In addition to advocating on behalf of others, churches may need to deal with public policy or laws that directly affect the way they fulfill their mission as churches, such as happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. This post applies in this scenario as well.

Four Options for Advocacy 

The four options are:

1. Comply either because you agree with the law/policy or want to show goodwill if you don’t.
2. Consult with the appropriate authorities when they are agreeable to discussion.
3. Challenge the authorities when they are not agreeable to discussion with either a protest or a legal challenge.
4. Disobey the authorities when circumstances are so egregious and the authorities are so resistant that this is the only option.  

Indicators for Compliance

The starting point should always be to comply with government laws and regulations, as the New Testament is clear that Christians are to obey their governments, unless a particular government directive is deemed to be unjust. In that case, Christians can move directly to a more active step to change the law.

Christian ministries could choose to comply while at the same time either consulting with or challenging the authorities. The principle is to start with Comply, then move to Consult, Challenge, and Disobey in that order.

Indicators for Consultation

Consulting with people who have the power or the influence to bring about the change you want means that you are constructively working with them to problem-solve a solution that everyone can live with. This option is viable if:

• You have goodwill because you are complying.
• You have expertise and a fact-based proposal that will carry weight in the secular world.
• You can reach people who can make a difference. This may be a politician, a policy analyst, or other person of influence who in turn has the ear of the person who can make the decision you want.

Indicators for Challenge

A challenge is more adversarial than consulting is. A legal challenge or peaceful protest creates a confrontation and is a little riskier because the outcome could reinforce the way things are, the very thing you are trying to change. But this is a good option if:

• You have obtained legal advice that your challenge has reasonable grounds.
• You can make a strong case for how the public will benefit from a win. 

Indicators for Disobedience

Virtually all defenders of civil disobedience (who see it as a basic right, even a duty) stress that a citizen should take this step only after all conventional channels for redress have been exhausted, because civil disobedience has potentially serious consequences. The indicators favouring civil disobedience are:

• Just like the indicators favouring a challenge:
  • You have obtained legal advice that your defense has reasonable grounds.
  • You can make a strong case for how the public will benefit from a win (especially if the proposed change would benefit Christian churches or ministries).
• You can disobey without using violence.
• You are willing to accept the consequences.

There is a high likelihood of fines and possibly even jail time if you disobey the law, so know in advance what you are getting yourself and your team into.

If you choose to disobey, there is a “must read” guide published by The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada: an excellent primer on civil disobedience that includes a discussion on when civil disobedience is justified. Study this and make good use of it if civil disobedience is your choice.

Final Questions to Ask

Three questions to ask before selecting a response option may help confirm that it is the right choice for your ministry: 

1. What is the lasting legacy we want to leave with the secular public when this is all over? 
2. Will this response damage Jesus Christ’s reputation and that of the church? 
3. Will this decision help us fulfill the church’s mission?

Concluding Thought

Deciding between the response options can be a weighty and difficult choice, but the Lord has promised to give us wisdom when we ask it of him (James 1:5).

The post  Advocating for Legal/Public Policy Changes appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

Though not typically engaged in advocacy, a church recently wrote an open letter to the BC Minister of Health and Chief Medical Officer about church gathering restrictions, and I was inspired by how well it was crafted. This letter is interesting to study because a) we all can identify with the issue it addresses, and b) there isn’t the wealth of research and background support material to draw upon as there is for the traditional advocacy causes. That means the authors had to put a lot of thought into constructing an argument based upon reason. Given that, the open letter did a great job of laying out a challenge to the governing authorities and supporting it with reason. We can learn from the letter about how to address other issues we may face.

In my post Advocating for Legal/Public Policy Changes, I outlined four possible responses to actions taken by those in authority:

1. Comply with the law either because you agree with it or want to show goodwill if you don’t.
2. Consult with the appropriate authorities when they are agreeable to discussion.
3. Challenge the authorities when they are not agreeable to discussion with either a protest or a legal challenge.
4. Disobey the authorities when circumstances are so egregious and the authorities are so resistant that this is the only option. 

This post is about making an initial challenge—one that is the least confrontational in that it is based on reason rather than pressure. If it is not successful, the challenge can be escalated by adding pressure through public protest (ranging from petitions to demonstrations) and legal challenges.

Scripture gives a great example of advocacy that is respectful and based on reason, yet makes a forceful case. Paul, spoke up for a runaway slave and challenged his owner to receive him back as a brother. In making his appeal, Paul walked a fine line in which he mostly asked for what he wanted, but there is a hint of “you owe it to me to give me what I ask” in his request that comes from the added pressure of his intention to visit the slave owner and see firsthand how he responded to Paul’s request.

The Example

Westlynn Baptist Church in North Vancouver, BC challenged the provincial restrictions on church gatherings.

• If you prefer to read, here is their six-page open letter.
• If you prefer to watch, here is a video of Pastor Sam Chua reading the letter. The video is 17 minutes long, but it is worth watching to catch the spirit in which the challenge is made.

Why This Letter Is a Great Example

Here’s a list of what makes this appeal by Westlynn Baptist Church such a good example:

• To minimize the confrontation, thus improving the likelihood that those in authority will be more open to their message, the church:
  • Respected those in authority
  • Demonstrated goodwill by caring for those in authority with regular prayer and even shared what they were praying for
  • Agreed with what they could: the policy goals
  • Gratefully acknowledged what the government has done well and that government policy has benefited the province
  • Assumed the best intentions of those in authority
  • Followed the very rules they want to change and did even more than is required in order to show goodwill and support the government’s goals
  • Refrained from using inflammatory language
  • Remained factual
  • Asked questions rather than making strident demands
• The appeal should help the government understand the church’s case because it provided new information that highlighted the unintended consequences of the province’s rules. Specific examples of glaring unequal treatment of religion based on truly comparable scenarios made a compelling case for the desired change in policy.
• The church displayed a strong moral conviction about a public good that the government was overlooking. Their argument wasn’t centred on themselves and their rights but on the good being withheld from others who need their help.
• The entire presentation was very well researched and backed up by proper citations.
• The “ask” acknowledges there still needs to be suitable COVID-19 safety protocols, which they committed themselves to observe. The church is making a reasonable request giving due care to the broader community.
• The challenge does reference Charter rights as a gentle reminder that there is the possibility of a legal challenge, but it is very much a secondary argument given minimal attention at this time.
• The church has framed the argument in a way that will do minimal damage to the reputations of the church and Christianity because it is focused on the welfare of the community, not of the church. The church needs to do everything it can to ensure the community hears this other-centred message.

Whether Westlynn Baptist Church will be successful in getting the government to change its policy is not yet known, but they have done an excellent job in challenging the government in a well-reasoned way that is the most promising approach for achieving the desired outcome.

Discussion

CCCC members can discuss their ideas for effectively challenging governing authorities in The Green. Let’s study and learn from each other’s advocacy work.

Key Idea: Using reason to persuade when challenging governing authorities is an initial challenge with a good likelihood of success.

The post Challenging Authorities: Using Reason to Persuade appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

Churches and denominations must decide for themselves what their answers will be. While CCCC will not tell churches what to do, we will help your church make an informed choice. Our COVID-19 commitment to our members outlines our thoughts on the pandemic-related restrictions and our support for our members to practice their beliefs. To give you context for the issue, we have also published brief histories of the Church’s responses to pandemics of the past and of Christians and choices about civil disobedience. 

This post will lay out some considerations for four basic responses to the gathering restrictions.

Four Response Options 

There are four main ways to respond to the governing authorities that apply to any situation. They are:

1. Comply with the law either because you agree with it or want to show goodwill if you don’t.
2. Consult with the appropriate authorities when they are agreeable to discussion.
3. Challenge the authorities when they are not agreeable to discussion with either a protest or a legal challenge.
4. Disobey the authorities when circumstances are so egregious and the authorities are so resistant that this is the only option.  

The real choice is between Comply and Disobey. The other two options are intermediate steps that can be taken in addition to the choice to comply or disobey. 

