Tag Archives: development

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?).

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!

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!

Exciting Changes in the Church…

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My friend John Macaulay shared this brilliant story on Facebook and gave me permission to share it here…

The following comes from Sally Dechert and the Malila translators, Lukas Mwahalende, and Juma Mwampamba. I tell you, it made this translation consultant dance inside.

A few weeks ago, the Malila translators returned from a village where they had done some review on Luke 13-24 with the community. I asked them about the results of the review, and as we were talking, they began telling me about a couple of pastors who said that there have lately been some changes happening in their churches. When I asked the translators to explain, one of them said, “The pastors have started to use the translated Bible portions in their services, and people are very excited about it. It turns out that a lot of people who thought they understood the Bible in Swahili are now realizing they don’t. They’re hearing it in Malila and getting it for the first time. Many of the older people who only speak Malila have starting praying in Malila in the services. In the Bible studies and church groups, people who never used to say anything are participating now, because they feel free to use Malila to discuss things. More and more people want to learn to read, so they can read the Malila for themselves, and the pastors say that the Malila scriptures have stirred a lot of interest in studying the Bible. And we can see it too—it’s like the people in the churches are waking up. Some people who aren’t even Christians come sit with us just so they can hear something in Malila, and then we get the chance to read the gospel to them.”

Bible and Mission Links 16

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I’ve not been blogging very much over the past few weeks, but that hasn’t stopped other people writing lots of good stuff. Here is a bit of a catch up!

Bible Translation

As I mentioned yesterday, the World Evangelical Alliance will be taking a long hard look at some of Wycliffe and SIL’s approach to Bible translation in Islamic contexts. While this happens, I won’t be blogging on that subject, but there are a few good links that I need to pick up on from the past few weeks before I let the subject drop altogether.

For anyone who is unaware of the recent controversy, The Bible Society of Canada have made an excellent statement which gives some good background on the issue. To my mind, this is the best one page summary of what is going on that is available. You might also enjoy a short post by Andre Nelson from Houghton College. Simon Cozens, has written with characteristic panache on the linguistic background to the controversy.

The other great example of this is colour terminology. There’s considerable evidence that people with different languages actually perceive colour differently. When you start learning Japanese you will be told that aoi means “blue” and midori means “green”. And then someone else who’s learning Japanese will tell you “Hey, did you know that the Japanese think that green traffic lights are blue, ha ha ha isn’t that stupid?” But of course they don’t. They don’t say that traffic lights are blue, because “blue” is English; they say that traffic lights are aoi. It’s only English speakers who say that traffic lights are blue. Aoi doesn’t really mean “blue”—because words don’t have meanings, they have uses. Aoi is used to refer to light with wavelengths of between roughly 400 and 500 nanometers, while midori is used for light between about 490 and 550nm. Traffic lights really are aoi, but it’s our broken system of translation-as-symbol-substitution that makes us think that Japanese think they’re blue.

However, Simon isn’t particularly enamoured with the idea that the WEA are reviewing the work of Bible Translators.

With all of the fuss about this issue, it is sometimes difficult to remember that there are hundreds of millions of people around the world, speaking thousands of different languages who have no access to the God’s Word in their own language. I’m not sure what it says about the way that Christians think and act that people have been very quick to seize on a controversy which surrounds a small minority of translation programmes, but seem completely disinterested in the fact that so many people are still without the Bible. Hey Ho!

However, getting back to the central issues of Bible Translation, Hart Wiens of CBS has done an amazing job of illustrating the issues raised in translating that iconic verse John 3:16. Even if you are not interested in Bible translation, this series of articles would make a great Bible study.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3.16 – NRSV)

This word “believes” is a “key term” because of the critical role it plays in communicating the message of the Bible. In the Gospel, belief is the channel through which salvation by grace comes to people (Ephesians 2.8). The Greek root is translated in English as ‘believe’ or ‘faith,’ depending on the version and context. This core word occurs 240 times in the New Testament.

