“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
—Matthew 28:19 NRSV
You could sense their fear confined behind those walls.
The disciples of Jesus has just recently witnessed His death, resurrection and ascension and as you can probably imagine, they were confused. Jesus’ final instructions were for them to go back to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them.
Immediately before Jesus’ ascension, the disciples had asked Him, “Is now the time you will restore Israel’s kingdom?” (Acts 1:6) They were anticipating Jesus to overthrow the Roman occupation of Judea and they were ready for action! The long awaited Messiah had come, and He had proven Himself as such through His resurrection from the dead. Surely now Jesus will restore Israel to her proper standing as God’s chosen elite!
Jesus doesn’t bite. He responds to this question with a promise: they will receive power from the Holy Spirit, and they will be His witnesses throughout all the world. Jesus doesn’t seem to answer their question nor clarify what will happen; instead He bestows upon them the promised Holy Spirit, tells them to wait for this promised Spirit in Jerusalem, and then He disappears from their sight into the clouds.
I can imagine the disciples thinking to themselves, “Wait a minute. You’re saying that we are the ones who will restore Israel’s kingdom to its God-ordained position on the earth?” This must have been so confusing!
The disciples are praying and singing songs together when suddenly there is a sound like a rushing wind. What looks like tongues of fire come to rest on them, and immediately they begin speaking in all sorts of languages. They are filled with a boldness unlike anything they had ever experienced before. This commotion stirs up a crowd outside, for these disciples who had been in hiding are suddenly making a ruckus. Some bystanders suggested they were drunk, but Peter quickly speaks up in defence of this accusation (which then leads into a powerful sermon).
The phenomenon of speaking in tongues wasn’t simply random babble; it was a reversal of the confusion of speech that took place in Genesis 11. The gospel message was one that transcended all nationalities, and no barrier could stop this good news from being shared! The gospel of Jesus the Christ started with a particular group of people: the Jewish apostles in the city of Jerusalem, but it could no longer be contained within that group, that city, or even Judea. It was ready to go throughout all the world and be spoken in context to all people everywhere.
This gospel message was not something that was going to be forced down peoples’ throats. It was a message that brought the good news of Jesus the Christ in all particular contexts. Speaking in tongues was the sign to demonstrate this. Jewish customs and religious practices could not contain this gospel message; people did not need to conform to Judaism to receive this good news. The gospel was for the world to hear.
I believe that the disciples who walked alongside Jesus had to experience this miraculous sign of speaking in tongues to finally understand the true gospel message. It seems evident that they still did not get the purpose of Jesus’ mission in the world right up until this Pentecost moment. They were still expecting a violent warrior version of Jesus to suddenly lead a charge against Caesar; instead they heard a violent rushing wind and the Holy Spirit spoke through their lips, Her words sharper than a double-edged sword. Out poured from their mouths words in the native tongues of the people surrounding them. It was in this action that they finally got it, and it wasn’t of their own doing. It was a gift poured out on them that would keep on giving, like a little yeast does in dough. One could make the argument that this was the true moment of conversion for the disciples; up until this moment they seem to make excellent examples in completely missing the point.
What if this is the whole point?
In mainstream evangelicalism, there seems to be an emphasis on Paul’s conversion experience over the disciples’ conversion because Paul’s was instantaneous. Paul has this experience on the road to Damascus where he encounters Christ and is blinded. He then becomes one of the greatest apostles of Christ the world has ever known. Still, it’s ironic how we’ve made Paul’s conversion experience the expectation when he was actually the exception! Jesus’ disciples took years to finally get his message and mission, and they literally walked alongside him.
Early Christian witness resembled the conversion experiences of Jesus’ disciples much more closely than Paul’s. There’s an account in Acts where an Ethiopian eunuch becomes a follower of the Way of Jesus. To this day there’s a large Christian community in Ethiopia and other parts of North Eastern Africa that trace their heritage back to the Ethiopian eunuch who brought the good news of Jesus the Christ back to his people. Another example was India. Legend has it that Thomas brought the gospel message to the people of India and a beautiful, unique cultural tradition was born out of that movement.
Furthermore, the sharing of one particularly specific contextualized gospel message continues to have cultural significance to this day for those of us in the West. As the gospel continued to spread to the edges of the Roman Empire, Christian missionaries felt the need to bring the message of Jesus to the Celts, who dwelt in a large region north of the Roman Empire that spread from what is modern day Ireland to Turkey. The Celts were Indigenous to this region of the world. They were very connected to the land and the seasons, and relied heavily on this connection for their survival. The Celtic calendar was based on the cycles of the sun, unlike the Jewish calendar which was based on lunar cycles.
These early missionaries co-habited with and befriended the Celts. They dwelt among them as equals and learned their language, customs, and culture. They watched and observed for several years as the Celts lived their lives in connection with the earth and the sun, but they struggled to find a connection point to share Christ’s gospel message in a way that would make sense to them.
In December each year, the Celts would decorate an oak tree in the centre of their communities with all sorts of fruits. The mighty oak is a strong conductor of electricity resulting in more frequent lightning strikes compared to other trees. This was one reason the Celts considered the oak tree to be the most sacred of all trees. In the weeks leading up to the winter solstice, they would light a candle and place it on the tree, adding to it weekly until the night of the winter solstice when they would light several candles so that the tree shone brightly in their midst.
This bewildered the missionaries at first. Why would the Celts light a tree and dangle fruit from its branches on the darkest, coldest nights of the year?
