Burn the Ships
Apologetics and the Local Church
by
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My earlier book on what friends and reviewers alike have called an approach to “practical apologetics” (Chewing the Wafer: Living a Christian World View), garnered rave reviews from most quarters but predictably stirred a hornet’s nest in others. Some pastors have adopted it as recommended background readings for their elders and deacons, a couple churches I am aware of in Indiana, Florida, and California use it as one of their guides for apologetics training, and some university ministries use it to help students understand the relationship between their developing world views, their personal faith, and their future professions. It has also provided hearty discussion on televised apologetics programs. On the darker side, pastors less grounded in their faith, threatened by intellect, and lacking spiritual discernment can feel insulted by its clarity on biblical truth, eschatology, doctrinal error, and my demand for their being diligent cultural “Watchmen” in the mode of the prophet Ezekiel (593-571 BC). No apologies will be forthcoming. It is indeed a shame that demanding that the local church should be active in affirming the Truth of Holy Scripture, that claiming that the Bible speaks to every aspect of our world, that claiming that there is a biblical answer for every plague infecting our culture, that demanding that the local church must be unapologetic in how it should impact every aspect of our lives, and that suggesting that pastors have an obligation to teach such Truths to their congregations should be controversial. Very sad indeed. But that is the state of today’s increasingly woke and secularized church, even in too many so-called evangelical ministries, often more concerned with adding numbers to their roles, creating an enjoyable worship experience, emphasizing love over confession and regeneration, or prematurely launching new start-up churches than they are in grounding existing worshippers in sound doctrine and an ability to defend the faith. All looks loving and theologically grounded on the surface until you press their leadership to be clear about essential biblical doctrines. Then, duck and cover. So much for Christian love. That is one reason why the church has become so inbred and increasingly impotent in any efforts to engage the world. The only voices they listen to are those that sing in the same key. This sequel to Chewing the Wafer: Living a Christian World View lays the blame for such neglect squarely at the feet of the local church that has been corrupted by a spirit of secularism and societal forces as much as some of the churches the Apostle Paul addresses in his epistles and John of Patmos highlights in the opening chapters of Revelation. The organized church today has become in every regard the Church of Laodicea (Rev. 3:14-22). Apostasy takes many forms and often holds hands with doctrinal indifference and a reluctance to tackle culture-changing issues of Truth that the Scriptures identify in these “last days.” The mixture of weak theology, personal pride, confused purpose, denominational orthodoxy, and fear can be a noxious combination. Too often the local church is merely an unindicted co-conspirator in ignoring the practical atheism of the secular culture in which we live. It is time to burn your ships. Remove all those phony excuses that keep us from witnessing to our faith and attacking the Naturalistic culture in which we live.
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About the Book
We are surrounded by a twenty-first century culture totally antagonistic to a Biblical worldview. What the Bible teaches about God, history, ethics, biology, morality, marriage, gender, the family, personal responsibility, abortion, antisemitism, the future, and many other life-altering issues has never been under so direct an assault by Naturalistic, and ultimately Satanic, forces. Referring to contemporary American culture as “secular” or even as a “post-truth” age is far too tepid a response. In the United States, we live in an increasingly defacto atheist culture. Our trusted ally in this battle of worldviews must be the local church. Sadly, for too many years the organized church itself has been seduced by the very forces of culture it is meant to address. It has largely failed in its biblical obligations and become the apostate church of the last days. This book is intended to be a wake-up call both to the individual Christian and to the local church to embrace a more engaged apologetic approach to ministry. We are commanded by Peter always to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15). That is our personal commission as believers, as well as the obligation of the local church to prepare us for our individual mission fields. We are engaged in a war of worldviews. Is your local church preparing you for this battle or sitting this fight out on the sideline? It is time to Burn Your Ships. Find a local church that is willing to assist you in this life and death battle. Keep looking until you do.
