Demonstrations

I didn't attend this lecture, but it brings up some very provocative ideas... Here a summary from the Maclaurin Institute.

Europe Better Demonstrates the Christian Ideal, Says Middelmann
Udo Middelmann Lecture Summary November 1, 2006

“In many ways, Europe is closer to what a Christian reality should produce,"” said Udo Middelmann, the Francis A. Schaeffer Fellow of the MacLaurin Institute in a lecture sponsored by the Institute and its affiliated student group, Wednesday evening, November 1. Audience members included long-time students of his father-in-law, the late Francis Schaeffer, and University students in various fields of study.

In a wide-ranging and provocative lecture titled What America Can Learn from Secular Europe: Reflections of a Transatlantic Christian Thinker, Middelmann argued that while the USA is much more religious and robustly evangelical, Americans have always been more devoted to an ideal rather than giving thoughtful attention to the details of living. Whether they came to escape religious persecution or for economic opportunity, for Americans there has always been the hope of an ideal and better future. Philosophically,
this idea goes back to the Greek notion of the soul residing apart from the body.

“But, we are persons, both soul and spirit," said Middelmann, and, thus, we must also pay attention to the actual historical conditions of life. Europeans are “caught” in that history, not a future ideal. Their history is one of Enlightenment rebellion against ecclesiastical authority. They replaced the universalism of Christianity with that of nationalism, one fruit of which was the development of racism, an idea developed by Voltaire. As nationalism gave way to terrible wars, particularly those of the 20th century, Europeans
descended into a kind of nihilism, a loss of hope in any possibility of meaning.

Middelmann is impressed by much of American life, including its sense of the possible as well as its relative openness to Christian claims. But, because the American evangelical message has been so privatized to "“Jesus and me,"” it has failed to address larger systemic issues, such as poverty. Europeans, by contrast, even in the midst of their nihilism, have had to deal with the real rather than the ideal. They have had to develop social structures and systems that genuinely ameliorate pain and suffering while also fostering conditions where one’s neighbor can thrive.

How we think about ourselves is part of our worldview, and I see the "Jesus and me" thinking in my own life. My eternal destiny is secure by faith in his atonement, a safety which pacifies some of the urgency to share this good news, to sacrifice, to press for NEEDED change in our systems. Since growing in my faith I've been disenfranchised with the governmental system and less interested in working in it. I don't know if that is good or bad, maturity or apathy. That said, America does need to create structures that GENUINELY ameliorate pain and suffering, rather than just in name. But of course, the question is, should the structures come from public or private monies and groups... It seems in Europe it has been the government, and I’ve heard lecturers comment on the bureaucracy of the environmental regulations of the EU. Regulations are good, but layers are not.

Pressed during the question and answer period about what seemed like his incipient socialism, Middelmann insisted that he is not a socialist, but that he thought that European attendance to social conditions (including government support for various services, such as government-funded concerts) deserved consideration by Americans who are so focused on the individual and individual development.

Udo’s reflections "are finely tuned," said Bob Osburn, the Institute’s executive director. "We American Christians must give attention to them, especially because they are carried by someone who is deeply faithful to a Christian worldview informed by biblical ideas."

And this is what we must all be-- INFORMED, not CONFORMED to the world, RENEWED in mind by the WORD... and then taking ACTION to LIVE a renewed life. How easy it is to talk, to think, for rhetoric to subdue and comfort us. And who is sufficient for these things-- for genuine, renewed living? With man it is impossible, but IN CHRIST all things ARE possible.