Tag Archives: dependency

Books I have Read: We Are Not the Hero

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A few evenings ago, we had dinner with a friend who has been involved with a developing mission movement in one corner of the world. Over many years, our friend and her colleagues have been patiently building relationships with local church leaders and supporting them as they get involved in reaching outside of their church boundaries. Our friend feels that they are at a point where things are about to really take off.

At the same time, she fears for the future of the work they are doing. A large, US based agency is looking to come into the country and ostensibly support this new mission movement. However, this support comes with strings. In particular, this agency wants to get things done quickly and years of patient building relationship building are being sidelined in the hurry to get things done. Younger, tech-savvy guys are given preference to older, wiser and more respected local leaders – something which just isn’t done in that culture. And so it goes on.

The leaders of this large agency would do well to read We Are Not the Hero by Jean Johnson. Subtitled A missionary’s guide for sharing Christ, not a culture of dependency, this hard hitting book takes a good look at some of the mistakes commonly made by Western missionaries working in the minority world. However, this is not a “let’s beat up the missionaries” sort of book. For the most part it is full of excellent advice and suggestions as to a more positive way forward. Many of the books I mention here are of a reflective or theoretical nature. We Are Not the Hero has a good theoretical underpinning, but is extremely practical in nature.

One might have thought that things had moved on and that we don’t need books like this anymore – sadly, this is not the case.I’m not sure that I’d want to make it compulsory for all Western missionaries to read this – but they’d better have a really good excuse if they don’t!

Thanks to Nora for drawing my attention to this book (when are you going to start blogging again?).

First World Problems

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This short video (just over two minutes) has a very powerful message…

but…

I have to admit that I’m rather uneasy with the way this important message is got across.

Firstly, I don’t like the terms first world and third world; I know that they are easily understood, but they seem to imply a value judgement that I don’t like.  Perhaps I’m just being picky.

More importantly, the video gives a somewhat distorted picture of life in Africa. Surprisingly enough, there are many people in rural Africa who have mobile phones and who share all of the same frustrations about network coverage and keeping the phone charged that we do in the West.

However, the key thing is that this video presents the relationship between the ‘first’ and ’third’ worlds as being one dimensional. We don’t have real problems, they do. I’m not implying for one moment that there is no terrible grinding poverty in Africa – there is. But, if I can permit myself a generalisation, most Africans live lives which are richer in human relationships and connectedness than most Westerners. The loneliness, isolation and depression that are endemic in European cities – especially for the elderly – are relatively unknown in Africa.

Yes, we can help provide water (try sponsoring me in the London Marathon), but we also have a lot to learn from the developing world. The world is more complex than a short video can express.

 

Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles

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At the moment, the BBC is showing the remarkable David Attenborough series “Africa”; all beautiful scenes and amazing animals. However, as is often the case, the Africa of the nature documentary seems more or less devoid of people.

If you would like to know more about the human side of the continent, you could do far worse than start with Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles by Richard Dowden.

Africa is huge and incredibly diverse and no book (even one of 550 pages) can hope to cover every aspect of African life. However, over 18 chapters, most of which are inspired by events in a particular country, this book gives a pretty good introduction to the current situation across sub-Saharan Africa.

Though it doesn’t shy away from war, corruption and poverty, this is predominantly optimistic book. It points to beacons of hope and development which are rarely mentioned in the west because they don’t fit the agenda of the media and aid agencies). For that reason alone, I’d love to see more people reading this book.

The book is told through a mixture of the author’s own traveller’s tales and reflections on national and international politics. Individual stories and global geopolitics are interspersed seamlessly to give a fascinating picture, which is never dull to read.

It would be easy to complain about things which are not in the book (there is not enough about Côte d’Ivoire and Mali for my liking), but this is unfair. The book never claims to be comprehensive.

Sections on the growth of the African middle classes and the use of technology (especially the mobile phone) and the growth of Chinese influence across the continent seem to indicate that Africa will be a very different place through the 21st century than it was in the 20th. Though the fact that the American response to Chinese commercial activity in the area has been to put a regional military force in place is rather worrying.

Africa is far bigger and more diverse than Europe, with a fascinating and complex history. If your idea of Africa is limited to elephants, giraffes and grass huts, you should probably read buy Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles!

Wrestling With Onesimus 6: Conclusion

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I’ve spent a while looking at Onesimus excellent post entitled:  When Missions Becomes Toxic; or, Um, They Don’t Need Us Anymore and now it is time to look at the conclusion.

