Editorials

A VITAL FIGURE FROM THE PRESBYTERIAN STORY
 
The main purpose of the Profile contained in each issue of Touchstone is to hold up the life of someone from our tradition who has made a distinct contribution to the Church and/or to society. A few times we have gone outside the specific heritage of our denomination, as will be seen in the Profiles done on such people as Mechthild of Magdeburg, Martin Luther, Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, and C.S. Lewis. For the most part, however, we have marked the lives of those that belonged to the United Church, or to one of the streams that formed the United Church. In that light it was natural for us to have profiles on Canadian Presbyterians whose work pre-dated Church union, and we have done several, two of them written for Touchstone by Presbyterians.

In this issue we take a significant step: we are carrying a Profile on a man whose ministry began in the Presbyterian Church before 1925, but who remained a Presbyterian after union, Walter W. Bryden. In coming to teach at Knox College in 1925, and later becoming Principal, Bryden provided vital intellectual leadership in the Presbyterian Church until his death in 1952.

Bryden has, however, been virtually unknown in the United Church. There are probably several reasons for this. For one thing, when his books were appearing, the horizon was filled by theological luminaries like Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, the Niebuhr brothers, and P.T. Forsyth. Bryden's concerns were very similar to theirs, but since he wasn't of their stature it isn't surprising he would be sufficiently eclipsed by them that we would miss him. But that may be only part of the reason. Another is the emotional climate in that period; Presbyterians and United Church people tended to look over one another's head.

The time has come for us to acknowledge that the Presbyterian Church had in Walter Bryden a fine mind and a great spirit. Readers of Gordon Harland's piece will see that Bryden's insights into the issues facing the Canadian Christian community could have been of immense help to us in the United Church had we been listening. But they are relevant still in the present moment, and it is therefore a joy for us at Touchstone to lift up this vital figure from the Presbyterian story.

- A.M.W. 

At the time of writing I have just returned from the annual meetino of our Conference. One of the matters before us was the
issue of gambling. This is a perennial question, and generally we deal with it as a people of one mind. We are opposed to gambling; it is a blot on our society; it furthers the oppression of the poor; it distracts our elected leaders from their appointed tasks; it is a bad thing. So we debated what we would say this year about this pernicious evil in our midst.

Ought we to call on the government to cease its involvement in legalized gambling? Of course. Ought we to deplore the money
diverted from social programs that goes to support gambling establishments? Of course. Ought we to make a firm statement against government reliance on gambling revenues? Of course.

And who are we? Are we the people charged with the task of being a watchdog on our society? Yes. Are we the people who
have always stood in opposition to gambling? Yes. Are we the people who have separated ourselves, one and all, from the practice of gambling? Well, not exactly.

You see, the trouble with our position is that we have created in our minds a clear distinction between what we say and what
we actually do. We find ourselves able to say many ringing things against gambling, though we are able to do this because our focus has changed. There was a time when we deplored any form of gambling at all, and we held ourselves aloof from any event that involved gambling. We didn't play Bingo. We didn't raffle quilts. We didn't offer a draw, or buy tickets on one.

But now, we are able to live in both camps at once. When we gather as the Wider Church, we speak against the tendency of
the government to rely on gambling for its revenues. (And God knows someone ought to speak against that.) But as we have shifted our focus toward legalized gambling, we have been able to cry "shame" to the government, while at the same timer maintaining our own complicity at the community level.

Five hundred people shared in the debate about legalized gambling. The resolution against it passed. But if people had been
honest about what their own life involves, we could likely have shown that half of those five hundred had purchased a draw or
lottery ticket in the past year. Probably a quarter of them are involved in Bingo in their communities. When children conic to the door with their tickets to support their school trip, who among us can resist?

I am convinced we can make a witness in our society to what we believe. We can refuse to be part of Bingo, and instead give
our time and our money to other ways to raise funds for the community. When children conic to our door, we can take their names, go to the school to make a donation in lieu of buying a ticket. We can tell the school the names of the children in whose name our donation is being made, and tell the school that we are there because we do not participate in gambling. We can say it is because our Church forbids it.

People in our society are not accustomed to the United Church being against anything, so I realize we will have to do some
explaining.

L.P.M.

Non-Christian religion is no longer something we primarily read about; it is often the religion being practised by the people next door. As followers of a Lord who had much to say about the proper treatment of the -neighbour", we have an obligation to view the issue of other religions, at least in part, as an issue of right relations between neighbours.

David Lochhead asks pertinent questions: "Does the Gospel require a prior valuation of the tradition with which we enter into dialogue? Must we 'know' the place of another tradition in God's scheme of things before we can faithfully risk a conversation with that tradition? Must our relationship with other religious traditions be determined a priori?"1 Clearly Lochhead believes that the answer to each of those questions is "no". I echo that "no", and do so without any illusions concerning the seriousness of the problems that are thereby raised. On the one hand, we will not want to enter into dialogue with other religions on the basis of idle curiosity; on the other, we need parameters to guide the encounter.

Where are such parameters to be found? Not, I suggest, by reaching for a framework external to the Gospel itself. That may sound like a truism, but when we look at the debates now proceeding on this issue we see that it is nothing of the sort. American theologian Gordon Kaufman, to cite but one example, claims that traditional Christian faith does not possess the resources to enable us to engage non-Christians in meaningful dialogue. He therefore proposes that we step back from our faith tradition, to embrace "modem historical consciousness, and the kind of reflection it engenders".2

Kaufman's approach betrays his own allegiances as a liberal academic. In effect he is telling Christians that in order to engage the reality of religious diversity they must themselves become like liberal academics. He seems unaware of the crisis of legitimacy facing religious liberalism, a crisis to be found both in the academy and in those denominations - like our own United Church of Canada - that have embraced it most fully. The Jewish scholar Jon Levenson says that kind of liberalism doesn't provide a context for dialogue with anyone who will not accept its presuppositions. It requires people to be "bom again" as liberals, or stay out of the conversation altogether .3 1 suggest that Kaufman's approach may lead to a conversation between individuals from a variety of faith backgrounds whosefirst allegiance is to religious liberalism, but will not produce a genuine dialogue among people who are committed to their own faith traditions.

Rooted in Our Own Tradition

Lesslie Newbigin challenges Kaufman's approach from another angle. He says the very capacity to come to knowledge of our world is developed within specific human communities, with their specific languages and traditional symbols and concepts. There is no other kind of knowing. When Kaufman tells us that we must distance ourselves from our own tradition, "taking a step back from unconditional commitment to it," he would be asking us to step off the edge of the world, unless it were obvious that he is in fact asking us to accept another tradition. All knowing, all reasoning, and all ways of conceptualizing the world about us are the products of specific human communities. The idea that there might be a standpoint, a kind of rationality, which is exempt from this particularity and could "de-absolutize" them all, is an illusion....4

When -Christians fail in inter-faith dialogue, I think the reason is more likely to be found in the fact that they are not properly rooted in their own faith tradition than in the fact that they are too stubbornly committed to it. The Gospel contains ample resources for Christians who wish to engage people from other faith communities. As I see it, the task of finding a Christian paradigm to guide and govern inter-faith encounter involves the identification and explication of the relevant elements within Scripture and the Christian tradition, and in this article I propose to name and explore one such element. What I have in mind is the Ninth Commandment, which reads: "You will not bear false witness against your neighbour". I believe God is calling the Church to recognize the Ninth Commandment as a theological axiom.

The influence of Karl Barth in the genesis of this proposal ought to be acknowledged. On March 10, 1933, a few days after the Reichstag fire in Berlin, Barth gave a lecture in Copenhagen entitled "The First Commandment as a Theological Axiom". In response to the idolatrous claims of Hitler and his supporters within the German churches, Barth reminded his audience of the First Commandment: "You shall have no other gods before me".

I suggest that the First Commandment must continue to function for Christians as the supreme theological axiom. What is being proposed here is not the replacement of that first axiom, but the recognition of the need today for an additional one to accompany the other: the Ninth Commandment.

The importance that the Old Testament attached to the Ninth Commandment is reflected in Jesus' own teaching, for He cites it as a key dimension of love of neighbour.5 Martin Luther in his Small Catechism defines the Ninth Commandment in this way:

We should fear and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, nor defame our neighbours, but defend them, speak well of them, and put the best construction on everything.

In much the same way, Calvin insists that the Ninth Commandment obligates the Christian to serve

both the good repute and the advantage of our neighbours.... If a good name is more precious than all riches [Proverbs 22: 1 ], we harm people more by despoiling them of the integrity of their name than by taking away their possessions.6

What Luther and Calvin might have had difficulty in acknowledging is the Commandment's reach beyond the borders of the Christian community. We must now say that it is irrelevant whether the victim of false witness is a fellow Christian, a Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or Jew.

Czech theologian Jan Lochman, in his stunning expositions of the Ten Commandments, insists that---In the 'trial situations' of our human life, the Ninth Commandment takes our neighbour's part, is on the side of the person who is our 'trial partner' at any given moment." Quoting J.J. Stanim, Lochman makes the further point that "what is at stake in the Ninth Commandment is human dignity, which is far more closely protected by the explicit prohibition of false witness than it would have been by a general proscription of lying.` Indeed, 1 am convinced that God, in our time, is calling the Church to see in the Ninth Commandment not simply a rule for life generally, but a rule specifically for theology -a theological axiom for the Church. 1 would like, therefore, to draw attention to four implications of taking the Ninth Commandment as such a theological axiom.

Exercising Care

1. It would require us to personalize the question of non-Christian religions. With the issue of religious diversity, as with so many other important issues, it is easy to get stuck at the level of abstraction. As a committed Christian 1 may be tempted to play fast and loose with the truth about an abstraction known as Buddhism, but God help me if 1 do that with the reality of neighbours who happen to be Buddhist. Ideas still matter - indeed they matter all the more since they can no longer be separated from the people who hold them. The Christians who have written off the religion of their neighbours had best exercise care lest they be discovered to have written off their neighbours, to whom truthful witness is unconditionally owed.

2. The second implication of using the Ninth Commandment as a theological axiom is the one already alluded to, that Christians can no longer afford to misrepresent the religious beliefs and practices of the neighbour. For too long "comparative religion" discussions in our churches consisted in comparing ourselves and our traditions at their best with our neighbours and their traditions at their worst. The unfairness, indeed the basic indecency, of that approach was nowhere more evident than in the sorry story of Christian-Jewish relations over the larger part of 2000 years. It's a story in which repeated violations of the Ninth Commandment created a climate in which all of the other commandments that ought to have protected our neighbours' interests were systematically violated. And in its own way, it still goes on in seemingly innocent sen-nons that deal with conflict between Jesus and his fellow Jews, where the latter are by the preacher automatically written off as hard, proud, legalistic people who deserve no careful sifting of the evidence of what they care about and why. In 1995, when we find ourselves in the midst not only of Jewish, but also Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic neighbours, we must strive to do better.

The tenth chapter of the book of Acts provides a useful model of the sort of distinctions that will need to be made. That chapter relates the story of Peter, who is sent to the house of a Gentile named Cornelius. At this juncture the Church consists almost exclusively of Jewish Christians. Peter must, therefore, overcome a great deal of internal resistance when he meets with this group of God-fearing Gentiles. His reaction is worth observing: "Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him." And notice that Peter does not indulge in word games or theological one-up-manship. He doesn't tell Cornelius that his righteousness is not acceptable to God because he is not a Jew. Nor does he tell Cornelius that his righteousness will become acceptable to God only after his baptism. On the contrary, Peter feels no compunction to depreciate the righteousness that he sees in Cornelius and his household even prior to Cornelius' acceptance of Jesus Christ.

Christians in this day and age need to strive for the same kind of truthfulness in their encounters with non-Christians. We dare not build an apologetic for Christian faith on a foundation of untruths and half truths about non-Christians and their beliefs. It seems necessary to add, however, that we must distinguish between false witness and the kind of robust dialogue with non-Christians that goes beyond the level of empty chit-chat and polite vacuities.

Let me illustrate what I mean. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is a tremendous stumbling block to many people (not least of all for many Christians!). It's a doctrine that faithful Muslims and Jews find especially troubling, if not downright offensive. Nevertheless, if a Muslim or a Jew were to claim that Christians worship three different gods, they would be bearing false witness. We do not worship three gods, but one triune God; to assert otherwise is to spread a falsehood. Having said that, however, Jews and Muslims are entitled - indeed, by the logic of their own faith, required - to ask some pretty pointed questions about this doctrine. Asking such questions does not constitute false witness. Authentic dialogue in fact requires the asking and answering of precisely such questions, since only a mutual exchange of this sort can yield a conversation in which both parties achieve a deeper understanding of the other's faith, and most likely a deeper understanding of their own.

Community of Witnesses

3. The third implication that would follow from the Church regarding the Ninth Commandment as a theological axiom is the one that is most likely to take readers by surprise. Dialogue with our neighbours, if true to the Gospel and to the Ninth Commandment, will be evangelical in nature. Consider the special role that people known as witnesses play throughout the New Testament, and how often there is reference to people bearing witness. Indeed, both the Hebrew and the Greek languages provide us with some illumination on this matter. In the Hebrew Scriptures, especially in the Torah, the Hebrew term that refers to the worshipping community comes from the same root as the word for witness. To be a member of the worshipping congregation was to be a member of a community of witnesses. In Greek, the word for witness is a term that has been carried directly over into the English language: martyr. It is a poignant reminder of the special honour the Church has accorded those whose truthful witness was paid for with their lives.

In the Old Testament the vocation of witness receives particular attention in the forty-third chapter of Isaiah. That chapter features a courtroom drama, in which Israel's God summons all the nations to testify against Him. Having summoned the other nations, the Lord then turns to Israel and says,

You are my witnesses... and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. 1, 1 am the LORD, and besides me there is no saviour. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses (Is. 43:10-12).

That theme is no less prominent in the New Testament, though it is played in a new key. Pride of place must go to the book of Acts where Christians are given an unequivocal mandate to serve as witnesses. Throughout the book, the apostles refer to themselves as witnesses to the things concerning Jesus. Indeed, at the very start of Acts, the risen Christ commissions them with these words: -You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). To be a Christian is to be a witness; and not a witness to a string of high-minded platitudes concerning the good life and how it might best be lived. To be a witness in the New Testament sense is to be witness to the risen life of Jesus Christ. Christians who want to follow the Ninth Commandment as a theological axiom will be careful not to withhold this form of witness from their non-Christian neighbours.

Here again, the example of Acts 10 is instructive. Peter, as was already noted, is scrupulously fair in the witness that he bears concerning Cornelius and his household; he is no less scrupulous in witnessing to the message about Jesus. In the end, he offers Cornelius baptism and the gift of faith in Jesus Christ. And while it is true that Cornelius, in this story, enthusiastically accepts Peter's offer, the more critical thing to observe is that Peter makes his offer without knowing in advance how Cornelius will respond. Christians who have the opportunity to engage their neighbours on matters of faith are enjoined to follow Peter's example, even in those situations where a positive response to the Gospel is exceedingly unlikely. Of course, this is a delicate area, one in which great care must be taken, tremendous sensitivity shown, and considerable imagination brought to bear. What remains true, however, is this: when the Church withholds the good news about Jesus Christ from its neighbours, simply because those neighbours happen to come from a non-Christian background, it is guilty both of reverse paternalism and of violating the Ninth Commandment. Christians in this regard ought to ponder these words from Leviticus: "When any of you sin in that you have heard a public adjuration to testify and - though able to testify as one who has seen or learned of the matter - does not speak up, you are subject to punishment" (Leviticus 5: 1).

Two activities that are usually assumed to be antithetical - interfaith dialogue and evangelism - I am putting together. That they ought not to be regarded as mutually exclusive is a point Pope John-Paul 11 has articulated with particular clarity.

Inter-religious dialogue is a part of the church's evangelizing mission. Understood as a method and means of mutual knowledge and enrichment, dialogue is not in opposition to the mission to the nations; indeed it has special links with that mission and is one of its expressions.8

Interfaith dialogue and evangelism, then, must be seen as complementary responses to a common mandate, a mandate that derives partly from the Church's obligation to be governed by a theological axiom known as the Ninth Commandment.

Truth Counts

4. The fourth and final implication of that axiom can rightly be regarded as the backdrop or sub-text to all the others. Dialogue with our neighbour will never lose sight of one paramount thing: truth counts. It makes no difference that the truth is bigger than we are. It makes no difference that the truth, especially the big truths about our world, are extraordinarily hard to nail down. Of course truth is infinite, and of course human beings are finite. But that does not alter our responsibility to seek truth passionately and to live and proclaim truth with diligence and care. The Ninth Commandment, far from being a substitute for the First Commandment, is a corollary of it. If we care about the big truth, if we care for the First Commandment truth about God, we have no choice but also to care for the other, smaller truths - the Ninth Commandment truths about our neighbours. For there is no earthly task with more dignity attached to it than the task of bearing truthful witness.

The warning is here directed, on the one hand, against those who would distort either the truth about their neighbours or the truth about the Gospel, as a way of improving the Church's market share in a religiously diverse world. To repeat what 1 said earlier, the grand truth of the Gospel cannot be established on a foundation of untruths concerning non-Christian brothers and sisters. And the litmus test of truthfulness of those who face that temptation may well be a willingness not merely to learn about people of other faiths, but to learn from people of other faiths. As two of Christianity's most articulate contemporary apologists remind us: Christians are commanded to seek

truth wherever it may be. All truth is God's truth. We do not know where truth is until we look. So we should look everywhere, if we value truth, like a parent in search of precious children. 9

On the other hand, a no less severe warning is directed against those who would downplay the importance of truth. That includes anyone who would downplay the importance of sifting through the particular claims that distinguish one religion from another, as well as anyone who would shy away from the task of weighing the truth claims of one religion against another. Bear in mind that it was Pontius Pilate who shrugged off the question of truth (John 18:38). And while there may well be nothing colder than truth without love, life teaches us that there is nothing more likely to prove destructive to human well-being than love without truth. Christian faith - and Christian faithfulness - are incompatible with any form of relativism that relegates truth to the back burner in favour of some other virtue, even when the other virtue may bear a disarming name like tolerance, compassion, or love.

It is imperative to remember, in a world such as ours, that neighbours and their religious convictions will not always be benign. 'me distressing recurrence of sick religion, whether it be the sick religion of a Hitler's Germany or a Stalin's Russia, or the sick religion that leads to mass suicides at the suggestion of a charismatic leader - cannot simply be wished away. A willingness to bear truthful witness concerning our neighbour will sometimes lead to the realization that we have no choice but to bear witness against that neighbour.10 And we will never be equal to so dangerous and demanding a task, either as a Church or as individual Christians, unless we have a place to stand as well as an undiminished sense of the peculiar dignity of the truth. 11

In his acceptance speech for the 1994 Templeton Prize, Michael Novak reminded his audience that

in this dark night of a century, a first fundamental lesson was drawn from the bowels of nihilism itself: Truth matters. Even for those unsure whether there is a God, a truth is different from a lie. Tortures can twist your mind, even reduce you to a vegetable, but as long as you retain the ability to say "Yes" or "No" as truth alone commands, they cannot own you. 12

He goes on to say that truth

is not subjective, not something we make, or choose, or cut to today's fashions or the morrow's pragmatism. We obey the truth. We do not "have" the truth, truth owns us, truth possesses us. Truth is far larger and deeper than we are. Truth leads us where it will. It is not ours for mastering. 13

As I put the finishing touches on this article, it is impossible for me to overlook my proximity to Good Friday, which (as I write) is a mere two days away. I have been struck this year, as never before, by the extent to which each of the synoptic Gospels emphasizes the decisive role of false witnesses in Jesus' execution." He was convicted on the basis of a potent brew of exaggeration, misconstrual, half-truth, and outright falsehood. It seems to me that Christians ought to tremble over the possibility of bearing false witness against a fellow human being who bears Christ's image as surely as we ourselves bear it. The Ninth Commandment needs to be our guide in our theology no less than in our lives.

1 Lochhead, The Dialogical Imperative: A Christian Reflection on Interfaith Encounter (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988) pp. 41-2.

2 Kaufman, "Religious Diversity, Historical Consciousness, and Christian Theology". in The Myth oj Christian Uniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions. edited by John Hick and Paul F. Knitter. (Maryknoll, W Orbis Books. 1987) p. 5.

3 Levenson, "The Bible: Unexamined Commitments of Criticism", in First Things (February, 1993) p. 3 1.

4 Newbigin. "Religion For the Marketplace". in Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Mylh Of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, edited by Gavin D'Costa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990) p. 141.

5 Matt. 19:18 and Mark 10: 19.

6 John Calvin, Institutes ojthe Christian Religion, translated by John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960) p. 412.

7 Lochman, Signposts to Freedom: The Ten Commandments and Christian Ethics, translated by David Lewis (Minneapolis: Augsburg publishing, 1982) p. 139.9

8 'John Paul IIl "Redemptoris Missio: Encyclical on Missionary Activity", in Origins: CatholicNews Documentary Service (January 31. 1991 ) p.557.

9Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, in Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, III: InterVarsity Press, 1994) p. 348.

10 David Lochhead writes: "We need to remind ourselves that every tradition, including our own, has its dark side as well as its light. In the past, we may have been too prone to see the darkness in others and too resistant to seeing the darkness in ourselves. We gain nothing if our vision is reversed, if in the name of justice and tolerance we become too prone to see our own darkness and too resistant to see the darkness in others." Cip Cit, p. 45.

11 ...each affirmed political, moral, or religious value presupposes a certain understanding of humankind, society, and history, and so a certain understanding of the whole in which they exist .... Consequently any practical political action, in resistance to tyranny or in liberation from it, presupposes ultimate values and an ultimate vision of things, an ethic and so a theology. And it presupposes an absolute commitment to this understanding of things." Langdon Gilkey, "Plurality and Its Theological Implications", in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, p. 45.

12 Novak, "Awakening from Nihilism: The Templeton Prize Address", in First Things (August/September, 1994) p. 18.

13 Ibid., P. 19.

14 Matthew 27: 59-60; Mark 14: 56-59; Luke 23: 2.

In recent years, sociologist Reginald Bibby has called attention to the steady drop in church attendance among Canadians. Each successive generation has been less involved in a religious community, and Bibby's prediction, based on 1992 data, is that by the year 2015, the rate of weekly attendance will drop from 23% to 15%.1 Bibby expands on the implications of this drop-off, pointing out that older people are more likely to give time and money to the church.' Extrapolating from that, we can assume that in twenty years there will be fewer people in church, and they will be giving less time and money to the church than their grandparents did.

These trends have obvious institutional implications, and these implications have been the focus of attention in the media and in church discussion. We have seen failing congregations close their churches, and the reorganization and downsizing of the national headquarters of a number of Canadian churches. These developments have led to predictions that a number of mainline denominations will not survive in their present form, and prompted calls for various methods of renewal: more relevant liturgies, more exciting music, more fitting social ministries, improved youth ministries, etc.

I think, however, that Bibby's research, and the work of other sociologists, reveal more basic problems. If Christians are going to be faithful to their calling, they will need to expand their horizon, so that they do not focus solely on institutional concerns; they must go on to give their attention to the more fundamental issues of the Church's function in forming and sustaining a people faithful to God.

Valuing Relationships

While people in our society may not display so much interest in organized religion, there is an interest in community, and in establishing relationships. In their 1992 study of the attitu,des of teenagers, Bibby and Postersky conclude that while teens may not consider religion important, they do value relationships: "The contest isn't even close.... They want good interpersonal ties and they want to be loved."' Yet while they value relationships, they value less and less the virtues that make possible strong relationships, virtues such as honesty and forgiveness.' Bibby and Posterski also identify any attitude of individualism learned by teens from their parents. It is a general societal attitude which is reflected in things like the drop-off in charitable giving.5

In the United States a similar spirit of individualism has been investigated by Robert Bellah and a team of sociologists, resulting in the book, Habits of the Heart. What they discovered is that people have a difficult time explaining or justifying why they have made the commitments they have made, or why they value the things that they do. They give as an example the case of a workaholic who has changed his ways and become devoted to his family, and yet is unable to explain why the one devotion is superior to the other.

Morally, his life appears much more coherent than when he was dominated by careerism, but, to hear him talk, even his deepest impulses of attachment to others are without any more solid foundation than his momentary desires. He lacks a language to explain what seems to be the real commitments that define his life, and to that extent the commitments themselves are precarious.6

Implicit in his description of his life is the assumption that the basis for the choices he makes is the satisfaction of his desire. Consequently, there is no reason to assume that if circumstances change, he might not turn around and neglect his family in favour of some other interest.

This man is not alone. Generally speaking, our culture does not teach us how to make choices between desires.

