Daily Meditation

Moving Out in Faith

Ligonier Ministries

Abraham went to a far country at the bidding of God. He was not young and foolish. He was advanced in years, being seventy-five years old when God said to him: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you” (Gen. 12:1).

Abraham’s move was not a temporary trip for purposes of study or relaxation. It was to be a permanent uprooting for himself and his immediate family. It meant leaving both his father’s house and his fatherland. It meant leaving everything that was a part of his security. He left his home, his property, his business contacts, his doctor, and everyone else that was integral to his community. He took his wife, his nephew, and some servants. The only other person who went with him was God.

What made Abraham’s departure all the more startling was that he had no idea where he was going. He was a pilgrim with no place to call his home. But he went with a promise, a sacred pledge from God Himself that the Lord would show him a land wherein Abraham would become the father of a great nation.

This moment in his life was memorialized by the author of Hebrews: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance” (Heb. 11:8).

Coram Deo

Is God asking you to move out by faith in some area of your life or ministry?

Passages for Further Study

Hebrews 11:8–10

Daily Meditation

Building the Kingdom of God

Ligonier Ministries

Our readiness to perform our task becomes critical when we realize the world also has a mission—to capture and assimilate the church. If the church becomes an echo of the world, the mission of the world is accomplished.

It is our task to build the city of God. It is supremely costly and extraordinarily dangerous. He who will work to build the kingdom of God must be on guard against arrows that are directed at his face—but perhaps even more on guard for the arrows directed at his back.

Nehemiah’s work provoked hostile reactions from some of the pagans. But the real threat was grounded in the fears of God’s people. When a leader like Nehemiah, Paul, or Jesus Himself provokes a hostile reaction from enemies, the people are prone to turn on them as they bear the fallout from such attacks. Remember, it was the people who feared the wrath of Rome who turned their wrath on Jesus.

True leaders of the Christian faith, however, love believers and pagans alike and risk the hostility of both to build the kingdom of God.

Coram Deo

Do you love believers and unbelievers alike? Are you willing to risk the hostility of both to build God’s kingdom?

Passages for Further Study

John 17:14–16

Daily Meditation

Living in God’s Kingdom

Ligonier Ministries

The people of God are always pilgrims. We are always living in exile if we are living in the kingdom of God. We may respectfully serve the magistrates of this world. We may obey their proper commands. Nehemiah honored the king and prayed for him. He was diligent to give civil obedience where possible without compromising the commands of God. He sought, as the apostle Paul did, to live at peace with all men.

There are always pagans like Sanballat the Horonite or Demetrius of Ephesus who seek the destruction of the work of God. Neither Paul nor Nehemiah responded to such pagans with hatred, but neither did they enter into unholy alliances with them.

Neither did Nehemiah lead a monastic retreat into the wilderness. Jerusalem was not a monastery, but a city set on a hill. The task of rebuilding the Holy City was not one of world withdrawal. Nehemiah understood that the home base of our mission is still the church.

The staging zone for the divine operation must be sound if the mission to the world is to be effective.

Coram Deo

What is your specific, God-given role in reaching the world with the gospel of the kingdom?

Passages for Further Study

Nehemiah 4:6
Nehemiah 6:15–16

Daily Meditation

Understanding Our Pilgrimage

Ligonier Ministries

Resting within the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, the small piece of real estate known as Ellis Island has become a symbol of American history. There, immigrants assembled on arrival to this nation. They came from many places for many different reasons. They all looked to Lady Liberty for hope—this despite her somewhat hypocritical smile, inasmuch as she was erected two years after Congress passed a law limiting immigration.

Two of my ancestors arrived at Ellis Island. One came from Ireland to escape the potato famine. He left a thatched-roof home with a mud floor. The other one came from Yugoslavia, where he was a member of the aristocracy of Croatia.

The two shared a common goal. They both left their homelands seeking a better country. They were pilgrims, sojourners in a foreign land. Like Abraham, they went out seeking a city. Yet unlike Abraham, my ancestors sought the city of man.

Every Christian is called to be a pilgrim. We are pilgrims and sojourners on the earth. Our home is in the city of God. Our community is the church, the visible testimony to the invisible kingdom of God. It is our community—a community of faith.

Coram Deo

Are you living like a pilgrim in this world or have you settled in as a permanent resident?

