Our corespondent from deep inside enemy territory files this dispatch and causes me to have a conversation with myself, wondering what a JESUS Film shot by the emerging church would like? (If they come out with one, you heard it here first … )
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I’m trying to read the book as objectively as I can, but there was one of those ‘caricatures’ I came on that simply left me feeling ill. It’s on page 97, when he’s talking about his time with Campus Crusade.
“We were also expected to seriously consider joining the Crusade staff upon graduation and go, as the Crusaders would have it, to the far corners of the earth and show the JESUS film on a bedsheet between two trees to half-naked bushmen who had never seen a white man before.”
On how many levels did this sicken me?
First, I was for several years a member of Youth With A Mission (YWAM), and took missions trips to various places in Asia, studied for several months in Switzerland, and served full-time for about four years in Russia.
In that time, I met missionaries and ministers, both in and outside of YWAM, from such countries as: Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Nigeria, Korea, Philippines, Brazil, Switzerland, Ireland, Nigeria, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Australian, New Zealand. Probably even others I can’t think of at the moment.
So, the ‘caricature’ of missionaries as ‘white people’ is a joke. Not only that, it’s a racial slam, because even if there are ‘white people’ taking the Gospel to ‘half-naked bushmen’, that is something to be honored, not caricatured and ridiculed.
Also, his slam on the JESUS film. The truth is, the JESUS film has been a quite useful evangelistic tool, and in Russia we used it and other films to open opportunities to share the Gospel with people. We showed the JESUS film to people in a small remote village of maybe 100people, we showed it in prisons. We showed movies like “The Prince of Egypt” in orphanages,and in prisons we used “Les Miserables” a few times.
I think of those times with some feelings of joy, that we were able to use such things for a good purpose, and find Jones’ “caricature” of those who use the JESUS film to reach people with the Gospel distasteful.
But when your purpose is to tear down, even the honorable are victims.
~ Audie
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Perhaps Tony would feel more comfortable showing the film “Slingblade” on a big screen HDTV to a half naked college students, and having a conversation about finding traces of God in the narrative…
Doug
pastorboy
Jones made that comment from his experience with the organization. If it was a caricature, it was a well-informed caricature. He did not make the comment out of ignorance.
Jones holds up to ridicule people who take the Gospel to the unreached.
His comment is racist. Why should it matter if “half-naked bushmen” (one may assume they are dark-skinned) have never seen a white man before? The missionaries are taking the Gospel to them, not white-ness.
Moreover, how much have people sacrificed in order to take the Gospel to those far-off and hard-to-reach places? Most missionaries I’ve known are volunteers, they rely on support (and usually not much of that) to do their work.
How many of them do it in dangerous and even life-threatening situations? Only a few weeks ago, I listened to a man with Voice of the Martyrs talk about things that are happening in the world, people who have been beaten and burnt for their faith.
How beautiful are the feet of those bring good news? Apparently for some, not very.
The high and low of this is that Tony does not believe in evangelism, because like His pastor Doug Pagitt, he is a universalist! He does not see the purpose in sharing the Gospel, because we all will wind up in heaven anyway!