We interviewed Elder Ong, 69, from Bethesda Frankel Estate Church (BFEC), who leads and organises trips to China for missions. Be inspired as you read his story!
Bring Good News
Beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. Read about our recent mission trip to Vietnam and Myanmar.
Bring Good News
This article was originally posted in our Word @ Work Magazine in March 2016.
Close your eyes and imagine yourself amidst a group of pastors leaving their homes before dawn, and travelling long hours just to collect 50 to 100 Bibles for your entire congregation, located in the Mekong Delta region in Vietnam.
Imagine braving the rain, with fellow believers in Christ, traversing a bus along adverse road conditions, to a remote church. Along the way, some risk their lives by climbing to the top of the bus to remove overhanging cables and wires, which obstruct the bus. Many wait patiently at the other end to receive their Bibles.
“At each delivery point, we saw how the brothers and sisters treasured the Bibles. We often take the availability of Bibles in Singapore for granted; and how little we treasure His Word in our hearts,” Says Lilian Tham, a BMT participant to Vietnam.
“There is also a real need for Bibles in their respective native languages,” adds Pastor John Toh, who was the Trip Leader for the BMT to Vietnam.
The need for Bibles is great and the number of Christians are growing rapidly amongst the tribes. The Bible Mission Teams sent out by International Bible Experiences (IBEx) – the Bible Society’s holistic mission arm – to the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam and the Irrawaddy Delta region of Myanmar, were deeply moved when they witnessed the hunger for the printed Word of God amongst the natives of Vietnam and Myanmar.
Our IBEx mission team returned from Myanmar with great rejoicing. The Founder & President of Myanmar Agape Ministries & Myanmar Christian Assembly, Joseph Biak Tin Sang, said, “We have been praying for 25 years for the Holy Bible for all of our children. Then God sent us some Bibles! Some of the children accepted the Holy Bible with their tears because they are very happy.”
“The Bible teaches that ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive’, and indeed we found that whatever we invested in the 5-day trip was returned to us manyfold,” said Ho Tor Kwun, who went to Myanmar.
Nancy Soon, who also went to Myanmar, shared that “Of all the mission trips that I had participated in, this is the most fulfilling and uplifting trip! God was with us throughout the trip. The distribution of Bibles together with the school & family kits to the Myanmar Agape Orphanage and some 300 families who were adversely affected by the flood was met successfully without a hitch. Like in the hymn ‘God Will Make A Way’ – God makes all things work together for good!”
An Interview: Serving by Leading
This article was originally posted in our Word @ Work Magazine in June 2016. 中文版.
Interview
Serving by Leading – Passion for China and Her People
Since 2011, Bethesda Frankel Estate Church (BFEC) has been partnering with the Bible Society to customise Bible Mission Trips to China. BFEC organises two to three trips each year which are always oversubscribed. Most of the tour members are in their 60-80s and are largely English-speaking. We met with Elder Ong, who at 69 is still leading and organising trips to China, to hear more about his heart for the country and her people. He shares about the needs of the Church and gives practical advice about how to organise similar Bible Mission Trips for churches, families and friends.
Share with us about your heart for China. How and when did it start?
It first started in 1989 when I went with a friend to Xiamen to distribute Bibles through Every Home Crusade. It was there that I saw the need for Bibles in China.
Your tour members are largely English-speaking. How is it like communicating with the Chinese communities you visit?
We attach a person to those who can’t speak or understand Mandarin when interacting with the local believers. Language is not a barrier. People need to step out of the preconceived idea that they cannot communicate without knowing the language.
Why are the tour members interested in the work in China?
I believe that as English-speaking Chinese, they have a certain longing to learn more about China and go back to their roots. Also, they have heard a lot about China and the Chinese believers’ passion for the Lord – they wanted to see the churches’ condition in rural areas. We are so blessed as Singaporeans and we hope to give to the poor in our plenty.
The members keep coming back for the trips. Any idea why?
Firstly, they see the needs and experience the joy of giving a Bible to someone. They witness the tears trickle down upon giving the Bible – the locals really long to have a Bible of their own. Secondly, it helps them to reflect on their faith when they see how the people take God’s Word seriously and pray fervently. The locals come to church as early as 5am by cycling, walking or by bus even though the service starts at 8am! Lastly, the members feel welcomed by the church who would prepare hearty home-cooked meals for them after every service.
Share with us some things you do on each trip.
Before the trip, we assign duties to every member of the team so that all are involved – even in simple roles like the numbering of people, their luggage, to who does devotion or presents the gifts. We debrief after each location to hear fresh reflections from the members.
