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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I am a fan of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show on Comedy Central. Their brand of satire and political commentary appeals to me (even if it is a bit crude sometimes). They pull no punches and have no favourites.

On Monday night, they took a swipe at evangelical Christians who are targeting Mitt Romney’s Mormon beliefs as cultish. They start with an overview of the Republican nomination process thus far. Then they move into their main piece by making fun of Christian beliefs, and although I did squirm a bit, I consoled myself by thinking that their jibes were aimed at a specific version of evangelical Christianity in the USA. But as the clip heads to a conclusion, they target the huge inconsistencies in how Republican Christians in particular are applying their version of the Gospel to life in America, “the 99%” and the divide between rich and poor. This was the best bit for me.

It is a deeply insightful piece of satire, and worth your attention. Watch it below or at The Daily Show website.

PS – if you can’t watch Daily Show videos because they are blocked in your country, let me know in the comments below, and I’ll help you with a work around.

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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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There is much to be afraid of these days. It seems that many people – too many people – are afraid of terror and terrorism. Maybe they have a good reason to be – just look at what happened in Oslo last week, or what is happening across the Middle East everyday. For those with religious inclinations, it seems that one of the antidotes to this fear is to retreat further into religious fundamentalism and extremism. The attitude is very much: “We are right and you are wrong”, leading to “You’re either for us or against us”. Unfortunately, whenever this happens it leads to even more problems, and ultimately even more reasons for fear.

A systems framework that I find helpful is Spiral Dynamics, which attempts to identify various worldviews and chart them in a progression. It seems to me that many people are trapped in the ‘Blue’ (or ‘Amber’ according to Ken Wilber’s formulation) meme/level, which is about the us versus them approach to dealing with issues. It also frequently is associated with a ‘might is right’ approach, where terror is fought with force. (PS, for an excellent book on Christian leadership using systems theory, read “Systems Sensitive Leadership” – buy it at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com)

Sadly, in the midst of this fear, we have somehow come to revere the people who wage the wars. There is a myth that we might not agree with the war leaders, but we should still support the soldiers. In certain circumstances that might be right, but I think it might also just serves to deepen the fear. This is exactly the opposite of the effect it is supposed to have. The country with biggest army is supposed to feel safest, is it not?

Those who serve in militaries around the world are given almost reverential adoration. Now I can understand this (sort of) if those people were conscripted into the military – in other words, if they had no choice about it. And I understand that they face physical danger in their work, which is (notionally at least) to protect their compatriots ‘back home’. But when young men and women make a career choice to join the military, they are doing no more or less than anyone else choosing a career that might be beneficial for their country (including, say, a farmer, a teacher, a nurse or public servant). And they have chosen to do a job that they know will lead them into war – it’s not a surprise, and we should not feel sorry for them. (For the record, in case you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, I was conscripted and saw active duty. I also attended nearly 50 military funerals during that time. This is not an uninformed opinion.)

Brian McLaren, author of “A New Kind of Christianity” wrote an excellent piece on his blog today about “How We Feel Safe …“. He asks whether we feel safer because we’re in control, because we have a big military, because we are at war? He has a point. The anecdotal evidence would say, “No, we don’t feel safer”. But that doesn’t seem to stop the wars in the name of safety (or ‘freedom’).

And then we need to consider the attitudes of the general populations of ‘The West’ towards Islam. This is where the perceived threat is coming from: “Muslim extremists”. The wars to which we send our soldiers are supposedly to stop these muslim extremists from bringing their terror to our shores. But is this story actually true?

Here’s just a quick test to help you judge your own perceptions and bias: The European Union’s 2010 Terrorism Situation and Trend Report has just been released for 2010, and has some fascinating findings. How many terror attacks do you think occurred in 2009 and 2010 in Europe? Of those totals, how many do you think were “Islamist”? Take a moment to ponder these statistics before looking at the answers below.

The report showed that on 2009 there were 294 terror attacks committed in Europe. Only one of those was conducted by Islamists. That’s a third of one percent.

In 2010 there were 249 terror attacks in Europe. Only three of those attacks were carried out by Islamist terrorists. That’s about one percent.

If you’re interested, most of the terror attacks were by separatist groups or anarchists.

