A Place Of Destiny

Martin Luther maintained that milking cows is as much the work of God as any deed of a monk, if the one milking does her work by faith. This understanding was articulated later by the Puritan pastor George Swinnock, who said, “The pious tradesman will know that his shop as well as his chapel is holy ground.”  

The current re-awakening of this liberating truth has the marks of an authentic move of God, international in scope. While I am most familiar with what is going on in the US, I know from others, such as David Oliver in the UK, that the Spirit is at work on both sides of the pond, as well as around the globe.

David is the founder of Insight Marketing. He is an international speaker and business consultant, who regularly appears on British television and radio. I have known him for nearly a decade, and have the utmost respect. He is not only a man who understands the biblical concept of work, but lives his understanding in the “real world” of business.

I am pleased to announce that David’s book, Work: Prison or Place of Destiny, has just been re-issued in a new edition with added chapters by Mark Greene, Director of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, and myself.   

Mark Greene says, “David Oliver’s gracious perseverance of purpose and clarity of vision provides a fresh way forward that, if heeded, could see a decisive shift in church culture. And thereby in our nation.” John Beckett, author of Loving Monday, says David’s book, “may be just what you need to reset your focus onto God’s agenda for your life.” I agree!

As mentioned last week, the Apostle Paul elevated the work of slaves to the work of God. It is such an understanding of work that turns the workplace from “prison” to "a place of destiny.”

Whether you’re a bus driver, a banker, or a biologist, David’s book, Work: Prison or Place of Destiny, will motivate you to live out your destiny in the workplace like never before.

If you read just one book in the next year on the topic of living out your faith in the workplace, let it be this one. And give a copy to your pastor. 

In the US, e-books are available at http://bit.ly/WPOPDUSA. In the UK, at http://bit.ly/WPOPDUK. 

Here is a personal message from David: 

If the video does not play, click here: http://bit.ly/WPOPDVID

Make It God's Work

Paul wrote to slaves in Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily as unto the Lord.” 

These slaves had no choice about the kind of work they did every day. They could not take aptitude tests to discover their strengths, nor sit down with career coaches to figure out better job fits. If their masters were demanding, ego-centric, or downright cruel, they had to live with the situation. (Do you think you've got it bad? Really?)

Thankfully, Paul did not write, “You are not alone, my dear friends! Nobody’s work in this world really matters. Not even the tents I make have any lasting value! They all deteriorate in time. Focus only on the next life. Keep the faith.”

On the contrary, Paul’s remarkable words to slaves hold a great key for bringing extraordinary meaning to "ordinary" work. His directive is particularly helpful when our jobs are difficult and painful, or the work we're doing makes us feel like slaves.

If you do car repair work, housecleaning work, or longshoreman’s work, and your work doesn't really seem like “God’s work,” there is something you can do about it, without a change of location: you can make it God’s work.

Make it God’s work? How?

By doing what Paul advised slaves to do: think differently about the work you are currently doing. Specifically, think of doing your work “as unto the Lord.” 

This means, if you repair cars, approach your next repair job as though your customer is Christ. Repair the car as though it is Jesus’ car. If you clean houses, clean your next house as though Christ lives there. If you carry wooden beams off a ship all day, carry each beam as though it were to be used by the Lord Himself for some great purpose. (It can’t be as heavy as His cross.)

For many years we have heard the saying, “WWJD: What would Jesus do?” The implication is, “What would Jesus do if He were in my shoes?” I suggest a different question: “WWID: What would I do if Jesus were in my customer’s shoes?” “What would I do if the money I’m managing were Jesus’ dollars?” and, “What would I do if the clothes I’m ironing were to be worn by Christ?” 

This is what it means to do our work “as unto the Lord.” Try it for just one hour. Then another. And another.

Again, it starts in our heads.

Are you feeling like a slave in a "dead-end" job, wishing you were doing something else? Maybe you should make a change, if you can. I don't know. But try a change of mind before you make a change of location--or your clothes.

It Starts In Your Head

When we think of Jesus, we usually think of Him preaching to thousands, healing people, and dying for the sins of the world. But Jesus spent the majority of His days doing carpentry work. Certainly He was helping Joseph full time by the age of 13, and continued doing carpentry work until 30. Jesus worked at least six times longer as a carpenter than as an itinerant teacher and miracle worker. 

