Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Feb/74

Contributor - Henry Van Essen

Title - Salvation Today

Topic - Missions

You Want to Know How Others Sing?

While still in The Netherlands we heard about the Milwaukee Mission Festival, and also about the for many people rather shocking cry, "Missionary, go HOME!" I have not heard much about it since. It almost seems that suddenly and rather unexpectedly a strange way of thinking surfaced, which apparently disappeared just as quickly.

But did it really?

Conditions still persist

It seems to me that the conditions and situations that caused this cry actually still persist. Much of all this contributed to the shape of the World Conference for Mission and Evangelism in Bangkok, Burma, December 29, 1972, January 13, 1973, where the theme was "Salvation Today". The only report about this important and interesting conference in the Church Herald appeared February 23, 1973. After that, to my knowledge, no more.

That, it seems to me, is rather strange. For the R.C.A. has always been very much a Mission-minded Church, while at the same time being an ecumenically minded Mission Church. Come to think of it, we read very little in the Church Herald about present-day Mission strategy.

Not only R.C.A.

But then, the R.C.A. is not the only one who seems to by-pass the Bangkok Conference. In January, 1974 we gathered as the South Huron County (interdenominational) Ministerial and none of the 12 ministers present, mostly United Church, had even heard of the Bangkok Conference.

Information-gap

I cannot help but sense at least an information-gap between much present-day mission thinking and most church people, including ministers. At the time of Bangkok we were still in The Netherlands, and we watched various T.V. reports directly from Bangkok, discussions about the pro and con of what was being presented there. And reading the reports in the Christian daily newspaper plus watching the programs presented by the Inter Church T.V., by the Netherlands Christian Broadcasting Corporation, by the Evangelical Broadcasting Corporation (usually anti World Council, more fundamentalistic), and by the (R) Catholic Broadcasting Corporation gives you at least some information, makes you realize that something is going on, that some thinking is going on, as the Gospel continues to go out into a fast changing world.

Effect of Information

Now it would be uncalled for to try to give reasons for such an information-gap. But I would have to say that more information about the thinking of many Third World (Asia, Africa, South America) Christians would at least start many a discussion, and possibly cause forceful debate, if not a controversy or two. But would this be so bad in the long run? Is ignorance really bliss? Swift wrote once, "Happiness is the state of being perpetually (= all the time) well-deceived". And Prof. Dr. Marshall McLuhan wrote last September (Globe and Mail, September 10) that the big mistake he made was "to work on the supposition that people want to know what they are doing in the present", and that it has been his "blunder to assume that awareness rather than somnambulism (= sleepwalking) is desired by mankind as a means of achieving a good life".

Now it seems to me when Christians wish to remain uninformed about the thinking and actions of other concerned Christians, that something is wrong. There is then either the fear, that your own position may be threatened, or an "I've got my mind made up don't confuse me with the facts attitude". Both are really impossible for the Christian (see the article 'TELL ME THE OLD, OLD STORY' page 6). Therefore the plan is to present some of the thoughts as they were presented and discussed at the Bangkok Conference. This will take a number of articles.

How to sing the Lord's song?

Of course, these thoughts are not suddenly dreamed up for the occasion of a world-wide conference. They came about through the daily struggle of presenting the Gospel in real-life situations. It are thoughts that pressed themselves upon people, who sought to ..tell, the old, old Story in very new, new countries and in very new, new situations. Such thoughts are efforts to find at least a temporary answer to the question asked in Psalm 137 by the Israelites in captivity in Babylon, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" (vs. 4). For the Christian in this present age continues to be his whole life long in captivity in a foreign land, even though we know that release and return to our true home are assured and guaranteed by the Lord God through His Son, while we have received the Holy Spirit as an earnest (a sort of down payment).

How well I remember that Prof. Dr. Justin VanderKolk preached on this text during the 1959 Workshop of Reformed Churches in Canada in Hamilton, Ont., pointing out that this question was also to be answered by us post-WW. II Dutch immigrants. How well we have done that - (some might even ask whether we are still singing) - is a matter that can not concern us here.

You want to hear someone else's answer?

The question is, "Are we willing to hear some of the answers given by God's migrants elsewhere in the world? Are we willing to listen to the descriptions they give of their situations, of their captivities, of their "foreign lands"? And are we then willing to follow them in their struggles as they seek to find an answer to the question how they shall sing the Lord's song then and there in that "foreign land"?"

If we are not willing to hear them out and if we are unprepared to place ourselves in their situation, then we are acting precisely as some Christians from The Netherlands or sometimes even from south of the border, who sought to tell us what to do, how to sing the Lord's song in this "foreign land" without taking into account our actual, our present, our existential situation. We never did (nor do!) like that, and Scripture teaches us that we ought to treat others as we prefer to be treated ourselves.

One Body

On the other hand, when we are willing to expose ourselves to some of the answers given by the Lord's migrants in other lands, we very likely will not remain untouched, and may have some uncomfortable questions dumped into our laps. For one thing is sure: all the Lord's migrants have "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Ephesians 4 :5). And as we listen, we learn what another part of the Lord's Body is going through. "The eye cannot say to the -hand, 'I have no need of you', nor the hand to the feet, 'I have no need of you' . . If one member suffers, all suffer together, if one member is honoured, all rejoice together." (I Corinthians 12 :12, 26).

We belong to the world-Church, to the one, holy, catholic Church.

We really do not have a choice: we simply must listen.

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