(Thanks to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria for pointing me to this report).

How safe are you? What are you afraid of? Are our militaries helping you to be safer? How then should we live?

No related posts.

Desmond Tutu, the irrepressible retired Anglican Bishop from South Africa, is one of my favourite people of all time. His speeches are some of the best in history, and always delivered with verve, humour and passion. He is a remarkable man, and I have had the privilege of meeting him a few times and listening to him speak live.

A collection of his speeches and writings – especially his most controversial ones – has just been published (with two different sub titles, confusingly): “and other provocations” or “speaking truths in times of crisis” (Buy it at Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Kalahari.net).

The Huffington Post provided an extended extract. You can read it here, or below. I have highlighted my favourite bit. It’s from the speech that book is named for: God is not a Christian. What a profound thought.

God Is Not a Christian

This talk comes from a forum in Britain, where Tutu addressed leaders of different faiths during a mission to the city of Birmingham in 1989.

They tell the story of a drunk who crossed the street and accosted a pedestrian, asking him, “I shay, which ish the other shide of the shtreet?” The pedestrian, somewhat nonplussed, replied, “That side, of course!” The drunk said, “Shtrange. When I wash on that shide, they shaid it wash thish shide.” Where the other side of the street is depends on where we are. Our perspective differs with our context, the things that have helped to form us; and religion is one of the most potent of these formative influences, helping to determine how and what we apprehend of reality and how we operate in our own specific context.

My first point seems overwhelmingly simple: that the accidents of birth and geography determine to a very large extent to what faith we belong. The chances are very great that if you were born in Pakistan you are a Muslim, or a Hindu if you happened to be born in India, or a Shintoist if it is Japan, and a Christian if you were born in Italy. I don’t know what significant fact can be drawn from this — perhaps that we should not succumb too easily to the temptation to exclusiveness and dogmatic claims to a monopoly of the truth of our particular faith. You could so easily have been an adherent of the faith that you are now denigrating, but for the fact that you were born here rather than there.

My second point is this: not to insult the adherents of other faiths by suggesting, as sometimes has happened, that for instance when you are a Christian the adherents of other faiths are really Christians without knowing it. We must acknowledge them for who they are in all their integrity, with their conscientiously held beliefs; we must welcome them and respect them as who they are and walk reverently on what is their holy ground, taking off our shoes, metaphorically and literally. We must hold to our particular and peculiar beliefs tenaciously, not pretending that all religions are the same, for they are patently not the same. We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.

We should in humility and joyfulness acknowledge that the supernatural and divine reality we all worship in some form or other transcends all our particular categories of thought and imagining, and that because the divine — however named, however apprehended or conceived — is infinite and we are forever finite, we shall never comprehend the divine completely. So we should seek to share all insights we can and be ready to learn, for instance, from the techniques of the spiritual life that are available in religions other than our own. It is interesting that most religions have a transcendent reference point, a mysterium tremendum, that comes to be known by deigning to reveal itself, himself, herself, to humanity; that the transcendent reality is compassionate and concerned; that human beings are creatures of this supreme, supra mundane reality in some way, with a high destiny that hopes for an everlasting life lived in close association with the divine, either as absorbed without distinction between creature and creator, between the divine and human, or in a wonderful intimacy which still retains the distinctions between these two orders of reality.

When we read the classics of the various religions in matters of prayer, meditation, and mysticism, we find substantial convergence, and that is something to rejoice at. We have enough that conspires to separate us; let us celebrate that which unites us, that which we share in common.

Surely it is good to know that God (in the Christian tradition) created us all (not just Christians) in his image, thus investing us all with infinite worth, and that it was with all humankind that God entered into a covenant relationship, depicted in the covenant with Noah when God promised he would not destroy his creation again with water. Surely we can rejoice that the eternal word, the Logos of God, enlightens everyone — not just Christians, but everyone who comes into the world; that what we call the Spirit of God is not a Christian preserve, for the Spirit of God existed long before there were Christians, inspiring and nurturing women and men in the ways of holiness, bringing them to fruition, bringing to fruition what was best in all. We do scant justice and honor to our God if we want, for instance, to deny that Mahatma Gandhi was a truly great soul, a holy man who walked closely with God. Our God would be too small if he was not also the God of Gandhi: if God is one, as we believe, then he is the only God of all his people, whether they acknowledge him as such or not. God does not need us to protect him. Many of us perhaps need to have our notion of God deepened and expanded. It is often said, half in jest, that God created man in his own image and man has returned the compliment, saddling God with his own narrow prejudices and exclusivity, foibles and temperamental quirks. God remains God, whether God has worshippers or not.

