War
Let me talk about an important book bearing on the American scene.
Sebastian Junger’s War (New York, 2010) is a specifically non-religious book, but with great relevance to assessments of the effects and experience of war in Afghanistan for American troops. Junger ‘embedded’ himself with the ultimate front line troops in a far flung outpost of Afghanistan to experience daily life in combat.
This book is not for the faint-hearted, nor for those who cannot ‘blank’ or ‘beep’ in their minds over the fairly frequent expletives. What makes it interesting, and important, is that it describes life as it appears to really be for those who are on the front line of fighting in Afghanistan from the perspective of an eyewitness, and a sympathetic ‘embedded’ eyewitness at that. Junger is, it seems, non-religious himself, or at least attempts to explain the phenomenon of war and the comradeship that it produces from a strictly atheistic evolutionist point of view. He wants to know why it is that young men will die for each other, or risk probable death. His answer is that the experience of a small group of soldiers on the front line imitates the evolutionary predisposition of the tribe, where individuals are genetically advantaged to sacrifice for each other for the sake of the continued blood line of the tribal group. Of course, soldiers are not themselves genetically related to each other, but they begin to act like it, he thinks. They are not just friends and comrades; they are brothers. And that is why they will die for each other. He is pretty sure it has nothing, or very little, to do with the high-minded principles or politics that may (or may not) be behind this or any other war. People sacrifice for each other in combat out of the evolutionary version of what Christians might call love.
Why they volunteer
The other question Junger seems to be trying to answer through his fascinating, bloody, and quite disturbing, account is why it is that young men volunteer for such combat. Why do they go back? Why do they seek it out? As disturbing as any of the harrowing battle scenes, or barracks behaviour and language (and they are disturbing), is his answer to this question: young men go back because, he thinks, they enjoy it. This is the secret that people do not want told. They do not enjoy killing, as such; he is not saying soldiers are sadists — very far from it. He is saying that the on the edge sheer thrill of the not knowing when the next shot is coming or where from, how you will survive the next fire fight, and all the rest, means that soldiers in this situation begin actually to long for the next fire fight out of sheer boredom or frustration. And when they finish their term on the front line they sometimes volunteer right back up.
My guess is that Junger is right to some degree about both these observations, though I would bring a totally different worldview and interpretative grid to the data. The importance of this book for the American (and British as well, let it be said) church is that the effects of war on society are not short lived. People who are used to the code of ‘blood in and blood out’ (where each new arrival to the team will be ceremonially beaten up) are a different mission field, and more complex to re-civilise. In a rather naff and cheesy interpretation of this phenomenon from the different Vietnam war see the movie First Blood.
Josh Moody,
Wheaton, Illinois
War by Sebastian Junger is published in America by Twelve, ISBN 978-0446556248.
Environmentalism USA
The growing environmental crisis in the (Mexican) Gulf, following the breakage of the BP oil pipe, is doing something unexpected to evangelical environmental concerns: there is a developing tenderness. Dr. Moore, Senior Vice President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes winsomely and captivatingly about his epiphany after his recent exposure to the issue in the Gulf area.
Liberal agenda?
For some reason, being willing to say that polluting things is bad, makes people sick, and ruins peoples’ lives can sound to some ears like a ‘liberal’ agenda. I’m not sure why. Well, I could have a go at explaining it, extrapolating from various historical antecedents and shifts in emphasis from a God-centred gospel to a social gospel, or that tendency for the discussion to be hijacked by those with Mother Earth, Gaia, ‘crunchy’, organic, no-deodorant kind of agendas. But, on the other hand, millions of barrels of oil spilling into the sea is a problem in no uncertain terms; it kills people and cultures, destroys habitats for God’s creation. And more.
