 the spiritual landscape from a Scandinavian perspective and I was thinking if anybody would come and listen to this it's not going to be too detailed but I want to give some examples from Scandinavia about the changes that are going on in Europe but also I believe all over the world sooner in some places later in other places so this is what is all about this afternoon and I'm aware of that when I use some maybe some theological terms they might be a little different for example Europeans use the term evangelical a little bit different than what Americans do when it comes to Protestant groups but I think you'll get the the drift of it now I will because my wife and I came into the church about a year ago so I will use some of my experience from of course the the Protestant world but I want you not to you know get hung up over the details but see that there is something that is a perspective that that I think in one way the Lord wants to give us of what is changing in many nations right now when it comes to Christians that are actually finding one another and why they're doing it and and how this can be developed Scandinavia and more particularly Sweden has been considered one of the most secular nations in the world maybe the most secular nation in the world and since the Protestant Reformation that was in the 1500s it's been it's been a very strongly unified Lutheran country it has been a Lutheran state church that has dominated the scene in an overwhelming way all the way up to the 19th century the revival movements that later became free churches they broke that monopoly in the 1800s or in the 19th century they and together with the increase in secularization and also a strong socialist labor movement in Sweden has changed the religious scene drastically the revival movements that were quite big and substantial in the 1800s turn into free churches and they contended with the Lutheran state church which step by step led to more plurality and eventually to change legislation in Sweden this gave Swedish citizens more religious freedom not automatically being registered in the Lutheran church which they were up to only a few decades ago as being Lutheran by birth so you're not like that anymore these changes came very late in Sweden 1951 came a more much more flexible really law of religious freedom but for example not until in 1970 where Catholic Monasteries allowed or any form of monastery allowed to be started in Sweden so you can see it's an entirely different scene from what you have here in the United States the Catholics were not allowed to express their faith after the reformation and conversion to the Catholic faith after the reformation resulted mostly in death penalty as late as in the middle of the 1800s conversion to Catholicism meant expulsion from the nation and this means that it was fostered in many during these 500 years a very anti-Catholic sentiment Catholics were not on the map not on the horizon anymore we had hardly anybody of them in Sweden from the Lutheran state church there has been a staunch resistance against Catholics but also against the free churches and these of course for different theological reasons secularization step-by-step changed this in Sweden the free church movement particularly in Sweden has been very strong and influential I would say probably the strongest in in in Europe except for maybe in England and but due to this strong secularization its influence also waned step-by-step and among the free churches it was particularly the Pentecostals that has been growing and had an influence far stronger in Scandinavia and out from Scandinavia also than in many other places in Europe the 1970s brought in the charismatic movement and the charismatic movement greatly affected all the different churches in Sweden and Scandinavia resistance against the charismatic movement came primarily from theologically liberal groups but also as well from theologically very conservative Lutherans and from some traditional Pentecostal groups maybe you know this is something that happens that the the latest revival will also attack what comes up next anyway what happened was that sometimes to the big surprise of many Pentecostals this charismatic movement went into all basically all the different denominations in Sweden and in many ways broke down this compartmental attitude and this outright hostility that existed between different Christian groups in this environment there was an awareness of the Catholic Church the Catholic Church in Sweden is a small church Sweden has nine million people so it's not a big nation 2.8% goes regularly to church which is not very much if you go to some evangelical seminaries they would have a quota at four you know if somebody comes from a nation that is on a 4% they are eligible to a missionary scholarship so anybody Sweden would have that because we only have 2.8% people going to church in a totality and that's divided with between the Lutheran state church or now former state church because after 2000 it's not a state show anymore and the different free churches and a third group that has come into Sweden which are the immigrant groups the Catholic Church is mainly immigrants and has been looked upon as an immigrant church an immigrant church basically means that there are immigrants coming bringing their religion with them and facilitated by by by the nation so that they can live out their religious faith but they are looked upon as something that comes from the outside and doesn't necessarily influence the nation in any way but step by step the Catholic Church has started to grow and attitudes towards this which were quite hostile especially at the beginning of the 20th century and on has changed a lot at the millennium there was a shift and the Lutheran state church became free from the church it has over the years been accused of be overly political because of the connection with the state bishop was appointed by the state local church authority was politically elected along political party lines and SEPTRA and actually still is this new freedom for former for the former state church did not diminish the political influence and one example of this is how the Lutheran church in Sweden recently not many years ago followed state legislation when it comes to gender neutral marriages and decided not just to bless these marriages but to officially perform same-sex couple marriages and referring not just to different theological reasons there were also theological reasons for this but also in fact referring to that if the state has made this a law which the state made a law first of May 2009 then also it is the duty of the church to implement the law and to perform the right to which they started to do from 1st of November 2009 so this is a highly politicized and secularized church that used to be state church state church means he was sponsored by the state it means that it has a quite a dominance culturally also with the nation but in this very secularized environment Christians from many different traditions also being alarmed about this rapid secularization started to find one another and to start a fellowship in actually in an unprecedented way a way that's never happened before in Sweden the need for unity and there are many reasons for it and I'll not go into them became much more obvious before than before and the old reasons for avoiding one another seem no more adequate it looked like the divisions in among the Christians in Sweden were not going along denominational lines but they were going along all together other issues of course the issue of abortion or the issue of homosexuality and so on or gender neutral marriages were coming to the focus now this outward pressure has forced many Christians in Sweden to start to focus on more essential and important questions than basically what do we have