Passages for Further Study

Hebrews 11:13
1 Peter 2:11
Psalm 119:54

Daily Meditation

Awaiting the City of God

Ligonier Ministries

Evangelical Christians love America. Some see in her the last hope of creating a Christian nation. But it is not a Christian nation. It is pagan to the core. It is in danger of becoming, if it is not already, the new “Evil Empire.” The Mayflower Compact is a museum piece, a relic of a forgotten era. “In God We Trust” is now a lie.

Yes, we must always work for social reform. Yes, we must be “profane” in Martin Luther’s sense of going out of the temple and into the world. We do not despise the country of our birth. But in what do we invest our hope? The state is not God. The nation is not the Promised Land. The president is not our King. The Congress is not our Savior. Our welfare can never be found in the city of man. The federal government is not sovereign. We live—in every age and in every generation—by the rivers of Babylon. We need to understand that clearly. We must learn how to sing the Lord’s song in a strange and foreign land.

America will fall. The United States will inevitably disintegrate. The Stars and Stripes will bleed. The White House will turn to rubble. That is certain. We stand like Augustine before the sea. We pray that God will spare our nation. If He chooses not to, we ask for the grace to accept its demise. In either case, we look to Him who is our King and to heaven, which is our home. We await the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God.

Coram Deo

Are you looking to your King and to your eternal destiny, despite the circumstances around you? Keep your focus on the heavenly Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God.

Passages for Further Study

1 Corinthians 15:50
John 3:5
2 Peter 1:11

Daily Meditation

Understanding Our Pilgrimage

Ligonier Ministries

Resting within the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, the small piece of real estate known as Ellis Island has become a symbol of American history. There, immigrants assembled on arrival to this nation. They came from many places for many different reasons. They all looked to Lady Liberty for hope—this despite her somewhat hypocritical smile, inasmuch as she was erected two years after Congress passed a law limiting immigration.

Two of my ancestors arrived at Ellis Island. One came from Ireland to escape the potato famine. He left a thatched-roof home with a mud floor. The other one came from Yugoslavia, where he was a member of the aristocracy of Croatia.

The two shared a common goal. They both left their homelands seeking a better country. They were pilgrims, sojourners in a foreign land. Like Abraham, they went out seeking a city. Yet unlike Abraham, my ancestors sought the city of man.

Every Christian is called to be a pilgrim. We are pilgrims and sojourners on the earth. Our home is in the city of God. Our community is the church, the visible testimony to the invisible kingdom of God. It is our community—a community of faith.

Coram Deo

Are you living like a pilgrim in this world or have you settled in as a permanent resident?

Passages for Further Study

Hebrews 11:13
1 Peter 2:11
Psalm 119:54

Daily Meditation

Awaiting the City of God

Ligonier Ministries

Evangelical Christians love America. Some see in her the last hope of creating a Christian nation. But it is not a Christian nation. It is pagan to the core. It is in danger of becoming, if it is not already, the new “Evil Empire.” The Mayflower Compact is a museum piece, a relic of a forgotten era. “In God We Trust” is now a lie.

Yes, we must always work for social reform. Yes, we must be “profane” in Martin Luther’s sense of going out of the temple and into the world. We do not despise the country of our birth. But in what do we invest our hope? The state is not God. The nation is not the Promised Land. The president is not our King. The Congress is not our Savior. Our welfare can never be found in the city of man. The federal government is not sovereign. We live—in every age and in every generation—by the rivers of Babylon. We need to understand that clearly. We must learn how to sing the Lord’s song in a strange and foreign land.

America will fall. The United States will inevitably disintegrate. The Stars and Stripes will bleed. The White House will turn to rubble. That is certain. We stand like Augustine before the sea. We pray that God will spare our nation. If He chooses not to, we ask for the grace to accept its demise. In either case, we look to Him who is our King and to heaven, which is our home. We await the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God.

Coram Deo

Are you looking to your King and to your eternal destiny, despite the circumstances around you? Keep your focus on the heavenly Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God.

Passages for Further Study

1 Corinthians 15:50
John 3:5
2 Peter 1:11

Freedom

The Jerusalem of God

The thirst for liberty is strong amongst mankind.  Many have been the ways and attempts to secure it.  Most have failed.  "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" in France turned into the "freedom" of the guillotine and the embrace of the Emperor Napoleon.  Freedom in the United States is morphing ineluctably towards greater and greater government rules, regulations, laws, and controls.  The same is true in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.  Freedom in the EU means submitting to the laws, rules, and regulations of the unelected Eurocrats.

