Ahab Complex (2)

God held a plumbline against the house of Ahab and it failed the test. The house was not upright.

The Bible teaches quite a bit about the weaknesses in Ahab’s character. It provide important lessons for church leaders. These weaknesses leave church leaders vulnerable to the Ahab spirit, which opens the way for the Jezebel spirit. I have listed the vulnerabilities in the notes.

1. Populism
   Ahab walked in the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat (1 Kings 16:31)
   

   Jeroboam = the people increase, multiply
   Nebat = look.

   Ahab and Jeroboam looked to the people. They were populist leaders.
   
   Vulnerability: Insecure leaders find populism hard to resist.

2. Presumption
   Ahab thought to himself, he devised schemes in his heart
   1 Kings 12:28,29, 22:8, 12:33.
   
   Vulnerability: Many Christian leaders copy the ideas of other men.

3. Compromise
   Ahab was enticed into compromise when he should have stood firm.
   1 Kings 12:28,29; 16:31,33: 20:32,34; 11:40 II Kings 17:21; 8:18; 2 Chron 21:13 (prostitute themselves).
   
   Vulnerability: Just as harshness is always a temptation to prophets,
   compromise is always a temptation to pastors.
   

   Ahab = Brother is father

   Everyone was Ahab’s brother
   Hiel rebuilt Jericho in Ahab’s time 1( Kings 16:34).

4. Tolerate
   Ahab tolerated evil.
   Rev 2:20, 1 Kings 16:31, 20:4; 20:33.
   
   Vulnerability: This is risk for pastors in church without prophets. The problem is not Jezebel, but leaders who tolerate evil for the sake of peace.

5. Comfort
   Ahab enjoyed the comforts of the flesh
   1 Kings 16:9; 18:41; 21:1,2; 22:34; 21:16.
   
   Vulnerability: Enough said.

6. Jealous
   He was troubled by covetousness and jealousy
   1 Kings 21:2; 11:26,27.
   
   Vulnerability: what if some of your sheep go to another church. Will you be threatened.
   

7. Money
   He used money to achieve results, bribery
   1 Kings 13:7; 20:3,4; 21:2.
   
   Vulnerability: Money problems are common in churches.

8. Anger
   Ahab was sullen and angry (vexed NASB)
   1 Kings 20:43; 21:2.
   
   Vulnerability: sullenness and sulking are a slippery slope.
   

9. Threats
   Ahab used threats and intimidation to control people.
   1 Kings 18:10,11.
   
   Vulnerability: Controlling guilty or vulnerable people is easy for pastors/leaders.

10. Up and Down
    Sometimes Ahab was hard-hearted. Other times he was humble – a convenient humility
    1 Kings 20:25-29.
    
    Vulnerability: inconsistency is risky.

11. Rebellion
    Ahab ended in rebellion
    1 Kings 11:26; 12:19; 16:20; 21:25;
    He set up idols
    1 Kings 12:31; 21:26.
    
    Vulnerability: Some church programmes can become idols.

12. Resisted the Kingdom of God
    2 Chron 13:8,12
    Rev 2:26,27.
    Those who persevered in Thyatira were promised the Kingdom of God
    They would have the Morning Star, ie they will defeat Satan (Is 14:12).
    
    Vulnerability: there is not much interest in the kingdom among church leaders.

Ahab Complex (1)

Christians get worked up about the Jezebel spirit, but before there can be a Jezebel there must be an Ahab.
Ahab brought Jezebel to Israel.
The church must understand this.

There were a set of behaviours that were repeated again and again in Israel.
These behaviours opened the way for the Spirit of Jezebel
They started with Jeroboam

House of Jeroboam

This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam that led to its downfall and to its destruction from the face of the earth (1 Kings 13:34)

Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam (1 Kings 14:10).

These curses reached a climax in Ahab (2 Chron 22:8; 2 Kings 10:30).

Genealogy

Jeroboam
↓
Nadab
→ Baasha
↓
Elah
→ Zimri
→ Omri
↓
Ahab

Not a Wimp
Ahab has been totally misunderstood by Christians. We think of him as a wimp, but this is wrong. His father Omri was the commander of the army, and you only got that job in those days, if you were physically tough and totally ruthless. Omri killed off all the opposition to become king. Ahab was Omri’s son, so he would have been brought up tough (1 Kings 16:16).

