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In the 1960s the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase 'Global Village'.

It neatly embodied the growing awareness that talking to friends in Australia was as easy as having a chat over the garden fence. Its sense of intimacy and friendliness recommended it to an optimistic era and it passed quickly into the public's vocabulary.

By definition, dictionaries are always playing catch-up. Sometimes they take it slowly, sometimes fast, but they are always a yard or two off the pace. They are for ever recording what people have already meant by the words they speak and write. They can never say, 'From now on, this is what you must mean by using this word'.

So we cannot always expect them to know what Christians are talking about. Especially when we hardly know ourselves. These deep thoughts are stirred by the way we use the language of songs.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Nov 2002

There are two great challenges facing evangelicals in America today. The first is contemporary. How can evangelicals effectively minister in an atmosphere where war is looking increasingly likely? What is their role? Are they to tacitly support the administration, passively ignore the political realities, or actively campaign for a pacifist response?

Each of these approaches have had their supporters in conflicts past. The other challenge is historic. Because the revival of American evangelicalism over the past 50 years has, by and large, been based in para-church organisations, the gut-feeling of many American Christians is one that is thoroughly unused to being committed to a local church. This - as anyone with a moment's reflection could see - might easily transpire to produce enormous problems for the Christian community at large in the future.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Oct 2002

Soon enough, the remembrance parade of September 11 will pass. Right now, as I write, American TV companies and media outlets (and churches, be it said) are gearing up to remember September 11. It's a tricky feat. There are innumerable sensibilities. And the date is still too recent to be able to draw helpful or accurate conclusions about the American response to the terrorist atrocities.

Of course, from a European perspective, America's reaction to September 11 is increasingly looking revengeful. The sabre rattling currently going on with regard to Iraq is controversial, to say the least. In America, statistics of popular support for an invasion of Iraq were until recently highly in favour. Now, even in America, war fever is beginning to give way to the long game and the need for the gathering of allies and all that. There are doves and hawks in the administration. Donald Rumsfield urges immediate action, Colin Powell urges caution, and Bush listens and speaks eloquently.

Anniversaries for 2003

General

Robert Estienne, the leading printer in Geneva at the time of the Reformation, was born in 1503. He printed Bibles in French, using roman type rather than the heavy 'Black Letter' type, which made for greater ease of reading, and from 1551 introduced the practice of numbering individual verses, which has been followed in English translations.

Lilias Trotter, missionary to Algeria, was born in London in 1853. A gifted painter and sensitive writer, she formed the Algiers Mission Band (now Arab World Ministries).

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Jul 2002

Finally the moment has arrived. As new terrorist warnings are daily delivered from the various governmental offices of the USA, as Wall Street holds its breath over the fragile economy, and as Osama Bin Laden remains presumed in hiding, now, at last, the excavation has finished. 'Ground Zero', the site where the World Trade Centre once stood, is clear.

Now comes the big question. What to do with it? In typical New York fashion, various developers are already touting the site as a 'fantastic opportunity'. Others pale at the idea of the scene of so much carnage, and emotional trauma, being thought of in terms of expensive square feet. New York needs the office space (The World Trade Centre used to house an acre of office space per floor), but many would rather the glass boxes were stationed elsewhere now.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Aug 2002

When I was an undergraduate at university in England, our college hockey team solicited corporate sponsorship from Arthur Anderson accounting LLC. The team used to sing, in raucous and irreligious fashion: 'Arthur Anderson had many sons' to the well-known church tune of 'Father Abraham had many sons'.

Little did I think at the time that Arthur Anderson would be the syndicated accountancy firm hired by Enron. Enron, famously now, has been caught up in an accounting scandal that destroyed the once corporate giant. Now, bad news following upon bad, WorldCom has declared that it overestimated its revenues by several billion dollars. Fast on the heels of that news, venerable stock-safe-haven Xerox has mentioned that it too has overestimated its revenues to the tune of a few billion dollars.

The outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that the gay issue is on the verge of splitting the Church of England. Already serious trouble has been caused among Anglicans in Canada. Here, leading evangelical theologian Jim Packer sounds a vital warning.

