World Impact Ministries / Peter Youngren

The other day I stepped out of Coffee Culture on St. Paul Street. The rain was coming down heavily, so I lingered on the steps hoping for a quick improvement. Suddenly, a lady appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, shouting, “You people – why do you support the Jews over the Palestinians? That land belongs to the Palestinians, you know!” I have no idea who the person was, but she must have recognized me as an “evangelical Christian”, thus the “you people”. I hurried to explain that our organization works in Israel; six of our projects are with Jews and six with Palestinians. My response seemed to bring some calm.

Believers in Christ accept that something utterly amazing happened at the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Once and for all, God put the punishment for the world’s sins on Jesus. The phrase “the world’s sins” is all inclusive from Hitler’s murders to a gossiping church member; all was put on Christ. To millions this carries a profound meaning for their daily life, and they believe that what happened at the cross has power to transform people from the inside out. The message of what Christ did is commonly called “Gospel”, which means “Good News”.

(Peter is a regular contributing writer for the St. Catharines Standard newspaper. Enclosed is his latest editorial piece for your comment.)

In his book, Whistling In The Dark, Frederick Buechner writes, “There is perhaps no better proof of the existence of God, than the fact that year after year He survives the way his professional friends promote Him. If there are people who remain unconvinced let them tune into their TV for almost any of the big time pulpit pounders any Sunday morning of the year.”

Ouch!

Evidently Mr. Buechner has a problem with television preachers, and since I am one of them, I better pay attention. Is Christian television really that bad? I believe in listening to critics, including those who never attend church. You don’t have to agree with your critics, but you can learn something of value from almost anyone. When it comes to the quote from Buechner, I tend to agree—at least in part. Many Christian programs portray God as narrow minded, petulant, condemning and angry. A few weeks ago the organization I founded, World Impact Ministries, purchased The Christian Channel [Cogeco 186], so now I have the opportunity to do something about Christian television. Well, don’t expect wonders overnight, but I am keeping several common criticisms in mind, among them that Christian television is judgmental, boring and phony.

In the late eighties, think the Mulroney government, abortion was a hot political potato. The debate raged with considerable fervor into the nineties, until in this decade it has hardly been an issue that any political candidate with plans to get re-elected would want to tackle. Last time the issue was put to a vote in our federal parliament was twenty years ago, and with both pro-life and pro-choice forces deeply committed to a non-compromise position Canada was left without any abortion law. Right in line with Cuba, China, North Korea and handful of other nations. Even countries with arguably much more secularized populations such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland did not go that far, but retained some laws to protect the unborn in later stages of pregnancy,

The Maritime Provinces of Canada have always held a special place for me. It was there that I spent much of first five years in ministry going from town to town holding “revival meetings”, mostly in church auditoriums, but also in hockey arenas, tents and community halls. It has been a number of years since I was back there for any length of time, but last week we held series of rallies in most of the major cities. . .

In most of the meetings I conduct I lead people in what is commonly called the “sinner’s prayer”. This usually means that the preacher says a prayer sentence by sentence and those who want to receive Christ repeat that prayer. I think the sinner’s prayer has been a blessing to many, though, shockingly, it’s not in the Bible.

I was recently having my coffee and multigrain cereal, when I turned on the TV to catch the morning news. Talk show hosts Michael Reagan, son of late president Ronald Reagan and Stephanie Miller were on CNN’s early morning show discussing gay marriage. The segment was triggered by a beauty pageant where the American contestant was asked by one of the judges concerning her view of marriage, to which she replied that it is the union between one man and one woman. They showed the video clip and I thought the American beauty queen expressed herself rather well. Her statement had however received a furious and, in my opinion, degrading response from one of the judges.

There are a lot of offended Christians these days. Some of the things which seem to cause outrage and offense are; profanity on television, open display of homosexuality in movies and on television, humor that degrades Christian values. Well, that’s just for starters. When Christians express outrage, shock and offense, it is as if that expression in itself is a badge of spirituality. “Look at me; how shocked I am at the sin and worldliness around me. Shouldn’t you react in a similar way? Aren’t you equally shocked? Well, maybe your spiritual sensitivities aren’t as fine-tuned as mine”.

My fall happened in a split second. In my last blog I commented on how spectacular the third night of our Kisumu Gospel Festival was. I couldn’t possibly describe all the glorious details of the testimonies of healings, salvation and freedom. There is one other small detail that I didn’t mention. At the end of the night I was engaged in a conversation with the Mayor of Kisumu, when Megen Thurber, head of our Media department, waved to let me know some people wanted to take our picture.