Tasmanian Christian Convention 2009-10

Miracles

Phillip Jensen and Kel Richards on Miracles:

Phillip Jensen and Kel Richards discuss 'Miracles' in The Chat Room from Audio Advice on Vimeo.

Folding the circus tents?

Marieke Hardy asks "where does the reporting stop and the media circus begin?" in this Melbourne Age article.

Part of what she says:

"I'm not addressing this from a place of cynicism. I too have pored over news reports and nightly bulletins, been awash with tears at the sort of survival stories that render you utterly numb with grief and reaching out to call your mother and tell her you love her. It's only when you're on your fourth or fifth day of coverage and you see a television journalist standing next to a car, hard up for content and prodding a grey-faced driver with the question: "Guess you've lost a lot of friends up on that mountain ... must feel pretty bad ... how would you describe how that feels exactly?" that you start to wonder whether you're beginning to be party to preying upon the raw grief of others and that perhaps it's time to put the goddamned cameras away."

Do we secretly love disasters?

In a different reaction to our collective reaction to the Victorian bushfires, the ever insightful Ross Gittens of the SMH says of the recent bushfires "...media coverage of this one's gone way over the top. And it's served to strengthen my suspicion that the community's reaction to natural disasters is exploitative, voyeuristic, unfair, self-gratifying and even pathological."

Read his article here

Is he right? What do you reckon? Maybe Ross Gittens says out loud what we are all afraid to admit? That we quite like disasters. As long as it doesn't happen to us of course.

The Need to Demonise

Ordinary people, including some I know, have poured extraordinary invective on an alleged Arsonist in the wake of the Victorian bushfires. Several Facebook Groups have started with titles like "B****** S****** needs to suffer. Burn the ####ing Dogg!" (sic) in which members describe in detail how they would like to burn this man's hands to a stump, or even burn his family.

Why do we have the need to demonise those accused of heinous crimes?

I think there are several reasons. Two reasons are:

1. We feel the need to distance ourselves from such obvious evil. The people who do such things are demoted in our minds to the rank of subhuman monster, in order to avoid any possibility that we might share the same fallen human nature. We need to be reassured that we are the good guys and people who do these things are on the dark side. Yet God's Word clearly indicts all of us as sinners in need of redemption and under the judgement of God.

2. We have a natural tendency to call down justice and retribution upon others, but mitigating circumstances or mercy upon ourselves. We operate with dual standards. When I lose my cool and throw a tanty, it's because I'm tired. Or some other reason. When someone else does it to me, they are entirely culpable. We ought to remember on top of everything else here, that we have seen no evidence yet for this man's guilt even. What if he is innocent? What if there were mitigating circumstances? We know nothing, and it is the job of the legal system to investigate, lay charges and prosecute. This is also of course, the view of the police.

Now I AM NOT SAYING that it doesn't matter if you light fires or that there should be no punishment for such actions. But there is a difference between judging actions as evil and judging ourselves so morally superior that we are able to demote others to the category of subhuman monster and call for their torture at our hands. There is a difference between society doing what God's Word says human authorities ought to do, namely restraining and punishing evil; and a lynch mob of self-righteous anarchists. What people who call for this man to be tortured are doing is every bit as morally reprehensible as what he is alleged to have done. Imagine what the world would be like if they had their way.

The words of Jesus are: "Judge not, lest you also be judged. For with the same measure you judge, so will it be measured out to you."

Bushfire Scams

[originally posted Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 8:51am on facebook]

I think those who take advantage of the misery caused by natural disasters like these fires by posing as charities are more culpable even than those who light fires. In many cases pyromaniacs are suffering some kind of mental illness. But to take money fraudulently by playing on people's willingness to give towards the needs of those made homeless is a purely evil pre-meditated act of selfishness and contempt for human life.

Facing Up to It

Finally after all these years of avoiding it I've done the facebook thing. It is a potential time eater (which is why I've avoided it)! Some of the interface is non-intuitive and slow... or maybe that's me. Why does it take so long to scroll through pages and pages of people in a group or friends of a friend? Why can't it list them all at once?

But there are lots of good things about it. Hey I even got to chat with Gordo in real time.

I can walk, I can walk! ...well, hobble...

