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Wednesday, November 02, 2011
"The Good Life begins in a discerning heart shaped by God's revelation as the standard of all thinking about the measured realities of the world we inhabit as image-bearers of God with unique capacities for creative activities and special relationships in ordered communities that are protected by justice and structured for Shalom." Pete Lackey
Tuesday, November 01, 2011Tuesday, August 02, 2011John Stott, a significant lifeThe following is a Breakpoint Daily Commentary
John Stott RIP August 02, 2011 So he introduced his readers to an evangelical whom many had never heard of but was, in Brooks’ words, “actually important,” John Stott. Stott died last week at the age of ninety, once again with a very favorable eulogy in the New York Times. We will miss him in more ways than one. In some respects this broadcast can be traced back to Stott. Over 30 years ago, I spoke at the London Lectures in Contemporary Christianity, an event founded and hosted by Stott. I spoke about the connection between culture, conscience, and crime. This was during the period when I was beginning to understand the question of worldview and its relationship to Christian mission. I am far from the only Christian influenced by Stott in this way. In 1967, at a time when most Evangelicals were content to remain safe behind the walls of their churches, ignoring the larger world around them, Stott wrote a book entitled, Our Guilty Silence. In it Stott made the case that because the Gospel is “Good News” we are under an obligation to share it with others. This sounds obvious, but in 1967 this kind of witness, and that kind of engagement with the larger society, was the last thing many Christians wanted to do. They much preferred their comfortable worship and cultural isolation. Among its many benefits, this isolation didn’t require them to think too much, especially when it came to matters of faith. So five years later, Stott wrote Your Mind Matters, a book whose title could serve as a mission statement for this broadcast. In it Stott criticized the “spirit of anti-intellectualism” that pervaded Evangelicalism at the time. This “spirit” often produced “zeal without knowledge” that was mistaken for Christian maturity. True Christian maturity is impossible without understanding what it is we believe and how it applies to our lives. The connection between Stott’s work and ours should, again, be unmistakable. That I cared about prisoners drew John Stott and me close together. He was over and over the conscience of Evangelicalism, reminding us of our duty to the poor and the suffering. Stott’s central role in the 1974 Lausanne Covenant, which brought the Evangelical world out of its self-imposed exile, caused Billy Graham, when he was named one of the most 100 influential people in Time magazine in 2005, to say that Stott deserved the designation instead. As Graham told Time, “I can’t think of anyone who has been more effective in introducing so many people to a biblical world view.” Like I said, we will miss Stott in many ways. That’s because in many ways we are back where Stott started in the 1960s. For too many evangelicals, faith has become a matter of feeling in which how we feel takes precedence over what we know. There is no shortage of disheartening data documenting how little many professing Christians know about their own faith. Stott made my recent book The Faith possible. The current state of the church makes it and others like it necessary. The question today is: have we learn from John Stott or do Christians prefer silence? Thursday, July 28, 2011BreakPoint Daily Commentary
BreakPoint Daily Commentary
A Fool's Tower July 28, 2011 The clock is ticking. The United States is on the verge of default. Congress and the president seem unable to come together and find an agreement avoiding an economic catastrophe. How in the world did we get into this fix? Well, it didn’t happen overnight. It’s been coming for a generation. For years, fiscal conservatives have warned about the dangers of out-of-control borrowing and spending, but current and previous presidents and congresses have ignored them, rolling up a massive national debt. The bigger question is why did the American people stand for this? The answer is painfully clear. Because the people themselves were busy borrowing and spending like fiends. Americans as a rule used to be a frugal people. They believed in the Protestant work ethic — an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, save for a rainy day, don’t go deep into debt. But something changed, and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman — whom I respect though often disagree with — hit the nail on the head. “The generation that came of age in the last 50 years,” he writes, “will be remembered most for the incredible bounty and freedom it received from its parents and the incredible debt burden and constraints it left on its kids.” Friedman calls this the “clash of generations.” The greatest generation scrimped and saved; their kids, the boomers, went on a big shopping binge. This is what happens when a false worldview comes home to roost. Remember that it was in the 1960s that existentialism and relativism took over college campuses. If there truly were no God and life were devoid of meaning, well, live it up while you can. Throw off the burden of moral restraints, of civic duty and responsibility. Find fulfillment in pleasure and self-actualization; not in service to others or in building a good and just society. Thus was ushered in what Christopher Lasch called the age of narcissism. There’s only one problem with the existentialist/relativistic worldview and the self-centeredness it breeds: It doesn’t work. It doesn’t foster the self-discipline, prudence, and moral character that individuals and societies need in order to flourish. No wonder then, according to the Department of Commerce, when adjusting for inflation Americans spent more than they earned in most months from 2000 through 2008. Even without adjusting for inflation, monthly personal saving was usually less than three percent. This means people were borrowing more than they could repay. Jesus asked the right question. Who would who set out to build a tower who did not “first sit down and estimate the cost” (Luke 14:28). Actually, we’re worse off than that. We borrowed heavily to build the tower, only to find out now it is about to be repossessed! Not all the news is bad, though. Since 2008, Americans have awakened to reality and begun to spend less and save more. We’ve put off that vacation, coaxed a few thousand more miles out of the old car. We’ve tightened our belts. Now it’s time to make sure the government does the same. Are folks beginning to figure out that we’ve been building a tower on a false worldview? That chasing self-fulfillment and living for the moment lead inevitably to moral and economic poverty? Well, we’ll see. But it’s a fair question, and we, the Church, must raise it again and again. For our good and for the good of all.Tuesday, April 12, 2011
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