together what is it that is common ground not what is it that divide us the need for true unity the need for stability the need for clear doctrine the need for historical roots and for the authenticity in spiritual matters has strongly come to the surface the last decade in Sweden in a very unusual way the interest in historical Christianity and particularly in the Catholic Church has emerged in a very unique way in these new circumstances these circumstances have forced us fostered an entirely different climate and a longing for unity for re-evangelization has touched Christians in almost every circle and has created a number of new initiatives one of those initiatives that's been quite unique it's something called the Jesus manifestation now when it comes to numbers you are living in the United States of course just by the very fact that you are much more people here your numbers are bigger but in Sweden to gather 10 to up to 18,000 Christians from almost every denomination is quite impressive actually and this is what this Jesus manifestation was once a year in our capital Stockholm Christians from Pentecostals near Charismatics and all the way down to the Catholic Church with the Catholic Bishop of Sweden speaking on the same platform and everybody kneeling together for prayer the Jesus Christ again will be Lord over our nation and that he will change both individuals and the nation this is something that has never happened before and I would say like 10 years before that 15 years before that or maybe 20 nobody would ever thought that it could happen but it did happen and it's been a very very special a very graced event this initiative is a result of a longer process there are a number of factors that contributed to this change and I'll mention about 10 of them quickly there have been of course some form of a former formal evangelical ecumenical I would say ecumenical dialogue going on in Sweden those formal dialogues sometimes are between leaders and they it's good that they meet it's good that they discuss but usually it doesn't penetrate or filter down to the grass roots but it lives its life of its own but the one between the Catholics and the Pentecostals has been very successful and it's been something that has actually surprised everybody but even more important are probably more informal initiatives that has emerged over these last I would say 10 15 years if you if we go back to the 19th there was an initiative called the Gesture Life which of course you have here in the United States it is marches pro-life marches Sweden with the legislation and with the culture is very much pro-abortion it is Sweden is a strange nation it's good nation and I love it but is and I use it as an example for any nation as such but there is a a conservative element and almost a puritanical element as much as a very radical element and the radical element is that in one way both both the Swedish government and also primarily Swedish state church has always wanted to be avant-garde always wanted to push certain agendas always wanted to go before and in one way I would say out of pride saying we do this and then the rest of the world will understand now this has to do with a number of things but one of the things is of course abortion promoting abortion now in this environment it emerged from many different free churches and also the Catholic Church of course and also some was a little bit from the state church something called yes to life which was a march going on every year and they were up to five seven ten thousand people and it actually shocked the nation it shocked the media they tried to ignore it but they couldn't and it was something that they thought they had overcome and that this issue was dead nobody would talk about it again and and the Christians came out and not in an hateful way but in a loving way singing praising the Lord but speaking very clear about right to life that life starts at conception and we have a right both of the beginning and the end of our life and so forth so this was something that that was a surprise the third thing I would mention is the Catholic Bishop of Sweden now Sweden being a reform Lutheran nation hardly any Catholics for hundreds of years then step-by-step a few Catholics will come in and eventually Sweden get a Catholic Bishop and was usually German but 1999 the first Swedish Catholic Bishop since the Reformation was installed in Stockholm and this is a Comalite monk priest and his name is Anders Arborellius and this also caught the media by surprise and they started to be interested in him and he has managed by the grace of God to have a communication with believers in the land doesn't matter what background you have and he has been a rallying point and in here we see that the Catholic Church has moved into the center in a way that nobody thought would happen in Sweden still a small church is only 140,000 Catholics in Sweden registered Catholics there are more non-registered but still it is a small church but now they see this is not just an immigration church nothing wrong in that in sense but this is also more and more Swedes are coming to the faith and this is something that that the media is look looks upon but they're puzzled because it does not fit the secularization plan of course the fourth thing is something called the Uase's movement the Aces movement it's a strong moment in Poland it's a Polish Catholic charismatic movement in Sweden it became a Lutheran charismatic movement but quite substantial and many Lutherans have joined it and started in 1983 and it's been a rallying point within the Lutheran Church against this strong liberalization in the state church and it's been very open to free church people a lot of free church people have coming and they frequently Catholic speakers in their conferences father Ranier of Cantalamessa has been there a number of times this summer as well Bishop Anders Arborellis has been there also so this is also something that is new in Sweden and what I'm why I'm saying these things of course you don't know the details about this and but you can see a picture here this is more of a prophetic picture that the Lord in darkness where there is chaos where there is secularization and people basically laughing at Christianity I mean of course that hasn't happened yet in the US but you're on the same slippery slope and in this God always has surprises so I guess the basic message in this is to say you know keep your hope up and know that Jesus Christ is Lord he has all power in heaven and also in the US and in Sweden and or wherever you live and he is always ready to answer the prayers of the believers the faithful he hears the cries as of the faithful and he will answer and when we pray for our nation doesn't matter if we are few or many we are per definition and we heard that this conference per definition we are always more because with Jesus Christ we are always more so we have all the reason in the world even though we see a lot of darkness around us to be encouraged and to expect that the Lord will grace our nation or our city or our local church with his presence do you believe that I didn't hear you amen back to my manuscript so another thing that happened in this in this development was informal prayer that started between different leaders in different denominations even bishops joined and this was prayer groups where they were not allowed to talk about what was going on they were not gonna put it into their newsletter they were not gonna use it for their own denominational or ministerial purposes it was just prayer like an upper room experience waiting on the Lord praying and this has gone on for a number of years and it has affected those leaders that has been involved some of them came into the same room without knowing that the other guy would come into the room and they