I met with my friend and fellow blogger Tim Nichols last night. He writes over at Full Contact Christianity, and is a professor at Rocky Mountain Bible College & Seminary.
We talked about a variety of topics, but mostly about the process of redeeming culture in a missions environment. When a missionary takes the gospel into a foreign culture, it is not just a matter of transplanting American Christianity into this foreign setting, although this is the way it has most often been done. Most often, American missionaries take our hymns, buildings, clothing, and leadership structures and tried to get foreign believers in the new culture to adopt these customs.
This results in foreign churches that are dependent upon American churches and missionaries for most of the things related to Christian life and practice. This is extremely destructive and debilitating for these new Christians and new churches.
So Tim Nichols is working to develop a way of teaching foreign churches how to “find their own way,” and even, in a sense, develop their own theology. It is exciting what he is doing, and I cannot wait to hear more.
One of the things he said near the end of our conversation was something he finds himself praying as he gets involved in church practices that he doesn’t quite agree with. This is what he prays: “Lord, I believe this is wrong. Bless it anyway.”
I like that. I think I’m going to incorporate it into my philosophy of ministry. It may even be the key idea which eventually allows me to pursue ministry within a traditional church setting.
Hi Jeremy. Yep, I’m actually posting…which is not typical for me, but this is a very interesting topic. Wow. Did we ever tell you about the “pig issue” when we were in West Papua? That was one that really stretched our boundaries as missionaries. Apart from that, though, let me just add that often it’s not the missionaries that want to bring in new songs from a different culture. Sometimes the nationals, especially the first generation Christians, want to separate themselves from the style of songs and worship that they have associated with ancestor worship, sorcery, witchcraft, etc. Something like don’t eat meat sacrificed to idols if it is a struggle for you. Often it’s not until the 2nd generation (who doesn’t have pagan worship associations with their indigenous music, rituals, etc.), who then will bring these aspects of the culture back, with Christian meaning, but without the pagan associations. This would be a fun topic to spend a day talking about. It has so many aspects and challenges. I would say these days, in general, missionaries, at least the ones we work with, really try to incorporate ethnomusicology and traditional practices as much as possible from the beginning. The key is to always listen to the people whom you are ministering to, though, because whether we tell them they should keep their music style or tell them to use our music style, either way it ends up being paternalistic. That’s what’s difficult, is leaving it up to them and trusting the Spirit’s work in their hearts to know what they need to change and when.
interesting topic.A lot of damage was done in south africa by white missionaries.they didn’t come to bring messiah they came to bring western culture into africa.there are so many beautiful things about indigineous cultures that have been robbed and destroyed.so as a follower of messiah i tend to stay as far away from ‘missionary” work and i just try to listen to people’s stories.
great post.
Mands81
Laura,
You would be a great resource to discuss this with more. I know you are dealing with it first hand on a day to day basis. You are right, though. If they want American music, it is paternalistic not to give it to them. Of course…and I’m speaking from ignorance here…why do they want American music? Is it because they think Christianity is American?
There are definitely lots of issues to think through.
Mands81,
I was just watching Invictus last night. I’m not sure if the movie brings out much of what you are talking about, but it is neat to see how Mandella tried to unify the country.
You are on the right track with listening to people’s stories. That shows you care and helps you interact more meaningfully with them.