The Irony of my Missions-Saturated Upbringing

I heard the Amy Carmichael story too, but like those little girls in India it was only one of millions and did not have nearly the impact on me as others did. For example, Dr. Helen Roseveare or Don Richardson or the late missionary linguist, David Watters, to name only three missionaries I remember vividly from missions conferences, all had a far greater impact on me. Perhaps the most formative impressions came from rather mundane conversations around our dinner table over the years with my parents’ legion of missionary friends. Pictures of these people hung on our massive kitchen bulletin board. We prayed for them, and we received their prayer letters, (a literary genre employing some of the poorest and least inspiring writing known to man. The exceptions are rare and precious.) The irony was that while these missionary stories and messages gave me much to consider in terms of the church universal and how the gospel comes to people who don’t know it, all the while they failed to address the problem of my own lack of understanding of the gospel. If I was to catalogue sermons I’ve heard and sort them according to text, (and this would be a very large catalogue) the tally for Acts 1:8, Matthew 28: 19-20, and/or Isaiah 6 would win hands down. All this emphasis on mission actually probably did some harm when disconnected from the gospel and nurtured in the heady rule-based culture of the college campus.

I have a few very close personal friends who are missionaries. The thing I know for sure is they are no different than I am, and have the same crises of faith and the same struggles relating to evangelical culture as I do. We probably wouldn’t be close friends if that weren’t true. Because of their elevated position in evangelical narratives of furthering the kingdom of God through what is perceived as an ultimate sacrifice of giving up their native land, language, culture, close proximity to family, etc., their spiritual crises are filled with even greater angst because while they do not think of themselves as impervious to run-of-the-mill human struggles, they feel that expectation placed on them by some of their supporters. They are very aware of their own weaknesses, and being on display to their supporters while they are struggling to figure out whether they even believe in what they are doing only makes it more difficult. To admit such a struggle feels risky, inviting criticism regarding their spiritual qualifications to do the task, and so they struggle on alone, coerced to play the heroic role given to them by evangelicalism. One of my dearest friends is in this situation right now. I can pray. I can affirm the value of the struggle. God has to do the rest, just as he is doing for me.

testing, testing

so, where were we?

this blog continues a conversation started on hausfrau, about sorting through the evangelical culture and practices of our individual and collective childhoods. austin called it "the spiritual hangover." perhaps this conversation could be "the spiritual strong cup of coffee" that helps the hangover pass. that may be too much to hope for, but you have to try, right?

one guideline at the beginning:

mere griping about how annoying evangelicals were/are just isn't that interesting. same with gloating about how glad we feel, now that we're over it. that's not really interesting, either. there are tons of places online for that kind of thing, but this blog is for working toward something more nuanced and productive. like, how to live like a christian in the aftermath. so, be truthful, be observant, be amused, be mad, be conflicted, be critical, etc., but please keep contempt out of the picture. not that i think it'll be a problem for any of you; mainly a word to me.

to kick us off, a few choice thoughts from your comments in the past post:

andrea said:
Coming from a completely pragmatic background, but with such missionary stories also read to me, I was told that daily prayer and Word-time was necessary to fuel my fire, but I also wrestled with the expectation that we were all to be missionaries to the ends of the earth (even jerusalem, judea and samaria were not far-reaching enough--- it had to be to the ends of the earth). So what the heck am I doing in Wichita?

caron said:
i think i may be JUST GETTING TO THE POINT of owning my theology (that wasn't there during the growing up years because we were too busy doing anything other than reading the bible). the application of theology that i've studied and believed over the past 8 or 9 years is just now happening.

carla said:
I struggle to write about this stuff. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because I struggle to write about it without using tired church language. Perhaps there's a certain amount of embarrassment that much of my struggle has been related to my whole hearted embracing of the "self aggrandiz[ing]" belief that my life would be different, set apart, and my difficulty reconciling that with comparatively normal thoughts I'm thinking and life I'm leading.

discuss. :)