Dauner News Update, October 2009
Fall Seminars
Three seminars are on my schedule this fall. All three deal in different ways with the same issue that our churches feel more and more acutely and that has become the major theme of my public teaching: the increasingly heavy antichristian pressure coming from a monolithically secularized French society.
We do not face a strident “throw them to the lions”, violent type of persecution, but a pervasive, grind-them-down, intellectual and cultural effort to marginalize religious belief (especially the faith of Christians who actually believe their faith is true) into oblivion. Christians are tolerated only if they accept to live, talk and think as if God did not really exist.
A robust intellectual counterattack is long overdue, and if the positive reaction to my fall seminars is any indication, will be welcomed by believers. Most Christians feel the pressure but do not know how to pinpoint the basic worldview or philosophical presuppositions that underpin secular thought. Many are trying to paste a Christian lifestyle and Christian religious practice onto a secularist worldview they have unconsciously absorbed from the surrounding culture, and it just does not work. It is like building a castle on sand.
Those of you who struggle to hold up the name of Christ in the West (Europe and North America) no doubt understand what I am talking about. Each country has its own specific history and culture, but the opposing forces on the spiritual battlefield are essentially the same.
New CEM Dorm
For a long time, we have been eyeing the two-storied house that is the last part of the church “compound” we have rented for ten years. It finally became available for us to rent on October 1. We negotiated a deal with the owner to undertake ourselves the extensive renovation needed to make the two appartments livable: everything from repairing the roof to completely redoing the electricity.
So, for the last month, several of us have been putting in 35-40 extra hours per week to finish the renovation as soon as possible. Members and friends of the church have pitched in, providing manpower and professional skills we do not have. The job is nearly completed. Our two tenants — a church family with three small children on the botton floor and two CEM students on the upper appartment — will soon be able to move in.
Family News
Justin was hired this week by a company named (of all things) ETIC, which is pronounced the same way as the French word for ethics. He was truly thankful to find employment in the current economic situation. The job should give him the ressources to finish his master’s degree in theology and perhaps a doctorate.
Grace and peace to you all,
Max and Prisca Dauner