In a BBC article today, Mark Mardell writes:

The voices I hear on the streets [in Europe]…
mourn the fact that there is no leader with a map, a compass and a purpose, who can offer some hope that there is a way out of the swamp…
It chills me a little. ‘No more heroes any more’ I think to myself.
The shadow of the 30s, bullies in big boots with simplistic solutions, hangs heavily over Europe’s economic woes. History surely isn’t about to repeat itself?
Yet in nearly all our countries there is a vacancy for someone who understands people’s pain even if he or she cannot make it go away, and for someone who appears to have a clear plan that has a chance of working.
As far as I am concerned, those in need of equine support or with a love of uniforms need not apply.

Please pray for this continent!

Hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas-tide and a super start to the new year!
Report on Pre-Christmas: The “Festival of Light” went wonderfully! We had about 50 people in the Garden House (former kindergarten building) as we explained the Jewish festival of Chanukka and its connection to Jesus’ claim to be “the Light of the world”. Some deeply personal conversations with several “not-yet” believers resulted. Please pray that God’s Spirit will use the love and friendship these folk sensed together with the content of the message and questions discussed to move them closer to Jesus!
Three days later, we traveled to the western part of Germany to celebrate Christmas with Daniel’s parents (Erich and Doris) and family and to speak at the home church of his mother in the Westerwald (”Western-forest”).
It was a wonderful time: these are the folk who sent a team of professional tradesmen from the congregation to lay paving stones for the back area patio here in Haus Nazareth. They are warm, transparent people who have a deep desire to do things for God’s Kingdom.
I preached on the three sermons of the Apostle Paul in Acts 13-17… focusing in particular on the reason why Paul gave so much background information to the non-Jewish audiences to whom he spoke.
This is an important topic for people working in a post-Christian environment like Berlin, with only 1.5% church attendance. The simple reason is: the story of Jesus and His life and sacrifice for us is only truly understandable if you have what the film industry calls the “backstory” of the reality of cosmic evil, creation, the fall of the human race into enmity with God and the divine initiative He took to reclaim and redeem His lost creation.

Clark visiting with some of the tradesmen and their wives after the service

More good news: Our boxes from the U.S. arrived today! Since my back is also doing quite a bit better, we were able to get them up the front stairs into the building!

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in Berlin for 3 weeks… it was like jumping into a flowing river from the moment Sieglinde met us at the airport and we packed our luggage into her car (we then took the bus and metro); that was a HUGE help, since we were carrying more than we usually would, of course.
This past week, a team of workers came from a small church northwest of Frankfurt (the village is called Gusternhain; you won’t find it on a map very easily). They were all skilled in the building trade and put in the paving stones for the back of “Haus Nazareth”. What a neat group of people… we’re so thankful for their help.

The team in action!

The finished pavement

We’ve been meeting with the students in the Haus… and trying to get settled: unpacking, fixing up the little place we’re staying in.
This morning we continued our planning time with Matthias and Sieglinde, trying together to get an overview of all that is involved in Haus Nazareth’s role as an outreach and mission center. We’ve defined 7 major areas of responsibility: student work, seminars & outreach, guests, house management, remodeling coordination, ministry finances and “Philosophia Europa”.
We’re so grateful for your continued prayers.

Jesus was an intense realist about the way the world system works. That is comforting in the light of the daily headlines about financial crisis and systemic meltdown in the banking sector. His early followers recalled clearly His encouragement to “seek first the kingdom of God” and the promise that if they did, “all these things [necessary shelter, food, clothing, etc.] will be given to you” (Matthew 6:33)

In interaction with some friends about the current situation, the name of Noriel Roubini has kept coming up and I wanted to pass along a couple of links that may help in clarifying the factual side of what’s happening:

Roubini is an professor of economics at New York University that has been predicting for five years or more exactly the scenario that is now playing out.

The New York Times ran an article on him recently. It makes for bracing reading.

Two articles by Glenn Beck summarize what Roubini is driving at:

This one was written on February 28th of this year.

This piece came out a couple of days ago.

In all of the turmoil, I’m comforted by Jesus’ words: “Peace I leave with you… my peace I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled or afraid!”

Shalom!

Mainline national media, both in Germany and in the U.S., have leaned - for as long as I can remember - toward the negative in reporting about classic Christianity (often under the codewords “evangelical” and “right wing”). A perceptive friend who is a keen analyst of cultural trends warned 15 years ago that two other labels of choice in the attack were going to be “fundamentalist” and “fascist”.

A recent article in Der Spiegel (28. April, 2008), a leading national news magazine, highlights the trend. This follows a particularly malicious media attack on Christival, a rally of young evangelical Christians. The point of the attack was against a seminar being offered for people with homoerotic feelings who wanted to change. The leader of the “Green” party in parliament, himself an active member of the gay movement, led the attack.

The Spiegel article cleverly weaves a report on evangelical outreach in Germany that ties young evangelical groups to conservative political circles in the USA. The young Berlin Projekt church, for instance, is linked to George Bush via the following chain of logic: The “Berlin Projekt” is friends with “Redeemer Presbyterian Church” in New York, which in turn belongs to the “Presbyterian Church in America”; the PCA is the denomination of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; therefore, the “Berlin Projekt” must be associated with George Bush’s political and military program.

If a student in one of my philosophy classes tried to argue a point with that kind of logic, I’d give him an instant “F” (German = “6”) on the spot! But that is, unfortunately, not untypical of the “evidence” that is used in these kind of attacks. (If your German is up to it, you can read the Spiegel article online.)