Kings did not last long in those times, so Ahab’s twenty-two year reign was a record (1Kings 16:22). He built palaces and a fortified city (1 Kings 22:39). He was a very successful warrior-king at time when war was fought hand-to-hand. Ahab was mean, tough and strong, and had killed his share of men. He was a bully, not a wimp.

Ahab married Jezebel for political convenience. He needed a peace treaty with her father and their marriage was part of the deal.

Ahab was a hard, tough, mean political and military operator, who expected to get his own way. When he asked for something, people would jump to get it. This is why was sulking over the Naboth incident.

The Jezebel spirit cannot get a hold in church, unless an Ahab spirit that already exists among the leadership opens the way.

The full set of notes on the Ahab Complex can be found here.

Praying Medic

I have just read a book called Divine Healing Made Simple by the Praying Medic. I found it the most interesting book on healing since I was given a copy of Healing by Francis McNutt in the 1970s.

My book called Healing: Insights for Christian Elders describes the spiritual basis for the healing of Christians and non-Christians more clearly, but Praying Medic's wisdom is unbeatable. He shares numerous experiences that illustrates the wisdom that he is imparting. Everyone interested in Christian healing would be encouraged by this book.

Centennial Pool

The Centennial Pool in Oxford Terrace a few weeks ago.

Now it is nearly gone.

Building in Christchurch

Further round in Cambridge Terrace, foundations are being dug for a new building.

The new building next door is nearing completion.

Demolition in Christchurch

The former Ernst and Young House on Cambridge Terrace is coming down.

Served but not Served

My father knew many men who had been sent to World War 1. Chris Cooper was one of them.

The farm next door was owned by a man called Chris Cooper. He had five children. His land was across the road from ours, a half a mile down the road.

Chris Cooper bought the farm when he returned from the first war. He paid 20 pound an acre, which soon proved to be far too much. Life was always a struggle for him. He had “trench feet” from standing in water and could not walk properly. His wife died in childbirth, so he had to look after the five children himself. When she died, he lost interest in the farm.

Chris was a good friend with Mr Butterworth who lived over the river. They would get together every day and just sit and smoke and talk. A track was worn through the riverbed where they walked across each day.

Chris had to keep his horses in a paddock that was very swampy. They seemed to get a lot of worms from drinking swamp water and were always dying. The farm was only 200 acres so it was too small to be economic. He could not afford lime, so his crops were always poor and full of weeds.

He was eventually sold up by the bank. Twice the sale was cancelled by pressure by members of the Farmers Union, but this time there was no stopping it. Chris would have been left with nothing, after struggling for many years (and serving his country).

Chris and his five children went to live in an empty farm cottage belonging to a farmer friend. Some years later, I met Chris in town where he worked as a cleaner in the Timaru Post Office.

Selling up the farms of returned servicemen became common during the 1930s.

The “selling up” of farmers was taking place as banks and mercantile firms were foreclosing on farmers who owed them money. The first I remember was Harry Webb in the Craigmore soldier settlement. Uncle Bob had taken me to the sale. I remember Mr Webb, standing before the farmers gathered for the sale, bitterly declaring that the nation had been pleased with him when he went overseas to fight in the 1914-18 war, but now when he was fighting for his survival financially, they seemed to have forgotten about him. He was quickly shut up and the sale went on.

Baxter (8) Hospital

After several days they left the train and marched through the countryside. After about a week on the road, he collapsed from exhaustion and was left behind. He was lying a hole half-conscious, when a couple of English soldiers found him and took him the an English dressing station. After being given some food, he was put on a trained and sent to a field hospital.

I came to consciousness to find myself lying in bed in what was evidently a hospital ward. When I  had last been conscious of my condition I had been stiff with mud and dirt under the en wrapping blankets, and very lousy. Now the bed was clean, and, what was more surprising still, I was completely deloused. I had not the faintest recollection of the process by which this state had been brought about, or, indeed, of anything at all, since the train. I asked how long I had been there and was told two days. I felt weak indeed, but my head was now perfectly clear and I had no more lapses into unconsciousness. Only too clear; for it was not long before I realized what sort of place I had come to. It was a ward for mental and nerve cases.

I never found out whether it was a separate hospital or a special section of a general hospital. In the ward in which I found myself there was a terrific din going on. Men without a vestige of control were wailing and crying over their wounds, in many cases self-inflicted. Others suffering from delusions were holding forth on imaginary grievances.