We don’t know much about the life of Christ during His carpentry years, but we do know this: Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" during that time (Luke 2:52). This is a remarkable statement.

By Christ's own testimony, He only did what His Father showed Him to do (John 5:19). The question is, when did this arrangement begin? Did it just start when Jesus was baptized at the age of 30? Or was this the case during His carpentry years too?

When Jesus was baptized, His Father proclaimed: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased  (Matthew 3:16-17).” This was before Jesus healed anyone, and before He called a single disciple.  

Certainly Christ’s character and obedience were pleasing to the Father. But I suspect the Father was also pleased with what Jesus had done with His time up to that point, and how He spent His daily energy, doing what His Father showed Him to do: carpentry. For Jesus, this, too, was the work of God.

Jesus did not struggle with a "sacred-secular split." There is no doubt in my mind that Christ modeled what it means to govern over wood. I do not believe He would have grown in favor with the folks of Nazareth had He done shoddy carpentry work. Justin Martyr, the 2nd century historian, wrote that plows made by Jesus and Joseph were used in his day. If this is so, Jesus and Joseph must have done superior work!

Imagine what would happen if all followers of Christ engaged in their daily work as the work of God. It would turn the world upside down--again.    

If that's too big to wrap your mind around, just think about turning your own office, shop, or kitchen around. Do your work as the work of God for just one hour. And then another. And another. It starts in your head.

The 800 Pound Gorilla

In a telephone interview with Nancy Pearcey, author of Total Truth, she articulated why so many Christians fail to see work in politics, business, education, the arts, and science as ways to serve God. She pointed out that many Christian young people think that if they really want to serve God, they should go into "ministry," which means being a pastor or missionary.

The problem, Pearcey maintains, is accepting a "sacred-secular distinction." That is, putting work in "sacred" and "secular" categories. The Sacred-Secular Divide is a mental stronghold that's hard to remove. I am convinced, however, that ridding ourselves of SSD is the first step (and perhaps the biggest step) toward bringing significance to any human endeavor.   

Have you ever heard a Christian say, "Someday I'm going to quit my job and go into the ministry?" The unspoken message is: "I don't see my current work as a sacred task." Seeing fish management as "full-time Christian service" is unthinkable. It does not come easily to the evangelical mind. 

SSD is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. I don't want to be critical of pastors [they have a tough job], but when was the last time you heard a sermon on how to get rid of the Sacred-Secular Divide? When was the last time the car mechanics in your congregation were brought up front to be prayed for, and sent out with a commission to service automobiles well, repairing each car as the Lord's car (doing their work "as unto the Lord"), and seeing their repair work as the very work of God? 

Yes, the car does belong to Christ! The whole earth is the Lord's, and everything in it. And ruling well over grease and ball bearings is part of what God had in mind for humans before He created Adam and Eve. Repair work itself is sacred, when done in response to the First Commission of Gen. 1:26-28, and in fulfillment of the Great Commandment of Mark 12:29-31. 

Yes, we need pastors and missionaries. But we don't need to justify car repair work as an opportunity for evangelism, or a way to earn money to support the others who are in..."the [real] ministry." Because car repair is ministry too.  

Ask Jesus. He was a carpenter.

Here's my interview with Dr. Pearcey: 

If you cannot play this video, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypID1NXF2Bw

The Good Works Of Biologists And Car Mechanics?

This photo shows our oldest son at work, radiotracking tagged fish. He works for the State of Washington Department of Fisheries, spending his days doing the highly scientific and demanding work of fish management. Is he doing the work of God? Is he doing something God wants done in the earth? Is this work really important to the Lord? Is this part of Christ's purpose for humans today? If a young man came to you for advice, saying he wanted to go into "full-time Christian service," would fish management be on your list of possibilities?

A slow reading of the First Commission of Genesis 1:26-28 will cause most people to conclude that ruling over fish, as our son Nathanael does, is an outworking of the governing role and function God planned for human beings when, before creating Adam, He declared:  "...let them rule...over all the earth." This includes trout and salmon. 

Would it be a stretch to say that in governing well over fish, Nathanael is doing a "good work" which God "prepared beforehand for him to do," as Ephesians 2:10 puts it? A decade ago, I would have said, "You've got to be kidding!" But today I say, "Why not?"   

Why should I limit my scope of "good works" to helping old ladies with groceries, and volunteering time at the mission on Saturday? Does a biblical "good work" only qualify as "good work" when it's done without pay? 

When Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven," was He excluding good work done by a follower of Christ at the Boeing Company, making airliners beautiful and safe, or at Starbucks, making a latte that's a work of art?

I believe God calls us to share the Good News of salvation with those who don't know Christ. I believe we are saved by faith alone, and that good works don't earn us eternal life. But while we aren't saved by good works, we are saved for good works. Can this include the good works of biologists and car mechanics? Or longshoremen and janitors?

Ask Josh Kelly about this. After serving as a full-time pastor for 14 years, his church ran out of money, which led him to take a job at Starbucks. Here Josh asked himself, "How spiritual is making $4 lattes? What is the eternal value of blending up an extra-caramel Caramel Frappuccino?" 

But Josh realized that mopping the Starbucks floor was part of his call to rule over dirt. And in the process, Josh discovered the Holy Spirit was also guiding his conversations with co-workers and customers. He learned about the struggles of people in the "real world," and was able to share God's love with those who walked through the door, from the panhandler, to the gay couple, the businesswoman, and the retiree. 

For the full story, read Josh Kelly's new book, Radically Normal.

Some people actually get paid for doing this sort of thing! But Nathanael has the added bonus of knowing he's doing what God created and commissioned humans to do. Managing trout! Like this beauty from the Cedar River. If this isn't God's work, I'll eat my tackle box.

What On Earth Was God Thinking When He Created Human Beings?

In the Bible we read of God's acts, but we don't often read of His thought process and rationale behind the acts. Being privy to the "why" behind God's "what" is rare. Yet in Genesis 1, we see God's deliberative thought process behind the creation of human beings, and it's mind-boggling!

What on earth was God thinking when He created human beings? What purpose did God have in mind for us? What role did He intend for us to play?

In Genesis 1:26-28, the Trinity confers: "Let us make man...and let them rule...," followed by this human-targeted directive: "Fill the earth, and subdue it." 

Wow! We were created for the role of governing over God's stuff on Planet Earth! Not only governing over fish and fowl, but over electricity, wind, minerals, trees and waterways. Sound waves, laser beams, silicon and Teflon. This is our God-given responsibility and mission!

Can this really be God's intention for us? Can it really be this practical? This concrete? This...well...down-to-earth?

Sometimes we're oblivious to the obvious. The Bible tells us God has a wonderful plan for our lives, and His plan is that we govern rightly over the planet! Some over animals, some over vegetables. Some over water, some over air. Some over wood beams, some over gold.

Chuck Colson summed it up this way: "On the sixth day, God created human beings and commanded them to pick up where He left off." 

Who rules Planet Earth? News flash! God gave us the job:"...let them rule..." And this requires all sorts of work! Some may think God gave the job to Satan at the Fall, but the First Commission was not rescinded when sin entered the world. While the Fall makes our assignment more difficult, Earth-Tending remains our purpose, privilege and "glory." See Psalm 8.

Governance over God's stuff in God's way is the first principle of theology of work. This embeds the First Commission into the Great. When we "observe all that Christ commanded" [see the Great Commission of Matthew 28], this "observation" surely takes place at work, where we spend the bulk of our waking hours, right?

We are here to occupy, and this requires occupations: from fish farming to politics, plumbing to neurology, longshoreman's labor to agronomy. In a fallen world it requires pastors, missionaries and social workers, too. But the former occupations are as much "God's work" as the later.

Right?

Carrying Beams Off A Ship All Day

I took this photo while in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2007, on board a wind-powered sailing vessel [no engine--just sails] loaded with wooden beams that were hand carried down a narrow plank to the dock below by men working from 6am to 6pm for $9 a day. 

Last week I quoted a Coca-Cola executive who said, "we don't find meaning in our work, we bring meaning to our work." Bonnie Wurzbacher went on to say that until we understand "there is no secular and sacred split," and we "see how our work truly fulfills and advances God's purposes for the world," we cannot bring meaning to our work.

So how does a man carrying beams off a ship all day bring meaning to his work?

Watching those men do their back-breaking work in Jakarta tested my theology of work. In Indonesia, where the average wage is $100-$200 per month, these workers were at the upper end of the scale. But putting money aside, I had to ask myself: could I even do this kind of work? And for how long?

