Book Review: Rediscovering The Celts

Rediscovering The Celts: The True Witness from Western Shores

Author: Martin Robinson

Publisher: Fount an Imprint of HarperCollinsReligious part of HarperCollinsPublishers, paperback, 204 pages

The Author

At the time of publication, Dr. Martin Robinson was Director of Mission and Theology for the British and Foreign Bible Society. He also authored Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths and numerous other books.

Contents

This volume consists of a Preface, twelve chapters, as well as a helpful Glossary, and Select Bibliography. 

Brief Observations

Dr. Robinson’s interest in the Celts began when he was 10 years-old, while visiting the Isle of Iona, and later when holidaying in Wales, encountering Celtic place names along with the spiritual history there. 

The author provides a history of the origins of the Celts from various European nations, and their migration to France, Britain, and Ireland. “We can say with some certainty that by approximately 1,000 BC the Celtic peoples migrated from east of the Danube into central and western Europe. 

Between 450 to 600 AD, the Celtic nations were converted, which laid the foundations of Celtic Christianity. Celtic missionaries influenced England. 

Martin of Tours established the first monastery in the West at Poitiers around 360, and at Tours in 372. The Celtic monasteries in Britain and Ireland were modelled after those established by Martin of Tours.

Celibacy was not compulsory for monks, nuns, priests, bishops and abbots. An abbot’s son or nephew sometimes succeeded their father or uncle. Monasteries emphasised caring for the poor and offering hospitality. Children of kings and the nobility became monks and nuns. They were respected by the nobility, and Christianized pagan traditions. 

Druids lost their influence in Celtic society because it was based on oral tradition, whereas the monasteries introduced written tradition. Columba was a Druid prior to becoming a Christian. 

The Romans never conquered northern Scotland and Ireland. There were differences in the ways the Celtic and Roman churches worshipped. The Celtic church baptized by immersion, the Roman church by pouring. At first, adults were baptized in the Celtic church, and later infants. The Celtic church celebrated the Lord’s Supper with both kinds, the Romans with bread only. Church year festivals were observed differently. Fasting was observed 3 times a year in the Celtic church, in the Roman church only once—during Lent. The tradition of saints and sacred places developed in the Celtic church. Blessings were important for every aspect of life. In the Celtic church, abbots at times had more authority than bishops, and bishops relied on abbots as their advisors. 

“From the earliest days of Celtic Christianity, holy men and women have been inextricably connected with the role of scholar.” (p. 88) Study, intellectual learning, and preaching were all an integral part of missionary work. The Celtic methods of biblical study and their regard of the Bible’s authority led to a biblical theology affirming: the unity of the canonical scriptures, interpreting the Hebrew Bible in light of the New Testament, understanding the scriptures in light of the Trinity, the practical application of the Bible, and more literalistic approach to the Bible, as opposed to an allegorical or symbolic one. 

Celtic Christianity encountered God in creation in similar ways as Eastern Christianity, and the Celts were inspired and influenced by the Psalms. Miraculous events in relation to creation also influenced and inspired Celtic Christianity. For example, Columba was believed to have calmed the sea. 

Women in Irish law were given rights (not in the twenty-first century sense) that do not seem to be prevalent in some Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. For example, they had inheritance rights. 

Dr. Robinson discusses ‘what if’ scenarios concerning the waning of Celtic Christianity, and ‘what if’ Celtic Christianity had been more successful than Roman Christianity. He emphasises the importance of Celtic missionaries and missions, especially in rural, pagan Europe. He also assesses the issue of romanticizing the Celts as well as such events as the victory of the Romans at Whitby. He concludes by reflecting on what can be learned from the Celts.

There have, of course, been many books written on the Celts over the last few decades. This one is, for the most part, an attempt to present a balanced view of Celtic Christianity. 

The Weekend in Black and White - June 3, 2022

 

                                  The river in spring

                        For Weekend in Black & White

Book Review: 100 Views from This Seat

Author: Leroy Seat

Publisher: 4-L Publications, paperback, x, + 200 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author 

The Rev. Dr. Leroy Seat served as a Baptist pastor, he earned his PhD in theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and was a Baptist missionary in Japan from 1966 to 2004. His doctoral dissertation was titled “The Meaning of ‘Paradox’: A Study of the Use of the Word ‘Paradox’ in Contemporary Theological and Philosophical Writings with Special Reference to Søren Kierkegaard.” He was full-time professor at Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka, Japan from 1968 until his retirement in 2004. Professor Seat served as Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin from 1996 to 2004. He also taught as an adjunct professor at Rockhurst University from 2006 to 2014. In his retirement years, since 2009, Dr. Seat has been a blogger at: The View from This Seat: Reflections about Life, Love, Light, and Liberty (the 4-Ls).

