into a crime. As he writes:

'A bill currently before the Ugandan parliament (pdf) proposes seven year prison sentences for discussing homosexuality; life imprisonment for homosexual acts; and death for a second offence. Sober observers believe it will be passed. The Anglican church in Uganda appears to support it, and the Church of England in this country is absolutely silent. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Winchester solemnly denounce violence in the Congo, where they have no influence at all, but on Uganda they maintain a resolute post-colonial silence.'

'This is a witch craze, pure and simple. It takes the perfectly genuine prejudices of the ignorant, inflames them, and enshrines them in law. I do not expect any bishop of the Church of England to have the courage to speak against it. Give them a hundred years, though, and they will turn up at a memorial service to weep for the victims.'

I just posted on Rowan Williams' speaking out against the violence in the Congo, but it is shocking to read this is going on. Perhaps the most important things Brown highlights is the connections between these more conservative (some, like this, extremists) Christians in some African countries and those in the US. I believe there is a type of romanticisim of Christianity in Africa, South America and China, where conservative American Christians, seeing their political influence wanning see support and encouragement and even justification for their positions towards homosexuality from these more conservative churches which are growing in the developing world. Indeed, the report by Political Research Associates, called Globalizing the Culture Wars, highlights this trend: 'U.S. social conservatives, who are in the minority in mainline churches, depend on African religious leaders to legitimize their positions as their growing numbers makes African Christians more influential globally.'

The Church should be at the forefront of speaking out against discrimination and violence against people because of their sexual orientation.

Self Defense and Non Violence

I've just finished reading Christopher B. Strain's Pure Fire: Self-Defense as Activism in the Civil Rights Era.



It is a really great read and part of a swing in the historiography of the Civil Rights era which argues that self defense rather than Martin Luther King Jr.'s non-violent philosophy was the norm for Black activists. It is a very convincing thesis, especially when you factor into it that many Black activists did not think that self-defense and non-violence were in opposition to each other. It is an important corrective to our historical narrative of the Civil Rights era I think and one I will incorporate when teaching this next year. It helps make sense of the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X much better, seeing them not as irrational aberrations of a type of mainstream non-violent movement, but as important elements in a much more popular expression of Black activism against White supremacy. He also brings to light some other important and interesting characters and movements, notably, Robert F. Williams from North Carolina and the Deacons for Self-Defense and Justice. I am particularly interested by Robert Williams. He had numerous debates over the merits of philosophical non-violence, and yet was vilified by some even within the civil rights era. He was the beginnings of more militant activists like Malcolm X and Huey Newton. For Williams',

'Social change is violence itself. You cannot have progress without friction and upheaval. For social change [to occur], two systems must clash. This must be a violent clash, because it's a struggle for survival for one and a struggle for liberation for the other. And always the powers in command are ruthless and unmerciful in defending their position and privileges' (65).

Here is Williams teaching his wife Mabel how to use a pistol.




Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is the chapter on the Watts Riots of 1965. At the time, these riots were the worst in US history yet were branded as irrational expressions of violence simply seeking to cause violence and anarchy. Senseless looting and rioting is what characterised Watts. Strain however argues that the Watts Riots can be seen as a type of collective self defense if historians listen to the voices of those involved. The police arrest of Marquette Frye for drunk driving was within a backdrop of constant police presence in the city. For Strain the 'conflagration', as he calls it, was a collective expression of self-defense against the oppressive presence of police in their neighbourhood. Their antagonism was only furthered by the deployment of the National Guard into Watts.

It seems to me that we need to include self-defense in our narratives of the Civil Rights movement and not just in opposition to non-violence. As Williams said, 'Self-defense is not a love of violence, it is a love of justice' (66). The philosophical and moral idealism of MLK's non-violence just didn't make sense to many people. And for others self-defense was not seen as violence at all. If anything, it shows how distorted our recollection of the movement is, as some scholars have argued, Europeans being so quick to promote MLK as the official or central narrative of the Civil Rights. Let for many African Americans their day to day was characterised by a belief in self-defense as their expression of equality.

I'll leave this post with a great piece of revolutionary art by Emory Douglas, Minister for Culture for the Black Panther Party and recent visitor to New Zealand.

UNC tops MSU

In more cool things, North Carolina beat Michigan State! This was a rematch of last years Championship Game (which Carolina won). Team looks so good this year! Bam!

Ed Davis is going to be great this year.

Archbishop Rowan Williams on DRC

Here is a statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, which 'marks the centenary of the Great Congo Demonstration led by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Randall Davidson, to protest against violence and oppression in the Congo Free State.'

'Speaking at the Royal Albert Hall on 19 November 1909, Archbishop Davidson condemned the "great wrong" perpetrated against the people of Congo, claiming, "we are ourselves in part responsible for the past, and, if that wrong be allowed to continue, by whomsoever carried out, we shall be answerable to God and man for its continuance."

One hundred years later violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to claim lives, with the conflict reportedly causing directly or indirectly the deaths of more than five million civilians since 1998. The conflict, including the latest military operations, is characterised by widespread human rights violations, including horrific acts of sexual and other violence against women and girls, the deliberate killing of civilians, and the recruitment of children as soldiers. The attacks have resulted in the mass-displacement of local communities, exacerbating existing disease and poverty. The United Nations reports that over 1 million people have been forced to flee their homes since January of this year in both eastern and northern DRC. '

This is has been called Africa's "world war", mostly in the sense because of the lives lots. Tragically this massive war and its legacy are not well known or taught.

Iron Man 2 looks mean

South Africa to Expand Effort to Combat AIDS

This from the NYTimes. South Africa plans to combat Aids epidemic reaching young children and mothers at risk. After the previous president denied Aids was linked to HIV this is very positive for South Africa.

I'm reminded of a movie I saw at the Human Rights Film Festival a couple of years ago about a Catholic Bishop working in South Africa who openly disagreed with Catholic teaching on contraception in the Aids communities/slums he was working in. It amazes me that the Catholic teaching is so rigid on this issue, to invitation of serious suffering amongst the people. People's lives are always more important than some set dogma or ideology. The sheer naivety of the idea that simply telling people to not have sex or to abstain can have such deadly consequences.

Perhaps the most shocking thing from the article is:
Harvard researchers estimated last year that the delay by Mr. Mbeki’s government in using antiretroviral drugs to prevent women from infecting their newborns earlier this decade led to the deaths of 35,000 babies, and that 330,000 people died prematurely for lack of treatment

Direct Democracy - Good or Bad?

The Herald on Sunday editorial discussed the dangers of being ruled by 'direct democracy'. With all the furor over the government failing to repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act, the so-called "Anti-Smacking" Bill, there has been discussion over the merits of direct democracy and referendums which are not binding on governments. Those organisations frustrated with the governments lack of movement on this issue has promoted many to push for binding referendums, but as the Herald editorial rightly points out, there are some real dangers behind this. I'm not a political scientist, but I can see how binding referendums would be in effect, be "tyranny of the majority". It would handicap the government into continuous money being spent on changing and promoting issues. It would create an industry of vote gatherers of which the one with the most money wins. The Herald puts it well:

Binding referendums would simply magnify the potential for damage to good governance. Administrations trying to develop coherent public policy could easily have their hands tied by pre-emptive plebiscites. That's what's happened in California, where three decades of tax revolt, starting with the infamous Proposition 13 in 1978, have brought the state to the brink of bankruptcy. As the Economist has noted, it has "launched an entire industry of signature-gatherers and marketing strategists [who] circumscribe what representatives can do by deciding many policies directly".

