South Korea may curb the number of missionaries it sends to the Middle East, according to this story from the Associated Press. Dozens of South Koreans have apparently been expelled for proselytizing from several Middle Eastern countries over the past month or so.
I was struck, as I always am, at what risks missionaries take when they enter into countries where speaking about your faith could mean banishment or worse. The Baptist Press has an interesting release on how the growing power of the Taliban in Pakistan has many Christians in the country on edge.
Moreover, it reinforced how global Christianity is now. According to the AP story, there are 19,000 South Korean missionaries working around the world. Let me repeat: 19,000. And I bet a few hundred are in the United States, taking the word of God into the secret recesses of this “Christian” nation.
I think we sometimes make the mistake of thinking of Christianity as a part of the Western world. I’m not completely sure if that was ever true, strictly speaking. And even if it was once, it certainly isn’t now.
I’d love some day to travel overseas and catch a glimpse of how Christianity manifests itself in, say, South Korea. Or Mozambique. Or Haiti. I think I’d learn a lot.
Rwandan Emmanuel Kadege would’ve had every reason to turn his back on faith.
Just weeks after he was baptized, according to Charisma Magazine’s J. Lee Grady, Kadege’s village –made up of folks from the country’s minority Tutsi tribe — was attacked by Hutus during the country’s horrific 1994 genocide. His assailants shot him, cut his legs to ribbons and forced him to watch as they raped his sister. The attackers let Kadege and his family live — but they destroyed everything they owned, almost everything they were.
Now, 15 years later, the scars on his legs are still visible. But Kadege, now a pastor, is preaching a message of forgiveness to Hutus and Tutsis alike. He and his sister have even forgiven the men –now imprisoned — who raped her: In fact, Kadege tells Grady, his sister has even visited them.
“I am preaching reconciliation, and that is really touching the hearts of people,” Kadege said.
Forgiveness is hard enough when we have nothing too serious to forgive. It takes a special man indeed to forgive such atrocities. But the fact Kadege is helping his country forgive as well — well, an O.J. Award doesn’t seem to quite cover it.
With the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America now welcoming gays and lesbians into its clergy, the stage is set for another denominational showdown — the first rumblings of which can be heard in this story from the Chicago Tribune.
“We’re going to have to evaluate our place in the ELCA,” the Rev. Terry Breum of St. Mark Lutheran Church in Lindenhurst, Ill., told the Tribune. “I didn’t go into this church to leave it. We stand for a biblical view of marriage. … It’s dangerous to take a stand against the word of God.”
My guess is there will be a split of some kind, though I doubt it’ll be as messy as the Episcopal fracture we’ve been watching the last several years. While most American Episcopalians were part of one denomination (the Episcopal Church U.S.A.) before the church elected the openly gay Rev. Gene Robinson as bishop of the New Hampshire diocese, Lutherans are spread over nearly 30 denominations in North America. And, I suppose, if you want to get technical, Martin Luther sort of pioneered the process.
Still, division is never easy — particularly within the body of Christ. We’ll just have to see where it all goes.
As you know, Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts died early yesterday morning. Eulogies saturate the news, giving us plenty of opportunity to think about the senator’s achievements, his failings, his lasting legacy.
While most talk about Kennedy’s Catholic faith, relatively few have given us much insight into how Kennedy’s religious beliefs manifested themselves in his life — a shame, really. Because while the senator split from the Catholic Church on a host of issues, his family priest says Kennedy was a surprisingly religious man.
“I was there last night when he died and the whole family were praying,” the Rev. Patrick Tarrant told TheBostonChannel.com. “They’d been praying all day, and it was a wonderful experience for me. I don’t see it that often.”
The story was an unexpected gem in the midst of the day’s touching but often predictable obituaries. But there were other spiritual crumbs to savor, too. Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today has an outstanding wrap of what religious leaders around the world had to say about the Lion’s passing. And, while Kennedy may have considered himself a devout Catholic, the Religion News Service notes that the obituary in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, dedicated significant verbage to the Chappaquiddick scandal and noted his support of abortion.
We’ve talked quite a bit health care on this blog as of late. Today, though, let’s listen to what a few well-known Christians and religious types have to say.
First up is Brian McLaren, author of “A New Kind of Christian” and several other books that, in part, have helped shape the Emergent Church movement. Here, he gives us “An Open Letter to Conservative Christians in the U.S., On Health Care.”
