Journal Time With Ray Waddle

by Ray Waddle

On the ancient tiny island of Iona in far western Scotland, the wind doesn’t stop. It batters the shore line, the walls of the historic church and residential complex. It also batters the spiritual complacency of a visitor.

It’s a place of serenity and antiquity, but it will not be romanticized.

The weather is too fierce, the history too bloody. Iona has been a Christian outpost since 563 AD. It has survived murderous Viking invasion, neglect, misunderstanding, a history of transformations. It was pivotal in Christianizing Britain and today serves as a beacon of Celtic spirituality, a historically embattled thread of Christian practice that is now enjoying a comeback.

Strolling among the tall, weathered, deeply appealing Celtic crosses, one’s thoughts turn to the big questions of the faith, the dramas of the Christian past and its unpredictable future.

What is the Christian witness to the world? What should it be? What will it be in the future? The view from Iona inspires such questions.

Christianity is still the most populous religion on earth, with two billion members, or about 33% of the world’s people, according to the U.S. Center for World Mission. It has been growing at 2.3% a year, keeping up with population.

But that’s changing. At current rates of expansion, the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims (20% of world population) are likely to outnumber Christians by 2025. Ranked third is the category “No Religion,” ahead of Hinduism and Buddhism.

If Christianity is to keep its preeminence and integrity, what will its message be? What does the faith offer a 21st century world of internet dazzle, medical miracles, epic poverty and declining fossil fuel? What story does it tell? Is it one consistent story?

The outsider might well be confused. In Europe, Christianity is famously in decline, or at least being reimagined. The (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland, for instance, claims about two-thirds of Scots are members, but only 10% go to church. People might believe, but they don’t want to belong.

They want faith without the stereotype of being “religious,” according to a recent Church of Scotland report. Much debate focuses on how the church should respond to such a climate.

By contrast, in the most powerful nation on earth, faith is robust, at least by certain measurements. The United States is at least 80% Christian.

But no one official public voice exists to explain the faith. If a puzzled newcomer asks, “What does American Christianity stand for?,” what do we say?

What the world sees of American religion is a baffling spectrum of endeavor—The Passion of the Christ, liberal Catholicism, a near obsession with Armageddon (the Left Behind series of novels) and ancient church cover-ups (The Da Vinci Code novel), much generous charity work and also deep church support for superpower military aggression. An evangelical vocabulary has become a part of national politics. Mainline Protestants answer with creative theologies but declining influence, for now. Argument swirls around worship innovations, biblical interpretation, New Age therapies, the meaning of Jesus.

Some say it doesn’t matter what’s happening in America and Europe. The vitality of Christianity is moving elsewhere—further south, where population growth is strong and poverty is stubborn. The dramatic growth of the faith in the Southern Hemisphere—Africa, Asia, South America—will reshape the public face of Christianity by the 22nd century. This is the argument of scholar Philip Jenkins’ provocative recent book, The Next Christendom. This new style of faith is marked by puritanism, mysticism, exorcisms, supernatural miracles, and submission to spiritual authority. It will have little in common with the more liberal Northern Hemisphere’s church experience.

Bearing the stiff wind on Iona, I wondered what God makes of all this—the breakthroughs and false starts of our long, glorious, painful religious history, the martyrdoms, the joys and tears. But the sun keeps coming up, a daily miracle, and nature maintains its majestic silences, here at Iona and everywhere. I take that to mean God is patient, God is waiting for us to get it right—or is still working with us in the sinews of every prayer and doctrinal attempt, every compassionate act and warm Christmas memory, every pilgrimage to a sacred place, despite every error and lapse of conscience.

In the darkened abbey on this rugged little isle, a sign declares Iona’s contemporary manifesto, words for going forward into a new and nervous century: “We believe that the Gospel commands us to seek peace founded on justice, and that costly reconciliation is at the heart of the Gospel.”

Iona photographs by Jane Hines