The cost of infrastructure vs. incramental growth

Two videos from Strong Towns on what infrastructure actually costs, and a different model for growth than just borrowing from our children:

First the downer:


Then a more hopeful option:

The dangerous effect of immigrants on native culture...

We have a natural tendency to fear the "other," regardless of how like us that "other" is. Today, the image of the Irish as a dangerous foreign element in Bostonian culture is nonsensical to any but the most elite Brahmin circles. In 1869, however, that was far from the case:

The urge to look backward was particularly strong in Boston, where natives were grappling with the growing presence and power of the Irish. In 1869, the author William Dean Howells took a walk through an immigrant section of Cambridge known as Dublin, where he felt less like a native and more like a traveler in a foreign land. The language, customs, and dress seemed exotic to Howells, and he regretted that the Anglo-Saxon population was "now as extinct in that region as the Pequots." He read the future of his own people in the large number of Irish children playing in the streets. It appeared likely, wrote Howells, that "such increase shall--together with the well-known ambition of Dubliners to rule the land--one day make an end of us poor Yankees as a dominant plurality." The demographic shift from Yankee to Irish would soon become evident in politics as well. In 1884, just fifteen years after Howells's visit to Dublin, Bostonians elected Hugh O'Brien as their first Irish Catholic mayor.

-- Michael Rawson, Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston, 254

Howells's fear of ceasing to be a "dominant plurality" seems particularly arrogant in modern PC phraseology, but is actually not far from how many of us think. The fear of the "other" helps us to excuse attitudes and theories which denigrate members of other races and ethnicities. The Church is very susceptible to these attitudes too. The connection between "God and country" which I celebrated as a young Christian--along with many other Christians--often leads us to a belief that our specific nationalism is somehow tied to the purest expression of our faith. I have heard numerous comments from Christians which view immigrants with the same attitude Howell exhibited. Given my first European relatives "got off the boat" in 1639, I'm guessing I have plenty of ancestors who took similar attitudes to some of these Christians' ancestors when they arrived...

A source of American religious consumerism:

In the churches of Puritan New England, "Sunday after Sunday, week after week, year after year, even generation after generation, the same underlying narrative provided the interpretative horizon for reading and hearing the Scriptures. The narrative of Scripture was found in the order of salvation. Salvation, however, was not understood as individual participation within the biblical narrative that told how the God of creation made a promise to Abraham that was fulfilled in Jesus in order to bring about a witness in the life of the church as a foretaste of the new creation. Instead, salvation was limited to a story of the individual moving from sin to salvation to service in preparation for eternity in heaven. The spiritual movement of an individual's life became deeply encoded as the meaning of Scripture within the emerging European-based North American culture."

-- John W. Wright, Telling God's Story, 55.

Reformation Then and Now, Here and There:

In a recent post at The Gospel Coalition, Dr. Dan Doriani of Covenant Theological Seminary, reflects on a recent trip to Singapore to speak for Reformation Day. He reflects on the cultural gap between the post-medieval Europe of Luther's day and modern Singapore. What is so helpful in this reflection is his honesty about his own cultural biases. "My meditation on the distance from Luther and Singapore led me to ask if the gap between Luther and America might be just as great." What was initially seen as a gap between "us" (descendents of Europeans) and "them" (non-Europeans) is really a gap between "us" (post-modern, global Christians) and "them" (our mutual Christian forebears). Additionally, and importantly, this new distinction preserves the nuance of cultural difference, and the lens of Singapore becomes a useful means of examining the cultural predispositions of modern American Christians. Meanwhile, the varieties of cultures which participated in the Reformation are seen in some of their diversity, helping to distinguish the multitude of ways God uses various cultures' assets to build His Kingdom.

Why Christians Should Celebrate Halloween:

Valerie Foucachon has written a very thoughtful and helpful post,"Why Christians Should Celebrate Halloween," which explores the history of the Church's interaction with the ancient European autumn harvest/death festivals. For both the Romans and the Celts, autumn marked a time to celebrate the harvest, and prepare for the oncoming long darkness of winter; the former by enjoying the abundance of food, the latter by offering sacrifices, performing incantations and, in some cases, dressing up to appease or ward off the evil spirits of death and darkness.

The Church stepped into this milieu with a message of hope: the God who had created all, and was therefore the source of all good things, had come into the world and defeated death! The darkness no longer need be feared for Christ's light had conquered it!

A Microcosm of American religion in one small town map:

In a recent post, Microcosm of American religion in one small town map, SIU:C political science professor Tobin Grant has made a study of the geography and demographics of Carbondale's churches. It is insightful, helpful, and convicting. Dr. Grant notes,

The membership of churches in green on the map [which are almost all located in the north east quadrant of the downtown, an area with 95% African American residence] are almost exclusively black; other churches in town are nearly all white. The town and community are integrated, but Sunday remains segregated.

This is a convicting call to our church communities to make real the call of Galatians 3:28, that in Christ ethnic divisions are done away with. Scripture doesn't deny ethnic differences, in fact it values them: as Tim Keller writes,

bundin er båtlaus madur

-- viking proverb ("bound is boatless man")