MOISSON IMPOSSIBLE? 1 CHRISTIAN MISSION IN 21ST CENTURY FRANCE By Gerard Kelly November 2001 1 ‘Impossible harvest?’ TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................................4 Part 1: Background Information ................................................................................10 Chapter One: CMS .......................................................................................10 Chapter Two: The Research Process ............................................................13 Chapter Three: Mission to the West? ............................................................18 Part 2: Three Themes Explored ................................................................................26 Chapter Four: Strangers in a Strange Land on being foreign in France ......................................................28 Chapter Five: Rifts Ancient and Modern the Christian denominations of France ....................................40 Chapter Six: Génération Salle-d’Attente? the emerging culture and context of ‘young France’ .................55 Part 3: Conclusions for the Practise of Mission .........................................................71 Chapter Seven: Learn to Listen: Listen to Learn mission as cultural engagement ..........................................73 Chapter Eight: Going Empty-Handed mission as cultural servanthood ...........................................77 Chapter Nine: Unfamiliar paths mission as cultural innovation ..............................................81 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................85 Appendix 1: Consultation Participants .......................................................................89 Appendix 2: Summary of Consultation Outcomes .....................................................91 Introduction ‘Now and for the foreseeable future, Europe is unintelligible without knowledge of its historic communities: who they are, where they live, what makes them different from their neighbours, how their people identify themselves, how they fit – and have fitted at successive re-shakings – into the patterns of Europe’s political kaleidoscope’. Felipe Fernandez–Armesto2 “The French constitute the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation in Europe and the best qualified in turn to become an object of admiration, hatred, pity or terror, but never indifference.” Alexis de Tocqueville3 ‘l’Exception française’ When Bob Dylan celebrated his 60th birthday in 2001, his life and career were honoured in many parts of the world. His 42nd album, 1997’s Time out of Mind, had been a commercial and critical success in both the USA and the UK, winning three Grammy Awards including album of the year. But in France, the celebrations were all but unnoticed and the album sales extremely low4. No French radio station was willing to include Dylan’s new material in its playlists and even the Ministry of Culture, when asked for an opinion on the American’s life and work, replied only that the Minister ‘had better things to do’ than to comment on Dylan5. None of this would be remarkable if it wasn’t for the fact that in his heyday Dylan had a huge following in 2 Fernandez–Armesto, Felipe (Ed.) The Times Guide to the Peoples of Europe, London: times Books, 1994, p 7 3 Quoted in Adamson Taylor, Sally, Culture Shock: France, London: Kuperard, 1991, p7 4 “Dylan: l’Exception française” in ‘Témoignage Chrétien’, Paris, August 9th, 2001 5 ‘Vous ne penser pas qu’un ministre de la culture a autre chose a faire que de parler de Bob Dylan?’ Spokesperson for the Ministry of Culture, Paris, quoted in ibid. p6 France. For many of the ‘soixante-huitards’ – the students and intellectuals who in 1968 brought Paris to its knees with their protests – Dylan was a prophet, poet and cultural icon: as lauded in France as in any other nation6. The collapse of Dylan’s following in France points to issues of culture and national identity far deeper than simple questions of musical taste. “The contrast of musical styles hides the cultural opposition between the French and Anglo-Saxon worlds”, comments the magazine ‘Témoignage Chrétien’7. Whereas successive generations of French young people are influenced by the latest fashions and styles of Britain and America, there is another, perhaps deeper sense in which such imports are resisted. Jean-Patrick Laurent comments that the culture of ‘rock and rebellion’ that swept into France from Britain and the USA in the 1960’s was ‘an implant’ that never took root deeply.8 Anglo-Saxon influences are contested in preference for a deeply held – though unevenly articulated - French identity. The Bulgarian linguist Julia Kritsteva, now resident in Paris, speaks