The Gospel is violence to those who believe.
I remember writing this down somewhere, sometime. I cannot remember where, I cannot remember when. It’s not here on medium, nor is it where I can find on my blog. Maybe I tweeted it. Maybe it’s on facebook. I don’t know.
But it’s been coming to mind, again and again, this past week. It would not let me go; I wrote it into fiction, I write it into this piece.
We’ve been talking about evangelism in CU (Christian Union, kind of like our Christian Fellowships in school/university). Which is a good thing. Because it’s good to be reminded to share the gospel.
But then it comes back again to that question:
How do you evangelise?
Do you shout the gospel down the ears of the unwilling? Do you relentlessly invite them to church until they give in and come just to shut you up? Why do you expect people to be open to the gospel when you are closed to whatever religion they believe in?
How does evangelism truly work?
Why would I invite anyone to the one place I harbour so much hatred for? — unrelated, but it’s interesting to note that when you show up in church with a friend or two, people notice and talk to you and your group. When you show up in church alone, you do the slow dance of wondering which conversation to interrupt and self-insert.
Again, I ask myself, is this a problem with me, or a problem with the church at large?
And why would I invite anyone to that?
The Gospel is coercive at best, violent at worst, bathed in blood — not just the blood of martyrs, but the blood of those who refused to believe.
The Crusades are not a myth. Colonisation is not harmless. Gospel, Gold and Glory was really not about the gospel.
What is unity in the church?
Because most times, when unity is sought, it’s taken to mean that you need to be one, to conform to the traditions of the western church, that the white man’s way is right, it’s better, it’s civilised. (Which is a strange thing to rail against when I am in the white man’s country, writing his language, speaking his tongue.)
In parallel, it’s like the Jews in Acts 15 insisting the Gentiles be circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, to be saved.
But what is diversity?
Is it just the colour of your skin or the language of your tongue? Is it just the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the external that is seen, heard, felt? Or is it the culture you grew up in, the nuances you instinctively understand that someone not of your culture, your country would not recognise?
If you put me in a room full of Chinese, you would have diversity. I do not understand the things they say, the things they do, the way they think.
If you put me in a room full of Malaysians, you would find unity, even though our skin colours do not match up.
A second-generation “immigrant” has a culture of their own. They straddle the divide between their parents who came of their own culture and the culture of the land they grew up in. They are neither one nor the other. They are both.
I once attended a Young Adult service full of second-generation East Asian Americans who could no more fit in seamlessly with their Chinese-speaking parents’ church than they could with an English-speaking Caucasian church. Though, I suspect, the latter might be easier.
It’s not wrong to want to be inclusive. But inclusivity is fraught with its own dangers, especially when it’s usually synonymous with conformity. We have forgotten the history of the church, where Peter addressed the apostles and the elders thus:
Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” — Acts 15: 7b-11 (NIV)
James affirms this later in the chapter, saying they should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.
But the church has forgotten that in the intervening years. In the cause of the Gospel, they have made everyone walk in the image of the White Man, who is Superior to All Else. They have imposed their tongue, their culture, their morals, and their prejudices on the world — and now they talk of diversity, as if by offering you a space at their table, laden with all the things they once wrested from you, they are doing you a favour.
In this fight for culture and heritage, in the raw wound of post-colonialism, I recognise the violence done to my roots, to my soul. I am still finding my way, seeking to understand faith and worship, to find belonging in the cracks of my ethnicity, my nationality, and my heart-language.
My roots are Chinese, my blood is Malaysian, and my tongue is English. I cannot be divided into my sub-parts, though the whole is not as coherent as it should be. Yet I don’t know how else to be.
The Gospel is violence to those who believe, but that violence is past and must be laid to rest. And maybe in this patchwork of understanding, in this reworking of faith, rebuilding of trust, re-rooting of self, I may find peace.