Yet the longing for human freedom remains unabated.

It is significant, therefore, that the Gospel makes clear that human liberty is intrinsic to its presence and power.  Consider how the Lord of all announced His coming:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed.  [Luke 4:18]

Now this when read is usually taken to refer to Christ liberating men from the guilt and slavery to sin.  This is a legitimate interpretation.  Charles Wesley captured this interpretation/application perfectly:

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

The Machete of Curiosity

Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, October 20, 2010

So, then, the issues are perennial, but the terms are not. Anyone working through the tangled weave of religion and politics may need some help with terms. Anyone whacking away at the thicket of culture and faith with the machete of curiosity could probably use a simple lexicon. It seems only fair to provide some basic definitions.

By mere Christendom, I mean a network of nations bound together by a formal, public, civic acknowledgement of the lordship of Jesus Christ, and the fundamental truth of the Apostles' Creed. I do not mean establishment or tax support for any particular denomination of Christians, but it is possible (and necessary) to avoid such establishment without falling for the myth of religious neutrality. Religious neutrality is impossible. So mere Christendom stands in contrast to sectarian Christendom on the one hand and complete secularism on the other. Approaching these alternatives from the middle distance are the claims of radical Islam, about which more in a minute.

Secularism refers to the idea, popular for the last few centuries, that it is in fact possible for nations to be religiously neutral. This impressive trick is managed by having everyone pretend that secularism does not bring with it its very own set of ultimate commitments. But it does bring them, and so secularism has presented us with its very own salvation narrative, in which story the Enlightened One arose to deliver us all from that sectarian strife and violence. The horse and rider were thrown into the sea, and this is why you can't put that Christmas tree up in the county courthouse. 


American exceptionalism is the idea that America is a more of a creed than a nation. This kind of American exceptionalism makes a certain kind of civic religion possible, a quasi-sacramental approach which all consistent Christians reject as, in equal turns, blasphemous and silly. American exceptionalism in this sense is currently the high church form of secularism.

American exceptionalism is not the grateful recognition that we live in a nation that has been enormously blessed in many ways. What might be called normal patriotism is not idolatrous, but is simply natural affection.

Radical Islam is a Christian heresy, but one of the features that it retained in its departure from the truth was the idea that religious claims are total and absolute. Islam functioned in this way for many centuries, competing head to head with the Christians, before the Enlightenment arrived in order to demote all religious totalism (except for their own). Muslims who have accepted the claims of this secularism are now called "moderate" Muslims, while Muslims who are faithful to the older, all-encompassing claims of Islam are called radical Muslims. The word radical comes from the Latin radix, which means root. Radical Muslims have gone to the root of the matter, and they are the ones who at least understand the nature of the conflict. If Allah is God, then follow him. If he isn't, then we shouldn't.

And I would say the same thing about Jesus. If He is Lord, we should do what He says. If He is not, then we needn't bother.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Millennia of Bumpity Bumpity 

Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, September 08, 2010

At the point Christ came, the true faith had been kept alive up to that point, after a fashion, among the Jews. I say it was kept because of the many faithful believers among them who were looking in true faith for the Messiah. Jesus Himself said that Israel had teachers who sat in Moses' seat, and who should be respected, at least to a point. I say "after a fashion" for another reason. The downside, obviously, is that the leaders of Israel conspired to have their Messiah executed in a rigged trial. So the state of the world was pretty bad when Christ arrived -- the whole world was under the control of demonic darkness (1 John 5:19), and the Jews had made their peace with this arrangement. The harlot rode the dragon.

When Jesus rose and ascended, His disciples did not return to the upper room and unpack Christendom from the boxes He had left for them there. As has been pointed out repeatedly, Jesus did not give them a turnkey kingdom. The kingdom of God does not arrive as coup de main. The kingdom of God does not arrive like a tsunami. The kingdom of God does not arrive like the 101st Airborne. Jesus said, and He said repeatedly, that the kingdom was a slow growth affair, working through the loaf like yeast.

And now, two thousand years later, when we see that the Christian faith has grown and expanded throughout the world in just the way He said it would, should this be a cause for unbelief?.

