inspiral blog

My name is Anthony Nicholas. I am speaking on behalf of Inspiral, a faith community in the inner north of Melbourne, Australia, who are exploring together the radical way of life demonstrated by Jesus Christ. We have been asked to address three questions:

1) What role should our armed forces play?
2) What kind of armed forces should we develop?
3) Can we afford such forces?

I would like to answer these questions by way of a short concrete example.

On October 26, 2003, police raided the Sydney home of a Pakistani-Australian man called Faheem Khalid Lodhi. They found terrorist manuals showing how to make detonators, explosive devices and poisons. They also found maps of the Sydney electricity supply system and 38 aerial photos of Australian military installations. Justice Anthony Whealy determined that Lodhi’s intent was to pursue “violent jihad” to “instil terror into members of the public so that they could never again feel free from the threat of bombing in Australia.” Lodhi is now serving 20 years in prison classified as a high security ‘AA’ prisoner.

Lodhi was sent by a Pakistani Muslim Group called Lashkar-e-Taiba historically based in Pakistani Punjab. Lashkar-e-Taiba has always wanted India out of Kashmir. After September 11, they starting fighting in Afghanistan. Lodhi was sent here with orders to bomb because Lashkar did not like Australian troops fighting in Afghanistan. This example shows the kind of threats Australia is facing – they are real and have the potential to do great harm.

Our tanks, missiles and planes are not going to stop Lashkar-e-Taiba’s next bomber. To rely on the police is a bad idea – they will not stop these bombers every time, in every place. No – the soldier Australia needs to win this war is not Australian – he or she is a Pakistani Muslim. They are going to stop that bomber because they are going to say “Hey everybody, I don’t agree with this suicide bombing against Australia. Australians aren’t anti-muslim. Maybe we disagree on some things, but this is too much.” That is the soldier we need. They question is, how do we recruit them?

That is a hard question. But, you know what – we’ve done it before. Over 35 years, 40,000 people from Asia came to study in Australian institutions under the Colombo Plan. That’s a 40,000 strong army of people through Asia willing to give us a chance and a fair go to speak up on our behalf. What about now in Pakistan and Afghanistan? Have we got people on the ground? We need an army there, local people, muslims, who understand us, who will speak up on our behalf. We will have those people on the ground speaking up for us only if we act with love towards them. We must ensure that we do not act in a way that threatens their security, and instead chose a path that positively promotes their well-being. The Colombo plan is just one example showing our ability to do that when we set our minds to it.

Can we afford to reach out with love to our neighbours? Can we afford to bring them here on scholarships, to spend money learning their languages and reconciling our views of what is just? Yes we can. We far prefer our money spent on building happiness, justice (both here and overseas) and security rather than in buying more bullets, guns and insecurity.

Having explored the Seeds queries and advices last year, and found them not entirely appropriate for us (though largely they were), we decided this week to spend some time exploring what might be more appropriate queries and advices for us to ask ourselves this Lent.

Queries and advices are a strong part of the Quaker tradition, and has been a practice that has enabled Quakers to maintain a strong core while being flexible around how things work out in practice. Jesus frequently answered people’s questions with questions – so we need to be prepared to be questioned by Jesus on what is important for us.

Having asked people “what is it important/essential for us to continually question ourselves about?” we each made a list and wrote the list on the blackboard. I’m collating these now to draw up a document that we’ll be able to have ready for anyone who wants to know what we’re about. That way we don’t give people a doctrinal statement, but a list of questions we feel it’s important to ask that will therefore reflect our priorities.

It then forms part of the discipline of each Lent to spend time with these questions.

This week we headed down to Treasury Gardens for a relaxed afternoon in the sun, enjoying music and a carnival-like atmosphere as the end of the Big Switchoff was celebrated. Anthony had been quite involved in organising this, so it was good to celebrate it as a group. Of course, being the day after Meryl and Lee’s wedding, some of us were a little the worse for wear, but it was a relaxed time anyway.

Some of us had our bikes fixed or maintained by some wonderful people who did it for free, although it turns out mine hadn’t had anything done to it since I wheeled it out of the shop 13 years ago, so it had more issues than they could deal with…nonetheless, very lovely people.

Great to have Ciaron O’Reilly with us this week, telling some of his stories of nonviolent resistance to empire. He’d been a real encouragement the whole week actually, spending time with the Doveton crew and John Jensen’s mob out west.

After Ciaron talked we had dinner and we had some really open discussion from one of our members about where he was at – really honest, raw stuff and the kind of thing we’re about. It was great for Ciaron to have that kind of insight into the mob too, and for us to have the opportunity to open up to him as much as he had with us.

Julie led this week with ten excuses Christians often make for not being involved in social justice. Asking such questions as, “What about Romans 13 that tells us to respect the authorities?” and “I have too much else on my plate” it provided a whole heap of really useful discussion. We ranged over quite a bit of ground.

We’ve also moved to a 4:30 timeslot (from 3:30) so things need to be a bit tighter, but it seems to be working ok (providing everyone turns up on time!)

We got through pretty much two of the three sections here, and it yielded some excellent discussion of questions like “what is the good news?” and “what does healing look like for us?”

Teach:
What acts of teaching, preaching and proclaiming of the good news can we undertake as a mob?

