An Alternative Way to See a City

There are different ways to see a city.

There is one approach that finds a travel book, video or website. Discovers those “must-see” spots and proceeds to plan their trip around seeing those things.  After all, it seems strange to return from Paris not having seen the Eiffel Tower or New York City without seeing the Statue of Liberty.  This tourist approach is really fun. I myself like it to a point. Ultimately, however, I find it rather unsatisfying.

The travel buff goes a step further, priding themselves on discovering those “lesser known” places.  They hang out at the Shakespeare & Co. book store in Paris and know the best place for hotdogs in NYC. I’m much more this kind of person.  I love finding the hidden treasures of cities.  But this is also ultimately dissatisfying to me.

A third approach to seeing a city is rather simple by comparison. It is focused on simply going about, keeping your eyes and ears and heart open.  It is focused on seeing the people.  I have a friend that has been to Cape Town, South Africa several times but has never been up to Table Mountain.  He took this third approach.  It is a much more missional gaze because it flows out of a desire to connect with God’s image-bearers. As was said last night at the Lausanne Congress here in Cape Town, “cities feature more image of God per square inch than any other place in the universe.” 

So, here towards the end of my mid-congress day off, having not even set foot out of my hotel room (I really needed the rest), it is becoming clear that I may or may not make it to Table Mountain or Robben Island.  I may not cage dive with the sharks or see any penguins (though I would really like to do all these things). But I’m very grateful for the people of this city that have allowed me to see them – at least a bit.

We in the U.S. have a view of apartheid and the "new" South Africa that I’m learning may not be the full picture.  I suppose my view has been a bit simplistic. I don’t think I quite felt it was hell during and utopia after apartheid, but that’s not too far off from what I’ve thought.  But there’ve been some interesting encounters this week that have helped to complicate my view of things. 

One that stands out was a late night conversation with my Cape Malay cabbie.  She, a fourth generation Malaysian South African, gave me her perspective on the country.  “It was better before,” she declared. “Now, it’s just the reverse.  Mandela did a good thing, but his successors are too stupid to cover up the corruption.  At least the white government could sweep everything under the rug.”

What a statement! I asked her how the Cape Malay people were affected by the end of apartheid.  She described loose immigration policies that allowed for what she described as a free flow of immigrants from other African nations.  “It’s great for them, but they take all our jobs.”

I thought about how I have enjoyed meeting the numerous Malawian and Somali immigrants who work in various places in and on my way to the convention centre.  There seems to be a basic goodness to the fact that such people can immigrate to this country and find work.  But my friendly and opinionated cabbie reminded me that it’s more complicated than that – it always is.

Now, staying in downtown Cape Town with limited ability to move around town makes it challenging to see the whole city – the whole story.  It might be tempting to see and interact with the many (usually very friendly) black South Africans working around here and just assume that all is well. But I was grateful to happen upon a protest on morning being held at a housing office in Cape Town.  Here’s a short clip.  I managed to speak with the organizer who was a bit hard to hear over the loud singing.  Still, you get some idea of what she’s saying.

So, while apartheid is over, the healing process continues. Not to be critical of South Africa.  I really just post this today to illustrate the fact that the reality of things are often very complicated.  Working for reconciliation and the peace of Christ in our world today necessitates that followers of Jesus exert enormous effort to understand the complexities of our world.  I’ve said a number of times: for the gospel to be understood as “good news” by its hearers, it must speak to what they already understand to be the “bad news.”

So, there you have it. The complicated brokenness of image-bearers -- a way of seeing a city that I recommend trying from time to time. 

Alvaro Unpacks My Day and Puts it in Historic Context

I don't really know where to begin.  Perhaps from the end?

Alvaro was sitting near me on the bus to the hotel.  I felt that I was just about finished talking for one day -- there was so much already on my heart and mind.  But the choice to not strike up a conversation is, I am beginning to think, nearly always a mistake at Lausanne. We were talking about how God was speaking here in the Congress.  He was reflecting on the message by Ruth Padilla, the theme of reconciliation, and his own context of ministry among the indigenous people of Mexico.  Then he sort of tossed the ball back to me.