Keith Pavlischek of First Things, a conservative Christian blog, writes his own open letter — asking McLaren, in essence, whether he truly believes any health care proposal ratified by Barack Obama and a Congress controlled by the Democrats is likely to be “abortion neutral” (McLaren’s words). Pavlischek cites a recent column by fellow evangelical Michael Gerson, Washington Post columnist (and former speechwriter for George W. Bush) in his post.
Of course, if the so-called “public option” is dead, all this consternation over government-funded abortion will likely be moot: So says Steven Waldman over at Beliefnet.com.
Jim Wallis, a prominent leader of evangelicalism’s left wing, has been predictably outspoken in the need for health care reform. Some of his thoughts can be seen here and here. Or, if you’d rather just watch, check out the clip below.
Meanwhile, the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission believes the bill proposed in the House of Representatives is “dangerous,” and former Moral Majority leader Ralph Reed’s new organization, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, is taking a hard stance against any government solution to health care. You can even sign a petition to that effect on the FFC site.
And Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries says that, while health care definitely could use an overhaul, he doubts whether government should be in charge of it.
I’m sure we’ll hear from others as time goes on, so stay tuned.
I’ve been hearing about God’s boundless grace and mercy since I was in preschool, but even so, it’s still a tricky concept for me to grasp. Intellectually — at least for me — perfect justice and eternal mercy seem to clash. Baptism, our most sacred rite, is essentially a representation of where God’s justice and mercy meet: We’re pardoned of our crimes, we’re washed clean of our sins. But when we try to follow this example, we tend to screw it up.
As Christians, I think, we’re called to grapple daily with this divine dichotomy. And some days, it’s harder than others.
Last week, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the man convicted of blowing up Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was released from prison and sent home to Libya. There he was greeted as a hero by thousands, some of whom showered the ground before him with flower petals.
Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s justice secretary, said the release was reflective of Scotland’s traditional values: al-Megrahi suffered from prostrate cancer and was going home to die. Scotland, MacAskill said, was just being merciful.
“… Mr. al-Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power,” MacAskill said in his press conference. “It is one that no court in any jurisdiction in any land could revoke or overrule. It is terminal, final, and irrevocable. He is going to die.”
Reaction outside Libya has been swift and severe — particularly in the United States. Most of the 270 people on board Flight 103 were Americans on their way home for Christmas, and Hillary Clinton said it would be “absolutely wrong” to free him. A White House official said al-Megrahi’s welcome home was “outrageous,” “disgusting” and “incredibly offensive” to Americans. Now there are whispers that there was a shady back-door deal to get al-Megrahi released. Many feel that, in this case, mercy unjustly trumped justice.
Let’s put aside momentarily that some people wonder whether al-Megrahi was, perhaps, unjustly convicted in the first place: Some media outlets are drilling down into these provocative and important issues of compassion and forgiveness. ABC News’ Susan Donaldson James talked with some ethicists who said, essentially, al-Megrahi didn’t deserve the mercy he was given. “He should be shown no compassion for the people he killed,” said Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University. “He showed no remorse and I think you shouldn’t give someone less than 20 years for murder. For a lot of people, it sends the wrong message.” USA Today’s Faith & Reason blog ran an interview with Stephanie Bernstein, an ordained rabbi who lost her husband on flight 103. “In Judaism, if there is an offense … we have to ask that person directly for forgiveness,” she says. “It’s a different notion than Christianity. To my knowledge, he has never asked (the families) for forgiveness.”
Almost always, it’s within our power to be merciful. Justice can be harder to come by. Sometimes the innocent are imprisoned. Sometimes the guilty go free.
None of this is new, of course. Open the book of Psalms, and the world’s lack of justice smacks you in the face like a wet washcloth. “O Lord, how many are my foes!” the author cries in the third Psalm. Psalm 4 asks, “O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame? How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?” The book is loaded with brutally painful, and sometimes troubling, pleas for justice. I’d imagine the families of Lockerbie victims feel that same sort of anguish right about now.
But there is mercy here, too.
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered,” reads Psalm 32. “blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and whoe spirit there is no deceit.”
Is al-Megrahi guilty? Innocent? Did the Scottish government show appropriate mercy? Or was it an inappropriate miscarriage of justice? I’d love to hear what you think. Me, I take comfort in the fact that soon, al-Megrahi will be in God’s ever-merciful, ever-just hands. And He’ll know what is best.
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1 cor 12:12
South Korea may curb the number of missionaries it sends to the Middle East, according to this story from the Associated Press. Dozens of South Koreans have apparently been expelled for proselytizing from several Middle Eastern countries over the past month or so.
