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Showing posts from September, 2008

To hit or not to hit

The other day, actually the other week, there were too really interesting items on the front in the local newspaper. The first article was about a man who had been convicted for assault. He had thrown a bad of nappies at his partner. He was given home detention for this crime. Fair enough. Violence of any kind is not acceptable. Just below that article was another. It celebrated the fact that enough signatures had been collected a referendum about the so called “Anti-smacking” Act which removed the right of parents to smack children as a defence in the Crimes Act. This came about because New Zealand juries had thought it alright for parents to use horse whips, planks and hose pipe on their children. According to some people, these people are good parents and as such they should not be punished. Hmmm… I wonder if many people noticed the irony of those two articles. It is not alright to throw nappies at adults. It is alright to hit children. At times in the neighbourhood I live it, the

the function of liturgy? - what is mission

Annika helpfully left this comment on my post "the function of liturgy?": "Can you define 'mission' - I think it would help being very clear in what that would mean in today's world. Only once that is clear we can then move on and talk about liturgy's function in sending 'people out to join with God in mission.'" Well, that is a good question. Here is my very anglican answer: So what is mission? The Anglican Church uses these five marks or strands to describe what mission is all about. Here are the Five Strands of Mission: • To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom • To teach, baptise and nurture new believers • To respond to human need by loving service • To seek to transform unjust structures of society • To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth (Bonds of Affection-1984 ACC-6 p49, Mission in a Broken World-1990 ACC-8 p101) Mission can be described as a rope, and these are the five strands

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