Evangelicals surveyed

[Where did June go?  Blogs have been getting infrequent.  Oh dear.]


A couple of weeks ago, the Pew Forum published the results of a substantial Global Survey of Evangelical Protestant Leaders.

It makes interesting reading for two reasons:  first, because I think that many of its questions are quite insightful and go to the heart of quite a few matters.  Second, because the answers are enlightening, and often scary.

Take, for example, these snippets:
 

More than half say that consuming alcohol is enough to stop you being a good evangelical.  Ooops; that's 'Good Evangelical'.  Oh dear.  Then again, if 97% see it as essential to follow the teachings of Christ, but 27% don't see that as extending to helping the poor and needy, which bible did they read, actually?

It's interesting in the light of my blog from a couple of months ago that 76% have experienced or witnessed divine healing.  I'm also a little blown away by the fact that 61% confidently assert that "the rapture of the Church will take place before the Great Tribulation".  Perhaps it's more positive to learn that 13% think that homosexuality should be accepted by society (51% of those in Latin America; 23% of those in Europe), even if 55% think a wife must always obey her husband, and 33% think women should stay home and raise children.

I think the thing that struck me most was this question:



Firstly, missing is any kind of self-doubt.  Perhaps that's the survey's fault, but if you fear a decline in Evangelicalism (and a small majority in the global North anticipate one), surely you have to ask yourself whether that decline is due to an inherent flaw - a mistaken theology, philosophy, or pattern of thinking or behaviour. But, more generally, what can "influence of secularism" possibly mean here?  That there's a battle of ideas - and you're losing?  Likewise, "influence of Islam": if you believe that the gospel of Christ is the truth, and that the teaching of the Koran is not, well, why fear the latter?  And so on.  Many of the other things are fears about the gospel or the work of the Holy Spirit being insufficiently strong to protect the faithful: that seems at odds with the rhetoric about the power of the gospel.

Over all, the survey gives me the sense of evangelicalism - at least, northern hemisphere evangelical protestantism - being a spent force, far more concerned with the maintenance of its own way of being than with an essential spark of a movement of the Holy Spirit of God.  But perhaps I'm unduly cynical.

Review: The Outsider Interviews

The Outsider Interviews
Jim Henderson, Tom Hunter, and Craig Spinks

Christians often spend time trying to understand the perspective of those outside the church.  Or, rather, they should.  Too often, we simply assume. Our unchurched neighbours might as well belong to a distant tribe on the far side of the planet, for all we really know of their lives.  The Outsider Interviews  sets out to ask a mix of churched and unchurched people - mainly from the so-called Buster generation - about how they perceive Christians and the church.  An early discourse explains why "Outsider": Evangelicals tend to talk of "the lost" to describe those outside the church - but not to their faces.  The authors want a more useful descriptive term with less of  a pejorative overtone.

The perspective is entirely a USA-centric view.  The authors visited Kansas City, Phoenix, Denver, and Seattle. In each place, they interviewed two Christians and two outsiders, in front of a live audience, and also filmed additional backstage material.   There is nothing earth-shattering in the answers (depending on your starting point) but there is much to learn, much to be reinforced by the way that these articulate young people express themselves.  Very often they have missed the point of what the gospel message is all about - without apportioning blame, we may readily say that evangelism has failed!

This is a DVB - a DVD/Book.  The DVD and the book have distinct content.  You're supposed to consume both.  I first bought it as a Kindle book, saving 50p: but it didn't come with the DVD content - so I sent it back for a refund! [the Kindle edition no longer seems to be available.] The DVD contains the actual interviews; the book gives the back-story and some commentary.  The DVD has high production values and is well-produced.  You could use its segments in many contexts - as discussion-starters or jumping-off points for talks.  The book is more self-indulgent, in a way.  It tells us the interviewers' perspective on the topics, and their reaction to the Outsiders' comments.  Several chapters are reconstructions of their discussion over dinner, after the interviews - with perhaps more contextual information than is really needed.  The background is useful, but doesn't really add as much to the videos as I might have hoped.

The book has a good website, where you can see excerpts of the text and video content, as well as extras.  For example, there is a small group study guide, and suggestions on how to run interviews in your own church - an interesting fresh spin on approaches to evangelism.

I said that there is nothing too surprising in the answers: that is not to say that they are pedestrian.  Complex situations arise: one story is told of a Christian whose friend contemplates an abortion.  She tells her that she dislikes that option, but will stick by her - even going to the clinic with her - no matter what her decision.  This turned out to be a powerful witness to the love of Christ.  Other hot button issues for the American church - such as the gay rights agenda - also get a good airing.  It is always salutary to see ourselves as others see us.

That, I think, is the value here.  If we don't listen, we don't really have the right to speak. The topics that come up in conversation should help to define how we describe the love of God.  Craig Spinks' rather wonderful Recycle your Faith site explores them further.

Not raptured

The media have been full of amused comments about the rapture occurring today, many perhaps understandably confusing it with judgement day or the end of the world.  Evidently some Christian broadcaster has decreed that his infallible calculations point to 6pm today: predictions that even now seem to be unravelling - to a lack of surprise from most of the population of the planet.  [Though the link above seems to be non-functional at present: either its administrator has left the planet, or maybe its attracted an uncommon level of demand today.]

I grew up with this kind of belief system - though I was firmly drilled with the confidence that Matthew 24:36 (etc.) means that prediction of or speculation about the date was a waste of time.  Happily, I encountered relatively few who took strong positions on matters of eschatology, but premillenial dispensationalism tended to go unchallenged - to the extent of showing unchallenged "A Thief in the Night" to the church's teens.  I know that film gave many some sleepless nights (gosh, it has five stars on IMBb) - but I guess I had confidence that I would be in the rapture when it came, and so it held no fears for me.  There was a kind-of double-think going on there already, because there would also be discussion of the second coming when Christ would be seen, and worshipped, by all - with no mention of there having been a preceding rapture.  As I say, there was a lack of dogmatism.

That didn't stop us in the 1970s having a Sunday School chorus, inspired rather transparently by the space race, with bad poetry and worse theology:

Somewhere in outer space
God has prepared a place
For those who trust him and obey.
Jesus will come again
Although we don't know when
The count-down's getting lower every day.
Ten and nine, eight and seven,
Six and five and four:
Call upon the Saviour while you may
Three and two, coming through the clouds in bright array
The countdown's getting lower every day.

[yes, I typed that from memory.  I do that.]

And now?  I don't think I live in expectation of rapture, nor even if I'm honest, the bodily visible second coming of Christ.  All that end times theology is at best sketchy and at worst, downright absurdly made-up.  It's difficult to argue that the biblical authors had a single coherent view of what to expect: and harder, I think, to reach the conclusion that they present a water-tight prophetic picture of the future.  That's not a very satisfactory statement: and that's perhaps why this isn't the latest instalment in my "Here I stand?" series.  I'm not sure where I stand.

I can't help thinking that I have that in common with most Christian people.  There are lots of possible things we might believe about end times - from reading the scripture dispensationally as a "literal" (if perhaps contradictory) account of what is to come, through to a more alleogrical reading: and somehow we tend to manage to hold onto them all from time to time.  I think I tend toward the allegorical hermaneutic, which puts me out of line with most evangelicals.

Why? Well, others (such as McLaren, or Ehrman) put it more eloquently than I, and with greater theological sophistication.  I don't think the scripture invites us to read it 'literally' (mainly because I think that word meaningless in this context), and it is very clear that the primary events referred to in many passages are principally about contemporary problems (such as the Fall of Jerusalem) rather than predictions for hundreds and thousands of years hence.  Does that downplay Christian hope?  I don't think so - today's persecuted church can draw much strength from the church of bygone days.  Looking to the resurrection of the dead - to rise with Christ - is the Christian hope for all ages.

The apparent confident expectation of some that today they would be raptured (to the point of paying to make provision for non-Christians to look after their pets)  is touching if whacky.  Since that's not me, and not most Christians I think, I do think that we need to find a new way to talk about these things that makes sense in the 21st century, and I know I'm not sure how that will work.

Review: Miracles for Sale

Miracles for Sale, Channel 4
Monday 25th April 2011

Derren Brown is a TV hypnotist.  He makes entertainment out of manipulating people's emotions and perceptions: but he is essentially open about this.

The premiss of this documentary is two-fold: firstly, that faith healers (every faith healer? Brown thinks so) are simply manipulative showmen who are out to make money; secondly, that Brown can train anyone to be a faith healer.  He's quite exercised about this - and particularly concerned about those who suffer depression when their healing does not appear (or doesn't last), or throw away medication and become ill.

So he recruits a scuba-diving instructor, trains him over a few months, then takes him to Texas.  There they see some faith healers at work, and learn a few tricks along the way - the best being the old favourite of leg-lengthening.   He practices preaching, teams up with a worship group, does a bit of on-street 'healing', and then runs a public event and does the whole thing for real. At the end, he does a 'reveal' in front of the whole audience - telling people that faith isn't about handing over money to rich evangelists.

Throughout, he's eager to underline that he has no quarrel here with genuine faith, and doesn't wish to undermine it.  He wants only to expose charlatans.  He and his scuba-diving protégé are also very exercised about doing right by those they work with - to the extent of cutting ties with a Christian PR company which might have got them  a much bigger audience, for fear that said company would crash when the truth was revealed.  They suffer angst from the deceit they engage in, but remind themselves "we must be hypocrites for a while so that the reality may be shown".

All in all, the presentation struck me as thoroughly responsible and worthy. There are many "faith healers" who are plainly manipulative fraudsters, and the more they are exposed, the better.

But it's rather close to home, too.  I've certainly encountered many within my branch of faith who will talk eagerly and in a convinced way about miraculous healing.  Long ago, I even encountered people who'd experienced the leg-lengthening thing, though I haven't heard of that stuff for quite a while.  But miraculous healing almost never seems to stand up to scrutiny.  You'd expect the medical profession to be sceptical, of course, but given how many people believe in healing, you'd have thought that there would be at least a few well-attested, incontrovertible cases.  But there aren't.  As far as I know, the medical literature has none whatsoever.  None at all.  Even though there are plenty of Christian doctors - even plenty of Evangelical and Charismatic ones.  None at all.  None whatsoever.  Isn't that odd?

Christian GP Peter May evidently set out some time ago some characteristics of biblical healing miracles, arguing that these form something of a "gold standard" for evaluating whether a miracle has happened.

• The conditions were obvious examples of gross physical disease
• They were at that time incurable and most remain so today
• Jesus almost never used physical means
• The cures were immediate
• Restoration was complete and therefore obvious
• There were no recorded relapses
• Miracles regularly elicited faith

Miracles today?  They remain widely discussed in Christian circles.  Should we move on?

is Love Winning?

This is the space where I might have reviewed Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins.  But it has lit up the blogosphere so successfully (who'd have thought a book on heaven and hell would be a trending topic on twitter?!) that there doesn't seem to be a need.  Countless reviews will tell you whatever you want to hear - that Bell is a heretic, a theological lightweight, a wise pastor, an opportunist self-publicist, or a fresh interpreter of sometimes-lost truth.  Instead, these are my incoherent rambling comments on the brouhaha that has followed.

If you want to be outraged, the book will oblige.  But being outraged at a refreshing look at God's grace seems inappropriate. Some purple passages have been widely quoted (and misquoted), such as:

A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and that to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.

But Rob always loves to be a little enigmatic, so people don't get to pin him down on "what he really believes": of course the result is that you can read it as "really" saying he's a heretic, or "really" saying he's presenting the historic Christian message in a a fresher way.  But that dichotomy misses the point.  I don't think he's interested in playing that game.  His style is questioning: some love it, and some find it destructive.  Many have an inherent distrust of a fresh hermeneutic approach.  I have to say that the way that some have rushed in to defend their favourite doctrines makes them sound more like the dogmas of a faith community they would want to distance themselves from.

I think this is really quite an important book.  Bell has an immense following.  People know he's not entirely "safe" but he is a great communicator, and most would have said that his heart was in the right place.  But writing as he has done here, he does move people forward towards a point of decision.  Not because he wants to create division,  I think, but because it is time to tell the Jesus story in a new way.

The theme of  the book, of course, is that Love Wins: that God's way of dealing with us is radical and full of grace.  What's very noticeable is that Love isn't the word that springs to mind when you look at the way Bell's critics would wish to deal with him.  John Piper's by-now infamous tweet is a mark of something very much awry - perhaps it was just a rash off-the-cuff remark, but a wise many said we should be slow to speak.  "Conversation ...full of grace, seasoned with salt" doesn't seem to cover it, for me.

