Zeitgeist
Answering the Spirit of the Times
"The empires of the future will be empires of the mind" - so said Winston Churchill at Harvard University in 1943.
The struggle between opposing worldviews is one of the great battlegrounds of our time. In almost every sphere of human activity today, faith is aligned against rationalism and divine hope is arrayed against human depression and despair.
If basic Christian values and ideals don't shape the future of Europe, something else will. We either shape the Zeitgeist or the Zeitgeist shapes us.
Zeitgeist is the German word signifying the "spirit of the times". Staying with the German language for a moment, part of our role as Christian leaders is to connect to the Zeitgeist (spirit of the age) with the Heiliger Geist (Holy Spirit).
The 19th century church leader CH Spurgeon, often called the prince of preachers, agreed. He said that a true man or woman of God holds a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other and frequently refers to both.
The Scripture is our ultimate authority, the standard for truth; the newspaper frames how we present and contextualize that truth.
If you like, our role in terms of the culture around us is to find the tune the world is humming and put God words to it.
We are called to meet people both individually and in social groups at the point of their perceived need. By first addressing the need they see, compassionately and creatively, we can then perhaps persuade them to recognize a deeper underlying need - the need of a restored relationship with God through Christ.
Understanding the Zeitgeist involves much more than identifying cultural trends or knowing the stories that cinema, music, media or literature happen to be celebrating at any given time. It requires real cultural empathy.
A gifted counsellor always looks beyond the words people say to "hear" the feelings beneath. In the same way, great Christian leaders constantly listen for the themes that underlie the cultural conversation.
(Empathy is always harder for we who are preachers. We would prefer to give a polemic answer than to pose a question, despite the fact that Jesus spent much of his teaching doing just that.)
In Europe today, generally speaking, people feel a growing and profound sense of insecurity on a number of levels.
This is most obvious on the economic front. People don't know whether to hoard or to spend. The currency most hit by recession has been the currency of confidence. This is a problem that probably won't be remedied any time soon.
We see evidence of a similar insecurity in the world of politics.
In some parts of Europe -- perhaps most noticeably in Italy right now -- people seem unwilling to move against leaders who are either out of touch for totally self-serving, or both. It's perhaps a case of holding to the devil you know rather than taking a risk with the devil you don't.
Insecurity is also a theme in debates about technology and ethics. There is a strong current of ultra-pragmatism running through technological progressivism which says that if a thing can be done it should be done.
Yet many people feel deeply insecure about trusting their future and that of their children to advanced technologies and techniques when nobody can be sure about their long-term effects. Good intentions don't always lead to good outcomes.
Technology continues to race ahead of our ability to debate its effects and this produces even greater uncertainty.
Underlying all of this, Christian leaders recognize a profound spiritual insecurity. This is not a product of human culture but of human nature.
In the Christian worldview, we are insecure at the core of our being because our confidence and intimacy with God has been replaced by spiritual nakedness and moral shame. Only Christ can clothe that nakedness and remove that guilt.
Among the greatest influences on the current Zeitgeist are atheism and pluralism. Both contribute hugely to Europe's insecurity, morally, ethically and spiritually.
The first, of course, advocates that there is no God; the second that there may be as many versions of God as there are human cultures or even individual human beings.
Pluralism insists that all ideas of truth are equally true and that all lifestyles are equally valid; there is no single path to ultimate truth.
Atheism takes this one step further, insisting that there is no such thing as ultimate, or absolute, truth.
Both systems of thought represent the antithesis of Christianity and both are blocking the influence of churches in the civic spheres that shape mores, values and policy.
We have nothing to fear from these powerful ideologies. Indeed, we are called and empowered by the Spirit to overcome such strongholds.
Yet we must not shrink into our comfortable bubble and ignore them altogether. We must not say, as some do, that these are subjects only for theologians or Christian philosophers (especially while at the same time discouraging Christians from studying either of those disciplines.)
Again, if we don't shape of the Zeitgeist, the Zeitgeist will shape us.
Throughout history, whenever Kingdom culture has boldly confronted secular culture, the former has emerged as stronger. Yet this was true only when Kingdom culture was given unfettered expression and Christian leaders made it their business to challenge the strongholds head-on.
This is the theme of this year's Strategic Leadership Consultation (SLC), hosted by Next Wave International in Spain. Each year, this unique invitation summit bring together significant church network and national ministry leaders to discuss how we can reshape the future of Europe through the gospel.SLC2011: Zeitgeist, May 5-7 in Spain.
At this year's summit, SLC2011: ZEITGEIST, we will look for ways to boldly answer the claims of atheism and pluralism. Not just as theoretical ideas, but as practical realities that actually shape the way decisions are made in society.
Our special guest contributor, Professor Alister McGrath, is a world-recognized authority on what some call the "new atheism".
Educated as both a scientist and theologian - and a former atheist himself - he is uniquely placed to help us understand the place of godless worldviews in the mindset of our age. He can also help us identify how we can undo the impact of these mindsets on people in our world.
In Europe, we've been far too quiet when it comes to the "empires of the mind" and we're in danger of abdicating all authority in the marketplace as a result. It's time to engage the Zeitgeist and move it in a godly direction!
This article is copyright Mal Fletcher, 2011. It may be reproduced only by permission from Next Wave International
| 