As John Parkinson writes in his chapter on Direct Democracy in Raymond Millers edited New Zealand Politics (4th edn), 'Dominant groups - generally those who are older, male, well-off, well-educated and in certain countries, of European background - are also much more likely to vote' (p.558).

Perhaps, however, the greatest problem I feel with rule by referendum is that it presents simple yes/no answers to often very complex issues. This is means that the questions that are asked can be very difficult to interpret or can be purposefully (mis)leading questions. I also do think there is case to be made for ill-informed and uneducated decisions on serious questions and issues. Which again allows for groups with the loudest voice, the most money and the best soundbite to win.

Strange Way....

This is poem I just came across by Stewart Henderson. KInd of talking about the foolishness of the idea of a crucified messiah. Thought it was interesting.

Strange way to watch for stormy weather,
Strange way to disprove gravity.
Strange way to go around fundraising,
Strange way to sing out liberty.

Strange way to reassure your mother,
Strange way to finish your world tour.
Strange way to pose for all those paintings,
Strange way to gather the poor.

Strange dissident of meekness,
And nurse of tangled souls,
It's so unlike the holy
To end up full of holes.

Creation, Darwin and Losing My Religion

Last night I saw the new movie, Creation, about Charles Darwin and his life leading up to the publication of the Origin of Species. It is based on a book called, Annie's Box, written by Darwin's great great grandson on Darwin and his relationship with his daughter. I thoroughly enjoyed the film and believe it raises a number of interesting ideas, of which the most powerful was the devastating effect the loss of religious conviction is for the believer.

Before I discuss my thoughts on that, the movie is interesting for a number of reasons. I particular enjoyed how the film wove a number of key themes, such as Darwin's struggle to reconcile his disbelief in God with human emotions and feelings, such as 'heartbreak'. Or his discussions on theodicy, by looking at certain types of animals which cause such devastating suffering on others for survival. Which reminded me of a David Attenborough quote I heard once (i think it's on wikipedia):

My response is that when Creationists talk about God creating every
individual species as a separate act, they always instance
hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend
to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of
a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's
going to make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are you telling me that
the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who
cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created
this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's
eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's
full of mercy'.[28]

Also of interest was Darwin's belief in some pseudo-medical beliefs at the time to do with water therapy.

But perhaps the most interesting for me was the discussion on his loss of faith and how traumatic the implications of his theory and his lack of faith was for his family and wife. This is a common issue for people who find themselves changing or questioning their beliefs about things which have fundamental meaning and purpose-giving effect in their lives. It is hard to over emphasise the psychological pain that can be involved if a person who used to believe there was an all powerful God, who loved them individually and created the world for order, and everything including themselves for a purpose to suddenly (or gradually) no longer exist. This is a revolution of the mind of sorts which it seems caused Darwin incredible physical pain to go through. As much as it was an intellectual pain for Darwin's beliefs to change, it was also so painful for him to think what would happen to his family, his wife, if he changed his beliefs. I wonder how similar this issue is for many people in their lives who have grown up in faith traditions and communities only to be scared of what would happen if they didn't believe?

Throughout all of this is a moving film about a father who loves his family, and is at pains to see them drifting apart. The hardest part is to watch Darwin's daughter Annie slowly die which has the effect of killing off Darwin's belief in Christianity as Divine Revelation (or any revelation) at a similar time. This is such a difficult thing for people of theistic faith to grapple with: the suffering of children. It was the subject of Stanley Hauerwas' book, Naming the Silences. A very good book, which I won't go into the ideas he presents there, but only to say that the suffering of children is perhaps the hardest thing for people to reconcile with many tradition Christian ideas about God.

Some problems I had with the film include the exaggeration of the idea of religion and science to be at war. While those issues were certainly debated and some did want to use Darwin to "kill God" as it were, most Christians (Anglicans) did not find evolution and Christianity at odds in some form of eternal battle. Many were able to happily accommodate Darwinian beliefs into Christian worldviews. While many neo-Darwinians, such as Richard Dawkins would baulk at that idea, people in past had no problems doing so. For example, see research by historian of science and religion at University of Otago, John Stenhouse.

There a bunch of resources for churches based on the film here.

Overall this was a powerful movie for me and i definitely recommend it.

Atheist Bus Campaign Continues.. Updated

The Atheist Bus Campaign in the UK, largely it seems kicked off by the Comment is Free bloggersphere has just put out its final billboard (this time it's not on the bus). The advert asks people not to label children according to their religious belief, (or as a humanist etc) following Richard Dawkins' claim that such labelling is tantamount to child abuse. I think such a campaign is missing the point for a number of reasons. Firstly, the idea that atheists need to be out there preacher there message just seems a little too religious for a atheism (there was also the splintering of atheist views when the first ad came out proclaiming "there probably is no God". Some said probably sounds too agnostic.) I also wonder what the goal with such a campaign is? The people they are trying to influence or reach? Is it not following the lowest common denominator with religious evangelicals by playing their game? Instead is there a better way to have a more meaningful dialogue?

But more importantly regarding this campaign, as one comment on the post stated, why is it assumed that non-religion is normative? Why is it assumed that children have no religious belief, or should have no religious belief? What is the age when a child is free to make up their own mind? How can you be sure to keep them out of all "religious brainwashing" until that age? For instance, many children believe in all sorts of things, and in many cases would have highly diverse beliefs about their own parents faith traditions. Children believe in fairies and ghosts and wizards. If a child wants to be called a wizard, but is obviously not old enough to make a "rational" decision about it, is it right to go with the label? The point I'm trying to get at is, non-religious belief in children is not normative, so why try and force it?

Secondly, many children are sent to faith schools in order to learn about certain values that parents believe those schools teach, such as, loving your neighbour and loving the stranger (that is, those Other from yourself). Or sharing, or humility and sacrifice. None of these things have anything to do being labeled a religious belief or not.

I've just found a quote by Charles Darwin on educating children in religion:

"Nor must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the minds of children producing so strong and perhaps as inherited effect on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake." (p.93)

These were exerpts taken out of his autobiography upon his death out of fear they were too controversial for the Church, but which were later included.

Michael Ruse on Dawkins and New Atheists

This is also an excellent piece in the Guardian by Michael Ruse. He point by point details why he disagrees with fellow atheists like Richard Dawkins, and at the same time, hints at why they are so damaging in their approach.

Gender Gap Widens in University Graduates

NZ Herald reported that:

Two-thirds of bachelor degrees last year went to women, the highest figure on record in New Zealand.

