a hundred visions and revisions

Howard Zinn died 27 January 2009

2010-01-27T17:29:00.001-08:00

Democracy Now! has a good little write up of Howard Zinn, who commented on the show frequently.

Howard Zinn died 27 January 2009

2010-01-27T17:13:00.000-08:00

I would like to make a small post mention of US historian Howard Zinn, author (and activist) of A People's History of the United States. Which has been copied by nearly everyone, including Christianity. The book has its own wikipedia entry. Howard Zinn passed away yesterday which is a tragic loss to history and humanity. Zinn was an activist who spoke out against the unbelieveable corruption and war criminals who lead the US over the last decade, as well as being vocal against the elites who have dominated US history. His book will be recommended reading in my history class this year. You can find a number of his books, interviews and speeches/lectures online. I'll finish with some quotes of his:

If those in charge of our society — politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television — can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable

It is possible, reading standard histories, to forget half the population of the country. The explorers were men, the landholders and merchants men, the political leaders men, the military figures men. The very invisibility of women, the overlooking of women, is a sign of their submerged status

And my favourite, (thanks to friend Rebekah Nathan for sharing):
I suggest that if you know history, then you might not be so easily
fooled by the government when it tells you you must go to war for this
or that reason -that history is a protective armor against being
misled

The Value of Nothing

2010-01-26T17:25:00.000-08:00

Would like to read Raj Patal's new book, The Value of Nothing. Here is a preview:

I love that Oscar Wilde quote: 'people know the price of everything and the value of nothing'. Looks a little Naomi Kleinesque, which is all good. Perhaps i should read his first book first though...

Religion and Facebook

2010-01-24T17:02:00.000-08:00

Here is an interesting article from Christianity Today about 'Religious Self-Profiling' on new social media sites like MySpace and Facebook. It looks at how young people (majority users of SNS) define their religion (in the 100 words or less) in their status. It draws on this research from a University of North Carolina PhD student.

What they discover is that often people's religious views are implicit and ambigious, as opposed to outright 'evangelical', 'Christian'. They may uses other coded references such as their offline activity etc. They conclude that perhaps young people are more concerned to not limit their marketability to others and also because explicit Christian labels may have negative politic/social connotations they do not want to be associated with.

Paul Farmer on Haiti - A Must Read

2010-01-24T16:50:00.000-08:00

Paul Farmer has an excellent article on Haiti's history and the brutal colonial involvement of the French and the US. Well worth the investment of time to read it. Paul Farmer is: physician and anthropologist, is Maud and Lillian Presley Professor at Harvard Medical School and author of 'The Uses of Haiti' and 'Pathologies of Power'. I have a copy of the second book but have not read it yet. Some extracts:

International financial institutions engaged in discriminatory and probably illegal practices towards Haiti. According to the London-based Haiti Support Group,

Haiti’s debt to international financial institutions and foreign governments has grown from $302 million in 1980 to $1.134 billion today. About 40 per cent of this debt stems from loans to the brutal Duvalier dictators, who invested precious little of it in the country. This is known as ‘odious debt’ because it was used to oppress the people, and, according to international law, this debt need not be repaid.

Yet in order to meet the renewed demands of the IDB, the cash-strapped Haitian government was required to pay ever-expanding arrears on its debts, many of them linked to loans paid out to the Duvalier dictatorship and to the military regimes that ruled Haiti with great brutality from 1986 to 1990. In July 2003, Haiti sent more than 90 per cent of all its foreign reserves to Washington to pay off these arrears. As of today, less than $4 million of the four blocked loans – which totalled $146 million – has reached Haiti in spite of many assurances from the IDB.

That the US and France undermined Aristide is not a fringe opinion. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the African Union have called for a formal investigation into his removal. ‘Most people around the world believe that Aristide’s departure was at best facilitated, at worst coerced by the US and France,’ Gayle Smith, a member of the National Security Council staff under Clinton, recently said.

Why such animus towards Haiti’s leader? Taking up the question of the historic French debt, Aristide declared that France ‘extorted this money from Haiti by force and . . . should give it back to us so that we can build primary schools, primary healthcare, water systems and roads.’ He did the maths, adding in interest and adjusting for inflation, to calculate that France owes Haiti $21,685,135,571.48 and counting. This figure was scoffed at by some of the French, who saw the whole affair as a farce mounted by their disgruntled former subjects; others, it’s increasingly clear, were insulted or angered when the point was pressed in diplomatic and legal circles.

