Catholicism Challenged in Post-Christendom Europe

An interesting article in the New York Times today about Catholic house-churches.  These are small communities of Catholics in Europe that are frustrated (or have lost faith) in the institutional Roman Catholic Church, and are creating their own churches (in this case in Beglium and Holland).  Of course, this is strictly forbidden in the RCC since it is a hierarchical form of Christianity.  All churches lead to Rome.  But in Western Europe, the forms of Christianity that are growing are these independent, break-away churches, while the institutional church is dying on the vine. Why is this happening?  From the article:

They are an uneasy reaction to a combination of forces: a shortage of priests, the closing of churches, dissatisfaction with Vatican appointments of conservative bishops and, most recently, dismay over cover-ups of sexual abuse by priests.

This is part of the crisis of European Catholicism.  A lack of priests to preside over the Parishes and serve communion---yet women and lay people are not allowed to serve the elements.  Then there is the fact that beliefs of the RCC are out of line with what most Europeans believe (whether on issues such as ordained women, birth control, or homosexuality).  And then there are the sexual scandals combined with the institutional cover-up in many European countries that are creating mass cynicism and disgust with the institutional church.

But there's deeper issues at foot.  One that is striking even Protestant institutions:

“We are looking for ways to live faith in a modern way,” said Karel Ceule, a Lier member. “If you look at the crisis today with Archbishop Léonard, he is a symbol of an old, conservative church. In Flanders, this doesn’t work anymore. We have reached a stage of history where we don’t accept that the priest has to be the go-between. We want to take charge of baptisms and communion.”

There is a push toward de-centralization which we see in Protestantism with its post-denominationalism.  We also see a break from the church as it was in an effort to have it relate better to a post-modern culture.  In this case, the home-made service uses young people and they bring in something secular into the sacred:

Almost 150 people gathered around him for a service organized by teenage members who picked a theme of peace and music from John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

This also mirrors the route many Protestant churches are taking in the missional/emerging movement.

In France, some of the fastest growing churches are Charismatic Roman Catholic Churches.  These, of course, exist throughout the non-Western world, particularly in Latin America and the Philippines.  The RCC is not happy about it.  But now this phenomenon is growing in Western Europe.  This is fascinating because one would expect this charismatic Catholicism in places with a strong indigenous religious presence (like Africa), but not in the heart of modern secularism---France.

The level of spirituality and interest in spirituality in Europe is continually underestimated.  What is clear is that the institutional church--particularly the largest--the Roman Catholic Church--is in severe crisis.  But that is not the whole story.

Empty Churches, Overflowing Mosques

This is where I spoke today.  The Church of God in Paris meets in this very old, historical monument Lutheran Church just down the road from Notre Dame.  In fact, after church, I walked into Notre Dame and caught the last part of the poorly attended Sunday noon mass.  I then got a bite to eat across the river from Notre Dame and headed back to Gare Du Nord to pick up my luggage and get online for a bit.  I fly home tonight.

As you can see, it's a gorgeous sight--and tourists come to visit the church and hear the large pipe organ. Today was a joint unity service so the Lutherans and the Chogers were both in attendance.  It was nice to make some new friends.  Overall this trip has been fantastic, and I've been thrilled to have a chance to connect with the 20 something and 30 something young people in the church who are everything Three Worlds are looking for .

The previous three days we have been in another part of Paris closer to where I always stay just down the road from Gare du Nord--which, by the way, is the busiest train station in Europe.  At this other church, we have been listening to a former Imam from Cote D'Ivoire share about his conversion to Christianity.  Although it is in French, I was able to pick up a bit on the first day, and then had interpreters the next 2 days.  He is a riveting speaker who is extremely clear about the key issues separating Christianity and Islam.  These lectures have been really powerful.

As is so common in the Middle East and Africa, he converted to Christianity after having a number of dreams in which Jesus appeared to him.  This happens a lot in this part of the world--where dreams are still taken very seriously.  You can see this cultural tendency in the Bible---and Middle Easterners and Africans often find it strange that Westerners totally disregard dreams.

