Friday, November 14, 2008
George W's theology
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0309&article=030910
What is the Jesus Pledge?
A movement of Christians from the United States who feel compelled at this time to reaffirm our allegiance to Jesus as Lord and Christ, and the cross as God’s way of overcoming evil. We, therefore, pledge our allegiance to Jesus and the pursuit of God’s kingdom above all else, and renounce allegiances to nation that in any way compromise our calling and identify us with war and the use of force instead of Jesus’ life-giving love displayed in his earthly ministry and in his death for the world on the cross.
Manifesto
We confess that Jesus is Lord, the full revelation of the God of the Old Testament and that before Him every knee will bow. We confess that Jesus is Christ, Israel’s Messiah, and Savior of the world who conquered the power of evil on the cross. We agree with Jesus’ call to undivided allegiance to God: "No one can serve two masters…” (Matt 6:24), and “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…and your neighbor as yourself.” We also reaffirm that: “God so loved the world…” and now sends us with that same love to our society’s outcasts and our country’s enemies. Like Jesus, we must say ‘yes’ to the kingdom of God, and ‘no’ to all allegiances that compromise the furthering of that kingdom.
As followers of Jesus Christ who are citizens of the United States, we are troubled when God’s name is overly identified with our country’s wars and laws through Christians remaining silent or actively promoting them as ordained by God. We believe any union between the name of Jesus and our government and its leaders is both idolatrous and a hindrance to the witness of the Church. Killing our enemies and enforcing dehumanizing laws in the name of God deny Jesus’ call to love our enemies and to join him as a “friend of sinners.” This is the time for genuine, widespread repentance and change.
Pledge
As a follower of Jesus Christ, and in keeping with my baptismal vows:
I renounce allegiances to the world and nation that would lead me to justify the use of violence, war or any type of force that are incompatible with Jesus’ teachings and his witness on the cross. I affirm God’s mission for the Church to serve as ambassadors of the kingdom of God, announcing forgiveness, promoting healing, peace and reconciliation – by loving and blessing those considered our enemies.
I renounce the flesh as it manifests in a spirit of national pride, superiority and self-interest that pursues our nation’s dominance for our own economic and material benefit and security. I affirm that my primary earthly place of belonging, identity and loyalty is in Jesus Christ and his body -- the borderless, worldwide family of God, and embrace his way of humility, service and love of God and neighbor.
I renounce Satan, the accuser and deceiver, and turn from his lie that America is God’s elect ambassador of freedom and Christian values whose mission justifies and requires the sacrifice of human lives. I affirm God’s kingdom as manifested through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and through his Church empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Action
If you are a citizen of the United States and a follower of Jesus we encourage you to pray the above pledge and click here to add your name to the growing movement of Christians seeking greater faithfulness and commitment. (Website currently under construction. Watch for www.jesuspledge.com and sign the pledge. See also www.bobekblad.com)
Manifesto
We confess that Jesus is Lord, the full revelation of the God of the Old Testament and that before Him every knee will bow. We confess that Jesus is Christ, Israel’s Messiah, and Savior of the world who conquered the power of evil on the cross. We agree with Jesus’ call to undivided allegiance to God: "No one can serve two masters…” (Matt 6:24), and “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…and your neighbor as yourself.” We also reaffirm that: “God so loved the world…” and now sends us with that same love to our society’s outcasts and our country’s enemies. Like Jesus, we must say ‘yes’ to the kingdom of God, and ‘no’ to all allegiances that compromise the furthering of that kingdom.
As followers of Jesus Christ who are citizens of the United States, we are troubled when God’s name is overly identified with our country’s wars and laws through Christians remaining silent or actively promoting them as ordained by God. We believe any union between the name of Jesus and our government and its leaders is both idolatrous and a hindrance to the witness of the Church. Killing our enemies and enforcing dehumanizing laws in the name of God deny Jesus’ call to love our enemies and to join him as a “friend of sinners.” This is the time for genuine, widespread repentance and change.
Pledge
As a follower of Jesus Christ, and in keeping with my baptismal vows:
I renounce allegiances to the world and nation that would lead me to justify the use of violence, war or any type of force that are incompatible with Jesus’ teachings and his witness on the cross. I affirm God’s mission for the Church to serve as ambassadors of the kingdom of God, announcing forgiveness, promoting healing, peace and reconciliation – by loving and blessing those considered our enemies.
I renounce the flesh as it manifests in a spirit of national pride, superiority and self-interest that pursues our nation’s dominance for our own economic and material benefit and security. I affirm that my primary earthly place of belonging, identity and loyalty is in Jesus Christ and his body -- the borderless, worldwide family of God, and embrace his way of humility, service and love of God and neighbor.
I renounce Satan, the accuser and deceiver, and turn from his lie that America is God’s elect ambassador of freedom and Christian values whose mission justifies and requires the sacrifice of human lives. I affirm God’s kingdom as manifested through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and through his Church empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Action
If you are a citizen of the United States and a follower of Jesus we encourage you to pray the above pledge and click here to add your name to the growing movement of Christians seeking greater faithfulness and commitment. (Website currently under construction. Watch for www.jesuspledge.com and sign the pledge. See also www.bobekblad.com)
Monday, November 10, 2008
My personal mission statement
In my life with God among the poor, in community with my brothers and sisters, and in my family I walk in God’s grace, listening deeply and obeying fearlessly, as a man of:
PRAYER...who walks w/ the Holy Spirit in the joy and truth of my Heavenly Father; grateful for his goodness, embrace, freedom and fullness.
VISION...who wages peaceful war against all that is contrary to God and the establishment of his kingdom, and waits in the hope of God’s promised new creation.
PEOPLE...who loves and empowers others as Christ did through humble service and in the power of the Holy Spirit
My life work…is to EQUIP teams and missional churches with (1) theo vision (2) spiritual empowerment, and (3) movement inspiration. To ADVOCATE (1) Jesus Pledge web campaign (2) Peace with justice in the Middle East. As a slum worker I seek to catalyze house churches that follow Jesus and the way of the cross.
Jss21feb2009
PRAYER...who walks w/ the Holy Spirit in the joy and truth of my Heavenly Father; grateful for his goodness, embrace, freedom and fullness.
VISION...who wages peaceful war against all that is contrary to God and the establishment of his kingdom, and waits in the hope of God’s promised new creation.
PEOPLE...who loves and empowers others as Christ did through humble service and in the power of the Holy Spirit
My life work…is to EQUIP teams and missional churches with (1) theo vision (2) spiritual empowerment, and (3) movement inspiration. To ADVOCATE (1) Jesus Pledge web campaign (2) Peace with justice in the Middle East. As a slum worker I seek to catalyze house churches that follow Jesus and the way of the cross.
Jss21feb2009
November 2008
November 2008
Dear friends and family:
Recently, we hosted a visit from four young people that are considering long-term missionary service with InnerCHANGE and our team.
Bryan Carey, is from Virginia. Last year he interrupted his university studies to spend a year in the jungle of Peru. His experience was confirming in one way: he knows now that he is gifted and called to work cross-culturally in places of poverty. What he also discovered is that he wants to pursue that calling in the city, not the jungle.
Beth Carter is a Spanish teacher from Michigan. After teaching for six years, she came to point of knowing that career-wise she needed to either go deeper in her profession as a teacher or jump tracks to something completely new. Her long-term interest in Latin America and short-term trips to the region fed a desire to move herself there.
Jennifer Pare is from Texas, and a recent graduate from Wheaton College’s Master of Arts program in Inter-cultural studies. She spent four months in Brazil last year with a ministry called Word Made Flesh, where God gave her a heart for children in poverty.
Dave McMurray is from Kentucky and a recent graduate of the University of Kentucky. Like some of the others, Dave “found” InnerCHANGE through a recently published book entitled: “The New Friars” by Scott Bessennecker (InterVarsity Press), which highlights several ministries like ours that work in urban slums. Because this is Dave’s first cross-cultural experience he stayed a bit longer than the others.
As you may recall, recruiting has not been without difficulty over the past few years. In spite of the violence and visa constraints, we have found people ready and willing to take on the challenge. Adrienne, KT and Cameron are a testimony to this! Thank God for them!
By the first of November we should know how many of the new candidates will be joining our team, making the move by February or March, 2009. We appreciate your prayers as our team grows and potentially even expands into new barrios. God continues to use us in simple, yet profound ways…with neighborhood children coming to a tutoring program two afternoons each week, and in prayer ministry for the sick and demonized. Doors are opening to minister alongside the local Catholic priest and some of their home groups on our hillside, too. This has been very encouraging. I’m also working hard on my next book! (This one will be in English, too!)
Peace to all!
John and Birgit Shorack
Dear friends and family:
Recently, we hosted a visit from four young people that are considering long-term missionary service with InnerCHANGE and our team.
Bryan Carey, is from Virginia. Last year he interrupted his university studies to spend a year in the jungle of Peru. His experience was confirming in one way: he knows now that he is gifted and called to work cross-culturally in places of poverty. What he also discovered is that he wants to pursue that calling in the city, not the jungle.
Beth Carter is a Spanish teacher from Michigan. After teaching for six years, she came to point of knowing that career-wise she needed to either go deeper in her profession as a teacher or jump tracks to something completely new. Her long-term interest in Latin America and short-term trips to the region fed a desire to move herself there.
Jennifer Pare is from Texas, and a recent graduate from Wheaton College’s Master of Arts program in Inter-cultural studies. She spent four months in Brazil last year with a ministry called Word Made Flesh, where God gave her a heart for children in poverty.
Dave McMurray is from Kentucky and a recent graduate of the University of Kentucky. Like some of the others, Dave “found” InnerCHANGE through a recently published book entitled: “The New Friars” by Scott Bessennecker (InterVarsity Press), which highlights several ministries like ours that work in urban slums. Because this is Dave’s first cross-cultural experience he stayed a bit longer than the others.
As you may recall, recruiting has not been without difficulty over the past few years. In spite of the violence and visa constraints, we have found people ready and willing to take on the challenge. Adrienne, KT and Cameron are a testimony to this! Thank God for them!
By the first of November we should know how many of the new candidates will be joining our team, making the move by February or March, 2009. We appreciate your prayers as our team grows and potentially even expands into new barrios. God continues to use us in simple, yet profound ways…with neighborhood children coming to a tutoring program two afternoons each week, and in prayer ministry for the sick and demonized. Doors are opening to minister alongside the local Catholic priest and some of their home groups on our hillside, too. This has been very encouraging. I’m also working hard on my next book! (This one will be in English, too!)
Peace to all!
John and Birgit Shorack
October 2008
October 2008
Dear friends and family:
When Padre Pablo (Father Paul), the priest from the local parish, read Danza Divina (the book I self-published in February) he immediately invited me to join me for a special meeting. I call the meeting special because it was a gathering of his people, at a critical moment, and he wanted me (and InnerCHANGE) to be a part of it. Pablo picked me up in his personal, rather run down jeep. He picked me up because the meeting was held in my neighborhood, yet in a particular section higher on the hill that I’d never been to. When we pulled into a narrow alleyway which seemed to appear out of nowhere, we were greeted with friendly waves and ‘gritos’ (yells) of welcome. With the help of some young men Pablo managed so squeeze his car enough to one side of the path to allow the flow of pedestrians.
