Tony Jones, national director of Emergent in the USA, has started up a video series on YouTube, featuring some of the people and thinking found in his book, “The New Christians”. The first features Trucker Frank, a guy who tells it like it is. Frank discovered that Jesus focused on what we do now rather than life after death. Frank got kicked out of the church he was pastoring for talking to the people who had left. The act that tipped the scales was throwing down a fake plant, in its pot, and telling the remnant that they were as fake as that plant…
Being a prophet is an exciting calling but it’s hard to find people who will pay you to live it out.
Tony will be in Australia in October, for Black Stump Festival in Sydney. We’re in conversation about the possibility of a visit to Queensland.
Ben Elton provides a cutting critique of cultural trends at the beginning of the 21st century in this novel set after the flood. Global warming has led to much of Britain being submerged. FaceSpace culture has led to the disappearance of privacy. The Temple (combine massive manipulative Evangelical rallies with Mormon and Anglican structures) are in control of law and order. Trafford, the protagonist, discovers privacy, vaccination, books, humanism and evolution. Somewhat reminiscent of 1984 and Brazil the novel presents darkness and hope together.
This post-apocalyptic world combines elements of technology from today with a loss of standards of living. It’s hot in the UK - so hot that people have virtually given up wearing clothes. Modesty is a thing of the past. Turning up at a physical work space is a novelty. Trafford works for the government, in NatDat, finding new kinds of ‘degrees of separation’ between members of the population.
Vaccination, regarded as a dangerous meddling with nature, has been abandoned. And so the infant mortality rate has skyrocketed in the face of measles, mumps, tetanus, cholera, smallpox, bubonic plague and so on.
Every moment of life, including every sexual encounter, is captured on the WorldTube in a combination of exhibitionism and voyeurism. All foods are sweetened. Women are pressured into breast enlargements. Marriage is not as important as ‘getting married’.
Elton provides a tongue-in-cheek critique of the “Save the World” rock concerts and Evangelical faith gatherings. Faith Festivals in Blind faith are held in Wembley Stadium, with global satellite coverage.
“It was most inspiring to live in a world where ‘people power’ could mean so much, where a single concert could change the world irrevocably for the better, where things could be improved just because the people wanted them to improve. Simply by massing, cheering, listening to music and eating enormous amounts of takeaway food, everyone knew they could make a real difference”.
Time and time again Trafford and his newly found friends reflect on the contrast between reasoned humanism and irrational blind faith. The God of the Temple, Everlasting Love, is portrayed as one who is responsible for both wonderful miracles and the terrible suffering experienced by grieving parents. This is the God who created everything in six days. “Any God who kills a child to punish its parents is not worth worshiping!” Trafford argues.
Elton provides important warnings for us today. It is too easy to sacrifice a capacity for privacy in the quest to develop an online identity. Is it possible to retain the ability to write material that only we will ever read? With the move towards utilitarianism on the internet will we know when we’ve lost the capacity to reflect deeply, to think, to celebrate life, to form our own fantasies? Or will our superheroes of the future be the people who tell us to make money, become famous and look young and sexy?
The dark controlling nature of the religious institution in Blind Faith is only too possible when power and faith are combined in an environment of fear and ignorance. We have the Spanish Inquisition, John Calvin’s merciless rule in Geneva, and the complicity of Martin Luther in the quelling of the Peasants Revolt to keep us humble and alert.
In reading Blind Faith it’s important to remember that satire, by nature, exaggerates and amplifies the follies of a society’s existing weaknesses. There are individuals and groups who even now exhibit the disturbing behaviours and beliefs described in the book. It’s our responsibility to live, think and act in a way that ensures that these distortions of faith and reason do not become the norm.
Heavenly Sanctuary, a Christian conference organisation focusing on the character of God, have stirred public opinion with a set of posters showing Jesus washing the feet of international leaders.
In the poster Jesus kneels at the feet of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former English Prime Minister Tony Blair, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, US president George W Bush, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Jiang Zemin, former president of China.
The poster was designed by Lars Justinen from the Justinen Creative Group for use on posters advertising the conference. Different versions of the posters had captions such as “Follow the Leader,” “God IS Great,” and “Jesus - Still Too Radical?” Heavenly Sanctuary had the posters in several Seattle malls but had to take them down after complaints from the public about the inclusion of Osama Bin Laden in the line up.
Greg Boyd reflects on the negative reactions to the poster by suggesting that many Christians have tragically allowed their patriotism to co-opt their faith.
“They have allowed their American citizenship to take priority over their Kingdom citizenship, despite the New Testament’s instruction for disciples to consider themselves “foreigners” and “exiles” wherever they happen to live (Heb. 11:13; I Pet 1:17, 2:11) and to consider their real citizenship “in heaven” (Phil 3:20). Many American Christians seem to want a Jesus who will defend their country and hate their national enemies as much as they do. Many want the Jesus of the Middle Ages whom Crusaders called on to help them slaughter, not serve, their Islamic enemies. Many seem to want to reduce Jesus to just another version of the tribal gods that have been called on for centuries to bless tribal battles. Most wars throughout history have been fought under the banner of some god or another.”
Greg goes on to write about the real Jesus who wrapped a towel around his waist and washed the dirty, smelly feet of people he knew would deny and betray him in a couple of hours.
What I find interesting is that Jesus is actually washing Kofi Annan’s feet. The guy who’s been responsible for challenging, rebuking, negotiating, supporting and resourcing world leaders, is the first to have his shoes off and treated to a foot bath by the one many would consider to be the ultimate expression of God’s character in the flesh. The others know that they’re possibly next in line for this treatment. They’re being taught a valuable lesson in leadership and character, a radical alternative to the survival-focused model of rule or be ruled.
This post-apocalyptic world combines elements of technology from today with a loss of standards of living. It’s hot in the UK - so hot that people have virtually given up wearing clothes. Modesty is a thing of the past. Turning up at a physical work space is a novelty. Trafford works for the government, in NatDat, finding new kinds of ‘degrees of separation’ between members of the population. 
