Yesterday I went up Mt Ainslie to see the result of Danny Nalliah’s call to an “offensive spiritual warfare attack” against the witches who are having an influence over federal parliament.

It was an interesting experience, and a confronting one also, with my emotions being dragged all over the place. I went up the mountain praying for protection, because I didn’t know what was going to happen there. Danny and his team were mounting a spiritual attack against witches’ covens, so to me it was a possibility that that could cause some spiritual retaliation. So I went up being aware of this, but knowing I had to discover more about what Danny is doing and what’s behind it. (As an aside, an interesting situation with Christians mounting the spiritual attack – where are we called to go looking for trouble?).

When I got up there I found a large group of people gathered together at the highest point of the mountain. There were flags waving, horns blowing, drums sounding, and people praising, yelling in tongues and shouting words from the Bible.

There were also many people who were there to spectate (like me) or protest. Protesters were flying gay pride flags and banners, and in some cases trying to speak back in tongues to Danny and his team. Later on there was almost nudity, and they were laughing, watching, wondering and talking, but most of all they were enjoying it – this was their Saturday afternoon entertainment, watching the Christians make a fool of themselves.

At this point I started to get angry. The cause that I have given my life for was being turned into a show – into a ritual, a laughing stock. What was going through the minds of the spectators and protesters? “If this is what God does to people, I don’t want a bar of it, but it’s certainly quite amusing!”

Is this our response to a loving and just God, who put his Son through hell just so he could be with us for eternity? Is he calling us to make Him look like a fool so that those who don’t know Him – those who he created in his image, loves deeply, and desperately wants to be in communion with – decide they don’t want a bar of Him?

As Francis Chan puts it, “it’s crazy if you think about it. The God of the universe – the creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and e-minor – loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss.”

Francis continues, this from the blurb of his book Crazy Love: “Whether we’ve verbalised it yet or not… we all know something’s wrong.”

As teachers and leaders we are called to higher account (James 3:1) and that is why I’m not simply going to avoid speaking out about Danny directly. Danny’s supporters have said to me that they don’t like it how so many church leaders are against him. But when misinformation is being spread, and when people like Danny (who should know better) are encouraging Christians (who are leaving their brains at the door and blindly following anyone who is available), there needs to be speaking out against him.

People have said to me “Yeah, I heard about the Mt Ainslie prayer – what do you think about it?”. That is why I write this post. To give a public view on the issue. The people who asked me that were probably looking for an opinion to latch on to. Don’t do that, please. Take what I’ve said, take what others are saying, and use your brain to figure out what the answer is.

I spoke to Jason Golden, Danny’s right-hand-man, to find out whether what they were doing up there was considered successful. After hearing him talk, I think his heart is true. He honestly wants to see salvation come to people who don’t realise it’s there for them. He honestly wants to tell the world about the joy he has found since being saved from his own background of drinking, parties, drugs and sex.

But the problem is, although his heart may be in the right place, his head isn’t. And it’s a problem that many Christians have. It’s the “leaving the brain at the door of the church” syndrome. We’re happy to separate the physical from the spiritual, and elevate spiritual things to a whole new level because we believe it will stand up for itself there. Thoughts like “it’s spiritual warfare”, “we’re doing God’s work”, “the Holy Spirit will save them”, etc. etc. make the “head” part of the outpouring of our hearts completely redundant. We leave our brains and expect God to do the work.

Jason yells words from the Bible through a micro-megaphone and prays loudly in tongues for the salvation of the people protesting around him. I think he does deeply love these people and long for them to see the truth he proclaims. What Jason is doing seems ok to him because he knows where his heart is.

But let’s switch the camera angle around to these other people for a moment – the people Jason is praying for. The people holding up signs saying ‘keep religion out of politics’ and ‘I love my gay sister’. Their view of Jason is slightly different to his view of himself. To them, he looks like a crazy religious lunatic, drunk on the power that he gets from being closely associated with Danny and being allowed to use Danny’s micro-megaphone. He yells words from an out-of-date book that simply don’t make sense here and now. He’s talking about Israel, about it being God’s chosen land, yet here we are in Australia – never haven being to Israel and knowing only about the modern day turmoil there through the media.

Jason yells out babble – “la la la, uh la la la, ooh la” – which doesn’t mean a thing to these people. He’s crazy, he’s deluded, he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing and they’re having an entertaining afternoon watching him. At the same time though, they’re saying to each other “what I just don’t get, is how he honestly believes he’s right – it just doesn’t make sense”. They’re still questioning. Not dismissing completely, but certainly not anywhere near thinking that these people are normal.

Unfortunately, there are still Christians who are blindly following Danny, Jason and their team. I saw five Christians who I know personally on top of the mountain yesterday, and they were loyal followers uninterested in considering any other options.

Although I haven’t been able to confirm this on the Internet, a source which I consider credible tells me that Danny Nalliah is no longer a pastor – he has been kicked out of the AOG church and is now simply a self proclaimed pastor and nothing else. There were other things about Danny that this source couldn’t tell me – apart from urging me to be very careful about him. Why are so many following him without asking questions?

I spoke to a pagan, some atheists and an agnostic on top of the mountain. They were especially friendly people – in fact all of them had approached me just to say hi or ask what I was doing with my camera and voice recorder. They weren’t trying to “convert” me, but simply wanted to enjoy a good chat. They said that they feel they know the Bible better than most Christians (and unfortunately, I agree with them). After introducing myself to Dave Garland, president of the Pagan Awareness Network and explaining that although I was a Christian, I don’t follow Danny Nalliah, he said “well, I’m from the other side, but you and I agree about Danny Nalliah!”. I felt more comfortable with the ‘other side’ up there than those who I am supposedly on the same side as!

