Last week, David Cameron made an interesting speech on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. The item that received most press coverage in the speech was Mr Cameron asserting that “We are a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so.” He admitted personally to be a committed but only vaguely practising Christian with some deep doubts about some theological issues.

He continued: “I know and fully respect that many people in this country do not have a religion. And I am also incredibly proud that Britain is home to many different faith communities, who do so much to make our country stronger. But what I am saying is that the Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today.”

Some would argue that a time of national crisis and difficulty is precisely when the church can shine in society. The Economist from the previous week had made just such a point in an insightful piece (read it in full here, or an extract below).

Postscript added on 25 December: The Queen’s speech today was filled with Christian messages, and a strong almost evangelistic message. It’s probably the strongest specifically Christian message I have ever heard from a member of the Royal family in the UK. Is this a sign that the leaders of the country have made a decision to use the Christian faith as a means to developing the nation? If so, the church needs to jump at the opportunity. But it must do so realising that people are seeking God, not the church. They want faith, not a religion.

God in austerity Britain

As recession looms, the Church of England is active and vocal, but in the wrong way
The Economist: Dec 10th 2011

CONSIDERING that Britain is a deeply secular country, there is a lot of God about this Christmas. Austerity is a part of the explanation. With the core cultural activity of modern Britain—shopping for stuff—losing its lustre, there are hints of a nation groping for something more profound.

For millions, austerity Christmas will include a dose of carols. The trend has been noticeable for a couple of years. The great cathedrals expect to be packed on Christmas Eve. Charity services, family services, carols by candlelight and sing-along concerts abound. A London church, St Martin-in-the-Fields, is offering “carols for shoppers”, while across town the grand organ of the Royal Albert Hall, a 9,997-pipe monster, will pound through some two dozen carol concerts in December.

Anglican voices are prominent in less cosy contexts, too. On December 6th the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, made front-page news with a commentary on the riots that gripped English towns last August. Too many young people feel they have nothing to lose, the archbishop argued, decrying consumerism and government cuts to youth services. A fortnight earlier, 18 Anglican bishops wrote a joint letter condemning plans for a per-household benefits cap (intended to ensure that welfare recipients do no better than the average working family). This risked being “profoundly unjust” to poor families with children, said the bishops.

The Anglican church has become rather proprietorial about anti-finance protesters camped in the City of London outside St Paul’s Cathedral, after a muddled initial response that saw two senior clergymen resign. Yes, the protesters’ demands are vague, but that just shows that the Church of England is used as a place to air society’s “unspoken anxieties”, suggested Archbishop Williams last month. The Bishop of London has organised meetings between Occupy London protesters and the chief financial regulator, Hector Sants. On a homelier note, a priest reports that two protesters have started attending cathedral services.

It is possible to see why some Anglican clergymen are bullish about their church’s relevance in austerity Britain, despite decades of falling attendance and gibes about woolly, waffly priests wringing their hands at how complicated life is. The decade after the second world war witnessed a “new seriousness”, and a corresponding high point for the Church of England, says Lord Harries, a former bishop of Oxford and long-standing BBC broadcaster. The beginnings of a similar seriousness can be felt today. The Bishop of Leicester, Tim Stevens, points to the headlines generated when church leaders question government policies. If bishops can make the front page, is the country as secular as all that, he asks?

Actually, yes. The latest British Social Attitudes Survey shows just 20% of the British public calling themselves members of the Church of England, down from 40% in 1983. Roman Catholicism (about one in ten of the population) is more stable. Half of the population say they have “no religion”. More than half “never” attend a religious service. Non-Christian faiths are growing but small (6% of the population).

Come all ye faithful, and not

The evidence that the Church of England is returning to the centre of public life is ambiguous. True, religious music is popular. In some places that shows a yearning for faith. But if cathedrals are increasingly popular, it is in part because they are anonymous, admits a priest: there is no danger of being asked to visit a sick parishioner afterwards. Business is also booming for commercial carol concerts in non-church settings, where a mince pie and nostalgia are as much the lure as harking the singing of herald angels. Across the country, Raymond Gubbay, an impresario behind several shows at the Royal Albert Hall, is putting on 200 such Christmas concerts.

Nor is the St Paul’s Cathedral camp as flattering as it seems. The protesters wanted to surround the London Stock Exchange. Thwarted, they ended up at St Paul’s largely by accident. Headlines about bishops chiding the government are also double-edged. Too often, what is striking is not the daring of Anglican prelates but their lack of self-confidence. Time and again, bishops sound like shop stewards for the welfare state, taking to the airwaves to demand the preservation of specific benefits without mentioning the church, the role of faith or Christianity.

Welfare utopianism is an Anglican tradition. In the 1940s the church embraced the welfare state as a modern, professional alternative to charity, willingly dismantling voluntary relief networks and signing over thousands of church schools, hospitals and other bodies to the state, notes Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University. In a 1985 report the church attacked Margaret Thatcher for putting economic efficiency ahead of welfare. She retorted that church-going is not about wanting “social reforms and benefits” but about spiritual redemption and, indeed, God.

The church has a perfect right to comment on politics, says Lord Harries. If you love your neighbour, you must have a view on policies that affect his welfare. At the same time, he argues, the English have always been reticent about religious language. The clergy must use religious imagery “very shyly”, otherwise the English immediately back away.

Fair enough. England is an odd place: a secular country where an established church still has a role in public life (and, on the ground, does much unsung good). But the economy may be about to fall off a cliff. That poses a huge test for the Church of England and its claims to be a source of national strength. If the church cannot offer a message more spiky and distinctive than social democracy in a clerical collar, it will fail that test.

Source: The Economist

The Economist has it quite right: The church’s message should be very similar to Jesus’s message. A new Kingdom is available, and could break in all around us. It can be on earth as it is in heaven, and God’s will can be done here and now.

In a similar article from a different perspective, Eric Weiner reflected on America, stating: “Apparently, a growing number of Americans are running from organized religion, but by no means running from God.” Americans are abandoning religion, but not faith. They have had enough of church, but not of God. These are signs indeed that the church is failing the test. It has lost its ability to be meaningful in society.

But it does not need to be so.

A part of the solution is for Christian leaders to start bringing joy to the world. That’s a big Christmas theme, lost for most of the year in Christian rhetoric. As Weiner says: “Put bluntly: God is not a lot of fun these days. Many of us don’t view religion so generously. All we see is an angry God. He is constantly judging and smiting, and so are his followers. No wonder so many Americans are enamored of the Dalai Lama. He laughs, often and well. Precious few of our religious leaders laugh. They shout. God is not an exclamation point, though. He is, at his best, a semicolon, connecting people, and generating what Aldous Huxley called ‘human grace.’ Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost sight of this.”

We need the church to become more missional and less defensive. I hope that 2012 will see steps in that direction.

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2. Galatians 5 – struggling in Christ
3. What the Incarnation Means for the Church

Looking through my news feed this morning, my eye was drawn to a story from Brazil. This past weekend, over 100,000 people joined a march in Rio de Janeiro in protest at religious intolerance. So far, so good. Religious intolerance is a “bad thing” and it’s important to have a free society so that we can practice our beliefs without fear or intimidation.

But then I read further and realised that the protestors were protesting AGAINST Christians. Apparently, evangelical Christians in Brazil are seen as the cause of persecution of especially Afro-Brazilian religious groups.

You can read the story here.

This story disturbed me. Why did so many people feel the need to protest against my faith? You don’t have to deny your own faith, nor do you need to believe that all faiths are equal in order to realise that there is a problem when that many people say there is a problem. Is this the Christianity that Jesus would want to be associated with? A Christianity characterised by exclusion, demonisation, persecution and intolerance? I can’t believe that.

Tolerance of other people’s religions and faiths is something we need to learn how to do as Christians. Maybe the starting point for the right attitude in this regard is to ask whether God is more concerned that we are right (in what we think/believe) or that we are loving (in what we do). It’s not a choice between the two, of course. But which is the appropriate starting point for engagement with the world? What do Jesus’ actions tell us about his starting point for engagement?

No related posts.

Author and commentator, Scot McKnight, recently wrote an article for the Huffington Post. I think he is spot on. You can read the original here, or an extract below:

Christianity as Country Club

by Scot McKnight, Huffington Post, 6 Sep 2011

Christianity sometimes presents itself as a country club. It presents itself this way even when it doesn’t want to, and sometimes it doesn’t even know it. I grew up loving to play golf but I played on the public course. I had friends who played at the local country club. When I visited the country club I felt like a visitor even though the members were wonderfully hospitable. Members felt like members and visitors felt like visitors, and knowing that you could “visit” only by invitation made the difference clear.

