One of the greatest threats on Australian Culture in the next decade

*This article first appeared at Christiantoday.com.au

When unprecedented bushfires ravaged the Australian landscape, I didn’t expect what happened next. Social media went into meltdown. The Prime Minister was excommunicated for having a holiday and not showing ‘real leadership’ in a time of crisis. The Greens were lambasted for not allowing enough controlled burning. The gloves were out. We needed someone to blame. We were angry. We are frustrated.

One journalist called it, ‘The fires dividing the nation’.

Some shouted so loud about climate change, that I think extra carbon emissions were unintentionally spread into the atmosphere. On the other hand, others dug their heels in; they denied a link between climate change and bushfires. They wanted people to cut the Prime Minister some slack. Some felt their buttons pushed and went into defence mode, simply perpetuating their climate-denying rhetoric, but this time with irrational memes and a little added aggression than normal.

Wow.

Just wow.

I didn’t think 2020 would start like I was in the middle of a boxing match between the left and right of an opinionated Australia.

I wasn’t intending to even be in the ring, but it looks like I got a couple of left and right hooks to the cheek nonetheless.  

If Madonna wrote a song today

If Madonna re-wrote her 1984 classic, Material Girl, I think she would write, ‘We are living in a polarised world, and I am a polarised girl.’ While materialism, capitalism, communism and all those –isms still rock our society today, I can’t help but think, that within the next decade, above many other things, one of the greatest threats on Australian culture will be polarisation.

We are living in a polarised world. And I am a polarised man. The forces of polarisation are forcing me into a corner.

Pete, what’s your view on same-sex marriage?

Pete, what’s your thoughts about climate change?

Pete, do you watch the ABC, or do you have Sky News?

Pete, do you read Rubert Murdoch or Fairfax?

Are you AFL or NRL?

Are you Labor or Liberal? Or do you vote for a minor party? Tell me, tell me, tell me.

You cannot help but feel the forces of polarisation!

It’s everywhere

Glance beyond Australia and you hear the trade tensions between the United States and China. You hear about the possibility of a new Cold War emerging between Russia and the United States.  

You wake up one morning and you see Boris Johnson elected with a thumping majority, knowing he’ll finally, ‘Get Brexit Done!’ You wonder what world you now live in. This whole Brexit thing may be in full swing, but then the Scottish people will have their say. The Scots don’t want to leave the EU. And so the perpetual cycle of polarisation continues.

Take a look at the British Royal Family. Meghan and Harry announce their split from the Royals, and the Brits are more divided now than before the Brexit referendum. ‘They’re a bunch of spoilt brats!’ one keyboard warrior writes. 

I think someone wrote that under the pseudonym:‘The Queen’.   

Polarisation is everywhere. It divides. It can hurt. It separates. It corners people. It creates boxes of exclusion.

Moving on from polarisation

As I reflect on this global phenomenon, I am drawn to a different way of thinking. What if polarisation wasn’t the only way? What if we didn’t have to simply divide and conquer all the time?

Let me persuade you to move towards a view expressed in the Bible in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 18, namely that Christ has given us a ministry of reconciliation.

That’s right: Reconciliation.

That’s huge. Let’s make reconciliation great again. That’s my new political slogan.

A move from polarisation to reconciliation is critical in this next season of our lives. When our first response is anger and disbelief, we take a deep breath.

We ask ourselves: How can I bring reconciliation into this discussion? How would I behave right now, if I was intent on reconciling the brokenness, rather than pressing buttons that ignite backlash? How would Jesus respond right now? What’s the best response that brings peace and love into this situation?

Reconciliation brings healing. And it’s worth the effort.

It was the vision of people like Martin Luther King Jr. He longed for reconciliation in a society that was racially divided. In his I have a Dream speech, he bellowed out, ‘I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.’

Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream is still unrealised.

The call of God to work for peace in this world is still there for the taking.

One last word

Friends, we’re living in a polarised world. There’s no escaping that. And the polarisation existed well before fires raged across the Australian landscape.

I just hope we can all choose to have a little more patience and a little more grace as we aim to be ministers of reconciliation.

* Pete Brookshaw, along with his wife Jo, are the  Corps Officers (Senior Ministers) of The Salvation Army Craigieburn. He has a Bachelor of both Business and Theology and is passionate about the church being dynamic and effective in the world and creating communities of faith that are outward-focused, innovative, passionate about the lost and committed to societal change. He has been blogging since 2006 at http://www.petebrookshaw.com about leadership and faith and you can find him on:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/petebrookshaw

Twitter: www.twitter.com/petebrookshaw

South African Sex Show Meets The Salvation Army

An unlikely attender at the South African Sex Show was The Salvation Army. Amongst the toys and dancers and all of that, there was The Salvation Army; in amongst the people, aiming to make a difference.

Should we be there? Of course. That's what The Salvation Army have historically done well. We go to the places people least expect and offer hope in Jesus Christ. At the sexpo Salvationists are helping people be aware of the dangers of sex trafficking. It's a modern day epidemic and we must fight against it.

The Australian Federal Police say, "Human trafficking, slavery and slavery-like practices such as servitude, forced labour and forced marriage are complex crimes and a major violation of human rights.  Around the world men, women and children are trafficked for a wide range of exploitative purposes, such as:

• Servitude
• Slavery
• Forced labour
• Debt Bondage
• Forced marriage; or
• Organ harvesting"

The Salvation Army are at the South African Sexpo to raise awareness of such issues.

People become sex trafficked or rather the victims of sex trafficking in the follow ways (adapted from www.thefreedomproject.org):

1. Women and children are kidnapped into slavery.
2. Some children are sold to traders by their parents (primarily because of poverty).
3. Some children are willingly sent with a trader by their parents, who have been promised that their children will receive a good education, an apprenticeship or a good job and good prospects or even just adequate food. Traders can often be well known locals or relatives, so the parents trust them.
4. Some women are married-off, to new husbands that sell them off into the sex industry.
5. Others respond to job advertisements offering good pay for manual labour, only to find that they are imprisoned on arrival, subjected to vastly different employment contracts to what they had been led to believe, with no escape, and may be made to work for many years labouring for no pay at all.
6. Many women apply to sham foreign job agencies or to study overseas, and go abroad thinking they will receive education or have employment as a waitress or a nanny etc, only to find when they reach their destination that the reality is very different, and that they are imprisoned, raped and forced into the prostitution industry.

The Salvation Army will continue to raise awareness of sex trafficking. Not only will we build awareness, but in conjunction with other agenices and organisations, we will seek to make a difference in the sex-trade industry.

Other posts: Reaching the subcultures: How far is too far?

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