Faith Initiative

Originally posted on my primary blog: peterskim.wordpress.com

Mankiw directs his readers’ attention to a Wall Street Journal column about who should get flu vaccines in the case of a shortage.

How to Ration Flu Vaccines

This is an example of where “pure” capitalism would probably fail because if the vaccines were put on sale on the open market, many of the buyers might be extremely wealthy middle-aged people who don’t really *need* the vaccine but would buy it for extra security.

This is where government usually steps in and applies values that are accepted by most of society in order to determine allocation. Our current society has determined that the very young and very old are most at risk from being hit hard by the flu so they are given priority. Is that how it should be though? Here is what the WSJ says:

“In May, scientists at the National Institutes of Health stirred things up with a paper calling into question the policy that aims to save the most lives by first vaccinating the old, the very young and the sick, putting last those who are two to 64 years of age. The value of a life, they argued, depends on age. A 60-year-old has invested a lot (measured by education and experience) in his life, but has also reaped most of the returns. A child has minimal investment. A 20-year-old has great investment but has reaped almost none of the returns. Conclusion: To maximize investment in a life plus years of life left, 13- to 40-year-olds should have first claim on rationed vaccine, explains NIH’s Ezekiel Emanuel….”

This line of thinking probably makes a lot of Christians uncomfortable because we want to believe that every human being, regardless of age, has equal life value. That idea is unhelpful though when we need to determine distribution in instances of scarce resources. I don’t think Christianity provides any answers to that problem.

A preemptive action that can be taken would be to get business people and medical professionals to find a way to produce more vaccines so that this problem doesn’t exist in the first place. Christians can either 1) sit around discussing philosophy, theology and ethics to determine answers to these problems or 2) take action and figure out solutions so that these problems don’t come to fruition. This is an example of how I think it’s essential for the Church to encourage Christians to be at the cutting edge of medicine, law, business, engineering, etc. and doing cool stuff. We need more Christian practitioners, not theologians.

I had the privilege of spending a whole evening with a McManus, mostly to myself. While my good friends, the Chens spent the evening with Alex and Niza, I got to spend a few hours with the real genius in the family, Lucas.

Lucas was excited about just having received a Nintendo DS as a gift from his cousin. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my DS because I didn’t know he had one. Apparently I’m the only “grown up” he knows who has a Nintendo DS. He showed me his newly learned Super Mario DS skills. He forced me to play, because I think he assumed I would be better than him, but I’m no good at the Mario games. I had to ask him for a lot of help.

Why do I call Lucas the “real genius”? I discovered he knew a lot about animals. A lot more than anyone else I know. We watched Animal Planet for a little while. I was surprised by how much he knew about various animals.

This was my first time hanging out with a 12 year old in a while. I’m more used to spending time with younger kids (below the age of 6). I think it’s easier for me to hang out with younger kids because I can switch into “kid mode” and pretend the most important things in life are going to the playground and playing with Elmo. But with older kids, it’s kinda weird; they’re mature enough to understand serious issues but not really mature enough to always know what to do about them. You can’t just pretend the whole world is an imaginary playland because they have too much of a grasp on reality. So what do you talk about? It’s hard. We spent most of the evening just watching Animal Planet and talked about how cool the various deep sea animals were. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that; and it’s probably something I’ll get more comfortable with if I spent more time with older kids.

lala.com is a great service I’ve been using for the past few weeks. You list all the CDs you have, marking the ones you’re willing to let go of. You also create a list of CDs you want. If you have a CD someone wants, you send it to them. If someone else has a CD you want, they send it to you. Prepaid envelopes and CD cases are provided for you. You pay $1.75 for shipping and handling for each CD you get.

I’ve gotten a couple of Bright Eyes CDs, two Fiona Apple CDs, and some emo stuff (Anberlin, Waking Ashland). Oh, and I finally got Give Up by the Postal Service. The music is great but I’m not the biggest fan of the Death Cab frontman’s vocals.

I think the idea of church that most people are familiar with or at least aspire to be a part of is one that has a strong, tightly knit community that becomes the center of one’s life. Much of the justification for this church model comes from Acts 2:

“42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

The passage seems to imply that if you “do church” this particular way, the Lord will add to your numbers daily with those being saved.

I think there is a lot of validity to this thinking and I’m sure it works in many contexts. But I’d be hesitant to say that it should be the basis for how all churches should operate.

I’ve been thinking of what church would look like if it was more of a collection of loose ties, rather than being a strong, single, central point. What if the nature of church was so decentralized that we don’t immediately think of “church” as what happens on Sunday service (which is the case in almost all churches I’ve been to)? But instead “church” really means the people and what goes on every day of the week, not just in theory, but especially in practice.

Our young, fledgling church has been interesting to be a part of. I think when we first started, we had ideas of being a strong, tight knit community, especially as we were still small. But it’s turned out to not be your typical centralized community. That’s not to say that we don’t feel connected to each other, but I would say that we are connected mostly by the same sense of mission rather than anything else.

Since the start of our church, many members of our community have experienced significant changes in their day jobs, most of which have required a greater time commitment to them and have taken them away from being able to serve at church as much. Some people might see this negatively as an act of forgoing what is “holy” for things that are “secular”, but I truly see this as a blessing. I think our church is embodying a true spirit of mission by gaining greater influence and thus become a greater witness through our day jobs rather than just trying to build up the institution of the church.

