Harriet Beecher Stowe — July 1

North America, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
Harriet Beecher Stowe by Francis Holl (ca. 1855)

Bible connection

No, that’s not your experience at all. You’ve come to Mount Zion, the city where the living God resides. The invisible Jerusalem is populated by throngs of festive angels and Christian citizens. It is the city where God is Judge, with judgments that make us just. You’ve come to Jesus, who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God. He is the Mediator of this covenant. The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel’s—a homicide that cried out for vengeance—became a proclamation of grace. — Hebrews 12:22-4 (Message)

All about Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

When President Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1863, he is reported to have said, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!”

Uncle Tom’s Cabin may not have caused the Civil War, but it shook both North and South. It declared the profound value of a human soul and pictured emancipation as inevitable. Susan Bradford Eppes wrote, after her state of Florida seceded, “If Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe had died before she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, this would never have happened … Isn’t it strange how much harm a pack of lies can do?”

Harriet was the seventh of 12 children born to Lyman Beecher, the Congregationalist minister, noted revivalist and reformer. When Harriet’s mother lay dying, Lyman repeatedly spoke words to her that the family embraced as their life text, often repeating it to one another:

“… Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, … and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”

The essence of those words energized the unanswerable argument in Uncle Tom’s Cabin: if a slave can come to Mount Sion and to Jesus and to the company of saints in the New Jerusalem, how can you set him up on an auction block and trade him from one white man to another?

In 1832 her father moved the family to the frontier city of Cincinnati, where he became president of Lane Seminary, soon a center for abolitionists. At 25 Harriet married Calvin Ellis Stowe, professor of Biblical literature at Lane.

Harriet was often morbid while growing up as she struggled with issues of faith. But when she was fourteen, she told her father she had given herself to Christ. Later in her marriage to Calvin Stowe, she would plead with him to seek Christ with the same burning devotion with which he sought knowledge. “If you had studied Christ with half the energy that you have studied Luther … then would he be formed in you … ” When he turned to spiritualism, she pleaded with him, the Biblical scholar, that it was unbiblical.

During her child-rearing years, she read to her seven children two hours each evening and, for a time, ran a small school in her home. She described herself as “a little bit of a woman, just as thin and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very much to look at in my best days and very much used-up by now, a mere drudge with few ideas beyond babies and housekeeping.”

But she was not a mere drudge. She found time to write, partially to bolster the meager family income. An early literary success at age 32 (for a collection of short stories) encouraged her, but she still worried about the conflict between writing and mothering. Despite privation and anxiety, due largely to her husband’s poor health, she wrote continually and in 1843 published The Mayflower; or, Sketches of Scenes and Characters Among the Descendants of the Pilgrims. Her husband urged her on, predicting she could mold “the mind of the West for the coming generation.” That she did with the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly at 40.

She had lived for 18 years in Cincinnati, separated only by the Ohio River from a slave-holding community in Kentucky. She gained firsthand knowledge of fugitive slaves and about life in the South from friends and through her contact with the “Underground Railroad” there. The railroad was a secret network started in defiance of the Fugitive Slave Act mandating severe measures for the return of runaway slaves without trial. It helped  escaped slaves reach safety in the North or in Canada. Stowe herself helped some slaves escape. (If you his the link above, you’ll see that it was a victim of website editors scrubbing out DEI from Government sites. Here’s a look at the act from elsewhere).

Even though she had dipped her toes in abolition, Stowe still brooded over how she could further respond. Then, during a church communion service, the scene of the triumphant death of Tom flashed before her. She soon formed the story that preceded Tom’s death.

In 1850 her husband became professor at Bowdoin College and moved his family to Brunswick, Maine. In Brunswick, Stowe wrote the story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin for serial publication in the National Era, an antislavery paper from Washington, D.C., in 1851 and 1852 in 40 installments, each with a cliffhanger ending. Her name became anathema in the South. But elsewhere the book had an unparalleled popularity; it was translated into at least 23 languages. When it appeared in book form, it sold 1,000,000 copies before the Civil War. The dramatic adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin played to capacity audiences. Stowe reinforced her story with The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853), in which she accumulated a large number of documents and testimonies against slavery.

Its publication also inspired a reaction from the South: critical reviews and the publication of some 30 anti-abolitionist Uncle Tom novels within three years.

Illustration from original.

By literary standards, the novel’s situations are contrived, the dialogue unreal, and the slaves romanticized. Still, Stowe communicated the absurdity of slavery through Tom’s triumph over the brutal evil of Simon Legree.

“‘How would ye like to be tied to a tree, and have a slow fire lit up around ye?’ asked Legree. ‘Wouldn’t that be pleasant, eh, Tom?’

“‘Mas’r,’ said Tom, ‘I know ye can do dreadful things, but’—he stretched himself upward and clasped his hands—’but after ye’ve killed the body, there ain’t no more ye can do. And oh! there’s all eternity to come after that!’”

Until her death in July 1896, Stowe averaged nearly a book a year, but Uncle Tom’s Cabin was her legacy. Even one of her harshest critics acknowledged that it was “perhaps the most influential novel ever published, a verbal earthquake, an ink-and-paper tidal wave.”

She thereafter led the life of a woman of letters, writing novels, of which The Minister’s Wooing (1859) is best known, and many studies of social life in both fiction and essay. Stowe published also a small volume of religious poems and toward the end of her career gave some public readings from her writings.

Harriet Beecher Stowe quotes:

  • Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
  • The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
  • Women are the real architects of society.
  • Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.
  • It’s a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.
  • Human nature is above all things lazy.
  • The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.

More

Read Uncle Tom’s Cabin for free.

“The Small House of Uncle Thomas” ballet portion of The King and I in which a young Siamese women confronts the King with his resemblance to Simon of Legree.

What do we do with this?

Stowe came from a skilled and disciplined family, but even then she was still a woman trapped in the day-to-day life of a patriarchal society. Her life suggests that conviction counts, if it is followed up by deeds, no matter the circumstance.

What is God moving you to do? What should you be sticking with until it is done?

Uncle Tom’s Cabin would make an interesting group reading as a family or small group.

Peter and Paul — June 29

Asia, Forerunners (33-1226),
El Greco — 1587-1592. In the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (once appeared on a USSR stamp).

Bible connection


There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection.  Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.  They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. — Hebrews 11:35-40

All about Peter and Paul

The feast of these two great spiritual ancestors is celebrated on the same day, June 29th. Tradition holds that Peter and Paul were martyred in June of the year 67 A.D. (in some traditions, on the very same day), while living and ministering in Rome during the reign of the infamously brutal Emperor Nero.

This day became an important feast on the Christian calendar to solemnize the memory of their martyrdom. It was highlighted in the 4th century when Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. According to tradition, Romulus and Remus were the hero-twin founders of pre-Christian Rome. The rise of Christianity in the 4th century inserted Peter and Paul in their place.

The two great leaders of the first church do not appear to have had a consistently harmonious relationship (not unlike most of us!). On the one hand, there was a confrontation between them at the Syrian city of Antioch over whether a community of both Christian Jews and Christian non-Jews (Gentiles) should all observe Jewish kosher food rules or not. Here is Paul’s report on the dispute:

Until certain people came from James, he [Peter] used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. — Gal. 2:12-13 NRSV

This is strong language! Paul accuses Peter of being two-faced — abiding by Jewish dietary laws when pressed by his fellow Jews but freely ignoring them when in Gentile company.

On the other hand, Peter made mildly negative comments on Paul. They are not as harsh in terms of name-calling, but they criticize Paul’s letters in a sweeping manner:

So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. — 2 Pet. 3:15-16 NRSV

Lamp of Peter and Paul in a boat from the Medici collection belonging to lamp originally given to Valerius Severus, a member of a powerful Roman family, in honor of his conversion to Christianity

How did fourth-century Christians reconcile Peter and Paul to become the hero-twins of Christian Rome?

The two fourth or fifth-century artifacts above show how Peter versus Paul became Peter and Paul. The objects correlate with the efforts of Pope Damasus I, who sought to raise the profile of the Church (and the papacy) in fourth-century Rome.

The first item is a bronze hanging lamp in the shape of a ship under sail. It shows Paul standing in the prow piloting the ship, with Peter seated in the stern at the tiller. Together, they are guiding the church through the sea of life. Who is more important, the one piloting or the one steering?

Early 5th century ivory belt buckle discovered beneath the cathedral of Castellammare di Stabia, a city near Naples, Italy.

The second is an ivory belt buckle. It shows Paul to the viewer’s left and Peter to the right rushing toward one another and into a full embrace. Peace, reconciliation, and apostolic harmony are fully established.

The New Testament does not record the deaths of Peter or Paul, or any of the Apostles except for James the son of Zebedee (Acts 12:2). But their martyrdom is clearly anticipated. From an early date it has been said that both Peter and Paul were killed at Rome at the command of the Emperor Nero, and buried there. As a Roman citizen, Paul would probably have been beheaded with a sword. It is said of Peter that he was crucified head downward, upon his request. Their churches, St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Paul Outside the Walls , in Rome, were built on the respective locations of their martyrdom and burial. In the dome mosaic above, from Paul Outside the Walls, he is at Jesus’ right hand and Peter at His left.

Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430) writes in Sermon 295:

Both apostles share the same feast day, for these two were one; And even though they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, and Paul followed. And so we celebrate this day made holy for us by the apostles’ blood. Let us embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith.

More

Reflections on the day from the Franciscans.

The 80’s movie with Anthony Hopkins as Peter. [Clip with Nero!]

PBS Empires documentary.

About the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia

What do we do with this?

Martyrdom is a spiritual gift which few desire. But the church was founded and continues to stand strong because of people who give their lives of for the cause, regardless of the opposition.

Appreciate the brave people who have safeguarded and delivered the faith to you.

Ponder the opposition that threatens you and how Jesus will strengthen you to stand in the face of evil.

Antonio de Montesinos — June 27

North America, South America, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
Antonio de Montesinos shouts against slavery. Sculpture by Antonio Castellanos (1982), Santo Domingo harbor, Dominican Republic

Bible connection

I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence,

And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast laboured:

But they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord; and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness. — Isaiah 62:6-9 (KJV)

All about Antonio de Montesinos (1475-1540)

The Spaniards who conquered the Caribbean and operated plantations with Native American labor were wanton in their destruction of human life, and perpetrated terrible cruelties to get gold or to exact revenge for the slightest indignities. Most priests were silent to these abuses but a few Dominican friars were outraged.

Antonio de Montesinos was among the outraged. Very little is known about Montesinos’ early life. He joined the Dominican order at the convent of St. Stephen in Salamanca, Spain. While he was there, he may have received an education. He was a member of the first group of Dominican missionaries to go to Hispaniola (now divided into the Dominican Republic and Haiti) in September 1510, under the leadership of of his prior, Pedro de Córdoba.

With the backing of Córdoba and his Dominican community in Santo Domingo, Montesinos was the first European to publicly denounce the enslavement and harsh treatment of the indigenous peoples of the island. He initiated an ongoing struggle to resist and reform the colonizers’ treatment of the people in the “New World.” Montesinos’ outspoken criticism influenced Bartolomé de las Casas to head up a movement for the humane treatment of the native people.

Montesinos is famous for his sermon on December 21, 1511, in which he warned his listeners of their spiritual peril. His listeners demanded a retraction. Instead, the Prior Cordoba responded with the threat of excommunication for all plantation operators who did not free their Indians. Here is part of Montesinos’ sermon:

I have climbed to this pulpit to let you know of your sins, for I am the voice of Christ crying in the desert of this island, and therefore, you must not listen to me indifferently, but with all your heart and all your senses…. This voice tells you that you are in mortal sin; that you not only are in it, but live in it and die in it, and this because of the cruelty and tyranny that you bring to bear on these innocent people.

Pray tell, by what right do you wage your odious wars on people who dwelt in quiet and peace on their own lands? [By what right have you] destroyed countless numbers of them with unparalleled murders and destruction? Why do you oppress and exploit them, without even giving them enough to eat, or caring for them when they become ill as a result of your exploitation? They die, or rather, you kill them, so that you may extract and obtain more and more gold every day….

Are they not human? Have they no souls? Are you not required to love them as you love yourselves? How can you remain in such profound moral lethargy? I assure you, in your present state you can no more be saved than Moors or Turks who do not have and even reject the faith of Jesus Christ!” [Justo González, “Lights in the Darkness.”]

As a result of the friars’ protests at Santo Domingo, King Ferdinand II of Spain initially ordered that Montesinos be shipped back to the homeland along with other Dominicans who supported him. Ferdinand, at first, referred to the preaching of Montesinos as “a novel and groundless attitude” and a “dangerous opinion [that] would do much harm to all the affairs of that land.” After returning to Spain, Montesinos and his supporters were able to persuade the king of their righteous cause and principles.