Rather than helping us to judge our needs, to have the right needs which we exercise in right ways, our society becomes a vast supermarket of desire under the assumption that if we are free enough to assert and to choose whatever we want we can defer eternally the question of whit needs are worth having and on what basis fight choices are made. What we call "freedom" becomes the tyranny Of OUT own desires.7

Our society is often depicted as a society of consumption, but what is often not made explicit is that this applies also to personal relationships. Our relationships are often more an expression of our own desire for someone than an expression of a commitment to someone. Like the teens in the Bibby/Posterski study, many North Americans desire meaningful relationships while they do not know how to form and maintain them.

If we accept the argument made by sociologists like Bibby and Bellah, that our society is dominated by a spirit of individualism - one that undermines our ability to maintain stable relationships and thus to live meaningful and integrated lives - two questions follow: how did we come to this point, and how did we once learn to live? For this brief article, I suggest we look at the second, which is the more important of the two. And one of the most helpful books I have found on the question is Alasdair MacIntyre's book, After Virtue. He claims that throughout human history, the fundamental way in which people have learned to be human is through the stories told by their culture. People were bom into the narrative of a particular society, and derived their role in life from that narrative.
 

A Member of This Household, That Village, This Tribe

Unlike modem people, who often assume that the real person is the individual seen apart from his or her other commitments, roles, etc., pre-modem people often understood themselves only in relation to others.

In many pre-modem, traditional societies it is through his or her membership in a variety of social groups that a person identifies himself or herself and is identified by others. I am brother, cousin and grandson, member of this household, that village, this tribe. These are not characteristics that belong to human beings accidentally to be stripped away in order to discover "the real me". They are part of my substance, defining partially at least and sometimes wholly my obligations and my duties.8

For people growing up in a traditional society, the questions of identity which so plague our society are often absent, or take a very different form. This point came home to me sharply when a professor who had grown up in an Amish home described to a class his experience of the 60s. When people asked him "who are you, man?", he couldn't formulate an answer that satisfied the mind-set of the questioners; he was son, grandson, nephew, brother, member of the church.

Consider the biblical injunction to welcome the stranger. Strangers are vulnerable precisely because they lack the ties which define who they are, and where they belong. Therefore, their situation, along with that of widows and orphans, warrants special discussion in the Torah. Further, it is important to note the justification offered for the commandment to treat strangers well. In Exodus we read, "You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt" (Ex. 23:9). Similar injunctions can be found in Deuteronomy to treat the stranger in a particular way with the instructions, "remember that you were a slave in Egypt" (Deut. 24:17,18, 21,22). The rationale given for these commandments is not an abstract moral imperative. The rationale given is an appeal to the story of the people to whom the law is given. Embedded in biblical law is evidence of MacIntyre's thesis that moral decision-making is learned within the context of narrative.

It is not only morality that one learns within the context of story, but all of what it is to be human. -Religious people learn from their stories who they are, where they come from, and where they are going. Hauerwas and Willimon argue that narrative is the fundamental means of talking about and listening to God, the only human means available to us that is complex and engaging enough to make comprehensible what it means to be with God.'

Traditionally, it has been assumed that the individual learns who he or she is within the context of a web of relationships. This web extends back through time as far as the memory of the group to which he or she belongs. It is the collective memory of Christians which is preserved in scripture, and which is passed on in the worship of the community.

It is clear, however, that the contemporary Church has beenprofoundly affected by the culture of individualism; traditional assumptions about the priority of the community over the individual run counter to the prevailing attitudes in North America. Bellah points to a remarkable finding in a 1978 Gallup poll, in which 80% of Americans agreed with the statement that "an individual should arrive at his or her own religious belief independent of any churches or synagogues . 10 He cites the stories of two religiously committed people whose views "...were formed outside [the contexts of church and synagogue] and their relations to the respective groups" to demonstrate that even for religiously committed people, the commitments they make "... remains one of convenience". 10

The problems the churches are experiencing, therefore, are not at their root institutional.

More fundamental is the problem that many ofthe people in the pews and the pulpits look upon the church as one more commitment alongside all the other commitments that they have made in their lives. They do not look at the Church as the primary place in their lives where they learn how to look at their world, where they learn how to form and maintain relationships with others, where they learn what it is to be human beings created in the image of God. For many people, the Church has become one more place where their relationships are precarious.

The more fundamental problem facing the Church is two-fold. On the one hand, people come to the Church assuming that it is the place where they will find others who share their values and interests, rather than the place where their values and interests will be shaped. When the Church accepts the assumption that it is one suitor among many competing for the attention of a prospective date, it tries to become more entertaining, more exciting, more attractive. Ultimately, the Church may expend a great deal of energy and still go home alone at the end of the night.

Tell, and Re-Tell, the Salvation Story
 

On the other hand, the Church has often neglected to recount its sjory, the story that should form Christians. 1 think back to a Sunday School class 1 witnessed where the theme was the story of Noah's ark. Instead of hearing the story, the children were told that God had given Noah the rainbow as a sign, and then were asked what their favourite colour was! The rest of the class centred around a discussion of colours and some art exercises. An opportunity to recount the story and reflect on it was lost. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at Bibby's disturbing data, that whereas 51 % of people in 1975 were able to identify Peter as the disciple who denied Jesus, in 1990 it was only 43%. In the younger crowd, people between the ages of 18 to 34, the drop was sharper still.

Much attention has been given recently to institutional reform, some of it perhaps necessary. If my thesis is correct, however, the problems experienced by the Church are rooted in cultural changes that will not be answered by tinkering with the institution. There is no doubt that the loss of financial security, the shrinking membership rools, and the erosion of social and political influence are frightening developments. It is all the more necessary, therefore, that the Church meditate on the story of a people who left the security of Egypt for the uncertainty of the wilderness, a-nd-found God there. We need to recall the story of the disciples being sent out without money or staffs. Ultimately, the Church is not asked to be a successful institution, but a faithful community evidenced in the lives of men and women transformed by a peculiar and specific story of God's great good work on their behalf, indeed on behalf of all.

1 Reginald Bibby, Unknown God: The Ongoing Story ofReligion in Canada (Toronto: Stoddart Publishing, 1993) p. 104.

2 Ibid., pp. 96,97.

3 Reginald W. Bibby and Donald C. Posterski, Teen Trends (Toronto: Stoddard Publishing,1992) p.9.

4 Ibid., p. 18.

5 Ibid., p. 168.

6 Robert Bellah, et al, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) p. 8.

7 Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989) p. 32.

8 Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue' - A Study of Moral Theory (Notre Dame: University of Notre, 1981) p. 32.

9. Op Cit., pp. 54,55.

10 Habits of tlie Heart, p. 228.

11 Ibid., p. 234.
 

I only know Father Peregrin through my computer. We talk through "E-Mail" about old manuscripts, how to locate them, and how to describe them in machine-readable format, so that those who need original sources can find and use them more effectively. That's part of my work, and Peregrin keeps me up-to-date about the activities of others who use computers in this intersection of knowledge and machinery. His last five messages were entitled:

1) DBI-LINK-Datenbank
2) 11magae] A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE LABYRINTH PROJECT
3) Usage Guidelines for TML-L
4) INTRO TEXT
5) Digitization and Transcription of Primary Textual Sources

And he prays a great deal, for Father Peregrin is a Benedictine monk who lives in St. John's Abbey at Collegeville, Minnesota. I don't live in that community but, in addition to Father Peregrin, some of the monks are quite expert in my line of work as a medieval historian, and I get along with them rather better than with some of my other colleagues of more dubious character.

The Benedictines have stuck to the Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia without going after any of the numerous reform movements from the sixth century to the present. I don't think those people at Collegeville need reform: there are about 300 men at St. John's Abbey, and about 700 women at the Abbey of St. Scholastica, just ten kilometers away. (The particular St. John after which the Abbey is named is John the Baptist, while Scholastica was the sister of Benedict.) The men and women live separately, usually worship separately, but often work together. Quite active and interactive, they also work with the laity all round them in the world, one of whom is me.

Perhaps it was Pachormus in Upper Egypt, about 200 A.D., who first brought out of isolation those Christian individuals who had committed themselves to a life of prayer and celibacy, into a community of common meals and common prayer. A solo life is the pits, even for a good purpose - like leaving a brothel, or quitting a business, or being alone with God. It was the pagan philosopher Artistotle who said that a person outside of community is either a beast or a god. One of those who turned from ordinary affairs to pious thought was Antony. So far so good, but such a solo life resulted in encounters with more demons than he had left behind in society. An alcoholic friend of mine, who may have had some familiarity with large pink elephants, suggested once that the goriest tales taken from the "Life of Antony" should be translated with big type accompanied with big pictures. In any case, Antony fought demons with the Psalms, and he was one of those who won. But such extremes were avoided by those who were brought to a common table and to common prayer by people like Pachormus of Egypt, Basil of Caesarea in Asia Minor, Augustine of Hippo in North Africa, John Cassian of southern France, and Benedict of Nursia in central Italy. Heroic spiritual individuals there have surely been, but family and friends make for a decent Christian life, according to the monks.

Day and Night Allow for a Lot of Prayer

What do they do, these monks? Work and pray like us - but with great regularity, not so very like us! Benedict of Nursia directed them to pray together seven times in twenty-four hours, which would mean early morning, and late evening, and twice during the night, with three more times scattered through the day's work. That seems a bit much, and sometimes one, two, or even three of those times were quietly dropped by various Benedictine communities. Monastic reformers usually demanded all seven prayer-times - or even prayer round-the-clock! But that is not the way Benedictines read their Rule. Still, the day and night allowed for a lot of prayer, and to this day still does.

They call it the Office. On a few occasions, in pursuit of my work in the history of science, I have gone to St. John's Abbey to use its library, and while there I usually visit Wilfrid and Canute. Wilfrid is a physics professor and Canute a philologist. The prayer times are open for everyone. At noon there is no sermon, quite a bit of Scripture, lots of silence. Fifteen minutes later we are in the cafeteria, talking and eating.

At 5 p.m., when I have worked enough for awhile, the monks are in the chapel praying again. A layman like myself will be invited to sit with the monks in the stalls around the altar for Holy Communion. They know me rather well, and no one is too surprised when this Protestant receives bread from the abbot and takes wine from the altar. But a question was raised in some minds, so the next time, a year or so later I was gently reminded that crossing over was not yet approved by the bishop. But they wanted me back in the stalls with them!

And what about physical work? In his guidelines for monks, Benedict had a lot to say about the physical work to be performed by the people in the monasteries. It was to be hard and steady for, after all, they had to look after everything concerning their food and shelter. I suppose that it often went something like this - the abbot would say in the morning to the assembly:

We need a dormitory, here is some clay, let's make some brick. Has anybody laid a foundation before? One of them said he knew a farmer across the fields who had recently done that. Fine, ask him for some help. Who knows how to erect a bam so the walls don't buckle or the roof collapse? Nobody? Then go help the neighbors do it, and learn the skills from them. Are you a cabinet maker? Excellent. You can provide tables and chairs and work benches. Oh yes, and we need chests for clothing and books.

In the sixth century, Cassidorius produced so many books for monasteries that one almost believes that his Vivarium (named for the fish ponds) in southernmost Italy was really a publishing house. That monastery was a prime source for most of the Greek and Latin books that survive today.

Between the prayers and the physical work, Benedict wanted them to read things by people like Irenaeus or Augustine, who discussed religious questions rather well. At the beginning of Lent in particular he wanted every monk to check out a book and read it an hour or more each day until finished. To keep them from distracting each other with idle chatter, he wanted them to eat lunch silently and listen to an edifying reading from a commentary on Scripture.

Arithmetic, Farming, Music, and Astronomy

Of course, we are not surprised to see their reading lists which show that they read commentaries on the entire Holy Scriptures, or that they were attentive to theologians like Jerome or Gregory. But what are we to make of the book lists we find from the ninth century? They show that monks checked out books on arithmetic, farming, music, and astronomy. And it's natural when you think about it. There is need for the monastery to know where the boundaries of its property are, so somebody asks the librarian whether he has anything that will help. Certainly, he replies.

Here is just the thing from Roman surveryors and engineers. Of course the angles and curves might be confusing for you, so here, take a bit of Euclid; it's illustrated, and I think you can follow it. If not, ask Bodo, who teaches the stuff.

And there were the daily problems of keeping hours of prayer. The prior might say to a monk:

You are supposed to wake us for prayers after midnight and then again before dawn. So you will have to stay awake and keep track of the hours. Remember the abbot is a hard man if you wake us too late, but of course the fellows don't like to get up too early. If you repeat the Psalms, a certain number per hour, that'll help you keep track. Or study the stars and know which ones will rise on the eastern horizon at which times.

And the schoolmaster chimes in to point out that he could review his studies during nightwatch.