Now, don’t get me wrong: I am a Christian, I love Jesus, I believe that I am a sinner and having accepted His sacrificial gift of salvation I know I am not going to be eternally punished for everything I have done wrong. I accept God’s grace and want desperately to love and live like Jesus lived. I want to see God’s Kingdom brought to Earth in all ways that it can and see people all over the world – including pagans, atheists and agnostics – explore the claims of Jesus, become aware of the presence of God, understand his story of the world, and ultimately have the courage to put their faith in Christ.

But I know that to achieve that, Christ followers have to actually be a bunch worth being a part of. We have to accept other people, and be willing to be their friend. Not to “convert” them, but because we genuinely want to be in community and friendship with those around us.

I’d encourage Christians to look into this more. Go to the next pagan full moon ritual. It’s on November 3. I’ll be there. These people are friendly and welcoming. They’re people, just like you and me, and I want to know more about them. Not because I want to believe what they believe, but because they’re people made in God’s image who God loves and in who I may well find great friends. Through relationship with them, and deep conversing over our views of the world, if they come to agree with who I say Jesus is – then fantastic.

Remember, don’t let your devotion to Christianity make you too different from the world [edit]unaware of what’s going on in the world around you[/edit]. Don’t let it blind you into being so weird that people don’t want to know you. Love others, and spend your time on things that are worthwhile – that bring change and good to the world, not that divide it.

What others are saying:

• Canberra Times journo Louis Andrews, who was walking around with his notepad throughout yesterday afternoon, describes the scene at the mountain as “stranger than fiction”: Culture Clash, Canberra Times, 18/10/2009
• Canberra pastor Brian Medway writes about why yesterday’s meeting was a waste of time: Witches Covens on Mt Ainslie, Grace Canberra, 06/09/2009
• Pagan Awareness Network president David Garland says that modern witchcraft doesn’t involve animal sacrifices: Danny Nalliah’s witch hunt is off the mark, Pagan Awareness Network, 15/10/2009
• Canberrans triumph in the battle for Mount Ainslie – RiotACT, 17/10/2009

This girl (Katie, presumably) is well aware that some Christians aren’t using their brains
Photo: Ella Wilkes – Source: Facebook

The photo of the week is now back, and should be back weekly from now.

This week’s photo was taken on Wednesday (20th February) at about 11am in the morning from the Snowy Hydro SouthCare Helicopter over Tuggeranong, in south Canberra. Over on the right you can see part of the Tuggeranong Town Centre (including a Bunnings store), with the suburb of Oxley below it. Monash takes up the majority of the bottom half of the photo, with Isabella Plains and Bonython in the centre left, and Gordon above them in the distance.

You can click it to enlarge. The original is here.

I’ve decided that I’m missing writing on here enough to warrant venturing, slowly I might add, back into the world of dialup Internet.

I have discovered tonight that once Windows automatic updates start, I can’t actually stop them. And whilst I can try in vain to terminate wuauclt.exe, it can always just start up again seven seconds later (and it seems to make a habit of it). Furthermore, an audio file that I wanted to post here was actually left on my computer at work so I’m attempting to download it.

This all makes browsing a much more frustrating experience, but I guess it gives me more time during page loads to write! (And I’m writing this in Word, by the way, because my blog’s login screen hasn’t loaded yet).

Oh how I remember the world of broadband. I really had forgotten how slow dialup was. Luckily sharing is turned off now – three guys trying to use the one dialup connection wasn’t fun!

So it has been an interesting few weeks, even apart from the Internet not working. I went up to Sydney for the Heart 1032 open day and learnt a lot about how a capital city commercial-like community station is run, and gathered some ideas and inspiration for things I can do at 1WAY FM. I also met Guy Sebastian. I have a photo, but of course I’ll be here for years if I try to upload it, so I won’t do that right now. I also saw Wendy Mathews, Marcia Hines, and the woman who plays Irene Roberts on Home and Away (I can’t remember her name and Google will take too long to search for it).

I’m going up to Sydney again this weekend (I think it’s my second home… I must be up there at least fifteen or so times a year) for Open House’s Christmas party – yep, I can’t get enough of Heart 1032! Having many more resources, coming naturally from being in a bigger market, there is so much to learn from what they’ve done and are doing. So my brushes with fame continue – I will be meeting Jason Stevens, and probably Darlene Zschech as well (I decided to wait out the time for Google to load to check that I’d spelt that right – turns out I had!).

Back to Canberra, and to completely change topic, there has been some interesting news for the ACT Liberals this week. Leader Bill Stefaniak and his deputy Jacqui Burke both stepped down yesterday morning after a week of turmoil in which one party member launched an attack on the leadership of Mr Stefaniak and ended up being dumped – and became an independent. It’s probably good news all around though – Jacqui Burke told me yesterday that the calm that is evident now within the party has really not been seen for three years. That must mean that they’re in a better position now to win the next ACT election in October. I get the vibe that a lot of Canberra doesn’t like Chief Minister Jon Stanhope, and having young blood in place with Zed Seselja may make the Liberals a viable alternative!

Of course, if I had broadband working, I would post the interview that I did with Jacqui yesterday, but I’m really having too much trouble downloading it from work.

Hmm… if I had broadband working I would also be able to post some audio from the Carols by Candlelight in Jerrabomberra last Saturday evening – 1WAY FM broadcasted live from the event, and I managed to grab an interview with Santa of all people! He has really moderned up this year – he turned up in a fire truck (I think his reindeers were too busy getting ready for Christmas Eve), and he’s lost a lot of weight!! His trick, he told me, is to eat lots of vegetables.

I really could write a lot more but I’ve already spent collectively about an hour on the phone tonight to Internode trying to resolve our ongoing connection problems… and there’s other things I could be doing. So until I manage to brave dialup again, or until our Internet actually gets fixed, au revoir!