Spiritual Experience and the Brain

Be Still and Know That I Am God

Ps 46:10

[Note: I wrote this blog just before my father-in-law had his second stroke the effects of which led to his death a little over a month ago. I have held off on posting this until now because the timing didn’t seem appropriate in light of his death. Now with all those things a bit in the past I believe that there has been sufficient time to return to consider this topic.]

As one who has grown up in the western intellectual and rationalist tradition and one who has been trained as an academician I want to know, to understand, and to be able to explain, measure and quantify life and even faith. I am not alone in this—this is the tradition in which I was trained. My master’s degree is in New Testament Greek exegesis. When I received that degree I was able to sight-read (i.e. without looking up many words in the lexicon) most of the New Testament. I have been taught to look at the background of the text and to analyze the grammar to squeeze every drop of meaning out of the text (and maybe at times even more than was there!). As I turned my attention to Historical Theology in my Ph.D. work I began to look at other theological traditions outside of my personal heritage. I saw in them a similar devotion to the rational understanding of God and his world and work. But along the way I came in contact with one major Christian tradition that had a different emphasis—Eastern Orthodoxy. The Eastern Orthodox tradition is predominantly mystical rather than rational. The Orthodox focus on the experience of God rather knowing about him. We could say “knowing God” rather than “knowing things about him.” In theological language Eastern theology is primarily apophatic, a theology that describes who/what God is not rather than the way of Western theology which is primarily kataphatic describing in positive assertions who/what God is.

Mysticism and an apophatic understanding of God are naturally connected although they are not technically the same thing. The apophatic perspective confesses that God is transcendent and infinite. He cannot be known as he is in himself, while mysticism “ focuses on a spontaneous or cultivated individual experience of the divine reality beyond the realm of ordinary perception, an experience often unmediated by the structures of traditional organized religion or learned thought and behavior.” (Wikipedia s.v. “Negative” Theology)

I must admit, I have always been skeptical on some level of the truth of “experience.” Yet over the years I have had to admit that our modern evangelical aversion to experience has at the very least locked the Holy Spirit between the covers of the pages of Scripture. In the early 1990s I delivered a paper at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society entitled “The Witness of the Spirit in the Protestant Tradition” which became a chapter in Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit. After delivering the paper there was a time for Q & A. One of the questioners, an old acquaintance was very uncomfortable with the idea of the witness of the Spirit as it had been advocated and practiced within the broader protestant tradition asked, “What are the controls on the witness of the Spirit?” Another asked, “How does this differ from the Mormon’s “burning in the bosom?”

The aversion to “spiritual experience” in our tradition was a key motivating factor for Dan Wallace and me to do Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit? Our rationalistic approach to truth had left us unprepared to face the severe trials of life which we individually were experiencing at the time.

All this is by way of introduction to an amazing video which was forwarded to me by a cousin who had heard of my father-in-law’s stroke. This video is amazing in that the lecturer is a physician who is herself an expert on the brain and who experienced a stroke herself. She describes what she experienced and how her perceptions changed in different phases of the stroke. She also describes the physical make-up of the two halves of the brain and the way each half functions. I have always been skeptical of the validity “right brain” “left brain” talk, wondering if it were not psychobabble or only metaphorical. What brain research has demonstrated is that “right brain” “left brain” talk describes a literal reality. As I watched this video I immediately began to ponder the implications this has for how we related to and experience the presence of God in our lives.

I am still pondering, but I am convinced that there is something here that has implications for our spiritual lives and experience.

I urge you to carve out about 18 minutes to watch this video.

http://www.microclesia.com/?p=320

 

 Herbert Thomas Fuqua

Wycliffe Bible Translators'  First Agricultural Missionary 

This past several weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster for us.  I reflected on the stroke that Herb suffered in my last blog.  He was recovering and ready to go home from rehab a week ago last Thursday when he suffered another stroke and was rushed back to the hospital. This stroke was major and affected his motor functions--he was not even able to swallow.  His DNR (do not resuscitate ) order put in place over 10 years ago specifically prohibited a feeding tube.  We were informed that it could take six weeks for him to starve to death.  We were stunned and numbed.  Kay desperately wanted to go to be with the family but couldn't take the time from work.  She was so thankful that she had gone to see him after the first stroke.

