CREDIT: Abdulsalam Haykal via Flickr.

This week Ramadan began for the followers of Islam, a month of fasting and prayer.

For those who keep this practise it shows a level of extreme devotion to their religion.

Millions of people across the globe will spend their daylight hours without any food or water in order to serve their god.

An interview with an Islamic academic from the University of Wollongong put a different spin on it.

Five sessions of prayer were explained as 5 sessions of mindfulness, a way to centre one’s life during the day.

Fasting was explained as a process of discipline and exercising self control.

In our anxious, busy and often unrestrained society this practise seemed like a good idea.

I found my self nodding along until I realised what was going on here.

Any idea of extreme devotion to a god was downplayed.

It was a clever interview, because it took ideas that were foreign to Australians (like set prayers and fasting) and explained them in terms that are now readily acceptable.

This is exactly what our society wants from adherents to religion: moderate ideas that can be explained in social terms.

This is why liberal Christianity has flourished in western society, where the Bible has been interpreted though the lens of our world.

This kind of God leads to a nice and moderate religion that rocks no boats, and one our society is happy with, because they created it.

The pressure to fit in is intense but we must remember that there is nothing wrong with being extreme itself. The question is for what cause it is, and how do you implement it.

Christians are called to give up our lives for our God.

We do so for he is the the one who gave his life for us, And so the way we do this is in love and service of others.

Simon Chaplin

Last weekend the youth groups of Oak Flats and Jamberoo went away together for an encouraging and exciting weekend.

On Friday we travelled up to Katoomba to KYCK – a youth conference run by Katoomba Christian Convention (KCC).

The conference has around 2000 youth and leaders attending and it is always encouraging to see so many people gathering together to hear God’s word.

It definitely caters well for youth, with everything from Mario-cart, to co-ordinated dance moves, but overall the conference works hard to keep God’s word at its centre.

The three speakers gave excellent expositions from the book of 1 Peter. They spoke of the privilege it is to be chosen by God to be his special people, and so we are called to be different from the world around us, especially in the school environment.

God has worked in us to make us different so we are now “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession” (1 Peter 2:9).

Our new identity is found in what Jesus has done for us – his atoning sacrifice.

The Saturday night talk was the climax focusing on 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”

One speaker described it like this:

“Who we are is not what you have done, or what others have done to you, it is what God has made you to be.”

This is what enables us to endure in a world where we are different and experience suffering.

What a wonderful hope for these youth and leaders to hear!

When we weren’t up at the conference centre, we were staying at a small cottage in Katoomba, sitting round a log fire, playing games and enjoying all the food Magda and Andy Peters cooked for us.

There was a great expression of unity shown amongst all the youth and the leaders in the way we shared together and lived out life as God’s special people.

Simon Chaplin