Christianity Inside

Truly. I bought a used copy and was surely glad of the savings. I would have hated to waste full price on it. The basic issue/problem with this book and probably more specifically, its author, is that it ignores the most important of all facts concerning the Celtic church: it was Orthodox. Yes, Big ‘O’. In other words, Mr. Hunter appears to be blissfully unaware that his theory of “pub churching” is so erroneous as to be almost blasphemous, as entertaining as it may seem in a popular culture. It is in short, absurd. Mr. Hunter appears to isolate minute detail and parade it through his pages as “facts” that “support” his theory. The only trouble is: Mr. Hunter’s religion is only about 500 years old, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to that of St. Padraig, and Celtic Christianity dates to at least the third century, possibly the second. (Depending on which history you lean toward and whether or not you accept the Coptic Connection theory. )

I dislike writing “bad” reviews. But this one is so deserved, that I almost, but not quite, enjoyed writing it. To enjoy bashing a book and/or its author, is to be un-Christian, definitely un-Orthodox. Assuredly Celtic, however.

Rating: 1 / 5

I began reading this book with much anticipation, but was greatly disappointed in what I found. The first three chapters offered some good insights into Celtic Christianity, but by chapter four the author pretty much ran out of Celtic material.

From chapter four on he gives an exposition of contemporary theories of mission and church growth, weakly tied into the “Celtic” theme with statements like, “We don’t have any direct evidence that the Celtic church did this… but based on their success we may assume that they did!”

When he gets to his applications for the church today, he doesn’t do much with the Celtic material either. He points to examples of ministries that have seen above average success (everything from the 18th century Moravian movement to the Brooklyn Tabernacle) but doesn’t really “tie it in” very well to any Celtic connection.

Perhaps my greatest disappointment is that the author came to the Celtic material with the anti-supernatural bias of traditional Protestant Christianity. Because of this, he is forced to discount most of what we really know about Celtic evangelistic methods. He assumes that the many accounts of healing, prophecy, supernatural manifestations and “power encounters” are simply myths. Having rejected the supernatural elements of Celtic Christianity, he didn’t have much left to work with to explain their phenomenal success.

Rating: 2 / 5

“The Celtic Way of Evangelism”

I just finished The Celtic Way of Evangelism by George Hunter. I’d highly recommend it. Hunter explains how Patrick and friends engaged the “barbarians” of Ireland, moving from what they already knew to what they had no clue about, the God of Scripture. Also significant is how the missionaries used community to evangelize the Irish. The people found belonging before believing. In other words, they were committed to the church and the community they experienced there before they were actually converted to Christ. Interesting about this short book is how much the missionary ways of Patrick, Aidan, and others sound like what is needed in today’s postmodern times. Also striking is how the Roman church swooped down and killed the entire thing, because they didn’t know how to handle aggressive, indigenous missional movements. If you are on the frontlines of mission, trying to engage postmoderns with the gospel, this historical study will be very helpful to you.
Rating: 4 / 5