Category: culture

cultural, bi-cultural, multi-cultural, trans-cultural?

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

The current legislative discussions around Te Tiriri o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi seem to be about culture.

For David Seymour, his concern (legitimate or not) is that one way of interpreting the Treaty would award “special rights” based on “ancestry”, which he feels violates his understanding of equal rights for all individuals. He thinks Te Tiriti sets up one government (‘kawanatanga‘) for all. One set of laws for all. Equal rights for all. This language of equality is deeply intuitive to many. The debate centres on the extent, nature and scope of that government. My own suspicion, which I hold very lightly, is that the hesitance of some Māori to sign Te Tiriti, lends weight to the view that ‘te Kawanatanga katoa o o ratou wenua’ indeed refers to total (‘katoa’) government over the land (‘whenua’). According to this understanding, Māori were clear what was being proposed, but as some of their chiefs (rangatira) had travelled widely and were wisely aware how colonisation had negatively affected other peoples, were concerned about whether or not this proposed ‘Kawana’ (a loan word for the English ‘Governor’) was going to truly protect their best interests. Sadly it turned out that land was unjustly sold and taken.

For some (or even many) Māori and their allies seeking to honour Te Tiriti, the concern is that the current system of government fails to give them the voice, influence and self-determination (‘tino rangatiratanga‘) which they (as they see it) are promised in article two of Te Tiriti. From this point of view, the structure of Parliament and system for governing the country are not ‘neutral’ but reflect British/European culture. Te Tiriti is seen as a safeguard against European cultural dominance, promising that colonisation, immigration and settling of Europeans will not overwhelm or erase Māori people, lands, and ways of being.

Since 1840, when Te Tiriti was signed, many people from other cultures (Asian, African, ‘American’) have also migrated, which adds a multi-cultural expression to the nation.

So, reviewing, we have:

a) an indigenous culture which is promised a very real degree of ‘tino rangatiratanga’ (self-determination or ‘chiefly rule’) over their own lands, and a settler culture which is (arguably) given the right to exercise ‘kawanatanga’ (government) over the ‘wenua’ (land)
b) a Treaty that is rightly seen as ‘bi-cultural’ between the Queen of England and the United Tribes of Nu Tirani (New Zealand).
c) a modern multi-cultural reality where Te Tiriti gives migrants the right to call Aotearoa / New Zealand home.

Is there a ‘transcultural‘ layer in the mix?

One of the major active parties involved in the drafting, translation, negotiation and signing of Te Tiriti – that is the Missionaries, notably Henry Williams – were motivated by their understanding of The Gospel (Te Rongopai). Whilst Māori, as of 1840, would understandably be skeptical about what this proposed incoming ‘Kawanatanga‘ would mean for their people, the previous two decades had seen an overwhelmingly positive response to the incoming message of ‘Rongopai’. As leading Māori historian Monty Soutar argued at an event I attended in 2019, it is the height of Eurocentric condescension to argue that Māori were tricked into welcoming this foreign religion. He is well versed in the history of intelligent weighing and welcoming of the Gospel among his people. Some estimates are that up to 90% of Māori were Christian around 1840.

I take it as obvious that these 19th century agents of mission were imperfect (sometimes extremely so). They inherited, carried and expressed an assumption of cultural superiority. This is famously seen in Samuel Marsden’s estimation that Australian aboriginals were not developed enough to have the Gospel shared with them. Despite this, Māori (and Australian aboriginals too) were intelligently and wisely able to see beyond the messengers to the message, which so many of them saw as good for their people. Thus comes into focus the ability of the Gospel to be (as missiologist David Bosch describes) ‘infinitely translatable’.

Gambian missiologist Lamin Sanneh points out that, despite the very real assumptions of cultural superiority at work, the very act of translation of the Scriptures into the many languages and cultures the missionaries went was itself inherently humanising and preserving. This is a message that does not destroy culture as it is planted into it. In the first century, when a male, female, Jew, Gentile, slave or free person became a Christian, this did not meant that their male-ness or female-ness was erased or downgraded. Rather who they were was enhanced and arguably transformed. English folk become more human, more Christ-like English folk. Māori likewise arguably judged that their people would be enriched and humanized by Te Rongopai. That vision of a humanising movement was at the heart of humanitarian and Christian groups like The Clapham Sect, which had such an influence on the wording of Te Tiriti; demanding that indigenous peoples be protected.

