John H Armstrong

Whatever You Think, Someone Thinks Differently

The famous 20th century scholar T. R. Glover once said, “Whatever you think, someone thinks differently.” This is true in all kinds of ways but especially in the church. The late William Barclay applied this Glover quote to the church in three ways.

1. It is true of worship, prayers and all kinds of expressions of love for God and faith in Christ.

If you have been around for long you are well aware that there is a wide diversity within the church over worship practice. Liturgy or free form? Spontaneity or planned expressions? In this there is no absolute right or absolute wrong. There is a great need for continued discussion and for the type of wisdom that learns and thinks.

The liturgists must not despise simple people and their plain expressions of devotion while the simple people must not say that anyone who loves liturgy is removed from true love for Jesus. Let us worship the true and living God in Jesus Christ and not despise those who disagree with us.

2. It is true of the life we share in the church.

Some think the church should have a highly organized structure and others think the structure of each church should be extremely minimal. Some have an austere view of the church and think that the church should confine all Christian meetings to “religious” events and never to social or other similar gatherings. Again, freedom is advisable. Tastes vary and decorum for one person is deadness to another.

Those who like things as they are should not attack those who see the need for reform while those who want reformation should not look down on those who are happy with things as they are. (This is very hard for me to practice so I’m preaching to myself on this point!)

One side thinks the others is too narrow while the other criticizes their brothers and sisters for their worldliness. On and on we can make this same point. Inside the church and its routine life and practice there are many thoughts and ideas.

3. It is true of the Bible

There are those who think that every single argument can be settled by an appeal to the Bible. They say, quite regularly, “The Bible says . . .” This is generally the great stopper to all further discussion. Who wants to disagree with the Bible if they love Jesus and the church. On the other side there are those who think no word of the Bible has any real binding authority at all, or at least most of it doesn’t. It is just a human book. Because the Bible is not a book of science they then assume it is not a book we can trust about God or human morality and obedience.

On one side the fundamentalist appeals to the perfection of the Bible, all the while using their favorite English translation, while on the other side the liberal appeals to modern knowledge and science in a manner that seems to routinely find reasons to reject some difficult part of Scripture.

There is something to be said for both ends of this spectrum and everything in between. But let no one on either side think of the other as non-Christian unless there is a clear denial of the Jesus of the Bible. (This is something most of us can never determine anyway since this authority has not been privately given!) The unyielding attitude of many inside the church is a great harm to the well-being of the church and leads us to think that what we are thinking is the only right way to think.

If we pursue the grace of Christ together, and put on love, then we can learn how to love one another and disagree. The older I get the more I disagree with some ideas and some of the people who hold them. But I also find that the more I put on love and remember someone else thinks differently than I do the more easy I’ve found it is to accept people. I now know that what I am thinking is not what they are thinking. This always makes me pause and ask more questions, especially those kinds of questions that are aimed at me and my own thinking. I believe this is part of putting on the mind of Christ, a humble mind that listens and learns.

The Freedom & Virtue Institute: A Grassroots Commitment to Human Dignity and Flourishing

In my role as a Senior Advisor to Acton Institute I enjoy many opportunities to teach, write and network with other Christian leaders. One of those leaders is Ismael Hernandez. I met Ismael at Acton University in Grand Rapids in June of this year. (If you are interested please note that the next AU occurs June 12-15, 2012. I hope some of you will plan to join me.)

At our meeting this June Ismael Hernandez and I exchanged business cards and then began a correspondence. I grew interested in his small but well-focused work. He directs the mission of The Freedom & Virtue Institute in Ft. Meyers, Florida. This work is dedicated to the disseminating idea of a free and virtuous society and thus champions the ideas of freedom and virtue and supports practical strategies to realize and implement these ideas.

Ismael correctly believes that human freedom and private initiative are the best instruments to effect lasting and positive change in society. This is why their work highlights the limited role of government and the importance of family, communities, volunteer organizations and churches. This practice is at the core of what Acton Institute promotes so I’m deeply interested in Ismael’s work.

The Freedom and Virtue Institute believes that the essential virtues build character and promote individual and collective well-being. These are essential to authentic human fulfillment and flourishing. They understand that it takes people who believe this deeply to promote it through teaching and modeling it.

They also believe that each human person is unique and unrepeatable and thus each human person is called to know the truth and do good. The human person possesses a dignity that comes from being made in the image of God. This means that the person must remain at the forefront of ideological commitments and social action.

