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Jay Mātenga shares his personal backstory as well as the richness that comes from Indigenous perspectives on faith.

Jay is the guest editor of the latest issue of Anvil journal of theology and mission: ‘The emancipation of Indigenous theologies in light of the rise of World Christianity’.

In this interview, Jay highlights some of the themes of the issue.

You can also listen to a longer, audio interview below, as Dr Cathy Ross, leader of CMS Pioneer Mission Training Oxford, asks Jay about some transforming moments in his life and his take on Indigenous thought and the study of World Christianity.

Jay Mātenga is the director of World Evangelical Alliance’s Global Witness department and executive director of the WEA’s Mission Commission, which sits within the Global Witness department. He also leads Missions Interlink in Aotearoa New Zealand, a missions association, equivalent to the UK’s Global Connections. Jay is a graduate of All Nations Christian College’s MA programme and has a doctorate of Intercultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. You can read more from Jay at his website: jaymatenga.com

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Growth, in society and in church, is often assumed to be a good to which we must aim. The idea of growth as a response to decline is almost ubiquitous across the denominations. But as Christians, we need to have a much more complex and theological engagement with these commitments to growth.

By James Butler, editor of the new issue of ANVIL journal of theology and mission

This is what we attempted to do with the 2022 CMS Conversations Day, on which this issue of ANVIL is based.

How can we thrive in mission?

In planning the Conversations Day, the problem faced by the team of Cathy Ross, James Butler, Richard Passmore and Lori Passmore was how to promote it. Such is the societal and cultural commitment to growth that giving an event a title of “sustainability” does not really capture people’s attention. We live in a society that expects things to be dynamic and fast moving rather than sustainable and stable. We landed on the title of “thriving” trying to maintain a sense of the dynamic without it immediately having to relate to growth.

We wanted to ask how we could thrive in pioneering and mission in ways that were sustainable without having to automatically assume that things need to grow and expand. What do healthy and sustainable approaches to growth look like? What are the theologies and practices that might help us as we seek to thrive in sustainable ways?

Throughout the Conversations Day our contributors drew on their practice, thinking and reading to help us to reflect on thriving in sustainable ways.

Relationships, justice and the long view

There were three themes that we particularly want to highlight from the day that are also present in these articles.

The first is relationships; the reflections were about the primacy of relationship and community as the basis for sustainable practices. The articles challenge individualism and offer communal ways of thinking, such as the African concept of ubuntu – I am because we are.

Another key theme was justice; sustainability is deeply interwoven with justice. This is clearly seen in the climate crisis, where the effects will be most keenly experienced by the poor.

The third theme was eschatology. How do we have a longer view that does not just hope for better but seeks a Christian vision of the world renewed through the coming of the kingdom?

Article round-up

The first of our longer articles comes from Israel Olofinjana, who critiques western notions of sustainability and offers a different model for climate justice.

The second, from Alison Webster, offers community organising as a model of challenging and changing our neoliberal society.

In the third, Janet Williams has a conversation with Richard Passmore about her book Seeking the God Beyond and how the apophatic tradition may hold resources that can help us to thrive in sustainable ways.

The shorter articles turn more clearly to practice and the specific concerns of mission practice, pioneer communities and churches.

Tina Hodgett explains why she resists the impulse to measure outcomes in pioneering in the innovator space, while Paul Bradbury explores the proper context of the idea of measurement and claims that measurement should act as a servant and not our master.

Alison Boulton reflects on her own practice and experience of seeking to develop spiritual sustainability within a local community on a new housing estate over the past 14 years.

Caroline Kennedy offers practices that help her to sustain her own personal spirituality and reflects on how to “find the gold” and helps others to find it too.

Finally, Rosie Hopley recounts her own experience of entrepreneurship in social business, seeing how all can thrive: entrepreneurs, employees, trainees and wider community.

We believe that sustainability needs to be a word that we are much happier and able to engage with in mission, and one that needs clearer theological articulation and practices that help us to live sustainably day in, day out.

We hope this edition of ANVIL might contribute some important insights and practices to that ongoing conversation.

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Sustainability and mission: ANVIL journal volume 38 issue 2 now available

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At the end of September 2021, I started my MA in theology, ministry and mission with CMS, following the African Christianity track. Standing on the threshold of academic learning, finding my place within the African Christian diaspora in Britain and wanting to broaden the voices I’m hearing in the church, I’m excited to be here.

By Rosie Hopley

Why have I chosen to return to formal study, after being in the world of work, volunteering and pioneering mission for the last 30 years?

For several years, I’ve been observing the impact of racial division in British society. Until the end of January 2021, I was CEO of a Christian charity I founded called Beloved,¹ which works with women in prostitution in Bristol. While on outreach visits to women working in brothels and massage parlours across the city, I’d get asked the question: “Isn’t Christianity the white man’s religion?”

I don’t believe it is, but I understand why someone might ask this question. There is a need to be able to come up with a compelling response for those who are curious, as well as those in the church who are also grappling with this nagging doubt. I want to get a broader, wider and more global understanding of Christianity through the eyes and ears of non-western teachers.

Seeing the context of mission in Bristol, with the city’s historic links to the transatlantic slave trade and legacy, it seems all the more pressing to have a better insight into global theological teachings. This will help me, and I hope others like me, to speak into these doubts and to offer a compelling, authoritative answer.

Discerning opportunities in times of rapid change

It is an exciting and challenging time to be embarking on study, at an important juncture for the church. With the movement of people globally, and increasing diversity in the UK, our teaching, theology and witness would do well to reflect these changes. In Bristol, the largest city in the south-west, where I’m based, a growing number of our nearly 470,000 residents belong to a Black or minority ethnic group.² For many years, as a church we have asked for the Lord to send us to the nations. Well, the nations are here! According to local data:

The population of Bristol has become increasingly diverse. The proportion of the population who are not “White British” has increased from 12% to 22% of the total population. In Bristol, there are now at least 45 religions, at least 187 countries of birth represented and at least 91 main languages spoken.³

So what does this mean for us as believers in the city? And further afield in cities and towns across the UK? Surely, this represents a massive opportunity. To welcome the stranger, to clothe the needy, to be places of hope and transformation. Yet we’d be making a mistake to stop here.