So then, there seems to be a kind of parallel when it comes to the present debate. I can imagine that some, perhaps David Seymour, will be imagining that ‘Parliament’ or ‘the Government’ is transcultural – neutral – objective; and that it is this neutral ‘democratic’ equality that is obviously needed here. My strong suspicion is that there needs to be a fresh awareness that The Westminster system of Parliament is indeed aligned to a particular British cultural system and not ‘neutral’. What should it – what could it – look like instead to have a (bi-cultural / multi-cultural / trans-cultural) Kawanatanga where two things could be simultaneously a reality:

  1. all could share ‘democratically’ in the same universal and general rights under one Law,
  2. but in a way that properly and thoroughly preserves and protects the particular rights due to any and all peoples (starting with and never excluding iwi & hapu (tribe & sub-tribe) Māori who are explicitly protected in Article 2 of Te Tiriti)

I have no idea what this would look like, but it seems to beautifully smell like both Te Rongopai and Te Tiriti.

the human connection between anger & temptation

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

The sermon on the mount is the best teaching on human living. It lays down the patterns for full and complete humanness. After the Beatitudes and opening statements, the first two issues that Jesus deals with are a) anger leading to murder, and b) lust leading to adultery. It won’t do to simply label murder and adultery as unlawful, immoral or wrong. Jesus knows we have to get to the heart of these matters and deal with our anger and lust.

The early chapters of Genesis are also profound in their statements about humanness. Every human is like Cain, who gets ‘very angry’ and is tempted into taking actions that violate the humanity of his ‘brother’. In chapter 6, we see the moral devolution of humanity is so degraded that the beautiful daughters of men were being treated like sexual property. The Creator is grieved to the point of being willing to uncreate the whole creation.

Anger and Sex are connected. We need not illustrate all the ways that this interrelation plays out through rape and pornography.

Their interrelation also shows up in another text that is likewise profoundly awake to the realities of human nature: The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, written by Bill Wilson. The Step 4 inventory (see chapter 5, ‘How it Works’) of ones own life invites an addict to reflect on a) Resentments, b) Fears, c) Sex conduct and d) Harm to others.

Anger and Fear can be understood as a natural pair, just as Sexual dysfunction and Harm can be. For example, consider Resentment and Fear. When I resent another person, I am looking down on them in judgement (perhaps sometimes justified judgement); and when I fear someone, I am looking up at them. When I process my resentments (and fears) properly, I discover that I need not look down on (or up at) others. I can look them in the eye as equals. This humane equality is a profoundly disturbing idea for someone whose identity is dependent on feeling superior to others.

The same is true for the Sex and Harm pairing. Healthy sexual relations is a mutually helpful matter of freely giving and freely receiving. Literally ‘intercourse’. Harm, by nature, including sexual harm, is the opposite of giving and receiving. Instead of giving it forces itself on someone. “You will have this whether you want it or not.” Instead of receiving it is taking. “I’ll take this whether you’re giving it or not.” It is violent and violating.

So therefore, according to Jesus, Moses and Bill, it seems to be a human reality that when we feel resentment towards someone who we feel has wronged us we sooner or later are tempted to some kind of violence or dysfunction.

This connection between anger and temptation, finally, is seen within The Lord’s Prayer, which is – not surprisingly – the humane prayer in the structural centre of the humanising Sermon on the Mount, preached by the one Christians see as the True Human. I am instructed to link my own forgiveness from my Father in heaven, with the forgiveness I am continually working at with others who have ‘transgressed against’ me. Immediately following (and linked to) this, is that I must be on guard against being led ‘into temptation’.

Whether our resentment is justified or irrational, political or personal, sharply focused or a foggy haze; we are reminded of an important moral human truth. The longer we allow anger to fester and burn the more tempted we can be to find our way into a fix, escape, or treat. This could be in the form of a verbal insult, a preachy self-righteous Facebook comment, some form of sexually energising daydream or exploration, or any other drug of choice (working late hours, over-eating, gambling, numbing myself with drink).

And so, the journey to full humanness must include humane prayers where we lay our vulnerability to anger and temptation before the Lord.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.

Or, we might paraphrase…

Lord, help me to so savour your mercy towards me that I too flow with mercy towards others, especially those I am likely to point the finger of superior judgement towards, whose wrongs I feel the most burned up about. The ones who threaten me and interfere with how I think the world should run. Those who make my blood boil. The ones who, like me, do not deserve mercy.
And keep me far away from letting my anger drive me into some kind of tempting and ultimately self-serving power trip. Deliver me from the fleeting and temporary soothing ego trips of violence of any kind to myself or another.

Amen.

from the bondage of self

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

When an alcoholic is working the 12 steps using the guidance of the ‘Big Book’ of Alcoholics Anonymous, I am told that it is traditional to pray the “Third Step Prayer” found in Chapter 5 ‘How It Works’. Here is the full prayer:

“God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!’’

There is clearly much to appreciate about this prayer, but in this blog I want to do two things. First, I want to zero in on the significance of one line “Relieve me of the bondage of self”; and Second, I want to use the Lord’s Prayer to demonstrate how it is a prayer that asks the same thing.

