There’s a little tick that evangelicals have developed when wanting to sound edgy at conferences. They will announce in hushed tones “Aslan is on the move.” It’s meant to be code for saying that they can see positive signs in the life if the church. I must admit I hate the expression. It’s not that I don’t like the Narnia stories. I do. But Aslan is a fictional character in a children’s story. The aim of that story was to point us to the true story of God stepping down into history in the person of Jesus Christ.
We don’t need to sound edgy by saying things like “Aslan is on the move.” We can say that God is on the move – that we see God moving.
But here is a further difficulty I have with the tendency. I think those words are whispered when there are big crowds of Christians gathered and hyped up by emotional worship, an atmosphere descends as the gathering prepares to lap up whatever is coming in terms of teaching on gifts or social justice or evangelism. The phrase tends to look for evidence of God at work in the positive things.
So, to turn to Habakkuk and to read about the bleak circumstances that the prophet faced then to hear him say (or rather sing) “I see God moving …” offers something very different.
Faithroots 