Some of the right criticizes President Trump for the tariffs in favor of what has been termed, “free trade.”  If you are a true conservative, you support free trade, and if you don’t, this marks you as not quite a conservative.  I’m sure I haven’t arrived at a conclusion on this, but I have some thoughts.

Earlier Posts:   One  Two  Three  Four  Five     Latest Wrap-Ups:  One   Two   Three

On Monday night of our second week, I parked a block away from our flat in London near a local park.  When you get into the outskirts of London, the parks are ill kept.  It reminds me of certain inner-city parks where we live.  You look like you could be in two different countries.  We left our flat together Tuesday morning, the four of us, and I was relieved the car was still there.  We took off to Oxford, which was going a different direction from London.  It would take us a little less than an hour to drive to a car park outside of Oxford, and then ride a bus into the city center.  It’s hard to park and drive in Oxford.

If any place is a university town, it is Oxford, a sort of university with a town wrapped around it.  The architecture of the city’s medieval center, essentially the 38 colleges that make up the University, led poet Matthew Arnold to nickname it the “City of Dreaming Spires.”  Oxford is the oldest English University in the world, dating back to 1096.  It is also the location of many important historical events in England.  Because Oxford itself is so old, it feels like you are arriving at a medieval city, which is not something you could experience in the United States.  I’ve been on the Harvard campus in Cambridge Massachusetts, but it seems to try to copy Oxford in miniature.  The closest to looking like Oxford though, that I have seen in the United States, is the United States Military Academy in West Point, related to style and immensity.  West Point is amazing if you have never visited.  It is the oldest scientific college, certainly the oldest engineering school, in America.

We arrived in town with the idea that we would first find something to eat, and we stopped at a British pie shop, called Pieminster.  By pie, I mean a hot meat pie.  It was the perfect combination of English, satisfying, and fast before we would start a tour of Oxford, and it checked that off our list of food items to have tasted in England.  The hot savory pie, when done as such in the English way, is a highlight of English food, worth the buying and eating.

At different locations on our trip, we took tours.  Even when we didn’t pay for a tour, we often used the Rick Steves travel app for the various tours he had of places, which will save you money on a tour.  I’ll talk more about that later, because we used him in Italy and France.  Oxford has numerous tours you can use, and it’s difficult to know which one to use.  I read the reviews and weighed them against the cost.  If you’re going to get all the way to the location, you want to take full advantage and a tour can help — we paid for some of these tours all through the trip to Europe.

We used Footprints for our Oxford tour and paid for the walking one — there was also a free one where they assume you’ll pay anyway with a tip to the guide at the end, a totally different business model — but I wouldn’t take the one we took again, if I could choose.  The young man, who gave it, someone who had grown up in Oxford, the town, and did not attend the University, gave it in an interesting manner as related to his delivery.  He didn’t, however, know much and so he was weak on the information, which is what I would have wanted.  He played to the popular material that, I guess, would have satisfied more people.  It also gave me nothing on the city and I was wanting more about the city of Oxford in addition, because I knew that Bloody Mary executed famous Protestants right there in Oxford.  We weren’t brought there.  It was a 100% university tour against what was advertised.

Our tour guide kicked off our tour by taking us to Balliol, one of the oldest of the Oxford colleges.  He was good at explaining how college worked at Oxford.  One would think, even as I had, that each of the colleges focused on a certain subject matter, but that’s not what each college is about.  Each college is based on a social arrangement.  You join a college, because it has its own unique niche or view or take.  Today, if you are a lesbian, you know to prefer to join such-and-such college, and that kind of thing.  It would be something like the idea of fraternities or societies in the United States.  J. K. Rowling, it is said, modeled the four houses of Hogwarts after the varied colleges.  A lot of Harry Potter matches up with aspects of Oxford, and it was used heavily for the films.

A student may apply to go to a particular college at Oxford with the plan that he will reside with that college, so as to develop camaraderie, connection, stability, and the unique traits of that college, a particular imprint.  Each college has its own dining hall, chapel, residence, coat of arms, and scarf color.  All of the dining halls and chapels look about the same, all ancient and traditional.  The dining halls have the paintings of notable graduates of that college on every wall, in many cases including a prime minister or some important head of state.

When we left Balliol, I asked our guide if he knew of John Wycliffe.  He didn’t.  This tells you the state of education at least in the town of Oxford, but also the condition of the tour.  A house in Balliol College is named Wycliffe Hall after the one time dean, John Wycliffe, also the morning star of the English Reformation.  Balliol grads make up a who’s who list of prime ministers and significant thinkers, including Adam Smith.

Physically attached to the Bodleian library is the oldest building still remaining at Oxford, the divinity school, which was the first full student assembly building and the oldest surviving.  It was an armory for the cavaliers, the side supporting the crown, in the English civil war.