I have to wear an orthotic boot for a few weeks, but at least I can take it off, and it allows me to bear weight and walk (mostly on my heel) after a kind of a fashion...

The bone still hasn't grown enough in the gap yet, but it should eventually heal okay if I take it easy.

Hugh McKay says God is Love (but not much else)

On The Religion Report on ABC Radio National this morning, Jon Cleary interviewed Hugh McKay, the Australian social commentator and author. After years of documenting the religious and other attitudes of Australians, Mackay has publicly spoken of his own views. It is quite revealing. He has rejected the biblically conservative beliefs of his youth and now holds to something approximating the Process Thelogy of Charles Birch. His aim is to build bridges between Theism and Atheism by coming up with a universal belief that everyone can espouse together. His solution? "God is Love." But from the way he speaks, he really means something more like "Love is god." God is no longer transcendent in any sense, but only immanent. God is "the spirit of love" working in us. Strangely, he is still drawn to the concept of attending church as a "sacred place" and attends occasionally "mostly for the music." But he no longer holds to the creeds and doctrines of Christianity, which he sees as unnecessary dogma that cause all kinds of evil.

Though some of his criticisms of "established religion" and "fundamentalism" are accurate, I think he is sadly mistaken in his views of the nature and character of God. He would think me "arrogant" for thinking that, but that's his problem, not mine.

A Finger Pointing to the Sky

We enjoy watching foreign films. One of our favourites is the French film Amélie. It’s a quirky comedy about a strange young lady who falls in love with a stranger whose scrapbook album she has recovered after it falls off his scooter. She returns it to him via a mysterious treasure hunt of clues that leads him to the Sacre Couer, an elevated plaza in Paris. And as he is following the clues he comes across one of those mimes who paint themselves silver and act like statues. The mime points up the hill to where Amélie is standing with his scrapbook, and as he stands there looking at the mime, a boy whom Amélie has obviously paid comes up to him and says “he is a fool who looks at the finger of one pointing to the sky.” Then he looks up the hill to where the mime is pointing and sees Amélie with his precious scrapbook. He is a fool who looks at the finger of one pointing to the sky. What a great illustration of Christmas. Because sadly, many people treat Christmas that way. But Christmas is merely like the hand of that mime. It is nothing in itself, it just points to the one that really matters. But we can be to others like the boy that Amélie paid to give the man the key to finding his treasure. We can remind others that Christmas is merely like a finger pointing to the sky. It is the one that Christmas points us to that we must see, hear and rejoice in, like those ancient shepherds did that first Christmas Eve.

5th Metatarsal Blues

I broke my foot today. 5th metatarsal to be exact.

See that bit to the right of the red arrows that looks like a separate little bone? It isn't.

The arrows indicate the beginning and end of the fracture. It's called an avulsion fracture, which is where the end of the bone is pulled off by the ligament when the foot is over-supinated (rolled over). The fracture is complete and goes right into the joint, so I am hoping that six weeks in a cast will do the job and I won't need a screw in it.

The Heavens Are Smiling

Last night's view of Jupiter, Saturn and Luna fraternising in the same part of the sky.

Not Today

Soon I will start posting again.

Maybe.

But not today.

Perhaps after I get back from PTC Melbourne.

Free Universities are History says Rudd

Prime Minister Rudd says "Australia can't go back to the days of a free university education."


I say why not? We have a $22billion surplus. Why should our kids have to start their working life with a HECS debt over their heads? As Rudd himself admits, he and most politicians of his age benefitted from free university education themselves, as did our best and brightest in so many fields. Why should only the rich or those willing to incur a huge debt be able to enrol at university? Anyone who has the ability, that is, the brains and the entrance marks, should be able to study free or near free. Those who don't have the marks should be able to pay. At the moment it is money, not ability that decides who can go to University. We are dumbing down our society, and it is a great disappointment that Rudd is not reversing the stupid and shortsighted policies of Messrs Hawke, Keating, and Howard, and showing himself to be just as much an economic rationalist as his predecessors.

While the girls are away the boys will play

The Pookwife and Pookling number one are away in Sydney for ten days. Today I took the boys to the skifields for the day...