Then one and 1/2 days later we got word that he had suffered another stroke and slipped into a coma, death was imminent.  We immediately booked a flight to Dallas, the earliest flight we could find was on Saturday morning.  He passed away  during the wee hours on Friday morning.  We arrived in a whirlwind of activity and preparations.  The viewing at the funeral home on Sunday afternoon, the grave side service at the National Cemetery in Dallas (Herb was a marine and a WWII vet) and then the Memorial service on Tuesday morning.  Kay claimed her right as first-born to deliver the eulogy.  It follows below.

My Dad

by

Kay Lynn Fuqua Sawyer 

We are here to celebrate! My Dad and my brother David’s daughter Kelsey are having a grand homecoming celebration in heaven. Dad loves to have fun and I’m sure Kelsey can show him a few more things about celebrating.

It’s because of Jesus Christ that we have a reason to celebrate. He took on my Dad’s sin and paid for it…wiping it all away, and bringing him into right relationship with God. The same for all of us. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice and love, my Dad’s life was a grand adventure.

Such a grand adventure it has been. When I was a child life in the Amazon jungle was just everyday normal: going barefoot despite poisonous snakes & large insects, swimming with the piranhas, riding bikes all over, climbing banyan trees and mango trees. As I have been an adult in the US raising my own family, my parents’ chosen life has become amazing to me.

When my Dad was 12 a group of people came to his church and held special evangelistic services. It was at one of those services that he gave his life to Jesus. My dad always had a dream to be a cattle rancher. But then God called him to be a missionary. We will pick up the story when Dad was in the Marine Corps. He was stationed in So. California. One weekend when he had leave he was walking around the town of Santa Ana when two men invited him to come to church. He accepted their invitation and went back several times. It was there he met a certain young lady named Grace. She greatly impressed him with her gifts of hospitality and organization. We will continue the story in Dad’s own words…

“After my discharge from the Marine Corps I went home to Colorado. My folks were away for 6 weeks leaving me to attend to the irrigation of a ten acre peach orchard. It was spring time and the water had just been turned into the main irrigation canals. I found myself spending the days leaning on a hoe handle making sure the water followed the creases through to the end of each row.

“In the house I found a little book which contained the words of Jesus lifted out of the four gospels. So I picked it up and put it in my shirt pocket to have something to read during the day. Well, as I read that little book in the succeeding days, the Lord began to work on me, and I didn’t want to get involved in missionary work. However, I remembered two of the men at Calvary Church in California who had given devotionals at the service men’s breakfasts had said that the Lord had tapped them on the shoulder when they were young and they turned the other way, and later regretted that they had not responded.

“There were 2 big things I did not want to do. I didn’t want to give up my dream of having a cattle ranch some day, and I had tried college after finishing high school and I had not done well, so I didn’t want to face that again after having been out of school for 5 yrs. by then. It got to the point that as I read that little book, the Lord would have a direct answer to every objection I brought up, just as clearly as if He were standing there talking with me.

“Finally I bargained with the Lord that since there was a junior college in town, just a mile and a half away I could go give it a try, and since I had not done well before perhaps I would flunk out and be off the hook. The first thing the next day I rode by bicycle down to the college which I knew nothing about, walked in and found myself there on the last day of registration for the summer session. There was no turning back now. I had to register to keep my end of the bargain. The Registrar asked if I had my discharge papers. I pulled the sealed envelope out of my pocket not knowing what was in it. He took it back to his office for a few minutes and came back saying that he could give me 69 hours credit for a general education test that I had taken on a whim one time when I was bored in the Marine Corp. So I spent the summer trying to get back into the books. . . the Lord won since I was not flunking at the end of the quarter.

