The chief of El Salvador's national police stares intently across the table. Though the mere mention of the colonel's name strikes fear into the heart of many a Salvadoran activist, at this particular moment he is looking rather perplexed and unsure of himself. For seated on the other side of the table is Athol Gill, who, having just introduced himself as a Bible professor from Australia, continues to explain that he has traveled from the other side of the globe to find out why the national police have tortured and imprisoned a local Baptist pastor.
The colonel's confidence waxes while announcing that the pastor is a communist, then wanes again as the calm Aussie asks if serving the poor is always a crime in El Salvador. By the end of the hour, the colonel is signing a declaration that the Salvadoran Baptist community will be permitted to continue its ministry with the poor without fear of reprisal.
As incredible as it may seem in view of the final result, only two hours before Athol and I had sat in a hotel room in San Salvador with virtually no idea what we might say to the colonel. We had hopped on a plane and headed directly for El Salvador within days of hearing of the arrest and brutal treatment of the pastor. Yet that was the easy part. Now we were faced with the daunting task of how, with mere wit and moral suasion at our disposal, to battle forces that were armed with arrogance and impunity.
We could only come up with one strategy: Athol would negotiate with the colonel while I would take my time translating messages between them, thus buying Athol precious time to think on his feet. As we then looked at each other nervously, he remarked with a wily smile, "We will make the road as we walk it."
For Athol Gill, that seemingly shaky proposition was not merely born in the moment of desperation. It was a gospel basis for a messianic, vulnerable lifestyle. When Jesus calls, this New Testament professor never tired of saying, we must abandon everything and follow him on the road that leads to Jerusalem, the way of the cross.
PERHAPS THAT MESSAGE itself is not overly unusual to us, particularly when it is comfortably couched in the religious language of personal spirituality. What is truly startling, however, is to encounter someone who is willing to apply it to his or her way of life.
In fact, it was that very dichotomy between believing and acting that brought Professor Gill to a major turning point in 1971. He had just returned from Switzerland to his native Australia after finishing a doctorate under the tutelage of renowned New Testament scholar Eduard Schweizer. He was to take up a teaching post at the Baptist Theological College of Queensland. His humble, rural roots and work as a retail store manager left far behind, Dr. Gill was now seemingly set for a prestigious career in the seminary academy.
But before he even had time to settle into his new position, two students arrived at his office to throw their professor a serious challenge: His teachings were impossible to put into practice in the existing church. They boldly declared that either he stop educating them for frustration, or take responsibility to help them create a place where people would be encouraged to live out the radical commitment of the gospels.
Concluding that the "call to teach" did not preclude the "call to put it into practice," Athol and nearly 20 of his students soon opened a coffee house situated near the center of Brisbane's nightclub district. The coffee house provided a forum for religious, social, and political issues as a point of contact and dialogue with Australia's growing countercultural movement. Eventually, several of the staff organized a communal residence, and before long the wider group began talking about themselves as an intentional community.
Though these developments were exceptionally exciting for the theological students, they were not warmly received by the largely conservative seminary faculty and administration. After several turbulent years in Brisbane, it was clear that Professor Gill was no longer a welcome presence and would be pushed out of the seminary. The maturing community decided that Athol should accept an offer to teach at the Baptist seminary in Melbourne, provided that he and his wife, Judith, initiate a community in their new locale. Though they were to leave Brisbane, the community they left behind, the House of Freedom, has continued for nearly 20 years to celebrate life together as a people committed to common life and works of justice.
UPON THEIR ARRIVAL in Melbourne, the Gills discovered that an alarming number of inner-city churches were shutting down as their members fled "urban blight" and headed for the suburbs. In opposition to the cultural trend, Athol believed that this would be the perfect location to establish a community church.
Along with several theological students who had followed him to Melbourne from Brisbane and Sydney, a small community was formed in 1975 that began to operate out of the near-defunct Clifton Hill Baptist Church. Shortly thereafter, the community began to organize training workshops, called "radical discipleship weekends," through which mission teams were recruited to become involved in inner-city programs for youth, the elderly, and the homeless.