Buying time
I actually personally have some sympathy for D.L. Moody’s famed quotation that caring about social justice matters, or the equivalent, is merely ‘polishing brass on a sinking ship’. Except the end will be by fire (2 Peter 3.10-13), not water. That sympathy is not just because we share a name… there is a real tendency today so to emphasise the social, the cultural, the environmental, the corporate, the roles of justice, and care for the poor, that we lose the emphasis that we must have on public and personal verbal witness to the gospel that saves. But, as saved people, we are to be ‘salt and light’. And, as most commentators seem to agree, being salt means acting as a moral preservative, salt being the ancient world’s equivalent of a refrigerator to stop meat going bad. Our actions, our deeds and our lifestyle, morally speaking, are intended to have a preservative effect on the world around us. Culturally. Morally. And, yes, surely, environmentally. We are buying time for people to repent and turn to Christ. We are witnessing to the creation order all around us.
Creation mandate
We are fulfilling a ‘creation mandate’ (though that phrase can be overdone, perhaps, as I heard someone say recently). We are Great Commandment people (Love God, Love your Neighbour), as well as Great Commission people — in John Stott’s memorably synthesis.
I’m not an instinctive environmentalist. I like efficiency and speed and getting things done, fast food and a fast lifestyle. But I suspect a visit to the Gulf might make anyone tender.
Western evangelicalism and 'postmodernism'
I understand the normal apologetic narrative of evangelicalism’s standard engagement with contemporary culture, and by and large agree with it.
Typically, we are told, that we now live in an age where ‘modern’ scientific certainty has given way, or is in process of giving way, to more ‘postmodern’ relativistic assumptions about the meaning of life. Along with this shift, and at its root, is an epistemological issue, which impacts how our language, conversation, preaching, evangelism and truth claims are made, or heard to be made at the least.
And connected to it is a different attitude towards morality, whereby the queen of moral achievement is a tolerant society where there is freedom to think and be whatever you want, as long as you also accept that anyone else can think and be whatever they want. This is not a free society in the ‘old’, ‘modern’, sense but relativistic pluralism, where truth is dependent on perspective and whereby there is nothing worse than saying or thinking that someone else’s behaviour is wrong, or even suspect.
Such a restrictive morality is viewed—ironically—as immoral, in the postmodern mindset, because it arrogantly appropriates to an individual or community what is impossible, and is really a species of power move designed to control other people through ideological moves.
More recent shifts
It feels, in fact, very fin de siécle; yet for all the lacunae of such an analysis, and its undoubted accuracy with regard to the basic gut relativism of your average ‘man on the street’, there have been some shifts lately in Western society which are not fully able to be categorised under ‘postmodernism’.
Like the 1920s
I write this reflecting on some reports on conferences held recently on this side of the Atlantic that seem to be employing rhetoric about epistemological postmodernism that I remember from the mid-1990s, if not earlier. Yet, since then, our consumer society—an implicit part of much of this fin de siécle mindset—is facing up to an economic crisis the likes of which we have not seen since the 1930s. I wonder whether the roaring 20s (with their own version of decadent modernism) is giving way to a great depression set of issues, as we move similarly from the roaring 1990s to a post-bubble West, a West laden with massive economic debt. Similarly, we are also now not in an increasingly globally peaceful society where relativism seems to be paving the way to halcyon days, but in a post-9/11 society, where massive ‘modernistic’ (‘medieval’?) forces of ancient religion are creating havoc around the world. I also think, purely from the academic point of view, that it is interesting to note that the main original force of postmodernism (architectural) has given way to a new modernism in style. I’m not sure what that means, but I’m pretty sure it means something.
Another postmodernism
I’m not saying that there is nothing to epistemological non-foundationalist shifts, the new hermeneutic, relativistic mindsets, and more. I’m just saying that a postmodernism that is also post-9/11 and post-economic credit crisis, and post- postmodern in the original academic circle that first gave birth to the nomenclature, is a series of moves that should nuance our approach. It is not by accident, perhaps, that while we are still thinking in ‘postmodern’ terms nearly exclusively in some circles, the great attacks on Christian faith in recent years have not come from a relativistic standpoint but from the ultimately modern, and epistemologically modern, assumptions of scientists like Dawkins and authors like Hitchens. And it also needs to be taken into account that globally speaking the whole genre of postmodern discussion feels nearly meaningless to a sub-Saharan African and the like.