Pearl Jam's new song, 'The Fixer' rules

Lyrics: (a lot of Yeah's, but still cool)
Yeah, hey, hey
When somethings dark, let me shed a little light on it
When somethings cold, let me put a little fire on it
If somethings old, I wanna put a bit of shine on it
When somethings gone, I wanna fight to get it back again

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

When somethings broke, I wanna put a bit of fixin on it
When somethings bored, I wanna put a little exciting on it
If somethings low, I wanna put a little high on it
When somethings lost, I wanna fight to get it back again

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

When signals cross, I wanna put a little straight on it
If there's no love, I wanna try to love again

I’ll say your prayers, I’ll take your side
I'll find us a way to make light
I'll dig your grave, we'll dance and sing
What's saved could be one last lifetime

Hey, hey, hey
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Fight to get it back again, yeah, yeah, yeah
Fight to get it back again, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Education for the 21st Century - National's approach

Interesting news piece regarding the importance of diverse and broad approaches to education curiculum were linked to by Labour MP Phil Twyford. Gordon Campbell's piece on National's new focus on the three R's'(Reading, Writing, Arthimatic) and National Standards testing (one size fits all test to measure kids abilities... As if all kids had the same access to information/support/learning etc) and taking away funding for Science, Arts and Physical Education. Campbell points to a new study by Cambridge University which shows just how defunct this approach to education in the 21st century. This is the same message I've heard all year at Teachers College. National Standards testing have been heavily critised in the US as well (see, for example, this). Teachers continue to put emphasis on the three R's while recognising the broad spectrum of skills students need to learn. Furthermore, students who perform badly early on at school (no result on teaching but more perhaps cultural capitial they bring with them) are put off schooling, with devestating effects for later chances at education. As with Law and Order, it seems National is more concerned with political posturing and looking to be doing something, while really just blanketing black and white solutions to complex, dynamic problems.

See also this NYT piece by Thomas L. Friedman on what education needs to be for American public schools in the 21st century...

Things about the place

Found these two articles interesting:

Diana Butler Bass comments on some churches in Nigeria killing children who they believed to be withces, justifying it with the verse in exodus. Makes for interesting reading in the romatising of African churches by conservative Western churches, which she argues began around Phillip Jenkins landmark book, the Next Christendom (rightly, i think too). I think she makes a case for the critical approach to the bible, not just a contexual one. More importantly, i think she rightly points out how glorfiying African churches is wrong. Furthermore, I'd argue that it is actually very paternalistic of conservative Churches to do this. These churches admire their African churches because they seem simplier, more pure, traditional.

The second is from Archbishop of Cantebury, Rowan Williams, on the environment and our need to get in touch with our humanity and our co-dependence on the environment. Worth a look.

Hat Tip to Brian McLaren for these findings...

Capitalism, Christianity, Selfishness and/or Self-Interest

I've usually had a pretty stock standard response to this question. Obivviously Jesus is not a capitalist and wouldn't support such a system. For all the reasons Michael Moore makes clear in his post on Huffington.

Then I read this from Michael Ruse, posting on Jesus Creed about the difference between selfishness (being self-interested at the expense of others) and self-interest (looking after yourself without expense of others). The example he uses is in teaching your kids to brush their teeth, you are teaching them to be self interested, not selfish.

At any rate, I found it interesting to read Michael Moore take a position on all this, especially within his conservative evangelical US cultural context. I had no idea he was Catholic. And as Brian McLaren points out, both himself and Michael Moore, are publishing things within the very system they are critiquing and therefore either they're oblivious to irony, or their opinions are more naunced than simply being black and white... I guess i think that a system that allows 1% of the world to own more wealth than the bottom 95% COMBINED needs to be dismantled. And quickly.

Some perspective please Harvard....

(This is from my girlfriend Rosemarie, quoting the Harvard article and the newsfeeds...)

we are working hard to minimise the impact of the global financial downturn....


“disproportionately affected…”
“[due to the economic crisis]..the World Bank estimates that high food and energy prices have pushed another 100 million people into poverty this year alone.”

“suffered…”
A further 22 million women could fall into unemployment this year as a result of the current global economic crisis, the International Labour Office (ILO) has predicted.
http://www.twnside.org.sg/women.htm

“It was a big shock…. Not getting their nutrients – a solid meal”
For the first time, more than 1 billion people are chronically hungry, according to the U.N. FAO…Malnutrition is also the underlying cause of 3 million child deaths each year.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/AMMF-7WMS6D?OpenDocument&query=food%20crisis


“the loss is especially hard…”
“f the global economy were to rebound in 2010, sub-Saharan Africa would still be one of the world's poorest and most vulnerable regions, and have more than half its food insecure people, says an examination of the impact of the economic slowdown on food security.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85293


“despite its budget problems, Harvard has increased financial aid to students to $145 million this year”
Non-profit organisations and NGOs are laying off staff and cutting back aid programmes as the global recession bites, and the prospects for 2010 also look bleak… "In 2009, we’re estimating that giving from foundations will decline in the range of the high single digits to the low double digits," said Steven Lawrence, senior director of research at the Foundation Center, a leading US authority on philanthropy, noting that foundation assets declined double that amount, almost 22 percent, in 2008.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84023


“We understand we have to give up something,” Mx. Flores said. “But students want to be able to say what they’re willing to give up and what they want to protect. As long as that’s part of the discussion, I think the process can be done peacefully.”
Tensions have remained high in Akobo County of Jonglei State, Southern Sudan, a week after inter-ethnic clashes left at least 185 people, mainly women and children, dead.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85669

Harvard has to cut back cookies for professors due to recession...

No, this isn't an Onion article. It's a serious article in the NYTimes about Ivy league schools having to cut certain things for students. It's so riduclous that you could be forgiven not being shocked by the offense of it. The highlight for me is:

"just this week came the jarring news that professors will go without cookies at faculty meetings."

and...

“Everyone is worried,” said George Hayward, a junior who lives on a part of campus, the Quad, that lost its library to the cuts. “It could be anything next; nobody really knows.”

Well, we find out what else they've lost... It's warm hot breakfasts!

"Gone are the hot breakfasts in most dorms and the pastries at Widener Library"

A Chemical Party

This is so awesome. I want to be a science teacher for one period, just so i can do this... Though i have no idea what the different elements even do, so my chemical party would be lame... This however makes science awesome. Now, if only i could do something similar in history.... Have to find some guns and uniforms.

100 Greatist Hits of Youtube in 4mins

FYI this is my cultural history right here. History professors take note

Christianity's Dangerous Idea

I've just finished Alister McGrath's a new history of the Protestant Reformation. As i haven't read much of the "old History", i'm not sure how new it is. For long sections he repeats himself and the book is much longer than it needed to be. However there were some interesting points made. Some are already well known, but i'll list what i thought was particularly interesting.

1. The prostestant reformers focus on justification by faith alone, and sola scripture, led to a desacrilisation of the present world. Hence the rise of atheism and secular society was a result of and partily exists within a society which has desacrilised the material (thought not always successfully). I think this is the point Charles Taylor has made in a Secular Age.

2. That Protestantism is not an arrived at destination or even really a set of doctrines or dogmas, rather it is a method.

