An Open Letter to Dove World Outreach Center

Dear Pastors Jones and Sapp,

Congratulations on the headlines you have created around the world this week. Not only did you burn a Koran but your actions led to the death of UN workers in Afghanistan, many of whom were not even Americans. May I ask what this has accomplished: has the Gospel been advanced amongst Muslims because there is one less Koran in the world? Are the Muslims of Gainesville beating down your door to know how they can be saved? It seems your actions were worse than futile, they were damaging to the work of the Gospel and to the lives of God’s servants. 

I am not denying the responsibility of the Taliban and Islamists who actually perpetrated the recent acts of murder and terror. There is no doubt that they will answer to God for this, and let’s hope they will also be held accountable by the legal authorities of their nation (if they can catch them).

But there is no doubt that your actions instigated this new wave of violence against Westerners in Central Asia. There is no doubt that you have placed at risk every American working in any capacity in the Muslim world. Worse, you have compromised the Gospel witness of thousands of Christian workers seeking to share the Love of Christ all over the Islamic World.

What right do you have before the Living God to jeopardize the work HE has called Christian men and women to do in HIS name for HIS glory? They may have chosen to risk their lives for the Gospel, but it is not your place to exacerbate that risk.

How can you justify putting such lives in peril in the name of Freedom of Speech, while God’s real servants and true believers put their lives on the line for the Gospel, and while your nation’s military serves in Harm’s Way in the Muslim World to protect that freedom?

Missionaries have enough work to do responding to the theological arguments of those who deny the deity of Christ, who believe the Bible has been changed, who do not believe Jesus died on the cross, and who argue for the superiority of Mohamed. But those conversations eventually lead to meaningful conversations on spiritual things and a sharing of the Gospel. Now, however, Christian workers have to waste time explaining why a church which supposedly believes what they do would commit such an egregious act, and convince people that they would never do the same. It takes a long time to build trust with a Muslim and you may have cancelled the work of years for some missionaries.

I examined your church’s website to see the extent of your missions outreach, especially your outreach to Muslims. And I found nothing. How can a church which has the name “World Outreach” in its name have no world missionary program? How can “an apostolic church with a world vision” which is so concerned about the evils of Islam be doing nothing about that evil in the manner prescribed by Jesus: “Go ye and make disciples of all nations”???

On the home front, what is Dove World Outreach Center doing to reach the 1,500 Muslim residents of Gainesville? Is there any campus outreach to the 600 Muslim students at UF? Have your members been trained to reach out to their Muslim neighbors in ways that are respectful, culturally appropriate and pleasing to the Lord, not alienating?

Have either of you, Pastor Sapp or Pastor Jones, ever had a normal conversation with a Muslim? Guess what: they are people like you and me, with many of the same concerns: how to make ends meet, raising their children to be men and women of faith and morality, whether their team will make it to the Series. Evangelical Christians often have more common ground with observant Muslims than with our American neighbors, who may be only nominal Christians or practice no religion at all. Instead of a hostile approach focusing on differences, why not try to “love your neighbor,” and extend hospitality and friendship to them? Through such relationships, you will eventually have the opportunity to discuss your religious differences in an atmosphere of trust.

There is no way to undo this pointless, egregious act. But you can move forward by first repenting before the Lord Jesus Christ for your damage to the work of the Gospel, and then apologizing and seeking forgiveness of those whom you offended, making it clear that the Lord whom you claim to serve would never have acted in such a manner. Finally, you can focus the efforts of your church from now on to reaching your neighbors and the world with the Gospel of our Loving Lord and Savior, who gave his life for sinners, of whom you and I are chief.

Sincerely yours,

Jennifer A. Bowers

Hard questions...

[Faith ‘n’ Begorrah, Part 2]

When I wrote previously about the faith healer who came to our town in March, I promised to follow-up with a post on the theology of faith healing. What was I thinking??? Certainly I have not figured out “how it works,” at least from my perspective.

I need to say up front that I tend to be a cessationist. This is the name given to those who believe that the Sign gifts of the New Testament (tongues, miracles, healing, prophecy) ceased after the completion of the canon, the Scriptures. Therefore, theologically I am outside the Pentecostal or charismatic camp.

However, as in so many things, there are degrees of cessationist. For example, Harold Camping of Family Radio believes that all charismatics and Pentecostals are deceived by Satan and not saved at all! Happily, he represents the farthest extreme of cessationism and few share his viewpoint (however, his influence through his radio stations is frightening).

Some would accuse cessationists of not believing that God answers prayer, but that is a misrepresentation of the viewpoint. I, for one, believe that God still heals and performs miracles today, but that he does so in answer to prayer and not through the power of a gift transmitted through a specific person.

Unlike many cessationists, I have come to believe that God may still speak to unbelievers through dreams and visions to draw them to Jesus Christ. Admittedly this is based more on experience than on systematic theology (although Joel 2.28-29 certainly talks about dreams and visions in the End Times). It seems as though God will speak to a person through a dream who does not have access to the Word of God. The testimonies of those who have experienced this is usually of seeing Jesus and being told to seek out and believe the Bible. This is how many Muslims come to Christ.

When I wrote previously [see http://jenniferabowers.blogspot.com/2010/03/faith-n-begorrah.html], I talked about the West African acceptance of the supernatural as a normal part of everyday life. Therefore in the churches it is quite natural to accept that God still works miracles today. Believers, even pastors, are not theologically sophisticated for the most part, to question whether this should happen through the agency of a person. If God has anointed someone to do such a work, why not? When some of my Christian lady friends were telling me about what they saw in the meetings, my face must have expressed some skepticism because one of them said, “Jeneba (my Malian name), what do you think of all this?”

Oh, my. Did I want to really get into this with them? I finally answered them honestly. The women I was talking to were pastors’ wives. Two of them have chronic illnesses for which they have prayed for relief for many years. One has a handicapped child they have prayed for God to heal for over a decade. So I said, “I’m not saying God doesn’t heal through Pastor Michel. I really don’t know. But I look at you, devout Christians married to servants of God. For many years you have prayed for healing while serving him faithfully. Now, if Michel came along and God healed you through his intercession, I would have to ask myself, Why? What was wrong with your prayers?” They nodded and acknowledged the sense of what I said.

Then one of them told us a story: “I went to my mother’s village recently to help with the harvest. The first evening when I was settling in, someone said, ‘There’s a mat over there and water, so you can do your salat (ritual Muslim prayers). I told them, ‘Oh, I don’t do salat. I’m a Christian.’ The response was immediate and surprising. ‘Really?’ they said, ‘Tell us what that means! We don’t know what a Christian is and we want to know.’ It seems that a sick woman from a nearby village had traveled to see Pastor Michel, and returned healed. All they knew was that Michel was a Christian and healed with the power of Jesus, but they didn’t know who Jesus was. Word got around that there was a Christian woman in the village and several evenings after work in the fields was done, they gathered round to ask me all about Christianity. Once or twice they kept me up until 3am!

‘Then they told me about a crazy woman in the village. She hardly ever slept. She would get up in the middle of the night and wander off in the bush. So her people were exhausted, either from searching for her out in the bush, or from sitting up late to make sure she didn’t wander off. They asked me, ‘What can be done?’ so I told them, ‘I don’t claim to be a healer like Pastor Michel, but I can pray in the same name as he does, in the strong name of Jesus.’ So I did. She had been put to bed, so I stood in her doorway and prayed for her. When I got up in the morning I went to the latrine to wash, and I could hear people outside saying, ‘Where’s that Christian woman?’ I came out and said, ‘Here I am.’ They said, ‘Look, the crazy one, she’s still asleep! She hasn’t slept through the night in ages!’ It got to be 9am and they said, ‘She’s still sleeping!’ I told them she was probably exhausted from not sleeping for so long, so they should let her be, and she slept until noon. Now they want someone to come to their village to preach the Gospel.”

Praise the Lord! If Pastor Michel’s ministry made people curious about Jesus Christ, then it is properly bringing glory to God. However, not everyone perceives that what he does is in the power of Jesus. He proclaims it clearly, but in the excitement of what is taking place, some people miss that and just focus on him and the events.

I was in a store the week after the crusade and the clerk said to me, “I believe in Michel. You do, too, don’t you? My back was hurting when I went there and now it feels better.” I was quite uncomfortable with the terminology “believe in Michel” and was caught off guard, so my response was not very clear. Knowing that we leave soon for four months, I wanted to go back and leave him with a tract or something. So on Saturday I gave him a Gospel of John. I said, “You told me you believe in Michel. Well, all that he did was in the name of Jesus, and this will tell you about Jesus.” His response surprised me; he had not gotten the Christian connection at all! He said, “Michel did all that in the power of Jesus? He was a Christian?” I assured him that was the case, and he said, “Well, then Jesus must be pretty powerful! I’m definitely going to read this.”

Then he asked a hard question, “Well, if Michel believes in Jesus, and you believe in Jesus, why can’t you pray for people and they get healed?” Gulp. Good question. I replied, “I do pray for people to be healed. Sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t. But sometimes God gives someone a special gift like that to bring glory to himself. He wants Jesus to be glorified, so he gives someone like Michel the power to heal in his name. It’s all about Jesus.”

So, maybe that’s my theology of faith healing! Like many people, I still confess a certain skepticism about the healing of potentially psychosomatic illnesses (like this guy’s back, in fact). But if Jesus is lifted up and it draws some to him, I can live with my doubts.

FAITH 'n' BEGORRAH...!

We had a faith healer in town last week. A very interesting phenomenon which has raised a lot of questions for me, both culturally and theologically.

He was here for three nights and on the second evening the stadium was Standing Room Only. It was such a mob that they basically had to cancel the meeting due to crowd control issues. Now, there are no more than 250 Protestant Christians in Kayes (pop. >100,000); perhaps a few more Catholics, but this was definitely a Protestant event. Everyone else is either animistic Muslim or Islamic animist (however you prefer to express it). So how did a meeting of a minority religion draw so many, especially since getting people to attend a Bible study or visit a church is like pulling teeth?

It's all about POWER. This preacher, Pastor Michel, has a successful healing ministry. That means he has power from Somewhere, and frankly, people don't care if it's from God or the Devil or something else, if they can get close to it or get a piece of it. This may seem strange to the western mindset, especially if you are not familiar with the Flaw of the Excluded Middle (a term coined from but not to be confused with the Law of the Excluded Middle in logic). The Flaw of the Excluded Middle posits that the Western world view has a blind spot that makes it difficult for many Western missionaries to understand, let alone answer, problems related to spirits, ancestors and astrology. The Western two-tiered view of the universe typically leaves out an entire dimension seen quite readily by people of non-Western cultures. We acknowledge the material universe, and those who are some kind of believer usually accept the existence of a high supernatural plane including God, angels, the Devil, and perhaps demons. For many non-Western cultures, however, there is a middle, unseen plane which exists in this world which may include spirits and ancestors, as mentioned above, as well as genies and powers which can (perhaps) be appeased by charms, spells and fetishes.
(For more information on The Flaw of the Excluded Middle see http://www.strategicnetwork.org/index.php?loc=kb&view=v&id=3263&fto=970& .)

Here in Mali the Excluded Middle is a vital part of life. We see it in the charms people wear and attach to their babies, or hang in their gardens. One of my friends has cowrie shells braided into her hair. You would probably think they were pretty ornaments, but I know they are jiginiu, "little hopes," designed to ward off evil spirits. She also uses cowrie shells to tell fortunes, which people take very seriously.

A few years ago the police in Senegal busted up a gang of burglars who had perpetrated a chain of house invasions against expatriates (including us) and rich Africans. The leader of the gang had over 50 fetishes attached to his body (some said to be effective at warding off bullets!) and the police were careful to cut off and burn every last one lest they help him to escape.

Some years ago a plane crashed in Timbuktu. Of 50 passengers and crew there was one survivor. She was taken to the capital to be hospitalized, where they had to put her in a private room (instead of a ward, which is all most people can afford) with a guard at the door. Why? Because if she was the only survivor, there must be something different about her, she must have access to some power or medicine, and if one could only touch her... So to avoid her being mobbed, she was sequestered. Another time people here in Kayes were hurrying to see a man who never went to the bathroom. Yes, I know that sounds funny, but supposedly he never needed to urinate or defecate, and since that meant he was privy to some supernatural power, people wanted to touch him or sit in the circle of his influence. (I told my informant that I was sure he was sneaking off to the latrine late at night, but she just laughed at me).

Certain people have powers as well, depending on their caste in society. The wives of blacksmiths are said to be able to do certain kinds of spells. Griots, the "town criers" for want of a better word, are also powerful. Even though pure Islam discourages such meddling with the occult, there are marabouts, who are basically Muslim shamans. (By the way, I recently learned the former president of Mali, Moussa Traoré, overthrown in the coup d'état of 1990, is not only out of prison and pardoned, but is pursuing a second career as a Big Time Marabout in Bamako!)