I wasn't asking this question in light of the physical challenge. That was easy to answer! I figured I could last about 45 minutes. I was asking in light of the mental challenge. Could I really bring meaning to this kind of work? Month after month? Year after year? If so, how?

Over the next few weeks I'll be discussing the matter of bringing extraordinary meaning to "ordinary" work. Even the so-called "mundane." But before I get into this, let me say that if you really feel like you're "carrying beams off a ship all day," and you have the means to do so, I suggest you meet with a trained job coach who can assess your situation and provide counsel regarding a better job fit. I once advised a young man to see a Christian "calling coach," who later told me it was the best $200 he ever spent.

But most people in developing nations don't have the luxury of a job change, and many in the "first world" don't either. Furthermore, all jobs have "chores." Perhaps the "chores" are not as dramatic as that shown in the photo above, all jobs have difficult, unpleasant, and sometimes loathsome aspects.

If your work "energizes" you 60% of the time, consider yourself blessed! But would you like to bring more meaning to the remaining 40% of your time? And if you are "energized" by only 10% of the work you do each day, would you like to bump that percentage up?

You don't have to change your job to bring extraordinary meaning to "ordinary" work. It's a matter of thinking differently about the work you're already doing.

Stay tuned.

What The Whole World Wants

On the basis of Gallup's World Poll, Jim Clifton, CEO of the company, concluded that what the whole world wants is a "good job."

But what makes a job "good?"

Pay is not the most important factor. Having a job that doesn't provide for the basics is a problem, of course, but pay alone does not determine whether a person feels his or her job is a "good" one.

Matching one's strengths with one's work is an important factor. George Washington Carver's boss, Booker T. Washington, remarked that Carver was a poor administrator. It would have been a mistake for Carver to have been "promoted" to an administrative role. His best fit was in the lab.

But matching one's strengths with one's work is not the only factor in a "good" job. Making progress is important, too. Yet making progress alone is not enough. Making progress in work that lacks meaning won't cut it over the long haul. 

Making progress in work with meaning, while using one's gifts and strengths to go somewhere worth going, is quite another matter! For most people, personal meaning is essential for a truly "good" job. That's because personal meaning addresses the why behind one's work, and this provides staying power.

The big question for many people, then, becomes, "How can my work have personal meaning, if it really doesn't?"

Bonnie Wurzbacher, while serving as Vice-President of Global Accounts for The Coca-Cola Company, once told me, "we don't find meaning in our work, we bring meaning to our work." This is a profound idea.

She went on to say that until we understand the theology of our work, and truly embrace a biblical worldview that allows no "secular and sacred split," seeing how our work truly fulfills and advances God's purposes for the world, we cannot bring meaning to our work.

This is important: work has meaning when we bring meaning to it.

A biblical worldview allows us to see how all work fits into the larger context of God's purpose for the world and our work. The key lies in our ability to "contextualize" the work we do. That is, putting it in the context of the "larger frame of reference" which a biblically-shaped view of the world and our work provides. This is how to bring meaning to work.

We'll explore this in detail over the next few posts.

The amazing thing is, the biblical context provides as much meaning for retail clerks and taxi cab drivers as it does for CEOs and college professors.

To hear part of my interview with Bonnie Wurzbacher, play the video below:

If the video does not play, click here: http://youtu.be/PRdpT-KZv_4

"The Single Most Searing, Clarifying, Helpful, World-Altering Fact"

There is a lot of data out there showing what people around the world are doing, but what the Gallup organization wanted to find out is what people are thinking. With this in mind, they created a unique World Poll and collected data from over 100 countries. Gallup is committed to conducting the World Poll for 100 years.

After the first round in 2007, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, Jim Clifton, wrote: "...we may have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact." He went on to call it "one of the single biggest discoveries Gallup has ever made."

What was Gallup's great discovery? Clifton summarized it this way: "What the whole world wants is a good job."

How interesting! This says something about people, throughout all cultures, whether Muslim, Christian, atheist, black, white, communist and capitalist. We share a common desire and hope. That desire and hope has to do with work!

No surprise. In the beginning, human beings were created in the likeness of a working God, and when we work, we exercise that God-given drive. But note Clifton's words carefully. He didn't say the world "wants to work." He said the whole world wants "a good job."

Here is where things get interesting. In the most recent World Poll findings, published in October, 2013, Gallup found only 13% of employed people across 142 countries are engaged in their work, that is, "emotionally invested in and focused on creating value for their organizations every day."