3. That there was no one reformation, rather multiple reformations at once.

4. That the reformation was in some sense a radical democractic act, democracising faith, and the justification for that faith.

Sweet Disposition by Temper Trap

C.S. Lewis

CS Lewis Poem, taken from this blog response by Brian McLaren:

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshiping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to thyself divert
Our arrows aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolaters, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if thou take them at their word.

Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

new Brand New song, At the Bottom, rules.

Wait
I watched you throw out your bouquet
Now i think about you everyday
I’m alone now in my bed
And there’s a lake And at the bottom you’ll find all our friends
They don’t swim cause they’re all dead
We never are what we intend, or invent
‘Cause I make little lies and then I pull them apart
Think something dark’s living down in my heart
And if I wanted to die before I got old
I should’ve started some years ago digging that hole

Well I carry this box to the proper place
And when I lower it down
I let it you fade away
I hope that you would do this for me
I’d serve you drugs on a silver plate
If I thought it would help you get away
I hope that you would do this for me
A deer that a hunter shot in the heart
Some dogs that got hit by cars
All came to spill their guts
And we spoke About the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
And which songs we had loved the most
And then we all turned to dirt And dust
Some men die under the mountain just looking for gold
Some die looking for a hand to hold

Well I carry this box to its proper place
And when I lower it down I let you fade away
I know that you would do this for me
I’d serve you drugs on a silver plate
If I thought it would help you get away
I hope that you would do this for me

I’m slowly bringing you down from the Heavenly gates
Now I’m drowning in the flood I made
Well explain myself to me on the other side
I’ll watch from Heaven when I die

Well I carry this box to the proper place
And when I lower it down I let you fade away
I know that you would do this for me
I’d serve you drugs on a silver plate
If I thought it would help you get away
I hope that you would do this for me

The Shark God

Haven't posted in forever. But just read this quote from this book i'm reading, the Shark God: Encounters with Myth and Magic in the South Pacific and thought it was worth sharing.

'Myth, like love, is a decision. What it answers is longing. What it demands is faith.What it opens is possibility.'

Myths and stories (narratives) are the things we live our lives by. And, then i guess not surprising, we learn best through stories too.

Mom's the word.

I was going through some old letters of mine and i found this quote i wrote down. It was said by my Mom on a video of her i have before she died:

'The simple things in life are where the treasures are'.

Absolutely

Picturing Poverty

A friend sent me this link to a blog posting titled, 'Stuff White People Do: travel to exotic locations, meet adorable children, and shoot them'. Basically, the blog posting argues that white people travelling to exotic locations taking pictures of the other are engaged in exploitation and appropriation.

As she says:

Appropriation and exploitation -- As a white person living in the U.S., it is not only my privilege but my feel-good habit/hobby/vacation option to swoop into a country about which I know nothing, drop a few boxes of shoes, take pictures with children while their parents/aunts/cousins/grandparents watch, and to in the process somehow claim these children as my own. I vicariously experience their suffering, capture it in a still frame, and somehow feel more alive in my neoliberal, disconnected, consumerist living experience. I, the almighty white woman, have been to Africa and nursed her children out of the throes of malnutrition and disease. Her children are my children. Madonna, meet Malawi.In these photographs, children are exploited to build social capital. It is so last year, so K-mart middle America to take a vacation; real liberals wouldn’t do that. I can’t help but think of the commercials for Sasha Cohen’s new movie, Bruno, in which he adopts an African baby because Angelina and Madonna have one, and in which he also states, “I’m really into issues. Darfur’s a big one. So what’s next, what’s Dar-five?” Your “experience” in South America can become just another item to check off the bucket list, a line on your resume, fodder for a great graduate school application.

Further, she argues that these pictures assuage 'White Guilt':

Sometimes I think this phenomenon is another one of those things we white folks do to feel better about our privilege, a visual reminder that, though we might not be able to do much about the fact that we like our Nikes and we like them cheap, we can sleep in the only concrete room in a village for a week, drop a few boxes of malaria meds, and call it even. And even come home with invaluable souvenirs to remind us of just how much those sweet little children looked up to us! I have four cars while a billion people (most of whom don’t happen to be white) on the planet are starving, but I went on a missions trip, and look how happy I made this malnutritioned little boy'.

Alongside the movie, Enjoy Poverty, which I haven't seen yet, but which i've heard makes similar points, how are 'we', (white people in developed countries who travel to 'Other' countries, take pictures for whatever reason and care about the world, in particular those countries which have been systematically colonised and pillaged), to deal with these issues?

A number of initial comments i think can be made to her blog post. Firstly, not all pictures of 'Africans' are Others, are unknowns, just dark, poor bodies. Rather, they are friends, companions, people white people have lived with and known and care about deeply. Secondly, the idea that these photos build up a sense of 'self-worth' for white people, i think is mis-leading or not the full picture. For many people who travel to these countries, for whatever reason, these pictures are, or can be, reminders for how worthless we should feel about ourselves sometimes. They are reminders of that existential anger and frustration at having been born into such privilege and opportunity, while containing the knowledge that our privilege is not the result of natural progress, evolution, or ability - but largely of exploitation. Photos which remind us of our 2% position in the world, and then move us into action to redress that, is surely, not entirely bad? Though i'm probably wrong...

What i think is very interesting in her post is the reference to social capital building. I'd also add, cultural capital too. Not only do we gain access into certain classes with having experienced such a trip (our social capital, networks, people, we move within), but we also gain cultural capital, being able to talk and reference global poverty and our experience and narratives in our job interviews or with peers. This cultural capital, this coded language of global poverty and our experience affords us access into success in many spheres of life and within social elite classes.

One further thought. Perhaps this is all a hangover from the technology and travel revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s. More than ever before, people from developed nations can travel almost instantly into exotic and poor locations and witness it all, in all its brutality. Before, these places were distance, mystery, dangerous. Now we can go there, see it for ourselves, and the need to capture this, own this, remembers this is what drives our need for pictures of these exotic locations. Often what is photographed is poverty, not necessarily race or people. The same photographer who captures camps in Ghana, may be the same who captures street kids in Paris.

No conclusions though.

Knowing Nothing

So after reading a bit of Brian McLaren, i'm getting into some Bruce Cockburn, a Canadian folk song writer and a bit of an activist and Christian. According to wikipedia.

Anyway... I like this quote by him, which McLaren uses:

"All these years of thinking ended up like this: in front of all this beauty, understanding nothing".

Auckland History and Quotes

Firstly some quotes:

'Laugh at ministers all you want, they have the words we need to hear, the ones the dead have spoken'. Rabbit in John Updike, Rabbit is Rich.

'It can surely be said that the Psalter presents a struggle of the just against the unjust', Jose Miranda, Communism in the Bible (from the opening pages of a book i've started, Walter Bruggemann's theological commentary on the Pslams.)

From the book i've just finished reading on Auckland, which i discuss a bit below:

'It [Auckland City Councils etc] has been drowned by the cacophony of promotion by business lobbies that we live in an Economy not a Community", p.299.

I especially like that quote.

