The Global Village?

This is a very interesting clip that helps us to get things into perspective.

During 2009 let us hope for a more just distribution of wealth.



My New Year's resolution would be to live more simply and to be content with what I have.

Church History

Why do we learn church history?

1. Church history shows us that God is working in the world to bring salvation to mankind.
2. It gives us an answer to many questions that concern our day to day practical living.
3. We can learn from the mistakes that others have made.
4. We can see good things that happened, analyse what made them good and pursue them.
5. Our consciousness for the body of Christ will be extended and we have good examples.
6. It is inspiring to learn about the great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) that surround us.
7. Church history gives us a sense of destiny.
When we look at church history, we should be encouraged because we see God working out his purposes with imperfect people, like us and Luther, Carey, Wesley and Billy Graham.


What is church history?

1. Church History is the story of Jesus Christ here on earth. The church is His body.
2. It is the story of the Holy Spirit. 2. Corinthians 3:17 teaches us that “the Lord is the Spirit”. Therefore the history of the Holy Spirit is the history of Jesus and is our history, because we are His body.
3. It would be better to call the subject “the History of the Church of Jesus Christ on earth”! The beginning is in the Acts of the Apostles. Acts doesn’t finish with an “Amen” but continues to this day and will only finish when Jesus returns.
Studying church history helps us not to regard our experience as the “norm”. Many people have had many experiences with God before us. These experiences are often different than ours!
Living as a Christian is a process of “taking off” and “putting on”. We take off the old man and put on the new man. This is the process of discipleship.

Making Sense of Christmas

This is a last Christmas blog this year!


That's Christmas! from andy pearce on Vimeo.

Hallelujah!

Pictures of the Lippstadt barracks

Nostalgia

On Monday, I did a lot of travelling. I drove for just over 1000km. The weather in the morning was terrible. It was raining all the time.
I was collecting some photo-copiers for a project in Sri Lanka.
At lunchtime I was in the city of Bochum, where we used to live (1976-82). Elisabeth, my wife, grew up in that city. An old friend came to help me collect one of the machines in the city and the thing was so heavy, it nearly broke his back!
I went on to collect another and was going to go past Lippstadt. I used to live there too (1971-73). At that time I was still in the Army and lived in Churchill Barracks, Suedstrasse.
Thanks to my navigation-system I managed to find the street and was very surprised at the state of the old barracks.
They were in a magnificent condition. I suppose the British Army must have moved out there around the mid-90s. The buildings had been converted into flats.
The old cinema was a church. An open university is based there and it looks like the old Regimental HQ (which we referred to as the kremlin), was now a music school.
I belonged to 22 Signals Regiment. The place we were worked, garages where we kept our vehicles with equipment, were gone and other houses had taken their places.
At the other side of the camp other regiment was stationed - an artillery regiment (27 Regiment Royal Artillery). They used to have self-propelled guns, I think they were M110 or something like that. If I remember rightly they had 90lbs shells. Well, there a children's playground on the place were they used to be kept.
I walked around the place and memories began to be relived. I found my old room or at least the outside, I could see my old window.
During the two years I was there, I thought the time would never end. But in the meanwhile 35 years have past since I was last there.
As I pondered all the things that had happened over the last 35 years and at the same time the impressions of my time in Lippstadt were so present with me, I realised how quickly everything soon passes.
I wrote to our daughter in the USA, that even though she is so young, she need to make the most of every day.
Happy Christmas

The Suffering of the Brethren

Recently I was in a Muslim country. I was amazed at the freedom the people had. we had public meetings on the streets. What a freedom. They told me that they had recording all my messages. I asked what they would do with them and they told me that they would be broadcast on public radio....

I didn't expect that.

But there is another story. In one place the police searched everyone going to church. Evenso half the men were armed! The police had been looking for bombs! Heavily armed they escourted us out of the town when the meeting was finished.

The pastor told me that 75% of the town belong to a radical islamic group and actually is was fearing for his life. It could no longer sleep in the town and comutes day by day to be with his people.

Last week a friend called me from Andhra Pradesh in India and informed me that five of his tribal pastors had been kidnapped by the Naxlites (Maoists). In the end they managed to be freed, but they had guns pushed into their bellies and put against their heads. Miraculously they were spared. The senior tribal pastor is the son of a martyr.

Friends is Sri Lanka started to extend their church building. People in the village protested first of all saying they were building a shelter for the Tamil Tigers. That brushed aside the local government said that to get building permission, you must obtain the signatures of 66% of the people living within 500 metres of the church. This is impossible as there is much intimidation going on. A deputy mayor, himself a Buddhist, was appauled at the injustice of this situation and he began a campaign to help the Christians. He gave the Christians to personally present their case before the appropriate government minister. They had four interviews with him. In the end the minister has declared the rule to be unlawful and the Christians are allowed to continue building.

Fanatical Buddhists are so enraged by this decision that they are going to hold a demonstation in front of the church this coming Sunday (21st December). The demonstration get out of hand because of agitation and they quite often turn out to be violent.

I wonder if you could prayer for this situation.


I am very moved by our brethren who are prepared to suffer for their faith.

Retooning the nativity

H A P P Y C H R I S T M A S

Picture report of trip to India

Kross-Kultural Konfusion

Welch is a Celtic language that is not spoken by the English and mastered only by a minority of Welshmen. However all public signs in Wales need to be bilingual: English and Welsh.
Sign makers wondered how a certain traffic sign should appear in the Welsh language. They sent an email to the translator’s office asking for the correct translation of the sign. They received a prompt answer and could continue their work. The sign was finally mounted in the city of Swansea in South Wales.

What neither you nor the sign writer knows is that the Welch “translation” says: “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.”
The sign has been taken down.

