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Tuesday 9 August 2022

What do numbers really tell us? A Doctrine of Hits, Likes and Followers

 

 Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

 I was there!

I was there when The Pastor from Mars told a room full of Earthling pastors that Numbers-R-Everything. To prove the point that Big is Beautiful he told us that God had even named one book of his Bible after the god of Quantity. 

Who's to argue with God?

Some church folks over lockdown, I am told, started listening to false teachers on YouTube. When the heterodoxy of the preachers was questioned, the astonished viewers kicked back "but 100,000 subscribers can't be wrong!" 

Someone came running up to me the other day (yes, running)! They had found a faithful preacher on YouTube who only had a few hits and what is more, this sort of lamentable stat had been going on for ages.  My runner was deeply concerned - "What should they do about it? Who could they report it to? How could they help the poor soul?" The idea that a pastor/preacher should languish with just a few hits was cause for great alarm!

The numbers virus has now entered the bloodstream of the church.

Numbers-R-Everything!

In a world which pursues - and trusts - high numbers, whether they refer to hits, followers, sales, likes or bank accounts, how are we to think of numbers?

(Oh by the way, the Pastor from Mars, became so drunk on numbers that he bought a great number of his own books so that it would climb high in the charts. But like all sins, this numerology transgression was found out.)

When it comes to describing the glory of God, Numbers are Important

Everything about God is stupendous and indescribable. Big Numbers count when we're describing the Lord.

"Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array."

God has designed and created some ten million different species of living creatures alive today, to reveal a little of his infinite glory. (And some think this 10 million is a mere fraction of the Designed total number because of extinctions.)

God's promises are out of this world; he promised to Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. He keeps his covenant for a thousand generations. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and when he sets out for battle, enemies beware, for his chariots are thousands and thousands and thousands. 

When it comes to his forgiveness, God has put an infinity of distance between our sins and himself: to be precise, as far as the east is from the west. And so far as his children are concerned, God Almighty is able to do much much more than they can ask or even think. 

God is glorified through numbers which reveal his power, creativity, promises and mercy....

Small Numbers characterize Human Beings

...but when it comes to describing human beings, small and few is the name of the game. 

How tiny we all are in the vast cosmos, "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" 

In an amusing reflection on the tower of Babel, we read that "the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building." The gathered nations thought they were building some ginormous edifice! But it's so diddy to God that he has to go-a-hunting for mankind's little project. 

How incy wincy our minds. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." Job is rebuked for trying to understand the ways of God and confesses that he spoke of things he did not understand, things too wonderful for him to know.

But Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can speak to a gathered crowd of many thousands, He can feed thousands and cast out enough demons from a man that they enter and drown thousands of pigs. His majestic divinity is revealed in the numeric fact that if every one of his mighty acts were written down, the whole world, supposes the Apostle John, would not have room for the books that would be written.

Big Numbers are Everything when we are talking about God and his divine Son, but little numbers are the humble germane when we're talking about humanity.

Numbers and the Church Age

It is striking that almost nothing is known about church sizes in the New Testament. About the only numbers we have, apart from The Twelve, are the 120 followers who gathered to pray before the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:15), the 3000 converted on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41), which increased in number to 5000 soon afterwards (Acts 4:4) and the claim that many thousands of Jews had believed (Acts 21:20).

Apart from those Acts-ian figures, the New Testament is silent on numbers. Significantly, big numbers only in occur in Acts which records the supernatural founding of the church. Big Numbers therefore confirm the supernatural origin of the church - that's their function and purpose in Acts.

We do not know the size of any church in the New Testament! Wehave no clue or a hint! No church is condemned for being small and none are praised for being large. The pastor from Mars could not have been more wrong. Numbers are utterly irrelevant when describing the churches of the New Testament...

 ...except as we reach the end-times Revelation when the whole Church in glory to come is described and John "hears the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand." And now Church numbers do matter, for John sees the whole redeemed community, "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands."

