Is there anybody out there

There is one thing that has been on my mind this week. Well actually, it is always on my mind to some extent, but it has been more prominent than usual. It is one of the assumptions within charismatic evangelical Christianity that God will talk to those who follow him. The ways of God talking to us are varied. It may be though a study of a passage within the Bible, or through what we see in creation, or though a conversation with someone else, or an inner impression or voice. The conversation is not one way, but also involves us talking to God. This act of God talking to us, and we talking to God is what prayer is all about. In this conversation with God, we can tell God what is important to us and what our hopes and desires are. In return, God will tell us what is important to him and will guide us so that we can make the most out of the time we have here on earth. God may even reveal some of the things he is planning to do for us.

This is all very encouraging on the surface. Moreover, as an evangelical, who believes that the centre of my faith is a personal relationship with my God, I believe in prayer and a God who talks to his people, often directly. Yet I am also confused. For what happens when you think God is saying one thing and nothing happens or even worse, the exact opposite happens. The web and Christian bookstores are full of all these handy hints about listening to God and discerning his will. The only problem is that everything I've read has been of absolutely no use. Am I alone in finding that all the high-sounding ideas and learned treatises on the subject by the "super spirituals" to be absolutely useless when applied to the real world. It would not be so frustrating if there were only a few times in which I'd misheard God, or even if the times in which I've misheard God were to do with things that were trivial and unimportant. But this is not the case. Indeed it seems that the more important something is the less likely that I will hear anything from God. And even if I thought I've heard from God, I've found that that which I'd believed had told me was not from God at all.

Is God playing tricks on me? From my theology I know that this is not the case. Yet my inability to hear from God despite all my attempts to clear my head and tune into his wavelength is frustrating. There are times, as I face another conflicting set of messages, and a God who seems so aloof and distant that I feel like God is the great vivisectionist, and I am one of his lab rats, that I am a victim of some great cosmic experiment over which I have no control. If God is a relational God who desires a personal relationship with his offspring, why is it so hard to talk to him and hear from him? How do I know whether what I think God has said to me is really from him, or is it all a figment of an overly fertile imagination?

Is there anybody out there?

When elephants dance the mice should leave

I recently stumbled across an old documentary on the life and times of the former president of the United States, Ronald Reagan while channel surfing. As a child of that era, I found it fascinating to look back on one of the major turning points in the 20th century. Reagan's view of the world and of his presidency was based on a simplified moral philosophy found in the Westerns of the 1950s. Within these westerns, you had, on the one side, the good and the noble, men who were strong, independent, and lived their lives based on a simple moral code good and evil. On the other side were the men of evil intent. They were the liars, the murderers and the thieves who were intent on imposing their way of life on the simple towns folk. In the idealised world of the western, for good to triumph over evil, men of good intent had to face the bad men in in a final titanic battle defeat and them.

This same ideal is found in a number of myths and legends going back hundreds and in some cases thousands of years. The Arthurian legend with the noble Knights of the Round Table is but one example. As long as they are recognised as morality tales based in an idealised world such stories can play an important role in reinforcing and passing on core values within a society. However, for Reagan, such stories were not seen as simplified morality plays but as true representations of the world. The United States and its free market system represented in Reagan's mind the good, and the protector of the free. The communist countries represented the bad and the USSR was the centre of an axis of evil. Thus, it was the duty of the United States to enter into a final conflict with communism. The decline of the United States, and the apparent growth in power of the USSR was due to the weakness of previous administrations in facing down their enemy. For Reagan the conflict was given a spiritual dimension for he believed that he was doing God's will.

The irony of positioning the United States on the side of good cannot be lost on any one who remembers the Iran-contra scandal. Here the murky support by the CIA of Contra terror groups and death squads was revealed for the entire world to see. Rather than holding their heads in shame after being "outed", the functionaries of the Reagan administration represented their actions as supporting freedom fighters in their moral struggle against a despotic regime. Thus we had the tragi-comic Oliver North justifying his actions as that of a true patriot in the age old battle between good and evil.

Despite all the support, the Contras failed utterly in their quest to overthrow the government forces. The same was not true for the Mujahideen. With the aid of American ground to air missiles and intelligence, they were able to inflict a humiliating defeat on the soviets. In Reagan's world, the Mujihideen were freedom fighters who deserved his support. Yet once in power these freedom fighters installed a backward looking fundamentalist state where the rights of women were consigned to the rubbish tip. The double irony of the United States policy in this area is that one of the Mujihideen was none other than Osama Bin Laden whose followers crashed passenger jets into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

As Reagan's end game strategy evolved the risk of armed conflict with the USSR increased dramatically. The documentary, while being an uncritical review of Reagan's time in office, revealed that an increasingly isolated and paranoid Soviet Union was planning a first strike. If the USSR had not collapsed as rapidly as it did, the first strike may have been unleashed leaving Europe and the USA a nuclear wasteland. Reagan's great hope - the SDI initiative - was a grandiose unproven experiment that, given the technology of the time, was never going provide much of a defence against ICBMs.

The unnerving thing for me is that the current Bush administration shares with Reagan an overly simplified worldview, with the good guys in white on one side, and the bad guys on the other. It has already lead to the ongoing tragedy that is Iraq. With falling polls at home, a quagmire abroad, and a grandiose view that he is doing God's will what will Bush do next, particularly given the diplomatic crisis with Iran. Will the temptation to settle an old score be too much?

Rebuilding community

A few days ago, a friend of mine gave birth to her first child. In one sense, it was an ordinary event repeated about 50,000 times a year in New Zealand. Yet each birth is a very personal experience for those involved. In many cases it will be a time of great elation and joy; a time for celebration surrounded by family and friends. However, this will not be the case for every child. Rather than being born into warm and supportive environment it may be born into poverty, abuse and neglect. It may be unwanted and unloved, carrying this stigma throughout the rest of their lives.

Even if the child is born to parents who want to care for their child and provide the best start possible, they may not have the close support needed to help them when they return home. Talking to all my friends, and walking with them through their own experience of becoming parents whether it be the first, second or third time, the one thing I've observed is how stressful and tiring the experience is. The rush that follows the birth fades as the sleepless nights and drudgery of feeding and changing nappies takes its toll.

To navigate these early days, the importance of a supportive community cannot be overstated. Yet in the fragmented world of 21st century New Zealand, how many have that benefit. We are scattered geographically, and even more importantly, emotionally. What is required is to rebuild a sense of community. Such rebuilding will take time, sacrifice and effort. Yet if New Zealand is to be a great place to bring up kids it is what we need to do. It means that for those of us who have a bit of free time, to step out of the comfort of our own world and make ourselves available.