Driscmania

Well it happened. Mark Driscoll packed out the Sydney Entertainment Centre last night. It was great - 10,000 people hearing about Jesus.

Now, before I make any comment, for the record I need to state that I left home when I was 18, I got a job straight after Uni., and I got married at 27.

As a Preacher I always reflect upon what is it (humanly speaking - I'm not talking about the work of the Spirit here) that makes a speaker really good. Here are a few reflections on the great MD:


* He is very entertaining. I've watched several stand-up comics and he was in the same league - Ricky Gervais does a similar routine where pictures are flashed up on the screen to move the show along. This is not a criticism of Mark. It is a comment on our culture. In order to win an audience you have to be engaging.

* He engages with popular culture. Boy had he done his homework. I've lived in Australia for about 9 months now but he packed all that research into just one month! This communicates powerfully that the speaker knows about my life and his message connects with the real world I live in.

* He is simple and clear about the implications of the gospel. The jokes may sweeten the pill, but it is a bitter one of commitment and self-sacrifice.

* He is honest and self-effacing. It is very hard to present an uncompromising message without coming across as self-righteous. However, Mark was honest about his own failings and able to laugh at himself. That is very disarming.

* He quoted most of his Scripture references from memory. Like the Psalmist he has hidden God's Word in his heart.

* His message is all about Jesus. Not about religion, or lots of how tos. Just Jesus.

What are we doing to our kids?

Thanks to Gordon Cheng for noticing this one first - he must read his SMH early!?

SMH article about Michael Phelps and ADHD

Apparently Michael Phelps was originally diagnosed with ADHD and had to take Ritalin until he was 11. At that age he told his mum he wanted to stop taking the drug ... and look what the discipline of swimming has done to his hyperactivity!? 8 gold medals isn't bad.

It is a bizarre contradiction that in the western world of consumer choice we treat everybody the same. Instead of taking great care to properly diagnose problems we do tend to go for the blanket cure ... especially if it is marketed as a 'quick fix'.

When this happens everybody loses out. This is a very painful issue. Parents with kid's who have been correctly diagnosed understandly feel that they are being stigmatised.

Sometimes to treat everyone equally, we don't have to treat them all the same.

Good and Bad arguments

Tonight is the big show down. I mean we're talking even bigger than PBC Winter school - no! Yes bigger than WS!

TACKLING life's big questions head-on has become a feature of the IQ2 debate series, and they don't come much bigger than the existence of God and the creation of the universe. This is what the SMH has to say about it here

Early shots have already been fired over tonight's proposition that "we'd be better off without religion". A piece by Professor John Lennox in yesterday's Herald, in which he framed the topic in terms of competing world views, drew a sharp response from one of his opponents tonight, Professor Victor Stenger. "I want to correct some of the misstatements made by the Christian apologists," said Professor Stenger, who worked as an astrophysicist before moving into philosophy. "They deliberately misled the public by telling them that there are scientific arguments for the existence of God. "And they are basing this on an incorrect interpretation of the data and the theory." The Christian theorists, Professor Stenger said, wrongly claimed that the universe had to begin at a certain point and with a single cataclysmic event. "They'd like to make the flawed argument that everything with a beginning has to have a cause, and that's where they bring in the existence of God," he said. "Their arguments just aren't supported by physics - there are many phenomena which have neither a beginning nor a cause, and we don't need God to explain them. The purely material process of evolution by natural selection fully explains the development of life."

Obviously I'll miss the debate due to PBC Winter School but I'm interested in how it goes. Actually both of the heavy-weights have a point. Too often well meaning Christian apologists overstate their case. Professor Stenger is right in a lot of what he says. Christians too quickly jump on the bandwagon of the latest Scientific theory claiming it 'proves' God only to look foolish when new evidence comes in. A little humility and uncertainty is called for here I think.

