2010 June archive at Being Frank

Archive for June, 2010

Jun

The Catholic Bart Simpson

By Inkling 49 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

I don’t normally watch the Simpons, but the episode the other night caught my attention when I heard that Homer and Marge were sending Bart to a Catholic school – and when Bart offered (in all sincerity) to pray a Rosary for someone. I missed the end (only saw up to the panic-stricken Marge (a Protestant) dragging Bart and Homer out of First Holy Communion Class), but I think any Catholic watching it must have been laughing heartily most of the way.

Watching Catholic Bart being Catholic with conviction and sincerity (up to where I left it) was interesting, especially watching him doing normal Catholic things in front of his worried ‘Protestant’ family (e.g. doing the Sign of the Cross before his meal). I’m highly doubtful as to the evangelising effect a Catholic Bart might have (although who knows – God works in mysterious ways) but to me it showed (strangely enough) how confidence, conviction and sincerity in someone’s attitude toward something (particularly religion) is undeniably attractive; it’s the thing a good leader has (or is able to show).

On Sunday, reflecting on the Gospel reading in his homily, our priest observed that sometimes he sees people in restaurants doing this: (he did the sign of the cross super-quick and small across his chest, glancing furtively from side to side). He had the whole congregation in stitches (though I’m sure the laughter was heartier by the odd twinge of guilt).

Showing youself to be Catholic in restaurants and public places is challlenging thing, precisely because it lays you open to being judged, derided or challenged – the same is true of anything that exposes some deep truth about a person. People are funny; we like to wear masks. But there is a definite difference between standing in the middle of the major intersections on Queen Street waving evangelical banners, and saying grace before a meal in a restaurant. Doing the Sign of the Cross is not some sort of subversive attempt to convert the table next to you – if anything it is admirable. I think this is where a lot of evangelicals go wrong; their actions are often more off-putting than anything, and certainly won’t convert anyone to Christianity. By the same token, Christians should not hide their faith – how and where is the balance to be struck?

There is a lot to be said for confidence, courage, and joy. One thing that gives me confidence is seeing other people being confident: I think there are few things braver, bolder or more inspiring than one of the best soccer players in the world scoring a brilliant goal, then making the Sign of the Cross and pointing to heaven as his team mates pile on top of him.

Jun

TENpercent

By The Dumb Ox 18 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

I see that the NZ media is shining the spotlight on a Napier Elim (Evangelical) church that has taken at least $20,000 in tithes from a disabled rest home resident who suffers from head injuries.

Apparently they were approached by people who had concerns about the disabled man and they were asked not to keep accepting his money, but they ignored that plea, and the disabled man has now been left with no life-savings at all, and he can’t even afford basic dental care for rotting teeth.

This story exposes some problems with the Evangelical Protestant practice of demanding a 10% tithe from their congregants.

A tithe works like this – it is expected that every member of the Evangelical church will give (AKA: tithe) at least 10% of their GROSS weekly income to the church every week.

Evangelicals claim the validity of this practice by applying a literal interpretation of Malachai chapter three.

(Tithe simply means a one tenth, and it is different from a tax in that it is voluntary.)

Now while the practice of tithing is voluntary, there is no doubt that huge emotional pressures are placed on congregants to give this money every week, usually in the form of emotive messages given from the pulpit each week, and by the proclamation of Bible verses which are wrongly used to infer that God demands a literal financial tithe, and that it is damnable theft to withhold this money from God.

What is so interesting about this passage is that it is one of the classic examples of the evangelical double standard and misrepresentation of Scripture.

On the one hand they refuse to read passages like John 6 in the literal fashion in which they are clearly intended, yet they take a passage from the Old Testament about money, and demand a literal interpretation of that.

What makes this situation even more bizarre is the fact that this passage on tithing is part of the Old Covenant Law, something that evangelicals will tell you (when it suits them to do so) is completely superseded by the New Covenant instituted by Christ, and which, according to their own claims, is imperfect and of little significance to the daily practices of New Covenant Christians.

The Catholic approach to this issue is far more nuanced and complete, and instead of talking about literal percentages and monetary exchanges, it talks about making a tithe of time, talent, and/or finances.