The Pookwife's Escape

My one true Pookish love has left me alone for four days with the pooklings while she goes off and has a good time with a bunch of other females at an annual retreat. I dropped her off in Launceston (65km away) last night where she was meeting her lift to Ulverstone, then went to buy clothes for the kids at K-Mart, which took three times as long as necessary and involved unplanned purchase of toys. Got home after ten, put them to bed then finished my sermon. Got up early and finished my sermon, got breakfast and took number three pookling to a birthday party about 15km out of town for three hours. Number three and this kid have the same name and were born on exactly the same day! Ours had his party on Tuesday, and his friend today. Came home and finished my sermon. Cooked tea then finished my sermon in between demands for food drinks and comfort, including a cut knee. Gave in to kids' request for video that they stayed up too late watching. How will I ever get them out of bed in the morning so I can give them breakfast and drop them off at honorary aunty Elsie's place by 8:30am to get to Bridport by 9am and then pick them up for Scottsdale on the way back? Think I'm getting the flu. She won't be back until Tuesday. I'm sure she only does this to make me realise how much I take her for granted!

New Blog - The Spirit, The Word and Us

I have just started another blog to review the book The Divine Spiration of Scripture (in America called The Divine Authenticity of Scripture) by Rev Dr Andrew McGowan, address some of the controversy that has surrounded its publication, and discuss the issues it raises, including the debate over things like whether we should use the term Inerrant or Infallible of the bible; the relationship between the Spirit, the Word and us as recipients of the Word; our theology of Word, Church, and Tradition; etc.

http://spirit-word.blogspot.com/

The Big Freeze Hoiliday

The Big Freeze Holiday

Unfortunately not here. Our kids are still having school today.

Poor Pookling number two for the second year running is missing out on his school excursion because he has the flu. They are going in to the museum, and then after lunch to hear Andy Griffiths the children's author speaking at Storey's bookshop. He is a great Andy Griffith's fan and devastated at missing it, so we're hoping he'll be better by lunchtime and we can take him in ourselves. If I do it, it will be four times out of the last five days I've driven to Lonnie and back.

Tonight Steve Biddulph, author of Raising Boys, will be speaking at the RSL club here.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr!

The Big Freeze.

A blast of Antarctic air today and tonight, it's freeeeeezing!

Riverside Refresh Conference

The Holy Spirit was more than just the topic of today's conference. Far from Him being merely the object of our study, as we learned from God's Word together, He made us His objects, teaching us, filling us, giving us understanding, changing us, and equipping us.


It was a fantastic time of teaching and learning and fellowship, as visiting lecturer and preacher Dr Andrew McGowan, principal of Highland Theological College, led us in three addresses on:
1. The Holy Spirit and the Mind
2. The Holy Spirit and the New Birth
3. The Holy Spirit and Evangelism

Here is Andy doing his best to look like a dour Scot! He was usually more cheerful than this, I just have a knack of catching people at the worst moment...


A very diverse group from all round the state attended to hear Andrew speak. Represented were old and young, Pastors, Ministers, Elders and lay people, men and women, Presbyterians and others, Australians and foreign visitors. All agreed that we were mightily blessed with the Word of God opened to us in a very meaningful and helpful way.

During the day we shared refreshments and lunch together, sang to God's glory and prayed together.

Here is June and Andy enjoying their lunch...

When I get time I will add links to MP3s of Andy's talks.

Welcome to Prof Andy

On Saturday we welcomed Rev Professor Andrew McGowan from the Highland Theological College in Scotland to Tasmania. He and June flew into Launceston in the morning, bringing the Scottish weather with them - see photo above! After lunch with their billets, Andrew and June were able to indulge their passion for birdwatching and photography at the local wetlands information centre, where they saw their first Black Swans, and other endemic species. Andrew was particularly taken with the White Face Heron and Chestnut Teal, as well as the mounted Wedge Tail and Sea Eagles in the information centre.

Andrew spoke at St Andrew's Launceston on Sunday. On Tuesday he will give three talks on The Holy Spirit at our one day Refresh Conference at Riverside.

Report on the conference and more photos to follow.


Above: White faced Heron


Above: Andrew with some local fauna on his mind.

Above: Andrew & June enjoy some hot soup after the service on Sunday night.

And are you the Minister?

Visited a member of our church in her 100th year today. She turned 99 a couple of months back. She suffers from short term memory loss. In the half hour or so I was there she asked me about ten times who I was and did the same for her carer who was bringing in her washing for her. Alzheimer's is very economical. You only need a few sentences. And you can re-use them many times. In fact you have to.

