Mother Teresa Invited to Address Ulster Protestants?

That’s what happened at Corrymeela’s Summerfest.

When Mother Teresa of Calcutta came to Northern Ireland’s Corrymeela community for its summer festival last month, her presence confirmed the community’s international standing as a center for peace and reconciliation in a troubled land. Corrymeela was formed by mostly Protestant students from Queens University in 1964. It has since expanded to embrace people of different denominations in the difficult work of bridge building.

Mother Teresa came to talk to audiences at the Corrymeela “Summerfest” at picturesque Ballycastle, 60 miles north of Belfast on the County Antrum coast overlooking the North Sea channel and Scotland. A collection of Christian workshops and meetings, Summerfest was much like the biennial Kirchentag of the churches in West Germany. The four days of meetings at Corrymeela showed the diverse concerns of the Corrymeela community: from prison reform and denominational schooling throughout the island, to the work of bridge building at home between Protestants and Roman Catholics, to the needs of the Third World.

Some 500 people attended each day and there was an especially big audience for Mother Teresa. Her talk on the Lord’s Prayer greatly impressed listeners. It was not so much what she said as the way in which she said it. She spoke of love and forgiveness and the need for prayer, and for trust in God. She told how she cared for dying people in Calcutta. “I took one man off the street and gave him shelter. He said to me that he had been forced to live like an animal but in our place of shelter he would die like an angel,” she said. Mother Teresa spoke with the authority of someone who has lived out the Lord’s command, “Love your neighbor.”

That command is very much at the heart of the work at Corrymeela. Since its formation it has built many small bridges that have helped sustain some light in the darkness of Northern Ireland. For example, it has provided holidays for Protestant and Roman Catholic families who otherwise would not have met. It has brought together leaders from among the community’s politicians, and even members of paramilitary organizations. In neutral Corrymeela—the Gaelic Irish name for “hill of harmony”—efforts have been made to weaken barriers and to begin to break down old hatreds that divide men and women in Ireland. There have not been quick or spectacular successes; they would be impossible after so many centuries of division and misunderstanding. But small victories have been won that are encouraging for the future.

One of the major problems in Northern Ireland is mixed marriages between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Hence, a new mixed marriages association was formed out of Corrymeela. It was also Corrymeela that helped form the cross group for people who had lost loved ones in the violence. Its principal founder is Maura Kiely, whose son gunmen shot dead on the steps of a Belfast church. For a long time she was in despair and almost lost her faith, but in the end, she felt God calling her to form the new group. She said, “If I could not forgive in my heart, how could I say the Lord’s Prayer?”

Corrymeela has 1,000 active members and “friends” and many more wellwishers and sympathizers. It is independent of the main churches in Ireland, though it has Protestant and Roman Catholic members. The founder is Ray Davey, a Presbyterian minister who was formerly the chaplain at Queens University. During World War II he worked with the armed forces as a noncombatant, was captured, and made a prisoner of war. His experiences in prison camps and working with young people at university helped to form his views on the need for a community based on Christian principles.

Davey said, “Corrymeela has been going for a long time and we have overcome many difficulties while retaining this sense of Christian community. But the honeymoon period is over. We are now getting down to the hurts in society, to the issues that divide people.” This was borne out by the range of topics discussed at Corrymeela and by its ongoing work in Ballycastle and at Belfast, where it has also opened an office near some of the city’s more deprived areas.

Each year Corrymeela attracts many young people from overseas, including America. One of the main Summerfest organizers was Doug Baker, a young American Presbyterian who has been loaned to Corrymeela for a three-year period. Originally from Spokane, Washington, he was for some time Presbyterian minister at Berwyn, near Philadelphia.

Said Baker, “Summerfest has been a gathering of God’s people to celebrate our unity and to consider the implications of following Christ in Ireland and in the world today.” Those implications also affect the churches in America, and Baker believes that Americans could learn from the Irish experience, particularly at Corrymeela. “We have learned here that working together is vitally important. In America many people look on the ecumenical movement as something of a luxury that people do not really need. Here, in the midst of everything, we feel that ecumenism is not just a luxury. In fact, it is a vital necessity in moving forward to carry on the work for Christ.”

Another summer visitor to Corrymeela has been Tom Kane, a stout, young Catholic priest who enjoys the nickname Citizen Kane. An expert in drama and liturgy from Washington, D.C., he found out about Corrymeela from a member at a conference in Sweden and is spending six weeks at Ballycastle. Kane said, “I have learned that in the midst of all the division there is hope. In America, most people believe that in Ireland there is mainly violence; they don’t know of the kind of work that goes on at Corrymeela. There are people working to the future with vision and with Christian hope.”

Derick Wilson, a young Protestant layman who is site director at Corrymeela, summed up the importance and the implications of Mother Teresa’s visit. “She came here as a woman who spoke from the heart, he said. “Her words, like her actions, sprang from an inner calm, but she was saying to us clearly that you as Christians have been thrust into the world to work. We in Ireland have to work out the implications of her words in our own society. As Christians we do not have the right to say, ‘I’m okay with God but I don’t care about my fellow man.’ Christians just cannot do that.”

At Corrymeela they care and work for everybody.

Singapore Congress

Chinese Believers Adopt 10-Year Evangelism Plans

After the 1974 Lausanne Congress where Chinese had met regularly for prayer, Hong Kong pastor Thomas Wang sensed a new dimension. “Could it be,” he asked, “that out of the deep-rooted traditional individualism a chastened, outreaching, and more selfless Chinese church is finally emerging?”

It could indeed. This was confirmed at the first Chinese Congress on World Evangelization (CCOWE) held in Hong Kong in 1976, which, by bringing together for the first time Chinese believers from every continent, wrote a new page in Chinese church history. They acknowledged that as God had blessed their race in multiplying and spreading it all over the world, therein lay a unique opportunity to spread the gospel. They affirmed, moreover, a significant dual responsibility: “to reach the Chinese, and to reach all mankind.”

This summer the second CCOWE took place in Singapore. Its theme: “Life and Ministry—Chinese Churches Confronting the ’80s.” Some 1,200 participants discussed their aims: to promote unity and cooperation among Chinese churches; to tackle contemporary problems; to explore the evangelization of mainland China (a taboo subject at the earlier congress); to study evangelistic strategies; to further cooperation with Western and Third World churches; to encourage the commitment of young Chinese Christians to the ministry; and to envision the ministry of the Chinese Church in the 1980s.

An ambitious 10-year program required each of the 38 territorial districts to produce a precongress outline of its goals for the next decade. Canada West, for example, plans to increase congregations there from 60 to 190, and believers from 3,600 to 25,000. This forward-looking approach was also reflected in an impressively researched 610-page Chinese Churches Handbook given to all participants. Implementation of the 10-year proposals, said general secretary Thomas Wang, would enable the Chinese church “to move forward with one accord, with specific goals, with well-planned ministries, and with steady strides.” Wang was looking so far ahead that at one point he referred to the sixth CCOWE scheduled for the year 2001. Chairman Philip Teng, chairman of the Hong Kong-based Chinese Coordination Center of World Evangelism, sponsor of the once-in-five-years congresses, referred to a departure from Chinese egocentricity to a “new level of spiritual internationalism.”

Even the problems raised at Singapore were in some sense international ones: the casualty rate among first-term missionaries, the exodus of many pastors to North America, and the imbalance when more women than men undertake Bible training courses. Among the Chinese there is also an awakening social concern regarding the implications of banditry on the Jerusalem-Jericho road, and the need to minister to “the totality of man.”

While no official statement came out of the congress, suggestions from the different working groups went to make up a consensus on various topics, mirrored but not officially manufactured in platform analyses. Recommendations thus made included the planting of a new church wherever an existing congregation reached 200; similar action where a Chinese community numbered 1,000; and the allocation of 20 percent of church income to church planting.

At one of the evening meetings, which were open to the public, 200 people went forward to dedicate themselves to full-time Christian service. Many of them will go to work among their own race, only 1.59 percent of which is Christian, and which increased even during the Singapore congress by more than a quarter million.

Working sessions ended with Communion after the Anglican form. The next CCOWE is scheduled for Taiwan in 1986.

J. D. DOUGLAS

World Scene

Maryknollers continue to draw fire in Latin America and at home. Founded in 1911 as the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, the group shifted emphasis in 1966 to rally oppressed people tb fight for their civil and economic rights. Neoconservative Catholic Michael Novak has accused the group of “promoting Christian Marxism—uncritically, naïvely, grandly, and extensively.” The group’s publishing house, Orbis Books, further complicates the Maryknollers’ reputation. Orbis has become a leading outlet for radical social thinking from Third World theologians. Though the majority of Maryknollers may be political moderates, their American notions about politics and human rights sound revolutionary in Latin America. However, Vicar General John Habert said recently, “If we’re not doing this for the sake of the gospel, none of it makes sense.”

Former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing spent two days living, eating, and praying with monks at Mount Athos in Northern Greece in June. No woman or female animal is allowed in the secluded, all-male monastic district, which consists of about 20 monasteries of the Order of Saint Basil of the Eastern Orthodox church.