And here is an extract from Naomi Klein's the Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, on how disasters such as in Haiti pave the way for harmful political policies - often by external powers:

Despite all the successful attempts to exploit the 2004 tsunami, memory also proved to be an effective tool of resistance in some areas where it struck, particularly in Thailand. Dozens of coastal villages were flattened by the wave, but unlike in Sri Lanka, many Thai settlements were successfully rebuilt within months. The difference did not come from the government. Thailand's politicians were just as eager as those elsewhere to use the storm as an excuse to evict fishing people and hand over land tenure to large resorts. Yet what set Thailand apart was that villagers approached all government promises with intense skepticism and refused to wait patiently in camps for an official reconstruction plan. Instead, within weeks, hundreds of villagers engaged in what they called land "reinvasions."

They marched past the armed guards on the payroll of developers, tools in hand, and began marking off the sites where their old houses had been. In some cases, reconstruction began immediately. "I am willing to bet my life on this land, because it is ours," said Ratree Kongwatmai, who lost most of her family in the tsunami.

The most daring reinvasions were performed by Thailand's indigenous fishing peoples called the Moken, or "sea gypsies." After centuries of disenfranchisement, the Moken had no illusions that a benevolent state would give them a decent piece of land in exchange for the coastal properties that had been seized. So, in one dramatic case, the residents of the Ban Tung Wah Village in the Phang Nga province "gathered themselves together and marched right back home, where they encircled their wrecked village with rope, in a symbolic gesture to mark their land ownership," explained a report by a Thai NGO. "With the entire community camping out there, it became difficult for the authorities to chase them away, especially given the intense media attention being focused on tsunami rehabilitation." In the end, the villagers negotiated a deal with the government to give up part of their oceanfront property in exchange for legal security on the rest of their ancestral land. Today, the rebuilt village is a showcase of Moken culture, complete with museum, community centre, school and market. "Now, officials from the sub-district come to Ban Tung Wah to learn about 'people-managed tsunami rehabilitation' while researchers and university students turn up there by the bus-full to study 'indigenous people's wisdom.'"

All along the Thai coast where the tsunami hit, this kind of direct-action reconstruction is the norm. The key to their success, community leaders say, is that "people negotiate for their land rights from a position of being in occupation"; some have dubbed the practice "negotiating with your hands." Thailand's survivors have also insisted on a different kind of aid-rather than settling for handouts, they have demanded the tools to carry out their own reconstruction. Dozens of Thai architecture students and professors, for example, volunteered to help community members design their new houses and draw their own rebuilding plans; master boat builders trained villagers to make their own, more sophisticated fishing vessels. The results are communities stronger than they were before the wave. The houses on stilts built by Thai villagers in Ban Tung Wah and Baan Nairai are beautiful and sturdy; they are also cheaper, larger and cooler than the sweltering prefab cubicles on offer there from foreign contractors. A manifesto drafted by a coalition of Thai tsunami survivor communities explains the philosophy: "The rebuilding work should be done by local communities themselves, as much as possible. Keep contractors out, let communities take responsibility for their own housing."

Uniting all these examples of people rebuilding for themselves is a common theme: participants say they are not just repairing buildings but healing themselves. It makes perfect sense. The universal experience of living through a great shock is the feeling of being completely powerless: in the face of awesome forces, parents lose the ability to save their children, spouses are separated, homes-places of protection-become death traps. The best way to recover from helplessness turns out to be helping-having the right to be part of a communal recovery. "Reopening our school says this is a very special community, tied together by more than location but by spirituality, by bloodlines and by a desire to come home," said the assistant principal of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

Some News Links Round -Up

2010-01-21T16:26:00.000-08:00

Thought I would quickly keep my postings regular by adding some stuff i've been reading today, briefly.

This is unbelievable, but a US arms manufacturer has been making weapons with special light/scopes on them for better vision when shooting people in Afghanistan. They also happened to put a bible verse on it. New Zealand troops have been using these weapons overseas. Here is the Guardian story. This is so shocking and incredibly offensive to Christian's who believe Jesus was a bringer of peace, not war and weapons to kill people with. As the Guardian reports, there were two verses printed on the weapons:

Markings included "JN8:12", a reference to John 8:12: "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, 'I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life,'" according to the King James version of the Bible.

The Trijicon Reflex sight is stamped with 2COR4:6, a reference to part of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," the King James version reads.

I'm pretty sure that is not what Jesus had in mind. The story was also picked up by Fox, the New Zealand Herald

Kofi Annan talks about 'Turning Haiti around' here.

A horrific article on lower caste people in India whose job it is to manually clean up people's urine and crap. My cousin works for WaterAid, an ngo which released this report. As she said on Facebook, if you think you have the worst job, read this.

And finally, a nostalgic review of the Kraft buying Cadbury deal, which I have to say I agree with. It is a sad thing for everything to be made by one giant company. As Naomi Klein wrote about in NoLogo. What is more concerning is whether this deal will end Cadbury's commitment to FairTrading it's Dairy Milk line. I think it does. But here's hoping.