Many experience the church this way. Members know they belong, and visitors know they don’t. Well, after all, we might reason, the Christian faith is a religion of salvation, and Stephen Prothero’s recent book, “God is Not One,” depicted Christianity as a faith concerned with the “way of salvation.” And if you are saved, you are a member; if you are not saved, you are not. You might visit, but until you get saved you will know you are not in the club.

Christianity has been powerfully effective at creating what might be called a “salvation culture.” Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, Protestant mainliners, Protestant evangelicals and other families in the church like Pentecostals only offer slight variations on this salvation culture. This message of salvation is that God loves us but God is holy so sin must be dealt with; Jesus Christ died for us and through his death salvation can be found, but to find that salvation one must trust in Jesus Christ and his death. Those who do are both “in the club” and will spend eternity with the club members with God in heaven. In essence, this is Christianity’s salvation culture. It is a good message, but it is not the whole message.

I want to suggest that the country club image for the Christian faith, its salvation culture, no matter how historic and vital to the Christian church’s identity, inadequately frames what might be called its true “gospel culture.” If a salvation culture builds a country club, a gospel culture creates a story — one with a beginning in God’s shalom and one that aims at God’s shalom. And a gospel culture is not identical to a salvation culture.

What is a gospel culture? The gospel of Jesus and of the apostles cannot be reduced to the plan of salvation or to its effect: a salvation culture. The gospel, instead, is more robust and it is to tell the Story of Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel’s Story, of God’s design to build an Eden shaped by shalom. Notice how the apostle Paul defined gospel because he told a story and did not simply tell the facts of salvation: in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul tells us that the gospel is four events in the life of Jesus (not four spiritual laws) — the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That Story, which only makes sense if we tie it to Israel’s Story, is the gospel that united the earliest Christians. It was the same gospel we find in the gospel sermons in the Book of Acts. And, now we get to Jesus. It is popular today to say Jesus’ gospel was “kingdom,” and by kingdom many people think “justice.” So, in essence, many today think the gospel of Jesus was justice and the church messed it up with its salvation culture. But this flattens the Story in a way not unlike the way a salvation culture flattens that same Story.

To be sure, Jesus preached the ideal society in the word “kingdom” but the biggest claim Jesus made was that the kingdom “was here” or “was arriving.” In other words, Jesus was telling us that the Story had moved to a new chapter — and he thought it was occurring in his day and through his vision. Here’s my claim: the gospel Jesus preached was that the Story of Israel had come to a new chapter in himself, in his day, and that it was a liberating, redeeming, and transforming Story.

A gospel culture focuses on the Jesus Story, the Story that God is at work among us — the incarnation. In other words, the essence of a gospel culture is a Jesus-shaped and Jesus-centered Story of God at work among us. It is not just a country club, but the Story of life-giving, self-sacrifice and hope that God can take ruins and create monuments of love, peace, justice and joy — and Jesus told us that Story is now taking place among us.

Christians need to recommit themselves all over again to a gospel culture. It’s not as natural to us as a salvation culture.

Source: Huffington Post

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1. Welcome new readers – a quick intro to the conversation thus far
2. Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?
3. Reflections on Christmas and Christianity in the USA

The campaign is aimed at raising awareness of the fact that a quarter of the world’s population – 1.4 billion people – go to bed hungry every night. They survive on the equivalent of £ 1 per day. That’s for everything: food, clothes, medicine, transport, entertainment and education of their children.

In order to raise funds to fight extreme poverty, thousands of people around the world are going to try and live on less than £ 1 of food and drink for five days next week. I am doing so starting next Saturday, for five days. This is the “Live Below the Line” challenge. Please would you consider sponsoring me, even if it’s just a few pounds (or dollars, or rands, or euros). It’s easy to do at my special campaign website. You can also leave me a message of support, and show your concern for the world’s poor.

And that’s why I think the slogan is so brilliant. If we don’t do anything, who will? And if we don’t do it now, then when? It’s about Just Us For All.

The campaign is organised by the Global Poverty Project, a charity that aims to see the eradication of extreme poverty in one generation. I volunteer as a presenter of their awesome multimedia presentation, “1.4 Billion Reasons”. You can request a presentation at your office, your school, your home or church – click here to do so.

You can also watch a video of the promotional work that Hollywood superstar, Hugh Jackman, has done as a celebrity sponsor of the campaign. He was superb on Monday night. He’s joined the cause. Why don’t you?

Hugh Jackman calls for thousands to Live Below the Line from Nick Allardice on Vimeo.

No related posts.

I wrote yesterday about the need to engage appropriately with skeptics of the Christian faith. It’s also important for Christians to engage with people of other faiths and religions. The most important route to lasting global peace right now is for the three major monotheistic religions to find ways to peacefully engage with each other.

It is amazing to me that the Christian right wing in the United States has so easily and quickly engaged – even integrated – with Judaism (and especially Zionistic Judaism). I don’t want to comment on that issue in this blog entry, but it does indicate that major religions are able to find ways to engage with each other when they share a common goal (like the protection of the State of Israel). What better goal for all religious leaders to have than world peace?

So, it was with interest that I read about Amr Khaled in the (very conservative) Spectator magazine Christmas edition. This is a Muslim cleric who seems to be gaining the kind of reputation in the Islamic world that Billy Graham or Bill Hybels have in the Protestant Christian world. Although there would be obviously be significant theological differences between us, I nevertheless support his efforts to bring about a calmer, more rational, more engaging Islam. That can only be a good thing, and should be supported by all Christian everywhere. Maybe this is a common space for all religious people (and those of no faith, too) to play.

But read the article for yourself (at The Spectator website, or an extract below) and make up your own mind.

Can this man defeat al-Qa’eda?

by JUSTIN MAROZZ
The Spectator, 18 DECEMBER 2010

Amr Khaled’s TV preaching has made him Islam’s answer to Billy Graham – and he’s mounting a direct attack on the terror camps of Yemen

Aden, Yemen

There’s a new weapon in the war on terror, ladies and gentlemen. Never mind drones and spies, surgical strikes and covert ops, they’re old hat. There’s a time and a place for them, of course, and we must thank our spooks and soldiers for helping to keep us safe, for foiling plots and knocking off the odd wayward beardie in distant deserts and freezing mountain passes. But that’s not really draining the swamp.

For those of us who would prefer not to live under sharia law; for those of us who like drinking and dancing and freely consorting with the other sex; freedom of expression, democracy and Test Match Special and all the other accoutrements, however decadent, of the West, there is good news to report. It turns out we have a supremely sleek new armament in the arsenal, it’s home-grown within the Islamic world, is long-term and sustainable, doesn’t cost squillions, has nothing to do with foreign infidels or armies and it — or rather he — has just stepped on to the battlefield in Yemen. Al-Qa’eda, prepare to meet your nemesis. He is the telemufti.

Amr Khaled, to give him his proper name, is a hugely popular preacher man from Egypt. He’s Islam’s answer to Billy Graham and rapidly becoming famous throughout the world. His website, amrkhaled.net, is an institution from Morocco to Oman. In a 2008 poll to determine the world’s top public intellectual, in which more than 500,000 voted, Khaled came in sixth. The New York Times has called him ‘the world’s most famous and influential Muslim television preacher’. We should also call him a godsend: a Muslim celebrity who is a proponent of inter-faith dialogue and who urges hundreds of thousands of young Muslims, who might otherwise be swayed by Osama, to rub along peacefully with the West.

The government of Yemen has been taking action against al-Qa’eda and knocking out terrorist cells. We now know, thanks to WikiLeaks, that the Americans have been doing the same. Khaled’s programme, officially endorsed by Sanaa, is a non-lethal supplement and, if properly supported, looks like the best bet for a long-term solution to radicalisation. It bears no harmful Western fingerprint or funding and aims to defeat ignorance through learning.

I met Khaled in Aden during Yemen’s hosting of the Gulf Cup 20 football tournament. Conventional wisdom had suggested this was an al-Qa’eda spectacular waiting to happen, that it was foolhardy in the extreme to stage the tournament here at all. As a headline in America’s Foreign Policy magazine put it, ‘Al-Qa’eda bombings, drive-by shootings, and penalty kicks… what are they thinking?’ And yet, as is so often the case, conventional wisdom, at least as expressed by the media, was wildly off target. Sorry to disappoint the doommongers, but there were no bombs. It was a rousing success.

