by | Apr 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
One of England’s finest writers surveys the past and present of English faith.
In the Western world today, Peter Ackroyd is one of the finest writers of biography, history, and fiction. His most recent project turns attention to the field of religion, setting out to describe what he calls the “spirit and nature of English Christianity” as it has developed over the past 1,400 years.
The English Soul: Faith of a Nation offers an episodic and biographical account of books, individuals, and communities that have done most to shape this tradition. Consistent with Ackroyd’s gifts, the book crafts superb turns of phrase while approaching its subject with curiosity, generosity, and breadth.
But this book also makes some unexpected moves. The English soul, Ackroyd insists, requires a Christian explanation—for while Jews, Muslims, and adherents of other religions have “contributed” to the country’s religious tradition, their faith and practice have not “characterized” it. “Christianity,” he asserts, “has been the anchoring and defining doctrine of England.”
These are bold words, and contestable ones, not least when measured against England’s secularization over the past 50 years. In most parts of the country, Christian affiliation, even at its most nominal, is dropping fast.
The Church of England might still be established, and the new king might still be its supreme governor, but his episcopal appointments are approved by a Hindu prime minister in a capital city boasting a Muslim mayor and in a culture that treats these religious differences with little more than indifference.
These social changes reframe Ackroyd’s title into a question: Does England still have a Christian soul?
At minimum, Ackroyd’s …
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by | Apr 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
But let’s not mistake it for calling.
Charisma has fallen on hard times in the church. Or at least some of us have become suspicious of it. The cracks have been showing for a while. Nine years ago, long before Oxford University Press crowned rizz (slang for the kind of charisma that inspires romantic attraction) its 2023 word of the year, Rick Warren observed, “Charisma has absolutely nothing to do with leadership.”
But we all know that it does, don’t we?
We like leaders with dynamic personalities. We are drawn to them, in the church and in politics. For good or ill, charisma is a factor. The charismatic leader is a common feature of the origin stories of many Christian (and non-Christian) organizations and denominations. Many movements trace their beginnings to a larger-than-life personality with a great ambition for God whose effectiveness seems to be due as much to personality as to God’s call.
For example, Scripture says that Saul, Israel’s first king, was “as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else” (1 Sam. 9:2). The impression made by Saul’s physical appearance suggested that he would be an ideal king.
Subsequent experience proved otherwise. When the prophet Samuel looked for Saul’s successor among the sons of Jesse, the Lord warned him not to be swayed by such things. “The Lord does not look at the things people look at,” he said. “People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).
However, when David was brought before him, 1 Samuel 16:12 notes that he was “glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features.”
Charisma, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. …
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by | Apr 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
Church movements need magnetic leaders. But the best leaders need more than charm.
Emad is an exception in many says. He grew up in a massive slum but rose to be the branch manager of a bank in a capital city. Most people in his area are Muslim and animist, but Emad’s devout Christian mother instilled in him a passion to reach the lost for Christ. This was at odds with the local church he pastored, where he found the believers to be uninterested in evangelism.
After a few years of pastoral “failure,” Emad (a pseudonym) found himself dejectedly prayer-walking a dusty side street. There, he felt the Holy Spirit direct him to a shaman. This sorcerer had recently dreamed of a man coming to tell him about the “living God.” He excitedly introduced Emad to his social network, and soon people started coming to Christ.
In the ten years since, close to 7,000 churches have emerged that can be traced to the encounter between Emad and the sorcerer. The movement has spread among five different people groups in three countries.
As researchers of church planting, we wanted to understand people who, like Emad, have multiplied disciples of Jesus in places where there were few if any known Christians. These people are what we call “pioneer leaders.” We also wanted to understand an exceptional group that included Emad—about 1,500 pioneer leaders in the world whose disciples have made disciples who then have made disciples, resulting in at least 100 new churches. These are what we call “movement catalysts.”
Emad and the others in our study agreed to participate only if their responses were anonymous and their full names weren’t published, a standard practice in research. In addition, many of these pioneer leaders work in regions that are unsafe for evangelists.
Elements …
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by | Apr 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
If they don’t “apologize” in the modern sense, it’s only because Scripture has a richer vocabulary of repentance.
We need a theology of apology.
Apologizing sounds straightforward, at least in theory. You do something wrong (sin); you feel bad about it (regret); you admit it and accept responsibility (confession); you say sorry to the person or people you have wronged, including God (repentance); and you take appropriate steps to make things right (restitution).
Many apologies take exactly this form. But often they are more complicated. It is possible to apologize without admitting fault or feeling regret. It is possible to feel sorry for things not our fault, like when we learn that a friend has cancer. It is possible to apologize with no intention of making restitution.
And it is possible—as well as increasingly common—for institutions to apologize for things of which only some members are guilty. Matters get harder when it comes to the sins of our ancestors. Should we apologize for things that happened before we were born? Confess them? Repent of them? Make restitution for them?
When we turn to the Scriptures for help, we discover something surprising: Nobody in the Bible ever really “apologizes” or “says sorry” for something. The Greek word apologia denotes an answer or legal defense—hence our word apologetics—but it carries no hint of feeling bad about something or repenting for it.
Sorry, a more flexible word in English, does crop up on occasion; translators might use it to describe the pity Pharaoh’s daughter felt for Moses (Ex. 2:6) or the sadness Herod felt about cutting off John the Baptist’s head (Matt. 14:9, ESV). But these are expressions of pity or sorrow, not apology or repentance.
It might sound, then, like the Bible offers few resources …
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by | Apr 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
A law professor shares lessons on respectful disagreement in the classroom, the church, and the wider culture.
Law schools can function as microcosms of society, gathering people from diverse backgrounds to debate highly charged issues of politics, morality, and religion. John Inazu, an evangelical constitutional scholar and professor of law and religion at Washington University in St. Louis, has long experience in this setting, and it forms one backdrop to his latest book, Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect. Readers follow Inazu and his students over the course of a year as they consider questions of empathy, fairness, cancel culture, faith, and forgiveness. CT national political correspondent Harvest Prude spoke with Inazu about his lessons for Christians on effective listening and persuasion.
What have you learned from teaching in an environment where students navigate the discomfort of encountering different worldviews?
Part of being a Christian is being able to engage in messy and uncomfortable places, spaces, and relationships. We’ve got a pretty good model in Jesus and the disciples—where they went and the lines they crossed.
As a Christian teaching in a non-Christian university, I’m actually quite comfortable. And part of that comes from knowing that my Christian values aren’t in control here. When you know you’re not in control, it frees you to be more creative, more neighborly, and in some ways more faithful. So I don’t start with the premise of having a community whose narrative and power I control or seek to control. I start from the premise of being a welcomed member of this community who can engage it on that basis.
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