And after all that, it looks like all i do is link to the Guardian. Maybe everyone should just read that.

Haiti analysis and critique....

2010-01-19T15:07:00.000-08:00

Found these two articles interesting.

One from NYtimes coloumist David Brooks on Haiti. And a response/translation of Brooks underlying assumptions here.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

2010-01-18T17:45:00.001-08:00

Today is MLK Jr. Day in the US, the only official public holiday after an African American. I haven't read much from the news about it, but have come across some good things to read. Just because i'm an NBA fan, here is Dwight Howard's blog post on today. African American philosopher and theologian, Cornel West, gave a speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Alabama where King preached at from 1960-1968. I haven't been able to find a full text of the speech, but i would like to read it. From the news reports, West warns Americans to not 'sanitize' King's legacy and to make his appeals to help the poor real and urgent today. I like West and I think he is right to make such remarks.

With that in mind here are some amazing speeches he made. The first in New York from April 1967 called 'Beyond Vietnam', one year before he would be assassinated. You can see from the tone of the speech that King was becoming more radical and hostile towards not just racism, but the Vietnam War and US militarisation in general, as well as economic justice issues. Themes which the Black Power movement had also been promoting for years.

Today is Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday in the US. The following is an extract of a speech delivered by King on 4 April 1967 in New York City.

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the west must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgement against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain."

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighbourly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept – so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force – has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of St John:

Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word."

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world – a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter – but beautiful – struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and although we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:

Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah,
Off'ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.

Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.

And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. (The full text can be read and heard here.)

Sojouners also had a nice collection of speeches and thoughts on their email newsletter by Ruth Hawley-Lowry.

Reading King's speeches still give me goosebumps. I feel so lucky that i can teach about him to teenagers this year. I further think it is important to remember that the Civil Rights Movement was not a result of MLK Jr. History is seldom the result of the 'Big Men' who we often remember it by. Just as there is a Martin Luther King Jr. Day we should also remember other Civil Rights activists, not just in the US but all around the world. But in particular for the US, these names should precede or join King: Malcolm X, Robert F. Williams, Ella Baker, Ralph Abernathy, Stokely Carmichael, Medger Evers, James L. Farmer, Fannie Lou Hamer, Thurgood Marshall, A. Phillip Randolph, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale and so many more.

If you want to read more about the Civil Rights movement read my post/book review of the Civil Rights Movement and Self Defense.

I'll end this post with my favourite MLK Jr. quote. (you can read a whole bunch of them here.)

When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice

Rick Warren Prayer Breakfast

2010-01-18T17:36:00.000-08:00

Rick Warren was just in Rwanda last year and lead the Prayer breakfast, according to AllAfrica.com. Prayer breakfast are fascinating things for political bodies. The US president has one, and Auckland Mayor Les Mills used to do one. I'm sure they're done all over the place.

The Purpose Driven Nation? Rwanda and Rick Warren

2010-01-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

While doing my summer scholarship research at Auckland University I came across this 2005 Time article: Warren of Rwanda. And then this follow-up article in 2008.

Time is reporting on North American evangelical, Rick Warren, pastor of the massive 23,000 member Saddleback Church and author of the best selling non-fiction book in US history, The Purpose Driven Life. In the articles Warren's aid programme, PEACE, is discussed as now being committed to 'co-operation' with Rwandan president Paul Kagame in a 5=7 year 'self-sufficiency project'. Kagame, who is not a Christian, volunteered Rwanda to become the very first 'purpose driven nation'. To give you an idea of the scope of this arrangement:

In July Warren and 48 other American Evangelicals, who have backgrounds in areas like health, education, micro-enterprises and justice, held intensive planning meetings with Rwandan Cabinet ministers, governors, clergy and entrepreneurs. One dinner was attended by a third of the Rwandan Parliament.

Warren plans on sending over 'church kits', he calls "school in a box", "clinic in a box, and "business in a box". By the end of 2008, Time reports, 1,750 PEACE volunteers will have visited Rwanda. For Kagame, the attraction seems obvious:

Not only have PEACE volunteers gone to work on health and development, Kagame says, but the more high-powered among them "use their contacts to draw on resources and attract investment. I can't have anything better than this." He admits that he is not a practicing Christian: "I cannot say I am devout, but I have a good sense of what faith is about and the usefulness of it." And in this case, he says, "what Saddleback is doing serves the church and serves us too."

It seems Kagame is more aware of developing such church connections for broader economic development alongside other social development goals. I particularly find Kagame's turn of phrase: 'the usefulness or it [religion]' instructive. Religion has a very real social power. Politically, in can derive allegiance from its members, certain types of religion can help business develop (Max Weber's famous Protestant Work Ethic thesis). Churches can create active, motivated communities and generate money and support for a number of social programmes and goals. But even the exportation of volunteers (or missionaries as some might call them) creates markets and development for businesses. It's an industry in itself and Kagame acknowledges this.