The Self

The AA Big Book has a lot to say about an addictive focus on ‘self’. “Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows…” (bold and italics not in original) It says “the alcoholic is an example of self-will run riot.” In one of the appendices, there is a quote from Dr. W. W. Bauer, who observes that helping other fellow alcoholics creates an atmosphere in which “the alcoholic often overcomes his excessive concentration upon himself.”

Modern psychologists may sometimes take issue with what could seem like a negative view of the self in such language. But if we are read these quotes as intended, we can see that it is not the self, as such, that is being critiqued, but the ‘excessive’ focus upon self. ‘Self’ is not the problem, but selfishness. The AA Big Book wants the alcoholic to see that even when trying to be ‘good’ their self-will is at play. Such is the description of the ‘actor’ trying to ‘run the whole show’: “Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind?”

This wisdom about a counter-productive self-focus is behind one of my favourite lines in the prayer: “Relieve me of the bondage of self.” Through the spiritual programme of action outline in the 12-steps, the alcoholic or addict is guided through a process by which their excessive focus on themselves is relieved by the aid of a Power greater than (who?) themselves.

The Lord’s Prayer

I’d now like to translate this wisdom into Christian key. Of course, it is well known that the Christian faith was the spiritual garden out of which the principles of AA were harvested. Frank Buchman, the Lutheran minister, had his transformational experience with resentment, which led to him establishing the ‘First Century Christian Fellowship’ later known as the ‘Oxford Group’, whose 6 principles were expanded into 12 steps by Bill Wilson and the early AA fellowship.

So, although, it is not needed to re-translate any of this back into Christian faith, it might at least be interesting or useful to show how the Lord’s Prayer relates to this line from the Third Step prayer (indeed the entire prayer!); particularly given that the early AA groups used to open or close their meetings with the Lord’s Prayer (and some still do).

  • Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
    • Right from the start, my focus on self is violently interrupted by shifting and lifting my spiritual gaze off of my self and onto another. Not just any ‘other’, but the ultimate Other. Consider how the same shift can at least be somewhat attempted in the practice of someone who does not believe in any traditional Monotheistic God. Take a practitioner of yoga (which I am neither criticizing nor commending here). Through their practice of breathing, exercise, community and spiritual worldview, they also shift their focus from their individual self onto their body, the others they might be exercising with, and indeed the Universe. Stresses and difficult mental states are at least temporarily put aside as one focuses on higher and wider things than their self. Monotheism simply takes this as far as the logic can lead – to an ultimate Other, the un-caused Cause behind all causality, the One Creator of all things.
  • Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
    • In contrast to the self-will that wants to run the whole show of life, and aggressively or passive-aggressively trying to get others to do what we think they ought to do, this part of the prayer acknowledges that there are higher laws and higher wills and a higher order of things than mine. I do not need to, and indeed I cannot live well if I persist in trying to, play God. Even the agnostic can at least sense a comparable shift when they acknowledge the vast order of natural law in the Universe. We are but a small part in the whole. Monotheism simply recognises that this higher order is not the an order characterised by ‘blind, pitiless, indifference’ as Richard Dawkins famously wrote, but rather by a purposeful, creational and ‘kingly’ or royal will.
  • Give us this day our daily bread
    • One of the basic fears that a fragile self can have is around the fear of financial insecurity. We fear not being able to secure means for ourselves, and for those who may depend on us. Food security experts talk about the difference between a ‘scarcity’ or ‘abundance’ mindset. One can base their positive affirmation of abundance on factual appreciations of the wealth of resources available to us. This prayer just rests this confidence on the ground of a generous God.
  • And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
    • One of the most profound contributions of the AA Big Book is the focus on cleaning one’s own side of the street. We have many resentments against the wrongs others have done. Sometimes these resentments are essentially justified and we have truly been harmed. However, the wisdom here, is that even an innocent victim can get stuck in justified resentment. As the saying goes, “holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.” I cannot change the other person who hurt me (in my case, as a young child). I can only focus on changing myself, particularly the ways that I nourish my sense of victimhood and keep the fires of resentment enflamed. Forgiveness, in this context, has nothing to do with absolving or excusing or minimising the harm done to me; nor should it keep me from taking any appropriate action to protect myself or others from present or future harm. It is simply ‘giving’ them up out of my death grip of judgment. The wisdom here is very challenging, because never does the self feel more righteous than when criticizing another for legitimate harms done (think of Israel or Hamas). Whatever forgiveness may do for the one who is forgiven, it is undeniably transformative for the one doing the forgiving.
  • And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.
    • Here the prayer follows on directly from the previous line. Unforgiving and merciless criticism of another person, and most of all the victim mentality too often leads to various forms of verbal, physical or military retaliation or vengeance. For others, it could lead to various forms of escapism as we feel entitled to a mental or moral holiday. We’ve been harmed, mis-represented, ignored, abandoned, so “Screw ‘them’; they have it coming.” Or “Screw ‘it’, I’m going to numb out…” with food, work, sex, drink or self-harm. Such escalations or self-harm are named here as temptations driven by a force that is malevolent, destructive, anti-creational, counter-productive, distorting, enslaving and thus ‘Evil’.
  • For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.
    • My life, my future, my past and present; and the history and activities in the whole world, are all subsumed within a higher order that will be ‘just fine’. This is not the well-meaning distant dualism of hoping that ‘God is watching us… from a distance.’ It is the dogged, insistent hope in the reality of a loving Father who can sort out the baddies ‘out there’, and who is constantly and compassionately available to help me with my fearful and vulnerable badness ‘in here’. God is the one who provides, rules, understands, judges and heals. I need that every day.