The bottom line is that, if we Westerners don’t get out of the way, the churches of Africa and Asia and Latin America will remain the spiritual infants and self-absorbed teenagers that many of them really are.  I was a teenager once, and I remember seething with resentment when a parent forced me away from entertaining myself with TV and music and from stuffing my face with all manner of junk food and made me work as a responsible family member.  With all our faults, we in the West have been instrumental in relaunching Christianity as a global religion.  But our current posture is no longer healthy.  That movement now needs desperately to stand on its own two feet and be made to use limbs and muscles that have been coddled so long that they seem to have atrophied.  We’ve been addicted to each other for way too long.  And as long as we are around, we (the West and its ‘resources’) will be your (non-Western Christians’) preferred drug of choice, rather than learning what every other legitimate disciple and church of our Lord has had to learn, that his call means that each one of us pick up our cross and follow him to our deaths.  Our imported business models of ministry success have persuaded too many non-Western Christians that the cross can finally be avoided and that victory is ours for the grasping.  But this sort of hyper-over-realized eschatology is little more than the ‘American Dream’ writ large, which actually is one of the devil’s more effective delusions.

There are three basic reasons why I believe that Onesimus’ call on a moratorium of Western missions to Africa (and perhaps more broadly) is mistaken. The first is pragmatic and the second two are theological.

I am not convinced that the African (or Southern church, generally) is in such a parlous state as Onesimus seems to imply. He makes some valid criticisms, but I know from my own experience that this is not the full story. There are real strengths and real dynamism in the African Church. Equally, the Western church is not as strong as we might like to think it is. As Onesimus points out, we have bought into the American dream or into a materialist mindset more generally.

The thing is, that the Church in Africa and the Church in the West both have their strengths and weaknesses. Onesimus says, “ We’ve been addicted to each other for way too long”. But I think he has missed the central issue. The church in the West and the church in Africa need each other. We should be interdependent; we can help each other.

The second reason I disagree with Onesimus is that Scripture makes it clear that rich Christians have an obligation to help those who are living in poverty. There is a responsibility placed upon those of us in the rich world to support those who are materially less well off. I recognise all of the issues of dependency and these have to be faced up to, but this does not take away our responsibility towards our brothers and sisters.

Finally, I believe that Onesimus has fundamentally misunderstood the nature and motivation for mission. Simon captured this well in a comment on an earlier post in this series.

The issue of dependency and the calls for moratorium come up periodically in missionary thought. But if you work with the assumption that mission is something that we do because it is a reflection of God’s own character, then moratorium does not make any sense. God works in covenantal partnership. That’s his character. As I wrote elsewhere, “we cannot imagine a world in which God leaves humanity to grow up and sort things out on its own for a while. Paternalism in mission is unacceptable, but equally we must lay to rest the idea that maturity means independence. Growing must be done together, however cumbersome and awkward this may seen, for it is only together that partners in mission can `decisively impinge upon and affect’ one another in a spirit of inter-dependence.”

When Onesimus argues that we should stop missionary activity because of the impact it is having, he is dangerously close to falling into the modernist, managerial models of missiology that he he is actually criticising. Our mission is a participation in the life and mission of the Triune God.

None of this is to disagree with Onesimus’ contention that the relationship between the Western and African churches has been unhealthy. However, the answer to an unhealthy relationship is not to break the relationship off, but to address the underlying issues.

  • We need to address our theology of mission. As long as we present mission as an activity which we perform in order to make a difference to the rest of the world, then issues of paternalism and dependency will continue. We need to realise that mission is God’s work and that we are called to participate in it. This sort of thinking (which I’ve outlined in Kouya.net many times – try this one for starters) needs to infuse the life of mission agencies from recruitment and fund-raising through to our teaching and life on the field. When we say to people that they are able to change the future for people on the other side of the globe, we’ve already lost the plot. Only God can do this – though he may graciously use our money or time in achieving his purposes.
  • We need to develop true mutually beneficial partnerships.(Or as Simon says, we need to be inter-dependant.)  All too often, missionaries and agencies use the term partnership in a one dimensional sense. “We are partnering with a Church in Africa to give them X”. The problem with this sort of thing is that it perpetuates the myth that only the African church is in need of receiving. Were the church in the West prepared to listen; it could learn a huge amount about the place of suffering, the reality of faith, effective evangelism and much more, from brothers and sisters in the South. If we could learn to create truly mutually beneficial partnerships rather than (to put it crudely) one side giving and the other side receiving, we would be able to avoid many of the dangers that Onesimus has rightly highlighted.

No one says this is easy. Onesimus is right to point out that the Western (particularly American) missions movement has a huge momentum and a lot of investment in the current way of doing things. However, If we are to faithfully participate with God in his mission and play our role in the new reality of the global church, we are going to have to do things differently.

Wrestling with Onesimus: Maturity

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This is my penulitmate post interacting with When Missions Becomes Toxic; or, Um, They Don’t Need Us Anymore from Onesimus.

Thirdly, it is long past time for local Christians to take responsibility for their own churches and training and programs.  This is happening in some places, like India for example, where for years missionaries were forbidden by the government from operating as ‘missionaries.’  Local Christians were forced to take responsibility for themselves.  And while not perfect, there is a maturity among many Indian Christians that is refreshing.  And if taking responsibility for one’s own Christian life and one’s own local church or ‘ministry’ means some churches and schools and programs fail, then it likely means that they were not viable to begin with, at least on the grandiose scales they were conceived when an open tap of resources from the West was assumed.  And if it means that Christianity evaporates from some areas, then that should tell us that whatever ‘Christian’ things were going on there before were not making real contact with the lives of real people.  There comes a point when local Christians must take responsibility for their own fellowship and mission.  If something cannot happen without Western funding and staffing, then should it be happening at all?

Once again, Onesimus has raised an important point, and once again he has pushed it too far. It is undeniable that “ local Christians to take responsibility for their own churches and training and programs”.  But by implying that this isn’t happening in Africa is simply not true. Yes, more could be done and the pace of change could be quicker. I have the privilege of knowing many African Christians who are leading churches, translation organisations and mission agencies in Africa. There are Western missionaries working for some of these organisations, but their programmes and activities are defined and managed by the African leadership under whom they serve.

Onesimus makes a good and important point; but it isn’t the whole story.

Wrestling With Onesimus 4: Missions

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This is the fourth in my series looking at a post from Onesimus:  When Missions Becomes Toxic; or, Um, They Don’t Need Us Anymore. In this one we are looking at the second of his reasons for suggesting that Western missionary work in Africa should draw to a halt.

Secondly, this sort of dynamic works the other way, too.  There are too many Western mission organizations and NGOs who, except for spiritualized lingo, have become little more than giant corporations, with layers of management, following every leadership and management trend, focused on the bottom line and becoming ever more efficient in connecting donors with the product as well as expanding the market for the product (i.e. the field/area in which we missionaries or NGO people can ‘serve’).  We’ve become increasingly a missions and aid industry, with our own versions of success and upward mobility, jetting all over the globe to this and that conference, looking always to expand our ability to raise ever more money to fund our salaries and lifestyles and ‘ministries’.  We’ve made ourselves indispensible by convincing ourselves and our donors (and our clients) that we really are not only necessary, but the best, most efficient, most biblical and most convenient way to get whatever done.  We’ve done a superb job of creating a market for what we have to offer.  Some ‘missions’ in the countries where I have lived have been there for 80, 90, 100 years and more.

Once again, there is a good deal of truth in what Onesimus says here. One of my friends reacted to this on Facebook by writing:

His comments about how mission organisations have become like multinational corporations rang a few bells… especially as I’ve been reading an early Wycliffe book about how the team heading to start work in a country had $90 in the account and said that was sufficient because God would provide what they needed. Oh to return to those faith-filled days.

That sort of idealism is almost impossible in these litigious days. Organisations like Wycliffe have to be able to demonstrate that they are taking appropriate care of their staff and not exposing them to unnecessary risks. When donors give money to support translation projects we have to be able to report back to both the donors and the government and prove that the money is being well spend. In this day and age, there is an amount of bureaucracy and red tape that can’t be avoided.

However, once again, I fear that Onesimus’ reaction is extreme. The answer to bad practice is to do things better (though that can be difficult).  I would suggest that there are a couple of things that need to be looked at:

  1. We need to be prepared to close down programmes or organisations when their purpose is fulfilled. It is far too easy for a Christian organisation to concentrate most of its energy on self-preservation; to lose focus on mission and the call of God. We need to be prepared to call a halt and not to simply carry on doing things because that is what we do.
  2. We need a thorough going theological review of our activities and our fund raising strategies. There is a huge temptation to place human activity at the centre of things, rather than God’s providence. We can fall into statements such as ‘your gift can change the future for people’, or ‘we are making a difference to the Church around the world’. Well it can’t and we aren’t. God may graciously choose to use your gift and he may work through our organisation  but he is the one who makes the difference. I’m not just being picky here. A great deal of modern management and fund-raising technique effectively squeezes God out of the equation. When we do this, our organisations take Centre stage in a way which is not helpful to our work or to the organisations themselves.

Wrestling With Onesimus 3: Dependency

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This is the next instalment of my long series interacting with Onesimus’ post  When Missions Becomes Toxic; or, Um, They Don’t Need Us Anymore.

Onesimus gives three reasons why he believes that it is time to draw Western missionary involvement in Africa to a close. This post looks at the first of these and starts off with a long quote:

First, our continuing presence as mission organizations actively facilitates a church-killing dependence among the Christians we are supposedly trying to help.  In the churches of sub-Saharan Africa that I am most familiar with, many if not most Christians have never learned to give in a way that enables them to support a local church that is actually sustainable.  We in the West never let them.  For the most part, we dictated what their churches would look like, what their leadership structures should look like, what their ministry programs should look like, what their staffing needs should look like, what their theological education programs should look like, and as long as we were around, we could make it happen.  But take Western money away and all these components collapse of their own unsustainable weight.  And so we rush back in with our ‘resources’ (read money and ‘free’ staff) and thereby keep the plates all spinning until the local churches can keep them spinning on their own (according to our standards of how fast they should be spinning, of course).  But notice in all of this, we from the West simply assumed what was needed and then imposed it on the nascent Christian movements of the non-West.  In the spheres of politics and economics, this is referred to as colonialism.  This sort of intervention has long been understood as disastrous for the economic and political development of sub-Saharan African countries.  It’s time to acknowledge that the ongoing uncritical spiritual colonization of Africa is having just as devastating effects on the long-term health and viability of the African Christian movements.  The problem is, too many African Christians have developed a taste for Western Christian money and programs and education and the local status that comes with being associated with such money, programs and education.  We have created institutions that are perceived by those involved with them as being ‘too big to fail’, as well as created an entire class of dependents who would be destitute were we no longer around to pay the salaries or provide the scholarships or fund the aid programs.

Once again, it is difficult to argue with what Onesimus says. Many others (including myself – for a list of posts click here) have written about the way in which missionaries can create dependency amongst those they are supposed to be serving. Perhaps some of the best treatments of this subject are contained in Glenn Schartz’ book When Charity Destroys Dignity and from a secular angle, Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo.

However, the fact that mission work can (and does) create dependency does not do away with the responsibility of Christians to help and support one another. In particular, those of us who are rich (and if you live in the West, that means you) are called upon to help and support those who are less well off. Our response to the distortions caused by the current way of doing things should not be to throw the baby out with the bathwater and to stop supporting others altogether; we need to find a new way of working. One which avoids the problems that Onesimus rightly notes.

It is also important to note that while the issues that Onesimus raises are real, they are not universal. Missionary work does not inevitably create dependency. One size does not fit all.

Wrestling With Onesimus 2: Imports

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This is the next post in my series trying to get to grips with Onesimus post: When Missions Becomes Toxic; or, Um, They Don’t Need Us Anymore.

It is quite obvious, that Onesimus has some serious reservations about the impact of the Western mission movement:

Now that I’ve been here (on the ‘field’) for a while, I am realizing that we Western missionaries are not the wonderful blessing from heaven to all these poor and lost people that we like to think of ourselves as.  While we have been certainly busy ‘preaching the gospel’ all these years, we’ve actually succeeded in reproducing some of our less savory attributes much more than anybody is admitting.  Most people who come here as missionaries only know what they know and do not know what they don’t know.  While this is endearing in children, it’s been disastrous on the mission field.  We have reproduced not just our seriously inculturated Western understanding of ‘the gospel’, but we have also reproduced our various and seriously inculturated understandings of the church as well.  The problem is, most of us missionaries have really not thought that much about what sort of ‘church’ we are planting, assuming this to be obvious.  As a result, we have succeeded merely in passing on our ignorances and prejudices, all dressed up as Bible truth.  We came here as Baptists (of multiple sorts), Presbyterians, Methodists, Bible Church Independents, Brethren, Pentecostals, Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, etc, etc, and wonder of wonders is it not surprising that we have succeeded in importing all of our Western arguments and divisions and prejudices in spades.  We excuse our differences by calling them ‘distinctives’ and by saying that they are essentially adiaphora (matters of indifference)—especially youradiaphora—but then fight like the devil when someone actually presumes to treat our distinctives as adiaphora (‘no, really, believer baptism is necessary to be a real NT Christian!’).

