Prime Time America Interview
by on February 27, 2009
Here is a radio interview I did early this week on Moody Bible Radio. I have never met the host, Greg Wheatley, but I’ve talked to many students here in St. Andrews who have either had him in a class at the Moody Bible Institute or know him from church. Though this interview was only ten minutes long, he seemed to probe at the heart of Godology–knowing God up close and personally.
On a separate note, I had the most interesting conversation with a group of students I’m teaching. We were discussing the Celtic notion of “white martyrdom” and if there is a biblically sound basis for this radical way of living. White martyrdom is the dying daily to self for the purpose of growing closer to God. I’ve also seen it called “green martyrdom” because of the Irish monks who practiced it. At its core, I believe it represents a total abandonment to God. Not just a kind of casual Christianity that is so rampant in today’s evangelicalism. Green martyrdom speaks to Christ’s words in Matthew 6:24, “If anyone should come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
I think it speaks to the seriousness of the gospel–a gospel that pushes us outward–to the fringe of things–to the edge of things. It was a gospel that pushed the Celts to the very edge of a flat world. To places like Skellig Michael and Iona. It is a faith that risks, trusting in the God who removes us from our comfort zones. I think that’s what the Celtic monks embraced–a life of separation from the world and engagement with the world. Unlike the Egyptian monks like Anthony and others who retreated into the desert to escape the growing secularization of Roman Christianity, the Celts harbored missionary posts and often permeated the British Isles with the Gospel of Christ. I’m currently working on this idea of evangelism, how it can fit into a postmodern paradigm, and I think the Celts have something valuable to say to us about it.
Who knows? Perhaps those ancient guys can teach us something significant about our own struggle to live in a counter-cultural and Christo-centric way. What do you think?