World
Mission – Lessons from a “Closed” Country
“God
is moving by His Spirit
Moving
through all the earth
Signs
and wonders when God moves
Move,
O Lord, in me”
Revival
in Latin America
Early
in my adult life I was privileged to live and work in South America
for several years. At the time, there had been an explosion in the
numbers of people becoming Christians for the first time,
particularly in Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. Entire
communities were being drawn into that continent’s greatest
spiritual outpouring since colonial times. For example, the
Jotabeche Church in Santiago (Chile) boasted a membership of 80,000
people. Puerto Rican evangelist Yiye Avila was criss-crossing Latin
America drawing hundreds of thousands of seekers into stadiums. In
Brazil literally millions were converted to Christ. The Rey de Reyes
(King of Kings) church in Buenos Aires and other congregations like
it across Argentina attracted thousands of men and women, drawn by
the simple proclamation of the Gospel, the liberation of communities
from the bondages of legalistic traditions and non-Christian
spiritual oppression and loud, long, joyful worship services.
I
made up my mind to learn Spanish and get involved in the Latin
American church. My work allowed me to do so (I was honoured to
serve as Associate Pastor in the Templo Evangelico, a Pentecostal
church in Lima, Peru and later on in Bethany Church in Caracas,
Venezuela), but there were few people officially in Peru as
missionaries. In fact, Peru was “closed” to
missionaries. In the wake of a leftist military coup, most foreign
Christian workers had been summarily expelled from the country and
the Marxist government threatened to crack down on non-establishment
churches. How could the church grow in the face of officially
sponsored opposition?
God
is greater than man’s antagonism. He always has a strategy to
reach the lost. If we will work with him, we can be part of the Holy
Spirit’s solution to “closed countries”, anywhere
in the world, even Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia. We must never
lose sight of the one central reality of world mission: God
passionately loves the human race and will do anything to reach
people with the Good News that Jesus came to redeem them and give
them eternal life. Sometimes this will involve winning people to
Christ in the heart of the establishment. At other times, it will
mean granting unique favour to those who find strategies to work for
Him under the very noses of those inimical to the work. This
articles looks at a few of the issues, from a Latin American “closed
country” perspective. I believe Father God wants us to learn
what is best for the environments in which we are serving Him.
Is
God Catholic or Protestant?
For
nearly half a millennium Roman Catholics and Protestants have been
engaged in a struggle for the hearts and minds of the “Christian”
world. One of the underlying assumptions has been that those who
belong to the “other” side are, by definition, living in
error and outside of the saving grace of Christ. A Minister I knew
once admitted to me that he believed it was conceivable a few
Catholics “might” actually get to Heaven. According to
his theology, there could be exceptions. Catholic friends, on the
other hand, had it on “good authority” that no Protestant
would make it, because they had spurned the authority and cover of
Mother Church. Non-Catholics bridled at the term “Catholic”
in church creeds. (The word means “universal”, surely a
propos in describing the Body of Christ.) Church history courses in
conservative seminaries majored on the destructive forces of “popish
plots” implicated in wars across the European Christian
heartlands over centuries. Catholics, on the other hand, pointed to
the numbing effects of higher criticism and modernism that
effectively gutted Christian teaching throughout Europe of
revelation, authenticity and the power of God. The impact on the
non-Christian world was, predictably, negative, as non-Christians
pointed to pride, hatred, division, prejudice and internal
contradictions amongst the followers of Jesus Christ as reasons for
rejecting the Gospel. How could those who preached the Gospel of
Love reach across the divide and impart the message?
When
I lived in South America I encountered this division repeatedly.
Roman Catholics pointed to the long history of their church on the
Continent. Protestants, on the other hand, majored on the cruel
methods frequently used by spiritual and temporal leadership in
Europe to bring about European dominance in the New World, including
slavery, genocide, inquisition and treachery, often committed in the
name of Christ and His prelates. Protestant leaders warned about the
influence of Marxism in the extant church. Bishops railed against
those who abandoned the faith and embraced growing Protestant
movements and the term “evangelico” was employed
pejoratively.
God
is neither Catholic nor Protestant. Jesus died for all, so that all
who call on him in simple faith can be forgiven their sins and
receive the gift of eternal life. Where church bodies do not
cooperate with the Holy Spirit he finds a way around them.
Liberation
Theology and Restrictive Policies
In
a number of Latin American countries, left-leaning elements in the
church reacted to the proliferation of (usually right-wing)
dictatorships by adopting “liberation theology”, a
misguided social movement that stemmed from a reappraisal of the
church's role in poor and oppressed communities. Many clergy joined
this Marxist-inspired struggle, which sought to reorganise society
and abolish the systematic oppression of the poor. The “father”
of liberation theology was a Peruvian priest called Gustavo
Gutierrez. Gutierrez called for liberation of the poor through
social action, including military means. He criticised capitalism,
in so far as it discourages community and collective action.
Throughout the hemisphere many people who responded to the call to
arms in the name of Christ used Old Testament passages to justify a
“war of liberation”. From time to time I observed
marches by thousands of protesters wearing red bandanas, carrying
arms, calling for the overthrow of the Government in the name of
reform and a secular Catholic Church.
