Couldn't Help Noticing

The Macbeth effect

Eagle-eyed Briefing reader Tristan Merkel from Wodonga, Australia, pointed us to this article which says:

It appears that an element of Lady Macbeth may reside in most of us. The metaphorical desire to wash away one's sins is not just wishful thinking but evidence of an innate psychological association between moral and physical cleanliness, according to a new study ... [R]esearchers found that study participants who focused on unethical behaviours such as lying, stealing, or betraying friends were more likely to follow up with activities that indicated they felt physically dirty.

Those who were given an opportunity to wash their hands after recalling incidents of immoral behaviour showed signs of a clearer conscious [sic] than those who had not washed.

It's interesting that evidence for the Macbeth effect can even be found in the first century:

... [W]hen Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.” (Matthew 27:24)

But of course, those wishing to remove their spiritual stains will not be able to wash away their sins by merely splashing a bit of water or giving some cash to the needy. Only by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus will our desire to be clean be realized once and for all (Acts 22:16).

Alive and well?

I recently attended a large pastor's conference where I was joined by 3,200 evangelical pastors, ministry leaders, seminary students, youth leaders and children's teachers. It is always encouraging to be with so many people who trust in God's word to turn people from idols to serve the true and living God. And this is just one out of dozens of similar conferences that gather Bible-believing Christians. Surely this is a wonderful sign of Christianity here in the States.

However, I am not sure what to make of it all. For, statistically speaking, even though Evangelicalism is on the rise here, our culture is pulling away from God faster than ever. Further, Christians—especially evangelicals—have an alarmingly low understanding of Scripture. Is what I see at conferences like these a fair reflection of the state of American Evangelicalism?

My experience of evangelical churches is this: I know a woman who teaches at an evangelical Christian school who rarely reads the Scriptures; I know an evangelical pastor who preaches more from Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life than the Bible; I know an evangelical church that gathers people in small groups to give them tips on healthy eating and coping with job-related stress while paying very little attention to Matthew or Ecclesiastes. And I could go on with similar examples for pages.

How do the two trends I've identified above square with one another? I've been reading Tom Schreiner's excellent article on preaching and Biblical theology (PDF). Schreiner reminded me how it is that such a dichotomy can exist. He said, “[C]onservative churches may embrace the inerrancy of Scripture while denying in practice the sufficiency of God's Word. We may say that Scripture is God's inerrant Word, while failing to proclaim it seriously from our pulpits”. I would add that churches also fail to practise God's word seriously in their ministry programs.

This is why there are so many evangelical pastors and churches who have no positive effect on Christianity and Evangelicalism as a whole in America: we assume our beliefs rather than practice them. It is easy to claim to hold to evangelical beliefs; you can post them in the church bulletin, use keywords like “inerrancy” and “justification” in your sermons, browbeat liberals for their opposing views. But it is difficult to actually put into practice the doctrines we hold to so fervently. And so it's hard to find a church that centres its ministry on God's word rather than on the culture.

My hunch (based on the fruit of our labours) is that most of our growing evangelical population knows little of what it means to participate in or run a ministry on the idea that God's word is inerrant. As Schreiner points out, this comes back to our fundamental distrust in the fact that God's word is actually sufficient. Simply put, our evangelical churches just don't believe that God's word alone is capable of producing God-glorifying Christians—assuming that they have reached the point where they think that that is the goal of being Christian.

Many cultural pundits say that Evangelicalism is alive and well in America today. I would agree it is alive, but I remained unconvinced as to how “well” it is.

FaithMeds.com

I recently stumbled across a website that, to quote, contains “healing insights from the Word of God and cutting-edge NATURAL ALTERNATIVES that will help you live the abundant, healthy life God wants you to enjoy” (emphasis original). Sound appealing? Well, for someone like me with a significant chronic condition (I have diabetes), it aroused more than a little curiosity. However, I proceeded with caution because the title—“FaithMeds”—is just a tad suspicious.

