Another Take on the World Vision Question

Last Week I wrote about the controversy revolving around the international Christian charity World Vision and its decision, quickly reversed, to employ same-sex married Christian couples.  I wrote about the issue in terms of real, living children overseas who have developed long-distance relationships with their sponsors, and I will not back off my stance that breaking off such a relationship once it is formed is wrong. Regardless of the fact that the child will still receive World Vision benefits through his or her community, Christians should not abandon or reject kids they have started a relationship with, even if it's a very long-distance one.

But Rod at the Political Jesus Blog has added an important perspective to the discussion that needs to be taken seriously.  He asks the question: Are African, Indian, South American children being used as pawns in the White Culture Wars?  

The thing is that in focusing on the gay-marriage issue here in the United States and fighting among ourselves over it (with non-white children overseas caught in the middle as both sides accuse each other of not doing what's best for those kids) Christians in the white majority culture on both sides of the issue may be blind to our own self-centeredness.  And we seem to be missing the bigger question: Are World Vision and other Western-created charities actually the best way to give to poor children in other nations?

The problem is that as white American Christians, we have a weakness for falling into what the By Their Strange Fruit Blog calls a "white savior complex":

The 'white savior complex' is a perception that white folk have that they are the benevolent benefactors of helpless 'others.'. . The 'white savior complex' is particularly strong when it comes to white aid in Africa. . .Often church missions have a concept of the 'poor starving children of Africa' and very little understanding of the self-empowerment and independence that can thrive in our absence.

As Rod at Political Jesus put it:

Both sides (in their blog posts), were more than eager to press this story as one where we had to “save the children.” At no one point were the problematic practices of World Vision, its advancement of White Saviorism through its advertisements or its questionable method of “child-sponsorships” (but not really child-sponsorships) ever put under scrutiny. . . African and other nations populated by darker skinned people are represented time and again as the passive recipients of white benevolence. This “help” however, is just a re-hashing of old Western-style colonialism brought to those countries by missionaries. [Emphasis in original]

 To be fair to World Vision, they are aware of this weakness and have published an online paper about improving their accountability in this and other areas:

A related mistake is to ignore our ‘inbound’ accountability to listen and learn from the poor. The good news of Jesus implores us to seek only the best for the other. Ministry approaches which breed dependency, or which are patronising, or paternalistic, or which treat the poor as our “clients” diminish the Good News. All parts of our global family must be respectfully and sensitively engaged.  It has been wisely observed that “The Christian gospel has sometimes been made the tool of imperialism and of that we have to repent.”

Other Western Christian charities, such as Kinexxus, seem to have done their homework on this issue and are striving to overcome it:

Mission organizations and humanitarian agencies that operate from the same misguided assumptions that Africans are too poor or incapable of doing anything significant to bring about development to their communities only reinforce a receivership mentality. They come to Africa with a heart of compassion and noble intentions to alleviate the suffering of an impoverished people. But if they don’t take the time to understand the community and cultural worldview they are entering or attempt to learn even simple greetings in the local language, these well-intentioned “do-gooders” run the risk of rushing in and unconsciously imposing their will – utilizing material resources to gain control so they can make their project “happen.” The results will be short-lived and often counterproductive. The local community will not own the project, nor will they feel any obligation to maintain it.

Still, as I've been looking into this matter, it seems to me that for those who have not already committed to a relationship with a sponsored child (who need to keep that commitment), the best way to help impoverished people on other continents is to help those churches and other charities that are indigenous to the countries in which those people live, who already understand the issues and problems unique to those regions, and to whose knowledge and expertise we ought to be deferring.

As By Their Strange Fruit goes on to say:

The 'white savior complex' is basically based in pride. It reveals an attitude of superiority and paternalism, . . .Rather than perpetuate the myth that white folk are somehow the world's saving grace, we need to empower others to take the lead.

And of course, when indigenous charities and churches already are taking the lead, the best we can do is get on board to help them.  

For instance, we can contribute to the African Independent Churches that are local to countries we want to help:

Even though the denominational, ritual, and linguistic diversity of these churches makes it difficult to analyze and classify, the common thread uniting all of the Christian churches is that they were all established by African initiative rather than by foreign missionary agendas. Even though many of these churches have traditional denominational names and relationships, they are not defined by these traditions. These churches emphasize that they are established and led by Africans. In addition, all AICs place emphasis on the biblical warrant to include African cultural norms into their modes of worship, theology, and practice, though to varying degrees.

A link to the webpage for contributing to African Independent Churches is here. For those who want to help poor people in the Western hemisphere, there is a Pasadena-based ministry which specifically empowers indigenous church leaders in Latin America: Latin American Indigenous Ministries.  Or we can contribute to secular charities whose founders are native to an area we want to help, such as the Wayuu Taya Foundation, which empowers and aids indigenous Latin American peoples in many countries, or Alaffia, which is involved in communities in West Africa.

It's important to develop the humility to see that other people groups are quite capable of helping their own poor, and that God has already provided for leaders there.  Sometimes we white Western Christians aren't meant to be the team captains, but the water carriers; not the heroes, but the sidekicks.

But one thing we want to try hard not to be is the villains.  And historically, too often that's exactly what we have been.  We've got to open our eyes to this and work on breaking the cycle.

The key with overseas charity is to stop talking and begin listening-- to stop trying to teach and open ourselves to learn.

The Bible and Human Authority, Part 3: The Great Chain of Being

In Parts 1 and 2 we examined what the Bible actually teaches about human authority. God in the Old Testament simply does not appear to be interested in setting up human authority structures, but rather prefers to raise up individual, Spirit-led leaders who act in God’s authority, not as part of a top-down chain of command. And though the New Testament teaches submission to earthly institutions of human authority, its focus is on the new kingdom of God, in which hierarchies of human authority are eliminated in favor of equal brother-sister relationships.

So where did the idea come from, that there is top-down chain of command from God, both in earthly and in spiritual relationships, with human authority structures in every area of life?

Plato (429-347 BC) was possibly the greatest of the Greek philosophers. He conceived of the nature of reality to consist first of ideal “Forms,” and then objects/beings which were types of each ideal. Plato conceived of the Form of Absolute Good as the ultimate, universal object of human desire, and this Idea of the Good became synonymous with God in the writings of his student, Aristotle. In order to be the ultimate Good, God would, in Absolute generosity, also give existence to every other possible good thing. Aristotle then arranged all creatures into a graded scale according to how closely they approached “perfection.” The Neo-Platonists, a group of Greek philosophers in the 3rd-5th centuries AD, who expanded Plato and Aristotle’s ideas, particularly in terms of religion and spirituality, developed this notion further. Macrobius, a Neo-Platonist writing in the early fifth century AD, wrote:

“[T]he attentive observer will discover a connection of parts, from the Supreme God down to the last dregs of things, mutually linked together and without a break. And this is Homer’s golden chain, which God, he says, bade hang down from heaven to earth.” (Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, Harper & Brothers (1936) p. 63.)

This idea of a graded, hierarchical creation came to be known as the “Great Chain of Being.” Alan Myatt, in his paper “On the Compatibility of Ontological Equality, Hierarchy and Functional Distinctions,” writes:

“As Greek philosophical notions were appropriated by early Christian apologists in their defense of the faith, it [the idea of the Great Chain of Being] eventually became entwined with the theology of the church and set the agenda for its theory of society. . . In the Middle Ages, this concept translated into the division of society into ‘Three Estates,’ each stratified according to the Chain of Being. The first estate consisted of church officials beginning with the pope. . . The second estate included the ruling classes of kings, nobility and knights, while the peasants and merchants made up the third estate. Any violation of the established authority within each estate was seen as a threat to the creation order, and subversive to the state and to the stability of Christian culture. Any attempt to leave one’s place in the chain was therefore an act of rebellion. It is critical to note that in the family, there was a hierarchical ordering of husband, wife, children and servants. Each was subordinate to the previous due to their immutable places in the Chain of Being.”

By Elizabethan times (1500s), the Chain of Being had become “one of those accepted commonplaces, more often hinted at or taken for granted than set forth.” (Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture, Vintage Books, page 26.) The Elizabethan philosophers and theologians envisioned not just a hierarchical gradation of beings, but a “primacy” within each specific class of beings, such as “the dolphin among fishes, the eagle among birds, the lion among beasts, the emperor among men.” Ibid, p. 29-30. This conception of hierarchy among the animals is never hinted at in the biblical creation story— but it became part of Christian/Western thought through the infusion of pagan philosophy. Even now we still think of the lion as “the king of beasts.”

Another “commonplace” assumption of Elizabethan times was that “the order in the state duplicates the order of the macrocosm.” Ibid, p. 88. The Homily of Obedience written in 1547 stated,

“In the earth God has assigned kings, princes with other governors under them, all in good and necessary order. The water above is kept and raineth down in due time and season. The sun, moon, stars, rainbow, thunder, lightening, clouds, and all birds of the air do keep their order.” Ibid, p. 88.

Thus, building upon Greek pagan thought, the idea of a hierarchical order of authority in every strata of human relations, based upon the order of creation, became infused with Christianity to the point where no one even thought to question it. This legacy became part of our Western conception of the universe, which still exists today. Alan Myatt notes that a hierarchical understanding of the universe is the tendency in eastern systems of thought as well, “so universal in human society that it could be said to be the default mode of human existence.” He adds that in our churches today, “Traditional hierarchical biblical interpretation has been filtered through the lens of a cultural vision of human relations compromised by a pagan worldview [which] effectively blinded it to the egalitarian implications of the biblical text.” In other words, hierarchical thinking is so natural for humans, and so much a part of our Western mentality, that we have been reading it back into the biblical texts ever since the end of the Age of the Apostles.

With regards, then, to Jesus’ submission to the Father as a justification for hierarchy in human relationships (and particularly in marriage)— it seems apparent that the notion of the Trinity as a hierarchy of authority between Father, Son and Holy Spirit is a continuation of this notion of the Great Chain of Being into the Godhead Itself. But is this the way the Bible actually describes the submission of the Son to the Father? Or to put it another way, is the submission of the Son to the authority of the Father shown by the Bible to be an eternal, divine absolute? Or was the submission of the Son to the Father a temporary matter, tied to the Son’s taking on of human nature and walking on earth as an example of human obedience? Is Jesus’ submission to the Father’s authority human and temporal, or divine and eternal?

Philippians 2:6-9 says that Jesus was “in the form of God, [and] thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” And Hebrews 2:9 says, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”

These verses show that Jesus laid down His complete equality with the Father in order to take on human nature and become an obedient servant. There is no indication that Jesus was subject to the Father, or under the Father’s authority, prior to this event, or that it continued after He had “tasted death” and then been “crowned with glory and honor.” It was only for a little while, during His time on earth, that He was made “ a little lower than the angels,” which according to Hebrews 2:6-7 is the nature of humanity. The state of the Son now, according to Phil. 2:9, is that “God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name.” There is no indication that a state of authority and subordination continues to exist at the present time between the Father and the Son.

In fact, the very idea of authority and subordination within the Godhead in Its eternal divinity is actually incoherent. The triune God is One—three Persons, distinguishable but not divisible, Who in eternity are completely of one Will. Authority makes no sense unless there is a need for obedience; and there can be no need for obedience when there is no difference in wills. The Father did not want to send the Son to earth more than the Son wanted to go. The only time during which the wills of the Father and the Son could diverge, was when the human needs and desires of the incarnated, human Christ conflicted with His divine purpose. This is why Hebrews 5:8 says He “learned obedience by the things which he suffered.” Obedience was something the Son needed to learn on earth, because it could not have had any existence or meaning in the divine eternity of the Trinity, where there was nothing the Son wanted that the Father and the Spirit did not also want.

Even during Jesus’ time on earth we see incidents where Their divine mutuality shows. When soldiers come to arrest Jesus in Matthew 26:53, Jesus says, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently [at once] give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be [that the Christ must die]?” Jesus was confident that the Father would do whatever Jesus wanted— but Jesus Himself was choosing to do what needed to be done.

In John 5:19, Jesus explains, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” He does not say that the Son does what the Father tells Him to do, but what He sees the Father doing. The Son is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15) and “the express image of his person” (Heb. 1:3). This is an aspect of the divine mystery of the Trinity, and because of this, it isn’t really a good idea to try to compare human relationships, such as husbands and wives, to the interrelationships of the infinite Godhead. In any event, this comparison seems largely to be done as a justification of male authority over the female in marriage, rather than because the Bible itself makes any such comparison.

What, then can we say about 1 Cor 11:3: “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God”? As I have explained in detail elsewhere, the context surrounding 1 Corinthians 11:3 leads to understanding the word “head” in that verse as meaning “origin” or “source.” And what the passage actually says is that God is the “head” of “Christ,” not of “the Son.” “Christ means “the Anointed One/Messiah,” and refers specifically to the Son in His relations to humanity. He is the “Lamb, slain from the Foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8), which means that since the Creation Jesus has, first by anticipation and then by actuality, been the “Christ.” “God is the head [origin] of Christ” because it was from God that Christ came into the world. “Christ is the head [origin] of man” because, according to 1 Cor. 8:6 and Col 1:15, all things, including man, were created by and through Christ. “Man is the head [origin] of woman” because the first woman was taken out of the man’s side; but Paul goes on to say that even as the woman came from the man (at creation), so man comes from woman (in childbirth), and all things come from God (1 Cor. 11:12). This passage is not setting up a hierarchy: God-Christ-man-woman— because it is not stated in that order; instead, it is given in chronological order according to when each came into the world: the man, created by and through Christ; then the woman, taken out of the man; then the Christ, sent by God.

The last passage to address is 1 Cor. 15:28, the main passage used to support the idea that the Son is meant to be eternally, divinely under the authority of the Father: “And when all things shall be subdued to him [the Christ], then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” The context of this passage is the final redemption of the creation and the resurrection of the dead. Christ, being the first resurrected, is called the “firstfruits” of the resurrection (verse 20). Verse 21 points out that the verse is specifically about Christ as “man,” undoing the death that came through the first man, Adam, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (verse 22). Verse 24 says that the end will be consummated when Christ “delivers up the kingdom to God, even the Father.” Verses 26 and 27 speak of how “all things” (the entire creation) shall be put under Christ’s feet, with death the last enemy to be conquered. This shows a dynamic movement of authority between the Father and Jesus as the Christ, so that it is Christ, being Himself part of the creation in His humanity, who is in authority over the creation at this present time. The Father is not under Christ’s authority (“he is excepted, which did put all things under him”), but neither is the Father in authority over the creation: He has given that to Christ. In the end, then, Christ, now spoken of as “the Son” shall “also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him.” If anything, this speaks against the idea of eternal, divine subordination of the Son, for if there is going to come a time when the Son becomes subject to the Father, the fact is that He is not subject now, or there would be no point of speaking of a future time.

Greek scholar Philip Payne, in his book Man and Woman, One in Christ, points out that a distinction is being made between “God the Father" in verse 24, and “God” (“the God” in the original language, with definite article “the”) in verse 28. Verse 24 speaks of Christ as Man, Himself partaking of the nature of created things, Who will as the Ruler of the creation, give it up to the Father at the end. Verse 28 then says that as the Son, he will be subjected (or possibly, "subject Himself”) to the Father, that “the God” will be “all in all.” As Payne says, “Accordingly, 1 Cor 15:28 . . . may be better translated, ‘so that the Godhead may be all in all.’” The form of future tense used for “will be subject” does not, according to Payne, indicate that the thing being done “will be the condition forever thereafter.” (Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ, Zondervan (2009), p. 134-135.) If it did, it would contradict Ephesians 1:21, which says that God has placed Christ above all rule and power and “every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the one to come.” (Emphasis added.) Rather, this passage may be seen as a one-time event at the end of this creation, that lays to rest the issue of authority as it exists in this creation, by placing it all under the Christ as Man (a Creature of this creation)— and then Jesus as the Son, with all the rule and authority He has as Christ-Man, placed under the Father, that the divine Godhead (Father, Son and Spirit) may be “all in all.”

