the same but different...but the same...but different
While at dinner with Pete and Becca (that I talked about in my last post), Becca raised a really interesting conundrum that I've often puzzled over. She works in a job where she can't share her faith with her "clients" (she works to help troubled kids integrate from primary to secondary school). She went on a week away with the kids she works with, as well as another Christian guy from her organisation and his kids and a bunch of workers that aren't Christian from another organisation.
What she found on that camp was that in the absence of being able to share her faith, she contributed nothing more to these kids and in no different way to the guys who weren't Christians. In her words "she was effectively just administering a government program". Which is fine if that's your calling, but clearly she feels it's not hers. She spends a year with these kids, then on one day at the end has to end all contact with them. She is not allowed to continue a relationship in any intentional way with them.
Which begs the question: if you have no ability to differentiate yourself as a Christian in your work, should you move on and do something where you can?
Now the conventional answer goes something like: well if you're really a Christian, just the way you act and think will rub off on the people around you whether you're express about your beliefs or not. I don't agree. As Becca said, the guys who weren't Christians cared just as much about the kids and that they have a bright future and often had a longer fuse than she did when they were being brats. There was no way those kids could discern a difference between her and the others.
Then of course the inevitable argument is one of dualism: that that thought process doesn't allow any room for understanding that God may move through people who don't know him. But even if God is working through them both, surely the only way to influence them in a way for God is to communicate that God is behind that love? Otherwise you're an endless stream of love but provide no connection in their mind between God's love exhibited naturally through you, and God. So they know his love, but not him or a way to live the life he wants for them.
I struggle with this because I think what she's doing is vital, I think why she is doing it is pure (which I think is most important to God), but she has no scope to influence these kids life with Jesus. And if that's our mission in life, do we not need to seek somewhere we can?
I know there are a hundred ways to take this argument and none will lead to a solution that sits perfectly well. As Pete said at one point [paraphrased here], "We constantly live in the tension of wanting to do better and do more, but working within the context we have which limits our ability to do it. So in the meantime do we throw our hands up and stop work, or do we just keep doing what we are able to do?" I think this is a valid point too.
I guess I share Pete's philosophy but/and Becca's frustration and confusion on this one.
posted by Chris at 4:05 pm
5 Comments:
This is the dangerous legacy of conservative Western evangelical Christianity; it makes you feel like a failure because you're not explicitly telling people the four Ps, or Two Ways To Live. Never forget that the way you have learnt Christianity is a cultural construct (and partly that's necessary, but it's important not to confuse the map with the territory).
Of course, there is an alternative, but it means letting go of the outcome, and that's not comfortable.
What if all you can do is create the conditions under which faith might arise if God were actually involved in this process and willed their liberation?
I don't propose that expressly telling these kids about God is the only way, but surely being able to share your experience is key, whether that be verbally or otherwise.
I know the "create the conditions" thing, but how are you creating the conditions if, in say Becca's case, you are doing the exact same things 10 other people who don't believe in God are doing (and possibly not as well)?
I know it's God who brings people to himself, but how do we "create the conditions under which faith might arise" when the only conditions we can create are already being created by Muslims, Siekhs and agnostics?
Hi Chris,
It's been great to find your blog and listen in on what's been happening for you.
Just a thought to throw into the mix. One of the writers who has most influenced my understanding of mission is John Taylor. In his book 'The Go-Between God' he paints a picture of mission that is, for me, much more inclusive and everyday, much more empowering of ordinary people in the midst of very routine circumstances. People like Bec. A couple of quotes, with apologies for the exclusive language:
" … the basis I want to establish … is that we need to come off our religious high-horse and get our feet on the lowly, earthy ground of God’s primary activity as creator and sustainer of life. We must relinquish our missionary presuppositions and begin in the beginning with the Holy Spirit. This means humbly watching in any situation in which we find ourselves in order to learn what God is trying to do there, and then doing it with him.”
"The mission of the church ... is to live the ordinary life of men in that extraordinary awareness of the other and self-sacrifice for the other which the Spirit gives. Christian activity will be very largely the same as the world's activity -- earning a living, bringing up a family, making friends, having fun, celebrating occasions, farming, manufacturing, trading, building cities, healing sickness, alleviating distress, mourning, studying, exploring, making music and so on. Christians will try to do these things to the glory of God, which is to say that they will try to perceive what God is up to in each of these manifold activities and will seek to do it with him ..."
I like that, particularly the second paragraph. Looks like I've got another book to add to the list! I think I'm gonna have to quit work to read full time!
No need to buy it if you don't want...I have a copy. but you'll have to come back to melbourne to borrow it, so...
also, if you don't already have it, my best. book. ever at the moment is Mere Discipleship by Lee Camp. Like Mere Christianity, or Alpha, but better theology.
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