Europe Matters

By the Blue Danube

2010-05-08T09:14:00.002+01:00

Rivers are no respecters of national borders. The Danube is the second longest river in Europe and makes its way from Bavaria In Germany to the Black sea (Ukraine) passing through or forming the borders of ten countries. Four capital cities are on the Danube: Vienna (Austria), Bratislava (Slovakia), Budapest (Hungary) and Belgrade (Serbia).

This week’s journeyings took me to Budapest and Vienna for meetings with the Hungarian and Austrian Baptist Unions.

Hungarians are probably unique in Europe as they describe themselves as ‘the only nation surrounded by itself’. Having fought on the losing side of the First World War, the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 was imposed upon Hungary by the victorious Allies, reducing the ‘Greater Hungary’ to one third of its former size. This has left substantial Hungarian-speaking communities in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine. Although it all happened 90 years ago, you don’t have to talk to Hungarians for long without picking up the ongoing sense of injustice about the Treaty, and there are even proposals to grant Hungarian citizenship to the Hungarians living outside the borders. A glance at the EU website reveals that from time to time there are tensions arising between these Hungarian communities outside Hungary and their host communities.

It is interesting to see the Hungarian Baptist response to all this. The map in the Union office is of the pre-1920 ‘Greater Hungary’ and there is some sense in which the Hungarian Baptist Union feels an ongoing pastoral responsibility for the Hungarian-speaking churches outside its borders, though they are also all members of their national Baptist Unions. The Hungarian Baptist Union numbers around 10,000 members but there is also a World Hungarian Baptist Alliance which meets every few years and attracts around 6000 delegates from Europe and North America.

A lively conversation over dinner explored the question about what place nationalism has in Christian faith and discipleship, especially for Baptists whose belief in their formal separation from the state and the state church has been part of their DNA from the beginning. Hungarian Baptists seem to want to emphasise both their ultimate loyalty to Christ whilst at the same time embracing something of the nationalism which arises from Hungary’s tragic history and unique position in Europe today. Interesting, and it would be good to reflect further on this.

To cross the border to Austria to the most famous Danube city of Vienna is also to visit a nation which used to be at the centre of a large empire, but does not have the same ongoing issues about it as Hungary. Here the Baptist community is quite small but has grown significantly in recent years under the dynamic leadership of one of our most colourful characters in the EBF, Walter Klimt (and, yes, he is distantly related to the famous painter Gustav Klimt!).

With comparatively few resources the Union is doing some amazing work among young people and refugees and many of its churches in Vienna and elsewhere are ‘houses of prayer for many nations’, despite the (perhaps mistaken) impression sometimes given that the Austrian nation is cautious about foreigners. The Union itself has a significant number of ethnic churches, especially Romanian congregations, and is working well at integrating them.

Questions of nationalism, ethnicity, refugees etc are all about how secure we are in ourselves to be able to reach out the ‘other’ who is different from us. And for those of us who embrace the Christian faith it is sometimes a challenge to ensure that our unity in Christ is not undermined by nationalism. These are important issues in the whole of European Baptist life.

Meanwhile the Danube which flows in through so many nations and several capital cities could perhaps seen as a symbol of the life-giving Power that unites us…..

Cats and Monkeys

2010-05-04T22:00:00.002+01:00

Spending much of the year visiting rich and varied gatherings of the EBF Unions, its is nevertheless always good to ‘come home’ to attend the British Baptist Assembly, held in Plymouth last weekend and attended by around 1500 delegates.

I have been attending such Baptist Assemblies over the past 30 years or so, and as the years go on I appreciate more and more my rootedness sin the British Baptist family which has nurtured me and given me opportunities to serve as a local pastor, Regional Minister, College Tutor and now this wider ministry in Europe.

The Assembly is a very professionally-produced, high-tech event which over the years has experimented with different forms of visual imagery and new directions in worship. This year, for the first tome ever I found myself co-leading the Taize style worship of one of the evening celebrations, drawing on one rich worship tradition among the several which have enriched my own spiritual life. The style and the music were new to the worship band but they were open and wiling to enter in to it fully and so for an evening the Baptist assembly went ‘contemplative’

I will write more in my blog from time to time about the inspiration I have received from the place pictured in my heading – the island of Iona in Scotland where the Irish missionary Columba brought Christianity to Scotland over 1500 years ago and which therefore is one of cradles of European Christianity.

On the picture is the restored mediaeval Iona Abbey. Inside it craved on two opposite pillars are cat and a monkey. The tour guide will explain that these can be seen to represent two approaches to Christian faith - active (monkey) and contemplative (cat). I find these images very helpful and have increasingly felt that the spirituality needed to sustain a Christian life should try to bring these two aspects into some kind of relationship and balance.

Different Christian traditions often lay emphasis more on one than the other. My experience is that Baptists tend to be more active, not to say pragmatic in their approach – we are a tribe of monkeys!. But of course constant activism can lead to a kind of spiritual burnout and some years ago I myself experienced this. On the other hand a contemplative faith which does not lead to action in the world, is also deficient and so easily can lead to a kind of spiritual self-absorption which struggle sot connect with the real world.

So the contemplative worship tradition of the ecumenical Taize community in France which we were trying to introduce to the Baptist assembly is still strange to some Baptists. It is almost as if we are afraid to be still and be completely open to be surprised at the ways God will speak to us.

So it was very interesting for me to receive the feedback on the worship which Ruth Neve and I led. Many found it a welcome change from the ‘default’ style of worship at the Assembly, some were glad that British Baptists have the confidence to express its worship of God in a diversity of ways; and of course there were some who did not find it so helpful.

In my own three visits to the Taize community I have been glad to be a cat for a while! I have experienced a sense of ‘letting go and letting God’, through the beautiful repeated Taize chants and the deep silences. But perhaps it has something to do with personality – I have an artistic temperament which struggles with too many spoken words without other media such as accompanying music, art and silence.

Such experience sof more contemplative worship help me to reconnect with the deep wells of the spiritual life in Christ and to draw from them in all the activity of my present role - when I am probably more often monkey than cat…

In the Land of Noah

2010-04-26T07:38:00.004+01:00

From Georgia I travelled to what Asatur Nahapetyan, the General Secretary of Armenian Baptists, calls ‘The Land of Noah. This despite the fact that Mt Ararat, sacred to the Armenians, is today just beyond Armenia in Turkey. But when the clouds lift its towering snow-covered peak dominates the Armenian capital city, Yerevan.

I arrived on Saturday which was Armenian Genocide Memorial Day when they remember the mass killings of about 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 as they were driven by the Young Turks from what is now Eastern Turkey – something Turkey still does not recognise as ‘genocide’. But many representative of the 5 million or so Armenians who live outside Armenia have come back to gather at the Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, to remember one of the most tragic episodes in their modern history.
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The recent history of the Baptists of Armenia, however, has been very encouraging. Numbering a few hundred at the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union 20 years ago, they are now several thousand with many new churches and a Seminary opened during this period.

Asatur is one of our most creative and visionary leaders, with a great gift for friendship. His enthusiasm and sense of humour are infectious! He has given wise leadership the Baptist Union in this latest period of growth, seeing the importance of theological education for missionary pastors who will plant new churches. (Asatur is on the right, with the pastor of the Central Church)

Yesterday morning I preached at the Central Church in Yerevan where I was last in 2004. It is the oldest Protestant church in Armenia and the one church in Yerevan which kept open during the Soviet period. It is a church which is very much ‘alive’ in its worship and the obvious faith of the congregation. Almost each week, as happened yesterday, there are those who come forward to commit their lives to Christ and become part of this growing movement of God’s Spirit in Armenia.

In the afternoon I met my friend Bishop Hovakim of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the state church which dates back to the 4th Century making Armenia the oldest Christian nation on earth, with some of its buildings nearly the same age. In its theology (‘monophysite’) and some of its practices it is quite unique and in some important ways different from the Orthodox Churches in neighbouring countries. In the past, and still today, relationships with groups like Baptists and Pentecostals which are considered ‘sects’ have not been good.

