BURMA, or Myanmar, is a far-away land of which we hear occasional media reviews of its brutally repressive army regime. This wonderful guide reminds us that, amid tyrannical repression and merciless persecution, the Church continues to minister amongst 130 ethnic and migrant teams, with about as many languages, belonging to all of the world faiths.

This small Church provides insights from burgeoning Church buildings within the international South for struggling Church buildings in Europe, North America, and Australia. The story of the Anglican Church in Burma, not even talked about within the index of the latest Oxford Historical past of Anglicanism’s fifth quantity, provides an support to higher understanding Anglicanism’s world position.

The eight chapters present a background to Burma’s turbulent historical past: the arrival of Roman Catholic missionaries and people of the Society for Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), in addition to Baptists, along with European colonial powers; the institution of a Church initially ministering to expatriates, within the context of a roughly 90 per cent Buddhist inhabitants; the sluggish growth of missionary work, principally amongst minority and migrant teams; and the institution of native management, with the ordination of Burmese clergy, and the Church’s survival amid the appalling atrocities of the Second World Warfare.

The sadly botched achievement of independence in 1948 resulted in brutal repression of minority ethnic and non secular teams (for instance, the Rohingyas) by the nationalist militarist Buddhist majority, and the expulsion of Europeans in 1964, leading to isolationism, apart from the illicit commerce in opium, uncommon metals, and valuable stones to maintain Myanmar’s financial system.

Dr Jarvis demonstrates how Anglicanism, as a minority denomination (the third largest Christian group, after Roman Catholics and Baptists) of a minority religion — though a majority religion amongst some ethnic minorities, regardless of its isolation — is a major factor in South-East Asian Christianity.

The Anglican mannequin of being the Church is being endangered, nevertheless. This poor and beleaguered Church has stored religion with the custom that it obtained from the primary reasonably conservative high-church SPG missionaries, representing then mainstream Anglicanism, who introduced the gospel to Burma.

ALAMYChristmas 2010 in Holy Cathedral, Yangon. The cathedral, by Robert Chisholm, was completed in 1894

Disadvantaged of entry to Twentieth- and Twenty first-century biblical and theological scholarship, they, together with the nice majority of Anglican Church buildings within the international South, stay true to the instructing that they obtained from their founders. However they really feel that their founders’ Church buildings have betrayed them, by reneging on “conventional” (i.e. mid-Nineteenth-century) biblical instructing.

The Burmese Church has centered scarce assets for mission on what it sees as the perfect technique of witnessing to Christ in Burma, via schooling, in a rustic the place schooling is a scarce commodity, and particularly well being care; for Myanmar has one of many world’s most under-resourced healthcare methods, and malaria, TB, and HIV are endemic.

In distinction, the European and North American Church buildings that despatched missionaries along with colonists now face completely different challenges, such because the place of ladies in ordained ministry, same-sex relations, and radical scholarly biblical and theological inquiry. These aren’t at the moment points for the rising Church buildings of the worldwide South.

Jarvis very sensitively explores why the Church within the Province of Myanmar has aligned itself with GAFCON, which largely represents the church buildings of post-colonial nations, wherein, in fact, additionally there are various opinions. These nations understandably regard with suspicion the previous colonial powers, who nonetheless management a lot of the world’s economies and assets.

The church buildings within the international North and the worldwide South have tailored to differing cultural and political contexts to have the ability to witness to God’s love expressed in Jesus Christ. This, sadly, has led to misunderstandings and suspicions of false instructing. It has been forgotten that understandings and implications of the gospel have various in several contexts.

The examine of historical past enlightens us about previous tensions between traditionalists and innovators. We would replicate on the post-colonial tensions between Anglo-Saxon Christians transformed by traditionalist Irish missionaries and the brand new Roman missionaries’ customs. This wonderful case examine of Anglicanism in Burma illustrates why completely different Church buildings in several contexts have differing emphases of their instructing whereas holding the identical gospel.

The Ven. Dr William Jacob is a former Archdeacon of Charing Cross, in London.

The Anglican Church in Burma: From colonial previous to international future
Edward Jarvis
Pennsylvania State College Press £86.95
(978-0-271-09156-3)
Church Instances Bookshop £78.25