A universal experience throughout history is the decisive, unimpeded transformation of landscapes and people by the ever expanding forces of civilization. The arrival of civilization has been greeted by indigenous peoples with both curiosity and utter dread. While in many cases, Christianity has been complicit in the destruction wrought by civilization, Christianity in its best form has served as a mediating influence, between the destructive forces of civilization and the people upon whom these forces are unleashed. In Margaret Craven’s I Heard the Owl Call My Name, Vicar Mark Brian finds himself standing between the modernizing forces of civilization and the traditions of the Kingcome Indian village as western civilization quickly encroaches upon its way of life.The vicar had to quickly learn how to utilize Church administration in carrying out this mission. What becomes apparent as one reads through Craven’s story is that the Church and its agents, can provide comfort and strength and introduce new possibilities for people and communities caught in the path of crushing modernity, which is all of us.
Administration can be defined as the structured manner in which the Church and its agents carries out its work in the world. Effective administration was key to the vicar in carrying out his ministry in the village of Kingcome. The people of the village of Kingcome were watching the vicar to see if he was caring, capable and committed. As the vicar’s mentor advised him, the people of the villagers“will all watch you…”, and, depending on how successfully he utilized the Church’s administrative structure, they “will accept or reject you.” (11). With the vicar’s Church structure there existed the loving oversight of episcopal hierarchy. The vicar was sent and guided by a bishop. The vicar sent regular communications to the Bishop, but only as necessary and always with a loving and deferential tone. Yet, the vicar had enough political savvy to push the Bishop on his needs in the village, abut he was always willing to receive and respect the Bishop’s feedback and direction. One example of the vicar’s communication savviness relates to the dilapidated vicarage. The vicar discovered early that the vicarage was falling down, but he realized that repairs would come only in due time, when all parties involve were ready, including the Bishop and the villagers. Orchestrating repairs would require the Bishop’s financial support and the villagers’ labor (35). Vicar Brian gently kept the issue on the mind of the Bishop through letters that communicated his concerns and desires regarding the vicarage, and only after a series of struggles and trials that bonded the vicar with the villagers did Chief Eddy come to the vicar and tell him, “the men have asked me to tell you that when you are ready to build a new vicarage, they will help you.” (87).
A very basic element of the vicar’s administration was his charge to be the face of the ecclesial structure to the broader community, including the village and beyond. Many of the vicar’s responsibilities were mundane in nature, such as picking up freight, the mail and supplies and attending to minor accidents but also responding to major emergencies that occurred in the village. The vicar had connections with the modern world of transportation logistics, supplies and information. He utilized these connections to benefit the village.T he vicar also learned to rely on locals in the village. He could not carry out the administration of his ministry alone (120).
Effective administration also led to community engagement. The vicar’s Church had a structure in place to connect the village to the modern world. The Bishop provided oversight. Caleb, the vicar’s clergy mentor, and the vicar served in this vertical and horizontal chain of connecting people with resources. As an extension of this structure, the vicar’s social map involved a complex community of villagers, Indian Affairs bureaucrats, leaders, the Bishop who sent him, and the outside world at large that was rapidly encroaching upon Kingcome. The vicar had to learn quickly how to work among these various people and anticipate and resolve conflicts at unexpected intersections. Ms. Hudson, a local village woman, for example, saw the vicar’s arrival as giving her social prestige, because his arrival meant the Bishop and a coterie of clergy would accompany him and need to be fed, which is what Ms. Hudson delighted in doing. The hierarchy of the Church mattered a great deal to Ms. Hudson. Another example of the importance of administration was the rules and rituals surrounding burials. The vicar learned that he and the locals must receive a burial permit from government authorities when a villager dies. Vicar Brian assumed funeral services would be conducted in Church, but the villagers insisted they be in the open air according to local tradition. The vicar also had to incorporate professional mourners and the shouting of the village elder as part of the burial service. All of this was outside the usual administration of the Church regarding burials, but the vicar was savvy and caring enough to remain flexible.
Administration guides mission, and mission can guide administration, so it is important to clarify the purpose of Vicar Brian’s ministry. The Bishop had two purposes for the vicar’s mission. First, the Bishop intended the mission to minister to the vicar himself. At the beginning of the story, a doctor diagnosed the vicar with a terminal illness, but the doctor did not share the information with the vicar, only with the bishop. The bishop understood that this will be the vicar’s first and last mission. By sending the vicar to the bishop’s “hardest parish,” the vicar will get to experience in a short period what would take a lifetime for other vicars to experience (9). Also, the bishop, looking back on his own ministry, says that if he were young he would want to go to such a place as Kingcome. This is an example of episopal administration providing loving oversight of its clergy.
