It is just about the time that we begin to mock our fathers that we find ourselves slipping on the banana peels they have left behind. Consider our fathers’ failure to contextualize in missions. Generations ago great heroes went forth carrying the good news of Jesus Christ to unreached people. That’s good. They also, at least we are told, carried with them deep into untamed interiors, musical organs. Because, you know, these new converts had to, in order to be Christian, sing western music with western instruments. Like Christians do.
I’m afraid we haven’t quite gotten past this. We may not send out organs, but we do send out our own traditions, our own way of doing things, and perhaps too often, our own people. I’m not, of course, opposed to going. That’s a good thing. But when we go we go to grow and encourage the church of Jesus Christ. Which means we go to grow and encourage the local believers. Which means we encourage them to follow Jesus, not us.
We know how churches operate. A man is gifted and called to serve as its pastor. He sets up his shop, and works to persuade consumers to shop at his store. As he succeeds the church grows and the pastor then begins to think in terms of franchising himself. More church plants. Fancy letterhead and a whiz-bang website. When we go overseas, however, we find something different. We find pockets of believers, oftentimes in hiding. We find them struggling to put food on their tables. And we find them well served by pastors with whom they share a common life.
Now I believe it is a good and fitting thing to pay a pastor (I Timothy 5:17). But I think we just might be guilty of cultural imperialism if we determine this is necessary, or even helpful in all circumstances. Worse we do the same thing with any number of western traditions that have even less biblical support. We send off missionaries to train locals on how to host a youth group. We raise money to build church buildings. Or we establish seminaries to make the local pastors as petty and confused as we are. All because this is how we do it here.
It ought to tell us something about how we have done things here that now third- world, poverty stricken countries are sending missionaries here. They are concerned for the weakness of our churches. They do not come with programs, but with the gospel. They do not come to remake our churches or cultures in their image. They come to win the lost. Too often when we go overseas we see ourselves as the savior. Instead when we go overseas we should go remembering, and therefore preaching, our need for a Savior.
He is the great missionary. He came to a desperately weak and wicked people carrying not an organ, but a cross. And He calls us to pick up our cross and follow Him. Perhaps we would do well to become the pupils rather than the teachers of our brothers around the world who know the difference between a cross and an organ.
R.C.:
Thank you for speaking to an issue that needs to be addressed. I am the son of fundamentalist Christian missionary parents who were in Japan from 1961 through 2002. My mom was also Japanese, which made our family particularly aware of the tendency of American missionaries to read all of their experiences on “the field” through the eyes of those who had lived through American church history. My parents were even asked to reconsider attending Moody Bible Institute in Chicago (yes, by the apologetic faculty & staff of MBI), due to the “inter-racial” nature of their marriage (this was in the early ’50’s, of course, but you get the picture). So, despite (or, maybe, because) being raised as a fundamentalist Baptist, I am now reformed in theology and Presbyterian in church polity. But Presbyterian and Reformed believers need to be educated on missiology, too.
My father used to quote the Apostle Paul: “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” Not to trivialize his work, but then he would inject the peculiarities of American fundamentalism, so even those who know better can fail to present the gospel in its purity.
So, as one who is guardedly proud of his heritage, I encourage you to continue improving upon what you have inherited. God bless you in your endeavors.
Thank you dear brother. It saddens me to read of the hardship your parents went through. Did your paths ever cross with Dan Iverson? Ralph Smith? Or did you interact with Hero who worked among homeschoolers?
I hope you’re not making the false separation of Christianity and culture. You know the quote “Culture is Religion Externalized”. One of the first things taught in the South Seas missions to new female converts was to dress more modestly than they’d been use to. That isn’t reading our culture into the mission, that’s reading God’s word into the mission which will change the culture.
While I haven’t got it all worked out on the topic yet I think there are somethings we might call “neutral” culture items, though of course nothing is truly neutral (I could use a better name). For example, most culturally prepared food would be neutral, but not all. We have the N.T. food laws that tell us that consuming blood is wrong, and of course now you have marijuana edibles which would be committing the same sin as smoking that weed. Along those lines it was wrong of Hudson Taylor to grow long hair to try and fit in with the Chinese culture since God’s calling long hair on men a shame is for all cultures and all times.
Completely with you Lance. We fall off both sides of the horse, baptizing cultural weaknesses and treating them as if they were part and parcel of the faith (organs into the bush) and we baptize cultural manifestations of unbelief as adiaphora. Determining what is adiaphora and what is not is not easy.