John Chapman spoke at a great new restaurant called "Dish of the Day" on Monday evening. He's a 75+ Australian who's been in the Anglican church for years and is pretty dynamic. We were served a buffet, including thai chicken in peanut sauce, spinach and feta, salads and bread - there was much more but that's what I had. The restaurant comes fully recommended! For dessert we had home-made chocolate and vanilla ice-cream ''and'' chocolate mousse...some of the best I've ever tasted. If John ("Chappo") was a washout it would have been more than worth it for the food!

Technorati Tags: Africa, brian mclaren, christianity, church, death, John Chapman, muslims, islam, South Africa, TGIF

But luckily Chappo was good. The premise of the evening is that he'd speak for 5 minutes on the Gospel and then the floor would be opened to questions. While I would have preferred more dialogue and less of a "question-answer" type format I think he spoke with integrity and no small sense of humour ("At the retirement home I've just moved in to the newspaper boy comes at 5 and the ambulance at 9...!").

Say the following slowly in an Aussie accent, an air of "I just can't believe they'd do this!" and you've got him: "People make up their minds without looking at the primary documents!" He was speaking about his own misunderstandings of Christianity and what it meant when he was young - but he'd never actually read the Bible or know what it said. At some point he did and that's when things started coming together.

He spoke a bit about evolution and creation, and especially the danger of fitting the Bible into a scientific worldview when that was not its intention (or background) of the original authors. I think one guy there was a bit worried - "So you don't take Scripture literally?" but that's a loaded question anyway. Evangelicals are very concerned with taking the Bible literally since they're worried if you don't you can discount all sorts of central theological stuff (sin, forgiveness, Jesus being the Son of God...for instance). But of course the problem with the literal view is you ''can't'' take some things literally (is Jesus actually a sheep because he's the "lamb of God?" When He says, "I am the vine," does that mean he literally has grapes growing off him?! And if the Bible literally says homosexuality is wrong, must we also literally take them outside the city walls and stone them?). Chappo's point was we need to read the Bible as it was written - and see what the authors were trying to say at that time.

My friend Marius asked a question about the Garden of Eden - and man's disobedience bringing death into the world. He asked if death was not God's way of bringing new life (well, that was the core of his question but it was a bit longer than that). Chappo wasn't impressed, mostly because he'd lost a close friend of his recently and he hates death. Australians just don't talk about it because they're so scared of it. He suggested we bring up the topic next time we're at a dinner party just to see what happens! It was good to get the perspective of an old man (with respect) on death - it sucks. I still agree with Marius, though - God does indeed seem to bring life out of death. The cycle of death and resurrection is one that happens on many levels in our own lives, plus it's one which God has put into nature (food chains and all that). Although, if death did indeed first come into our world at man's sin - what did the lions eat before that?!

I asked a question which went along the lines of, "How can we Christians - with any integrity - condemn the recent destruction of foreign embassies by Muslims who've had their religion offended, given our own history of violence in the name of Christ?" Chappo's response was that we had to be careful to separate those who follow Jesus from the institution of the Church (I'm paraphrasing him here). Are those who do violence in the name of Christ really listening to Him? I agree with him - we cannot equate following Christ with being in the church. There are many outside of the church who follow Jesus, just as there are many inside the church who don't. God save us from propagating the church!

Plus we know that the West is a secular (post-Christian) society, whilst the Muslim world still sees the West as "Christian." I hope that there's no potential for a Muslim war on the West as I understand Islam to be a peaceful religion (for the most part - the problem is the fundamentalists). Chappo spoke about an interview with one of the Bali bombers - a young man who said he was deeply offended by half-naked Western women all over the beaches. His involvement with the bombing was a reaction against the secularisation - and offense - of his own culture/religion by the West. Makes you think.

The last question for the evening was one which my Bible study helped me phrase (although Marius insisted on answering it for me anyway...punk!): "Apart from eternal life, what life does the Gospel have to offer?" (Marius said the actual question should be: can the Gospel be true apart from the resurrection? but that's another story!). Chappo's response was traditional: forgiveness of sins, peace, we're ready to meet Christ at the day of judgement, you are never on your own, if you haven't embraced the spiritual you're missing out on a big part of life. All good stuff but the commonality here is "me" - all of the things he mentioned are about me - me being forgiven, me having peace, me being ready to meet Christ, me embracing the spiritual...

Whereas the great thrust of the Gospel is that it's not about me - it's about loving God, it's about loving others, it's about your story being caught up in God's story in his great plan of saving the world, it's about caring for the sick and poor, it's about transcending my own ego-bound selfishness so that I can take pleasure in another person.

John also mentioned that the greatest concentration of Christians in the world is Africa - "the face of Christianity is black African." Which just reiterates the great potential South Africa has - especially tying in Brian McLaren's recent comment: "My sense is that South Africa feels a responsibility to be a leader in Africa, and that you are rising to that vocation."

So overall a great evening - great people, great food, a great speaker and great superlatives (!).

Oh ja - thanks to Luke Miller for the "What life does the Gospel have to offer?" question :)

http://www.emergentafrica.com/node/50#comment-61...

Posted by: Roger Saner 17 Feb, 2006 - 11:51:02

What Roger did not say was that his question was used to bring the whole evening together - with the anglican form of an alter call...

Posted by: Andrew5000 17 Feb, 2006 - 12:41:47

You mean: "Let's eat?!"

Posted by: Roger Saner 17 Feb, 2006 - 12:53:44