Indianapolis is a beautiful city—at least downtown. New football stadium, upscale dining, elevated mall in all the buildings connected by skyway bridges between the buildings, and three microbreweries within 2 blocks of my hotel (“Alcatraz” and “Ram” are on the same block). Yes, I’ve been to all three microbreweries. It’s also the state capitol, so there’s a slow steady stream of black Lincoln Towncars with tinted windows…I wonder who is coming and going from the statehouse?

The conference (American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation: AACVPR) has been productive. I’ve been networking to meet new people, reconnecting with people I’ve known for years, and sitting through numerous scientific presentations and an awards banquet. There was an industry-sponsored reception with amazing food (“filet sliders…like little hamburgers but with filet mignon!”) and top shelf liquor (I had to have some Petron).

All this epitomizes the kosmos. Bright lights, big city, friendly faces (all the restaurants have a window sticker announcing “Indianapolis welcomes AACVPR!”), great food/drink, clean city (not too many homeless bums begging food), and lavish accommodations are everywhere. I’m staying at the Canterbury Hotel, which costs the same as a big brand-name hotel, but which is really old and cool (on the national historic register). Also has free wi-fi and valet parking. Even the weather cooperated, with mid-70’s temperatures, constant sun, and no need for even a light coat.

The kosmos whispers “everything is fine…don’t worry…you’re having a good time…” It is very subtle at times, and in-your-face in other contexts. This is not Vegas, it’s not a sin-city. It’s the heartland of America, smiling and winking at you to remind you that it’s all going to be OK. Meanwhile CNN is freaking out over the stock market and enormous government bailout of our financial institutions.

This time around, I’m strangely disinterested in the conference itself. This week I missed CrossRoads Project, a C&C hosted by my home church, and CT. I miss my kids. I miss my wife. I am acutely aware of the enormous value of the body of Christ after the “Multi-site exposed” conference, and it sucks to be gone.

Would I do it again? Well, yes. Everyone works, sometimes you travel. To use an agricultural metaphore, my wheat has to grow just as high as every other farmer’s. But I don’t have to like it, and I don’t have to listen. The kosmos is a cruel master. Although it claims to have everything systematized and programmed to run smoothly and provide a fun and safe alternative to the dangerous adventure of Jesus’ new and living way, it is more like slowly setting cement underfoot. When you look down to realize that you’re trapped in the solid cement, suddenly they’re breaking the sidewalk up into blocks and throwing you into the sea to sink with all the other victims of “the system.”

The three themes in Christian ministry among the faculty that most concern me are: academic integration, spiritual disciplines, and kingdom theology applied to the university. Unfortunately, academic integration is overrated, spiritual disciplines are stupid, and recapturing the university for Christ is a fool’s errand. Because these are common themes of Christian Faculty Conferences, I don’t go. But the interesting blog is in why I would be so cynical, mean-spirited, and contrary to these contemporary currents in evangelical Christianity.

Let me mention, before I began to criticize in earnest, that J.P. Moreland, Dallas Willard, and William Lane Craig are my heroes. They are among the most prominent Christian faculty alive, and they have been very active in championing the Christian faith in the University. I probably will not amount to much as a Christian missionary to the campus compared to them. Still, I am about to argue that these great men of faith who have come before me are misguided on some tenets of their public minsitry. I am not trying to make ad hominem attacks, and it makes me very sad to part ways with certain aspects of their ministry philosophy, but here I go.

Academic Integration is Overrated

Everyone has to do academic integration to some degree, especially in philosophy. But very few people are going to be at the leading edge of integration (e.g., Philip Johnson, Behe). Most attempts at integration by Christian faculty would be “pretend minsitry” in my view. That is, it is simply not that important that Bob the biologist at your university focus his research career on integrating evolution and creation, or championing creation science.

It is not useful because what is more important is being a missionary to the campus. Other eminent scholars already tackled the integration issue in key fields, and in my opinion it would be better to be a missionary than to strive to resist modernism or postmodernism in my discpline (for me, health psychology). True, some integration is necessary at a personal level, and is helpful to be able to defend Christianity in a one-on-one exchange with students, but it is a diversion as a research career for most Christian faculty. A research career in academic integration would be most possible at a religious institution, and would be in the category of “not scholarship” at most public and private universities.

Furthermore, in my view “academic integration” lets faculty off the hook for “Christian service” that affects no one’s lives. It’s like singing in the choir at church—if that’s your great work of ministry you ain’t doing much. It’s what you like to do for fun anyway, and it does not win the lost. Try pouring your life out for others—that’s authentic minsitry. Dennis McCallum just said at the 2008 Xenos Summer Institute that the “worship theory of evangelism” is possibly the dominant strategy the church in America uses to win the lost, and that it has simply not worked. That is, non-Christians simply do not come to a worship service, see a rockin’ band, and start thinking “I should be a Christian.” It is a very sad tale, and the thousands of men and women giving their efforts for music ministry have been diverted from strategies that are proven to work. So show me the evidence that, on the whole, academic integration is an effective ministry tool. And the phrase “on the whole” is critical here because I am well aware that there are notable exceptions. In the field of philosophy, theism has made a dramatic comeback documented by J.P. Moreland and others. Some scientists have turned academic integration into wonderful opportunities (e.g., Behe). But I still believe that the typical Christian faculty member should spend their time in evangelism, discipleship, church planting, and other people-oriented ministry efforts.

Again, a caveat is in order for this objection. First, everyone has to do some academic integration on a personal level. Compartmentalizing one’s life into “secular” and “sacred” has terrible consequences. Furthermore, anti-intellectualism is a scourge of modern Christianity, and I am not advocating ignorance or a refusal to think through one’s area of scholarship. Rather, a concentrated focus on academic integration as a staple of ministry efforts is a distraction from more pressing matters.

So why do people do it? I think that this is an effect of reformed/covenant theology, which comes up below in my third major subheading.

Spiritual Disciplines are Stupid

I’v e blogged about this before in my review of J.P. Moreland’s “Kingdom Triangle,” the second side of which is spiritual disciplines. So here goes again.

Spiritual disciplines are groundless in the Bible and we are warned that they are useless. Yet they are a major focus of Christian faculty conferences and retreats. The argument that J.P. Moreland makes in their favor is from passages like Romans 12:1. He takes Romans 12:1, Romans 6:11-13, Colossians 3:5, and 1 Timothy 4:7-8 to be passages about our physical bodies and how we should use our physical bodies to engage in physical actions that bring about sanctification. “Flesh” in these passages is supposed to mean “the sinful tendencies or habits that reside in the body and whose nature is opposite to the Kingdom of God” (p. 151). So the sin nature is supposed to be in my physical body. For example, he asserts that anger is often in the stomach, gossip in the tongue, and lust in the eyes (why not in the penis?). According to Moreland, the solution is to engage in spiritual disciplines. A spiritual discipline is “a repetitive practice that targets one of these areas in order to replace bad habits with good ones” (p. 153). As a metaphore he uses tennis, in which bad tennis habits (your “tennis flesh”) are cured by submission to a tennis instructor and practice that strengthens better tennis habits and thus “tennis righteousness.” Moreland advocates the typical spiritual disciplines of engagement (e.g., study, worship, service) and abstinence (e.g., solitude, silence, fasting, and sacrifice).

