Bournagain

Had a great weekend in Lower Hutt, and some interesting discussions including a chat on the subject of tolerance with a friend of a friend. We got there by a fairly circuitous route, touching on the war on terror, world peace and the role of religion in armed conflicts. But what got us onto tolerance was those statues of Buddha that were vandalised by the Taleban in Afghanistan. Intolerance was seen as the vice behind this act, and present in all the major world religions. “If the religions would just teach tolerance, the world would be a better place” was the basic idea.

This got me thinking. Sooner or later something or someone will step onto the world scene to fill the present vacuum of leadership. The chaos we see today (the war on terror, Iran, AIDS, Israel/Palestine, global warming etc.) will continue to escalate until some agency, be it a man, a consortium, or even a government, arrives on the scene proposing some concrete solutions. It is only a matter of time before these situations become so desperate that the world will be willing to accept peace at almost any price, and it is in precisely this context that this agency (let’s call it a “Man of Peace”) will come with a clear and seemingly effective strategy to unite national and international powers to to resolve once and for all the problems that plague the world.

But these solutions will come with a price tag, and it is here that the current love affair that we have with this notion of tolerance will come to a brutal end. Read the rest of this entry »

There has been much wringing of hands amongst Western Christians over the “secularisation” of society, but I experienced something today which was another indication that we have been misreading the signs of the times.

In New Zealand April 25^th is ANZAC Day, which commemorates the battle waged by Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli in Turkey during the first world war, and by extension those who died in combat during the various wars of the 20^th century.

You’d think that as the last old returned servicemen passed on, interest in marking ANZAC Day would wane. Well, we were in for a surprise. Read the rest of this entry »