A recent book i've just finished reading is Gordon Mclauchlan's 'Auckland, the Story of a Colourful City'. It is an interesting read about some of the Auckland's history from just around contact to the present Super City discussions. However, it spends most of its time in the 19th C. I've taken some pictures of some of the places he mentions as important, and i'll put them up soon. Some of the highlights for me were:

Onehunga as the first town in the British Commonwealth to have a female Mayor. She was apparently very capable and become Mayor before women were enfranchised in 1893, or maybe it was the same year. Go Onehunga.

St Pauls was originally located in Emily Place, were that triangle of land/picnic seats still exists by Shortland Street. The rock there represents where the biggest Church in Auckland stood at the time and it was impressive, internationally, for its size and style. And, it was impressive in Auckland over looking point Britomart. It was the biggest building in Auckland for years. It is nice that the monument exists to its original location.

The Settlers dumped all their crap and wees into Okahu Bay, which insulted Maori who did not even use crap for fertilizer. Literally, settler's shat on Maori in Auckland.

Mt Eden, or, Maungawhau (which means "Mountain of the Whau Tree") was an important landmark where Captain William Hobson in part made his decision to move the capital from Russell (i think...) down to Auckland. It is named after George Eden, first Earl of Auckland, whom Hobson admired greatly (namely numerous things after him!) Looking over the isthmus, he saw the potential of the area, it's rapid, unplanned growth. Which has, McLauchlan argues, led to the culture of economic risk/success which has dominated the city more than others in New Zealand. On Mt Eden, where i was up today, there is a rather pathetic monument to surveyors who cut up Auckland into the city is today - in particular, Matthew Felton.

Alex, i really think you'd enjoy this book. There is a lot of geographical and town planning information in the city's history.

More from a Generous Orthodoxy - 'Would Jesus Be A Christian?'

This is the title to Brian McLaren's third chapter, and it is a question which I once saw on the St Matthews website (phrased as 'Is God Christian?'). My inital answer to such questions , is no. I agree with Sir Desmond Tutu who said: "I give great thanks to God that he has created a Dalai Lama. Do you really think, as some have argued, that God will be saying: "You know, that guy, the Dalai Lama, is not bad. What a pity he's not a Christian"? I don't think that is the case — because, you see, God is not a Christian."

McLaren's chief criticism here is that when he looks at much of western (evangelical) Christianity today he doesn't think Jesus would fit in at all and further that most Christians wouldn't even like Jesus if he showed up today. Statements that he admist are contentious and exagerations. The point McLaren wants to make is all about what it means to call Jesus 'Lord'. For McLaren, Lord means Master - but there are 3 senses the word 'master' can take. The first sense is that of authority and kingship - words which for many feel 'barbarously archaic', with associations of monarchy and absolutle undemocractic power. He asks us to imagine living in a time of fear of constant violence and vulnerability from whatever 'warlord' happened to be in power. If this was the case, then the idea of a good king, a just king would be good news, right?

However, it is not good news for us living at the end of modernity according to McLaren, as we're already told we are controlled by almost everything (class struggle, genes, physcology, colonialism, social contrustuctions etc etc). "Against this backdrop, theistic determinism is just another determinism, and in that case, talking about God as the all-powerful, all-controlling Lord/King is just more bad news' (90) God becomes the our puppet master.

However, for McLaren, 'Good news under these circumstances would be a leader who liberated us from all determinisms, who deconstructed oppressive authority and the self-interest of leaders and nations, who destabilized that status quo and made way for a better day, who delivered us not only from corrupt power, but also from the whole approach to power that is so corruptible' (90). 'Jesus comes as a liberating, revolutionary leader, freeing us from the dehumanization and oppression that come from all "the powers that be" in our world (including religious powers)"

'His kingdom, then, is a kingdom not of oppressive control but of dreamed-of freedom, not of coercive dominance but of liberating love, not of top-down domination but of bottom-up service, not of a clenched iron fist but of open, wounded hands extended in a welcoming embrace of kindness, gentleness, forgiveness and grace' (91).

The second sense is the sense of Master/Servant. Here again Jesus challenges the old meaning of slave/master. Jesus takes off his garments and washes his own servants feet. Literarlly demonstrating 'mastery - by serving' (92). 'The last are first and the first are last'.

The last sense is Lord as teacher - but as a teacher which i'd argue reflects critical pedagogy. A way of learning which is practised and relevant to real life/culture and context. Not abstract understandings of dogma.

These themes of Christ as being more than what Christianity makes him out to be/ or claims for itself, i think is important and refreshing. And it is something i want to look at again with McLaren's chapter on Incarnation...

I'll finish with Gandhi:

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims of Jesus Christ that says it's not possible to worship both Mammon and God at the same time. "

Adventures in Missing the Point and Chimps

I've just finished reading Brian McLaren's and Tony Campolo's Adventures in Missing the Point. It is an interesting and quick read through a range of topics. Some of which were more interesting than others. But overall worth the read. In particular it was interesting to read the way in which one of them would write a chapter and the other would offer response to it at the end. It is really good to see these different counterpoints etc. What was most interesting for me though was finding out other stuff to read! McLaren's chapter on Truth used examples from Primatologist, Jane Goodall's book, Reason for Hope. She is pretty well known, but what i found most interesting, which McLaren drew out was that from her objective, rationalist model of scientific observation of primates she made a subjective connection based on love. It wasn't a rejection of modernist objectivism which science is founded upon, but it was an extension of it, there was a breaking of the object/subject divide which McLaren then used to push boundaries of what we understand as Truth (with a capital 'T'). As Goodall says in her interaction and physical contact with David, the chimp, 'We had communicated in a langauge far more ancient than words, a language that we shared with our prehistoric ancestor, a language bridging our two worlds'. After David is killed by poachers, Goodall dedicates her life and work to activism on their behalf, as McLaren discusses, she moves beyond pure scientific objectivism (which never existed anyway) and into a 'story', a 'journey', an 'adventure', a 'passion'. This is something 'postscientific, postobjective. This is love'.

Can't wait to read Goodall's book!

Christianity Capitalism Communism Campolo

Some more quotes from Tony Campolo in Missing the Point, the chapter on Social Action:

Campolo quotes Bishop Dom Helder Camaro of Recife, Brazil:

'When i gave them food, they called me a saint ... Yet when i asked why they had no food in the first place, they called me a communist' (117).

Campolo then goes on to ask the question of marrying capitalism and Christianity:

'Yet how can capitalism be divinely ordanied when its most revered theorist, Adam Smith, writes in the Wealth of Nations that greed is what makes capitalism work? "It is mot from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard of self interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love. What religion regards as foul, capitalism pronounces as good. It is from the "luxary and the caprice of the rich man" and from "his natural selfishness and rapacity" that society advances, Smith believed" (118)

He then exhorts:

"When those who wield economic power are out of control, and serve their own interests to the detriment of the masses, the poor, and the powerless, Christians must speak prophetically and pronouce God's judgement against such destructive self-interest'. (118)

It really is the prophetic role of the Church to lift it's eyes away from personal advancement, and the type of thinking which runs along the lines of: "What can/does God do for me" and put them towards: "how does God speak to the power structures/systems of the world" and then, "how can i get involved".