In order to strengthen these workshops, Athol produced a multiple series of "discipleship studies" that related gospel texts to following Jesus, living together in community, and working for justice. Gospel stories, once thought to be solely proof-texts of Jesus' divine nature (miracles, authority, sinlessness, etc.), came to life in Athol's studies: They now beckoned one to radical and complete conversion. In his own unique style, Athol encouraged the reader that "[Jesus] comes time and again and calls us to follow him, offering us a fresh start in the life of discipleship. The options don't vary, but the choices continue."
The discipleship studies were disseminated via crude, mimeographed sheets that were passed the length and breadth of Australia, while eventually making their way even to intentional communities in the United States that utilized them to deepen their own vision and commitment. Copyright and royalties were never an issue; it was not until 1989 that they were finally published in a book titled Life on the Road: The Gospel Basis for a Messianic Lifestyle (see "Worthy of Note," June 1990).
The Melbourne community landed on a rather unique name, House of the Gentle Bunyip. Weary of British and U.S. imperial dominance within their culture, the community wanted an Australian name that would convey a true incarnation of the gospel within the roots of their own soil. They chose the image of a bunyip.
A bunyip is a mythical Australian animal that comes from the "dream time" in aboriginal culture. A well-known Aussie children's story relates how the bunyip was rejected by everybody, both animal and human. However, he finally finds his own true identity and dignity when he encounters another bunyip who was rejected just like himself. The simple story of the bunyip's search for identity is tied to the discovery of corporate identity. As Athol often said, "The search for identity is the quest for community."
The House of the Gentle Bunyip over the last 17 years has enjoyed a rich and varied history. At its peak it included 70 members and associates, all living in communal homes within walking distance of the community center. The Bunyip also organized an impressive array of service projects: a short-term accommodation for street kids, a crisis-care program for those suffering from schizophrenia, a food cooperative, a youth center, a lunch program for the elderly, an alternative primary school, an adult arts and craft school, and a peace and disarmament group.
But the story of the community is not one of unmitigated success. During the last five years, membership has dropped dramatically and many of the programs have been forced to close. Mirroring the burnout, overstress, and disintegration of many intentional communities in the United States, Europe, and Australia, the Bunyip fell on hard times.
As leader and pastor, Athol realized that many mistakes had been made: High ideals and vision had led them to take on too much all at once. Consequently, all too often the community was fed by immature expectations, hurtful relationships, and weary souls.
"If we hadn't been so stupid--or perhaps simply so human--we may have done a lot better," Athol once lamented. "But, then, perhaps we would not have learned just how much Christian community is a life of grace and that God continues to call us to journey together, through our failures and successes."
Yet the Bunyip's own history is really only a limited reading of its broad impact on envisioning a new shape for the Western church. Interns, visitors, and ex-members of the community are working in inner-city programs and peace and justice communities throughout Australia. Others are leading voices in the social service sector of local and national religious and political structures. Some members of the community left to work in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador. Four U.S. interns who made a yearlong stay at the Bunyip in 1981-82 returned to establish a community in downtown Oakland, California; they later collaborated with Athol to establish Central American Mission Partners (CAMP), an aid, development, and human rights program with offices in El Salvador, Oakland, and Melbourne.
THIS THUMBNAIL SKETCH of Athol Gill's life and wide influence suggests the reason behind the shock, sadness, and deep sense of loss that the news of his sudden death by heart attack brought to so many "radical disciples" around the globe on March 9, 1992. The road to Jerusalem seems treacherous and lonely enough without losing an experienced traveler who helped us to read the maps so that we might not lose our bearings along the way. In that regard, perhaps it is utterly appropriate to extend that metaphor to consider the death of Athol Gill in terms of what actually happened in Jerusalem to the one whom he taught so many of us to follow.
The gospels of Mark and John present us with two strikingly different images of Jesus during his final moments on the cross. In Mark, Jesus' last words convey a sense of complete despair: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (15:33). Its harsh message typically leaves us scurrying for Luke where Jesus confidently "commits his spirit" to God. However, the Mark text enables us to identify more clearly with the disciples who did indeed see the cross as a monumental tragedy that virtually led to the dissolution of their community and their movement.
