I’m deeply thankful for him and for this issue of Credo, which will allow you to think deeply about him.  I look forward to talking philosophy and theology with Schaeffer in the new heavens and new earth, and to thanking him for being a faithful voice in the public square.  Here’s the magazine’s blurb:

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Here’s the program info.  Click the “Listen Now” button to, well, listen.  This was a meaningful discussion from my view of things:

Listen at OwenStrachan.com

This article, “Productivity and Grace: Management and Labor at a Denver Manufacturer,” is about a Denver manufacturer whose leaders treat their employees with kindness and dignity.  From Christianity Today‘s This Is Our City project, it’s an inspiring piece by Chris Horst, and I commend it to you.  Much to chew on here.

Sandwiched between rail lines and a tire depot, the Blender Products factory hides in a quiet neighborhood in Denver. The nondescript warehouse looks from the outside as nondescript as most warehouses do. But the way Steve Hill and Jim Howey lead inside the building is unusual in an industry known for top-down hierarchies of management.

“The metal fabrication business is extremely cutthroat,” says Hill. “Workers are given a singular task, and maximum output is demanded. They’re simply a factor of production. As a general rule, they have no access to management. There is very little crossover between guys on the floor and guys in the offices.”

Hill and Howey aim to subvert the us-versus-them mentality. Many days they walk the shop floor, engaging their workers as peers. Employees on the floor are treated as importantly as the managers, undermining the adversarial culture simmering in many manufacturing businesses.

Here’s the whole shebang.

I am not one who would advocate for unions as a general rule.  But as I read up on progressivism, the history of American labor, and the captains of industry–an ongoing reading project involves the Industrial Titans of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries–I am keenly aware of the way some manufacturers and industry leaders of the last couple centuries have failed to treat their workers with appropriate dignity.  A figure like Andrew Carnegie, for example, shows us both the tremendous ingenuity of the capitalist and the shameful inhumanity every person is capable of.  Carnegie built libraries for his workers, but they had precious little time by which to visit them.

Read the rest at OwenStrachan.com

Adoniram Judson: A Bicentennial Appreciation of the Pioneer American Missionary, edited by Jason G. Duesing (B&H Academic. 9781433677656. Paperback. $24.99)

On February 19, 1812, Adoniram Judson, his wife Ann, and a few others set sail for the Far East from their American homeland. The launching of these missionaries by a newly formed outreach society
marked the beginning of Americans formally joining the modem missions movement.

With the advent of 2012 comes recognition of the bicentennial of Judson’s departure and official start of the American missionary enterprise. This volume seeks to honor the life and mission of Judson while retelling his story for a new generation. With the occasion of the 200-year anniversary of Judson’s departure as a fitting context for such a presentation, the his- torians, theologians, and missiologists writing here under the guidance of editor Jason G. Duesing have endeavored not only to serve as Judson’s biographers of past events, but also as his interpreters of what they hope will take place in the present and future.

Contributors to this needed volume on an extraordinary man include Paige Patterson, Michael A. G. Haykin, Robert Caldwell, Nathan A. Finn, Candi Finch, Keith E. Eitel, Gregory A. Wills, and Daniel L. Akin.

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No, Jeremy Renner is not Matt Damon, but he’s quite convincing in his portrait of a Bourne-like character.  Go see the film.  It’s a blast.

Anyway, it struck me afresh how impressive the lead character of the Bourne movie is as a man.  He’s in control, assertive, aware of others, physically fine-tuned, and one who meets any challenge in front of him.  This kind of man is strikingly different than another avatar of modern cinema, the boy-man, who pops up repeatedly in the films made or led by Judd Apatow, Adam Sandler, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, and many others.

The boy-man is selfish, young, immature, addicted to games, immune to responsibility, foul-mouthed, and weak.  He’s overwhelmed by adulthood, so he chooses to stay in some sort of boyish fantasy.  He doesn’t want to build big things, meaningful things, like a family, a six-decade marriage, a socially and personally profitable career, or a gospel-driven church or missions effort.  He wants to make music, play games, follow sports, flirt with girls, loaf through life, bend the rules so he’s not accountable or inconvenienced in his selfishness, and ignore the need to help others.