The translator’s challenges are to first is understand the concept the Greek and second, to express it in the language receiving the new translation. It’s critical to go to the source text for key terms, ensuring faithfulness to the original.

The problem with our English verb “to believe” is that for those not very familiar with the Gospel, its meaning may be limited to a dictionary level understanding of accepting something as true. That is belief at the intellectual level. In the context of the Gospel, the original term carried a deeper meaning of acceptance, not just at the head level, but also in the heart. Whenever the original Greek term is used in conjunction with the preposition “in” or “into” as it is in this verse, it carries the meaning of faith or confidence in a person to the extent of acting on that faith.

Philemon Yong asks some interesting questions about the nature and purpose of Bible Translation:

The work of Bible translators around the world is to be applauded. The Bible has been translated into many different languages and as a result, people in their tribes have the Bible in their mother tongue. It is a beautiful thing, for a grandmother, who cannot read, to have a book in her house and have someone read it to her in her own dialect. There is no doubt that this brings them closer to the word of God and creates an even greater interest in seeking to hear more of it. So, the work of Bible translation is to be applauded and encouraged at all costs.

There is a lingering question in my mind, though, when I look at the work of Bible translation and consider its impact on the target people group. Here is my questions: What is the goal of Bible translation? Is it (a) to have a Bible in a particular people group’s mother tongue so that they can read it and hear God’s word in their dialect or (b) is it to have the people in that people group actually understand what is said in the Bible (interpretation) and thereby not only hear God’s word read but understand what God, through the authors of the Bible, intended to communicate, or (c) is it both. The answer to this question will impact the direction taken in the process of Bible translation and will determine where resources are poured.

The decisions made by Bible translations can have long lasting impact:

How do you translate the Greek word ‘ekklesia’, which appears 115 times in the New Testament?  The traditionalists, wanting to assert the institution they belonged to at a time of political and theological upheaval argued for ‘church’, emphasising as they did its authority. The radicals, wanting the Reformation to go further than it already had, argued for ‘congregation’ or ‘assembly’, emphasising its relationality. Guess who won? In a pragmatic trade-off, ‘ekklesia’ is translated ‘church’ on 113 of those 115 occasions…

…What difference would it make if we were able to talk of the Christian congregations inEngland, rather than the Church in England, or counted disciples rather than church members? What difference would it make if rather than based in legislation, or ordered by canon, or governed by Annual Assembly, the church was simply, like God’s word, ‘written on the heart’?  (Read the whole article.)

Short Term Mission

Jamie, the far from very worst missionary, has a brilliant post which looks at some of the insanity which passes as short term Christian mission. It is well worth reading the whole posts and the comments that follow.

We had zipped on in to the city so my friend could shoot some footage for a documentary, when we ran across a group of young people playing music in front of a fountain and offering passers-by hugs in the name of Jesus.

Yes. Hugs… For Jesus.

As we moved through the crowded promenade, we could see these Gringos were were out in force, carrying signs (many in English) that said “Free hugs” and “Jesus loves You” and a couple of references to 1Corinthians, the love chapter.

Eventually, one of them found her way over to where we were sitting to offer a Jesus hug. Being a non-toucher, in general, I quickly declined. “No, thank you. I’m….I’m good.” And when my sweet, affection-loving friend finally relented to the poor girl’s persistent (insistent?) offer to give her a hug from Jesus, I knew immediately that I had made the right decision. That chick had my poor friend wrapped up like a cage-fighter when I saw how bad she was pitting-out. We’re talking pit-stains the size of Rhode Island…. For real. Want a hug? And possibly a communicable disease?…*Shudder*

By the way, Jesus loves you!

Relations Across the Globe

The idea that people in Costa Rica are somehow in need of hugs and human contact seems more than a little strange. That might be the case in Northern Europe, but surely not in Latin America (not wishing to indulge in too much stereotyping). One of the problems is that missionaries don’t always take time to listen to the people they are supposed to be serving. Mark picks up this them in an excellent post called the importance of listening before doing.

