Contempt

Attitude. That’s about 75% of winning or losing.

I recently downloaded Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, to my iPod. As I take my evening walks I can read without reading - a good way to kill an hour while on my trek.

The author, Malcom Gladwell, cited a study by a marriage counselor who stated that most marriages breakup because of one crucial reason – CONTEMPT. The underlying reason for conflict is a husband or wife who has contempt for their partner. Words like “You’re stupid,” “You’re lazy,” “You’re irresponsible,” or “You’re fat,” are all contempt statements. Gladwell says you can see the contempt in marriage counseling as the husband or wife rolls their eyes when the other speaks.

Contempt rears its ugly head in all relationships: children’s contempt for parents, employee/employer contempt in the workplace and even in the church among laymen/clergy. If at any time there is interpersonal conflict, usually there is one person who somehow feels they are superior and they manifest that feeling with contempt on those they perceive as being not quite as equal as they are.

I have often observed this arrogance on the mission field. Call it ethnocentrism bigotry or intolerance; the petulant attitude displayed is always a spirit of contempt. Caste and tribe conflict is due to contempt. Muslims killing other Muslims, Hindu’s killing Christians, are a result of a contemptuous attitude. Missionaries, which have a disdain for nationals, is a by-product of contempt. It’s a universal disease.

I’m not sure the root problem that resides in the heart of the contemptuous. Perhaps it is a feeling of insecurity or the desire to control or to manipulate. It seems that in every conflict unresolved, a wounded soul reverts to contempt. How different from the attitude of Jesus. The Pharisees had contempt for just about everyone who they perceived as not following the Law. Jesus, however, was a friend of sinners. The Apostle Paul has a good remedy for contempt: in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others (Philippines 2:3,4). If we do that, surely we will not sit among the scornful (Psalm 1:1).

Missional or Missiological?

A friend of mine sent me a PDF file on a study entitled, Nine Game-Changers for Global Missions: Trends that Shape the Future, by the Leadership Network, and asked for my thoughts. So here it is.

The nine “game changers” revolve around nine themes and trends, at least from the perspective of the 50 leaders who contributed to the article, which focuses on cities, mutuality, partnering, investing in leaders, combining good news and good deeds, greater financial accountability, business as mission, focus, and technology. Much of these trends are not particularly new, but what was unique about this article is that it gave examples of churches that focused on these trends. Each has merit and, for that reason alone, the article is a worthwhile read. However, as a missiologist, there were some issues I feel needs to be addressed.

Large Churches Versus Average Churches - Almost all of the examples of “best practices,” in this article were churches of substantial size. The average congregation in the U.S. is less than 200 in membership. While large churches with substantial mission budgets may be able to focus their resources to their particular interest, churches with modest resources would probably find this article stifling. Most of what is written in this piece would likely be irrelevant to the majority of American churches.

Mutuality and Partnerships – The trend today among larger churches is to by-pass, or at least minimize, North American career missionaries and focus on partnering with nationals. As a non-resident career missionary I understand and appreciate the need to come alongside the majority world church and partner with them in their efforts to reach their own nation with the Gospel. However, the underlining theme of “game changers,” is that partnership from the Western side is overwhelmingly financial, either in giving aid to the developing church or sending teams to assist the foreign church. Though this article is careful to point out that they don’t want to be guilty of paternalism, I question if that is possible.

I contend that good partnership is assisting the national church in what they need (not necessarily what they want) in terms of training. If partnerships is about assisting the church in how to take the message of Christ cross-culturally to Muslims, Hindus and Buddhist, or helping the national church leaders know how to properly disciple their congregation in contextualized outreach, then I am onboard. However, most programs discussed in this article is woefully lacking in missiological understanding, which is my next point.

Missiologically Challenged - Having just returned from teaching in Kenya I was amazed by how many short-term mission groups had invaded the country (by some estimates, over 4 million North Americans take a short-term mission trip throughout the world each year). Many of these groups were there to do evangelism or social work. In a country that claims to be 80% Christian I wonder how many of these groups worked among the most least evangelized people groups in the country, i.e., the Somali refugees in the north, Muslims on the coast or the animists living in the northwest.

Most of what I read in “game changers,” hardly anything to say about reaching the most unreached peoples of the world. 3.6 billion people in this world have never met a Christian. While I applaud the efforts of the North American church to build hospitals for AID patients, schools and orphanages, how do these good works reach the Sufi’s of Bangladesh, the Buddhist of Laos or the Hindu’s in India?

Missions always have been and always will be about building relationships. While “game changers” will make the Western church feel as though they are truly engaged in the Great Commission, the world will not be impacted significantly without a well thought out strategy and a commitment to fundamental principles of evangelism – a dedication to live among those who have never heard about Christ and His salvation.

