Short Notes

#1 - Jesus the Question

One failure of Christian Fundamentalism and right-wing absolutist theologies generally is that their adherents believe exclusively in Jesus the Answer. It is not answers, however, that inspire us or drive us. It is questions. The teacher from whom we learned the most was the one who motivated us to learn for ourselves, enthused us with her questions and his own love of learning. Answers shut doors. Questions open them. Jesus is the Question, who drives us beyond commonly accepted answers and wisdom, drives us beyond stupid prejudice and self-serving clich s, drives us to prayer, repentance, and the search for justice, peace, and reconciliation.

#2 - New Life in the Church in Siam

Dr. John Sung, the Chinese revivalist who conducted a series of revivals in Siam in 1938 and in 1939, may well have been the singly most important figure in 20th century Thai Protestant church history. His revivals stirred the churches as no one before or since has been able to do, and he had an impact on a generation of church leaders that left an indelible mark on all of Thai Protestantism. The following testimony shows why. It is an excerpt from a report that the Rev. Sook Pongsnoi sent to the American Bible Society's Siam Agency and was subsequently printed in the Missionary Review of the World. Kru Sook writes,

"When I heard that John Sung, a noted Chinese evangelist, was coming to Bangkok I determined to go and hear him. Thank God, God opened my eyes to see His wonderful love in a new way. A powerful meaning of the cross has come to me and I came to have a new attitude toward Bible Study.

"I invited Dr. Sung to come to Trang and through him God has poured out a mighty blessing upon the people of this city. The Trang Church is now on fire for God and has been packed with people every Sunday since Dr. Sung went away. Every church member brings his Testament to every service and we read the Scriptures together...We are feeding on the Word of God as never before, and last Sunday sixteen women and five men were baptized and twenty baptized children professed their faith in Jesus Christ and all united with the church; two back-sliders also came and confessed their sins. One of the old missionaries said he had never seen anything like that ingathering before."

The Sung Revivals had this type of impact on many and brought undoubted renewal to the churches of Siam-and unavoidable controversy as well. Statements like this one help to explain why Sung is still important to the Thai Church more than sixty years' later.

Source: "New Life in the Church in Siam," Missionary Review of the World 62 (July 1939): 341-42.

#3 - Admiring Jesus

The following brief article appeared in the Bangkok Post in December 2000. It reads, "For a long time I looked up at His emaciated body, the two hands nailed to the cross, eyes closed, a ghost of a smile painted on the lips of the long, thin face, which radiated warmth. At the Song Khon Church in Mukdahan I stood, watching

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"Taking after my parents, I'm Buddhist. Many times, though, a part of my heart has gone out to Jesus. I like to read about Him, to listen to His words Kalthough I can't quite follow them. A friend once asked me, 'So, which religion do you belong to? Are you confused? J Having long sought an answer, I found none. I feel at ease with what is familiar in Buddhism, which I love, yet I enjoy learning about Jesus and participating in activities along with his worshippers. I claim no full knowledge about Jesus, but I admire many things He did. He's such an outstanding example of self-sacrifice, a man full of love for everyone, even enemies.

"That's enough reason for me to love Him, only I'm not ready to move into His house."

This article raises a hundred questions. Are the views expreseed "typically Thai?" Are they the wave of the future in Thailand? Do they represent the success or failure of the Christian message in Thailand? What does it mean for the author to say, "I'm Buddhist," and then to state that he loves Jesus?

Source: Somkid Chaijitvanit, "See God in Everything," Bangkok Post. "Outlook" section. 23 December 2000, page 8.

#4 - The Generic Past

Last summer I visited the reconstructed New England village of "Old Sturbridge," located near Springfield, Massachusetts. The historical theme park is supposed to be a recreation of a typical New England village of the 1830s and contains a variety of houses, shops, and other buildings. The park staff has worked hard to make Old Sturbridge an "authentic" replica of historical communities of that era, but I could not help but wonder how successful they were. How at home, that is, would a New Englander of the 1830s feel in Old Sturbridge?

