Finding Your Leadership Style

Ten different ways to lead God's people
Christianity Today
By Bill Hybels

A few years ago, I began to notice major differences in the ways gifted leaders led their teams. They all had the spiritual gift of leadership referred to in Romans 12:8, but they approached the challenges of leadership differently.

About the time I was making this observation, the management team at Willow Creek gave me a leadership book for my birthday. (The year before, they had hired an Elvis impersonator, who burst into my office during a meeting to serenade me. Elvis discovered my leadership style in a hurry. He barely made it out of my office with his blue suede shoes.)

This year they gave me a more appropriate gift—Certain Trumpets, by Garry Wills. Wills describes the enormous impact of great leaders whose particular leadership style meshed perfectly with a certain need in society.

For example, when people are being oppressed and want to break free from that yoke, the situation calls for a radical, transforming leader.

In a complex, pluralistic democracy, with thousands of constituencies that must be drawn together to form a government, a political or electoral leader is necessary.

In war time, a military style of leadership works best.

During an ideologically intense social struggle, an intellectual leader might fit the bill.

Wills effectively argues that there are many different styles of leadership, and certain styles fit certain leadership needs better than others.

Over the last few years, I've identified at least ten manifestations of the leadership gift as it plays out in the church. It's been helpful to our staff to identify our leadership styles and build leadership teams accordingly.

1. Visionary Leader

These leaders have a crystal-clear picture in their minds of what they want to happen. They cast visions powerfully and possess indefatigable enthusiasm to pursue the mission.

Visionaries shamelessly appeal to anyone and everyone to get on board with the vision. They talk about it, write about it, burn white-hot for it. They are future-oriented, usually idealistic, and full of faith to believe the vision can and will be actualized if the dream is talked about and cast often enough.

Visionary leaders are not easily discouraged or deterred. In fact, if people tell them their dream is impossible, that just adds fuel to the fire in their spirit.

Visionary leaders may or may not be able to form teams, align talents, set goals, or manage progress toward the achievement of the vision. But this one thing is sure: They carry the vision. They cast the vision. They draw people into the vision, and they'll die trying to see it fulfilled.

I was at a conference with John Maxwell some time back. John was teaching on vision, and he started his talk on one side of the sanctuary to symbolize the beginning of the vision.

"You have no money, you have no people, you have no faith, but you have the vision. So you put one foot in front of the other, and you walk, by the light of the vision . ..." He began to walk across the stage.

"Then, along the way, as you share that vision, God gives you the faith, the power, the people, the resources . ..." Everyone's eyes were riveted on John as he made this vision walk. But there was a planter between where he was and where he was headed. Inside, I'm screaming, Watch out for the planter! John never saw it. He ran into it and stumbled—but the vision was so powerful that he never stopped speaking, never lost his train of thought. I was looking around the crowd, and no one else even seemed to notice!

You know a person is a visionary leader when he trips on the stage and no one even acknowledges it! It was a picture of the leader who cannot help but pour out the vision, despite any obstacle.

2. Directional Leader

This style doesn't get much press, but it is exceedingly important. The directional leader has the uncanny, God-given ability to choose the right path at those critical intersections where an organization starts asking hard questions: "Is it time for a wholesale change or should we stay the course? Do we focus on growth or consolidation? Should we start new ministries or deepen and improve existing ones? Should we add facilities or relocate? Is it time for some fresh staff, or do we dance with those who brought us here?"

These are directional issues, and they are capable of immobilizing an organization. But a leader with a directional style is able to sort the options. He or she can carefully assess the values, mission, strengths, weaknesses, resources, personnel, and openness to change of an organization—then, with remarkable wisdom, point that organization in the right direction.

Wrong calls at these key intersections can wreck organizations. Shortly after Solomon's death, his son Rehoboam became king. His first critical intersection came almost immediately: a representative group of the people asked for their workloads to be reduced. Solomon had worked people to the point of despair. Rehoboam had to make a directional call. The older counselors said, "You'd better ease up on them." The younger counselors said, "Just load them up." He made the wrong call at that intersection, and it wrecked the kingdom.

When Willow Creek is at such a crossroads, I will not move in the direction I believe God is calling us without the green light from two board members who are strong in directional leadership. Whenever we've followed their lead, we've made good decisions. Whenever we've ignored their advice, we've paid a high price.

3. Strategic Leader

Some leaders have the God-given ability to break an exciting vision into achievable steps, so an organization can march intentionally toward the actualization of their mission.

Visions are powerful. Visions excite and inspire people. They compel action. But unless people eventually see progress toward the fulfillment of the vision, they conclude the vision caster is just blowing smoke.

A strategic leader forms a game plan everyone can understand and participate in, one that will eventually lead to the achievement of the vision. A strategic leader challenges the organization to work the plan. She says, "Don't get distracted. Do what needs to be done to achieve the next step, then the next, and we'll achieve the vision together." A strategic leader is able to get various departments of an organization synchronized so that the organization is focused toward the prize.

The vision of Willow Creek has been compelling for more than twenty years. But it has been a seven-step strategy, put together by leaders in the early days of our church, that has helped us move toward the achievement of that vision.

4. Managing Leader

There is always discussion in leadership circles about the differences between management and leadership. You've heard, "Managers do things right; leaders do the right things," and other delineations.

Those may be helpful, but I'm convinced certain leaders possess the unique ability to establish mile markers on the road to the destination, then organize and monitor people, processes, systems, and resources for mission achievement. Old Testament examples include Joseph and Nehemiah.

What's most amazing to those who don't have this style is that managing leaders derive enormous satisfaction from doing all this managing!

You'd be surprised how many visionary leaders are inept at managing people, processes, and systems. Many directional and strategic leaders are incapable of actually putting the players, resources, and systems in place for the goals of the organization to be achieved.

I've often said around our church, "Sooner or later someone's going to have to manage all of this stuff." We've always had an abundance of visionary, directional, and strategic leaders, but we've always had a shortage of managing leaders. That has hurt us all along the way.

Managing leaders often aren't as popular as the leader who can give the big vision talk or make the big decision around the board-room table or put the big plan in place. But in the day-to-day world, someone has to manage the process to make sure we get where we want to go.

5. Motivational Leader

These leaders possess insight into who needs a fresh challenge or additional training. They can sense who needs public recognition, an encouraging word, or a day off. They know when a pay increase, office change, title change, or sabbatical is needed.

Unfortunately, some view the motivational style as a lightweight style of leadership. Well, just ask team members how important it is to receive ongoing inspiration!