This mission in Birmingham to which I have been invited is a Christian celebration, and we will make our claims for Christ as unique and as the Savior of the world, hoping that we will live out our beliefs in such a way that they help to commend our faith effectively. Our conduct far too often contradicts our profession, however. We are supposed to proclaim the God of love, but we have been guilty as Christians of sowing hatred and suspicion; we commend the one whom we call the Prince of Peace, and yet as Christians we have fought more wars than we care to remember. We have claimed to be a fellowship of compassion and caring and sharing, but as Christians we often sanctify sociopolitical systems that belie this, where the rich grow ever richer and the poor grow ever poorer, where we seem to sanctify a furious competitiveness, ruthless as can only be appropriate to the jungle.

Source: Huffington Post

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I don’t think we should. I think this is a moment to show the world how different Christian faith is – and what a difference Christ makes in the world. By the way, I don’t think the world is a safer place tonight. At least in the near future it’s just got a little bit scarier – especially since I am planning four trips to the USA in the next six weeks.

Two articles published today in Christianity Today helped me to think through this issue a bit more thoroughly, and I recommend them to you.

Firstly, Gideon Strauss, CEO of the Center for Public Justice, argues that “Yes, Justice Has Been Done in the Killing of Osama bin Laden”, but our response as Christians must be marked by knowledge of our own depravity. Read his article here.

His points are Biblical and theological. Proverbs 24:17 says: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles.” And Ezekiel 18:23: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?”

He understands that we have a desire for retribution, and acknowledges that God understands this (see Psalm 137). “But beyond this immediate response, understandable as it is, I believe it is necessary for Christians to pause, and to consider the death of Osama bin Laden within the deeper perspective of human sin and divine grace. In the end, no death should give us pleasure…. Our best next response, I believe, to the news of Osama bin Laden’s death, after we have sought our own hearts for the wickedness that resides in all of us, and have thanked God for his amazing grace that has rescued us from our own evil, is to join President Obama on May 5, this year’s National Day of Prayer, ‘in giving thanks for the many blessings we enjoy’ and ‘in asking God for guidance, mercy, and protection for our nation.’ And perhaps we can add a prayer for our enemies, that God may win them to himself and in his own good time bring into the relations between this nation and those who now seek her destruction some foretaste of the just peace of his world to come.”

But an even more profound response was written by Michael Horton, Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary, CA. He titled it: “The Death of Osama bin Laden: What Kind of Justice Has Been Done?” The news should again remind us of the difference between the City of Man and the City of God. You can read it here, or an extended extract below.

The Death of Osama bin Laden: What Kind of Justice Has Been Done?

The news should again remind us of the difference between the City of Man and the City of God.
Michael Horton, Christianity Today, 1 May 2011

Understandably, news of Osama bin Laden’s demise at the hands of U. S. Navy Seals provoked cries of celebration. The mastermind of terror, even against civilians (indeed, against fellow Muslims) has been brought to justice. But what kind of justice?

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush authorized “Operation Infinite Justice.” Especially after his comment that “this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while,” however, the mission was renamed “Operation Enduring Freedom.” Reportedly, the name-change was due at least in part to the concern raised by Muslims that only God can execute “infinite justice.” One would have hoped that the change had been provoked instead by Christian reaction.

Islam, of course, is not just a religion; it’s a cultural and even geo-political reality. As such, its strict adherents excoriate co-religionists like Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im who call for an “Islamic Reformation” that would make jihad into a spiritual struggle rather than an armed military conflict.

