Knocking at the gate at Christmas

Listen to an audio version of this post at
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It’s human nature to focus inward, especially during lean times.

We do it as individuals, as families and as a nation. Let the world take care of itself for a while, we say. We’ve got to worry about home base until things improve. Enough already with endless global crises, foreign wars, etc. Let us have a quiet, peaceful Christmas for a change.

If only the world were so accommodating.

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you,” communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky once said.

Trotsky’s grim observation was cited recently by The Economist magazine in an analysis of the many overseas challenges faced by President-elect Obama.

Case in point: the November terror attacks on Mumbai, India.

The Mumbai massacres weren’t just another blip on the global chaos meter. They illustrate once again the power of a small but well-organized band of murderers not only to kill innocents and paralyze a city, but to spark dangerous international confrontation. The threat of war between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, serves the interests of no one — except terrorist organizations seeking to destabilize the region.

The United States and other world powers simply cannot ignore that kind of crisis. So they respond to try to calm tensions and avert far greater violence.

SPIRITUAL CRISIS

In the personal and spiritual realms, however, it’s easier to look away when people are in crisis. I’m an expert at being (or pretending to be) clueless about the needs of folks all around me. You can’t help everybody, right?

“I think one human tendency resulting from the fall of man is to protect oneself from being consumed by the needs of others,” says a missionary serving in one of the poorest, most violent and least-evangelized countries of Central Asia. “I’ve found that fear within and fought it many times in pursuit of love.”

When things get tough, she asks, “Does God give me a ‘Holy Bible for Chaotic Times’ that directs me to give only to family and treat people the best they should reasonably expect me to under the circumstances?

“Or can He still be telling me, ‘Give to everyone who asks of you’?”

She avoided these uncomfortable questions more easily in the United States, where whole communities prohibit “soliciting,” where donations for the faceless needy can be dropped in offering plates and collection boxes. In the Muslim nation where she works, the poor are everywhere. Giving alms is expected, but the socially acceptable gift is a tiny amount. If you give more, you will be inundated with constant pleas for help.

All very reasonable — until someone comes to you needing more.

Such a one came to her last year: a desperately poor grandmother pleading for help to care for her orphaned grandchildren. The missionary did what she could and wondered guiltily during a visit home to the United States if the old woman and her grandchildren survived an especially hard winter.

“Maybe I did what I could instead of doing what Jesus could,” she admits. “I was unwilling to love extravagantly for Jesus and excused myself with ‘culture stress.’”

The missionary returned to Central Asia this year. The old woman found her again, with the same plea for help. The uncomfortable questions within returned.

“How would Jesus have me ‘Give to everyone who asks of you’?” she asks herself.

“If I had been used all of my life, yet blessed with children and grandchildren, and yet have their orphaned care fall upon my bent back and their little bodies draw close against my thin, bony frame and into my tattered [cloak], and if I saw their dark eyes in smudged faces looking wearily into my emptiness, and if I knew there was a person with great resources living on a certain street in a courtyard behind a certain gate, might I hope that person would charitably give me more than a [five-cent] coin?

“And if I, standing inside the courtyard gate, knew that the Father loved this beggar woman since eternity and accomplished salvation for her and her loved ones and longed to enfold her in His love this very moment, what might the love of Christ do through me?”

This same beggar woman is standing at your gate and knocking at your door. Not literally, perhaps, but she is there. Whole nations and peoples are there, pleading not just for food but for the Bread of life, the Word of God made flesh.

“What child is this?” they are asking. “Could He give us hope, too?”

Yes, it’s easier to ignore the insistent knocking, to pretend they aren’t there. But when the missionary in Central Asia feels overwhelmed, she turns to Jesus.

“I consider Him and think, ‘Jesus, You love me and I love You. That’s all I know for sure.’ Then He seems to put His arms around my shoulders, smile and keep walking.

“I want to be able to look back on these days with a smile that I got from Him.”

The hunger for story

Don’t see “Australia” on an empty stomach.

The epic – and I mean epic – movie starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman is easily two and a half hours long. You’ll faint from hunger unless you lug a giant tub of popcorn into the theater with you.