I realize that I am a throwback of an era of old missions. However, I still believe that missionaries, be they American or non-American, must incorporate the biblical principle of incarnation, which means learn the language of the people, live among them, and learn how to contextualize the message of Christ to those God has called them to serve. Being actively engaged in going overseas, developing partnerships and all of that has merit, but being missional is not the same as being missiological.

The Mystery Continues

Dad’s funeral is over. The service was honoring to him, which was a comfort for my mom. Many nice things said about dad, some from people that knew him, many from those who had little more that a superficial acquaintance with him. The overarching theme of the day was that dad was in a better place now; released from the shackles of the physical mortal and robed in the spiritual immortal. It’s a lovely sentiment, but the mystery of death remains, at least for me. C.S. Lewis wonders aloud in A Grief Observed, if at death a person doesn’t also suffer the pain of separation. Who knows? Certainly not me, for I have yet to experience death.

My mom was telling me this week of a friend of hers whose husband has been diagnosed with cancer without hope of a cure. He sits in his chair all day crying, knowing that he is powerless against the inevitable. I have no way of knowing if this man is a follower of Christ, but whether he is or not, there is a certain haunting honesty in his response to his impending demise. Solomon, the guy reported to be the wisest man that ever lived, pondered the futility of life and the reality of death in his ancient book. His conclusion was that a man’s life is not much more than the life of a beast; that the fool and the wise, the rich and poor, the wicked and the righteous ultimately end up the same way. Since we only know life and death with its obvious outward signs of a lifeless corpse, why shouldn’t we be afraid? The valley of the shadow of death, as Lewis puts it, is often more like a circular trench.

All religions, functionally, are the same when it comes to trying to explain the great mystery. Some suggest the soul goes to paradise, others propose that a mans soul goes through a process of rebirth in physical form for cleansing until we reach perfection that leads to nothingness; we become a thought in a cosmic abyss. Christian theologians teach that our souls go to God to await the end time when our spirit will be joined to a new body. All conjuncture of course, based on centuries of interpretation. We rest our hope on these “faiths,” as it is the only thing we can hang our mortal hats on. In the end, we will spend our days crying until there are on more tears to shed or rejoice in the hope we have in Christ until there is no longer breath in our bodies. Meanwhile, the mystery continues.

Personal: Dad's Passing

You can read about this announcement by going to THIS LINK

Is Church Growth In India An Obstacle In Reaching The Masses?

In the most recent issue of Christianity Today, Tim Stafford writes about church growth in India. The premise of his article is that the growing church is primarily among the Dalits (formerly known as "outcastes" or "untouchables,"), Other Backward Castes (OBC's) and tribal people. Stafford’s article seems to lose focus as he ends up talking about a mission hospital in the North as well as the large population of Christians in the Northeast. There are interesting statistics but, like so many such articles, numbers are sometimes guesstimates rather than reliable data. I always appreciate, however, the focus on India and missions and encourage my readers to go to this CT link as well as the YouTube clip.

My problem with this, and so many articles about church growth in India, is that it misses the larger issue of Christianity in the sub-continent. Eighty percent of the population is Hindu, fifteen percent are Muslims. Reporting that there are possibly 70 million Christians in the country, though impressive and certainly something that we Christians rejoice over, still ignores the reality that MOST of the Indian population is not being reached and there is no real strategy on how to penetrate the Hindu, Muslim, Jain or Sikh population.

One of the comments to Stafford’s article sums up the problem…Hindu’s see Dalit conversion as exploitation and a Western approach to human rights. My landlord in Delhi for four years had a disdain for Christian evangelists, as he perceived their efforts as manipulation, not a seeking after truth. Even if an upper caste Hindu, successful business professional or an educated Indian was interested in the claims of Christ, they would turn away from further investigation because the face of Jesus, as a group of Christians professionals once confessed to me, is an image of a Dalit.

The only way that Christ will be accepted by the masses in India is through a truly contextualized approach, i.e. Christ following Muslims reaching Muslims, upper caste followers of our Lord being a witness to their Hindu friends and family. Progress on this front is happening, but at a much slower pace.

Jesus was more popular with the outcastes (tax collectors, lepers, the blind) than the acceptable and respected religious leaders of his day. Some things don’t change. The caste system in India is a cultural prison that the privileged will always embrace over honest dialogue. While we are grateful that Christ is indeed the answer for the oppressed, understand that progress among the few does not translate into a mass movement to all.

The Best Of Kenyan Music

If you like Kenyan church music you'll love this. The first church we established West Pokot the Makutano back in 1976 is still going strong.