Regarding the second purpose of the vicar’s mission, the vicar is instructed to go to Kingcome to “be on patrol of the Indian villages” (9). In time, it becomes clear that the vicar’s mission is to serve as a bridge, as a mediator, between the ancient village of Kingcome and the modern world pounding against its shores. The vicar was a liaison between the old world and the new world that was coming. The vicar did not particularly like the values of the new world that was coming, but these values were ascending nonetheless.
The tensions of these two colliding worlds were manifest in the villagers’ relationship with government schools and with the introduction of liquor to the village. Tension could be felt in the village when young men returned from the government school in a far away country. They spoke English, not the native language, and they were embarrassed by the local customs and myths of the villagers. They no longer listened to the elders. When Gordon left for Vancouver to attend government school, the old villagers knew it was “another bit of the slow dying of all they hold dear in their own race” (107). The vicar tried to mitigate the harm that the government school meant for village tradition. He also found it important to promote the school’s role in providing opportunities for young villagers who would need modern skills and education to survive in the coming world.
Vicar Brian understood the dangers the encroaching modern world posed for the villagers and did what he could do to prepare villagers for the modern world, but it was not always enough. Ms. Hudson’s granddaughter, while away at school, decided to marry a white man. The white man visited the village and gave liquor to the villagers. He took financial advantage of the villagers and then left with Ms. Hudson’s granddaughter. Ms. Hudson said to Mark, “What have you done to us? What has the white man done to our young?” (73). Ms. Hudson’s granddaughter experienced the worst that the new civilization offered, as she ended up abandoned, penniless and destitute. Pastors, in spite of their best intentions and efforts, will sometimes find themselves on the receiving end of criticism and condemnation born of the pain of the people. Fortunately, the structure of the vicar’s Church allowed for his appointment to the village, rather than he being called by the village to serve. This clergy appointment system, which is also present in the United Methodist structure, assured the vicar that he could serve in a loving but strong and sometimes risky manner. As Paul wrote to Timothy, “Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of truth” (2 Timothy 2:25 NIV).
The vicar’s role as mediator of cultures became apparent when the vicar spoke with an anthropologist who visited the village and told the vicar it was a shame that Christianity had come to the village and threatened its culture and way of life. The vicar responded that “no village, no culture, can remain static.” (103). The vicar understood that the administration of the Church must position the Church as a bridge between dying cultures and dominating cultures, old and new eras, hurting peoples and possibilities for healing. When in Vancouver, Mark met with old college friends and realized how materialistic they had become. He realized the Church must reject materialism in order to uphold the loving community, such as existed in Kingcome. In the village, everyone came to Church, villagers, agnostics and atheists alike, because “there were few settlers in a six thousand square mile area who had not been done kindness by the Church.” (108).
Can Vicar Mark’s mission inform the mission and ministry of pastors today? In each generation, civilization steamrolls its way over existing cultures, compelling people to make way for new, if not always positive, realities, and the Church always finds itself mitigating, through the power of God’s love, the effects of unsettling cultural, economic and social change. For the past several decades, many pastors and priests have found themselves serving as mediators between the remaining relics of Christendom and the new post-Christian society. Pastors strive to nurture and encourage aging congregations that look back fondly on a golden age of filled pews and children in the aisles. Yet, these same pastors must proclaim the Gospel in ways that penetrate to the heart of people who do not know Christ, who do not speak the language of the Church and who do not know the stories and context of Christianity that were painted across our culture up until only a generation ago.
All Churches experience the tension of Kingcome. We love and respect our heritage and traditions, but we cannot ignore that the steamroller of civilization approaches and requires of us creative and fresh approaches to survive and thrive in the new reality. Kingcome had its civilizing government schools and hard liquor with which to contend. We have social media, opioids, violence and cultural decadence. One thing is for sure, “The tribe is going to trade its simplicity for the shiny gadgetry of our complex world, and it will not be so content…” (127). The Church’s mission is to always finds itself in the midst of that discontent, pick up the broken pieces and lead people broken by the steamroller to the healing person of Jesus Christ. If pastors do this mediating business correctly, we will identify and develop persons within the Church who can serve as a bridge between the ancient wisdom of the Church and God’s eternal truth and the frightening uncertainties of the encroaching civilization.
One evening Vicar Brian visits with the wise village elder Marta and tells her, “On the bank of the river I heard the owl call my name” (149). At first, it sounds like an omen of death, which in some ways it was. The vicar was going to die soon, just as the village was dying. Yet, the call of the owl was also a call to life. We are called to die to the old in order for Christ to make something new. This calling operates in the individual and in the administration of the larger Church.
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