Fragments of my life and faith

May 7th 2012
Prison Fellowship


I heard on the news that Chcuk Colson died last week. After Watergate Colson got religion and began a ministry called "Prison Fellowship". Some people may have questioned his sincerity but I didn't. When people "find God" they find some kind of work that God wants them to do.
Well, here is a work that you can do. Someone in America has set up an Internet site where Prison inmates across America advertise their wish for a penpal.
As one lady writes on the site: "Hi. I have been incarcerated since 1993, and this is a very lonely place. Letters help pass the time and I enjoy meeting new people and hopefully making new friends."
Here is something that we can all do in our spare moments away from the television. We can brighten some lonely lives just by writing a letter to an inmate or two.
You can "Meet-an-inmate" here.

April 29th 2012
Prime Minister's Lover Becomes a Nun


Laura Adshead was a young undergraduate at Oxford when she fell in love with David Cameron, now British PM. The story in the Daily Mail continues:
"She became an executive in Manhattan for Ogilvy & Mather, the advertising agency that inspired the television drama Mad Men - but the stresses of success, and, perhaps, of personal rejection, finally proved too much for her. She descended into a world of drinking and addiction before finally finding salvation in God at the abbey in the Connecticut hills, three hours north of New York City."
"But she admits that her lifestyle then brought her little except loneliness." Laura then decided to commit her life to God, and entered a convent based on the rule of St Benedict.

This is yet another example of the mystery of faith. The scoffers remark: "Becoming a nun is about as ridiculous as wanting to be one of Santa's helpers" (Derek of Dundee) or "If god calls you, you are doomed because there is no such thing. Poor woman" (Les of Thailand).
I am certain that the blessings of her life are worth more than all the wealth she had ever had before. Today belongs to the mockers but eternity belongs to Laura.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2136713/David-Camerons-heartbroken-lover-nun-called-Sister-John-Mary-I-thought-marriage--God-called-says-PM-ex.html#ixzz1tSFRay76

April 25th 2012
Anzac Day


In his sermon "A knock at midnight" Martin Luther King reminded us that "Early Christians would not fight wars". Nor should Christians today.

April 19th 2012
The Man Who Gave Up Money To Live In a Cave


Something very radical is happening across our world; people are embracing poverty to find themselves and to find God. Henry David Thoreau, the author of Walden said "No man can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty."
The ABC program "Australian Story" this week told the story of Scott Neeson, an Australian who made it big in Hollywood in film marketing. It was Neeson who was responsible for the astonishing box office success of "Titanic". Neeson had the big house, the girlfriends, and the connections...and he gave it all away, literally to live in the Cambodian slums where children make a living by rifling through the rubbish. Neeson has now established schools, training programs and businesses for women, and still he lives a life of extreme poverty. And Neeson has found happiness such as was never to be found in Hollywood.
Then there is the American man who left society to live in a cave in the Utah desert. Daniel Suelo decided 11 years ago that money was an illusion, and the root of most problems in the world, so he decided to live without money.
Suelo lives by foraging for wild food, and eating road kill. Occasionally he raids dumpsters. In those 11 years he has never had money nor needed money.You can see a short video of his story Here on the BBC
For Suelo this is a powerful religious experience.
Why did Jesus tell the rich young ruler to sell everything he had? Why did he say "Blessed are you poor?"
Why did Thoreau commend poverty as the way of true wisdom?
There is no mystery to this; faith is about trusting God and trusting that God will provide. "Give us this day our daily bread" is one sign of this trust. "Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?" (Matt 6:26)

April 18th 2012
The atheist and the Christian


The current popularity of atheism is good news for devout Christians. We now have to sharpen our understanding of the Christian faith and take a stand for our God.
I have been reading my Bible more diligently than ever for I know that the Bible contains the knowledge and the encouragement that we Christians need. And I am starting to enjoy reading the Bible immensely. It is a fantastic repository of insights into the history of God, as it has unfolded over many millenia.
The chief battleground between Christians and informed atheists is not the science of origins as is often supposed, but ethics. The atheists are insistent that humanist ethics are valid, and man-made. They reject the notion that Christianity has a monopoly on the rules for an ethical life. One does not have to be a Christian to be compassionate, concerned, virtuous, disciplined and generous. These and any number of other ethical traits are as much the property of the humanist, the atheist and the agnostic as of the Christian. And indeed they are right.
Which is to miss the point. Christian ethics are fundamentally radical, and a scandal. Firstly, it condemns wealth telling us that it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The Bible does not buy the notion that as long as wealthy people give to the poor they are right with God; the rich must give up their wealth and become poor if they would see God as the beatitudes teach us.
Are the atheists (and Christians of course) willing to sell all they have and give it to the poor?
Secondly, Christian ethics demands a radical discipleship which is willing to pay whatever price to follow the call of Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it like this: When Jesus calls a man he bids him come and die. This is not the ethic of goodness, or generosity, but of total abandonment of the self to the will of God, whatever might happen.
Thirdly, Christian ethics is an ethic of servanthood. Not service such as you find in a Lions Club but servanthood whereby the Christian submits to the authority and the direction of the Lord of life. Not my will but thine be done. This is an incredible ethical position to hold.
Finally, Christian ethics is apocalyptic. The axe is already laid to the root of the tree; there will be a judgement and the Christian must be prepared. Alert, watchful, interpreting the signs of the time and prayerful. Ultimately it is prayerfulness that distinguishes Christian ethics from humanist ethics because the humanist and the atheist does not believe in prayer, whereas the Christian can do nothing but pray because fundamentally the Christian can do nothing at all, nothing that is good, unless God doeth the work in him or her.
Are you ready to be a Christian? It is the hardest calling known.