I believe there are hidden gifts – treasure, you might say – among us, whether it’s long-term neighbours, or new arrivals to the city. I’m convinced there are hidden talents among the body of Christ, which we need to unearth and make the most of. The African diaspora in Britain has many gifts to offer to churches, as well as to our wider communities. Indeed, churches founded by those from the African diaspora have been serving, reaching the lost, preaching the gospel and reinvigorating the UK’s Christian witness. I’m looking forward to exploring and discovering more from fellow believers and being blessed by their giftings. For years, we have been praying, “Lord, send the workers.” Praise God – he’s been sending workers to us from many places, including African nations.

Missing theological voices

For over 30 years, my learning and teaching has been western and European-/US-focused. Not necessarily a bad thing, per se, as I can truly say I have flourished under the teachers I’ve had over the decades, and I thank God for them. They have been wonderful.

But given the statistics quoted earlier, I need to hear more Black, African and Middle Eastern voices, to allow them to shape my theological learning too.

Last year, due to the opening up of events through Zoom I was able to be part of Meachum School of Haymanot’s inaugural gathering of the Society of Gospel Haymanot (SGH).⁴ With teaching from some of the leading Black US theologians and scholars, I felt I had stumbled into a banquet, and I emerged so well nourished! It was a joyful and worshipful gathering, and I’m excited to be joining the Society of Gospel Haymanot again this October presenting a Practical Theology paper on Isaiah 61 and God’s mission call.

I also recognise my own part in this challenge – to take responsibility for broadening my diet of spiritual nourishment. Which churches am I visiting? For example, there are plenty of majority Black churches in the city. Which books am I reading? Which lectures am I tuning in to? Which conferences am I attending? I have agency and choice in this, and it’s up to me to exercise it, and wisely broaden my diet.

Taking steps into this vast globalised pool of theological voices, there’s the challenge of being overwhelmed by the myriad of choices! I look forward to being guided by people like Harvey Kwiyani and Cathy Ross at CMS, as well as local church leaders who have been serving faithfully on the ground in Bristol for decades.

I’m particularly excited to be joining my fellow CMS students on the MA course, several of them joining from a variety of nations via Zoom. It feels like a whole host of vistas has suddenly opened up before me, and there are nuggets and treasures of learning and wisdom to discover.

Being willing to be repositioned

Last year was a tumultuous time for millions as the pandemic began to grip the world. It was also a time of protest and lament, following the shocking murder of George Floyd. Many people were horrified by the scenes of a man’s life taken at the hands of a police officer, all caught on camera.

A personal challenge for me was that while I was leading a pioneering work among women in Bristol massage parlours and brothels, I also grappled with the wider societal conversations, or the silence as people were scared to step into awkward conversations around race, racism and whether we truly are a post-racial society.

Over a period of time, I had a sense that God was calling me to pass on the baton of leadership of the Beloved charity to others, and that handover was completed at the start of this year. At times it was an uncomfortable process, but being obedient is always better than being comfortable!

I’m immensely grateful for the other seasoned and wise leaders who gathered around me and helped me to discern the Lord’s leading. It’s a delight to see Beloved continue to flourish in its mission among the precious women in the parlours, seeing them come to know Christ’s transforming love and freedom.

As that door of leading has closed, other doors of learning and writing have opened up. Being out of my comfort zone is something I can see I’ll need to get used to, and that’s not a bad thing.

Humility to work together

When I hear reports of church leaders and church congregations coming together to share what they have to bless communities around them, seeing the work of Christ as he builds his church, it makes me hopeful. Whether it’s two long-standing leaders from different cultural backgrounds joining together in missions into prison work, or churches opening up the pulpit or preaching platform to leaders from other nations, it causes me to rejoice. Or people from churches in one area of the city, praying faithfully together for years for their community – what blessing there is.

The Lord in his infinite wisdom has caused us to need one another, to bring gifts that we will find through each other and alongside each other. Is it going to be hard, and will we make mistakes along the way? Yes, there will be challenges; as God disturbs our comfort, it will be hard at times, and of course we’re bound to make mistakes. But what joy there is to be found as we seek the kingdom of God together, preferring one another, listening to one another in love and humility.

I’m excited that from what I can see, the Lord has been sending in his reinforcements for the local church in the guise of those who we mistakenly think are the least, the lost or “not like us”. It’s my prayer that God will open our eyes to what he is doing, that we will discern the opportunities around us and listen to a more diverse range of Christian voices. May we be humble, rejoice and be obedient to join in with the work of the Holy Spirit.

A fuller version of this article will be published in the upcoming edition of Anvil, which explores the contribution of African diaspora churches to the Church and mission in Britain. To be notified when Anvil is published, be sure to join our email list.

Notes

1 Beloved is a ministry that supports women working in prostitution, in particular those in commercial massage parlours and brothels. Outreach teams are recruited from local churches, trained and equipped to share the gospel, support women to exit the sex trade, and provide support and comfort. For more information see https://beloved.org.uk.
2 “The Population of Bristol – September 2021,” Bristol City Council, 4, https://www.bristol.gov.uk/documents/20182/33904/Population+of+Bristol+September+2021.pdf/e6cb7ac8-278c-c351-9dcc-07a83fb4fe23?t=1632843439676.
3 Ibid.
4 Meachum School of Haymanot’s inaugural gathering of the Society of Gospel Haymanot (SGH). Meachum School of Haymanot (Ge’ez word meaning faith, or theology) exists to “bring biblical, graduate-level theological education to African-American, ethnic minority and low-income communities in a contextualized and affordable manner.” While the centre of teaching resides in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, all classes and programmes are available online. Find out more about the Society and their conference, which took place on 22-23 October 2021, at https://meachum.org/annual-meeting

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Mission after George Floyd: on white supremacy, colonialism and world Christianity

by Harvey Kwiyani

This essay reflects my attempts to make sense of the possibilities of a missiology that reflects the current world Christianity in which only around a third of Christians are white westerners – in a world where both colonialism and white supremacy (which have for centuries been the two clutches on which mission stood) have become difficult to justify.

I spent the years between 2007 and 2013 in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota, USA. I went to seminary in Saint Paul but I lived right on the border between the two cities. Starting in the summer of 2009, I led a church plant in Saint Paul. Yes, I was too naive to understand the significance of race on American Christianity. The very people who commissioned me to plant the church discouraged people from helping me, saying, “How can you follow a black immigrant African international student?” Nevertheless, with the passage of time, I was lucky enough to lead a sizeable congregation with a significant group of young people from Minneapolis. Between 2009 and 2013, I spent a great deal of time in South Minneapolis, around the area where George Floyd was killed. Since 25 May 2020, when he was killed, I have had countless conversations with my friends in Minneapolis and Saint Paul – some of whom knew George Floyd – as they try to figure out how to be good followers of Christ in the chaos that has seized many American cities. Consequently, the Black Lives Matter phenomenon is something that, for me, feels personal.