Bible distribution is an important element in the trip and we ensure that each member gets to personally hand the Bible to the recipients. We also meet up with the local Christian council, visit seminaries and Sunday schools at churches, minister to the disadvantaged and help out in medical work. During our interactions, we share God’s love. On many occasions, members of the group were moved to help the locals when they saw the needs.
What are some of the challenges you face when leading the trips?
It’s a challenge to plan the programme so that it’s suitable for people of different age groupS. I go for each trip with fear and trembling because I am responsible for the big group. I really ask everybody to pray for safety and protection. We also have to be careful not to spoil the work that has already been done, as representatives of the Bible Society.
How does your team raise funds to attend the trip and even give towards the Bible mission?
Since this trip is about the Bible mission, each member is committed to contribute an additional $300 on top of trip expenses to support the work. Our church is very supportive. Though they are not travelling with us, members prepare food to raise funds for each trip.
Any words to encourage others to attend Bible Mission Trips or organise trips to serve the needy?
Take the first trip – no amount of words can explain the personal experience! You will experience God in every step you take, from finances to every matter involved.
If you desire to do outreach in China, join us on our trips and learn how to lead!
Vestiges of the Divine
‘The world is charged with the grandeur of God’, declares the Catholic poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. ‘It will flame out, like shining shook foil’. In these words we find an echo of a similar but more ancient attestation found in the Psalter, Israel’s Hymnbook: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaim his handiwork’ (Psalm 19:1).
Paul, in his letter to the Christians in Rome, makes the same point when he argues that God’s ‘eternal power and divine nature’ can be clearly perceived ‘in the things that have been made’ (Romans 1: 20).
Together, they bear witness to the fact that the invisible Creator has left his mark on the universe he has fashioned, and that in the created order there can be found what may be described as traces or vestiges of the divine. The theologians of the Church have described this variously as God’s ‘universal’, ‘general’ or ‘natural’ revelation.
In the modern period, where science is perceived to have almost full monopoly of the truth, the concept of revelation has fallen out of favour. This is because in the hands of modern scientism, the concept of truth itself has undergone a certain metamorphosis. Truth is no longer understood as impressing itself on the knower. Instead, truth is something that is discovered, and consequently controlled by the rational agent.
On such an account of truth, revelation not only appears to be at odds with autonomous reason. It also seem quite unnecessary, since revelation – as philosophers like Fichte argue – only brings to the fore what autonomous reason already knows to be the case.
Christians must reject this view for two reasons. Firstly, it creates too sharp a divide between discovery and revelation, authority and autonomy. And secondly, it in fact makes the concept of revelation in general and God’s revelation in particular redundant.
Concerning the dichotomy between revelation and discovery, can we not say that there is a sense in which modern science itself is dependent on a kind of revelation? Even the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant is of the view that reason must learn from nature. In his famous Critique of Pure Reason, Kant asserts that ‘Reason … must approach nature in order to be taught by it’.
One would do well to take seriously Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s maxim that ‘all Truth is a species of Revelation’.
And with regard to the marginalising of revelation itself, the history of modern theology has shown just how fruitless it was for theologians to follow this trajectory. Think for instance of John Toland’s Christianity Not Mysterious (1696) or Matthew Tindal’s Christianity as Old as Creation (1730). Such theologies have led Christians to the murky waters of either deism or liberalism.
Contrary to these modern proposals, the theologians of the Church have always insisted that God has revealed himself universally in the world he has brought into being. So important is this truth that a document of Vatican I anathemises those who deny it.
Thus, its canon on revelation unequivocally states that ‘If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and Lord, cannot be known certainly from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema’.
In addition, the Church has always taught that the created order or the cosmos possesses a certain rationality because it was created by God.
The great Romanian Orthodox theologian of the last century, Dumitru Stăniloae, puts it this way: ‘… the rationality of the cosmos attests to the fact that the cosmos is the product of a rational being, since rationality, as an aspect of a reality which is destined to be known, has no explanation apart from a conscious Reason which knows it from the time it creates it or even before that time, and knows it continually so long as that same Reason preserves its being’.
Furthermore, the cosmos was organised in a way that corresponds to our capacity for knowing. To quote Stăniloae once again: ‘The cosmos – and human nature as intimately connected to the cosmos – are stamped with rationality, while man (God’s creature) is further endowed with a reason capable of knowing consciously the rationality of the cosmos and of his own nature’.
God has created the cosmos and man in this way so that he can reveal himself through both. This means that the cosmos possesses rationality not only because God had created it, but also because God had created it so, in order that it can be a vehicle or medium of his revelation.
Thus, theologians as diverse as Irenaeus in the second century and Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth could argue that the world points to the existence of God. For example, in his famous cosmological argument for the existence of God Aquinas maintains that the existence of the world presupposes an uncreated Creator.
This brings us back to the false dichotomy between revelation and discovery we noted earlier. To say that the facticity of the created order points to its Creator is not to suggest that the rational observer merely discovers the divine in it. The Spirit of God is constantly at work, making explicit that which is implicit in the creation.
Put differently, the Spirit is at work in revealing the imprints of the Creator found in his handwork. This means that the revelation of God – even his revelation in the creation – can never be reduced to some impersonal reality.
As Bonaventure, the contemporary of Aquinas, has repeatedly reminded us: God is not the disinterested unmoved mover that stands aloof from the world. He is the foundation of self-communicating love, and is therefore always personally and intimately at work in the world he has created. This is true in his revelation as well, both his special revelation in Christ and his general revelation in creation.
Climate Change: Missiological Implications
Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites,
because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land:
“There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.
There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying.” Hosea 4:1-3
The November/December Northeast monsoons have brought relief, for various countries in South East Asia, from the haze that has shrouded this part of the world for the past few months. As quickly as the rains arrived, interspersed by clear blue skies, we have almost forgotten the irritation and inconvenience that the indiscriminate slashing and burning in both Sumatra and Kalimantan have introduced as part of the annual cycle of weather forecast in this part of the world. In Paris, world leaders gather this week forone of the most important meetings following the Kyoto Protocol adopted in 1997. The COP21, also known as the 2015 Paris Climate Conference[1], will, for the first time in over 20 years of United Nations’ negotiations, aim to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.
On the home front, Mediacorp in seeking to add to the choruses of voices clamouring for Singaporean’s attention in regard to contributing to global action against global warming has launched a month-long green campaign across its television, news, radio and print platforms. In 2007, it launched a website, http://www.savinggaia.sg/ to reiterate the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling. Be it intentional in adopting the worldview as mentioned by Howard Snyder[2] or otherwise, Mediacorp explains the use of the Greek term Gaia, seeing it as synonymous with “Mother Earth” and bids all Singaporeans to “do your part to save Gaia”.
Scientists, politicians, celebrities and business entrepreneurs have in one way or another jumped on the ‘green’ bandwagon and in concert called for some action in light of the current global context. Yet it is a little puzzling to me that while global warming is such a ‘hot’ topic (pun intended), it seems that little is articulated or acted upon, on this important issue from a missiological perspective or even as a Christian response[3]. It may well be that for too long, Christians have held on to a perspective that the Christian life is to prepare people for heaven, such that we should endure the vicissitudes that this earthly life affords and look forward to the day when we will be freed from the temptations, trials, travails and tragedies as we leave this earthly world for a permanent heavenly realm; since “this world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.”
Norman Wirzba cautions that “this way of characterising the Christian life is a theological disaster” because “it rejects and violates the good and beautiful world that God made, the world that is the object of God’s daily concern and delight.”[4] Wirzba rightly points out that the point of life is not to escape this earthly life but to “lead us more deeply into the movements of love that nurture and heal and celebrate the gifts of God.” In many ways, this view is similarly articulated in Pope Francis second encyclical Laudato Si[5] (Praise be to You) where Pope Francis critiques consumerism and irresponsible development, laments environmental degradation and global warming, and calls all people of the world to take “swift and unified global action.” In light of these developments, this article is (in part) a result of my musings on the subject of climate change and global warming and the implications therein for the Church, which is called to partner with God in His mission.
What is global warming?
Climatologists are in agreement that the earth has undergone various periods of changes in the climate which may be attributed to natural processes or cyclical changes. But the global warming (scientifically referred to as climate change) that has been documented in the more recent past reflects a major shift in the cyclical patterns, where the changes have been substantial and poses a serious threat to both the planet and to its people, especially to the poor in the developing world.
The change is attributed primarily to human activity, with the pollution of the earth’s atmosphere with so called greenhouse gases – principally carbon dioxide which comes from a number of sources[6] as well as nitrous oxide (N2O, for example, in petrol exhaust). The latest report[7] by the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) illustrates this point well. These gases create a greenhouse effect, trapping heat from the sun in the atmosphere instead of allowing it to radiate out into space. While the processes of the greenhouse effect are rather involved, what results is that these trapped greenhouse gases gradually raises the average temperature which in turn affects global weather patterns.
While it may be argued that there has always been a certain amount of greenhouse gases already present in the earth’s atmosphere, it seems irrefutable that much of it is anthropogenic, and in no small part, directly attributed to the industrial revolution in the 18th century. The increasing amounts of coal, oil and gas used as fuel has now produced a level of carbon dioxide pollution which has exceed the capacity of natural processes to absorb.
