Archives for category: controversy

Freedom and Brokenness

August 30, 2007 //

Finally, finally, there is some good news coming from Afghanistan regarding the South Korean hostages who have been held captive for six weeks. According to Yonhap News, twelve of the remaining nineteen hostages have been freed by the Taliban. The remaining seven are scheduled to be released soon. Let’s hope and pray that the rest of the group makes it home safely as well. Eugene Cho has been faithfully keeping many of us up to date on this situation; DJ Chuang and Laurence Tom have also been updating.

What a terrible ordeal these people have endured at the hands of terrorists. And, as if they have not suffered enough already, it appears that they might face criticism and controversy when they return home.

Details of the deal struck between the Taliban and the South Korean government are being disclosed. From the Yonhap News article:

Seoul, instead, has promised to pull its troops out of the war-torn country before the end of the year, as well as prohibit any South Korean Christian missionaries from entering the country, Cheon Ho-seon, a spokesman for the presidential office, said in a press briefing late Tuesday.

Many could speak with more passion and insight regarding the political reasons and ramifications of South Korea’s military withdrawal, but my concern today is the prohibition of missionaries. Understandably, because of the intensely tragic events that took place in Afghanistan, the South Korean government would want to do whatever they could to ensure the future safety of its citizens. However, I can’t help but wonder about the consequences of such a decision. I’ll save my thoughts about mission work (and my disappointment with the Western media) for another time.

For now, it is enough to celebrate the good news at hand. Today, perhaps, the released hostages and their families can begin to live and breathe once again. We can stand together in joy and relief with them. At the same time, this is also a time to persevere in prayer for those who are still being held captive.

Categories church, controversy, evangelism, faith, frustration, outreach

This Beautiful Mess

August 28, 2007 //

The headline of the September 3, 2007 issue of Time magazine made me hold my breath for a moment: “The Secret Life of Mother Teresa.” In this day & age, scandal among leading figures of faith is nothing new — but Mother Teresa?

Well, as it turns out, her “secret” is that she suffered a crisis of faith. I suppose in a culture where Mother Teresa is more of a cultural archetype than an actual human being, the fact that she struggled — mightily, at times — in her faith would be a shocking “secret” worthy of an expose. I would never wish a dark night of the soul upon anyone. The pain, the emptiness, the grief — these things can almost tear a person apart. But I find myself oddly reassured that Mother Teresa was a real human being, with very real questions, doubts and struggles. It gives me hope that, by the grace of God, I can become the person God intends for me to be. As Eugene Cho writes in his post about this article:

While I have joy in my convictions as a believer of God and follower of Christ, I am not afraid to call Mystery and Doubt my friends and acquaintances. They have accompanied my journey for some time…and have actually strengthened my walk with Christ.

It is almost human nature to love the idea of a person more than the physical human being in front of us. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that is a large part of why many relationships fail — we develop this idealized version of our beloved that can only lead to disappointment and failure. I love this quote from Bonhoeffer’s Life Together:

Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community, even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial.

Even though I’ve been serving in a first-generation immigrant church context for awhile now, I still struggle with understanding the Asian idea of saving face. At times, it feels like we are willfully misleading people in order to maintain the dream of the community, as opposed to entering the messy reality of one another’s lives. It’s safer and simpler to keep each other at arm’s length. But what costs so little yields a similarly cheap result.

I have really struggled over the last couple of weeks because of the circumstances of a family we know. The husband and wife have been contemplating divorce — difficult in any circumstance, but made even stickier in a first-generation immigrant setting. On top of that, the husband works for their church as a member of the first-generation staff. Unfortunately, their resolution seems to be sending off the husband to another country for “mission” work. This ridicules not only the sanctity of marriage, but also the calling to cross into another culture and serve in the name of Christ. The frightening thing is that I’m sure many of us could repeat almost verbatim the same story from our own church experience — it’s not love that covers over a multitude of sins, but a holy facade.

What would happen in the Asian American church if we acknowledged, and entered into, the mess of one another’s lives? We might have to fight our inner Homer Simpson shouting “Too much infor-mation!” and deal with the awkwardness of actually getting to know each other, but isn’t it worth it? The mess could become beautiful if we lived in it together. If you need a little inspiration, or a soundtrack to your messy spirituality, listen to this track, I Live In The Mess You Are, by Zookeeper (Chris Simpson of post-rock powerhouse Mineral and shoegaze wonders The Gloria Record).

Tags first generation

Categories asian american, books, church, controversy, faith, frustration, hope, ministry

Blessed Are The Overbearing

August 17, 2007 //

Jamie Arpin-Ricci recently wrote a great piece called, “Being Brian McLaren.” No, it’s not an emerging version of an RPG (yikes!) where you can write books or go on nationwide speaking tours — rather, Jamie speaks out about the way certain camps of Christianity have been in all-out attack mode on McLaren, and how he might feel about such things (thus, the title of Jamie’s post).

If you want to see this in action, just type “emerging church” in your favorite search engine and watch the sparks fly. Some people, in the name of upholding a certain doctrine, theology or orthodoxy, apparently feel that it is justifiable to insult, slander and generally resort to mean-spirited tactics (even name-calling). I see people drag names like Brian McLaren or Rob Bell into conversations that really have nothing to do with them on a regular basis, just to find a reason to attack them.

While I do not agree with everything they have ever written or said (does such a person exist with whom we can agree on everything, anyways?), I appreciate many of the thoughts, insights and opinions McLaren and Bell have offered to the Church. I understand that these two, in particular, are very public figures and thus open to a different kind of scrutiny than other individuals, but that hardly gives license for the kind of vitriol and nasty rhetoric some people have used against them.

