A fool for Christ, but no man's fool!

Remembrance of Dr. Stuart C. Hackett, beloved professor

My first brush with philosophical thought was reading Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, as well as other Russian novelists, while I was studying Russian Language and Literature at Penn State.  The Russians love the “eternal questions”.

In the summer before I graduated from Penn State, I read just about all of Francis Schaeffer’s books.  He was my first taste of Christian apologetics. 

But my first real taste of philosophical rigor was under the tutelage of Dr. Stuart C. Hackett at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.  I just saw that Apologetics was required for my Master of Divinity and signed up for his class, knowing nothing about him.

You only had to meet Stu once to either love him or be repelled.  He was at once a ridiculous (I say that kindly) and a magnificent character.  Stu loved to “mug up”.  He would open his brief case and extract with exaggerated care a bamboo back scratcher and luxuriously scratch his back and make a very loud sigh of contentment.  All the while his eyes sparkled beneath and above the Hackettian “rational haircut”: beard and hair all two inches long. He always had a joke or two to start.  Philosophy was too serious not to begin with nonsense.

This exchange below exemplifies Stu’s sense of humor:

During a discussion of Hegel, Küng, and the nature of God:

Dr. Hackett:"If I talk about it, it's because I think it's important, otherwise I wouldn't talk about it...that's except for the nonsense I give out from time to time. It's just an ineradicable aspect of my personhood, if I may put it that way. Well, you know, it's just that I thrive on nonsense."

Student:"But there is, of course, a metaphysical distinction between you and your nonsense."

Dr. Hackett:"Absolutely. It is an accidental quality. However, sometimes I fear it is also invading my essence." 

http://www.cheapersunglasses.com/docs/hackettquotes.html

Accessed October 30, 2012

I won’t go on quoting Stu’s silly quotes, but they always had a point.  I urge readers to go to the link above and enjoy!  That would be one of the greatest acts one could do to remember Stu.  Philosophical fun!

If Stu’s exterior was silly (he tended to dress in a rather unconventional way, e.g. orange trousers, a shirt with bell sleeves and a cravat with a gold ring or a bolo tie), he was nonetheless a formidable philosopher of the first rank.

Stu’s trilogy is still a magnificent achievement by any standard: The Resurrection of Theism (free here http://www.cheapersunglasses.com/docs/stuarthackett.html ), The Reconstruction of the Christian Revelation Claim: A Philosophical and Critical Apologetic, and The Rediscovery of the Highest Good. A Philosophical and Critical Ethic.

Stu was a philosophical apologist.  He was interested in answering serious, academic philosophical challenges to Christian belief and specifically to theism.

Stu was not everyone’s cup of tea. He was definitely not a Calvinist.  When asked how many of the “Five Points” he held, Stu would say, “I’m a Whisky Calvinist. … I only hold a fifth.” (Perseverance of the Saints, if I recall rightly.)  While Stu was interested in philosophical rigor he was suspicious of answers that were too neat.

Stu’s philosophical rigor sometimes repelled students, who were not so interested in philosophy.  Thankfully for these students, Dr. Paul D. Feinberg, gave a more popularly aimed apologetics course.

For many, though, Stu was an example of evangelical scholarship and excellence in academics.  Stu inspired among others, Dr. William Lane Craig, a well known Christian philosopher and apologist.  Though I do not consider myself to be on the same plane as Bill Craig, I am glad to be able to trace the beginnings of my philosophical career to Stu’s encouragement and thought.

Stu’s original work had been on Mahayana Buddhism and his book Oriental Philosophy is still in print and widely used.  He is recognized for his academic excellence, even outside of evangelical circles.

Once a semester, Stu would invite his students round to his house for an evening of food and fun.  He would pull out his banjo and his guitar and sing both country songs (he loved Johnny Cash) and gospel hymns.  His dog would lie there at his master’s feet content.  Stu would tell his jokes and everyone would have a great time.

As a student in a seminary you sometimes think your professors are akin to the gods on Mt. Olympus. Stu wanted to make sure that we weren’t under any such delusions, but he was nonetheless our professor and a formidable one at that.

While Stu’s thought was anything but easy to understand, as a person he was approachable and warm.  He was a great teacher and mentor.

He asked me if I would stay around and do an MA at TEDS in 1984. I was headed to Communist Yugoslavia to learn Serbo-Croatian and teach at the Eastern European Bible Institute of Greater Europe Mission.  He didn’t object or try to change my mind.  He was a passionate supporter of world missions.

I’m thankful for Stu’s teaching and example.  I’m thankful to for the MA and PhD I got later in Leuven, but I sometimes wish I had stayed around to write an MA with him.  Maybe I could have learned a few new chords!

Below is Stu's Obituary

http://hultgrenfh.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=1742397&fh_id=10184 

honesty and humility – respect

One of my students suggested that I ought to write about the flip side of the blame shifting and pride.

To be fair most of my students show me respect.  Only one or two have ever really been disrespectful.

Most of my students are from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.  They have a very highly developed sense of rank and order.  They usually address me as “Professor” or “Dr. Gottschalk”.  They may disagree with me, but they are almost always respectful.

Unfortunately, some students feel that they can humble me into agreeing to something, which is inappropriate, by using an exalted sense of respect.  Using exaggerated terma of respect is in fact showing disrespect.

I don’t mind if students are familiar with me.  Still, I prefer to be “Dr. Gottschalk” because I am Dr. Gottschalk.  I worked for many years to earn the right to be addressed as Dr. Gottschalk, and practically it is just good to keep some distance between myself and my students.  I love them, and I think they know it.  However, I do have to grade them, and there are always times when we disagree about something and there has to be order.

Some students misunderstand the nature of a graduate school and a church.  They think that because we are Christians and they live together in a dormitory, we are all equals.  That is not true.  Yes, we are all equal before Christ as regards salvation, but we are not all equals in the classroom.  Giving a poor grade to a student and criticizing a project or paper should never be a question of favoritism or dislike.  Students earn their grades by their performance.

Some students seem to think that since they have been pastors or church executives in their home countries they should be treated with special deference.  Basically the culture of Tyndale is the same as most evangelical American seminaries:  we are friendly and open, but we try to maintain order. 

I sat in classes at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with guys who were medical doctors and had PhDs in physics.  Intellectually they were every bit of a match for our professors, who were Cambridge and Harvard PhDs.  Yet, I don’t recall any of them being impolite or rude to a professor.  In fact just the opposite they were more deferential than others, since they knew what the professors had done to reach this position.

When a student is criticized his character shows immediately.  If he or she begins to become defensive or argue, it generally means he or she has a pride problem.

Some students have had very impressive ministries before coming to Tyndale and others have pretty impressive ministries while they are at Tyndale.  But whatever they did in terms of evangelism or church planting has no bearing on how they performed on a particular assignment. 

Sometimes a student who was a very well respected preacher is offended that their grammar, diction and writing are criticized.  “I speak well!  I have published books!” That may be true, but very likely, certainly your English (which is your second or third language) is not as good as your professor’s.  Humility is accepting criticism in the spirit in which it is given (i.e. with a good intention of improving your performance).

I am always amazed when a student opens up a bit and I see something I didn’t know.  I generally see applications for admission, since I am on the admissions committee.  Still there is much we do not know about one another.

One student was a model student his entire three years at Tyndale.  He was a married student, a pastor.  He got up at 0400 every day to deliver newspapers, so that he could send some money home to his wife.

He was from a village in Myanmar.  He was always respectful and soft spoken.  He always did all of his community duties (e.g. vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, cutting grass…) without complaint.  He never objected to a grade he was given.  He did very well, but not stellar.

Just before he graduated he told me a story…

“Professor”, he said, “we went to the next village to evangelize.  While we were evangelizing the police came.  They arrested us. They held us for ten days.  They made us build the pagoda (Buddhist temple) in that village.  Then they beat us and told us never to come back to that village to preach again… So, we went to the next village instead and started to evangelize.”

Little wonder he was such a godly man. It was a privilege to be his teacher.

Blame shifting and Pride...

Why is it when someone doesn't fulfill requirements they shift blame to the rule keeper. 

No one is prepared to say, "I failed. I am to blame."  The reason is pride.  No one wants to be wrong.  

No one wants to admit they shirked their duty or waited until the last minute and produced an inferior product.  The person who was helping them was at fault or the system is unfair. 

Some of us aren't cut out for certain jobs.  I am red green color blind.  It kept me out of the Navy; was that fair?   Fair or no; that was the way it was.  Was the Navy at fault?  No, I just didn't have the genes.

I am average at mathematics (69% SAT).  I wanted to be a theoretical physicist (Big Bang Theory sitcom type dude [hopefully without the neuroses]), but my mathematical aptitude was not good enough.  I got Cs in calculus.  Was it the professor's fault?  No. Was it the Teaching Assistant's fault?  No.  It was my fault. 