So then,
Father of all Creation,
today and every day,
relieve me of the bondage of self.
Make me a vessel of reconciling love
to some of your children today.
Amen.

refuel, release, reconnect, relax

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

I was thinking about the acronym H.A.L.T. (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) today.

This is an acronym that use used and cited frequently in contexts that are about life-improvement. Mentoring, coaching, supervision, and counselling. The idea seems to be that being unaware of how I’m feeling sets me up for various kinds of unhealthy life patterns. For example: if I find myself particularly triggered by something someone said to me, it may be related to me motoring on through the day not realising that I forgot to have lunch Or if I’m not particularly motivated around my work today, I may be lacking connection with other humans.

It should be obvious that it is a good thing to recognise and respond accordingly when I am any combination of Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. There is everything right and nothing wrong with this acronym.

But I tend to use it in as a reactive diagnosis.

It’s all well and good to be able to reactively diagnose my behaviour in the past-tense by linking it to my unawareness in the past-tense of how I was feeling. What I really need are habits of being that keep me from getting into these states of unaware un-wellness. I want and need to be spiritually proactive rather than cleverly reactive.

How do I have a way of life (or a ‘rule of life’) that will guard against me being Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired?

I can practice the fulfilling opposites of those dysfunctional states. I can develop and maintain:
1) a regular pattern of eating,
2) an ongoing practice of processing and letting go of anger,
3) a frequent custom of social interaction,
and 4) a dogged commitment to times of rest.

I can learn, on a continual basis, to:
Refuel my tank (and not get Hungry),
Release others from my wrath (and not grow Angry),
Reconnect with humans (and not become Lonely),
and Relax my body (and not get Tired).

If this is sounding a bit like a cheesy book-turned-movie like Eat Pray Love, I think I’m OK with that, because those are, regardless of how they might be framed in that book or that movie, good things.

Living a lifestyle of this kind of discipline is not complicated, but various challenges can make it… well… challenging.

A wealthy, upwardly-mobile, business-type person could find that:
meetings crowd out lunch,
high pressure situations don’t allow for on-the-spot forgiveness,
endless emails and report-writing isolate me from colleagues
demands of family mean there is ‘just no time’ to rest

A less-wealthy, less-mobile person with less-choice could also be faced with realties like:
they cannot afford to eat properly
they live in a conflict-ridden, war-torn context, fearing for life, with a long-list of real enemies and justified resentments
they are forcibly isolated from human contact or loved ones
they have to work 80 hours to feed their family

I don’t have anything but empathy for the latter of those two.
But for those of us whose lives are more like the first, there is possibly more opportunity and choice than we admit.

If…
I want to avoid states of low-wellbeing where I set myself up to not flourish…
then…
I need to set myself up to live well.

I need to be spiritually proactive instead of cleverly reactive.

I need to refuel, release, reconnect and relax.

Esther, Exodus & Escalation

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

I just finished reading Esther this morning. It’s quite astonishing to read it in 2024 – with what’s going on in Israel & Gaza. There are some fascinating similarities (and important differences) between 480 BC and 2024; between ancient Persia and modern Palestine, which I wanted to reflect on here.

The Reality of Oppression

Jewish identity is shaped by many things, but among them we must include the tragic reality of being oppressed.

This is a historic trajectory that goes all the way back to Egypt. Israel under the lash of oppressive rule by Pharaoh. Making bricks without straw. The book of Exodus narrates the astounding victory that Israel experienced under God’s redemptive hand. It’s an ultimate reversal of power. The ultimate under-dog story. The little guy beating the big guy. Little Israel plundered the Big Egyptians. Their Big fancy chariot wheels got stuck before they all got drowned in the sea, and we Little guys made it through just fine with dry feet.

The book of Esther narrates the Jews under a kind of new Egypt, this time it is Persia. And this time, it is not the king that plays the leading oppressor role, but a high-ranking official named Haman. The basic story arc here is similar to Exodus, but instead of escaping with plunder, the reversal here is that the ones who were about to be entirely destroyed got to do some defensive destroying of their own.

Fast forward to 1933-1945 and the sense of victimhood has another horrific and historic chapter supporting it. This time Egypt is the Third Reich and Pharaoh is Hitler. I’ve been to Auschwitz. I’ve read Night by Elie Weisel. Utterly inhumane and horrific. Jewish folk carted in, dehumanised, starved, humiliated and systematically disposed of.

So then, in the mind of the Jewish people, the lineage of oppression and victimhood is clear and historic.
Egypt. Persia. Third Reich.
Pharaoh. Haman. Hitler.

Victims in the Present Moment

The time-span from Hitler and the WWII era to the current situation is only mere decades, but for us it feels like ages. The UN Partition Plan (1947) placed Israel officially back in the land. Without wanting (or pretending to be able) to get into a balanced summary of events, shall we say it’s not been a peaceful situation. There’s not much I want to say about the current horrors taking place. But I will risk making an observation that I think is crucially important.

Putting aside the question of what is correct or right, and focusing on the question of what motivates action… both the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) and Hamas (note: I’ve deliberately not used the terms ‘Israel’ or the ‘Palestinians’) are operating from a victim mindset… and both feel their actions are justified because of it.

Whatever you think about Just War theory, pacifism, or self-defense, we can probably acknowledge the difference between senseless, random, brutality (“let’s kill people for fun”) and the kind of violence and counter-violence at play here (“they have it coming to them”). Agree or not with the actions of either, it is useful to try to understand them.

Let’s go back now and look a little closer at Exodus, Esther, WWII and then the present…

Justifying Violence?

Lets start in Exodus. Egypt justified violence and ‘shrewd’ treatment against the Israelites, arguing that “the Israelites have become much too numerous” (Exodus 1:8-10). They feared them growing even more numerous, fighting against them, and leaving. In light of this oppressive enslavement, we see Moses justifying killing the Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew (2:11-13). In the book of Exodus, there is a strong theme of God fighting for Israel (14:14; 14:25). They don’t have to wield swords, the Lord brings plagues and parts the sea. The Israelites are more numerous, but weaker in terms of political power, might and money. And through divine rescue, they conquer. The little guys (large in number) beat the big bad guys.

Next, let’s look at Esther. Here we have Haman, the Agagite, who is not only incensed that Mordecai will not bow to recognise the high standing he’d been given, but escalated matters to planning and scheming to have all Jews destroyed throughout the whole kingdom. We don’t know if the logic he lays out to Xerxes (Ahasuerus) is genuinely part of his background hatred of Jews, but his argument was that the Jews have different laws, keep separate, and don’t obey the king’s laws. Their impropriety made them, by his logic, worthy of extinction. By the time Haman had written letters in the king’s name, they contained “the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews – young and old, women and little children… and to plunder their goods.” (3:13) The order identified a single day for the slaughter, and went out to every province.

The immediate response was “great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing.” (4:3) This was in addition to their existing sense of oppression as exiles. Esther (Hadassah) was not only a descendant of captives, but also an orphan. She didn’t have any wealth or power, but we learn she is rich with beauty and wisdom (2:5-7). As the story plays out (spoilers if you haven’t read it), Haman gets hung on a gallows he had made for Mordecai (7:10). Still more, although the previous order of Haman could not be undone (it carried the seal of the signet ring), the king empowered Esther and Mordecai to issue a second decree, authorised again by the signet ring, that the Jews have “the right to assemble and protect themselves, to destroy, kill and annihilate any armed force of any nationality or province that might attack them and their women and children, and to plunder the property of their enemies.” (8:11). Haman’s orders were literally genocidal (“all the Jews” young/old, women/children), while Mordecai’s were restricted to the defensive destruction of armed attackers. When the day came for the previous genocidal orders of Haman to be carried out, the Jews assembled “to attack those seeking their destruction” (9:2). The enemies resisted and destroyed reached as high as 75,000, and it is repeated three times that “they did not lay their hands on the plunder.” (9:10, 15, 16) The would-be victims were empowered to defend themselves, and did not escalate matters and take the plunder that the edict had entitled them to. The victims had resisted oppression without becoming oppressors themselves.