What has happen so far according to Time? :

PEACE is working with the University of Maryland to upgrade the facility and next year will give $500,000 as part of its province-wide $13 million commitment. But so far, aside from a paint job and some tidying up, there is little improvement.

As Laura Hoemeke, director of Twubakane, a USAID-funded Rwandan decentralization and health program, says, it is hard for 'short-termers' to affect long term change. Warren's response is interesting:

When Warren hears that other NGOs in Rwanda repeatedly told TIME that PEACE could offer no working examples of tangible aid-and-development projects, he laughs for 10 full seconds. "You were talking to the wrong guys," he says. Most aid-and-development experts, he claims, depend on Western-style measurements and reports. Rwandan churches, he says, have neither the time nor the obligation to produce them. Moreover, he asserts that executing a program involving spiritual goals through churches initially produces "results that tend not to be programmatic — they tend to be life change." (For instance, PEACE has recorded 10,000 baptisms in Rwanda.) Even when classic development programs are under way, he continues, "we don't sacrifice sustainability for speed. If you go back to my very first message in 2003, I said, This is going to take 50 years." He adds, "My confidence is not that I've got it all figured out. My confidence is, Jesus said, 'Do these five things,' and we've got the people out there." He is comfortable "building the plane as we fly it."

I agree with some of the points Warren makes. Western styles of measuring development are not always useful or appropriate. But that should not be used as a means of evading responsibility. He's also right in claiming he planned that programmes he's helping fund will take 50 years to develop (and that's probably being a little generous). And he is providing ways of help for hundreds of Rwandans. But i find it quite problematic when a church pledges such a broad plan as Warren's PEACE plan and has only just now (2008/2009) started to realise he needs to work with other NGO's. Further and more crucially, I am very skeptical of the short-term mission trip into a completely different culture, hoping to make 'lasting change'. Such mission trips smack of colonialism no matter how altruistic they are. Even the altruism feels like paternalism at best and blatant racism at worst. What makes the situation even more difficult is Kagame's involvement in the Second Congo War and the exploitation and deaths of Congolese for access to its minerals in the early 2000s.. I want to see if Warren has spoken out about this.

For example, (from wikipedia):
A 2002 United Nations report elaborated on the allegations of illegal profiteering by Rwandan and Ugandan forces in Congo:
“ The claims of Rwanda concerning its security have justified the continuing presence of its armed forces, whose real long-term purpose is, to use the term employed by the Congo Desk of the Rwandan Patriotic Army, to "secure property". Rwanda's leaders have succeeded in persuading the international community that their military presence in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo protects the country against hostile groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who, they claim, are actively mounting an invasion against them.

The Panel has extensive evidence to the contrary. For example, the Panel is in possession of a letter, dated 26 May 2000, from Jean-Pierre Ondekane, First Vice-President and Chief of the Military High Command for [the Rwandan-backed rebel group] RCD-Goma, urging all army units to maintain good relations "with our Interahamwe and Mayi-Mayi brothers", and further, "if necessary to let them exploit the sub-soil for their survival"...

A 30-year-old Interahamwe combatant living in the area of Bukavu described the situation in a taped interview with a United Nations officer in early 2002:

We haven't fought much with the RPA in the last two years. We think they are tired of this war, like we are. In any case, they aren't here in the Congo to chase us, like they pretend. I have seen the gold and coltan mining they do here, we see how they rob the population. These are the reasons for their being here. The RPA come and shoot in the air and raid the villagers' houses but they don't attack us any more.

Haitian NBA player Samual Dalembert's foundation

2010-01-13T16:32:00.001-08:00

NBA player Samual Dalembert is a Haitian who has family members affected by the earthquake. He speaks here about his thoughts and concern for Haiti. You can give to his foundation which is providing aid to Haiti here. Check it out.

Democracy Now! Coverage of Haiti earthquake

2010-01-13T16:23:00.000-08:00

Some good news coverage of the earthquake in Haiti at Democracy Now.

Give money to help here:

World Vision

Oxfam New Zealand

Good song: Middle East, 'Blood'.