Contents

100 Views from This Seat contains a selection of 100 out of his 800 blog posts, with a wide variety of topics, dating from 2010 to 2020. Indeed, as a blogger myself, that is how I came upon Professor Seat’s blog, occasionally leaving comments on his blog posts. The book is divided into the twelve months of the year, each month includes eight or nine blog posts that were not chosen in any particular order. The blog posts address serious religious, ethical and political subjects. 

In Appreciation

One of the factors that has always annoyed me about the academic world is, among some academics—certainly not all of them!--a sense of superiority and snobbery. In reading Professor Seat’s blog posts, I have been delighted to learn that that is not the case! I truly appreciate his clear, concise and hospitable prose, which reflect his academic learning as well as his faith. Even though he, at times, addresses controversial issues, he avoids engagement in character assassination and other disrespectful commentary. 

In this review, I have chosen to focus on three blog posts, which hopefully stimulate readers to purchase this volume, and/or visit Professor Seat’s blog. 

One of his blog posts is titled Baptist with a Small “b,” (pp. 29-30). He cites the Schleitheim Confession, which, among other things, referred to a rejection of violence and capital punishment. Over the years, Dr. Seat grew increasingly uncomfortable within the Baptist denomination because of their movement further to the right politically. In July 2012 he and his wife became Mennonites. 

A second, informative blog post, titled In Praise of Toyohiko Kagawa (pp. 101-102), is one of my favourites. Even though I have previously read about Kagawa several years ago, I found it interesting that he, among other things, developed trachoma while living among the poor, was involved in founding the first Japanese labour unions, and visited the U.S. in 1941 as a peace activist, attempting to avert war in the Pacific. 

The third blog post I appreciated was titled, Remembering Søren Kierkegaard, who influenced Professor Seat. He mentions Vernard Eller’s book, who “emphasized that real Christianity must include “radical discipleship,” to use Eller’s words.” (p. 170) Professor Seat highly recommends Charles E. Moore’s book, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard, which highlights Kierkegaard’s thought, is a compilation of certain exerpts and aphorisms, and enlightens readers on the practical living out of the Christian faith. 

Conclusion

As a “retired” pastor and professor, Leroy Seat continues to be an active blogger, writing about a variety of contemporary issues. I encourage readers of this review to purchase this volume at Amazon for the reasonable price of $5.95, and to visit his blogsite here.

The SingAble Elements Participatory Performance Art Project

 

                          Four of the original members of SingAble-Yours Truly wearing beard

From the beginning, four years ago now, I’ve enjoyed singing in our local SingAble Choir, conducted by Dr. Ardelle Ries, and accompanied by Dr. Roger Admiral on piano (an excellent husband and wife team). We were also accompanied by The SingAble Elements Band. SingAble members passionately celebrate diversity, inclusion and collaborative creativity. We meet every Tuesday evening, at the Faith & Life Chapel, Augustana Campus, and sing for about seven or eight months of the year. 

Our most recent concert called, “The SingAble Elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Air,” was free of charge, although those attending were encouraged to bring a donation for our local food bank. The SingAble Elements included music compositions, songs, poetry, movement, improvisation, photographs (three of mine were included in the project), and oil pastels on canvas. It was a celebration of and appreciation for Earth Month-April. 

The exploration of the four classical elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Air was influenced by one of Canada's esteemed composers R. Murray Schafer (1933-2021). He achieved an international reputation as a composer, an educator, environmentalist, scholar and visual artist. At Simon Fraser University, with grants from UNESCO and the Donner Canadian Foundation, he set up the World Soundscape Project for the study of the relationships between people and their acoustic environment. Readers can visit his Soundscape Composition Portfolio here: and learn more about soundscapes here: and read more about the composer here.

I was quite inspired and amazed at how well our program came together on the night of the Participatory Performance. The program consisted of four soundscape compositions for each of the four elements by local composer, Thomas Merklinger, and twenty songs. The photographs and paintings were also displayed. The audience seemed quite willing to participate in singing the songs along with the SingAble Choir. All-in-all, it made for a wonderful, joy-filled, inspiring evening! We love to sing because we are able! 

Wordless Wednesday: April 6, 2022

 

                                                                                        Underpass mural

                                      For Wordless Wednesday

March is Women's History-Herstory Month

 

March is Women’s History Month

March is women’s history (herstory) month. For centuries, women have been ignored, underappreciated and forgotten by too many men who occupied positions of power. Thus it is appropriate, and long overdue, that women be recognised, respected, honoured and appreciated for their many contributions to the church and society. Therefore, in this post, I’d like to highlight three women of the church who have made significant biblical and theological contributions whom you may or may not be familiar with, and whom I encourage you to either read online about online, and/or purchase their works, or borrow from a library.

