Wales – the land of male voice choirs, coal mines, and of course the land of revivals. This is the picture that comes to mind for most people who live outside the nation when Wales is mentioned – that’s if they’ve ever heard of the place at all. Well hold on right there – they shut down the mines in the 1980s, the choirs prefer to sing pop songs to traditional hymns, and we haven’t had a revival for over a hundred years. Wales has changed a lot since Evan Roberts’ day and the very chapels that reverberated to the passionate hymn-singing of the 1904-05 spiritual awakening are in a perilous state.

That’s not to say that there is no new church life in the land – there is. But most of that is conducted through the English language with very little contact between the newer churches and the older, Welsh speaking congregations. It is partly a theological issue – with evangelicalism being almost a swear word in the chapels. But it is also a question of language – for many chapel-going people, to allow the use of English in their services would be unacceptable. In many areas of Wales – and especially in the Welsh speaking heartlands of the north-west – there is a significant division in the community between Welsh and English.

This is understandable, of course, when one considers the history of England’s involvement in Wales. Ever since the first Anglo-Saxons landed in ancient Britain the Celtic people have been pushed further and further west and north and their languages have been slowly killed off – partly through deliberate acts of policy by English kings and politicians. Much has been done since the 1960s to reverse this trend but the language remains in a perilous state and there is still a feeling that any progress has to be hard-fought for.

Despite some progress, however, our history still affects and infects the present – even in the church. So what would Big Tent Christianity look like for us in Wales? It would mean both English and Welsh Christians finding each other, recognising their shared faith in Jesus, acknowledging past wrongs, and forgiving the damage done. It may not necessarily mean one uniform church for all, for God’s diverse creation includes language as well as everything else. But it does mean that together we would build kingdom as a reconciled people, thus providing hope for a divided world.

Working for reconciliation between people groups is a must for the church, for our reconciliation to God lies at the heart of who we are. Allowing wounds to fester and divisions to remain is a denial not only of our calling to do but of our calling to be – one body in Christ. Therefore, let there be room for all who follow Jesus in this big tent.

This post was written as part of the synchroblogging event in preparation of the Big Tent Christianity conference in North Carolina on 8-9 September this year.