And another view of Church

The following is a quote from a blog which quotes another blog. The writer is David Fitch, and this is part of a post

It is stunning to me how many many people I encounter in a month who cannot even acquire even a modicum of mind space cleared of societal clutter to meet God. We live in a society where God is being organized out of our life experience (and this is most certainly true of our young people). If we don’t have the means to discipline our lives from societal noise, real living with God, listening and responding to his voice is lost from our horizon. God becomes an item to believe, an obligation to take care alongside the many others. And then, and I am dead serious here, other demons take over our lives. Our loneliness/our emptiness becomes filled by multivarious forms of fake pornographic substitutes. Demons take over. I see it everywhere.

In the midst of this, sometimes the best place (the only place) I can point people to is the gathering on Sunday morning. Go to the gathering. Not to get pumped up and inspired. Not to take some notes on the three things you can do to improve your Christian life. NO! Go to the gathering to shut down from all the noise..

International Self-Esteem Day

The Mental Health Foundation of NZ runs regular polls. Their most recent stated:

24th June (not July as listed on the site) was International Self-Esteem Day (I’m sure you knew that already!). Then they listed five actions you might be likely to try:

1. Take time to do things you enjoy;
2. Get something done you’ve been putting off;
3. Wear something that makes you feel good about yourself;
4. Learn something new or improve your skills;
5. Do something nice for another person.

It’s interesting that nobody polled for number 3 on the list, and the majority polled for number 5.

There’s hope for NZ society yet! (Incidentally, it appears Self-Esteem Day was created by a New Zealander, Janice Davies, who says: Your life-long goal is to create happiness in your own life. While we'd all like to be happy, I'm not sure that we can make this our life-long goal....)

BIBLE SOCIETY SURVEY MARCH 2008

A survey done by the Bible Society of New Zealand in March (results published around June this year) has only just come to my attention. The survey was aimed at research attitudes and behaviour regarding the Bible in New Zealand. The following is a list of some of the major stats from the survey.

Note that some stats apply to New Zealanders as a whole, and some to Christians as a sub-group.

Just under 3,400 people responded.

46% described themselves as Christian. (NZ Stats reports just under half of population describe themselves as Christian, that is, just under 2 million)

74% of people 65 and over described themselves as Christian.

68.4% of Pacific Islanders. (Europeans: 40.6%)

15% of New Zealanders attend church at least once a week.

20% say they go at least once a month.

80% of the population has attended a church service at some time. This includes weddings and funerals.

30% of Christians attend church at least weekly.

56% of Christians say they attend church less than five times a year, or only on special occasions.

Estimated monthly attendance: 760,000 (around 17%)

68% of all New Zealanders own a Bible.

86% of people over 65 own one.

59% of 15-24-year-olds own one.

5% of New Zealanders read the Bible daily.

23% read it at least monthly.

11% of Christians read it daily.

24% read it at least once a week.

25% of respondents say the Bible influences their lives.

18% of 15-24-year olds agree.

41% of 65 and over agree.

47% of Christians say the Bible influences their lives.

39% of Christians say it sometimes influences their lives.

Of those who read it daily, 94.6% said it influenced their lives.

77% of New Zealanders never or rarely discuss the Bible with others.

Only 14% discuss the Bible’s teachings weekly or more frequently.

26% of Christians regularly discuss the teachings of the Bible (at least weekly).

60% of Christians rarely or never discuss the teachings of the Bible with others.

The idea that we have an obligation to society beyond the demands we ourselves wish to make of it is
becoming unfashionable. Utilitarianism – the greatest happiness (or welfare or benefit) for the greatest
number – is a philosophy now held in severe disrepute.
Individual endeavour is adulated, as is personal autonomy. Utilitarianism might deter the huge efforts, for
huge gains, of the talented entrepreneur. Thus society looks less at the welfare of the whole, and more at the welfare of the individual. And the intervention of the state is seen as less than desirable, and often less than benevolent to boot.
Meanwhile, the old sense of mutual obligation, somewhat fostered by war-time, has taken a battering. We are into understanding ourselves, into selfimprovement: improving our homes, our looks and our minds. And our view of faith is also increasingly individualistic. We choose the elements of faith that suit us – we may go to church, synagogue or mosque. Individual salvation is part of the appeal of the evangelicals. Personal salvation is the carrot held out. But the requirements our faiths put on us to consider and care for others may get less than their fair attention.
We look at ourselves, not beyond. And despite all the surveys demonstrating widespread belief in God,
despite the huge readership of religious books and the increasing attendance at evangelical churches, our
views about social solidarity, evening up the inequalities and making a difference to groups or individuals who suffer, have taken a battering.