The purpose of the house meeting was to re-start two of their small, neighborhood bible groups. For most of the meeting I just sat there, at Pablo’s side, watching him do his work. I didn’t really know what to expect. What I did know was that Pablo trusted me enough to be there with him, and he wanted his people to know me.
At one point in the meeting, as the group was expressing their desire to go out weekly to visit homes, Pablo invited me to speak. “Hermano Juan y su equipo tienen mucha experiencia en eso.” (Brother John and his team and a lot of experience doing that.) This was the first and only chance I had to speak in the meeting. I didn’t know what I would say until the words came out of my mouth. “In our experience of visiting homes, one of the things we’ve encountered is people with spirits.” With a few more words I explained what I meant, which wasn’t hard. Virtually every head in the room was nodding in obvious resonance. They, too, knew of about demonic spirits.
The following week, teammate KT McClure and I went to a follow-up meeting in another home on the hillside. This time we met in a more in-depth, personal way with six women who are the core group of one of the re-started neighborhood bible groups. The leader of the group, a woman named María, probably approaching 60 years of age, was open to us. Because of what I shared the week before in the larger gathering, she said this to me (in front of her group): “Every time I try to do my personal prayers, an evil spirit manifests and stops me. Will you pray for me?”
We arranged a time for her to come to our office to receive prayer. God is so good. In short, KT and I were able to minister deliverance from the evil spirits that had been tormenting María. Then, God went even further. María’s daughter, Carmen, complained of a painful, aching in both arms from her neck to her hands. She had not experienced any relief from the pain for over three months. She asked for prayer. As we prayed for Carmen, I saw in my spirit that Jesus was present, standing behind Carmen and with loving arms touching each shoulder at the place of her physical pain. When I spoke this out to Carmen, she literally jumped up from her chair, turned to me with the biggest smile on her face and proclaimed: “That’s exactly what he’s doing!” Not only was Carmen’s pain gone, she was doused in God’s love for her! Pretty cool! Before they left, Carmen said to her mother: “Thanks to this experience with Brother John and KT, if any more evil spirits bother you, now we can take care of them ourselves. We know how to pray.”
Even before this exciting episode with María and her daughter, María had invited me to do a monthly teaching/training with her group once we returned from our summer furlough in the US. Please pray for this wonderful open door, that God would continue to move with his love and his power…that many would turn and know Him!
Thanks for your partnership in the gospel!
John and Birgit Shorack
Dear friends and family:
When Padre Pablo (Father Paul), the priest from the local parish, read Danza Divina (the book I self-published in February) he immediately invited me to join me for a special meeting. I call the meeting special because it was a gathering of his people, at a critical moment, and he wanted me (and InnerCHANGE) to be a part of it. Pablo picked me up in his personal, rather run down jeep. He picked me up because the meeting was held in my neighborhood, yet in a particular section higher on the hill that I’d never been to. When we pulled into a narrow alleyway which seemed to appear out of nowhere, we were greeted with friendly waves and ‘gritos’ (yells) of welcome. With the help of some young men Pablo managed so squeeze his car enough to one side of the path to allow the flow of pedestrians.
The purpose of the house meeting was to re-start two of their small, neighborhood bible groups. For most of the meeting I just sat there, at Pablo’s side, watching him do his work. I didn’t really know what to expect. What I did know was that Pablo trusted me enough to be there with him, and he wanted his people to know me.
At one point in the meeting, as the group was expressing their desire to go out weekly to visit homes, Pablo invited me to speak. “Hermano Juan y su equipo tienen mucha experiencia en eso.” (Brother John and his team and a lot of experience doing that.) This was the first and only chance I had to speak in the meeting. I didn’t know what I would say until the words came out of my mouth. “In our experience of visiting homes, one of the things we’ve encountered is people with spirits.” With a few more words I explained what I meant, which wasn’t hard. Virtually every head in the room was nodding in obvious resonance. They, too, knew of about demonic spirits.
The following week, teammate KT McClure and I went to a follow-up meeting in another home on the hillside. This time we met in a more in-depth, personal way with six women who are the core group of one of the re-started neighborhood bible groups. The leader of the group, a woman named María, probably approaching 60 years of age, was open to us. Because of what I shared the week before in the larger gathering, she said this to me (in front of her group): “Every time I try to do my personal prayers, an evil spirit manifests and stops me. Will you pray for me?”
We arranged a time for her to come to our office to receive prayer. God is so good. In short, KT and I were able to minister deliverance from the evil spirits that had been tormenting María. Then, God went even further. María’s daughter, Carmen, complained of a painful, aching in both arms from her neck to her hands. She had not experienced any relief from the pain for over three months. She asked for prayer. As we prayed for Carmen, I saw in my spirit that Jesus was present, standing behind Carmen and with loving arms touching each shoulder at the place of her physical pain. When I spoke this out to Carmen, she literally jumped up from her chair, turned to me with the biggest smile on her face and proclaimed: “That’s exactly what he’s doing!” Not only was Carmen’s pain gone, she was doused in God’s love for her! Pretty cool! Before they left, Carmen said to her mother: “Thanks to this experience with Brother John and KT, if any more evil spirits bother you, now we can take care of them ourselves. We know how to pray.”
Even before this exciting episode with María and her daughter, María had invited me to do a monthly teaching/training with her group once we returned from our summer furlough in the US. Please pray for this wonderful open door, that God would continue to move with his love and his power…that many would turn and know Him!
Thanks for your partnership in the gospel!
John and Birgit Shorack
September 2008
September 2008
Dear friends and family:
As you know our family has been in the US for the summer, taking a much needed furlough and vacation from the ministry in Venezuela. Among the visits we’ve made in August, we spent one week at Camp Cedar Glen in So. California at a gathering of InnerCHANGE missionaries worldwide. We had a beautiful time worshipping God, getting re-connected and re-affirming our “family ties” as a missionary community. In fact, the retreat was a chance for us to take a deeper look at what we mean when we describe ourselves as a “Christian order among the poor.” I want to take this chance to give you a glimpse into this, too.
InnerCHANGE was founded in 1985 when John Hayes moved himself onto an overcrowded and overlooked street in Santa Ana, CA, teeming with Cambodian refugees. Shortly after we joined InnerCHANGE in 1992, John Hayes began describing InnerCHANGE’s calling as both missionary and prophetic. What he meant by that was that our ministry among the poor has two faces, if you will. The missionary face displays the mercy of God in the streets and byways of the world’s forgotten places, raising up disciples of Jesus and forming communities of His kingdom. The other face, what we call our prophetic current, is simply, yet profoundly, using our lives to call the Church continually back to God’s intentions for the poor.
The Samaritan in Jesus’ parable embodies these two currents beautifully, reaching out in mercy and ministering God’s love to the injured in the road, while also prophetically, with his actions, providing the priest and Levite with a sovereign opportunity to examine their ways and they hearts.
Interestingly enough, in the late 90s our founder discovered that we as InnerCHANGE were also the injured one, the needy one in the road. In a very real sense, the intensity of the ministry, the pain and sorrows that we’ve encountered along the way, forced us to move deeper into what we’ve now recognized as our third current; the contemplative current.
In fact, we’ve discovered that it’s the dynamic interplay of these three currents – the missionary, the prophetic and the contemplative – that best expresses the unique gift we believe God has given us and best explains what we mean by “Christian order among the poor.” (Historically, Catholics orders have called that unique ‘gift’ given to a community its ‘charism’ – in case that word is familiar to some.)
Why share this with you?
From our journey as InnerCHANGE, spanning now almost 25 years and only hinted at above, you can see how we the missionaries have needed time to understand more precisely what God has been crafting us into. As our friends and family, standing with us all these years, we know it hasn’t always been easy for you to understand what InnerCHANGE is either. Yet you’ve always believed in us! Thank you!
Please remember us in your prayers as we turn a big corner in September when our oldest daughter, Johanna, begins her studies at Seattle Pacific University and the rest of us return to Venezuela.
Peace,
John and Birgit
Dear friends and family:
As you know our family has been in the US for the summer, taking a much needed furlough and vacation from the ministry in Venezuela. Among the visits we’ve made in August, we spent one week at Camp Cedar Glen in So. California at a gathering of InnerCHANGE missionaries worldwide. We had a beautiful time worshipping God, getting re-connected and re-affirming our “family ties” as a missionary community. In fact, the retreat was a chance for us to take a deeper look at what we mean when we describe ourselves as a “Christian order among the poor.” I want to take this chance to give you a glimpse into this, too.
InnerCHANGE was founded in 1985 when John Hayes moved himself onto an overcrowded and overlooked street in Santa Ana, CA, teeming with Cambodian refugees. Shortly after we joined InnerCHANGE in 1992, John Hayes began describing InnerCHANGE’s calling as both missionary and prophetic. What he meant by that was that our ministry among the poor has two faces, if you will. The missionary face displays the mercy of God in the streets and byways of the world’s forgotten places, raising up disciples of Jesus and forming communities of His kingdom. The other face, what we call our prophetic current, is simply, yet profoundly, using our lives to call the Church continually back to God’s intentions for the poor.
The Samaritan in Jesus’ parable embodies these two currents beautifully, reaching out in mercy and ministering God’s love to the injured in the road, while also prophetically, with his actions, providing the priest and Levite with a sovereign opportunity to examine their ways and they hearts.
Interestingly enough, in the late 90s our founder discovered that we as InnerCHANGE were also the injured one, the needy one in the road. In a very real sense, the intensity of the ministry, the pain and sorrows that we’ve encountered along the way, forced us to move deeper into what we’ve now recognized as our third current; the contemplative current.
In fact, we’ve discovered that it’s the dynamic interplay of these three currents – the missionary, the prophetic and the contemplative – that best expresses the unique gift we believe God has given us and best explains what we mean by “Christian order among the poor.” (Historically, Catholics orders have called that unique ‘gift’ given to a community its ‘charism’ – in case that word is familiar to some.)
Why share this with you?
From our journey as InnerCHANGE, spanning now almost 25 years and only hinted at above, you can see how we the missionaries have needed time to understand more precisely what God has been crafting us into. As our friends and family, standing with us all these years, we know it hasn’t always been easy for you to understand what InnerCHANGE is either. Yet you’ve always believed in us! Thank you!
Please remember us in your prayers as we turn a big corner in September when our oldest daughter, Johanna, begins her studies at Seattle Pacific University and the rest of us return to Venezuela.
Peace,
John and Birgit
A View from the Other Side of the Globe
A view from the other side of the globe
It is a few days after the first anniversary of the tragic events of 11 September 2001, and with fear and trembling I took the decision to write something that represents a perspective on world happenings from the other side of the globe.
Perhaps there has never been a time during my lifetime when the opinions of the rest of the world have diverged so markedly from the opinions of the government of USA. This hurts me a lot because many Christians in the Third World are very upset and I believe this is adding fuel to the serious gap developing between Christians in the Third World and in the USA.
In fact when I hear some of our Christian leaders speak about America I fear they may have slipped into the sin of racism. This must not be, for we all belong to one body. If one part of the body remains angry with another it hurts itself.
This hurts me especially because some of the happiest years in my life were spent as a student in USA. I owe so much of what I am to Christians there. Most of my mentors are Americans, and so are many of my closest and most valued friends.
