Pioneer Missionary Adoniram Judson

Greetings All!

     After a week in Costa Rica I am back to sending out the weekly thought!  And being in that foreign context led me to choose sending out this encouraging account regarding a missionary who struggled for many years in a foreign context before seeing any fruit whatsoever. I trust that you (especially if you are active in sharing the faith) will be encouraged by it.  It comes to you from "The One Year Book of Christian History" by Michael and Sharon Rusten.  Enjoy.

     
     "Pioneer missionary Adoniram Judson graduated from Brown University as valedictorian at the age of nineteen, and in 1810 graduated in the first class of Andover Theological Seminary.  After much prayer, he and his wife (Ann Hasseltine) sailed from the docks in Salem, Massachusetts, to the predominantly Buddhist country of Burma (now Myanmar), arriving in 1813.  Shortly thereafter he was joined by two other missionaries. However, after six years of labor not one Burmese had trusted in Christ.

     Then on June 6, 1819, Judson received a letter from Moung Nau, a Burmese man who had shown great interest in the gospel but up to this point had not acted on it.  The letter read:  "I Moung Nau, the constant recipient of your excellent favor, approach your feet. Whereas my Lord's three (ie: Judon and the other two missionaries) come to the country of Burma -- not for the purposes of trade, but to preach the religion of Jesus Christ, the Son of the eternal God -- I, having heard and understood, am, with a joyful mind, filled with love. I believe that the divine Son, Jesus Christ, suffered death in the place of men, to atone for their sins. Like a heavy-laden man, I feel my sins are very many. The punishment of my sins I deserve to suffer. Since it is so, do you, sirs, consider that I, taking refuge in the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, and receiving baptism, in order to become his disciple, shall dwell as one with yourselves, a band of brothers, in the happiness of heaven, and therefore grant me the ordinance of baptism. It is through the grace of Jesus Christ that you, sirs, have come by ship from one country and continent to another and that we have met together. I pray the Lord's three that a suitable day may be appointed, and that I may receive the ordinance of baptism. Moreover, as it is only since I have met with you, sirs, that I have known about the eternal God, I venture to pray that you will still unfold to me the religion of God, that my old disposition may be destroyed, and my new disposition improved."

     Three weeks later Moung Nau was baptized, and the barrier of unbelief was broken. What enabled Adoniram Judson to faithfully labor so many years before seeing any fruit from his labors? We can see evidence of his motivation in the following lines, which he penciled on the inner cover of a book he used in his translation of the Bible into Burmese:

     "In joy or in pain,
     Our course be onward still;
     We sow on Burma's barren plain;
     We reap on Zion's hill."

     After thirty-seven years as a missionary in Burma, Judson could look back not only on good times, but also on extremely difficult times. He was imprisoned for 20 months between 1824-1826. The sufferings and brutalities of those 20 long months in prison -- half-starved, iron-fettered, and sometimes trussed and suspended by his mangled feet with only head and shoulders touching the ground -- are described in detail by his wife, who passed away shortly afterward from illness in 1826.  From the time he landed Judson struggled against persecution, disease, and the sadness and discouragement caused by the death.  He not only lost his wife Ann to death, but two of the children he had with her -- 7 month old son Roger, and 2 year old daughter Maria, not to mention one that was still-born. After eight years alone, he married his second wife Sarah Hall Boardman and lost three of the children he had with her -- only to lose her to sickness as well.

     Yet at the end of Judson's labors, he could look with satisfaction on a complete Burmese translation of the Scriptures; a Burmese-English dictionary; sixty-three churches among the Burmese and Karens; and best of all, seven thousand Burmese Christians.  Today there are more than two million believers in Myanmar, and 40 percent of the Karen people to whom Judson directed his ministry are now Christians."

     Judson's belief was that nothing enduring comes without sacrifice. Ann was of the same mindset, and her story of faithfulness and perseverance is also well worth reading.  It is hard for many to imagine what makes a people give up and sacrifice so much. Jim Elliot (who lost his life reaching out to the Auca Indian Tribe in the jungles of Ecuador probably summed it up best when he wrote in his diary (addressing those who asked why one would give up so much to go reach a small group of people): "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

     What would you be willing to lose for the sake of Christ, His church, and those who have never heard?

