Kowloon's walled city, now demolished.
The January 2019 edition of Premier Christianity magazine has an interview with Jackie Pullinger, a Christian whose mission field was the notorious Walled City of Kowloon in Hong Kong. The story of Jackie Pullinger's foray into the dangerous labyrinth of the Walled city is the stuff of living legend. This is heroic Christian mission as Christians love to hear it. An ill-prepared maverick with no ties to an official mission organisation pits themselves against the darkest elements that often lurk in human community and comes through triumphantly. Pullinger's story has some similarities with that of Gladys Alywood.
Christians love this sort of stuff especially as most Christian's "walk with God" is a fairly unexciting affair in comparison. Through the lives of people like Pullinger Christians can live the exciting, adventuress and miraculous Christian life vicariously. Above all, it lends hope for the humdrum lives of many Christians because we hear how, from a most unpromising starting point (Which most rank and file Christians can identity with!), God can confound us by raising up some big new thing. However, therein may lie the rub: Some Christians might think: "Why doesn't God work for me like that? What am I doing wrong? Why is the supernatural missing from my life?". Thus a subliminal sense of guilt can set in under the surface. Sometimes that guilt turns outward into anger and blame against local churches that by-and-large don't show Christians how they too can live these supposedly "super-duper-supernatural" lives. I have seen this happen. Anyway, Pullinger's story has been told many times so I need say nothing more of it here
Christians love this sort of stuff especially as most Christian's "walk with God" is a fairly unexciting affair in comparison. Through the lives of people like Pullinger Christians can live the exciting, adventuress and miraculous Christian life vicariously. Above all, it lends hope for the humdrum lives of many Christians because we hear how, from a most unpromising starting point (Which most rank and file Christians can identity with!), God can confound us by raising up some big new thing. However, therein may lie the rub: Some Christians might think: "Why doesn't God work for me like that? What am I doing wrong? Why is the supernatural missing from my life?". Thus a subliminal sense of guilt can set in under the surface. Sometimes that guilt turns outward into anger and blame against local churches that by-and-large don't show Christians how they too can live these supposedly "super-duper-supernatural" lives. I have seen this happen. Anyway, Pullinger's story has been told many times so I need say nothing more of it here
***
In response to a question from the interviewer about how she learnt the local language Pullinger replied as follows:
Pullinger: Well it was a good thing I didn't begin too quickly because I just had time to do a short evangelism course before I got on the ship, and if I'd known Chinese I would have said too much. I thought that preaching the Gospel was explaining how Jesus came to die for your sins and, of course, that's no preaching the Gospel at all....
Interviewer: Why isn't it?
Pullinger: Because that's not necessarily good news to anyone who doesn't know love, who doesn't understand your language, who doesn't follow your logic. So, it was a good thing because I found out that the people there were not listening anyway, they were watching to see how I acted, whether I really did love them. And if I really did love them, maybe God really did love them.
MY COMMENT: I'll be commenting on this very important inter-cultural question later. Pullinger then goes on to talk about her first Chinese convert who, after his meeting with Jesus, she plied with follow-up literature and information about the faith. She tells us that given Chinese culture this was one of the worse things she could have done: Because in Chinese culture learning is taken so seriously, a lack of academic success is tantamount to being a failed person. Hence Pullinger's first convert was intimidated by all the follow-up books which he mistakenly interpreted as proof that a grasp of all this information was a condition of faith.
Interviewer: Is there a lesson there that Western Christians can be too bookish?
Pullinger: I think that the Word of God is terribly important but it depends on how you access that. Nowadays when people come to know Jesus, we pray with them for the gift of tongues immediately. It's not an optional extra, we say, but the way he'll give you a new language to help you talk to Him....No, it's not a prerequisite. The prerequisite is "Would you like to help pray somebody off drugs?". OK now, can you manage four hours of praying non-stop? Tongues would be a really great help. That's it. It's not the tongues that makes it special, it's just quite hard to keep going in your own language.
MY COMMENT I'll read the foregoing to mean that Pullinger sees tongues as an all but necessity in her kind of work, work which, of course, she will know best about. So, giving her the benefit of the doubt I assume that she would reply "No" to the rhetorical questions in 1 Corinthians 12:29-30:
After all, one finds that for many Christians who seek an "experience" or "tongues" when they have hands laid on them for the "Baptism of the Spirit", nothing really noticeable happens. In fact you can find Charismatic Christians who will admit this. For example, Tony Higton, a C of E charismatic admits in his book Called to Serve: A Local Church Study Course that when a Christian goes for a "Baptism of the Spirit" there may be no accompanying special experience or tongues to be had. I will be giving another example in my next post.
I have heard of several cases where the believer is expecting some kind of spiritual down-load or epiphany and nothing happens; sometimes this can challenge their faith if their expectations are crushed. Moreover, some Christians seeking the "Carpet Blessing" (another name for the "Toronto Blessing") have, on occasion, been disappointed to find that they have not been blow over by God's Spirit but instead are simply pushed over by the "priest" administering the blessing. In general the question of whether a Christian seeking an epiphany, perhaps to fix a spiritual existential crisis, actually has some kind of experience or spiritual down-load seems to depend on the personality involved, although the hard-line Charismatics will not likely accept this and are inclined to witch-hunt for "spiritual blockages" if their expectations of an "experience" are not fulfilled.
There are important things to learn from Pullinger, although there may be some things to unlearn as well. In the West Mythos and Logos (See footnote* for more on Mythos and Logos) expressions of belief sit uneasily with one another. They may try to be friends but the relationship can be tense and stormy. We see hints of this in the interview with Pullinger.
In my opinion rank and file Western Christians (that is, Western Christians outside the intense academic culture of colleges and universities and those who classify themselves as traditional reformed Christians) are not "bookish" enough about their faith: Today the premium is on an existential faith that seeks satisfaction, validation and authentication through supernatural encounters with the divine. Anything else is likely to be regarded as less than the ideal divine plan. In this context Christian learning tends to be thought of as at best as having an ancillary supporting role and at worse utterly inferior to "Touches of God". However, I must add my usual disclaimer that I am certainly not in the business of offering a blanket and unqualified denial of people's epiphanies, baptisms, touches of God, divine encounters, speaking in tongues, prophecies and what have you: I don't automatically write-off such experiences anymore than I expect my particular spiritual experiences and pilgrimage to be written-off. Proprietary experiences can be very helpful. The stickler is though, that many have a one size fits all philosophy consistent with the gnostic-like tendencies of some parts of fundo-Charismatic Christianity. (See here for more on the Mythos vs Logos divide)
2. LOGOS
Where Pullinger has important lessons for us is on the subject of inter-cultural mission: Her approach looks as though it classifies as what missionary Jim Harries would call Vulnerable mission; that is, mission which is:
a) Determined to meet people where they are at in their culture and properly understand and engage that culture before thoughtlessly spouting formulaic evangelical cliches at them as if those cliche's can somehow magically "speak Christians into existence". Principally the cultural immersion of the Vulnerable Missionary is achieved by learning the local lingo in its context so that the connotative content of the language is taken on board along with its notational content.
b) Avoids as far as possible destabilising relationships within the local culture with the promise of the introduction of developmental funds and Western resources. This avoidance prevents the missionary being put into the role of a rich benefactor or "bwana", thereby helping to foster authentic relationships rather than locals being tempted to kowtow to their rich missionary patrons. A client-patron relationship probably has the effect of obscuring many cultural oddities from the missionary, as the clients are inclined to curry favor with their rich patrons by keeping up appearances.