2010-01-12T12:44:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a mention from my friend Amy, i've been listening to this song by Australian band, The Middle East, called 'Blood'. It's a very nice song with some very good lyrics. Enjoy.

older brother, restless soul, lie down
lie for a while with your ear against the earth
and you'll hear your sister sleep talking
say "your hair is long but not long enough to reach
home to me
but your beard
someday might be"

and she'll wake up in a cold sweat on the floor
next to a family portrait drawn when you were four
and beside a jar of two cent coins that are no good no more
she'll lay it aside

older father, weary soul, you'll drive
back to the home you made on the mountainside
with that ugly, terrible thing
those papers for divorce
and a lonely ring
a lonely ring
sit on your porch
and pluck your strings

and you'll find somebody you can blame
and you'll follow the creek that runs out into the sea
and you'll find the peace of the Lord.

grandfather, gentle soul, you'll fly
over your life once more before you die
since our grandma passed away
you've waited for forever and a day
just to die
and someday soon
you will die

it was the only woman you ever loved
that got burnt by the sun too often when she was young
and the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood
and there's nothing you can do about it now

The Americanization of Mental Illness

2010-01-10T20:25:00.000-08:00

Haven't read all of this article from the NY Times magazine on mental illness, but it looks interesting. From what i've read it seems to reassert the Foucauldian notion of mental illness as culturally and socially constructed in some ways.

New Oliver Stone TV show: Oliver Stone's Secret History of America.

2010-01-10T18:16:00.000-08:00

The Guardian reports on American filmmaker Oliver Stone's new project. Looks quite interesting, and not as controversial as the article or Stone are trying to make it sound. History graduates, I'd argue, are taught how to understand Hitler as a product of context, as much as his own personality. He was not some sort of disembodied demagogue from the start. There was a specific historical situation in Germany which gave room for Hitler and the National Socialists. Still, will be interesting to see what becomes of it. Could be useful in the classroom!What I think is more controversial and perverse is the use of Hitler colloquially in everyday discourse, particularly on the Internet. Comparisons of contemporary people or issues to Hitler or Nazism on the internet is known as Godwin's law, in which Mike Godwin, who formulated the theory, suggests that as an online forum or discussions goes longer the probability of the conversation involving a comparison to Hitler grows. Such comparisons are historically fallacious and unimaginably offensive, especially to people who suffered and died under the Third Reich. The same goes for Nazi costume parties and even Nazi toys/models for model war games etc. I feel the same about Chairman Mao images on clothing.

The "Single Story" of "Africa"

2010-01-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

A very good sociology blog, Sociological Images, has posted this TED lecture by novelist, Chimamanda Adichie, about the western construction of Africa. As the blog introduces:

'In this 20 minute video, novelist Chimamanda Adichie describes, with insight and grace, the problem of the “single story.” She says, “Show a people as one thing, and only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” Focusing on her experience as an “African” in the U.S. (she is from Nigeria), she also describes her own experiences with realizing that she has heard only a single story, whether of rural Nigerians or Mexicans.'

The blog Stuff White People Like also has a post on this (rather humorous).

Also see this video on YouTube, How Not to Speak of Africa.

All people are capable of reducing people to a "single story". But always, those with Power (white, male, mostly) are able to control, tell, and shape these narratives and stereotypes. Which as Adichie says, are not necessarily untrue, but are rather 'incomplete'. They tell half a story, or reduces, simplifies and emphasizes what certain attributes and cultures a people have. And often for people from the African continent, this means reducing the countries and people of Africa into one single people, narrative and experience.

Elitist Education and Social Reproduction: The Return of Bourdieu

2010-01-06T13:26:00.001-08:00

Two recent news items about elitism and education have come up, in France and New Zealand, raising the question of the role of education in reproducing social hierarchies and class stratification. In France, Sarkozy has called for the Elite Colleges (Grandes Ecoles) to accept quotas of students from poorer income backgrounds. The elite colleges have responded calling the quotas and attempt to lower the standards of the institutions (some of which have been around since 1800s). There was however no intention to lower entrance standards. What the quotas would have guaranteed was that the preliminary entrance exams, which are financially taxing on poorer families, would not stop poorer students without the money and family connections from having their children attend. Such preliminary entrance tests are not set up to test the students ability to enter. Those students already have A Levels (or equivalent) and would gain entrance if it was solely based on this. However, the goal of these institutions is largely to reproduce a type of anachronistic 'republican elite'.

Ironically enough this is all occurring in France where the origins of social reproduction theory was developed and demonstrated by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu argued that education systems where not neutral environments and they largely served to reproduced whatever the dominated social structure and class stratification which exists. To prove his case Bourdieu looked at French education system and found that only certain types of students were successful. Students that have the most success are those able to operate and trade their cultural and social capital within the school system which only accepts certain social and cultural capital as acceptable. If your background, culture, beliefs, philosophy about learning, doesn't align with the dominate class, then it is not able to be accommodated in the education system Bourdieu argued that those from a working class background were at a disadvantage from the start because the middle-class/upper-class sets the cultural capital needed to be successful in schooling (a very middle/upper-class institution). All the necessary discourse, culture, behaviour and attitudes the school reflects are embodied and well developed for certain classes/people and not others. Therefore society reproduces itself through education.

