Today
many will celebrate the life of Saint Patrick of Ireland with green shamrocks, green
clothing, green beer, and even green rivers.
The day has become a time to celebrate the mythos of Eire, the Emerald
Isle, and to party, but we can also take advantage of the day to take a second
look at Patrick the churchman and his legacy.
As
one might expect, much of the story of Patrick is shrouded in myth. The
accepted story is that he was kidnapped from Britain by Irish raiders when he
was 16 and taken to Ireland where he was a slave for six years. He eventually escaped and returned to his
family, but he took vows with the Church and returned to his place of
enslavement as a missionary. He is
credited with converting the island to the Christian faith. By the seventh
century, he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland.
The genius of Patrick seems to have been his ability
to contextualize the faith in order to win converts. He took advantage of the well-developed stories,
customs, and institutions of Ireland to present the Gospel in a powerful
way. So significant was this approach that
it gave birth to what we call Celtic Christianity, a movement that differentiated
itself from the Roman form of the faith for centuries.
In his book
The Celtic Way of Evangelism, George Hunter identifies several aspects of this
approach:
·
A
team strategy. The followers of Patrick usually
worked in cohorts for mutual support and encouragement.
·
Spiritual
empowerment from a community of believers.
Celtic Christian created a number of “foundations” (also called houses
or monasteries) that became centers of civilization and learning as well as
evangelism.
·
Imaginative
prayer. They took seriously the world around
them as a gift from God and immersed themselves in its beauty and power as a
means of becoming closer to God.
·
Hospitality. They readily accepted seekers, guests, and refugees
into their midst.
·
A
conversion model based on fellowship.
Whereas the Roman model could be summarized as believe, belong, and practice,
the Celtic model was belong, practice, and then believe.
How
much of this can be credited to Patrick is by no means clear, but accounts
testify to him as a man of both commitment and creativity. Patrick and his followers seemed to show a love
and respect for their fellows which built a bridge over which unbelievers could
cross without fear. Mythic or not, the
example is inspiring to believers in the 21st century.
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