platforms and pulpits and 'free speech'

I am getting the feeling that a lot of the Australian Christian response to Twitter dumping the US Prez's personal account is anchored in a fear of our own deplatforming on account of "saying things that are true but which lefty liberals don't like to hear".

Are we aware that our 'Christian platform' isn't Twitter or Facebook or Parler? Our 'Christian platform' isn't even the pulpit or our church services or our Christian events.

Our 'platform' is our lives - the intimate struggle of day in, day out that our neighbours and regular interactions bear witness to. That argument you had with your kids last night with the screen door open? Platform! That frown you always wear when you pick up your coffee in the morning? Platform! Picking up your neigbour's bin and refilling it after the teenaged vandals in the area spilled it? Platform! Offering eggs when the neighbour hasn't had breakfast? Platform! Growing a verge garden for people to freely pick from? Platform!

I mean, it's just living, and not as exciting as the thrill of knowing hundreds, nay, thousands, nay millions of people are hanging breathlessly on your every character. But a handful of people who love your character? Ask Paul how loving the people who were around him worked for 'platform'.

We don't *need* social media. We don't need to boycott it if we haven't been banned - it's not an either/or proposition. We just don't *need* it to continue to live lives of love and care and thoughtfulness to our society and people.

biology, gender, sex, and God

In the beginning, God made humanity in His own image. In His own image He formed them: biologically, chromosomally, cellularly, and chemically male and biologically, chromosomally, cellularly, and chemically female, He created them... Probably.

Before we go around demanding that people "live out the truth" of their biology - an argument I've seen in Christian circles - are we absolutely sure we are "living out the truth" of our own biology? Or of the biology of those around us?

And, really, does biology matter when one serves the living God who sees, knows, understands, and still calls us all to Him? Is an argument over biology worth the kindness, patience, gentleness, and self-control that Paul instructs Christians to exercise as indicators of God's spirit in us and as a witness of love to the world? Twitter thread

summer solstice and John the Baptist [Sel's Swift Sermon series]

It's just past Summer Solstice here in Sydney: three days to Christmas 2020.

Sydney is in the throes of a COVID resurgence with restrictions on gathering and travelling for everyone in the Greater Sydney area - right before Christmas. Jupiter and Saturn are converging in the skies of Earth, and yesterday was the Summer Solstice down here in the Southern Hemisphere. It was cloudy and rainy and really not very summery at all. And, unfortunately, my usual group of friends who celebrate the sun seasons with a garden gathering and food and friendship had to forgo our Solstice gathering because of the COVID resurgence taking place in Sydney. We'll pick it up later, during the holiday season or possibly January.

But the Summer Solstice always makes me think of John the Baptist.

In the northern hemisphere, Litha - the Summer Solstice - is traditionally the birthday feast of Saint John the Baptist. There's two reasons for this - John the Baptist, cousin to Jesus Christ through their mothers, was born six months earlier, and since the celebration of Jesus' birth - Christmas - is at the Winter Solstice, the feastday of John is at the Summer Solstice, six months earlier.

The other reason is John's purpose in life: to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.

There's a moment in the gospels some time after John has baptised Jesus, when his disciples are watching people gather to Jesus now - a new and greater teacher to follow - and they're anxious and worried. But when they take their concerns to John, asking him to do something about the loss of disciples and his words are simply, "As He increases, so must I decrease."

John understood his place in the scheme of things. He understood transitions. He understood that he had to give up what scraps of pride or social standing he had gained, because he wasn't the Main Event, he was just the Warm-Up Act. Not the King, but merely the herald of one greater than himself, whose sandals he was not fit to tie.

And so, at the Summer Solstice, the days are the longest, and will slowly grow shorter and shorter, until we reach the longest night - Winter Solstice - when a dark world is lit up by the star of incarnation: deity become humanity, very nature God become very nature man.

As He increases, so must I decrease.

This can be harder to comprehend this in the Southern Hemisphere when our summer solstice is mere days away from our celebration of Christmas - or maybe easier - because the summer solstice also arrives before Christmas: heralding the coming of God. And the message has not changed over 2000 years.

Give up your old ways, make a public stand, trust in a God who came in human form - not to rule over us, not merely to bestow knowledge or a kinder way of living, but to serve us in love and the sacrifice of not only his life but his living for those he loved.

As He increases, so must we decrease.

It holds true for us, as much as for John the Baptist.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, a generous and bountiful solstice, and a Happy New Year to all of us.

assorted thoughts: failings of the western church

I wonder sometimes; do other Australian Christians see the faint echoes of themselves in the extreme of American Christianity? Or am I the only one?

Do they look at the well-worn warnings of "well, you can't trust the leftist, liberal media!" and not see that echoed in their dismissal of anything the ABC reports?

Do they look at the obsession with a leader who 'will take them to righteousness' and not see the echoes of "our Scott Morrison, defender of the Christian faith in (godless) Australia"?

Do they look at the obsession with our position, our standing, ourreputation, our freedoms and not see that echoed in the outrage that businesses can open and churches cannot, that children can have LGBTQIA explained to them in schools, that we can't functionally behave like nobody else's beliefs matter?

People are often bewildered by my interest in American politics.

The Americans are disdainful that anyone should care what they do; it's their country, they can do what they like! They have rights! Responsibility of leadership? Well, yes, they're leaders, but they don't do responsibility.

Australians, I think, side-eye me, because "well, they're just crazy in America". And yes, they are. I said once: "Hong Kong foams at the mouth; China foams in the brain." It was a Pterry reference, differentiating between 'mad' and 'insane'. These days, I'm more likely to think "China foams at the mouth, while America foams in the brain".