Professor Doctor Eileen M. Schuller

Professor Doctor Eileen M. Schuller grew up and studied in Alberta, Canada, and received one of her degrees at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. She has studied and written extensively on the Dead Sea Scrolls. She received her Ph.D from Harvard University in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and has taught at Newman Theological College and St. Joseph's College in Edmonton, and the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax. Presently, she is a professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton. She was the associate editor for The HarperCollins Study Bible, a joint project of HarperCollins Press and the Society of Biblical Literature (1990-1993). She was also an associate editor for the Dead Sea Scrolls Encyclopedia, Oxford University Press (1995-2000), the New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Abingdon (2003-2009), and The Paulist Biblical Commentary at Paulist Press (2013- ). Alongside Marie-Theres Wacker, Eileen M. Schuller was co-editor for a symposium (June 2015) and a volume in the series The Bible and Women: An Encyclopedia of Exegesis and Cultural History. For further information, visit this Wikipedia article.

Doctor Aruna Gnanadason

Doctor Gnanadason is a member of the church of South India, a theologian, and was executive secretary of the All India Council of Christian Women, and vice-moderator of the World Council of Churches’s Sub-unit on Women in Church and Society. She directed the global programme on Women in Church and Society of the World Council of Churches, Geneva and coordinated its programme on Justice, Peace and Creation (1991 till 2009). She holds a doctorate in ministries (DMin) in feminist theologies and a Master’s in English literature and has three honorary doctorates. She now lives in Chennai, India and resources the churches and the ecumenical movement in India and globally reflecting on the role, the challenge and the alternatives offered by the gospel in addressing the impact of patriarchy, caste and global capitalism on the people and the earth. Since returning to Chennai she has been active in the Indian Christian Women’s Movement – an informal movement of Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox women of which she presently is National Convener. Her most recent book, published in 2020, is With Courage and Compassion: Women and the Ecumenical Movement, available with her other publications on Amazon.

Doctor Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro

Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro is a Kenyan who has earned two doctorates: one from the University of Texas at Austin in linguistics, and the other in feminist theology from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She is also a human rights advocate, involved in a variety of organizations, including leading the Global Fund for Women for eight years. In her career, she has served with the Lutheran World Federation, worked as a Bible translation consultant, and served as a Hebrew and Old Testament visiting scholar at Harvard. She is also a member of the World Health Organization. Her research interests include gender issues, HIV/AIDS, among others. Her publications include Groaning in Faith: African women in the household of God (as a co-editor), Introducing Feminist Cultural Hermeneutics: An African Perspective, “Cultural Hermeneutics: An African contribution” in Other Ways of Reading: African Women and the Bible, and “Engendered Communal Theology: African Women’s Contribution to Theology in the 21st Century.” For further information, visit this Wikipedia article.

Brief Review: A Mill Behind Every Stump

Author: Marianne Van Osch

Publisher: Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd., paperback, 187 pages 

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author

Marianne Van Osch is a Cariboo-based author and former teacher. She writes about pioneers homesteading, their struggles of daily survival, with neighbours few and far between, and distant mail service. Van Osch has written stories for the 100 Mile Free Press and various magazines. She has visited elementary schools for interactive historical presentations, and presented short story and book readings. 

Contents

This volume contains a Preface, 43 mostly short chapters, an Epilogue, Acknowledgements, and an Index of People.

Brief Observations

This local history focusses mainly on the Judson family, in particular Louis Judson, who pioneered in the Cariboo region of British Columbia. Louis Judson’s grandfather Noble Roger Judson and his sons Matney and Marion immigrated to British Columbia from Washington in 1910. Louis was born in Ashcroft, BC in 1924. The Judson family originally came from Yorkshire, England to the United States in 1634. Adoniram Judson served as an American missionary in Burma in the 1800s, and translated the Bible into Burmese. Judson College opened in Marion, Alabama and a Judson University in Elgin, Alabama were both religious schools. 

Life was difficult in the early homesteading days. In addition to farming, they tried prospecting for gold, but were not very successful. Louis remembered the first Judson family home in the Cariboo. It was a ten-by-ten cabin, cold and very uncomfortable. 

The children learned how to work when they were quite young, each had chores to do. Louis started milking when he was only seven. He and his siblings Alonzo and Marjorie walked to school in the Bradley Creek area. The school was built by Louis’s dad, Davey Jones, and Walter Van de Camp. Mr. Van de Camp was given the name ‘Pork and Beans,’ because he was full of hot air. Dances were also held at the school.

Louis describes the process of constructing various buildings. When he was only thirteen, he and his sister Margie constructed a log outhouse. In the younger years, there were picnics, sack and wheelbarrow races, fishing trips, swimming outings, looking after traplines, and several other activities. 

Over the years, Louis worked at a variety of jobs. Eventually he had his own portable sawmill, which he moved to a number of locations to work. He tells stories about the mill, the work, employees, and losing his foot while milling and building his own peg leg. 

There are other stories about meeting and marrying his wife Sheila, raising their family, and their house at Ruth Creek, growing older, and the celebration of Louis’s parents’ golden wedding anniversary. 

It is, among other things, is a volume highlighting the strength of community, hard work, and celebrating the history of pioneer life in British Columbia.