JOLLYBLOGGER - a weblog for jolly beggars: Red, Blue, Purple and Unreached People Groups

Ok so I have been shocked again

Jeremy tells the story of spending time in two countries that never heard the gospel - one of them a Muslim land and the other Germany, the land of the Reformation.  The pertinent point in that is that he says the land of the Reformation is a land that has never been reached with the gospel.

Certainly one could argue that Germany has been reached with the gospel, being as it is the land of the Reformation.  But, what Jeremy means is that the people living there today haven't been reached with the gospel.

a quote from JOLLYBLOGGER - a weblog for jolly beggars: Red, Blue, Purple and Unreached People Groups. Can these Americans be serious?

How could this possibly be true for a nation that has produced so many of the worlds greatest theologians have come from Germany during the last 100 years. I am thinking of Jurgen Moltmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland,  Karl Barth and the list could go on and on.

In my first job (with the United Bible Societies) I had the joy of working in an organisation headed by Dr Uli Fick (if you can't guess, he is German). I can remember my first ever international budget meeting where I as the lowliest employee anywhere (I had only started less than 2 months earlier) sat in to provide backup for Elizabeth, my boss, providing the more detailed figures when needed. Uli lead that meeting and his welcome, attitude and behaviour at a very busy time for him have remained with me ever since.

During my time (nearly) 10 years with the Bible Societies I worked with many Germans and spent a lot of time in Stuttgart at the headquarters of the German Bible Society and at that time the Bible Societies European Production fund. I have had many German Christian friends/brothers/sisters during that time.

I find it immensely painful to read of whole countries with devout Christians being written off by other Christians like this.

Comments

[David Wayne]

David - I think that Jeremy and I may have miscommunicated something here. As one of my commenters pointed out, the term "unreached people group" is probably not a good term from a missiological perspective and I thanked him for that correction. If I had it to post over again I would choose a different term - I didn't mean to use the term with the same technical precision that a missiologist would. My apologies to you and anyone I may have offended in doing so.
My point is that there are portions of the USA where the gospel is having negligible, if any effect. Though there are churches in the locale the gospel is nearly in eclipse. I think that is Jeremy's point. The blue counties of America are a far cry from the day when the Christianity was prominent in America. Similarly, the gospel in Germany has been greatly eclipsed since the Reformation.
So, hopefully that brings some clarity to what I intended and what I think Jeremy intended. We were not writing anyone off, just trying to motivate Christians to be more active in witness in these areas.

[DaveW]

Thank-ypu David,

It concerns me that there is a re-definition of orthodoxy for Chritianity going on here. My understanding is that the orthodox (as in traditional, generally accepted beliefs) view is that there is a single point of entry into the Church and that is baptism.

The recent events in the USA seem to be coloured by a different view of Christianity. It is a view where a different definition of Christian is used. The perception I get from what I read and see from outside the USA is that according to this definition to be a Christian a person needs to have a very Fundamentalist view of scripture, vote for George Bush and a whole raft of other narrow views. Given a wider view it could be said to be called "Red Christianity".

I am concerned that this narrow "Red Christianity" is presenting itself as very hard edged and much more interested in condemnation than grace. Therefore in its shift away from orthodox Christianity it is ignoring/belittling/alienating many other Christians as well as opening up a huge gulfs dividing your country as well as the even larger gulf between the USA and other countries.

It cannot be the case that people who disagree on who should be President of the USA are automatically not Christian. For example if you look at the table part way down http://www.electoral-vote.com/nov/nov06.html you will see that according to CNN exit polls 40% of protestants voted for Kerry, nearly as many Roman Catholics voted for Kerry as Bush.

As long as when you say "We were not writing anyone off, just trying to motivate Christians to be more active in witness in these areas" while seeming to imply "We know that Christians in these areas are not active in witness because they did not vote Red" we have a problem.

Can we agree to a definition of a Christian that is not related to who I vote for? Therefore to measure the state of Christianity by the colour of the voting pattern is fundamentally wrong.

[David Wayne]

I think we can agree on that perfectly. I think I made mention, maybe not in the post in question, it might have been another one - that there are plenty of people in blue counties, and who would vote democrat who are Christians and plenty who are in red counties and vote republican who are not.
I agree with your definition of a Christian. What I was trying to get at is that the republican party is crediting self-identified evangelical Christians with propelling them to power and the democrats are agreeing with that - they are blaming self-identified evangelical Christians for Bush's win. By using the adjectival phrase "self-identified" I mean to acknowledge that not everyone who identifies himself or herself thusly is truly a Christian.
So, though I wasn't clear in this in my terminology, a fact which you have helped me with, I was using the terminology that is popular in the contemporary culture, which is not true biblical terminology.
I still think that, if you look at the major blue areas of our country the case can be made that there is less Christian influence there.
Also, check out some of my posts on politics on my blog and I think you will be happy with what you see.