Obadiah was taken aback by an article on the Gospel Coalition website – not the one that caused a storm in a teacup last week but this one: “Help! My Child Wants to Go to a Different Church’s Youth Group”
Pastor Will Standridge argues that teenagers might prefer to go to another church – to see their friends perhaps but that parents should “Keep covenant.”
“So even if the ultimate answer is ‘No, you can’t go with your friends to a different youth group,’ parents should acknowledge the importance of Christian friendships in a teen’s life and work with their sons and daughters to find other ways to cultivate those relationships.
Which may or may not be practical advice.
Obadiah might be soaked in Australianess, a less churchy environment than Pastor Standridges Texas, but surely the first reaction should be, “I am pleased you want to go to church!”
And then maybe other factors, such as what that other church teaches, whether kids are responsibly looked after there, can come into play.
It’s probably a bit of a US Baptist thing, but I am not sure parents attending a particular church means their kids are in a “covenant” relationship with it. It may be that reading church membership as a “Covenant’ may be going beyond what the Bible says.
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School Days: My twin bumped into one of our primary school teachers at the Adelaide Writers festival. Obadiah was pleased that he recognised the twin because he taught the twin and tracked down that class a couple of decades later for a terrific piece of journalism.
But the teacher-turned-author also remembered Obadiah, whom he remembered as more affected by our family situation.
We were in a somewhat elusive church, and this, combined with my mother’s parenting style, taught us to be afraid of the world.
Remembering the teachers’ pastoral care at school fifty years later brings tears to Obadiah’s eyes. They placed me in a class with a very experienced teacher who was good at looking after distressed children. That was what Obadiah needed, and it worked. Thank you, Miss Reid.
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But on International Women’s Day, Obadiah wants to pay tribute to a woman who reached out and adopted four children. She might have had a restricted view of the world but a comprehensive ability to love. You can boost that number up to six because she sheltered two evacuees in the seaside town she moved to during the London Blitz.
It was kind of growing up with a couple of extra brothers, Reg and Kenny I had never met.
There’s a photo in my bookcase of her holding a nervous young Obadiah in the backyard in the English village where we lived. Probably about the time that my twin and I moved from being fostered to being adopted.
I owe her so much. Rescued from the “babies castle” – a place that held hundreds of babies during a UK adoption crisis, because she was prepared to take two children. So she ended up with twins. And that alone made a big difference to Obadiah. And my twin too.
Obadiah is convinced that looking after so many children, and Obadiah is the youngest, took its toll on her. We wrote her down.
But he is grateful and hopes to tell her so.
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Frisson of the week: the attention of Christian social media was on the publication of an overly salacious piece of writing by the usually restrained, if not staid, Gospel Coalition (US).
Rather than the topic of sex, Obadiah found the most intriguing part of this week’s social media storm to be the ruling in or out of what could be approved of. It showed how complicated high-level Christian publishing is, with layers from the board of a sponsoring organisation – the Gospel coalition has millions of followers – to the editors of the book and the website – to those who were ensnared because they had endorsed the book, sometimes without reading it thoroughly.
One local emerging writer noted the pressure when asked to write book endorsements when she was not entirely happy with the text. Refusal could offend colleagues in the writing game. Does not going along make it harder to be on the platform? Maybe. Endorsing something because a friend writes it? That was probably part of what caused this week’s storm in a teacup.
“Platforming” is the new expression for choosing who appears as a conference speaker or even in the local church.
The Adelaide Writers Festival is not the only place where wrangling on who is on – or off – the platform has overpowered everything else.
Every Christian organisation platforms some people, and that implies de-platforming others. We are no longer in the middle ages, Obadiah thinks it is safe to assume, and holding to a distinctive view is part of religious freedom.
So Obadiah thinks almost everyone “cancels” someone sometimes. A bookshop won’t stock every book written. A church generally has a lead pastor. (As attracted as Obadiah is to anarcho-syndicalism, it tends not to work for more than a small group.)
We are all caught between twin platform temptations, on the one hand, a mateship culture of doing favours and promoting mates, and on the other hand, a self-righteous rush to cancel.
All that was on display this week, with long-time critics of the Gospel Coalition piling on, and defenders piling on as well. There’s was actually thoughtful commentary on boths sides, but you had to look for it.
We can’t avoid platforming; although it is an ugly word, those of us with any influence should avoid both sins. Cancel with care. Endorse or promote with care. Avoid inflammatory language. Turn The Other Cheek.