Video for 26th June, 2025
Hello everyone and welcome to this weeks’ video.
Yesterday (Tuesday 24 June) we held a study day on mission and evangelism as part of our year of engagement. Speakers looked at it from different traditions and perspectives. However, if our spiritual question time evenings are indicative of people’s feelings on the subject, we ought to have held a seminar on why we should be doing mission and evangelism at all. Surely, in a multi-cultural society like ours we should practice live and let live? Even though Jesus sets us a clear disciple making, missional agenda in the great commission in Matthew 28, the values of Christendom run very deep in the church of England. Christendom assumes everyone is basically a Christian and that what is required is pastoral care and teaching. Evangelism: the active proclamation of the Christian message with a view to inviting people to become followers of Jesus themselves, doesn’t fit easily into this model.
The early Church was one faith tradition amongst a variety of other options. It remained a small minority, often persecuted, until Christianity was legalised and encouraged by Constantine in the 4th century. Their evangelistic zeal, despite great personal risk, was clear. Indeed, this continued for centuries after faith’s adoption in the Roman Empire. Some of our mental models of mission come from the explosion of missionary activity that followed the protestant reformation and especially following the evangelical revivals of the 18th century. Sadly, much of this effort, whilst transformative and effective, sat uncomfortably with European colonialism. Too often, the faith that was preached required an adoption of European cultural values to be seen as genuine. The early catholic missions in the first millennium had none of these associations. The gospel spread through religious orders like the Dominicans. Their heroism was extraordinary. Frequently, it consisted of expeditions by small bands of friars and ended in martyrdom. This cycle repeated itself several times before frail little churches were established.
Friends and neighbours in our own country mean we are now much more aware of different cultural and religious traditions. Ancient traditions like Hinduism and its offshoots in Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Sikhism have given rise to great civilisations. Christian faith sees itself as a development of and in continuity with Judaism. Classical Islam sees itself as superseding all that has gone before it, with a metaphysic that incorporates much of other traditions within their historical narrative. We now have communities from many faith traditions living alongside us, even in Herefordshire and South Shropshire. There is a pressing need for greater harmony between faiths, classes and opinions to bolster our democratic traditions.
Secularism doesn’t really get religion as a force to guide one’s life and impart meaning. At best people trot out the patronising, ‘all faiths are different roads up the same mountain’. Any remotely rigorous examination of the truth claims of different faiths reveal this to be a cop out to avoid serious engagement. Looked at closely, the mountains are very different indeed. As some wag once said, all faiths are basically the same, they just differ on matters of the source of revelation, God, his or her providence, identity or even independent existence, salvation, morality and the good life, heaven and hell. Superficial resemblance of practice and common coherence in moral outlook on some matters are not the same as an agreement on the essentials of truth. We may all be wrong, but I can’t see any way that we can all be right.
Our culture doesn’t do disagreement well, so the corollary of the ‘different roads up the same mountain’ argument nonsense is that conviction must bring arrogance and a desire to dominate. We certainly see that in fundamentalism of all kinds: Islam, the extremes of Hindu nationalism, and even in some Christian fundamentalism, although the latter is rarely accompanied by the sort of systemic violence we see in some faith traditions. We cannot escape our obligations as followers of Jesus to make him known. We do have a conviction that a relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit is where life in all its fullness is to be found. But for Christians, conviction should come with humility and love. The controlling principle is well articulated by Peter in his first letter. “In your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect”. I value living a society where all can function according to a value system derived from such distinctive Christian roots. As responsible citizens, whatever our view, we should seek peace and pursue it.
+Richard