Evangelistic Vision Setting

‘Imagine arriving in heaven, just resurrected into the New Creation at the end of the world, as the crowds of God’s people are gathering. You can hear them all, from every nation and culture, breathless with excitement, exhausted from the work of evangelism, constantly swapping stories of those who’ve been saved, embracing the team involved in their own salvation and being embraced by all whom they’d helped. Everywhere there is the joy of battle endured and won. And most exciting of all, the warm, welcoming embrace of Jesus himself for all his weary, and in many cases bloodied servants. What a shameful tragedy to arrive comparatively fresh and untroubled! To have been someone who’d lived as a spectator watching from the sidelines, hiding from God’s great evangelistic enterprise. We need to seize the opportunity to get involved’.

Richard Coekin, A Few Good Men

A Personal Perspective on Assisted Suicide

Sarah Meagher, one of the church members at CCB, helped out at a recent All Souls event. She was being interviewed as someone who has recently faced the painful experience of losing a loved one. Her husband, James, died in the Spring 2007. They were founding members of our church plant in 2002. She was being asked about her views on assisted suicide.

The youtube vids are in three parts. You can find them here, here and here.

Choosing a Charity

The occasion for this discussion document was the opposition amongst some parents at our children’s school to the Samaritan’s Purse initiative, Operation Christmas Child. I’ve posted something about the organisation here.

Those opposed to the scheme were unhappy that a mainstream Christian organisation with evangelical convictions stood behind the Christmas Box Scheme. There have been some negative press reports which, though inaccurate and unnecessarily inflammatory, were nevertheless correct in their assertion that some of the boxes are received by local churches and distributed with accompanying literature of a distinctly Christian content. I understand their concerns.

I want to argue that though this may have been an unpopular decision amongst some parents, it wasn’t inappropriate. And in fact, hereafter to deliberately prohibit an organisation, even one as apparently contentious as this, is censorious. To exclude a scheme such as this from the school would be religious discrimination and bigotry of the worst sort. It’s worth pointing out that the doctrinal position held by Samaritan’s Purse is mainstream historical Christianity, represented in this country by the Church of England. Compare what the Samaritans Purse believe with the foundational documents of the Church of England and there’s very little difference.

We could try and avoid this by adopting a ‘lowest common denominator’ approach in which we choose something so inoffensive that someone would have to be so illiberal that they couldn’t support it. But somewhat counter intuitively I’m keen not to sweep the issue under the carpet. I’d prefer to provide a defensible rationale for choosing a charity.

In selecting which charitable organisations to support, the following three considerations ought to be borne in mind.

1. We are a community school

We are not a faith school where everyone, supposedly, is reading off the same hymn sheet! We are a community school. Therefore we will need to recognise and respect the diversity of convictions amongst our staff, parents and children with regard to philosophy, theology and ideology. As a community school we aim to provide a secular education. [From the Latin ‘saeculum’ meaning of this world] In other words, we seek to educate children for life in this world. This will include helping them appreciate the existence of religious faiths. But it also ought to help them evaluate and respect those of all faiths and none. But we are not providing a secularist education. [An ideology that espouses the conviction that the ‘natural’ world is all that there is, and that there is no such thing as the ‘supernatural’]. We do not teach that this life is all that there is. That would be to preference one faith position, namely secularism, over all others. And so, when the school chooses one charitable organisation over another, it does not imply that this is the schools’ ideological conviction. This is important since it protects the school and the Head Teacher from accusations of preferential treatment.

2. All charities have an agenda

All charities will have an agenda, something that they are trying to do and they will also have an underlying rationale, the reason why they are trying to do it. Sometimes these will be stated. For example the British Heart Foundation’s website states, ‘Our vision is of a world in which people do not die prematurely of heart disease. We’ll achieve this through pioneering research, vital prevention activity and ensuring quality care and support for everyone living with heart disease’. That’s hard to find issue with. Where the agenda and rationale is unstated it may also be implicit. For example, most Christian Charitable organisations will have an underlying rationale that what they do is done out of obedience to God, to demonstrate His love for the world and for His glory. Not all parents will share this conviction and so may not feel able to support the charity. Therefore some parents may not feel able to subscribe to the schools’ enthusiasm for one particular charitable organisation. They might do so for the following three reasons.