I think that Moreland is wrong. I think he takes Romans 12:1 out of context. He asserts that “presenting our bodies to Christ” means exercising parts of the body to become less sinful and more Christlike. Rather, the passage starts with ‘therefore’ which refers back to Romans 1-11, and the context makes clear that Paul is writing to believers to remind them that the entire world is condemned (Jew and Greek) but that we have now received the astonishing gift of grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and can be justified before God and declared righteous. What is our response? The metaphore in Romans 12:1 is the thank offering, which is a burnt offering in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we are the offering our entire selves, given freely to God in thanks for what he has done for us. That’s our reasonable act of worship. This is not at all the same as exercising to become sanctified.

Second, the sin nature (i.e., flesh) is an aspect of our human nature that we inherited from Adam as part of being human beings. The “flesh” is only one word the bible uses to describe the sin nature, and others include “the sin which indwells me” (Romans 7:7-25), “heart” (Jeremiah 17:9), and “outer man” (2 Cor. 4:7-18). The Greek word “sarx” is translated flesh, and although it can refer to the physical body (Galatians 2:20), it is also used in ways that do not refer to the physical body. For example “flesh” is used to refer to human accomplishments in Philippians 3:4.

Thus, the sin nature is all-encompassing, and a false dualism suggesting that the sin nature resides solely in the physical body and not in the rest of a person is mistaken. In fact, this view sounds like weird mysticism, and is strangely similar to a view typical of gnostics. The gnostic heresy that John addressed in 1 John included the idea that the body is bad and the spirit is good, so anything the body does is irrelevant (e.g., orgies). Moreland says the badness is in the body, so the body has to get reformed. But, the flesh described in the bible doesn’t map onto parts of the body as Moreland suggests when he says that the flesh is “the sinful tendencies or habits that reside in the body and whose nature is opposite to the Kingdom of God” (p. 151).

Another problem with Moreland’s argument is the fact that rightousness does not replace the sin nature by getting into the body through exercising these parts of the body. There is not enough time here to discuss the theology of sanctification (it is complicated), but self effort does not work, and in fact is offensive. Galatians 3:2-3 says “The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Although you began with the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort?”  That is, sancitification is by grace through faith, just like salvation. Good works, even when repeated and prolonged, do not sanctify.

In fact, targeting the physical body to produce righteousness is a wrong-headed idea. If targeting the physical body were a good approach to sanctification, then the Buddhists and other religions that use body-focused techniques would have a great strategy. Physical exercise should also do wonders for unrighteousness. Obviously, none of this produces sanctification or lasting character change of a Christian nature. On the other side of this argument, why are so many spiritual disciplines unrelated to parts of the body? What part of the body does frugality strengthen, fortify, or relax? What about submission? Fellowship? Study? If a spiritual discipline is “a repetitive practice that targets one of these areas in order to replace bad habits with good ones,” then the commonly practiced spiritual disciplines should involve using specific parts of the body.

Of course, the most important objection is that spiritual disciplines are not commanded by the bible. Bob DeWaay of Critical Issues Commentary tackles this point in earnest (http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue91.htm). He pionts out that Dallas Willard’s primary text supporting the practice of spiritual disciplines, which is Matthew 11:29-30, does not actually teach that spiritual disciplines should be practiced (from Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines). He also notes that even Willard agrees that spiritual disciplines are not found elsewhere in scripture. Furthermore, DeWaay reminds us that “they had ascetics in Paul’s day and he rebuked them”  (Colossians 2:20-23). This passage is worth quoting here in its entirety:

“If you have died with Christ to the elemental spirits of the world, why do you submit to them as though you lived in the world? ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’ These are all destined to perish with use, founded as they are on human commands and teachings. Even though they have the appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship and false humility achieved by an unsparing treatment of the body – a wisdom with no true value – they in reality result in fleshly indulgence.” (Colossians 2:20-23).

So, accoring to scripture, activities that would be indistinguishable from today’s spiritual disciplines look like they would be a good idea, bu they actually are without value and are merely human inventions. In fact, they are worse than benign meaningless activities, and rather have the potential to cause real harm (“result in fleshly indulgence”).

Problems associated with spiritual disciplines are numerous. In my view, they are:

·         Legalistic, amounting to a Christian self-help program when the Bible is clear that we cannot help ourselves.

·         Unbalanced, elevating self-indulgent practices (e.g., solitude, silence) to equal prominence with critical teachings of the bible (e.g., committment to the body of Christ, sacrificial service).

·         Distracting, letting Christians off the hook when they’re doing self-focused navel gazing even though they neglect the clear mandates of Jesus Christ (e.g., make disciples). People can feel that they are making real progress by having spiritual retreats despite doing little actual service for the Lord.

·         Non-relational (e.g., silence, solitude) when the Bible clearly emphasizes love relationships in the Body of Christ.

·         Formalistic, when the scriptures condemn religious formalism. For example, Jesus taught against formalism on many occaisions, including the famous “Lord’s prayer” passage which has somehow been converted into religious formalism by many religious people. In fact, prayer is not a “spiritual discipline” at all, but rather communication with a real person.

Back to the point of this soap box—spiritual disciplines are a major theme of Christian faculty retreats, as well as the ministry strategy of Campus Crusade and Intervarsity for faculty. I find this unhelpful to campus ministry (and a generally problematic thread in contemporary Christianity).

Recapturing the University for Christ is a Fool’s Errand

My final point of contention with Christian Faculty ministries is the idea that we should try to recapture the university for Christ. This idea seems to come from the belief that the church should be placing Christians in places of prominence in culture in order to redeem culture, combined with the alarming secularization of the university that has rapidly taken place. Therefore, we should retake lost ground to stem the tide of spiritual decline threatening the church.  The logic seems inescapable, and the crisis is so greivous that the proposed solution feels compelling.

            The University has Gone Secular

There is no doubt that the university has become secular. There are a number of very scholarly and convincing treatments of this topic, such as George Marsden’s “The Soul of the American University.” This book explains how the American University went from “Christian” to completely secular in about one generation.  I completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, which is a good example.  Originally a Methodist university, a plaque by a statue near the glorious chapel reads “The aims of Duke University are to assert a faith in the eternal union of knowledge and religion set forth in the teachings and character of Jesus Christ, the son of God.” Since Duke started in 1924, there has been a complete abandonment of any religious faith by the institution of Duke University, and it is now completely secular. The revised statement issued by the administration in the 80’s makes this clear; “Duke cherishes its historic ties with the United Methodist Church and the religious faith of its founders, while remaining nonsectarian.”

This is only one example, but I believe that any examination of the evidence whould reveal a nearly total revolution in universities in this country from centers of Christian education to secular institutions committed to atheism or agnosticism. To quote George Veith “The university was a Christian invention” and “Universities once devoted to the pursuit of truth are, ironically, the very institutions that are denying there is any such thing.” (Veith, 1999, Can We Recapture the Ivory Tower? World Magazine).