This man was the son of two generation of Imams.  His life was set by his parents--he would become an Imam.  But as he grew up he found himself haunted by two things that often haunt Muslims who hear about Christianity:

1) What assurance do I have of salvation? Islam does not offer any theology of grace.  As with most non-Christian religions, it is a merit-based, transactional kind of faith which the Bible--particularly the New Testament seeks to subvert in many ways.  The God of Abraham looks like he is going to be a God of appeasement and distance (as in the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac), but then the story of Israel and Jesus subverts that by moving away from a works-based, transactional, tribal religion.  The lack of assurance in Islam is an issue many struggle with.

2) Who is Jesus and why don't we believe him if we revere him so much?  The Koran reserves special recognition for Jesus.  While they do not view him as the son of God, or the last prophet, or even that he was crucified---he is revered.  But this leads many Muslims to ask why do we revere someone in Islam who we fundamentally disagree with?  It's the old C.S. Lewis question:  Either Jesus was a liar (and a particularly nefarious one at that), a delusional lunatic, or he was Lord.  This Imam was haunted by these 2 questions.

At Yale University, my primary professor was an African from the Gambia born into the family that was the head of a tribe.  They were Muslims.  But as my professor grew up, he too cold not get over that second question:  "Who was Jesus?"  Today he is the world's foremost expert on Global Christianity and a renown expert on Islam and Islamic-Christian relations.  He converted to Christianity in his college years I believe--or somewhere thereabout--after an exhaustive examination of the Bible's claims about Jesus.  And of everyone I've ever met, I don't think there's anyone I know that can do research at higher level than this professor.  He is a master "hunter-gatherer" in his words.

The Imam here in Paris suffered after his conversion.  There is often retribution for leaving Islam.  But some of his family members converted including those that experienced miraculous healings.  This is the kind of thing that occurs in the Non-Western Christian world  (or the Book of Acts world as I call it in Mosaic).  He said there have been 6 million converts to Christianity in the last few years.  Christianity is still the fastest growing religion by conversion (by far), while Islam is the fastest by birth--meaning that people are born in places like Indonesia or Saudi Arabia and just assumed to be Muslim on their birth certificate.  But conversion is something that usually happens away from Islam to Christianity.

The Imam was full of interesting stories and a fascinating take on problems he sees with the Koran that miss most of our Western-based critiques.  He really feels that a lot of Muslims feel hostage to the Koran.  That it's extreme contradictions are far beyond the "contradictions of the Bible" which fit into a larger Biblical narrative structure that serves as a self-critique.  This is something I wrote about in Passport of Faith because it's a very important point. When we talk of disisrepecies or contradictions in the Bible, they are of a different, more benign nature that those of Islam.  After all, Christendom (Christian Jihad) was an abberation in which church and state and war were linked.  Now this can happen in Christianity too still today---and sadly some American Evangelicals seem to think it should although they hate that Islam preaches the same thing----but Christianity offers an enormous critique against the merging of church/state/and war.  At the heart of the critique is Jesus Christ who tradition and history tells us was crucified and said, "My Kingdom is not of this world."  The difference between  crucified sacrifice and a theocratic general is a huge one.

Because Islam does not make that move toward a non-earthly Kingdom---to quote my old professor---"Muhammed was a religious ruler and a general rolled into one."  Islam has an inherently Constantinian view of the world.  It has no problem dividing the world into the Islamic world and the world that must be won to Islam.  Unlike Christianity with its critiques:  (Church tradition, Church authority, Sola Scriptura) which create an authoratative power that can critique Christian theocracy---Islam has no such thing.  Even Imams are less authoritative than your average Catholic Priest or Protestant Pastor.

