Reading Revelation (Part II)

In my first post in this series, I started by indicating that I believe that the traditional interpretive frameworks used to approach the book of Revelation are, to be blunt, pretty much useless. I’m convinced that the usual categories more often than not force people to make interpretive conclusions about the text before actually approaching the text at all, that they treat the book of Revelation as something wholly different from all other New Testament texts, and that they usually become totally centred around the concept of the ‘millennium’ in a way that I don’t think the text itself either directs or allows.

I suggested, then, that there might be a more excellent way, and mentioned that I would, from this post onwards, begin to outline what I think is a more authentic method to approach the text with, which consisted of essentially three inter-connected layers:

1. A contextual examination
2. An inter-textual examination
3. A literary-rhetorical examination

In this post, then, I will begin with the contextual considerations, and move on to examine the other layers in subsequent posts.

A Contextual Examination

Before we get into that, however, I wanted to begin by noting that method is very important. People sometimes tell me that they just read the text ‘as it is’, but this is, to be perfectly honest, a load of absolute rubbish. We always approach any text with some sort of method, whether we are conscious of it or not, and so part of seeking to be more genuine in our study is to at least acknowledge the interpretive framework we are bringing to a given text, to understand its strengths and limitations, and humbly to allow it to be an ‘entry point’ into the ‘hermeneutical spiral’ (as we engage the text with our assumptions clearly identified, allow the text to speak back to those assumptions, and then repeat the process over and over and over again, gaining (hopefully) an ever-increasing understanding as we go).

For example, if I were to begin a story with “Once upon a time…”, you would have some fairly clear genre expectations about what was coming next. Your interpretive framework would spring into action without you really having to do anything at all. If I began another story with, “Have you heard the one about…”, then a different set of genre expectations would automatically kick in.

I know this all sounds excruciatingly basic, but it is important.

So, I am suggesting that we be perfectly up front about our methodological assumptions here, and that we approach the text of Revelation, firstly, with an eye to its socio-historical situated-ness. My reason for doing this is quite simply because I’m fairly sure that no text is created in a vacuum. All texts, as far as I am aware, are written in some sort of context, and I happen to believe that this information is somewhat important in our study of, especially, ancient texts (but any text, really). I don’t happen to be overly confident about finding with any sort of certainty precise authorial intent in these texts, as some are, but I do think that the socio-historical situation within which texts arise can help give us some helpful information in the task of understanding what has been written.

…I guess that’s why I’m doing a PhD in ancient history…

Anyway, building on from this idea, I want to suggest that, at least most often, texts make some sense to their original recipients. This is an assumption, to be sure, but I think it’s a relatively reasonable one. Think about it for a moment: if these texts didn’t make sense to their original audiences, we probably wouldn’t have them now. If they were totally intelligible, they would, most likely, have disappeared into the sands of time. Of course, we could have, in the book of Revelation, the exception that proves this rule: the one text in all of history that made absolutely no sense to its original recipients but which was preserved anyway through thousands of years in the most extraordinarily extended act of selflessness in all of human history.

Of course, this idea could also just be stupidity. I don’t buy it, and I don’t think too many other reasonable people would buy it either.

I think then, that Tim LaHaye – even though he might be a really nice guy(!) – is pretty much 100% wrong when he suggests that the book of Revelation is only going to make sense the closer we get to the time when the events it describes are going to take place. I think he’s got this precisely around the wrong way; he couldn’t be more wrong if he tried. I think the truth is closer to the idea that Revelation is going to make less and less sense the further we get away from when it was originally written, because of the widening gap between our own socio-historical situation and that of when Revelation first appeared.

What this means, then, is that we have to work all the more hard at trying to understand the socio-historical situation into which the text was written. Context, as I am known to say, is our best friend!

So, what can we actually know, with any reasonable certainty?

Firstly, the text itself indicates that it was written by a guy named ‘John’, who seems to be fairly sure that he’s writing a prophetic message to a number of churches around the area of Ephesus (modern-day Turkey). While it is true that we always need to apply critical interpretive tools to claims made by such texts, most commentators agree on the idea that ‘John’ is actually the author’s real name; that is, the text is not pseudonymous. This ‘John’, then, doesn’t actually give us much more information about himself. What he does indicate, though, is that he seems to think that he has experienced the same sort of prophetic commissioning that we see in a number of the Hebrew prophets (Rev. 10:1-11, cf. Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1-3), and that he is writing a prophecy (Rev. 1;3; 22:18) which he thinks is a pretty important message that the people in the churches need to hear urgently.

We’ll define what the word ‘prophecy’ actually means in the next post, but for now we might summarise the point by saying that this guy named John seems to have thought that he had been commissioned by the Judeo-Christian God to deliver an urgent message from this God to the people in the churches in the area around Ephesus.

To be even more precise, we are dealing here with a real person writing what he considers to be an important message to real people in a bunch of real churches in the area of ancient Asia Minor. And he seems to have expected the recipients to understand what he was saying.

But the question is: why did he think this message was so important? Why did he think it was so urgent that his recipients hear, and act on, the message contained within the text?

Although it is still somewhat debated, most critical commentators agree that the book of Revelation was written near the very end of the first century C.E. (‘A.D.’ in the old lingo).*

What was happening at this time?

