Tag History

To Gain What We Cannot Lose: History for January 8

Todd R 3 Comments

On January 6, 1956, a group of American missionaries made first contact with a local tribe in Ecuador, trying to reach them with the gospel.  Two days later, on this date, January 8, 1956, five of those missionaries – Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint and Roger Youderian – were speared to death by the very Auca tribe they spent years preparing to minister to. But their story was not over.

Jim Elliot and others had been ministering to the Quichua people in Ecuador since 1952, with many coming to faith in Jesus.  However, the nearby Aucas (now called Waodoni) were known to kill any outsiders that entered their area, including Quichua and also oil workers at a site nearby.  Jim “knew the only way to stop the Aucas from killing was to tell them about Jesus”[1] and came up with a plan to reach them.  Working with Nate Saint, a missionary supply pilot, they spent months trying to safely build goodwill with the Waodoni by lowering supplies to them from a plane and speaking friendly Waodoni phrases from a loudspeaker.

On January 6th, they talked to a Waodoni called George, thinking they had gained some trust and they set up a later meeting.  George, however, lied to them about his intentions, and ten members of the tribe were ready in ambush with spears on January 8th.  The unarmed missionaries had no chance.

Jim Elliot

Seeking vengeance or giving up might have been a reasonable response for the other missionaries, but in a miraculous example of forgiveness, persistent faith, and a heart for the lost, Elisabeth and Valerie Elliot (Jim’s wife and young daughter), and Rachel Saint (Nate’s sister) learned the local language and moved into the jungle to live with the Waodoni in 1958.  Elisabeth wrote about serving those who killed her husband: “The deepest things that I have learned in my own life have come from the deepest suffering. And out of the deepest waters and the hottest fires have come the deepest things I know about God.”  Today, the Waodoni are a friendly tribe and many are professing Christians.  Missionaries, including members of the Saint family, still live among them today.  Elisabeth died in 2015 at the age of 88, after a long career as missionary, author, speaker, and radio host.

Jim’s Apparent Failure is God’s Victory
In life, Jim Elliot was sometimes frustrated by his effort, once writing: “No fruit yet. Why is it that I’m so unproductive? I cannot recall leading more than one or two into the kingdom. Surely this is not the manifestation of the power of the Resurrection. I feel as Rachel, ‘Give me children, or else I die.’”[2]  While attending Wheaton College in Illinois in the 1940’s, Jim developed a desire to preach the gospel, including taking the train to Chicago and talking about Jesus with people at the train station, but with little response.

“He is no fool who gives what
he cannot keep to gain
that which he cannot lose.”

– Jim Elliot

But in death, Jim was used by God to inspire many other missionaries, including his own family, through whom God’s love for the lost went out and bore more eternal fruit than Jim may have ever imagined.  His story is a reminder that faithfulness is the Christian’s objective, and God provides the fruit.

Jim wrote what has become a familiar quote to many: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”  In Paradise, Jim, those affected by his ministry, and all other believers, will forever praise God for His steadfast love through the centuries.  Nothing we do for God now can look foolish from that perspective.  We have so much to gain that we cannot lose.

Soli Deo Gloria

Learn More:
This story was dramatized in the 2005 film End of the Spear and in the 2002 documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor.  A website dedicated to Elisabeth Elliot’s life (https://elisabethelliot.org/) has more on this amazing history of God’s work.

[1] https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1901-2000/jim-elliot-no-fool-11634862.html
[2] https://www.inspirationalchristians.org/evangelists/jim-elliot-biography/

God Offers More Than Bread and Circuses

Todd R 3 Comments

Fans of the dystopian Hunger Games novels and movies know that the story takes place in a country called Panem.  There, the extravagantly wealthy Capitol district holds an annual, televised battle royale, The Hunger Games, where children from each of the 12 desperately poor districts fight to the death until there is only one remaining.  The purpose of these demented Games is to remind the people of the power of the Capitol, but also to provide entertainment.  But why is the country called Panem?

Panem is likely a reference to the Latin phrase “panem et circenses,” or “bread and circuses,” which “means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction, or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace, by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).”[1]  Under this way of thinking, for a government to remain in power it needs to provide the basic needs of its people.  For an especially cynical government, it would mean they need only provide just enough bread and just enough circuses to keep the population from overthrowing them.

The Colosseum in Rome – a site of ancient “circuses.” Photo by Federico Di Dio photography on Unsplash

In the case of The Hunger Games, the Capitol reminded the other districts that they could have no bread (panem) without the Capitol’s “benevolence,” and that the only entertainment (circuses) they get is to watch their children kill each other.  Talk about a government providing the very bare minimum!