We have come to Tanzania with certain skills, and with an organisation that has certain areas of expertise. While we are convinced of the value of certain things like mother-tongue education, and of churches having the Bible available in local languages, we cannot assume that we therefore know the best way to achieve these things in a particular situation, or even that these things are a priority for a community at this particular moment in time. We need to listen to communities, to their desires, to their ideas, contributing out perspectives and working out together whether our skills and expertise will be able to benefit them in any way. If so, then we need to work closely with them to determine what might be the best way forward. If not, we need to respect their desires and move on.

I think that it’s very easy for us to judge other people, and to sub-consciously regard them as inferior to ourselves. And I think this is particularly easy when we have good intentions of helping others. My challenge for today is to see myself and others as we really are, and to humbly listen to those who are very different to myself.

The Bible and Mission blog has a fantastic story from Nigeria about the way in which getting listening and doing in the right order can be very powerful.

A hard hitting article from the Atlantic magazine looks at the issue of Western intervention around the world from a secular perspective. It makes uncomfortable reading.

How, for example, could a well-meaning American “help” a place like Uganda today? It begins, I believe, with some humility with regards to the people in those places. It begins with some respect for the agency of the people of Uganda in their own lives. A great deal of work had been done, and continues to be done, by Ugandans to improve their own country, and ignorant comments (I’ve seen many) about how “we have to save them because they can’t save themselves” can’t change that fact.

One of the problems of not listening is that we can easily end up thinking that other people have nothing to contribute or teach us; this point of view is contested in an interesting post at Global Theology. Bill Easum takes this a step further with some strong challenges for the Western Church to learn from the rest of the world.

Here’s something to think about.  One doesn’t have to good look closely at Western Christianity to tell it is in dire jeopardy. With over 85% of our churches simultaneously declining and aging within 25 years the number Christians in the West will drop by 50%. However, that’s not the real picture. Go many parts of the world and Christianity is exploding with new converts- Korea, China, Fiji, south Africa, India, Nigeria, Indonesia,  Philippines, Latin America.  Just consider Latin America. In 1900, there were only 50,000 Protestants in Latin America. In the 1980s, they had grown to 50,000,000, and by the year 2000, they reached 137,000,000.  The same thing is happening of other parts of the world.  God is fulfilling the Great Commission throughout the world – just not here. Ever wonder why?

While on the subject of understanding people’s background. Archdruid Eileen has published an excellent Guide to English Christianity which has been written especially to help people from the USA.

It’s important to remember that the key difference between the church in the US and in England is its relationship to power. In the US, there is no relationship between the church and state, and the church is therefore politically quite powerful. The Church of England actually has a number of seats in the House of Lords (our equivalent of the Senate), while the Governor of the Church of England is the Queen. In any other country, this would give the Church quite unfair advantages in the way of political power. But in England, with our fear of boasting and natural love of the underdog, it’s quite the opposite. The Church of England has no effective power at all, and its natural diffidence means that even “church schools” will have almost no tendency to cause their scholars to grow up as Anglicans. It’s much the same way that we don’t really have “mega-churches”. Why have a church where you can boast about the size of the congregation, rather than one where you can complain it’s so cold that the water in the font has frozen?

Varia

Tim has some interesting musings on the impact of the Coup in Mali on the advance of the Gospel in that country.

I am writing from Mali which has had increasing levels of insecurity since late last year, culminating in a coup d’état on March 21, 2012. I am not going to comment here on what has happened or continues to happen. If you are curious look at the BBC Africa page  or Google News and do a search for Mali.

Since late 2009, we have gone through progressive stages of relocating people from the locations best suited for their work and ministry to safer areas. Now we are more or less all in the capital, being told to“shelter in place” by our various embassies. (Has anyone ever successfully “sheltered on the move”?!?) That odd bit of “embassy speak” means we are supposed to stay at home, not go out and respect the curfew – initially a 24-hour curfew and now just 6 pm to 6 a.m.

This week our organization had planned a retreat and a triennial business conference to elect new officers and to look at strategies to best carry out our little corner of God’s work here. And now our conference is cancelled, months of planning laid to waste, as people are scattered across the city (and country), “sheltering in place”.And the question rises, starting as a whimper deep in our guts rising up to something unspoken stuck in our throats: God, how are we supposed to do the work you have called us to do? Circumstances certainly seem to be increasingly limiting, and at the same time opportunities are vast. Why? How?

And finally, John Birch has a nice little cartoon which challenges our attitude to the Bible.

Bible and Mission Links 13

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Apologetics

Last time round, I pointed to a post on apologetics by Simon Cozens; Mark has picked up on Simon’s theme and fleshed it out a bit further. This is an important dialogue and it would be good to see more people entering in to it. It would be especially good to see a response from some of the proponents of apologetics who read Kouya Chronicle.

Theology

Having mentioned Simon, I should mention his post on theological identity. Once again, he asks very important questions and comes up with intriguing and challenging answers.

Missiologically, we’re encouraged to contextualize and be “all things to all people”. Now then, it’s all well and good trying to contextualize the gospel to Japan, but Japan’s 120 million people and they’re all different: not just in their social groupings but in their personalities, values and everything else. If contextualization is an implicit admission that one size of church tradition does not fit all, is it not the natural next step that one size of theology does not fit all either?

Meanwhile, Antony Billington continues to provide reviews of just about every theological book, magazine and website that anyone could ever be interested in, including the latest edition of themelios.

Bible Translation

If my experience of life on the mission field is anything to go by, then missionaries spend an inordinate amount of time talking about toilets. In this spirit, Ed Lauber, somehow manages to get both Bible translation and toilets into a blog post, which is rather impressive.

The languages of the world are not a problem, they are God’s vehicles given to each people to “save” them in all kinds of ways. So my focus has expanded. Bible translation is still at the center, but I now work with churches and language communities on all kinds of stuff they want to change wherever the heart language can have its powerful transformative effect even if that has to do with toilets and hygiene.

The Gospel Coalition has an little piece on some of the controversies involved in English translations, which may be of interest to some.

Varia

The Bible and Mission blog quotes Chris Wright on the subject of whether or not Jonah was a missionary.

It is interesting and informative to compare and contrast the response to Jonah to the word of divine judgment on a pagan nation with that of Abraham. Commissioned to proclaim Nineveh’s doom, Jonah ran away and jumped in a boat, alleging later that he had done so precisely because he suspected that YHWH would revert to type and show compassion. Informed of God’s intention to investigate the outcry from Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham jumps to intercession and finds YHWH prepared to be even more merciful than he initially bargained for.

Bible and Mission also has an interesting quote from Baukham on the subject of the Gospel and cultural identity.

Phil confronts some of the frustrations that those of us in the Charity sector feel when other charities with a higher profile dominate the airwaves, while Good Intentions looks at some of the humiliations suffered by those who are in receipt of charity.

 

A Call To Mission: Reconciliation

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Why would we bother translating the Bible, when there are people all around the world going hungry and suffering from poverty and disease?

This is the second post in a series addressing this simple question (read the first one here).

Perhaps the simplest answer to this question is that hungry people need Jesus, too! They need forgiveness and reconciliation to their creator through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This doesn’t mean for one moment that we shouldn’t care for people who are hungry and suffering. Jesus makes it perfectly clear that his followers should help those in need. Christian love compels us to feed the hungry, and give water to the thirsty, but it should also push us to tell people about the good news of reconciliation with God through Jesus.

So far, so good. I don’t suppose many evangelical Christians would argue with this. However, we still get asked why we translate the Bible for hungry people! Like a good preacher, I reckon there are three points to be drawn here.

