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By Richard Hamilton, April 15, 2007 10:47 pm

American churches have certainly done their share of global missionizing. Chances are, if you are part of a church, it supports some international ministry, churches, church planting organizations, benevolent humanitarian work. I wonder, however, what we are hoping to accomplish with these efforts. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not belittling cross-cultural evangelism, nor am I questioning the intentions of missionaries. I am, however, questioning American Christian expectations of these works. I wonder if we are evangelizing for Christ or for western American culture. Are we hoping people will encounter Christ or conform to our culture? Here are a few trends that concern me:

American cultural and social values are enforced internationally. Venerating American traditions is bad enough here in the states, but I’ve heard of churches that celebrate the 4th of July in Europe.

American educational models of discipleship dominate many missionary works. One simply needs to look at the failings of our public education system to see the problem with this.

American political structures have become the international model for church polity. Does anyone really believe that we have perfected church governance by mixing pseudo-biblical principles and the 7 habits of highly effective people?

Cheesy American “praise” music has found its way into churches world-wide. Someone along the way was able to convince missionaries that translating the words was as good as translating the culture.

Here’s the deal, Americans (especially religious ones) think its all about them us. This is reflected in left-behind pop-Christian end times theology, “seeker sensitivity”, the “worship war(s),” the list goes on. The American Christian colonization must end, but until we take the focus off of us and return it to Christ, I’m afraid it won’t.

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By Richard Hamilton, March 27, 2007 10:44 pm

The practice of fasting in protest, holding a “hunger strike,” is not new. It is thought by some that the practice has roots in ancient hospitality customs. The accuser would take up residence at the door of the offender’s home and refuse to eat and drink until the wrong was set right. The high value of hospitality in these cultures would force the offender to either besmirch their good name by admitting wrongdoing or, through the ultimate act un-hospitality, letting someone die of starvation at their home. This precarious position would often force the offender’s hand.

Political prisoners have successfully used starvation to create awareness of their cause and turn the tide of popular opinion. During his frequent incarcerations, Mohandas Gandhi used hunger strikes to tarnish the image of Britain. The British could not let Gandhi die in their custody; this afforded him much political leverage. Gandhi’s cause: the end of British occupation in India. Akbar Ganji, an Iranian journalist, was imprisoned in Evin prison for his participation in a conference in Berlin held by Heinrich Boell Foundation under the title “Iran after the elections” which was labled “Anti-Islamic.” Ganji was on a hunger strike for mid-May until mid-August 2005 (with the exception of the 15 days he was granted leave). Ganji’s cause: freedom of speech, justice, human rights, and democracy. Ganji wrote of himself, during his hunger strike, “I am now the symbol of justice.”

What cause will motivate Americans? What will be their fight? Civil liberties? Economic freedom? Ecology? Ending AIDS or poverty?

One American activist, who goes by the moniker “J,” has found a cause worthy of her energy. She is currently 11 days into her hunger strike. J’s cause: the integrity of American Idol. She writes, “This to us is a form of passive resistance to support a cause! It’s more about preserving the goals of American Idol.” According to the “freedom fighter,” “the talent-less American Idol contestant Sanjaya needs to be voted off the show so other talented contestants who deserve a chance to win are being eliminated because there are other people that think it would be funny to try to sabotage American Idol by voting for a lesser contestant.” She has launched myspace.com/starvationforsanjaya to track the progress of her hunger strike.

Is there a vast tone-deaf conspiracy keeping talent-less hacks like Sanjaya in the running to be the next American Idol? Yes. Votefortheworst.com was established for exactly that purpose. “American Idol is not about singing at all, it’s about making good reality TV and enjoying the cheesy, guilty pleasure of watching bad singing.”

Is this a fight worth fighting? In response to her detractors, J writes, “Many people have also brought to our attention that there are many causes more important in the world to be concerned about other than American Idol. Yes, we know this. It’s not that we don’t care about or don’t support these other causes (I in fact, am a big supporter of Bono’s RED campaign), however this cause is something we are also passionate about and can see that many people also feel the same way.”

Starvation for Sanjaya has 1927 friends.

I guess Americans don’t have anything better to do with their time.