Robert T. Watson, the former Chairman[8] of the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of climate scientists from across the world which was set up to advise the world’s governments, has previously remarked: “It is no longer a question of whether the earth’s climate will change but rather when, where and by how much” and the evidences for his claim are summarised as follows[9]:
+ Over the last century atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by 25%, nitrous oxides by 19% and methane by 100%
+ Since 1900 the Earth’s surface temperature has risen by between 0.3 and 0.6 degrees C.
+ The fourteen hottest years on record have occurred since 1980. The 1990s were the hottest decade of the millennium. 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium.
+ Sea surface temperatures have risen by 2 -3 degrees C. and sea levels have risen by between 10 and 25 centimetres; fish have moved north; zooplankton has declined by 70% in twenty years in the eastern pacific; glaciers are retreating; tundra is melting and releasing methane; spring is arriving a week or more earlier in the northern hemisphere than it did twenty years ago.
+ The periodic changes in ocean circulation patterns in the eastern Pacific known as El Niño, which have major effects on weather patterns over large parts of the globe, have recently been more frequent and more severe.
+ 1998 was not only the hottest year of the millennium, it was also a record year for climate related disasters, including huge forest fires in Brazil, Mexico and the US; killer heat waves in the Middle east and India; the worst drought in seventy years in Mexico; flooding in China leaving 14 million homeless; and the massively destructive Hurricane Mitch in Central America.
+ According to the insurance giant, Munich Reinsurance, in the 1960s there were 16 climate related disasters; in the 1990s there were 70. The costs of climate related disasters, meanwhile, have doubled every decade, from $50 billion in the 1960s to nearly $400 billion in the 1990s.
Researchers at the UK’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research have said that the rise in temperature during the 20th century cannot be put down to natural causes. It can only be explained by human activities[10]. Interestingly, it was only as late as 2002[11] that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has endorsed what many scientists have long argued – that human activities such as oil refining, power generation and car emissions are significant causes of global warming. More recently[12], the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has come to the same conclusion.
How we got to where we are?
If perhaps we can summarily locate the onset of the current phenomenon of global warming, one might attribute it to globalisation. While arguably, globalisation may have brought with it various results such as in Thomas Friedman’s very positive assessment of “flattening the earth.”[13] Yet one can also not deny the fact that foremost among the many tangible negative effects are that of global warming as well as the increasing monetary divide between the global rich and the global poor.
Larry Rasmussen[14] sees the impact of globalisation in three waves, that of colonialism, development and free trade global capitalism. His contention is that these waves did not simply affect human society but “also deeply altered the biotic community, locally, regionally, globally to give us the present “ecological question”.”[15] Colonialism with the attendant exploitation of natural resources and conquest in many ways contributed to the processes which directly affects global warming. With development and free trade liberalisation, the machinery to transform society and nature has been set in motion.
While this is an almost skimpy historical summary of globalisation, one can evidence the immediate tangible economic results that globalisation has brought about, especially among the developed countries, and in particular for those of us who live in Singapore. Yet, the subtle destructive effects, such as an increasingly widening income gap between the rich and poor nations, poverty, and increased occurrence of natural (or perhaps rightly, ‘unnatural’) catastrophes are only slowly being witnessed all across the world (as my little newspaper-cutting exercise will show). These are but the tip of an increasing number of issues which account for Joseph Stiglitz’s book, Globalization and Its Discontent.
While the empirical evidence seems to be tipping the scales in favour of global warming and points the finger to human causation, there are equally quite a number of scientists and climatologists who think otherwise. This other camp attributes global warming to the thermonuclear activity on the surface of the sun as well as a host of other explanations[16]. Do take note however, of the more recent news publication which counters the somewhat more optimistic tenor of this scientific camp.[17]
Hence in regard to global warming, the truth is that there are various scientific opinions and various different positions. As with most important issues, global warming has become all too politicised[18]. Sadly even among the Christian community, there seems to be no consensus. Eco-theologians tend to use an organic model for God and view all of creation as God’s self expression. Their “emphasis on immanence alongside transcendence is found in almost universally in ecotheology and can be labelled “panentheism”.”[19] Such a view may not have many adherents. In developing the summarising committee report at the Au Sable Forum which dealt with the topic “Evangelical Christianity and the Environment”, the committee specially noted that while it affirmed the value of the Gaia hypothesis (highlighting the interconnected system between earth and the living creatures therein) it however rejects the religious implication that is sometimes drawn among the Gaia advocates that the earth is a divine being. The committee is also quick to point out that this is in part “due to the church’s failure to proclaim its living, triune God as both clearly distinct and intimately involved with creation.”[20]
More recently, while some prominent advocates of limiting carbon-emission include such as Rick Warren and Salvation Army Commissioner W. Todd Bassett, others such as Chuck Colson, James Dobson have implored the National Association of Evangelicals in the USA against establishing an official position on climate change, since “global warming is not a consensus issue” and “there should be room for Bible-believing evangelicals to disagree about the cause, severity and solutions.”[21]
It may well be for the above reasons that there seems to be little consensus among the Christian community. While the world is slowly being stirred into action to care for our ailing planet, Christians remain somewhat tacitly divided and perhaps somewhat apathetic to conservation efforts. Amidst this cacophony of differing voices and opinions, how are we as disciples of Jesus Christ and stewards of God’s creation to respond?
Interestingly, as the centre of Christianity has shifted southwards, it is the South, for which these issues are a reality that is speaking out and letting their voice be heard. One example is theologians from South America, in particular, Brazilian Methodist theologians have tried to understand the issue by looking within their own Wesleyan heritage. In particular, Luis Wesley de Souza presented his views, enlarging upon the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to include creation within the framework, thereby developing a Wesleyan theology of mission which incorporates Wesley’s regard for creation, as evidenced through his correspondences with his friends as well as his sermons and writings[22]. Figuratively the Wesleyan Pentalateral as understood by Robert W. Burtner, Robert Chiles and other like-minded Brazilian Wesleyan theologians, may be represented as such:
Even if we were to ignore these contributions from these Brazilian Wesleyan theologians, one cannot be apathetic to the appeal of other voices from among Evangelical, Orthodox and Catholic perspectives. An example of a Catholic author is Stephen Bevans. Bevans forwards the view[23]:
A creation-centred orientation sees the world as sacramental: The world is the place where God reveals Godself. Revelation does not happen in set-apart, particularly holy places, in strange unworldly circumstances, or in words that are spoken in a stilted voice. It comes in daily life, in ordinary words, through ordinary people… Creation-centred theology approaches life with an analogical, not dialectical, spirit or imagination, and sees a continuity between human existence and divine reality.
It is not that the world is perfect and sinless. Creation-centred theology certainly acknowledges the reality and ugliness of sin. But sin is sin precisely because it is an aberration in such a beautiful world, an attempt to “get out of life what God has not put into it,” and the only way that sin can adequately be exterminated is by confrontation with the power of good.
Similarly, in Donald Senior’s and Carrol Stuhlmueller’s The Biblical Foundations for Mission, they also regard a theology of creation as one of the key themes[24] which provide the impetus of mission. More recently, Howard Synder’s eloquent contribution to a more wholistic understanding of mission is articulated in his book, Salvation Means Creation Healed. Synder notes that salvation through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit includes the story of how God is redeeming and transforming his creation. And He calls us into mission with Him to bring the healing of creation.
Perhaps we can go on to identify various other theologians from different traditions and also the important themes in the Bible such as the Old Testament understanding of Shalom or the New Testament understanding of a new heaven and new earth to highlight the importance of developing a biblical basis for our ethical action in regards to caring for creation, which can and should be further developed by various other writers. But as we come to a conclusion (for now) and hope to make sense of this mess that we have made of God’s gift of creation, what are the implications for mission in the 21st century?
What next? Why should we be concerned?
If mission is understood as missio Dei, then I believe that a wholistic missiology cannot ignore the impact on ecology. The same God who is concerned with the salvation of humanity and the renewal of the church is similarly concerned with the healing of the cosmos and the renewal of creation. In this regard, Langmead is right when he noted that “Mission that is directed to one aspect of existence will always be an incomplete form of mission… this means that missiology needs to be both comprehensive (taking all dimensions of the Gospel into account) and holistic (integrating them and not just adding one to another).”[25]
In conclusion, the following points may be highlighted as we draw upon a wholistic missiology in response to the current context of climate change and global warming.
A. The Value of Creation. As with the summary in the Au Sable Committee report, we need to “affirm that all God’s creations are valuable in and of themselves, apart from any usefulness to humans.”[26] In essence, there is intrinsic value in all of creation and humanity as the crown of God’s creation should as far as possible support the conservation and well-being of other creatures which share this earth. To affirm the intrinsic value of creation is also to elevate the status of creation and the environment “to something worth defending, caring for and enjoying simply because it is the intrinsically valuable expression of the creativity of God.”[27] Practically this may issue as a call for Sabbath rest for arable farming land or even a purposeful and prudent change of fishing grounds in order that the fish population is not depleted through over-fishing in that particular locale, to meet the voracious demands of an ever increasing human population.
