The Foibles of Prediction

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers," predicted Thomas Watson Sr. in 1943. As chairman of IBM, he was undoubtedly in the know!

As a warning to those who want to peer over the edge of this coming millennium, describing what they see, there is one thing we can predict: predictions are most often wrong.

Observe: "This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us," stated an internal memo of Western Union in 1876. "Who the h_ _ _ wants to hear actors talk?" queried Harry Warner of Warner Bros. pictures in 1927, in his effort to downplay the potential of "talkies."

I remember as a child hearing preachers with their charts on prophecy attempting to convince us that as the world would come to an end, the European Common Market—a “beast with ten horns” described in the Revelation—was at the centre of it. Now the Common Market has more than ten members; so much for that prediction.

One hundred years ago, predictors of the 20th century had no idea what was coming, even as Canadians were hoping their country would become more than a nation of "hewers of wood and drawers of water." The church was in ascendancy, with great hopes for making Canada a strong place for Christian faith and a world-shaper in missions. There were two seedlings, however, that would eventually flower, skewing the boldest of predictions.

Growing Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians had a great idea of merging, resulting in the formation in 1925 of the United Church. Orthodox in doctrine, the new church soon found that popular religious trends of an increasingly liberal theology infected her seminaries and clergy, resulting in the gradual demise of this once grand idea. As the leading force in the Christian community from 1925 to the mid-1960s, she became bogged down in all sorts of unfortunate and clearly unbiblical concerns. Today her ability to lead or offer moral direction is decimated. Much like the once great Eaton family business, this once great dream of a nation-wide, unifying church struggles to hold on. This I grieve. We would have been much stronger had we been blessed with a strong middle-of-the-road church—especially during these past three decades—to link the various streams of the church into culturally relevant faith and a Christ-honoring public presence. Unfortunately she has been able to offer neither.

The other seed sprouting as the 20th century turned was a world-wide interest in matters of the Spirit. Groups such as Keswick held conferences and promoted issues of the deeper life. Without any particular person leading the way, in 1906, on the second floor of a funeral home on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, a new movement broke out. From that moment—beginning with only a handful to the now 400 million worldwide—this century was marked by an extraordinary awareness of the power of the Spirit to transform and energize people in faith. Although much of this incredible movement has been led by the so-called two-thirds world, Canada has felt its impact, bursting beyond its earlier denominational boundaries.

While we fail miserably in our predictions, like most, I too wonder what future generations will face. Though I see at best through a cloudy lens, there are strong tide waters rising, from which we may sense what might be major movements of this new century.

Here are three I note.

The most profound is the rise of interest in matters spiritual. An alarming fact, however, is that it’s not the church doing the leading: it’s the culture at large. Fed up with the failure of the modern world—with its focus on truth being only that of the material—and not seeing the church as a place for discovery, with its seeming narrow focus, there is a profound search for answers of the heart. Postmodernity (a popular label describing post-Enlightenment musings) asserts that truth is not to be found only through the scientific method but by intuition and experience as well.

We can recoil with anxiety at this often naïve searching or we can see it as an opportunity given by the Spirit for us to build new avenues of ministry and mission. As Paul and the apostles used the Roman road system to spread the message, we too need to see the cultural highways of postmodern spirituality as roads we too can travel.

The second is a building interest among laity to have a serious role in writing the agenda of missions. As Martin Luther triggered the Reformation of the Word, we need a reformation of laity. But as with Luther, this reformation of the laity may happen whether or not the clergy are on side.

While these two create excitement, the third is distressing, and that is the power of materialism to overtake the evangelical world. For 100 years theological liberalism has seeped into the spiritual tributaries of our culture and church and today the infection of unholy materialism is robbing the church of authenticity, integrity and power. Our powerlessness won’t come by the denying of the authority of Scripture or the divinity of Jesus, but rather by being overtaken by a love and obsession with material well-being.

A visitor to Rome, while being shown the many statues and buildings by a senior church bureaucrat, pointed out the majestic St. Peter’s Basilica. With a smile the guide noted, "No longer do we have to say, ‘silver and gold have we none.’" "No," responded the visitor sadly, "and neither can you say, ‘In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk.’"

A fitting posture for us on entering this third millennium is on our knees: first in humility to admit we don’t know the way, and then to remind ourselves that without a poverty of the soul, our wealth is anything but that of our Lord’s.