Today I’m taking part in a conference organized by local Edinburgh churches looking at the issue of climate change. There is an excellent line up of keynote speakers and breakout sessions, so I’m really lookig forward to it. I will, of course, be plugging Christian Aid as much as possible! We have a stand at the conference that will have loads of our resources on it, and I’ll also be asking people to sign a Countdown to Cppenhagen pledge card! I’ll hopefully post notes from sessions tonight or tomorrow.
At Greenbelt (which seems like a looong time ago now…) I got to hear Brian McLaren speak on the topic of “postmodern & postcolonial”. It was really interesting to me, so I’ve typed up some notes from the session – would love to hear your take on it too!
Literary criticism – where does the meaning in a text lie?
“It’s not easy having no faith either.”
Disentangling our faith from modernity
“Don’t depend only on intellectual history, also look at social history.” – Alan Roxborough. It’s not only driven by intellect but by social issues.
The flipside of the northern postmodern conversation is the southern postcolonial conversation.
How do you reconcile being followers of Jesus & being part of the system of colonialism?
A gospel that avoids inconvenient truths – what happens when you see the gospel through colonialism.
In the years after WWII, its almost as though the Holocaust became the catalyst to wake up to the horrors of the last 2 centuries – the horrors of colonialism, of the indigenous peoples, etc.
William F Butler – “They [communists] do not understand that the gates of hell will not prevail against western civilization.”
To what degree do we need to imagine a faith that is not a western religion? Its as much an African or a South American religion as a western one.
The Bible is a book written by the colonized (the Jews) – its dangerous when we read it as the colonizers. For example, when talking about poverty, people quote Jesus saying “the poor you will have always” – but Jesus is quoting Deut 15 – very different!
One of the assumptions of colonialism is that everyone has to play by the same rules. Now the question is which rules – the UK ones – or the African ones?
In a time when we’ve slipped back into preemptive war, we have to rediscover preemptive peace-making.
The conquest of Canaan would actually justify terrorism more than empire.
Every day I play the role of a beggar. I look to the charity of others, seemingly wanting something for nothing to feed my ego and the overwhelming need to belong. Every day I play the role of a hooker. I try to see the words, ideas and actions I think might make me desirable to others, often against my own better judgment, in order to get the emotional validation I need to survive.
Love Takes Balls is about discovering the limits of our own love and then learning to throw away those limits.
It’s about redefining love using God’s example – boundless, with no quid-pro-quos. Expecting–and sometimes getting–nothing back in return. It takes courage, strength, and total commitment to love like this.
What if right now, everything we knew about love was suddenly turned “upside down.” Challenged. Tested. No limits. What if we came to realize that everything we thought and believed about love, grace, and forgiveness was wrong.
Two years ago today, I left Northern Ireland and moved to live in Glasgow, Scotland. I initially moved here to study for a computer science degree at the University of Glasgow, and now I am working with Christian Aid as a Youth Advocate Volunteer. In the space of two short years, so much has changed in my life. I’ve been in a reflective mood recently, so thought I’d take some time to share with you some of the things I have learnt over the past few years.
I found a hunger for justice.
God has broken my heart time and again for the poor and the marginalised in the world. It started in Glasgow, being challenged to love the people around me – the homeless guys, the Big Issue vendors, the drunks, the people I previously tried to avoid. Jesus in his most distressing disguises, as Momma T would say. I was challenged to really know them – not just throw a few quid at them. I’m still learning… I fail regularly. But, one of the dreams I have is to be missed by the homeless guys more than by my church. It moved wider through things like leading the social action group at uni, and wider still through Tearfund and other organisations. Now I have the privilege of working with Christian Aid to encourage & inspire young people to get involved in issues of justice & poverty.
I discovered that I’m a good photographer.
I still hesitate to call myself a photographer sometimes, it’s taken a long time to become more confident in saying that. Yet, I know I have some kind of talent in photography. One that will require lots more hard work to refine! I had a conversation with a very gifted musician friend of mine recently about how absolutely terrifying it is to put something you’ve created out there, for everyone else to give their two cents on. There are always those moments of criticism and negativity, no matter how good your work is. It was refreshing to hear those words from someone so successful. It’s exciting to see the doors that are opening up before me now, with a few potential trips in the next 2 years to shoot for charity and mission organisations.
I found community.
I joined an amazing church, and plugged into a housegroup. I met some fantastic people through university courses, CU and general bumping-into-people-randomly. I discovered that I have more influence when I blog than I thought I did. I learnt what it means to love, and to be loved. I learnt that I can only know myself as deeply as I allow myself to be known. I’m so excited by the people who surround me in this city especially, who challenge and inspire me to be more like Jesus every day. Thank you!
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