Day: October 30, 2014

We all have unexamined cultural baggage that has the potential to distort the gospel message; whether we are reaching a new culture, or trying to bring the gospel to our own in a more biblically faithful way, we need to understand the nature of the gospel, learn how to interpret culture and discover how gospel and culture interact to produce a contextualised message, according to Tim Foster in his book The Suburban Captivity of the Church: Contextualising the Gospel for Post-Christian Australia.

The evangelical church in Australia has largely confined itself to ministry in the suburbs, and its gospel message has unwittingly acquired suburban middle-class cultural values. The gospel message wrapped in those values does not connect with the culture of inner-city people, who reject suburban values. Contextualisation is an important part of missiology, but how does it play out in the context of inner-city Australia?

Rather than just proclaiming the need for contextualisation, the author provides his own analysis of two different inner-city cultures, the “Urbanites” and the “Battlers”, and he describes what he considers to be a suitably contextualised way of presenting the good news to each group. Key gospel themes for the Urbanites include the environment, the marginalised, social justice, peace and reconciliation. Key gospel themes for the Battlers include: Jesus is one of us, a world for the rest of us, and security.

I found this to be a very interesting and helpful book. Most churches in Australia are not doing well in connecting with their local communities, but they fail to notice that their lack of success is at least partially attributable to unnecessary cultural baggage which repels the people with whom they are trying to connect. This book provides some very useful cultural keys and fully worked examples which will be of great assistance to local churches.

“The legitimate goal of the U.S. government (or any proper government) is to protect, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, an individual’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” claims John Allison in his book The Leadership Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why the Future of Business Depends on the Return to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

I decided to read this book in the mistaken belief that it would be about poor leadership in corporations and other institutions, and it might have some ideas on how to fix this. Instead, the author’s “leadership crisis” seems to be big government led by someone who is not a white male Republican, and his solution seems to involve getting rid of that government. The first half of the book is essentially an overview of the author’s political philosophy, and the second half contains reminiscences from his career as a banker.

US politics can be somewhat confusing to the 95.6% of people who do not live in the US. The author, an avid follower of the atheist novelist Ayn Rand, sees himself as a libertarian, although unlike traditional libertarians he is not a socialist. He is a classical liberalist, but he sees liberalism as a bad thing. He considers progress to be good but progressives to be bad. He strongly supports individuals’ rights to use guns, but complains that government intervention constitutes “using guns”. The author’s views are more fully explained in the following quotes from the book:

• The environmentally correct progressive/liberal elites cause the most harm to the poverty stricken of the world.
• Sometimes humility is defined as a virtue. I have never met a truly humble successful leader.
• Egalitarianism is an attack on the best based on the destructive psychology of envy, rationalized as justice.
• Altruism is another related destructive concept.
• Love is the ultimate expression of selfishness.
• Genuine love is very selfish. You want someone because that person is of enormous value to you.
• What if everybody acted in her rational, long-term self-interest, properly understood—what if everybody was selfish? The vast majority of the world’s problems would be solved in a short period of time.
• One of the causes of low self-esteem is the societal reframe that you should be an altruist. However, you cannot be a true altruist and survive. Therefore, for most people the belief they should be altruistic simply is a guilt trip that reduces their self-worth.
• The free-rider problem is an excuse to use force to accomplish goals that more effectively and efficiently can be achieved through voluntary relationships.
• Any time markets do not work, it is because of the heavy hand (the “gun”) of the government. Market failure is another myth to justify expanding government.
• The United States is not a democracy. It is a constitutional republic based on the protection of individual rights.
• Those that argue that America is not special are ignorant of human history or dishonest or have a deep malevolent sense of life.
• We are engaged in a deep philosophical battle for the future of Western civilization.

The author’s political beliefs are obviously incompatible with my faith as a Christian, so I cannot recommend the book.