Any religion can get hijacked and go terribly off course.  We've seen that with all of them--even Buddhism (take the battles between fighting monks in South Korea or the persecution perpetrated in the Dharmsala area of India for instance).  But Islam is more vulnerable to this because it is rooted in a specific culture, and one that was a polytheistic warrior culture that was organized and led by a warrior.

The Imam showed us footage of a Somali being buried alive and then stoned to death.  For all the mistakes Christianity has made in the past (and there are many), in the final analysis there is a huge difference between having a founder that said, "Let you who has never sinned cast the first stone" versus one that existed in that same culture of stoning and never critiqued it.

If Christianity still had that same hostile spirit found in its desert culture, then the churches and Cathedrals of Europe would not be empty today.

I'll post more on the origins of Islam and a proper Christian response in future posts. I'm typing quickly before I catch a train and a plane, so more fleshed out later.  Now it's back to Berlin.

BY THE WAY---I AM NOT POSTING PHOTOS OF THIS CONFERENCE OR THE PEOPLE IN IT FOR SECURITY REASONS.  IT'S SAD THAT THIS HAS TO BE THE WAY IT IS BUT, IT'S NOT WORTH THE RISK.

Why I Love Paris

Like Washington DC, Paris---the Capital City of France--was designed to intimidate foreign dignitaries.  I think Paris wins the competition.  I love DC, but it looks like it could have been built yesterday.  Paris, on the other hand, is filled with spectacular "intimidating" buildings and streets everywhere you look.  For instance, this first set of three pictures are taken from the same spot.  I was talking to Jamie on my phone and the Eiffel Tower was on my Left, the Grand Palace (with the giant green glass roof) was in front of me--the street flanked with Golden statues, and behind me was the enormous Invalides building where Napoleon is laid to rest in this--attached---dome Cathedral (below):

Notice how the statues on the street are so ornate, that if you get close to one of those tall pillars with the angels on top that even the minor figures in the middle of the columns have gold:  in this case, a Golden sword.

Or take this statue constructed on one of many of Paris' bridges.  You walk across the bridge, and this is what you see on the edge of the bridge facing out over the Seine.

Or the ornate statues on just one of Notre Dame's doors.

Or the variety of architecture on just one city block in the middle of the city.  It really puts every other city to shame.

Perhaps in 2011 or 2012, I would like to lead a group to Paris to visit the Church of God here.  I would also lead a tour of the city focused on the secularization of Europe.  We would visit key sights in Paris that would help Americans to grasp how and why Europe became so secularized and what this means for the future of Europe and for the United States.  Hopefully we can begin planning that relatively soon.

Not Your Ordinary City

It's a rainy, blustery, windy day here in Paris.  I arrived this morning after a super easy check in at the airport, a super quick flight (I slept the entire way), and a very fast trip to my regular pad in Paris.  I've been here in the Spring, Fall, and Summer, but never in the winter.  The leaves have fallen and it was quite chilly even though it said it was only about 50 degrees---it felt much colder than that.

I'm here to visit the Paris Church of God and to attend a three day event with another church.  A Muslim from Cote D'Ivoire is sharing with us about his conversion to Christianity and how Christianity is growing in the Islamic world.  His first lecture tonight was very interesting.  I could only understand about 5% of it, but it was still very good---what little I picked up.  I think he's filled with amazing stories.  I wish my French were better.  I'm determined to start practicing again.

It was nice to see some of the Paris friends again--especially the young people.  I have a good relationship with the folks here and I absolutely adore this city.  I never get tired of walking past the grandiose buildings that are literally everywhere. Pastor Michel and I had a late dinner at the restaurant of an Arabic Christian that he knows here in Paris.   It was literally one block from the Arc de Triumph.  So now I know a Christian guy who will give us a great meal by the Arc de Triumph.  I always enjoy my time with Pastor Michel and hearing about the realities of doing ministry in this heart of secularism.

