Online polls

I was more than bemused to see that stupid little survey "Voteline" (usually on the second letters page of the Advertiser) a few days ago.
It was about marriage equality and it said 700+ were opposed to same-sex marriage and only 20 or 30 were in favour.
How can this be? Particularly since almost every other poll for the last three years has told us that at least 66%...and up to 75% and more are IN FAVOUR of same-sex marriage.
Well, of course, it is the mad methodology. I have blogged about this before (see here for one (but not the only) example)
Yesterday's poll (for example) about the very serious question "Should the Reserve Bank drop interest rates?"   49% of people said yes...and 51% said no. Wow!

Now 49% (on this occasion) was actually 24 phone calls! And 51% was 25 calls!
How can this be? There were over 700 phone calls about same-sex marriage!
Ahh yes, I get it now. Vested interest. Swamping.

It rather exposes how this "Voteline" methodology is fundamentally flawed. It tells us that there in no control (a fundamental concept in statistical analysis), because there is nothing to stop vested interests 'swamping' the protest.
My dear former student D de L was no doubt pretty active, along with his FOL colleagues
It is ALWAYS the case that when the questions have a strong political dimension, either Leftist or Rightist, then the number of phone calls increases dramtically. Not usually up to 700+....but it's the same phenomenon I suggest

Of course there are now all sorts of important polls online. One is the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy & Legal Affairs survey on the two Marriage Equality Acts (2 Amendments: Bandt and Jones at the 2nd reading stage)
If you would like to fill this in then go here  https://www.surveymk.com/s/spla-marriage
I mention this because there was some concern from one group I belong to that there was 'swamping' going on.  This (as I said above) is the great flaw in the methodology.
They were encouraging marriage equality supporters to fill in the survey...this is allegedly attempting to redress a balance, but is of course also skewing the results.

A few of my more Churchy readers may also be interested to know that I have also filled out the Crown Nominations Commission Advisory  quiz about the next Archbishop of Canterbury! (see here)...it says

" In the past only Primates and Provincial Secretaries of the Anglican Communion have had this opportunity"
and indeed it also says
"Cette opportunité était auparavant réservée aux Primats de la Communion anglicane." & "En tiempos pasados solamente han tenido esta oportunidad los primados de la Comunión Anglicana:" & "No passado, apenas primazes e secretários provinciais da Comunhão Anglicana tiveram essa oportunidade"


(interesting that the French and the Spanish only refer to the Primates/Primats/ and do not make reference to the provincial secretaries!!  as do the English and the Portuguese)


Does at least tell us something about the cosmopolitan nature of the Anglican Communion/Communion Anglicane/Comunión Anglicana/Comunhão Anglicano....one would also want to add various other languages...Swahili/Korean/Japanese/Mandarin/Cantonese/Arabic/Melanesian/Australian(!)/ u.s.w.....


I suggested that it was a pity that such a catholic Communion was not looking beyond the British Isles for the leader of this polyglot Church!

Time to Go!

An interesting talk today from Stephen Pickard, the Assistant Bishop who was talking about "Dynamic Catholicism in a Broken World."  

Those of you who are not Anglicans need to know that there are many Anglicans who call ourselves Catholics. It is a way of spirituality, and framework that is forming us all the time.

the good Bishop grappled a lot with the present struggles of the Anglican Church over issues such as the ordination of gay people, and for some (still) the issues of the ordination of women as Bishops.

It doesn't seem like much of an issue here in Adelaide, but elsewhere the Church is ripping itself to pieces.

Going back to the root of "catholic" , it is a word which means universal or comprehensive. And although we often use it to mean Roman Catholic (which is a contradiction when you think about it)... many Anglicans use it to speak of an openness to difference and change. Indeed our Group meeting this day is called Affirming Catholicism.  

I think of it as strong support for this universality.

The good Bishop agonised a bit with the principle of holding difference in tension and sticking with it and being reluctant to leave , but didn't quite get to a deep enough discussion of how do you decide when it is time to go.

There was much parallel drawn with marriage.  But while we readily accept today that people should not stay in destructive relationships, we were being more reluctant to let people get out of church.

It is tricky. And I don't know the answer. But how do you honour people's decision to betray something you hold dear!

I was struck by one insight. That Judas sits within each of us. I think that bears some thought. 

Life on the edge

My Doctorly neighbour and I had a discussion about the new ethos that is permeating our local diocese. There apparently is a declared policy (though I have not heard of it) that we should all live together in harmony and tolerate difference.
One can't criticise such a stand, indeed that is part of its insidious nature.
I am only happy with this sort of policy if such a view is not a statement that we want everyone to be in the insipid middle. Which I fear is indeed what it does mean!
In a way it is easy for policy makers and those who believe they have the right to direct everyone to have everyone in some amorphous middle.
But in the end I suspect it doesn't work, because it is lacklustre and lacks character.
I tend to be an extremist. Not a wildly anarchic extremist, (indeed my main manifestation of extremism is probably that I am an extreme conservative!), but I don't like sitting in the middle.
So I am by choice a Catholic Anglican. That is the sort of worship and spirituality that speaks to me. In fact one thing I am sure about is that I do not want to belong to the middle of our church. It is strangely where I have spent most of my ministry.
I actually want worship that is splendid, mysterious, full of smoke, colour symbol and music. I do not want half-baked thoughts and worship so restrained that it almost fades away.
I don't consider myself a "protestant", and don't like much of the sort of thought and worship that flies under that banner, though I have had and participated in my fair share of it.
It is often said that the Anglican Church is a "bridge church" between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant. That may be true to some extent, but another colleague once remarked...you can't live on a bridge. I would concur with that.
So it is for this toleration model that is being perpetuated. I actually suspect it is a model of control, and mediocrity. It is a bridge....but not a home

