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Q @ A this week had an interesting snippet which I would like to share. The panel were trying to draw Joe Hockey out on his leadership aspirations, partly because he is giving a series of talks on Politics and GOD. In other words, repeating what Kevin Rudd did before he was elected, by giving his stamp of approval on God and naming Bonhoeffer as one of his religious heroes.
    Someone in the panel (from memory) commented that although 90% or people don’t go to church on Sunday, about 70% wanted their MP or Prime Minister to go to church and be a dinki di Christian. So this begs the question:-
    If a majority of people admire Christianity, what is stopping them from active life in the Church?  IMO , which i have expressed before, it is that there is too much abuse and misuse of the Bible before prospective Christians even get a foot in the door of the Church.
      Now I’m sure most of the right wing evangelicals will be searching for their AK47’s to defend their Bible. Or is it their POWER. I just believe that people have it within them, (as the earliest Jews did) to seek their God. Maybe to explain Eternity of Infinity. Maybe if man is not master of his own fate (like many dictators would want) then who or what is??
      Once these seeds of faith are sown, faith can only get stronger and the Bible a joy to read and not like a recipe book to argue and fight over.
  I would like to put up a question for everyone. If Bonhoeffer is Rudd’s hero, who would Hockey admire?

Doug, everyone admires people who work for charity, but how many actually do it?

The thing that is stopping admirers of Christianity from joining the church is the same thing that is stopping admirers of generosity from getting involved with charities - selfishmess;  sin;  the world being the kind of place it always has been.

I don’t know enough about Joe Hockey to comment on his faith - he’s about to tell us;  so I don’t think we should second-guess him.

I’d say it’s us and our little forts that are a barrier.
We sit behind the barricades singing and talking about Gods love and occasionally sally forth on a mission to snatch back a few souls and then we’re surprised that the wider community doesn’t want to come join our club.
We’ve taken the great story with all it’s wonder and mystery and reduced it to slogans, cartoons and rules and wonder why people aren’t inspired.
I don’t think people are abandoning the church, I think the church has been guilty of abandoning people.

As for Hockey’s hero I can’t speak for him but I find Rudd’s claim to be a student of Bonhoffer a bit confusing at the moment. 
Wasn’t Rudd’s hero a proud “people smuggler” with a heart for justice and the plight of the oppressed?

I just believe that people have it within them, (as the earliest Jews did) to seek their God. Maybe to explain Eternity of Infinity. Maybe if man is not master of his own fate (like many dictators would want) then who or what is??....
    Once these seeds of faith are sown, faith can only get stronger and the Bible a joy to read and not like a recipe book to argue and fight over.

See, the bible doesn’t agree with you there mate. Not me, the BIBLE itself doesn’t agree that faith is very common, and that people have it within *us* to seek God. No no no, the bible itself is quite clear that it takes GOD to seek us!

The bottom line is that people debate the bible because they are trying to get to the truth as to what God actually teaches about himself in it, and how we are to relate to Him. The “why can’t we all just get along” branch of ecumenicalism should be called what it is… relativism. Or another name for it is intellectual suicide. Why so harsh? Because it contradicts logic. Reality doesn’t just shift and give way because we’d prefer it to be something else. Ask someone dying of cancer!

No, logic explains that the law of non-contradiction means only one of these ‘truths’ is actually true. God either is Trinity or is not. God either exists or does not, He cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.

And so it goes on: The bible either is our last, most authoritative source of knowledge about God or it isn’t. Jesus either did rise from the dead or He didn’t. We either do have sin that separates us from God or we don’t. We either are accountable or we aren’t, we need faith in Jesus death and resurrection to save us or we don’t, etc. God either is a “vague, kind old grandpa” who doesn’t care about us “getting the details right” (and actually obeying Him and trusting in His Son alone), or he isn’t so “kindly and vague” and is actually incredibly MERCIFUL but still requires ONE WAY for us to be saved, trusting in Jesus death and resurrection to remove our sin.

