Bible and Mission

  An insanity has fallen upon the West, like a witch’s spell.   We have lived with it long enough to know it, understand it, but not long enough to resist it, to undo it.   The very stewards of the truth that would remove it have left their posts.   They have succumbed to its whispers, become its servants.   It has infected the very air and crept along the ground like a mist until it is within us and all about us.   We utter its precepts like schoolchildren taught their lines. Its power lies in its claims of virtuosity, distorted goodness.   If presented as the vices that they are, they would be rejected.   These virtues are proclaimed from the pulpits and painted on banners or made into flags.   They are established in our schools, colleges, universities, and seminaries.   They are the hallucinogen making our own cultural suicide bearable, even desirable.   They are virtues, but disordered, or they are the excess or deficiency of...

Jakob Spener (1635-1705) was a German theologian concerned for the renewal of the Lutheran Church of his day.  He inaugurated a movement that came to be known as Pietism.  Pietism in Lutheranism is one strand of what we might call Evangelicalism.  Reaching back to our roots gives us food for thought about renewal of Evangelicalism itself in our day. In Pia Desideria , Spener begins with three characteristics that should be pursued by the Church.  First, he says that the Church and individuals should pursue perfection, even if it is not attainable in this life.  The Reformation's focus on salvation by God's grace through faith left the question Paul Himself asked in Romans 6.1: 'Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?'  Pietism sought to raise the standard.  Our Christian life is a call to perfection.  As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7.1: ' Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spir...