From Unkind, risk averse and untrusting – if this is today’s society,can we change it? - the latest (Sept 2008) report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's series on social evils.

Randall Prior

The keynote speaker at this year's Presbyterian General Assembly (in Wellington, New Zealand) was Randall Prior. Randall focuses a good deal on Gospel and Culture, on Church and the Future. In his addresses to the PCANZ, he spoke specifically about the Future of the Church. Although his talk had some Australian focuses, it was very applicable to the New Zealand scene (and in fact, to a much wider scene). You can download the talks here, or obtain them as audio files.

In one of the footnotes to his second talk, he notes: In my view there is still some considerable ‘dying’ of the present form of the church yet to take place. It is not a simple matter to anticipate a future shape of the church but the indications are that the church’s place in Australian [for Australian read, New Zealand, USA, UK - anywhere else where institutional churches are struggling] society will be:
as one faith group in a society of several faiths and religions;
the church will be marginal to the main interests and activities of our society;
there will be a diversity of forms and styles of church life;
congregations may be increasingly dependent on lay leadership;
there may be little interest among church people in denominational loyalty; there will be fewer resources to maintain the structures and activities and buildings which we have known in the past; for some church communities, there may be only a loose connection with buildings.

It would probably be unwise to takes these notes alone, without reading the rest of the talk, particularly because Prior is talking of the Future of the Church, not its death.

How NZ fell prey to the demon P

In just five years, the drug P has made big inroads into New Zealand society. In an article that originally appeared in the Christchurch Press, on 12th April, 2008, John McCrone investigates the power of methamphetamine; sums up the issues relating to the use of P in NZ (and Australia); compares with other drugs, alcohol; shows its effects on NZ society – not just youth, but some older people. Shows how wide-spread its use is, and looks at whether it has plateaued as a drug of choice.

This is an article that all youth group leaders (as well as ministers) should read.

A few quotes from 'a forgotten man'

"No man shares his life with God whose religion does not flow out, naturally and without effort, into all relations of his life and reconstructs everything that it touches. Whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus. Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master."

"Jesus did not in any real sense bear the sin of some ancient Briton who beat up his wife in B.C.56, or of some mountaineer in Tennessee who got drunk in A.D.1917. But he did in a very real sense bear the weight of the public sins of organized society, and they in turn are causally connected with all private sins."

There are: "six sins, all of a public nature, which combined to kill Jesus. He bore their crushing attack in his body and soul. He bore them, not by sympathy, but by direct experience. In so far as the personal sins of men have contributed to the existence of these public sins, he came into collision with the totality of evil in mankind. It requires no legal fiction of imputation to explain that 'he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.' Solidarity explains it."

"Religious bigotry, the combination of graft and political power, the corruption of justice, the mob spirit (being "the social group gone mad") and mob action, militarism, and class contempt-- "every student of history will recognize that these sum up constitutional forces in the Kingdom of Evil. Jesus bore these sins in no legal or artificial sense, but in their impact on his own body and soul. He had not contributed to them, as we have, and yet they were laid on him. They were not only the sins of Caiaphas, Pilate, or Judas, but the social sin of all mankind, to which all who ever lived have contributed, and under which all who ever lived have suffered."

These quotes come from Walter Rauschenbusch, whose book Christianity and the Social Crisis was so immensely popular in 1907 when it was published it sold more copies for three years than any other religious text but the Bible .

Rauschenbuschian has entered the language as an adjective: for a review of the centenary reprinting of his greatest book, click here.