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“It is time for evangelicals to refuse to use sentences that begin with “the primary task of the church is…” regardless of whether the sentence ends with evangelism or bible teaching or social action, they are all integral, necessary aspects of the church’s task “
-Ron Sider in Christianity Today circa 1974
I came accross this quote the other day while doing some reading for an upcoming sermon. I love it. I have to admit that I always fall into this way of thinking, needing to order and prioritise things. I wonder what your thoughts are? The primary task of the church has always been a battleground – especially so in Sydney.
In other news Ron Sider is coming to speak at TEAR Australia’a National conference. Check it out here. I have been to the last two and found them excellent! I have really grown in my understanding of how to read the bible outside of a single time/space context. One of the main reasons I love this conference is that they aim to learn from how other cultures (especially global south cultures) read and apply the bible. I find this especially fascinating as these cultures are often so similar to the culture that Jesus, Paul, Moses and the prophets lived, lead and taught in. Whereas the culture that I live in is starkly different to the culture of the bible.
Anyway, Ron Sider is coming to be a keynote speaker – I have read several of his books including: Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and Good News, Good Works and The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience.
If you haven’t already, this may be a way for you to respond to the Haiti earthquake. Tearfunk UK are sending in medical supplies and emergency workers to help their partner organisations and churches that were already working in Haiti before the earthquake.
Here is a short video about what they are doing:
You can donate by going here:
http://www.tear.org.au/emergencies/haiti-earthquake
I highly commend this as something you do.
The most recent Issue of Target Magazine
The most recent issue of Target magazine has just come out. I commend it to you for your reading. You can find an online version of the magazine here. If you are a Christian person than you simply should be receiving Target magazine! It is full of helpful and encouraging stories and insights into Christian working in partnership in development projects all over the world and amongst Aboriginal communities here in Australia. It also has prayer points, bible studies, a biography section of people in history who have served the poor, it states where every TEAR dollar has been used and much much more. It will help your prayer life as well as encourage you to think of God’s church as bigger than what you see here in Sydney. It is also completely free!
If you would like to subscribe to receive the publication every quater at absolutely no cost than click here.
Cadbury has just announced a plan to become Fair Trade certified by Easter 2010! This is really excellent news and something that we should definitely celebrate. However having said this there is very little celebrating happening and I think that is because there is still a lot of ambivalence and ‘vagueness’ about Fair Trade and so I thought that I would write a brief post simply outlying what is Fair Trade and Why it is important to buy fair trade. Enjoy.
Martin Luther King once said:
“Before you’ve finished your breakfast this morning, you’ll have relied on half the world!”
King was right then and he is still right now. The world is more connected than we all realise; every cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate connects you to a farmer overseas who produced the bean! You are connected through your reliance on them to produce the beans that is used in your beverage and the unfortunate reality is those that producers are often exploited and oppressed. The most common form of exploitation occurs when buyers intentionally wait to the very end of the season– when sellers have to sell their stock or receive no income from their harvest – to buy the stock. This desperation forces farmers to sell their stock at a cheaper price, an unfair price. The income from that harvest is regularly so low that they don’t do much better than simply cover the expenses of farming the beans in the first place (sometimes they can’t even do this). This of course has ongoing effects as people aren’t being paid a living income – it keeps people in poverty.
look for this Logo on products to be certain that it meets the Fair Trade criteria
Fair Trade is an international movement which ensures that producers in poor countries get a fair deal. This means a fair price for their goods (one that covers the cost of production and guarantees a living income), long-term contracts which provide real security; and for many, support to gain the knowledge and skills that they need to develop their businesses and increase sales.
Fair Trade is essentially an independent body that assesses whether organisations have earned the Fair Trade Certification. It is similar to the heart tick of approval. It is important to know that Fair Trade is not a brand. Many people say to me that they would like to support fair trade, but it just doesn’t taste as good! However Fair Trade is not the problem, that blend of coffee/tea/chocolate is the problem! When people say this I always tell them to try a different type of Fair Trade certified coffee/tea/chocolate.
Well that is what Fair Trade is… but why should every Christian buy Fair Trade?
1/ To receive the certification, organisations have to guarantee a fair wage for Third World Produces. By buying Fair Trade you know that you are not involved in exploitation.
2/ Fair Trade forms real partnership between organisations and farmers to secure long term security for the producer, allowing them to escape the cycle of poverty. Fair Trade also emphasises transferring knowledge and farming skills to help produces develop their businesses and increase sales.
3/ Fair Trade has ongoing effects to families and communities, allowing children to go to school (as they don’t have to work in the farms) and fair wages giving people the opportunity to access health care.
4/ As a consumer, buying Fair Trade shows organisations that you think it is an important issue. Organisations respond when people vote with their shopping trolley – this is one of the main reasons that Cadbury is going Fair Trade.
5/ It is not more expensive and it does not tastes worse than non fair trade coffee – both these things are simply untrue. You can access a fair trade products at major supermarkets and as more organisations see the importance of it (see the point above!) there will be an even wider distribution of Fair Trade products.
Christians like William Wilberforce were the leaders in the movement to abolish slavery. Christians like the Earl of Shaftesbury were the leaders in the movement to abolish unethical child labour. Christians like Martin Luther King were the leaders in the black civil rights movement in the United States. Christians should be the leaders in the movement to Make Trade Fair!
Do you use Fair Trade? Does your church? Your workplace? Your local cafe? Maybe you could be a leader in the movement to make Trade Fair!
If you would like some more information then you can check out these websites:
http://www.cadbury.com.au/About-Cadbury/News.aspx?newsID=45
http://www.tear.org.au/downloads/resources/resourceMagazineHarambee2009July.pdf
Its now time for our weekly segment here at Micaiah Sells Out called:
“4 quick questions and 1 strange one with…”
This week’s “4 Quick Questions and 1 Strange one with…” is with John Mckinnon. John has been working for TEAR Australia as the NSW State coordinator since 2005. Before that he worked in investment management with his firm handling over $10b! John obtained his MA in biblical studies (New Testament) while working at the investment firm and is a keen preacher, bible teacher and a regular contributor in TEAR publications and other Journals. John is married to Sue and they have four children, he is also a keen cyclist and regularly cycles from his house in Engadine (near Waterfall!!) to the TEAR office near central station – a ride that takes about an hour and a half!
1) John, what is your background and how did you come to be involved in TEAR?
I grew up in a Christian family and as a teenager accepted Jesus as my Lord and saviour. At uni I led a Christian group on campus and together with my now wife wondered how to make our lives different to the world most of our uni friends were heading off into. I remember idealistically dreaming of “not conforming to this world.” After studying maths I worked in the finance industry and in 1995 I co-founded an investment management firm (GMO Australia). I ended up as senior partner and the business was extremely successful. When I left in 2005 we were managing over $10 billion for many large super funds and banks. During that time I did some bible college study, mainly for my own edification. However, God had other ideas and through that study I discovered just how much God was concerned for the poor and how my work, to essentially making the rich richer, was perhaps not representative of the life of radical discipleship I had once dreamed of. I became very uncomfortable with my work life and felt a strong call to work for justice and God’s kingdom. I had financially supported TEAR for some years and knew them to be an organisation of integrity that engaged with the complexity of issues from a biblical perspective rather than simply try to raise maximum funds. Just as I started thinking “I would love to work for TEAR”, I saw my current job advertised and the rest is history.
2) Economics seems to play a pretty big part in the fight against global poverty. As someone who has an understanding of economics could you please let us know how economics plays into maintaining global poverty and why we still have extreme poverty in the 21st Century?
Our word economics comes from a Greek word that means “household management”. That means we are all involved in economics. Most of our daily activities have an economic component – involving our money and household assets. The big picture of global economics is just the same – it is about managing the world’s assets and income. On the whole, the world isn’t doing this very well – most of the world’s wealth is in the hands of a few and over 1 billion people are going hungry each day. In my view, the economic system we operate under, one where allocation of the world’s resources is largely by “the market” is largely to blame. It is perhaps over-simplistic but generally the market rewards those with existing wealth and power. The latest edition of TEAR’s Harambee gives some more detailed explanation (see http://www.tear.org.au/resources/items/harambee-july-2009). Of course, the answer is not to choose another “ism” (capitalism, socialism etc) but to ensure that whatever the system, the well-being of all people is the aim.
3) Does the way we live here in Sydney affect people living in extreme poverty? If so, in what ways can change our lifestyle to minimize this affect?
