A true democracy in Iran and thoughts on public protest

not sure if you are up to speed on the role Twitter has played in the resistance movement in Iran but it featured as a tool that helped mobalise thousands of truth tellers to demonstrate against the government.
Here is a way you can support the movement. Click here.
Freedom of speech and freedom to protest are some rights that we often take for granted in the Western world. Although if you've ever been at a pro-life demonstration you may have felt (like I have) that those rights are easily ignored and changed at the whim of public opinion. I remember one conversation with a university student at a demonstration who said to me, 'don't you know this is a university - we have ethics classes!' to which I responded that Germany was one of the best educated nations (with heaps of ethics classes) when it launched a genocide... what is the fear of public protest? why the defense? If people are inspired to speak - I think it's at least worth a listen to their argument - we may well choose to disagree - but it is worth a check. Have you listened or spoken recently? Cornel West suggests (in the Call and response rockumentary) that truth is love and love is truth - and truth hurts but it also liberates. Even though he says it well - he didn't think of it. Check out Jesus for more on truth setting us free.

Happy Fathers Day!

Positions

I've been spending the day trying to work out positional statements for The Salvation Army in Aus.
Abortion, Prostitution, Environment, Gambling, social justice and so on... it's a tricky business sometimes... I am reminded of Andrew Marin's book Love is An Orientation where he talks about love being more about a posture than a position. Often positions themselves hem us into boxes and make judgements on principles instead of on people. I spoke about putting people over principles as a lifestyle being one way to combat pharisaical living. On the other hand without guidance people falter... and come up with their own 'positions' that can damage even more.
So, living in the tension as Marin so beautifully calls it is trying together to use Godly wisdom and collective understanding and experience to offer some guidance in our positional statements. Look forward to some study guides coming soon.

Righteousness and Justice

Am doing some research and thinking about the connection between righteousness and justice.
The camps of personal holiness piety people versus those liberal break the rules social justice types is an interesting divide.
I'm not sure why the chasm needs to exist apart from judgement on both sides and ungrace in general... but I know the connection between righteousness and justice is so important that together they form the foundation of God's sovereignty on the earth (check out Psalm 97).
Is it possible that high levels of personal holiness prevent us from rubbing shoulders and exchanging lives with those people who are oppressed and broken (because of their sin?)... I remember John Smith (the legend) telling me that he has never felt more connected with the average person than he does when he sits down and has a beer in a local pub with the bloke. All of sudden they are at the same level and the person feels comfortable to unload and tell the truth about his life etc...
That said, I've had some pretty decent conversations in a pub over a diet coke or a coffee but maybe holiness (in a religious puritanical sense) can sometimes act like a barrier as it shields and protects us from the realities of life. On the other hand of that one I come from a movement of people who's earliest memories are engaging themselves in the muck and mire of deeply oppressed people... sharing their lives etc... didn't seem to act as a barrier for them?
On the other hand what is justice if it doesn't impact people from the inside out. Obviously external rights aren't the same as a change of mind and behaviour. Only God can change the heart. Anyway, I won't write the whole ten pages of questions and roots and history etc... suffice to say separating justice from righteousness is like trying to separate one body - you can only do so with great pain and the end is death - to both. I'd prefer God's presence... even in the tension.

Slumlord millionaires cash in on hard times

important article by Tom Reilly
June 14, 2009
SLUMLORD John Pisani has two simple rules when it comes to business: be discreet and never let anything get in the way of making a profit — rules that have made him a very rich man.
Pisani and his three partners — all convicted criminals, three of them for sexual offences — are pocketing about $100,000 profit a week by controlling Melbourne's private rooming house market, a shadowy world where some of society's most vulnerable members are forced to pay exorbitant prices, often in cash, for squalid accommodation or face life on the streets. READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE...

