The value of perspective: The American Church is a minority

Don't underestimate the value of a proper perspective.  Our ability to see the Truth and facts clearly, which exist independent of our comprehension or acceptance of them, often is heavily influenced by the combination of our own point of view, and our awareness/acceptance that other views exist.  With that in mind, the chart above offers us 18 categories where statistics regarding the global Christian population can be applied.  Before offering some general thoughts, let me look at whether or not I am in the majority or minority for each.

1. Language: Minority.  I speak English, only 10/100 Christians speak English
2. Continent: Minority. I live in NA, only 11/100 Christians live in NA.
3. Tradition: Minority.  I'm a Protestant, only 22/100 Christian are Protestants
4. Gender Inequality: Majority.  55/100 Christians live in nations with low inequality.
5. Age: Majority.  64/100 Christians are between 15-64
6. Urbanization: Minority.  Only 35/100 Christians live in rural communities
7. Internet: Majority.  53/100 have access to the internet, but its almost an even split.
8. Water: Majority.  86/100 have access to clean water.
9. Malaria: Majority.  95/100 do not have Maleria.
10. HIV: Majority. 99/100 do not have HIV.
11. Life Expectancy: Majority.  55/100 have expectancy of 75+ (It is currently 78 in USA)
12. Infant: Majority.  98/100 children born to Christians survive infancy.
13. Physicians: Majority 66/100 have access to doctors.
14. Development: Minority.  Only 19/100 Christians live in highly developed countries/regions.
15. Corruption: Minority.  Only 21/100 live in countries with low levels of corruption.
16. Income: Minority.  Only 19/100 live on >$100 per day.
17. Literacy: Majority.  89/100 are literate.
18. Education: Majority.  65/100 have secondary education.

Looking at the list, that places me in the minority 7 times, with the majority 11 times, but the ones where I am in the minority (and so are you if you're reading this as a Protestant in the USA) are very significant: Language, Continent, Tradition, Urbanization, Development, Corruption, and Income.  The conclusion is inescapable: When compared to the bulk of Christians living in the world today, I have tremendous privileges and advantages.  {And yes, this doesn't take into account the additional benefits of being a white male as well, placing me ahead of others here in America that must contend with racism or sexism.}

1. The Church in America is a small piece of God's Kingdom around the globe.
Given the cultural hegemony enjoyed by America, as well as the out-sized role played by the United States on the world stage since WWII, it is natural for American Christians to assume that we are the rudder that steers the Christian vessel; that what happens here will determine the future of the Church.  The explosive growth of Christianity in the Southern and Eastern hemispheres in recent generations has made that assumption less and less true with each passing year.  This was, of course, the dream of the Modern Missions movement, establishing the Church in new nations around the globe.  Our responses?  Humility and hallelujahs.  Whether or not the Church in America grows or declines in coming decades, the global Church is moving forward, the kingdom of God is expanding rapidly, and souls are being saved.

2. Most of the worlds Christians do not speak our language, enjoy our rights/freedoms, or have nearly as many resources and opportunities in life.
As Christians, we ought to be familiar with God's grace.  It is part of the foundation of our theology that we don't deserve the loving kindness of God shown to us in Jesus Christ.  We need to also remember that many of the other blessings we enjoy in life are 'accidents of birth', not products of our hard work, and thus once again acts of God's grace.  Thank God for your blessings, support organizations that work to help alleviate poverty and injustice, and pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ for whom the simple act of living life is not so simple.

3. Our hopes, fears, concerns as rural American Protestant Christians may be out of touch with the hopes, fears, and concerns of most of the world's Christians.
Have you ever been involved in a social media squabble among Christians about an issue that would seem trivial to Christians living under an oppressive regime or trying to raise a family on less than $10 per day?  Have you ever been to a church committee meeting where people were upset about a decision made, not because we have no choices, but too many?  Perhaps some of what consumes our time and energy is not as important as we think it is.  We have Bibles in abundance, access to numerous excellent seminaries, the freedom to worship where, when, and how we choose.  The controversies that consume us, the fears that keep us up at night, are not the same as those facing the majority of our brothers and sisters around the globe.

The Folly of Angry Witnessing and the Folly of attacking Christians who befriend the Lost

Is this what Jesus had in mind when said, "Go into all the world..."

From time to time in my life I've seen people standing on a street corner with a homemade sign that lists a variety of things that God hates.  Sometimes the things on the list are accurately taken from the text of the Bible, and sometimes they reflect the beliefs of the person who made the sign, often involving politically motivated choices as well.