The last stop of the tour was at a special door opposite the entrance to the University Church, where C. S. Lewis spoke in chapel at Oxford (you can read about here).  It was this door and the lamp in close proximity that are said to have inspired the Narnia tales by Lewis.  Lewis would have walked by this place about every day.

After our tour, we took in a tea, which includes scones and small sandwiches, in a cafe in a fourteenth century building next to what’s called, Radcliffe Camera, which is a famous part of the Oxford library, a circular building.  It was a nice break to get off our feet after a lot of walking.  Across the street is the actual Bodleian library and we had a ticket to the Tolkien exhibition there.  There were many first edition and handwritten and hand drawn items of Tolkien, telling the story of his life and books.  Tolkien and Lewis both taught at Oxford, both lived in town, and were friends.  Tolkien taught Middle English and Middle English literature at Oxford, something that would have paralleled the unique language he created for Middle Earth..  He not only wrote The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, but also translated Beowulf into modern English and wrote a commentary.

We also had a ticket to see the Christ Church College chapel and dining hall.  Christ Church is one of the largest and most well-known colleges at Oxford, begun by Henry VIII.  Among its buildings are Tom Tower, designed by Christopher Wren, also the architect of many famous buildings in London, including St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Parliament met in its dining hall during the reign of King Charles I, which was during the English Civil War.  In the floor of the chapel is a memorial to John and Charles Wesley, who attended Christ Church and also met George Whitefield, studying at Oxford at the same time.

There was much more to see at Oxford, but we didn’t have the time.  Most Americans wouldn’t know that Blenheim Palace is just a few minutes away from Oxford, the birthplace and childhood home of Winston Churchill.  We did a lot of Churchill on this trip, so we couldn’t fit in Blenheim.  Some reading here perhaps knew that President Trump just dined with the present Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace with Prime Minister Theresa May.

While we were at Chartwell, the day before, a guide there explained why Churchill didn’t inherit the title Duke of Marlborough or Blenheim Palace.  One of the guides at Chartwell, we were told, was a secretary for Churchill, and typed his letters.  She would have been old enough to have been one of those.  John Churchill, the son of an earlier Winston Churchill, was a war hero of various battles in England, so received Blenheim and the title from various English monarchs.  Winston was not the oldest heir, so he didn’t receive the inheritance.  Blenheim though was his house and the place he was engaged to his wife.

We took the bus back to our car and then took a quick trip, very nearby to the Kilns, which was the home of C. S. Lewis.  Maybe it was in the country at one time, but now it is in a residential area on the fringe of Oxford, and you wouldn’t really know that you had arrived to it, if you weren’t looking for it.  We had tried to get a tour of the house, which was by appointment only.  We were not able, but we did get a look on the outside, since it was so close to where our car was parked.  After a little look and some pictures, we drove back to London.

We would get packed that night, because we were leaving the area the next morning and for the first time in a week.  We would drop off our rental car and take the underground to the King’s Cross Station to head northward by train to the area of York.

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study.  On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.

PART ONE

People read here, as evidenced in the statistics on my dashboard.  Just because I may not get comments or compelling ones, ones that indicate people with understanding, doesn’t mean that I’m not hitting target or that those people aren’t reading.  Maybe they don’t care.  Maybe they have something to hide.  On July 2, eight days ago, I wrote a significant post on a major rift in evangelicalism.  In my opinion, it’s not repairable, because it is foundational or structural.  That shouldn’t be ignored, but it’s what I see happening.

Everyone who claims to be an evangelical Christian has skin in the game with and for evangelicalism.  You want it to do as well as it could do.  It’s better for everyone if it does.  The worse it is, the worse everything is.

My analysis of the rift said it was systemic.  The assessments I’m reading from the few evangelicals who care, conservative ones, are missing the point, I believe (read this article by Phil Johnson, and I’d predict there are many more to come).  They are picking at the fruit or even the foliage of the issue.  I hope they aren’t doing it on purpose, but I’m writing this to explore the cause of the rift a little further and help make it understood.  The real problem, the underlying one, relates to all history, major systems of interpretation of scripture, apostasy, the truth, and even reality — actually more than all those, but I tell you those for you to gauge the magnitude.

Only one thing has happened in the world, not two.  God is one.  The Bible only means one thing.  Allowing for two isn’t generous.  It is a lie.  If you allow for two, you’re aren’t helping.  Conservative evangelicals have acted like they’re helping, but they are pandering, which is ironic here.  Evangelicals pander to the left and in this case some further left than others, but all of them are pandering.  Let’s just say that I would be happy if I could help the parties involved to become “woke” to this occurrence.