Dodging the Yemeni football team, I made my way to Khaled’s suite in a swish resort hotel that overlooks the Gulf of Aden. Ragged mountains reared up on the horizon beyond an aquamarine sea. Aides came and went, scrutinising their mobile phones. Eventually, Amr Mohamed Helmi Khaled strode into the room, immaculately blazered, crisply shaved, poised and smiling. The very model of a charismatic televangelist.

Khaled was in Yemen to launch his latest project, A New Hope, which is aimed squarely at Al-Qa’eda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) — widely seen as the greatest growing threat to the West. These are the beardies, you may remember, who brought you the failed underpants bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and the failed cargo plane bomb, the one that never detonated over America. But what AQAP may lack in experience and professionalism, they make up for with deadly enthusiasm. One of the articles in their internet magazine, Inspire, is headlined ‘How to make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom’.

So how do you plan to persuade Yemen’s youth that AQAP isn’t the right path to take? ‘Yemen is a country of peace and moderation. That’s how it’s described in the Koran,’ Khaled said. ‘Our project is to pull out the roots of extremism in Yemen and the Arab world, it’s to show the true beautiful colours of this country.’

The plan in Yemen is reassuringly straightforward, so obvious, in fact, one wonders why no one has thought about it before. It doesn’t involve missile strikes. ‘Violence does not succeed in confronting violence,’ Khaled said. The only army involved is Khaled’s phalanx of 100 clerics and 5,000 youth volunteers who will descend on every city in Yemen to confront extremism, preaching the ‘true, merciful Islam’ uncontaminated by talk of slaughtering infidels, imagined caliphates and a laundry bag of grievances. It will be a mix of some of the oldest technology known to mankind, including the pulpit during Friday prayers, and the latest wizardry on the internet. It started in late November and Khaled is convinced that before 2011 is out, AQAP will be beating a snivelling retreat. ‘We’ll show the whole world within one year that Yemen is bright and beautiful,’ he said with a smile.

Can he do it? Well he’s certainly had an impressive trajectory so far. He graduated from Cairo University in 1988 with a degree in accounting but soon discovered a taste and a talent for preaching. He became so popular that the Egyptian government grew nervous about his influence and banned him from speaking. Exile led Khaled to his vocation. He decamped to London where he discovered that far from being entirely corrupted, the West was a place where opportunity thrived. ‘I lived a wonderful life in freedom,’ he said. Khaled returned to Egypt with a dream: ‘to build a bridge between the East and the West’. And so far he’s done remarkably well. He has advised the British government and the UN, worked with Nike, Queen Rania and the Saudi royal family. But Khaled’s Yemen venture is by far his boldest move yet. It involves a three-pronged attack. First, there will be a high-profile media campaign, backed by the Yemeni government, making use of print media, television, mosques and the internet. This Khaled describes as ‘a battle for hearts and minds’, a concept that sounds a little more credible coming from a Muslim preacher than it does from a foreign army of occupation.

Next, Khaled’s UK-based Right Start Foundation will identify and train a new generation of youth leaders from across Yemen, placing them on the frontline of the battle of ideologies in an overt operation to undermine extremism. ‘To defeat the extremists we have to make the people very positive. We will focus on the majority of the youth who want to build not destroy.’

Lastly, Khaled’s team has chosen 100 of the Muslim world’s most respected clerics to preach moderation from pulpit and podcast. ‘Who gave the extremists the authority to speak on behalf of Muslims?’ Khaled was fired up by now, asking rhetorical questions in the manner of an evangelist.

‘All the world is asking, what is the Muslim world doing about this problem of extremism and terrorism? The truth is, Muslim scholars and preachers haven’t done enough. We need to move beyond just words, saying this is not Islam, this terrorism, it’s haram [forbidden]. We must actually do something.’

I asked him: why do you think you can succeed in defeating Islamist terrorism when so many brilliant minds have failed? ‘In 2007, I said to the youth of the Arab world — send me your dreams. I received 700,000 dreams in one month. They wrote to me talking about education, health, co-existence and peace. So I can speak on behalf of Muslims.’ Khaled does not suffer from a lack of self-confidence — it’s something he has in common with many successful Egyptians — but he needs this confidence to be persuasive.

And for those of us with more than a passing interest in history, the choice of Yemen for this bold, potentially dangerous experiment is irresistible. This is the birthplace of Arab civilisation. The Prophet Mohammed referred to it as ‘the land of faith and wisdom’. Why Yemen, I asked Khaled? ‘Yemenis represented 30 per cent of all the replies I received when I asked for the dreams of Arab youth,’ he said. What does that mean? ‘It means Yemen is ready.’

To win any war it is essential to know your enemy. As Yemen’s foreign minister Abu Bakr Abdullah Al Qirbi observed in the Huffington Post in November, ‘If underestimating one’s enemy is a disaster waiting to happen, overestimating him is also a mistake.’ Khaled won’t fall into either trap. He understands Muslim youth — and their limitations. He prefers to mock Osama, to belittle his understanding of the Koran rather than portray him as a warrior. He knows that talking up the threat of Islamism will only make it seem a more glamorous proposition to desperate young men.

‘Arab civilisation is currently going through one of the worst moments in its history,’ said Khaled with some urgency. ‘The West looks at us — Muslims and Islam and the Arab world in particular — like we’re the cause of the world’s troubles. But God described our prophet, and the religion he revealed, as mercy for the world. We want to prove that the Koran is right — that we are the world’s mercy.’

I left Khaled’s hotel thinking that we could all learn from his approach; wondering whether perhaps we all need to be both braver and less hysterical in the face of the unpleasant but frankly limited threat al-Qa’eda represents. Writing in the New York Times recently, Roger Cohen offered a rare glimmer of common sense when he advised Americans to show ‘inat’, the word coined by besieged Sarajevans during the Bosnian war to describe their ‘contempt-cum-spite’ for the gunners on the hills, which they expressed by carrying on as usual under fire. Cohen described the unfettered growth of the American security bureaucracy as ‘a greater long-term threat’ to the US than a few ‘madmen’ in Yemen. Let’s show ‘inat’, as Khaled does, and remember that ‘Keep calm and carry on’ is a decent guide to dealing with al-Qa’eda, too.

Source: The Spectator, 18 DECEMBER 2010

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2. Welcome new readers – a quick intro to the conversation thus far
3. Is Jesus left wing? (You better believe it!)

The conservative right wing have co-opted Jesus as their personal mascot. But their Jesus is not the Jesus I see in the Bible. The latest cover article of The New Statesman magazine looks at this issue in an excellent way. You can read a lengthy extract below, or the full original at the New Statesman website here.

What would Jesus do?

Mehdi Hasan
Published 15 December 2010

Conservatives claim Christ as one of their own. But in word and deed, the son of God was much more left-wing than the religious right likes to believe.

Was Jesus Christ a lefty? Philosophers, politicians, theologians and lay members of the various Christian churches have long been divided on the subject. The former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev once declared: “Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.” The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, went further, describing Christ as “the greatest socialist in history”. But it’s not just Russian ex-communists and Bolivarian socialists who consider Jesus to be a fellow-traveller. Even the Daily Mail sketch-writer Quentin Letts once confessed: “Jesus preached fairness – you could almost call him a lefty.”

That conservatives have succeeded in claiming Christ as one of their own in recent years – especially in the US, where the Christian right is in the ascendancy – is a tragedy for the modern left. Throughout history, Jesus’s teachings have inspired radical social and political movements: Christian pacifism (think the Quakers, Martin Luther King or Bruce Kent in CND), Christian socialism (Keir Hardie or Tony Benn), liberation theology (in South America) and even “Christian communism”. In the words of the 19th-century French utopian philosopher Étienne Cabet, “Communism is Christianity . . . it is pure Christianity, before it was corrupted by Catholicism.”

These days, however, the so-called God-botherers tend to be on the right. In his book God’s Politics, the US Evangelical pastor Jim Wallis, spiritual adviser to President Obama and Gordon Brown before him, laments the manner in which Jesus’s message has been misinterpreted by the warring political tribes, writing of how the right gets Christ wrong, while the left doesn’t get him at all.

He reminds his readers that being a Christian is not necessarily the same as being a “right-wing Christian fundamentalist”, and that the Bible’s focus on social justice and the poor shows that economic life should be organised around the needs of society’s weakest and most vulnerable members.

The unemployed son of two asylum-seekers – Joseph and Mary – who fled to Egypt to avoid the genocidal tendencies of King Herod, the Jesus of the Gospels is a bearded, sandal-wearing, unmarried rabbi from Nazareth with all the personal traits of a modern revolutionary. In an essay published in 2007, the Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton noted that the Gospels present Christ as “homeless, propertyless, peripatetic, socially marginal, disdainful of kinfolk, without a trade or occupation, a friend of outcasts and pariahs, averse to material possessions, without fear for his own safety, a thorn in the side of the establishment and a scourge of the rich and powerful”. Eagleton added: “Jesus has most of the characteristic features of the revolutionary activist, including celibacy.”