  • We have a problem in modern Western Christianity in that we draw a strong division between the spiritual and physical worlds; between evangelism and social action. The Bible doesn’t make this distinction and Jesus envisages his disciples dealing with people in a holistic fashion, not as disembodied souls or or purely physical bodies.
  • There has been a long tradition of somehow assuming that poor people get a special access into eternity. The idea seems to be that because people have suffered greatly on this planet, then they have done all that is necessary to be reconciled to God. This is an attractive idea, it fits our notions of fairness, but it doesn’t line up with what the Bible teaches.
  • Linked to the other two points; I believe that the British church is losing confidence in the big message of the Bible. We are nervous about saying that ‘people need Jesus’. We don’t want to sound exclusivist, extreme or ‘fundy’. We are at ease meeting the need for food, medicine or clean water, but very uneasy about suggesting that people ‘need to be saved’.

If we take the Bible seriously, we must address people in the way Jesus did; we must provide food and water, but we must also tell them about the Good News of the Kingdom. Some people have to live in a hell on earth – we need to work with them to make the earth better and we need to tell them about Jesus so that they don’t face a hell in eternity too.

It’s not a fashionable message, but it’s true!

 

A Call To Mission: Extravagant Sacrifice

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Why would anyone translate the Bible when there is so much starvation and obvious suffering in the world around us? Isn’t Bible translation a bit of a luxury in this climate?

Over the next few days I’m going to try to give a few different answers to this question. For this first answer, I’d like to turn to a well-known passage in Mark 14

Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head.

Some of those at the table were indignant. “Why waste such expensive perfume?” they asked. “It could have been sold for a year’s wages and the money given to the poor!” So they scolded her harshly.

But Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. Why criticize her for doing such a good thing to me? You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time. I tell you the truth, wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed.”

Mary could have sold the perfume and given the money to feed the poor; it would have been a good thing to do,  the obvious thing to do, but she didn’t do it. Instead she apparently wasted a costly jar of perfume washing Jesus’ feet. An extravagant gesture and a significant sacrifice, all to honour her Lord. And Jesus praised her for it.

Jesus expects his followers to step in and help those who are in need and suffering. This sort of caring intervention is supposed to be one of the characteristics of his followers (Matthew 25:31-46). But there is also a place for extravagant gestures like Mary’s which are aimed at doing little more than honouring Jesus name.

Our society is obsessed by money; numbers, measurable impact, the bottom line. We see a need to feed the poor, to get involved and make a difference. Gestures of personal sacrifice to lift up the name of Jesus around the world, don’t fit the zeitgeist. Bible translation and other forms of frontier mission; announcing the name of Jesus in languages and cultures where people know little about Him are costly in terms of time, money and personal sacrifice. If the Gospel is going to reach to the ends of the earth, to the places where people have never heard the name of Jesus, it will call for extravagant and reckless sacrifice. It will call for gestures like Mary’s when she washed Jesus feet.

Are we up for it?

By the way, I would actually argue that Bible translation and language development are a necessary component of any programme to address long-term development needs in a country anyway. It isn’t just enough to feed the poor, we have to address the underlying causes of poverty – I unpack this them in this video.

Bible and Mission Links 11

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You might find that Kouya Chronicle doesn’t look quite right at the moment or that some things are not working as they should. Sorry about that. We’ve got one of those annoying, untraceable software problems which I’m trying to fix when time allows.

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if you had been born in another country? What your life expectancy would be? Your chances of a job… If so, you really need to take a look at this excellent website, which will help you make those comparisons.

Getting hold of decent information is vital for mission work, but it can be harder than you might imagine. I was reminded of this when I read a piece by Ben, who points out that Kibera, often called the biggest slum in Africa, is actually much smaller than it is generally reported as being. Let’s see what difference this makes in how people describe it in the future.

Tangentially related to this, is the issue of missionary prayer and newsletters. I must admit that Sue and I struggle to write interesting news items – it’s partly why I took to blogging. Simon Cozens (a missionary, himself) has just posted a great blog on why he doesn’t read missionary newsletters. I think we’ve been guilty of most of the things he mentions at one time or another.

Bible Translation

Ed Lauber has posted a fascinating little piece on the problems of translating Biblical measures into Ghanaian languages. What is a seah and how on earth do you explain it to people in rural West Africa?

While people in Ghana are fortunate if they have a Bible in their language at all, English speakers continue to get overheated on the subject of translation styles and gender specific language. There is an excellent post at Valued Exchange which demonstrates that although people may express strong convictions on this issue, they way the act can be quite different.

A recent study by Lifeway, pointed out by The Biblical World, shows that what people say they want in a Bible and what they buy are nearly opposites.  Particularly, people want an accurate word-for-word translation, yet they buy the NIV in droves.  The NIV is a thought-for-thought translation, not a word-for-word translation, and has long been ignored by scholars of the Bible because of this.

Robb picked up on the same survey and made some excellent remarks about the need to translate the whole of our witness into appropriate language. (Thanks to Phil Ritchie for this link.)

In the modern world we see through our own cultural lenses.  The experiences we have had colour the way in which we use language.  As we celebrate the King James Version of the bible it is important to remember the way in which language has developed over the past four hundred year and how concepts have been lost and words rendered new meanings.

If we are to continue to retell our salvation history afresh we need to constantly strive for both accuracy and cultural relevance to explain the most exciting tale ever told – that of God and how he reveals himself to his people in the past, how he reveals himself now and how he will reveal himself in the future!

A similar theme is highlighted in a post on the Wycliffe UK blog concerning a lecture given by Alistair McGrath on the Authorised Version. This quote from me catches the mood:

“The Kouya NT won’t have the global impact that the KJV had, there are only 14,000 Kouya.  It’s not going to be a world changing book…  But by God’s grace we made history for the Kouya people.  Not because we’re anything special, but because this Word is special.”

The Beaker Folk interpretation of the Euodia and Syntyche story is a fascinating retelling of a familiar story, which might (just) count as translation. However, as so often with the Beaker blog posts, the sting is in the tale – and this is sheer brilliance.

That these two matrons of the church were able to maintain this rivalry at a time when the church was facing persecution, heresy and schism is some kind of tribute to them. The Greek language has changed, the Bible is now preached in English and is even available electronically. The note Paul dashed off on borrowed parchment during his imprisonment has been elevated to the status of Holy Scripture. But one tradition – that of rivalry and petty quarrels undermining the Gospel of peace and unity – has been maintained through 2,000 years. I believe we should all feel humbled.

Varia

The Bible and Mission Blog continues as one of the great places to find good resources on the web. They’ve recently posted an excellent list of Bible and Orality resources as well as a link to a free download of Chris Wright’s book on Reading Scripture Missiologically (this should be considered compulsary reading for anyone in Christian work).

Lastly for this outing, Good Intentions has an excellent piece on volunteering for overseas work which is as relevant to Christian mission as it is to the wider aid world. I well remember a colleague telling me that we shouldn’t hire a local administrator because God might be calling an American to do the job! Presumably, he thought that God doesn’t ever call local people. Hey ho!

When it gets right down to it, the fundamental reason why people may need aid is that they don’t have enough money to pay for something themselves. Anyone that has enough money could meet all of their own needs. Saudi Arabia has very little local food production, but they don’t have a food crisis because they have the money to pay to import food. People wouldn’t need an aid agency to come in and build school for them if they could earn a good enough money to contribute to the cost of the school themselves. Therefore, one key to alleviating poverty is creating jobs that pay a living wage. By working for free to do something a local person could be hired to do, you are essentially undercutting the local labor market, thereby continuing the poverty cycle.

Bible and Mission Links 10

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The Wycliffe UK Blog has a good article on Vision 2025, which is well worth a read; among quotes from ‘key’ Christian leaders is this gem from the late Kwame Bediako of Ghana.

