In this, my final three part post, I want to look at the third part of my Quest. I have, for the past several years, found myself questioning more and more the "status quo" of our Christian religious system. However, as often as I am disappointed by the rhetoric, I find my faith restored by a selfless act of kindness. While I see that often we speak empty words devoid of actions that give credence to our faith, there is still the other side of the coin where I see people who truly care for those around them and show it in endless small ways. As part of our travels, I was very curious to see how this "system" is really working outside of the US, especially in a country where the opportunities to speak, preach and do good works are endless.
The Good
America the Generous! I continue to be amazed at the generosity of the American people. Interestingly though, this does not seem to be directly related to religious motives. Take for example the house that Barbe and I helped repair. (see A Project of Love and Hope). We had an almost equal number of people give to help with this project who would probably say that they gave from religious motives as those who gave without religious motives. Over and over again as I have been involved in the aftermath of natural disasters (for me this is done commercially) I have seen thousands of people come to help. Often they are churches, but there are businesses, corporations and civic clubs as well. All you have to do is travel to a third world country and with in a matter of hours you will, without fail, run into an American group doing humanitarian work. Check out this recent CNN article written by William J. Bennett titled America the Generous.
So, are Evangelical Christians more generous than the other Americans? I don't know. I have read articles and studies that say yes and no. This I do know. Because of our belief in the Great Commission where Jesus says, "Go ye therefore unto all nations..." we do go. Do we Evangelicals always go for the "right" reasons? Probably not, but none the less each time we go we usually leave behind much of what we brought in our suitcases and the promise to send more. We just can't seem to help ourselves! So much of the good that has been done in third world countries, especially in the areas of medicine, hunger, children and human rights have been spearheaded by Christians. Hospital Evangelico where Barbe had her surgery is an excellent example of this. Google "orphanages in third world countries" and you will find that many, if not most, are faith based. It is Christian organizations that are fighting against "white slavery" or are buying back sexually abused children in Thailand who have been bought, used and abandoned as worthless. Christians working with drug addicts in the slums of Mexico and the list goes on and on. All of these things are usually done because of our faith. (Please, this is not an effort to discount any other humanitarian efforts by non-faith based NGOs or other religions. This article is focused solely on Christian missions.)
We Christians give millions, even billions of dollars each year to "missions", this catch all phrase that churches tend to use rather loosely to describe a wide array of events and activities. We give to evangelize, we give to feed the children, to feed the poor, to build churches, to feed pastors, to train pastors, to drill wells, to send our youth to camp, to send our churches on short term missions, to translate the Bible into other languages, to build radio stations, to help widows, to support missionaries, to provide Bibles, almost any "good" sounding idea someone comes up with...we give to support it. And we donate...clothes, books, cars, tractors, well drilling rigs, lawn mowers, golf carts, tools, backhoes, ping pong balls, pencils, cars, houses, boats, frequent flyer miles... you name it, put it out there as a need and eventually some good hearted soul back home is going to get it to you. It's amazing!
We have, in the name of Jesus, built hospitals, schools, seminaries, churches, orphanages and staffed all of them. We build homes for the poor, the widows. Drill wells for communities, feed the starving, care for the sick. In all this my goal is not to pat us on the backs or try to make us look better than anyone else. All I want to do is to take a fair and balanced approach to the way our system is working.
So, is our system producing "good" things? Without a doubt. But is that all that Christianity and missions in particular supposed to be doing? Of course not. Our greatest reason for "missions" is to evangelize. (Again, I am speaking solely from the viewpoint of the Christian faith.) So how's that working out for us? Once again I go to the internet, not as a source of all truth, but at least a source of information. (You may want to do your own research on this.) In an article from Charisma Magazine looking back on the past decade, J. Lee Grady say this. "There are now about 600 million Christians in Africa. Protestant Christianity grew 600 percent in Vietnam in the last decade. In China, where a 50,000-member megachurch was raided in Shanxi province a few weeks ago, there are now an estimated 130 million churchgoers...Astounding church growth has occurred in Guatemala, Brazil, India and Ethiopia. In Nepal, which had no Christians in 1960, there are now a half-million believers. The Christian population of Indonesia has mushroomed from 1.3 million to 11 million in 40 years." If numbers is the only measure of success, then apparently missions is working.
Like everything in life, there are always two sides to every story. Nothing is always completely good or completely bad. Those of us who want to close our eyes to the bad or only see the negative are doing ourselves and others an injustice. In order to take a fair and balanced look at all this (thank you Fox News for this phrase) we must now look at the negative side of what is happening in the system.
Tomorrow I will address the negative aspects of the system.
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