This is Part 3 of a three-part series on how Christians can work for lasting change in our culture and society.

Simple obedience

On one occasion, as Desmond Tutu was being released from police custody during the apartheid regime in South Africa, he was asked by a reporter, “How long do you intend to go on defying the South African government?” Tutu’s reply was very instructive: “We are not defying anyone. We are simply trying to obey God!”

Commenting on that moment, Christopher Bryan says, “Those were the words of a prophet in the biblical tradition. He by no means denied or defied the South African government; yet such a church as he led, by the mere fact of its being and its constant witness, constituted a challenge to that government to do its job and in the end was instrumental  in bringing about one of the most remarkable (largely nonviolent) revolutions of the modern era.” [i]

This is Part 2 of a three-part series on how Christians can work for lasting change in our culture and society.

Their only option

Over a number of years, I have spent quite a bit of time in Turkey coming alongside the Turkish church. Quite frankly, our Turkish brothers and sisters are a tiny, despised, suspect minority (not even one tenth of one percent of the population). They could never dream of political action as a way of advancing a Christian vision of life.

This is Part 1 of a three-part series on how Christians can work for lasting change in our culture and society.

Silent?

I love mail…I love email. Well, most days.

Today is one of those “exception to the rule” days.

There it was – an email from a member, forwarding the musings of some blogger on his soapbox, pontificating about a hot button social issue. Today isn’t the first time, of course. I’ve come to expect that from time to time I’ll get the forwarded ruminations of some denizen of the Internet. It’s usually written by someone who doesn’t pastor any church telling folks how churches ought to be pastored in this or that moment of national/social/political crisis when local church pastors are apparently asleep at the switch.

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

When I was doing my undergraduate work I spent a year studying the philosophy of art, reading the writings of some of our era’s most distinguish aesthetic theorists. One of the things my professors made me study was the corpus of literature surrounding the question “What is art?” You may find it surprising to learn that there are numerous books and entire journals devoted to this single issue.

"Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good." 1 Peter 4:19

Asking why
Why do we suffer? This question is at the heart of "Carrion Comfort," one of the best known sonnets written by the British poet, and Catholic priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889). Like many of Hopkins' poems, "Carrion Comfort" requires a fair amount of patience on the part of readers, who must unravel the poem's difficult rhythms, awkward syntax, and confusing images in order to discover the answer.

I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately, which, if you stop to think about it, can be a difficult commodity to grasp.

What is time? It’s not like any material realities with which we have to do each day. Yet time is a creature; God made time, and He sustains it – whatever it is.

Christians have seen time differently from, well, time to time. Jonathan Edwards viewed time as one of God’s most precious gifts. He insisted that every believer has a duty to work hard to “improve” the time God allots him each day. This comports well with Paul’s exhortation to “make the best use” of the time we have each day, and with Moses’ prayer that God might teach us to “number our days” – to plan ahead – so that we can gain a heart of wisdom in how we use our time (Eph. 5:15-17; Ps. 90:12).