Abram has visitors

Separation

Funny dream last night. In it I had the opportunity to confront someone who had deeply offended me many years ago. I was not angry. I had prayed through and talked out the situation several times before and had long since made my peace. I did not speak in malice or with any desire to hurt but I spoke so that person would understand. They understood. You’re thinking that maybe they asked for forgiveness and we had a happy ending, but they didn’t. It wasn’t necessary. What was necessary was for me to articulate my hurt and anger to someone whom I will likely never have the opportunity to speak to in this life and feel that they understood my hurt.

It was such a stark and realistic dream that it woke me up immediately after I had said my piece. As I lay in bed pondering it I realized that I still had a sliver of a thorn in my heart that I was not aware of. Job chapter 33 says, “For God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, while they slumber on their beds. . .”  God spoke to me in my dream.

B.G. over at O.C. has been talking about separation lately, or how God pulls back to create space for us to discover our need and search for Him. It’s always amazing to me how God can accomplish more in a 30 second dream than I can in a lifetime. As I pondered, it was revealed to me how I had not really been angry at the offending party of my dream but that I had been angry at God. Now, I confess that I have had times when I’ve been angry with my Maker and there was no doubt between Him and me of that fact. I was angry and I let Him know it. He wasn’t impressed, by the way. But this was deeper.

I was taken back to the story of a small child who had been offended when his mother abandoned him in kindergarten and then later when that child grew to adolescence and was abandoned once again by divorcing parents and older siblings moving away from home. In both situations that child was forced to make decisions that he was not prepared to make and he chose to be angry about it. He thought he was angry at Mom and Dad and the rest of the world. In reality, by extension, he was angry with God, but he didn’t know it.

That is the story of my personal separation from God. I’m sure you have one too. You see, I had gone through those times thinking God was nowhere, that I was alone, that I had been forsaken and abandoned and, if it was to be, it was up to me. And I was angry.

The good news is that God was always there, I just didn’t know it. And, in a moment of time, in a dream, God gently pulled the sliver of a thorn out of the child/man’s heart, and that space between Him and me, in that moment became much smaller. As I continued to ponder on my bed I suddenly realized that my anger was gone. What I didn’t know was there but always knew was there was gone. Now it was my turn. I did the only thing I could do. In a moment I realized my fault and my sin and asked His forgiveness.

“ Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” – I Thessalonians 5:23-24

Heretical Schismatic 

Why I'm not Roman Catholic or Orthodox

Since this seems to be a theme for me lately . . . .
I have no bone to pick with the Romans or the Eastern Church. As I've said before, I have a great respect for the R/Os. I don't know if Western civilization would have survived without them, especially the Roman Church. Emperor Constantine was both a blessing and a curse to the Church and his influence is still felt in the Church today, even in the far edges of the Protestant Church.
I have been called a heretical schismatic by a Roman and though I took it as a badge of honor I do not consider myself to be protesting anything, only disagreeing on a few points that marked, and still mark the Reformed Church (aka - the Protestant Church by the R/Os).
Anyway, as I've been giving thought to the issue lately, I came across a great quote by C.S. Lewis who is, in my opinion, one of the defining voices for understanding reformed Christianity.

"And now we begin to see what it is that the New Testament is always talking about. It talks about Christians ‘being born again’; it talks about them ‘putting on Christ’; about Christ ‘being formed in us’; about our coming to ‘have the mind of Christ’.

Put right out of your head the idea that these are only fancy ways of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out—as a man may read what Plato or Marx said and try to carry it out. They mean something much more than that. They mean that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity."

- Mere Christianity

I can't claim to have studied R/O doctrine deeply though I know a few R/Os - mostly Rs - but I have never encountered anything in the Roman or Orthodox realm that comes anywhere close to such clear and forthright statements of the Gospel as are found in the Reformed branch of the Church. Whenever I begin to consider the state of the Reformed Church and all the wacky stuff that goes on and all the wacky people on its fringes and I begin to consider the possibility of going Roman I take a breath, read my Bible and some Lewis. 

And, that is why I am not Roman or Orthodox.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

God's richest blessings to you and yours.

In response to Julie's links:

The writer makes some good points and, to be honest, my brief summary of "Scripture" was incomplete. There is much more that could be said. My primary purpose in the reply to my friend was to point out that what we call the Bible is indeed much more trustworthy a source of inspired writings than any other writing of that time. I personally believe that it continues to be so.

Fr Stephen makes very good points on the issue and his is very much my understanding of the Orthodox/Roman view of scripture. I do have some issues with the O/R view but I don’t claim to have any superior understanding and welcome discussion on the subject.

I lean heavily toward the Anglican tradition when it comes to the authority of scripture and, to a lesser extent, my personal studies and what seems logical to my understanding. Anglican tradition claims that the Church rests on a 3-legged stool, scripture, tradition and reason. Actually it’s a rather lopsided stool in that the leg of scripture is much longer than the other two. In other words, in fully recognizing the importance of Church tradition and reason, Holy Scripture is preeminent. I and many Anglicans would also add a 4^th leg, the Holy Spirit, for just as faith without works is dead, word without Spirit is tenured theology.

Fr Stephens seems to think that “Protestants” have made an idol out of the Bible. Perhaps some have. Most that I have known don’t know enough scripture to make the distinction (and even more O/Rs). For most “Protestants” the Bible is no more an idol than a statue of the Virgin Mary is to O/Rs. He also seems to think that “Protestants” view the Bible in the same way Muslims view the Quran. If they did they would get upset when someone burns or defaces a Bible the same way Muslims do when someone defaces a copy of the Quran. They don’t.

  

In the first essay Fr Stephen talks about the authority of scripture and how scripture was given by the Church and how the Church is preeminent in interpreting scripture.  My first issue is this, did the Church determine what was/is holy writ or did it recognize what is holy writ? The O/R view is the former, the Reform view, which I agree with on this point, is the latter. I respect the O/R view and I recognize that there is more to this view than many Protestants recognize. But, if the Church is equal to or above the Scripture then what is the Church? Is it strictly the priesthood or is it the entire body of Christ. For the Church to be the sole interpreter of scripture would seem to mean, the learned, ordained, apostolic members of the Church. I respect the need for traditional understanding and experience and I think we can all agree that we don’t want a novice interpreting scripture for us, even if there are exceptions but on the down side, without input by the whole body (the Church) the (c)urch is apt to develop interpretations, traditions and theologies that are self-serving which is the situation that provoked Luther’s 99 theses and the reformation movement.

In the second essay Fr Stephen makes a very good point about how the Quran is a false Bible. I whole heartedly agree. Islam is a cult as is Mormonism, and Rastafarianism and many others that twist and rewrite Scripture for their own benefit.

It is important to understand what the Bible is and isn’t. If you study the Bible as a scientist you will find many scientific errors. That is because, although there are many scientifically accurate entries, it is not a science book. If you study the Bible as a historian you will find many errors. That is because, although there are many historically accurate entries, it is not a book of history. What the Bible is is a book of Truth. I would personally say that it is not the only book that contains Truth but it is the most comprehensive, reliable and trustworthy book of Truth that exists and as such I consider it a gift from the living God to mankind.

He also talks about how Christianity is not a submitting to God. I understand what he is saying. It is not a forced submission. Conversion at the point of a sword or gun is not, usually, a true conversion, it is a conquest. I also appreciate what he’s saying about unity with God. Understanding our unity with our Creator leads us on paths of communion and fellowship that many saints have traveled before us. But, Christianity is a submission. It is a submission in the sense of a bride that submits herself to her husband, not legalistically or in fear but because he has won her. We do not submit to Christ because he has conquered our flesh but because He has conquered our heart. We do so willingly. Not out of fear.

I do passionately disagree with Fr Stephen when he attempts to attach Protestantism to Islam. It appears to me that he is taking rather liberal leaps of logic to encourage the Orthodox faithful to stay in the corral while at the same time apply guilt by association to the schismatics and heretical Protestants.  