I think their harshest critics operate under a set of false assumptions. The first: Jesus needs them to be His personal bodyguard to fend off the heretics and blasphemers. I don’t remember Jesus saying, “Now go into all the world, with shrill tones and snap judgments, mimicking the talking heads and pundits of 21st century American media and let loose on the people you think I don’t like.”

Please don’t misunderstand: Truth is central to our faith. However, I think we miss something crucial when we treat truth as a set of static propositions with which we can bash others who deviate from our perception of it. Truth changes us. From the beginning, God has been concerned about our hearts. As such, it doesn’t make sense to stomp around angrily all in the name of “truth.” I wonder how much we really believe if we’re not actually being changed.

The second false assumption: You can change someone’s opinions through finger-pointing and yelling. From my experience, these kinds of angry exchanges only serve to further entrench people in their established positions. Maybe it speaks to my reprobate heart, but when people come on too strong it makes me want to disagree with them, even if I actually agree with what they’re saying. It’s a lesson I’ve learned from my wife — the way in which we say something is just as important as what we say.

The Bible has a lot to say about working for peace. Jesus Himself holds peacemakers in pretty high esteem. This is not just wimpy “I’m OK, you’re OK” pop psychology where we sweep our differences under the rug. Jesus was pretty realistic about the trouble we would encounter as we live our lives — but He was also realistic about His role in helping us overcome our differences. He was clear about how we are to treat one another. I don’t see any conditional clauses — if they subscribe to every bullet point of your doctrine, if they hate all the same people you hate, etc. — just a simple command: love each other.

Categories boo!, church, controversy, emerging church

The Harvest Is Plentiful (And Loud)

August 6, 2007 //

I took my students to the Harvest Crusade up in Anaheim yesterday. Just a couple of quick thoughts:

Welcome to the Big Rock Show. I think I tend to be a lot more cynical than my students about this kind of stuff. Maybe it’s just from longer exposure to the strange world of the Christian subculture — or maybe it’s just my cold, dark heart — but I am often reluctant to go to these kinds of events. Plus, I’m getting all old and driving up two hours from SD to Anaheim really puts the hurt on me. That being said, Greg Laurie shared a great message and reached the hearts of many of our students. Although my heart is moving more & more towards the simple living of life together as God’s people, there is still a place for blowout events.

Live music is the best. Some of my students, to my surprise, were pretty stoked to see P.O.D. perform. It’s been a couple of years since they stormed the charts, but the boys from Southtown still put on an energetic, and sincere, show. My four-year old daughter really liked them. However, we were all blown away by the opening act, Leeland. Man, that kid has some pipes! Most of my students had not heard of him before Harvest, so I picked up their CD and we listened to it on the way up. For me, the album has that over-produced, CCM-ified feel to it, though I did appreciate the thoughtful lyrics right off the bat. But everything changed when we saw them perform live — the band is tight, the rhythm section really came to life in the live setting and Leeland really opened up and let loose with the vocals. They managed to segue “How Great Thou Art” and “Agnus Dei” together without being corny. In fact, they ripped it up during the instrumental breakdown of Agnus Dei. I still want to give him a haircut, though.

The freaks come out at night. Seriously. Check out this guy. Remember what I was saying about nasty street preacher signs? I’m pretty sure this one will be hard to top. (Apologies for the poor quality — I snapped it from my phone while trooping around the parking lot looking for our van).

I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean “Jesus kills” as in — “Dude, Jesus totally killed it on that last song when He jumped off the Marshall stacks and levitated over the crowd.” The other signs read: “Laurie leads to hell” which I can only assume was knock on Greg Laurie — although without more specific direction, it could just be a jilted lover railing against his ex-girlfriend. Maybe it was one of those newfangled emo bands that keeps sprouting up. Who knows? You can see if you have better luck creating your very own emo band name with an emo band name generator. For real, though, if you name your band “Laurie Leads To Hell” and you make it big, I want a cut of the proceeds.

Categories church, controversy, evangelism, just grinning, preaching, reviews, youth ministry

Everything In Its Time And Place

July 31, 2007 //

Preaching that we should always trust in God can feel kind of trite and condescending when done from the comfort of a sleepy Southern California suburb while yet another South Korean hostage has been murdered in Afghanistan. It’s bad enough that such a terrible series of events is happening, but I start to despair when the response of the body of Christ here is either deafening silence or outright hostility. One outstanding voice has been Eugene Cho, through his regular updates and insights into this situation.

There is a time and place for critiquing and questioning this group’s purpose and methodology in their trip to Afghanistan, but now is not that time. When people are being murdered and held hostage, we should mourn, weep and pray — not stand on our comfortable soapboxes, point fingers and blame the victims. It saddens me that a powerful voice such as Christianity Today barely mentions this tragedy — and, even then, focuses their coverage on critiquing Korean missionary efforts rather than sounding the call to prayer and solidarity.

Regardless of whether or not this particular group was there to overtly share their Christian faith, it frustrates me to hear criticisms such as, “Well, they should have known something like this would happen in such a dangerous place” or “They have no right to try to be there.” Maybe one day I will share some of my thoughts about the shortcomings of Korean and Korean American missionary efforts, but I will say this right now — I have known many Korean missionaries who have given up very comfortable lives in order to go live in hard places, often without electricity or running water and usually without recognition or applause, simply because they are compelled by the love of God in Christ. By the same line of reasoning many critics are following, the martyrs of Hebrews 11 should never have gone into difficult places hostile to Christ.

Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy.

Categories asian american, church, controversy, evangelism, frustration, outreach