I want to suggest that wherever you can as a young man or one involved in any way in training young men, you point them toward manhood, maturity, adulthood, responsibility, ambition, strategy, vision, focus.  Yes, it can be fun to be boyish.  But you know what’s far more satisfying?  Becoming something.  Becoming something greater than you are.  Becoming a man.  Building stuff.

What else is cool?  Winning a woman’s heart and keeping it for years, decades, a lifetime.  Raising children to know the Lord.  Giving tons of energy to a church plant or a church undergoing revitalization.  Leaving everything to go to the mission field as a single young man.  Mentoring at-risk youth.  Creating a company that employs others and advances the common good.  Pushing past laziness and whining and getting yourself in shape, fine-tuning your body so that you’re no longer a boy in the way you eat and take care of yourself.

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The little I’ve seen from the PR of the book reminds me that aesthetics matter.  Design has practical significance for our everyday lives.  That may seem counterintuitive.  Aren’t we supposed to just, well, work in whatever surroundings we find ourselves?  Isn’t art/design/beauty ephemeral and unimportant?

I go the other way.  I think the physical environment you create matters.  The cleanness of your desk, the pictures you hang on your wall, the natural lighting you favor over fluorescent lights, the chair in which you sit–these things shape the way you think about your work.  If you are in a messy, ugly environment, you have to fight against it in creating and working, I think.

Of course, as I write this, I’m reminded of Jonathan Edwards (everything reminds me of Jonathan Edwards).

Read the rest at OwenStrachan.com. 

Ted Olsen and Ken Smith have published this work of investigative journalism that I commend to you in order that you might know about a potentially dangerous theological movement that is associated with California’s Olivet University and Apostolos Campus Ministries.

Over the last five years, ministries and organizations founded by or connected to Jang have gained influence in American and global evangelical ministries, including the World Evangelical Alliance. Yet in the same period, a number of mainstream Christian organizations in Korea and China have severed relationships with his affiliated organizations after investigating such claims and finding them credible. Other groups have reconfirmed their ties after their investigations cleared him. Now, as Jang’s businesses and ministries have sought greater recognition and expansion in the United States, Christian leaders and ministries here are asking similar questions about Jang, his affiliated organizations, and their theology.

Read the whole (lengthy) piece.  Apparently, in the testimony of some, Jang’s followers may believe he is a kind of pre-Christ eschatological leader, “a new messianic figure that would complete Jesus’ earthly mission,” according to the story. [Update: here is an opposing view from the Christian Post, which is connected to organizations like the World Evangelical Alliance, which has some kind of connection to the aforementioned ministries.]

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Her testimony, published in the Marine Corps Gazette, is harrowing and disturbing:

Read the rest at OwenStrachan.com. 

In his new book Godspeed, innovative young pastor Britt Merrick challenges readers to leave behind the mundane and the meaningless to join God’s grand purpose—His plan to restore, redeem, and renew the world.

God’s mission to save the world started with Jesus, but it doesn’t end there. Jesus, in turn, sends us. He said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” God wants to continue His redemption story through each of us— as we live more like Jesus, right where we are.

Read the rest on OwenStrachan.com.

The percentage of Americans who identify themselves as “pro-choice” is at the lowest point ever measured by Gallup, according to a new survey released Wednesday.

A record-low 41 percent now identify themselves as “pro-choice,” down from 47 percent last July and 1 percentage point down from the previous record low of 42 percent, set in May 2009. As recently as 2006, 51 percent of Americans described themselves as “pro-choice.

Meanwhile, 50 percent of Americans now consider themselves “pro-life,” one point below Gallup’s record high on the measure.

Read the whole piece.

This is just a poll.  Public opinion could and will shift in different directions in coming days.  Polls, furthermore, are inexact.  I don’t ask polls to do a lot of heavy lifting in my intellectual life.  With that said, this is a surprising development, a significant one.
This means that the “culture war” has not been for naught.  Granted, some have fought for the cause of life in less than ideal ways.  Championing a pro-life position from a God-and-country stance–linking the kingdom of Christ with the nation of America–is a mistake.  Some who have fought for the pro-life cause and other conservative (biblical!) social positions have made personal compromises and used the church as a platform.  With all these qualifications stated, though, the “culture war” is a worthy one to fight.

Read the rest at OwenStrachan.com.