I should have just sat down…

There is plenty of religious imagery in Europe even though it is the only continent where the Christian church is not growing.

I should have just sat down and let EB give the rest of the message. After speaking for nearly an hour through a translator to college students in Brno, Czech Republic, I asked EB to come forward and share her story. EB did a fantastic job with the Czech students. My seminar was about the reliability of the Bible and I presented a lot of facts. In a country where the Bible is considered outdated and irrelevant, the facts are important. And I may have presented lots of head knowledge but what really made an impression with the students was when EB spoke of her heart knowledge.

EB instantly connected with the Czech students by speaking of her Czech roots. She spoke of her great-grandfather and his wife, Frank and Katrina Bizek, and how they homesteaded on the Kansas prairie after immigrating from Czech. Yet she also told how her father Paul Biays, who taught college literature, logic and philosophy, was also a pastor who taught his family, his church and even his college students about the trust-worthiness of Scripture.

EB also mentioned how since she was a young girl the Bible has guided her in her major life decisions and even today how we are raising our children to treasure and learn from the Bible. Maybe this doesn’t seem like much to an American Christian ear but to our post-Communist Czech audience, where today’s greatest religious influence is secularism, EB’s testimony had a profound impact.

After the lecture many great gospel conversations took place. I am continuing several of these conversations by email. The evangelical ministry that invited us to speak (http://www.kvz.cz/english/), received contact info from the students who attended and are following up those who expressed more interest in knowing Christ personally.

The next morning I shared from the Bible what the Lord had been teaching me lately with the staff of KVZ, the Czech evangelical ministry that hosted EB and me. Our hosts were wonderful and so appreciative. EB and I have bonded with the Czech Christians in that ministry!

Much of missions work is tedious, difficult and unexciting. Every once in a while though you break through the clouds and the warmth of the glory of God shines in your face. EB and I found our time in Brno, Czech Republic to be such a moment. On the train ride back to Budapest EB and I together thanked God for great opportunities like this one that He has given us during our years here in Eastern Europe!

You know you are a long way from home when the signs are in three languages, none of which are English!

The Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul rises majestically above the other buildings of Brno. Unfortunately, less than ½ of 1 percent of the Czech population is evangelical with atheism being the dominant worldview in this country.

Two more pictures from Brno that are quintessentially European…

"The Cabbage Market," an open air market in the center of Brno.

This is the cleaning lady's contribution to a photo I really like.

“I am Legend,” Atheism, and the Theology of Zombies

This past weekend I took my teenage son Ben to see the movie “I am Legend.” Will Smith movies involving humanoids are always a little tongue in cheek - movies like “Men In Black,” and “Independence Day.” But I found “I am Legend,” disturbing, even downright scary. Not suspenseful like “Signs” but just plain ole scary.

I think it was the zombies that made it so disturbing. I confess I kept my eyes closed during most of the warehouse scene. I did see the part however when the zombies were all clustered together in the corner with their backs to the camera jostling for just the right spot away from the light like bats in a cave or bees in a hive. For reasons I don’t understand, that just creeped me out.

The zombies were creepy because it was as if the Divine Spark (I mean this in the “image of God” sense) that occupies humanity had been lifted from these “night seekers.” The zombies were human without the human element. Even though outside of Hollywood zombies don’t exist, yet in a Darwinian world, zombies would be quite plausible. If humans are only flesh and blood, mere products of biochemical reaction and mutations, spiritually dead and perhaps even soulless, then zombies would no longer be a genre of fiction but part of the evolutionary line. After all, it was the zombies that thrived and nearly killed off the weaker race in the world portrayed by "I am Legend."

Fortunately, I am not exposed to a lot of zombie movies and I don’t know how the zombies of “I am Legend,” compare to other zombies, or Rob Zombie for that matter. As a teenager I saw both “Dawn of the Dead” and the “Omega Man” at a drive-in on the same night. By the way, the “Omega Man” and “I am Legend” are both adaptations of the 1954 novel by Richard Matheson, a guy I never heard of until I began reading up on “I am Legend.” (Right now “in my head” I can hear Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries belting out the chorus from their hit song, “Zombie.”) Sorry for this side track. Back to the train of thought.