One voice rose above all the rest. It belonged to a man who had been badly shell-shocked and who was quite oblivious of his surroundings. He would lie for hours at a stretch on the broad of his back, singing until he frothed at the mouth and grew purple in the face. Then the orderlies would seize him and shake him. He would give one blood-curdling yell and stop, to begin again the next morning. It was apparently useless to try to stop him until he had reached a certain stage, and it took him the same time to reach that stage every day. He seemed to compose his song as he went along. Dozens of verses, all variations on the same theme.

I was greatly distressed to find myself in such a place.

Some seemed to be normal and healthy.

One man I talked with seemed to be perfectly normal and well. He told me he had gone to the colonel and asked for leave to go over to England to place certain verses of scripture before Lloyd George. He was convinced that if he could only point these verses out to Lloyd George he, LG, would then know how to stop the war and would, of course, immediately bring it to an end. He had been put under observation and had still clung to his idea, with the result that a label had been tied round his neck with ‘mental' on it and he had been dumped here. He was simple-minded and earnestly religious, no more mental than he had ever been. Thousands of people have thoughts like this but, unlike him, they don't think them strongly enough to put them into action, especially not in the army - so they don't land in mental hospitals.

Self inflicted wounds

There were a number of men there with self-inflicted wounds. Some of them were quite uncontrolled and cried continually over their wounds and their future fate. The man in the bed next to me had a very bad hand. It was being drained with tubes and the dressing was a painful process. His nerve was completely gone and he would cry and call out the whole time it was being dressed. One day the surgeon, while he was dressing the hand, said to him, "You wouldn't do this again, would you, if you had another chance?" He cried "No! No!" But he had worked himself into such a state that it took a long time to get him quiet again.

Another man, who had been a showman, had put a bullet through his ankle. When he went before a board they asked him if he would promise not to do that sort of thing again. He told us he had said, "No, but I make you a promise that next time I’ll put it through my nut!"

One man - there were many such cases - had cut his throat. It had been stitched up and had left a hideous scar. He used to look at himself in the glass of one of the windows and wail, "How can I go home with this? How can I look my mother in the face again?"

When Baxter's health recovered he was returned to a hospital in London, before being sent back to New Zealand at the end of the war. Even there, he was hounded by the army for a while.

Archibald Baxter lived until 1970. His son, James K Baxter becomes one of New Zealand’s greatest poet.

Baxter (7) Beaten

Baxter was beaten up by officers for his conscientious objection.

He ordered me again and I refused. "You -!" he shouted, and struck me in the face, knocking me down. I got up and he ordered me again. I refused. He kicked me and struck me another blow, knocking me down. This time I did not rise quickly, and shouting, "Come on, none of that!" he dragged me to my feet, knocked me down again and kicked me several times about the body. His anger increased by the murmurs of the men with him, he gave me a final kick, the effects of which I felt for a long time after, and ordered the men to bring me out.

"I'll kill the bastard yet!" he shouted.

They carried me out and laid me down gently on the duckwalk. "Lift him up as high as you can," he ordered, "and drop him on his back on the boards." They lifted me high on their arms and lowered me to the ground ever so gently, keeping hold of me all the time. Three times, cursing, he ordered them, and three times they lowered me in the same way to the ground.

It was a brave act on their part for though, technically, they had obeyed the order, they were incurring the wrath of the captain and there were many ways in which he could make it unpleasant for them afterwards.

Then, at his orders, they carried me out into the parade ground and set me on my feet. But my legs wouldn't support me. I fell and lay against my pack. I felt completely dazed and had little idea of what was happening.

The Ypres campaign was eventually broken up and Baxter was sent back towards the Somme. For the first part, they travelled by train, but Baxter was not attached to a platoon, so he was not given any food.

After several days they left the train and marched through the countryside. After about a week on the road, he collapsed from exhaustion and was left behind. He was lying a hole half-conscious, when a couple of English soldiers found him and took him the an English dressing station. After being given some food, he was put on a train and sent to a field hospital.

Baxter (6) Trenches

The officers and soldiers in the trenches treated Baxter well. They had heard about his stand, and seemed to respect it. I presume that many felt they were being used on a foolish cause, and wished that they had had the courage to make the same stand. The real hostility came from the officers who remained well back from the front line.

My life dragged on from day to day, each day much the same. Rations were often short up there. The other men supplemented them from the canteen, but I was unable to as I had no money, what I had having been taken from me by the police.

