The shaking of Advent

Once again we struggle in the wake of events this week in Sydney: a city in lockdown, hostages held in terrifying conditions, two innocent people killed in the early hours of the morning.

How are we to make sense of the senseless? Alfred Delp, a young Jesuit priest in Munich who was ultimately executed by the Nazi regime, posed the following answer in his sermon on the first Sunday of Advent in 1941:

Perhaps what we modern people need most is to be genuinely shaken, so that where life is grounded, we would feel its stability; and where life is unstable and uncertain, immoral and unprincipled, we would know that, also, and endure it. Perhaps that is the ultimate answer to the question of why God has sent us into this time, why He permits this whirlwind to go over the earth, and why He holds us in such a state of chaos and in hopelessness and in darkness—and why there is no end in sight. It is because we have stood here on the earth with a totally false and inauthentic sense of security. So now, God lets the earth resound, and now He shudders it, and then He shakes it, not to call forth a false anxiety... He does it to teach us one thing again: how to be moved in spirit. 

Much of what is happening today would not be happening if people were in that state of inner movement and restlessness of heart in which man comes into the presence of God the Lord and gains a clear view of things as they really are. Then man would have let go of much that has thrown all our lives into disorder one way or another and has thrashed and smashed our lives... Instead, man stood on this earth in a false pathos and a false security, under a deep delusion in which he really believed he could single-handedly fetch stars from heaven; could enkindle eternal lights in the world and avert all danger from himself... 

That is the first Advent message: before the end, the world will be set quaking. And only where man does not cling inwardly to false security will his eyes be capable of seeing the Ultimate.

Alfred Delp, Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings, 1941-1944 

All things shining

My favourite film is Terrence Malick's WWII masterpiece The Thin Red Line. Set during the Pacific War as the Americans attempt to take Guadalcanal, the film gives voice to the inner thoughts of many characters.

When watching it again recently I noticed fragments of Malick's ecletic Christian worldview. For instance after raiding a Japanese camp and killing or capturing all the enemy soldiers the most spiritual character, Private Witt, contemplates the fractured nature of the world:

We were a family. How did it break up and come apart so that now we're turned against each other, each standing in the other's light? 

How did we lose the good that was given us, let it slip away, scattered, careless? What's keeping us from reaching out, touching the glory?

Towards the end Witt leads a company of Japanese soldiers away from his unit before sacrificing himself in the face of overwhelming odds. In the final scene the film closes with a shot of new life against a voiceover from Witt's character reflecting on the glory of creation:

Who were you that I lived with, walked with? The brother, the friend? Strife and love, darkness and light--are they the workings of one mind, features of the same face? 

Oh my soul. Let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made. 

All things shining.

The Second Fall of Man

A century ago the world changed forever when Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia on 28 July 1914. The ensuing conflict tore apart the fabric of European society and resulted in the death of more than fifteen million soldiers and civilians. The war also led directly to the rise of totalitarian regimes in Germany and Russia, setting the stage for a second war which would claim an additional 60 million lives.

Pope Benedict XV, elected in September 1914, called unsuccessfully for peace amongst Christian nations and later referred to the war as “the vast conflict, the suicide of civilised Europe”.

Paul Kengor writes:

The moral calamity was obvious to all. Quite apart from the bishop of Rome, the acclaimed atheist-leftist intellectual Sidney Hook might have best summed up the catastrophe when he referred to World War I not as the “Great War,” or “War to End All Wars,” or the “Kaiser’s War,” or, in President Woodrow Wilson’s famous line, the war to “make the world safe for democracy,” but as something considerably less inspiring: World War I was, said Hook mordantly, “the second fall of man.”

And so it was.