Doubtless those who want to disagree with Bell - and with Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and all the rest - would say that what they are doing is calling out false teachers.  Does that relieve them of an obligation to grace?  If you want a hint of the stress that the last few weeks have caused the man and those close to him, listen to the first few minutes of his sermon from Mars Hill last Sunday.

Thank you for continuing to remember that the gospel is known by its fruit, and that we can get all of the words right and we can have all the best doctrines and dogmas and we can actually be a clanging cymbal, and that love is what Jesus said is the greatest commandment.

If the media storm was not foreseen - as he implies - perhaps that was naive.  But it's more generous to think of that than to suggest there was a cynical sales drive going on.

God is love.  Love is the strongest thing imaginable.  Of course love wins.

here I stand? part 6: morality

I'm in the middle of a series trying to set out where I've reached in my thinking about how to describe my faith today.  The previous parts are these:

• here I stand ? the introduction
• here I stand? part 2: scripture
• here I stand? part 3: gospel and salvation
• here I stand? part 4: mission
• here I stand? part 5: spiritual formation
• here I stand? reflection

Morality is a big issue for Christians today.  In my country, at least, the perception of those outside the church is surely that Chrisitans are great moralizers  - and probably hypocrites into the bargain.  There's often the perception that those morals are rooted in the Iron Age, and wildly out of touch with the current language of rights and self-fulfilment.

And it must be said that there's more than a grain of truth there.  Christians seem to hang onto a Victorian morality when the rest of society has thrown it away.  And we have a propensity to imagine that the mores of the 19th century are in fact God's ideals.  But it ain't necessarily so.

The Scripture gives us Christ's Golden Rule; it gives us all manner of good principles about how we should act towards each other.  But it doesn't give us a whole lot of absolutes - we made many of those up.  Or rather, we evolved them independently of scripture.  A strong theology of marriage just isn't there.  We made it up.  Which might help to explain why the whole gay marriage thing has caused quite so much angst.  How do two people become married?  What "can't you do" before marriage? Who says so?   The whole "gay community" thing is of course a political construction.  The society of biblical times didn't recognise gayness as a state of being - nor have most other societies.  But attitudes to same-sex relationships have been much more complex, ambivalent, often tacitly accepting, through the ages.

Most (much?) (all?) of morality is a social construction.  We need morals in order to live harmoniously together - and to my mind morality is a better notion than rights, because it tends to embody mutual obligation rather than naive individualism.  Few morals are absolutes: they evolve, and difficult cases cause adjustments.  The morality - or ethics - surrounding developments in reproduction (from IVF, through sperm donation, frozen embryos, all the way to cloning, embryo selection, and many things we haven't thought of yet) raises profound questions for which there is no trite answer within the moral framework of former generations.  [Court cases in which a divorced man withdraws his consent for a fertilized embryo being implanted in his erstwhile wife's womb - her ovaries having been removed in the meanwhile - spring to mind.  A rare instance of the "man's right to choose"?]  As medical technology advances, there will be more and more of these questions: and if Christians flee from them they will be perceived (rightly, I think) as being as out of touch as they now view the Jehovah's Witnesses for refusing blood transfusions.

Are there no absolutes?  Well, I'm doubtful.  I don't imagine that we are ever going to come out on the side of being allowed to shoot one another on a whim, but "ye shall do no murder" clearly admits a lot more nuances than one might first imagine.  Debates around just war, capital punishment, abortion, and euthanasia have illustrated some of the complexities.

We need morality and ethics, and they will continue to evolve.  It's a shame that Christians are seldom in the forefront of the development of these.  Arguing for the right to discriminate isn't very helpful.  Arguing for the right to be abusive or to lay heavy burdens on the most vulnerable is not necessarily in keeping with the Golden Rule.  Would that Christ-followers were know for their compassion, for a caring attitude to fallen, broken humanity; would that our watch-word was "let the one who is without sin cast the first stone".

curious

I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies (Genesis 22:17, NIV)

Here's a curious thing:  the number of stars in the universe might be around the same number as the number of grains of sand on earth. That's a few billion billion.  [it must be said that estimates vary widely].  Don't tell the literalists, though, because in the whole history of the world, there have been many fewer than a billion descendants of Abraham.