We have the answers, to the questions nobody is asking!

[Eoghan]

I recall I think Ian Murray or some such luminary describing the prevailing conditions for evangelism a century or so ago. To draw a crowd one simply had to announce a sermon title such as, "What does the Bible say about life after death?".

Having just come through a "review" by our Presbytery, one of the grievances aired was that we were not having an impact in our community, that seems immune to the Gospel. We simply are not seeing an ingathering. Where another generation gave some thought to the condition of their soul this one does not. We seem more concerned with our carbon footprint than the pollution caused by our sin.

As I sat there I reflected that we have answers to the questions that nobody is asking - how can a man be put right with God? So why is nobody asking the questions? I think the reason might be illuminated by Japanese culture. Within Japanese businesses the CEO's have a culture of personal responsibility. If their business did badly in a previous generation, "hari kiri" was a real option. Today it is perhaps more likely to result in resignation and ignominy. Compare that with the personal accountabihe Shredlity of banking executives such as Sir Fred the Shred Goodwin! The Royal Bank of Scotland is changing it's name to avoid the ignominy attached to it after the banking collapse. Japan is "wierd" and "odd" in maintaining a culture of personal accountability. The further up the ladder the more accountable you are!

Here in western europe there is no accountability, as a teacher I can look back over the last 40 years and see the shift in discipline from holding pupils accountable to asking what the teacher did to provoke the bad behaviour! We blame our culture, our parents and the system but never ourselves. As Dennis has put it conservatives would have us battle our nature to be better people, leftists would have us battle society to improve our condition.

There is the nub of it - personal accountability is an oddity of conservative Christians (already converted) and a Japanese culture in the far east! Morality is culturally defined and as such subjective. Whether consciously or not this is the prevailing culture and the philosophy of individuals to whom we present the Gospel. Explaining this I am conscious that this is a human explanation, spiritually God is giving us over to our sin. We are so far from the question of monogamy in marriage that our culture is asking us to embrace "thrupples" and allowing children to "choose" their sexual identity which is then reinforced by drugs and surgery! At the same time as we want children to exercise these powers leftists are asking that the age of criminal responsibility be raised and take account of studies that our brains are not fully developed until we are 25! (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24173194)

Divine intervention might have been a "nudge" in past generations today it has to be a paradigm shift!

 

[149-deleted]

I quite agree that there is a heightened sense of rights and a diminished sense of responsibility. But I think it is better seen as a manifestation of the fallen nature of man in Western Europe, just as a different manifestation might be a grave issue in Japan, where from all I've read the gospel has struggled to make much headway, and evangelism is slow and painstaking work.

But at the same time I think there's a tremendous opportunity as well. The same tendencies that have diminished a sense of responsibility and accountability have contributed to the widespread isolation and fragmentation we see in society -- without responsibility, there cannot be relationship. As a result, there is a searching and even nostalgia for belonging. I've found that when I am asked about what I believe, the fact that my faith is historical and reasonable does generate interest. The very fact that I worship with people with whom I have nothing else in common than faith in Christ and the bonds we have are almost miraculous. More and more I appreciate that one of the pillars of the Church's witness are the words of our Lord, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

After all, the 'nudge' of divine intervention at just one point in the past -- the Reformation -- involved separating from a powerful medieval church armed with the sword, the rediscovery of the Scriptures by the common man in his own language and keeping pure from the excesses of enthusiasts, revolutionaries and numerous sects and heretics.

I'm really sorry if that sounded like a rebuke, dear brother: that is not my intention! I'd rather you were encouraged that God who brings the dead to life will also continue to make the proclamation of the Gospel effective, no matter how dire matters may seem.

 

[CathH]

Hi Eoghan,

This is a good way of putting it - we have the answers to the questions nobody is asking!

Why is nobody asking? I think you are on to something when after identifying a problem in our culture you then add that there must be a spiritual dimension to the explanation too.

This must be especially important in parts of the country where there was previously a strong Christian witness and presence - whole communities of people with solid theological knowledge and deep spiritual understanding. Where that has dwindled away, what's left is (as you say) a kind of immunity to the truth.

It is part of our misery and part of our sin that we don't ask the right questions. We are blind to our real problems and don't know where to begin looking for help. Sin and guilt and estrangement from the Lord either go unrecognised or else are redefined in human terms, excluding God's definitions and God's solutions.

I wonder if this sinful-and-miserable blindness is deepened over generations as successive generations turn their back with increasing determination on what they used to know of the truth.

I don't have good suggestions on how to make more of an impact in the community. But I do think that within the church we need to keep answering the as-yet-unasked questions. (We never asked these questions either until the Spirit opened our eyes to see our needs and the Lord's provision in the light of the Scripture.) It is important in its own right, to keep honouring God, by building each other up in the truth, thinking the way he thinks, adopting the perspective which his Word provides us with - even though, unsurprisingly, unbelievers don't share this perspective. And it is important for the sake of our communities and the perishing souls around us, because if the light doesn't shine within the actual church, they are so much the worse off. We can't open blind eyes but we can try and make sure the lights are on for when the Spirit does here and there, now and again, start to give some people some spiritual perception.

Just to echo what Joe has said -

I'd rather you were encouraged that God who brings the dead to life will also continue to make the proclamation of the Gospel effective, no matter how dire matters may seem.

 

[Backwoods Presbyterian]

"When John Wesley arrived in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in May 1742, he wrote these memorable words: 'I was surprised; so much drunkenness, cursing and swearing (even from the mouths of little children) do I never remember to have seen and heard before in so small a compass of time. Surely, I thought, this place is ripe for Him who 'came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' The gospel of grace does not need promising conditions to make its reception a certainty...The wonder of God's saving works ought therefore to make Christians slow to believe that only doom and catastrophe await the vast populations of this evil earth."

-- Iain Murray, "The Puritan Hope", pg. xx