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.
Showing posts with label Society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Society. Show all posts
Monday, 20 September 2010
Monday, 21 June 2010
Winter in June
Apparently contemporary art really has lost its way. It's in its death throes, according to one commentator .
For some of us, the question is more likely one of "Did contemporary art ever look like anything other than something in death throes?" However, setting aside our cultural prejudices and preferences for a moment, there is something worth noting here: people with a more secular outlook are - perhaps - beginning to realise the signs that we live in an age of decline.
I suppose I was intrigued by the above article because of a talk I had heard at the conference referred to in the previous post. Sy Rogers, in one of his talks, gave us some very thought provoking reasons as to why we as a society are now in a winter season. Societies, he argued, go through seasons - spring, summer, autumn and winter. Winter was a season, sent by God, to purge us and set us up for a new springtime. I had never heard this idea before, but it actually made a lot of sense. We're in a winter season and even our most celebrated artists' productions have the marks of winter.
What was also intriguing was how societies came out of winter seasons. Sy talked about a "hero generation" rather like the generation that fought WW2. Those born in the 80's and 90's are potentially that generation. (It was a little hard to accept that one is just a hardened old Gen x-er child of the 60's).
So we listened to Sy's talk on the Friday and headed off home the next day to raise up the "hero generation".
Unfortunately, most of the hero generation isn't in church or even close to it, or at least that's what the latest British Church Growth stats indicate. There is a relative absence of teenagers in the British church. 80% of under 15s and 75% of 15-29s are not church members and 59% of British churches have no-one in the congregation under 19.
The obvious answer would seem to be found in building strong youth works and making youth evangelism a priority.
I am sure that is part of the answer, but I don't think it is the whole story.
A few weeks before conference, I was given a book which had some real insights and presented some compelling research about youth and family ministry.
For a start, it argued that a strong youth ministry can be a very positive thing, but in the long run function as an orphaning structure. What was meant was that once the young person had left the youth group they didn't naturally fit into church life because the only relationships they had built were within the youth group. Now I would never have thought of that!
On that basis, therefore, it would appear that it is equally important to embed teenagers into the general life of the church.
It's one thing to recognise what teenagers have to offer and give them opportunity, but how do we help them become "successful" Christians and "successful" in life? In a Christian home a rhythm of life that includes eating together and praying together helps in the process. But what about those who don't come from a Christian background. They need a cloud of witnesses people who'll cheer them on, encourage them, believe in them.
If you're older than 29 and reading this blog, why not find a teenager or twenty-something to cheer on? You might just be playing your part in helping us through the winter season.
For some of us, the question is more likely one of "Did contemporary art ever look like anything other than something in death throes?" However, setting aside our cultural prejudices and preferences for a moment, there is something worth noting here: people with a more secular outlook are - perhaps - beginning to realise the signs that we live in an age of decline.
I suppose I was intrigued by the above article because of a talk I had heard at the conference referred to in the previous post. Sy Rogers, in one of his talks, gave us some very thought provoking reasons as to why we as a society are now in a winter season. Societies, he argued, go through seasons - spring, summer, autumn and winter. Winter was a season, sent by God, to purge us and set us up for a new springtime. I had never heard this idea before, but it actually made a lot of sense. We're in a winter season and even our most celebrated artists' productions have the marks of winter.
What was also intriguing was how societies came out of winter seasons. Sy talked about a "hero generation" rather like the generation that fought WW2. Those born in the 80's and 90's are potentially that generation. (It was a little hard to accept that one is just a hardened old Gen x-er child of the 60's).
So we listened to Sy's talk on the Friday and headed off home the next day to raise up the "hero generation".
Unfortunately, most of the hero generation isn't in church or even close to it, or at least that's what the latest British Church Growth stats indicate. There is a relative absence of teenagers in the British church. 80% of under 15s and 75% of 15-29s are not church members and 59% of British churches have no-one in the congregation under 19.
The obvious answer would seem to be found in building strong youth works and making youth evangelism a priority.
I am sure that is part of the answer, but I don't think it is the whole story.
A few weeks before conference, I was given a book which had some real insights and presented some compelling research about youth and family ministry.
For a start, it argued that a strong youth ministry can be a very positive thing, but in the long run function as an orphaning structure. What was meant was that once the young person had left the youth group they didn't naturally fit into church life because the only relationships they had built were within the youth group. Now I would never have thought of that!
On that basis, therefore, it would appear that it is equally important to embed teenagers into the general life of the church.
It's one thing to recognise what teenagers have to offer and give them opportunity, but how do we help them become "successful" Christians and "successful" in life? In a Christian home a rhythm of life that includes eating together and praying together helps in the process. But what about those who don't come from a Christian background. They need a cloud of witnesses people who'll cheer them on, encourage them, believe in them.
