At regular intervals, if you’re a believing Christian, you read
or hear things from established, mainstream churches that just make
your jaw drop. One such was broadcast August 12 on National Public
Radio’s Weekend Edition. In “Church Group to Discuss
Guidelines for Conversion,” program host Rebecca Roberts discussed
the question, “When does Christian missionary work cross the line
from earnest conversion attempts and become something offensive,
denigrating to other religions?”
The World Council of Churches, Roberts reported, including “some
30 Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Pentecostal and Evangelical
representatives[, is] grappling with that question at a meeting in
France this weekend.”
The WCC wants to create “what they call a Christian code of
conduct on religious conversion.”
THE REVEREND DR. HANS UCKO, who sounds like a Swede, told Roberts
that such a “code of conduct” for Christian missionaries would
“dissociate ourselves from anything that targeted children” or
other “vulnerable” people. Under the proposed code, evangelizers
could not offer rides, money, or promises of higher education.
The Rev. Doc., who heads a committee for inter-religious
dialogue at the WCC, worries that such activities could “ruin,
disturb, and jeopardize inter-religious relations.” He cited India,
where, he said, “we have some aggressive campaigns targeting
Hindus. There is a risk that the state will legislate against
conversions. This makes a problem for local Christians who are
there, who might worry that, oops, I’m opening a school, is this a
conversion?”
IT IS NOT HINDUS DR. UCKO and his committee are really worried
about, of course. It is Muslims. What about the Korean Christian
group kidnapped en masse by the Taliban in Afghanistan — with two
of them shot to death, and more killings threatened?
That must have been the Koreans’ fault, Dr. Ucko allows.
“We have been looking into this,” he said. “Although this group
said they were there for health and social services, there was a
kind of a desire to convert people from Islam. This is not what
should characterize Christians today. We should see opportunities
to work with Islam.”
ROBERTS ASKED, REASONABLY, what people who believed theirs was the
only true faith were supposed to do under such a code.
Ucko conceded that “This is a major problem, not only with
Christianity, but with Islam.” So what do you do about it? “We may
have to reconsider today…whether these theologies, which
originated in times when we did not come across one another,
whether these are theologies that are really what we believe.”
Have to watch out, though, not to oversimplify this updating of
religion, “because it gets to the core of our religious
tradition.”
No fooling.
In the Great Commission, Jesus, in what the gospels of Matthew
and Mark say were his last words, commanded, “Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations.” The first great evangelist, Paul, said,
in Romans, Chapter 10, “And how are they to believe in one of whom
they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to
proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are
sent?”
Sorry, Dr. Ucko, it may be infra dig and all that, but
Christians have never shut up. And we have been coming across
people other than ourselves from the first century onward. Muslims
came across other people rather aggressively from the seventh
century forward, coming across as far north as Vienna.
TWO SUNDAYS AGO, AT OUR CHURCH, we welcomed back a whole gang of
our teenagers, all of them wearing black T-shirts emblazoned
“Hurricane Katrina Relief.” They had spent two weeks in Pass
Christian, Mississippi.
There, they violated the WCC’s proposed Christian Code of
Conduct every way possible. They spoke of their faith to other
teenagers. They gave people rides. They passed out money and food.
And they built and repaired houses.
They did not ask first whether the people they helped were
Christian believers or not. They just helped, and bore witness.
I guess it’s a good thing Pass Christian isn’t Muslim.