            But the University is the Center of Culture!

I also understand that universities are absolutely central to culture. Universities create culture. Universities define what is true, what constitutes knowledge, and what is good. Every leader in society is university educated. Every young person of sufficient means and aptitude leaves home for the university. The university is where individual’s worldviews coalesce as they individuate from their parents and become independently functioning adults. The influence of the university in America cannot be understated. Therefore, the university is an extremely strategic context for Christian ministry. Nevertheless, I do not believe that recapturing the center of culture is an appropriate strategy for Christian faculty.*

            Covenant Theology applied to the University

I am not a theologian, and I don’t fully understand coventant theology vs. dispensationalism. However, I am becoming more aware how dominant covenant theology is in major seminaries and churches in America. For more background, see http://neozine.org/inside/the-reformed-restless-reformed/ and http://neozine.org/inside/the-dawn-of-covenant-theology/.

Applied to the university, covenant theology would imply that the institution of the university should be reclaimed for Christ. To be succint and blunt, I believe that this is possible because the devil still has authority over the kosmos. For example, history demonstrates that every time the church has become the government, atrocities result (e.g., crusades). The devil’s sphere of influence is man-made institutions and systems that the bible refers to as “the world” (i.e., kosmos). The university was a man-made institution that was originally intended to serve the church, but it has been co-opted by the devil and turned into yet another structure in the world system that promotes the values of the kosmos. We cannot win back the structures of the world system, but we can help to rescue the captives of the kosmos and bring them into the church. The body of Christ is organic, based in loving-relationships and empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is as far from institutional as you can get. The difference between the implication of covenant theology and dispensationalism, when applied to the university, is like the difference between trying to repair the titanic after it struck the iceberg and working to convince people to board the life rafts as it goes down.

To be fair, I know I’m not supporting my assertions on this last point very well. There’s just no space or time to argue covenant theology vs. dispensationalism. All I have done was to point out the major implication of these very different theologies when they are applied to the university. I think that winning the institution of the university for Christ goes hand in hand with academic integration, and together these strategies are not focused on winning the lost people in the university.

This blog was far too long. All this to say, I do not attend Christian faculty conferences.

*As an interesting aside, as education becomes more expensive and prima facia irrelevant to the consuming public, there is a chance that Universities will lose their grip on society (see C. John Sommerville, The Decline of the Secular University). For example, my friend took classes called “Comics into movies” (about the conversion of graphic novels to full-length motion pictures) and “I want my MTV,” only to find that his education did not provide any credentials necessary to get a job. The public is noticing that the university is plagued by high cost, lack of accountability, uneven quality, and the proliferation of fluffy curricula…a backlash may be coming! In Ohio there is a clear “business-ification” of education underway. The state legislature is enacting reforms that will attempt to make the state universities contribute to the state economy. So much for idealistic values like “truth” and “knowledge!”

As we read in my blog from awhile back, Daniel and his friends were forcibly marched about 800 miles from Jerusalem to Bablyon in about 605 BC to start a three year program of study prior to entering the job market as employees of the royal family. He was caught on the horns of a dilemma; should he cave into the pressures of the system or curl up in a fetal position and die? He didn’t want to abandon his faith and dive headlong into the Babylonian religion and culture, but the only alternative appeared to be a miserable death or perhaps isolation in some filthy refugee camp.

Daniel’s choice is not that different from the dilemma facing every Christian university student. We understand that “friendship with the world is enmity toward God” (James 4) and that we are to “love not the world” (1 John). We also know that we are “in the world but not of the world” (John 17) and that we are to live as “strangers in the world” (1 Peter 1). We know that “the world hates you” because “you do not belong to the world” (John 15). Furthermore, Jesus prays for his disciples in John 17 “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them safe from the evil one.”

So how do we live in America? The pressure of our culture is enormous. Materialism, power, sex, ego, career, and other “carrots” are all clamoring for attention. But the ‘withdraw into a Christian ghetto’ approach is nearly as deadly as succumbing to the temptations that surround us. The Christian ghetto rejects Jesus’ command to “GO” to all the nations, and treats the living-dead sin-slaves all around us as enemies instead of captives to be pitied and freed. The ghetto approach of separation into “safe” institutions is as futile as Jerusalem’s attempt to withstand the seiges of Nebuchadnezzar. The Babylonian empire was in total control of the known world at the time, and the walls of Jerusalem would not keep them out. Similarly, there is no church that will protect us or our children from the influences of the world system (kosmos). Most youth abandon their faith (read Barna’s research), and although I can’t prove I believe that the “protected” youth are most at risk. The minute they grow up and step outside the confines of censorship land (e.g., the home and Sunday school room), a naïve Christian boy or girl is woefully unprepared to withstand the onslaught of our adversary and the world system he controls. Withdrawal is futile.

I would like to discuss the third option that Daniel took. He responded with honor and courage. Honor means living in the world as an upstanding citizen, respecting authority, working hard at our studies and careers, and treating everyone around us with dignity and respect. However, this has to be combined with courage—the determination to stand up to evil and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ even when it’s scary to do so.

Honor

Daniel treated everyone with honor. He followed the chain of command, he didn’t lie/cheat/steal, and he never took advantage of his position to back-stab his captors. He probably could have taken revenge when no one was watching. He earned the respect of three kings (Nebuchadnezzar, Belteshazzar, and Darius), despite the fact that he was a slave his entire life. He was aware of the letter Jeremiah sent to the captives in Babylon, which had been dictated to Jeremiah by God.

The prophet Jeremiah sent a letter to the exiles Nebuchadnezzar had carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon…the letter said: “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says to all those he sent into exile to Babylon from Jerusalem ‘Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and allow your daughters to get married so that they too can have sons and daughters. Grow in number; do not dwindle away. Work to see that the city where I sent you as exiles enjoys peace and prosperity. Pray to the Lord for it. For as it prospers you will prosper.’” (Jeremiah 29:1-7)

This letter continues and makes other points, but what is astonishing to me about this letter is that God did not want the captives to rebel, to give up and die, or to complain and gripe about living in Babylon! Rather, he wants them to keep on living their lives, to work hard, and to support the country where they live! I think that somehow Daniel understood that God’s plan had always been for Israel to be a “light to the Nations” (Isaiah) and that “all the people of the earth will be blessed” through Abraham’s descendent (the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12). So far from commanding or condoning hatred and rebellion toward a Godless world, Daniel and company were asked to play along enthusiastically. God wants us to treat the powers of this fallen kosmos with honor. Daniel’s plan from the beginning of his 800 mile death march was to show his captors the love of God, because God loves everyone—even evil people. And Daniel’s love made a huge difference—Nebuchadnezzar eventually converted and Darius supported Nehemiah’s return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city walls.

We see the same thing in 1 Peter 2:11-17—“Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of the foolish. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a coverup for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love your fellow believers, fear God, honor the emperor.”

So God clearly wants us to live in this world, to work hard, to show people respect, and to honor authority. This means you should do your homework, don’t cheat in class, make plenty of widgets at your job, etc. My dad says “the Christian farmers’ wheat should grow just as high as any that of any other farmer.”

