Stones Cry Out

Evangelical leaders of previous generations are in the process of passing the torch to younger leaders, for whom there are at least 10 fresh challenges. We’ve considered the challenge of Navigating Newfound Authority and Waging a New Bloodless Revolution; now a third challenge:

Overcoming Spiritual Superficiality

In the wake of megachurch-building success and a new ability to be culture-cool, the pews are filled with biblical illiterates who may be ill-equipped for the next personal or national crisis. In many cases spiritual depth has been sacrificed in the interest of growth and new church models are designed to multiply conversions but fall short in assuring spiritual growth and doctrinal understanding.”

The fear that theological lessons will bore and drive away new converts and a generation with a miniscule attention span, churches are not guiding their members through the fundamentals of the faith and the dangers of popular theological perversions such as:

• universalism (that what God did for humans in Christ will redeem all humans, whether they are Hindus, Muslims, or atheists, all will eventually be saved),
• pluralism (the belief that no religion offers superiority in the process of redemption; that all religions lead us to the same god and the same ends), and
•  modalism (a denial of the Trinity which states that God is a single person who, throughout biblical history, has revealed Himself in three modes, or forms.  Thus, God is a single person who first manifested himself in the mode of the Father in Old Testament times.  At the incarnation, the mode was the Son.  After Jesus’ ascension, the mode is the Holy Spirit.)

Scot McKnight of North Park University and the Jesus Creed blog told Margaret Feinberg:

“The biggest challenge facing American evangelicals is Christian universalism– the belief that everyone will eventually be saved because of what Christ has done….I think many young evangelical adults who have been reared in the church have imbibed pluralism and tolerance from their years in the public educational system.”

Norman Geisler, Christian apologist and president of Southern Evangelical Seminary said:

“The evangelical church in America is about 3,000 miles wide and an inch deep. Doctrinally, we are very shallow. We have enough religion to makes us susceptible, but not enough doctrine to make us discerning. You can’t recognize error until you can recognize the truth. I’m told that when government experts want to train people to recognize counterfeit currency, they study genuine currency. The same is true with doctrine.”

Some are recognizing the weaknesses. Bill Hybels, pastor of megachurch granddaddy Willowcreek, said after a study of the church’s ministry:

“We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their Bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.”

And that’s a key charge for the new evangelical generation: pair great growth, engaging entertainment, and compassionate service with the teaching of theological truth. Build strong and knowledgeable believers who will have the ability to dismiss error and to maintain their faith through difficult days.

Evangelical leaders of previous generations are in the process of passing the torch to younger leaders, for whom there are at least 10 fresh challenges.

We’ve considered the challenge of Navigating Newfound Authority; now a second challenge:

Waging a New Bloodless Revolution:

There is a divide in the evangelical church that is roughly along generational lines, although not entirely. The Evangelical Generation that began in the 70s has dedicated an enormous amount of its time, energies and resources to fighting the cultural corrosion of two values: First, the protection of human life from conception to natural death, threatened by the normalization of abortion-on-demand and the calls for euthanasia.  Second, the protection of heterosexual marriage, seen as under fire by increasingly ambitious homosexual activism. Those who have championed these protections have often done so at the exclusion of other valuable causes, and at the cost of public popularity.

The Emerging Generation and others have identified pressing issues that deserve the attention of the church and are biblical values and imperatives that cannot be left to secular interests. These include care for the poor, stopping human trafficking, protection of God’s creation or environmental stewardship; nuclear non-proliferation; the dreadful crises of the African people, including AIDS; and clean water crises around the world. These are vital (and popular) causes.

Through my work with many organizations over the years, I have been involved in nearly all of these causes, and I have seen and felt the passion of people who commit their lives to the important missions to which God has called them. The most discouraging aspect of the Church’s work in all of these areas is that its leaders rarely speak to the importance of the followers of Jesus addressing both the traditional concerns and newer concerns.