Every day I went up the lines with a man in charge of me. One morning we started off, following the duckwalk in a zigzag course among the shell holes. As usual there was a certain amount of shelling going on. At a corner we came to some bodies lying side by side, wrapped up ready for burial. We walked on, glancing at them as we passed. I thought of them as individuals, of what their lives had been before, of the friends and relatives who would, in time, get this news. Not sentimentality, just as much fact as these corpses lying beside the track. I had felt the same about a dead German we had seen in a shell hole further hack, lying with his arms spread wide and the rifle still beside him. Just after we passed the corner a shell passed close to us and struck a bank a few yards to our left. We were knocked down by something - we did not know what.

When the earth heaved up by the explosion had fallen again we pressed on and found that the duckwalk had been blown up in places. Arriving at the brow of a little hill we - the man who was detailed for my escort and I- found we had lost sight of those in front. We were walking in twos with about ten yards between each pair. Presently we saw some of them in the distance. We left the duckwalk and took a short cut over some low-lying ground to catch up with them.

Halfway across my companion shouted "Gas!", adjusted his box respirator and helped me with mine. I do not know whether it was defective, but I found I couldn't breathe in it, at any rate while I was moving. At the last gasp, my labouring lungs unable to draw another breath, I pulled it off, thinking I might as well take my chance with the gas as die by suffocation then and there. I could smell nothing, but there was a dark blue haze floating among the shell holes. The other man persuaded me to put it on again. It was just as bad as ever, but by the time I was forced to pull it off again we were pretty well out of the area affected by the gas shells. It must, however, have had some effect on me. For weeks afterwards I coughed up black stuff.

We could see the other men going up a hill a little ahead of us. Afterwards heard that that hill was in dlrect view from the German lines. Shells were bursting between us and the men ahead. We paused for a moment, doubtful what to do, then went on. Shells began to fall behind us. As we hurried up the hill they came thick and fast and gained on us. When we got to the top of the hill we met the other men corning back. The shelling was closing in on us from both sides. We were surrounded by a perfect storm of shells. We all stood for a moment huddled together, the last thing we should have done.

The officer in charge of the party was standing close to me as the storm closed over us and I heard him call out "Every man for himself as he jumped over a bank. I had a quickened sense that something frightful was happening. The earth seemed to be like the waves of the sea, and struck me again and again. I felt a strange swaying motion, another bump and then utter darkness and suffocation. There was a violent tugging at my legs and before I could realise that I had landed head-first in the mud at the bottom of a shell hole, I came out choking and spluttering but able to breathe.

One of the two men with me in the hole - they had tugged me out - plunged his arms nearly to the shoulders into the mud, retrieved my helmet and slapped it onto my head. The shelling was still going on. One of the men said, "Come on, it's not good here," and we scrambled out. I gave one glance up, saw dark fragments falling through the air, and looked down again. We were knocked down several times, but not one of the three of us was directly hit. We came right on a little door that seemed to lead into the earth. It was a small dug-out over the top of a shaft. One man was there at the windlass.
"It's no good here," he said. "It won't stand a shell and I am expecting it to go any minute.

He directed us to a place about a hundred yards further on. At that moment a shell almost blocked the entrance. We scrambled out and found the other shelter, a wooden drive with steps leading deep underground. For the present we were safe. The others took out their cigarettes and pushed handfuls into my pockets. I did not know them and I thought it probable that they did not know who I was. I did not feel I could take their help and comradeship on false pretence, so I told them I was refusing service.
Don’t you worry”, they said. “We know all about you”, and they offered me more cigarettes.

Twenty-eight men went out, only eleven returned.

Baxter (5) Trenches

Baxter was sent up to the trenches too.

I remained with the Otagos and had nothing more to do with him. From that time I received the same food as the other men. A day or two later I saw him departing, no doubt to make his report to Simpson. He had done his best and the unpopularity he had gained in the doing of it - the camp cooks collected and counted him out the night after he had dragged Briggs - probably seemed to him most unjust. After all, he was only carrying out his orders.

Next morning I was standing in the hut alone, the others having gone out, when two men came to me and said they had orders to take me up the lines. "Very well," I said. "You can take me up, but I'm not taking on anything when I get there." All the way up they discussed my position and attitude in a very friendly manner. When we got up there the men in charge of me were told by a sergeant that he intended to give me no orders and, on their asking what they were to do with me, he laughed and said they could show me round. Accordingly they took me about and told me the names of the different positions; pointed out the crooked German lines and many gun positions. We spent the whole day in this way. They showed me how to duck from shell explosions and how to take cover when it seemed that none existed.