In reading blogs and chats and seeing what people are saying, there are lots of misrepresentations of the opposite viewpoint. Everyone, no matter what your position on the choices, should read up on the reasoning of our brothers and sisters who hold the opposite opinion and allow them to speak for themselves. If you listen only to people with your own opinion interpreting what they think the viewpoints of others are, you will most likely be misled by bias because these interpretations can be very simplistic.

This article by David Robertson (pastor of a church in Dundee, Scotland for 27 years, Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland 2015-16, contributor to Christianity Today, and currently leader of an evangelism ministry in Sydney, Australia) is the best introduction I could find to the issues that you should consider in making your decision. He takes the most even-handed approach to the comply/disobey decision I’ve come across. He outlines the arguments for both sides before making a recommendation that is a bit like “having your cake and eating it too.”

The Comply/Disobey Rationales

In this post, I’m giving people from both viewpoints equal time (about 3,400 words if you follow the links) to speak in their own words. I’ve searched through a lot of material to find the best, most concise arguments from the comply/disobey rationales and will provide links to those articles.

Remember, be sure to read and give thoughtful consideration to the side that you currently disagree with, or you will not make a truly informed decision! Think of it as though you and three others were taking a picture of something. Borrow their “camera” (which is different from yours) and look at the subject through their lenses rather than yours. In his January 16th newsletter, Ray Pennings of Cardus makes this same point with three questions:

• First, have I read and heard the other side?
• Second, what are the deeper concerns that prompt the opposite position? 
• Third, how can I resist the temptation to brand those with whom I passionately disagree as permanently different and anathema?

Attitude is critical

“I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

CCCC recognizes that well-meaning and faithful Christians can end up on opposite sides of a debate. We all want to be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ, and we must remember that we are members of one family and that we are commanded by Jesus to love one another. So all our conversations on this matter need to be civil, respectful, and assuming the best of those with whom we disagree. Otherwise, you may find in the end that even if you are right, you displeased the Lord by your behaviour.

If you are a CCCC member, you can go to The Green and contribute to the discussion there.

Comply

Pastor Rick Warren explained why he is complying with COVID-19 restrictions in an interview on December 21st, in which he said:

“Some churches are willing to gamble the health of their people. I’m not. The good shepherd prays for his sheep, cares for his sheep. One day I will be responsible. I don’t want to be a super-spreader. I’m not doing this out of fear; I’m doing this out of love. You wear a mask for love of your neighbors, yourself.”

Baptist News

Dr. Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, NC and formerly president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote a thoughtful and well-researched article last March on why churches should comply with the restrictions. Since he has not returned to this topic in his very active blog, it appears his answer would still be the same today.

A few days ago, pastor Paul Bickley of Trinity Vineyard Church in London, UK, explained in this article why he voluntarily closed his church building shortly before the law forced him to. He takes a pastoral approach and distinguishes between the church as a building and the church as a congregation.

Pastor David Navarro, in a Facebook post at the end of November, said “The primary narrative of the Jesus movement is not about Jesus instituting MEETINGS. It’s about Jesus decisively CONQUERING DEATH. This is why the central event of the narrative is the resurrection of Jesus. Because of this, the most basic ethic of a disciple is to, like Jesus, actively oppose any forces of death – whether the death of our spirit, or of our mental health, or of our body (since they’re all integrated, because we’re whole beings). Gathering together is part of the story, but it falls under a greater mandate to oppose forces which bring death, harm, decay, or chaos. This virus is such a force.”

Disobey

Pastor John MacArthur presented the case last July for why his church is disobeying the pandemic restrictions:

“It has never been the prerogative of civil government to order, modify, forbid, or mandate worship. When, how, and how often the church worships is not subject to Caesar. Caesar himself is subject to God.”

The Federalist

In December, Pastor Aaron Rock of Harvest Bible Church in Windsor, ON was charged with reopening his church unlawfully. The church followed health and safety protocols but exceeded the gathering limit. He wrote a comprehensive article on why churches should not obey the pandemic restrictions. This article is long enough to capture the breadth of the arguments for civil disobedience.

Indicators for the Four Options

Indicators favouring compliance

The starting point should always be to comply with government laws and regulations, as the New Testament is clear that Christians are to obey their governments,  unless a particular government directive is deemed to be unjust. In that case, Christians can move directly to a more active step to change the law. The principle is to start with Comply, then move to Consult, Challenge, and Disobey in that order.

Churches are likely to comply when they see the restrictions as:

• Temporary
• Having a rationale with factual support
• Reasonable in light of the goal they are meant to achieve
• Having effects that
  • Align with an incarnational theology of community and suffering
  • Provide a good witness to Jesus Christ and the Church, thus helping with evangelism
  • Promote innovation and vitality in churches as we seek and listen to the Holy Spirit in unusual circumstances

Indicators favouring consultation

Consulting with people who have the power or the influence to bring about the change you want means that you are constructively working with them to problem-solve a solution that everyone can live with. This option is viable if:

• You have goodwill because you are complying.
• You have expertise and a fact-based proposal that will carry weight in the secular world.
• You can reach people who can make a difference. This may be a politician, a policy analyst, or other person of influence who in turn has the ear of the person who can make the decision you want.

As an example, CCCC, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, and Christian Legal Fellowship submitted a joint letter in May to provincial Ministers of Health and Chief Medical Officers of Health and will continue to make submissions.

Indicators favouring challenge

A challenge is more adversarial than consulting is. A legal challenge or peaceful protest creates a confrontation and is a little riskier because the outcome could reinforce the way things are, the very thing you are trying to change. But this is a good option if:

• You have obtained legal advice that your challenge has reasonable grounds.
• You can make a strong case for how the public will benefit from a win (to minimize people thinking the legal challenge is for selfish reasons that only benefit churches). 

Toronto International Celebration Church has done this well. They obeyed the law and all health regulations but are challenging the reduction of attendees from 30% capacity to just ten people. Although a partial ruling was not favourable to the church, the court has not yet finished dealing with the Charter issues.

Indicators favouring civil disobedience

Virtually all defenders of civil disobedience (who see it as a basic right, even a duty) stress that a citizen should take this step only after all conventional channels for redress have been exhausted, because civil disobedience has potentially serious consequences. The indicators favouring civil disobedience are:

• Just like the indicators favouring a challenge:
  • You have obtained legal advice that your defense has reasonable grounds.
  • You can make a strong case for how the public will benefit from a win (to minimize people thinking the challenge is for selfish reasons that only benefit  churches).
• You can disobey without using violence.
• You are willing to accept the consequences.

There is a high likelihood of fines and possibly even jail time if you disobey the law, so know in advance what you are getting yourself and your team into. One church that is engaged in civil disobedience, Trinity Bible Chapel in Waterloo Region, ON, is now facing the possibility of the church and its elders being fined close to $11 million. 

Next Steps

Discussing with church leadership/congregation

A previous post had lots of suggestions for how to have discussions when there are divisions in the church. I highly recommend reviewing it before risking a debate that could further harden divisions within church leadership or the congregation.

If leaning towards civil disobedience

In a recent post, Ray Pennings, who we heard from above, provided some sober reflections on the risk of pushback from the government that civil disobedience can lead to. If you are going to use civil disobedience, he calls for it to be a respectful disobedience. Ray’s main point is that when we resort to civil disobedience we should be mindful that there is much more than the immediate issue at stake. 

And if you choose disobedience, there is a “must read” guide published by The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada: an excellent primer on civil disobedience that includes a discussion on when civil disobedience is justified. Study this and make good use of it if civil disobedience is your choice.

Final Questions to Ask

Three questions to ask before selecting a response option may help confirm that it is the right choice for your church: 

1. What is the lasting legacy we want to leave with the secular public when this is all over? 
2. Will this response damage Jesus Christ’s reputation and that of the church? 
3. Will this decision help us fulfill the church’s mission?