haven't shook hands for years and now of course they had to but more than shake hands they had to pray for one another people that pray for one another have a hard time hating one another can you say amen to that well this is so so informal prayer meeting with leaders from different denominations and movements has fostered relations of love and respect and which is the start of unity another carmelite a carmelite priest and monk his name is Wilfred Stinnison he's now with the Lord he authored a number of books on spiritual life and different issues that has been very attractive to especially free church people and he's a Catholic and I've met people that have read him he's so iconized that his name is Stinnison they always said you have a book of Stinnison of course and so they read it and once I said you like the book yeah I like this wonderful book on devotional book and I told this person do you know that that he's a Catholic no it's not a Catholic is it go back and says that he is but you know so sometimes the Lord has to do this to slip in the message or just help people to overcome prejudices prejudices on both sides so that we at least can look at one another in a time of need we will be pushed together in a time of need we are not that many in a time of need we must wash each other's feet in a time of need we must look up to Jesus together and it doesn't mean we want to do it if we are in a majority position if we are if we feel a human strength the financial strength culture strength or whatever we don't care too much about the others but when we don't have that anymore because it's been stripped away from us from the state or from secularization or from different things going on then our hearts open up and we start to understand more in depth that we truly need one another can you say amen to that now let me give another example Pentecostal minister in Sweden his name is Peter Haldorf he is the most probably the most unusual Pentecostal in the world he has a great interest in the Eastern churches he loves the Orthodox Church he's very fascinated by the Coptic Church and the Desert Fathers he walks around in in what would looks like a habit with the Eastern right and he has a big beard and when you ask him he says he's a Pentecostal minister so he is a sign of contradiction but he's done many many good things he has written a number of excellent books he has a community that's ecumenical he invites Orthodox Catholics Coptics and Pentecostals free church people and so on to meet one another and in this environment many many young Christians in Sweden have started to open their hearts and longing for the deeper wells longing for the wells of tradition longing for what the Lord has done in the beginning what has been deposited in the church through the Desert Fathers and the Apostolic Fathers Church Fathers and so on so he although he says he has a Pentecostal will remain a Pentecostal he has helped to foster a much more open climate in Sweden there's also the Lutheran the number eight the Lutheran High Church Retreat Center a community called the Mountain and it's been very influential of fostering a positive attitude towards unity in Sweden it's founder the Lutheran priest Paramossus he was received into the Catholic Church just a few months before he before his death and the whole community seems to be moving towards closer and possibly full communion with the Catholic Church so there are certain movements that are going on in different ways like this and you know if you well if you're a human being you know that we usually don't like movements we don't we like to sit still in the boat and don't like to rock the boat don't want to offend anybody and it seems like the Lord is slowly rocking the ship for many reasons in Sweden and it means that people are starting to find out about one another and be surprised about one another the ninth point would be World of Life which is the church that I've been a pastor for in over 30 years and in the last 15 years we have taken many initiatives towards unity trying to broaden the minds of charismatic as well as other free churches and whoever wants to listen I've written a number of books on these subjects and I hosted a number of conferences with Catholic speakers and other speakers open for to help people to be open for more deeper unity and we have taught about the need for visible unity and spirit in truth we also initiated a number of study tours to Rome for pastors and leaders and it's amazing to see a swede coming outside of Sweden you know Sweden is I mean we live way up in the north and and Polish circle crosses our country up in the north and and and we're not isolated we're part of the European Fellowship but you know we're a little slow maybe and a little cool and calm collected and coming out like this going to Italy it affects us immediately just looking at the traffic and and it's amazing how many other Swedish tourists going to Catholic churches when they are outside of Sweden they wouldn't dare do it in Sweden but in Spain in Italy in France they love it so this tendency I think what the Lord is doing here is that is actually because the breakdown of a more unified society that we used to have monopoly on religion monopoly of state which I'll come back to that a little bit more the restlessness and the loneliness that people have here are new opportunities if Christians will take it and and and show some form of of basic unity that people are actually very very interested there's been going on informal conversations between the Vatican and the charismatic non denominational groups at the Pontifical congregation for promotion of Christian unity and I have participated in that a number of years and the next point would be immigrant churches now there's been a decline in state church in attendance church attendance there's a decline in some of the free churches as well there is a crisis and I'll explain that a little bit more but in this crisis there's been an influx of of immigrant churches because we have many immigrants come either come to work in Sweden or come because they're refugees and these are basically the Oriental churches and many even theologians now say that they might be the survival of Christianity in Sweden because they are very bold they come from entirely different background they are not censored by either by theologians or by the state and they address very plainly I would say something that's very bluntly the issues that sometimes other Christians trying to avoid so there are very healthy influence in in Sweden as such and worth mentioning at last is also the emphasis of unity that always been a part of the charismatic movement at least in its in its more initial stages in Scandinavia and it has fostered a deep sense of that we are the body of Christ even though we are broken though we are dispersed though we are not united we still belong in one sense to one another across the denominational lines so all these things together I think this was 12 points they have formed some form of informal unity that has developed and come to the surface and in and a much deeper sense of discovering one another and actually knowing that we belong to one another then possibly ever ever before in Sweden and this is actually quite unique in Europe as such and this is the the positive side of the discovery of one another there's also a negative side of it and the negative side is that there is an idea of plurality that plurality is good and it should be maintained the way it is and that any form of conversion to the Catholic Church or from to some other should not be done but we should just stay where we are and look at one another and smile and I mean it's good for a starter but it's absolutely not what the Lord has intended of course when you read and you read scripture actually sometimes even