At night I went back to the camp. At this time I always slept and got my food with a hut full of men - seventeen of us there were. I found them perfectly friendly. The position of the objectors was the talk of the camp and the anger of the men was aroused against the provost-sergeant.

I lived a strange life at that time. I would not serve in the army and yet I was at the front. In one way I was isolated and alone, and yet I lived the life the soldiers did. I lay in holes and trenches with them round by Hellfire Corner, hour after hour until the shelling slackened or drove us out. I was only seeing a glimpse of the war, but it was enough to bring home to me its terrible reality.

I remember before I reached the front meeting men who had been there and thinking they looked hard and strange. Their faces had a drawn look and they seemed to have eyes like eagles. Now that I was amongst them I did not notice this. They seemed ordinary, but new arrivals looked as gentle as sheep.

I will not attempt to describe the battle front above Ypres, but will try to convey the impression it made upon me. It looked as though a herd of prehistoric monsters had chewed and rooted up the earth for miles around. Not a sign of anything green and not a chance for anything to grow. It was part of the front that had been taken and retaken so often that it presented an appearance of indescribable chaos. Everywhere there was mud and slush and men always floundering through it by tracks and duck walks that were always being blown up. I was told that a million men had fallen there. The cemetery of a million men! It was still being shelled and the yawning mouths of the countless shell holes were ready to suck in the living men who moved day and night among them like maggots in the slime.

I would often stand alone at night gazing at the red glare along the front while everything vibrated to the ceaseless roar of the guns. Thoughts came to me as I stood. Every day the war lasted only made things worse for the world. Victory in the field seemed to me the worst that could happen, no matter which side won - not for lack of patriotism, but because I honestly believed it would be the greatest bar to enduring world peace. At times everything was blackest gloom without one ray of hope. The war might go on for years. I believed it could be stopped any day and that the feelings of all the peoples would be joy and relief. Why should it go on?

I discussed the war frequently with the men I happened to be with. They were not war-minded

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Baxter (4) Chaplain

Baxter described a speech by an army chaplain.

I remember one day a padre addressing the troops. As we listened to him I heard the men around me sigh and murmur beneath their breath. The padre seemed to be out of touch with his audience and not very sure of himself. He told us that wonderful things would come out of the war, when it was over we would be free to build a new and better world. Great spiritual blessings would spring from these times of trouble and sacrifice. Rulers were to gain great wisdom and lead us to a condition of wellbeing and security that we had not dreamed of in pre-war days.

I wondered as he went on word- spinning how much of it he believed himself. It was impossible to tell, for the poor man had not the freedom that I had to express himself. Was there a parson at the front who dared to preach ‘Thou shalt not kill', that all men are brothers and God the father of all, irrespective of race, creed or colour, and that, things being so, the combatants on both sides should fraternize with the enemy? Or a parson with socialist views who dared to say to the troops that the fact that the imperialists and financiers had fallen out was no reason why the workers should be led into war to blow the soup out of one another? And what would happen to such a man? He would be brought up with a round turn, adjudged a nerve case or a mental case and so rendered harmless. To run the military machine efficiently everyone must be regimented. Beliefs on war or religion matter little but the expression of them must not be suffered to do harm.

This was the only religious address I remember hearing in France. No padre ever spoke to me personally all the time I was there.

Baxter (3) Bombed

Baxter was to be sent to the trenches too.

Finally they decided to send me into the front trenches. A message was sent to the officer in charge there. The messenger returned with the reply that the officer refused to take the responsibility.

On this, Booth asked Stevenson if there were any place, near at hand, that was being heavily shelled. He pointed out an ammunition dump at some distance. The Germans had got the range of it and it was being heavily shelled at intervals of about twenty minutes. He told Booth to take me across to it and leave me there. Booth told me to stay there and not to move from where he had placed me. As he hurried away, leaving me standing by the dump, he called back, "I hope a shell gets you and blows you to your Maker."

I stood waiting. I could see him and he, of course, he could see me, though he was well out of range. Suddenly firing began age and the shells came thick and fast. I was in the midst of a storm of spouting, belching mud and fire and flying fragments. The shells seemed to strike everywhere but where I was. I believe that if had moved at all from where I stood I should inevitably have been killed. If the dump had gone up I should have gone with it. I stood and waited for what seemed inevitable death.

