From the Rectory

November  2001

Dear Friends,

We are now six weeks on from the events of September 11. Effectively we are in the middle of a campaign rather than a war, designed to arrest and bring to justice the terrorists who caused such horrendous havoc in New York and Washington. It is a police action complicated by the fact that the government of Afghanistan has given and continues to give shelter to the guilty. Because of that large-scale military forces have to be used.

The matter is further complicated by two factors. The first is the red herring that the United States is guilty of serious oppression, which even if it were true, is no excuse for the continuing acts of terror waged against that country over several years involving large numbers of innocent people from many countries. The problem here is that a legal principle that the ‘immediate cause and not the remote reason is to be looked for.’ This is something that our own judicial system appears to ignore more and more so that the victims become the guilty and the guilty are discharged to some degree from responsibility.

The second is the religious factor. A word that has disappeared from use in the last few weeks is crusade. For those of you who have forgotten your school history, here is a potted version with some reflections on that period of warfare between Christianity and Islam in the Middle Ages. There were large-scale incursions from the Middle East into Europe and Africa, including North Africa, Spain, Southern France and the Balkans. The crusades had this as their general background.

The actual crusades had their beginning in the extraordinary devotion that was paid to the historic sites in Jerusalem and the Holy Land by pilgrims. These pilgrimages commenced in the fourth century during the reign of Constantine, the Roman Emperor, who for political reasons embraced the Christian faith. Jerome speaks of crowds of pilgrims thronging the sacred places. At the same time, there were supposed discoveries of the real sepulchre and the true cross and there grew up an enthusiastic devotion to Palestine as the scene of Bible incidents of the Old and the New Testament.

This situation continued unabated for some three hundred years until AD 637 when Caliph Omar captured Jerusalem. Access was granted to the pilgrims on condition that they purchased the right to enter from the Caliphs. In AD 1067, a new race of conquerors captured Jerusalem. These were the Turks and their rule was harsher, leading to slavery for the Christians that lived in the region and persecution of the pilgrims. This excited the passions of Christians in Western Europe and set the scene for the possibility of a religious war.

The human catalyst who triggered the explosion of the crusades was a pilgrim monk called Peter. He visited the Holy Land and was deeply moved by what he saw and returned with the tales of outrage against Christians in Palestine. An appeal was sent from the Eastern Church to the Pope for assistance. A Council under Pope Urban II determined that a holy war should be fought for the Holy Land. It was to be a battle between Cross and Crescent that began in AD 1096.

It was a religious war in which the kingdom of Christ was to be advanced by the sword and slaughter. For those crusaders who fell, absolution was granted and Paradise was assured. A great wave of religious feeling swept Europe and kings; nobles and commoners flocked to the standard against Islam. There were eight crusades between AD 1096 and AD 1270. They met with varying degrees of success and there was even a Children’s Crusade in AD 1212. It seems clear that cruelty of the Crusades had a major impact and not for the best on the collective memory of the Islamic peoples.

How can we explain why this should have occurred? By this period in the Middle Ages, some one thousand years after the death of Christ, the Christian Church in both East and West had become absorbed in the political power struggles in the world. This led to an Old Testament concept of the Church that totally identified the Church with the nations through the claimed primacy of the Papacy both spiritually and temporally.

The idea that the Church was a spiritual kingdom in which Christ himself reigned through his Word by the Spirit tended to be lost. Hence, an attack upon Christians was seen as an attack upon all Christendom and the response was war. The Reformation broke this wrong concept in the West in the sixteenth century, identifying the Church primarily as a spiritual body, known only in its fullness to God, but secondly being a visible body on earth containing both true and false believers.

While many Christians rightly enjoy trips to Jerusalem and to the Holy Land, it is, or should be, a case of historic interest rather than an exercise of devotion. Jerusalem was the place where God chose to manifest his presence in the Temple to the Jewish people of the Old Testament. Jerusalem and its Temple were destroyed for the second time in AD70 by the Roman armies confirming the prediction of the Lord Jesus Christ that in judgment for his rejection, ‘not one stone would be left standing on another’.

The Temple of the Old Testament stands for the presence of God with his people. In Christian thought the idea of the Temple is developed and prominent. It is no longer a building of stone but a concept in which each Christian is the Temple of the Holy Spirit through union with Christ. All believers collectively make up the building of God’s Holy Temple, which is God’s Church. There is no longer a geographical area known as Christendom. This was an idea of the Middle Ages.

The Christian Church goes to war against the ‘world, the flesh and the Devil,’ not with bombs or bullets or biochemical substances but with the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. Its object is to make Jesus Christ, crucified and risen known throughout the world and the Church of those gathered comes from every tribe and nation and language upon earth. Christians may have to give their lives because of the faith but they may never take lives for the faith.

Sincerely in Christ, David Streater

(I am always ready to discuss any matter arising from what I have written.)

The Prayer Chain is there if you need prayer for yourself, for others or for members of your family. Please don’t ask for prayer outside your own family without people’s permission. To have a number of people pray just telephone David (720234) or Dennis (822992).

Church Opening

We have postponed our planned trip to Romania from October to November, probably from November 17th to December 3rd, or round about then. We plan to fly out taking as many small gifts as we can carry. Hopefully it won't be too cold! There are newsletters outlining the current situation, in church, or from us. Thank you everyone for your support.

Iulia Mocioc in Concert in Carlton, on Saturday November 10th

North Beds Healing Group - Wholeness and Healing

Flower Rota

Thank You

Jen Cuddiford.