But there is a danger that people will misinterpret this to mean that they can make a truce with the devil and live at peace in the world. We are at war, and there is not going to be peace. Daniel knew he was a slave and not a free man, or he would probably have packed his bags for a return trip to Jerusalem! This is where courage comes in.

Courage

My other blog describes how Daniel took serious risks to remain undefiled by the King’s food. Over and over in Daniel we read how Daniel and company would not compromise when it came to their faith. Thrown in the lions den, cast into the fiery furnace, whatever—they weren’t going to compromise. They believed that God would save them, or that it would be worth it to die instead of compromise.

This reminds me of a song in Les Miserables by Enjolras:

            “It is time for us all to decide who we are. Do we fight for the right to a night at the opera now? Have you asked of yourselves what’s the price you might pay? Is it simply a game for rich young boys to play? The color of the world is changing day by day…” (The ABC Café—Red and Black).

The context is different but the tone is the same. Enjolras and company were going to defy the government of France by building a barricade in the streets. They had a meeting in the Café to decide…are we willing to die for this cause? Nearly all of them did die on that barricade. How sad—there was not a dry eye in the Palace Theatre in London on the night I saw Les Miserables.

But our cause makes theirs look trite and foolish. I am reminded of an address by C.S. Lewis in 1939 to a group of new students at Oxford entitled “Learning in War-Time.” There they sat, eager nervous frosh at Oxford about to embark on a program of study during WWII. It might have seemed to them odd to go to school during a war, but C.S. Lewis made the point that the war is trival compared to the real war we all face. Lewis asks are we “fiddling while Rome burns?” No, rather we “fiddle on the brink of hell.” He explains further “how is it right, or even psychologically possible, for creatures who are every moment advancing either to heaven or to hell, to spend any fraction of the little time allowed them in this world on such comparative trivialities as literature or art, mathematics or biology?”

His point is that WWII did not present a new situation, and neither did Daniel’s captivity in Babylon, nor our life in 21^st century America. We are not to withdraw from culture and hide in caves just because things are going badly. Our duty is to rescue the lost in our fallen world, and withdrawing into some super-spiritual exclusively religious existence is wrong. It is very tempting to survey the darkness around us and start thinking our “present predicament more abnormal than it really is.” According to Lewis “War threatens us with death and pain” but “there is no question of death or life for any of us; only a question of this death or of that—of a machine gun bullet now or a cancer forty years later. What does war do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 per cent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased. It puts several deaths earlier; but I hardly suppose that that is what we fear. Certainly when the moment comes, it will make little difference how many years we have behind us.”

Perhaps this is how Daniel felt. His life in Bablyon hung by a thread, but his life with God was eternal and secure. What did it matter if he were killed for refusing to defile himself? He had the courage of a man living in God’s kingdom, already dead to this world.

And so we will live like Daniel. We arrive at Kent and Akron this fall to launch a Campus Bible Study. We know that the University hates us because we are Christians (see my other blog “what we are facing”). We will lives characterized by honor—respecting authority, doing our work, and participating in life in the University. We will also courageous lives; like strangers and foreigners in the world, already dead to the world and whatever defilements it offers. This means we will not become entangled in ordinary affairs to the exclusion of our mission—to win the world for Christ. There is little chance that we will actually be killed for our faith, but fear remains a great enemy of boldness. So let us recall the words of Jesus “In the world you have trouble and suffering, but take courage–I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33b).

One of my favorite articles in psychology is entitled “Why I do not attend case conferences” by Paul Meehl (1973). In this humorous and sometimes biting essay, Paul Meehl explains the apparent discrepancy noted by his students that, despite decades of continuous clinical practice, he almost never attends case conferences in which students are required to present and discuss their clinical cases. His answer is that the intellectual level is so low that he cannot bear to attend, and he then ennumerates a list of offenses such as the idea that all evidence is equally good, the tendency to reward every student for even the lamest efforts, and other types of generally unscientific thinking.

The article is provocative and intentially offered as a polemic. Meehl is funny. For example, he offers “Uncle George’s pancakes fallacy…a patient does not like to throw away leftover pancakes and he stores them in the attic. A mitigating clinician says, ‘Why, there is nothing so terrible about that—I remember good ole Uncle George from my childhood, he used to store uneaten pancakes in the attic.’ The proper conclusion from such a personal recollection is, of course, not that the patient is mentally well but that good ole Uncle George—whatever may have been his other delightful qualities—was mentally aberrated” (p. 239). However, Meehl is not simply writing a humor column. He has a number of points to make, because he does care about the competent practice of psychology.

His points are not interesting here, but I am writing in the same spirit as Meehl to explain my paradox. I consider myself a fairly zealous Christian, but I do not attend Christian Faculty Conferences. I have a long history of trying to become a Christian professor in the secular university. After 5 years on the faculty, as I prepare for my tenure review, I have been reflecting on what I’ve done to get here and attempt to establish myself as a missionary to the campus.

I felt called to minister in the secular university before I finished high school, although I could not have articulated any coherent reason at the time. I chose to be educated at a Christian University (Biola University), so that I could learn to articulate and defend my Christian worldview. This is where my quest to obtain a position on the faculty of a secular university began. I have not wavered from this mission, and during my graduate education at Colorado University, Colorado Springs and The Ohio State University I remained active in my local church and tried to become equipped as a Christian worker. At Ohio State I tracked down the very helpful and kindly director of the Faculty ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. I have read (among others) J.P. Moreland, Dallas Willard, and William Lane Craig, and I have heard them all speak in person and via mp3 from various internet resources. I am acutely aware of the decline of Christianity in the University. For a real-life example, the director of Campus Crusade at Kent and I searched for Christian faculty and staff to start a prayer meeting. We found only about 6 people who were clearly Christians among the nearly 900 tenure-track faculty. So far as I can tell, they are doing very little to advance the cause of Christ in the University. I have continued to work in my local church, and now help to lead a home church and men’s bible study (comprised of mostly post-college twentysomethings with no children). I am a deacon in my church, an ordained minister in the state of Ohio, have performed several weddings for members of my home church, and am a trustee of my church. In addition to being in the teaching rotation for church and bible studies, I have preached in the main church service on several occaisions.

I consider myself a tent-maker missionary to the secular University. I invite graduate students and undergraduate students to my church, my home church, and outreach events sponsored by my home church. I share the gospel in my office with unsaved students. My efforts have not been fruitless, as a several students (and non-students) have received Christ during the course of my ministry efforts. Some become incorporated into my local fellowship and are discipled. Some leave Ohio when their education is finished. Others attend other churches, but continue to speak with me regarding spiritual matters. Together we plan coordinated outreach efforts targeting faculty and students whom we long to see receive Christ. I have not yet succeeded in building a home church of actual college students from my university, but I am working on it.

I have tried to work with local para-church missions organizations on campus such as Campus Crusade for Christ and Intervarsity Christian Fellowship (during a very brief attempt to plant a local chapter). I have referred undergraduates to their meetings, and I have attended these meetings to observe them. I meet with the local director of Campus Crusade periodically, and started a faculty/staff prayer meeting with the former director (discontinued when he left and was replaced). I have also become familiar with the faculty ministries of Campus Crusade (Christian Leadership Ministry) and Intervarsity Christian Fellowship (Intervarsity Faculty Ministry). I signed up to be a faculty mentor with Intervarsity’s “Emerging Scholars Network.” I have read Leadership University (http://www.leaderu.com/), have read the websites of Christian Leadership Ministries and Intervarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Ministries, and have downloaded ministry resources. When Campus Crusade sent some ambassadors from Indiana to meet with the faculty, I was one of the only Christian tenure-track professors to show up. When a Christian professor at another university hosted a back-to-school prayer breakfast, I’ve attended every year I was invited. When the new director of Campus Crusade showed up, I made a point of meeting with him as soon as his schedule would allow.

For all this, I have not attended a Christian Faculty conference or retreat. I will not be at “The Heart of the University” sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ in Washington this year. I will not be at “Spiritual Formation and the Academic Life” sponsored by Intervarsity Faculty Ministry. How can this be? Why would I choose not to avail myself of these resources when I have diligently sought out so many others?

In a nutshell, I have come to the conclusion that Campus Crusade and Intervarsity Fellowship are barking up the wrong tree(s) in their faculty ministries. They do have some valuable resources online, but in terms of practical help and instruction/equipping, I think they have the wrong focus. Thus, their conferences are probably not that helpful. In fact, I think that the emphasis on conferences as a ministry tool is unfortunate. First of all, I don’t have money for conferences. Second, I would prefer practical help right where I am trying to minister. Third, conferences are a high intensity, low frequency approach to assisting faculty. High intensity—probably very inspiring, motivating, and stimulating. They are probably very exciting and emotionally rewarding. But low frequency—they are only once a year. Try sustaining a marriage on one fantastic vacation a year with minimal interaction in between! It doesn’t work. What is required is fairly frequent, but less emotionally intense, encouragement and support. The demands on faculty are so strong and compelling that one pep rally per year probably does not lead to sustainable ministry efforts that are hard work, every week of the year.

In all fairness, these conferences are perhaps very enlightening for the large group of Christian faculty who are doing nothing. In my experience, most Christian faculty are too enamored with the kosmos. Work in the secular university can be so enriching and/or grueling, and the academy has become so decadent/indulgent or hectic/draining that the temptation to give 100% for career is overwhelming. This has been a great struggle for me. The “carrot” of a chance to feather a very nice nest, combined with the “stick” of being fired for failing to receive tenure are powerful forces that compel most Christian faculty to put their job first. So the Christians in academics who are totally “asleep in the light” would probably benefit from a kick start of any kind—including a national conference.

However, these objections are minor compared to the three themes in Christian ministry among the faculty that concern me. They are: academic integration, spiritual disciplines, and kingdom theology applied to the university. Unfortunately, academic integration is overrated, spiritual disciplines are stupid, and recapturing the university for Christ is a fool’s errand. However, these are the three aspects of ministry that Campus Crusade and Intervarsity Christian Fellowship seem to emphasize for faculty. How sad, given that both of these para-church organizations appear to have solid missions strategies for reaching the undergraduates. If it were me, the only priority would be to involve faculty in the mission!

In my next blog (Part 2), I will try to explain my objections to academic integration, spiritual disciplines, and kingdom theology applied to the university.

Now we continue with Part 2 of my review of “Kingdom Triangle” by J P Moreland. The second half of the book presents Moreland’s three-part solution to the problems facing the church, and this is where the book takes its name “triangle.” The three legs of this metaphorical stool are 1) the recovery of knowledge, 2) the rennovation of the soul, and 3) the restoration of the Kingdom’s miraculous power. Last time (see Part 1) I reviewed the first and third “sides of the triangle.”

Spiritual Disciplines

This brings me to the second suggestion; the rennovation of the soul. By this he means learning to practice “spiritual disciplines” in order to transform our character. Unfortunately, spiritual disciplines are groundless in the Bible and we are warned that they are useless. But first, let us consider his argument.

First, he takes Romans 12:1, Romans 6:11-13, Colossians 3:5, and 1 Timothy 4:7-8 to be passages about our physical bodies and how we should use our physical bodies to engage in physical actions that bring about sanctification. Here’s how he gets there. He says that “flesh” in these passages means “the sinful tendencies or habits that reside in the body and whose nature is opposite to the Kingdom of God” (p. 151). So the sin nature is in my physical body. For example, he asserts that anger is often in the stomach, gossip in the tongue, and lust in the eyes (why not in the penis?). According to Moreland, the solution is to engage in spiritual disciplines. A spiritual discipline is “a repetitive practice that targets one of these areas in order to replace bad habits with good ones” (p. 153). As a metaphore he uses tennis, in which bad tennis habits (your “tennis flesh”) are cured by submission to a tennis instructor and practice that strengthens better tennis habits and thus “tennis righteousness.” I am not making this up! Moreland advocates the typical spiritual disciplines of engagement (e.g., study, worship, service) and abstinence (e.g., solitude, silence, fasting, and sacrifice). One example of how this works, and a specific recommendation, is the practice of “affective meditation in our hearts.” This means we should 1) focus our attention on our physical heart muscle until we discern some negative emotional feelings in there 2) bring a new positive emotion from memory in order to mediate on it instead and stick it in the heart, so that we can learn to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart” (Proverbs 3:5).

As an aside, he also writes some other nonsense about “the brain in the heart.” I am a cardiovascular psychophysiologist with research interests in the relationship between emotions (e.g., depression, anxiety, and anger) and heart measures (e.g., heart rate variability). I know this literature fairly well, and I can assure you that the heart is not the location of emotions, nor is it thinking for itself. As a clinical psychologist with interests in cardiovascular behavioral medicine I would caution you not to focus your attention on your heart because there is a decent research literature on perception of bodily sensations in relation to the cardiovascular system that suggest this is not reliable. For example, you can’t feel high blood pressure—that’s why it’s the “silent killer” and also part of why people won’t take their high blood pressure medication. Furthermore, there is an important subset of individuals who suffer from non-cardiac chest pain for which they present to the physician with scary cardiac symptoms in the absence of any diagnosible heart disease. Focusing on frightening physical sensations is precisely the kind of thing that intensifies and prolongs problems like non-cardiac chest pain (and panic disorder). Treatment of non-cardiac chest pain includes getting people to stop focusing on these physical sensations! So focusing on the physical heart muscle in order to try to feel what is going on there is possibly harmful.

But back to the logic of his argument; Moreland is wrong. First of all, Moreland takes Romans 12:1 out of context. He asserts that “presenting our bodies to Christ” means exercising parts of the body to become less sinful and more Christlike. Rather, the passage starts with ‘therefore’ which refers back to Romans 1-11, and the context makes clear that Paul is writing to believers to remind them that the entire world is condemned (Jew and Greek) but that we have now received the astonishing gift of grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and can be justified before God and declared righteous. What is our response? The metaphore in Romans 12:1 is the thank offering, which is a burnt offering in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we are the offering our entire selves, given freely to God in thanks for what he has done for us. That’s our reasonable act of worship. This is not at all the same as exercising to become sanctified.