Concluding Thought

Deciding between the response options can be a weighty and difficult choice, but the Lord has promised to give us wisdom when we ask it of him (James 1:5). We at CCCC have heard from many people with differing views on the issue, and we feel the struggles you are having. There is no single, clear answer; there are only arguments favouring one option or another and you will have to use group spiritual discernment and good judgement to make your decision.

Whatever your decision, the most important follow-up activity is to use your God-given creativity to find ways to be the church  while the restrictions are in effect. Fortunately, many churches have gone public with the exciting and fruitful new ministries they’ve created, and I will be sharing those in the next post.

The post Church Gathering Restrictions: What to do? appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

From the previous post, we know that anyone wanting to influence culture must be partly outside the mainstream of that culture. That is, they must be counter-cultural in some way in order to have something new to contribute.

So if the church wants to influence culture, it must maintain its own cultural distinctiveness in thought and deed. Fortunately, Christians have three aids to help us do this: our theology, the Holy Spirit, and the church itself.

Theology: A Strong Foundation

Christian theology gives us a very distinctive understanding of the world and how it works. For example, our theology of the human person gives us a very high view of human life, seeing humanity as the pinnacle of God’s creation. We have a lot to say to society about life itself and our relationships with each other because we believe:

• Male and female, we are created in God’s image
• We were made a little lower than God, and crowned with glory and majesty
• We all stand as equals before God. Even our political rulers stand equally with us under God.
• Life is a gift from God, who knows people even before they are born (eg., Psa 139:13-16, Isa 49:1, Gal 1:15)
• The termination of a life is abhorrent to God

If we don’t know what we believe, we will inevitably lose our distinctiveness and become just like our culture, such as by adopting secular attitudes about power and status. This is why Christians need theological vitality. It gives us a strong foundation.

The Holy Spirit: Our Creative Guide

Having a strong theological foundation is great, but then the question becomes “What do we do with our theology?” Fortunately, Christians are not left to our own devices to figure out how to apply our theology to present day circumstances. We have the Holy Spirit as our guide.The Holy Spirit is the reason why our Bible is not just an historical record, but is a living book that speaks freshly to us today.

When we reflect on our theology and our culture, it is vital that we do so through the correct lens. If we think about theology from within existing culture, we could read it the way we want to read it. But the Holy Spirit helps us do our theological reflection from God’s perspective, and then decide what action to take. If society is moving towards God’s eschatological future, then we support it. If it isn’t, then we critique it and offer a better way.

In the case of how society thinks about human life, the Greco-Roman culture in the first century was quite at odds with the Christian perspective. In distinction to the high view of life taken by Christians, the non-Christian culture had a very low view of human life; it was cheap and expendable.

The perception of all human beings as equal, and equally valuable, as persons worthy of respect and equal treatment before the law, is a relatively rare and recent achievement in human history. The concept that women, children, racial minorities, immigrants, refugees and the poor are to be treated not only equally but with special concern because of their frequent marginalization and vulnerability is a central biblical teaching rarely actualized in public life.

Glen Stassen & David Gushee in Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context

Here are a couple of examples of what the early Christians challenged in their society based on their theology of the human person and how the Spirit led them to assess their culture.

Infanticide

Infanticide was common in Rome and Greece (and also in China, Japan, Brazil, Africa, and among the Inuit).¹ It was so common in ancient Greece that it was blamed for its population decline. Children were left exposed outside or thrown into rivers and left to die, and no one had a moral problem with it.

Christians alone stood firmly against the killing of babies because it was murder, because Jesus gave them importance by saying they should not be hindered in coming to him, and because children are seen as a blessing throughout Scripture.

Subjugation of Women

Greek and Roman women had essentially no rights and no freedom. Plutarch wrote that Greek men keep their wives “under lock and key.” The average Athenian woman had the social status of a slave. Greek girls were not educated and throughout her entire life, a female was not allowed to speak in public at all. Neither were Roman women. When some Roman women entered the Forum (which they were not allowed to enter) to protest and ask for a law to be repealed (breaking convention by speaking in public), Cato asked, “Could you not have asked your own husbands the same thing at home?”²

A Roman girl grew up under patria potestas, a law that gave the man who led a household complete control over all members of his household (including the power of life and death). A woman could not own property, receive any inheritance, or have any freedom until the male head of her household died.

A Christian who is not spiritually sensitive may not be able to discern the Spirit’s leading in how to assess society against Christian theology. This is why I’ve also said that all Christians must have spiritual vitality. If we can’t sense the Spirit’s leading, we’re basically on our own to decide what we think is the appropriate interpretation and application of theology.

The Church: A Community in Action

When Christians understand their theology and discern what the Spirit has to say about culture in light of that theology, it is time to take action. In terms of infanticide and the place of women in society, there was nothing to affirm, so the church had to take action to move society closer to God’s ideal. Here’s what they did.

Child Abandonment

In the ancient writings of the church, infanticide was soundly condemned. Within fifty years or so of becoming a legal religion, Christians were able to persuade the Roman emperor to outlaw infanticide. Until that time, children who were not directly killed by their parents were usually exposed or thrown into a river, and Christians rescued them and adopted them as their own.

Subjugation of Women

To improve the lot of women, the church modeled what their role in society should be. The resulting effect of the church on the status of women was revolutionary. The church gave women the only opportunity they had to hold leadership roles and be socially active outside the family home. Female leaders in the church are frequently mentioned in the New Testament, including among them Col 4:15, 1 Cor 16:19, and Rom 16:1-3.

Women were evangelists and missionaries, and they were a significant factor in the early church’s spiritual and numerical growth. An early church father, Chrysostom, writing in the late 300s, wrote “The women of those days were more spirited than men.” Historian W.E.H. Lecky wrote “In the ages of persecution female figures occupy many of the foremost places and ranks of martyrdom.” Another historian wrote “Christendom dare not forget that it was primarily the female sex that for the greater part brought about its rapid growth. It was the evangelistic zeal of women in the early years of the church, and later, which won the weak and the mighty.”³

Christianity was responsible for the repeal of the patria potestas law in 374. Women no longer needed their father’s permission to marry (and whom to marry), they held substantially the same property rights as their husbands, and the veil was done away with. This is why women flocked to the ancient church. It was liberating!

Challenge

The early church is a great example for us today. It knew its theology, discerned the Spirit’s leadership, and then put their ideas into action to demonstrate Christian values at work for the good of the marginalized, the oppressed, and in fact for all members of their society.

Given the many issues which challenge our society today, which ones are you most passionate about? Which ones relate closest to your ministry’s mission? What part might you or your ministry play in helping our society move a little closer to God’s ideal?

Key Thought: An authentic Christian faith leads to social improvement ideas.

The post The Church as a Change Agent appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

“I have a dream…”

“We shall fight on the beaches…”

“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”

Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, and William Wilberforce changed the world with their words. That’s the power of words. Their words were transformative in shaping society for the better and strengthening its resolve to resist evil. But words can also work the other way, as speeches by the ‘bad apples’ of history, and careless words from politicians, corporate executives, and others clearly show. For good or ill, words make long-lasting impressions on people.

In fact, making a good first impression is so important that many of us have been trained to carefully craft an elevator speech. We use this speech to introduce ourselves, and each word is strategically selected to convey exactly what we want our audience to know and feel about us. That’s how important words are.

So what words are associated with evangelicals in the public’s mind? What impression have we made on the people we want to share the Good News with?

Given all the vigorous debates over the last 40 years about divisive social issues, the general public has repeatedly heard words of warning, disapproval, and dissent from us. I’m sure they know what we stand against, but I wonder if they know what we stand for. The press and social media are very good at covering and commenting on the divisive issues, but not as eager to cover good news stories, so I don’t expect the public would know much about our positive agenda.

This one-sided spotlight on evangelicals needs some counter-balancing. It’s time for the public to hear words from us that are positive and inviting; words that intrigue them and inspire them to explore faith and find out more about Jesus Christ.