And this giving to God is not an act of legalistic obligation, instead it should be an act of love for Christ, His Church, for souls, and for the spreading of the Gospel (rather than a new Benz for Pastor Brian, an expectation of getting something back yourself, or a fear that God will destroy you for all of eternity if you don’t give his self-appointed representative some walking money for the week.)

I am sure that you are well aware that many evangelical churches take this another step further by claiming that God actually wants everyone to be rich and prosperous, and that tithing is a way to achieve that goal.

Congregants in these sorts of churches are usually manipulated by being told that being poor is evil, being rich is righteous and that the Devil has cursed you, or that you lack the required level of faith if you aren’t financially prosperous.

Of course the practical mathematics surrounding this suggestion (known as the ‘prosperity gospel’ or the ‘prosperity doctrine’) don’t add up, because if every person in the world converted to Christianity and began tithing, there isn’t actually enough money in general circulation to make everyone rich.

More importantly, this proposition fails on a Scriptural level as well.

Firstly, Christ Himself extolls the great merits in poverty (obviously this is more than just financial poverty, but clearly finances are part of it, and the poorest among us are held up as being the closest to Christ in Scripture) – Christ even tells us that the rich among us have already had their reward, and that it is more important to store up treasures in Heaven than on earth.

Secondly, in the New Testament parable of the goats and sheep (‘sheep go to Heaven, goats go to Hell’ as Cake used to sing) paying a tithe is not even mentioned as one of the important markers of authentic Christianity. This is important because that parable deals with the use of personal resources, and the treatment of the poor, etc.

Thirdly, Saint Paul strongly warns Timothy that any person who teaches that the Gospel is a means to financial gain is teaching a false doctrine, and has been robbed of the truth:

“If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

1 Timothy 6:3-10

My view on this situation is Napier is pretty clear – that Elim church has a moral obligation to return that money to the disabled man, and to establish systems to ensure that the likelihood of this sort of occurrence is reduced in future.

I also believe that they have an obligation to provide for the needs of their disabled congregant, and if they don’t do this then they are clearly violating the words of Christ in the parable of the sheep and the goats:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left…

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life”

Matthew 25:31-46

Jun

The veneer of civility

By James the Least 1 Comment

Categories: Being Frank...

I was listening to the latest episode of the 15th Station podcast where the team were talking about the recent lectures in NZ by Jason Evert. He had a great line explaining that in dealing with “Victorian prudishness”, the sexual revolutionaries had gone to far and have swung the pendulum “from shamefulness to shamelessness.” And that got me thinking about “shame”, and whether it makes us as a society look to change our behaviour, or just sweep things under the rug.

Recently, I had a chance to study the American culture up close and personal. Those of you who have travelled to the States may already be aware of this, but when you watch public-access American TV – i.e. the stuff you don’t have to pay for – you won’t hear any swearing (or “cussin’” as the locals say), nor will you see any nudity. On most channels, in fact, you won’t even see a lot of brutal violence – with some exceptions – and movies on public-access channels are edited, cut and dubbed over (sometimes with hilarious results!)

When I first noticed this in the States, I personally found it very surprising. Thinking about it, entertainment, movies, TV shows, music etc. are one of America’s largest exports to the “Western world” which includes New Zealand in many instances. So, when I think of all the violence, and nudity and blue language I have ever see or heard on TV or at the movies, more often than not it has been American actors, directors, artists and/or screenwriters that have provided that. Yet, it isn’t available to Americans?

I need not have worried on that last point, because Americans certainly do not actually suffer a lack of exposure to such things. They simply need to pay for cable TV, or pay to go to the movies, or pay for internet access and they have the same (and more) access to the same questionable material that is thrust upon Kiwis and other countries. The difference here is put across as a philosophical one – when really it is more of a token one – and is that a member of the public should be able to go about their lives watching TV etc. without having the aforementioned violence/cussin’/nudity forced upon them. They should have to make the choice to consume such media, at which point it is more than readily available. But until that choice is made, the airwaves and the radiowaves (and whatever other kinds of waves) belong to the public and the public good should be protected.

This is why Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” caused such a furore – not because of the level of the nudity (barely anything by true American standards) but the fact that it was broadcast live, to millions, on public TV without them being provided the opportunity to choose whether to see it or not.