In retrospect, we can see the milestones we passed in the journey to the first Christendom, and future historians will be able to point to milestones in our era that marked our passage to the resurgent Christendom. But one of our current problems is that we are a convenience store civilization, and we want the next iteration of our civilization to be obtainable the same way we get coffee at the convenience store. We want to plonk our two dollars on the counter, and walk out of there with the coffee.

If somebody, a madman with a blog, say, says that if Jesus is the Savior of the world, this might necessitate the world getting saved, he is answered with demands that show us the constituent building blocks of Christendom now. We want to knock on them with our knuckles. We want to squirt the mixed metaphor flavor in from the pump jar, and drink the coffee now. We want the world to become Christian the way the devil offered to make it Christian, if only Jesus would bow down and worship him.

But God works a different calculus, and He had His only begotten Son hanged on a gibbet instead. What was He doing? He was making the world Christian, but He was doing it His way and on His timetable. But He was making the world Christian (John 12:31). Jesus, by and through His death, cast out the prince of this world. And, by the way, in the original Greek "cast out" does not mean "kept around."

With the vantage of centuries past, we can look back and see that when Ambrose had his famous conflict with Theodosius, this was a great moment in the formation of Christendom. But at the time, I doubt if Ambrose had any idea of what he was doing -- except standing faithfully at his post. And in the development of Christendom, we do not just see the church putting the magistrate in his place. It goes the other way as well. Frederick, Elector of Saxony, protected the gospel when the Church had decided to quit doing that, and opted for attacking the gospel instead.

So how is the process of discipling the nations to be accomplished? With centuries, nay, with millennia of bumpity bumpity

The Buck Stops at Our Desks

Change That We can Believe In

Whilst a soul can be regenerated and converted in an instant, building Christendom take generations and many lifetimes. As it was with the first Christendom, so it will be with the next. There is no magical bullet. There is no quick fix.

We see this reality all the time (even if we may rarely stop to think about it). Many know that at a certain point in time--an instant even--they were first converted. They were conscious of believing personally in the Living God for the first time. C S Lewis testified that one day he got on the bus whilst not a Christian; but by the time he alighted, he was. He had been transformed. Many of us can give similar accounts.

But, whilst we had passed quickly from death to life, for the rest of our lives we labour to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. Transformation comes slowly, often amidst fearsome battles, with great struggle. Old habits die, but they die hard. God has ordained it so. The same is true with re-building Christendom--it takes a long, long time. God has ordained that it should be so. Why? Partly because whether speaking of the individual or an entire culture, the transformation required is comprehensive; it is root and branch stuff. If it were to be achieved instantaneously the very fabric of the creation would have to be torn apart. Gradual change allows the continuing of human life upon the planet. Grace restores Nature, it does not obliterate it.

This is what Jesus indicated when He gave the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13: 24--30). The landowner forbade his servants ripping out the tares because of the harm and destruction it would cause to the wheat. The christianising of a culture is such a deep, complex work it takes generations to accomplish, much as the great medieval cathedrals required multiple generations to complete the task.

Once again, our own experience testifies to this. All of us have inherited life habits and patterns from our parents, for good or ill. These have been ingrained in us without thinking. We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before. This reality applies when a culture is disintegrating and devolving from Christendom just as much as when a culture is reforming gradually into a new Christendom.

Above all else the coming reign of the Kingdom of God requires comprehensive Christian self-government and self-rule--by the overwhelming majority of the population. But self-government necessitates that we each take responsibility for those things with which God has charged us: personal sanctification, holy families, holy worship, the education of our children, faithful labour, faithful church service, thrift and laying up an inheritance for our grandchildren, taking care of the needy--all of these require a lifetime of habits and diligence--inherited from our parents and grandparents.

Christendom is not built by getting a few laws changed--although law will certainly be changed as a result of Christendom growing stronger. We betray just how much statism has infected us when we fall into the trap of thinking that the repeal or change of a law or two will ensure Christendom's future. It will not.

Root and branch change is Christendom's modus operandi. As the leaven leavens the whole loaf, changing a few laws will seem like the most obvious and natural thing to do at the time. But if the leaven has not yet done its work, even the simplest change to the most egregious and ungodly laws is usually a mountainous task, far beyond our capability and resources at the time.

Fighting On Today's Battlefronts

Getting the Battlefield Right

Luther once famously remarked that if Christians are busy fighting battles that Satan is not waging we are being unprofitable servants. Consequently, it is possible for Christians in our day to be busy tilting at windmills in a Quixote-esque farce.

