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SOUTHBOROUGH L’ABRI PRAYER/NEWSLETTER We have Christian people in a position to exert political influence in a more self-conscious and open way than at any recent time. That ought to be a good thing. But it seems that along with good possibilities, the much discussed national polarization has brought with it some significant misunderstandings which are dangerous to God’s work. I hear people afraid of theocracy, of an ignoring of the first amendment, and of obliterating the church-state separation. While some of this is hysterical, not all of it is, given the rhetoric of some Christians. I am concerned both for theology and rhetoric. One place to start is with the question, what is the difference between a sin and a crime? People fear that Christians will push as much of their faith down the throat of the pluralistic public as they have the power to do. It is that Christians will, for example, force more and more of what they believe are sins, to be criminalized. We need to do better in explaining what we are about. We can do more to serve God and allay fears if we base the sin/crime distinction in our theology, not on political pragmatics of power or symbolic objects or events. I think we can distinguish between moral principles rooted in creation from moral principles rooted in redemption. To condense a great deal, the ethics of creation and fall include: the value of human life created in God’s image, care for the creation/environment, the institution of work (economy), marriage/family and truth telling. I would argue theologically that these apply to all people in the fallen world, whatever they believe. It is appropriate that the coercive power of laws be used to lead a society toward God’s good in each of these areas because that will be good for all – even though not all will agree. Sufficiently serious sins against these moral principles should be treated as crimes. Laws should not necessarily demand God’s ideal, but should lead a given society from wherever they are toward God’s ideal. The ethics of redemption, by contrast, apply to the redeemed, not to everyone. They include: belief in Christ in the first place, the sacraments, prayer, church membership, a confession of faith. These things cannot, must not, be backed by coercion, especially by the state. That would violate conscience, which must be free. Much woe in the Christian past has come from ignoring this distinction. We know of baptism at sword point, the Inquisition and prohibition from, e.g., Oxford and Cambridge universities unless one was a member of the Church of England. Here in the Massachusetts Bay Colony you had to be a church member to vote in town meetings. This both created resentment against the church and also diluted it by non-Christians with bogus conversion stories. These (sometimes) well-meaning attempts to serve God by using the coercive power of the state have always backfired against the cause of Christ, bringing resentment and lasting confusion. They were both theologically wrong and concretely destructive. The church should have sent missionaries, not crusaders to the Middle East . There is such a thing as a just war, but not a holy war in our era. There is no holy land, holy city, holy mountain or holy building that we can justify fighting for in God’s name. Christian people need to be engaged in political life while being able to convincingly deny any aspirations of theocracy. Of course we want to “legislate morality”. Everybody does. The transcendent source of our moral values should not disqualify us. But the morality that we want to legislate must be the moral principles of creation ethics. So it is surely necessary to be involved in legal issues of life and death, marriage and family, environment, economics and truth telling. But I have little sympathy for trying to force prayer to God into public schools against people that don’t want it. We must also follow the example of Wilberforce by not relying on hard-ball politics as a shortcut, but being ready for a monumental job of cultural persuasion. It will not be done overnight or by throwing Bible verses at people who do not believe the Bible. We must learn to persuade by living and speaking in a way that has traction in the minds and hearts of a secular culture. That means a non-religious vocabulary. It is all there in Jesus’ description of us as salt and light of the world. Well, we have raised many more issues than we have resolved, but it is something to think about. I sincerely hope that it has not just raised hornet’s nests of confusion. Now we come down to earth hard in Southborough. I can remember Dr. Schaeffer saying that God often does not allow us to experience one emotion at a time. We sometimes find ourselves in simultaneous celebration and mourning, joy and sorrow, hope and fear. This is true in what is a time of testing for us. We have finished a wonderful and unusual autumn term. We squeezed in a higher number of students than I can ever remember. It was unusual also in that almost all the students stayed the whole term. This was a great opportunity for more in-depth studying and tutoring. We saw really exciting things happen and were very grateful for our team of workers, as well as Sarah, Aaron and Tim who were our helpers. Mardi’s health seems to have improved, though we have to say this tentatively because her blood pressure has been so erratic. Another cause for excitement is that our son, Ben, got engaged to be married next April to Nickaela Fiore, who has been here with us for over a year and a L’Abri worker since September – a great match. On the other side we have some problems. We have been financially on rock bottom (or below) for three months. Despite considerable effort, Mark and Terri’s visas are good only until March ’05 and so they have, understandably, decided to leave the U.S. Also understandably, Nickaela will be leaving Southborough in April after her marriage. These wonderful people will be a tremendous loss to the branch and will take us below critical mass of workers when the summer term comes – leaving only Joe and Sue Morrell, Mardi (with questionable health) and myself. The way the Schaeffers set up L’Abri, we have left ourselves intentionally vulnerable when it comes to finances, workers and students. We do not do fund-raising, recruiting of workers or canvassing for students. We pray. It was their effort to keep us all open to God’s direction, to have a reality to our own dependence on him and to give some evidence to the world of God’s care in practical terms. Students we have aplenty. But our vulnerability financially is now “in our face” in a way that it has not been for years at this branch, and the worker shortage will also be “in our face” in the spring.
One of the fruits of our October trustees’ meeting was to realize that we have been neglecting to encourage and keep informed our praying family, that is, those who are not just interested in our news, but who want to pray for us regularly. Many of you have been doing this anyway, but without much help from us. We want to send more frequent letters with more detailed information to those of you who would like to pray for us. For financial reasons at this point at least, we will have to restrict it to those with e-mail. Let us know at Southborough@labri.org. Have a great Christmas and New Year. Dick Keyes |