After our election results on Saturday night (which may vary slightly as "special votes" are counted over next few weeks) and no one party or immediate coalition of parties can form a new government:
Alternative 1 today: blah, blah ... what will Winston Peters do ... blah, blah ... options ... surely that one won't work ... blah, blah ... triumph for Bill ... didn't Jacinda do well ... sad about Maori Party ... ACT, huh, 0.5% party vote ... Greens, got eaten compared to last time ... TOP, silly Gareth Morgan, never show contempt for cats, or voters ... blah, blah ... anyone know where Winston is?
Incidentally, to all those out there who voted "for change" the result does mean, on any scenario of forming a government, that the government will be changed from the previous one.
Alternative 2 today:
"Jens’s political sensibilities remain a delightful surprise to me. Once, when discussing my efforts to put his theology in dialogue with Cone’s work, I asked what he thought of black liberation theology, and he said, “Not radical enough.” I laughed and told him that Cone might not agree. He laughed and said, “Well, in the end we’ll see who the real revolutionary is.”
If there is any revolutionary community, for Jens that community is the Church, which is the only community whose life is to anticipate the kingdom. Baptism into the Church is also initiation into the kingdom. I suspect that the centrality of the Church in Jens’s political and eschatological thinking was what motivated him to work toward ecumenical unity. Jens was unsurpassed in his faithful grief over the divisions of the Church. His dedicated work in cofounding and leading the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology is just one example of his commitment to doing theology for the one Church. I experienced this commitment as Jens gave me pastoral counsel as I prepared for ordination in the Episcopal Church."
The above citation is from a reflection on Robert Jenson's life and theological work found here. (H/T B. Black)
Alternative 2 might offer more lines of fruitful, productive thinking than 1!
5 comments:
Is it time yet to grow into an MMP way of governing?
Why are we putting up with: "every vote counts" - but in the end who governs NZ is decided by one man?
Why don't we have Labour pledging to support supply and confidence - and for the rest everything is debated and voted for issue by issue on the floor of the House of Representatives?
Did FPP simply put our 3-year-(benign)-dictatorship mentality into our NZ DNA?
Blessings
Bosco
Hi Bosco
I saw somewhere yesterday a comment along your lines: we have proportional representation but we do not have proportional power.
I wouldn't blame FPP as such but the tribal mentality in politics which sat well with FPP but is also found outside of parliament (think "unions" versus "bosses" which has a history of seasons when compromise and accommodation were swear words).
As long as we have parties which can publicly see little good in the "other side" we are going to be stuck with the power plays at work here.
I suggest it is the Greens who are the irresponsible party here. They have no particular history with FPP incidentally. By combining socialism (anathema to the centre and to the right of centre) with environmentalism (of interest and concern to all) they have made themselves a tribe which apparently can never do business with the National Party. Consequently the Greens are allowing a one man band personality driven party with more bottom lines than your and my Tweets this year to hold the country to ransom.
I don't think Labour guaranteeing confidence and supply would work because the fundamental difference between Labour and National is over how "supply" should work for the benefit of the country (cf. significant difference over tax proposals as well as over expenditure promises).
I have a question about the power of prayer. Peter, you urged people to come to the transitional Cathedral to pray for the outcome of the election. I wonder if the prayers were too specific? Or did the exact ratio that we have voted into parliament represent the same ratio of prayers at the cathedral?
Sometimes we are surprised at the apparent answers to our prayers - like those offered at the Synod for our Cathedral. I guess God hears our prayers and then does what God has determined to do all the time.
Or is it, really, that God wants us to pray for His Will to be done, and then ensures the proper outcome? That's my way of looking at it, anyway.
And as has happened in the matter of the Cathedral, the outcome has meant that the Church will no longer be burdened by an outrageous debt that could have ensued if the GCBT and the government had insisted on the rebuild without actually promising to make up the inevitable shortfall involved.
Hi Ron
As much of the praying was silently I cannot comment on what people were praying!
I imagine though that many prayed as I prayed, Your will be done.
In certain ways I can see God's will being done in the result: for instance there is no unbridled power given to any one party.
But, speaking personally, I wonder whether it is God's will that the Maori Party disappear from parliament.
"But, speaking personally, I wonder whether it is God's will that the Maori Party disappear from parliament." - Dr.Peter Carrell -
Again, Peter; was this a result of praying with MMP in mind, or praying that God's will be done? This answer might answer your question.
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