The Power of a Word

In Boundless: What Global Expressions of Faith Teach Us about Following Jesus, author Bryan Bishop quotes Rick Love,¹ who uses what he calls blessing the nations terminology. These words originate in the calling of Abram and extend to the language of Paul. “Thus,” suggests Love, “our core message is blessing in Christ and our core mandate is blessing all nations.” Bishop asks, “Could it be that one thing that turns people off from biblical faith is the use of cliché words that no longer convey the message we intend? Could these automatic phrases also keep our own thinking stale?”²

Bishop raises an important point. We have a whole vocabulary of churchspeak that the public may not understand, or they may find it archaic or trite, or it may bring to mind a negative stereotype of evangelicals. We need to watch our language and make sure it is really working for us.

Words are important not just for the effect they have on our listeners, but also their effect on us. The words we use have the potential to change paradigms, to inspire or to bore, to create positive or negative impressions. For example, adopting Rick Love’s blessing the nations terminology has several positive effects, including that it:

• shifts our focus from receiving blessings to giving blessings, making us more other-centred
• is uplifting and fulfilling, and invites generous, expansive, creative thinking that can revitalize our ministries
• changes my relationship with the people I’m blessing. They are not just people, they are God’s image-bearers who God wants to bless through me. It builds a benevolent attitude toward others
• calls us into the world, minimizing the possibility of separation from it, so relevance and engagement will both be greater

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada is one ministry that has enthusiastically picked up the language of blessing in its new mission statement: Uniting Evangelicals to bless Canada in the name of Jesus. I can see how the old statement, Together for Impact, Influence, and Identity, could be seen by secular people as threatening because it sounds political and it could make them wonder what exactly the EFC wants to impact and influence, and how that will affect them.

As a director of the EFC, I felt a growing excitement as Bruce Clemenger unpacked what the new statement meant to him. The new language immediately had a deep sense of rightness about it, and it resonated well with me because it is a positive way forward. The idea of blessing a nation takes us back to the roots of Christianity and its impressive impact on the world around it. The words of the new mission statement made me prouder than ever to be associated with the EFC, and it breathed new life around the board table as we all sensed something new and significant had just been birthed.

That is the power of language!

Language to Reconsider

If we want to build more understanding of what we stand for, we need first to watch how we use language that unnecessarily reinforces negative stereotypes of evangelicals. Some examples follow.

Language That Threatens

Consider changing words that the public may find threatening to more positive words and ideas.

Campus Crusade for Christ Canada is a high-profile example of a ministry that eliminated warfare language by changing its name to Power to Change Ministries. ‘Crusade’ had a positive meaning in Christian circles as a major, concerted evangelism campaign (another military term!) such as those held by Billy Graham. However, the general public now only associates the term with specific historical military campaigns. The new name captures the idea of a positive change people can experience by encountering Christ personally, which would be highly appealing to people who yearn for something more.

In the case of warfare and conquest words/metaphors, better language would focus on the voluntary nature of responding to Christ. And be sure to make it clear that spiritual warfare is in the spiritual realm only.

Language That Alienates

We need to watch out for us/them language. There are times when it is appropriate, but if the dominant relationship model used by your ministry rests on us/them, people outside the faith will not feel very welcome. So a good question to answer is, How will we refer to people who are not yet Christ-followers? I’m looking for a word that, if I were not yet a believer, I would not feel offended hearing it applied to me.

I look forward to reading your suggestions for such a word that is respectful, accurate, and easy to say/write. In this series, I generally call non-Christians secular because, in addition to my primary audience of my Christian peers, I am writing with people in mind who have no religious faith. I realize, though, that secular excludes people of other faiths.

If we want to refer to a specific group, we should learn what they want to be called, and use that.

Finally, we should watch for defensive or angry language because others will not respond well to it. Instead, we should use a tone that is positive, solution-oriented, and conciliatory. We should be engaging, not demanding.

Unhelpful Protesters

Every so often we hear in the news about some protester or other who identifies as a Christian, and they’re doing or saying something that is not helping the cause, because they are playing into the public’s stereotype of us. The public sees them as representative of the whole of evangelicalism and blames us all for their words and behaviour.

We don’t have control over anyone, and the reality is that people who do that kind of protesting are going to do it regardless of what others think. But the local church  is in the best position to teach Christians what is helpful and not helpful to our cause when it comes to dissent and protest. For example, it could run a course on writing opinion letters for publication. Sermons could illustrate how the early church transformed an empire through acts of sacrificial love and personal testimony.

Tell Our Story for a Positive Future

Finally, we need to proactively inform the public what our preferred future looks like. As a community of evangelical ministries:

• Could we develop a sector narrative, similar to what Imagine Canada has done for the charitable sector as a whole, that tells our story in a positive way? I was pleased to help get the Imagine Canada narrative started at a time when the public was particularly aggressive in challenging charities about compensation and overhead, and it dealt with those issues head on while also documenting the good work that the sector does.
• Could we each describe what being a blessing to the world around us looks like in terms of our particular ministries? Could we deflate some of the apprehension about our objectives by describing what kind of society we want to build in terms of justice, relationship, and sharing the planet with each other?
• What can we affirm about our society today, just as it is? Where we can, we need to add our support to efforts, particularly secular efforts, if they are leading towards God’s ideal for human society.

Let’s do whatever we can so that the public hears and understands the contribution we want to make.

Key Thought: The public must know what evangelicals are for.

“The book, Boundless, has been provided courtesy of Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available now at your favourite bookseller.”

The post Watch Your Language! appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

The picture above is me sitting in the Speaker’s Chair in the House of Commons. Oh, don’t I wish. Benevolent King John seated comfortably on his throne!  Imagine being king or queen for a day. What laws would you proclaim?

We live in a litigious society that is polarized around issues of morality and religion and where people are ready and willing to use the coercive power of the state to enforce their positions on others. That combination means that Christians are more and more finding themselves having to deal with court cases, tribunal hearings, and government policy or legislation initiated by others. This puts us on the defensive, trying to protect values that we believe are beneficial to society, or (more recently) to protect religious freedom and rights.

As I’ve justified before, we should use the available tools of the state to defend ourselves. I am glad we have highly skilled and knowledgeable voices such as the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada to speak and act on our behalf. And of course, the Canadian Council of Christian Charities gets involved too, when an issue affects the life and operation of a Christian charity.

Cautions

But there are two cautions about using the state’s institutional power structures to promote or protect our mission:

1. They are adversarial in nature. The last thing we want as Christians is for the general public to believe that we are their adversaries. That would make fulfilling the Great Commission all the more difficult. While it is necessary for Christians to respond to legal and political challenges,¹ we must be very careful that our participation doesn’t poison our Christian spirit and witness. We must not let these contests make us appear bitter, angry, or hateful. We must not let them corrupt our character. In the midst of conflict, remember Paul’s instructions to “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.”[Rom 12: 14, 18]
2. The state’s power is ultimately coercive. The state has the ability to force compliance, which is what makes it so fun to dream about being “king for a day.” However, we must realize that the church’s mission isn’t ultimately about changing law but about transforming hearts. Grudging compliance is no substitute for willing transformation. Faith, and not law, must be front and centre in the work of the church. James Davison Hunter (writing from within the American context) warns that Christians have become so active in political and legal venues to accomplish their purposes that non-Christians define them not by their faith, but by their politics. He notes that the emphasis (in the United States) on political power has reduced Christianity to a political ideology and converted their churches and agencies into special interest groups.² This must not be! The church’s absolutely unique role is to present the Gospel to the world. Fulfilling the Creation Mandate (which is how I position legal and political matters) is a role of the church, but a shared role with all of humanity, and therefore secondary to the uniquely Christian Great Commission.

The Way Forward

Hunter says there is a yearning for “a way [forward] that has integrity with the historic truths of the faith and the witness of the Spirit and that is adequate to the challenges of the present moment.”

While acknowledging the importance of responding to the legal and political challenges of our day, which require us to be present in the institutions of the state, we must show the world that another way of resolving differences and conflict is possible. This way has at least two components:

1. Dialogue
2. Service

Dialogue

The conflicts we are now involved in (mainly over religious freedom and rights) are all about different communities learning to live with each other in peace. Radicals on both sides would probably rather that the other side didn’t exist anymore, but the fact is that both sides are here for the duration, whatever the persecution and difficulties. So we need to be big and find a way to peacefully co-exist.

