HIGH SPIRITS: Country Club Christianity
Aitken, Jonathan
HIGH SPIRITS JONATHAN AITKEN Country Club Christianity r Cricket is a game invented by the English who, not being a spiritual people, needed something to give them the concept of eternity. ‘...
...So the first commandment of outreach speaking is: "Thou shalt not take thy audience too far beyond its comfort zone...
...If a hot gospel preacher were to come on strong at one of these gatherings with a fire and brimstone sermon based on a text like "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," the camels would probably stampede...
...Getting souls to progress and change in prison ministry is easier than in up-and-outer ministry...
...Warren's step-by-step plan for becoming a Christian in 40 days a little too simplistic and much too resistible...
...Yet in those down-and-out surroundings I shall be sparing many a thought for the upand-outers I have met in stately homes and elegant enclaves...
...Yet there are always possibilities for the seed to germinate in good ground...
...Yet they don't have to accept the literal truth of every single word in "our Owner's Manual," as Mr...
...It means a form of public speaking aimed at reaching out to secular audiences with a spiritual message...
...The inevitable approach of their deaths can concentrate their minds on the uncomfortable subject of what comes afterwards...
...Nancy DeMoss...
...And in some ways rich golfers offer better soil for such plantings than poor Galileans...
...Although I think of myself more as a failed-again Christian than a born-again Christian, the latter label is real enough for my soul to have made some true progress towards spiritual goals I would never have considered before going to prison...
...Both are highly resistant to change...
...and the Ponte Vedra Golf Club, Florida, turn out in large numbers to hear a Christian outreach talk...
...F OR A START, up-and-outers tend to be in the last third or quarter of their lives' journeys...
...As the Psalmist puts it: "If you 0 Lord kept a record of our sins Lord who could stand...
...HIGH SPIRITS JONATHAN AITKEN Country Club Christianity r Cricket is a game invented by the English who, not being a spiritual people, needed something to give them the concept of eternity...
...But there is forgiveness with you Therefore you are feared...
...Moreover, the former's sins may be worse, even though they are JONATHAN AITKEN usually better at observing the 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not get caught...
...A call to "repent and believe the good news" falls on mostly deaf ears in 21st century clubland just as it so often did in 1st century Holy Land...
...Hell...
...A purposeful life requires making a journey from self-centeredness to Godcenteredness...
...Some of these messages are rather well distilled in a book which has been at the top of the New York Times best-seller list for the last 60 weeks, The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren...
...For up-and-outers are often in just as much inner pain and spiritual trouble as down-and-outers...
...Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn discovered this eternal truth during his imprisonment in the Gulag and wrote: "Bless you prison bless you, for it was while lying on the rotting straw of my cell that I discovered the true purpose of life lies not in our material progress but in the progress of our souls...
...The term "a Christian outreach talk" needs some explaining...
...the Birmingham Country Club, Alabama...
...Having belonged to the country club set as well as to the convict club set, I know that these alpha and omega groups of our society have one bond in common...
...Heaven...
...the Pinheiros Altos Golf Club, Portugal...
...This genre of socially acceptable evangelism is sometimes known as up-and-outer ministry...
...Nt Jonathan Aitken, a former British MP and cabinet minister, is the author of seven books, including Nixon: A Life...
...Warren calls the Bible, to go along with his general thesis that a purposeful life requires making a journey from self-centeredness to God-centeredness...
...It has the irresistible subtitle What on Earth Am I Here For?but sophisticated readers in the sort of clubs I've been address-ing may find some parts of Mr...
...However, the concept needs to be thought about and the leisured classes at least enjoy the advantage of having plenty of thinking time at their disposal, provided they can first be converted away from imitating George Bernard Shaw's stereotype of "Businessmen to whom age brings golf instead of wisdom...
...Although they were not actually cricket clubs (their main interests seemed to be golf, tennis, croquet, and social exclusivity), the audiences I addressed must have been vaguely curious about the concept of eternity...
...Both the convict club set and the country club set have an equal need to repent and believe the good news...
...Because we human beings are creatures of time, getting our heads round the concept of eternity is difficult...
...Or something else...
...Psalm 130 v. 3-4) Getting the message across to up-and-outer audiences that they need forgiveness and should fear God is no easy task...
...I share with Solzhenitsyn the experience of imprisonment...
...For why else should members of the Jupiter Island Club, Florida...
...The wisdom of the ages offers plenty of good messages to thoughtful up-and-outers...
...Purgatory...
...In recent months I have addressed audiences ranging from English landed gentry in the Gloucestershire country house of the Marquess of Reading to Palm Beach plutocrats assembled under the hospitable roof of Florida's Mrs...
...MAY 2004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 51...
...The explanation for this may lie in Martin Luther's dictum: "It is in our pain and in our brokenness that we come closest to Christ...
...This negative ordeal rather surprisingly now gives me positive street credibility on the outreach speaking circuit...
...It often is led by private individuals hosting dinners for their peer group in their own homes...
...But the inner content should contain solid spiritual fare designed to awaken the interest of audiences whose religious faith may be 50 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 2004 nominal, noncommittal, or even nonexistent...
...Comforting the afflicted without afflicting the comfortable may well require tact, yet there are some preaching punches that simply cannot be pulled...
...Because I care so much about the visible pain and brokenness of those in jail I am accompanying my friend and biographical subject, Charles W. Colson, on his annual Easter pilgrimage to three prisons in Texas this April...
...So they may have to be warned that their earthly skills at the art of remaining undetected will become inoperative when they arrive at the heavenly gates to await the judgment of an all-seeing, all-knowing God...
...Oblivion...
...ms BON MOT, which I first heard from the lips of 1 the late lamented Peter Ustinov, has been on my mind this month during a speaking tour that included visits to several elegant clubs...
...Topical subjects, worldly anecdotes, and a good line in humor are often to be found in the outside wrapping of the package...
...Such assignments are challenging calls for an outreach speaker and require a subtle rather than a hard sell approach...
Vol. 37 • May 2004 • No. 4
