I love rain!

My children biking in the rain! They love it.

Rainy days are here. I love rain and enjoy the smell and the cleanness and freshness it brings. I love it in spite of the inconveniences it causes. I have a feeling that the rain will be less this year here in Mae Sai. Whatever! I love the rain!

The joy of publishing the church bulletin

Now our feet touched the soil of the mission field we are assigned, we immediately looked for a local church. We found one right away; the church warmly welcomed us. We fell in love with the church, it is love at first sight. We didn't know then that Mae Sai is a multi-ethnic town. We thought that every church must be a Thai church. God brought us to a church whose membership composed of people from different ethnic groups mostly from Myanmar. We are enjoying it so far. The local Pastor gave us the privilege to be part of the church leadership and welcome our advice. My wife teaches Sunday School and trains the teachers. She also became the acting Principal when the church started its Primary School three months ago. I became the Pastor's helper as we organized the international community. The international community holds its worship every morning. I regularly preached every Sunday, until we asked some workers to help us in proclaiming the Word of God and three missionaries responded positively. I end up preaching once a month. The international community then started the mission training school last month. We take turn in teaching in the training school and American fellow workers helped us in building the training hall which is now finish. One of the tasks I'm enjoying right now is publishing the church bulletin. No other church here has been able to publish a church bulletin like ours. Of course, there are few of them here.

Apologetic Mission in Asian Context (4)

The Collapse of the Christendom

The church was the center of the community as long as it was supportive to the moral integrity, social security, and spiritual welfare in the Christendom. Once the church ailed to support these factors, it lost its position as the center of the community. The decline of the Papacy and the emergence of nationalism in the late Medieval period was the result of the failure of the church to maintain its responsibility as the protector of its subjects. As the church became the tool of exploitation under the rule of the immoral priest, many seek to break from Rome. Reformation brought these sentiments to action which finally gave rise to the collapse of the Latin Christendom.

Though the church became the imperial tool in a different form in Western countries, individualism and personal perception of religion became widespread. Industrial revolution and urbanization heightened individualism and diversity became common in Christianity. The attempt to reunite the Christians under the Christendom or the imperial church caused a great conflict and fighting between the Roman Catholics, the Lutherans and the Reformed churches. The separatists also suffered a severe persecution under the imperial church. The apologetic mission during the patristic period was to express Christianity as a universal faith. The main task of the Church Fathers was to condemn diversity a'id universalize the church. However, such a model of Apologetic mission was no longer relevant to the European context after the Reformation because any effort to universalize the faith ended with quarrel and division.

The Reformation and post-Reformation world convinced the church to defend its unity in a different way. In such a world it was no longer possible to condemn diversity and demand for uniformity. The religious division in Europe, at that time, could not be settled by forcing the churches to unite undr: a single hierarchy with a single confession. The only way to heal the division was to practice toleration, accept diversity, and co-operate for a common mission. The ecumenical movement that came into being in the early twentieth century can be considered as another guise of apologetic mission. It objective was to defend the unity of the church. However, its concern was unity in service rather than unity in belief.

What! This blog is rated R

Mingle²

I was hoping to get a G but I got R instead and this is because it found the word "missionary" 13x and "hurt" once. If somebody knows the reason behind this, please let me know. :-)

Apologetic Mission in Asian Context (3)

This is a continuation of a paper written bay Augurlion taken from Missio Dei, a journal of missions and evangelism of Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT).

Effect of the Apologetic Mission

The defense of the church against the internal threats such as Gnosticism,Docetism, Marcionism, Montanism and other heretical teachings resulted in the formulation of Creed, the canonization of the Bible, and the emergence of the church's hierarchical order. These things were the causes for Christian unity that surpassed the pagan religions and sects in the Roman Empire. Through the works of the apologists the church became a hierarchical system that ruled with the Creed as its faith and the Scripture as the source for morality, and so it became the imperial tool for unity under the rule of Constantine. For some reasons, the adoption of the Church as the imperial religion cannot be regarded as the gain of Christianity. As the church became the political tool, there came corruption and worldliness in the church. However, the approval of the Emperor and the growing number of converts certified that the Church became influential and beneficial for the well being of the society both institutionally and theologically.

Through out the Medieval ages Christianity, though filled with corruption and worldliness, was central both in the West and in the East for the wellbeing of the society. The church was the saving factor among the destruction and casualty during the barbarian invasion in the West. Even after the collapse of the central power Latin Church became the leading figure in the governance of the society in the West. The monasteries played an important role in education and spiritual training. Priests and bishops were important leaders along with the kings. Evangelical preaching was a major cause of individual conversion into Christianity. However, some conversions were communal and it took place not by personal experience of Christ but by the following after the regional rulers who accepted Christianity as a useful teaching and ruling system. Such a communal conversion took place both in the Western and Eastern Mission fields. The conversion of Clovis (Prankish king) and his subjects, and the conversion of Russians are the examples of the communal conversions.

The use of the church for the political ploy was ridiculous or unpleasant to many (Donatists, non-Chalcedonian churches, Spiritual groups), but from a different perspective it is the success
of the church because through it Christianity became influential and beneficial for the society. In other words, the success of the church was not because it became the imperial church but because its teaching and hierarchical system became beneficial for the society and the social order of that time. All these successes owe to the apologists who, through their defense of Christianity, worked for the development of the Creed, the Bible, and the hierarchical order that built up Christianity as a significant religion or institution for the society.

Apologetic Mission in Asian Context (2)

Apologetic Mission in the Patristic Period

In order to understand the Apologetic mission one must turn to the works of the apologists in the early centuries. The apologists had played a great role for the expansion of Christianity. To defend Christianity from the various attacks they developed the Christian thoughts and arguments that became influential and informative to the non-Christians. The apologetic mission can be understood as the defense of the Christian faith both from the internal and external threats. The internal threats had to do with ideological attacks and the external threats have to do mostly with persecution and moral accusation against Christianity. The most prominent of the apologists were Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus of Lyons Clement of Alexandria and Origen.2 Their defense of the church convinced the pagans and the emperors that Christianity was not a threat to the empire, but a catalyst for the wellbeing of the empire because Christians were not like others but had virtuous lives. Some of them, like Origen, tried to express Christianity in pagan philosophical terms, making Christian thoughts comprehensible to the pagans, and leaving it open for the later theological
development. It is said:

Many of the later debates continued to follow lines of reasoning first articulated by Irenaeus, Justin, Clement, Origen and others. If Origen was correct, that the apostles did not say all that was to be said regarding Christian truth" in order to leave room for later generations to bring their own resources to the task, then the apologists were as much engaged in a missionary task as the original apostles.

The works of the apologists may be exclusive or inclusive, but they were contributing to the growth of the church. By the end of the apostolic age Christians were still the minority who were the objects of persecution. The rapid growth of the Christianity from an unrecognized stage to the stage of imperial religion, however, took place during the patristic period. The work of the apologists, therefore, was an effective mission model for the spread of Christianity.