They disagree with what’s being done. The issue is with the activity that the charity undertakes. For example, it’s unlikely that Christians and Muslims would be supportive of a charity like Marie Stopes International because of their involvement in abortion. Even if MSI isn’t a Charitable Organisation then the principle still stands. It’s feasible that a charity supporting Palestinian refugees might prove unpopular amongst those with sympathies for Israel.

They disagree with how it’s being done. The issue is with the method that the charity employs. For example, the antagonism of a few to Operation Christmas Child seems to be fired by a disapproval that some of the boxes, when received overseas especially by churches, are accompanied by literature with a clear Christian message or an invitation to attend a church based course.

They disagree with why it’s being done. The issue is with the motive that the charity holds. As a Christian I am happy to contribute financially to organisations working in Medical Research even though I’m aware that these are not being done with an underlying Christian rationale. However, as a Christian, I wouldn’t be happy to support any of the charitable activities of the British Humanist Association because of their underlying philosophy.

All of this means that there’s more to charitable involvement and more to parental opposition than meets the eye!

3. Parents have responsibility for their children

Parents have primary authority over and responsibility for their children, not the school. And therefore any participation in a charitable organisation should be well publicised amongst the parents, permission sought where this is likely to be contentious and participation made optional. I don’t think we should try and bind people’s consciences but instead allow them the freedom to make their own minds up whether they support a charitable organisation and its cause.

Conclusion

I would expect a community school, in order to be representative and fair minded, to support a number of different charities, including perhaps Muslim ones. To only support those with no explicit religious agenda might be safest but also a little unrepresentative given that there are many people at our school with clear religious convictions. At the very least, I’m not sure that parents have grounds for complaint concerning a charitable organisation when participation is made optional.

Atheism in the Playground

Who’d have thought that a shoebox full of toys being sent to needy children in less developed countries could have caused such anguish?

Only a couple of people have talked to me directly about this. But I’m aware that it’s been a heated subject of conversation in the school playground. And not amongst the kids! Strangely enough, as I was penning these thoughts I received an e-mail on just this issue.

A few weeks ago the Headteacher of our local primary school launched Operation Christmas Child. The children were invited to go home, find a shoebox, fill it with fun items for a child and then bring it back to school. The box would be sent to Samaritan’s Purse, who oversee the project, and then be sent on to a school, hospital or orphanage overseas. They give away 1.2 million boxes a year from the UK. It is the world’s largest Christmas project and the largest single project of Samaritan’s Purse. When they started in 1993 they shipped 28,000 shoeboxes. By 2008 that had increased to 8 million. They recruit the gifts from 11 countries. Since it started they have distributed more than 60 million shoebox gifts to 145 countries and territories worldwide. In 2009 they hope to collect 8.2 million shoebox gifts. That’s fantastic, isn’t it?

I had no part in suggesting that the school should do this, though I think it’s terrific. I have no idea how many parents and children have bought into it. But every time I go into school I see boxes being carried by children and piled up on a table. Not everyone is happy however. Some are really very unhappy. Their issue is not simply that Operation Christmas Child is a Christian organisation, though they’d prefer it if it wasn’t. Their issue is that this organisation proselytise. The doctrinal position of OCC is historic mainstream Christianity but it’s unpalatabel to some of the parents who don’t like what they stand for.

The Headteacher could have supported something more ‘amenable’ to people of all faiths and none. Though I don’t think it’s been the parents of other faiths that have had such a big issue. It’s been those of the atheistic faith who’ve been most exercised. They could have simply decided to opt out. Instead they decided to create a stink.

But I think the criticism is unfair. It’s true that it’s a Christian organisation and so their motivation for helping the children who receive the boxes is to share God’s love with others. That’s why they started the scheme. But we all have motives for being generous. For a Christians it’s response to God’s love in Christ. For an atheist, the Muslim, the Buddhist and so on there’s a different motivation. People can give for whatever reason they choose and it remains a generous gift to the disadvantaged.

Most of the opposition to Samaritan’s Purse is ill informed and inaccurate. The Guardian article by Polly Curtis and subsequent internet chatter is laregly responsible for this. Lots of the opposition arose originally in 2001 after comments by Samaritan’s Purse President and Chief Executive, Franklin Graham [Billy Graham' son]. They were subsequently picked up and misquoted by campaigning atheistic groups. What he said was ‘I do not believe Muslims are evil people because of their faith, but I decry the evil that has been done in the name of Islam, or any other faith, including Christianity’. Too often it is only the middle phrase ‘I decry the evil that has been done in the name of Islam’ that’s selected for use as a quotation. In 2003 the Guardian ran an article. That contained several inaccuracies. The newspaper was contacted to correct these and invited at least three times to visit OCC to see how they work. They declined invitations to do so.