But Hovakim and I served together for several years on the Church and Society Commission of the Conference of European Churches. I introduced him to Asatur and the two have become friends making an important channel of communication with the Apostolic Church which has meant that Baptists in Armenia are now more accepted by it. Bishop Hovakim invited me to the spiritual centre of the Apostolic Church in Echmiadzin, perhaps bringing one or two of our Baptist theologians to have a theological dialogue. This is another welcome development which would not have been possible just a few years ago

Then it was time to visit one of the new Baptist churches in Yerevan. The Union set out a few years ago on its ‘Y10 Project’ – to plant 10 new congregations in Yerevan by 2010. This they have achieved and I visited the Marantha congregation in a large Soviet-era housing area on the edge of the city. Here I found a congregation mainly of children and young, with the worship being led very enthusiastically by two girls aged about 12. This was another worship service full of life and hope.

I reflect that the Armenian Baptists, very differently from their Georgian neighbours, have also built up their churches in way indigenous to their country. They have been wise about taking from outside influences only that which will help them to do this. I experienced this especially in the music in the churches, much of which is to indigenous Armenian melodies which are quite different from Western worship songs.

Today I go to the Baptist Seminary to speak at the Graduation of Sunday School leaders who have been trained there. I am sure it will be another very encouraging experience among the Baptists in the Land of Noah.

Baptist diversity

2010-04-25T15:50:00.002+01:00

Being in Georgia brought me face to face with the question about Baptist identity and the limits of Baptist diversity which is also a wider issue among European Baptists as a whole.

The Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia has over the past decade engaged in ‘reforms’ which draw on older traditions of Georgian Christianity as well as Anglo-Catholic influences from England, and together these now make Georgian Baptists quite distinctive in the region. These reforms include the adoption of a three-fold ministry of Bishop, Pastor and Deacon with Bishops being ‘consecrated’ in a way reminiscent of more ‘episcopal’ church traditions. In at least some of the churches there is a liturgical worship which draws on Anglican and Orthodox influences, and the development of the use of icons, though the Baptists do not officially give them the same theological meaning as the Orthodox as ‘windows into heaven’. Many Georgian Baptist pastors now wear robes, may use incense in worship and make the sign of the cross. They also have a strong commitment to the ministry of woman as pastors, of course not unusual for those of us from Baptist Unions who have had women pastors for many years, but nevertheless unique among the Baptists of the former Soviet Union. And as I mentioned in an earlier posting the Georgian Baptists now have the world’s first Baptist woman bishop.

The question is whether in adopting these reforms the Georgian Baptists have moved away from being recognisably’ ‘Baptist’. Certainly this is true in the minds of some in their own country and in neighbouring Baptist Unions. But in my conversations with Georgian Baptist leaders they are just as convinced that their core Baptist identity remains intact and that much of the reforms are a cultural ‘clothing’ which certainly makes them look very different from, say, Russian Baptists. It is difficult to judge this, but I have the sense that in some cases the reforms do represent signficant theological shifts for Baptists. However, the Georgian Baptists might well ask what are the limits on creative ‘development’ of Baptist identity in each new generation.

Of course it is easy to make Baptist identity a matter of particular forms rather than seeing beyond them to a set of core values and beliefs. It is just as easy to try to ‘form’ others in our own image as Baptists – something which we are perhaps all guilty of at some time. As I travel around the 45 or so different countries of the EBF, experience the 35 or so language groups and many different cultural traditions, the old question remains of how much our core beliefs can take cultural form in their practice and remain uncompromised. In our celebration of 400 years of Baptist life in Amsterdam last year we took four ‘themes’ of Baptist identity: freedom, mission, community and discipleship - all of which can be expounded and clarified from our Baptist traditions, and can be lived out in different ways in different contemporary cultural contexts.

There are some for whom this will not do – they want clear boundaries and limits on Baptist diversity, but often according to their own way of ‘being’ Baptist. And Baptists have never been very clear in distinguishing the ‘esse’ from the ‘bene esse’ of the church. It is a tension which I often feel is at the very heart of the EBF. Perhaps we all need to hear again the wise words of St Augustine:
       In essentials, unity,
       In non-essentials, liberty.
       In all things, charity.

With the victims of war in Georgia

2010-04-21T20:07:00.003+01:00

I made it to Georgia and have spent a great day in the company of three Bishops of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia, Merab, Ilia and Rusadan (who so far as I know is the only Baptist woman bishop anywhere!). These three make a great team, leading the Georgian Baptists whilst their Archbishop, Malkhaz, is on study leave in Oxford. Georgian Baptist life has its own unique contextual flavour , not always understood by those in the rest of the Baptist world.