Most of the numerous buildings had staff people decked out in vintage dress to explain the background of the building, and in the course of my leisurely stroll I asked several of them how closely the village approximated the reality of the 1830s. The "presenter" in one house helpfully enumerated a number of "unauthentic" aspects of the room we were in: there was too much furniture in it (it was arranged as a show room rather than as a place where people live), the wallpaper was modern though of the 'right pattern,' and some of the pieces of furniture were reproductions. Another staff person stated that the park had jammed a wide variety of buildings into a much smaller space than would have been the case in the 1830s and went on to observe, "What we've done is to create a generic village of the 1830s."

My computer dictionary defines "generic" as "relating to or descriptive of an entire group or class; general." Old Sturbridge, we can say, is a modern description of New England communities of 170 years' ago. Included in the description are modern restaurants, toilets, and goods for sale-as well as hundreds of visitors to the park dressed in casual early 21st century fashion. Nothing even remotely like Old Sturbridge, that is, existed in the 1830s. Yet, it is probably quite a good description, one that allows us to look back in time comfortably and learn some things about how our ancestors of six or seven generations ago lived. The people at Old Sturbridge have virtually written a history book, using stone, brick, and wood rather than paper as their medium. They have not recreated the past, but they have succeeded in portray-

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# 5 - Africa Takes Over

According to statistics gathered by Dr. Peter Brierley of the Christian Research Association in Britain, the center of Anglicanism has shifted from Britain to Africa. He reports that in 1900, 81% of all Anglicans resided in Europe while 1 % lived in Africa. By 1970, a clear majority, 62%, still lived in Europe, but the African proportion had grown to 16%. In 2000, however, 54% of all the world's Anglicans lived in Africa while only 33% lived in Europe. Brierly estimates that by 2025 more Anglicans will live in Nigeria than in the U.K.

Statistics like these force us to re-imagine Anglicanism, to disassociate it from England's stately cathedrals, and reassociate it with our planet's poorest continent. What, now, does a "typical" Anglican congregation worshipping on a "normal" Sunday morning look like and sound like? You will have to go to Nigeria to find out!

Source: Brierley, "The Anglican Communion: Tomorrow's Trends," presented at the "Future of Anglicanism Conference, L Oxford, July 20002.

#6 - Missionaries, Missions, & National Origins

Some months ago, I had a fascinating discussion about missionaries and their denominational and national origins with an older Thai pastor whose career has brought him into contact with missionaries from several groups and nations. He observed that members of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF), generally, are the best at adapting themselves to living close to the way rural people live. Members of the German Marburger Mission, again generally, are the most capable at learning and speaking local languages. American Presbyterian missionaries, he claimed, have more namchai than members of other foreign missions. namchai is a difficult term to translate. It can mean generosity or giving a helping hand or showing sympathetic understanding. Korean missionaries, he concluded, generally show the greatest zeal and depth of personal Christian commitment. This pastor was, in a sense, praising each of these groups and certainly did not intend to find fault with any of them. His comments raise the interesting, probably unanswerable question of whether or not these characterizations of missionaries by mission and nationality actually work out in fact. Are Koreans more zealous and the members of the OMF more adaptable? Do American Presbyterians have more namchai? Are German Marburger missionaries more skillful at languages? Wouldn Jt it be interesting to know!

#7 - Towards a Glowing & Ardent Church

"But if the church will free itself from the shackles of a deadening status quo, and, recovering its great historic mission, will speak and act fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will enkindle the imagination of mankind and fire the souls of men, imbuing them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice, and peace."

Dr. Martin Luther King, quoted in Lotte Hoskins, ed,, "I Have a Dream": Quotations of Martin Luther King, Jr. (NewYork: Groset & Dunlap, 1968), 13-14.

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