Categories: uncategorized
Date: 23 October 2005 10:27:11
One of the articles for Perpectives this week is Reconsecration to a Wartime, Not a Peacetime, Lifestyle by Ralph D. Winter. He draws attention to how people lived during the world wars: the people who stayed at home lived on rations, gave up a certain amount of money and freedom for the war effort, in effect sacrificing their lifestyle for a greater purpose. Winter says that we as Christians should have a similar mentality, living simply and sacrificing some lifestyle in order to use our money and other resources for world mission. Those that stay and send should be sacrificing just like those called to go.
But obedience to the Great Commission has more consistently been poisened by affluence than by anything else. The antidote for affluence is reconsecration. Consecration is by definition the "setting apart of things for holy use." Affluence did not stop Borden of Yale from giving his life in Egypt. Affluence didn't stop Francis of Assissi from moving against the tide of his time.
It goes on to talk about how much Americans (this article is originally from the US) spend on mission compared to other unarguably unnecessary things. They give one-quarter of what they spend on weight-loss programs, and one fourteenth the amount spent on tobacco. And oh, this bit is really biting:
Where does this line of reasoning lead? It means that the overall lifestyle to which Americans have acquiesced has led us to a place where we are hardening our hearts as we harden our arteries.
Great article, really got me thinking.
One of the things it got me thinking about is something that's been troubling me for a while now. It's to do with being at war.
I've heard stories of war. My grandparents were caught in the middle of Europe during wwII. Other people's grandparents I've talked to were in London, getting bombed every day and night. They'd leave for work and come home not knowing if their house would still be there or their partner still alive. Scary. That's what being at war is.
Now me. I live in a country at war. We are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. People die every day - although thankfully no Aussies yet. The Iraqis, for example, are doing it tough: power going out for days at a time, regular bombings, soldiers walking everywhere with machine guns. (Read Riverbend's blog, for example) Yet me - nothing. A bit of newspaper coverage at the start, not much any more. Petrol is 30% more expensive than it was a couple of years ago. That's it, really.
I think this leads to an ambivalence about war. It doesn't seem like it matters very much. It's easy to say Yes, we should have invaded - when it's not our family that might be killed at any moment. It's not our houses or schools that might be destroyed tomorrow. It's not our lives at stake.
Lord, help us.