Well, Rome basically ruled the whole world (or at least the bit that seemed important to them, which was pretty much based around the Mediterranean Sea). The Roman Empire was, to most eyes, magnificent! The Golden Age had dawned with the reign of Augustus (pictured…at least in statue form), and it was pretty difficult to stand up to the might of this great world power. Rome’s strategy was to woo other nation states to submit themselves to Rome’s ‘protection’, and they were offered the opportunity to then receive all the benefits of the Pax Romana (the ‘Peace of Rome’). Rome had, so the propaganda went, brought order out of chaos. They had brought about a time of great peace and prosperity for all who would align themselves with Rome. There were lucrative possibilities of trade and travel and every wonderful thing. All you had to do is direct allegiance to Rome, and everything would be fine.

Of course, for those who decided not to do this, Rome would simply steamroller over the top of anyone or anything in its path and take all the resources that it wanted from an area anyway…after laying waste to the armies that dared stand in the way.

For many, for fairly obvious reasons, the propaganda worked. For those in the Roman province of Asia Minor at the end of the first century, there was prosperity for the taking. Trade opportunities were presenting themselves, and all it took was to kiss the backside of Caesar a little bit. Too easy!

But some didn’t see it that way.

For some, Rome’s dominance was an eery reminder of the great boastful, idolatrous empires of the past. For many of those from a Jewish heritage, the spectre of empires like Babylon hung over the head of Rome, and participation with a system that seemed so idolatrous just couldn’t be a good idea. Especially after 70C.E., the comparison with Babylon became entrenched, with the Roman armies besieging and almost completely destroying Jerusalem and the Jewish resistance that had arisen like the Maccabees to throw off the shackles of foreign domination. Thus, for these people, Rome became a kind of ‘Babylon 2.0’ (and this is reflected in post-70C.E. Jewish literature).

The Romans also had a precarious (to the minds of staunch monotheists) relationship between power and divinity. While it is somewhat true that many of the Roman emperors shared Augustus’ somewhat faux humility in regards to being called a ‘god’ (especially while still living), the view from the provinces was sometimes a little bit more relaxed. Especially in places like Asia Minor, there was already a thriving connection between living rulers and the great heroes of old, and there wasn’t too much hesitation in linking living rulers with the gods. In Pergamum, just up the road from Ephesus, there stood an imperially-endorsed Provincial temple dedicated to ‘Roma and Augustus’, probably located in close proximity to the Great Altar to Zeus. (Interestingly, John describes Pergamum as the place where ‘Satan has his throne’ in Rev. 2:13, which is possibly a scorching reference to this architecture.) By the late 80s C.E., the emperor Domitian had commissioned Olympic Games in Ephesus, and had linked himself quite prominently to Zeus in the process (as a kind of benefactor of the games).

For a Jew or a Christian, it is fairly easy to see how this could be interpreted as an ominous sign.

Though it is true that later Christian historians seem to have overplayed their hand in descriptions of Domitian, suggesting that he presided over a great persecution of Christians (he probably didn’t, by the way – or at least there is no real primary source evidence for it), it is nevertheless fair to say that it would have been quite easy for Christians or Jews to be significantly troubled by the way things were heading.

For John, it seems that he summed up the situation, taking into consideration past history and the trajectory of where he saw things headed (like a good historian and sociologist!), and decided that these developments were not heading anywhere good. Though it seems that only one person John knew had already been ‘martyred’ (Antipas in Rev. 2:13), John seems to have thought that the belief of Christians was going to take them into direct confrontation with Rome. The Christian statement “Jesus is Lord” (like the Jewish Shema) was going to get them into trouble, because at least some were quite comfortable with saying that Caesar was Dominus et Deus (‘Lord and God’).**

John was right.

It is a matter of history that the Romans ended up deciding, eventually, that Christians endangered the prosperity of Rome (with their stubborn refusal to acknowledge the gods, which meant the possibility of incurring divine disfavour, and their seditious talk of a rival ‘king’ who was going to rule the whole world), and empire-wide persecutions of Christians were the fruit of that. While there is no evidence of this in John’s time, we do have surviving letters from Pliny the Younger (a Roman Governor of an area near where John was writing from) to the emperor Trajan, from about 15 years after John wrote. In these letters, Pliny asks Trajan what he should do about these pesky Christians, and indicates that his usual practice (which he had been following for some time) was to interrogate them (but not necessarily to seek them out) and, if they confessed and did not renounce Christ, he would have them executed (if only for their obstinance, which was a tad uncouth and definitely un-Roman). For his part, Trajan thought this was a fair call.

John, then, saw these ‘storm clouds’ on the horizon. He seems to have summed up the situation and concluded both that Rome was not advancing the causes of God in the world, and that (faithful) Christians would eventually find themselves in a very sticky situation with a decidedly unhappy Rome.

Rome didn’t muck around with these sorts of things, and John knew that this was a very serious situation.

He seems to have written Revelation, then, as a way of highlighting all these sorts of issues, and thought that the message was urgent enough that the Christians around Asia Minor needed to hear it straight away – and act on it.

For John, this was an urgent message from God, and one that the people in the churches needed to hear quickly. It was time to buckle up.

The question is, why did he choose to write this urgent message in such a seemingly bizarre form? The answer to that, though, will have to wait until the next post…

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* There are some commentators who date the text to the mid first century C.E. (for various reasons that I don’t have space to go into here), and some who take a ‘cake and eat it’ approach (I’m talking to you here, Mr Aune and Mr deSilva) of dating some of the text to the mid first century and some of it to the late first century, but most commentators agree that the text probably attained its final form in the very late first century, probably in the mid 90s.

** There is debate over whether Domitian required people to call him by this title (which is unlikely), or whether it was a kind of title of flattery for some who sought the favour of Domitian. Either way, it is attested as being something that was circulating at the time, and the important point to note is as to how this might have looked to people like John.

Reading Revelation (Part I)

I am currently working towards a PhD focused on the book of Revelation.

When I tell people this information, I am usually greeted with one of two responses: people either look at me like I’m crazy and want to get out of the conversation quickly (what kind of weirdo would study such things, after all?), or they look at me all crazy-like, with their eyes beginning to bulge (and glazing over ever-so-slightly) as they prepare to tell me all about the prophetic visions that they have had and their predictions about the carnage that is about to be unleashed.

From these encounters, I have deduced (perhaps unfairly, perhaps not) that the majority of Christians (or at least the ones I encounter) approach the book of Revelation from one of two completely opposite but equally unhelpful positions. They either disregard the book entirely, concluding that it is just too difficult to bother with, or they focus on it way too much, embracing the text with great fervour but little understanding. Somewhat ironically, both (seemingly polar opposite) positions seem to be based out of the same basic problem: the forgetting of the fact that this rather unusual text is part of the Christian Scriptures. For the first group, there needs to be an acknowledgement that this text is part of the ‘New(er) Testament’, and therefore shouldn’t be completely ignored by Christians in their practice of faith seeking understanding. For the second group, there needs to be an acknowledgement that, because this text is part of the New(er) Testament, it was produced in a context far removed from our own (which is kind of important…but I’ll get to that later).

What I want to do here, then, is to offer a (very basic) summary of some things that I have found helpful in my study of this peculiar text. This will probably take about five posts to get through (which I’ll try to get done over the course of the next few weeks), but my hope is that the information is relatively easy to comprehend and that it might be helpful to you (Christian or not) in understanding a little bit more about probably the most misunderstood book in the whole Bible (perhaps the most misunderstood text ever!).

Before I start, though, I should note very clearly that I am not suggesting that I have all the answers. This is not the last word on the study of this enigmatic text, and I don’t claim to know everything. Anyone who makes such claims is an idiot(!), and you should not listen to anything they say…just as a general life rule. What I do bring to the table, though, is a number of years of studying this text at a fairly deep level (first for my Bachelor of Theology (Honours) thesis and now for my PhD), and I have taught about these things at tertiary-level for a few years now too. I have read broadly and deeply about these issues, and believe that there is some really helpful information out there that can illuminate much in regards to interpreting all the weird imagery in Revelation. I am not making this stuff up (as I have been accused by at least one irate parishioner after preaching on these things). I am interacting with some good scholarship here, though I do add some of my own observations at certain points (working out of that scholarly foundation). All I ask here is that you hear me out, and then you don’t need to do anything else if you don’t want to. If you don’t like what I say, then please feel free to totally ignore it! If, however, you feel that there might be something to it, then I encourage you to read some more and, especially, to pray about it to see if there might just be some truth to it all.

Anyway, enough of that. There will be no more delay! Let’s get started…

The Usual Suspects

If you have done any study at all in regards to the book of Revelation, then you probably know that there are four usual positions that people adopt when approaching the text.

The first position is commonly known as the Preterist view. According to this view, the book of Revelation is to be understood very much in its first century setting, probably with the understanding that John (the author) thought that the things he was talking about in figurative language were going to happen quite shortly after he wrote. There are at least a couple of strands of this view. One strand views the book of Revelation to be predicting the destruction of Jerusalem in 70C.E.; another, that it was speaking of the imminent destruction of Rome (in the first century or just beyond). The beauty of this broad approach (in its different forms) is, of course, that it takes the author’s own context seriously, but there are obvious problems. Basically, these problems can be summed up in the idea that things haven’t really worked out like John said they would.

In regards to the first option, which seems at first to be on firm ground (due to the fact that Jerusalem was destroyed), it must be asked whether everything in the book of Revelation has come to pass? If so, then there needs to be a radical redefining of much orthodox theology. This view also suffers from an incurable case of ‘the flattening of the Scriptures’, seeking to force passages from Daniel and the Synoptic Gospels onto the text of Revelation (or vice versa) in ways that just don’t fit. In its other, more viable, form (i.e. that the book of Revelation was predicting the imminent fall of Rome), it still suffers from the fact that, obviously, things didn’t quite turn out the way he seems to indicate they would. So, we are left (with either option) with a little bit of a conundrum as to what we are meant to do with the text now. If the ‘prophecies’ didn’t come true, then should we even have it in the New(er) Testament? Many people actually asked this question, and it should be made known that the book of Revelation had something of a bumpy ride being regarded as ‘canonical’ for these sorts of reasons.*

The next position is the Historicist view. This view really popped up around the time of the Reformation, and was a way of seeing the text of Revelation as a sort of commentary on the whole of Church history. You may have heard many people talking about the messages to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 as representative of different church ‘ages’; that is, describing the church at different points since the time of Jesus. This is the sort of thing that the Historicist view thrives on! The beauty of this approach is that it takes seriously the fact that things didn’t quite happen like John seemed to suggest they would in the first century alone, and that it desires to see the text as being relevant (at least in part) to Christians at all times throughout Church history. It also makes life fairly easy in regards to identifying the events that John was speaking about, because it gives such a wide historical scope for people to be able to match up historical events however vaguely with imagery in the text.** However, it also ultimately becomes highly subjective. The power of interpretation lies predominantly with the current group of Christians who are looking over Church history, and it moves significantly away from the idea that this text meant something important for early Christians. It also tends to focus heavily on the flow of Western Church history.

The third position is the Futurist position. This is the view that has become most popular of late, especially in North America (and North America-influenced places). Popularist presentations of this view have been extraordinarily successful, especially with books such as Hal Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth and the whole Left Behind franchise. This view focuses on the idea that at least most of the book of Revelation (chapter 4 ff.) is detailing what will happen just before Jesus returns for the Great Judgement. This is usually a very short period of time (often 7 literal years), and this will be the time when all of the fantastic imagery plays out (almost) literally before our very eyes. I hesitate to describe anything about this view as holding ‘beauty’, but it should be noted that this view takes seriously the fact that it’s pretty difficult to suggest the things described in the text have literally taken place already. As such, so the notion goes, they must be things that are going to happen some time in the future. The overriding problems with this view (and there are many), however, is that it is an approach that has pretty much only come about in the last 100-or-so years, it focuses almost exclusively on North American interests (and seems often to be tied to scary nationalistic tendencies), and it completely removes pretty much all meaning that the text of Revelation might have held for its first recipients. The question must be asked here: why did the first recipients even bother to keep the text, if it meant pretty much nothing to them? So, this view unfortunately seems to be hopelessly bogged in a swamp of modern self-interest.

So what is left?

The fourth position, then, is the Idealist (or Spiritualist) view. This view, noting the problems with tying the text to any one period in history, pretty much divorces the text from any specific historical reference point. The text is, rather, speaking about general notions of good vs evil, and is therefore generally relevant to all times in Church history (while simultaneously being of particular relevance for none). The beauty of this view is that it is certainly seeking to take seriously the idea that the text could (and should) be relevant to all Christians in all times. The problem, however, is that it becomes, basically, a total cop-out. This sort of interpretation arose pretty much around the time when Christians had moved from becoming the oppressed minority to the very rulers of Rome. Of course, any notion of seeing Rome now as a satanic ‘Beast’ was therefore quite uncouth, and so that idea needed to be muted somewhat. The message of Revelation, then, loses any notion of having something to say to corrupted (and corrupting) power, and becomes instead a sort of personalised, individualised message about overcoming personal sin and abstract notions of ‘evil’.

So, they are the four main positions that one is advised to choose between when approaching Revelation, but it doesn’t stop there.

Once a basic position has been chosen, one must decide where they stand on the issue of the ‘Millennium’ (found in Revelation chapter 20). You might choose to identify as a ‘postmillennialist’ (i.e. the idea that things will keep getting better and better until there comes about a thousand-year-or-very-long-time period of wonderful world peace where the Church is in charge and, after which, Jesus will return to kick-start eternity) or a ‘premillennialist’ (i.e. that things will get pretty bad until Jesus returns, sets up a thousand-year-or-very-long-time kingdom on earth, at the end of which ‘eternity’ begins), or an ‘amillennialist’ (i.e. that the ‘millennium’ is actually talking about the whole Church Age – from the time of Jesus’ resurrection until he returns).***

But wait, there’s more!

Once all this is done, you need to decide where you’re going to stand on the ‘tribulation’ and the so-called ‘rapture’. Will the rapture occur before, during, or after the tribulation and, and, and….

It all becomes really stupid.

Basically, I’m going to suggest here that we forget all of that. Everything! The whole sorry lot.

This is for a number of reasons, but I’m going to get all apocalyptic and sum these reasons up into three ‘woes’:

The Three Woes

Woe to the interpretation that comes to the text with conclusions already made!

Woe to the interpretation that treats the book of Revelation in a way totally different to any other New Testament text!

Woe to the interpretation that treats the ‘millennium’ as the central element for the whole book of Revelation (and eschatology in general) and forces everything else around this interpretive centre!

To explain these a little more, I would suggest that it’s a pretty bogus starting point to already have your mind made up about what you’re going to find in the text. If you approach the text as an Historicist, you will find what you’re looking for. If you approach it like a Futurist, you’ll see things that have to do only with the future. If you approach it as a Preterist or Idealist, you’ll get what you’re after. The text is so bizarre that, at a surface level, you can pretty much bend it any way you like, so we have to be very careful about the presuppositions we are bringing to the study of the text. We always bring presuppositions, but we just need to be really clear about what they are and how they might affect our interpretation.

Also, if we completely ignore the fact that the book of Revelation is part of the New(er) Testament, then we will make the same mistakes I outlined at the beginning of the post. If we acknowledge, however, that it is part of the New(er) Testament, then we should also be somewhat more consistent when approaching the text. It is not some sort of magic document, but rather something that we need to approach reverently and with hermeneutically sound methodologies (which should be somewhat constant across all biblical texts).

Finally, the concept of the ‘millennium’ occurs in a couple of verses, in one chapter, in one book, in one Testament, in the whole Bible. Sure, it is an important element and theological development in the overall structure of the book of Revelation, but it is not either the most important or central element in the text as a whole. We need to get a little bit of perspective about this.

And so, I’m suggesting that we start with a clean slate. Let’s throw off the shackles of the ‘usual’ restrictive interpretive positions, and see if we can develop a methodology that allows a somewhat less flawed starting point. I like to suggest that studying the book of Revelation is like climbing Mt Everest: we need to make very sure that we have the right equipment and that we are well-prepared for the journey. If we do so, the views from the summit are simply breathtaking!

A More Excellent Way

And so I suggest what I believe to be a more excellent way. This is an approach that, I think, can be used more broadly to approach pretty much any biblical text, but it is also ideally suited to the study of the book of Revelation.

Basically, the approach focuses on three main elements:

1. A contextual examination
2. An inter-textual examination
3. A literary-rhetorical examination

The details of the strands of this approach, however, will have to wait until the next post.

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* This obviously needs to be a little more nuanced, but we might get to that later. I guess I should simply say here that the millennial (or ‘chiliastic’) fervour that many saw in the book of Revelation was not seen as ideal as the Church grew more established, especially after the time of Constantine.

** We could note here that Martin Luther didn’t really have much time for the book of Revelation, until, of course, he figured out he could identify the Pope as the Beast and the Roman Catholic Church as the great Whore. It subsequently became of some use to him.

*** It should be noted that this is actually a form of ‘postmillennialism’, which was popularised by people like Augustine. It is, however, what most people usually understand when one speaks of ‘amillennialism’.

Voices for Justice: Finishing the Race

Peter Garrett speaking to Micah Challenge supporters at a ‘Voices for Justice’ event on the front lawns of Parliament House.

Well, the Micah Challenge’s Voices for Justice conference is over for another a year, and I thought I might offer just a few reflections on what we did while we were in Canberra for the four incredible days.

Though the quality of the teaching sessions, the general reality of our diversity in unity, and the important meetings with (over 100!) MPs are obviously very important to note (and great to take part in), I thought I’d take a step back and look at some of the larger themes. The conference this year centred, basically, around two main points:

1) Firstly, it was noted very clearly that we need to celebrate the progress that has already been made towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

For me, this was such an incredibly important part of the whole conference. Though it is true that we still have a long way to go in some instances (and I’ll get to that below), I believe that it’s essential to celebrate the progress that has been achieved. When dealing with issues of poverty and social justice, it’s easy to become somewhat depressed by the massive challenges that we face. In fact, it can feel totally overwhelming at times, and it’s easy to question whether we are actually making any difference.

It is good to note, then, that progress has been made. The number of children dying each year before they reach their fifth birthday has fallen significantly from 1990 levels – almost half – and this is seriously great news by any standard! A huge majority of the world’s population have access to clean water, and the rates of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth have fallen significantly.

It is seriously hard not to feel happy about these things, and I think that it’s only right to celebrate these achievements. Of course their is still much work to be done, but we do need to keep that remaining work in tension with the joy of seeing such progress. This is real people’s lives we are talking about, and it’s important to stop and think about that fact. More children are living to see their fifth birthday. More women are able to experience the joy of childbirth without experiencing serious injury for themselves or their babies.

This is good news.

But, of course, there is still along way to go. Just as sure as we need to celebrate the progress that has been made, we need to make sure we remain focused on the remaining work that needs to be done, and this brings me to the second point.

2) So, secondly, it was noted that we need to stay focused in order to ‘Finish the Race’

There is still a long way to go for some of the MDGs to be achieved, and we will need to stay focused if we are to finish well.

Noting this, we structured our ‘asks’ around three essential points:

1. We are still asking for more aid. At the moment, Australia only gives 0.35% of GNI to the aid budget. It had previously been promised by both major parties that this figure would rise to 0.5% GNI by 2015, though this has now been delayed by one year.* We want both of the major parties to stand by the 0.5% commitment, and also to outline a clear timeframe for the figure to increase to 0.7% GNI (which some U.N. member nations have already reached) by 2020. Though we acknowledge that we are operating in tough economic conditions, we must also acknowledge that Australia’s economic situation is significantly stronger than most other nations at this point in time, and we do need to commit to our fair share of the work that still needs to be done. We are buoyed by the fact that some nations, who are operating in an even tougher economic context than Australia, have ‘ring-fenced’ their aid budgets from any possible cuts that might need to be made. We are asking our politicians to do the same.
2. We are still asking for better aid. We need to make sure that our aid budget is spent well, by targeting it towards the most effective areas. It is well-known that money targeted towards things like sanitation and hygiene has incredible ‘bang for buck’, and the reason for this is quite simple. If children are sick, they can’t go to school and learn. Thus, money spent on education, though vital, is dependant upon children being well enough to attend school. If adults are sick (or looking after sick children), they are unable to work. Thus, money spent on developing local economies, though, once again, a good thing, is dependant upon people being able to go to work in the first place. It has been noted by the World Health Organisation that for each $1 spent on sanitation and hygiene, $8 is generated for local economies. This is amazing! We are therefore asking for our aid budget to reflect the reality that sanitation and hygiene issues effect almost every other area of the MDGs, by increasing the overall percentage of the aid budget spent on these areas.
3. Finally, we are seeking to raise awareness of the fact that there is currently a ‘brake’ on development that needs to be acknowledged, and released, in order for us to see progress accelerated. Coming out of the desire to see better aid, it has been noted that there are structures in place that seriously undermine the effectiveness of aid. Though it is a common belief that aid is often undermined through the corruption of crazy dictators and the like, and though this is a real issue, it is surprising for many to realise that something like two-thirds of the money siphoned out of developing nations is at the hands of multi-national corporations. Though some of this is due to loopholes and ‘creative accounting’, a significant proportion of it is due to deliberate obfuscation of the data by large corporations and the use of tax havens. As part of the ‘Shine the Light’ campaign, we are asking for our politicians to join the growing conversation around these issues, and to consider legislation that seeks to bring more transparency into the way such corporations report their profits and tax liabilities. Of course, this is a massive issue(!), and it is not something that is going to be tackled overnight, or by Australia alone. But it is encouraging to see that the conversation is starting to take place, and we are seeking to take some very small steps in the right direction rather than throwing our hands up in despair.

All in all, it was a great conference, but it is really clear that we need to be more focused now than ever before if we are to see the MDGs achieved. A huge amount of progress has been made, and it’s right to celebrate it, but there is still much work to be done.

From the meetings I was able to take part in with MPs, one thing was made more clear than anything else: these issues need to be taken on by whole communities if we are going to see our politicians act on them. Our system of government is great, because it is based on our elected representatives listening to the people they represent and taking those concerns to parliament (at least, that’s the idea). As such, we need to get these conversations happening in our electorates if our politicians are going to listen to us(!).

So, let’s ‘Finish the Race’ well. Let us not get distracted with the sometimes shallow public discourse that distracts us from the important issues. Let us, rather, stay focused. Spurned on by the amazing progress that has already been made, let us finish strongly, giving it everything we’ve got, realising that this race is one that truly counts.

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* It should be noted here that this reality could have been much worse. The last federal budget saw the promised increase (in order to reach 0.5% by 2015) reduced, and now it will be at least one extra year before we reach the 0.5% goal. This is extremely serious, because it means that less lives will be saved. In line with the first point above, however, we do need to recognise that there was still a small increase in the overall aid budget this year (though less than what had been initially promised). It has been made known that, apparently, the situation could have been much worse. When news of the possible cut was leaked, there was a groundswell of people getting behind the #Don’tCutAid campaign. Without this campaign, the reality could have actually been an overall cut to the aid budget, not just a smaller increase than was expected. We need to celebrate this achievement too!

Voices for Justice 2012

Every year, hundreds of Australian Christians who are concerned with issues of poverty and justice head to Canberra to meet with our elected political representatives as part of the Micah Challenge’s Voices for Justice conference. We meet with them to discuss the Millennium Development Goals, and to remind them of the commitment our nation made to these goals by 2015.

With just 3 days to go until Voices for Justice 2012(!), I wanted to reflect for a moment on what it is that we are actually doing when we descend on Canberra every year, from my perspective, and why we do (and should do) it.

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed it too but, inevitably, whenever the discussion about Christians and politics arises, the temptation for ‘sides’ to form that fall along the usual political divides is never far behind. Will we as Christians support the ‘conservative’ agenda, or will we bind ourselves to the ‘progressives’?

It seems to me that this sort of thinking has the situation pretty much exactly the wrong way around.

As far as I can tell, the reduction of the glorious Good News to the level of party politics is just about the biggest mistake us Christians can make in our thinking, but it’s also one of the easiest mistakes we continue to make. I want to spend a few moments, therefore, outlining just a few points that are part of this overall discussion, so that we might begin to think through together exactly what it is that we are doing at Voices, and what it is not. Of course, the discussion here in the space available will be woefully inadequate as a comprehensive analysis of the situation, but I do hope that it may be a start for some and a contribution to others who might like to reflect more deeply on these things.

Firstly, then, I guess we should start by noting that the message of the Gospel most certainly is ‘political’. The idea that one could separate the ‘political’ from the ‘religious’ is, in the scheme of things, a very recent phenomenon indeed, and was practically unknown for most of human history before the last few hundred years. It was just a matter of course that ‘politics’ was, in some sense, ‘religious’, and that ‘religion’ was certainly ‘political’.

For the Apostle Paul, one of the central elements of his teaching was that “Jesus is Lord”—a statement that directly subverted the imperial propaganda! Early Christians (who proclaimed loyalty to an alternate king to whom every knee would eventually bow) would come to be seen as a seditious sect that jeopardised the very security of Rome under the favour of her gods, and therefore needed to be dealt with most harshly.

It is reasonably safe to conclude, then, that this Good News we proclaim is not just ‘theological’ (it is that, of course, but not just that). To believe that our understanding of the work of God in Jesus of Nazareth and continued by the Spirit is somehow divorced from ‘political’ ideas is a gross distortion of what God has accomplished in history, and this is very important because our understanding of this affects how we act.

And this brings me to the second point.

Our ‘religion’ is certainly a personal thing, but it is most certainly not merely private. This idea that has floated into Christian discussions about politics over the past half-century-or-so is like a noxious weed; it seems to be self-promulgating and chokes the life out of rest of the garden of our understanding.

Let me state it simply: if one can relegate one’s faith to only the ‘private’ sphere of their life, then it is not true faith at all. Our faith does, and should, effect every area of our lives—if it is genuine. A faith that does not influence my decisions and actions, flavouring my life at every point, is not genuine faith, but is rather more like a winter jacket that sits in my wardrobe until I pull it out a few times a year when it is cold enough. “Private’ faith, then, is only ‘partial’ faith.

For example, as Christians we believe that all humans are made ‘in the image of God’. If I am to truly believe this, then I can’t simply apply it to my understanding of myself alone, but am forced to let the concept season my understanding of all other humans on the planet. If I am to truly take the idea seriously, then I must stand against anything I see that seeks to deny the full humanity[-in-the-image-of God] of anyone else. It simply must influence my actions, because it means that I mustn’t partake of actions myself that treat another as something less than fully human. This, then, is a very public faith.

However, and this is possibly the most important point (and brings us back to where we started): this political, public faith overwhelmingly transcends our usual political categories.

This Good News that we believe—that we seek to live out in every area of our lives—is something far more impressive than party politics…and thank God for that!

Sometimes it is so terribly frustrating to watch the political parties go at it hammer-and-tong, acting in ways that can cause us to shake our heads in disbelief. Sometimes the level of political discourse in this country quite honestly makes me want to weep.

But the [G]ood [N]ews is that our faith is not in party politics. Our faith does not rest with Labor or Liberal, Nationals or Greens. Our faith does not rest even with the ‘Christian’ political parties.[1] Our faith rests with God’s work in Jesus of Nazareth, and the work of the Spirit through the Church Universal in beginning to enact the coming kingdom in the now—a partial, but nevertheless powerful taste of what will come in full one day.

And with this in mind, then, we might consider more appropriately how we, as Christians, interact with the political process.

We approach our MPs at Voices because, as Christians who happen to find ourselves in Australia, we have a pretty decent political system that allows us this incredible direct access to our elected representatives. It is certainly not a perfect system, but as far as political systems go it happens to be much better than some alternatives around the world. So we go, and we ask, and as we do we remember that our ultimate hope does not rest with this process. As good as it is, our system is still affected by the machinations of factions and personal ambition.

Our ultimate hope does not even lie with our government finally coming through with 0.5% of GNI going to the Aid budget (or even 0.7%!).

Please don’t get me wrong: these things are great! The difference that such funding can make is simply mind-blowing, and therefore pushing for these goals to be realised is a fantastic thing to do. The opportunities that we have are way too good to waste!

But our hope does not lie with policy alone.

We can, and should(!), seek to lobby our government to increase Aid. We should stand united in the face of obscene rates of death so easily prevented. We should continue to pester our elected representatives to show them that these issues are so important.

But we do it because it is a prophetic way to demonstrate the coming kingdom, not because such policy could ever be enough on its own.

And so, if you’re heading to Canberra too, I encourage you to think on these things, and to pray on these things, as we prepare for Voices for Justice this year. We can accomplish such great things, but we must always remember exactly where our ultimate hope lies. As we join together at Voices, such a beautifully diverse range of people (young and old, women and men, from every sphere of society), we catch a glimpse of the potential of the kingdom. We stand together as a demonstration of what is to come, when we won’t have to sit in MPs’ offices (as lovely as these visits may be) in order to see every human being flourishing and realising their potential as someone created in the image of God.

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[1] I should note here that I do admire those Christians who are able to enter into the cut-and-thrust of political life while nevertheless maintaining their ultimate hope that transcends their party’s policy platform. I am not at all disparaging such a vocation, but am rather simply pointing out that a given party’s stance can never embody the fullness of the Kingdom of God.

The Living Years

It’s Father’s Day in Australia today.

This has become an interesting day for me for at least a couple of reasons: 7 years ago I was told that I would never have children, and yet here I am with two beautiful daughters of my own flesh and blood. 6 years ago my own father passed away.

So, whenever this day rolls around, I am left with a mixture of joy and sadness. I am filled with inexpressible joy as I behold my own kids, and am supremely thankful for this gift of fatherhood that I have been given. I am filled with sadness at the fact that my own father is no longer around, and never got to meet any of his grandkids. I am filled with joy at the fact that I was on good terms with my dad before he died. I am filled with sadness as I reflect on the lost years of estrangement, when I did not realise that dad wouldn’t be around for much longer.

Allen Dowton (My Dad)

I had a difficult relationship with my dad.

Dad walked out on us when I was 11, and it took me a really long time to forgive him for the fact that he left right when I needed him the most. I was just entering that stage of awkwardness – the point where a boy begins to learn what it means to be a man – and it was a time when I really needed him to be around. But he wasn’t. Sure, we saw him a bit for the first few years, but things became difficult after a while and it just began to feel like he wasn’t all that interested in us anymore. It seemed, at least to my young mind, that he had himself a whole new life, and we were a bit of a hangover from his previous one.

By the time I was 15 I was really angry at him (for a number of reasons that I won’t go into here). I was angry at a lot of things, but he was at the top of the list. To cut a long story short, I ended up telling him that I never wanted to see him again, that he was dead to me. He obliged with my request, and I had no contact with him for nearly 5 years after what turned out to be a very emotional phone call.

I’d thought I was fine with this situation, but by the time I was 20 something changed. I had an urge that I can’t really explain, but all I can say is that I was compelled to reconcile with him, not only to forgive him for everything he had done (and not done), but also to ask him to forgive me. This seemed really weird to me, because I felt like he was the one who should be asking – begging(!) – for forgiveness. He was the one who had walked out, after all, so what was I asking for forgiveness for?

In the midst of the weirdness of it all, my gut instinct conflicting with my rationality, I called him up. Not really understanding it, but compelled by the urge nonetheless, I lead off with asking him to forgive me. I told him about all the bitterness I had towards him, and the horrible things I’d said about him, and asked him to forgive me. I felt strongly before the phone call that my own repentance to him couldn’t be conditional on him saying sorry (or any response from him at all), and to be honest I didn’t really expect anything to come from it (except perhaps some feeling of catharsis).*

But something beautiful happened.

After I’d finished my prepared speech, dad opened up, but it was more than could be said on a phone call. So, we arranged to meet up (for the first time in about 6-7 years), and I ended up driving to stay with him for New Year’s Eve in Dubbo (where he was then living after the breakdown of his second marriage).

It was really a special time.

After that point, we set about the hard work of rebuilding a relationship that had been either dying or nearly dead for almost a decade. It wasn’t easy by any means, and I’ve got to say that trying to see this man in the same way that I had as a kid was almost impossible. The relationship had obviously changed, and much water had flowed under the bridge, but we nevertheless sought to forge a new relationship. I even ended up acting as Best Man for his third(!) wedding.

About a year before he died, he introduced me to a song that had been in his heart for years, as he had mourned the loss of, or change in, relationship with all his kids.** This song is a really personal song, speaking into this sort of situation in a way that I have never experienced before, and we couldn’t have known then quite how significant the song would be.

Within a year my dad was dead, and I was left with the song as a timely reminder of what could have been. If I had not felt that overwhelming urge to contact him, or had ignored it, then he would have been dead and gone and all I would’ve had left was the regret of not reconciling with him while we had the time. No one could have known how short the time we had would be, but I’m so thankful that we were able to resurrect that dead relationship before he was gone forever.

And so I want to finish up with the song itself. I don’t know if it will mean anything to you, but I want to offer it anyway. This Father’s Day, if you are estranged from your dad (or any other significant person in your life) for any reason, I ask you to consider the words of the song. I know sometimes things happen so that reconciliation can never truly take place. I know that sometimes there is abuse or other complex considerations that are way deeper than what I can speak to in this post. I understand this. But I also know that so often relationships breakdown because we are blinded by our hurt and pain and just can’t see (or don’t want to see) any possibility of a way forward. Relationships are difficult, and I realise now more than ever that the relationship between parent and child is all sorts of tricky. Children don’t choose their parents, and no parent is truly prepared for the incredible responsibility (and privilege) they hold.

I know that a lot of people have difficult relationships with their dads. I don’t know why it is, but it seems to actually be an epidemic in our society. Would it change at all, though, if we really comprehended the fact that our dads simply won’t be around forever?

The whole song is powerful, but the final verse speaks so loudly to me that it’s hard to hear the words sometimes, knowing what could have been:

I wasn’t there that morning
when my father passed away;
I didn’t get to tell him
all the things I had to say.

I think I caught his spirit
later that same year;
I’m sure I heard his echo
in my baby’s new-born tears.

I just wish I could have told him
in the living years.

I hope you enjoy the song, but I hope even more that it might mean something to you. Reaching back into my last post, my definition of hope is that, while it doesn’t ignore the reality of the situation, it always leaves room for new possibilities. You might think that a relationship has died but, until the people in the relationship die, there is always…hope.

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* I’ve read through this section a couple of times, because it kind of makes it sound like I was responsible for coming up with the whole plan. That’s just not how it happened. I don’t really know how to explain it other than saying it was kind of a ‘God’ moment. The whole thing didn’t make any sense to me, and I fought it, but the gut-level compulsion didn’t let up. To use more theological language, I’d say it was a ‘prompting from the Holy Spirit’…but you don’t have to agree with that assessment by any means.

** I’m not trying to speak for my sister and brother and their relationships with dad, but am just expressing what he told me in regards to his feeling that he hadn’t done enough to stay in our lives after the breakdown of his and mum’s marriage.