What then should the average Christian think in response to such demonstrations, most of which involve anger and shouting, a tactic far more likely to make enemies than friends.  Should Christians care about offending the Lost?  Should we be presenting the Gospel with anger or love?

The most important question, which should be obvious to all who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ but perhaps is not, is this: What does the Word of God say about the tactics we should be using to witness to those who don't know Jesus as Lord and Savior?

1 Peter 3:15-16 is one such key passage, "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander."

Do you mean, Peter didn't write, "Shout at the unbelievers, ridicule them, call them names, for then they will want to join you."  And he didn't write, "disrespect the lost, treat them with unkindness, and say horrible things, especially false ones, about anyone who dares to befriend an unbeliever."

Peter did write that we must witness with gentleness and respect, and he did write that we must conduct ourselves always with good behavior as representatives of Christ.

So, why all the yelling, why the hatred?  For some, it is a misguided notion that they have to defend the Law of God against societal or governmental forces, and therefore they have appointed themselves as judge, jury, and executioner on God's behalf.  For others, it might be a form of racism or ideology based hatred that is driving their counter-productive attempt to hate-witness.  The most obvious example of this in action in the West today relates to Islam.  There are some in the Christian community, at least they claim to represent Christ, who feel the need to warn about the dangers (which are of an apocalyptic level in their mind) of terrorism from individuals/organizations influenced by Islam, and therefore their only interaction with Islam is angry and militant.  They say things like "All Muslims are terrorists", or "Islam is of the devil".  They think that they're defending Western civilization and Christendom, but in reality all they accomplish is to make terrorism more likely by further marginalizing Muslims living in Western nations, and even more importantly, shutting the door against the Gospel's message even more firmly.  What Muslim, who believes in Muhammad and the Qur'an, is going to listen to what you have to say about the love of God and the desire that God has to offer forgiveness in Christ, when you approach that Muslim by insulting Muhammad and spitting upon the Qur'an?  In what reality does this tactic work even 1 in a million times?

Do you want the Lost to hear the Gospel so that they can be saved, or do you just want credit for yelling it at them?  Do you actually love the Lost, in imitation of our heavenly Father, who sent his Son to die for our sins, while we were still sinners, or has hatred clouded your mind and convinced you that some people are beyond God's saving grace?  (As if you deserved God's grace, but they don't!)

If you can't speak to those who don't know Jesus with gentleness and respect, maybe you should just keep your yap shut and let those whose hearts are burdened for a world full of people without God's love in their lives, be the ones to represent Jesus.