In June 2002, the synod of the Anglican diocese of New Westminster, in which Vancouver stands, mandated its bishop to do what he had already indicated his wish to do, namely, to authorise the production of a liturgical form for blessing same-sex unions, to be used in any parish of the diocese that requests it.

The founder and president of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, Bruce H. Wilkinson, has become hooked on a little prayer tucked away in the first book of Chronicles.

The prayer was made by a man called Jabez. His name means pain, and he was given the name because he gave his mother a lot of pain in the process of being born. And, having been saddled with the name, its meaning seems to have preyed on his mind somewhat. So, even though his prayer is basically for more territory to live in, Jabez wants to acquire and enjoy it without incurring personal pain. Who wouldn't?

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Jun 2002

'The moral authority of the Catholic Church is in jeopardy', Bishop Gregory reported that he said to the pope and other senior prelates at the Vatican, before the Pope's summons of the American bishops to a crisis conference.

It's hard not to agree with Bishop Gregory. The recent sex scandals in the Roman church must have dented its credibility. Paedophilia and piety do not make good bedfellows. What's more, there is some extraordinary blindness in this. One local priest got himself on a news radio programme and said that this scandal was not as bad as it seemed because often the victims were over 10 years old. Older children, he explained, recovered more quickly.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Jan 2002

It's been quite a year in America. First, there was the 'millennium' (remember that?), then there was the tech-bust, and then (of course) September 11, Afghanistan, the Taliban, and one Osama Bin Laden.

In some ways, you might be forgiven for feeling if you lived in America that despite all this nothing has changed at all. Shopping is still the national sport. Pundits are still predicting a soft-landing for the economy. Microsoft is still selling Apple Mac's software cunningly disguised as Windows.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 May 2002

I found it hard to believe. Americans I mentioned it to also found it hard to believe. But, nonetheless, it was true.

Terrorist Grand Marshall

The Grand Marshall chosen for this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade in Rockland County, New York, was a convicted IRA terrorist. This celebration - the second biggest in the State - attracts 40-65,000 spectators. It is only outsized by New York City itself which draws two million visitors. The Grand Marshall was to be one Brian Pearson. Brian Pearson is a former IRA member who served 12 years in prison in Northern Ireland for driving the getaway car after the Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks were bombed in 1975. Mr. Pearson came to the US illegally but gained political asylum status in 1997. The Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) is, apparently, appealing and reviewing his residency status.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Apr 2002

I wonder how many EN readers will recognise that as a quote from the Bible? Ecclesiastes 10.19 'Money is the answer to everything'. While there may be much that British evangelicals would wish to feel that they have to teach their American cousins about, for instance, the integration of the mind and faith or maintaining the purity of the church, in this matter, American evangelicals seem to be far more comfortable with the plain reality of life which the Bible here acknowledges.

If you want something done, it's going to cost money. If you want to hire someone to do a good job it will cost money. American evangelicals on the whole tend to have much more of the attitude that 'you get what you pay for'. They want a healthy, growing church; and they know that one component of that is a godly, Bible teaching pastor, and so they intend to find money to pay for one.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Mar 2002

President Bush delivered his State Of The Union address to predictable applause. Bush has become one of the most popular Presidents in American history. His handling of the 'War on Terrorism' has endeared him to the patriotic hearts of Americans. And, of course, State Of The Union addresses are always peppered with loud approval. Their basic theme - America is great and we're going to make it greater - and their tradition combine to make applause all but mandatory. Pity the poor person who has to deliver the opposition party's response in a quiet room, somewhat alone, and with most people switching their TVs to other channels.

One of the most revealing - and encouraging for Christians - aspects of President Bush's tenure so far has been his outspoken faith. Even in the midst of this political speech par excellence Bush managed to make mention of 'God', and the presence of God which he felt many had found to comfort them in their hour of distress and need.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Jul 2001

In America there is a turn of phrase which makes a play on a previous word to indicate mild - sometimes humorous - derision. So someone might say about breaking the speed limit 'Oh speeding, shmeeding'. The 'shm' sound is placed in front to give the sense of the previous word not being important or not being considered worthy of full attention. Pomo is the shorthand word used by some to indicate postmodernism.

