A free media?

I have been reading and watching, as a lot of people have, the coverage of the Bushfires here in Victoria over the past four days. I have seen the tremendous work of some media outlets in providing relevant information that has relieved the pressure on the official CFA and DSE websites.

But I have also paused to reflect on the role of the media, both on the lives of the victims of this tragedy and on the lives of those outside of the direct path of the Bushfires. We are a generation that is now expectant of our media outlets to provide us with wall to wall coverage of a major event. We expect to see the devastation and hear the stories of both miracle survivals and painful loss. We want to feel close to the news. But we also want to be separate from it. The media does not show the charred bodies of wildlife clogging the roads. It does not show us the devastating effects of burns on human skin. It can not show us the ongoing psychological scars of people who have had to make split second life and death decisions.

The media coverage that we expect is intrusive upon those who have already suffered so much. Speaking to someone working at a relief centre, she recounted how the media would surround people who had broken down under the emotional strain of their experience. For her to offer them physical comfort only made the 'shot' more photogenic.

I came across this great interview with a Kinglake resident. He summed up the role of the commercial media thus, "all the commercial television stations, radio stations use some of your advertising money to get helicopters to drop off supplies, You're making good money out of this sad story. Kinglake is stronger than you will ever be."

The wall to wall media coverage of this tragedy has challenged many Victorians to offer assistance. Victorians are opening their wallets in response to what they see on the television and read in the papers. There can be no doubt that this assistance is required. This crisis has highlighted the need for emergency crisis housing. There are not enough crisis housing properties in Victoria but this is never highlighted on the nightly news.

Perhaps it takes a crisis to draw Victorians together precisely because it is in crisis that the media shows us how much we are all alike and how much we need each other. We shouldn't have to wait for the crisis! We shouldn't have to wait for the media! Donate blood. Give real money to charities. These should not be one off responses to the media highlighting a crisis. These should be our standard response.

What I read today:

How romatic comedies ruin your life

Anglicanism may not be coherent enough to fracture

Welfare dependency

I have been thinking a lot recently about the connection between welfare dependency and Christian 'good works'. Perhaps this has more to do with my missional context than yours, but please bear with me.

Welfare dependency is when people have received assistance (of a material, social or professional capacity) for so long that they become dependant on that assistance. The classic stereotype highlighted by A Current Affair is the dole bludger who refuses to 'get a job'. Obviously this stereotype, as with all stereotypes, is a gross generalisation that ignores the complex reality of each individual's story. Welfare dependency is a failure of the system to properly empower individuals to assist themselves. It can also be a failure of individuals to take responsibility for their own situation. It is compounded by issues such as mental health issues, long term unemployment, lack of job opportunities, being a single parent and the behaviour of well meaning social workers.

When welfare dependency meets with Christian 'good works' we have a problem. I use 'good works' here to mean those activities undertaken by Christians to help people. These activities can be purely from a social gospel viewpoint, or from a 'works as mission' viewpoint.

For a welfare dependant person (WDP) their relationship with a service is based on what they can receive. Christian groups that offer something to the WDP will be viewed as similar to any other service. The more involved the Christians get in the person's life, the more they become like any other of their 'workers.'

How do we do authentic mission in this situation? How do we avoid our messianic complex being fed by their need for us?

I don't have any answers for these questions. They are just some of the questions I am thinking through at the moment. What thoughts do you have?

What salvation is not

This post is final of a series of posts on the topic of Salvation. Here is the introduction to the series.

I feel that there is really a lot of misconceptions out there about salvation. People don't know how to explain salvation other than using classic cliques that are perhaps at best over simplified and at worst down right manipulative. So here I go with 5 things I think salvation is not.

1) Salvation is not an emergency, well not quite.

I have been to many an evangelical rally and have heard a few one on one evangelical discussions where the concept of "if you die tonight will you go to Heaven or Hell" was used. Now to me that is down right manipulative. Salvation is not a used car. It doesn't need a used car salesman's pitch. If salvation isn't something that people can walk away from, mull over and make an informed decision about then I for one am worried.

2) Salvation is not as simple as the four spiritual laws or praying the sinners prayer.

This goes with the above point. Salvation isn't as simple as getting someone to follow some steps. Salvation doesn't come from in-canting some magical words. If salvation is truly about an individual coming into relationship with God then every individual is going to do that in an individual way.

3) Salvation is not a quick fix.

God doesn't change us overnight. That is what we have lives, faith communities, the bible and Christian friends for. Too many people 'make a commitment' expecting it to fix all their problems, because that is what has been sold to them. (see point 1)

4) Salvation is not a line in the sand that signifies who is in and who is out.

This will be a topic for another post, but I want to mention it now. It is us who use 'salvation' as a tool to judge who is going to heaven/in the church/part of the kingdom/etc.

5) Salvation is not enough.

Being saved is all well and good, BUT you are REALLY saved when you ...

... get baptised

... put on a uniform

... give to the church

... become a missionary

... become an officer/minister/priest

... follow all the rules

... look like everyone else in our church

Sorry today has been a slightly longer post. Do you have any other thoughts on what salvation is not?

