As you may be aware, the season of Lent begins this Wednesday. We in the Evangelical church generally tend to avoid (or at least downplay) the observance of Lent, probably because it is considered too liturgical, tradition-bound and “high-churchy” if you will for our tastes. However, while I can certainly sympathize with some of these concerns about “going through the motions” in worship, I can’t help but wonder whether we are really missing out on something. Lent runs for 40 days (not counting Sundays, which are reserved for celebrating Jesus’ resurrection) from Ash Wednesday (March 1) until the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, echoing Jesus’ withdrawl into the wilderness for 40 days. The general point of Lent is to observe a season of preparation for both mourning the death and rejoicing in the resurrection of Jesus at Easter. As such, it’s intended as a season of soul-searching, repentance, reflection, and taking stock of our relationship with God. In our world where there’s so much to distract us from God, it seems to me that that intentionally setting aside even a few minutes a day during Lent to surrender ourselves to God’s will in a very real way (or, said another way, approach God in sackcloth as sinners undeserving of God’s grace but granted it regardless) is an idea well worthy of our consideration. Sometimes church traditions aren’t all bad.
Read more about Lent here or read a Lent devotional guide (prepared by an Anglican diocese but quite thought-provoking) here. Devotional guides for Lent are also avaliable at Philpott between services for $1.
We’ve been dealing with some pretty heavy issues on the blog recently… time for a little levity I would say. Now that the Olympics had made us all patriotic and fuzzy inside, and with the next Olympics in Vancouver, this has been making the rounds. These are all questions about Canada which were asked in a forum on an International Tourism Website - the answers are, obviously, a little tongue-in-cheek from a Canadian.
Q: I have never seen it warm on TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK) A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.
Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street? (USA) A: Depends how much you’ve been drinking.
Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto - can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden) A: Sure, it’s only four thousand miles, take lots of water.
Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Canada? Can you send me a list of them in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Halifax? (UK) A: What did your last slave die of?
Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Canada? (USA) A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe. Ca-na-da is that big country to your north … oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Calgary.
Q: Which direction is north in Canada? (USA) A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we’ll send the rest of the directions.
Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada? (UK) A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.
Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys’ Choir schedule? (USA) A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is.. oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Vancouver and in Calgary, straight after the hippo races.
Q: Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada? (USA) A: Only at Thanksgiving.
Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milk available all year round? (Germany) A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter gatherers. Milk is illegal.
Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Canada who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA) A: All Canadian rattlesnakes are perfectly harmless, and can be safely handled and make good pets.
Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada, but I forget its name. It’s a kind of big horse with horns. (USA) A: It’s called a Moose. They are tall and very violent, eating the brains of anyone walking close to them.
Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA) A: Yes, but you will have to learn it first.
This is a nice, indeed brief summary of some of the seminal events in Western society which have shifted our perspective toward the fully secular viewpoint of today. A couple of quotes I particularly found interesting:
“In contemporary North America and Western Europe, there are countless examples of blasphemy, variously defined as the gross contempt of God or irreverence toward the sacred. But instead of eliciting shock, nowadays it works to establish cultural cred” […]
“The Danish cartoons have sparked huge protests, attacks, fires and deaths in the Middle East. Blasphemy, these protesters are saying, is still a cardinal sin. But (Munir) Jiwa (a Canadian anthropologist) says the debate has turned to the inappropriateness of the reaction itself. Once again, the secular bias is winning out. He wonders whether it’s a dangerous path. “What kind of society are you building if you have the right to offend and to hate?” he asks. “What kind of society do you want to build just to prove you have the right to offend someone and then knowingly do so? What kind of democracy is that? How do you hold on to things like respect for others, dignity, and pluralism? “And,” he warns, “what happens next? If you’re going to push this, and religion is not going to go away, then what?”“
As a bit of an addendum to my last post, if you want to get a better understanding of what’s going on with the cartoon controversy, here are a few stories you should check out:
All these articles are written by Muslims living in either Europe or Canada and cover a range of Muslim perspectives on the cartoon controversy. The major thing I learned to put this into perspective: Islam actually forbids two- or three-dimensional images of any of their prophets, including Muhammad, Moses, Abraham and… Jesus. That fact alone puts the response and the concern about religious insult in the media into a very different light in my mind. Anyway, I think this is fairly important reading to better understand what exactly is happening in our world right now.
If you have been paying attention to the news over the past week, you will have heard about the controversy that has erupted over the decision of a Danish newspaper to commission and print cartoons depicting the Islam prophet Mohammed in graphic form (in and of itself, banned by convention in Islam). One cartoon in particular featured Mohammed with a bomb in his turban — clearly, and quite understandably, an extremely offensive image to Muslims. In response, some Muslim countries have responded by beginning trade embargos against Danish products, torching Danish embassies (as well as other countries whose newspapers reprinted the cartoons) and threatening the newspaper editors with death. Most of the debate has focused on whether free speech or tolerance should win out in making decisions regarding what to print… a tough call where I can very much see both sides of the issue. However, the larger issue here to me is how people of faith should (or, indeed, must) respond when something happens that is a huge affront to their beliefs. There is no shortage of examples of things we might get offended by… from people taking Jesus’ name in vain daily around us to unflattering portrayals of Christ in movies (think The Last Temptation of Christ, in which Jesus was portrayed “as a confused possibly demonic shaman who is perverse in morals and probably bi-polar in today’s terminology” ) to more overt provocations like this Onion article (a remarkably similar situation to the Mohammed cartoons in that a satirical eye is cast toward an issue, leading to mockery of the primary personality associated with the religion). I think we can all agree that firebombing offices and issuing death threats is not the answer here… however, what is? There are, of course, Christian organizations (particularly in the United States) which are very vocal in protesting the lack of “morality” and “Christian values” in movies and television… often simply serving to draw even more curious attention toward the films and shows they are trying to suppress (seems kind of counter-productive). There’s also the perspective of turning the other cheek — think Matthew 5:11-12, a sentiment expressed well (along with a somewhat opposing viewpoint) on this discussion board. I’m not sure there’s a “right” answer and, of course, the response will almost invariably be contextual according to the actual issue in question or even the exact situation where a particular offense happens. Take for instance this pro/con argument on the blasphemy example (from the discussion board linked above) - it’s bad grammar but an interesting thought:
Also, do you think a Christian should and if yes, how should a Christian respond to Jesus name being used in a blasphemous way or people asking God to damn something or someone ? I have felt sadden when I hear it but then have bit my tongue to not respond as I consider that this is just a manifestation of a sinful nature that disregards the holiness and justice of God. To interject when someone blasphemes and say something like ’ O Jesus Christ, He is my Saviour’, or something to this effect can really embarrass the person that may not even be aware that they are using the Lord’s name in their expression. To me, it is just a reminder of how Satan uses people to get back at God. On the other hand, we might be glad we stepped out and embarrassed someone to open up a presentation of the gospel.
