tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74788719653050686632024-03-05T10:34:42.687+00:00History MakersIn this blog I want to explore the Christian church's passionate past. In it you'll meet Christian "movers and shakers" from past centuries. They have a lot of relevant things to say to us today!Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.comBlogger103125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-38360262884159337212013-11-08T17:33:00.002+00:002013-11-08T17:33:47.605+00:00This Blog Has MovedThis "History Makers" Blog has now moved. You can find it here: <b>http://makinghistorynow.wordpress.com/<a href="http://makinghistorynow.wordpress.com/"></a></b>Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-46763835921363412522013-03-23T17:14:00.002+00:002013-03-23T23:31:38.389+00:00An Ordinary Hero - Alonso Rodriguez<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig_njcnyc7A6spEyr1pmzAkq92BEXCFXg9uf0lqgbTEHCLqaXTapPvK9KjKYG0PmclKsTxM_yvWl3eiaKP44tsT3y2eSYJzbMvLxEcmruK8c9w38gAOYu06EIyewkFD0xAkv2wVler-vVd/s1600/sainta1t.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig_njcnyc7A6spEyr1pmzAkq92BEXCFXg9uf0lqgbTEHCLqaXTapPvK9KjKYG0PmclKsTxM_yvWl3eiaKP44tsT3y2eSYJzbMvLxEcmruK8c9w38gAOYu06EIyewkFD0xAkv2wVler-vVd/s320/sainta1t.jpg" /></a><br />
<b>Alonso Rodriguez</b> [1532-1617] is a shining example of ‘blooming where you’re planted’. He didn’t found churches, win crowds to Jesus or conquer heresy. He was one of God’s ‘unknowns’, who won hidden victories: over failure, sickness, loss and heartbreak.<br /><br />
He was a wool merchant with a wife and three children, but by the time he was 40, they had all died and his business had collapsed. His life in ruins, he asked to join the Society of Jesus, at that time a newly-formed mission movement in the Catholic church. They said no: he was uneducated. So Alonso tried to study – and failed. In desperation he begged the Provincial of the order for a chance, who finally said he could be a servant at their mission in Majorca.<br /><br />
At this point a confusion arises: there was <i>another</i> Alonso Rodriguez, born only 2 years apart, who was <i>also</i> in the Society of Jesus at the same point, and who is credited (though some dispute his authorship) with a 3- volume devotional tome, 'The Practice of Christian Perfection'. The two have been widely confused by commentators since.<br /><br />
Our Alonso spent the rest of his life on the island as a porter. While other members took the gospel around the world, Alonso ran errands, delivered messages, received guests and carried bags – for 46 years! This is how he is represented in the painting above: door keys at his side, but behind all his actions an angel of God, and the full approbation of heaven.<br /><br />
He had a nervous twitch and was often sick, but everyone could see he knew God. Students came to him for wisdom and prayer. One, <a href="http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-voices/16th-and-17th-century-ignatian-voices/st-peter-claver-sj/">Peter Claver</a> (1581-1654), set out as a missionary to slaves in Colombia because of a prophecy from Alonso. Claver is remembered in the Roman Catholic Church as patron saint of foreign missions.<br /><br />
When Alonso was old, his superiors asked him to write down his experiences. After his death, these papers were found to contain the fruits of much meditation, faithfulness and service to Jesus, whom he loved passionately. Here is an example:
<blockquote><i>I put myself in spirit before our crucified Lord, bearing great sufferings for me. I consi-der how much I owe Him and what He has done for me. As love is paid for in love, I must imitate Him. Thus, amid hardship and trial, I stimulate my heart and encourage myself to endure, for love of the Lord who is before me, until I make what is bitter sweet</i>.</blockquote><br />
Perhaps this is what attracted the Jesuit poet <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Manley_Hopkins">Gerard Manley Hopkins</a> to devote a poem in 1918 to God's servant, Alonso Rodriguez:<br /><br />
<b>HONOUR is flashed off exploit, so we say;<br />
And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield<br />
Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field,<br />
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.<br />
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;<br />
But be the war within, the brand we wield<br />
Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,<br />
Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray. <br /><br />
Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,<br />
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,<br />
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)<br />
Could crowd career with conquest while there went <br />
Those years and years by of world without event <br />
That in Majorca Alonso watched the door. <br /><br /> <blockquote></blockquote></b>
Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-58808660733134718072013-03-08T11:56:00.000+00:002013-03-08T12:57:27.711+00:00RADICAL OUTREACH - THE 'HALLELUJAH LASSES'<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6gkfsy64SS3ZO8F4A2o8PG2LTebeweDaZhzgiNtALgXg6TUp0P9l7B1qcQPUfdidQAvRd6YZZ0Ip_YEMhwYGt03yN4JDpmlttfe-25C4btutctKGdmFbDYsmlblfcNTONLdcTOO_3wXBi/s1600/salvation_army.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6gkfsy64SS3ZO8F4A2o8PG2LTebeweDaZhzgiNtALgXg6TUp0P9l7B1qcQPUfdidQAvRd6YZZ0Ip_YEMhwYGt03yN4JDpmlttfe-25C4btutctKGdmFbDYsmlblfcNTONLdcTOO_3wXBi/s320/salvation_army.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467706948701796690" /></a><br /><em>The great question in most churches which are at all earnest in their work, is how to reach the masses.</em> This isn't some present-day church growth report; it comes from an English newspaper, the Northern Daily Express, of 4th March 1879, and concerns events in Gateshead.<br /><br />The journalist comments that <em>the section of the community that lies outside the usual compass of religious life </em>comprised most of the audience. More unusual still, <em>the work which experienced ministers and the ordinary agencies of churches had failed in, has been attempted by a few young women</em>. These were the “Hallelujah Lasses”, the stormtroopers of the early <a href="http://www.salvationarmy.org/ihq%5Cwww_sa.nsf/vw-sublinks/5622F771BD70A75A80256D4E003AE0A3?opendocument">Salvation Army</a>.<br /><br /><em>Some six or eight weeks ago, about half-a-dozen young women made a raid under the banner of a Gospel mission among the lowest classes in the town, and they have succeeded in the most remarkable manner... They have got such a hold upon the masses as to tame some of the worst of the characters. A thorough transformation has been effected in the lives of some of the most thoughtless, depraved and criminal.</em><br /><br />These women, most in their twenties, hired music-halls for their meetings. Despite the sneers from all sides, within a short time these places were <em>filled to overflowing for three hours, and hundreds are unable to gain admission.</em> The journalist gives a detailed account of two meetings, which you can read <a href="http://www.vision.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/revival/hlnde.html">here</a>.<br /><br />What can have enabled these Salvation Army girls to achieve such breakthroughs? Much comes down to the 'first love' fire of a new movement in the flower of its vigour. But we must see in action here the twin elements of <strong>BLOOD and FIRE</strong> that were to become the Army's motto. A total conviction of the power of Jesus' redeeming blood to save even the worst, together with the freshness of the Holy Spirit's filling (for which Salvationists spent whole nights of prayer) kept them pressing into territory where other feared to go, and expecting results.<br /><br />They also used <strong>the power of personal testimony</strong>. The journalist tells of the roughest and most criminal of people glorifying God for their soul's salvation. And the Army used <strong>the passion of youth</strong>: <em>One youth, who is evidently not more than fourteen, is quite a phenomenon, and certainly has a marvellous utterance for one so young and inexperienced. On Saturday night, we were told, he spoke for twenty minutes, and carried the audience so fully away with him, that in the midst of his address three or four persons went up to the penitent form</em> [benches placed at the front of the hall, where people could come and kneel, pray, repent and receive personal prayer].<br /><br />The journalist concludes, perceptively, that <em>what is needed in the work now is consolidation - some agency to carry the converts beyond the few simple truths they have got hold of, and to give them an interest in the work when the excitement of the change and the effort has passed away.</em>Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-46483945553095194302013-03-01T20:33:00.000+00:002013-03-01T13:06:11.175+00:00The Pain and Colour of the Cross<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHgALw9gVZOS7gmbz1tk8SyrEIf7O2T2W5OcGUM-SlkStJruIrEaRhEK9aj398sgjwUrgh_3ymVsij1ewK_jUmOyCRU3TR8jBw_5pJO6VZGmwwK6NaIlxdEzqP6xvMvFiPD-FVVUIN7Ub5/s1600/salvadoran_cross.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 194px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHgALw9gVZOS7gmbz1tk8SyrEIf7O2T2W5OcGUM-SlkStJruIrEaRhEK9aj398sgjwUrgh_3ymVsij1ewK_jUmOyCRU3TR8jBw_5pJO6VZGmwwK6NaIlxdEzqP6xvMvFiPD-FVVUIN7Ub5/s320/salvadoran_cross.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455628191946421618" /></a><br />With Easter fast approaching, here's an idea you may not have thought of.<br /><br />
