From 7 Year-old Marco Nachtigall: "I would be a total disaster if I weren't a Christian."
White as Snow
It looks like many places where our friends live are having severe winters. We are too. It seems to have been constantly snowing for 3 or 4 weeks here which is unusual for Berlin. There was an article yesterday about how this has been the biggest amount of snowfall in Berlin in 110 years. German capital Berlin has experienced more snow this month than any other December of past 110 years, as more bitter cold is expected in the country's east, the German Weather Service (DWD) said Tuesday.
Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg have never seen such a thick snow in December for more than a century, as some places received 40 centimeters of snow since Dec. 1, the weather agency said.
Snow embraced the capital city, which has a population of 3.4 million people, on this year's Christmas, while the last white Christmas that Berliners remembered was in 2001, with only 10 centimeters of snow on the ground.
Here's a couple of pictures from outside our window. On the table, you can see how much has accumulated.
Alps--Austria
Photo: After visiting the church in Pforzheim, we headed to Austria for a 3 day family vacation. It was gorgeous, but went by way too quickly.
Photo: Luckily for us, the roads were very clear despite all the heavy snow in Europe this winter.
Photo: Absolutely gorgeous. After a decade of not being close to nature, we are really enjoying being around nature now.
Photo: We traveled to a little town in the Austrian Alps that is on a beautiful lake. The town completely clears out during the winter, the tourists go elsewhere, and you are left with a very quiet, very small little town where you can relax. We saw few people and we enjoyed playing games inside and just relaxing without phone, email, and all that stuff.
Photo: Austria is a pretty conservative country. While people associate Western Europe with liberalism and an "anything goes" mentality--that's not necessarily true. Austria is politically quite conservative. The governments in Austria often flirt with far right racism. Mountain cultures are often closed, conservative cultures--and that's the case with both Austria and Switzerland in many ways.
Photo: As we were driving around Austria, we saw lots of crucifixes all over the place. (Above) is the beautiful town graveyard overlooking the lake and next to the small Catholic church.
Photo: Just think of how beautiful these pictures would be if I knew how to operate my camera.
Rothenberg
Hi folks. That was a longer break than I expected from the diary. Well, the Christmas season turned out to be more hectic and exhausting than I thought. We all got sick, we had car problems, and we've had multiple computer problems, we were off the internet for a while during our travels--and all of that kept me off the diary for longer than I had planned. Well, we're back now.
Prior to Christmas, we traveled down to one of our churches in Southern Germany (Pforzheim) to visit the congregation. Whenever we have free time, we will be trying to visit various German Church of God congregations just to encourage them and thank them for letting us live in their beautiful country. This time it was Pforzheim, which is a very strong church pastored by a 33 year old friend of mine. I love the youth group there and I probably know more people in that church than any other--so it was nice to visit them. Great to see young leadership emerging also.
On the way down, we stopped in Rothenburg, Germany which is considered one of the most beautiful towns in Germany. It's a town that is surrounded by castle walls and sits on a hill overlooking a valley. It was gorgeous. All three of us loved it there and we definitely plan to go back.
In the first picture below, we are walking along the castle walls.
It is a medieval town dating back to about 1400 AD. It was a major stop on a couple of the trade routes that crossed Germany in medieval times. But it was ransacked a couple of times and bombed in World War II. In the picture above (on the Right) you see a man drinking a large mug of beer. The story has it that the town was going to be pillaged once but the invading army said that if any citizen of the town could drink a large glass of beer without swallowing once, the town would be saved. The former mayor took up the challenge and drank the mug of beer without swallowing and the town was saved. So today, at noon, everyday in the center town square, you can see the clock tower re-enact that famous moment (that probably never happened).