Religious metaphor best captures the gravity of this giant fall from grace. Historian Michael Hull evokes the image of O Cristo das Trincheiras, “The Christ of the Trenches.” This life-size statue of Jesus Christ hung with arms outstretched on a tall wooden cross was erected on the Western Front. Soiled, bullet-scarred, and, most of all, crucified, the French presented it to the government of Portugal after the war to memorialize the thousands of Portuguese who sacrificed themselves at the Battle of Flanders. It’s an appropriate symbol for the millions who gave their lives for this colossal sin.

The war also resulted in the death of Christendom in Europe. At the time almost all European citizens and national leaders notionally adhered to the Christian faith, however this counted for little or nothing in avoiding war.

Henceforth conflicts would grow even bloodier and would lose any remaining restraint. Today we are left with this legacy, a world fractured and remade in our own image.

The fight against modern slavery

Andrew Forrest, an Australian mining magnate and evangelical Christian, has recently launched the Global Freedom Network to fight modern slavery with the support of Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the most senior Sunni Muslim cleric the Grand Imam of al-Azhar.

The formation of this inter-faith initiative follows the release late last year of the first Global Slavery Index which found that almost 30 million people worldwide are living in conditions of modern slavery.

Click here to view the key findings of the Global Slavery Index

Click here to find out more about the Global Freedom Network

Justifying Faith

“Faith which justifies is not merely a knowledge of history, but it is to assent to the promise of God, in which, for Christ's sake, the remission of sins and justification are freely offered. It is the certainty or the certain trust in the heart, when, with my whole heart, I regard the promises of God as certain and true, through which there are offered me, without my merit, the forgiveness of sins, grace, and all salvation, through Christ the Mediator... It is not my doing, not my presenting or giving, not my work or preparation, but that a heart comforts itself, and is perfectly confident with respect to this, namely, that God makes a present and gift to us, and not we to Him, that He bestows upon us every treasure of grace in Christ"

- The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article IV(II): Of Justification

Christianity in New Zealand

The 2013 census results were recently released in New Zealand and they show an alarming acceleration of trends that are present in all Anglosphere countries. The tables below show key trends in religious affiliation since 2001.

The share of the population responding “No Religion" has increased to 39%, far higher than Canada (24%) and Australia (22%).

Those identifying as Christian now represent less than half the population and are declining in absolute numbers.  At this rate the non-religious in New Zealand will likely outnumber Christians within the next five years.

Table 1: Religious affiliation - total population

Affiliation	2001 (000)	2006 (000)	2013 (000)	2001 (%)	2006 (%)	2013 (%)
Christian	2,076	2,063	1,880	56%	51%	44%
Hindu	40	65	90	1%	2%	2%
Buddhist	42	52	58	1%	1%	1%
Muslim	24	36	46	<1%	<1%	1%
Jewish	7	7	7	<1%	<1%	<1%
Other	100	112	107	3%	3%	3%
No religion	1,028	1,297	1,635	28%	32%	39%
No response	527	536	520	14%	13%	12%
Total	3,737	4,028	4,242	100%	100%	100%

The second table shows the breakdown of Christian respondents by major denomination:

Table 2: Religious affiliation - Christian denominations

Affiliation	2001 (000)	2006 (000)	2013 (000)	2001 (%)	2006 (%)	2013 (%)
Catholic	486	509	492	23%	25%	26%
Anglican	585	555	460	28%	27%	24%
Presbyterian	432	401	331	21%	19%	18%
Methodist	121	122	103	6%	6%	5%
Pentecostal	67	80	74	3%	4%	4%
Baptist	51	57	54	2%	3%	3%
Orthodox	10	13	14	1%	1%	1%
Lutheran	4	4	4	<1%	<1%	<1%
Other	320	321	347	15%	16%	18%
Total	2,076	2,063	1,880	100%	100%	100%

Anglican and Presbyterian numbers have been particularly hard hit, declining more than 20% in absolute terms over the last twelve years. Lutheran numbers are very small - fewer than 4,000 and representing only 0.2% of all Christians in New Zealand (versus 2% in Australia and Canada).