“I transferred to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and finished college in Agriculture with good grades, since that was the only subject I knew very well or was interested in. Grace at the same time was finishing Biola, we had continued to write. We were married in June 1950 when we both completed our schooling. The following fall we enrolled at Multnomah School of the Bible grad course so that I could get some Bible courses. I had decided to try for agricultural missions so during the school year we wrote to all the missions that we knew about. Only one answered and they said they didn’t need any agricultural man.”

So my Dad decided to obey God’s call, even though he had to give up his dream. Dad continues…

“Knowing about Wycliffe we decided the next logical step would be to take their linguistics courses. So we went to the Norman Oklahoma summer course. Toward the end of the program, Uncle Cam Townsend, Wycliffe’s founder was there for a few days and announced that he would like to speak about the need for support personnel. I went to the meeting where he mentioned the need in Peru for an agricultural man soon. It wound up with him inviting us to sign up with Wycliffe at the end of the summer 1951.”

And so the adventure began. Dad thought he had given up his dream, but God gave it back to him a hundred fold!

In Dad’s words,

“I started from 1300 acres of virgin jungle, a few borrowed cows, and many samples of pasture grasses. I enjoyed 34 years of lots of fun and challenge there in Peru, and was able to send over 400 head of calves to Indian communities and sell 1500 head of breeding stock to ranchers in the area.”

“…it took 20 years to clear, fence and seed 500 hectares…one year we had 98 men, women and children picking five tons of grass seed…we also had a fence building crew that built one kilometer of 4-strand barbed wire fence per day. We built a total of 40 km of fence dividing the 500 hectares into 29 pastures and lanes.”

Dad had to develop cattle that would withstand the jungle heat. The good beef cattle stock from the US would grow old and die in the jungle within just a few years because of the heat. The local scrub stock could stand the heat, but did not produce good beef. So over the years and with great care and skill Dad began to cross some of the more heat resistant stock with the good beef stock and came up with a winning mixture of Brahma, Zebu and Santa Gertrudis. He set up and ran a training program to teach the Indians how to plant, care for and graft citrus trees, rubber and cacao trees; how to care for and raise chickens; and how to care for cattle and manage pasture. They worked on the ranch crew along side regular crew members and had a daily class that taught them how to throw a lasso, throw a calf and tie its feet, to throw an adult animal, to build a corral, what to do in case of abnormal birth, how to build fence, how to treat animals for disease and worms, how to plant and manage pasture.

But why do missionaries need an agricultural and cattle program? Many of Dad’s fellow missionaries wondered the same thing. Civilization encroaching into the jungle was changing the living patterns of the semi-nomadic Indians in Peru, forcing them into a more settled existence, for which they were not prepared. They were looked down upon by the Spanish-speaking Peruvians around them as ignorant. They were getting the Scripture in their own languages to meet their spiritual needs, but they also needed material help in the complicated processes of socio-economic adjustment to the new ways of life. The tribespeople needed to become self-sustaining, and become productive communities and gain the respect of their Spanish-speaking neighbors. As one fellow missionary put it: “We have found that the Indians are not interested in listening to the man who has no help for them besides his words.”

Cattle were a status symbol because down through the years the only cattle around were owned by Spanish-speaking community leaders called patrons. The agricultural program that Dad set up was created to help the Indians sustain their dignity as civilization moved in around them, by enabling them to compete in the production of crops and livestock. Dad was able to start the tribal communities with good quality stock that had these leaders wanting to buy the first bull calf from them! All of a sudden the tribesman had gained a position of influence where he had traditionally been looked down upon. A Wycliffe missionary had these observations after visiting one of the cattle project sites: “One of the Indian men was trained in Herb’s course in cattle and pasture management. He returned to his village, planted acres of pasture, put in a beautiful three wire fence that would have received the admiration of a west Texas cattleman, and then the first Brahma Santa Gertrudis bull was flown out in a small plane. Beginning their cattle project not only adds prestige with their neighbors, but also an economic base for the new society. It is the only cattle project on the whole river.”