The medieval church: Good, Bad and Confusing

Erasmus (1467-1536)
God uses ordinary people, people are often reluctant.
Erasmus was a bridge to the reformation. Erasmus was a Dutchman, an illegitimate son of a monk and a nun. There were two children and the parents died while they were quite young. They were brought up by people who belonged to the “Brethren of the common Life.”
This was at the time of the Renaissance, which literally means “new birth” and it was a time when people were looking for their roots, looking back into antiquity.
They are looking back into Greek and Latin writings and studying the original sources.
The Turks invade Constantinople and suddenly all the ancient documents are available for study.
The Brethren of the Common Life
Now Erasmus was brought up in the Brethren of the Common Life wasn’t a monastic order but simple communities that committed themselves to living as close to the teachings of Jesus as they could. There were about 200 of these communities in the Rheinlands and the Netherlands.
One of the things that they did, was to give themselves to the study of ancient languages and particularly to the translation of ancient documents. This was through the Renaisance influence and obviously included the study and translation of the scriptures from the ancient Greek and Hebrew. They would also be reading and translating the works of the early church fathers like Ambrosius, Augustine, Origen etc.
The early church fathers were themselves grapping with truths. One of the things they grapped with in the first centuries was the relationship of Jesus with the Father. For us, this is very simple, we have a Bible, we read it and are in faith.
When the gospel went to the Greeks, who were of a polytheistic background, a Trinitarian Godhead smacks of polythesiticism for a Greek. How do you explain the trinity? One person – three gods? Three gods – three persons? One God – three persons?
At the time of the early church there were all kinds of heresies going around that were trying to grapple with the truth.
At the end of the 2nd century there was a heresy which was called modialistic monarchism. (One person revealed in three ways). We see the father in some things, Jesus in other and the Holy Spirit in the church.
It is not easy to fathom. Then comes the Greek influence, because they had a different creational tradition. The world was created by rivalling Gods battling against one another. For them material was inherently evil and only spirit was good.
When it comes to us, mankind, we have an evil body but a holy spirit. Redemption is actually our spirit escaping from an evil body. When the gospel went to the Greeks, they had to grapple with this question, how could Jesus come to this world and become material if material was evil? God can not have taken on an evil body. So they get round it saying, God came in the appearance of a man – not really as a man, just in the appearance of a man.
Other opinions said, no he was adopted at baptism. The Spirit came on him and adopted him for the period of his ministry. When he was crucified, the Spirit departed from him so that it wasn’t God who was crucified.
So they are grappling with these truths. It is when you begin to grapple with the truth that you begin to understand some of the difficulties we are facing, because the Bible is a book of revelation not a book of logic.
What the Greeks are bringing is logic not revelation.
Erasmus was bored with all these kinds of discussions. He wanted the church to be reformed, but only practice and morality. He became a priest and studied catholic theology, canon law and the decisions of the councils. But he wasn’t really interested, What he wanted to do was to make the word of God available for the people so that they could read it in their own language. So he gave himself to the study of ancient documents particularly to the scriptures.
He was what we would call the leading humanist of his day.
Erasmus gave himself to the translation of scripture. He translated it from Greek into Latin in a proper way. What he in effect did was to expose the irregularities of the Jerome (Vulgate) translation. He put a tool into the hands of the reformers that they needed for study. This was particularly interesting for Luther, Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli.
Erasmus had a real fear of sickness and in those days there was a lot of it around. Erasmus became very popular, but as soon as there was a wiff of sickness, he was off on his travels. So he travelled to the courts and universities of Europe. He went and spread his teaching. He put into the hands of lots of people the ability to see for themselves what the early church taught.
He was also a satirist. He wrote an essay called “In praise of folly”. He wrote it in just six days. It’s a take off of the church, of the cardinals and popes and their excesses and immorality. It was done in satirical form and was very funny. But what it did was to articulate for the common people, what they were feeling and it made them very anti-church. The church began to realise that Erasmus wasn’t doing them a favour. So he got blamed for the works of Luther and the like. The church began to blame him and in fact one monk said, “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.”
His 1516 translation was his main contribution. He said, “I want the farmer, the tailor and even the Turk to read the scripture in his own tongue.” He was much like Luther in that. In fact they had a lot of similarities.
The difference was this: He wanted to reform the church in practices and morals and Luther said, you have got to put the axe at the root.
You have got to get back to truth, to doctrine. They fell out after Luther was excommunicated.
The big issue at the reformation was TRUTH. Is the church the ultimate authority or it is scripture?
Sadly, Erasmus died a disillusioned lonely man because he wouldn’t break with the mother church and join in the reformation, but the Catholics didn’t really want him any more either.
But he was the bridge between the medieval church and the reformation.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Martin Luther was born in 1483. He was the son of a well to do peasant. His father was a common man, who was ambitious. He worked in the copper mines and he saved his money and in the end he owned several copper mines.
He married into a pretty well to family, in terms of well educated. His wife’s brothers were lawyers or doctors.
It’s the time of the universities. Not as we have today, but they were growing. A teacher would gather a group of students and teach them. They didn’t have a geographical base but they started to compete against one another.
Luther was born at this time and grew up at this time.It was possible to have a good education but it would cost. His father would give him a good education and this would be his pension plan was that Luther would be a lawyer and provide for him and his mother.
In terms of education, it was strict. They worked very long hours. His education was on the basis of reward and punishment.That is, if you got it right, you wouldn’t be beaten (reward) but if you got it wrong, you were beaten. According to Luther’s testimony, he got it wrong many times and it wasn’t seldom that he was beaten up to 15 times a day!
Part of their education was logic and disputations. They learned to debate and they learned logic and reason.
He was a good scholar and a fine musician too. And he said that music was God’s fairest gift to man.
He was destined for a career in law. He was studying law. What changed it all was that in 1505, he was struck by lightning. Different stories surround this incident. Some relate that he was with a friend who died. He cried out to St Anne, who was the saint who looked after the weather (and the miners too!). He said something like this: “If you save me, I will serve God for the rest of my life.” True to his word, he went straight from there to the Augustinian monastery. He didn’t see his father for a whole year, who was angry that his pension plan had just gone to wrack and ruin.
In those days, the highest way that you could serve God was become monk or a nun, because you gave up all worldliness and escaping the world was viewed as the highest calling. He gave himself to prayer and fasting.
Luther went through times of joy and he enjoyed the discipline and the fastings, because he thought he was getting right with God. However there were also times of despair, because he thought he was so far from God. He would sit in his cell and beat his body.
Johann von Staupitz was his spiritual father and a great encourager. He encouraged Luther to study Augustine and the church fathers. He had not read the Bible at this time. He had once seen one – chained to a lectern and had only looked at it for a short time.
After a year in the monastery, he was allowed to serve the mass. It was All Saints’ Day. He nearly fainted. He could hardly imagine that he was holding deity in his hands. “Who am I to hold such deity for I am but a pig!”
Every day, he would go to confession and spend hours there. Staupitz would get annoyed at him sometimes and tell him to go and do something worthy of confession.
In 1510, he was chosen as a delegate for his order to go to Rome. He was quite excited about this and thought that he would be able to find peace with God at the centre of Christianity. The Holy Father is there and this is the ultimate experience for him.
However he experienced Rome as hell of earth. It was full of brothels for priests and totally immoral. The were lots of drunkenness and Luther was shocked. He bought an indulgence for his grandfather, who he hoped would leave purgatory. Again, he was so shocked at the peddlers who were selling the indulgences.
After receiving his degree he was asked to go to Wittenberg as professor for New Testament theology. Staupitz encouraged him. He himself had been there as a lecturer.
Going to Wittenberg would give Luther the chance to study the Bible, which he did, aided by Erasmus books.
The great dread of his life was meeting God. God was a God of wrath, anger, very strict and who give us impossible standards to live up to and when we can’t live up to them, punishes us for it.
God was a God whom he hated. He knew he had to earn grace, but he just couldn’t. “If ever a monk could get into heaven by monkery, then I would get there.”
We all have a pilgrimage that we have to go through. There are issues that we have to work through and think about. Luther had to teach others the scriptures.
As he was reading through the Bible he was struck by two passages:
Psalm 22 The Cry of Dereliction “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
He could understand why God would forsook him, a sinner. But why would he forsake his own son? Slowly he realised that he had done it for Luther’s sake. The Holy Spirit hat begun to work and was bringing revelation.
The second passage:
Romans 1:17 “The just shall live by faith.”
After he experienced his breakthrough, he began to teach this to the church. He was now very happy as professor and as the pastor of a local church.

