All Drawn Together by the Power of the Gospel

When we arrived at London's Heathrow Airport, a television camera crew was waiting. The other passengers on the plane, curious about who was being filmed and why, began to talk among themselves. Dennis Marker, my assistant and traveling companion, turned to some of them and said, "We're Americans."

The laughs from the mostly British passengers showed that they got the joke. American tourism, always so common to Britain, was at an all-time low because the Yanks were afraid of terrorism following the U.S. raid on Libya which Mrs. Thatcher had obediently supported. Thus, few Americans were in the mother country this summer and the few who were became somewhat of an anomaly.

This summer Britain enjoyed one of its warmest and loveliest seasons in years. And the reception we received to our month-long speaking tour of England, Scotland, and Wales was even warmer.

We traveled a total of 3,000 miles and visited 15 cities. In 30 days, I gave approximately 100 talks and 50 interviews. A wonderfully ecumenical planning process, involving many church bodies and organizations, a national steering committee, and local committees, had been active for more than three years. Throughout the tour everyone remarked that it was the first time such a broad range of Christians and churches had been drawn together to work on a common project. Evangelicals were involved along with mainline church leaders and the British Council of Churches. Anglicans, Methodists, and Baptists joined together with Roman Catholics and house church charismatics. Most significant, in my view, was the cooperation between black and white churches which many regarded as a new beginning.

The tour began in London with the preaching of the annual Christian Missionary Society sermon in St. Martin in the Fields Anglican Church, located in Trafalgar Square, right next to South Africa House, Pretoria's embassy in Britain. That proved prophetic, as the situation in South Africa came to loom large over the whole tour, especially after the state of emergency was imposed on June 12. The large, historic church was full, without an empty seat in the house, which also proved telling of things to come during the month.

The first few days in London were full of media events and interviews, video recordings, a session with British MPs (members of Parliament), and one of my favorite pastimes in Britain--eating fish and chips, which I did on my birthday just after arriving.

With press conferences and jet lag over, we began our journey around the country by heading north. Dennis and I were joined by three British partners: Jeanne Hinton, a dear friend, editor of GrassRoots magazine, and one of the original initiators of the tour; Roger Williamson of the British Council of Churches, whose competence, commitment, and companionship proved invaluable; and Alison Lyon, the tour coordinator who held everything together. We traveled most of the way in a white mini-bus, graciously supplied by the London Mennonite Center (my usual hosts when I'm in London). The community we forged during the tour became very vital and sustaining through the rigorous and sometimes grueling schedule.

Coming into Newcastle in England's formerly industrial Northeast, I could quickly see the results of economic recession and massive unemployment. Here we began the youth conferences and sessions with unemployed people we would continue all along the way. In both groups the crying need was for a message of hope. And as participants in Friday night's public meeting began to fill the hotel ballroom and the Sunday afternoon rally at the civic center swelled in numbers, I began to have the feeling that the time just might be right in Britain for the message being brought by the tour.

That was deeply confirmed in Scotland, our next stop, after two days of rest at a Franciscan monastery on the North Sea. Fifteen hundred people overflowed the cathedral in Edinburgh and spilled out into the streets, and more than 1,000 people packed into the church the next night in Glasgow. Daytime seminars for local leaders and clergy, planned for 50 people, drew upwards of 400.

At Glasgow City Hall I received the first civic reception of my life. The radical Labor Party government in that tough, working-class city doesn't think much of either London or Washington and warmly affirmed, "You are the kind of American we are eager to have here." The crowd cheered when I contrasted the warm reception there with the reception I normally get from the civil authorities in my own country.

One of the high points in Scotland was the outdoor service we held next to the Faslane nuclear base, where nuclear weapons are deployed. Before the service a group from the nearby village of Dumbarton, which had recently voted to become a nuclear-free town, presented me with the town's official coat-of-arms! They hoped a coat-of-arms could be transformed into a gift of peace. I loved Scotland and began to get in touch with my own Celtic roots.

In Liverpool we didn't have time to visit the Beatles museum, but we did experience a powerful evening service in the jam-packed town hall. The overwhelming response of the Liverpudlians really touched my heart and endeared me to their unique city with a grassroots and indigenous culture all its own.

From there we traveled across the industrial North to Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, and finally to the beautiful old city of York. The crowds continued to grow and swelled to 2,000 in the Leeds town hall and 1,600 the next night in Bradford, 13 miles away. Here we were joined by an English composer and musician named Garth Hewitt with whom I felt an easy rapport and kindred spirit. The experience again convinced me of the powerful combination of music and the spoken word as two complementary mediums of gospel proclamation.

In Birmingham the planned events went well again, and I was particularly touched by a few individuals who helped me feel the pain of blacks and women in British churches. After so much intense public ministry, Birmingham became a very personal time. It was a real treat to meet Barney Pityana, the closest companion to Steve Biko in the days of South Africa's black consciousness movement. Barney was that movement's intellectual architect and now is an Anglican vicar-in-exile.

I WAS TIRED as I got to Wales, coming near to the end of the trip. But I was captivated by the beauty of the country, where we had two rest days. Though my family has a Welsh heritage, I had never been there before. It was in Wales that, unexpectedly, I found the most well-developed radical Christian movement in all of the United Kingdom. I learned a few words of the indigenous Welsh language, which I found to be quite beautiful, especially when sung. I was drawn to the determined and dissident spirit of the Welsh as well as to their warm hearts and extraordinary hospitality. After hearing their stories of political courage and personal sacrifice, I now know what would have become of me if my family had remained in Wales.

Finally we returned to London for our last few days. Unquestionably for me, one of the greatest moments of the entire tour was the time in East London, sponsored by the black-led churches. Black church members in Britain are principally West Indian and Asian Pentecostals. The service was led by Io Smith, a tireless, powerful woman and church leader, and Philip Mohabir, president of the West Indian Evangelical Association, whose gentle spirit and deep faith are infectious.

As tired as I was, when I finally got up to preach after a long period of worship, I felt lifted up by the Spirit and renewed in energy. I preached one of my best sermons on Matthew 25, which had become the theme text of the tour. The response, the praise, and the worship that followed are something I will never forget.

Philip later remarked that the congregation that night gave him a vision of the "future of the church in Britain," for it was black and white, rich and poor, male and female, Catholic and Protestant, conservative and liberal--"all drawn together by the power of the gospel." That vision is my best memory of the British tour and my best hope for our future.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine.