Lausanne Movement and Missions..

Ok raise your hands if you've heard of the Lausanne Movement?If you have, what's your christian background and where did you learn about it? My guess is the majority of people who've heard of it are either seminarians or from a more liberal/mainline denomination. I know for myself i didn't hear about this movement until i went to seminary. But by my second year of being a Christian i knew all about Urbana. Ironically it was the Lausanne movement that opened the door for mission organizations and conferences like the Urbana and now its barely a blip on the pew-sitters conferences to fund-raise for list.

While I could spend hours on why this conference has decreased in visible influence, i would instead like to interact with a critique C. Rene Padilla had of the conference in South Africa. It was helpfully translated at the Suburban Christian. Dr. Padilla's critiques as a whole are not new. In fact i've heard variations of this theme for some time. But it seems to be ignored by the West or simply not acted upon. Why? Don't get me started ;)

However he makes two critiques that are starting to become an issue. A. The West/North America are ignorant of unreached people groups in their midst. B. The wealth of the West and its dichotomy between evangelism and social justice.

Lets tackle A. This is a very salient critique. I was at Urbana last year and most all the booths concentrated either on missions overseas or on urban/poverty missions. Most everyone was portrayed as the other (read "not middle-class americans"). But here's what Padilla is picking up on, "Missions in American are not viewed as reaching out to unreached people groups, but instead are cast as social justice missions." The question for further pondering and research is "why".

I have a few good guesses. Guess #1 it is generally assumed that everyone who lives here has been exposed in some form or another to Christianity. Which of course raises the question of whether or not they have truly been 'reached'. Guess #2 'Urban Ministry' just sounds sexier than 'Mission to unreached people poor people in the urban ghetto'. Which brings me to Guess #3 White Guilt. Simply put, because white people feel guilty about their wealth and history they are working out that guilt by participating in Urban Ministry. Let me be clear i'm not knocking their work or ministry, because if God's in it, then its valuable. But I do think what Padilla's critique is pointing out, is that our lack of creativity and purposeful ignorance about the situation in our own backyard is hindering/impeding the spread of the gospel and partnership within the body of Christ.

Which brings me to B. Wealth and Dichotomy. Yes there's alot of wealth in the West, but that wealth is starting to fade or be transferred to places like China/India. The problem isn't the wealth but the dichotomy between evangelism and social justice. If we had a better theology of wealth and how to use it best serve God instead of how to preserve your piece of the pie then the current dichotomy would not exist. In order to understand where and why of the dichotomy between evangelism and social justice you have to have a working knowledge of the history of evangelicalism in America, about which most Christians today are completely ignorant. I dont have enough space or time for that, so i'll just recommend some George Marsden for those who really care ;)

However the upshot is that many Americans are unwilling to critically look at their culture and their evangelical theology and see how it continues to entrap people into cycles of poverty and alienate them from the church. In the 70's and 80's political conservatism and theological conservatism became deeply entwined, much to the deficit of both groups. This entanglement has further alienated unreached people groups and drove deeper the wedge between faith and justice.

A further issue is the change in the way missions were funded in the 20th century. With the rise of para-church institutions missionary work became an individual calling and endeavor. With the seal of Holy Spirit approval being ones ability to fundraise their own support. What this has done is left the work of evangelism to the well connected and wealthy. I come from a culture where fundraising is viewed as begging. If i were to visit churches and ask for money, my family would be deeply ashamed. So even though i have much to contribute, there is no opening for me to serve under this model of missions. Yet we cling to this paradigm, even in these hard times.

I didn't go to Lausanne, i'm only just beginning to sort through some of their documents. But until we have another movement that will change the paradigm for missions and theology like the ones the rocked the 20th century, conference like Lausanne will have little impact in the West and other parts of the world.

What It Takes to Make a Student...

This week the New York Times Magazine ran a fascinating article on poverty, education and legislation.

At first this looks like a typical NYTimes attack on the failing on No Child Left Behind and it's impact, but upon further reading there are several statements that really stand out and need to be examined further. Starting with this statement "By 2014, the president vowed, African-American, Hispanic and poor children, all of whom were at the time scoring well below their white counterparts and those in the middle class on standardized tests, would not only catch up with the rest of the nation; they would also reach 100 percent proficiency in both math and reading." A great statement a great promise, but upon further reflection, this statement links minorities with poverty and white with middle-class. The great American divide White=wealth and Black/Brown=poverty. Later on our president is quoted as saying “I’m proud to report the achievement gap between white kids and minority students is closing, for the good of the United States.” What happened to the poor kids? Are they catching up?


But I don't want to spend this blog posting on racial and economic divisions. That's been done and at this point the dialog on that point is stalled, instead what's significant about this article is that it admits that poverty is more than just an economic condition, it's also a cultural condition.

"The academics have demonstrated just how deeply pervasive and ingrained are the intellectual and academic disadvantages that poor and minority students must overcome to compete with their white and middle-class peers. The divisions between black and white and rich and poor begin almost at birth, and they are reinforced every day of a child’s life."

So it's going to take more than just bussing kids to better schools, you're going to have to teach them how to learn in that kind of school. It does no good to lead a horse to water, if they don't know how to drink from the pool. The article later goes on to show how little most poor kids are able to drink from the academic pool.

"Hart and Risley showed that language exposure in early childhood correlated strongly with I.Q. and academic success later on in a child’s life. Hearing fewer words, and a lot of prohibitions and discouragements, had a negative effect on I.Q.; hearing lots of words, and more affirmations and complex sentences, had a positive effect on I.Q. The professional parents were giving their children an advantage with every word they spoke, and the advantage just kept building up."

Notice this is a difference that transcends race, instead it is a class difference, let me remind you gentle reader that white people can be poor too, and perhaps it's not necessarily their fault...

"...Middle-class children argue with their parents, complain about their parents’ incompetence and disparage parents’ decisions.” Working-class and poor children, by contrast, “learn how to be members of informal peer groups. They learn how to manage their own time. They learn how to strategize.” But outside the family unit, Lareau wrote, the advantages of “natural growth” disappear. In public life, the qualities that middle-class children develop are consistently valued over the ones that poor and working-class children develop. Middle-class children become used to adults taking their concerns seriously, and so they grow up with a sense of entitlement, which gives them a confidence, in the classroom and elsewhere, that less-wealthy children lack. The cultural differences translate into a distinct advantage for middle-class children in school, on standardized achievement tests and, later in life, in the workplace."

How can we expect an adult who has been taught to respect his elders and not challenge the boss to succeed in a competitive business environment. What if that adult is a female? Two strikes right there, add race and forget it, it's 3 strikes, out. Often in the business environment people from this background are invariably perceived as not being intelligent, because their middle class peers are unable to look beyond the cultural conditioning.

The article goes on to detail how some schools are overcoming this divide, let's just say it takes a lot of work and you can't assume what the kids know, in terms of knowledge or behavior.

Let's think about some of the other social consequences of this upbringing, teen pregnancies, gangs, drugs...? In this light, harder consequences won't work, because it's respect not social acceptance these people seek.

The bottom line, you put your money where your heart is and if we in America want to get serious about poverty and racial inequality in this country, then we have to be willing to spend the money and the time and not expect any real results for several generations.