Whether in America, in Britain, or in Germany, I have seen things that make me want to remind the world that non-white people are people too, and that black bodies are not expendable. From the six police stops that I survived in Saint Paul to the racism that I experienced among my Christian friends in Minneapolis – long before Donald Trump’s dog whistle revealed the hollow of American Evangelicalism and emboldened his white supremacist base to hijack US politics – I have been left wondering if there is hope for black and brown people in the world. Even more, I have struggled with this because, from where I stand, Christianity (and by this, I mean not all Christians but enough of them to justify a generalisation) seems to be entirely complicit in this sin of racism. Christianity has, for the past 600 years, trafficked in racism and preached – in deed, but also in word – the supremacy of the white race over all the others. [1] In doing so, Christianity became a servant of the white race. Even today, when white Christians form less than a third of world Christians, Christianity still privileges whiteness, and many white Christians still struggle to think any non-white Christian is their equal. The message of the church does not openly sanction this discrimination of non-white peoples, but most white Christians, doing their day-to-day jobs, continue to oppress black and brown people because, of course, they have been conditioned to privilege whiteness – and the gospel of Christ fails to adequately challenge them to think otherwise. It is hard to imagine world Christianity without white supremacy. The folly of this imperial Christianity that wants to evangelise the marginalised and yet keep them oppressed and confined to the margins as second-class Christians is beyond comprehension. Derek Chauvin nonchalantly keeping his knee on George Floyd’s neck is symbolic of the many centuries of white (Christian) oppression of Native Americans, Latin Americans, Africans, Indians and many other peoples, not only in America but also in the UK, Germany, China, Australia and many other countries in the world. (I have, so far, successfully resisted finding out which churches Chauvin and his friends attend – ignorance, in this manner, is bliss.)

The spread of Christianity from Europe to other parts of the world, starting in the fifteenth century and reaching its climax in the second half of the twentieth, was greatly enhanced by racist European ideologies – white people understood themselves to be better than everyone else – and theologies – God has destined them to dominate, civilise and Christianise the rest of the world, and the rest of the races were supposed to help Europeans do this, for their own good. Stephen Neill adds that, “The ideas of conquest and of conversion lay side by side in the consciousness of the Christians of the Western world.” [2] The ideology that, in the nineteenth century, became known as manifest destiny – grounded, essentially, in white supremacy, and stating that Europeans had been destined by God to dominate, civilise and Christianise the world – had been extensively used in Latin America right from the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the 1490s. It was used to justify the forceful displacement of Native Americans as the United States expanded westwards in the nineteenth century. This same ideology (with the help of a racist theology that undergirded it) was used to justify the transatlantic slave trade – the kidnapping of Africans from their homeland, the harsh overcrowded ships across the Atlantic, the slave markets in the West Indies and the inhumane working conditions on the plantations – that went on for 450 years. It also served to defend both colonising (and evangelising) of Africans, Asians and beyond. Where either colonialism or evangelism was not possible, extermination was always the next alternative.

For the past 600 years, this has been European Christianity’s posture to the world. The language used to describe people of the rest of the world was the same – uncivilised, primitive heathens, barbarians, pagans – whether it was in 1500, in 1800 or in 1950. One could read William Carey’s treatise, the Enquiry, which is replete of language that would be unacceptable today. [3] Yes, there were some missionaries who refused to trade in white supremacy, people like Bartolomé de las Casas, Matteo Ricci, Johannes Rebmann and Joseph Booth, but these were always the exception to the rule. The whole system of Europe’s relations to Africa, for instance, was to colonise (to extract resources) and Christianise (to make colonialism easier). Many of the missionaries participated in this system, most knowingly, but many more unknowingly. Colonialism, be it in Latin America, Asia or Africa, was believed to be fulfilling God’s agenda for humanity and was, therefore, part of God’s mission. The gospel of Christ became the gospel of European culture and its superiority to the world and was backed up by Europe’s and now America’s militarism. Jesus not only gained blue eyes and blonde hair along the way, he also got to use the help of American warplanes and British gunboats.

The most troubling thing in all this is that for most white Christians, Jesus is silent amid all these atrocities. If Jesus is not silent, he is invoked to sanction violence and encourage white supremacists to keep the suburbs white. Many white Christians’ Jesus does not know how to relate with black and brown people apart from oppressing them – 600 years of church history can testify. While I was writing this essay, another black man, Jacob Blake, from Kenosha, Wisconsin, was shot seven times by police at a very close range. He miraculously survived, but he is paralysed from the waist down. When protestors went to the courthouse two days after his shooting, a young white supremacist man of 17, Kyle Rittenhouse, killed two people and wounded the third, and was later charged with double homicide (among several others); it was Christian communities that quickly raised funds for his legal fees. The faith of these Christians sees no contradiction in following Jesus and enabling white supremacists. The Jesus of these people is for white people only. This Jesus oppresses and enslaves non-white people. He sanctions the colonisation of Native Americans, Africans, Asians and many other people in the world. This Jesus would kneel on people’s necks if white supremacy were in danger. Needless to say, I refuse to follow this Jesus. This is not the Jesus who grew up in Nazareth in the Roman colony of Palestine who came to heal the brokenhearted and set the captives free. In his teaching, there is no room for white supremacy, and until racism is totally discredited, God’s mission in the world will depend on colonialism. Unfortunately, our theologies today fail to critique racism. Most of them have been shaped by people who either subconsciously hold racist views or do not have an understanding of racism because they have never been discriminated against based on their skin colour. Many of our theologians have benefitted from racism or white privilege and, as such, cannot write against it.

Christian mission and colonialism: a Malawian story

This story of mission and colonialism is personal to me. It is the story of my village, my people and my ancestors. My great-great-great-grandfather, Ntimawanzako Nacho, was among the first Malawians to come to Scotland for theological training at Stewarts College in 1885 as part of Blantyre Mission’s strategy for future leaders in what would later become Nyasaland, and even later, Malawi. Nacho later settled at a place in the Shire Highlands in Southern Malawi called Magomero, where my family still lives today. Back in 1861, Magomero was the first British mission station in Central Africa, but by the time Nacho came to Magomero, it had become a colonial estate belonging to David Livingstone’s descendants. It was the main location of an anti-colonial uprising in 1915. As such, Magomero is Ground Zero of both missionary activity and colonialism in Malawi. It is impossible to tell of either mission history or colonial history in Malawi (and, generally, Central Africa) without talking of my people at Magomero. It was, of course, made popular by Landeg White’s book Magomero: Portrait of an African Village, [4] which explores the biography of the village from 1850s to the late 1900s. To us Malawians, Magomero is the birthplace of both missionary work and colonialism in Malawi. The colonial government’s reaction to the 1915 uprising shaped the history of Christianity in Malawi for the next 50 years, until we attained our independence in 1964, and its implications still remain today, 55 years after independence.