This nonagenerian an amazing woman. She still lives at home and cares for her 63 year old developmentally disabled daughter who is nearly blind. She played the organ at church for decades and still plays when she goes to day care at the hospital nursing home. Lately she has been a bit down. She feels that God has given up on her. I shared with her those scriptures that talk about God never leaving nor forsaking us and Jesus Christ being the same yesterday, today and forever, and can only hope that she at least retains the feeling she had when she was reminded of that even though I had to repeat it several times. She probably doesn't remember that I was ever there by now.

Olympic Glory or Olympic Shame?

I'm ambivalent or even mildly antipathetic towards Australian sporting achievements at the Olympics. (Okay, I admit it, I cheer for our athletes, but then I feel guilty about it).

At Athens, Australia came 4th in the medal tally, behind the three superpowers - USA, China and Russia. Japan was 5th. In fact none of the others in the top ten have a population less than 50 million. What a stupendous achievement for a nation with our population of just over 20 million. Or is it? Doesn't it just mean that we spend relatively far far too much on sport?

I saw something on TV last week about the $17million high tech pool at the Institute of Sport. Wired up like a Christmas tree. More sensors and high speed cameras and computers connected to it than a ride at Disneyland. It's the best in the world. Even the Americans don't have anything like it!

Yet, every state in Australia has a shortage of doctors and nurses in public hospitals and ambulances banking up outside the emergency door. Indigenous people still have a life expectancy 20 years less than other Australians. Bright young Australians, thanks to Messrs Hawke, Keating and Howard, no longer enjoy the free tertiary education they once did but instead start their adult life with a HECS debt hanging around their neck. But hey, we might win more medals than ever at the Olympics!

Wasn't it the Roman Emperors who figured that when things got worse the best solution was to put on more games? That was not long before the Barbarians came I think.

And as for the Chinese Olympics, there are other even more troubling implications. See Gordon Cheng's blog at Sola Panel - http://solapanel.org/article/beijing_olympics_and_persecution/

Le Tour du Jour no more!

Now I can get some sleep at last.

I liked the punning newspaper headline: "Cadel Evans Has Second Thoughts About The Tour"

Second two years running to a Spaniard. But he will be back next year for another try. Hopefully with a better team. As someone I know remarked, Silence Lotto was a good name. They were very silent. With a better team, he would have won. He was very gracious, not mentioning his team mates' weaknesses, and blaming only the crash on one of the early stages, which sapped his energy as his body healed itself. But even so, if he'd had even one team mate able to chase Sastre down in the final Alps stage, it would have been very different. The way Evans came second single handedly, almost as though he had no team at all, to the main rider of what was far and above the best team of the Tour, speaks volumes of his courage and ability.

The failure of Silence Lotto is ironic for another reason. Lotto itself works on the principle of almost everybody who participates winning nothing.

Loosing those e-chains!

Today a friend forwarded one of those e-mail chain letters to me. Nothing against the friend who sent it, he's a lovely guy, but I have to say I am really sick of the ridiculous lengths purveyors of chain letters will go to in order to induce enough guilt to ensure the perpetuation of these viral pieces of e-junk echoing exponentially around the cyberworld.

Here's some of what it said. I have taken pity on you and removed the pictures:

Jesus said, 'If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.'

Not ashamed? Pass this on ONLY IF YOU MEAN IT!! Yes, I do Love God.

HE is my source of existence and Savior.

He keeps me functioning each and every day. Without Him, I will be nothing.

But, with Christ, HE strengthens me. (Phil 4:13)

This is the simplest test. If You Love God... And, are not ashamed of all the marvelous things HE has done for you...Send this to ten people and the person who sent it to you! Now do you have the time to pass it on?

Easy vs. Hard

Why is it so hard to tell the truth but Yet so easy to tell a lie?

Why are we so sleepy in church but Right when the sermon is over we suddenly wake up?

Why is it so easy to delete a Godly e-mail, but yet we forward all of the nasty ones?

Notice the unwarranted assumptions here.

First, that this is a "godly" email.

Second, that if you don't pass it on you are ashamed of Jesus.