Depravity

This post is part of a series of posts on the topic of Salvation. Here is the introduction to the series.

Yesterday I blogged on the topic of the fall and today I want to follow on with the closely related topic of depravity. Depravity is the theological concept that all humans are affected by sin.

Some Christians understand depravity to mean that humanity is inherently evil. That is, our natural inclination is towards evil. In this understanding salvation is therefore God removing the evil from us and allowing us to become good.

This however is not the Salvationist, or my, position. Rather we understand depravity to mean that there is no area of humanity that is not affected by sin. Humanity is inherently good, that was how God created us, but because of our depravity we can never be totally good. Because we are good we can strive to come closer to God and do good deeds. This however is not enough for salvation. Doing good will not save us, we still need God to act.

The first view does not allow God to work outside of Christians. The second view sees God being at work in all of creation, whether it is recognised or not. The first view suggests that those who aren't saved are inherently bad and therefore God has condemned them. The second suggests that God sees humanity as his children, wayward and in need of direction and assistance. Without God's assistance humanity will falter and people will fall off the rails.

What about you? Which view resonates with your experience of humanity?

What I read today:

being human

Hyperreal missional churches

The Fall

This post is part of a series of posts on the topic of Salvation. Here is the introduction to the series.

The Christian understanding of salvation is usually linked to the account of 'the Fall' told in Genesis chapter 3. I choose not to use the phrase 'directly linked' because I think that there are other ways of understanding salvation separate to the Genesis account of 'the Fall.'

Contrary to popular understanding the issue at the centre of 'the fall' is not about eating a piece of fruit. The issue is that by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve would come to understand the world in a whole new way. The temptation of the serpent is that "if you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (v5) The 'sin' was to desire to be like God, in control.

Now some Christians believe that the original act of disobedience outlined in Genesis 3 had to have taken place in some form at some point in history. This happened and by that original act 'sin' entered the world.

I however think the Genesis 3 story holds a much bigger truth than one isolated event at some point in the past. I think it is a story that replays itself multiple times a day in each of our lives. Sin didn't need to enter the world through Adam and Eve because it enters the world everyday when I decide, rather than God, what is good and evil. When I choose to eat the fruit, rather than listening to God, I am bringing sin into the world. When I bring sin into the world the consequences are far reaching. They do not only affect me, but affect those around me.

Salvation comes when we allow God to be God.

What I read today:

More heatwaves likely as climate change worsens

What is the transforming theology project?

Salvation from dualism

This post is part of a series of posts on the topic of Salvation. Here is the introduction to the series.

Yesterday I was listening to an interview with Richard Rohr and he made an interesting comment. He talked about the idea of Salvation from dualism. Dualism is the idea of a state of opposites. For example good and evil, right and wrong, in and out, saved and non-saved.

Rohr, as a good Franciscan, was suggesting that a spirituality that engaged with the everyday freed us from the binary opposites of good and evil. It allowed us to see the world as a grey space. Spirituality is therefore about living in the grey and conversing with God as to a proper response, a proper lifestyle and an effective spirituality.

In Salvation Army parlance we too have striven to overcome the problem of a dualistic view of salvation. We had the term 'full salvation'. The concept being that it wasn't enough to suggest there were those who were in and those who were out. Of course being good Victorian evangelicals we had to have 'the line' of salvation, but there was a recognition that it wasn't enough. Those who were 'saved' needed to work towards a full salvation.

Rohr suggested that being saved from dualism meant that our Christian faith is no longer about a set of rules to follow. It is not about what is right and what is wrong. Spirituality, morality and ethics must be much more living and engaging than a static set of rules. For Rohr, following the ancient spiritual practices engages us in a spirituality of action and reflection based on engagement with the scripture. Through this process we are transformed because we are meeting God where God is at work in the world, not through following all the rules.

How do you overcome a dualistic faith?

What I read today:

Defined by things

Rescuing Darwinism

Fools rush in

A new creation?

This post is part of a series of posts on the topic of Salvation. Here is the introduction to the series.

My previous post and subsequent discussion on the end of the world highlighted the image of a new creation. I think that the biblical theme of a new creation, which relates to both individuals and all of creation, is an image of Salvation.

Paul uses the image of individuals being a new creation in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5. In the context of the chapter, Paul is using the image of being a new creation to suggest that as Christians we need to move beyond the limitations of living in 'earthly bodies' an image of a pre-Christian state. In verse 15 he suggests that "those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."

Here Paul gives us the key to how the image of a new creation is one of salvation. A Christian is saved from living for themselves. A Christian is saved to living for something beyond themselves. God created us to live in community with each other and in relationship to him. Being 'saved' invites us back into community and relationship with God. We can put aside our selfish desires and aspirations and follow God's desires and aspirations.

This is not to suggest that a new creation destroys the old creation. Paul was a Jew. He was a Pharisee, the most religious of Jews. After his conversion he did not cease to be a Jew. Paul's theological understanding is pinned on figuring out what it means to be a Jew who follows Jesus. Who he is is enhanced by being a new creation. His old self is not annihilated, it is renewed.

We are not saved so that we can hate our former self. God did not save us in order to destroy who we once were.