The French elite colleges is simply another example of this principle in operation. A similar situation has arisen in New Zealand. Where the government is paying scholarships for poorer students to attend private secondary schools. The idea that students would receive a better education at a private secondary school than a state school is very problematic. Those tax-payer funded resources should instead be spent on a public schools in desperate need of more funding. What needs to change is the barriers which hold students from lower socio-economic backgrounds and who hold different types of cultural capital a chance to participant and succeed. Hopefully at the same time challenging rigid social and class hierarchies.

Expand or Restrain?

2009-12-15T14:47:00.001-08:00

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

2009-12-06T12:39:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-03T13:53:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-03T12:47:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-02T18:04:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-02T17:54:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-01T16:42:00.000-08:00

South Africa to Expand Effort to Combat AIDS

2009-12-01T16:27:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-12-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

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....

2009-11-23T19:20:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-19T11:57:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-04T13:01:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-22T00:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-21T23:56:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-21T00:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

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....

2009-10-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

(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...

2009-10-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-08T20:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

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

Christianity's Dangerous Idea

2009-10-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-08T19:56:00.000-07:00

C.S. Lewis

2009-10-01T01:52:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-09-16T02:03:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-04T04:52:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-07-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-22T01:22:00.000-07:00

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?'

2009-07-15T02:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-08T04:59:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-07-03T19:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-03T18:14:00.000-07:00

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....

2009-07-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-02T22:07:00.001-07:00

"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....

2009-07-02T15:49:00.000-07:00

"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

2009-07-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

"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

2009-07-01T02:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-30T15:32:00.000-07:00

"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

2009-06-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

'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

2009-06-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

'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

2009-06-21T20:00:00.001-07:00

Quote from G. K. Chesterton

2009-06-21T04:29:00.000-07:00

"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

2009-06-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

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
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/EGUA-7SXLWJ?OpenDocument

Can one be religious without being political?

2009-06-15T05:26:00.000-07:00

My initial guess would be no. This stems from two thoughts. Firstly, to do with Christianity, Jesus seems to me to always speak into or about the political realities people were facing. Even when he is dealing with personal morality it is often in relation to wider cultural-political contexts from which the issues arose within. If all of Jesus' actions were then political, what kind of politics were they? Does Jesus have a politics? There are answers out there to these questions, Jim Wallis, writer of God's Politics is a pretty good start. I think there is a politics to Jesus, there is a pattern his life created/portrayed. He had opinions about things, about the way things should be, about the way we should treat one another. About the the ultimate good. From these i think we can draw some conclusions. But i'll leave that for another post. Secondly, and related to the example of Jesus, all human actions are political statements of some form. Right? Not just how i vote, or what i argue about discussing the news. But where i choose to spend my money, where i choose to worship God in fellowship with others. How i spend my spare time. How i spend my work time. What i do for work time. The way i choose to talk about things/people/ and events. All of these things are expressions of some shade of political philosophy about humans and society and how we should organise our lives. Therefore, your religious belief, your faith, is immediately political. It can't be neutral because it informs your choices, your priorities, your words and actions. It prefaces your support for things. It determines your view of the world and therefore in many ways the people in it (all doomed to hell unless someone (p)reaches to them?

I could be wrong. Just thinking. I never used to think they were intertwined in such ways, not because i didn't think religious people were political, but because i believed i could separate them when i needed, or when it was expedient too. Now i think i think that's simply wishful thinking (or self-delusional :)

Choosing our better histories

2009-02-05T00:16:00.000-08:00

'You know, sometimes I think the worst thing that colonialism did was cloud our view of our past. Without the white man, we might be able to make better use of our history. We might look at some of our former practices and decide they are worth preserving. Others, we might grow out of. Unfortunately, the white man has made us very defensive. We end up clinging to all sorts of things that have outlived their usefulness. Polygamy. Collective ownership. These things worked well in their time, but now they most often become tools for abuse. By men. By governments. And yet, if you say these things, you have been infected by Western ideology' (434).

'I find myself modestly encouraged, believing that so long as the questions are still being asked, what binds us together might somehow, ultimately, prevail' (438).

'They choose our better history' (439).

