Another day...another prime minister

What times we live in, people of Australia...we have a new prime minister and just right the Premier of our most populous state is live tweeting a reality show (this fact entertains me quite a bit...check the tweets out at https://twitter.com/mikebairdMP)

I don't know how you felt on Monday night/ Tuesday morning morning when you discovered we had a new PM. Maybe it is a bit like this...

 

Or maybe like this...

  

Maybe you were a bit meh about it...

 

Or maybe you live overseas it was a bit confusing...

As for me...

 

Only kidding...well about the insect part anyway. 

Every time there is political change or upheaval in this country, I find myself surprised...not because some people don't care or feel impacted by it as much as we political nerds do, that is completely par for the course. No, the surprise for me is the number of people who do show an interest in it, but then utter phrase like "but I didn't vote for [insert leader here]" after our now quite frequent leadership spills. Spills are becoming so frequent that it caused this awesome edit to the Australian sport wikipedia page on Monday night...

 

The question of who you voted for unfortunately does not come into play in a leadership spill. You voted for the person you felt it was best to be a voice for your electorate and after the votes were tallied whether that person got in or another candidate did your electorate had spoken. You may have voted based on the leader of a party but you did not vote for that leader (unless you live in his or her electorate), you voted for the particular member of their party who ran in your electorate. The person your electorate put into parliament then goes into their party room, and that party room drives the decisions of either the party in power or the opposition assuming your electorate elected an MP from a major party. The party room elects a leader, and leader of the party is the mouth piece for the party room, and therefore your voice via what your representative says in the party room is heard. This is how representative democracy works in Australia. This means that if there is an issue with the leader, such as the fact that they frequently ignore the opinions of the party room and make "captain calls" with the assistance of their chief of staff more than their parliamentary colleagues (yes I am describing our erstwhile PM), then the party room is well within its right to replace that leader because he/she is not longing representing the party room which means she/he is no longer representing the views of the elected representatives of the people.

Unfortunately for us, we have been fed spoonful after spoonful of watered down US politics from TV and film that we incorrectly apply it to our Australian context. In America, they do directly vote for their President. This leads to a cult of personality about the leader and also a leadership race to effectively eats up at least half of each presidential term. Their leaders can spend more time campaigning than they do governing. And before you think I'm cribbing this from The West Wing, I will point out that I did do one semester of politics with a US focus and two semesters of US history at University, and am a bit of a politics nerd, so yes I do know a little about it and when the President complains about the amount of campaigning involved in presidency on the The West Wing that is a completely legitimate concern. This is also why it is super hard for the US to drop a President mid term and is why shorter term presidencies were due to resignation, assassination, or death on the job not due to party changes.

Which is to say even if they are a bit too frequent in recent years and sometimes on shaking reasoning (not this last one- I think that reasoning was solid), I'm actually thankful to live in a land of leadership spills because it means that the politicians are actually looking out for concerns of the country and trying to make their voices as our representatives heard. Leadership spills are rarely about the cult of personality (though some are), as those rarely get the votes. 

As to our particular brand of new leadership...well they aren't going to call on me to pick Liberal leaders (Liberal= right of centre, for those outside Australia...yes strange I know) since I'm very far left of their base being as I'm left of Labor, but this might to a solid choice. Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop represent what the Liberal Party was designed to be i.e. right of centre, and the Party had in recent years, under Tony Abbott's leadership, veered so far to the right that it was deeply scary not only those of us on the left but also to those in the centre. Being as left as I am there are very few right wing politicians I have any time for but, aside from our Bachelor watching Premier, our new PM and continuing Deputy PM round out that very small list. Does this mean that they will be able to enact much change on a very conservative party room? Probably not, but it is at least a step in the right direction...no pun intended especially as this team will pull them left towards just right of the centre (not past it though, all you concerned Liberal voters out there). This may mean that meaningful discussions can finally be had around climate change and becoming a republic, and maybe even some loosening and changing of asylum seeker policy once the new cabinet is in place. Sure Liberal is still Liberal, and I don't want them winning next election but if we can actually have some good discussion and bipartisan work come out of the rest of this term then I'm happy for the leadership change as an interim step.

What else good comes of this leadership change... A while ago I blogged about the fact that the Abbott government was scaring the political centre and scattering it to the four winds. In just the last few days, I've seen hopeful signs of its return. Come back out of hiding, you centre types, because we need and miss you. I feel like we might be heading back to being a place where bipartisan discussion may actually be something that could again be meaningful. You doubt me? Let me give you a real life example... Today I had lunch with my Dad and our politics do not align in the remotest most of the time, so we engage in what we call healthy discussion/debate, or what my mother calls arguments, over politics all the time and have done for many a year. Today at lunch however, we had a chat about the leadership change, about who might be in the new cabinet, and about what policy changes this might bring without any disagreement because we were on the same page, I may not vote for the same party as he does but we could both agree on the fact that we thought the spill had a good result and that the new leadership was good for the Liberal party and might be able to make good changes for the country. When you can get someone who is centre right and someone who is far out left on the same page, you are demonstrating that you are actually leading a whole country of complex individuals- though time will tell when the new leadership honeymoon period is over.