     If you would like to read more about the amazing life of Adoniram Judson, the book "To the Golden Shore - The Life of Adoniram Judson" is superb, and there is a free ebook "Adoniram Judson Biography"   Download eBook as a PDF file.    Download eBook as an EPUB file formatted for readers like the Nook, Sony Reader, and Apple iBooks (iPad, iPhone, iPod)  Download eBook as a MOBI file formatted for Kindle applications (this option works well on some mobile devices, and not so well on others).

     Prayer note: Between 2001 and 2004 up to 200,000 Karen people were driven from their homes due to war, with 160,000 more refugees, mostly Karen, living in refugee camps over the border of Thailand. The largest camp was the one in Mae La, Tak province, Thailand, where about 50,000 Karen refugees are hosted.  As recently as February 2010, the Burmese army continued to burn Karen villages, displacing thousands of people.   A 2005 New York Times article on a report by Guy Horton into depredations by the Myanmar Army against the Karen and other groups in eastern Myanmar stated: "Using victims' statements, photographs, maps and film... he purports to have documented slave labor, systematic rape, the conscription of child soldiers, massacres and the deliberate destruction of villages, food sources and medical services."  Many of the refugees form that attempted genocide were brought to the United States and settled in Nebraska, central New York, Pennsylvania and California.  Pray for their adjustments, faith, and the painful memories of atrocities like those mentioned above.

In His Service, Pastor Jeff

Training Like Jesus

Greetings All!

     This week I received a magazine called, "Voice" (September/October 2018) which had a very interesting article on, "Training Like Jesus" in which the author -- Paul Seger -- shows the difference between the way Jesus trained people, the way the Church throughout history has done so, and the way we tend to do so today.   I found the differences quite fascinating, not to mention a bit convicting and very challenging.  I trust it might not only be informative and thought-provoking for you as well, but challenging to consider.  It gave me a much greater appreciation and respect for disciplers and pastors from the past.  Enjoy.

Training People Like Jesus Did

     "Life on the mission field has honed my conviction and commitment to discipleship. I have gained an appreciation for the absolute necessity of leadership training.  For years I have done both.  Discipleship of new believers and training men for church leadership became an indispensable part of missions and ministry.  But a visit I took to Israel this past year demonstrated how woefully inadequate my approach has been. As we traversed the Holy Land and rehearsed the life of Christ, it became obvious that His method of discipleship differed greatly from the way we disciple and train...

     The Gospels speak of Jesus moving around the country with little reference to distances he traveled.  In my naivete, I failed to factor walking into the equation. From His base of operations in Capernaum, Jerusalem was at least a five-day trek (approximately 121 miles, walking the whole way)...  What do these distances have to do with the amount of time Jesus spent training His disciples?  It is obvious these long walks would have given inordinate amounts of time to talk and train.  Lengthy hikes with conversations.  Lessons and lectures were enabled by hours on the road.  Add to that the absence of television, internet, phones, movies, electricity, and readily available entertainment, and the hours for teaching and training rapidly stacked up.  Evenings around the campfire allowed for unhurried conversations.  In the 21st Century we might wonder how Jesus could train disciples in 3.5 years. We anticipate four years of undergraduate work and then another three to four years for seminary. Yet in half that time Christ prepared the men who would be the foundation and future of the greatest initiative in history, the Church.

     Most preparation for ministry in the Western world takes place in a classroom and a 15-hour semester load is considered normal. Then, if there is an hour or two a week with a mentor, it is considered an exceptional experience...  But when Jesus called His disciples to follow Him, it was to spend 24 hours a day together for months on end.  They ministered together, ate together, worked together, relaxed together, socialized together and lived life as one.

     We will never replicate the teaching style of Jesus today.  We have neither the will nor the capacity to do this. But there have been phases of church history where something similar happened. In the early years of the United States there were no colleges and seminaries.  Men who wanted to enter the ministry did so by moving into the home of a pastor.  They rose in the morning and had devotions together. Breakfast was shared with opportunity to converse. Study for messages filled their morning hours and were done together (the older instructing the younger). Afternoon visits and evangelism were done together with opportunity to debrief after the event. Evenings were unhurried conversations around the table.  "In eighteenth-century New England, Christian leaders such as Jonathan and Sarah Edwards regularly had one or two pastor-trainees move into their home (alongside their 11 children!) where the budding ministers had opportunity to observe the quality of their marriage, the reality of their spiritual life, and the demands of pastoral duties" (Ted Engstrom, The Fine Art of Mentoring).  How many pastors do you know who have apprentices living in their homes?  Would I be willing to do that?

