We Interrupt This Broadcast

Because Aslan is on the move.

You can watch this week’s post here:

I'm pausing my series on Elijah the Prophet to talk about three discernible trends in Western Christianity. They are good. In fact, they are more than good: I'm convinced they are the visible part of a move of God in our time. In the next few posts, I'm going to make a case for those trends and suggest a few ways you could engage them to thrive with Jesus.

There’s a very old story about something that happened during the Persian Wars on the Greek frontier, an event that inscribed itself into the soul of a generation and terrified a transgressing army. It starts like this: In 480 BC, King Xerxes of Persia assembled an army. 

That’s…an understatement. 

Ten years before, Xerxes’s dad, Darius the Great (the Darius from the book of Daniel), assembled an army in the conventional sense: He mustered 25,000 (or so) soldiers and sent them to Greece. There the Persian army suffered one of those catastrophic upsets for which history is famous and its survivors fled. 

Now, great kings hate losing, and so it’s not surprising that Darius pledged himself to Greek annihilation. Even before that upset, Darius had commanded a servant to say “Master: remember the Athenians” at each meal. That’s a solid way to cultivate bitterness but—alas for Darius—he died before he got around to it. Afterward his son, Xerxes I, took up the cause, and when that man prepared to smite the Greeks he didn’t “assemble an army.” He turned the entire empire into a gun pointed at the Aegean Sea. Xerxes built new roads. He reinvented the navy. He dug a canal between two seas to make the invasion easier. Then he summoned half a million soldiers and launched the greatest fleet the world had ever seen. 

There were troop carriers, barges, frigates, swift corvettes and bristling warships. When that army arrived in Greece, the end had come. It landed, smashed a puny division of Greeks at Thermopylae, and marched on Athens.

 

The old historians tell us that at that point the Greeks were in disarray: Some wanted to flee, others wanted to fight, still others wanted to throw in with Persia. Small wonder: While the Greeks were arguing, the Persians were burning the country and leveling Athens. Eventually, some of the Greeks fell back to their ships. They might have planned to flee, but if that’s so, they didn’t get a chance. A Greek general, Themistocles, told the Persians where they were. 

And that’s when it happened: The Persian fleet bore down. 

It must have been a sight: a thousand ships manned by one of the greatest seafaring civilizations of all time. Their oars clawed the waves; their prows loomed like dragons; in a hundred languages their captains called orders. They entered the Strait of Salamis. Beyond it, they beheld open sea. The Persians came on, ready to smash the unsuspecting Greeks, when, all of a sudden, two things occurred. 

First, the Greeks appeared. Not in disarray, but in battle formations. There were men at the oars, and high-crested warriors straining from the bows.

Second, there came the battle cry. The Greek playwright Aeschylus, a veteran of the wars, recorded the event. “And now, distant we heard,” he wrote, “from every part this voice of exhortation. ‘Now, sons of Greece, now!’” 

The whole Greek fighting force roared together what would become a famous rallying cry. What was it? It was this: “Free wives, free children, fight for everything you have!”

They smashed into the Persian fleet, clogged the straits, and fought a land battle at sea.

They won, by the way. 

I think something like that is happening now. I don’t mean that in a political sense; I mean something like that is happening in the World and to the Church. The pressures of our age are enormous. I read and write about history (among other things) for a living, and I can tell you: Though our moment is not unprecedented, it is unique. 

Fortunately for us, the One enthroned in heaven laughs (Psalm 2:4). Jesus provides for his people. He always has and he always will. Throughout its long history, the Church has received prophetic warnings (I’ve written before about the warning received by the Christian Berbers of North Africa; you’re also welcome to read Acts 20:17-38, especially verses 22-24). It has seen trends emerge as a last-minute antidote to catastrophic ages (the mendicant orders of the Middle Ages come to mind here). It has seen renewals spring forth like lightning from a clear sky (how about the Revival in the Hebrides) and gnarled remnants cling to the gospel far past the point of merely human endurance (the underground Church in Russia under communism is a good example).

All of that’s going on right now, and what I want to talk about in particular are three trends that are discernible in the Western Church. They are: 

1. A re-enchantment and re-spiritualizing of Christianity.

2. A renewal in terms of discipleship (especially body-based discipleship grounded in the spiritual practices).

3. A new interest in the history of the Church, patristic theology, and even (dare I say?) ecumenical dialogue. 

In the next few posts, I’m going to explain those movements in depth because these three are complex and trends do not from nowhere appear. In fact the movements here have been growing for decades, not years.

(Note: If you’re a part of the Roman Catholic Church, then you’ll recognize the ressourcement and aggiornamento of Vatican II in Number 3; our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters will be particularly familiar with Number 1. There are simply too many voices in too many traditions to pick a representative example of Number 2, though I think the Protestant stream has something special to offer here.)

Your job is to consider the evidence in the following posts; if the movements I’ll identify in these essays really are a work of the Spirit, your job is to lean in. 

Honestly: if Aslan is on the move, your participation is not optional. Not if you want to thrive. 

Here’s why. 

In another post, I said that I keep a list of events called “normal strange things;” they are events that you would not necessarily expect to recur in history, but they do. One of those is “Timely Warnings.” 

Do you know how often, before disastrous events occur in world history, the people involved are warned? Almost always. 

I am particularly intrigued by the military examples. When Julius Caesar began his campaign in France, a brilliant leader named Vercingetorix knew exactly what would happen. He knew how to overcome Caesar: the Fabian strategy, burn and retreat. But his allies would not listen, and so a million Celts died and they lost that war. 

Another one: Have you ever heard of Alexander the Great? Before he invaded Persia, a Greek named Memnon warned the Persians about him. It’s painful to read, but Memnon knew exactly what Alexander would and could do. He told the Persians how to prepare. They didn’t listen and their empire burned. 

It happens over and over again. The warning comes and most people do not listen. 

Well, the next few posts are a warning, of a kind: If God is doing something in His Church in our time, it’s not because no one will need it. God didn’t get a hold of St. Benedict because the next few hundred years were going to be smooth sailing; he didn’t speak to St. Patrick because the feudal kings of Ireland were headed in a great direction. You see what I’m saying? If God is providing for his Church in real time, you will absolutely need what he is providing. And get this: There will be joy in receiving it. 

Life submitted to Jesus is life as it was meant to be lived. If you’re experiencing a divinely orchestrated dissatisfaction, it may be because God is calling you deeper. It may be that the three movements above will help you to find your way deeper. So let that desire be the motivator. 

I have a translation of this blessing from Isaac of Stella on my website but it’s worth copy-pasting here. I can’t think of a better blessing for all in Christ in all times. 

May the Son of God
who is formed in you
grow strong
and immense in you

and become for you
great gladness
and exultation
and perfect joy.

Until next week,

Blaine