Keep Christianity Weird by Michael Frost

Author:Michael Frost
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christianity / General, RELIGION / Christian Ministry / Discipleship
Publisher: The Navigators
Published: 2018-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

THE HIBERNO-SCOTTISH MISSIONARIES (SIXTH CENTURY)

You might not have heard of the term Hiberno-Scottish missionaries. Often, they’re referred to simply as the Celts. You might have heard of a few of their leading lights, though—St. Columba of Iona, or St. Aidan of Lindisfarne, or St. Columbanus of the Franks. They were Gaelic monks from Ireland (in Latin: Hibernia) and the western coast of modern-day Scotland, who re-Christianized Britain and Western Europe after the fall of Rome. They were wild men from a wild land who harnessed their considerable passions and energies into Christian devotion.

Columba (ca. 521–597) was an Irish nobleman and soldier who became wracked by remorse at causing a battle where many men were slain. He vowed, at the age of thirty-two, to win for Christ as many pagans as Christians whose deaths he had caused. In order to fulfill his vow, he set off with twelve followers for Iona, an isolated island off the southwest coast of Scotland, where he established a monastery-village. There, he re-created the kind of catechism Alan Kreider wrote about, a combination of teaching and habitual practice designed to shape his community into the type of patient missionary force not seen since the earliest Christians.

Ultimately, his influence led not only to the Christianizing of Scotland and Britain but also to evangelizing as far afield as Germany, France, Italy, and even Africa. He out-debated the Druids, and converted the kings of the Picts and of the Scots. He subjected his fiery Irish temper to the habit of gentleness and love. In so doing, he earned the beautiful nickname “the Dove.” He was known everywhere for his love of nature and for his love of God and all people.

Rather than undergoing complete personality transplants, the Hiberno-Scots disciplined their passions without extinguishing them. They retained their sense of rowdiness and their love of wild, elemental places like the coastline of Scotland and northern England. They harnessed their love of drinking and singing and storytelling and directed it toward God. They practiced hospitality, welcoming all comers. They were deeply shaped by their newfound triune faith and saw the Trinity not only as a doctrine but as a framework for all human interactions, highly valuing community, reconciliation, and partnership. As a result, their monasteries weren’t the cold stone castles of the later medieval period but Christian villages, places of agriculture and study, safety and conviviality.

But they were missionaries, remember. When the abbot, or leader of a monastery, considered certain monks to be ready for missionary service—after years of learning and habit-forming—they would be sent out to take the gospel to the lost. This was done in a most bizarre fashion. All the Hiberno-Scottish monasteries were located on islands or coastlands or at the mouths of rivers. The missionary monks were commissioned by their village and placed in a coracle—a small, circular boat made of wickerwork, covered with a watertight material—and pushed out from shore with the prayer that the Lord of the wind and the waves would take them to the very people He wanted them to save.

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