Couldn't Help Noticing

Gospel and megachurch II

Chastened by my friend, I did try to tone down the smugness quotient with this one. As the letters editor still decided to bin it, I thought I'd share the humiliation with CHN watchers...

Dear editor,

Given that most Christians in Sydney and in the world are not members of megachurches (“Recipe bringing youth back to church”, SMH Feb 28), it's possible that the popularity of these megaliths has been overstated.

What really counts, however, is not whether a megachurch can generate “event bigness”, as they say. More important is whether they reflect in themselves the suffering and dying Christ, and his deliberate choice of poverty for our sake.

Yours etc...

Gospel and megachurch

Another letter that found the editor's trash can a while back (pre computers, no-one in Australia had trash cans. Just garbage bins and dust bins. Now we have a whole new class of rubbish).

A good friend told me that the tone of this letter was far too smug. Then another friend told me that it was just the ticket and should have gotten in. Being a naturally smug person, I think I will just keep writing 'em smug and trust to the letters editor that most of them will only ever be read by her.

Dear editor,

I don't really like megachurches either (“Rise of megachurches may be dangerous, top cleric warns” SMH Feb 23), even though the church I attend has, all up, about a thousand people in it across the various congregations. The trouble is that when you tell people that forgiveness of sins and rescue from hell are available to those who acknowledge Jesus as Lord, all these people keep turning up wanting to find out more. I try to be rude to them but they just keep asking more questions.

Yours sincerely,

The Rev. Gordon Cheng

They are still around and have the same problems

In the age of spirituality, people tend to forget that there are atheists still around. I like to frequent one atheism website to keep up on non-academic atheistic thinking. This site has insightful discussions and facts about popular atheistic reasoning and lifestyle.

On a recent forum post, an atheist expresses his thoughts about everyday living:

For me, this has been a problem from day one of realizing that I was indeed an atheist. Once realizing that you don't believe in g-d, a lot of stuff just doesn't make sense anymore. For instance, why you should strive in life? For a better house, car, money, etc. Yet, a true atheist has somewhat of a belief that since there is no heaven, no hell, yadada—so what's the point. Now, once the material stuff is out of the way, what do you have to look forward to? About a 100 years of living, then you are dead? ... This is probably the only thing I envy as an Atheist, the drive. For “believers” in the big g, they have a drive if nothing else. They have an afterlife or a purpose in living. As an atheist, when it all boils down to how much you can possibly matter in the reality, I just don't see much that is possible. That is the most troubling thing about being one. I can stand people getting pissed off because of my non-belief in anything, I can stand ignorant people actually trying to “beat me up” (which is always fun and pleasant), but what I can't stand is not [to] have a purpose in what I am doing day to day? (emphasis added).

Of course, not having a purpose in life doesn't necessarily prove the existence of god. However, it does point out the stark reality of the consequences of ideas. This person has it exactly right—it is a dreadful thing not to have meaning and purpose in life.

Political scandal, then and now

I heard an interesting comment in a recent interview with Lady Edna Healey—wife of Denis Healey, a prominent English politician in the 1960s and 70s. She observed that there have always been scandals involving politicians, but that they have never been viewed by the media “with such intensity and enjoyment” as they are these days.

Her choice of the word “enjoyment” struck me as particularly apt. It really does often feel like the media relishes the opportunity to expose the shame of public figures. Where once we were scandalised and disapointed to learn of someone's moral failure, today there often seems to be a perverse pleasure taken in it.

A goldmine of illustrations

It's obviously a happy start to the day, with the rescue of the two Australian miners down in Tasmania. We all thank God for the fact that they have been freed and restored to their family and friends.

But didn't they provide a marvellous illustration of not just rescue, but repentance? Leaving the mine shaft, coming out of the lift, and defiantly grabbing their cards to “clock off” from their two week long “shift”, and indicating their intention not to return to that way of life by not returning their cards to the other board. (At least this is how their actions were interpreted by the media.)

Having been given a miraculous salvation, joyful in walking away from death, and freed to begin a new life, it is the time to reassess and turn our backs on the old life that got us into that precarious position in the first place. Why would we go back to sin, now that we've been rescued from its dire consequences?