Who is Ronald MacMillan, MacKenzie Scott, and Metropolitan Epiphanius and why should we care?
REVword readers enjoy engaging with interesting, less widely known individuals.
Ronald MacMillan
People like Dr. Professor Ronald MacMillan.
I’ll bet your favourite meal at your favourite restaurant that you’ve never heard of him before you read this post.
Professor McMillan has enjoyed contrasting careers as a bible smuggler in Cold War Eastern Europe, a pastor in Bristol, England, a journalist in Hong Kong, a trainer of underground preachers in China, a professor of theo
logy in Pakistan, President of an International Speech Tuition Agency, and a Global Analyst for the NGO sector. He has 40 years experience of ministering among persecuted Christians on five continents as a teacher, author and strategist and leading teams for impact.
How’s that for size?
Professor MacMillan thinks it’s important to provide global templates for understanding.
Even at the risk of the exercise inevitably running the gauntlet of oversimplification.
The Global Church
He says, “Here comes our monster – a characterization of the essential and defining dilemmas facing the global suffering church.”
There are five and they take us around the planet.
- How do you church when there is no place to hide? That’s China, and North Korea.
- How do you do church when most everyone wants to leave? That’s the Middle East.
- How do you do church when your neighbour wants to kill you? That’s sub-Saharan Africa.
- How do you do church when your government has changed the culture you no longer feel welcome in the place of your birth? That’s India.
- How do you do church when you have to pay a cartel to keep worshipping? That’s Latin America.
I’ll follow up with links for the last two when they are published and if nothing else, the information helps us understand and pray for the realities of Christian faith today.
MacKenzie Scott
Scott is the 20th wealthiest person in the world. Or was.
Her fortune is shrinking, but it’s by design.
Scott is married to a high school science teacher.
She was married to Jeff Bezos for 25 years. Scott received 4% of the value of Amazon in their divorce settlement, about $35-38 billion.
Immediately after the settlement was finalized, she signed the Giving Pledge to donate at least half of her wealth in her lifetime. To date, she has given away approximately $26 billion.
And she is worth $30 billion, depending on Amazon’s share value. .
She was inspired by this quote from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life:
“The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better… Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
In a world where one person has 1,000 billion dollars and one billion people have less than one thousand dollars, Scott is a rarity. And we need more like her.
You don’t need a lot of money to be generous. In fact, the most generous sector, per capita, is the one in which people have the least wealth.
Metropolitan Epiphanius
Metropolitan Epiphanius is the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).
NOTE: This body is distinct from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which is tied to the Russian Orthodox Church, which is a political tool of the Russian government. Social media will tell you that Ukraine persecutes Christians because of this. Not true.
He has been an outspoken defender of Ukraine. In the early hours of June 15th, Russia rocketed one of the holiest sites in the Christian world – the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra.
Epiphanius characterized the strike on the Lavra as “yet another Russian crime against humanity, against history and against Christianity. What more must the Kremlin’s antichrist do before the world realises that decisive action is needed to bring an end to Russia’s terror against Ukraine and against the very principles of peace?”
Did you find these people interesting? Who do you think is interesting but is not well known? Please join the conversation and post a comment below.
Hope grows here. We share stories that inspire people, build faith, and offer lasting purpose.
We’d love to have you Subscribe to REVwords. We’ll put helpful content into your inbox Mondays and Fridays
Good Morning Pastor Bob: I found these 3 people very interesting. I didn’t know 2/3 people that you mentioned and wrote about. I did know who MacKenIe Scott is. Just because she was married to Jeff Bezos. They went through a divorce that was highly publicized. I am glad that she has remained to be…who she is, through her divorce & after her divorce. It is heartbreaking & emotionally painful to go through a divorce after 25 years of marriage . I know that. I was also a spouse, that went through a divorce after 25 years of marriage. Devastating. I hope she is happy now. I am happily divorced for 17 years now. Only looking forward, to what God has in store for me. No looking back. “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades”…the name of a song…that I taught a Jazzercise routine to…in the 80’s. Have a great day! ❤️ Thank you for sharing this blog with us. Keep on, keeping on.
You have so much lived experience, Julie. I appreciate your hopeful attitude and love for people.
An interesting one for sure Bob. Your last line is the one that I keep asking myself and wish their was a way small people like me could unit with others like me and get this question going virtual.
“What more must the Kremlin’s antichrist do before the world realises that decisive action is needed to bring an end to Russia’s terror against Ukraine and against the very principles of peace?”” Bob Jones
Would it be enough to just to post the question on each of our facebook page?? Anybody want to join me?
I found all three quite interesting. All three are contributing to this world. They are all giving in different ways, whether it be the financially, spiritually, or righteously. Very inspirational for others to see.
I also liked how Mr.MacMillin used the word “church “as a verb.. so many challenges around the world. But it brings to mind that the word. “ church.” is an action, just as love is an action. To truly love someone, is to show them God. And to show God to someone, is to church them.
You need to make sure that we are churching people every day.
Yes, church in a good way, is a verb. Glad you found these people to be interesting. Your name should be on a list like that.
Now that would get some social media traction.