Further, Ismael believes we are called to autonomous living and independence. What this means is that each of us must take charge of our improvement to meet the challenges of life in community. This does not suggest that we live in isolation but instead presumes a deep personal responsibility for our actions and affirms our inherent capacity to better ourselves and help others.

The Freedom and Virtue Institute also believes in the moral benefit of work and diligence in developing character. Reward must be connected to achievement in order to avoid the attitude of entitlement, dependency and victim identity. When we work, we utilize the gifts God has given to us for our benefit and that of others. Linked to the moral benefit of work is the role of the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is a person who recreates their environment and is accountable for the inherent risks and the outcomes of their personal endeavors. Thus the Institute affirms the entrepreneurial vocation as the pursuit of one’s goals and passions by using the talents and capacities with which they are endowed.

Finally, the Institute believes that nothing should be done by a bureaucracy that can be done as well by a smaller, simpler or more local community. Limited government and personal freedom ought to reign supreme over the centralization and excessive intervention characteristic of the welfare state.

I encourage you to check out The Freedom and Virtue Institute. If you live anywhere near Ft. Meyers, Florida, you might set up a time to meet Ismael and get involved. The address of the Institute, and Ismael’s email, is listed here if you’d like to contact him directly:

Freedom & Virtue Institute
2714 Oakridge Court, Suite 602-D
Fort Myers, FL 33901
(239) 322-8082
[email protected]

Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin: A Bad Thinker Produces a Bad Man

Actions are generally the result of thoughts, both good and bad. As we think so we act. Carlyle once said, “God help the world when he lets loose a bad thinker.” In the case of Vladimir Lenin we have a man of many noble and positive qualities who learned how to channel his good qualities into a revolution that he followed in Russia because of a very bad thinker, Karl Marx (photo left).

It is generally believed, in modern liberal society, that ideas do not have serious consequences. What matters is how we act not what we think. But just a little knowledge of history will dispossess you of this idea rather quickly. Ideas often have immense consequences. The idea is first; the deed follows. The famous American Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen wrote (1957): “Ideas do not long remain within the two covers of a textbook, nor within the four walls of a classroom; they are planted as seeds and later on grow as either cockle or wheat.”

Vladimir Lenin may have brutally killed as many people as any dictator in the 20th century. He was one of the worst of all men in history. But he was neither creative nor original. His most unique ability was to take the ideology of Karl Marx and turn it into a revolution. And Marx’s ideas were an absolute dogmatic faith system. Bishop Sheen rightly said, “The idea of Marx came first, then the Revolution of Lenin. As in Christianity, ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,’ so in Communism: ‘In the beginning was Marx and Marx became Lenin and the revolution dwelt among us.’”

Vladimir Lenin could be a very decent and kind man. On a social character scale one would like him as a neighbor. He was intelligent, kind to his wife and generally well regarded. But he was politically cruel. Why? The ideology of Karl Marx. This is much like what we hear when a wife says of her murderous husband, “But at home he was such a kind man and a good husband. I do not believe he did this crime.”

The truly bad idea that Lenin took from Marx was the false principle that evil is social, not personal. All the injuries and wickedness in a society are the result of economic methods used against the people. Evil, argued Marx, resided in class, not in conscience. And the two basic classes who cause evil are property owners and people of deep religious faith. Property alienates a person from himself by making him a slave of an exploiter; religion alienates a man from himself by making a slave of something that does not exist (God); hence religion is the “opiate of the people.”

The solution, according to Marx, was to get rid of all private property.

The second principle Vladimir Lenin learned from Karl Marx was that persons, or individuals, of and by themselves, are worthless. This is a radical form of evolution wrapped in the idea that the strongest species must survive. But biblically each person matters. The danger of radical individualism, which I often speak against on this blog, is not what I have in mind here. What Marx opposed was personal freedom; the right of private ownership, the freedom to pursue your dreams, etc. For Marx the person has no value except as part of a class. The herd is what matters, the revolutionary class. Marx believed the Christian idea of the intrinsic worth of the human person, rooted in the doctrine of an immortal soul, was nothing more than silly dogma. 

The great cruelty of Lenin was thus ideological. It was his dogma; dogma rooted in the metaphysical. Whatever the character of the man in private, or otherwise, the principle that he embraced made him act in immoral and evil ways. Lenin may have been a pleasant enough fellow to his friends and family but his actions were some of the most evil in the last century.

