Look at this article and note:
- The sheer empty hopelessness of Grayling's creed.
- His sheer heartlessness in the face of a genuine tragedy.
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Where atheism takes you
A C Grayling is one of the media atheists - a professor of philosophy who also writes frequently in the press.
Look at this article and note:
Look at this article and note:
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Missions and dependency
Telling quote here from missiologist David Hesselgrave (“Planting Churches Cross-Culturally: North America and Beyond”, Baker Academic, 2000, p340-341):
“ME-3 illustration: Two churches are located within a few miles of each other in a certain Asian country. One was founded some twenty-five years ago by a dear missionary lady who appealed for support from the homeland but did no more than pass the collection plate in her congregation of nationals. The other was started somewhat later by a missionary and national pastor working as a team. In this church, as soon as people became believers, they were instructed concerning stewardship and challenged to give so God's work might prosper. Several years ago leaders of both churches were interviewed. Both congregations include some prominent and well-to-do people within their membership. But the first congregation had about thirty members and an average Sunday offering of about ten to twenty dollars. It was still without a pastor because the members “could not afford” to hire one. The second congregation numbered almost two hundred members and had an average Sunday offering of fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars. And in addition, it was starting two daughter churches!”
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
What has Christianity got to do with mathematics?
Just added to my website: "What has Christianity got to do with mathematics?". This article aims to give a brief, non-technical answer to the given question.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Your family is your work, and your delight
Ever heard someone say... "because of work, I have little time for family?"
Amongst pastors, ever read one of those book dedications where the author apologises to his family for neglecting them whilst he worked at it? The most "memorable" one such I ever read was at the front of a book on holiness...
According to God, a man's family is his work. You can't neglect your family in favour of your work any more than you can neglect your health for the good of your body, or omit to brush your teeth whilst pleasing your dentist.
I find this thought a big help because the temptation comes to all men. We've started a task or twenty tasks, and then comes an "interruption" - another one! - from family. "How will I ever get the work done", the man wonders. Remembering that the "interruption" is itself his work - his God-given appointment, his holy calling in God's earth - helps us get over mental hurdles. Ultimately God appoints every task we have, and if he's now called us away from one to the other, what is the problem? Is it not right that he sets the schedules, not us?
And if we think Biblically, then the work which earns our daily bread is of much less true value than the work which bequeaths godly people to the world to serve it. A great career might earn you a stack of cash and a gold retirement trinket at the end (though we trust you also fulfilled your God-given vocation to his glory on the way!). All this is left behind at last. But your family can be a real gift to the world that lasts and lasts - to a thousand generations! Even if your "career" is spreading the Word, ultimately no convert or student can be influenced by you to influence the world like your family can.
Once we are set free from the tyranny of the secularist belief that work is real life and family is an often-unaffordable luxury, we are set free to delight in one of God's greatest treasures and pleasures. I ran some running races after tea against my eldest today. A simple pleasure, but worth more than words can express and more than can be counted in money. Smiles, fellowship, a bond strengthened in a simple way; it's an investment where you can't see the worth growing by observing anxiously, but whose worth is obvious to all with eyes in the end. At times, and often, it takes faith to measure the value of patiently persevering with all the trials of daily life in a family; but the rewards of a Christian family are abundant in this life as well as the life to come.
Interupt work for family? Interupt work for a glorious work, and a true delight.
Amongst pastors, ever read one of those book dedications where the author apologises to his family for neglecting them whilst he worked at it? The most "memorable" one such I ever read was at the front of a book on holiness...
According to God, a man's family is his work. You can't neglect your family in favour of your work any more than you can neglect your health for the good of your body, or omit to brush your teeth whilst pleasing your dentist.
I find this thought a big help because the temptation comes to all men. We've started a task or twenty tasks, and then comes an "interruption" - another one! - from family. "How will I ever get the work done", the man wonders. Remembering that the "interruption" is itself his work - his God-given appointment, his holy calling in God's earth - helps us get over mental hurdles. Ultimately God appoints every task we have, and if he's now called us away from one to the other, what is the problem? Is it not right that he sets the schedules, not us?
And if we think Biblically, then the work which earns our daily bread is of much less true value than the work which bequeaths godly people to the world to serve it. A great career might earn you a stack of cash and a gold retirement trinket at the end (though we trust you also fulfilled your God-given vocation to his glory on the way!). All this is left behind at last. But your family can be a real gift to the world that lasts and lasts - to a thousand generations! Even if your "career" is spreading the Word, ultimately no convert or student can be influenced by you to influence the world like your family can.