I said that I wasn't really sure how I could take several more days of this.  It's not that I feel that too much information is being given to me.  It's just so much substance, weightiness.  I told Alvaro how I'll often find myself at big Christian meetings of various kinds and in passing through the crowd I'll overhear snippets of conversations -- the latest trend, the insider denominational gossip, the political stuff, the mind-numbing small talk.  But something different is in the air here.  Today, I walked down a crowded hall and overheard phrases like -- "Evangelism!"; "It's about discipleship!"; and similar things. I looked around and saw that it would often be people from different continents locked in the most intense conversation, praying, hugging, laughing.

As I walked that hall (and now, as I spoke with Alvaro), I had in my mind a captivating conversation that I had earlier with Mahima*. Mahima is from a nation in east Africa.  She spent two years as a missionary in Nepal. And now, she was planning to go to a completely different part of the world to find Nepalis there and work among them - sharing the hope of Christ.  We talked intensely for two hours (during which time, I actually broke a chair), prayed, and parted.

So, I told Alvaro (remember, we're still on the bus), "I've just been thinking for the past hour about how weighty and significant and Spirit-filled my encounters with other people have been this week.  And that as I walked the hall, I realized that what I've been experiencing -- which is nothing less than the most significant encounter with God that I've ever had -- is multiplied by about 4,000!" I told him, "The Holy Spirit is here."

Alvaro sat back in his seat and effortlessly began a discourse that not only took us all the way back to our hotel, but through a significant amount of the history of mission.  He told stories. He quizzed me. But here's what stood out most:  "I was almost at the first Lausanne in 1974," he said with a hint of longing in his voice. "I had the papers in my hands.  I knew Dr. Ralph Winter." Alvaro proceeded to talk about Winter's historic "people groups" speech at Lausanne '74. "That speech has shaped my life for the last 36 years of ministry!  And that's Lausanne! That's what this is!"

So, coming back to my room.  I'm beginning to think that perhaps I'm not so naive as I thought.  Alvaro has been around the block a few times, and he just likened this Congress to the Jerusalem Council. Is this what it feels like to consciously participate in something of truly historic significance?  Will I look back in 36 years, when so many of the implications of this Congress have been realized and say, "I just knew it!"

Questions that arise . . .


Can TIBM (our local ministry here, in case you're wondering) do something of significance in response to HIV/AIDS? Global sex trafficking? Modern day slavery? The Hindu caste system?

What is God really saying to me about reconciliation?

Who do I really need to buy souvenirs for?

And now for something completely different . . . 

I talked with a friend today who is neat and cool for a lot of reasons.  One of those being that she is actually, really and truly a friend of Don and Lori Chaffer (whose music is my all-time, no-contest favorite and woven into the very DNA of my marriage). And Christy told me that Don and Lori are working on producing a musical that Christy, who's in the biz, says is "Really good!" and she honestly thinks it could make it to Broadway! The musical is based on the Khrusty Brothers.  So I'm smiling about that.  Also, Christy thinks that Don would like me . . . Did you hear that, Don?

Okay, that's all. Sorry it's not more of a blow-by-blow. Such is not what I need to be writing right now.  Thank you for reading.  Thank you to everyone who has taken time to talk with me and bless me in so many ways -- even some people who have sought me out.  I appreciate that. To the guys from ITeams who invited me to hang out tonight - please invite me again.  I will take you up on it next time.  To the Nepali delegation, thanks for the invitation to eat lunch with you all tomorrow.  May the Lord richly bless our time together.  To my new connections on the Lausanne Global Conversation, thanks for adding me.  To the great people of Cape Town, thanks for being so friendly and helping me to learn a bit of Xhosa.

Good night!




(* pseudonym) 


(Note:  I'm sorry that so many people are having to wait a bit longer for the Lausanne videos, etc to be available online. I know they're working hard and around the clock trying to get it going. Pray. I know you remember that it isn't just you that wants to see them -- it's thousands of people around the world.  Until then, there are a bunch of us bloggers that are doing our best to help you know what's happening here.)

Must the Church Pursue a Global Equilibrium?

