In Other News

Lest we allow things to remain too lighthearted, it is important to remember that beyond the amusements of international interspecies intercourse or the remarkably more absurd character of American politics, there is real news going on which ought to affect all of us. For my part, I was troubled by the attack yesterday in Beirut, with its religious undercurrent hovering just below the surface. More disturbing still, however, is the revelation out of Kenya that Muslim groups appear to be converting Christians for the purpose of bombing churches:

Al Shabab, a militant Islamist group with ties to Al Qaeda, is no longer relying on its traditional base of Somali or Swahili Muslims. Instead, the group is recruiting a new multi-ethnic band of recruits, many of whom are former Christians, making it more difficult to identify would be attackers.

“It is the recent coverts who [are] being used to bomb churches. It is not members of the Somali, Boran, or Swahili communities, which have many Muslims, but the other tribes which have been known to follow Christianity, like the Luo, Kikuyu, or Luhya,” says Rev. Wellington Mutiso, the head of Evangelical Alliance of Kenya.

...Analysts say the problem originates with the chronic poverty that faces many young, well-educated, and talented Kenyans. Emmanuel Kisiangani, a senior researcher with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Nairobi, says that poor Kenyan youth are being lured into Al Shabab because of the promise of an income...

Enabling Kenyan youth to deal with poverty, “uprootedness,” and youth disfranchisement could help keep them from turning to extremism, says Nyabera. He says if Christian churches practiced what they preached a bit more, that would also help.

This final observation bears consideration.

Africa and Our Philosophy of Missions

Several weeks ago, I attended a Bible study, the speaker at which had just returned from a mission trip. The study took the form of a mission report, and the woman who led the study had a number of inspiring anecdotes to share as well as some gut-wrenching ones about the rural conditions there (which to my frustration, she seemed more curious about than moved by). Throughout the entire presentation, however, I couldn't help but wonder why she went at all. Her explanation, predictably, focused on issues like her calling and the personal faith journey it represented for her, as well as obligatory references to winning souls for the Lord.

Here's the problem. Zambia is a Christian nation. Not in the way America is a Christian nation but actually, constitutionally Christian. More than 85% of Zambians self-identify as Christians, a number significantly higher than the number of Americans who so self-identify. And while Zambia is notable, it is by no means exceptional among African nations. There are more Christians in Africa than there are Americans. Note, that was "Americans" not "American Christians." More critically, the African church is now being evangelized more successfully and more rapidly by Africans and increasingly Africans are being brought in under denominational headings that are non-existent and often unknown in the West.

In other words, the missionaries claim that while the people of Zambia had been "evangelized" they still hadn't been "discipled," came across more like American (or perhaps Baptist) chauvinism than evangelistic concern. African Christianity is thriving and growing in ways that Western Christianity have long sensed even dared to dream of. Long gone are the days of sixteenth century Ethiopian scholar Tasfa Seyvon, quoted by David Northrup as writing:

I am an Ethiopian pilgrim...from the land of the infidels to the land of the faithful, through sea and land. At Rome I found rest for my soul through the right faith.

I grew up, as so many of us did, with the missionary work to Africa taking center stage, and perhaps then there was a time for it. I don't know that I ever attended a church in my childhood that wasn't sponsoring a missionary to Africa. In truth, though, what the African church needs from Western Christianity is not another round of affluent white people to tell them the Gospel. They have the Gospel and they are taking the commission to preach it to all nations very seriously. Instead of evangelistic missions, they desperately need benevolence missions. Missions bringing doctors, food, the means to access clean water, plans for developing local infrastructure, and modern agricultural techniques.

In other words, don't tell me about going to a country where more than two thirds of the people live in poverty and expect me to be excited that you taught the local preachers to preach more mature sermons. Don't show me pictures of a village of people who lack the hygienic facilities and the understanding of disease to wash themselves regularly and expect me to be in awe that you saw a man healed miraculously of his sores. I don't want to hear the song that the children taught you in their native tongue, not those illiterate, naked children who were as hungry when you left as when you arrived. Callous as it may sound, and perhaps with a touch of exaggeration, the next missionary to Africa looking for support or accolade from me better have iodine tablets in one hand, Flintstones vitamins in the other, and these words on his lips: I am an American pilgrim from the land of the land of the faithful, through sea and land. At Africa, I found rest for my soul through the right faith.

A Quick Clarification

Don't Feed the Bears

And by bears, I of course mean homeless people in Philadelphia:

The city of Philadelphia is being sued in federal court for its ban on feeding the homeless in city parks.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday on behalf of a group of community and church organizations who have distributed meals for years in parks along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

The area is also home to many Philadelphia museums and tourist attractions. The city moved in March to ban the feedings.

Homeless advocates say the city wants to keep the homeless hidden. But businesses in the area complain about health hazards and crime in the feeding areas.

Mayor Michael Nutter says the city wants to get the homeless indoors where they can get medical and other services.

Signs have been posted prohibiting outdoor feeding. Repeat violators are subject to $150 fines.

I realize that there may be legitimate concerns on the part of the city, but the humane course of action seems to be to provide indoor places for the homeless to be fed and receive "medical and other services" before penalizing the charitable groups that are doing the best they can with what's available to them.

Christos Anesti!