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By Richard Hamilton, March 22, 2007 10:38 pm

Because most people do not feel up to entering the debate arena, many Christians retreated to what I call “hit and run” evangelism. Christian bookstores are full of products to help these endeavors. My favorite product: the “Testamints.” Maybe you have seen them. Admittedly, I have even eaten a few. They are the mints, usually located by the register, that are wrapped with a Bible verse. Christians who do not feel qualified or prepared to debate can simply leave a punily named mint with a morsel of God’s Word for their unsuspecting friend or coworker to discover. This type of evangelism, although well intended, lacks the genuine connection many people are seeking. A church I once worked with decided to get groups together on a weekday evening to go visit people in the community. As a gesture of goodwill and with the intention of being friendly, they made sand-art cookie jars. Attached to the jars were usually a Bible verse and the contact info for the church. I thought it was a great idea. This small southern community was still very open to people coming to their homes and the combination of cookies and art was genius. The first night I showed up, we grabbed a few cookie jars and headed on our way. When I read the tags, I was stunned. A few of the jars had something like “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. -Luke 13:3″ written on the card. With some tweaking, the visits proved to be very successful for that church, but it makes me wonder what these well-intentioned people were hoping to accomplish. I think we hope that if we leave tidbits of faith around, we will not have to win over our friends with eloquent arguments and we will have still done our evangelistic duty.

Evangelism does not have to be like this. In fact, these approaches usually are not very effective because they do not take into account what people really need.

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By Richard Hamilton, March 21, 2007 10:37 pm

I often wonder what thoughts enter people’s minds when they hear the word “evangelism.” Often, evangelism is a thing of dread and terror. It causes many Christians to break out into cold sweats. To feel nauseous. To get all tongue-tied. Maybe a more important question is what thoughts enter the minds of those on the receiving end of Christian evangelist efforts. It’s quite likely they have been on the receiving end of a failed evangelistic attempt more than once. Often, the very thought of someone talking to them about Jesus makes them want to run for the hills.

Why is this? Why has evangelism become such a negative idea for so many people?

I believe it is partly because of what we [Christians] have made evangelism. Usually when churches “teach” evangelism, they teach how to debate and argue their points. “Be sure and cover this list.” “Argue this point.” “Throw in this Bible verse here.” “And never admit you don’t know or you were wrong.” Even the language we use brings to mind Court TV (“apologetics” and “evidence that demands a verdict”). Do not misunderstand me. There are times to defend Christian faith. There are times to discuss and even debate, but in many cases, debate is the only evangelism people know. I see two problems with this. First, a debate is a win-lose situation. When we enter a debate over faith and religion, it is with the unspoken understanding that someone will lose. Evangelism should be win-win. Second, debating takes a certain set of skills and a lot of prep-time. In High School I was on the debate team for a year. My event was called “Congress.” Each student submitted their legislation in advance and we came together to debate each document’s merit at competitions. At my first debate match, I came with a printout of each bill neatly tucked in a file folder, assured I was well prepared. As I passed through the classroom door, into the room where the debate was to be held, I noticed that everyone there had boxes upon boxes of material. Newspaper clippings. Computer printouts. Books. Magazines. Statistics. Analysis. Boxes and boxes of debate prep. Then, the debates started. High School students would stand behind a podium and rattle off quotes and statistics a mile a minute, all the while judges as stern as Simon Cowell (although luckily for me their criticisms were written not verbalized) critiqued your every word. I learned something that day: formal debate is for a select few. This is may be why many Christians leave evangelism to the “professionals”: paid church staff.

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By Richard Hamilton, March 19, 2007 10:32 pm

Last fall I came home and turned on my television to find that my networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX) were no longer on my Dish package. In their place was a message from the CEO of my provider, reassuring the public and giving up instructions on how to help remedy this issue. When someone has a mini-dish, they may receive networks from another area. The networks sued the dish providers, claiming that this is illegal distribution of their product. Our civil servants in Congress were working hard to pass a bill to remedy this disservice to the American public.

The implications began to dawn on me: no 24, Lost, The Office. It would have to find a place other than my home to watch my OSU Buckeyes play in the national championship game (I wish I had missed the game altogether.)

So I did something I had never done before: I called my representative and senator and urged them strongly to remedy this situation as quickly as possible.

Several thoughts dawned on me later.

How sad is it with all the things that should motivate me to apply pressure to political leaders, the only thing that ousted me from my apathy were the loss of four channels on my TV.

As disturbing as that may be, I vote every election and many people don’t even do that. The 2006-midterm elections marked a rise in voter turnout because just over 40% of registered voters voted. That number doesn’t even include those who are not even registered. It is always a mistake to rely on the government for anything, but it is an arena where we can influence what takes place in our country and around the world.

Equally as disappointing was the trivial nature of the things that motivate me. I didn’t call anyone about foreign policy, civil rights, disaster and hunger relief, or even the war on terror, because those things are only a mild irritant to a selfish person like myself. It was only when my routine was interrupted as I spurred to action.

I know there are many people like me, but justifying my apathy does not change it.