I will follow a leader who will fire me up, call out the best in me, celebrate my accomplishments, and cheer my progress, even if it means a lower-voltage vision, an occasional bad call at a crossroads, or a periodic lapse of managerial effectiveness.

Motivational leaders know that teammates get tired, lose focus, and experience mission drift. Workers wonder if what they're doing really matters to anyone—or to God. Motivational leaders don't get bitter or vengeful when morale sinks. They see it as an opportunity to inspire and lift the spirits of everyone on the team.

Jesus was a consistent motivator of the disciples. He changed Peter's name. He promised his followers a hundred-fold reward in this life and in the next. Often, Jesus would take the disciples away and say, "Let's not take a hill. Let's sleep at the bottom of one. Let's go fishing, eat, and hang out."

Some of our teammates would love more than anything else a day with their leader around a campfire in an unrushed setting, instead of always being under our command.

Remember the time Jesus said, "I call you friends"? He always promised them, "In my Father's house are many mansions. I can't imagine spending eternity without you people around me. You'll be with me forever."

Don't ever look down on yourself if God has given you the motivational style.

6. Shepherding Leader

This man or woman loves team members so deeply, nurtures them so gently, supports them so consistently, listens to them so patiently, and prays for them so diligently that the mission of the team gets achieved. It happens primarily because of good will in the hearts of those who have been cared for by the shepherd.

I'm on the board of World Vision, an organization that has fed starving children for more than thirty years. They've had several different presidents, and constituents have supported the vision, regardless of who was at the helm.

It's a different dynamic with shepherding leaders and their teams. Team members support their shepherd, and teammates often feel, Whatever cause is important to the leader is fine with me. If it's broadly Christian, if we can accomplish it in community, if we can retain our shepherd, we'll do it.

Second Samuel 23 records David's leadership in the early days. He drew together the lonely and disaffected, then shepherded them deeply and lovingly. One night, he happened to mention that he was thirsty, but his troops were surrounded by the enemy. Three members of his team risked their lives to sneak behind enemy lines to bring David a jar of water. When they gave him the water, he was so moved by their expression of love that he poured it out as a worship offering.

While there are many cause-driven people waiting to be drawn into a mission by a visionary leader, there are surprising numbers of community-driven people who want to be shepherded and loved. When they are, they will joyfully pursue almost any kingdom purpose. If you can shepherd a group of people, you're a leader, and you can really make a difference.

7. Team-building Leader

Team-building leaders have supernatural insight into people. They find or develop leaders with the right abilities, character, and chemistry with other team members. They place people in the right positions for the right reasons who will then produce the right results.

When the team-building leader gets everyone in place, he or she then says to the team, "You know what we're trying to do. You know what part of the mission you're responsible for. You know what part of the vision the rest of us are responsible for. So head out. Work hard. Achieve your objectives. Communicate with your co-laborers, but lead."

The team-building leader might not nurture or manage people well. He or she reasons that shouldn't be necessary. If the right people are in the right slots doing the right things for the right reasons, they'll get the work done without the leader looking over their shoulder. Few things are as exciting to me as drawing together the right people, putting them in the right positions, then letting that team play hard and have fun.

8. Entrepreneurial Leader

These leaders possess vision, boundless energy, and a risk-taking spirit. Their distinguishing characteristic is they function best in a start-up operation. They love being told it cannot be done.

But once the effort requires steady, ongoing leadership—once things get complex and there are endless discussions about policies, systems, controls, and databases—the entrepreneurial leader loses energy and may even lose focus and confidence. He or she starts to peek over the fence and wonder if there's another start-up project out there.

Entrepreneurs often feel guilty at the thought of leaving something they gave birth to. But if they think, I can't give birth to something every few years, something inside them starts to die. That's their style. It's important in the kingdom.

The apostle Paul was an entrepreneurial leader. He wanted to build churches where Christ had not been named. He wanted to pioneer them, then let someone else run them so he could move on. He made no apologies for his leadership style.

9. Re-engineering Leader

Some leaders thrive in a situation that has lost vision or focus, or one that has been staffed inappropriately. This kind of leader says, "Oh boy, I get to re-engineer this whole situation." They find out what the mission was and what it needs to be now. They decide how progress and success will be measured. They love to tune up, heal, and revitalize hurting organizations.

But when the group is running on eight cylinders, re-engineering leaders may not want to lead over the long haul. Often, rather than manage what they've re-engineered, they look for another project to overhaul. When they find one, they salivate. "Would you look at that train wreck? I'd love to get my hands on all that twisted metal and human carnage. I could really sort that out and make something great out of that."

10. Bridge-building Leader

This leader brings a wide variety of constituencies together under a single umbrella of leadership so that a complex organization can achieve its mission.

This feat requires enormous flexibility in a leader—the ability to compromise and negotiate, to listen, understand, and think outside of the box. It requires not only the ability to be diplomatic; it requires also the gift of being able to relate to diverse people.

In a start-up venture, a leader is surrounded by those who share his or her vision. Contrast that with a church or parachurch organization made up of scores of well-defined constituencies, many of whom care little about the overall vision of the ministry anymore. They just want to make sure their interests are served.

I talked to a pastor who said, "I'm dying. The choir wants new designer robes. The youth want a new gymnasium. The missions department wants to give more money away. The Sunday school department wants more classrooms. The production people want more equipment. The seniors want large-print hymnals, and the Gen Xers want to turn the board room into a cappuccino bar."

The variety and velocity of those requests had him imagining each of those subministries as the enemy. But that situation fires up a bridge-building leader. A bridge builder becomes the best friend and advocate of all the constituent groups. He or she seeks to unite them and focus their efforts.

Beyond envy

It concerns me that there is a certain amount of "gift envy" among church leaders these days. God gave each of us our gift mix for a reason. When leaders adopt someone else's style, they miss the unique opportunities God has given them.

I celebrate when I look around the world and see flourishing churches of all kinds, with many different types of leaders, because it's going to take a variety of churches led by a variety of leaders to reach our world with the love of Christ.

Whatever your style, recognize it, celebrate it, and step up to the plate and lead.

You may also want to read the following related articles:

* The Gift of Giving by Charles Stanley
* The Gift of Mercy by Charles Stanley

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For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members don't have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, if prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith; or service, let us give ourselves to service; or he who teaches, to his teaching; or he who exhorts, to his exhorting: he who gives, let him do it with liberality; he who rules, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:4-8)

On Equality And Inequality

Talk by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett co-authors of "The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger" recorded January 8, 2010 at Hogness Auditorium, University of Washington, Seattle.



