Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
Interesting conversation, as befits Public Address. Just reading Andrew Dubber’s latest blog and he makes mention that PA is ten years old this week. Is that so?
Not this week. But it'll be 10 years in November.
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Hard News: One man’s Meat Puppets is…, in reply to JacksonP,
Someone needs to do a Ska version of that stat! Anyone? The Specials are in town.
I believe the band you want for that is The Yoots.
I am actually going to suggest that to the producers ...
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Isabel Hitchings,
I remember YFC and another lot whose name I don’t recall being given stage time at our school assemblies to promote their evening rallies.
Certain Sounds, perhaps? They were a Christian rock band -- or brand, really, given that the lineup changed from year to year -- who toured schools.
They would do a couple of covers of popular songs and say something quite mild but people who went to their main events often came back scared and upset. I always thought it was a bit dodgy that they were allowed into state schools and given a captive audience.
The whole pentecostal thing was quite new at that point, and I suspect schools just didn't get what was going on. You'd hope the rallies aren't quite so scary and upsetting now too -- the experience of finding something dark in the big YFC rallies of the time doesn't seem like an uncommon one.
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Capture: Cats Love Cameras, in reply to Jackie Clark,
That is fantastic! Clever boy (him, oh okay and you too).
I love watching him come down from the cabbage trees. He starts out facing down, digs in both sets of front claws and then swings his whole body down so that he's facing upwards and can clamber down the trunk. It's very cool.
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Had to post this. Colin stationed himself in the adjacent cabbage tree in the forlorn hope of bagging a waxeye visiting the denuded fig tree. One of my favourite ever pics of him, taken this week.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Stewart,
The one I went to was at the Wellington town hall and I was an eager-to-please 12 or 13-y-o who got sucked in with the emotion of the moment. Commit in haste & repent at leisure…
And right on cue: story and video from an Arise church service at Wellington Town Hall.
It's way more like an actual gig or a rave than the Youth for Christ things used to be -- and it presumably goes down that way every Sunday.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Stewart,
Then, shortly after starting secondary school a good mate got me into going to Bible Class (I vaguely think I saw it as a way to meet girls who I wouldn’t ordinarily encounter) and I got sucked into Youth For Christ which at that stage was led by Ian Grant who has since featured in various family-focused organisations.
I was hoping Youth for Christ/Campus Life would come up. I went along for a little while at secondary school, mostly because some of my friends did. I even went to a Christian ski camp, which was fun, because it included not only skiing, but furtive fumbling in a bunk in one of the girls’ dormitories. I gather Parachute is like this writ large.
As well as the activities, there was discussion in small groups in the evenings. I don’t think any of it distressed me, but there was a degree of implicit pressure to start discovering Jesus. I still recall explaining to the group that while it had been most thought-provoking, I would be remaining “cheerfully agnostic”.
The YFC tactic for garnering new recruits was basically to stir up the emotions in big rallies & get the non-committed to “come forward to receive jesus christ as your personal saviour” and I wasn’t strong enough to resist the mob hysteria (collective will, call it as you see it). It only took a couple of weeks & I realised I had been conned & it wasn’t for me, but I have since had a distaste for the method of recruitment, especially when it seems they are preying on young people at a particularly vulnerable time in their lives.
I went to one such rally, at the Christchurch Town Hall, and that was the end for me. I was actually outraged by the way the opening speaker/preacher demeaned other religions, and when some of my friends stood up to go forward and take the blessing, I did not. I don’t think I went to another meeting after that. The social pleasures of the group were outweighed by things with which I was not comfortable.
ETA: Ironically, there's no doubt that these activities were challenging and useful for me. Not least in that they obliged me to make a decision to openly differ from the group.
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Jackson, this is sensational.
It also makes me even happier that we're going to be working with Cut Collective on a certain social event.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to nzlemming,
And were it not a breach of a court order and someone’s privacy, I would tell you exactly why I think Bob McCoskrie is a bad man.
One day I am going to get you very, very drunk…
It’s unpublished information about assault cases he has commented on, which was known to him when he commented. I think he’s a scumbag.
ETA: It would not be legally necessary, but your kind offer to get me very, very drunk is much appreciated. Islander's further suggestion that this be achieved with collected single malt whiskies is an excellent one.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Islander,
(All the long-term vegans I know (4) are also pacifists and totally non-violent. And, yep, they dont consume or use anything of animal origin (including leather, silk or cochineal.) The very idea of advocating for the death penalty for anything would cause them grief.)
Nearly all the vegans I know don't obviously embrace the wider politics, although I'm pretty sure none of them are National voters. They like a drink and a party as much as the rest of us, that's for sure.
Thought: I would guess I've known three times as many female vegans as male.