Strike a blow and die

As the people gathered for their usual Sunday worship on 24 January 1915 at the Providence Industrial Mission at Nguludi in the Shire Highlands of Malawi, then the British colony of Nyasaland, everybody was aware that the service would not be business as usual. It was a strange era and the events of the day before, 23 January, had changed everything. A local (American-trained) Baptist minister, John Chilembwe, had just led a somewhat successful uprising against the colonial government and to prove it, he preached his sermon with William Jervis Livingstone’s severed head perched on a stick right next to the pulpit. The people celebrated – Chilembwe was their Moses, their messiah, the liberator who broke the yoke of Livingstone at Magomero. Most of Nyasaland was peaceful – the British colonial government had, for almost 25 years now, ruled the country with an iron fist. However, they all understood that John Chilembwe had essentially declared war on the colonial government – and that the British government would respond with full force. This was essentially a suicide mission; there was no way they could win. They understood that their mission was “strike a blow and die”. [5] That blow was struck on Saturday, 23 January, when Chilembwe sent groups of a badly organised militia to kill his neighbour, W. J. Livingstone, at Magomero. [6] This was the start of a Christian-based anti-colonial uprising wanting to free Nyasaland from British colonialism. Similar Christian struggles against colonialism would eventually help bring the entire colonial project to an end some 50 years later.

Long before John Chilembwe’s uprising, David Livingstone traversed the land that is now southern Malawi from 1859, dreaming of a possible British colony in that part of Africa. Livingstone’s time in southern Malawi followed a successful visit to England between 1856 and 1857 during which he published his instant best seller, Missionary Travels, [7] and gave lectures in several cities and universities; Dublin, Manchester, Glasgow, Oxford, Leeds, Liverpool, Dundee, Halifax and Birmingham and, of course, his home, Blantyre. The climax of the speaking tours was at Cambridge University on 4 December 1857, where he concluded his speech with a shout:

I beg to direct your attention to Africa. I know that in a few years I shall be cut off in that country, which is now open. Do not let it be shut again! I go back to Africa to try to make an open path for commerce and Christianity. Do you carry on the work which I have begun. I leave it with you! [8]

In immediate response, some students at Oxford and Cambridge Universities formed a mission association that they called Oxford and Cambridge Mission. Later, Durham and Dublin Universities joined and the association changed its name to simply Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, or in short, UMCA. Livingstone returned to Central Africa straight away, finding his way up the Shire River and seeing Lake Malawi for the first time in September 1859. His sense of mission in Africa was built on what he called the “Three Cs: Christianity, Civilisation and Commerce”. He believed that Britain would Christianise, civilise and bring a new form of commerce (to replace the slave trade) to Africa. In one letter to his friend, Professor Sedgwick, he stated, “All this [expedition’s] ostensible machinery has for its ostensible object the development of African trade and the promotion of civilisation, [but] I hope may result in an English colony in the healthy highlands of Central Africa.” [9] The outworking of Livingstone’s Three Cs led to a fourth “C” – colonialism – that would eventually overshadow the first three Cs. Livingstone himself was convinced that “it [was] the mission of England to colonise and to plant her Christianity with her sons [sic] on the broad earth which the Lord has given to the children of men [sic]”. [10] Indeed, it was Livingstone’s desire for Britain have a colony in Central Africa, and the Shire Highlands would be his Ground Zero. Between 1859 and 1860, he wrote extensively to his dear friends, Sir Thomas Maclear and Sir Roderick Murchison:

It is that the interior of this country ought to be colonised by our countrymen… I see more in that for the benefit of England and Africa than in any other plan… I am becoming everyday more convinced that we must have an English colony in the cotton-producing districts of Africa… Colonisation from a country such as ours ought to be one of hope, and not despair… the performance of an imperative duty to our blood, our country, our religion, and to humankind. [11]

He later added that if large numbers of the British urban poor emigrated to Africa they could begin new lives, no longer “crowded together in cities… in close ill-ventilated narrow lanes… But they [English colonists] can take a leading part in managing the land, improving the quality, increasing the quantity and extending the varieties of the production of the soil; and by taking a lead too in trade and in all public matters, the Englishman would be an unmixed advantage to every one below and around him, for he would fill a place which is now practically vacant.” [12]

In Livingstone’s defence, Tim Jeal suggests that Livingstone’s ideas of colonialism are quite different from what we understand to be colonialism today. He says:

His contemporaries, when they heard the words “The British Empire”, did not think of multiracial subject nations bowing to a central imperial power. Their pride in Empire was not the late-Victorian love of prestige and power, but more a pride in the idea that British men and women had settled in distant and previously thinly populated parts of the world, and were there reproducing all that was best in the British way of life – a free press, trial by jury and government by representative institutions. Most of Livingstone’s fellow-countrymen during the 1850s saw Empire as the link of common nationality that bound together, more by voluntary union than by power, a mother country and her white settled, and soon to be self-governing, colonies overseas. In this family, the West Indies and, above all, India were seen as strange anomalies simply because they, unlike for example Canada, Australia and New Zealand, had large “native” populations and were not predominantly “British” and white. [13]

I am not convinced Tim Jeal is right. We know that the British Raj in India started in 1858, long before the European colonisation of Africa, and that the Raj was not about “reproducing all that was best in the British way of life”. Thirty years after Livingstone brought the UMCA to my home, Malawi became a British Protectorate. In the following year, Livingstone’s family – his daughter Agnes, and her husband, Alexander Low Bruce – acquired the land that had been given to the UMCA plus 70,000 acres around it and turned it into a colonial estate. This estate was the centre of the events of 23 January 1915. My ancestor, Mtimawanzako Nacho, died by suicide in 1945 after years of conflict with his neighbours of the A. L. Bruce Estates.