Furthermore, Gallup found that the number of employees who are "negative and potentially hostile to their organizations" outnumber engaged employees by nearly 2 to 1!

Remarkably, an astounding 63% of workers "lack motivation and are less likely to invest discretionary effort in organizational goals or outcomes."

Could this be because they don't feel their job is a "good" one?

What makes a particular job “good?” Is it the pay? The people we work with? The compatibility of our work with our particular gifts and talents? These are important factors, but it is possible to have excellent pay, great people to work with, a fitting job compatibility, and yet still lack that "something" which makes a particular job “good.”

What is that "something?"

We'll explore this next week.

Great Summer Reading

Before I take my customary break from blogging, I have some great summer reading to recommend.

First: Dr. Erik Strandness’s delightful new book, The Director's Cut: Finding God's Screenplay on the Cutting Room Floor. 

You don't find many medical doctors with degrees in theology. 

After practicing neonatal medicine for twenty years, Dr. Strandness went back to school to study theology, and he obtained a master’s degree in that field. This turn in his journey, and the book that ensued, was born out of his loss for words when someone asked him why he was a Believer. 

Once in a while, someone manages to put ageless Truth into such a fresh package that it cries out, "Read on!" That’s just the way I felt while reading The Director's Cut. It's not just Dr. Strandness’s engaging word images that make this book such a great read, but the profound Truths communicated in such a creative and thoroughly enjoyable manner. It's a fun read! 

I got to know Erik when he was part of the Colson Centurions Affiliate Program in Seattle, and I can tell you he is "the real deal."  Today, Erik is teaching science, religion and history at a Classical Christian school in Spokane, Washington. To learn more about Erik's move from medicine to theology, click here. To learn more about why Erik wrote the book, what it is about, and how you can obtain a copy, click here.

Next, I recommend Henry's Glory: A Story for Discovering Lasting Significance in Your Daily Work, by John Elton Pletcher.

John Pletcher is a pastor who gets theology of work. His book is unique in that it deals with this topic in the form of fictional story. Jesus used parables to communicate Truth to the masses, and great Christian writers of the past, such as John Milton and C.S. Lewis, used this technique with success.

Pletcher follows the story-telling tradition by skillfully weaving Truth into a contemporary narrative about Zach, Maggie, and a classic old pickup truck named "Henry." But don't let the story-form fool you. His treatment of theology of work is not superficial, by any stretch of the imagination. Pastor Pletcher engages with big issues, including eschatology and platonic dualism, and does so with excellence, in a winsome way!

To read a review of Henry's Glory that appeared in The Marketplace magazine, click here. To obtain a copy of John's book, click here.

Happy reading!

I'll see you in September.

Henry's Glory makes a great family read, suitable for ages 9 to 99.

He Bettered The Condition Of A Nation

Jesus identified the two most important commandments: "Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and, "Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.”

What greater motivation can there be for our daily work? Loving God and loving people. It's pretty basic.

Through some vocations, people love others directly, as in the work of a nurse. Through other vocations, people love others indirectly, as in the work of a truck driver who delivers supplies that empower the nurse to nurse.  

Through his work as a botanist, chemist, professor, and entrepreneur, Dr. George Washington Carver loved God and loved people. If there ever was a person who combined Weslian-Haugian faith with a Moravian-Haugian approach to the marketplace, it was Carver.

Carver asked God to give him “orders for the day” during morning walks. And Carver continued to commune with God throughout the day, particularly in his lab at Tuskegee Institute, where he created new products from peanuts, sweet potatoes and soybeans. Not for his own glory, but for the common good and human flourishing to the glory of God.

Carver said: “God is going to reveal to us things He never revealed before if we put our hands in His. No books ever go into my laboratory. The thing I am to do and the way of doing it are revealed to me. The method is revealed to me the moment I am inspired to create something new. Without God to draw aside the curtain I would be helpless.”

Carver’s love for humanity shaped his work at Tuskegee. He came to Tuskegee in response to Booker T. Washington's invitation: "I cannot offer you money, position or fame...I offer you in their place work─hard work─the challenge of bringing people from degradation, poverty and waste to full manhood." Carver replied: "I shall be glad to cooperate with you in doing all I can through Christ who strengtheneth me to better the condition of our people."

