IFR/Ukraine update

I love to read.  I don’t have nearly the time to devote to reading that I’d like, but I really like to find a good book and dig into it.  A men’s breakfast group I belong to is currently going through Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey.  (If you’ve not read this book yet, I highly recommend it.)  The subtitle is Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity, and that is both a remarkable assessment and goal.  The gist of the book is that our unbelieving culture has succeeded in separating Christianity from “truth” and pigeon-holed religious belief as distinct from rational thought.  The discussion then becomes how do we as believers embrace once more a comprehensive Biblical worldview and once more make Christianity relevant to a spiritually dying culture.  It even goes so far as to say that many of the traditional witnessing and missions strategies of the past aren’t effective anymore because many (most?) people don’t even accept that there is A Truth based upon The God of the universe, let alone see a need for personal redemption from sin.  Very compelling stuff.

 

As I was re-reading parts of the book today, I began to think about it in the context of the work in which I’ve been able to participate in Eastern Europe.  In particular, the word ‘worldview’ was swirling around in my head.  I’ve used that term innumerable times in my emails to you and conversations around this ministry.  “We teach the Biblical worldview of government, economics, education, etc.”  Today, though, I had a different thought.  A worldview is, by definition, a comprehensive way of viewing the whole of the world.  Perhaps better said, it’s an outlook on all of life.  As a culture views life, they then produce art and institutions and structures and everything that reflect that view.  That’s when I realized that perhaps my use of the word worldview was not necessarily improper but incomplete.  A worldview is not a strategy or even a set of guidelines upon which to build a society.  Instead, it is to be based on deep spiritual character and the character of our lives.  And that character comes only from spiritual growth.  So, what does the Institute for Reformation actually do then?  IFR is not, therefore, teaching government or law in Belarus or Ukraine from a Biblical perspective.  We are helping to nurture the spiritual lives of people groups in Eastern Europe who have been oppressed for decades.  We seek to do that in practical and academic ways by teaching specific subjects and how certain institutions or structures might be formed when based on Biblical truths, but our job is not to rebuild those societies.  Our job is to do whatever the Lord leads us to do in order to rebuild the spiritual lives of those people to which we’re sent.  Then, they will deepen and grow in the Lord and He will illuminate for them the principles of His Word and law that apply to the society they seek to restore.  Powerful.

 

I have good news.  I now have a confirmed ticket for travel to Ukraine in three weeks!  It’s so exciting!

 

More to come…