Of castles and cathedrals

The people of Prague are particularly proud of the Prague Castle, parts of which date back 11 centuries, but none of which looks like a castle – at least to Western eyes. The castle complex consists mostly of inter- connected buildings that have housed Bohemian kings, Holy Roman emporers, and Czech presidents through the years. Many of the buildings are still used as government offices, surrounded by spacious courtyards, well-kept flower gardens, and the massive St. Vitus Cathedral.

After three days of sitting on hard chairs and eating high-carb Czech cooking, I was desperate for a good walk. So I opted out of an optional forum and struck out Thursday afternoon for a hike to the castle, which appeared to be about two miles from our hotel – and uphill all the way. Thirty minutes of steady climbing brought me to the entrance just in time to see the changing of the guard, an elaborate trade-off reminiscent of what I’ve seen at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. The main difference is that the Czech soldiers weren’t nearly so polished as the honor guard at Arlington. Two of them couldn’t keep a straight face during the ceremony, and when the departing guards marched out, they goose-stepped.

The castle complex may have had some very impressive sights that could only be seen by joining a tour, but I didn’t want to pay 950 crowns (about $75) for the privilege, so I wandered quickly through the public areas. Fortunately, those included the cathedral, named for St. Vitus of Sicily, who died as a martyr in 303. Relics of St. Vitus were brought to Germany in 756, so the records say, and in 925 Emporer Henry I of Germany presented to Wenceslaus I, the Duke of Bohemia, what were reported to be the bones of one hand from St. Vitus -- bones that are now housed in the cathedral.

Built mostly during the fourteenth century, the Gothic cathedral’s grand vault is home to tombs of long-dead Bohemian kings, oversized works of art, artistic altars, intricate stained glass windows, and even a few hard pews beneath an ornate, elevated pulpit.

Surprisingly, there were no banks of candles for visitors to light, as commonly found in cathedrals. Perhaps church officials decided that the dark, stained walls didn’t need any additional patina from candle smoke. So, I couldn't light a candle, as I usually do, in remembrance of our daughter Bethany -- but I still remembered her.

I’m about as far from being Catholic as one could get, so I’m certain there’s much about this and other cathedrals that I do not adequately appreciate. Trying to imagine the effort and expense that went into erecting such a giant edifice long before the invention of power tools or modern cranes simply boggles the mind. Part of me wonders how many poor people could have been helped with the funds that went into constructing a cathedral like St. Vitus’. But, another part of me suspects that many of those same poor people may have found both pride and hope in such a solid reminder of the glory of God.

Cathedrals are designed, I think, for the purpose of making one feel very small before the presence of God, whose greatness and mystery are reflected in the lofty arches and shadowy corners of the vault, and whose love is sensed in the warm glow of sunlight illuminating timeless stories in stained glass.

I wouldn’t build a cathedral, even if I had the means, but visiting such a magnificent monument to God helps me to appreciate why many others consider it to be truly sacred space.

Speaking in tongues

The Baptist World Alliance is not a Pentecostal group, but its meetings often include a lot of speaking in tongues. During morning worship this morning, for example, the Old Testament scripture was read in Dutch and the New Testament in Portuguese. We sang in Latin, German, Spanish, and English.
The multiplicity of languages and accents is a constant reminder that we live in a big world and come from widely varying backgrounds. If we don't understand another person's language or culture, we can't fully understand the person, but every effort to do so is worth the time and energy expended.

Experiences like this also remind me to be grateful that the closest thing we have to a universally understood language is English, so with the exception of a few waiters, I've rarely been unable to communicate with people.

Of course, not everyone handles English with equal facility, leading to unexpected moments of humor. In worship July 24, participants held an annual memorial service for former BWA supporters or participants who have died during the previous year. Different persons read out the names of the individuals, along with a brief note about their home and their relationship with BWA.

During an otherwise somber service, I couldn't help but smile when a citation was read for Norman Wiggins, the longtime president of Campbell University who also participated in BWA. The presenter had some difficulty pronouncing Wiggins' hometown of Buies Creek. Or, perhaps he'd heard of North Carolina's moonshining reputation.

In any case, the reader told us that Wiggins came from "Boozy Creek."

Ain't language fun?

A refugee in one’s own land

How can one be a refugee in his own land? It happens in the Promised Land every day, as the Israeli government, in the name of security, continues to build new settlements that encroach on Palestinian territory, and to construct a monstrous wall that divides Palestinians not only from Israelis, but often from their own land and families.

The Freedom and Justice Study Commission of the Baptist World Alliance met to discuss the issue July 23, with several members relating personal stories and experiences from their visits to Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Speakers acknowledged the dangers of terrorism and the Israeli concern for security, but expressed deep concern at the way innocent Palestinians are made to suffer in the process.

