Bushfire Appeal

 

Many Victorian rural communities have been devastated by bushfires in the last month. People have lost homes and sustained significant property damage affecting long term livelihood. Some communities are mourning the death of loved ones.

These are many of the same communities that the Uniting Church has been assisting to relieve the consequences of long term drought.

It seems a cruel blow that two forces of nature have been brought to bear on many of the same communities.

As you can imagine, Minsters and Congregations within these rural communities have already been working tirelessly these past weeks.

The time has come for the whole Synod of Victoria and Tasmania to offer our support.

That’s why we are launching the Synod Bushfire Appeal. Early estimates suggest that at least $20 million damage has already been sustained. At this stage financial aid is what is most crucial. I am sure other pastoral responses will be needed in the weeks and months to come.

The Bushfire Appeal will be managed by SHARE and no administration costs will be taken out of donations received.

This is a time where the Uniting Church is being called upon to join together to offer assistance to our brothers and sisters in rural communities.

Please join with us in supporting and promoting this Synod wide appeal.

              Rev Sue Gormann                 Rev Rob Brown                                                     Moderator                             General Secretary

Download this letter, flyers and donation forms here 

(posting by Age) 

 

Bubble Polly

 

Age 

Narnia - Tim’s Thought

I used to love “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”, and I used to love reading anything by C.S. Lewis; whether it be fiction, or theology. Or—as was often the case—both.

Watching the “The Chronicles of Narnia", I was disappointed to feel that this time around, I wasn’t able to bear with him in the same way. Allegory with which I had earlier identified, and which at the time seemed to wonderfully capture a deeper truth,… now sounded hollow, trite, and completely unsatisfying.

One quote of Lewis which gets a lot of airtime in Christian circles (and which is not so subtly woven into dialogue between Peter and the Professor), is the question of Jesus being either “a liar, a lunatic, or Lord”. The logic being that he was either deliberately lying, crazy—because of the claims he made—or was actually who he said he was. I wonder now why I fell for this logic, which sets up a choice of three options, ignoring the possibility of any others. Just because somebody is honestly mistaken in their world view (which, obviously, is a matter of opinion) doesn’t make them a lunatic. A forth option could very easily be that Jesus was a fallible human: A human capable of being misguided in some ways, but still being an authoritative voice in others. A human with flaws, but with gifts.

In fact, this Jesus makes complete sense to me. This is a Jesus I can believe in, and believe in such a way that the truths he spoke (those truths which I can understand to be true) don’t have to be tied into centuries of religious dogma, and which don’t have to be tied into totally unrelated spiritual questions or otherwise. It’s an honest Jesus. A Jesus who I can learn from, in the same way that I can learn from anybody with a bit of insight.

The concept of a blood sacrifice, and the necessity to appease wrongdoing with death (of either the sinner or an innocent substitute) makes no sense to me.

In fact, we have a saying about it… “two wrongs don’t make a right”.

Moretim 

Narnia - Daz’s Thoughts

This is a fairly decent cinematic portrayal of C.S Lewis’ story of the children’s first visit to Narnia through the magical wardrobe in the house of the professor. There are a number of differences between the film and the story, but many of the differences can quite easily be overlooked.

My first observation is that the original story does not cover the violence and much of the battle, the original story’s almost always told from the point of view of Lucy, in the book the girls are with Aslan during the battle, and we hear more about what happens in the castle than the battle. I can understand why the movie would focus more on the battle, but as they do the story takes a different shape. The focus on the battle increases the violence in the story, which for a children’s tale is already quite high and because of the way the story is shaped we actually don’t get to know much about Aslan either..

My second comment would be that I’ve always had troubles in seeing this story as a parable of the gospel story, I know that C.S Lewis is a Christian author and that there are a number of Christian symbols in the text, but there are a number of differences that I find between the gospels and the story of the first chronicle from Narnia. These differences include the noticeable violence, the sacrifice of Aslan for the one (as apart from the many) and the lack of any message that sounds like “love your enemy” or even “love your neighbour” to name a few. Yes I can see few parallels, but I see the same parallels in the Potter stories…

My third comment would be that Aslan is a Jesus figure and shouldn’t be confused as being Jesus… Aslan is a metaphor, not a simile. Quite often I’ve seen Christian commentaries say that Aslan = Jesus, but that’s not entirely the case, there are many differences between the character of Aslan and the person of Jesus that we forget about when we are all to eager to say they are one in the same. When working with young people it may be more interesting to have an open conversation about what they see as the differences between the two than it might be to talk about their similarities. If you want to go back to the written books you may be interested in seeking out other metaphors, for example in one of the books Aslan walks across the land singing, and as he sings life blossoms around him.

the fourth comment is that the violence in the stories does actually concern me, in the story the children are sent to the country to escape the war, yet they still find that they cannot escape war even in a fantasy land, is the message that violence is inescapable? During his saving Lucy Peter confronts the wolves with his sword and Aslan stops people from helping him, is the message that to be a man one must slay something to prove themselves? Peter is named Peter Wolfbain because he battled the wolves, Jesus named Peter the rock because he would be a foundation stone, how different are the two models of naming? Aslan eats the witch to end the battle, is the message that… you get the point. Violence is a central theme to this movie, it’s inescapable to the point that they cut sections of the story where Aslan brings to life the statues in the castle so that they may spend more time focusing on the great battle.