Unfortunately, Christianity has had a long and complicated history of its own on this score. On one hand, the fourth-century theologian Augustine responded to the sacking of Rome with a detailed scriptural argument for two cities: the City of Man and the City of God. Each city has its own origins, ends, and means. As citizens of both kingdoms, every believer is called to recognize the difference between them. Compared with the City of God, the City of Man is hardly a true commonwealth. It cannot ensure ultimate peace, security, justice, and love. Nevertheless, Augustine argues, it can still be considered a commonwealth in a limited, provisional, and penultimate sense. Out of these reflections (especially in the City of God) there arose a legacy of just war theory and a Christian realism about the legitimacy and limitation of human societies in this time between the times.

Nevertheless, the Middle Ages gave rise to a fusion of Christ and culture known as “Christendom.” In the name of Christendom, kings and their knights rode off to crusades with papal blessing, as David and the hosts of Yahweh redivivus, cleansing the Holy Land of infidels.

In spite of its own contradictions in practice, the magisterial Reformation sought to distinguish between the kingdom of Christ, which conquers by Word and Spirit, and the kingdoms of this age that are given the divine authority to defend temporal justice. Drawing on the New Testament and church fathers, especially Augustine, the reformers realized that there was no theocracy in the new covenant; all nation-states were “secular” in the sense of being common rather than holy. With no holy land, there can be no holy war. Only just wars, based on natural law.

But ideas like “Christendom” die hard. We saw that with the memorial service after 9/11. Held in a building popularly known as the “National Cathedral,” with military honor guards processing and the strains of “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” announcements of a resolve to secure infinite justice in an open-ended “crusade” provided fodder for Islamic extremists in their effort to replay ancient battles. A romantic patriotism has always seethed beneath the professed separation of church and state, as in the famous “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Written by a Unitarian, the hymn confuses Union victory with Christ’s final judgment. Something very close to “infinite justice.”

Cultures are the most dangerous when they invoke holy texts for their defense of holy land through holy war. However, Christians have no biblical basis for doing this in the first place. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus clearly abrogated the ceremonial and civil law that God had given uniquely to the nation of Israel. Now is the era of common grace and common land, obeying rulers—even pagan ones—and living under constitutions other than the one that God gave through Moses. As Paul reminds us in Romans 13, secular rulers are given the power of the temporal sword—finite justice—while the gospel conquers in the power of the Spirit through that Word “above all earthly pow’rs.”

What does all of this mean for our response to the news about the most notorious terrorist in recent history?

First, it means that we can rejoice that even in this present evil age, God’s common grace and common justice are being displayed through secular authorities…. Yet the divine wrath that rulers execute is temporal and finite rather than eternal and infinite. Such justice is never so pure that it is unmingled with injustice, never so final that it satisfies God’s eternal law. In view of the image of God stamped on every person, justice must always be tempered by love. Commenting on Genesis 9:6, John Calvin reminded us that we cannot hate even our most perverse enemies, because of the image of God in them….

Second, it means that we cannot rejoice in the death of the wicked any more than does God (Ezek. 18:23). We may take satisfaction that temporal justice has been served, but Christians should display a sober restraint…. [Christ] calls us to pray for our enemies, even for those who persecute us (Matt. 5:44). This is the day of salvation, calling sinners to repent and believe the gospel. We may delight in the temporal justice shown to evildoers, but leave the final justice to God.

….

So as we take satisfaction in the honorable service of U.S. forces in bringing a terrorist to justice in the court of the temporal city, let us never dare to confuse this with “the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10). In our response, let us use this opportunity to display to our non-Christian neighbors the radical contrasts between the biblical view of God, humanity, redemption, and the last judgment, and the religious and secularist distortions—even those that profess to be Christian.

Michael Horton is J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary in Escondido, California, and author of The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way. “Speaking Out” is Christianity Today’s guest opinion column and (unlike an editorial) does not necessarily represent the opinion of the publication.

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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.

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Just a few days ago, one of the world’s most famous animals died. Knut was a polar bear who was born in captivity at the Berlin Zoological Garden. Rejected by his mother at birth, he was raised by zookeepers. He became a celebrity, even making it onto the cover of Vanity Fair magazine (twice, by the way – also sharing the cover with Leonardo di Caprio).

On 19 March, Knut collapsed and died in his enclosure. He was four years old. He had a seizure due to encephalitis, a swelling of the brain triggered by an infection, and collapsed into his pool where he drowned.