2010-My Top 10 Books of the Year
Well, it's that time again. Each December for the past 3 or 4 years, I have been doing a post on the top books that I read in 2010. The last few years have had some real good ones. This year started off pretty good and got increasingly disappointing. Oh well. As usual, the winners get nothing, but it's still the most exciting diary entry of the year. The red carpet is out, the limos have pulled up and I'm wearing my tuxedo. Not that anyone really cares. Let's get started: 10) The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombies and Magic by Wade Davis (304 pp.). A look at the world of Haitian voodoo. After the Earthquake I was interested in learning more about Haiti as well as the religious situation there. What emerges is a pretty sociological examination of Haitian society which is held together through informal networks of small communities (often tied to African-influenced Voodoo). Amidst all that you learn about curses and potions, and the way people can appear dead and even be buried alive (zombies). Fascinating book.
9) Crossers by Philip Caputo (464 pp.): This novel takes place on the Arizona-Mexico border over a period of 100 years or so showing that the border situation of today is not much different than a century ago. Crime, illegal immigration, tension between races, smuggling--it's all happened before. The novel is not nearly as good as I expected it to be. Drug Cartels in Latin America are a subject that really interests me. The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow is a far more entertaining novel.
8) Enders Game by Orson Scott Card (352 pp.) is a science fiction book that follows the story of a young genius named Ender Wiggin. It's the future and the Earth has been attacked by aliens, so the world government is trying to breed genius kids to lead the charge against the aliens. I don't like Sci-fi usually. What's most interesting about the book is Ender's struggle to understand his place within the world upon being a chosen one.
7) The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman(pp. 288) . George Friedman is the founder of Stratfor which does geo-political analysis for corporations and anyone who wants to subscribe to their expensive newsletter. Friedman believes history is often counter-intuitive (I absolutely agree) and he tries to project into the future counter-intuitively. Sometimes he is very convincing (arguing that Mexico in the 21st Century may become a wealthy and strong enough country that it really doesn't need the USA anymore), or that Poland and Turkey are well positioned for the next century. At other times, he's less convincing, as when he argues that Japan and the USA are headed for a clash. Overall, a very informative read.
6) Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathaniel Philbrick (pp. 480). A very readable history of the early settlers to New England. The harshness of the environment, their naivete, and the way they both depended on the Indians, fought the Indians, and were ultimately supplanted by bigger more powerful people is fascinating and very American. Their moment in history was very short and this book explains why.
5) The Blue Parakeet: Re-thinking How You Read Your Bible by Scot McKnight (240 pp.). The most easy-to-read, helpful book on how to read your Bible and why people read it so differently--and where they go wrong in their approach. Extremely readable, very insightful.
4) Unnamed: by a certain French writer I like. (320 pp.). I'm not going to put the name of this book on the web because I don't want to get complaints. This one is not a book that you can just carelessly recommend. It will depress you. This book is a very brutal novel about the meaninglessness of modern life and how Western societies individualism and obsession with beauty is destroying it. It's a bleak, bleak novel. What I like about it is that in its brutal way, it shows the true consequences of nihilism--Radical Individualism is taken to its logical extreme and the results are grim. Behind the darkness lingers the question of whether man is ignoring his maker.
3) Arrow Pointing to Heaven: the Rich Mullins Story by James Bryan Smith (pp. 272). Rich Mullins was a Christian musician from Indiana that became successful in the 1980's and tragically died in a car accident in the late 90's. It's the moving story (as told by one of his friends) of a guy who lived the life he sang about and in many ways envisioned the challenge institutional Christianity would soon face. Very inspirational. I highly recommend it.
2) Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer (480 pp). The true story of NFL Football star Pat Tillman who left the Arizona Cardinals in the prime of his career to fight in Afghanistan after 9/11. Tillman, an atheist, had extremely high moral expectations for himself. His journey is one of developing his character at an early age, having amazing amounts of integrity, and then getting put into a situation where that integrity was challenged. Tillman died in a friendly-fire accident in Afghanistan that was then covered up by the US military. For me, the most appealing part of the story is about the challenge of keeping up one's idealism for the team when the team doesn't keep it up for you. Tragic.
1) Acts of Faith (Novel) by Phillip Caputo (pp. 688). This novel takes place in 1990's Sudan during the Civil War. It is a story about missionaries, mercenaries, tribal people, pilots, and UN workers, all trying to navigate Africa. The book exposes the corruption, opportunism and compromise within the global aid community. People are a bag of mixed motivations and sometimes their actions result in good and sometimes they result in further damage. It's a novel about what drives people and how difficult it can be to change the world. It is also a novel about the challenge of Africa, a subject that has always fascinated me. I could not put this book down. It's the only book this year that I read that had me on the edge of my seat the whole time.
