David Kuo, a seasoned political player who spent nearly three years as second in command in the President’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has written a book entitled “Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction.” I (Dave) haven’t read it yet, though it is high on my list for 2007. I mention it here because a friend who’s in the middle of reading this book mentioned to me recently how engaging it is. According to Kuo, “it is time for Christians to take a temporary step back from politics, to turn away from its seductions” (simonsays.com). That’s what Kuo did, and then he wrote this book as a heartfelt plea to Christians for a reexamination of their political involvement.

In Tempting Faith, Kuo writes about the assumption held by many evangelical Christians that the church can (and should) affect the moral climate of this nation through political action. Some have bought into the notion that a “moral majority” is all it will take to bring this nation to its senses, resulting in swelling church attendance and more godliness in the streets. Some are so brave as to suggest that the Republican Party is “the Christian Party” and that those who align themselves with other political points of view can no longer be described as “evangelical.”

While I do not believe that this issue is being debated broadly within the church, I do know that many pastors have very strong feelings about whether or not there is an “evangelical political point of view”, i.e. if there is in fact a preferred political party for Christians. Many also express strong opinions with regard to how politically active the church should be, an issue commonly raised prior to elections when “Christian” voting guides are printed, suggesting that there is a Christian way to vote. At the root of this debate is the notion that the church represents a potentially large political force, and if we could just get “our people” all lined up behind the right person, our society would be changed and moved toward godliness.

This tension exists within the American church today. It seems to me that Christians in the U.S. are quietly aligning themselves with theological positions that not only accommodate their view of scripture, but increasingly accommodate their political perspective as well.

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A QUESTION OF VALUES (Revelation 2:1–7)
Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible “is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. …What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa” (front flap). I find this novel an interesting work on a number of levels, but what stands out to me the most is that it is a study of core values—the values of a father over against the values of his wife and daughters.

In this story, Nathan Price takes his family to a place that corresponds with his core values, but those values are not shared to the same degree by his wife and children. It’s one thing for them to go along with the attendant requirements of his core values in the U.S. where compliance is easy—when all that is required of them is that they show up at church for an hour on Sunday, sing the songs, and listen to the sermon. It’s another thing entirely when the father’s commitment to his core values puts the whole family on a plane that’s touching down on a dirt runway in the Congo where all his daughters can see out the windows is red dirt, mud huts, and a totally different culture. On African soil, the family members’ differing values rise to the surface as everything changes.

I think it’s important at intervals to stop and consider what I term heart issues or core values. What are the values that inform all of the decisions you make? Your choices do not stem from a vacuum—they are based upon deep foundational beliefs, your core values.

In the book of Revelation, John is writing to people for whom everything may soon change. The same could be true for us. The question, then, is how do we prepare for dramatic change? Well, in preparation for the events of Revelation, God writes letters to churches. Interesting, isn’t it, that the book on end times begins with seven letters to seven churches? This ought to inform our ecclesiology.

Some biblical commentators suggest there is a greater genius behind these letters than just a compilation of single letters to individual churches. Knowing that these seven letters were going to pass through all seven churches in a circuit, some believe that they were written with that in mind, so that the seven letters together share a common message directed at the church. In other words, each letter contains something for the other six, and even more importantly, the last generation church is the church really targeted with this message, which means that it is for us today.

This makes sense to me. I believe that amongst the specific elements addressed to the individual churches, there exists a common message and overriding theme, addressed to all. And I believe the theme deals with the issue of “first love.”

First love is not just about WHO we love. Especially during hard times, the issue becomes WHY we love Him. We see this played out most clearly in the church at Ephesus. There’s been slippage in the lives of the Ephesians, but just “firing up the emotions” so that they feel a deeper sense of love would not work. They had to go back to WHY. The question to focus on in hard times is always WHY do you call Him Lord? In John chapter 6, when Jesus delivered some “hard teachings,” He challenged the crowds and then His disciples to examine WHY they were following Him.

It seems to me that the beginning of a new year is a great time to revisit the WHY question for ourselves. I also believe that it’s important to reexamine our core values—and those of those closest to us—as we begin a new year in which we will face unknown challenges and opportunities.

Rachel Price, the 16 year-old daughter in The Poisonwood Bible, says “‘Man oh man, are we in for it now,’ was my thinking about the Congo from the instant we first set foot on the ground.” Yes. Are your core values strong enough to stand up under the pressures and inform your decisions in the coming year?  - Dave

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“HAVE MERCY ON ME, O GOD, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sins.” Psalm 51:1-2 NIV

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:16 NIV

“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.” Micah 7:18 NIV

“The problem is not in God’s willingness to have mercy, but in our forgetting that we need it. We keep lapsing into ideas of self-sufficiency, or get impressed with our niceness, and so we lose our humility. Asking for mercy reminds us that we are still poor and needy, and fall short of the glory of God. Those who do not ask do not receive, because they don’t know their own need.” – Frederica Mathewes-Green

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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Spiritual Assessment: Handbook for Helping Professionals
by David R. Hodge
2003, 2005 North American Association of Christians in Social Work
(Reviewed by David Korb)

Dr. Hodge has written a very helpful book to assist Christian professionals in the whole arena of spiritual assessments. In this book he covers six different tools: spiritual histories (a verbal approach), spiritual lifemaps (a pictorial instrument), spiritual ecomaps (a diagrammatic tool for assessing marital and familial spirituality), spiritual genograms (a generational approach), and spiritual ecograms (for identifying clients’ spiritual strengths).

This slim handbook is just over 100 pages, so each topic is covered only in brief. I cannot say that I completely understand all of the tools, terms, and materials covered here by Dr. Hodge, but I did find his chapters of spiritual histories and lifemaps particularly helpful. He provides helpful questions for working with a client and a framework that assists the professional in asking the questions in the right order, with a distinct purpose to each question.

This book would likely be most helpful to the professional therapist, but even as one not familiar with all of the terminology and assessment tools I still found many sections helpful and insightful.

Looking ahead, my reading list at the beginning of 2007 includes:

1. Philip Yancey, Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference?
2. David Kuo, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction
3. Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity
4. David Hesselgrave, Paradigms in Conflict: 10 Key Questions in Christian Missions Today

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