At the heart of this crisis is the sense that is developing among Christian leaders here that it is impossible for Christians in the West, especially in the USA, to understand what is happening in the rest of the world. There is a wish that they would listen to us, and ask, ‘What do people in those countries feel?’
There is a growing frustration coming from a suspicion that American Christians are listening only to what American experts say about the situation in the world outside their borders. They fear that these experts depend on research rather than the Christian method of incarnational identification and that therefore they miss hearing the heart-cry of the people.
As one who has lived happily in both these worlds, I thought that for the sake of the unity of the body of Christ and the desire to see American Christians develop a sense of listening to the rest of the world, I would write down some of my reflections.
Terrorism is the violent response to what the terrorists see as a threat to the freedom and the rights of their people. This perception may be correct or incorrect. The means they use to achieve their ends are certainly wrong, but some of their anger may be justified.
Christians are people who must be skilled in listening in love to their neighbours; even if these neighbours are their enemies, for the Bible asks us to love our enemies. Therefore when a group resorts to terrorism, Christians should be concentrating on answering the question, ‘Why are they so angry?’ That is the question I wished most for the West to ask after the events of 11 September 2001.
Many here believe that these events were a direct response to the humiliation the Muslims have faced during the past few decades over successive defeats they have endured as the West has marched towards the domination of the world.
The Gulf war of 1991 and the continued bombardment of Iraq since then are two such defeats. But there are several other defeats. One is the Western dominance in trade and economics. It is called globalisation, but in order to survive developing nations have been forced to bow down to the Western agenda with its individualism and competitiveness.
The Muslim countries that are doing well economically have, in order to survive in a global economy dominated by Western values, adopted economic systems that other Muslims consider anti-Islamic. The Islamic extremists are very angry that Muslims have made so many concessions to this dominance of the world by the West.
Then there is the dominance of Western culture through the media. Some of the values portrayed there directly oppose Asian values such as costly commitment to family, lifelong faithfulness to spouse, and community solidarity as opposed to individualism.
Then there is the proliferation of pornography and other sexual deviations, which has hit our people without the preparation through a gradual sexual revolution that the West experienced. It has hit the East suddenly in its full-blown form and our people here have not developed defences to cope with it. They have got sucked in.
Recently I heard about a poor 15-year-old boy who has seen 500-600 pornographic videos. My son told me of a 17-year-old Muslim classmate who has downloaded and saved two gigabytes of pornography from Western webites.
Now, the Muslims – rightly or wrongly – blame all of this on the West. Personally I do not blame only the West for the rise of pornography etc. I believe that all people everywhere are naturally evil and immoral and liable to take steps that send their nations on a downward spiral.
But what I am presenting here is the way the extremists think. To them the West is evil and immoral but so powerful that they cannot fight its insidious influence on them. They feel they are losing the battle for the maintenance of what they believe is their ‘superior’ culture.
Personally I do not think that any culture is superior to another. All cultures have their good and bad points. But the Muslims believe their culture is superior because they think its features were dictated by God and reported verbatim in the Koran. So the Muslim extremists are humiliated over these defeats and some of them are responding by hitting out violently in anger.
Now there is a lot of talk about another war. The Muslims see this as another threat from the West. And each time this war talk is intensified the Christians in countries like Pakistan get hit. The trigger for many of the attacks on Christian compounds recently in Pakistan is the present initiatives and statements of Western leaders.
The Western leaders say they are fighting evil. The Muslim extremists feel that the West is evil and that they must protect righteousness by battling the West. So they hit targets that they associate with the West.
I do not know the answer to the complex problems of the world. I do not know the answer to the problem of Iraq and its campaigns against the West, or to its stockpiles of Anthrax and gas that can be used in chemical warfare.
However, even if the government of a poorer country officially backs a Western war effort against another poorer nation like Iraq, often a majority of the people in that country will oppose it. They would say that their government needed to back America because it would be economically suicidal not to, as America has so much economic power. This is how many people in poorer nations felt when their governments backed the Gulf war of the early 1990s.
My heart yearns to see the Muslims accepting Christ as their Saviour. To me working towards that goal is one of the most important agendas in the world today. Governments come and go; powers wax and wane, but the response of people to the gospel of Christ determines their eternal destiny.
That is a choice between heaven and hell – not just for a few decades but forever and ever. This is why I believe that world evangelisation is the most important cause in the world today. It has to do with eternity. The Church must put that first, and whatever hinders that must be dealt with.
Therefore whatever governments may do, I want to appeal to the Church to be careful about lending its support to Western military initiatives. Individuals will need to go out to war as obedient subjects of their country. But the Church must be careful about official endorsement of things that may hurt the huge segment of the body of Christ in the rest of the world.
Think of the eternal agenda. It looks like perceptions of what is right and wrong are very different among Christians in the West and in the East. Therefore, as members of the body of Christ, please think of what the Christians in the poorer nations are thinking and going through.
Paul said that he became weak to reach the weak (1 Corinthians 9:22). The Muslims see themselves as threatened by the strength of the West. I think that if we are to reach them with the gospel we will have to identify with their sense of weakness. We will have to become weak ourselves.
If they see the Christians as strong people coming to hit them, then they will hate us and oppose our gospel even more. This is why it may be necessary for the Church to divorce itself from the power of the West, which much of the rest of the world resents.
In a similar vein, it is necessary for the Church to divorce itself from statements like, ‘We are the greatest nation on earth’ because our religion tells us, ‘In humility consider others better than yourselves’ (Philippians 2:3). These are all vital issues that churches in the West need to think about if they are to be involved in missions.
While the Bible does speak about war, it also talks a lot about the need to be peacemakers. I hope that in this time when many in the West are speaking about war, Christians will concentrate on peace and through that make inroads into the Muslim communities as people who are not their enemies but their friends.
I believe that when the West took the side of the Muslims against the Orthodox Christians in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia it did a great thing for the cause of the gospel because, whether we like it or not, the West is associated with Christianity in the minds of many people.
In the past few years of war in Sri Lanka I have often had to take stands that go directly against that of my government and of the majority of the Sinhalese (my ethnic group) people. I have to always tell myself that I am a Christian first and only then a Sinhalese. This is a thing that Christians must always be doing.
Sometimes on matters of war and peace sincere Christians will disagree with each other. My hero John Wesley, who sided with Britain in the revolutionary war, disagreed with another hero, the American Methodist leader Francis Asbury, who supported the American independence struggle.
I think that, out of solidarity with the Christians in the developing world, Western Christians need to be reluctant about giving blanket support to military initiatives against non-western powers. I believe such an approach will help in speeding the work of the gospel among non-Christians, especially the Muslims.
If the Muslims know that, though the West is attacking some of their nations, many Christians are opposing those attacks, they may conclude that the Christians are not their enemy, and they may become more open to the message of the gospel.
Ajith Fernando
National Director for Youth for Christ, Sri Lanka
It is a few days after the first anniversary of the tragic events of 11 September 2001, and with fear and trembling I took the decision to write something that represents a perspective on world happenings from the other side of the globe.
Perhaps there has never been a time during my lifetime when the opinions of the rest of the world have diverged so markedly from the opinions of the government of USA. This hurts me a lot because many Christians in the Third World are very upset and I believe this is adding fuel to the serious gap developing between Christians in the Third World and in the USA.
In fact when I hear some of our Christian leaders speak about America I fear they may have slipped into the sin of racism. This must not be, for we all belong to one body. If one part of the body remains angry with another it hurts itself.
This hurts me especially because some of the happiest years in my life were spent as a student in USA. I owe so much of what I am to Christians there. Most of my mentors are Americans, and so are many of my closest and most valued friends.
At the heart of this crisis is the sense that is developing among Christian leaders here that it is impossible for Christians in the West, especially in the USA, to understand what is happening in the rest of the world. There is a wish that they would listen to us, and ask, ‘What do people in those countries feel?’
There is a growing frustration coming from a suspicion that American Christians are listening only to what American experts say about the situation in the world outside their borders. They fear that these experts depend on research rather than the Christian method of incarnational identification and that therefore they miss hearing the heart-cry of the people.
As one who has lived happily in both these worlds, I thought that for the sake of the unity of the body of Christ and the desire to see American Christians develop a sense of listening to the rest of the world, I would write down some of my reflections.
Terrorism is the violent response to what the terrorists see as a threat to the freedom and the rights of their people. This perception may be correct or incorrect. The means they use to achieve their ends are certainly wrong, but some of their anger may be justified.
Christians are people who must be skilled in listening in love to their neighbours; even if these neighbours are their enemies, for the Bible asks us to love our enemies. Therefore when a group resorts to terrorism, Christians should be concentrating on answering the question, ‘Why are they so angry?’ That is the question I wished most for the West to ask after the events of 11 September 2001.
Many here believe that these events were a direct response to the humiliation the Muslims have faced during the past few decades over successive defeats they have endured as the West has marched towards the domination of the world.
The Gulf war of 1991 and the continued bombardment of Iraq since then are two such defeats. But there are several other defeats. One is the Western dominance in trade and economics. It is called globalisation, but in order to survive developing nations have been forced to bow down to the Western agenda with its individualism and competitiveness.
The Muslim countries that are doing well economically have, in order to survive in a global economy dominated by Western values, adopted economic systems that other Muslims consider anti-Islamic. The Islamic extremists are very angry that Muslims have made so many concessions to this dominance of the world by the West.
Then there is the dominance of Western culture through the media. Some of the values portrayed there directly oppose Asian values such as costly commitment to family, lifelong faithfulness to spouse, and community solidarity as opposed to individualism.
Then there is the proliferation of pornography and other sexual deviations, which has hit our people without the preparation through a gradual sexual revolution that the West experienced. It has hit the East suddenly in its full-blown form and our people here have not developed defences to cope with it. They have got sucked in.
Recently I heard about a poor 15-year-old boy who has seen 500-600 pornographic videos. My son told me of a 17-year-old Muslim classmate who has downloaded and saved two gigabytes of pornography from Western webites.
Now, the Muslims – rightly or wrongly – blame all of this on the West. Personally I do not blame only the West for the rise of pornography etc. I believe that all people everywhere are naturally evil and immoral and liable to take steps that send their nations on a downward spiral.
But what I am presenting here is the way the extremists think. To them the West is evil and immoral but so powerful that they cannot fight its insidious influence on them. They feel they are losing the battle for the maintenance of what they believe is their ‘superior’ culture.
Personally I do not think that any culture is superior to another. All cultures have their good and bad points. But the Muslims believe their culture is superior because they think its features were dictated by God and reported verbatim in the Koran. So the Muslim extremists are humiliated over these defeats and some of them are responding by hitting out violently in anger.
Now there is a lot of talk about another war. The Muslims see this as another threat from the West. And each time this war talk is intensified the Christians in countries like Pakistan get hit. The trigger for many of the attacks on Christian compounds recently in Pakistan is the present initiatives and statements of Western leaders.
The Western leaders say they are fighting evil. The Muslim extremists feel that the West is evil and that they must protect righteousness by battling the West. So they hit targets that they associate with the West.
I do not know the answer to the complex problems of the world. I do not know the answer to the problem of Iraq and its campaigns against the West, or to its stockpiles of Anthrax and gas that can be used in chemical warfare.