Another fellow missionary said “… the cattle project has contributed to the reception of the translated Scriptures as an evidence that we are really interested in the people.” Dad’s contribution to bringing God’s Word to the Indians of the Amazon jungle was to give them the means they needed to survive and even thrive in the encroaching civilization. This opened their hearts so they could receive God’s words in their own language.

Several years ago my Dad gave me a list of some of his favorite verses. On that list is Psalm 37:3-9 & 23. These verses are a good description of my Dad.

“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;…For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land…If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.”

Being the first agricultural missionary with Wycliffe was not easy. Many people did not understand why Dad was there. Then later, there were many of our Peruvian neighbors that tried to make things difficult. But Dad never got upset about it. He was confident that this was God’s work and God would somehow take care of it. “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this.”

Dad was also the picture of contentment. He loved the work God gave him to do and did it with all his might. Prov 19:23 “The fear of the Lord leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.” Phil 4:12 “…I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.” He was content in Peru developing a cattle and agricultural program from scratch. And he did it with excellence. He was content in Columbia to bring back to life the neglected cattle program, in the midst of terror threats from the guerillas. The stock he developed there were sought after by the famed Colombian vaqueros because of their quality. He was content to work on the maintenance crew at the International Linguistic Center. Even there he found ways to minister to those around him by picking up food for those who could not get out, helping with repair jobs in people’s homes. He was always eager to learn and his desk was piled high with things to read. Contentment.

I used to love going up to the farm to sit on the coral fence and watch and help with whatever was going on. Many times when I arrived on my bike I would find Dad in the farm office at his desk reading his Bible. God’s Word meant so much to him that he committed his life to helping get it into the hands of people who had never heard God speak their language before. He kept several small Spanish Bibles in the farm office to give to cattlemen from the surrounding area that came to talk with “don Heriberto” about how to manage pasture, or what was the best grass seed, or what blood lines he used to get such good quality stock.

During the dry season, wild fires in the pasture land were a big concern for Dad. He would constantly scan the horizon hoping not to see the telltale billow of smoke. 500 hectares (1300 acres) was a lot of land to protect. Fires started from the sun beating down on a glass bottle in a field, by accident, or by arson. He would try to find help to fight the fire, but if none was available he would fight it by himself. (This greatly improved mom’s prayer life!) One time he got so dehydrated fighting a fire that he looked around desperately trying to find something that could quench his thirst. The only thing he could find was a green pineapple. You don’t eat green pineapple unless you are really desperate. Well he was, and he ate it. It took all the skin off the inside of his mouth.

Another time he was way out in the pasture looking for a new calf. He had not seen the cow, who was great with calf, in a few days, so he knew he had to find that new little calf. It had to be treated with medicine so the flies and bugs would not infect it. Sure enough, after awhile he found the cow who was noticeably thinner than she was a few days ago. Now finding the calf could take a little time in the tall grass and bushes. One thing any cattle man knows is NEVER get between a cow and her new calf! So Dad kept a weary eye on the cow as he searched for the calf. Well, evidently he inadvertently got between the cow and calf. The cow came charging and Dad when running desperately searching for a tree to climb. He found one and scooted up it as fast as he could. The only problem was it was a thorn tree with thorns an inch across at the base rising about an inch into a sharp point. But he had to stay there until the cow got bored and wandered away.

Dad had to deal with tropical disease in the cattle, cattle rustlers, and snake bites on the cattle, and even a few times big cat claw marks across the back flank of some lucky cow. Some of his cattle, especially the Brahma, were ornery. So he always carried a sturdy stick that was a little shorter than he was, to let them know who was boss. Many times he was challenged by an “ornery critter” and twice ended up being flown into Bogotá or Lima to the hospital, having gotten the short end of the stick, so to speak.

When the tractor, mowing machine or other equipment broke down, Dad could not call the nearest John Deere dealership for a new part. He had to make his own parts. He was very ingenious and could always figure out a way to make it work.

Growing up in the Amazon jungle was just normal to me. I loved the tickle fights after dinner with Dad, doing our gymnastics tricks on the living room floor, stroking the ocelot after Dad shot in our chicken coop, riding on the front of his BMW motorcycle between his strong arms, teasing Dad about his white legs and brown arms the two times he took me swimming, talking Dad into playing Monopoly or Wahoo and being soundly beaten, hearing Dad chuckle at the story Mom was reading to us, the bucking bronco barrel he made for us. I did NOT love so much having Dad take a bite of my dessert every time I dilly-dallied while eating my vegetables at dinner!

I am so thankful and blessed to be the daughter of Herbert Thomas Fuqua. He is my Dad… always will be.

Prov 20:7 The godly walk with integrity; blessed are their children after them.

Kay Fuqua Sawyer (oldest child of Herb & Grace)

In April of 1966, Time magazine set a stunning precedent. From its inception Time had every week in its cover story featured an individual. That week, rather than seeing a familiar picture or drawing of an individual in the news, the cover was black and in large red letters was the question “Is God Dead?" This was of course during the mid-60s, and the early salvos of the "God Is Dead" theologians had just hit the market. I was a freshman in high school at the time and did not understand what the controversy was all about. After all how could God as an eternal being die? The whole issue did not make any sense to me. What I have since learned, of course, is that these theologians were being purposely provocative. Their statements were much more existential statements about the way we live our lives on a day-to-day basis, than whether an eternal being whom we refer to as God had literally ceased to exist. They had in view specifically, the idea that God as we had historically understood him was irrelevant to the modern world. This proposal was in fact a radicalization of an observation that the German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer had made during World War II. In his writings, he spoke of, “a world come of age;” in other words, a world which in its own perceptions did not need God.

Western society has come a long way since the mid-1960s. The recently ratified constitution of the EU specifically avoids any mention of Europe's Christian heritage and the fact that European Society, with all its liberal values, arose out of a Christian worldview. As a civilization, or as a political confederation contemporary European society has been called the first society in history founded upon the principle of atheism. (This comment is not to deny the state-sponsored atheism of communism which was imposed by a radical political minority.) One of my former students, who is employed, at one of the leading high-tech firms in the Bay Area is looking at the possibility of doing Ph.D. work at Oxford. He recently spent a couple of weeks in England talking with college representatives there. Upon his return he commented to me about the total secularization he experienced in contemporary English culture. In England for a politician to invoke the name of God is unthinkable, whereas here in America, we still demand of our politicians some kind of statement of belief in a deity. As secular as our society has become and as anti-Christian as many of us feel it is, we are a bright and shining light when compared to the level of secularism in Europe.

There is a new frontal attack on the very idea of God by the current crop of “scientific atheists.” These include Richard Dawkins and his book The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchins, God is not Great, (Dawkins and Hitchins are both Brits) and Sam Harris, Letter to Christian America. We as theists and Christians are increasingly feeling like we are under siege by the forces of secularism. Indeed, a decade ago Mike Regele and Mark Schultz published The Death of the Church (Zondervan) noting trends in society and predicting that if there is no change within the next several decades the church in America will look like the church in Europe.

With all this in the background it is perhaps jarring to pick up books like Dinesh D’Sousa’s, What’s So Great about Christianity?, and Alister McGrath’s The Twilight of Atheism to find out that rather than shriveling up and dying theism generally and Christianity in particular is exploding worldwide. It is atheism that is in retreat on the larger canvas. The intellectual capital of Atheism has been squandered and it is increasingly being viewed as passé.

McGrath traces the intellectual history of atheism, its inception, rise and unexpected fall in the wake of the slow death of the modern age. D’Sousa addresses issue by issue the arguments of the contemporary militant atheists giving intellectual ammunition to theists for the legitimacy of their position.

These works together provide the reader with a context and analysis for the situation in which we find ourselves as well as resources to allow believers to defend their faith against a foe bent on the destruction of not only Christianity but and vestige of theism.

Last Sunday I participated in a panel discussion at a local church whose pastor is a friend. What was unusual was that this was the sermon for the day. The topic: the Kingdom, demons and healing. The three of us on the panel brought complementary emphases to the topic. It was fun and interesting.

