Home

  • Eyes of Jesus

    This week’s feature is one of our favourites: the Eyes of Jesus/Jesus, I Love You/Psalm 23 medley, from Emmanuel’s first album God, You Are My Refuge.  Much beloved by the youth that came to Steubenville for the Young People and Youth Ministers Conferences in the early 1980’s.

    Click here for more information on this album by John Flaherty, the group’s guitarist.

    The rest of the great album is on The Ancient Star-Song.

  • Is Evangelism unAnglican?

    In the early 1980’s, I visited Hong Kong while on the way back from the third and last in a series of business trips to China.  While reading the South China Morning Post, I noted that an Anglican church was conducting a street service at the Star Ferry terminal on the Kowloon side.

    I was Roman Catholic (as I had to inform the Chinese authorities to get my visa) at the time, but I couldn’t resist.  The Episcopal church I had grown up in basically conveyed the message that it was in bad taste to evangelise.  Anglicans?  Street witnessing?  How could this be?  I went down to see what was going on, and sure enough, they were having street services, with music and everything. I went to their church the following Sunday morning.

     

    David Valentini’s article that evangelism is certainly not unAnglican is a refreshing reminder that the Great Commission has no exemptions:

    Is evangelism "Un-Anglican?" Answer: hardly, it is a part of our shared history as Anglo-Catholics, evangelicals, and broad churchmen. Evangelism can take many forms that can range from preaching the gospel in front of thousands on television, to talking to people in coffee houses who are "spiritual", but yet do not know Jesus, to simply taking prayer books and beginning a simple prayer service on a college campus. Several years ago, the Anglican Digest covered the story of a New Zealand Anglican priest who had a congregation of 80 in a beach community and added 420 more to the Faith by ministering to the surfers on the beach.

    In many ways, we as Anglicans, along with other Christians, face the same challenges that the saints encountered: paganism, and parts of the Church that have departed from the apostolic Faith. In times such as these, the Great Commission is so crucial, and as necessary as it was 2,000 years ago. We have the responsibility to bring the "light of Christ" "to a dark and broken world. Let us draw on the example of Christ Himself, the saints of the Undivided Church, and our Anglican antecedents, who have clearly demonstrated that despite your stripe of churchmanship evangelism is a very "Anglican " thing to do. As a result of this, we should go out into the world and bring the light of Christ to those who are so in need of it.

    Every time someone gets saved, the angels in heaven rejoice.  The rest of us may have to get over the shock when an Anglican church or ministry is involved, but that’s our problem.  There’s too much to do and too little time to do it to be so picky.

  • Church Building, Church Tomb

    Johnathan Stone has picked another hot topic on buildings and churches.  We see so many churches putting so much of their resources into physical plant these days, only to struggle with payments.  My response from a business standpoint is as follows:

    You sure know how to pick sore subjects! For me, this is high on the list. Since there are pastors that read this, let me throw my two cents in, based on business experience.

    The church has a mission. The purpose of the building you own, rent or whatever is to serve that mission. Anything a church does in terms of physical plant needs to contribute to the fulfilment of that mission, and to do so in an economically sensible way. That means that not only do you consider what you need to do but how often you need to do it. Why add an expensive feature to a building you only use once or twice a year?

    One recurring mistake I see in church buildings (and we also see this all too often in other non-profit organisations, and certainly the government) is the inclusion of underutilised features.

    As far as own vs. rent, from a pure business standpoint, the only reason to own property is if you think the property will appreciate more than the rate of inflation. Everything else is simply a cost of operation.

    Remember: the money you put into physical plant represents resources that can’t be put into people and resources for direct ministry. Allocate your resources wisely, or your church building will become your church’s tomb.

  • A Matter of Priority, and a Challenge to Eastern Orthodoxy

    I recently got myself into a debate I never thought I would: the veneration of icons.