I remember that I had very strange sensations. They were probably due to my over-wrought condition. The normal instinct of self-preservation seemed for the time being to leave me entirely. I felt quite calm and peaceful and and saw everything round about bathed in a bright white radiance. The whole thing felt strange and unusual, but not unpleasant. I never felt the same again when I was, at subsequent times, under heavy shell fire.

When the shelling stopped, he was returned to his tent.

Baxter (2) Trenches

The army decided that the conscientious objectors should be sent into the trenches. One of them named Briggs refused to walk up to the trenches. Here is Baxter’s description of how he was treated.

He had refused to walk up to the front trenches when ordered to do so that morning by Captain Stevenson. Booth, who was present, had dragged him outside by the wrists, tied a long piece of cable wire round his body under the arms and, with the aid of three other men, dragged him at the end of the wire for about a mile along the duckwalk. Battens were nailed across the boards of the duckwalk at short intervals and, to make walking easier, netting wire was nailed over them in parts.

Any clothing that protected his back was soon torn off, leaving it naked and exposed to the battens and the wire. They dragged him like this for about a mile until they came to a large shell hole, full of water. Here they stopped and Booth asked Briggs if he would walk now. If not, he'd go into the shell hole. On his saying that wherever he was going he was not going to walk up, he was thrown into the shell hole, pulled through it by the wire, dragged over the ground till they came to the next shell hole and pulled through it in the same way.

When they got him out on the bank at the other side they took him by the shoulders and tipped him head over heels back into the water. Just as he had managed to get his head above water and was trying to get his breath, Booth fired a handful of muck into his mouth.

"Drown yourself, you bastard," he said.

They dragged him out along the ground to another shell hole, through that in the same way, and a short distance further along the ground Then Booth asked him if he would walk up if they took him back to camp and gave him a change over a fire. Briggs said, "Never, as long as I draw breath."

He agreed to walk back to camp. When he came to try he found he was unable to and he was half carried, half dragged back by the two of the men, suffering greatly in the process. Back in the hut they took his clothes away, dressed him in a fresh shirt and trousers and left him lying on the floor of the hut under a pile of blankets. After several hours the doctor had come in and exclaimed, "What a damned shame!" when he saw the state of Briggs' back.

Then the orderlies had been told to get him to the medical hut and try to get some of the dirt out of the wound.
While I was in the hut the doctor came in again. I prepared to leave but he stopped me.
"Don't go. You can watch me dress his back."

I don't know why he wanted me to stay. I concluded that he hoped to frighten me into submission by the sight of Briggs' condition. I may have been wrong. If it was so he was sadly mistaken. My feelings were very far from being those of submission and fear as I looked at the huge flesh wound in Briggs' back and hip, about a foot long and nearly as wide. In spite of the attempts of the orderlies there was still a great deal of dirt in the wound. It ground too far in to be easily taken out.

That a man such injuries should not be sent to hospital was an unheard-of thing. For reasons which, after what Phillips had told me, were fairly obvious, Briggs was never sent to hospital. That he pulled round and recovered up to a point was certainly not due to the necessarily very scanty and inadequate attention he received, but to his own good health and excellent constitution. From the very first day he had to drag himself outside to the latrines, though another shell hole, utterly unfit to do so.

Later in the war, Briggs was declared unfit for service. He was physically broken.

Baxter (1) Conscientious Objector

When I started school, it was less than ten years after the end of the second world war, so feelings about the war were strong. Returned servicemen came and spoke to us about their experiences. The men who had been to the first world war were still in their sixties. I remember a couple coming to tell us about the glories of the first war.

By the time I got to secondary school the story had changed. We studied the cause of the First World War, but it was not clear what the cause was. The war the result of a series of blunders by the leaders of several Christian empires. Their mistakes cost millions of lives. Now a hundred years from the beginning of the war, it is all a bit of a embarrassment. I hope the centenary celebrations will not try to turn it into a glorious event.

Accordingly I was very interested in a book called We Will Not Cease by Archibald Baxter. It is amazing story. Baxter was a conscientious objector during the First World War. The New Zealand government only recognized conscientious objectors, if they belonged to pacifist churches (like the Quakers). Baxter belonged to the Methodist Church, which supported the war, so he could not be listed as a conscientious objector.

The army could not accept his stand, so it did everything it could to break his spirit. He would be forced to fight a war that was supposed to make the world free.

