Watching the Olympics these last few days I’ve been struck by how much our culture idolises athletes and sporting acheivement. I’m as keen on sport as the next guy but I’m wondering if this is one of our cultural blind spots.

Surely issues of justice are raised when we spend millions (maybe billions?) on the elite level of sports in our country each year …

Aren’t issues of pride relevant for those performing at this level and are the rest of us being helpful on this front?

What about idolatory? Who is getting the glory for the remarkable capacity of these individuals?

Just a few questions from me early on a Sunday morning as I watch the Dream Team dominate Spain …

Check out the original post here -http://www.jesustheradicalpastor.com/the-american-sound-bite-gospel

I am stunned that some Christians still defend a sound bite gospel. You know, the 4 steps, the “bridge over troubled waters” packaged presentation. The wondrous, thunderous, mind-boggling, heart-stopping gospel of the Bible and of Jesus himself is horribly reduced to bumper sticker phrases.

With what other literature or great story do we do this? None to my knowledge. Imagine the classic story (and movie) of Ben Hur reduced to…

• Ben Hur accidently killed a Roman soldier.
• Ben Hur was a galley-slave.
• Ben Hur drove in a big chariot race and won.
• Ben Hur met Jesus at the Cross when his mother and sister were healed.

Wow. I really know the story now. Do YOU believe in Ben Hur?

How about Anne of Green Gables?

• Anne Shirley meets Marilla and Matthew.
• Anne doesn’t like her freckles.
• Anne doesn’t like the Pye children.
• Anne becomes a teacher and serves blind Marilla.

Doesn’t that story just rock? Do YOU believe in Anne of Green Gables?

Or, even Pilgrim’s Progress.

• Pilgrim goes on a journey.
• Pilgrim carries a sack of sin.
• Pilgrim meets a lot of interesting people.
• Pilgrim makes it and his pack falls off.

Wow! Pilgrim gets saved! Do YOU believe in Pilgrim?

You say, “John, this is so silly.” I agree. But the question remains: Why do we do this with ” the greatest story ever told” and act like we’re doing something noble, even holy? It actually is stupifying. The sweeping, rumbling Bible saga and the Spirit-energized, Jesus-intense Gospels get miniaturized to…

• God loves you.
• You are a sinner.
• Jesus died for you.
• Believe in Jesus now.

Wow. Do YOU believe in Jesus? If so, you get to go to heaven when you die.

A bumper sticker gospel creates sound bite believers who parrot things rather than live into the sweeping Story of God’s amazing, amazing grace.

I’d like to preface this post by saying that I’m not looking for a fight on the abortion issue. I’m not seeking to demonise anyone who is pro abortion or support anyone who is anti abortion. I’m just using this space to reflect and think out loud about my own journey with the issue in recent months. Please feel free to comment on this post, but I would ask you to be respectful and considerate if you do.

I’ve never thought much about abortion. I’ve never really had much reason to. All this changed with Tuscan.

Some people applaud Jay and me for the choice we made to continue with our pregnancy even though our son was diagnosed with Down Syndrome. To Jay and me that seems very strange, we don’t feel that we made any choice at all. I guess who we are and how we feel about this issue was formed well before we were faced with any kind of ‘choice’. Our values and choices have been being shaped and moulded together for years. We did not face any deep internal struggle as to what we should do. I think we wondered why and how and whether we could cope, but certainly not if we should try.

When Tuscan was born we spent 3 weeks in the Special Care Nursery at the Mercy Hospital for Women. This was an amazing time for a number of reasons. Firstly we had just had our first child, what could be more amazing than that? Secondly the hospital gave us first rate medical care, Tuscan was incredibly well looked after and we will be forever grateful for this and thirdly we saw some absolute miracles occur. We met a little girl who was born at 23 weeks and 4 days and was just about to head home when we did. We met a little boy who was born at not much over 500grams and left happy and healthy a few days before us. We met twins who would be growing up together because of life saving surgery. We saw huge amounts of effort go into saving life. Life that if left to the natural order would have passed away. We witnessed humanity drawing on all its knowledge and resources to nurture and sustain something so wonderfully precious, it was a privilege to be present.

Jay and I had sought to create life and had succeeded, which is always something of a miracle itself when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it all. This little life we had made was fragile and delicate but alive and beautiful. The doctors and nurses had done everthing required to give our little Tuscan the best chance at life possible and he made the most of it.

A couple of months later we found ourselves handing over this precious life to some doctors who would perform much needed heart surgery. In some ways this handing over made no sense, Tuscan appeared quite well and yet they were going to stop his heart and lungs to give him an even better chance of living longer. The surgery was a fantastic success and Tuscan was recovering well and home 6 days later. Our precious little life had been saved or at least from a danger we knew could and would harm it. Huge amounts of effort and had gone into this saving which caused me to start to wonder about why we sometimes discard life so easily.

My personal opinion is that life starts at conception, when the sperm and the egg get together there’s no turning back, it’s the beginning of the process and the beginning of life. At least in my head that makes the most sense. So when people talk about stem cell research or abortion at whatever stage or contraception that stops a fertilised egg implanting in the lining of the uterus, I see that as the destruction or the discarding of life. The thing that is really messing with my head is that we can see some lives, like the ones that were saved in the hospital while we were there, as precious and worthy of massive effort to save them, but others as not. Not only not worthy of being saved but also not worthy of being allowed to continue to live. I have to say that I really don’t get it.

