William Chong

A couple of weeks ago, I had this grandiose idea of writing a novel. The premise was this: modern-day alternate reality tracing the story of a couple of fishermen. They’d live in a world where Jesus never came. A world where Jesus never tapped anyone on the shoulder and ask: “Follow me”. Every sphere of life – politics, education, music, the arts, devoid of the influence of Jesus and Christianity. Could it have been a compelling message?

As fanciful as the idea of painting a Tolkien-level realm devoid of the influence of Jesus Christ, my fiction writing skills are pretty thumbs down and so I decided to read a book about the idea instead.

The title of this book pretty much sums up the theme of the novel, and chancellor of Knox Theological Seminary Dr D James Kennedy and documentary producer Jerry Newcombe (both Americans) tackle this intriguing premise. Each chapter in this book presents their research and suppositions on the impact of Christ has made upon humanity: covering areas from civil liberties, medicine, the arts, economics, sexuality, education, morality and more.

I’ll say it upfront – they know much more than I do. I mean, off the top of my head, the only place I can think of where Christianity might have influenced our culture today was in Puff Daddy’s Notorious B.I.G. tribute where the coda has the hymn “I’ll Fly Away” – “One bright morning when this life is over…”, or that Coolio’s “Gangster Paradise” wouldn’t have otherwise started with a verse from Psalm 23: “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”.

But the authors here have over 20 pages of references. I definitely learnt a lot more than I knew about Christianity’s impact on the world. Here’s a gem of an example:

[Guido of Arrezzo, an eleventh century monk,] wanted his students to memorise the notes c-d-e-f-g-a. So he took the words of a familiar hymn “Ut Queant Laxis”, which was a Christian song centered on St. John, and he created a mnemonic device:

UT queant laxis REsonare fibris
MIre gestorum FAmuli tuorum
SOLve pollutis LAbiis reatum
Sancte Iohannes

… We still learn them this way today, except we say “doh” for “ut” and have added a “ti” after “la”.

I guess I won’t look at this song the same way again.

There are many other well-informed points that Dr Kennedy makes throughout the book, including that:

• Most of the Ivy League universities (e.g. Harvard, Yale, Brown, Princeton, Columbia) had strong Christian roots. In fact, Harvard University is named after Reverend John Harvard, and an early ad for what is now Columbia University stated: “The chief thing that is aimed at in this college is to teach and engage children to know God in Jesus Christ.” You probably won’t find that in their latest ad.
• The Red Cross was started by Swiss banker, philanthropist and member of “the Church of the Awakening” Henry Dunant (he also helped establish the YMCA); Dr Louis Pasteur, who developed pasteurisation, sterilisation and vaccines against rabies, diphtheria and anthrax, was a devout Christian
• Numerous charities were started by Christians or church organisations: think Salvation Army, World Vision, Tearfund and so on
• While some Christians enabled and continued the practice of slavery, it was Christians like William Wilberforce who helped put an end to them, and Christians like Martin Luther King Jr. who paved the way for racial equality
• The codifying and setting to writing of many of the world’s languages was a result of the need for Bibles and Christian literature to be translated to local tongues and dialects

At times Dr Kennedy does make too much of a conclusion from the research. For example, in a chapter where he credits Christianity as the foundation of free enterprise and the work ethic, he moves into a 2-page diatribe calling welfare “a Christian heresy” – it reads more political than factual. In another part of the book he quotes a research article by psychiatrist David Larson and grandly concludes that being spiritually committed is good for your health, making the all-too-common mix-up between correlation and causality. Faults aside, everything with an endnote or superscripted number on it in this book is thought-provoking and points to a serious effort to accurately present facts about Christianity.

One thing I liked about this book is that it covers both the positive and negative impact on Christianity. There’s a whole chapter dedicated to injustices and sins committed in the name of Christ: the Crusades, the Salem Witch Trials, anti-Semitism. These are not glossed over and treated with sensitivity and truthfulness. Dr Kennedy also makes a distinction between Christendom and Christianity, suggesting that many atrocities were committed by those who were Christians only by name. It’s a fair point, and the authors give a number of examples where whole territories were declared “Christian” whether or not they had a genuine relationship with Christ or not, leading to many “Christians” causing all kinds of havoc.