in these circles that are open for unity conversion is highly discouraged is sensitive and I believe that these development that I described up to now it is the first step it's good step but there are more steps that needs to be taken if this is step one and step two means that we need to analyze now actually what is it that is lacking that hinders us from coming even closer and being a strong witness together to the world outside according to John 17 21 and other verses particularly of course there in John 17 the the high priest prayer of Jesus Christ where he prays that we should be one as the father and the son are one so should we be one or John 11 32 52 I'm sorry where he says that Jesus Christ died not only for Israel but for all the dispersed sheep to he died for them to be united and to be to be gathered and to be these are the two words to be gathered and to be united to be gathered doesn't mean it means that we hold people into the same room that doesn't mean we're united it just means we're in the same room together which is good it's a good start but it's not the end we also be to united and how will that come about so I think there is a positive element not just in Scandinavia I think this goes on all over the world of discovery of respect of drawing closer of understanding the science of the times of understanding the greatness that is actually what is going on in the world today but where do we go from here the growing secularization in society is a great concern in Scandinavia for Christians no church and no denomination in Sweden is immune to the secularization there's both an out word secularization the pressure of the world but there's also an inner secularization which is a common accommodation to the world and starting to accept things that we were couldn't even think about a couple years ago to accept from the outside the breaking up of the historic bastions as a national church and a more unified society a more patriarchal patriarchal with view on society on family and church and individual has meant great changes both in structure and direction of all these entities in the modern society especially as we long ago of course I've moved away from agrarian society in and through an industrial society in communication society which is clearly postmodern and has a post-christian touch I'm not saying that it's post-christianity because I don't believe it is but it has a touch of it of course it seems on the surface that people are leaving and not interested that does not mean that the gospel or Christianity or Jesus Christ is outdated it means that we are in a in a change and we must understand what change it is and we must relate to it in a proper way and we cannot just stick our heads into the sand and just or just hold the fortress in the 1980s Sweden was more than ready to dismiss Christianity altogether as a force not influential anymore in society in politics the social Democrats I don't know whether probably be the liberal wing of your Democrats or something like that maybe that would be a little bit equal in the policies of the social Democrats which was the governing party and in our back in power again in one way or another for more than 40 years in Sweden in front Sweden strongly heavily and they had a clear direction which they spelled out publicly of ideologically taming the churches and turning them into vehicles and the political instruments for their party politics and for the end with the hope of eventually dismissing these churches all together it is the old socialist idea that religion sooner or later must die that science will prove how crazy religion is that step-by-step religion would just wane it would just die if we just push it a little bit of course that is not what has happened but in the process the communication of the gospel in this environment became more and more horizontal and politicized less vertical and lacking supernatural element in many churches it looks like it was a remnant of the past and it was also largely privatized being seen as a private affair something that you would not mention in the public square or you would not allow it to have any influence whatsoever on politics and culture and one question that steadily arises is whether the free church movement the revival movement as such with a much more pietistic emphasis actually also gave away gave away ground and made it easier and maybe even accelerated this secularization now I don't want to put the blame or be negative but usually the blame for the secularization in Sweden is laid on the theologically more liberal Lutheran state church with his obvious policy of accommodation to state and society but lately theologians have questions whether or not the whole underlying parodying of evangelical Christianity and pietism or revival movements have actually as a backside paved the way for the lack of Christian influence in the public square in the through the emphasis of the privatization of the faith this means that is not just society telling Christians to be quiet but is also Christians telling other Christians not to engage anymore but to develop a personalized faith period now this is happening by putting the individual so much in the center on the expense of and with a disdain of a more collective approach of organized church and of outward visible structures and the fear that culture Christianity takes away from the deep personal experience and commitment to Jesus Christ and therefore should be avoided and shunned as a result of both outward and inward secularization the Christian faith is not anymore an obvious part of the cultural landscape or the foundation for the legislative process and culture expression in Scandinavia do you follow me is it okay good the new so let's let's dig in again okay so so the new and the modern multicultural society on the surface has a quite big degree of toleration much more in Scandinavia than the old unified society that we experienced in the past multiculturalists allow a diversity of expression up to a point and where's that point well the point is that if you do if the expression you have which is valid is one of many expressions in society but the expression you have if you say that this is the norm then you have passed a line which means that you're okay to do basically anything you say just as long as you don't say that this is right or that is wrong so taking out objectivity and and moving in with the relativistic and highly personal experience you can almost say and do anything and on the surface it looks like freedom but it is mainly a decor giving the image of plurality more than authentic than real authentic freedom of diverse expression giving that an emphasis and it's also directed strongly where it's supposed to lead this is a freedom that is directed and where the borders of the tolerance are clearly spelled out and where one is supposed to be to obey those borders and never cross them I mentioned earlier this wonderful thing the Jesus manifestation in Stockholm it's a great and an unprecedented success both in numbers and in the way different churches participated and also in the spiritual intensity intensity it's an amazing thing to see downtown Stockholm on a sunny May afternoon ten thousand people on their knees and watching and there you see a Lutheran priest and his in his black coat and here you see the the Catholic bishop and here you see a lot of people that are waving you know placards with Mary and Faustina that has never happened before in a say in an ecumenical or or a protest and meeting and and all these people praying together this is an amazing thing and spiritually it is very strong and we are very very happy for it so this as I said is statistically big numbers by the media was first totally ignored like it didn't happen at all but step by step it caught the tension of the media and they had to say something about it it also brought a lot of joy to Christians that only a few years ago would never have marched together in the same March or bow down together on the pavement to pray together it is quite unique and should be applauded for that but when the lights are dimmed and the banners are removed it seems that the function of decor for an image of freedom that is basically saying that our society tolerates almost any form of expression as long as it is as long as it is it is not a norm or challenges any other norm this is highly problematic as it does not give room in society for any real influence for the for the gospel but mainly a good feeling at the moment for the participants this may sound a bit pessimistic but in reality it is not it is a bit sobering of course but it is also a starting point so to be sure in Scandinavia as in the entire world there's much need for ground to be taken back for the church and for the gospel and a society both to challenge and to invite and this can be done but before that or at the same time alongside with engaging evangelization there also needs to be a proper analysis of different ideological scenarios and paradigms that do prevail within the larger at least Protestant Christian scene otherwise there will be an overwhelming danger of eventual pessimism defeatism or a naive spiritual daydreaming about a revival that we hope it will come and it seems to never come as we and so forth and so I have some points here three points that I think are prevalent today in modern Christian thought now I would say it could be more in both Catholic and Protestant but and I'm sure you will recognize it this is taken from the Protestant environment but it applies to any Christian in group I would say the first point is what I call a revival scenario now I need to explain the word revival revival is the expectation that God will supernaturally intervene in the course of history to change things for the better it is the understanding that individuals persons can and will be saved and will come to the saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ the model for this paradigm is in the context I'm referring to the different historic revivals that have occurred the last 150 years in Sweden in Europe and of course in the US as well and at its best this there is a hunger here for God there is a hunger that this will happen again that many people will discover Jesus Christ and there is a longing for this to happen that's a good thing but at its worst it is a nostalgia looking back at past glories and trying to model sometimes in detail after what happened many years ago or just mainly longing for it to recur again somehow but we don't know why so it can produce at its best a strong longing to engaged in spreading the gospel it can also be a frustrating or disappointing experience when this really doesn't happen immediately at its best this parodying the revival parodying and livens the Christians to personal repentance to more prayer to live daily in the Word of God to try to live a holy life as best as we can and to reach out in evangelization to our neighbors on a personal level so it is a personalized faith being expressed the risk is still there though that in this thinking there is a nostalgic permanence of certain methods that will turn into markers for different religious groups that rather confirm their own church identity in the particular group than these methods being questioned or being put to good use as instruments to reach out and serve the surrounding world in a fresh way and this can result in lethargy tiredness as results don't easily show up this can result in giving up and starting to drift towards the world towards the word the values and the behavior of the world while still doing lip service to classical truths and routinely going to church but being quietly disappointed so this revival parodying is strong on living in the now reaching out but weak on patience weak on longevity and weak on long-term thinking the whole idea of training future generations the whole idea of importing and transmitting the Christian life the dogmas the values is really not emphasized in this parodying as the expectancy lays on God's supernatural invention through revival and our emotional response to it is really God will do it to God will do it he will fix this he will intervene and in one way we forget what it says when Jesus gave the commanded that you go out he gave he laid it on us and we easily can put it back on him I would say that this thinking severely hinders a steady growth and allow a long-term thinking in evangelization and it has a tendency to foster frustration and disillusionment the second parodying is the catastrophe scenario it means a overall negative expectation and outlook on the future this is based on certain important Bible passages and this can be found in both free-share thinking conservative high church thinking it emanates from the eschatological sermons of Jesus Christ in the gospels and the teachings of Saint Paul about the end times emphasis on this parodying is on apostasy apostasy becomes very important it is also an emphasis on the horrible scenes in society in end times and not so much on the blessed hope now if the biblical basis and the biblical basis for sure is there we've all read it it's in the scriptures there's no question about that but if the biblical basis for this teaching is isolated and over emphasized or overly generalized or being fused with a general attitude of negativism or culture conservatism it leads to exclusive exclusivity or defeatism or write out fear in this scenario there's also activist stress about evangelization time is short the end is near and this many times results in the neglect of the present needs in society as heaven for sure is more important life becomes hectic, alarmistic, activist and sometimes very narrow and it becomes fearful or overly sheltered in a ghetto-like existence. Another side of this scenario is the overwhelming emphasis of the future talking about the future trying to discern the future on the expense of the past denying the significance of the past and denying the value of tradition. The third parody is the desire of being relevant now this relevance parody is very prevalent in the circles that I'm referring to it is highly motivated by the need for evangelization and an updated form of communication with people in a modern society which of course is very good and in this parody more scenario modernity is not something frightening in this parody evangelization is the primus multur the overall motivating force for the whole Protestant evangelical community and the spreading of the gospel has preeminence of a church identity and I'll come back to that and preeminence of a church life as such so in this relevance parodying there is a reaction against both the intensive and narrow understanding of revival and the intensity and the frustration or the activism in the catastrophe paradigm there is a definite tiredness within many Protestant circles about these paradigms as they prove to be so narrow to narrow and not really producing good fruit in the life of Christians but sometimes a lot of frustration this third parodying the relevance parodying at his best is a modern way of connecting and relating with modern people and trying to identify with them speaking their language and solving their problems and the church has always been notorious for answering questions that nobody is really asking so sometimes we need to ask you know what questions are you asking I've never heard any secularized person said I am very my questions has to do with grace and works this is what I'm really concerned about no they're not they can't spell the word those words the question their questions are entirely different that does not