Since the beginning of semester, the campus bible study group has been looking at the Global Food Crisis. We have participated in the 40 Hour Famine and mounted a display at Open Day raising awareness of the problems that people in developing countries experience  as a result of the recent sky-rocketing food prices. Below is the text of a handout we produced to encourage people to take steps to improve the situation:

The Global Food Crisis

How can I help?

• Consume less and reduce your environmental footprint on the earth!
• Eat more veggies and dig deep! By eating organic meat, and beans, nuts, seeds and other environmentally-friendly sources of protein you can slow down climate change. Starting a veggie garden is also a great solution. Create sustainable food sources in your own backyard.
• Avoid grain-fed meat
• Take public transport, ride your bike or just walk! When you do need to use a car, car pool whenever possible
• Become a locovore! Buy locally-made and grown products and reduce your own dependence on oil and bio -fuel. Buying organic and in-season produce also reduces your impact on the environment. Local farmers’ markets are a great place to start. In Armidale a farmers’ market and car boot sale on the first three Sundays of every month starts Sunday 1st November 2009 in the grounds of Armidale City Public School. Local fresh produce is also often available at The Food Shed in Beardy St and at The Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Market in Rusden St.
• Be a fair trader. If you can’t find Australian-made products, buy fair trade instead to make sure all food producers get a fair go. Encourage places where you shop regularly to stock fair trade items.
• Refuse, re-use, recycle – take green bags when you shop; if something is recyclable, recycle it – which may mean rinsing it and removing the lid. Consider buying second-hand goods rather than new.
• Support aid agencies that are working in the two-thirds world to improve farming techniques
• Encourage the government to spend more money on overseas aid that supports poor people
• Encourage the government to spend more money on research into non-food sources of bio-fuels (most Australian bio-fuel uses non-food sources eg sugar cane waste, but as demand increases, more sources need to be found)become informed about the issues and encourage others to follow your example.

Where on the web can I go?

Here are some places to start if you want to become informed and do something to make a difference:

http://www.tear.org.au/ - TEAR Australia (non-denominational – aid, development and education, gifts with a difference)

http://www.worldvision.com.au/ - World Vision (non-denominational – aid, development and education)

http://www.unitingworld.org.au/ - Uniting World (Uniting Church – aid, development and education)

http://www.caritas.org.au/ - Caritas (Catholic – aid, development and education)

http://green.wa.uca.org.au/ - Green Church (Uniting Church - sustainability)

http://www.mjuniting.org.au/greenchurch/ - Project Green Church (Uniting Church - sustainability)

http://www.micahchallenge.org.au/ - Micah Challenge (ecumenical, advocacy – the Christian arm of Make Poverty History)

http://www.earthbasics.com.au/ - Earth Basics (secular – eco friendly products for home and business)

Tim Bulkeley, who teaches Hebrew Bible at Carey Baptist College and the University of Auckland, has recently published some really useful information on the differences between and uses of “Bible dictionaries” and commentaries. Tim’s blog has a range of other really useful information about the Bible as well as tech tips for use of a range of software in teaching the Bible and putting things up on the web.   If you go to the subject index, you will be able to find this fairly easily. He is also committed to justice and has a particular interest in the situation in Burma.

The Sophia Network is, according to their blog, for women in youthwork and ministry, and the blog provides really useful resources for this.  However, it also has a range of interesting and useful articles for anyone who is interested in equality for women and men within the leadership of the church.

The Uniting Church works as a series of interconnected Councils, the national one being Assembly.  The Assembly meets once every three years and that meeting is happening at the moment. We are a quite young church - this is only our 12th Assembly.  Yesterday, Rev Alistair McRae was installed as the new president  and his sermon can be veiwed on the Assembly website, together with ongoing reports of the proceedings. Why would you read the sermon? The theme of this Assembly is Living Water, Thirsty Land and Alistair preached on this theme and on the woman at the well in John’s gospel.  He says:

Friends, what a gospel we have to share. Not imperialistically, but in humility and joy. We don’t possess it — we have been possessed by it! Can we exorcise our demonic preoccupation with survival and risk losing everything for the sake of the gospel, the pearl of great price? Can we cease being anxious about so many things and concentrate on the one thing needful? To call thirsty people to drink, bathe, wash and play in the living water poured out for all in and through Jesus Christ?