Fast forward to WWII and Hitler. Hitler was motivated by a victim mentality. He and other Germans felt that the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh. With his own brand of so-called scientific reasoning, he felt that the Jews were a threat to the health, strength, and purity of human progress. Such was the horrific thinking that justified such terrible tragic brutality and violence. As for the Jewish people, there was no opportunity for counter violence – and no need for justifying it. Unlike the mass deliverance narrated in Exodus, not everyone was able to escape to neighbouring countries or survive the concentration camps (better called Death Camps). Unlike the stark triumphant reversal narrated in the book of Esther, there was no great empowering act of self-defense in 1945. The war simply ended one day and survivors were freed.

Revisiting Victimhood in the Present Moment

Again, both the IDF and Hamas feel victimised.
Let’s consider some of the ways each feel victimised.

Palestinians in general – and Hamas in particular – protest displacement going back decades to the 1947 UN Partition Plan. They see this as an ongoing act of oppression. They lament the imposition of walls that were built between families that separated people and communities. They lament the responses of Israel that they would claim are consistently disproportionate.

Israel, by contrast, feels the pain of long-standing displacement and diaspora, going back centuries. They feel hated by surrounding nations. They feel the pain of being judged for what they would call self-defense. They feel misrepresented and labelled as reckless when they claim they are doing everything possible to warn innocent people to clear out.

When Justifications aren’t Just…

I’m going to risk suggesting that the victim mentality has wrongly justified violence on both sides.
That’s not me sitting comfortably on the fence, that’s trying to be even-handed in critique.

Hamas cannot justify their literally genocidal intent. Whatever the realities of ongoing colonisation and oppression, that does not justify the actions of 7 October 2023, and the ongoing refusal to return all hostages. It does not justify the tactics of hiding under hospitals and using civilians as human shields.

The IDF cannot justify its ‘collateral damage’ of civilian casualties in Gaza. Whatever the legitimacy there may be to defending yourself against a group (Hamas) that wants to end your existence, and however fair it is to take action to achieve the return or rescue of hostages, this does not justify the mass bombing. Civilians are never going to be able to clear out faster than Hamas.

A Better Way…

Jesus spoke to a group of Jews who also identified as Victims. They were under the thumb of Roman occupation. They longed for a Messianic rescue. Some of them were ready to wield the sword. Some did. The Maccabean revolt decades before Jesus. The Simon bar Kokhba revolt a century after.

Jesus instead taught these victims to pray for those who persecute them. To strive for and pray for justice, but to do that with Mercy and Humility, in line with the prophet Micah. Jesus knew then and knows now what happens when “the things that make for peace” remain hidden from our eyes.

Let us Pray for Peace and Work for Peace. At all times and places.

Nehemiah-nomics

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

Chapter 5 of Nehemiah gives a great picture of biblical justice.

The irony here is the context that the injustice develops.

Luxury in a context of hard-times

Cyrus, the pagan king anointed by God, has mercifully decreed that the Jews should return and rebuild Jerusalem. Artaxerxes, not able to bear seeing sadness in his presence, has sent the weeping Nehemiah back to rebuild.

It’s all hands on deck building the wall. Read chapter 4. The people “worked with all their heart” (4:6) and are making angeringly fast progress filling in gaps. Their neighbouring adversaries (forced to let them build) are threatening to attack and stop them. So the re-builders have to work with one hand and have a sword in the other. They roster on shifts of people working and watching.

As early as chapter 3, Nehemiah hints that the nobles are not so helpful. They “would not put their shoulders to the work” (3.5).

The Voice of the Poor

Now in chapter 5 we have three quotes from those facing hardship. This is quite remarkable. Nehemiah doesn’t just describe the challenges facing them in his own words, but in the actual voice of the poor.

One group talks about how their large numbers make their need for grain a matter of life and death
Another talks about having to mortgage their homes to get grain.
A third group talks about having to sell their children into slavery to pay the kings tax. They say “we are powerless, because our fields and vineyards belong to others.”

Economic Dominance

Nehemiah critiques the nobles for economically dominating their fellow Jews. Buying their lands and charging interest for the loans they made. The nobles didn’t have a word to say in their defense (5:8) This moment is a parallel of the Jubilee laws given at Sinai (Leviticus 25) to prepare the people to live justly in the land. Land was not to be sold permanently. It was to be seen as belonging to God. Nehemiah calls for the Jubilee reset. Give it back. The fields, vineyards, olive groves, and interest you gained.

Translating this for today…

It is a stunning picture of biblical justice and jubilee economics.

It’s important to say that it is not communism. It’s not everyone having the same. It’s not equality legislated to the max. But it’s clearly not everyone ‘free’ to do whatever they want. Be as successful as you can, make as much money as you can. Even if it causes your neighbour to starve and they end up facing the horrible decision of dying of starvation or selling their family into slavery.