The concern of Phil Johnson and others is posed as “shifting the evangelical focus away from true gospel issues.”  That’s about as light a criticism as Phil could have given.  He’s not saying they are corrupting the gospel.  His accusation is that they are just not putting the focus where it needs to be, which is “dividing evangelicals over something other than the gospel.”  Does that really represent what’s going on?  If those Phil addresses would just move the focus back on the gospel, which would stop the division, is that the solution?  Is the leftist ideology acceptable as long as it’s not the focus?

What I wrote was that two contradictory systems of interpretation, which are really two different views of the world, cannot coexist.  Truth is not protected and preserved by ignoring these doctrinal and practical variations in order to get along with one another.  The “thought leaders” Phil Johnson now addresses have been invited to keynote.  They have been elevated by Grace Community Church, John MacArthur, and Phil.  I would call this the chickens coming home to roost.

A major manifestation of postmillennialism is liberation theology.  Mark Dever has said,

For us to conclude that we must agree upon . . .  a certain view of the millennium in order to have fellowship together is, I think, not only unnecessary for the body of Christ, but it is therefore both unwarranted and therefore condemned by scripture. So if you’re a pastor and you’re listening to me, you understand me correctly if you think I’m saying you are in sin if you lead your congregation to have a statement of faith that requires a particular millennial view.

“A particular millennial view” is at the bottom of the rise of leftist evangelicalism.  “Woke” evangelicalism, is a system of interpretation.  Postmillennialism, versus premillennialism, parallels a rise of leftist or woke evangelicalism.  Progressivism, built upon Darwinian optimism for a utopian society, mirrors postmillennialism.  The foundations of this I explain in part one, and I won’t want to repeat myself too much.  I’m drawing attention to this once again.

“Together for the Gospel” isn’t just together for the gospel and “the Gospel Coalition” doesn’t just coalesce around the gospel.  Both have in them the destruction of the gospel.  They are together for and they coalesce around postmillennialism as well.  That’s why Dever says that “you are in sin if you lead your congregation to have a statement of faith that requires a particular millennial view.”  Conservatives like Phil Johnson and John MacArthur have taken and take Dever to heart.  Liberation theology is a millennial viewpoint.

There will continue to be confusion, division, and departure from the acceptance of more than one system of interpretation of scripture.  You aren’t free to take scripture how you want.  That acceptance undermines and destroys the truth, including the gospel.  This we are seeing happening in evangelicalism right before our eyes.

Part One and Part Two (just posted, so you can read these two, two and three, like one longer post)

The first two weeks of our Europe trip were spent in the UK.  I rented a car in London on the second Monday for two, day trips, the first to Chartwell, the home of Winston Churchill.  For Americans, Churchill is high on name recognition and a very colorful figure.  However, many rank him as the most significant person of the twentieth century.  It’s difficult to make up those lists, especially in a day of political correctness.  Without the leadership of Winston Churchill, how would the West have done against Adolf Hitler’s Germany?  It seems very likely that England would have capitulated.  It’s hard to imagine.

Chartwell is in the English countryside in the county of Kent, after which I was named.  Churchill’s place sits on a beautiful piece of property.  From the back of his house, you can look down into an idyllic meadow with rock fences and ponds.  It is a fairly large house depending on your standard, but by no means extravagant.  Now it’s a kind of museum.  You get the walk up the path from the parking lot, the trees and foliage and green grass all around, dotted by small ponds.  You pass through a stone wall and gate, his small koi pond with little concrete squares as a bridge in the middle, and the side of his home.  Churchill would cross that walkway to sit and feed his fish.

All of the rooms breath Winston and his wife Clementine.  Photographs and paintings hang all over, reminding you of his life, his deeds, his family, and his personality.  You walk into his study, a large painting of Blenheim Palace, his birthplace, childhood home, and where he was engaged to Clementine.  You are looking at the location where he did much of his planning and wrote many of his books.  Down the hill from the house is his painting studio and inside are a number of his paintings.  There was no television or internet and men developed hobbies as a diversion and painting was one of his.  I don’t think he was very good.

In the very last room of the house before you walk out is a small store and then some items of historical value like a museum.  The house is his house.  The museum to Churchill is in the war room in London.  On the wall is a screen that will play various videos from his life, whatever you choose, and I picked his funeral.  Churchill had an elaborate funeral, and tears filled my eyes at the respect the English people showed this man at his death that very often disrespected in his lifetime.

Churchill, like Thatcher, was a Reagan type of figure.  One is given the impression that they are hated by the countries, even though they win elections and in Reagan’s case, a landslide.  Thatcher was one of the longest serving Prime Ministers.  The hatred in my opinion is real, but the size is a media fabrication.  It’s a small number of harmful individuals who show and then publish their opposition through forms of discrediting.  These historical figures were loved by the rank and file Englishmen and Americans, which is why Chartwell as a national trust property is one of the most popular.  Americans love visiting the Reagan library.  I hear it all the time.

I remember weeping as I watched the funeral procession of cars, driving out to Reagan’s burial place.  I’ve been there myself and it is a wonderful location, similar in its own way to Chartwell for Churchill.  The ranch and the English countryside parallel well for the two men.  As I watched the footage at Chartwell of Churchill’s funeral, I also teared up.  It was one of two places on our trip that I could have sobbed out loud, the other being at the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach in Normandy France.  Several times I cried, identifying myself with families of deceased young men, who had given their lives for their country.

We drove back to our flat in London and found someplace we could park for free nearby.  We took the 207 bus to Shepherd’s Bush station and then the underground to the neighborhood of Notting Hill.  This is very different in kind than Chartwell.  At one time, Notting Hill was poor, but now it is fashionable and posh with its Victorian townhouses and colorful and eclectic small shops.  It’s a destination for foodies, who want to sample varied cuisine in West London.  I have two daughters.  They went to Chartwell and I went to Notting Hill.

I continue riffing.  I had talked a little about coffee in Europe, but I must admit that England is a little different because of the existence of Costa, a coffee shop like an England version of Starbucks or Peets.  We drank coffee once there and you can get a large coffee, not just the miniature cups characteristic of Italy and France.  We visited there near Windsor Castle in the little shopping area of the queen.  We also stopped in Caffe Nero in Edinburgh, Scotland, which looks like a competition for Costa.  There’s nothing in Europe like Dunkin Donuts.  We don’t have Dunkin really in California either, but I’m a big Dunkin fan against the instincts of what Colin Maxwell rightfully called the coffee snobs.

Water.  When you visit Europe, you say, I want water.  They ask, still or sparkling.  Still?  Isn’t all water still?  I want mine flowing and moving, please.  No.  What they mean, in my opinion, is, do you want to pay 6 to 8 euros for water in a fancy bottle that allows us to charge you for water instead of giving it to you free, like restaurants do in the United States?  I have noticed U.S. restaurants are starting to pick up on this too and it’s the kind of trend Californians would accept, because they want to be Europe in most instances.

One bottle of still water in Europe will fill four small glasses about two-thirds full, and you will find yourself taking very tiny sips, so that you don’t run out.  That is aggravating.  But then you get to the subject of ice in your drink.  Europe serves you tepid water.  It’s not cold and it’s not hot.  I didn’t spew it out of my mouth, a la the Laodicean church of Revelation 3, but I’m informing you of the absence of ice overseas. If you wanted ice, you would have to ask for it and most places don’t have it.  McDonalds has ice in its beverages in Europe, but it’s about 6 small cubes huddled at the bottom, that melt within a few moments of arrival.  I went to McDonalds?

According to my observation, McDonalds is “American food” in Europe.  McDonalds is making it very big all over Europe.  It looks like Europeans love McDonalds.  You can be downtown Rome and McDonalds is advertised all over.  McDonalds is everywhere.  While my wife and daughters were shopping in Rome at one juncture, I went into McDonalds for the distinct purpose of getting a beverage with ice, or just seeing what it was like.

The other two American fast food restaurants I noticed were Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken, the latter mostly in England.  I talked to a man at the first church we visited in England and he said KFC isn’t good in England, because the chicken tastes like fish.  He thinks they feed fish to the chicken in England, making their KFC chicken taste like fish.  He said it was nasty.

You order your food on computer touchscreens at McDonalds in Europe.   You touch what you want, pay, and then turn around and walk to the front counter, where they get your food to you very fast.  This is a major difference than European restaurants, fast food, with the emphasis on fast.  Fast isn’t an outlier in the U. S., but it is in Europe, so it is a uniqueness that is itself an interesting quality to the Europeans.  I had the fries while I sat and read and those are identical to American fries.  McDonalds is booming in at least Rome and Paris.

I understand the value of the baguette in Paris at least.  They do great with it.  They have actual competitions for the best baguette.  Food is expensive in Paris, discouraging its purchase, but you can get a baguette, an excellent one, an award winning one for one euro.  That’s a great deal there, so you buy the baguette and then some kind of cheese.  The cheese shop in France is the fromagerie.  The French get their baguette at the boulangerie, which is their name for bakery, and then some type of cheese at the fromagerie.  That can be lunch for them at a reasonable cost.

The next to last day in France in the morning we went to the Palace of Versaille.  I’ll talk more about that later, but we had to take a train out to that, like going to Windsor Castle outside of London.  There are similarities.   I wanted to buy transportation to Versaille, but it wasn’t on the screen, so I got the regular transit ticket for everyone.  We went underground to where the train leaves for Versailles, and our ticket got us all the way through to Versailles, not stopping us from passing through turnstyles.  I wasn’t sure still if it was the right ticket, so as soon as I arrived, I walked up to a French train authority, showed the ticket, and asked if this should have worked, communicating that I wanted to make sure we paid for our ticket.  This person didn’t know English very well, and just exclaimed loudly that it was not the right ticket.  Duh.

She took me to an English speaker and an higher authority and they said they would fine me only 35 euros for the wrong ticket.  I was very surprised.  I asked if that applied to the total for the trip and our return.  She said, no, these 35 euros was out of good will, not charging us 35 euros for all four of us, just for one of us.  This was unacceptable to me.  Totally.  It would not happen in the United States. I told them.  This is a cultural difference in France.  A socialist country wants to fine people.  It’s not attempting service.  My assessment is that France is not a service oriented country with people who want to help.  It’s an entitlement country that wants to milk you of what it can.

We took a train from York to Alnmouth in our second week.  When we arrived at our destination, all four of us were standing at the door, and first I waited to see if the door would open.  It wasn’t opening, so I was getting nervous.  I started searching the door, wondering how it opened.  All public transportation I had ever seen at the worst had a button to push, but the door normally just opened automatically at a stop.  I looked around wondering what was happening and then the train started.  Wow.  We were moving on to somewhere else.  I left my luggage and found a conductor.  He was ver apologetic about not being there to help and not seeing us.  He assured us we could get off the next stop and catch a train back to Alnmouth for no charge.  He said we were required to open the door manually.

You opened the door to this older train by lowering the window and unlatching it on the outside with your hand.  Who would have figured that out?  I don’t know.  I had never opened a train door by hand like that.  My first instinct is don’t break the train door.  I would not have thought of lowering a window as a means of opening the door, but this was, it seemed, standard fare in England.  It took us about forty five minutes round trip because of this mistake.  We stopped in the next village, which was interesting, and then I talked with a Scottish train employee while we waited for the return train.

Trump is a conversation everywhere.  People talk about him in the United States.  I’m saying they do, but in California only in hushed tones.  The word Trump triggers leftists.  They can’t hear his name without explosions occurring.  In Europe a regular conversation could be had, because Europe doesn’t understand Trump.  Europe generally doesn’t understand the United States.  I understood Europe.  It’s sad, but I understood it.  I’ll write more about that, but he said that the Scots complain about Trump and his new golf course.

When we got back to the U. S., I went to Turnberry online to see the course.  It’s on the Western coast of Scotland, close to England.  It gave very positive reviews, glowing opinions, as one of the best place people had ever visited.  Again, this is a political, media creation, this widespread opposition.  Actual visitors love it.  I don’t know how someplace gets close to 5 out of 5 with hundreds of opinions, and yet it is a disfavored destination.  This is just political opinion intended to damage Trump.

Number One

The first Sunday afternoon of our trip to Europe my wife, two youngest daughters (17 and 20), and I took the underground to Bunn Hill Fields Burial Ground, which is an old nonconformist cemetery.  We started at the Elephant and Castle Station, where Metropolitan Tabernacle is, and took the Northern line to the Old Street Station, then a few minute walk.  You couldn’t be buried in the official boundaries of London for a long time, unless you were Church of England, hence a nonconformist cemetery then outside the city limits.  The people buried at Bunn Hill really are a who’s who of true believers for true believers.

When you walk to the entrance, you would have trouble knowing Bunn Hill was of any kind of special historical significance.  It would look almost meaningless, a very old cemetery that almost no one cares about.  It is overgrown with grass and weeds, relatively without care, especially in contrast to the famous burial places in England that are kept in pristine condition.  There is one main path that goes right through the middle that serves more as a shortcut between two streets.  We came to the center, where there is a “T” and a very small run-down building, the only one in the burial ground, really a shack with a sign that says it’s for the caretaker.

The little building also posts a map that indicates where significant gravestones and memorials are.  No one was there on a Sunday and gates blocked little paths that lead through most of the cemetery.  Out in the open were the tombs with large monuments to John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe.  Over one of the fences, you could easily see the large tomb of John Owen, someone who has edified my life greatly.  We knew where the graves of Isaac Watts and Susanna Wesley were, but we couldn’t get to them without some extreme climbs over difficult fences in our dress clothes.  I was happy to have seen what I did.

We walked to the very end of the grounds to find any other avenue through, then headed back to where we entered, stopping a moment where we thought we might be able to glimpse the Susanna Wesley marker.   Right there at the same time was an older English lady, who asked what we were doing.  She was a Methodist, who attended Wesley’s chapel, which we discovered was just across the street from Bun Hill.  They met there that day for the retirement of their minister.  She pointed toward the Susanna Wesley grave, which we really couldn’t see from that distance, but we continued to talk with her.