With all the eggs found, all the chocolate bunnies devoured, and all the peeps microwaved, most of us have allowed the resurrection of Christ to pass from our minds (if it was ever there at all). It would benefit Western Christians, however, to remember that there are still hundreds of millions of Christians around the world who are celebrating the central moment in the Christian narrative today. Let me offer, for your consideration, a selection from the paschal encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarch:

If Christ’s Resurrection referred to Himself, then its significance for us would be negligible. The Church proclaims, however, that, the Lord did not arise alone. Together with Himself, He also resurrected all people. This is how our predecessor, St. John Chrysostom, proclaims this great truth in thunderous language: “Christ is risen, and none are left dead in the grave; for in being raised from the dead, he became the first-fruits of all who were asleep.” This means that Christ became the first-fruits of the resurrection of all who have fallen asleep and who will fall asleep in the future, as well as of their transition from death to life. The message is a joyful one for us all because, with His Resurrection Christ abolished the power of death. Those who believe in Him await the resurrection of the dead and are accordingly baptized in His death, rise with Him and live on in life eternal.

The world that is alienated from Christ endeavors to amass material goods because it bases its hopes for survival on them. It unwisely imagines that it will escape death through wealth. Deceived in this way to amass wealth, supposedly to extend their present life, human beings disperse death among others, too. They deny others the financial possibility of survival, often even violently depriving others of life, in the hope of preserving their own life.

How tragic! What a huge deception. For life is only acquired through faith in Christ and incorporation in His body...This means that it is no longer necessary to search for the “fountain of immortality.” Immortality exists in Christ and is offered by Him to all.

There is no need for some nations to be destroyed in order for other nations to survive. Nor is there any need to destroy defenseless human lives so that other human beings may live in greater comfort. Christ offers life to all people, on earth as in heaven. He is risen, and all those who so desire life may follow Him on the way of Resurrection. By contrast, all those who bring about death, whether indirectly or directly, believing that in this way they are prolonging or enhancing their own life, condemn themselves to eternal death.

A War Weary People

In my recent readings, a quote from General Philip Sheridan in his memoirs has struck me as both appalling and relevant. Sheridan is describing the autumn campaigns of 1864 in which he, under the orders of President Lincoln and General Grant, was pursuing an extreme scorched earth policy in the Shenandoah Valley. In retrospect, he offered this as his justification:

Reduction to poverty brings prayers for peace more surely and more quickly than does the destruction of human life.

It nauseates me--and I use that term only because I cannot think of any stronger or more visceral image--just how true this continues to be. For nearly a decade, America has been at war, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. For ten years, a substantial amount of the population cried eagerly for more, even as the combined multinational body count (civilian and military) is estimated to have exceeded 200,000. In the past two years, the political rhetoric and the popular mood has undergone a profound shift toward withdrawal. The motive, as Sheridan's prescient quote indicates, is not disgust with the carnage, the wanton loss of human life. Our blood lust, God help us, has not been satisfied. No, instead the calls to finally end the mindless violence spring from the dire state of the American economy.

If poverty really is the herald of peace, I hope this recession never ends.

How Ben Witherington Renewed My Faith in Disagreeing with Ben Witherington

By way of disclaimer, let me just say that I consider Ben Witherington to be a highly intelligent man who just happens to be afflicted with the unfortunate human shortcoming of being constantly and belligerently wrong. (It is, of course, an affliction with which I could never have an sympathy.) Being directed recently (and reluctantly) to something he had written in commemoration of the World Trade Center attacks, I stumbled upon this rather unnerving paragraph:

Were it not for the U.S. government and the EPA the beautiful state of Kentucky would be one huge pollution cloud of coal dust and other pollutants. Shame on the current Kentucky candidate whose ad, I kid you not, runs ‘man of faith, he will fight the EPA to save our coal jobs and fight Obamacare’. What a platform! What do the latter two have to do with being a Christian??? Nothing! Indeed, creation care and care for the health of the elderly and the poor are part of the Gospel sir! Get with the program or stop posturing as a man of Christian faith.

This was by no means the only objectionable content in the article but it did strike me as a stand out and one that bolstered my strong opposition to Christian politics. While I absolutely agree with the general outrage of "man of faith" being part of a political slogan, I think it is even more appalling that Witherington objects not to the very fact of Christian political activism but merely of the route which is being taken here. In one fell swoop, Witherington calls into question the very quality of this current candidate's faith merely because he has had the audacity not to endorse the current administration's policy's regarding "creation care" and charity.

Witherington seems to have made the fatal, incomprehensible error of collapsing Christ's call to care for the sick into Obama's attempt to actualize that call (if you want to naively impute such pure motives to the president). Witherington has merged the Christian responsibility to creation with the particular policies of the EPA. Suddenly to care for the sick is to support the president's health care plan and to preserve creation is to endorse the EPA. Any dissent from this new Christian political maxim calls into question not merely right judgment but the very character of the dissenter as a Christian. Heaven forbid (literally perhaps, if Witherington is followed) that anyone might suggest that charity and environmentalism are personal and ecclesiastical imperatives rather than political ones. (After all, the government has always been better about doing good in the world than the church.)

Once again, we have a clear picture of the confusion and schism which political involvement injects into the Christian community. Perhaps it is time to realize that someone can oppose a "charitable" political policy and yet be themselves charitable. (Would Witherington like to compare his personal charitable giving to that of the candidate from Kentucky? Perhaps the former would still be vindicated, but it would certainly be a better gauge.) What more, someone might even have an appropriately Christian view of the morality of homosexuality and yet not oppose the legalization of gay marriage. A Christian may support a restrained view of humanity's privileges in creation and still not support the policies of the EPA. Still another might believe that prayer is inappropriate in public schools and still raise righteous, prayerful children. What disturbs me more than two Christians who differ politically is the Christian who thinks that disagreements over means in politics reveals spiritual flaws.

In other words, Dr. Witherington, mutual forbearance is part of the Gospel, sir! Get with the program.