TEN GREATS

I WAS going to write a blog and the ten greatest Christians in the 20th century, but decided that was really pretentious. How could I decide who were the greatest? What criterion would I use? What about the millions of Christians I don’t know? OK, so I decided I would just make a list of ten great Christians of the 20th century without saying they are THE greatest or anything like that. Just ten names that came to mind.

The project started because I have been reading about two well-known figures of 20th century Christianity C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) and Thomas Merton (1915-1968). Lewis taught English first at Oxford and then at Cambridge, but he is best known as a Christian apologist writing such books as Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. He was also the author of the popular series The Chronicles of Narnia. Merton was a Trappist monk who wrote widely on spirituality. His autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain had an amazing impact of the generation coming out ow World War II. What struck me was the parallels in their lives. Both lost their mothers at a young age. Both were poets with a deep love of literature. Both had roots in the Anglican church which they abandoned. Both were converted to Christianity–Lewis into the Church of England, Merton to Roman Catholicism. Both had wide-spread influence through their writings, yet as far as I can tell there was very little connection between them. Each had an admiration for the other, yet as far as I can tell, the two never corresponded. They are quite different in their writing, but I think both had a strong suspicion that the modern world was “Post-Christian.”


Following this initial pair, I started to thing of other influential 20th century Christians. First name, of course was Albert Schweitzer (1878-1965), missionary, doctor, organist, theologian. I wrote about his influence on my life several years ago. Albert and Me

I was a little surprised at the next name that popped into my head, Karl Barth (1886-1968). He’s probably unknown to most of my readers. Well basically he was unknown to me, too, until I got to know, Dr. Robert Hann, a professor at FIU. Barth was a tremendously influential theologian. He started out a proponent of the liberal theology but somehow World War I changed his thinking. He rejected much of the philosophical underpinnings of liberal theology and developed a theology that emphasized the sovereignty of God. Barth was largely responsible for the writing of the Barmen declaration which rejected the influence of Nazism on German Christianity. Barth’s great work is the incomplete Church Dogmatics. Heavy, heavy stuff. I have only plowed through part of one volume.

That aspect of Barth lead me to Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945). A Lutheran theologian, Bonhoeffer joined with other significant figures to form the Confessing Church which opposed the German Christian movement in its attempt to unite Nazi views with Christianity. He became involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler, and was arrested. He was executed just days before his prison was liberated by the Allies. The usual recommended book of Bonhoeffer is The Cost of Discipleship. There’s plenty in that book to trouble the proponents of America as a “Christian” nation. Nevertheless, I recommend starting with Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible.

Bonhoeffer’s martyrdom led me to the great American Christian martyr, Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968). The Lutheran calendar designates him as a Renewer of Society, and that indeed he was. Somewhere recently I heard someone mention that Dr. King was at first reluctant to become involved in the Civil Rights Movement because he saw himself primarily as a pastor of a church. Yet he was persuaded to take a leadership role and things changed. Christians are change agents. They can and do make things better. Dr. King’s efforts gained him terrible hatred from those who were invested in using racism to control people. His non-violent approach gained him condemnation from radicals who wanted to use violence to gain change. Dr. King followed what I think is the only sane approach for a Christian–to oppose evil wherever it is encountered but never to surrender ways of evil to gain the good.

I really regret that as time has gone on, the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday has become an almost exclusively African-American observance. Far too many White Americans fail to see that the Civil Rights Movement was about ALL people. As Dr. King observed, discrimination diminishes both the person discriminated against and the person who discriminates. I highly recommend people read his “Letter from a Birmingham City Jail” to see how he lays out this view and how it leads to an indictment of Christian churches when they fail to concern themselves with justice.


Since I was thinking of Americans, my mind naturally ran to Billy Graham (1918- ). Here is a Christian who made evangelism his whole life’s work. I don’t know how many thousands have been led to faith because of him. I believe the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association claims 2.5 million have come forward because of him. I see Dr. Graham as an honest man, willing to admit his faults which puts him head an shoulders above the hypocrites who denounce one thing and another only to be caught in scandal. I have only sampled a few of his books, but found Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham fascinating.

At this point I realized I had only listed one Roman Catholic, but I quickly though of two more who ought to be on the list, Pope John XXIII (1881-1963) and Mother Theresa (1910-1997).

Since Mother Theresa was Albanian, I can’t resist writing putting in her birth name Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu. She had gone to India where she taught as a member of the Sisters of Loretto. There she was appalled by the conditions there the In 1950 she founded Missionaries of Charity to care for “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone.” I learned from someone who met her that Mother Theresa was one tough cookie. She didn’t hesitate to tell off clergy for not doing enough to help the poor. After her death, the spiritual crisis which haunted most of her years in India was revealed. She, as many before, experienced the Dark Night when God seems to have abandoned a person. It’s worth reading Brian Kolodiejchuk’s book Mother Teresa: Come be My Light.

John XXIII (Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli) came from very poor beginnings. He rose from a humble priest to become Archbishop of Venice. Elected at the age of 77, he seems to have been regarded as a “caretaker,” someone to be Pope for a short while until at his death a more significant person would be elected. Boy did he surprise them. He quickly called the Second Vatican Council which under his successor, Paul VI, would make tremendous changes in the Roman Catholic church most notably in the change of the liturgy and the openness to other Christian groups. I can still remember the first time that Catholics and Protestants gathered together in a Catholic church in Chicago to worship together. It was amazing. To get the spirit of John, read Pacem in Terris, (Peace on Earth). “. . .every man has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life . . .”

OK, that’s nine. Who’s next? I considered Bishop Desmond Tutu and Bishop Oscar Romero. I also thought of three non-Christians that have had an influence on Christianity: Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Buber, and Mahatma Gandhi. But maybe I should just leave number ten blank for the many unsung heroes of the faith. I found the following article on AOL the other day.

It's been almost three decades since Andrea Jaeger burst onto the tennis scene as a 14-year-old phenom. Jaeger claimed the No. 2 ranking in the world in 1981 and reached the semifinals of five grand slam tournaments by 1983. She was capable of embarrassing the toughest of opponents. Yet she realized that there was more to life than just tennis. Before an injury prematurely ended her career later in the decade, she took up a personal cause, visiting terminally ill children and giving them toys she bought with her earnings. Her transformation culminated in 2006, when, as detailed recently by The Washington Post, Andrea Jaeger became Sister Andrea, an Anglican Dominican nun. She continues her work with cancer-stricken kids (she started a foundation in 1990) and has expanded her focus to abused children and those affected by war. "I don't have the answer to everything," Sister Andrea told The Post. "I just know I love what I do. I have peace with what I do.

On this eve of Pentecost, may the Holy Spirit send you on your pilgrimage. May the Lord bless you on your journey, and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne


Note: I will be away on vacation, so it will be about three weeks before there is another update.




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