He did just that! And in the process, he bettered the condition of a nation.

Of all the video clips Worldview Matters has produced, none has generated more hits than the following clip about Carver, nearing 10,000 views. Find out why:

If the video does not play, click here: http://youtu.be/1wv4qYIyJoM

China Is The Unlikely Evidence

Today's guest post is from Darrow Miller and Friends, written by Gary Brumbelow, reprinted by permission. Gary provides a fitting capstone for my five-month series on how Christianity has positively affected nations where followers of Christ have practiced wholistic faith. We would be remiss if we omitted one country most people would least expect: China.    

China is poised to pass the US later this year as the world's #1 nation in terms of real GDP at purchasing power parity, according to the Financial Times.

In 1872, the United States beat out the UK to become the world’s #1 economic power. But that 142-year supremacy is about to end. Forecasters now believe China will move into the top spot later this year, four years ahead of the earlier prediction of 2019. That’s the story reported in Financial Times, “on the basis of new figures published today by the world’s leading statistical agencies.”

Rest assured you’ll be hearing more about that story. Here’s what may not get as much press.

Peter Cai, writing in China Spectator, recently reported that three Chinese professors—Yuyu Chen, Se Yan and Hui Wang—make the case that that there’s a connection between Christian missionary work and Chinese economic growth. Here are some excerpts from his article, “Jesus and the Chinese Economic Miracle.”

·         “In a nutshell, Protestant missionaries helped to build China’s human and social capital before Mao took over in 1949. These cultivated values and capital endured even through Mao’s mad reign and have been put to good use again after China opened itself to the world again.”

·         “The Peking university scholars’ argument does not deny the importance of the historic change unleashed by Deng and his followers but they point to another element of the story -- the crucial role played by the protestant missionaries in spreading Western science, technology and social values in China.”

·         “A lot of China’s best education institutions including Peking University can trace their origins to missionary schools in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. … graduates from missionary schools went on to become much-needed professionals in China such as engineers, doctors, teachers and other professionals."

As we have quoted elsewhere, David Aikman, in Jesus in Beijing, wrote a decade ago about Chinese scientists who visited the US who recognized that “in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics."

The Bible affirms God as Creator and man as steward. The Cultural Mandate, which spurred the blessing of Western nations where Judeo-Christian virtues have been honored, does not belong to the West! The gospel is supposed to change nations. China is the unlikely evidence that it does!

To read Gary's complete post, click here. 

Also note this: China to have the World's Largest Population of Christians by 2025.

For more on the Financial Times report: 

If the video does not play, click here.

The Quintessential Silent Partner

Noah Webster, in his Preface to the Dictionary of 1828, wrote: "In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government out to be instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people."
In his Value of the Bible and Excellence of the Christian Religion (1834), Webster declared: "Men may devise and adopt new forms of government, they may amend old forms, repair breaches, and punish violators of the constitution, but there is, there can be, no effectual remedy, but obedience to the divine law," and in a letter to James Madison (1829), he maintained: "...the christian [sic] religion, in its purity, is the basis or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government."  [1833 portrait by James Herring, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.]

For Noah Webster ["Schoolmaster of the Republic"], and other beneficiaries of the Reformation that grew out of northern Europe, liberty was built upon a foundation of self-government under God. This remarkable and revolutionary concept of freedom provided hope that a Constitutional Republic might work. At least it provided hope for those sharing Webster's convictions. Christianity was the quintessential silent partner: it provided the needed moral capital, yet did not force control.

Here's the catch: No state can mandate self-government under God, yet only people who practice self-government under God can build and maintain a truly free society. Democracy in and of itself is no brass ring. Hitler came to power through democracy. If 50.1% of voting Americans reject Truth, our system will produce outcomes as bad as any godless despot. If government by one Truth-rejecter is ruinous, imagine what government by millions will do. We're watching it now.    

Daniel Webster, Secretary of State under three presidents, 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.”

Both Websters would be castigated by Christophobics today.  

Another high office-bearer declared: "America became the common meeting-place of all those streams of people, great and small, who were undertaking to deliver themselves from all kinds of despotism and servitude, and to establish institutions of self-government and freedom...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…The logical result of this was the free man, educated in a free school, exercising a free conscience, maintaining a free government. The basis of it all, historically and logically, is religious belief.

These are the fundamental principles on which American institutions rest…”

Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President, said this. 