    It seems that Abu Daoud got himself into a dispute with one JMW over the veneration/worhsip of icons.  So he threw it out to the rest of us for discussion.  One of Abu Daoud’s respondents wondered why a dialogue with someone who so vehemently opposed the practice was worth the bother.  I could not resist saying the following:

    …In his line of mission work, the first thing you learn is to dialogue with people who might kill you. After you have passed that threshold, people like JMW are a snap.

    Beyond trying to lighten things up just a little (I got in trouble recently doing that on an unrelated matter,)  my purpose was to illustrate something important: that when you deal with Islam, a lot of what Christians think is life and death really isn’t.

    Let me illustrate this by discussing the case of John of Damascus, whom I brought up first in his post.  He lived his life in Muslim-ruled Syria and Palestine, but was the last (and one of the greatest) of the Fathers of the Church.  He has the distinction of being one of the first and foremost to do two things: a) defend the veneration of icons, and b) confront Islam from a Christian viewpoint.

    Given the fact that the Qur’an hasn’t changed and that the Muslim conquest of that part of the world was fresher in his day than ours, it’s interesting to note that John of Damascus’ critique of Islam tells us that he confronted the Muslims to their face!  And this, a man who worked for the caliph!  After getting through this, the Damascene must have thought, what consequence is some Emperor in Constantinople who can’t bring himself to venerate the icons?

    Same Emperor was not amused; he tried to have John framed as a traitor to the caliph.  The caliph had John’s hand cut off; however, typical Middle Eastern practice would have dictated execution.  Evidently the caliph was impressed with this bold and stubborn infidel!  No matter what you think of the veneration of icons (my position is here,) John of Damascus was a man of courage.  That’s what it takes to dialogue with Muslims.  We need to see and emulate that, icons or not.

    While on the subject of Eastern Orthodoxy, for those of you who are Orthodox and visiting this site, let me make one plea: it’s time for us to come to some kind of understanding when we face opponents together and have that understanding carry over when they’re not around any more.

    I’m thinking in this case of Russia.  Orthodox and non-Orthodox believers survived seventy years of persecution and the gulag, but now the Russian Orthodox Church is using its special place with the state to push everyone else out.  (My church has been on the receiving end of this, as one can follow here.)

    This is not right.  Orthodoxy is perfectly capable of attracting and keeping good people; just ask the Antiochenes in the U.S.  It’s not necessary to add state coercion to the mix.  The ROC should have learned a long time ago that state support is a two-edged sword; I frequently cite the example of Avvakum, but guess who abolished the Patriarchate?  And whose family kept it that way for 200 years?

    As the old ditty says:

    To live in love with the saints above, that would be glory;
    To live and grow with the saints below, that’s another story!

    Let’s make things a little sweeter in the dangerous world we live in.

  • Some Clients’ Products Shouldn’t be Consumed During Work

    Evidently someone at Mexican ad agency Teran|TBWA was consuming some of their client Absolut’s product when they produced this:

    Reminds me of something my Russian representative told me one time.  He confidently declared that “In Russia, there is a saying that, ‘There is no agreement without vodka.’”  He paused, thought, then added, “And that’s why there are some really stupid agreements!”  (To see an example of what happens with agreements after vodka, click here.)

  • Reply to Jonathan Sacks: But It’s the Tradition!

    The UK’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks makes a plea for tolerance:

    The real question, which has echoed time and again through the corridors of history, is whether we can find ways of living together, despite the fact that we can’t find ways of believing or worshipping together.

    That is what the Bible teaches in its very first chapter, when it says that we are all, every one of us, in the image of God. Our love of God must lead us to a love of humanity.

    I find it extraordinary that in an age in which globalization is forcing us together, all too often, across the globe, faith is driving us apart. We should be fighting environmental destruction, political oppression, poverty and disease, not fighting one another, least of all in the name of God whose image we all bear.

    But he himself knows it’s easier said than done:

    The Chief Rabbi’s speeches are never dull and always contain some good jokes. This is the one he told the EA:

    ‘You know that in the middle of our synagogue services we have what we call the reading of the Torah- the reading of a scroll- a section of the pentateuch and some Rabbis rule that when this is to be read you stand and others rule that when its read you sit.  A stranger came to a new community one year in America and went to the local synagogue that Sabbath.  It was wonderful- everyone was welcoming and the praying was wonderful until it came to this bit in the middle of the Torah reading of the scrolls.

    ‘To his amazement and horror half the congregation stood, half the congregation sat and they started yelling and screaming at each other.  The people that were standing were saying, “ignoramuses, don’t you know when the Torah is being read you have to stand” and the people who were sitting were saying to the ones who were standing, “Heretics! Don’t you know when the Torah is being read you have to sit?” This crazy pandemonium carries on; the reading comes to an end, peace reigns and etcetera. The same thing happens the next week and the week after.  Finally, the stranger cannot stand it any longer. The town is currently without a rabbi so he travels to the nearest town where there is a rabbi, a distinguished rabbinical scholar and he is ushered into his presence.  An old, wise, grey bearded scholar surrounded by books.

    ‘He says, “Rabbi, I have a question for you.  Tell me, when the Torah is being read, do you stand?”

    ‘And the sage stroked his beard and said, “No, that is not the tradition.”  So he said, “Well tell me Rabbi, in that case, when the Torah is being read, do you sit?” And the sage shook his head and said, “No, that is not the tradition.”  And the man said, “Rabbi, you’ve got to help me here. Because in my Synagogue, half of them stand and half of them sit and they all shout out nasty names to one another.” The Rabbi nodded and he said, “Yeah, that is the tradition.”

    There are always some things you can count on…

    Beyond that, the problem is that religious differences frequently mask secular ones, such as economic disparity or ethnic tensions.  If you don’t fix those, there isn’t enough tolerance to cover things up.  You’d think that “rational” secularists would figure this out, instead of blaming religion for everything.  Sacks doubtless know this.  I’m coming to see, however, that “rational secularists” is as great an oxymoron as “Protestant theology.”

  • Training the Trainers: The Key to Successful Missions

    Abu Daoud, in his reflections on Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Evangelii Nuntiandi, makes the following observations:

    The name of this strategy that I have heard is "training the trainer," though though are other names. The traditional model in missions was to send out a pastor-missioner or a group of missionaries who would start a church and then run the church. A missioner could easily spend his entire career with one church which he had worked hard to found and then pastor. The drawback was that it just did not make a big impact. That is not to say that effective work will always make a big impact, but certainly it should some times.

    So the idea came about: get a handful of solid converts, train them to pastor a church and send them to start their own churches. Build the replication of churches into the DNA of the community so that people at these new churches simply assume that it is normal that, should they move to a new town or should their church grow, that they should start a new church in their front yard or shop. These churches tend to be small, agile, and messy. Because they multiply so quickly it is nearly impossible for the original missionaries to enforce doctrinal orthodoxy on all of them. It is called a church planting movement, and if you want to know more about CPM’s then just Google the term.

    There has never been a successful CPM in an Arab Muslim country, though we have seen results in other Muslim regions. In any case, EN does not explicitly outline the CPM, but it does state the basic concept.

    This, of course, is very common in Evangelical churches, and especially Pentecostal ones.  It’s one reason why these churches have grown so fast.  In addition to the economics, it puts people in leadership positions who connect best with the people they’re trying to reach.  But Abu Daoud also states the following:

    What is particularly fascinating is this question: could there be a Catholic CPM? Given that Holy Orders is a sacrament in the RC tradition is a very weighty matter, it seems risky to ordain someone who has been baptized for all of a few weeks, but that is in fact what happens in a CPM. On the other hand, since only a priest can preside over Communion, it seems like ordination would be needed fairly soon, with the reserved sacrament being used for a period of time. We should also remember that if there is no clergy present, any Christian can baptize a new convert.

    Even then, it is difficult to see how a CPM could prosper within a clergy-centered tradition like Catholicism or Orthodoxy.

    That’s a central dilemma for Roman Catholicism.  It’s one of the perpetually frustrating things about the RCC: the ideas they come out with are great, but the institution is its own worst enemy.  The role of the clergy is central to Catholicism’s concept of itself as a church, and separating the two is difficult if not impossible.

    ,

  • We’re Looking for a Volunteer, Ted

    Ted Turner thinks that there are too many people in the world:

    "We’re too many people; that’s why we have global warming," he said. "Too many people are using too much stuff."

    So is he prepared to volunteer himself and his family to bail out first?  That’s always the tricky part for advocates of things like this.

    I’ve dealt with this idea before, and I’ll repeat my comments on it here:

    We applaud the efforts of Forrest Mims III to call attention to the grim absurdity of the message of University of Texas professor Eric Pianka, who advocates eliminating 90% of the world’s population though Ebola.

    Although Pianka’s students seemed enthralled by this "novel" theory, the fact is that there is nothing novel about this. It is basically the same kind of thing we were regaled with nearly forty years ago with Paul Erlich’s The Population Bomb, which predicted disaster for population levels far below what we have now. It took a few years for the Boomers to get over this but get over it they did, as we finally saw an upswing in the birthrate.

    One flaw in Erlich’s thesis is his failure to see that, as civilisation moves in the direction it usually moves in, the birthrate declines. The "problem" with this is that most of the decline has been in the developed countries, creating a vacuum into which have marched immigrants from Latin America and the Middle East.

    Although population control is always dressed up as "scientific," underneath what we are seeing is a "tribal survival panic" kind of reaction. We saw this in Germany in the 1930’s. Erlich’s and Pianka’s reaction (especially the latter) can be viewed in the same way. Iran’s agressive stance is also in anticipation of a collapsing birthrate as modernity challenges Islam all at once in the way it has challenged Christianity for centuries.

    Anytime a "death culture" emerges death follows–usually in war. It was the pattern of the last century. As Christians we need to stand for life and let the "redistribution" of the races take care of itself as we concentrate on spreading the good news and seeing the creation of a new race bound together by blood–the blood of Jesus Christ Himself.

  • “Every woman should carry a gun in this evil time”

    Chattanooga city councilman Manny Rico puts the matter simply:

    Councilman Manny Rico, who was also at the press conference, said he has no problems with Capt. (Jeannie) Snyder continuing to carry a gun.

    He said, "I think every woman should carry a gun in this evil time."

    And be prepared to use it too: Chattanooga has already lost one highly regarded woman officer when she didn’t use hers in time, the weapon was wrestled from her, and she was killed.  I see her photo at a restaurant from time to time; it makes me sad.

  • The Falklands: Not This Again!

    Argentine President Cristina Kirchner knows how to choose a sore subject:

    "The sovereign claim to the Malvinas Islands is inalienable," she said in a speech marking the 26th anniversary of Argentina’s ill-fated invasion of the islands, located 480 kilometers (300 miles) off shore.

    The April 2, 1982 invasion prompted then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to deploy naval forces to retake the Falklands, known as the Malvinas in Spanish.

    The short, bloody conflict led to Argentina’s surrender on June 14, 1982 after the death of 649 Argentines and 255 Britons.

    Historians saw the invasion as an attempt by Argentina’s ruling military junta, which was then in power, to divert attention away from domestic problems.

    The last point is important: Bill Clinton used the Kosovo invasion to "wag the dog" and deflect from his troubles with Monica Lewinsky.  Looks like she’s reading the same playbook that Clinton and then Argentine dictator Leopoldo Galtieri used:

    The comments came as Kirchner faces her own woes, battling against farmers who have barricaded roads in a protest against a stiff tax hike on soybean exports.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started