I see two major challenges for young Christian leaders in public engagement: 

1. Avoid the division on issues that is expected in politics. Recognize that God’s people must transcend this and cheer and support ministries that battle for unborn life and that battle against climate change. New leaders must be as bold in speaking out for more liveable conditions for those in the inner city as they are in speaking out for better conditions for those who preach the gospel in hostile nations. Leaders must share the living water as they dig for clean water.  The bifurcation of Christian public engagement is wrong and harmful to the Kingdom. 
2. It is dangerous to get comfortable with the notion that Christian advocates taking difficult and unpopular positions on public issues should back away from these issues and find warmer and fuzzier social causes. Instead, new leaders need to remain engaged, but with greater attention to tone and posture. We don’t need to be popular, but we cannot demonstrate unchristian characteristics as we do battle. A new generation cannot abandon the revolution of values; let’s just make it a bloodless revolution; a revolution where the ends do not justify means unbecoming to the followers of the prince of peace. 

To the barricades!  Just don’t break anything.

Yes, it’s that time of the week again, where I toss out a bunch of links that I was too lazy to do a full blog post on.

Turns out the Iraq war didn’t break the bank.  It’s understandable that you might think that, but that only indicates a need to get your news from more sources.  The MSM loves to parrot DNC talking points.

(Liberal) feminism is dead.  Long live (conservative) feminism!

Jim Wallis said that Marvin Olasky (World magazine editor) “lies for a living” when Olasky noted that Wallis got $200,000 from George Soros.  When it was pointed out that he, in fact, did, then came the abject apology in sackcloth and ashes, “Well, it was so small I forgot.”  UPDATE: Wallis has issued a formal apology.

Three months ago, James Cameron was ready to “call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads”, speaking of those who dispute anthropogenic global warming.  At the very last minute, after changing his demands over and over for how a debate was to be run, he cancelled.  Now that takes guts.  Or something.

In England, teachers are dropping history lessons on the Holocaust and the Crusades, for fear of offending Muslims who are taught Holocaust denial and a different view of the Crusades at local mosques.  They’re afraid of challenging “anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils”.  So much for academia being the standard bearer of truth and free speech.

A back door repeal of the First Amendment by … social workers?  Well, when liberal ideologues get ahold of professional organizations, nuttiness does ensue.  Look at most unions.

And finally, a US district judge put a temporary halt to embryonic stem cell research.  Some believe this will devastate scientific research, but  Steve Breen puts it in perspective.  (Click for a larger image.)

So… where’s the oil now? Either Obama really is the Messiah he was portrayed as, and it was his mere presence alone that healed our earth; or, maybe, we aren’t quite up to predicting global effects of non-globally sized events? A couple of months ago, it wasn’t difficult to find commentaries declaring that we were were on the brink of planetary destruction, that the Gulf of Mexico would never recover, that oil spill was a foretaste of the effects of Global Warming Climate Change, that God was allowing this disaster as punishment for our sins on Mother Earth. Yet now we see that Obama really has the power to heal the Earth – scratch that – Yet now we see how inadequate we might be in our attempts at extrapolating data, on a global scale, over extended time periods – well – even short time periods. Common sense should tell us that our efforts would be better served by addressing known issues that we currently face, as opposed to potential issues we might face. (also see Joe Carter’s post)

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Illegal aliens allowed to get a New Mexico drivers license… so, why not allow them to purchase firearms as well (why should that “right” be infringed upon?). The argument for giving illegal aliens drivers licenses is that it provides for better enforcement of insurance, etc. If that were so, then why not allow illegal aliens to purchase firearms, thereby giving them direct access to the right of self defense?

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Well, at least they weren’t burning the books (but a pragmatist would have donated them to a local library). Or have a used-book sale or something to recoup some money?

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When in doubt, ask someone who has actually followed the rules. Gabriella, a naturalized U.S. citizen, educates a Tucson City Council member on why the City of Tucson should not sue the State of Arizona over SB1070.

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Two exo-solar planets transiting the same star… geekfest time.j

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The Ghosts of World War II. Have not confirmed the validity of these images but, if true, an interesting use of Photoshop linking the past with the present.

Good morning.