The planet Mars, for instance, crosses the sky with the other stars west to cast, but it wanders you know. Night after night it reappears more eastward than the others. But then it seems to stop and go back to the west for awhile, stops again, and hurries back to the east to catch up with the others and go ahead. They all do that, you know, but not exactly each in the same path or period. Do they all circle the earth? Well, sort of, but they don't really move in circles and, even if they did, they would need different centres. Here is a set of observations with diagrams, and take this book on astronomy to help you tell the time from the stars.

Well, of course the book is in Latin, and the poor monk is wo how he can improve in that language. The schoolmaster says:

Get hold of Virgil or Cicero or Ovid, of course. Virgil is the one if you want an exciting story. His Aeneid begins with a burning city and fugitives escaping; it ends with building a new city in a new land; there's one adventure after another. Aeneus' boat is blown off course, and lands near Carthace. Our hero accepts Dido's invitation to dine, goes into her tent, and... well. you know. He promises not to leave her, but Acneus was a pilgrim on the road to a new home so he sneaks away on his boat. Men! As the sun rises in the East she sees him sail away, can't live without him, and I'll leave the rest to you. Augustine tells about it in his Confessions, how as a boy he had to make a speech about Dido and Aeneus, their love, their suffering: silly, he thought, and certainly immoral. But Augustine learned to write as well as he did, employing effective figures of speech and cadences, partly because he was compelled to make speeches on people like that. If he could do it, so can you: here, take Virgil. Your Latin will soon improve.

The Best Schools

The monks through the ages continued to use such salacious materials in literature classes; not merely Aesop's Fables, or the arguments of Cicero about laws and divinities, but also the stories of Ovid, which are surely in bad taste. It kept the boys' and girls' minds on the language they were leaming, the images, the rhythms. After all, there was nothing pious about their 2x2s and 9+9s; nor about the algebraic teaser, which 1, too, leamed in school, concerning the three pairs of brothers and sisters who have to get across the river, and there's only one boat, which can't accommodate all of them at once; how can you get them all across without leaving couples alone who might get themselves into a bit of trouble? It was important to have the tools in order to add, subtract, and multiply, and to read, write, and even speak other languages. The courts had to have their solicitors and clerks trained somewhere, and the bishops had to educate priests who knew the difference between pater (father) and patria (fatherland). The travelling bishop Boniface objected when he heard a pastor pray before his congregation:

He sent that fellow back to school' The best schools were in the monasteries. The monks made the commitment to pay for costly books, to provide teachers, and to maintain that regularity and continuity which allowed for schools. With co-operative tanning and common prayer, monks supported education when no one and nothing else would do so.

And sonic monks wanted more, and produced more, than arithmetic, reading, and writing.

The Venerable Bede is a name that calls up good feelings, a saintly figure in the eighth century, who wrote an Ecclesiastical History of England. It is full of stories about miracles that helped to convert the stubborn Angles and obtuse Saxons to Christianity; full also of material that corresponds with -history" taught in schools and universities today. Bede is also the monk who created the Westem calendar that is now used throughout the world, with only slight variations from the way he taught it. (The popes and enlightened philosophers leamed it from him and not vice versa.) The theory of tides formulated by Bede in the eighth century is what controls the work of harbour pilots around the world, especially the role the moon plays and its timing cycle for predicting tides, and also "establishment of the port" (i.e determination of local conditions for each harbour). I verified this in detail with Willie Donahoe, a professional harbour pilot, who in 1986 was bringing those large tankers into Dublin Bay. What Bede wrote about tides, he said, is what they still need to know in their work, even though the annual British Admiralty Tide Tables doesn't give him credit.

Other examples of monks' work in natural science would include Robert Grosseteste, who taught math at Hereford, and lectured on the Scriptures in the Franciscan house at Oxford, before he was elected bishop of Lincoln, the largest diocese in England at the time. As bishop, he invited Jews and Arabs from Sicily and Spain to his cathedral close, where they worked in teams to translate scientific works from Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic into Latin for use in the schools. He also wrote books on philosophy which emphasized Light as the source of energy for everything in Creation, as well as the source of knowledge as we think about both Nature and God. Long before Isaac Newton, working in the 17th century, figured out the theory of gravity we use now, Grosseteste, around 1226-28, recognised the role the moon plays in the tides, and even the help which the sun gives the moon to increase the tides.

A Bishop Who Stood for Romance

And there is something else, on quite a different line, that Grosseteste did as a bishop, for which he ought to be remembered. There had been a serious problem of how to distinguish between true and false claims of family inheritance; a stranger could claim that a true but private marriage had occurred once upon a time, or someone could say he had been an unwanted and thus discarded child, and would produce witnesses in support of his claim. In order to protect parents and legitimate heirs from false claims, the King's Council had ruled that a true marriage could be recognized in law only if the partners had the consent of the parents, and it was witnessed in public, usually in the town square, sometimes on the steps of a church (rarely inside). ne Council of Bishops had gone along with the decision; taking the times and conditions into account, we have to say it was not an unreasonable solution. The result was, however, that the ruling gave all power to parents to control the marriages of their sons and daughters. Bishop Robert showed that another factor had to be considered: how did the young couple feel about it? He used every theological argument he could muster in order to protect the romantic interests of the boy and girl. ne bishops were eventually convinced, stood against the King, and thus changed the way the laws of England worked. In sociology textbooks on marriage and the family, you are more likely to find credit for personal freedom in marriage given to such things as "the rise of the middle class". But in fact, it was medieval bishops led by Robert Grosseteste who deserve the credit. That complicated the question of rightful inheritance, and during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, English common law proceedings turned back to parents the sole right to determine whether in law their children married, and thus which children would be heirs. They were going back on a practice initiated by a thirteenth century bishop who stood for romance, and thus for a reasonable balance of values which included personal commitment.

A much more modem example of a monk at work is Johann Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), who lived almost in the same period
as Charles Darwin (1809-1882), though it seems that they didn't know each other's work. Mendel was an Augustinian monk living in a community at Brno, at the time part of the Austrian empire, but now in the Czech Republic. His abbot was active in agricultural experimentation, and many of the monks taught at their high school or at the Philosophical Institute in Brno, where Mendel himself studied theology, viticulture, artificial pollination, and sheep breeding. Supported by the monastery, he entered the University of Vienna where he studied paleontology, the generation of plants, and evolution. He returned to the monastery to teach mathematics, physics, and natural history. There he cultivated and studied 28,000 plants and fifty varieties of bees. It was he who identified the dominant and recessive elements in plants, and discovered how one element from each pair of plants passes on in every pollen and in every egg cell (sperm and ovule), and their recombination in one, two, or later generations, a crucial scientific breakthrough.  Mendel had become the abbot of the monastery, but that didn't prevent him from being active in the Horticultural Society, the Society of Apiculturists, the Central Board of the Agricultural Society, and the Moravian Mortgage Bank Board of Directors.  Mendel presented the world with the main ideas of hybridization and inheritance that biological sciences now apply to all living things.

It will be clear by this time that I am both amused and distressed at the recurring picture of a restrictive and supposedly
narrow-minded Christian existence lived out by the pious monks of past and present. For in my work it is obvious that, if any texts at all survive from the writings of the pagan Greeks and Romans, it is because a very high value was given them in those pious communities of Christian monks in early Europe. Despite their minority position in comparison with rival religions and contrary philosophies, despite their persecution by emperors and provincial governors and local officials, despite their extreme poverty in most cases, Christian churches and monasteries saved all of the classical pagan literature which we now have. It was Christians in monasteries, praying seven times every twenty-four hours and singing all the Hebrew psalms every week, who also copied the dubious tales of Virgil, the suggestive and even dirty verses of Ovid, and the propositions of Euclidian geometery.

At what cost? Think of the capital investment involved with each handwritten book. How many calves must be slaughtered
and skinned in order to make such a book? During how many workdays must skilled workers scrape and treat and dry those skins before they become usable parchment? How does one fit together four pieces of parchment, lay out the folios, shape the writing spaces in their proper formats, rule or line them, fold them twice together, and trim the edges for making a single gathering of eight folios or sixteen pages? Terrence or Pliny or Quintilian or Euclid or Ptolemy must have been very important to those monks that they would make such an investment of time and treasure. Because the minds of those profoundly committed Christians were so open and capacious, the writings of the pagan authors were preserved for posterity and, which, along with the Bible and writings of the Church Fathers, became our classics.
 

Suggestions for further reading:

Arno Borst, The Ordering of Time: From The Ancient Computus To The Modern Computer (Chicago, 1993).

Alistair C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste And The Origins Of Experimental Science (Oxford, 1952).

Richard C. Dales, The Scientific Achievement of the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1973).

M.L.W. Laistner, Thought And Letters In Western Europe (Ithaca, N.Y. 1957).

R.W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth OfAn English Mind In Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1986).

Wesley M. Stevens, Bede's Scientific Achievement, The Jarrow Lecture 1985 (Jarrow-Upon-Tyne, 1986).

Wesley M. Stevens, "A Double Perspective On The Middle Ages", in Non

Verbal Communication In Science Prior To 1900 (Florence, Italy, 1993).
 

As we look at issues of Gospel and culture, we find a compelling statement in the national anthem of Trinidad and Tobago. Here every creed and racefind an equal place, and may God bless our nation. This Caribbean twin-island nation is a microcosm of the world. With a population of 1.25 million, its ethnic and cultural diversity are everywhere apparent. An equal number of persons (40% each) are the descendants of African slaves and East Indian indentured labourers. There are also the descendants of the colonizers (British, French and Spanish), a tiny remnant of one of the aboriginal cultures of the islands (the Caribs), as well as a collection of smaller groups who immigrated from China, Syria, and Lebanon as traders. There is also a large percentage of the population which can only be described as "mixed". Many Trinidadians can easily lay claim to at least four different racial strains. It is part of the enormous cross-culturation process which has resulted in wonderful diversity and creativity, as well as inter-racial and inter-religious tensions. What one discovers over time is how apparent is the will to find the words to the last lines of the anthem coming true, but also how infinitely complex are some of the underlying currents of racial and religious overtones to virtually everything in its society.

The interaction between Gospel and culture takes on many faces in Trinidad. One must, however, draw a distinction between the two forms of "Gospel" which this article will attempt to articulate. One is traditional, what one would associate with traditional understandings of evangelism and church development. For many that fonn of Gospel is set over against culture, or at the least contending for the souls of persons in response to their cultural captivity. It is our contention that the Gospel has touched the heart of the nation in other, less orthodox ways as well, giving rise to cultural expressions such as some of the music of Calypso, the emergence of Carnival, and the advent of the Steel pan. All of these uniquely Trinidadian phenomena are in various ways the voices and expressions of a people determined to find freedom and dignity, reflect with hope and faith in the future, and critique the powers and principalities that have been their historical oppressors.

Gospel and Culture - The Churches

Trinidad and Tobago is primarily a Roman Catholic nation. Approximately 75% of the inhabitants of Trinidad claim Catholicism as their -religion of choice". This is a legacy of a long period of Spanish colonization, and the influence of the Church on both the "plantocracy" and the slaves who were brought from other islands to work the estates. In Tobago the percentage of' Catholics is somewhat lower, though the influence of' the Catholic Church throughout is significant.

Along with Catholics, the other major denominations include Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Moravians, and "British Baptists" (similar to the Baptists of North America, but distinct from the uniquely Trinidadian phenomenon of -Spiritual Baptists", of which more will be said later). Recently there has also been a rapid growth in the number of Pentecostal churches on the islands, as well as a number of local religious groups which have attempted to incorporate the traditions of Africa into their church life.

The religious diversity of the islands is a varied as the culture from which the population was generated, though the diversity in Tobago is less so since it is predominately of African descent. The remnants of the Caribs, though thoroughly Catholicized, still maintain vestiges of their ancient forms of religious expression.

African Religious Expressions

The Afro-Trinidadian population, as with most of the islands of the Caribbean, and other places where slavery brought their ancestors, have struggled to maintain, or at times rediscover, a religious identity after centuries of cultural, social, and religious repression. One finds certain persons of African descent talking and singing, dancing and even praying, in metaphors from Hebrew experience, of being the Disaspora, the scattered; removed from the land of their birth, struggling to find meaning and hope in the place to which they have conic. There is among many young people an unresolved feeling of anger and fear as they look to the past, present, and future. All of that is a reminder of a painful past, as well as an insight into the rather alarming contemporary scene of crime, violence, and drug abuse.