Eight Reasons why Church Numbers are Irrelevant

So why do we know nothing about the sizes of the individual churches in the New Testament, why are numbers of all kinds so irrelevant? 

Here are eight reasons:

(1) Because numbers are the way the world does its business. Worldly people, seeking earthly recognition, want large numbers to know about them and to follow them. Worldly people wanting the security of money, want large amounts of money in their banks. Rulers, wanting power over more people, seek large armies and armouries. Political parties pursuing earthly influence want more voters. Everything in this world revolves around big numbers. 

That is a good reason - all by itself - to be suspicious of numbers.

(2) Because God is jealous for his glory. Time and again in the Old Testament, God was determined to use small numbers of humans to accomplish his purposes - so that instead of men getting the glory they don't deserve he gets the glory that he does deserve. For example, the Lord deliberately whittles the army of Gideon down from some 20,000 to 300 in order that "Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her." 

(3) Because God is pleased to use weakness. This is the flip side of point (2). Twelve men (11+1) turn the world upside down - and the Twelve are themselves weak ordinary unschooled chappies. Jesus commends the church in Philadelphia who have little strength. When we are pathetically weak, only then are we really strong.

(4) Because any human being can get up numbers. Quite literally anyone can build a large church. All you need to do is to lower the standard of holiness, raise the entertainment level, increase the volume of the band, tell folks that God is just about to do something amazing, preach that Jesus is coming back next Thursday lunch time (12:32, not wanting to be too precise) or spend thousands on social media, and quite literally anyone can build a following. 

Churches don't need God to do big. 

(5) Because Jesus only had a small church. What an insult to pastors of small churches to say to them - or to imply of them -  that they are somehow deficient or lacking because they only have twelve people in their congregations?  On the day of Judgement, when our deeds are assessed by the King of all kings, do we really think that pastors who have cared for flocks of a dozen or so, will be condemned by the One who faithfully pastored his little flock of 12 11? 

(6) Because numbers are in the hands of the one who elects. If a church faithfully preaches the Gospel, the number of resultant converts is not in their gift. It is the Lord who elects who is saved and who is not. No amount of tear-jerking or brow-beating will add a single soul to the kingdom of God's sovereign choice. 

(7) Because faith and love are more important than numbers. When the apostle Paul writes to churches he commends them for spiritual graces and he prays for spiritual graces, such as love and faith. Not once does he ask that the church would grow numerically. 

There are more important issues to consider than congregational size.

(8) Because what really really matters is discipleship. This is perhaps the greatest reason numbers do not matter in the Kingdom of Christ. Jesus set the pattern of spending vast amounts of time with a very few people in order to produce depth, not breadth. And that is all that matters. Paul wrote letter after letter to produce, under God, spiritual maturity in the folks who were saved under his preaching. He was not interested in big numbers, he was interested in forming Christ in his converts. 

If numbers do not matter, why, even in the evangelical world, are numbers so highly prized? Have we been totally seduced by worldly thinking? Or is there some small value to numbers?

We could, of course rationalize away all the Bible's teaching on numbers, above, and argue like this: aren't the books, writings and sermons of some preachers better than others - perhaps they have been given 5 talents rather than 2 or a meagre 1? And this explains why their numbers are greater? 

That may be the case, but the proper assessment of talents will only be known on the day of judgement. It is dangerous for us to conclude, "this man has 10 million subscribers, therefore he is worth listening to." 

As we continually witness, the big shots in the evangelical world turn out to be scammers in the background. You and I have no idea whether a present day big shot preacher is a big shot in the eyes of the Lord. Only the end will reveal who the Lord thinks are great - and it is very likely that heaven's OBEs will go to folk no-one heard of in this world.

Again, someone might argue, "But we want to see the Lord do mighty things in our day - we want and long to see thousands saved - are you not limiting God's power and assuming a day of small things?" 

To which we must respond, "Are thousands of converts what the Lord desires or is it just fewer true disciples who then turn the world upside down?" The blunt fact of the matter is that it is quite impossible for any one Christian man or woman to make more than just a few disciples in his or her whole life time, because discipleship, according to the Bible (see HERE) is an arduous time-consuming process and practice.

Or, someone might argue, "You are only saying this because you are the pastor of a small church - it's sour grapes." Only the Lord knows our hearts of course, but the motive for writing this blog is out of concern for sheep tempted to follow preachers only by virtue of subscriber numbers or views, and who could easily be led astray. Saints who in their early spiritual childhood are learning to paint the canvas of their Christian lives by numbers, rather than...

What does matter, then, if not numbers?

If numbers do not matter, what does?

(1) The local church matters. Central to God's plan to make disciples of all nations is the local church. We are to be rooted in and come under the leadership and spiritual guidance and care of one local church. We trust these leaders only because their lives are an open book and they bear the qualities Jesus requires of elders.

We must not rely on YouTube preachers whom we do not know and who do not know us. 

How do you know, dear reader, whether the big shot YouTube preacher is genuine or a fraudster? There are lots of fakes out there.

(2) Truth matters. In the second place, what counts is truth. Faithfulness to apostolic doctrine, not numbers (or worthless academic qualifications either), is what counts. Is the preaching in line with Scripture?

(3) The Life of the teacher matters. Life and teaching are connected - by their fruit you shall know them. And that is the whole point about the local church.

Ravi Zacharius - a highly popular evangelical apologist, for example - was living a wicked secret life. You may have followed him online but because he was 5000 miles away you had no idea what kind of life he was leading.

If we are going to listen to, or pay attention to, the writings of any teacher, make sure that they are personally accountable in the life of their local church, not freelancers or lone wolves. That assessment is much more difficult to do with someone who doesn't live in your city... which is why the LOCAL church and local pastors is God's plan. 

Only follow men whose lives you can observe, close up and personal. 

They will not be perfect, but they had better be holy.

Summing it up

So, do hits, likes and followers mean anything at all? No. On their own they are utterly and totally meaningless. In point of fact they could well be the surest sign of worldly success.

Quality, not quantity is what matters most to the Lord. Anyone can create a congregation of thousands and a following of millions. The world is full of both.

Focus on the local church. 

Focus on local preachers and local leaders whose lives are an open book - that is one of the purposes and outcomes of  the hospitality required of all elders.

Focus on the believers the Lord has given you, disciple and build them up in their holy faith.

Don't listen to or read anyone purely because of numbers. Listen only if they are faithful to the Word and only if their lives are accountably known to be holy.

Never seek to enhance your hits or followers or likes by any scheme, fair or foul, allow the Lord to add numerical blessing - if he so chooses.

Be satisfied the few the Lord has entrusted to you - be faithful in small things and then one day in heaven the Lord may entrust you with greater (not necessarily numerically greater) things.

Friday 5 August 2022

Book Review - War on the West

 

 

Seeing through Lies

If you have ever sensed that something is out of kilter with the news we are force-fed by outlets such as the BBC, this is a book to read.

Douglas Murray, the author of the equally outstanding The Madness of Crowds, helps us to see through some of the lies made out to be truth and progress. 

Murray looks at Race, China, History, Reparations, Religion, Gratitude and Culture in turn; this review will draw out some highlights of a most fascinating read.

Overall, I found this book helped me understand some aspects of the twisted world of western culture we all swim in. 

The New Hatred of Western Culture

No-one can defend any culture or civilization blindly or wholeheartedly. Western culture today is riven through with major fault lines, not least, for example, the widespread acceptance and defence of murder. [Abortion is murder, except in the case when a doctor tries to save both mother and child and discovers to his deep sorrow that he can only save one.] 