To be honest, it is hard not to agree with much of this. I don’t know how many different protestant denominations we saw in Ivory Coast, but it was certainly far more than were needed. It seemed that each mission agency, denominational or non-denominational planted churches after their own image and that different Churches hardly talked to each other. How many baptist denominations does a small country need? I lost count of them! The historical and cultural realities which gave birth to our various denominations are irrelevant outside of the West.

Onesimus is right, to highlight this negative side of mission activity. Division is the besetting sin of Protestantism and it is a great shame that we have exported our divisions and our local concerns into the wider world. However, I’m not convinced by the solutions that Onesimus has to offer.

  • Onesimus, himself, has left the divided world of Protestanism behind and become an orthodox Christian. That is a solution, certainly, but it’s not one that I’m prepared to take or to advocate for a variety of reasons.
  • The broader solution is a moratorium on foreign missions. I will, eventually, get on to why I don’t agree with this idea – but let’s park it for now.

Though I can’t agree with Onesimus call for a moratorium on mission work, I do believe that he highlights that our model and expectation of missions does need to change. I’m really not sure how we deal with the fact that countries like Kenya (where Onesimus lives) or Ivory Coast have so many imported denominations. To some extent the damage has been done. Not only that, it has been exacerbated by the creation of many more local denominations. When you import division, you shouldn’t be surprised that it continues!

I do believe, however, that we need to stop importing Western denominations into the rest of the world. This means that church planters from different backgrounds are going to have to talk to each other and to work together in a way that only rarely happens. It will mean that home mission boards who often measure success in terms of denominational church plants will have to think differently. It’s a big challenge, and I’m not sure how it could all be done – but it needs to be.

 

Onesimus Cheats and Then Puts the Boot In

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I find it increasingly difficult to come up with anything new to write on this blog and I’m often tempted to recycle a post from the past. Sometimes, I write something that seems new and fresh, only to find that I had posted something almost exactly the same in 2006. Anyway, Onesimus (who was my blogger of the year in 2010) has recently started a new blog and on it, he has reposted something from a few years back. That’s cheating!

However, I’m prepared to forgive him, because this recycled post is very, very thought provoking, especially for those of us who work in Western mission agencies. The post is a strong critique of much missionary practice and it doesn’t make very comfortable reading. The temptation might be simply to ignore criticism of this type, but when someone of the author’s background and experience writes on this subject, we do well to read what he says.

Bill (Onesimus’ real name) makes three key points, which I will highlight here. In later posts, I’d like to look in more detail at what he says:

First, our continuing presence as mission organizations actively facilitates a church-killing dependence among the Christians we are supposedly trying to help.

Secondly, this sort of dynamic works the other way, too.  There are too many Western mission organizations and NGOs who, except for spiritualized lingo, have become little more than giant corporations…

Thirdly, it is long past time for local Christians to take responsibility for their own churches and training and programs.

From these three points, he builds to a devastating conclusion:

 Our imported business models of ministry success have persuaded too many non-Western Christians that the cross can finally be avoided and that victory is ours for the grasping.  But this sort of hyper-over-realized eschatology is little more than the ‘American Dream’ writ large, which actually is one of the devil’s more effective delusions.

I would encourage anyone with an interest in the missionary world to read Bill’s whole post. I don’t agree with everything he writes, but I find much of it resonates with my own experience. Even where I don’t agree, the issues he raises are important.

As I said, I hope to come back to look at this in more detail in later posts.

Bible and Mission Links 23

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Resources

One of the most useful sites relating to the Bible and Mission is Rob Bradshaw’s Biblicalstudies.org.uk, where a massive amount of biblical and theological material is available to download. Rob has put a vast amount of time and energy into gathering together this archive and it is well worth taking some time to peruse it. The World Evangelical Alliance also have a huge number of mission related articles, books and such like available for download.