There are over 5,000 schools in the UK that support Operation Christmas Child. That’s a lot of schools that are happy with what they’re doing! The tie in with the National Curriculum looks an exciting opportunity for schools to use educationally.

OCC remove all religious material from the boxes if people put it in. They do not add anything else inside the box. If the local churches in the receiving country request it then they can receive a book called ‘The Greatest Gift’, which talks about the birth of Christ, written in the child’s langauge. This is not placed inside the box. And though teh content is Christian the readers aren’t being forced to believe what they read. Samaritan’s Purse remain a Charitable Organsiation that a number of large companies are happy to support eg The Entertainer, Stead and Simpson among others. Following the internet campaign against them in 2003 they were investigated by the Charities Commission [which they were obliged by law to do]. The Charities Commission were satisfied with the Charity and closed the case. It’s true that one or two organisations dropped their support. I suspect this was a politically wise thing to do following the tensions with Muslims following 9/11 and negative press comment. But it’s also the case that companies change which charities they support from time to time. Lots of boxes go to partner churches in the receiving country but many more go to hospitals and orphanages. The churches may add their own literature outside the box. But it’s clear that it’s the churches that do this. No one ought to attend a bible class before they receive a box. If that’s taken place then it’s manipulative and coercive and therefore sub-Christian. It’s supposed to be a free and generous gift. Like the gift of God’s Son Jesus. Of course OCC is motivated by its Christian beliefs to help people and, when asked why they do it, they will share their belief in Jesus. However, shoeboxes should always be given unconditionally to the children regardless of nationality, political background or religious beliefs. Just like Jesus! I’ll post a few more thoughts in a while once I’ve reflected on this a little more.

Christian Flatshare

Should Christians live in a mixed house? Yes, if they’re married to each other. That one’s simple. But what if they’re all just mates? After all can’t Christian guys be good mates with Christian girls? It might even be good for some Christian lads who haven’t got the first idea how to relate to women to spend some time in the company of the opposite sex!

We kicked this one around at the Co-Mission Apprenticeship workshop yesterday. I wanted their take on things. I’d been contacted by one of the lads in church and asked for my opinion. Never one who needs to be asked twice, I was very happy to give it. ‘No, you shouldn’t. It’s not sinful. But it’s not wise. And why would any Christian want to do anything unwise?’ was essentially my answer. I think he wanted something a little bit more nuanced. And a ‘yes’ would have been well received!

To his credit he wasn’t difficult and his responses were gracious and respectful. I wasn’t going to make a ruling on it. And he wasn’t asking me for it. But I became acutely aware that I was becoming part of the ill defined ‘older generation’. My answers must have seemed like something from a foregone era.

But it’s a good question to ask. It’s not a question some Christians would even think about asking. The guys involved deserve some credit for not living unthinkingly. If they decide to take my advice then it could hit them financially. They need that extra bedroom to be filled.

1. We need to act for the good of ourselves

Let’s be clear, living in a mixed house is not wrong. There’s nothing in the Bible about sharing a flat with a member of the opposite sex. But there’s plenty about feeling sexual immorality. And that’s where this issue bites. For blokes in particular. Our lustful desires and temptations need no encouragement. It’s not the girls’ fault. It’s ours. But it’s real and we mustn’t be naive about the power of our sinful nature and our weakness to fight it. We’re constantly tempted to think that we’ll be alright. We minimise the strength of sin. And we especially understimate the attractiveness of sexual sin. So why would we flirt with potential disaster? If I’m driving a car on a steep and narrow mountain road I don’t drive the car recklessly by going full speed ahead and getting as close to the edge as I can. I’m only one mistake away from disaster. If I’m wise. I slow down and I steer well clear of the cliff edge. To my mind mixed flatshares are driving a little close to the edge. All it takes is one of the lads to be away for the weekend, a late night, a bit of alcohol, a large sofa and a romantic comedy and it could all go pear shaped.