In 1905 Lenin said, “A revolutionary army is needed because great historical questions can be solved only by violence and the organization of violence in a modern struggle is a military organization.” He believed a small minority could govern any majority if they possessed three things: (1) An army; (2) The police; (3) A myth or an official legend that controls the press and the means of communication.

Bishop Sheen contrasts Lenin’s choice of ideology, rooted in class hatred, with that of St. Francis. Francis was a “revolutionary” who loved the poor but he loved them in Christian charity. Lenin cared about the poor, but only as a reaction to his intense ideological hatred for those classes of people that he saw as standing in opposition to his ideology of revolution. What a huge difference ideology makes!

Should We Condemn the Actions of Pastor Terry Jones?

By now you know the story of Florida pastor Terry Jones. Jones is the pastor of a tiny church called Dove World Outreach Center. (Where do people come up with these names?) By all appearances there is not much “outreach” going on in this church and the idea that a “dove” (as the representative sign of of the the Holy Spirit) is the basis for the mission of this church is ludicrous, at least on the surface.

After Terry Jones finally carried out his threat, first made prior to 9/11 of last year, to judge the Koran and burn it in a church service, violence broke out in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This led to the death of a number of innocent people in both countries. When prayers ended at a mosque some went across a street and began the violent attacks.

There are a number of questions we can and should ask about these events but mine is simple: What should Christians do in the public space, which is now global because of the news cycle, when an event like this one happens?

I suggest that any response less than being appalled at Jones’ antics is unacceptable. The moral high ground is lost if we condemn the actions of radical Muslims and then fail to condemn the foolishness of a Christian like Terry Jones. I realize Jones killed no one but numerous people assured him that his actions would lead to the death of innocent people. In the end he would not listen. In this sense he bears deep responsibility for his words and actions. Words and actions do have consequences and “free speech” does not mean that you can say whatever you want as a Christian.

Let me put this another way. If we do not condemn the radical fringe in our own ranks, and Jones surely qualifies as the radical fringe, then we dare not condemn the radical fringe in other religions. We rightly argue that Christianity should not be condemned based upon the actions of this one man. But we appear arrogant and ignorant to the world if we fail to strongly condemn the actions of such a pastor in our own context.

I realize Terry Jones does not speak for me but I also know that some persons (and some Muslims in particular) have a hard time making this distinction. One liberal Christian minister wrote: “Jones has chosen to descend into an ideological abyss which has nothing to do with how Jesus taught those who follow him should live does not mean that all who call themselves ‘Christian’ are as arrogant and ignorant as he appears to be. In other words the entire religion cannot or should not be demeaned because of this man . . . unless we remain silent and through our silence give the impression that Christians stand with Jones.”

I could have written the same statement and I am a paleo-orthodox evangelical Christian. The Bible has been hijacked by all kinds of radical fringe groups. But this is not a first in Christian history. In the name of Christ some of my fellow Southern church members lynched black Americans in my own lifetime. In the name of Christ, and even in the name of conservative Reformed Christianity, apartheid was defended in South Africa until twenty years ago. Such Christians argued that the Bible warranted their response. Their ideology went well beyond anything remotely biblical.

Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, Secretary General for the World Evangelical Fellowship, rightly said:

While many in the western world understand that Jones and his tiny fringe congregation are not in any way representative of true Christianity, we know that his actions would have been nuanced very differently in other parts of the world and that radicals would use them to stir up violence.

Whenever we substitute ideology for serious and thoughtful biblical theology we get ourselves into serious trouble. This is the case with pastors like Terry Jones. His words and actions need to be openly condemned because the world watches and wonders what all of this has to do with the good news of Jesus Christ. If we did not have a 24/7 news cycle and the Internet we might be afforded the luxury of remaining silent about one pastor in Florida but we do not have that luxury any longer.

I wonder how many of you heard public prayers in your worship service last week for those who suffered in Pakistan and Afghanistan? I wonder how many of you heard any condemnation of the words and actions of Terry Jones? I wonder what we are (collectively) saying by our silence when the world is listening and assumes that all religious people are a lot alike.

There is a time and place for moral outrage. I am outraged at the actions and words of Pastor Terry Jones. God is his judge but his actions must be condemned in the name of Jesus, especially by those who have opportunity to speak for the gospel in a public context.

One final question: Could the fear that drives anti-Islamic response in America have caused many conservative Christians to remain silent during such a time of upheaval? Are we afraid to condemn such words in our churches lest we appear too “soft” on Islam? So many of us live in fear of terrorism but love for our religious neighbors is still the teaching of Holy Scripture regardless of geo-political violence and threats.

Religion & Liberty: The Work of Acton Institute

About seven years ago I got to know the work of the Acton Institute by attending a conference aptly called: “Toward a Free and Virtue Society.” There were about 30 young adults at this event at a location in the Northeast and hosted by Acton. It was taught by Catholic and Protestant scholars on the subject of religion, economics and culture. I was allowed to sit outside the circle and listen to the teaching and interaction and then share fellowship with the scholars and students over meals and breaks. It was a wonderful firsthand encounter with a religious think tank that I have come to regard with high regard.

I encourage you to check out the Acton University event as well. This year it takes place June 14-17 in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. I will be teaching a seminar on “Protestant Social Ethics.” The speakers, fellowship, resources and event are all superb. I have attended twice before as a participant. I heartily encourage every one to attend, especially younger business entrepreneurs, graduate students and professionals.

Acton promotes a free society characterized by individual liberty and religious principles. Acton’s core principles include the following:

Integrating Judeo-Christian Truths with Free Market Principles

1. Dignity of the Person
2. Social Nature of the Person
3. Importance of Social Institutions
4. Human Action
5. Sin
6. Rule of Law and the Subsidiary Role of Government
7. Creation of Wealth
8. Economic Liberty
9. Economic Value
10. Priority of Culture

Dignity of the Person - The human person, created in the image of God, is individually unique, rational, the subject of moral agency, and a co-creator. Accordingly, he possesses intrinsic value and dignity, implying certain rights and duties both for himself and other persons. These truths about the dignity of the human person are known through revelation, but they are also discernible through reason.

Social Nature of the Person - Although persons find ultimate fulfillment only in communion with God, one essential aspect of the development of persons is our social nature and capacity to act for disinterested ends. The person is fulfilled by interacting with other persons and by participating in moral goods. There are voluntary relations of exchange, such as market transactions that realize economic value. These transactions may give rise to moral value as well. There are also voluntary relations of mutual dependence, such as promises, friendships, marriages, and the family, which are moral goods. These, too, may have other sorts of value, such as religious, economic, aesthetic, and so on.

Importance of Social Institutions - Since persons are by nature social, various human persons develop social institutions. The institutions of civil society, especially the family, are the primary sources of a society's moral culture. These social institutions are neither created by nor derive their legitimacy from the state. The state must respect their autonomy and provide the support necessary to ensure the free and orderly operation of all social institutions in their respective spheres.

Human Action - Human persons are by nature acting persons. Through human action, the person can actualize his potentiality by freely choosing the moral goods that fulfill his nature.

Sin: Although human beings in their created nature are good, in their current state, they are fallen and corrupted by sin. The reality of sin makes the state necessary to restrain evil. The ubiquity of sin, however, requires that the state be limited in its power and jurisdiction. The persistent reality of sin requires that we be skeptical of all utopian "solutions" to social ills such as poverty and injustice.

Rule of Law and the Subsidiary Role of Government - The government's primary responsibility is to promote the common good, that is, to maintain the rule of law, and to preserve basic duties and rights. The government's role is not to usurp free actions, but to minimize those conflicts that may arise when the free actions of persons and social institutions result in competing interests. The state should exercise this responsibility according to the principle of subsidiarity. This principle has two components. First, jurisdictionally broader institutions must refrain from usurping the proper functions that should be performed by the person and institutions more immediate to him. Second, jurisdictionally broader institutions should assist individual persons and institutions more immediate to the person only when the latter cannot fulfill their proper functions.

Creation of Wealth - Material impoverishment undermines the conditions that allow humans to flourish. The best means of reducing poverty is to protect private property rights through the rule of law. This allows people to enter into voluntary exchange circles in which to express their creative nature. Wealth is created when human beings creatively transform matter into resources. Because human beings can create wealth, economic exchange need not be a zero-sum game.

Economic Liberty - Liberty, in a positive sense, is achieved by fulfilling one's nature as a person by freely choosing to do what one ought. Economic liberty is a species of liberty so-stated. As such, the bearer of economic liberty not only has certain rights, but also duties. An economically free person, for example, must be free to enter the market voluntarily. Hence, those who have the power to interfere with the market are duty-bound to remove any artificial barrier to entry in the market, and also to protect private and shared property rights. But the economically free person will also bear the duty to others to participate in the market as a moral agent and in accordance with moral goods. Therefore, the law must guarantee private property rights and voluntary exchange.

Economic Value - In economic theory, economic value is subjective because its existence depends on it being felt by a subject. Economic value is the significance that a subject attaches to a thing whenever he perceives a causal connection between this thing and the satisfaction of a present, urgent want. The subject may be wrong in his value judgment by attributing value to a thing that will not or cannot satisfy his present, urgent want. The truth of economic value judgments is settled just in case that thing can satisfy the expected want. While this does not imply the realization of any other sort of value, something can have both subjective economic value and objective moral value.

Priority of Culture - Liberty flourishes in a society supported by a moral culture that embraces the truth about the transcendent origin and destiny of the human person. This moral culture leads to harmony and to the proper ordering of society. While the various institutions within the political, economic, and other spheres are important, the family is the primary inculcator of the moral culture in a society.

Some readers think my stance on political engagement is sometimes too liberal and others think I am too conservative. These labels are neither helpful nor accurate in far too many instances. This is why I do not embrace them in a partisan, political way. Sometimes I am in agreement with political opinion that is seen as liberal by some and more times than not I am in agreement with so-called conservative positions, but never in a manner that walks in lock-step with a political party or movement. I try to judge economic and social policies by principles, not by raw politics, labels and a great deal of emotionalism.

My stance underscores my growing appreciation for Acton. Acton seeks to teach Christians how to think more clearly about public policy and culture from a morally rigorous perspective. It does this in scores of contexts and by many means.

A few days ago, to give examples, I came across two verbal attacks against capitalism made by noted Christians that I often agree with on most subjects. The first comment came from my favorite missional theologian, the late Lesslie Newbigin. I was reading Newbigin for a course that I teach on missional-ecumenism. He refers in his theology to the twin evils of communism and capitalism. When he bothers to define capitalism it is done poorly and almost always from the perspective that capitalism inherently breeds greed. (I reject consumerism forthrightly but consumerism is inherently built on greed and lacks a commitment to wisdom and restraint as well.) I reject Newbigin’s premise on his point about capitalism, as much as I admire him on almost every other point he writes about. Acton Institute has helped me understand more clearly why Newbigin’s comment (it is hardly a reasonable argument) is so profoundly wrong.

A second attack on capitalism I came across last week was in reading an anthology of the work of the famous Catholic G. K. Chesterton. He made some equally terrible statements about capitalism and economics in general. Again, the reason in Chesterton’s case was an almost complete misunderstanding of the real idea of capitalism and how it works to bring about freedom and prosperity.

Acton publishes an excellent magazine that you can subscribe to without charge (see photo above at right). I urge you to get Religion and Liberty and to financially support Acton in the process. I was featured on the cover of the Summer/Fall 2010 issue, Volume 20, No. 3/4. You can check out my interview with Acton online. The whole issue is also available if you find the tab for the magazine.

Ideology: The ACT 3 Weekly

Many of you know that each week, on Monday, a weekly article which reflects on leadership, the church and Christ’s mission is sent to several thousand subscribers. This article is longer than my daily blogs. It often represents ideas I am pondering that will be turned into books as time passes and people respond. A new series begins tomorrow. If you are not a subscriber check out back issues and sign up for regular mailings at the ACT 3 website.

During the last few months of 2010 I wrote a series on the danger of ideology to the mission of the church. I am convinced that this danger is very real and very serious. But far too few of our leaders recognize it and even fewer prepare people to actually deal with it. In my final article I wrote about the danger of ideology, pro and con, in a democracy like that America. A longtime friend, who is a big supporter of me and my work, wrote the following response to this article. I share it because it shows the kind of helpful thinking that some readers make when they read this kind of material.

 

One of the differences in our perspectives is [may be] this. You seem to speak of a concern for erosion "away from" a supposed ideology that was more consistent with Biblical morality. My conviction has been for a long time that that was never the case in American history even from the beginning. The best that we have ever had, which is a plus in the area of common grace/ or what we pray for regarding our government, is exactly why enlightened men have been willing to settle for civil religion. And this has always been a part of that commonality which is required in a democracy- or, in other words, The American Story. I called it the American Myth recently in conversing with my son [who is in the active military in a combat zone] and he objected until I carefully explained my use of 'myth' as a genre, not something that is always untrue. I consider the Biblical Narrative to be the great TRUE myth. I honestly don't think we're in danger of moving away from this myth. In fact it is being manipulated very carefully by both government and civil leaders in an amazing way to keep the majority of our democratic populace on board.

What grieves me most is that the conservative, evangelical churches don't seem to understand how this works in America and instead are still trying to rally Christians to take the country back to some supposed "christian" past. I don't believe any amount of trying to convince them they are wrong will have any affect. That is why I decided to stay out of these cultural battles for the most part and do what I believed every faithful minister of Christ is called to do. Preach and teach while living and modeling the whole Gospel of Christ: preach Christ and seek to live the crucified/risen life of a branch vitally united to The True Vine of God on earth. That is why your fellowship in missional ecumenism is so precious to me and others, especially in America.

 
The year before us (2011) looks to be intense in all the different ideologies represented in our American context. I take your ACT 3 Weekly to then be a prophetic call to the churches to be more diligent than ever to "make their calling and election" certain as a priority, and that includes the element of our unity in One, Holy, Apostolic, and Catholic, body.

From this response you can see how much readers help me to think and write better. This brother has served me in untold ways and his voice was very much in the background of my book, Your Church Is Too Small.

How Does Ideology Lead to Sectarianism?

I rarely mention my ACT 3 Weekly articles on these blogs but I am currently completing a series of articles on the dangers of ideology as a substitute for Christ and the good news of the kingdom. You can find back issues and also subscribe to this weekly mailing on the site.

In my first article in this series on the danger of ideology to the modern church I wrote the following:

What do I mean when I speak of ideology? The English word refers to visionary theorizing, or to a systematic body of concepts, especially regarding human culture or life. I have in mind not only a body of systematic concepts but particularly the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program of some type. It is this idea of a sociopolitical program that I believe so profoundly threatens the church in her calling to remain laser-focused on the mission of Christ. The late evangelical theologian Donald G. Bloesch rightly calls the relationship between ideology and faith “enigmatic.” The very mystery of this relationship calls Christian leaders to think about this problem very seriously. This is especially true in the twenty-first century with all of its new challenges and the myriad of creative ways that we can now teach and communicate.

It is very often ideology that prompts Christians to embrace a kind of sectarianism that threatens the unity of the church as a matter of common practice. Few seem to understand this problem and fewer still are willing to address the problem head-on. The place to begin is with an understanding of both our own hearts and the threat to our unity this presents in our time.

A Different Way to Understand Our Political Differences

I have mentioned columnist Kathleen Parker more than a few times over the years. Her Washington Post syndicated column appears in my local suburban paper and I always read it. Kathleen is a political/social conservative who offends the far right routinely. I guess this is one reason I am attracted to her writing.

Kathleen recently moved from Washington, D.C. to New York City. She left her solo, freelance writing work to join CNN, an international organization with what she calls “layers upon layers of human management.”

Here is the point she makes about her recent move to New York City and CNN. Living in a city of 8.4 million people brings with it some distinct differences from living in a small town in South Carolina, where she lived for years, and a quiet neighborhood in D.C. here she previously lived and worked on her own. In New York City 8.4 million people live in 303 square miles of space. Parker writes that you can’t appreciate the dynamics of this city until “you’ve experienced it. For every individual action, there are four-typed, single-spaced pages of restrictions.” If half the residents of New York City decided to grill at the same time on a beautiful day it would present massive problems. So the city has regulations piled on regulations about such things. To some these regulations seem like a denial of personal liberty. To others they protect liberty in the city by keeping it from chaos.

The crunch, argues Parker, is that a lot of government directed decision-making denies more and more of our personal freedoms, thus creating a combination that becomes less and less pleasant for more and more people. Government programs aim, generally speaking, to aid people with real needs. But in the process they very often eliminate the options that freedom has brought to us. We do best, she argues, when we are free to direct our own lives in most areas. And this fundamentally is where Democrats and Republicans differ. The main question here, which will not go away, remains: “At what point is the common good bad for people?”

But Parker takes this question to a different level when she says that people who live in more wide-open space in red states see less need for government than people who live in large cities. They do not want the government managing their lives so directly when they experience the open spaces. But those who live in dense population centers see this very differently. They will trade some freedom for “the convenience and cultural riches of city life.” I have found this to be true time and time again as I listen to my friends talk about this in terms of where they live and what they value.

The bottom line is this: these are two very different approaches to the role of government in particular. Parker is not sure the two can be reconciled. I think she is right. In a society where freedom allows citizens to elect their own leaders there will almost always be a kind of pendulum effect at work, as we will likely see again in November. But remember, we are likely to correct one problem by swinging in a different direction which only creates an opposite reaction and other problems. And all of this has a lot more to do with where we live, and how we understand our personal freedom and the role of government, than it does with our theology or personal sanity.

Am I off my rocker when I actually desire that the church understands things like this with a great deal more grace than with rage and anger? Government, led by conservatives or liberals, will never resolve all our problems. In fact, government (especially federal government) will only solve some of them in the end. (Civil Rights comes to mind here because we needed the federal government to intervene or injustice would have continued for decades.) But the most important social and everyday problems remain for you and me to address in our neighborhoods and our church communities. (This is a great argument, by the way, for missional-ecumenism as I’ve previously stated.) Government clearly has a role in helping people (the exceedingly vulnerable) and preserving justice. But conservatives think the tendency is for government to grow too large at the top thus in the process it will take away more of our personal liberties. Liberals tend to believe that government should lead the way on major social issues and seek to eliminate as many of the negative influences on people’s everyday lives as possible. In the city this looks one way but in the open space it looks very different. I find that insight extremely useful.

Remember, your view of the role of government is not tantamount to the gospel of the kingdom. When you think that it is you have made a fatal mistake that brings great harm upon the whole church. This does not mean the church should be disinterested in political debate. It does mean that we should resist simple solutions that come from within our own context without ever hearing the insights of people from varying and different contexts.  “Blessed are those who learn to listen and pay attention to the views of others who live in a different place and experience life very differently.”

Random Reflections on Life from Donald G. Bloesch

Yesterday I told you the story of my friendship with the late theologian Donald G. Bloesch and his widow Brenda. Donald is best known for his major works in theology, ethics and spirituality. He was a master at processing a ton of information and putting his conclusions into a context that kept the gospel central to everything.

Recently I went back to Donald Bloesch’s book, Freedom for Obedience (Harper & Row: New York 1987). Bloesch writes: “The Christian ethic is an ethic . . . that cannot be assimilated into the moral consensus of the wider community. . . . The way of the cross cannot be reconciled with the way of the world, just as the gospel cannot be conjoined with the laws that give stability to social order.” How I wish an entire generation of men like Falwell, Robertson and Dobson (to name only a few) would have understood that simple, but profound point. You cannot paste Christian ethics into the culture and expect the wider community to embrace “Christian ethics.” It seems so obvious but an entire generation of conservatives have gone astray at this precise point. This man, who personally knew just how much liberalism had destroyed his beloved mainline church, understood that conservatism was the new threat to the more evangelical churches. Bloesch understood that ideology, left or right, was no substitute for the gospel of Christ. I came to understand this point primarily because of Don Bloesch.

But Don Bloesch was more than a great theologian. He was a great Christian. Perhaps his least known written work contains evidence of this very point. He wrote private spiritual journals over the course of his life and three of these were eventually published as Theological Notebooks. I have each of them signed as gifts from Don. They continually feed my mind and soul. Here are some insights from Theological Notebook, Volume One (1960-1964). Don was a single man, and only in his early thirties, when he wrote these words:

“Discipline in most circles today is conceived of in terms of punishment rather than training.”

“Before we can go further we must go deeper. Church renewal cannot take place apart from theological renewal.”

“To be ‘catholic’ means to be a citizen of the kingdom that extends beyond this world. . . . The catholic identifies with the poor and despised of the world and is motivated not by human sympathy but by self-giving love.”

“The Christian way is not the ‘middle way’ between extremes but the ‘narrow way’ between precipices.”

“The Christian alternative to Pharisaism is not Publicanism but costly discipleship. The laxity of the Publican is just as repugnant to God as the self-righteousness of the Pharisee. In the parable it is not the Publican as such but the repentant Publican who is praised.”

“God does not will everything that happens, but He wills something in everything that happens.”

“Evil is to be located neither in the heart of God nor in the heart of the universe but in the heart of the self.”

“All people are our neighbors, but only Christians are our brothers and sisters.”

“Happiness is dependent neither on external circumstances not on outward appearance, but rather on the interior relationship with God.”

My friend is gone now. But such writing will feed my soul for the rest of my days. I am filled with joy that the man who wrote such things took the time to encourage and guide me to be a more faithful servant of Christ. Don was a wonderful conversationalist and a great theological resource. Glory be to God for the gift of this dear man to the whole church.