I’m not saying we should abandon all our attempts to deal with (post)modern relativistic pluralism. Nor am I saying that we should only engage with traditional evidentialist apologetics in counterbalance to Dawkins and his kin. I’m just saying that a post-9/11, and post-credit crisis, world is at the very least a different sort of postmodernism.
Josh Moody,
Wheaton, Illinois
Glossary of terms
Epistemology—the study of knowledge and belief.
Postmodernism—is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth.
Lacunae—gaps or missing parts.
Fin de siécle—relating to or characteristic of the end of a century (especially the end of the 19th century).
Postmodern relativistic pluralism—seeks to give place to the ‘local’ nature of truth, beliefs are held to be true within the context of the communities that hold them.
The Ten Commandments of Preaching
I recently did a seminar on preaching for the European Leadership Forum in Hungary--http://euroleadership.org/. I used the pneumonic ‘E-X-P-O-S-I-T-O-R-Y’ for the ten commandments of preaching. These are some of the notes from which I spoke.
E—Evangelistic. Gospel preaching must have an evangelist edge. You might not have an altar call but you’ve got to call people to the altar.
X—Excellence. It’s hard work. You need sweat to make it sweet.
P—Proclamation. Certainly, all preaching is dialogic in mood though monologic formally. But there is an essential authority to the preaching of God’s Word. God’s Word need be preached winsomely but must not be preached wimpishly.
O—Organization. Structure and lack of it is the hidden failing of many an otherwise good sermon.
S—Scripture. Preaching is to bleed the Bible. If as JI Packer says the Bible is God preaching then preaching is re-preaching the Bible. All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for: not just the authority of Scripture but the sufficiency of Scripture is the mandate of the preacher (2 Tim. 3:16 etc.)
I—Inspiration. I mean here the inspiration in the sense of anointing, and in the sense of the work of the Holy Spirit. Great preaching has the sense that the Holy Spirit is at work, that God the Holy Spirit is speaking (“The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God”), and that the preacher – mysteriously – is talking about me with a word from God.
T—Teaching. The British preacher Dick Lucas makes the point that the difference between the seed that fell on the good soil and produced many times what was sown and the other soils was that the good soil “understood” the Word. Clarity, teaching, instruction. Preaching is not just a vision moment; it is instruction. Clarity. Crystal clarity. Preach not to be understood but so that you cannot be misunderstood.
O—Oratory. There is a false fake rhetoric, and there is a sublime biblical rhetoric, what the Puritans used to call “Plain Preaching.” Not boring preaching, but plain as in ‘straightforward.’ Paul describes the same thing at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 2 and 2 Corinthians 4.
R—Relational. Preaching as a pastor, and to some extent all preaching, has a relational subtext. Preaching is to be an expression of love (“Christ loves compels us”) not an expression of control. The counseling room informs the pulpit, and vice versa.
Y—You. Having written a book called ‘The God-Centered Life’ this might be a surprising point to finish on. But preaching if it is not merely truth mediated through personality, in the famous Haddon Robinson phrase, is at least a personal encounter. It is “live.” Lloyd-Jones used to say that his ambition was to be himself, or words to that effect. Don’t copy someone else; strive to be you in the pulpit, in the sanctified, Holy Spirit filled, godly sense of ‘you.’
George Whitefield: the First Blogger
Whitefield’s journals have long occupied pride of place on the eighteenth century section of my Church History bookcase, snuggled up nicely against Jonathan Edwards (co-laborers), and jostling happily against the rather different Benjamin Franklin. Whitefield is the model par excellence for all mass movement evangelists, from DL Moody to Billy Sunday, to Billy Graham. Whitefield has sometimes been described as ‘the divine dramatist,’ and however controversial that appellation was to generations of evangelicals who have lauded Whitefield’s spirituality and not just his rhetoric, there is little doubt that he was golden tongued. Mind you, it helps when your message is basically ‘be born again’ in one form or another over and over again as you itinerate around the British Isles, and across the eastern coast of America.