Rosemary Kidd (right), who works with Baptists in the United Kingdom, recently spent two weeks at the Tantur Center in Bethlehem. She spoke of how Palestinians – Christians as well as Muslims – are persistently harassed and delayed at hundreds of checkpoints, making it very difficult for them to travel to work or school. Evangelical free Christians, Baptists among them, are a tiny minority in Israel, and often overlooked, with no one to stand up for them.

Kidd spoke of a 17-year-old Muslim boy she met whose father had been gunned down without a trial by Israeli soldiers. He showed her pictures, taken on his cell phone, of a bloody pool and his father’s body slumped in a taxi. Kidd showed a picture of his beautiful six-year-old sister who cries herself to sleep every night.

Though built in the name of security, the huge wall that snakes through the land often senselessly separates Palestinian communities from each other, from their hospitals, from their olive groves, and their fields, she said. There is a great feeling of oppression there, she said: “The raw injustice of the wall leaves me deeply angry.”

Tony Cupit of Australia (left), officially retired from the BWA staff but still working in a consulting capacity, noted that Baptists in the Middle East are too small to make up their own region, and are considered a part of the European Baptist Federation. There are 27 small Baptist churches in Israel proper, he said, and 16 Baptist or Baptist-like churches in the West Bank and Gaza. The 16 Palestinian churches have officially formed a union, but cannot meet together because of travel restrictions.

Bethlehem Bible College, a non-denominational school that has several Baptists on its staff, is struggling to provide educational opportunities for Christians, he said. That can be especially difficult when students have their travel permits arbitrarily revoked. Cupit cited one Palestinian Christian who needs just one more credit to graduate, but is no longer permitted to travel to the school.

Toma Magda, of Croatia, said the experience of living through the Serbian-Croatian conflict came back to him when visiting Israel, where there were lots of people with guns and a widespread sense of uncertainty. “I met Jesus there,” he said, but not at the holy sites visited by tourists. “I met Jesus at every checkpoint,” he said, “suffering with the Palestinians.” If the Wise Men came to visit the baby Jesus today, he said, they would not be allowed through the checkpoints.

Regina Claas, who leads German Baptists, said she found it odd that the same people who had been forced into ghettos in Eastern Europe now build walls to fence others in. As a German, Class said, having lived many years with the Berlin Wall before seeing it come down, she found it interesting to see that the Israeli’s security wall is twice as tall as the Berlin Wall.

Other participants added a variety of comments related to their own experiences and the pain they feel for the Palestinian people, and for the Christians in particular. As Christians go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, they said, they should strive to meet with Palestinian Christians as well as seeing the sacred sites, that they might get a truer picture of what life is like in today’s Israel, where there is more than enough suffering to go around.

In the home of Hus

The historic city of Prague, where the Baptist World Alliance Annual Gathering is being held, was the home of Jan (Johannes) Hus, who was a Reformer when reforming wasn't cool. Hus (whose name means "Goose," and rhymes with it) was born about 1370 in Husinec, in the southern part of Bohemia. He traveled to Prague in order to study, earned degrees, and became dean of the faculty at the university -- a testimony to his scholarship.

Hus considered his true calling to be that of a minister, however. He was ordained as a priest in 1400, and appointed as rector of Prague's Bethlehem Chapel in 1402. Bethlehem Chapel, less grand than the city's cathedral, had been financed by laymen and dedicated in 1394 as a place where the gospel could be preached in the Czech language. The chapel held 3,000 and was often full, for Hus was a popular preacher, sometimes preaching 200 sermons in a year.

Hus' message was popular in part because he believed in speaking to the people in their own language. Hus followed the pioneering work of the English theologian John Wycliffe, who advocated for translation of the Latin Bible into the vernacular of the people. But, daring to confront traditions of the Church did not go over well with the Catholic authorities, who were in the midst of a "Great Schism" that led to multiple popes, and the last thing they wanted was a priest who agitated for putting the Bible in the language of the people and allowing them to interpret it with the guidance of the Holy Spirit rather than trusting to church tradition alone.

Church leaders summoned Hus to Rome, but he woudn't go. They stripped him of his church and excommunicated him, but he wouldn't stop preaching. Finally, with a guarantee of safe passage from the emporer, Hus met with church officials during the Synod of Constance (or Konstanz). There Hus was betrayed, put on trial by the church, convicted of heresy, and condemned to death.

When he refused to recant, Hus was burned at the stake on July 6, 1415, now a national holiday in the Czech Republic. The city's "Old Town" square is home to a huge memorial to Hus and his followers, installed in 1915 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of his martyrdom.

BWA participants were reminded of Hus' heritage following morning worship on Wednesday, and formal papers on Hus' life and work were presented in the Academic and Theological Education workgroup during the week.