2. We need to act for the good of others.

Although sexual temptation may not be our besetting sin, it may well be for others. In fact, the odds are it is. Because if it’s not our issue then we must be the one man in the world who’s the exception that proves the rule. And so why would we do something that might cause our brother to stumble?

But, we also need to act for the good of our Christian sister. Although her issue may not be sexual temptation, we could well be encouraging her to form an inappropriate emotional attachment to her flatmates. One or two of the more mature women at the workshop made the point that it’s quite possible for a young woman to go into a house of blokes and enjoy the emotional intensity of having a unique friendship with the lads she lives with. Your housemates are the people you download onto, they’re the people you relax and unwind with. They’re the people you connect with and form some degree of emotional dependency. That’s not alway obvious until, say, one of the lads with whom she’s close starts seeing another girl and she’s devastated. Only then, perhaps, does it become obvious what’s been going on in her head and her heart. He may have  been, and in every likelihood would have been, completely unaware of what was going on.

For the sake of our Christian brothers and sisters it’s not the wisest thing to do.

3. We need to act for the good of the gospel

This is a harder one to articulate. But a repeated concern of the Pastoral Epistles is the reputation that Christians have with non-Christians. We are to be ‘above reproach’. That’s especially true for Christian leaders. They have to hold themselves to higher standards. Whilst it’s normal amongst non-Christians to live in mixed houses and perhaps for the odd sexual encounater to take place, that ought not to be the case amongst Christians. Many of us have lived in mixed accommodation environments at university but there’s a different dynamic at play as we move through our twenties. We ought to be aware of the assumptions that people may make about our sexual ethics when we have mixed flatshares. We communicate a concern for sexual purity when we live in single sex houses. And we especially communicate that to others in our congregation who see that we take sin seriously.

I was impressed that the lads sought my response. I have no idea whether they’ll take it. But I thought asking me was a wise action in itself. In my experience I’m a hopless judge in marginal cases involving me and the wise thing to do! And so it’s always sensible to seek godly counsel. But it’s probably worth seeking accountability and being willing to submit to anothers’ ruling on this issue. Say something like, ‘it’s not my decision to make, I don’t trust myself on this one because I’ll always believe the best’.

Boris on Street Pastors

This is terrific stuff! It’s not very long. I’d have loved to have heard the whole talk. In his inimitable style, Boris defended Christians’ involvement in street evangelism. Here are some of the things he said.

‘Faith groups who want to slip in the odd coded message in favour of salvation, I have absolutely no problem with that and why not!’

‘That’s one of the things that I think has been going wrong in the last few years. We have got a slightly politically correct super-sensitivity to anything that can be remotely classed as religious advocacy. And frankly I’ve got no difficulty with it whatsoever’.

Last week he was hailed as a hero for defending a woman from a group of young adults.

‘I was doing nothing other than what you do, what the Street Pastors do, every night in the streets of London. People with the courage and the sense of public spirit to intervene with kids, on our streets, who may be about to do something stupid or possibly something fatal’.

He’s not perfect but he’s such good value.

Collision

I’ve just ordered the new film ‘Collision’ featuring Christian Douglas Wilson and atheist Christopher Hitchens. There’s a website dedicated to it here.

Christopher Hitchens writes about the film here.

I’ll let you know what I think of it once it gets here.

Remembrance Sunday

I came across this great quote in Neil Oliver’s book Amazing Tales for Making Men out of Boys. Oliver is perhaps best known to us through his appearances on the BBC programme Coast. On page 63 he wrote this,

‘The older I get, the more I realise how easy I’ve had it all my life. Having been born white and male, into a loving family, living in Great Britain in the last third of the 20^th Century, I’ve been dealt what amounts to a winning hand from the cosmic deck of cards. All the opportunities of life have been available to me since day one. I’ve never had to live with poverty, or endemic disease. I’ve never experienced any kind of prejudice or disadvantage born out of race, religion or creed. I’ve been kept safe all of my life by nameless strangers, from dangers both foreign and domestic. Our politicians are as keen to send our soldiers into wars in foreign parts as they ever were, but having been born beyond the grasp of conscription or National Service, as I have, such dangers have always been the other chap’s problems. At 40, I’ve lived long enough to be too old for conscription even if they reintroduced it tomorrow. My safety has been provided for me by people I don’t know and whom I haven’t bothered to thank. I have effectively enjoyed an endless childhood. I’ve acquired certain responsibilities along the way – jobs, mortgages, partner, children – but nothing on a par with the responsibilities borne by men of all generations before me. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson’s deluded colonel in A Few Good Men, I’ve slept under the blanket of security provided for me by other people’.

