Saturday 7 May 2016

Contextualising for the Culture or Changing the Gospel?


I had not really considered this subject before I was recommended two books by Don Richardson, Peace Child  and Lords of the Earth. Coincidentally, I then picked up Bruchko. I realised, at the conclusion, that all three books have the same central theme running throughout. They use cultural analogies to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ among primitive tribal people groups. I decided that this approach was worthy of further examination.

I have already reviewed, Peace Child, and Lords of the Earth. I enjoyed both books immensely and, although some people might be disturbed by the rampant violence and cannibalism in the initial chapters, I felt that this may have been necessary to demonstrate the total transformation that came about when these people found Jesus. In both of these books, the missionaries set about learning the tribal languages immediately, they were heart-broken every-time someone died without the Gospel as they felt the weight of the responsibility to communicate it before it was too late for others. This, I believe, is a natural human emotion for a missionary who already has a heart for the lost. Missionaries know that God is in control and that He understands the frustrations of learning languages/cultural barriers etc, but it doesn't change the pain of losing someone to a lost eternity.

Again, in both of these books, the missionaries conformed to the culture as much as possible; they lived and worked among the people, they led simple non-materialistic lifestyles, they learned the languages and behaviours, they studied the tribal history and culture, they ate some tribal food. They couldn't really dress like the natives, who wore very little, but had it been necessary to communicate the Gospel, I believe they would have found ways to work around this. They also needed to continue to eat some western food in order to remain healthy, as their bodies were just not used to the local delicacies.

However, the missionaries always made a distinction when things that were cultural became unbiblical. They did not compromise the integrity of the Gospel in order to blend in with the culture, even if it meant losing some of the relationships they had nurtured. This created some difficult situations, even showdowns, especially in relation to sickness when the people had their own methods, via their spirits, and the missionaries would only help them in the name of God. They knew that these people might die if they didn't receive easily administerable medicines, but they did not utilise the cultural methods knowing this would confuse the Gospel in the minds of the people. It might also strengthen the bonds of the people with their spirits if they weren't clear where the power had actually come from. Other situations also called for the missionaries to reject cultural practices in favour of biblical ones.

In both books the cultural analogies were used to assist in effectively communicating the Gospel. In Peace Child, the missionaries had come to a seemingly impossible barrier, as the people, on hearing the Gospel message, believed Judas was a hero as friendship betrayal was honoured in their culture. The peace child analogy, was necessary to correct this cultural misunderstanding. The missionaries found in both cases that there were cultural stories and traditions that could be used to enable the people to effectively understand the Gospel in terms that were culturally relevant. The Gospel message was still the same. The missionaries (or at least the author,) believed that God had planted these "redemptive analogies" within these cultures to enable the later spread of the Gospel, and he believed that similarities could be found hidden within every culture. This is certainly possible, as God the Creator prepared works in advance for His servants to complete.

So what about Bruchko? Some readers may see little difference. Indeed, there is little criticism of this book and many 4 and 5 star reviews. I found the stories almost unbelievable and it read like a work of fiction. Bruchko (Bruce Olson,) is the story of a recently converted American missionary who set off into the jungles of Venezuela and Colombia to attempt to single-handedly evangelise the Motilone Indians. He was immediately rejected by other Christian missionaries due to the unorthodox way that he arrived in their midst; no mission board or organisation, no funding, no clear plan etc etc. The callous way in which he was allegedly treated seems hard to believe, and I wonder if there was more to this story than what is relayed....

Anyway, Bruchko persevered, making his way into the jungle whilst struggling with disease, depression, and all manner of other things. He eventually found a tribal people and lived among them for a year, he learned their language. He then left them, only to be twice returned after being bucked by his mule. He finally left for good, and pursued his original goal of finding the Motilone Indians. The Indians tried to kill him on his arrival unannounced and unaccompanied into their territory. He spent several years living among them, learning the culture and the new tribal language. He did not even attempt to share the Gospel for a number of years believing that it would be misunderstood due to the culture. He waited until he saw a parallel (redemptive analogy) within the culture and then attempted to use this to share the Gospel. Later, his focus seemed to be on medical/health/educational improvements and land development. He remained living and working among the people for over thirty years. Many site this as evidence of his success, along with the fact that apparently 70% of the tribal people groups in this area are now "Christians." Subsequently, the Motilone Indians began evangelising other tribes....

There were some details, however, in Bruchko, that concerned me. I finished it feeling uncomfortable in a way that I hadn't on concluding the other two books. There were times when Olson's lack of preparedness made him a financial burden to others in a way that went beyond living by faith. He was often forced to go without food for days, even weeks, and became seriously ill and nearly died many times as a result. He was reliant on the kindness, generosity and goodwill of those that he ended up living among, both in the city, and in the jungle, in a way that embarrassed him (and probably them.) Does God want His servants to end up in these situations?

There were a few occasions noted where he committed acts of civil (criminal?) disobedience that weren't directly related to sharing the Gospel. He was informed that he couldn't go to a certain area without a VISA but he went anyway disregarding this instruction. He later persuaded a friend to give/steal a substantial quantity of medicine from stock belonging to the local oil company plant, due to an outbreak of disease in his tribe.

By far, the thing that I struggled with the most was his use of the local witch doctor to treat disease. Bruchko believed that the witch doctor was actually trying to harness the power of God and that she was just ignorant in her methods. She was regularly chanting over her patients. Bruchko deliberately infected himself with an illness (by transference of substance from a sick patient) in order to convince the witch doctor to use his medicine instead. This whole approach seemed to me to be taking cultural conformity too far, and also to be heading for future confusion as to which god is truly being worshiped. This was especially true as he hadn't yet found a way to communicate the true Gospel, so he was basically just keeping the people healthy because he had developed a heart for them.

Bruchko helped these people groups in many ways; he taught them basic sanitation and education, and later translated one of the Gospels, and also Philippians into their language. He doesn't mention much about this, other than to say that they had to adapt/change some stories to fit the culture, e.g. the man who built his house on the sand, in Jesus' parable, became the wise man because culturally this helped the people understand the story. I was struck, on reading this relatively small detail, with the difference between how the missionaries handled this type of thing in the first two books I had read. When they faced an impossible cultural dilemma, they didn't change the story but used the analogy to help the people understand the story. Maybe some would say this is pedantic, but how many other stories were changed in Bruchko's translation, and how can we be sure God's original meaning remained intact? The Scriptures were inspired by God who knew all of the cultural issues that would arise. Should missionaries be changing Scripture like this?

Bruchko rarely mentions his devotional life, prayer or Bible study. At one stage he allows a tribal member to eat part of his (only?) Bible due to a misunderstanding of a redemptive analogy. He encourages the tribal custom of placing dead bodies high in the trees to be consumed by vultures and even states that this is how his body will be disposed of!

I was astonished by the very high numbers of conversions reported at the end of Bruchko. It seems that ALL of the tribe had become Christians at a meeting mentioned in the book, and later evangelised other tribes. Whilst God is clearly capable of these types of miraculous mass conversions, I find these stories increasingly difficult to believe, and I find myself questioning the depth of understanding of these people. This is especially true when I see little evidence of real spiritual struggle going on for their souls. Maybe the author just didn't mention this aspect. But it seemed to me that his focus was just as much, or more, on making friends and helping the people practically than it was on sharing the Gospel with them, especially as he waited for so many years before attempting it, probably due to the offence that might be caused.

One of the striking things about the other two books is the immense spiritual struggles the missionaries encountered before even one conversion, and the loss of life they endured. In Lords of the Earth, a whole family was sacrificed in a plane crash. I'm sure this seemed meaningless at the time, but later it enabled the Gospel to progress in a remarkable way. God's ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts!

In conclusion, no missionary is perfect, they will make many mistakes and hopefully learn from them. I'm sure that God used all of these missionaries and their various weaknesses to accomplish His purposes and bring good out of failure. They alone know how many of the stories relayed are true down to the last detail, and God alone knows how many of these souls that have professed faith are truly born again.

We can learn lessons from reading these books. I believe that the use of redemptive analogies is a fascinating and effective way to assist these tribal people, (and others,) in understanding the Gospel message but ONLY if the analogy is a clear fit for the meaning that God originally intended. I don't believe God would have us change parts of the Bible to fit the cultural context in a way that changes the meaning. We need to be careful to ensure we don't allow culture to over-ride the Bible. When there is clear division, the Bible must always take precedence regardless of the cultural consequence.



3 comments:

  1. Hello, I appreciate this review as it represents a more skeptical reading of this book. My review on goodreads is here:
    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3006688262?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

    I did not see issues with the way Bruce preached the Gospel. Let me try to go through the different issues and explain why I think they are not issues as presented here.

    1. lack of preparedness: I think it is actually entirely Biblical to go out as a missionary the way Bruce did. Jesus's disciples were commanded to bring nothing except the clothes on their back when preaching the Gospel in a new city. "Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts— no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep. Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave." Matthew 10:9-11

    Bruce was worth his keep. He had a mission to do that was commanded to him by God and he obeyed with a simple faith.

    2. disregarding the Visa requirement and accepting the medicine: I don't remember the exact details of these events but I agree that it could definitely be an issue. Won't try and explain these away except to say that God still could use him here even if he sinned.

    3. "The callous way in which he was allegedly treated seems hard to believe ": doesn't seem hard to believe to me. the world is full of sin. there are plenty of examples of Christians or even "christians" who, in sinfulness, fail to preach the Gospel but instead involve themselves in a form of cultural proselytizing. The flesh is weak.

    4. witch doctor issues: this is a tricky thing, and certainly it would have been easy to confuse the Gospel here, but I think Bruce was very wise in this. Every situation is different, but here are some facts that Bruce was dealing with and relying on in his dealing with this. All people know the true God and His invisible attributes (Rom 1). The issue is not whether mankind is capable of praying to the true God or not as much as whether he is in a right, redeemed relationship with Him and offering Him acceptable worship. The Motilone believed that they were separated from God. This was true. the witch doctor believed that the prayers helped heal people. The prayers did nothing. But here is the point which should be most important: who was honored by Bruce's action to help the witch doctor? Did the witch doctor believe that her own power was finally working? It seems clear that she was in fact ENCOUNTERING the power of the right relationship Bruce had with God. In other words, Bruce was showing her that he had knowledge she did not have. This, to her, and to every other Motilone who would have subsequently understood the power of this new medicine, would provide a bedrock of trust that Bruce was in fact a man who knew and spoke the truth. It was a demonstration of the fact that the truth was with Bruce, and therefore with the One he represented. This is consistent with how God has worked in history. Paul did not go to the Greeks with the aim of tearing down the pagan gods FIRST. He went there to show them a New Power who they only knew as the unknown god. Once they were in a right relationship with the true God, their pagan gods would easily have fallen away. It was the same with the Motilone.

    4. translation issues: this is not an issue. The meaning of the translation was intact, given the fact that the Motilone's faith was still one of milk and not of meat. The essential meaning (don't build your house on unstable ground) was exactly the same. The Motilone, as the book relates, would later take Bible lessons officially in schools which would easily have cleared up whatever issues arose from their ignorance of houses and so on. Those translations, it seems to me, were not official translations in the way the ESV or NASB are. They were baby steps.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. (part 2)

      5. Bruce does mention his prayer life and his devotional life. He at one point says that he had read the Bible so much that he was starting to feel tired of reading it because he knew it so well. There was no lack of spiritual life represented in this book. Why does he have to give the details of his devotional life in order to qualify the book as legitimate?

      6. "At one stage he allows a tribal member to eat part of his (only?) Bible due to a misunderstanding of a redemptive analogy": "lets"? if you read it again, you will see that he had no choice in the matter. I am astonished to see that the larger point of what was happening in that pivotal moment of salvation for the tribe is being missed here. What did the Motilone man know of reading? It is a sign of incredible faith for him to be so desparate for the salvation that was being offered to him that he immediately took action to claim that salvation in the only way he understood. It is reminiscent of communion, that salvation comes from the intimacy of eating Jesus's blood and flesh. Isn't that a metaphor? Of course it is. But if you knew that salvation from sin came from literal eating, would you be desperate enough to eat? I know I would. I want to know God, just as the Motilone clearly did in that pivotal moment. Man might look at the outward appearance of dishonoring the Word by ripping out a page to eat, but God looks at the heart. It was an incredible moment of faith and the power of God to save and reconcile a sinner to Himself.

      7. tribal vulture burial custom: i am unable to find a single bible verse indicating a proper way to bury the dead. i can see how this practice might seem barbaric to westerners like us, but God designed all cultures and celebrates distinct cultures (Rev 7:9-10, Acts 17:26-27), and so barring a Biblical commandment, there is nothing wrong with this.

      8. "little evidence of real spiritual struggle going on for their souls": are you sure you saw no evidence of this? I thought this was perhaps one of the most clear aspects of the book's presentation of the Motilone's conversion. They believed that they had been separated from God and that they could not communicate with Him.

      9. Bruce seemed more interested in making friends: don't see evidence of this at all. one of the points of the book was the difficulty of the cultural and language barrier. he does mention that there were attempts before the moment when the banana leaf prophecy became clear to him. in your review you mention how long it was before some of the other missionaries in other books were able to communicate the Gospel. I don't see how there was any difference here. there was ample evidence to the contrary - that he had a deep and abiding concern for the imminent salvation of these people that led to a frustration at how long it was taking.

      Love what you said about how mission work can seem meaningless, but that God's ways are higher than our ways. My review expounded on the ways I think this book showed just that. Hope you'll give it a chance. thanks for the review.

      Delete
  2. Thank you Adam for your well thought out reply to the review by Natalie. I agree with each of your reply points. I’d like to add a thought. Bruce Olson became a Christian through a search of scripture and deep longing to know God. He came out of a very proscriptive Lutheran background and virtually after a short time in another church fellowship he followed Gods call to the tribes in South America. I believe God deliberately chose Bruce because he had no Church agenda, little religious education to cloud Gods leading. He was totally dependent on God. Another thought about the witch doctor. It doesn’t seem to me that Satan had a strong hold on that tribe. Deception seems the main issue. I didn’t see any idol worship or child sacrifice. I think the Witch doctor had a genuine desire to help her people and God led Bruce in how to navigate this delicate situation. A mission trained, Christian May very well have just decided on deliverance and lost trust completely. So again I think God looked for the right person to give himself to the Motinones and He found Bruce.

    ReplyDelete