How are we deepening our understanding and practice of teaching in light of the Word?

Heal:
What acts of healing can we undertake as a mob?

How are we deepening our understanding and practice of healing in light of the Word?
(Priority for the Margins, Wholistic, Mutual, Confronting Causes)

Cast Out Evil
How will we name, engage, and transform the reality of evil in our world and ourselves?

Why could we not cast it out? (Mark)

After a couple of years’ hiatus, the Palm Sunday Peace march was back on this year. We met up on the steps of Parliament half an hour before it was due to start. We were met too by Chris from the BUV who was there to get some video footage for an upcoming “Stories of Hope” video the BUV is doing for Winter Gathering. Palm Sunday this year fell on April Fools’ Day, which made for a great parallel with the Jesus story of making fun of military rule.

When everyone arrived, we sat down and read the Lucan version of the Palm Sunday story, together with the preceding passage and the following one as well, to put it in context. Turns out it’s a fascinating juxtaposition, with the Zaccheus story leading into the parable of the nobleman seeking royal power, then the so-called ‘triumphal entry’, then Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. The preceding parable is introduced with, “He went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.” The interesting thing is that it is usually assumed that God/Jesus is the nobleman going to get royal power, and the first two people do the right thing, while the third does the wrong thing; but this makes no sense at all for several reasons. One, the hero/punchline is always the third guy. Whether it’s in jokes or in stories, the first two just set the last one up. So the guy who refuses to make the nobleman more money has to be the punchline/exemplary character. Two, the nobleman is repeatedly described as a “harsh man who reaps where he does not sow”, etc. Is this really how Jesus describes God? Unlikely. Thirdly, the next bit is the so-called triumphal entry, where Jesus completely parodies the idea of military coercive power. I say “so-called” because this is clearly not triumphal at all – in fact, when Matthew quotes the prophesy that he says points to this, he deliberately omits the words “triumphant and victorious” from the quote.

This parable, then, has to be story about the way the world opposes the economy of God, and vice versa, and the consequences for following the way of God (which Jesus is about to exemplify when he is killed in a weeks’ time).

Then after the procession into Jerusalem, Jesus stands and weeps over it, lamenting, “if only you knew the things that made for peace; but you did not.” In other words, the people welcome him as a coercive military ruler even though he clearly parodies it; and is killed a week later when people realise he is not going to lead a violent revolution against the Romans. The very same people who are hailing him as Messiah this week are baying for his blood the next.

So, it was helpful to put it in context and gave us plenty to think about in terms of the rival ideas of power here. On the one hand, various forms of violent and coercive power; on the other, nonviolent suffering love.

After thinking about these things, we did the march – the media was saying a thousand people but it seemed like more. Maybe it always does seem like more, I don’t know: still, it was a great vibe, despite an early sense that things might not be quite so positive. It always makes me a little nervous in large crowds that can sometimes be unpredictable. So great to have Chelsea and Ella there – they had fun, and my parents did a great job of looking after them.

It was amazing how many people I bumped into that I knew – not just at the march but on the tram on the way and on the way home too. A perfect day weather-wise too – not a cloud in the sky and about 22 degrees.

So well done to the organising committee for such a great job.

This week was simply devoted to Forge and John Dear events. See other spaces for more detailed responses to these.

Forge was a really good networking opportunity for me, so I met a bunch of people I wouldn’t otherwise run into, let alone hang out with. The nonviolence session went pretty well with Jarrod, and the response was definitely positive. Earlier that morning, Brian McLaren had set our session up perfectly by basically doing half of our session, meaning we could go deeper than we’d intended, which was just awesome.

John Dear…what can I say, just brilliant. If you missed it, don’t fear: I recorded all his main session, so they should be available soon.

Marcus Curnow came this week to tell us all about Seeds, where it comes from, and what’s it’s about, and to introduce us to the “Know the Word” portion of the Seeds covenant. Seems like some really good synergies for us, and some significant differences as well, which will hopefully only enhance the wider Seeds conversation.

This week we had a discussion about whether or not we would begin to forge deeper link with the Seeds network. Seeds is…well, it’s hard to explain, but very vaguely, it’s the network of conversations and theology and relationships and practices that have come out of Urban Seed. The practices would be centred around three central discipleship themes: teaching, healing, and casting out evil. From the Seeds website:

Know the Word
We seek to know and be known by God’s message of truth, love and justice by gathering together to pray, discern and celebrate our participation in the living story of Jesus Christ.

Grow Home
We seek to grow a new sense of home in local places by re-imagining the traditional vows of

Poverty: by seeking simplicity; solidarity with those marginalised; and ways of sharing our resources.

Chastity: honouring the sacred connections between God, creation and each other’s bodies through sharing “slow” food around an open table.

Obedience: Being faithful to the mutual decisions we make to live this vision with others.

Go Engage
We seek to serve others through the practices of teaching, healing and casting out evil. These are often expressed through ministries of education, hospitality and political engagement.

So Lent is the time of discernment of what these will look like for our ‘mob’. The sense really was that this was a no-brainer – that we were doing these things anyway, so it made sense to link in with a larger network of people doing similar things, and to put a structure (a non-restrictive one) on the way we do it. So: prepare for us to become seedier.