AIDS and the BBC

Driving home in a gentle snowfall tonight, I was listening to the BBC World News report on the global AIDS crisis. I knew the disease had become a worldwide phenomenon in my lifetime. What I didn’t know was that the virus was only discovered 24 years ago. In that short time, it has now spread to affect over 40 million people.

Dealing with a crisis like this is not simple. It will surely take all sorts of education and funding and strategies. But to the commentator I was listening to, America's strategy is just not tolerable. American foreign policy ties AIDS relief money directly to policies that promote abstinence and sexual fidelity. In other words, we don’t pay people to pass out condoms. We try to promote morally responsible sexual decisions.

The BBC commentator actually paused in mid-diatribe to say, “I’m sorry, the American approach just makes me so angry sometimes.” He was lauding the genius of the British plan to pass out condoms to everyone in the world. Next year, the British government will open the first-ever government-run condom factory to help combat AIDS.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but when 40 million people are dying, you’d think that an abstinence-driven policy would at least be welcomed on the field of debate. But, of course, the problem with such a policy is that it implies a moral code. It subtly states that having sex with anyone and everyone is less desirable (and less healthy) than abstinence or marital fidelity. And a world steeped in relativism cannot abide such narrow-minded thinking.

The British – or at least the Brit I was listening to – think that condom distribution without moral education is the most humane approach to the AIDS crisis. To them, the true humanist is the one who lets people do whatever they want – even if it kills them. Maybe I’m naïve, but humanists are supposed to care about humanity. And when 40 million humans have a terminal disease, it just might be time to take the socio-political “risk” of moral education.

But what do I know? I’m a narrow-minded American Christian.

The Less You Know

The more you see, the less you know
The less you find out as you go
I knew much more then
Than I do now

- U2, "The City of Blinding Lights"

Over on the Musings blog, we have been having a pretty intense debate about knowledge and what it really means to know God and His truth. John Frame suggests this analogy: our knowledge of God is like a circle. The inside of the circle represents what we know; the outside of the circle represents what is mystery. As our knowledge grows (i.e. as the circle gets bigger), the circumference of the circle also grows. In other words: the more we know, the more we don't know. The greater our knowledge, the greater the mystery. And we should be OK with that.

What do you think? Have you found this to be true? I have found that those who are least content with mystery and tension are usually those who know the least about God and Scripture.

(On another note, much rejoicing in God's providential provision of a ticket to see U2 live at the Qwest Center on Dec 15. Paul, you rock. Larry: I'm in, baby! I fully expect it to be one of the most worshipful experiences I've had this year. I find "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" to be their most overtly biblical album since "The Joshua Tree." The more you know your Bible, the richer your listening experience. Hope to see many of you there!)

A Thought from Tozer

"God is primary" is the way we say it at Coram Deo. Here's how AW Tozer says it in his marvelous little work titled The Knowledge of the Holy:

Almighty God, just because He is almighty, needs no support. The picture of a nervous, ingratiating God fawning over men to win their favor is not a pleasant one; yet if we look at the popular conception of God that is precisely what we see... Probably the hardest thought of all for our natural egotism to entertain is that God does not need our help. We commonly represent him as a busy, eager, somewhat frustrated Father hurrying about seeking help to carry out His benevolent plan to bring peace and salvation to the world...

Too many missionary appeals are based upon this fancied frustration of Almighty God. An effective speaker can easily excite pity in his hearers, not only for the heathen but for the God who has tried so hard and so long to save them and has failed for want of support. I fear that thousands of younger persons enter Christian service from no higher motive than to help deliver God from the embarrassing situation His love has gotten Him into and His limited abilities seem unable to get Him out of.

...It is morally imperative that we purge from our minds [these] ignoble concepts of the Deity and let Him be the God in our minds that He is in the universe. The Christian religion has to do with God and man, but its focal point is God, not man... That God exists for Himself and man for the glory of God is the emphatic teaching of the Bible.

God Was Here

My friend and former Campus Crusade colleague David now serves as a small groups pastor at a very traditional, liturgical, gospel-preaching Episcopal church in a Dallas suburb. (Sadly, the adjective “gospel-preaching” is a necessary modifier these days due to the state of the worldwide Episcopal church). Having spent most of his life in a standard non-denominational “Bible church,” a more formalized approach to worship has been a new and shaping experience for David. I sent him my essay on Covenant Renewal (see Resources page) and asked his feedback. Based on his diverse experience, he wrote back:

I now have a reason for going to church. The preaching isn’t the best I’ve heard, the music is excellent, but not my style, and I have to be careful of repeating words without engaging in the meaning, but week after week I am nourished by gathering with God’s people and worshipping as you describe. People love coming to church here, but they rarely mention something specific about the service that they love, like the sermon or the music. They consistently describe their experience here as “I met with God” or “I sensed God was here.” Some might hear that and think we give people an emotional experience, but it would be difficult to identify anything in the service that would do that. I think in reality people don’t have the understanding to say, “Joining with God’s people in the renewal of our covenant with God has nourished my soul. For reasons I can’t fully explain, I’m at home here, with God and His family.”

One benefit to defining worship this way: every week doesn’t have to be a home run. It’s not about the sermon, or the songs, or the whatever, it’s much bigger than that.

Wouldn't it be great to walk out of Coram Deo every week sensing that "God was here?" I am convinced that such a powerful existential experience is directly connected to the gospel-centered divine-human dialogue that is covenant renewal. Any thoughts?

Why Gather?

The question of why we gather for worship has been posed on this blog. I suspect that some of you think I'm just fishing for stuff to write about, or looking for a way to create tension, since that's my favorite way to make people learn.

Though I would never shy away from creating tension, I assure you that the question of why we gather for worship is not just a teaching device. It is a significant question on the horizon today. Some loud voices within Christendom are arguing that we don't need to gather together at all.

Pete Ward published a book in 2002 called Liquid Church, where takes the idea of “being the church” to the extreme. He draws a metaphorical contrast between liquid church and solid church. Solid church means "getting together in one place to do the same thing together," while liquid church "doesn't need, or even want, a weekly congregational meeting.” Writes Ward: “One of the research students at my university… was in a coffee shop with one of his Christian friends. As they talked, he felt that Christ was communicating between them. For him this was church.”

Hmmm. What do you think? Is that church? And why or why not?