Aidan and Alopen, Two 7th Century Apostles

In 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.

Aidan was a fiery Irishman, Alopen 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.


AIDAN: APOSTLE OF THE NORTH

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 Iona 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.


ALOPEN: APOSTLE OF THE EAST

In ancient times, China was better known in the West than one might suppose. For centuries a trade route called the Silk Road 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.


The New Testament says that the Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets - Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone (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 heart should be something we long to see outpoured more and more, if the Church is regain (and retain) her radicality.

The Incredible Faithfulness of Lena Tikhuie

In 1737, the Moravian Church 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 here.

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.

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.

Years passed. Travellers returning to Europe brought tales of an African woman leading a church at Grace Valley. Finally, in 1792, nearly fifty years 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.

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.

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.”

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.

The Country Boy Who Fathered a Nation - Conclusion

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.
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.

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.
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!

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!"

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.
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 Hans Nielsen Hauge's Ethical Framework for Business and Management . Ravnasen writes:

"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."

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.

The Country Boy who Fathered a Nation, Part 2

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.

It is something that God's children have among them by the Spirit, Hauge wrote. 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.

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.

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.

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 ten times. 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!

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 Norway's Open Air Museum outside Oslo. He wrote to his friends:

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.

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.

The Country Boy Who Fathered a Nation, Part 1

The name Hans Nielsen Hauge (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.

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. 'My mind became so exalted that I can scarcely express what took place in my soul', he wrote later. '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".'

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.

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.

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.

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.

Preacher Burns His Sermons And Catches Fire Himself!

Destitute of the fire of God, nothing else counts; possessing fire, nothing else matters.

Samuel Chadwick 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.

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: "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."

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.

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!

The result was immediate – he was baptised with the Holy Spirit and with fire [Luke 3:16]. "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."

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.

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: "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." Within a few years, the chapel had to be demolished and a substantial Mission Hall built.

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. Six hundred 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!

Chadwick was a man of prayer and urged others to it too. "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!"

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, The Way to Pentecost, which was being printed when he died in 1932. In it we read: "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."

Tertullian: the Courage to Stir Up, Part 1

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus was born at Carthage in North Africa around AD 155, son of a Roman centurion. He trained as a lawyer and had a razor-sharp mind. Little of his early life is known, but at about 40 he became a Christian. Immediately, he began to write - and Christendom hardly knew what had hit it!

He didn't ‘do’ much reasoned theology; he confronted. Wrong teachings, sloppy morals, lax leaders, cowardly faith, Tertullian laid into them all. His writing is passionate, with holy sarcasm - and at times still funny even today. You sense a 'wildness', a burning heart for integrity and justice, contemptuous of all compromise. Even so, Tertullian was deeply conscious of his personal failings; he wrote a piece on patience because he knew he had to learn it. Here are some examples:

At a time of fierce persecution, when many favoured fleeing, he wrote: The blood of the martyrs is [the] seed [of the church], adding that once you start fleeing, you will never stop fleeing!

Seeing the growing emphasis on education in church leadership, he cried: What has Athens [headquarters of Greek philosophy] got to do with Jerusalem!”

He took aim at worldly pursuits: All public entertainment damages the spirit.

He castigated the folly of persecutors: If the Tiber rises too high, or the Nile too low, the remedy is always to feed Christians to the lions.

He understood the fleshly human nature that he was confronting: The first reaction to truth is hatred.

Perhaps most biting of all is his judgement on self-centred living: Whoever lives only to benefit himself, benefits the world only when he dies!

In 202, at the height of his influence, Tertullian shocked everyone by joining a fringe movement called the Montanists. They spoke in tongues, prophesied, had dreams and visions, and promoted strict holy living. The mainstream Church immediately sidelined him but he didn't care. His prophetic heart chose spiritual life and movement before popularity.

Still his pen carried all before it. He defended celibacy; opposed military service; cried out against gladiator sports; promoted fasting and spiritual discipline; exhorted Church members to refuse any job carrying worldly prestige; and urged Christians not to accept any bishop who wasn't a spiritual man.

Tertullian died about 225. He stands out from the crowd as one who never lost his edge or his nerve. A colleague called him 'the first, the best, the incomparable'. Today, 1800 years on, his works are still read and valued by those who appreciate sharp-edged, confrontational writing and "aggressive" Christianity. Much of that confrontation, at least in his earlier writings, was against heretics, but Tertullian is also remembered as the first of the Church Fathers to formulate a doctrine of the Trinity.