However, even if the government of a poorer country officially backs a Western war effort against another poorer nation like Iraq, often a majority of the people in that country will oppose it. They would say that their government needed to back America because it would be economically suicidal not to, as America has so much economic power. This is how many people in poorer nations felt when their governments backed the Gulf war of the early 1990s.
My heart yearns to see the Muslims accepting Christ as their Saviour. To me working towards that goal is one of the most important agendas in the world today. Governments come and go; powers wax and wane, but the response of people to the gospel of Christ determines their eternal destiny.
That is a choice between heaven and hell – not just for a few decades but forever and ever. This is why I believe that world evangelisation is the most important cause in the world today. It has to do with eternity. The Church must put that first, and whatever hinders that must be dealt with.
Therefore whatever governments may do, I want to appeal to the Church to be careful about lending its support to Western military initiatives. Individuals will need to go out to war as obedient subjects of their country. But the Church must be careful about official endorsement of things that may hurt the huge segment of the body of Christ in the rest of the world.
Think of the eternal agenda. It looks like perceptions of what is right and wrong are very different among Christians in the West and in the East. Therefore, as members of the body of Christ, please think of what the Christians in the poorer nations are thinking and going through.
Paul said that he became weak to reach the weak (1 Corinthians 9:22). The Muslims see themselves as threatened by the strength of the West. I think that if we are to reach them with the gospel we will have to identify with their sense of weakness. We will have to become weak ourselves.
If they see the Christians as strong people coming to hit them, then they will hate us and oppose our gospel even more. This is why it may be necessary for the Church to divorce itself from the power of the West, which much of the rest of the world resents.
In a similar vein, it is necessary for the Church to divorce itself from statements like, ‘We are the greatest nation on earth’ because our religion tells us, ‘In humility consider others better than yourselves’ (Philippians 2:3). These are all vital issues that churches in the West need to think about if they are to be involved in missions.
While the Bible does speak about war, it also talks a lot about the need to be peacemakers. I hope that in this time when many in the West are speaking about war, Christians will concentrate on peace and through that make inroads into the Muslim communities as people who are not their enemies but their friends.
I believe that when the West took the side of the Muslims against the Orthodox Christians in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia it did a great thing for the cause of the gospel because, whether we like it or not, the West is associated with Christianity in the minds of many people.
In the past few years of war in Sri Lanka I have often had to take stands that go directly against that of my government and of the majority of the Sinhalese (my ethnic group) people. I have to always tell myself that I am a Christian first and only then a Sinhalese. This is a thing that Christians must always be doing.
Sometimes on matters of war and peace sincere Christians will disagree with each other. My hero John Wesley, who sided with Britain in the revolutionary war, disagreed with another hero, the American Methodist leader Francis Asbury, who supported the American independence struggle.
I think that, out of solidarity with the Christians in the developing world, Western Christians need to be reluctant about giving blanket support to military initiatives against non-western powers. I believe such an approach will help in speeding the work of the gospel among non-Christians, especially the Muslims.
If the Muslims know that, though the West is attacking some of their nations, many Christians are opposing those attacks, they may conclude that the Christians are not their enemy, and they may become more open to the message of the gospel.
Ajith Fernando
National Director for Youth for Christ, Sri Lanka
Critique of "Most Important Story Ever Told"
Dear WorldServe Publishing personnel:
My name is John Shorack. I am a missionary serving in Venezuela and a member of a mission called InnerCHANGE, which is a division of Church Resource Ministries (CRM). I deeply appreciate your commitment to getting God’s word out to all peoples, in all the world. I, too, want to see children saved from every tribe and nation.
Recently I came across the English-version of your evangelistic booklet entitled, “The Most Important Story Told”. The reason I’m writing is because when I read the booklet I was left with two very strong impressions about how God is presented in the booklet, namely that:
1. God is the one that withdraws from relationship with us (thus, the problem becomes God’s disposition more than our rebellion), and,
2. God is more concerned about our moral conduct than about having a relationship with us.
Let me explain.
God hates sin…sin separates us from God.
This statement gets repeated about three times in the booklet. I assume that you intend to communicate that our sin gets in the way of a relationship with God. Nevertheless, the implication in the booklet is that as a result of the fall, God withdraws his presence from man. From the statement that God “sent them away – out of the Garden of Eden,” the booklet makes a huge leap to God’s sending of Jesus, as if this is God first and only action toward the wayward human race. Moreover, the comment by the mother to the children when discussing the fall of Adam and Eve reads… ‘they didn’t know how awful separation from God would be.’ This gives the reader the impression that they were regretful of the separation and would have returned to God, if only God had been willing to receive them back. Thus, as I wrote above, the problem seems to be God’s disposition, more than our sin and rebellion.
The Old Testament is, in fact, a catalog of testimonies that teach us that God continuously relates to sinners after the fall. God drew near to Abraham and called him. Was Abraham a sinner? Of course. Was Abraham separated from God because of his sin? No. At least Abraham’s sin didn’t prevent God from having a relationship with him that included conversing, giving him great promises, committing himself to fulfilling those promises, guiding Abraham throughout his lifetime and those of his children.
In Egypt, God draws near to the suffering, sinful people to save them. Did the people’s sin separate them from God’s saving act? No. God had compassion on them.
I know that I’m preaching to the choir. You and I, and millions of evangelical believers know from personal experience that God’s loving action toward us was precisely while we were lost in the world. It troubles me that in spite of the biblical evidence and our own personal experience with God, we continue to promote literature that presents God as the one who withdraws and is unwilling to restore relationship because of our sin.
In the New Testament the religious leaders of Israel operated under the theological grid that God hates sin…sin separates us from God. When they looked through this grid at Jesus of Nazareth…getting baptized alongside sinners…having table-fellowship with outcasts…then getting executed as a criminal between two other criminals…they could only conclude that this man was a dangerous influence and a deceiver of the ignorant masses. Their God was too holy and too pure to act so acceptingly toward such irreligious folks.
Paul affirms this, too, when he states in Romans 5:8 that “God demonstrates his love for us because Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.” We were far away, rebellious, morally bankrupt when God came into our world – personally, in Christ – and won us back.
Yes, God can “hide” his face from us because of our sin (Ez 39:23-24; Is 59:2), and no doubt a quality of intimacy with God is (temporarily) lost. Yet, even so, we know that God is slow to anger and that his anger is short-lived, when compared to his mercy (Ex.34:6-7). Thus, the overwhelming testimony of the Old Testament is like that of the father in Luke 10 whose disposition and affections toward his wayward son never change and, in fact, eagerly awaits his son’s return. The good news is that God is not repelled by our stubborn, rebellious ways. Instead, he sent Jesus to “seek and save the lost.”
Moral conduct vs. Turning to God
Having pictured God (as presented in the booklet) as withdrawing from us and the pursuit of relationship with us because of our sin, it’s quite natural for the reader to also feel like God’s greatest concern is that we conform to his moral standard. This is very different from portraying a God that longs for relationship with his wayward people. Yet the wording in the booklet lends itself to this kind of conclusion…”we all sin when we do bad things” (the father to the children). “God just needed one perfect person.” “Dear God, I know I’m a sinner. I made wrong choices and did bad things.” The message becomes God wants me to be good, rather than God wants me.
Because his desire is that we return to Him, the sin that most concerns God is the sin of not trusting Him, rebelling, following our own ways, etc. When we articulate the nature of our sin in these kinds of relational terms, we also communicate something about God and his will. Biblically, I’m sure you would agree that Jesus’ “perfection” was not simply a conformity to a moral standard. His life was perfect also in the sense of having lived out fully the covenant relationship that had escaped Israel.
Alternative readings
The work you’ve done in bringing deep theological meaning into the simple language for children to understand is not easy. And it would not be fair for me to critique your theology without proposing some alternative readings of a few select portions of your booklet.
1. Current reading (section entitled: Adam and Eve Sin): “They had sinned by choosing to disobey God.”
Alternative reading: “Instead of trusting God and what he told them, they went their own way, thinking they knew better.”
2. Current reading: “Whoa, slow down! God still loved them. But he hates sin. Sin separates us from God.”
Alternative reading: “Whoa, slow down! God still loved them. In fact, even though people continued to turn their backs on God and choose their own way, God never stopped giving people opportunities to return to him.”
3. Current reading: “Why did God put the tree there, then? God loved Adam and Eve. He wanted them to have a choice, to choose for themselves to love and obey him. But they chose to disobey God. They didn’t know how awful separation from God would be. And, because they chose to sin, everyone who came after them was born sinful and separated from God, too.”
Alternative reading: I would delete this portion.
4. Current reading: “When everything was ready God put his plan into action. It began with a baby!”
Alternative reading: “In fact, one of the promises that God gave his people was that he would send a very special person to save us from our rebellious ways and restore our broken relationship with God. God fulfilled this promise when a very special baby was born 2000 years ago.
5. Current reading: “And he never sinned.”
Alternative reading: I would delete this. It’s redundant. It puts the weight again on moral conduct.
6. Current reading (page entitled: Jesus Dies on the Cross): “Hey, is Jesus the person in God’s plan? Right, Tony. God sent his own perfect Son, Jesus.”
Alternative reading: “Hey, is Jesus the person that fulfilled God’s promise? That’s right, Tony. God sent his own Son, Jesus.”
7. Current reading (same page): “And he died to take the punishment for our sins.”
Alternative reading: “And he died to take away our sins and heal our broken lives.”
8. Current reading: “That’s great, Tony! This is the most important decision you’ll ever make! The Bible tells us our sin separates us from God. And it says, “if you confess…”
Alternative reading: “That’s great, Tony! This is the most important decision you’ll ever make! The Bible says, “if you confess…”
Once again, my brothers and sisters at WorldServe Publishing, I want to thank you for your dedication to this kind of literature. Your efforts at publishing God’s word for children is no doubt bearing much fruit for God around the world. Thank you also for taking the time to consider my thoughts and concerns regarding “The Most Important Story Ever Told.”
May God bless you richly in His service,
John Shorack
InnerCHANGE (CRM)
Caracas, Venezuela
My name is John Shorack. I am a missionary serving in Venezuela and a member of a mission called InnerCHANGE, which is a division of Church Resource Ministries (CRM). I deeply appreciate your commitment to getting God’s word out to all peoples, in all the world. I, too, want to see children saved from every tribe and nation.
Recently I came across the English-version of your evangelistic booklet entitled, “The Most Important Story Told”. The reason I’m writing is because when I read the booklet I was left with two very strong impressions about how God is presented in the booklet, namely that:
1. God is the one that withdraws from relationship with us (thus, the problem becomes God’s disposition more than our rebellion), and,
2. God is more concerned about our moral conduct than about having a relationship with us.
Let me explain.
God hates sin…sin separates us from God.
This statement gets repeated about three times in the booklet. I assume that you intend to communicate that our sin gets in the way of a relationship with God. Nevertheless, the implication in the booklet is that as a result of the fall, God withdraws his presence from man. From the statement that God “sent them away – out of the Garden of Eden,” the booklet makes a huge leap to God’s sending of Jesus, as if this is God first and only action toward the wayward human race. Moreover, the comment by the mother to the children when discussing the fall of Adam and Eve reads… ‘they didn’t know how awful separation from God would be.’ This gives the reader the impression that they were regretful of the separation and would have returned to God, if only God had been willing to receive them back. Thus, as I wrote above, the problem seems to be God’s disposition, more than our sin and rebellion.
The Old Testament is, in fact, a catalog of testimonies that teach us that God continuously relates to sinners after the fall. God drew near to Abraham and called him. Was Abraham a sinner? Of course. Was Abraham separated from God because of his sin? No. At least Abraham’s sin didn’t prevent God from having a relationship with him that included conversing, giving him great promises, committing himself to fulfilling those promises, guiding Abraham throughout his lifetime and those of his children.
In Egypt, God draws near to the suffering, sinful people to save them. Did the people’s sin separate them from God’s saving act? No. God had compassion on them.
I know that I’m preaching to the choir. You and I, and millions of evangelical believers know from personal experience that God’s loving action toward us was precisely while we were lost in the world. It troubles me that in spite of the biblical evidence and our own personal experience with God, we continue to promote literature that presents God as the one who withdraws and is unwilling to restore relationship because of our sin.
In the New Testament the religious leaders of Israel operated under the theological grid that God hates sin…sin separates us from God. When they looked through this grid at Jesus of Nazareth…getting baptized alongside sinners…having table-fellowship with outcasts…then getting executed as a criminal between two other criminals…they could only conclude that this man was a dangerous influence and a deceiver of the ignorant masses. Their God was too holy and too pure to act so acceptingly toward such irreligious folks.
Paul affirms this, too, when he states in Romans 5:8 that “God demonstrates his love for us because Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.” We were far away, rebellious, morally bankrupt when God came into our world – personally, in Christ – and won us back.
Yes, God can “hide” his face from us because of our sin (Ez 39:23-24; Is 59:2), and no doubt a quality of intimacy with God is (temporarily) lost. Yet, even so, we know that God is slow to anger and that his anger is short-lived, when compared to his mercy (Ex.34:6-7). Thus, the overwhelming testimony of the Old Testament is like that of the father in Luke 10 whose disposition and affections toward his wayward son never change and, in fact, eagerly awaits his son’s return. The good news is that God is not repelled by our stubborn, rebellious ways. Instead, he sent Jesus to “seek and save the lost.”
Moral conduct vs. Turning to God
Having pictured God (as presented in the booklet) as withdrawing from us and the pursuit of relationship with us because of our sin, it’s quite natural for the reader to also feel like God’s greatest concern is that we conform to his moral standard. This is very different from portraying a God that longs for relationship with his wayward people. Yet the wording in the booklet lends itself to this kind of conclusion…”we all sin when we do bad things” (the father to the children). “God just needed one perfect person.” “Dear God, I know I’m a sinner. I made wrong choices and did bad things.” The message becomes God wants me to be good, rather than God wants me.
Because his desire is that we return to Him, the sin that most concerns God is the sin of not trusting Him, rebelling, following our own ways, etc. When we articulate the nature of our sin in these kinds of relational terms, we also communicate something about God and his will. Biblically, I’m sure you would agree that Jesus’ “perfection” was not simply a conformity to a moral standard. His life was perfect also in the sense of having lived out fully the covenant relationship that had escaped Israel.
Alternative readings
The work you’ve done in bringing deep theological meaning into the simple language for children to understand is not easy. And it would not be fair for me to critique your theology without proposing some alternative readings of a few select portions of your booklet.
1. Current reading (section entitled: Adam and Eve Sin): “They had sinned by choosing to disobey God.”
Alternative reading: “Instead of trusting God and what he told them, they went their own way, thinking they knew better.”
2. Current reading: “Whoa, slow down! God still loved them. But he hates sin. Sin separates us from God.”
Alternative reading: “Whoa, slow down! God still loved them. In fact, even though people continued to turn their backs on God and choose their own way, God never stopped giving people opportunities to return to him.”
3. Current reading: “Why did God put the tree there, then? God loved Adam and Eve. He wanted them to have a choice, to choose for themselves to love and obey him. But they chose to disobey God. They didn’t know how awful separation from God would be. And, because they chose to sin, everyone who came after them was born sinful and separated from God, too.”
Alternative reading: I would delete this portion.
4. Current reading: “When everything was ready God put his plan into action. It began with a baby!”
Alternative reading: “In fact, one of the promises that God gave his people was that he would send a very special person to save us from our rebellious ways and restore our broken relationship with God. God fulfilled this promise when a very special baby was born 2000 years ago.
5. Current reading: “And he never sinned.”
Alternative reading: I would delete this. It’s redundant. It puts the weight again on moral conduct.
6. Current reading (page entitled: Jesus Dies on the Cross): “Hey, is Jesus the person in God’s plan? Right, Tony. God sent his own perfect Son, Jesus.”
Alternative reading: “Hey, is Jesus the person that fulfilled God’s promise? That’s right, Tony. God sent his own Son, Jesus.”
7. Current reading (same page): “And he died to take the punishment for our sins.”
Alternative reading: “And he died to take away our sins and heal our broken lives.”
8. Current reading: “That’s great, Tony! This is the most important decision you’ll ever make! The Bible tells us our sin separates us from God. And it says, “if you confess…”
Alternative reading: “That’s great, Tony! This is the most important decision you’ll ever make! The Bible says, “if you confess…”
Once again, my brothers and sisters at WorldServe Publishing, I want to thank you for your dedication to this kind of literature. Your efforts at publishing God’s word for children is no doubt bearing much fruit for God around the world. Thank you also for taking the time to consider my thoughts and concerns regarding “The Most Important Story Ever Told.”
May God bless you richly in His service,
John Shorack
InnerCHANGE (CRM)
Caracas, Venezuela
On being a prophetic community
As a young man in my late teens and early 20s, I was shaped by two very different streams within the evangelical church. On the one hand, I am from the “Keith Green Generation”; those young people in the late 70s and early 80s who went “bananas for Jesus” through the music and message of this short-lived prophet. The other stream of influence that shaped my Christian life during the same period is best symbolized by Clarence Jordan, the Greek New Testament scholar in overalls, who started an interracial farming community in Georgia in the 1940s. He is remembered for writing the “Cotton Patch Version of the New Testament” and for inspiring a multi-millionaire named Millard Fuller (founder of Habitat for Humanity) to become a Christian.
Many InnerCHANGE missionaries share a similar journey of seeking to integrate the diversity of influences that impact how we see the world and seek God’s kingdom. Our founder, John Hayes, does not refer to one ministry as “social” in nature and another as “spiritual”. He has gifted InnerCHANGE with a “seamless” gospel, one without qualifying labels.
It is precisely this gift that God wants to use at this critical time in our journey as a prophetic community in the Church. I am deeply concerned about the prevailing spirit of line-drawing that holds God’s people in its grip. I see that line drawing spirit in many ways:
“Abortion is a moral issue…war is a necessary evil.”
“Opposing free trade is political engagement…defending the unborn is about doing what is right.”
“God-fearing Christians vote Republican.”
“We are the greatest nation on earth.”
“The environmental agenda belongs to a few green freaks.”
“The (only) way to love your neighbor is to tell him about Jesus…”
“That is a liberal agenda…this is the right-wing agenda.”
“If you get too concerned about social issues you’ll lose focus on saving souls.”
“God is on our side.”
On and on it goes…
I believe God has formed InnerCHANGE to be a small, yet significant, alternative to this prevailing spirit. But, what is that alternative? Is there another way for Christians today? What do we offer the wider Church as a prophetic community? How is God speaking to us at this moment in our journey?
Many InnerCHANGE missionaries share a similar journey of seeking to integrate the diversity of influences that impact how we see the world and seek God’s kingdom. Our founder, John Hayes, does not refer to one ministry as “social” in nature and another as “spiritual”. He has gifted InnerCHANGE with a “seamless” gospel, one without qualifying labels.
It is precisely this gift that God wants to use at this critical time in our journey as a prophetic community in the Church. I am deeply concerned about the prevailing spirit of line-drawing that holds God’s people in its grip. I see that line drawing spirit in many ways:
“Abortion is a moral issue…war is a necessary evil.”
“Opposing free trade is political engagement…defending the unborn is about doing what is right.”
“God-fearing Christians vote Republican.”
“We are the greatest nation on earth.”
“The environmental agenda belongs to a few green freaks.”
“The (only) way to love your neighbor is to tell him about Jesus…”
“That is a liberal agenda…this is the right-wing agenda.”
“If you get too concerned about social issues you’ll lose focus on saving souls.”
“God is on our side.”
On and on it goes…
I believe God has formed InnerCHANGE to be a small, yet significant, alternative to this prevailing spirit. But, what is that alternative? Is there another way for Christians today? What do we offer the wider Church as a prophetic community? How is God speaking to us at this moment in our journey?
Americans first? a critique of civil religion
“We are Americans first, Americans last, and Americans through and through.”
We are in the thick of another political season, with November just around the corner. If you don’t recognize the above quote it’s because it comes from the 2004 Republican National Convention. At the time I was deeply struck by the statement, made by Vice-President Dick Cheney. I penned the following reflection shortly thereafter, and felt that it was relevant for us now, four years later, in the run up to yet another presidential election.
The Vice-President was no doubt making a conciliatory appeal to the nation that whether you’re Democrat or Republican, we are all Americans.
Let’s stop and think about this for a minute. Was this just political hype at convention time? An innocuous declaration of our national identity? Or do the Vice-President’s words allude to an inherent conflict for Christian citizens of our country?
Whether you vote Republican, Democrat or Green Party, as a follower of Christ, I believe you and I are compelled for integrity’s sake and as citizens of God’s kingdom, to ask the deeper questions of those that lead our nation and of ourselves as participants in American democracy.
As followers of Jesus Christ, our loyalty to governments and nations is never undivided. From the earliest centuries of the Church the question of allegiance was paramount. For Jesus Christ to be king meant that Caesar could not.
Then as well as now, followers of Christ have a higher loyalty, an allegiance that goes beyond the geographic borders of one’s country and that far exceeds the “trust” that we could ever confer upon any elected official. As Christ’s followers we “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt 6.33). As children born of God, we are members first and foremost to a family that is irrespective of race and national identity in its worldwide breadth.
But someone might ask, “Why is seeking God’s kingdom in conflict with being American? After all, we are Americans.” Here are some thoughts of mine that provide food for thought regarding what, I believe, is an inherent tension for us as followers of Christ and citizens in the United States.
As citizens of the United States our highest leader is the President of the country. What is our leader’s mandate? In large part, his mandate is to protect and prosper our nation. In other words, his job is to serve the needs of our country. As citizens of God’s kingdom our highest leader is God himself, manifested in Jesus Christ. In this case, what is our leader’s mandate? At the risk of oversimplification, we might affirm that it is to fulfill His will and bring his lordship to all the nations.
What differences do you observe between these two leaders and their respective mandates?
For starters, they work toward very different ends (or goals). For all the influence and power that the President of the US wields around the globe, his end in everything he does both home and abroad is the financial and physical security of his country, the United States of America. For Christ, his end (or goals) in everything he stands for and is doing in the world is that all peoples everywhere, especially those that get relegated to last place in the world, might know his saving and transforming grace.
Jesus instructed us and modeled for us all the way to the cross, that the way to win the nations is through humility and giving up power. The President must be willing to use might to get what he wants. We place our right hand over our heart and swear allegiance to our nation, while witnessing through our baptism in Christ our sole allegiance to God and his rule. This can, and should, create a disturbing tension within us.
Having sworn our allegiance to live as Christ lived and to seek his kingdom, what do we do when our President pursues foreign policies or economic policies that frankly are void of the humility that we deem inherent to the gospel? If this weren’t enough, then the same President publicly names as his inspiration, the God in whose name we are baptized.
The conflict I see is most apparent, I believe, when Christian Americans “sanctify” or “baptize” the US government’s ends (or goals) as divine or uniquely in step with God’s spirit for carrying out God’s mission in the world. Our political leaders have, in a sense, made this easy for us. They have often quite unabashedly described their leadership as part of a divine plan or in step with God’s design of things.
“We are first, last and through and through citizens of God’s kingdom and members of Christ’s body worldwide.” This is my modest conciliatory appeal to my brothers and sisters in the United States of America. I invite your responses, however you may agree or disagree with it. My hope is to facilitate deeper reflection on our role and impact as Christians in society.
Peace to all!
John Shorack
Caracas, Venezuela
May 2008
We are in the thick of another political season, with November just around the corner. If you don’t recognize the above quote it’s because it comes from the 2004 Republican National Convention. At the time I was deeply struck by the statement, made by Vice-President Dick Cheney. I penned the following reflection shortly thereafter, and felt that it was relevant for us now, four years later, in the run up to yet another presidential election.
The Vice-President was no doubt making a conciliatory appeal to the nation that whether you’re Democrat or Republican, we are all Americans.
Let’s stop and think about this for a minute. Was this just political hype at convention time? An innocuous declaration of our national identity? Or do the Vice-President’s words allude to an inherent conflict for Christian citizens of our country?
Whether you vote Republican, Democrat or Green Party, as a follower of Christ, I believe you and I are compelled for integrity’s sake and as citizens of God’s kingdom, to ask the deeper questions of those that lead our nation and of ourselves as participants in American democracy.
As followers of Jesus Christ, our loyalty to governments and nations is never undivided. From the earliest centuries of the Church the question of allegiance was paramount. For Jesus Christ to be king meant that Caesar could not.
Then as well as now, followers of Christ have a higher loyalty, an allegiance that goes beyond the geographic borders of one’s country and that far exceeds the “trust” that we could ever confer upon any elected official. As Christ’s followers we “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt 6.33). As children born of God, we are members first and foremost to a family that is irrespective of race and national identity in its worldwide breadth.
But someone might ask, “Why is seeking God’s kingdom in conflict with being American? After all, we are Americans.” Here are some thoughts of mine that provide food for thought regarding what, I believe, is an inherent tension for us as followers of Christ and citizens in the United States.
As citizens of the United States our highest leader is the President of the country. What is our leader’s mandate? In large part, his mandate is to protect and prosper our nation. In other words, his job is to serve the needs of our country. As citizens of God’s kingdom our highest leader is God himself, manifested in Jesus Christ. In this case, what is our leader’s mandate? At the risk of oversimplification, we might affirm that it is to fulfill His will and bring his lordship to all the nations.
What differences do you observe between these two leaders and their respective mandates?
For starters, they work toward very different ends (or goals). For all the influence and power that the President of the US wields around the globe, his end in everything he does both home and abroad is the financial and physical security of his country, the United States of America. For Christ, his end (or goals) in everything he stands for and is doing in the world is that all peoples everywhere, especially those that get relegated to last place in the world, might know his saving and transforming grace.
Jesus instructed us and modeled for us all the way to the cross, that the way to win the nations is through humility and giving up power. The President must be willing to use might to get what he wants. We place our right hand over our heart and swear allegiance to our nation, while witnessing through our baptism in Christ our sole allegiance to God and his rule. This can, and should, create a disturbing tension within us.
Having sworn our allegiance to live as Christ lived and to seek his kingdom, what do we do when our President pursues foreign policies or economic policies that frankly are void of the humility that we deem inherent to the gospel? If this weren’t enough, then the same President publicly names as his inspiration, the God in whose name we are baptized.
The conflict I see is most apparent, I believe, when Christian Americans “sanctify” or “baptize” the US government’s ends (or goals) as divine or uniquely in step with God’s spirit for carrying out God’s mission in the world. Our political leaders have, in a sense, made this easy for us. They have often quite unabashedly described their leadership as part of a divine plan or in step with God’s design of things.
“We are first, last and through and through citizens of God’s kingdom and members of Christ’s body worldwide.” This is my modest conciliatory appeal to my brothers and sisters in the United States of America. I invite your responses, however you may agree or disagree with it. My hope is to facilitate deeper reflection on our role and impact as Christians in society.
Peace to all!
John Shorack
Caracas, Venezuela
May 2008
Recovering the scandal of the cross - lessons
In InnerCHANGE, one of our stated values is “Comprehensive Change”. We believe that God’s intentions for people, communities and nations, as revealed in Scripture, are “comprehensive”. All of life falls under God’s sovereign domain. We also believe that the body of Christ, with our diversity of gifts and callings, is uniquely endowed as the Lord’s ambassador in the world to respond to the realities that humanity faces today. I personally feel compelled by a biblical vision of transformation and the role that planting churches has in this as a catalyst for the kingdom of God to break into poor communities with transforming force.
In my diagnosis of “the problem” (simply stated: few churches catalyze transformation of their communities and cities), I tend to emphasize methodological “solutions” (that is, different ways of doing discipleship, small groups, church, etc.) Recently, however, -- and this will be the heart of this reflection – I read a book that heightened my appreciation for theological “solutions”. By theological solutions I mean how we think about God. The book, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in New Testament and Contemporary Contexts (Joel Green & Mark Baker, IV Press, 2000), deals specifically with how we understand the significance of the cross. The book helped me see how our thinking about the cross impacts the kind of disciples we make, the kind of leaders we develop, the kind of churches we plant, and the impact our churches ultimately make (or don’t make) in the world.
In the same way that Paul “conversed” theologically with the churches he planted, you could say that I am “conversing” theologically with you as we journey together as missionaries among the poor. I wouldn’t want it any other way. In fact I’m only writing this because I see the importance of it for the believers in the slums that we are developing into leadership. The stakes are too high to not step back and consider carefully what the end of our efforts in the slums will be. Speaking for myself, I’ve become dissatisfied with the pat answers that I inherited from my own church heritage. I don’t believe I was given the full picture of God’s intentions for the Church or for this world that God loves so much.
In the following theological reflections, I will put most statements in the first person singular in order to make explicit that what I’m writing about is how my story is intersecting with God’s story. Though, as you’ll see, I also refer to how our story, as children of the Reformation – North Americans, South Americans, Asians and Africans alike – intersects with God’s story. It is this dynamic of our experience “rubbing up against” the testimony of scripture (within the parameters of scripture) that enables us to meaningfully “converse” about the significance of the cross.
Enough of this. Join me as I try to unpack some initial theological reflections. Below you’ll find some of the insights I gained about the cross as well as implications.
1. The meaning of the cross is so rich in scripture that we must use MANY METAPHORS to convey its meaning.
The five primary metaphors in the bible:
Court of law – justification
World of commerce – redemption
Personal relationships – reconciliation
Worship – sacrifice
Battleground – victory
2. The biblical writers, like Paul and Peter, used various metaphors, depending on their audience and what would best communicate to the audience and their need (a la “receptor-oriented communication”).
3. In Western seminaries, since the Reformation, we have often limited the significance of the cross to ONE METAPHOR--namely, the idea of a court of law and how we are justified from sin before the judge.
4. Focusing on what can be called the “penal satisfactionary” metaphor of the cross (based on the court of law imagery) has deeply shaped how we live our faith as Christians (as children of the Reformation).
How has our exclusive use of the penal satisfactionary model shaped us? (Please understand that these are generalizations meant to provoke dialog.)
1. It has reinforced the view of an ANGRY GOD--venting his wrath on his loving Son.
My observation is that even though I try to emphasize God’s love when I teach about the cross, I end up conveying to people (quite unintentionally) the image of a mean, distant, judging God who needs to be appeased. I never felt comfortable with this portrayal of God, yet felt theologically somehow obligated to make the court room imagery with God as judge as the centerpiece of my teaching. This problem is accentuated by the fact that many of the disciples and emerging leaders we work with bring with them very negative and painful experiences with authority figures. Often their earthly fathers used anger abusively.
How do we teach the cross in a way that truly communicates that God’s love and mercy far outweigh his anger? How de we disciple and develop leaders to get out from under the “accusing eye” image of God?
2. It has emphasized a salvation that I have experienced as a kind of “LEGAL TRANSACTION” – as if God has a legal ledger and thanks to Jesus’ death for me, my name is moved from one side of the ledger to the other.
Have you ever heard someone teach about the difference between a “convert” and a “disciple”? Or heard someone’s nominal condition explained away because “they know Jesus as Savior, but not as Lord.” Could there be a connection between these examples of superficial Christian living and our narrow view of the cross’ significance? We lead people to a moment of receiving forgiveness that “gets them in”, but doesn’t deeply re-orient their lives. Could this explain the superficiality of many “decisions” for Christ that I have observed? From an apple seed, you get an apple tree. From a truncated understanding of the cross, we get truncated disciples.
3. It has TRUNCATED the CHURCH’S ETHIC in the world.
Is the cross only an invitation to join God’s family? Or is the cross also intended to define the nature of God’s family? That is, does the cross have the power to instruct us on how we are to live as God’s children?
The answer, of course, is “yes”. The cross teaches us how to live. Yet my observation is that one result of our exclusive use of the court room metaphor and the “legal transaction” significance of the cross is that the Church’s ethic doesn’t get the attention that it should. This manifests itself in that many Christians consider the cross as an unfortunate necessity – something that Jesus “had to go through”. Biblically, we must give greater weight to the cross as the final expression of a life given to God. Can we see the difference? And the ramifications?
The first view places the sole value of the cross on the invitation that it provides into the kingdom. The second view sees the cross also as the final act in many acts that teaches us to know God and his ways.
In Mark 10.42-45, Jesus responds to his disciples’ jostling for power by pointing to the cross. “The greatest among you will be the servant of all… for the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus gave the cross the power to speak into how the Church exercises leadership. He created a clear bridge between his life and his death. He beautifully unites the message of his life with the message of his death. Both clearly have the power to instruct us. Both were intended to shape the way the Church lives its faith in the world.
If God intended the cross to speak into how leadership is exercised in the Church, we have to ask the question: Are there other critical issues facing the Church that God wants his cross to speak to?
Maybe I’m touching on something beyond the issue of metaphors. Maybe I’m touching on the issue of our worldview, that is, the assumptions about the world that we bring to the reading of scripture. More pointedly, maybe I’ve underestimated the impact of the assumptions that Western (affluent) theologians bring to the biblical text.
Within the heritage of European and North American thinking, we’ve been taught to validate the theological significance of the cross (namely, that “Jesus died for my sins”), while invalidating the socio-political significance of Jesus’ death on the cross (namely, that Jesus ended up dying on the cross because he stood up for the outcasts of Palestine and, thus, upset the socio-religious-political power systems of his day that oppressed and excluded the poor).
Can we expect North American and Western theologians without any personal experience of being oppressed to see and affirm the socio-political significance of the cross for oppressed peoples? Another way to articulate this issue could be to ask the question: Maybe our thinking is not “holistic”? Maybe this is about a truncated way of thinking that we have inherited – truncated in that we see and affirm the theological significance of the cross, without seeing and affirming the socio-political significance of it.
Until now I never really questioned the narrowness of our traditional interpretations of the cross. Yet I now see the critical need to more closely examine this doctrine--because of its impact on the Church’s witness and influence in the world.
In my diagnosis of “the problem” (simply stated: few churches catalyze transformation of their communities and cities), I tend to emphasize methodological “solutions” (that is, different ways of doing discipleship, small groups, church, etc.) Recently, however, -- and this will be the heart of this reflection – I read a book that heightened my appreciation for theological “solutions”. By theological solutions I mean how we think about God. The book, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in New Testament and Contemporary Contexts (Joel Green & Mark Baker, IV Press, 2000), deals specifically with how we understand the significance of the cross. The book helped me see how our thinking about the cross impacts the kind of disciples we make, the kind of leaders we develop, the kind of churches we plant, and the impact our churches ultimately make (or don’t make) in the world.
In the same way that Paul “conversed” theologically with the churches he planted, you could say that I am “conversing” theologically with you as we journey together as missionaries among the poor. I wouldn’t want it any other way. In fact I’m only writing this because I see the importance of it for the believers in the slums that we are developing into leadership. The stakes are too high to not step back and consider carefully what the end of our efforts in the slums will be. Speaking for myself, I’ve become dissatisfied with the pat answers that I inherited from my own church heritage. I don’t believe I was given the full picture of God’s intentions for the Church or for this world that God loves so much.
In the following theological reflections, I will put most statements in the first person singular in order to make explicit that what I’m writing about is how my story is intersecting with God’s story. Though, as you’ll see, I also refer to how our story, as children of the Reformation – North Americans, South Americans, Asians and Africans alike – intersects with God’s story. It is this dynamic of our experience “rubbing up against” the testimony of scripture (within the parameters of scripture) that enables us to meaningfully “converse” about the significance of the cross.
Enough of this. Join me as I try to unpack some initial theological reflections. Below you’ll find some of the insights I gained about the cross as well as implications.
1. The meaning of the cross is so rich in scripture that we must use MANY METAPHORS to convey its meaning.
The five primary metaphors in the bible:
Court of law – justification
World of commerce – redemption
Personal relationships – reconciliation
Worship – sacrifice
Battleground – victory
2. The biblical writers, like Paul and Peter, used various metaphors, depending on their audience and what would best communicate to the audience and their need (a la “receptor-oriented communication”).
3. In Western seminaries, since the Reformation, we have often limited the significance of the cross to ONE METAPHOR--namely, the idea of a court of law and how we are justified from sin before the judge.
4. Focusing on what can be called the “penal satisfactionary” metaphor of the cross (based on the court of law imagery) has deeply shaped how we live our faith as Christians (as children of the Reformation).
How has our exclusive use of the penal satisfactionary model shaped us? (Please understand that these are generalizations meant to provoke dialog.)
1. It has reinforced the view of an ANGRY GOD--venting his wrath on his loving Son.
My observation is that even though I try to emphasize God’s love when I teach about the cross, I end up conveying to people (quite unintentionally) the image of a mean, distant, judging God who needs to be appeased. I never felt comfortable with this portrayal of God, yet felt theologically somehow obligated to make the court room imagery with God as judge as the centerpiece of my teaching. This problem is accentuated by the fact that many of the disciples and emerging leaders we work with bring with them very negative and painful experiences with authority figures. Often their earthly fathers used anger abusively.
How do we teach the cross in a way that truly communicates that God’s love and mercy far outweigh his anger? How de we disciple and develop leaders to get out from under the “accusing eye” image of God?
2. It has emphasized a salvation that I have experienced as a kind of “LEGAL TRANSACTION” – as if God has a legal ledger and thanks to Jesus’ death for me, my name is moved from one side of the ledger to the other.
Have you ever heard someone teach about the difference between a “convert” and a “disciple”? Or heard someone’s nominal condition explained away because “they know Jesus as Savior, but not as Lord.” Could there be a connection between these examples of superficial Christian living and our narrow view of the cross’ significance? We lead people to a moment of receiving forgiveness that “gets them in”, but doesn’t deeply re-orient their lives. Could this explain the superficiality of many “decisions” for Christ that I have observed? From an apple seed, you get an apple tree. From a truncated understanding of the cross, we get truncated disciples.
3. It has TRUNCATED the CHURCH’S ETHIC in the world.
Is the cross only an invitation to join God’s family? Or is the cross also intended to define the nature of God’s family? That is, does the cross have the power to instruct us on how we are to live as God’s children?
The answer, of course, is “yes”. The cross teaches us how to live. Yet my observation is that one result of our exclusive use of the court room metaphor and the “legal transaction” significance of the cross is that the Church’s ethic doesn’t get the attention that it should. This manifests itself in that many Christians consider the cross as an unfortunate necessity – something that Jesus “had to go through”. Biblically, we must give greater weight to the cross as the final expression of a life given to God. Can we see the difference? And the ramifications?
The first view places the sole value of the cross on the invitation that it provides into the kingdom. The second view sees the cross also as the final act in many acts that teaches us to know God and his ways.
In Mark 10.42-45, Jesus responds to his disciples’ jostling for power by pointing to the cross. “The greatest among you will be the servant of all… for the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus gave the cross the power to speak into how the Church exercises leadership. He created a clear bridge between his life and his death. He beautifully unites the message of his life with the message of his death. Both clearly have the power to instruct us. Both were intended to shape the way the Church lives its faith in the world.
If God intended the cross to speak into how leadership is exercised in the Church, we have to ask the question: Are there other critical issues facing the Church that God wants his cross to speak to?
Maybe I’m touching on something beyond the issue of metaphors. Maybe I’m touching on the issue of our worldview, that is, the assumptions about the world that we bring to the reading of scripture. More pointedly, maybe I’ve underestimated the impact of the assumptions that Western (affluent) theologians bring to the biblical text.
Within the heritage of European and North American thinking, we’ve been taught to validate the theological significance of the cross (namely, that “Jesus died for my sins”), while invalidating the socio-political significance of Jesus’ death on the cross (namely, that Jesus ended up dying on the cross because he stood up for the outcasts of Palestine and, thus, upset the socio-religious-political power systems of his day that oppressed and excluded the poor).
Can we expect North American and Western theologians without any personal experience of being oppressed to see and affirm the socio-political significance of the cross for oppressed peoples? Another way to articulate this issue could be to ask the question: Maybe our thinking is not “holistic”? Maybe this is about a truncated way of thinking that we have inherited – truncated in that we see and affirm the theological significance of the cross, without seeing and affirming the socio-political significance of it.
Until now I never really questioned the narrowness of our traditional interpretations of the cross. Yet I now see the critical need to more closely examine this doctrine--because of its impact on the Church’s witness and influence in the world.
My missionary call & crisis
It was a cold, wet Friday afternoon, the last day of finals week, December, 1982, in Monmouth, Oregon. The college campus had become a virtual ghost town. My friends had already left for Christmas break. The night before, in the quietness of my room, I had seen the heavens open and heard the Lord call me unmistakably to the mission field. It was actually quite dramatic and real for my 22 year old senses. By 8:00am the next morning I was waiting for the doors of the campus Administration office to open. They concurred that, yes, my credits were enough to allow me to graduate that very day.
I packed up my belongings in my little ’72 Datsun B210 and made the drive home; a college graduate with a newfound mission. With the zeal of a new convert I descended upon my family that Christmas…
“Guess what, Mom? Guess what, sister? Guess what, brother? I just graduated from school this morning. That’s not all. I’m never going to teach music in my whole life. ‘Cuz I’m going to be a missionary…forever!”
Within a month I was in Mexico City, celebrating my 23rd birthday. I spent one and a half years working with OM in Mexico, experiencing the exhileration and transformation that comes from immersing in the culture and bonding with the people. In a word, God’s voice to me that night in my college apartment was confirmed a hundred fold. I knew my life vocation. I knew my life purpose.
For the next several years I began preparing myself for the mission field. After Mexico, I returned to my family and hometown in Eugene, Oregon. Within a week or two I had signed up for a French class (which I figured I would need if I went to teach English in a North African country) and volunteered as a tutor for the only Salvadoran family in town.
I lived for the future. I was always looking ahead, awaiting the day when I would ‘arrive’, when the mission field would be under my feet and not around the next bend.
While still in this stage, I moved to downtown Los Angeles, California with some seminary friends that were also preparing themselves to go overseas and to live and work in slums. I married Birgit, a young German woman with an equally deep sense of call to live radically in poor communities. Two years into that experience, God began showing my wife and I that the ground we were standing on was, in deed, mission ground. I had ‘arrived’. That future day was here. We were not to ‘go’ anywhere else. This was it.
Then the crisis hit. My hidden ideas and illusions of what I thought it would be like began to surface; unannounced and cleverly disguised. I was angry with God. Wasn’t he supposed to come through in a big way, saving people right and left, largely because they were so impressed with my commitment and sacrifice? How could my poor neighbors not rollover and repent over such a great missionary presence in their midst?
There I stood, naked and hurt, without any futuristic dreams to hide behind or console me. God wasn’t healing the sick or saving the lost. Where was He? What on earth was He doing? How could he abandon me at a time like this, especially when I had made such a sacrifice for Him? (Translated more honestly: ‘Where’s the payback on all that I’ve put into this?’)
Meanwhile our small, fledging group of missionaries was adrift in the big, tumultuous sea called: Inner city America. We began as peers that wanted to learn and be a devotional community. We also had ideas of ministry (without long-term commitments). Yet, we didn’t know what all this meant and we didn’t know how to discover what it meant. Besides, which one of us would we allow to lead such a vision-making process? Who could help us?
There was no one. That is, no one close enough. No one with the right experience. No one with the time and commitment to help navegate us. – John Shorack, 1996
I packed up my belongings in my little ’72 Datsun B210 and made the drive home; a college graduate with a newfound mission. With the zeal of a new convert I descended upon my family that Christmas…
“Guess what, Mom? Guess what, sister? Guess what, brother? I just graduated from school this morning. That’s not all. I’m never going to teach music in my whole life. ‘Cuz I’m going to be a missionary…forever!”
Within a month I was in Mexico City, celebrating my 23rd birthday. I spent one and a half years working with OM in Mexico, experiencing the exhileration and transformation that comes from immersing in the culture and bonding with the people. In a word, God’s voice to me that night in my college apartment was confirmed a hundred fold. I knew my life vocation. I knew my life purpose.
For the next several years I began preparing myself for the mission field. After Mexico, I returned to my family and hometown in Eugene, Oregon. Within a week or two I had signed up for a French class (which I figured I would need if I went to teach English in a North African country) and volunteered as a tutor for the only Salvadoran family in town.
I lived for the future. I was always looking ahead, awaiting the day when I would ‘arrive’, when the mission field would be under my feet and not around the next bend.
While still in this stage, I moved to downtown Los Angeles, California with some seminary friends that were also preparing themselves to go overseas and to live and work in slums. I married Birgit, a young German woman with an equally deep sense of call to live radically in poor communities. Two years into that experience, God began showing my wife and I that the ground we were standing on was, in deed, mission ground. I had ‘arrived’. That future day was here. We were not to ‘go’ anywhere else. This was it.