How many earths do I live on?

Thought this was provoking. Thought provoking if you will... Heard it at a forum on Food Security at University of Auckland.

Europeans live as there were the resources of four planet earths.

The United States lives as if there were eight planet earths.

All theologies are heresies

I like this from sociologist and theologian, Tony Campolo:

'Far from any individual's theology being The Right One, in one sense all theologies are heresies. For theologies, like heresies, are major or minor distortions of the truth' (Missing the Point, p.34).

And maybe, the truth is that we'll never know the truth, so there is no absolute truth, just distortions, creations, abstractions, additions, complications?

If it's not in the bible then....

Just some things i found interesting from reading these two books by Brian McLaren, Generous Orthodoxy and Adventures in Missing the Point (with Tony Campolo).

'The phrase accept Christ as your personal saviour is not in the Bible. Even personal saviour is absent from the pages of the Bible. In fact, the Bible seems to make the focus of salvation on us as a people, not on me as an individual'. (Missing the Point, p.19.)

In the Bible, being forgiven is the starting line not finishing line of salvation (ibid)

Nowhere in the Bible is the term 'sinners prayer'. Only in the last 150 years have Alter calls or invitations for salvation been done, likewise with raising of hands or walking done aisles (ibid, p.20)

The phrase, 'The Word of God' when used in the Bible never refers to the Bible, as it hadn't been compiled yet. (Generous Orthodoxy, p.181).

Generous Orthodoxy and the Seven Jesuses

I've just finished reading Brian D. McLaren's a Generous Orthodoxy, and though i'm a little behind on his bandwagon, i still want to blog on the parts of the book i really enjoyed, if for no other reason than to help my own thinking. This first post will focus on the first part of McLaren's book, dealing with Jesus.

In a Generous Orthodoxy McLaren offers a different approach to orthodoxy (or 'right/correct thinking) and the Christian faith. Instead of seeking to create an orthodoxy of set of firm doctrinal or systematic creeds McLaren wants to be inclusive (hence the 'generous') and find room for a range of positions both Christian and non in his way of aligning our religious convictions with 'Someone' (God). The almost oxymoronic title is not lost on McLaren as he spends much of Chapter 0 talking about how we can bring a generous approach to our thinking about beliefs. His way of approaching this is to call himself a missional/evangelical/catholic/Anabaptist/incarnational/mystical/green/emergent/Methodist/post-protestant/liberal-Conservative etc etc

Literally being 'all things to all people', a phrase St Paul used and to which he returns to often (particular the chapter on Incarnation, to which i'll return). I find this very refreshing, seeking to find commonalities instead of lines of separation. It is telling, however, which traditions/style he pulls out from the different strands of Christianity. For example, from evangelicals (purposefully lowering the 'E'), of which he considers himself one, he really only likes their passionate action and culturally in tune media appropriation... Probably not what most evangelicals would wanted him to have taken from their faith so much...

'The Seven Jesuses I Have Known'

Ultimately McLaren is a Christian because of the person of Jesus Christ and his relationship with that person (49). However, the shape of that relationship (or rather, the shape of McLaren's understanding of Jesus) has changed over the years. He lists 7 stereotypes of Jesus, which i feel many of us would be familiar with:

1. Conservative/Protestant Jesus. The key to this Jesus is that it focuses the good news almost exclusively on the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus was born to die, and saves us by dying on the cross. The cross is the focal point. How Jesus absolves human evil through God's mercy is explained through various metaphors:

a) The Legal Metaphor: God is judge, humanity is guilty deserving the death penalty. Jesus, a perfect representative willing takes the death penalty, justice is satisfied.

b) The Economic Metaphor (or i've heard it as the ransom metaphor): God is the good master, and we are his servants, but we run away (or are kidnapped) by the 'evil one', who makes us his slaves. Jesus is offered as the ransom if the 'evil one' will let humanity go. Satan takes Jesus and potentially frees us all, and also gets double crossed as Jesus also defeats him/it. 'In this metaphor the business language of selling, buying, price and payment is paramount'.

c) The Governmental Metaphor: The Human Race has rebelled against the King. To be restored we must repent and resubmit to God's will. But because we are so munted we can't do it, so Jesus steps in and through his obedient life and voluntary death acts as our representative and submits to God's will. As our rep, his example extends to us if we believe. Political terms like, representation, reconciliation and citizenship are used in this metaphor.

d) A Military Metaphor: Humanity has been conquered by an alien power or powers (sin, devil, death). Jesus goes into battle with the powers and appears defeated, but his death turns out to be victory. Terms like, battle, defeat, conquering are common.

This view of Jesus, McLaren argues, focuses 'directly, nearly exclusively, on the problem of individual moral guilt'. Still, McLaren felt uneasy with this Jesus as he grew out of his teens/twenties: 'Jesus' cross in the past saved me from hell in the future, but it was hard to be clear on what it meant for me in the struggle of the present. And more importantly, did the gospel have anything to say about justice for the many, not just the justification of the individual? Was the gospel intended to give hope for human cultures and the created order in history, or was history a lost cause, so that the gospel only could give hope to individual souls beyond death, beyond history - like a small lifeboat in which a few lucky souls escape a sinking ship?' (55)

McLaren asks if this focus on Jesus' death marginalises his life - his teachings and kind deeds etc. He began to feel as if the 'gospel became simply an individualistic theory, an abstraction with personal but not global import' (55).

2. The Pentecostal Jesus:
A Jesus who was here in the present, could be experienced etc.

These Jesus for McLaren was all tied up with figuring out who was spirit filled and who wasn't, debates over speaking in tongues etc etc (man these feel so pointless to me now! and I used to care so much as a teenager!)

Problems McLaren soon faced with some Pentecostal Jesus ideas were one of expectations. 'Did God promise miracles on demand?' 'I refuse to blame the victim'... The person was already sick! The Jesus i knew came to help them, not blame them or make them feel worse' (58-59)

Other questions concerned him, 'Were there social and historical dimensions to the gospel that went beyond personal health, prosperity, and happiness for believers now and in 'eternity'? (59)

3.The Roman Catholic Jesus:

For McLaren, the Roman Catholics focus on how Jesus saves the church by rising from the dead, through this God has defeated 'death and that comes with it - fear (when will death come), hurry (how much time do i have in this short - terminal life) greed (you only go around once, so grab all you can), envy (why does her short life go better than mine), injustice(evil often prosper and live long), materialism (most toys wins) etc etc etc. 'Through Resurrection Jesus changes forever the whole equation of existence' (60).

This Jesus is attractive because if death isn't the last word, then it makes 'sense to do right, even if your cause is, humanly speaking, hopeless'. (60) It puts human life in a whole new context, you can be first here and last in God's eyes and requires a whole new way of living.