Now I realise that there are a whole range of complicated issues and potential scenarios at play. I’m not seeking to dismiss the complexity and pain associated with these issues and decisions. That said I still can’t make sense of the fact that some lives, lives that naturally might not be viable, are considered worthy of savings while others are not only not saved, but terminated.

Even if we remove the abortion debate from this discussion altogether. How can we fight with weapons that we know will take away life while at the same time spend millions researching on ways to save life?

Our society is wonderfully gifted in saving life but also remarkably efficient at destroying life. I’m finding this very hard to reconcile.

The last 12 months have been something of a whirlwind for us. First we found out we were pregnant, then we were told we were at high risk for some kind of chromosomal abnormality with our pregnancy, then we found out that our baby had a heart defect, then we found out our baby had Down Syndrome, then we had our baby boy Tuscan and spent 3 weeks in hospital with him, then we took him home for 9 weeks and finally he had heart surgery and was home 6 days later. As I reflect back on this time I realise how intense it’s all been. I thought I might try and make some reflections.

Yesterday Tuscan, Jay and I came home from the hospital. Tuscan had a remarkable recovery, he spent 3 days in ICU and then another 3 on the ward. His surgery was very successful, there is little to no leakage in the new valves and he seemed to breeze through the process of coming off the ventilator and getting back into feeding. We are not anticipating any further surgeries and in lots of ways this feels like a new beginning. It’s wonderful to be home, Tuscan is full of smiles and laughs. Thank you all so much for your prayers, support and love, they have made such a remarkable difference to us all in this process. I’ve attached a couple of pictures that will hopefully give you some sense of the week we’ve had.

Tuscan’s surgery was scheduled for 8am this morning. He had to be finished feeding by 5am and we had to be at the hospital by 6:45am. We decided to get a head start so we woke at 4, fed the kid/expressed, got ourselves organised and left the house around 6. We arrived a little early and spent some time being generally upset and concerned until our family arrived.

We went up to admissions, were processed and then waited. And waited and waited and waited. Eventually at around 10am we were told that there would be a bed in ICU for us and that the surgery would be happening. From that moment things moved pretty fast, before we knew it we were being escorted into the pre-op holding bay. The worst bit was handing him over, many tears had been shed prior to this moment, but here there was a torrent. It was the hardest and strangest thing I think I’ve ever done.

We walked out, cried our way down the corridor and found the family again. Somehow we managed to wile away the time. We booked into our hotel room and tried to watch a movie. Eventually the phone rang, “everything went smoothly, there were no complications and there is no leakage from the valves.” Such sweet sweet news.

After another 2 hours we were able to head into the ICU and see him. He looks like this

The plan is to slowly reduce his muscle relaxants and sedation overnight so that he is awakeish in the morning with a view to taking out his ventilation tube tomorrow and possibly move him up to the ward for tomorrow night.

We’ve had a simply amazing day. Full of fear, tears, hope, joy, laughter and relief. Thank you all for your well wishes, prayers, support and love. I’ll let you know how the next few days go.

Yesterday we got a call from the Royal Children’s Hospital, telling us that Tuscan’s heart surgery will happen this coming Tuesday, the 8th July. Currently he is first on the list, so surgery will start about 8am and go for about 5-8 hours. During surgery he will be put on a bypass machine to pump oxygenated blood around the body while they work on the heart and he will also be put on a respirator which will breath for him. They will then patch up the two large holes in his heart and also make his one big valve, into two! They will then take him off the bypass machine, and take him to ICU where he will remain asleep and on the respirator for anywhere between 2-4 days. Jay and I will stay in a nearby hotel at this time and then when Tuscan moves to the ward, Jay will stay up there with him so he can be breastfed. The hardest bits apart from the surgery itself will be getting him off bypass and his heart started again, as well as getting him off the respirator and his lungs started again. We will have a much better sense of how successful the surgery was and how his recovery will look by Friday.

If you pray, could you please do so for:
- the surgery, that it would go smoothly and without complication.
- the recovery, that Tuscan’s heart and lungs would fire up again without any trouble.
- Jay and I, that we would hope and trust as we hand Tuscan over for surgery and wait for the doctors to tell us how it’s going.

Thanks for you support, love and prayers.

On April 12 2008 our son was born. We spent 3 weeks in the special care nursery at the Mercy Hospital in Heidelberg and have since been back at home. Tuscan is doing pretty well although we are very aware that his condition is likely to deteriorate over the next few months in the lead up to his heart surgery. As I’ve mentioned previously, he has Down Syndrome and the major complication of that so far seems to be his heart defect.

I’m unsure as to whether having Tuscan around is going to make me more likely to post here or not. For now you’ll just have to enjoy the pictures.

Kate, a member of Loam, wrote this description of us.

Loam is a small community of people who, through action and reflection, are committed to discerning what it means to follow Jesus in and around the northern Melbourne suburb of Preston. Loam believes that hospitality is a central aspect of faith, and that food can bridge all manner of gaps.

It’s pretty well spot on I think.

I’m currently working on an essay with the following topic:

In the light of the Apostle Paul’s strategy to cross cultures for the “sake of the gospel”, discuss the following:

We need to find another way of defining our faith that is not so defensive, another way of affirming our faith that is not so aggressive; a way of comprehending our faith that is true, but doesn’t pretend to have a monopoly on truth; and a way of interpreting our faith that is inclusive, not exclusive, of all that is good and healthy and holy and right in other cultures, traditions and religions.
Christi-anarchy, Dave Andrews, Lion Publishing, 1999.

I’ll post the finished product in a bit but I’d be interested to hear anyone’s thoughts.