As colonial powers the West did some evil (along with a great deal of good). (My father who lived in Pakistan for 12 years would have Pakistanis secretly confide to him, "We wish the English were still here."  Reason? After the 1947 partition, Empire was replaced by Corruption - and for some Pakistanis, benevolent empire was viewed as the better of two evils).

No-one should defend every aspect of western culture, but we should try to view it objectively, sieving out the bad and rejoicing (with gratitude) at the good.

Murray shows that starting in the 1980s and - you guessed it, starting in the Academy - the study of Western Anything became taboo. 

New fad, come on everyone, jump aboard! 

Mary had lots of little lambs...

Since Everything Western was the product of dead white males, Everything Western became toxic overnight. "Just a couple of decades ago, a course in the history of Western civilization was commonplace. Today it is so disreputable that you can't pay universities to do it." (page 8) 

How then do you go about discrediting everything about the West? Well, first you elevate every other culture, ignoring their numerous patent faults and evils. Then you assault every aspect of western civilization, line by line. 

That is what has been taking place. 

"The culture that gave the world lifesaving advances in science, medicine, and a free market that has raised billions of people around the world out of poverty and offered the greatest flowering of thought anywhere in the world is interrogated through the lens of the deepest hostility and simplicity." (page 10) 

In the place of careful discernment - let's accept this part, let's reject that element - the approach is to attack everything western, wholesale, relentlessly, irrationally. 

Murray helped me see that there is a savage war on the West today. Not being a believer, he cannot discern underneath this assault is most likely a spiritual attack on the truth, since so many of the benefits of the West are a direct consequence of an underlying Judeo-Christian consensus.

Race

Take race for example. Critical Race Theory (CRT - your poor kids or grandkids will have to read about it along with Marx, Freud, Darwin and every other has-been theory) wants us to read the history of the world through the lens of race. Every problem in the world, past, present and future, is the result of racism. Did you not know that? In that case you must be a racist.

Racism is an evil, prevalent around the whole world today, alive in every country, bar none. CRT however, ignores the rampant racism in all other countries and highlights it only - guess where? 

At a time when racism, factually, is at its lowest in the USA, for example, CRTs give the impression that it's at an all-time high. (Well, of course, if every problem in the USA is ultimately caused by race, then racism is a rather big problem.)

CRT advocates want to assign every person into one of two camps. Either you are an anti-racist - by which is meant someone who is actively campaigning for CRT -  or you are a racist.

Murray helped me to see the divisive and distorting effects of CRT on western media. 

Every time a race card is called, we need to check up the facts (something the BBC, for example, would never do on this particular issue.) 

Take the George Floyd case. Terrible and as inexcusable as it was, a worse police killing took place four years earlier in which a white man was held down gasping for air for 13 minutes (page 29; four minutes more than the 9 minutes Floyd was held down). But the world heard nothing about that earlier case and everything about George Floyd. How come? Because American culture had been primed by the mythology of CRT and was waiting for a George Floyd event; America "was ready and primed for a certain interpretation to burst out. That interpretation had been prepared in the academy." (page 30). 

Parents beware what your kids are being taught at school and university - especially in the humanities. 

History

This new attack on western culture necessitates an attack on western history and upon all the great (but, of course, equally flawed) characters of western civilization. 

The statements of every great historical figure are now scrutinized for the presence of 'modern sins', taking no account of historical locatedness - and thereby putting this generation under the risk of damming judgement tomorrow for its present and numerous foibles. 

Old statues are torn down, busts removed from universities. Before long no-one from history (except for today's myth spinners) will be standing. In order to destroy the reputation of Cecil Rhodes, for example, a whole paragraph was concocted out of a patchwork of selective quotations to give an impression totally alien to the actual views of that man. 

Of course colonialism becomes a major focus of this revisionist history. No-one justifies colonialism, no-one denies atrocities were committed under its reign, but was it all evil? Did not the colonialists do at least some good? 

Slavery is another terrible blot on western culture with no redeeming features, but slavery has been practiced across the globe throughout history, and is ubiquitous today, with present day estimates of some 40 million (see here). 