4. Eastern Orthodox Jesus:

McLaren prefaces his introduction to this Jesus through his reading of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. Here Jesus, the Spirit and God are engaged in an 'eternal dance, sharing in love, honour, happiness' etc and God is inviting more and more people into this dance. Through Jesus God restores the rhythm and beauty of this dance of creation. The Eastern Orthodox Jesus saves by 'simply by being born, by showing up' (63). As Jesus takes on human life, so human life is taken up into God's life. It was through the Eastern Orthodox Jesus that McLaren first engaged with the idea of Jesus as saviour (in the Hebrew sense of the word) of the world, not just a few individuals.

5. Liberal Protestant Jesus:

For Liberal Protestants, according to McLaren, the focus is on the 'words and deeds of Jesus Christ'. The story between his birth, death and resurrection. 'His teachings and acts of love, haling, justice, and compassion offer a way of life that, if practised brings blessing to the whole world'. It is our job then, to exemplify this, not just in personal relationships, but within/towards political structures and cultural systems of the world.

6. The Anabaptist Jesus:

Focused more on the ethical teaching of Jesus and less on theological disputes. Their focus is on how we conduct ourselves in everyday life, in which the church is not an institution, but rather a continuation of a band of disciples.

To be honest, i really didn't get what McLaren found distinctive here....

7. Jesus of the Oppressed or Liberation Theology:

This Jesus i identify with predominately i think. Not just because i'm a fan of liberation theologian and educational sociologist Paulo Friere and his Pedadgogy of the Oppressed, but rather because I believe that it puts the emphasis on the oppressed in society, which is exactly what Jesus did. For McLaren, the Jesus of Liberation Theology is the non-violent Jesus (some liberation theologians argue for a case of using violence against oppressors, which, it needs be said, is not unlike Evangelicals arguing for a Just War theology to justify supporting war). McLaren comments that Marxism and Communism were filling a gap that should have been filled by Christians - 'Christians who understood the revolutionary social and political implications of the teaching and example of Jesus, whose gospel was good news to the poor, along with a challenge of generosity for the rich'. (70). What both McLaren and myself like about this Jesus is the activist mindset of Jesus and his disciples in 'relation to systems of oppression' (71). It is also worth adding, which McLaren doesn't, that Liberation Theology stems from branches of Catholic Theology, birth in South America. I think it is important to add this, as it brings a historical context to Liberation Theology and the type of social justice tradition the Catholic Church has been involved in.

McLaren sketches there caricatures to illustrate a point. Each tradition focuses and brings something new to the person of Jesus. Each of the traditions has examples in scripture which can be used to support it. What McLaren wants to do is try and embrace each different tradition and orthodoxy, and utilise the best they each offer.

I found it particularly interesting because i have had similar experiences, though with only about 4 of the Jesus' (Conservative, Pentecostal, Liberal, Liberation - in that order). What i think it demonstrates most is how mediated Jesus is through our context/my reading of the text. While i do think some understandings of Jesus and what his 'politics' were are better than others, crucially i think what McLaren's example illustrates is how Jesus changes as we grow older. Sometimes in very radical ways, sometimes in very subtle ways.

Erich Fromm

"One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often"

This from social psychologist and humanist Erich Fromm. I really enjoyed Fromm's most famous (popular) book, The Art of Loving and could not recommend it enough. The above quote gives credence to the research that suggests those more knowledgeable about current events/issues etc are more likely to be depressed. In my opinion this is a start, the depression, the realisation both existential (that this life is what i have to accomplish the goal of being and doing) and of the scope of injustice in the world. However, it's only a start and we need to move past/through this existential angst and frustration and find a higher virtue from which to ethically act in the world. I actually have a bunch of quotes from him i like, and i especially enjoy his grappling with existentialism. For example in this nice quote:

'Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape'.

Gaps everywhere....

"Years of prosperity bypassed Aborigines, says report "

This story from the nzherald covering a report which details the widening gap between Aborigines and white Australians. The report states that even during times of economic growth, Aborigines did not benefit. The report found that there had been no improvements in 80% of the indicators they measured. Solutions were not just for the government:

"Meaningful change will also require commitment and actions by indigenous people themselves, with support from the private and no-profit sectors and the general community, as well as governments," it said

The report goes on to detail some of the indicators, such as children, health, domestic abuse, incarceration etc.

I wonder how long it is assumed a people (way of life, belief system, social norms, hierarchy of values etc etc) completely brutalised by colonisation is expected to have moulded into colonial beings and adapted to their 'multi-cultural' status? What is the result of forcing/coercing thousands of years of knowledge and culture into hundreds of years of rapid change/colonisation? The way in which cultures are simply expected to appropriate the dominant white/colonial/capitalist model of organising society and then 'get up to speed'/'pull their socks up' is extraordinary. This is perhaps the real problem, that Aborignes need to succeed in western model of development, ignoring their own ways of knowing and being.

The second gap relates to the gap in media reporting on swine flu. Hans Rosling examines the 'news/death' ratio between Swine Flu and Tuberculosis during the same 13 day period - Swine Flue =31 and TB = 63 066. For every Swine Flu death there was over 8 thousand news items. For every TB death there was 0.1 news items. You can watch the video below. Demonstrates how massive and powerful the media can be. Not that Rosling says concern over Swine Flu is unwarranted, but that the gap between the media reporting and the other health related concerns is huge. Demonstrates further just how much the media and the news frames and defines the issues we discuss, think about and therefore are willing to act on.

Comment from Brian McLaren in response to a question

"As I recall, Newbigin somewhere said that certainty comes through an intellectual system - but we work with a story, not a system, so it yields something other than certainty."

James K Baxter

Alone we are born

And die alone;

Yet see the red-gold cirrus

Over snow mountain shine

Upon the upland road

Ride easy, stranger:

Surrender to the sky

Your heart of anger

Che Guevara

"The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth...Far more important than a good remuneration is the pride of serving ones neighbour. Much more definitive and much more lasting than all the gold that one can accumulate is the gratitude of a people."

A beast, an angel and a madman

'I hold a beast, an angel and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, downthrow and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression.'

'I know we're not saints or virgins or lunatics; we know all the lust and lavatory jokes, and most of the dirty people; we can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real sentences. But our innocence goes awfully deep, and our discreditable secret is that we don't know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don't care that we don't.'

Quotes by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

E M Blaiklock

'The secret of all living as the years increase their total and their toll, is not to surrender. I do not mean by that to hold on to place and office in a manner which blocks the ambitions and stunts the ability of youth, I do not mean to hold the floor, to talk unceasingly and to crowd the scene. I mean that there is always work to do and there is life in doing it'.

E M Blaiklock, from one of his autobiographies. Blaiklock was a distinguished professor of Classics at the University of Auckland until the 1970s. He was also involved with the Auckland campus branch of the Evangelical Union. I just like it. Right, back to work.

Waitangi

Quote from G. K. Chesterton

"In answer to the historical query of why [Christian faith] was accepted and is accepted, I answer for millions of others in my reply; because it fits the lock, because it is like life. It is one among many stories; only it happens to be a true story ... We accpet it; and the ground is solid under our feet and the road is open before us ... It opens to us not only incredible heavens but what seems to some an equally incredible earth, and makes it credible. This is the sort of truth that is hard to explain because it is a fact; but it is a fact to which we can call witnesses. We are Christians ... not because we worship a key, but because we have passed a door; and felt the wind that is the trumpet of liberty blow over the land of the living."