"Omega Man" movie poster, Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries and Rob

There were also some strong positive spiritual elements in “I am Legend,” specifically the ending. (Warning: Plot Spoiler). When Will Smith’s character Robert Neville discovers the cure that would make the zombies human again, the zombies continue their assault on his Plexiglas-encased basement laboratory. Robert Neville kept screaming, “I can cure you! I can save you!” But the zombies didn’t even know they were sick and were intent on killing the only one who could make them whole again. Perhaps this is a stretch, and I am certainly not equating Will Smith to Jesus. But for me it was reminiscent of Jesus when He says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were unwilling,” Matthew 23:37.

Moments later Robert Neville does give his life so that the human race can be preserved. And the cure was in the blood! Again, you can accuse me of reaching. But Caiaphas’ words of substitutionary atonement rang in my ear, better “that one man die for the people and that the whole nation not perish,” John 11:50.

Surely an atheist may say, “But wait! Will Smith’s character said he didn’t believe in God. This movie illustrates that it does not take a belief in God to do great moral acts.” Perhaps so. But the fruit of atheism, particularly in the last century, was responsible for more deaths than any other world view and the body count greatly exceeded the Crusades and Inquisitions, both of which will always be perennial black eyes on the Christian church. But, and this is important when we dialogue with the critics of Christianity, the Crusades and Inquisitions went against the teachings of Jesus Christ of the New Testament while Nazism and Communism were the results of natural selection of the atheistic worldview. Selfless acts of self-sacrifice are few and far between in a “survival of the fittest” world.

Even Fredrick Nietzsche, who 100 years ago, gave us the phrase, “God is dead,” also predicted that because God is dead, because man no longer has a use for God, that the 20^th century would be the bloodiest in history. He was right. Atheism can only bring us death.

Nietzsche: "God is dead"

“I am Legend” ends with one man giving his life so others could live. In light of this another point needs to be made: Have you ever noticed that the themes of redemption and atonement are so prevalent in our movies? These themes resonant with the human psyche as if we were pre-programmed with a leaning toward these ideas. This is the point John Eldridge makes in his book, “A Sacred Romance.”

And Jesus Christ’s laying down his life for sinners and His enemies is the epitome, the highest expression, the ultimate example, of the ideas of redemption and atonement which seemed to be scripted onto our souls. Why do we today in our modern age simultaneously express redemption and atonement in our art yet ignore it in the Incarnation? Reimbrandt, Michaelangelo and others did not struggle with this contradiction; however we seem to embrace this contradiction. It is as if this story of Jesus is written on our hearts yet in our modern society we cannot face it or acknowledge it -- as if we are like Will Smith wandering in the dark warehouse; we know what’s there but we really hope we don’t find it.

If we take the Christ out of Christianity then we merely get another man-centered, works oriented religion; a Savior-less religion is zombie-like spirituality. Something is there, certainly, but we know it is not spiritually living. Perhaps this is why Jesus, facing the physical death of one of His good friends, says, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,” John 11:25.

Equipping Laborers in Poland and Czech

It was a privilege to have at least some of my family with me while I traveled. Here we are (sans Elizabeth, Benjamin and Savannah who were all in their first week of school) enjoying the crisp air and green hills of eastern Czech while at a conference where I was asked to teach.

EB and I just returned from a week of ministry in Poland and the Czech Republic. It was a blessing to not travel alone but have EB, Rebekah and Quentin with me. I wish you could have met who we met, seen what we saw and experienced what we experienced.

Our first stop was in southern Poland for Campus Crusade’s Polish staff conference with 100 Polish missionaries. It was so encouraging to hear how the Lord is using this select group of Poles. EB and I both observed how the Polish people are more like Americans than most of the ethnic groups we have worked with in Eastern Europe. We found the Poles to have an American-like sense of humor, to be gregarious, optimistic, and hard working.

Saying "thanks" after the Polish ministry of Campus Crusade honored EB and me for our work on their behalf.

