The Chinese Century
August 25, 2008
The Olympics have been billed by some as the coming out party for a new China. Without a doubt, the Chinese government put on a great show with beautiful venues, tight security, and home-country athletes primed to win gold in many events. Apart from the continuing question about the age of some Chinese gymnasts, the entire show was a resounding success – from the 2008 drummers who opened the games to the British accepting the challenge for the London Games in 2012.
China is a world power, to be sure, and the Olympics have reminded the world of that reality. China’s population is four to five times that of the Unites States. China is geographically huge and diverse, loaded with natural resources to fuel its continued growth. Many Chinese live in burgeoning cities – more than 50 Chinese cities have a population greater than 1 million. China is becoming more educated as university enrollment grows and exchange students come to the United States to earn degrees. The country is also booming economically as more and more global companies (like Walmart) establish a presence there.
Let’s hope the “new” China is different, however, in several specific ways from the old China. Let’s hope China develops a better way to manage its population than forcibly enforcing the one-child policy. Let’s hope China changes international policies in places like the Sudan. Let’s hope China recognizes human rights, among its own people, and allows freedom of the press and thought to flourish. Let’s hope China becomes more of an ally in the worldwide war on terror. Let’s hope, most of all, for a new freedom of religion that allows Christianity to grow rapidly without persecution or the threat of persecution.
Southern Baptists have longed considered China vital in the process of world evangelization. Our most revered Southern Baptist missionary, Lottie Moon, worked in China. Many others have followed in her footsteps. In the future, let’s hope China openly embraces missionaries who come to share the gospel and meet human needs in the name of Jesus. Until they are as welcoming of our missionaries, as we are of their students and scholars, real freedom of religion will not exist in China.
China will be a major force in the twenty-first century. The United States government must recognize this and act accordingly. Southern Baptists, and all evangelicals, must also recognize this and make praying for, going to, and working with China a major priority.
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The Warren Forum
August 18, 2008
Rick Warren, pastor at Saddleback Church, recently hosted a Civil Forum with Barack Obama and John McCain. The forum was Warren’s attempt to have a conversation with the two candidates without the vitriolic rhetoric often found in a presidential campaign. Warren hoped, and seemed largely successful, that having this event in a church with a pastor-moderator would establish a dialogical tone for frank conversation.
After watching the presentations, my decision about how to vote in the upcoming election became even clearer. Our denomination encourages people to “vote their values.” That’s what I try to do. The question, then, is what are the key values I plan to vote?
Some criticize religious leaders like me for forcing biblical values into the public arena. So, rather than draw my conclusions from a religious document, I am willing to draw them from a secular one. My points are adequately made by three important values in a distinctly secular document – The Declaration of Independence. For me, in this election the key values are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
I will vote for life. I will vote for the candidate who will reduce abortion. Abortion is not a right. It is a permitted medical procedure. The American Holocaust is a national shame. I want a president who will propose laws to limit abortion and appoint Supreme Court justices to uphold those laws after they are enacted. I also want a president who will speak with moral authority about sexual fidelity and support programs that help prevent unwanted pregnancy. I will vote for life.
I will also vote for liberty. The war on terror (not limited to the war in Iraq) is the greatest external threat to our liberty. I will vote for a president who understands warfare in the 21st century against a new kind of enemy is fundamentally different than past wars. I will vote for a president who works internationally to build a coalition to restrain evil – one of the biblical roles of government. Our greatest internal threat to liberty is our greed, which makes us dependent on other nations (energy, national debt, and trade deficits). Sound national fiscal policy is central to national defense. I will vote for liberty.
And finally, I will vote for the candidate who promises to help me pursue happiness, not the one promises to make me happy. This is, perhaps, the greatest misunderstanding of our “rights” as Americans. We have come to believe we have a right for the government to make us happy. We were not promised that right. We have the right to “the pursuit of happiness” which is a fundamentally different issue. When a candidate encourages personal responsibility, corporate accountability, and community initiative – I’m in! When he promises to take care of me – I’m out.
So, join me in voting for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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Another Adultery Confession
August 11, 2008
John Edwards, former North Carolina Senator and Democratic presidential candidate, recently confessed to an adulterous relationship with a campaign employee. Speculation that he might become a cabinet officer if Barack Obama wins the election has turned to lament of the end his career in politics. Given Bill Clinton’s rebound, it will be interesting to see if this is really true. Time will tell.