“Australia” director Baz Luhrmann calls big, sweeping dramas like his film "banquets of cinema." But “Australia” is more like a strip-mall buffet restaurant of cinema: mounds of reheated, generic glop and none of it fully satisfying. The film tries to be a drama/adventure/comedy

/Western/love story/hero vs. villian/historical pageant. Oh, and also an expose' of white Australia’s many sins against the continent’s Aboriginal peoples. It doesn’t quite succeed in any of those genres.

Still, I enjoyed it. In a world of “Saw V” and moronic computerized cartoons, I’m thankful for any movie that attempts to tell a dramatic human story – and takes right and wrong semi-seriously.

Sweeping epics are very expensive. Movie studios fear spending big money on productions that don’t appeal to their main target audience: action-hungry teens. But Susan King of the Los Angeles Times wrote an interesting piece about the appetite people still have for big, dramatic, emotional stories:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-epics28-2008nov28,0,2446854.story

King writes:

“Australia” deliberately hearkens back to the kind of filmmakers and films (think David Lean and "Lawrence of Arabia" or John Ford and "The Searchers") that gave cinema its bigger-than-life scale. The kind of epics that few directors or studios even try for anymore … .

[Baz] Luhrmann believes passionately that audiences still crave the epic. "The way the world is at the moment and the feeling of great fear and trepidation, there is a function for cinema to allow people to pull into a world and really feel direct, hard-core emotions," Luhrmann said….

Film historian Joseph McBride remembers a conversation he once had with "Lawrence" star Peter O'Toole about what made Lean's epics so memorable. O'Toole told him "that the secret of David Lean's success with epics is that they were almost intimate personal stories where it was about a small group of people that you deeply cared about and got to know well.

"But they stood for something larger. They were part of a large event. That is what makes an epic -- it focuses on certain people, but they represent all of society or a big part of society."

Epics, of course, have been around as long as there has been storytelling -- "Gilgamesh" and Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey," for example. Cinema has embraced the epic genre dating to the Italian 1912 version of "Quo Vadis" D.W. Griffith's 1915 Civil War tale, "The Birth of a Nation," was the first real American cinematic epic ….

[Filmmaker Ed] Zwick believes there are several factors as to why Hollywood has been shying away from traditional epics, including an "unwillingness to be embarrassed about certain kind of themes" ….

Despite the plethora of special-effects movies, film historian Leonard Maltin agrees that audiences still want to be swept away on a tide of emotions."The enormous success of 'Titanic' proves that audiences' tastes for epics have not vanished," he said. "Even in this hip, postmodern era, I don't think audiences have changed that much. I think filmmakers are more cynical than audiences."

Amen to that. People are hungry – as they always have been – not just for something larger than their own lives, but for meaning, for story.

The greatest epic of them all is the story of God’s quiet but dramatic personal entrance into human history.

The Christmas story.

Thanksgiving in a sea of troubles

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What would William Shakespeare say about America’s deepening economic crisis?

“Now is the winter of our discontent,” perhaps.

Maybe he’d challenge us to stoically “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Or to act boldly, to “take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.”

How quickly overconfidence turns to anxiety, fear and anger when the human institutions we rely on inevitably falter or fail. “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” Shakespeare’s Puck proclaims in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“WWSS” (What would Shakespeare say?) is a valuable exercise. His plays are a comprehensive guided tour of human behavior, which he saw as comic or tragic — or both at the same time.

The best guide to human fallibility, however, is the Bible, which also provides an antidote: God’s faithfulness.

Thanksgiving is an ideal time to refocus on the only reliable foundation we have. That’s what the Pilgrims at Plymouth did, and they went through harder times than we’re experiencing.

“Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our heart rejoices in Him, because we trust in His holy name. Let Your lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us, according as we have hoped in You” (Psalm 33:20-22, NASB).

“Lovingkindness” or “steadfast love” are translations of the Hebrew word chesed, which appears over and over in Scripture. It expresses the inexpressible — the infinite faithfulness, love and mercy of the Lord, which span all generations.

He doesn’t promise permanent prosperity. He promises Himself to those who seek Him — and He never breaks a promise, no matter how long it takes to fulfill.

