it came upon a midnight clear

Emperors and Angels

Isaiah 9.2–7; Luke 2.1–20

a sermon at the Midnight Eucharist, Christmas Eve 2006

by the Bishop of Durham, Dr N. T. Wright

The following is from the Christmas hymn, "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear", but with a few of the lines changed a bit in order to more accurately represent the heart of the prophets and the meaning of Christmas, which, as Bishop Tom Wright said this is Christmas eve, is a "summons to us, as it was to his first followers, to sign on under his authority, to celebrate the birth of the Wonderful Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, and to work under that authority for the growth of his promised kingdom of endless peace, of justice and righteousness."

For lo, the days are hastening on,
by prophets seen of old,
When, by the Spirit’s mighty power
Arrives the time foretold:
When Peace shall over all the earth
Its promised splendours fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.
-Edmund Sears and N.T. Wright

A song and a Prayer

You are so high among the highest, and I am low among the lowest, a mean thing. You never go away from us. Yet we have difficulty in returning to you. Come Lord, stir us up and call us back, kindle and seize us, be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love, let us run (to you).
-St. Augustine

Since from His bounty I receive
Such proofs of love divine
Had I a thousand hearts to give
Lord, they should all be Thine
A thousand men could not compose
A worthy song to bring
Yet Your love is a melody
Our hearts can’t help but sing!
-To Christ the Lord Let Every Tongue,
Samuel Stennet and Laura Taylor

who are you?

You scored as Karl Barth. The daddy of 20th Century theology. You perceive liberal theology to be a disaster and so you insist that the revelation of Christ, not human experience, should be the starting point for all theology.

Karl Barth 80% Anselm 67% John Calvin 67% Jürgen Moltmann 60% Jonathan Edwards 60% Charles Finney 53% Friedrich Schleiermacher 47% Martin Luther 40% Augustine 27% Paul Tillich 20% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

so, what do you do?

Here's an article from the New York Times about the brew-ha-ha that's going on with the American Episcopal church. With the ordination of the first openly gay priest a few years back, and the following installment of the first woman bishop of the entire Episcopal church in America, many of the more conservative churches and dioceses have felt jilted, and now they are leaving.

Not too long ago, several other members of the Anglican communion in some of the poorer parts of the world including Bolivia, Rwanda, and Nigeria got together to send missionaries over to help save the day. Now, many of the conservative Episcopal churches and dioceses are leaving the Episcopal church and joining up with these foreign branches of the Anglican communion because of irreconcilable differences.

So, what do you do? The Anglican communion has historically been very broad as far as the scope of doctrine professed, but for many it seems that now a line has been crossed. For me, of course, I think a line has definitely been crossed, at least with regards to homosexuality, if not also with the ordination of women. Is that cause for secession? What is cause for the breaking of fellowship? From what Paul the apostle said, and maybe Jesus too, it seems to be unrepenant sin is cause for breaking fellowship. But of course, that begs the questions, what kind of sin, who defines it, is it possible to really let the Scripture settle the issue, etc. I think so. I want to believe that it is, or we might as well just go in any old direction we want.

Several years ago J.I. Packer commented in Christianity Today about why he walked out of the meeting in which a decision was made to bless same-sex unions by saying that

"this decision, taken in its context, falsifies the gospel of Christ, abandons the authority of Scripture, jeopardizes the salvation of fellow human beings, and betrays the church in its God-appointed role as the bastion and bulwark of divine truth. My primary authority is a Bible writer named Paul. For many decades now, I have asked myself at every turn of my theological road: Would Paul be with me in this? What would he say if he were in my shoes? I have never dared to offer a view on anything that I did not have good reason to think he would endorse."

It's not an uncomplicated situation, and it won't be a quick fix, but someone somewhere at some point in time has to draw the line. And this time it might just be time for a change. I pray that it would not include division, but if it must, then let it be for the truth of Christ and the Scriptures and the glory of God, the only foundation for Christian love.

don't just explain it...

"Ironically, an estimated 90% of the world's Chirstian workers presenting the gospel use highly literate communication styles. They use the printed page or expositional, analytical and logical presentations of God's word. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for oral learners to hear and understand the message and communicate it to others."

"Logical," "analytical," "presentation." Sound familiar? Where I'm from that's exactly what "sharing the Gospel" is, a logical presentation of the principles of the Gospel. Of course, there's nothing wrong about that. The Gospel message is logical, and any message is communicated in some form or another, many times in something like a presentation.

But, that's exactly part of the problem, that this understanding of "sharing the Gospel" is rooted in where I'm from. I am the product of all that I have inherited culturally, and part of that is a highly literate, abstract-conceptual form of thinking that looks for and responds to "logical presentations." But not everyone is like this, really, most people in the world are not like this, and even for those that are, it's only a percentage of their whole preferred learning methods. Literacy and literate thinking is not the norm, orality and oral communication is.

"All societies, including those having a highly literate segment, have oral comunication at their core. Oral communication is the basic function on which writing and literacy is based. When literacy persists in a culture for generations, it begins to change the way people think, act and communicate...These members of a literate society then tend to communicate the gospel in the literate style that speaks to them."

So, is the goal to make everyone literate like those of us who are? Is that the only way that they can understand the Gospel? Reason and experience tell us otherwise. Just as Paul and the first centuries of Christians translated the Gospel into the Greek culture around them, so we must work to translate the Gospel into the cultures that we go to or find ourselves in. And this is more than just using different words or languages; it involves entirely different forms of communication including "stories, proverbs, poetry, chants, music, dances, ceremonies and rites of passage."

a new effort

I was saved from a Hindu family in 1995 through a cross-cultural missionary. I had a desire to learn more about the word of God and I shared this with the missionary. The missionary sent me to Bible College in 1996... I started sharing the good news in the way as I learnt in the Bible College.. To my surprise my people were not able to understand my message. A few people accepted the Lord after much labour...there were little results.
In 1999 I attended a seminar where I learnt how to communicate the gospel using different oral methods. I understood the problem in my communication as I was mostly using a lecture method with printed books, which I learnt in the Bible school. After the seminar I went to the village but this time I changed my way of communication. I started using a storytelling method in my native language. I used gospel songs and the traditional music of my people. This time the people in the villages began to understand the gospel in a better way. As a result of it people began to come in large numbers. Many accepted Christ and took baptism. There was on church with few baptized members in 1999...now in 2004, in six years we have 75 churches with 1350 baptized members and 100 more people are ready for baptism.

This is just one of many stories from all over the world that have been surfacing for the past decade (at least) concerning a paradigm shift in how people are introduced to God, Jesus, and Christianity and subsequently discipled in the faith. For the next few weeks I will be blogging about this in response to the book, Making Disciples of Oral Learners, published by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, originally published as a paper for their 2004 forum in Thailand.

Of course, at face value, you may be wondering what this has to do with evangelism in the United States. I mean, we can all read and write, right? Well, yes, and no, and we'll discuss that as we go. I'll just say for now that our ability to read and write (or lack thereof) isn't as fundamental as we'd like to think it is, and that even though we're a highly literate culture, most of us still learn best through oral methods (including pictures and movies), and, it is story and stories that shape our worldview more than anything else.

So, if you'd like to check the book out for yourself, please do. You can read it for free online! And, until next time, read a good story or two...