Christianity Rediscovered

I promised this review 3 months ago. I'll never get it done if I don't just do it. I've typed up several pages of stuff and it's just too much, so I'll just give the gist.

Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent Donovan is about Mr. Donovan's time (17 years) evangelizing the Masai. He is Catholic, and he looked at the current model of evangelism (schools, clinics etc) and saw that very few Masai became Christian. Those that did became isolated from their community and culture and usually ended up in the city. He wondered what would happen, if he just went to the villages and told them the gospel, no strings attached.

He went to 6 villages (one for each day of the week with a Sabbath) and asked if he could just tell them about the Christian God and not about hospitals or schools. In one village, the chief said, "If that is why you came here, why did you wait so long to tell us about this?" (page 18) He is given permission to come one day a week to each village and the chief would make sure the whole village was there to hear what Mr. Donovan had to say.

Mr. Donovan decided to go with a New Testament model introduced by Christ when he sent the 70 out and also by St. Paul. He would go for a set amount of time (1 year) and at the end of the year would ask the village to put their faith in Christ. If they did not, he would move on. If they did, he would train up the villagers to take over the teachings of Christ for themselves. He would try to give them the Bible (Old and New Testaments) without imposing all 2000 years of theological philosophy on it. He wanted to know if the gospel would be received better in its pure form.

It's interesting to note that one village at the end of the year did not want to become Christian, and while Mr. Donovan was rather shaken up by this, he was comforted in knowing that many also didn't receive Christ when he was standing right in front of them. He honored his commitment to put his energy into a new people rather that continue with the people who had not wanted to continue. The other villages began making their own Christian traditions. One interesting thing they did was to come to their worship place and dance all their old dances. If they found that a dance did not properly worship God, they would remove it (of their own decision) from their repretoire. In fact, they started to remove all sorts of "witch doctor" types of things without Mr. Donovan suggesting it. The only ceremonies or sacraments he introduced were communion and baptism.

The communities Mr. Donovan sparked are still in existance today. I can't find the website now that has a professor going to the Masai in the last year and seeing how the communities are doing, but they are doing well. If I find it, I'll add it to the post.

I just found it. It's http://nedmarch.googlepages.com/diaryjanuary20072