Both are untrue. It is not godly to assume an authority that only God has. That's ungodly. Who is the author of this chain letter to say that you are sinning if you don't pass it on? Unfortunately the leadership of some churches assumes a similar position when it comes to their pronouncements, but at least you can argue with them. Chain letters are just an infuriatingly non-personal and anonymous waste of bandwidth.

As for me, the last question simply does not apply. I never forward nasty emails, because I don't forward any emails. When it comes to e-chains, I work strictly on the 'anfata' principle - "absolutely never forward anything to anyone!" Never ever. It's the only way to break these chains of guilt with their false gospel of obedience to some unknown self-proclaimed 'e-prophet'.

Lounging Around

We got a new lounge.
Took the old one to the tip.
Wrote a lounge haiku.

It's Frooooozing!

It's cold! Currently 3.5 degrees according to the Elders weather page and feels like minus 1.7 with the wind. Only six degrees in our bedroom. We didn't even get up to double figures today. But at least we're a bit warmer than Hobart with their range of 3-7 today. Remind me next year to go to Queensland in July. See Hobart Mercury report.

What Is an Evangelical?

I don't think the term means what it once did.

I've found the blogs of people who claim to be "evangelical Christians" yet believe and do things that even twenty years ago would have been called "liberal" or even pagan. There are "Evangelical" individuals and churches who:
- promote homosexuality as a valid lifestyle choice
- don't believe Adam and Eve were real people from whom all humans are descended
- hold to a doctrine of Scripture that is increasingly indistinguishable from that of Liberalism or Neo-Orthodoxy
- promote Polyamory as the loving biblical position and declare that limiting sex to marriage is unrealistic and even legalistic
- teach and practice mystical and spiritual experiences and hold to doctrines of ongoing revelation that used to associated only with Pentecostal movements or Eastern Orthodoxy or cults
- don't believe in the substitutionary atonement of Christ

...and much more.

Ironically, on the other hand, the opponents or detractors of evangelicals tend to use the term to mean Fundamentalism. At the same time supposed evangelicals themselves are moving the definition to the left, the mass media are moving their use of it to the right.

Near as I can work out, calling yourself an evangelical these days doesn't mean much more than
that you're not a Roman Catholic. And there are even some of them who call themselves evangelical, so what does it mean? Is there any such thing as an Evangelical Movement any more?

Edit: Phillip Jensen has written in August about this on his blog. And a followup article here.

Living Water

Today's OT reading at church was from Jeremiah 2.
Jer 2:13 says:

"My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water."

Water is the source of life. Recent droughts here in Australia, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin crisis, have highlighted that for us. Water has another function basic to our life. We use it for cleansing, for getting rid of dirt. The bible uses water as a symbol in both those ways (and a host of others). God as the spring of living water is the source of life, and of cleansing.

In the Old Testament, Almighty God says only He is the source of living water. He tells those who are spiritually thirsty to come to him and drink. Yet Jesus says, " If anyone is thirsty, let him come to ME and drink. Whoever believes in ME, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him" (Jn 7:37). How can the JWs & Unitarians teach that Jesus is not fully God?

Judah's twin sins were forsaking the true God and worshipping human gods. It's the same for us. Are we making up our own gods, or our own way of worshipping God? Are you looking for your own tailor-made source of spiritual truth?

This is the sin of humanity as a whole. It is true of those who build physical idols and worship them. But it also true of those who say, "well I like to think of God in my own way." Who think they can improve on the God they find in the bible. That's a mental idol. Even as Christians we can do this. Jeremiah speaks to God's people, not the pagans. God says, "MY people have forsaken me..."

A mental idol is anything that springs from not trusting in Jesus. Romans 14:23 says, "every act that does not spring from faith in him is sin." But Jesus was poured out like water (Ps 22, Jn 19) as an offering for our sins. It's not a matter of building better cisterns for ourselves, but of simply drinking of, and washing in, the Spring that God provides. Revelation 22:17: "Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life."

Tailchases and Tailraces

Last night the dog kept chasing his tail until he fell down. Must have had a flea on it. Only seems to know how to go clockwise. A lot of human behaviour makes as much sense and gets us just as far.

From tail chase to tailrace, we took the Pooklings here today, walking along an old tin mine tailrace that goes for kilometres through the bush:








It's currently 5 degrees celsius here and I have my thermals on!