In a music video for the song Lamb Of God, there’s a curious background. It’s a (partly) ruined stone building that looks like it’s from the Old World. At first glance, I guessed it must be from Europe – but is actually from Orange County, California.
The building is the Mission San Juan Capistrano, established in the late 18th century by Spanish Catholic missionaries when the land was part of Mexico.
Despite being hit by a number of natural disasters, and now operating as a museum, we see God bringing renewal to the church at large – whether it’s Matt Redman et al using the grounds as a backdrop for songs of worship that millions watch, or through entirely new constructions and endeavours.
When I was a teenager, I adopted the working principle that when something is in decline, it likely to never bounce back. Shops would to struggle for custom and then go out of business – no one buys MFI furniture any more. TV shows may have appealed to me but if they struggled to attract interest from others, they’d be cancelled.
Things really did go the way of the Dodo.
But there are counterexamples: M&S has bounced bank and pulled itself back into the FTSE 100 index of big companies. And that the worry that people had when I was a child about the hole in the ozone layer stopped being a big concern when the world banned the use of ozone-depleting CFCs. The ozone layer has started to heal.
And with that in mind, I’m encouraged by Philip Jackson’s book The Lost History of Christianity: it talks about the growth and setbacks of Christianity before modern times.
Jackson in particular tells the story of Eastern Christianity in its first 1,400 years – how it thrived in places like Iraq, Iran, Syria and expanded as far as Afghanistan, China and southern India. He writes:
Much of what we today call the Islamic world was once Christian. The faith originated and took shape in Syria-Palestine and in Egypt, and these areas continued to have major Christian communities long after the Arab conquests.
I find this encouraging because Christianity throughout its 2,000 years has experienced periods of growth and decline in various places. But God brings renewal and that’s why there are more Christians alive in the world today than at any point in history. It’s estimated that there are going to be nearly three billion Christians on the planet by 2050, up from 2.38bn in 2020.
So when we look at that ruined mission building, this is not a reminder merely of a religion from yesteryear. Instead, it’s perhaps a reminder of God’s faithfulness through millennia. As Isaiah 61:4 (NIV) says in a passage of prophesy about the Messiah:
They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.
The temple in Jerusalem had been completely destroyed by Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylonia, the kingdom of Judah had been abolished and many Judeans were forcibly moved to Babylonia.
So the words of Isaiah, in addition to their literal meaning about the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem and the construction of a New Jerusalem in the future, has another meaning. John N. Oswalt in the Biblical Theology Study Bible says:
In a metaphorical sense it speaks of the spiritual renewal of people who are enabled to live in godly ways.
So whatever setbacks we face in spreading Christianity, our infinitely powerful God remains faithful. We can look around us at many wonders – the sunset, the oceans … even ChatGPT. But, as the song sung at the Californian mission ruins says:
The most enduring wonder
My soul will ever see
Is the Lamb who conquered Calvary
Oh the Lamb of God, our victory
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