A crack in the wall (Source: www.freeimages.com)
A few weeks ago we celebrated the Fall of the Wall. For much of the latter part of the 20th century Berlin was divided in two by this physical barrier, which also by allusion applied to the Iron Curtain which divided much of central and eastern Europe from the west.
Walls don’t necessarily create division but they certainly perpetuate it. They keep people apart. They stop trade and traffic. They divide families, prevent the exchange of ideas, and contribute to misunderstanding. The Berlin Wall did all those.
The Wall only stood for 28 years but its shadow continued to hang over Europe much longer. For a whole generation after its demolition, it continued to exist in the mind of churches, agencies and mission workers. It was, in effect, a stronghold, even though it no longer existed, because it affected missional thinking on both sides of the boundary.
In the west, many mission workers viewed eastern Europe as a new mission field. They ignored the rich religious tradition, the oppressed but faithful churches, the many heroic believers who continued to be a witness to Jesus throughout the communist times, and assumed that the lack of Bible colleges and seminaries meant that the local believers were immature and biblically illiterate. They moved in with money and programmes and sidelined locals who didn’t get on board with their projects.
But it wasn’t only the westerners who made mistakes. Often the believers in central and eastern Europe resented the intruders and refused to work with them. They let them get on with making their mistakes rather than helping them. They looked down on the westerners who had money and programmes but were not interested in important things like relationship and culture.
Therefore much mission in eastern Europe was characterised by division and mistrust. Granted, this was not always the case, but it was the dominant theme which emerged at the conference of the European Evangelical Mission Association as it took stock of the last 25 years since the Fall of the Wall. Yet the same conference heard much good news. We met leaders of many thriving churches from a dozen countries in eastern Europe. We heard stories from eastern European mission workers to several Asian countries. Mission leaders from all over Europe got together to discuss strategy, training, education and member care. And most of all we were greatly encouraged to hear of a new paradigm that has begun to emerge.
In her opening presentation, Anne-Marie Kool cited the example of the Chain Bridge in Budapest, the city where she has lived and worked since 1987. She pointed out that it was built through cooperation between east and west and at the time was a symbol of progress and unity. Inspired by a Hungarian nationalist, it was constructed by local builders and engineers consulting with an English designer and a Scottish chief engineer. It brought together the two diverse communities of Buda and Pest for the first time, and stopped the great expanse of the Danube preventing traffic flowing easily from east to west and back again.
This could be the dominant image to emerge from the conference – that having demolished a wall which kept us apart, Europe is now in the process of building a bridge to bring us all closer together as we reach out to take the gospel to diverse communities across Europe and beyond. A new spirit of genuine humility and cooperation, based on mutually respectful relationships, is starting to emerge. At Syzygy we welcome this strategic development, and look forward to the result becoming even more elegant, beautiful and functional than the Chain Bridge.