Traits of character aside, where would Jesus stand in the main debates of our time, such as war and peace, wealth and taxation, health care and financial reform? To use the formula made popular by Evangelicals in America (often abbreviated to WWJD), “What would Jesus do?” He would do the same as any self-respecting lefty. Here are five reasons why.

1. Jesus the class warrior

From Cuban communists to New Labour social democrats, a belief in redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor is at the core of leftist thinking. The means used to achieve that redistribution, such as higher rates of income tax, are often decried by conservatives as representing the “politics of envy”, a misguided Marxist desire for class war.

Jesus, however, went far beyond the 50p top rate of tax or a bonus tax in his zeal for redistribution and his rhetorical attacks on the richest members of society. To see what the “politics of envy” looks like in the Gospels, turn to Mark 10:21-25. Here, Jesus gives a startling answer to a pious Jewish man who has asked him how he can “inherit eternal life”.

21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” 22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Forget taxing the rich until the pips squeak, Denis Healey-style; Jesus declares that the Roman Abramoviches and Donald Trumps of this world will struggle to achieve salvation in the afterlife. Why? “You cannot serve God and wealth,” he says (Matthew 6:24). And, according to the epistles, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10).

Further, Jesus argues that we have a moral obligation to pay taxes. In one of his parables, he heaps praise on a “righteous” tax collector (Luke 18:9-14). Were he alive today, Jesus would be leading the campaign to crack down on tax-dodging billionaires and multinational corporations. Here, in one of the best-known stories from the Gospels (Matthew 22:17-21), he is challenged by the followers of the Pharisees:

17 “Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” 18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. 20 Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” 21 They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

It perhaps offers a fitting slogan for the placards of UK Uncut, the newly formed group protesting against tax avoidance, at its next high-street demo. In recent weeks, UK Uncut has used direct action to shut down stores owned by Vodafone (accused of being let off £6bn in tax) and the coalition government’s “cuts tsar”, Philip Green (accused of avoiding a £285m bill by transferring ownership of his Arcadia business empire to his wife, who lives in a tax haven, Monaco). Jesus would approve.

On one occasion, despite telling his companions that he is not liable to pay the “temple tax” that is demanded of every Jewish man in Palestine – because the Father does not require it from his own son – Jesus publicly pays the tax (Matthew 17:24-27). As the Scottish theologian and New Testament scholar William Barclay wrote: “Jesus is saying, ‘We must pay so as not to set a bad example to others. We must not only do our duty, we must go beyond duty.’”

2. Jesus the banker basher

In March 2009, the windows of the detached stone villa in Edinburgh belonging to the disgraced Fred Goodwin, former chief executive of the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland, were smashed and his Mercedes S600 was vandal­ised. Some complained that the bankers were being made “scapegoats” for the financial crisis. I suspect Jesus might have been tempted to throw the first stone. He had form with “banker bashing”, as Mark (11:15-17) testifies.

15 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; 16 and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

Tables turned over, wealth scattered, moneymen described as robbers – Christ’s “cleansing of the temple” is a blueprint for the direct action against the financial and political elite by left-wing activists today. In Eagleton’s words, this was Christ’s attack on the “bastion of the ruling class”.

3. Jesus the fair-wage campaigner

It isn’t a coincidence that the campaign for a “living wage” – the minimum wage required for every worker to earn enough to provide his family with the essentials of life – has been driven by Citizens UK, a collection of urban community and faith groups that includes churches. The Gospels don’t quite tell us that Jesus was a trade unionist, but they do suggest he backed a living wage.

Matthew 20:1-16 narrates the “parable of the workers in the vineyard”, which tells of five sets of labourers who arrived for work very early in the morning, at 9am, at noon, at 3pm and at 5pm. They are all paid at 6pm and each labourer receives the same amount – one denarius, as agreed to with their employer. Unsurprisingly, those who arrived earlier and did more work complained that they had received the same pay as those who had come later: “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But, for Jesus, the casual labourers who came to work for the landowner in his vineyard had basic needs that had to be satisfied, and those who had come late had been struggling to find work in a laissez-faire market: “No one has hired us,” the last labourers tell the landowner. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” in the words of Karl Marx.

According to Jack Mahoney, emeritus professor of moral and social theology at the University of London, this parable allows us to think of the employer “as not being simply a generous, or overgenerous, employer, but in fact as being a just employer”, someone who pays “a daily living wage”.

4. Jesus the NHS champion

Jesus was a healer. The Gospels contain countless stories in which he helps the blind to see, the deaf to hear and the lame to walk. There is little evidence that he charged for his services, demanded to see an insurance card before offering treatment, or profited from his miraculous ability to bring the dead back to life.

He called on his disciples to do the same, instructing them to go into towns and “cure the sick who are there” (Luke 10:9). Again, there is no discussion of payment or fees or charges. Indeed, throughout his life, in word and deed, Jesus was a champion of universal health care, free at the point of use. He would have been an ardent and passionate defender of the NHS from free-market “reforms”.

Take the story of the synagogue leader Jairus and his terminally ill daughter, and that of an unknown, destitute woman who has been haemorrhaging for 12 years and has “spent all that she had” paying physicians (Mark 5:21-43). Jesus heals both the sick daughter and the destitute woman. The linking of these two stories reminds us how sickness and ill-health are universal; we all, regardless of social status or bank balance, need access to health care at some stage in our lives.

The American academic, blogger and Baptist minister Drew Smith explains the political significance of these verses. “In a market-driven system of health care, the unnamed woman would have perhaps gone untreated, but Jairus would have had the health care he needed for his daughter. After all, Jairus is a man of means . . . But in stopping to heal the unnamed woman instead of proceeding to Jairus’s house uninterrupted, Jesus also rebuked a system that offered preferential treatment for those like Jairus who have power, status and money.”

It is no wonder that in the heated town-hall debates that were held across the US in the run-up to the signing of the Obama administration’s health reform bill, which extended health-care coverage to an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans, some liberal activists carried placards proclaiming: “Jesus would have voted Yes”.

5. Jesus the anti-war activist

Would Jesus have backed the Iraq war? Or would he have joined the two million anti-war protesters marching through the streets of London in February 2003? How about the war in Afghanistan? Stay the course? Or do a deal with the Taliban and bring the troops home? WWJD?

Jesus’s pronouncements on war and peace, action and reaction, confirm his preference for non-violent struggle. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he says, “for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). And: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also” (Matthew 5:38-39). He also says: “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).

Christian peaceniks point to these verses when challenging the militarism of ostensibly Christian nations such as the US and the UK. “I want a faith that takes Jesus seriously in foreign policy,” says Jim Wallis. “When Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ what does that mean? This is what Jesus taught. He doesn’t say the ‘peace lovers’. Blessed are the peacemakers.” Wallis also says: “I think it’s not credible to believe that Jesus’s command to be peacemakers is best fulfilled by American military supremacy through the imposition of Pax Americana.”

In his new memoir, Decision Points, the former US president and born-again Christian George W Bush recalls how he arrived at his decision to approve a request from the CIA to waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 11 September 2001 attacks. “I thought about the 2,973 people stolen from their families by al-Qaeda on 9/11 . . . ‘Damn right,’ I said.” But Jesus, the man once identified by Bush as his favourite political philosopher, has little time for such talk of vengeance and retribution. In Luke 6:27-28, he says: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

The ex-president is said to have confessed to a group of Palestinian officials that God told him to “fight those terrorists in Afghanistan . . . and end the tyranny in Iraq”. Given Jesus’s rhetoric on non-violence and “peacemakers”,

I suspect the voices in Bush’s head were not those of God, or his son.

Love your enemies. Renounce your wealth. Pay your taxes. Help the poor. Cure the ill (for free). These are the hallmarks of a left-wing, socialist politics. What Jesus wouldn’t do is allow the rich to get richer, give a free pass to the bonus-hungry bankers and invade one foreign country after another. It is difficult to disagree with Wallis when he says: “The politics of Jesus is a problem for the religious right.”

Mehdi Hasan is senior editor (politics) of the New Statesman.

Related posts:

1. The Jesus Manifesto – by Len Sweet and Frank Viola
2. Would Jesus burn the qu’ran?
3. Jesus and the “Social Gospel” – by Dr Reg Codrington

A few months ago, I spoke at a men’s conference in Johannesburg, at South Africa’s leading Methodist Church. They asked me to speak on being a Christian in a world gone mad. I used the opportunity to do a bit of a “preach” on what I think is an absolute essential for any Christian man (or woman) who wants to make sense of the world: we need to change our view on what we think we’re here for.