However, that humility cuts both ways. Stenger is being disingenous in his response. What he means is that there is lots of stuff where we simply don't know how it happens (Scientifically). And then when he tries to claim that natural selection fully explains the development of life he is simply wrong. It's our current Scientific working hypothesis, no more, no less. Stenger is engaging in exactly the same overstated rhetoric. All he is saying is that it is possible to live as if God doesn't exist. I think somebody has said that before:

"The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." Psalm 14: 1

The problem is 'we don't really know' doesn't sell newspapers.

The IQ2 series is sponsored by the Herald and the St James Ethics Centre. Tonight's debate will be streamed live on the Herald's website.

Not much Soap

"Great Britain may have been in lane seven and eight but, um, they seemed to be getting there for a country that has very few swimming pools and not much soap."

Aussie Olympic chief John Coates wades in after watching Rebecca Adlington win gold for Britain in the pool.

I first came across this Aussie view of Poms about six months before coming to Australia. Apparently we don't wash very often (outside baths once a week) and thus our personal hygiene leaves something to be desired.

Does anybody know where this 'urban myth' originates from? It probably won't surprise anyone to hear that the stereotypical Aussie male (a la Crocodile Dundee) is viewed in pretty much the same way by Brits.

Watchblogging

I learnt a new word today - watchblogging.

Apparently it is a pejorative term for 'heresy hunters'. I can see some truth in it. Evangelicalism does seem, even if inadvertently, to encourage a kind of reactionary response to culture. Hence lots of blogs set up simply to 'watch' the church and the world and to keep us informed as to what they've done wrong now.

As we have seen in the book of Revelation, deception is one of Satan's main methods of attack. Therefore watching out for false teaching is a good thing. Nevertheless, discernment implies sifting the wheat from the chaff, not just scorching everything!

So, my new month resolution is to try and to be positive about what is good as well as to criticise...

... here's something good about the Orthodox church - its corporate emphasis on the church, but not as an institution, as believers in Christ. A healthy corrective to western individualism.

Are you orthodox enough?

It is amazing what difference an O makes.

Forget the RC church - I know WYD made a big splash but I don't think that RC is really the future of the Western World. No, Orthodoxy (with a capital 'O') is the new black. I haven't noticed the trend so much in Australia but it is certainly catching on in the UK. In the past the Orthodox have kept to themselves, largely in ethnic groupings - e.g. Greek. My hunch is that, while that cultural isolation will continue, some Orthodox ideas will become increasingly popular.

Here are a few reasons ... and I might come up with more in future posts:

1. Orthodoxy is old. Note that the Orthodox don't like to be called Eastern Orthodox anymore - that geographically marginalises their claim to be universal. In our rootless post-modern world, ancient traditions are cool... especially when they are somehow 'new' and exciting while still being old (!?)

2. Protestants are trying to shed their 'modern' past (doesn't that sound weird) and Orthodoxy has all the pictures and smells they could wish for ... plus it is a step forward from where they are, as opposed to a step backwards to nassssty old Rome.

3. Orthodoxy is (well sort of) anti-authoritarian. There is plenty there that appeals to a western pluralistic world view.

4. Orthodoxy places a much greater stress on being rather than doing. It is not a very strident prosleytising religion and therefore it won't spread rapidly, but I think it's influence over western Christianity is going to increase.

I could go on. In fact I might later.

The bottom line is that Protestants have spent so many centuries fighting with the RCC that I'm not sure if we are ready to engage with this very different form of Christianity. Do we even know what the questions are to ask?

Rights and Responsibilities

Oh dear, the federal government seems to have got a bit confused over rights and responsibilities.

People thinking of moving in with a partner have been warned to read the fine print on a bill before Parliament that will treat de facto relationships in exactly the same way as marriage.

see here at smh

In the mad topsy-turvey world in which we live, people who have chosen not to get married (and accept the responsibilities that go with that) want to receive the rights of the thing that they have chosen not to do. You work it out. I can't.