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What do the Greens have against traffic jams, anyway?

Jeremy — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:23:48 -0500

On looking at the Greens' new public transport policy for Melbourne, my first reaction, obviously, was - where are the bloody freeways? You're spending $13.7 billion on new rail, tram and bus infrastructure and no major new tollway in sight? What was wrong with Eddington's $18 billion "let's build more roads" plan? Where's the commitment to gridlock? To shoving more cars on the roads?

Do YOU want your children to grow up in a world where they've never had to spend hours twiddling their thumbs idling uncomfortably (and expensively) in a traffic jam? Where they've never even bothered to own a car because it was unnecessary? Where petrol prices inspire mild curiosity rather than full-scale panic? Where the daily commute is an opportunity to relax reading a book or doing a crossword rather than a source of frustration and boredom?

Because apparently these shameless hippies do.

The Greens are a menace. Their reasonably-priced, entirely sensible public transport plan to save the city from becoming an unliveable, polluted, annoying mess, is a threat to all we hold dear today. I call for them to be entirely ignored and this policy to receive no media coverage whatsoever, lest a gullible public realise that it actually does have a real alternative at election time and there be a chance of these terrifyingly non-terrifying proposals being implemented.

Okay? Shhhh.

Flash Games

(author unknown) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:00:00 -0500

561

jonbirch — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:25:23 -0500

cartoon: divine exceptions

nakedpastor — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:43:06 -0500

belief, cartoon, christian, church, comedy, comic, faith, funny, gay, haywardart, homosexual, humour, ministry, nakedpastor, pastor, philosophy, reconciliation, religion, spiritualShare This

It's Neat to Have Options

brant_hansen — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:30:10 -0500

Marx was partly right about Capitalism

: safe space : — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:03:57 -0500

So says ++ Rowan Williams... ht to Ben... The Archbish writes in the Spectator

We find ourselves talking about capital or the market almost as if they were individuals, with purposes and strategies, making choices, deliberating reasonably about how to achieve aims. We lose sight of the fact that they are things that we make. They are sets of practices, habits, agreements which have arisen through a mixture of choice and chance. Once we get used to speaking about any of them as if they had a life independent of actual human practices and relations, we fall into any number of destructive errors. We expect an abstraction called ‘the market’ to produce the common good or to regulate its potential excesses by a sort of natural innate prudence, like a physical organism or ecosystem. We appeal to ‘business’ to acquire public responsibility and moral vision. And so we lose sight of the fact that the market is not like a huge individual consciousness, that business is a practice carried on by persons who have to make decisions about priorities — not a machine governed by inexorable laws.
And this is part of the same mindset that turns the specific, goal-related transactions of borrowing and lending into a process producing pseudo-things, paper assets — but pseudo-things that (when matters do not go well) cause real and crippling damage to actual persons and institutions...

... Marx long ago observed the way in which unbridled capitalism became a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, power and agency to things that had no life in themselves; he was right about that, if about little else. And ascribing independent reality to what you have in fact made yourself is a perfect definition of what the Jewish and Christian Scriptures call idolatry.

Technorati Tags: Anglican Church: Church of England: Culture: News

Presidential Debate Won By My Candidate

Jeremy — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:52:06 -0500

Typical moral cowardice from the world's newspapers today, declaring the US Presidential Debate held over the weekend "too close to call".

What absolute garbage! My candidate won easily.

I tuned in via the internet and was relieved to see him absolutely slaughter the other guy. By restating broad policy positions with which I agree, he was able to remind me why I should vote for him instead of his opponent. (Not that there was ever any chance of that happening!) I particularly liked the part where he described in a slightly new way something I have always agreed with and occasionally talked about.

Meanwhile, his opponent foolishly completely missed the opportunity to earn my rusted-on vote by entirely changing his general philosophy and adopting my views - which are, after all, the ones shared by most Americans.

If you watch the videos in which each candidate promises to do good things (mine with specifics; the other with typically vague generalisations), you'll see why the politician from the major party which I dislike the least because of its perceived stand on war*, abortion*, religion* and the economy, was so much more convincing than the other one. Whilst both men promised tax cuts funded by slashing government waste, only my candidate is really going to stand up to the Washington elites. His plan for solving the financial crisis (that the other side caused) is clearly the best one, and he has showed considerable leadership with his principled stand on the issue - even while his opponent was trying to make cheap political capital out of the disaster.

