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?
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