A Violation Of Good Sense

I've had a great break from blogging during the past six weeks, but it's time to ramp up again. So, onward and upward!

Let me start with this question: If you were given the task of shaping the culture of an entire nation, and had all the resources of the state behind you, where would you begin? Imagine you had full capacity to create laws and use the power of government to force changes in the way people live and work. What would you do?

Some governments have tried this. While the top-down approach might be effective at changing certain external behaviors, it’s hard to change people’s inner worldview and values by command and coercion.

You could, however, shape the culture of a nation in a much less overt way. It would take more time, say a couple of generations, but history has shown it can be done. It’s actually possible to affect fundamental changes in society's values and people's voluntary choices through education.

I have been wanting to do some posts on education for a while now. And since September is upon us, I think now's the time. Since I have spent the bulk of my adult life involved in the field of education, I feel at liberty to be frank about what I believe is essential for increasing meaning in schooling, while at the same time affecting positive changes to benefit the wider community, both now and down the track.

First, let me say that education worth its salt does not rest on an academic base. Of course, academics are of vital importance, and the very nature of formal education is academic, but the foundation upon which all academic skills are to be built is virtue. That’s because knowledge apart from virtue isn't worth much. What's more, imparting knowledge to those who are void of virtue is a violation of good sense. As someone aptly said, “The world already has enough educated fools.” If you’ve ever had your computer hard drive crash as the result of some brilliantly designed virus, you know what I’m talking about. And we’ve seen some extraordinary examples of educated corporate accountants “cooking the books” in recent years, with devastating results. I could go on, but I’ll spare you.

So with this opening shot, we'll turn our attention toward education. Education that can bring extraordinary meaning to "ordinary" schooling, and make great nations in the process.

To be continued...

Half Of Them Voted

As is my custom, I'm taking a break from blogging between now and September. I do this each summer so my batteries won't get drained. And it gives my readers a needed break, too!

I'll sign off with an important word to Americans. But, in principle, it is for anyone living in a country that allows people to vote.

The Los Angeles Times reported last September that a group of venture capitalists is backing a project aimed at registering 5 million currently unregistered evangelicals and conservative Catholics to vote: “The nonprofit organization United in Purpose is using sophisticated data-mining techniques to compile a database of every unregistered born-again and evangelical Christian and conservative Catholic in the country.” (For more, click here.)

This effort, called, Champion The Vote, is non-partisan. Ken Eldred, one of the main financial contributors, author of The Integrated Life (one of my top ten favorite books about faith-and-work connections), is quoted by the Times as saying, “I have the audacity to believe that we can be an influence on both parties.” 

According to www.RegisterOne.org, of the reportedly 60 million Christians in America, only about half of them voted in the 2008 election. One has to wonder, "Why?" Could this be a sign of what Darrow  Miller calls, Evangelical Gnosticism? Is this another outcome of dualism that causes Christians to view participation in the political process as a"worldly" endeavor that has no "eternal value," and therefore unworthy of serious consideration?

Anyway...are you registered to vote? Are your friends? Champion the Vote makes it easy: click here.

You can help awaken the slumbering giant by passing this post along via the "share" button below.

Remember, those who do not vote, do! 

The Center Of Christianity Is Shifting

"As I travel around the world," writes Dan Egeler, Vice President of International Ministries for the Association of Christian Schools International, "it’s clear that the center of Christianity is shifting or has already shifted. There has been explosive growth in the Christian faith in what is termed the global South—Africa, Asia, and Latin America—and this growth is now beginning to dwarf the bloc of Christians in Europe and North America."

Let these words sink in.

Dan Egeler further reports that "churches [in the global South] are becoming movers and shapers in society rather than declining." This is encouraging, indeed. And then he adds: "the church in the global South wants to train up their children in 'the way they should go' and to 'teach the nations' through Christian schooling. This secondary (and unplanned) movement will also surpass the movement of the global North."

While in Africa a couple of years ago, I became aware of the extraordinary surge of Christian schools there, and more recently I came into contact with the burgeoning Christian school movement in Central America. I was invited by Eduardo Steele to do a two-day training conference in biblical worldview integration for Christian school teachers, administrators and pastors in Panama last April.

I will never forget this experience. It was abundantly evident to me that "Aslan is on the move" in Panama, in a special way. I sensed this in the Sunday church service I attended, and I sensed it in the Monday-Tuesday gathering of Christian educators from across the country. Actually, I sensed it before I arrived, as more hours than I want to know were spent translating scores of PowerPoint slides and numerous handouts into Spanish. These people are hungry for the purposes of God to be fulfilled in their generation through Christian education.

Eduardo Steele has been actively involved in the Panama Christian school movement for decades, while at the same time working for thirty years as a professor of mathematics at the University of Panama, a position from which he recently retired.

The chart immediately below (courtesy of Rod and Sherry Boyd) is just one indicator of what is going on in Panama. It shows the growth of Christian schools only among Assemblies of God churches, but you get the idea:

This chart only shows the number of schools affiliated with Assemblies of God churches in Panama.

Below you see the faces of people who are dedicating their lives to discipling the nation of Panama via Christian education:

Teachers from one of many schools attending the conference in Panama:
Peniel Christian School, with Principal Omaria Kirten, upper left. 

       

Lunch with Professor Eduardo Steele, long-time Christian school leader in Panama.

With Principal Elena Reid Duncan, who has served at Professor Steele's school for over 25 years.

Does God Care About Hardwood Floors?

We live in a fallen, broken world, yet God has not abandoned His stuff. It is His intention to restore it, as it says in Col. 1:19-20, to “reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven…”

The God of the Bible is the God of the physical as well as the spiritual. He is the God of the temporal as well as the eternal. He is fulfilling His purposes in both the perishable as well as the imperishable. To think His works are of value in the eternal realm but not in the temporal, is to fall short of appreciating His full purposes for both heaven and earth. He is out to do His will in both.

There is a tendency to value the eternal, spiritual aspects of reality so much that, even if by implication, we downgrade the temporal, physical world of the here-and-now. While this goes well with Plato, it was never a hallmark of the ancient Hebrew. [See http://youtu.be/KBd9mB2S6S0.] The First Commission of Genesis 1:26-28 is a call to engage with the material world, as co-workers with God.  

We usually think of “worship” as something we do at church on Sunday morning. But could a man also be engaged in legitimate worship by sanding a hardwood floor on Monday morning?  I’m not talking about whistling a worship song while he’s working. I mean, could a man be engaged in authentic worship through sanding wood?  Could sanding wood be “the Lord’s work?” Or is the committed Christian more likely to think, “someday I’ll quit this job and go into the ministry!”

It boils down to some simple questions, like, Does God care about hardwood floors? Does He care about building houses, or manufacturing good electric sanders? Does He really want these things done?

Jesus said He only did what the Father showed Him to do. Did that arrangement only get started at age 30? It appears the Father showed Jesus to do carpentry for about six times longer than He showed Him to do preaching and teaching.

Justin Martyr, in the second-century, reported that people in his day were still using plows made by Joseph and Jesus. It must have been quality workmanship! Yet these plows are not used today. Does that mean Christ’s carpentry had no real value, because His plows haven’t lasted 2000 years?

I think the Father really wanted the carpentry done in the day Christ did it.

The One Big Idea With The Greatest Effect

If someone wanted to counterfeit a $20 bill that would pass the toughest test, the most convincing forgery would be the one that most closely resembles the original. Deception is best accomplished by creating something false that looks like something true. As someone aptly put it, “The most convincing lie is the one that comes as close as possible to the truth.”

If certain widely-held ideas are assumed to be true when they are actually false (similar to counterfeit twenty-dollar bills being passed around by common folk like you and me who think we’re handling the real thing when we’re not), these are particularly difficult ideas to detect and correct.  

If I had to name the one big idea with the greatest effect in keeping followers of Christ from “seeing their shop as well as their chapel as holy ground,” it would not be the atheism that arose in the 19th Century, nor the Secular Humanism that came into play in the 20th Century. These lies are too obvious.

It would be the dualism that has been around since the days of Plato, and has plagued the church, off and on, for centuries. It is a problem as common as a twenty-dollar bill. It is such a deeply ingrained part of our culture that most of us grow up taking it for granted.  

What’s dualism? It’s a way of seeing that divides reality into two separate arenas with a gap between. Dualism separates “public” life from “private” life, it divides the “material” from the “spiritual,” and the “body” from the “soul.” It separates “facts” from “values.” It disconnects the “temporal” from the “eternal,” and splits the world into “secular” and “sacred” compartments. Dualism is the opposite of wholism, and what makes it so difficult is that it is close to the truth.

Yes, it is true some things last forever while other things do not. We can distinguish between the temporal and the eternal, the physical and the spiritual, the seen and the unseen.  Yet all of God’s works, the temporal and the eternal, the spiritual and the physical, are integral parts of a one complete whole, sustained by a common Creator who upholds them all (Heb. 1:1-3). It’s all His stuff. It all has value. It all has purpose. Even the temporal stuff.

Why is this important?

To be continued…

Sifting Through Truth And Baloney Takes Effort

Darrow Miller, in his superb book, LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for What You Do Every Day, describes the split between the spiritual and the physical that exists within evangelical Protestantism as evangelical Gnosticism. He says this dualism is especially evident when Christians emphasize "spiritual" activities like prayer and Bible study, and see "professional" ministry as the one truly satisfactory way to live out our Christian lives. Evangelical Gnosticism views the things of this physical, temporal world as unimportant, and working in fields that deal with matters like the environment, government, art, justice or public health is a less-than-Christian calling.

I can really relate to this, because my own background led me to tell my Mother, when I was about twelve years old, that there are only two professions in life worth doing: being a pastor or a missionary. I do not recall any church leader saying this outright. But I picked it up between the lines. I recall the rationale behind the statement I made to Mom: saving souls was the only work worth doing in this life. Everything else was a waste of time. Eternity is all that matters.

When I sang songs like "turn your eyes upon Jesus...and the things of earth will grow strangely dim...," I lumped Miller's list (the environment, government, art, justice and public health) into the "things of earth," along with everything else that had to do with this temporal world. One of the favorite songs of my youth group was, I'll Fly Away: "Some glad morning, when this life is o're, I'll fly away..."

Gnosticism, as Miller points out, developed prior to Christianity. It claimed that the physical world was evil. This material world was something to escape. Later, some Christians attempted to mix Gnosticism with Christianity, going so far as to deny Christ had a physical body. This false teaching was addressed by the Nicene Council of AD 325.

While such views like denying Christ's physical body are not held by evangelicals today, the broader idea that this material, temporal world is of no real value, and of no real importance to God, is widely held. The challenging part about evangelical Gnosticism is that there are some elements of truth in the mix. Sifting through truth and baloney takes effort.   

I'll attempt to do a bit of sifting over the next few posts.

Both The Spider And The Angel

I first came across the word “wholistic” (spelled with a “w”) through the work of Darrow Miller, the author I recommended last week, who wrote the exceptional book,  LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for What You Do Every Day. The “correct” way of spelling “holistic,” of course, is without the “w.” The word “wholistic” will show up as a misspelled word in your computer spellcheck. But I really like the link between the word “whole” and the word “wholistic,” because the word “whole” carries a powerful message. The word “whole” has everything to do with one’s ability to bring extraordinary meaning to ordinary, everyday work.

One of the great keys for bringing meaning to everyday work (and one of the truly great motivators behind practical Christianity in general), is the ability to “connect the dots.” By that I mean, the ability to see how the lifting of a shovel, the pressing of plastic on a keyboard, and the turning of a taxi steering wheel, all connect to something much bigger. Taking a “wholistic” approach to our everyday work involves seeing how what we do directly connects with the bigger picture of God’s purpose for creating people, and His purpose for creating things, including the material, temporal things that surround us on a daily basis. It’s all His stuff.

A wholistic view allows no unholy bifurcation between our life in this present world and our life in the world to come. A follower of Christ with a wholistic view will see both the physical and the spiritual, the temporal and the eternal, as equally part of God’s domain. Both the spider and the angel are equally His. Christ sustains it all (Col. 1:16-17), by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3), whether it’s in the here and now, or in the world to come. He does this for His purpose and His glory, whether in heaven or on earth, whether now or in the future. It is this sort of wholistic theology that allowed George Swinnock, the seventeenth century Puritan English Pastor, to say, “The pious tradesman will know that his shop as well as his chapel is holy ground.”

Yet this theology of work is rarely on the minds of Christians in the workplace today. The problem, Miller maintains, can be traced to what he calls, “Evangelical Gnosticism."

Evangelical Gnosticism? I'll share what Miller means next week.

The Christian Faith Seems To Be Unable

I'm currently re-reading Darrow Miller's excellent book, LifeWork. In it, he relates the following:

"A number of years ago, a missionary to the Philippines met with some young people who were thinking of joining the Maoist rebels. The missionary asked the leader of the group what he had found so compelling in Maoism that he could not experience in Christianity. The young man's answer proved a profound critique, not of Christ and his claims but of the reality and practice of Christianity today:

'Maoism provides us...with four essential things: (1) a unified and coherent vision of the world, history and reality; (2) a definite goal to work for, live for, and die for; (3) a call to all people for a common fraternity; and (4) a sense of commitment and a mission to spread the good news that there is hope for the hopeless. The fact is that the Christian faith in all its beauty seems to be unable to provide us with such a vision.'

"Sadly," Miller continues, "the missionary watched these young and idealistic people turn their backs on what they know of Christianity and embrace something that would lead to their destruction. But why?"

Good question!

Miller maintains: "The very things the young Filipinos and much of the rest of the world are looking for--a coherent view of reality, something to live for and die for, a sense of community, and something that would bring hope to the hopeless--are nothing less than what they were made for and what Christ gave himself for: the kingdom of God. The world is waiting to see this kingdom demonstrated through our lives and in our daily work."

Why would a young man say the Christian faith seems to be unable to provide as compelling a vision as Maoism? This is a question Miller explores in depth, and addresses straightforwardly in  LifeWork.

"Often," he says, "our lives as Christians are ineffective because we have reduced the gospel to good news for eternity and have forgotten the good news for today. Too often we understand our lives as having two distinct separate parts: the spiritual part of life and the rest of life, our time in religious activities and our time at school or work. We have reduced Christianity to the personal and private sphere, living everyday lives little different from those of others in our society."

More on Miller's book next week.

In This Culture Of Biblical Illiteracy

If "to integrate Christian faith and work" means to apply the implications of the Word of God to the shop, the office, and the construction zone, then understanding what the Bible has to say is critical.

For those who work in the “halls of power,” taking care how the Bible is interpreted is particularly important, because it affects millions. My post last week was in response to the man in the highest office of the land who recently justified his acceptance of “same-sex marriage" on the basis of Christian faith and Scripture. [See "Evolved."]

Yesterday’s Point of View commentary by radio host Kerby Anderson (National Director of Probe Ministries) is an appropriate follow-up:

Sometimes, the only way you can respond to a statement is to ask, “What Bible are they reading?” That happened recently on my radio program when Penna Dexter and I were interviewing Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily. He said that he allows commentators of various political persuasions to write and post their columns.

One of those columnists is radio host Bill Press who recently wrote, “Nowhere in the Bible does God condemn homosexuality.” The predictable response from us was,“What Bible is he reading?”

Two passages in Leviticus call it an abomination. The Apostle Paul in his letters to the churches in Rome and Corinth condemn homosexuality. Those are four verses for starters.

But of course, we can also understand the negative prohibitions by looking at the positive principles. Genesis 2 sets forth the biblical principle of a man and a woman leaving father and mother to become one flesh. Jesus refers back to this foundational principle in Matthew 19 (which we also find in Mark 10).

And the Bible also teaches that this sexual sin [homosexual behavior] has consequences not only for the individual but for the nation. Farah said, “This is about as serious as the Bible gets in condemnation. This is not only sin that affects the individuals involved; it’s the kind of sin that has ramifications for the entire nation.”

It may be easy for Bible-believing Christians to shake their heads and ask,“What Bible is he reading?” But in this culture of biblical illiteracy, many people are likely to take the word of Bill Press rather than look it up in the Word of God. That’s why we must firmly, but lovingly, teach God’s Word.

For more of Kerby's “Point of View,” click here.

The Biggest Idea Of All

How does a banker do banking “as unto the Lord?” How does a car mechanic repair cars in alignment with Christ (pardon the pun)? How does the president of a company, or the President of a country, "think like Jesus" about issues and policies?

It starts with ideas. Fundamental ideas. Decision-guiding ideas. Commitment-shaping ideas. Rooted in the biggest idea of all: that the Bible is the Word of God in print, and that the Scriptures are totally true, for the totality of life.

I take an old-fashioned approach to the Bible. By “old-fashioned,” I mean an approach that has been around for centuries. An approach whereby Scripture is held as divinely inspired. By “inspired,” I mean “Holy Spirit originated.”

I believe inspired means the human writers put stylus to papyrus in such a manner that the words they wrote expressed the thoughts God Himself would have written had He been holding the pen. Not that God dictated the words, necessarily, but He guided the human authors to express thoughts with particular meanings. That's not to say the human authors always fully understood what they were writing, but the Writer behind the writers did.
 
I realize the meanings of words change over time. I also realize certain words have different shades of meaning to different people. But I also realize that the words put to print by the human authors of the Bible, in the days they were written, had particular meanings in the mind of God. It is this meaning that's the point.  

Why is this so important? Because if I am going to make authentic connections between the biblical worldview and my daily work, then accepting the Scripture as divine communication with intended meaning (regardless of the opinion of my wife and kids) is essential.

I’m very burdened to say that biblical “truth” is increasingly subjective these days, blurred and individualized beyond recognition. It is no longer a matter of endeavoring to understand what the Writer meant by the words the human authors used. Rather than discovering what the Bible means to the Writer, it has devolved into, “What does this Scripture mean to me?” 

Asking “how does it apply to me?” is very different than “what does it mean to me?” That kind of hermeneutic wreaks havoc with one's ability to integrate authentic Christianity with one's work, and it is particularly harmful when one's work affects the direction of a nation. 

The Exhilarating Duty Of Making Culture

I seem to be on a book endorsement roll, so I'll keep the ball moving with an enthusiastic endorsement of Andy Crouch's great book, Culture Making.  

This 2008 volume earned a "starred review" from Publishers Weekly: "Those who have struggled with the sacred-secular dichotomy will find this book life-giving; every Christian interested in changing culture should read it." You can see why I think Crouch's book is so important.

The uniqueness of Crouch's contribution toward ridding the Church of  SSD (the "sacred-secular divide"), is that he draws a distinction between transforming culture and making culture, maintaining that the best way to transform culture to create new culture.

When we think of "transformation," we tend to think of "remodeling." Of course, much of our culture needs "remodeling." But Crouch suggests we come about this task from a different angle. "The only way to change culture," says Crouch, "is to create more of it."

He asserts that, "cultural change will only happen when something new displaces, to some extent, existing culture in a very tangible way." Using the example of his own young family being subjected to his frequent cooking of homemade chili, Crouch argues that "our dinner-table culture will only change if someone offers us something sufficiently new and compelling to displace the current items on our menu." Carrying this idea into broader applications beyond dinner-table culture, Crouch says, "...if we seek to change culture, we will have to create something new, something that will persuade our neighbors to set aside some existing set of cultural goods for our new proposal."

The ramifications of Crouch's thesis are profound, and far-reaching. He maintains that "if all we do is condemn culture...we are very unlikely indeed to have any cultural effect, because human nature abhors a cultural vacuum. It is the very rare human being who will give up some set of cultural goods just because someone condemns them. They need something better, or their current set of cultural goods will have to do, as deficient as they may be." 

Tim Keller says Culture Making takes "the discussion about Christianity and culture to a new level." I agree. 

The book is just one of the excellent offerings in the Seattle Centurions curriculum. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, come join with others in the exhilarating duty of making culture. Applications close May 31. Click here to get going. 

Faith In The Halls Of Power

God has His people spread throughout the full spectrum of American society. From one end to the other, the People of the Vine are occupying all corners of culture through the daily workforce. While the largest percentage of them hold "everyday jobs," the Lord has His Esthers and Daniels in "high places," too.

I was reminded of this recently while reading D. Michael Lindsay's 2007 book, Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. This fascinating volume, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, is the result of Lindsay's doctoral dissertation at Princeton. He collected data from 360 one-on-one interviews over three years, logging more than three hundred thousand miles, doing twenty-eight transcontinental trips, visiting seventy-two different locations, from Boston to San Diego, and Miami to Seattle.

Lindsay, current president of Gordon College and a member of Chuck Colson's first Centurions group, defines an evangelical as: "someone who believes (1) that the Bible is the supreme authority for religious belief and practice, (2) that he or she has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and (3) that one should take a transforming, activist approach to faith." While one or two of the individuals Lindsay mentions may stretch the envelope of this definition a bit, what Lindsay discovered is, evangelicals are increasingly present in the mainstream of American culture-making. This is true not only in politics, but in higher education, the corporate world, and Hollywood.

While an "evangelical power-broker" sounds like an oxymoron, Lindsay's research suggests otherwise. After a period of withdrawal in the 1920s and 30s, American evangelicalism took a course correction in the 1940s, as "neo-evangelical" leaders, including Billy Graham, made the intentional choice to "enter the public square again without abandoning their religious identity."

While evangelicals were relatively minor players among the so-called "elite" in the 1960s and 1970s, the last 35 years have seen a marked resurgence of evangelicals in "the halls of power." Lindsay writes: "As America has become more religiously diverse, evangelicals have begun acting on their faith in more public ways."

I was unaware of the breadth and depth of the presence of evangelicals in positions of public influence until I read Lindsay's book. "Though most of us know that there are growing numbers of evangelicals in leadership today," writes Lindsay, "we know virtually nothing about them."

Lindsay's book changed all that.

For more on this topic, read yesterday's BreakPoint article by Eric Metaxas:
The Next Unreached People Group: Christianity and the Elites.

He was "Chuck." Held in Highest Regard.

I first met Chuck Colson in 2001 at a gathering for Prison Fellowship Ministry volunteers. My wife and I had provided some teaching on biblical worldview at a state correctional facility through PFM, and we were invited to attend the luncheon. I soon discovered there was no “distance” with Chuck Colson. There were no “airs” about him. Although he held 15 honorary doctoral degrees, he was never “Dr. Colson.” He was “Chuck.” Held in highest regard.

Out of that meeting came a relationship. We corresponded several times, and Chuck showed great interest in my work, much to my amazement. Once he wrote, “I pray the Lord will continue to open every door for Worldview Matters to get your message to the masses….the need for what you are doing is greater today then ever.” This kind of encouragement spurred me forward. I’m especially feeling his encouragement after his passing last week.

Chuck contributed the Foreword to a book I co-authored with Don Johnson, called, Making the Connections. It was written for school teachers on how to integrate biblical worldview with academic subjects. Writing Forewords to books was something Chuck’s board studiously guarded him against. But somehow Chuck did an “end run” for this.

In 2008, I enrolled in his Centurions Program, and my relationship with Chuck strengthened. One day, at a Centurions residency, I asked Chuck if he would do a video interview to help me get word out about my work in the field of biblical worldview integration with labor. I knew I was asking for the moon. But to my astonishment, Chuck did this.

The morning after he received the Presidential Citizens Medal from George W. Bush in the Oval Office, the second highest honor an American president can bestow upon a civilian, Chuck made two videotapings to help with my work. I invite you to view these clips:

http://youtu.be/LhBpl4J1NEM

http://youtu.be/LWVf4xlbM1o

His final speech was given March 30. I urge you to listen to a recording of his remarks just prior to his inability to continue speaking. 

As I write, I’m feeling Chuck’s legacy in a very personal way. I can hear him saying, “Carry on, Christian,” as only an ex-Marine Captian can say it.

In the spirit of “carrying on,” I urge you to read and sign the Manhattan Declaration (here), and become a Centurion (here). I know Chuck would want me to ask.

Thank you, Chuck.

This photo was taken on November 17, 2001, the day Kathy and I first met Chuck Colson. With us is Randy Schulz, then Washington Alaska Field Director for Prison Fellowship Ministries, who introduced us.

With Chuck's daughter, Emily, who later wrote Dancing with Max,
a book about her autistic son, Chuck's grandson, Max.

The Book that Made Your World

Vishal Mangalwadi and his wife, Ruth, are moving to Cambridge, England, where Mangalwadi will assume the John Harvard Lectureship in Christian Heritage, a post established by the Christian Heritage organization for the purpose of presenting the case that the modern world was "created by the West’s discovery of the Bible.”
   
What!?

Born and raised in India, Dr. Mangalwadi is intimately familiar with Hinduism, Buddhism, and the full array of worldviews shaping both Eastern and Western cultures. Christianity Today called him "India's foremost Christian intellectual." His thesis, that the Bible created the political liberties and modern science of the West, is presented in The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization.

Within the university community of Cambridge, Mangalwadi’s thesis will be put to the test. Literally! Beginning this Fall Semester, Dr. Mangalwadi plans to present lectures every Sunday evening that the University of Cambridge is in session. The lectures will be peer-reviewed before delivery, then filmed and uploaded to the Internet. A small group of international scholars will be invited to critically study Mangalwadi’s thesis for 12-18 months. Journeys will be made with cameras to Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Europe and America to investigate Mangalwadi’s thesis, as experts and critics discuss his thesis, along with their own research.

"The mission's objective," relates Mangalwadi, "is to move beyond giving a lecture and catching the flight to the next hall filled with admiring Christian audience[s]. The goal is to do what Paul did: stay in a city, preach the Good News, challenge its idols, reason with its philosophers, court the trouble of inviting skeptical and hostile aucience[s] to listen to all sides, ask difficult questions, look at the evidence, reject falsehood, and choose truth."

Mangalwadi is on a mission to re-awaken the West to its biblically-shaped soul before it is completely lost. He sees this issue from the perspective of an Easterner, whose personal engagement with oppression and corruption in India landed him in jail.

Mangalwadi’s commitment to scholarly credibility is indicative of the current trend of evangelicals toward involvement in mainstream academia. This is what Michael Lindsay found in his journey of discovery doing research for his Ph. D. in sociology at Princeton, documented by his Pulitzer-nominated book, Faith in the Halls of Power.

More about Lindsay's book next week.

The Monday Church Project

The Church is people. Sometimes it gathers (as on Sunday morning), and sometimes it scatters (as on Monday morning). Connecting with Christ's purpose for Sunday morning can be challenging enough, but connecting with Christ's purpose for Monday morning can be like rock climbing with ropes. Help for reaching the rim on Sunday morning is readily available. But help for reaching the rim on Monday morning is less plentiful. Allow me to introduce you to The Monday Church Project, an on-line rope.

Not only can you develop a personalized "theology of business," or "theology of health care," using the free resources provided, but you can also make connections with other people who have similar types of work, by plugging into one of the Monday Church on-line communities.

The movers and shakers behind this project are my colleagues at Disciple Nations Alliance. President Scott Allen authored Beyond the Sacred-Secular Divide: A Call to Wholistic Life and Ministry, and Darrow Miller, co-founder, authored LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for What You Do Every Day. These books provide outstanding “gear” for the faith-at-work rock climb challenge.

As the Monday Church Project website puts it, in the words of Os Guinness, “God has His people where He wants them. The problem is that they are not being His people where they are.” This is a sober reality. But imagine what could happen if the People of the Vine put their faith to work in relevant, winsome and restorative ways while at work!