Sometimes we don't get what we want and we can't do what we want.  Wisdom is embracing what we can do well and doing it with all our might as unto the Lord. 

For me, that meant changing my college major to Russian language. (My verbal aptitude was 96% SAT)  I did well! Surprise, surprise! I went on to seminary and studied OT Hebrew and NT Greek.  I learned German and Serbian while connected to Yugoslavia.  I don't speak Dutch well, but I have learned a lot of Dutch in Belgium and Holland. 

I also moved my area of interest to philosophy and apologetics and have done very well, as they are language related fields. 

Some people are great church planters.  I am not.  Some people have gifts to allow them to be executives.  I do not. 

We must accept our limitations as God's direction in our lives and MOVE ON!  Blaming someone else is a cheap and lazy way to avoid one's own responsibility to use one's talents wisely.

38 East Orchard, Ross Township, Pennsylvania 15202

http://www.pittsburghmoves.com/property/details/189988/MLS-927262/38-E-Orchard-Avenue-Ross-Twp-PA-15202.aspx

This is the address I grew up at.  It is now for sale.  We had moved in 1965 from the North Side of the city of Pittsburgh proper to a finger of Ross Township that ran along the borders of the Bellevue and the city of Pittsburgh.

The location had one big advantage over other possible houses: it was in the North Hills School District.  My grandmother, Bertha Gottschalk, was a second grade teacher at Northway Elementary above Northway Mall on McKnight Road.  My grandmother was a teacher in the North Hills School District for 50 years.  She started teaching at 22 and taught until she was 75.  Also my father's older sister, Bernice Gottschalk (later Roehner) taught for a while in the North Hills School District.

For me or my sister or brother to attend school in the North Hills School District was to be known as Bertha's grandson or granddaughter or Bernice's nephew or niece.  They were sometimes big shoes to fill.  Aunt Bernice eventually completed her doctorate in Art Education at the University of Pittsburgh and worked for 20 years for the PA Dept. of Education making sure that school districts had adequate art curriculum.

The elementary school I attended was Quail Elementary.  My first grade teacher was Mrs. Pfeiffer.  She was my grandmother's contemporary and friend.  She was the sort who still read a Bible passage and said a prayer before class every morning.  The one Jehovah's Witness spent the few minutes in the hall.  Mrs. Peiffer was old school.  So was grandma.  Grandma didn't ken with the new reading system.  Phonics has served her well for over 40 years.

When I was in the fifth grade some executive in the school district decided that they needed to shift some of us to another school due to high student - teacher ratios.  We were the end of the Baby Boomers and numbers were high.

So we were bused to Seville Elementary, a new school which had just opened.  It meant we lost our friends.  Though we made new friends, it was tough to lose the old ones.  My fifth grade teacher was a friend of my Aunt Bernice's.  I'm sure she was extra kind to me as a result.

When it came time to go to Junior High School we were sent to West View Junior High School (now West View Elementary) and reunited with our Quail Elementary School friends, though we were separated from our Seville Elementary friends, who went to Ross Junior High School (now Ross Elementary).  My father and both of his sisters had attended what was then West View High School.  My most vivid memories of West View Junior High School were of playing baritone sax in the concert band.

When time for high school came we all "went up" to the new Intermediate School and the High School on the hill.  (Everything in Pittsburgh is on a hill; hence North Hills High School and North Hills School District.)  We attended ninth and tenth grades in the Intermediate School (now the High School).  My most vivid memory of that building actually came from twelfth grade when I ran the second fastest mile in the school history to that point while in gym class.

We attended eleventh and twelfth grade in the building of what is now the Junior High School.  My most vivid memories of the High School were playing tuba in the North Hills High School Symphony and Marching Bands.  While I had a brief career on the swim team, band was all consuming.  Mr. Warren Mercer, decorated several times with the American Band Master Award, produced top notch bands.  We spent many hours in the parking lot below the now Junior High School drilling formations.  My Aunt Marilyn, who had played clarinet in the West View High School Band, used to love to sit on my grandmother's porch on Norwich Avenue in West View and listen to us practice.

Being in Ross Township, but on the border of Bellevue meant that it was easier to be involved in local Scout troops, both Cub Scout and Boy Scout, in Bellevue.  I attended at first Cub Scout Pack 166 and then Boy Scout Pack 166 at the Bellevue UP Church on Lincoln Avenue.  When our Scout Master died suddenly I shifted to Pack 135, which met at Assumption RC Church.  Several of us were from Ross Township, but local packs were easier to attend.  We could walk there.

We also had the right to a Bellevue Pool Pass due to sale of the land from Ross Twp to Bellevue to build the pool.  I was on the Bellevue Pool Summer Swim Team for several seasons and it was a nice way to cool down on hot summers.

Lincoln Avenue in Bellevue was our "stomping ground".  When I was a kid there was an Isley's Sweet William restaurant and the ever popular Luigi's Pizzeria.  The old Bellevue movie theater was still there until I left for college in 1977.  The old theater, before it was "remodeled" to have two small viewing halls, was an amazing plush seat, dramatic turn of the century theater similar to the Warner Theater on Fifth Avenue downtown.  The high ceilings, beautiful curtains and gold painted balconies are long gone.  I bought a bicycle at Murphy's on lay away, which I paid for with money I earned delivering the North Hills News Record.

There are still many businesses on Lincoln Avenue: CVS Pharmacy, Luigi's Pizzeria, PNC Bank, Miller's Funeral Home, Bellevue Hardware, Hallmark Cards, Dietz Floral, Kuhn's Groceries... The YMCA is still on Lincoln Avenue.  I remember roller skating evenings and playing catcher in the Hot Stove Baseball League.

It was great to have the 16C bus (now 13) which went out to West View.  I could ride the bus from the top of our street at East Orchard and North Fremont (the stop is still there) to my grandmother's street, Norwich Avenue (where Schellhaus Funeral Home is) in West View.  I also used to ride the 16C to St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church, where we went to church and where I was catechized and confirmed, and met Linda Stuckrath, now my wife.  The 13 now stops at West Park Mall, which used to be West View Park. West View Park was an amusement park known for the Dips and Racing Whippet, rollercosters, and the Dance Land, my father had earlier frequented.

Bellevue also had several bus lines, which went into downtown Pittsburgh.  There are still three: 13, 16, 19.  We could go down to the Carnegie Library in the Allegheny Center Commons or visit stores and theaters downtown.  With a transfer we could go out to Oakland to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History or the Sarah Scaife Art Gallery.

All in all growing up in Ross Township on the border of Bellevue afforded us a top rate school district and the advantages of a main street nearby.  Last I checked North Hills School District rated 80th out of 498 school districts in Pennsylvania.  Northgate School District (which is the combined school districts of Bellevue and Avalon) is 267th out of 498.  While houses and the neighborhood may look similar the school district made a great difference.  It was a difference my grandmother was glad about!

A man who changed my life

Often we are influenced by someone who has a vision.  Perhaps we follow a charismatic pastor with a vision for starting a new church or churches.  Or maybe we are inspired by a teacher in school who has a vision for how society ought to be.

While the Lord called me to work with Russian-speaking young people, He left the specifics rather undefined.  When I was in seminary I met the dean of the Eastern European Bible Institute, a ministry of Greater Europe Mission.

Greater Europe Mission was started in 1949 by Rev. Bob Evans, a Wheaton College graduate.  Dr. Bob had been a Navy chaplain in World War II and landed with Allied Forces on Normandy Beach on D Day.  While driving a scooter on the beach, he hit a landmine and eventually woke up in a hospital in France.  Since he had been a missionary kid in French speaking Africa, he could speak French. As he talked about Jesus with the nurses and hospital staff, he realized that they knew nothing of a personal relationship with Christ.

After the war, Dr. Bob returned to France and was a part of evangelistic campaigns with Youth For Christ along with his college buddy, Billy Graham.  Seeing many young people accept Christ led Dr. Bob to the realization that there was no place for these new converts to train for ministry.  So he started Greater Europe Mission, known affectionately as the Bible Institute Mission. GEM started as one Bible Institute, the European Bible Institute in Lamorlaye, France, just north of Paris.

From these beginnings Dr. Bob envisioned and helped begin ten Bible Institutes and three theological seminaries:  the French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Nordic, Belgian, Greek, Eastern European, and Zaporozhye Bible Colleges; the German Theological Seminary (Freie Theologische Akademie – Giessen), the Spanish Theological Seminary, and Tyndale Theological Seminary. The goal of these schools was to train evangelical young people to be leaders of the emerging churches resulting from the evangelistic campaigns, and to stem the tide of liberal theological education in Europe.

When we joined the Eastern European Bible Institute, it was then the newest of the Bible Institutes founded by GEM. We only met Dr. Bob after we had decided upon joining GEM and EEBI.  We did, though, have to attend Candidate School and also later Pre-Field Orientation.  During Candidate School and Pre-Field we learned how GEM got started and perhaps more importantly got to know the man who started GEM.

Dr. Bob’s enthusiasm for evangelism was infectious.  His main vision as expressed in the GEM motto was: Training Europeans to Evangelize Greater Europe.  Dr. Bob knew that North Americans coming to Europe would be unable to reach most Europeans.  He realized that, unless Europeans were doing the evangelizing, the effect would be limited at best.  For this reason we North Americans were to evangelize and train Europeans so that they could evangelize and train other Europeans.  Europeans would have a much deeper and more intuitive sense of how to reach their own people than we ever would.  So the GEM motto reflected both Paul’s charge to Timothy in 2 Tim. 2:2 “And the things you have heard from me in the presence of faithful witnesses the same entrust to faithful people who will train others also” and the cultural sensitivity and missiology which said it was best for people from the same people group to reach their own people if possible.  Training nationals to do the work of evangelism and training would mean a greater, long term result.

Dr. Bob was a funny man.  He had a dry sense of humor, which was perhaps a remnant of his Navy days.  Later (many years later, 16 years, I think) we saw him at Tyndale Theological Seminary, where he was speaking at the graduation ceremony.  He made a comment along the lines of “You know I have friends who believe in perfectionism.  I, however, haven’t seemed to be able to obtain it myself.”  He was a down-to-earth man who did whatever was necessary to get the job done.  He even slept on the floor of the elementary school he had found near Amsterdam which was to become the Tyndale Theological Seminary.  At that time if a property was left uninhabited a law, left over from after the war when housing was scarce and owners perhaps dead, allowed squatters to take it over (without remuneration to anyone!).  So, Dr. Bob slept in a sleeping bag on the floor to keep squatters out.  As I recall he also bought the first set of curtains, which served for at least 15 years!

I knew of Dr. Bob Evans even before our joining GEM from my seminary advisor, Dr. Arthur P. Johnston, who was Tyndale’s first president.  Dr. J was considering joining GEM and starting a new theological seminary in the Netherlands.  I didn’t know much about GEM at that time or about Dr. Evans.  This new seminary was to be the English language seminary of GEM which would serve all Bible Institutes which did not have a seminary in their own language.  We as advisees prayed with Dr. J about whether he was to take up this new work.  Linda and I were thrilled when Dr. J joined GEM at the same time we did and started the new school, i.e. Tyndale Theological Seminary.  Over many years at GEM Annual Conferences Dr. J would say to me, “Phil, when you get your doctorate come and teach for me.”  I would usually reply something like, “Sure, Dr. J!” thinking it was a sort of joke; I would never leave Eastern Europe.

Well, time has a way of changing circumstances and other factors.  Eventually I found myself in the Chapel at Tyndale Theological Seminary with Dr. Bob and Dr. J shaking their hands as I joined the faculty.  Though I had a vision (to work with Russian-speaking young people), Dr. Bob had an even larger vision (Training Europeans to Evangelize Greater Europe).  My vision has been implanted in his for all of the 27 years we have been missionaries under Greater Europe Mission, whether as a part of the Eastern European Bible Institute, or Tyndale Theological Seminary.  Dr. Bob’s vision lives on in all of us who continue to serve here in Europe under Greater Europe Mission.  None of us would be here without him and we would be far poorer never to have known him.

The prime directive

The other night I was watching “I, Robot”, the movie with Will Smith as a detective in the 21^st century who doesn’t trust robots.  It turns out he is right not to trust them.  The main computer system, VIKI, who controls all the robots, has basically declared war on the human race.  

Well, actually VIKI hasn’t given up or changed its prime directive.  “She” has in fact rather misunderstood or over-interpreted the prime directive.  Of course her prime directive was to protect and serve the human race.  Since she has determined that the human race is its own worst enemy, she has decided to use the army of “servant” robots to keep humans from exterminating each other. She will do anything necessary, even if it means enslaving all humans and killing some.

Fortunately for the 21^st century Will Smith is able to save the day with the help of a rogue robot, who has been designed and programmed by the maker for just this eventuality.  Once again robots return to following Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I haven’t indulged in this movie review for the sake of boring you or reviewing potential disaster or End Times scenarios.  The movie made me think. I started thinking about the prime directive and the importance of a prime directive.

What prime directive have we been given as Christians?  Obviously the first and foremost for any missionary is:  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Matthew 28:19, 20.

For evangelical Christians and especially evangelical missionaries the Great Commission is our prime directive.  All of us are doing all we can and investing all of our efforts whatever we do to see that this prime directive is fulfilled.

All mission agencies have a prime directive.  In one way or another, the Great Commission is behind their prime directive. Though all these groups aim at the same goal, each agency has a different focus since not all agencies do the same thing. Some missions are aimed at reaching so far unreached or least reached peoples.  Other agencies focus on things like Bible translation.  Their goal is to advance the cause of world evangelization by making God’s Word available in the languages of each and every people group.

When we joined Greater Europe Mission in 1984 GEM had a motto: “Training Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe”.  Our Bible verse was 2 Timothy 2:2 “and the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses the same entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

Greater Europe Mission was the “Bible Institute” mission.  GEM started with the founding of the European Bible Institute in Paris, France.  GEM missionaries went on to found the German Bible Institute, the Nordic Bible Institute, the Spanish Bible Institute, the Italian Bible Institute, the Portuguese Bible Institute, the Greek Bible Institute, Eastern European Bible Institute, Zaporozhye Bible College, the German Theological Seminary, the Spanish Theological Seminary and Tyndale Theological Seminary in the Netherlands.

The goal of each of these Bible Institutes and Seminaries was to train Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe.  Dr. Bob Evans, the founder of GEM (and Tyndale), felt that it would be much more efficient in the long run if missionaries trained Europeans to evangelize Europeans.  Missionaries trying to evangelize Europeans would have to spend a lot of time and effort to understand various European cultures.  Whereas, Europeans trained by missionaries would be able to adapt and apply the teaching so that they, the Europeans, would be better evangelists.

When we went to Yugoslavia back in 1986 with the goal of learning Serbo-Croatian the prime directive was to learn the language well enough to teach Yugoslavs at the Eastern European Bible Institute, so that they could reach their country for Christ serving as pastors, teachers, and evangelists.  My personal goal was to train apologists, people who would engage the contemporary culture and present convincing evidence for the credibility of Christianity.  During our time in Yugoslavia and with the Eastern European Bible Institute from 1986 – 1994 we did just that: we trained Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe or more specifically we trained Yugoslavs (Serbs, Croats, Slovaks, Albanians, Macedonians) to evangelize Yugoslavia.

When we left Yugoslavia for a year in the US and then went on to Belgium where I did my doctoral studies our goal was still GEM’s prime directive: training Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe. While in Belgium I studied most of the current European philosophical trends and schools.  My goal was to be able to train European apologists, those who would engage the minds of their countrymen and make a persuasive case for Christianity.

During our time in Belgium we were not a part of a formal Bible Institute or Seminary, but our goal was still the same.  While in Belgium we were very active in the ministry of the International Church of Evangelicals in Leuven (ICEL).  We led Bible studies, led worship, preached and evangelized among the international students at the Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain).  We had teams come to help reach these students.  We held special evenings of outreach along with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES).  I held a series of philosophical evenings.  All of these events and activities were aimed at the prime directive of the Great Commission, but in some ways they were not completely in line with GEM’s prime directive: Training Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe.  But our goal was to return to a teaching ministry as soon as possible after required residential study at the university.

Initially Greater Europe Mission did not encourage sending American evangelists and church planters to Europe, since the idea was that the Europeans trained in the Bible Institutes would do these tasks.  However, eventually it was felt that some evangelists and church planters would be sent to model these activities for the Europeans being trained.  In time due to the indigenization of the Bible Institutes and Seminaries Greater Europe Mission’s focus shifted from founding and running Bible Institutes and Seminaries to evangelism and church planting more specifically.  The prime directive of Matthew 28:19, 20 (The Great Commission) is still the main goal, though the method of reaching Europe has changed.

As our time in Belgium drew to an end we considered various teaching ministries, mainly seminaries, in various Eastern European locations.  Due to our children having learned Dutch and their need to finish high school in one place (in English) we accepted the invitation of Dr. Art Johnston, Phil’s advisor from seminary, to join Tyndale Theological Seminary, near Amsterdam, the Netherlands.  Tyndale was founded to be the seminary founded GEM to train any Europeans from all over Europe who needed a Master’s level training in English, if they came from countries where there was no seminary in their language.  

As in Belgium at ICEL our scope of ministry here at Tyndale has been very broad.  We have many European students from eastern and western Europe, especially a lot of eastern Europeans: Bosnians, Bulgarians, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, Russians, Serbs, Slovenes among others.  Besides Europeans we are also training Africans and Asians.  Some of the Africans are involved in evangelizing Europeans and planting churches, even here in the Netherlands.  So, although our student body is broader than Europeans, our goal is primarily to train Europeans so that Europe will be evangelized.