My candidate continued to impress me with his honesty and fairness and his commitment to helping the American people here on Main St, while his opponent continued to play dirty typical Washington politics - lying, avoiding the truth and generally treating voters with contempt. I hope voters are smart enough in November to see through his tricks and vote the same way I do. Based on this weekend's effort, I am confident they will.

In summary, this was a fantastic victory for my side. My candidate looked dignified and presidential, and made a lot of sense on the issues, where his opponent looked tired and out of his depth and clearly demonstrated what a terrible leader he'd make.

I look forward to the election with a renewed sense of hope.

Go Candidate! And may God bless America!

*Although this debate wasn't about those matters and he didn't actually mention them, my candidate really cares about young Americans dying every day, whilst his opponent pays the issue mere lip-service. And on religion, only my candidate really stands for freedom.

Eat Here Get Worms

Mark — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:36:59 -0500

In my experience, Amish baked goods are worth the risk.

Photo by Scott Tobias, via e-mail

Wait, I don’t see the problem with this! »« Ah, I get it now!

“EAT HERE GET WORMS” would have been better on two lines so that they seemed like two ideas

Scot McKnight: The Eschatology of Politics

UrL Scaramanga — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:24:31 -0500

by Scot McKnight

Somewhere between 6pm and 8pm, Central Time, on November 4th, 2008, the eschatology of American evangelicals will become clear. If John McCain wins and the evangelical becomes delirious or confident that the Golden Days are about to arrive, that evangelical has an eschatology of politics. Or, alternatively, if Barack Obama wins and the evangelical becomes delirious or confident that the Golden Days are about to arrive, that evangelical too has an eschatology of politics. Or, we could turn each around, if a more Democrat oriented evangelical becomes depressed and hopeless because McCain wins, or if a Republican oriented evangelical becomes depressed or hopeless because Obama wins, those evangelicals are caught in an empire-shaped eschatology of politics.

Where is our hope? To be sure, I hope our country solves its international conflicts and I hope we resolve poverty and dissolve our educational problems and racism. But where does my hope turn when I think of war or poverty or education or racism? Does it focus on November 4? Does it gain its energy from thinking that if we get the right candidate elected our problems will be dissolved? If so, I submit that our eschatology has become empire-shaped, Constantinian, and political. And it doesn’t matter to me if it is a right-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Republican wins, or a left-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Democrat wins. Each has a misguided eschatology.

Now before I take another step, it must be emphasized that I participate in the election; and I think it makes a difference which candidate wins; and I think from my own limited perspective one candidate is better than the other.

But, participation in the federal election dare not be seen as the lever that turns the eschatological designs God has for this world. Where is our hope? November 4 may tell us. What I hope it reveals is that:

Our hope is in God. The great South African missiologist, David Bosch, in his book Transforming Mission impressed upon many of us that the church’s mission is not in fact the “church’s” mission but God’s mission. Our calling is to participate in the missio Dei, the mission of God in this world. So, at election time we can use the season to re-align our mission with the mission of God. Therein lies our hope.

Our hope is in the gospel of God. God’s mission is gospel-shaped. Some today want to reduce gospel to what we find in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, while others want to expand it to bigger proportions (and I’m one of the latter), we would do well at election time to re-align ourselves once again with the gospel as God’s good news for our world. Therein lies our hope.

Our hope is in the gospel of God that creates God’s people. God’s gospel-shaped mission creates a new people of God. In fact, the temptation of good Protestants to skip from Genesis 3 (the Fall) to Romans 3 (salvation) must be resisted consciously. We need to soak up how God’s gospel-shaped work always and forever creates a gospel people. The first thing God does with Abraham is to form a covenant people, Israel, and Jesus’ favorite word was “kingdom,” and Paul was a church-obsessed theologian-missionary. Herein lies the challenge at election time. We are tempted to divide the USA into the good and the bad and to forget that the gospel has folks on both sides of political lines. Even more: we are tempted to think that the winners of the election are those who are blessed by God when the blessing of God is on God’s people. God’s gospel-powered mission creates a new people, the church, where we are to see God’s mission at work. Therein lies our hope.