Reading up on <a href="http://radical-church-history.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/i-notice-that-on-march-24-2010.html">Oscar Romero</a> recently, I came across something profound and beautiful that was completely new to me: the <a href="http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cyberfaith.com/witnessing/images/salvadoran_cross.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cyberfaith.com/witnessing/witnessing11.html&usg=__rOkuG2l9lAG7Ben-3tYdnXgwe8U=&h=400&w=243&sz=13&hl=en&start=2&itbs=1&tbnid=uivPh5Cldo-ShM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=75&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsalvadoran%2Bcross%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dvss%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1">Salvadoran Cross</a>.<br /><br />Its origins lies in the 1960s and 70s, when people fled the brutal persecutions in El Salvador and lived in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. Here they tried to reconcile their pain and horror with their deeply-held Christian faith. What they came up with was very practical: to <b>think of all the things that brought hope and meaning to their lives</b> (children, a sunrise, bible stories, their village, etc) and to <b>paint them in vivid colours on to wooden crosses</b>.<br /><br />The results are not only strikingly beautiful, they are also a moving expression of the message of Easter: pain, sorrow, hope, devotion and worship meet in the cross of Jesus Christ.<br /><br />The link above gives some examples and even a template which you can use to design your own Salvadoran Cross. Now there's a different kind of Easter meditation!<br /><br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-34455017003447301092013-02-28T06:00:00.000+00:002013-02-28T18:14:28.908+00:00Aidan and Alopen, Two 7th Century ApostlesIn God's great timetable, the year AD 635 must have been a bit special. For in that year, two men were sent out on apostolic missions and, in the face of great dangers, broke through with the gospel in unreached lands. <br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aidan_of_Lindisfarne">Aidan</a> was a fiery Irishman, <a href="http://thoughtfulfaith.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/the-first-christian-missionary-in-china/">Alopen</a> a refined Persian. Both were monks, both gifted communicators. Entirely independently, both were commissioned and sent to start churches: one at the North-West frontier of civilisation, the other in the far East. Aidan became the Apostle of northern England, Alopen the Apostle to China. Despite their extraordinary linked destiny, they never met or even knew of each other.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaiA-6KC6cRTGF9aakeOqznuJP7loFr0q0_MTNc8t3RVUt_-8Ftv4O1jXFU5Gy4p-zscaxceFKD5aX7MlQA6drA23whIUzoaPtD4zXc7V44jdKIPMhftfgqUS6SasxtOOllZPZEFtbrkxO/s1600/Aidan.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 229px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaiA-6KC6cRTGF9aakeOqznuJP7loFr0q0_MTNc8t3RVUt_-8Ftv4O1jXFU5Gy4p-zscaxceFKD5aX7MlQA6drA23whIUzoaPtD4zXc7V44jdKIPMhftfgqUS6SasxtOOllZPZEFtbrkxO/s320/Aidan.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457519150152321090" /></a><br /><strong>AIDAN: APOSTLE OF THE NORTH</strong><br /><br />Britain at the turn of the 600s was a battleground of warring tribal kingdoms, most of them pagan. A Christian prince named Oswald was sent to the Celtic monastery on the Scottish island of <a href="http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/Scotland-History/StColumba.htm">Iona</a> for his own safety. In 634 he felt ready to deliver his kingdom, Northumbria, in the north of England. He defeated the invaders and was crowned king.<br /><br />One of his first acts was to ask Iona to send someone to convert his pagan subjects. An envoy was sent but returned saying that the Northumbrians were obstinate barbarians, beyond redemption! At this, an Irish monk named Aidan spoke up: it was foolish to expect pagans to accept the strict rules of a Celtic monastery - they must be met on their own level, with grace and humility. For this, Aidan himself was appointed for the apostolic mission to re-evangelise the north of England. It was AD 635.<br /><br />He established his base on Lindisfarne, an island off the east coast, which became known as Holy Island. From here teams went out with the gospel, planting churches and establishing centres at Melrose, Jarrow and Whitby. By the time he died in 651, Northumbria was almost wholly evangelised.<br /><br />Aidan succeeded by developing key relationships with those who helped to expand the work and by wise and creative planning. He didn't do all the work himself - at first, he couldn't even speak the language but needed interpreters. He appointed and trusted many workers. Other noted Celtic saints, Hilda, Chad and Cuthbert, built up important ministries under his covering.<br /><br />But Aidan was a communicator. He could empathise. Any gifts he received from the wealthy, he gave to the poor. This included a fine stallion given to him by the king. The king was furious, but Aidan replied: "Is the son of a mare more important to you than a son of God?" The humbled king knelt and asked forgiveness.<br /><br />Aidan's primary witness was through the genuineness of his life. He refused personal gain, showed no partiality (rebuking kings when they needed it), and practised rigorous self-denial. If the king came to Lindisfarne, he had to eat the same food as the monks and beggars. Aidan's approach was "Do as I do", not "Do as I say", and because his life was open to all, people gladly followed and the Church was built.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2rZeafJno98s0ovFu6-0jMzbwpiNLCPPmF4FsrcP-RGuKJA9wqs_r-FdbB8VhtwFyIAdhNGBP2Ddq7I40j-XEnz1nV0H-KnHO17RDfbMGZ_VqMF-qcC_k0QqhHw8ixP2RJy1BP380vxW/s1600/Tai+Tsung.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 218px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2rZeafJno98s0ovFu6-0jMzbwpiNLCPPmF4FsrcP-RGuKJA9wqs_r-FdbB8VhtwFyIAdhNGBP2Ddq7I40j-XEnz1nV0H-KnHO17RDfbMGZ_VqMF-qcC_k0QqhHw8ixP2RJy1BP380vxW/s320/Tai+Tsung.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457519522455383170" /></a><strong>ALOPEN: APOSTLE OF THE EAST</strong><br /><br />In ancient times, China was better known in the West than one might suppose. For centuries a trade route called the <a href="http://www.china.org.cn/english/MATERIAL/139504.htm">Silk Road </a>had linked China with Persia and the West. Arab and Persian merchants settled in China, and Chinese envoys reached ancient Rome. But by the 5th and 6th centuries, tribal wars had shut the Silk Road and made China a closed empire.<br /><br />The arrival of the T'ang Dynasty (AD 618-877) changed all this. The Chinese army crushed the rebels and a golden age of Chinese culture began. The capital, Chang-an (modern Xi-an), was the largest walled city ever built, with two million inhabitants. The reopening of the Silk Road in 632 brought a new cosmopolitan flavour. The Emperor, T'ai Tsung, tolerated all religions and encouraged the discussion of foreign ideas.<br /><br />The Church saw its opportunity and took it. In 635, the Assyrian archbishop Yeshuyab sent an apostolic team, led by a learned and wise monk named Alopen. They accompanied a traders' camel train and arrived at Chang-an.<br /><br />Alopen had done his homework. He knew the very formal Chinese culture and the need to avoid open war with the Buddhists. So for three years, he and Chinese converts worked on the first Christian book in the Chinese language: The Sutra of Jesus Messiah. A sutra was the way Buddhists presented their teachings, as a series of discourses. Alopen was playing them at their own game.<br /><br />Much reads strangely to Western ears: Jesus is "the Heaven-Honoured One", the "Master of the Victorious Law", who has sent "the Pure Breeze" (the Holy Spirit) from "our Three-One". But the Emperor was pleased with what he read and in 638 made a decree: Alopen's religion was "wonderful, spontaneous, producing perception and establishing essentials for the salvation of creatures and the benefit of man". The Emperor commanded that a Christian religious centre be built from public funds in the Western merchants' quarter of the city.<br /><br />From this base, with a core of just 21 Christians, the gospel spread out into the land. Four regional centres were built and by the time of the next Emperor, Kuo Tsung, there were churches in ten provinces. Alopen was made bishop (or in the quaint Chinese, "Spiritual Lord, Protector of the Empire") and the Church was able to put down firm roots in China - which it would need when persecution was unleashed by Empress Wu in 690. <br /><br /><br />The New Testament says that the Church is <em>built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets - Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone </em> (Ephesians 2:19-20). By their labours, endurance, anointing and above all love, they become fathers to the churches, as Paul, Peter and the others did in the Early Church. It may still be debated whether there are apostles today of the calibe and stamp of Jesus' Twelve, but the apostolic <strong>heart</strong> should be something we long to see outpoured more and more, if the Church is regain (and retain) her radicality.Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-59632638375324227722013-02-16T11:01:00.000+00:002013-02-18T12:58:28.403+00:00The Incredible Faithfulness of Lena Tikhuie<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_QcHWkVJzS4Hx0S1JRe4Mb1Z_NFhpMJPerkAI_GjVt71fjXzgqcFqverk5ju3-t3ItwoMSm8AyLV8jwubwn_nEVq0lsg1VeY34qGNOp1UFl_UmL8vOl_vwIk4_NUd6trq69vlGqzfRSLl/s1600/travel-tanzania-tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_QcHWkVJzS4Hx0S1JRe4Mb1Z_NFhpMJPerkAI_GjVt71fjXzgqcFqverk5ju3-t3ItwoMSm8AyLV8jwubwn_nEVq0lsg1VeY34qGNOp1UFl_UmL8vOl_vwIk4_NUd6trq69vlGqzfRSLl/s320/travel-tanzania-tree.jpg" /></a><br />
In 1737, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravian_Church">Moravian Church</a> sent a team to start a mission and community settlement in South Africa. They chose some land east of Cape Town and called it Genadendal (Grace Valley). You can see images of the subsequent settlement <a href="http://www.viewoverberg.com/Genadendal.asp">here.</a><br /><br />
The local tribe, the Khoi, were impoverished and dispersed but the Moravians reached out to them and began a school for their children. One of the first Khoi to be baptised was a woman called Tikhuie, whom the missionaries named Magdalena. Her husband, a skilled hunter, kept the community supplied with meat.<br /><br />
Some of the missionaries died of disease, however, and the leader grew lonely and, in 1744, was recalled to Germany. Everyone thought the community was finished. They reckoned without 'Lena’ Tikhuie! Having learnt to read at the mission school, she gathered the people daily under a tree and taught them the scriptures.<br /><br />
