Defining Moments

Preserving Knowledge

A gentleman in our church invited Wendi and me to join him and a couple from Germany for lunch this week. The German couple has served in the church (Lutheran, of course) for 30+ years; the husband, Barnhart, is a pastor from a long line of pastors. He said they have basically two kinds of people there, Lutherans and atheists.

I was intrigued with the description of his ministry—part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany and quite literally evangelical; bringing people to Christ. He sees his work as that of a missionary there. The camps he oversees are bringing kids to Christ. The newer of the two church buildings with which they’re affiliated dates back to 1847—relatively new by German church standards.

They grew up behind the “Iron Curtain.” I asked what that was like for someone of faith. Barnhart struggled with his self-taught English to describe to us some of the discrimination against his family as pastors during the communist rule. Religious leaders were often rounded up and sent off to special camps. Though the Lord spared them that experience, he later learned that his family made the list of those targeted to go.

Coincidence? It is an amazing thought to consider how God protects His people and furthers His plan in the world, despite man’s inhumanity to man and full-on assault against Him. I remember growing up with the Iron Curtain as a normative element of the world’s situation. East and West Germany were part and parcel of the geography of Europe. It seemed a permanent symbol of the battle between freedom and religious/governmental oppression. Yet, there we sat with a pastor and his wife, talking to us about an opportunity to partner in a camping ministry in eastern Germany, bringing young people into relationship with Christ, in the once-behind the Iron Curtain.

There are situations that seem hopeless in today’s world. Some have existed much longer than the 28 years of the Berlin Wall. They constitute walls of resistance to the propagation of the gospel. I’m not talking about Islamic nations or communist China.

The walls most resistant to the penetration of the good news of Jesus Christ aren’t made of cement, spikes and barbed wire. They are ideological; philosophical; moral and theological. In short, the most effective walls are not physical; they are constructed from knowledge, or the lack thereof.

The physical walls did not block the beliefs of Christians like Barnhart and his wife while languishing under communist rule. It may have limited the exercise of those beliefs but, once set free, lives are being changed for Christ as they never could have been before the wall came down. This can be attributed to the fact that the necessary knowledge did not die.

But, as our featured speaker Wednesday night, Dallas Willard, noted—essential (moral) knowledge can disappear within the span of a generation. The strategy of tyrants seeking to snuff out belief in God is to wait long enough for their godless policies to obliterate belief. So far, it hasn’t worked.

A better strategy seems to have been to consign faith to its own category, separate from knowledge. Science becomes the bastion of truth and faith is relegated to the realm of disproven superstition.

But, try as the might, faith is alive and truth is passed on from generation to generation. Coincidence? No, just as God preserved Christianity behind the Iron Curtain, He keeps faith alive in seemingly hopeless circumstances.

This Sunday, you’ll see how God turned the tables on a shameful attempt to obliterate God’s people. It seemed hopeless, but God was at work, preserving His people and the knowledge essential to the passing on of faith from generation to generation. He’s still at work.

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” Hosea 4:6 nkjv