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But it’s worth going back to the beginning of the story to get to the heart of what Christianity should mean for women (and men). Jesus was the only rabbi of his day that we know of who had women disciples. He had women supporters and women who travelled with him. The Gospels record women as the ones who stayed close to Jesus as he endured crucifixion and as the first witnesses to the resurrection. It is difficult to overstate the significance of all this in a world where females were regarded as property with limited legal rights. The dawning of the Christian age meant a radical shift in the way women were perceived. Sociologist Rodney Stark, who looks at a range of factors to account for the incredible growth in Christianity in the two centuries after Christ, believes its popularity among women was vital. Christianity’s view of the full equality of men and women before God was revolutionary and the implications profound. For women, the new religion provided opportunities for them to play significant roles in the church that were especially taken up by those from the upper classes. The earliest church building yet found (Megiddo early 3rd Century) honours no fewer than six women on the mosaic floor, but only two men! No wonder so many critics from antiquity heaped scorn on Christianity for the way it drew in so many women (and slaves). In Christian communities girls married later and enjoyed a better quality and longer life than their pagan counterparts. Largely this was due to the high rates of abortion in the Roman world—a decision made by the men. Sexual chastity was extended to males as well as females under Christian teaching, another major shift, meaning family life was generally more secure. Infanticide was practiced widely on girls in the Greco-Roman world, and Christianity ruled this out. For these and other reasons, the early centuries of Christianity mark a great leap forward for females. On International Woman’s day, as we consider the plight of millions of women and girls around the globe who still suffer indignities, deprivations, and the worst kinds of oppression because of their gender, it is worth recalling the Christian conception of what it is to be human, and urging all, whether believers or non-believers, to continue to be a part of the struggle to see that vision fully realised. (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less)
1. Miroslav Volf, “Christianity and Violence,” Boardman Lectureship in Christian Ethics, 2002, 1. (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less)
And those who suggest that these communist regimes were quasi-religious in their zeal and, therefore, provide further evidence of the pernicious effect of religion have abandoned sincere investigation into the problem and have settled on crass anti-religious apologetics. Better to state the obvious: religion or irreligion can inspire hate. The claim that religion has started ‘most of the wars’ of history ought to cause embarrassment to thinking people. And yet it remains, as David Bentley Hart points out, “the sort of remark that sets many heads sagely nodding in recognition of what seems an undeniable truth. Such sentiments have become so much a part of the conventional grammar of “enlightened” scepticism that they are scarcely ever subjected to serious scrutiny.”1 1. David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: the Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies. Yale University Press, 2009, 5. (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less)
Kicking, kneeing, and choke-holds are part of the show, as is fighters pouncing on opponents who have gone down, to bash them more. There is no shortage of the promised blood on the canvas. Sydney Morning Herald journalist Peter Fitzsimons, himself a former international rugby player and no shrinking violet, could barely contain his distaste for the event. ‘… it looks like we might have moved into an age when tens of thousands of people no longer want cups of tea. They want buckets of blood,’ he wrote. It does feel like a different era. I’ve always enjoyed watching the battles of fiercely contested sport. Even boxing, at its highest level, carries something of the noble pursuit in my mind. The folklore around Ali and Foreman’s ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ still gives me goose bumps. But in its various permutations this cage fighting, looks more Colosseum than MCG. And the reaction of the people in the stands is what interests me the most. Curiosity might make it hard to turn away when we see a car crash, but what might we say about an impulse to revel in the carnage? Perhaps I’m being alarmist and melodramatic. To suggest that the arrival of UFC is a harbinger of the West going to hell in a hand basket might be taking things too far. But I can’t help thinking of the great historian Arnold Toynbee and his description of the common characteristics of great civilisations on their last legs. Rarely are they overrun, according to Toynbee, but rather they commit a kind of cultural suicide. Falling to a sense of abandon and lawlessness, once great peoples become adrift, unable to anchor themselves in any universal ground of justice, truth or reason. One of a number of characteristics Toynbee identifies is escapism and retreat into distraction and entertainment. Presumably that becomes more extreme the further down that path you progress. He talks about an indiscriminate acceptance of anything and everything - "an act of self-surrender to the melting pot ... in Religion and Literature and Language and Art as well as ... Manners and Customs." As I watched footage of jubilant fans leaving the arena sated from the experience of socially acceptable lavish violence, I couldn’t help thinking of a culture pushing further into a void; of something rotten in its spirit. An implosion. Or am I missing something? (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less)
Or take the iconic Northern Ireland conflict. It is widely known that the thirty-year ‘troubles’ led to the deaths of fewer than 4000 people. Again, one death ‘in the name of Christ’ is a blasphemy, but how did the Northern Ireland conflict ever come to symbolize the ferocity of the church? Compare it with the thoroughly ‘secular’ French Revolution. As many people were executed in the name of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ in a single year of the Revolution (the ‘Terror’ of September 1793 – July 1794) as were killed in the entire three decades of the ‘troubles’2. 1. This comes on the authority of Edward Peters, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading authority on the topic. See his Inquisition. University of California Press, 1989. 2. See William Doyle, The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2001. (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less)
Ultimately there is a nagging question of whether even our best has any meaning if there is no God in which to situate and root our individual and collective stories. Perhaps surprisingly, it offers a positive vision made all the more conspicuous by the backdrop of horror in which it is placed. Read my article on the book here or listen to a podcast discussion I had with Greg Clarke. (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less)
He worries that his sermons have made little impact and told only half-truths; he feels an awkward disconnect between the things that matter to him (friendships, the sunrise, the excitement of romantic love) and the things he does week by week. And yet, he is at heart a Christian who is on the side of love over justice, Gospel over Law, grace over all. This is a novel for Bible students, clergy and trainee ministers to read and ponder—which is where I must express my surprise. Gilead won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It was heralded as a masterpiece by reviewers everywhere. And yet, without a decent knowledge of the issues involved in Calvin’s theology, let alone the modern variations of Karl Barth, Ludwig Feuerbach and others, the story makes only superficial sense. Did all the reviewers have theology degrees or Calvins’ Institutes on their shelves? I doubt it. So why was it praised far and wide? From the comments made by the reviewers, I suspect they detected in the slow-pulsed, contemplative, spiritual reflections of Reverend Ames something approaching real soul-searching. In its quietness, in its honest self-examination, this novel deals with something that really matters: your beliefs. Although the details of the Reverend’s discussions over predestination or prevenient grace may not have carried meaning for every reader, the deep realities behind these doctrines—things like whether we are held responsible for our thoughts and deeds, or whether love for another overrules tradition, or whether a remorseful person who has committed great wrongs can in fact be more acceptable to God than a ‘Good Son’—connect deeply with us all. No theology degree required. What this may mean is that the questions to which Christian faith provides answers are already in the minds and hearts of many a reader. They need the time and mental space that a novel such as Gilead affords in order to come to the surface and into full view. Beliefs this important deserve nothing less. Greg Clarke (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less)
(We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less) I have a piece of the Berlin Wall on my desk at home that
someone bought for me in a store in Germany. It’s possible that a
budding East-German entrepreneur newly introduced to the wiles of
capitalism produced it by spray-painting their driveway before jack
hammering the cement for the desired effect, but it looks authentic and
I’m happy to believe it is. It’s twenty years since the Wall came down so suddenly,
unexpectedly and joyously. The edifice that so powerfully symbolised
the might of Soviet Communist oppression is now—in large and small
pieces—a treasured possession of museums, hotels, and universities and
of artists, historians and tourists. Ironically and poetically it has
come to symbolise freedom, beauty and creativity. It reminds me of an earlier time when the Apostle Paul stared through the bars of a Roman prison cell upon an empire he had experienced as immense in scope, lavish in achievement and brutal in dealing with potential opposition. It was to this empire that he took his message of an obscure Galilean teacher being the key to life. His chances of success in spreading this news must have looked as improbable as the gospel he preached. But two-and-a-half centuries later, within the same empire that periodically tortured, crucified and fed to lions adherents of this novel faith, followers of Jesus had slowly and peacefully gained influence and numbers to the point where an ambitious emperor could think it worth converting. The walls of pagan religion and unbelief were inexorably eroded, and the cross—a macabre symbol of cruelty and oppression—came to represent the greatest story of freedom and hope ever told. Simon Smart
(We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less) Over the centuries Christians have taken great comfort and inspiration from Jesus’ ‘Sermon on the Mount’ and his call to his followers to trust God with their lives and not to be anxious about the small stuff: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:25 – 27) These words of timeless wisdom are especially relevant in the West today given the high rates of anxiety that afflict us as we wrestle with the uncertainties and fears of a materially abundant life, or ‘luxury’s disappointments’, as folk singer Billy Bragg once put it. But I’ve always wondered what those same words of Jesus sound like today in the ears of believers in places like Ethiopia, Uganda, or Sudan when a mother holds her dead child whom she has begged God to save; or a father remains helpless while his family wastes away from starvation before his eyes. How could they feel anything but bitterness when coming across those words from the Gospel? But here’s the thing. Believers in places of the world where health, food, safety from violence, comfort and security are scarce do in fact find in these verses immense hope and reasons for joy. I was reminded of this again this week, listening to Greg Clarke’s interview with Agnes Nyamayarwo. Agnes is well known as the Facilitator and founding member of the Mulago Positive women’s Network—a support group for HIV positive women in Uganda, and for her work with Bono from U2 in raising awareness in the U.S. of the African AIDS dilemma. Her life story neatly fits with most people’s greatest nightmares. A family ravaged by death, heartbreak and the merciless affliction of AIDS. And yet, she remains full of purpose and a deep sense of trust in God. I found the same thing a couple of years ago when I interviewed a young Sudanese woman newly arrived in Australia, having spent twelve years in Kenyan refugee camp. She’d lost a brother and a half-brother to the violence of the civil war. Most of her life had been one of imminent danger and loss. ‘God is always with you whether things are dangerous or risky …whether things are going well or not,’ she told me. Like Agnes Nyamayarwo, there was an elegance and dignity about her and the high value she placed on a peace that only God can provide. Some might want to dismiss this as a psychological coping mechanism—wishful thinking to help deal with the trauma of life. They could be right. But sometimes it’s in listening to the stories of the faithful from places less ‘blessed’ than our own, that the meaning of Jesus’ words comes to life. It’s the promise of a Father’s love that won’t go away; of a home prepared for those who believe and, in an ultimate sense, provision and security despite what life will throw at you. It’s a vision worth taking seriously. Simon Smart
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