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The Inequalities of Equality
All Things Being Equal, Not Everything Can Be Equal

By Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.

Ignatius Insight
Originally Published: October 12, 2005

"The idea of the equality of man is in substance simply the idea of the importance of man." — G. K. Chesterton, A Short History of England

I.

Anyone who has ever thought about the subject of "equality" knows that, however noble sounding, it is an intellectual minefield. Equality is the idea that makes most normal people feel a sense of dizziness when reading a book like Rawls’ A Theory of Justice. Of the French triad, "liberty, equality, and fraternity," equality is by far the most slippery and ambiguous. Much of modern political thought has been devoted to producing "equality," usually at the expense of liberty or fraternity, if not sanity. Modern thought has also had to sit by and realize not only that inequality won’t go away, but that the noble efforts to be rid of it often have totalitarian implications.

No reader of Plato can entirely forget these things, which is one of the reasons why we still read him. The most perfect human "equality" imaginable, after all, is contained in the contemporary proposals of massive cloning of human beings so that everyone would presumably have the identical genes and corpus. Equality equals identity. The system would also rid us of the necessity of "begetting," which is seen to be the root of inequality. This very proposal as something good is a form of madness.

All human beings have the same nature that sets them apart from other beings natural and transcendent. No human being is exactly the same in anything beginning with his cells, to the color of his eyes, to his willingness or unwillingness to practice virtue. Even though Hobbes postulated that human beings are approximately of equal strength, the differences among men in terms of talents, energy, vice, health, fingerprints, and endurance are enormous. Some of these differences are measurable; some are not.

Such differences, however, are themselves generally goods, things to be fostered. They represent a richness about our kind, not a defect They are intended to make possible, as Plato also said, a division of labor and a variety of specialized contribution that cause greater things to exist than would result if everyone had to do everything by himself. Everyone is better off because of the variety and difference of talents and capacities among us provided this exists within a spirit and reality of reciprocal exchange, including exchange of the highest things.

Moreover, a whole intellectual industry is devoted to what I call "gapism." Any "gap" in income or talent or material goods between rich and poor, this nation or that, or this person and that, is said to be a sign of injustice, imbalance, or evil. While this view practically ignores the whole history of how wealth came to be produced and distributed in the first place, the thesis is constantly repeated as if it were obvious, which it isn’t. As a result, we inaugurate agonizing crusades to right the imbalances. Massive efforts in unequal taxation and discriminatory policy initiatives are set in motion whereby these "gaps" are to be leveled down so that those who are said to suffer under them can feel more "equal."

Interestingly enough, studies in the history of envy show that often envy, the spiritual vice associated with equality and inequality, is more prevalent when people are more nearly equal than when they are not. This fact suggests that this "gap" analysis is missing something fundamental about human nature. Indeed, chances are that if we took a given population and somehow made them, on a given day, absolutely equal in terms of income and property, after a few years we would return to see that, in the meantime, by normal workings of exchange, talent, energy, and effort, some would have more, others less. The same inequality would return. Some people will be horrified by this result. Others will understand that inequalities are themselves a normal part of the human condition, something that explains why elements of aristocracy, the distinction between virtue and lack of it, have always existed in every society.

The further trouble is that not everyone wants or needs the same things. The philosopher in Greek thought, for instance, not to mention innumerable saints in Christian tradition, affirmed voluntary poverty. Many of the things that everyone else said he needed, the philosopher did not need or want. The philosopher could have been rich if he wanted to be. He knew how to create a monopoly. But he chose not to be rich so that he could be free, yes, imagine, free to do what he could not do if he were burdened with riches. Thus to make him "equal" in terms of material goods would prevent him from being "unequal" in terms of spiritual ones.

II.

These initial remarks are occasioned by my brother having sent me an essay of David Brooks in the New York Times entitled, "An Elite Class Splits the Nation: Higher Education Is Now Causing Most of the Inequality in America." About the only thing worse than "gapism," I sometimes think, is such elite-class analysis, however popular. This rather frantic, but insightful, article informs us that we academics are causing "most of the inequality in America." If true, this is definitely a man-bites-dog sort of situation. Since the very purpose of higher education is, in a sense, to produce inequality, to find out who learns and who does not, who is willing to learn and who is not, it follows (so it is said) that institutions of higher learning are doing something subversive, setting the elite against the non-elite.

This essay on "neo-elitism" reminded me of the old statistics I used to read about the percentage of students who went to college in England, France, Germany, or Italy, in comparison to the much higher percentage who went to college in the United States. It turned out that a far higher percentage of students went to institutions of higher learning in the United States than in any of the European nations. Why? It turns out that the Europeans had a different idea about what higher education was for. They also recognized more frankly that not everyone was made for the academic or intellectual vocation. If we put people in institutions for which their talents did not fit them, what happened was either that we had to lower the standards or to give those students who could not hack the matter a huge inferiority complex.

In the meantime, the Americans did about the same thing that the Europeans did, only they called it something else. We established all sorts of institutions of "higher education" including junior colleges, city colleges, state colleges, technical schools, and huge multi-disciplined universities with a myriad of different kinds of degrees, as well as elite colleges and universities. When it comes to a really elite intellectual vocation, we did not really differ much from the Europeans who also have trade schools and programs for training those not in college, but they do not call these institutions, as we do, colleges.

Brooks argues that more people are coming out of high schools but are not going to college. Most studies I have seen of late indicate that our elite graduate schools–especially in the sciences–are more and more populated, not by Americans, but by foreign students. Our schools are becoming the training grounds for foreign elites. Moreover, our high school performance compared to other nations shows that the quality of secondary education is in constant decline no matter how much money we spend on it. Money is not really the answer to their problems. So perhaps something else is at issue besides the mere statistics about who does or does not go to college.

Brooks’ thesis is that those who are educated tend to pass on talents and wealth to their offspring so that we are creating a new class of those who enter and can survive in college. The universities, in being universities, are presumably at fault for not recruiting and training those who do not come from these well prepared familial backgrounds. Brooks also notes that those who are educated divorce less, vote more frequently, and even exercise more. I believe in earlier eras it was the upper crust who were said to divorce more, eat more, and exercise less, while the poorer classes stayed married, had a religious aversion to drink, and worked hard.

Behind this analysis, we must also consider the massive transfer of technology and service industries outside of the United States. This transfer is to be seen in the light of the radical decline of birth rates of Americans and Europeans. Immigration problems are, at bottom, a function of birth problems. Formerly, as Brooks argues, these industrial and service areas provided employment and opportunities to the non-college types to get ahead. Now, it is argued, the middle is evaporating so that what is left is only the very rich and the very poor, "gapism" run wild. The physical labor force in Europe and the States is becoming Muslim and Latino. It is because of this situation that critics like Pat Buchanan and others seek to restore American industry and jobs through governmental policy.

In one sense, this export of technological knowledge–we still are in the forefront of its invention–is what we have always wanted, namely, that the poorer nations learn more and more skills and acquire the capacity to care for themselves. Most of the current criticism is that our restrictive import laws (often because of union pressure to save high-cost jobs) have prevented industry in the poor countries from growing by normal market processes. Now that growth in the poorer world is happening, we think that it is a threat to our own well being. It may be, but not because of the transfer of technological know-how. More likely, it is because of the ideologies and religions that we see in China, the Islamic world, India, and other points of the globe that determine the use of such economic growth in terms of political power.

One of the ironies of this analysis, I think, is again its Platonic background. Though perhaps not seriously, Plato held in the fifth book of the Republic that inequalities were caused by families and property. The only way to get rid of such inequalities would be to prevent parents from bringing up their own children and thereby giving them unfair advantages. Communize families and property. Plato also suggested a kind of genetic engineering to produce only elites, along with governmental day-care centers and control of education to enforce them. Such things are not wholly unfamiliar to us. Our age is rather more Platonic in this sense than we want to admit.

III.

A part of any understanding of education, especially higher education, has been the recognition that the function of education is to increase the inequalities for the good of the whole. This latter side involves the moral and religious notions of gift, charity, generosity, and sacrifice whereby those who have received education consciously recognize their responsibility to others, especially, in Brooks’ terms, of teaching others. The Christian notion that those in authority are to be there not for their own self-interest but for service to others is, more than we will admit, itself a part of the American tradition.

It is of some interest that when there is any sort of crisis throughout the world, it is our wealth and initiative that are looked to deal with it, be it floods, wars, earthquakes, or terrorism. We take this expectation for granted and seldom wonder where it came from. But it is something rather unique in the world. And a part of this effort is the simple idea that any nation can learn to take care of itself, provided that it recognize the meaning of free enterprise, justice, property, control of corruption, initiative, selection and control of leaders, profits, allowing one’s work to benefit also oneself and families, with a consciousness of generosity to others. And this latter is not solely or primarily a governmental thing, though is it government that can most easily foster or hinder it.

Brooks’ analysis is presented almost exclusively in terms of education and not of virtue or goodness. Aristotle was always the first to point out the limits of knowledge of moral things as opposed to the habits needed to put it to good usage. The real lesson Brooks seems to point to is that if families stay together, if they successfully teach children responsibility, honor, and the value of knowledge, if they learn and understand the consequence of vice of whatever sort, they will prosper.

It is often said, for instance, that if a woman wants to guarantee that she will be poor later in life, the easiest way to do so is to be divorced, not that there isn’t usually an irresponsible man involved. Yet, divorce is considered a "right," as if it has no consequences. The point is that what we need is not just educational institutions, but virtue-making institutions. This is the real danger, I might add, of religion, the classic virtue-encouraging source in our society, preaching "rights" and not virtue.

Let me say, in conclusion, a final word about universities. Universities, as we know them, were originally founded by the Church. They grew within a philosophic environment that understood justice and mercy, but also one that understood intelligence. Aquinas is famous for concerning himself with the problem of how to teach "beginners."

Universities did stand for the principle that everyone ought to be allowed to and encouraged to learn to the limit of his ability or desire (they are not the same). But this is a two-way street. It recognizes that inequalities will come forth since human beings do not have identical talents or desires to bring them forth. The answers that we are looking for must include virtue enhancing ideas and institutions, the understanding that the principal reason for many human problems is not lack of wealth or education, but lack of virtue.

But if we cannot admit that there is such a thing as virtue, then we will seek to solve an essentially spiritual problem with an intellectual problem, namely, more education. And this brings us up against the fact that criminals are also very shrewd and intelligent. The history of dope and its usage, of its relation to crime and the corruption of governments in the contemporary world, is surely not merely a question of the poor and uneducated. But the essential point I want to make is that education is, and should be, an inequality-making institution. How the resultant inequalities, which are as such to be praised, return to the common good of all is not itself primarily a question of education but of virtue.

When Chesterton remarked that "the idea of equality" is simply the "idea of the importance of man," he intended to include, I think, both the things in which men are equal and the things in which they are unequal. Both are necessary, both are, in principle, good; neither will go away. But they are intended to exist in harmony, something that depends on virtue, knowledge, generosity, and yes, sacrifice and probably faith.

The "inequalities of equality" are, paradoxically, what brings us closest to a proper notion of equality. This is one that sees the proportionate and objective differences in talent and education to be arrayed not against the less talented and less educated, but as means to bring all talent, properly developed, into a relation to a larger common good.

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"Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference." - Voltaire

"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity." -Irving Kristol

Nature-Loving People?

A Startling Contradiction





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In my "third world" country we used to destroy these gentle sea creatures for survival. But now we have learned to take care of them because we finally realized that our chances of survival are greatly increased when the survival of these gentle creatures of the sea are also assured.

When one is forced to destroy nature in order to live, it's one thing. It's another thing when one's overwhelming desire forces nature's destruction. The former may be called survival, but the latter is called greed.

It's neccessary insticnt for one to want to survive; it's his foolishness that survives his unneccessary want.

What's Today's Young Generation Aware Of?

The problem of human trafficking is once more gaining some attention on the news lately as reported.

I remember few days ago, as we were lining up for the baggage check-in procedure at the NAIA terminal on our connecting return trip from Singapore, I chanced upon this Jejemon-looking youngster remarkably advocating against human trafficking in his own unique little way. At his age, I was quite impressed that such social problem found some space in his young mind.

How many of our today's young generation have such sort of social awareness?

Righteousness: The Only Solid Foundation Upon Which Reforms Can Thrive

Why Fighting Corruption is not Enough
By Walden Bello
INQUIRER.net

After nine years of witnessing increasing poverty among the masses and spiraling corruption in high places, it is understandable that Filipinos see a strong correlation between corruption and poverty. And the judgment of many is probably correct that the candidates that are free of the taint of corruption stand the best chance of turning this country around. Moral leadership may not be a sufficient condition for successful leadership but it certainly has become a necessary condition in a country that has been so deprived of exemplary public figures like the Philippines.

Corruption, however, has become the explanation for all our ills, and this brings with it the danger that, after the elections, campaign rhetoric might substitute for hard analysis on the causes of poverty, leading to wrong, ineffectual prescriptions for dealing with the country’s number one problem.

Let me be more explicit: Corruption must be condemned and corrupt officials must be prosecuted because being a violation of public trust, corruption undermines faith in government and leads to an erosion of the moral bonds among citizens that serve as the foundation of good governance. Corruption, however, is unlikely to be the main cause of poverty. Wrongheaded policies are, and clean-cut technocrats have been responsible for more poverty than corrupt politicians.

The complex of policies that have pushed the Philippines into the economic quagmire over the last 30 years might be summed up in that formidable term: structural adjustment. Also known as neoliberal restructuring, it involved prioritization of debt repayment; conservative macroeconomic management that involving huge cutbacks in government spending; trade and financial liberalization; privatization and deregulation; and export-oriented production. Structural adjustment came to the Philippines courtesy of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, but it was internalized and disseminated as doctrine by local technocrats and economists as doctrine.

Prioritizing Debt Repayment

Corazon Aquino was personally honest and her contribution to the reestablishment of democracy was indispensable, but her submitting to the International Monetary Fund's demand to prioritize debt repayment over development brought about a decade of stagnation and continuing poverty. Interest payments as a percentage of total government expenditures went from 7 percent in 1980 to 28 percent in 1994. Capital expenditures, on the other hand, plunged from 26 percent to 16 percent. Since government is the biggest investor in the Philippines—indeed in any economy—the radical stripping away of capital expenditures goes a long way toward explaining the stagnant one percent average yearly growth in gross domestic product in the 1980’s and the 2.3 per cent rate in the first half of the 1990’s.

In contrast, our Southeast Asian neighbors ignored the IMF’s prescriptions. They limited debt servicing while ramping up government capital expenditures in support of growth. Not surprisingly, they grew by 6 to 10 percent from 1985 to 1995, attracting massive Japanese investment while the Philippines barely grew and gained the reputation of a depressed market that repelled investors.

Trade and Financial Liberalization

When Fidel Ramos came to power in 1992, the main agenda of his technocrats was to bring down all tariffs to 0 to 5 percent and bring the Philippines into the World Trade Organization and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), moves that were intended to make trade liberalization irreversible. A pick-up in the growth rate in the early years of Ramos sparked hope, but the green shoots were more apparent than real, and they were, at any rate, crushed as a result of another neoliberal policy: financial liberalization. The elimination of foreign exchange controls and restrictions of speculative investment attracted billions of dollars in the period 1993-1997. But this also meant that when panic hit the ranks of foreign investors in Asia in the summer of 1997, the same lack of capital controls facilitated the stampede of billions of dollars from the country in a few short weeks in mid-1997. This pushed the economy into recession and stagnation in the next few years.

The Estrada administration did not reverse course, and under the presidency of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, neoliberal policies continued to reign. New liberalization initiatives in the next few years were initiated on the trade front, with the government negotiating free trade agreements with Japan and China. These pacts were entered into despite clear evidence that trade liberalization was destroying the two pillars of the economy, industry and agriculture.

Radical unilateral trade liberalization severely destabilized our manufacturing sector, with textile and garments firms, for instance, being drastically reduced from 200 in 1970 to 10 in recent years. As one of Arroyo’s finance secretaries admitted, “there’s an uneven implementation of trade liberalization, which was to our disadvantage.” While he speculated that consumers might have benefited from the tariff liberalization, he acknowledged that “it has killed so many local industries.”

As for agriculture, the liberalization of our agricultural trade after we joined the World Trade Organization in 1995 transformed the Philippines from a net food exporting country and consolidated it into a net food importing country after the mid-1990’s. The year 2010 is the year that the China ASEAN Trade Agreement (CAFTA) negotiated by the Arroyo administration goes into effect, and the prospect of cheap Chinese produce flooding our markets has made our vegetable farmers fatalistic about their survival.

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Except the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman guards it in vain. (Psalms 127:1)

In the absence of a corruption-free governance in a society (corruption-free, in a deeper sense, free from spiritual corruption, that the divine principles of righteousness bring), no governmental and societal reform could ever succeed. No matter how strong and complex a structure may be built but if it sits on a weak foundation, it will just be a matter of time and the whole structure will fall miserably as soon as its weak foundation is crushed by its weight. The very heavy demands of genuine reforms' structural framework alone (click the figure above to enlarge and see the diagram) will already need the support of a very strong and most stable foundation.

[Luke 6:47-49] Everyone who comes to me, and hears my words, and does them, I will show you who he is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug and went deep, and laid a foundation on the rock. When a flood arose, the stream broke against that house, and could not shake it, because it was founded on the rock. But he who hears, and doesn't do, is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream broke, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.

Right reforms work for the accomplishment of the divine principles of righteousness because they emanate from the intellect of man -- intellect that the Lord blessed man with which enables him to choose to do the good and right things that bring prosperity and blessings to his fellowmen.

[1 Corinthians 3:10-13] According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it. For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ [the Divine Righteousness]. But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble; each man's work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man's work is.

Link Between Corruption and Poverty

By: The African Center for Economic Growth

Since the end of the last decade the emphasis has moved from building public awareness on corruption issues to understanding the nature of corruption and its effects on the economy, society and politics; understanding the nature of the beast as it were. The global anti-corruption movement, therefore, has moved towards research and a host of rigorous tools have been developed to study and monitor corruption wherever it takes place. Hand in hand with this, efforts to combat corruption have moved from the moral exhortation stage to a phase that has seen greater attention focused on developing holistic anti-corruption strategies that are built on equal pillars of prevention, enforcement and public education.

In the past it was sometimes argued that fighting corruption meant mainly streamlining administrations and reforming bureaucratic red tape. The economic liberalization programs implemented by many African governments over the past decade and a half were partly put in place with the premise that the weakening of central controls on economic affairs would reduce discretionary decision-making by the government in economic affairs and thus corruption and inefficiency. Indeed, as you shall find out, economic liberalization in many cases has led to new and sometimes deadly forms of corruption and economic crimes generally.

What the efficiency argument proponents overlook is the fact that more often than not the inefficiencies and irritating red tape exists by design, not by accident, and that its removal is not simply a paper exercise. It is also acknowledged today that administrative reforms by themselves do not improve matters significantly, though they do help. The equation C (corruption) = M (monopoly) + D (discretion) -A (accountability) often used to explain corruption, omits V (values), and seems to suggest that ethics are an irrelevance. In studying the apparent intractability of corruption in many countries V (values) has risen to the fore along with other vital linkages that help present a more comprehensive picture of the nature of corruption in any given country. The link between poverty and corruption is one of these vital relationships and, as you shall find in chapter 2, corruption is an important cause of poverty because it promotes unfair distribution of income and inefficient use of resources.

Defining Corruption

It is not intrinsically useful to make qualitative distinctions between corruption in various parts of the world. At the end of the day it often means the same thing: the abuse of public office for private gain. However, this can be broken up into petty corruption, grand corruption and looting. Petty corruption involves relatively minor amounts of money or gifts changing hands where one of the parties is themselves a relatively minor official in the organization or system within which the transaction takes place. For example paying a policeman one dollar to ignore the fact that your car's license has expired. Grand corruption most often involves businessmen and government officials of senior rank and the figures involved are significant. Examples of these are kick-backs paid to officials on government public works contracts.

The third type of corruption is 'looting' and has recently been described by some commentators as large-scale economic delinquency. It differs slightly from petty and grand corruption, however, and is sadly prevalent in those developing countries where institutions of governance are particularly weak. It usually involves the kind of scams whose figures are so huge that when they are successfully concluded they have macroeconomic implications fairly quickly -- they cause banks to collapse, inflation to rise, the exchange rate to decline. The impetus for looting is often political and it happens under the direction or with the acquiescence of important political players in a given country. It often involves, for example, the printing of currency to fund fictitious projects, using public revenues to award enormous contracts to individuals who never supply the goods or the services. The primary movers in the companies behind these scams don't just cream off 10 or 20 percent with a cut within that for the higher-ups. In these deals the cut can be as high as 100 percent and most of the cash goes to the higher-ups. These resources fund election campaigns and pay for private militias in many African countries.

Another important distinction between grand corruption and looting is that in cases of grand corruption a minister may take a kickback of 100,000 dollars on a government road construction contract worth a million dollars. The road is built but its quality does not reflect its cost. Looting on the other hand is a much more premeditated activity because it often entails the deliberate creation of a government project for which resources will be allocated and spent but the project is not meant to be completed from the outset. If grand corruption is manslaughter, then looting is murder. Looting, as far as I can tell is most prevalent in a number of developing countries and I have also heard of it in relation to certain countries in transition. To understand it with a view to dealing with it one needs to examine the context that facilitates it.

Corruption As An Elite Activity

Many African countries are characterized by weak and vulnerable national governance institutions, such as parliament, the judiciary, civil service and police; a limited democratic culture; and, human, natural, technological resources that are not developed. Many of these countries are also characterized by an environment where there is limited awareness on the part of wider population with regard to consequences of corruption. In this type of environment, the very character of vital national institutions such as the civil service, judiciary, legislature, police and others are transformed. Even though one cannot sometimes tell from the outside, an alternative or parallel power structure develops that has tentacles in all economic, political and social sectors. This structure has one primary purpose, to maintain the ruling elite's hold on state power and, therefore, the primary mode of economic accumulation.

Many African elites of today have acquired wealth through connections to the state or via participation in the state itself through politics, the civil service or military. They are the ones who win most government contracts, are able to obtain loans from state-owned financial institutions most easily; are able to apply successfully for government allocations of public land and are able to lobby most effectively for government tax concessions, changes in investment regulations and the like. Corruption, the serious corruption that undermines development in the most sudden and debilitating ways, is an elite activity. When elites that are part of informal structures of power perpetrate much of the most harmful corruption, it exacerbates already serious levels of poverty and economic inequality. This is partly because in the economies where such elites flourish the governance institutions are weak and members of the elite and their associates are almost literally beyond the law. As a result the well-connected people don't have to pay the same taxes like everyone else; policemen and other junior officials seeking small bribes don't dare solicit cash from them. At the end of the day it is the poor and the weak who face the true brunt of corruption. This is a critical link between corruption and poverty. The fight against corruption in many developing countries like Kenya is economic because it deepens poverty, exacerbates inequalities and makes for economies whose very structure is skewed. It is also political because corruption breeds impunity and undermines vital governance institutions sustaining shadow power structures. The fight against corruption is also social and cultural because where impunity with regard to corruption prevails one finds the corrupt transformed into latter day heroes and the principles of honesty and hard-work become unattractive.

The fight against corruption is not an insurmountable struggle. The first step in dealing with a problem is recognizing it exists and this has happened in Kenya. The second stage involves understanding the nature of corruption and facilitating the implementation of viable anti-corruption strategies. This book, analyzing as it does the links between corruption and poverty, is an important step in promoting this understanding that exemplifies the second phase in the global struggle against corruption.

Choose Life; And It Shall Live Long

Obama turns up the heat for health care overhaul
By Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer
Yahoo News

President Barack Obama is trying to persuade a weary public and wavering Democrats to get behind his frantic, late-stage push on health care, while Republicans dig in and demand starting from scratch after a year's worth of work.

"Now, despite all the progress and improvements we've made, Republicans in Congress insist that the only acceptable course on health care is to start over. But you know what? The insurance companies aren't starting over," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.

"I just met with some of them on Thursday, and they couldn't give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums — by as much as 60 percent in states like Illinois. If we do not act, they will continue to do this."

Republicans were not swayed.

"It's not too late: We can, and we must, stop this government takeover of health care," said Rep. Parker Griffith, a retired physician and a first-term congressman from Alabama who switched parties in December and delivered the GOP message.

The competing addresses underscored the urgency behind Obama's last-ditch push for immediate health care reform. Without a victory — and quickly — Democrats move into a fast-approaching election season without a major, tangible accomplishment that affects voters' pocketbooks. And with a chasm remaining between the two parties, Democrats considered passing the overhaul with votes just from their party.

That process would let the 59 Senate Democrats declare victory with 51 votes instead of a 60-vote supermajority. It also would allow Obama's team to get back to talking about the economy, which has shed more than 8 million jobs since the recession began.

Obama is pleading with Democrats to overcome divisions to seize a historic moment to remake the health care system during this election year. The White House wants to pass a health care overhaul and then campaign on it. Voters will pick candidates to serve 34 Senate seats; the entire House is up for re-election.

White House officials hope the immediate changes in the health overhaul would be enough to satisfy voters' expectations — and Democratic lawmakers who were hardly unified in support of the plan.

If Democrats pass the plan, voters would find greater consumer protections and a ban on discriminating against customers with previous ailments. Small businesses would receive a tax credit this year, insurance companies would no longer be able to drop patients' coverage if they become sick, and plans would be required to offer free preventive care to customers.

Griffith said leaders of the Democratic Party he left last year were missing the point.

"For them, health care reform has become less about the best reforms and more about what best fits their 'Washington knows best' mentality — less about helping patients and more about scoring political points," he said. "This is no idle observation. I've witnessed it firsthand."

The Constant Desire For More...

By Dr. Patrick Morley
Founder and CEO
ManInTheMirror.org

On a drizzly day in June 1978, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn delivered a riveting commencement address to a crowded audience on Harvard Yard that would shake the foundations of the way Americans thought about themselves.

"When the modern Western states were being formed," he said, "it was proclaimed as a principle that governments are meant to serve man and that man lives in order to be free and pursue happiness. In the process, however, one psychological detail has been overlooked: the constant desire to have still more things and a still better life and the struggle to this end imprints many Western faces with worry and even depression, though it is customary to carefully conceal such feelings. This active and tense competition comes to dominate all human thought and does not in the least open a way to free spiritual development" (emphasis added).

Two years earlier Francis Schaeffer wrote that the majority of people had adopted two impoverished values: personal peace and affluence. "Affluence means an overwhelming and ever-increasing prosperity--a life made up of things, things, and more things--a success judged by an ever-higher level of material abundance" (emphasis added).

Why are Americans caught up in the constant desire for more and more things?

The material prosperity we enjoy is a modern miracle. In 1950 our homes were one-third their present size, no one had heard of an invention called a "personal computer," Greyhound was how America traveled, space exploration was an abstract idea, television was an infant, and a millionaire was a rarity. Our progress would make even Solomon burn with envy. Who would have guessed that, in the 65 short years since the end of the Great Depression (1942) and World War II (1945), America would achieve such a remarkable standard of living--even in the middle of such a devastating recession? Yet, our prosperity has a dark side.

The dominant economic theory in America in our lifetime has been consumerism. Webster's Dictionary defines consumerism as: "the economic theory that a progressively greater consumption of goods is beneficial." Is this true? A glance at newspaper ads and TV commercials readily proves that, true or not, the world of commerce diligently applies this theory to their marketing and business plans.

All in all, America is sick. We have a bad case of the "-isms." Standing behind this constant desire for more and more things are a host of addictions to "-isms," such as individualism, hedonism, materialism, relativism, careerism, secularism and materialism. Materialism is buying things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.

The American opportunity for prosperity has spun out of control. We have created a nation addicted to consumption rather than production. Rather than an overriding desire to produce value and make a contribution, we have created a culture that wants the benefits of labor without the obligation to perform it. Richard Weaver says we have observed the extinction of the idea of mission--that men no longer dream of high goals like building a cathedral. The end result is self-pampering and eventually self-disgust, for the ancient truth that labor is therapeutic has been lost. Man's decision to live wholly in this world is evidenced by the worship of comfort rather than making a contribution to the public good.

There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with consuming. It is elevating consuming and consumption to a philosophy of life that leads to sin. Paul said it best: "Those who use the things of this world (should live) as though not engrossed with them" (1 Corinthians 7:31). While consumption is no sin, it is "pre-sin." Virtually any good thing can become sinful when carried to the extreme. The Scriptures put it this way: "A little yeast works its way through the whole batch of dough" (1 Corinthians 5:6) and "'Everything is permissible for me'--but not everything is beneficial" (1 Corinthians 6:12).

Forces That Encourage Materialism in Social Structures

The constant desire for more and more things is encouraged in social structures. The availability of installment credit, which Daniel Bell calls "the greatest single engine in the destruction of the Protestant work ethic," has eliminated the need to postpone acquisitions and defer gratification until a time when people can pay with cash they have saved. Today, we can instantly gratify our desires for an ever-growing litany of products, which--according to Madison Avenue--symbolize progress and change.

A fascination with new things creates a restlessness in modern man. Through the structure of advertising the ethic of "sell" constantly bombards us with the newest, most improved gadgets. Madison Avenue pin-stripers have created a phenomenon we might call psychological obsolescence. We are made to feel itchy for a new car, even though the one we have had for only three years runs fine.

The advances of technology give Americans "convenience, comfort, speed, hygiene, and abundance" in such proportion that there seems to be little need to look anywhere else for fulfillment, meaning, and purpose. Indeed, we don't even need to plumb the meaning of death because we can postpone it.

Forces That Encourage This Desire in Philosophy

Previous cultures took it as a task to preserve their culture--its inventions, values, etc. Today, this is almost seen as a wicked idea. Change, even change for the sake of change, is a virtue. C. S. Lewis said that what one generation called permanence, we now call stagnation. This idea inexorably feeds the desire for more and more things.

An evolution from community to individualism has made us a more anthropocentric culture. Today the manager and the therapist, products of this individualism, define the outlines of American culture. The assumption is that we can manage and fix everything, whether a problem in production or making someone feel good about themselves. We have seen a loss of language that speaks for the public and common good, and of a concern for community. The triumphant language today is that of individualism, a concern for the individual. This has in turn led to self-centeredness. Selfishness inevitably leads to a desire for more and more things.

Problems It Has Caused: Theological Compromise

The constant desire for more and more things has led to a syncretism between materialism and Christianity (if such a thing was possible). People begin to think the purpose of Christianity is to help them become more successful, and that if God loves them He will bless them with a temporal blessing.

In the process, people become cultural Christians, which is to say there is not any marginal difference between the way they order their lifestyles and the way non-believers order theirs. There is a God we want and there is a God who is. They are not the same God. Cultural Christianity means to seek the God (or gods) we want and not the God who is. It means to want God to be a gentle grandfather type who spoils us and lets us have our own way. It is to live by our own ideas, to be a Christian on our own terms. To be a Cultural Christian is to abandon the first principles of orthodoxy. Whereas Cultural Christians are a community of orthopathos concerned for right feelings, Biblical Christians are a community of orthodoxy concerned for right beliefs.

The church, rather than calling people to sacrifice and self-denial, too often ends up catering to the ambitions of its congregation. The church shows men how to be successful but not how to be faithful. Rather than calling men from materialism, "me"ism, and worldly lifestyles, the church becomes the agent of personal fulfillment for men who cannot control their appetite for more and more things.

Individualism in the church, the infatuation with the "new thing," and an insatiable desire for more and more things has caused a segment of the church to refocus on meeting the felt needs of people. Seeker-sensitive services often entertain the mind, but do not engage the soul. The church begins to offer its attendees support rather than salvation, help rather than holiness.

In this process the church becomes worldly. People become consumers of religion instead of worshippers of the most holy God. They come to receive a blessing rather than give God a blessing. They come to be entertained rather than to be broken. The congregation is looked at as an audience to be entertained rather than a flock of sheep to be discipled. All this comes from an anthropocentrism fostered by culture, but not expunged by biblical preaching. Instead, the insatiable desire for more and more things is overlooked or, worse, promoted as the essence of how God blesses.

Furthermore, the church has often been too seeker-sensitive by allowing people to remain anonymous without at some point calling them to transition into becoming part of a community of believers. According to Bellah, religious individualism must be transformed by reconnecting it to the public realm.

However, in other ways, the church has not been seeker-sensitive enough. The church has not recognized the confusion of the average Christian about how to live an intentional, deliberate Christian life. The church has not discipled men and women how to go "into" the world without becoming worldly.

Ministry That Is Sensitive To Deliberate Christian Living

Ministry that is sensitive must simultaneously respond to the survival needs of daily living while at the same time elevate people's thinking to the higher plane of worship, praise, and thanksgiving.

So how does the church balance appealing to seekers with transforming them? The church needs to begin where people live day-to-day. Today the church and culture are so far apart that preaching "bridges" must be constructed that bring people from the world in which they live and struggle into the Holy of Holies, where they can feel a fresh touch from the living God. To do this effectively, we must give seekers what they need in the context of what they want--real needs cloaked in their felt needs. Today people want success. So let's talk to them about success, but then transition into what constitutes true success from God's eternal perspective.

Meaningful ministry must call people to right things: surrender, sacrifice, suffering, and service; not to success. It must help people discover their identity and purpose in Christ, not in satisfying worldly ambitions. It must help them discover their spiritual gifts and calling, rather than endorse the pursuit of pleasure. It must help men and women discover God's will rather than encouraging them to write their own script--a script that invariably includes a constant desire for more and more things.

For the half of our churches that are getting it right, to God be the glory. Enter into His rest. For the other half, God loves you, but he wants you to "repent and do the things you did at first" (Revelation 2:5).

Shaking Those That Can Be Shaken

See: List of Earthquakes In The Last 30 Days Alone

(As it was spoken using the verse in Haggai 2:6.)

Cleansing the Body: A Prophetic Reproof

Outraged at Brazen False Teaching
By John MacArthur
Crosswalk.com

I don't watch much television, and when I do I generally avoid the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). For many years TBN has been dominated by faith-healers, full-time fund-raisers, and self-proclaimed prophets spewing heresy. I wrote about the false gospel they proclaim and the phony miracles they pretend to do almost two decades ago in Charismatic Chaos (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992. See especially chapter 12). I had my fill of charismatic televangelism while researching that book, and I can hardly bear to watch it any more.

Recently, however, while recovering from knee-replacement surgery, I decided to sample some of the current fare on TBN. From a therapeutic point of view it seemed a good choice: something more excruciating than the pain in my leg might distract me from the physical suffering of post-surgical trauma. And I suppose on that basis the strategy was effective.

But it left me outraged and frustrated - and eager to challenge the misperceptions in the minds of millions of unbelievers who see these false teachers masquerading as ministers of Christ on TBN.

I'm outraged at the brazen way so many false teachers twist the message of Scripture in Jesus' name. And I'm frustrated because I'm certain that if these charlatans were not receiving a large proportion of their financial support from sincere believers (and silent acquiescence from Christian leaders who surely know better), they would have no platform for their shenanigans. They would soon lose their core constituency and fade from the scene.

Instead, religious quacks are actually multiplying at a frightening pace. One thing I discovered to my immense displeasure is that TBN is by no means the only religious network broadcasting poisonous false doctrine around the clock. The channel lineup I receive includes at least seven other channels whose schedules are filled with false teachers and charlatans. There's The Church Channel, Daystar, GodTV, World Harvest Television (LeSEA), Total Christian Television, and several others. Some of them feature blocs of family television programming and a few fairly sound teachers who provide moments of escape from the prosperity preachers. But all of them give prominence to enormous amounts of heresy and religious claptrap - enough to make them positively dangerous. And TBN is singularly responsible for kicking that door open so wide.

The continued growth and influence of TBN is baffling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the thick aura of lust, greed, and other kinds of moral impropriety that surrounds the whole enterprise. A long string of scandals involving notable charismatic televangelists between 1988 and 1992 should have been sufficient reason for even the most credulous viewers to scrutinize the entire industry with skepticism. First came the international spectacle of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's moral, marital, and financial collapse. That was followed closely by the revelation of Jimmy Swaggart's repeated dalliances with prostitutes. Shortly afterward, an episode of ABC's Primetime Live exposed clear examples of deliberate fraud on the part of three more leading charismatic televangelists. Those incidents were punctuated by a score of lesser scandals over several years' time. It is clear (or should be) - based on empirical evidence alone - that preachers promising miracles in exchange for money are not to be trusted. And for anyone who simply bothers to compare Jesus' teaching with the health-and-wealth message, it is clear that the message that currently dominates religious television is "a different gospel; which is really not another" (Galatians 1:6-7), but a damnable lie.

TBN is by far the leading perpetrator of that lie worldwide. Virtually all the network's main celebrities tell listeners that God will give them healing, wealth, and other material blessings in return for their money. On program after program people are urged to "plant a seed" by sending "the largest bill you have or the biggest check you can write" with the promise that God will miraculously make them rich in return. That same message dominates all of TBN's major fundraising drives. It's known as the "seed faith" plan, so-called by Oral Roberts, who set the pattern for most of the charismatic televangelists who have followed the trail he blazed. Paul Crouch, founder, chairman, and commander-in-chief of TBN, is one of the doctrine's staunchest defenders.

Continue reading...

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While the act of sowing seeds in the Lord's vineyard is an instrument of faith and blessing within the Body of the Lord, it is not exempted from corruption and scam. Jesus himself during his time on earth was outraged at some people in the Lord's temple for practicing some sort of corruption concerning the way the temple's system of material offerings and sacrifices was corrupted.

Like any good thing, there always accompanies an opportunity for the Enemy of the Body to abuse and corrupt the minds of the believers concerning this holy and noble act of sowing seeds for the kingdom. And unless being reminded once in a while and fully made aware of the possibilities of the Enemy's camouflaged pits, the Lord's Body of believers could be in danger of stepping out of bounds of its true anointing.

So, if you have ears to listen, ignore not what the Spirit is saying to the Body. Lest there will come a time that the Lord himself shall whip the animal offerings to free and drive them out of their holding cages, and overturn the tenders' transaction tables and scatter the money and drive them away from the Temple.

The Temple (the Lord's Vineyard) is not an investment center. But many believers have now started to think and treat it like a "spiritual stock market". Their focus is now turned on the material or personal profit and they have looked away from the cross.