If you're older than 29 and reading this blog, why not find a teenager or twenty-something to cheer on? You might just be playing your part in helping us through the winter season.
Saturday, 29 May 2010
"Going towards the role of a god"
Well now that we're firmly into life in "Coalition Britain" I thought it was time to pick up the digital quill again, so to speak.
I suppose the nature of a blog like this one necessarily picks up on things controversial. I trust that I don't treat such topics for the sake of it. My intention is more to draw attention to trends and developments that have the potential to shape our society and think about how we the church might respond.
From a Christian perspective, one of the most serious and controversial developments in recent days was the Marie-Stopes advert on Channel Four on Monday evening. Although the advert didn't directly encourage abortion, the implications were all there. Airing such an advert at any time, but especially at that time of the evening has the effect of "normalising" abortion - if such ever really can be normalised. Unfortunately "Are you late? Marie-Stopes can help" becomes as normal as "You should have gone to SpecSavers". By "normalising" something so serious in this way - and what young women like those in the advert are feeling when they unexpectedly fall pregnant should never be reduced to a soundbite and an offer to contact an abortion agency all in the space of a 32 second advert - you can end up trivialising it.
To claim that the advert didn't actually promote abortion is rather empty. After all, the only reason anyone advertises anything is to persuade them to take a particular course of action - to promote a service or product. "Promotion" is a very fitting term for what was happening here and it reveals a sea change that has taken place in the way various ethical issues are now presented. There was a time when, it was claimed, people merely sought permission to live a certain lifestyle or to practise certain things - hence the term permissive society. However, we're a long way from the permissive society now. Permission has given way to promotion. And "normalising" seems to me to be the launch pad for promotion. You can see similar developments with the way in which euthanasia is presented. One can only hope that promotion does not eventually become prescription.
One of the heartening things about the abortion ad issue was that one could hear similarly critical voices coming from both the right and left.
Bonnie Leander Johnson's piece in The Guardian was thoughtful and to my mind very perceptive. She raised some of the real issues surrounding the subject; some Christians who lean more to the right could learn a lot from the way she articulates her views and concerns. Some good links here to articles from a secular perspective questioning what has now become a seemingly out of control industry.
Ed West in The Telegraph had a good discussion about what it tells us about the land we live in, pointing out the hideousness of the advert being shown during a game show: "Make a fortune and have an abortion". It's the stuff not worthy even of a bad taste black comedy.
How ironic that at a time when we're promoting the destruction of unborn life, we are also celebrating the creation of synthetic life.
According to Julian Savulescu, a professor of ethics at Oxford University, the brains behind the creation, Craig Venter, " is creaking open the most profound door in humanity's history, potentially peeking into its destiny. He is not merely copying life artificially ... or modifying it radically by genetic engineering. He is going towards the role of a god: creating artificial life that could never have existed naturally."
What a strange world. So creative yet at the same time so destructive. I've just finished watching a family movie Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. It's a little morality tale about a boy who is told he'll never amount to anything yet longs to be a scientist. He succeeds with an invention which brings about a kind of food paradise. But the paradise quickly turns into a kind of hell. In the end he has to destroy the monster he created and save the world.
That really is the story of the world. And it's one worth reminding ourselves of at such a strange time in history. One man thought he could become like God and create an even greater paradise. In the event, he unleashed the forces of hell. And One Man came from heaven into that hell to redeem the race from destruction. Whatever way things go in our society, we can be sure that One Man from heaven will prevail in the end.
You can view the Marie-Stopes advert here and Venter's talk at TED here .
CareConfidential is a helpful resource for anyone who is struggling to face up to an unplanned pregnancy or is trying to deal with post abortion issues.
I suppose the nature of a blog like this one necessarily picks up on things controversial. I trust that I don't treat such topics for the sake of it. My intention is more to draw attention to trends and developments that have the potential to shape our society and think about how we the church might respond.
From a Christian perspective, one of the most serious and controversial developments in recent days was the Marie-Stopes advert on Channel Four on Monday evening. Although the advert didn't directly encourage abortion, the implications were all there. Airing such an advert at any time, but especially at that time of the evening has the effect of "normalising" abortion - if such ever really can be normalised. Unfortunately "Are you late? Marie-Stopes can help" becomes as normal as "You should have gone to SpecSavers". By "normalising" something so serious in this way - and what young women like those in the advert are feeling when they unexpectedly fall pregnant should never be reduced to a soundbite and an offer to contact an abortion agency all in the space of a 32 second advert - you can end up trivialising it.