You can listen to the podcast recording of the session at the church’s conference website (if you battle to listen or download it, please let me know, as I have an MP3 copy). If you want to download a copy of the slides I used and was referring to, I have created a PDF file and you can get it here.

Related posts:

1. Developing Kingdom Vision (by Reg Codrington)
2. Welcome new readers – a quick intro to the conversation thus far
3. The Transformational Gospel vs the Evacuation Gospel

I am hearing good things about a course called Kairos. Their website promises that it is an interactive course that looks at our world from God’s perspective, helping you to grasp God’s global purpose and understand how Christianity is growing around the world. It presents mission as God’s heartbeat – a thread that runs from Genesis to Revelation.

I’ve heard from a few people who have done the course, and they say it’s amazing.

From their website again:

Kairos is for anyone. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a Christian. You don’t have to be already committed to world mission. You might even already be a missionary! And if you’re a pastor, this is something you and your church need to know about. Whoever you are and wherever you are at in your walk with God we believe Kairos has something to offer. We’d love to see you on one of our courses. All we ask is that you come prepared to hear whatever God may want to challenge you with.

To be honest, this blog entry is more a bookmark for me. I plan to check Kairos out at some time in the near future. But I thought I’d let you know about it too. Check it out, and let me know what you think. If you’ve done the course, what was your experience of it?

Related posts:

1. Living in an age of transition

An op-ed piece in a recent New York Times reviews a new book that suggests that the American Dream (health, wealth, happiness, freedom) are not compatible with the Gospel. The author says Americans should live as if they earned $ 50,000 a year and give the rest away. The NYT piece makes some great points. Read it at the NYT site here, or an extract below.

The Gospel of Wealth

By DAVID BROOKS, Op-ed columnist, The New York Times, September 6, 2010

Maybe the first decade of the 21st century will come to be known as the great age of headroom. During those years, new houses had great rooms with 20-foot ceilings and entire new art forms had to be invented to fill the acres of empty overhead wall space.

People bought bulbous vehicles like Hummers and Suburbans. The rule was, The Smaller the Woman, the Bigger the Car — so you would see a 90-pound lady in tennis whites driving a 4-ton truck with enough headroom to allow her to drive with her doubles partner perched atop her shoulders.

When future archeologists dig up the remains of that epoch, they will likely conclude that sometime around 1996, the U.S. was afflicted by a plague of claustrophobia and drove itself bankrupt in search of relief.

But that economy went poof, and social norms have since changed. The oversized now looks slightly ridiculous. Values have changed as well.

Today, savings rates are climbing and smart advertisers emphasize small-town restraint and respectability. The Tea Party movement is militantly bourgeois. It uses Abbie Hoffman means to get back to Norman Rockwell ends.

In the coming years of slow growth, people are bound to establish new norms and seek noneconomic ways to find meaning. One of the interesting figures in this recalibration effort is David Platt.

Platt earned two master’s degrees and a doctorate from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. At age 26, he was hired to lead a 4,300-person suburban church in Birmingham, Ala., and became known as the youngest megachurch leader in America.

Platt grew uneasy with the role he had fallen into and wrote about it in a recent book called “Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream.” It encapsulates many of the themes that have been floating around 20-something evangelical circles the past several years.

Platt’s first target is the megachurch itself. Americans have built themselves multimillion-dollar worship palaces, he argues. These have become like corporations, competing for market share by offering social centers, child-care programs, first-class entertainment and comfortable, consumer Christianity.

Jesus, Platt notes, made it hard on his followers. He created a minichurch, not a mega one. Today, however, building budgets dwarf charitable budgets, and Jesus is portrayed as a genial suburban dude. “When we gather in our church building to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshipping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead, we may be worshipping ourselves.”

Next, Platt takes aim at the American dream. When Europeans first settled this continent, they saw the natural abundance and came to two conclusions: that God’s plan for humanity could be realized here, and that they could get really rich while helping Him do it. This perception evolved into the notion that we have two interdependent callings: to build in this world and prepare for the next.

The tension between good and plenty, God and mammon, became the central tension in American life, propelling ferocious energies and explaining why the U.S. is at once so religious and so materialist. Americans are moral materialists, spiritualists working on matter.

Platt is in the tradition of those who don’t believe these two spheres can be reconciled. The material world is too soul-destroying. “The American dream radically differs from the call of Jesus and the essence of the Gospel,” he argues. The American dream emphasizes self-development and personal growth. Our own abilities are our greatest assets.

But the Gospel rejects the focus on self: “God actually delights in exalting our inability.” The American dream emphasizes upward mobility, but “success in the kingdom of God involves moving down, not up.”

Platt calls on readers to cap their lifestyle. Live as if you made $50,000 a year, he suggests, and give everything else away. Take a year to surrender yourself. Move to Africa or some poverty-stricken part of the world. Evangelize.

Platt’s arguments are old, but they emerge at a postexcess moment, when attitudes toward material life are up for grabs. His book has struck a chord. His renunciation tome is selling like hotcakes. Reviews are warm. Leaders at places like the Southern Baptist Convention are calling on citizens to surrender the American dream.

I doubt that we’re about to see a surge of iPod shakers. Americans will not renounce the moral materialism at the core of their national identity. But the country is clearly redefining what sort of lifestyle is socially and morally acceptable and what is not. People like Platt are central to that process.

The United States once had a Gospel of Wealth: a code of restraint shaped by everybody from Jonathan Edwards to Benjamin Franklin to Andrew Carnegie. The code was designed to help the nation cope with its own affluence. It eroded, and over the next few years, it will be redefined.

Source: The New York Times, September 6, 2010

Related posts:

1. The Transformational Gospel vs the Evacuation Gospel
2. I don’t want an easy faith
3. Jesus and the “Social Gospel” – by Dr Reg Codrington

This paper, originally published in the peer reviewed Journal of Youth and Theology, edition 3, volume 1, 2004 (see http://www.iasym.org), aims to expose youth professionals to a number of opportunities within the corporate business world. This will enable youth professionals to self-fund their ministries/work, as well as gain credibility and experience in their area of expertise. The paper outlines the need that the corporate world has with regards to an understanding of today’s youth culture, as well as provides specific guidelines for ministry professionals who wish to pursue part-time (or full-time) consulting work in the corporate world. The paper specifically ignores theological and ethical issues such work may provoke. Since it was written in 2003, it also doesn’t take into account the many social media and digital opportunities to prove your expertise that are now available. These should obviously be utilised as part of developing one’s profile.

Expanding Youth Professionals Opportunities

The contribution that not-for-profit youth professionals can make in the corporate world
by Dr Graeme Codrington (2003)

The Professional Youth Ministry Problem

One of the abiding complaints of professional youth ministers and workers¹ around the world is that they are not taken seriously. They are often seen as glorified baby-sitters or cheerleaders. Yet, in an increasing number of countries, there is a growing number of professionally trained, well qualified, called and committed life-long career youth workers and ministers (“youth professionals”).² These people are as qualified in their specialised field as any other professionals are in theirs. Their expert knowledge and critical skills in fields such as childcare, adolescent development, youth culture and group dynamics, together with deep understanding of related disciplines, such as theology, psychology, sociology and education, set these youth professionals apart in today’s world. Yet, they are often not accorded the recognition they deserve, or the responsibilities they are equipped to handle.

In addition to these systemic challenges, youth professionals also facea financial challenge at the start of the 21^st century. Churches, denominations, missions and youth agencies are no longer receiving the funding they were some years ago.³ Budgets are tight, and full-time youth professionals are seen as a luxury in many places. Many are ridiculously underpaid, and cannot sustain a career, and therefore are either forced to go part-time, or to abandon youth work/ministry all together.

This paper aims to expose youth professionals to a number of opportunities within the corporate business world that can address the challenges already mentioned. These opportunities involve consulting to Corporates in the areas of youth culture, with applications that include human resources, marketing, leadership and strategy planning. In exchange, youth professionals will be able to self-fund their ministries and activities, on what has traditionally been called a “tent making” basis.⁴ This paper does not seek to address the ethical issues that this may raise, nor does it attempt to differentiate between youth professionals “just doing a job” and those who feel “called” in a specific way. It does not defend the underlying theological position of youth professionals. Rather, it seeks to position youth professionals within the broader context of professions, motivate youth professionals to see a role and opportunities outside the strict confines of their current youth ministry and youth work contexts, and to provide practical guidelines for those who wish to move in this direction.

The Changing Business Environment

The world is changing, at an increasing rate.⁵ It was Alvin Toffler⁶ who first popularised our understanding of the psychological and sociological impact of constant change. The cause of the changes taking place in society today could be simplistically summarised as a gradual transition from the Industrial era through the Information era to a “relational economy”.⁷ The Industrial Era taught companies about efficiency, effectiveness and business basics as reflected in their annual financial statements. The Information era is teaching companies about quality, technology, communication, networks, customer service and market connectivity. But that’s not enough! Today the world is driven by relationships. In a high-tech world people are more and more demanding high touch. This is true both inside and outside organisations and corporations. Internally companies have to do much more than simply pay people’s salaries on time in order to attract, retain and motivate their best staff. Externally companies have to do more than provide quality products at a fair price in order to get customers on board.

These days, companies and their competitors are selling nearly the same products and services, to the same customers, at about the same price and quality, using the same distribution channels, advertising in the same media, using similar techniques. And they even swap staff every few years. So why should anyone buy from a particular company? Why should anyone work for them? Today, people are less interested in WHAT a company is selling, and more interested in WHO they are. The basis of competitive advantage is relationships,⁸ emotional intelligence,⁹ connections, ethics, social responsibility and basic people skills.

In this environment, the ability to attract, retain, motivate and get the best out of employees is a critical component of business success. The Human Resources (or Personnel) function should now be at the strategic core of every business, and people issues are no longer “the soft stuff” that can be relegated to a department. But businesses have a problem. Virtually every annual report states that “people are our most important asset”, but without being aware of the dangerous position that puts a company into: people are the only asset a company has no real control over.

A New World Requires a New Approach

The generation currently dominating the workplace, those people born in the late 1940s through 1960s (the so-called “Baby Boomers”),¹⁰ were born at the start of the Information era and their thinking has been largely shaped by the transition from an Industrial era mentality to an Information era mindset. Collins and Porras sum up the shift in work culture that has dominated the past few decades:

The new economy culture, which emerged in the early 1980’s, rested on3 primary tenets: freedom and self-direction in your work; purpose and contribution through your work; and wealth creation by your work. Central to the new economy culture was the idea that work is our primary activity, and that through work, properly constructed, we can attain much of the meaning that we are looking for in life. Driving the new economy were immensely talented, energetic people looking for a practical answer to a fundamental question: how can I create work I’m passionate about, that makes a contribution, and that makes money?¹¹

The next generation, just entering the workplace – those people born in the 1960s through 1980s (the so-called “Generation Xers”)¹² – have grown up on the cusp of the transition to the era of emotions – the relationship economy. They are pushing the work boundaries even further, and redefining the corporate world even more. The young Generation Xers are intuitively ready for an even newer era of business models. “Success is no longer measured by the size of the paycheck. Success equals meaningful and challenging work.”¹³ Bennis and Thomas¹⁴ compare the last leaders born in the Industrial era (the “geezers”, born 1920-1940) to the first leaders to be born in the Relationship era (the “geeks”, born 1970-1990), and demonstrate that the single biggest difference between these two groups of leaders is that at age 25, geezers were looking to build their careers, whilst today’s young people are trying desperately to create a balance between work and “life”.

This new generation requires a different leadership style and acts differently as employees. It has been said that as employees they act more like consultants. They are motivated more by flexibility than money. They value adaptability more than strategy or vision. They don’t live to work (like the Boomers did) – rather, they work so that they can have a life. And they still want personal fulfilment, a sense of purpose, and financial reward.¹⁵ In short, these employees have more in common with volunteers than employees. The problem is that in most cases the leaders and managers who need to work with these new generation employees have not been trained for the relationship economy (and some even battle with the information economy), nor do they personally have this new economy mindset. They are not used to their employees acting like volunteers. They are not loyal to the organisation that employs them – at least not as their parents and grandparents understand loyalty. Rather, for them, the business world and employment provides an opportunity for self development and they see themselves on a continual basis as being marketable in a broader range of job opportunities than just their current employer.¹⁶

This generation requires a different style of leadership and management in order to be motivated and in order to be retained within the environment in which they find themselves. The leadership that predominated in the Industrial era, leadership that was hierarchical in nature, that relied quite a lot on fear and on the machinations of a system, have long been ineffective. Leadership that predominated in the Information era, focussed almost solely on function and performance, on quality, competencies and deliverables, but ignoring the “human” side of the human being, is also coming under strain now. In most businesses today leaders realise that a more “systems-sensitive”¹⁷ and emotionally intelligent approach is required for leadership. Recent business trends specifically include the flattening of hierarchies, decentralisation of control and the distribution of leadership throughout the organisation, as companies start to take more seriously the need by employees for flexibility, humanity and a more adequate integration of their private and business lives.

The corporate world is aware of the changes taking place within society and culture that are requiring new approaches to leadership. Leaders therefore need new skills in addition to the skills that they have had before. It is not that the skills that they had – skills of control, management, supervision, delegation, and other classic leadership stalwarts – are no longer valid or necessary. Leaders still need these skills. But they now need more. In addition to the old skill set, a new skill set is required these days, as leadership takes place in an environment that needs more from these leaders. They need a lot more emotional intelligence. Leaders need better relational skills. Leaders need systems thinking and a system approach to what they are doing.

As we consider this new approach to the workplace and what Corporates have to do in order to attract and retain their best staff, it is interesting to note that many of the techniques that are being suggested in some of the more cutting-edge literature, advocate and suggest techniques that are well known to leaders within non profit organisations¹⁸ , including youth professionals. Being able to keep volunteers happy, to attract them and retain them and motivate them and get the most out of volunteers, does not rely on simply working within a contract of “I pay you money and you work for me”. Working with volunteers and getting them motivated requires understanding the entire “system” that volunteers come from and understanding their needs, their desires and their reasons for doing the work that they are doing on a volunteer basis.

Leading Volunteers

It is therefore the contention of this paper that those people who work in, and have a clear understanding of, the volunteer-based organisation, are in a unique position to be able to provide resources and advice to the corporate world at the start of the 21^st century. Peter Drucker, one of the world’s most famous management consultants, has turned his considerable attentions to the non-profit sector. He has in fact founded a foundation for non-profit leadership and management,¹⁹ and his principles are now being widely applied in volunteer based organisations.²⁰

Of course, non-profit organisations are places that corporate leaders have not often gone to for lessons on leadership and management – perhaps arrogantly they have felt the lessons should flow the other way. And the non-profit sector has a rather bad reputation for being “do-gooders” with little interest in administration and good governance principles. This is, of course, not entirely accurate, and recent corporate scandals show that all economic sectors are open to scandal. It is the contention of this paper that the issue of leadership is much more developed in the non-profit world than in the corporate world. In the non-profit sector, leaders have to deal every day with volunteers – people who could just walk away. This has meant that they have had to develop an empathy and an understanding of the people that they lead in order to get the most out of them. That will mean a daily focus on understanding the needs and aspirations of employees, and changing the role of management into a service mentality towards employees. These lessons can be learnt by looking at successful leadership in volunteer-based organisations. If today’s young people within a corporate environment have a volunteer type mentality and attitude towards their work then certainly some of the leadership qualities evident in good non-profit organisations would be helpful within the corporate environment at the moment.

What the Youth Worker Has to Offer

In the environment briefly sketched above, the youth professional has some serious offerings, including (but not limited to) the following:

1. Understanding youth culture and youth trends. Companies are in dire need of expert understanding of the mind and soul of today’s young people. From a marketing perspective, this understanding is absolutely critical to selling their products into the youth market segment(s).²¹ But more importantly, companies are really battling to attract, motivate and retain the best young people. There is a war for talent²² out there, and to get a competitive advantage in terms of employees, companies (especially personnel departments) need some expert insights into today’s young people. Christian youth professionals have always been at the forefront of understanding developments in youth culture.²³ It is, in a sense, our stock in trade. We are also aware, possibly more than others, of how today’s youth trends are harbingers of future changes in society.²⁴

2. Working with multi-generational teams. One of the biggest issues in the modern workplace is generational conflict. A raft of business books are emerging, attempting to assist companies to understand and deal with the generation gaps at work.²⁵ In this growing field of study and application, Christians have always been at the forefront, and youth professionals have access to world-class materials on generational issues.²⁶

3. Working with volunteers. As described above, the situation in the corporate world is now very much akin to the world youth professionals know very well. Attracting, retaining and motivating volunteers takes a very different set of skills, and an approach to leadership the corporate world needs to understand. There are many models available in the church. The obvious one is “servant leadership”,²⁷ but others include “Principle-centered leadership”²⁸ and “Invitational leadership”.²⁹ Creating an environment in which today’s young people want to participate requires a new approach to motivating them, and will include providing many non-traditional incentives and rewards. Youth professionals may be surprised at the low level of understanding of basic human motivation that exists in the corporate world, and how many of the creative solutions used in youth programmes are easily transferable to the corporate world.

