This is the first time I’ve used a blog post to promote or advertise an upcoming event. I’m planning on attending this and hope you will consider it too (if you’re able to get to Auckland, New Zealand in March 2014).
It’s being promoted as:
A gathering at the intersection of faith, justice, worship and the arts; to inspire, model, sustain and resource Christian communities in their building for the Kingdom of God.
I’m currently outside my usual routine, having spent a month away from New Zealand. Today I’m traveling home from China where I’ve spent the last ten days. In this post I’m recycling an idea I wrote about several years ago in another context, on the subject of language, based on a song from a New Zealand band called The Mutton Birds. Being an English-only speaker in China has reminded me of this song, as well as listening to a Mutton Birds live album at my kiwi friends’ place in Beijing yesterday. Listen to the track:
“The queens English was good enough for Jesus Christ and it’s good enough for me”
According to the song, this was the supporting argument of a US Congressman who was a guest on a talk show on the subject of “language”. Among other things, this guy is a xenophobe, and wants the whole world to speak his language. You could say he has an inexcusable naivety merged with arrogance and ignorance – and that makes for a really good song.