On the face of it, this might sound like a good thing – especially to those who have to suffer through pretty shocking garbage on local NZ TV…often times only to be told by the BSA that it’s not offensive to have such things in the public eye early in the evening! But really it just strikes me as unbelievably fake. It’s not dealing with the problem of the nature of the content, but rather it is like laying a veneer laid over the true depravity and debauchery produced by the American media industry – a veneer so thin, it takes only seconds to pierce or break and is more full of holes than the proverbial cheese from Switzerland. But it is there. And many Americans seem to go about their daily lives all knowing that it is there, but pretending that there is nothing behind it.

Why do they do this? Is it denial? Refusing to accept that their not-so-gradual cultural degradation is as plain as the stripes on their flag, and is something they are sharing with the rest of the world at a somewhat alarming rate? Or, as an American friend of mine put forward, is it repression? A hangover from their puritan Christian history where anything relating to such things was overly taboo and rejected…but still secretly sought after?

Or maybe it is just a misguided attempt to protect the children from seeing smut and violence? I say misguided because it is about as effective as protecting your skin from the rays of the sun by using a one of those cocktail drink mini-umbrellas! :) It’s a sheer numbers game: the increasing majority of all entertainment now has to be bleeped or edited on the public air because of the actual true content.

I guess that any of these is easier than the solution, which I think must look to be far too difficult: just tone down the smut and garbage that is in the media to begin with! Make better product that doesn’t need to be edited for delicate sensitivities. But instead, when you remove the veneer, what is revealed is the product of a shameless, vice-ridden approach to entertainment and “culture” – and they don’t seem to want to even admit that, let alone get rid of it!

And I think that’s a shame.

Jun

Goodbye everyone

By eyeWitness 7 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Well this is my last post on this blog – to be replaced by another exciting blogger next week I’m told! I have been writing on this blog for over three years now. Funny how time flies when you’re having fun. I am told by our tech people that the majority of people who read this don’t comment so it’s hard to know exactly who you are! But I hope that I have in some way aided your thinking about life and all its issues.

I have changed a fair bit over the last three years. To be very honest with you, I started off being more than a little sceptical about the Catholic Church. I had a staunchly Protestant boyfriend when I started writing on this blog and dating him was the first time in my life that I was really forced to think about what being Catholic means or for that matter why I even believe in God at all. Breaking up with him catapoulted me into a state where I wanted to know exactly what I believed before I went out with anyone else. So I investigated the Catholic Church a lot and have since learned a lot! However, finally being sure was more through God leading me (in ways that are a bit hard to explain here) than all the reasoning in the world that I could ever have done on my own – although believe me I tried!

To be very very honest (and risk ridicule!), I had this funny idea at the time that deciding to be Catholic meant that I might never be able to get married because it would be too hard to meet a Catholic boy that I liked. So in a way that was part of the hardness of deciding to be Catholic, rather than just Christian (call me shallow or short sighted but it seemed very concerning at the time!). The Catholic Church also seemed a lot less ‘fun’ to me as many of my friends were Protestant and I could go to Church with them but I had no-one to go to a Catholic Church with; something which also seemed hard at that time. As it turned out, I couldn’t run away from what I found to be truth. But it seems from my experience that once you decide to do something for God He will do so much more for you. My boyfriend now converted to being Catholic (but for his genuine belief in the Church, not me – and he obviously talked and learnt from people much more knowledgable than me before deciding!). So, in my humble opinion, that shows what God can do. Our minds are so limited and His possibilities are so endless because He knows us much better than we know ourselves.

Anyway, I’m sure life has also tested your faith in different ways too and will continue to do so. Hopefully the weekend’s sport isn’t one of them if you happen to be German or Welsh or Italian by birth or fan club… I wish you all the very best.

Jun

“The communion of saints…”

By Voice in the wilderness 11 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

When I was doing confirmation classes about 10 odd years ago, they asked us to think about one thing we could relate to in the Apostles Creed. For some reason the communion of saints always appealed to me. The notion of eternal life is spread throughout many myths and legends and almost all religions. That tells me that there is something deeply in our humanity when it comes to knowing that we are made for more than this world.