No. This is neither unhindered free-market economics, nor big-government forced equality (which always seems to make room for a special powerful group who has a lot more). Neither Moses nor Nehemiah intended to control people so that nobody would ever be a bit more successful than another. What they both will not stand for, however, is gross inequity. Once you have a huge rich/poor gap, things get practically impossible for the poor, while the rich have to do practically nothing to keep their wealth.

Whatever we think about government legislation or political policy, the Church today should call one another to conduct ourselves in ways that do not allow the poor to be destitute and without a real choice.

the king and the parent

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

As the theologically-astute preachers’ line goes, “If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.” When it comes to the Lord’s prayer, we are not so much looking at as listening to Jesus. He speaks of God as “Our Father”. God is just ‘like’ a Father, God is a Father.

Much has been said about how it is virtually and psychologically impossible for our human experiences of fatherhood (and motherhood) to not colour the way we understand and experience our relationship with our heavenly Father.

For those of us who have the privilege of being parents ourselves, this dynamic divides into two: We experience parenting ‘upwards’ and ‘downwards’. And both experiences colour us.

Positively we may be able to remember wonderful moments where our parents imprinted us with God-like love. And we likewise may have managed to have supremely divine moments where we were conscious of participating in truly loving parenting to a child of our own.

Negatively, however, our ‘upward’ experience of parenting in various ways can be a source of wounding as we recall various times that we were under-parented or over-parented, manipulated or abandoned, spoiled or abused.

Likewise, our ‘downward’ experience of parenting can provide a steady diet of shame as we fail, again and again, to live up to even our own limited standards of what a good parent should look like, and see the disappointment in our child.

In short, upwards wounds damage our trust in our parents, and downward shame damages our trust in ourselves. It is psychologically hard work, shall we say to trust God when our trust in our parents and ourselves is broken. We may scan the Bible and find stories that seem, especially when disconnected from the scriptural metanarrative and interpreted in the counter-narrative of progressive secularism, to show a God acting in ways that are wounding.

Back to Jesus we must go.

Jesus shows us not only how to truly see the loving Fatherhood of God, but also what it looks like when a Son fully trusts and enjoys that fatherhood. Jesus shows us a Father that is just, for sure, but radically merciful and self-sacrificing. A God who can be trusted.

thoughts on prayer

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Prayer is unavoidable. We are always praying. We are always giving expression to spoken or unspoken, conscious or sub-conscious hopes, longings, hurts or questions.

Specifically, prayer is the essential, basic and transformative practice that followers of Jesus the King must engage in if they are to even begin to truly participate in the life of the kingdom. There seem to be different levels or modes for this.

  • At one level, prayer is all about personal sustenance and devotion. Whether this looks like a desperate plea for God’s presence, power, transformation, rescue, and deliverance, or a disciplined habit that trains and forms me in the shape of Jesus.
  • At another level, prayer is about communal development and formation. This could look like a simple shared practice where we support one another on the road of discipleship, or like an intensive and rigorous programme of activity to collaboratively pursue dynamic change in a community.
  • At another level, prayer is about societal transformation and revival. This could look like quiet, gentle and empathetic longing for the local and global state of affairs to shift in God’s time, or a public protest march calling on God to judge, heal & revive society.

All three of these modes of kingdom prayer ask for, plead for, work for, long for, seek for the transformative presence of God. In my personal space. In a shared community space. In my neighbourhood, city, nation or indeed the world.

All three modes of prayer pray the same three words over hearts, communities and societies: Come. Lord. Jesus.

recovering culture

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As a new Christian in the United States between 1999 and 2005, I noticed a strong discourse around ‘taking our country back for Christ’. The language rests on a simple and straightforward way of seeing things. 1) ‘America’ used to be ‘Christian’, and has been ‘taken’ (or taken over) by influences that are not ‘Christian’. 2) It is vital that we reclaim what has been ‘taken’ (cue Liam Neeson). The geographical focus is ‘America’, and the time-frame is the last hundred or two years.

Since then, my reading of the cultural landscape has changed. I still (try to) view reality through the lens of the biblical narrative, but my reading is longer than a couple centuries, and wider than one country. Here’s how I tend to read things now-a-days…

In my reading, the Gospel is good news for all cultures and nations; both in terms of ultimate destiny and present-day circumstances. In these reflections I will focus on the Gospel’s influence upon culture. Human culture, as a manifestation of human nature, comes under the loving and truthful eyes of the Gospel, which can see it’s gifts as well as the ways it curves in upon oneself and hinders flourishing. I want to suggest that there are these phases (not always linear) for any culture, based on relationship to the Gospel. I’ll restrict myself to brief reflections here:

