The wrong side of history?
Are we in danger of repeating mistakes that have had tragic consequences?
Brexit, Brexit, Brexit. Hardly poetry to my ears, I’m thoroughly cheesed off by the whole circus, now that our politicians have made a complete mockery of the process. I never thought I would write about this hottest of topics until yesterday, when I watched a BBC documentary by Dan Snow on ‘How the Celts saved Britain’ and quickly emailed Michael, our longsuffering page layout designer, with the message, ‘hold the front page’ (or, rather, I know we’re going to press in a few days, but can I replace what I’ve already written?) Michael graciously complied.
Dan Snow, an eminent historian, but also an unbeliever, charts the rise of Celtic Christianity, from the days of Patrick, who transformed Ireland from a pagan heathen hinterland into a beacon of light in the Dark Ages, with the Gospel message reigning supreme. At this time Ireland, a country that had never been conquered by the Romans, was now a centre of literacy, technology and civilization, all because of the Gospel and Snow actually marvelled at the “power of Christianity” that it demonstrated. From there missionaries, led by Columba, began to do the same in Scotland, with the Island of Iona as their base. (For more on this may I refer you to Colin Nevin’s excellent article in the May/June 2019 issue.) Columba’s desire was to evangelise Scotland (though it wasn’t called by that name at that time) and, reminiscent of Elijah and the Baal worshippers, targeted Bridei, the fierce pagan king of the Picts in Inverness.
At this point we are reminded that secular historians view their calling through particular lenses and Snow describes the highly improbable conversion of the primitive and barbaric Picts was due to the “greater magic of Christianity”, though he denied all of the signs and wonders that were certain to have been demonstrated by Columba. Let’s face it, they weren’t going to be converted on such a large scale just through clever arguments, but rather through the miraculous power of God, including a rebuke of the Loch Ness monster (that it’s never recovered from apparently!) and the swinging open of the gates of a fortified fortress at Columba’s command! Again and again, Snow comments on the “magical powers of Christianity” and the fact that it was far more powerful than anything the Druids had at their disposal, but was unable to explain exactly what this “magic” was. And the outcome was clear to see, a Kingdom transformed by the Power of God and His Word.
Trouble arrives …
But trouble was brewing and, co-incidentally, on the day Columba died, the Pope sent a mission to England, led by Augustine, the soon-to-be first Archbishop of Canterbury. By that time, Iona’s influence had spread to Northern England, through another missionary, Aidan, sent to Lindisfarne on the North East coast, which then became a centre for Celtic Christianity. The once-pagan land was starting to undergo a revolutionary change in every aspect of life, from social structures, to culture, literacy and technology, all as the result of the preaching of the Gospel. Then Rome began to stir things up, but not in a good way.
It started with Wilfred of York, a product of Lindisfarne, but a lover of Roman ways, with their rules and rituals. He visited the Pope and brought back a new fervor, converting many Christian leaders to Roman Christianity. Tensions grew, as there were now two competing Christian “traditions” in the land. The battle over the future of the land was fought at the Synod of Whitby in 664 AD, a hinge of history for our country. But first, let us dip into the Bible, to the Hebrew Scriptures, to see a pattern develop.
We want a King!
The Hebrews began to look at the nations around them. These people had Kings, who led them into battle, ruled them, made decisions for them. We want a King, too! This was the cry of Israel in 1 Samuel 8 and they got the one they deserved, Saul. God had warned them, but did they listen? He told them that this King was going to take away their sons to fight dangerous wars, their daughters to be cooks and bakers and would also take a proportion of their land, crops, slaves and flocks for his own use. No, we want a King! “Then don’t come running back to me when it all goes wrong!” adds God, in 1 Samuel 8:18. ‘We don’t care – give us a King, already!’
Saul, the first King of Israel, was volatile, insecure and paranoid, which was probably God’s punishment on Israel for showing such a lack of faith in Him and demanding a King in the first place. The people wanted a King for a very good reason. They wanted to be like everyone else, they wanted uniformity rather than uniqueness, unity rather than holiness.
A hinge of history …
At the Synod of Whitby, the situation was similar. Wilfred of York wanted uniformity and unity with the European Church, centred on Rome, he wanted Britain to become Roman Catholic. On the other hand, Colman, Aidan’s successor at Lindisfarne, wanted uniqueness and holiness, the pure Hebraic Gospel as passed down through the Irish monks and unsullied by the Greek structures of the Roman church.
The issue that prompted the Synod was an interesting one, the dating of the festival commemorating Christ’s resurrection. The Celtic church followed the Hebraic calendar, based on Passover, the Roman Church followed their own calculations, with Easter a moveable feast.
The Synod was won by the Roman Catholics. There were two dimensions, a physical one and a spiritual one. The physical factor was the relationship between the King and the Queen. The King had been educated in Celtic ways and the Queen, the daughter of the King of Kent, in Roman ways. But the clincher was the spiritual dynamic represented by Wilfred’s appeal to a key Scripture that provides the very foundation for the Roman Church’s credibility. “Did Jesus say to Columba”, he posed, “as He did to Peter …I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church”? Analysis of the Greek Scripture tells us now that this is a misapplication of Scripture, with Peter’s declaration ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God’ being the rock, not Peter himself.
Nevertheless this assertion swayed the Whitby assembly, which subsequently voted for the Roman church to become the church of the land.
Here is Wilfred’s opening salvo at the Synod: “the only people who are stupid enough to disagree with the whole world are these Irish and their obstinate adherents, the Picts. Your fathers were holy men but do you imagine that they, a few men in a corner of a remote island, are to be preferred to the universal church of Christ throughout the world?”
And so to the present …
Hey, this rhetoric is familiar. Where else have we heard such a vilification of an island State, going it alone and resisting conformity and unity? Yes, it’s the current anti-Brexit hate-fest!
The desire to “be like all of the others” is a strong impulse within us, but it can be counter to what God has for us. Again and again He calls His people to be holy and separate, so as to remain unsullied by the ungodliness that surrounds them and enjoy the subsequent blessings. This was one of the main purposes of the Torah for the Children of Israel, after all:
If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God … The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in obedience to him. (Deuteronomy 28:1-2,9)
Could there be a parallel today with the Brexit debate? Politics, division, prejudice and endless rhetoric aside, could this be God’s call for our Nation at this time? I’m sure I’m not the first voice to pose this question, but it’s worth a consideration at this key point in our history. Apart from anything else it holds out a real possibility that, despite the increasing secularization of our Nation and the current drive towards “progressive” Marxism, maybe – on account of the legacy of such giants as Spurgeon, Ryle, Hudson Taylor, Carey and LloydJones – God may actually still have a plan for us ‘few men in a remote island’.
The ancient Hebrews got the Kings they demanded, they conformed to the pattern of ‘other nations’ and it ultimately led to exile and persecution. What about our Nation after the victory of the Roman Catholics in the 7th Century? How did things go for them, then? Did we enter a new Golden Age, did the true faith flourish as it did under the Irish monks? Not exactly. A few years afterwards came the Viking conquests of these lands, bringing anarchy and setbacks, one of their first conquests being Lindisfarne itself. And, sadly, the Irish Nation that provided such a beacon for the true faith, was eventually conquered in subsequent centuries by the ideas of the Roman Catholics, with strongholds still remaining.
So, who is on the wrong side of history? One thing is clear and that is that God is always on the right side and it is up to us to discern, as God’s people within our Nation, what He is saying in these turbulent times