Over the summer I succumbed to an irresistable offer to take out a year's subscription to National Geographic for £15 a year. Too good to resist.
In the September edition there was an article about Madagascar. The reporter decided to track down those involved in the illegal rosewood trade. It seems that many are deserting traditional occupations to go in search of a fortune harvesting and selling rosewood.
As is usually the case, the trade is dominated by gangs and corruption. Even so, those who want to be involved go to enormous lengths to get even the chance to be a part of what is happening. The report described a thirteen hour journey down dirt roads and through forests, a journey to the heart of the wilderness. And what awaited those who made it was a life of hard work and danger.
It's amazing what people will do when driven by need or even the desire to get rich.
These kinds of stories almost always challenge me. It's so easy for us in the relative comfort of the West to shake our heads in disapproval of those who risk life and limb to do something illegal and something that is ecologically bad for Madagascar and the world.
However, I find that it challenges my passion and commitment to Christ.
To what lengths am I prepared to go to further the cause of Christ? What risks am I willing to take for Him? Does it match the illegal loggers of Madagascar? Does it, for that matter, match the business guys who'll work long hours and make huge sacrifices for the sake of filthy lucre?
It might sound as though I have written this post from a spiritual Tardis that has taken me back into the church culture of 1950's Britain. Let me put your mind at rest, I am firmly in 2010.
Unfortunately, we find ourselves in an era in which the kind of commitment I'm talking about can very quickly be written off as "works", "legalism" or "duty". It might be that we have discovered all the rights and privileges of being spiritual sons and daughters without understanding the responsibilities. There was a time that having a "servant heart" was considered crucial to authentic Christianity. I'm not sure that that is still the case in contemporary Christian culture.
I had a dream recently. I was dreaming that I was preparing a sermon on Timothy, Paul's spiritual son and fellow-worker. I only got two points of it before I woke up. I kept trying to recall the third point - but it just wasn't there. The two points were: (i) Timothy's Call; (ii)Timothy's Commitment. The first point was straightforward; God called Timothy to serve Him.
Point two was more surprising. It was from Acts 16.2-3 "The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of [Timothy]. 3Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek."
For the sake of church unity and cross-cultural evangelism, Timothy submitted himself to circumcision. That was the price of his calling. It wasn't something he had to do. It wasn't necessary for salvation. It was the price of joining Paul's team. Of course, there were issues involved that were due to the culture of that day. That's the point. That was the level of commitment that was needed to spread the gospel at that time.
Relax. I'm not suggesting it's time to get the knives out! However, it does challenge our thinking about the kind of commitment that preaching the gospel effectively entails. I think I'd opt for a few long journeys down dirt tracks and forests myself!
Monday 27 September 2010
Monday 20 September 2010
Promoting doubt
Richard Nixon is hardly someone you would think might be able to provide us with some good advice about how the church should face the challenges of what the Pope on his recent visit to Britain referred to as aggressive secularism . Forever tarnished because of Watergate, he's an unlikely inspiration for a post on a Christian blog.
Nixon wrote a book in the mid-80's called No More Vietnams. Although Nixon tried to justify the way he handled the Vietnam conflict, he came to see that the future demanded a different approach. If Western values were to triumph in the developing world, Western nations needed to use their prosperity to feed the poor rather than simply trying to gain the upper hand militarily.
Although much of his analysis applies to the Cold War and is perhaps rendered obsolete by recent history, he makes an important point: ideological battles are not won by the strength of arguments or even by military superiority. Ideology is worth squat if it doesn't actually change people's lives for the better.
Which brings me back to the Pope's statement about aggressive secularism. In the last decade or so I have heard the cry go up for a more aggressive Christian response to secularism. The subtext is that there is an ideological battle going on and we are not winning it because we are not shouting loud enough and condemning stridently enough those who oppose us. The cry is usually for more protest and utlimately points in the direction of Christian intolerance. However, there is a danger that if we meet those who oppose our faith in the same spirit we will become more like them and less like Jesus.
Fortunately, there are many capable and able Christian apologists - for example, John Lennox , Alister McGrath, to name a couple - out there who, in my opinion, are putting together robust answers to Dawkins, Hitchens, et al. It is good to have people who can clearly and publicly articulate the Christian faith.
It is important that Christians are able to give a reason for the hope within them, however, I have the feeling that the impact of Christian apologetics on secular society will be minimal. I say that not because of the quality of the apologists or their work, but because there is in general an unwillingness to even consider the possibility of an alternative to the secular worldview. Having said that, if any apologist is reading, please keep up the good work - we still need to be able to answer our opponents!
Which is where Nixon can help us. We might not be able to win the ideological battles in the ways in which ideological battles in the past have been won, but I think we can operate in ways that disarm those who want to marginalise the Christian faith. We can invest in our communities. We can spend ourselves and our money on behalf of those in need. Our era is one in which people expect both little and much from the church. It sometimes feels as if society expects the church to do nothing of practical relevance but at the same time expects the church to do much. We must act in a way that causes our communities to doubt their prejudices against the church. We might find that promoting this kind of doubt is necessary if we are to effectively promote faith.
Please don't think I'm suggesting that this will result in mass conversions. It might and it might not. That isn't really the important thing. What's important is whether or not the church is seen to be acting in a way that faithfully reflects the heart of Christ for this world. Is the Christian community functioning in a way that is consistent with it's identity as Christian? That's the question.
Nixon wrote a book in the mid-80's called No More Vietnams. Although Nixon tried to justify the way he handled the Vietnam conflict, he came to see that the future demanded a different approach. If Western values were to triumph in the developing world, Western nations needed to use their prosperity to feed the poor rather than simply trying to gain the upper hand militarily.
Although much of his analysis applies to the Cold War and is perhaps rendered obsolete by recent history, he makes an important point: ideological battles are not won by the strength of arguments or even by military superiority. Ideology is worth squat if it doesn't actually change people's lives for the better.
Which brings me back to the Pope's statement about aggressive secularism. In the last decade or so I have heard the cry go up for a more aggressive Christian response to secularism. The subtext is that there is an ideological battle going on and we are not winning it because we are not shouting loud enough and condemning stridently enough those who oppose us. The cry is usually for more protest and utlimately points in the direction of Christian intolerance. However, there is a danger that if we meet those who oppose our faith in the same spirit we will become more like them and less like Jesus.
Fortunately, there are many capable and able Christian apologists - for example, John Lennox , Alister McGrath, to name a couple - out there who, in my opinion, are putting together robust answers to Dawkins, Hitchens, et al. It is good to have people who can clearly and publicly articulate the Christian faith.
It is important that Christians are able to give a reason for the hope within them, however, I have the feeling that the impact of Christian apologetics on secular society will be minimal. I say that not because of the quality of the apologists or their work, but because there is in general an unwillingness to even consider the possibility of an alternative to the secular worldview. Having said that, if any apologist is reading, please keep up the good work - we still need to be able to answer our opponents!
Which is where Nixon can help us. We might not be able to win the ideological battles in the ways in which ideological battles in the past have been won, but I think we can operate in ways that disarm those who want to marginalise the Christian faith. We can invest in our communities. We can spend ourselves and our money on behalf of those in need. Our era is one in which people expect both little and much from the church. It sometimes feels as if society expects the church to do nothing of practical relevance but at the same time expects the church to do much. We must act in a way that causes our communities to doubt their prejudices against the church. We might find that promoting this kind of doubt is necessary if we are to effectively promote faith.
Please don't think I'm suggesting that this will result in mass conversions. It might and it might not. That isn't really the important thing. What's important is whether or not the church is seen to be acting in a way that faithfully reflects the heart of Christ for this world. Is the Christian community functioning in a way that is consistent with it's identity as Christian? That's the question.
Monday 13 September 2010
How Sky+ could have saved the Church of Scotland (or not)
I must admit that even though my friend was a man of good character and unimpeachable integrity, I did have to question a statement he made over lunch.
I asked him why he thought the Church of Scotland had gone into decline. (Just for the record, the decline of the decline of the Church of Scotland is not hearsay. See here and here).
I was totally unprepared for his response: The Forsyte Saga.
This classy drama from the golden age of the BBC drew the faithful away from the kirk on a Sunday evening and seriously weakened the church of Knox and the reformation. If you think I'm kidding: "Many people preferred to watch the Forsyte Saga on television to attending evening services at their local kirk." Read the whole thing here.
