Scots Church Adelaide

When I was young I began to read this text from Luke. This was before I began to read the Bible.

It was in the story of the bad guy in the Wild West who would not let go of the gold, so he was dragged under by the quick sand. The good sheriff who was following him was able to claw his way out, unencumbered by the weight, and told the moral tale to his deputy. Luke was in the tale of the pirate who would have made it to shore if he had not been drowned by the weight of the treasure in his bag. I think there was a variation in a Phantom comic, too... Read on >>>>

Most congregations say they "want to grow" and become churches equipped for 21st Century ministry. But the reality is that growth = change, and few congregations are willing and ready to make the inevitable changes. We need leaders specially equipped for transitioning churches that are serious about turning around. (Note: Most people I went to seminary with in the 1980s have no idea how to do this and are happy to do ministry in a 1950s model until they retire.)

In view of our recent posts on telling a new story: a neat metaphor from James McGrath. Read on >>>>

Masterchef has consumed Australian TV viewers. Its ratings have been the highest non sport ratings in history, or something like that. Six nights a week, people have tuned in to watch the progress of amateur chefs towards the final of the contest. Every few nights someone was eliminated from the competition. Even I watched Master Chef. It has the obligatory house of Big Brotherreality TV, but was genuinely interesting in its teaching of cooking, and its human interest. It was gentle, in contrast to the gratuitous bitchiness of Big Brother. It was not a mere exploitation of the contestants. And there was a real competition.... Read on >>>>

This is a companion piece to Fearing the Minister, and The Fear of the Minister, which explore challenges to being clergy in a changing world.

1) Is there a God? No, there isn't. It's that easy. There's no magical sky daddy who created us and lives in a place called heaven or anywhere else. There are also no angels, devils, heavens, hells, heavenly saints or magic virgins. These categories we've inherited have perverted the discussion of religion, resulting in an understanding of the subject in our culture that ranges from sadly ignorant to profoundly dumb. However, it's not entirely our fault. We're taught from an early age that the question of religion comes down to whether we "believe in God" or not. It doesn't. Or it shouldn't. Worship of the anthropomorphic God is virtual idolatry, monotheism with a polytheistic mindset. God is not someone to be worshipped; God is an experience to be known.....

So begins the first of ten points. They conclude here

10) But how can we have religion without God? Most people in the West see this as an impossibility. But as an exercise, ask it as a possibility. In other words: how might it be possible to have religion without our traditional understanding of God? Religion has not been handed down from above. It erupted from within the collective unconscious and the knowledge that our ego-driven experience of life is limited, and a more profound experience is there to be known by anyone at anytime. This awareness -- call it spiritual, mystical, or simply psychological -- is the experiential core of religion. Of all religions..... Read on >>>>

The author is Ian Gurvitz, at Huffington Post. In another posting there, he writes

In order to re-focus the discussion of religion, we need to put away childish things. We need to bring religion back down to earth. Dispense with the anthropomorphic God, along with the concomitant fairytale stories, superstitions, cosmologies, angels, miracles, promised lands, chosen people, and heavenly virgins, and strip religion of all fear and worship. We need to shed the trappings of the Jesus cult. The worship of someone who lived 2,000 years ago, if not cloaked in religion, would be considered insane. It's iconophilia. Or iconomania. Jesus was a mystic, not the product of some imaginary deity having magic sex with an earth lady. His rebirth was psychological, or spiritual if you prefer, and occurred while he was alive. The more human he is seen, the more religious he becomes....

When people begin to understand religious language, art, and symbols as metaphor, and God as an experience, not a magic man in the sky (who for some reason only seems to converse with the dumbest, greediest and most hateful among us), we can begin to put much of the nonsense that fobs itself as religion behind us. Whether one engages in the practices of a particular tradition, either in the monastery or woven into the fabric of day-to-day life, or ignores it completely is a matter of personal choice. But at least let's understand what the phenomenon is and, almost as importantly, what it isn't, so that we can drag the discussion out of the intellectual dark ages and into the light of 21st century reason... Read on >>>>

Even if we do not agree with Gurvitz, who is summarising excerpts from his book Deconstructing God: A Heretic's Case For Religion, we would do well to wonder what shapes our understanding of God? What set the boundaries of the debate, and of our questions about reality? Far too often, people do not ask these questions.

There was always grain in my father's barn. Even at the end of seeding* there was grain left over, so that if the harvest failed, there was some seed we could use to begin again. There was grain kept for the feeding of animals during dry seasons. Yet even as a small child, I could see the difference between my father and some of our neighbours. He did not build barn upon barn. He did not seek to buy more land and expand the enterprise. We did not buy the boats and aeroplanes of our neighbours. His security lay somewhere else.... Read on >>>>

Tony Abbott decided yesterday to scrap funding for even modest human rights protection
in  Australia.  The  Australian  Human  Rights  Group  (AHRG),  a  national  network  of
community  and  faith-based  organisations,  believes  that  this  decision  is  exceptionally
disappointing. 
 
Mr Abbott announced  that  the Australian Human Rights Framework would be scrapped
in a budget media release of 20 July, There was no announcement of what,  if anything,
would replace the Human Rights Framework. “It is essential that Mr Abbott outline how
his party will protect and promote human  rights without  the Framework,”  says Edward
Santow of the AHRG. Read on >>>>  (Via Untiting Justice)