I thought about God’s acts of faithfulness — some large, some small — when I saw these recent reports from mission fields:

An American teenager, age 13, knew she had a story to tell. So when a natural disaster befell the people her Southern Baptist missionary family serves in East Asia, she insisted on going with her parents to minister in the area. One day she and an older Christian woman shared the Gospel with a non-Christian mother and her teenage daughter.

The mother had heard previously about Jesus’ death on the cross but hadn’t heard about His resurrection. Once she and her daughter heard the complete story of His love, however, they indicated their willingness to accept Christ. But the mother insisted her daughter was too young to make such a drastic decision.

“Well, I’m only 13 years old and I believe,” said the young American. “When God gives you understanding, it doesn’t matter how old you are.”

Both mother and daughter prayed to receive Christ that day.
In another East Asian location, a missionary had labored to the point of despair. He never imagined that he and his wife would serve among an unreached ethnic minority group for seven years without seeing any spiritual fruit whatsoever.

“For the first seven years, there was not a believer, nobody convicted of sin, nothing,” he said.

During the past year, however, they’ve seen God move.

“We have seen the first Christians come to faith, the first baptisms and the first church started,” he said, barely containing his emotion. “We have heard the first praise songs sung and seen the first Scriptures translated. Now God has raised up a leader from within the group.”

His joyful tears flowed as he praised the faithfulness of the One who called, sustained and used them to proclaim His name to those who had never heard. In His time, the response came.

If material blessings seem scarcer this Thanksgiving season, bless the Maker of all things instead. Bless Him for Himself, not just His gifts.

“Thyself, o my God. Thyself for Thine own sake, above all things I love,” prayed Lancelot Andrewes, a contemporary of Shakespeare and one of the principal translators of the King James Bible. “Thyself as my last end I long for . …”

His lovingkindness is better than life.

London: end of 'Christian civilization'?

Before reading this post, check out “London: Capital of the world,” a short multimedia presentation and overview of the challenge of omnicultural London at http://www.commissionstories.com/?p=45.

“Upon this battle depends the future of Christian civilization.” – Winston Churchill, June 1940, preparing the British people for expected Nazi invasion

The discouraging news headlines just keep coming for Christians in London and the rest of the United Kingdom:

-- “Government plays down Christmas for fear of offending minorities”

-- “Active Muslims to outnumber Christian church members by 2049”

-- “Planned London mega-mosque would be biggest religious building in Britain”

-- “Archbishop calls incorporation of Muslim shariah law into British legal system ‘unavoidable.’”

-- “Britain ‘no longer Christian,’ says influential think tank

That last item isn’t exactly stop-the-presses news, given the long, slow death of the Church of England. But it jars nevertheless.

“It’s time for Britain to recognize that it is no longer a Christian nation and should embrace multiculturalism,” said a news article summarizing conclusions of a 2007 study by the Institute for Public Policy Research. “Echoing sentiments heard throughout Britain in recent years, the authors of the report say the traditional pillars of British identity have now vanished or been greatly weakened. Church attendance is at historically low levels, the British Empire is gone, the monarchy is far less popular and the Second World War is inexorably slipping into memory.”

The government should create a “new and more inclusive national identity, part of which includes honoring the diverse cultures found in Britain,” the study recommended. Conservative critics charged that the study’s authors were calling for “throwing out” history and “denying the fundamental contribution” of Christianity to Britain.

Meanwhile, overall Sunday church attendance declined from 3.7 million in 1998 to 3.2 million in 2005 (year of the latest United Kingdom church census) – barely more than 6 percent of the population. At current rates, it’s likely to fall below 5 percent by 2015.

So has the “Christian civilization” the late, great Winston Churchill courageously called Britons to defend against Nazi barbarism (see quote above) finally succumbed to the quiet onset of senility, secularism and shariah?

If “Christian civilization” means a civic religion to which government and society pay lip service, yes, it’s dead in England – or on life support. If it means the kingdom of God on earth, however, reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated.

“Denominationalism is in big decline, but Christianity is on the increase,” contends evangelical Anglican vicar Mark Melluish, whose multicolored London flock is rapidly growing. London Baptist pastor Boyd Williams agrees — and challenges other London churches to break out of their siege mentality and get moving.