As a result, the king convened a commission that promulgated the Laws of Burgos, the first code of ordinances to protect the indigenous people. The laws regulated the treatment and conversion of the indigenous people, and also limited the demands of the Spanish colonizers upon them.

Montesinos returned to the Caribbean. In July 1526, under the leadership of Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, Montesinos, two other Dominicans, and 600 colonists established San Miguel de Gualdape, the first European settlement in what would later become the United States. It was founded near Sapelo Sound on the coast of Georgia, but the colony only lasted about four months before it succumbed to disease, starvation, and a hostile Indian population. After the death of Ayllón, the settlement was abandoned. Montesinos was among the 150 survivors who returned to San Domingo. It is presumed Montesinos and the other Dominicans were the first priests to celebrate Mass in the present-day United States.

When Montesinos returned to Hispaniola, he continued to play a prominent role in the region. In 1528, he accompanied Fray Tomás de Berlanga to Spain to see King Charles V on matters of “great importance.” While in Spain, he was appointed protector of the Indians in the Province of Venezuela. Charles V then granted that province to Ambrosio Alfinger and Bartolome Sayller, representatives of the Welser banking family, German creditors of the emperor. Montesinos accompanied the German expedition to Venezuela in 1529.

In 1537 Pope Paul III issued the Papal bull Sublimus Deus which finally declared West Indians to be fully human. It forbade the enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and all other indigenous people who could be discovered later or were previously known. It states the Indians are fully rational human beings who have rights to freedom and property, even if they are heathen.

On June 27, 1540 Antonio de Montesinos was murdered in Venezuela by an officer of the Welser expedition due to his strong opposition to the exploitation of the Indians.

More

An excerpt from Bartolomé de Las Casas’ A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542):

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness. A nice bio with further details.

What do we do with this?

As much as we might despair over the impact colonizers had on the world, we have to admire the courage and ingenuity they demonstrate! Many of the missionaries were true believers hitchhiking on the ships bringing devastation to new lands. Many were tools of the system, of course, but not Montesinos. His statue in Santo Domingo is a monument to the gospel that eventually got him killed. Maybe someone will remember your faith, too.

If you hit some of the links scattered through this history, you will get a quick lesson about and era and place about which you know very little. The study might give you some insight about places you’ve heard about (like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela) which have provided many new citizens of the U.S. in the last 20 years (like a million Dominicans and 500K Venezuelans). If you met some of them, they might end up thinking you cared enough to find out about them. (If we have readers from there, you can verify if that is true).

Alopen — June 21

Asia, Forerunners (33-1226)
The Christian missionary Alopen and the Emperor Taizong, China. The first recoreded Christian missionary to reach China, arriving in 635. Educational card, late 19th or early 20th century.

Bible connection

“I see clearly now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.” — The Apostle Peter tells the Gentile Roman centurion Cornelius in Acts 10: 34-35

“Stele to the Propagation in China of the Luminous Religion of Daqin.” Daqin was what the Chinese called the Roman Empire or Syria in particular.

All about Alopen (c. 635)

Above is The Nestorian Stele on its Tortoise Pedestal (added after it was found), in Beilin Museum, Xi’an, China. The monument is a stone slab erected in 781 AD during the Tang dynasty (618-907) documenting about 150 years of Christian history in China. The writing is in Chinese and Syriac. The stele was buried in 845, probably during religious persecution, and unearthed in the late Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644) around1623.

Emperor Taizong (or Tai-tsung) of Tang first heard about Jesus Christ from a Persian monk, A-lo-pen (his Chinese name — Chinese: 阿罗本 pinyin: Āluóběn), who walked all the way to the capital of China (today’s Xi’an) to bring the gospel to the Chinese. He was probably sent by Patriarch Ishoyahb II of Baghdad, who also sent missionaries to Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and India. Most likely, Alopen had been ordained a bishop because he was able to appoint men to pastor the churches he founded. What little we know about his arrival in China and the history of the work that followed is recorded on the stele.

In 635 Alopen stood before Emperor Taizong and presented him with a New Testament. He is the first missionary we know of who travelled the Silk Road all the way to China.

The stele says:

In the time of the accomplished Emperor Tai-tsung, the illustrious and magnificent founder of the dynasty, among the enlightened and holy men who arrived was the most-virtuous Olopun, from the country of Syria…

Observing the azure clouds, he bore the true sacred books; beholding the direction  of the winds, he braved difficulties and dangers. In the year of our Lord 635 he arrived at Chang-an; the Emperor sent his Prime Minister, Duke Fang Hiuen-ling; who, carrying the official staff to the west border, conducted his guest into the interior; the sacred books were translated in the imperial library, the sovereign investigated the subject in his private apartments; when becoming deeply impressed with the rectitude and truth of the religion, he gave special orders for its dissemination.

In the seventh month of 638 the following imperial proclamation was issued:

Right principles have no invariable name, holy men have no invariable station; instruction is established in accordance with the locality, with the object of benefiting the people at large. The greatly virtuous Olopun, of the kingdom of Syria, has brought his sacred books and images from that distant part, and has presented them at our chief capital. Having examined the principles of this religion, we find them to be purely excellent and natural; investigating its originating source, we find it has taken its rise from the establishment of important truths; its ritual is free from perplexing expressions, its principles will survive when the framework is forgot; it is beneficial to all creatures; it is advantageous to mankind. Let it be published throughout the Empire, and let the proper authority build a Syrian church in the capital in the I-ning May, which shall be governed by twenty-one priests.

The “Nestorian” church

Alopen was of “the Church of the East.” The Syrian church forged a different identity from the Eurocentric church of the Roman Empire. It was called the “Nestorian” Chruch by the Roman Church. So the Christians who went to China were Nestorians — at least by Roman Catholic definition.

Nestorianism was named after the Christian theologian Nestorius (386–450), Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431. Nestorius was rebuked by the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) for his argument about the nature of Jesus as human and divine. His main contention was that Mary should not be called Theotokos (Mother of God), since that undermines the true human nature of Jesus. He argued she should be called Mother of Christ, which he considered more orthodox in that Mary bore a human in whom God dwelled as in a temple. The Councils both affirmed that Jesus, both God and human was born by Mary and his dual natures are inseparable.

