There is a part of the Antarctic coastline which is universally recognised as belonging to France. Why? Because on 20 January 1840 claim to this particular area was made in the name of France by a French ship commanded by Jules Dumont d’Urville.
The French sailors who made landfall plainly viewed themselves as conquering this land. After clambering up the islet they took hold of its inhabitants and threw them down its steep sides, making it clear, at least in their own minds, that they were dispossessing them.
The whole thing seems rather farcical, especially when we realise that these inhabitants were penguins who had no understanding of why they were being treated in such a cruel manner.
After “conquering” this land, the tricoloured French flag was unfurled, they hailed their king and then drank a toast with a bottle of Bordeaux wine. As evidence of their claim to this land the sailors took back to the ship some broken-off pieces of reddish granite rock and a number of understandably reluctant penguins. The ship then reported their discovery of this islet and claim of it to the nearest settlement, namely Hobart.
In the harbour of every land Columbus “discovered” he would choose and elevated spot on which he would have erected a large cross, by way of claiming the land around it for the Spanish king. The Portuguese typically would erect on high ground an inscribed stone pillar (padrao), topped with a cross. Abel Tasman claimed Tasman by getting a sailor to swim ashore with a Dutch flagpole and erect it in a previously chosen conspicuous position.
Any inhabitants in all these lands who witnessed such ceremonies might well have been penguins for all the sense it made to them.
Conquest. It’s the name of the book I’m reading by historian David Day, in which he recounts these and other stories. It got me thinking about divine conquest.
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me“, says Jesus (Matthew 28:18). So, he says in effect, go out from here and conquer in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For to ’disciple all peoples’ means to lay claim to the lives of all people on the face of the earth; to seek to persuade them that Jesus is Lord and that their only appropriate response is to accept his complete authority over their lives and seek to learn everything he commands them to do.
It is fundamental to mainstream Islam to ever seek to extend its territory, to claim more and more land - a way of thinking that many naive Westerners simply do not understand. The building of mosques and Islamic schools in Western lands often has much more profound significance for Muslims, for whom Islam is a total system, than merely providing for limited religious and educational needs. But for Christ’s followers conquest is not effected by the building of churches with crosses on them. It occurs when those who hear the message of Christ’s lordship voluntarily yield their lives in grateful submission to him. It is symbolised by baptism, by which those who are baptised are recognised to be Christ’s disciples and, as such, immersed in a relationship with the Triune God. When we take the Gospel of Christ’s Lordship into ‘uncharted waters’ it does matter what ‘the inhabitants’ understand.
And what a massive difference between the “conquests” effected by the explorers above and that which the Lord himself effects through the power of his Word! At best the prior inhabitants of erroneously called “discovered” lands ended up with an artificial relationship to a king whom they never met and of whom they had miminal and highly confused knowledge. For those “conquered” by Christ become the next wave of discipling disciples to whom Christ promises: “And surely I will be with you to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). What a privilege to be conquered - to be in an intimate, secure relationship with the most important and powerful person in the entire universe!
www.facetofaceintercultural.com.au
Posted October 31, 2009
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