Earlier in the day, while walking around near the Place de la Concorde, I found a great English bookstore thanks to google maps.  I've always had a hard time finding an English bookstore in this city (there are suprisingly few considering the large amount of English speakers that live here) and I was hunting for a copy of the new V.S. Naipaul book "the Masque of Africa."  I found it and I was thrilled to pick up a copy.  I may comment on it in future diary posts.

Tomorrow another session in the evening, and then some more Saturday before lunch with some of the CHOG friends.  I might write more later.  But just to give you an example of why I adore Paris-----take a look at that picture above.

It's just one of many squares (or plazas) in Paris.  And like I've said before, you can go down any street and see a stunning piece of architecture in this city (and don't forget all the great art work inside these buildings).

But just as an example.  I go to the bookstore on the metro (because it's raining hard) and I come out above ground and this is what I see (see picture above).  The Eiffel Tower in the background and the Obelisk at the Place de la Concord.  That Obelisk is 4,000 years old!  It was the Obelisk guarding the entrance to the Luxor Temple Complex in Upper Egypt and was built to honor Ramses the II----Marco and I just watched a recreation of that in the Ten Commandments a few days ago.  It was transported to Paris from Egypt back in the 1830's!  You know...before Abraham Lincoln was President.

So an AUTHENTIC 4,000 year old Egyptian Obelisk built for the most famous Pharaoh ever is just outside the subway entrance as I go up the steps.  THAT IS PARIS! And that is why I absolutely love this city.

One Nation Under a Patrick Groove...

Check me out.  You all know I like the Funk and Funk music is my thang....

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Thanks to Byron and Jen for this!  This is actual footage of me on Soul Train in 1978 back when I knew how to dress.

By the way, this is what my hair looks like at this moment.  And it looks GOOD!

Home is Where the Heart is

Marco and I are so glad Jamie's home.  We missed her a lot.  I told her that this place we live in becomes a house when she is gone.  When she's here, it's a home.

Aside from starving to death and having my cooking rejected by my own son, it was an okay week.  Marcorefused to eat my food.  I heated chicken nuggets in the oven (it took all of my concentration) and he said, "No way if this is your first time. I'll take a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Well, I got the cooking bug.  I now know how to make tea and put something in the oven.  It's possible I may try heating up a frozen pizza in the next month---ON MY OWN!

We did have a great time with Uncle Dave----that would be missionary to Bulgaria Dave Simpson.  I'm looking forward to going there to see the work that they do sometime in the Spring if all works out.  It is a tough, tough country to operate in, but they do it with such enthusiasm, grace, and fun.  All of us on the 3W crew are huge admirers of the Simpsons who bring a wonderful spirit to this very awesome crew here in Europe/ME.

Jamie for her part had a great time with the 3W gals.  They worked very long, hard hours organizing a conference, but they had a wonderful time together.  Everyone brings their own special gifts and there's just a great deal of team unity on our 3W crew.  Frankly, this is unusual, and it's something that has to be protected.  Which we do.  Expectations of unity are high--and they have to be.

Well, tomorrow I'm off to Paris for 4 days.  I'll be visiting with the church in Paris, attending a seminar they are putting on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and then speaking on Sunday before taking my low-cost carrier back to Berlin.  Yes, it does mean saying goodbye to Jamie again.  I don't like that, but at least I know we are all eating, sleeping, and bathing regularly which is more than I can say for those times when I am running the house.  On Monday night, we seriously considered eating road kill.

The real reason I'm glad Jamie is home is not because of her cooking, but because she is my best friend, the person that fascinates me the most in the whole world, and I LOVE spending time with her.  I still like dating her.  I still can't wait to see her after all of these years.  It actually gets more that way each year!

Thank you ladies of the Three Worlds team.  You ladies are awesome and make us proud!

Jamie, welcome home!

Women of Three Worlds Back from Turkey

The gals from the 3W Crew are back.  They were in Turkey helping to organize a conference.  Here they are in front of the famous Blue Mosque. 

Another view of the Blue Mosque.

A view from the inside.

A Turkish market, I guess.