Irish Protestant leader Ian Paisley escaped unhurt after a single shot was fired at him as he drove through Belfast last month. The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) claimed responsibility, saying the clergyman is a “legitimate target.” The attack came a day after Paisley vowed to raise a “Protestant army to fight the Irish Republican Army.” It also occurred in the wake of a British government plan to create an advisory council for Northern Ireland, to consist of leading Protestants and Catholics. Although leaders of both religious groups immediately rejected the idea, 62 percent of Roman Catholics and 70 percent of Protestants favor the power-sharing concept, according to a poll published by the London Sunday Times.

Two subsidiaries of the Unification Church may soon lose their charitable status in Britain. Ninety members of Parliament have signed a petition, urging removal from the charity register of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity and the Sun Myung Moon Foundation. The church’s leader in Britain, Denis Orme, recently lost a libel action against the Daily Mail, which had accused the sect of brainwashing converts and breaking up families. The Unification Church has a registered annual income in Britain of about $3 million. It currently enjoys exemption from a corporation tax, which, at a rate of 30 percent, adds up to a saving of $900,000 a year.

Spanish Catholic church leaders insist their members refrain from obtaining divorces, though a new law passed by Parliament allows them to do so. A statement issued by the Bishops Conference warned that “those who do so will put themselves in an irregular situation before God and the church.” The new law ends a 40-year ban on divorce dating from the regime of dictator Francisco Franco. When the law takes effect this month, up to 500,000 Spaniards are expected to file for divorce by mutual consent following a period of legal separation.

The largest Roman Catholic publisher in Yugoslavia recently published an Albanian New Testament in contemporary language similar to Good News for Modern Man. Krscanska Sadansjost (Contemporary Christianity) is distributing 10,000 copies of the book in Kosovo, an autonomous province where one million Albanians live (another 2.8 million Albanians live in Albania). The area has recently been the scene of unrest among Albanians lobbying for the formation of Kosovo as a separate socialist republic within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Approximately half the Albanian population of Kosovo is Catholic. The other half is Muslim. The New Testament, which sells at a reasonable $3 per copy, has been well received by the Catholics.

Uganda Army troops killed at least 86 persons, mainly women and children, at the Ombachi Catholic Mission near Arua, in the West Nile province in June. More than 70 others among about 10,000 refugees under Red Cross protection were wounded. The district, former president Amin’s home ground, received favorable treatment during his rule. Since his overthrow, however, the Acholi-dominated army has severely repressed the Nilotic tribes. Much of the hostility is directed at Catholic missions, as the church is closely identified with the opposition Democratic Party. Six missions have been looted since last October. Army sources said they thought the casualties at Ombachi were guerrillas, but eye-witnesses maintain that the soldiers ran amok.

Unknown attackers used explosives and flammable liquid to destroy an Anglican seminary complex in Namibia in June. According to Bishop James Kaulama, the attack occurred in the early hours of the morning. Residents of the compound reported hearing doors being forced open and windows smashed. A night curfew enforced in the area prevented them from investigating the cause of explosions until the following day. Bishop Kaulama said that whoever destroyed Saint Mary’s Mission Diocesan Seminary belonged to antichurch forces in the country. He also said parish members had a forgiving spirit for the culprits.

Two denominations have decided to preach to soldiers on both sides in South Africa. Chaplains of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and the Anglican church will serve the South African army and the fighters of the freedom movements, including the South West African Peoples Organization (SWAPO), and the African National Congress (ANC). Sol Jacobs, director of mission and evangelism for the South African Council of Churches (SACC), was recently arrested on his return from visiting South African refugees in Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe. There are between 60,000 and 100,000 black refugees in those countries. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the South African Defense Force has said that though the army has no objection to SACC’s plans, it cannot guarantee the safety of the chaplains.

The Malagasy Bible Society and the Africa Inland Mission have launched the Faharentana (Village of Sowers) Project on the island of Madagascar. Located 30 miles west of the Malagasy capital, Tananarive, and spanning more than 600 acres, the main concerns of the project are evangelism, and Bible teaching and distribution. A nucleus of 15 Christian families will pioneer the effort, growing rice and fruit, and producing cattle, chicken, and fish. Sixty families are expected to support themselves thus, and Faharentana may become a conference center for groups from all over the island.

Iran’s ruling Shi’ite Muslims have intensified persecution of Baha’is. By May of this year, at least 18 Baha’is had been executed for their faith. Several prominent Baha’i leaders have been arrested and imprisoned, and the government has seized Baha’i holy places, including the house of Bab, considered the holiest Baha’i site. Other properties seized include hospitals, youth centers, national headquarters, and cemeteries. Initially, Iranian courts charged Baha’is with collaborating with the U.S., Israel, or the late shah’s regime. Now, the rulers regard the Baha’i faith, which affirms the equality of men and women, heretical.

