Why Galatians?

Copyright 2007, Logos Bible Software
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With a bit of luck, Caversham's Anglican CTM Parish will be doing another sermon series, late spring/early summer this year, looking at a whole book of the Bible over several weeks. This may seem like a no-brainer for other church traditions, but is actually a departure for the good old CofE.

Last year we looked at Mark's Gospel: an easy choice for a starting point. This year I am suggesting that we look at Paul's letter to the Galatians. So, why Galatians?

1. Firstly, Galatians is about what it means to be people of God, to be followers of Jesus Christ, and to be Church.
2. Also, Galatians is about change. In particular about the change from being a movement where nearly everybody shares a common religious background and upbringing to one where significant numbers are coming in who do not share that background.
3. Thirdly, Galatians is a letter where good, clear, coherent preaching can really add value. 
4. Galatians was almost certainly the first of Paul's letters, and therefore the very first part of the New Testament, to be written.
5. Last but not least, Galatians is a document of God's Grace.

You might think that last point should come first, but 'grace' as a term has become so hijacked by religious ideology that its meaning is watered down and corrupted, both inside and outside church communities. So I think the starting point needs to be in different, more approachable, terms, with preaching which demonstrates the grace  of God - its power, its opportunity and its love - through these contexts. 

Approached 'cold' Galatians can be a hard document to get a handle on and too many commentaries and commentators seem to start from the assumptions and politics of the 16th Century. This makes preaching it challenging, as many of the usual aids are unhelpful, but it should encourage preachers to really focus on the letter's original themes and their application in and around today's changing church environment.

One example of an area where a more modern understanding of the political geography of the day is helpful is that of the letter's basic context. Nowadays we know that the new churches established during Paul's first missionary journey were along a Roman road, the Via Sebaste, which was in the south of the Roman province of Galatia. So we can easily place the letter as being written between Paul's return to Antioch (in Syria) and the Council of Jerusalem. Basically this background is covered in Acts 13 through to the beginning of 15, with a bit of preamble at the end of Acts 11 concerning Paul's base in Syrian Antioch and the changing nature of the church there.

The speed of the change in the church's place in English life over recent decades has been astonishing. We now live in a post-Christendom (pdf link) era: a time when we cannot assume that everyone goes to church, has been to church regularly as a child, or even is familiar with the old Bible stories which used to be told out in Sunday Schools and primary school assemblies.

Both St John's and St Margaret's recognise, I hope, that his means that they have to bring in significant numbers of people who don't share their religious backgrounds. I'm not sure about St Peter's, where the issues are more hidden.

In a post-Christendom context, what does it mean to become a follower of Jesus? Does it involve going to church, necessarily? Does it require changes in behaviour, or in our hopes and fears for the future, or in the way we treat other people? Does following Jesus make any difference at all?

That is what a sermon series on Galatians could and should address, in my view.

Grace and Peace.

Crusaders: Heroes, Villains Or Barbarians

Umayyad Caliphate, c750AD

"Tell me what to do", said the King upon his throne,
"but speak to me in whispers for we are not alone,
They tell me that Jerusalem has fallen to the hand
Of some bedevilled Eastern heathen who has seized the Holy land;"


Then the Chamberlain said "Lord, we must call upon our foes
In Spain and France and Germany to end our bitter wars,
All Christian men must be as one and gather for the fight,
You will be their leader, begin the battle cry,


Jerusalem is lost,
Jerusalem is lost,
Jerusalem is lost"...

Back when I was at school, the 'big picture' of history was mostly based around the major Mediterranean civilisations: Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Dark Ages, the Italian Renaissance, then the focus moves north for the Industrial Revolution and parliamentary democracy. There is a major omission from that list. Worryingly, even though the days when I studied history now count as history themselves, the list today would be pretty much the same.

Back in 1979, when Chris de Burgh released the song Crusader, from which the verses above were taken, it was taken for granted that crusaders were heroes, working together to free the Holy Land  from heathen invaders. In recent years the pendulum has swung completely the other way: I recently heard a (geographically-challenged) preacher talking about the Crusades as an example of early European oppression of black people. Either way the picture is of civilised Europeans attacking primitive Arabs. Which displays deep ignorance, as well of a degree of probable racism.

Back at the time of the First Crusade the Muslim Empire was the superpower of the era (at least in the West). Militarily, economically, scientifically and culturally it was the overwhelmingly dominant western civilisation. From its beginnings in the Arabian Peninsula, it had swept west across the top of Africa, then turned north to invade Europe through Spain. To the east, it reached as far as India, and to the north pushed up through the Middle East and into Anatolia (Turkey, as it is now known). The trigger for the First Crusade was when the Islamic advance turned west from Anatolia heading for Europe from the east.

Guarding the south-eastern entrance to Europe was the battered remains of the old Eastern Roman Empire (at this stage pretty much reduced to Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria and the western end of Anatolia). The rest of Europe was a patchwork of tiny barbarian states, continually fighting one another. To emphasise: at this time the Muslims were the cultured, civilised superpower, and the Europeans were the uncultured, uncivilised barbarians. As the 11th Century progressed the Islamic superpower was inexorably advancing upon Eastern Europe. Finally, in 1095, the Byzantine leader, Alexios I, called for help from Pope Urban II, in Rome.

The religious situation in Europe at the time was odd. After the assorted barbarian tribes had swept across Europe as the Roman Empire collapsed, Christian missionarise went out, against the tide, spreading the word of Jesus amongst them. Afterwards the Roman Church did the diplomacy thing amongst the leaders of the new states, with the result that pretty much all of the 11th Century European states considered themselves Christian. So when the Pope sent out the word (in suitably vague terms) that Muslim armies had invaded and taken the holy city of Jerusalem, people across the whole of Europe responded. The barbarian states sent their men, from kings to peasants, to defend 'Christendom' (and, incidentally, Europe). Then they went back to fighting one another.

Much has been made of the way the Crusader armies behaved during this time. Basically they behaved barbarically - which is not unexpected from barbarians. But this was also a time when people who had never been more than half-a-day's walk from their homes, set off on a two thousand mile journey to fight for what they believed to be right. Barbarian or no, many crusaders were heroic in their commitment. And the Crusades did successfully delay the Islamic invasion of Europe by almost 4 centuries (Constantinople finally fell in 1453). Eventually the Muslim armies of Suleiman the Magnificent reached Vienna, in 1529, but that was their high-water mark.

In summary: the First Crusade was a defensive war by European barbarians against an invading Islamic superpower, in which the Europeans behaved barbarically.