     Some pastors were better at doing this than others, so it was suggested that these shepherds do this full time.  With these full-time shepherds, Harvard and Princeton were formed to formalize the training and we never looked back. Our jam-packed schedules, programs, and Western approach to education have become the norm and crowded out the potential of training like Jesus.  I'm not sure we will ever go back to the way Jesus did it.  He spent the time... It would take a radical adjustment to ministry for the average pastor to include a couple trainees in their home and schedule... Even though we will not replicate the teaching style of Jesus, many of us could start moving in that direction."

     It is challenging to consider and think that maybe the newest way of doing things isn't the best or most effective.  It's also challenging to consider the depth of commitment it took to be disciples of Jesus. Or to be like a Sarah and Jonathan Edwards and open your house already full of 11 children to the watchful eyes of one or two pastors-in-training who watched (so as to learn) your every move. Imagine someone (or a couple of someones!) watching how you treat your wife and family, keep your house, spend your income, raise and train your children, pray and study the Word, evangelize and train leaders, speak of and interact with everyone in the Body of Christ, and seek to further the work of the Gospel locally and globally.

     Pastors often talk about "living in a fishbowl" where people observe everything you do.  And that's with people looking on from the outside!  Imagine them living in your house 24/7 for a couple years at a time!  Yikes!  For us who need our times of privacy to gather our thoughts and regain strength, it's a daunting thought!  We might all say, "Only by Your grace, O God!  Please give us what we need to begin to disciple more like Jesus did."

With You In Our Habitual Need For Grace, Pastor Jeff

The Reason For God - Belief in an Age of Skepticism

Greetings All!

     Today I bring you a selection from Tim Keller's best-selling book "The Reason For God - Belief in an Age of Skepticism."  If you have not read it, you have missed out on some very wise and convincing arguments for the Christian faith.  Many people have what we could call their "pat objections" for why they reject the Christian faith.  "There can't be just one true religion."  "How could a good God allow suffering."  "Science has disproved Christianity."   "How could a loving God send people to hell?"

     Keller takes on such objections and offers many well-reasoned responses to them.  In an age where people often tend to do little more choose a view that fits with their personal preferences (whether they've thought it through or not), Keller offers us some very logical and well-thought-through alternative perspectives, which challenge such pat objections to the core.  If you really want to be challenged to reconsider many issues from a fresh perspective, you will want to pick up a copy. For to miss out on this book is to miss out on an apologetic treat similar to that of reading C. S. Lewis, Os Guinness, Ravi Zacharias, and others.

       Our particular "thought" for today addresses the objection voiced by people who say, "I can't believe in Christianity because I believe in a God of love."  Enjoy.

I believe in a God of Love

       "During my college years and my early twenties, I, like so many others, questioned the Christian faith I was raised in. There were subjective reasons for my doubts. Christianity just didn't seem real to me experientially. I had not developed a prayer life and had never experienced God personally.  There were also intellectual problems I was having with Christianity, all of which I address elsewhere in this book. There was one, however, I will talk about here.  I was troubled by those Christians who stressed hellfire and damnation. Like so many of my generation I believed that if there was a core to all religions, it was a loving God. I wanted to believe in a God of love who accepted people regardless of their beliefs and practices.  So I began to take courses in the other major religions of the world -- Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Confucianism, and Judaism.  I have profited to this day from those studies. However, my explorations in other faiths proved me wrong on this particular point about the centrality of a loving God.

       I found no other religious text outside the Bible that said God created the world out of love and delight. Most ancient pagan religions believed the world was created through struggles and violent battles between opposing gods and supernatural forces. I turned to look more closely at Buddhism, the religion I liked the best at the time. However, despite its great emphasis on selflessness and detached service to others, Buddhism did not believe in a personal God at all, and love is the action of a person.

         Later on, after I become a minister, I was a speaker and panelist for several years in a monthly discussion program in Philadelphia between a Christian church and a mosque. Each month a speaker from the church and a speaker from the mosque would give a Biblical and Qu'ranic perspective on the topic. When we covered the topic of God's love, it was striking how different our conceptions were. I was told repeatedly by Muslim speakers that God was indeed loving in the sense of being merciful and kind to us. But when Christians spoke of the Lord as our Spouse, of knowing God intimately and personally, and of having powerful effusions of his love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, our Muslim friends balked. They told us that it was disrespectful, in their view, to speak of anyone knowing God personally.