A mass conversion of India’s Harijans (Untouchables) to Islam has taken place in southern Tamil Nadu. The Hindu group, Arya Samaj, alleged that coercion and inducements were employed. However, the union minister of state, Yogendra Mackwana, said the Harijans, who previously embraced Christianity or Buddhism, found the oppression and humiliation they frequently faced in the country continued under those religions. Asked why they preferred Islam to Christianity, some converts explained that Christian missonaries took interest in them only until their conversion. The Islamic society, on the other hand, cared for them even after conversion.

Vietnam will receive 250 tons of wheat flour from the Mennonite Central Committee after all. The U. S. Department of Commerce has granted a license allowing the shipment, reversing an earlier decision.

With Poland at Crossroads …

Polish Pastors Meet And Pledge Evangelism Thrust

More than 100 pastors representing all eight denominations of the Polish Ecumenical Council (PEC) met in late June in Warsaw’s Baptist church to discuss new methods of evangelism in the face of unprecedented opportunities for spreading the gospel in Poland.

“I hope the speakers can give us some insights, and share useful methods that will help us see new ways of evangelism,” remarked Christian church pastor Konstantz Jakonink as the conference began. Five days later, assessing the impact of the meeting, Reformed Bishop Zdzislaw Tranda noted, “This conference has given us confidence and hope and instruction.

The conference, cosponsored by the PEC and World Vision International, came at a strategic time in the spiritual, economic, and political history of Poland. Long lines outside markets were a common sight throughout Warsaw, as people waited to redeem ration cards for butter, milk, sugar, and meat. The $25 billion foreign debt amassed by Poland had led to a scarcity of nearly all essential items. Politically, the nation was still tense. Several pastors bypassed the conference, fearing to be caught away from home lest the Russians invaded to squelch Poland’s political reform movement.

Yet a spirit of optimism pervaded the conference. The pastors were exhorted by Indian evangelist Samuel Kamaleson, World Vision president Stanley Mooneyham, former London Bible College principal Gilbert Kirby, PEC president Withold Benedyktowicz, and Bishop Tranda.

Many speakers dwelt on the preconditions—both social and biblical—for revival. Bishop Tranda decried the political and moral decline in Poland and called on the pastors to identify themselves with the country’s sins. “We must all ask forgiveness,” he declared.

Mooneyham told the crowd that “a redeemed, reconciled, reconciling community is the milieu in which evangelism takes place.” It was a challenging remark, considering the wide divergence of theological positions that are held by the various PEC members. Their positions have sometimes fragmented the ecumenical thrust of evangelism in Poland.

(PEC represents the Orthodox Church, the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession [Lutheran], the Polish diocese of the Polish National Catholic church, the Old Catholic Mariavite church, the Reformed Evangelical church, the Polish Baptist Union, the Polish Methodist church, and the United Evangelical church [which, among others, includes Pentecostals, Brethren, and Disciples of Christ]. Protestants comprise less than 1 percent of Poland’s 35 million people. The Roman Catholic church claims about 97 percent of the Polish population.)

Practical advice abounded and led to a variety of new ministry proposals. One pastor said he had received encouragement to begin an outreach to orphans. A women’s group representative spoke of expanding a small ministry to members of the health profession. A pastor’s wife said she would begin a ministry to mothers with young children. And Bishop Tranda spoke of translating more evangelistic education material into Polish.

Bible Society president Barbara Narzynska reminded the pastors that requests for Bibles this year by the Polish people is a good indication that the field is ripe for harvest. Last year, the society distributed about 200,000 entire Bibles, New Testaments, and Gospels. In the first five months of 1981, more than 200,000 were sold. “We could distribute a million more,” Narzynska said. She noted that the government places no restrictions on the distribution of Bibles, and all society material is printed at a government printing house. “All they ask is that we supply the paper and ink,” she said.

A renewed interest in the Bible began with Billy Graham’s visit to Poland in 1978, said Narzynska, and accelerated during last summer’s wave of strikes and economic woes. “The Bible is a source of comfort for people in troubled times,” she remarked.

Pastor Jakonink, however, who lives in Bielsk-Podlaski, near the Soviet border, called the election of Pope John Paul II a hindrance to evangelism in Poland. “Too many nominal believers, especially Catholics, think that because there is a Polish Pope, they can be proud and satisfied. With the exception of the Catholic charismatics and the ‘Oasis’ group, I don’t see a great thrust toward reading God’s Word. This makes it difficult to evangelize when people think they are already spiritually sound because they have a Polish Pope.”

But Jakonink said he was encouraged by the conference: “We are expecting and believing that God will use us for a greater work in Poland.”

KENNY WATERS

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