It’s six years since I was in Georgia. I notice many improvements – though some of the driving is still playing a case of playing dodgems with the craters in the road…

But the most significant and traumatic event for the Georgians in the last six years was the brief but devastating conflict with Russia nearly two years ago. Some of the most sustained bombardment took place in the town of Gori, north of Tbilisi. Many buildings were damaged or destroyed, people made homeless, and some lost their lives. And in addition Gori received thousands of Georgians fleeing from South Ossetia, their homes and livelihoods destroyed

Today I went with The Bishops to Gori. Much of the structural damage was repaired in a remarkably short time after the conflict ended. But then I saw something of the human cost. We visited a run-down former kindergarten building which was once used to house 250 people who were IDPs (International Displaced Persons) form South Ossetia. The Georgian government, with help from international aid, has built whole new communities of simple prefab houses so gradually the IDPs have been resettled. But there are 50 or so people left in the kindergarten building who have very little indeed. They still weep as they talk of watching their homes being destroyed, of having to hide in the woods and then make the journey south into Georgia.

Bishop Ilia is the pastor of the main Baptist church in Gori. He and his church with help from the EBF, Baptist World Aid and other agencies made a magnificent response. A soup kitchen ran 7 days per week for the first seven months, serving a three-course meal to upwards of 150 people. , And the church collected bedding, furniture, clothing and other supplies of the people in the kindergarten building. Their stories were the heart-rending ones of people who had lost everything, but several spoke of the love expressed in the ongoing words and actions of the local Baptists.

I end the day reflecting once again on the human cost of war. Conflicts like the one between Russian and Georgia over South Ossetia fade from the media. But two years on people are still traumatised, uprooted from what they knew and their livelihoods (many of the south Ossetians owned small farms from which they made their living) and find themselves truly ‘displaced’ in body, mind and spirit. Through now dealing with several such displaced groups the Baptists of Georgia are becoming known as people committed to peace and reconciliation in time of conflict and who offer comfort and practical help in the name of Christ with no ‘strings’ attached. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

(the icon in Gori Baptist Church is of Christ the Prince of Peace)

The Cloud of Unknowing

2010-04-20T12:12:00.005+01:00

Sitting here in my office in Prague with a cloud of volcanic ash hanging over northern and central Europe and uncertainty about whether any air travel is possible to take me from here seemed a great time to begin a blog. The last few days have brought home the way in which all our sophisticated technological command and control of the world is helpless in the face an outburst of nature like this. And I who am used to traveling freely by air around the region of Baptist churches I serve now realize I cannot take this for granted. And my carbon footprint is not that good, either...
I had been meaning to start the blog for some time. Reading those of friends has inspired me. And I want the blog to reflect some of the richness and diversity of Europe, and especially the Baptist communities I visit.. I want to reflect on what I see and experience from the standpoint of my Christian faith. (Though I have to say here and now that 'Europe' is a somewhat elastic concept for Baptists - it also includes the Middle East and Central Asia.)

I want to say that Europe matters, especially to the citizens of my own country of the United Kingdom at the time of a General Election campaign where it seems to be something of a taboo subject for our politicians to discuss. . 'No man is an island, entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent,a part of the main.If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less'.wrote John Donne in the 17th century. We are interdependent on one another much more than we think and that goes for the relation of the UK to Europe with all its challenges. The ability to reach out to the other who is different from us with open hands and an open mind seems to me to be a pre-requisite to being a European today, especially with the presence of people of many other world cultures who are living in our continent.

I belong to the 'baptist' stream of the Radical Reformation of the 16rth century which ditched the connection between church and state, faith and nationalism. So Baptists of all people should be able to put these things in their rightful place and express this connectedness in the Gospel.which crosses borders, cultures and languages..
So I sit under the Cloud, so to speak, which also knows no borders, wondering whether I will catch my scheduled flight this evening from Prague to Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia, and on from there to Armenia, the oldest Christian nation on earth, to visit our Baptist communities in these countries I will keep you posted...