To put it in modern political terms, one view believes that power and authority should be centralized and the other view is that individuals are generally intelligent enough to make good decisions when they are give the truth unfiltered.

It is not my intention to offend anyone with my views and, hopefully I have not. If I have I blame it on Julie who provoked me to expound ;-). My thoughts are not settled on the subject so please feel free to expound, expand, rebuke or reply. 

A little while back a young friend asked me what I thought about the books and writings about Jesus that didn't make it into the Bible and, by extension, the ideas found in books like The Da Vinci Code.
Here's what I wrote to him:

Dear . . . ,

Before answering your question I think a little background on the Bible may be in order.

1.       The Bible contains 66 books or letters, 39 Old Testament and 27 New Testament.

2.       These 66 books are considered to be the inspired Word of God by the Protestant Church. There are also several books called the Apocrypha that are also accepted as Old Testament Scripture by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and a few others. The Apocrypha is respected by most Protestant churches and valuable for wisdom and training but not considered inspired by God. 

3.       Why are these 66 book considered inspired by God and not others?

a.       The Gospels, the book of Acts and the Epistles (letters) were all written between about 45-50 A.D. and 110-120 A.D.

b.      The early Church had only the Old Testament to work from.

c.       The 39 books of the Old Testament were regarded by the Apostles as the Word of God mainly because they were Jewish and had long been accepted by the Jewish leaders as such. (the books of the Apocrypha were respected by the Jews but not considered inspired – which is why most Protestant Churches consider them as they do)

d.      As the Apostles and others began to travel, teach and plant churches they would write letters to those churches for instruction and correction. Also, wherever they went they told the story of Jesus, His life, death and resurrection.

e.      The oral history as told by the original 12 apostles eventually was written down and these histories, along with the letters would be read in the churches, copied and distributed to other churches.

f.        As the Church grew and matured – A.D. 100 – A.D 300 – the early fathers began to realize the serious need to canonize, or standardize and compile these histories and letters. The 27 writings we use now were not the only writings being distributed in the churches. There were many, many others. Some of the writings were genuine but many were fake. Much like today, there were people who either misunderstood or willfully twisted the truth of the Apostles and would write or edit the writings for their own purpose. These were the Arians, Gnostics and outright charlatans.

g.       Over the first 300-400 years  there were several councils consisting of the leaders and theologians of the Church. Their job was to establish what was and what was not true Christianity. It was vitally important for them to address the many heresies that were attacking the Church.

h.      Over the course of many years, through many councils and much prayer and heated debates the 27 writings were recognized and accepted as the inspired Word of God by the Church.

4.       So, to answer your question:

a.       Although extra-biblical writings can be interesting, they are nothing new. The Church Fathers read and considered more of them than archaeologists will ever discover.

b.      Most of them are, either by design or by error, a distraction from the Truth.

c.       We have the very Word of God. Why would we settle for anything less?

Blessings,
R.B.

November Has an 'R'

Old School Oyster Harvest

Here's a quikie for today:

John Wesley, the Methodist, found it natural to approach the Gospel with habits of thought formed by a classical education but he was quick to recognize the value of other approaches. The early Methodist meetings were often led by lay preachers with very limited education. On one occasion, such a preacher took as his text Luke 19:21, "Lord, I feared thee, because thou art an austere man." Not knowing the word "austere," he thought that the text spoke of "an oyster man." He spoke about the work of those who retrieve oysters from the sea-bed. The diver plunges down from the surface, cut off from his natural environment, into bone-chilling water. He gropes in the dark, cutting his hands on the sharp edges of the shells. Now he has the oyster, and kicks back up to the surface, up to the warmth and light and air, clutching in his torn and bleeding hands the object of his search. So Christ descended from the glory of heaven into the squalor of earth, into sinful human society, in order to retrieve humans and bring them back up with Him to the glory of heaven, His torn and bleeding hands a sign of the value He has placed on the object of His quest. Twelve men were converted that evening. Afterwards, someone complained to Wesley about the inappropriateness of allowing preachers who were too ignorant to know the meaning of the texts they were preaching on. Wesley, simply said, "Never mind, the Lord got a dozen oysters tonight."