of the ‘strong sense of their own identity’ through which the French tend to push foreigners ‘to the margins’9. Centred partly but not entirely on 6 ‘Apres avoir été une star en France et dans le monde, un symbole de rébellion pour toute une génération, cette dernière semble l’avoir jeté avec l’eau du bain soixante-huitard’ – [‘After being a star in France and in the world, a symbol of rebellion for an entire generation, this same generation seem to have thrown him out with the bath-water of 1968’ ] ibid., p6 7 ‘Cette opposition de styles musicaux cache l’opposition culturelle entre l’hexagone et le monde anglo-saxon’ – [‘This contrast between musical styles hides the deeper cultural contrast between France and the Anglo-Saxon world.’] ibid. p8 8 ‘C’était une vrai culture aux USA et en Grande-Bretagne, mais en France, ce n’était qu’un implant qui n’a pas pris en profondeur.’ [‘It was a real culture in the USA and Britain, but in France, it was only an implant that never took root deeply.’] Jean-Patrick Laurent, Oui FM, quoted in ibid. p8 9 ‘finalement les Français ont un sentiment très fort de leur propre identité, de sorte que l’étranger est constamment et immédiatement repéré, mis en marge.’ [‘Ultimately the French have a very strong sense of their own identity, so much so that the foreginer is constantly and quickly pushed aside to the margins.’] Quoted in de Turckheim, Amélie, Premières Impressions de France, Paris : Editions Ifrane, 1995, p153 language10, this resistance to exterior influences runs deep in the French psyche, and militates against cultural imports at a number of levels. The expression ‘l’Exception Française ’ is used to describe a widely noted tendency to resist external, even global, trends in favour of uniquely French cultural formulations11. In a sense the area described as “l’hexagone”12 is not a geographical territory at all but a cultural construct, rich in history and strongly loved by its inhabitants13 . It is in this sense that Bob Dylan might well serve as a metaphor or icon for the fortunes of Christian mission in France. Where mission originates from the Anglo- Saxon world14 a similar pattern is often seen. Whilst there may be evidence of an initial or superficial acceptance of a ‘foreign gospel’, in the long-term there is resistance, with missionaries from Britain and North America reporting time after time the unexpected indifference of French people to methods and techniques of mission that in other contexts have known significant success. It is in this context that we must ask the question; do Christian missionaries from the UK have a role in France? If so, what steps can be taken to overcome cultural obstacles and build a genuine engagement with French people? Should the goal of 10 “… Nothing of significance happens in France without lengthy discussion and deliberation… in French. The biggest single reason people have negative experiences in France is: they will not or cannot speak the language.” Adamson Taylor, 1991, p31 11 See for instance ‘La fin des exceptions françaises’ in Capital magazine, Paris, August 1999 pp78-79 12 ‘Politically, the Western Kingdom or Francia is the direct ancestor of the modern French state and its outline provides an historical underpinning to the popular, if inaccurate image of France today as a hexagon’. Fernandez-Armesto, p99 13 “Foreigners have to remind themselves they are not dealing with a country that really exists … but with a country that most Frenchmen dream still exists.” Luigi Barzini, The Europeans quoted in Adamson Taylor, 1991, p11 14 In terms of Protestant Evangelical mission this has been the predominant case throughout the 20th century mission in France be abandoned as a lost cause: or are there ways in which missionaries from the UK can climb the steep hill of acceptance to create an interaction with real value and potential? The research on which this report is based emerged from the desire of the London- based Church Mission Society to consider just these questions. One of the longest established mission agencies in the United Kingdom15; CMS has in very recent years begun to explore the potential for Christian mission in Europe itself. Part of the society’s response was to commission a two-year research project from the ‘Theology and Popular Culture’ Unit of King’s College, London. The brief was to examine the criteria by which the cultures of 21st Century Europe can now be considered ‘receiving fields’ for Christian mission, and to explore the role that a UK-based mission agency can have in response. As is explained in greater detail below, the question of mission in France formed a central element in this wider research project. Sources The questions being raised by CMS on