All in all, if you read this book you’ll definitely learn more about the overwhelmingly positive impact of Christianity on humanity. It’s easy-to-read, biblically-sound, and presents by all accounts historically correct information to back things up. It’s definitely worth a read.

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I’m excited to be running regularly again. It’s actually one of my most beneficial times when I can think on my own, listen to music and podcasts, and get ideas going. And it’s a great way to keep active particularly when your full-time job is mostly spent in an office chair.

This week’s long run started off relatively short at 12.9 km (it builds up to 29.0 km before tapering off a few weeks before November 1). The highlight would have been running past my house at halfway and picking up my bottle of water, which tastes much better when your mouth is dry and you are sweating profusely over the pavement.

What’s my training programme? Well, I’m currently working off two training schedules: one from the Rotorua Marathon site, and another from the New York Times Run Well widget. I like the NYT widget as I can keep a record of my runs and see if I’m on target. The Rotorua one is also pretty helpful for its variety of running activities (e.g. Fartlek, hill runs, strideouts, endurance runs, recovery).

One week down, 20 more to go!

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I’m getting my running shoes on again – this time for my first full marathon on November 1, 2009.

What? You’re crazy!

Yup. You can keep track of my thoughts, observations, training regime here. And there’s an open invite for running buddies as well – I would really benefit from some company on some of the runs, particularly the longer ones.

I’m also running for a new charity this year – Habitat for Humanity. From their website:

Habitat for Humanity in New Zealand is a not-for-profit Christian organisation that works in partnership with people of goodwill and families in housing need, to eliminate sub-standard housing by building, renovating and selling simple, decent houses on an affordable basis.

The first New Zealand house was built by our Franklin affiliate (now part of the Greater Auckland affiliate) in Pukekohe in 1993. We now have 12 affiliate offices throughout New Zealand, and we have helped give over 300 families a hand up into their own home.

I’ve watched their proactive, unselfish work from a distance for a number of years now, and felt that it would be good to support them this time round.

So if you’re not able to come on training runs with me, you can still show your support by going to my fundraising page and donating to Habitat for Humanity.

I’ve thrown down the gauntlet – let’s get it started!

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Aucklanders, forget your staid TV shows and fireside novels this winter. The preeminent show in town this month is undoubtedly Andrew Lloyd Webber’s smash-hit musical, “CATS”. I took the opportunity during the week to see the Auckland production of the musical that arguably sparked the ongoing West End/Broadway revival.

Staged as part of the Harlequin Musical Theatre’s 50th year anniversary show, this Howick-based group takes temporary residence at the Auckland Civic Theatre from 6-27 June 2009. “CATS” is an impressive performance full of wit, personality and athleticism that elevates the cast well above suburban-production status.

Featuring Kiwi singing legend Tina Cross in the role of Grizabella and Dancing with the Star finalist Shane Cortese as Rum Tum Tugger, there was definitely an air of professionalism as a motivated motley of singers, dancers and musicians played their part in bringing T.S Eliot’s jellicle cats to life.

After getting over musically-hesitant opening, the show pounced into action with much song and dance. The opening number “Jellicle Cats” startled the senses as cats appeared from the nooks and crannies of a larger-than-life rooftop set, bursting into impressive melodies and impeccably choreographed movements. The plot revolves around a single night when the tribe of Jellicle cats unite to celebrate who they are, and to select one of them to be reborn in “cat heaven” – though one was left bemused as to the peculiar nature of this transformation (hint: it involves a flying chimney).

The audience were treated to plenty of outstanding feline personifications throughout. There was Shane Cortese and his Elvis-like interpretation of Rum Tum Tugger (probably fortunate to fit into his gasp-for-air PVC pants). Cat-burglars Mungojerry (Clinton Meneses) and Rumpleteaser (Andrea Grant) impressed with their paired choreography and a number of spectacular lifts. Skimbleshank (Tom Webster) with his railway-cat number was a notable delight, particularly when the resourceful cat chorus spontaneously crafted a full-blown steam engine out of back-alley junk pieces. Tina Cross drew lengthy applause with her spirited treatment of the stirring theatre classic “Memory”; it was a joy to hear it in context as opposed to the much-hyped, Susan Boyle rendition.