Partnerships

The BBC’s man in Africa, John James has a fascinating observation about the way in which expats can be cut off from the life of the country in which they live. Sadly, much of what he has to say could, in my experience, also be applied to missionaries. In a thoughtful piece, David Westlake examines some of the dangers inherent in (well intentioned) Western interventions in the wider world.

In development work rich, educated, powerful and well-intentioned people make up plans orsolutions for people who have less formal education, money and power. Programmes and projects that might have worked well in one place are implemented in other places without much regard to the different local circumstances. Local “partners” become programme contractors rather than collaborators and learning is adopted rather than adapted. The result is disempowerment and weak ownership even if there are some good outputs. It is not sustainable, does not create local civil society and dis-honours people.

It’s not all doom and gloom – he does have a solution, but you’ll need to read the article to find it.

Bible Translation

The Wycliffe Global Alliance website has a heart-warming story from Guatemala. Again, you’ll need to read the whole article!

Overwhelmed with emotion, José Alberto takes off his hat and buries his face in it as he weeps. The chapeau becomes a handkerchief, of sorts, to absorb his tears.

Jose is recalling one of the darkest periods of his life—when it should have been one of the brightest—as a pastor among the Central Mam people of northwestern Guatemala.

It was a time when his little congregation in the village of Tuijala dismissed him as their pastor—for preaching the truth.

Phil has posted some excellent videos which give the rationale for Bible translation work – go on, watch them.

Mission in the West

Andrew Jones has been musing on the work of a New Zealand missiologist and his contribution to mission in his own context. While David Fitch has produced a list of issues which must be addressed by the Church in its mission to North America.

The gospel. What is the gospel? Is it only justification by faith or does justification fit within a larger framework, the good news that God has made Jesus both Savior and Lord and is ushering in His Kingdom? …

The Scripture as God’s Drama, His Story. How does a high view of the authority of Scriptures translate in a context where science and historiography no longer (and maybe never should have) hold sway as the standards of truth and accuracy? …

The church in Mission. What defines God’s people and how do we organize for mission. …

Salvation and Justice as Related. Again, we are confronted with injustice in our society in situations too numerous and confusing to list here. …

Women In Ministry. Here again is an important issue in our time. But this issue gets polarized with two options that do not seem to get at the heart of what is happening in the New Testament. …

LGBTQ. The alternative sexualities of our society are a dominant issue we are facing culturally and in our churches. But everyone is afraid to talk about it for fear of being branded as extreme by either side of the spectrum. …

It would be interesting to reflect on each of these, but this isn’t the place. However, I’ll restrict myself to the issue of sexuality which has become a major talking point in the UK following an interview in which the well known preacher, Vaughan Roberts admitted to ‘same sex attraction.  Mark Meynell wrote an excellent blog post which addressed the issue very well. A few days later, Mark summarised some of the themes in his blog post for a piece on the Guardian website.

Besides, the real Christian objection is much deeper. We don’t believe desire is a reliable guide in life. Sometimes it leads us to what is true and good. Sometimes it flickers and deceives. Instead, Christianity offers a far more radical proposition: we are not defined by the things we want or own. So we are not defined by our sexuality, social status, wealth, education, looks or even by which newspaper we read. Instead, we are defined by two key things: that we are each created in God’s image, and that in Christ we are redeemed by God’s astonishing love. It is on this foundation that we can surely move beyond a battle of derogatory stereotypes to a real discussion of what it means to be human.

Varia

It wouldn’t be one of my lists of links without a reference to the Beaker Folk who have a series of small ads:

Are you a supernaturally gifted preacher, pastor, children’s worker and administrator? Can you stop time, thus fitting more hours into the week than anyone else? Do you hear “Sabbath” and think “Five hours’ sleep a night is enough for anyone”?  Are you able to raise large amounts of money, apparently effortlessly and without all those fraud charges the last minister had to endure? If so, please contact us for our Parish Profile.  Now we’ve written it, it turns out you’re just the person we’re looking for!

Bible and Mission Links 19

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Bible Translation

I haven’t a clue why a piece entitled Issues of Race and Gender in Bible Translation: Interfacing with Spirituality, should  turn up on a hairdressing blog! This is a challenging paper that not all readers of Kouya Chronicle will find comfortable, but it’s good to be stretched from time to time (and, who knows, you might find inspiration for your next hairstyle!)

Davis Prickett who works in Bible Translation in Chad has posted a defence of Bible Translation based around the theme of why we shouldn’t just teach everyone English:

If a language is dying out in the next 10 or 15 years, making a translation in that tongue would be rather foolish. But thousands of minority languages are still thriving and are being passed down to the next generations, and the Word of God should be passed down as well. In fact, translating the Bible into a language may even aide in the preservation of that language.

However, I think that there is a flaw in this post and in the author’s  follow up. He flirts with the core reason why we shouldn’t just teach English, but he never quite gets there. Like many others, Prickett seems to base his reasons for mission on human need, rather than starting with the character and actions of God. The reasons Prickett gives for supporting Bible translation are all good and valid, but I don’t believe that he really gets to the heart of the issue. My thoughts on the issue are captured in this short video:

On a lighter note, the Beaker Folk illustrate the sort of problem that keeps Bible translators awake late into the night.

Missionary Practice

One of the most difficult things missionaries ever have to do is to learn a foreign language or two. After working really hard to get my French up to a reasonable standard, it was a huge discouragement to find myself right back at square one with Kouya… and Kouya was much harder than French. This post explores some of the reasons why missionaries don’t manage to learn languages.

There are no small number of missionaries today who view language study as an unpleasant necessity to be gotten done with as quickly as possible so that they can get onto the “real work” of ministry.  So they end up adopting a minimalist, instead of a maximalist approach to language study.  Instead of asking themselves, “How can I best prepare myself to be as effective as possible in ministry?”, the question becomes “How much do I absolutely need to do before I can start doing ministry?”  And if their church or mission organization only requires six months or one year of formal language study, then that is all that they do.

Another reason why missionaries (or any adults for that matter) find it difficult to learn languages is that we don’t like to make fools of ourselves in public. This post suggests that it is good for missionaries to learn to make themselves vulnerable to others. While on the notion of vulnerability, Doug asks us to please stop witnessing at people.

It is the communal and ethical life of the church which is the primary evidence Christians have to offer in support of the story they tell. The early Christians were not expected to run round grabbing passers-by and selling them a story; they were expected to live a life, and answer questions when people noticed how they lived it.

A good witness is a real person, not a religious activity.

What do you think? Does he have a point?

Reading the Bible

The Bible and Mission blog explores mission in the Gospel of Matthew, but doesn’t focus on the passages you might expect.

More recently I’ve been struck by the missional boundaries of the sermon on the mount in chs. 5-7. We would be grossly mistaken if we think, ‘Oh, that’s not about mission, it’s about discipleship’ as if the former is an external matter and the latter, internal. The sermon, an inspiring, hard, radical call to following Jesus is framed by mission, setting it in context. I want to point out three things that illustrate this:

Brian has posted three excellent articles on reading Scripture: The Power of Reading Scripture, Suggestions for A Close Reading of a Text and Skills for Reading Scripture (Contexts).  I suspect there may well be more where this came from.

Varia

Phil points to a series of videos and a discussion on the issue of wealth and poverty, while Krish has posted an interesting piece on issues facing Evangelicals today (I think he means British Evangelicals). This includes a brief discussion on what can be learned from the wider world church. It would be interesting to see this fleshed out at some point. Doug Chaplin (with yet another pithy title for his blog) posted a terrific, rather Beaker-esque, piece on Inventing the Mythical Jesus.

Let’s say we want to reform a religion in a new direction. We look for a founder who we can claim fits the kind of profile everyone is expecting. This leader, this messiah, is most likely to be a successful warrior, a general who wins battles of God’s own side. We can’t find one, so we invent a purely imaginary figure instead. Then we explain how he was a total disaster, unable to raise an army, deserted by his followers, and executed by the enemy.

One of the things that I’ve learned from blogging is that you should never criticise Christian worship music, no matter how silly or theologically inadequate the songs are. It seems as though Andrew Jones has not yet learned that lesson!

I am not usually a huge fan of contemporary worship songs. I don’t like extended chorus singing. This is the stuff of nightmares for me. I can pull off a few tunes with everyone else but then my mind wanders. Sometimes I sit down on the pew and read my Bible until the songs are over. Sometimes I scan the introduction to the hymnal, looking for historical inspiration. Or even trivia.

The reason why I come back to this theme from time to time is that I believe it is important. The songs that people sing in church has an influence in shaping the theology of the congregation. When the songs are theologically doubtful, or consist of a series of vaguely biblical thoughts or phrases strung together apparently at random, they can actively hinder people from developing a biblical world view.