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 got a midwinter present from amazon.com! Well OK, I had to fork out some hard-earned cash for it… but a box full of books is a box full of books, right? Hopefully I’ll try and delve into some of the content.

I’m particularly interested in delving into Bob Kauflin’s book “Worship Matters” – he’s the Director of Worship Development at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland (US), and I’ve found some of his Bible-centred thoughts on worship to be encouraging on many an occasion.

In any case, hopefully I’ll be able to read and comment in due course. Taking a day off work tomorrow to recharge and spend some time with my significant other. Needless to say it will be fun! And we have restaurant vouchers. The joys of living by the coupon never ceases to throw a bit of humility into the mix. And I’ve definitely been feeling very grateful about many things in my life in recent times.

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Further reading:

http://www.worshipmatters.com – Bob Kauflin’s blog
http://www.thorramsey.com/productsMore.htm – Info about Thor Ramsey’s book

This is what’s left of my iPod headphones.

I normally use them at work, but they were left on the floor over the weekend, and a cleaner’s overzealous approach to vacuuming has left a mangled mess of frayed wires and broken audibles, and nary a note in sight to explain themselves. Pfft.

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In other news, who remembers Doulos from their childhood? No? Well this was the one ship that got my dad in a ruffle of excitement, back when I was still growing up in kampung-town Kuching. It’s known to many people as “the floating book store” because of its massive collection of over half a million books onboard. One of the few snippets I remembered from my childhood was my dad talking excitedly about a ship full of books, seeds for a lifetime of knowledge – Doulos had docked in when I was just 4 years old, and I recall a jigsaw puzzle with a picture of the almost mythical boat that we bought. I don’t remember what the ship looked like in real life, but the name has always pricked my subconscious once in a while, though I thought no more of it for a long time.

What I eventually found out as I grew older was that Doulos is a ship bringing more than just knowledge – it’s a volunteer-run ship under the umbrella of Operation Mobilisation, that supplies literature resources and the gospel message to , This is a ship on a mission, and the more I think about it, the more I’m impressed about the creativity of this method of reaching out to the ends of the earth.

It’s berthing in Auckland next week, which sounds pretty cool. Apparently it’s the last time it’ll be here because it’s due to retire, so I’ll have to try and set aside a time to go check it out, to come full circle and to finally clarify an aspect of my childhood I never fully remembered.

Big. respect. Hope everyone is well.

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DOULOS – (Gr) from deo?; a slave (literally or figuratively, involuntarily or voluntarily; frequently therefore in a qualified sense of subjection or subserviency): – bondservant.

(No spoilers in this post, so you can rest easy)

Very hardcore people lining up in a queue that stretched all the way from the information desk in the middle of Borders Sylvia Park, through the glass doors and to the stairs leading up to Hoyts Cinemas. Insane.

Arron was queuing up for me though, so after teaching finished at 11, I made my way through and he had my book already. It’s a pretty good read: it feels like you’ve grown up with this bespectacled Wizard (by the way the last picture in that group above is of Henry dressed up as the Wizard Boy himself) through the seven books. The literary term is a bildungsroman story – a coming-of-age book where he finally discovers all the answers and all the loose ends get tied up.

If I had the time I’d read it again.

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Excellent 21st dinner at the Gengis Khan Mongolian BBQ Restaurant. Nick’s birthday went very well, good tributes and mentions of his attributes and qualities, and Jared is officially going out with Kristy it has transpired. Some very dangerously soppy texts in his inbox (not from me), lol.

First week back of uni has been relatively cruisy so far. Quite fond of my papers, even though 304 seems admittedly a touch flakey. Take care!

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