Well, as you can see some of the books are Christian, some are not, and I think that's important. Especially working in a setting like we do, it's incredibly helpful to understand people's underlying worldviews and assumptions and I am always looking for books that do that and do it well. Some of the books were challenging, others were just informative, and others were just for fun.
My goal for 2011 is to try reading more books written between 1500 and 1900 because not everything wise and interesting comes from the 20th and 21st centuries. There's a lot in the past that we need to re-discover, so hopefully next year's list will include more books written in different eras of history.
Biggest Disappointment 2010: V.S. Naipaul's "The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief" which deserves its own post. What a let-down.
Be Thankful
I post this because it's a beautiful song I love. I think I've posted it before. She's a songwriting genius.
Layers of Post-Christendom: Reflections on Liverpool
Last weekend I was in Liverpool, visiting our church in Birkenhead. This building was immediately right outside of where I was staying. The sign says something to the effect of "Do you know religious persecution is worse now than 5 years ago. Do you believe in God?"
There is a Christian presence in the U.K. And even in super secular Berlin, there are now over 100 international congregations. But overall, rates of practicing Christians in Western Europe are very low. So doing ministry in a place like Liverpool is very hard work.
Pastor John has been faithfully serving here since the mid-1990's and also works at a shelter in downtown Liverpool. Recently, he was joined by two 26 year old newlyweds--Zach and Audrey. Zach and Audrey are two super sharp young people from the Sixth Avenue Church of God in Alabama (Ken Oldham's church to be precise). Zach fell in love with the Church of God in the U.K. and he's very good at reaching out to youth in places like this. Audrey strikes me as super-sharp and highly intuitive. I really liked them both. We went out for fish and chips (delicious!) and I learned more about them.
It's not easy, what they do. The U.K. is so secular that young people have virtually no respect for the church. As we saw in New Zealand, many do not even know what a church is. Zach and Audrey said that on youth nights sometimes parents drop off their kids at the church just to get rid of them for a few hours---the kids literally have no idea where they are. Absolutely no clue that they are in a church building or what a church is or what goes on there.
There's no doubt that culturally Christianity is in real crisis in Britain. Zach asked a good question the other day, "How come so many hundreds of thousands (millions) of people showed up to see the Pope in England a couple of weeks ago?"
I think the answer is that there are layers to Christianity in places like the U.K.
On one level, there are the remnants of Christianity everywhere in the underpinnings of European civil society. But these are so entrenched in everyday life, they are ignored and undervalued.
Then there is a second level of cultural Christians---people who perhaps do not practice Christianity on a daily basis or have any kind of personal connection to Christ, but who still feel like baptisms, christenings, confirmation, and other Christian rituals are a necessary part of life. It's tradition and superstition. This describes much of Europe. Much as a Buddhist might stop off at a temple before an important job interview, Eastern and Western Christians may attend mass for special occasions, light a candle, or visit the Virgin for an important moment.
On a third level are Church attenders--those that perhaps attend church regularly, and here the percentages in a place like the U.K. or Germany may be as low as 4%.
And I would add a fourth level--those who not only attend church but are practicing Christians--practicing an active Christian life of servanthood and discipline. This number would be much lower than 4%, but that is where we are at.
Despite how difficult it can be in the U.K., Christianity is growing there--and not just amongst immigrant communities. Here is a video of a girl from Wales who is part of the growing (Native-Briton) population of Christians--many brought to Christianity through the Alpha Course (to be discussed in a later post). Check out the video and say a prayer for Zach and Audrey. We have invited them to Berlin and hope to continue being an encouragement to them both here and in Liverpool (Birkenhead):
Images of Liverpool (England)
GBR - Episode 3
The long awaited, and much delayed episode 3 of Gateway Berlin Radio is up. In this episode The Oregonian film critic M.E. Russell discusses why Christian movies are often shallow compared to secular movies and what would make Christian art better. Also: A farewell to our summer intern Jael Tang.