- Source unknown

Daily Office

The readings assigned to today by the Book of Common Prayer are:

Psalms 69 & 73

Revelations 17 

and Luke 13:31-35.

A few excerpts 

Psalm 69:

“Save me, O God!

For the waters have come up to my neck.

2 I sink in deep mire,

where there is no foothold;

I have come into deep waters,

and the flood sweeps over me.”

Verse 30:

“I will praise the name of God with a song;

I will magnify him with thanksgiving.”

Psalm 73:3

“For I was envious of the arrogant

when I saw the prosperity of the wicked”

Verses 16-17

“But when I thought how to understand this,

it seemed to me a wearisome task,

17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;

then I discerned their end.”

Revelation 17:14

“They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.”

Luke 13:35

“Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

The emphasis seemed to be of pain, suffering, hope and victory.

Then I read this FB post by a new missionary friend:

My Children’s Foreign Mother

He gazed at me through darkened eyes,

This man who fled from war.

“I had to wait until my wife

Had died from all her sores.”

“Her sores?” I asked without a thought

Of how this mem’ry might

Uncover pain too deep – too raw –

Too close to fear and flight.

He blinked and turned his face away

As if to hide inside;

And then with measured words he told

Me how it was she died.

“You see,” he murmured quietly,

“We were from different groups.

When we were joined in matrim’ny

We were not split in troops.

But now the war has pitted us

‘Gainst one, and ‘gainst the other…

My people just could not accept

My children’s foreign mother.

At first there were just angry words

And insults flung her way,

But soon there followed slaps and blows

And threats if she should stay.”

But then things got quite out of hand,

As I was pushed aside.

The mob was now out of control

And she was trapped inside.

I pushed and pulled and sobbed and cried

Until I found her there,

A bloodied mess of flesh and bone

With blind and vacant stare.

She did not die that fateful night,

But fought and fought for life.

How could she leave me all alone

With children, but no wife.

As in the dawn began to creep

Her soul began to leave…

One light come in and one go out…

A family left to grieve.

We buried her under the tree

Where we two once were wed.

And with her in that sandy grave

I lay my heart to bed.

And then we packed up all our things,

The little we still had,

And started out on foot towards

The good or t’wards the bad.”

“And now we live within a camp

Together with those who

Had dealt the blows that killed my wife

And left me with these two…

Little ones too young to know

Such sorrow and such strife;

Too young to know that they will ne’er

See her in this life.

How can I speak to them of heav’n,

When hell is all they know?

How can I speak to them of love,

When hatred brings us low?”

He sighed a sigh and closed his eyes

Perhaps to recollect…

Was that a quiver in his voice

Detected, but soon checked?

He turned his face to me once more

As if with pleading eyes

He sought from me, a mortal man,

An answer to his whys.

“But there are some,” he softly said,

“Who suffer more than us…

You see the ones who dealt the blows

Now live among the just.”

“And they must look into our eyes

Each and every day,

Their conscience pricked when every time

We choose instead to say

That we forgive and we still love,

In spite of all the pain

That by their actions they have caused…

For only one thing will remain…

For faith and hope, the Bible says,

Will all too quickly pass,

But love goes on beyond the grave

And on beyond our past.”

He slowly rose as if to go

But then he turned and said,

“I miss her so, my foreign wife,

And even though she’s dead,

A part of her I always see

Within my children’s eyes.

And when I think I may forget

I find her in their smiles.

And by their lives they testify

To one and to the other,

That bitter hatred could not kill

My children’s foreign mother.

© Johann Vanderbijl 2014

It’s ok, I cried too.

Emmaus Road

Sneaky Jesus

There is a well-known rumor going around here in Charleston that when Bill Murray is in town he likes to sneak up behind people as they are walking around downtown and tap  them on the shoulder. When they turn around to see who it is, Bill puts a big grin on his face, says, “Nobody’s gonna believe you” and runs away. I say it’s a rumor because it has yet to happen to me or anyone I know personally but, as he is part owner of our mighty River Dogs minor league baseball team and does like to be in Charleston when his schedule permits and because the rumor has surfaced from a variety of sources, I tend to believe it.