But, for now, Edwards is paying the public price for his private choices. His statement about his adultery is instructive for other leaders who want to avoid this problem. Edwards’ said, “I was and am ashamed of my choices, and I had hoped that it would never become public.” How could anyone who has lived this long in the public eye really have hoped “it would never become public?” Private sin is never really private. Other people are involved. A paper trail, or an electronic trail in today’s world, is created. A secret is something told to one person at a time! Be sure of this – if you are involved in sexual sin with another person, it will be found out.
Edwards also said, “In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.” Fancy words that mean Edwards started to think the whole world revolved around him and the rules he had for other people didn’t apply to him. These are common characteristics of a leader who justifies behavior he would not condone by others.
A mentor once told me to beware of pastors who were “perfectionists, prudes, or pretty boys.” That was his earthy way of warning me about pastors who claim to be perfect, claim moral superiority, or spend an inordinate amount of time on their image. When I first heard the warning, I thought, “That’s either crude or rude, but either way I don’t like it.” Now, after 30 years of watching ministry leaders, I have concluded his statement is true.
Pastors, and other ministry leaders, are responsible to preach, teach, and live a high moral standard. But, while we are standard bearers, we must also stay in touch with reality – about ourselves and the people around us. We are not perfect. We are not morally superior. And, we must not be preoccupied with our image (with what we want people to think about us). If you are drifting in any of these areas, you are in danger of, in Edwards’ words, “increasingly egocentric and narcissistic behavior.”
While avoiding adultery or other sexual sin in our sex-obsessed culture is difficult, it is not impossible. Doing so starts with your attitude. Stay humble. Never think, “It could never happen to me.” Yes, it can! Recognize your frailty. While it may seem counterintuitive, admitting vulnerability is the first step toward moral strength. Most ministry leaders know the actions to take to help them maintain moral purity. The actions, however well intended, are a charade if the attitude isn’t right.
Are you drifting toward narcissism? Do you think the rules you have for other people don’t apply to you? Are you dabbling with, or flirting with, immoral behavior? Are you drifting? If so, stop it now. Recognize what’s happening to you and turn around now. If you don’t, you will someday say, as Edwards’ did at the end of his statement, “I have been stripped bare.” Don’t let it happen to you.
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Funny, but not really
August 4, 2008
Mama Mia! is, as one critic wrote, “The best time you will have at the movies this year.” Seeing it is a rollicking good time. The audience we saw it with sang along with some of the songs and roared with laughter at both the dialogue and the visual humor. Set in Greece, the scenery and costumes are beautiful. The casting and the performances make the characters memorable.
So, despite all this, why did I leave the theater with a hollow feeling?
The movie’s premise is just too sad to be overcome with happy singing and snappy dialogue. The premise is simple – Donna has sex with three men in three weeks and one of them sires her daughter, Sophie. Twenty years later, Sophie steals her mother’s diary in an attempt to find out the truth about her heritage and discovers her ambiguous parentage. So, she poses as her mother and invites all three men to her wedding. The movie’s humor emerges as all these characters discover what Sophie has done and work out this complicated situation.
But what is missing is any acknowledgement of the high price Sophie has paid for her mother’s promiscuity. And, further, any sense of remorse (much less repentance) by Donna for her behavior and the emotional toll it has taken on her daughter. At one point, Donna laments about that summer, “I was such a slut.” But her friends respond with, “You sound like your mother” and laugh off her near-confession.
The movie, like many others these days, has a subplot about a happy gay couple and a “happy” ending as Sophie decides to emulate her mother’s behavior by touring the world with her fiancé. It is hard to imagine, given the tone of the movie, they would be booking separate rooms on their around the world tour.
People like me are considered out-of-touch prudes by many people – particularly media, educational, and governmental leaders who advocate freedom of choice without any moral authority guiding human behavior. Yet, most of the ugliest situations I have encountered in ministry have been the results of immoral behavior. Rather than happily ever after, too many people like those in this movie have sat in my office and sobbed out the pain of past choices. So, despite my out-of-touch convictions, my love for people and desire for them to experience the best life possible mandates I stand up for the sexual standards in the Bible.
God wants the best for us. Real freedom is the absence of anxiety found by living in submission to God’s standards, not basing our behavior on hormonal urges or emotional surges. Those of us who really believe this are an ever-shrinking minority - the last people left advocating moral sanity in a continually disintegrating culture.
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