"For the church to faithfully fulfill this mission," the website continues, "it must envision, equip and empower each member of the body to function as agents of redemption and restoration in those places where they are called and deployed."

They quote Ken Meyers of Mars Hill Audio:

"Faithfulness to the Lord of all Creation is cultural faithfulness; it is faithfulness in every realm of human experience, from science to sports, from making movies to making babies, from how we build relationships to how we relate to buildings. Following Christ is a matter first of inner transformation, and then of living faithfully in accord with the order of Creation as he made and is redeeming it, in all of our cultural convictions and practices concerning a host of abstractions and concrete realities: food, sex, time, music, history, language, technology, family, justice, beauty, agriculture, and community.”

Take hold of the rope at http://www.mondaychurch.org/about.

The Seattle Centurions Program Is Launching

Chuck Colson founded the "Centurions Program" to equip People of the Vine to “live out their faith authentically in the world.” I was privileged to participate in this program during its fifth year.

Chuck Colson’s vision has always been that commissioned Centurions would launch affiliate programs in regions where they live. I am pleased to announce the Seattle Centurions program is launching its first affiliate study program this June, in collaboration with Northwest University, and in cooperation with The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

Applications from qualified candidates are now being accepted for the year-long program, and I urge each reader to consider this great opportunity. The Seattle program is especially pleased to have Northwest University as a partner, united in vision. The Seattle Centurions will use the facilities and shared resources of the University’s campus in Kirkland, Washington.

Dr. Joseph Castleberry, president of Northwest University, stated: “The Centurions Program, in our view, is consistent with our mission of ‘carrying the call of God by building a learning community dedicated to spiritual vitality, academic excellence, and empowered engagement with human need.’  To this end, we see the University as not just the physical campus but the community at large. Our hoped-for affiliation with Seattle Centurions is one important way for the University to ‘carry the call of God’ to the community, while in turn drawing the community to the opportunities for enrichment offered by the University.”

Participants in the Seattle Centurions program will be exposed to a curriculum of important books and films, with access to a national online discussion forum of Centurions in other regions. The program will include special speakers at two weekend residencies at Northwest University, along with teleconferences by national leaders. 

Commissioned Centurions will participate in a self-directed, three-year, post-program discipleship project within their sphere of influence. Centurions will have the opportunity to network with an increasing number of fellow Centurions and leaders throughout the world.

The Seattle program is one of five affiliate programs in the U.S. organized by commissioned Centurions. Other programs are in Michigan, New England, Pittsburgh, and Colorado.

For a brief word from T. M. Moore, Dean of the national Centurions program, click here. For a testimonial from Centurion Nancy Schulze, click here.

If you live in the Northwest, I hope to see you in the Seattle program! 

The Student Statesmanship Institute

Last week I suggested we equip Christ-loving lawyers, legislators, senators, council members, and mayors to bring biblically-informed minds to work with them on a daily basis, where they can winsomely “connect the dots” with the real-life issues related to their everyday professional lives. Sounds good, but who is equipping people to actually do this?

In the days of Jonathan Edwards, it was standard fare for churches and schools to equip people to “connect the dots” between the biblical worldview and the totality of life. The Puritans had an extensive curriculum to this end, called “Technologia,” which followed young people from the earliest ages up through undergraduate level. The Church has no comparable curriculum today.  

Dr. David Scott, Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Southern Evangelical Seminary, did eight years of doctoral research on Jonathan Edwards. He examined the Technologia and wrote about it in his excellent paper, “A Church Without A View: Jonathan Edwards And Our Current Lifeview Discipleship Crisis.” To read it, click here.

“The Puritan worldview curriculum of technologia was comprehensive and systematic,” writes Dr. Scott. “It taught how all knowledge and human endeavor was a unified God-glorifying circle called ‘encyclopedia’ with Christ at its center as the sum of all things.” This “philosophy-of-all-things” was so critical to the formation of the mind, notes Dr. Scott, that Jonathan Edwards and his classmates at Yale were required to defend it publicly in order to graduate.

One of the greatest challenges we face today, is that our culture has lost its “Christian mind.” This sober reality was addressed by Harry Blamires years ago in The Christian Mind. But thankfully, efforts are being taken to restore the Christian mind, and a "philosophy-of-all-things." Although we have a long way to go, some excellent programs are available to help the People of the Vine to make connections between biblically-informed minds and the “real world” around us, including the world of politics, law, business and media.    

One such program is the Student Statesmanship Institute, in Lansing, Michigan, which is geared for high school students. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a four-minute video must be worth 400,000. With this in mind, I urge you to take a look at a short video clip about the Student Statesmanship Institute. Click here.

