This morning Ray talked about Acts 16:6. Paul comes to a place in his journey where he must choose to go left or right. To the west was a strong Roman government but weak cultures. To the east were strong cultures but weak governments. He chose to go west (as prompted by the Holy Spirit), and we are left to wonder why? Perhaps, if the message of the gospel had gone east at that point it would have been compromised by the strong cultures it would have come it contact with. Would the message have become distorted? Thankfully, today, the Holy Spirit has opened up everything.
On the the middle ages, now. Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Contstantinople, and Rome were the early Christian cities of influence. The imperial religion was set up to look like the imperial government. The church soon became hierarchical, in an almost military sort of way. We can still see ramifications of this today. Why is the church still so hierarchical? Was it even meant to be that way? Back then, the church was just contextualizing to Roman structures. As we all know, it is difficult to change once the chuch becomes fixated on something.
The Eastern churches were so different culturally from Western churches back then that a split between the two was inevitable. The cultures of the middle east were male dominated long before Jesus came. So, it's amazing how much work women did in Jesus' time and in the early church. The Eastern church was male dominated, but Western churches involved women in leadership. This is also why Islam in the East is so male dominated. It goes back centuries. Also, the Eastern church is more mystical than the Western church, and they do not use instruments in worship. Western churches, to this day, are far more freelance and active. Eastern churches tend to be more traditional. The East spoke Greek, and the West spoke Latin, so there were language issues. Basically, Christendom in the East and West split over the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in 787AD.
After lunch we walked the Mission Trail at Bakken with Ray. I have a copy of the lecture he gave on DVD if anyone is interested to see it. He shared with us the twenty influential people from Christianity who make up his spiritual DNA. Then we headed back to the classroom for more lectures.
Evangelicals often operate with functional unitarianism. By that, I mean that they just care about the second member of the Trinity (Jesus). The goal is to just get people saved. However, balance is really critical. We need to keep the Holy Spirit as the centerpiece of the doctrine, otherwise old heresies will keep reappearing (as is happening quite often today). The two other natures of God and the Holy Spirit are together in Christ without confusion, change, separation, or division.
Ray spoke for a while about ministering in the inner city. He talked about the injustices faced by public aid moms. Moses' mom is a hero for all public aid moms. She worked the system in order to take care of her son. Is there any way around looking at it that way? That being the case, Ray still believes strongly that both inner city men and women need to be empowered.
If you are working in the inner city, it is important to find outlets for the intensity of the brokenness that you will experience. Accountability is also vitally important to sustaining one's self in the midst of urban ministry. Lone rangers will be taken out, usually pretty quickly. This is why we see many people leave urban ministry... they go at it alone and they don't know what to do with all of the pain that is around them.
Back to the middle ages, Ray talked about how Hindu India got Islamic bookends. Hinduism was, and still is, heavily based on the caste system. The Muslims took a lot of ground in India away from the Hindus because they moved into India and were willing to work among the lower castes. Hinduism had become a religion of elites, so the poor people in India were readily willing to embrace Islam. As a way of reflecting on this, much of modern day Islam in the West (Europe and America) is growing fast among poorer people where the Christians are unwilling to go. Many mosques in America are located in places where they have a strong foothold, which is often among poor people in inner cities. What can we do about it? Christians need to be willing to go places in America where others won't go. Instead, most Christians are busy arranging more comfortable lives for ourselves and ignoring poor pockets of the inner city. People who are treated badly are candidates for revolution. In America, when whites abandon neighborhoods there are often Muslims there willing to move in.
There were six reform movements that sprung up out of the middle ages. One focused on education as the way to reform society (build more knowledge through universities and seminaries). A second focused on evangelization as the strategy for reform. The third reform movement focused on breaking down structures (if you spread out the manure, it won't stink as bad). The fourth model was the government assistance model of reform (turn the church over to the government because we can't reform ourselves). The fifth model was the anabaptist approach which involved stripping everything away, going back to the beginning to start over (using the first century church as an example). The sixth reform strategy involves emphasizing missions (Europe is sick, so let's go spread the gospel elsewhere in far off places and it will eventually correct what is going on here). Most reform movements in the church today involve one of these six methods. But, which one is most effective? Which one did Luther and Calvin, the two great reformers, focus on to bring about change? The answer is... all of them. Luther and Calvin pulled a little bit from each method. If you want to change the church, you cannot just focus on one unique way. The church is too broad for that.
One thing to also remember is that the reform (big Church) and revivalism (small church) often bring about unintended consequences. If you study over the course of history, where revival happens usually cults also break out as a result. It's not that we should not be involved in growing and reforming as a church, but we must know that change will almost always yield unintended consequences.
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