The Celts believed in ritual celebration in honour of the sacred cycles of the sun. Over time they had recognized that the sun was responsible for the seasons that were instrumental in their survival. Their crops were their livelihood; their survival depended on sowing and harvesting at the right times of the year or else they would starve during the winter months. Therefore, every year in December, the Celts honoured the sacred cycle of the sun by performing this ritual to help usher in the new birth of the sun‘s cycle. Each year after the winter solstice, the sun would shine a couple minutes longer each day, eventually to the point where the days began getting warmer and seeds could be planted.
The missionaries saw this ritual taking place and they recognized it immediately. They finally had a point of reference to help them understand the good news of Jesus the Christ. They explained to the Celts that Jesus, the Son of God, was born into this world. He was the Light of the world that shines in the darkness, and He dwelt among us. He was the Image of the invisible God made known to us through His incarnation, life, death, and resurrection.
Instead of condemning the Celts for their ritual practices, the Christian missionaries adapted their message to fit their cultural context. This ritual has now been adapted throughout Christianity as the Christmas holiday, where we celebrate the birth of Jesus into the world. This is Christianity at its best. The Christian message in its truest form is adaptable.
Fast forward several centuries. Christian missionaries from Europe, endorsed by the Doctrine of Discovery that suggested that lands could be “discovered” for God, came to the Americas with a gospel message full of threats, fear, and manipulation. They attempted to Christianize the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island by condemning their “pagan” practices and rituals, demanding they repent or else they will burn forever in hell. Later on, colonizers came and stole their lands, burned their villages, spread their diseases, and killed their women and children. Over the next couple centuries mass genocide of Indigenous Peoples ensued. Their lands continued to get smaller and smaller as the colonizers pushed them further and further west. Today, reservations and reserves represent a mere fraction of traditional Indigenous territory. This is Christianity at its worst. This is the kind of Christianity that is destructive; it kills and destroys. Unfortunately it still thrives in the veins of the mainstream Western church today, going mostly unnoticed.
Conversion isn’t instantaneous and we should be very skeptical of anyone who claims this to be so. Western Colonial Christianity tries to force a “Paul on the road to Damascus” experience on people that will somehow magically make them become believers of Christ in an instant. Really this is dangerous, because it is so easy to prop up specific doctrines, dogmas, or ideologies that can prove detrimental to the gospel. Nationalism can easily be intermingled with such emphases; twisting the gospel message into something that comes across as bad news to the receiver. Just consider how much power and control one can have over a person when manipulation and fear tactics are used. Couple this with a lack of discipleship and understanding of what it means to actually live in the way of Jesus and suddenly Christianity becomes no more than a label. Jesus becomes another badge to add to one’s collection of accolades to prop them up, making themself feel more important. People become commodified; mere numbers to add to the an evangelizer’s conversion total that God will reward generously in heaven.
Today, the Western colonial church continues to tell people the good news of Jesus, saying His salvation is a free gift, but then upon conversion throws a list of rules a mile high at them. How is this good news? This is baggage; this is extra weight piled on by religious establishments in order to gain more power and control over people. Fear, manipulation, and guilt are easy tactics to gain more hierarchical power and influence in society, and frankly the church has become far too powerful. All sorts of atrocities have been done in the name of Jesus, from forcing Indigenous children into residential schools, to child abuse by clergy, to systemic racism (to name just a few). Far too many people have suffered physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual abuse in the name of Jesus.
This is colonial Christianity. Christ is not central to this Christianity (or if He is it’s a false Christ). This Christianity is toxic.
The historical Jesus was a colonized Jew, living under Roman occupation. He was from Nazareth in Galilee, a region of Judea that was marginalized by the Jewish people. Consider the words of Nathanael in John 1:46 when he asks, “what good can come from Nazareth?” This part of Palestine was situated far away from Jerusalem, the religious centre of Judea, and was further separated by a region known as Samaria. In other words, Jesus was an outcast. Colonial Christianity has been quick to brush over this reality and has hijacked Jesus to prop up their own nationalistic agenda. This kind of Christianity is dangerous.
Throughout the entire book of Acts, we see time and time again examples of the good news of Jesus the Christ spreading throughout the world in the context of the people of that particular space or region. The apostles never condemn the people they are reaching; rather they bring Christ to them in a language they understand as a reflection of what they already know to be true.
The church in the West desperately needs a better gospel message that more closely resembles lifelong witness to Jesus over mere conversion experiences. It need to take a hard look at the early church’s example as a guide toward a better gospel message that truly is good news for all people, no matter their ethnicity, culture, customs, skin colour, gender, or orientation.
Those of us who consider ourselves Christians in the West must repent of our collective sins as a church, and begin to recognize that what we preach as “good news” is actually experienced as bad news by so many people. We cannot begin to make a difference in the world or practice Jesus economics (in which the last will be first and the first will be last; Jubilee economics) until we deal with these sins. It’s time for the Western church to decolonize! The future of the church in the West depends on it.
Here is a list of books/resources that influenced this post:
- Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Willie James Jennings)
- Who Will Be a Witness: Igniting Activism for God’s Justice, Love, and Deliverance (Drew G.I. Hart)
- How the Irish Saved Civilization (Thomas Cahill)
- Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News (Brian Zahnd)
- The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right (Lisa Sharon Harper)
- Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision (Randy Woodley)
- The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (Richard Rohr)
- Heart And Mind: The Four Gospel Journey for Radical Transformation (Alexander J. Shaia and Michelle L. Gaugy)
- “The Robcast” episodes 60, 176, 222, and 263 (all featuring Alexander J. Shaia)
- “Reclaiming My Theology” podcast with Brandi Miller
- “Inverse Podcast” with Jarrod McKenna and Drew Hart