The Hsu’s Views

I’ve been looking at the The Celtic Way of Evangelism again. Here are a few more thoughts to add to the first post:

Apparently, when St. Patrick arrived among the Irish Celts, there were probably some Irish Christians, but what Patrick and his people did was launch a movement. This movement had a very different feel from Roman Christianity largely due to the distance and isolation of these lands. “This movement, compared to the Roman wing of the One Church was more imaginative, and less cerebral, closer to nature and its creatures, and emphasized the “immanence” and “providence” of the Triune God more than his “transcendence.” (26)

Celtic semi-monastic communities formed consisting of some who chose a more traditional monastic path, but the communities also included scholars, artisians, craftsmen, and families including children. These communities were typically under some sort of lay leadership, seeing little need for ordained priests. “They were essentially lay movements.” (28)

It is clear that as the church begins to navigate into the challenging waters of rapid discontinuous change and a shifting worldviews, it really needs to recover a sense of being a movement. Not just movement in name or by way of a label. It must be a lay movement that allows Jesus’ gospel of the Kingdom to be good news to the new pagan world that we find ourselves in today. There needs to be a freedom to operate “far from Rome.”

Hunter is doing a good job showing how Patrick’s isolation from Rome allowed him to contextualize the gospel in such a way that its expression was both Christian and Heathen. It did not utilize institutional ways, but took on forms that made sense for the Celtic settlements. It took on forms that were shaped by an understanding of mission, and not the extension of an institution.

Books, Evangelism, Missional, Movements