This will sound very naÏve, but it is the right thing to do. We must engage the opposition in dialogue as both an opportunity to build relationship and as a problem-solving exercise. The challenge for both sides is to think outside our boxes as we dialogue, using all the problem-solving and creative thinking tools we can.

Rather than jumping straight into a fight over their positions, we need to understand both who they are as people and their positions. We need to learn about their values, goals, concerns and fears so that we can develop mutually satisfactory solutions. Our irreconcilable differences should be as few as possible, after all alternatives are exhausted, and will require that both sides be willing to let them be. 

We must not presume from the outset that peace is not possible. That would go against the whole Christian project of universal reconciliation. There are reasons why people are hostile to Christianity and we need to acknowledge whatever part we have played in developing their hostility and repent of anything that needs repenting.

And it goes without saying that we need to pray for them. Full reconciliation and peace is only possible when there is spiritual peace between us as well.

Service

We need to show the world that we are not adversaries, but that our points of difference are intended to be for their good. Christian service is how we can show love and care for the world, following in the footsteps of Jesus who gave himself sacrificially for us. He was a powerful person, not because of legal or political power, but because of his life of service, fueled by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Many Christians today seem to feel as powerless as the apostles did immediately after the Crucifixion. But we must remember that it wasn’t long until the Holy Spirit showed up, and then everything changed! Over those early years of the church, Christ’s followers were known for what they did with passion and power: they cared for the sick, rescued unwanted babies left to die, and invited the marginalized into welcoming, caring communities. They charged ahead and unilaterally created the change they wanted to see. This is what attracted people to the faith.

By living authentic, caring, and loving lives, investing ourselves for the welfare of our society, we gain very strong power, but power of a different sort – informal power, very different from the state’s power. This is power by example, by modeling. Speaking from such a place of service is the best way to promote our values of generosity, community, and sacrificial living. This is what will attract people to Christ and voluntarily choose to live a life that pleases him. 

Conclusion

It is important that we participate in the full life of our community, which means participating in its political and legal life, but first and foremost, evangelism, discipleship, and good works are the means by which we can best accomplish our goals.

Key Point: Love and kindness will win the day

The post Christians and the Power of the State appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

The main resource for this post is a book called How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and Gay Activism by Tina Fetner. The author analyzed primary private and public documents, and conducted interviews with leading personalities from that time period.

Sadly, few evangelicals talked with the author, which was another mistake. The author admits the book is more sympathetic to the gay movement than the evangelicals partly because of her own leanings, but also because gay activists were quite willing to answer her questions and tell their story. The few evangelicals who gave an interview didn’t answer her questions, but instead tried to convince her that they were right. They were still fighting the battle. Their non-cooperation meant that Fetner’s own misconceptions about evangelicals were not corrected, and she had no access to what the evangelicals’ thinking was, which she did have from the gay activists. Because we didn’t participate, evangelicals come across as cardboard characters who do all these awful things against members of the gay community.

Mistake #1: The Great Withdrawal

By the 1970s, we had a very strong supportive network of Christian schools, Bible colleges, radio and television stations, magazines and books, retreat centres, and camps that supported our faith. Christians knew they were safe inside the bubble. The bubble reinforced what was taught in the churches, but it had some serious negative effects:

1. The evangelical withdrawal from society (I call it The Great Withdrawal) had been going on since the early 20th century when the mainline churches went liberal. We adopted a fortress under siege mentality. Evangelicals largely disappeared from society; and unfortunately, out of sight, out of mind!
2. Living in a bubble that never challenged our beliefs
   • dulled our critical thinking skills, and
   • minimized the chance for critical engagement with society.
     We decried and protested the world out there, but rarely reflected on how we should engage and operate in it.
3. Our exit from the political and social mainstream of society meant we became out of touch with it.
4. Evangelicals effectively created our own enclaves with few, if any, bridges to society. Aside from evangelism, we were virtually incommunicado, out of contact on all other matters.
5. Finally, withdrawal meant we could not be a light in the darkness, yeast in the bread, or salt preserving the meat. We had little witness and no influence outside our community. The significant exceptions—Billy Graham, the Salvation Army, and inner city missions—let us feel we were out in society, but our presence was mostly on the margins and the exceptions masked our isolationist spirit. We had missionaries all over the world, but we did not have a presence as evangelicals in the mainstream of our own country.

When gay rights became an issue, gay activists believed we had all the assets to fuel a formidable campaign. Unfortunately, these assets were designed to meet only our internal needs. We weren’t equipped to venture out of our fortress, and we had no goodwill outside the fortress even if we did venture out. When gay activists portrayed evangelicals in caricatures, the public had no reason to see how wrong the caricatures were.

Mistake #2: We Became Exhibit 1 to Prove Our Opposition’s Point

Gay activists tried unsuccessfully for a decade to get their agenda into the public arena. Prior to 1977, activists framed the gay issue as one of justice and equality. The tone was educational, and when referring to the gay and straight communities, they used ‘we’ language, trying to position people who are gay and straight as one society.

Anita Bryant’s 1977 campaign against a municipal ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation changed everything. The gay rights issue was now framed as protecting a threatened minority. They used ‘us and them’ language. And the tone was angry. All the gay activists had to do to prove their case was point to the hostile evangelical campaign against them. Tina Fetner writes:

The emergence of the Christian anti-gay movement, far from defeating the lesbian and gay movement, actually reinvigorated social movement organizations’ calls to action, secured the national media attention lesbian and gay activists were unable to secure on their own, and provided the movement with a resonant and familiar symbol of oppression that they could use to capture the message of their claims.

Before Anita Bryant, the gay activist organizations were small, under-funded, disillusioned, and wondering if they should give up. Anita Bryant’s campaign single-handedly revitalized gay activism. A gay activist says “We were blessed to have the hateful, bigoted opponents we had, particularly in the early years before we alone had the clout to push our issues to a vote, let alone center stage.”

I’ve found no indication that the evangelical church ever thoughtfully addressed what its strategy should be from a sociological or biblical-theological perspective. Why do we treat one sin differently than another when all sins have the same consequence? They charged ahead with no more thought than that homosexual sex is sinful. Since we all thought alike in our bubble, we couldn’t imagine how our actions would be interpreted from another perspective and actually help the opposition.

I’m not sure if it could have been any different in 1977, given that for the previous 60 years our primary focus had been holiness and purity. Confronted by a lifestyle that we considered a choice that was so blatantly antithetical to God’s design, there was never really a chance for dialogue or for nuance. And once both sides resorted to caricatures and labelling, ratcheting down the hostility was almost impossible.

My question is, “Which hot issues of our day demand more theological reflection?” Given where we are today, can we do better going forward with topics such as human sexuality, without compromising our faith?

Our mistake was to charge into battle suffering from groupthink and thinking tactically, rather than strategically.

Mistake #3: We Made Assumptions

Both sides thought the other was better funded, better organized, and very dangerous. Gay activists thought we had unlimited volunteers and controlled politics. One gay activist complained, “The right always picks the fight. They always pick the issue.” A gay activist remembers, “When our efforts are evaluated against the sophistication and skill of our enemies, the gay movement must admit to a continuing failure. Our Fight the Right efforts are as weak as theirs are strong, as scattershot as theirs are coordinated, as insignificant as theirs are effective.” Notice how she refers to evangelicals as “our enemies.” Their terminology and ours distanced our communities. Everything the activists said about us is what we thought about them. We both assumed the other was more powerful and felt forced to escalate.

Even Tina Fetner, the author, makes assumptions about evangelicals. She writes that our financial resources dwarf those of the gay community by looking at the revenue of churches and agencies such as Focus on the Family, but she assumes all the revenues are dedicated to the anti-gay campaign, which isn’t true, then or now.

