My Big Question(s)

During last night's Journey Group, one of the new folks brought up a great question... one that has bothered me for a really long time, and has added to my avoidance of baptism. As this person is from a country where Christianity is practically non-existent, and Buddhism is prevalent, she asked what happens to the people who are "innocent" and never know about Christ. Folks who have never heard the name "Christ". Are they doomed? Are they predestined to sink to "hell"? What if these people are never "saved" or "repent"? Is it our job to try to recruit them into Christianity??

I admitted (vocally) that this was the reason that I don't believe in long-term mission trips for the religious purposes. I don't think that God wants me traipsing across the world trying to "force" or "influence" His word. I think that God wants me to travel the world and absorb culture, make use of my talents, and share what I have learned in my spiritual journey. Ninety percent of the world is not of Christian belief. Ninety percent. Is ninety percent of the world wrong? Can it be that ninety percent of the world is blind? Is ninety percent of the world's population damned?

In response to my annoyance with religious mission trips, I was "thumped". Bible thumped. I don't think that it was intentional, but it irritated me all the same. I found this intimidating. I became enraged, but was able to maintain my dignity (with Alicia's help).

She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. ~Proverbs 31:25 (This is one of my favorite verses)

I am having problems with what God wants from our world. Does He want us to scare people into hearing His word? Or does he want us to live and work for Him?



In 'Good News About Injustice', Gary Hugen tells us that God hates injustice. God wants His children to act to fight injustice on His behalf. Our world is selfish. We want what we want. We act for our own needs and wants. We do for ourselves and see nothing wrong with this. What are we doing for the rest of the world? What are we doing for the other ninety percent, some of which are living in poverty, slavery, abusive relationships, hunger, despair?

We should not, of course, imagine God being angry like we are-- irrational, disproportionate and rooted in fear. For unlike us he does not sin in his anger. But neither should we imagine that God shares our emotional casualness about the suffering of those who are brutalized by the abuse of power in our world. As we might feel about anyone who terrorized our child before our eyes, so we might imagine God's passionate response to those who abuse the people made in His image.

And the Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene. ~Isaiah 59:15-16

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" ~Isaiah 6:8

I find myself laying in bed each night praying to God for guidance with the problems of the world. When negativity is all around me, I have to remember that it's worse in the brothels of India. Suffering is horrible in the cocoa fields in Asia. Human slavery exists in our world, and God wants us to bring it to an end. He wants us to act, breath, bleed, and speak on His behalf.