At the same time, all of that is the stuff of dynamic history, art, music, and religious development. Several aspects of contemporary Trinidadian life illustrate the creative defiance, cultural resistance, and religious expression. These are: Calypso, Carnival, and Steel pan music. It has also spawned contextual forms of worship, among which are those of the Obeah, Shango, and Orisha traditions of Africa, as well as that of the Spiritual Baptists.

Spiritual Baptists

A phenomenon which began in Trinidad in the early 1990s, but which has since spread to other South Caribbean islands, is that of the Spiritual Baptists. With tambourines and drums, wearing dazzling garments and head coverings coloured to associate the wearer with a particular gift or manifestation of the Holy Spirit, they are known to the community for their frequent public, highly visible and audible processions through the streets of villages and cities. What is known about them, however, has often been dwarfed by historically unfounded suspicions about their motives, purposes, and forms of worship.

On November 28, 1917, the Colonial Government passed a law proscribing the religious practices of the Spiritual Baptists Church in Trinidad and Tobago. In presenting the Shouters Prohibition Ordinance which allowed local magistrates considerable powers in dealing with this "trouble," the Attorney General admitted the exceptional character of the bill, and stressed the reluctance of the Government to do anything which would interfere with "the liberty of the individual to choose the way in which he should worship". Nonetheless, he went on to describe the Spiritual Baptists as an unmitigated nuisance. "Apparently the neighborhood in which a Shouters' meeting takes place is made almost impossible for residential occupation"; and secondly, he observed that the practices of the Baptists were not such ---asshould be tolerated in a well-conducted community.

When the group was investigated more than two decades later, a very different image of the Movement emerged. Whereas the government had deemed the Shouters a social evil, and had claimed that their meetings were merely the occasion for "all sorts of indecent acts", a later investigator discovered in the practices of the Shouters nothing more damaging than an example of how "African worship... had been shaped and reinterpreted to fit into the patterns of European worship", and noted the Shouter reputation for probity, trustworthiness in personal dealings and high standards of moral conduct." 1

A phenomenon at the heart of Baptist/Shouter worship is that of the personality of the worshipper being displaced by what is believed to be the Holy Spirit, which causes the person variously to sing, shout, dance, stamp, prophesy or heal. To a public striving for respectability, as manifested in the social and cultural mores of the white colonial power, the Baptist form of worship appeared repugnant, and the fact that the movement's membership was also black working class further explains the history of' repression and suspicion which shaped their history.

Earl Lovelace, in his novel centred on the Baptist experience, writes:

We have this church in the village. We have this church. The wall made out of mud, the roof covered with carrat leaves; a simple hut with no steeple or cross or acolyte or white priests or Latin ceremonies. But it is our own. Black people own it.... We have this church where we gather to sing hymns and ring the bell and shout hallelujah and speak in tongues when the Spirit come; and we carry the word to the downtrodden and the forgotten and the lame and the beaten, and we touch black people's soul. 2

The Shouters have developed a syncretistic religion, born out of Africa's encounter with the New World. It is, appropriately, more strongly rooted in the experience of the Hebrew Diaspora than in Western history. In its attempt to seek the Africanization of Christianity, it has become a living example of the creative and regenerative impulses inherent in the black Creole cultural tradition.

Islam in Trinidad

Approximately 6% of the population of Trinidad practices the Islamic faith. The majority of these Muslinis are descendents of indentured labourers front India, who brou(yht their faith and culture withthern inthe mid-1800s. A smaller but much more militant group is found within the Afro-Trinidadian cortimmunity. The influence of Islam on Afro-Trinidadians can be traced to the rise of the Black Power movement in the United States in the 1960s. Muslims in Trinidad have not easily gained full recognition of their claimed rights of freedom of religion.

A recent incident (unresolved at the time of writing) has posed serious questions regarding the ability of the religions of the nation to resolve certain issues with peace and justice. In September of 1994, three young Muslim women who were registered at private denominational schools that have dress codes, came to class wearing the traditional hijab, or head covering. The schools, and the churches that sponsor them, refused to admit the girls. The result has polarized the nation, with many advocating freedom of religious expression and others upholding the rights of church-run schools to enforce their customary dress codes. Whatever tensions that existed between the churches and the Muslim community prior to this issue have been exacerbated. The hijab question tears at the fabric of a multi-religious nation, and calls for the churches, and inter-religious bodies, to speak with a reasoned and faithful voice, and to have clarity of thought on issues of Gospel and culture.

Indian Religious Expressions Hinduism In Trinidad

The Indo-Trinidadian (that is, those descended from Indian indentured workers) was allowed a freedom of culture, religion, and family structure not afforded their African predecessors in the plantation economy. Eastern religions in general, and Hinduism in particular, seen] to have gained, rather than lost ground, for today they enjoy an official recognition not accorded them during the colonial period. Marriage ceremonies, for example, in earlier times were not accorded le-al recognition. In spite of that, however, today a vibrant Hindu community is now coming into its own. Increasingly there are acknowledgements ofthe right and place of large mandirs (temples), of radio and television broadcasts in Hindi, and of national holidays for certain Hindu celebrations (aniong them Divali, a celebration to honour Lakshmi, the goddess of light, beauty and love), along with a growing acceptance of the status and integrity of Hindu schools.

In the early years of the indentureship experience, there were still concerted efforts by government and churches to Christianize the Hindus. Many Indo-Trinicladians were influenced by the missionary efforts of Canadian Presbyterians from Nova Scotia. Their focus of evangelism was on both salvation and education. Some recent commentators have suggested that for the majority of impoverished field labourers looking for a quicker acceptance for their children into a more influential cultural position, the choice of sending their children to a Presbyterian Church and school was an easy one. Salvation by education. Indeed, as traditional Hinduism is reasonably syncretistic to begin with, the adaptation of both Presbyterianism and Catholicism was not a difficult transition. Today a tension between understandings of religion and culture can be seen within the Indo-Trinidadian community. At the same time, with the assertion of the Indo-Trinicladian culture coming into its own, many within the Indian community would say that this in itself is the "good news".

Carnival

Camival in Trinidad is among the great spectacles in the world. For two days every year leading up to Ash Wednesday, the country is transformed into a sea of colour, dance, song, and a general relinquishment of the order of society to the god Bacchus. While it has its detractors (mostly on moral grounds), the claim can be made that at the heart of Carnival is a fundamental expression of hope and the defiance of the spirit in the face of historical and contemporary forms of repression. Its roots are found in the European tradition of ridiculing the pomposity of the ruling classes, through exaggerated dances and costumes, as well as in traditional African masking and parading practices, and the belief systems that inform them. Carnival in its present form has grown from the mingling of many diverse traditions, involving the pre- and postemancipation of the slaves of the Caribbean, that of North American and Caribbean aboriginal cultures, and the experience of the contemporary world. Carnival focusses on the development of bands, some of which will often amass thousands of costumed participants that move through the streets of Port of Spain. Each of the bands is developed around a theme. Every year the themes evolve, evoking creative costumes and music to further the thernatic development.

Crucial to the meaning and expression of Carnival is that of the celebration of all that is life. One of the geniuses of "Mas" (from masquerade) is the Bandmaster Peter Minshall. The theme for his band for 1995 is that of "Hallelujah!" In a quote from The Trinidadian Guardian, November 6, 1994, Minshall affirms:

Mas, whatever else it may be, is celebratory, affirming, giving thanks, praising whatever we may want to call it, the Source of Life, The Spirit of the Universe, the Creator, the Lord. It is a ritual whose purpose is to affirm life, our oneness with all life. Yes, it is bacchanalian and epic and primitive. We are alive. Hallelujah! What blueprint is there for (the Carnival band) Hallelujah!? How does one conceive of heaven? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  The artist's brilliant idea is a "celebration", a chorus of Hallelujah in many languages with many tongues - from the Quranic Allah-u-Akbar to Yahwch to Jah.

As we have seen, the dimensions to a discussion on Gospel and culture in Trinidad and Tobago are complex. This brief article has only served as a taste of a much richer banquet. We wish we had more space to cover some of the other indigenous and ingenious forms of culture expression which have at their roots (in common with Carnival) a profound sense of historical identity and purpose; expressions such as the music of Calypso, and the development of the steel band. In them, too, one finds a spirit of liberty and joy which have at once unified the community and given rise to unique expressions of the Gospel in its widest sense. Perhaps what Touchstone readers need to do is to come for a visit.

1 In the Introduction by Marjorie Tborpe of a book by Earl Lovelace. The Wine o.lAsionishinent (Heineman Press, 1982) p.vii.

2 Ibid., p. 42.

Text: Luke 1:39-56

We're going to talk about the Magnificat, the passage from the Gospel of Luke that was read this morning. But first I have a confession to make. I don't like preaching on this passage. It makes me uncomfortable. And it makes me feel guilty.

It makes me uncomfortable because I don't like some of the things that Mary is saying in her song of praise. I don't like the part about scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. I don't like the part about bringing down the powerful front their thrones. And I especially don't like the part about God sending the rich away empty. And the reason is that I take this passage seriously. I believe it describes what God is going to do. I believe that this is what the coming of Jesus Christ was all about. It makes me uncomfortable because, if I'm honest with myself, there's a pretty good chance that I'll be counted among the proud
and the powerful and the rich. The passage confronts me with my life style. It challenges my priorities and my values. It exposes the sinful self-deception of counting myself among the poor or economically disadvantaged. It reminds me that many of us participate in, and benefit from, a system that is responsible for injustice and poverty.

And the Magnificat makes me feel guilty because I like to think of myself as a pretty good minister, someone who is sensitive to the needs of the congregation, someone who is here to bring comfort and hope and joy to the people, especially at Christmas time. So I feel guilty when I get stuck with having to preach on a text like this one. I feel guilty because I know there are people out there who are tired of being portrayed as the bad guys just because they have a bit of money. I know there are people who are sick and tired of the United Church always getting involved with social and political issues, people who are at odds with our Church's seemingly radical positions on a variety of issues, people who would think that all this talk from Mary sounds more like socialist propaganda than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I feet guilty about laying this stuff on people, people who are my friends, people whom I like and respect, my brothers and sisters in Christ, so that sometimes I've left whole paragraphs out of my sennons for fear of offending. And so I guess there is a selfish side to it, too. I want people to like me. I want people to like my sermons. I don't enjoy conflict or strong differences of opinion. So it's hard to preach on the Magnificat with any integrity, without feeling uncomfortable and guilty.

You can be sure, also, that I'm not the only minister who feels like this. For years there have been plenty of preachers and caring pastors who have found a variety of ingenious ways of watering down what the Bible has to say, so that it won't hurt quite so much, so that our way of life can remain intact, so that Mary's Song can leave us unaffected. But no matter how hard we try, it's hard to escape the significance of what Mary had to say. Contrary to popular opinion, Mary was not just a womb, a place for Christ to grow. She was also a prophet, an instrument of God's speaking, announcing the dawning of a new day. Her words cannot be separated from what was going on in her womb. And as her mouth formed the words of Magnificat God formed within her the beginning of a new age.

Often we think that Jesus came to bring comfort and hope to people amid the trials and tribulations of this earthly life, and of course, we're partly right. We also often see the world, and its political and economic realities, as simply the backdrop for the saving work of Christ, work that is carried out while leaving the world as it is. But the Magnificat tells us that the world is going to be turned upside down, so that the rich are sent away empty, the proud are put in their place, and the powerful are brought down from their thrones. The Magnificat reminds us that the way we order our lives - the economic, social and political realities of our world - are not the backdropfor, but the subject of, the saving work of Jesus Christ. The mission of Jesus, according to Mary, has as its goal the usurping of the established order and the beginning of the reign of God.

And for us as people of faith, it doesn't matter much whether that new order is something that comes about through some process of social change, or is something that God is going to send from on high with the return of Jesus Christ. Thefact is, God's intention for the world is made clear in the Magnificat. And not only the Magnifical. In the Sermon on the Illain, we hear Jesus say -Blessed are you poor, for you will be satisfied.... And Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.- And in mother place we hear Jestis warn that it's easier for a caniel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom. No, throughout the Gospels God's intention is made clear. And the question for us, as people of faith, is whether or not we're going to get on board with God's agenda. In fact, that's the only way that 1, as a person of relative power and wealth, can make this passage sound like good news for me - by stepping outside of my own little world, by shifting my focus away from how I'm affected personally, by letting go of my agenda and embracing God's agenda, by laying aside the personal little kingdom that I'm building so that God's kingdom can be built. The Magnificat forces us to come to terms with the fact that our kingdoni-building, our private economic and social intentions, are at odds with what God is doing. 1 know this sounds alarming, and maybe it goes against everything you've come to believe, but think about it: if the whole system were dismantled, if the whole world were turned upside down, and we were left with nothing, it would still be alright as long as it was the God of our Saviour Jesus Christ who was doing the dismantling.

Because we're not talking here about socialism, or sonic utopia that will conic about by electing a different political party. But we are talking about a change in government! We're talking about exchanging the government of this world for God's government. We're talking about ending the reign of cruelty and injustice and greed. We're talking about making real Isaiah's vision of the peaceable kingdom. We're therefore talking about more than a revision of what already exists. We're talking about the establishment of something entirely new. We're talking about giving our allegiance to the political platform spelled out in the Magnificat. To do that takes enormous faith in God! It means acknowledging that God's plan for the world may be better than our plan. It means that if God is driving, we may be taken to places we don't want to go, but we will get to where God wants us to go! You see, the Magnificat only becomes good news for us when we hear in the words of Mary a song of hope for all creation that ultimately includes us.

As I was discussing this text with a friend the other day, 1 said,---If God came to me and asked me to give up my life style, the wealth and security of my way of life, in order to build the kingdom - if that's what God needed from me in order to bring in the day of justice and peace, if it meant that little children wouldn't suffer any more, and cycle of poverty and violence would end - if that's what God asked, it would scare the daylights out of me, but I would gladly do it." He replied, "What do you mean, 'if'?"

We went on to talk about how making the decision to live differently, to choose a different life style, a different set of values, different priorities, including turning our backs on the wealth and success prescription for happiness, instead of causing fear and pain - that such a decision can be a source of great satisfaction, even liberation! To get on board with God's agenda cannot only be tolerable, it can be exciting and life-giving. It's simply a matter of being converted, of being caught up in the sheer joy of participating in the wonderful thing that God is doing. To live as citizens of God's kingdom (or "kin-dom" as one colleague of mine likes to put it) is to find ourselves in a community of love where our worth as human beings, our acceptability, is no longer tied to status or power or position. Imagine being free of so many of the demands, the dehumanizing expectations, the anxiety-producing pressures laid upon us by our society.

And what does our citizenship in the kingdom look like? Does it affect the way we vote? The way we eat? The way we spend our money? The way we respond to the plight of the poor and hungry? The way we support the work of the Church? The way we spend our time? The way we make decisions?

And maybe you're thinking, "Well, what if I can't do that? What if I can't change? What if my faith isn't that strong? What if I like my wealth and comfort and security? What does it mean to be sent away empty? What does it mean to be scattered in the imagination of my heart? Or put down from my throne?" I don't know the answer to those questions. I don't think it means you're an awful person. I know people of wealth and power who are wonderful people, capable of great kindness and generosity. But I also know that as people of faith, we need to make choices about how we live our days upon this earth. The issue is not whether we can somehow single-handedly save the world by changing the way we live. The issue is whether the way we live is faithful to the purposes of God for the world. We can live our lives as participants in the saving work of Jesus Christ which includes the pursuit of justice, the giving of good things to the poor, the lifting up the lowly. Or we can live on the outside of what God is doing, as strangers or even enemies. To cling to our old life, our power, our wealth, our pride is to choose a self imposed exile front the kingdom of God.

The Magnificat, whether we like it or not, describes God's intention for the world. It declares in bold, prophetic song what the coming of Christ is all about. The coming ofChrist marked the dawning of a new day when the world as we know it slowly began to unravel. The prospect of that unravelling filled Mary's heart with magnificent praise. With what does it fill your heart?

May we join with Mary in singing, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour!" Amen.

A future historian who attempts to understand and evaluate the Presbyterian Church in Canada in the half century following 1925 will find himself (sic) very clearly confronted with the fact of Walter W. Bryden. He will not find the name appearing often in the minutes of the General Assembly nor among those serving on important committees which are supposed to wield great influence in the shaping of the Church's life. But as he examines the convictions which have moved men to action and asks why the ministry of this Church has moved in certain directions and not in others, he will come upon innumerable trails all leading back to the classroom or the study of this one man. It can be said that he has moved the Church at the level of its faith and its deepest thinking as has no other man in its history. 1

An exalted estimate indeed. It is safe to say, however, that outside Canadian Presbyterian circles, Bryden's name has never been widely known, let alone acclaimed. And that's a pity. For the things that concerned this Canadian theologian most passionately, the themes which shaped his thinking and the theological resources he brought to engage the issues of our culture, are of significance for us all. Reading his writings, talking with some ministers who were his students, and pondering the impact he had on the Presbyterian Church, has prompted this attempt to bring him to the attention of a wider group.

A. A Sketch of His Life 2

Walter Bryden was born on September 18, 1883, on a farm near Galt, Ontario. As a young boy his right arm was injured in a shooting accident near his home, an injury that remained with him for the rest of his life and which caused him considerable suffering. The Bryden family attended Knox's Presbyterian Church in Galt, a congregation which John Vissers describes as a "vibrant congregation of the Scottish Reformed tradition", and from which in 1895 five men were studying at Knox College for the Presbyterian ministry.3 Late in his life, Bryden recalled that as a tecri-ager ;n high school he read all kinds of old national Scottish history, as well as the history of the Kirk. "Indeed", he says, "there was a time when I verily believed Scotland was God's throne and the rest of the world His footstool." 4 Further historical study, he acknowledges, happily disabused him of this notion. Bryden graduated from the University of Toronto in 1906 in honours philosophy and psychology, and in 1907 he received the M.A. degree in psychology.

In 1906 he also began theological studies at Knox College, and then spent the academic year 1907-08 at the United Free Church College in Glasgow.This period in Scotland was very important for his theological development. Thc influence of James Denney, whom he would later call "the prince of Scottish theologians", combined with that of the Reformation historian, T.M. Lindsay, would prove decisive for him. John Vissers focuses the nature of this influence rightly when he says,

Denney and Lindsay, together with James Orr, George Adam Smith, and later the British theologians P.T. Forsyth and John Oman, helped Bryden to see the possibility of developing a Reformed theology which might weave a mediating path between liberal Protestantism and evangelical orthodoxy.5

After completing his theological education at Knox in the year 190809, Bryden was ordained and became the minister of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Lethbridge. During this pastorate, he came into touch with the miners struggling to organize the labour movement, an experience which would appear to have been important in shaping his political and social convictions. In 1912 he accepted a call to be the minister of Knox Church in Woodville, Ontario, and remained there until 1921 when he decided to return to the West, to St. James in Melfort, Saskatchewan. In 1924, owing to the ill health of Mrs. Bryden, the decision was made to return to Ontario, where he served as a supply preacher. After the formation of the United Church in June, 1925, he accepted a call from the continuing Presbyterians in Woodville to become once again their minister. 6

Inevitably we raise the question: What were the reasons that kept him from becoming part of the new United Church? He did not, he says, "find it an easy matter to come to a decision." It was actually a painful decision for him, since many of his "oldest, most esteemed and staunchest friends" entered the United Church, and he had a genuine sympathy with their aims and motives. That is not surprising when we remember that the entire faculty of Knox College and all but five of the forty-three students at the College did enter the United Church. 7

Bryden frequently expressed the view that during the entire controversy among the Presbyterians over union, the really essential issues were either ignored or overshadowed by other less worthy concerns, and that both sides shared in this failure. As we would expect, his criticism of the unionist cause receives the more extensive discussion. His basic criticism was religious. There was nothing in the whole union movement, he later wrote, "which really gripped my soul in a truly challenging religious way." It failed to challenge "the roots of his spiritual being". This was also, he thought, the major defect of the Basis of Union. "There is no new compelling vision of God in it", the kind of vision that had shaped the framers of the great creeds and confessions of the past, and which alone could create a vital unity. Without a rigorous concern for doctrine, without theological passion and vision, the spiritual life and worship of the Church would quickly suffer. In short, there was a profound spiritual need in both the Church and the wider culture that was not being met by the movement toward organic union. This failure, Bryden emphasized, was not that of the unionists alone. In a statement made in 1934, which has not been frequently quoted, he remarked,---Evennow, 1 cannot remember one argument against the proposed Union, which, in itself, sufficiently impressed me as to make it strictly a matter of conscience to remain in the Presbyterian Church."

In sum, 1 think Bryden's refusal to enter the Union was due to his conviction that the religious and ecclesiastical developments which he deplored, that were taking place in the Presbyterian Church prior to 1925, would be ac.---entuatedby church union. It was his hope that "The Presbyterian Church, through a new dependence upon God because of its difficulties and weakness, might return to a simpler, stronger and more evangelical preaching.

In hindsight, what are we in the United Church to say to these criticisms. We may - with some justification - respond that Bryden failed to appreciate the authentic religious nature of the vision and missionary impulse of the unionists. The drive toward union was not for theni just another ecclesiastical scheme. We will not understand the movement toward union without taking into full account the fact that its proponents believed themselves to be responding to the claim of Christ upon them, and the energies they derived from that conviction.

Nevertheless, the concerns Bryden had regarding the nature, foundation, and mission of the Church are as relevant today as they were then. John W. Grant has frequently reminded us that the United Church is -primarily a task-oriented Church". Such a Church asks not "What is the ChurchT' but "What is the Church for?" It is more at home with -deciding what it is to say or do than thinking about what it is to be or to believe 1 The question "What is the Church for?" will remain important and urgent, but it cannot be properly addressed except through a rigorous engagement with the question, "What is the Church?". The
issue of purpose cannot be divorced from the issue of being; the nature of the mission of the Church must not be separated from its foundation in Jesus Christ. And right here is where Bryden's concern is of contemporary relevance, and his thought a resource for us all. Indeed, in the conclusion to his book, Why I ani a Presbyterian, he expresses this concern with direct relevance to the United Church.

I am convinced that the United Church of Canada is destined to have a very important role to play in the furtherance of religious life in this land. At the same time, 1 am equally confident that, as that Church's great task in the coming years presses more poignantly upon her, she will be compelled to recognize the necessity for a more definitely Biblical, doctrinal and theological teaching than that which seems to prevail within her at the present time.

In 1925 Bryden began lecturing at Knox College on a part-time basis, and in 1927 he was appointed to the chairs of Church history, and of the history and philosophy of religion. It was an extremely difficult time in the College. Not only were they involved in a total reconstruction with limited resources, but the College also suffered from internal, acrimonious turmoil. Somehow, Bryden seemed to transcend the bitter, personal conflicts, and in 1945 he assumed the principalship of the College, a position he held until his death in 1952. In addition to his teaching and administrative duties, Bryden wrote Why I anz a Presbyterian (1934), The Christian Knowledge of God (1940), The Significance of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1943), as well as several articles, reviews and public addresses, some of which were published after his death in the book Separated Unto The Gospel (1956).

It was, however, as teacher and principal that Bryden shaped his most enduring legacy. His influence on students was profound. They admired him as a person, teacher, and thinker. His theology shaped them in deep, inner ways, and set the direction for their preaching and understanding of the ministry. His impact on the College itself is difficult to exaggerate. Indeed, Brian Fraser has noted that all but one of the new generation of faculty who came to Knox between 1944 and 1952 were former students "who acknowledged Bryden's formative influence", and that between 1945 and 1975 "no less than seven of Bryden's students were appointed to the faculty".

During his years as teacher and principal, Bryden was profoundly influenced by the theology of Karl Barth, and this had the further consequence of enabling him to appropriate in a deeper way than heretofore the theological understanding of his Scottish teachers such as James Denney. Armed with this perspective, he was determined to keep the Presbyterian Church in Canada from becoming fundamentalist, sectarian, or provincial. And he retained the understanding of the Churc as having responsibility for society. He constantly emphasized the importance of the wider Reformed heritage and above all the significance of a vital appropriating of the Reformation's understanding of the Gospel.

It is important to note that Bryden combined this concern for theological foundations with a strong, progressive social commitment. Although critical of the theological reductionism of the Social Gospel, Bryden was a strong supporter of the CCF Party from its inception, and remained so until his death. Indeed this combination of theological depth, evangelical experience, and social passion was not only a mark of his own work, it was ~; vision that he was able to pass on to many of his students, notably his successor at Knox, Allan Farris.

The relationship between our ultimate religious commitment and our pursuit of social and cultural values, is a perennial theological issue, and one that is particularly confused at the present time. Bryden can be a valuable resource for us in engaging this matter.

B. A Reformation-Shaped Understanding of the Gospel

Theologically speaking, Brydcn was continuously engaged in a twofront war. Time and again he sought to show the inadequacies of what he called the fundamentalist or confessionally orthodox view on the one hand, and the liberal or modernist view on the other. Both, in their different ways, were rationalistic objectivications of the Gospel, which obscured the personal encounter of faith. "In both cases something to accept, or to emulate or achieve, has taken the place of the radically personal challenge by, and personal reliance on, the living Saviour."" Because of this, Bryden sought above all else to cut behind such movements as scholastic orthodoxy, fundamentalism, and liberalism, to make the vision of God that had seized the Reformers, their existential understanding of the Gospel of God in Christ, available and formative for the Church in the second quarter of the twentieth century. Space pen-nits only a bare mention of a few of the themes that were central to his project, that are of lively relevance to our situation.

1. The first concerns the relationship between the Word of God and Scripture. The beginning point for Bryden was the fact that for the Reformers "there was a sense of something tremendous in the Bible... something terrific which shakes man's life to its foundation, yet amazes him by its sheer gratuitous goodness and holiness."11 This does not mean, however, that the Word of God was to be simply identified with Scripture, as both fundamentalists and the confessional orthodox were advocating. The Word of God was something more than the record of it. In order to explicate his own view, he turned to the Reformers, especially to John Calvin, for whom the Scripture is certainly intrinsic to the Word of God but is not identical with it. With the understanding of the Reformers shaping him, he was able to combat not only the fundamentalist notions of verbal inerrancy, but also the modernist notions that the words of Jesus themselves were of primary importance, or that the Bible was only incidental rather than intrinsic to the Word of God. (The relevance of this debate to our situation in the 1990s is obvious.) Both fundamentalists and modernists had obscured the dynamic nature of revelation, that in and through the Bible we encounter God, speaking and acting. Consequently the biblical understanding of revelation, as freshly articulated by the Refon-ners, became a major theme of Bryden's thought.

2. Revelation is not simply the communication of ideas that might illumine the mind, nor the setting forth of ideals to emulate. When the New Testament writers spoke of revelation, Bryden urged, they spoke of an "event", of something that had uniquely "happened". This eventfulness also marks the appropriation of the biblical revelation. "From Luther one does not get the impression of a man merely thinking about the truths of God; but rather of a man confronted by God Himself .... 12 It
was in the concrete experience of Luther's spiritual struggle that Luther came to the understanding of both the nature of God's judgement and the largeness of God's mercy.

Bryden had a favourite way of describing the content of the biblical revelation. He described it as "the judging-saving Word of God". The juxtaposition of those terms is appropriate. We are "judged" by the revelation of the love of God spelled out in the Cross of Christ. To stand before the Cross is to be confronted with a love that throws a searchlight into every nook and cranny of our beings. But we are upheld by the love that judges and reconciles us to Him whose Cross it is. That love has the power to judge us totally because it also the power to uphold, to redeem and to reconcile, in a word, to save. The central content of the revelation is the self-disclosure of God taking into God's own heart the sin of humankind and conquering it there, and in this encounter with God in Christ we learn who we are, the nature of our condition and need, and the resources of grace provided to meet that need. Moreover, there are disclosed in this Cross-centred faith, resources to engage the tragic dimensions of our communal as well as our personal histories.

3. This understanding of the dynamic nature of the biblical revelation also shaped his presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity. That doctrine was central for Bryden. He urged us to realize that the early Christians did not develop the doctrine out of a penchant for metaphysical speculation, nor some fascination with the number three. It represented " what the Church was compelled to say under constraint of the Word made flesh". 13 In a word, Christians could not say what they meant by the word "God" until they went on to say Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity was thus not some extra baggage, some addendum to the faith. On the contrary, it was "the corner-stone of all Christian theology", and to abandon it was to forsake the Christian faith.

Given his emphasis upon the dynamic nature of revelation, it will not be surprising that his presentation of the Trinity is marked by a special emphasis upon the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit is, however, most intimately connected to the person and work of Christ. Thus, when Christians speak of the Holy Spirit they do not refer to heightened human emotions, or even to some impersonal divine energy. They refer specifically to the contemporary presence of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit unfolds and brings to remembrance, makes present and efficacious, the saving power of Jesus Christ. Or to use Bryden's words, the Holy Spirit seals in our hearts "the eternal significance of this stupendous incarnation Event"." In line with this christological theme, Bryden emphasized that Christian truth is not something static, but always alive and transformative. Thus he would emphasize that we do not so much believe "in" the Holy Spirit as "through" the Holy Spirit, so that all the themes of new life in Christ are central to his exposition. For that reason, he thought that to speak merely of a "doctrine of the Holy Spirit" was to devitalize the subject, a thought that surely ought to give us pause as we blithely talk about the "Trinitarian formula".

4. Bryden did all of his thinking in the context of the Church and the preparation of its ministry. Donald Wade. who joined the faculty of Knox in 1947, spoke of Bryden as -a preacher's theologian, a theologian of, in and for the Church". His constant theme was that "the original, constitutive principle of the Church" was the solidarity or spiritual union between Christ and His people as a whole. That meant that most of the Church's problems were at bottom theological and that only a vital, experiential vision of God could bring about the needed renewal. Theology was never something abstract or academic for him. Because it dealt with God's saving action, dealing with the full range of human need, nothing was, for him, more practical, more in touch with human life, than rigorous theological thinking.

In bringing this brief profile of Bryden to a close, it is worth noting that the unity between theology and the Church's life that marked everything Bryden said is also central to the purpose of "Touchstone". The following words are found in the first editorial of this journal, issued in January, 1983.

The Christian message is... not only a social vision and a great support in time of trouble. It makes a truth claim and upon that claim it ultimately stands or falls. That is why we believe the concern for theology must be the concern of the whole Church. Christian theology is not for us some high flown abstract speculation about matters only remotely connected with daily life. On the contrary: we think that systematic reflection on the Christian message provides a tremendous resource of insight into human nature and the dynamics, tensions and conflict of human communities. Nothing is more practical or more relevant to our daily lives than the insight into the human condition to be gained from Christian theology. We believe our age needs the resources of insight and spirit, the truth about life, provided by the Christian message.

... Walter Bryden worked and spoke primarily to the Presbyterian Church in Canada during a difficult period in its history. He sought to provide it with the kind of theological orientation and spiritual direction that would enable it to be true to its heritage and relevant to the culture and life of Canada. He will always remain a special figure of the Presbyterian Church. The time has come, however, for us in other denominations, and perhaps especially those of us who happily belong to the Church he chose not to become part of, to acknowledge his achievement, the strength of his theological vision, and to embrace him as a major figure in our Canadian religious heritage.

1 James D Smart, "The Evangelist As Theologian". in Walter W. Bryden,Separated Unto The Gospel, ed. by Donald V. Wade (Toronto: Bums and MacEachem. 1956) p. vii.

2 It is a pleasure to draw attention to a thoughtful article on Bryden by John A. Visers, **Recovering the Reformation Concept in of Revelation: Walter Williamson Bryden and Post-Union Canadian Presbyterianism", in William Klempa (ed.) The Burning Bush and a Few Acres oJ'Snow: The Presbyterian Contribution to Canadian Lift and Culture (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1994). Also see the quite extensive discussion of Bryden in Brian Fraser's fine new book Church, College, and Clergy: A History ofTheological Education at Knox College, Toronto, 1884-1994 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. 1995).

3 Vissers in Klempa, p. 242.

4 From an address delivered by Dr. W.W. Bryden, Principal of Knox College, Toronto, to the Pre-Assemlbly Congress, June
5, 1950.

5 Vissers in Klempa, p. 244.

6 I have drawn freely from the article by Vissers for the above information.

7 See Fraser p. 122. Indeed Fraser states that -the education of the clergy at Knox during the twenty years prior to union aimed at preparing progressive pastors for the United Church of Canada" (p. 128).

8 WW. Bryden,Why I anm a Presbyterian (Toronto: Presbyterian Publications, 1934)p. 14.

9 See especially the splendid article by Grant in Peter Gordon White (ed) Voices and Visions: 65 Years of the United Church of Canada (Toronto: United Church Publishing House. 1990).

10 W W Brydn, A Christian's Knowledgeof God (Toronto: The Thorn Press,1940)p.219.

11 Walter W. Bryden, Separated Unto The Gospel, p. 4.

12 Ibid., p. 216.

13' The Christian's Knowledge of God', p. 206.

14 'Separated Unto the Gospel, p. 32.
 

Spong's critique of literalism, unfortunately, goes beyond biblical scholarship into the sociology of religion, and into theology. Spong is particularly weak in the latter areas, with the result, I would suggest, that he drifts into an idolatry of his own.

Spong's Presentation of Biblical Scholarship

Spong writes well. He has an accessible style, and when he sticks to popularizing contemporary Biblical scholarship, he does a good job. Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism contains well written introductions to contemporary critical views of the major traditions of the Old Testament.' However, Spong also likes to venture out on his own, as when he suggests that Paul's criticism of the law resulted from a repressed homosexuality,4 or that faith in the resurrection arose from a moment of intellectual insight on Peter's part.5 At these points Spong ceases to present biblical scholarship and pursues a very different agenda, which is to rid the biblical witness of all contradictions with the cultural ideals and world view of educated modern people. It is my feeling - to choose one important instance - that Spong's theory about the resurrection faith of the early Christians rising from an insight on Peter's part has more credibility problems than the original stories themselves. Spong would do better to follow Crossan, who simply notes, "If those who accepted Jesus during his earthly life had not continued to follow, believe, and experience his continuing presence after the crucifixion, all would have been over."'

To his credit Spong always prefaces his personal speculations with an announcement that what follows are his own views, a distinction readers do well to note. Unfortunately, his popularizations of biblical scholarship, and his own speculations, are presented as though they were of equal weight and even cut from the same cloth, when they are not. Were he to stick to popularizing biblical scholarship, or at least to distinguish very clearly his own views from what he is popularizing, Spong would be doing a service to the Church. As it is, his interpretations of Scripture mix academically credible discussion with rash speculation, driven by a very specific modernist theological agenda.

Spong on Fundamentalism
 
Though Spong repeatedly calls for critical care in interpreting the Bible, he does not seem to feel this is necessary in his own interpretation of fundamentalism. According to Spong, fundamentalists are "deeply insecure and fearful people"' who cling to the literal interpretation of Scripture in the face of contradictory scientific evidence, in the misguided belief that Christian faith depends on reading Scripture this way. This immature reaction gives rise, he claims, to an irrational anger that constantly seeks tarocts in those holding different views. No doubt many such people can be found in fundamentalist churches, but this is not the whole story. In reflecting on his own beginnings, Cliff Elliott notes that fundamentalists often exhibit it oreat deal of courage. 8 And if he were to look more closely, Spong might find that the groups he labels as fundamentalists have much more variety in them than he acknowledges, and also that "fundamentalism" calls into question some of his own assumptions regarding history and progress. Fundamentalists are not so much spiritual dinosaurs still roaming at large in modernity, as they are
partial products of modernity itself. One of the attractions of fundamentalism is that it offers a seemingly clear moral framework in the vacuum of values created by the pervasive influence of technical rationality. Fundamentalism is better understood in light of Ernst Bloch's insight that "not all people exist in the same Now".9 While the public crusades and tirades of fundamentalists no doubt often are driven by all sorts of psychological and sociolo , gical factors, underneath the whole phenomena also ties the non-comcniporaneity of Scripture, the ways in which its horizons ofexpectation, and witness to God, contradict certain present-day social realities and horizons of experience. Fundamentalism is a form of cultural interpretation that responds selectively to modernity," 10 and this selective response can be either reactionary or revolutionary''. Fundamentalists and evangelicals range from Pat Robertson at one end of the spectrum, to Jim Wallis and the Sojourners community on the
other. While fundamentalists have tended to support culturally conservative politics and "economic policies favourable to the middle class"", some also work in Habitat for Humanity and food banks. The non-contemporaneity of fundamentalists and evangelicals means that they are sometimes spiritually closer to radical "faith-and-justice Christians" than culturally acclimatized liberal Christians like Spong. 13 Spong's approach of seeking to reduce the biblical message to fit with modernity actually feeds fundamentalism, which may only disappear when liberalism dies.14
 
Changing Religion Instead of Changing The World
 

Spong's theological approach is determined by his high regard for the modern natural sciences. In his view, "unless theological truth can be separated from pre-scientific understandings and rethought in ways consistent with our understanding of reality, the Christian faith will be reduced to one more ancient mythology that will take its place alongside the religions of Mount Olympus"15 Spong's approach is not new, but is a faint shadow of the work carried through two hundred years ago by the father of modem liberal theology, the great German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834). Schleiermacher was disturbed by the perceived contradiction between the biblical witness and modern science and philosophy, which led to Christian faith becoming "culturally despised". Schleiermacher's solution was to seek to establish "an eternal covenant" between Christian faith and the scientific culture of his time. His approach has been followed by many others up to the present day. While Schleiermacher's work saved Christian faith from being culturally despised, in the hands of his disciples it often led to it becoming culturally captive. Dorothy Soelle, writing out of the German context, says that "what essentially was done in Protestant faculties and churches was to adjust religion to the modern world. The world itself was seen as a given, so the task for the theologian was to modemize and shift the outdated religion"16. This led to bourgeois culture changing religion rather than religion changing the world,17 a process in Germany that came to a head with the rise of Hitler and the Confessing Church struggle. While Soelle's analysis draws on her Gennan background, in the late 1930s H. Richard Niebuhr demonstrated how a similar process happened in North America. 18 In my judgment, Spong's approach to interpreting Scripture follows the pattern Soelle descibes, of changing religion rather than chanoing the world. The net result is an inability to distinguish God from the gods or goals of class, nation, and culture, a loss of Christian identity and the critical power of the Christian message. A theological term for this is idolatry, the very term Spong applies to fundamentalists.

For Spong, the Gospel is a call to self-fulfillment, to become the self we were created to be, and to break down barriers excluding others. Thus, while Spong criticizes fundamentalists for using the Bible to sanctify their own way of life, his own approach unwittingly does the same thing. Spong and the fundamentalists, each in their own way, are prone to equate the biblical message with the values and world view of the North American middle class.

Spong is correct to note the diversity of Scripture, and how the various traditions in the Bible pose an interpretive challenge that each generation must take up. He is also correct when he says that fundamentalists who see biblical descriptions of reality as scientific claims misunderstand Scripture. But Spong's sense that the natural sciences have simply surpassed the biblical understanding of reality is no longer widely shared in academic circles. No one would deny that, in some areas, we know a great deal more than did the prophets and apostles. But the converse is also true. The relationships between modem science and Christian faith are intricate, fascinating, and complex. A simple rcductionist scheme such as Spong employs is not adequate to describe them, as is apparent when he suggests that we must either take biblical accounts of God acting in history literally, or interpret them as descriptions of an inner spiritual experience that is essentially the same in all times and places. What is at stake here is the reality of history, the understanding of God as Creator and Redeemer, and the nature of Christian hope. It is quite true that, if God is understood as Creator, the biblical witness must be interpreted in ways that are credible in relation to other forms of knowledge. Here fundamentalism chronically falls short. But the God of Jesus Christ is also the Redeemer in the same encompassing sense. The biblical witness has a narrative structure. It comes alive when people read the present in terms of its narrative structure, interpreting their situation in terms of its basic movement and its horizons of hope. It speaks of a God who acts in history, and whose actions tend toward the future liberation and redemption of all creation. This redemption must be understood wholistically, as encompassing body, mind and spirit. If we simply surrender biblical claims to God acting in history, as Spong suggests that we should, then we surrender the notion of God as Redeemer of the body, the hope for liberation in history, and ultimately God as Redeemer of the mind, and spirit as well. Spong rightly urges us to read and study the Bible carefully. But his own interpretive approach serves ultimately to domesticate the biblical witness for consumption by middle class liberals. We need to learn not only to read the Bible critically, in terms of all that our culture has to offer, but also to read our culture critically in the light of Scripture. It appears to me that Bishop Spong will not be the one to help us do that.
 

1 John Shelby Spong, Born of A Wornan: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth ofJesus (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992) p. 11.

2 John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible Front Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning ql*S(ripturc (New York: HarperCollins Publishers. 1991); Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (New York: HarperCollins Publishers. 1994).

3 Spong. Rescuing. pp. 43-90.

 4 Ibid, p. 117. Spong fails to take note of Paul's positive statements rarding the law (Rom. 7:12), and his experience of it (Phil. 3:6).

5 Spong, Resurrection, pp. 255-258.

6 John Domminic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life ofa Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 199 1) p. 404.

7 Spong, Rescuing, p. 5.

8 Jim Taylor, "A Life of Exploration", 7he United Church Observer, May 1995, p. 34.

9 Ernst Bloch, Heritag of Our Tinies, trans. Neville and Stephen Plaice (Oxford: Polity Press, 199 1 ), p. 96.

10 Robert Wuthnow. Christianity- in the 21st Century: Reflections on the Challenges Ahead (New York: Oxford University Press. 1993), p. 124.

11 Bloch, Heritage. p. 108.

12 Wuthnow. Christianity-, p. 1] 3.

13 Gregory Baum, "Dialolpe with Evangelicals". in Justice As Mission: An Agenda Jbr tile Chur(h ed. by Christopher Lind and Ten-y Brown (B url ington. Ontario: Trinity Press, 1995), P. 101.

 14 Ibid., p. 130. Wuthnow argues that Spong's type oferiticism misunderstands fundamentalism so much that it is unlikely to have much effect, Ibid., p. 13 1. He suggests that "liberalism needs to become a counterculture to secularism. instead of a reaction to fundamentalism Ibid., p. 134.

15 Spong, Rescuing, p. 3 1.

16 Dorothee Soelle, "Resurrection and Liberation", in Border Regions ofFaith: An Anthology oj'Religion and So(ial Change, ed. by Kenneth Aman (Maryknoll: Orbis Books. 1987) p. 504.

17 "Ibid., p. 505.

18 H. R ichard Niebuhr. The Kingdom of God in America (New York: Harper& Row Torchbook, 1959. first published in 1937).
 

In 1986 1 was called to serve a Shared Ministry of the Anglican and United Churches in the Saguenay-Lac StAcan re(,ion of Quebec. When 1 arrived, 1 discovered that the congregation celebrated a mid^week Eucharist accordino to the rite contained in The Book of Common Prayer. In addition, 1 found that one of' their---constitutionaldocuments" stated that an Anglican gift to the Shared Ministry was the use of' their Church Calendar and the observance of saints days, sometimes known as a Sanctoral.

As a United Church minister, 1 had anxieties about these mid-week services, particularly about the role and purpose of' preaching at them. ]'bus, when the Autumn Ember Days for 1986 arrived, 1 decided, as the sermon at that service, to do a presentation on the origin of' Ember Days and the reason why it was to be observed. The response seemed favourable, so 1 decided to do the same thing whenever a saint's day fell on the day of a midweek service. Using the Calendar in The Book of Alternative Services(BAS) 1 would read the biographical material put out by the American Episcopal

Church. in Lesser Feasts and Fasts'. as well as using the appropriate Collect for the saint beim, commemorated. I quickly discovered, however, that the Calendar in the BAS was not the same as the one observed by the Episcopal Church. nere were discrepancies in the dates observed, and individuals whom the Canadian church remembered but the American church didn't. I became aware that the Anglican Church of Canada was planning to publish a Canadian version ofLesser Feasts and Fasts. And so I waited.

My patience was rewarded when in January, 1995, 1 finally received my copy ofFor all 1he Saints. It was worth waitim, for. As I examined it, I came to the opinion that it would be a useful reference addition to the library ofany well-read United Church person. The Introduction is a theological argument on what it means to confess a belief -in the communion of saints". The bibliography for this section even includes a work from a Reformed perspective subject! And then there is the Calendar. as amended by General Synod in 1989.

Then conics the first of what I consider the two most interesting and worthwhile parts of this work. The first contains the "Propers". For each Saint's Day or Holy Day, there is a collect, a prayer over the gifts and a post-communion prayer. Each of them highlights a distinctive element of the saint's life and how we might emulate aspects of that person's experience in our own lives or in the life of the Church. In addition, there is a onepage biographical note of the person being commemorated, written so that it may be read in the service, either at the beginning or in the place of the homily. This section is user-friendly.

The second most interesting part, entitled "Readings from the Writings of the Saints", supplements the Propers by providing additional biographical information, a reading either from a work of the person being commemorated or someone else's work, and a brief bibliography. This additional material can be used as a resource for individual devotions or for the construction of a homily.

There is a refreshing frankness in this material. Concerning Henry Budd (April 2), it records that "because he was a Cree, the Church Missionary Society allowed him only half the annual stipend that a married white missionary got..."(p.134), while of Robert McDonald (August 30), it states that "because of his 'mixed blood' background, his superiors in the Church Missionary Society treated him as a second-class priest... "(p. 262).

At the same time, the compilers remind us that the saints being commemorated had feet of clay like the rest of us. We are told that Florence Nightingale (May 12) wrecked the careers of people who disagreed with her and that she ignored the Church and ceased to attend its liturgy. We are reminded that Thomas Cranmer (March 2 1) feared what would happen to his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury if Henry Vill ever found out that he was married. Even in many of the generic commemorations -Martyrs of the 20thCentury (April 24), Holy Women of the Old Testament (August 16). Martyrs of New Guinea (September 2). and Saints of the Reformation Era (October 3 1) - we are given specific people, men and women, well-known and less wellknown, to help draw us into the observance.

Individuals who use this book for their private devotions will be enriched. Their vision of the Church will be enlarged as they are reminded of people through the ages, and throughout the world, who have committed their lives to the service of' God in Jesus Christ.

Apart from individual use, is this book of any relevance to the United Church'? Some will say that a Calendar of Saints has no place in the Reformed tradition. Yet a draft Calendar was proposed for the Presbyterian Church (USA) during the preparation of their Supplemental Liturgical Resource series.' The Uniting Church of Australia has "A Calendar of Other Commemorations" in their service book.'

Our Church has been ambivalent about commemorating the saints. The first generation of liturgical material, The Book of Common Order,'provided for lessons and a prayer for grace for All Saints Day, with the rubric, "At this time we remember the faithful in Christ who have finished their course on earth: and we pray that, encouraged by their examples and strengthened by their fellowship, we also may be found meet to be partakers ol'the inheritance of' the saints in light."' As well, a Proper Preface was provided to be used on All Saints' Day ("or at any time when the Righteous Dead are remembered")'. The second generation of' liturgical material, the Service Book', had a Prayer of Approach and a Prayer for Grace for All Saints Day, but a Proper Preface and lections for that day disappeared. The most recent generation, A Sunday Liturgy' has not restored a proper preface for All Saints Day, but Eucharistic Prayers I and V allow for the possibility of'particular saints to be named, Prayers III and Vill invoke unity with the saints at the introduction of' the Sanctus, while Prayers IV and VI invoke unity with -those who have gone before us".

Part of our ambivalence may be due to the vehemence with which sonic of our Protestant forbears opposed the invocation of the saints, believing that it threatened the unique status ol'Christ as mediator, and God as the sole object of our worship. Yet, that significant Reformed document, the Second Helvetic Confession of 156 1, proposed that we are to relate to saints by: I) holding an honourable opinion of them; 2) imitating them as holv examples; and 3) offering just praise to God for their witness. Sernions were cited as a particularly appropriate time forthern to be commended and remembered."

Interestingly enough, sonic of' the same people who seem to be most uneasy about having any regular commemoration ofthe lives of-older" saints are the ones who remember the anniversaries of people like Oscar Romero and describe them as martyrs. I suggest that when we commemorate the various "saints", we are reminded that the Spirit is continually at work throughout all time and all places, that there are a variety of' ways in which to experience God, that lives are transformed as the Spirit calls individuals to their various ministries and vocations, that no two people receive exactly the same call. In the process, we are inspired to live out the particular ministry to which God calls us. The example ofthe saints can help us discover for ourselves resources for our own spiritual lives as each one of us strives to live a faithful life.

I think the time has come for the United Church to reassess its ambivalence about the commemoration of the saints and prepare its own Calendar of' Saints. For All The Saints would be a useful model for us in such a task. Meanwhile, I commend this very rich book to people across our Church as a significant spiritual resource.

- Michael Hare
 

1 The Proper for the Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 3rd edition. NeA York: Church Hyrunal Corporation, 1980.

 2 A Calendar of Commemorations, Reformed Liturgy & Mush, Vol.XXI, Number 4 Fall 1987.

3 Uniting in Worship: Leader's Book (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press. 1988). 'The Book of Common Order (Toronto:
United Church Publishing House. 1932).

4 The Book of Common Order (Toronto: United Church Publishing House)

5 Ibid. p.7 1.

6 Ibid., p. 89.

7 Service Book for the Use of the Minister (Toronto: CANEC, 1969).

8 A Sunday Liturgy.(T'oronto: United Churchof Canada, 1984).

9 in Helvetic Confession. Book of Conjessions (Part 1. Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (Louisville: Office of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (USA) 1991) 5.226.

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