Pastors' Blog

Having just returned with Karen from two weeks in the Horn of Africa, I’ve had the chance to ponder the meaning of a word we don’t use much in daily conversation.  But as we spent time in the company of two very different communities of people there, the word has taken on a new meaning for me.
Paul never used the word.  But in a letter he once wrote, he described it graphically.  “To the Jews I made myself as a Jew, to win the Jews . . . to those outside the Law [I made myself] as one outside the Law . . . to the weak, I made myself weak, to win the weak.”  And all of this for what?  “I accommodated myself to people in all kinds of different situations, so that by all possible means I might bring some to salvation” (I Corinthians 9:20-22 NJB). 
Reread his words a few times, and I think you’ll agree with me that this intrepid missionary is advocating a radical modus operandi for the mission of God!  Namely, the good news of the Kingdom is most effectively communicated when the communicator is “in context” with the community he/she is seeking to reach.  I.e., to reach Jews, become as a Jew, embracing the common ground of their faith, affirming the shared truth of their beliefs.  Paul did.  To reach the weak, take off your power suit and tie, and wear the garb and display the mind and heart of the humble, the weak, the disenfranchised.  I.e., become one of them in order to reach one of them. 
That little used word?  “Contextualization.”  And the reason it’s been on my mind these past two weeks is that I’ve been wondering if Paul’s strategy could also be expressed, “To the Muslim, I became as a Muslim”?  And what about, “to the Pentecostal, I became as a Pentecostal”?  I.e., is being “in context” as essential for the divine mission today as it was in Paul’s day?
But how far does “contextualization” go without compromising your own faith?  How closely do I need to resemble the one I’m trying to reach without sacrificing my own spiritual identity, values and truth?  Someday perhaps you and I can share a story or two from the Horn of Africa as a part of seeking the answers.  But in the mean time, we can share the prayer that God might enable us as he did Paul to accommodate ourselves to people “in all kinds of different situations, so that by all possible means [we] might bring some to salvation.” 
After all, wasn’t that God’s personal mission two thousand years ago, when he became “one with us” in order that he might save even one of us?  Clearly “contextualization” has a most compelling precedent, wouldn’t you agree?

Aren’t you glad God isn’t like the stock market?  What a ride this week is turning out to be for investors the world over!  The unraveling mortgage crisis here in the U.S. and the ensuing credit crunch, coupled with volatility in the global oil markets and the threat of recession prompted the President last week to announce a $150 billion tax cut bailout for American taxpayers.  But the world markets apparently were not impressed on Monday, as one by one from Japan to Hong Kong to India to Europe markets plunged over investor jitters.  And had the Federal Reserve not stepped in with its ¾ point interest rate reduction early Tuesday morning, who knows if the sky would’ve fallen on Wall Street! And where does all of this leave us?  On the precarious edge of economic recession, perhaps.  But nevertheless, secure in the care and keeping of the God whose compassionate commitment to his earth children is unwavering.  “For I am the LORD, I do not change” (Malachi 3:6).  No volatility, no gyrating, no roller coaster plunges with the Lord of the universe.  “Because His compassions fail not.  They are new every morning.  Great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22, 23).  Did you catch that?  Unfailing, unchanging—that is the God who stands beside us at every dawn and offers again to walk the new day and night through with us.  When the immensity of that assurance sinks into our consciousness, surely it can birth an unshakeable confidence in him, can’t it?  What a God to call our Friend!  As for the future of our national and global economy, who can say?  There is a thought I keep tucked away in the back of my mind.  “For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them” (I Thessalonians 5:3).  I.e., neither predictions of economic security nor pronouncements of financial doom are going to determine earth’s outcome.  If the story of Noah teaches us anything, it is surely that when the sun is shining in all its glory and life seems most secure and promising, earth’s history can radically reverse itself, all prognostications to the contrary.  Which being interpreted must mean that our deepest security will always lie in the nail-scarred hands of the Savior of this world.  After all the sun may be shining and the markets rising on the day Christ returns to earth.  “As the days of Noah were,” he once intoned, “so also will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew 24:37).  Which is reason enough for you and me to place our lives, our 401Ks, and all our plans, dreams and ambitions for the future in trust with the one God who will not change though the heavens fall.  Because when the sky does fall, I want to be rising with him, don’t you?