To claim that the advert didn't actually promote abortion is rather empty. After all, the only reason anyone advertises anything is to persuade them to take a particular course of action - to promote a service or product. "Promotion" is a very fitting term for what was happening here and it reveals a sea change that has taken place in the way various ethical issues are now presented. There was a time when, it was claimed, people merely sought permission to live a certain lifestyle or to practise certain things - hence the term permissive society. However, we're a long way from the permissive society now. Permission has given way to promotion. And "normalising" seems to me to be the launch pad for promotion. You can see similar developments with the way in which euthanasia is presented. One can only hope that promotion does not eventually become prescription.
One of the heartening things about the abortion ad issue was that one could hear similarly critical voices coming from both the right and left.
Bonnie Leander Johnson's piece in The Guardian was thoughtful and to my mind very perceptive. She raised some of the real issues surrounding the subject; some Christians who lean more to the right could learn a lot from the way she articulates her views and concerns. Some good links here to articles from a secular perspective questioning what has now become a seemingly out of control industry.
Ed West in The Telegraph had a good discussion about what it tells us about the land we live in, pointing out the hideousness of the advert being shown during a game show: "Make a fortune and have an abortion". It's the stuff not worthy even of a bad taste black comedy.
How ironic that at a time when we're promoting the destruction of unborn life, we are also celebrating the creation of synthetic life.
According to Julian Savulescu, a professor of ethics at Oxford University, the brains behind the creation, Craig Venter, " is creaking open the most profound door in humanity's history, potentially peeking into its destiny. He is not merely copying life artificially ... or modifying it radically by genetic engineering. He is going towards the role of a god: creating artificial life that could never have existed naturally."
What a strange world. So creative yet at the same time so destructive. I've just finished watching a family movie Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. It's a little morality tale about a boy who is told he'll never amount to anything yet longs to be a scientist. He succeeds with an invention which brings about a kind of food paradise. But the paradise quickly turns into a kind of hell. In the end he has to destroy the monster he created and save the world.
That really is the story of the world. And it's one worth reminding ourselves of at such a strange time in history. One man thought he could become like God and create an even greater paradise. In the event, he unleashed the forces of hell. And One Man came from heaven into that hell to redeem the race from destruction. Whatever way things go in our society, we can be sure that One Man from heaven will prevail in the end.
You can view the Marie-Stopes advert here and Venter's talk at TED here .
CareConfidential is a helpful resource for anyone who is struggling to face up to an unplanned pregnancy or is trying to deal with post abortion issues.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Generation A
The following is taken from a review of Douglas Coupland's latest novel Generation A:
"Meanwhile, at the heart of the novel, he makes a serious point about how the bombardment of media content has eroded our ability to tell satisfying stories about ourselves. 'To survive,’ says one character, 'people need to become self-branding charisma robots.’ But despite this bleak diagnosis, Generation A is Coupland’s most hopeful novel yet. The 'A’ indicates that we are at the beginning of something new, ready to build fresh narratives from the consumer rubble. " Read the whole thing here
The reviewer's last sentence I find more than a little intriguing.
"Meanwhile, at the heart of the novel, he makes a serious point about how the bombardment of media content has eroded our ability to tell satisfying stories about ourselves. 'To survive,’ says one character, 'people need to become self-branding charisma robots.’ But despite this bleak diagnosis, Generation A is Coupland’s most hopeful novel yet. The 'A’ indicates that we are at the beginning of something new, ready to build fresh narratives from the consumer rubble. " Read the whole thing here
The reviewer's last sentence I find more than a little intriguing.
Saturday, 22 August 2009
Beating our ploughshares into golf clubs
Opposite the primary school I attended lay a huge estate owned by the government. It was enclosed by a stone wall and out of bounds to everyone, but those who worked there or did business there.
It was used for commercial farming and agricultural experiments. No doubt the aim was to develop approaches to farming that increased yields and efficiency. In other words, it was all about food production.
Now it is mainly devoted to leisure and tourism, and the farming element is greatly reduced. Some of the land has even been turned into a golf course. We had a walk around the lake and our children played in the park.
I wonder what that says about us as a society? Does it say anything? Can I really conclude that we are now more concerned with leisure than we are with food production? I wonder how someone from the developing world would interpret this. Perhaps I just need to be a bit less serious and enjoy an angst free holiday.
It was used for commercial farming and agricultural experiments. No doubt the aim was to develop approaches to farming that increased yields and efficiency. In other words, it was all about food production.
Now it is mainly devoted to leisure and tourism, and the farming element is greatly reduced. Some of the land has even been turned into a golf course. We had a walk around the lake and our children played in the park.
I wonder what that says about us as a society? Does it say anything? Can I really conclude that we are now more concerned with leisure than we are with food production? I wonder how someone from the developing world would interpret this. Perhaps I just need to be a bit less serious and enjoy an angst free holiday.
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