Review of a book Parramatta River Talks

As last calendar year came to a conclusion I read a novel, The Last Ten Seconds, that was full of error. It was a crime novel. The best of the errors had the main character 'whispering determinedly'. That's like saying 'yelling passively' or 'singing silently'.

Then along comes 'Parramatta River Talks' by Ana Calero. The novel is a family saga from early colonisation of Sydney through to 1957. The reader follows the lives of the O'Grady family.

I enjoyed the novel. The novels worth is in its illustration of the importance of the river to the people of Parramatta. The author offers a valuable account of how the river was vital to both white settlers from England and the aboriginal Australians. 

Indeed, the novel is timely to a campaign to make Paramatta River swimmable again. 

Where he crime novel's various errors were largely at the end of the novel, 'Parramatta River Talks' gets off to a good start on the front cover. For the by-line has one too many words:

Error 1; front cover, delete the word 'for': "The rich and involving saga of a river and the O'Grady family over for four generations".    

And, the errors continue: Error 2; page 5, delete 'mean' and substitute in 'man': "The old mean looked at the river ..."

Error 3; page 8, misspelling of 'and': "After Arafura ad Colebee, had seen..." 

Error 4; page 99, misspelling of 'inclined': "not that I am being racist but because of what was taken I am inclines to believe..."

Error 5; page 99, a dog which is firstly referred to as 'he' is then reduced to 'it': "The saw 'Jumper' the dog as he lay still and quietly behind the wall of the barn. As they looked closer, they realised it was not dead".

Error 6; page 99 from within the same text immediately above where "still and quietly" mixes an adjective and an adverb where two adjectives should have been used: "still and quiet".

Error 7 and 8; page 100 where 'guest' should be the plural 'guests' and a comma should follow 'children'. So: "The guest, including the children danced all night long" should be: "The guests, including the children, danced all night long".

I do not wish to list more than eight errors yet there is one sentence that warrants a mention. I'll leave my reader to spot and count the errors, from page 104:

"Without having announced to the family of the death, he just appeared, and without much preamble, told the family in a few words of the Cholera, deaths, asked to have the coffins buried at the family cemetery." 

Shalom,

Ozhamada

#parramatta #book #reading #read #crime #agreatread #books #sydney #aboriginal #Spelling #Correction

Skip watching

“I too have been tempted to simply skip watching.”

I’ve exchanged emails and Facebook posts with a USA based minister friend about his experience with online church. He has been very careful with his online COVID19 Sunday service as he is aware that media is not neutral. He is afraid that he is Netflixing his congregants.

The notion that the media is not neutral – that people do not adequately distinguish that they are watching church when on the same device they view a Batman movie – is a genuine threat. It was recognised by a media ecologist Neil Postman in a credible book “Amusing Ourselves to Death”. Postman predicted that television would be so persuasive that other presentation forms would gravitate towards television formats.

Postman would not have predicted that a Sydney Anglican Senior Minister Netflixed himself to the point where he was tempted to find an alternative to his own service (per the quote above, an email to parishioners: "Church COVID19 Update", 17 July 2020).

Which brings me to examine some statistics of a single church’s experience of viewer count over the COVID-19 period. LCM Churches on Sydney’s leafy North Shore established a Youtube channel and have published weekly online service offerings. The feed commences on 22 March 2020 with a Youtube recording of a livestream service and runs continuously to the Sunday prior to my writing of this post. The services are currently scheduled to continue as online services.

LCM Churches Youtube channel banner

Here is a table of Youtube views in reverse order:

And, then in graphical form through to most current date:

Now, I’ve applied a few tricks of the statistical trade in producing that table. So, 29 March and 5 April were offered as two services and I’ve added the view count of the two services together. For 12 April, which was Easter Sunday, I’ve taken Good Friday’s count which was slightly higher than Easter Sunday.

I thought of applying a factor to the view count. So, for instance, one could assume that in some households five persons (mum, dad and three children) were gathered together to watch. The problem with applying such a factor is that there needs to be allowance for multiple views and for those who click and do not watch the whole show. So, the Youtube count is probably indicative even though it is not true.

What the statistics say is this….while there has been a decline from the highpoint of 29 March [on 22 March people were watching live and their views are not counted so 29 March is the best indication of initial audience] the decline has stabilised by July 2020. Approximately 70% have abandoned their viewing.