B. The Truth about Sin. All creation, most preeminently humanity, is diseased and damaged by sin and stands in need of the redemption that God provides through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. If sin is understood as the perversion of human relationships with God and creation, hence the ministry of reconciliation is hence at the heart of the mission of God and as a result also the mission of the church. This ministry of reconciliation highlighted in the passage in 2 Corinthians 5, where God brings total renewal to humanity and all creation. It is God reconciling us to Christ and in whom all the world is reconciled and renewed. Archbishop Anastasios of the Greek Orthodox Church in writing on global issues has this to add: “Some reconciliation between humanity and nature is urgently needed. It is time we understood that nature is something sacred. It does not lie outside the sphere of the Holy spirit’s activity.”[28] This wider understanding of the ministry of reconciliation is what we are called to participate in. But in regard to the current crisis of global warming, perhaps the church as a whole has chosen the path of tacit complicity.
C. The Service of Stewardship. As we ground our appeal of stewardship God’s command to Adam in the Genesis account, we perhaps can employ John Houghton’s garden metaphor of gracious stewardship, where our work as gardeners suggests that gardens are places, which provide for sustenance, (the appreciation of) beauty, creativity as well as for the benefit of posterity. For the most part, we know what to do but we lack the will to do it and because of our obsession with the immediate material benefits, on both a national and individual level, we ignore what needs to be addressed for the future of humanity. Our Christian faith can provide a driving force for action in countering our lack of will and perhaps we do well to also remember that as God’s keeper of His garden (the earth), we are to adopt an “attitude of humility is also one which lies at the heart of responsible stewardship of the earth.”[29]
The hope of this article is that it will ignite more discussions and generate more deliberations as well as kindle desires and catalyse decisions especially from churches to live out the prayer our Lord Jesus taught us, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Dr Andrew Peh is a lecturer in mission at Trinity Theological College. He is also an alumnus of Trinity Theological College as well as E Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism, of Asbury Theological Seminary. He is also ordained as a diaconal minister with the Chinese Annual Conference of the Methodist Church in Singapore. Andrew’s research interests are in colonial mission history of Southeast Asia (Singapore), the mission history of East Asia (particularly Japanese Christianity) as well as the intersection between globalisation and mission praxes in our current context.
Bibliography
Anastasios, Archbishop. “Toward a Global Community: resources and responsibilities”, in Facing the World: Orthodox Christian Essays on Global Concerns. New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003
Bevans, Stephan B. Models of Contextual Theology, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992.
de Souza, Luis Wesley. “The Wisdom of God in Creation: Mission and the Wesleyan Pentalateral”, in Global Good News: Mission in a New Context, Howard Snyder, ed., Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001, 138-153.
Pope Francis, Laudato Si – On Care for Our Common Home. https://laudatosi.com/watch
Friedman, Thomas. The World is Flat – A Brief History of the Globalized World in the 21st Century, London, UK: Allen Lane, 2005.
Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. London, UK: Bloomsbury, 2006.
Houghton, John. Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Kostenberger, Andreas J. “The Place of Mission in New Testament Theology: An Attempt to Determine the Significance of Mission Within the Scope of the New Testament’s Message as a Whole,” Missiology: An International Review, Vol XXVII, No. 3 (July 1999): 347-362.
Langmead, Ross. “Ecomissiology,” Missiology: An International Review, Vol XXX, No. 4 (October 2002): 505-518.
Rasmussen, Larry. “Global Ecojustice: The Church’s Mission in Urban Society,” Mission Studies, Vol XVI-1, 31 (1999): 123-135.
Rossing, Barbara. “River of Life in God’s New Jerusalem: An Ecological Vision for Earth’s Future,” Mission Studies Vol XVI-I, 31 (1999): 136-156.
Samuel, V. and Chris Sugden. Mission as Transformation, Paternoster Press: 2000.
Senior, Donald and Stuhlmueller, Carroll. The Biblical Foundations for Mission Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000
Sleeth, J. Matthew. Serve God, Save the Planet – A Christian Call to Action. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007.
Snyder, Howard, EarthCurrents: the Struggle for the World’s Soul. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995
Snyder, Howard, Salvation Means Creation Healed Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2011
Stiglitz, Joseph E. Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003.
Wilkinson, Loren, ed., Earthkeeping in the ‘90s: Stewardship of Creation. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991.
Wirzba, Norman. From Nature to Creation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015.
[1] Please see http://www.cop21paris.org/about/cop21.
[2] Howard Snyder, EarthCurrents: the Struggle for the World’s Soul, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995) 177-185. The chapter deals with the Gaia worldview and while is seems to be an attractive worldview, Snyder in this chapter highlighted the inadequacies of this worldview, 184ff.
[3] Matthew Sleeth, Serve God, Save the Planet – A Christian Call to Action. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007. This is perhaps the most recent book written from a pastoral perspective on being good stewards of God’s creation.
[4] Norman Wirzba, From Nature to Creation – A Christian Vision for Understanding and loving Our World, (Grand Rapids, MI; Baker Academic, 2015) 1.
[5] The encyclical has the subtitle, On Care for Our Common Home. Please see https://laudatosi.com/watch
[6] These include to a large extent the burning of fossil fuels, but also methane from fossil fuel extraction, from paddy fields (through rice cultivation), from fossil fuel extraction as well as from the rear end of cattle.
[7] The report may be found at http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf.
[8] Accordingly, Dr Watson’s ousting seems to be politically motivated. Please refer to the BBC News report at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1940117.stm
[9] As presented in a policy position paper on global warming by Christian Aid, http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/0011glob/globwarm.htm, accessed on Aug 2006.
[10] Please refer to online news at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article516033.ece
[11] Please refer to BBC online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2023835.stm
[12] http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0202/climate.html
[13] Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat – A Brief History of the Globalized World in the 21st Century, (London: Allen Lane, 2005).
[14] Larry Rasmussen, “Global Ecojustice,” Mission Studies VVI-I, 31, (1999) 127-131.
[15] Ibid, 127.
[16] Andy Ho, “Who or What is the Real Culprit?” The Straits Times, 1 May 2007, Available from http://www.asiaone.com/a1news/20070503_story8_1.html; internet; accessed 22 Jul 2007.
[17] AFP, “Sun’s in the clear over global warming”, Yahoo News (Singapore) Online, available from http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070711/twl-climate-warming-sun-4bdc673.html; internet, accessed on 22 Jul 2007.
[18] We need to bear in mind that the spokesperson for An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore was the Democrat candidate who ran against George Bush in the 2000 elections and lost by so close a margin that till today is the brunt of jokes with regards to the American Presidential elections.
[19] Ross Langmead, “Ecomissiology,” Missiology: An International Review, Vol XXX, No. 4 (October 2002) 506.
[20] Vinay Samuel and Chris Sugden, Mission as Transformation: A Theology of the Whole Gospel, (Oxford, UK: Regnum Books, 1999) 348.
[21] Please refer to the following webpage http://www.byfaithonline.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID323422%7CCHID664014%7CCIID2257730,00.html
[22] Luis Wesley de Souza, “The Wisdom of God in Creation: Mission and the Wesleyan Pentalateral”, in Global Good News: Mission in a New Context, Snyder, ed. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001) 144-146 gives various specific examples from the works of John Wesley.
[23] Stephan B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992) 16.
[24] Donald Senior and Carrol Stuhlmueller, The Biblical Foundations for Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000) 326ff.
[25] Ross Landmead, “Ecomissiology”, 509.
[26] Vinay and Sugden, eds., Mission as Transformation, 349.
[27] Ross Landmead, “Ecomissiology”, 512.
[28] Archbishop Anastasios, “Toward a Global Community: resources and responsibilities”, in Facing the World: Orthodox Christian Essays on Global Concerns. (NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), 37.
[29] John Houghton, Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 152.
Worship Through The Holy Land
A reflection from Darryl Teo, a participant of the Bible Land Tour to Israel from 5 – 16 November 2016.
Spiritual Directors: Brendon and Cathie Clancy
READ MORE: https://www.bible.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Worship-Through-the-Holy-Land_Word@Work.jpg
Sarab’s story
28-year-old mum, Sarab, was walking to her house in Damascus, Syria when it was bombed right in front of her. This is her story of pain, fear and recovery in her own words…
Before the war, we lived a happy life in Damascus, Syria. It couldn’t have been better. The war was horrible. The bombing was aimed right at us.
A missile hit our house and it was destroyed completely. I was going to the house when it was destroyed right in front of me. I was crying. I was numb with shock. My kids were just 30-40 metres away from the house when it happened, and they saw it. My little boy had a rash from the shock.
We had no food
We stayed until early 2014. By then we had no food, no work. People were dying in front of us. We had to leave for our kids. The children were deeply affected by what they saw.
They had become aggressive and scared of anything. Even now they get very afraid when they hear planes. They suffer from nightmares. They would seem to be unconscious when they were awake. They wouldn’t respond to anything, it was like they were blank. They wouldn’t talk to me. They would wake up screaming. It broke my heart to see it.
I felt too weak to help my children through it. The biggest trauma was seeing my children traumatised and I couldn’t handle it. I was afraid they would get stuck like that.
The kids started to open up
We risked everything to bring them here to Jordan. We came in January 2014. As soon as we came, we started on the trauma healing workshop. The children started changing from the first session. They waited for the next one. They stopped thinking about war and looked forward to church.
The kids started to open up to something new. We have opened up towards Christianity. Where we lived were extremists. We didn’t want our kids to grow up like extremists, and now we know they can grow up in peace and love.
What I saw from Christians was love, and I haven’t seen that from anyone else. The children’s self-esteem is better and they are getting higher grades in school. They used to say bad things and have negative feelings.
Now they treat people with love and don’t say bad words any more. They respect the elderly. I’m very proud of them. It was worth the journey from Syria to see the transformation in my children.
My pain is overcome by joy
I wait for church by the minute. I’m very happy in church; I wake up early to go. The trauma healing and the way people have treated me has had a big impact. Their love has helped me free myself from anger. I’m still heartbroken about losing our old life, but I’m not angry.
My pain is overcome by joy when I see my kids getting over their misery and pain and being joyful again.
Sarab Al-Ahmad is 28 and is from Damascus, Syria.
“I learned that God is a healer”
Amin fled Syria with his children and grandchildren. He’s received trauma healing support from Bible Society and now he says, “God is a healer.”
It’s a warm, sunny day in the Jordanian town of Madaba. Parents are dropping their children off at school. The early morning bread sellers are out pushing their carts down the dusty roads.
And in the Church of St George, the first clutches of tourists are being introduced to one of the great sites on the pilgrimage trail: the Madaba Map. This is a mosaic map of the Middle East that dates back to the 6th century. It’s the oldest known map of the region. A lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same since it was pieced together.
Time and weather have destroyed some parts of the craftsmen’s art leaving blank bits where there were once cities, mountains and rivers. Today, politics and violence have destroyed some of the places on this ancient map. Some 1.6 million people from neighbouring Syria and Iraq have fled to Jordan in the last few years, increasing the country’s population by an estimated 20%.
They bring nothing with them but memories and trauma. It’s into that brokenness that the Bible Society of Jordan has stepped. For the last three years it has offered trauma healing to tens of thousands of adults and children alike. It is also providing much-needed aid and support to between 33-35,000 people a year.
God is a healer
Trauma healing is not a fix-all. But for many, both Christians and Muslims alike, these Bible-based group conversations can be the chance to talk about their experiences; for someone to listen to them; and to try to find hope and God in the midst of it all.
One of them is former cattle merchant, Amin Ahmad Mash-hoor, 54. He, his wife, daughters and grandchild welcome us into their home. It’s a sparsely-furnished, very basic place, but tea is served as we sit on the mattresses and talk about life.
Amin, who is from Homs in Syria, talks about his love for the cattle he worked with, how he misses them and the daily life of working outdoors. The family fled Homs four years ago because of the effect it was having on his children and grandchildren.
“The children saw bombs and people killed and injured on the ground,” says Amin. “We took refuge in a neighbouring Christian village but they couldn’t take us all because 17,000 of us had fled. I have two grandchildren who came with me. One had a heart condition and the other, his hair had stopped growing because of shock.”
For three-and-a-half years the family, who come from a Muslim background, have been attending the local church. Set up by Pastor Amjad, who is also Bible Society’s trauma healing counsellor for the city, the congregation is now 200-strong. Like Amin, 80% of those who attend, are Muslims.
They met Pastor Amjad – who is dying of cancer – when both he and Amin’s grandson were in hospital. Pastor Amjad arranged for the child to have heart surgery, for which the local church paid. And he sent them on trauma healing courses.
Amin says it’s helped the whole family. “The war impacted me psychologically. But now we are at ease because our grandchildren have someone taking care of them. Through the years that we’ve been going to church, many people were affected by what they saw. They were all healed of their trauma.”
“I learned,” he adds, “that God is a healer. When I didn’t count on my age and experience, but on God, then I was healed.”
Everything falls into place with love
After we’ve sipped our mint tea, Pastor Amjad sits down with the family and reads the Bible with them. He reads from 1 Corinthians 13.13, ‘And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.’
“Everything falls into place with love,” he says.
Pastor Amjad was diagnosed with cancer more than a decade ago. Doctors told him to go home and die. It was too late to treat him, they said. Instead, he prayed that God would give him 15 years to work for him. He’s come to the end of that time.
“Why,” I ask him, “are you spending your dying days providing trauma healing for refugees?”
“This is the heart of Christ,” he says. “God put them on my heart. God brought the Syrians to me so I can serve them. They come with very negative thoughts, with hate in their hearts. They want revenge. But with the Spirit’s work we have made a difference. We focus mainly on the children as they are damaged from the war. If we work hard with them, they will grow up to be a new generation.”