| Pastor: | Well did you get to look at the story? |
| Professor: | Yeah. I read it. |
| Pastor: | What did you think? |
| Professor: (sitting down) | Well first off, the anthropology in the story is pretty bad. I mean, it sounds like a bunch of Native Americans from an old "B" western that got transplanted to the jungle in Africa. Some of the tribal customs would be more appropriate for a tribe in the grasslands, some parts were more like jungle tribes, and where in the heck did they get chickens. Wasn't this set in the early 1800's |
| Pastor: | Well of course it is fiction. I always assumed the author mixed a bunch of cultures to make the story more generic. |
| Prof: | And as far as the business about Christianity not changing the culture, I think the story proves my point. This kid was not able to teach his people Christianity without changing their culture and violating their traditions. |
| Pastor: | Well of course Christianity will change any culture it touches. But did it Westernize it? |
| Prof: | Well I suppose not. But after this kid brought Christianity back to his tribe, the old culture was forever changed. |
| Pastor: | And you would argue that the old tradition of infanticide if the first born was female is a cultural heritage worth preserving? |
| Prof: | Well, no. |
| Pastor: | What I believe is that Christianity, properly interpreted, will change any culture it touches for the better. |
| Prof: | Yeah, but who decides what is better? |
| Pastor: | Well of course that is a difficult question. But when it comes to the larger issues, the main themes of Christianity, I think there is no question. Respect for human life, respect for all persons regardless of race, sex, or cultural origin, and the primacy of unselfish love as a guide for human action, these are the foundations of Christian missions. |
| Prof: | Well that is very idealistic. And if it were true, it would be hard to argue with that. |
| Jerry: | What I kept thinking after I read the story is what would happen if 50 years later the villages decided to open up to let some outsiders in. And a missionary came to teach the Jaku, or whatever they were called, Christianity. My guess is the missionary would tell them this Son of the Great Spirit was a false god and that they must quit worshiping him and call on the name of Jesus in order to be saved. The missionary would teach them they must start wearing clothes, stop having sex before they got married, stop peircing parts of their bodies, and stuff like that. |
| Todd: | Yeah, it didn't sound to me like the kid was teaching them Christianity at all. |
| Hoss: | Was too. |
| Pastor: | A lot of Christians get the idea that the name Jesus is some kind of magic word. That unless you believe in that very word spelled with a capital J, you aren't a Christian. In fact, there are no magic words in Christianity. Jesus was named "Jesus" because that was the most common boys name in his time. If he came today he'd be named John Doe. I've always thought he was named that just because the name was so common; so that it would be harder for people to attribute special powers to the name. |
| Prof: | Yeah, but I'll bet if missionaries came to the villages of the Jaku they'd teach the people that they had these spirits called souls living in them that were going to live forever and would fry in hell for an eternity if they didn't do exactly what the missionary said. |
| Pastor: | Well, I guess the story never says whether the Jaku had a belief in life after death as part of their culture. Certainly, the story never says anything about B'MenshKi teaching the people about life after death. But most cultures do have such a belief. |
| Prof: | Would it matter if they didn't? Isn't the point of the story, that the essence of Christianity is the part that B'MenshKi taught his people? |
| Pastor: | I guess so. I haven't thought about it much. That's a real interesting question. |
Copyright © 1996 Steve Falkenberg