The Long Game and the Short Game

An interesting thing I’ve been pondering lately is the difference between a long term strategy and a short term one. An article that helped me with this is here.

Christians often seem good at short term strategies. One example of this is the huge focus of Christian churches (and here I speak of evangelicals because that is the tradition I am in), on winning converts. Our churches are often geared to seekers and aimed at “Level One” people. We want to win them to Christ, so the gospel message of repentance and faith is hammered. Let’s get those people saved. We tend to be fairly successful.

Another example I’ve personally seen is the ability of entrepreneurial evangelical Christians to get organisations like Christian schools or preschools off the ground. A growth mindset leads to replication and fairly quick growth. We seem to have some skill in getting new organisations off the ground.

Unfortunately, on the flip side, we often neglect long term strategy. One example of this is seen in our approach to child-raising. Scripture is very clear on the importance of family. There are promises that God will show steadfast love to a thousand generations of those who fear him and obey his commandments. Yet for all that, Christian parents are not always faithful in teaching their children to fear the Lord. This can be especially difficult for those who are caught up in ministry. Yet how much better off would the church be if we had not won any converts through evangelism in the past 50 years, but had kept every single child born into a Christian home in the faith. Obviously, this is not a call to abandon personal evangelism, but to acknowledge the history of strategic failure which is having profound ramifications for the Church in the west right now. The door into the faith is wide, but it seems the exit door is even wider. We should stop showing our kids to that door.

A second example can be seen when we return to those Christian organisations that were set up ten to fifteen years down the track, it seems that the original vision is lost. Growth has happened quickly, but holding onto the original mission has come second place to growth. So we end up with Christian schools run by people who think homosexuality is a valid lifestyle choice for Christians, or preschools run in exactly the same way as secular preschools. The organisation becomes compromised, and its long term prospects for the gospel are precarious. Perhaps a slower more purposeful growth that considers the long term strategic value of the organisation and its goals would be wiser.

A final example of the church’s tendency to neglect long term strategy is our disengagement with ‘worldly concerns’ in a kind of gnostic dualism. We think that engagement and control of cultural institutions is somehow ‘unspiritual’, and that we should push our children into ‘higher callings’ – ones that are to do with the salvation of souls. Yet how much better off would our world be today, if the Christian leaders of the 20th century had with one voice challenged their congregations to excel in their work so that they could ‘stand before kings’? Imagine if our leaders had with one voice encouraged the laity to get themselves into positions of cultural influence and use that influence for the kingdom of Christ. Perhaps the wide appeal of dispensationalism has had an impact here. Those of a dispensationalist bent are far more likely to consider engagement in the world a waste of time when souls could be being saved. For many, this would be akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I think we need to recognise that short term thinking is often the thinking of unbelief. Saul, facing a significant battle, decided to sacrifice to the LORD instead of wait for Samuel to perform this. He was judged. Abraham, instead of waiting and trusting to God’s promises, took matters into his own hand and slept with Sarah’s maidservant. Faithful believers need to be long term thinkers. In fact, the principle of long term strategy is built into God’s world. The yearly harvest typifies this. One sows in season. Despite having immediate use, that seed is made dead to us and buried in the ground, that in a future time it might be raised up producing a fruitful yield. Even Christ’s coming came at the appointed time (Galatians 4:4). God didn’t exactly hurry things, and we must recognise that he is wisdom. Perhaps its time for the church, and especially the leaders of the church to consider what we could do to help the church be more effective in the longterm. What do we need to do now, and keep building slowly over the next 50 to 100 years, that will maximise the impact of the gospel to our children’s children’s children?

As the article I mentioned at the beginning puts it, “To maximize the effectiveness of evangelism, we need not only direct appeals to the gospel, but also a strategic goal to control the organs of culture that determine the presuppositions people bring to the gospel message.” Perhaps we need to be thinking wider than personal salvation, and consider how Christ’s kingship applies to culture and civilizations.

Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

I read this quote from the Puritan Cotton Mather on the importance of keeping the main thing the main thing for Christian parents.

Before all, and above all, ’tis the knowledge of the Christian religion that parents are to teach their children…The knowledge of other things, though it be never so desirable an accomplishment for them, our children may arrive to eternal happiness without it…But the knowledge of the godly doctrine in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ is of a million times more necessity for them.

We can stop feeling guilty about our children not being in a sports team, or being unable to attend music lessons or other activities. These are good things, but if we forgo these because spiritual development and family relationships are more important to us, we do well.

Frivolous Divorce

‘Most divorces are secured for what people before our time would have considered scandalously frivolous reasons – not physical cruelty, not adultery, but willfulness, irritability, and boredom. Then we set such people free – and divorces are more often than not sought by the party most to blame; the greener-grass seeker, the golddigger, the unreliable, even the adulterous. They then may go on, like carcinogenic free radicals in the body politic, to corrupt yet another household, rather than to have their self-will cordoned off in one household and, possibly, healed by the long-suffering and kindness of the spouse, or by simple maturation. At the worst they would be able to say, “I kept my promise, and our children and our children’s children visit us together, and if we could not be excellent spouses to one another, at least we did not make them suffer the pain of divorce.” And now, if those children marry, they will have an example of perseverance to guide them through the straits they will meet in turn.’ 

Defending Marriage – Anthony Esolen

Advice for 20-Year-Olds

Men like Jordan Peterson have a huge following of young people, often young men. In church circles, we can sometimes think that young people are all godless hedonists who are uninterested in the bigger questions of reality. The Peterson phenomenon suggests otherwise. What are they doing that we aren’t? I’m sure sharper minds than mine have considered this question, but I suspect one reason is that they are offering practical strategies for living a virtuous life. Consider the following short clip.

What strikes me firstly is his willingness to challenge young men without resorting to demeaning and haranguing them as if they are failures. In the church our young men can often be looked down on as ‘hopeless’ and needing to get their act together. Here is a man who is like a loving father encouraging a son to man-up in a winning way. He is giving excellent advice that comports with a biblical view of masculinity and the dominion mandate.

Secondly, he’s not afraid to challenge cultural norms. He rightly points out that marriage is more fulfilling than a career. He says, “You’re not going to find something more valuable in your life than a committed relationship with someone that you love that sustains itself across time and that in all likelihood produces children. That’s life. And there may be people for whom avoiding that is the better route, but those people are very rare, and you need a real reason to assume that you are one of those people.” In the church we have more or less taken on the cultural norm of elevating career above marriage by the way we assume that our children should not consider marriage until after they have completed studying and got career sorted.

Obviously, there is more to be said here. We would disagree that familial relationships are the most important thing in life. Christ is our all in all. Yet getting on with getting married is in general a helpful truth provided this is conducted with wisdom and maturity. The truth is that the pattern of marrying and being given in marriage and raising families is normative in the Christian age. While the celibate life is a valid and God-honouring calling for some, we may be in danger of denigrating the normal pattern for growing the church through a godly offspring as well as the normal pattern for avoiding sexual immorality, and the normal pattern God uses for strengthening society and culture and preventing societal decay. Yes work and vocation is important, but family is more important.

How to Have ‘Easy’ Children

It is not an infrequent experience for my wife and I to be complimented our children’s behaviour in public. I say this as a matter of fact and not in order to boast. After all, I get to see my kids at home, and these observers do not. I know their wicked little hearts! It does seem however that people are genuinely surprised when children sit politely at a table and eat nicely at a restaurant, or follow Mum around the supermarket without whining and throwing tantrums.

Part of the reason for the surprise is a now widespread and defective philosophy of child-rearing. Faulty philosophy has an unfortunate tendency to lead to faulty action. Many young parents have imbibed a child-centred philosophy from their own upbringing and schooling, and combined with their naively optimistic view of human nature, they carry this with them into their parenting.

Recently when talking with some young couples without kids about disciplining children, we surprised them when they asked what a parent should do to train truculent and disobedient toddlers.