Pastor Michel is also in danger of being mobbed wherever he goes. Therefore, the Malian chief of state, President Amadou Toumani Touré (popularly known as ATT, just as we have called certain American presidents colloquially by their initials, such as FDR & LBJ) called the local authorities to arrange a place for him to stay and a security contingent of national guardsmen to surround and protect him. (Can you imagine Pres. Obama personally calling out the Guard for a Benny Hinn crusade?!?)

So even though Pastor Michel may indeed have power from God to heal, people do not come to him because they believe in his God or have any intention of converting to his Christian faith. They want to get close to POWER. And so they came in droves, most bringing their sick loved ones, but many attending just to be there and to see a miracle. I was told that mentally ill people were brought in from all the surrounding villages. Whenever he prayed for them, white birds rose up from the crowd, into the sky. Were their demons being released this way? Don't ask me (I told you I haven't figured out the theology yet)!

I don't yet know the statistics on how many people were healed and of what illnesses. I am told that a few people prayed to receive Christ. I hope it's true and I will be asking in a few months if any of them come to church.

Lest I sound too hard-hearted or cynical, I want to say that I have a great sympathy for the Malian people in this area. Most Malians are sick all the time. They have a poor diet and live in a dirty environment and can't afford medical care, so they often wait until their health becomes a crisis before dealing with illness. We had a conference in Kayes once, with pastors and their families coming from outlying villages. Every one of them sought medical care while they were here in the city; they were all dealing with chronic complaints to some degree. This was quite an eye-opener to me. So I can empathize with people's desperation to find a solution of some kind, even if it's one I do not understand or agree with.

As to the theological questions raised by this ministry, this has become very long and that will be the subject of a future post.

Interestingly, on the weekend after Michel's crusade, I visited a friend in the very neighborhood where the meetings were held. Yet I was greeted at the door of her compound by some middle school-aged boys who said to me, "Christians aren't welcome here. Christians are bad." So after the excitement passes, life returns to normal, and I'm here today, gone to Mali...

CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!

HAPPY EASTER!

I have to confess that I am dreading church tomorrow. I know that sounds terrible for a missionary.

One thing I like about the Christian holidays here is that they are very church-centered. That's a good thing. But the services on Christmas & Easter get really long. Every ethnic group (about 10 of them) shares a special song, in addition to those who sing weekly: the Ladies' Choir, the 2 children's choirs, the Bambara Choir, the French Choir. At Christmas, all this took nearly 4 hours, so when our colleague, Mark, got up to preach his well-prepared sermon, someone whispered in his ear, "Just 5 minutes, okay?"

On top of this, Easter falls in hot season. Last year, it got to 118F (ca. 48C) on Easter Sunday! I just get more and more uncomfortable and resentful, not at all the attitude one wishes to have on the highest holiday of the Christian faith. We also used to invite our non-Christian friends to church for the holiday, because a meal is served afterwards, but I just can't do it. I wouldn't wish that marathon on my worst enemy.

Mind you, the church members don't think it's a marathon. It's an expression of joy. But I don't happen to believe my Muslim friends appreciate it quite as much. Maybe I'm wrong.

Precious in the Sight of the Lord...

Our family was camping for 4 nites/3 days, and one of the first emails we received upon our return was this one:

"Please pray for Sue's husband Sid and the rest of our family. Sue had a massive stroke on Tuesday morning and heavy cerebral bleeding. She was declared brain dead at 4:30 pm Tuesday.
Bev
We are hanging in there with God's help!"

Bev is one of my oldest friends; she was matron of honor in my wedding. Sue is her older sister, I'm guessing about 56y.o.(?). What a shock.

I told DH that I think what really struck me is that this means people our age are starting to die. For some years past, we have been watching as our own parents aged and passed away, as well as the parents of our peers. Most of them are gone now, so now it's our peers themselves who are dying. Sure, we have known some to die really young (Woody Phillips, Larry Eenigenburg, Jim Faber) but they were the exception, not the rule (and in 2 cases they were the sons of fathers who had died very young). And if our peers are "old enuf" to die, that means we could be next!

Mind you, I am a Christian and I do not fear death. On the other hand, I'm no Apostle Paul either, so I'm not saying I'm dying to go to heaven right now either (excuse the pun!). What I most "fear" about the thought of dying relatively young is missing watching my kids grow up, and knowing my grandchildren. I suppose I also "fear" the means of dying -- I don't like pain very much!

Times like this it's really hard to be an ocean away. I should be at that funeral, but all I can do is send my condolences from a distance.

Psalm 116:15 "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints."