The cultural policy of the Parthians was, until the start of the Common Era, hellenophile. In addition to the Parthian language of Arcasid Pahlavi, Greek and Aramaic remained in use. In the realm of religion, Greco-Roman deities were popular with the ruling family, until a nationalistic resistance movement from the Persian heartland led to a revival of the old Iranian beliefs of Zoroastrianism and Mithraism. The Parthians then fostered the building of fire temples and began to collect the the Zoroastrian traditions that were later codified in the Avesta.
While the spread of Zoroastrianism was confined to the Parthian-Iranian cultural sphere, the cult of the ancient Indo-Iranian god Mithra, widespread in Iran, crossed the cultural boundary of the Euphrates and won over so many followers in the Roman Empire that in the second and third centuries it was one of the chief rivals of early Christianity. Mithra was the chief deity of the pre-Zoroastrian Iranian pantheon. He was worshiped as the god of justice and the patron of treaties. In Zoroastrianism, he supported Ahura Mazda in his battle against evil. In the Hellenistic context he was identified with the sun god Helios, and in Roman belief with Sol Invictus, which made him the favourite god of the army. The goal of the Mithra mysteries, widely popular in the Roman Empire, was to free the soul, which had been born in heaven, from the constraints of the body and to return it, via the seven cosmic spheres, to its origin. On the whole, a spirit of religious tolerance predominated among the Parthians, which helped enable the rapid spread of Christianity.
Baumer, The Church of the East, pp. 10-11
It’s interesting to note that for the first several centuries of Christianity, Christians experienced greater toleration in the Parthian East than in the Roman West. This situation would dramatically reverse in the 300s.
Is there evidence that other ancient civilizations believed in a past where the world had one language, as Genesis 11 teaches? Yes, apparently.
11:1 one language. A text from Mesopotamia called the Enmerkar Epic indicates that the people in that culture also believed that the earth had previously had a single language. The tablet reads in part:
“Man had no rival.
In those days the lands of Shubar (and) Hamazi,
Harmony-tongued (?) Sumer,
the great land of the decrees of princeship,
Uri, the land having all that all is appropriate (?),
the land Martu, resting in security,
The whole universe, the people in unison (?),
To Enlil in one tongue…”
ESV Archaeology Study Bible, p. 27
Like the better-known parallels to the great flood (e.g. Gilgamesh), it appears that language disaster of Babel was also remembered and passed down in other Ancient Near Eastern traditions. Fascinating.
One of my refugee friends had come to faith. In the rough and tumble season of his early years as a believer, he had a very hard time believing the Bible in some of its teachings about the spiritual realm. This friend had a mixed religious and philosophical background, with Central Asian communism being one of his main influences. Hence the skepticism about angels and demons. At one point of crisis, he lost his housing and moved in with another Central Asian refugee, S., an Iranian man who had claimed to be a Christian and who had been granted religious asylum in the US. My friend had only been there a few weeks when he called me up, sounding very disturbed.
“Brother, let’s go for a drive. I really have to talk to you about something,” he said.
“Sure thing, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
At that point, we lived in an apartment complex full of Americans living in near poverty and refugees who had been resettled from several dozen nations. I drove over to the complex next door, where my friend lived. This one was mostly full of Nepalese refugees, but had a few Central Asian residents like S. My friend came out and hopped in the passenger seat of my little ’95 Honda Civic, which my Iraqi friends had dubbed “baby camel” because of its amazing gas mileage.
Not for the last time, my friend and I went on a meandering drive together, working our way around the roads of south Louisville while discussing something of deep spiritual import.
“Brother, I now believe in demons!” my friend started off.
“Really?” I said as I turned to glance at him. “Well… good. They’re biblical, you know. What happened?”
I remembered back to the numerous conversations we had had about the spiritual realm, where my friend had stubbornly refused to believe in demons as the Bible presented them. It was not that I was so very experienced in this area myself, but I had grown up on the mission field (in an animistic culture) and my parents had been involved in at least one direct encounter with the demonic. Then there are all the sober accounts from missionary biographies and church history, which present quite a strong case to even the most skeptical Christian. Beyond all these, there are the Scriptures themselves, which talk about the demonic as a quite literal fact of life in this fallen world and an enemy particularly exposed through the ministry of Jesus Christ. The Bible also presents demons as an enemy still occasionally dealt with by Christ’s followers at the beginning of the Church, without any indication that they would disappear entirely in this age.
“Brother,” my friend continued, “Since moving in with S., I’ve been sleeping on the couch. It’s only a one-bedroom apartment. Well, last night I fell asleep while reading my Bible. But I was woken up in the middle of the night by the television turning on and off by itself.”
As usually happens when friends describe things like this to me, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“It was flickering on and off all by itself, then other lights started flickering on and off by themselves also!”
“So what did you do?” I asked.
“Well, I was laying there under my blanket, afraid to move. Then I heard S. laughing and I saw a glimpse of him running up and down the hallway. When I got up to see what he was doing, I looked in his bedroom and saw that he was still in bed, fast asleep! But then at the same time, I whirled around, hearing him laughing hysterically and running around the kitchen! He was somehow, impossibly, in two places at once – fast asleep yet running around the apartment laughing. This was when I became truly terrified.”
We sat still at a traffic light, somewhere on Dixie Highway, my eyes open wide in astonishment. My formerly materialist friend had no motive to be making up this story about his new roommate who had just graciously given him a place to live. He continued.
“I went back to the living room, turned on all the lights, and started reading my Bible out loud. I didn’t dare stop for the rest of the night. Nothing else happened, but I was too afraid to go back to sleep. Then this morning at breakfast, I confronted S. about it.”
“Wow. What in the world did he say?”
“S. confessed to me that he’s always had this problem. He said, ‘They follow me wherever I go. So I move houses a lot. Whenever I move, it seems to get better for a while, but then they always come back. Whatever you do, don’t try to talk to them or stop them,’ he said. ‘One of my former roommates tried. They got angry with him and hit him in the head, and he lost his hearing.'”
My friend was clearly shaken up by this terrifying night. He continued, “I don’t know what to do. But I now know they are real, just like the Bible says. I was a fool to remain a materialist in this matter.”
“Well,” I responded, “I’m sorry this happened. But I’m glad you believe what the Bible says now about this. S. probably thinks they follow him, but the Bible seems to teach that they are somehow within him. Demons are almost always connected to people in the Scriptures. That’s probably why he can’t get rid of them when he moves houses. Let’s make a plan, you and me. The next time you see S., ask him if we can pray for him. Together with maybe a couple of other believing brothers, we’ll gather and lay hands on him and pray. I’ve never done this before, but I believe that we can help S. if we gather, pray over him, read scripture, and trust in the power of Jesus over whatever is going on with him spiritually. There’s some phony stuff that some churches get into, but Jesus’ followers have done this sort of thing quietly for 2,000 years.”
“I’ll ask him,” my friend agreed.
“Bro,” I said, unable to avoid feeling a little vindicated. “You should have believed the Bible! What a terrible way to find out the demonic is real!”
“I know!” my friend said, laughing and shaking his head, “I know. I have been thoroughly convinced.”
We both shivered, trying to shake off the creepiness of the whole affair.
Our plan set in place, I dropped my friend off and sent out a text for prayer. Strangely, right after this, S. disappeared, abandoning his apartment and never coming into contact with us again. I can only speculate as to why he ran off, but it probably had something to do with the fact that we were ready to pray for him. Perhaps the spirits tormenting him got wind of this plan and caused him to flee. Years later I heard from other refugees that they had seen him, that he no longer professed to be a Christian, and that he had gotten deeply involved in drugs. I pray that wherever he ends up, there will eventually be a community of believers who will be able to befriend him and pray over him, that he might experience the freedom from the demonic that Jesus gives.
As for my friend and me, it was a good but hard lesson in believing the Bible, even when it contradicts our experience. Whatever our “enlightened” cultures might claim, the demonic is real. We need not be fixated on it, but I pray that if we ever get another chance to directly pray for a demonized person, that we will be ready, and that we will see the delivering power of Jesus displayed in that unique and merciful way.
As the classic Beatles song goes, “‘Cause I don’t care too much for money, for money can’t buy me … [honor].” Wealthy local leaders ignore this proverb regularly, using their money to purchase loyalty in hopes that the community will overlook their corruption, theft, and promiscuity. But it doesn’t work. The bazaar always finds out which men are living respectably and which ones are pretending mammon to be a substitute for honor.
This week some of my teammates were able to lead a local man to faith after studying the Bible with him and his wife for a couple months. His profession? “I believe this. This is true. What do I need to do?” His wife has not professed faith yet, but she is close.
The angels rejoice at one sinner who repents. We are rejoicing here at this answered prayer. Here is an appropriately celebratory song!
An interesting pattern continues to emerge in ministry. Professing Christians who seem strangely quick and severe in pronouncing judgment on others are often themselves living in hidden sin. It has happened enough now for it to function as a kind of warning sign for me – or at least a reason to lean in and seek to understand what might be going on beneath the surface.
One American man in a former small group I led was very knowledgeable in the faith and usually pretty easygoing, but he would sometimes lash out at the church or other Christians in ways that seemed out of balance and inappropriate. Turns out he was involved in secret adultery.
A Central Asian man who knew the Bible extremely well and whose entire family had professed faith for years would also unexpectedly lash out at certain kinds of sin and sinners. Again, the vehemence and intensity of these comments just didn’t feel right for someone who professed to be himself saved by the grace of Jesus. In fact, while condemning others, this man was involved in secret theft and shameful financial dealings.
Another local man had a testimony worthy of a missionary biography. He seemed to be growing in his faith and was very faithful in participating in Bible study, though strangely, there were two or three other believers that he seemed to have no mercy at all for. Turns out that behind closed doors this man was extremely manipulative, gas-lighting, and making veiled and direct threats against the physical safety of other brothers in the faith.
In John 12, Judas even rebukes Jesus and the woman’s costly gift of pure nard – while secretly robbing from the money bag himself.
But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. (John 12: 4-7 ESV)
Again, this pattern has happened enough that I sniff at least correlation, and perhaps causation. As my local friends say when something doesn’t feel right – there’s a hair in this yogurt. Secret sin is a wretched, miserable thing. It tears us up on the inside and we develop all kinds of attempted defenses in response. One of them seems to be a particularly judgmental spirit toward others, perhaps an attempt to deflect the conviction we feel from our own hypocrisy by focusing on others’ shortcomings. What husband and father hasn’t wrestled with irritability toward spouse and kids when he himself is feeling condemned? I know this one has.
Sadly, all of the men I mentioned above ended up causing great damage to the church through their secret sin. In all three situations, I sensed that something was off, but wasn’t quite sure what it might be. Going forward, I have a better sense of what to look for if a professing Christian seems to be unusually harsh and unpredictably judgmental. Something is likely happening behind closed doors. There may be other explanations also, but wisdom would seem to commend barking up this particular tree.
If there is someone like this in our circles, we need to pay attention. That kind of a judgmental spirit is at least indicative of a heart that is not living in the assurance of the gospel. Or worse. It might be indicative of a heart wrestling with the sad and destructive state of secret sin. Let us take heed.
Those who have spent time in this part of the world soon realize the importance of things appearing official. Seals, stamps, big desks with name plates, suits, important-looking dossiers… and certificates. One must not underestimate the importance of certificates in Central Asia.
One of the core questions of a worldview is this: What is real? In Central Asia, this coincides closely with what is respectable. In fact, if something is informal or unrecognized, if it doesn’t reach a certain threshold of respectability, then in a very real sense it’s not understood to be serious or real.
One of my close friends who grew up in this region told me a story from his youth. A respected teacher offered to give him private lessons without pay on a certain subject. My friend thought this was a kind offer and took him up on it. However, when his father found out about this he was not pleased at all, even though this situation was saving him money and giving his son a superior educational experience. “No,” said my friend’s father, “If you are not in the paid class, then you will not receive the certificate. And without the certificate, it’s not real.” My friend promptly withdrew from the free private tutoring and joined the paid group class. And in time he received his certificate.
Notice how the free private tutoring was not valued by my friend’s father because it would not have produced the all-important certificate. In this case and many others, Central Asians will often prioritize a certificate over the actual value of the content they are learning. This is not because they do not recognize quality of education. It’s simply that they believe that most education without the paper proof – sealed and signed and hung on the wall – is not really real at all.
The certificate is indicative of a broader trend that runs throughout the entire culture. Central Asians are loath to attach themselves to anything that has not sent the appropriate signals of seriousness and respectability.
Enter a global missions movement of post-institutional Westerners that focuses on planting organic, grass-roots, informal discipleship groups and house churches, and you have a situation ripe for misunderstanding – and ripe to be rejected as not really respectable or real. While many missions methods focus on the importance of reproducibility (not an unbiblical concept, depending on how it’s defined), few methods that I’m aware of are really asking hard cultural questions about respectability and reality. The Westerners make their pitch for house church and the locals wonder why they should be expected to risk their necks for something that seems so unplanned and so flimsy, so unreal. A crisis of trust emerges between the local believer and the missionary. Do these foreigners I have entrusted myself to actually have a plan?
However, the fact that most of Central Asia also contains some measure of government or societal persecution means that it’s often impossible or at least very tricky to start a church in a way that would be considered respectable – even if you could find a missionary willing to help start said respectable church (which might end up feeling very old-fashioned and unreproducible to them). So the Westerners end up with an aversion to the forms of church the locals are more naturally drawn toward, while the locals have a cultural aversion to the forms of church the Westerners are excited about. So much for contextualization.
The Westerners, in their own cultural stage of post-institutional ferment, can’t understand why Central Asians aren’t into house church, as their training had assured them they would be. The Central Asians, only recently emerging from a tribal past, recently urbanized, and seeing in their own society corrupt and phony institutions, are starving to experience healthy organizations and institutions. They can’t understand why the Westerners seem to be so against all the markers of respectable entities. But these things seldomly get spoken of openly.
In our previous city, a local believer with terrible English was an extremely loyal attendee at the international church. Knowing he was receiving very little spiritual edification by his attendance at this registered English service, his expat friends repeatedly urged him to join the local-language group they were trying to start. He stubbornly resisted, seemingly unwilling to commit, always talking about the need for a complex plan for that kind of a group to actually work. The verbal explanations about simply following the Bible that he was repeatedly given were not having their desired impact. One day while chewing on these things, I encouraged one of his mentors to try an experiment. I told him to write out their strategy, plan, and biblical principles for their local group and to present it to their friend as a thick portfolio. Feeling like anything was worth a shot at that point, they indulged me and did this very thing. The experiment worked. The thick stack of paper outlining their plans for this local church startup made something switch in our friend’s brain. It was real now. And as such, he was willing to risk for it. He started visiting their local group the next week.
Again, it will not be possible in much of Central Asia (or the Middle East) to plant officially-recognized, fully open local churches. But I am concerned that many of our favorite forms, because of where we are coming from culturally, are somewhat repellent to our Central Asian friends, because of where they are culturally. We dream of flat, bottom-up movements that never institutionalize (“forever young”) while they dream of hierarchical, top-down healthy institutions that are mature and serious. If house churches are popular among the hip middle-class residents of the Pacific Northwest, we should ask why that is, and we should not really be that surprised that they might not resonate with war-weary Central Asians. Somehow, we must find the areas of overlap between our cultural preferences and missions books, and what Central Asians consider real enough to risk for.
We may not choose to give out certificates, but if not, we should wrestle seriously with why our local friends are so upset if we do not. When it comes to what Central Asians think is real and respectable, how can we at least meet them half-way? When locals start new organizations, associations, or entities, what elements do they consider necessary in order to be viewed as legitimate?
We shouldn’t claim to be serious about contextualization if we do not wrestle with what our local friends believe is actually real. I might not care at all about a stamped piece of paper. But I am not planting churches based on my personal cultural preferences. Or am I?
This is a fascinating documentary showing how recent archaeology in Central Asia is expanding our knowledge of the nature of ancient and medieval Christianity in this part of the world. I’m convinced the more research that can be done, the more we will learn that Christianity spread far earlier and further than we ever expected.
How is verbal communication different in an honor-based Central Asian society versus a justice-based Western society? And what does that mean for cross-cultural workers and the establishment of a new culture among local believers?
In the field of intercultural communication, honor orientation and justice orientation refer to how a culture thinks about right and wrong. Honor-oriented cultures tend to believe that what is honorable is right and what is shameful is wrong. The way the community views a certain action or person is what is most important. A person is wrong if the community says he is wrong – even if he did not commit the thing he is accused of. Justice-oriented cultures tend believe that an action is right or wrong by nature of the action itself. A person is guilty if he does something wrong regardless of the community’s knowledge or lack of knowledge of it. He is similarly innocent even if the community believes he is guilty. This orientation toward honor or justice deeply impacts the way a culture thinks and speaks.
Our local Central Asian culture is strongly honor-oriented. Justice tendencies are there deep down as well, but they are woefully underdeveloped. As such, all action, including communication, is done in order to gain and preserve honor and to avoid or decrease shame. Honor and shame function like a kind of currency which can be given or taken away by the community. Local culture is intractably built around the honor of the patrilineage, the line of males and attached family members extending back into history and into the future. The communication of the individual affects the honor or shame of his patrilineage and his honor or shame is in turn affected by the actions and communication of the other individuals within his extended family, especially on his father’s side. For a Western culture parallel, consider the treatment of family honor and shame in Jane Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice. In this classic novel, the scandalous speech and behavior of a younger sister puts all her sisters’ marriage prospects in serious jeopardy. For no honorable man would attach himself to such a shameful family.
Our Central Asian neighbors aspire at all times to honorable communication, which is understood locally to be high-volume speech that reflects the values of the culture: generosity, respect, hospitality, purity, and loyalty. In order to advance the honor of the patrilineage and avoid shame, locals go above and beyond in what seem to outsiders to be very lavish verbal expressions of respect – almost blasting clouds of honorable words in the general direction of the respectable recipient. In place of simple greetings, locals will effortlessly proclaim a stream of pleasantries and blessings upon the person they are greeting, machine-gun style, even if merely passing an acquaintance on the street, and even while simultaneously speaking on the phone with someone else. This honorable verbosity is typical not only of greetings, but also of farewells, requests, and replies. In these interactions both parties work to make sure their own honor and the honor of other party is affirmed in a public and highly verbal way. Sometimes this is done with such speed, skill, and genuineness as to leave Westerners stunned that any human society could be so poetically respectful. Other times, well, Jane Austen again provides us with a comparable, if exaggerated, figure in the over-the-top verbosity of the character, Mr. Collins. Listen to how Mr. Collins praises his patroness and relatives ad nauseam, and you will get a window into how this kind of “honorable” flattery can get off-balance for some in these types of cultures.
Sadly, because of this honor-orientation locals will also lie, stretch the truth, or deflect in order to avoid bringing shame to themselves or another party. This is often simply expected as a normal part of civility. If someone feels they cannot refuse an invitation honorably, they will often accept, while planning to cancel later. Or, the phrase Inshallah is used as an indirect no, where the will of God in circumstances takes the fall for the local not wanting to respond in the affirmative, and thus shame is assumed to have been avoided. These practices have led to a deep disillusionment among locals who know that many praise them to their face, and then quickly insult them behind their backs. We’re all hopelessly two-faced has become a sort of curse that many feel they cannot escape.
Christian workers among this kind of culture need to be aware of this honor-orientation of the culture and the ways it will pose challenges not only for daily life, but also for effective gospel communication. There are many areas in which Christian workers can contextualize their own communication toward this honor orientation. Lavish and respectful greetings, farewells, requests, and offers can all be made with genuine love and sincerity that is even deeper than that of the culture itself. This is possible because believers have a relationship with the God who is blessing all the nations through Christ. Care can be taken to speak of difficult things in contexts and ways that will not make the recipient feel in danger of unnecessary shame. The question can regularly be asked: “Is there a way I can carry out my spiritual work with this friend in a way viewed more honorable by the family and the community?”
Nevertheless, many aspects of gospel work will inevitably be viewed as shameful by the community. Christian workers will need to emphasize Christ’s enduring shame for the joy set before him (Heb 12:2) as a model for themselves and their local friends. There are many ways in which Westerners can grow in indirect and honorable communication that does not involve deceit. The ministry of Jesus actually provides a fascinating case study here. However, local believers will also need to learn to repent of the ways in which their honor-shame orientation has often led to lying and duplicity. Ultimately, the goal is that speech normally leveraged for the honor of the physical patrilineage will be instead be leveraged for the honor of God and his household of faith.
How can I honor my heavenly father and his family with all of my communication? Provided the idea of honor is infused with its biblical content, this is not a bad filter at all to be controlled by.
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-For more on Honor vs. Justice communication, see Scott A. Moreau’s Effective Intercultural Communication
When I was a tenth grader my family visited some dear friends working among a very remote tribe. This tribe lived on the tops and sides of several remote jungle ridges which sloped down to the roaring convergence of two major rivers. It is one of the more beautiful and remote places I’ve ever seen. As it would have taken three days to walk to this tribe from the nearest road, we were flown in on a missionary Cessna to the airstrip that the villagers had recently built.
Because of lack of space, this airstrip was built on a short slope, complete with a steeper slope and drop-off at the end. When landing, the upward slope would help the plane slow down. When taking off downhill, the pilot had to make sure he had enough speed once he reached the end of the dirt and grass airstrip. If not, his plane would be smashed into the canopy of trees far below. This had already happened to one plane belonging to someone trying to fly out sacks of coffee beans. Surprisingly, this wasn’t the greatest danger to the pilots. Their worst nemesis turned out to be the village pigs that would tear up the airstrip in their search for edible roots and sometimes run out in front of a plane, causing a collision that could be fatal for all parties involved. It may have been at this same airstrip that this type of collision took place in following years. The plane and the pig were totaled, but the pilot was miraculously spared.
The older Korean missionary couple that we were visiting (Papa S and Mama M) had become like grandparents to us. So this visit to their tribal location was a very sweet time. I learned a lot from their wisdom about how to live a lifestyle that was closer to that of the villagers and how to think more communally about our belongings (like tools) for the sake of the gospel. As they worked to translate the Bible with their local teammates from a neighboring tribe, they truly modeled relationships of equality and dignity, even given the vast education, cultural, and material differences.
My older brother and I spent the days sitting outside in the sunny ridge-top yard of their modest tribal house, reading (my first of several attempts at reading Desiring God took place here), having fun with the hornbill bird that had adopted our friends, and telling stories with the small crowd of villagers that were almost always present. While we didn’t know the tribal language, enough of the tribesmen knew the trade language for us to be able to communicate easily. However, most of the elderly and the children did not know the trade language, so our conversations took place with a constant background hum of the tribal tongue as they interpreted and remarked and made jokes. I’ve often characterized my Melanesian tribal friends as quick to laugh, quick to joke, and quick to fight – a fascinating combination of playful and dangerous, honor-bound yet always wearing their hearts on their sleeves. As is also true of so many of my Central Asian friends, they make the most wonderful of friends and the most daunting of enemies.
Friendly hornbills make for pleasant, if goofy, companions.
One afternoon my mom had decided to bake some chocolate chip cookies in a wood-fired stove Papa S had made from a metal barrel, the kind of barrel that gasoline for the generator came in. Her hippy-missionary skills would prove to be remarkably successful, but as we waited we got into a fun conversation with a group of villagers about distances from their village to other places, such as where we lived, and how far it was to other countries. We were struggling to explain to them just how far away America was when I remembered that there was an inflatable globe inside the house. I went and retrieved it.
I sat down on a split-log bench. With my impromptu geography class huddled around me, I began to show them their country, the countries next door, and all the way on the other side of the globe, the country my parents were from. Confusion followed. This may have been the first time they had ever seen distances displayed on any kind of a map, let along one shaped like a ball. We talked about what their village would look like to a bird or a plane (the same word in the trade language), what their province would look like if they went higher up, and then what the round planet earth would look like if someone were able to go even higher. It began to sink in. Or so I thought.
Then, someone shouted something in the tribal language and the distinctive communal laugh burst forth. I’ve never seen this anywhere else in the world, but in that Melanesian country, when crowds laugh, they laugh in unison with a climax of a joyful and high-pitched whoop, something like dozens of voices all together exclaiming, “Hahahahaaha…Ha wheeeeee!” This would happen when someone did something funny or embarrassing in front of church, or when a rugby player got taken down in a particularly epic tackle. But this time apparently I was the joke!
I was finally able to get a translation of what was going on. “He thinks the world is round! The skinny white boy thinks the world is round! This is too much!” My short-lived geography class was falling apart as villagers, still laughing, began to make their way back to their huts to tell the story.
“But,” I protested to the few who remained, “It’s true! The world is round like a ball!” To no avail.
“Son,” One man said to me, “Look around you. Are we not on top of a mountain? Look at the horizon. Is it not flat? The world is definitely flat. We simply cannot believe what you are saying when we see this with our own eyes.”
My geography lesson had been an educational failure, however much comedic relief it may have brought to the village that week. I left scratching my head at the whole thing. Munching on a cookie and trying to place myself in their shoes, I began to realize just how outlandish my claims must have seemed to them. If the oral tradition of your ancestors, the only human source of wisdom and education you’ve ever had, claimed the world was flat, it was going to take a lot more than a random sixteen-year-old foreigner with a ball to convince you otherwise. Such is the power of a community’s self-evident truth.
I’ve often thought of that tribe in the years since as I’ve spoken with those in the West or in Central Asia, challenging the accepted truths of their culture with the universe as the Bible presents it. Incredulity sounds remarkably similar, regardless of language or culture. “What? You actually think homosexuality is a sin?” “What? You don’t believe that Islam is the fulfillment of Christianity? Everyone knows that.”
Group-think is universal. We are each limited in our perspective by our own unique cultural-historical time-slice, just like my village friends who thought I was crazy for suggesting the earth is round like a ball. Hence why we need a God who is outside of creation and yet who speaks his truth into it (props here to F. Schaeffer) – an eternally unchanging source of stable truth that takes things we feel (or learn) are absurd and helps us see that they are in fact true, wise, and beautiful. This is why missions is necessary. Yes, so that we can learn things that are true about geography – all truth is God’s truth, as they say. But even more important, so that we will be able to actually respond to the remnant whispers of conscience and stop trying in futility to save ourselves through appeasing and manipulating the spirits (as in Melanesia), through hoping our good deeds outweigh our bad (as in Islam), and through trying to be true to our authentic selves (as in the West).
The world, the earth, is round. And man cannot save himself through animism, religion, or whatever pop morality is dominating Twitter today. Rather, he must be saved by the Son of God, who became a man, lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended to be at God the Father’s right hand. The God who is outside of creation and yet speaks into it has told us that this is the only way to be reconciled to him. Perhaps the way in which we’ve heard that message conflicts with the prevailing wisdom of our tribe – but so be it. The path toward truth often begins with a terrifying realization that our tribe has been woefully wrong about many, many things.
Entrusted to the Dirt 