Os Guinness is my new hero of the evangelical world!

Apologies for the delay in posting, its been crazy around here!

Moving on!

I was privileged this week to attend a talk given to pastor by Os Guinness. For those of you who may be scratching your heads, he's one of the writers of the Evangelical Manifesto you can read here. What i found most interesting about his talk is that it helped me crystallize alot of what i'd been observing and reflecting about american culture and the church within it. Its always nice to get your observations affirmed by a reputable scholar! I wish i'd been able to take notes! (doh!)

But some points i remember him making are:

That we need to thoughtfully engage the culture. This means looking at the history of the current popular ideas, e.g knowing their autobiography. Then we need to assess their impact on the street level. In order for us to do that we need to have a good sense of our own christian history! (One thing that i have become more and more convinced is the need for churches to teach more than "just the bible". People need to know their history, we need to know the names and deeds of the saints who went before us!!!)

He pointed out that in the 20th century faith went from being solely private to ultra-political. Both of these movements had disastrous results for Christianity in America. One of these results is that america has been led further down the path to secularization making it harder for people of faith to have a voice in the public sphere. He suggested that we make sure to speak into the culture but let them make their choices and yet continue to be a witness to the love of Christ and the Gospel.(a fine balancing act!) I liked his point that we are told to "love our enemies" and most Christians who are members of the "moral majority" and such other groups have demonized their enemies. Where's the Gospel in that?

He also talked about technology and its impact on culture. No one really philosophized on time and shaped how we thought about it. Instead its the invention of the watch and its ever-present ticking that shapes how we think about time. Think about the impact of cell-phones and the internet on the culture and the church?!

He also cautioned against innovation for innovations sake. In America we are blitzed by advertising/consumerism. They are always telling us to seek what's new and different. But what's new and different isn't always what's good and healthy. I'll have to come back to this later and do a whole blog post on it, when i've sorted out just how i feel about this. (Esp since i'm a bit of a gadget freak!)

Finally he pointed out that it's actually good to be a little "behind the times". Because we can see the result/errors/consequences of the philosophical/technological trends and innovations. Europe was heading in a secular direction much longer than the States and yet we have failed as a church to learn from Europe's example. He pointed out that churches in developing countries are failing to learn from our example and shared several illustrative stories.

Speaking of churches in the developing world. As has been noted the shift of power has moved south. Along with this shift has been the emergence of different modernities. What this means is that there is an American/Chinese/French way of looking/thinking/doing. So there is no sense of the need for integration. Instead there is fragmentation. He then asked about how the church and Christians are speaking/demonstrating/interacting with this. There was much more to this point, but i cant remember all the points, but i have a feeling this is something i'll circle back to!

So there's the highlights from the talk. Hopefully i'll be able to get a recording and then i can do a much better interaction with the material. But for now i'm still chewing on the bits of the talk i remember! Perhaps i should finally break down and buy one of his books....?