History is a vital practice. It is a vital theory too. The idea that by thinking about what has gone before us has something to tell us about what lays ahead and that this something is important to search out, understand, create, narrate and retell. It can provide answers, and provoke questions. Practicing history helps me navigate. I've just finished Barack Obama's 'Dreams from my Father' as well as just finishing my own thesis on Christianity and New Zealand History. Obama's search for his own identity, his history, was a crucial aspect of him being able to chart his way forward. My own enthusiasm for understanding what has happened in my own family has led me to ask some awkward questions. But these gaps in understanding need to be filled in order to hold into account/question my own self, my own decisions. Are you familiar with my behaviour? What parts of me can i trace in the life you led? How did you make such decisions and how do I? What were the consequences for you and how might i mitigate or embrace them? The solidarity of the family, the shared community, the shared history of suffering and joy is crucial to providing a sense of place and knowledge about oneself and ones life direction. How can you move out/on/away if you cannot push off from some point? History then becomes a therapeutic process. In learning about the Christian apologetic letters my father wrote into student magazine Craccum I see passion and certainty reflected in my own frustration at faith experience. I learn a hidden side of my family's life, hidden by books, archives, arguments and silence. Upon reflection the questions we want to know are ones of shared experience. Did you suffer like i feel i do? Did you experience such anxiety and can i rest my head on your heart which survived? At the centre is understanding. How can i understand this? the revelation revealed through stories and distant memories not all entirely intact. What do I make of a mother who got sick and died? Whose last words were not incoherent but coded and need some kind of deciphering. Can they ever speak to me apart from the hurt?

We need to choose our better history. The things in the past that provide firm ground from which to stand up and move on from. The knowledge that our human experience is intimately bound up in the past and the past constantly forces its influence around us. Choose from the mistakes a compassion and humanity, from the successes a confidence and excitement and from the suffering a soberity and solemity and from the joy a hope in the possibilities that lay before us. A hope in justice coming around the bend. And, as Obama said, as long as questions are being asked, a belief that perhaps one day, our collective histories will unite us all in each others shoes and in each others arms.

Barack Obama and Harold Washington

2009-01-29T12:35:00.000-08:00

'Harold's presence consoled, as Will's Jesus consoled, as Rafiq's nationalism consoled. But beneath the radiance of Harold's victory in Altgeld and elsewhere, nothing seemed to change' (231).

'i wonder whether, away from the spotlight, Harold thought about these constraints. Whether, like Mr Anderson or Mrs Reece or any number of other black officials who now administered over inner city life, he felt as trapped as those he served, an inheritor of sad history

Just reading Obama's memoir. It's amazing. I can't believe he's the President. Just a shame he now has to ok US military ambitions like missiles into Pakistan and Afghanistan (with the right hand he closes Gitmo Bay and with the left hand he orders missiles which kill 22civilians - clever politics really). The guy has had an amazing relatively traveled life. And he writes so well. Like an anthropologist on his own family life... The point i want to make in relation to capitalism is basically that Michael Moore had it all right in 'StupidWhite Men', White people have seriously screwed up the world and we should run from them in street. The treatment of Black Americans (and substitute any ethnic indigenous/slaves in here) is so incredibly dehumanizing that if i ever here another white person complain about Blacks not pulling themselves up and taking responsibility i think i'll turn violent. Obama doesn't agree with me, he thinks they need to take some responsibility for the state of things... No amount of responsibility will change 1) the internalization of pain/slave mentality from years of brutalization (and related) 2) the structures in which black people are predetermined to fail. For example, if you give two similar IQ tests to a Black person and tell them one is an IQtest and the other one is not, they will score so much lower than the one they think is the IQ test even though the tests are the same. What could become one of the most tragic things about his Presidency is that Obama spends much time in his book talking about the success of Harold Washington, the first Black Mayor of Chicago and how that success was incredible but that it did not reflect the day to day racism and situation of Black Americans. Obama is almost certainly going to become the Harold Washington he discusses in his memoir. Which is in itself an amazing narrative on history/destiny. (to be fair i haven't finished it so i could be talking crap). But that is what i see now, Barack's fears about Harold Washington are the very same ones he is now playing out...
Not that Obama's achievement isn't historically incredible (and improbable) . It's just that from reading his book, you (I) get the impression that the injustice is so deep, the structures so well in place and so well protected, that no amount of figure heads will change the fact that Barack was still the only Black senator when he ran...(i think...) It's great he has written this memoir well before his political career took off, he writes openly about his life. A truly captivating story.

Good and Evil

2009-01-21T23:39:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching Shake Hands with the Devil, the documentary about Canadian Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire who led the UN peace mission in Rwanda throughout the 1994 genocide. A friend had mentioned that what impacted her about Dallaire's reflection on the genocide was Dallaire's comments that when he shock hands with the Hutu extremists he saw no humanity in their eyes. He felt he was shaking hands with the devil, in both an immediate sense and a broader metaphysical/metaphorical sense. Later in the film, Dallaire mentions that while in his office one night during the genocide he felt something come through the window and settle in the room. A presence which gave him strength to carry on, to continue the mission, to hope. Dallaire's evaluation of these experiences was that in the face of unspeakable, unimaginable force of evil, there must be (and for him there was) a force of (for) the purist good.