Years passed. Travellers returning to Europe brought tales of an African woman leading a church at Grace Valley. Finally, in 1792, <b>nearly fifty years</b> after the withdrawal, the Moravians sent a fresh team to re-found Genadendal. On their arrival, they found the ruins of the original houses, but to their astonishment there was Lena Tikhuie, frail and almost blind, still holding the ground and ministering to the little congregation, daily, under the tree. Her well-worn bible was still with her, wrapped in sheepskin.<br /><br />
The missionaries were told, “Every evening we all, men, women and children, would go to old Lena. She would fall on her knees and pray. When her eyes would let her, she read from the New Testament.” As families grew, parents taught their children to pray. When Lena couldn’t read, a younger woman did it for her.<br /><br />
Lena became a living legend in the area. People came to see her. One, the wife of a high official in the British government, wrote: “It was like creeping back seventeen hundred years to hear from the coarse but inspired lips of evangelists the simple, sacred words of wisdom and purity.”<br /><br />
Lena never knew when she was born, but she lived a long life, always thanking God for His great grace. When she died in 1800, her faithful perseverance had become legendary throughout South Africa. She was one of the first indigenous church leaders in South Africa, certainly the first woman, and she had led the congregation at Genadendal for fifty years.<br /><br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-69088650987149913332013-02-15T16:15:00.000+00:002013-02-16T11:31:27.716+00:00The Country Boy Who Fathered a Nation - Conclusion<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQusXx3ZDkvAfgnzgbZvrlRly8_WyNwmreUarGXUZM02HuV9nmnq1TvUldcV_sLDAM4CcILoVjH6zjDDTvx3Dv9ciTaV0_UE7-5s0X9TCs4K3G5ii6Lj6RJ48wED-hHw3PVU7RZ-HaVLQ7/s1600/Hauge-bok-web.2.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQusXx3ZDkvAfgnzgbZvrlRly8_WyNwmreUarGXUZM02HuV9nmnq1TvUldcV_sLDAM4CcILoVjH6zjDDTvx3Dv9ciTaV0_UE7-5s0X9TCs4K3G5ii6Lj6RJ48wED-hHw3PVU7RZ-HaVLQ7/s320/Hauge-bok-web.2.jpg" /></a><br />
Hauge spent his last years on a farm near Christiania (modern Oslo), bought for him by his friends. Years of imprisonment had weakened his body but not his spirit. His home became a centre for Christian life, visited by many. He welcomed both spiritual and secular leaders who came to him for advice.<br />
He wrote a number of books and articles, mainly spiritual but some economic. Two years before his early death, he gave this testimony to God's faithfulness and dealings.<br /><br />
<blockquote><i>I am 52 years old and have tasted Christianity's joy and strength, which had enabled me to leave my father's house and to offer up my body's peace and my worldly goods. I have put my life in danger of death many times, wandered alone through and over many wild woods and fells. I have seen many loathsome forms of sin. But in all this, nothing has been able to disturb the peace and the divine joy I have through the teaching of Christ. My consciousness is at one with it, and I only want to live according to its command.</i><br />
<i>In the darkest of prisons, where I have sat for my testimony's sake, I have had spiritual joys that exceed all the world's glory and joy. In a miraculous way, power is granted to all those who receive it in their inner being, such that their souls become sanctified by His reconciling grace. From this flows that purity and that friendship that far exceeds all other morals and friendships in the worlds. Let it happen! </i>
</blockquote><br />
At the end, Hauge was bedridden - but still preached. His last exhortation was: "Follow Jesus!" He died, his face radiant with joy, exclaiming, "Oh, You eternal, loving God!"<br /><br />
That was by no means the end of the story! Some of his followers held important positions. Three of them took part in the first Norwegian Parliament in 1814, when Norway became independent from Denmark after 400 years of Danish rule. The whole nation felt the effects of Hauge’s influence - spiritually, politically and financially. It can truly be said that he fathered the new nation.<br />
Hauge's pioneering work in economic justice and ethical business continue to inspire today. Journalist Sigbjorn Ravnasen has written a book (very hard to find, even on Google) on <i>Hans Nielsen Hauge's Ethical Framework for Business and Management </i>. Ravnasen writes:<br />
<blockquote>"When Norway became an independent nation in 1814, these kingdom values were integrated into the rhythm of daily life and were institutionalized into laws, school curricula and business practices in Norway. Economic conditions improved and led to the eradication of poverty in the land. Today, Norway continues to be the best country in the world in human development for the seventh year in a row. Norwegians have imbibed this spirit of volunteerism and have stretched their sense of responsibility from involvement in their local community beyond to the global community of nations. So Norway has the highest ratio of missionaries per capita, and (most unusually) in holistic and transformational servant-leadership roles."</blockquote><br />
In 2005 the Hauge Institute was founded. Its aim is to raise awareness about the person Hans Nielsen Hauge, his ethical thinking and topicality; to bring inspiration to the business community, to leaders, research, education and society. Based on the thinking and practice of Hans Nielsen Hauge, the Hauge Institute will focus on the ethical dimension in three main areas: Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Trade and the Environment.<br />
Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-85117737671901690302012-12-26T10:13:00.003+00:002013-02-16T11:31:41.993+00:00The Country Boy who Fathered a Nation, Part 2<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hauge's time as a travelling evangelist were busy and fulfilling. A magnetism of God's love seemed to draw people to him. He collected some of their testimonies and published them as tracts, to reach out to others. He made friends in many places and groups of followers formed. One particular characteristic among them was love.<br /><br />
<i>It is something that God's children have among them by the Spirit</i>, Hauge wrote. <i>They know each other from the first moment of meeting. It shows in their spiritual talk, their gentle and humble character and moral, simple and faithful words. One of Christ's shepherds easily recognises his own, and they recognise him.</i><br /><br />
Some young 'Haugians' were entrusted with local leadership, preaching tours and the sale of books. These men had very different backgrounds and education, but all of them were stamped with Hauge's burning decisiveness for Christ.<br /><br />
Alongside this, Hauge encouraged representatives of the rural population into politics, launching what has been described as the first Norwegian democratic movement. This was enough to gain him enemies. Norway had strict laws regarding sectarian preaching and 'vagrancy'; both of these were now used against him.<br /><br />
In 1799, notices were read in churches warning against unauthorised preachers. Some Haugians were chased out of churches, beaten and imprisoned. Altogether, Hauge himself was arrested <i>ten times</i>. He once spent nine years in prison before his case was even heard! The sheriff of Hallingdal thought it would be fun to send a prostitute to Hauge's cell; he looked her in the eyes with compassion and she began to sob and confess her sins!<br /><br />
His final imprisonment lasted 10 years, 3 of them in total isolation, first in an underground cell reserved for drunks, and finally in a small cell that has now been reconstructed at <a href="http://www.norskfolkemuseum.no/">Norway's Open Air Museum</a> outside Oslo. He wrote to his friends:<br /><br />
<blockquote><i>If I had 100 lives, they would all be willing for chains. Prison does not last for ever. I wish you well on the road of salvation. It is my prayer, my longing, my burden of care and my joy to find you in life eternal.</blockquote></i><br />
However, Hauge was by now a national figure and his long imprisonment was becoming a scandal. What's more, the authorities still needed his business and industrial expertise. Once, they freed him for a time because they needed his advice on a marine desalination project! Finally, his sentence was commuted to a fine, which his friends paid. Hauge was free, broken in health but filled with God's vision. He was ready for the final stage of the adventure.<br /><br />
Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-14862997579747765442012-12-13T10:31:00.000+00:002013-02-16T11:31:55.947+00:00The Country Boy Who Fathered a Nation, Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The name <b>Hans Nielsen Hauge</b> (pronounced Ho-ger) is largely unknown outside his native Norway. This is surprising, given the far-ranging social, economic, political and spiritual impact of his life.<br /><br />
It all began in 1796, when the 25-year-old farmer's son was ploughing a field. He suddenly felt an overwhelming experience of the real presence of God. He burned with love for Jesus and for mankind. <i>'My mind became so exalted that I can scarcely express what took place in my soul'</i>, he wrote later. <i>'I asked Him to reveal to me what I should do. The answer echoed in my heart: "You shall confess My name before the people; exhort them to repent and seek Me while I may be found and call upon Me while I am near; and touch their hearts that they may turn from darkness to light".'</i><br /><br />
He first shared the good news with his brothers and sisters, who were all converted. Then he set off as an itinerant evangelist. He developed a pattern of walking great distances every day, holding three or four meetings in villages and reaching large numbers of ordinary people. In the 8 years he was free to do this, it is estimated he covered 15,000 km. He often knitted as he walked; the gloves and socks were then given away to the poor who needed them. Many people came to saving faith in Jesus as a result and then they themselves went out to preach the gospel. A grass-roots revival began to spread among the rural communities.<br /><br />
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Hauge was a humble and practical man, full of initiative. He saw the need to educate and equip the common people as well as save their souls. He had an amazing capacity for work, which, combined with his pioneering spirit, made him an entrepreneur to rank with the best.<br /><br />
For Hauge, running a business and preaching went hand in hand. He started a company in Bergen in 1801 to secure a sound economic base for his gospel activities. Thereafter, there was no stopping him! Over the next eight years, he founded fishing industries, brickyards, spinning mills, shipping yards, salt and mineral mines, paper mills and printing works. These created jobs for people who needed work and taught them how to make a living for themselves. He delegated the daily management to those he thought were the most capable, but he was the strategist who planned and motivated the whole enterprise. The profits were always used to invest in new activities.<br /><br />
Hauge became an inspiration to all who wanted to take Norway out of the 'middle ages' and into a new day. New agricultural and industrial methods were developed, and literacy rates rose. A new confidence led to greater economic freedom as Christians were challenged to rebuild society. Norway began to change.<br /><br />
Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-58000056291581231162012-11-08T11:05:00.000+00:002013-02-16T11:30:52.604+00:00Preacher Burns His Sermons And Catches Fire Himself! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<blockquote><i>Destitute of the fire of God, nothing else counts; possessing fire, nothing else matters.</i></blockquote><br />
<b>Samuel Chadwick</b> was born in the industrial north of England in 1860. His father worked long hours in the cotton mill and, when he was only eight, Samuel went to work there, too, as a means of supporting the family. Devout Methodists, they attended chapel three times on Sunday, and as a young boy, Chadwick gave his heart to Christ. Listening to God's word week by week, he often felt the inner call to serve Jesus. It seemed impossible, as he was poor and uneducated, but in faith he made preparations. After a twelve-hour factory shift he would rush home for five hours of prayer and study.<br /><br />
At the age of 21 he was appointed lay pastor of a chapel at Stacksteads, Lancashire. He found the congregation self-satisfied, but Chadwick threw himself into the work with great optimism. He had been trained to prepare well-researched and interesting sermons as the sure way to bring in the crowds. He recalled later: <i>"This led unconsciously to a false aim in my work. I lived and laboured for my sermons, and was unfortunately more concerned about their excellence and reputation than the repentance of the people."</i><br /><br />
Soon, however, his sermons were exhausted and nothing had changed. Staring defeat in the face and sensing his lack of real power, an intense hunger was kindled within him for more of God. At this point he heard the testimony of someone who had been revitalised by an experience of the Holy Spirit. So, with a few friends he covenanted to pray and search the scriptures until God sent revival.<br /><br />
One evening he was praying over his next sermon, when a powerful sense of conviction settled on him. His pride, blindness and reliance on human methods paraded before his eyes as God humbled him to the dust. Well into the night he wrestled and repented, then he got out his pile of precious sermons and threw them on the fire!<br /><br />
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The result was immediate – he was baptised with the Holy Spirit and with fire [Luke 3:16]. <b><i>"I could not explain what had happened, but it was a bigger thing than I had ever known. There came into my soul a deep peace, a thrilling joy, and a new sense of power. My mind was quickened. I felt I had received a new faculty of understanding. Every power was vitalised. My body was quickened. There was a new sense of spring and vitality, a new power of endurance and a strong man's exhilaration in big things."</i></b><br /><br />
The tide turned. At his next service, seven people were converted ("one for each of my barren years"), and he called the whole congregation to a week of prayer. The following weekend most of the church was filled with the Holy Spirit and revival began to spread through the valleys. In the space of a few months, hundreds were converted to Jesus, among them some of the most notorious sinners in the area.<br /><br />
The pattern was repeated over the next few years as Chadwick moved to various places. 1890 saw him in Leeds, where the power of God was so strongly upon him that the chapel was full half an hour before the service began, and police had to control the crowds. Chadwick records: <i>"We were always praying and fighting [the devil], singing and rejoicing, doing the impossible and planning still bigger things. The newspapers never left us alone, and people came from far and wide."</i> Within a few years, the chapel had to be demolished and a substantial Mission Hall built.<br /><br />
Always a man of the people, Chadwick would spend his Saturdays mixing with local workers. Once, when his wife was away, he teasingly invited anyone who was lonely to come for Saturday tea. He expected about a dozen. <b>Six hundred</b> turned up! Yet God had already catered: one church member was a baker and had been awoken by the Lord with the order to bake for all he was worth!<br /><br />
Chadwick was a man of prayer and urged others to it too. <b><i>"The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying,” he wrote. “He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom - but trembles when we pray!"</i></b><br /><br />
The final phase of Chadwick's life was spent as Principal of Cliff College, a Methodist training school for preachers, and it was here that he wrote his famous book, <i><a href="http://wesley.nnu.edu/wesleyctr/books/0401-0500/HDM0496.pdf">The Way to Pentecost</a></i>, which was being printed when he died in 1932. In it we read: <b><i>"I owe everything to the gift of Pentecost. For fifty days the facts of the Gospel were complete, but no conversions were recorded. Pentecost registered three thousand souls. It is by fire that a holy passion is kindled in the soul whereby we live the life of God. The soul's safety is in its heat. Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, make for a Church without power."
</i></b><br /><br />
Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-58915719198877687112012-10-19T09:56:00.003+01:002013-02-16T23:31:59.494+00:00Ancient Odes to Jesus, part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>There is a Helper for me: the Lord... He became like me, that I might receive Him. I trembled not when I saw Him, for He was gracious to me. Like my nature He became, that I might understand him; and like my form, that I might not turn away from Him.</i><br />
Ode 7:3-6<br /><br />
As we delve a little deeper into the earliest Christian hymnbook, the 'Odes of Solomon', it becomes clear that the writer was familiar with the biblical book of Psalms. It is nowhere exactly quoted, but in many places there are direct parallels. To give just one example, Psalm 84:10 reads: <i>For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand elsewhere</i>, and in Ode 4:5 we find: <i>For one hour of Your faith is more excellent than all the days and all the years.</i><br /><br />
What is also clear is that the writer, almost certainly a Jewish Christian in Syria, was very familiar with the writings of the Apostle John. If, as is generally agreed, the Odes date from the very end of the 1st century, it is well possible that the writer was a disciple of John.<br /><br />
Some of the odes are meditative expansions of Johannine themes like <b>light and dark</b>. John 1:1-18 presents Jesus Christ as "the light of the world": <i>In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it</i> [v.3-4]. Ode 15:2 says: <i>He is my Sun and His rays have lifted me up; His light has dismissed all darkness from my face</i>.<br /><br />
The general tenor of the Odes is similar to John's gospel in its meditative, worshipful response to the truths of Jesus. See, for example, the odist's treatment of the incarnation [Odes 7,19], death [Ode 28], resurrection and ascension [Ode 42].<br /><br />
A fine example is Ode 27, which is only three verses long and which clearly grew out of worshipful contemplation of the Cross:<br />
<blockquote><b><i>I extended my hands and hallowed my Lord,<br />
For the stretching out of my hands is His sign,<br />
And my stretching upward is the upright cross. Hallelujah.</i></b> </blockquote><br />
To read the Odes of Solomon for yourself, follow <a href="http://users.misericordia.edu//davies/thomas/odes.htm">this link</a>. The Odes have of recent times been set to music - for more details, visit <a href="http://theodesproject.net/resources/">The Odes Project</a>.<br /><br />
Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-663064946480469432012-09-24T14:04:00.001+01:002013-02-16T23:32:31.368+00:00Ancient Odes to Jesus? part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<blockquote><i>I am putting on the love of the Lord...<br />
I have been united to Him, because the lover has found the Beloved.<br />
Because I love Him that is the Son, I shall become a son.<br />
Indeed, whoever is joined to Him who is immortal, shall truly be immortal.</i></blockquote><br />
These striking words come from what has been hailed as the earliest Christian hymn book. Prior to 1909, nothing was known of the <b><i>Odes of Solomon</i></b> except one quotation by Lactantius (†320). Then a Syriac manuscript was found containing, among other writings, 40 odes. Subsequent finds have shown that there were originally 42, though because of the fragmentary nature of the papyri, Ode 2 and part of Ode 3 have not survived.<br /><br />
I remember from my youth the odes read by comedian Frankie Howerd in the TV series <i>Up Pompeii</i> ("titter ye not!"). I later discovered that an ode is simply a piece of lyrical poetry written for a particular occasion, which in Greek at least had a fixed form. Scholars quickly established, however, that the <i>Odes of Solomon</i>, are not from a Greek stable but a Jewish one. Dating evidence suggests late 1st - early 2nd century, at any event before the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt">Bar-Kokhba Revolt</a> of 132-135, when Christian Jews were evicted from synagogues.<br /><br />
These verses are not odes other than in a general sense, then, and there is nothing to link them to Solomon except by analogy of phrasing with the <i>Song of Solomon</i> in the Bible. For these Odes are clearly Christian (at one time scholars thought Gnostic, but the consensus today is that they are orthodox) and praise the person and attributes of Jesus Christ. Was the titular use of Solomon's name a way of safeguarding the documents in a highly volatile political time when radical Jews were highly suspicious of Jewish followers of Christ?<br /><br />
What makes the Odes particularly exciting is that they clearly emanate from a community of <b>Jewish</b> disciples of Jesus, almost certainly from Syria. Church history from earliest times has majored on Gentile Christianity to the extent that the average reader can forget that Jewish believers continued at all beyond the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. I hope, in a few further posts, to explore these matters more and give some more quotations from this amazing early Christian resource.<br /><br />
Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-10712138028375996542012-09-15T16:53:00.001+01:002013-02-16T23:34:04.681+00:00Christians and Hymns, part 7<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One of the reasons why music did not take a central place in early Christian worship is that the central element of their meetings was the sharing of the bread and wine, the Communion or Eucharist, whether in the context of a church service or in the <i>agapé</i>, the 'love feast' in homes. Ignatius was made bishop of Antioch in AD 67, when many of the apostles were still alive and active, and he describes the Christian church as "a Eucharistic community" which realised its true nature when it celebrated Communion.<br /><br />
In turn, this emphasis might be due to the belief among first generation Christians that the sharing of the bread and wine was to be done "until Jesus returns", which they believed would be soon, perhaps in their lifetime. When this did not materialise, a Christian liturgy for worship began to develop, described for us by early apologists like Justin Martyr and Hippolytus. It involved greeting, reading from scripture, responsive (antiphonal) singing, baptisms, a sermon, prayers, the offertory, the communion and a blessing.<br /><br />
The first hymn with actual musical notation which we possess, the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus_hymn">Oxyrhynchus hymn</a>", is from the 3rd century. At the same point, the <i>Apostolic Tradition</i>, attributed to the theologian Hippolytus, shows that the singing of psalms with <i>Alleluia</i> as the refrain was a feature of early Christian agape feasts.<br /><br />
It wasn't until around 375 that antiphonal singing of psalms became popular in the Christian East; in 386, Ambrose of Milan introduced this practice to the West. Around 410, St. Augustine described the responsive singing of a psalm at Mass. Sources are few and inconclusive regarding how Christian chant / song developed, but we do know that by 678, Western (Roman) chant was being taught at York. Distinctive regional traditions of Western plainchant arose during this period, notably in the British Isles (Celtic chant), Spain (Mozarabic), Gaul (Gallican), and Italy (Old Roman and Ambrosian).<br /><br />
We can safely say that by this stage, sung worship was an established part of Christian services, albeit without instruments. For the arrival of the earliest church organs we must wait until the mid-11th century.<br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-29865828574866411412012-09-10T23:52:00.002+01:002013-02-16T23:35:39.249+00:00Christians and Hymns, part 6<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Eusebius of Caesarea was a 4th century bishop of Caesarea who wrote a history of early Christianity based on a number of sources, some of which no longer exist. He quotes Philo, a 1st century Jewish historian, who made mention of Christian all-night vigils and <b><i>the hymns which they recite, and how while one man sings in regular rhythm, the others listen and join in the refrain</i></b>.<br /><br />
The phrase "hymns which they recite" is particularly interesting. The pagan official Pliny, quoted in an earlier post in this blog, used the same phrase (Latin <i>carmen dicere</i>). Does it suggest that hymns were <b>spoken</b> rather than sung? Philo, quoted above, suggests that singing happened but still uses "recite". Historian Ralph Martin has studied this phrase in a number of historical contexts and you can find his article <a href="http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/vox/vol03/footnote_martin.pdf">here</a>.<br /><br />
We could usefully bring in Augustine of Hippo here, who in the 4th century described church singing in Alexandria as <i>more like speaking than singing</i>. Perhaps there was a specific reason for this. Pipe, harp and drum were intimately linked to the pagan cults, e.g. of Pan, with their sensuous worship and often shameless revelries. Christians, mindful of the apostolic direction that <i>everything should be done decently and in order</i> [1 Corinthians 14:40], avoided musical instruments. Jerome, also 4th century, wrote that <i>a Christian maiden ought not even to know what a flute is, or what it is used for</i>.<br /><br />
Liturgy (an order of service with fixed elements) came in early to Christian worship. there is evidence of a 'Jerusalem' liturgy, instituted by the Apostle James, and an 'Alexandrian' liturgy attributed to Paul's fellow-labourer John Mark. Singing was a key element, but in the stylised manner of Jewish psalmody and response singing. As John Chrysostom puts it:<br />
<blockquote><b><i>David formerly sang in pslams, and we also sing today with him. He had a lyre with lifeless strings; the Church has a lyre with living strings. Our tongues are the strings of the lyre, with a different tone, certainly, but with a more seemly piety.</i></b></blockquote><br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-8790994488981468282012-09-01T22:55:00.001+01:002013-02-16T23:36:56.685+00:00Christians and Hymns, part 5<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Roman official Pliny held office as governor of the province of Pontus and Bithynia in Asia Minor for a period of fifteen months or so in AD 111-112. During that time he corresponded with the emperor Trajan about how to enforce legislation against the Christians. He relates information about Christian practices which he had
received from certain Christian renegades.<br />
<blockquote><i>They were in the habit of meeting before dawn on a stated day and <b>singing alternately a hymn to Christ as to a god</b>, and that they bound themselves by an oath...that they would abstain from theft and robbery and adultery, that they would not break their word, and that they would not withhold a deposit when reclaimed. This done, it was their practice, so they said, to separate, and then to meet together again for a meal, which however was of the ordinary kind and quite harmless</i>.</blockquote><br />
The reference to "singing hymns to Christ" shows that the Christians were singing more than texts from the Psalms. And we have examples. A gospel fragment of uncertain date, known as the Strasbourg Coptic Papyrus 1900, contains this:<br />
<blockquote><i>Through whom will the last enemy be destroyed?<br />
Through Christ. Amen. <br />
Through whom is the sting of death destroyed?<br />
Through the Only Begotten. Amen.<br />
To whom belongs the rulership?<br />
It belongs to the Son. Amen.<br />
Through whom has everything come into being?<br />
Through the Firstborn. Amen.</i></blockquote><br />
Here is the 'statement and response' singing familiar from Jewish worship using the Psalms, but now with overtly Christian text.<br /><br />
Biblical scholars generally agree that certain passages of the New Testament are likely renditions of early Christian hymns. They cite various textual criteria, for example that the passage exhibits rhythmical patterns and careful structure, contains vocabulary different from the surrounding context, and to some extent interrupts the context. It is common to refer to these passages as <b>Canticles</b>.<br /><br />
The classic examples have all passed into church liturgy: the "Magnificat" (Luke 1:46-55), the "Benedictus" (Luke 1:68-75) and the "Nunc Dimittis" (Luke 2:29-32). But there are others, such as Ephesians 5:14, which some hold to have been a credal statement for baptism, and 1 Timothy 3:16:<br />
<blockquote><i>He was manifest in flesh,<br />
justified in spirit,<br />
visible to angels,<br />
preached among the nations,<br />
believed on in the world,<br />
taken up into glory.</i></blockquote><br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-20786989619315057372012-08-30T23:36:00.000+01:002013-02-16T23:38:13.912+00:00Christians and Hymns, part 4<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Before delving further into Christian hymnody, I must thank Jeffrey O'Rourke for pointing out that my quotation from Origen in the last post was taken rather out of context. Origen is defending Christians against charges levelled by a pagan, Celsus, that they have some arcane Christian tongue for secret rituals. So Origen is not describing a particular worship service; rather he is saying that Christians sing and pray to God using their mother tongue - wherever they may be. There is no "Christian tongue"; God hears us no matter what tongue we use. He is delineating a principle, not a practice.<br /><br />
One thing that surprises me with early Christian worship is that <b>singing praises</b> does not appear in the list of things the first believers devoted themselves to in Acts 2:42, namely the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread, fellowship, and prayers. The First Apology of Justin Martyr, dated c.155, describes a Christian worship service. The emphasis is on ritual (baptism / ablution and Holy Communion), not singing.<br /><br />