“No language group should be considered reached until they have the Scriptures available in their mother tongue as the foundation for building sustainable Christian thought, life and community.”

Normally, when we think about Bible translation into minority languages, our minds are drawn to Africa, Asia and other far flung parts of the world; not to the far south-west of England. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see that the full Bible is now available in Cornish.

The Bible will be introduced to the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies in November.

In 2004, a Cornish version of just the New Testament was released.

Ray Chubb, who published the new Bible and has been involved in the Cornish language for more than 30 years, said it was important to keep it alive.

“I think one of the reasons we lost our language was because there was no bible in Cornish,” he said.

“Of course we’ve had a very successful revival of the language and I think the whole bible in Cornish is the culmination of that revival.”

The Bible and Mission blog has a fascinating little post on reading Luke’s Gospel through majority world eyes, which is well worth reading and pondering.

Joel Hoffman has a fascinating post which looks at an ambiguity that lies at the heart of much evangelical discussion about English Bible translations:

According to a recent report by Lifeway Research, described by David Roach in the Baptist Press, “most American Bible readers … value accuracy over readability,” which is why they “prefer word-for-word translations of the original Greek and Hebrew over thought-for-thought translations.”

So far so good. People want accuracy, so they go for ‘word for word’ translations. But…

There is overwhelming evidence and near universal agreement among linguists that word-for-word translations are less accurate than other approaches. Equally, translators generally agree that, when the original is readable (as much of the Bible is), accuracy and readability go hand in hand. That is, valuing accuracy is often the same as valuing readability.

Just because a translation advertises itself as being ‘literal’ or ‘word for word’ does not make that translation accurate. A very simple example can serve to show how a ‘word for word’ approach can easily lead to nonsense.

In a last couple of  links for this set, Good Intentions has an excellent post on volunteering, which could equally be applied to an awful lot of Christian mission, including a lot of short term work:

Imagine living in an area with high unemployment rates, where you and several of your family members are unemployed, can’t find work, and struggling to survive. If you were given the choice between having a group of volunteers come into the area to build a school/house/health clinic for you or instead have people from the area to be  paid to construct the building, which would you choose? If you were given the choice between having foreign volunteers, that may not speak the local language, lead after school programs for your children, or have local people hired to lead those same programs, which would you choose?

By paying local people to build the center or tend the children, more people have jobs and can feed, clothe, and educate their family, rather than relying on the largess of aid agencies. In addition, they will likely buy most food and supplies locally, thereby stimulating the local economy. In contrast, if volunteers are brought in the community looses out on the addition of paying jobs, and there is the real possibility that the volunteers will spend less money in the local economy then local workers would have spent.

Jamie approaches a similar subject in her inimitable style:

Poor people aren’t stupid people. Poor people aren’t less perceptive. Poor people aren’t always pleased to be living what we deem “simple lives”. And don’t you dare fool yourself into believing that poor people aren’t making the exact same lifestyle comparisons you are.

They know.
They know it costs a butt-load of money for you and/or your kid to fly across the ocean to come and take pictures of them. They know that you spent thousands of dollars to hand deliver $200 dollars in toothbrushes and sample size toothpaste. They know the difference between the new shoes your kid is wearing and the old ones you’re donating.  They know by the look on your face, by the way you gesture to your teammates, by the way you slather on hand sanitizer before you eat, that your life is very different than theirs.  They know you have way more of everything – food, money, luxury, opportunity – than they will EVER have, and they know you think those things are “Blessings”.  And, yes, they know what an iPhone is.

When we descend upon the impoverished to improve our family’s perspective, we may as well be saying to the mothers of these children, “Pardon me, I’m just gonna use your poor kid to teach my rich kid a lesson for a minute. I’ll be out of the way in no time – Oh, and I’ll leave you some shoes…. and a toothbrush.”