So, our prime directive still is: Training Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe.  Our method is still basically the same: classroom instruction and hands on life-on-life discipleship.  Times change and economic circumstances may force us to change our methods, but the most effective way to evangelize Greater Europe is still to train Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe.

Doubts and Community

Today was a good day of realizing that church is people, people one cares about and people who care about you. It is not that everyone agrees on everything, but there is a caring for one another, and we all care about worshiping our Lord. Ministry may eventually carry me elsewhere, but my heart is in the community.

Dr. Peter Davids

An adjunct professor of Tyndale, who is a very well known New Testament exegete, posted this comment above on his Facebook page.  I can only say, “Amen! And Amen!”

We have another friend, who was active in our church, who recently wrote to me that he needed to take some time away from “organized religion”.  He needed some time away to figure some things out and get in touch with God.

I have to say that I understand to a point what he means.  I think he means that we all at times are aggravated with someone or others in the church and wish we could just disappear or leave.  Sometimes people do leave a church for this reason.  I have been tempted to leave various churches various times in my life for this reason.  Usually I never left a church until I left the city I was in.  

I identify with Peter Davids’ comment above.  Leaving church would be like leaving my family.  I may not like them all at times, but I always love them as brothers and sisters in Christ.  I have at times withdrawn from some ministry in the church, e.g. church leadership, if I disagreed or felt my involvement was hindering the advancement of the church, i.e. if I disagreed with some policy or program being pursued and it was pointless to remain as a complainer or “brake” when the majority agreed.

My other friend may have also meant that he was experiencing doubts.  Often people seem to feel that they need to leave church when they have doubts.  Sometimes this is motivated from the modernist idea that we must as individuals solve all questions and answer all doubts by ourselves without relying on someone else.  

Personally I think this is madness.  We are not lone individuals.  We are born into families.  We generally live in families and God’s church is a family.  Scripture is full of metaphors of the Body of Christ as a family.  Frequent reference is made to fellow Christians being brothers and sisters and even fathers and mothers.  Paul tells Timothy to address men his age as brothers.  He tells him to address older men and women as fathers and mothers.  He tells him to treat younger women as sisters. (1 Timothy 5:1,2)

When you are ill you are glad for family who care for you.  When you feel sick or are incapacitated you are glad that someone else can take care of things, e.g. go to the drugstore and get your prescription, keep things clean and washed up, etc.

When a person has doubts or questions withdrawing into the “furnace” as Rene Descartes did is not wise. (Descartes' furnace ) Descartes decided he would withdraw into this “side room” which was a part of the hearth.  One could enter and be warm without being bothered.  He went into the room intent on figuring out just what he could believe in.  He employed his famous strategy of methodological doubt. Despite what Modernists have taught we cannot resolve doubts “boldly and bravely” on our own.  The famous “I doubt, therefore I think. I think, therefore I am.” is fraught with both philosophical and personal problems.

The church may not be perfect, but it is where God instructs us to seek help and counsel.  The Modernist demand that we create ourselves from our own resources is just false.  We were given to be by a loving God into a family, a human family, with whatever flaws and faults it had.  As new believers we are also given into a family, the family of God, the church of Christ.

Similarly the existentialist’s call for individuals to make meaning in a meaningless world is also flawed.  No one exists alone.  Descartes would have starved if he had remained alone in the furnace.  Despite existentialist demands for us to make meaning, to find value in the face of the nonsensical nature of life, life does in fact have meaning.  When a tragedy occurs we don’t say, “Oh, too bad for the Japanese.  A tsunami hit them.” We feel compelled (as we should) to do something to help.  This is our natural human reaction.  If the existentialists were correct we should, rather than do altruistic things, do our utmost to get ahead ourselves.

When I accepted Christ it was within a church community, St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church in West View, PA.  It’s true that I was asking lots of questions, but who answered them?  Perhaps Camus with his novel, the Plague, sparked some of the questions, e.g. about the meaning(lessness) of life, but it was people in the church who answered my questions or at least listened to my endless jeremiads as I tried to solve these questions.

The first person to listen was (and often still is) my mother.  She was both obviously my mother (human family), but also a sister in Christ.  My mother has read very widely and has always been a very wise person, as well as gentle and patient.

Another person to listen to my endless expositions was Dave Hrach.  Dave was our Sunday School teacher and one of our Luther League (youth group) leaders.  He was obviously a member of our church and a brother in Christ.