I would tend to say nothing in that situation, where as in the case of the Onion article, I tend to just shake my head (while even half-way acknowledging that some legitimate hypocrisy has been aptly pointed out) and move on. Perhaps it’s the right response; perhaps it’s just a malaise stemming from our weariness about seeing and hearing these things so often that they become “the norm” even though they really shouldn’t. What do you think?
Some of you may be interested in the text of Bono’s address at the recent National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC. He deals with a variety of issues, including the Millenium Development Goals, the concept of Jubilee, poverty reduction, social justice… all things we’ve talked about recently at Oxygen. The transcript can be found at:
This is an interesting article in light of both the money conversations we’ve had in the last three weeks and the “standing in the gap” mercy conversations we are now having:
This is a really relevant opinion piece by somebody who was once on the “poor” side of our society which gives some concrete experience regarding what approaches work best for practically doing justice — food for thought for our “homework” this week, thinking how best to respond to the panhandlers outside our church on Sunday. Here’s the non-controversial part I found particularly interesting — particularly as we as a group, a church, and a broader Christian community debate how to advocate for justice (or money management/economics, as the author uses as his case study) to achieve real changes:
“I had a lot of support from family and friends, yet it took a long time to learn what I know now about finances. Now add issues like education, employment, and marriage. There is no way around these basic life skills if a person is ever to escape poverty. The investment needed is long, sacrificial, and, frankly, tedious. Doing justice by walking alongside people as they develop critical life skills is not exciting. Protesting on Wall Street against globalization is exciting. Getting arrested at the courthouse is exciting. Filling the National Mall with hundreds of thousands of people is exciting. But staying proximate to people as they learn lessons they should have learned years ago? When’s the last time you saw that on CNN?”
So… should we as Christians be involved in these types of protests and political movements or devote that time and those resources to helping somebody individually? Hmm… it’s a question I would have answered much more readily a year or so ago, but now I’m not so sure.
And now, the little bit more controversial part - the idea of mutual accountability being absolutely required in order to truly help somebody in a dignified way:
“It’s not just justice workers who need to accept responsibility for investing in the skills of the poor. The poor themselves must realize their capacity to overcome poverty.”
There are a couple of examples in the article which give a nice explanation of this idea of applying the concept of accountability to our individual mercy missions — you definitely should take a minute to read them. It is slightly challenging toward our idealized concept of mercy being something totally undeserved, but I would agree with the author that we need to primarily focus our energies on making investments in people (perhaps monetary, perhaps something as simple as showing somebody how to write a budget) which at least have a chance to make real changes in the lives, hopes, and perspectives of the poor. It’s interesting to think that, at times, giving somebody a blind handout can be the most unmerciful thing we can possibly do.
Here is something practical that we can do which doesn’t require too much effort on our part. A lot of the banks offer credit cards that support different organizations by financially contributing based on a percentage of our spending or a fixed amount per transaction.
Given my personal experience, I am most familiar with BMO’s Affinity Mosaik program. If you are familiar with the Mosaik program, it offers all the standard rewards (Air Miles/Cashback), but also makes a contribution to the affiliated organization on top of that. A number of different organizations that are supported include the Canadian Red Cross, Cancer Research Society, and Community Living to name a few. BMO doesn’t actively advertise this program on their website, but you can find more information with a google search or calling them directly. They don’t publish the actual amount that they contribute, and the BMO representative that I talked to didn’t seem to know, but digging through the web it seems 0.25% of purchases is contributed through this program. Percentage wise not a whole lot, but still better than nothing, and given enough people this can actually turn out to be a significant dollar figure.
Citizens Bank also has a similar program, which gives you the option of supporting Amnesty International, Oxfam Canada, or Shared Interests - a collection of different nonprofit organizations based on a vote of all members in the program. They give 10 cents per transaction made on their VISA card (and I think I’ve read somewhere an additional 4% of pretax profits).
Other credit card companies do similar things supporting different organizations, but for me BMO was a nice option since it didn’t require me to sign up for a new credit card, but just required a quick call to update my account.
Please let me make clear that I am NOT advocating one bank over another, but I am sharing the information that I have based on personal research. I am also NOT advocating the idea of living on credit or that we should spend more so that these organizations indirectly get more money. But if you are already using credit cards, or like me hate the idea of actually carrying cash, here is a way that is already out there that doesn’t seem to have a downside or at the very least worth investigating. If anyone has a comment on this idea, I would love to hear it.
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