“We’ve got eyesight that isn’t clear,” says Williams. “We don’t see the (believers) around us from other ethnic groups for all the potential they have. They’re more gifted than we are in many ways. They’re evangelistic. They have faith. They just need training and channeling and they will be a mighty force. We’re just scratching the surface.”

Make no mistake: London is an enormous challenge for missions.

“Secularism is the predominant ‘religion’ of the city, but every other ‘ism’ is here in strong force,” acknowledges a Southern Baptist missionary in the city. “The largest Sikh and Hindu temples outside of India are in west London. London is the Islamic capital of Europe. Satanism and all kinds of mystic practices are also alive and well.”

In other words, London mirrors many of the urban centers of Europe. The Gospel is one often-lonely voice in a noisy, crowded marketplace of ideas — not unlike first-century Athens, where Paul preached to intellectuals and pagans, scoffers and seekers.

Christian history shows that sometimes God sends His children to the nations, and sometimes He sends the nations to us. London ceased to be the capital of “Christian civilization” long ago. But it might just regain that title as Asians, Africans, Arabs, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and every other variety of people find Christ there — and take His Gospel to the world.

(Listen to an audio version of this post at
http://media1.imbresources.org/files/63/6326/6326-34691.mp3)

A time to lead

Following a historic presidential election — followed not only by Americans but by people the world over — here are some wise words from a wise man, Chuck Colson:

“Whether you voted for Barack Obama or John McCain, whether you’re recovering from your all-night celebration or drying the tears from your pillow, today’s a good day to remember the words of the apostle Paul: ‘I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone — for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness’ (1 Timothy 2:1-3).

“And the new president will surely need our prayers, because he and his administration face huge, serious challenges to the health of our nation and to peace in the world — challenges that, in my opinion, neither he nor any government on earth will have the power to overcome without divine aid.

“How has America come to this point? Why is our economy on the brink of disaster? Why is our culture so utterly depraved? I can only think of what Alexander Solzhenitsyn said about the catastrophic consequences of the Russian revolution. ‘I recall,’ he said, ‘hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.’

“Solzhenitsyn was right. Indeed, I can’t find any better explanation for why we Americans find ourselves in the state we are in. We have forgotten God. We have also forgotten that American democracy — indeed Western Civilization itself — is the product of the Judeo-Christian understanding of God and humanity.

Without that revelation that man is created in the image of God, our founders never would have recognized the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Indeed, as I and others like Rodney Stark have argued, modern science and education, liberal democracy, capitalism flourished in Western civilization precisely because of the Judeo-Christian worldview ….

“As I’ve re-read the Old Testament prophets recently, I couldn’t help but notice the recurring theme: The people of God turned away from Him and worshipped false idols. The result was always disaster.

“Is God responsible for credit markets collapsing around the world? No. We’re responsible. Because instead of worshiping God, we’ve worshipped false idols of the marketplace, credit card companies and cheap mortgages. We’ve put our own appetites over our duties to God and neighbor.

“So this is no time for Christians to go into the bunkers. No time to wail or moan over our retirement plans. This is a time to repent, to pray more, to give more. It’s a time for Christians to lead, encourage, and minister to a faltering country in a faltering economy.

“This is a time for the Church to get serious about Christian discipleship. Enough cheap grace. So pray for the new president and his administration. But most of all, my brothers and sisters, this is a time to love our neighbors and to hunger for God and His righteousness.”

Amen to that.

Full Colson commentary: The Day After

Location, location, location (expanded)

(Listen to an audio version of this post at
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The lightning speed with which the global economic crisis has spread from one financial capital to another — heedless of national borders — seems to confirm a basic tenet of globalization: The world is flat.

Writer Thomas Friedman made that proposition famous with his influential book of the same name (The World Is Flat: Expanded Edition Thomas L. Friedman). The basic idea: Interconnected technology, trade, communication and mobility have tied us all together so tightly that national and cultural barriers are becoming increasingly porous, even irrelevant.

Not so fast.

In a new book, The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization's Rough Landscape, Michigan State University professor Harm de Blij argues that location still matters — a lot.

“Earth may be a planet of shrinking functional differences, but it remains a world of staggering situational differences,” de Blij writes. “From the uneven distribution of natural resources to the unequal availability of opportunity, place remains a powerful arbitrator. Many hundreds of millions of farmers in river basins of Asia and Africa live their lives much as their distant ancestors did, still remote from the forces of globalization. …

“In their lifetimes, this vast majority will have worn the garb, spoken the language, professed the faith, shared the health conditions, absorbed the education, acquired the attitudes, and inherited the legacy that constitutes the power of place: the accumulated geography whose formative imprint still dominates the planet.”

“Global playing fields” are leveling for many, de Blij acknowledges. But he warns that assuming a homogenized, borderless, “flat” world is now the rule — just because you can find identical high-rises, malls and office parks “from Minneapolis to Mumbai” — is a mistake. The urban economic boom of China and high-tech industries of India get plenty of publicity. Out in the rural vastness of both Asian giants, however, countless millions continue to struggle for existence — seemingly a universe away from the growth centers of their own nations.

Despite modern mobility and massive migrations, fewer than 3 percent of human beings are “mobals” who live in a country where they were not born. An even smaller minority make up the “globals” who have access to all the advantages of modern technology and travel. The rest of us are “locals” — still tied, for better or worse, to the cultures that spawned us.

So why has the International Mission Board begun to move away from dividing its missionaries by location or region — South Asia, West Africa, etc. — and toward “global affinity groups” that focus on peoples sharing the same language, culture or ethnicity?

Because “place” is a state of mind and heart as much as a physical location. The most powerful “place” is culture.

Even though the vast majority of humans still are “locals,” their migrating “mobal” cousins often hold the key to reaching them. The new “global affinity groups” will be designed so missionaries can more effectively engage unreached peoples regardless of their location.

“This move recognizes the mobility of populations,” explains Gordon Fort, IMB vice president of overseas operations. “(It) allows us to focus on peoples wherever they are in the world.”

Missionaries will still focus on peoples living in specific locations — most unreached South Asians still live in South Asia, after all. But they won’t be “artificially limited by geopolitical considerations,” as Fort puts it. Millions of South Asians have migrated to other parts of the world and often are more accessible in their new homes.

Christians must continue to traverse both literal and figurative back roads, dirt tracks, mountains and valleys to take the Gospel to every people — even in the chaotic cultural environment of megacities. There is no “flat” superhighway to world evangelization.

“In our current rush to embrace the rewards of global ‘flattening,’ it is worth reminding ourselves that point of entry continues to matter when it comes to opportunities in reach,” de Blij writes.

For transmitting the love of Christ to all peoples, our key points of entry are language, culture and ethnicity. That means mobilizing churches, missionaries and local believers to take the Gospel to every part of the globe’s “rough landscape” — whether the “place” is a physical location or a cultural/spiritual stronghold.

The neglected majority

American news media, when they cover international events at all, tend to focus on wars, disasters, Europe and the Middle East – and ignore most of the rest of the world.

It’s high time they (and we) pay more attention to South Asia – and not just because a dangerously unstable Pakistan is located there. The region also contains India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives.

Why should you care about these places? Here are eight reasons among many:

-- More people live in India than in all of North America, Central America and South America – combined.

-- There are more than 800 million Hindus in India, nearly three times the population of the United States.

-- The seven countries of South Asia are home to about one out of five people in the world. Most have never heard the Gospel even once.

-- More Muslims live in South Asia than in the entire Middle East.

-- India is the second-largest Muslim country in the world, despite the fact that Muslims are an often-persecuted minority there. Christians also number in the millions in India, but are an even smaller minority – and are experiencing increasing persecution by militant Hindus.

-- Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with about 85 percent professing Muslims. The other 15 percent are Hindus, with some Buddhists, tribals and Christians.

-- Maldives is 99.4 percent Muslim, and it is against the law for a visitor to enter the country with more than one Bible.

-- South Asia’s unengaged, unreached people groups (less than 2 percent evangelized, with no Christian mission groups actively seeking to reach them) have a population of more than 400 million people.

Is this huge, hungry slice of humanity worthy of our prayers, our resources, perhaps some of our lives?