Photos courtesy of K. Goldman---although used without permission.  Sorry Kara!

The King and I

Marco and I have a special guest in our home:  Dave Simpson--missionary to Bulgaria.  Dave's here because we are starving to death.  Both Marco and I are down to 98 pounds with Jamie being gone.  The weird thing is that Marco only weighed 54 pounds when she left.  Oh well...anyway.

It's been fun to have Dave here in Berlin and us guys of the Three-World crew had a good time last night hanging out while our wives are in Istanbul, Turkey.

Marco and I are watching Cecil B DeMille's "The 10 Commandments" again.  I love that movie and wrote about it last year or so, when we were watching it.  Marco recently asked me who the two best villains in movie history are.  For me they are:

1) Darth Vader

2) Yul Brynner in the Ten Commandments (as Pharaoh).

In both cases, when they are on the screen, you can't take your eyes off of them.  They exude evil and charisma.

Yul Brynner was a super interesting guy.  He was from Vladivostok, Russia in Sakhalin---the very Eastern tip of Siberia.  He had Mongol heritage, gypsy (Romani), Russian, and Jewish heritage.  He grew up in Vladivostok, Harbin, China, and Paris where he did propaganda on the radio against the Nazi's during World War II.  He became famous for his portrayal of the King in the King and I.  He also was a renown photographer, an author--and a handsome devil with a cool, deep voice.  He also won an academy award and a few Tony's.  And as if that was not enough, he was also an accomplished musician and sang Russian Gypsy music from Russia's Far East.  He died in 1985 of cancer.  Check this out.  A taste of the sound of the Russian Far East:

Remembering Cindy

We received word today from our friend Alan in Taiwan that his wife Cindy Lwo died of cancer this morning at 4:20 am Taipei time.  Cindy had been struggling against cancer for the past couple of years and put up a valient battle.  Cindy was a collegue and a great friend.  She was also a great mother and a wonderful support to her husband Alan as we joined together to try to do work in East Asia.  She was very committed in her support to Alan and was even willing to uproot her life in these coming years to do ministry on a larger scale with her husband.  But then she got sick. The last time I was in Tapei, I visited their home.  Cindy was in between battles of chemotherapy and we were hoping that the worst had passed.  As I visited with them I started to feel nauseous for some reason and I felt really nauseous.  Even though she was the one that was really sick and week, Cindy had me lie down and gave me an interesting Chinese massage with hot glasses.  It took the sickness away immediately.  After that, I started calling her "Taipei Mother."  That is my final memory of her.  She was just so sweet.  And so ready to sacrifice.  

 This must be so difficult for the whole family.  She was a beautiful woman. 

We won't forget her and all that she did for the Kingdom.  Our thoughts and prayers are with her family.

Non-Western Christianity (One of the Three Worlds)

Nobel-prize winning write V.S. Naipaul is directing his considerable writing talents to a subject I am very interested in as well, African Spirituality.  The spectacular growth of Non-Western Christianity is what Philip Jenkins has called "The Next Christendom" or the most important moment in religious history since the Protestant Reformation.  The bulk of this growth is occurring in places like China, India, Brazil, and Sub-Saharan Africa.  Sub-Saharan Africa is now estimated to have 390 million Christians.  How African Christianity is processed and transported oversees will have a big impact on the world.  Naipaul's new book The Masque of African Belief promises to be an excellent examination of the subject.

Christianity in Africa is often inner-mixed with local religious beliefs and practices.  This is called syncretism.  To some extend, syncretism occurs in any culture.  It can eventually get institutionalized and we don't even recognize it anymore.  Culture inevitable affects Christianity and this seemed to be fine with Jesus and the Bible which continually sees culture absorbed, but the ultimate meanings changed after it encounters the Christian message.

African Christianity is often used as an example of overly-sycretistic Christianity because it is true that many African Christians still practice folk religion--and perhaps even trust it more than the Bible at times.  Yet, on the other hand, African Christianity is much more likely to take the Gospel stories of miracles as literal and possible even in today's world---and lo and behold, more miracles due tend to occur in these settings where people value the supernatural.