Christians are called to look beyond this world. To be in the world, but not of it. We are made for eternal life in heaven, and that is why it is important to have friends in high places, as it were. When we look to Christ, in order to imitate Him, we see that he was very much in the world, ministering and being present to all those who needed him. However, as we often see in visual representations of him like paintings, his gaze is directed upwards. To heaven. This is where our gaze must be focussed also. Metaphorically obviously!! Otherwise we would probably be tripping up all day!

In the last couple of years I have been drawn to a few saints in particular. I have asked their intercession and been inspired by their lives. They include; St John the Baptist, St Therese of Lisieux, St Gianna Beretta Molla, Blessed Pier Giorgio, St Michael the Archangel and many others. It would be good for people to talk about their favourite saints in the comments below. And if you don’t have one, get googling!

Jun

“It’s all here – fast-kicking, low scoring, and ties? You bet!”

By Methuselah's Beard 4 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Congratulations to the All Whites for gaining NZ’s historic first ever point at the World Cup! Although I’ve never seen such celebrations over a failure to win, I think in this instance it can be forgiven. Ok so what if Winston Reid plays in Denmark, has lived there since he was 10 or so, and only really met his teammates a month or so ago. He’s as kiwi as the next guy on the team – that dude that plays in England.

I’ve liked watching the WC so far. Sure some of the games haven’t lived up to the billing and people may think it’s dull on occassion, but I love it. I love watching the excitment of the fans, I love it when the unfancied teams do well, and I love being in a football mad country during the WC. It’s great for Africa that the WC is being held there. Now all the wealth generated from this event will go towards helping the continent get back on its feet. Maybe we’ll even start to see fair and equitable treatment of all people in Africa. I have to wonder though, the WC surely is a prime target for those wishing to cause mischief. Especially being in Africa where you can imagine security might not be as tough as in say Europe or America. But nothing yet which is great. Maybe old OBL is actually holed up in some American prison, or maybe he’s already dead. And maybe all his video appearances since are all a fabrication of the US government to give them a legitimate reason to be in the Middle East, attempting to stabilise the region, and securing an oil supply. I think there’s a movie in this for Oliver Stone.

I’m sure I’ve already mentioned this before, but the British Museum has a brilliant ongoing exhibition on a history of the world told in 100 objects. I can imagine it’s quite hard choosing these 100 objects, but the ones chosen (that I have seen) really do highlight what an amazing history us humans have had and what great things our forebears did. How did they ever get by without the knowledge of the Catholic Church.

Jun

Going Gaga over Lady Gaga.

By Filia Day 7 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Yes, I’ve stolen this title off another blogger. Why? Because it is the most appropriate, I feel. I’m completely intrigued by this woman, not that I’m a fan or anything but I don’t think that people take her as seriously as they should. I’ve always said there was something peculiarly sinister about her. While her tunes are catchy, and she been championed as an avant garde musician and artist par excellence, I don’t think she particularly revolutionary in any positive way. I’ve personally boycotted her music because no matter how innocent the lyrics (in some of her songs, anyway) she is detrimental to any feminist agenda seeking to advance the women’s movement and the dignity of the human person. As many of you know, I’ve always had a strong association with feminism. The women’s movement has fought hard to be taken seriously, striving to build a culture of equality with men in the workplace, and in the public sphere (more generally). My own person believes are rooted in a feminism that espouses a need for strong, capable, intelligent women of character to contribute their talents to their families and society. Lady Gaga, on the other hand, appears to tragically embody a type of third-wave feminism, with its emphasis on sexual exploits and exhibitionism, and inevitably self-objectification. I’m sorry Ms Gaga but my feeling is that women don’t need to take their clothes off or be freakish (her self-description, not mine) to get recognised. Spectacle is not where you are going to find freedom and neither is it where you are going to find happiness.

On Tuesday night my friend, and fellow feminist, expressed her own disgust at Lady Gaga’s new video, which is a blatant attack on the Catholic Church. In the video she is dancing around in a lycra nun outfit, sucking on rosary beads and placing a crucifix in a highly offensive position on her body. Clearly, she’s not the most prudent of women but what gives her the right to use objects that are sacred to billions of people around the world in such a profane manner? I mean if she’d done it to a company, she would have been sued for millions for defamation. If she done it to Islam, she’d probably be dead.