Facing Decline With Faith

I read somewhere that we cannot choose the times in which we minister. There are eras of great faith, but also periods of unbelief. These span decades or centuries, rather than the weeks and months we focus on today. Contrast, for example, ‘The Great Awakening’, from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries, with the twentieth century, which has witnessed mass apostasy: ‘The Great Falling Away’.

Notwithstanding temporary blips, like the Jesus Movement of the late sixties and early seventies, when I was converted during its overspill into Lancashire, the trend has been continuous, despite many initiatives, like the Decade of Evangelism, Mission to England, and J. John’s London Mission last year. I remember Graham Cray saying that, when he started in ministry, it took a particularly bad pastor to close a church down, but now it takes an exceptionally good pastor to grow a church.

Why Essays?

Why does the title of this blog mention ‘essays’? Brian Dillon gives a brilliant answer in his book, Essayism: On Form, Feeling, and Nonfiction. This short-form style is aptly suited to expressing opinions on a variety of issues, shifting focus regularly rather than delving down deeply into any particular subject. This suits my personality. I am not a specialist, but a dilettante, who likes searching around for interesting stuff. 

It’s like Edward De Bono’s concept of ‘lateral thinking’. He compares thinking to digging holes. The expert, he says, is someone who likes digging deep holes, with nice smooth walls. The lateral thinker, however, likes to dig lots of holes, new ones, without necessarily going deeply into any single one. He also leaves lots of mess, when he moves on to a new enthusiasm.

Why "Jeremiad"?

A Jeremiad is defined as a "long mournful complaint or lamentation; a list of woes". Based on the prophecies of Jeremiah, especially the Book Lamentations (ascribed, wrongly, by tradition, to him), the term also denotes a literary genre, where one berates the contemporary world and its decadence.

I therefore thought it an appropriate title for my new blog, in which to indulge my pessimism and negative take on the world. Jeremiah’s ministry was a faithful, countercultural, protest against the apostasy and injustice of a society which had abandoned the covenant with Yahweh.