G K Chesterton, The Everlasting Man.

Pakistan and Sport

Pakistan is already a serious humanitarian disaster, in a time when no one wants to spend any money on anything but nationalising banks and pointless, terribly worded referendums. The US shifting the front of the 'War on Terror' from Iraq to Afghanistan and using Pakistan along the way has meant this is situation is rapidly becoming one where any aid/humanitarian assistance is increasingly difficult if not impossible. Not just because of the lack of funds available, but because it is such a military operation now.

My girlfriend, Rosemarie, did this news round up on the funding shortfall for Pakistan. It's a depressing picture, but worth reading through. Particularly UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's address at UN HQ and the questions asked at the end... Questions not about Pakistan or the state of the world, but rather, refurbishing the UN HQ offices....

Also interesting is comparing the cost of Ronaldo's new football contract to Real Madrid and funding shortfalls for the WFP. How do we handle the extravagant amounts of money sportspeople, scratch that, sportsmen are paid, and then do some commercial for WFP.

There is a place for sports people in promoting humanitarian issues. It the same question we ask of celebrities. People like Manute Bol and Luol Deng, both Sudanese refugees now in the US playing for the NBA, who have been vocal and influential about the situation there (for example, see Bol's influence in the book 'What is the What'). I guess i'm thinking that it's great if they want to get involved and do something, but maybe ngos/UN shouldn't put them in their commercials at the same time that they receive such ridiculous amounts of money.

Sorry, enough from me. Here is Rosie's excellent round up on Pakistan.


Transcript of press conference by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at United Nations headquarters, 11 June 2009
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MWAI-7SX53S?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=pak

We stand ready to help the Pakistani Government to the maximum amid this humanitarian crisis.

We have launched a $ 543 million funding appeal. So far, we have received roughly one quarter of that amount.

As a result, there could soon be serious breaks in the food pipeline. Current stocks of essential drugs will be depleted by the end of this month.

I, therefore, appeal to the international community, especially major donors, to respond quickly and generously to Pakistan’s urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction needs.

We must alleviate distress and avoid putting the country at risk of a spiralling secondary crisis.


Pakistan humanitarian effort in jeopardy due to a lack of funds and UN blockage - Save the Children
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/AMMF-7SVLZC?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=AMMF-7HUDG8

Save the Children’s efforts to help more than one million victims of the fighting in the Swat valley of Pakistan is under threat due to a lack of funds. Along with eight other aid agencies working in the region, we’re struggling with a collective funding deficit of US $ 42m – the biggest shortfall in a decade. We plan to reach around 280,000 displaced people in the region… 40,000 people have been reached to far, but to date we’ve received just 206m of the 6.6 million pounds needed to achieve our goals in the Swat Valley.
… We’re especially concerned by the looming educational crisis which sees an estimated 10,000 classrooms currently occupied by people already displaced by the conflict, meaning there are virtually no learning opportunities for at least 1.7 million children also displaced by the conflict. Despite this, at the beginning of this week the education cluster, of which Save the Children is global co-lead, has still received no funding.

At the same time, World Vision is facing a $12.1 million shortfall while Oxfam has warned that it will have to close its programmes to the 360,000 people it had planned to assist if a $6m funding shortfall is not addressed by July. Concern Worldwide will also have to close its programme mid-July, just when the health risks will escalate due to the onset of the monsoon rains.

“The only reason we haven’t faced a massive humanitarian meltdown is the generosity of families and communities of modest means who’ve looked after the vast majority of those who’ve fled the fighting. With so many mouths to feed, these communities will soon be running on empty. The world’s richest nations need to dig much deeper in to their pockets to help,” said Carolyn Miller, Chief Executive of Merlin.

The funding cirisis is not affecting the agencies alone. The UN’s $543 appeal has only received $138m so far. This is a 75 percent shortfall. Out of the 52 organisations requesting UN appeal funds, 30 have received no funds at all.

Save the Children and its partner agencies are also worried that, besides little money going into the UN appeal, even less money is being dispersed rom the appeal to frontline agencies. In a humanitarian crisis speed of delivery is vital. Previously governments would give part of their aid money directly to frontline agencies. Now when governments do give aid money, it tends to go to the UN which then passes it on to agencies working on the ground. Although the UN system can improve coordination and reduce duplication of effort, the allocation of money to frontline agencies takes far too long. The UN funding system needs to be complimented with other diverse ways of getting aid money as swiftly as possible to those saving lives.

Donor funding "still hesitant"
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84766

ISLAMABAD, 9 June 2009 (IRIN) - Senior UN humanitarian officials in Pakistan have urged donors to provide more funds to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

"We launched an appeal two weeks ago [on 22 May] for US$543 million. We are trying to accommodate all the needs and concerns of the displaced, but the funding is still hesitant," Manuel Bessler, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Pakistan, told IRIN in Islamabad.

"Since that time [22 May], we have only received an additional 8 percent [US$45 million] of the total requested amount. Agencies have warned that if more funds are not made available soon, essential services could be disrupted as early as the end of this month," UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Pakistan Martin Mogwanja told IRIN.

OCHA's Bessler said that if the funding shortfall continued “this will not allow us to maintain our operations much longer... Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people will not get food, water and health services they actually need."

NWFP Displacement OCHA SitRep No. 03
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MUMA-7SR2MV?OpenDocument


Projects in the food sector of the Humanitarian Response Plan, which is based on a planning figure of 1.5 million IDPs, is currently only 46% resourced. At current stock levels, food distribution cannot be guaranteed beyond the end of the July. There will be serious breaks in the food pipeline for pulses, salt, sugar, high energy biscuits and ready-to-use supplementary food.

Fresh shelling in Pakistan tribal areas: official
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/ASAZ-7T3GJH?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=pak

WANA, Pakistan, June 16, 2009 (AFP) - Pakistan's military shelled rebel hideouts in the northwest tribal belt Tuesday, where forces are believed to be on the brink of an all-out onslaught to crush the Taliban, officials said.
Security forces are already locked in a seven-week campaign against insurgents in three northwest districts, and a governor late Sunday announced a "full-fledged" second front along the mountainous and wild tribal belt.

Too little, too slow: Why more must be done to assist Pakistan's displaced millions - Oxfam
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MYAI-7T38AW?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=pak

It is the world's biggest and fastest growing human displacement in over a decade.

A lack of funding overall, and delays in disbursing funds to individual aid agencies, has undermined the relief response so far, contributing to gaps and delays in the adequate provision of assistance such as water and sanitation, shelter, and health care. Much more needs to be done, especially by the international community, to meet immediate needs and support a strong recovery that lays the foundations for sustainable peace and stability.

International community should respond more quickly and substantially with funds for the Pakistani government, the UN appeal, and aid agencies as appropriate to support timely and effective response, recovery and reconstruction activities. Faster disbursements of funds to implementing aid agencies are essential, including those working within the UN-led cluster system.

Opinion: Cristiano Ronaldo = 520 million school meals
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