They said the natures were inseparable as in “hypostatic union” (from the Greek: ὑπόστασις/hypóstasis, translated “person, subsistence”). This is the technical term in00 Christian theology that won the Christology battle to describe the union of Christ’s humanity and divinity. His nature is one hypostasis, or individual personhood. The views of Nestorius were a fine point of understanding hypostasis, not an assertion of exclusive natures in one person. It was not his intent to elevate the human nature. But the Councils decided otherwise. He said: The Word, which is eternal, and the Flesh, which is not, came together in a hypostatic union, “Jesus Christ.” Jesus is both fully human and fully God, of two ousia (essences) but of one prosopon (person).

Elements of the break-off church did develop theology that resembled the thinking the Councils condemned. A brief definition of Nestorian Christology could be: “Jesus Christ, who is not identical with the Son but personally united with the Son, who lives in him, is one hypostasis and one nature: human.”(Wiki).  Both Nestorianism and Monophysitism (which says the Human nature of Jesus was subsumed by the divine) were condemned as heretical at the Council of Chalcedon.

Nestorius developed his Christological views as an attempt to understand and explain rationally the incarnation of the divine Logos, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, as the man Jesus. He had studied at the School of Antioch where his mentor had been Theodore of Mopsuestia. Theodore and other Antioch theologians had long taught a literalist interpretation of the Bible and stressed the distinctiveness of the human and divine natures of Jesus. Nestorius took his Antiochene leanings with him when he was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople by Byzantine emperor Theodosius II in 428.

Nestorious’ role as Patriarch was taken away and he returned to his monastery. His followers, however, applied his name to an Eastern branch of the Christian family tree. The Church of the East first blossomed in Edessa (now Urfa, Turkey) and in the well-known theological school of Nisibis (today’s Nusaybin, Turkey), where the famous poet Ephrem served as deacon. It continued to thrive in what is now eastern Turkey and Iraq.

The Church of the East is often known as the Nestorian Church, even though its connections with Nestorius are tenuous at best. The name is probably due to the fact that this church refused to recognize the 431 Council of Ephesus where Nestorius was condemned for his views on the two natures of Christ. For the most part, however, the reason for their refusal was probably more cultural rather than theological. It was a way to assert the church’s independence from the Byzantine Empire, being part of the upstart Sasanian Empire. While it’s true that Nestorianism spread to the eastern regions, many scholars agree that defining the Church of the East as Nestorian is unfair.

The official language of the Church of the East was Syriac (a form of Aramaic), one of the first languages in which the Scriptures were translated. By the eighth century, this church had spread over much of Asia and Arabia, becoming the most widespread churches in the world.

More

A reading of the Stele:

Translation of Nestorian Stele [link]

The early Chinese church is further revealed in the Jesus Sutras, discovered in 1900 in the Dunhuang oasis on the Silk Road [link]. The Jingjiao Documents, also known as the Nestorian Documents or the Jesus Sutras, are a collection of Chinese language texts connected with the 7th century mission of Alopen, and the 8th century monk Adam. The manuscripts date from between 635, the year of Alopen’s arrival in China to around 1000, when the cave at Mogao near Dunhuang in which the documents were discovered was sealed. By 2011, four of the manuscripts were known to be in a private collection in Japan, while one was in Paris. Their language and content reflect varying levels of interaction with Chinese culture, including use of Buddhist and Taoist  terminology.

The day Alopen died is unknown. This collection uses official saints days or death days to honor each member of our cloud of witnesses. We’ve placed Alopen’s day on June 21 to reflect the summer of love between China and the missionaries from Syria.

What do we do with this?

This history of the church is commonly unknown in the United States, mainly because the church and the nation see through a Eurocentric lens. The churches of the Sasanian Empire (Persia) rejected that lens in the 400’s. In welcoming their history, we become part of the true, transhistorical, transnational Body of Christ.

Emperor Taizong was remarkably open. Alopen and his companions were amazingly brave and bold. Whoever made the stele was very skilled and eloquent. The historians who have complied the mysteries of the past and the scholars who keep presenting them are honorable. The whole story of this missionary is full of brilliant, faithful people. Let’s celebrate them and appreciate the gifts each of us brings to the present story of Jesus, too.

Vernard Eller — June 18

North America, This century (1937-2025)

Bible connection

Read John 10:14-18

I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

All about Vernard Eller (1927-2007)

Vernard Eller was an Anabaptist scholar, author, and teacher during some of the most trying eras for peacemakers and simplicity practitioners—the latter half of the 20th Century. He was part of the Church of the Brethren (“cousins” to the Brethren in Christ). Most of his work was with the West Coast part of that family. He taught for 34 years at the denomination’s college in La Verne, CA.

His most famous works are The Mad Morality and Christian Anarchy: Jesus’ Primacy Over the Powers. He was known as an effective and practical interpreter of radicals like Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth, and Jacques Ellul. Eller was an open critic of materialism and nationalism in the Church as well as a vocal advocate for simplicity, reducing possessions, radical sharing of wealth, and nonviolent conflict resolution.

In a 1980 issue of Messenger magazine Eller said:

“The primary thrust of my life has been to try to bring into focus four different elements not often seen as even being compatible: a strong Christian commitment; solid thought and scholarship; clear and powerful communication; and true wit and humor.”

From the intro from The Outward Bound: Caravaning as the Style of the Church

“To put the matter simply the problem with today’s congregations is that they are usually far more concerned to ‘be’ somewhere than to ‘get’ somewhere; to establish and consolidate a secure position, rather than to push on toward a goal.” But according to the New Testament, stability and security are precisely not what God intended for the church. Instead, Eller believes, the church should be a do-it-yourself, de-institutionalized, de-professionalized people in a caravan – a community of the outward bound. [video gives excerpts]

Eller’s book, The Simple Life; the Christian Stance Toward Possessions(1973), was counterpoint and companion of Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (1978). [video about it]

More

The MAD Morality: An Expose [link]

A short article “The Lord’s Supper is Not a Sacrament” [link]

House Church Central’s Vernard Eller Collection. 

Wikipedia article for Christian Anarchism [link]

Christianity Today’s obituary [link]

What do we do with this?

Read all of Professor Eller’s books!

Much of what Eller was pioneering for our age we have have summed up in the word “alternativity.” We are not only opposed to the misguided attachments of the church’s past, we are resisting the “mad” morality of the new world order. Resistance is not enough, of course, we want restoration.

