Archive for August, 2012

Roaring lambs

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Transforming culture . . . from the inside

Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Avondale College of Higher Education

The late Bob Briner’s book Roaring Lambs came as a wake-up call to thousands of Christians artists, entertainers and record companies. At a time when they were developing a dangerously entrenched posture, Briner asked: “In light of Christ’s call to be salt and light in the culture around us, why do we want to keep all this talent huddled behind church walls?”

Briner earned the right to be heard in the culture-at-large through his influence as an Emmy Award-winning television executive, a professional sports agent (he co-founded the Association of Tennis Professionals) and a business person. He believes the most effective spokespeople for Jesus Christ will:

  1. Never ask for money on radio or television.
  2. Not be employed by a Christian organisation.
  3. Earn the right to be heard through competence and class in their own “secular” profession.
  4. Be an excellent communicator.
  5. Know and love God’s Word.
  6. Understand Christianity’s relevance to all of life.

“I can almost hear the groans of disbelief,” he writes. “The conventional wisdom will say our best spokespersons are the Chuck Swindolls. . . . Their great followings will be cited, as will their communication skills and their commitment to the truth of Scripture. . . . But, guess what. Out where I spend my professional life—in the headquarters of the television networks, in the advertising agencies and in the offices of the professional sports leagues—people have never heard of Chuck Swindoll.”

So, who speaks for Christians today? asks Briner. “The answer is simple. You do. Not your pastor, a famous Christian author, or one of the well-known personalities on Christian radio or television. You do. . . . Very few of us ever consider ways we could engage our culture with views that have been shaped by the transforming message of the gospel. And because of that, Christian thought and values are missing from [popular] culture.”

And how have Christians typically engaged culture? By appropriating, condemning and consuming it. This is according to William Romanowski, author of Pop Culture Wars. Our true calling, he says: to transform culture. And I’ll add: from the inside.

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I’m Not Leaving

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Hope amid the Rwandan horror

Nathan Brown
Master of Arts (Research) student
Avondale College of Higher Education

Carl Wilkens had been country director for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) in Rwanda for about four years in April 1994, when he found himself in the midst of an unfolding genocide. During the next 100 days, more than 800,000 Rwandans were murdered in a frenzy of ethnically motivated killing. The rest of the world virtually ignored it.

ADRA, Seventh-day Adventist Church and United States government representatives urged Carl and his family to escape, but Carl knew his departure would leave members of his staff in danger. So, while his wife, children and parents evacuated to Kenya, Carl stayed and did what he could to help and protect others caught in the madness.

I’m Not Leaving is the remarkable story of Carl’s experience. It’s not a history of the Rwandan horror—“the stories in this book are completely inadequate to represent the horror and loss that happened during the genocide. It was so much worse than I could ever write.” It’s more personal. Carl tells stories of working to save lives and reflects on how these experiences changed his relationships.

As such, I’m Not Leaving is a story of hope rather than horror—although the horror is only just out of sight. Carl’s task is to personalise the people who endured these tragedies, undoing the work of the murderers whose method objectified their victims. His is a story of courage and faith, demonstrating these matter even in the most brutal of circumstances.

Not greatly developed as a book and drawn significantly from tape recordings Carl made during the genocide, I’m Not Leaving reads as the raw notes and stories from the frontline, where life is heartbreakingly tenuous and stubbornly resilient.

Without labouring its point, Carl’s story is a call to live courageously, faithfully and compassionately, whatever the cost, and to trust God with our lives and our service to Him and others.

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A revolutionary idea

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Disposing of consumerism

Josh Dye
Public relations intern
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

What comes to mind when you think of North Korea? Nuclear weapons, military processions or not much at all?

Despite being located in the most prosperous region on earth—among economic powerhouses such as China, Japan and South Korea—North Korea chooses anonymity and isolation. The world’s most secluded state remains shrouded in mystery.

Travelling there is a surreal experience; the country remains firmly entrenched somewhere in the last century. It’s easy to criticise North Koreans for their fanatical support of an oppressive, corrupt and despotic regime. How could they possibly tolerate such dreadful living conditions? Why don’t they revolt? Here’s some perspective, though.

North Koreans are subjected every day to relentless propaganda. Billboards promote the state rather than a brand; state-owned television is censored and heavily biased; the Kim dynasty is worshipped, venerated, adored. Without the Internet, travel opportunities or free press, most people just don’t know what the rest of the world is like. And it’s been that way for generations. Unbelievable, right?

How different are we? Consider this:

A family eats dinner in the comfort of plush leather couches and watches its favourite cooking show. For some of the time, anyway—there’s a lot of advertisements. The members of the family are subjected to an excitable voice telling them all kinds of things: that they must try this new, irresistible burger, then 30 seconds later that they need to lose weight; that their couches need upgrading or that they should use a new brand of shampoo.

It’s no less propaganda than the state television in Pyongyang.

In the North Korean world, it’s easy to spot the flaws. Not so in our world, where consumerism is rampant and everything is disposable.

Josh is a Bachelor of Arts student majoring in communication and international poverty and development studies at Avondale College of Higher Education.

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