Gay activists used sarcasm against evangelicals, but because it played into our fears about them, we didn’t take it as sarcasm but assumed it was evidence that our concerns were valid. An example would be placards carried in gay parades that read “We’re here to recruit your children.”

Misunderstandings like these kept the war going. And in some ways, war was convenient, because it was a great fundraiser for both sides. We actually had a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship, but for the evangelicals, it was beneficial only in the short term!

Because we didn’t talk with each other, neither side knew the other. In future, the evangelical church would do well to talk with its adversaries.

For example, last spring, CCCC held a legal forum that attracted lawyers from around the world who are completely at odds with each other over the place of religion in society and its legal protection. Personally, I am in conversation with a gay activist and we are both learning from each other. Christians should build bridges rather than barricades.

Mistake #4: We Treated All LGBT People as a Single, United Group

If you paint everyone with the same brush, then the loudest, most extreme members of the other community come to represent the entire community. When both sides see the fringe as the whole, it’s hard to see how they will ever talk.

We need to understand our opposition and distinguish between the radical fringe and the moderate mainstream. Progress can likely be made if the opposing moderates talk. The radical fringe on both sides usually want to destroy the other side, but their position is considerably weakened when moderate people show something can be worked out. Even if it is not a completely satisfactory solution, it may be a solution both sides can live with without compromising their convictions. At least something positive is happening. A good example of this involves Ontario’s new sex-ed curriculum:

I was on Lorna Dueck’s Context show recently, and saw a taping of another episode on the new Ontario sex-ed guidelines. A Christian group has written a curriculum that meets the guidelines and that Christian parents are happy with. School principals like this Christian curriculum too, saying it is a positive contribution that is much more effective than protests. The protesters are unlikely to accomplish anything, while more moderate Christians have accomplished what they wanted.

Mistake #5: We Fought a Negative Campaign

The gay movement enjoyed great success as public opinion took a massive swing towards supporting gay rights. The evangelical community, despite its ability to raise money and mobilize volunteers, had little or no effect on public opinion. The difference was that gay activists waged a positive campaign, arguing for something, while evangelicals fought a negative campaign, standing against something.

The jury is out on whether negative campaign ads work or not. They are memorable, but it seems they do not sway people’s opinions to the negative side. In fact, the 2015 Canadian federal election would seem to indicate just the opposite—that voters realized the negativity conflicted with their sense of common decency towards others. This is exactly what happened in the gay rights debate, because the evangelical strategy played right into the “threatened minority” narrative put out by gay rights activists. In addition, the negative evangelical campaign worked in favour of the gay movement because the very things that we campaigned against suddenly became the centre of attention and caused people to think about them. Gay activists then swooped in on those issues with a positive gay rights campaign that led people to agree with them on the issues that we raised.

In future, we must frame issues positively and stand for, rather than against, something.

Mistake #6: All-or-Nothing Thinking

The final mistake is “all-or-nothing” thinking. As John Stackhouse notes in Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World, many of us see anything less than total victory as a sellout. Total victory, John reminds us, is only achieved when Christ returns. Until then, we must think incrementally. If we are moving closer to total victory, any forward movement is better than a loss.

The epic fail illustrating this mistake is that Canada today has no abortion law and no prospect of ever having one. Why? Because when a compromise abortion bill was introduced in 1988, it was defeated when Christians said they were against the early term abortions that would have been legal. We should have taken what we could get, and waited for a better time to improve on it.

Conclusion

Evangelicals today engage society on many issues: poverty, euthanasia, sexuality, environment, human trafficking, refugees, and reproductive technology among them. We can greatly improve our effectiveness by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

Key Point: We need to be much more strategic and thoughtful in how we address public issues.

The post Note to the Church: Mistakes Not to Make Again! appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

“Persecution is the societal marginalization of believers with a view to eliminating their voice and influence.” Paul Nyquist

Dangerously Different

In this series, we’ve seen that the church is at an historical turning point, having lost its favoured status that it held for about 1,700 years. This makes it just as counter-cultural as it was in its first few centuries. We’ve also seen that people of the Christian faith are, metaphorically speaking, living in exile as a minority.

Being a counter-cultural minority puts us in a precarious position. It is particularly problematic for Christians because what makes us counter-cultural is not some minor ‘Christian thing’ related to society’s peripheral values, but something central to Christianity that is  at odds with the two highest priority values that now dominate Canadian society: individual autonomy and tolerance. These are now referred to as “Canadian values” and some people use them as a litmus test for whether or not you are a good Canadian.

What a change from the Canadian values I grew up with, which were peace, order, and good government. For more than a century, these community values clearly distinguished Canadians from Americans, who championed individual values.

We must not, however, make this an either/or scenario. Champions of individual autonomy care about community welfare as well, and the same is true in reverse for champions of community welfare. The conflict is over which value outranks the other when they clash. Currently in Canada, individualism trumps community.

The reason Christians are counter-cultural stems from our belief that God is the creator of everything. This has two major implications that set us at odds with the dominant values of our society:

1. We believe we are not the highest authority in our lives, God is. Our modern society believes we should each be the highest authority for our own lives.
2. Although we highly value individuals, because each one, whether a Christian or not, is made in God’s image, we value community even more highly because the God in whose image we are made is himself a community of three persons. Community therefore is crucial to our self-understanding. The whole point of Christianity is to be in fellowship with God and with each other. Community allows us to express God’s love, selfless giving and other attributes. Secularists believe God had nothing to do with creation. Humanity is nothing but the result of random elements mixing together. Survival of the fittest is the process that got us to where we are today, and this belief leads directly to competitive individualism. For individualists, teamwork and community, rather than being the goal, are merely tools to help them reach their goals.

Christians support personal freedom and tolerance, but not as values that trump all other values.

A great example of what I mean by the clash of values is the Sunday shopping debate that took place in Ontario (the province I live in). In 1963, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the Lord’s Day Act based on the Canadian Bill of Rights, which was then in force. The Supreme Court acknowledged that Canada was an overwhelmingly Christian country that had accepted Sunday closings for years.

However, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was passed in 1982, and in 1985 the Supreme Court ruled that the Lord’s Day Act was unconstitutional because of its religious basis. Sunday closings were still okay as long as the rationale was not religious. The Retail Business Holidays Act did just that by justifying closings based on having a common pause day. However, public pressure led to wide open Sunday shopping in Ontario in 1992.

Here’s where we see the clash of values based on differing hierarchies. People who wanted the ability to work or shop seven days a week placed a higher value on personal autonomy than on community welfare. According to them, I should be able to work and shop any day I want. Christians and others who supported a common pause day placed a higher value on the ability of family and friends to have a day in which they could all be together as a community. It also served as public recognition that commerce has its place in society, but doesn’t trump the welfare of family and social relationships. Perhaps you have experienced what I have—family occasions at which at least one person wasn’t able to attend because of work commitments.

From the secular perspective, a different set of priorities makes us dangerously different and a threat (or at least a voice of oppositional conscience) to those who want individual wants and rights to override what might be best from community and social structure perspectives. Those who influence culture (who otherwise think of themselves as paragons of tolerance) are showing that they will not tolerate those who do not agree with them. The first time I heard a radio host say that people who have a limit to their tolerance for personal rights are unCanadian, a shiver went down my spine! I heard another radio host say just this week that someone like this should be punished by losing their job! The leader of a Canadian federal party said in an interview two years ago that evangelicals are “completely against Canadian values.” These are scary and very intimidating words!!

Hatred for Differences

“I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.” John 15:19

Jesus told us that the world would hate us. Paul Nyquist, in his book Prepare: Living Your Faith in an Increasingly Hostile Culture, says the world refers not to people but to ungodly systems (economic, social, etc.). This is a somewhat doubtful interpretation, as it is only people who can hate, not systems, but it is helpful nevertheless. It reminds us that those who hate us only do so because they have bought into a different system of thinking. It’s a fine distinction, but one that prevents us from hating those who hate us, and that is a very good thing.

Persecution and Suffering

Conflict over the clash of values is more and more affecting the daily lives of Christians because governments, courts and tribunals, and socially active employers are all pronouncing on values. As a harbinger of things to come, the language of those opposed to the Christian perspective is getting increasingly vitriolic and bolder as time progresses.

The fact is, living faithfully will become more difficult and we shouldn’t be surprised by that. Jesus told us to expect suffering and persecution.

Don’t Provoke Needless Persecution

But we don’t want to suffer unnecessarily. Ministries should assess their activities and strategic statements to be sure they do not cause needless provocation. John wrote that Jesus’ glory was full of “grace and truth” and that “grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ” (John 1: 14, 17). Our words need to be truthful, but they should also be full of grace, not anger.

And it’s not just what we say that we have to be mindful of. Actions speak louder than words, so doing anything that plays to the ugly stereotype some people have of Christians is detrimental to our cause. Don’t do it. We have enough on our plate. We don’t need to create any more obstacles to our own mission success.

Responses to Persecution

We haven’t ever had to seriously consider what our response to persecution in Canada would be. Life-threatening persecution is hard to imagine, but more subtle forms of persecution are already in evidence, mostly with respect to efforts to eliminate our voice in the public sphere.

So here is some food for thought. Paul Nyquist says in his book Prepare, that there are three legitimate responses to persecution, and one that we must avoid.

The good responses are:

1. Flee as Paul did in Acts 9 and 14, and as Jesus did in Matthew 12. Jesus also advised his disciples to flee in Matthew 10:22. This is the correct option when persecution would prevent your mission from being accomplished.
   • Nyquist says that fleeing to avoid pain is not an acceptable option because persecution is integral to following Christ and a powerful way by which God shapes up into Christ’s image.
   • I understand what he is saying, but it seems a waste of life and its future potential to needlessly stay and suffer, risking life and limb. If you can flee without compromising the cause of Christ, you should do so unless you know, as Jesus and Paul knew at the appropriate times, that your purpose is to stay and suffer.
2. Defend yourself using legal means as Paul did in Acts 16 and 22.
   • We live in a country which provides us with certain rights and freedoms, and it provides the means to defend ourselves when those are threatened. Freedom of religion is still taken very seriously at the Supreme Court of Canada. If we have legal ways to defend ourselves, it is only good stewardship that we do so (unless God directs otherwise). This is why CCCC intervenes in court cases that affect the rights of Christian ministries. If we lost the right to freedom of religion because we chose not to defend an attack against it, it’s our fault and we shouldn’t feel victimized.
3. Stand firm as Paul did in Acts 14, 17 and 19, and as Jesus did in the Garden.
   • In the first few centuries, there were people who went out of their way to be martyrs. This was wrong. Martyrdom is something imposed on you by external forces as you fulfill your mission.
   • If you are called to make a stand that could end badly for you, God will be very clear that this is what you are called to suffer. Jesus and Paul both knew that what they were doing would lead to their deaths and both knew it would fulfill their purposes.

The one bad response? Fear! Nyquist says fear isn’t an option. While there are natural fears of physical and emotional harm, we must not fear persecutors because God is sovereign and our hope is in him. This gives us the courage to stand firm when it is God’s will that we stand firm. “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” 2 Cor 4:18.

We never know in advance how well we will cope with suffering. We might quake in fear at the thought of severe persecution, and yet find ourselves able to bear it when it comes. There was a time in my life when, if I had known in advance how bad it would get, I would have been too afraid to proceed. However, in ignorance of what the future held, I proceeded and I’m glad I did. I got through the hard time and came out a much better and stronger Christian. I would have said beforehand that I wouldn’t be able to endure it. But when it happened, God gave me the stamina I needed.

Beyond Nyquist’s list of responses, another inappropriate response to persecution I will add is to assume that God is punishing you. God may be allowing and using a situation to teach you something (think of Jonah), or redeeming a situation or tragedy that occurred because people are evil, but God’s punishment? When Christ has covered your sins? You might be experiencing the natural consequences of something you’ve done, but it wouldn’t be God’s punishment.

Conclusion

This is a sobering topic, and there will be a few more sobering posts. But the point is to address reality and find a way to move forward. This series will transition to positive ideas for thriving and flourishing in our new world.

As we journey on, we are simply acknowledging that there may be suffering on the road ahead. Don’t be frightened. Don’t cave in. Stand firm and stay focused on your mission. Do what God called you to do the very best you can and remember what Jesus said in John 16:33:

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

Key Point: Because Christians are now counter-cultural, we are susceptible to possible persecution as part of the cost of following Christ.

The post Living in a Hostile Society appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

Metaphors are mental pictures that capture complex ideas in a memorable snapshot. Here are some metaphors describing the church:

• One I’ve often used is ‘outpost of the kingdom of God.’ God’s kingdom is a rich theological concept which Christians understand to greater or lesser degrees, but which the general public only understands taking the term at face value. While we apply it spiritually to people who choose to follow God’s lead, the secular public interprets it as an actual social structure of government and law. It has connotations of theocracy about it, and that scares people. An activist campaigning against religion was quite surprised when I told him the evangelical agenda did not include making Canada a theocracy. He assumed that was our goal, and that would be a natural assumption based on some of the imagery and words we use in our churches.
• Christians often use warfare metaphors to describe ourselves individually and collectively as the church. We put on the full armor of God and fight spiritual battles. We sing choruses that use battlefield and conquest imagery and that have a triumphalist posture over the world and the forces of evil. I wonder what my activist friend would think of these.
  • We know that we think of warfare in terms of spiritual warfare, not physical warfare. And we know it is directed against the spiritual forces that stand against God and never against people. People may be under the influence of ideas and forces that keep them from God, but they are never the target. However, they may not understand such a nuance as that and might feel threatened by such metaphors. Warfare metaphors tend to distance us from the very people we want to evangelize. It makes people with whom we should be talking our enemies, and we all know we don’t consort with the enemy! Warfare metaphors also suggest coercion through conquest. Again, be careful how these metaphors are used. We fight against Satan, never people!
• We speak of the church as being a light shining into the darkness. That’s very biblical too, where we are described as beacons and lamps. But this metaphor casts the relationship of the church and the world into very black and white terms. Spiritually, there is light and there is darkness. This is true. There is no grey. But because the world was created by God and has his imprint stamped all over it, there is goodness in the world as well as darkness. Light and darkness become more nuanced in the non-spiritual context.
  • If light is our guiding metaphor, we will likely overlook anything good in the world and unnecessarily call it dark, or write the good off as an aberration. The church would not be able to affirm anything in the world, and that would be our loss because non-Christians do have lots of knowledge the church can use. It would also ruin our credibility because there are, indeed, good people in the world who are not Christians. They don’t know God, but they do lots of good things nevertheless. If we try to say that only Christians can be good people, well that just isn’t so. There is light and dark, but outside of the spiritual realm it has nuances to it.
• The Bible provides many more metaphors for understanding what the church is. Principal among them are the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, and the temple of God. These metaphors focus on who we are in relation to God rather than the world, and so are not as problematic as the other metaphors I’ve described.

And of course, we don’t have to draw on the Bible to find metaphors for the church. We can make up our own. For example, in the previous post I used these words to describe the church:

• Under assault
• Squeezed
• Beleaguered
• A minority facing overwhelming competition
• Defensive
• Clinging to a past when state and culture aligned with it

If this cluster of words represented the full extent of my thinking about the church, then my best metaphor for the church would be a city under siege. My strategy for the church would then include (metaphorically speaking):

• Withdraw to safety behind the city’s walls
• Reinforce the walls
• Arm myself with as many weapons as I can find or make
• Change life in the city to a wartime footing
• Plot strategy to attack the enemy
• Protect against spies by distinguishing between ‘us’ and ‘them.’
• Recreate whatever we used to do outside the city walls (such as growing food) so that it can be done inside the city, and then we never have to leave the safety of the walls.
• Think of the city as a fortress, not a city

If I were really in a city under siege, these might be smart things to do. But are they at all helpful when we apply these strategies to the church? Is retreat into a fortress the best way to move forward? For portions of the church, this does seem to be their guiding metaphor, even if it is unstated.

The Quest for the Best Metaphor

The issue isn’t whether or not the biblical metaphors are valid. Of course they are all valid. There is nothing wrong with any of them. In fact, all of the biblical metaphors are helpful to me in various aspects of my life, spiritual growth, and ministry.

But we must be aware that whichever metaphor we use as our primary metaphor, it will shape the strategy and behaviour of the church a certain way. The question is always, “Is the way this metaphor is shaping the church in today’s environment helpful to our cause?”

What the church needs now is a metaphor to help us collectively navigate through the next leg of our journey together, which might be anywhere from fifty to three hundred years or more. Barring a miraculous intervention by God, I don’t see much changing in the next generation or two.

A Helpful Metaphor of the Church

Let’s be blunt about the situation the church is in today.

• Its favoured position has been lost.
• It’s in a culture that has very different ideas about virtually everything from sexual identity and morals to rights versus responsibilities, to notions of individual versus community well-being.
• Christians are very much in the minority, and we form a particular minority that it seems quite okay for the majority to mock and attack (thankfully, in Canada, attacks are mostly only made with words).
• We are surrounded by a culture that makes it increasingly difficult to practice our faith. For example, many Christians can no longer regularly worship at church on Sunday morning because they must work. If they aren’t willing to work Sundays, there are often career repercussions.

A growing number of Christian thought-leaders are saying that the very best metaphor for the church today is that of the church in exile, and I agree with them. Like the Jews living in Babylon:

• We are a minority community in a host culture that is not ours.
• We are subject to its laws, some of which we find difficult.
• We mourn what has been lost and have no idea when the situation will change.
• We have to find a new way of being the church just as the Jewish exiles had to find a new way to be Jewish without the Temple and without the Holy Land.
• We have been humbled, and must now pursue our mission from weakness, without the affirming structures of the state to support our work.
• We have to repent of the things we did or did not do that contributed to our current condition.

More broadly, we could also think of the church as now being in diaspora, a permanent form of exile. But in the Canadian context, isolating the Canadian church, I think exile works best.

Finding a Way Forward

The exciting truth is that while our reality has flipped upsidedown, God’s has not. God is still actively at work, implementing his plan even when we are in exile.

We can learn what he wants us to learn from this experience, and we can find new ways of being the church, new approaches to serving our country and our world, that I believe will lead to greater mission success than ever. I believe we are entering a new era of creative Christianity, and that working with God, all things are possible. We can still be a blessing to the world. The church once gave the Western world hospitals, universities, and institutions of care. What might similar gifts from the church to the world look like today? Get your creative juices flowing!

Why are we where we are today? Perhaps we became too prideful, too complacent, too cocky, with the trappings of power. God may have placed us in exile to reset our strategy, to help us acquire the humility from which his Son inaugurated his kingdom.

Let’s learn all we can and get on with the church’s mission in a fresh, new way. I’m confident that we’ll discover sooner or later the tremendous blessing that this so-called setback has been for us.

As this series continues, we’ll explore more about how the church in exile metaphor can help us be a better church. Stay with me!

Key Point: The church has lost its place of dominance and been marginalized by society

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I’ve had good and bad experiences with consultants and can share with you some suggestions as to when to use them and when to avoid them. The term ‘consultant’ captures a wide range of services, a wide range of paradigms that influence their output, and like lawyers and accountants they can be solo practitioners or members of a global firm.

Types of Consultants

It is helpful to distinguish between the various types:

• Pure consulting is limited to investigation of a topic or issue, reporting and perhaps recommendations. However, many consultants do much more by performing work that ranges from interviewing customers for market research or doing ongoing work such as HR or IT as part of an outsourcing strategy.
• Every consultant has paradigms or models on which they base their work. You need to understand what their model is to be sure you buy into it. Based on the assignment, the consultant should be able to tell you which models they will use to develop their recommendations. Many large consulting firms are famous for developing particular models (such as the Boston Consulting Group’s Growth-Share Matrix), so you know these models will loom large in their approach to your issue.  Ask consultants which books have influenced them.  If you’ve done any preparatory research on the issue (if you haven’t done it, do it now!), you should be familiar with the various approaches and issues and will likely have an opinion as to which approach fits best with your situation. At the very least, you will know the questions to ask.
• Whether you go with a large firm or an independent consultant depends on your needs and, most of all, your budget. A large firm will likely cost more, but you get the advantage of a consultant with access to a large knowledge bank and associates who can provide specialized expertise if needed. An independent consultant may be less expensive and less committed to a particular model, and therefore be more versatile. For most charities, cost will be the deciding factor in favour of smaller firms or solo practitioners. Just be sure you agree with their basic approach.

To Use or Not to Use?

Some leaders use consultants a lot and others won’t have anything to do with them. I’ve heard stories of consultants messing things up and I’ve heard other stories of consultants who helped organizations achieve a significant breakthroughs.

When should you use a consultant? I googled this question and found lots and lots of advice…from consultants trying to sell their services! Hardly unbiased advice.  I didn’t find a single buyer of consulting services who wrote about it from their perspective.

I did, however, find a really great book, Extract Value from Consultants: How to Hire, Control, and Fire Them, written by two consultants that reads like an exposé from the inside. Since both have worked for global consulting firms, I guess that’s what it is! They detail all the tricks of the trade that consultants use to hook a client and then squeeze them for more cash as the work progresses. Then the authors tell you how to reverse the tables, fight back and extract value from them. If you use consultants, read it!

How to Decide

We’ve used several consultants over the years at CCCC, so I’m open to using them, but I am very judicious as to when. As a buyer of consulting services, here are my thoughts about when they are appropriate:

• A consultant might be handy if you and your staff are stumped about a problem and you need a breakthrough. They can draw on what they have learned from numerous clients, they have a fresh perspective, and they have no commitments to the status quo.
• Consultants provide an independent, objective assessment of a situation and can confirm or disprove your assumptions. They can illuminate any blind spots you might have. On the upside, I hired a consultant who is an expert on Canadian associations. We wanted to know how CCCC is doing from an association perspective and this person had done detailed analysis of more than one hundred associations. He brought a perspective that we could never have ourselves. He said, based on performance metrics, that we are a top-performing association. That’s good to know. We don’t have problems that need fixing, just opportunities to exploit. We know where to focus. On the downside, especially for ‘quick looks,’ consultants might only get a superficial understanding of your operations and environment. I’ve seen reports that are simplistic because the authors simply didn’t get a deep understanding of the nuances and contexts.
• Outsiders can say things you want said but don’t want to say yourself. They don’t have to live with the consequences!
• If you face a steep, long or expensive learning curve, you can use a consultant who has done it before and who has spread the cost of the learning curve over multiple clients. Just be sure that there is a transfer of knowledge so that when you engage a consultant your own staff learns something. Don’t simply accept their recommendations. Ask how they arrived at the recommendation. Those are the processes you want to learn.
• The work might be something your team could do, but there are higher priorities taking the team’s time. The work needs to be done, but you just don’t have the time.

Your Leadership Responsibility

As a leader, you are always responsible for your decisions. You can’t delegate decisions to a consultant. It is always up to you to make a decision. Check how they came to make their recommendation and be sure it is based on reasonable assumptions and complete data. Watch out for “me too” recommendations. If the consultant is simply following what everyone else is doing, then that is all that you will be doing too. That’s no way to get ahead! All you’ll do is catch up to the crowd. You’ll also have to check their recommendations for feasibility. It’s easy to make expensive recommendations when it will be paid for by someone else.

My main message is that consultants are not a magic bullet. Don’t count on them fixing everything that you haven’t been able to fix. A consultant provides another viewpoint, another option. They are not always right. The real value of a consultant is the new idea or perspective they are able to contribute from their specialized knowledge and experience. They can broaden your horizons and make you aware of new possibilities beyond what you are capable of thinking of. You just have to take what they suggest and assess it for yourself to see if it really fits your ministry.

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