Our hope is in the gospel of God that creates a kind of people that extends God’s gospel to the world. Chris Wright’s big book, The Mission of God, reminds us that election is missional: God creates the people of God not so the people of God can compare themselves to those who are not God’s people, but so that God’s people will become a priesthood in this world to mediate the mission of God, so that all hear the good news that God’s grace is the way forward.

Our hope is in God’s mission in this world, and that mission transcends what happens November 4th.

The fool

Mark Edwards — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 01:27:34 -0500

Rob Bell's video, "All things are spiritual" is a fantastic and inspiring piece of art and thought.
As we were watching it, he talks about a illustration of what it would be like if we lived in a two dimensional world. Rob used the example of Flatland, a story written by Edwin A. Abbott in late 1800s about the inhabitants of a two-dimensional world. When someone from 3d land tried to interact with someone from Flatland, to Flatlanders, the interaction would appear as lines and dots since the "depth" dimension does not exist; a sphere would appear as a circle, a cube would be a square, and so on. This is the illustration Rob used to illustrate how far we are from understanding the true nature of God, yet how close God could be from us and yet would we still not realize it.Two people are there, and they both see something coming toward them.
Rob uses the illustration of his wedding ring being poked through a napkin. He is in 3d...but the two people are only in 2d...what do they see?
He muses that one of them sees and feels that there is something more. The other one does not.

The question we asked in our small group was, "What is the difference between the two?" Why do some people see God in circumstances and nature, why do some not? It is a vexing question.
Bell references the scripture which bodly declares, "the fool says in his heart there is no God".

So often those we consider intellectual may have actually made a heart decision. That they will not see God, even when creation screams out His name. They may be fools.

Where are the children?

Steve Addison (Steve Addison) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:40:35 -0500

Apparently only 3% of Australian children are in church each week. The figure for all ages is just under 9%. But the age of the Australian church is heavily weighted towards the elderly.

Then the penny dropped.

I’ve been collecting data on church participation in Australia. Nobody’s counting the children anymore. Or if they are, they aren’t reporting it.

Getting ready to watch the big game on Saturday when an ad came on about AusKick, the program that develops young children into Aussie Rules football players. AusKick knows how many children between the ages of six and twelve it has. The number is 161,000. Not bad for a nation of 21 million.

Think about it. Those kids aren’t watching adults play the game. The adults are there to help them play the game.

AusKick knows how many children it has. They know how many go on to play footy at the local club or for their school. They know how many amateurs are playing the game. They sure know how many elite professionals there are and how many began in AusKick.

They know the future of Aussie Rules is as healthy as the number of children that enjoy playing. So?

Do we have any idea how many children are growing up to know and serve Jesus? Do we have a development pathway for them? Or is church about entertainment and when the world offers them something better they disappear and we think it’s their fault.

The motto of AusKick? “Where champions begin.”

What would church look like if we were growing champions?

Leadership

Very genital

Mark — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:22:49 -0500

If a trot is a two-beat gait, a canter is a three-beat gait, and a gallop is a four-beat gait, what do they call a five-beat gait?

Days I managed to have this site up before making a veiled penile reference: a whopping nine. Which, rumor has it, is the official registered name of the above horse (there I go again).

Photo by ninjapoodles @ Flickr

Wait, I don’t see the problem with this! »« Ah, I get it now!

“genital” should be spelled “gentle”
The ad could use some more punctuation, but it’s a classified ad, so space is at a premium

Vegetarian Fed

Mark — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:30:28 -0500

If Washington State has a sudden rise in hippie disappearances, this could be why.

Photo by JimFenton @ Flickr

Wait, I don’t see the problem with this! »« Ah, I get it now!

“VEGETARIAN FED HENS” is awkwardly phrased
Better: “VEGETABLE-FED HENS”
“1OOmg” appears to use the letter “O” in place of zeros

Actually, this construction is rather endearing

Mark — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:30:36 -0500

What happens when your backspace key is broken and you already have “is sold by the” typed up.

Photo by roger jones @ Flickr

Wait, I don’t see the problem with this! »« Ah, I get it now!

“by the each” is retail slang, and should be replaced with more customer-friendly wording, like “by the head” or “individually”

Growing leaders by the Book

Steve Addison (Steve Addison) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:44:59 -0500

I sat down with a church planter yesterday. Heâ€™s done an outstanding job. Now heâ€™s ready to really make a difference by growing leaders who plant churches.