This all seems oddly at variance with the Apostle Paul's exhortation to <i>address one another with <b>psalms, hymns and spiritual songs</b>, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord</i> [Ephesians 5:19]. A very musical response indeed! As with Origen, the context is primarily the believer's personal devotional life. But not exclusively: "addressing one another" can only mean a context of corporate worship.<br /><br />
We know that Jesus and the Twelve, before they went out to the Mount of Olives, <i>sang a hymn<b></b></i> [Mark 14:26]. But what, and how? Many Biblical scholars believe it would have been one of the so-called <i>Hallel</i> series in the Book of Psalms, consisting of Psalms 113 - 118. It was common practice among the Jews to chant these holy songs at the Passover table. Did they sing it responsively, their 'Rabbi' leading and the disciples responding? we shall never know.<br /><br />
In the next post, the early testimony of a Roman official gives us a few clues.<br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-56623809161910008182012-08-24T17:47:00.000+01:002013-02-16T23:39:08.603+00:00Christians and Hymns, part 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The 1st century traveller and writer, Philo of Alexandria, describes the singing of a contemplative Jewish sect called the Therapeutae:<br />
"They rise up together and ... form themselves into two choirs, one of men and one of women, the leader chosen from each being the most honoured and most musical among them. They sing hymns to God composed of many measures and set to many melodies, sometimes chanting together, sometimes antiphonally."<br /><br />
Jewish liturgical singing took two forms: <b>antiphonal</b> and <b>responsorial</b>. The first is what Philo is describing: the division of singers into two groups in such a way that they are separated from each other; for example, to the right and left sides of the central aisle in the building. They then sing alternate parts, one side starting, the other responding.<br /><br />
This has continued in Christian worship ever since, not so much in congregational worship, but rather by the choir. Many a well-loved anthem has the two parts marked <i>decani</i> and <i>cantores</i>, indicating that, in the past, a group of church deacons would have sung one part, and a group of chosen cantors (singers) the other.<br /><br />
The second type of singing is similar, involving the priest or a perhaps a solo cantor singing an opening line and the congregation in unison singing the reply. Anyone who has been to a traditional sung service in church will be familiar with this.<br />
Priest: O Lord, open thou our lips.<br />
Answer: And our mouth shall show forth thy praise.<br />
Priest: O God, make speed to save us.<br />
Answer: O Lord, make haste to help us.<br />
Priest: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;<br />
Answer: As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.<br /><br />
The Old Testament book of Psalms really came into its own here, as not only did it allow the congregation to take God's word directly on its lips, but also the very verse form made for successful breaking down into statement and response (as in the above example). Even where it didn't, a congregational reply of "Alleluia" or "We bless Thy name, O Lord" did just as well. Tertullian, at the end of the 2nd century, refers to response singing of pslams in the church at Rome.<br/><br />
But what happened in a multi-national congregation where several langiages were represented? The writer Origen in the mid-3rd century gives the answer:<br />
<blockquote><i>The Greeks use Greek, the Romans Latin ... and everyone prays and sings praises to God as best he can in his mother tongue</i>.</blockquote>
Which sounds like a lot of fun!<br /><br />
If you have any comments on this post or the subject of hymns, please use the COMMENT box below. I'd love to hear from you.<br />
Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-81230066475222319742012-08-11T22:27:00.000+01:002013-02-16T23:39:54.276+00:00Christians and Hymns, Part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Another early Church father who understood the 'why' of hymn-singing was Basil of Caesarea (†379). In his Discourse on Psalm 1, he writes:<br />
<blockquote><i>The Spirit mixed sweetness of melody with doctrine so that inadvertently <b>we would absorb the benefit of the words through gentleness and ease of hearing</b>. O the wise invention of the teacher who contrives that in our singing we learn what is profitable, and that thereby doctrine is somehow more deeply impressed upon our souls.</i></blockquote><br />
The conscious or unconscious absorption of a message, with music as its medium, is a powerful tool. Today's marketing world knows this very well, associating a product with particular mood music. From the 1970s onwards, technology has even allowed "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_backmasked_messages">backmasking</a>" - the insertion of a subliminal secret message when a music track is played backwards.<br /><br />
All this was unknown to the first Christians, of course. What they did understand, however, was the need to confess spiritual truth aloud: not just to 'believe in your heart', but also to 'confess with your lips' [Romans 10:9]. Or in Basil's words, to impress doctrine more deeply on their souls.<br /><br />
For this they had a clear and obvious model: the Jews. At first, Christianity was a Jewish sect. The early Christians continued to worship at the Temple and to attend synagogues. It was therefore inevitable that Jewish methods of performing music were incorporated into Christian worship.<br /><br />
In particular, the church continued to use the book of <b>Psalms</b>. Basil again:
<blockquote><i>Now the prophets teach certain things, the historians and the Law teach other, and Proverbs provides still a different sort of advice, <b>but the Book of Psalms encompasses the benefit of them all</b>. It foretells what is to come and memorializes history; <b>it legislates for life, gives advice on practical matters, and serves in general as a repository of good teachings</b>.</i> </blockquote><br />
In other words, if it is important to confess God's truth aloud, then how better than to <b>sing scripture</b>. Not only is there no risk of emotionalism or error, but also the addition of music aids the memorising of the words.<br /><br />
How exactly this was done - and what implications that might have for today, I hope to look at next time.<br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-38851774573473465652012-08-02T17:45:00.000+01:002013-02-16T23:46:06.506+00:00Christians and Hymns, Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A subject that fascinates me is that of <b>Christian hymnody</b>, so I intend to explore the subject in a few posts here. First of all, why hymns at all?<br /><br />
In the introduction to his Exposition of the Psalms of David, the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas described the singing of hymns thus: <i>A hymn is the praise of God with song; a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice</i>.<br /><br />
It would seem that, for the first Christian centuries, believers sang their hymns without stopping to analyse the process. One of the first who did was John Chrysostom (347-407). In his 'Exposition on Psalm 41', he points out that music is an integral part of the human condition: <i>To such an extent, indeed, is our nature delighted by chants and songs that even infants at the breast, if they be weeping or afflicted, are by reason of it lulled to sleep.</i><br /><br />
Mixing this innate sense of music with the power of words is, Chrysostom continues, a powerful vehicle, affecting the intellect and spiritual standing of the singer.<br /><br />
<blockquote><i>When God saw that the majority of men were slothful and that they approached spiritual reading with reluctance and submitted to the effort involved without pleasure - wishing to make the task more agreeable and to relieve the sense of laboriousness - He mixed melody with prophecy, so that enticed by the rhythm and melody, all might raise sacred hymns to Him with great eagerness. For nothing so arouses the soul, gives it wings, sets it free from earth, releases it from the prison of the body, teaches it to love wisdom, and to condemn all the things of this life, as concordant melody andsacred song composed in rhythm.</i> </blockquote><br />
In words very relevant to today's ipod culture, Chrysostom warns that there are bad words and bad music too, and these can similarly affect the human soul. "Those things that are lascivious and vicious in all songs settle in parts of the mind, making it softer and weaker." That is why, he maintains, the devil is keen to fill the mind with dirty things through music.<br /><br />
<blockquote><i>From the spiritual hymms, however, proceeds much of value, much utility and sanctity, for the words purify the mind and the Holy Spirit descends swiftly upon the mind of the singer. For those who sing with understanding invoke the grace of the Spirit</i>.</blockquote><br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-40630093261392488052012-07-16T14:25:00.000+01:002013-02-18T12:59:56.216+00:00On the Trail of Fundamentalism, Conclusion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
In the light of the considerations outlined in the last two posts, the consensus today seems to be that most sincere and active Christians and churches would reject the “fundamentalist” description. They prefer “Bible-believing” or “evangelical”, each of which carries the idea of foundational New Testament beliefs and practices (thus avoiding the charge of liberalism). Such terms also allow churches to distance themselves both from the perceived rigid legalism of some (hyper-Calvinist) wings of the church, and from the 'lunatic fringe' associations attached to “fundamentalism” by the popular press and trendy atheism.<br /><br />
We do well to return to A W Tozer's analysis (see previous posts). Although written 50 years ago, his overview of trends is both timeless and masterly.<br />
<blockquote><i>The human mind can endure textualism just so long before it seeds a way of escape... The masses of Fundamentalism reacted against the tyranny of the scribes.
</i></blockquote><br />
In centuries past, perhaps, a matter so weighty to the Church might have required the convening of a Council of wise and respected leaders to confer and deliver a prescriptive ruling. Not so now!<br />
<blockquote><i>The result... has been a religious debauch hardly equalled since Israel worshipped the golden calf... The separating line between the Church and the world has been all but obliterated.</i> </blockquote><br />
<blockquote><i>Aside from a few of the grosser sins, the sins of the unregenerate world are now approved by a shocking number of professedly "born-again' Christians, and copied eagerly. Young Christians take as their models the rankest kind of worldlings and try to be as much like them as possible. Religious leaders have adopted the techniques of the advertisers: boasting, baiting and shameless exaggerating are now carried on as a normal procedure in church work. The moral climate is not that of the New Testament, but that of Hollywood. </i></blockquote><br />
This has come at a terrible cost:
<blockquote><i>Most evangelicals no longer initiate, they imitate... The holy faith of our fathers has in many places been made a form of entertainment, and the appalling thing is that all this has been fed down to the masses from the top.</i></blockquote><br />
And worst of all:
<blockquote><i>That <b>note of protest</b> which began with the New Testament and which was always heard loudest went the Church was most powerful <b>has been successfully silenced</b>. The radical element in testimony and life that once made Christians hated by the world is missing from present-day evangelicalism.</i></blockquote> <br /><br />
This is still the dilemma for Christians and churches today: to tighten up and risk "the tyranny of the scribes"; to let go and settle for a non-threatening but emasculated faith; or to be bold enough to cut a new path, which is nevertheless the old path of the New Testament: "a new commandment, but the commandment you heard from the beginning" (1 John.2:7).Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-58295206993765140432012-07-04T14:11:00.002+01:002013-02-18T14:51:46.505+00:00On the Trail of Fundamentalism, Part 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGdT10eE7DXwUkW40U2lnCkqkE-iObm-xzrVIiUqfqxZ5A7f3RgDNsltSA-LLaHH3edhFVGY0hakU3tj77Ufc1ixR-npYtctGU2gw2ZzBCefVYEtGTNsf7h3ekX9RBrYomKTAgH_JTpGpu/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGdT10eE7DXwUkW40U2lnCkqkE-iObm-xzrVIiUqfqxZ5A7f3RgDNsltSA-LLaHH3edhFVGY0hakU3tj77Ufc1ixR-npYtctGU2gw2ZzBCefVYEtGTNsf7h3ekX9RBrYomKTAgH_JTpGpu/s320/untitled.png" /></a></div>
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Holding back on A W Tozer's analysis a little longer, let's look at where Christian fundamentalism has reached today.<br /><br />
In his book <i>What People Ask About the Church</i>, Dale Robbins writes: "In the broad sense, fundamentalism may be used to describe Christians who are uncompromising, conservative and who take their beliefs to the maximum - exactly how every believer should live." In all probability, this is how serious evangelical Christians the world over would describe themselves. It is therefore a neutral, general description, which distinguishes such believers from liberals on the one hand and ritualists on the other.<br /><br />
However, as Robbins points out: "In recent times, because of increased activism by those identified as fundamentalists, who have promoted unethical actions such as bringing violence against abortion clinics, some academic circles believe that fundamentalism has been redefined by our society... [In their eyes] fundamentalism has evolved into a legitimate form of extremism, with views too radical for the balanced, evangelical Christian."<br /><br />
The analogy with Islamic fundamentalists is never far away. That term only gained currency during the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis">Iran Hostage Crisis</a> of 1979-80. The media, in an attempt to explain the ideology of the Ayatollah to a Western audience, described it as "a fundamentalist version of Islam". So Islamic fundamentalism was <b>a merging of religious teaching and social revolution</b>, and this idea has now been carried back to Christianity - at least in the eyes of an onlooking world.<br /><br />
Now, therefore, some Christian theologians refer pejoratively as "fundamentalist" to any Christian thinking or plan of action which they see as too literal-minded and with the potential to rock the boat. On wonders what would they have said of Jesus Christ and the twelve Apostles? The persistent criticisms which they (and non-Christians) level at fundamentalist evangelicals are <b>triumphalism</b> (they make simplistic claims which they cannot prove) and <b>selectivity</b> (they are happy to be literal-minded about Jesus' miracles, but not about Christians sharing all things in common).<br /><br />
The key issue, as I would see it, is <b>open-mindedness</b>. Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales, puts it helpfully: <i>The new fundamentalism of our age leads to the language of expulsion and exclusivity, of extremism and polarisation, and to the claim that, because God is on our side, he is not on yours.</i> If we, as Christians, reach the point where we are no longer able to question, to "test all things and hold fast to that which is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21), then our particular brand of fundamentalism is teetering on the edge of the very idealistic extremism we might condemn in others. A sorry state indeed!<br /><br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-22657917358575568442012-06-19T14:44:00.003+01:002013-02-18T14:52:28.752+00:00On the Trail of Fundamentalism, Part 2<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC0BahzUHJQNBBtYpaQpj0T4eKZ_HWqnt_VS0TqgksK8sCkzhtXeMjOY1Uahr3x0R9VaDUWgFtPd1kSYK6elJ7JTe5VxDWMP4oDuT-NwI7f8FeAEammL8OFfDmrI9-A1INMxlo_e7DGvWi/s1600/toppic-aboutus4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="194" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC0BahzUHJQNBBtYpaQpj0T4eKZ_HWqnt_VS0TqgksK8sCkzhtXeMjOY1Uahr3x0R9VaDUWgFtPd1kSYK6elJ7JTe5VxDWMP4oDuT-NwI7f8FeAEammL8OFfDmrI9-A1INMxlo_e7DGvWi/s320/toppic-aboutus4.jpg" /></a><br />
My last post on Christian fundamentalism has generated some discussion. Before returning to A W Tozer's analysis, we need to be sure what actually constitutes fundamentalist Christianity.
Do an image search on an internet browser under those words and up come an inglorious succession of caricatures of clichéd tub-thumpers and slightly weird bible-bashers. This is clearly the perception 'out there'. This is as sad as it is uninformed.
The origins of modern fundamentalism lie back in the 1890s and an attempt to safeguard the true foundations of Christianity, which had been attacked and eroded from all sides throughout that century. For example, the 1910 General Assembly of the [American] Presbyterian Church distilled the historic faith to "five fundamentals":<br />
<blockquote>* The divine inspiration of the Bible, and therefore its inerrancy;<br />
* The virgin birth of Jesus;<br />
* The belief that Christ's death atoned for sin.<br />
* The bodily resurrection of Jesus.<br />
* The historical reality of Jesus' miracles.</blockquote><br />
Others added extra stones to these key foundations, principally the belief in Christ's divinity. Conservative, conscientious Christians rallied to these as to a firm rock in a stormy ocean. They became known as "fundamentalists".<br /><br />
As we saw last time in A W Tozer's trenchant analysis, what began as a laudable attempt to stay the tide that was pounding away at Christianity, morphed into a rigid system that regulated all belief - what Tozer calls "the cult of textualism". As Jeffrey O'Rourke commented after my last post, Tozer eloquently sums up the huge danger involved in a rigid, mental reliance on prescribed beliefs.<br /><br />
<blockquote><i>"The error of textualism is not doctrinal. It is far more subtle than that and much more difficult to discover, but its effects are just as deadly. It assumes, for instance, that <b>if we have the word for a thing we have the thing itself</b>. If it is in the Bible, it is in us. <b>If we have the doctrine, we have the experience</b>. If something was true of Paul, it is of necessity true of us because we accept Paul's epistles as divinely inspired... Assurance of individual salvation is thus no more than a logical conclusion drawn from doctrinal premises, and the resultant experience wholly mental."</i></blockquote><br /><br />
John Vagabond's comment on my last post ably shows the process whereby "fundamental-ism" (the correct process of returning to what God actually said and wants done) turns into Fundamentalism (a doctrinal system which allows a self-righteous elite to pass judgement on others): <i>When belief hardens into principle, thereafter into doctrine which people then are willing to defend, textual criticism becomes its own harbinger of destruction</i>.<br /><br />
As Tozer rightly points out, <i>the human mind can endure textualism just so long, before it seeks a way of escape</i>, and this is what I hope to turn to in Part 3.<br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-70484611044198951242012-06-13T14:01:00.000+01:002013-02-18T14:53:17.679+00:00On the Trail of Fundamentalism, Part 1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXAMVRlcw4eSD03oxmHpZ-XFIYyhRVatkkCFRT-iJLdYzcqDvIVCc5G-L6_sSZi_ignxjebg3tFj_3Rd_fKILhvpEKABkeUyU3wsrI-vPH911lnuhJNozcypWKSyUOoEMF6xeNwUYoSKGX/s1600/scribe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXAMVRlcw4eSD03oxmHpZ-XFIYyhRVatkkCFRT-iJLdYzcqDvIVCc5G-L6_sSZi_ignxjebg3tFj_3Rd_fKILhvpEKABkeUyU3wsrI-vPH911lnuhJNozcypWKSyUOoEMF6xeNwUYoSKGX/s320/scribe.jpg" /></a><br />
A question posed in response to my <a href="http://radical-church-history.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/tertullian-courage-to-stir-up-part-2.html">recent post</a> on Tertullian has been occupying my thoughts. <b>"What's the difference between 'dogged commitment to the truth' and blind fundamentalism?"</b> <br /><br />