We, too, find these words of abandonment on our lips when our movement loses such a vital figure as Athol Gill (or Martin Luther King Jr., or Oscar Romero, or countless others whose presence we sorely miss). Anger, disappointment, and disillusionment well up inside of us: "Oh God, why are so many good brothers and sisters taken before their time?" Those who, following in the footsteps of Jesus, worked so diligently to practice a messianic lifestyle where community, justice, and love would reign over selfishness, greed, and envy. And yet, once again, death and failure end the dream. The dominant powers, so it seems, continue to win.
The resurrection does not even present itself as a quick-fix remedy in Mark's gospel. The women at the empty tomb are told by a mysterious young man to relay a message to the disciples that they are to go to Galilee, and "there you will see him." Yet the women run away, paralyzed by fear, and "tell no one." (Later scribes were so troubled by the gospel ending here that they frequently attached a resurrection story to give the gospel a "Hollywood ending.")
If we are to experience resurrection, the Mark narrative seems to suggest, it will only happen in the midst of our despair, fear, brokenness, and hopelessness. Our encounter with the resurrected Christ does not take away the tragedy of the cross; to the contrary, if it happens at all, it happens through the experience of passion.
IN JOHN, THE LAST words of Jesus take on a somewhat different nuance: "He said, 'It is finished'; and then he bowed his head and gave up the spirit" (19:30). Once again, in the shadow of the cross, we are left with a troubling ambiguity. What is "finished"?
The sufferings of the poor, the prisoner, and the lame certainly did not come to an end; nor did the Romans cease to maintain their oppressive rule based in heavy taxation and law and order (indeed, it lasted another few centuries); nor, by and large, were "sinners," Samaritans, women, and children treated with any greater degree of human dignity within the theocratic society. At the end of the day, it certainly did seem that might still made right. And yet for some reason Jesus declares that things are "finished."
It is quite likely that much of our confusion rests with the concept of messianism that we utilize to focus our interpretive lens of this text. If our understanding of "messiah" is that of an all-powerful figure who rights all wrongs and overcomes every evil, then we will either (1) be sorely disappointed that Jesus Christ the Messiah did not save human history from itself then or in the subsequent two millennia; or (2) abstract ourselves from the present as we wait expectantly for him to come back to do so in the future.
A careful reading of the gospels, however, suggests that these are the very notions of messianism which Jesus rejected. In truth, the messianic life of Jesus is revealed in weakness, vulnerability, and compassion. He is the servant willing to serve the most humble, to practice justice even when it offends the powerful, to love his enemies even when they wish to destroy him, to suffer "for the sins of the many." His death on the cross was the logical and historical consequence of a messianic lifestyle so conceived. Indeed, his revelation of the very life of God was indeed "finished" on Golgotha that dark day.
For those of us who walk around with "messianic complexes" on our sleeves, the message is clear: We are not called to save the world. Nor should we expect others to do so for us. The call to discipleship is much simpler and, for that reason, perhaps even more daunting.
We are to live our existence in communion with the Spirit of God as it has been revealed to us in the life of Jesus and as it is celebrated in the lives of our sisters and brothers whom we have joined on the journey. The specific commitments, activities, movements, and structures will be brought forth by the changing historical moment.
In that sense, we must say in regard to our dear brother Athol that his life was indeed "finished." We do not measure his life so much by his successes (though there were many) or failures (though we share the scars of those, too), but above all we recall the clarity of his vision and commitment. He demonstrated to so many of us the contours of a messianic lifestyle in our own time and place.
It is Athol who once wrote:
The stranger of Galilee promises a new future as he leads the way towards a new humanity. We will have done our work if we simply resist the temptation to settle down and reap the temporary pleasures of the materialistic society. We will have done our work if we simply continue to follow him towards the city with a firm foundation, whose architect and builder is God. The journey has really only just begun.
Indeed, we look forward to meeting up with you once again, Athol, "on the way."
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