Once we are set free from the tyranny of the secularist belief that work is real life and family is an often-unaffordable luxury, we are set free to delight in one of God's greatest treasures and pleasures. I ran some running races after tea against my eldest today. A simple pleasure, but worth more than words can express and more than can be counted in money. Smiles, fellowship, a bond strengthened in a simple way; it's an investment where you can't see the worth growing by observing anxiously, but whose worth is obvious to all with eyes in the end. At times, and often, it takes faith to measure the value of patiently persevering with all the trials of daily life in a family; but the rewards of a Christian family are abundant in this life as well as the life to come.
Interupt work for family? Interupt work for a glorious work, and a true delight.
Friday, 24 December 2010
When Jesus was born
Tomorrow the world (with varying degrees of awareness) remembers the day that divided human history into two: the coming of God as man.
I have been walking outside earlier this week, and today, whilst on various errands. It is very busy where I am. People are building, buying, selling, repairing, planning, working, partying, relaxing, spending...
As I walked home this afternoon, I thought to myself... why do they bother? Such a lot of activity. For what, ultimately?
The old pagan view of history was that it was cyclical. Everything comes and goes... then comes again, and goes again... and so on.
And on, and on, and on. And on.
Christians have a radically different view of history: history as inevitable (but not smooth!), God-ruled progress leading to a glorious fulfilment. History under the control and direction of Jesus Christ, the God-man who is now raised to the Father's right hand, and who will fulfil all that his Father has appointed for him, bringing the nations to obedience under him and ultimately reigning forever and ever.
Since the Enlightenment, modern secularists have seemed to be trying to combine parts of these two ideas (cyclical / progress). Relentless progress comes from scientific endeavour and (since the 20th century) pushes for democratic reforms. New advances are indeed made. (Modern secularists ought to be honest enough to acknowledge that modern science and democratic ideals had their historical roots ultimately in the Protestant Reformation. I digress). But where is the goal? What are we heading to with all of this? What will the technological nirvana look like, and will it leave us feeling fulfilled when we get there? Will we arrive in some kind of heaven once everybody has fully free and fair elections? On the other hand, a lot of modern life is tediously cyclical. The X Factor comes, and goes... and comes again. The reds win the league, then the blues win it, then the reds win it again. The blue party wins at the polls, then the red party, and then the blue one again. People are born, get educated, work, have a family, get into some scrapes along the way, die, and then their offspring repeat it. Is there an ultimate destination that these cycles are heading towards? Or is it just more of the same but just a little bit better every decade or so? Is the ultimate goal of humanity the X Factor as it will be in the year 3000, and the Premier League will be so exciting that you'll, you'll, ... well ... you'll what? Isn't there something more to life than this? Is progress more than just better technology, a better education system, a more "fair" society, better health care and everybody getting to choose freely from a wide range of choices as to precisely how they slowly die? Isn't there something more?
So, as I walked home I looked at the green grass and the trees. Life has colour because there is one great, over-riding story: that of the Saviour who was born at Bethlehem 2000 years ago. All things are because of him, by him and for him. Life has colour and purpose because of him. It's worth pressing into another year because his kingdom can never fail, and its final fulfilment is now a year closer. Hallelujah!
I have been walking outside earlier this week, and today, whilst on various errands. It is very busy where I am. People are building, buying, selling, repairing, planning, working, partying, relaxing, spending...
As I walked home this afternoon, I thought to myself... why do they bother? Such a lot of activity. For what, ultimately?
The old pagan view of history was that it was cyclical. Everything comes and goes... then comes again, and goes again... and so on.
And on, and on, and on. And on.
Christians have a radically different view of history: history as inevitable (but not smooth!), God-ruled progress leading to a glorious fulfilment. History under the control and direction of Jesus Christ, the God-man who is now raised to the Father's right hand, and who will fulfil all that his Father has appointed for him, bringing the nations to obedience under him and ultimately reigning forever and ever.
