Disclosure Day
Plus, Europe’s decline, microfinancing, and Circuit Rider John Dyer
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Signs and Wonders” is a column that shares thoughts on news items that either do not rise to the level of a news story for MinistryWatch or are slightly (even significantly) outside of our normal charity and philanthropy “beat.” My goal is to be punchy, opinionated, and not to worry much about being slightly off brand. If that is not for you, no hard feelings. But if it is…read on.
Microfinancing Takes a Beating. In the 1990s and 2000s, microfinancing was all the rage. The basic idea was to give entrepreneurs who could not qualify for loans at traditional banks an opportunity to take out a small loan to finance income-producing activities. Women could buy sewing machines and take in tailoring and alteration work to support their families. Men could buy motorcycles to take them to job sites or pickup trucks to start hauling or construction businesses. New reporting by the Wall Street Journal questions the effectiveness of such microfinancing activities. It is also interesting that Christian ministries that got on the microfinancing bandwagon (Opportunity International, Hope International, Five Talents, and others) are now pivoting to savings groups, financial literacy, and broader economic development because the evidence for traditional microcredit has been more mixed than early advocates expected.
Evangelical Palate Cleanser. If you find self-promoting (and, too often, self-destructive) Christian celebrities distasteful, John Dyer could be your palate cleanser. He lived in the 1800s, and he helped bring Christianity to the American West. He also ended up in the Colorado Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. To find out why, read this piece, which I wrote a year ago, but which I call your attention to this week because it is the 125th anniversary of his death.
Disclosure Day. Steven Spielberg’s new movie “Disclosure Day” is being touted as a “takedown” of Christianity. Spielberg suggested the discovery of extraterrestrial life would create a crisis for the Christian faith. That is not right. Nothing about Christian doctrine would be challenged by the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Christians from C.S. Lewis to Larry Norman (in his song “Unidentified Flying Object”) have written about this idea, and it is interesting but innocuous. A more troubling aspect of Spielberg’s film, according to Rod Dreher, is its overt Gnosticism, an ancient heresy that keeps getting reheated and half-baked by modernists and postmodernists. To read Dreher’s critique of the film, click here. By the way, the film is getting decent reviews and is performing well at the box office, taking in $44 million its first weekend, against a $110 million production budget.
Europe Agonistes. Culturally speaking, things are strange in Europe. Birth rates are plummeting there even more than here. This fact will have profound economic and societal implications in the years ahead. I visited Spain 15 years ago and wrote about what I saw there for WORLD Magazine. (And here.) Here are the headlines from that story: Large, gorgeous, empty churches, an economy that lacked confidence, and conservative political parties hunkered down. Today, things have changed somewhat. The economy is better, though not great. Center-right conservatives, represented by the Partido Popular, have been overtaken by the far-right Vox party. I started thinking about this when I read that Franklin Graham recently did a crusade in Madrid that attracted 10,000 people. That sounds like a lot until you realize the musician Bad Bunny attracted 60,000 on the same night. Read my friend Bruce Bower’s account of what is happening in Spain.
UFC in the White House. Christians often talk about the “good, true, and beautiful” as if they are separate things. They are not, these three qualities are unitary, of-a-piece. Something cannot be really TRUE or GOOD unless it is also BEAUTIFUL. Something that is ugly or banal aesthetically is also, to that extent, also less true and less good. These are ideas to consider as we assess the events of June 14, which was — in my view — another “wag the dog” spectacle designed to distract the masses. Juvenal had a phrase for it: panem et circenses. Bread and circuses. He also said that such spectacles were a sign of a nation in decline.
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