“The Church of the Non-Believers.”  The title would catch anybody’s eye.  A few months ago Janine Lim, our webmaster, sent me an issue of Wiredmagazine carrying this cover story (11-06). Tagline:   “No heaven.  No hell.  Just science.  A band of intellectual brothers is mounting a crusade against belief in God.  Are they winning converts, or merely preaching to the choir?”   My curiosity piqued, I read contributing editor Gary Wolf’s ten pages of interviews with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett—among the most prominent and articulate advocates of the “The New Atheism.”  Along with his analysis of their fledgling movement, Wolf intriguingly weaves into the piece his own faith (or lack thereof) journey and confession.  

Near the end of the article, he writes:  “Where does this leave us, we who have been called upon to join this uncompromising war against faith?  What shall we do, we potential enlistees?  Myself, I’ve decided  to refuse the call.  The irony of the New Atheism—this prophetic attack on prophecy, this extremism in opposition to extremism—is too much for me” (p 193).  

For close to twenty million Americans, however, it is not too much.  At least not yet. 

Into this climate of open questions and multiple-choice answers, we begin a new year series this weekend that unabashedly examines the alternative to the New Atheism.  Richard Dawkins’ newest book, The God Delusion, introduces this six-part exploration.  But a solitary line from the ancient Scriptures will be the foundation for our exploration. 

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). 

I invite you to join me in this journey back to the beginning.  For in the dimmed past of our ancestral roots, there may yet be found the forgotten gift of our abandoned heritage.  Please click here and subscribe to this important podcast:  “The Refreshing ‘Delusion’” (1), “The Three Act Play” (2), “The Legacy of ‘the Bastard Science’” (3), “The Invasion” (4), “The Case of Dr. Eck” (5), and “The Very Simple and Highly Visible Test” (6). 

According to the CIA World Factbook (proof, I suppose, that spy agencies have a positive role to play on earth), around 27% of the world’s population is under 15 years of age.  And according to the constantly escalating World Population Clock, at the time of this writing earth had 6,638,512,622 inhabitants.  Which means that approximately 1.7 billion residents of this planet are under 15.  Twenty percent of them live in China, 17 % in India, and 4.6% of them are here in the United States. What’s that have to do with Christmas and the approaching of a new year?  Beyond the obvious—that this holiday season is always the season of children (a reality not missed by Madison Avenue with its relentless marketing blitz for toys and video games and other childhood accoutrements)—this 27% demographic slice of humanity is surely a silent cry for the world of adults to invest its best energies in saving our children.  Not just spiritually, but also physically and emotionally. A new study, published in the January issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health and released this past Tuesday, has found that the simple matter of sex education for our children dramatically reduces (71% for males, 59% for females) the likelihood of their becoming sexually active before the age of fifteen.  While the study does not research or report abstinence beyond the age of fifteen, those who care for children certainly can celebrate these results as an incremental victory in the war to protect our young.  (http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/536167/) The matter of childhood poverty concerns us all, too, doesn’t it?  Hershel Sarbin quotes “Voices for America’s Children” with this somber observation:  “As a society we pay a steep price for allowing one in five of our nation’s children to live in poverty. Economists estimate the annual national cost of persistent childhood poverty due to lost adult productivity and wages, increased crime, and higher health expenditures is massive: approximately $500 billion or four percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.”  (http://www.connectforkids.org/node/5761)  One in five children living in poverty?  Shouldn’t Benton Harbor’s proportion of that statistic be of deep concern to us at this university? Christmas is the season of children.  After all the Hero of his-story and our story came to us as the Child.  And because he did, heaven’s agenda to save all earth children (young and aged) was both ratified and secured.  Knowing that the Christ Child is the lover of all children, why not look for an opportunity every week of the new year to make a difference in the life of one child (a smile, a note, a word of affirmation and encouragement, a listening ear, an offering to a children’s fund, a contribution to a church school or a public school, a gift of volunteer service at school or at church—God’s list of opportunities must be endless)?  Thus in our own “adultish” sort of way, we can make the new year be for us what it already is for God—the Year of the Child.