I find this moral dualism relatively easy to relate to. The idea that there are both good and evil forces in the world, both working in different ways, is a very Christian idea. However, these forces are not presented as equal within Christianity, and in my understanding, evil itself is not really personified, it is a state of chaos and destruction, but is ultimately subservient to God and his plan for the world to be united back to him. All this is very well, yet i struggle with the idea so much. The very reasons i feel convinced that there is a good God out there somewhere who does want good things for us all can easily be inverted to demonstrate maybe the God that is up there is a malicious God, revealing in humanity's chaos and suffering. Or, more likely, no theistic type of God at all. For all the demonstrable evidence about the lack of God's intervention in world (see: humanity; history), i still found Dallaire's experience harrowing, hopeful and honest. And, at times, I can't help but feel the same way as Dallaire. The capacity for human grace and hope is unfathomable, and yet, as Hannah Arendt has discussed, evil can be so banal, that each of us holds the capacity for unimaginable evil. Are we, then, split? Concepts of sin/brokenness etc all point to something around this idea. But i don't think explain it completely. The capacity to sin/or sin itself is not, at least in my mind, the same as this sense of evil, which is different from a lie, from a broken promise, from a vengeful comment, from a lustful thought, from a hateful thought. (Or is it?) Are we just animals, killing each other in our own ways (colonisation, politics, religion, power)? Why do I not feel completely satisfied with these naturalist/humanist explanations, as convinced as I am of them?

"We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice", said Martin Luther King Jr. during his speech on Vietnam in 1968. This makes my bones shiver, and my heart fill. All my education and deconstruction of how constructed my reality is, my thoughts which create the universe, all compete for hold over my convictions when i feel stirred like this.

Five Lessons Learnt from a Masters Thesis

2008-12-09T23:00:00.000-08:00

Having just finished my masters thesis there are a few lessons i've learnt about the process. Most people probably already do these; they seem common sense in hindsight. I, however, managed to not do them very well and thought it wise for my own reflection to put them down (or is it up?)

1. Keep the focus narrow. I was never going to write the history of conservative Christianity over the last 30 years of New Zealand history. I was not even going to get close. Remember the key thesis you are making and look for prescient and powerful examples from which to say it. The simpler the scope, topic, or subject the easier it is for a Masters thesis. This does not mean it should not be challenging, rather a Masters thesis should be narrow in focus but wide in implication. Think about the wider importance of the work. What does it change about the understanding of the subject/period/issue? As my supervisor used to remind me: ask the 'so what?' question.

2. Spend more time preparing, less time reading and writing. This isn't simply a nice lesson i've learnt, it is in fact a simply truth. The more time you spend preparing your chapters, preparing your reading lists and preparing your writing schedule, the faster the reading and writing will come. Preparation means thoroughly thinking through your chapter structure, leading examples, sections where you highlight important points, and where you demonstrate how the chapter fits into the whole thesis. It means thinking carefully where to hit your reader (or examiner) with the points you want to make. Do you start with leading questions? Suggest what the chapter may reveal? Start with examples which can tease out bigger themes or go straight to the throat of the literature you are drawing (or attacking) from? All of this matters, both in terms of the individual chapters and in terms of the thesis as a whole. Each chapter should have its own character, they each speak to different points so they should be different in subtle but significant ways.

3. Write every draft as if it was the final version. Very early on I found myself thinking 'it's ok if it's a bit weak here, or not clear here, as I've got plenty of time left'. Pretty soon each draft was needing significant rewrites and editing simply because I did not put the full effort in the first time. This made it much harder to stay on top of each chapter down the stretch.

4. Write every day. Set a goal for how much you can write in a day and try to stick to it. Because a thesis weighs heavily on the ability to communicate an argument through writing, it is so important to be practicing the craft everyday. Putting ideas into words should not be a last minute exercise but a habit. Writing consistently will help you think through your thoughts, your argument will become clearer, your grammar and style will improve and most importantly, boring descriptive language will be more quickly recognised and deleted. This is especially important for subjects (like history) which give much weighting to prose. A fellow MA graduate once said to me, 'short, sharp, declarative sentences' are the best way to go. He's right.

5. Stop writing a week before it is due. This is perhaps completely unrealistic if you work on adrenalin and down to the wire (like myself). But I think most people would still like to aim for such an early finish time, and for good reasons. Approaching your work fresh, from a day or two rest reveals many things you do not notice when you keep reading/writing on it everyday. The time you leave at the end can be used to catch typos, missed words, formatting issues, prose, and more typos. Never underestimate the existence of the typo!

I'm sure there are a bunch more that could go up here. I'm also sure that once i get my examiner comments back i'll have a whole lot more to put up. But as a reflection of where i think i struggled during the last two years, these are the five lessons I should have listened to earlier to make the transition from honours to masters easier. Still, they wouldn't be lessons if you already knew them right?