I've been reading Philip Jenkins' The Lost History of Christianity (which in most respects I recommend), and seeing this video causes me to react in a couple of ways. Yes, missions needs to happen - that is essential. However, reading Jenkins' book causes me to be suspicious that many areas and people groups whom we believe to be without the Gospel actually had it at one point. I'll talk about this after completing Jenkins' book, but for years Christians were arriving in places they thought did not know Jesus (Japan, for instance) only to find that there was already a centuries-old indigenous Christian presence in these places. This should be both a cause for optimism and also greater humility on the part of us western Christians - though such knowledge should not cause us to be lax at all in our enthusiasm to share Jesus with the world.
Friday, August 5, 2011
The Good News for the Whole World
I've been reading Philip Jenkins' The Lost History of Christianity (which in most respects I recommend), and seeing this video causes me to react in a couple of ways. Yes, missions needs to happen - that is essential. However, reading Jenkins' book causes me to be suspicious that many areas and people groups whom we believe to be without the Gospel actually had it at one point. I'll talk about this after completing Jenkins' book, but for years Christians were arriving in places they thought did not know Jesus (Japan, for instance) only to find that there was already a centuries-old indigenous Christian presence in these places. This should be both a cause for optimism and also greater humility on the part of us western Christians - though such knowledge should not cause us to be lax at all in our enthusiasm to share Jesus with the world.
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