SWEDISH MISSIOLOGICAL THEMES SVENSK MISSIONSTIDSKRIFT

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486 Tormod Engelsviken Celtic missionary movement is established which moves eastwards towards continental Europe. From Constantinople the mission moves northwards towards the Slavic peoples. Some of the pioneer missionaries who contributed significantly to the Christianisation of new peoples and the founding of new churches, receive later the honorary titles of “apostles” of their countries, e.g. Augustine in England, Patrick in Ireland, Boniface in Germany and Ansgar among the Nordic peoples. Also in the East most churches claimed to be founded by an apostle or a disciple of an apostle, e.g. Thomas in India and Mark in Egypt. Let us take a closer look at two of these missionary movements. The Nestorian mission in the East goes all the way back to the fourth century in Antioch and to the Nisibis school with the famous teacher Narsai who was strongly influenced by Theodore of Mopsuestia. The theology of this school was a pronounced missional theology. 12 What is important in our context is that the Nestorian missionary model, which eventually took the gospel all the way to China, included both “professional” missionaries; ordained monks, priests and bishops, as well as lay believers, who travelled great distances as traders, soldiers, refugees etc, spreading the gospel wherever they went. An example is a Nestorian missionary community in the sixth century which consisted of two tradesmen, a missionary bishop and four priests. They grew their own food and taught those who were converted to do the same. They evangelised and baptised a Turkish people in Central Asia at the Caspian Sea, reduced their language to writing for the first time, translated the Scriptures and taught the people to read and write. This is a very early example of the integration in mission of evangelism, education, church planting and even agriculture! The Celtic mission emerged as the Nestorian from a special missional spirituality that was cultivated in semi-monastic communities. The Celtic mission was a pilgrim mission. As Abraham they left their own country for an unknown destination which was revealed to them as winds and currents led them. Theirs was both a spiritual and a geographic journey. The most famous of all, Columbanus, travelled in the sixth century with twelve companions to what is now Burgundy in France where they settled. The church was in deep decline, but the Celtic monks preached salvation in Christ and served the needy. They established monasteries in the area, and 12 Harris 2000:495-501
The Missionary Task of the Church 487 the movement spread eventually to other areas in Europe. The peregrini were sent from one community to establish a new one. They “went abroad not to receive benefits but to impart them. They were prepared to accept hardships of pioneering, asking for themselves only the fellowship of a dedicated community and, in many cases, a private hideaway where they might read their books and commune with God”. 13 The missionaries in the Middle Ages The Christianisation of the tribes in Northern and Eastern Europe happened in a different way than the mission in the ancient church. The goal of mission after Constantine, when Christendom developed into a geographic concept, became the Christianisation of the people or society, even when the mission transcended the old boundaries of the Roman Empire. 14 In addition, the Germanic tribes east of the Rhine had a social structure that made individual conversions difficult characterised as they were by solidarity and a collective consciousness – as many societies in the two-thirds world still are. The whole tribe was supposed to have one and the same faith. To begin with it was monks and missionary priests and bishops who under heavy resistance, even martyrdom, made attempts to convert individuals, but it was only when the chief or king was won and the rest of the people more or less voluntarily followed him that the conversion of the tribe as whole was accomplished. During this decisive phase political and military force was often used in addition to preaching and teaching. This of course raises serious questions with regard to the relationship between mission and power or even compulsion, questions that will be relevant also in succeeding centuries. To call the kings and chiefs who introduced Christianity missionaries would be inappropriate, but it cannot be denied that their role was crucially important as far as the Christianisation of the new Germanic and also Slavic tribes were concerned. It is somewhat ironic that the national saint of Norway, Saint Olav, was exactly such a king who wanted to Christianise Norway by force, and who lost his life in the attempt. 15 However, this was not a mission that used political and military means only. A trait that seems to occur frequently, and which also has its parallels in 13 McNeill 1974:157, quoted in Warner 2000:493 14 See to this Skarsaune 1994:101-104; Guder 2000:85 15 The battle of Stiklestad in 1030.
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Missiology Today 625 of Jesus Chris
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SWEDISH MISSIOLOGICAL THEMES SVENSK MISSIONSTIDSKRIFT

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