The Mission Trip Most Churches Should Take
Physically being with other believers leads to encouragement that’s necessary for us to persevere to the final day. Given your missionaries can’t regularly gather with your church, why not choose to send some of your most encouraging members to spur them on? It could be just what your missionaries need in order to endure.
What does your church aim for in its short-term mission trips? Maybe you try to find one or two projects you can accomplish with a small team and focused effort. Maybe you shoot for evangelism—meeting as many unbelievers as possible in a short period and in a unique place. Or maybe you spend the whole time looking for an experience—a personal encounter, a story, or a picture—to stir up the rest of the church back home.
One kind of trip I think most churches should prioritize may not accomplish any of those goals. It’s something your missionaries may not ask for. It may not even get people back home excited. In fact, it could mean spending resources and time on a trip where you can’t bring many others along—if any at all.
Less exciting, less interesting, and less people. I can imagine you’re anxious to learn what kind of amazing mission trip I’m selling here. In short, I’m suggesting churches should consider taking mission trips where the sole purpose is to encourage missionaries.
Exhausting Trips
Faithful missionaries work hard in hard places. At least one reason you should want to go on a trip, I presume, is to encourage them. Who among us would ever say, “No thanks, I’m not interested in encouraging missionaries”? Yet the reality is, when you bring a group from your church, this aim most often falls to the side. Missionaries can be the collateral damage of such mission trips.
I live in a city that has its fair share of short-term trips. Let me tell you what your missionaries may not be willing to: even the best mission trips are exhausting.
When you bring a group of people who don’t speak the local language, don’t know anyone other than one or two families, and may have never taken public transportation before, it requires a certain level of preparation and hand-holding from your missionaries. And many of your missionaries feel the weight of being good hosts more than you may realize.
That’s not to say those trips with grand goals are bad. But there’s a cost to them.
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Calm Under Pressure
Beholding the glory of our Lord — in his striking Gospels calmness and his present imperturbable equanimity — we are “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). We cannot study the real Christ too much. We cannot look to him too often. We cannot meditate on him too much. In coming as near to him as we can, and abiding in him as much as we are able, we will in time learn more of that holy stillness of soul, that godly composure, that glorious equanimity, and a thousand other graces besides.
I love the old word equanimity. It’s almost fallen out of use today. Perhaps that’s because, in part, the reality has become increasingly rare. Equanimity is a term for composure, for emotional calmness and presence of mind, particularly in trying circumstances.
We’re living in times that condition us to overreact and explode, in a society that rewards outrage and outbursts. It’s never been easy for sinners to keep even tempers in trial, but present distresses summon us afresh to learn composure under pressure, how to “hold our peace” when the moment requires it, and give release to emotion in its proper time and place. Our families and churches and communities need leaders who have learned to keep their heads when others are losing theirs, to not lose control in anger or self-pity but keep a sober mind, and be, like our God, “slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6).
We need to bring equanimity back.
Non-Anxious Presence
The road-tested wisdom of Proverbs 16:32 whispers to those with ears to hear,
Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.
Count “he who rules his spirit” as a biblical phrase for equanimity and holy composure. Note well, the wise man neither smites his spirit nor takes orders from it. He neither stuffs his emotions nor lets them play king. Rather, he rules his spirit. He learns how to keep his spirit cool, his temper even, in moments when fools get hot, weak kneed, and their passions carry the day.
This is not stoicism. Christians have long called this “self-control.” We aim not to be men without spirits but those who keep “a cool spirit” under duress, when the immature lose control. We do not discard our emotions (as if we could) or suppress them, but by God’s grace we seek to bring our spirit increasingly under the control of his Spirit.
Holy Calm
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) commends the “holy calm” of godly strength and praises the Spirit-empowered composure to which God calls his people and provides — and all the more in times volatile and easy agitated.
The strength of the good soldier of Jesus Christ appears in nothing more than in steadfastly maintaining the holy calm, meekness, sweetness, and benevolence of his mind, amidst all the storms, injuries, strange behavior, and surprising acts and events of this evil an unreasonable world. (Religious Affections, 278)
Foreign as “holy calm” and equanimity might seem in our frenetic and furious age, we are well aware of the present challenges to our composure — which Edwards names in language we could hardly update more than two hundred years later: “storms, injuries, strange behavior, and surprising acts and events of this evil and unreasonable world.”
Superlative Meekness
Yet Edwards not only commends “holy calm” in Christ’s soldiers. He presses deeper. He celebrates it in our captain and Lord himself. “In the person of Christ do meet together infinite majesty and transcendent meekness,” he writes, which are “two qualifications that meet together in no other person but Christ.”
Only God has infinite majesty; only in becoming man does Christ have meekness, “a virtue proper only to the creature.” In this meekness, Edwards says, “seems to be signified, a calmness and quietness of spirit, arising from humility in mutable beings that are naturally liable to be put into a ruffle by the assaults of a tempestuous and injurious world. But Christ, being both God and man, hath both infinite majesty and superlative meekness” (“Excellency of Christ”).
