“Attempt Great Things For God; Expect Great Things from God” was William Carey’s optimistic motto. It inspired the mission that made Carey the Father of Modern India. Today (August 17), in Ithaca, NY, we are celebrating Carey’s birthday, along with our grandnephew Anmay’s wedding to Olivia.
Carey’s mission was an “aftershock” of the great social quake called the Protestant Reformation. Macro historians such as Eugen Rosenstock-Hussey (“Out of Revolution”) and Jacques Barzun (“From Dawn to Decadence”) point out that the Protestant Reformation was Europe’s greatest reform movement. Through it, the Bible created the modern world.
During the last hundred years or so, Evangelicalism has turned Christianity into the West most pessimistic worldview. Instead of changing the world, most evangelicals are waiting for the Antichrist, Tribulation and their “Escape” from the battlefield through Rapture.
Will Jesus return to crush Satan or will His triumph on the Cross, His Spirit and His Word empower His body to crush the Serpent under our feet (Romans 16:20; Revelation 12:11; 1 John 2: 13-14)?
Iain Murray discusses biblical optimism that energized William Carey in his book, “The Puritan Hope.”
God’s children ought to be Peace-Makers, but evangelical pessimism has turned them into a voting bank, anxiously waiting for “wars and rumors of wars.” That has made it possible for the vested interests of Wall Street, Oil, Arms and Tech Industries to drive the US into terrible but avoidable unjust wars.
The following lecture, delivered in Christ Community Church, Belchertown, MA, on Sunday Aug 11, challenges God’s children to recover biblical optimism for the healing of the nations. The church is pastored by Physicist Dr. Emmanuel Haqq, son of Dr. Akbar Haqq and the grandson of legendary Indian apologist Abdul Haqq.