Hus' martyrdom, some say, gave rise to the saying "his goose was cooked." If the church found my deeply felt beliefs to be heresy and wanted to cook my goose on a public spit, would I have the courage of Hus to stand firm for that faith? Would you? It's a question worth pondering from time to time.

This could be one of those times.

Knedlik, long lines, and rainbows

Tuesday July 21 brought the first full day of work for committees, commissions, and workgroups of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Prague for its 2008 Annual Gathering.


More than 400 global Baptists are here, and most of them made it to the 8:00 a.m. morning worship service, where Jan Titera, leader of Czech Baptists, (left) offered a welcome, Rodney Macann of New Zealand led a touching devotion, and the congregation sang in Spanish (Santo Santo Santo), German (Heilig, Heilig, Heilig), English (Holy, Holy, Holy), French (Dieu saint, Dieu saint, Dieu saint), and the Nigerian language of Yuroba (Ogo ni fun Baba – [Glory to the Father]).

Committee meetings for me included the Resolutions Committee (twice) and the Advancement/Communications Committee. There we heard a challenging financial report and learned that staff liaison Alan Stanford is resigning to pursue other ministry opportunities. BWA General Secretary Neville Callam (right) assured the committee that he will find interim assistance as the Personnel Committee searches for a new candidate for the position, and fielded questions relative to his vision for the committee.

Lunchtime brought my first chance to experience traditional Czech food. At a small diner called “Restaurace U Topulu” I ordered a plate called Jihoceska basta (the name is missing several accents). It included one slice each of roast pork and smoked pork, a small piece of smoked sausage, sauerkraut, and two types of dumplings (knedlik). To imagine the potato dumplings, think stiff mashed potatoes mixed with enough flour to make them solid, then rolled and cut into round slices.

I sat in on the Freedom and Justice Commission session in the afternoon. There, Tedour Opranov (left), pastor of Sofia Baptist Church in Bulgaria, told heartbreaking stories about his church’s ministry to the Gypsy or Roma people who live as outcasts in Bulgaria. Children rarely receive any education, and girls are often victims of human trafficking for the sex industry. Church members and their supporters are working to provide children with educational opportunities and the hope of a better life.

Anna Maffei, president and general secretary of Italian Baptists, talked about the plight of Roma peoples in Italy, where new right-wing government leaders have been roundly condemned for human rights violations, charging the Roma people with being a prime source of Italy’s problems and requiring that they all be fingerprinted, including children.

Dennis Datta (right) of Bangladesh, who will receive this year’s Lotz Human Rights Award, read a paper on the problem of human trafficking in Bangladesh, where he said 10,000 or more boys and girls are sold, swindled, or kidnapped by human traffickers who transport them through India to the Middle East and then to other destinations, where they live as virtual slaves doing forced labor or working in the sex industry.

Datta talked about ways that people of faith can help to fight the massive problem of human trafficking, – a message that certainly needs to be heard.

The International Baptist Theological Seminary (IBTS) hosted a “garden party” reception for participants during the evening, offering tours of the impressive facility that is owned by European and Middle Eastern Baptists. The library, said rector Keith Jones, has the largest English language theological collection in mainland Europe (he acknowledged that the Vatican makes the same claim).

Tours moved much more quickly than the one-lane serve-yourself buffet line, where I spent 45 long minutes of wondering if it was going to rain before I got anything to eat somewhere around 9:00 p.m. The wait was rewarded with fine fare (though the lamb chops and Thai chicken were gone by the time I got there).

The best part of the wait, however, came in the form of a beautiful rainbow stretching over the building that houses the European Baptist Federation offices.

I was grateful that someone held my place in line so I could step out and take a picture of it: some blessings, some moments are just too good to keep to yourself.

Freedom and justice are too good to keep to ourselves, too. It's my hope that we will do more than pray about the thousands of captive children and women who suffer in the name of human greed, and work that they might live to see a rainbow of promise.

Czech it out

The 2008 Annual Gathering of the Baptist World Alliance is being held in the beautiful old city of Prague, in the Czech Republic, known in the old Soviet days as Czechoslavakia. Prague, of course, is much older than the USSR, and much of its proud architecture from the 9th century onward is still around.

I had time for a quick walk-through of the Old City today (following an even quicker ride on a modern subway). Many of the buildings date from the 14th-16th centuries, and I found it as charming as it is crowded. Buildings tend to be ornately detailed and delicately colored: you can’t turn around without seeing something new that begs for a photograph.

The Charles Bridge over the Vitava River is ruled by pedestrians and buskers of every sort, a cobblestone crossway lined with religious sculpture, street musicians, and charcoal artists. A huge stone cross bore not only Jesus, but a golden Hebrew inscription that translates “Holy, Holy, Holy, LORD (Yahweh) of Hosts.” Jesus appears to be flanked by his mother Mary and the Apostle John, both wearing forlorn expressions.