This story got me thinking. My understanding is that many animals exhibit a sixth sense when it comes to health and nature. They seem to be able to sense, anticipate, connect and communicate things that go beyond the ‘normal’. Knut’s mother strangely rejected both him and his brother who was born on the same day. Knut’s brother died of an infection when he was only four days old.

Could it be that Knut’s mother somehow knew that her two cubs were not “viable”? My understanding is that this may very well have been the case. In the animal world, it makes sense to abandon animals if they are not able to contribute. It takes up too many valuable resources to care for animals that will just die anyway.

I don’t know if Knut’s mother knew this. But it does provide an interesting starting point for discussions we’re going to have to have in the next decade or so.

As we continue to increase life expectancy, and as our medical and technical knowledge and expertise improves to the point where we can prolong our lives and fight off disease, we may very well reach the point of having to decide which lives are worth saving and which not. These decisions may very well relate to how we value people and their ability to contribute to society. Of course, in reality, this is happening already. Poor people have very few choices when it comes to health. Rich people can spend their wealth on prolonging their lives.

The difficulty will start in countries that have social medicine and limited budgets. At what point do we decide who can be treated (saved) and who has a disease that does not deserve treatment? When it’s public money being spent, how do we decide between one person and another? As we live ever longer, these choices will become starker.

Maybe animals like Knut’s mother do have the ability to work out quickly which of their fellows are worth saving and which not. Do we? And even if we did, should we not differentiate ourselves from the animals in some way – specifically by caring for the weak and outcast of society?

But how do we make these decisions? I think this may be one of the defining moral issues of my generation.

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A recent article in the Huffington Post has caused a bit of a stir amongst conservative evangelicals. It simply aimed to point out an objective fact: that more and more Christians are questioning the church’s traditional response to homosexuality. For some, this is another sign of the crumbling of the orthodoxy of Christianity. For others, it is a sign of hope that Christianity can continue to escape its prejudices and past (they cite examples of how the church treated non-whites, women, slaves and others).

Whatever your view on the church’s current response to homosexuality, this article is worth reading and reflecting on. You can read it at The Huffington Post, or an extract below:

Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?

by Cathleen Falsani, Huffington Post, 13 Jan 2011

Some of my dearest friends are gay.

Most of my dearest friends are Christians.

And more than a few of my dearest friends are gay Christians.

As an evangelical, that last part is not something that, traditionally and culturally, I’m supposed to say out loud. For most of my life, I’ve been taught that it’s impossible to be both openly gay and authentically Christian.

When a number of my friends “came out” shortly after our graduation from Wheaton College in the early ’90s, first I panicked and then I prayed.

What would Jesus do? I asked myself (and God).

According to biblical accounts, Jesus said very little, if anything, about homosexuality. But he spent loads of time talking, preaching, teaching and issuing commandments about love.

That was my answer: Love them. Unconditionally, without caveats or exceptions.

I wasn’t sure whether homosexuality actually was a sin. But I was certain I was commanded to love.

For 20 years, that answer was workable, if incomplete. Lately, though, it’s been nagging at me. Some of my gay friends are married, have children and have been with their partners and spouses as long as I’ve been with my husband.

Loving them is easy. Finding clear theological answers to questions about homosexuality has been decidedly not so.

That’s why I’m grateful for a growing number of evangelical leaders who are bravely offering a different answer.

In his new book Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society, Jay Bakker, the son of Jim Bakker and the late Tammy Faye Messner, gives clear and compelling answers to my nagging questions.

Simply put, homosexuality is not a sin, says Bakker, 35, pastor of Revolution NYC, a Brooklyn evangelical congregation that meets in a bar.

Bakker, who is straight and divorced, crafts his argument using the same “clobber scriptures” (as he calls them) that are so often wielded to condemn homosexuals.

“The simple fact is that Old Testament references in Leviticus do treat homosexuality as a sin … a capital offense even,” Bakker writes. “But before you say, ‘I told you so,’ consider this: Eating shellfish, cutting your sideburns and getting tattoos were equally prohibited by ancient religious law.

“The truth is that the Bible endorses all sorts of attitudes and behaviors that we find unacceptable (and illegal) today and decries others that we recognize as no big deal.”
Leviticus prohibits interracial marriage, endorses slavery and forbids women to wear trousers. Deuteronomy calls for brides who are found not to be virgins to be stoned to death, and for adulterers to be summarily executed.