In much of the world, the supernatural and the material world do not live in hostility.  Whether it's secularized Europeans planning vacation pilgrimages to Poland, Portugal, or France to see the Virgin, Japanese construction companies paying tribute to a Shinto Shrine before a new modern railway is built, or an African witch-doctor making appointments using their cell phone, the world is still remarkably spiritual in most places.

The difference, however, is to the degree which the spiritual affects daily life.  Naipaul's journey is into 21st Century Africa where the spiritual is very much everywhere.

From the Book Review:

There is a great thudding taboo in any discussion of Africa. Western journalists and aid workers see it everywhere, yet it is nowhere in our coverage back home. We don't want to talk about it. We don't know how to. We smother it in silence, even though it is one of the most vivid and vibrant and violent parts of African life. We are afraid—of being misunderstood, or of sounding like our own ugliest ancestors. The suppressed topic? The African belief in spirits and spells and ancestors and black magic.

Political-correctness, which is often the death of any good scholarship and analysis has prevented a lot of examination of this subject.  One of the reasons I have valued V.S. Naipaul is for his willingness to ignore political-correctness and show the grime and grit beneath cultures.

The review continues:

In most indigenous African religions, "God" is pretty much inaccessible to humans. But they believe every human is surrounded by a swirl of spirits—of the dead, of the living who can temporarily leave their bodies, of nature—that are constantly at work. Many of these spirits will take on physical representations at key moments, from trees to carved idols to animals. They can protect and heal, or they can smite and curse. Life is a constant exhausting process of wooing the spirits and warding them off. They can be communicated with directly, but it is easier to talk through the local soothsayers and witch doctors. Africans who describe themselves as Muslims and Christians will often retain these traditional beliefs not far beneath the surface.

These beliefs—like all religions—can bring both sweet, illusory comfort and intense terror. One typical story Naipaul stumbles across captures both. In a corner of Uganda, a young woman explains to Naipaul: "My grandmother produced twins who died. They had to be buried in a special way, in hollow pots, and a shed had to be built over the grave, to protect and shade them. Every year my grandmother went there to tend the shed, feed the grave, and sing and dance there. When she became a Pentecostal, she had to stop that, as it is not allowed. She had to remove the shed, and she was so afraid that the twins would come and kill her and her living children."

And this gets to the heart of the issue, which is that the deep respect for the supernatural that Africans possess is something that secularied Westerners should probably respect more.  At the very least, Western Christians---who often use the language of spirituality constantly--but in the final analysis spend little time or energy devoted to it in any real risk-taking way--could learn a lot from African Christians and their confidence in a God that acts not only in history, but in our present age.

On the other hand, my own feeling is that a lot of African Christianity is held hostage to a world that resembles Zoroastrianism (a battle between good and evil with humans as simply the pawns) and not the victorious, empowered, spirituality that Jesus preached.  This bent toward superstition and tradition is very common of cultures accepting Christianity for the first time (Actually, Christianity has been in Africa longer than it has in Europe--but I mean Sub-Saharan Christianity as it has grown since the 1930's).  Inevitably, a lot of syncretism does occur in the first generations.  You even see this in the New Testament and St. Paul has to call out churches that are still clinging to their old pagan ways.

In the end, Christian orthodoxy emerges through the interpretation of scripture and prophetic voices.  Notice how in the critics story about Africa a woman superstition is challenged by Pentecostals.  Pentecostals, of course, are on the far extreme of belief in spiritual manifestations by Western standards.  Yet in Africa, they are the corrective, moderate force.  This is why I believe it is not such a terrible thing that Pentecostalism is the primary growth vehicle for Christianity in Africa.  In the long run, this is probably the natural corrective.  Movements and denominations that are not Pentecostal, will not see the same level of growth.  Yet they are important as well.