4. New communication techniques. Youth professionals are experts at packaging information in exciting formats that hold the attention of today’s young people. From the use of multimedia and movie and music clips to high level storytelling and the use of analogies, parables and metaphors, youth professionals are amongst the most gifted communicators in the world. Many youth groups also use cutting edge internet, webpage, cell phone and SMS (short message service text messaging) technologies to communicate. Most corporate webpages are little more than digital company brochures, and are not “funky”, exciting or alluring for the digital generation.

5. Pastoral skills. The basic skills of pastoring, including counselling, listening, motivation, gift/talent analysis and personal development are highly prized skills within the corporate world. More and more companies are retaining the services of professional “coaches” and clinical psychologists to assist them with human development. The rise in popularity of TV shows based on pop psychology, from segments on Oprah to Dr Phil is also an indication that these skills are now becoming seen as important within the general community. Whole being wellness is seen as important, and who better than those who can also bring a spiritual dimension to be involved in this emerging aspect of corporate life, than professionals trained in personal formation. The key to applying these skills in the corporate world will obviously be to adapt the overt proselytising motive that often accompanies pastoral work.

6. Getting women involved. It goes without saying that a world where emotional intelligence is becoming more important will also be a world that is more open than ever before for the involvement of women. Many youth professionals work in environments that have pioneered the involvement of women within different church denominations and organisations, and have an understanding of some of the difficulties and challenges faced by women professionals. The corporate world is no different, as a male bastion, and the experiences of those who have paved the way for women to become youth professionals will be useful in the corporate world as well.

Take the First Steps

One of the biggest problems facing youth professionals who wish to make the move to corporate consulting is that of confidence. There is often a feeling that working in a faith-based, non-profit, volunteer-focussed environment is too different, even inferior, to the corporate world. The simple response is that the corporate world has a different vocabulary and a difference scale, but besides that, faces many of the same issues, and operates in the same cultures and contexts that youth professionals do.

In order to bridge the confidence gap, develop and understand the vocabulary, and also fill in actual missing or underdeveloped skills, the following steps are recommended:

1. Read more. There are three categories of books that youth professionals who wish to move into consulting need to be reading: (1) youth culture books written by secular writers,³⁰ in order to see how youth culture is being filtered and analysed by those with no spiritual bias or objective; (2) business books that describe the business environment of the21^st century,³¹ and assist in developing a business vocabulary;³² (3) books to assist you in developing your consulting skills.³³

2. Get real life business experience. One of the dangers in any form of full-time ministry, is that eager young people get involved in youth committees while at school. They are then promoted to youth leaders as they near the end of their schooling (often in a misguided attempt to simply keep them coming to the youth group), and from there fell a call to ministry, and go straight to seminary or into a full-time youth leadership position. They have no “real world” experience, and no understanding of the pressures facing business people. To obtain such experience would be invaluable. This does not require leaving ministry, but rather looking for part-time employment, or, better, even doing “volunteer” type work at businesses owned by people in their church. Simply being in an office environment on a regular basis will be helpful in gaining some perspective on the corporate world. However, youth professionals should not underestimate the skills they do have. A lot of experience in terms of leadership skills, strategy and scenario planning abilities, motivational techniques and people management skills is gained simply by keeping their ministries and organisations functioning, as balance the needs and passions of the volunteers that work with them and for them, with the needs and directives of their donors and sponsors, as well as the needs, desires and interests of the young people that they work for and minister to.

3. Develop a seminar. The easiest way to start consulting, is to simply develop a seminar that you present at free-to-view events. These can include business breakfasts arranged at your church, university or organisation, or school parent’s evenings. The idea is to develop a high-impact presentation that highlights key aspects of youth culture, with application to business. The easiest aspects of business to target are marketing and human resources (staffing and personnel issues, including teamwork, staff motivation and retention, and skills training). Make it clear that you are doing the free presentation as a way of marketing your services to;companies who wish to contract you to deliver the same presentation/seminar for their company, or wish to contract you to work with them to unpack some of your insights in a consulting role for them.

4. Write and broadcast. Most newspapers, magazines, radio talk shows and television actuality shows, will take submissions from the public, and well written/presented, insightful information on youth culture is great content for such media. Don’t be shy to create a website, and start posting a weekly, short and sharp analysis of youth culture and societal trends. Promote this website, and encourage reprinting of the content, with reference back to yourself.

5. Collaborate. There are many consultants and professional speakers who are good at what they do, but don’t have cutting edge content. If there are consultants in your constituency, that you trust and admire, offer your content to them, in exchange for consulting experience and exposure, and a share in the revenue, of course.

6. Create a business plan. It is beyond the scope of this paper to provide details for creating a business plan. Suffice it to say, that the danger for the youth professional is of undercharging for their time, and of not being professionally presented when marketing in the business world. Of course, people within your own constituency may battle to see you in a different context, and want to toss you a few coins for your time, treating you as a youth worker who deserves not much more than a tip and a thank you note. You will need to work hard against this. Do not be discouraged – it does take some time for word of mouth to get around and to develop a reputation for cutting edge content that deserves professional fees.

7. Ask for help. Don’t be scared to pick the brains of business people in your church or community. You will be surprised how helpful many of them are prepared to be if you take them out for a cup of coffee. Don’t be scared to set up formal mentor relationships with Christian business people. In certain circumstances, it may be prudent to create a personal accountability board, with members from your constituency who can provide valuable insights and directions, and also keep you accountable as you head into the corporate arena.

The Potential Benefits

The most obvious benefit of selling youth expertise to the corporate world is financial. The corporate world places a much higher financial value on intellectual capital than the Christian community does, and using your professional expertise should bring financial rewards similar to other professionals in related fields. This is not necessarily self-enrichment, especially if the purpose of the work is tent making. In this case, it becomes a way to redirect funds from the corporate world to ministry activities.

But the benefits are not simply financial. In addition, the youth professional may find personal fulfilment and growth as they develop a new side of their abilities and expertise. This development should result in greater insights into their core speciality and assist them in preparing young people for the changing corporate world. Most youth professionals understand that their role in formation of young people extends well beyond simple spiritual formation. In fact, most understand that spiritual formation cannot take place in a vacuum outside of the formation of the whole person, which includes their vocation and career.

When called to ministry or work amongst young people, youth professionals need to realise that although the primary locus of that ministry would be within the context of a local organisation, such as a church, school, university, or community centre, they must never forget that these local organisations are a very small part of the entire system that young people find themselves in. That is why many youth ministers in particular, for example, are not only involved in just doing ministry on the church campus itself, but also extend their ministry, where possible, given the constraints of the countries and the laws of the land in which they find themselves, into schools, local sporting clubs, and community projects, and even into shopping malls.³⁴ Even so, there are not many youth professionals who have considered a potential role in impacting the local, national and multinational companies that in many instances are involved in the creation and spread of many of the youth trends that we pickup within our youth cultures.

It should be possible, although difficult and not a calling for everybody, for a youth professional to have an impact on the lives of young people in a local community and even around the world, by having an impact on the people and companies who will provide employment for young people in the future and will be able to change the type of environment of the workplace. They can also have an influence over the way in which marketers target their particular markets and the type of messages that they are packaging for the market, especially dealing with issues of ethics around marketing to children and infants.

Conclusion

There is a great opportunity for youth professionals to have an influence on the corporate world at the moment. The benefits for systemic influence of youth culture as well as personal professional development and short-term financial gains are great. In this paper I have not dealt with the ethical questions that could be raised surrounding this thesis. In particular the most important of these is whether by going into the corporate world and helping them to understand youth culture, we may not simply be assisting and oiling the machine we should rather stand against. This of course is a very real issue and I trust that others will pick up where I need to end off in this particular paper, and take this particular debate forward. The purpose of this paper was to open the debate and to allow others to experiment with it on a theological level, on a philosophical level, on an ethical level and of course on a practical level as well.

Dr Graeme Codrington is a business consultant and strategist, with his own consultancy, TomorrowToday.

NOTES

Note that some of these references may be out of date, and some of the websites no longer active

1 There is a reasonably artificial distinction made in these two titles. Reference to a youth minister usually means someone who works within a church or para-church environment, with a particular emphasis on spiritual formation. Youth workers are those who focus more on social, physical and psychological development, often from a non-faith-based organisation. The focus of this paper is on Christian youth professionals, which applies to both youth ministers and Christians engaged in youth work.