mean that the gospel is changed for that but we need to of course updated in a positive sense but as it's worst the relevance parodying is a surrender to the secularization process it is an accommodation or a simulation which is the absolutely opposite ditch of the ghetto mentality that I mentioned in parodying too in this parodying here the Christian ceases more or less to have any real distinct mark it's being involved in so many different activities and attitudes that after a while it has a tendency to pick up the ideological the ideologies and the ethics of contemporary society while trying to evangelize this is being done while one continues to hold on to certain classical Christian central dogmas it becomes almost a bipolar attitude where one divorces doctrine from morals church life from ordinary life private issues from professional issues and in this worst case but very real scenario let me give you just one example Pentecostal elder active in his local church can at the same time be a doctor performing abortions which has happened entire local churches while professing to be conservative and by believe believing in their faith and their stand can still deny support to midwives who does not want to perform abortions which also has happened church leaders engaged in evangelization from a conservative or traditional standpoint understanding of the gospel can say that fighting a board abortion is not a priority question on their agenda or they don't want to have a negative approach to it because it was scared off people so the whole idea about relevance one has to be very very careful and really dig down deep and understand what are we truly talking about because there is an overall tendency not to relate to the daily situation and the problems of the daily situation with the biblical theological foundation instead it becomes overly pragmatic it includes avoiding words with biblical categories expressions seems now alien or foreign expression like sin righteousness holiness is avoided because of the fear of scaring people away or because we have been a part of this secularization process that really is trying to take these terms not the terms but the reality behind them away from us so that we are not truly saved there is a preference of speaking of experiences the language is overly a motive and words like self-realization slogans because you're worth it and so on is coming into sermons and into everyday talk so it's a pickup of what is being used in the society around us in the relevance paradigm entertainment is very important Christian services meetings concerts sometimes even mass takes on a form of entertainment and they're trendy they're modern with the approach and with the attempt not to differ from society both in appearance and that's in one way okay in an evangelistic event but also in theological content this is all done with a purpose with a good purpose to reach the unreached and even if the intention is good which is to reach out often the result is very negative at least in the long run because in the short perspective there is much ado about figures and instant success and and you can do p yourself you can fool yourself with success with numbers with figures where you say everything is well look at figures looks good a lot of people came to our conference a lot of people came to our events all these systems we are reaching out we need to ask us if are we really reaching out in a more problematic circumstance the question is are we reaching out to the world or is the world Richard you're reaching in for us now that doesn't mean that we are supposed to live in a spiritual ghetto it doesn't mean that we're not supposed to engage it doesn't mean that at all but it means that we must personalize in our own life the answer which we heard yesterday the answer is not just a doctrine or a principle it is a person Jesus Christ that we know so from the first parodying the revival parodying with the emphasis on personalized Christianity of having a personal faith is something that every Christian should have but it does not stop there and it's interesting to know that all these three paradigms can exist parallel to each other in the same charismatic free church sometimes without people knowing that these are actually inconsistent with one another some people are not aware that they differ from one another and in real life they all they often overlap by having a pragmatic attitude one often really doesn't care too much about theological soul-searching as long as things seem to work the need for self affirmation and progress is often stronger than the need of discerning especially if everything seems to go rather well or if the need to try to revive a particular movement or a church to its past glory is again is the strongest motivating factor for the people involved and not to bring forth Jesus Christ to those that need him but in the long but the long-term results of not taking time to discern these things where we are and what are the influences on us how come there is an increase and it will it will cause us to experience rather an increasing alienation in the church a rootlessness of who we are where we're going and fragmentation even though the evangelical world and the modern charismatic movements and they're all our brothers and sisters seem on the surface to do rather well there is still a deep underlying frustration because there is a short-sightedness there is also a reluctance to really deal deeply with these underlying problems problems that in the future will be absolutely detrimental and as it's going to be hard to stand against the tide of strong increased secular pressure if you don't if we do not know who we believe in and what we believe in as we look towards the future what elements in these paradigms must be challenged for Christianity to survive and to thrive in a secular elements I have three points on that are you still with me amen okay thank you just want to be sure these three paradigms that I mentioned they've been developed in certain specific historic environments of course it goes back to the 1800s with these movements were born and it was a battle with both non-Christian ideologies and older church systems the reaction to and the questioning of the authority of scripture of the authority of dogmas and doctrines of church authorities and structures and of ethics and morals has produced a Christianity based on feeling and experience of consensus truth rather than objective truth and this is very serious and it has to be dealt with it stresses modern newly invented traditions in contrary to ancients ancient tradition with a big T the overriding tendency in these paradigms is to only look forward and to neglect and many times despise anything in the past it's a culture of replacement and three things in particular we need to deal with and the first thing is super individualism in this environment there is a deep seated feeling that everything starts with me yes life with Jesus is personal but it is not individualistic the center of the universe is not my ego amen to have a narrow emphasis on the salvation of the individual person on the expense of everything else and without identifying with the corporate church create self-centered Christians and a consumer mentality the consuming of pleasure consuming of power consuming of comfort consuming of security Christianity is all through God centered not me centered and here's a good place to say amen now the big biblical expression of Jesus Christ is not really that he is my Lord he is of course but it doesn't say that and he's not only that the biblical expression is Jesus is Lord which has a different touch to it which includes more than just me personally Jesus is the Lord of the church and the universe and one when I accept that he becomes of course my personal Lord as well