Below is the response of a friend of mine named Tim who is the director of a mission organization that equips and empowers Latin Americans to love and serve Muslims into the Kingdom. The response was provoked from Christianity Today's picture of (possibly digitally enhanced) Rick and Kay Warren amongst a sea of Rhwandan children. The caption of the picture says the following: "Rick Warren has a sweeping plan to defeat poverty."
Tim writes...
A picture is worth a thousand words. The thousand words inside (CT Oct 2005) about Rick Warren's PEACE plan proclaimed a "tsunami-like paradigm change" in missions.
But the paradigm behind the "thousand word picture" outside the magazine doesn't seem very different from the one that guided 19th Century European missionaries. They thought they had what it would take to design and deliver a "Christian solution" to Africa's problems (it turned out to be more "Western" than "Christian").
With the light on the cover focused on a white man and his wife, we are offered hope that 21st Century American Christians now have what it takes. We are asked to believe that we can use our leadership to fix Africa's poverty by being rich enough, influential enough and by sharing our technology.
Whether the paradigm will work the second time around, I don't know. A truly changed paradigm might propose that true Christian hope for the West, indeed, for the world, depends more on the obedient initiatives of African Christians living at the margins of world influence than on globalizing our unique brand of California Christianity (I include myself, 4th generation Californian).
Medieval Northern Europe was shaped more by God's work among the poor and "pagan" Irish living at the margins of political and ecclesiastical power than by the theological and political influence of wealthy Roman Christianity.
In Africa, God is already shaping and forming a new church, teaching His people there to love the unlovely, raising up the next generation of our world's Christian leaders while making Himself known to millions in the midst of war, tribalism, suffering and poverty.
Let us pray the fruit of God's work there won't be drowned in a Tsunami of our own making!
Timothy Halls
thalls@pmi-usa.org
www.pminternacional.org
4 comments:
One man is actively making the changes that the poor in Africa need.
Luke 4:18-21 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
2 Corinthians 8:9 "For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich."
I agree. It actually reassures me that someone is doing something about one of the many crises in this world today. My question has to do more with the American "Savior" mentality that I feel Christianity Today presented. As you can tell by my blog name, I am very interested in the healing of our world. I wonder what it would be like for us to support Africans as they present the Gospel as it makes sense to their culture?
Wouldn't that One Man that anonymous' scriptures pointed to be Jesus? He is the ONE who is making real changes in Africa, though we may need supernatural eyes to see it.
Ephesians 1:17-23 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20 God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
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