I always appreciate it when thinkers carefully examine unstated premises.  I always think about an episode of the West Wing in which one main character is repeatedly advised to handle reporters by "rejecting the premise" of their questions. I believe that Singaporean Church leader Patrick Fung's ability to do this -- to put the premise of his paper's title ("Partnering in the Body of Christ toward a New Global Equilibrium") under the microscope-- is what makes his contribution to the Lausanne Congress so valuable.

Fung's self-conscious article presents a very important question. Should a global equilibrium of power, resources, and influence be pursued at all?  Phillip Jenkins and others have done a good job of pointing out to us that the majority of Christians now live in the global south while most of the power and influence remains in Western countries.  But as I read Fung, I must acknowledge that this fact alone mustn't be the sole reason that we pursue a global equilibrium in the Church.  Rather, our goal is world evangelism, not equilibrium.  Writes Fung, "I am glad that LCWE stands for Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization and not Lausanne Congress for World Equilibrium."  This is an important point. We must not be saying "to the extent to which pursuing global equilibrium in the Church is the nice thing to do, we must do it." Rather we must say "to the extent to which pursuing a global equilibrium in the Church contributes to the extension of God's reign and fame among all peoples and nations, we must do it."

To this point, I want to say three things -- things that I think Fung is also saying.

First, we may speak of a geographic, financial, numerical, or intellectual "center of gravity" in the Church, but the only "center of gravity" that has any real meaning is the theological one -- Christ is the one and only "center of gravity" for the Church.

This, of course, isn't a point original to me, but rather comes from something I read in the Lausanne Theology Working Group paper.  Let me provide an extended quote here:

"We rejoice in the phenomenal growth of the church in the majority world of the global south, and for that reason we understand the intention of the statement that the 'centre of gravity' of world Christianity has shifted south.  However, we strongly discourage the further use of this term, for two reasons.  First, Christianity has no centre but Jesus Christ.  We are defined by no geographical centre, but only by our allegiance to the Lordship of Christ, and he is Lord of all the earth.  The 'centre', therefore, is wherever he is worshipped and obeyed. Secondly, any talk of a centre (other than Christ) undermines the fact that Christianity, even since the book of Acts, has always been fundamentally polycentric. Anywhere on earth can be a centre, and any centre can rapidly become peripheral.  The global nature of the church as 'one throughout the whole wide world' subverts the language of a centre--whether geographic, numerical, or missionary. Mission is from everywhere to everywhere."


Second, for the gospel to be the gospel, there is a need for a kind of global equilibrium in the Church.  This is because a full-orbed understanding of the gospel includes the good news that God is creating out of fragmented and broken humanity, one new humanity, the Church.

So there can be no true gospel and no true evangelization unless it includes the presentation of this new reconciled humanity.  And I sense a growing chorus of voices on this point.  It is here in Fung's article, "Christ has destroyed the barrier . . . has brought into being nothing less than a new, united human race . . . the message of reconciliation is to be lived out by God's new community, which the fragmented world needs to see." It is also in the Lausanne Theology Working Group paper, "It is important to see how this 'peace-making' work of the cross -- reconciling Jews and Gentiles, and creating on new humanity -- is not just a by-product of the gospel, but is of the essence of the gospel itself." It there in the words of Antoine Rutayisire who, when speaking of factors contributing to the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s, mourned the fact that conflicts between missionaries from different denominations "created more divisions and animosities among the people who did not see Christianity as a unifying factor but rather another colonial importation." It is, of course, in the Lausanne Covenant itself which states, "our disunity undermines our gospel of reconciliation" and the Manila Manifesto which affirms "the urgent need for churches, mission agencies and other Christian organizations to cooperate in evangelism and social action, repudiating competition and avoiding duplication." And more voices besides these could be cited.  Praise the Holy Spirit as He works to move us more and more to this point of common ground.

Third, for a global equilibrium to be built upon an a priori commitment to God's global mission, it will necessarily look different than conceptions of equilibrium that are based on a rather arbitrary sense of niceness, fairness, or democracy.

