Recently, I was listening to a news channel on my sirius radio, and heard Tony Blair respond to a reporter’s question about America’s lack of influence when it comes to the recent conflict between Israel and Lebanon. I’m not a big political person, though I’m trying to understand, but this response struck me as having TRUTH written all over it. Especially pay attention to the end of his statement, about not giving up even though it is hard (Transcript of July 28, 2006 Bush/Blair press conference):

BLAIR: I don’t think it actually has anything to do with a loss of American influence at all. I think we’ve got to go back and ask what changed policy, because policy has changed in the past few years.

BLAIR: And what changed policy was September the 11th. That changed policy. But actually, before September the 11th, this global movement with a global ideology was already in being. September the 11th was the culmination of what they wanted to do.

But actually, you know — and this is probably where the policymakers such as myself were truly in error — is that even before September the 11th this was happening in all sorts of different ways in different countries.

I mean, in Algeria for example, tens and tens of thousands of people lost their lives.

This movement has grown. It is there. It will latch onto any cause that it possibly can and give it a dimension of terrorism and hatred.

You can see this. You can see it in Kashmir, for example. You can see it in Chechnya, you know? You can see it in Palestine.

Now, what is its purpose?

BLAIR: Its purpose is to promote its ideology based on a perversion of Islam and to use any methods at all, but particularly terrorism, to do that. Because they know that the value of terrorism to them is — as I was saying a moment or two ago — it’s not simply the act of terror, it’s the chain reaction that terror brings with it.

Terrorism brings the reprisal; the reprisal brings the additional hatred; the additional hatred breeds the additional terrorism, and so on.

In a small way, we lived through that in Northern Ireland over many, many decades.

Now, what happened after September the 11th — and this explains, I think, the president’s policy but also the reason why I have taken the view and still take the view that Britain and America should remain strong allies, shoulder to shoulder, in fighting this battle, is that we are never going to succeed unless we understand they are going to fight hard.

The reason why they are doing what they are doing in Iraq at the moment — and, yes, it’s really tough as a result of it — is because they know that if right in the center of the Middle East, in an Arab Muslim country, you’ve got a nonsectarian democracy — in other words people weren’t governed either by religious fanatics or secular dictators — you’ve got a genuine democracy of the people: How does their ideology flourish in such circumstances?

BLAIR: So they have imported the terrorism into that country, preyed on whatever reactionary elements there are to boost it. And that’s why we have the issue there.

That’s why the Taliban are trying to come back in Afghanistan. That is why the moment it looked as if you could get progress in Israel and Palestine, it had to be stopped.

That’s the moment when, as they say there was a problem in Gaza, so they realized: Well, there’s a possibility now we can set Lebanon against Israel.

Now, it’s a global movement. It’s a global ideology.

And if there’s any mistake that’s ever made in these circumstances, it’s if people are surprised that it’s tough to fight, because you’re up against an ideology that’s prepared to us any means at all, including killing any number of wholly innocent people.

And I don’t dispute part of the implication of your question at all in the sense that you look at what is happening in the Middle East, and what is happening in Iraq and Lebanon and Palestine, and of course there’s a sense of shock and frustration and anger at what is happening, and grief at the loss of innocent lives.

BLAIR: But it is not a reason for walking away. It’s a reason for staying the course and staying it no matter how tough it is: because the alternative is actually letting this ideology grip larger and larger numbers of people.

And it is going to be difficult. Look, we’ve got a problem even in our own Muslim communities in Europe who will half buy into some of the propaganda that’s pushed at it — the purpose of America is to suppress Islam; you know, Britain’s joined with America in the suppression of Islam.

And one of the things we’ve got to stop doing is stop apologizing for our own positions. Muslims in America, as far as I’m aware of, are free to worship.

BLAIR: Muslims in Britain are free to worship. We have plural societies.

You know, it’s nonsense. The propaganda is nonsense. And we’re not going to defeat this ideology until we in the West go out with sufficient confidence in our position and say, “This is wrong. It’s not just wrong in its methods; it’s wrong in its ideas, it’s wrong in its ideology, it’s wrong in every single wretched reactionary thing about it.”

And it will be a long struggle, I’m afraid. But there’s no alternative but to stay the course with it. And we will.

Tags: Tony Blair, Terrorism, Taliban

My good friend Drew Odom sent me some links to very relevant articles in Time Magazine called “There’s No Pulpit Like Home”, and at the George Barna web site as well (slightly older article).

When I first started my “house church journey” about three years ago, I thought I was the only one on the face of the earth that had heard the good news. As I have continued to explored the subject I have found that there are tons and tons of web sites out there that deal with the nature of house, or simple, churches. I will be compiling the list in the weeks to come (See House Church Links Page).

House churches come in a variety of shapes and sizes. What is commonly referred to as a house church by some, may not be defined as such by others, but the main principle remains that Jesus stated, “When two or three are gathered together in my name, I am in the midst of them” (mt 18:20 NKJ). Or, as the time magazine article for a particular type of house church, “There is no pastor, choir, or sermon–just six believers and Jesus among them, closer than thier breath.”

It’s easy to see how someone could be drawn to such an environement…Jesus, in the midst of them.
Barna believes that the amount of adults that go to what he terms a “house church” is around 9%. That seems artificially high, but the thing about house churches is that they aren’t advertised. You won’t see a sign on a corner, a steeple in the air, or a sprawling mass of buildings with a school on it. A house church is just a few people getting together seeking Christ, expressing Christ, and struggling together to live thier faith. “Jesus, closer than thier breath.”

This is the Jesus who is supposed to be head of the church…not the pastor, the presbytery, or the district office. This is Jesus, “from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Eph 4:16 NAS).

As Frank Viola states in the Time article, “[he doesn't] believe you are going to see the fullness of Jesus Chirst expressed just sitting in a pew listening to one other member of the body of Christ talking for 45 minutes while everyone else is passive.”

In a house church, each member is expected to contribute…at least eventually. A house church is built off the belief of the priesthood of all believers, that each member has something to contribute, that “each one has a psalm, has a revelation, has a tounge, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification” (1 Cor 14:26 NAS). This “multi-participation” may also be why Allan Karr, a professor at the Rocky Mountain campus of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary believes that three out of 10 churches that are founded today are simple, and that thier chances for survival are better than those of the other seven.

Though house churches are not known for denominational loyalty, Karr states, “I want the denomination to prevail, but I have an agenda that supersedes that: the Kingdom of God at large.”

I say, “Kudos” to the latter statement!

Tags: house church, simple church, emergent church, barna, time magazine