Perhaps the best reason for going to see “CATS” is that it’s engaging enough for the everyday punter. The high production values, stunning pyrotechnics and well-rehearsed numbers will impress anyone from the musically-vacant to the seasoned theatre-goer. You probably won’t understand everything the cast are singing and dancing about, but they’ll still convince you in a riposte of musical delight that there’s more to cats than meets the eye.

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With Microsoft’s recent rebranding of their search engine from “Live Search” to “Bing”, plenty of commentators have weighed in on whether it’s now more effective than Google in finding what you’re looking for online.

Now you can decide for yourself. Here’s a neat site that Michael Kordahi programmed to do a “blind tasting” of the top three search sites: Google, Bing and Yahoo. Might be of mild interest for you techies out there.

This song by Damien Rice singing “Cold Water” caught my attention today for two reasons: music and spirituality (favourite topics of mine).

Firstly, you have to hand it to Rice for pulling off a unique blend of acoustic singer-songwriter and lamentations-style folk music. The passionate modernity his band puts into the performance definitely comes close to drawing out some sort of religious experience (particularly in this longer version where the band whips into glossolalia: it’s furious, almost Pentecostal). With an artist-driven song like this (i.e. radio-friendliness not considered), you’ll either listen entranced by the music, or shake your head in bewilderment/confusion.

On spirituality. When Rice is grievously singing “Lord can you hear me now? Or am I lost?”, he offers a glimpse into an oft-hinted-at, seldom-mentioned truth: that human beings all want answers to spiritual questions. The “O God wherefore art thou” theme is repeated by vocalist Lisa Hannigan, followed by a bridge where Rice sings this seeming reply from God:

“oooo, I love you
Don’t you know I love you
And I always have
Hallelujah
Will you come with me?”

Obviously each person will ascribe their varying opinions on the real meaning behind Rice’s lyrics, but I personally found there was a fair bit of insight in there by a non-Christian artist. For Rice, the answer to “Are you there God? It’s me, Damien” is essentially “I am a loving God, come with me” – a theme certainly echoed in Scripture (e.g. Isaiah 55:3).

It’s also the way Rice sings this section in a Leonard Cohenesque, basso profundo register (not sure what God’s voice sounds like, but I know he can sing – Zephaniah 3:17) that’s made me think about this song all day.

So what do you think “Cold Water” is about?

HBC goes to Impact 2009.

On the lookout for more photos to slot into the video, email me if you have some!

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Monday morning. For those of us in the workforce, this was our last day of the Impact 2009 Conference – for others (including Jono) there was the option of an extra day of leadership and discipleship seminars.

General session 10: Rick completed his series on 1 Peter in expositing verses 10 to 12. By way of introduction, he first brings some questions raised by Old Testament standout Job, who asks: “How can a man be righteous before God?” (Job 9:2) This question can be answered by considering three extraordinary magnifications of salvation: the prophets foretold it (vv.10-12a), the Apostles announced it (v12), and the angels are amazed by it. Rick makes the astute point that even the angels — who have been worshipping God at his throne in an unceasing, almost OCD fashion (compare Isaiah 6 with Rev 4), would still be amazed that a God who’s “Holy holy holy” would save the unholy.

Seminar session: Dr Hugh Rorrison, an anaesthetist at Hawke’s Bay Hospital, gave a very medically and Biblically-informed overview of the myriad of issues in medical ethics, answering the following questions:

1. Where does human life come from? Hugh makes an important statement that “medical ethics is illegitimate if humans have no inherent value”. He explains that if humans have evolved by random chance, there is no right or wrong and our life could (in jest) be summed up as follows: “born a fluke, live life as a farce, and end up as fertilizer”. The Bible affirms that we’re created by God and in His image.
2. When does human life actually begin? After going through the scientific concepts of meiosis and embryogenesis, Hugh gives several varying definitions people use to ascertain the start of human life. Some argue that life begins at viability (when it can survive on its own), some at quickening (when the first movement is felt by the mother), some at implantation. He however notes that the Bible unashamedly notes that human essence of a new life is imparted well before birth (Psalm 139) and we are even given a sin nature at conception (Psalm 51: “Surely I was sinful from the moment my mother conceived me”). Therefore human life according to the Bible begins at conception.
3. When does human life end? Ultimately God knows the exact moment we die, says Hugh – he notes that medically human life ends at “death of the person as a whole, as opposed to the whole of the person”.
4. On abortion – Hugh explains that as a natural conclusion from the previous questions, abortion is equivalent to breaking the 6th commandment. This is achieved today either by drugs or surgery. He points out that the intra-uterine device (IUD), morning-after-pill, and some pill-based contraceptives prevent implantation of the womb and would also be immoral. A birth control method that prevents sperm and egg from uniting is OK, but those that affect the lining of the womb are not.
5. On IVF – Hugh details what the procedure involves, noting that in order to increase the success rate, surplus embryos (up to are fertilized, but then discarded or used for medical research.
6. On stem cell research – Hugh supports research where stem cells are harvested from bone marrow, but objects to when they are taken from surplus embryos.
7. On Euthanasia – the word literally means “to die well”. Despite the seemingly noble aims, the act of euthanasia is still deliberately cutting short a person’s life.
8. On life support – This is not the same as euthanasia – to allow someone to die at the end of their natural life is not the same as a deliberate act of ending it.

The Q&A session following covered even more issues – deciding between the mother or the baby (e.g. ectopic pregnancies), birth control, IVF and God’s sovereignty, organ donation, and prenatal testing. The audio for this seminar is well worth having a listen to.

A couple of closing thoughts:

• The calibre of teaching Impact Conference brings to NZ is phenomenal. I think it’s testament to the strong relationships the folk at Riverbend have with the speakers: Rick, for example, has come to NZ for the past 20 years; Martha Peace has come before.
• Simon and I both noted the mildly uncharitable action of reserving seats prior to speaking sessions. Sometimes we’d walk through the hall an hour before any session and find rows of seats with Bibles and book bags unceremoniously strewn across them! I know everyone becomes amplified eager-beavers during a conference and I can understand the enthusiasm in getting a good seat, but just reserving it with your books and expecting a prime spot feels a little unChristian. It’d be much more adelphous (is that a word?) to even selflessly offer the better seat to a brother or sister in Christ.
• The musicians at Riverbend are extremely gifted: I especially enjoyed the Casting Crown covers as they played songs like “Slow Fade” and “If We are the Body“. Definitely some things I took away to help with my own worship leading.
• It was great to meet so many like-minded people who worship Christ and hold biblical teaching in such high regard.

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Twitter updates: http://twitter.com/wchong
Full write-ups: http://bit.ly/jonomac/

Us out-of-town sojourners had the pleasure of worshipping and learning with the local Riverbend congregation on Sunday morning, day 3 of the Impact Bible Conference. Rick and Russell preached during the morning sessions, while Jerry presented a stirring message during the evening Communion service.

Sandwiched between the plenaries was the continuation of the ladies seminar by Martha Peace, and a spirited Q&A session which offered much insight and learning.

General session 7: Rick continued his exposition of 1 Peter in a message entitled, “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee” – how does one experience true Christian joy? In verses 6 to 9 the apostle Peter explains to Christians under trial four discoveries for enjoying life-changing joy:

1. Joy is rooted in the thought of heaven – Christians are betrothed to an afterlife with Christ
2. Joy is strengthened through the refinement of suffering – “the happiest days of the Church have been her days of persecution”
3. Joy is centred on the person of Christ – this point included Rick’s most insightful comment of the conference: “The only man-made thing in heaven will be the scars on Jesus’s body.”
4. Joy is _____ the reality of heaven (v9)

General session 9: I was enriched by Jerry’s exposition of the crucifixion narrative from the human perspective in Luke 23:39-43. For those who don’t know, that’s the part where Jesus hangs between the two criminals, who offer two startlingly contrasting responses to the Suffering Servant. I loved seeing this Passion narrative from this uncommon perspective. The proud unrepentant criminal curses And cajoles despite being rightly condemned, utterly helpless, and unable to reverse the consequences. On the other hand, the repentant thief justifies God, vindicates Christ and pleads for mercy which is graciously given: “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

As Jerry closed in prayer, the Hawkes Bay was treated with the first sea-level snowfall in over 40 years. Snowfights and merriment served a fitting coda to a Lord’s day to remember.

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Twitter updates: http://twitter.com/wchong
Full write-ups: http://bit.ly/jonomac/