In my meditations this morning the Spirit dropped in my mind an image of the two disciples walking along the road on the way to Emmaus. It was a Sunday and as they were walking they were discussing the rumors they had heard from the women who went to the tomb and found it empty and reported to the apostles that an angel had told them that Jesus had been resurrected from the grave. As the two were walking, talking and pondering the meaning of it all Jesus drew near and began walking with them. He snuck up on them. After a few minutes of listening to them He asked, “What are you guys talking about?” Cleopas answered, “What planet are you from? Haven’t you heard about what has happened in Jerusalem?” “What things?” Jesus responded, drawing them further in and preparing their hearts for a revelation.

So, they told Him the whole story of Jesus’ death burial and rumored resurrection. “And he said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25-27)

As they approached Emmaus Jesus acted as if He would continue walking but they, being drawn to Him and His words of enlightenment, “urged Him strongly” to stay with them. He had been sprinkling salt on their thirsty hearts and, like the woman at the well, were at once confounded and amazed as their understanding began to open and their assumptions about the Scripture were systematically challenged and replaced. Like the old country preacher use to say, “They were like calves looking at a new gate”.

I think sometimes that we forget that the Physician tells us in Acts 1 that during the 40 days between Passover and Pentecost Jesus was often with the disciples, appearing to them and teaching them about the Kingdom (wouldn’t you like to hear those teachings?).

The Jewish Passover is, as you know, a time of celebrating Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, setting them free from bondage and being led into the desert. Jewish Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks is a time of celebrating the act of God supernaturally giving, with signs and wonders, His Law to Moses on Mt Sinai which was the establishment of a nation. Hmm, I wonder if this is one of the correlations Jesus shared with Cleopas and that other disciple?

Anyway, Jesus reluctantly (?) follows them on to Emmaus continuing to talk with them. They arrive at the inn where they will spend the night and as they sit down to dinner, Jesus takes the bread, blesses it and breaks it and puts a big grin on His face. In a flash they recognize Him – and He disappears.

 In that singular moment He is, at once, confirming His resurrection, the witness of their hearts as they listened to Him explaining the Scriptures while on the road and preparing them for His Pentecost, the establishment of His Kingdom in the hearts of men.

Lord Jesus, I am so dull of hearing and my heart is so hard of understanding. I wander off, pondering the meaning of it all in my own weak intellect not recognizing your presence with me. Lord, I am so dull and rebellious. I have no excuse for my dullness or my rebellion. I only confess it and ask your forgiveness and in your grace to please sneak up on me. Sneak up on all of us. 

How the World Lost Its Story

By Robert W. Jenson – Critique by Rogelio Bueno

I know what you're thinking, Joan is feeding me great essays again, but no, as much as I would like to credit her for this one I can't. I and my fellow postulants for the ordained Diaconate were asked to read, "How the World Lost Its Story" and be ready to discuss our thoughts on it in our next class. 

These are my impressions of Robert W. Jenson’s well-stated premise that western post-modernism is caving in upon its empty core, and what role the Church has in the post-modern world.

First of all, Mr. Jenson makes good points with his understanding of our post-modern society. Keeping in mind that his essay was originally written in October of 1993, it is especially insightful and even more relevant today as the signs of his observations of over 20 years ago are all around us.

The un-narrative narrative of today is evident everywhere. The post-modern mind only wants to shun its past, destroy the foundations it stands upon and demand more and more illogical and morally baseless “rights” for itself, all the while having absolutely no idea of what should replace what they rail against. The post-modern mind is one of self-delusional anarchy.

 Mr. Jenson’s answer to this dilemma is for the Church to remember her traditional roots and historical narrative encouraging a Eucharist-centric foundational narrative to display to a world in chaos. He is obviously writing from a very Roman Catholic viewpoint and, though I do not totally agree with his assumptions about how the Protestant Church has contributed to the post-modern issues we are dealing with, I think he is spot-on about the error of churches chasing “social relevancy” as a way to attract and keep members.