If you have not heard my testimony before, basically reading the Plague by Albert Camus, the French existentialist, caused me to question God’s existence and the meaning of life.  I was seventeen at the time.

I had been raised in the church, Evangelical Lutheran churches: St. Paul in Pittsburgh, PA and St. Luke, which I mentioned earlier. I had been baptized as a child, went to Sunday School and church all my life, had been catechized (taught church doctrine) and confirmed (officially declared my faith in Christ in church before the Bishop).  But somehow through all that process I had not met Christ personally.  Still, all of this good teaching (good deposit) formed a backdrop to my thought.

As I wrestled with Camus I could not follow his logic at all.  If God did not exist and I was the product of evolution, why would I risk my life doing altruistic things? In the novel that meant staying and fighting the plague for a French doctor, who could have left the scene of the outbreak.  I could not understand that doctor’s choice.  It seemed nonsensical to me.  Evolution teaches the survival of the fittest.  It says that if a species or individual has advantages over other species or even members of its own species it should and will use those advantages to stay alive.  It made no sense to me to remain and risk death.

If there were a God, and God would either reward you if you did help people in need or punish you or didn’t, there was a reason to help people in need.  If those people were created in God’s image and as a result valuable to him and in and of themselves there was a reason to fight the plague or do any other sort of altruistic deed in which one would risk his own life.  If there were a God, and saving anyone’s life other than your own had some eternal value, then there was a reason to fight against the plague or any other disease or disaster in which you would risk your own life.

However, if there is no God and no ultimate meaning to the universe and helping others only endangered oneself, then altruistic acts were just so much foolishness.  From my perspective today I would say if such were the case, then Friedrich Nietzsche was correct and the Superman should take care of himself and reign.

Thankfully there were people who patiently listened to me as I spun out this reasoning.  I’m not sure they would have reasoned the same way, but they listened and affirmed the correct conclusions.  I will never forget sitting in Dave Hrach’s car as he listened to me as I spent I’m sure it was at least an hour explaining all this.  He didn’t lead me in a prayer of repentance, but he said simply, “I hope you decide God exists.”  He left it to the Holy Spirit to draw me (as He was and did).  After a Bible study that night in the church sanctuary as we were praying as a group of teenagers, I gave my life to Christ.  Perhaps I only actualized what I had been taught for many years, but I “owned the Covenant”.  With a bit of a nod to the Modernists I “reasoned it out for myself” and I found the Truth.  But to be fair with a nod to Soren Kierkegaard, I met the Truth and the Truth was a Person, the Risen Jesus Christ.

I am no modern Apostle Paul.  Thankfully I have never persecuted the church (at least not intentionally!  ;-)  ). Yet that day was my “Damascus Road” experience.  It has focused and directed my life ever since.  And I don’t regret it at all.

So to return to the opening theme… I did wrestle through my doubts, but I didn’t wrestle alone.  That would have been foolish and perhaps even suicidal.  The devil desires to separate us from those whom God has given to us to help us resolve our questions and doubts.

We as the church are a family; a family of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. I cannot list here due to space everyone who played a role of “father” or “mother” or “brother” or “sister”: there too many.

However, the point is clear (at least to me). You cannot and should not attempt to resolve your doubts by yourself apart from the church community, the family of God.  It is far from a perfect institution and the members are far from perfect, but family never is.  Still it’s family, the community we are born into.

With a nod to my doctoral mentor, Dr. William Desmond, “we are given to be with a promise”.  God has created us and placed us in families, human and ecclesiastical.  We find comfort and encouragement from God’s Word in the company of others (whether virtual or actual; however, virtual friends can’t give you a hug).

We not only find comfort and encouragement in God’s family, but we are also given TO God’s family.  We, as those born of God, come with a set of gifts and talents (spiritual and natural), which we are to use for the advancement and strengthening of the family of God.  

It is often said that there are no atheists in a foxhole.  When we are under attack physically and we have to fight there is no time to doubt.  We need help and we need it fast.  A similar point might be made about those who have doubts.  Often we are tempted to withdraw and say something like “I need to figure things out for myself”.  This, I believe, is a ploy of the devil. Separated from the warmth and spiritual food of the church we grow weaker and weaker trying to do something God never intended: figuring it out for ourselves.  

Those who are busy in the family of God find that church activities become a means to quell those doubts and help them grow spiritually. We may need to move “sideways”, e.g. out of leadership and into another ministry, e.g. music or setting up chairs.  But our spirits will thrive.  We were never meant to be isolated individual believers.  We were “given to be with a promise” as a part of a family.