PTJ's White Board

Europe: It Can Be Done

2012-02-12T03:09:00.004Z

Greece crisis bailout talks austerity plan grumbling strikes - still? It's like groundhog day on auto play. I'm guessing they solved it all 19 months ago but the technocrats would get bored if they didt have conferences to go to.

So here's some real thinking about Europe. Sir Frederick Catherwood, a former vice-president of theEuropean Parliament as well as former president of the U. K. EvangelicalAlliance said it like this:

Although we have swept ourEuropean house clean of fascism and of communism, and we now have democracy andfreedom of speech from the Atlantic to the Urals, we also now have a Europeemptier than before of the Christian faith which once permeated society. In thewords of Christ’s parable, Europe is a house swept clean, ready for sevendevils worse than the first to come in.

Lucky for him, he's retired. But he did write a book on Money that the Greeks probably ought to read. And it's important to note that this quote is a bit half-baked, for Sir Fred was not a pessimist. He also wrote a book called IT CAN BE DONE.

In fairness, I think Jesus was a "It can be done" kind of guy:

Tear down this temple, and I'll rebuild it
If I go away, I'll send My Spirit
I've got all authority, so GO!

Jesus is the kind of guy who said, "I'll build my church it. It's going to happen. And it's going to prevail." So what does Jesus think about the gospel-ing of Europe? IT CAN BE DONE!

But I don't think he's hiring the technocrats to get the job done.

Slugfest

2012-02-04T02:37:00.001Z

You know it's a slow news day . . . or you are wandering the earth completely disconnected from any sense of purpose and mission . . . when you've got the time to to assemble a collection of the 25 most colourful Sea Slugs on the planet.

But two things emerge from the naming capacities of Captain Adam:

That pre-fall man was blazing brilliant.
Adam was in the garden for more than just a few hours.

And if you can connect those dots, you too may be nominated for the 2012 Abroath Peace Prize.

Groundhog Day

2012-02-04T02:18:00.001Z

Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today.

I resisted the urge to do a Groundhog Day post on Groundhog Day. But when my wife happened to mention something about Groundhog day on Thursday, I had to work hard to resist the bate. It just seemed so predictable. Of course, it was the second day of the second month of the second year of the second decade of the 2nd millennium since the Iconoclastic Contoversy. But I digress.

When my wife mentioned Groundhog Day, my mind went immediately to Ukraine, where at a dinner party, upon being asked what was my favourite film of all time, I responded with . . . Groundhog Day. Now it is perhaps a bit of a stretch to say that the Bill Murray classic is my favourite film of all time. I can think of at least three movies right off the bat that I prefer. But it's definitely in my top ten. For those who haven't see the film, a weather man gets stuck living the same day over and over and over . . . until he finally escapes.

The story about the spiritual growth of a guy who gets stuck manifesting his own selfishness but eventually learns to give himself away has a layered beauty to it. One of the great debates stemming from the movie is the duration of Phil's exile in Punxsutawney. To bring the Bill Murray character to the point of multiple suicides implies a very long time. The producers hint that it must have been at least 40 years for Phil to master all the skills he did. Some estimates have said it was 10,000 years. Wow . . . that would explain some of the absolute and utter despair which pervades one section of the film.

But tucked in between Phil's days of darkness and self-discovery is an encounter with an old man living on the streets, dying of hunger, exposure, and neglect. Whereas Phil's interventions save or redirect the destinies of quite a few people, it seems like nothing he can do for the old man helps. His efforts to clothe, feed, and care for the old man just didn't make any difference - he still died. In the words of a nurse . . . it was just his time.

And that brings me back to Ukraine, where over 100 people have died from the recent cold weather snap hitting Europe. Like Bill Murray pleading with the old man in Groundhog Day to live, we look at this feeling helpless . . . It's frustrating that people should die this way.

The cold is now causing Ukraine to exceed the gas supply envisaged in its contract with Russia. But most bizarre is the "stay warm advice of the Emergencies Minister Viktor Baloga, who has advised the public to take more exercise as a remedy against the cold. "You need to get up in the morning, take active exercise and work," he was quoted by Ukrainskaya Pravda as telling reporters on Wednesday. Here's the part that's just a little bit bonkers:

"Run 8-10km every morning and bathe in cold water, all year round".

Right. IF the people who had died had been able to do that, they probably wouldn't have been homeless. But that's another conversation.

Meanwhile, the first question that floats through the far reaches of my porous grey matter is curiosity about the recipe for the toxic tonic that killed enough brain cells for a British scientist to predict that 10,000 people in the UK this year (2012!) would die . . . of a heat wave!!!

The song that comes to mind is Cheryl Crowe crooning about soaking up the son. But in deference to the Ukrainians, and in compassionate rememberance, the big question that is REALLY bouncing around inside my brain is the same one that was bouncing around my brain when we lived in Ukraine: Where is global warming when we need it?

Euro Skeptic

2012-01-31T15:43:00.004Z

The Economist ran a poll to explore people's opinions regarding the fate of the Euro: will it survive to the end of 2012? About 2/3's of people said yes. Other's were skeptical. And that's not surprising. This week sees another high level Euro Summit debating the economic destinies of Greece and the rest of the over-spenders tied to the currency.

For anyone whose livelihood is based on multiple currencies, exchange rates are important: what to keep, what to trade, when to do business, when to hide it under the mattresses. It requires a bit of focused research just to understand what's going on. And all the skepticism out there related to the Euro, the pound, and the dollar doesn't really help.

Of course, Europe is dominated by another kind of skepticism, and that is the skepticism of rationalism that really can't give a place to the gospel as a credible statement of reality. The fault, I would suggest, is with the skeptics, not the gospel. The contemporary Euro sceptic does not have the right categories or epistemological foundation to process the claims of the gospel.

Jesus offers a simple formula for a winning exchange rate: whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. In other words, if you give up all to have Jesus, in the end, you have all. Conversely, whatever you are unwilling to give up will force you to forfeit it all, including the thing you were unwilling to give up.

That's not exactly what Europe wants to hear right now, but it's what Europe needs to hear right now. It's an exchange rate Europe can take to the bank.

The Gospel and the Demons At Davos

2012-01-28T20:36:00.000Z

Some of you thought that this past week was the week before the week before the Super Bowl. Others thought it was a lovely time for skiing outside of Innsbruck. But what you may not know is that the world elite gathered for their annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, around the theme: The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models."

While the Ukrainians have ensured that this year's summit would not lack entertainment, the Davos Man has been weighing the future of capitalism. Of course, the whole idea of Davos Man - global elites who "have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite's global operations" - is just repugnant to some. That not withstanding, here are some of the ideas being kicked around within and without this year's Davos forum:

Catherine Boyle poses the question of relevance of Davos in "a Europe where high-level summits are now an almost weekly occurrence, the meetings of presidents, prime ministers and profit makers from over 100 countries at Davos may seem less exciting than before."

Angela Merkel argues for "more Europe" as a means of ending the Euro crisis.

Sharan Burrow says To Serve Society Better, Capitalism Needs a Redesign
George Soros says austerity 'Will Push Europe Into A Deflationary Debt Spiral'
Raxby Chambliss asserted that "Americans are not psychologically prepared to play a secondary role in world affairs."

And the bad news: “A major geopolitical disruption early in the new year would certainly tip the global economy in the wrong direction given current confidence levels,” said Lee Howell, Managing Director at the World Economic Forum responsible for the Annual Meeting and the Forum’s Global Risks Report 2012. “The possibility of a geoeconomic disruption, such as sovereign default, is to some degree reflected in the market, but a major geopolitical disruption clearly is not," added Howell. The Report indicates that 54% of global experts expect a major geopolitical disruption over the next 12 months, up from 36% last quarter, while confidence in global cooperation has dropped.

But perhaps most interesting, according to the press release:

A group of 70 exceptional individuals under the age of 30 will be engaging with world leaders and shaping the agenda at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012, taking place in Davos-Klosters on 25-29 January.

70 young Global Shapers will help set the agenda at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012.
Global Shapers are aged 20-30, with great leadership potential across all sectors of society.
Half of the world’s population is under the age of 27, making it vital that young voices are heard at the Annual Meeting.

Following on from this recognition of the youthfulness of today's world, for the first time, the World Economic Forum has included Global Shapers. HERE is a video playlist of these young elites. There is general acknowledgment that the under 30 crowd will dominate many agendas going forward.

One name familiar to evangelicals will be Rick Warren, who attended the 2008 Davos Summit. Speaking from Davos, Rick identified five "giants" - macro problems that have eluded solution:

extreme poverty
pandemic diseases
illiteracy
corruption
spiritual emptiness

Rick suggests that there is a three-prong partnership between government, business and the private sector, and the faith sector. Rick was criticised for not being crystal clear about the gospel. Some people think it is completely out of place for a pastor to be at Davos at all. But I think he has to be given credit for being out there, throwing his hat in the ring. Admitting that his motivation is to obey Jesus' command to "love your neighbour as your self," he encourages people to "get involved now to solve the problems of the world. But where would Jesus stand in all of this?

In Mark chapter 2 Jesus encounters a paralytic. Seemingly oblivious to his physical needs, Jesus deals with his primary need of forgiveness and spiritual renewal. Because people doubt his ability to forgive sins, He demonstrates his power by healing the man physically. It is fair to say that Jesus focused on spiritual needs but did not ignore physical needs.

To demonstrate compassion and to have credibility, we cannot ignore physical needs. But to play its role effectively, the Church must focus on spiritual needs. That is the one thing no government nor business can heal. Jesus, however, is able to pronounce: Son, your sins are forgiven (Mark 2:5).

The Gospel Need In Europe

2012-01-23T01:44:00.003Z

In the morning (or actually, later this morning) I'm on my way to meet with pastors from across Europe. At the forefront of the agenda is what we can do to help the gospel in Europe. How can we plant more churches? How can we train more leaders? How can we reach more people?

To put the need in perspective, here are some statistics from the four largest countries in mainland western Europe:

Germany

The estimated number of evangelical believers in Germany is between 1-3%.

The majority of towns and cities in Germany with a population of 5000 or more do not have an evangelical church.

In Bavaria, that statistic is over 75%.

France

France has a population over 63 millionpeople but there are only 2,014 Evangelical churches (2010) in the entire country.

The average size of a Frenchchurch is about 35-50 people.

French Evangelicals are such aminority (.5% - .8%) on a national scale that they are often viewed as beingpart of a cult.

Spain

There are only about Evangelicals - 461,998 in Spain, or about 1% of the population.

Twenty eight of Spain’s 52provinces have fewer than 1,000 evangelical believers.

There arestill more then 7.500 towns with populations over 5,000 that have noevangelical witness.

Italy

The vastmajority of towns and cities remain without a single Evangelical church, mostoften without even a single known believer.

Less than1% of Italy’s 58 million people are Evangelical.

What's the God take, on all this, you ask? It's this:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

Romans 10:14 - 15

And this:

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

Isaiah 6:8

S Novym Godom!

2012-01-01T03:20:00.001Z

HAPPY NEW YEAR, RUSSIAN STYLE

THIS is not where you want to end up on New Year's Eve.

A 2012 Prayer

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000Z

By Mahalia Jackson

There are probably some other things, but a closer walk is a good place to start.

The French Connection

2011-12-31T18:27:00.000Z

My English friend Mark has been training me on how to adapt a British view of the French. I can't say that I'm a convert yet, but I am beginning to understand this love/hate relationship. And yes there is some love, for the Brits flock to France for holidays, enjoy French food, and delight in French cheese and wine. But as a church-planter who believes that the gospel of Jesus is the ultimate answer to the ills of the human condition, I'm drawn to France for more than the culture, food, and sunshine . . . France desperately needs the gospel.

Aye, as the English playwright Shakespeare wrote, there's the rub. For what France needs (the gospel) France is not necessarily open to. Historically, the French reaction to the Reformation was nearly as violent as the Soviet reaction to religion in general: it was felt to be a giant itch which must be scratched away.

So where are we today? There is a general perception that to be an evangelical Christian is to give up being French in some way. Bible-believing churches are seen as sects. This has even been debated in parliament.

The Joshua Project has detailed the gospel progress in France . . . and it's not a pretty picture. It is estimated that as a people group, the French are half of one percent evangelical. Here's what they have to say:

What are their beliefs?Approximately one-half of the French population consider themselves to be Roman Catholic and one-third consider themselves agnostic or atheist. Various smaller groups are listed with Muslim being the most notable at 6% of the population and growing. France is a secular nation with religious freedom granted to all recognized religions. Some very small groups exist that are not afforded the same level of rights due to being considered sects.

What are their needs?France, like most of Europe, is considered ‘post-Christian' by many evangelical theologians. What many would consider as ‘Bible believing' ministries may be hard to find in most cities. However, small groups of grass-roots missionaries and evangelical church planters may be found in some areas.

Like most places around the world, France needs people who will preach, teach, and demonstrate Biblical Christianity in their everyday lives.

So what do we do? For starters, let's determine that in 2012 we're going to pray for the gospel to advance in France.

Pentecostal Power

2011-12-30T15:49:00.002Z

Ivan Voronaev

There was no perceptible Pentecostal movement in the Soviet Union before the 1920's. Ivan Voronaev was a Russian Baptist preacher who had fled persecution from the Tsarist regime. He experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in New York City, and after establishing a church there, felt called to return to his homeland as a missionary. He arrived in Odessa in 1921. By 1928 there were 350 Pentecostal churches with a membership of over seventeen thousand in the Odessa region and in Ukraine.

The Soviet regime eventually caught on to the danger that evangelicals posed to their utopian/statist dreams and began an intense persecution of Baptists and Pentecostals in 1929. By 1935 the number of evangelicals had been reduced by half. Whatever happened to Ivan Voronaev? I'm glad you asked:

Ivan was arrested after midnight one night in 1929 by Stalin's secret police. He was accused of being a spy for imperialist America. The fact that he had received some financial support from American Assemblies of God and the Russian and Eastern European Mission was used against him as evidence. Ivan was shipped off to the gulags of Siberia, to be followed by his wife in 1933. Katherine was released from the Gulag 24 years later, after Stalin had died. Ivan never came home. He was last seen in 1937. His life ended when he was placed in a cell with hungry, vicious dogs. He lies in an unknown Siberian Grave.

The Soviet Union died in 1991. At last count, there are over 7,000 evangelical churches in Ukraine.

This is from The Puzzle of the Soviet Church by Kent R. Hill (Ithaca: Multnomah Press, 1989). Other details HERE.

Back To The Bible

2011-12-30T00:26:00.001Z

HERE are a package of various Bible reading plans to help you get a good start into 2012.

Fat, Focus, and Failure With God

2011-12-30T00:11:00.001Z

This New York Times article reports on a study released this autumn in the New England Journal of Medicine that identifies the medical reasons that obese people have difficulty keeping weight off after they've lost it. The conclusion of the article is not real encouraging:

This translates into a sobering reality: once we become fat, most of us, despite our best efforts, will probably stay fat.

The reason for this is hormonal; in a sense, the body fights to revert to its former stasis. The answer to this, according to the author, is a more realistic and compassionate approach to weight loss, because even though its difficult, even a 5%or 10% reduction in fat still have significant health benefits.

I mention this, not to fixate on fat, even though this is a topic worthy of conversation. Rather, with New Year's Day approaching, people across the planet are beginning to wrestle with New Year's Resolutions. For many people, one of those resolutions will be something along the lines of "a better relationship with God."

Many Christians I know adopt an intense spiritual disciplines regimen, only to be disappointed when they can't keep it going. When the wheels have fallen off the wagon after a few weeks, they get frustrated, and throw in the towel, making peace with an irregular devotional life and a seeming lack of intimacy with God.

Here's a better strategy: adopt some specific doable steps that reorient your life in a God direction. Fifteen minutes in the Bible every day is better than two hours once every two weeks. To have a regular and consistent time with God is a pathway to victory. Your life circumstances probably work against the spiritual ideal you may have set for yourself. Otherwise, you'd already have an amazing devotional life and enjoy rich intimacy with God. If it was easy everyone would be doing. Find a pattern you can do - and do it.

Kate Moss got into lots of trouble with her life motto:"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." But when the Psalmist wrote Taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8), he was saying something along the lines of "Nothing satisfies the human soul like the goodness of God." (See Spurgeon, Treasury of David).

Don't miss God's goodness in the year 2012. Even if your life patterns have been working against cultivating a close relationship with Him, change is possible: make some small adjustments to cultivate a daily connect with God. You may have to cut out some junk food, true . . . but the spiritually lean and healthy you: oh so worth it.

The More Things Change: The CT Top Ten List

2011-12-29T16:59:00.004Z

Christianity Today has just published their 2011 Top Ten List.

In their opinion, these are "The events, people, and debates of the past year that have shaped, or will significantly shape, evangelical life, thought, or mission."

For fun, compare it to their 2001 Top Ten List (that's 10 years ago).

Here's what I find interesting: These are topics that are on both lists:

Harper Collins and Christian Publishing
Abortion in the US
Theology (2001 it was "Openness of God", in 2011 it was Rob Bell's Universalism).
Presbyterians and Sexual Ethics
Missionary efforts to Muslims

The more things change . . .

Where Is The Love?

2011-12-29T05:10:00.001Z

The BBC, Reuters, and NBC Sports are all reporting that Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic priests and monks starting fighting with each other while they were getting ready to celebrate Christmas (7 January, the Orthodox date). All this happened at the Church of the Nativity, built near where some people believe that Jesus was born. Apparently the fracas erupted over a dispute regarding jurisdictional boundaries. The old church is in a bad state of repair, largely because the priests cannot agree on who should pay for its upkeep.

To the rescue came Palestinian police who rushed in with batons flailing to restore order. "It was a trivial problem that ... occurs every year," said police Lieutenant-Colonel Khaled al-Tamimi. "Everything is all right and things have returned to normal," he said. "No one was arrested because all those involved were men of God."

A Few Observations:

1. It's bad when The Black Eyed Peas are talking about love more than the representatives of the King of Love.2. It's bad when Palestenian Police are called in to be Peace Makers for Christian Priests.3. It's bad when celebrations for "Peace on Earth" devolve into "Priests in Pieces."

BUT ON THE OTHER HAND: It may take some spontaneity out of it, but if they could plan this a wee bit better, next year they could sell tickets - I'm sure their congregations would love to see them pummelling each other with broom sticks. The proceeds from the ticket sales could all be given to renovate the building they're fighting about.

PandaGate

2011-12-28T17:45:00.000Z

Not everyone is happy that Sweetie has been chosen as one of the 12 women making news in 2011.

According to Labour MP MP Stella Creasy:

Whilst we all love a good panda story, in a year when Christine Lagarde became head of the IMF, or Helle Thorning-Schmidt became prime minister of Denmark or even the sad death of Amy Winehouse, its frustrating the BBC couldn't think of 12 human female faces who have made the news this year.

In response, the BBC said:

Including Sweetie as one for the annual headline-makers was a light-hearted addition to the list, and this isn't the first time it has featured a non-human. In 2009, Benson the Carp, a much-caught giant fish, was August's entry on the male list and last year Peppa the Pig was on the female list for April [2010],"

It must be a slow news day on the Island.

Women of the Month

2011-12-28T17:21:00.001Z

From tears (Gabrielle Giffords, Eman al-Obeidi) to cheers (Adele, Li Na), ; from politics (Michelle Bachman, Dilma Rousseff) to promises (Charlene Wittstock, the Duchess of Alba) the BBC gives us the twelve women who made headlines in 2011.

Included in the list is Kelsey de Santis, who had a date with Justin Timberlake, and Sweetie, the Chinese Giant Panda, who along with her fellow Sunshine arrived at the Edinburgh Zoo for 10 years to the tune of £600,000 a year.

MISSING:

Missing from the international list but on the UK version is Rebecca Leighton, a nurse who spent six weeks in jail after being falsely accused of killing people by putting insulin in their saline at a Stockport Hospital. She did, however, apparently pocket some prescription meds.

Also not on the list is Ukraine's former Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who is being held in prison for what is basically political revenge.

ALSO NOT ON THE LIST:

Galina Vlichinskaya, a twenty-three-year-old prisoner for Christ in Russia in the early 1980's. She was arrested for teaching children in a Christian summer camp. She is a contributor to a book that just came out. Here's a power quote:
I didn’t come here to sit silently with my hands folded on my lap. I came to speak about Christ.

The Naughty Sites

2011-12-28T13:27:00.000Z

According to OpenDNS, a web content filtering service, PLAYBOY is not the most blocked website on the internet. Not even close. On the OpenDNS top ten list, PLAYBOY comes in at number 10, blacklisted by only 1.2% of networks. The top distinction for the most blocked website goes to FACEBOOK (14.2% of networks). Here are the top three:

1. Facebook (14.2%)

2. MySpace (9.9%)

3. YouTube (8.1%)

It's also interesting to note some of the top blocked websites by businesses (note that the top 3 are the same):

1. Facebook (23%)

2. MySpace (13%)

3. YouTube (11.9%)

5. Twitter (4.2%)

10. Ebay (1.6%)

According to OpenDNS: "Businesses have specific goals in mind when blocking websites." Yeah, like getting work done.

9 Signs the World Is Ending in 2012

2011-12-28T04:47:00.000Z

As we've noted elsewhere, people tend to have an apocalyptic complex. CNNMoney gives us 9 Signs That The World Will End in 2012. The bottom line: it's not going to happen. But this is interesting:

1. The Hansons, of MMMBop fame, are making a coming back, but this time its with a beer called MmmHop. They say it will be a high quality IPA. Is that really end of the world stuff? Maybe if they were releasing another album. But a quality IPA is OK.

2. There is a Hello Kitty Wine. That's an Italian wine with a Japanese motif marketed to Americans. Ouch. I don't know if that is cool globalisation or an unwitting confirmation of an eschatalogical dispensation.

The Gospel: The Anti-Zeitgeist

2011-12-28T01:53:00.000Z

A blogger named Mark takes the time to analyse the Google Zeitgeist production and makes the claim that Rebecca Black represents anything but a zeitgeist. I pause here to define zeitgeist - literally - the spirit of the times - or, more evocatively, according to our friends at Wikipedia: Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.

And while we're on definitions, for those of you who've been asleep on Mars, don't look at YouTube, or have been otherwise occupied with noble pursuits like writing literature or woodcrafting, Rebecca Black became an internet sensation with a song called Friday, Friday. It went viral and has been viewed 167,000,000 times. It's been parodied more than Evolution of Dance. And it's pretty much as shallow as any pop song a teenager could produce. Some people find the song excruciatingly annoying to the degree the teenage girl got death threats. And so along with achieving the heights of fame, Rebecca got bullied out of her middle school. But the girl is 14! And she tops Google's Zeitgetist 2011 list.

Which brings us back to Mark: he argues that the ephemeral phenomenon of Rebecca Black is not at all representative of the spirit of our times, but rather a technologically-driven accident. But his first blog commentator makes the case that the rise and fall of Rebecca Black and its accidental nature are precisely the spirit of a very distracted age. Another commenter says this:

It’s also got a nice bit of paradox to it: a generation that doesn’t have enough of an attention span to have a defining trend, defined by the trend of not having enough of an attention span to have a defining trend.

And so - the spirit of an age so distracted it doesn't have a spirit is defined by the stuff it fixates on temporarily before discarding to find another distraction. And thus the Gospel is the anti-zeitgeist. Here's why:

1. The gospel speaks to every age and in any age; it is universal and transcendent.

2. The gospel demands attention - not momentarily, but for a lifetime.

3. The gospel (unlike the modern pop song) is not fathomed in a moment but contemplated for years.

4. The gospel never gets old: it's like a diamond with an infinite number of facets in which each facet is infinitely deep.

5. The gospel cuts through the ephemeral whims of every age and speaks foundationally to the glories and the defects of human existence.

6. The gospel answers the cry of every age for an identity of stability and the energy of creativity.

7. The gospel speaks to our alienation and roots us deeply in Trinitarian and human community.

8. The gospel is flexible enough to speak to any culture but consistent enough to always be recognisable.

We could go on, but you get the general drift. It is important to understand the current zeitgeist so that we can speak to it; it's also good to understand how we ourselves have been shaped by that zeitgeist. But we also have to understand how the rock-solid unchangeable gospel answers the zeitgeist angst.

Another way of saying that is that we've got to do a great job exegeting the Bible to have a message and the culture to have an audience. Only doing one or the other is a losing proposition.

Friday, Friday is about a girl getting ready for school, meeting up with her friends, looking forward to the weekend, and dreaming about partying. She doesn't want the weekend to end. Honestly, I think she nails the zeitgeist. She is describing most of my high school friends. And that was a few years ago. We just don't like to admit that we're as shallow as the song is.

Atheism vs The Gospel: The Worldwide Contest

2011-12-27T21:48:00.000Z

HERE is the Google scoresheet on Atheism vs. The Gospel.

Faith wins.

Google and the Gospel 2011

2011-12-27T20:09:00.000Z

How often was "the gospel" searched for in 2011?

Go HERE to see.

What's interesting is that several of those aren't even related to "the gospel."

But "The Gospel According To Hollywood" is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal.

Or, check out my friend Steve's 7 Truths About The Gospel.

The Most Searched Food in 2011

2011-12-27T19:39:00.001Z

Pizza is a global phenomenon:

The most searched restaurants in the US in 2011:
1. Pizza Hut
2. Domino's
3. Papa John's

Pizza was the No. 1 searched food in Singapore, Germany, and Mexico.

In other news, "Happy Meal" made the top 10 list in France.

He Did It

2011-12-27T19:18:00.000Z

Justin Bieber is Google's most searched person in 2011 .

And Charlie Sheen beat Steve Jobs. Wow.

2011 According To Google

2011-12-27T19:02:00.000Z

Here Google ranks the top 10 fastest rising search terms from the year 2011:

1. Rebecca Black
2. Google Plus
3. Ryan Dunn
4. Casey Anthony
5. Battlefield 3
6. iphone 5
7. Adele
8. 東京電力、
9. Steve Jobs
10. Ipad 2

New Words for a New Year

2011-12-27T00:16:00.002Z

BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, subdivisions.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

I'm guessing these all work over here on the Island, except Generica. The UK definitely has its places of sameness as well. But the sameness here is different. So, which of these options is best as a Generica replacement, our gift to the island?

1. The Generic Kingdom

2. The Uninspired Kingdom.

3. The Uniform Kingdom.

4. The Unoriginal Kingdom.

5. The Bland Kingdom.

6. Blandland.

Let me know. In the mean time, enjoy some English place name nicknames.

Russia House: Putin's Power Play

2011-12-26T22:44:00.001Z

It's Boxing Day, so it must be time for a demonstration in Moscow. Reuters is reporting that Russia's Prime Minister and TOP DOG IN CHARGE, Vladimir Putin, is out of touch with the people and really doesn't get the protests that are going. Really? There are several things you have to understand about all this:

First, regarding Vladimir Putin:

He's a KGB guy. You remember them? The KGB? We used to play spy games with them. The point: He understands and knows how to use the control levers in the Russian state. He really is the top dog in charge.

He's a Russian. Russian history didn't start with the other Vladimir (Lenin) in 1917. Russians had been doing strong autocratic leaders for centuries. The Soviet Premiers of the 20th century were simply an odd version of the same theme: the top man is a strong man - that's what they know and that's how they lead.

He's Smart. He defended his Candidate of Science dissertation in economics in 1997. OK - so maybe he had enough political power at this point in his life so that no Russian professor would have have told him 'Sorry, Vlady ole chap, but No.' But he's not a slouch.

He's popular. Putin still has an approval rating over 60%. And that's low for him. People are generally happy that he's brought some order back to the nation. After all, he had the . . . insight to call the breakup of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."

Second, about this place called Russia:

Russians do strong. The Germans turned beer into an art form and the French turn grapes into amazing red wines, but the Russians turn potatoes into vodka. In Russia, the top man is a strong man - that's all the Russian people know and that's how they want to be led. What about all this talk about democracy? The small Russian middle class and the intelligentsia - yes, they want openness and fairness - but the oligarchs and the working class - they want a strong Russia, and they know Putin can deliver.

Russians do stability. They think they experienced democracy in the chaotic years immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union when an incompetent leader (Boris Yelstin) tried to lead a Communist Superpower into free-market capitalism and democratic reform. There was no way that was ever going to be easy; it could have been more mistake ridden, but it was a pretty bad transition.

Russians do tomorrow. Think Chechnya. Think Litvenenko. Think Joyal. People don't stand in Putin's way - not in today's Russia. They just don't. But they do like the idea of living. So while a few radicals may protest, most Russians will sit this one out.

So - does all this sound a bit simplistic? Yes, actually it does. Because even if it is all true, it is quite possible that Putin doesn't get it. But Think Egypt. Think Lybia. Think Syria. My good friend with insider perspective told me some months ago that the power players are all terrified because of all this Arab Spring stuff. In the internet age, perhaps you can you keep honest journalism off of state TV, but how do you shut up little blue birds?

This Spring and the upcoming election will be interesting to watch. On one hand, there is the centuries long tradition of strong, autocratic centralised government, and the escape velocity necessary to break out of its gravitational pull is pretty high. On the other hand, there is the longing for transparent governance - not necessarily democracy; let's just call it Freedom - Russia Style. And these two partners are dancing. The big question is this:

Who's playing the music?

Pop Culture

2011-12-26T03:19:00.000Z

So with just a few days left in this year, daughter number 2 and I spent a few moments late this evening in musical reflection over the year 2011. I've already mentioned Yo Yo Ma and the Goat Rodeo Sessions released in October. But this conversation took a decidedly popular route - we talked about the kind of stuff playing on the school bus. This may be educational for those of you who aren't into or up on pop music; for those who are, it's probably an excursion into the obvious. But here are some highlights:

Moves Like Jagger: This Maroon 5 hit with a catchy whistling line raises an important question: who is Mick Jagger? So I explained Satisfaction, Start Me Up, and Sympathy For the Devil (I've always been intrigued by the Devil's ploy of using a band to brag about exploits to people who don't believe in him). Captain Mick turns 69 in 2012. Honky Tonk Woman was a long long time ago.

Rolling In The Deep: Whereas technically this was a 2010 hit, Adele's it really took off this year - it's had over 188,000,000 views on You Tube. Though tinged with a bit of real life sadness, it's nice to see hits by people who can sing. Also soulful and plaintiff is Someone Like You, an actual 2011 hit with only 76,000,000 YouTube views.

Party Rock Anthem: Some songs can be captured in one word, like this one: Shuffle. Or Summer. Or Hair. But there is a deeper question here: what does LMFAO mean? Is it an acronym? I don't know, but their names are pretty cool: Redfoo and SkyBlu. And did I say 330,000,000 views on YouTube? That's insane.

Pumped Up Kicks: Yes, this was originally released in 2010, but it charted in 2011, the first Billboard Alternative Songs number-one single to crack the US top 5 since Kings of Leon's Use Somebody. Foster The People look like they're having a great time making this video. This is probably my favourite on this list, musically; of course, I liked Every Breath You Take in 1983. But how a song about a homicidal maniac can sound so happy is . . . interesting.

Grenade: So this Bruno Mars hit makes me say, "Sniffle, sniffle." But perhaps catchier is his bad character hit with more catchy whistling, The Lazy Song: "Today I don't feel like doing anything; I just want to lay in my bed." Bro, I feel you. But I enjoy the irony when this song is playing at the gym.

Give Me Everything: Pit Bull is the Harold Camping of performers: he joins a long line of song meisters using the threat that we're not promised tomorrow to try and seduce his current target into a night of giving him what he wants. Jerk.

We Found Love: Rihanna was on top of the charts for 8 weeks with this song. That this would be such a big hit . . . I'm just not into canned pop. And I ain't hatin' nobody! Note that there were 22,000 "Don't Likes" on YouTube. As EDA says on Idolator, it just kind of makes you want to say, "harmony.com."

Born This Way: "Became the fastest-selling song in iTunes history, selling one million copies in five days." If you want in depth analysis go here; Lady Gaga pleads for gay rights, giving us something simultaneously sexual, political, and religious in a pop anthem package. Pushing the envelope in a Madonna-esque kind of way, she calls this her "Freedom Song." Whatever.

_____________
If you are feeling just entirely shallow and pop-inundated, you may need to check out the top 20 classical releases of 2011. It may help you restore balance to the force and sanity to your soul. Joyful, Joyful.

On This Day: A Crowning Achievement

2011-12-25T06:52:00.001Z

Some time after Christmas became Christmas, a Frankish King named Charles became King of the Romans on Christmas Day. That would be the 25th of December, the year 800, when Pope Leo III crowned him Emperor of the Romans in St. Peter's Basilica. Leo indulged in this bit of quid pro quo having had a bit of a tough time, those dastardly Romans having tried to put out his eyes and pull out his tongue (now that is rough and tumble politics). There were all kinds of things going on at the time, include the iconoclastic controversy and conflicts with Empress Irene of the Byzantines.

In an interesting twist, Pope John Paul II was given the Charlemagne Prize in 2004 (thereby joining a list of the distinguished and the otherwise including Winston Churchill, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and, perhaps most interesting of all, the Euro). In his acceptance speech in the city of Aachen he referred to Charlemagne as the Father of Europe. a designation with which not everyone is happy.

But in another way, Charlemagne really is the Father of Europe. For those of you for whom the idea of noble lineage is appealing, consider this: virtually everyone with at least one European ancestor is a descendent of Charlemagne. Not only that, but:

Geneticists have also computed that about 20 percent of all adults who lived in Europe in the year 1000 have no living descendents, while everyone with European ancestry alive today is a direct descendent of the other 80 percent of the adults who lived in Europe in 1000.

At this point you are wondering: what do genetic linkages to Charlemagne have to do with Christmas? The short answer - absolutely nothing. This is just a fun bit of trivia to play with once you expend the potential of your stocking stuffers.

A Dark, Dark, Day

2011-12-21T01:03:00.001Z

It's the 21st of December. It happens every year: October quickly slides into November, which whizzes by for a variety of reasons, and then BOOM! There it is, we're in December, and it's the DARK TIMES. Winter is officially here.

I'm speaking as someone who lives in the norther hemisphere. Actually, not just in the northern hemisphere . . . look at globe - look how far up there Scotland is. It's like WAY up there. When we look up at the North Star in the winter, it's almost directly overhead. Seriously.

We are expecting exactly 6 hours and 59 minutes of daylight tomorrow. I'm not making this stuff up:

The sun is RISING at 8:45.

The sun is SETTING at 15:44.

Can I be honest? THAT'S JUST PATHETIC!!! But there's good news: Every year, four days after the shortest day of the year, it's Christmas. The other good news? every day after tomorrow gets just a little bit longer, the BOOM! Spring will be here, and we're out of the woods again. And oh, how we love that summer sunshine. Oops - did I say sunshine? Silly me.

Another One Bites The Dust

2011-12-20T01:34:00.001Z

This has not been a good year for dictators, terrorists, and other megalomaniacs. Who would have thought that Osama Ben Laden, Muammar Gadaffi, and Kim Jong-il would all die in the same year? Just like the cold Eastern bloc eventually thawed, the time will come when Justin Bieber will be able to perform at the Taedong Diplo.

It would be wrong to focus, I suppose, only on bad guys. Other notable deaths in 2011 include Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright and statesmen, Joe Frazier, the American boxer, the other Joe Frazier, (the American baseball player), Al Davis (American football owner). Bubba Smith (American football player). Jack Kavorkian (Dr. Death). Christopher Hitchens (the skeptic). Betty Ford. Peter Falk. Elizabeth Taylor. Pop singers Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse. Weezer bassist Mikey Welsh. And of course the Apple guru Steve Jobs.

That's a lot of death! And every year is like that - people, lots of people, even famous people that we've grown accustomed to - die, leave this life, and pass into their eternal destiny. It's hard to read over the list of names - people we've heard of, people that may have touched our lives in a very indirect way, and not feel at least just a bit of sadness.

The interesting twist, though, is that at the end of every year people all over the world are preoccupied with a birth - a birth that changed history - the birth of Jesus. The interesting thing about the birth of Jesus is that He too eventually died, and in his death death died because He rose triumphantly from the tomb. But the parade of deaths that marks every year is a perpetual, constant, dripping reminder that our time on this planet is brief:

Shakespeare said it like this in Macbeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.

Shakespeare got this right: And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.

And this is pretty straight up: It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury.

But he got this wrong: It is signifying nothing.

Actually the death of every person is a signifier that the trail of sin still stings in death, a perpetual, constant dripping reminder that our God is holy. One day we all - the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the famous and infamous - we all one day stand before him. We give an account for our time on this planet. And in that moment - we are found. We are found either trusting in what we've done as somehow, possibly, maybe good enough to get us into right standing with God. Or we're found trusting in the One whose life was good enough, whose death was sufficient enough, whose victory is complete enough, to gain us access to God. THAT is why we celebrate His birth.

To Handels tune we hear Wesley's words, reminding us that

Now He lays His Glory by
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark the Herald, Angels sing;
Glory to the new born King.

The New Normal: Religious Pluralism

2011-12-19T07:09:00.001Z

Provoked by financial need, Washington Irving wrote Rip Van Winkle in 1818. It's the story of a man in the Catskill Mountains who fell asleep in British Colonial America and woke up 20 years later in post-Revolution United States. The plot is similar to the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, a story in which Christian youths hide in a cave to escape the severe persecutions under Decius. The young men wake up 200 years later in the reign of Theodosius II. While they have been asleep, the empire became Christianised.

Our situation today could be thought of as the opposite of the Seven Sleepers; the Church went to sleep in Christendom, and it is waking up in a post-Christian reality. Western civilisation no longer thinks in Christian categories, embraces Christian morality, assumes Christian epistemology, or prefers Christian orthodoxy. In short, we've woken up in a world where religious pluralism is assumed.

But here's the catch: there are two kinds of pluralism. According to Harold A. Netland*:

First, it can be used descriptively to refer to the empirical fact of religious diversity. Globalisation and the massive demographic changes of the twentieth century have greatly deepened Western awareness of religious others. . . Religious alternatives that were unavailable even fifty years ago are now available to many, and even those who choose to become or remain Christian do so with the conscious awareness of other options. Moreover, all indications suggest that such diversity is likely to increase, not diminish, in the coming decades.

There is, however, an alternative understanding of religious pluralism:

The second meaning of religious pluralism goes beyond mere description of diversity and embraces a particular view, a normative judgment, about the relation between the different religions. Pluralism in this sense maintains that the major religions are all to be accepted as more or less equally legitimate way in which culturally and historically conditioned humankind responds to the one divine reality.

It is this second definition that describes the "pluralistic ethos" dominating in Europe: "the conviction that sincere and morally respectable people simply cannot be mistaken about basic religious beliefs, especially when such beliefs and practices seem to have beneficial effects for the participants."

We must understand that whereas definition 1 is accurate, definition 2 is philosophically dominant. While we were sleeping, the world changed. And using strategies designed for Christendom are just not going to get the job done. In other words, we won't win if we're playing checkers in a game of chess.

Christians should, however take heart: the first time the gospel entered Europe (Acts 16), the context was very pluralistic. The early church thrived, however, by going head to head with the realities of its day. According to Carson**:

If we listen attentively to the New Testament we will discover that thoughtful application of the gospel to us and to our society now becomes more immediate and powerful, precisely because our society is approaching the pluralism of the Roman Empire in the first century.

In other words, we've been here before, and we won. But if we don't understand where we are, we won't understand how the game is to be played, and winning will elude us. Our context demands that we rigorously cling to Truth. To know God personally and salvifically, people need the gospel. The greatest thing needed in the churning sea of pluralism is a deep understanding of the core of the gospel and its clear, compelling, and articulate communication. Oh, and like the Seven Sleepers: at some point we have to wake up and walk out of the cave.

*From "Religious Pluralism and the Question of Truth" in Biblical Faith and Other Religions, pp. 23-24.

**From "Christian Witness in an Age of Pluralism" in God and Culture, pp. 64-65.

Religion on the Island: The Cameron Crazies

2011-12-18T02:58:00.001Z

Not far from Chapel Hill is a University called Duke known for the rabidity of its basketball fans. Filling their eponymous arena wearing toxic screams and water-based blue paints, the Cameron Crazies occasionally provide genuine entertainment through clever chants directed at opposing players.

Not far from Scotland is a nation called England known for the rabidity of its anti-religion zealots. Filling the airwaves with toxic screams and water-weight logic, the politically correct Madcaps seldom provide genuine entertainment; killjoys have no capacity for wit, irony, or the textured appreciation of England's unique religious heritage.

The event that sparked my little diatribe was Prime Minister David Cameron's speech celebrating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. The speech was bold: "We are a Christian country. And we should not be afraid to say so, " observational: "The Bible has helped to shape the values which define our country," correct: "Put simply, for too long we have been unwilling to distinguish right from wrong," liberal: "Because the tolerance that Christianity demands of our society provides greater space for other religious faiths too" and pluralistic: "And I am also incredibly proud that Britain is home to many different faith communities, who do so much to make our country stronger."

Look, I'm not expecting a "vaguely practising - Church of England Christian" Prime Minister to be a theological giant. To be a secular Prime Minister in a post-Christendom European social democracy, he pushed about as far as he could in acknowledging the rich influence of the Bible and Christianity in Britain's history.

What fascinates me to no end, however, is the reaction generated by this reasonably mild speech. The Prime Minister went out of his way to acknowledge the pluralistic realities of modern Britain. And still - people complain. If Christopher Hitchens were still around, I'm sure he'd find some things to complain about. That doesn't bother me. What gets me are the supposedly Christian leaders attacking him for referencing the Bible as a source of ethics and morality. To wit:

Has it occurred to you that the ethics of the Bible are as much a pick and mix morality as anything you’ll find in our gloriously multi-ethnic Britain. How are we to interpret the Bible, Prime Minister?

That would be from Kelvin Holdworth, Provost of St. Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow (which is actually in Scotland). When a churchman is asking a politician for hermeneutic lessons . . . that's just bad. He's also bothered that the PM is calling churches in the nation to, well, be the Church:

You seemed to imply that the churches had short-changed the country in not standing up for these good decent biblical values that you are on about.

I don't know if that's what he was saying or not . . . but he should have. Because it is when the Church stops being the Church - in other words, when the Church stops standing on the Truth of God's Word and for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3) - yes, that's when the nation goes to hell in a hand basket.

Or, let's just quote Jesus:

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. (Matthew 5:13)

Application: if the Church finds itself getting walked on (sidelined, marginalised), it needs to ask itself: why have we been thrown out? It's time to get some saltiness back. If the end of Christendom has any advantages for the Church, it may be that, going forward, we won't be able to rely on a government-sanctioned seat at the table; to have a voice will necessitate having something to say.

Unlike the Cameron Crazies, cleverness will be insufficient. But like the folk in the photo, there may be some church leaders for whom the blue paint would be useful. According to Mel Gibson, it worked for William Wallace.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

2011-12-17T03:01:00.000Z

Philip K. Dick didn't know he was writing what would become a cult classic (Bladerunner) starring one of that generation's young talents (Harrison Ford) when he he wrote  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in 1968. The Ridley Scott film delves into a dark dystopian future (with amazing city scapes and a retro-uber-cool and gripping soundtrack by Vangelis), and it asks a deep question: what does it mean to be human?

Christopher Hitchens wrestled with that question for most of his life. His very mixed answer put forward striking contradictions: man is both reasonable and stupid; superstitious and kind; blind and able. He could be funny (“The Postmodernists' tyranny wears people down by boredom and semi-literate prose”)  and exacerbating (“Organised religion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children") and arrogant (“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof”).

But in wrestling with what it means to be human (“Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation”) he betrays the naturalists' dilemma: reconciling the human capacity for nobility with our "lucky mud" status. Douglas Wilson had the opportunity to know Hitchens in personwhen they shared the stage in debating "Is Christianity Good For the World?" Watch it HERE. In reflecting on Hitchens' death, he paints a very human and sympathetic view - I encourage you to read it HERE.

Paschal's Wager is an imperfect means of highlighting the dangerous game that all humans are playing: Christians claim that we'll all stand before the God of the Bible and give an account for our lives. They're either right or wrong, but regardless, that game is over for Mr. Hitchens, and from a very human perspective, that's sad.

In Bladerunner, one of the ways that replicants (androids) are identified - they don't have their own memories or dreams, but only implanted thoughts, borrowed from other sources. The source of their thought life is a key to unlocking their past and their destiny.

So it is with us. The gospel says that we have dreams of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness because we are created in the image of a God who is beautiful and good and completely true. Whereas sin has distorted this built-in wiring, their vestige still animates our identity. But we try in vain to find a basis for them without God. In his debates with Douglas Wilson, Christopher Hitchens tried to present that basis in a convincing way.

It's possible that Hitchens had a death-bed conversion and finally turned in private to the God he made a career out of publicly scorning. We don't know. But Wilson ends his reflection on Hitchens' life appropriately:

We therefore commend Christopher to the Judge of the whole earth, who will certainly do right. Christopher Eric Hitchens (1949-2011). R.I.P.

Into The Abyss: Europe's Descent

2011-12-16T14:32:00.001Z

I don't often quote N.T. Wright . . . his view of justification is a bit off. (See Horton and Piper).

But he nails Europe's descent into the philosophical abyss:

The great revolution ofthought which happened in Europe over three centuries ago, associated withDescartes in particular, was the attempt to grasp truth as it were fromscratch: by doubting everything, wewould see what we could be sure of and build out from there. We would know the facts, and the facts wouldset us free – free from God, free from any responsibility except to our ownself interest.

There’s a straight line from Descartes to Dawkins – we can doubt God, but wecan’t doubt the facts, the empirical evidence. And the results of that arrogant attempt topossess truth are all around us, etched in the horrors of the twentiethcentury.

So, God's answer? The incarnation:

aIn the beginning was bthe Word, and cthe Word was with God, and dthe Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 eAll things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 fIn him was life,1 and gthe life was the light of men. 5 hThe light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Christmas and Europe's Two Front War

2011-12-06T21:16:00.001Z

Hitler lost WWII for a host of reasons, not least of which was his insistence on a two front war. Having (temporarily) neutralised Stalin with the Brest-Litovsk agreement, he inexplicably decided to go all in and, not having finished the job in the Battle of Britain, open up a war against Stalin. In search of lebensraum, he launched the armies of the Third Reich against what is arguably an unconquerable tract of land.

Two front wars, however, do not always end in defeat. The Americans ended up on the winning side having fought simultaneously and won in Europe and Asia in the same World War II. That being said, the idea of two front wars is intimidating, and that brings us to this:

To the degree that a story about God's peace can be framed as metaphorically fighting a war, the gospel is currently fighting a two front war in Europe. Thus notes Richard Plantinga:

It bears mention that modernity forced Christianity into a two-front war - the very kind of war that the history of the twentieth century indicates it is difficult to fight let alone win. These two fronts are atheism and pluralism. On the one hand, atheism's challenge - the death of God - would find Christendom in the post-Enlightenment West expending much of its intellectual energy justifying its belief in the existence of God and the rationality of Christian belief. On the other hand, pluralism's challenges to Christendom's construal of the nature of God would emerge. As a result of these two fronts, Christianity's posture in the post-Enlightenment West would be fundamentally a defensive one.

And that is where we find the Church in Europe . . . on the defensive. The, answer, of course, to the question, is found in Francis Schaeffer's saying: He is There . . . And He is not Silent.

He is there: there is a God.
He is not silent: He has spoken.

And He has spoken most profoundly in his Son Jesus Christ, the ultimate point of victory. It is the revelation of God in Christ that answers both challenges. In the words of Leslie Newbigin:

If we are speaking about religious ideas, or about religious experiences, then certainly to claim uniqueness and finality for one's own is intolerable arrogance. But we are not: we are talking about facts of history. If, in fact, it is true that almighty God, creator and sustainer of all that exists in heaven and on earth, has - at a known time and place in human history - so humbled himself as to become a part of our sinful humanity and to suffer and die a shameful death to take away our sin and rise from the dead as the first-fruit of a new creation; if this is a fact, then to affirm it is not arrogance. To remain quiet about it is treason to our fellow human beings.

In other words, two front wars don't intimidate God. The Word becomes flesh. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

Merry Christmas!

A European Conversation

2011-11-30T07:20:00.001Z

Last week I was at the pool where my daughters have swimming lessons and got into a four way conversation:

In front of me was a religious guy, Roman Catholic, who had been excluded from becoming a priest a few years ago.
To my right was a spiritualist, a woman who believes in something, and is open to spiritual stuff, drawn to eastern religions.
And to my left was a convinced non-believing woman whose horrific childhood helped her land in a place of being convinced that there is no God, for a good God wouldn't have let her experience that painful mess.

I just sort of got things going and then watched the (gracious) sparks fly. But as I listened and reflected, it struck me that this little conversation was a microcosm of the continent. I thought - this is real, this is beautiful, this is Europe; this is my world.:

Religion: Some people are holding on to religious forms that really aren't working for them.
Spirituality: Some people are longing for spiritual experience but the idea of truth really isn't a filter for them.
Unbelief: Some people have had bad experiences and just can't believe that God is the one who can heal and restore them.

And last of all, in the corner of the conversation, was me, who believes:

Tradition has a place to support Truth, but if it becomes the end, it can be a roadblock to Life.
God is spiritual and created us as spiritual beings, but our authentic spirituality is only expressed when we encounter and embrace Truth.
It is precisely because life is painful and bad things happen that the promise of God's healing goodness is so beautiful.

At the end of the day, there is a Person who is Truth: His name is Jesus, and the first chapter of John describes him like this:

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Man: He Feels Like A Woman

2011-11-18T18:05:00.001Z

We may have found a way to get Ai Weiwei off the hook. While we suggested that standing up to a dictatorial government was noble, we recognised that some of his art was not beautiful. And then we discovered the artist-transvestite-potter Alan Grayson.

Why we would actually care about a man who takes his teddy bear Alan Measles, the benign dictator of Perry's fantasy world, on a tour of reconciliation through Germany because of all the imaginary battles they fought together - against imaginary Germans? Well, it's hard to take it all seriously. And I'm suspecting that he really doesn't expect to be taken seriously, and must be amused that some people do. He was officially sent off by the mayor of Chelmsford.

And the British Museum, for example, recently asked Perry to curate a display in which he developed The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman. In describing it, he says: ‘This is a memorial to all the anonymous craftsmen that over the centuries have fashioned the manmade wonders of the world…The craftsman’s anonymity I find especially resonant in an age of the celebrity artist.’ Of course, he is a celebrity artist.

That Grayson's wife is a psychotherapist may be telling; in interviews she seems nonplussed about the eccentricities of her husband. What does one do with a man who often dresses as his altar ego, Claire, a middle-aged woman that, well you take a look:

What does one do with a man whose personal deity is a teddy bear he calls "the god of my art world?" One point of comparison between Ai Weiwei and Grayson Perry - they're both artists, and they're both critics. Ai Weiwei stands against the Chinese government; Grayson Perry stands against convention to some degree. In both of their defenses, we can say that they're not Andres Serrano; being confused and blasphemous aren't the same thing. So we turn to Francis Schaeffer for perspective:

...whenever art or science has tried to be autonomous, a principle has always manifested itself -- nature eats up grace. Thus art and science themselves soon began to be meaningless. (Francis A. Schaeffer, Escape From Reason, Ch. 2)

This [below] may not yet be a completely meaningless rabbit - the prayer scribbled on it - 'God please keep the children safe' - has comprehensible content. And one can perhaps be more understanding when one realises that some of Perry's psychological trauma derives from his father leaving the family because had an affair with the milman. But a Schaefferian critique says that Ai Weiwei and Grayson Perry are both well on their towards landing at a place of meaninglessness. How deep does the rabbit hole go?

Exegeting Europe: Stetzer Reads

2011-11-16T20:30:00.001Z

The missional practitioner needs skill at reading and interpreting two texts: the Bible text and the context. The Bible gives us the message; the context gives us an audience. Only getting the Bible right gives us a message with no audience; only getting the context right gives us an audience with no message. A faithful gospel messenger combines deep gospel understanding with deep cultural insight to achieve effective communication.

Here, Ed Stetzer reads Europe:

Consider some of the dominant characteristics of the European worldview:

Fatalism: Civil unrest, religious oppression,political instability, and wars left Europe with a real sense that itdoesn't matter what you do; whatever happens will happen. The result isa "live for today" sort of hedonism that cynically (realistically?)says, "Hard work, honesty, and innovation don't always pay off." Itaffects voter turnout (low), unemployment (high), and family structure(unraveling).

Relativism: The many perceived failures of"absolute" truths (particularly scientific, political, and religioustruths) have left Europeans seeking to piece together something that"works" for them. Because they've yet to see one metanarrative thatworks for all people, they have no confidence that one really exists.Furthermore, European relativism was born out of a deliberate rebellionfrom the dictatorships of the last century (Hitler, Mussolini, Franco,Soviet Union, etc.).

Narrative: This is the first generation withinfinite amounts of information. In the past, the government held thekeys to the information-controlled society (state-run newspapers,political propaganda). If truth is relative and information isunlimited, how does one make sense of it all? Europeans tend to choosea voice or two and stick with them as long as it's convenient.Socialism, pagan spirituality, secularism, science, video games--theseare some of the new micro-narratives.

New Morality: European morality was long prescribedby the church. As they moved away from that, Europeans cobbled togethera secular morality which they sought to use to protect society fromitself. The new European morality, based in this worldview, includes:
Protection of Children- With a negative birthrate (1.3%Europe-wide), children are a rare thing in Europe. To avoid takingadvantage of young people's innocence, parents don't talk to theirchildren about religion and don't teach them what to believe. It isseen as immoral (and, in some places, illegal) to proselytize childrenunder 18 in Europe.
Limited freedom of expression - Speaking ill ofanother person's religion is seen as rude. Religious education is seenas revisionist at best and brainwashing at worst. Tolerance is the ruleof the day, except toward the truth of Christianity.
Social Democracy: Towns hold referendums on whetherchurches should be allowed to continue meeting within city limits.Public events require permits, but these are voted on by the citizens.Local ministries that compete with the government's robust efforts tomeet physical needs are seen as obvious attempts to bait-and-switch.Only the government, they say, can afford to be altruistic. Thus,government and social democracy serve to replace any felt need forChristianity.

Environmentalism: 46% say that the environmentshould be given priority over economy (Gallup). Germans who don'tproperly sort their garbage into recycling bins are ticketed and fined.Gas prices are artificially raised to deter people from drivingair-polluting cars.

Spirituality: Europe continues to react to thelasting negative impact of Roman Catholicism (or Anglicanism, orProtestantism). Nevertheless, most Europeans consider themselves to bevery spiritual. For them, this usually means that they look for ways toexpress their creativity, emotion, and desire for purpose and meaning.Art, travel, love, and experience are all popular spiritual outlets.Many Europeans also hold to a folk-religion-superstition as well, suchas belief in witches, the "evil eye," good/bad luck, horoscopes,observing sacred days, etc.

Virtual Society: Europeans, especially the youngerdemographic (80% among ages 18-34), are extremely connected via theinternet. They continue to find, what are to them, meaningful andinfluential relationships online. For many, the virtual world is merelyan extension of their real-world social structure. For others, the weballows them to be who they want to be and interact with whomever theywant.

Tribalism: We tend to think of tribes as athird-world phenomenon, but Europeans have returned to a selective formof tribalism for their social structure. As they move to major citiesfor work or education, many Europeans find themselves disconnected fromtheir network of friends and family, once the center of Europeansociety. Now, they piece together loosely-organized tribes of friendsbased on affinities.

Welcome to our world. We may revisit the accuracy of Stetzer's reading in another post, but for sure he identifies some key worldview themes. It's always easier to see someone else's worldview than one's own. It is in this context that faithfulness to the biblical text is so important. As we accurately read the culture and the text that holds the message of life, may God help us communicate clearly, powerfully, and authentically.

11-11-11

2011-11-11T06:29:00.001Z

Eleven. It's the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of this millennium. How cool is that?

But the really fun thing about days like today is that they, well, bring out the quacks. Consider this:

The date of 11-11-11 is one of the most powerful shifts in human awareness that we will experience in our lifetime.

Or this:

11-11-11 is the cosmic birth date of humanities prayer for liberation from the rote, mundane, and monotonous.

But not only that, there is a mantra that . . .

. . . is considered the “magic mantra” because it can shift the flow of the psyche so powerfully that new opportunities seem to materialize out of nowhere. Chanting this mantra for just 11 minutes a day from now until 11-11-11 will allow you to catch a new wave of energy which will liberate you from the chains of the past.

Seriously? I'm sorry - I'm just not creative enough to make this stuff up. I really wish I were. But there are real humans on the planet that actually think and speak in these terms. And so there's a need to at least be conversant with this stuff. But here's the game the way I play it:

3 X 11 = 33.

That's the supposed age of Jesus when he was crucified. And that has powerful consequences:

1. Repenting and believing the gospel will bring a powerful shift in human awareness.
2. Prayers for liberation are accomplished when we repent and believe the gospel; old things pass
away and new things come.
3. A new wave of energy is experienced when we receive the power and presence of the Holy
Spirit - as we repent and believe the gospel.

What is the difference between our solid Christian faith and this new age gobbledy-gook?

1. We believe in a real man - Jesus - who really lived.
2. We believe that real man was really crucified.
3. We believe that real man was actually raised from the dead.

And we believe all this because the Holy Spirit has opened our hearts to believe the eye-witness accounts handed down to us through the gospels.

The 11-11-11 numerologists long to experience a genuine spiritual reality.

The good news: God is there, and He can be known.

The sad news: until someone lets their presuppositional framework get displaced by Truth . . . they live in darkness.

But in the mean time, enjoy this tidbit: This is the eleventh triple-number date we've had this millennium. Imagine that! And it's happening on the eleventh!

Sex on the Island

2011-11-05T02:28:00.002Z

The BBC documents Five Key Moments in the UK's Sexual Revolution.

One of the points identified in the article is the introduciton of the Page Three Girl by the Sun in 1970 in an effort to invigorate falling sales. In its article on this British cultural phenomenon, WIkipedia notes that

Page Three has often been controversial, particularly with conservatives and women's groups. Some critics consider it to be sexist, demeaning, and exploitative, while others regard it as softcore pornography that is inappropriate for publication in a national newspaper.

Ya think? When MP Clare Short campaigned against the practice in 2004 she was called "fat and jealous." She may have been both, but her point probably resonates with more than a few people across the island.

However that may be, here in this post I've got my my own list of Five Key Results of the UK's Sexual Revolution:

Sex Trafficking: Yes it happens. Here.

State-funded Abortions: Still at a high rate.

Sex Education: It starts at age 4. Seriously?

Sexually Ttransmitted Diseases: They've been increasing - still.

Single Parents: Increasing, and not a pretty picture.

WIth all that going, does anybody think it was a good idea? Has this been a good thing for society? Has this been a WIN? So I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that, in hindsite - no, it's not all good. The moral, social, relational, and familial fabric of society has been signicantly damaged. That's the deal. And it's not a good one. In the words of one observer:

Perhaps you’ve wondered: Why are our attitudes towards sex and relationships contrary to pretty much every successful culture, in every time period in human history? Why has the glorious sexual revolution seemed to have coincided with the collapse in marriage, trust, and birth rates across the western world?

The answer is that you’ve been lied to. You’ve been tricked. And you’ll continue to engage in self-destructive behaviours until you wake up from your slumber and reassert your control over the choices you make.

Or - you can go back to the Bible and learn about sex as God intended it. Join the new sexual revolution called purity. It's just what the Island needs.

God is Dead: Europe's Mantra

2011-11-04T15:51:00.001Z

What does it look like when the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost take the last train for the coast?1

Thus spoke Friedrich Nietzsche:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

This idea - that " that humans are no longer able to believe in any such cosmic order since they themselves no longer recognize it, " that the Christian God is no longer a viable source of any absolute moral principles- is the philosophical foundation of secular Europe. It is perhaps THE governing idea animating the intellectual presuppositions of the continent. And it its genuinely sad that an entire continent is swept up in a false idea necessitated by a philosophical dead end arrived at through a series of unnecessary philosophical steps that started with the idea that "We're pretty smart and can figure this deal out without God or his revelation. Our minds are autonomous."

Contemporary Europe is a grand experiment to see what it looks like to build a society with God excluded and verbotten. And as Christians - we have two options:

Stand back and watch: Babel has been attempted before, and it will be attempted again. Let the silly unbelievers build their sandcastles, and then watch them crumble. Why try to speak truth to people who don't like our God anyway?

Enter the fray: The "God is Dead" idea isn't the only game in town. There's another idea - an older idea - a better idea - a truer idea - called the gospel. It is the good news of who Jesus is and what He did to restore us fallen, broken humans to Himself and our original purpose.

Whatever attractions the "God is Dead" idea has for modern man, it's is a broken idea: it cannot heal the hurts, restore the dignity, and repair the damage of sin that contemporary people need. Only the gospel can do that. That's why Paul's Big Idea was the gospel:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God to everyone who believes. Romans 1:16

The God is Dead idea must die; it must be supplanted and displaced by the gospel. And that is why we're here.

1 This is a creative allusion to Don McLean's 1971 hit Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie.

Drinking The Kool-Aid: Europe's Christopaganism

2011-11-04T14:24:00.000Z

Has there been a change in Europe? Oh yes.

Scholars today freely acknowledge that in Europe:

There has been “a systematic erosion of religious practices, values and beliefs” rooted in growing material security and the systematic elimination of the “physical, societal and personal risks” that formerly laid the basis for faith and adherence to strict and unyielding moral codes. In many accounts, secularization has led to a shift in the character of moral codes. Absolutist and unyielding strictures have been increasingly displaced by relativist notions of morality based upon “lifestyle choices” by both individuals and groups. Figures from the World Values Survey suggest that more than 70 per cent of people in Denmark, Sweden the Netherlands (and Japan) can now be regarded as relativists.1

In explaining why this change has taken place, the authors continue by stating

Growing material security and the progressive elimination of such risks laid the basis for less absolutist and more relativist perceptions of moral issues as well as a decline in deference towards most forms of authority. Economic development thereby lays the basis for self-expression and liberal, post-modern values.2

Louis Luzbetak identifies the syncretic nature of European sensisbilities, the fusion of old Christian values and modern philosophical perspectives:

The fact is that Western Christians absolve themselves too easily of syncretism. In fact, we cann speak of a de-Christianization of Europe, which is but a syncretization of Christianity. Religious educators in the West have too easily put the First Commandment aside as nonapplicable. The fact is that Western Christians have their own Golden Calves and Baals: hedonism, scientism, positivism, individualism, commercialism, and materialism.3

Whereas hedonism has been around for a while, the other isms he identifies are all children of the Enlightenment. When Europeans worked hard to exalt reason over revelation, tradition, and authority, they did so within a context shaped by Christian ethical sensibilities. The result is a really odd mixture of beliefs and behaviours.

Whereas some make arguments for a moral basis of atheistic secularism, at the end of the day, once God is kicked out of the room, there is no ultimate moral foundation. But because Europe was influenced by Christianity for so long, it's difficult to shake the idea that one should be nice. So today we have a Europe in which:

hedonism is philosophically normalized, but binge drinking is criticized
scientism is assumed, but the right to kill old people is debated;
materialism is rebuked, but governments spend so much money it threatens their very viability.

I'll have my koolaid on the rocks, please. Shaken, not stirred.

1 http://www.ecprnet.eu/ecpr/lisbon/documents/ws1_000.pdf
2 http://www.ecprnet.eu/ecpr/lisbon/documents/ws1_000.pdf
3Louis Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1998), p. 366.

Welcome To Eurabia!

2011-11-03T02:24:00.001Z

Welcome to Eurabia! Book your tickets now for an all-inclusive tour including North Pakistan (the UK), the Islamic Republic of New Algeria (France), the Moorish Emirate of Iberia (Spain), New Turkey (Germany), Belgistan (Belgium), and the Albanian Federation (merger of Albania with Italy).

Muammar Ghadaffi, before his inglorious death, made this prophecy: There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe without swords, without guns, without conquests. The Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades. Norwegian-based Islamist leader Mullah Krekar states: "By 2050, thirty percent of the European population will be Muslim."

How, you ask, could this happen? Heard on the streets of Duisburg of women in headscarves: We're going to outbirth you. (Or, to be completely honest, what was heard on the streets of Duisburg was Wir gebaren euch kaputt. Something like that). Why would a Muslim threat to outbirth Christians in Europe be taken seriously? Consider this:

Birthrates
For a society to maintain its existing level of population, it needs a total fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman (the extra fraction compensates for losses such as infant mortality). So what are the current birthrates in Europe?

Italy: 1.28 [Italy could lose a fifth of its population by 2050].
Spain: 1.28
Eastern Europe: 1.3
Germany: 1.39 [Between 25 and 30 percent of German women will remain childless: the figure for university graduates is over 40 percent].
France: 1.8

Aging

By 2050, 40 percent of Italians will be over the age of 60.
For Europe as a whole, the median age will rise in the same period from 37 today to 52.3 (while that in the US will be about what it is today, around 35).
Mark Steyn notes: "The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birth rate to sustain it." So who is going to fill in the gap?

According to Mullah Krekar, the Muslims. Here are the fertility rates in the Muslim world:

Algeria: 3.2
Egypt: 3.4
Morocco: 3.4
Iraq: 5.2
Saudi Arabia: 6.1

Krekar summarizes: "Each Western woman in the EU produces, on average, 1.4 children. Each Muslim woman in these same countries produces 3.5 children." That's why he predicts that Europe will be 30 percent Muslim by 2050.

Lest you think that this is a xenophobic and racist rant . . . not so. God created the Arab peoples to know Him and enjoy Him and experience the beauty of his love towards them. But here's the deal: that love is only found in Christ, and that love is expressed and communicated in the gospel. If Muslims are moving into Europe and the gospel is moving out . . . that's bad. But if God's people are stirred to action to embrace this ginormous oppo-challenge (a simultaneous opportunity and challenging problem) and engage the lost of Europe - both Muslim and secularist with the gospel - that's good.

Bottom Line
What every Christian must ask is this: Do I really believe in the power of the gospel? Am I willing to let God fill me with his Spirit and boldly proclaim that gospel to people in a continent that desperately need it? Can I stir nation-shaking faith and believe that God will once again rouse his church to action for such a time is this? Remember that Europe is the 10/40 Window of the 21st Century. And so in closing we ask:

If not Europe, where? If not now, when?

*Anyone who writes a poem entitled Jim, who ran away from his nurse, and was eaten by a lion and Matilda, who told lies and was burnt to death is bound to be interesting.
* *Most of this, including quotes and statistics, is excerpted from from God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis (Philip Jenkins, Oxford, University Press, 2007).

Jesus vs. the BBC

2011-11-02T01:02:00.000Z

Because of its bent towards rationality, one would think that the European context would value objectivity from its media and news outlets. In such a world, Christianity would be presented in a fair and balanced way. The Church would be viewed neutrally. Gospel faith would be considered and reported impartially.

So that is what we find in practice, yes? Um, no. According to Philip Jenkins:

The consistently negative presentations of European religion point to features of the media on the continent that differ substantially from conditions in the United States. In West European nations, the media are far more secular than their U.S. counterparts and indeed more hostile to any form of organized religion, which is commonly seen as a problem to be solved. In consequence, European accounts of religious life all but ignore trends or events, and this lack of attention means that these movements receive little attention elsewhere. To draw a parallel with the official "European" views on religion, we would have to imagine a United States in which all media reflected the socially liberal values of The New York Times, Washington Post, or Bostone Globe, and in which most forms of conservative or charismatic religious expression were greeted with puzzlement, if not disdain.

So there you have it. Even the BBC's own audit concluded that the corporation was anti-Christian.
And lest you think that Philip Jenkins is a fundamentalist preacher railing against the leftist media, note that he is a professor of humanities and Penn State University and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University.

At least he is trying to be objective.

Wide Open Places

2011-11-01T02:15:00.000Z

So, here I'm guessing that the Dreamliner pictured above is not being used for the Edinburgh to Newark flight segment later this morning. Oh well. I'm guessing it will be this:

At least we're not flying on this:

95 Pumpkins

2011-10-31T11:26:00.001Z

It's a beautiful day. The 31st of October is an important one in history. It's on this day - Reformation Day - that Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. Just so we remember, the Reformation was when the Church in Europe experienced a Back To the Bible Movemement and rediscovered some of the key teachings of Scripture - teachings that had always been there, and had been taught by great notables like Paul and Augustine, but that had been obscured by centuries of accrued tradition and distortion.

Some of the key truths brought back to proper emphasis during the Reformation are known as The Five Solas (based on the Latin word sola which means only):

Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone): Our Only Foundation for truth.
Sola Christus (Christ Alone): Our only Mediator
Sola Gratia (Grace Alone): Our Only Method
Sola Fide (Faith Alone): Our Only Means
Sola Deo Gloria (Only God's Glory): Our Only Motivation

THIS article by Michael Horton opens up some of the historical context and doctrinal importance of these solas. In summary, the Reformation brought us back to these BIG IDEAS:

The Bible is the final authority for what we believe and how we live.
It's only through Jesus that we are saved.
God's grace is a gift and completely unearned.
We are saved by faith in Christ and His Work, not by what we do.
God's glory is the ultimate, highest good.

And all that came from a monk and theology professor who had been studying his Bible and decided that the Church needed to let God's Word shape it - reform it - again. But here's the deal: Why talk about these solas? Are they still important? This is the year 2011. Why do they matter? Simply - because truth matters. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. But truth has consequences, and we always need to let it shape us.

So let me introduce you to another key phrase of the Reformation.

Ecclesia semper reformans, semper reformanda.

That is - the church is reformed, but continuing to be reformed. And there is another bit that's important: according to the word of God. Another way of saying that: the Church hasn't arrived yet; it is still in need of being washed, shaped, tweaked and changed by God's Word.

And when we let the Bible do that - it sends us into the nations of the world with the good news of God's salvation: Go into all the world. So the Five Solas of the Reformation aren't the end - they are the beginning - the launch pad, the guard rails - that animate our mission to the world. Jesus sends us to take his good news to everyone who hasn't heard it before.

A church that has truth but isn't engaged in God's mission to the world - is just arrogant and uncaring. It's like watching people in a burning house - knowing the escape hatch, and not telling them.

A church engaged in mission without truth - is just irrelevant and has nothing to say. It's like running into a burning house and saying to the people, "It's going to be OK - I'm here, and I care. Would you like a hug?"

Our Reformation roots call us to a clear understanding of truth; but because we are semper reformanda - God is always tweaking us with his Word and pushing us out the door to lovingly engage a world that doesn't know Him with the truth that brings life and freedom.

To put it in simple terms: If we take Sola Scriptura seriously, it sends us on mission with God's truth so that ultimately Sola Deo Gloria happens. When we take God's truth seriously, we end up seriously bringing glory to God. God's people - equipped with God's truth, empowered by His Spirit, mobilized for mission: that's what the Reformation was all about.

The Enemy Within

2011-10-31T01:12:00.001Z

So I was reading the blog of a Presbyterian Minister who was complaining about having to believe in the Trinity to be ordained in the church.

He says:

The Trinity, the person of Christ, the sacraments, the authority of the Bible, eschatology, and so forth were invented in the pre-modern era and are best suited for that time period. This does not mean that we are smarter or more hip than the people who invented these ideas. We simply have changed. Trying to retrofit our belief systems to a modern understanding of the Universe, Earth, and Earth's inhabitants turns theologians and pastors into pawn brokers for ancient religious relics that fewer and fewer people embrace.

Whoa. So here's a guy who in one fell swoop dismisses centuries of theological work and development shared by all orthodox Christians worldwide: Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant. We don't need the Trinity, biblical authority, or the Person of Christ - we've moved past all that.

But, being a thoughtful guy, he's good enough not to leave us hanging; he tells us what he really believes. So here in a nutshell is his theological suma:

I believe...

1. in evolutionary theory

. This obviously includes human beings. Evolution and science in general have had major implications regarding theology that we mostly ignore or in our worse moments deny.

2. in higher criticism of the Bible.
The Bible like all other books are human products (what else could they be?) and should be read as such as opposed to special revelation from a divine being.

3. that all religion is a human construct.
Its primary purpose has been and should be an attempt to find and evoke meaning amidst life's contingencies as opposed to speculation regarding supernaturalism.

4. that "God" functions as a symbol.
The concept of "God" is a product of myth-making and "God" is no longer credible as a personal, supernatural being. For me, "God" functions as a shorthand for the Universe and sometimes for qualities and aspirations I wish to pursue or to emulate.

5. that human consciousness is the result of natural selection.
Human beings do not have immortal souls nor will consciousness survive death. Thus there is no afterlife. There is no heaven, no hell, and no need for salvation from one realm to another.

6. that there is no "end" in human time.
Earth is four billion years old. Earth was here long before human beings. Earth will spin on its axis and revolve around the sun long, long after the last human being has breathed her last. We will have to find meaning and our "eschaton" in this life.

7. that Jesus may have been historical but most of the stories about him in the Bible and elsewhere are legends.

But he's cool. He serves as a human ideal and a focal point for devotion (like an ishta deva)

8. that industrial civilization is in for a long descent.
Peak Oil and Overshoot should be everyday terms in our lexicon. We ought to be putting our religious energies toward spiritual, emotional, and practical preparation for this reality.

That's just great. With pastors like that, who needs Dawkins?

It's Greek To Me: The Reliable Bible

2011-10-29T23:29:00.000+01:00

Can you trust the text of the Bible?

Yes you can.

Matt Slick gives us a big dose of EVIDENCE.

Colours

2011-10-29T13:37:00.001+01:00

It's another beautiful autumn day in Bathgate.

Whatever will we do with all this sunshine?

Richard Dawkins: And They Was All Yellow

2011-10-29T00:02:00.000+01:00

Although I would have preferred the opportunity to see the debate that didn't happen between Richard Dawkins and William Lane Craig, Dawkins is at least entertaining us with the reasons for his refusal to do so. Dawkins is pseudo-creative in explaining the reasonableness of his unwillingness to engage in reasonable debate: it's because Craig is an apologist for genocide. When The Guardian calls you (as it does Dawkins) "cynical and anti-intellectualist" - you've crossed some hard-to-get-to line.

The insinuation of cowardice actually occurs in a letter to Dawkins from atheist professor Dr. Daniel Came:

On the contrary, the absence of a debate with the foremost apologist for Christian theism is a glaring omission on your CV and is of course apt to be interpreted as cowardice on your part.

According to Peter Hitchens:

Many of you will know that in his failure to face William Lane Craig, Professor Dawkins was not alone. Several other members of Britain’s Atheist Premier League found themselves unable or unwilling (or both) to take him on.

He goes on to explain the real reason Dawkins said "No, Thank You" to the debate:

The important thing about this is that what Craig does is simple. He uses philosophical logic, and a considerable knowledge of physics, to expose the shallowness of Dawkins’s arguments. I would imagine that an equally serious Atheist philosopher would be able to give him a run for his money, but Dawkins isn’t that. He would have been embarrassingly out of his depth.

Finally, Tim Stanley suggests that Dawkins' refusal may not be because he is a coward; he may be a fool:

We are left with two possible conclusions from Richard Dawkin’s flimsy sick note. The first is that he doesn’t understand Christian apologetics, which is why he unintentionally misrepresents Craig’s piece. The most frustrating thing about the New Atheism is that it rarely debates theology on theology's own terms.

For those who would like at least a little glimpse of Craig, here's A CLIP, but this time dancing with Christopher Hitchens.

Europe's Christophobia

2011-10-28T14:55:00.001+01:00

From Philip Jenkins in God's Continent:

In the drafting of the European Constitution, though many wished to included at least a passing nod to the Christian heritage of Europe, others strenuously resisted such an acknowledgement. Instead, its preamble declared:

DRAWING INSPIRATION from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, from which have developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the humanperson, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law . . .

In the words of Valery Giscard d'Estaing, former French president: Europeans live in a purely secular political system where religion does not play an important role.

According to Rocco Buttiglione, the European Union is succumbing to a soft totalitarianism founded upon a state religion that is an atheistic, nihilistic religion - but a religion that is obligatory for all.

Finally, former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton describes the current ethos as a form of secular intolerance in Europe that is every bit as strong as religious intolerance was in the past.

MY SUMMARY: This continent needs the God it is trying to hard to ignore.

EuroSkeptic: Confronting the Brutal Facts

2011-10-26T00:58:00.002+01:00

On Monday David Cameron faced a backbench rebellion when Tory MP's voted in favour of a referendum on Britain's membership in the European Union. The UK seems to have always had an uneasy relationship with Europe. And the Euro woes are not helping: the economic angst hanging over the continent confirms the worst fears of the Euroskeptics, that this euro-project is untenable, and Britain needs to distance itself. With more bad news seemingly on a daily basis, its easy to be a Euroskeptic.

It's also easy to be a Euroskeptic related to the gospel. This continent is not currently the land of spiritual awakening and growing churches. To quote one pastor: "There are more churches shrinking than there are growing; there are more churches closing than are being planted."

But rather than swing to the opposite extreme of uninformed optimism, sometimes confronting the brutal facts has its place. My daughter once climbed into my lap, smiled, looked me in the eyes, patted my tummy and said: I don't want a fat daddy.

Ouch. But sometimes an ouch can move us to action. In that spirit of looking at reality as a motivator to action, let's think about Europe for a moment.

Writing about the UK, Professor Callum Brown says that "quite suddenly in 1963 something very profound ruptured the character of the nation and its people, sending organised Christianity on a downward spiral so the margins of social significance."

Timothy Garten Ash states that Europe is "now the most secular continent on earth." Statistics from across the continent would support these assertions*:

1. "Religion plays a very important role in my life." Those who said yes:

USA: 60%
Italy: 27%
Germany: 21%
France and Czech Republic: 11%

2. A 2004 British survey:

Believe in God: 44%
There is no God: 35%
"I don't know" 21%
Amongst those aged 18 - 34, "There is No God" rose to 45%.

3. Between 1973 and 1994, the proportion of French people claiming no religion grew from 11% to 34%.

4. British respondents declaring "Jesus was the Son of God:"

1957: 71%
2001: 38%

5. Jesus actually lived:

80% of 65 and overs agree
only 54% of those 18-24 agree

6. "I seldom or never attend a place of worship:"

USA: 16%
Scandinavia and Low Countries: 40 - 50%
UK: 55%
France: 60%

7. 60% of Czechs identify themselves as atheists; only 19% believe in God.

8. Between 1970 and 2005, the Church of England closed 1,700 of its structures
(10% of the total)

SUMMARY: A Europe based solely upon the Enlightement cannot survive. Michael Novak

CONCLUSION: I was once flying into Edinburgh with my friend Jim Laffoon. Jim is both a student of history and a discerner of spiritual realities, and as we were landing, I was hoping for profound insight into the Edinburgh context. After musing in silence for some time, Jim said: "It's dark . . . It's real dark." And that was that. Well thanks, Jim - tell me something I don't know. But in hindsight, he was right. Can God's gospel win here? Oh yes. Can the light of God's truth shine again in Europe? Absolutely. But we must understand the reality into which we are moving.

As Jim Collins so astutely said: Confront The Brutal Facts - yet never lose faith.

* These quotes and statistics are from God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis (Philip Jenkins, Oxford, University Press, 2007, pp. 1-29).

It's A Miracle!

2011-10-25T15:27:00.000+01:00

What a beautiful story this is: in the midst of death and destruction, a life is saved when a two-week-old baby is pulled from the rubble, having been held safe in the arms of her mother.

It's a miracle!," said Senol Yigit, the uncle of the baby, Azra, whose name means purity or untouched in Arabic. "I'm so happy. What can I say. We have been waiting for two days. We had lost hope when we first saw the building," he said sobbing. Reuters

What a beautiful picture of the gospel: lost under the rubble of sin, our good Lord breaks through and delivers us.But the earthquake in Turkey also brings us to ask: If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world?HERE, a thoughtful guy gives an answer.

Stetzer Nails It

2011-10-24T10:48:00.001+01:00

Sometimes discussing Europe as a mission field feels like talking to Eskimos about global warming. How can the continent that developed the creeds, spawned the Reformation, and birthed modern missions itself be a mission field? Our friend Ed Stetzer nails it pretty well.

According to the European Spiritual Estimate (http://emrg.friderich.net/), only 4.2% of that population follow Jesus and demonstrate a concern about the people around them following Jesus. Hundreds of millions of people are waiting to have the opportunity to encounter the transforming power of the gospel.

In most Western European countries, evangelism research shows that less than 2 percent of the population is evangelical. ("European Believers Report", 2007 by Ruth Robinson, Greater Europe Mission). The only exception to this is Scandinavia, and they have a whopping 3 percent according to most studies. ("European Believers Report", 2007 by Ruth Robinson, Greater Europe Mission) The worldview of most indigenous Europeans is post- Christian/secular.

God's Spirit is issuing a modern Macedonian Call: Can you hear it?

In the mean time, check out a new church that just opened yesterday in Madrid.

Vienna: I'll C U When You Get There

2011-10-23T21:04:00.002+01:00

Part 1: I was first introduced to Pachalbel's Canon in Spring, 1985. My friend Gino had an album by pianist George Winston called December. Filled with his artistic and often syncopated original songs and creative covers, the stand out for me was Pachalbel's big hit of 1706.* I immediately had to find the chord progression (I - V - vi - iii - IV - I - IV - V) and proceeded to learn my own simple version for piano.

Part 2: Pachalbel was German but moved to Vienna in 1673. As it was, 1673 was an important year for various people and places around the world. The 1st recorded wine auction was held in London. Postal service between New York and Boston was inaugurated. Margaret Cavendish, an early science fiction writer, was born. But back to the story. Pachalbel left Vienna in 1677.

Part 3: Exactly 10 years after Pachalbel's move to Vienna, the Ottomon Empire tried to move into Europe through the city. They started a siege in the summer and on 9/11, forces of the Holy Roman Empire were gathered to break the siege and deliver Vienna. They didn't have much success, and the following day (that would be the 12th of September) the Poles arrived under the leadership of Jan III Sobieski and saved the day. The Ottomans were defeated, the Vienese could eat again, and Europe retained its Christian identity and was not converted to Islam.**

Part 4. Meanwhile on the Western Front, the French took a break from cheese and wine and played war games. Under Louis XIV they vexed the Germans by using the Ottoman incursion as an opportunity to attack the western flank of the Holy Roman Empire. French troops conquered Maastricht (in 1673), which is in the Netherlands, where the Maastrich Treaty was signed in 1992, which created the European Union, which paved the way for the Euro, which later got Greece in trouble, which the French are still tryinto sort out.

Part 5. To celebrate the victory against the Ottomans, on 13 September the Vienese invented the croissant, in the shape of a crescent, to remember their hunger during the siege by those carried flags with crescent moons. The French later got hold of the croissants and changed the shape and put a bit of chocolate in them, thereby blessing humanity with pain au chocolat. Their previous sins were forgiven.

Part 6. Because Europe is saved, Pachalbel is free to compose and at some point pens his most awesome of compositions, the famous Canon, (possibly for a wedding in 1694). It was lost for centuries but published by Gustav Bechman in 1919 in an article on Pachalbel's Chamber Music.

Part 7. Many musicians discover the allure of the Canon. These include Blues Traveler (Hook), Delerium (Paris), and Coolio (I'll See You When You Get There).

CONCLUSION: We can be thankful for Jan III Sobieski and the Poles; we owe them alot. Without Jan, we wouldn't have Vienna as we know it. And without Vienna, we would have lost:

1. Christian Europe
2. Pain au Chocolat
3. Pachabel's Canon and all its variations.

So if you ever get to Vienna, find a Pole, share a pain au chocolat, pay for it it with a Euro, and enjoy listening to to Pachalbel's Canon in the background.

*We actually don't know when Pachelbel penned the classic Canon; he died in 1706, so it is safe to assume he had written it by then.

**Lots of fascinating story lines emerge from this battle. Perhaps my favourite is that the Moldavians used straw canon balls against the Holy Roman Empire as a means of simultaneously honouring their alliance with the Ottomans and not hurting the Vienese and their liberators.

Yo-Yo Ma, The Goat, and the Gospel

2011-10-22T14:34:00.004+01:00

As a boy growing up in Western North Carolina, for me, Bluegrass Music was not an encyclopedia entry, but rather a natural feature of my wonder years context. This early immersion into bluegrass sound was as normal and invigorating as the clean, fresh air that filled the Appalachian valleys. With my fellow Montreatians we would make our way during the summer months to Friday Night At The Barn for a weekly ritual of moving to mountain music. It is perhaps revealing that my formative exposure to live musical performance was courtesy of the Stoney Creek Boys.

What I didn't know at the time was that mountain square dancing would (sort of) prepare me for the duties of Scottish Ceilidh Dancing. Although the music and the moves are a wee bit different, not to mention that one doesn't see quite as many kilts in Montreat, the basic feel of the two events is quite similar: a big, friendly, community group dance with music that was there before we were here.

Which brings us to Yo-Yo Ma. The great cellist is preparing to release "The Goat Rodeo Sessions", a collaboration with Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan and Chris Thile. A Goat Rodeo, by the way, refers to a hopelessly chaotic situation.

This isn't exactly the same thing as Van Halen's Strummin' With The Devil. David Lee Roth singing a bluegrass version of JUMP strikes me as a bridge too far; it works OK instrumentally, but the rocker's voice gives the whole thing a feel like trying to race a Hummer on a European grand prix circuit. That is to say - just a bit mismatched.

This may be precisely what Goat Rodeo musician Chris Thile wanted to avoid:

"My worst nightmare was that (the album) would sound like worlds colliding. Music shouldn't sound like some new patchwork genre. The idea was to come up with a collaboration that is seamless. Like a new organism, as opposed to a Frankensteinian monster."

Yo-Yo Ma has flirted with an Appalachian Feel before; he doesn't do Frankensteins. To call Van Halen's country Jump version a Franenstein may be a bit too unkind. But I'm guessing that the Yo-Yo Ma collaboration comes off beautifully. And this CLIP would tend to confirm that. And then there's this TEASER.

What does any of this have to do with the gospel? Simply, it's another beautiful expression of Common Grace.

The Geopolitics of the Big Mac

2011-10-21T23:30:00.004+01:00

So McDonald's just opened in Bathgate. This is the second time that the fast-food giant has opened in a town where I lived outside my nation of birth - the first one being L'viv. But the difference is that when McDonald's opened in L'viv, I wasn't there - we had already moved on.

For Ukraine, the opening of McDonald's represented some step towards connection with the international economy. And for us - it would have represented a taste of home. Not that we ate at McDonald's much at all - far from it. But with little children in the mix, and living in a place that was not all Kansas, the ability to walk into a McFranchise would have been somewhat therapeutic. That's why we would often hit a Mackie D's on the drive to Krakow on one of our R&R breaks - back when Poland had the M-Factor working and Ukraine didn't. Ah, those were the days.

But the McDonald's Factor is something entirely different than the weird anomaly of helping missinories feel at home with high-calorie high-fat food. The McDonald's Factor (otherwise known as The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention) is this: No two countries that both have a McDonald's have ever fought a war against each other. This theory was developed by Thomas Friedman and presented in the book The Lexus and the Olive Tree. The logic is thus: countries with middle classes large enough to sustain a McDonald's have reached a level of prosperity and global integration that makes warmongering risky and unpalatable to its people. According to Friedman, "People in McDonald's countries don't like to fight wars. They like to wait in line for burgers." As an astute observer noted, after a Big Mac, large fry and a Diet Coke, nobody wants to fight, they just want to go to sleep.

As Friedman ackowledges, one day this will end. Some would say it has. (And by the way, he doesn't count civil wars; during the Soviet civil conflict of 1991, McDonald's was serving burgers to both sides. And Russia - Georgia - was that a war?). And correlation isn't causation, although economic integration can surely be a disincentive to war.

So what does all of this have to do with Scotland? Now that Bathgate has a McDonald's, in addition to bumping Bathgate from village status to town status, the implication of this is huge (pardon the pun): even if Scotland declares independence, it is unlikely that England and Scotland will go to war. In honour of a proposed referendum, perhaps we shall call this the Alex Salmond parodox. Or the McSalmond Theory.

So as what to think about McDonald's now being here in Bathgate, it's mixed. One one hand, it could be that the up until now high health standards of West Lothian will begin to slowly erode. But on the other hand, it's better to be a little fat than fighting a war. So if easy acces to a McFlurry is the price for easing North/South tensions, hey - pass the fries. Long live the Big Mac. I'm lovin' it.

Women2Drive

2011-10-21T01:03:00.003+01:00

So what does Qadhafi's death have to do with a quick nip into Tesco? Quite a bit, potentially, if that quick nip happens to be taking place in Medina, and the shopper happens to be a woman driving a car. In case you've forgotten, on 9 June, several women were arrested north of Riyadh for practicing in a car park.

Welcome to Saudi Arabia. This does, of course, take the idea of being afraid of women drivers to a WHOLE new level. Apparently they were following the example of Manal Al-Sharif who had previously been arrested for driving. You may in fact, and with great accuracy, call it a dark country when someone is arrested for "inciting women to drive" and "rallying public opinion."

So back on point: the question here is whether the Arab Spring will ripen into an Autumn Harvest of Freedom for the region.

The Bible take on freedom:

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

Let freedom come, let freedom ring. In the mean time, authoritarian governments are getting nervous. And women are learning how to drive.

Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead

2011-10-20T16:33:00.000+01:00

It's been bad year for murderous villains and bloody dictators. If this is true, the world has one less bad guy to worry about.

Word of Gadhafi's death triggered celebrations in the streets of Tripoli with insurgent fighters waving their weapons and dancing jubilantly. That's a fitting response for a man who's sponsored terrorism and committed crimes against humanity.

What people may not know is that Gadhafi was an author and an economic theorist. I wouldn't expect David Cameron to be implementing the Libyan Model any time soon, and it's probably not where Obama wants to look to correct American's economic woes. But The Green Book presents a fascinating combination of Islamic Socialism and Arab Nationalism. A testimony to Gadhaffi's creativity is this idea: the theory of representative government is an outdated practice that was invented by philosophers and thinkers at the time when the common folk were ordered about like livestock by their rulers. Instead, dictatorship liberates a nation from the evils of party politics. Only a truly creative mind can argue for dictatorship under a heading called "People Power."

Few will morn his passing; many will cheer. At the end of the day, the man is just starting to reap what he's been sowing for a lifetime. David had someone bad in mind when he prayed these things in Psalm 109:

When he is tried, let him come forth guilty;
let his prayer be counted as sin!
May his days be few;
may another take his office!
May his posterity be cut off;
may his name be blotted out in the second generation!

Like David pleading against his enemies, many have been hoping that Gadhafi would get justice. Don't worry ... he will.

Thoughts About Ukraine

2011-10-18T21:34:00.002+01:00

One of the joys of having achieved some degree of bi-cultural identity is returning to the place from which one has been away. In my observation, living long enough in a different culture shapes the contours of ones soul - and there are deep places only touched when one is in that culture. There are words and phrases, sights and smells, customs and practices that are only experienced there.

So I recently had the opportunity to be in Ukraine for a few days - a place I worked for ten years and lived in for nearly five. One of my favourite Ukrainian words is "pokisho," which means for now. One of my favourite smells and tastes there is shashlik (shish-kabob) - Ukraine's outstanding contribution to the world's culinary hall of fame. And the driving - one's not lived (on the edge) until one has been hastily driven through a large city by a Ukrainian in a hurry.

But on a more serious note, being back after a gap of some three years gave opportunity to reflect and observe on things both changed and dear. This is what I saw:

1. Change For me, the change Ukraine has experience in the 21 years since I first went there is remarkable. There is without question more material prosperity. The impact of next year's Euro 2012 can be seen - new stadiums being built and some existing roads paved. But driving around the outskirts of Lviv, one sees vast tracks where land has been privatised and large, private homes built. Around Ternopil one now sees shopping malls, petrol stations, and hotels. Is life there still difficult? Yes. Has prosperity touched everyone? No. Is there still a chance Ukraine could slip back into a less-free political and economic reality? Yes. Is that likely? I'm not an expert on the current Ukrainian government scene, but I do know that the Arab spring is making governments in that part of the world nervous. And that may mean a bit more restrictive But here's the deal. I saw a woman I first met in 1994, the sister of a good friend of mine. I spoke to her newly married daughter and her new son-in-law. And here's the thing: her daughter is 20 years old. She was born the year of independence, 1991. Life's been hard since then, but she's never known the regime that shaped a previous generation. The monolith is gone. True - being a political opponent is a risky occupation and Ukraine still ranks in the world's most corrupt countries. There's still a long way to go. But I don't think there's any going back.

2. Faith To call Ukrainians resourceful is an understatement; their ability to get stuff done with very little by way of resource is legendary. But what I really appreciate now is the unrelenting, persevering, nation-changing faith that marks believers in Ukraine. There are some places one can preach "God wants the gospel to win in this city" and the response from Christians is something like, "OK, yeh, whatever dude." In Ukraine, Christians have a deep faith that the gospel will win. And so they preach it. And so people come to Christ. Funny how that works.

3. Redemption In between sessions of the conference I was walking through the foyer to get some coffee and a couple of guys sitting at a table waved to me to join them. I had never met them before, but using my [now VERY] elementary russo-ukrainian, we started chatting. These guys both have jobs, one of them is married, and they are active members of this church. But here's the thing - they met Christ through the Rehabilitation Centre the church runs just outside the city. Having hit bottom, they were willing to take a flier on a last chance opportunity, and their lives have been transformed - drug-free, Jesus-loving, Spirit-filled, gospel preaching, church serving . . . it was a beautiful story.

4. Worship The story of how my friend Yuri fired his worship team and then hired studio musicians who proceeded to repent and get saved is legendary. Like the Blues Brothers, they got a band together and who proceeded to become one of the great worship teams in Ukraine. As I type this, I'm listening to a CD made by that worship team about 12 years ago. Only one of the original band members is still on the team, but the current team is still amazing. I admit it: I harrassed them with 'oldy but goody' requests from my days in Ukraine. BUt here'sthe thing - so much more than a great band - this people loved to worship. They like to worship alot. And they like preaching. They just love Jesus and like church. The notes of faith and passion, reverence and joy, life and victory - it was refreshing.

The band did my second favourite song on Saturday night, a song called "Mi Molim Za Svi Krai" - It's a prayer to God for blessing and salvation to be poured out on Ukraine.

And I say "Amen." God grant it. And Lord, while you're at it - bless our nation Scotland as well - and pour out your salvation here.

Autumn

2011-09-28T23:26:00.000+01:00

Now THAT was a spectacular autumn day.

How do you hit the pause button?

London Calling

2011-08-10T03:31:00.002+01:00

London calling to the faraway towns
Now war is declared, and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls The Clash,1979

The BBC News website has a disturbing interview with two girls who participated in the riots and looting. Asked why they were doing this: "We're showing the police can do what we want."

When asked why the riots were targetting local people, one of the girls answered:

"It's the rich people, the people who have got businesses, and that's why all of this has happened. We're just trying to show the rich people we can do what we want."

More than just a news item, real people and real lives have been deeply impacted by this. Maurice Reeves, whose business, House Of Reeves, was destroyed, indicates that now that his business has gone up in smoke, there are 20 more jobless families. That's really getting the rich! As if the warehouse workers drive lamborghinis.

In an article exploring "What Turns People Into Looters?", Tom de Castella & Caroline McClatchey give several possible answers:

- large groups erode normal moral judgments; the inhibiting factors of guilt and empathy dissipate.
- the gang leaders have psychopathic tendencies and manipulate crowds.
- the thrill of the moment takes over and people ride the wave.
- the reality of under class existence. If someone feels they have no stake in society and don't think in terms of the future, then why not?

Perhaps its true that it's more than just thuggery. When two girls saying they are out to soak the rich, the socio-economic explanation can't be ignored. But I'm guessing they were not reading Das Kapital just last week. Which raises the question - where did the "we're showing the rich people we can do what we want" idea get planted in their young and fertile minds?

Ah, the ubiquitous presence of class-envy politics. Without taking time to dissect that monster, let me simply comment that the issues in London are deeper than socio-economic; they are spiritual.

The scenes playing out on the television are of people who do not know their Creator. They've not experienced the loving forgiveness offered in Christ. They don't know what they were made for; they don't know what they could possess in Him. But it's not just the kids in hoodies looting corner shops: it's your neighbour; the people we meet and pass every day.

The events in London may seem so far removed from the world you live in that you just can't relate. I get it. But just because your neighbours may have a bigger stake in society and "play by the rules" doesn't mean they've got a bigger stake in the gospel. But they are within your reach!

London is calling. And so is Edinburgh. And Frankfurt and Paris and Milan and Lisbon. But I hear God calling too: Who will go to the faraway towns? To the underworld? To the overworld? Who will walk across the street and share the love of Christ with their neighbor?

It is the duty of every Christian to be Christ to his neighbor. - Martin Luther

The Normandy Diaries: Part 2

2011-07-20T21:09:00.000+01:00

5 July 2011

A gentle rain is now falling across the region, watering the acres of corn and wheat, subduing the heat, and adding a note pastoral tranquility to an already peaceful place. This morning I went on a walk, down a country road and left on another that took me through a forest, and then a path off to the left that eventually reconnected with roads that eventually led me back to my starting point. Field after field of corn and wheat, all lined with hedgerows.

I thought about the soldiers who survived the assault on the beaches, gradually working their way inland, carrying their supplies and weapons, always on the alert lest an ambush catch them off guard as they rounded the next bend.

The country here is textured with rolling hills ribboned with occasional streams and rivers, specks of forest, but hedge-lined fields everywhere. And there are lots of small towns about; many with a central square and mayor's office and a church. It’s so odd to think about all these towns under German control. When I see the mayor's office, I think of German command. When I see the town square, I think of drilling troops and reconnoitre point for Tiger tanks. The libraries seem a relevant picture of German propaganda. And when I see the churches - in this context - I don't think of the beauty of the Triune God worshipped with passion and honour. Rather, I see the bell tower and think, if I were a sniper, that's where I'd be hiding.

And the fields - again, so peaceful and so beautiful with crops growing, cows lowing, and sheep baaing - but as I look at them, I think of the intense preparations the Germans went through to defend this region. And that included mine fields that killed, maimed, and decapitated sincere, well-trained, and well-led men. Step by step, road by road, field by field, town by town, the Allies advanced: Caen, Cherbourg, Saint Lo - the invaders made progress. A Third Army break-out and an encirclement at Falaise helped turn the tide, and Paris was liberated in August. The Allies pushed forward, eventually pushing Hitler's minions back across the Rhine.

The Gospel Point: Following Jesus takes us through beautiful places and bad; high country and low points; fields of provision and places of production. But through it all there are mine-fields - booby traps, ambushes - set by our Enemy to kill, maim, and render ineffective the Jesus followers.

Peter wrote to warn first century Christians: Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

The Jesus Answer: I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."

The Normandy Diaries: Part 1

2011-07-19T11:25:00.002+01:00

4 July 2011

I stood on Omaha beach this morning, taking in the scene: the small gentle waves rolling in, nipping the seaweed and sand while scattered tourists leisurely strolled and looked, and a few local families engaging in typical beach activities.

In that moment of surreal observation, an eclectic cauldron of thoughts churned in my mind's eye:

- what it would have been like to be standing behind the barrier door of a Higgins Boat, as the hatch wheel started turning and the gate started lowering, with German machine gun fire peppering the air all around, realizing that only half of the group would live to see tomorrow.

- the resilience of soldiers and their leaders pushing forward with whoever was left, up the steep slope, to take out the German fortifications and pillboxes, one at at time.

- the frustration of medics as they moved from body to body, longing to find someone not injured so badly that intervention would actually help.

- the blood that was mixed with these waters on 6 June 1944 - and the abhorrence I felt at the idea of treating such a sacred place as just another beach.

- the agony of the wounded as they lay struggling for life in a country that wasn't theirs and in a war they didn't start, begging for morphine to ease the suffering as the sharp claws of death tightened its grip.

I walked through the U.S. Cemetery at Omaha Beach this afternoon: row after row after row of men who died to put to death the oppression of a godless dictator. Some died on the invasion day - 6 June - others on the 9th, the 17th, the 24th. I saw one headstone marking the grave of a man who died on the 4th of July, 1944. Independence day.

The time for playing with my family and enjoying some of the delectable treats Normandy has to offer will come; I took them first to Omaha Beach to help them understand this very important lesson: sixty-seven years ago thousands of brave men died on this beach so that they could be free. Freedom always comes with a price, and we should do our most with this amazing gift.

The Gospel Point: Almost two thousand years ago Jesus Christ, the Son of God, single-handedly took on the most powerful dictator of all time and his hellish minions and paid the highest price to purchase the greatest freedom for his people when he died on the cross. He confirmed and established ultimate victory with his resurrection.

Freedom always comes with a price.

Jesus paid it.

Jesus won it.

We've received it.

Let's use it.

The Price of the Gospel

2011-07-01T00:28:00.003+01:00

Aung San Suu Kyi, who has led the Burmese struggle for democracy against the ruling military dictatorship recently delivered one of the Reith Lectures on the BBC. In describing the passion necessary to pay the price to fight for political freedom, this is what she had to say:

Passion translates as suffering and I would contend that in the political context, as in the religious one, it implies suffering by choice: a deliberate decision to grasp the cup that we would rather let pass. It is not a decision made lightly - we do not enjoy suffering; we are not masochists. It is because of the high value we put on the object of our passion that we are able, sometimes in spite of ourselves, to choose suffering.

The price that she and others have paid for an as yet not achieved goal is amazing, challenging, and inspiring.

Political freedom has always come with a high price; spiritual freedom comes with a higher price. Here's how Paul described the necessary price of delivering the gospel to those who need it:

For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. II Corinthians 4:11-12

Paul chose to live a life of physical deprivation so that spiritual abundance could be achieved by others. But in doing this, he simply followed in the footsteps of his Master, who paid the highest price of all:

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

That's why Paul could write to the Galatians:

You were bought with a price (the death of Jesus): For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

There are many examples of modern Christians who have answered the call to pay the highest price for the spiritual liberation of others. Jim Elliot is just one example of someone who love his Lord more than his own life. And this leads us to ask: How then should we live? Simply by doing whatever it takes to reach sin slaves with the message of freedom.

If political activists can pay high prices . . .