Second, the sin nature (i.e., flesh) is an aspect of our human nature that we inherited from Adam as part of being human beings. The “flesh” is only one word the bible uses to describe the sin nature, and others include “the sin which indwells me” (Romans 7:7-25), “heart” (Jeremiah 17:9), and “outer man” (2 Cor. 4:7-18). The Greek word “sarx” is translated flesh, and although it can refer to the physical body (Galatians 2:20), it is also used in ways that do not refer to the physical body. For example “flesh” is used to refer to human accomplishments in Philippians 3:4.

Thus, the sin nature is all-encompassing, and a false dualism suggesting that the sin nature resides solely in the physical body and not in the rest of a person is mistaken. In fact, this view sounds like weird mysticism, and is strangely similar to a view typical of gnostics. The gnostic heresy that John addressed in 1 John included the idea that the body is bad and the spirit is good, so anything the body does is irrelevant (e.g., orgies). Moreland says the badness is in the body, so the body has to get reformed. But, the flesh described in the bible doesn’t map onto parts of the body as Moreland suggests. Take as an example Paul’s words in Galatians 5:19ff  “Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things.” Where in the body does murder reside? It could reside in the hands and feet if you’re Bruce Lee, and perhaps the trigger finger if you’re Dirty Harry. Where in the body would sorcery reside? So, the works of the flesh do not map onto body parts or systems, as Moreland implies when he says that the flesh is “the sinful tendencies or habits that reside in the body and whose nature is opposite to the Kingdom of God” (p. 151).

Another problem with Moreland’s argument is the fact that rightousness does not replace the sin nature by getting into the body through exercising these parts of the body. There is not enough time here to discuss the theology of sanctification (it is complicated), but self effort does not work, and in fact is offensive. Galatians 3:2-3 says “The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Although you began with the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort?”  That is, sancitification is by grace through faith, just as salvation. Good works, even when repeated and prolonged, do not sanctify.

In fact, targeting the physical body to produce righteousness is a wrong-headed idea. If targeting the physical body were a good approach to sanctification, then the Buddhists and other religions would have a great strategy. Some forms of Buddhist meditation involve the “body scan” in which people meditate on their physical bodies in order to search out any uncomfortable physical sensations. They are then trained to maintain a passive awareness of these sensations in a non-judgemental manner. Another popular body-centric technique is progressive muscle relaxation, in which muscle groups are alternately tensed and relaxed in order to reduce body tension and relieve stress. Then there’s physical exercise such as cycling, which should do wonders for any unrighteousness residing in the legs, buttocks, and abodomen. The thigh-master would be helpful of course, and perhaps the spiritual discipline of hanging out in the dark could relax the eyes to prevent lust. Obviously, none of this produces sanctification or lasting character change of a Christian nature. On the other side of this argument, why are so many spiritual disciplines unrelated to parts of the body? What part of the body does frugality strengthen, fortify, or relax? What about submission? Fellowship? Study? If a spiritual discipline is “a repetitive practice that targets one of these areas in order to replace bad habits with good ones,” then the commonly practiced spiritual disciplines should involve using specific parts of the body.

Of course, the most important objection is that spiritual disciplines are not commanded by the bible. Bob DeWaay of Critical Issues Commentary tackles this point in earnest (http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue91.htm). He pionts out that Dallas Willard’s primary text supporting the practice of spiritual disciplines, which is Matthew 11:29,30 does not actually teach that spiritual disciplines should be practiced (from Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines). He also notes that even Willard agrees that spiritual disciplines are not found elsewhere in scripture. Furthermore, DeWaay reminds us that “they had ascetics in Paul’s day and he rebuked them”  (Colossians 2:20-23). This passage is worth quoting here in its entirety:

“If you have died with Christ to the elemental spirits of the world, why do you submit to them as though you lived in the world? ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’ These are all destined to perish with use, founded as they are on human commands and teachings. Even though they have the appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship and false humility achieved by an unsparing treatment of the body – a wisdom with no true value – they in reality result in fleshly indulgence.” (Colossians 2:20-23).

So, accoring to scripture, activities that would be indistinguishable from today’s spiritual disciplines look like they would be a good idea, bu they actually are without value and are merely human inventions. In fact, they are worse than benign meaningless activities, and rather have the potential to cause real harm (“result in fleshly indulgence”).

The problems associated with spiritual disciplines are numerous, but they include the fact that they are:

·        Legalistic, amounting to a Christian self-help program when the Bible is clear that we cannot help ourselves.

·        Unbalanced, elevating self-indulgent practices (e.g., solitude, silence) to equal prominence with critical teachings of the bible (e.g., committment to the body of Christ, sacrificial service).

·        Distracting, letting Christians off the hook when they’re doing self-focused navel gazing even though they neglect the clear mandates of Jesus Christ (e.g., make disciples). People can feel that they are making real progress by having spiritual retreats despite doing little actual service for the Lord.

·        Non-relational (e.g., silence, solitude) when the Bible clearly emphasizes love relationships in the Body of Christ.

·        Formalistic, when the scriptures condemn religious formalism. For example, Jesus taught against formalism on many occaisions, including the famous “Lord’s prayer” passage which has somehow been converted into religious formalism by many religious people. In fact, prayer is not a “spiritual discipline” at all, but rather communication with a real person.

What about sanctification?

In all fairness, I have only poked holes in Moreland’s argument for spiritual disciplines, without offering anything to replace his theory of sanctification with something else. Having a strong theology of sanctification is important because Moreland is right that the American church is in crisis, a crisis that includes a very low level of sanctification among most American Christians. We need to be very clear about our part in sanctification, God’s part, and how this process works. That will have to wait for another discussion. One purpose of this book review was to point out that learning to practice spiritual disciplines is not the right path to sanctification. I hope that this criticism does not detract too much from the rest of Moreland’s book, as his analysis of the decline of Christianity in America has much to commend it. I would still recommend this book, with the exception of his recommendations regarding the “rennovation of the soul.”

Where in the Bible is there an example of kids going off to college? Well, there are none (the modern University didn’t exist), but there is one example that has some interesting parallels. Daniel and his friends were forcibly marched about 800 miles from Jerusalem to Bablyon in about 605 BC to start a three year program of study prior to entering the job market as employees of the royal family. Daniel recorded these experiences in Daniel 1.

Their program of study would have been entirely religious (see http://www.xenos.org/teachings/ot/daniel/dennis/dan1-1.htm for my source material). They would have been studying the Bablyonian gods, magic spells, and all sorts of bizarre (to 12-16 year old Jewish boys!) subjects. They would have had powerful incentives to do well in their studies. Being in the employ of the King would mean money, women, power, and all the trappings of power. The catch is that they would have to play along. They were hostages from Israel, and they had the threat of death hanging over their heads if they rebelled, juxtaposed against the lure of worldly success if they got with the program.

This is not that different from the dilemma facing every Christian frosh on campus. Our culture holds the promise of worldly success for those who get their degree. It’s the institutional culture of the university, it’s the mantra of our western materialistic culture, and unfortunately it’s the same message that kids family’s pound home. Naïve Christian parents put enormous pressure on their kids to “make it.” It’s so seductive and it appears to make so much sense. The alternative is to be a “failure,” who rejects the values of the University (the bastion of secular humanism, raw materialism, unbridled hedonism, and many other destructive isms!). Don’t get me wrong–I’m not saying to never study and to intentionally fail out of school. But rather, are you pursuing worldly success or going in as a warrior to rescue the captives?

Well, what did Daniel do? He refused to eat the meat and wine from the King’s table. Now don’t be superficial on this—I’m not warning you to avoid drinking too much in college. That’s far to mundane an understanding to be the parallel I’m trying to draw. Rather, eating the meat/wine would have symbolized receiving any power/success from the Bablyonian Gods. In contrast, boring veggies and water didn’t carry this connotation. So they refused—took a counter-cultural stand against the values of the Bablyonian Empire. God totally backed up Daniel and friends. This theme was repeated through the rest of Daniel. Daniel in the Lions den, etc.

The point is what are you going to do? Are you ready to take huge risks in order to stay faithful to the Lord? Are you ready to sacrifice success in order to get busy with God’s work? Are you already planning to win the people around you instead of quietly condoning your peers’ enslavement to the university (and ultimately the world system)? Do you trust the Lord to have your back when you’re doing His work?

And here’s the kicker—Daniel and company remained faithful despite having been marched naked for 800 miles as hostages taken in war. They would never see their homeland again, or any of their families. Their lives as they knew them were over. Their new “home” must have been strange and terrifying. They had it much worse than any Christian freshman at a secular university. So surely we can take a stand.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. It trains us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, as we wait for the happy fulfillment of our hope in the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, who are eager to do good.” Titus 2:11-14

Today I being a review of “Kingdom Triangle” by J P Moreland. I know I said I would talk about how the university in America went from “Christian” to “secular.” I still intend to, but it’s taking time to get through the materials I’m reviewing to prepare. Meanwhile, I’m putting up this book review.

J.P. Moreland, Kingdom Triangle: Recovering the Christian Mind. Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit’s Power. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007. www.kingdomtriangle.com

“Kingdom Triangle,” J. P. Moreland’s latest book, has received high praise. It was awarded the 2008 Christianity Today Book Award in the category of Spirituality. It has been reviewed favorably elsewhere, and the jacket cover includes endorsements by Chuck Colson, Lee Strobel, and Ravi Zacharias. Kingdom Triangle represents something of a “magnum opus” for this distinguished Christian philosopher and defender of the faith. In responding to the news that his book received the award from Christianity Today he said “…I believe it is my most important book to date and I have never felt God’s leading in writing a book more than with Kingdom Triangle.”

The book is written in two parts. Part 1 is a lament of sorts, an analysis of the decline of Christianity in Western culture. He explains the shift from Christian Theism to naturalism and then to postmodernism, along with the effec that these shifts have had on the church and on our society. This part of the book looks somewhat familiar for those acquainted with his body of work (e.g., Scaling the Secular City). He is echoing some of the same problems noted by other leading evangelicals, and there is no doubt that the church is in fact facing a crisis in the West. I can wholeheartedly recommend this part of the book to any thinking Christian. You may find it a bit dense and heady, but you really should stretch yourself because his analysis is penetrating and insightful. Understanding how to respond to naturalism and post-modernism is critically important for evangelism and ecclesiology (e.g., the emergent movement misunderstands post-modernism).

The second half of the book presents Moreland’s three-part solution to the problems facing the church, and this is where the book takes its name “triangle.” The three legs of this metaphorical stool are 1) the recovery of knowledge, 2) the rennovation of the soul, and 3) the restoration of the Kingdom’s miraculous power.

Anti-intellectualism renders the church defenseless

The first point is absolutely spot-on, and he has made this case forcefully in another work (Love God with All your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul, 1997, Navpress). In case anyone doesn’t believe him, consider the message of The Call to Seriousness: The Evangelical Impact on the Victorians, by Ian C. Bradley (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co, 1976). One theme of this earlier scholarly work about the history of the church in England is that anti-intellectualism in the church helped lead to the death of the evangelical church in England. That the church in England is nearly dead is beyond dispute, as the strong church of the 19^th century (that ended the slave trade!) has eroded away almost completely. The great-great grandchildren of the evangelical church in England are simply not Christians, and all of Europe is clearly post-Christian. When I was in England in the early 90’s the Christian leaders there told us “the church in England is lean.” The same fate awaits us, as the American church has been very anti-intellectual and now we see somewhere between 75-90% of children raised in Christian homes abandoning their faith. This is because the church is unprepared to defend the faith against naturalism, post-modernism, and other attacks (e.g., materialism) that ignorant youth find so appealing and beguiling.

Miracles

The third side of the triangle is supposed to be the controversial part of the book, as Moreland advocates for the abandonment of “cessationism” (the theological viewpoint that the exercise of miraculous spiritual gifts such as prophecy, healing, and speaking in toungues has ceased). Rather, he asks Christians to become “naturally supernatural,” which is to grow in your ability to see/discern/celebrate the supernatural (i.e., miraculous) action of God on earth today. As evidence he cites examples of miracles and also the alleged link between miraculous events and the growth of the church in other countries. I do not think that this section is that controversial or alarming to me or my friends at NeoXenos (http://www.neoxenos.org). Although I’m not about to become a “Third Wave Evangelical” (referring to a resurgence of belief in and celebration of supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit after the first two waves of the pentacostal and charismatic movments—see John Wimber’s Power Evangelism and Power Healing), I think that stuffy institutional Christians are often biased against the possibility (and reality!) of the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit in the world today.

People in the evangelical church tend to get the rap for being cold, stiff, boring people who deny any kind of experiential or miraculous aspect to our faith. I think that partly this is a reaction against the weird, creepy, fake, fraudulent and often fabricated experiences and public displays of the pentacostal and charismatic movments. Parts of the Catholic Church are also given to claiming weird supernatural events at times (“the virgin mother appeared in my taco!”). However, a person on the front lines of ministry, like JP Moreland, who has been a pastor, church planter, apologist, and generally tireless statesman of evangelical Christianity, is going to see spiritual activity. We should not be surprised. I have seen the Lord work, and I have seen the efforts of our adversary as well. Although there are dangers of over-emphasizing spiritual experiences in the lives of Christians (e.g., drawing principles from narrative biblical texts where didactic portions would be more hermeneutically appropriate, judging Christians who do not appear to be having miraculous experiences to be “less spiritual”), growing in spiritual discernment is a good idea (Philippians 1:9, 1 John 4:1-32; Thes. 2:9).

More later

Next time I’ll consider the last side of the triangle. As a preview, I’ll say now that there are some very objectionable parts of this book. However, we need to discern the good from the bad, and I would recommend the book to a thinking Christian with good critical thinking skills. The points I want to make now are that many people would benefit from reading part 1 and sides 1 and 3 of Moreland’s triangle. Young people in particular are vulnerable to the insidious evils of our culture and the wreckage caused by anti-intellectualism in our church.