The Hunger Games is obviously an extreme example, but fortunately, Christianity offers a better answer than just the bare minimum of “panem et circenses.”   What benefits does it offer?  Psalm 103 in the Bible begins in the first 2 verses with a call to:

“Bless the LORD, O my soul,
            and all that is within me,
            bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
            and forget not all his benefits”

And what are these benefits?  Is it more than “bread and circuses”?  It is, as verses 3-5 tell us that the Lord is the one:

“who forgives all your iniquity,
            who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
            who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
            so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

This Psalm says He can take care of both our spiritual and physical maladies.  Jesus performed many miracles, so we “may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,”[2] solving our spiritual alienation from God and each other.  Likewise, the body’s diseases do not heal magically or by chance; they heal because God created us with that ability.  He is the Great Physician.[3]

Also, He is the One who can save us “from the pit” – from ourselves and the punishment that our sin deserves, replacing our banishment from God’s presence with “love and mercy.”  He is the One who has the perspective needed to define what is good, and as our Maker, knows what we need to thrive and be renewed.  He offers many benefits we cannot find anywhere else.

Not just the fictional Panem, but all the nations of the real world, have nothing to offer but varying degrees of bread and circuses, various diversions and distractions and palliatives.  No government in the world can provide the benefits God provides – those listed in Psalm 103 – and therefore only God offers what can truly satisfy.  Therefore,

“Bless the LORD, O my soul,
            and forget not all his benefits”

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
[2] Matthew 9:6, Mark 2:20, Luke 5:24
[3] Matthew 9:12, Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31

Perils of Politics: A Quint of Quotes

Todd R Leave a comment

Fellow travelers,

Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection.  Five quotes somewhat related to each other, but not exactly in agreement.  The book Faithful Presence by Bill Haslam opens by describing how polarized and angry America has become. In this environment, he asks the question: “do [Christians] just give up on the public square as a place to solve problems?”  These quotes aren’t an answer to that question, but I hope you find them interesting and thought-provoking.  Enjoy!

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” – Pericles, Greek statesman

“Only those will permit their patriotism to falsify history whose patriotism depends on history…A man who loves France for being military will palliate the army of 1870. But a man who loves France for being France will improve the army of 1870…The more transcendental is your patriotism, the more practical are your politics.” – G.K. Chesterton

“The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs” – Warren Buffett

The opening of the U.S. Constitution. Public Domain.

“I once carried on a brief correspondence with a man who objected to my interpretation of Romans 13. He said that all government was of the Devil and that Christians must not bow to the authority of ‘the powers that be.’ I pointed out to him that even his use of the United States mail service was an acceptance of governmental authority. The money he spent buying the paper and stamps also came from the ‘powers that be.’ For that matter, the very freedom he had to express himself was a right guaranteed by—the government!” – Warren Wiersbe

“When we are wrong, make us willing to change. And when we are right, make us easy to live with.” – Peter Marshal

The Kingdom Jesus Wants

Todd R 2 Comments

At the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, He spent 40 days alone in the wilderness and at the end of this time was confronted directly by the devil with three temptations.  In the first, the temptation was to fulfill His physical need for food.  In the second, to display His power presumptuously.  This post will focus on the third temptation, as recorded in Matthew 4:8-10:

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”  Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,
             “‘You shall worship the Lord your God
                        and him only shall you serve.’””

As with the first and second temptations, Jesus uses God’s Word to combat the temptations, in this case quoting Deuteronomy 6:13.  Jesus knew that to live a life of perfect obedience, He needed to worship God only in every action He took.  Even one action that gave in to Satan’s ideas for Him would have made Him an imperfect sacrifice and we would all still be dead in our sins.  There would be no Christianity and no salvation for anyone.

But I also think Jesus knew that the kingdoms of the world just weren’t worth ruling.  Sinful people need a Savior who can heal them, before anyone will be able to rule them.  Therefore, Jesus was not interested in the unredeemed kingdoms of the world, but in redeeming His people and building His perfect kingdom person by person.  The world as it is just isn’t good enough.

After all, what good is a kingdom full of people who only worship the wrong things?  What good is a world without hope of redemption in Christ?  In his book A History of Christianity, British historian Paul Johnson doesn’t shy away from the evils of the world and the failings of the church, which some say disprove that there’s a loving God.  However, in the epilogue Johnson asks what if there was no Christianity at all?

“Certainly, mankind without Christianity conjures up a dismal prospect. The record of mankind with Christianity is daunting enough… for there is a cruel and pitiless nature in man which is sometimes impervious to Christian restraints and encouragements.  But without these restraints, bereft of these encouragements, how much more horrific the history of these last 2,000 years must have been!”[1]

On the other hand, what if Christianity is true?  In a world redeemed by Christ, man does not have “a cruel and pitiless nature,” but the perfect sinless nature of Jesus.  There will be nothing but encouragements to live a life of love for God and others.  Restraints won’t even be needed.

This is the kingdom that Jesus finds worth ruling, and will rule, eternally, thanks to His overcoming of Satan’s temptations and perfect life of obedient love, so we someday may have a perfect life.  In this kingdom,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God
                        and him only shall you serve.’””

Eternally.  Amen.

[1] Johnson, Paul.  A History of Christianity.  (1976).  P. 517.

What Was the ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ Really About? – History for July 21

Todd R 2 Comments

Some events in history bring a faint glimmer of memory to many people, but what they remember may not be the most relevant point. One such event was the “Scopes Monkey Trial,” decided on July 21 in 1925. What actually was this trial? Wikipedia’s summary[1] is that “a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held.” The trial descended into theatrics and was covered by national news organizations. Time magazine called the trial a “fantastic cross between a circus and a holy war.” Each side had a famous lawyer seeking publicity: the Presbyterian William Jennings Bryan, who ran for president three times, was the prosecuting attorney, and the agnostic Clarence Darrow defended Scopes.

The immediate result of the trial was that Scopes was found guilty and ordered to pay a small fine, but years later, that’s not what people remember.  For some, the lesson of the Scopes trial is simple: “science good; religious fundamentalism bad.”  Another group of people might think the lesson was: “religious fundamentalism good; science bad.”  But did the case conclude either of these things?  It didn’t, so what’s the real issue?

The Culture Behind the Scopes Trial
In the background issues were simmering which still linger today – whether religion should have a voice in how science is used and taught.  Tim Keller notes that “Few people remember…that the textbook Scopes used, Civic Biology by George Hunter, taught not only evolution but also argued that science dictated we should sterilize or even kill those classes of people who weakened the human gene pool by spreading ‘disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country.’ This was typical of scientific textbooks of the time.”[2]  Wikipedia notes that “Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant.”  So, the trial did not hinge on Scopes’ teaching, this textbook, or even eugenics, but the subject of eugenics sheds some light on how over-simplified the take-away of “science good; religious fundamentalism bad” really is.

Geneticist Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, popularized the term “eugenics” from the Greek, meaning “good birth,” to describe ways humans could use evolutionary science to improve their condition.  He usually left unspoken that he meant not specific humans, but some abstract sense of humans in aggregate, and also that he meant to improve the condition of those humans in charge, or those humans with a voice among the humans in charge.   These beliefs were not rare, but quite mainstream.  Joseph Loconte, writing of the culture J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis lived in[3], notes: “In Britain, the Eugenics Education Society was founded in 1907 to take up the cause.  By 1913, the American Genetic Association was established in the United States to promote the doctrines of racial purity.”  The United States was actually the first country where compulsory sterilization was legalized, and some practices implemented by Nazi Germany were lifted right out of laws used by U.S. States.  U.S. Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote “Three generations of imbeciles is enough” in defense of Virginia’s sterilization law.

The church was not entirely immune from the eugenics movement either.  According to Loconte, “Ministers in the Church of England held a Church Congress in 1910 in Cambridge, inviting several members of the Royal Commission on the Feeble-Minded to participate.”  Also, “By the 1920s, hundreds of American churches participated in a national eugenics sermon contest.  As the Rev. Kenneth McArthur, a winner from Sterling, Massachusetts, put it in his sermon: ‘If we take seriously the Christian purpose of realizing on earth the ideal divine society, we shall welcome every help which science affords.’”

This background to the Scopes Trial, often simplified to a “science” vs “fundamentalism” debate, makes us ask: which science and which fundamentalism?  Was eugenics, for a moment, part of “religious fundamentalism” for some of the church?  And is perfecting society on earth truly a fundamental Christian belief?  With a rule of thumb of “science good; religious fundamentalism bad,” or the opposite, what do you do if a scientific idea becomes also central to religious belief?

Also, if you take away science and religion from the equation altogether, which is better: “all humans have dignity and are worthy of care and love” or “some people deserve to be neutered like an ordinary animal”?  If science is the only source of our “fundamentalism,” where do we turn when it insists on destruction for the less favored?  Tim Keller argues that “Secular, scientific reason is a great good, but if taken as the sole basis for human life, it will be discovered that there are too many things we need that it is missing.”  What is missing is a meaningful reason to love your neighbor, regardless of their scientific knowledge, religious belief, disability, economic impact, level of intelligence, or any other characteristic.

It’s Not (Entirely) a Fantasy
Loconte says that although Tolkien and Lewis wrote of fantasy worlds populated not only by men, but also by elves, dwarves, orcs, and many other races, the topics of eugenics and other Progressive Era ideas served as background.  In Tolkien’s epic The Lord of The Rings, the solution to conflict between the races was not for one race to rule the others, or (even worse) to eliminate them.  Instead, the answer is to utterly destroy the Ring of Power, representing the desire of any tribe to use power to rule others “for their own good,” as some say.  While Tolkien insists his story is not a direct allegory, he may have been thinking of the centuries of tribal conflict between the English, Irish, Scots, and Welsh.  Or the conflict between any group of conquerors and the conquered.  By using fictional races, Tolkien was arguing that this lesson applies to everyone, in all places and at all times.

Therefore, when scientific fundamentalism says it’s OK not to love some people, Christians need to respond without exception that every person is a creation of God with innate dignity and should be loved as Christ loved us.  However, as shown on the cross, power is not the answer.  As Jesus told his disciples in Mark 10:42-45 – “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.  But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

God does not expect us to understand every issue of history, or even in our daily news feed, which is increasingly a “fantastic cross between a circus and a holy war,” but when we all meet our Lord in heaven, He will say “as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’” – Matthew 25:40

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial
[2] Keller, Timothy.  Making Sense of God (2016).  This post draws from pages 12-13.
[3] Loconte, Joseph.  A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918 (2015).  This post draws on pages 15-19.