Skipping a Stone

Skipping a Stone across Ages and Cultures -
A Time-traveler Visits Christian Communities

The core beliefs that have united Christians for two thousand years certainly built Western civilization, but it is a mistake to think that Christianity belongs to Western culture. Christianity did not originate in the West and has never been confined to it. The core elements of the faith have brought about a tremendous unity in a diversity of cultures, as renowned writer on Christian missions Andrew Walls demonstrates, imagining what a time-traveler would see if he dropped in on five Christian communities living in different cultures over the centuries.

First, the time-traveler visits the founding church in Jerusalem in AD 37. He notes that these new Christians are hard to distinguish from a branch of Judaism. They simply identify the Jewish teaching about the Messiah, the Son of Man, with Jesus of Nazareth. These Christians are mostly drawn from the ranks of tradesmen and laborers. They have large families, and their faith is marked by celebrations and by helping one another to face material challenges.

Next, our time-traveler visits Christians about the time of the Council of Nicea in AD 325. These Christians are no longer Jewish but drawn from all over the Mediterranean world. Many of the leaders now practice celibacy. They are familiar with the ancient Jewish Scriptures but give equal value to writings that have been generated by their own community – the “New Testament”. The subject of their discussions in centers, in the first community's, on the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Culturally, these two Christian communities are already worlds apart.

Our time-traveler then visits Irish monks of the sixth century. They practice such spiritual disciplines as fasting and praying for long hours with their arms outstretched in the form of a cross. They are otherworldly in a way in a way the first two communities were not, but they have the same evangelical zeal; they want those near and far to understand Jesus' significance as the messiah. Some of their members are about to depart for the Scottish coast in tubby leather and wood boats, where they will call the Scottish clans to exchange their nature worship and bloody practices for the joys of heaven.

The time-traveler drops in one of the great English missionary societies of the 1840s. Unlike the Irish monks, these Christians seek a spirituality marked by social activism instead of severe spiritual disciplines. While the monks lived on virtually nothing, these people are almost too well fed. But they fell exactly the same burden to spread the message. They are funding missions to the Far East, Oceania, and Africa. They are also working to improve conditions within their own society brought on by the Industrial Revolution.

Finally, the time-traveler comes to Lagos, Nigeria, in the 1980s. He sees white-robed Christians dancing and chanting their way through the streets. They call themselves Cherubim and Seraphim, and they invite their neighbors to experience the power of God. They are not social activists, like the English. They fast like the Irish monks but more for specific benefits. They talk more about the Holy Spirit and His power to inspire preaching, bring healing, and provide personal guidance.

The time-traveler notes that, culturally, these five Christian groups could hardly be more different. Yet they think of themselves as connected, and indeed, their thinking is remarkably similar. They believe that in Christ the world has been rescued from the power of evil and death; they believe in God' sovereignty over history; they make the same use of the Scriptures and of bread and wine and water.

Surprisingly historical connections among the groups come mind as well – those activist English missionaries first brought the faith to the dancing Nigerians, for example. (Today, in fitting reversal, these Nigerians and other people of the Global South are bringing faith back to the West.) The Jews evangelized the Mediterranean Gentiles, from whom both Ireland and England received the faith. All five groups, despite cultural appearances, are part of the same legacy: the one Lord, one faith, one baptism they profess holds true for all.


From “The Faith:
What Christians believe,
Why they believe it, and why it matters”
by Charles Colson and Harold Fickett
Zondervan Press (2008) pp 23-25