One of the few Christian families in the slum here (Thailand is around 0.5% Christian & so is the slum) went through the wringer last week. Their teenage daughter ran away from home and soon found herself in great danger from which she had to be rescued…
Now after much prayer and a successful and daring rescue mission a very shaken up little girl was welcomed home. There was a fair amount of celebration as you could imagine. They thought they might have lost their only daughter forever either through being killed or by having her life stolen from her while she was still alive through AIDs. (For the worlds unmedicated poor HIV can become full blown AIDs within 6 months of contracting it). So the palpable joy was immense.
Now, as part of these celebrations, late that evening her family went to the local Buddhist Temple and offered a sacrifice of thanks there.
At this point it would be easy to condemn the Christian family’s actions. Many missionaries lament that their converts still cling on to their old practices as a sort of "insurance policy" religion - a "just in case they are really right, I’ll cover my bases" mentality.
This paradigm also implies the negative: "just in case I am wrong here, I will appease the other God/s".
Now, I am not turning into a wishy-washy relativist, but I have to ask this: do you think God is all that fussed by this? Before you answer that question consider why I hope not…
On Sundays we attend some form of Church. We sing songs of worship to the almighty God, we make and reaffirm some of our deepest commitments and profess our utter reliance and faith in the one true God…
…then we spend the rest of the week fretting over finances, superannuation, investments, children’s education, bills etc while we accumulate and manage more wealth (in world terms please).
Isn’t this eerily similar to the "insurance policy" religion that I described above?
Seeking to share God’s love with others leads to revolutionary reflections of light back into my own milieu. I just hope I can hold on long enough for them to continue converting me!
What do you think?
2 responses so far ↓
1 peter // Dec 19, 2005 at 2:06 pm
Hi Jon,
I agree with you that the style of life that western Christians live is as much a form of syncretism as that of the family in the slum - but then Jesus was pretty clear on us not being able to serve god & money…
Whilst I don’t think we can ignore God’s view on idolatry -he made that very clear in the Old Testament – I do think it is time that the west woke up to what the love of money is – as much idolatry as any other religion!
Fortunately we have a god of grace – and I hope and believe that he gives all of us the opportunity to repent of our idolatry before we finish our life here – it all just depends on how willing we are to listen to our Lord and change our ways -
My response is probably a harder line than the average PC Christian view – but the walk is supposed to be walked on the narrow road.
2 Jon Owen // Dec 19, 2005 at 5:32 pm
Thanks Pete, I reckon you are right. I think we should be quick to point the finger at ourselves and try and scratch at the surface of what it means to be a follower of Christ, instead of condemning everyone andevery practice but ourselves and our own.
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