LETTUCE

Cheapened Gospel ??

http://www.cms-uk.org/news/2005/dino_29_06_2005.htm

This article illustrates the ideas I have been thinking about for some time.
It is important to be concerned about power and how power is used.
"No Context no meaning" to paraphrase Bateson . . . and if the power context denies or contradicts the message better to shut up.


Here is a quote:
"Cheapened Gospel
How best to aid tsunami victims? [Photo:Gaikwad/CMS]

by Jane Lee

In the third of her exclusive reports from the South Asia Christian Youth Conference, Jane Lee hears reports on the disgust of tsunami victims at attempts to use international aid to evangelise

He had only just landed at the Andaman, bringing with him relief supplies for the tsunami-stricken victims. A man strode up to him, shook his hand, gave him a tract and said, “Jesus is the answer.”

That encounter left Rev Dino Touthang in disgust.

“The context was so inappropriate and I felt that the gospel was being cheapened in that kind of presentation,” said the general director of the Evangelical Fellowship of India Commission on Relief (Eficor).

In fact, when he took some church members to Gujarat in response to the devastating earthquake in 2001, he specifically instructed them that there was to be no tract distribution, no preaching. They can pray – silently. You are here to serve the people, so go and distribute the food, he told them.

One team member berated Rev Touthang indignantly: “Now is the time to share the gospel of Christ and you’re not allowing me to do that!”

His retort: “When you’re in a relief situation, you do the relief well. I’m allowing you to share the gospel – through your life.”

Rev Touthang is strongly against the use of relief as a means of converting people.

“How ethical is it to use the need of a person to push in the gospel? Just because they receive the food from you, do they have to listen to you?”"


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posted by Colin Darling @ 9:56 AM