Indulgences
The Catholic teaching on Justification
On the Cross our original sin was dealt with. At baptism I receive forgiveness of my original sin. I receive a certain amount of grace for that. After that I need more grace for the sins that I accumulate. I take the sacraments that become effective if they are ministered by a priest.
For the backlog of my sins, I have to spend time in purgatory.
If you have unresolved sin (unconfessed sin) then you are in trouble.
People are collecting relics because that will help them. The Elector of Saxony, Friedrich the Wise, was reported to have collected relics worth 1900000 years purgatory!
People were writing in their wills that a chanting priest was to be employed to pray for them, when they died. Side chapels were put into churches – chancelleries - , where prayer for the dead could be offered.
The people volunteered for the crusades because plenary indulgence was offered.
All these things are denying people salvation.
Luther, who couldn’t find any peace in the works and sacraments of the church, discovered that only at the cross all sin is forgiven.
We are not in trouble if we have unresolved sin… everything is dependent upon Jesus.
Luther was preaching salvation to his church and he was very happy doing so too.
Pope Leo X loved the Renaissance. This time had its own special style of architecture. He wanted to leave a legacy for the church when he died and he decided that he would rebuild St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. This was going to cost a lot of money that he did not have.
„Through this grace help will surely come to departed souls, and the construction of the church of St. Peter will be abundantly promoted at the same time.“
Thus read part of an instruction, issued in Germany in the early sixteenth century, which was to trigger radical change in the profession church. „This grace“ was the sale of indulgences.
The Pope at the time badly needed money both to support his lavish lifestyle and to further the building of St. Peter’s in Rome. Pushing the sale of indulgences was how the cash was raised. Devout church people were encouraged to believe that by the making of a cash payment their dead relatives could be instantly released from the supposed torments of purgatory into heavenly bliss.
He had a friend, the Archbishop of Mainz. He had borrowed money to buy some of he 18 bishoprics that he had. He’d borrowed the money from the Foggers who were bankers and had now recalled the loan.
Both of these men were in financial difficulties. So the pope appointed Johann Tetzel to sell some indulgences. Tetzel was an indulgence seller (broker) and he knew how to make a good sale. He would get a commission and the pope and the archbishop would split the proceeds between them.
Because Friedrich of Saxony himself had many relics, he wouldn’t allow Tetzel into his principality to peddle the indulgences.
People therefore went over the border and bought from Tetzel in the neighbouring states. On returning to Wittenberg, Luther’s parishioners explained to him that they had obtained the forgiveness of sins. Luther asked how that had happened and they produced their indulgences. Of course Luther explained to them that the paper was worthless, it had not eternal value. Only Christ can give a remission of sin.
He preached a sermon entitled “Grace and the Indulgence”. This was written down and over two years had 20 editions. It was translated into every European language and circulation throughout Europe.
This put a block on the sale of indulgences and Rome got to hear about it. “Who’s this little drunk German monk?” they asked and would have to deal with it. How did they deal with it? Normally, they would summon a person like Luther to Rome and when he got there he would either have to recant or they would kill him.
In the summer of 1520 a document bearing an impressive seal circulated throughout Germany in search of a remote figure. ”Arise,o Lord,” the writing began, ”and judge Thy cause. A wild boar has invaded Thy vineyard.”
The document, a papal bull – named after the seal, or bulla – took three months to reach Martin Luther, the wild boar. Long before it arrived in Wittenberg where Luther was teaching, he knew its contents. Forty-one of his beliefs were condemned as “heretical or scandalous, or false, or offensive to pious ears, or seductive of simple minds, or repugnant to Catholic truth.” The bull called on Luther to repent and repudiate his errors of face the dreadful consequences.
Luther received his copy on the tenth of October. At the end of his sixty day period of grace, he led a throng of eager students outside Wittenberg and burned copies of the Canon Law and the works of some medieval theologians. Perhaps as an afterthought Luther added a copy of the bull condemning him. That was his answer. “They have burned my books,” he said,” I burn theirs!” Those flames in early December,1520,were fit symbol of the defiance of the pope raging throughout Germany.
However Friedrich didn’t want to lose his infamous lecturer. Luther’s fame was good for Friedrich’s university. He reminded the Emperor Charles V that his grandfather had decreed that a German dare not be tried on Italian soil, he must be tried on German soil.
But he must appear. He attended three diets in all. The leading clergy and nobility of the land were gathered there to hear him.
Luther was pretty certain that he would not survive these meetings. He went disguised because he thought it might be safer. However many people had read his writings and he was recognised. He was exulted as their hero and people started to accompany him on his long journeys. They got in step behind him and marched with their scythes and clubs. This put a fright into the Romans as they had underestimated the popularity of Luther.
On approaching his third appearance at a diet in the town of Worms, his friends beg him not to go. However he is adamant that he is going.“ Were each of the slates on the roof a devil, still I would go.” He is reported to have said. When he gets there, he is quite sickly and in no condition to address the diet. The nobility and clergy are quite disgusted at this.
He is given a day to compose himself. This is just what he does. He gets into the presence of God, deals with the devil and strengthens himself.
His opponents had not expected such a fortified person to appear before them. They only want to hear from him one thing, and that is that he revokes all the things he has been teaching and writing. He does say, that if they can show him from scripture the error of his ways, then he will indeed recant. From this standpoint, he cannot move.
Luther is condemned, excommunicated, his writings are to be burned and he is to be arrested.
However, Friedrich has his officers dress up in uniforms of the imperial guard and they arrest Luther and take him to the Wartburg Castle were he is in safety.
He dresses himself in other clothes (discarding his identity as a monk) and takes on the identity of the Junker Jörg. During the time at the Wartburg he makes a collection of thought and writings about what the Reformation stands for and begins to write to the German nobility. He says that it is now time to rid themselves from the Roman oppression and exploitation. This can only happen though through the gospel. He urges them to open their territories for the gospel.
He also begins to translate the New Testament into German. This is a lively translation into the language of the people.
He is safe in the Wartburg but not happy. He hates the isolation and longs to be back among people. News from Wittenberg reaches him and he decides to show himself again.
Luther and the Bible
Both Luther and Erasmus wanted people to read the Bible. Luther started to work on the Bible during his stay in the Wartburg. He worked on it for the rest of his life. It wasn’t just one translation but a life time of revision.
He surrounded himself with Greek scholars with whom he had regular consultation. He met with them every two weeks up to his death.
He went to great pains to have the Bible put into a language that was understood by everyone. He did much to unify he German language.
Others had also translated the Bible into the vernacular but they did not have the Greek-Hebrew text and they had to write everything by hand.
Others had also tried to break with Rome, but now the time had come.
Why didn’t the Romans send an army to Saxony?
As far as the military was concerned, they were otherwise occupied with the invasion of the Turks. This was the sovereignty of God!
What was happening in Wittenberg?
Luther believed in doing things slowly. “The word does it all.” Was one of his favourite expressions. He was cautious and this earned him the nickname “Dr.Pussyfoot”. (Carlstadt)
But he did maintain, that you cannot ask people to go against their conscience. If people don’t want to drink wine, then don’t force them. Teach them and show them. Their conscience has to be informed and their mind renewed. Study the word and inform them.
With unprecedented power and courage Luther had brought to light the Scripture truths as to the individual salvation of the sinner by faith, but failed when he might have shown the way to return to Scripture in all things, including its teaching as to the Church. He had taught:”I say it a hundred thousand times, God will have no forced service.” “No one can or ought to be forced to belive.” In 1526 he had written: “The right kind of evangelical order cannot be exhibited among all sorts of people, but those who are seriously determined to be Christians and confess the Gospel with hand and month,must enroll themselves by name and meet apart, in one house, for prayer, for reading, to baptise, to take the Sacrament, and exercise othe Christian works. With such order it would be possible for those who did not behave in a christian manner to be known, reproved, restored, or excluded, according to the rule of Christ (Matt.18:15).Here also they could, in common, subscribe alms, which would be willingly given and distributed among the poor, according to the example of Paul.(2.Cor.9:1-12). Here it would not be necessary to have much or fine singing. Here a short and simple way of baptism and the Sacrament could be practised, and all would be according to the Word and in love…” After much hesitation he came at last to oppose any attempt to put into practice what he had so excellently portrayed.
Friedrich, the Elector of Saxony was his great supporter and in the end he got rid of his relics.
Instead of the mass being central it was now the gospel. The mass reminds us of our sinfulness, the gospel reminds us of grace.
Luther loved to preach. He spoke to everyday people and they loved him. He was full of sarcasm and humour. The services were in German and not in Latin. This was radical.
He allowed monks and nuns to revoke their vows, if they wanted to. He never forced anyone to go against their conscience.
He appointed travelling pastors to go through the province to teach and preach to the people and to expel immoral catholic priests.
He translated the liturgies into German, revised them and even wrote some new ones so that the people could learn as they went through the services.
He also sought permission from other protectorates to enter their territory to have the gospel preached. He had little alternative to do this.
The church though never became the church that he believed in. We could and do criticise him for this. However it looks like his destiny was to show the world the doctrine of justification by faith and to break with the past.
He influenced all the reformers including the Anabaptists.