“The modern world, the world that instrumental and critical reason built, is falling about us. Modernity, it now becomes evident, has been all along eroding its own foundations; its projects and comforts have depended on an inheritance to which it has itself been inimical.”

I am growing more persuaded that he and others are right about our being in a post-modern society. I also tend to believe that we are worshiping in a post-Constantine church; a church that has, for the most part, lost the position of respect and authority given to her by Rome. That position has been both a blessing and a curse for the Church. When Rome collapsed in on itself, as Western culture is doing today, the Church held a position of stability and moral authority that she used, for the most part, very well and was able to preserve and eventually revive civilization. It is important to remember that, by and large, it was not the politicians and publicans of the Church that did the heavy lifting but the monastics. It was the monastics who, disgusted with the political intrigue, greed and decadence that came into the Church with Constantine’s protection and generosity, separated themselves from society and began to build Christ centered communities that taught the peasants how to follow God, cultivate crops and organize themselves.

“As the church once lived and conducted her mission in the precisely post-Hellenistic and post-Roman-imperial world, remembering what had vanished but not knowing what if anything could come next, so the church must now live and conduct her mission in the precisely “post”-modern world.”

I do not advocate the creation of monasteries or of Christians heading to the desert to escape the decadence of our society, though I couldn’t blame anyone if they did. I do think, though, it’s time that the Church remembered who she is. It is a sin for Christians to see themselves as another political action group, voting block or social activist organization. It is a sin for Christians to identify themselves as conservative, liberal, Protestant, Catholic, or any other identity, including sexual identity. We are Christians. Our identity is Christ in you. Within that identity we may find ourselves with conservative or liberal, etc. leanings but those tags are not who we are. They are only our opinions, choices, sins and efforts to work out our salvation.  

” The entire project of the Enlightenment was to maintain realist faith while declaring disallegiance from the God who was that faith’s object. The story the Bible tells is asserted to be the story of God with His creatures; that is, it is both assumed and explicitly asserted that there is a true story about the universe because there is a universal novelist/historian. Modernity was defined by the attempt to live in a universal story without a universal storyteller.”

Christ is the foundation stone of the Church and the Church is the foundation stone of society, nothing less. Society does not need a Church that is following it around begging for crumbs of popularity and influence. Society needs a strong and confident foundation upon which to build and live and thrive. Time and again throughout history you find examples of people who chose to live by Judeo/Christian ethics of God first, your neighbor second and yourself third. And, time and again you will find that those cultures have prospered, grown - and suffered persecution.

“. . . if the church does not find her hearers antecedently inhabiting a narratable world, then the church must herself be that world.”

” In the postmodern world, if a congregation or churchly agency wants to be “relevant,” here is the first step: It must recover the classic liturgy of the church, in all its dramatic density, sensual actuality, and brutal realism, and make this the one exclusive center of its life. In the postmodern world, all else must at best be decoration and more likely distraction.”

It is important for Christians to remember; the Church was here long before the current crop of social experimenters came along, and She will be here long after they have become a minor byline of history. Along the way, our job is to confidently live out the Gospel before a dying culture, providing loving truth and a solid foundation for people and society to build upon. Our job is to work with Christ as He seeks and saves the lost and dying. 

This Just In:

The Pillars of Hell Are Shaking

(Samson visiting the Dagon Temple)

"Do you know about the prophet, Joseph?" Thomas inquired.

"yes, he's one of my favorites; he's the dreamer." the man replied.

"Have you had any dreams of significance?" Thomas asked the son.

"No, but my mother has. . ."

His mother excitedly broke in: "Ever since he was a child I've had dreams of a man in glowing white hugging my son. In the last dream he was crying, and his tears were coming down his beard and on to my son's head. I have such a warmth for this prophet," she continued. "I know he is a prophet."

" I know who that person is in your dream," Thomas said with assurance.

