From the Europe of 1933 - 1945 the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is well known as faithful Christian in a world of tyranny and disaster. He is one from whom we derive great inspiration however to be fair and to balance the Christian testimony from that period the name of Jacques Ellul should be heard with Bonhoeffer. Ellul faced the enlightened world of Europe from and within France, the birthplace of the Enlightenment... the world view that among its benefits also brought us the catastrophe of the Great War 1914 - 1945 with flow on effects to this day.
"The Presence of the Kingdom" is the seminal book which allows us to engage with what is to be learnt from this Christian teacher. One who speaks prophetically to us.
THE CHRISTIAN IN THE WORLD - a unique role and function for the very existence of the world. That function is defined by Scripture in three ways:
* You are the Salt of the Earth - salt is the sign of the covenant between God and Israel (Leviticus 2:13) Thus in the sight of humanity and in the reality of the world the Christian is the visible sign of the new covenant which God has made with the world in Jesus Christ. BUT IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT THE CHRISTIAN REALLY BE THIS SIGN, THAT IN THEIR LIFE AND WORDS THEY SHOULD ALLOW THIS COVENANT TO BE MANIFEST IN THE EYES OF HUMANITY. Apart from this Covenant the earth will feel bereft of any covenant .. The fact that Christians are in their lives the "Salt of the Earth" does more for the preservation of the world than any other external action.
* You are the Light of the World - "and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not apprehend it ( John 1:5) Light separates Life and Death cf Matthew 5: 14 - 16 where good works are noted. the Light reveals what good works really are.
The Light of the World gives meaning and direction to the history of the world. Revealing the world's true condition.
* I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves - here again the Christian is a 'sign' of the reality of God's actions. It is the Lamb of God - Jesus - who takes away the sin of the world. But every Christian is to be treated like their Master, and every Christian receives a share in His work. Christians are "Sheep" not because their actions or their sacrifice has a purifying effect on the world, but because they are a Living and Real sign constantly renewed in the midst of the world, of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God.
In the world everyone wants to be a wolf, and no one is called to play the part of the sheep. Yet the world cannot live without this living witness of sacrifice
Saturday, 29 August 2009
Gifts of love
From the film "As It Is In Heaven" ... from the Lord's Prayer. Directed by Kay Pollak.
Daniel Deraus a famous conductor returns to his birthplace in Northern Sweden. During his return he gives gifts to a church choir, various members of the choir and one special gift to Gabriella ( Helen Sjoholm ).This gift was a song sung for a concert at the "Let the People Sing" competition in Innsbruk, Austria. It is a study of gifts given and received and how others respond to a gift given to another which allows joy and gladness to come. Gabriella receives a thrashing from her husband after a presentation in the local Hall. No prizes for guessing who he is from the sequence of the film shown.
Another character: Arne (Lennart Jähkel), who is so serious about the choir's success that he obsesses over tiny mistakes when what he doesn't realise is that he is making bigger mistakes himself; .... ouch.
Connie, Gabriella's husband places himself in Hell. He became a bully as a child, remains one through his life and then finds it impossible to recognise LOVE either in the gift offered to his wife, or in her love for him expressed even in her look towards him at the end of her song.
I have never lost who I was
I have only left it sleeping
Maybe I never had a choice
Just the will to stay alive
The film is a must see film.
Sunday, 19 July 2009
Lino Vamvakoi
I collected this story from www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk It is a website well worth a visit.
Notes from the Global Church July 14, 2009
The crypto-Christians
by Philip Jenkins
For most American Christians, restraints on the open expression of religious loyalties normally involve situations in which believers might be seen as imposing their views on others—through evangelism in the workplace or school, perhaps. But in many parts of Africa and Asia, in societies dominated by other religions or by militant atheist regimes, Christians experience such negative pressure that they refrain from even admitting they are Christians. Millions survive as crypto-Christians.
Just how common these covert believers are is a mystery. In theory, hidden believers should be immune to study, as they would never break cover; the people who can be studied are only the less discreet. But we often do hear of crypto-Christians, and the stories are startling. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, as of 2000 Syria's Christian population was fewer than 5 percent, but most observers think that number is far too low. And the true number has surely risen with the influx of Christian Iraqi refugees. A million semiclandestine Iraqi believers would raise the size of the Christian minority to at least 10 or 12 percent.
In India, some guess the number of crypto-Christians is 20 million. Worldwide, the crypto-Christian population runs well into the tens of millions. For what it's worth, the World Christian Encyclopedia speaks of 120 million hidden believers. If that figure is right, crypto-Christians would by themselves constitute one of the world's largest religious groups.
Although many of these believers are isolated individuals and families, some sizable communities have demonstrated astonishing powers of survival. In the 17th century, the Buddhist/Shinto nation of Japan annihilated a Catholic missionary presence that seemed to be on the verge of converting the nation. After persecutions that killed tens of thousands—even a suspicion of Christian loyalty could lead to execution—the organized church presence was destroyed by 1680. Yet many thousands of "hidden Chris tians," Kakure Kirishitan, some how maintained their secret traditions in remote fishing villages and island communities, and they continue to this day.