The thing about globalisation is that the world is a small place and actions here do affect others around the world. The most obvious example is climate change where our emissions impact the climate experienced by the rest of the world. However, nearly every purchase we make involves many others in far away places. Our clothes are often made in sweat shop factories, our coffee and chocolate is often grown by people receiving less than they can reasonably live on, our government receives interest on loans made to poor developing countries, our companies exploit resources in developing countries and we enjoy their dividends and rising share prices.
What can we do? We can start to be careful about what we buy. Fair trade goods are now more available (see http://www.tear.org.au/resources/items/harambee-july-2009), we can cut our emissions in many different ways, we can consume less as a challenge to the system that worships growth, we can lobby our government to cancel debts, we can lobby or boycott companies that exploit the poor. The more we learn about the links between our lives and the world’s poor, the more ways we will see to act.
4) Do you think it is actually possible to make poverty history?
I suspect no, this side of Christ’s return. While human sin remains in the world, people will always be exploited and the powerful will always seek to maintain their position. However, that is not a reason not to try. As Christians we are called to live prophetically, to point to that time when “God will wipe away every tear”. Our calling is to demonstrate God’s love and justice, to show the world there is another way. If our prayer is “Your kingdom come” then our lives must be working towards exactly that reality as well.
5) John you cycle from Engadine to Central to get to work – a ride that takes you around an hour and a half! You have also just started playing the bag pipes! Which do you think makes your legs look better, the kilt of the bike shorts?
The cycling keeps the legs in good shape for the kilt.
Its now time for our weekly segment here at Micaiah Sells Out called:
“4 quick questions and 1 strange one with…”
Our second “4 quick questions and 1 strange one with…” is with Richard Glover. Richard lives in the heart of Newtown on King Street and has a passion for talking to the homeless men and women on his street or at the church drop in. Richard is currently studying Arts and Secondary Education at Sydney Uni but prefers to stay busy working as ESSIR President and serving as the EU Education male faculty leader. Richard is by far the biggest U2 fan I know and will happily tell you how all of their songs in some way relate back to either the doctrine of justification by faith or God’s call to help the poor. Richard recently returned from Cambodia and is the author of the blog “I woke up this morning with a frappacino in my hand“
Richard and some kids in slums of Phnom Penh
1/ Richard, you recently returned from spending some time in Cambodia. What were you doing there, who did you go with and why did you go?
I was in Cambodia with a group of people from the church my family attends, St. George’s Anglican in Gerrigong on the south coast of NSW. The trip was what has become a regular part of the church’s commitment to Christian mission; this is the third trip to Cambodia the church has undertaken, having previously travelled there in 2006 and 2007.
Tabitha, who work in Cambodia alongside Cambodians to sustainably improve the lives of the many poor in the country.
I don’t know how much you know about Cambodia’s history. It has a long and magnificently rich history, but its modern history is highly traumatic. Most people will have heard of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, who took control of Cambodia in 1975 and were responsible for a terrible genocide there. It’s a long, sad story; go here for more information.
For the purpose of understanding the nature of this particular mission trip, it will suffice to acknowledge that Cambodians have suffered enormous trauma, and no one in the nation has been left untouched by the violence done to them. Our contribution to the house-building, apart from raising the money for the 10 houses we built, was simply to finish the buildings off by nailing on the walls and the floorboards. This may seem a little lame; surely someone could do that locally! The reason Tabitha ask foreigners to assist with the building in this way is that Cambodians have a highly defeatist self-perception, due to the years of oppression they have suffered. They have been taught that they are worthless, and have experienced the isolation of the Western world watching from the sidelines as great atrocities were committed.
They also get Western TV. So, they know how we live, and to them it seems easy for us to shell out a couple of thousand dollars to provide them with better housing. Indeed it is. But for us to actually show up and help with the building, and get out of our incredibly wealthy comfortable environment to meet them in person, now that’s a huge thing. In that way we on the mission team, as Christians, were seeking to bring hope to a dark place. Christians, I think, have a calling in the world to make visible signs of the hope that we have in Jesus. Helping to improve the lives of these people points towards the ultimate restoration that we are waiting for when Jesus returns; coming into their place and their lives shows them that we believe they have worth and dignity. I think that’s what Jesus would have us do where we see suffering in His world. After all, the grace of Jesus Christ is seen in the way he left His riches in heaven and became poor for our sake, so that we ourselves might become rich (2 Corinthians 8.9).
One of many Hagar projects thet TEAR supports
On this same theme, we visited two of TEAR Australia’s partner organisations in the capital city, Phnom Penh. TASK works in the urban slum communities, educating the community about caring for children with disabilities, running an HIV clinic, and doing sanitation work. Hagar works with women who have come out of the sex industry, both Cambodians and women who have been trafficked into Cambodia. They also run children’s programmes, so that these women can remain with their children during their rehabilitation. The programme begins with counselling, and works up towards a career pathways programme, giving the women skills to re-enter the workforce and the community. Exciting organizations, who are having amazing success, and, although neither of them are directly evangelistic, they are finding themselves in situations with wonderful opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We also visited some churches, and spent some time with some missionaries who are serving in Cambodia through CMS Victoria. They have planted a new church this year, and have since begun a restaurant and catering service, managed by members of the church. The purpose for this is twofold: a desire to serve a community suffering severe unemployment, and a desire to disciple the church in the knowledge that following Jesus is about all of life–including their business ventures!
Acts declaring hope in dark places; bringing reconcilliation and new life. Exactly the things Jesus calls His church to be busy doing while we wait for Him to return! Shameless plug: I’m busy thinking about these ideas over at my blog. Eventually I’ll get around to thinking about the implications for the church back here in Australia…
Richard building houses
The focus of the 10-day trip is two days spent building houses in a poor rural community. The church does this work in partnership with a Christian NGO named
2/ How did you become interested in working with poor and marginalised communities? Could you recommend any books or organisations/groups that could help people get involved in social justice work?
I first got interested in these issues late in high school. It’s an odd story: I was watching TV late one night, and came across a doco about an HIV-positive orphan in South Africa. I was surprised to find myself in tears by the end of the programme. I knew inwardly that the God I trusted could not look on such suffering and remain unmoved. I suspected that He expected me to do something about it.
I didn’t really know how to articulate this new series of thoughts and feelings. So, I started reading books! I learned more about the situation of the extreme poor in the world. You’ve probably heard the stats before: 30,000 children die each day from preventable causes; 1.2 billion human beings live on less than US$1.25 a day. As I looked into it, the problem grew and grew. It’s hard to ignore, despite the fact that so many people seem to be able to ignore it every day.
Wilberforce
I also found out that evangelical Christians have a long history of social concern. Wilberforce and the campaign to end slavery. Bonhoeffer’s political engagement. Calvin’s city-state in Geneva. Martin Luther King’s leadership of the US civil rights movement. All the way up to the World Council of Evangelical Churches’ ‘Jubilee 2000′ and ‘Drop the Debt’ campaigns, which spawned the secular Make Povery History movement. I also found that God is in fact deeply concerned with these issues, and expects His people to be engaged with them too. It turns out that God expects not just me to be concerning myself with these things, but His whole church! Here’s a stat you may not know: there are 200 million Christians living in extreme poverty (let alone the rest), and the Western church has the resources to easily lift all of them out of their present situation, without a significant decrease in our standard of living. Food for thought. Where are our priorities? Where is our treasure?
I love books. Books are rad. Here are some helpful ones. On Christian engagement with these issues, and how social engagement forms part of the mission of the church, the best thing I’ve ever read is Ron Sider’s Good News and Good Works. Also, Tom Wright’s Surprised by Hope,and Hauerwas & Willimon’s Resident Aliens. Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics is also good, although I have issues with some parts of it. It’s set in the American context, and in some ways it’s too political!
Ministries of Mercy, by Tim Keller
For a great overview of wealth in the bible, Craig Blomberg’s Neither Poverty Nor Riches. For an introduction to Christian political engagement, with an overview of the theology and philosophy as well as practical analysis of particular issues, Nigel Oakley’s Engaging Politics. The relevant chapters of John Stott’s Issues Facing Christians Today are a brilliant overview of the ‘so why should we care about this?’ question. On the issues from an economic and political perspective, and how we can work towards fixing them, see Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty. Next on my list to read, although I haven’t started yet, is Tim Keller’s Ministries of Mercy.