For whatever reason it seems that Pullinger naturally followed this "Vulnerable" approach. This form of mission is called "Vulnerable Mission" by Jim Harries because it opens up the missionary to dangers, misunderstandings, isolation and that of becoming a servant learner rather than a leader. Vulnerable mission can also sometimes result in fraught relations with other Western missionaries and their mission organisations, organisations who see their task exclusively in terms of a leading developmental role: i.e. "holistic mission". This is not to say Christians shouldn't be involved helping to develop and industrialise the poorer nations of the majority world.....the purpose of VM, as I see it, is to introduce another method in the missionary toolbox of methods, one which circumvents some of the conundrums caused by holistic mission. VM is mission which reaches the parts that other forms of mission don't. The Vulnerable Missionary needs to be a supreme diplomat. But unfortunately there is potentially an inner contradiction here; Vulnerable Missionaries have to be strong characters and strong characters are not natural diplomats, as I can testify from my own experience.
We see from Pullinger's account how she inadvertently was prevented from using a one size fits all approach to her mission field. As she makes clear, if she had arrived in Hong Kong with just enough Chinese to think that she understood the language it would have been a disaster. To properly understand a language one needs to understand its cultural context and therefore the connotational content of the local natural language. One cannot learn the connotational content of a language without being immersed in the local context.
Because Pullinger had to learn the local language, effectively on the job, she had to first get to know her people, understand them and above all demonstrate her love for them. She could then share the Gospel in a way that was meaningful to them. Even so, as she admits, it was ignorance over Chinese culture which meant she made at least one mistake from the start. But she knew she had to learn and learn fast!
* Mythos: Often indescribable and intuitive, "Mythos" connotes experiences that may be referred to as "sensing God's presence", "touched by God", "empowered by God" etc. These experiences are often difficult to analyse and articulate. Sometimes a state of consciousness rather than a demarkable experience the whole thing can be very mysterious.
Logos: Strong on content, analysis and thinking based experience: Very theologically inclined this articulated content will, in varying degrees, revolve around theology and the Bible,The Word; hence "Logos". This category actually embraces the paranormal, such as healings, tongues and prophecies as these events can be analytically investigated for authenticity.
MY COMMENT: I'll be commenting on this very important inter-cultural question later. Pullinger then goes on to talk about her first Chinese convert who, after his meeting with Jesus, she plied with follow-up literature and information about the faith. She tells us that given Chinese culture this was one of the worse things she could have done: Because in Chinese culture learning is taken so seriously, a lack of academic success is tantamount to being a failed person. Hence Pullinger's first convert was intimidated by all the follow-up books which he mistakenly interpreted as proof that a grasp of all this information was a condition of faith.
Interviewer: Is there a lesson there that Western Christians can be too bookish?
Pullinger: I think that the Word of God is terribly important but it depends on how you access that. Nowadays when people come to know Jesus, we pray with them for the gift of tongues immediately. It's not an optional extra, we say, but the way he'll give you a new language to help you talk to Him....No, it's not a prerequisite. The prerequisite is "Would you like to help pray somebody off drugs?". OK now, can you manage four hours of praying non-stop? Tongues would be a really great help. That's it. It's not the tongues that makes it special, it's just quite hard to keep going in your own language.
MY COMMENT I'll read the foregoing to mean that Pullinger sees tongues as an all but necessity in her kind of work, work which, of course, she will know best about. So, giving her the benefit of the doubt I assume that she would reply "No" to the rhetorical questions in 1 Corinthians 12:29-30:
Are
all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do
all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?
After all, one finds that for many Christians who seek an "experience" or "tongues" when they have hands laid on them for the "Baptism of the Spirit", nothing really noticeable happens. In fact you can find Charismatic Christians who will admit this. For example, Tony Higton, a C of E charismatic admits in his book Called to Serve: A Local Church Study Course that when a Christian goes for a "Baptism of the Spirit" there may be no accompanying special experience or tongues to be had. I will be giving another example in my next post.