Loose language

There's often not a great deal you can do about it but, I decry the imperialistic use of language which seems to be about capturing the "good words" and claiming them as one's own. In this the true meaning of words does not seem to have much bearing on their captured meaning.
To give an example (as I am some what confused myself by what I have written) a well-known coffee chain offers coffee in three different sizes (at least). The word Grande is used to describe what they call "medium", and the word "Alto" to descibe "large".
This is a marketing ploy of course, but I am always bemused...it's clear to me that their standard offering (which would seem to be small by their own description) is what I would call medium...their medium is a more than adequate large, and the "alto" is huge. Anmy way you learn eventually what size you want...thouygh I am always puzzled by what is medium outside the pictures and what is medium inside!!!
More serious and irksome are the following:
catholic: the word catholic has a life beyond the religious to mean all embracing, universaland broad. The qualified term therefore, eg. Roman or Anglo Catholic would seem to be an oxymoron (a contradiction within itself), and yet the former is the most common use.
A group I head wants to say that rather than being a narrow descriptor of who God is and what God wants (often the imperialism of the "Catholic" church insists that to be catholic is a descriptor of a narrow orthodoxy defined by an elite power structure) but we would suggest that it is better used to see God as "universal" affirming of all people irrespective of gender, nationality, sexuality and which is essentially affirming of equality rather than status and privilege.
liberal: Those of us who migrate to Australia take a while to understand that Liberal actually means Tory or conservative in English terms. Those of us who are really the old-fashioned liberals of the 60s and 70s stand back aghast at how the hard won liberalities are cast aside.
conservative: strangely the word 'conservative' has been captured to mean backward looking or recationary. I want it to mean genuinely conserving that which is important and not throwing out babies with bath water. But so often it means going back to the old tin bath.
evangelical: this word has been comandeered by a certain type of Christian, often fundamentalist, even though it clearly refers to what is a requirement for all christians to spread the gospel. So the word evangelical has been comandeered by some whose style of evangelism is often heavy handed and very manipulative; not values I would readily associate with the gospel
pro-life: sympathetic to a conservative (see above) view of abortion, which sees it not as a day to day strategy but a last port of call, the pro-life (anti abortion) movement is often anything but respectful of the life of those who are affected by the process of decision making about abortion. Women faced with this awful decision are often caricatured as demons incarnate,instead of being viewed compassionately and not merely as political footballs
pro-choice: much of what is said above could also be said about the misuse of the term pro-choice. What worries conservatives (see above) like me, is that pro-choice doesn't always engender careful choice, it may create an indifference and carelessness whioch has no true choice in it at all
traditional: I have within the bounds of my parish a church which styles itself a church of "The Traditional Anglican Communion". They are a breakaway church and by no stretch of the imagination part of the Anglican Communion. Though Archbishop Rowan is kind to these people they are not part of the Anglican Communion. If it wasn't for the fact that it would be a terrible waste of money, someone should take them to court for misleading advertising. Traditional, it would seem to me, has much the same sort of emphasis as the word "conservative" (see above), but is used to mean reactionary, and bizarrely conservative. It hails back to a time in Anglican life when some longed for the establishment of a fanciful type of pseudo Roman Catholicism.
Further it betrays the Anglican sense of "tradition", which has been a tradition of tolerance, openness and living with difference. The mis-named Traditional Anglican Communion, are against the ordination of women, they are authoritarian and regressive. Pity that their energy couldn't be better directed
anglican: we are involved in a struggle at the moment in who can be and who can't be Anglican. Where is the traditional tolerance of extremes? It disturbs some of us that conservative forces are so flexing their muscles that they want to to be intolerant rather intolerant. The justifications are curious..we are big and successful (questionable), we are conservative and traditional (questionable), therefore there is no place for those who are trying to actively dialogue with modern social questions in particular (and surprise surprise) the place of homosexuals in the life of the church.

There are many other words that have the same worry for me (christian, labour, democrat, gay, advanced)

Why can't we just say what we mean?

God is not a homophobe

If the 20th century gave us the word 'homosexual'then God help the 21st century whioch appears to have given us the word 'homophobe'.
I am an Anglican who happily accepts the traditional doctrine of the catholic creeds. Now the word "catholic" is a precious one. Although we use it denominationally, let us use it literally...to mean universal... God is a catholic God, {not a Roman Catholic God but a universal God, anything less is a nonsense} when we state that he disapproves of some of his creation more than others we are, I suggest, diminishing God (often called blasphemy).
The catholic God does not hate homosexuals, or Muslims or atheists. He universally love us all, because he is catholic. (for an interesting little scuffle see here)