What's the plural of Thesis? Theses! Yes... I know...

Well.... I thought it was quite funny! (from here).

Cory Doctorow's Business lectures on "Life in the Information Economy"

Cory Doctorow is one of my favorite bloggers - his insights are keen, he is a leader in information rights and ownership, and he is a great storyteller and author. Cory recently delivered some lectures at Cambridge in the UK entitled "Life in the Information Economy".

One of the things that Cory has helped me to realise is that information has often been unequally linked to capital gain - i.e., people write not for pleasure or to share ideas and information, but people write in order to craft the most 'popular' and 'salable' work in order to make money... The problem with this equation is that it shackles one's thoughts to whatever is acceptable, popular and consumer oriented. This kind of mindset will seldom push the boundaries and present anything new. The second 'side effect' is that it robs you of sharing your real wealth with the world! If you have to sell what you produce you are limiting your audience to those who have money, and within that audience to those who are willing to spend their money on your product...

Cory was the one who encouraged me to give away my books (or at least make electronic copies available for free download). Since doing this I have had more readers, more feedback (and more sales!)... In Steve Biko's words I write what I like, and I am pleased to say that quite a few people are reading what I write because they don't have to stretch themselves to get it! They don't have to make choices about whether it is worth spending the money to buy a book, or whether my book is better than someone else's books... They can simply download the books, dip in, see if it catches their fancy, or move on to something else.

Well, you can watch Cory's lectures here! Enjoy...

Porn, hate speech, youtube videos of cats.... But, what would we do without you? Happy Birthday 'the internet'!

Happy Birthday internets!!! You're only 17 years old, and already you know so much more than anyone else on earth! Sure, you have your darker side (porn, hate speech, Britney Spears websites, and youtube videos of cats), but then you also have your wonderful aspects (internet banking, email, facebook, youtube videos of people miming Britney Spears songs...) So, on the whole we're proud of you, and we wouldn't know what to do without you!

So, here's wishing the internet a happy birthday, and many happy returns!

To read more about the 'birth' of the internet go here.

Even though everything's different, nothing seems to change!

A friend of mine is reading a number of books and articles on the History of the Church and the Christian faith at present - he is doing some research for a conference.

He's been sending through 'tidbits' of insights and quotes as something 'sparks' him. I found the quote below both challenging and interesting. The following section describes Christianity and society in England in the 18th century.

First, a bit on English society:

In 1776 England was in such shocking state that some historians says that some people became more savage than any since the world began. Some men sold their wives by auction in the cattle market. Immorality was so rampant that most birth registers were filled with illegitimate births. Drunkennes was so common that even five year olds would be seen lying drunk in the gutters. Public houses advertised: Guaranteed drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence. Vulgar demonstrations were the order of the day. Sex shows with immorality openly displayed could be seen on the streets. High society had low morals, from the throne to the House of Lords and the House of Commons; many of these men kept mistresses openly and had children by them. Gambling was common among both rich and poor. Women wore such scanty dresses that one historian remarked: "She was as naked as a Greek sex goddess", at a ball where the king , who enjoyed the open flouting of convention by public showing, off women's bodies, was present. The country was crippled by depression, tens of thousands being unemployed. Sometimes church services were disrupted with cursing, profanity and sputum; colleges were burned down and it seemed as if there were no hope for society. People were hanged for the most minor crimes, like spitting over the wall of a nobleman, but for these otrosities, there was no condemnation. Children as young as eight were hanged.

Then some comments on the Church in the midst of this great social turmoil.

Commenting on England in the mid-18th century Ryle writes: "Corruption, jobbing and mismanagement in high places was the rule, and purity the exception. ... To be a Dissenter was to be regarded as only one degree better than being seditious and a rebel. Rotten boroughs flourished, bribery among all classes was open, unblushing and profuse.... England seemed barren of all that is really good. How such a state of things could have arisen in a land of free Bibles and professing Protestantism is almost past comprehension. Christianity seemed to lie as one dead, ... Morality, however much exalted in pulpits, was thoroughly trampled underfoot in the streets. There was darkness in high places and darkness in low places - darkness in the court, the camp, the Parliament, and the bar - darkness in country, and darkness in town - darkness among rich and darkness among poor - a gross, thick, religious and moral darkness - a darkness that might be felt."

