Celtic Evangelism: Gospel Contextualized

This is a paper I wrote for the class I'm taking in Celtic Spirituality. I really like the material a lot so far, and so I just wanted to share a bit of it with you all.

A distinct flavor of Christianity emerged amongst the Celtic peoples in the British Isles as early as the third century (Newell, 1997, p. 8). In large part due to the geographical distance and isolation from Rome, as well as the tribal structure of their social system, the faith of these people managed to flourish apart from the Roman Imperial church. Their freedom from the empire’s way of doing church allowed them to develop practices in very imaginative ways, perhaps most remarkably in the field of evangelism.

The way the Celts did missions is perhaps best exemplified by the methods and person of St. Patrick as he began the evangelization of Ireland. Patrick was an aristocratic Briton and was reared in a heavily Romanized settlement in what is today northeast England (Hunter, 2000, p. 13). As a young man he was kidnapped and sold as a slave to a wealthy druid in Ireland. It was those years as a slave that enabled him to understand the ways of the Irish Celts many years later as the newly appointed missionary bishop to Ireland. From this position Patrick and his companions brought the Gospel message to Ireland using methods similar to those that would later be used by the Irish at an even grander scale to send missionary movements throughout the British Isles and Europe.

One aspect of Patrick’s approach to evangelism is the way in which he and his band of evangelists physically entered and encountered a Celtic tribe. Rather than entering with the expectation of conquering, Patrick approached the Celts humbly, asking permission to establish a community alongside that of the Celtic tribe in question. They would then live among the tribe and take up their language and many of their ways and customs, becoming a part of the community in order that they might be in a better position to love and serve them and communicate the Gospel.

The ways in which Patrick and his companions communicated the Gospel is perhaps the most important lesson of the Celtic Christian missionary movement: they did not seek to civilize the Irish so that they might become more like Romans, nor did they demand that the Irish do church the same way that the imperial church did, rather they knew the Irish people and their culture well enough to imagine the ways in which they might do church, and sought to convert them, not from Celts to Roman Christians, but from Celts to Celtic Christians. This idea might seem simple, but is actually quite profound.

They catered to the Irish peoples’ imaginative spirits and presented the Gospel in ways that probably seemed more natural to them and their vibrant oral tradition. He used the Celts’ love for paradox and rhetorical triads to dazzle them with the doctrine of the Trinity (Hunter, 2000, p. 20), and for their love of nature he showed them the Christian God of Creation. Thus the Gospel was communicated, not as a set of distant abstract truths that must be believed a certain way, but rather it was shown to the Celts in such a way that it likely felt custom tailored to them. Patrick, and later the Irish Celts themselves, seemed to hold that the Gospel is universally true and significant for everyone, but the way it will be understood is very likely to be particular and individual to a person or culture.

The Gospel, for the Celtic evangelists, is for all the nations collectively, but also uniquely for each individual nation or people group. This approach to missions is crucial for modern times as we seek to spread what might be perceived by some as a white western gospel to those who may be neither. The non westerner, who we may see as a barbarian (though we certainly wouldn’t say such a thing out loud), will very likely understand the Gospel in a very different way than we do in the American church. We are to be missionaries, not for the sake of propagating American church and culture, but for the sake of assisting in the realization of an indigenous church and culture. As Christ humbled himself by taking on flesh in order to dwell among us that we might know the Good News, so did Patrick similarly set aside his Roman roots for the sake of the communication of that same news, and we also should follow in their footsteps, forsaking our traditions, interpretations and practices for the sake of the Gospel.

Analogously, the church should interact uniquely with the westerners with whom we come into contact as well. Our task here seems to be largely that of convincing people that this Gospel is relevant to them in particular, even in our postmodern, post-Christian culture. So often it seems the church has come off as simple moral watchdogs that feel it is their responsibility to stop everyone from sinning, but if we claim that Christ is more than merely a really good moral teacher, we should be the same. Once again, like Christ and the Celtic evangelists who followed in his footsteps, we should seek solidarity living among the non-believers, not setting ourselves apart as clean in comparison the “heathen’s” uncleanliness, but rather we should, like the early Irish Christians, pitch our tents so to speak amongst the non Christians and live in solidarity with them.

We as disciples of Christ are called to take the Gospel to the nations – and next door as well – in a manner that does not destroy and smother, but rather in a way that redeems. Christ came into first century Jewish culture with the intent not to destroy but instead to fulfill that culture. The ancient Celts give hope for the church that this is a model of mission that is achievable, and also encouragement to seek to move missionally in that direction. The church in the modern period has much to learn from this group of creative, imaginative ancient believers.

Bibliography

Hunter, George G. III. The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity can Reach the West … Again. Abington Press, Nashville: 2000.

Newell, J. Philip. Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality. Paulist Press, New York: 1997.

Sellner, Edward C. “Celtic Christian Spirituality: Intimations of the Future” from Spiritual Life Fall 1999 [pp 135-145].