About the Author
William Jeffries is an International Consultant and Executive Coach who specializes in human and organizational behavior. He has been a soldier, scholar, university professor, editor, business leader, prolific author and trusted personal coach for business, military, and political leaders around the world. As the President and CEO of Executive Strategies International, he leads a diverse team of consultants that bring global perspectives to the workplace of the future. His undergraduate studies at West Point were in engineering and management and his five years of graduate studies at Duke University were in language, literature, and values. His post graduate work was through the University of Heidelberg in Nuclear Physics. His company’s clientele includes a Who’s Who of Fortune 500 Companies, professional athletes, senior business leaders, military leaders, and political leaders in 36 countries. His international consulting company, Executive Strategies International, Inc., coaches and provides Team Building, Vision and Values creation, Culture Change, Strategy Development, Negotiation Skills, Strategic Planning, Sales Mastery, Leadership, and Innovation training, and Executive Coaching around the world for over 80 of the Fortune 500 Companies as well as many smaller entrepreneurial businesses and NPO’s. Bill has written on subjects as diverse as New Business Development, Business High Performance, Organizational Change, War and Morality, Poetry, Professional Ethics, International Politics, English composition, Psychological Type, Emotional Intelligence, and the Development of High Performance Teams. His many books include, Still True To Type, which is widely used in several countries as a leader’s guide to personality diversity, and, Taming the Scorpion: Preparing Business for the Third Millennium, which is used by over thirty companies as a leader’s guide for fostering diversity education and developing High Performance Organizations. The detailed profiles of leadership styles available in his Profiles of the Sixteen Personality Types have been hailed by the Type community as the most comprehensive portraits available on Jungian personality styles. His book, Hannibal, Hummers, and Hot Air Balloons: High Performance Strategies for Tough Times, lays out a strategy for creating exceptional performance during times of tremendous cultural and business change. His award winning Culture and High Performance: Creating a World Class Business and Organizational Culture, examines the nexus between organizational and national culture and culture’s effect on creating exceptional performance, and his most recent book, Inliers: Removing the Impediments to Exceptional Performance, hailed as a leader’s guide to putting Malcom Gladwell’s book Outliers to practical use, addresses issues as wide reaching as “Generational Jingoism,” “Change Leadership,” “The Trump Phenomenon,” “Mental Fitness,” “The Brexit Dilemma,” “Leading Virtual Teams,” “Applied Combinatorial Play,” “How the Brain Blocks Creativity,” and dozens more, to foster an organizational culture of exceptionalism. Bill is also a fiction writer and has published several adventure novels. Spirit of the Oryx, is a high tech spy novel set in Qatar and Virginia. Concord, is a tale of international terrorism and political intrigue, spanning Switzerland, Russia, France, and Washington, DC. Framing the Sacred: The Shadow of Death weaves a contemporary web involving a foreign power’s ability to tap into the dark web and social media to subvert anyone’s world view and turn them unwittingly into a terrorist. His latest novel, Spooky Action in Ukraine: Quantum Entanglement and the Passion of Christ, is a murder mystery that begins on a pleasant Danube River cruise and concludes in war torn Ukraine. His most recent non-fiction writing is Chewing the Wafer: Living a Christian World View, which is a study of the development of a Christian World View. For 24 years Bill served in the U. S. army in several locations, including Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Germany, Greece, and the USA as a unit commander, military advisor, joint staff officer, and military scholar. For seven years, he was a tenured professor at West Point directing programs in language, literature, and professional ethics, and personally teaching the department electives in modern American Literature. At the request of the USMA Dean of Students and the Secretary of the Army, Bill helped to launch the Academy’s first courses on Philosophy and Ethics and founded and edited the West Point publication, Ethics and the military Profession. While on the USMA faculty, Bill chaired the West Point Chapel Board, advised the Baptist Student Union, and served as the USMA faculty Bible study leader and faculty advisor to the Officers Christian Fellowship, on three occasions sponsoring and leading The L’Abri Fellowship “How Should We Then Live” seminars, led by Dr. Francis Schaeffer, for the West Point community, and leading the follow-on seminars on Apologetics. For six years he served as the curriculum advisor to the President and Professor of Ethics and Executive Development at Armed Forces Staff College (AFSC), part of National Defense University. There he taught professional ethics, Joint Operations and Executive Fitness, and coached managers from 25 federal agencies and senior military and political leaders from 27 countries, helping them to understand combined military operations, strategic planning, the need for inter-service planning, political collaboration, personal mastery, and teamwork. While teaching at AFSC, he also led the weekly faculty and student Bible study. Currently, in addition to his international consulting and executive coaching activities, Bill is a frequent guest speaker and / or adjunct professor in the graduate business schools of several universities including the University of California San Diego, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, and the universities affiliated with University City, Doha, Qatar. For 20 years he was the most acclaimed guest lecturer in the Strategy and Policy Department at The U. S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island addressing the families of every class on family dynamics and learning and teaching styles for their children, and for over 25 years has been one of the most highly rated speakers in Carnegie Mellon University’s Executive Education programs. In 2011, he founded IC³ (The International Center for Creative Change) in Dubai and Qatar. Bill also advises the NFL Players Association on career transition and is a sought-out keynote speaker on the Mental Game, preparing athletes at every level from high school to the US Olympic teams on the mental side of sports. Bill is affiliated with several scholarly and professional organizations including, The American Chamber of Commerce in Belgium, The Association of Psychological Type International (APTi), where he serves as the interest area Consultant on Management and Organizational Development, The Association for the Management of Organizational Design, The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, and The International Society for Military Ethics. To keep his hand in the development of future army officers, Bill also serves as the Vice President of the Northern Shenandoah West Point Association of Graduates. Bill also volunteers time as a career development coach for the continuing education program for over 1500 Duke University graduates working in Washington DC and the northern Virginia area. In 2008-09, Bill and his company were awarded the prestigious Keeping America Strong Award by William Shatner and Admiral Kevin Delaney, on Shatner’s Heartbeat of America Cable TV Special, for being the business leader most responsible for helping American business recover from the effects of 9-11.