Driving home from church my cell rang. “Hi Jim, this is Mom (Kay’s mother, Grace). I wanted to let you know that Dad has had a couple of TIAs (a "warning stroke" or "mini-stroke" that produces stroke-like symptoms but no lasting damage). At the time Herb (Kay’s Dad) and Grace were at Kay’s sister’s house about an hour away from their home. They called Kay’s brother’s wife, Carol, who is an RN. She told them to get him to the hospital quickly. Herb did not want to go to the hospital so they called a friend who is an emergency room surgeon. He came over and examined Herb, and advised them to go to the hospital. But, he wanted to go home and wait until Monday morning and see his own physician first. Monday morning he was taken to the hospital and diagnosed as having suffered a stroke. Kay kept up on his condition from half a continent away. By Monday afternoon her gentle mild-mannered Dad was aggressive and combative. He was not lucid and had to be restrained. By Monday afternoon he was fairly unresponsive and a CT scan showed that this was far more than a TIA. He had four blood clots in the brain one of which caused a cerebral hemorrhage, which was approaching the area of the brain that controlled respiratory function.

At that time the family talked with the physician about a DNR (do not resuscitate) order. Herb had made a living will eleven years ago and instructed that he not be put on life support. Despite this, his physician was reluctant to go in that direction. Herb’s condition was not yet critical.

As Kay got the word that Herb had slipped out of his right mind and that the stroke involved a massive hemorrhage that was still spreading, she called me from work. “I have got to go. Please call and get me a ticket to Dallas.” I found a flight for 12:30 A.M. Tuesday and she arrived in Dallas early Tuesday morning. She went directly to the hospital. Herb’s condition had worsened. Now the physician agreed that the DNR was appropriate. Shortly after she arrived at the hospital Herb was taken for another CT scan. Kay’s description was that it was as if they took his body for the scan. He was totally unresponsive. While he was having the scan the family: Grace, Kay, David (brother) & wife Carol, Verna (sister) & husband Steve held a family meeting and all agreed on the DNR. They prayed together and once again placed Herb in God’s hands.

Shortly after he was rolled back into the room and was situated in his bed Herb opened his eyes, sat up straight in bed and “with a twinkle in his eye said ‘Hi!’” (those are Kay’s words). He didn’t know what had happened but was lucid and recognized everyone, although he could not say their names, and then said “Where’s Jim?”

On Wednesday he was up and walking with a walker as well as feeding himself. He could not remember what had happened earlier in the day, and had trouble speaking. Over the past couple of days he has continued to slowly improve, but still has a long way to go. He has an underlying atrial fibrillation that could create new blood clots that could dislodge and cause another stroke. So far the doctors have been unable to bring this under control.

Needless to say this week has been an emotional rollercoaster: the unexpected emotional shock from the stroke which then turned into sadness and hopelessness in that there was nothing we could do, and grief expecting that Kay’s father would live for only a few more hours or days. This was followed by joy in Herb’s unexpected awakening from what we expected to be terminal unresponsiveness. Now we rejoice that he is still with us, but life for him and Grace has changed forever. Will they be able to continue to live in their home? How will Grace be able to handle the added burden of caring for Herb? How much of what was lost in the stroke will he regain? etc.

On Sunday morning during our discussion of the topic of healing I observed that we who live in the post-Enlightenment western culture do not vitally believe that God heals or intervenes. We believe, because we believe the scriptures; but we look at the world technically and scientifically and see only the material. In non-western cultures we hear stories of unbelievable miracles. We (kind of) believe because we trust the veracity of those who have seen. Yet on a deep level we often do not totally embrace with our whole being the truth that God is here with us (despite the promise that He will never leave us or forsake us) and that He is ultimately in control (after all we can discern weather patterns of high and low pressures and understand the mechanism from a scientific perspective).

We as western Christians live like (by this I do not mean consciously adopt this perspective) we do not need God on a day to day basis. Our lives are predictable, in large part because of the technology we possess and the stable political situation in which we live. But the scientific and political blessings—and I am absolutely convinced that they are blessings—are a two-edged sword; they also dull our conscious dependence upon the Lord in day-to-day living. The danger we face and to which virtually all of us succumb is becoming self-satisfied like the church of Laodicea (Revelation 3), and viewing our situation through the eyes of circumstances rather than through the eyes of faith much as did Elisha’s servant (2 Kings 6).

I hate uncertainty in life. Not that I want total predictability—that would be boring. But I prefer living life with an underlying security and predictability, a Disneyland existence where I can experience the thrill but not the danger. In short, I am a typical western Christian. It is in times like Kay & I are living through now that push me (us) out of our area of safety and predictability and into a place of being forced to trust—trust day by day in the Lord’s work in the lives of our loved ones and our own.

The Gospel and Society

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

-Matthew 28:19

One of my former students from years ago called me last week wanting to sit down and catch up. He graduated seventeen years ago and I haven’t seen him since, although we have had phone conversations a few times, the last about a dozen years ago. His journey has been unexpected. He came to seminary after about twenty years of church ministry in a large church in the San Francisco Bay Area. There he had been part of a large staff. He wanted to become a senior pastor, hence the seminary route. When finished he expected, like so many that the doors would open and he would settle into a church preaching the Word and ministering to people’s needs—but it didn’t work out as planned. Instead of being called to a church he got rejection after rejection. This caused him to look at what God had called him to do. He shared with me his exploration of spiritual direction (he walked away from that because it was to Jungian and too eastern mystical).

He traveled abroad and taught in Argentina where he saw a country that was economically devastated and without hope. There he saw the Evangelical community which had been marginalized socially and politically living out their faith and sharing hope with a country in despair and without hope. He met leaders there that transformed his vision of the power of God to work in the hearts and bodies of individuals and also to transform a culture.

He has traveled to Africa several times and has seen the power of God at work there in ways that we as Westerners can’t begin to imagine. In Mozambique, a country that is incredibly poor and without any significant infrastructure God is working in ways that it is hard for us as technologically savvy westerners to comprehend. This is a country so technologically backward that the people cook with charcoal (which has been a contributor to the country’s deforestation). Here he has witnessed a work of God in which over seven thousand churches have been founded in the past few years. He has seen people journeying for miles pushing themselves to the point of collapse from lack of food and water to come and hear the Word of God proclaimed.

He has seen some cases of a spiritual hunger and desire so great that people would bypass food and water and risk physical collapse in order to get to meetings on time and to be nourished spiritually. The church is exploding so rapidly the leaders are unable to keep up with the pace.

A couple of weeks ago I was having coffee with another former student who is a pastor at a church in the area. During the wide ranging conversation the topic of the growth of the church in the developing world came up. In this conversation the lack of leadership in the church in Africa came up. He told me of practices among African Christians that shock our western Christian sensibilities. (It is easy to overlook the fact that our culture is one that has been born out of a Christian worldview and that other cultures do not share some of our most basic assumptions of right and wrong.) Again the context is rapid church growth and the lack of leadership. But in this case the problem was one of abject poverty among women, particularly widows in the church. They have no means to support themselves. Christian women have no means to get food to survive, let alone thrive. They go to the pastors of their churches (who are generally the tribal leaders/chiefs) and they are given food, in exchange for sex. (I have confirmed this account through a couple of different sources.) Shocking—yes. Strange, before we say yes we need to understand that this is a practice deeply engrained in the tribal culture. As the gospel has penetrated the culture people have heard and responded, but have remained untaught. Particularly the leadership has not been challenged with this inconsistency of cultural practices with the implications of the gospel.

Transformation of culture by the gospel has been seen throughout history, but transformation must come from within as opposed to being imposed from without. On the one hand transformation comes from minds and hearts that are open and receptive to the redemptive message of the gospel. But that transformation does not occur in a vacuum, there must be teaching (with modeling-discipleship) of all that our Lord commanded.