That should keep y’all going for a while… 
I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with some great organizations which have helped me deepen my understanding of these issues as a Christian, and given me opportunities to do something about it. One of those is Newtown Mission, an evangelical Uniting church in the wonderful Sydney inner west suburb of Newtown (where, incidentally, I now also live!). If you’re in Sydney and you want to see what effective, integrated service among the poor and marginalised looks like, visit the drop-in at Newtown Mission! The staff and volunteers there are fantastic at loving whole people. More churches should be like this one. Helping out at the drop-in on Thursday nights is the highlight of my week. I’ve been doing it for three years now and I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. You can hear more about Newtown Mission on the Pilgrim’s Podcast, over at All Things New.
Probably the most helpful organisation in terms of thinking through these issues has been TEAR, an evangelical aid and development agency. Someone invited me in my first year of uni to go along to TEAR’s annual conference (wait… Jeremy, wasn’t that you?). They have a fantastic biblical foundation for their work, and through meeting each month with other uni students and young workers in a TEAR group I’ve learned heaps about development and how social engagement forms a part of the life of the Christian and the church. Also, through TEAR, I’ve been able to participate in advocacy events, such as travelling to Canberra late last year to lobby federal MPs and senators on foreign aid issues, as well as receiving training in how to be effective in communicating with politicians on things I care about. TEAR has also really helped me to think about ways to get my church and uni Christian group excited for social engagement.
3/ Richard, you are the president of a Sydney Uni Christian group called ESSIR. Could you tell us what ESSIR stands for, what its about and how someone could get involved if they were interested?
Also around the time I started uni, I started to realised that poverty isn’t restricted to Africa and South East Asia. There’s plenty of it here in Sydney! Some Christians at uni (again, I seem to remember you had something to do with this, Jezz…) were getting together to pray about how to respond to the people we walked past asking for money at Redfern train station. Eventually, ESSIR was born.
ESSIR stands for ‘Evangelical Students Serving In Redfern’. Bulky, I know. That’s why we stick with the acronym! ESSIR is a group seeking opportunities for Christian students at Sydney Uni to serve the poor and marginalised in the communities around the university, such as Redfern. It has been a modest success in its first three years! We have students serving each week at the drop-in centre at Newtown Mission (see above), as well as at the Wednesday afternoon youth group at Redfern Anglican church. In the past we’ve also had students helping out at the Have-a-Chat Cafe in Glebe, run by a brilliant organisation called Hopestreet. They made coffees for the people living in the housing commission there, had conversations, organised bread runs, etc.
At present, we’d love to have some volunteers who are keen to tutor primary aged kids in Glebe on a Thursday afternoon (also with Hopestreet). Sounds like the perfect volunteering opportunity for Christian uni students! If anyone’s interested in this, or the above things, they can email me.
ESSIR also exists to educate Christian students about the needs of the communities around Sydney Uni. We’ve fallen down a bit on this front in the last 18 months… But we did have an event last year at which Trevor Thomas, the Chairman of the Board of TEAR Australia, spoke about using our lives to serve Jesus by loving those He called ‘the least of these’. Good times.
4/ You also serve on the Board of Global Recordings Australia, could you tell us about Global Recordings and what you do with them and how you have time to do so many things!
Global Recordings excites me! GR have been around for quite some time now. They work to get the bible in the native language of people who don’t have it. It’s that simple, and that complicated! The premise is that God’s Word saves, and that it is easiest to understand God’s Word in one’s ‘heart language’; that is, the language you grew up speaking. GR’s vision is to have the whole bible recorded in every language and dialect in the world, of which there are estimated to be about 12,000. Currently we have at least portions in around 6,500 languages on the massive servers in Castle Hill. If you believe that God’s Word is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, and that by His Spirit God uses it to change lives, then this is a really exciting ministry!!
The network of GR national offices employ recordists who venture out into communities, usually rural areas in developing countries, to translate and record scripture, in conjunction with local churches. Native speakers of each dialect speak on the recordings. From there, GR works to distribute the recordings among the community. For tech nerds, this is the exciting bit: GR builds and manufactures its own playback devices! The latest iteration is a super-cool hand-wind MP3 player called the Saber. GR also has various picture books and gospel presentations which can be used in conjunction with the recordings.
What do I do with them? Well, I sit on the board of GR Australia as a youth intern. Which means I attend board meetings. The purpose of this is to get other young people excited about what GR is up to! So really, the idea is that I get to do things like this–plugging GR on blogs. I’m currently thinking about how to bring down the average age of the organisation. It’s been great to learn about how the organisation works and how it contributes to the global mission of the church of Jesus. I’m excited about it. You should be too!
The time issue is quite easily resolved: I skip classes and hand in assignments late! That said, I was pleasantly surprised by my results in semester 1… Seriously though, if you’ve got a passion for mission & ministry, it just seems to take over. It’s what keeps me going, so it’s where I spend my time.
5/ ’A married man was visiting his “girlfriend” when she requested that he shave his beard. “Oh James, I like your beard, but I would really love to see your handsome face.” James replied, “My wife loves this beard, I couldn’t possibly do it, she would kill me!!”
“Oh please?” the girlfriend asked again, in a sexy little voice…
“Oh really, I can’t,” he replies…”My wife loves this beard!!”
The girlfriend asked once more, and he sighs and finally gives in. That night James crawls into bed with his wife while she was sleeping.
The wife is awakened somewhat, feels his face and replies “Oh Michael, you shouldn’t be here, my husband will be home soon!”‘
As someone who has a beard, could you please comment.
Well you know what they say: beards are a dangerous thing. Only the righteous can endure the social pressures placed upon them by the curse of such glorious growth.
On the weekend I attended the NSW Young Adults TEAR group of which I am a part, we meet once a month to read the bible together, think through what the bible has to say about justice, oppression, poverty, money etc, then we usually have a book review, a time of encouraging each other and some prayer. Every now and then however we have a guest come and share their experiences of poverty overseas.
Last weekend we had a couple who had just spent a year in Malwai doing malaria research and working with the UN World Food Program. During the meeting they raised a specific question to us, a question which I believe is extremely difficult to answer:
What makes Christians working amongst the world’s poorest communities different to secular organisations also working in these communities. What makes a church program different to a UN program? Is there even a difference at all?
It is a question that I have never had a clear answer for; I know that Christians are to live a life that is so full of generosity and love that without even having to try it makes the gospel attractive. But as I worked at Red Cross or Mission Ausralia or even at DoCS I have found that some of the most generous and love filled people are at core humanist secularists.
What makes Christians working amongst the world’s poorest communities different to secular organisations also working in these communities?
In answering this question they showed us this article: “As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God” first published December 2008 in the Times by Matthew Parris – a strong atheist. It caused a bit of a riot in the humanitarian community and became quite a controversial point of discussion. I have decided to put the full article here, it is long, but well worth the read:
Matthew Parris
Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it’s Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.
It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.
Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
I used to avoid this truth by applauding – as you can – the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It’s a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.
But this doesn’t fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.
First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world – a directness in their dealings with others – that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.
At 24, travelling by land across the continent reinforced this impression. From Algiers to Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, then right through the Congo to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, four student friends and I drove our old Land Rover to Nairobi.
We slept under the stars, so it was important as we reached the more populated and lawless parts of the sub-Sahara that every day we find somewhere safe by nightfall. Often near a mission.
Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers – in some ways less so – but more open.
This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. “Privately” because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.
It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man’s place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.
There’s long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: “theirs” and therefore best for “them”; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours.
I don’t follow this. I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the “big man” and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition.
Anxiety – fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things – strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and, call it fear or respect, a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won’t take the initiative, won’t take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders.
How can I, as someone with a foot in both camps, explain? When the philosophical tourist moves from one world view to another he finds – at the very moment of passing into the new – that he loses the language to describe the landscape to the old. But let me try an example: the answer given by Sir Edmund Hillary to the question: Why climb the mountain? “Because it’s there,” he said.
To the rural African mind, this is an explanation of why one would not climb the mountain. It’s… well, there. Just there. Why interfere? Nothing to be done about it, or with it. Hillary’s further explanation – that nobody else had climbed it – would stand as a second reason for passivity.
Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I’ve just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.
Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.
And I’m afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.
Something very interesting to think about!
Just a quick plug: Our TEAR young adults group meets once a month on a Sunday arvo 2-4pm. We love having new people who want to think through tough issues like this and sit under God’s word as he teaches us about a biblically shaped response to poverty. Get in touch with me at jeremy_s@hotmail.com for more information!
