Biblical Landmarks

If you leave out an important ingredient, your best cooking efforts are doomed.

This article was written while I was in Nova Scotia and had just returned from having supper with a local family.

This part of the world, Clare County, has several municipalities that are Old French culture and language. The schools in these municipalities hold their classes in the old Acadian language, while the municipalities either side are English. In the seventeenth century, the French living in the valley of Nova Scotia were forcibly relocated by the British. Some found their way to the western shores of Nova Scotia while others were settled in Louisiana. The Cajuns and the Acadians are linked culturally — and share an understandable attitude towards the British. In Nova Scotia, the Acadians have been promised an apology from the monarch of England, but it is yet to arrive.

This caused me to reflect on the turmoil of Europe at the time of their dislocation. The Acadians, French in origin, tried to remain neutral in the struggles between Britain and France. They were not permitted to do this. The result is turmoil and conflict that stretches over centuries, with pain and hurt and memories of families forcibly separated — the men sent one direction, the women and children another — never to be erased.

This is the outcome of the turmoil of Europe at the time and turbulent times of Catholic versus Protestant, French versus English, as each group tried to attain supremacy over the other.

The result is the world we have today. It is anti-Christian — Protestant or Catholic – each country governed by an all-powerful, all controlling secular state that sees no limitations to its authority.

The long struggle for supreme authority, church versus state, was finally won by the secular authorities, and this had been completed in principle by the 17th century. It has taken another three centuries for the results to become evident.

The Acadian culture — Catholic — is struggling to maintain itself in a changing world. Their schools conduct classes in Acadian French, and the people speak this language in their homes. As I was told by my hosts, they even dream in French. But many of them speak English without any hint of a foreign accent. There is little local work, and in the next municipality there are often signs discouraging Acadians from applying for an advertised job. In this changing world, speaking Acadian is a handicap, unless you live in the Acadian communities. It even limits which universities you can attend, since there are few French-speaking universities in Canada.

Here, the local Catholic church is conducting a survey to find out what people might like in a church that will attract them to it. Marketing has finally arrived to the Catholic parish in Clare County.

For all its alleged weaknesses, the church of the first millennium after Christ changed the face of Europe for over a thousand years. But for several hundred years there have been attempts to reverse those events, and the churches — Catholic and Protestant — seem powerless to stop the reversal.

For some, preaching on grace alone, faith alone, and the Bible alone is going to change the world. Yet it has failed to do this in almost 500 years. When will they learn this is apparently not enough?

Something is missing, and until we find out and get it back in place, no amount of pulpit thumping on these important themes is going to change anything. By themselves, they are powerless.

So what is missing? Send me your answer to share with others on this list.

Until next, week, God bless you in your endeavors to serve Him.

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