Whitefield was a social activist, if such an anachronism be allowed, as well as an evangelist. He founded a well-known orphanage which became the vehicle for many of his evangelistic events, and pioneered consistent and determined fund raising for the orphanage. Actors at the time longed to be able to pronounce words like Whitefield did. One, the most famous of his day, said in effect that he would give anything to be able to say “Mesopotamia” like Whitefield. You suspect it was a little tongue-in-cheek, if not nicely damning with faint praise, but still it does witness to a certain form of admiration. More startling still, the before-mentioned Benjamin Franklin witnessed to Whitefield’s extraordinary preaching power by pacing out the sheer number of people through mathematical deduction that could still hear clearly in the open air without any amplification every word of Whitefield’s preaching and found it to be a number in the tens of thousands. This man had a pretty serious pair of lungs. Franklin also came determined not to give Whitefield a penny, but bit by bit found himself emptying his whole purse into the offering. Whitefield and the very different Franklin formed something of an unlikely partnership, with Whitefield trying to convert Franklin and (unless my historical memory fails me) Whitefield staying at Franklin’s home and, more to the point, Whitefield’s journals being published by Franklin.
It is the journals which are the model of blogging. You know what I mean. I understand that the internet had not been invented, and that technology forms its own impact upon content, and that blogs are extremely various in their spiritual (let alone ethical) quality. You know what I mean. I’m just saying that there is something interesting in the way that Whitefield used his own experiences of God at work to publish as near concurrent, edited carefully no doubt, but journals of the events in which Whitefield himself was involved. They became fuel for the revival, and in this I sense something of a model for modern day bloggers.
The task is not simply to talk a lot, nor is it simply to record a lot or accurately. The task is to record in such a way that points out salutary lessons and, even more, helps encourage and inspire further positive developments. This is a little different from pure journalism, or historical writing, of course, but lest anyone think that making use of data for God’s purpose is twisting the data, reflect on the sovereignty of God and the truthfulness to which we as Christians are called. Sometimes data feels unsalutary but can nonetheless be an example of how God uses bad things for our good and His glory – and all the rest.
So here it is: Whitefield The First Blogger.
Go buy George Whitefield’s “Journals.” Be edified. And go and do thou likewise.
Of course, Whitefield’s success was deeply divinely sent and dependent on God’s unique anointing and power, or rather (which is the same) on the power of the gospel itself, not Whitefield’s rhetoric. There’s a nice story of one of Whitefield’s sermons being simply read in his absence in Scotland and revival breaking out. No orator present. Just the gospel. That’s something to blog about too.
Economist Bruce Howard on the current state of the global economy
Bruce Howard is a professor of business and economics at Wheaton College (Wheaton, Illinois). He maintains a professional association with Tyndale House Publishers and also has experience in the fields of health care administration and banking. He took a few moments to talk with us about the current economic situation.
GCL: Has everything changed economically, or is it all the same, or is it somewhere in between?
BH: Who said the more things change, the more things stay the same?
GCL: What’s changed?
BH: The value of financial and housing assets has decreased by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Thousands of people have lost their homes and many thousands more have lost their jobs.
Many formerly credible institutions (like GNMA) have lost their credibility.
GCL: What hasn’t changed?
BH: All the good people willing to work are still here waiting and willing to do their part to create goods and services that people need and want.
All the physical capital we had before the melt-down of the financial capital world is still here and available for use.
God’s plan and desire for people to flourish in this world is still intact.
Economic activity is still one of the domains available to people throughout the world that provides an opportunity for people to flourish.
Markets are still morally neutral. Markets have no ability to discern good from evil. Markets still only reflect the values that we bring to the marketplace each and every day.
GCL: What values are needed?
BH: Some timeless values that come to mind, especially at a time like this are
- People are more important than things.
- Treat other people as you want to be treated.
- Truth matters at all levels.
- Leave things a little better than you find them.
- Give people a good cause to live for that is greater than themselves.
- Respect freedom.
- Respect community.
- Respect the rule of law.
- Value vocation.
To the extent that we all consistently bring and exercise these values to the marketplace, the more good changes we’ll see in the economic world.
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