The woman's eyes widened with intense interest. "Who is it?"

"It is Jesus."

More

Shaking The Pillars Of Hell

In the dense rain-forests of Ecuador, on the Pacific side of the Andes Mountains, lives a tribe of Indians who call themselves the Huaorani ("people" in their language, Huao), but whose neighbors have called them the Aucas ("savages" in Quechua). For many generations they have been completely isolated from the outside world, disposed to kill any stranger on sight, and feared even by their head-hunting neighbors, the Jivaro tribe.

In 1955, four missionaries from the United States who were working with the Quechas, Jivaros, and other Indians of the interior of Ecuador became persuaded that they were being called to preach the Gospel to the Huaorani as well.

Nate Saint was 32 years old (born 1923), and devoted to flying. He had taken flying lessons in high school and served in the U.S. Air Force in WWII. After the war, he enrolled in Wheaton College to prepare for foreign mission work but dropped out to join the Missionary Aviation Fellowship. With his wife, Marjorie Farris, he established a base at Shell Mera (an abandoned oil exploration camp in Ecuador) in September 1948, and flew short hops to keep missionaries supplied with medicines, mail, etc. Once his plane crashed, but a few weeks later he returned to work in a cast from his neck to his thighs.

The other three, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot, and Peter Fleming, all Plymouth Brethren, came to Ecuador in 1952 to work for CMML (Christian Missions in Many Lands).

Ed McCully was 28 years old (born 1927). He had been a football and track star at Wheaton College and president of his senior class. After Wheaton, he enrolled at Marquette to study law, but dropped out to go to Ecuador. He and his wife, Marilou Hobolth, worked with the Quechuas at Arajuno, a base near the Huaorani. Half a dozen Quechuas had been killed at the base by Huaorani in the previous year.

Jim Elliot was 28 years old (born 1927) and an honors graduate of Wheaton College, where he had been a debater, public speaker, and champion wrestler. In Ecuador, he married Elisabeth Howard. They did paramedic work, tending broken arms, malaria, snakebite. They taught sanitation, wrote books in Quechua, and taught literacy.

Peter Fleming was 27 years old (born 1928), from the University of Washington, an honor student, and a linguist. With his wife, Olive Ainslie, he ran a literacy program among the Quechuas.

Nate and Ed found a Huaorani settlement from the air in late September 1955. Nate made four more flights on Thursday, 29 September, and found a settlement only fifteen minutes from their station. They told Jim and Pete, and the four planned their strategy.

They would keep the project secret from everyone but their wives, to avoid being joined by adventurers and the press, with the chance that someone not dedicated to the mission would start shooting at the first sign of real or imagined danger, and destroy the project.

They had one language resource, a Huaorani girl, Dayuma, who had fled from her tribe years earlier after her family was killed in a dispute. Dayuma, who spoke both Huao and Quechua, was now living with Nate's sister Rachel. From her the missionaries learned enough of the language to get started.

They would fly over the village every Thursday and drop gifts as a means of making contact and establishing a friendly relationship. Eventually they would try for closer contact. Nate had discovered that, if he lowered a bucket on a line from the plane, and flew in tight circles, the bucket remained almost stationary, and could be used to lower objects to the ground. He had devised a mechanism to release the bucket when it touched down.

On Thursday, 6 October, one week after locating the village, they dropped an aluminum kettle into an apparently deserted village. On the next flight, several Huaorani were waiting, and the missionaries dropped a machete. On the third flight, they dropped another machete to a considerably larger crowd. Beginning with the fourth flight, they used a loudspeaker system to call out friendly messages in Huao.

Soon the Huaorani were responding with gifts of their own tied to the line: a woven headband, carved wooden combs, two live parrots, cooked fish, parcels of peanuts, a piece of smoked monkey tail.... They cleared a space near their village and built platforms to make the exchanges easier.

After three months of air-to-ground contact, during which they made far more progress than they had hoped, the missionaries decided that it was time for ground contact. They feared that they could not keep their activities secret much longer, and that delay risked a hostile encounter between the Huaorani and some third party.

