Bishop Bruce Wilson.

Allen and Unwin and Albatross Books.

1998.

Rev Peter Breen. Senior Pastor, Everton Hills Wesleyan Methodist Church, Brisbane.

How many people have done much about “a vision for the new millennium” – seriously? Hype and personal success agendas with bridges or games or yet another desperate national identity crisis [the Federation centenary] hasn’t touched me. Nor has the ongoing hyped up church conferences on music, prophecy or whatever the “issue” that might get a crowd and keep the high fliers successful and free from real questions and fractured communities and kingdom paradigms. Even the well-intentioned “Amsterdam 2000” [Billy Graham’ s swan song] on world evangelism showed signs of aging with North American white male dominance. It failed to seriously address Western post-modernism and the 13-24 aged world view. Granted the passion for the gospel and “let the earth hear his voice” drove it, but it didn’t help some of us struggling to speak into the spiritual hunger of this generation with relevance.

Some writers and speakers are working hard to break out, to connect, to understand. They know that the first great act of compassion for serious long- term missions in Australia is to understand the culture and to show that they are trying to understand. Though not Australian, evangelical Philip Yancey in “Soul Survivor” talks about his own faith journey in the context of a number of significant writers and leaders, not all evangelicals. Not all Christian! Gandhi, Henri Nouwen [we now know about his homosexual orientation], Robert Coles and Martin Luther King Jr and others frame Yancey’s tentative honesty. A refreshing addition to some Christian thinkers who are trying to stand with ‘asylum seekers’. Some writers are not as thinking as they appear and my own question about the benefits of studying at Harvard Divinity School were met with a terse “why even think about it” from evangelical journalist Terry Mattingly. All I wanted to know was if it would force me to think more decisively and honestly about being an evangelical. [I was amused to hear C B Samuel say once he didn’t think Jesus was an evangelical!].

In “Reasons of the Heart” the former Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Bathurst [NSW] Bruce Wilson has ripped open his heart by telling us the story of his journey. He also challenges some foundational evangelical thinking. He offers a paradigm to work from in missions as well as in our personal journeys. He does offer a vision for the new millennium that is hype- and maybe even conference-free! He makes some bold statements about the trustworthiness of the heart and our spiritual hunger. As Pascal says, “The heart has reasons that the mind knows not of.” His thesis is bold because it challenges the dogmas that control many evangelical churches and their evangelistic programs – dogmas that are deeply indebted to rationalism. His thesis is that “The religion of Christ.in essence and origin…is an Eastern religion. Its heart is mystical, not rational. This, I am convinced, is the rediscovery necessary to reverse the disintegration of self and world in the west.” [p40] Face-slapping stuff!

Wilson believes in knowing God that is reminiscent of some of the amazing guidance stories we learnt to reject after reading “Decision Making and the Will of God”! Knowing God with direction and insight that comes to everybody from God if we are alert enough to see it. “On our part, all that is needed is attentiveness. If we fail to pay attention to our theophanies, the intended journey home turns into a mere treading of ever-narrowing circles.” [p19] Wilson forces us to consider the exciting possibilities of a life of really knowing God and his ways. Instead of just knowing about him.

His writing draws particularly on movie-makers, author Patrick White, and his own significant theophany experiences. And the positive effect alcohol has on spiritual perception! All these to see the ever present footprints of God in everyone’s life, and in all of the world’s cultures. Don Richardson documents the same voice of God around the world in “Eternity in their Hearts”.

Wilson discusses film maker’s Kryszstof Kieslowski’s trilogy Three Colours: Blue, White and Red and the amazing Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves as indicative of spiritual hope – both for seekers and proclaimers. In his introduction Wilson says “.I sometimes wonder whether those under fifty would possess any spiritual hope were it not for some of today’s great film-makers.” [pviii] For the same reason, I was urged to see “The Green Mile” last week by four Christian young adults who are showing a distinct disinterest in church.

Michael Frost in a paper on evangelism last year cites a shoe-loving pastor who started a shoe shop in San Francisco instead of “planting” a church. He recognised that the traditional church plant was finished for him and in San Francisco. He now has some amazing friends who would never have gone to church.

Wilson’s use of Patrick White as one who had been converted by a theophany was a shock. White as Australia’s only Nobel prize winner for literature has never to my knowledge, been owned by the church, much less evangelicals. His homosexuality was well known and so in my mind, he was ‘pigeon-holed’. But his letters, quoted by Wilson, indicate another story. He began to attend church after his theophany and then Wilson cites his departure from the church he attended ‘after the rector of the day declared it sinful to guess the number of beans in a jar at the annual church fete.’ [p3] Sigh!!

All this cuts to the core of our cherished myths. My fundamentalist upbringing ground into me the evils of the Beatles! That we have a seer who has come this far with such insight means the ‘evil’ world is not to be feared. Celebrate that dualism is dead!! My Wesleyan theology has that marvellous teaching on prevenient grace that sees the mark of God and the spark of grace in more popular songs, film and poetry than you could poke a stick at. But we don’t see it. We are blinded by our fears, by our boundaries, by our prejudice, by our theologies, by our evangelism, by our worship and a million other ecclesiastical cataracts.

For those who will see, who will take the time to look for the voice and presence of God, he walks in the garden of our world. And so, read more poetry, open a shoe shop, stop church building programs and connect with a world that cries for God and longs to connect with the voice of God.’ He is not far from every one of us!’

Rev Peter Breen. January 14, 2002