       Today many of the skeptics I talk to say, as I once did, they can't believe in the God of the Bible who punishes and judges people, because they "believe in a God of Love."  I now ask, what makes them think God is love?  Can they look at life in the world today and say, "This proves that the God of the world is a God of love?"  Can they look at history and say, "This all shows that the God of history is a God of love?"  Can they look at the religious texts of the world and conclude that God is a God of love?  By no means is that the dominant, ruling attribute of God as understood in any of the major faiths. I must conclude that the source of the idea that God is Love is the Bible itself. And the Bible tells us that the God of love is also a God of judgment who will put all things in the world right in the end.

       The belief in a God of pure love -- who accepts and judges no one -- is a powerful act of faith.  Not only is there no evidence for it in the natural order, but there is almost no historical, religious textual support for it outside of Christianity.  The more one looks at it, the less justified [this objection] appears."

       Though many today will say, "all religions basically teach the same thing," all it takes is actually reading their religious texts to see that this is not so, as Keller, who has read them testifies.  In fact, when it comes to the issue of love, the Bible separates itself even further from the others by not only speaking of the love of God frequently, but even going as far as to declare that "God IS love" (I John 4:16).  God is not just loving, He is love.  In this regard as well, no other religion comes close.

       What many in western society today fail to see (disconnected as we are becoming from our past) is that our culture was influenced for two millennia by Christian thought and practice.  And, therefore, scores of the virtues that have come to be the rallying cry of our secular society, are not virtues our secular culture developed on it's own, but virtues our culture borrowed (or stole) from Christianity, washed of their rooting in Christianity, and tried to claim as their own.

       It's what could (or should) be called, cultural plagiarism -- with no credit given to the original author of those virtues.  Or as one friend put it, our culture has borrowed "lumber" it removed from the structural framework of the house called Christianity, but washed of all it's Christian moorings and meaning, and then made to fit a secularized ideal.  Other cultures stress honor and shame, compliance and conformity, obedience and punishment.  But in a culture influenced for many centuries by the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the redemption that came to us through the sacrifice of Himself for those who didn't deserve it; a culture influenced by the truth that love is the greatest of all gifts (I Corinthians 13), and that God himself is love (as His disciples alone declared), it is quite impossible for love not to be seen the queen of virtues.

In the Bonds of Christian Affection, Pastor Jeff

The Sensate Culture

Greetings All!

     Today I struggled long and hard to know what "thought" to post.  So many books, so little time to read through them all!  But I finally settled on this one from Harold O. J. Brown's book "The Sensate Culture."   It was published in 1996 and has to do with the three stages nearly every major culture passes through as it moves from it's initial rise to power to eventual collapse.  Having read it in 1996, and just skimming it's pages once again today, I realized it is not only full comprehensive research, and wise insight, but is also rather prophetic -- since what he predicted 20 years ago has come into fuller measure today.

     After taking a class with him, I must tell you he is one of the most intelligent people I ever learned from (with John Frame, in my opinion, coming in a close second).  I say that because I want you to know he knows his subject well.  He is well-studied, knows history, gives attention to detail, and sees things from a somewhat non-biased (since no one is unbiased) big-picture perspective -- and combines it with an incisive understanding of culture and human nature. I highly recommend the reading of his book (if you truly care to gain an understanding of where we are at culturally speaking, and why so much upheaval is taking place). That's why I share this little taste of what his book has to offer. Enjoy.

     "Sorokin (in his book Social and Cultural Dynamics) identified three distinct phases through which cultures pass: 1.) Ideational - This is where a culture is willing to sacrifice pleasures and immediate goals for the sake of higher principles. Self-denial, asceticism, and martyrdom are natural behaviors from the ideational point of view.   2.) Idealistic - This is a compromise stage between Ideational and Sensate, where spiritual truths and values are still rated above all others, but it appreciates the realities and values of the sensory world and does not treat them as meaningless or non-existent.  3.) Sensate - At this point, the culture tends to be interested only in those things (usually material in nature) that affect the senses. It seeks the imposing, the impressive, the voluptuous and it encourages self-indulgence... No apology is made for encouraging people to squander their resources on self-indulgence...