Even though Poland has upwards of 95% Catholic Church-goers, it is still predominately a secular society. Consider this quote I found recently in a publication from “Pioneers,” a missions agency like Campus Crusade: “As a percentage of population, there are fewer evangelical Christians in Poland than there are in Saudi Arabia—four times fewer! Roughly 90 percent of the counties in this country of 38 million have no evangelical church of any kind.”

On a free day, EB and I toured Krakow, the site of an outreach we are doing in early October with some American Christians. We visited the location of the WWII Jewish ghetto, where Hitler corralled all the Jews in Krakow before shipping them off to death camps. How do you explain the heaviness and hurt you feel while standing on the site where such evil happened?

This was the gathering place in Krakow's Jewish ghetto before the Jews were put on trains bound for the concentration camps during Hitler's reign. Today the square remains clear except for some vacant wooden chairs as an artistic way to say, "Everyone is gone; the ghetto has been emptied." I felt as if I was treading on a thin crust covering a worm hole from hell that regurgitated indescribable evil during World War II.

A short distance from the Jewish ghetto train station in Krakow is Oscar Schindler's factory, the subject of Steven Speilberg's movie.

On Monday we traveled a short distance across the Czech border to a beautiful retreat site in the extreme eastern reach of Czech. The location was high up in some rolling hills looking down on valleys with horses, farm houses, small villages, gurgling streams, fresh, clean air and green (even in August!) pastures and fields. It was picturesque! We spent a day with the staff of a Czech evangelical ministry called KVZ, the abbreviation translates loosely as “Christian and Education Outreach.” I taught on proper attitudes and Biblical basis for support raising. (Another ministry passionate for Jesus Christ but with great financial needs.)

For breakfast we were served cucumbers and hotdogs. For dinner one night we ate strawberry jam-filled potatoes with chocolate sauce and whipped cream!

EB and I really enjoyed our time with these 25 Czech brothers and sisters in Christ, all of whom share Jesus on campuses in the most atheistic country in Europe. 81% of Czechs do not believe in God, according to a recent study done by Pew Research. In terms of belief in God, in the spiritually dark continent of Europe, Czech is the darkest place of all.

While we split up to pray in small groups with our Czech brothers and sisters in Christ, I did notice a difference in style in our small group between Americans and Czechs. Which pair of feet above belongs to EB?

It must be noted, however, that while larger percentages of “deists” exists in other European countries, the percentage of evangelical believers across Czech, Poland, the countries of the former Yugoslavia, and other Eastern European countries, is lower than in many Middle Eastern countries. All the same, why are there more hard-line atheists in Czech than in the other countries of Europe? EB and I posed this question over lunch to Dave Patty, the American director of Josiah Ventures in Eastern Europe, whose facility hosted the conference in Czech at which I spoke. Dave explained why there are so many atheists in Czech.

Me, on the left standing, addressing 25 Czech missionaries, along with my translator, Josef Pavlinak, the director of KVZ ministries.

To quote Dave loosely, the Protestant Reformation actually began in what is now the Czech Republic under the leadership of Jan Huss 100 years before Luther. Yet the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, who claimed those lands at that time, was militantly Catholic and demanded that all the “Hussites” either flee or return to the Catholic Church. For those that did neither, they were imprisoned or even killed, including Huss who was burned at the stake as a heretic by the Catholic Church in 1415. (It must be noted that in 1999 Pope John Paul II expressed "deep regret for the cruel death inflicted" on Huss and suggested an inquiry as to whether Huss might be cleared of heresy.)

Mandatory membership in the Catholic Church continued for hundreds of years until the late 1800s and for 40 years there was religious freedom among the Czech people. Then came Hitler followed by two generations of atheistic Communism. Religious freedom returned to the Czech people with the fall of Communism but the Czechs have chosen to stay away from their churches.

However, God has not forgotten the Czech or the Polish people. He has raised up Spirit-led, forward-thinking laborers for both countries. God in His mercy continues to reveal Himself to these people who have ignored Him. Yet isn’t that what God is doing for the ENTIRE human race?