Friday, June 08, 2012

Sharing Christ

SOURCE:  "Sharing Christ" by David Gambrell.  http://www.pcusa.org/blogs/faith/2012/6/6/sharing-christ/
KEYWORDS:  fellowship, communion, persecution, freedom

On Monday I heard a fascinating interview with Professor Fenggang Yang of Purdue University about the surprising wave of conversions to Christianity that took place in China after the Tiananmen Square massacre. In part of the interview, he was talking about a specific kind of Bible study that has sprung up at McDonald's restaurants in China. People move from table to table learning about the gospel, and finally how to share it with others.

The reason they meet at McDonald's has to do with government restrictions on religious activity—it can only take place on the grounds of church property, and presumably these groups don't have a building. But they've discovered that if you buy a meal at McDonald's you "own" the table for as long as you're sitting there. The government has since discovered this and cracked down, and the people have signed documents saying, okay, we promise not to go to that McDonald's (now we'll go to a different one).

And this has me wondering ... is there a sense in which these gatherings are "eucharistic" meals?

No comments: