18 August 2006

Where I've been ...



create your own visited countries map

Europe - the home of the wrinkly teenager

Mark Steyn's CD Kemp Lecture has been re-printed in The Australian, and makes for some interesting reading. He takes a swing at Europe for its declining society:

The Continent has embraced a spiritual death long before the demographic one. In those 17 Europeans countries which have fallen into “lowest-low fertility”, where are the children? In a way, you’re looking at them: the guy sipping espresso at a sidewalk cafĂ© listening to his iPod. Free citizens of advanced western democracies are increasingly the world’s wrinkliest teenagers: the state makes the grown-up decisions and we spend our pocket money on our record collection. Hilaire Belloc, incidentally, foresaw this very clearly in his book The Servile State in 1912 – before teenagers or record collections had been invented. He understood that the long-term cost of a softened state is the infantilization of the population.
From: It's breeding obvious mate (emphasis mine)

More disturbing is this piece towards the end:
...As the most advanced society with the most advanced demographic crisis, Japan seems likely to be the first jurisdiction to embrace robots and cloning and embark on the slippery slope to transhumanism.

The advantage Australians and Americans have is that most of the rest of the west is ahead of us: their canoes are already on the brink of the falls. But Australians who want their families to enjoy the blessings of life in a free society should understand that the life we’ve led since 1945 in the western world is very rare in human history. Our children are unlikely to enjoy anything so placid, and may well spend their adult years in an ugly and savage world in which ever more parts of the map fall prey to the reprimitivization that’s afflicted Liberia, Somalia and Bosnia.

If it’s difficult to focus on long-term trends because human life is itself short-term, think short-term: Huge changes are happening now. For states in demographic decline with ever more lavish social programs and ever less civilizational confidence, the question is a simple one: Can they get real? Can they grow up before they grow old? If not, then western civilization will go the way of all others that failed to meet a simple test: as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1870, “Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.”

17 August 2006

Big Church = Big School

There is a classic argument about whether big churches are missing some intrinsic quality of a 'real' church. Proponents of smaller churches point out that they are more intimate, less focused on finances and more community oriented. Big church supporters point out that their better quality worship music can increase intimacy with God, that smaller churches are often unable to help others because they are cash-poor and that a bigger church has more people involved in every section of the community, from young to old, rich to poor.

It's an old argument, and one that has little scriptural basis for a decision either way. Jesus did not specify a church size, but he did deal with different size groups in different ways, from the crowds that followed him, to his close followers, his group of disciples and then individuals like Peter or Mary. The book of Acts talks about the different size churches, and historians tell us that some of them were quite large (in the thousands).

My take on this (currently) is that the big vs small church debate is much like the big vs small school debate. By this I don't mean that big schools are just like big churches, but rather the comparison of the relative merits of size for schools and churches is similarly loaded.

Some people want their kids at a small school, other like the resources available in a larger school. Some think a small school will encourage more mingling of kids, others think a larger school will help their kids find a niche for them. The debate then passes onto class sizes, styles of classroom, and so on ad infinitum ...

But let's be sensible for a moment, most of these issues fall into the "it depends" bucket. When is a school big? Well it depends upon the seize of the local community, the range of years the school covers, and what other local schools are like. When is big bad? Well it depends upon what you consider the best thing for your children at their current stage of life. Etcetera.

I think most people are most affected in this area by their own good/bad experiences, certainly I am. I went to a very large boarding school and hated it, I went to a smaller day school and loved it, when younger I went to a very small day school and found it boring ... so guess where I fall when it comes to debates about big vs small, and boarding vs day? However, my two youngest brothers loved boarding school - so I figure they will have a different point of view than me.

People seem to back big, or small, churches because of the same cognitive bias. Their experiences inform them of which they would prefer, and that becomes their default 'ideal' size. Some people take this to an extreme and formulate complicated theological explanations for why their preference is the 'right' one. Piffle.

Personally I think you've got to find a church you're willing to commit to, one where there is some accountability (both ways). That means taking into account the needs of all your family. It also means being willing to forgive when someone offends you, or being able to bend when someone imposes on you, and it certainly means allowing yourself to feel underwhelmed with church from time to time. Big or small, all churches are likely to confront you with similar issues - unless the church is so small that it's basically just your family (in which case it will have its own set of flaws). My advice? Choose your church like you would your kids' schools, by weighing the pros and cons, and then being willing to stick with that decision for the good of you all.

16 August 2006

Why a blog about my Christian walk?

Well, firstly I like blogging, it can be cathartic, is always challenging and acts as a historical record of your public thinking. That last point is very interesting, I once had a wise pastor tell me that he felt he could never state his position on contentious issues without emphasising that this was his opinion at this time, given his own experiences and knowledge.

Covering such issues in a blog gives a record of how one's thinking changes, and is why I chose to emphasise that this blog is about my walk with God, that is, a chronicle of a journey. It also holds me accountable, which is an idea I find appealing, as I am as prone to changing my mind as anyone else.

Why call the blog Cracked Jug? It wasn't my first choice, those names are already taken, and I have too many blogs to want to name one after myself. Several years ago, just after becoming a Christian, I thought about getting a tattoo, and the image that most appealed was a cracked jug (something like an ancient amphora). To me that represented the way God had taken my life and put it back together when I became a Christian in my mid-20's. I never did get that tatt, but the appeal of the image remains with me.

Anyway, I hope you find this interesting, and perhaps challenging. I know I will.

We can all help ...