I have heard of several cases where the believer is expecting some kind of spiritual down-load or epiphany and nothing happens; sometimes this can challenge their faith if their expectations are crushed. Moreover, some Christians seeking the "Carpet Blessing" (another name for the "Toronto Blessing") have, on occasion, been disappointed to find that they have not been blow over by God's Spirit but instead are simply pushed over by the "priest" administering the blessing. In general the question of whether a Christian seeking an epiphany, perhaps to fix a spiritual existential crisis, actually has some kind of experience or spiritual down-load seems to depend on the personality involved, although the hard-line Charismatics will not likely accept this and are inclined to witch-hunt for "spiritual blockages" if their expectations of an "experience" are not fulfilled.
***
There are important things to learn from Pullinger, although there may be some things to unlearn as well. In the West Mythos and Logos (See footnote* for more on Mythos and Logos) expressions of belief sit uneasily with one another. They may try to be friends but the relationship can be tense and stormy. We see hints of this in the interview with Pullinger.
1. MYTHOS
2. LOGOS
Where Pullinger has important lessons for us is on the subject of inter-cultural mission: Her approach looks as though it classifies as what missionary Jim Harries would call Vulnerable mission; that is, mission which is:
a) Determined to meet people where they are at in their culture and properly understand and engage that culture before thoughtlessly spouting formulaic evangelical cliches at them as if those cliche's can somehow magically "speak Christians into existence". Principally the cultural immersion of the Vulnerable Missionary is achieved by learning the local lingo in its context so that the connotative content of the language is taken on board along with its notational content.
b) Avoids as far as possible destabilising relationships within the local culture with the promise of the introduction of developmental funds and Western resources. This avoidance prevents the missionary being put into the role of a rich benefactor or "bwana", thereby helping to foster authentic relationships rather than locals being tempted to kowtow to their rich missionary patrons. A client-patron relationship probably has the effect of obscuring many cultural oddities from the missionary, as the clients are inclined to curry favor with their rich patrons by keeping up appearances.
For whatever reason it seems that Pullinger naturally followed this "Vulnerable" approach. This form of mission is called "Vulnerable Mission" by Jim Harries because it opens up the missionary to dangers, misunderstandings, isolation and that of becoming a servant learner rather than a leader. Vulnerable mission can also sometimes result in fraught relations with other Western missionaries and their mission organisations, organisations who see their task exclusively in terms of a leading developmental role: i.e. "holistic mission". This is not to say Christians shouldn't be involved helping to develop and industrialise the poorer nations of the majority world.....the purpose of VM, as I see it, is to introduce another method in the missionary toolbox of methods, one which circumvents some of the conundrums caused by holistic mission. VM is mission which reaches the parts that other forms of mission don't. The Vulnerable Missionary needs to be a supreme diplomat. But unfortunately there is potentially an inner contradiction here; Vulnerable Missionaries have to be strong characters and strong characters are not natural diplomats, as I can testify from my own experience.
We see from Pullinger's account how she inadvertently was prevented from using a one size fits all approach to her mission field. As she makes clear, if she had arrived in Hong Kong with just enough Chinese to think that she understood the language it would have been a disaster. To properly understand a language one needs to understand its cultural context and therefore the connotational content of the local natural language. One cannot learn the connotational content of a language without being immersed in the local context.
Because Pullinger had to learn the local language, effectively on the job, she had to first get to know her people, understand them and above all demonstrate her love for them. She could then share the Gospel in a way that was meaningful to them. Even so, as she admits, it was ignorance over Chinese culture which meant she made at least one mistake from the start. But she knew she had to learn and learn fast!
Footnote: Mythos and Logos
* Mythos: Often indescribable and intuitive, "Mythos" connotes experiences that may be referred to as "sensing God's presence", "touched by God", "empowered by God" etc. These experiences are often difficult to analyse and articulate. Sometimes a state of consciousness rather than a demarkable experience the whole thing can be very mysterious.
Logos: Strong on content, analysis and thinking based experience: Very theologically inclined this articulated content will, in varying degrees, revolve around theology and the Bible,The Word; hence "Logos". This category actually embraces the paranormal, such as healings, tongues and prophecies as these events can be analytically investigated for authenticity.