I was impressed by what he had to say.

Life in developing countries is often harder for women and girls. They face higher levels of discrimination, abuse and violence. They often have less opportunity to participate in education and civic society. In many developing countries women are unable to own property. It’s a very tough life.

Consider this:

• Seventy percent of all people living in poverty are women.
• Medical complications from pregnancy are the leading cause of death among girls aged 15 to  19 worldwide.
• Seventy-five percent of 15 to 24 year olds living with HIV in Africa are female.
• One quarter to one half of girls in developing countries become mothers before the age of 18.

But people are beginning to realise just how important women and girls are in the fight against poverty. In particular, educating women and girls often means they marry later, have fewer children and are able to find work outside of the family.

A recent report by the Center for Global Development states: “Most important, girls matter because they are human beings.”

• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10-20 percent.
• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.
• Countries with greater gender equality tend to have lower poverty rates.

But there is something more important than all of these statistics. As a recent report, Girls Count, by the Center for Global Development, stated:

Most important, girls matter because they are human beings. Girls have equal rights to human dignity, self-determination, freedom from violence, good health, education, and participation in economic and political life.

Find out more. Have a look at http://www.girleffect.org/ but if you’re at all musically sensitive, turn off the sound first (inconspicuous button in top righthand corner). I hadn’t realised that this was possible so I forced myself to watch the first video to the end although the soundtrack behind it made me feel unwell.

The Girl Effect is sponsored by the Nike Foundation.  This provides me with an ethical dilemma because I am unhappy about a number of Nike’s practices (see this info at the Oxfam site), but I believe strongly in this cause and The Girl Effect provides some excellent info and resources. I personally am not suddenly going to start buying Nike because of this site. YMMV.

Syneidon is a very interesting website. The people who run it say:

The work of Biblical scholars is usually published in specialist journals which, together with their highly technical language, remain inaccessible to the general public. SYNEIDON is dedicated to providing an accessible and non-technical introduction to the academic research of the Old and New Testament for everyone who wishes to widen their understanding and appreciation of these texts, regardless of faith or academic ability.

They seem to be doing a great job of achieving their aims.  Well worth a visit, and thanks to Mark Goodacre from Duke University for drawing my attention to it.

I have recently come across several interesting posts on the issue of Christians and pacifism, thanks to Michael Westmoreland-White on his Levellers blog.

Michael himself has two recent posts - on Just Peacemaking and two types of Christian pacifism, and he also points to  a series by David Cramer on Cramer Comments.  Michael’s blog also includes a page of Christian peace links.

If you’re interested in this issue, these links will keep you occupied for some time.

Welcome (back) to UNE and to the first week of full class timetables.

If you are a first year student, or studying on campus for the first time, you are probably meeting heaps of new people. For some people, this is no big deal. For others, it’s more difficult, especially if you’re separated from friends you made in primary school for the first time in your life. If you’re finding it all a bit challenging, ReachOut.com has some hints on meeting new people that you might find helpful.

If you’re in a share house (or one of the Wright flats) and finding that things are getting a bit tense, it’s always better to deal with tensions as early as possible and to set some ground rules for dealing with potentially touchy issues.  You might find this basic common sense info helpful or this more in depth set of hints.