“The church has always been late,” Bakker told me in an interview this week. “We were late on slavery. We were late on civil rights. And now we’re late on this.”

Examining the original Greek words translated as “homosexual” and “homosexuality” in three New Testament passages, Bakker (and others) conclude that the original words have been translated inaccurately in modern English.

What we read as “homosexuals” and “homosexuality” actually refers to male prostitutes and the men who hire them. The passages address prostitution — sex as a commodity — and not same-sex, consensual relationships, he says.

(The word “homosexual” first appeared in an English-language Bible in 1958. Bakker is part of a group petitioning Bible publishers to remove the words “homosexual” and “homosexuality” from new translations and replace it with terms that more precisely reflect the original Greek.)

“We must weigh all the evidence,” Bakker writes. “The clobber scriptures don’t hold a candle to the raging inferno of grace and love that burns through Paul’s writing and Christ’s teaching. And it’s a love that should be our guiding light.”

Bakker’s clear voice on homosexuality is not alone in the evangelical community.

Tony Jones, a “theologian-in-residence” at Minnesota’s Solomon’s Porch, one of the pre-eminent “Emergent” churches in the nation, echoes many of Bakker’s arguments. Peggy Campolo, wife of evangelist Tony Campolo, has been saying this kind of thing for years, despite her husband’s disagreement.

And while he stops short of explicitly saying “it’s not a sin” in his 2010 book, A New Kind of Christianity, Brian McLaren, godfather of the Emergent church movement, condemns a Christian preoccupation with homosexual issues as “fundasexuality.”

“We could really use someone like Rob Bell to step forward and say this, too,” Bakker said in the interview, referring to the 40-year-old pastor of the Michigan megachurch Mars Hill and author of bestselling books such as Velvet Elvis and Sex God.

Bell, a classmate of mine at Wheaton, is a rock star in emerging Christian circles, despite eschewing the “Emergent” label or any other apart from “Christ follower.”

Only time will tell whether more evangelical leaders — Emergent, emerging or otherwise — will add their voices to the chorus calling for full and unapologetic inclusion of homosexuals in the life of the church.

But I’m sensing a change in the wind (and the Spirit.)

Might the evangelical church be on the verge of a Gay Awakening?

I prayerfully hope so.

A version of this column first appeared via Religion News Service.

Cathleen Falsani is author of Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace, The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers and The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People.

Source: The Huffington Post

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This post was originally written on 15 January 2009, on the previous version of my blog

The Times (UK) published a thought-provoking article last week, by an avowed atheist who is often critical of organised religion and Christianity. Yet, his thoughts on what is needed in Africa are refreshing and exciting for those of us who believe there is a different way of being and doing Christian in the world today.

This is worth a read. The original is online here.

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa’s biggest problem – the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset
by Matthew Parris

Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it’s Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

I used to avoid this truth by applauding – as you can – the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It’s a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.

But this doesn’t fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.

First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world – a directness in their dealings with others – that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.

At 24, travelling by land across the continent reinforced this impression. From Algiers to Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, then right through the Congo to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, four student friends and I drove our old Land Rover to Nairobi.

We slept under the stars, so it was important as we reached the more populated and lawless parts of the sub-Sahara that every day we find somewhere safe by nightfall. Often near a mission.

Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers – in some ways less so – but more open.

This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. “Privately” because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.

It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man’s place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.

There’s long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: “theirs” and therefore best for “them”; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours.

I don’t follow this. I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the “big man” and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition.

Anxiety – fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things – strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and, call it fear or respect, a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won’t take the initiative, won’t take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders.

How can I, as someone with a foot in both camps, explain? When the philosophical tourist moves from one world view to another he finds – at the very moment of passing into the new – that he loses the language to describe the landscape to the old. But let me try an example: the answer given by Sir Edmund Hillary to the question: Why climb the mountain? “Because it’s there,” he said.

To the rural African mind, this is an explanation of why one would not climb the mountain. It’s… well, there. Just there. Why interfere? Nothing to be done about it, or with it. Hillary’s further explanation – that nobody else had climbed it – would stand as a second reason for passivity.

Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I’ve just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.

Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.

And I’m afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.

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