In Defense of Morality: The War on Terror and Strategic Bombing in WWII

It is rare, sadly, to find someone interested in what the perspective of history has to teach us about current events, politicians seem particularly oblivious to this need.  That being said, the bombing of German and Japanese cities during WWII as part of the Strategic Bombing campaign carried out by the British and American air forces offers us a much needed dose of morality regarding Western Civilization's (and these days, seemingly civilization in general) now fifteen years of actively fighting against those who would utilize terrorism for political/religious ends.  Early on in the British attempt to bring the fighting to Germany after having evacuated the continent at Dunkirk, it was discovered that attempts to selectively hit targets such as factories producing munitions and armaments had failed miserably, as "Less than one-third of its bombers were dropping their loads within five miles of the specific industrial targets they were attacking." (from Williamson Murray, "Did Strategic Bombing Work?").  Failing to destroy the intended targets was compounded by the horrendous costs to the bomber crews paid to achieve such paltry results.  Having failed to selectively target legitimate war-related targets, Bomber Command switched to "area bombing" hoping to "dehouse" the Germany urban population and break the morale of the Nazis by killing non-combatants because hitting the center of a city with firebombs is a much easier task that would certainly produce "results".  Until the end of WWII, this policy was continued, with the Americans eventually attempting their own strategic bombing campaign and eventually joining in with the British to wipe German cities off the map (with the corresponding effort in the Pacific to demolish Japanese cities).  Despite the horrific loss of life, hundreds of thousands of non-combatant men, women, and children killed, the will of the Germans and the Japanese to fight on never wavered.
In his essay on the effectiveness of the Strategic Bombing campaign in WWII, historian Williamson Murray wrote, "World War II was a matter of national survival, a war waged against a tyranny that represented a hideous moral and strategic danger.  Consequently, any judgment on the Combined Bomber Offensive must rest on the grounds of expediency rather than on those of morality."  In that essay, Murray seeks to establish that the bombing campaign was indeed effective in helping shorten WWII, but the vast majority of the evidence he presents revolves around actual strategic bombing of transportation networks and military targets (which was effective) rather than the indiscriminate destruction of cities (which was not).  Why did the Allies target cities?  Because they felt the need to do something, and this was what they could actually do.  Plus, there was also the desire to punish the German and Japanese people for the actions of their political leadership and military, and the unspoken belief that the lives lost in the bombing campaign were a part of the cost of winning the war, thankfully, being paid by the other side.
How do we evaluate Williamson's claim, and what does this have to do with terrorism?  The claim that any national emergency can set aside morality as the judge of our actions, and WWII was certainly a serious existential threat that is not in dispute, must still be categorically rejected by a Christian worldview.  If we can abandon the principles by which we seek to imitate Christ when our lives or even our civilization is threatened, of what value are those principles?  It is when we are being threatened or oppressed, as individuals, as a Church, and as a nation, that our feet should be most firmly planted on the solid rock of Christ.  If we instead call a "timeout", wage war by any means necessary to protect ourselves, and then seek to put the genie in the bottle again afterwards, we will instead only discover that we ourselves have changed in the process of defeating our foe, and not for the better.  I don't doubt for a moment the valor and service of the men who flew the bombers over Germany and Japan in WWII, but I cannot accept the defense of the strategy that sent them there to firebomb cities as being "necessary" at the time.  Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it is also the author of immoral behavior.
The War on Terror that started, for most of our awareness of it at least, with the horror of 9/11 and the deaths of so many innocent people, cannot be allowed to devolve until we are little better in our actions than those we are seeking to destroy.  We have already made mistakes and taken steps in that direction, the fact that politicians and talking heads debated whether or not torture should be one of the tools of our forces tells us as much.  The shame of Abu Ghraib is another example, along with the ongoing secret targeting of threats with drone strikes, suggestions that we can solve the ISIS problem by "carpet bombing" Syria, and now the ludicrous suggestion by one political candidate that Muslims be banned from entering the United States.
Terrorism is not nearly the threat to Western Civilization that the fascism of the Nazis and Japanese was.  Terrorism also is not nearly the threat to Western Civilization that Communism once was.  Terrorism is psychologically disturbing, creating fear that never seems to dissipate, but all the world's terrorists and would-be terrorists have a comparatively tiny amount of power versus the threats that have already been defeated in the modern era.  It would be a strategic mistake, and certainly an ethical one, if we allowed terrorism to change who we are, if we abandoned our optimism and desire to help those in need because of fear.
The morality taught to us by Jesus Christ is not an optional morality.  We cannot put it on when useful and take it off when it gets uncomfortable.  We must live, regardless of the threats against us, as disciples of Jesus Christ, the last thing we need to do is to start targeting the innocent alongside the guilty.

"All Christianity concentrates on the man at the crossroads" G.K. Chesteron

In his book, Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton explains the difference between Eastern philosophy/religion and Western philosophy/Christianity by focusing on fatalism versus free will.  To those who believe in pantheism ("all is God") or panentheism ("all is in God"), "existence is a science or a plan, which must end up a certain way." (p. 128)  After all, without separation between God and man, what use is there in trying to change anything, what hope is there in reform?  Thus the Buddhist ends up denying existence and seeking to extinguish it rather than trying to change it.  Christianity (and by with it Western philosophy) views life differently, "to a Christian existence is a story, which may end up in any way."  Thus the focus upon the crossroads, it matters a great deal which road a man takes in life because God has created man to have life and being of his own, to be able to choose to not do what God wants, and to be able to choose to love God.  Without freewill, and you can't have freewill without a transcendent (separate) God, what's the purpose of anyone's life?
This may seem like an area of interest only to philosophy or comparative religion students, but in reality, our attitudes about our place in this world and our relation to God have profound effects upon how seriously we take our personal responsibility for the choices we make.  With every horrific act of violence reported on TV due to the latest shooting or suicide bombing, people want more and more to believe that evil is something abnormal in the human brain.  It is only the "crazy" people who do such things we tell ourselves as we search for what went wrong in someone's life to turn them into such a madman.  Evil is choice, the vast majority of evil in our world is the result of the mundane choices to choose evil or good on the part of ordinary people.
Christianity offers an alternative road.  Jesus stands at the crossroad, holding up a sign that says, "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)  Will people pass him by, laughing at the guy who hasn't realized yet that life is meaningless?  Will they stop, look to Jesus, and allow him to lead them down a new path?  It makes all the difference in the world which path we take.  You see, "all of Christianity concentrates on the man at the crossroads."