     The great democracies of the ancient world (e.g., Athens and the Roman Republic) arose during an idealistic culture and did not survive the shift to sensate culture. Democracy requires self-discipline and self-control on the part of the masses -- qualities that are derided and destroyed by sensate culture...  Our present sensate culture [the phase the U.S. is in right now] increasingly lacks one of the most important conditions for a vibrant democratic government, namely, moral responsibility and integrity on the part of the majority of the citizens. Democratic institutions necessarily presuppose that people will govern themselves in many areas of life, but this is precisely what is discouraged and impeded by the sensate attitude of "eat, drink and be merry."  The idea that there are certain eternal or divine principles of justice that most people will respect without compulsion (which is characteristic in both the ideational and idealistic cultures) disappears in a sensate culture where people are interested only in things that give pleasure, avert pain, and provide immediate gratification.  When people do not have ideals and principles that move them to act without compulsion for the good of all, no government functions smoothly or well.  In the sensate phase of society, it is extremely difficult to maintain faith in the moral legitimacy of government, whether monarchical or democratic....

     Democracy presupposes a consensus of values or widespread agreement concerning what constitutes the morally good and desirable life. These are features of an integrated culture, but they become lost as a culture disintegrates in a transition phase. Consequently, one can predict with certainty that the democracy that we in the West profess to value is doomed to die if the sensate phase continues without any fundamental reorientation. When any form of government functions well, without the need to resort to extensive compulsion (by force), it is a sign that the citizens it governs have an adequate degree of personal responsibility and integrity. In an overripe sensate culture, governing a large multitude of people becomes progressively more difficult no matter what the political system, whether monarchy or democracy, oligarchy or dictatorship, because people interested only in that which gratifies their own senses find it next to impossible to act spontaneously and without compulsion, for the benefit of the community...

     In his inaugural address in 1961, President Kennedy made an appeal to the remnants of the idealistic mentality among the American people: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Unfortunately for the Kennedy's hopes, the remnant was not hardy enough to accomplish what he expected of it, for the culture was already too sensate, and the influence of the mass media and mass communication was rapidly exterminating virtually every memory of earlier idealistic attitudes...  Events of history -- "historical accidents" so to speak (ie: the murders of John Kennedy and his brother Robert, Vietnam, segregation, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., just to name a few) - have all contributed to the increasingly acute crisis of democratic theory in Western society, although its fundamental causes lie in the nature of the sensate culture itself, not in historic incidents, however dramatic...

When a sensate culture is wealthy and luxurious, as Western culture now is, it becomes increasingly difficult to motivate people to exert the self-denial and effort necessary to overcome dangers and avoid economic catastrophes...  It is difficult for the population of a democratic society in a late sensate culture to generate its own moral sense, or build the morale necessary to produce endurance under difficult and trying conditions. In such a culture, Jesus' words, "not to be served but to serve" (Matthew 20:28) strike most people as pure foolishness. Idealistic societies prize service; sensate societies cherish gain... As the sensate mentality becomes more pervasive, democratic politicians are forced to become nothing but demagogues, flattering the people and offering them easier and easier acquisition of more and more material goods and pleasures, as the Roman emperors provided the plebs with bread and circuses."

     This is not a political rant.  I don't belong to any party.  Nor do I indulge in politics.  I never bring them into the pulpit because I have never seen governmental systems as the answer to the human problem. I tend to follow Jesus on this and leave what is Caesar's to Caesar.  In fact, that's what impressed me about Prof. Brown -- after an entire course with him, I had no idea of his political affiliation, be it Democrat, Republican, or any other party (if he even belonged to one).  In fact, his general attitude seemed to be the one I espouse: That the Gospel of Jesus Christ was too radical to be held captive to any humanly devised political system or party.  That's about as political as I get!

     No, this "thought" is about the rise, and eventual demise, of any culture.  What brought it to prominence, and what will eventually lead to its downfall.  And I offer it to you simply as wise thoughts to consider, as well as soul-food to guide you in your prayers. Because cultural collapse, as our increasingly recurring glimpses have shown us, is a matter worthy of our earnest intercession.