These facts do not justify western slavery, but it does set it in context. 

All the historical sins of the West are raised, while all the historical virtues ignored.  "History becomes the history of Western sins. And ignorance reigns not only over anything good the West ever did but over anything bad that anyone else ever did." (page 132)

Another 'gospel' for the churches

Murray laments on the way churches, such as the Church of England and the Episcopal church in the US, have lamely followed all these agendas uncritically. 

According to one of its own reports, the Church of England must "decolonize theology, ecclesiology and possibly examine official teachings of the church that follows prejudicial theological value systems." (page 186) All the while, a former evangelical bishop, Michael Nazir-Ali, who knows a thing or two about racism, warns against following this bizarre new gospel, since the church has a far better Gospel of our own to tell.

(BTW: Whenever churches preach another gospel, it's a sure-fire sign they have lost the original true one.)

Attack on Reason Itself

We may not be surprised that all this nonsense has run wildfire though the humanities, what needs to concern us is that it is now running through the sciences and engineering. 

Maths, you see, is elitist. Privileged. And so, you've guessed it, maths must be racist. And therefore attempts must be made to "dismantle the culture of white supremacy (meaning, logic, objectivity, written word, etc.) that exists within the math classroom." (page 197) 

Why call it Pythagoras theorem? Wasn't Pythagoras a white male? Let's call it instead "side-length relationships for right-angled triangles." (page 197). 

The idea that 2 + 2 = 4 is a cultural simplification of reality! You guessed it, a Western simplification. 

Gratitude

Murray has an unusual chapter on Gratitude. He believes that resting beneath much of the current animus is deep resentment, leading to anger and a desire for revenge. Destruction is their only (and wholly negative) modus operandi. 

But "To live in the West in this time is to enjoy a piece of historical good fortune unlike almost any good fortune in history." (page 211). And Murray urges us to be grateful.  "A life lived without gratitude is not a life properly lived." (page 212). 

Murray ends his book, pages 260 onwards, with a long list of the blessings of living in the West (recognised, not least, by the fact that the whole world wants to live in the West: "the migrant ships across the Mediterranean go only in one direction - north." (page 263).)

Just listing these wonderful blessings he has to call a "nuclear" action because people polluted by CRT will explode with anger when they read it. Here are some of the many blessings of living in the West:

  • almost every medical advance
  • almost every scientific advancement
  • the oldest and longest-established educational institutions
  • developed the world's most successful means of commerce
  • developed the principle of representative government

Conclusions

I read this book on Holiday a couple of months ago. While I couldn't put the contents down, the book has to be read in small doses to allow reflection. We shan't and shouldn't agree with everything here.

My overriding impression was that the blessings westerners enjoy which are the direct fruit of the Gospel, are now under attack.

As our culture paganises, it will abandon its source streams, the Judeo-Christian consensus.  This book documents some of that fierce rejection of truth. 

Without God, trouble looms.

In so far as the West has been shaped by the Gospel, an attack on the West is also an attack, to some degree, upon the God of Scripture, and throughout my reading, the God who laughs came to mind:

"Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.” The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,  “I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.” Psalm 2


Monday 1 August 2022

The Weirdest People in the World - a few gems from an unusual book

 

A (very) Long Read

It's taken me yonks to plough through the 489+ pages of this book, but finally I've made it and there are a few gems to be found here. Let me outline the main arguments of the book and then share four insights.

Joseph Henrich's basic contention is that we who have been brought up and shaped by the West are WEIRD, acronym for W-western, E-educated, I- individualistic, R-rich, D-democratic. 

More than an acronym, he means by 'weird' something close to the other meaning of that word: unusual.

(This review supersedes the partial reviews I've written in the past...)

How and Why are we Weird? 

"Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, we Weird people are (i) highly individualistic, (ii) self-obsessed, (iii) control-oriented, (iv) nonconformist, and (v) analytical. We focus on ourselves - our attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations - over our relationships and social roles." (page 21)

Most people in the world today, most people who have ever lived, do not, did not, bear these five traits, argues JH. And it is not just that we are different, it's that from many perspectives, westerners have been remarkably 'successful.'

Why are we so different?

Well, argues Joseph, the Church's teaching on marriage and the family made the primary and fundamental difference. The Bible's view of sex and marriage transformed European society and played a major role in Western Weirdness. 

Let's hear him out.

Before the Gospel took root in Europe, people related to one another, much as they still do all around the world, through intensive family kinship ties. These wide networks and relational webs - created through marriage of one kind or another - had a profound effect on how the whole society operated. 

The Bible's vision of sex and marriage - one man + one woman for life - revealed for example in Ephesians chapters 5 and 6, radically altered society by breaking down those extensive networks of obligations. Polygamy and marrying close relatives were all banned - and along with them a wide and inevitable tangle of relational obligations was severed. Freed from the duty to make every decision based on what my relatives or clan expects, I am now free to think and act in new ways (there's some individualism coming in). 

The primary societel building block became husband plus wife plus kids.

In effect, the Bible's vision of the nuclear family dissolved extensive tribal and kinship-based ways of doing things, ways that hinder 'progress.'

The impact of this seemingly benign new way of organizing society - around the nuclear family -  had profound impacts everywhere. 

Take commerce, for example. Most trade took place via relational - family - tribe lines. Now that these are dissolved, how will trade take place? New voluntary associations and guilds replaced family networks. If before I felt obliged to buy something from a distant relative even though it was much better and cheaper elsewhere, now I am free to buy it at a reduced price.

If before I had no motive for hard work and saving money because I may be obligated to give it all away to a cousin twice removed who was getting married, now, with that obligation removed, I have a motive to save.

If before I would only ever choose someone in my own tribe to rule, (not that a choice was available) now severed from that tribal obligation I can choose more objectively; observe here the seeds of democracy. 

If before I would not be prepared to think outside my tribe's box, lest I am excluded, now I am prepared, like Copernicus, to imagine that the sun not the earth is the centre of the solar system; observe the seeds of scientific endeavour.

The Reformation in Europe was then both a fruit of these deep societal changes (we don't need to dispute the fact that God can till the soil of a continent before planting Gospel seed) and a turbocharger of those changes, adding new components to this heady mix of Weirdness.

Martin Luther was prepared to go out on a limb - yes, a courage given to him by God - but also seeded by the dissolution of tribal impulses to conform.

And then, since the restored Gospel of the Reformation was based on a Book and required every believer to read, the Reformation spurred literacy (among men and women) and along with it analytical thinking. 

Innovation, wealth, democracy, science - all these were fruits of Western Weirdness. These products did not flow from the Enlightenment, very helpfully, argues JH. No, instead Enlightenment authors were merely the aristocratic spokespersons responding (rather late in the day), to the grassroots changes already running through Western society, changes seeded by the Bible.

Well, that's the argument of the book in a nutshell - I think.

Some Gems

There is a ton of stuff that we cannot take on board. Henrich, deeply influenced by the zeitgeist of the day uncritically accepts the concept of evolution and simply applies it to culture. Not only is the idea of evolution an increasingly discredited idea, the use of it to describe something as complex as human culture seems, itself, weird. Yes culture changes, but evolves?

Henrich seems to think that it is possible for small human minds to understand the whole world of human nature, behaviour and culture, and to gain a grand metanarrative all on our own. But of course that is impossible since we are so tiny. The Bible is - of course! - a far more reliable guide to the world of human nature and culture than this or any other humanly authored book.

In addition, we must surely question the intrinsic value of some of the qualities that make westerners seemingly unique. Is not individualism just as much a curse as a blessing? And is being rich really such a blessing?

And above all else, the true success of any people is the degree to which they believe the Gospel and follow Jesus Christ. And there is no J or C in Weird.