Marriage
Luther never wanted to get married.“ Why make a woman a bride one day and a widow the next?” was his saying. There were many attempts to take his life.
He was involved in smuggling 12 nuns out of a convent. They had put them into beer barrels that were being used to transport herrings. These poor ladies had travelled for three days in these barrels.
He had got husbands for 11 of them but Catherine von Bora at 28 was a little bit too old for marriage. So a friend suggested that Luther marry her.
He did. And they had a wonderful marriage with six children. She was a real Proverbs 31 wife. She was very industrious.
In the monastery that they lived in, they had 47 rooms and they were nearly always full with guests. Catherine looked after them all.

Controversies
Luther had a controversy with Ulrich Zwingli (Zurich) about communion. It was about the issue of transubstantiation.
Luther still believed that God was present in the bread and the wine. Zwingli believed that it was on bread and wine. There was disunity among the reformers and disunity always weakens. They also published things against one another.
Weak man
He was a reluctant man and sometimes arrogant, sometimes dogmatic. He was sometimes quite weak as well.
Towards the end of his life, he was interviewed. People were wondering whether he would recant, but he died in faith. The Catholics acclaimed him to be the son of the devil, saying the devil had raped his mother.

The Peasants’ Revolt 1525
1. Causes
a. Luther stood before the decision to have a church of believers or a National Church. He decided to have a National Church. Unspiritual elements came into a spiritual movement. Luther’s writings were misunderstood.
b.The peasants are enslaved in serfdom and want their freedom.
2. Luther’s Statement
a. Writing: ”An exhortation to peace, addressed to the peasants of Schwabia.”
b. He travels and personally addresses the peasants in Saxony but to no avail.
3. The peasants use violent methods 1524/25
The leaders are Florian Geyer, Götz von Berlichingen, Thomas Münzer
a. Thomas Münzer is a great preacher of the Reformation (he propagates believers’ baptism and wants the true Christian to come together. Unfortunately, he’s too extreme. He puts personal revelation of the Spirit over the Bible. He become a revolutionary.
In Frankenhausen, he obstructs the peace negotiations that the besieged peasants are engaged in and calls them to arms.
b. The Peasants’ defeat: Mai 1525
The army of knights that the princes have got together defeat the peasants. Thomas Münzer recants under the pain of torture and he is executed. Bitter and bloody revenge is taken and even women and children are not spared.
c. Luther’s Paper (a virulent pamphlet) : “Against the Thievish and Murderous Hordes of Peasants” appears too late. He calls on the princes to “knock down, strangle, and stab … and think nothing so venomous, pernicious, or Satanic as an insurgent.” The people have pity on the peasants, who were so cruelly mishandled by the victors. In his writing “A hard pamphlet against the articles of the peasants”, he addresses the vengeance driven princes.
4. The peasants’ revolt collapses
In 1525 the revolt collapses. The nobles and princes crushed the revolt at a cost of an estimated 100,000 peasant lives. The surviving peasants considered Luther a false prophet. Many of them returned to Catholicism or turned to more radical forms of the Reformation.
Luther maintained that man is equal before God, but is also stressed that this is only true in the spiritual realm. Through his teaching about the two kingdoms he supported the feudal system and disappointed the peasants who had had hope in Luther, believing they would find help.
Luther continued to preach and teach the Bible in Wittenberg, but even sympathetic biographers have found it hard to justify some of the actions of his declining years. Time once put it like this, “He endorsed the bigamous marriage of his supporter Philip of Hesse. He denounced reformers who disagreed with him in terms that he had once reserved for the papacy. His statements about the Jews would sound excessive on the tongue of a Hitler.” Biographer Roland Bainton says that by the time of his death in 1546, Luther was “an irascible old man, petulant, peevish, unrestrained, and at times positively coarse.
Fortunately, the personal defects of an ageing rebel do not in any way detract from the grandeur of his achievement, which ultimately transformed not only Christianity but all of Western civilization.

Events leading up to the Refomation

Was there power? Were there signs and wonders? Were people filled with the Spirit?
These people were amazingly powerful. Bede was the first church historian from England, who lived in the 8th century- he changed the weather. Cuthbert, a little bit before him, healed paralytics and deaf people. And he had an amazing relationship with nature.
Francis of Assisi was someone who moved in incredible power, but all mixed up with things like holy water and things that we would find quite difficult to accept.
But God honoured them, because He honours faith just as He does today.
There were those at this time who wanted a New Testament type of church. They lived in the alpine regions of Europe, a little remote. They had the scriptures and emphasised scriptures like the Sermon on the Mount, saying this is the way to live. The Roman church persecuted them. They were people like the Bogomils,” Friends of God” from Bulgaria. The Waldensians, who were the followers of Peter Waldo.
Before you can study the radical church, it’s important to have a look at the Orthodox Church, otherwise you don’t understand what they are reacting about.

Relicts
People regarded some people, some places and some things as holy.
In 1231 Elisabeth of Hungary died and was lying in state. She had lived a very godly life. Her body was in the cathedral and the people could go in and pay their respects to her. By the time they had finished, there was nothing left of her. Her corpse has been ripped apart! She was regarded as holy and being of value to save the owners time in purgatory.