But America is our canary in the coal mine. Socially, politically, and, yes, spiritually. The faults and flaws of American Christianity are ones that we have in Australia - less dramatic, perhaps, but still there. Our reluctance to acknowledge racial divide, our unwillingness to concede our privilege, our inability to connect with people outside the faith in a spiritually meaningful way because we demand they come to us, on our ground - both physical ground of the church, and the spiritual ground of a Christian underpinning... These are all problems in the American churches and they are also problems in the Australian church, just in different dimensions.

The 'church of God' across the nations will survive this year, our lives, our family lines, our culture, and this earth. It may not survive it with the trappings of what we recognise as 'church' today - but how much would the Christians of the first and second centuries recognise our version of 'church', either?

I love my church and my church people, but I don't know how well we know how to 'reach' people outside our area. How to love them and let our love speak. And yes, we will eventually need to use words - when necessary - but I'm starting to think that the words should be employed later and later and only at a timely point.

I saw my cousin J last week while I was up visiting him in the NT. On his 40th birthday, we went to a couple of National Park pools and waterfalls and swam while a thunderstorm crackled overhead. It was amazing and awe-inspiring. And at one point, I turned to J and said, "You guys don't do church, do you? But do you remember that verse: The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim his works?" He remembered the hymn. I said it was a verse first, then added, "That's what I'm thinking of sitting here. The glory of God. Thanks for bringing me out here."

We turned the conversation after that, but a small dose of reminder was all I thought was needed at this time. I think his younger brother is still a believer, his older brother converted to Islam for his wife. And I have a vague memory that the younger brother castigated the older for converting. So the boys aren't close and there may be religious rifts. So I didn't think this was the right time.

We're still in the reconnection stage of things anyway: friendly and appreciated, but not close. Hopefully opportunities will come in future; I hope so.

abortion: a new way of thinking

I think late-term abortion needs to be legal.

Mostly because 90% of the situations in which late-term abortion would be considered necessary are already traumatic scenarios.

The baby was hoped for:

• carried for the majority of term - and then died in utero and needs to be removed from the uterus for medical reasons.
• something happend that impacted the safety of the mother and a medical procedure that risks the life of the child may be ncessary
• a medical condition to the child - both life threatening and 'merely inconvenient' - that means the parents no longer wish to have this child

Basically, the scenarios in which all but the most fervent anti-abortion proponents would say well, it's not the best situation, but maybe it's necessary are all ones in which there is already enough trauma. And then, onto this, the need to navigate the 'exceptions under which we will consider allowing an abortion' would be added - one more burden that serves no purpose except to make us believe that we've 'stopped evil'.

The legality of late-term abortions would mean that if someone truly doesn't want a pregnancy, they would have ended it much earlier. Because with the legality of abortion at any point in pregnancy comes improved contraception, improved health outcomes for women, less judgement of women facing hard life choices, fewer hurdles and therefore less anxiety when facing an uncertain pregnancy.

I'm not going into the 'she doesn't want the child anymore' option right here, because that's usually related to a serious change in circumstances - most usually relational/financial.

Both could be solved by financially and emotionally supporting mothers, particularly single ones, without qualification for whether they're the right colour or background or social status or personality. Just support mothers, nothing more. And local churches and Christians would be perfectly placed to provide the kind of community and support that such women need. An opportunity to show the love of Christ - and, perhaps (maybe, possibly, if the opportunity provides, but not as a requirement or precursor) share the gospel with her.

politics

Hitching ourselves to political power of any kind is a bad idea, but hitching ourselves to political power that enshrines Christianity as The Right Way To Live is a truly terrible idea. What we have - what we are - should be a choice, not an imperative. Civic Christianity is not at all radical, and while it is safe to hide behind civic religion, it guarantees neither devotion nor piety, merely slavish adherence to the show of things.

community: the modern evangelical's trip into Asia Minor to spread the gospel

I only thought of this comparison while writing the title to this post.

It was originally sparked by the news that Australians consider church authorities (generally) to be the least trustworthy of public leaders, with 75%+ of the general population distrusting church authorities. I wanted to say that we've been sitting in our comfortable enclaves, expecting others to come to us for the last half-century; now I think we're going to have to go out and meet society on its terms and wrestle with complicated living-it-out-in-love and not just back the safe this-is-what-the-bible-says-in-theory.

And it occurred to me that Paul went out of his comfort zone to tell the gospel. He didn't wait for non-Hebrew societies to beat down the doors of the believers in Jerusalem, he took the news out to other cities, dealt with people on their own turf, lived among them like they were worth his time and effort, and brought the gospel to them at the same time as his everyday living showed these people that they were valuable to him and valued by God - so much so that He sent His son.

It was the 'community of believers' that Paul created in each city: people with nothing more in common to each other than the grace of God. And they met and theologised over his writings and probably the Jewish teachings filtered through the lens of Jesus' ministry and the recountings of his teachings and actions, broke bread and prayed, and then went back out into their usual regular unbelieving communities, taking their 'gospel' with them.

I feel like this should have been the methodology of the modern Christian church, but it's kind of failed. Church events tend to require the community to come to us rather than us going out into the community. There are no church stalls

"If mission is the alerting of people to the reign of God through Christ, our mandate is to do whatever is required in the circumstances to both demonstrate and announce that kingship. We feed the hungry because in the world to come there will be no such thing as starvation. We share Christ because in the world to come there will be no such thing as unbelief. Both are the fashioning of foretastes of that world to come, none more or less valid or important than the other." - Michael Frost, Road to Missional - here -