Does that video blow anyone's mind besides mine? For more about SSI week-long Summer Programs starting in June, click here.

A Practical Absurdity

If the People of the Vine are going to have an influence in politics and law, I suggest we work harder at encouraging and equipping Christ-loving lawyers, legislators, senators, council members, and mayors to bring biblically-informed minds to work with them on a daily basis, where they can winsomely “connect the dots” with real-life issues related to their everyday professional lives.

I believe the best chance we have of bringing biblically-informed thought and practice into the public square is from the inside out. This is how “salt” functions. It flavors and preserves via permeation.

This is what the integration of faith and work is about. It is the personal outworking of Truth in the business world, the artistic world, the educational world, the entertainment world, and the political-legal world, by those who work in these fields, with no sacred-secular divide, serving the Highest Lord in their professions, and loving the Highest Law. Like Daniel in Babylon. [On this superb model, I recommend Larry Peabody's great book, Job-Shadowing Daniel.]

Can you imagine millions of lawyers, legislators, council members and political executives at all levels bringing biblically-informed minds to work with them on a daily basis, operating with no SSD (Sacred-Secular Divide)?   

It this legal? Of course! As one U.S. Senator said in 2006, it is wrong to ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square. He went on to say that not injecting ‘personal morality’ into public policy debates is a practical absurdity:

 “…secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King—indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history—were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their ‘personal morality’ into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Juedo-Christian tradition.”

Notice the observation about our law being a “codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.” He was a former law professor at the University of Chicago. He knows. 

This Senator went on to become President of the United States. His name is Barack Obama. [For the full speech, click here.]

Democracy Is No Brass Ring In Itself

Today we still have the form of a free nation, but we are losing what is necessary to maintain it. Our civil freedoms can only survive as long as a good number of citizens govern themselves in a morally responsible way, under God. This is possible when the Holy Spirit moves through people like divine sap between Vine and branches. [John 15:5]

While no freedom-consenting government can cause people to be morally responsible, only morally-responsible people can enable government to be freedom-consenting. The more Americans we have who do not practice self-governance under God, the greater risk we have of losing what freedoms we enjoy. Either we will practice government under God internally, by His grace, or the strong arm of Government will control us externally. 

As Benjamin Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Robert Winthrop put it this way, in 1852: “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm of man, either by the Bible, or by the bayonet.”

At one time, it was reasonable to think America could be a place where enough self-governing people (under God) would sustain the Constitutional Republic. Early Americans valued self-government under God. Because of this, it was believed a government “by the people” might just work.

Democracy is no brass ring in itself. Hitler came to power through democracy. And Mussolini. If the majority is on a certain side, democracy can produce outcomes worse than any potentate with absolute power. We may be in the process of discovering this for ourselves, as more and more Americans operate under the new modus operandi: disregard for the Higher Lord and Higher Law. 

I believe in the separation of the institutional church and state, in terms of function and jurisdictional authority. But this is a far cry from the separation of civil government and the Higher Lord. Actually, He can't be separated from it. He is Lord of all!  

Nor is it possible to separate Church [capital C] from state. That's because the Church [People of the Vine] is inextricably entwined throughout the state, like salt dissolved in soup.

But how's the savor?

[See comments for references.]

Our Constitution Is Wholly Inadequate

In a recent post, I quoted John Adams, our 2^nd President, as saying, “…we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Why would Adams say our Constitution is wholly inadequate to the government of any other than a “moral and religious” people? Because this kind of people know how to govern themselves under God, and people who can govern themselves under God generally practice the kind of internal regulation necessary for a constitutional republic to work: voluntarily adherence to Higher Rule of Law. 

Strong, external control was something the founders were trying to get away from, and what they did not want repeated on the west side of the Pond. But with a “moral and religious” populace, maybe a government “by the people” could work. Maybe individuals practicing internal self-governance under God could bring peace, order, and, as George Washington put it, “political prosperity” to the new nation.

The Protestant Reformation in Europe forged the idea that everyday people were capable of knowing God's thoughts about human behavior via the Bible. The extention of this idea vis-á-vis civil government was only logical. As Calvin Coolidge said, “It was the principle of personal judgment in matters of religion for which the English and Dutch were contending, and which set the common people to reading the Bible. There came to them a new vision of the importance of the individual which brought him into direct contact with the Creator. It was this conception applied to affairs of government that made the people sovereign.”

Daniel Webster, Secretary of State under three presidents during the 19^th Century, summed it up this way: “Our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits. Living under the heavenly light of revelation, they hoped to find all the social dispositions, all the duties which men owe to each other and to society, enforced and performed. Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.”

But what happens when citizens elevate “self-government” and cast the “under God” part aside?

Enter the 1960s. 

[See comments for references.]