My last comment here before I head into the discussion resources would be the use of witches who are evil and practice dark magic, and also the use of magic as an image to describe what Aslan and the world of Narnia is based on. Personally, I have no issue with the presence of magic, witches, a deeper magic that heals and brings Aslan back to life… But I guess a question that often hangs in my mind is that which looks at many Christian’s response to the Harry Potter stories and their use of magic and witches and asks why these stories get such a bad reaction while Narnia’s use of magic is ok, in the Potter book the greatest magic is Love and sacrifice, in the Narnia story it’s the same thing, when Aslan loves and sacrifices himself for another he is brought back to life. I wonder why those who have issues with Potter don’t have the same issues, or similar issues to the Narnia Chronicles.

I think the movie was really well done for what it was, (and it is about 5000 times better than the old animated series I used to watch when I was young) although it did lack the great epic feeling that one gets when watching Lord Of The Rings, but I bet Tolkien spent a great deal more time in writing his epics than C.S Lewis would have spent in writing this book. I can and do understand the imagination and imagery behind this story and, for the most part the movie, I can see that a magical Lion as king who sacrifices himself may be an image that makes the idea of the crucifixion a little easier to understand, I understand the idea of “deeper magic” being a useful image to talk about the love of God, but I’d like to remind you right now that this discussion sheet is for youth not children, and as such I think a number of these images may be out of kilter and instead may work against the messages that the Christian faith is offering and dealing with.

And my favourite actor in the entire movie was Georgie Henley who’s portrayal of Lucy was absolutely phenomenal.

Darren’s Original posting and discussion paper from digitalorthodoxy

Bubble Bart

 

Age 

Spiritual and Moral Lag

"We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau: "Improved means to an unimproved end." This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern [humanity]. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual "lag" must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the "without" of [humanity's] nature subjugates the "within," dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.

MLK birthday was last Sunday

Age 

Urgent Action - Speak Out For Peace

 In Sri Lanka One year on from the Boxing Day Tsuanami (December 26, 2004) a fragile ceasefire in Sri Lanka is under threat. There has been an increase in violence and in ‘get-tough’ rhetoric on the part of both the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

A return to open conflict would be devastating for the tsunami reconstruction efforts, for the country as a whole and, especially, devastating for the poor.

LEADS, one of TEAR Australia’s partners in Sri Lanka, has asked Australians, and concerned people of all nationalities, to participate in a global campaign calling on both parties to renew their commitment to a peaceful, negotiated settlement to the conflict.

Please take urgent action as a global citizen to call for a return to peace in Sri Lanka. Email the Sri Lankan Leadership

To copy the campaign email in full click here

For more background information on the campaign and the situation in Sri Lanka, go to http://www.tear.org.au/advocacy/srilanka/index.php

 

Ben 

Bubble Bush

 

Any thoughts? 

Age 

Called to be a street sweeper

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, He should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

Uniting Justice Update

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
The Government pushed through their workplace reform agenda but not before the Senate Committee conducted a lightning fast review. The Uniting Church submission was the result of contributions from all over the Church and we were invited to present evidence at the public hearings. The submission and a number of press releases on this issue are available on the website here

ANTI-TERRORISM LAWS
The Anti-Terrorism legislation was also whisked through Parliament. UnitingJustice has prepared some resources which can be found in the human rights section of the website here
You can also find the Church’s submission to the Senate inquiry to the Bill at the above address. We have just made a submission to the Security Legislation Review Committee inquiry into the 2002-2003 round of Anti-Terrorism Legislation. This will be posted on our website at the conclusion of the Inquiry early next year.

A media statement expressing the Church’s concern at the way these pieces of significant legislation have been handled by the Government was released early this month. Please see the media release section of the website.

RACISM IN AUSTRALIA
The National Director’s has produced a short reflection on the comments that followed the racial violence in Sydney’s South this month (a link is on the front page of the website.)
- If you are looking for resources about racism, the Social Justice Sunday 2003 materials, entitled "Subverting Racism", are still available on the website here We also have a limited number of hard copy kits available which we are happy to post free of charge.

UnitingJustice Australia

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