She told us that Susanna Wesley never left the Church of England, even though her son started Methodism.  However, she requested burial in the nonconformist cemetery near her son, so he could see her grave from his house there every day.  Wesley’s house is in direct alignment with the large tombstone of his mother and he could see it looking out of the front window of his house.  John Wesley himself is buried near the chapel across the street, not very far away.  He built his house in 1779 and lived there the last twelve years of his life.  It is now a museum to Methodism, which was closed on Sunday.

We talked to the elderly Methodist woman for awhile and she had a great sense of humor. Margaret Thatcher was a member of the same chapel as her.  Thatcher was married in that chapel.  I don’t speak fondly of this, but this woman was present at the christening of Margaret Thatcher’s twin children, Carol and Mark, at the same chapel.

A giant statue of John Wesley sits in front of his chapel.  We didn’t see the grave site, because it was behind the chapel, which was also closed.  Wesley has historic significance to me, but not personal or theological significance.  In general, I view Methodism in a negative related to the faith of Christ.  However, I saw several memorials to Wesley on our trip.

Wesley had the statue in front of his chapel, but we also saw a statue outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where he had attended.   About two blocks away from there North is a wall memorial to what is said to be Wesley’s conversion experience, having been a priest in the Church of England.   We viewed a frieze in honor of Wesley in Westminster Abbey.  In the floor of Christchurch chapel at Oxford is a memorial to the Wesleys, students in that college, for starting Methodism.  The Wesleys and Methodism register in England as a major impact in English history.

I’ll call this a riff on various subjects I haven’t yet covered in no particular order.  Restaurants in Europe function different than the United States related to time.  You sit down and wait.  You look around and it doesn’t look that busy.  They aren’t waiting on you because that’s just how they roll.  Finally someone visits your table and you order.  Then you wait a long time again.  You eat.  You wait a long time for the check.  You really don’t know if you’re supposed to walk to the desk.  No.  They are coming.  Expect eating to be a much longer experience.

Italian pizza.  We ate several, once in Venice, a few times in Rome.  They don’t taste like pizza in the United States.  Who is to complain about the origins of pizza?  I like U. S. pizza better.  The best I’ve ever had is under the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn, Julianas.  Amazing.  I can only speak for the four times I had pizza in Italy, but it is bland.  They didn’t work with the spices like America.  They’ve got good thin crust due to their wood fired ovens.  I’m sure the sauce and cheese is legitimate.  It’s top notch.  It just does not taste as good.  America wins on taste.  You’ll get the authentic pizza in Italy, but it does not taste as good as the United States.

Gelato.  I loved all the gelato in Italy.  We ate it every day at least once and a few times twice. Gelaterias are everywhere there.  If you pass one, another will come along soon.  It was all good with some a little bitter than others.  However, the best gelato I ever had was hands down in Brunswick, Maine, which seems like a strange place to beat the gelato of Italy, but I really did like it better.  It is Gelato Fiasco in Maine, and they ship it all over the United States.  It started with some brothers in Maine, but their gelato is out of this world wonderful.  Maybe somewhere in Italy, the gelato is better, but I haven’t tasted it.

Eating on the sidewalk.  Very common in Italy and France especially is eating on the street.  You sit at a table on the sidewalk very close to the street and people walk right by you.  This is a great experience that hasn’t been matched by outdoor eating in the United States.  Our last meal in Europe was at a cafe in Paris.  They have cafes all over the place and these are very different than a cafe in the United States.  We sat at a table on the sidewalk for breakfast.  They brought a basket of bread, which included several baguettes and croissants with various toppings.  Then came freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee, and scrambled eggs.

When we came out of the underground in Paris, which, by the way, is the best public transportation of the major cities we visited.  It’s very fast and convenient.  Every city is different with its tickets, but Paris gets you everywhere by train mostly underground.  We didn’t need to take one bus there.  For London, you have to take the big red double decker buses for which it is famous, to get everywhere you might need.  When we stepped out on the Paris street, we turned and saw four different cafes.  I stood there and checked the numbers of the stars for each, and they really where all equal, so we picked the neatest looking and ate there.

Coffee is a different experience in Europe.  They don’t do the bottomless cup, the American cup of joe, a mug and refills.  I love that about America.  I missed it.  Europe has its coffee benefits, but in my opinion it doesn’t beat the carafe placed on your table or the waitress who walks by and asks to top you off.

Europe is the king of little cups.  Do they understand how small their cups are?  How do they get away with it?  I’ve read that Howard Shultz studied coffee in Europe and brought it to the United States.  I walked into the coffee shop that was his model in Rome.  It’s right next to the Pantheon, same neighborhood or piazza as that ancient landmark.  It was very busy and it did look familiar, convincing as the Starbucks model.

