Religion – at work?

There are some topics in PNG, or perhaps anywhere, where it’s really hard to get started. But this one requires some further blogging. More than anytime before in my life, except perhaps as a PK in the early years - it’s all around me, day to day in work, home, compound… There are lots of things to say – but I keep feeling like it all needs lots of qualifications, otherwise writing it down doesn’t ‘get it’. But perhaps it’s not so different around the table in Melbourne when talking the church-y talk! Or perhaps it’s the same old insecurities.

So I work for the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea – which is a kind of religious experience in itself. I work in a National Office responsible for many administrative policies/payments and stuff across the whole of the country. I don’t work specifically for the Diocese of Popondota (one of 5), which has specific responsibility to the 40+ odd parishes within it, so there’s not direct parish issues/contact very often (except on my compound – see below)… and I don’t work specifically for the Education Division, or for the Anglican Health Service, or directly for the HIV/AIDS programs - but have some finance & admin oversight/responsibilities with all of them –: that is, social programs and parish workings.

So I work for a church as it is in PNG – and (especially/even) as a Christian it was kinda weird to reconcile this in my head before coming over here – and even more so since. Mostly I’m getting at the fact that the church comes with a lot of baggage, particularly in a mission setting.

The major chunk of Overseas funding that’s coming through to the churches over here at the moment is Ausaid “Church Partnerships Program” funds. It’s come out a recognition that over here, a church can build a building for about ¼ or half the cost of government/private - - and that in many places, the church is the only organised “in” to rural communities which are without basic services.

So, sometimes it seems so positive. At a recent large consultation it was said that many people couldn’t separate the sacred from the issues surrounding these ‘non-evangelism’ issues like health/education/HIV. Sometimes there’s parts and times that make sense. I might have thought – but not so at all when I’m actually here… the funding differences, and the intertwining people and places of the church in PNG aren’t that straightforward.

But perhaps I’m being a bit esoteric n indulgent there!

Here on the compound at the All Souls Parish there’s a lot of church. There’s a Tuesday night mass, a Thursday night mass, morning prayers some days (not sure which) and x2 services on Sunday morning (first is at 7:45am – before it gets too hot). I go about every second week to one of these things... but at least twice a week (normally 3) in the Anglican National Office, the staff and I say the morning prayers as written in the Anglican prayer book – and read the bible verses as dictated by the lectionary – and say prayers for the world, specific parts of PNG, and the needs of the community (Friday’s are education for example – Monday’s are for those in the world struggling with Health issues and HIV/AIDS). I struggled to get into them in the beginning - - but then you start to get into the rhythm (and you get to know them very, very well) of this long morning liturgy. With the previous x2 bosses, they used to do this every day of the week. They take about 15 minutes each morning.

It’s very different to Oz. On and off for 5 years I used to get a lot from the 5pm services at Collins Street Bapo – though I had my moments of frustration there like anywhere. I certainly don’t connect intellectually with the sermons or even liturgy in the same way over here… but at the same time when you’re in a group of 300-400 PNG people singing acapella – well there’s something there also.

Of course, there’s a definite un-coolness factor associated with it too in Oz – where post-modernity and the enlightenment have had a few more generations to take hold (or somesuch bs). Lotsa people still give it a bit of respect – but most just think of Fred Nile (quick sorry to those who like him, but in the main I don’t), rather than Mandela – or George W instead of Martin Luther. Easy targets all of them, but so ridiculously different you wonder where the title/understanding of the word Christian gets you – and therefore where ‘working with a church organisation’ gets you. A group of friends I know are having a party soon where they’ll re-enact (for a laugh) people in different poses on a large wooden cross in their back yard on Easter Friday. I had to bottle it up a little when they were on about it, as I found myself (perhaps?) “doing a Muslim cartoon over-reaction” and actually getting a little angry about it – think’in about how bad taste it was to re-enact a death, let alone something held as important by so many people etc. etc.

[Insert later – on that topic of religo’s gettin there nigglers - did anyone watch ‘Insight’ on SBS on Tuesday night last about cartoons, race over-reactions and Cronulla/etc.?? – far out there were some t***ers in there]

Anyways – I’m off track – what I’m getting at is that you _wouldn’t_ do that here in PNG. What I’m also getting at is that in most of PNG (ex-pat community excluded from this comment), from what I can tell, you’d be on the outside if you _weren’t_ Christian. Where’s the coolness factor there? Well – it’s probably changing in PNG as well – but it’s well different to Oz.

What does this all mean?? Dunno. Extraordinarily rambling, perhaps overly personal blog late on a Tuesday night. I’ll just have get back to you!