That concern lies behind my latest article for The Canadian Lutheran.  In addressing the problem, I explore the story of Pentecost, Luther’s theology of translation, and the historical move from German to English in North American Lutheran churches.  At the same time, I can only hope that my exploration of the subject speaks to readers where they are – that it speaks their language, as it were. (I’m sure someone in my congregation will be sure to let me know if I’ve failed on this point).

To read the article, visit The Canadian Lutheran website and select the article entitled “Can you hear me now?: Evangelism for the 21st century.” While you’re at it, check out the rest of the July-August issue. In addition to my article, there’s some insightful thoughts on engaging youth in the life of the Church now (as opposed to at some ill-defined point in the future), a story on the 2010 LCC National Youth Gathering, a discussion of C.F.W. Walther’s take on the Confessions, and other news and views of interest.

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* I use the term somewhat loosely. While I’m not employed as a linguist, I do have a linguistics degree.

David Neff has an excellent synopsis of the papers in an article with Christianity Today entitled “Facing Lutheranism’s Crisis of Authority”. You can also listen to the presentations in mp3 format at Lutheran CORE’s website here. The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau will shortly be publishing a book containing an extended version of each of the papers (the presentations at the theological conference were condensed versions of longer papers).

Link:  “Rant about Worship Songs”

Once again, however, we read that the Christians doing the best job of passing on real faith are evangelicals (Lutherans are generally considered members of “mainline denominations” rather than evangelical). There’s a lot of talk out there among Lutherans about how shallow a lot of evangelical youth ministry is (see, for example, Gene Veith’s blog post “Youth group madness” from a couple of days ago). To some extent, some of that talk is justified. But when it comes down to brass tacks, evangelicals are succeeding in passing on the faith where the vast majority of Lutherans are not. They’re doing something right, and it’s clearly a something that most Lutherans just don’t seem to get.

We discussed elements of this topic on my site back in 2009 in an entry entitled “Stemming the Tide of Church Youth Dropouts”. I’m curious to hear what new ideas people have on what we Lutherans can do to more seriously engage young people in their faith. Brainstorm people.

Update – August 30, 2010

Another article of mine, this time a much shorter one on the birth of the North American Lutheran Church, has now been published in LCC InfoDigest (forthcoming also in The Canadian Lutheran): “New Lutheran church body established.” This one focuses a bit more on the Canadian connection.

Images from The Thinking Christian, based on Jenkins’ numbers.

I was reminded of this fact while listening to a White Horse Inn podcast of the recent “Conversation on Global Evangelism” held at Saddleback Church (sponsored by the Lausanne Movement for World Evangelism, and featuring such thinkers as Skye Jethani, Michael Horton, Jim Belcher, Kay Warren, Jena Lee Nardella, Miles McPherson and Soong Chan Rah). One of the thing these western theological leaders comment at length on is just that – the disproportionate number of western theological leaders in the world.

As time goes on, the centre of Christian thought will eventually shift to reflect the new reality. And personally, I think that’s just fine. Christians in the Global South, living as they do with affliction in the forms of poverty, AIDS, famine, civil unrest, religious persecution, and so much more, have a vibrancy in their faith lacking in much of the West. In the midst of actual suffering, these Christians’ adherence to Scripture is something we in the West must admire.

Already we’re seeing elements of the leadership-shift as African bishops in Anglicanism and Lutheranism call on increasingly liberal counterparts in North America and Europe to return to historical orthodoxy. Think back to GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) held in Jerusalem 2008. Anglican leaders, primarily from the Global South but also including conservative leaders from the West, gathered to chart an orthodox course for world Anglicanism in opposition to the liberal agenda of the North American and European churches. Many of the same bishops in attendance would refuse to attend the Lambeth Conference (the traditional world conference of the Anglican Communion) a month later – a visible sign of the theological tensions between West and the Rest.

Likewise, leading up to the Lutheran World Federation Assembly in Stuttgart this year, African leaders representing 18.5 million Lutherans displayed their anger over the West’s recent moves to affirm alternate sexualities in a tersely worded statement. “The majority of African member churches say ‘NO’ to homosexual acts and regard it to be sinful.” The message was clear: Western churches were not going to be allowed to hijack the Assembly’s agenda to push ideas which the African church had already determined were unbiblical.

Christians in the Global South are beginning to make their voices heard. Let us pray that the West will sit up and listen.

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If you’d like to read a bit more about the shift underway in World Christianity, check out Philip Jenkins’ article “Liberating Word: The Power of the Bible in the Global South”.

Incidentally, the slate I’m on includes presentations on Milton’s Comus and the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It promises to be an entertaining (and enlightening) conference.

Which is probably why I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I thought I might (and on this, I apparently differ from media on both the left and the right who have generally given very positive reviews). The book is divided into three parts: 1, “A Personal Journey Through Atheism”; 2, “Addressing the Three Failed Arguments of Atheism”, and 3, “The League of the Militant Godless”. The first section, which takes up more than half the book, is an autobiographical account of how he had become a militant atheist (even burning his Bible on the school ground at the age of 15) to eventually re-embrace Christianity; an interesting testimony on, as the book’s North American subtitle puts it, “how atheism led me to faith”. The second addresses three arguments of atheism: 1, that conflicts which are purportedly religious are always actually about religion; 2, that coherent morality can exist without reference to God; and 3, that atheist states are not atheist.

The third subject is where Peter Hitchens shines, and it is on this subject that his readers will find him most insightful. Drawing on his own experiences in the USSR and well-researched knowledge of its early history, he demonstrates that the Soviet system was fundamentally atheist at its core (not “religious” as Christopher Hitchens repeatedly attempts to suggest). In doing so, he demonstrates that the actions taken by the “League of the Militant Godless” (an organization in the Soviet Union devoted to wiping out religion) were directly in line with the Soviet Union’s purpose. In the process, he demonstrates that some of today’s extremist atheists (such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkings) are advocating positions worryingly like those enacted in the USSR (for example, the argument that parents should not be allowed to teach their children anything about religion until they are 18). The consequences of enacting such laws would lead inevitably, Peter Hitchens suggests, to the destruction of human rights and the increase of suffering (which demonstrably happened in the USSR – a true atheist state).

The book is a generally good read, but if you’re looking for standard apologetics it may not be the book for you. But for what it is, it is a welcome, intelligent addition to the pro-religion/anti-religion debate so popular in the present era.

LBT has published 31 translations of the New Testament since 1980, with many more projects on the go. They and similar groups such as Wycliffe Bible Translators are instrumental in bringing the Gospel of Christ to the nations. Please pray for these ministries, that God would provide workers for the harvest.

“Block and colleagues at the High-Energy Pronoun Accelerator have, to put it bluntly, gone insane. I would attribute this to living underground in close proximity to attempts at firing fourth person dual reflexive pronouns at dummy pronouns in the illative case.”

In short, this article was terribly amusing. Academic linguistics (and perhaps academics in general) has an unfortunate tendency to engage in theory-wars, where each camp’s primary research consists of attacking the other. The recent satirical skirmish on the fate of the linguistic universe is a nice break from real theory battles.

Check out my article “The Linguistic Big Crunch” here and see “Charlie Saygone’s” response here. [Incidentally, I've heard word that a number of other spin-offs from my article are on the way. ] Man, when someone writes the book on satirical linguists I better be remembered as the father of Cosmological Linguistics.