They don’t serve you coffee in Europe.  They don’t have “coffee.”  If you want coffee, you order “Americano,” and they don’t give you the little creamers or usually a cup of creamer.  They don’t offer cream.  They offer milk.  You can ask for it hot.  They don’t have glass containers of sugar.  Very often it is sugar cubes in a small bowl.  The cups are small.  You take one little sip and you are a third done with your cup.  You know how much you paid for it and you regret any haste. As I see it, coffee hasn’t replaced tea in the UK.  Coffee is very popular in Italy and France.  I’ve got two little stories to end this installment of my tales of Europe.

We were walking to get on public transportation to the Vatican on the Rome side of the Tiber River.  It looked like a big storm was going to happen, with large raindrops slapping us in the face.  We ducked into a little Italian restaurant and asked if we could just get coffee.  It was almost empty at that moment and we were seated.  We ordered coffee and two desserts to share.  It immediately started storming, rain running through the streets like a river.  The restaurant was instantly packed.  We had chosen well.

Our four various coffees came.  Very small cups.  The desserts came and the Italians and the French are amazing with those.  A whole different level even in what might seem like an average restaurant.  I can’t say the same for the English.  I nursed my coffee, knowing no refill, no top-off, no nothing was coming.  We ate every dessert to the final crumb.  Like I explained before, we waited and waited and waited for the check.  It had already stopped raining.  We had to get the waiters attention.

Let me take a break for a comment about Italian waiters.  Italian restaurants have more waiters than waitresses and they are masculine in general.  I didn’t have one Italian waiter that gave me any effeminate impression.  Italy has the best table service as a whole I have ever seen.  The waiters seem like normal men with no lisp or female mannerisms.  Half of what I get in the United States is like this.  I can’t say why this hasn’t reached Italy, but I have my theories.

Our masculine Italian waiter came with the little credit card gizmo everyone uses everywhere in Europe.  They bring it right to the table.  They don’t take your card and come back with something to sign and add a tip.  They don’t even ask for a tip in Europe.  However, we paid to sit down in that restaurant, called a service fee.  I think they expect you to get a whole meal at a restaurant if you are going to sit down there.  We were charged 35 euros for what we consumed.  However, he punched in the wrong numbers, 95 instead of 35, and I paid 95 euros for four cups of coffee.  I told him it was the most expensive coffee in the world.  He laughed.  He gave me cash to make up the difference, which I needed anyway.

We were on the highway back from Normandy and we had to pay tolls both ways.  That was a surprise.  Sometimes their little automated booths took your card and sometimes they did not.  I found machines were very often not trustworthy in Europe.  It’s a bummer in a foreign country to have a machine rip you off, because you just don’t have the feeling of the same means of finding justice when you aren’t on American soil.  You’ve got to learn to deal with the little things.  I knew I would need euros for these toll machines and I was out, so I looked for a place to get cash, and there was a stop with a gas station.  I pumped diesel into my rental car by the litre and went in to ask for an ATM.  They had one.

A good idea on foreign trips is to get a debit card with no foreign transaction fees.  I did that and it worked out very well as a consistent way to get cash when I needed it.  Credit goes to Thomas Ross for that one, no pun intended.  I got my cash but I needed coinage, so I ordered a coffee in this gas station to get it.  I looked at the menu and there was no Americano, so I said to these French only speakers, reading off the sign, 100% Arabica, small.  They came back with my small coffee.  I’m not kidding.  It was the size of a dixie cup.  I’m not exaggerating.  Think a dixie cup.  That’s not all.  It was half full.  I ordered a half full dixie cup of coffee for 1.90 euros.  When I arrived at the car with that dixie cup of coffee, it was a big laugh in our car.  It was the price of getting coins for the toll.  I don’t think someone can call what they do with that little liquid, drinking.  You can’t even sip.  This is a true representation of wetting one’s tongue.

Part One

I’ve written on the motivation for evangelism already this year (here), but in light of the dust storm of evangelism, I want to revisit.   In part one, I wrote that evangelicals in our area have a goal of numerical growth, making their group get bigger.  They are motivated by getting bigger and all that goes along with that.  If they do get bigger, they claim that as evidence of God’s working.

Someone who would seem on the other end of the spectrum from the evangelicals, Steven Anderson, also presents unfounded numerical success as a motivation to his adherents for “soulwinning,” which isn’t biblical evangelism.

In both above cases, little to no evangelism occurs.  Numerical success is the motive and different strategies are employed to reach that same goal.  Evangelism is difficult.  People don’t want to evangelize.  In both examples, it really isn’t being done, because both parties are missing the point.

A dust storm of evangelism arises from either no motivation, a lack of motivation, or the wrong motivation for evangelism, so evangelism isn’t done, doesn’t take place.  The impression is that it is getting done because people see numbers.  It isn’t.  More damage is done than good because of this dust storm created, indicative of a lot of activity, leaving an impression that things are going great.

Evangelism is preaching the gospel. That’s what the word means.  Evangelism is a compound word with the words “good news” and “proclaim” in it.  The good news is that people can be saved.  Evangelism is proclaiming to an individual or a group how that God can and will save them.  Evangelism occurs when a believer preaches the gospel to an unbeliever.  There are many unbelievers compared to much fewer believers.  Believers don’t lack in recipients or targets for evangelism.  They are everywhere in every direction local, regional, statewide, throughout the country and the world.

Actual evangelism is supposed to be the means of the numerical growth of the church.  Scripture at least implies church growth as a motivation in scripture, just not the most common or obvious one.  It is an indirect motivation. The Jerusalem church grew through evangelism.  The Apostle Paul said the edifying of the body of Christ occurs through the work of the ministry (Eph 4), and the primary work of the ministry is evangelism.

Even with numerical growth tied to evangelism, the evangelist can’t take credit for it.  The Apostle Paul also wrote in 1 Corinthians 3 that God gives the increase, not the ones who sow or water in evangelism.  If evangelism is done according to scripture, God gives the increase, not men.  The two strategies I mentioned above and in the first post are not of God.  They aren’t God giving the increase.  Whatever results are produced through the man-made methods implemented, God doesn’t get the glory from those, even if actual conversion is produced, which is unlikely.

A church should grow through evangelism, not other means.  That is the way for churches to grow, but growth isn’t presented as a motivation for evangelism.  It is presented as a reality, but not as a motivation, perhaps because very often churches are not growing to the extent the membership wants it to.  They can’t give up on evangelism just because they aren’t seeing the results they want to see.  Growth won’t sustain someone as a motive for evangelism.  It is exciting when people get saved, but when they don’t, that shouldn’t stop church members from evangelizing.

What should motivate believers to evangelize is simple.  The first is obedience to the Lord’s command, but this is also tied into love.  We love God by keeping His commandments.  He commanded us to evangelize, so by obeying that command, believers are obedient, but they are also loving.  In Romans 1, Paul says he worshiped God in the gospel, which I believe means that He was worshiping God by preaching the gospel.  This is how someone presents his body a living sacrifice unto God.  If I’m not evangelizing, I don’t think I’m obedient and I don’t think I’m loving God.  We love Him because He first loved us, which is to say that we will evangelize if we are saved.

God is seeking for true worshipers and I want Him to have more worshipers too.  Everyone should worship Him, but they won’t without the gospel.  I have to preach the gospel to someone if I want him to become a true worshiper, so I do.  This still relates to obedience and love.  I want God to be worshiped because I love Him.  He deserves it.  He deserves all worship and praise.

You can’t love your neighbor as yourself if he’s not saved and you don’t preach the gospel to him.  Loving others is another reason.  This is tied into corollaries, like people going to Hell.  Allowing someone to go to Hell without warning is not loving.  We’re responsible for warning people, who are headed to destruction.

I don’t have any other actual motives for evangelism than obeying God, and then loving God and others.  I have other motives for the obedience and the love, but not for evangelism.  God is good.  God’s way is best.  Evangelism is success, because doing what God says is success.

I’m happier when I’m obedient, because I’m fulfilled.  Fulfillment comes from fellowship with Christ.  I fellowship with Christ by conforming to His image.  I fellowship with Him by being like Him.

All of my motivation starts in my imagination.  I have to think about it according to scripture.  The feelings proceed from the right thinking.  My feelings follow my actions.  I don’t feel right until I’m doing it and God gives me that peace and joy as fruit of the Spirit.  I’m submitting to the Spirit, not quenching Him, and my attitude becomes what it should be.

A dust storm of evangelism arises from no motivation to a lack of motivation.  If people will not receive the right motive, salvation should be questioned.  This is an unfaithful person.  He’s not faithful to God, because he’s not faithful to God’s Word, which is how someone is faithful.  This is the correct view of the gospel, that it changes lives.  It changes someone into the image of Christ.  He will evangelize like Christ.  If he doesn’t, and he doesn’t show that Christlikeness, I doubt whether he is a saved person.  I’m in Christ and He is in me and that produces His image in my life.  I expect that of every Christian.

Progressives deconstruct authoritative documents into constituent parts for the purpose of reinterpreting them.  They assign a different meaning by reading into the words of the text.  This makes a document elastic or flexible.  By doing so, they can force the Constitution of the United States into what they want it to mean.  This takes away the authority of this founding document.  Instead of adhering, they do whatever they want to do and justify it with a progressive philosophy.  This strategy or technique, most might not be aware, traces to religious origins.

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study.  On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.