基督教華人圖書館 (澳洲)

Mission to Inherit Christian Culture

Godly Life

It is said that "postmodernism" is a time of divergent opinions, with no authority and standards, and a time of disbelief, leading to Christianity's marginalization. Leonard Sweet points it out in his book that this is entirely wrong.

He listed that in many categories, God is actually very popular. The real question is whether we are using the correct way of interpretations and expressions to tell the world the long-lasting truth and the story about Jesus, as well as the poem of godly life that Jesus has written in our lives.

In order to reverse the inadequate understanding of God in this age, Christians can only correctly interpret their godly lives.

The Culture of Christianity

How can we interpret a godly life correctly?

Rev. Yu Calvin once mentioned the relationship between godliness and theology in a lecture, entitled "Theology and Godliness -The Life Demonstration of The Four Theologians".

Four sub topics are：

● Break ego, enter covenant with God	John Calvin's theology and godly life
● Merge with the glory of God	Jonathan Edwards's perception of the power from the Holy Spirit
● Pure heart only for one thing	Soren Kierkegaard's reflection on truth and existence
● Embrace the grace of heavy price	Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Nature of the Prophet in a desperate situation

The four theologians, by coincidence, believed that wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. Theology can exert its power of guiding lives because it starts with an attitude of fearing God, and sets fearing God as its core value for all as well. From there, a person’s spiritual life can be developed, so he can transform the society, enforce justice, and fight against evil.

When believers use fearing, obeying and glorifying God as their life objectives, the answer will become simple and straight forward. Letting go of ego and hypocrisy, we can practise godliness with obedience and humility to restrain the weakness of the flesh. There is no shortcut to the practice of a godly life. The secret lies only in whether we are willing to learn from Christ in this secular world, follow Him closely, obey Him, and pursue unity with Him.

To reverse the situation of not knowing God sufficiently in our age, we need to emit the scent of godliness, and comment on society and culture from a Christian perspective. The Christian culture is to express bible’s world view and life view through some devoted Christians’ literature, via different media, whereby injecting a clear stream into the modern culture which is egoistic and self-centered.

The Importance of Reading Christian Literature

Therefore, reading Christian literature is very important. Apart from enriching the knowledge of God, it also enables us to correctly understand the truth revealed by the Bible and tradition of the church belief, so as to establish a solid foundation of faith, and to effectively exercise various rational and theological theories, to analyze the various contemporary ideologies, so that the church can bear better witness for the truth in this era of fallacies and rambles.

Rev. Chan Pui Tak especially emphasized in his book that Christians must read from multiple perspectives, to develop a holistic cosmopolitan view. He also listed indexes in four directions for our reference, so we can use the previous experiences, writings, life and thoughts of spiritual people of the past to accompany us to go forward in our heavenly journey. This will also help us to pass peaks and troughs, so that we know how to deal with fatigue, negativity, uncertainty and even confusion.

(1)	Read to understand people and their human feelings	Biographies are reflective of human feelings, humanity and meanings of life. For example, Christiana Tsai’s , Wang Ming Dao's , Schweizer's < Albert Schweizer: a Biography>, Martin Luther's , Peter Drucker's , Philip Teng's , Cai Yuanyun's 。Literature that helps us to understand people and their feelings often is enlightening to our life.
(2)	Read to develop thinking and discernment	Facing the unpredictable circumstances of the world, it is even more urgent for Christians to cultivate their ability of independent thinking and discerning through reading. For example, Robert H. Thouless's , and writings by many masters such as C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John RW Stott , TF Torrance, Jurgen Moltmann. Reading books to develop our thinking and discernment often helps us to think and discern which will benefit our lives immensely!
(3)	Read men’s spirituality and desire	By opening the western literary classics, ancient work such as , , Shakespeare's masterpieces etc, the conflicts between human nature’s darkness and light, pagan and orthodox, spirit and lust, can be portrayed vividly through the plot and drama. The medieval church moved towards asceticism and monasticism. In public, only spirituality could be talked about. Some books were listed as forbidden books because of their religious, political or pornographic nature. However, they were later intentionally collected and read. For example, books like , , , , , , , , , , Ayako Miura’ s ,< Freezing Point Sequel>, < Yanjialing >and so on have been popular among believers. They are perfect interpretations of good and evil in humanity. Reading books describing spirit and lusts often helps us to appreciate literature and understand humanity.
(4)	Read worldly and secular experiences	What is the aim of Christians in developing a holistic cosmopolitan view。 Many good examples have recently been set by Evangelical Churches in North America. Ronald J Sider called upon Christians to share possessions with the poor and to live a simple life. Rebecca Manley Pippert established a ‘salt and light group’ within the graduates, to repay the community by group testimony and influence. R Paul Stevens suggested“Down-to-earth Spirituality.” Marva Dawn called upon Christians to say “no” to secular culture and led it by example. James W Sires and Francis A. Schaeffer jointly wrote and to develop Christian culture. Reading diversely is an effective shortcut for people to build a holistic cosmopolitan view.

Alvin Toffler said: "The illiterates in the 21st century are not those who cannot read and write, but those who do not learn, do not kick their bad habits, and do not read anymore."

Mission of Christian Chinese Library is to inherit and pass on the Christian Culture

Provide “resources”for reading
Encourage and promote“continuous study”for learning
Guide Christians to “spiritual growth” and life transformation

Reference

(1) Rev. Chen Pui Tak, "Reading Makes Life Grow", Behold.oc.org, October 2018

(2) Dr. Yu Calvin, "Theology and Godliness-Life Demonstrations of Four Theologians", CGST, January 2013

(3) Shi Wei, "A Brief Discussion on Chinese Christian Literature", CCCOWE, 28th issue, November 2007