2 By “youth professional” in this paper, I mean any individual, ordained/licensed or not, who is paid by an institution or organisation and whose main role is to work with young people of the church and/or community, youth researchers, or any individual whose main task is to teach, train or develop other “youth professionals”. I therefore specifically include full-time researchers, professors and lecturers in youth ministry and youth work in this definition.By “professional” I envisage someone who has an equivalent tertiary academic qualification required in their particular country/culture for other professions, such as lawyers, accountants and engineers.

3 See, for example, L. Kageler’s unpublished research presented at the IASYM Conference in January 2003, “A Global Youth Pastor Salary Survey: Sociological and Ecclesiological Perspectives”.

4 “Tent making” is a traditional evangelical Christian label for people who fully or partially self fund their ministries by doing “secular” work. The Biblical basis that is cited as Paul’s work (Acts 18:1-3, cf. Acts 20:34), which was probably more technically sail repairing in the harbours of the cities he was ministering in.

5 A detailed reading list on the 21st century business and leadership environment and challenges is available at http://www.tomorrowtoday.biz/books.

6 Toffler, A. Future Shock. (London: Bantam Books, 1970).

7 Coats, K. ‘A Glimpse Into The Future: Good News / Bad News For Leaders’, unpublished. Available at http://www.tomorrowtoday.biz/article/article_034.htm.

8 Coats, K. Relationships: The Economic Return of the Future’, unpublished. Available at http://www.tomorrowtoday.biz/article/article_011.htm.

9 The book that did the most to popularise emotional intelligence as a business imperative was D. Goleman’s, Emotional Intelligence. Why it matters more than IQ. (Bantam Books: New York, 1995).

10 Cf. Strauss, W. and Howe, N Generations. (New York: William Morrow, 1991);

Strauss, W. and Howe, N. The Fourth Turning. (New York: Broadway Books, 1997); Codrington, G, Fourie, L. with Grant-Marshall, S. Mind Over Money. (Johannesburg: Penguin, 2002).

11 Collins, J. and Porras, J. Built to Last. (Random House, 2000), p 247.

12 cf. Strauss, W. and Howe, N. 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?(New York: Vintage Books, 1993). They prefer “the 13th Generation”as a moniker. Barna prefers “Baby Busters”. Cf. Barna, G. Baby Busters.(Revised Edition. Chicago: Northfield Publishing, 1994).

13 Jensen, R. The Dream Society. (McGraw-Hill, 1999), p145.

14 Bennis, W., and Thomas, R., Geeks and Geezers.(Harvard Business School Press, 2002).

15 Our anecdotal evidence is backed up by major studies, including those done by Bruce Tulgan, documented in Managing Generation X, and by David Stillman and Lynne C. Lancaster, documented in When Generations Collide, (HarperBusiness, 2002), as well as interviews done by Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas, documented in Geeks and Geezers, and a major study completed by South Africa’s leading employment agency in 2003, the 2003 Kelly Human Capital Satisfaction Survey, see http://www.kelly.co.za/Display_Trend.asp?tT_ID=192.

16 The concept of a branded employee is a theme in some of the latest business books. Peters, T. The Brand You50: Or Fifty ways to transform yourself from an ‘employee’ into a brand that shouts distinction, commitment and passion!(California: Alfred A Knopf, 1999). Also: Ridderstråle, Jonas, and Kjell Nordström. Karaoke Capitalism. (London: FT Prentice Hall, 2003).

17 One of the best books written on leadership from a systems perspective was specifically focussed on leadership in the church context. Armour, M.C.,and Browning, D. Systems-Sensitive Leadership. (College Press Publishing Company, 1995).

18 In an unpublished desktop analysis of literature on the lessons non-profit leadership has for the corporate world, I have found very few authors applying their minds to this. Besides Peter Drucker, the only other decent piece was ‘Nonprofit Leadership – The Leader of the Future’ by David E.K. Cooper, http://www.thepaf.org/palc/ldrship.htm.

19 The Leader to Leader Institute, formerly known as the Drucker Foundation, and the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, http://www.pfdf.org.

20 For example, Stubbs (quoting Drucker, ‘The Age of Social Transformation’)says “I further suggest a good strategy would be to pay attention to the attitudes and actions of non-profit volunteers and donors.”. See Stubbs, Randall A.”A recipe for non-profit success: Managing the linkages… ” In ‘Fund Raising Management’, Jan 1998, Vol. 28 Issue 11, p17.

21 Lopiano-Misdom, J., and De Luca, J. Street Trends: How Today’s Alternative Youth Cultures Are Creating Tomorrow’s Mainstream Markets. (New York: HarperBusiness, 1997).

22 One of the earliest authors to identify this was Bruce Tulgan, who interviewed thousands of young people leaving the corporate world to seek fame and fortune in the Dot Com hype era of the 1990s. Now these young people are free agents, and companies don’t know how to attract or retain them. Tulgan’s latest book is helpful. Winning the Talent Wars. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002).

23 In a sea of books on the topic, Walt Mueller’s center for Parent/Youth Understanding (http://www.cpyu.org) stands out. Mueller, W. Understanding Today’s Youth Culture. (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1994).

24 Most of these types of books, written by Christian authors, have applied an understanding of youth culture trends to the future of the church, rather than the future of society and the corporate world. For example: Rabey, S. In Search of Authentic Faith: How the Emerging Generations are Reshaping the Church. (Waterbrook Press, 2001); and Barna, G. The Frog in the Kettle: What Christians Need to Know About Life in the Year 2000. (Ventura: Regal Books, 1990). It isa reasonably simple step to apply these same thoughts to wider applications of the changing environment and prevailing cultures.

25 The most comprehensive of these include, Zemke, R., and Raines, C. Generations at Work: Managing the Clash of Veterans, Boomers, Xers, and Nexters in Your Workplace. (AMACOM, 2000); Stillman, D., and Lancaster, L.C..When Generations Collide. (HarperBusiness, 2002); and Codrington, G.& Grant-Marshall, S. Mind the Gap. (Penguin: Johannesburg, 2004).

26 The list of Christian books on generational issues is too large to list. The most academic and researched include: Regele, M., & Schulz, M. Death of the Church. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995); Long, J. Generating Hope. (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1997); Ford, K. Jesus for a New Generation. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996); and Harkness, A.G. “Intergenerational Christian Education: An Imperative for Effective Education in Local Churches” in Journal of Christian Education. (Australian Christian Forum on Education vol. 41, No. 2, 1998). Other authors to follow include Zander, Easum, Barna, Armour and Browning, and Bird.

27 This concept was first popularised by Robert Greenleaf, a research manager at AT&T in the early 1970s, using insights from Christian leadership applied to the business world. Others like Ken Blanchard and John Maxwell have pursued similar lines of applying Biblical principles to corporate leadership.

28 Covey, S., Principle-Centered Leadership. (Simon & Schuster, 1991).

29 Coats, K., ‘Invitational Leadership: A Model for the Future.’ in Journal of Youth and Theology. IASYM, Volume 1, Number 2, November 2002.

30 There are many such books, but a good starting point would be: Elkind, D., All Grown Up and No Place To Go – Teenagers In Crisis. (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1984); Rushkoff, D., Playing the Future. (New York: Harper Collins, 1996); Tapscott, D., Growing Up Digital. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998); Strauss, W.,& Howe, N,. Millennials Rising. (New York: Vintage Books, 2000); Chester, E., Employing Generation Why? (Colorado: Tucker House Books, 2002); and Lindstrom, M., BrandChild. (London: Kogan Page, 2003).

31 There are too many to list, and the straining racks of bookstores may be overwhelming to those not versed in business literature. A good starting point would be the book list at http://www.tomorrowtoday.biz/books.

32 Again, there is a vast selection of these types of books. Probably the best selling one of recent years has been Silbiger, S., The 10 Day MBA. (Revised Edition. Quill, 1999). Note that www.Amazon.com indicate that this book is rated 6th best based on purchases by Accenture, one of the world’s leading consultancies.

33 One of the books most recommended by consultants is Weiss, A.,Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional’s Guide to Growing a Practice.(Third Edition. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003).

34 It has long been argued that some ministry can only be effected outside of traditional spiritual environments – so called “outside in” ministry.See in particular, Ward, P., God at the Mall

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1. Towards A Theology of YOUTH Ministry
2. Being Incarnational in Youth Ministry – a theology
3. Five Things Every Adult Christian Should Know About Youth Ministry