Bishop Colenso is dead

Chilembwe’s mentor, a Derbyshire man by the name Joseph Booth, was a missionary in Malawi in the 1890s. [14] He arrived in Malawi in 1891 and was deported from the country by the British colonial government in 1907. He, however, visited South Africa in 1896 to promote African agency in mission especially among the Zulu Christians. As a white man, though, he was met with extreme suspicion. In the 1890s, the Zulus had a reminder for anyone wanting to deal with white people: “Bishop Colenso is dead.” [15] That was to say the only white man they could trust, Bishop Colenso, was dead. It was of no use trusting any white man because white men – both missionaries and colonial farmers – were all violent “men of guns”. Bishop John William Colenso (born in Cornwall in 1814 and died in Durban in 1883) was the first Bishop of Natal and as his biographies say, a fervent defender of the Zulu against both the Boer and British aggressions, including the Anglo–Zulu War of 1879. [16] He also defended other African tribes, gaining a title Sobantu in the process – the father of the people. His death at a time when the Scramble for Africa was brewing made it difficult for the Africans to trust Europeans. In 1897, Booth published a fiery anticolonialist manifesto entitled Africa for the Africans, which planted seeds that would lead to Chilembwe’s uprising in 1915.

Magomero is just one example of what happens when mission and colonialism become one. That David Livingstone’s mission station became his daughter’s colonial estate and that its managers then persecuted local Christians, burning their houses and schools and forcing them to work on the estate for free, reveals the problem of attaching mission to colonialism. After the murder of W. J. Livingstone, the British government killed many Malawian Christians, jailed many more, including several British missionaries who sympathised with the Africans, especially of the smaller denominations like the Churches of Christ. Laws were passed that required all the major churches to have white leaders. Any new churches that required registration had to have Europeans as leaders. All blackled churches were closely monitored to make sure there would be no repeat of Chilembwe’s uprising.

As a Malawian Christian from Magomero, my family has lived the story that proves that mission and colonialism were, for most Africans, two sides of the same coin of imperialism. Magomero shows why missionaries have been called the “religious arm of the colonial empires”, “the ideological shock troops for the colonial invasion whose zealotry had blinded them”, [17] “the spiritual wing of secular imperialism”, [18] or even “imperialism at prayer”. [19] In a nutshell, for many of us in the non-western world, mission and colonialism were strange bedfellows. I do not have space to rehash the history. I do not have problems with the historicity of the relationship between mission and colonialism. This leads me to the wider problem at the centre of this essay. Mission, as we speak of it today, is a European creation. (Of course, the same can be said of both its ecclesiology and theology.) The word “mission” itself did not mean the sending of Christians from Christian lands to non-Christian lands to convert the “heathens” or “pagans” until after the Reformation. It was the Jesuits (and the Society of Jesus was formed in 1540) who first used mission the way we do today. Contemporary mission is a European creation of a particular era when Europeans were becoming aware of the wider world beyond the bounds of Western Europe. That world, in the minds of the Europeans, needed to be Christianised and civilised by Europeans who were lucky to have been chosen to be both Christians and civilised people of that time. Beginning in the West Indies, moving down to Latin America, then up to North America, Asia and then Africa, Europeans worked hard to Christianise and civilise the world. At the centre of that effort was the belief that Europeans were destined to be superior to all the other peoples of the world. In a nutshell then, the very concept of mission as we understand it today has racism and white supremacy in its DNA. Mission, understood in this Eurocentric sense, could be easily used to serve European interests around the world. It is for this reason that the discipline of missiology continues to be a white-dominated subject even though white Christians form less than a third of world Christians. It is again for this reason that our very definitions in missiology, for instance that of a missionary, are still shaped by Eurocentric ideas – British Christians teaching English in Uganda are missionaries while Ugandan Christian nurses in Britain are migrants. It is also for this reason that when we talk about mission, we always generally speak in terms of sending European missionaries to other parts of the world like Africa even though Africa is more Christian than Europe. The “heathen” – to use the European language of the last century – is now in Europe, yet mission organisations are still focused on converting the Africans. Of course, Roland Allen and others have shown us that mission, as we practise it today, looks quite different from what we see in the New Testament. [20] Our missionary methods would, strictly speaking, be unrecognisable to Paul.

Essentially, we need to rethink mission for a world where images of a blue-eyed blond-haired Jesus are questionable. We need to learn how to engage in mission when all that the missionary brings is the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ minus a superior culture that seeks to civilise. Of course, empires colonise. That is what they do. Effective colonisation of a people must involve a changing of the people’s life philosophy, self-identification and culture. Christianity has been an integral part of the expansion of European empires since the fifeenth century. The world Christianity that we celebrate today has emerged because of the past 600 years of western domination of other parts of the world. There has been the Spanish/ Iberian Empire that colonised Latin America while the Portuguese Empire colonised Brazil and parts of Africa and India. At its peak, the British Empire stretched across all time zones. The era of European colonisation of Africa was short, largely running from the 1880s to the 1960s, but it has had drastic effects of the continent, many of which are yet to be resolved. At some point in the twentieth century, 6,000 British farmers owned the fertile 60 percent of Zimbabwe’s land, leaving millions of indigenous Zimbabweans to live on the remaining 40 per cent. [21] Of course, in the nineteenth century alone, a quarter of Europe’s population migrated to the Americas, Africa, Australia, colonising and Christianising as they went. We are now living through the age of the American Empire, but the tides are changing. Samuel Huntington suggested in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilisations that the western civilisation now faces competition from other civilisations. [22] Today, it is evident that both Russia and China have become even more influential players on the global political scene. This will, without a doubt, have an impact on western missions. As long as we keep attaching this beautiful and life-giving missio Dei to empires, it will always be used to marginalise, dominate and colonise others.

Non-western Christianity (which forms almost 70 per cent of world Christianity) is a religion without imperial powers. In many aspects, it is a religion pushing back against empires and in this sense, it is closer to pre-Constantine Christianity. Of course, it helps to remember that Jesus Christ was executed in his home country by a colonial power. The challenge for all of us as followers of Christ in the world is to put into practice the words of Paul that we are one in Christ – that in him, there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither male nor female, and neither free nor slave. Our baptism into the body of Christ makes us all equal, and that is the most important thing. But the call is not only to treat those of our faith as equals, as if it gives us a warrant to treat those outside the faith as less than us. All humanity is God’s humanity, made in God’s image. It is God who made us different and equal, and I am certain that God did not mean the differences to negate the equality. White supremacy is a lie invented by humans. It has benefitted many white people for generations going back 600 years when it has been ferociously enforced in parts of the world. It has created a world order in which to be white is normal; everyone else is a person of colour. This black skin is God’s work, God’s gift to the world through me. Unfortunately, it is not a gift that is easily received – it covers me in a colour that many find unacceptable. If anyone really believes that their skin colour makes them individually better or superior (without the privileges that come with being white and living in a world shaped by white people for other white people), they have to encounter Christ again. God’s Spirit will not let the sin of racism in all its forms – including both white supremacy and black supremacy and every colour in between – go unrevealed.

Mission after George Floyd

The death of George Floyd has made it possible for us to talk about race in ways that were not possible before. It is possible for us to actually have an audience and a conversation about the plight of black people. George Floyd’s death has made it difficult to ignore or deny the existence of racism and white supremacy. Many white people finally agree that black people are often treated inhumanely by systems designed to protect and preserve whiteness, that black people are often treated as if they are a threat to whiteness – to white lives, white bodies, white properties, white everything. Black people have, for ages, complained about racism in this world and have always been told to shut up and move on. Four hundred and fifty years of the European slave trade – we are not even talking about the Arabic slave trade, which went on for much longer – was followed by 80 years of colonialism and another 60 years of neocolonialism, yet, when black people complain, they have often been told “all that happened in the past”. My hope is that this anti-racism momentum that has galvanised many to stand with the Black Lives Matter movement leads to real changes in our societies. Of course, I am not entirely optimistic about this – black oppression has been around for 600 years. It only changes strategies – the slave trade, the Jim Crow laws in the US and colonialism in Africa, and then mass incarceration in the US and economic colonialism in Africa. European Christianity has been complicit in all this, and it will be complicit in whatever new strategy of oppressing black people will emerge. At least for now, we can name racism and white supremacy for the evil they are. I hope that both mission agencies and the discipline of missiology will be transformed.

For mission agencies, engaging in mission in a world where racism and white supremacy are discredited will be a new adventure for most of us, but I am certain it will take us closer to mission as it was intended to be. Many mission agencies will have to find new ways to exist with diminishing help from western empires due to growing secularism on the one hand (which has weakened western Christianity) and the rise of non-western empires on the other. Current western dominance in mission does not reflect the true picture of world Christianity, and the only way we can justify it is by pointing back to the colonial era – this is how it has always been. The very methods of western mission in the world are questionable today, and yet many of them cannot afford to let others lead. In a world without racism or white supremacy, most of the mission agencies in the West would be led by Latin Americans, Africans or Asians, to a greater success and better faithfulness to God’s mission. Any European or North American (we can include Australian and New Zealander) mission organisation that sends missionaries to other parts of the world and has more than half their leadership and personnel as white is part of the problem. This is a gross incongruency in a world where, potentially, most missionaries will come from Latin America, Africa and Asia.

For missiology – the teachers, their pedagogy and the resources they use – must reflect the very fact that mission is no longer a western phenomenon. The very fact that black and brown people form less that 5 per cent of theology and missiology lecturers in the UK is symptomatic of the problem. Black and brown people form 14 per cent of the population in the UK, yet they comprise a significantly large percentage of theology and missiology students across the country. It should not be possible to teach mission in any of our cities with an all-white team. Yet this is common, and generally speaking, most theology and missiology syllabi across UK institutions will have no less than 100 per cent white-authored books for students to read. Our church planting courses seem to ignore the fact that African movements are planting the most churches and are growing their churches the fastest, and the possibility that they know a thing or two to teach.

Conclusion

“Black Lives Matter” makes a critique of a system that Christianity helped create. The church must listen. It must reflect. Having done that, it must make practical steps to correct itself. I sincerely hope that changes will happen in these few months that will make us a more perfect bride for Christ and partner for God’s mission. May the Lord help us.

About the author

Harvey Kwiyani is a recovering missiologist from Malawi and currently teaching theology at Liverpool Hope University.

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Notes

[1] Stephen Neill’s Colonialism and Christian Missions is a lame attempt to convince us that western Christian missions did not benefit from colonialism. What it does well, instead, is to show us exactly how European Christians used both their sense of white superiority and the conviction that they had been destined to civilise, even by force, the world. See, for instance, his report on the Requiremento in Colonialism and Christian Missions (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 43–44.
[2] Neill, Colonialism and Christian Missions, 39.
[3] William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (London: Carey Kingsgate Press, 1961).
[4] Landeg White, Magomero: Portrait of an African Village (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
[5] This was the actual title of George Mwase’s book on the events surrounding John Chilembwe’s uprising in 1915. See George Simeon Mwase, Strike a Blow and Die: The Classic Story of the Chilembwe Rising (London: Heinemann Educational, 1975).
[6] William J. Livingstone was cousin to Alexander Livingstone Bruce, who was son to Agnes Livingstone and, therefore, a direct descendant of David Livingstone. William was stationed at Magomero while Alexander L. Bruce was manager at the Luwelezi Estate, a few hours away in Mulanje. In January of 1915, A. L. Bruce was up in northern Malawi, fighting for the Crown in the First World War.
[7] David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (New York: Harper & Bros., 1858).
[8] Meriel Buxton, David Livingstone (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 106.
[9] Oliver Ransford, David Livingstone: The Dark Interior (London: John Murray, 1978), 159.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid., 160.
[12] Tim Jeal, Livingstone (New York: Dell, 1973), 224.
[13] Ibid., 188.
[14] For more on Joseph Booth, please see Harry W. Langworthy, “Africa for the African”: The Life of Joseph Booth (Blantyre, Malawi: Christian Literature Association in Malawi, 1996). Also Harry W. Langworthy, “Joseph Booth, Prophet of Radical Change in Central and South Africa, 1891–1915,” Journal of Religion in Africa 16, no. 1 (1986).
[15] George Shepperson and Thomas Price, Independent African: John Chilembwe and the Origins, Setting, and Significance of the Nyasaland Native Rising of 1915 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1958).
[16] He seems to have been a passionate defender of all things African, especially against British colonialism. See George William Cox, The Life of John William Colenso, D.D.: Bishop of Natal, vol. 1 (London: W. Ridgway, 1888).
[17] See, for instance, Edward E. Andrews, “Christian Missions and Colonial Empires Reconsidered: A Black Evangelist in West Africa, 1766–1816,” Journal of Church and State 51, no. 4 (Autumn 2009): 663–64.
[18] John D. Omer-Cooper et al., The Making of Modern Africa: The Growth of African Civilization, vol. 2 (New York: Longman, 1968).
[19] Lamin O. Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 88.
[20] Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962).
[21] Sam Moyo and Walter Chambati, eds., Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe: Beyond White-Settler Capitalism (Dakar: CODESRIA African Institute for Agrarian Studies, 2013), 42.
[22] Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1997).