1. Church and state and Turkey.
2. Market in Poland, a photo-essay.
3. Vindictiveness and the Admin.
4. On that hard pullout date and strategy.
5. More on Park51.
6. A conservative surprised at epistemic closure from the left.
7. I have yet to see mention of this from the left. Odd that. And this is spot on … the concept of hate crimes are an outrage.
8. Somebody somewhere didn’t like Wall-E.
9. Fun with banks.
10. 100 years, and some shared thoughts.
11. Bike tech lust.
12. Weight loss tips that beat licking raw eggs all hollow.

As Christians, should our response to the mosque controversy be different than others? As I’ve written, I believe the Muslims seeking to build the mosque should demonstrate American instincts by building it down the road. That aside, how should Christians respond?

Cross in the wreckage of Ground Zero

I certainly believe that in dissent and argument Christians should demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit. Here are some thoughts in this case:

Love (Your Enemies, Your Neighbors): We cannot hate Muslims because of their faith or even because of acts done in the name of Islam. We just can’t. Opposition to the placement of this mosque doesn’t mean we hate the individuals seeking the mosque or supporting it. Love for our neighbor does not mean we have to support everything they want to do. We’ve been down that road in other arguments.

Blessed are the Peacemakers: We do need to be peacemakers. But part of keeping the peace is to avoid provocation. While the mosque shouldn’t be built in a grieving area, Christians also should not be burning Korans and putting up signs about Islam being of the devil.

Kindness: Don’t portray these NYC neighbors worse than they may be. You don’t know them and I don’t either. Christians should not use hurtful language or false characterizations. There is enough ugliness in the media. Tone it down.

Protect the Faith: There are plenty of efforts to restrict the religious liberty of Christians in America. Don’t give those who wish us ill any ammunition to use the next time a Christian church wants to express itself in the public square. I do find it interesting that the liberals who are so vocal about the religious liberty of those who are wanted to build this mosque are rarely seen in the defense of any Christian display, building, or expression.

Jim Wallis Outrage

Did you see the articles or appearances by Sojourners head Jim Wallis on this topic? He wrote that as Christian peacemakers, we should support our Muslim friends in their desire to build a house of worship near Ground Zero.

While I don’t share Wallis’ politics, I share a Savior. But I’m troubled by what he wrote in his column. Not so much his arguments (although I disagree), but by his character assassination of his fellow Christians. He argues that peaceful Muslims should not judged because of the actions of Islamic 9/11 terrorists any more than he, as an evangelical Christian, should be “judged on the basis of fundamentalist Christians — some of whom have said and done terrible things.”

Rev. Wallis, are you really equating the rhetoric of fundamentalist Christians with the actions of terrorists who murdered thousands of people?

Over the years I have provided communications and public relations counsel and services to many Christian leaders (still do), both fundamentalists and (although not Wallis) evangelical liberals. I find this statement by Wallis as abhorrent as I did Jerry Falwell’s ill-timed assertion that Americans brought the 9/11 attacks upon themselves because of their sins.

Wallis should retract this statement. And I’ll hear him out on the mosque issue and on reconciliation when he completes a Jerry Falwell statue at the Sojourners headquarters. To paraphrase Wallis: “What does it mean to love our enemies as Jesus instructed us? Wasn’t Jerry Falwell your brother and your neighbor?“

Jim Wallis of Sojourners

Two generations of evangelical leaders are beginning to step aside for a younger group of thinkers, doers, and potential leaders. Evangelicalism has been led by a group of remarkable social entrepreneurs that built new churches and organizations and movements beginning in the 1950s by familiar figures such as Graham, Schaeffer, Henry, Ockenga, and Engstrom; and then by those that splashed across the front pages and airwaves from the 1970s to today–such as Falwell, Dobson, Colson, Robertson, and Bright. The giants are passing or getting long in the tooth, and tomorrow will belong to the often brash and confident young Christians who are somewhat anxious to carry the torch. 

 The evangelical torch that is being passed has illuminated a spiritual path for billions of people over the last 40 years. But that same flame has been wielded at times in a scorched earth policy that has left little good will for orthodox Christians, and insufficient cultural connections to the millions of people who still need to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. Today’s warriors are left with the good, the bad, and the ugly results of the bold engagement of their predecessors. 