So Steve, youâ€™re the â€œexpertâ€ how do I put a curriculum together for training church planters?

Who says you need one?

Forget about the classroom and make the real the world the teacher.

Recruit interns and tell them each one to come up with a challenging assignment that involves starting something from scratch. And I donâ€™t mean a new manual for training ushers.

Tell your interns to write the curriculum and and have them come prepared to teach every class. Donâ€™t tell them which one will be teaching each class until they get there.

Bring in a church planter who knows something about dealing with conflict because theyâ€™ve come through it; or knows something about evangelism because they regularly see people come to know Christ; or knows something about building teams because they can. . .

Whatever the topic is, find a planter who is good at it because theyâ€™ve done it. . . Then get them to tell their story and teach the class on conflict or evangelism or building teams etc.

Bad idea, donâ€™t bring the planter in to teach your interns. Send the interns out to meet with the planter in the field. Even if they have to drive a hundred miles to do it.

When they come back tell, them youâ€™re leaving for a month on holidays and itâ€™s their job to run the church. Leave your mobile phone hidden in your office so theyâ€™ll hear it ring when they call you for help.

Instead of asking them to write an essay on the book of Romans, tell them to take some new disciples through Romans. Then assess each intern on how well their students have learnt.

Have each intern recruit a team to take on an overseas mission trip and come up with a strategy to pay for it. Donâ€™t give them any money.

Meet with the interns each week and study whatever book you happen to be reading. Assume theyâ€™ve all read the chapter. If they havenâ€™t, send them home. If they have, ask: What did you learn? What did God say to you? What do you need to do?

Make sure theyâ€™re doing the same thing with a group of leaders theyâ€™re growing.

Each internâ€™s job is to pioneer a ministry from scratch that touches lives and makes disciples. They have a year to do it. At the end of 12 months they must have a team in place that can continue without them.

Youâ€™re growing church planters.

If youâ€™re not sure about this approach for growing leaders. Donâ€™t do it. Instead, read the Gospels and do what Jesus did.

Church Planting Movements Leadership

emo for obama

marko — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:26:01 -0500

omg, this cracked me up:

(ht to the bob)

The Lie Of Stuff

Jonathan Brink — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:00:01 -0500

The more I follow Jesus, the more I begin to really see the wisdom in leaving the “stuff” behind. What if the lie of stuff is that it leads to a subtle form of oppression?

There’s just something about getting stuff that just makes us immediately feel better. We’re taught to buy stuff because for some reason the act of purchasing something releases endorphins that make us feel good. I have actually caught myself buying something stupid and then the moment I walked out the door asking, “Why did I buy this?” This is the subtle trap in our consumeristic world. It feels good to buy even what we don’t need.

When I bought my house there was an amazing feeling to being an owner. In some ways I had taken part in the American dream. I could now say I wanted a certain color on the walls and I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission. And then after about six months I began to feel the weight of something called a mortgage. I was now beholden to paying for this “dream” for the next thirty years. It really made me ask if this was really a dream or somehow a twisted trick. This dream was now requiring me to make a certain amount of money every month in order to pay for it.

And then something strange happened. The American dream changed in mid-flight. Someone invented the term “upward mobility.” My house that was so cool was now supposed to be just a stepping stone to a better house. But I liked my house. I thought… Why do I have to move? But I did. And as much as we try there is this expectation to keep up and have the next best thing. We see the really cool things that we could have, the ones that come in the mail on a regular basis, the ones our friends have and are loving. We are consumers. It’s what we do.

But now I’m beginning to ask a different question. What’s the real cost of my stuff?

When I buy something, say a new car, I get to enjoy the wonderful feeling that comes from owning something new. There’s something about a new car smell, the look on your friends faces when they see you driving it, and the joy of not having to worry about it breaking down. There’s also the fact that I can take care of certain concerns and needs when I have a car. The idea is good…in principle.

But then what is the cost of that stuff. First I have to pay for that stuff. This in some cases a natural order of things. Stuff has to be bought. It’s not free. But I often can’t afford to actually buy that stuff so I purchase it on credit, which means in the case of my house I will actually pay twice as much for the pleasure of taking part in the American dream.