Since the Enlightenment, modern secularists have seemed to be trying to combine parts of these two ideas (cyclical / progress). Relentless progress comes from scientific endeavour and (since the 20th century) pushes for democratic reforms. New advances are indeed made. (Modern secularists ought to be honest enough to acknowledge that modern science and democratic ideals had their historical roots ultimately in the Protestant Reformation. I digress). But where is the goal? What are we heading to with all of this? What will the technological nirvana look like, and will it leave us feeling fulfilled when we get there? Will we arrive in some kind of heaven once everybody has fully free and fair elections? On the other hand, a lot of modern life is tediously cyclical. The X Factor comes, and goes... and comes again. The reds win the league, then the blues win it, then the reds win it again. The blue party wins at the polls, then the red party, and then the blue one again. People are born, get educated, work, have a family, get into some scrapes along the way, die, and then their offspring repeat it. Is there an ultimate destination that these cycles are heading towards? Or is it just more of the same but just a little bit better every decade or so? Is the ultimate goal of humanity the X Factor as it will be in the year 3000, and the Premier League will be so exciting that you'll, you'll, ... well ... you'll what? Isn't there something more to life than this? Is progress more than just better technology, a better education system, a more "fair" society, better health care and everybody getting to choose freely from a wide range of choices as to precisely how they slowly die? Isn't there something more?
So, as I walked home I looked at the green grass and the trees. Life has colour because there is one great, over-riding story: that of the Saviour who was born at Bethlehem 2000 years ago. All things are because of him, by him and for him. Life has colour and purpose because of him. It's worth pressing into another year because his kingdom can never fail, and its final fulfilment is now a year closer. Hallelujah!
Saturday, 18 December 2010
The end of the world as we know it
I read the UK news websites 6 days a week.
In them, I see that in the UK, the idea of possibly facing very modest cuts in lifestyle standard is apparently one of the worst things you could possibly contemplate.
I ask myself - why do people in the land of my birth seem to have such a strong dose of this in their thinking? Grant that my description is too much of a generalisation.. but there is something there, isn't there? Where does it come from?
My answer: I think it's part of the misery of the practical atheism of the modern West. There's nothing to aim for, so they believe, in the next life.
Therefore, if you don't get it in this life, you won't get it at all.
That's why social engineers, dreamers and interferers want to find a way to guarantee continual happiness for everyone, if at all possible. Because if we don't get happiness now, so they think, we won't ever get it.
Of course, when I say things like that, people are tempted to think of old stereotypes of a Christianity which insists that the social order must remain what it is today, forever and ever amen - the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate.
Not at all. The point is that if you think you must build heaven on earth, you're building on doomed foundations. It can't be done. You will be uneasy, unhappy, you will fail. But if you being by letting heaven be heaven, and let earth be earth, then you have laid the foundation for being happy in both.
In them, I see that in the UK, the idea of possibly facing very modest cuts in lifestyle standard is apparently one of the worst things you could possibly contemplate.
I ask myself - why do people in the land of my birth seem to have such a strong dose of this in their thinking? Grant that my description is too much of a generalisation.. but there is something there, isn't there? Where does it come from?
My answer: I think it's part of the misery of the practical atheism of the modern West. There's nothing to aim for, so they believe, in the next life.
Therefore, if you don't get it in this life, you won't get it at all.
That's why social engineers, dreamers and interferers want to find a way to guarantee continual happiness for everyone, if at all possible. Because if we don't get happiness now, so they think, we won't ever get it.
Of course, when I say things like that, people are tempted to think of old stereotypes of a Christianity which insists that the social order must remain what it is today, forever and ever amen - the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate.
Not at all. The point is that if you think you must build heaven on earth, you're building on doomed foundations. It can't be done. You will be uneasy, unhappy, you will fail. But if you being by letting heaven be heaven, and let earth be earth, then you have laid the foundation for being happy in both.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Why shouldn't it be you?
"Though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job, were in it [the land], they should deliver only their own souls by their righteousness, says the Lord God." - Ezekiel 14v14The Bible teaches that some people are closer to God than others. Not all Christians are the same. God has his favourites, as even a scanty consideration of the Bible's history or of Christian biographies shows.
"Oh Daniel, a man greatly beloved" - Daniel 10:11
And if some believers walk more closely with God and enjoy more of his favour than others, how can you bear for it to not be you? If some have got closer to God than you have, is not that itself enough to make you resolve to get there too? They didn't get closer because they were someone else's children other than Adam's. They got closer because of nothing in themselves, but because God's power and grace were greater towards them: and that power and grace are no less real today. Some Christians enjoy a depth and sweetness of fellowship with their Saviour that you haven't known yet. What sins are worth holding on to, rather than exchanging them for that? What do you want from life? If you want to get closer to God, you can, if you seek him and obey his commandments. It's not magic; use the light and opportunities you've been given, and you will receive more - with sufferings too. How much do you want it?
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