It takes some thinking to be a Jesus follower! Take one aspect of this post and write a paragraph about it in your journal. Title it: “The gift Vernard Eller gave me.” Make sure to add how you expect to use the gift.

Ephrem the Syrian — June 10

Asia, Forerunners (33-1226),
Mosaic in Nea Moni of Chios (11th century)

Bible connection

How sweet are your words to my taste,
    sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through your precepts I get understanding;
    therefore I hate every false way.
Your word is a lamp to my feet
    and a light to my path. — Psalm 119:103-105

All about Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-373)

Ephrem (later differentiated by “the Syrian”) was born to poor farmers in Nisibis (now in south-central Turkey). Later hagiographers filled in what was not recorded about his youth. They said his Christian parents raised him for piety, but from childhood he was known for his quick temper and impetuous character. He often had fights, acted thoughtlessly, and doubted God. Once, he was unjustly accused of stealing a sheep and was thrown into prison. He heard a voice in a dream calling him to repent and correct his life. After this, he was acquitted of the charges and set free.

Not much later, the young Ephrem ran off to the mountains to learn from the hermits. Some dispute that he ever actually became a monk. Ascetic Christian discipleship was introduced to his area by a disciple of Anthony (the Great), the Egyptian desert dweller. He became the disciple of James of Nisibis, a noted ascetic, preacher of Christianity and denouncer of Arians. Under his direction Ephrem was trained in monastic virtues. Soon his talents were recognized and he was assigned to preach sermons and teach children. James took Ephrem with him to the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325. Ephrem led the church in Nisbis with James for fourteen years, until the bishop’s death in 338.

Ephrem lived during a time of enormous political and religious upheaval. Traditional beliefs and values were under attack from every side. Society was coming apart at the seams, and the leaders did not seem to care. All that mattered was winning the latest high-profile, public debate.  Ephrem did not mince words: “God’s flock is starving; it has been left to graze on fields of words.” Religion and politics had become hopelessly entangled, and the result was toxic.

The church was torn between two rival factions. On one side, a new breed of Christian philosophers reduced God to a concept—“an idea.” On the other, the rigidly pious spiritualized God — kept him safely in heaven, far from the nastiness of everyday life. As Ephrem saw it, the remedy for both groups was the same—“a return to the simple words of the Apostles.” For him, God was not a monarch ruling from a distant throne; He was a person revealed in his Son. “Jesus is the Bridge,” Ephrem taught, “who leads us back to the source of our life.”

Ephrem was a poet and a teacher who  taught like no one else. Educated people of his day wrote and spoke Greek; they went to school in places like Antioch and Athens. Ephrem wrote exclusively in Syriac and never left his native land. In place of human credentials, he prayed to be filled with the Spirit of God.

People who heard Ephrem speak nick-named him the “Harp of the Holy Spirit.” Today he is best remembered as a composer of hymns, over four hundred are still known. The lyrics of his songs helped to defend the faith against false doctrine, teach about various aspects of Christian belief, and express worship. His glorious “Hymn to the Light” is an example, with its words of hope in the coming kingdom (see below).

Ephrem combined contemplation with a ceaseless study of the various documents soon to become the New Testament, as well as the Tanakh. He described opening the Bible as a homecoming: “The words ran out to meet me. They flung their arms around me, took me by the hand, and led me in.” People began to come to him for counsel. He eventually wrote the first Syriac commentary on the Pentateuch (i.e. “Five Books”) of Moses. His works were read publicly in certain churches after the Holy Scripture, as Saint Jerome tells us.

After the capture of Nisibis by the Sassanid Persians in 363, Ephrem went to a monastery near the city of Edessa (now Urfa in Turkey). There he met many ascetics, some living alone in caves. He became especially close Julian, who was of one mind with him.

Near the end of his life Ephrem went to Egypt to see the work of prayer among the first monks. On his return journey he visited at Caesarea in Cappadocia with Basil (the Great), who wanted to ordain him a priest, but he considered himself unworthy. At the insistence of Basil, he consented only to be ordained as a deacon, in which rank he remained until his death. Later, Basil invited Ephrem to become a bishop, but he feigned madness in order to avoid the assignment.

After his return to his own Edessa wilderness, Ephrem hoped to spend the rest of his life in solitude, but the inhabitants of Edessa were suffering from a devastating famine. He persuaded the wealthy to aid those in need. He raised funds from the church to build a house for the poor and sick. He died serving others; in 373, having caught the plague while ministering to the sick.

Quotes

  • If the Son of God is within you, then His Kingdom is also within you. Thus, the Kingdom of God is within you, a sinner. Enter into yourself, search diligently and without toil you shall find it. Outside of you is death, and the door to it is sin. Enter into yourself, dwell within your heart, for God is there.
  • Our Lord spoke gently to teach his followers the power of gentle words.
  • Jesus is  the Medicine of Life.
  • We wear ourselves out hording power and working for personal advancement. It only adds to our insecurity and makes us unhappy. The Lord taught us in the Gospel that creation has blessings enough for everyone. He said, ‘Look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.” When will we look?
  • The things our Lord wants to teach us are simple, but they’re hard…. This should tell us how well our Lord knew human nature.

More

Harp of the Holy Spirit: The Life of Saint Ephrem the Syrian by Trisagion Films:

Hymn to the Light

The Light of the just and joy of the upright is Christ Jesus our Lord.
Begotten of the Father, He manifested himself to us.
He came to rescue us from darkness and to fill us with the radiance of His light.
Day is dawning upon us; the power of darkness is fading away.

From the true Light there arises for us the light which illumines our darkened eyes.
His glory shines upon the world and enlightens the very depths of the abyss.
Death is annihilated, night has vanished, and the gates of Sheol are broken.
Creatures lying in darkness from ancient times are clothed in light.
The dead arise from the dust and sing because they have a Savior.
He brings salvation and grants us life. He ascends to his Father on high.
He will return in glorious splendor and shed His light on those gazing upon Him.

Our King comes in majestic glory.

Let us light our lamps and go forth to meet Him.
Let us find our joy in Him, for He has found joy in us.
He will indeed rejoice us with His marvelous light.

Let us glorify the majesty of the Son and give thanks to the almighty Father
Who, in an outpouring of love, sent Him to us, to fill us with hope and salvation.
When He manifests Himself, the saints awaiting Him in weariness and sorrow,
will go forth to meet Him with lighted lamps.

The angels and guardians of heaven will rejoice
in the glory of the just and upright people of earth;
Together crowned with victory,
they will sing hymns and psalms.

Stand up then and be ready!
Give thanks to our King and Savior,
Who will come in great glory to gladden us
with His marvelous light in His kingdom.

Put to music in Arabic:

Hymn of Repentance by St Ephrem the Syrian (in Aramaic) [Link]

A Song of Ephrem the Syrian — Church of England Hymnal. Common Worship: Daily Prayer:

1    Behold: Fire and Spirit in the womb that bore you:  ♦
Behold: Fire and Spirit in the river where you were baptized.
2    Fire and Spirit in our baptism:  ♦
In the Bread and the Cup, Fire and Holy Spirit.
3    In your Bread is hidden a Spirit not to be eaten,  ♦
In your Wine dwells a Fire not to be drunk.
4    Spirit in your Bread, Fire in your Wine,  ♦
A wonder set apart, yet received by our lips.
5    How wonderful your footsteps, walking on the waters!  ♦
You subdued the great sea beneath your feet.
6    Yet to a little stream you subjected your head,  ♦
Bending down to be baptized in it.
7    The stream was like John who performed the baptism in it,  ♦
In their smallness each an image of the other.
8    To the stream so little, to the servant so weak,  ♦
The Lord of them both subjected himself.

Ephrem the Syrian, Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh  from the Catholic Library

Ephrem’s Day is celebrated on several dates. We chose to go with the U.S. Episcopalians.

What do we do with this?

Many Eastern Christians (and those of us who have been influenced by their traditions) recite the Prayer of St. Ephrem multiple times each day of Lent. There are three verses, each of which is accompanied by the Sign of the Cross and a prostration, in which the person praying kneels down on both knees and touches his or her head to the floor.

The Prayer of St. Ephrem is a prayer of petition, asking God to curb the desires of our soul that prevent us from humbling ourself before him. During Holy Week especially, as our spiritual enemies try to divide us from one another when we should all be walking together on the Way of the Cross, this prayer is a powerful reminder that true humility is something that we cannot gain on our own. We must ask God to grant it to us as a gift.

This is one of many translations of the Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian:

O Lord and Master of my life, Keep from me the spirit of indifference and discouragement, Lust of power and idle chatter. [Sign of the Cross/prostration]

Instead, grant me the spirit of wholeness of being, Humblemindedness, patience, and love. [Sign of the Cross/prostration]

O Lord and King, Grant me the grace to be aware of my sins and not to judge my brother or sister, For you are blessed always, now and ever, and forever. Amen.” [Sign of the Cross/prostration]

Columba — June 9

Europe, Forerunners (33-1226)

Bible connection

Praise the Lord from the earth,
    you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
    stormy winds that do his bidding,
you mountains and all hills,
    fruit trees and all cedars,
wild animals and all cattle,
    small creatures and flying birds,
kings of the earth and all nations,
    you princes and all rulers on earth,
young men and women,
    old men and children.

Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for his name alone is exalted;
    his splendor is above the earth and the heavens. — Psalm 148:7-13

All about Columba (521-597)

Columba (also Colmcille) still appeals to our imaginations almost fifteen hundred years after his death. He is credited with bringing Christianity to Scotland. He was not only a great leader, he had a big imagination that resulted in an outbreak of Celtic art we still admire. He also had a big voice and might have sang his own version of today’s psalm, since the Celtic church had a deep respect of God’s presence in creation and Columba, no doubt, met the Lord on his many daring sea voyages and missionary journeys.

He was born in Ireland, on December 7, 521 A.D. to Fedhlimidh and Eithne in Donegal (Northern Ireland). He was of “royal blood,” and might have become High King of Ireland had he not devoted his life to the church.

As a young man, Columba joined the monastery at Moville, and was ordained a deacon by the famous and influential Finnian. After studying with a bard called Gemman, Columba was ordained a priest, and then became bishop in Clonfad. Columba entered the monastery of Mobhi Clarainech and trained with the others who became “the twelve apostles of Ireland.” When disease forced the disbanding of that monastery, Columba went north and founded the church of Derry.

Tradition has it that after founding several other monasteries, Columba copied Finnian’s psalter (or was it a precious copy of the Latin Vulgate? — 6th century history was not fastidiously collected). He did this without the permission of Finnian, and thus devalued the book and broke with common decency. When Finnian took the matter to High King Dermott for judgment, Dermott judged in favor of Finnian, stating “to every cow its calf; to every book its copy” (the first copyright law!). Columba refused to hand over the copy, claiming that his converts deserved the scripture. King Dermott forced the issue militarily. Columba’s family and clan defeated Dermott at the battle of Cooldrevny in 561.

Tradition further holds that Molaisi of Devenish, Columba’s spiritual father, ordered Columba to bring the same number of souls to Christ that he had caused to die as penance.

For his theft and the deaths it caused, a penitent Columba exiled himself from Ireland. He settled at the first place where his homeland could no longer be seen across the sea. With twelve companions he started a new life, founding a monastery on the island of Iona in the year 563. They lived as Celtic monks in a community of separate cells. But Columba and his companions combined their contemplative life with extraordinary missionary activity.

Among his many accomplishments, Columba was a splendid sailor. He sailed among the islands of Scotland and traveled deep inland, making converts and founding churches. In Ireland, it is said, he had already founded a hundred churches. In Scotland he is credited with converting the Picts, including a journey to witness to the King during which he thwarted the Loch Ness monster (see more below).

Columba and the Loch Ness monster, found in British Library

Of all the Celtic saints in Scotland, Columba’s life is the best documented, because manuscripts of the Life of Columba, written by Adamnan, one of his early successors as abbot of Iona, have survived.

Columba was a poet as well as a man of action. Some of his poems in both Latin and Gaelic have come down to us, and they reveal him to be very sensitive to the beauty of his surroundings, as well as, in Adamnan’s phrase, “gladdened in his inmost heart by the joy of the Holy Spirit.”

He died on June 9 in the year 597.

More

Rod’s Columba the Creative Sufferer [link]

Dramatic video about Columba on Iona [link]

Columba (and others) and the Book of Kells [Part 1 link] [Part 2 link]

What do we do with this?

Columba might have been king if he had not been serious about Jesus. He might have been a powerful church man in Ireland if he hadn’t put himself on the wrong side of the law and started a war!

Maybe you wish you had never followed Jesus. Maybe you wish you had not done the wrong things you did. Maybe Jesus can use you anyway, starting on whatever little island you find yourself today, despite the desires and enemies that threaten to dominate your life. Consider what would happen if your future were in God’s hands (since it is).

Pentecost — June 8, 2025

Holy Days

Image result for pentecost

Bible connection

All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers. — Acts 1:14

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. — Acts 2:1-4

All about Pentecost

Pentecost Sunday is a commemoration and celebration of the receiving of the Holy Spirit by the early church. It is the birthday of the church.

John the Baptist prophesied that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Matthew 3:11). Jesus confirmed this prophecy with the promise of the Holy Spirit to the disciples in John 14:26.

Jesus showed Himself to his followers after His death on the cross and His resurrection, giving convincing proofs that He was alive. During this period, he told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Father’s gift of the Holy Spirit, from whom they would experience His abiding presence and receive power to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:3-8).

After Jesus’ ascension, the disciples returned to Jerusalem and joined together in prayer in an upper room. During the Jewish festival of Pentecost (Shavuot), just as promised, the sound of a great wind filled the house and tongues of fire came to rest on each of them and all were filled with the Holy Spirit. They experienced ecstasy and were given the power of communication, which they used to begin the ministry for which Jesus had prepared them. After the coming of the Holy Spirit, the disciples burst out of their fear, out of their room to tell the world. This was the beginning of the missional community of Jesus, the church.

More

Teaching from The Bible Project: [link]

Australians explain Pentecost in four minutes with puppets! : [link]

Thomas Oden Instead, makes a strong argument for Pentecost taking place in the home of Mark’s mother, a Jewish woman from Africa, who is mentioned in key passages in the NT. [link]

He Qi reinterprets sacred art within an ancient Chinese art idiom. His work is a blend of Chinese folk art and traditional painting technique with the iconography of the Western Middle Ages and Modern Art.

What do we do with this?

Christian churches celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, realizing that God’s very life, breath and energy live in believers. John 20:19-23 may be the core of the message about our risen Savior supernaturally appearing to the fear-laden disciples. Their fear gave way to joy when the Lord showed them His hands and side. He assured them peace and repeated the command given in Matthew 28:19-20, saying, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Then He breathed on them, and they received the Holy Spirit (John 20:21-23).

The celebration of Pentecost Sunday reminds us of the reality that we all have the unifying Spirit that was poured out upon the first-century church in Acts 2:1-4. It is a reminder that we are co-heirs with Christ, empowered to suffer with Him that we may also be glorified with Him. the day reminds us that the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:7); that we are all baptized by one Spirit into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13); and that the Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead lives inside believers (Romans 8:9-11). This gift of the Holy Spirit that was promised and given to all believers on the first Pentecost is promised for you and your children and for all who are far off whom the Lord our God will call (Acts 2:39).

Receive the gift.  This video suggests a variety of ways you might be touched.

 

Hudson Taylor — June 3

Asia, Europe, The Modern Era (1227-1936)

Bible connection

Don’t you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me, for I would rather die than allow anyone to deprive me of this boast. For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. — 1 Corinthians 9:13-17

All about Hudson Taylor (1832-1905)

In 1853 a small boat left Liverpool with Hudson Taylor on board, a gaunt and wild-eyed 21-year-old missionary. He was headed for a country that was just coming into the European/American Christian consciousness: China. By the time Taylor died a half-century later, China was viewed as the most fertile and challenging mission field of all and thousands volunteered annually to serve there.

Taylor was born to a Methodist couple fascinated by the “Far East” who had prayed for their newborn, “Grant that he may work for you in China.” Years later, a teenage Hudson experienced a spiritual birth during an intense time of prayer in which, as he later put it, life stretched out “before Him with unspeakable awe and unspeakable joy.” He felt called to China. He spent the next years in frantic preparation, learning the rudiments of medicine, studying Mandarin, and immersing himself ever deeper into the Bible and prayer.

His ship arrived in Shanghai, one of five “treaty ports” China had opened to foreigners following its first Opium War with England. Almost immediately Taylor made a radical decision (as least for Protestant missionaries of the day): he decided to dress in Chinese clothes and grow a pigtail (as Chinese men did). His fellow Protestants were either incredulous or critical.

Taylor, for his part, was not happy with most missionaries he saw; he believed they were “worldly” and spent too much time with English businessmen and diplomats who needed their services as translators. Instead, Taylor wanted the Christian faith taken to the interior of China. So within months of arriving, and the native language still a challenge, Taylor, along with Joseph Edkins, set off for the interior, setting sail down the Huangpu River distributing Chinese Bibles and tracts.

When the Chinese Evangelization Society, which had sponsored Taylor, proved incapable of paying its missionaries in 1857, Taylor resigned and became an independent missionary; trusting God to meet his needs. In 1861, he became seriously ill (probably with hepatitis) and was forced to return to England to recover. In England, the restless Taylor continued translating the Bible into Chinese (a work he’d begun in China), studied to become a midwife, and recruited more missionaries. Troubled that people in England seemed to have little interest in China, he wrote China: Its Spiritual Need and Claims. In one passage, he scolded, “Can all the Christians in England sit still with folded arms while these multitudes [in China] are perishing—perishing for lack of knowledge—for lack of that knowledge which England possesses so richly?”

Taylor became convinced that a special organization was needed to evangelize the interior of China. He made plans to recruit 24 missionaries: two for each of the 11 unreached inland provinces and two for Mongolia. It was a visionary plan that would have left veteran recruiters breathless: it would increase the number of China missionaries by 25 percent. He was wracked with doubt about the dangers his plan presented. But at the same time he despaired for the millions of Chinese who were dying without the hope of the gospel. While walking along the beach on day, his gloom lifted:

“There the Lord conquered my unbelief, and I surrendered myself to God for this service. I told him that all responsibility as to the issues and consequences must rest with him; that as his servant it was mine to obey and to follow him.”

His new mission, which he called the China Inland Mission (CIM), had a number of distinctive features, including this: its missionaries would have no guaranteed salaries nor could they appeal for funds; they would simply trust God to supply their needs; furthermore, its missionaries would adopt Chinese dress and then press the gospel into the China interior. Within a year of his breakthrough, Taylor, his wife and four children, and 16 young missionaries sailed from London to join five others already in China working under Taylor’s direction.

Taylor continued to make enormous demands upon himself. He was accused of being a tyrant and people left for other missions. Yet by 1876, with 52 missionaries, CIM constituted one-fifth of the missionary force in China. Because there continued to be so many Chinese to reach, Taylor instituted another radical policy: he sent unmarried women into the interior, a move criticized by many veterans. But Taylor’s boldness knew no bounds. In 1881, he asked God for another 70 missionaries by the close of 1884: he got 76. In late 1886, Taylor prayed for another 100 within a year: by November 1887, he announced 102 candidates had been accepted for service.

His leadership style and high ideals created enormous strains between the London and China councils of the CIM. London thought Taylor autocratic; Taylor said he was only doing what he thought was best for the work, and then demanded more commitment from others:

“China is not to be won for Christ by quiet, ease-loving men and women,” …“The stamp of men and women we need is such as will put Jesus, China, [and] souls first and foremost in everything and at every time—even life itself must be secondary.”

Taylor’s grueling work pace, despite poor health, ended up with a breakdown in 1900. He also lost his wife and four of his eight children by living like the Chinese. Between his work ethic and his absolute trust in God (despite never soliciting funds, his CIM grew and prospered), he inspired thousands to forsake the comforts of the West to bring the Christian message to the vast and unknown interior of China. Though mission work in China was interrupted by the communist takeover in 1949, the CIM continues to this day under the name Overseas Missionary Fellowship (International).

More

Four-minute YouTube bio [link]

Chinese pilgrimage to Barnsley, birthplace of Hudson Taylor [link]

What do we do with this?

What do you think of Taylor’s passion for evangelism? In some ways he was strikingly anticolonial. In some ways he was self-destructively obsessive. What do you do with that? What do you think God thinks of Hudson Taylor?

The Lord’s mission also ended in Jesus’ “untimely” death. Do you think we are called to imitate him in some way?

Are you aware of a people group who need to hear the truth about Jesus? Are you called to do anything about that?

Kizito — June 3

Africa, The Modern Era (1227-1936)

Image result for st. kizito

Bible connection

When they had brought them, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them, saying, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.” But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.” — Acts 4:17-32

All about Kizito (1872-1886)

Kizito* was the youngest of the Ugandan martyrs who suffered death rather than renounce his faith on June 3rd, 1886. The Ugandan Martyrs refer to a group of forty-five Christians – twenty-two Catholics and twenty-three Anglicans – who were tortured and killed over a period stretching from 1885 to 1887 for their faith.  Christians were persecuted by Mwanda,  the Kabaka (ruler) during this period.  Bugandan territory is now incorporated into the Republic of Uganda.

Priests belonging to the Missionaries in Africa, commonly referred to as the White Fathers (due to their white habits), arrived in Uganda in 1879.  Their mission was met with little resistance at first as they shared their faith among the people of Buganda.  That changed when the Kabaka, Mutesa, died and was succeeded by his son, Mwanga.  Mwanga viewed Christianity as a threat to his power.

The Christian views on morality – especially the teaching that pedophilia was a sin – did not endear them to Mwanda, who was a pedophile and routinely solicited sexual favors from his young pages.  His chief page, Joseph Mukasa was a Catholic who did his best to protect his young charges.  He even had the courage and conviction to confront Mwanga and insist he give up his sinful ways.  Mwanga’s response was to have him beheaded.

Joseph Mukasa was succeeded as chief page by Charles Lwanga who also was a Catholic and who also was vigorous in his protection of the young pages.  Mwanga became increasingly enraged as the pages, Kizito among them, continually refused and rebuffed his sexual advances. Mwanga eventually had the pages brought before him and gave them a choice to renounce their Christian faith and live or choose to keep their faith and die.

Many of the pages including Charles Lwanga and Kizito chose their faith.  There were fifteen in the group who were bound and made to walk two days to Namugongo where they would be killed.  One of the Christians, Matthias Kalemba, was martyred enroute.

Upon reaching Namugongo, Charles Lwanga was the first to be burned at the stake.  The following is a moving excerpt taken from the Catholic News agency:

The executioners slowly burnt his feet until only the charred remained.  Still alive, they promised him that they would let him go if he renounced his faith.  He refused saying, “You are burning me, but it is as if you are pouring water over my body.”  He then continued to pray silently as they set him on fire.

The other pages were burned alive together.  As they were being executed, their faith remained strong until the end, as they prayed and sang hymns.

The death of these martyrs had quite the opposite effect the Kabaka intended. Many witnessing the horrific deaths of these amazing young men who gave their young lives so willingly for their faith asked to be baptized.

* The Bugandan kinship structure may be unfamiliar to you if you grew up in the United States.

  • Kizito’s birth father was Lukomera of the Lungfish (Mamba) Clan, and his mother, who bore Lukomera nine children before she deserted him and died, was Wanga-bira of the Civet-cat (Ffumbe) Clan.
  • Nyika (or Nyikomuyonga), Guardian of Kabaka Mwanga’s umbilical cord, is often said to be the father of Kizito, but it was by adoption only. The paternal relationship arose from a blood-pact between Nyika’s father Kiggwe and a member of the Lungfish Clan named Mitalekoya.
  • Kiggwe, a descendent of Kabaka Kateregga and a member of the Leopard (Ngo) Clan, was county chief of Ggomba when he made this alliance. Later he incurred the royal displeasure, was deprived of his office and possessions and became virtually an outlaw, because he was out of favor with the Kabaka. In this time of adversity, the blood-pact stood him in good stead.
  • Because of it, the Lungfish Clan gave him and his family asylum and aid, and Mitalekoya became a second father to his son Nyika, who adopted Kizito into royal circles.

More

Uganda martyrs: Tracing the roots of St. Kizito

Mwanga – the king who killed the Uganda martyrs

What do we do with this?

The church in Uganda remains attentive to sexuality. That seems predictable, since some of its foundation is resistance to sexual predators. Most contexts prove dangerous for Christians, if not everyone. What is prowling around like a lion, as Peter sees it, trying to devour your heart and soul?

The main pressure the King of Buganda felt in the time of Kizito was from colonizers. The French Catholics and English Anglicans were in league with their respective country’s rush to “protect” areas of Africa. Muslim traders were eager to have fortified trading posts and a beachhead for Islam. Evangelism coupled with colonization is one of the stains on Christian history. Like Joseph told his brothers, “You meant it for evil but God used it for good.” Africa is now the continent with the most Christians. Have you experienced or done anything evil that God used for good? Praise God for the goodness, and consider what justice and forgiveness mean to you.