He’s right. I’m the same. And I’m not alone.

Millions of bodies lie have fallen in this country and in foreign nations. Those men and women gave their lives so that people like us could enjoy the fruits of their self sacrifice. It seems the least we can do to pause for a couple of minutes once a year and remember what they did.

Hallowe’en

We got back from our holiday on Saturday night to the horror that is Hallowe’en. A posse of our kids’ school friends and their parents were out and about visiting the neighbourhood. On the way back from holiday, I read that the Vatican had weighed in on the matter. The Times has the story here. I have to say that I agree with much of what they are reported to have said. Good on them for saying the unwelcome things.

Here are my thoughts on this event. They’re offered as a starting point in an ongoing discussion. I wish I’d posted this last week. But I was on holiday and it was fabulous!

1. Halloween is commercially significant

In the US it’s the second most popular holiday and it generates 4-6 Billion Dollars in revenue. In the UK it’s the third behind Christmas and Easter. Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny are holding Buffy the Vampire Slayer at bay for the moment. But not for long.

2. Halloween is historically significant

The origins of Halloween date back over 2000 years to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain [sow-in], a word that means ‘the end of summer’. This festival celebrated the end of harvest and the beginning of the Celtic New Year on November 1st. By 43AD the Roman Empire had conquered most of the Celtic regions and in the following 400 years the Roman festival of Feralia was incorporated into it. This day was in late October, when the Romans commemorated the passing of the dead. By the 800s Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the 8th century Pope Boniface IV designated November 1st All Saints’ Day to honour those saints that didn’t have a special day of their own. You wouldn’t want anyone to feel left out! The Pope hoped to put a Christian spin on the pagan Celtic festival with a church-sponsored holiday. It had worked with Christmas. Over the years the festival became known as All Hallows and the night before was known as All Hallows Eve or Hallowe’en.

3. Halloween is spiritually significant

I know I’ll be tarnished with a fundamentalist label but I’ve got issues with Hallowe’en. And I think they’re legitimate. But I’m not about to mount a campaign. I’ve got three main issues with Hallowe’en.

i. Halloween has become a time when wickedness is domesticated

I think the Bible allows a place for imagination. I think it has a place for pretence. And I don’t think it has an issue with fantasy. But Halloween allows elements from the dark side of spirituality to be accepted in mainstream culture. It’s become a holiday of cultural fascination with evil and the demonic. Evil is portrayed as innocent and fun. And it’s neither. We need to remember the wickedness of evil. The devil and his demons are real. We have a real spiritual adversary who seeks our destruction. If we belong to Christ by faith then we have nothing to fear from an enemy that he’s already defeated. But nevertheless wickedness and evil ought to be exposed, opposed and loathed. But our approach may actually be encouraging others to mock something that’s deadly serious. It may also encourage a fascination with something that’s enslaving and ultimately damaging. I want no part of that.

ii. Halloween has become a time when we celebrate what scares us

Out of love for the vulnerable, particularly children we ought to protect them from things that frighten them. Walking into WH Smiths to be confronted by hairy spiders, a witch’s mask and a giant bat is not most young children’s idea of fun. As anyone who’s had chidlren wake up in the middle of the night with bad dreams will tell you, images remain in children’s memories. And they come out at night to scare them. And it’s not fun. Our films have classification guidelines that allow parents the freedom to make a decision. But no such restraint is exercised at this time of the year. We may be strong enough to cope with the associations with evil without being tainted. And we may be brave enough to cope with the frightening images. But not everyone is. And as Christians we should therefore limit our freedom in love for others.

iii. Halloween has become a time when we teach our children that extortion is acceptable

Let me rant for a moment. Trick or treat is extortion. We encourage our kids to go around as a gang, knock on people’s doors and give them a choice between a rock and a hard place. It’s either ‘give me a treat’ or ‘I give you a trick’. That’s organised crime.

Rather than celebrate wickedness we encouraged our family to celebrate Jesus’ victory over wickedness, evil and the devil [Colossians 2:15].

More on Polygamy

Mark Driscoll blogs on the issue here. I think he must’ve read my post.