Thursday, February 28, 2008

Study Notes for March 3rd Impact University Book Club meeting
Rumors of Another World -- pages 161 -1 206

1. " ..... all religions share a sense of living in a disoriented world ....." (Henry Adams -- p. 163). They also share a common (though it is expressed in many different ways) cure. What? (Do you think this is an adequate definition of what religion is and does)?

2. Yancey asserts that many Swedes have "turned away from church" and yet theirs continues to be "an admirable society." (p. 165) What, according to our author, explains this?

3. What does he see as a difference between Sweden which he admires and Soviet Russia which cannot be admired? (p. 165).

4. Yancey doesn't feel a need for God to supernaturally interrupt our world to prove his existence and that of the invisible world. "..... in part because I find the materialistic explanations of life inadequate to explain reality." (p. 171). What does he mean?

5. What was the "miracle on the River Kwai"?

6. What are "the settlements in advance" mentioned on p. 177? And in advance of what?

7. "Any remedy (to a world of corruption, commercialized sex and deteriorating values) must start with one person taking an immovable stand." (p. 181). What does this imply about the demand of the Gospel?

8. Yancey describes himself as having been "a child of the modern age." As such he had not believed in an invisible world ruled by spirits. This was the result of his "reductionist instincts." Now, however, he has changed and has no problem believing in the spirit world. He believes "much more is happening on this planet than is visible to the human eye." (p. 184). What caused the change? (p. 183).

9. Yancey wonders if we wouldn't realize a startling truth if Jesus stood beside us saying at times "I saw Satan fall." What truth? (See the statement on p. 190 which begins, "The ultimate destiny .......").
10. The story of "The Elephant Man" poses radically different questions to believers and nonbelievers. What questions? (pp. 195 - 197).

11. According to Charles Spurgeon when is the Church glorious? (p. 198).

12. What does the author mean in saying, "The key ..... is to think of myself as an amphibian ....."? (p. 200).

13. John Chrysostom (from the 3rd Century) asked with anguish of the unbelievers of his day, "How then can they believe?" What caused his anguished question?

1 comment:

Chris said...

1. All religions share a sense that something is wrong in the world and religion can make it right. For Christians, the cross is what makes things right; it reorients the world. However, the cross does not mean it will be easy. Just see the Voice of the Martyrs website for the evidence.
2. According to Yancey, Sweden is still an “admirable society” because of the “moral capital accumulated through centuries” as a Christian society. Sweden is reaping the benefits from the past investments of Christians. If additional Christian “investments” are not made, if there is not a revival, the next generation will be less admirable and so on.
3. Russia is a different story. The Soviets throw away any moral capital built up through history as a Christian nation for an outlook of “dialectical materialism” (definition here). Without God, everything was permitted, as Dostoyevsky prophesied. After the iron curtain fell, pockets of moral capital could be found.
4. Yancey means that material explanations for what happens in this world cannot explain the “rumors” of another world that he sees; they cannot fully explain romantic love, natural beauty, etc.

We also discussed how God intervening in the world does not guarantee faith. See the history of the Israelites in Exodus, Numbers, etc.

5. Yancey recounts the story of the “miracle on the River Kwai” on pages 173-177. The point of the story is that sometimes we see God in other people. After the one man gave his life for the many, the prisoners began to see the value in the prisoners.
6. The settlements-in-advance are (or should be) churches; places where people in this world can see what the kingdom of God is like. God does not need us to condemn the world, but to love it.
7. First, we must remember that we are all complicit in the problem; we all sin. However, to change the culture, the Gospel requires that we be different, that we take a stand.
8. Yancey’s inability to explain evil is what strengthened his faith. He could not explain it; something supernatural had to be behind it.
9. The truth is that everything matters. You matter and I matter. The things we do in this world impact what happens in the spiritual world. Charlie referred to the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis stating that Satan trembles when we do good.
10. The story of the “Elephant Man” poses these questions: What value do we have? What purpose is there? Believers answer that there is value and there is a purpose, it just needs to be sought and found.
11. The Church is most glorious when it loves the outcast, laying aside her respectability and dignity and serving the poor.
12. According to Yancey, he thinks of himself as “amphibious”, as living in the physical and spiritual environments at the same time. As a believer in two worlds, we can acknowledge the good things of the visible as gifts from God but we must also look for the beauty beneath the surface.
13. Chrysostom was concerned that the church had become too much like the culture. (Keep in mind he wrote this 1,800 years ago!).

Some additional thoughts:

As I flipped back through the chapters, I was struck by how the few paragraphs beginning at the bottom of page 201 bring these chapters together. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, God has entrusted us believers with the responsibility to show the world what He is like. We should “regard no one from a worldly point of view” or to put it in the context of these chapters, we should not view the Elephant Man as worthless or a freak show, but we should reach out to him with love as “though God were making his appeal through us.”