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The childless women of the bible: a hopeful metaphor for the church

by Tina Hodgett

Introduction

Many of our churches today, particularly in rural areas, are largely made up of elderly people. These churches may well have witnessed faithfully throughout the twentieth century to the presence of God in the community, and individuals will have given prayer, time and effort to keep the church alive. They may have displayed spiritual resilience and resourcefulness to share the gospel afresh with the next generation, and yet large numbers of churches are struggling to maintain congregation numbers, let alone grow, and many have been forced to close or dramatically reduce the number of services.

It is true that some congregations may not have done these things, for a variety of reasons, but the result appears to be the same: ever-shrinking congregations of people seeking to pass on the baton to the next generation and finding few younger people with fresh faith and energy ready to take it and run with it. The result is a loss of hope for the future that drains people of faith and energy, and their spiritual leaders may struggle to address this situation in a way that brings comfort.

Ageing congregations

When we try to talk about the question of ageing congregations with the congregations themselves, people can hear accusations of failure, experience guilt or fear the loss of something important. Often they are bewildered at the current state of affairs in church and society, and sometimes angry with church authorities for their lack of support, leadership or vision. One way to approach this question with pastoral sensitivity is to locate a conversation in a place that is removed from this hard reality and try to explore it through use of metaphor. [1]

There are numerous metaphors for the church in the New Testament: the bride of Christ (Eph. 5:25–27), the vine (John 15:5), the flock (John 10:14–16), the royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9), the household of God (1 Tim. 3:15), the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12). In recent times, a popular metaphor has come from horticulture: church as a plant, like a seedling that will grow. [2] This leads to the question: what metaphors might be helpful for an imaginative, exploratory conversation about an ageing church today?

Which metaphor for the ageing church today?

Most of all, we need metaphors of hope. There is a significant pastoral need at every stage of life for messages of hope founded in the previous activity of God. New Testament writers drew metaphors of hope from Israel’s history. When encouraging the church to look for newness and rescue, they drew on the biblical stories of creation (2 Cor. 4:16), the exodus (Col. 1:13 and Heb. 2:14–15) and the return from exile (1 Pet. 5:10), using these primary events in Israel’s story to encourage believers to trust in God’s sovereign power to “make all things new”. There is, in addition to these three key distinctive events, a recurring theme woven throughout the whole of the biblical testimony to the way God brings about newness among his people: the theme of physical birth.

There are many birth stories in the Scriptures, and one of them – the birth of Jesus – is a foundational story for the Christian faith. I have found in speaking to church leaders and congregations that birth is a most powerful metaphor for new beginnings, which resonates with people of all ages, races, genders and denominations. The stories of childbirth in the Old Testament almost always presage a new phase in the story of God and his covenant with the Jewish people. The birth of a significant baby symbolises the start of something new in the life of the nation.

Babies as symbols

When we read of the miraculous births of Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Samson, Samuel, John and Jesus, we can miss seeing at the heart of each story the powerful symbolism of the baby. For not only is each baby an actual human person with distinct physical attributes and individual characteristics, as well as a divine calling and appointed task, but the baby is also a universally recognised symbol of many things, including:

• new beginnings
• hope for the future
• continuity of the family line, traditions and inheritance
• the enrichment of life through learning, play, celebration and extending the family circle joy
• grace – an undeserved gift
• unconditional love
• the focus of attention, even worship
• a focus of unity, bringing a family together

God clearly understands the symbolism of new birth: the Creator was born into the world as a baby, intending to make hope, joy and fresh starts a reality for the whole of humankind. Logically therefore he also knows that the experience of unwanted childlessness brings with it pain, loss and even despair – the emotions that ageing congregations may also feel to some degree when new life is absent from their church.

The pain of childlessness

There are many well-known cases in the Bible of women who had difficulty having a child. In some cases we are told they were barren, or more specifically that God had closed their womb. We know from some of these accounts (for example, Hannah, Rachel, Zechariah and Elizabeth) how painfully the absence of a child was felt by the parents. We know from people who want children how grey the absence of children can make their world. The breaking in of God’s grace for each of these couples mentioned above comes as a miracle – a sovereign act of power carried out against the scientific odds in God’s mysterious way and according to his unfathomable timing, and a sign – each child brings fresh hope first to the family, then to the people of Israel.

The childless woman of the bible as a symbol of hope

Part of my message to ageing Christian communities is this: these stories of hope in the Bible may offer a fresh and imaginative way to think about the church today. I am aware how difficult it can be for Christian parents to read these stories if they have tried to become pregnant and remained childless after prayer and medical interventions, and I do not take this subject lightly. Having wanted children myself, I share this pain but hope to use the insight it has given me to offer a pastoral response to churches that might see themselves as childless.

The idea of an ageing church being similar to these childless women in the Bible may seem a depressing one, but it surprisingly brings hope. People do not seem to mind their church being represented as a woman waiting beyond the age of menopause for a baby. In the birth stories listed above, which many of the congregations have known from childhood, a baby does eventually arrive, bringing all the usual delights and benefits of newness and possibility for the future, as well as the reassurance God has not abandoned them. I think they intuitively understand it does not matter if they see the child or not – it will come because God has promised it.

The strange story of Ruth

One of the many biblical birth stories is the strange account of Ruth. It offers an intriguing example of the parallels we could draw if we adopt the metaphor of the ageing church as childless woman. Ruth is a Moabite woman, an outsider in Hebrew society, who devotes herself to her mother-in-law, a Bethlehemite, in the absence of any menfolk to provide for them. Both women are childless: Naomi’s husband died after the family settled in Moab, and tragically so did both her sons, before either could have offspring by their Moabite wives, Ruth and Orpah. This story shows how God understands the psychological damage caused when a person or family cannot establish its line for posterity and works to counter it. We might infer from this that God understands our distress when our church is unable to reproduce.

All kinds of provision are made in Jewish law and custom to ensure that human beings are remembered after their death; through childbirth, family names, genealogies, land and marriage arrangements, individuals (men in particular) have opportunities to leave a memory of their existence in the world. One of the more complicated provisions in this respect concerns the concept of the kinsman–redeemer (Hebrew ga’al), which comes into play when a relative is in need. A person’s relative may deliver or rescue them (Gen. 48:16); redeem their property if they lose it from family ownership (Lev. 27:9–25) or marry their wife if they die without having a child (Ruth 1:1–10, Gen. 38:8, Matt. 22:23–33).