the second point if the first was super individualism the second point is experience oriented there is a good case of course there's a good case for arguing that the Christian life is an experience it is an experience the emphasis of the experience has often be used as a criticism of sterile rationalistic faith of many theological institutions still faith is not just an emotion it is not just a drive for constantly new emotional peak experiences that would satisfy my senses or myself this will ultimately drive people into spiritual deserts to thrive only on emotional or seek and put emphasis on emotional experiences in the end becomes a form of spiritual hedonism some form of self-pleasure the third point the lack of understanding and the fear of and the disdain of authority the secular process of democratization the idea of the independent local church and the autonomy of the individual these are three different spheres so you have the democratization democratization in society it's a very good thing you have independent local churches which are very prevalent in the Protestant world and there's a tendency towards us also in certain areas in the Catholic Church more of independence and the autonomy of the individual they all emphasize one word freedom freedom becomes very important but a worldly twist on the word freedom makes it hard for people to submit to other people especially authority and hierarchy so in some parts in circles charismatic circles it is the basis the bottom line is I submit to God but to nobody else which is very convenient because God you cannot see in people you can see so it makes it hard to submit to authority and to hierarchy a lack of understanding of incarnation theology produces a low esteem for any form of institution and structures that will primarily be seen as threats not as instruments of blessings I think this goes not just in the Protestant world I think you can see this all across the line the idea that if you have submitted to Jesus Christ you really don't need anything more is quite prevalent in the Protestant world here you and I are the ultimate authority and you alone are the interpreter of what God is doing in your own life the individual himself becomes the ultimate judge on everything and I cannot think of a worse scenario than that in the church it's problematic the fear of abuse of power is great and understandable it is constantly used although to minimize all form of outward structure of authority the favorite thought is that leadership starts from below here is a mix up between the actual term office which many pre churches are suspicious to use and the attitude of the holder of the office as a servant in the office serving everybody else position and attitude is not the same thing in this thinking there is a reaction against what one supposed to be an ancient and outdated worldview in the note New Testament and the need for removing any form of patriarchal ideas while still claiming to be biblical these tendencies that I have mentioned they result in three things and I think I will end with this one thing is that one does not anymore have a deep identity in the church and really doesn't understand what the essence of the church is the church is seen more as an obstacle for evangelism as an obstacle for the for the personal Christian life and for the spiritual life as such than a resource to it the sense of me and Jesus built on super individualism prevails a lot the deep feeling of coinonia disappears of course we are social beings so we will one way or another still organize our lives and we will have fellowship we will feel somewhat connected but this is not the same as the unique and deep affinity that is presence that is present in the fullness of the body of Christ and that needs to be revealed it needs to be explained it needs to be affirmed in order to be fully lived out we are not spiritual loners can you say amen to that this lack creates a sense of rootlessness and self-centeredness it creates people that jump from church to church from conference to conference from from one form of piety to another it also gives the wrong view of Jesus Christ as if he would be distant from his own body one example of this is a title of a book that just came out from a Pentecostal journalist in Sweden a while ago and the title is Jesus is going forward but the church stands still and I can relate to the problem he describes but I do not relate to the ecclesiological view that underscores a deepening rift between the personal believer on one hand Jesus on the other hand and the church on the third hand and the church will always carry the blame the church see is seen like a foreign entity a problematic one if you have a talk on healing people will be very happy if you have a talk on the church people looks mostly sad there's something in us that reacts and I think that needs to be dealt with the second identity is not to have a deep identity in objective truth which we have heard about yesterday and in dogma it results in a shallow and very relativistic view on doctrines the emphasis on experience fused with modern relativism and with postmodern pessimism results in a distancing from objectivity and the need for further clarity doctrinal teaching is seen more as dead letter than a living word of the spirit and it needs to be brought back orthodoxy needs to be preached in the power of the spirit the contemporary pop culture with its mix of hunger for freedom read freedom as autonomy and emotional experiences neomaterialism which is really middle-class comfort in a hippie style environment has penetrated modern worship has penetrated church culture and outlook on the spiritual life in general resulting in an aversion against going deeper in the faith this is sometimes excused by the need for connecting for relevance and for evangelism and the third tendency is to not have a deep identity in salvation this seems remarkable because the contexts which I've been using which you the which is the revival movements the word salvation is used more there than in hardly any other Christian environment the word salvation is a free charge codeword per excellence the word salvation is overwhelmingly used in past sentence and also in a narrow meaning I have been saved this is definitely necessary but it sure is not enough the Bible uses the word salvation in a much broader both the collective sense and in a context that is both past present and future not just one tense if this has been narrowed down and turn into a formula then a number of deficiencies occur that will ultimately hurt and not benefit this Christian life the spiritual life there is also a lack of understanding of the role of the church as an agent and an instrument of salvation and salvation as a lifelong process the whole idea being formed and fostered by the church in the church and for the church is weak or sometimes non-existent without this forming process actually aided by the Magisterium and nourished by the sacraments we will be isolated islands we will be untamed and undisciplined loners we will be unpruned while bushes not yielding the fullness of the fruit that Jesus spoke to us about promised us and that we were supposed to give so to summarize this in all of this there is a quiet desperation behind all the many activist attempts and initiatives in many Christian circles the basic questions have not really been dealt with the three underlying paradigms that I mentioned before is 11 the spreads throughout the dough of modern modern Christian thought and life especially in the free church movement and in the charismatic environment the revival paradigm does not just produce personal faith in Jesus Christ but can foster a super individualistic attitude the catastrophe paradigm or the strong eschatological outlook which properly understood is about having