I have a bunch more thoughts on decentralizing church but I’ll have to save those for later…

I recently came back from spending almost 2 weeks in London. London is such a lively, energetic city. Walking around Oxford Circus and Picadally Circus is kinda like being in Manhattan. Maybe not as crazy, but closer to it than any other city I’ve been in.

I didn’t actually get a chance to do much sightseeing but I enjoyed the process of getting acquainted with a new culture and environment: learning how the tube and bus system works, where to buy things, how people behave, etc… In a way, I personally challenge myself in trying to make myself as knowledgable as a “native” as soon as possible. Sure, there’s a lot more to being a Londoner than just knowing how to get around the city, but it gives me a strange sense of satisfaction in knowing that I can probably do a decent job in leading people around the city if I had to.

The wife and I attended Sunday service at Holy Trinity Brompton. It was so refreshing attending a church service and worshipping God in this foreign land with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. I liked this church a lot; it reminded me of the church I grew up in–solid Biblical teaching, with strong emphasis on prayer and awareness of the Holy Spirit. I look forward to going back there when I return to London in April/May.

The ideas I expressed in my last post are a small part of my larger ideas on how I believe the power structure in “the Church� needs to shift from just the ordained pastors to all members of the body of Christ. I think too many people only see pastors and missionaries as the people doing “spiritual� work while the rest of us do eternally irrelevant “secular� work.

I think “the Church� can be a much greater influence on the world if we all saw our work as potentially eternally significant work. I want to see the work and authority of the Holy Spirit unleashed through all His people instead of bottled up in pastors.

I also have some concern that the Word of God is losing its place as what should be the primary source of direction for the Church. In asking our pastors to do so many things, we’re taking them away from the study and teaching of the Word of God. Our world needs good solid teaching of the Word more than ever. Instead of asking our pastors to be environmentalists, social activists, politicians, etc., let’s ask them to teach us the Word; the congregation can take on the responsibility of living out the Word through social action, but someone needs to be teaching us the Word, and that ought to be our pastors.

I posted this on my real blog on February 8, 2006:

According to the New York Times, 86 prominent evangelical leaders have stated support for an initiative to take action on global warming. Some of these church leaders include Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and Duane Litfin, president of Wheaton College.

I am troubled by this action for a few reasons.

1) There are still reasonable scientists who do not believe emissions from man-made products are the cause of global climate change. Many, including non-Christians, believe the global climate change is just a a part of the natural cycle of climate change that has occured since the formation of the Earth.

2) By stating support for a cause, pastors will find themselves in bed with organizations that, while in agreement on this issue on the surface level, may be in complete opposition to Christianity in other ways.

3a) Pastors are not scientists, economists, sociologists, lawyers, policy makers, etc. They cannot understand the complexity of the consequences of supporting various policies. People on different sides will try to convince them they have hard evidence to suggest their policy proposals will be of overall benefit to society. Should pastors really be in a position of choosing to attach their name and their reputation as a spiritual authority to something they don’t really understand?

3b) The consequence of pastors putting themselves in this position degrades and discredits the ministry of Christian scientists, economists, sociologists, lawyers, policy makers, etc. whose God-given gifting and passion is to live out the Gospel through their work. Pastors need to empower Christians within these fields to bring spiritual authority into their work, rather than co-opting the spiritual element for themselves.

Pastors need to stop getting involved in politics, get themselves back in the Bible, and start doing their REAL job which is to preach the Word of God and care for the Church.

My wife will be in London for 3 months this spring; I will be accompanying her for about 5-6 weeks of that period. I am excited. I hope London is not as hostile to Christianity as Boston is, but I guess even if it is, that’s an opportunity for witness.

Let me know if you have connections in London and/or know of Mosaic-affiliated communities there. Thanks!

I originally posted this on my personal blog:

I think way too many people equate wealth with materialism. I think that’s ridiculous. It’s like equating sex with adultery; for married people who have healthy sex lives in the context of a loving relationship, it would be ridiculous to equate sex with adultery. Sex is a beautiful, healthy part of being human. However, when sin enters the picture, sex can become corrupted into adultery.

Similarly, for people with a healthy understanding of money, it would be ridiculous to equate wealth with materialism. I believe wealth is a gift from God and that the pursuit of wealth is a God-given part of the human existence. When sin enters the picture, the pursuit of wealth can become materialism. However, wealth and the pursuit of it are not inherently sinful. To believe they are sinful is to reject God’s good gifts to us.

I think there is a very important distinction between conviction and guilt. Conviction is being motivated to act because it is Right, while guilt is being motivated to act because of a self-centered desire to decrease feelings of insecurity. Acting out of conviction is noble and praise-worthy, while acting out of guilt is selfish.

I see so many people who feel a real sense of guilt for their position in life. They feel guilty because they have a relatively blessed and comfortable life while others suffer and struggle. DO NOT FEEL GUILTY. God is in control and for some reason, He allows some to be blessed and others not to be. To reject our state of blessing would be to reject God and His goodness.

This is not to say we should shelter ourselves from the pain of this world. But we must understand that we are not responsible for it. Only then can we truly serve one another selflessly. Otherwise, we serve only to make ourselves feel better about ourselves.