Dear Readers,
We at RZIM India have been feverishly gearing up for our 3rd Executive Programme for Senior Leadership. Among the many themes suggested for this flagship gathering, “Re-anchor Your Convictions” was the clear winner. This perhaps is a reflection of the deep longing that many of us share to regain what we’ve lost as a community-at-large. We live at a time in history where we are fatally anaemic of ‘Convictions’. A culture without convictions is sadly, what we have helped birth today.
As a first step in salvaging our docile, conviction-devoid, anaemic culture, we have decided to dedicate this issue to stimulate, stir and challenge our minds and hearts to “be the change that we want to see”, as Gandhiji would have it. The articles presented echo the zeal and the passion that the writers have in making this happen, personally, organizationally, nationally and globally as the larger body of Christ. As an editor, it gave me immense excitement and pleasure to see this edition on “convictions” take shape. Each article looks at convictions from a different vantage point. While every entry speaks on the theology or the philosophy of convictions, the emphasis is clearly a call to move from the idea and iteration of conviction, to its praxis.
If a revival and re-orientation of convictions is the need of the hour, the elixir to redeem our culture, seems to be Christians, who not only have a mental assent to this need, but an indubitable will to put it into practice, come what may. Glen Schultz puts it this way: “At the foundation of a person’s life, we find his beliefs. These beliefs shape his values, and his values drive his actions.” These ‘beliefs’ that are at the core of our being are what translate into convictions that impell action. Thomas Carlyle famously said, “Convictions are worthless unless it is converted into conduct.” How so perceptive!
Of the few books that make one shudder, the Foxe’s book of Martyrs is on top of my list. A few excerpts; “Germanicus, a young man, but a true christian, being delivered to the wild beasts on account of his faith, behaved with such astonishing courage, that several pagans became converts to a faith which inspired such fortitude.” Here’s another, “At the martyrdom of Faustines and Jovita, brothers and citizens of Brescia, their torments were so many, and their patience so great, that Calocerius, a pagan, beholding them, was struck with admiration, and exclaimed in a kind of ecstacy, “Great is the God of the Christians!” for which he was apprehended, and suffered a similar fate.” The scores and scores of Patricks of Hamilton, and Perpetua’s unsung heroes, unflinching in their resolve and resilience, even when gruesome death glared at them starkly.
The very thought of these men and women of faith makes me cringe at the level to which we have fallen. “Convictions that conquered the world” as Ravi Zacharias would passionately say, should be revived, reclaimed and relived – come what may! For there is no other antidote to this lethal anaemia that is fast devouring the body of Christ and destroying the very fabric of this universe.
Our hope and prayer is that the Lord will stir our convictions and conduct as these prayerfully penned articles by the Indian itinerant team prepare us as a community to intentionally shape and boldly face the times ahead – come what may, God being our helper!
Warmly,
Charles P Joseph
Editor
Charles P Joseph