John Stott: A Legacy Passed On

Photo Credit: osattack

John Stott, a leading figure in Christian evangelicalism in the past century, passed away this week at the age of ninety. Christianity Today has written a wonderful piece about his influence and legacy on the world. Here's a highlight:

"Stott was every inch an evangelical, but a reforming evangelical. He recognized that evangelicalism could and sometimes did sink down into mere piety, whereas the Bible spoke of a robust transformation of the world brought about by God's people engaged in mission. As a London pastor, Stott increasingly recognized the need for evangelicalism to reclaim its heritage of engagement with the social issues of the day.

As he told an interviewer years later, "In the early 1960s, I began to travel in the Third World, and I saw poverty in Latin America, Africa, and Asia as I had not seen it before. It became clear to me that it was utterly impossible to take that old view." The "old view" was that preaching was always a Christian's preeminent task, and that deeds of compassion were strictly secondary. As Stott probed the Scriptures, he came to believe that Jesus' Great Commission commanded Jesus' servants to carry on his entire mission, which included practical concern for life and health.

One of Stott's most significant works—and one that carried him far out of his own expertise—was the book Issues Facing Christians Today (1984), in which he attempted to address crucial concerns of contemporary society such as abortion, industrial relations, and human rights. Earlier he had written Your Mind Matters: The Place of the Mind in the Christian Life (1972). In 1982, he helped to launch the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, which offered classes and lectures on a wide variety of topics relevant to life in modern society.

His greatest impact in the area of social concern came somewhat inadvertently. In 1974, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association convened an International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland. About 2,500 members attended (in addition to 1,300 other participants). About half of the delegates and speakers came from Majority World countries. The gathering's wide representation resembled meetings of the World Council of Churches, but the excited atmosphere of unified mission was unprecedented. Many participants grasped for the first time the global dimensions of the evangelical church. Almost 30 years later, Philip Jenkins would write The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. But as David Jones, president of John Stott Ministries, says, at Lausanne, "Jenkins' book was there in the faces and minds of people. Lausanne showed the global church that we can work together."

Such unity was hardly automatic. In fact, there were great differences in perspective between those from the West and those from the Majority World, and the relationship between evangelism and social concern was an emotional hot button. According to some, Christians were called to preach the gospel, full stop. For others, particularly those in countries where poverty and injustice were inescapably obvious, such a stance amounted to callous indifference to people. Lausanne could easily have divided between these perspectives.

Stott had been asked to give the opening address on the nature of biblical evangelism. He began with characteristic humility, calling for "a note of evangelical repentance." And he spoke head-on—with a lucid exposition of Scripture—to the issue on people's minds.

"Here then are two instructions, 'love your neighbor' and 'go and make disciples.' What is the relation between the two? Some of us behave as if we thought them identical, so that if we have shared the gospel with somebody, we consider we have completed our responsibility to love him. But no. The Great Commission neither explains, nor exhausts, nor supersedes the Great Commandment. What it does is to add to the command of neighbor-love and neighbor-service a new and urgent Christian dimension. If we truly love our neighbor, we shall without doubt tell him the Good News of Jesus. But equally, if we truly love our neighbor, we shall not stop there."

Stott's speech made it possible for delegates to rethink their positions, to listen to others, and to conceive of preaching and social action working in tandem. He managed the same trick in chairing the committee that drafted the Lausanne Covenant. Stott's skill as a diplomat was never more in evidence, as he chaired potentially fractious meetings, getting people to listen to each others' views. He worked tirelessly behind the scenes to draft and redraft the covenant, finding wording that would capture various points of view without doing violence to any. In the end, the Lausanne Covenant spoke to the moment, expressing a common mission that most delegates could enthusiastically endorse; and it spoke to the future, providing a framework that evangelical groups could use as their basic statement. Lausanne was a defining moment in global evangelicalism. Billy Graham was the indispensable convener, but John Stott was the indispensable uniter."

You can read the complete CT article here.

How The Selling Of Sex Is Destroying Our World

Photo Credit: @sahxic < twitter

We live in a sex-saturated society and the selling of sex is destroying our world. Look at what Newsweek has to say:

"Men of all ages, races, religions, and backgrounds do it. Rich men do it, and poor men do it, in forms so varied and ubiquitous that they can be summoned at a moment’s notice.

And yet surprisingly little is known about the age-old practice of buying sex, long assumed to be inevitable. No one even knows what proportion of the male population does it; estimates range from 16 percent to 80 percent. “Ninety-nine percent of the research in this field has been done on prostitutes, and 1 percent has been done on johns,” says Melissa Farley, director of Prostitution Research and Education, a nonprofit organization that is a project of San Francisco Women’s Centers.

A clinical psychologist, Farley studies prostitution, trafficking, and sexual violence, but even she wasn’t sure how representative her results were. “The question has always remained: are all our findings true of just sex buyers, or are they true of men in general?” she says.

In a new study released exclusively to NEWSWEEK, “Comparing Sex Buyers With Men Who Don’t Buy Sex,” Farley provides some startling answers. Although the two groups share many attitudes about women and sex, they differ in significant ways illustrated by two quotes that serve as the report’s subtitle.

One man in the study explained why he likes to buy prostitutes: “You can have a good time with the servitude,” he said. A contrasting view was expressed by another man as the reason he doesn’t buy sex: “You’re supporting a system of degradation,” he said.

And yet buying sex is so pervasive that Farley’s team had a shockingly difficult time locating men who really don’t do it. The use of pornography, phone sex, lap dances, and other services has become so widespread that the researchers were forced to loosen their definition in order to assemble a 100-person control group.

“We had big, big trouble finding nonusers,” Farley says. “We finally had to settle on a definition of non-sex-buyers as men who have not been to a strip club more than two times in the past year, have not purchased a lap dance, have not used pornography more than one time in the last month, and have not purchased phone sex or the services of a sex worker, escort, erotic masseuse, or prostitute.”

Many experts believe the digital age has spawned an enormous increase in sexual exploitation; today anyone with access to the Internet can easily make a “date” through online postings, escort agencies, and other suppliers who cater to virtually any sexual predilection. The burgeoning demand has led to a dizzying proliferation of services so commonplace that many men don’t see erotic massages, strip clubs, or lap dances as forms of prostitution. “The more the commercial sex industry normalizes this behavior, the more of this behavior you get,” says Norma Ramos, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)."

For many that engage in the solicitation of the services of prostitutes and for those that participate in the use of pornography, it may feel like their behavior is innocent fun. However, research shows that nothing could be further from the truth. Look at the following facts from International Justice Mission (IJM):

- The total market value of illicit human trafficking is estimated to be in excess of $32 billion (U.N.)

- Each year, more than 2 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade (UNICEF)

- 27 million men, women and children are held as slaves. (Kevin Bales, Disposable People)

- 1 in 5 women is a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. (U.N. Development Fund for Women)

The commercialization of sex is not only destructive to our culture but it ruins millions of lives every year.  Don't be fooled. If you are personally involved in sexually addictive behavior please click here for help. 

Or perhaps you can help those affected by the sex trade by getting involved in the work of IJM by going here.

To read the complete Newsweek article, "The John Next Door", click here.

More Hispanics Describing Themselves as Native Americans

Photo Credit: U. of Md. Press Releases

From The New York Times:

"When Fernando Meza is asked about his identity, “I tell them that I am Indian,” said Mr. Meza, a parade participant from the Tlaxcala tribe. “They say, ‘But you’re Mexican.’ And I say, ‘But I’m Indian.’ ”

Mr. Meza represents one of the changes to emerge from the 2010 census, which showed an explosion in respondents of Hispanic descent who also identified themselves as American Indians.

Seventy percent of the 57,000 American Indians living in New York City are of Hispanic origin, according to census figures. That is 40,000 American Indians from Latin America — up 70 percent from a decade ago.

The trend is part of a demographic growth taking place nationwide of Hispanics using “American Indian” to identify their race. The number of Amerindians — a blanket term for indigenous people of the Americas, North and South — who also identify themselves as Hispanic has tripled since 2000, to 1.2 million from 400,000.

“There has been an actual and dramatic increase of Amerindian immigration from Latin America,” said José C. Moya, a professor of Latin American history at Barnard College.

Dr. Moya attributes the increase to shifting patterns of immigration to the United States over the last two decades, from regions with larger indigenous populations, like southern Mexico and Central America, instead of northern Mexico.

Half of all Hispanics who moved to New York over the last 10 years were Mexican, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Most of them come from southern Mexico.

The pattern started in 1994 with the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which opened the American-Mexican border to more economic activity. To encourage foreign investment in Mexico, its government started to strip Indian landowners of a long-held legal protection from privatization. The resulting conflict awakened ethnic tensions that dated back centuries, and spurred a populist support of indigenous heritage."

To read the complete article please click here.

(h/t to Racialicious for the link)