In spite of these faults, one can discern a few interesting gems...

#1  Modern Psychology is hopelessly non-representative

Many of us were already highly sceptical of psychobabble, now we know why. It's 'sure' findings are based not only on the strange behaviour of purely western subjects (who are unrepresentative of the peoples of the world) but even more narrowly, on the world views of graduate students in western universities! If ever there was a more unrepresentative group of people in the world...

So, putting it bluntly, we should place very little trust in the discipline of psychology: for sure it can offer no global analysis - or solutions.

#2  The Scriptural View of sex and the Family has very wide Impacts and multiple Benefits

Whenever sex is allowed to flow outside of the God-designed boundaries of one man one woman for life, it devastates not only the people involved but whole societies are impacted negatively. Tangled webs of relationships are formed which severely curtail the prospects of their members and people groups.

This should not surprise us since sexual immorality is regarded in Romans chapter 1 as the greatest indication of a society that has turned its back on God. 

Reversing that sinful trend, says Henrich in effect, makes a culture more prosperous in every way.

We can now see why Ephesians chapters 5 and 6 focus on relationships between husband and wife, between parents and children, and why they fail to mention obligations to wider kinship relationships created by webs of sexual infidelity outside of marriage.

If Henrich is right then if the church wants to see global reform its only route is to preach the Gospel. The Gospel will then reform sexual behaviour and family life, transforming both the individual and the surrounding society.

There is no way to transform a corrupt society directly, the only way is to preach the Gospel.

#3 The Influence of the Reformation

It is an intriguing notion that the Reformation both fed off the changes already seeded in European society through a Biblical view of marriage and turbocharged those changes. 

Some of the many historical facts, charts, tables and maps in this book are intriguing. In one chart (page 8) Henrich shows that literacy rates took off after around 1550. The only explanation for this is the Reformation, where an understanding of the Bible was regarded as vital. Interestingly, in Catholic regions literacy rates were much lower (page 10). 

This concern to read the Scriptures had knock on effects, including analytical thinking. Also, the reformation spurred the Industrial Revolutions; by the time of the Industrial Revolutions there was a pool of literate and educated people ready to understand and serve in the new industries. 

Notably, for those who falsely think Christianity is sexist, the Reformation "specifically drove the spread of female literacy." (page 14). 

Driving up literacy then drives up analytical thinking. 

#4  Cancelling the so-called Enlightenment

Secular boffin-types tend to give all the credit for democracy and science and innovation to the so-called Enlightenment.  These clever chappies influenced the plebs; it was all top-down, or so the arrogant theory goes. 

Not one bit of it, argues Henrich. The influence came from the Church, subversively, if you like, bottoms up. As a Biblical view of sex and marriage spread throughout Europe, and then as the Reformers insisted on the necessity of reading the Bible, so were the seeds of science, democracy and the industrial revolution sown. 

No help from the clever chappies.

We shlould have known the place of the so-called 'learned' from this one fact: it was unlearned disciples of Jesus that turned the world upside down.

"The bottom line is that the Enlightenment thinkers didn't suddenly crack the combination on Pandora's box and take out the snuff box of reason and the rum bottle of rationality from which the modern world was then conceived. Instead, they  were part of a long cumulative cultural evolutionary process that had been shaping how European populations perceived, thought, reasoned and related to each other stretching back into late Antiquity (300-600). They were just the intellectuals and writers on the scene when WEIRDer ways of thinking finally trickled up to some of the last holdouts in Europe, the nobility." (427-8)

These are a few of the many fascinating insights in this book. 

The real problem with books like these is that they are not written for the man in the street. The author is wanting to convince his peers, fellow boffin-types, making the book almost impossible to read for the rest of us.

What these authors need to do is to ditch their pride and write a book 40 pages long in simple English, for the ordinary reader. Who cares if the intellectual world moans and groans, the rest of us will be delighted.