George G. Hunter, III, The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West…Again. Abingdon Press, 2000.
Referenced in: Evangelism Approaches – Missional
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
George C. Hunter is an adept observer of culture, particularly its growing secularism, and an excellent strategist on helping the church evangelize effectively in that context. In this volume, he harkens back to the evangelism of Ireland and Scotland, as well as much of England and Europe, by the Celtic Christians during the Middle Ages, as an example of how to convert a pagan culture to Christ.
Hunter begins with the late fourth century (or early fifth century) story of Patrick, a young man in northeast England who was only nominally Christian. When Patrick was sixteen, a band of Celtic pirates from Ireland captured him along with many other young men and sold them into slavery. Forced into a life of herding cattle out in the wilderness, his spirit was shaped by what he could sense of the presence of God in the winds, seasons, creatures, and nights under the stars. This led him to pray up to hundreds of times each day and to know the love and fear of God. His faith grew strong, which was obvious even to his captors. He also came to know and love the Irish Celtic people. After six years of captivity, Patrick was told in a dream that a ship would arrive to release him from captivity. He arose the next morning, saw the ship, negotiated passage, and was on his way. The evidence for the next quarter of a century is scanty, but we know Patrick prepared for the priesthood and served faithfully as a priest for several years. Then, at the age of forty-eight, another angel appeared to Patrick, and presented what he believed was the call to return to his native Ireland and preach the gospel to the Celtic people. The British bishops believed his vision, ordained him as a bishop of Ireland, and sent him on his way. The tradition says he arrived in Ireland “with a modest entourage of priests, seminarians, and others, in a.d. 432.” So begins the story of St. Patrick.
What is so special about the ministry of St. Patrick is that the Irish Celtic people were “barbarians.” During that time, the belief was that a population “had to be literate and rational enough to understand Christianity, and cultured and civil enough to become real Christians if they did understand it.” What Patrick accomplished in both conversion and civilization, even under great criticism from the English bishops who had sent him, was nothing short of amazing. Although they expected him to be primarily a pastor who cared for the flock, he graciously continued his “apostolic ministry” of spending priority time with “pagans,” “sinners,” and “barbarians.”
The spread of Christianity in Ireland continued well after Patrick was gone, such that “in Ireland alone, there are more than 6,000 place names containing the element Cill – the old Gaelic word for church.” (26) There is also evidence of a distinctively Celtic approach to “doing church” and living the Christian life that spread throughout much of Europe during that time. His churches were unlike the parish churches in other places. They were both “catholic” and “barbarian” in nature, “indigenized” to the Irish cultural soil. They also practiced their own kind of Celtic “monastic communities” that were not organized to escape from the world, but instead “to penetrate the pagan world and to extend the church.” (28)
Hunter provides a very thorough and compelling description of these monastic communities and how they practiced spiritual formation, work, evangelism, and mission. Hunter shows how practices such as understanding the target population, welcoming people into the fellowship so that faith is more “caught than taught,” building the ethos or credibility of authentic witness, operating from a missionary perspective, are all reflected in the Celtic approach. He also shows how Celtic evangelists were interested in more than conversion, but also civilization, cultivating complete persons who form just societies. In this respect, Hunter’s description of the Celtic Way has seized the interest of many writers in the emergent church (e.g. Dan Kimball credits Hunter’s work in the Emerging Church, pp. 284-285).
What is Hunter’s purpose in telling the story of Celtic Christianity? He tells us at the beginning of the book:
“The Church, in the Western world, faces populations who are increasingly ‘secular’ – people with no Christian memory, who don’t know what we Christians are talking about. These populations are increasingly ‘urban’ and out of touch with God’s ‘natural revelation.’ These populations are increasingly ‘postomodern’; they have graduated from Enlightenment ideology and are more peer driven, feeling driven, and ‘right-brained’ than their forbears. These populations are increasingly ‘neo-barbarian’; they lack ‘refinement’ or ‘class,’ and their lives are often out of control. These populations are increasingly receptive – exploring worldview options from Astrology to Zen – and are often looking ‘in all the wrong places’ to make sense of their lives and find their soul’s true home.
In the face of this changing Western culture, many Western church leaders are in denial; they plan and do church as though next year will be 1957. Furthermore, most of the Western church leaders who are not in denial do not know how to engage the epidemic numbers of secular, postmodern, neo-barbarians outside (and inside) their churches. Moreover, most of the few who do know what to do are intuitive geniuses who cannot teach others what they know (or charismatic leaders who cannot be cloned). …They lack they ‘paradigm’ for engaging the West’s emerging mission fields. …The ancient movement known as Celtic Christianity can show us some ways forward in the twenty-first century.” (pp. 8-9)
One should not look at the title and assume the book is about an obscure tribe or a reflection of the popular interest in Celtic music, art, poetry, dance, and spirituality. It is a probing look at missional effectiveness, learned from a vibrant group of ancient, indigenous missionaries. Anyone who reads will be inspired by the lives they lived, the prayers they prayed, the communities they formed, and the people they reached.
This book’s purpose is not to give church leaders a step-by-step evangelistic method. It will, however, present a visionary philosophy of how churches may conceive of themselves in today’s missionary climate, as learned from the history of the early Celtic Christian communities.
From the Publisher
Celtic Christianity, the form of Christian faith that flourished among the people of Ireland during the Middle Ages, has gained a great deal of attention lately. George G. Hunter III points out that, while the attention paid to the Celtic Christians is well deserved, much of it fails to recognize the true genius of this ancient form of Christianity. What many contemporary Christians do not realize is that Celtic Christianity was one of the most successfully evangelistic branches of the church in history. The Celtic church converted Ireland from paganism to Christianity in a remarkably short period, and then proceeded to send missionaries throughout Europe. North America is today in the same situation as the environment in which the early Celtic preachers found their mission fields: unfamiliar with the Christian message, yet spiritually seeking and open to a vibrant new faith. If we are to spread the gospel in this culture of secular seekers, we would do well to learn from the Celts. Their ability to work with the beliefs of those they evangelized, to adapt worship and church life to the indigenous patterns they encountered, remains unparalleled in Christian history. If we are to succeed in reaching the West … again, then we must begin by learning from these powerful witnesses to the saving love of Jesus Christ.
About the Author
George G. Hunter III is Distinguished Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. A sought-after speaker and workshop leader, he is one of the country’s foremost experts on evangelism and church growth.
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