Interesting things

Meredith posts a great quote and reflection on Australian spiritual temperament.

Matt posts a great quote about Christianity and politics (I think Andrew Goddard has been reading O’Donovan).

Byron is absurd. Happy Birthday Byron!

And Chris has just finished a dense and interesting series on the relevance of Jesus.

New look

Will God keep gumtrees has a new look. I’ve gone for a simpler effect which I hope will be pleasing, but if you hate it, let me know. If you’re looking for them, links and so on are down the bottom, but some have relocated to new pages.

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New Blogs

My friends Andrew Katay and Stephen Gardiner have started blogs. Andrew’s is focussed on Parish Ministry and Church Growth stuff, and is very interesting for any in the field. Steve’s has a bit of an eschatological bent and promises to be very interesting. Get going on your Isaiah series Steve!

A. N. Wilson returns to faith

This is interesting. I found it very moving.

“They only heard it said, ‘The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.’ ” (Galatians 1:23)

Standing and Waiting

My friend Chris has started a blog. It’s called Standing and Waiting. It’s good. The byline “they also serve who only stand and wait” comes, i think, from a poem by Milton, and there’s a pretty grand tradition of bloggers who like Milton (well, one, but it’s pretty grand). Chris starts with some reflections on church planting but quickly moves on to such interesting issues as narrative therapy (!), church unity, and Christian hope. If Chris’s blog is anything like his conversation, this will be great.

Great blogging

Hi folks. I just thought I’d draw attention to Jason Goroncy’s great stuff on the web. His blog, Per Crucem ad Lucem, is perhaps the most frequently and extensively updated blog I know of (seriously, it’s astonishing), and almost always very interesting. Jason is an Australian working in Dunedin (I’m a bit jealous of this – Dunedin is great). He has recently been interviewed here. He’s also been blogging for a while on fatherhood here, which some might be interested in. This blog has now finished, but it’s well worth a scroll through. Check it out.

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Feliz Navidad!

“We have seen and testify

that the Father has sent his Son

to be the Saviour of the world.”

(1 John 4:14)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Love A

Tourism and the “Museumization” of Cultures

I am in Buenos Aires (which is why the posts have slowed down, sorry), and have been reflecting a little on travel and tourism, thanks to some very interesting articles my sister gave me. Here´s an interesting passage from Dean Maccannell´s article, “Reconstructed Ethnicity. Tourism and Cultural Identity in Third World Communities.”

When “ethnic” peoples first became enmeshed in the global monetary system, they were discriminated against on the basis of color, not paid a fair market price for their labor, not educated, and labeled as inferior. One should ask if they are likely to do any better under tourism. At first glance, it would seem they might. Perhaps they will not receive any economic benefits from tourism (Maccannell has shown earlier that tourist dollars very rarely actually go to the poorest peoples, but instead are mostly spent on luggage, cameras, clothing, tickets, etc. before tourists arrive at the actual site), but at least they will receive recognition for their past perseverance and dignity… one might make a case that plans for converting ethnic groups into tourist attractions indicate that the world has changed in a progressive direction, that people who were once despised for being ethnically different are now accepted as moral if not economic equals. It also seems possible that what one is witnessing is a pseudo-change. Perhaps what really happens in ethnis tourist contexts is only the rhetoric of ethnic relations changes to create the impression of progress while older forms of repression and exploitation are perpetuated beneath the surface. It might work something like this: When an ethnic group begins to sell itself, or is forced to sell itself, as an ethnic attraction, it ceases to evolve naturally. The group members begin to think of themselves not merely as people but as living representatives of an authentic way of life. Suddenly, any change in life-style is not a mere question of practical utility but a weighty question which has economic and political implications for the entire group. When the touristic definition of an ethnic group or community prevails, the group is frozen in an image of itself or museumized. The group becomes a thing and… that is exactly what people are not.

This kind of thing is not an issue in Buenos Aires, of course; but it´s definitely food for thought for Lauren and I. What are your reactions?

Two great blogs

Here are two great, but very different, new blogs by friends of mine:

Mike’s blog of theological and church reflections. At the moment there’s lots of great stuff on atheism.

Nick’s food blog, Eat The Plate. Recipes, advice, suggestions. Lauren and I had the pea and panchetta risotto (scroll down) last week and it was amazing.

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Page 123

I’ve been tagged by Byron to post a sentences 5-7 from page 123 of whatever book is nearest to me. Unfortunately, the book nearest to me was the Loeb Apostolic Fathers collection, and page 123 contains only the title: “The Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.” For far more interesting quotes, have a look at Byron’s post.