Pondering

Tonight while reading for my anthropology class, I came across this statement by a black South African: "When the white man came to our country, he had the bible and we had the land.  The white man said to us 'let us pray.' After the prayer, the white man had the land and we had the Bible."*  This was on a section about globalization and the Christian response.  In particular this paragraph was discussing how the history of global evangelism cannot be separated from colonization. 

* The quote is from Introducing Cultural Anthropology by Brian M. Howell  and Jenell Paris.  The statement was quoted from Takatso Mofokeng, "Black Christians, the bible and Liberation" in The Journal of Black Theology in South Africa 2, no. 34 (1998).

Seeing as I'm going to South Africa in 15 days this statement stood out to me.  South Africa is on my mind.  I have NO clue what to expect while there.  I have seen pictures from Africa.  I've talked to people that have been to Africa but still I don't know what I'm about to experience.  I remember a similar feeling before I went to South Korea which my first trip to Asia.  However, this man's statement made me stop reading and blog.  It struck me and left me really considering what my response should be as a Christian and what is my responsibility as a Christian when in other cultures.

My desire is for God to be glorified, for his name to be made known, and for South Africans that we talk to to become believers while we are there.  Placing your faith in Jesus changes. your. life.  It does.  There is no denying it.  No matter your culture, your background, or your social status your life is changed when you meet Jesus personally.  If many people in a village or town or suburb become believers, the culture in that place will change.  So to say that cultures change because of people learning about Jesus does not surprise me.  However, this man's statement was not about a lot of people that came to trust in Jesus.  To me his statement is about men that came claiming Jesus but instead of befriending them, loving them, helping them, they exploited them.  They took their land.  To me I hear resentment in the statement above.  I don't hear of someone who heard of Jesus, saw people living out the Gospel and responded favorably towards it.  I hear someone who saw someone say one thing, do another, and in response he turned away from Christ.**

**These are my thoughts.  I don't really know if that is what this person is really saying or not.  Just what I think based on the words quoted.

This statement makes me stop doing school work that I'm super behind on because this is real life to me.  This gets to the core of something that I have been thinking about intensely since Feb. 2008 when I went to Cambodia.  How can I respond to the poverty I saw in Cambodia without forcing on them Western views and ideas - especially those related to economics and politics.  How can I help lift them out of poverty (outside of spiritual poverty) without forcing them to adopt a Western view of how to be successful.  Cambodia is a beautiful country with beautiful people and a culture mostly of their own.  War and genocide have drastically effected their cultural identity.  Thailand and Vietnam's cultures seem to have crossed the border and effected it a lot as well.  However, Cambodia is its own country and culture.  How can I help them?  I want to spend years sharing the gospel with the people in Cambodia but I also want to help them physically by helping them out of poverty and finding a way to provide for their basic needs but I don't want  Cambodia to become the US.  I don't want things to work the same as they do here because that place is its own place and it should stay that way even when being helped out of poverty. 

I don't have answers tonight.  I only have thoughts.  I'm pondering this statement.  I don't know what this statement means to me right now.  But I do think, now that I've read this that my attitudes towards global evangelism have in some minute way changed and for the better.  I think that I will act differently in South Africa because I read this and I think that my time in South Africa will be more rewarding because I have heard a perspective of someone from South Africa.  I really don't have answers or a conclusion to any of this.  I just know this statement has made me stop what I was doing, think about, and desire to seek God's answers to this and His will for me in South Africa and in Cambodia.