If this does end poorly, my suggestion for the next spill...

Christians and viral videos...attacking Buzzfeed isn't the answer

So this isn't about books by women and I have a massive backlog of those to type up for you, but instead I thought I'd put a few words down about the viral Buzzfeed video, "I'm a Christian, but I'm not..." that is currently doing the rounds- it has dragged me down an internet wormhole that is detracting me from the theology essay I'm supposed to be writing. If you haven't seen it, the link is here...

The video features a bunch of Gen Y types talking about how they are a Christian but they don't fit particular stereotypes regarding Christianity, and it is currently being torn to shreds by most every Christian in the blogosphere/on twitter/on YouTube/on facebook/everywhere on the interwebs. Whilst I agree that a video about Christians that doesn't mention Jesus is not really ideal and that yes you could ask question of the brand of Christianity these young people practice, I think maybe we shouldn't be so quick with the flaming torches and pick forks.

Firstly, we need to own that some of the things said in this video are completely true. Every Christian should be able to say "I'm a Christian, but I'm definitely not perfect" because that is the whole reason we need Christ in the first place. It is one of those stereotypes about Christianity that we should be fighting against because "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:10). The same can be said about the video's statement that "I'm a Christian but I do not put myself on a pedestal" as we are called to be humble, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6), and the video's statement that "I'm a Christian but I'm not judgmental" because we should be in constant awareness that judgment belongs to God alone and we are all under that judgment not the judgment of other people (Luke 6:37)- I would suggest that homophobia as spoken of by the video also falls into the category of judgment*. Also we all live in the awareness that the world and mysteries of it are at the present time hidden from us (1 Cor 13:12), so we can join the video in its statement "I'm a Christian, but I don't have all the answers".

Secondly, we can acknowledge that some of the things in the video aren't anathema to the gospel and are spaces that many Christians occupy whilst also holding onto biblical truth. There are myriad Christians who are not uneducated, not politically conservative (I assume this is what the video means when it speaks of being conservative), not ignorant, love Beyonce, love wine, and have friends from different walks of life and love them. I'm one of them (assuming again that the conservative is political not theological). I'm also a Christian who is a feminist which is one of the comments in the video (aside from the sexuality comments) that the most pitch forks are pointing at- Jesus was an equal opportunity saviour and he choose to reveal his resurrection first to whom...that's right to women even though their testimony was of no value in that day and age. Even if you are a Christian who has issues with Christians being feminists (which is such a complicated and simple term that it should require unpacking before you use it as an insult), you surely will agree that Christians are stereotyped for better or worse (mainly worse) as being uninformed fun haters and it is about time that we acknowledge to the world that we comes from a mix of educational and political backgrounds and that we have a vast variety of opinions on things like alcohol and popular culture. Also we could definitively put it out there that we love science too because as the video says "science makes God look really cool" (as a Christian with an biology degree I say, "yes, ain't that awesome! I completely agree with you, random Buzzfeed gen Y person!").

Third and finally, we can ask is hating on this video the best use of it? This video has gone pretty viral over the last few days and a landslide of comments that say, "let me tell you why this video is so very wrong" merely serve to demonstrate the point that the video seeks to make for those who believe the bulk of Christians to be hypocrites. I agree that there are issues with it, but just remember the video isn't about spreading a Christian message (it is from Buzzfeed for goodness sakes!), it is about breaking down stereotypes. Why can't we engage with the ideas and views it presents in a way that leads to a positive discourse instead of just attacking it? Most Christians are aware of the stereotypes about Christianity that are held as true by our society, and most of us are aware that these stereotypes don't hold much water when you look at the diverse community of broken sinners that Christ has called to himself. So instead of looking at this video and tearing it to shreds for what it never intended to be, why don't we recognise that it might be worth exploring with those we know who aren't Christian what their beliefs and stereotypes about Christians are and starting to break these down if we can.

That is me just chucking some thoughts into the internet void and I'm happy for you to disagree if you wish to. I will end where the video ends with love, because it is the heart of the gospel- the Father's love for humanity even in its sinful state, Christ's love for humanity and the Father shown in his death, and the love of the Holy Spirit that Christians are called to act in whether speaking to God, to fellow Christians, or to non-Christians- not a mild watered down emotionless love but the all expansive love described in 1 Corinthians 13 that "never ends".

*You may notice I don't comment on the video representation of sexuality. This is because unlike their love of Beyonce, I believe that a person's sexuality is best discussed with them in person if they wish to share it with you, and that attacking people's sexuality on the internet does little to love or support them. So the Buzzfeed twenty somethings may have shared it, but I feel it is not my place to comment on it (or especially to invite the comments of other on it) one way or the other in the toneless void of the internet.