TheoFantastique: Call for Papers: Interdisciplinary Academic Study of Zombies

One of the problems with the Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill was that it used terms like "zombies", but failed to define them. Perhaps the legislators could benefit by sending someone to this conference: TheoFantastique: Call for Papers: Interdisciplinary Academic Study of Zombies:

The Religion and Popular Culture group on Yahoo! recently issued the following call for papers:

Call for Papers: An Interdisciplinary Collection of Essays on the Zombie

We are seeking proposals for an interdisciplinary edited volume discussing the zombie from a wide variety of perspectives and within a wide range of contexts. We encourage submissions from any discipline, including but not limited to English literature, film studies, media studies, cultural studies, gender studies, queer studies, philosophy, religious studies, anthropology, sociology, history, psychology, economics, and political science. We especially welcome new approaches to the study of zombies. In addition to theoretical essays on zombies, we also welcome critical discussions of specific zombie films, novels, and graphic novels, including those both pre- and post-Romero.

I blogged about the Witchcraft Suppression Bill soon after it was published (Notes from underground: MPUMALANGA WITCHCRAFT SUPPRESSION BILL 2007), and was glad to note that it was subsequently withdrawn (Notes from underground: Witchcraft Suppression Bill put on hold) a year later. Perhaps politicians need to realise that not every problem can be solved by legislation, and especially not by hasty legislation in which terms are not defined.

While there is indeed a problem of "witchcraft-related violence", such violence is already illegal -- there are laws against murder, arson, assault and malicious damage to property, and those who perform such acts can be prosecuted under existing laws.

In the mean time the conference may, or may not, turn up some useful information. Perhaps someone could propose a paper on the Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill itself.

Roman Pope's Australian visit a disaster

When the Pope of Rome visited Australia for World Youth Day recently, some people were deeply disappointed at the result.

Faith and Theology: A miracle on World Youth Day:

according to a report in The Weekend Australian, the hundreds of thousands of Catholic pilgrims have been a major economic disappointment: “The deathly retail silence contrasts with optimistic predictions of a ‘bumper week’ of trade by the state Government and the local chambers of commerce. A jewellery shop reported one sale in the week: a cross. New South Wales Business Chamber chief executive Kevin MacDonald had predicted a $231 million boost for business, or $1155 per expected visitor. But traders reported pilgrims unwilling to spend, even haggling over the price of one banana. Clothing store John Serafino said the Pope’s visit was ‘a disaster’.”

As Ben Myers reports, Pope Benedict XVI spoke against the worship of the “false gods” of “material possessions, possessive love, or power.” And he asked: “How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can? But this is to make possessions into a false god. Instead of bringing life, they bring death.”

So really, what did the Mammon cultists expect? Faith and Theology: A miracle on World Youth Day

Karadzic Arrest: A Boost for Serbia - TIME

Karadzic Arrest: A Boost for Serbia - TIME:

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic's latest lair wasn't a cave or a safe house; no hidden compartments or special security details shielded him. Instead, it turns out that one of the world's most wanted men was hiding in plain view in the drab, anonymous housing blocks of Novo Belgrade, a suburb of the Serbian capital. He was nabbed not by NATO, whose forces had spent 13 years in a vain and sometimes desultory search for him, but by the security forces of Serbia, the country whose fantastic designs for grandeur he had once so ardently tried to further. Now Karadzic, 63, faces a trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

And we now wait with bated breath for the USA to get a similar boost by arresting and handing over Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright for war crimes in Yugoslavia; and George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld for war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. And for Britain to get a similar boost by arresting and handing over Tony Blair for war crimes in all three -- he's probably the biggest war criminal in recent times.

Compared with these, Karadzic is a relatively small fish. But of course the big fish usually get away. If Tony Blair were occupying a cell next to Karadzic I might believe that the Hague Tribunal is not a kangaroo court. As it is, it's nothing more than a Nato propaganda organ.

And when I read the propaganda (including the Time article above, still churning it out after all these years), I begin to wonder if Radovan Karadzic isn't Bosnia's Bram Fischer. I don't know enough about him, of course, to make such a judgement, but I wonder. Perhaps the truth will emerge at the Hague, or perhaps, like Slobodan Milosevic, he will conveniently die before it does. And then we'll be left wondering just whose convenience was served.

Witchcraft Suppression Bill put on hold

Well that's a relief.

It was a horribly badly-drafted piece of legislation, which failed to define terms and would have created endless confusion had it become law.

clipped from www.sowetan.co.za Mpumalanga healers and pagans have been given a new lease of life after the Witchcraft Suppression Bill was put on hold. The proposed bill by the department of local government, which came under fire last year from various stakeholders, was put on hold yesterday. The department of local government said it had put the drafting of the bill of 2007 on hold “until further notice”. The department was mandated by the provincial executive council to prepare a bill which seeks to address high levels of violence in Mpumalanga linked to allegations of witchcraft.

While witchcraft allegations have certainly led to a lot of violence, hasty legislation and imprecise definitions will not help to solve the problem.

Saint Stalin?

Could Josef Stalin be made a saint? - Telegraph:

The Communist party in St Petersburg has petitioned the Orthodox Church to canonise Josef Stalin if he wins a television poll to nominate the greatest Russian in history...

The Soviet dictator, who was responsible for the deaths of around 15 million people during his 31-year reign of terror, is in second place in online voting for the Name of Russia competition.

Stalin last week surrendered a narrow lead to Nicholas II in the contest, which is based on the BBC's Great Britons series.

Is that chutzpah, or what?

Who's next? Decius? Diocletian?

God's politics - synchroblog

The theme of this month's Synchroblog is "The politics of God". A bit awkward, that. I could write quite a bit about God and human politics, but the subject seems quite clearly limited to God's politics.

It would be easy to think that God's politics must be monarchist. After all, the synoptic gospels have a great deal to say about the "Kingdom" of God, in which God is the king.

In church services we have the same thing. At the beginning of the Divine Liturgy the priest announces "Blessed be the kingdom of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

In baptism we are asked if we believe in Jesus Christ as king and God.

So the evidence is pretty strong: God's politics are monarchist.

St Matthew's Gospel has a variation. He talks about the "Kingdom of Heaven" rather than the "Kingdom of God", but the effect is much the same, though. Heaven, we are told, was a euphemism for "God" in the first century.

And concerning that, St Paul urges the Philippians not to set their hearts on earthly things, but says that "our politics is in heaven" (Philippians 4:20). Actually the word he uses, politevma, is translated in many varying ways -- "commonwealth", "citizenship" and even (KJV) "conversation". I can't help thinking that "conversation" must have meant something very different in Jacobean English to what it means today. But whatever it meant back then, I understand it today to mean that our politics should be God's politics.

And to the Colossians he says (Colossians 3:1-4)

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Whatever else that means, it means we should not take earthly politics too seriously. Christians can never say, "My country, right or wrong", because our country is heaven, and our citizenship is primarily in the Kingdom of Heaven and not in any earthly republic or monarchy or dictatorship. Our politics is in heaven, and so we cannot take earthly political parties and movements too seriously.

And the Kingdom of heaven is not like earthly kingdoms and republics and dictatorships. As Jesus told his disciples, it would be difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God (Mark 10:26) and he went on to say

You know that those who are supposed to rule over the nations lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be the slave of all (Mark 10:42-43)

So Jesus represents a kingdom that is radically different from the kingdoms of this world, from the rulers of the nations. And this radical difference is shown by St Paul in I Cor 15:24, when Christ delivers the kingdom to God the Father, having put down all rule, all authority, all power. What kind of kingdom is without rule (arche), without authority (exousia), without power (dynamis)?

An anarchic kingdom, that's what.

The Kingdom of God is without rule (an-archy), without authority, without power.

That is the politics of God, and that is our politics as Christians; we are citizens of an anarchic kingdom, a royal anarchy.

____________

This post is part of a synchroblog, in which a number of bloggers blog on the same general theme on about the same day. The theme of this synchroblog is "God's politics", and other synchrobloggers blogging on this theme are listed below. Please visit their blogs to to see what others have to say on the topic

Phil Wyman at Phil Wyman's Square No More
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
Jonathan Brink enters The Political Fray
Adam Gonnerman explains The Living Christ's Present Reign
Sonja Andrews at Calacirian
Mike Bursell at Mike's Musings
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes
Steve Hayes on God's Politics
Matthew Stone at Matt Stone Journeys in Between
Steve Hollinghurst at On Earth as in Heaven
KW Leslie tells us about God's Politics
Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping
Dan Stone at The Tense Before
Alan Knox asks Is God Red, Blue, or Purple?
Beth Patterson at The Virtual Teahouse
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith

Reckless rhetoric or freedom of speech?

clipped from www.thetimes.co.za Archbishop Desmond Tutu has lashed out at political leaders who use “intemperate, inflammatory” language. He warned that political figures were perpetuating hostility with their reckless rhetoric. Nearly 29000 of the foreigners were still displaced across the Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu- Natal in June. Tutu made the comments yesterday at Johannesburg’s St John’s College, during a mass to mark the xenophobic violence that swept South Africa recently. He linked irresponsible rhetoric with the violence that displaced 47000 foreign nationals in May. “What has happened when it seems no longer to matter how you’ve behaved, whether you have integrity, that these [characteristics] are deemed irrelevant for public office?” Tutu asked.

South Africa has a democratic constitution that protects freedom of speech. In saying things like this is Bishop Tutu trying to place an unconstitutional limitation on freedom of speech?

Some bloggers seem to think so, like Richard Catto on his Cape Town News blog.

I am reminded of a case that was reported several years ago, of a professor at an American university, who lost his job because of his communist sympathies. The case came to court, as he accused the university authorities of trying to suppress his right to freedom of speech. The university countered by arguing that if the communists came to power they would abridge everyone's right to freedom of speech.

The court found for the professor, and said that he had only talked of abridging the freedom of speech of others, whereas the university, by firing him, had actually abridged his freedom of speech, and had therefore done in fact what he was only talking about.

The Times report cited above doesn't actually say that Archbishop Desmond Tutu criticised Zwelinzima Vavi -- the reference was implied rather than actual. But even if he did, was he abridging Zwelinzima Vavi's freedom of speech?

Zwelinzima Vavi's reported statements that he would "kill for Jacob Zuma" can be interpreted in various ways. They could, for example, be interpreted to mean that he would kill for Jacob Zuma in the same way that people in Zimbabwe are killing for Robert Mugabe -- killing those who are suspected of voting against him. And that would indeed destroy our constitution -- freedom of speech must be balanced against other rights. It is not an absolute right, sprueme over all others.
And if that is so, it would seem contradictory, because Cosatu, of which Vavi is Secretary General, is on record as regarding Robert Mugabe as the enemy of the working class. And doesn't freedom of speech include freedom to criticise certain kinds of speech, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu has done?

Fifty billion and rising

Lasst week I reported that the cover price of the Sunday Independent newspaper was $30 billion in Zimbabwe.

This week it is $50 billion (R11.50 in South Africa).

That's $50 000 000 000 000,00

The mind boggles.

Credo: the average Anglican is a black, female teenager -Times Online

Credo: the average Anglican is a black, female teenager -Times Online:

Recently a friend informed me that missiology is really just “a white man’s theology.” As a student of missiology and a woman, I felt the need to counter this. Yet what is missiology? Well, my friend was right that it began with white men taking Christianity, commerce and civilisation beyond Europe. This is exactly what missiology endeavours to study. It is a critical reflection on theories of mission, research into mission and critique on how mission is done.

It's a moot point, however.

Missiology, like ecclesiology, is indeed pretty recent as an academic discipline. Both began within the last 150 years, if not more recently. But their field of study goes back a long way before -- the Christian church and mission began long before there were names for academic disciplines devoted to studying them, and go back to a time before there were any Christian white men in Europe.

Yes, Christianity did first reach North and South America from Western Europe, but missiology can also study they way in which Christianity first reached some of the countries in Western Europe that took Christianity to those places. Christianity began in Asia, and reached parts of Africa before it reached northern Europe, even if it was people from northern Europe who first brought Christianity to southern Africa.

It actually works both ways. African missionaries evangelised parts of Europe long before and European missionaries came to Africa.

It depends on your perspective, that's all.

FutureChurchJourney - I talk about megachurch on TV...and eat my own foot

Roger Saner has an interesting discussion on Megachurches on his blog, in which he says, among other things FutureChurchJourney - I talk about megachurch on TV...and eat my own foot:

One of the guys was talking about how Jesus was such a success and this is where I said my silly thing: I jumped in and challenged him on that. It seems like we can adapt the Bible a little too easily and make it say what we want to...and I don't know why I thought this would be a good thing to challenge, but I did. And told the story of Albert Schweitzer, one of the great human beings of the 20th century, who had great fun showing how all of the historians before him had brought their own presuppositions to bear on the historical study of Jesus, and instead of portraying the actual Jesus of history, they put across their own idea of Jesus. Then he proposed to tell us what Jesus was really like, and concluded that he was a wild-eyed apocalyptic prophet who died a failure.