So, is the bible a “recipe book to argue and fight over”? No. It is life-giving medicine that must be received in one fairly specific way, and if you take it wrong you’ll instead be poisoning yourself forever. So I for one think that is important enough to struggle with and debate.

One can always retreat into a fantasy world where everyone is right and no one is ever going to come to any harm, ever, but I’d suggest people need to wake up and take a look at the world about them, read the bible for themselves, and see whether or not the God of our bible actually sounds like the vague old grandpa that doesn’t care what people believe as long as everyone had a good time.

Amen, Dave.

Very well said Dave and Dannii, but of course you are quite wrong as far as I am concerned. I think God would not make a lamp without a power cord. But let’s look at what the Bible says:-
  Luke 17:21 “The Kingdom of God does not come in such a way as to be seen. Noone will say, ‘Look here it is’! or, ‘There it is”!; because the Kingdom of God is within you”
    1 Cor 3:16 Surely you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Sprit lives within you!”
      John 14:14 ” Believe me when I say that I am in the father and the father is in me. If not, believe because of the things I do”

    These are just to wet your appetite. Of course God has the final say in everything,but there is no need or authority to dress it up in schoolgirl politics and say you will be CHOSEN or your fate is governed by predestination.

Luke 17:21 “The Kingdom of God does not come in such a way as to be seen. Noone will say, ‘Look here it is’! or, ‘There it is”!; because the Kingdom of God is within you”

In other words “somewhere within us, deep down in our hearts with all our New Age wisdom”? No Doug, that is a bad translation. Instead try 2 things: another version, and the overwhelming message form the *context* of that passage.

Try Today’s NIV.

” 20 Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”“

Woah, “In your midst”? What does that mean? Well, from the overall context in Luke we have been hearing all about this “Son of Man” character. I take it Jesus is saying HE is in their midst, and the Kingdom of God is all about how people receive HIM.

Check out the *incredibly divisive* nature of following him, mentioned just after the “in your midst” verse you want us to read in a manner so alien to the passage.

“    22 Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. 23 People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. 24 For the Son of Man in his day [c] will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
    26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
    28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
    30 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35-36 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”
    37 “Where, Lord?” they asked. 
       He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”“

Kingdom mocked….
Rather than being a general vibe in all of us, the Kingdom of God has become a divisive message that *people largely ignore and mock* just as in the days of Noah!

Kingdom persecuted….
Rather than being inside all of us, it appears hardly any of us have it! Indeed, if you have the kingdom (trusted in the Lord) you will be so rare, so OFFENSIVE amongst your culture you are likely to lose your life for it! (V 33).

Kingdom is “son of man” specific….
Rather than the kingdom of God being a general vibe inside all of us, it is a very specific message about a very specific person received in a very specific way. Yes it is simple enough for a child to understand, but far too simple (and offensive) to be understood by the “spiritual” (New Age) among us.

1 Cor 3:16 Surely you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Sprit lives within you!”

If we trust in Jesus and obey him, as the rest of Corinthians also points out. Like the “one faith, one baptism, baptised into one body” verses, or the very opening chapter of Corinthians that indeed is a call for unity, but a unity born from common trust in the same message about the objective fact of our Lord’s death and resurrection, not some weird hippie ‘unity’ that comes from everyone looking inside their own heart for guidance! (What kind of world or “kingdom” or message does that produce anyway?)

John 14:14 ” Believe me when I say that I am in the father and the father is in me. If not, believe because of the things I do”

Absolutely correct. We should believe in Jesus as our unique saviour, because He is God with us, the One who died and lives again, the One who calls us to trust in Him to remove our sin, the One to whom I owe my allegience, and life, and soul, and strength, and intellectual capacity, and love, and loyalty.

Jesus is the “OTHER” to whom I can only surrender. Jesus is not some “vibe” in my heart, but an objective reality that I encounter now through a concrete belief system spelt out by historical realities and a message that spans the ages.

Tinkering with that concrete message because I feel anything else in my heart is dangerous to the point of turning into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife, or being swept away by the flood.

In other words Doug, this stuff is incredibly serious, and remains so even if you cherry-pick nicer sounding verses of their context and from a bad rendering in one translation.