In His Service, Pastor Jeff   

God in the Whirlwind

Greetings All,

     Today I would like to do something I have never done before -- re-post a "thought" I posted almost two years ago.  It is by David F. Wells, a gracious man I have both met and spoken with.  He was a professor at Gordon-Conwell, a prolific writer, a rigorous researcher, and a profound thinker committed to pursuing and understanding truth. His book, from which I have taken this excerpt, is entitled: "God in the Whirlwind."

     I share it because recently I have been looking at figures regarding the current state of the Church/Christianity in America, and I have sought to understand "why"?  Figures like, 4000-7000 churches are closing their doors every year.  Figures that tell us that 70.6 Americans identify themselves as Christian while less than 20% ever actually go to church.  Figures that show that at the turn of the last century (1900) there were approximately 27 churches for every 10,000 people, but at the turn of this century (2000), there were only 11 churches for every 10,000 people.  Or the recent Barna study which found that only two in every 10 Americans under the age of 30 believe attending church is either important or worthwhile.

     Some of this disillusionment is surely the fruit of scandals that have rocked the church - both evangelical and Catholic - which eroded people's confidence in organized religion. That must obviously be said. Yet in this thought, Dr. Wells hits on a few other significant issues that have led to such statistics. I found them helpful. I trust you may as well. Enjoy.

     "Many therapists are now finding that although young people grew up in good homes, had all they wanted, went on to college, and (perhaps) entered the workplace, they are nevertheless baffled by the emptiness they feel. Their self-esteem is high but their self is empty. They grew up being told they could be anything they wanted to be, but they do not know what they want to be. They are more connected to more people through the internet, and yet they have never felt more lonely. They want to be accepted, and yet they often feel alienated. Never have we had so much; never have we had so little. That is our paradox...

     On the one hand, the experience of abundance, of seemingly unlimited options, of opportunity, of ever-rising levels of affluence, almost inevitably produces an attitude of entitlement. Each successive generation, until recently, has assumed it will do better than the previous generation... It is not difficult to see how this sense of entitlement naturally carries over into our attitude toward God and his dealings with us. It is what leads us to think of him as a cheerleader who only wants our success. He is a booster, an inspiring coach, a source of endless prosperity for us...  Purveyors of the health-and-wealth "gospel" that is being exported from the West to the underdeveloped parts of the world, seem quite oblivious to the fact that their take of Christian faith is rooted in this kind of experience. Had they not enjoyed Western medical expertise and Western affluence, it is rather doubtful that they would have thought that Christianity is all about being healthy and wealthy. At least in the church's long, winding journey through history, we have never heard anything exactly like this before...

     And while it is the case that we moderns have had this experience of plenty, it also the case -- and this is the other side of the paradox -- that our experience of plenty is accompanied by the experience of emptiness and loss. We carry within us many deficits -- a sense of life's harshness, frustrations at work, bruised and broken relationships, shattered families, inability to sustain enduring friendships, lack of a sense of belonging in this world and a sense that this world is vacant and hostile.  So we look to God for some internal balm, some relief from these wounds. We become inclined to think of God as our Therapist. It is comfort, healing, and inspiration that we want most deeply. That is what we seek from him. That, too, is what we want most from our church experience.  We want it to be comforting, uplifting, inspiring, and easy on the mind. We do not want Sunday (or perhaps Saturday evening) to be another workday, another burden, something that requires effort and concentration. We already have enough burdens and struggles, enough things to concentrate on in our workweek. On the weekend, we want relief.

     It is not difficult to see, then, how this two-sided experience, this paradox, has shaped our understanding of God... It is the end product of at least two closely related mega-changes that have been underway in our culture since at least the 1960's.  FIRST, in our minds, we have exited the older moral world in which God was transcendent and holy, and we have entered a new psychological world in which he is only immanent and only loving. This is the framework in which we now understand everything.   SECOND, we are now thinking of ourselves in terms, not of human nature, but of the self. And the self is simply an internal core of intuitions. It is the place where our own unique biography, gender, ethnicity, and life-experience all come together in a single center of self-consciousness. And every self is unique because no one has exactly the same set of personal factors.  It is no surprise that we are now inclined to see life, to understand what is true, to think of right and wrong, in uniquely individual ways. We each have our own perspective on life, and its meaning, and each perspective is as valid as any other. And none of it is framed by absolute moral norms.