They decided that the expedition needed a fifth man, so they brought in Roger Youderian, a 31-year-old (born 1924) former paratrooper who had fought in the Battle of the Bulge (a major German offensive in Belgium in the last stages of WWII) and had been in General Eisenhower's honor guard. Roger and his wife, Barbara Orton, were working with the Jivaros, and Roger was thoroughly at home in the jungle, accustomed to living like the Jivaros and blessed with acute survival instincts.

They located a beach that would serve as a landing strip, about four miles from the village, and decided to go in on Tuesday, 3 January 1956. After some discussion, they decided to carry guns, having heard that the Huaorani never attacked anyone who was carrying a gun, and having resolved that they would, as a last resort, fire the guns into the air to ward off an attack, but would shoot no one, even to save their own lives.

On Tuesday they flew in and made camp, then flew over the village to invite the Huaorani to visit them. The first visitors showed up on Friday: a man, a woman, and a teen-aged girl. They stayed for several hours in apparent friendliness, then left abruptly. On Saturday, no one showed, and when the plane flew over the village, the Huaorani seemed frightened at first, but lost their fright when presents were dropped. On Sunday afternoon, 8 January 1956, at about 3 PM, all five missionaries were speared to death at their camp. A search party the next day found no signs of a struggle, and the lookout who was to be stationed in a tree-house overlooking the camp at ground level had come down, so it appeared that the meeting had originally seemed friendly, and that the attack had been a surprise. Ed McCully's body was seen and identified, but was swept away by the river and not recovered. The other four, at the request of their wives, were buried at the site of the camp where they had died. Besides their wives, they left behind a total of nine children.

The effort to reach the Huaorani was not abandoned but rather intensified. Within three weeks, Johnny Keenan, another pilot of the Ecuador Mission, was continuing the flights over the Huaorani village. More than twenty fliers from the United States promptly applied to take Nate's place. More than 1000 college students volunteered for foreign missions in direct response to the story of the Five Martyrs. In Ecuador, Indian attendance at mission schools and church services reached record levels, and the number of conversions skyrocketed. A Jivaro undertook to go at once to another Jivaro tribe that had been at war with his own tribe for years, bearing the Christian message, and his visit brought peace between the two tribes. Truly, as Tertullian said 1800 years ago, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.

In less than three years, Rachel Saint (sister of Nate Saint) and Elisabeth Elliot (widow of Jim Elliot) had not only renewed contact but had established permanent residence in a Huaorani settlement, where they practiced basic medicine and began the process of developing a written form of the language.

Nine years after the murder of the five missionaries, two of those who had killed Nate Saint and his companions baptized two of Nate's children, Kathy and Stephen Saint. In June 1995, at the request of the Huaorani, Nate's son Stephen moved to the settlement with his wife, Ginny, and their four children, to assist the Huaorani in developing greater internal leadership for a church committed to meeting the medical, economic, and social needs of their own people as a means of showing them God's love and his desire to provide for their eternal needs as well.

Why did the Huaorani suddenly turn hostile? Much later, one of the Huaorani who had helped to kill the five martyrs explained that the tribe, who had had almost no contact with outsiders that did not involve killing or attempted killing on one side or another, wondered why the whites wanted to make contact with them; and while they wanted to believe that their visitors were friendly, they feared a trap. After the killings, they realized their mistake. When they were attacked, one of the missionaries fired two shots as warnings, and one shot grazed a Huaorani who was hiding in the brush, unknown to the missionaries. It was therefore clear that the visitors had weapons, were capable of killing, and had chosen not to do so. Thus, the Huaorani realized that the visitors were indeed their friends, willing to die for them if necessary. When in subsequent months they heard the message that the Son of God had come down from heaven to reconcile men with God, and to die in order to bring about that reconciliation, they recognized that the message of the missionaries was the basis of what they had seen enacted in the lives of the missionaries. They believed the Gospel preached because they had seen the Gospel lived.

written by James Kiefer, Mission St Clare