I then began to realize that the stuff I buy has to have a place to be stored. I need a new shelf, another closet, and a bigger garage. I have Christmas stuff, and Easter stuff and sports stuff, and linen stuff, all taking space in my house that is an American dream. In some cases I actually have to park my car outside the garage because I have too much stuff, or not enough space, depending on how you look at it.

Stuff also needs other stuff to go with it. It needs it’s friends. The duvet needs a better bed. The shoes needs a different shirt. That couch could never go with that carpet. And my house needs a different backyard. Who cares if I can’t afford it? I’ve got a 725 credit score to take care of that problem.

Stuff also has a way of hanging out when we don’t really need it. It needs to be put up in the attic because we somehow think we’ll need it…some day. So we set it next to the stuff that we bought twenty years ago, that we thought we would need…someday. And all of this stuff has a way of piling up, filling the spaces in our closets. Yes it has memories and potential but that’s for…someday, when we’ll use it.

Looking at it now I think I get what Jesus was saying when he said, “Sell all that you have.” The more we buy the more we have to manage and take care. And what once was something to serve us becomes something to serve on a regular basis. And that is not a life I really want to live.

Voting for President 3

Scot McKnight — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:30:27 -0500

A reader wrote me about how anabaptists are struggling with which candidate to vote for, and I offered a first response last Friday. Today I’d like to ponder one of our candidates: John McCain. What will it be like for us — for me — if the Republicans win? (OK, just in case you think this blog is biased and not — like FoxNews — “fair and balanced,” I’ll do one like this on Obama too.)

No matter who becomes President, it won’t change my assignment. I’m called to be a Christian, not a Republican or a Democrat. From that angle, I will offer comments about the Presidential candidates. Some of what the successful candidate promises now will be partially achieved when that person becomes President. Not all of it; so reliance upon all the promises goes against history. Candidates promise more than they can achieve. And there’s another side to this.

When folks — voters and candidates — go apocalyptic on what will happen if their opponent wins I reflect on the 11 elections I’ve been through (consciously). The apocalyptists have always sprinkled their language with doom and gloom and they’ve never been right. If you compare the differences between Democrats and Republicans to what some other countries in the world have, there’s not that much difference. The differences are not apocalyptic.

Now for McCain.

I respect John McCain; I think he’s authentic; his personal story is a straight line. For the most part, I think he tells the truth; I think he will tell the truth. I’d like to have coffee with the man.

If they win and if the Repubs reduce big government and reduce our taxes and develop more local fuel sources, then I think those will be good things that will help us work for the kingdom. I do think McCain has lots of experience in DC. Experience helps at times. I will like it that a woman would be officially in the White House. I think Palin would be “fun” to have in the White House. From the Repubs, I think we could expect some support for small business owners and for those who want to develop small businesses. We need more of that and less dependence on the federal government.

I think they will fight against abortion, and I’m confident Palin would work hard for people with special needs. I have already had several conversations with friends who love what Palin could bring to the White House as a voice for people with special needs.

One thing I like about McCain is that he can think outside the box; he can work across party lines. We need more of that.

But, I don’t think a Republican White House is the final solution to our problems. I fear the militaristic spirit of McCain; I know his slogan is “Country First” (which isn’t first for me). We’ve spent way too much on Afghanistan and Iraq, and we have some pressing financial woes in our country. That money could be used for fuel development and education and health care, which raises another point: I don’t hear enough about education from the McCain ticket. And I don’t have a lot of confidence McCain has health care much on his mind. And I’d like to hear a reasonable economic theory — spend some time explaining how it works — that drives how Republicans think poverty in the USA can be improved. But this economic emphasis of the Repubs has a negative side for me: life is more than money But sometimes the economy — call it greed — seems to obsess DC and the Republican platform.

Well, what I’m saying is this: if the Republicans win, we’ll have some things to like and some things to resist. They’ll present some unique challenges for kingdom people. They surely won’t usher in the kingdom and it might be good for us to think about that more.

older cartoon: betweeners

nakedpastor — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 18:19:28 -0500

This is this week’s contribution to Illustration Friday’s theme, “clutter”. Speaks for itself.

cartoon, christian, church, comic, funny, haywardart, humour, illustration, jesus, nakedpastor, possessions, religion, spiritualShare This

The Pharmaceutical Sing-a-long!

Jase — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:36:43 -0500

All together now!….

via