Baxter was arrested, and when he refused to obey military orders, he was thrown in prison. While in prison he was sometimes beaten and often went without food. After he had been prison for a year, he and twelve others were put on a troop ship and sent to the Western Front in Belgium. It was assumed that once they arrived in Europe and were subjected to war they would knuckle down and fight.

Baxter believed that fighting war was contrary to the gospel, so he continued refusing to obey military orders. This led to terrible punishment.

No 1 Field Punishment
The first punishment was called No 1 Filed Punishment. Baxter gives a full description.

"Right-oh," he said. "Come along. I've got my orders." He took me over to the poles which were willow stumps, six to eight inches in diameter and twice the height of a man, and placed me against one of them. It was inclined forward out of perpendicular. Almost always afterwards he picked the same one for me. I stood with my back to it and he tied me to it by the ankles, knees and wrists. He was an expert at the job, and he knew how to pull and strain at the ropes till they cut into the flesh and completely stamp the circulation. When I was taken off my hands were always blue with congested blood. My hands were taken round behind the pole, tied together and pulled well up it, straining and cramping the muscles and forcing them into an unnatural position. Most knots will slacken a little after a time - his never did.

The slope of the post brought me into a hanging position, causing a large part of my weight to come on my arms, and I could get no proper grip with my feet on the ground as it was worn away round the pole and my toes were consequently much lower than my heels. I was strained so tightly up against the post that I was unable to move body or limbs a fraction of an inch. Earlier in the war, men undergoing this form of punishment were tied with their arms outstretched. Hence the name of crucifixion. Later they were more often tied to a single upright, probably to avoid the likeness to a cross. But the name stuck.

A few minutes after the sergeant had left me I began to think of the length of my sentence and it rose up before me like a mountain. The pain grew steadily worse until by the end of half an hour it seemed absolutely unendurable. Between my set teeth I said, "Oh God, this is too much. I can't bear it." But I could not allow myself the relief of groaning, as I did not want to give the guards the satisfaction of hearing me. The mental effect was almost as frightful as the physical. I felt I was going mad. That I should be stuck up on a pole suffering this frightful torture, a human scarecrow for men to stare at and wonder at, seemed part of some impossible nightmare that could not continue. At the very worst, strength came to me and I knew I would not surrender. The battle was won, and though the suffering increased rather than decreased as the days wore on, I never had to fight it again.

After spending all day in this way for many weeks, the army realised that it was not going to beat Baxter and his mates, so they tried a new punishment. They were sent up to the trenches to face the full wrath of war.

Being Church to Kingdom Community

When the times get tough, many Christians will be unable to go to church.

They will have to start being the church where they live.

When Christians are really being church where they live, the neighbourhood where they live will become a kingdom community.

The gospel will spread from neighbourhood to neighbourhood as people and communities are transformed.

When kingdom communities spread throughout society, the Kingdom of God will have come.

The Kingdom reaches its fullness in an area when the neighbourhood church has transformed into a Kingdom community.

Piketty (23) Inheritance

Piketty is really hostile to inheritance. When writing about it, he says “the past devours the future” (571). This statement is in the conclusion, so it has been widely quoted by those who have not read the entire book.

The statement is wrong. Savings and capital mean that the past enriches the present and the future. Modern prosperity is the result of sacrifices and savings made by people in the past.

Piketty describes the flow of inheritance in France over two centuries. I found this interesting.

Fig 11.1 represents the evolution of the annual inheritance flow in France from 1810 to 2010. Two facts stand out clearly. First, the inheritance flow accounts for 20-25 percent of annual income every year in the nineteenth century, with a slight upward trend towards the end of the century. This is an extremely high flow, and it reflects the fact that nearly all the capital stock came from inheritance. Its importance did not diminish with time, moreover. On the contrary, in 1900-1910, the flow of inheritance was somewhat higher (25 percent of national income compared with barely 20) that it had been in 1820s.

Subsequently, we find a spectacular decrease in the flow in inheritance between 1910 and 1950 followed by a steady rebound thereafter, with an acceleration in the 1980s. There were very large upward and downward variations during the twentieth century. The annual flow inheritance and gifts was relatively stable until World War 1 but fell by a factor of 5 or 6 percent between 1910 and 1950 (when inheritance flow was barely 4 or 5 percent of national income) after which it increased by a factor of 3 or 4 percent between 1950 and 2010 (at which time the flow accounted for 15 percent of national income).