As to the churches of the time, Ryle says: "They were sound asleep .... Natural Theology, (without a single distinctive doctrine of Christianity), cold morality and barren orthodoxy formed the staple teaching both in church and chapel. Sermons everywhere were little better than miserable moral essays, utterly devoid of anything likely to awaken, convert or save souls. .... And as for the weighty truths for which Hooper and Latimer had gone to the stake, and Baxter and scores of Puritans had gone to jail, they seemed clean forgotten and laid on the shelf. When such was the state of things in churches and chapels, it can surprise no one to learn that the land was deluged with infidelity and scepticism. The prince of this world made good use of his opportunity. His agents were active and zealous in promulgating every kind of strange and blasphemous opinion. .... Of the utter incapacity of the pulpit to stem the progress of all this evil, one single fact will give us some idea. The celebrated lawyer, Blackstone, had the curiosity, early in the reign of George III, to go from church to church to hear every clergyman of note in London. He says he did not hear a single discourse which had more Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero, and that it would have been impossible for him to discover, from what he heard, whether the preacher were a follower of Confucius, Mohamed or Christ!"

Going on to comment on the clergy of the day, Bishop Ryle says: "They seemed determined to know everything except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. When they assembled it was generally to toast 'Church and King' and to build one another up in earthly mindedness, prejudice, ignorance, and formality. When they retired to their own homes it was to do as little and preach as seldom as possible. And when they did preach, their sermons were so unspeakably and indescribably bad that it is comforting to reflect that they were generally preached to empty benches." (J C Ryle: Christian Leaders of the 18th Century.)

It sounds so familiar! Corrupt leaders, bad sermons, a self obsessed Church.... Instead of getting the best persons to do the necessary work of Christ led renewal and transformation with courage and commitment they seemed to be saddled with lukewarm, halfhearted attempts at religion, rather than life changing faith!

Then Terhoven comments:

For more than 30 years John Wesley and George Whitefield preached to the masses. Hundereds of thousands were saved. Suddenly the whole of Brittain changed. The nation began to prosper, slavery was abolished, and people started to live respectable lives. (Breath from Heaven, Ken Terhoven)

Perhaps we need a few Wesleys and one or two Whitefields... I am reminded, once again, of John Wesley's exhortation to the early Methodists - "There his no holiness without social holiness..."

[the]... gospel of Christ knows no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness. 'Faith working by love' is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection.

Faith working by love! Now that's something I can give my life to doing! Please see this post from my friend Rev. David Barbour.

Community impact Conference in Kempton Park

Graham Power and I flew to Johannesburg this morning where he was invited to address a few hundred business people on community transformation and development. I also had a chance to speak about the 'unashamedly ethical' campaign, see http://www.itnafrica.com for more info.

It was wonderful to have a chance to challenge the attendants of the conference, business people, a few mayors, a head of some local prisons, and some pastors and ministers.

The emphasis is upon helping these persons to live and work in a manner that establishes God's Kingdom rule of justice, provision, care and grace in practical ways (feeding, educating, developing and uplifting persons). We had a wonderful response to the challenge with many of the people signing the pledge form and commiting themselves to an 'unahsamedly ethical' lifestyle.

We're visiting a few of our own projects now (Serengeti, our R21 road project etc.) this afternoon, then we fly back to Cape Town tonight.

A great day of creating strategic partnerships between 'pulpit' and 'marketplace' ministries for the purpose of God's Kingdom.

Achievements and dreams...

I am a driven person. I work hard, and I like it. Yet, I have frequently come to realise just how empty achievements can be! After all, we were not created merely to achieve things for the sake of our own satisfaction. Rather, God created us to do great things for God's glory and fame.

I am preparing for a business bible study that I lead each Monday - we get between 20 to 30 persons who gather to study the beatitudes and the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7). Today we are looking at Matthew 5v6.