What are the battlefields of our day upon which all faithful Christians need to be found fighting? Here is Douglas Wilson's take.

Now, with this said, what issues are fundamental in our day? This is key -- one of the common mistakes is that of thinking that the decisive point in the 16th century has to be the decisive point today. This is yet another failure to read the narrative right. Principles are constant, but plot points aren't. But, lest this point be mistaken, as it always is, our Protestant fathers in the 16th century were right to take the stand they did, and the pope and his Council were wrong.

However, the fact that I cheer for one side over the other at the battle of Gettysburg does not mean the battle of Gettysburg is still being fought. We are at a different place in the war; the terrain is different and the circumstances are different. The uniforms are different – but the long war is always the same.

Surrendering a place that is currently being contested, and justifying this surrender because you are a sound military historian, and understand who was in the right at Gettysburg, is folly and cowardice. Attacking others in your army who are courageously fighting where the current battle is raging, and all because you suspect that they are not as sound as they could be on Gettysburg, is more folly and more cowardice.

But before moving on, let me affirm, once more, three basics. I embrace the five solas, I whoop until hoarse for the five points of Calvinism, and I heartily lament Jeb Stuart's ill-fated ride around the battle.

Where is the battle now? What are the issues that threaten the purity of the gospel now? Where are the compromises now?

The real rot that we must contend with begins with Darwin, not Bonaventure, and any and all accommodations with Darwin. Darwin gave modernity the mechanism it needed to throw off the authority of God's Word, and the sovereignty of the Lord Christ. Darwin is foundational to the secularist modernity project, but there is more. He is also foundational to the postmodern goo cauldron that is our culture today, and every form of what I have called pomosexuality. It is striking that postmodernists never want to be post-Darwinian. The whole thing, modernity and postmodernity, is part of one sustained play in the football game.

And this is why theistic evolution is a big deal, and this is why compromises with every form of gender bending is a big deal. And this is also why a large number of people who are “contending for the gospel” . . . aren't really.

Evil Before Our Eyes, Glory From On High

To the Ends of the Earth

The Associated Press has carried a story which is horrifying, to say the least. It is a story of man's inhumanity to man, of evil, of what happens when sin is left unchecked, and when men set themselves up as the only and final reference point. Yet it is also a story of God's love and grace to the world, mediated through His people. 

It concerns the Chinese and North Koreans trafficking in women. There is a shortage of women in China, due to the benighted One-Child policy causing abortion of girl babies (since women are less likely to be able to support their parents in old age--and remember the Chinese get only one shot at this, since they are officially allowed only one child). Chinese men are now buying North Korean women as chattel-wives.

Young female refugees from North Korea are increasingly becoming a commodity in China, where they are sold to farmers for up to 1,500 dollars a head, according to a Seoul campaigner.

The human trafficking is far from new but has become more prevalent as prices soar amid a shortage of Chinese women in the countryside, said Reverend Chun Ki-Won, head of the Durihana Association. Young female refugees from North Korea are increasingly becoming a commodity in China, where they are sold to farmers for up to 1,500 dollars a head, according to a Seoul campaigner. The human trafficking is far from new but has become more prevalent as prices soar amid a shortage of Chinese women in the countryside, said Reverend Chun Ki-Won, head of the Durihana Association, which offers aid to refugees, which offers aid to refugees.

Chinese bribe the border guards, who let the North Korean women in. A large number of them are then on-sold to Chinese men looking for a "wife".

About 20-30 percent are destined for marriage and are resold to another broker for about 2,000 yuan. They are then sold to farmers, normally for 5,000-10,000 yuan, but the trafficking does not necessarily end there.

If the customer does not like his wife, he can resell her and add about 2,000 yuan to the original price. Some women are sold seven or eight times, Chun said.

The women rarely know what is in store for them, Chun said. "Most of the time, they are just told they will get a good job in China and will be able to earn a lot of money."

Of course, the women cannot complain or they risk being sent back to North Korea where punishment and even death awaits them. Any children coming from such marriages are not recognised by the Chinese government. This leaves the child a refugee in the country of its birth.

Children fathered by Chinese men and North Korean women are the biggest problem, Chun said.

"The Chinese government does not recognise children whose mother is not registered. If the mother runs away or is taken back to North Korea, the children are left with nothing -- no nationality, no parents and no identity."