And I'm not meaning to be cute here, but Fung has raised a critical specific point that alludes to this larger one.  His specific point is this, "although a better state of equilibrium will avoid the tendency of dependency, the biblical concept of partnering in the body of Christ should be interdependence". Now, I can't tell you how tempted I am to chase that rabbit trail, but I will try to exercise a bit of self-control and simply suggest, in agreement with Fung, that it is unbiblical to hold up independence and autonomy as signs of spiritual maturity either for individuals, local churches, or national/regional churches.  The three (to four) self formula is fundamentally flawed if it cannot allow for the kind of permanent interdependence that the Bible calls for.

Now it is this Biblical interdependence that must become what we mean by equilibrium.  It is not that the Holy Spirit distributes the same gifts, history, resources, experiences, and knowledge to every person, church, and region in precisely the same ways so as to facilitate our human conception of fairness.  Rather, it is that the Holy Spirit distributes gifts as He wills for the common good (1 Cor. 12).  We are all supposed to be strong in some ways and weak in others.  For in this, we cannot but come together.  The real problem may not be that Western churches "have all the power, influence, scholarship and resources", but rather that we in the West have failed to recognize the richness in majority world Churches that we desperately need.  Likewise we fail to recognize value that lies outside our normal categories of assessing value.  So that if we continue to only think of equilibrium in terms of balancing money, influence, information, and the like then we will never achieve Biblical interdependence (i.e. equilibrium) that also calls us to value a whole range of other categories such as prayer, worship, persecutions, powerlessness, poverty, joy, and more.

A Non-Contextualized Gospel is No Gospel At all: Rwanda Reflections

Today, I read Antoine Rutayisire's compelling article "Rediscovering the Gospel of Reconciliation" which has been submitted in anticipation of his plenary presentation at the 3rd Lausanne Congress in Cape Town.  Let me begin by simply commending Brother Antoine's paper to you. I believe it provides (an all too brief) important recounting of factors leading and contributing to the Rwanda massacre of the 1990s which resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million Tutsis.

Now, understand that I've spent most of my time the past couple days thinking about contextualization in my own setting as a worker among South Asians.  I've been having face-to-face conversations, replying to emails, producing resources, etc.  So I am immersed in certain kind of thinking that predisposes me to read Antoine's article a certain way.  That's my disclaimer.  But, I really do believe that one of the things our brother was saying as a significant factor leading to the Rwandan Church's failure (note: that Rutayisire understands the genocide as a Church failure since Rwanda was 90% Christian at the time). was the failure of the Church to contextualize the message of Christ.

Writes Antoine, "It was very clear that the message that was presented was not contextualized to respond to the needs and problems of the nation." Indeed three of four of the factors mentioned in this paper point to a deficiency of contextualization in Rwanda. Here's my paraphrasing of Antoine's points:

1. The message was partial and didn't speak to the needs of the context.  

Well, this, frankly speaking, is no gospel at all. The gospel is supposed to be the good news, after all.  And for the gospel to be understood as truly good news, it must speak to what the audience already understands to be the bad news.  A non-contextualized gospel doesn't take this into consideration.  It is a non-gospel.

2. The means of presenting the gospel was totally foreign and essentially incomprehensible.

Antoine speaks in Paul Hiebertian echos as he refers to issues of "excluded midde" and "split-level Christianity." The non-contextualized gospel had no power to penetrate hearts.  No power to disciple.  No power to transform.  Since a significant component of the good news is that we can be changed, here again we see that a non-contextualized gospel was no gospel at all.

3. The messengers modeled division rather than unification.

Here Antoine points out that fighting between missionaries of different denominations modeled the kind of Christian against Christian hatred that contributed to the ethnic tensions.  As a result, even more and deeper divisions were created and "people did not see Christianity as a unifying factor but rather another colonial importation." I am fascinated by Antoine's linking together of the concept of divisiveness and the foreignness of the gospel.  Again we see that the failure to incarnate, to contextualize is connected to the presentation of a non-gospel -- since it is the case that the good news included the creation of one reconciled humanity -- the Church.

So, I know it is partly because of my vantage point, but I here in this paper from Brother Antoine Rutayisire, a call to contextualize and a sobering warning for the Church of what happens when we don't.