In the first instance I’m not disturbed by the decline in viewing. I think that the decline in viewing is a secondary issue to the problem of Netflixing people and completely changing their expectation of church. Such people will return to physical attendance church with a changed view of church.

And, they are likely to be disappointed.

As Postman recognised each new media has changed consumption demands; telegraph>newspaper, newspaper>radio, radio>television, television>internet streaming. A church that does not change with its people will genuinely feel the effects of decline as people drift either away from church or to more engaging church offerings.

Shalom,
Ozhamada

[579 words]

Edible weed: Acetosa sagittata or Turkey Rhubarb

A common garden weed is edible and nutritous. Some weeds have been found to be more fully packed with vitamins and minerals that supermarket purchased greens.

Turkey Rhubarb is a pest. It is fast growing and it rapidly reproduces after sprouting multiple seeds. I am fortunate to have none of it growing in my own garden yet a neighbour willingly shares. The plant grows from a tuber the size of a small potato. The plant is cultivated in Indonesia. Given a chance the vine will climb to about four metres height within an adjacent tree.

The youngest leaves at the growing tip are the tastiest. Break these away from the stalk and place in hot boiling water until all leaves are wilted. Serve with a little butter and salt to taste. The leaves have a pleasant lemony flavour. Herbie's Spices Native Lemon Pepper adds nicely to the taste.

As the plant is fast growing you will be able to harvest much. Regular picking tends to keep the plant from going to seed so that is a good way of controlling spread of the plant. The plant can be grown in a pot.

Shalom,
Ozhamada
#foraging #wildfood

Review of an Australian novel; Damascus, published 2019

Keeping with a theme of reading Australian literature that includes main characters that are clergy, a theme that I commenced in 2018 with Tim Winton in The Shepherd's Hut and Chris Hammer in Scrublands, I’ve just read Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas. Reviews of the earlier two books are linked here and here.

The good

Tsiolkas brings colour to much of the environment of the early church; the gatherings in homes, the sharing of possessions, the common meals, the level-playing field between slave and freeman, and the welcoming of Christians that have travelled from afar. The novel does well in portraying Saul’s doubts as he awakens in a home in Damascus after the experience on the road. It also brilliantly depicts the relationship in Ephesus that Timothy, as head of the Christian church in that town, had with a priestess of a pagan temple. Lydia’s coming to faith – her doubts finally cast aside – is one of the highlights early in the novel.

I found it interesting that Tsiolkas considered Timothy’s circumcision. An act completed by Paul (Acts 16:1-3). The tension among other Christians associated with the act – as to whether Jesus Christ would have sought the act to occur – is played out well.

It was also noteworthy that Tsiolkas considered the “messiness” of the early church. By this I refer to how there was some degree of disorder in the church as each apostle (and apostle understudy) went about the pattern of shaping conduct of the church.

The bad

The novel has an unfortunate fascination with bodily fluids and bodily bits.

The ugly

There are some notable deviations from Scripture; that Jesus had a twin brother, and that Lydia came to faith independent of the balance of her family – contra Acts 16:11-15 (her husband largely ignorant of Lydia’s new life).

That Jesus Christ had a twin brother - who logically must have been conceived also by the Holy Spirit – presents some questions. The twin is depicted in the novel as having neither divinity or full standing in the church.

I rated the novel five stars on Goodreads despite reservations as to its difference from Scripture. One must appreciate that a novelist will always add through poetic license. It is unfortunate that some wonderful truths are mixed with some misdirection. The writing style alone ranks five stars.

I borrowed Damascus from City of Sydney Library. This post links from Goodreads.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

[389 words] #agreatread #books #cityofsydney #library #goodreads #amazon #readAustralian

What will we do about Kevin?

Christian legal academic Neil Foster writing for Eternity News in an article: “The prayer puzzle: will 'conversion therapy' laws ban Christian teaching?” opened the door to consideration of a possible bind that the Sydney Anglicans have waltzed into.

To consider that bind we need to understand the case study that Foster published and then consider the possible Sydney Anglican response to such a case study.

