Zionist interlude again

The magazine of ICEJ (International Christian Embassy Jerusalem). Advocating that Christians should not try to convert Jews. Nice. Good work, boys. You read about these sorts of ‘Christian’ organisations in works that survey the range of Christian interactions with Judaism, or which look at the competing theologies of the synagogue and church or in survey of Christian Zionism (such as Stephen Sizer’s useful, if diffuse work, Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon? [IVP, 2004]) but when you actually read this stuff with your own eyes then you really know about it.

Three publications by the ICEJ full of codswallop is enough for me. Great – charitable work aimed at Jewish people across the world and in Israel. Love, service and generosity are not bad things. We might argue that there is greater need elsewhere, such as on the doorstep of those Jewish people in the Arab ghettos, but whatever… However, trying to make a theological and sociological case that Jews don’t need the gospel of Christ is just horrible. Sharing the gospel with Jews is not antisemitism (as the Jewish Chronicle of June 20 reports an inflammatory Rabbi as saying in response to recent Jews for Jesus outreach in London) – not sharing the gospel with someone because they’re Jewish is antisemitism!

Provoking those who observe the church

Theodore Abu Qurra (750-825AD) was an Orthodox bishop of Harran, living under Muslim rule of the Middle East as the Abbasid dynasty approached its cultural zenith under the tutelage of Christian scholars, translators, doctors and administrators. He composed several apologetic works (defending the Christian faith by comparison with Islam and occasionally Judaism). A brave and highly intelligent man. But very much of his time. For example, in his discussion of icons at the close of one of his treatises, he says

If someone says “The ‘outsiders’ may mock us because of the cross of Christ without seeing these icons” let that person know concerning those [‘outsiders’] who enter our churches, that if they do not see these icons in our churches, it would not occur to most of them to react in the way we have mentioned. As for the icons, they are what arouses their desire to mock us.

How sad that it was not the words or the lives of the Christians in those churches that would provoke a response from the ‘outsiders’. I do not intend to deny the effect of icons in provoking discussion, maybe even profitable evangelistic discussion – huge proportions of the Arab Christian controversial literature is taken up with their defence and their pointing to Christ – but where was the concern for everyday gospel living and gospel talking? Why does it not occur to the outsiders to mock the Christians (or take an interest) on account of their radical lifestyles, sacrificial love, and bold proclamation? Sure, the Christians were often ghettoised and suffered under serious discriminatory social constraints, but Theodore is envisaging visitors to the churches so he is not living in a situation of total community or individual ostracism.

Of course the Christians under Islam then and now walk a tightrope as regards their conversations and what they read and write. If anything in their behaviour is construed as trying to convert a Muslim then it provided (and still provides) a pretext for violence. Not always, but the threat is always there, and with local variations in how the law is applied, local tensions, international politics and the greed of people in the street all thrown into the mix, is it any wonder that icons-as-gospel-proclamation was defended so strongly? Not that it did much good, for there were plenty of pogroms, confiscations and vandalism carried out by Muslims on the grounds of iconoclasm. That particular retreat from the gospel, well intentioned though it may have been, turned out tragically to be no refuge .

Text from Mark N. Swanson, ‘The Cross of Christ in Arabic Melkite Apologies’, in Samir Khalil Samir & Jorgen S. Nielsen, eds, Christian Arabic Apologetics During the Abbasid Period (750-1258) (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp.115-145 (p.139)

down the Nursing Home

It's been recently renamed a 'Care Home'. The metal sign on posts says so, at least, but the original brick wall to the car park incorporates a large stone engraved with 'Nursing Home', which would be rather difficult to change, so there is some dissonance. What's the difference? I prefer 'Nursing Home', as I'm quite cynical about institutional "care". But anyway...

Over the last couple of months I've managed to go to visit some of the residents in between our Sunday services. It's amazing how difficult this is - in a general sense it must be difficult because I've so rarely managed to do that. Do I not care? Am I not organised enough? Am I too attached to the comfort of not getting on my bike? I was partly inspired by coming across Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life by John Chapman, a book designed for elderly people, to confront them with the claims of Christ. It's not bad at all, though possibly a bit wordy for the lady who I'm reading it with in the home. Certainly Chapman had in mind the mentally alert elderly, and this home, being more of a last stop sort of place, does not have so many residents who are as alert as they were.

This lady is great, though - I love chatting to her, tiring though it is. Although she's generally confused and doesn't always seem to take in what is said, and returns to the same old themes that don't really make much sense, we get on really well! And she listens and understands what Chapman (filtered through me!) says about the gospel to know that she doesn't believe it for herself, and she's not slow in saying so. So, my heart really goes out to her, but what a ray of hope and privilege to be there in her moments of lucidity and for those moments to be moments of talking about Christ!

What prompted this one today? One, I'm visiting the home again this afternoon: two, I suddenly realised that this blog belongs to an evangelical and it didn't have a category for 'evangelism'.