  • Culture lacking Gospel transformation
    • This refers to ‘pre-Christian’ cultures. Native or indigenous cultures. A balanced doctrine of human nature will enable us to assert (with appropriate humility, balance and generosity) that human nature – and thus human culture must always be described by reference to both positive image-bearing.
      • Christians must relate carefully to these cultures. They can affirm God’s presence and working in all creation, and including these cultures. Christians should neither demonise these cultures nor view them with naive (condescending?) positivity. Instead, get to know them. Listen to them and understand them. Share your understanding of the Gospel with them. See what they might see that you missed.
  • Culture cultivating Gospel transformation
    • This is, in the best sense of the term, ‘Christian’ culture. By this, we refer not to a ‘perfect’ culture, but to any and all enculturated embodiments of culture which bear witness to the transforming influence of the Word and Sprit of Jesus. These are moments where the kingdom of God is seen in tangible form. In the name of Jesus, outsiders are welcomed, sinners repent, God is worshipped, food is shared, justice is advocated for, creation is cared for, and the sphere of God’s redemption advances – if but for a moment.
      • Christians should obviously maintain, by the power of the Spirit, an ongoing cultivation of kingdom culture. There will always be blind spots to uncover, and good things to keep up.
  • Culture forgetting Gospel transformation (‘Sub-Christian’ culture)
    • This is a ‘Sub-Christian’ culture, which has experienced the transformation and influence of the Gospel, but fails to continue to actively cultivate that culture so that it continues to grow and flourish. It is when love grows lukewarm and is in need to reviving. It can happen nationally, locally, in a church or in an individual.
      • Christians should be on guard against forgetting the Way. We should not become so routine or cold that we lose heart and vitality. Being faithful in prayer, seeking out fellowship with others not like us, and maintaining a posture of a servant are key ways to do this.
  • Culture forcing Gospel transformation
    • Here we refer to a kind of ‘Hyper-Christian’ culture that is more characterised by talking about the the Gospel, and convincing others than embodying it and sharing it wisely. It is more focused on forcing transformation on others than being transformed itself.
      • Christians should avoid this kind of forceful approach. It does more harm than good, and turns many away who see it as aggressive. Theologically, you cannot force transformation anyway. All we can do is work on ourselves, and share with others in an invitational way. Let God do the work and let them respond to God.
  • Culture rejecting Gospel transformation (‘Post-Christian’ culture)
    • This is the ‘Post-Christian’ or ‘secular’ culture familiar to a good deal of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. These cultures feel they have out-grown Christianity. Citizens of such a culture identify as ‘spiritual but not religious’. They relish in being compassionate and kind and believing in justice and equality, but don’t realise that in rejecting the Christian narrative they also reject the foundational source of meaning that underlies those qualities.
      • Christians in a ‘post-Christian’ context should seek carefully to discern the times, and know when to speak and when to be silent. We can show secular people how we understand the foundations for ethics and values, and we can even share our view that secularism has no rational foundation for its values, but mostly we must stick to our own cultivation of kingdom culture, and avoid being too passive or aggressive.

diversity within the binary

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Thinking about, let alone talking about matters of sex and gender and trans identity is controversial and therefore difficult. An experience I had this morning reminded me of something I don’t want to forget when it comes to all of this.

I walked past a clothing store which always has large banners with models showing some of their clothing store. In the past few months I’d noticed that some of the models at least seemed to be trans models. Both trans men and trans women. I’d theorised in my mind about the extent to which this choice of model (if they were indeed trans models) was motivated by sincere allyship to trans people, and how much it was to profit from being seen to be in line with the current of modern discourse.

Green-washing, rainbow-washing, and now trans-washing?

I didn’t linger too long on this curiosity. Who knows?

Over the last few days I’d noticed new banners with new models.

The figures were wearing women’s clothing, but their facial structure and features appeared masculine to me, which caused me to wonder – were these transwomen? At first this wonder quickly became an assumption: yes. But then I asked myself: to what extent is it helpful to assume they were indeed trans?

I was reminded of just how diverse peoples physical and facial characteristics can be.
Assumptions don’t really help, to my mind?

Aside from those who identify as non-binary, there remains a lot of diversity of physical characteristics even within the binary of male and female. The stereotypes have much to answer for.

There have always been, and always will be, men who are not very ‘macho’.
There have always been, and always will be, women who are not very ‘dainty’.

If God creates men that are macho and men that are not – shouldn’t we affirm and celebrate all their body types?
If God creates women that are dainty and women that are not – can’t we see the beauty in all body types?

As I said, talking about anything trans usually becomes very divisive almost instantly. Maybe… just maybe… instead of taking on the annoyed posture that asks everyone ‘what is a woman’, or maybe… instead of naming and shaming those who have views other than those reflected in the mainstream, we could learn something from all of this?

Maybe we can remember to appreciate the diversity of the bodies God creates.