This is a big and far-reaching question and would require a whole essay, not a blog post. I was, though, reminded of an excellent piece from the pen of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._W._Tozer">A W Tozer</a>, which helps us forward, specifically as concerns Christian fundamentalism. "No Revival Without Reformation" was written in the 1950s and surveys trends in Christianity over the thirty years prior to that. Reading it, however, you would hardly know this, so timeless and relevant are his observations.<br />
<blockquote><i>As a reaction to <a href="http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_hcri.htm">Higher Criticism</a> and its offspring, Modernism, there arose in Protestantism a powerful movement in defense of the historic Christian faith. This, for obvious reasons, came to be known as <b>Fundamentalism</b>. It was a more or less spontaneous movement without much organization, but its purpose wherever it appeared was the same: to stay 'the rising tide of negation' in Christian theology and to restate and defend the basic doctrines of New Testament Christianity.</i></blockquote><br />
So far, so good. But, Tozer maintains, this "dogged commitment to the truth" (my starting question, you recall) fell victim to its own virtues.<br />
<blockquote><i>The Word died in the hands of its friends. The voice of the prophet was silenced and the <b>scribe</b> captured the minds of the faithful. An unofficial hierarchy decided what Christians were to believe. Not the Scriptures, but <b>what the scribe thought the Scriptures meant</b> became the Christian creed. Christian colleges, seminaries, Bible institutes, Bible conferences, popular Bible expositors all joined to promote the cult of textualism. The system of extreme dispensationalism which was devised, relieved the Christian of repentance, obedience and cross-carrying in any other than the most formal sense. Whole sections of the New Testament were taken from the church and disposed of after a rigid system of “dividing the Word of truth.” </i></blockquote><br />
What had therefore been intended as a remedy (or prevention) became as harmful as the disease it set out to cure.<br />
<blockquote><i>A kind of cold mist settled over Fundamentalism... The whole mood was different from that of the Early Church and of the great souls who suffered and sang and worshiped in the centuries past. The doctrines were sound but something vital was missing. The tree of correct doctrine was never allowed to blossom. The voice of the turtledove was rarely heard in the land; instead, the parrot sat on his perch and dutifully repeated what he had been taught. The whole emotional tone was sombre and dull... As [this literalism] triumphed, the Spirit withdrew and <b>textualism</b> ruled supreme</i>.</blockquote><br />
Thus far Tozer's assessment of the birth of Christian fundamentalism, its virtues and its serious failings. In my next post we can take this further.Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-78784002524926762052012-06-07T16:05:00.003+01:002013-02-18T14:54:28.561+00:00More on the Beguines<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSnga4yW0vl-nEJHtQMTtD5vHLsBH7ZABpg1UohIzQhdYdQW7_u68yw3eWnJhkuQ2KVqidSfQZBkuBCKeM5cFyJmPBv4ku_I68hyphenhyphenvBYDpPjgnbZ602Wtmi2D6cyeBk7rNk_xaJ7uYvbwF8/s1600/stamands13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="203" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSnga4yW0vl-nEJHtQMTtD5vHLsBH7ZABpg1UohIzQhdYdQW7_u68yw3eWnJhkuQ2KVqidSfQZBkuBCKeM5cFyJmPBv4ku_I68hyphenhyphenvBYDpPjgnbZ602Wtmi2D6cyeBk7rNk_xaJ7uYvbwF8/s320/stamands13.jpg" /></a>
I have been reading further on the Beguines, subject of my last post. Here are some links:<br /><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambert_le_B%C3%A8gue">This piece</a> gives more information (not that much is known) about <b>Lambert le Bègue</b>, parish priest of St Christopher's in Liège in the latter part of the 12th century. He was a reformer who preached against abuses in the established church. It is generally assumed that the name Beguines was derived from his own, as it was he who urged a new movement of godly women who would rise up to serve their generation.<br /><br />
<a href="http://wimminwiselpts.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/the-life-of-the-beguine/">Here</a> is a general sketch of the Beguine movement and its spirituality.<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.spiritualitytoday.org/spir2day/91431peters.html">This</a> more scholarly account discusses the characteristics of Beguine life and looks at the possible reasons for their eventual decline. <br /><br />
<a href="http://mariannedorman.homestead.com/Beguines.html">An article</a> by Marianne Dormann looks further into the spiritual devotions of the Beguines, chiefly using <i>The Mirror of the Soul</i>, by Marguerite Porete, a French Beguine who was burned at the stake for supposed heresy in 1310.<br /><br />
For some old photographs and illustrations of Beguine houses, look no further than <a href="http://cns.bu.edu/~satra/kaatvds/stamandsberg.htm">here</a>.<br /><br />Finally, in <a href="http://www.ruraljustified.com/Course2.html">this piece</a>, Marvin Anderson considers the contemporary implications of the Beguines' rediscovery of lay ministry and grassroots evangelism. <br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478871965305068663.post-24250190415957960662012-05-31T12:47:00.002+01:002013-02-18T14:56:13.843+00:00Women of Vision and Action: the Beguines<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1KBB94-I0GumcWhREPCf_0_xbTkMWi8Zp_x8MgqP-j4RuLhbt_NfNtvszz7HGOLbehuGBGemZ8iealXEoklJFR_6mGNUzmVFmn8NKBje7IFHsQn05kA0a96AsDVGCvgliKjaI8s00_ldX/s1600/Beguinage+Bruges.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="212" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1KBB94-I0GumcWhREPCf_0_xbTkMWi8Zp_x8MgqP-j4RuLhbt_NfNtvszz7HGOLbehuGBGemZ8iealXEoklJFR_6mGNUzmVFmn8NKBje7IFHsQn05kA0a96AsDVGCvgliKjaI8s00_ldX/s320/Beguinage+Bruges.jpg" /></a></div><br />
We live in days of great social upheaval. The late 1100s were much the same. For generations, rural life and agriculture were the unquestioned norm. Now there was a great migration to the towns, which grew rapidly and a new ‘middle class’ of merchants and craftsmen evolved. Also, the Crusades had led thousands of men to their death, leaving an imbalance of women.<br /><br />
The Church was not well placed to cope with this new climate. For centuries, the beating heart of the faith had been in the monasteries, but these were almost always in the country, sticking to ancient traditions and largely out of touch with new social developments. Many had grown rich and complacent and cared little for service and evangelism. Women who wanted to live radically for God had few openings. <b>The time was ripe for a new expression of the kingdom of God</b>, and the Beguines rose to the challenge.<br /><br />
This was a spontaneous movement that began with a group of praying women in Liège, Belgium, in the 1190s. Not wanting either of the usual options of marriage or a nunnery, these radical women pioneered a new form of community. They pledged themselves to prayer, poverty and celibacy. Seeing how society was changing, they chose to stay in the towns, especially the poor suburbs, where they could serve the people with Jesus’ love.<br /><br />
Adult women during the Middle Ages were expected to live under the guardianship of a man, either within the household as a wife and mother, or dedicated to the Church and living in a convent as a nun. The Beguines questioned this concept and lived outside of these set boundaries. Women who entered <i>Beguinages</i> (Beguine houses and/or convents) were not bound by permanent vows, in contrast to women who entered convents. They could enter Beguinages having already been married and they could leave the Beguinages to marry. Some women even entered the Beguinages with children.<br /><br />
They aimed to recover the simplicity, love and outreach of the early Church. They preached (which was not allowed), and in the language of the people, not Latin. Their communal settlements had a hospital, a place of worship, and work-shops for spinning, lace-making and other crafts that were to generate an income. They held literacy classes for poor children, supported widows, and took in orphans. And at every turn, they proclaimed God’s love for the poor.<br /><br />
Beguines had no mother-house, nor common rule, nor any appointed head the order. Every community was complete in itself and fixed its own order of living. Later many adopted the rule of the Third Order of Saint Francis. These communities were varied in terms of the social status of their members; some of them only admitted ladies of high degree; others were exclusively reserved for persons in humble circumstances; others again opened their doors wide to women of every condition, and these were the most densely peopled. Several, like the great Beguinage of Ghent, numbered around a thousand.<br /><br />
In the beginning, the clergy's attitude towards Beguines was ambivalent. The groups were religious and the women were dedicated to chastity and charity, which could not be condemned in any way. However, the fact that they existed without men (except for priests and confessors to lead them) was suspect to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. For this and many other reasons, many Beguines came to be known as heretics and were persecuted as such. Though they were never an approved religious order, they were at one point granted special privileges and exemptions customary for approved orders. The Church, however, did not approve of their lack permanent vows. Women were not supposed to have that much freedom.<br /><br />
A male offshoot began, taking the name Beghards, but never made the same impact as the women - perhaps because they were not so very different from the Franciscan friars. It was the Beguines, the women of vision who put that vision into action and gave it a demonstrable structure, who made the mark for God. They had heard the pulse of the society God had placed them in, and met its need. The movement multiplied, and by 1270 there were Beguine communities in most towns in Belgium, Holland and North Germany.<br /><br />Trevor Saxbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18345563937976735591noreply@blogger.com2