The Celtic way of evangelism: How Christianity can reach the West...again

This week I've started reading 2 books on the Celtic church. They are George G. Hunter III's The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West...Again (Abingdon: Nashville, 2000) and Michael Mitton's Restoring the Woven Cord: Strands of Celtic Christianity for the Church Today (Darton, Longman and Todd: London, 1995). Another helpful book that I read in 1996 is John Finney's Recovering the Past: Celtic and Roman Mission (Darton, Longman and Todd: London, 1996).

All these infer that today's Church can learn from the example of the Church that developed among the Celtic people through the work of Saint Patrick and his style of ministry.

I have great respect for Hunter (professor at Asbury Seminary) and Mitton (whom I met at a church weekend in 1996). Hunter's How to Reach Secular People (Nashville: Abingdon, 1992) was a useful source an evangelistic preaching course that I had with Dr. Lon Allison at Wheaton in 1999.

In his preface in The Celtic Way of Evangelism, Hunter writes:

"The Church, in the Western world, faces populations who are increasingly 'secular'--people with no Christian memory, who don't know what we Christians are talking about. These populations are increasingly 'urban'--and out of reach with God's 'natural revelation.' These populations are increasingly 'postmodern'; they have graduated from Enlightenment ideology and are more peer driven, feeling driven, and 'right-brained' than their forebears. These populations are increasingly 'neo-barbarian'; they lack 'refinement' or 'class,' and their lives are often out of control. These populations are increasingly receptive--exploring worldview options from Astrology to Zen--and they are often looking 'in all the wrong places' to make sense of their lives and find their soul's true home." (p. 9)

"In the face of this changing Western culture, many Western Church leaders are in denial; they plan and do church as though next year will be 1957. Furthermore, most of the Western Church leaders who are not in denial do not know how to engage the epidemic numbers of secular, postmodern, neo-barbarians outside (and inside) their churches. Moreover, most of the few who do know what to do are intuitive geniuses who cannot teach others what they know (or charismatic leaders who cannot yet be cloned). The mainline Western Churches, Roman Catholic and Protestant, lack both the precedent and the 'paradigm' for engaging the West's emerging mission fields. There is, however, a model upon which Western Christians can draw as they face this daunting new situation. The ancient movement known as Celtic Christianity can show us some ways forward in the twenty-first century." (pp. 9-10)(bold print mine)

One way that the Celtic Church was effective was through its use of the arts, imagination, and creativity. In a chapter on "creativity in the Celtic church" and its poet/song writer Caedmon (perhaps the Caedmon cited in the name of the music group "Caedmon's Call"), Mitton writes:

"It was not difficult for the Celtic church to accept this kind of creative gifting into their community because in Celtic society the bard was a very significant figure. [There were] six basic social classes in Celtic society...The fifth group is the professional class and in this grouping come the Druids, lawyers, doctors, and most significantly, the bards, poets, storytellers, and minstrels. These were a well-trained body of people who were highly regarded in Celtic society...As the Celtic peoples were converted to Christ it must have been a great delight to them to find a faith that was so filled with creative life, affirming their inherent delight in music, poetry and art...The Celtic church preferred to communicate in ways that made full use of the God-given gift of imagination. Poetry, storytelling, music, and art were all excellent vehicles for teaching profound truths in ways that would not only feed the mind, but would enlighten the spirit and warm the heart. It was therefore not at all surprising to find people like Caedmon having a great influence on the community. He became the community bard overnight, whereas in pre-Christian Celtic society he would have required years of training. Such is the disturbance of charismatic gifting!" (pp. 65-66)