Then the crisis hit. My hidden ideas and illusions of what I thought it would be like began to surface; unannounced and cleverly disguised. I was angry with God. Wasn’t he supposed to come through in a big way, saving people right and left, largely because they were so impressed with my commitment and sacrifice? How could my poor neighbors not rollover and repent over such a great missionary presence in their midst?
There I stood, naked and hurt, without any futuristic dreams to hide behind or console me. God wasn’t healing the sick or saving the lost. Where was He? What on earth was He doing? How could he abandon me at a time like this, especially when I had made such a sacrifice for Him? (Translated more honestly: ‘Where’s the payback on all that I’ve put into this?’)
Meanwhile our small, fledging group of missionaries was adrift in the big, tumultuous sea called: Inner city America. We began as peers that wanted to learn and be a devotional community. We also had ideas of ministry (without long-term commitments). Yet, we didn’t know what all this meant and we didn’t know how to discover what it meant. Besides, which one of us would we allow to lead such a vision-making process? Who could help us?
There was no one. That is, no one close enough. No one with the right experience. No one with the time and commitment to help navegate us. – John Shorack, 1996
Letter to friends on witchcraft, revenge and gospel
Hello Chris, Jim:
I've got theological indigestion or constipation, however you'd like to consider it. This context is so engaging, so stimulating, so challenging, that I'm daily looking and looking again at the gospel and what I'm proclaiming and teaching.
Maybe it's because whenever we re-entry after being away, there's always a slew of crises that hit you in the face...this person killed, this house burned down my street thugs, this person robbed Gonzalo, so and so is out of jail and terrorizing the neighborhood, etc.....
More than ever we're looking directly into the face of evil; in the form of what I'm referring to now as the trinity of evil here: DRUGS, WITCHCRAFT and REVENGE. These seem to be intertwined, in a depth that we're only now grasping. Witchcraft is utilitarian, used to work revenge on the killers of your son, drugs creates conflicts and enhances the violent behavior.
We're finding out that people we've known for years are, in fact, BRUJOS (witches or shaman). One of the women that was baptized under Mike Wells' ministry just became a witch; thru the influence of another woman that we didn't even know was a witch. In a recent email prayer bulletin I ramble on about a family that we're getting inroads into that seems to be a dark stronghold of witchcraft in Barrio Pedro Camejo (where we now live).
I've been greatly inspired of late by the example of James Lawson, a Methodist pastor who, in 1959 began training young, black bible school students to love their enemies (they practiced by spitting in each other's faces before going into Nashville to do the very first sit-ins at the front end of the civil rights movement). In short, I'm convinced that Christians need to be "trained to forgive" and seek reconciliation. That's in essence what my recent mentoring visit with Gonzalo became. I feel a bit like James Lawson. Gonzalo has gotten accosted 2 times in the last month by a young man that everyone knows from Pedro Camejo. He's a street kid, without parents, who's now an adult and basically robs and kills people (they call him CALIMERO -- please pray for him. He's also the one that robbed several of our team members in April / May. Quite a dangerous guy.).
The first time, CALIMERO's buddy held the gun to Gonzalo's head, while C robbed Gonzalo's shoes. The second time, they exchanged punches and C chased Gonzalo home. Gonzalo feels humiliated by these experiences and knows that given the right (or wrong?) circumstances, he could literally kill the guy out of rage. Or he could just move his family back to the countryside.
Corrie made this last visit to Gonzalo with me and wrote up the experience, as she saw it...it's not a polished piece of writing, just her raw journaling after the visit:
I’ve never before seen the deep smile on Gonzalo’s face that I saw when John gave him those shoes. To replace the ones that had been stolen from him several weeks ago...there couldn’t have been a more different look on his face when John asked him how we could find a way to tell Calimero and Chino that they are more loved by God than they can imagine. That the day they were born, the angels were rejoicing in heaven with singing and dance because of the joy of it. John said that’s what he wants to share with them. But he’s – honestly – afraid. How do you get close enough to them to tell them something like that? Something they’ve never heard before that would catch them enough by surprise to make them think. But it’s terrifying, because they could kill you at any moment, and getting friendly with them is no promise that they won’t. John said that’s what he wanted more than anything to share with them… then he asked Gonzalo, “But how can we do that? How could we get close enough?” Like there might be an answer. And the pain and sadness on Gonzalo’s face as he looked away seemed to me as much as saying, “I can’t believe this is what you’re asking of me as my friend. When a moment ago you were making up for my loss and humiliation, now you’re asking me to care enough about them to risk my life to tell them they’re worth something. That they’re loved.”
This is when loving your enemy ceases to be cliché. Is this the cost of following Jesus? Is this right here what it means to be like him? To risk your very life to share the father’s love with your own enemies. That was Jesus. This is no small calling… for any of us.
Praying together at the end, hand in hand, I felt the spirit powerfully present, as we were all facing much the same fears and dangers. I wish I understood even a word of what Gonzalo prayed, but I know what he said was coming from his heart, and I felt him agree with John and with me as we prayed for protection and strength and God’s love for these two boys, especially, whose fates seem to be sealed, but whom God is dying to redeem (end of corrie journaling).
Have you ever noticed how prophetic Jesus' vision for the Church was? Matthew 5, the beatitudes, are so radical in their call to go the distance in making peace, doing justice, serving Christ at any and all cost; rejection, persecution, even death for the sake of peace, justice, showing mercy, living humbly. Paul's vision in Romans 12 is equally radical and prophetic. To point Gonzalo to a life with God and his neighbor that does not repay evil for evil, but overcomes evil with good -- is very prophetic. Very counter-cultural. Very difficult for Christians to accept. For the Church to actually embody this teaching in an environment so volatile and dangerous is to be very different, very out of step with the law of the street.
I'm going to stop rambling here. Hope this makes sense, or that you can appreciate the depth and the emotion involved in these reflections. This is stuff of life and death for barrios like these; for forgiveness, in this environment becomes a social force, capable of breaking the cycle of revenge and violence. Forgiveness, cast upon the social landscape of revenge and violenct, becomes the difference between a Church that lives the gospel and a Church that opts for a non-threatening religious status-quo. This transformational vision stuff comes with a high price. It's costly. And we are feeling it, if only in anticipation of what could come down the pike.
God's peace,
John in Venezuela
I've got theological indigestion or constipation, however you'd like to consider it. This context is so engaging, so stimulating, so challenging, that I'm daily looking and looking again at the gospel and what I'm proclaiming and teaching.
Maybe it's because whenever we re-entry after being away, there's always a slew of crises that hit you in the face...this person killed, this house burned down my street thugs, this person robbed Gonzalo, so and so is out of jail and terrorizing the neighborhood, etc.....
More than ever we're looking directly into the face of evil; in the form of what I'm referring to now as the trinity of evil here: DRUGS, WITCHCRAFT and REVENGE. These seem to be intertwined, in a depth that we're only now grasping. Witchcraft is utilitarian, used to work revenge on the killers of your son, drugs creates conflicts and enhances the violent behavior.
We're finding out that people we've known for years are, in fact, BRUJOS (witches or shaman). One of the women that was baptized under Mike Wells' ministry just became a witch; thru the influence of another woman that we didn't even know was a witch. In a recent email prayer bulletin I ramble on about a family that we're getting inroads into that seems to be a dark stronghold of witchcraft in Barrio Pedro Camejo (where we now live).
I've been greatly inspired of late by the example of James Lawson, a Methodist pastor who, in 1959 began training young, black bible school students to love their enemies (they practiced by spitting in each other's faces before going into Nashville to do the very first sit-ins at the front end of the civil rights movement). In short, I'm convinced that Christians need to be "trained to forgive" and seek reconciliation. That's in essence what my recent mentoring visit with Gonzalo became. I feel a bit like James Lawson. Gonzalo has gotten accosted 2 times in the last month by a young man that everyone knows from Pedro Camejo. He's a street kid, without parents, who's now an adult and basically robs and kills people (they call him CALIMERO -- please pray for him. He's also the one that robbed several of our team members in April / May. Quite a dangerous guy.).
The first time, CALIMERO's buddy held the gun to Gonzalo's head, while C robbed Gonzalo's shoes. The second time, they exchanged punches and C chased Gonzalo home. Gonzalo feels humiliated by these experiences and knows that given the right (or wrong?) circumstances, he could literally kill the guy out of rage. Or he could just move his family back to the countryside.
Corrie made this last visit to Gonzalo with me and wrote up the experience, as she saw it...it's not a polished piece of writing, just her raw journaling after the visit:
I’ve never before seen the deep smile on Gonzalo’s face that I saw when John gave him those shoes. To replace the ones that had been stolen from him several weeks ago...there couldn’t have been a more different look on his face when John asked him how we could find a way to tell Calimero and Chino that they are more loved by God than they can imagine. That the day they were born, the angels were rejoicing in heaven with singing and dance because of the joy of it. John said that’s what he wants to share with them. But he’s – honestly – afraid. How do you get close enough to them to tell them something like that? Something they’ve never heard before that would catch them enough by surprise to make them think. But it’s terrifying, because they could kill you at any moment, and getting friendly with them is no promise that they won’t. John said that’s what he wanted more than anything to share with them… then he asked Gonzalo, “But how can we do that? How could we get close enough?” Like there might be an answer. And the pain and sadness on Gonzalo’s face as he looked away seemed to me as much as saying, “I can’t believe this is what you’re asking of me as my friend. When a moment ago you were making up for my loss and humiliation, now you’re asking me to care enough about them to risk my life to tell them they’re worth something. That they’re loved.”
This is when loving your enemy ceases to be cliché. Is this the cost of following Jesus? Is this right here what it means to be like him? To risk your very life to share the father’s love with your own enemies. That was Jesus. This is no small calling… for any of us.
Praying together at the end, hand in hand, I felt the spirit powerfully present, as we were all facing much the same fears and dangers. I wish I understood even a word of what Gonzalo prayed, but I know what he said was coming from his heart, and I felt him agree with John and with me as we prayed for protection and strength and God’s love for these two boys, especially, whose fates seem to be sealed, but whom God is dying to redeem (end of corrie journaling).
Have you ever noticed how prophetic Jesus' vision for the Church was? Matthew 5, the beatitudes, are so radical in their call to go the distance in making peace, doing justice, serving Christ at any and all cost; rejection, persecution, even death for the sake of peace, justice, showing mercy, living humbly. Paul's vision in Romans 12 is equally radical and prophetic. To point Gonzalo to a life with God and his neighbor that does not repay evil for evil, but overcomes evil with good -- is very prophetic. Very counter-cultural. Very difficult for Christians to accept. For the Church to actually embody this teaching in an environment so volatile and dangerous is to be very different, very out of step with the law of the street.
I'm going to stop rambling here. Hope this makes sense, or that you can appreciate the depth and the emotion involved in these reflections. This is stuff of life and death for barrios like these; for forgiveness, in this environment becomes a social force, capable of breaking the cycle of revenge and violence. Forgiveness, cast upon the social landscape of revenge and violenct, becomes the difference between a Church that lives the gospel and a Church that opts for a non-threatening religious status-quo. This transformational vision stuff comes with a high price. It's costly. And we are feeling it, if only in anticipation of what could come down the pike.
God's peace,
John in Venezuela
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