The children can be officially registered if the father pays a fine but most cannot afford this.

Some North Korean women are put to work in internet chat rooms for sexual voyeurism. Some South Koreans try to contact them, befriend them, and help rescue them by putting them in contact with missions such as Durihana.

We thank God for Durihana and similar Christian ministries. In the face of such terrible inhumanity and depravity, we see again the wonder and glory of Christ's redeeming work.

Post Script: a history of the Durihana mission can be read here.

Doug Wilson's Letter From America

Boobquake and the Meaning of History

Engaging the Culture - Meaning of Judgment
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, April 28, 2010

So there was this Muslim cleric who put his foot in it, clean up to the knee, by saying that women dressing immodestly is the cause of earthquakes. There was naturally a response in this country that called for women to show some principled cleavage in order to test that holy man's thesis. On Monday, many thousands of them did so, in what passes for political discourse these days. It would be fair to say that there were many incidents of déclassé décolletage -- unattractive feminist scientists flaunting what they thought was sexuality, attractive bimbo queens taking the opportunity, natch, aging beauties reliving the glory days, and all of them over the top, so to speak.

When an ignorant religious official, from any of the world's great religions, sets up shop to pronounce on how this causes that, simpliciter, it is not surprising that hilarity ensues. The problem with this is that the hilarity is every bit as ignorant as the cleric. The fact that someone reads something wrongly does not mean that there is nothing there to be read. The fact that someone is illiterate does not mean that the book he can't read doesn't exist.

One time when our oldest daughter was around two-years-old, she was sitting in the car with her uncle in the parking lot of Safeway. They were waiting for her mom to come out, and while they were sitting there, she carefully spelled out the name of the store, and her uncle was quite impressed, until right at the end. "S . . . A . . . F . . . E . . . W . . . A . . . Y . . . Rosauers!" But the fact that she read the sign wrongly did not mean that there was no sign there to be read.

The fact that someone offers up a simplistic thesis (cleavage → earthquakes) only means that he is a simpleton. When numerous other simpletons answer him in kind, this proves nothing except that we have more simpletons around here than we initially thought.

When God judges nations, He does so on the basis of billions of variables. This does not mean that His judgments cannot be read, but it does mean that they cannot be read simplistically.

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water. Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men (2 Peter 3:3-7).

My point is that jiggling your boobs for a YouTube clip is a response to an ignorant Muslim that works equally well as a response to the apostle Peter, which is to say, not at all.

On a related front, I am currently reading To Change the World by James Davison Hunter. This looks to be an edifying read, and he promises to nuance the heck out of everything, but I do want to register one fundamental concern up front. I have a lot more to read, and will have more to say on this anon, but here is an initial observation. When we talk about affecting the world, for good or ill, we have to recognize how big the world is, how expansive history is, and how small we are.

Any measurements we might take within the scope of a generation or two are going to be, of necessity, inadequate. They will be simplistic. And so, for example, if those who are training young people for "short term missions" promise returns too quickly, the result will be eventual disillusionment. It turns out that Africa was not transformed because you spent two weeks there hauling cinder blocks. But if those who believe that we cannot really change the world at all act on their belief, they will just slump down discouraged now.

We are like kindergarteners who, having planted their beans in the egg carton, dig it up every day to determine how it is doing. Not very well, the answer would be, because we are checking in too frequently. Daily check-ups are not what is called for -- but that doesn't mean that beans don't grow.

Take some boy scout who helps a little old lady across the street. Is civilization saved? Did he make a difference? Not in any appreciable way, not that we can see. But then if we spent some time in a culture where nobody ever helped any stranger across the street, we get a glimpse of something larger. Taking your place at the end of the line at your local bank seems insignificant until you go someplace where standing in line is an alien concept. When the first people starting standing in line, where they making a difference? Were they changing the world? Not that they could see.

When evaluating how cultures change, how they rise, and how they fall, we really need to look at it in 500 year chunks. If we use two week slices for our sample sizes, we are just going to get confused -- overconfident and confused, like the Muslim cleric, or full of scoffing, like the boobtubers.

Approach it from the other end. Is the world different than it was a thousand years ago? Doesn't that mean that it changed? And, if it changed, was anybody or anything responsible? Not that they could see, but what is it that overcomes the world? Is it not our faith?