Ecumenical Babel: Confusing Economic Ideology and the Church’s Social Witness

Author Jordan J. Ballor is a doctoral candidate in Reformation history at the University of Zurich and historical and moral theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids. He also serves as the associate editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality, published by the Acton Institute. I have known Jordan for some time and read a good deal of his online. When he asked me to read and endorse this new book I was very happy to oblige. I knew that I would like the book but I did not realize just how much until I read it very carefully.

Ecumenical Babel: Confusing Economic Ideology and the Church’s Social Witness is a critical engagement of the ecumenical movement’s approach to ethical and economic issues.  By this engagement it becomes a sustained voice for new dialogue in the worldwide movement and speaks directly to all who are concerned that ideology often trumps true ecumenism. Ballor invites the reader to deeper reflection upon ecclesiology, ethics and economics, in a short and accessible way (142 pages), by updating a line of criticism advanced by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul Ramsey and Ernest W. Lefever. Ballor believes the ecumenical movement is important, just as I do, but he believes that it has lost its way and needs to address some significant errors. By imposing economic ideology onto the social witness of the gospel the Lutheran World Federation, the World Communion of Reformed Churches and the World Council of Churches have all failed to keep the important things central to the work of gospel ecumenism. Ballor’s work will thus open eyes and correct past mistakes. He is hopeful and courageous.

Here are a few paragraphs that I took from Ecumenical Babel that will underscore how valuable this book really is. See for yourself by reading this short paragraphs:

James M. Gustafson has noted that “pious Protestants can be virulent racists or civil rights activists. They can be militarists or pacifists, socialists or defenders of the free-market system, regardless of what church agencies teach about these matters.” On this basis he has described “the situation of Protestant churches with regard to moral teachings” as being “only a little short of chaos.” If this assessment was accurate when written three decades ago, the situation has progressed well beyond chaos in the intervening years.

It is precisely on this point, in addressing the chaos of contemporary Protestant ethical thought, that the ecumenical movement has been most ineffectual. This is not because of a lack of effort. But rather than curbing the chaos of unbound individual conscience, the ecumenical movement has contributed to the ethical cacophony through a seemingly endless and continuous stream of pronouncements, decisions, sermons, addresses, letters, reports, and confessions. These efforts are misguided in that while they rightly seek to bring to bear the church’s moral authority to bear on contemporary issues, they have done so time and again on matters of prudential judgment, where diversity of opinion ought to be respected rather than suppressed. Rather than addressing clear areas of morality, ecumenical pronouncements often attempt to make arbitrary conclusions morally binding.

In Ramsey’s view, the trend in ecumenical ethical thought has been to attempt to speak authoritatively and concretely on specific policies, particularly on topics in which there is no clear moral, Christian, or biblical mandate.

The problem is not that the ecumenical presumes to speak for the church, but rather that it presumes to speak for the church on such issues and in such a way that tyrannizes necessary ethical deliberation, both individual and communal. As Ramsey writes, “the specific solution of urgent problems is the work of political prudence and worldly wisdom. In this there is room for legitimate disagreement among Christians and among other people as well in the public domain—which disagreement ought to be welcomed and not led one way toward specific conclusions.” The confusion here is between ethics and economics, between moral mandates and political prudence.

In reducing its witness to advocacy for a particular set of policies, the ecumenical movement has abandoned the attempt to proclaim the Gospel, the true foundation of its spiritual authority. “This is surely a form of culture-Christianity,” writes Ramsey, “even if it is not that of the great cultural churches of the past. This is, indeed, the most barefaced sectarianism and but a new form of culture-Christianity. It would identify Christianity with the cultural vitalities, with the movement of history, with where the action is, with the next and even now the real establishment, but not with the present hollow forms.” In this way, the question of how the church’s prophetic responsibility ought to be expressed in a post-Christendom era has not received adequate attention from the ecumenical movement. Instead, it has simply assumed that the same form of prophetic pronouncement is as appropriate today as it was in the era of the Reformation, the medieval church, or the Old Testament monarchy.

The modern ecumenical movement began in the early twentieth century with great promise. By the middle of the 20th century that promise had been greatly misplaced because of the relationship of the movement, through many of its principal leaders, to ideology. The same happened on the right, from 1976 on, as conservative evangelicals increasingly embraced political and economic ideology in place of the gospel. If we are to get Christ and the gospel back into the center of our shared life and witness then we must take seriously what writers such as Jordan Ballor are saying to us. I heartily commend Ecumenical Babel, a truly readable and wonderful book. All who love Christian unity centered in the witness of the church and the gospel of Christ will benefit from this fine new book.