 New generations rarely recognize the magnitude of the accomplishments of those who precede them. Today’s norms seem, well, normal, although they have often been achieved at a heavy price over many years:  

•  Certainly World Vision would not be the largest private provider of relief and development for the world’s poor if 1970’s president Stan Mooneyham hadn’t been a maverick neo-evangelical voice for the holistic gospel, even to the point of sacrificing his own health, marriage, and life.
• Millions of quality, affordable homes would not havebeen built for the poor if Millard and Linda Fuller hadn’t dedicated their lives and fortune to that cause and launched massive Habitat for Humanity.
• And yes, abortion rates certainly would have not dropped on their own in the last 40 years if it wasn’t for the unpopular actions of the leaders of the pro-life movement and millions of evangelical and Roman Catholic activists.

 Nonetheless, “we are seeing a head-snapping generational change,” contends Michael Gerson, who was a speech writer for both President George W. Bush and Chuck Colson. “The model of social engagement of the religious right is increasingly exhausted ” Gerson says. At the National Association of Evangelical’s 2010 convention, Gerson offered three reasons for the change: a recovery of scriptural emphasis, a revolt against the tone and style of the Religious Right, and the effects of short-term mission trips on young Christians. According to Gerson, young Americans return from short-term mission trips with a changed worldview. Their exposure to poverty, HIV/AIDS, and economic injustice make them concerned about these issues and want to improve the problems.

To fresh minds, many of the standards of the status quo seem just the intellectual stubbornness of tired leaders. The need for change is obvious; it is the route and rate of change that will test these emerging leaders. There will be many opportunities to navigate turbulent times and to determine the wise use of a powerful torch. 

Over the next two weeks I will introduce 10 challenges for the new generation of leaders.  These include:

1. Navigating Newfound Authority
2. Waging a Bloodless Revolution
3. Overcoming Spiritual Superficiality
4. Creating Culture
5. Returning to Virtue
6. Bridging to Everyday Relevance
7. Resisting the Seduction of a New Social Gospel
8. Learning to Communicate Again
9. Embracing the Diversity of the New Christian World
10. Responding to Militant Islam

An Islamic cabbie was stabbed by a white guy in New York City.  The all-knowing Left jumped on this as clear proof that Republicans are to blame for this.  Juan Cole said this explicitly.  Foster Kramer at the Village Voice wondered aloud if this was the first "Ground Zero Mosque" hate crime.  (More finger pointing from the Left noted by Michelle Malkin.) 

Turns out the attacker supports the building of the mosque.  Little inconvenient truth, that.  And the cabbie?  He’s opposed to it.  This just turns the Left’s arguments upside down and they’re scrambling to deal with it, updating those posts to try to tie this attacker to the Right, or blame the Right for him regardless of his politics.

What’s next, liberals firebombing the offices of a Democrat?  Why, yes.

But hey, those Tea Partiers are just so violent, right?  Right?

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Last month, UPS executives proudly detailed the profitable quarter that drove the company cash trove above $4 billion. Wall Street’s response? “Show me the money.”

“You’re sitting on a lot of cash,” complained one analyst in a conference call last month with executives, joining a chorus of investors who wanted to know why UPS wasn’t paying them higher dividends or using the money to expand the company.

It’s a question that could be asked of a lot of companies these days.

Economic growth has been anemic overall, yet corporations that cut deeply during the Great Recession are seeing soaring profits. And they’re stuffing mountains of cash into their bank accounts.

But they are not hiring.

Company cash reserves topped $1.84 trillion in the first quarter, up $382 billion from a year earlier, according to the Federal Reserve.

The nation’s businesses are sitting on that cash for a variety reasons, including still-weak customer demand and an uncertain outlook for the global economy. After the recent painful downturn, businesses say they’re also worried about how taxes and regulatory policies could change under President Obama’s administration.

“A lot of companies had near-death experiences in the last year,” said Kurt Kuehn, chief financial officer at Sandy Springs-based UPS. “People are still feeling the shock.”

Most companies probably will remain jittery — and slow to spend or hire — for several more months until there’s a brighter forecast for the economic and business climate, he added.