I found the following wonderful quote in William Barclay's 'Daily Bible study series' (a real classic):

"In his mercy God judges us, not by our achievements, but also by our dreams".

Here's a picture of my daughter and some of her friends. They have many years ahead of them. I pray that I will have the courage and the wisdom to help her dream big dreams!

Some encouragement and challenge for this week.

In my quiet time this morning I read the following verses - they served as an encouragement and challenge for the tasks of this week:

'This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance (and for this we labour and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the saviour of all people, and especially of those who believe' 1 Timothy 4:9-10.

Good morning Bettiesbay!

We live in a magnificent part of the world! However, it was not known as the 'Cape of Storms' for nothing! The wind is blowing and it is freezing! The waves are quite large and powerful! It's a lovely, clear, windy day on the Cape coast. We'll be packing up to head home in a few hours (it's only a 20 minute drive). Someone once commented that the Cape winter can be a bit like a baby - if it is not wet, it is windy!

Oh, and Sivin, you are WELCOME to come any time! Just let me know when you guys can be here and I'll make the arrangements!

Otium sanctum... Betties Bay

We are taking a bit of 'holy leisure' (otium sanctum) in Betties bay at a friend's hoise. Behind us is the mountain, and in front we have the sea. Have a blessed weekend! We all deserve a little rest from time to time!

Back on 'Red square' (Stellenosch)

This morning I came through to Stellenbosch to have my card re-activated to use the library. As a past student (worked on my Doctorate here) and a local minister I am graciously granted use of the University facilities. So, I have a new card and a few books to read!

This photo was taken on 'red square' (rooi plein in Afrikaans). Here in this bastion of former Afrikaans conservatism the students poke fun at the institution by calling the main 'sqaure' on the University Campus red square (supposedly because of the red brick floor). At the centre of the square is a statue of J.H. Marais (not Stalin).

It is great to be here again! I remember WISHING that I could complete my PhD and come back here some day! Well, the PhD is done, and I'm back!

Please help Charmone! A miracle premature baby.

Time does have a way of helping one to forget pain. Last night Megan and I sat in our study crying our eyes out! It has been 20 months since Liam was born (follow the story here and here), and we have been blessed so richly by his health and development!

We still continue to pray and fast every Friday, giving thanks, but also remembering those who still continue to struggle with the memory of lost children, and those who struggle with children who have health concerns as a result of premature birth.

When Liam was born at 27 weeks in the Pretoria East hospital we met a lovely lady, Dianne, herself a nursing sister. Dianne had given birth to her daughter Charmone at 26 weeks. Charmone weighed just 800 grams or so at birth and faced a number of severe challenges. Whilst Liam was in ICU for the three months we spent a lot of time talking with and praying with Charmone, Dianne and their family. We rejoiced when she was released to go home, and wept when she was re-admitted to hospital. We stayed in contact and followed the story of her development, the discovery that she was blind and deaf, the doctors' suggestion that due to severe epilepsy she would not survive... It was such a painful journey to watch. We cried many, many times.

Last night we received an email from a mutual friend telling us of Charmone's progress, and that she has the possibility to get implants that will allow her to hear! As we watched the youtube video of her story Megan and I wept, and wept!

Please would you consider helping if you are able to? You can go to Charmone's website at http://www.charmone.info

Or you can donate directly:

If you are able to help anyway, please contact us on 072 275 3246

Account details:

Charmone Foord Trust (IT1969/08)
Acc no 134546946
Branch code 012645 ( Standard bank Centurion)
SMS the word POP to 39055 (SMS costs R15)

Please spare a prayer for Charmone, Dianne, and the rest of their family. Please continue to pray for her healing and for strength and blessing for her parents and her siblings. Please could you also give thanks, with us, for Liam and his remarkable development? We realise each day that things could have been so different for him and for us.
Here's a picture of little Liam in pajamas riding his little truck!

Technorati tags: miracle baby, Charmone, Charmone+Foord, Liam, Premature, 26 weeks, pray

Jesus and the social Gospel - a great article!

One of the most significant struggles I have faced in my new post has been reconciling my affinity for justice and the core of the Good News (which I believe is the the work of conforming the world to the principles of the Kingdom of God) with conservative evangelical prejudice against the social Gospel...

I am constantly amazed and perplexed by the negative response that I get from persons when I suggest that Jesus came BOTH to save souls, and to transform society! Within that last few weeks I had one of my more conservative Christian friends call me a communist, and another accused me of having been sidetracked into secular humanism! I on the other hand have been trying my best to live with courage and obedience as Jesus lived - justly, mercifully, hospitably, and humbly.

One thing that I am sure of is that God has called me to help individuals and communities to rediscover the joy of serving Christ by blessing others. One of the best ways to do this is to work against those structural sins that oppress and enslave people (poverty, ignorance, prejudice, hatred, and abuse). I can just imagine God's smile when a hungry person is fed, a sick person is healed and cared for, and when an oppressive economic system is toppled!

I was so pleased when I found this article, written by Dr Reg Codrington, on Jesus and the social Gospel. I am encouraged by it since it shows that there are others like me who are able to hold together their passion for the Gospel of Christ, their commitment to the evangelical ideal of bringing persons into a lived relationship with God in Christ, and understand that their lives, energy, and creativity are to be spent doing what Jesus would want done.

There was such a great response to a recent post of an article written by my father, that I thought I'd post something else by him. Anyone who grew up thinking that the "social gospel" was a problem would do well to read this.

Jesus and the “Social Gospel”
Dr Reg B Codrington

INTRODUCTION

When I was growing up, the denomination of which I was part used the term “Social Gospel” almost as a swear word. We were taught that “liberal” denominations who placed a focus on meeting social needs were guilty of, and I quote, “sending a well-fed sinner to hell”. The focus had to be on “saving souls” and everything else had to be subjugated to that aim.

Now let me make it clear at the outset that I still believe that the most important thing that can happen to a person is that he or she enters into a vital, living relationship with Christ and lives in accordance with His teachings, as revealed in the Word of God. But I have become increasingly convinced that what I was taught as a youngster was just a part of a much bigger picture which, sadly, I only began to understand nearly forty years later! What a serious responsibility lies in the hands of teachers of the Word to ensure that they teach the whole gospel to our young people!

WHAT CHANGED?

I suppose that one of the contributing factors to my changed understanding of the social gospel was the revelations after 1994 in South Africa about the horrific abuses perpetrated on people by the apartheid regime. What was such a wake-up call was that I had truly believed I was alert to the needs of the oppressed people in our country and had even spoken out on their behalf. I had been part of a deputation to a parliamentary sub-committee to urge the scrapping of the Mixed Marriages Act and had felt very virtuous about doing it. Yet when I look back now, I realize that many things were going on under my nose which I knew nothing about, and my abhorrence for a so-called “social gospel” kept me from doing what I could have done to alleviate the suffering of some around me.

As a pastor of a large church in Pretoria, I had been party to expanding our missions giving to nearly 30% of the budget, but paradoxically, it was my exit from pastoral ministry which truly brought me face to face with the needs of the people of South Africa. Working in a Christian school in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, I came face to face with Black young people and adults who had no food because they had no jobs; who had no education because they had no proper facilities; who faced the AIDS pandemic with resignation because life had no hope anyway.

I then began to read what some of the Emerging Church writers were saying to the 21^st century church about the importance of being relevant in the world and my wife and I found ourselves saying, “Yes, that’s it!” We could see that the church (with a few happy exceptions) had become a club so concerned with its own survival and comfort that it had forgotten its true mission. I recalled reading Dr Michael Griffiths’ stirring book, “Cinderella with Amnesia”, many years ago, in which he pointed out that if the church forgets its mission responsibility, it has lost its reason for existence. But I began to see that “mission” was a much broader concept than I had ever envisaged.

BACK TO THE SCRIPTURES

As much as anything, I suppose it was the reading of Philip Yancey’s amazing book, “The Jesus I never knew”, which caused me to re-read the Gospels in a new light. I began to ask serious questions about the “gospel” which Jesus taught and, if I were to take His opening sermon as a keynote message for His whole ministry, then somewhere along the line I had missed something vitally important. When Jesus was handed the scroll in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4), he chose to read from Isaiah 61 and announced His anointing as one who would proclaim good news, i.e. the “gospel”. All fine so far, except that His next statement would have been out of sync with the vast majority of evangelical preachers today. They would have said, “you need to turn from your sins and accept Jesus as your Saviour”.

Now Jesus knew that He had come to “save His people from their sins”, so more than anyone He would have desired the salvation of those who heard Him. Yet He chose to define His gospel in a different way. (All quotations from the English Standard Version) Note the elements of it:

• It was good news to the poor
• It included proclaiming liberty to the captives
• It included recovering of sight to the blind
• It included setting at liberty those who are oppressed
• It included a proclamation of a type of “jubilee year” in which those whose land had been taken away must be returned.

What absolutely stunned me when I went back to study this passage was that this is not only the “social gospel”. It is also the “liberation theology” about which I was warned so strenuously by the spiritual elders! And I found that the convoluted “hermeneutical principle” of making this all spiritual rather than actual began to seem a little threadbare.

So, as a lover of the Old Testament prophets, I went back to study the context of Isaiah’s prophecies, only to find verses like, “I the Lord love justice; I hate robbery and wrong” (Isaiah 61:8); “They shall not build and another inhabit” (Isaiah 65:22); and of course the famous Micah 6:8 passage: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Back to the New Testament, only to find James defining pure, undefiled religion as visiting “orphans and widows in their affliction” (1:27)

MY CONCLUSIONS

I was therefore left with no alternative but to deduce that the kind of Christianity which Jesus both taught and demonstrated included a large element of social upliftment, based on God’s unending desire that there should be justice, mercy, kindness, fairness and love among the peoples of the earth. I had to conclude that the only way millions of people will ever know that the spiritual Kingdom of God has come on earth is if they see the members of that Kingdom getting their hands dirty in feeding the hungry, welcoming strangers, providing clothes for the needy, helping the sick, visiting those in prison … doesn’t this sound just vaguely like Matthew 25:31-46?

What finally stirred me to put laser printer to paper was the reading of Jeffrey Sachs’ mind-blowing book, “The End of Poverty”. Both he and Bono (who writes the foreword to the book) maintain that we have in our hands the means to end extreme poverty, as experienced by 1 billion people on the planet, by the year 2025. The figures he provides are convincing and shocking, especially when one reads that the United States spent $450 billion in 2004 on the military and just $15 billion on poverty alleviation!

But then I had to look closer to home. It’s very easy for all of us to sit in judgment on the wealthy nations for not doing more … and I certainly believe they should! But before we do that, we really need to ask what Christians are doing to participate in this poverty alleviation. We need to ask if our church really needed to buy that building next door, or put in new carpets, or upgrade the sound system, or have those lavish women’s and men’s breakfasts, when 15 000 people will die TODAY in Africa from preventable diseases – preventable, that is, if someone provides them with the money for the medication, or the mosquito nets, or simply the food to strengthen their bodies against any passing bug!

I recall criticism being levelled against the church leaders of Central Methodist Church, Johannesburg, during the apartheid era, for reaching out to meet the physical and emotional needs of the oppressed, when what they really needed was to “be saved”. May God forgive those who criticized, for that same church is now reaching out to the thousands of people displaced in our country through the current wave of xenophobic violence. I suspect that the leaders of this church have a far better understanding of what the gospel of Jesus Christ should really look like than hundreds of pastors who occupy the so-called evangelical pulpits of this land.

On several occasions in recent years I have visited the Salvation Army in Bournemouth, England, where Sundays include gospel preaching and open-airs, but all week long they are clothing the poor, feeding the hungry, cutting the hair and providing baths for the destitute, even taking hot soup to emergency workers attending to accidents or fires. If that’s the social gospel, we need more of it!

Hilton, South Africa
22^nd May 2008