Is this all part of a conspiracy? It’s hard to tell; often the effect of a network of contacts is even stronger than a centrally planned action. But there is one power that penetrates the deepest secrets and brings light into darkness: prayer.

The revelation on the Web of the actual danger Hillary Clinton faced when she was in on a visit to Bosnia reveals, according to Frank Rich (NY Times): “the accelerating power of viral politics, as exemplified by YouTube, to override the retail politics still venerated by the Beltway establishment… The Drudge Report’s link to the YouTube iteration of the CBS News piece transformed it into a cultural phenomenon reaching far beyond a third-place network news program’s nightly audience.” He notes that “the Clinton campaign’s cluelessness about the Web has been apparent from the start, and not just in its lagging fund-raising.”

Regardless of where each of us stands politically in this super-heated election year, we as the followers of Jesus have a truly “viral” message, if we can just listen to God’s Spirit as He wants to lead us and pay as much attention to our culture as Jesus and the Apostles did to theirs!

[This is the fourth and last of Paul Cowan's reflections on the film Amazing Grace. Thanks, Paul, for letting us share in your thinking and reflection!]

Faithfulness, without ‘theories’ and predictions of success, seems the only way forward in society, doesn’t it? Hope is only anchored in the belief that there will be an ultimate end to “this world” - maybe 2 yrs down the road, or 2,000 yrs, or maybe even 200,000 yrs! - and an ultimate, “new earth and new heaven”. Right?

So, I think we work for the cup of cold water for this person and that family; and we just continue until we die. It is enough. If God gives a broader success, PTL. If it doesn’t come, while we continue to work for it, we just continue to work for it. And sometimes martyrdom comes. Which is not sought for (like Islam), but is accepted.

Scripture do seem to indicate a reward comes “later” - The Real reward.

I say all the above, living a contradiction: the single most important theological phrase for what I do, in my vocation, is: “Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven”.

What expectations does the Bible really hold out for us for successes here on earth?
If conceivably some Wilberforces, and some Clapham Societies, did emerge today, what hopes should there really be? Besides slavery, it was the reform of “manners” (societal values) Wilberforce aimed at. Again, where is Britain on that today? Or for that matter, the USA? Especially in light of the fact that less than 50% of the boys today grow up with a living and intimate experience of a father! Where will we be in 20 years?

As we continue with Paul’s second reflection on change in society (starting from a discussion on Amazing Grace, the film about William Wilberforce and the Clapham Society), it’s appropriate to wish you a Happy St. Patrick’s Day. As few others have ever been graced to see, Patrick fathered spiritual change which ultimately turned the entire nation of Ireland on a course toward the Light. May God give us many Patricks in the next generation!

In the USA all that happens is that the political compass spins back and forth between two political parties, but each of these, when in power, just do what the other did… no basic changes! Red States, Blue States, so what…? What is the real difference? Scripture seems to put the issues deeper, pointing at something “inside” all of the States!

We’ve had 20 yrs on abortion, on marriage, etc. etc. … and we are still swimming, maybe even increasingly so, upstream and against the current.

What might turn this around? Might it actually take a nuclear bomb to really make things serious - like in 24 (the TV serial)?

I’m not for defeatism, nor subjective pessimism; but romanticism and optimism have not been very helpful either. I think a hard core realism is called for. Scripture, and the Puritans like John Owen, suggest that our single greatest weakness is giving in to self-deceptions rather than facing hard objective “truths”. None of us like to face the “truth” about almost anything.

My good friend Paul Cowan sent me a long email with some important reflections about the film “Amazing Grace” and the example of William Wilberforce and the “Clapham Society”. He’s graciously allowed me to post his thoughts in four blog entries. This is the first. I’d be very interested in your thoughts and comments.

After seeing “Amazing Grace” and reflecting on the story of how Wilberforce and his friends fought slavery in the British Empire, I wondered how in the pluralistic society of today such a thing could take place.

We now have more slavery in the world than before - and now it’s girls & women and children, as well as many men. We also have newer forms of slavery, like drugs, that crisscross around the globe via networks that make the British Empire’s “systems” look like child’s play - both in terms of the numbers of people enslaved, and in the sophistication of the networks. This prevents them from being dismantled by a political vote in some Parliament.

It was amazing to see that it was pirates’ boats, egged on by the change of ship flags that in fact, if I understand correctly, really began to undo the British system of slavery. What possibly could be an equivalent today?

This does not discount the “victory” of Wilberforce and the Clapham Society with Pitt’s and John Newton’s help … but in having them as our heroes we must avoid any triumphalism; that has no place this side of heaven.

Frances Schaffer said abortion was THE issue for evangelicals in the 21st century, along with all the related ills it reflects (inward soft worldviews) and ills it spawns such as new moralities, like homosexuality, that care less for children.

Well, we are not doing very well on that one. I’m beginning to doubt that a broad STRONG consensus on anything could built among believers - and then, second, from believers across society - largely because broad cultural and societal networks and solidarities of any kind hardly exist any longer. Our society is characterized by more individual freedoms and less “co-dependency” - at least in the mind and heart. These things work AGAINST social reforms and social revivals. Without these cultural solidarities and strong social “peer-driven” networks, how could movements such as happened in Wilberforce’s and Wesley’s times take place at all, even over a 20 year period?