Who among us has not felt the temptation “to be put into a ruffle by the assaults” of our lives and age?
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Israel and the Future
Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Monday, January 22, 2024
In the time somewhat near the return of Christ, we should expect a dramatic and widespread conversion of Jews the world over. This will be the very means of God bringing to pass what he promised in his ancient covenants to Israel. Nothing in Romans 9–11 points to a fulfillment of such promises by the year AD 70. I think that only one convinced on other grounds that nearly every future-oriented promise of the New Testament was fulfilled by that date could possibly think otherwise. And it seems to be a shaky foundation indeed to base such a conviction simply on Christ’s prophecy of the destruction of the temple and the fact that many visions in Revelation have an initial fulfillment in the first century.Preterism is nothing new, but there is a specific preterist argument on the rise that I don’t recall encountering as frequently in the past. Preterism, for the uninitiated, is the idea that all, or nearly all, prophecies in the New Testament were fulfilled in the first century. It is centered in particular on the fulfillment of Christ’s words about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem (Matt 24:1–2; Mark 13:1–2; Luke 21:5–24), a prophecy that was fulfilled in the year AD 70. There are some preterists who argue that all prophecies, including those traditionally seen as referring to the second coming of Christ and the final judgment, were fulfilled by that date. They are called full preterists and are heretics. Others, known as partial preterists, recognize that those two events are still in the future, but see nearly every other prophecy of the New Testament as already fulfilled. This view is compatible with classic Christian orthodoxy. It is very difficult to read some parts of the New Testament without at least some sort of partially preterist interpretation. Christ’s prophecy of the destruction of the temple has already been mentioned, but the language of “nearness” (e.g. Rev 1:1–3; 22:6–7, 12, 20; etc.), and the focus on the original readers in the book of Revelation (e.g., Rev 1:9, 19; chs. 2–3; etc.) is difficult to understand if there is not at least some sense in which its visions have already begun to be fulfilled.
The preterist argument that seems to be rapidly rising in prominence today has to do with Israel in the plan of God for this age. To begin with, this interpretation usually includes the argument that Israel in the New Testament is equal with the church, though this argument itself is not unique to preterism. Romans 9:6–8 is one of the most important texts for this view:
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
Other texts, such as Galatians 6:16 may support this view as well: “And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” It may be that this verse, however, is distinguishing between “them” and “the Israel of God.” Even if it is, it is clearly referring to Christian Israelites who are included in those “who walk by this rule,” namely the rule that “neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Gal 6:15). That could not be said of Israelites who did not follow Christ. Though some would argue that it is only referring to Jewish Christians, 1 Peter 2:9–10 seems more likely to be applying several Old Testament designations for Israel to Christians, probably indicating that the church is in some sense understood as a new Israel:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
The uniquely preterist addition to this argument has to do with the place of Israel in Romans 9–11. The basic gist of the argument is that every mention of Israel in these three chapters is either a reference to the church as Israel or was fulfilled by the year AD 70. This would include even the (from Paul’s perspective at least) future-oriented statements in Rom 11:11–32, culminating in “all Israel” being saved (11:26).
I find this understanding unpersuasive for several reasons, the chief of which is what Paul writes in Rom 11:11–16. Paul began his treatment of Israel’s place in redemptive history writing of his anguish at the unbelief of the majority of his fellow Israelites, despite their having been given the covenant promises of God (Rom 9:1–5). Even though the majority have not believed in Christ, Paul insists that God’s promises have not thereby been nullified (Rom 9:6). He does this first by explaining that there is an election within the covenantal election of Israel as a covenantal people (Rom 9:7–26), which (citing Isaiah) he describes as a remnant within Israel as a whole (Rom 9:27–29).
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The Fiction of Managerial Effectiveness: Alasdair MacIntyre
Many of those who express concern for the current condition of our society, as well as the trajectory it is on, tend to pour a lot of their energy into examining political ideology, political parties, the role that social and economic class play, but do not often look into the interconnected web of culture defining myths and how these play out in “the current situation.” One of the values of a thinker like Jacques Ellul is that he makes the connection between the administrative state and the fundamental myths of our culture. It is one thing to rail against the administrative state, against big government; it is another to peer into the problem and understand that the administrative state is a cultural necessity in the west. It is encouraging to see people reading Ellul, Burnham, Francis and others on this subject. The more the better. It is important that we explore all the connections between enlightenment liberalism, personal autonomy, the idea of human rights, the idea of human progress, scientific thinking, technology, and the administrative state.
The administrative state is not something that is ruining a good thing, that is, a free society. Rather, the administrative state is its logical conclusion, at least when liberty is conceived of in enlightenment terms. It is imperative we see that managerialism is the logical expression of western rationalism. To talk of wielding power to control and direct the bureaucracy for the aims of the right or for conservatism is to misunderstand the fundamental nature of the administrative state. Left wing politics is the natural expression of enlightenment liberalism. And the administrative state is the instantiation of both. Although people will try, there really can be no “right wing managerialism.” To proffer “solutions” which will be enacted and realized through policy or management is essentially to embrace the rules of the game as set up by our liberal culture following the enlightenment. The core myths of our society are essentially liberal. The implication of this is that any attempt to fix the problems generated by the managerial state using the managerial state can never arrest the trajectory of our society. They are built into managerialism itself.