us staying spiritually awake and alert in difficult times can produce a very narrow outlook on life a disdain for the past a fear for the future and an exclusive elite with an overly activist agenda the relevance paradigm which at its best is an understanding and a compassionate attitude towards the world and the need to connect to be able to communicate can deteriorate into compromise and accommodation this results in a fusion of Christian elements with materialistic hedonistic pop culture this eventually open up for liberal theological ideas in morals and practices and eventually results in the breakdown of orthodox Christianity because of lack of inward strength and identity in the church the fragmentation and the weakening of many forms of Western Protestant Christianity will continue and accelerate so this is a wake-up call what is lacking many sincere Protestant Christians in the free church and charismatic movements are really asking these questions are very sincere there is a definite hunger for God but as there are so many divisions and fragmentation and the underlying predicaments are there it is not easy to recognize this nor to deal with it yet and it can be seen in Scandinavia there is today a new longing all along the line a longing for truth there is especially this is especially visible among younger Christians there's a longing to go deeper there's a longing to be more authentic there's a longing to find proper historic roots and to understand real authority and to live in deeper community there is a strong longing to be united with one another in a more visible way even structural way and I believe I do believe there are two tendencies one is the need to go out into the world and share the gospel to be missionaries not just to live in a Christian ghetto the other one is a movement towards the center and it's coming from many many different parts of the Christian world it is towards Jesus and when it goes towards Jesus towards the cross it goes towards Jesus and his church because Jesus is not divided from his church and here is the biggest asset for the Catholic Church and also the biggest challenge for the Catholic Church to meet and to listen not to be triumphalist but to be lovingly truthful in this and in this serving Protestant brothers and sisters where they are will open up for deeper unity then Jesus the shepherd as he promised can gather all the scattered sheep into one sheepfold according to John 11 32 it is necessary for the church to be one to be able to overcome the many and hard confrontations and challenges that will come tomorrow already has come the above mentioned 10s tendencies as well as these initiatives many informal have resulted in dramatic changes in the spiritual landscape and had opened many hearts for the need of true and visible unity this development seems to be a unique window of opportunity not to be missed by the Catholic Church amen we have a couple minutes for questions if I think we are if I'm on time I think we have a few more minutes is that right okay yes or no yes so if you have any questions yes is there what a geographical Center for Christianity well depends on what do you mean where things really are happening or do you mean institutionalized where where things are happening yeah well there are a number of places and and and these I mentioned several of them so I would say that three or four places in Sweden there are different things happening but definitely happening but but I would not say that it's bursting forth but it's something that is blossoming step by step mainly in the urban areas yeah yes the question is that I did not mention Islam and I did not mention that because this is more of what is going on between Christians Islam has an effect on Europe and I think that the positive effect is that so many people are waking up okay what do I believe Islam is there there are two I mean there are two sides there are people that just rationalize it and say no there's no problem it'll go away and then it's the other side that people are so alarmed that they can't think straight so I think the bottom line is that a Muslim is a person and we must we must meet them as persons and I do not believe that they are immune to the gospel I do not believe that so I think there's a time not to not to have fear and not to isolate ourselves but to distinguish that that that there are key questions key doctrines that that divide Christianity and Islam and the bottom line is who is Jesus Christ and so of course there is a difference is a big difference culturally but spiritually especially but I would I would really really encourage people to pray for Muslims and not to be afraid of Islam just take one of them yeah I think that yes that the question about the freedom of the churches in in in relation to the state and especially as secularization comes adoptions and you know same-sex marriages and also are basically in a in a in a Swedish pop but you can say anything you want the government cannot come in and say we're gonna withdraw you know the if you say these things but of course there's a former self-censure says sensor also but that goes more comes more from an ideological liberal theological influence I think then directly from the state but of course there is a sponsoring from the state and it goes different ways you get you get why be drug-abiding escape was that in English and I don't know that you get sponsored you know yeah I mean for certain things and also you get your tax back and and so on so they're in one way a high degree but there is pressure I mean society as such not only through legislation but just through pressure is trying to to to change Christianity in its in its very root I would say yes in England is getting problematic is Sweden had us not occurred yet is no yeah oh yes oh yes oh yes I mean the Catholic Church in Sweden very much alive in in many ways it's a small church and and maybe that's good that the bishop says is a good thing because it you know when you are minority and when you're provoking society around you you you have to know what you believe and you have to to foster devotions and so on so it's one way it's a good thing and southern Europe is more of a culture Sweden is not yes it's one diocese one diocese yeah the whole of Sweden is one diocese yes there's a seminary there's a seminary yeah yes yeah so there are a number of Swedish and and the more Swedish converts and their most Swedish priests so things are slowly coming along now homeschooling is is not accepted in the law but we have Christian schools freeze free school schools so the Catholics have and some Protestants churches have free schools and call Christian free schools but not homeschooling now yes I'm going to tell that tomorrow morning what was the reaction where we came when we let when we came into the church I said I'll save that until tomorrow morning yeah pretty much the same I would say you know pretty much the same it's been a there's some nuances but mainly the same development very secularized state churches in all three nations the free churches are bigger in Sweden than the other nations secularizations maybe stronger even in Denmark than in Sweden but but basically the same yes yes saying to Bridget or sancta big it as we say in Swedish she I mean we read about her in the history books we knew a little bit about her but not much in the general public does not know very much about it because the whole thing with saints of course was avoided after the reformation but there is a new interest there's always been those that that are that have had the interest in St. Bridget and I would say it's it's coming back a lot of things are coming back and this is very exciting actually because stop preaching this about that so so this is quite fascinating yes okay I think you need a break thank you so much