There was the belief, the superstition, that if you wanted to holy, you should possess something that was considered holy.
So we are dealing with faith, with mysticism, with corruption and with superstition. There were shrines, where people would go because they though it would help them to attain grace. God’s grace had to be earned and you had to persuade God to give it to you.
The medieval church was a ritualistic church:

Penance
People would go and confess to a priest, an intermediary, and he would give them a penance to do (not repentance). This was to persuade God to give them grace.

The intermediary, the priest
There were two persecutions, one in the first century under the Emperor Decius and in the fourth century under Diocletian.
For Decius, if things were going bad and the empire was suffering in anyway, it meant the gods were angry and that they needed in some way to be placated. As the emperor himself was deified, he wasn’t going to carry the blame. Up until the time of the burning of Rome, the Jews got blamed. After 64AD, the Christians got blamed. We don’t know why, but it is thought that it was because Nero’s wife was very sympathetic to the Jewish people.
Diocletian persecuted the church in the fourth century (303-312). He set out to destroy it, because he wanted unity in the empire, which was crumbling at this time, there were only 100 years left before Rome would be sacked. He ordered an empire-wide sacrifice to the gods. This meant that people went to the temple bought a meal offering and were given a document to prove that you had taken part in the sacrifice.
In the previous persecution in 250, many Christians apostatized. Over the next 50 years the church had a stricter discipleship and got ready in case another persecution came. When Diocletian’s persecution did come, the Christians were ready for it.
Many were put to death, many were put in prison and there were also those who apostatized. In the main they were the weak Christians who sacrificed.
After the persecution was over, a decision had to be made about what was to be done by those who had apostatized. There were two thoughts on it, one was forgive them and the other was, no we want a purer church and we do now have doubts whether God will forgive serious sins after baptism. Hence some people delayed baptism until their deathbed to ensure that they got in.
Those who had apostatized through the persecution felt that they needed absolution. Who do you go to, to get it? You go to those who had been in prison, those who had suffered and who are now regarded as special people. You would go to them and say, “I am so sorry that I betrayed you.” This wasn’t asking for forgiveness but it was the beginning of going to another and asking for absolution.
Some people went to other extremes and to possess something that had belonged to the people who had been martyred would keep them in good stead. People wore the bones of martyred Christians.
Out of that sort of practice people became saints, intermediaries between God and man. There were then the places where these people were martyred, which have holy significance.
Within 12 hundred years, we have things that started off in a harmless way becoming complete heresy.
The bread and wine
Where does the teaching come from that the bread becomes the flesh and the wine becomes the blood of Jesus? It comes from the second century.
In the 2nd century there was a Gnostic heresy. As the church battled against this heresy and it was a hard battle, they made entrance into the church much stricter. You weren’t going to get into the church until you have proved that you are a Christian.
In the Bible it looks like baptism is for sinners who have just got saved but in the 2nd century, it was for people who were living proven holy lives. So they went through two or three years of instruction, before they could be admitted to the church. That meant that they could not take the bread and the wine until they had been baptised. This meant that they had to be dismissed for the part of the service when the bread and the wine. As they were being dismissed there was a prayer for them that they might progress in the faith. But the emphasis shifted from them to the bread and the wine. In time the bread and the wine became the object of the prayer. In the end Thomas Aquinas said: This is Jesus.
So even today, sometimes in communion services, we ask someone to pray for the bread and the wine. Why? What do expect will happen to it? Pray for the people who are taking communion, not for the bread and wine.
Things that become heresies don’t grow up overnight. It takes time. When you depart from the scripture and start to rely on traditions and the decisions of councils, you are a long way from the teachings of Christ and the first apostles.
At the reformation it was Martin Luther who began to challenge these things. He did it in a time that was rife. Other people had said the same things before. People from inside the Roman church had said the same things, but the climate was not ready for change.
• Penance instead of Repentance
• The saints and Mary instead of Jesus as the intermediary between God and man
• The mass – a sacrifice again of Christ to obtain fresh grace
A lot the reformers, who came to Christ, came to Christ because they studied the doctrine of the mass.
The question is what actually happens when we eat bread and drink wine? Is this how we are justified? Is this a means of grace to us? Or is Christ alone enough?
Up to this point they didn’t have the Bible. The priests could hardly read. The monks never studied it. When Luther was made professor of New Testament theology, he had never read the New Testament. Church doctrine was mainly the study of the decisions of councils and popes, who regularly contradicted themselves. So theology was the study of traditions, decisions and canon law. It wasn’t until the Bible became to be studied from the original texts that the text of the Bible was studied.

Prevailing Conditions
What were the prevailing conditions at the time of Luther that caused such a reaction to his 95 thesis?
1. Anti-clericalism
The people at the time believed in God, but He was a God of wroth and anger, who could not be placated and who you could not know personally. The only way you could know God was by hearing the gospel and you didn’t hear he gospel.
The priests who were there to minister to you were so often absent.
One bishop called Anointine de Prat, the only time he was ever present in his diocese was when he was buried there. It was something he had bought.
The clergy collected titles as a means of making a living. They would buy the title of bishop etc.
The people were not ministered to. Even if you would attend a church or cathedral, everything was in Latin that the common person didn’t understand. It was up at the front and it was very mystical. You were denied participation. You were allowed the wafer but not the wine that was for the clergy. You were not holy enough to have the wine.
It was burdensome. There was a pecking order of sin that determined your penance. Compare this with the Pharisees in the New Testament. Legalism is deathly. The letter always kills.
In England, Cardinal Wolsey was the second most powerful man in the realm, but he lived openly with his concubine and had children. It wasn’t frowned up on, so the whole thing about celibacy was nonsense.
2. Power shift
Power was shifting from the papacy to the kings and princes. Cities were being raised up and fortified and they were even raising their own armies. There was a breaking away from papal dominance. Nationalism was rising.
Christendom was seen as the nations that were Christian and they were starting to react against it.
3. Unrest amongst the common people
This led to a peasants’ revolt in Germany. There had been a peasants’ revolt in England in the 14th century at the time of Wycliffe, who was a reformer in England.
Religious turmoil and revival stir up people who aren’t religiously minded. They don’t even get converted but it articulates something for them. It allows them to understand their grievances. Their reaction is not one of conversion, but is one of rebellion. Within a century of one another there was a peasants’ uprising in Germany and England.
4. The Black Death (1347)
Two thirds of the population died and infant mortality was high. This fed superstition and became ingrained in us.
5. The Printing Press
The printing press was a so radical invention like the internet today. Luther preached a sermon on grace at the same time as he wrote the 95 thesis. This was printed - 20 editions of it - and it went round Europe.
Luther becomes a hero overnight, because he is challenging the might of Rome. He is doing it because he believes he is living in the end times. The pope was the antichrist and this was the last battle. As far as he was concerned, the world wasn’t going to last much longer.
He was a national hero without people necessarily following his religion.

