Summer Reading

I have been enjoying my reading: this week I finished “The Shack” by Paul Young and “The Lost History of Christianity” by Philip Jenkins. I have also been regularly reading the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and Pauls’ defense of his ministry (2 Corinthians 2-6) -- such rich and significant portions of the New Testament. I have now completed my memorization of Colossians 3:1-17 and have enjoyed that process of deeply saturating my mind and heart with that great text.

You've probably heard about The Shack, a work of Christian fiction. It tells the story of Mack, a man who experiences a terrible loss in his life and then wrestles to come to terms with God and his faith. The heart of the book (without giving too much away) presents a highly imaginative and creative encounter between Mack and God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Through a series of conversations and experiences, he grapples to make sense of his tragic loss. This book challenged some of my perceptions of God in some healthy ways -- it probably overplays the personal, individualistic aspect of our relationship with God but it also provides a good corrective to perceptions of God as remote and uninvolved with the creation.

A favorite quote (God speaking of his creation to Mack):
Mack: You do great work!
God: Thank you, Mack, and you've seen so little. For now most of what exists in the universe will be seen and enjoyed only by me, like special canvasses in the back of an artist's studio, but one day..."

I like to think I've seen some beautiful places on planet earth. But the above quote reminded me that earth is an absolutely miniscule portion of God's universe -- think of the incredible vistas and places we've never seen that God has prepared!

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Philip Jenkins' historical work The Lost History of Christianity is subtitled "The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia -- and How It Died." It challenges the West-centered view of church history that presumes that the significant and interesting things that have gone on in Christianity originated only in Europe. Jenkins describes how for at least 1000 years (in some places longer), Christianity had thriving churches and Christian centers of education and culture in Africa and Asia. The stereotypical view that the expansion of Islam quickly wiped out Christianity in the Middle East, North Africa and further east does not accord with the facts. Muslims and Christians coexisted in many places for centuries with some occasional outbursts of persecution. In fact, the influence of Eastern forms of Christianity upon Islam would have been quite apparent for hundreds of years, particularly to those familiar with the Syrian Church.

At the heart of Jenkin's thesis is the following: The particular shape of Christianity with which we are familiar is a radical departure from what was for well over a millennium the historical norm: another, earlier global Christianity once existed. For most of its history, Christianity was a tricontinental religion, with powerful religion, with powerful representation in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and this was true into the fourteenth century. Christianity became predominantly European not because this continent had any obvious affinity for that faith, but by default: Europe was the continent where it was not destroyed. Matters could easily have developed very differently.