In other words, the New Testament shows God the Father and God the Son sharing authority over the creation, so that it moves back and forth between them depending on times and circumstances. Authority of the Father over the Son only makes sense within the human nature of the Son, not in His divine eternity with the Father and the Spirit. We cannot, then, use the submission of the Son to the Father at certain times and events as an indication that the nature of the Godhead is a divine hierarchy. In fact, if we view the Trinity as a permanent hierarchy within Its divine essence, then we must view the nature of the Father as essentially different from that of the Son, in that the Father is eternally suited to rule the Son and the Son is eternally suited to be ruled by the Father. However, for the Persons of the Trinity to be different in essence, contradicts the very nature of the Trinity, rendering them separate gods instead of One God.

To sum up, then: The Bible does not actually teach that God has a divine plan for authority such that there is a hierarchically ordered chain of command in every area of life, extending top-down from a hierarchical Trinity. The Bible teaches that in the New Creation, equality of status is the plan of God, with servanthood replacing authority, and those who lead, leading by example rather than by right. Jesus was quite accurate when He said that hierarchies of authority and rule were of the “Gentiles” in Matthew 20:25, because the concept known as the “Great Chain of Being” was formed in Greek thought and was never taught by our Savior. We are Gentiles also, and we have taken hierarchy for granted, missing the impact of Christ’s words that it is to be “not so among you,” for too long.

Does Someone Have to "Be In Charge" of Your Marriage?

Christian complementarianism often makes this argument, as explained in the book Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs:

“What your husband wants is your acknowledgement that he is the leader, the one in authority. This is not to grind you under or treat you as inferior. It is only to say that because God has made your husband responsible (review Eph. 5:22-33), he needs the authority to carry out that responsibility. No smoothly running organization can have two heads. To set up a marriage with two equals at the head is to set it up for failure. That is one of the big reasons that people are divorcing today.” page 221

My main issue with that is this: Why must some Christians insist that marriage is "an organization" or should work like one? Marriage is an organic unit, a synthesis, a joining of two into one body. It is, or should be, the best kind of best-friend relationship you could ever have.

Best friends do not need one of them to be the leader. In that case they wouldn't be best friends, they'd be hero and sidekick. One thing best friends never are, is boss and subordinate as in an employment model. As soon as you set up that model, the friendship has been compromised. That's why bosses are advised to never become close friends with their employees, but to always maintain a certain distance.

The Bible teaches that two people who are married become “one flesh,” not “one organization.” Christians through the ages have celebrated married love as a thing of divine (and mutual) oneness. A selection from Richard Cranshaw’s Poem “Epithalamium” from the 1600’s, is a good illustration:

May each maintain a well-fledged nest
Of winged loves in either’s breast;
Be each of them a mutual sacrifice
Of either’s eyes.

Oneness is never about who’s in charge. It’s about selfless giving, about mutual understanding and concern. It’s about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

Some may here be saying, “All right, marriage is not an organization. But surely running a home and family is? Does not the running of a home require an organization, and thus someone to be in charge?”

To this I would reply that not even in the business world are all organizational models founded on someone being in charge. Partnerships are a very viable business model; one that works well in a very small business with a small membership (any family with less than 15 children would surely fit this definition). When two partners have contributed equally to a venture, and both have equal risk, then neither one is in charge. Because of this, each has great incentive to work for consensus. In a marriage run on these principles, each partner would have a vested interest in listening to and finding ways to compromise with the other partner, so that the partnership would not fail. If a business partnership can work in this way, then a marriage can work as an organization for home management without losing its organic, best-friend structure of mutual love.

Does the Bible ever say, "in any human relationship, someone must be in charge"? If it does, I'd like to see the chapter and verse. I have never read anything that indicated that David and Jonathan, or Paul and Barnabus, considered one of them to be in charge of the other. This blog has already explored how Ephesians 5:21-33 actually reflects the intention of the Holy Spirit to lead Christian marriages out of the husband-rule paradigm of the culture in which it was written, and into mutuality.

If anyone is in doubt, let me ask this: Do you know of anyone who has proposed to his future wife in this manner?

“Honey, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Therefore, I am offering you entry into an organizational structure in which I am the boss and you the subordinate, and I will always have final say. You may have input, and I will listen to you if I think it’s in our best interests for me to do so, but remember, I am the one who will always decide what is in our best interests, and I will expect you to do your duty and go along with that, whether you like it or not. So-- with that understood, here’s the ring. Will you marry me?”

Do I hear wedding bells?