     This is where the overwhelming majority of Americans live... And out of this has come what Philip Rieff has called "psychological man." This is the person who is stripped of all reference points outside of him or herself. There is no moral world, no ultimate rights and wrongs, and no one to whom he or she is accountable. This person's own interior reality is all that counts, and it is untouched by any obligation to community, or understanding from the past, or even by the intrusions of God from the outside. The basis on which lives are being built is that there is nothing outside the self on which they can be built. And this self wants only to be pleased. It sees no reason to be saved. This is therapeutic deism, where morals are self-focused and self-generated... 

     The institutional aspect of the Christian faith, the church, came to be viewed with skepticism. Credence was given instead to what is internal. Not to church doctrine, which others had formulated. Not to church authority.  Indeed, not to any external authority at all.  Rather, it is in private intuitions that God is found... Here were the seeds that by the end of the 1990's had produced throughout the West millions of people who were spiritual but not religious. In both America and Europe, around 80 percent said they were spiritual, but were decidedly hostile to all religions. They were opposed to doctrines they were expected to believe, rules they had to follow, and churches they were expected to attend. They resisted each of these... The impulses that began in the 1960's had by the 90's become dominant... Robert Nisbit in his book, "Twilight of Authority" says, "Across the board, given our self-preoccupation and our total self-focus, there is a retreat from what is important to the community to what is important only to the individual, from the weighty to the ephemeral, from others to ourselves"...

     There come those times in a nation's life, Os Guinness has written, when its people rise up against the founding principles of their own nation. This is one of those times in America. It is far more dangerous than any terrorist attack. It is, in fact, "a free people's suicide," as Guinness put it in the title of his book.  Why? Because what holds the republic together has never been simply the Constitution and our laws. The law is an exceedingly blunt instrument when it comes to controlling human behavior. There are many things that are unethical that are not illegal. Most lying, for example, is not illegal but it is always unethical. Our criminal and civil laws can control only so much of our behavior.  It is virtue that does the rest.  And that is precisely what is being eroded in this self-oriented, self-consumed culture.  Here is the acid that is eating away at the nation's foundations, degrading objective values, uprooting older customs, and leaving people with no clear sense of purpose and, indeed, no purpose at all other than their own self-interest.  Under the postmodern sun, everyone has a right to their own version of reality. When this comes about, any culture loses its ability to renew its own life." 

     I share this not to be pessimistic. God is not bound by our statistics or cultural trends.  I share it as a way of asking the one question that always confronts the Church in any such situation -- how will we respond?  What will we do?  Our society (even the world) seems to be at a turning point. You can feel it in the air. Yet it lacks a consensus (a "common sense" regarding the core truths of life). And thus we must ask what will hold it together as the tension of conflicting ideologies threaten to tear it apart?

     Obviously, I don't have all the answers.  But I have been praying.  Praying for wisdom.  Praying for compassion.  Praying for the Church and the world we all live in. Praying for the Spirit of Jesus to fill human hearts and replace all the hostile rhetoric.  Praying for a Church that often seems more captive to culture and political allegiances than to Christ to get back to her roots of trusting in the power of the Gospel to redeem and fill people's hearts with love -- even for those they disagree with. In fact, even for their enemies, as Jesus made so clear in Matthew 5:44, where He laid that out as one of the defining characteristics of someone who claimed to be a disciple that bore His name. Praying all the more earnestly for divine intervention every day - as one who believes the self must be built -- for it is deeply reliant, whether it admits it or not -- on things outside itself.

Just some food for thought!  Pastor Jeff

Sexual Morality in a Christless World

Greetings All,

     This week's selection is about sex. Or more to the point, it's about the new views of sexual morality and how they vary from Christian sexual morality.  I copied and pasted it from a blog by Tim Challies.
     It's actually a critique of a book by Matthew Rueger entitled, "Sexual Morality in a Christless World."  Yet it offers to us some very helpful insights about the revolutionary nature of Christian sexual ethics in light of history, and I would add, the alarming rise of sexual violence, human sex trafficking of children and adults, and the type of environment that arises when people throw off all thoughts of sexual restraint.  I recommend both this blog entry by Challies as well as the book by Matthew Rueger. Enjoy.

Sexual Morality in a Christless World

Tim Challies

Times are changing. Sexual morality is undergoing nothing less than a revolution as traditional morality gives way to something radically different. The former morality, based on the Christian scriptures, is being shoved aside by a new one that not only departs from the Bible, but outright rejects it. Meanwhile, Christians who abide by those traditional sexual morals are increasingly seen as outcasts, backward people dangerously hung up on ancient, oppressive principles. It is all very disconcerting.

Into the fray steps Matthew Rueger with his book, "Sexual Morality in a Christless World."  Though the last few years have brought us no shortage of books on how to live on this side of the sexual revolution, Rueger offers something unique… he shows that Christian sexual morality has not always been traditional but was at one time its own revolution. In other words, Christians have been here before, and there is much we can learn from our own history… He offers a fascinating yet disturbing examination of what Roman culture considered good and normal. “Rome’s sexual climate is a model of the utopia for which today’s sexual ‘progressives’ are striving.”

     Yet it was hardly Utopian. He shows that “In the Roman mind, man was the conqueror who dominated on the battlefield as well as in the bedroom. He was strong, muscular, and hard – in both body and spirit. Society looked down on him only when he appeared weak or soft.” Respectable men were permitted to have sexual relations with just about anyone, provided they were the aggressors rather than receivers of such sexual acts.  Marriage existed, of course, but was not first about mutual love, but about the provision of an heir. A far purer form of love was the love of a man for a boy, so a culture of pederasty arose in which adult men carried on overt sexual relationships with adolescent boys. Prostitution was rampant. Rape was widespread and accepted, provided a man raped someone of a lower status. In so many ways Roman sexual morality was abhorrent and one of its most prominent features was the strong dominating the weak.

     And then Christians showed up. Christians began to teach that men were to be chaste, that homosexuality and pederasty were sinful, that men were to love and honor their wives, that wives and husbands had equal authority over one another’s bodies. Such teaching was not only seen as repressive, but as full-out destabilizing to the Roman system. No wonder, then, that the whole culture turned against Christians.  “Though Christian morality promoted genuine self-emptying love and was positive for society, it nonetheless set Christ’s people against the prevailing culture. Romans did not like being told that some of their favorite activities were displeasing to the Christian God, and they pushed back.”  And here is where we can draw important lessons for our day, for today, too, Christian sexual morality is seen as destabilizing to the culture around us, as a serious societal sin…

     Rueger also shows that Christian morality was almost as opposed to contemporary Judaism as it was to Rome. This was especially true in according equal rights to men and women, in protecting women from divorce, and in putting away notions of sexual purity that harmed women. Again, Christianity offered a sexual morality that was kind and equitable and that protected the weak and marginalized.

     With all of that context, he is able to show how these Christian teachings were full-out counter-cultural, how they were radical, not traditional. He shows how Christian sexual morality helped individuals, helped the marginalized, and helped society—it was a tremendous blessing to everyone.  Yet Christians suffered because their views were seen as destabilizing and harmful. Though today we see that their morality was actually a blessing, at that time it was considered a curse. And Christians suffered terribly for it...

     Rueger says “My desire in writing this book is to help Christians engage the world around them in reasoned discussion.” He does so very well. And his greatest contribution is helping us understand that this is not the first time that Christians have been at odds with the culture. This is not the first time the biblical understanding of sex and sexuality has caused the culture to turn on Christians, to consider them disloyal, to push them to the margins. For that reason we need books like this one to interpret the times and equip us for today and the days to come. I thoroughly enjoyed this work and highly recommend it."

     As I have repeatedly stated over the years (in light of studying history) -- our cultures sexual morals (or progressive eradication of them) is not a sign of progress, but the sign of a cultural regression which is taking us back to what existed before Christianity appeared on the scene some 2000 years ago.  And as those sexual morals are separated entirely from Christ, and Christianity, history will likely repeat itself and we will actually see more sexual violence toward women, more children put into the growing sex trade, and a continuing devaluation of the Christian virtue of committed and sacrificial love between a husband and a wife. And it will become harder and harder to police, because it will become more and more common, and more and more acceptable, and seen as less and less problematic to the societal conscience.

     As Jesus predicted for the latter days, "the love of most will grow cold" (Matthew 24:12).  And Paul restated that same truth when he said that people being "without love" (for anyone but themselves or money or pleasure - II Timothy 3:2-5) will be a sign of the approach of the last days.

     No predictions. I know better!  Just some earnest food for thought, Pastor Jeff