I'm very aware of the realities of slumland lords and the consequences of people living in these conditions.
I wonder - what is the long term response of The Salvation Army?
Are there righteous landlords who will take the opportunity to match this evil with something better?
I'm praying for a righteous end to an injustice that continues to exploit the poor.
Danielle

God's Kingdom Come

I was speaking last night at Waverley Corps in an attempt to introduce the gospels (in 25 minutes or less!). And that is one great topic! The introduction of the gospel:
"The central message of all four canonical Gospels is that the Creator God, Israel’s God, is at last reclaiming the whole world as his own, in and through Jesus of Nazareth. That, to offer a riskily broad generalization, is the message of the kingdom of God, which is Jesus’ answer to the question, What would it look like if God were running this show?" (N.T. Wright)

I think for most of us we rely on what the 'gospel' means to me personally (and even that is highly spiritual). When in fact, the gospel in it's entirety means the salvation of the whole world. And even in our own little lives it means the complete abandonment of any other alliegance and a total surrender to a new Kingdom with a new authority and a new set of values! To live in this kingdom means humility, sacrifice, love and grace poured out - it means much more than our own comfort or satisfaction or even spiritual state - it is deeply rooted in how we live our lives day to day and how we see others...

"At the core of Jesus’ Kingdom summons is this mind and heart-altering challenge…repent, for the Kingdom is upon you. To repent is to change your way of thinking – or more precisely to change the way you see life. The Greek is clear, metanoia (repent) means to shift the way you perceive. There is an alternative reality beyond what we see through the fallen sight of our natural eyes. There is another way to live, a way higher than the one we are comfortable in or resigned to.”
– David Ruis (The Justice God is Seeking)

Often when we hear 'repent and believe' we think it means a simple spiritual transaction of being sorry for our sins and then receiving forgiveness and inviting Jesus into our lives... that is true in one sense - but the true gospel - the real good news is the reality that there is a new King in town and it's a new Kingdom that we join. It means a complete change of life - it's an affront to this current culture that puts priorities and privileges associated with position and prestige and power.. it is an upside down kingdom where the weak and the poor are invited first!

Is your Christian experience simply a list of feel-good and behaviour modifications that make you seem like a good person to others? Or is your Christian experience a life altering, mind changin, neighourhood winning expression of God's kingdom come?

Total Depravity

I've been reading the book Wild Swans which tells the epic story of three generations of Chinese women - and through their encounters exposes the cult of Mao and the realities of life in 20th century China.
It's a fascinating read - having read many books on the soviet realities of communism it's safe to assume from what I've read that communism is a failed social experiment. Of course unbridled capitalism hasn't worked out so well either. Pope John Paul II suggested that the greatest threat to the next generation was excessive capitalism (this from the man who Gorbechev suggested was the reason for the wall of communism collapsing in Eastern Europe) and the death of children not yet born.

I've been thinking about the ideals of communism - which I believe are some shared ideals with Christianity (and to be sure some real similarities to the structure of The Salvation Army) - a common purse, a flattened hierarchy, a widening of family, an ideology larger than ourselves... the greater good etc... so, if all of these values are good why has communism failed so miserably? Perhaps at the heart of these failed ideologies are some misunderstandings about the human race.

In communism (from the top down) it seems there was a gross misunderstanding of the nature of humanity. Communism makes the leap that humans are good - and can make decisions that sacrifice their own well being for a cause greater than themselves (the state). Surely there were many who did and have. but what communism forgot (as many ideologies do) is that humans are at the heart of us completely depraved... we are inclined towards selfishness and greed. If it's not money that we strive for, it is power - if it's not power, then it's control and the cycle continues... in communist China as in Russia as in many other places around the world - the individual still seeks power, money and control... it's the depravity in us.

An ideology that doesn't deal with the internal dilemna of sin is a failed one. Simple? yes. and obviously no time for a more complete checklist of why communism failed (surely tyrants of power and cult of personality is a good one... more later?). But suffice to say - sin is a good reason. it's also a great reason why capitalism is killing us..... but more on that later.