6. The Fall of Constantinople 1453
When Constantine moved the centre of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople he took with him the original documents of the early church. They were the scriptures and many of the writings of the church fathers, the Greek translation of the Old Testament (Septuagint) and many other things. They were copied and published but the originals never saw the light of day.
In 1453 the Turks invaded and the documents were taken out for safety reasons but they were also made available for study. What the people then realised was that the scriptures had been corrupted. The scriptures were very different than the decisions of church councils.
This is important because the big question at the reformation was what is the main authority of the church? Was it the head of the church, the pope who is by this time declared infallible? Is it the decisions of Church Councils? Or is it the scriptures? That became the issue and that was the issue for Luther.

When we see all these things developing and all the different groups springing up, we go to the Bible and look at what the Bible says. These groups didn’t. Some of them didn’t have the Bible. They were working things out as they went along.
It is difficult to judge them and to know where they really stood. We have the benefit of 2000 years development and really we should know better.

The Reformation

A number of things that the people at the time of the reformation were reacting against came from the early church. It takes quite a long time for bad habits to become traditions and traditions to become heresy.
We need to have a look back to the early church to understand the conditions in the church at the time of the reformation.
As we look at the period of the reformation, we are looking at the early 16th century. In the year 1517 something really quite insignificant happened.
A young monk by the name of Martin Luther got stirred about things that were happening in the neighbour district. He decided that it was time that academics get together to discuss the value of indulgences, which was really selling salvation.
He was quite fed-up with what was going on. He had already preached some sermons about this and he wasn’t the first person to do so. But he wrote out a kind of agenda. He put some statements down on paper. There were 95 of them in all. He nailed this agenda to the university notice board, which turned out to be the church door. It was a pubic notice that he had written by hand in Latin, so the common people couldn’t understand it.
Within two weeks though, it was translated into German and printed in many editions. It became a manifesto of what we then called “The Reformation”. The German people got hold of it and it became more than a manifesto for a religious reform, it was a manifesto for a social reform too. It articulated for common people what they were feeling, particularly about Roman and Papal domination.
We must ask the question about how this little insignificant act of an unknown monk in a town that was the back of beyond; change the course of (religious) history?

What were the circumstances that made it possible?

We have to go back in history to the 4th century, to 312ad to a place called Milvine Bridge. A Roman Emperor or one of a series of Roman Emperors (by this time the emperors were generals and most of them weren’t even Romans, they were Germans), they were doing battle for dominance of the Roman Empire. Constantine was facing a decisive battle against overwhelming odds. This is myth/legend/truth, we don’t really known and it is difficult to find out so many centuries later.
The night before the battle, he was praying to his deity and he says he saw in the sky a cross and heard the words, “in this sign conquer”. This is how the story goes, so the next day his soldiers go into battle each with the sign of a cross and he won this decisive battle. From that time onwards, he began to show favouritism to the church, which had just been persecuted for the last eight years. This was a horrible persecution.
He saw the church as a way of unifying the empire. From Constantine onwards it went from favouritism to making Christianity state religion.
Therefore, anyone who was within the Roman Empire became a Christian. Conquered nations then become Christian nations. What we see from the early 4th century is that people become Christian because they are part of the empire and not because they have been born again of God. So there is a watering down of the gospel.
Constantine’s successors in the main linked the church with the state. The Roman deities were or had been the objects of worship, so Christianity became the state religion. Constantine mixed everything up. So we have the sun-god and that’s were Sunday comes from.
Once we start talking about Christian nations or towns, we are moving into an unbiblical realm. You can’t have Christian nation. You can have a nation that has been greatly influenced by Christians and even where the majority of the population are Christian. There is no such thing as a Christian nation; we are one new man in Christ, made up of many nations.
The linking of church with the state watered down the Christian gospel.
When things like this are done, there is always a reaction. So you come across those who want a purer gospel, they want a biblical church. It is at this time that we meet some people called the Donatists. They were led by a man called Donata. As with every movement, this too wasn’t pure.
Whenever you study the breakaway movements or the radical movements, there are always elements that you won’t be easy with. They also get mixed up with politics. You can never say that these people were pure in doctrine because there was always a mixture. If you don’t understand this, you get a wrong idea and particularly from the early church.
So from the time of the Donatists onwards, you get this reaction. Up until the 4th century you find the Romans persecuting the church, now you have the church persecuting the church. Constantine raises an army against the Donatists and they fight. So now we have the beginning of religious wars, which goes right back to that time.
When you link the church together with the state and the church gets involved in politics as many of these leading Christians did. They occupied important positions in the state – this always leads to corruption.
As Christians get involved with politics, there is a lot of competition. Bishops vied against bishops. This corruption comes into the church and you have reactions to that.
During this time, we have the beginnings of the monastic movement. That is those wanting to get back to the more pure kind of Christianity. It started with people who wanted to separate themselves from the world. True Christianity of course is not separating yourself from the world but separating yourself for Christ to get back into the world. This was a separating from the world, less the world defiles me.
There are some weird people at this time, e.g. the “Pillar saints.” They lived on top of pillars; they thought that if they could be on the top of a pillar, they would not be contaminated by the world.
Some of the early bishops lived in caves, a bit like hermits. Others began to gather around them and out of that began what we call the monastic movement. Their motives were good. It was to take the gospel and serve poor people. They took vows, but they took them voluntary, there was no pressure put on them. But as these things developed, they developed differently than a local church.
At the end of the day, if you do not build on the right foundation, it goes wrong; it must go wrong because there will come stresses and pressures that the foundation can’t take.
So then you get the vows of poverty and chastity and the call to celibacy.
In the medieval period there are all kinds of reactions, but you haven’t got a reaction in the way that we would look at church.

Martin Luther and Justification by Faith

Much to the horror of his father, Luther had left his studies of law and entered a monastery as an Augustinian monk. He had had a life saving experience in a forest during a thunderstorm. He felt that God, whom he deeply feared, had spared his life. Luther wanted to serve Him in the only way he knew by becoming a monk.
He wanted to appease the angry God who was continually laying burdens on people, never satisfied with our performance.
Luther would study, pray, beat himself, perform rituals, have extensive and frequent times in the confessional, so that in end his spiritual father told him to go and do something that was worthy of confession. Luther lived in fear of God and couldn't find any peace.
It was suggested he apply for the post of professor of New Testament at the newly opened Wittenberg University. Luther agreed to this and thought it might be a good idea to read the New Testament.
During his studies Luther discovered the doctrine of Justification by Faith. This means that we cannot appease God by any means. God was appeased by the death of His perfect Son Jesus Christ. Now man's part is to believe this - accepted it by faith. Faith being a gift of God.
Luther doing this, was filled with peace. It was faith and not works that justified us with God.
This was Luther's message. He was a monk, a professor and now a simple church pastor. He was very happy in this role and had not aspirations to be the world changer he was to become.

The Reformation started 491 years ago tomorrow

October 31st, 1517:
An Augustinian monk, Dr. Martin Luther hurries across the courtyard to nail his latest notice on the church door. The door served as a notice board for the newly formed university of Wittenberg. Luther was inviting learned people to come to a discussion about the development of the church. To stimulate thought, he suggested a 95 point thesis. This triggered off a worldwide movement which we now call the Reformation.
Someone translated the thesis into German and it was duplicated using a piece of new technology called the printing press.
Waves went around the empire changing structure, government and everyday life.