April 10th 2012
The Atheist and the Cardinal


Last night on the ABC television program "Q&A" Cardinal George Pell of Sydney and Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion" answered questions from their audience about the existence or non-existence of God and how this world came to be. I learned very little about the eternal questions from the answers that were given, but I did learn a lot about both Pell and Dawkins. My main impression of Dawkins was that he was rather intolerant of his audience, asking them repeatedly "why is this funny?" Pell was very learned but raised some eyebrows when he repeated his view that man-made climate change does not happen. More intriguing was his statement that the Germans suffered more than anyone in World War 2.
But was the show helpful in illuminating the arguments for or against the existence of God? It has taken me 60 years to argue this with myself and I am still coming to terms with the truth of the matter. Pell demonstrated that it helps to be well educated in theology, and I am forever glad that I studied theology myself.
The study of theology does not answer all these questions as such, but it provides time and the tools to have a good look at the arguments and the evidence. It was theology that profoundly deepened my interest in religion and helped to ground the faith that I had as a child.
In terms of intellectual impact on the night I felt that Cardinal Pell had the edge, but then my bias is clearly towards faith.

Response: Laura Bell


I also watched the debate between Cardinal Pell and Richard Dawkins. Having spent just one semester studying the philosophy of religion and the arguments for and against the existence of God, I thought I would probably learn something new by watching the program.
The opposite was true. All the old arguments were re-hashed, such that I found myself pre-empting Dawkin's responses to Cardinal Pell's claims before he had the chance to articulate them. Worse still were many of the questions from members of the public which demonstrated a lack of thoughtfulness about the debate and a bias to one side or another.
I depart from your account of the program when it comes to your impression of Dawkins and Pell; you thought Dawkins "intolerant of his audience" and Pell "very learned." I thought the audience was weighted on the side of theism, given that they applauded every silly remark made by Pell (such as "I mean exactly what I say", one of many remarks which failed to address the point Dawkins was making, replacing logic with loaded emotional statements.) I feel that Dawkins was only responding to the bias of the audience when he asked "what is so funny?" It is very rude to laugh at a learned man making a very serious retort.
I was also unimpressed by a lot of the Cardinal's claims which were factually inaccurate, such as his claim that Darwin was a theist- which is plainly untrue. It boils my blood when people perpetuate these myths to support their argument.
Overall I enjoyed watching the program, but not for having learnt anything new about the debate. Instead, I took great interest in noting the great difficulty that people have in communicating their ideas to other people without some or all of their argument being lost in translation. I suppose I also came away with a slight contempt for the public and their knowledge of the debate, too. (But maybe that's just a symptom of being an undergraduate Arts student.)

April 6th 2012
A Young Mother's Spiritual Diary


"The Spirit of Things" on ABC Radio National is one of the best religious programs on air. The presenter, Rachel Kohn, has a gentle voice and a broad and sympathetic understanding of Christian teachings and practice, even though she is Jewish.
A recent program concerned a young woman in England named Jo Swinney who keeps a diary of her daily experience and struggles as both a mum and a devout evangelical Christian. I found the program to be intensely stimulating and hope that you will too. You can listen to the podcast:here

March 28th 2012
Faith seeking understanding


It is astonishing to senior citizens like me that the church in Australia is in such a deplorable state. Throughout my life, until perhaps the end of the 1980's, the Protestant churches were places where young people gathered, hung out, met their partners, and received a pretty thorough religous education.
During my formative years from childhood to marriage I experienced great Christian youth rallies, radical Christian experiments, vibrant church youth groups and mentoring from a considerable number of committed adult Christians.
Today, in many churches there are NO young people and probably less than a handful of adults under 60. That whole era of Christian influence has gone.
Do I remain in the Church out of habit, or memories of the good old days? Do I remain stubbornly in the church in the face of unrelenting criticism from the growing band of avowed atheists simply for the sake of a good intellectual fight?
This is the case for me: I found faith as a child and that faith is impregnable. Faith is like a drug; it is totally addictive. St Anselm, and the great theologians of the ages all taught that everything begins with faith (which is a gift of God).

My faith has found a resting place
Not in device nor creed
I trust the everliving one
His wounds for me shall plead

I need no other argument
I need no other plea
It is enough that Jesus died
And that he died for me

People without faith can't relate to this at all. It seems like froth and bubble; a concoction of obscure words and metaphors, all based on a fairytale. The person of faith on the other hand feels the power of these words like water in a thirsty land.
I cannot relate at all to the current fashion for intellectual atheism. God, and the story of God seem more real and true than any other reality in my intellectual and emotional world. But I have to admit that I don't know how to share it with this generation of unbelief.


David Bell, a committed member of Birchip Anglican Church.

Email David here

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