Being Prepared

A few weeks ago, I had an interesting dream.

A group of people are sitting in the lounge of the house having a deep discussion. They were in comfortable chairs and the conversation was pleasant.

After some time, one got up to go through the door that opened to the other rooms of the house. When the door was opened, we saw that a sheet of plywood had been nailed to the door. When we removed the plywood, we saw that the rest of the house had been stripped of everything in it, including furniture and fittings.

I wrote down the following interpretation.

Church leaders look at their own situation and assume that everything is fine. If they looked around, they would realise that everything that belongs to God is being stripped out of our culture.

Yesterday, I found an article by Rod Dreher that confirmed the importance of this message.

What Christians who live in parts of the US where the faith hasn’t declined as steeply as it has in New England don’t understand is that the virus is coming for us too. There is no effective quarantine. Of course, it’s frightening to face all this, but the failure to face it and figure out what we in the churches can and must do to deal with the crisis is going to result in the total collapse of the faith within our own families and communities. Waiting for a miracle is not a plan.

I’m not going to rehash here the facts about the state of the church and the Christian faith in the US. You’ve heard them all from me here before, and anyway, they’re in my book. If you go to a church that has a lot of people in it, and everybody is engaged with their faith, well, that’s great! But look beyond the walls of your congregation. Look beyond the bounds of your Christian community. Things are not okay. Things are not remotely okay. There are no relatively minor adjustments we can make that will enable the churches to manage this without radical change.

New Zealand is probably as far down this path as New England or California. It is a totally different world from the one that I grew up in during the 1950s, and God has been squeezed out of everything.

Aaron Renn notes that Christian leaders have been blind to what is happening.

I believe a big part of the reason why is that they simply reject Dreher’s premise that things are getting bad. Instead, if you listen to what they say and look at what they do, it’s pretty obvious that they think things are still going reasonably well. They still have big expansionist visions such converting significant percentages of people in their city, planting large numbers of new churches, etc. that at a minimum suggests that unlike Dreher, they believe Christianity is going to retain significant mainstream appeal. As a video put out by a Manhattan church plant put it, “We’re here because we refuse to believe that this city is hostile to church.”

The Evangelical world, essentially all of the people with powerful platforms to speak are either a) pastors of very successful megachurches b) leaders of important Evangelical institutions c) their acolytes or others who hope to curry favor with them.

This isn’t the result of a nefarious conspiracy but rather common sense. Who are you going to listen to, someone who is successful or someone who is a failure? Who is going to have a bigger audience, the pastor of a 50 person church or the pastor of a 5,000 person church?

Now ask, if you’ve built a 5,000 person megachurch in a major city, are you likely to think that Christianity is losing its appeal or that trends for the faith are poor in America? Probably not. If I were in the shoes of one of those pastors, I think I myself would probably say that things may be different today but they are still ok if we adjust our ministry strategy a bit – say to look more like mine.

Alan Jacobs summarises the problem.

The dominant media of our technological society are powerful forces for socializing people into modes of thought and action that are often inconsistent with, if not absolutely hostile to, Christian faith and practice.

In America today, churches and other Christian institutions (schools at all levels, parachurch organizations with various missions) are comparatively very weak at socializing people, if for no other reason than that they have access to comparatively little mindspace.

An example of how far things have gone “down under" occurred this weekend. The best Rugby player in Australia will be kicked out of rugby in a world cup year because he posted comments on Instagram about the eternal consequences of life choices. I don’t agree with his statement, but his claims have been standard doctrine in conservative and catholic churches for at least the last 500 years. Rugby has never had particularly high moral standards, with the main values being winning and money, but the response to his words has been vicious. People who suggested that he is allowed to say what he thinks, have been quickly silenced. I amazed that Australian Rugby will put its world cup chances at risk over a religious statement by one of its players.

At the same time, the main on-line news site in New Zealand has highlighted an article about a homeless person who has just converted to Islam and found a welcoming community. The same edition had a satire article mocking the Christian God. I don’t recall an article about a person whose life was changed around by the gospel of Jesus, for many years, although I presume that there have been plenty.

I am not worried about the rugby player, because he has already earned millions during a long career, and he has peace with Jesus, but I am concerned about the lack of preparedness in the church for what lies ahead.

The Darkness has Shifted

Something interesting happened in the month of June. The weather forecasters announced on a Monday that we would have the worst snowfall in Christchurch for the last twenty years. In the end, it did not happen. There was heavy snow in the high country, and lots of cold rain, but we did not get any snow in Christchurch. On the other hand, Wellington had terrible gales and rain that did considerable damage. Railway lines washed out and trees came down. 20,000 houses were without electricity overnight. Some did not get electricity back for a week. The inter-island ferry broke free from its moorings and spent the night sheltering in the harbour

I was in Wellington for a meeting for my work on the day of the storm, but it was cancelled, because half of the people from Wellington could not get to it. It was frustrating have travelled for a meeting that was cancelled, and then having difficulty getting home. The airport was closed until midday. The plane I flew home on took no luggage, because it was too windy to open the baggage doors on the plane.

When I was praying about what was going on, I felt the Lord saying, “The darkness has shifted”. That is why the expected storm did not come to Christchurch, whereas it unexpectedly did serious damage in Wellington. Whereas the enemy has really been attacking Christchurch over the last three or four years, I sense that he has now shifted his attentions to Wellington. It is not so much because of victory in prayer, it is just that he thinks that he can get better returns for his efforts there.

Nor is it that Wellington is worse than Christchurch. When the people of city or nation turn away from God, they lose their protection from evil (see Discerning Seasons). However, the enemy does not strike immediately, because he does not enough resources to attack every place that is vulnerable. The devil is not comparable to the Holy Spirit. He is just an angel, supported by a bunch of rebellious angels. He can only attack by concentrating his forces, because he cannot be everywhere at once, like the Holy Spirit. So when the spiritual protection of a city goes, he does not move in immediately, because he does not have sufficient resources at his disposal. He will only attack when he thinks he can get a good bang of his buck.

Christchurch has been hammered by the forces of evil over the last three or four years. It is not because this city is worse than every other spiritually unprotected city, but that he has chosen to concentrate his attacks, because he thinks he can achieve something there. Maybe, he had heard that God is wanting to do something big in Christchurch and he wanted to stop it. Now he has failed, he is going off somewhere else to be a nuisance.

The enemy seems to have done most of the physical damage in Christchurch that he is capable of doing, and is now seems to be turning the attention of his smashers to Wellington, where the pickings are easier. If I am right about this, we may see more disasters in Wellington, and less in Christchurch over the next few years. Christchurch will continue to have leadership problems, and as its flaws are exposed, financial problems will follow, but the smashers have moved on. The recent earthquakes off the coast of Wellington show where they have gone. The darkness has shifted from Christchurch to Wellington

The storm was a warning event for Wellington. The city was cut off from the rest of the nation. The Inter-islander ferry was seriously damaged and could not be moored. The railway line going north was seriously damaged. Homes were without electricity for several days, some for more than a week. Buildings were destroyed. People could not get to work. What happened during the storm is indicative of what will happen when, the real attack of evil comes.

• The city will be cut off from the rest of the nation.
• Ferries will not be able to sail.
• Rail traffic will not be able to move.
• Electricity supplies will be cut off
• Buildings will be damaged.
• Houses will be destroyed

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