Case study

Foster’s excellent article considers whether Christian teaching and practice will fall foul of proposed legislation. Foster introduces a case study as a way of testing draft legislation. Fundamental to the study is a person approaching the church willingly and knowingly:

“Suppose there is a devout Christian person who accepts the Bible’s teaching that same-sex sexual activity is not God’s will, and yet experiences same-sex attraction. They approach their pastor or their small group leader and ask for help to overcome what they see as a sinful attraction, by reading the Bible with them, counselling and regular meetings for prayer. Is that going to be caught by legislation?”

For convenience let’s put a name to the person of the case study. His name is Kevin. What will we do about Kevin?

 

Caption: a stock photo of a man from pexels.com which is used free and unattributable.
There is no interest, nor intent, to associate anything in this post with the particular man in the image.
The man is unknown to me.

Kevin you’ll note does not split hairs as to homosexuality. Kevin does not differ same-sex attraction from homosexuality. To Kevin, same-sex attraction is “same-sex sexual activity” or homosexuality. This stems from Kevin's excellent comprehension of the Bible (with perhaps particular focus on Matthew 5:27-28).

Kevin doesn’t split-hairs when it comes to sin. Kevin is pursuing holiness, he knows his stuff about sanctification and he knows that Jesus can make him whole. Kevin does not recognise with “brokenness”, but sin.

For avoidance of doubt we at this point leave Foster’s fine article. Only the case study is relevant here.

Possible Sydney Anglican response

I have documented elsewhere that Sydney Anglicans placed visiting British minister Ed Shaw at the lectern to share his message of inclusion. That message is perhaps summarised by the title of Shaw’s Sydney youth event: "Jesus is great news for a rainbow world". By extension of how Shaw has made a ministry of same-sex attraction, as one who admits to experiencing same-sex attraction, one concludes that Shaw does not see same-sex attraction as sinful.

To which you need to understand some of the colourful mental gymnastics. Same-sex attraction is cleaved from same-sex orientation. Same-sex attraction is not said to be sin per se but the result of sin. The reformed tradition of recognising both the desire and physical action are both from the heart is dismissed. Lots is said, with much spinning of wheels, to not recognise same-sex orientation or same-sex attraction as homosexuality. The church is playing games.

For convenience, and to illuminate the bind that the Sydney Anglicans have waltzed into, let’s name the Sydney Anglicans who so warmly welcomed Shaw, and willingly put themselves under his teaching, as Shaw-ites.

The bind

So, Kevin approaches a Shaw-ite – a minister in a Sydney Anglican church. Here is how the conversation possibly runs:

Kevin: “I am as a devout Christian person who accepts the Bible’s teaching that same-sex sexual activity is not God’s will, and yet I experience same-sex attraction. Could you please assist me to overcome what I see as a sinful attraction? I would appreciate your help in reading the Bible with me, arranging counselling and meeting regularly for prayer.”

Shaw-ite: “Ha ha ha, my dear boy, you are so confused. You are not sinning. I welcomed that lovely Ed Shaw chap the other day and while he was same-sex attracted, I recognised that he was merely experiencing brokenness.”

Kevin: “So I will not be blotted out of the book of life that I cannot keep my eyes off your adult son?”

Shaw-ite: “Ha ha ha, my dear boy, in respect to the concept of sin, it is one thing to be attracted to another person, and altogether another thing to act upon that attraction. Although, please do direct your lustful eyes to someone other than a member of my household.

By-the-way Kevin please consider taking up the late-teens youth group leadership opportunity I offered you the other day (Note 1) – those boys are often very confused as to their sexuality”.

Do you get the drift here?

Are you willing to tell Kevin that he is not in sin (where there is much pastoral satisfaction that Kevin has first self-identified his sin – Luke 15:21)?

To which there is the matching question: Are you willing to place Kevin so that he is set into his sin?

So, we have a problem with Kevin. 

But is not really a problem with Kevin is it? It is a problem that has its base in not calling out sin.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

[813 words] #fallacy #ignorance #inclusion #humansexuality #sin #SSM #homosexual #Sydney #livingout 

 #samesexattraction #chastity #bible

Note 1: the notion of Kevin leading a youth group comes from the seventh statement of the Living Out audit tool (as linked).

Note 2: This wonderful article continues the theme of the troubles of brokenness theology.