Right click to download the podcast: [audio:http://www.three-worlds.com/GBR_Ep3.mp3|titles=Gateway Berlin Radio - Episode 3=Patrick Nachtigall]
Reader Question: China's Reponse to the Nobel
I'm back from England by way of Northern Ireland. My speech in Scotland was canceled due to a severe snow storm that has all of Edinburgh and Glasgow turned into a sheet of ice. People are sleeping in their cars on the interstate, I heard of a man not leaving his home for 4 days, and it's not even safe to walk on the streets. Both my hosts and I decided it would be best to not even try navigating these dangerous streets. Flights were very disrupted all over the UK due to the major freeze the country is feeling. I'm glad to have arrived back in Berlin late last night and be with my family now through the holidays. We'll re-schedule Scotland another time. Thanks to the people at the International Christian College for being so understanding.
Consequently, I spent a lovely day in Belfast, Northern Ireland, had to re-book through Amsterdam, that flight was delayed, and then the flight to Berlin was delayed. This was the last major work trip of 2010 and I'm pretty shot. In fact, I need to just spend a couple of days getting my mind off of things and do some Christmas shopping before it kicks into high gear again in January. So I will save my England post for later.
A loyal reader that worships this website (as all 3 of you loyal readers do) asked me to comment on the following article about Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel Peace Prize--and China barring him or anyone related to him going to Oslo to pick up his award and give a speech. Article here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8189833/Liu-Xiaobo-wins-Nobel-China-loses-face-with-boycott-of-peace-prize.html?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d00203e3ebba2c1%2C0
From the article:
It is a measure of China’s worrying brittleness that it could not take the Nobel Committee’s decision on the chin and argue the case for its authoritarian system of government and the political stability it brings to a country barely three decades out of dictatorship.
It is a stability, the country’s mandarins argue, that has generated two decades of unprecedented economic growth which the democratic world has been only too happy to share, notwithstanding the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, to whose victims Mr Liu has dedicated his award.
The real world is a complicated place. Democratic nations like ours believe that China would be more stable if it adopted many of the reforms that Mr Liu and his fellow signatories advocate in their Charter 08 petition, starting with the release of political prisoners like Mr Liu himself, but including a separation of powers and the rights to freedom of speech and association.
But as China has showed so clearly in recent weeks, it is still a relative adolescent at the top table of world affairs, which is why it would be wise not to crow too much over tomorrow’s loss of face.
I tend to agree with this. I continue to believe that China has done a pretty great job at navigating its entry into a globalized world beginning with the creation of the Special Economic Zones in 1980. I, for one, think that it was a good thing that the Tiananmen Democracy Revolution of 1989 failed. The students involved in those protests were horribly naive--and the whole thing began as a protest over cafeteria food. A nation as diverse, complicated, and populous as China would not have been well served by an immediate transition to complete democracy. Obviously I lament the massacre and the torture or inhumane conditions put on protesters.
Most likely, China would be in a more anarchical (and poorer) state today had those democracy activists succeeded. For the Chinese, the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was validation that they were right. Both China and Russia--with large land and large populations were not remotely prepared for that kind of transition. The average Chinese peasant (and China was still overwhelmingly rural then) would never have been able to make appropriate decisions in the voting booth. China and Russia need strong central governments or they will fall apart and that will be OUR problem whether we live in Europe or the Americas.
China's path has been to pursue economic reform first--and then, in time--allow forms of democracy (more at the lower level). We have to keep in mind that China is 4,000 years old, not 200 years old like the United States. And it is a Confucian society. And it has four times the population of the United States in a land that is not very supportive of large populations. China has to import its rice. In other words:
A few points about China from my perspective:
China is too complicated for Western style democracy right now. Perhaps one day they will be--but I would guess that this would need to follow the path of Mexico or Japan where when a 2nd political party emerges, it loses every election for a few decades until the country is really stable enough to have that 2nd party win.
China is fragile, democracy is messy. China is a country trying to balance an over-heated (bubble) economy, a rapidly ubanizing society, levels of pollution that are nearly unfathomable to us, widescale corruption, and a growing disparity between rich and poor, and imbalanced ratio of men to women, and a rapidly aging population (just to name a few). The amount of crisis points that Chinese leaders have to deal with would boggle the mind of any other country. China's technocrats are smart and they have made consistently smart decisions. China's party can make the difficult choices that a democracy like the USA and India cannot. China's aggressiveness in dealing with the environment or infrastructure cannot be matched by the USA and India where politicians have to answer to the local people.
While it's great that there was a democratic wave in the 90's--a lot of these democracies are stuck (like Ukraine and many of the Central Asian Republicans) unable to form coalitions do deal with the most pressing problems. Democracy (Iraq and Afghanistan and Haiti proving to be perfect examples) is inherently messy and I'm not sure China can afford that mess right now. It is a far more fragile country than people realize.
Most Chinese are happy and proud of China: While living conditions in China are difficult for many people, living standards have improved so dramatically over the past few decades that from their perspective, an authoritarian government providing 10% economic growth per year is not such a bad thing. Of course there is corruption, poverty, and many other problems, but what Westerners don't realize is that when I was born (not long ago) Chinese were eating tree bark and drinking horse urine to survive. The argument that China's government is super evil works in the West---it's not so convincing to people that are now buying homes, getting cars, and even if they are poor--are eating three meals a day of real food.
China is not likely to take over the world. As you all know, I spent the last couple of years traveling all around the world and everywhere I went---I mean everywhere (from Chile to Zambia to England) people are absolutely convinced that China is going to rule the world. Well, historically, in times when there are large geo-political shifts, the country that people think will become the new superpower does not. Instead, something comes a long and derails their progress (France in the late 19th century, Russia in the 1940's, and Japan in the 1980's come to mind) and they hit a wall. Then an unexpected nation (like the United States) ends up becoming the new superpower.
The reasons why China will NOT become the next great undisputed superpower are many in my book. For starters, no nation has become a superpower with an aging population. China may have doomed itself with its one child policy. It has about 10 to 15 years before it has to deal with a severe shortage of workers and an abundance of retirees. At the same time, China is in a massive economic bubble and all of this government mandated spending on infrastructure is going to lead to corruption and waste, and ultimately a big economic downturn.
IS THE NOBEL COMMITTEE DOING WELL BY HIGHLIGHTING A CHINESE DISSIDENT
Yes. While I'm not convinced that the Nobel folks really appreciate the complexities China is facing, China does need to be pressured into acting responsibly. I think this is the best of both worlds. I think China is being smart by NOT allowing this Liu to receive the peace prize. And I think the Nobel committee is right to put the pressure on China.
As China re-colonizes Africa, they are giving Africa a second opportunity at building up infrastructure, schools and businesses. However, China's way of going about it is full of exploitation as well. Entire closed colonies of Chinese are forming all over Africa. I reported here on this website (Chinatimes) about how I learned in Uganda that the Chinese are involved in all sorts of building projects--but unlike in China--where a skyscraper goes up over night--in Africa they take their own sweet time building themselves deeper and deeper in to the governments of Africa. And they don't morally care much about how corrupt or evil the governments in Africa are.
China is also very lax in doing its part to bring peace to troubled regions (most recently North Korea) or use their military to guard sea lanes or help global commerce in other ways. So China does need its feet held to the fire at times.
The Nobel will go to a dissident. And the news of this will be blacked out in China. For a country as large, complicated and young as Modern China (1980-present) this is probably how it should be for now.
Note: I wish democracy were easy. But I think we will see a big scaling back of democracy between 2015-2030. At my old website I had an article I wrote called "the Future is Singapore" which basically argued that we are headed for a world of the "Corporate State" where prosperous countries are very inner-connected, and tightly regulated. A world where people freely give up their rights, and even democracy for security, stability, and most of all prosperity. I think Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 will merge and segregate themselves from countries like Afghanistan that can only exist in chaos. That's my prediction. It's a long article, but if anyone wants to read it send me an email.