Dr Don VerHulst, M.D. (an ordained minister), makes a couple of significant claims about what his product Diamaxol can do for my diabetes:

1. By using Diamaxol, I would be harnessing God's power by following his “blueprint for my health” (which also includes “choosing a biblical lifestyle that emphasises God-made natural fruits, vegetables and whole grains ...”). Dr Don believes that the Bible is the most accurate physiology textbook he has ever come across. He uses out-of-context verses throughout his website in an attempt to back up his theological viewpoint.
2. Using Diamaxol can lead to obtaining the control in my life that I need, despite what I have always believed about God's complete sovereignty. Again I quote: “Your health is your choice. Every day, hour, minute and second, you choose between sickness and health, death and life.” While it is possible to make responsible choices for a healthy lifestyle, the ability to “choose between death and life” is news to me.

As I glanced through explanations of the scientific methodology of Dr Don's research, I discovered, unsurprisingly, that it left a lot to be desired. We are not even told the ingredients of what Diamaxol contains. But apart from the obvious potential harm from a product that is not rigorously researched, Dr Don's reading of the Bible demonstrates a seriously flawed theology that brings two main issues to mind.

Firstly, his claims suggest an assumption that God's promise to “heal all your diseases” (Psalm 103:3) is fulfilled here on earth, and that we are not enjoying God's blessing if we don't enjoy perfect health now. This viewpoint fails to take passages such as Romans 8 into consideration—that the creation, which includes our physical bodies, is still in the bonds of decay. The future promise of the resurrection day gives great hope to the reality of suffering now. As a result, the type of theology fundamental to Dr Don's claims has caused crises of faith for misled Christians—believers who face disillusionment with God because they are enduring physical illness in this world and they seem to have failed to receive his true blessing.

Secondly, Dr Don seems to be deceived by the notion that using his product not only helps Christians to fulfil God's will for their lives, but that there is only one biblical answer for how to care for our physical health. It would seem, therefore, that not following Dr Don's advice is disobedience to God.

In the end, I can only conclude that while such schemes as FaithMeds.com sound appealing, they only offer the empty promises of false teaching. Oh, and would you trust medicine from a man who comes from 135 Terminal Way, Reno, Nevada?

Administrators unite

It's great to see that a newly formed ministry training organisation in the UK is offering a training program by correspondence for administrators. As our church team ministries grow, and our organisations become more complex with church planting, we are going to need more people to take care of the admin. So it's very encouraging for this old administrator to hear that a correspondence course is now being offered to help equip Christian people for this task.

See the Open Bible Institute for more information.

It just doesn’t add up

(From Peter Hughes, one of our Briefing readers in Banksia, Sydney, Australia:)

I want you to remember two numbers: 150 and 15. I was reading a book about a guy who was a church planter. His church had grown to about 150 and he decided it was time to plant another church. The problem was that he still had to work a part-time job because there was not enough income coming through the church. This got me thinking.

Most people, it seems, like a church where they know the pastor or minister. Sociologists tell me that this is about 150 people per minister; after that, it becomes too hard. In Sydney Anglican churches, the average giving per adult per week is $15 (actually it's a bit less but let's be nice). It costs a church $80,000 per year for a minister after things like superannuation and insurance etc., and let's say another $20,000 for expenses like building costs (rent or upkeep), printing, insurance and other things.

So, let's say then that it costs $100,000 a year for a minister to run a church. If people are giving $15 a week, this means you need at least 128 adults to break even. That is not far away from having to think about planting a new church if you want to grow. This means the church can't afford another staff member until the new church is big enough (and now the first minister is trying look after 256 people across the new and the old churches—people who are frustrated they can't talk to him).

The solution is either:

1. choose not to grow our churches, and once we get between 128 and 150, we stop reaching out with the gospel;
2. increase the average giving per adult to $30 per adult per week; or
3. be more generous to our ministers and let them spread themselves more thinly. We need to be happy with being in churches with congregations of up to 250.

None of these options are easy. I do not think that a) is a Christian response. For some people, b) is simply not an option. Others will find it hard to adjust to c). But as it stands, it doesn't seem to add up to me.