a variety of thoughts for the last few months

As someone who doesn't fit into any 'traditional groups' regarding social status, I'd like a word.

I'm a never-married female; in previous generations, I had a very distinct rank and it was on the bottom. Possibly the only people lower on the social rungs by gender and marital status would have been intersex folk who perhaps couldn't get married for biological/physiological reasons.

What people want - singles, LGBTQIA+, women, abuse survivors - more than anything, is to know there's a place for them in society. They want to know that there is a soft landing for them, people who won't care what happened to them, what they are. That they will be acceptable, included, affirmed as worth caring for.

We - as a society, as churches, as Christians - are bad at this. We are AWFUL at it. And I say this as someone with a supportive, loving family behind her: I still live in fear that the people at my church will kick me out for "bad thinking". Let's not even go into "doing the 'wrong' thing by conservative Christian lights". God is Love, His church is not so great at it. And if I can think that - as someone who generally follows the rules and is generally considered "acceptable" when it comes to being, personhood, and lifestyle - then I have zero surprise that people think Christians in churches are judgemental and would kick them out the instant they stepped out of line.

This desire to know there's a place for them applies to everyone: to never-married women in churches, to trans and intersex people throughout society, it applies to anyone whose sexuality is been publically unacceptable in our modern society, it applies to refugees and to immigrants, to indigenous peoples, to caste/class outcasts, and to those whose skin colour makes them everything from unwelcome to a threat.

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A lot of conventionally taught Christianity tends to be antithetical to this: "you must be [this] and [this] and [that] and then God will accept you". The strand of Christianity that 

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Today's thought, brought to me by someone on Twitter:

"People who sow to partisanship can only reap mistrust of anyone outside their group. So if someone who is 'progressive' speaks out against abuse by conservative leaders in the church, partisans would rather tolerate abuse than align with progressives."

While this isn't an Australian Evangelical "brand" precisely, there's still going to be a lot of defensiveness about the theology of the leader, a lot of noise about what's been said from the pulpit (but perhaps not practiced in truth), a lot of dismissal of women and the "coloureds" who recognise abuse and speak out against it, to their own detriment.

And what does our defensiveness gain, in the end? Self-satisfaction at having backed the "correct" theologian, maybe? Entrenchment in the belief that "other denominations/belief systems fail, but ours is a shield against evil"? Reassurance that we haven't fallen to "wokeness" or "social justice" over the primacy of the gospel being teached and preached?

The problem I see with "the primacy of the gospel" is that we can talk about the love of Christ until we're blue in the face, but if we can't love people in a way they recognise as care, then all our protestations that this is the "proper, correct, and godly way to love" mean nothing.

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https://christianitytoday.com/news/2023/february/grace-community-church-elder-biblical-counseling-abuse.html

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I am exceedingly aware of my luck to have been born in a time when I am considered a person (not property) with legislated rights (even if bigotry still hampers my personal living), in a family that is loving and generous and has space for difference, with the personal and societal ability to be financially independent.

That said, I'm also aware that I'm quite likely the last generation of women who'll have this for some time - financial independence is a pipe dream for most women younger than me at the very least, and the steady removal of a woman's legislated right to bodily autonomy is going to trap many women into a financial and social situation where ending up as someone's junior wife might very well be more personally acceptable than struggling through life with a child she doesn't really want. (Maybe one of the other wives will be more maternal?)

My observation is that we middle-class Christians underestimate people's adherence to moral standards when life becomes materially untenable and they have little to no hope of material better. The whipoorwhill of eternity is easily lost beneath the clamouring rasp of one's own struggle to breathe. The promise of spiritual benefit after death is not something that our present society - materialistic and scientifically-oriented - can comprehend or trust, and particularly not when the people doing the promising are seen as the ones comfortably well-off, who've never had to make a harder decision than whether to take the family interstate rather than oversease for the holiday break.

the choice to let it go through to the keeper

It's also worth noting what we - as a culture and as The Church - let past the keeper.

Sexual assault? Infidelity? DV? How much protest have players-from-the-faith made regarding their team-mates accused and found guilty of such?

When Christians get picky about what aspects of faithful adherence we're going to support, we betray the character of God - and not in a "reveals" kind of way.

In a way, Christians taking a stand "against Pride" is as much showing off as the NRL putting pride stripes on their jerseys for inclusiveness. And it begs the question: do we really care about standards of godliness? Or just about our public stance on particular issues?

It is, in fact, a very confronting thing to realise that I could never lift a finger to help the needy or lonely or struggling again, and it would not change my state of grace.

BUT. It would change my brain chemistry, the part of me that learns to do new things by doing things, that learns possibilities by making mistakes, that goes out and tries harder, leans out and hopes not to overbalance.

never-married and church culture

Having feelings today.

Sometimes I feel piteously grateful that the women at church include me in anything. It's a good church with good people, but the truth is that in modern Christianity a never-married woman in her mid-40s is more likely to be considered a threat and liability than a friend.

Married couples with kids? No problem.

Women whose husbands are dead or left? All good.

But an unmarried woman tends to get left off the invite list. 

I imagine the reasons vary from "Who would we pair her with?" to "What if she takes a fancy to someone's husband?" And if they've been taught the 'women are walking temptations which men cannot resist, and always willing and interested in a man' beliefs of 90s Christian dating, attraction, and sexuality advice, then good luck to her around any couple where the wife isn't 100% sure of her husband.

I like people. People include men. It includes married men. There are guys I count as friends and guys I'd like to count as friends. (They're interesting people; I always like befriending interesting people.) Doing either is painfully fraught with a lot of gender schtick - not the risk that I'll do something or he'll do something, but that people will smear either of our reputations.

incompetent men jokes

I gotta say, I never yet met a "men are incompetent" joke that didn't make me exceedingly glad to have never been tempted by marriage.

Classic example: the joke that guys have only started preparing for Christmas today.

Meaning end of year details, teacher gifts, decorations, arranging who's going to be where for which meal, shopping preparation, meal preparation, gift selection and preparation, cards to family, etc., etc., etc., have all been done by one partner and the likelihood is high that they don't have no penis.

"Helping" does not cut the mustard, either. Increasing the load on your partner by deferring all the decisions and effort to her when it comes to major family interactions "because she's the boss, hur hur"?

Maybe I was taught a REALLY WEIRD STRAIN of Christianity, but I learned that Christ came to lessen our burdens not add to them.

And so "As Christ To The Church" is perhaps one of the most violated precepts I have ever seen: week in, week out, year in, year out, for as long as they both shall live.

secular dump: loan

I hate signing loan documents. Right now, it really does feel like fiscal irresponsibility.

The plan is simply this: switch the loan to a cheaper rate, pay it off at TOP SPEED over the next three years, then sell the unit. Hopefully before the price drops, although it may be too late for that. At the worst, I'll lose my superannuation; at best, I'll make it out by the skin of my teeth.

It's really hard to fiscally plan for a future that you don't think will be like the previous five years. But this is not something that you can talk to any financial adviser about; most people think the 2020s will be like the 2010s and the 2000s. I'm not convinced anymore, and I want off as soon as possible and with the least amount of damage.

a God of free will

I know it's a really novel take, but... The fact that God puts the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the story of the Garden of Eden suggests that this is a being who cares about free will.

Recap: in the story of the Garden of Eden, humanity dwells in paradise where they have everything they need or want as ordained by God. The only thing God tells them is that there's a tree in the garden that bears 'The Fruit Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil' and that they mustn't eat of it or they'll die. We know the story, it's all over our culture, all over our understanding of the world as humans - innocence and guilt, actions and consequences, choices and judgement.

What I always wondered, even as a kid hearing this story in Sunday School, is why God put the tree there in the first place. It took me decades (and assorted sermons by assorted pastors) to come to the conclusion that the tree was there because God wanted people to have the choice: Him or not!Him.

He doesn't want slavish obedience or blind trust. He wants us to see the options and choose Him anyway.

Yes, it's a story; I don't think the Garden of Eden is literal - it's the story about a God whose instincts are for Order out of chaos, whose desire is for the personal rather than the distant, who wants people to have the ability to choose of their own free will rather than being forced into it.

This story also tells me that our God is a God of free will, of choice, of options.

And not just decisions of 'good' and 'evil', as we so often get caught up in - I hear the US Evangelical tradition has a "God watches over every single decision you make" thread in it, like God cares whether you eat beans on toast for breakfast, or a hot pocket in the microwave. IDEK.

There'll doubtless be a lot of "well, then He gets mad that they choose other than Him, doesn't He?" My dears, do we not talk about the consequences of choices? All those pro-life people who suddenly find themselves unable to get a D&C for a miscarriage because it's functionally indivisible from 'an abortion as contraceptive'? Consequences of choices, consequences of action. If we live in a house and insult the owner's capabilities, hospitality, and intelligence, does the owner not have the free will and choice to turf us out? And under that paradigm, God may have closed us out of the house, but we're still living on His property if he made the world and everything in it. And He spoke no less than the truth - all of us will die, our bodies will rot, our beauty will fade, and we will return to the dust from whence we came.

The thing is, God values choice so much, He's willing to lose us just so we have the possibility of choosing Him. Personally, I think that's some pretty serious dedication to the idea of free will, and the right to choose.

Us choosing Him vs Him choosing us? Let's not get into predestination. That way lies madness and an awful lot of philosophy, and I'm just a systems analyst!

they can tak' our media but they'll never tak' our freeeedooooom!

There's a growing theme among Australian Christians, that our society is 'being taken from us'.

It manifests in the increasing attitudes of "well, you can't say anything godly at all anymore without someone coming in to cancel you". It manifests in the persisting belief that "Australia is a Christian nation (or at least a nation founded on Christian values) and we should keep it that way." It manifests in the insistence that "well, we've seen how feminism and wokeness and the modern sexuality has destroyed our society, so why don't we take it back to the old (Christian) ways?"

There's a desire for a simplistic narrative - a 'back to the basics' attitude. These are mostly voiced by older people, white guys, and people who haven't studied history, or use the term 'woke' as a pejorative.

There's also an exaggeration happening around Christian thought. Christians are increasingly using dramatic language to describe the response to the mores and morality expressions of our faith. It's also interesting that the Christians using dramatic language are frequently more invested in the morality expressions of our faith that are contradictory to those of the world - setting up worldly perspectives as an antagonist, rather than coming alongside them as a friend.

Possibly ironically, Sam Chan's Evangelism in a Modern World addresses the matter of coming alongside worldly perspectives as a friend to the person - not necessarily agreeing, but pushing our friends to think further and deeper about what they really believe.

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Listening to Majority 54 Podcast the other week - the episode release on the 21st April entitled Political Therapy with a conversation with an author, Monica Guzman whose book I Never Thought Of It That Way. The conversation was around a willingness to listen and understand where people are coming from. Ravi was talking about his older brother and how his older brother seems to have no interest in anything Ravi is doing or Ravi's thoughts on anything, and that he feels that sting quite keenly. Then, recently, he learned that his older brother feels like he already knows everything he needs to about his brother because their mom boasts about Ravi and what he's doing all the time.

One of the points that Monica made was that conservatives feel hemmed in by the media, there's nowhere that promotes a 'Christian perspective' anymore and that gets them on the back foot. They have no interest in the specific stories of individuals - liberals, progressives, non-Christians - because they already feel like they know it all and so they don't need to be told.

From a liberal vs conservative POV, without any faith in the mix, I can see that conservatives would be angry and defensive and just prefer to lump all liberals and progressives in together without seeing them individually: and yes, understanding where the specific person you love is coming from is one thing, thinking you understand where "liberals and progressives" are coming from is entirely another.

From a Christian perspective, though, I feel like Christians should be better listeners; better at tailoring our message and our interactions with the specific individual that we're trying to reach. Not just issuing a "TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN" notice.

I feel like this is what Sam Chan is getting at regarding how to evangelise, although the cynic in me would have called it "How to Evangelise When You Already Think You Know Everything You Need To Know". Hm. I wonder if I could write a book about that...