“We, however, will not boast beyond proper limits, but will confine our boasting to the field God has assigned to us, a field that reaches even to you.” 2 Corinthians 10:13

Our Field

Paul reminds us, albeit indirectly, that God has assigned to each Christian worker or leader a field of ministry. The mission field for FEBA Team is the University. In order to be successful, we must understand the opportunities and challenges that our field of ministry presents. So let us consider the state of Christianity at the beginning of the 21st century in America and among young people.

I believe that we are all living in the end times, and that in America we are seeing the slow decline of western civilization. Our quality of life is going to slowly degrade, as the world measures quality of life. Energy and health care will get more expensive, money is too tight to mention, and time will get more and more pressed

I believe that the disintegration of the family has left in its wake generations of damaged people who are not able to form and maintain healthy relationships. Education is not what it used to be. People are getting more and more stupid and ignorant.

America is post-Christian

Against this backdrop, we are seeing America become a post-Christian nation, much like Europe. The new face of Christianity in the 21^st century is not white, which may surprise self-focused Americans. The Church is growing in Africa, Asia, and India, but it is shrinking in the USA. For example, in 1900 China was not in the top 10 countries with respect to the number of Christians. In 1990 it moved up to #3, and by 2050 it will be #2.

I think the missionologists statistics are a bit misleading, since they rely on self-report of Christianity. People in America claim to be Christian at very high numbers (50-70%?), but that is an overestimate. If you count the people who actually attend church on any given Sunday, the number is more like 20%, and will be less than 10% by 2050 if current trends continue. This includes all the main-line denominations with nominal members, and the number of evangelicals is even less.

In conrast, there are powerful disincentives for the Chinese to claim to be a Christian (China is still one of the 10 worst places to live as a Christian in terms of persecution). Therefore, I believe that China will pass the USA in terms of the size of the Church, if it hasn’t already.

Young people don’t like Christians

David Kinnaman, the president of the Barna group recently wrote a book entitled “unChristian.” In this book he describes the slipping image of Christianity among American youth. Among people 16-29 years old, there is a greater degree of criticism toward Christianity than was expressed by any previous generation. As the table below shows, only 3% of non-Christians aged 16-29 have a “good impression” of evangelical Christians.

I think that FEBA Team and NeoXenos belong to the category of “Evangelicals” rather than to “Christianity,” since that would include many program-based institutions like the old-line denominations (e.g., Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran). Therefore, most young people do not have a positive view of what we stand for and what we are trying to do!

Percent of non-Christians ages 16 to 29

Christianity Evangelicals

Know of/aware of N/A 57%

Have bad impression 38% 49%

Have neutral impression 45% 48%

Have good impression 16% 3%

It is certain that we will face opposition, persecution, and other problems as we launch FEBA Team. The impression people will have of us will be negative, and will include many stereotypes about Christians. In the table below Kinnaman describes the impression of Christianity that young people do have:

Percent of non-Christians ages 16 to 29 who said each image describes Christianity “a lot or some”

Anti-homosexual 91%

Judgmental 87%

Hypocritical 85%

Old-fashioned 78%

Too Political 75%

Out of Touch 72%

Insensitive 70%

Boring 68%

So we will constantly be asked why we are “anti-homosexual.” We will be considered judgemental, hypocritical, old-fashioned, political, out of touch, etc.

Unfortunately, negative views of Christianity are not confined to non-Christians! Even people who describe themselves as “Christians” essentially don’t like Christians! Amazingly, half of young churchgoers said they perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political. One-third said Christianity is old-fashioned and out of touch with reality. So we should be very careful about asuming that any one who claims to be a Christian is actually an ally or supportive of our efforts. Many of those coming from “Christian” backgrounds are in the process of rebelling against their faith.

Young people abandon their “faith”

Christianity is in sharp decline among young people in this country. A couple years ago the Barna Group came out with a study in which they reported that a majority of twentysomethings - 61% of today’s young adults had been churched at one point during their teen years, but are now spiritually disengaged. According to the survey, only 20% of twentysomethings have maintained a level of spiritual activity consistent with their high school experiences. According to Barna, another 19% of teens were never significantly reached by a Christian community of faith during their teens and have remained disconnected from the Christian faith.

So, apparently about 60% of people in their 20’s “lose” whatever meager faith they had during their teens. I tend to believe that many of the 80% of twentysomethings who claim to have attended church during their teens is a greatly inflated number. I really doubt it. This includes every conceivable form of “church” and does not require any consistency in church attendance or even the most limited commitment to a life of faith. Nevertheless, whatever limited interaction children and high school students have with the church is lost after college.

College is a “last chance” for most

An important counterpoint to this observation is the fact that college, during which many students are abandoning their “faith” (or constructing a new personal post-modern syncretistic faith?), is the last good opportunity to win a person for Christ. Most people who receive Christ do so by their 18^th birthday. About 64% of people who report that they are a Christian received Christ during their childhood or highschool years. However, another 13% of current Christians accepted Christ between 18-21 years of age, and another 23% accepted Christ after age 21.

It may seem as if a good number of people accept Christ as post-college adults (23%). However, consider that “after 21″ can include 50 or more years. Yes, some people do receive Christ in their 70’s and 80’s. But for every year that a Christian worker toils to win the lost, the odds of winning someone over age 21 is pretty low. In comparison, only three years are represented in the 13% of 18-21 year olds.

If you assume 50 years transpires after 21, and you round up a bunch of 71 year old Christians to ask, the odds them having accepted Christ in any given year during college are 9 times as great as their odds of having accepted Christ in any given year after age 21. The older people get, the more difficult it is to reach them. This does not mean that we should not try, but rather that we should take the most of the opportunities that the college years afford.

Christianity in the University

So this is what we face. In God’s providence he allowed us to live into the 21^st century, and our field is not the rapidly growing Church of Asia or Africa (unless we become overseas missionaries!). We are here in Northeast Ohio, watching Christianity decay in America and among young people. FEBA Team will try to establish a beach head of the Kingdom of God in a hostile place.

The University brings together young people from all over our mission field and collects them in a concentrated space. But, the University is perhaps even more hostile to the gospel than the areas that surround it. Finishing this line of thinking will have to wait for another time. In a future blog, I will describe the state of Christianity in the University.

Welcome to FEBA Forever! Insights from the Forward Battle Area. This is my first blog. Starting FEBA Team has really compelled me to start blogging. Please see the NeoZine Article: “Viral Church” for some background (neozine.org).

Here is an edited excerpt:

FEBA stands for “Forward Edge of the Battle Area.” The writers of the New Testament sometimes used such military language, and it’s a helpful way to illustrate the idea of moving forward. In the military, it is not unusual for special reconnaissance assets to operate significantly forward of FEBA. They often operate deep behind enemy lines, but not always in uniform.

Our DMT is assembling its own FEBA Team to launch a bush group at KSU this fall. The team includes Joel, Kathryn, Dar, Kyle, Kate, and Jeff. There was a delay launching a new college group and ministry house among the incoming freshmen at KSU and UA. Apparently they’re planning to live at home, save money, get hungry, pass classes, and serve in WORD. It will probably grow very unpleasant to remain in a high school group during their first year of college, but we’re building a launchpad by sending our most available work