papermind » Random

Freshlyground: Chicken for Change

papermind — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 02:42:49 +0000

It’s been a long time since I heard a genuinely great protest song: Freshlyground deliver.
They just had their work permits for Zimbabwe revoked.

An Impeccably Renovated Terrace

papermind — Sat, 02 May 2009 07:36:10 +0000

In the course of this post it is quite likely that I will commit the ‘etymological fallacy’. I’m just warning you now in case there are any young children around and you want to avert their eyes.
[The etymological fallacy is when someone argues from the origins of a particular word to a conclusion about its present meaning. This fails to take seriously that what we mean by a word is primarily governed by its usage in our speaking context. Committing the etymological fallacy is the theological equivalent of walking around with no pants...]

The Real Estate Agent who put up this sign (see pic) obviously thought there was a good chance of this rental property making it into God’s New Creation.
Notice the subtitle: ‘IMPECCABLY RENOVATED terrace”.
I would even venture to say that maybe this Agent has theological students in mind for prospective tenants. I don’t think you could have picked out a set of adjectives with a better theological pedigree.
My dictionary tells me that the word ‘impeccable‘ comes from the Latin ‘impeccabilis‘ – a term coined during the Reformation meaning ‘not liable to sin’.
The word renovate comes from the Latin verb renovare also from the time of the Reformation meaning to ‘make new again‘.

An impeccable renovation is precisely what God is planning to do with us and his world. He will sinlessly renew it. Wonderful!

Interestingly, the term ‘terrace’ can also trace its roots back to the Latin ‘terra’ meaning ‘earth’. Which would suggest that this Real Estate Agent was being Seriously (unintentionally?) Profound. Spooky.

Sadly however, in this case the term ‘terrace’ probably comes from the Old French (also from the time of the Reformation) literally meaning ‘rubble‘ or ‘platform‘.
Maybe the Agent was revealing a little too much about the state of the house?

Nice One Karl!

papermind — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:13:28 +0000

Capitalism has a sad reputation for being completely self-interested, exploitative, and not-a-little seedy. Frankly, I don’t know why…
But in the interests of righting a perceived wrong, and in light of the current ruminations regarding The Failure Of Capitalism. I thought it meet, right and my bounden duty to design a tribute poster for Uncle Karl. If you like, for a small fee I could print it on a t-shirt for you.
It’s part of my autumn Yay for Communism! collection.

How perfumes work

papermind — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:14:54 +0000

Scientific reasons not to buy my wife perfume for Christmas.
I love science…

How perfumes work | The scent of a man | The Economist

Beginning with Gender

papermind — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:27:19 +0000

Why is most conservative theology of Gender carried out only with reference to the Doctrine of Creation?
Actually, that’s being too kind – it’s not carried out with reference to the Doctrine of Creation – it’s carried out as though it were Natural Theology (i.e., abstracted from ‘observable reality’).

Here are two questions that should not be by-passed:
How do we know our Gender through Christ (who reveals God to us, and us to ourselves)?
What difference does the Cross (where we know Christ) make to Christian thinking about Gender?

I’ve been stewing over this for a while. More thoughts to come.

Yom Kippur

papermind — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:21:48 +0000

Yom Kippur begins this evening. There was an interesting opinion piece in the Herald about it today.

Fifty sins to get off your chest: the guilt trip with a happy ending – Opinion

Now the Messiah has appeared, high priest of the good things that have come. In the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this creation), He entered the holy of holies once for all, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of the Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:11-14 HCSB)

Heaving lifting for The Lost

papermind — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:00:52 +0000

The October edition of Southern Cross (Sydney’s Anglican Newspaper) arrived yesterday – the cover story is a rev up for Connect 09 (the diocesan mission focus next year). The headline reads “C09: Hard Work Begins Now” and the byline, “As this month’s Sydney Diocesan Synod gears up for 2009′s Connect campaign, your church will be asked to start the real heavy lifting for the lost.” [italics mine].
Ouch! Probably should have thought that through before sending it out into the most pugilistic and theologically alert Anglican Diocese in the world. The problem is with the words ‘start’ and ‘real’. Surely Jesus started (and perfected) the real heavy lifting for the lost? And he didn’t use a Renta-Crane from Coates Hire – nice bit of product placement.
It’s pretty clear what is intended by the text, and normally I’d let stuff like that go through to the keeper. But Anglicans love getting the words right. It would be a shame to deprive them of a bun fight when they leave perfectly good buns just lying around.

Church may profit from doom – smh.com.au

papermind — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:55:43 +0000

Church may profit from doom – National – smh.com.au

I love the complete lack of awareness that the person who formulated the headline had of the content of the article.
More to the point, are the Uniting Church admitting defeat? The temptation for hardline evangelicals will be to point to this story as evidence of the failure of Uniting Church liberalism. Are all those empty buildings as stories of failed ministry?
Or are they the only ones who have got something crucially right? The strength of evangelicalism can so easily be domesticated.

Wing and a Prayer

papermind — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:03:18 +0000

We’re on holidays in Byron Bay! A poetical destination – quite a lot of the streets near where we are staying are named after poets. This is weird because after having worked constantly for several days on an essay the only thing I felt like reading was poetry. Poetry requires a different, less violent, mode of reading. I’ve been slowly working through an anthology edited by Harold Bloom and I’m up to a section on George Herbert. Herbert was one of the handful of genuinely great English devotional poets. This is a sonnet called ‘Prayer’ that I read on the aeroplane:

PRAYER the Church’s banquet, Angels’ age,
God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth;
Engine against the Almightie, sinners’ tower,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-day’s-world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well dressed,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
The land of spices; something understood.

The Bradman of History or The Don of Faith?

papermind — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:41:04 +0000

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Don Bradman.
Recently, critical scholars have begun to question the historical reliability to some of our sources for the life of The Don – a few have even gone so far as to suggest that he may never have really existed. Other’s have piously suggested that we can never go beyond the presentation of The Don through the sport’s journalism and commentary of later ages, we are left with an unbridgeable gap between the Bradman of History and The Don of Faith.

Certainly, there appears to be a layer of ‘myth’ superimposed over the historical framework of his life, batting, and wickets. The modern cricketer finds it incredible to conceive of the young Bradman hitting golf balls against a rain-water tank with a cricket stump. Yet, I think we may agree that there is a firm historical foundation for the traditional life of The Don.

However, far more than in the mere historical details – his birth in Cootamundra (an obscure region of NSW); upbringing in Bowral; persecution by the Poms during the ‘Bodyline’ Series; and famously, the triumph of the ‘Invincibles’ Series – the truth of The Don lies in what he means for us.

The real and enduring power of The Don lies in his ability to bring us together, to triumph against those who had formerly held us in servitude, to expose their emptiness and futility, and to demonstrate a new way of being Australian.

The evidence of this is in our lives.

Yep, the virtues of The Don are basically the only thing I ever agreed with John Howard about. Check out the cartoon by Nicholson.