Now it would be comforting for those outside the C.o.S. to think it was a specifically Scottish and Presbyterian problem. However - behold - the Methodists way down in the deep south of England were under attack from the same Beeb drama!
Read the history of Teignmouth Methodist. Teignmouth is in South Devon! Auntie has obviously no ethnic prejudice when it comes to distracting the faithful! Here's the killer line:
"By 1961 there were only 23 left in the Sunday School and Evening Services were very poorly attended. The BBC's production of the Forsyth (sic) Saga caused Leaders' Meetings to discuss the timing of their evening services. This affected all the churches and in 1967 the galleries were removed from our church."
This is a church with a history: General Booth had even preached here.
Of course, it would be inaccurate and superficial to blame Sunday night tv for the decline of the historic churches in Britain. There were many other factors that ranged from theology to urban planning and development.
And we'd be foolish to think that because we are free in the Spirit and not dead and traditional like some established churches that we are somehow immune to the cultural forces of our day. In fact, describing historic churches as dead and boring might reveal more about our own perceived self-importance than the reality of what is happening in at least some historic churches.
The question is not just "What can we learn from the challenges Christians faced in the past?" Though that is a very good question. The question is "What has got hold of our hearts?"
It might be tempting to think that the C.o.S. and the Methodists were unfortunate to face their great challenges in an era before recording tv programmes was possible. Or that if some prophet had stood up and urged "Keep coming to the Sunday evening sevrice, saith the Lord, for the day will come when you shall be able to see it all again on UKGold, and the glory of the latter remake of The Forsyte Saga with Damian Lewis will far exceed the glory of what you now see," all would have been well.
For all it's benefits, Sky+ is unlikely to help us squarely face the challenges to the church the enemy will pose in our day - and by "enemy", I mean the enemy, not the BBC.
I asked him why he thought the Church of Scotland had gone into decline. (Just for the record, the decline of the decline of the Church of Scotland is not hearsay. See here and here).
I was totally unprepared for his response: The Forsyte Saga.
This classy drama from the golden age of the BBC drew the faithful away from the kirk on a Sunday evening and seriously weakened the church of Knox and the reformation. If you think I'm kidding: "Many people preferred to watch the Forsyte Saga on television to attending evening services at their local kirk." Read the whole thing here.
Now it would be comforting for those outside the C.o.S. to think it was a specifically Scottish and Presbyterian problem. However - behold - the Methodists way down in the deep south of England were under attack from the same Beeb drama!
Read the history of Teignmouth Methodist. Teignmouth is in South Devon! Auntie has obviously no ethnic prejudice when it comes to distracting the faithful! Here's the killer line:
"By 1961 there were only 23 left in the Sunday School and Evening Services were very poorly attended. The BBC's production of the Forsyth (sic) Saga caused Leaders' Meetings to discuss the timing of their evening services. This affected all the churches and in 1967 the galleries were removed from our church."
This is a church with a history: General Booth had even preached here.
Of course, it would be inaccurate and superficial to blame Sunday night tv for the decline of the historic churches in Britain. There were many other factors that ranged from theology to urban planning and development.
And we'd be foolish to think that because we are free in the Spirit and not dead and traditional like some established churches that we are somehow immune to the cultural forces of our day. In fact, describing historic churches as dead and boring might reveal more about our own perceived self-importance than the reality of what is happening in at least some historic churches.
The question is not just "What can we learn from the challenges Christians faced in the past?" Though that is a very good question. The question is "What has got hold of our hearts?"
It might be tempting to think that the C.o.S. and the Methodists were unfortunate to face their great challenges in an era before recording tv programmes was possible. Or that if some prophet had stood up and urged "Keep coming to the Sunday evening sevrice, saith the Lord, for the day will come when you shall be able to see it all again on UKGold, and the glory of the latter remake of The Forsyte Saga with Damian Lewis will far exceed the glory of what you now see," all would have been well.
For all it's benefits, Sky+ is unlikely to help us squarely face the challenges to the church the enemy will pose in our day - and by "enemy", I mean the enemy, not the BBC.
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