Clip regarding religious tension in Sri Lanka

I have been travelling to Sri Lanka for a number of years. The country is truly wonderful and the people are very friendly. Unfortunatly, a civil war has been going on for nearly three decades causing the death of tens of thousands of people.
Religious tension is becoming more evident. Perhaps Christians are sometimes a little insensitive to people's feelings when they talk about their faith, but the violence that occurs is in no way justified.
Assertions that people are being converted by unethical means, that is by being given money is ludicrous. The Christians we know are extremly poor and can hardly make ends meet. They cannot possibly offer people financial gain if they convert.
Here's a documentary that features our friends and is quite balanced in its approach.
Protestant Christians, among which are a number of nominal Christians, are less than 1% of the population. Fear that the country could be taken over by Christian fundamentalists are gravely exaggerated!

Persecution in Iraq

At least seven Christians were murdered between October 4 and 8, 2008—killed execution-style by gunmen, according to Barnabas Fund. A Christian music storeowner was shot to death in Mosul, Iraq on October 13, 2008, the Associated Press reported.
Officials in Mosul have told the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) that the number of Assyrians driven out of Mosul in the past two weeks has risen to 15,000, or about 2,500 families, Assist News Service (ANS) reported.
“We left everything behind us. We took only our souls,” Ni’ma Noail, 50, a civil servant who had to abandon his home in Mosul and is now living in a church, told Barnabas Fund.
An AINA spokesperson told ANS that “threats, intimidation and murder by unidentified groups have instilled fear and panic in the Christian Assyrian community, causing a massive exodus into the Assyrian villages in the Nineveh Plain. Thirteen Assyrians have been killed in the past four weeks. … Notes have been left instructing the Assyrians to leave the city immediately or face reprisal.
“It is not clear who is behind the campaign against Assyrians (also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs),” the AINA spokesperson added. “Some suspect Al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups, but a spokesman for Iraq’s Interior Ministry said there is no evidence to support this. An Iraqi member of parliament has accused the Kurds of orchestrating the campaign to shift the demographic balance of Mosul in their favor.”
The latest violence against Assyrians in Mosul continues a pattern that began on June 26, 2004 with the first bombings of Assyrian churches, ANS reported. Since then, Baghdad has been nearly emptied of Assyrians and it is estimated that 30-50% of Assyrians have fled to Jordan and Syria.
Northern Iraq is the historic center of Christianity in Iraq. Many Christians from Baghdad and Basra had fled to the north for safety in recent years. The estimated Christian population of Mosul is now 50,000, Barnabas Fund said. Five years ago, Mosul had almost 200,000 Christians, Open Doors said.

Indian persecution of Christians

Since Christianty came into existence the norm has been persecution. This is what God's Son, Jesus Christ experienced and it will continue until he returns.

More about Orrisa

Murders in Khamman

During our stay in India, we dedicated a church building in the city of Khamman. Our friends are working among the poorer part of the population, so the building wasn't anything grand. It will hold about 60-75 people, which means around 40 Westerners! It was very rudimental. Lots of people came to the dedication and we had a good time.
About the same time the Maoists (Naxalites) abducted 8 tribal people (India is a country with lots of different people groups. The Dalits or unscheduled castes (formally known as the Untouchables)are made up of a number of different tribes. Most of these tribes are not Hindu but rather animists. However they are very open to the gospel and you can find many Christians among them.
Eight of them were abducted because according to the Naxalites they were traitors and had given the security forces information about them. Today two of them were found dead just outside the cits.
Although the Christian persecution in Andhra Pradesh is at a minimun. The Christians and the rest of the population are faced with a terror group that causes hardship and spreds terror among the people.
Kife isn't easy for our friends out there.

India in Germany

(Photo out of Wikimedea)
I first came to Germany in 1971. In the very first year here, I met the girl who was to become my wife. I was a British soldier stationed in Lippstadt. She was living with her parents in a city called Bochum. To get to Bochum, I used to catch a train. Normally it took just over an hour to get from Lippstadt to Bochum.
About half way on the journey we came to a city called Hamm. Hamm was a strange place. The train pulled into the station and we waited there for 10-15 minutes. Then the train moved out the same way we came in. The locomotive had been moved from the front to the back.
For some reason Hamm always remained with me. Years later, I heard that one of my old Bible School friends had gone to live there. At some point a church was also planted.
These days Hamm is well known for something else.
The Sri Kamadchi Ampal Temple has been in Hamm since 1989. Originally, it was situated towards the west of the city. In 1997 together with its gods, it relocated to Hamm-Uentrop.
In 2002 a big new temple was opened, which is in fact, the biggest Hindu temple in Germany.
The temple's goddess looks from the central shrine to the east, towards the rising sun. Every year in May - June around 20.000 visitors come to th annual pu blic procession. The statue of the godess, Sri Kamadchi, circulates th temple through the nearby streets on a special chariot. As well as being seen by many people, Hindus believe she is blessing the town and its citizens.

So Christian Europe goes pagan, fasinated by the glimmer of Eastern religions.
it is time that Europe awakens and remembers it Christian heritage, not to despite people of a different culture, but to remember the message of the cross that brings life and not religion with all of its rules and regulations.

Unrest in Orissa directed against Christians

The media in India war reporting Christian persecution in the state of Orissa. It seems that violence erupted against Christians following the murder of a Hindu leader. The police believe that the Maoists (Naxalites) were responsible. Evenso it was Christians that were attacked, with many being forced to flee into the forest or refugee camps. The violence has since spread to Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala.
During the weekend before we arrived in India special rallies were held up and down the country with special prayer for those suffering, especially in Orissa.
Passions have been running very high in Orissa, with complex local conflicts being used to whip up hatred and nationally this is part of a larger political struggle.
Ram Gidoomal explained in a statement from the South East Asian Development Partnership:
"This is the work of extremists who are destroying the fabric of India. The nation is locked in a struggle between the secularism established at Independence, and a double challenge from the Naxalities (wo now control 10% of India's districts according to Government figures), and from Hindutva forces who want to re-impose the unequal hold of traditional structures. The vast majority in India are peach loving people who respect life. We pray for an end to this violence."

Visit to India

During the last part of September and the first part of October I visited India. I have been to that country in the meanwhile maybe 10 or even 15 times. I've lost count.
There's a lot to say about India.
First of all we went to a small town called Chillakallu. One of the attractions is a children's home that we support.
I've made a small film and posted it in You Tube, so maybe you would like to have a look at it.

More photos

Jenny and Alfi's Removal

Our daughter, Jenny, moved in with her husband. Alfi, and their two children Jeremy and Amily. That photo though is of Susan!

Interesting Video

Book Recommendation

I picked up Driscoll's easy reading book during a recent visit to a conference in England. Driscoll had been one of the main speakers of the conference.
I have been keeping the theme of the emerging church at arm's length and had actually some doubts about the wisdom of attending this event. However I was pleasantly surprised. The speaker was easy to listen to although he had the afternoon sessions.
He gave some insights as to what make him and his church tick.
What I particularly liked about him was his commitment to God's word and his easy teaching of systematic theology.
A friend recently asked me, "Why doesn't church work?" There seems to be a lot of disappointment and discouragement. Some churches are growing and seem to be very successful but many are struggling and are shaken by crisis. So why isn't church working? I think that Driscoll tries to answer this question. It has to do with being missional-minded. Many church just circle around themselves and most of the events and things they organise are to support whatever is already in the church.
Driscoll uses Rick Warren's circles of bringing people who are completely distanced from the church and actually moving them step by step to the centre of the church.

About a year ago, we helped finance a farmer's cooperative in the Philippines. A group of around 15 families had got together, guided by a friend who is a community developer. They decided to pool their resources and share their gifts, work together and thus break the cycle of poverty.

Their monthly earning were around $30-40. Hardly enough to live on and not enough to send their children to school. We hoped that the cooperative would lift their income to around $140 - 150 per month. They only need a little capital (around $ 2000) to start this project. They would be able to buy seed instead of borrowing money that they would have to pay back together with horrendous interest rates. They would be able to buy larger amounts of seed and fertilizer at a lower price.

The cooperative started and looked very promising. It is really a success story. The captial wasn't given to them and they began to repay this loan (interest free) and it will be used for another cooperative.

The difficulty that our friends have is that although the cooperative is succeeding, the general economic situation in Asia is going from bad to worse. The rise of fuel and food prices makes life that was already difficult almost impossible.

They have managed to maintain their standard of living but not really been able to improve it. Without the cooperative their situation would have been even worse!

There is a big challenge to ministry in Asia and it is sometimes emotionally very draining but God is on the side of the poor and the blessings and joy of helping these people... there is hope!

Sri Lanka

One of the nations I have been involved in for a number of years is Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is an interesting country. The majority of the population are Singalese speaking Buddhists. There has been a civil war in progress since the mid-1980s which has taken the lives of nearly 100.000 people. The minority Tamils, who are in the main Hindus, are fighting for independance or at least autonomy. Looking at the discrimination that the Tamils have suffered this is a worthy cause. However their means are to be condemned.

The liberation group "Tamil Tigers" have been killing civilians indiscriminatly and have forced children into military service. The Buddhist government says that it is winning the war. Representatives of the Indian government have declared that this conflict cannot be won militrily.In the meanwhile, the Tamils have brought the war to the cities in the form of sucicide bombing.

The are Christians among the Singalese and the Tamils. They are though small in number 0,8% of the whole population are protestant and only the half of those are evangelical.Sri Lanka is the only non-islamic country in Asia in which the church is not growing.

The rising fuel and food prices have hit the poor in a devastating way. The denomination that I work with has 50 churches and they are paying their pastors less than US$ 2 per day. They live under the absolute poverty level. But much of the population does too.

If that were not enough, the Buddhist majority persecuted this protestant minority. During my stay a Methodist minister was put in hospital after being beat up by a horde of Buddhists. At a large gathering of Buddhist monks in the city of Galle, it was demanded that Christians leave the southern provinces. And thes mean business too. An Assembly of God Church in the Hambantota district was attacked on June 22nd. A JHU (a political party that supports the president) Buddhist monk gathered 5000 people who tried to enter the church. Fortunately in this case the police intervened and saved his life.

On July 6th the Talahena Calvary Church in Colombo was attacked. The pastor was hospitalized. There is normaly very little legal recourse available through the police as the government as the government is hesitant to challenge the Buddhist clergy.

Let's not forget to pray for these dear people who are suffering.

Once more: Kalimantan

For a number of years, I have been working into West Kalimantan, Indonesia. We have a team of people from a number of local churches in Germany and Australia, that ministers to a group of churches in West Kalimantan.

The people there live under very primitive conditions. We started out by encourging church workers and helping to train leaders. We normally go to a village which is central and hold seminars periodically for two years and then move on. We have been working in this area for four years and during this time 350 people have gone through the process of being trained. Also ten churches have been planted.

However there is a continual struggle to sustain the churches. Demonic activity is strong. Each village has a witchdoctor. This is a real challenge. Perhaps the bigger challenge is financial sustaining the churches. The people are very poor and despite teaching on the tithe, little is happening.

God gave us a good contact. We met a retired German businessman in Malaysia. He is a young Christian with a desire to serve the Lord. "But I can't preach." These were more or less his first comments on meeting him. Why people think you can only serve the Lord if you can preach I don't know. But to make a long story short, he is at present trying to form a cooperative with the pepper farmers in Kalimantan. If it works it will give the farmers a better deal for their work and also generate some funds for our mission there.

The first project that we want to support is a hostel for young people. We are working in a village that is kind of central (it only takes 8 hours by boat to access it form the nearest city). There are schools in the village. Parents send their children to the village to go to school. Unfortunately the children stay in the village until the school goes into recession. The children have no one to look after them and live in what look like larger dog kennels on stilts!

Of course as all young people are, the are mischievous and get into trouble without having parental guidance. But they also lack parental protection. A number of the girls have been raped. And the witchdoctor has a field day in putting spells on the children etc. Most of then, while having enough to eat, are undernourished because they ear mostly rice. They don't drink enough water and are not trained in hygiene.

In "our" village there are 350 such children. We are employing someone to do what he can to serve these children. Building a hostel would provide the protection and we could give guidance and help. We envisage doing training about hygiene, nutrition and discipleship. The cost of such a hostel is around 70 000, which we could raise through the cooperative.

We just hope and pray that this will happen!

The next step is a medical mission. People from the village need to travel the 8 hours by boat to get to see the doctor. Theoretically anyway. The boat trip costs them nearly a month's income. Then they have to pay the doctor.

So we would like to have temporary clinics in a number of villages in West Kalimantan. Around our network, we have made an appeal and asked medical personell to come forward - about 40 people have shown interest. We wanted to start in September but that is proving to be two short notice. We are postponing our start to March 2009. We have four doctors and a medical student who are kind of committed for that time.

Back from Sri Lanka

I've just spent the last two weeks in Sri Lanka. The situation on the island is very tense.
A civil war has been going on for the past 25 years and I guess somewhere between 80 - 100,000 people have lost their lives. Since the new president has been in power the war has intensified. The government say that they are winning the war by military power. However during my stay a high ranking government delegations from India visited Sri Lanka and tried to make the Lanka government understand, that this conflict cannot be solved by military might. In the meanwhile the Tamil freedom fighters have brought the fighting to Colombo in the form of terror attacks. Suicide bombers blow buses up. Claymore mine line the side of the road and are ignited through remote control. The unnecessary deaths of lots of people is the result.
The Buddhist majority continue to fear that the tiny protestant minority (14,000,000 against 80,000!) will somehow take over the country. Persecution, intimidation and the burning of church buildings is the result.
The rise of the fuel price has not left Sri Lanka unscathed. The poor people were hardly making it anyway, but now life has become unbearable. Fuel prices are linked to so many other commodities. In Asia there has been an increase in the price of food too. This is very difficult for so many who are living below the poverty level anyway.
The economy is at rock bottom and the way up is difficult. Initiatives are largely undermined by the rampant corruption.
We are looking to initiate some projects just to help a few to survive.

There are good things happening and I'll report about these in a few days.