When Boaz, local Bethlehem landowner and distant relative of Naomi, decides to take on the role of kinsman–redeemer for her husband Elimelech, he does not marry Naomi, who is beyond childbearing years, but marries Ruth, Elimelech’s Gentile daughter-in-law, instead. Ruth, the outsider, gives birth to Obed, who is hailed – bizarrely to our western ears – as Naomi’s son (Ruth 4:17), despite the fact he is technically far from her on any family tree and biologically probably equally remote.

Playing in the metaphor: drawing the parallels

Established churches since the Reformation have tended to maintain their life through biological growth – an inherited faith passed from generation to generation until recently, when somehow it was no longer “caught” by the offspring of lifelong believers. In the story of Ruth, Naomi’s family’s line finished with the death of her husband and sons. Naomi named herself “bitter” (Hebrew mara, the name Naomi gave herself in the light of her situation), facing an empty future with no heritage to pass on and no name to be remembered by. The standard means of reproduction were no longer possible for her and she struggled to find hope.

Nevertheless, God intervened through an unforeseen route, providing via a compassionate outsider, who saw Naomi’s predicament clearly, and although she was under no obligation to provide for her mother-in-law, brought her resources to bear, joined them with those of Boaz, an imaginative and resourceful insider, to give birth to Obed – who would sustain the family line into the future.

Exploring the metaphor creatively, I wonder if Obed is a good example of the kind of “child” our ageing, sometimes “bitter” churches and congregations might look forward to receiving through God’s extraordinary grace and unexpected ways of working. Our new churches may not actually emerge from the life of our congregations at all, but through strange alliances between outsiders that arouse suspicion on the part of the community, or actions by resourceful and imaginative individuals who may not conform to local norms but see possibility in pitiful circumstances and act on their creative insight, or through behaviour that is scandalous (read the story!) and compassionate by turns. Might Ruth represent the community member who partners with the believer and visionary to bring about a different kind of Christian community founded in fresh DNA and cultural assumptions? A Christian community that is a symbiosis (a marriage?) of two cultures coming together in a way that enriches the genetic inheritance of both? A culturally appropriate form of church for a given context, or, in other words, a fresh expression?

Fresh expressions of church as the ageing church’s grandchildren

On a family tree, Obed would be likely to appear on a line with the grandchildren of Naomi’s and Elimelech’s siblings rather than on a line with their sons. Touring deanery synod meetings recently in deep rural countryside, I have been sharing the idea that any newborn churches to come will be more like grandchildren than children. It is a concept that immediately strikes home in spite of the natural conservatism of such communities and their love of tradition. Most of the people gathered are of grandparent age, and many have at least one grandchild. However, for sociological reasons, most of their grandchildren live in another part of the country.

Grandparents and grandchildren meet up for special occasions, or on holiday, and in the intervening periods they communicate on various media, with parents sending school or graduation photos for display on grandparents’ mantelpieces. Grandparents are acutely aware of the difference in culture between themselves and their grandchildren. The grandchildren are digital natives, whereas they are mainly digital immigrants, and would prefer to text or send a photo on Instagram rather than write a postcard or phone the landline. They see how their grandchildren dress and spend their leisure time, and are surprised by their values, hopes and expectations of the world.

They may find these differences bewildering, attractive or repugnant, but they accept them as given in the grandchildren’s lives. Most recognise the reality of generational differences and culture change in this context in a way they seem to struggle to in the context of church. Culture change in church appears much more threatening. What “church” is has become, in the minds of some, an unalterable norm: in these minds God, the church and the church’s culture are inextricably interconnected. To change the culture of church, its rituals, language, structure, architecture and pretty much everything else threatens their faith in God himself. In this situation, drawing a parallel between new forms of church and grandchildren opens windows in people’s minds.

Grandchildren share their humanity, their DNA, their family history, some of their gifts and interests and personality traits, and aspects of the family culture. Churchgoers are reminded through this metaphor that they love their grandchildren and gain fresh life and energy from them. They are a good thing. It always raises a laugh, though, when I say, “And you wouldn’t want them to live with you permanently. You’re glad to see them – and very happy when they leave.” This comment always elicits what comedians call “the laugh of truth” – the recognition that he or she has hit upon something the audience collectively recognise to be true. This comment always serves to reassure ageing, more traditional congregations that they do not have to personally embrace or even like fresh expressions of church. It is fine to say, “It is good they exist. I would like to visit every now and then and receive a news update occasionally, and to pray for them and be proud of them, but I do not want to move in with the family or have them come and live with me!” Establishing this distance removes unspoken fear they will be bundled into a way of being church they feel they may not be able to cope with after decades of worshipping in another culture.

A surprising hope

If we accept the image of the childless woman in Scripture as a metaphor for the church today, we can be assured that churches that seem devoid of new faith life have not been forgotten by God, abandoned, left to die. New life, when it comes, may turn the familiar approaches to church genesis inside out. The heir may come via a foreign (even an enemy) bloodline. New faith life may come via an outsider who appears to act more from compassion, loyalty and need than from commitment to the belief system. A renewed Christian community can emerge from the vision of an insider able to see the good things that come from outside. What shines through is the commitment of God to bring life where it is not. The story of Ruth ends in delighted praise to God, joy for Naomi at the long-awaited birth of a descendant, exuberant admiration for Ruth, a community celebration for the whole town who make up spontaneous prayers of abundant blessing, Boaz’s establishment as the great-grandfather of King David and Obed’s as his grandfather – and the crowning glory the place of the family, including Ruth, in the genealogy of Jesus. What a glorious picture of hope fulfilled (Ruth 4.13–22).

About the author

Tina Hodgett was a secondary teacher of Russian and German and may be a spy (but you will never know). Since 2008 she has been ordained and playfully engaged individuals, communities and congregations with the gospel as a pioneer curate in Nottingham and Team Pilgrim in Portishead. She is now helping to foster a pioneering rumpus (alongside many others) as evangelism and pioneer team leader in the Diocese of Bath and Wells.

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Notes

[1] In my first week at theological college, a conversation about the future of the Church of England compared the church as it was then to a supertanker: large, substantial, ocean-going, dependable, but hard to manoeuvre and likely to take a long time to assume a different course. Students spent the best part of the lecture exploring the topic through different types of shipping and weather conditions in a way that would probably not have happened using academic ecclesiology and data about church numbers, trends and management.
[2] George Lings records the development of church planting as a metaphor in the 1980s in George Lings, Reproducing Churches (Abingdon: BRF, 2017).

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