When negotiating, it’s always better to talk about the effect that someone else’s behavour is having on you and suggest some way of dealing with it using “I” messages than to blame or shame them using “you” messages.  So, you say “I find it really frustrating when I go to the cupboard and find that there’s no toilet paper left. It would be good if we could all get into the habit of putting it  on the list when we start on the last roll.”  This gives the other person the opportunity to say “Oh, damn.  Sorry, I forgot.” If you say “You deadhead.  You used the last of the toilet paper and didn’t put it on the list,” it puts the other person on the defensive and often results in their telling you why you’re an deadhead, too, because there’s probably something you do that gets on their nerves.

Why we observe Lent

A couple of days ago, a web-colleague of mine, Dr Jim West from Tennessee put a post on his blog about why Baptists don’t observe Lent (no, it’s not one of those “why don’t [denomination name] believe in…” jokes). It has provoked lots of comments and he was even quoted in an article in the Associated Baptist News which talks about how many Baptists are beginning to observe Lent.

The arguments against observing Lent centre around the fact that repentance should be a whole of life activity, not just for forty days (plus six Sundays when we celebrate the resurrection).  Of course, that’s how some church-goers do treat Lent, but the idea behind it is to encourage us to focus on our lives and lifestyles in a particular way as we get ready for Easter. Research also says that if you do something for five weeks, it becomes a habit, so some of those Lenten disciplines stand a very good chance of becoming a whole of life activity.

How we celebrate Lent

Several years ago, Sarah White from West Epping Uniting Church in Sydney came up with the idea of Lent Event.  It’s spread rapidly throughout the Uniting Church because it’s such a good idea! Give up some small luxury that costs you money for Lent, put aside the money you save and donate it to help some of the world’s poorest people. Lent Event works in conjunction with Uniting Church Overseas Aid to support six projects, one each in South India, Zambia, Timor Leste  ( East Timor), Papua New Guinea, Sudan and the Solomon Islands.  The projects are all ongoing and Lent Event supports them every year.

Lent Event also produces material for use in worship, in Sunday School and in adult and youth Bible Study groups.  It focuses on the gospel reading for the Sunday in question and links it to practical ways of living Christian lives.  We used the youth material on campus last year and will be using it again this year.  We’ll be looking at the readings and also at some contemporary art (in the broadest sense - music, photos, writing) with the general theme of Word = Art = Life.

What I am giving up

This year, as I did last year, I am giving up buying lunch on campus.  I usually do this a couple of times a week when I don’t get organised enough to bring my lunch from home. It will remind me that there are many, many people who don’t have either the money or the opportunity to buy their lunch, who may not even get lunch.  I will save about $12 a week.

How you can be involved

If  you are reading this at UNE, you can simply drop into my office or send me an email (jredman at une dot edu dot au) and I’ll give you a Lent Event brochure to help you with your giving up and saving.  The first Bible study is today (Friday) at 1 pm in the Catholic Chaplaincy office (the old brick building attached to the International Precinct), but we may change that if we can find another time that suits people better.  If not, you can download information, including the Bible studies, from the Lent Event website or visit your local Uniting Church.  Or if you’re not in Australia, or belong to another church, you might like to give something up for Lent and give the money you save to some other group that you trust that provides help for some of the world’s poorest people.  And maybe encourage your family, friends and colleagues to do the same?

On March 4, 2007, Discovery Channel delivered a cheery Easter message to America’s Christians: Jesus is dead – and we found his tomb. The Lost Tomb of Jesus caused much controversy, although the majority of biblical scholars and biblical archaelogists were not convinced. On January 13-16, 2008, the Princeton Theological Seminary hosted a symposium in Jerusalem that brought together leading scholars and archaeologists, including Prof. Amos Kloner, the lead archaeologist and original author of the report of the Talpiot Tomb and Joe Zias, the former curator of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Media reports of this symposium suggested that the attendees were “deeply divided” about the authenticity of the tomb, but those who attended were amazed at this verdict. Thomas F. Madden, Professor of History and Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University, has written a very helpful piece for the National Review Online that summarises the debate and the actual conclusions of the symposium