Our rule of thumb is that as soon as the child is able to deliberately disobey (and that happens from around 6-9 months for example when they refuse to lie still when you are changing a nappy), you must sternly reprimand them and as appropriate force them to do what they are told. This may mean a sharp tap on the hand, or as they become a bit older, on the bottom although in NZ these days you might need to be careful should you use this kind of physical discipline, and may need to consider how best you can force your toddler to do what he is told without falling foul of the law. The goal of a parent in the early years say until around 5 must be to aim for instant obedience. Your children must learn to come under your authority without question or delay. That is probably the most important lesson you can teach your children in the early years, and will set you up for a more pleasant parenting experience in the primary school years.

So our young friends were surprised by the fact that force would be used on a toddler. This lack of experience and knowledge leads to one of the most disturbing trends I have seen in the parenting of toddlers – attempting to reason with them. Never reason with a toddler. Never get down to their level and put on a soft wheedling voice pleading with them to use reason and do the right thing. Readers, I’m sure you’ve seen something like the following scenario.

“Now Jack, we mustn’t stand on the blocks or we might break them, and then we won’t be able to play with them any more,” pleads the careworn Mum while the little (parent-made) monster Jack grins malevolently back at Mum with a ‘Try make me’ look in his eyes.

What a parent must do is show that they are a loving but strong authority who must be obeyed immediately. If Jack has been asked to get off the blocks and is dilly-dallying, grab him immediately and take him off the blocks and in a stern no-nonsense voice, say something like, “Mummy said off !” Fewer words are better and more memorable. Emotional lectures are a waste of time. The message must be simple and short and backed up with your physical presence and action. If at home and away from nosey do-gooders, a little tap on the hand to remind him to obey immediately in the future will not hurt him, but likely save him from a whole lot of trouble later.

Failure to act as the authority in your child’s life from in these early years will turn young children into brats who other adults will secretly (or not so secretly) hate to be around. And as Jordan Peterson argues in his 12 Rules for Life, that is not good for them.

Well-behaved children who are a delight to be around are the result of firm training in these early years. One of the most annoying things my wife and I hear is “But you’ve got easy children.” Our experience has been that almost every one of our children have been difficult in the early years. Some have been more compliant and willing to come under authority, but others have been determined to push the boundaries and refuse to come under authority for some time. Persistance in crushing this rebelliousness has been hard but has paid dividends for them. Yes, that’s right for the child.

Some may object to the use of phrases like crushing rebellion as unloving. Get rid of this weakness. Parents have a God-given duty to discipline children and train them up. What is truly unloving is caring about your own feelings of dislike for discipline and upsetting your children than for the child himself. Rebellion and sin lead to death, and no loving parent wants that.

God’s word puts it bluntly. “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him” You might think those feelings preventing you from disciplining your children are loving feelings, but the action they give birth to is not love but hatred. Discipline is the sign of a loving parent. God disciplines those he loves, those who are his sons. If we refuse to discipline our children we are treating them as if they are bastards (Hebrews 12:7).

Ardern’s Leadership

Prime Minister Ardern has pulled out of her weekly appearance on the Mike Hosking breakfast show. The reason given is that she is rearranging her interview schedule. Yet one can’t help wondering whether she was tired of being asked difficult questions. As many are now pointing out, Ardern seems more at home with patsy questions and friendly interviewers. She’s loved overseas, and her daily performance during COVID rallied many New Zealanders, despite feeling a little patronizing at times. Unfortunately, she struggles when facing a more seasoned interviewer who pushes back.

In his explanation of the situation, Hosking said, “The number of times she’s fronted on this programme with no knowledge around the questions I’m asking is frightening. Reports I read, she hadn’t. The time I asked whether they’re replacing the Tauranga City Council, she replied they didn’t do such things. Clearly, not having the slightest clue, in a month or so, they were going to do exactly that. Those occasions are too many to be comfortable.”

To anyone who has heard Ardern and Hosking spar, it’s clearly an uncomfortable experience for Ardern. She seems to be struggling. She might be able to present well at the daily COVID briefings. She might be good at spouting platitudes, but despite promising us transparency, she doesn’t seem to deal well with grown-up questions pertaining to her government’s performance. She seems to feel much more at home with fawning and sycophantic supporters who would never dream of asking a question of their hero. Is this true leadership?

Barry Soper, one of the few decent journalists we have in New Zealand, observed, “The questions were too direct, they got under her thin skin but, more importantly, she didn’t know the answer to many of them. She was exposed on a weekly basis and it simply all became too much for her.” His final line in his editorial, “She’s treading water.” is about right.

It seems she’s fallen into leadership before she was ready. Without COVID, she’d probably be gone. To ensure a third term, one would imagine she will have to deliver on some of the grandiose promises she’s made. Unless COVID saves her again.

Pop Culture and the Church

Over time, I have become more and more dissatisfied with what I see in the modern evangelical church scene. One of the issues I struggle with is its desire to be relevant. It has embraced a sort of evangelical pop culture. This has led to some tragic developments.

We all know there’s something incongruous about an older woman trying to dress like she’s still a ‘hot young thing’. We find it troubling when an older man has not developed gravitas but acts like a clown. I wonder if the same applies to the Church of God.

As a child, I grew up going to church with my parents. Things were formal. People wore their Sunday best. The minister wore a suit. There were periods of silence and reflection. We sang hymns – songs that were sometimes hundreds of years old. The old organ had a few bad notes, and the organists were often no virtuosos, but my heart soared as all around me sung with gusto lyrics millions around the world for centuries had sung. Communion felt like a very solemn and reverent occasion. The period of quiet while it took place seemed to last forever. I felt a sense of awe. This time and place was special, and I was a part of something that stretched millennia. There were jarring moments in the service. A responsive reading for instance, where I, even as a small boy participated with children through to octagenarians. I sat with my parents and felt part of the great body of Christ.

Now, when I attend my church the atmosphere is completely different. The preachers are attired in semi-casual. The vibe is friendly. The language is simple, and the service leaders remind me of over-enthusiastic energiser bunnies trying to drum up enthusiasm in the congregation. Everything is apparently ‘super exciting’. There is no time for reflection, for any moments when there is no speaking from the front are filled in with music. The Lord’s Supper is conducted at break-neck speed. We sing a constantly changing repertoire of modern evangelopop, mostly with banal lyrics set to mind-numbingly boring music. The musicians are more gifted than the ones in my childhood, but I feel unmoved. Nor it seems are many of the people around me, for the singing seems half-hearted aside from the odd young woman raising her hands. I feel like a spectator of a slick performance. My children are taken out mid-way through service so that they can be taught in an ‘age-appropriate’ manner, which by the sounds of it involves low expectations, ill-disciplined children and fun. I feel vaguely uneasy about this and wonder how this is connecting my children culturally to our forefathers in the faith.

Don’t get me wrong. There is a lot my church is doing right. They love God’s Word. They care for the lost. And in the trends I mentioned above, they are far better than many other evangelical churches. I’ve been in one evangelical church where we sang a song with exceptionally trite lyrics while we were encouraged by the song leaders to jump around with our finger-pointing in the air until we (actually I point-blank refused) had done a complete 360. This was repeated. Multiple times. On the opposite extreme, we have other more formal and traditional churches. Often the gospel is absent in the sermons (thank goodness for the liturgy of the Anglican church in these cases), and the youngest members are in their 50s. They are dying churches. So yes, better a church that is living, preaching the gospel and growing.

True, relevance is important. We want people to understand the good news of Christ. However, have we overbalanced? I am not sure that we have understood the importance of difference and tradition. The Church is meant to be a light in a dark world. Darkness and light are polar opposites. Shouldn’t it be a slightly jarring exercise coming into the light? We all know the experience of being blinded when coming out into the sunshine after being in a dark room. Church ought to be that light. It ought to be different.

The Church has seen popular culture and attempted to model it in a ‘sanctified’ way. But this is a mistake. In his book Future Men, Douglas Wilson comments on Pop Culture. “Pop culture is a disposable culture for those who agree to consume it. But because cultures are meant to be handed down to subsequent generations, because cultures are meant to be preserved, a consumable culture is really an anti-culture.” Why on earth would the Church want to copy this anti-culture? We have a rich and vast heritage. One that has been bought with blood. Why would we want to toss this out the window for what is cheap and tacky for the sake of relevance?

Christianity should change and shape culture, not be moulded by it. From my experience, it all seems to be going the other way in evangelical churches. We are shaped by our informal culture into informal services of worship. We are shaped by a culture that cannot bear silence and reflection, so we eject any silence and reflection from our meetings. We are shaped by a culture that separates families, so we eject our young from worshipping with us. We are shaped by a culture that embraces egalitarianism, so we want our leaders to be on our level regular guys, and we despise anything that would make us feel awe because that would remind us that we are dust. We are shaped by a culture that despises the old and embraces novelty, so we throw out tradition and the treasures of the past. And we will have nothing to pass on to our children because we have taught them to do the same. One only prays they don’t toss out the gospel when they toss out our ‘anti-culture’ pop evangelicalism.

Michael Bassett Cancelled by the New Zealand Herald

If the New Zealand Herald had any credibility left, the last vestiges of it have slunk out the door. They have cancelled Dr Michael Bassett, former Labour MP who was Minister of Health in the Lange government. Dr Bassett is a historian who lectured in history at the University of Auckland and held a position on the Waitangi Tribunal between 1994 and 2004. In 2018 he was appointed Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for his services to history. Dr Bassett is also a part-time political commentator, and in 2004 he won the Qantas Media Award for Best Political Columnist in New Zealand.

Go check out his explanation of what happened here, and then write a complaint to the editors. That’s what the whiny wokesters do, and they are the minority, so stand up for free speech and take a few minutes to express your thoughts.

Media Misquotes!

I read the following in a mainstream media piece in the last week or so.

Conversion therapy is based on a belief that people with diverse sexual orientations or gender identities are abnormal and should be changed so they fit within hetero-normative standards.

Although it appeared without a source being cited both in the New Zealand Herald in an article by Sophie Trigger and with the exact same wording in an article on Newshub by Mark Longley it appears to be a misquote taken from Parliament’s Justice Select Committee report into conversion therapy.

The first thing to note is that the misquote is the same in both articles, written by different people for different media organisations. It is perhaps a sign of how incetuous mainstream media in New Zeland has become. Also of concern is the fact that they both fail to acknowledge they are (mis!)quoting from the 2019 Justice Select Comittee report.

However, aside from all that. Just look at that quote again. Conversion therapy is based on a belief that people with diverse sexual orientations or gender identities are abnormal and should be changed so they fit within hetero-normative standards.

And now let’s consider the dictionary definition of normal. Normal: adj conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected. Look, identifying as a pansexual unicorn is not normal. It is abnormal. Being gay, is not normal (in the sense of usual or typical), it is abnormal. Having a male body and thinking you are actually a woman is not normal. This is not hate speech. It’s a syllogism.

And the truth is, that God has designed us in a certain way. When we try to live out our ‘own truth’ or ‘identity’ apart from this, we will suffer for it. Calls to ban “conversion therapy” will cause God-fearing citizens to become enemies of the state. Our Lord is Christ, and not the state, and if our gay or transgender friends ask us for help to live as God intended, we will help them whether it is legal or not. To do so is not hate. It is love.

Feminism Hurts Women

It is no accident that feminists have succeeded in getting women treated “equally” with men, and now that women are no longer singled out for honor, the men around them just go with their lusts. The results have not been at all favorable for women. After decades of established feminism, the end result is that far more women, in their relationships with men, are treated like dirt.

Future Men p136 – Douglas Wilson