Enough of preliminaries! This letter from America wants to say 'pomo - shmomo'. Recently I asked a suitably trendy professor of English at Yale University about postmodernism. He told me in no uncertain terms that postmodernism was passe. This caught me by surprise. Don't you read Derrida any more? I asked askance. Oh yes, he replied, maybe, but that's all out of date now. Hasn't been fashionable since the mid-90s. What's in now? I asked. Ethnicity, he said.

From time to time one of those seemingly eternal chestnuts surfaces in or around this third of the page. Why suffering? Where will it all end? Why are hymnwriters so greedy?

Leaving the first two for a moment, I approach the third with no particular complaint in mind. I write this months ahead, so if the letters column is bulging with outraged pastors, the coincidence is not of my making. Have we any defence?

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Feb 2002

There is another war going on beside the war on terrorism. It is the war to decide what interpretation of the events of September 11 will gain general credibility.

A few weeks ago, retiring New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis suggested that Attorney General John Ashcroft, a committed Christian, is as much an 'enemy of decency' as terrorist mass murderer Osama bin Laden. For 'Certainty', says Lewis, 'is the enemy of decency and humanity in people who are sure they are right, like Osama bin Laden and John Ashcroft.'

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Dec 2001

A threat that's hard to assess is a fear that's hard to keep away. The fear of the unknown is a primeval instinct of humanity. Such fears have been played upon in years past by documentaries and movies about biological warfare. The fact that some such tactic seems to have been employed by terrorists, and that some people have actually died from anthrax infection, means that there is a new cloud of unease hanging over American heads.

Of course, the likelihood of contracting anthrax is negligible, especially compared to other risks that we daily run. But that this risk, unlikely as it may be, is delivered by way of the mail and whose victims seem so random brings all within its scope of fear. The visit of the mailman certainly has a new dynamic to it these days in America. Few things could have been better calculated to unsettle the ordinary citizen than a deadly infection spread by the mail that in its early signs of contagion is practically indistinguishable from the 'flu.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Oct 2001

Eerily enough, the date on the calendar was 9/11. 911 is the 999 emergency call in America.

Words cannot describe the horror that has been visited on America. Somehow, with the destruction of the World Trade Center and the devastation of the Pentagon, Americans seem different. They are in shock. They are in mourning. They are angry. They are almost in a national state of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Bill Edgar is both a professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and an extremely talented jazz musician who has spent a lot of his life in France. He is not only very intelligent and cosmopolitan, but uses his gifts to share the gospel in various ways. EN took the opportunity to interview him while he was in Britain earlier this year.

EN: Bill, tell us about your background?

BE: My parents met in North Carolina during the war, while Dad was in the army. That is where I was born. Shortly after, we moved to Paris, France, and I grew up there. Then we spent seven years in New York. But after that, the rest of Dad's professional career until he retired in 1983, was in Geneva. It was not a Christian home, but it was a wonderful home.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Sep 2001

What is the largest Protestant denomination in the world? By some counts, the answer to that question is the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

The SBC is just astonishingly big. Imagine the biggest big thing you can think of then times it by something even bigger. That's about it. Since its organisation in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, the SBC has grown to 15.8 million members who worship in more than 40,000 churches in the United States.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Nov 2001

'When I use a word it means what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less'. So said Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Caroll's Alice Through The Looking Glass. These days the word 'evangelical' seems to be used in that kind of Humpty Dumpty way. Evangelicalism as a concept is increasingly flexible.

Some therefore wonder whether it should be disbanded altogether. If groups with very diverse theological convictions, and some with very few theological convictions, all feel they can gather under the banner of 'evangelical' is the term in any sense still useful?

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Aug 2001

There is a certain on-going friendly rivalry between Canada and America. One instance of this is the continuing disagreement between the two countries over who won the last war they fought against each other in the 19th century. Americans are taught that they did. Canadians know they did.

Another instance of this friendly rivalry is a radio show in Canada called Asking Americans. In this show, a radio reporter travels down to America and asks Americans various spoof questions. These questions are designed to expose Americans as being woefully ignorant of what is going on in the world outside their national boundaries.