Companies are looking for stability in the economy, so they can plan for it.  But, as John Stossel explains, the government keeps throwing the economy out of kilter, not allowing businesses to be able to plan.

Why isn’t the economy recovering? After previous recessions, unemployment didn’t get stuck at close to 10 percent. If left alone, the economy can and does heal itself, as the mistakes of the previous inflationary boom are corrected.

The problem today is that the economy is not being left alone. Instead, it is haunted by uncertainty on a hundred fronts. When rules are unintelligible and unpredictable, when new workers are potential threats because of Labor Department regulations, businesses have little confidence to hire. President Obama’s vaunted legislative record not only left entrepreneurs with the burden of bigger government, it also makes it impossible for them to accurately estimate the new burden.

In at least three big areas — health insurance, financial regulation and taxes — no one can know what will happen.

And hence they’ll take a wait-and-see attitude.  When the stock market is up and down all over the place, investors sit on their cash and wait for a definite bull, or even bear, market.  The same goes for corporations.  If there is no trend, they aren’t going to jump into the volatility.  And the government is creating that volatility in the name of removing it.  But the result is:

New intrusive rules for health insurance are yet to be written, and those rules will affect hiring, since most health insurance is provided by employers.

Thanks to the new 2,300 page Dodd-Frank finance regulatory act, The Wall Street Journal reports, there will be “no fewer than 243 new formal rule-makings by 11 different federal agencies.” These as-yet unknown rules will govern lending to business and other key financial activity.

The George W. Bush tax cuts might be allowed to expire. But maybe not. Social Security and Medicare are dangerously shaky. Will Congress raise the payroll tax? A “distinguished” deficit commission is meeting. What will it do? Recommend a value-added tax?

Who knows? But few employers will commit to a big investment with those clouds hanging over our heads.

Stop tinkering!

Good morning.

1. Divination.
2. For those that need a Bastiat clobbering.
3. An economically well modeled computer game played (HT: CT).
4. Talking beer.
5. More on the Koyzis essay I wrote about last night … for my reading it seems that what is presented as Koyzis ‘reading” of Mills is better than Mr Nivens. 
6. The jam ends, the cause … regulation?
7. H-Fit?
8. Our President in a nutshell.
9. Firestorm.
10. Criticism of the right from the right.
11. Sex and the single life.

David Koyzis has been writing about oppression, here and here.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Declaration that the purpose of government is to preserve and protect Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. While it is pretty clear what Life meant, and that Happiness for Jefferson ran along Aristotelean lines, which is to say along the lines of something like eudemonia. But Liberty … now there is a tricky word. In colonial America, historian David Hackett Fischer in a book everyone should read (or at least have as a reference) Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a Cultural History), identifies four folkways or distinct communities in colonial America. These folkways had very different about almost every aspect of life but in particular they all had distinct and non-overlapping ideas of what the word Liberty meant. Alas, while I say (and really think) this is a great reference book it turns out my copy is at work … and not here at home where I’m writing this so some of this is going to be from memory. Read the rest of this entry

World Vision is a humanitarian organization based on Christian values and, as part of their stated goal, they aim "to follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of God."  Its founder was an evangelical pastor who wanted to help orphans and other needy children.  Its articles of incorporation include doctrinal statements.

Is World Vision a church?  No, they don’t claim to be, and neither are they directly affiliated with any church or denomination.

So then; can World Vision claim the religious exemption to employee discrimination laws?  Can they require their employees to also be Christian and to represent the organization’s doctrinal stance?

That’s the question that came up before a 3-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court, and they release a ruling yesterday in the case Spencer v. World Vision that says that, yes, they qualify for the religious exemption.  It was a 2-to-1 decision, and the dissenter seems to think that in order to be religious you have to have worship services or, at least, Bible study or preaching. 

Eugene Volokh does a yeoman’s work distilling the ruling down to 5 points.  It’s worth a look.  The 77-page full opinion is, well, optional. 

We were one vote away from suddenly having religious organizations that don’t hold services legally considered secular and losing their right to hire folks of the same beliefs.  In today’s judicial climate, I just hope we can hang on to it.