Were the views of Americans quoted above mere opinions of eccentric and marginal voices? Not according to French historian Alexis De Tocqueville. In Democracy in America (1835/40), De Tocqueville observed: "...in America, religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom." In our present day, Anglo-Irish cultural critic Os Guinness concludes: "Americans today are heedlessly pursuing a vision of freedom that is short-lived and suicidal. Once again, freedom without virtue, leadership without character, business without trust, law without customs, education without meaning and medicine, science and technology without human considerations can end only in disaster."  In A Free People's Suicide, Guinness declares: "...the ultimate threat to the American republic will be Americans. The problem is not wolves at the door but termites in the floor."  

Either By The Bible, Or By The Bayonet

Robert C. Winthrop (1809 - 1894), a descendant of John Winthrop, served as the 22nd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. [Photo public domain, US Congress Biographical Directory. Oil on canvas by Daniel Huntington, 1882.]

"In any society, only two forces can hold the sinful nature in check: the restraint of conscience or the restraint of the sword. The less that citizens have of the former, the more the state must employ the latter.”

This observation was made by Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey, in their 1999 bestseller, How Now Shall We Live.

In 1852, Robert Winthrop, 22nd Speaker of the House of Representatives, was more pointed: "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."

In the early days of our nation, "self-government under God” defined liberty among Christian leaders such as John Winthrop and Robert Winthrop. But the current American notion of "liberty" idolizes the self-government part, while the under God part is under the bus. 

The greatest deterrent to human liberty is independence itself. Independence from the God of the Bible, that is. As we move further away from personal recognition of Higher Law, and accountability to The Higher Judge, the less liberty we all have. That's because the more citizens who lack internal control under God, the more calls there will be for external control─under man. And this is not a pleasant prospect. For who will govern our controllers? What will guide their minds and hearts? The Bible?

As external controls increase in number, no amount of legislation will solve the root problem. That's because our problem is internal. Yes, we need God-honoring legislation. But authentic, sustainable liberty within the halls of power, the public square, the marketplace, and the home, must be voluntarily carried into these places by individual players who are controlled by a power within them. We need politicians, plumbers and parents who willingly (and gladly) carry their respect for God and His authority within them wherever they go. This starts with a relationship.

Ken Eldred put it this way, in God Is At Work:

"Cultural change is not something that can be imposed at the macro level from the top...Person by person, hearts and minds must be transformed...In short, it is the Holy Spirit working a cultural transformation from the pattern of this world to the pattern of God. The process starts with...a personal relationship with God.”

A Moravian-Haugian marketplace begs a Weslian-Haugian awakening.

Titanic

Indian scholar Vishal Mangalwadi contends that the "secret" of the West's success is morality that allows people to trust one another with the kind of trust essential to business and politics. He says this kind of trust-producing morality is unique to societies having a belief in a rational God who has spoken to humanity through the Bible, clarified right and wrong, and to Whom everyone is equally accountable.

But Mangalwadi asks an important question: "If moral integrity is foundational to prosperity, why don't secular experts talk about it?"

His answer is: "Economists have lost the secret of the West's success because philosophers have lost the very idea of truth." How did this happen? "The truth was lost," he says, "because of an intellectual arrogance that rejected divine revelation and tried to discover truth with the human mind alone."

Mangalwadi traces the connections between failing economies and faulty worldviews. His book Truth and Transformation is particularly relevant because of the West's exchange of the Christian worldview for a much different view. A view that is as harmful to the economy of America as Hinduism is to the economy of India. Namely, the worldview of Secularism.

Through the philosophy of Western secularists such as David Hume (1711-1776), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), thought-leaders in the West accepted the notion that either the God of the Bible does not exist, or He is totally irrelevant. (One doesn't have to be an atheist to be a secularist. A Christian dualist is a practicing secularist.)

The effects of Secularism upon America have been titanic. Mangalwadi contends that Secularism is leading us down the same road to poverty that Hinduism led India.

Think it could never happen? The Titanic was thought to be unsinkable, too.

Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan both quoted John Winthrop, CEO of the Massachusetts Bay Company, who once declared: "...we shall be as a city upon a hill−the eyes of all people are upon us."

But they neglected to tell the American people what Winthrop said next: "So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God's sake." 

John Winthrop (1588-1649) [Photo public domain; artist unknown.]