As I will soon be discussing in an upcoming piece on Ellul’s “The Political Illusion,” we do not really have a choice at this point but to harness the power of the technical approach to societal management. It is of a piece with mechanized forms of production and manufacturing. As a nation we are no longer free to reject technology in spite of its ills, because that would make us vulnerable to our neighbors. Thus we must be rolling tanks off our assembly lines because other countries have assembly lines producing tanks. We must be a technical society because all other sufficiently powerful states are also technical societies. This means that technical management will be with us for some time yet, likely until some form of global collapse renders it dead. At that point, real political choice will return. Until then, we must learn to deal with a system that is designed to realize liberal ideology. We on the right, when we deal with the administrative state, must understand that we are playing inside someone else’s game where all the rules are designed to produce outcomes in line with liberal ideology. If you try to instantiate conservative ideas by means of the administrative state, they will end up becoming liberalized in their realization. Knowing this, though, it is imperative we understand as fully and deeply as possible what managerialism is, how it works, what are its strengths and, most importantly, its flaws. In aid of this goal, we turn today to a portion of Alasdair MacIntyre’s “After Virtue.”
Why the Manager?
MacIntyre wrote his book to help us understand the devastating effect that enlightenment rationalism and liberalism has had upon our moral thinking, and then how that change in thinking also had a ruinous impact upon the moral practices of western society. He also offered a proposal for a way forward, that is, the recovery of virtue. The quick version of his argument is that enlightenment thinkers wanted to found morality on reason alone. They did not want to base it upon superstition, that is, on the Christian-Aristotelian understanding that morality is based on a metaphysical order directed towards realizing in our actions our purpose, our telos, as human beings. Enlightenment thinkers thought they could find a way to ground morality and ethics in reason alone. This, MacIntyre shows in exhaustive detail, has been a miserable failure. This was one of the main goals of the enlightenment. The failure of this project effectively renders the enlightenment experiment a failure, with devastating consequences for our society.
He argues that what has emerged to replace the old teleological system of ethics is “emotivism.” Basically, I do whatever feels right to me. What happens when my feelings conflict with your feelings? They can only be resolved through the will to power. I have the power to impose my feelings upon you. This is why the hysterical protestor is such a feature of our society. They are logical expression of enlightenment liberal morality.
MacIntyre argues that we as human beings tend to be drawn to archetypes and he identifies three main mythical figures that guide our expression of personal moral autonomy. On the personal level we elevate the “Rich Aesthete” who lives for their own enjoyment, tasting all the pleasures of life. Their work, their play, all of that they do are done for their own personal advancement and fulfillment. This is the person who is projected to us through our televisions and social media. The second figure is that of the “Therapist” who is there to help us become “adjusted” to this modern life using scientific methods. They are not there to judge us or to speak truths we do not want to hear; rather, their purpose is to transform people who are maladjusted and unhappy into happy, well-adjusted persons suited to live in the modern world.
In the public realm, since the enlightenment has banished moral and religious questions from the public sphere, we are expected to deal only in questions of “effectiveness.” The archetype of this effective person is “The Manager.” The manager is the hero of the era of reason, science and technology. He is the one who turns raw materials into finished products, unskilled labor into a effective work force, and turns investments into profits. The expert manager is an aspirational figure, someone to be looked up to and admired. The manager is there to run society quietly and efficiently. Effectiveness is its own end, its own purpose, its own reason.
But managers, argues MacIntyre, do have the control they think they do. Managerial effectiveness is a fiction, he argues. The idea of “managerial effectiveness” functions much in the same way that “God” used to operate within society prior to the enlightenment. The pronouncements of expert managers are to be received with a kind of awe. They will effectively direct our lives in complete neutrality, basing their decisions on nothing more than “facts” and “science.” They are not clouded by moral prejudice. The expert manager rejects all teleological conceptions, that our life has a metaphysical purpose and that we live best when we pursue that purpose. No, his authority rests purely on his “effectiveness” and his reliance on “facts.”
This conception of the expert manager is built on the enlightenment idea that truth is “self-evident.” The “facts” will speak for themselves. All you have to do is simply collect them as they present themselves and their meaning will be obvious without any necessity for interpretation or an interpreter interposing himself between us and the pure necessity dictated to us by the facts themselves. The problem with this idea, argues MacIntyre, is that a “fact” so conceived requires a world without any prior theories or knowledge. Neither can you form any theories from these “facts.” Otherwise the pure “fact” would be tainted with my prejudices. The world in which “facts” exist is a world that can only exist if there is no interpretation of the world. The world would be uninterpretable. It is a world without theory and from which theories cannot be drawn.