Against
this background, I was asked to meet with the Secretary-General of
the Ministry of Interior in Lima, in connection with applications by
Australian Protestant missionaries to establish themselves in Lima
and work within the existing evangelical structures. Their
applications for visas had been refused, but they were never given
reasons. Intervention at the highest level, including
representatives of the Australian Government, had not convinced
Peruvian officials to change their position; no foreign missionaries
would be allowed into the country until further notice. I asked the
Secretary-General why this was so. Surely, I argued, there would be
value in their working along side the poor and uneducated, teaching
them to read and write, imparting life skills that would lead to a
more literate republic. To my surprise, he admitted the moratorium
had not emerged from the Peruvian Cabinet or Government Ministries,
but the Archbishop. The reason: reliable intelligence had been
received by church officials to the effect that five thousand Mormon
missionaries from the United States planned to descend on Peru and
make a concerted effort to proselytise throughout the country. This
news caused alarm at the highest levels of the official church and it
was decided the only way to prevent a Mormon “invasion”
would be to close the door completely to foreign missionaries. No
exceptions. There was no way the Australian applicants would even be
considered. It was suggested they go to another country.
Many
countries routinely refuse access to missionaries, for a host of
reasons, including religious and political factors. Making the
Gospel relevant to their populations in the new millennium requires
new thinking, new access strategies and new tools, albeit with the
same message.
Alabare
a mi Senor (I will praise my Lord)
Is
it possible for genuine Christians in closed societies to share the
Gospel? I believe the Holy Spirit always has a plan.
I
discovered that God had a strategy in Peru, that involved working
within the existing structure. Literally hundreds of groups of
Catholic Charismatic Christians sprang up across the city of Lima and
the adjoining shanty towns (“Pueblos Jovenes” or young
towns, where half of the population of greater Lima live). Those who
participated loved God. I attended dozens of their meetings, as a
visitor, joining in singing new songs of worship and studying the
Bible.
If
the Gospel is going to be relevant, it will be so where people live.
To focus outreach on an expectation that millions will simply leave
the institutional church because a foreigner asks them to do so is
simplistic. Some may do so; others won’t, if they find Jesus
Christ within their own culture.
The
Peruvian Catholic Charismatic community was criticised by
evangelicals and Western missionaries, but it made inroads into
otherwise “closed” towns and suburbs. I met priests and
youth leaders who told me they had gone beyond their vows and made
personal professions of faith in Christ as the basis of their
salvation and believed in the Baptism in the Holy Spirit for power to
witness. As they did so, reaching out to their own parishes and in
schools and universities, they were accepted and spoke with new
authority. Naturally, they had enemies, including members of the
powerful church hierarchies, who wanted to preserve old
ecclesiastical and syncretistic forms, as well as rigid authority
structures. However, “the Word of God is not bound” and
the work they did had impacts in countless lives. In many respects,
Catholic Charismatics in Peru may have been the logical counterpoint
to Liberation Theologians who were passionate about the kind of
society they wanted to build but lacked personal relationships with
God and a Biblical paradigm.
Meanwhile,
deep in the jungle
A
parallel development was the ongoing impact of Bible translators
working in the jungle areas of Peru on behalf of Wycliffe, or the
Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). I visited a SIL base located
on the Ucuyali River at Yarinacocha, near Pucallpa. There,
surrounded on most sides by the Peruvian jungle, SIL had established
an amazing facility for Bible translation.
Over
a period of several days one of the directors took me through the
facility. I talked to pilots, who carried translators to remote
jungle clearings in a fraction of the time formerly taken by boat. I
sat with translators and informants, as they patiently incarnated the
Greek and Hebrew Scriptures in languages that had never before been
exposed to the outside world and codified in written form. I
listened with amazement at the stories of men and women who had given
their lives to working for Christ in such a remote place. I then
visited jungle clearings where indigenous Indians (brothers and
sisters in Christ) lived and carved out subsistence lives.
Not
that the base was lacking in modern facilities. The most refreshing
part of the visit was a tour of the computer facility, where the
latest programs were used to manipulate complex databases with
dictionaries and translation tools to develop hitherto untranslated
drafts of the Scriptures. The centre was air conditioned twenty-four
hours a day, using generators; this was a tremendous relief from the
oppressive heat and humidity that prevailed outside. The base had
its detractors, including anthropologists who believed missionaries
should not penetrate other cultures, but the work being done was of
eternal value, the story of God’s love and redemption for all
ethnic groups, in all generations, across God’s world.
On
4 October 1979 the Peruvian Ministry of Education signed the first of
a series of contracts with SIL, to produce primers in languages that
were then being committed to written form for the first time. They
were the only organisation with the training, skills, experience,
acceptance and track record to undertake such a feat. What was
unique about this contract was that SIL was being actively encouraged
to remain in Peru at a time when missionaries had been, or were being
expelled, by the leftist military government then in power. None of
the senior staff of President Juan Velasco was particularly
interested in evangelism of remote tribes, however by adding value to
the country’s education system SIL managed to find a niche that
enabled them to continue their important work, with the imprimatur of
the Government. Even a notionally atheistic Government can see the
relance of Christian work. In November 1981, the Peruvian President
Fernando Belaunde Terry presented William Cameron Townsend (Uncle
Cam), the, founder of SIL with the Orden
del Sol, the highest
service award given to a civilian. The work goes on.
There
are no “closed countries”
Many
so-called “closed” countries are not closed at all, just
limited access societies. If Christians are flexible in terms of
entry methodologies; operational strategies; options for working on
the ground (including tent-making, or employment in secular jobs
while unofficially actively undertaking the work of mission); and are
prepared to trust the Holy Spirit to energise and use believers in
other denominations, they will be able to reach such societies
effectively with the Gospel.