Caught between two worlds

One of the fascinating thing about study history is the chance to see patterns emerge that may lend insight into the world we live in today.  I understand that not everything would think this to be exciting, but I often find that an example or illustration from the past works wonders in helping people understand the present.
As I continue to read through Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, one of the things that keeps popping up is the contrast and conflict between men and women in Church history who desired certainty (in theology, morality, cultural norms, etc.) and those who valued ambiguity.  Sometimes the difference is one of personality; some people simply cannot abide ambiguity, they feel a deep need to categorize and label everything; others feel the opposite, being asked to take an either/or position makes them uncomfortable, it just feels wrong.  On top of differences of personality we have cultural differences.  Some cultures emphasize the need to take a stand, others value including multiple viewpoints.
Church history (and human history in general) has often been a case of two people who care about the same thing (on a host of different issues) not being able to see eye to eye because one is seeking certainty and the other is valuing ambiguity.
As you read this you may be thinking, "Of course we need certainty, only a Commie liberal would want that multi-cultural crap".  Or perhaps the opposite, "What kind of fascist jerk would assume he has all the answers to everything!"  That our politics often seems divided between similar viewpoints is no fluke.  Western Civilization is a combination of the heritage of two cultures: The Greek world of Plato and Aristotle, and the Jewish world of Moses, Jesus, and Paul.  The Greeks were forever seeking ultimate truth, unable to let an issue lie, they loved the constant questions necessary to peal away layers of uncertainty.  The Jewish mind on the other hand, disdained those who claimed to know it all in favor of consensus, including every opinion and letting a majority decide things but always leaving the back door open in case a change of mind was necessary down the road.  The very languages of which our Scriptures are comprised reflect that, the precision of Greek and the ambiguity of Hebrew shows itself in the very structure of the languages themselves.
As a result of our mix and match heritage, the Church (and Western Civilization) has always prized the search for ultimate Truth but at the same time has felt discomfort when we think we have found it.  We crave unity of opinion, but know that we should leave room for those who don't fit in.  We value diversity, but find ourselves hoping that all that diversity agrees with us.  Is it any wonder that there are more Christian denominations in existence today than we can even keep track of, and yet at the same time we still long for a universal big "C" Church to stand above the fray.
My own intellectual experience reflects these tendencies.  When I was younger I craved the neatness of certainty, but the more I learned and the more I experienced the more I came to realize that such textbook answers are rarely as cut and dried as people think.  When I was younger I hesitated to extend the term "Christian" to peoples and groups with whom I saw little in common, but as time went by I began to see the underlying bond we share beneath the surface disagreements.  In the end, I've come to a place where I can affirm ultimate Truth with confidence on the core issues of our faith (see I John, or better yet download and read my book for more on this topic) and yet remain open to the multiple of expressions of that faith that exist in the Church today.
Maybe you don't want to be caught between two worlds, maybe you want only one or the other, but I'm sorry to tell you that isn't an option.  Everything we think, say, and do is a product of our common heritage, a heritage God intended to be born of two worlds, a Hebrew Old Testament and a Greek New Testament.

Ancient Words Ever True...

I was listening to the song Ancient Words in the office today, considering the words of Peter in Acts 4, and pondering the book, The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch.  Where did all of that lead me?  The Reformation (in conjunction with the Renaissance) was a difficult time for those who wished to respect ancient traditions.  If you wanted to revere all the wisdom of the ancients, you had to deny the observations of men like Copernicus and Galileo in favor of men dead for two thousand years like Aristotle and Ptolemy. 
If instead, you opened up the wisdom of the ancients to doubt, even ridicule, how could you hold the line and protect the Orthodox faith from those who would deny the Trinity (for example)?
For us, the answers seem easy: Copernicus was right and that doesn't say anything about Biblical interpretation, it's just an observation from the natural world.  It wasn't so simple at the time.  We, as supposedly enlightened modern thinkers, may scoff at the foolishness of our forefathers, and shake our heads that they ever burned "witches" at the stake; but the question should be, "Are we any better?"
Take a look around the world we live in.  It has become the accepted belief in the Modern West that a human embryo can be disposed of with not a bit of care, and even an ironic moral outrage at those who would seek to "force" a young girl to give birth to the child growing inside of her.  It has also become the accepted belief in much of the Modern West that any and all variations of sexuality, co-habitation, and separation are equally valid.  That nobody has the right to tell anyone else that their choices are wrong.
Does it really seem so funny that men in the 16th Century were troubled that Copernicus was claiming the earth revolved around the sun?  In reality, humanity hasn't "advanced" much at all over the last five centuries.  We may know more stuff, and have a lot more widgets and gizmoes to entertain ourselves, but our moral state is just as deprived as the day Luther became troubled with Paul's insistence on fallen humanity in his letter to the Romans.