I tried to comment on Roger's blog, but was told to enter the characters in the picture, and could see no picture and no characters, so I thought I'd comment here.

Roger mentioned a "pastor" who had a medium-sized church that he wanted to grow into a megachurch, and that got me wondering about all sorts of things -- like what do we mean by "pastor" and why do we (or at least some people) think that "size matters"?

And it seems to me that some of the people called "pastors" are not so much pastors as ranchers, or at least wannabe ranchers. OK, we read in the Old Testament about all those patriarchs with huge flocks, and especially Jacob who increased his flocks and herds at the expense of his uncle and father-in-law, and all the good things that happened since their corn and wine and oil increased. And of course in the secular world the more people a person has to boss around, the more important they are. The rulers of big and rich nations are more important than the rulers of small and poor nations. And the CEO of a big company is more important than the CEO of a small one. But didn't Jesus say "It is not to be so among you?"

What is a pastor? A CEO for Jesus?

With Jesus as partner, and perhaps a junior partner at that?

As someone (I think it was Juan Carlos Ortiz) once said, "Is your church growing, or is it just getting fat?"

I remember one Anglican priest who was always preaching about money and the need for the church to look successful. "Success appeals to those who love success, and all men do," he said.

Yet, as Roger points out, in the eyes of the world, Jesus was a failure.

And I read a passage in a book that somehow seems truer to the Gospel of Christ than the false gospel of Success:

The New Poverty is the disaffiliate's answer to the New Prosperity. It is important to make a living. It is even more important to make a life. Poverty. The very word is taboo in a society where success is equated with virtue and poverty is a sin. Yet it has an honourable ancestry. St. Francis of Assisi revered poverty as his bride, with holy fervor and pious rapture. The poverty of the disaffiliate is not to be confused
with the poverty of indigence, intemperance, improvidence or failure. It is simply that the goods and services he has to offer are not valued at a high price in our society. As one beat generation writer said to the square who offered him an advertising job: 'I'll scrub your floors and carry out your slops to make a living, but I will not lie for you, pimp for you, stool for you or rat for you.' It is not the poverty of the ill-tempered and embittered, those who wooed the bitch goddess Success with panting breath and came away rebuffed. It is an independent, voluntary poverty (from The holy barbarians, by Lawrence Lipton).

Whom do we worship? Christ, who came to be poor among the poor, or the bitch goddess Sucess?

People Power Granny: Can Intentional Communities be the Answer to this Messed-Up World?

In the past we have had some Synchroblogs about utopian communities and new monasticism. Here's a story about a utopian intentional community that started over 30 years ago and is still going strong.

People Power Granny: Can Intentional Communities be the Answer to this Messed-Up World?:

One good example of an intentional community that left the rat race but not the world is the Farm in Summertown, TN. Started in the early 70's by a 'family' of hippies, this community today still is alive and well. But in its 30-plus years of operation, members have gone out into the world to help the suffering, have provided training for the re-birth of midwifery, have created a watershed protector of their local river and have introduced kids in the cities to life on the farm. This community speaks out against illegal wars and other injustices. They have incorporated the internet and other new forms of communication to get their messages out to the world. As a matter of fact, residents of the Farm are often leaders in the world fighting the Powerful.

If you've ever thought of joining an intentional community, or are living in one now, you can find more resources on this site.

The connection has timed out

It's bad enough getting these timeout message from the SAIX news server, but now it's happening with Blogspot blogs as well.

The connection has timed out

The server at www.blogger.com is taking too long to respond.

* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
moments.


Is anyone else getting these messages, or do we just have a slow connection?

Last post for world's oldest blogger

World's oldest blogger makes final post - National - smh.com.au: "The Australian woman renowned as the world's oldest internet blogger has made her final post, aged 108.

Olive Riley, of Woy Woy on NSW's central coast, died in a nursing home just after 6am yesterday.

She will be mourned by family and an international readership in the thousands."

Read the full story here.

Thirty billion dollars

Bought a Sunday newspaper today, The Sunday Independent. It had the price on it.

SA R11,50 (Inc VAT)
Zimbabwe $30 Billion.

That's right - $30 000 000 000 000,00

Who needs sanctions?

They couldn't do anything to the Zimbabwe economy that Mugabe hasn't already done.

There was a time when the Zim dollar was worth more than a Rand.

The media just don't "get religion"

On giving the surge a chance...
Notes from a Common-place Book

And telling both sides of the story...
Notes from a Common-place Book