Huge crowds gathered outside the Old Town Hall, parts of which date to 1338. A massive and complicated clockworks on its main tower chimes every hour. I don’t know if the other hours are better, but the 5:00 p.m. show was rather disappointing, with only a few bells ringing, though the rope for one was pulled by a skeleton.

A disappointing side of the city is that bathrooms (at least in that area) are hard to find and gnerally involve payment. If I didn't already know that "WC" stands for "Water Closet," which is code for a toilet, I'd never find one. A sign outside of one dingy dungeon-type bathroom said the charge was "10-22 Kz" (you get about 14 Czech crowns to the dollar). I don't know if the bathroom charged by which stall you visit or whether you wash up afterward: I moved along.

Restaurants were numerous, but waiters so nonchalant that I gave up my quest to have traditional roast pig’s knee and dumplings for dinner. Instead, I bought a grilled sausage on a hard bun from a street vendor for a heartburn-inducing supper before heading back to a BWA meeting that must have given its “Implementation Task Force” something worse than heartburn. After four years of work on a plan to recommend some basic restructuring of the BWA’s Executive Committee, the task force hopes to have its proposals approved this year.

A two-hour discussion session to allow comment leaves me wondering how much of it will happen, however. There was no lack of discussion and opinion. Offered with both good humor and deep passion, speakers expressed their concerns and hopes, most related in one way or another to being assured that the committee’s makeup will reflect appropriate regional, ethnic, gender and age diversity.

One thing you learn at a BWA meeting: whether they come from Alabama or Australia, Argentina or Armenia, Baptists will be Baptists. They will hold to different opinions and they will speak their minds. On good days, they will love one another at the same time.

Where the Baptist World Alliance is concerned, most days are good days.

Of bullies and blackberries

Two things today: (1) The anti-bullying bill I mentioned earlier is apparently dead in North Carolina, bullied into submission by conservative Christians stirred to action by misleading hype that the measure was really a pro-homosexual bill.

I continue to be amazed at the level of homophobia among many Christians, and the ease with which politicians or denominational movers and shakers can frighten people and get their way by twisting both language and logic to portray something they oppose as part of a homosexual agenda. The hot-blooded opposition to spelling out that it's not okay to harass people based on sexual orientation should be Exhibit A for why the language is needed: children learn from their parents, and prejudice is a primary lesson.

(2): While it makes me sad to see the name of Christ used as a big stick in the political process, there are other causes for joy this summer. I continue to wonder at creation's glory, exemplified in something as simple and often overlooked as wild blackberries. I wrote earlier about a morning of quiet praise in a "blackberry cathedral," but my blackberry exploits have gone far beyond that this year: as I've picked over blackberry bushes near our home during the past month, I've managed to make multiple cobblers and even put up seven pints of homemade jam.

Okay, so only the last two pints actually jelled, but the other jars sealed, and make a scrumptious blackberry conserve for use on pancakes or in recipes. In the process, I discovered a downside to suburban living in yuppie neighborhoods: most of the groceries stores have very skimpy canning supplies. I refuse to make jam that's more sugar than fruit, which requires a special type of pectin (like "Sure-Jell") for use with low or no sugar. After trying several other stores, I finally found what I needed at good old Food Lion, which had not just one, but two different brands of what I needed. Unfortunately, I didn't find it quick enough for those first five pints, one of which I've already eaten.

Back to blackberries, which a botanist would point out are not true berries but "fruit aggregates" made of many "drupulets." Blackberries hold a special place in my heart, I'm sure, mainly because of childhood memories or picking blackberries and eating homemade blackberry pies and savoring the taste of summer with blackberry jelly on my toast in the winter. Grape jelly and strawberry jam have their place, but in my book, blackberry jelly or jam stands atop the podium.

Picking blackberries is an obvious metaphor for life. There are cultivated varieties that have no thorns, but you can't pick wild blackberries without picking up some scratches along the way. If you're not careful, you might pick up some chiggers, ticks, and poison oak as well. Blackberry picking can be hot, itchy, tiresome work, but a bucket of berries and cobbler in the oven makes it well worth the trouble.

The application needs no elaboration.

I promise this will be my last column on blackberries (for this summer, at least). Soon I'll be off for Prague, the Czech Republic, where I'll be participating in and reporting on the annual gathering of the Baptist World Alliance, followed by the seventh Baptist International Conference on Theological Education. The blackberries will be gone when I get back, but there should be good pickings here, as I'll try to post at least one entry each day, beginning Tuesday, July 22. Whether you're interested in BWA or just pictures from Prague (and commentary on Czech food), I hope you'll drop by and bring your bucket.