The evolution visible in Figure 11.1 reflects deep changes in perception as well as the reality of inheritance... In 1950-1960, bequest and gifts accounted for just a few points of national income, so it was reasonable to think that inheritances had virtually disappeared and that capital, though less important overall than in the past was now wealth that an individual accumulated by effort and saving during his or her lifetime. Several generations grew up under these conditions, in particular the baby boom generation born in the late 1940s and early 1950s, many of whom are still alive today, and it was natural for them to assume that his was the “new normal” (380-381).

I had not realised until I read this what a significant change had taken place. I am a member of the baby boom generation, so I never expected an inheritance. Most of what my parents owned was used up in paying for rest home care.

Yet I remember my parents talking about small inheritances they and their parents received from parents, grandparents, and single aunts or uncles, even though they were not well off, and lived through a great deal of hardship. Reading Piketty made me realise that this was much more common in previous generations. It suggests that they appreciated future generations much more than we do.

The pattern has changed, associated with much greater state involvement in life. My mother’s father died when she was quite young, but she received a small bequest from her grandfather that contributed to her secondary and tertiary education. This really made a big difference in her life. The state paid for my tertiary education. Student loans from the state paid for my children’s education.

Biblical teaching on this topic is interesting.

A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous (Prov 13:33).

Our grandparents understood this verse, but it seems like this has been forgotten by current generations of Christians.

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Piketty (22) Christian Wealth

An even more interesting question is why so few Christian families have any wealth.

1. We have a faith for the future, so we should be accumulating capital to make it better.

2. God promised that those who obey his word would be blessed with wealth.

3. Christians should be creating a legacy for their children. Most of this will be a spiritual inheritance, but is should be supported by a material inheritance.

4. Abraham was the father of many nations. Jacob created twelve great tribes.

5. Sin creates a barrier between generations. This explains why the world cannot create family wealth. The gospel has restored the link between generations
   

   He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents (Mal 4:6).

   We should see this working out in Christian families over several generations.

6. I once read about the achievements of the descendants of George Whitfield the great evangelist. They had a huge impact on America. He left an amazing inheritance. Yet very few Christians think about leaving a spiritual and material inheritance for the future.

7. Christians should not seek wealth for wealth sake, but they should have sufficient wealth to support their families in their calling.

Given all this, it is odd that so few Christians have any wealth or own any productive capital. We are mostly living hand to mouth like the people of the world.

There are several reasons why Christians lack capital.

1. We consume most of what we earn. We have been sucked into the materialism of the world and are trapped in consumerism.

2. Bad eschatology has destroyed faith and hope. Many Christians assume that Jesus will return at any minute. Until he comes, things will get worse, so there is no sense in accumulating capital, if it will be left behind or stolen by the antichrist. Loss of a kingdom vision has destroyed hope for the future.

3. Surplus income has been sucked up by churches to support expensive ministries and pay for ministries. Investment in costly but ineffective approaches to evangelism and church growth have destroyed capital.

4. Christians seem to have taken on a distaste for capital that they have picked up from the socialist world we have lived in.

Piketty (21) Lack of Wealth

Piketty explains that wealth is unequally distributed. He sees this as a flaw in capitalism, but he does not ask the most important question. Why is wealth so rare? Why do so few families have any wealth?

r>g means that people with capital do better than people without capital. If everyone has some capital, then everyone benefits from r>g. It only creates inequality, if capital is concentrated in the hands of a few people.

The widespread lack of wealth was understandable in a subsistence economy, as it was really hard to escape poverty. However, income has risen amazingly in the last couple of centuries, so it would be expected that the ownership of capital would become more widespread. Yet, income has risen immensely, but wealth and ownership of capital is still rare. There are several reasons”

1. We consume almost everything we earn.
2. Our only asset is a residential dwelling, but the shelter produced is all consumed, so nothing is earned.
3. Very people start real businesses that would produce jobs and wealth for their families.

Most people in the western world have no wealth, because they have chosen to be poor.

While I was reading Piketty, I was also reading Family Fortunes by Bill Bonner. He is a bit obsessed with money, but he makes some important points. He explains how to create a family inheritance. He also explains why so few families do it.

A person on the average wage will earn a million dollars over their lifetime. If they were to save half of what they earned, and get a steady rate of return, they would be a millionaire by the time they retired, but very few people do that.

Paul explains why this is the case for the people of the world. They have no hope.

Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (1 Cor 15:32).

If there is no hope for the future, we might as well consume everything. There is no point saving for a future that is uncertain.