This catacomb church strayed from mainstream Catholicism, and many of its practices make it look like a Shinto sect: its eucharistic elements are rice, fish and sake. Its followers once knew nothing of the wider church, believing themselves to be the world's only true Christians. The stunning 1997 documentary Otaiya allows us to hear very old believers reciting Catholic prayers that first came to the region over 400 years ago—some recalled in church Latin and 16th-century Portuguese. Believers lovingly display a fragment of a silk robe once worn by one of the martyred European fathers. The film shows us the two last living members of the indigenous hereditary priesthood, both frail men in their 90s—the distant successors of St. Francis Xavier and the Jesuit pioneers.
Jesus reportedly warned his followers never to deny him publicly, lest he deny them at the Day of Judgment. Throughout the history of Christianity, though, conquests and revolutions have repeatedly led to persecutions and forced conversions, and at least some Christians have responded by maintaining a subterranean faith. When the Muslim Ottomans overran the Balkans and the Near East, many Christian believers publicly accepted Islam but continued to practice their true faith at night and in secret places. They became Lino vamvakoi: they were like a cloth in which cotton (vamvaki) was covered by linen (lino), so that they showed only one side at a time.
The phenomenon of crypto-Christianity is likely to become much more common in the coming decades. Defensive tactics are scarcely needed when the vast majority of Christians live in self-defined Christian nations, but they become acutely relevant when millions of believers live in deeply hostile environments, in societies that are (for instance) predominantly Muslim or Hindu.
That is especially likely in a global age, when the faith is spreading rapidly in Africa and Asia, powered by new forms of media and electronic communication. In turn, the rapid spread of Christianity inspires opposition from other established faiths and ideologies. In the worst cases, believers can survive only by practicing concealment and subterfuge, however they reconcile that behavior with the text of scripture. Whatever the prognosis, crypto-Christianity is an important—and evocative—part of the worldwide Christian story.
Philip Jenkins teaches at Penn State University.
Notes from the Global Church July 14, 2009
The crypto-Christians
by Philip Jenkins
For most American Christians, restraints on the open expression of religious loyalties normally involve situations in which believers might be seen as imposing their views on others—through evangelism in the workplace or school, perhaps. But in many parts of Africa and Asia, in societies dominated by other religions or by militant atheist regimes, Christians experience such negative pressure that they refrain from even admitting they are Christians. Millions survive as crypto-Christians.
Just how common these covert believers are is a mystery. In theory, hidden believers should be immune to study, as they would never break cover; the people who can be studied are only the less discreet. But we often do hear of crypto-Christians, and the stories are startling. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, as of 2000 Syria's Christian population was fewer than 5 percent, but most observers think that number is far too low. And the true number has surely risen with the influx of Christian Iraqi refugees. A million semiclandestine Iraqi believers would raise the size of the Christian minority to at least 10 or 12 percent.
In India, some guess the number of crypto-Christians is 20 million. Worldwide, the crypto-Christian population runs well into the tens of millions. For what it's worth, the World Christian Encyclopedia speaks of 120 million hidden believers. If that figure is right, crypto-Christians would by themselves constitute one of the world's largest religious groups.
Although many of these believers are isolated individuals and families, some sizable communities have demonstrated astonishing powers of survival. In the 17th century, the Buddhist/Shinto nation of Japan annihilated a Catholic missionary presence that seemed to be on the verge of converting the nation. After persecutions that killed tens of thousands—even a suspicion of Christian loyalty could lead to execution—the organized church presence was destroyed by 1680. Yet many thousands of "hidden Chris tians," Kakure Kirishitan, some how maintained their secret traditions in remote fishing villages and island communities, and they continue to this day.
This catacomb church strayed from mainstream Catholicism, and many of its practices make it look like a Shinto sect: its eucharistic elements are rice, fish and sake. Its followers once knew nothing of the wider church, believing themselves to be the world's only true Christians. The stunning 1997 documentary Otaiya allows us to hear very old believers reciting Catholic prayers that first came to the region over 400 years ago—some recalled in church Latin and 16th-century Portuguese. Believers lovingly display a fragment of a silk robe once worn by one of the martyred European fathers. The film shows us the two last living members of the indigenous hereditary priesthood, both frail men in their 90s—the distant successors of St. Francis Xavier and the Jesuit pioneers.
Jesus reportedly warned his followers never to deny him publicly, lest he deny them at the Day of Judgment. Throughout the history of Christianity, though, conquests and revolutions have repeatedly led to persecutions and forced conversions, and at least some Christians have responded by maintaining a subterranean faith. When the Muslim Ottomans overran the Balkans and the Near East, many Christian believers publicly accepted Islam but continued to practice their true faith at night and in secret places. They became Lino vamvakoi: they were like a cloth in which cotton (vamvaki) was covered by linen (lino), so that they showed only one side at a time.
The phenomenon of crypto-Christianity is likely to become much more common in the coming decades. Defensive tactics are scarcely needed when the vast majority of Christians live in self-defined Christian nations, but they become acutely relevant when millions of believers live in deeply hostile environments, in societies that are (for instance) predominantly Muslim or Hindu.
That is especially likely in a global age, when the faith is spreading rapidly in Africa and Asia, powered by new forms of media and electronic communication. In turn, the rapid spread of Christianity inspires opposition from other established faiths and ideologies. In the worst cases, believers can survive only by practicing concealment and subterfuge, however they reconcile that behavior with the text of scripture. Whatever the prognosis, crypto-Christianity is an important—and evocative—part of the worldwide Christian story.
Philip Jenkins teaches at Penn State University.
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