Engaging the World
For those who lead in mission, service and
peace ministries.
Scratch where it itches
By Byron Rempel-Burkholder
Last summer I visited with the editor of Misiker, the quarterly magazine of our sister denomination in Ethiopia, the Meserete Kristos Church. Fantahun proudly handed me a copy of the latest issue, hot off the press. The cover image jarred me: A masked man in black, holding an AK-47 looked menacingly at the reader. The issue theme, emblazoned in red: Terrorism.
“Terrorism,” I echoed. “Is that something that the Ethiopian church is dealing with these days?”
“Yes,” Fantahun said with a sly smile. “This issue is about spiritual terrorism. The articles are about how people can be liberated from the oppression of Satan in their lives.” He was clearly pleased with the cleverness of the metaphor.
Shedding prejudice
I felt I had been hoodwinked. I thought the magazine was going to offer ways of responding to the threat of physical violence on innocent people. At the very least, it would help readers deal with their fears of such events. After all, the US embassy bombings in neighboring Kenya and Tanzania were still fresh memories.
But as I got to know the Meserete Kristos Church and contemporary Ethiopian culture better, I realized that Fantahun may have been right on the mark in using the terrorist as a metaphor. Spiritual oppression is a social reality that Ethiopians name and recognize, perhaps more readily than we do. As I visited MKC brothers and sisters and worshipped in their churches, I heard many stories of how the gospel had liberated people from oppression of spirits. As I observed in Sunday services, exorcism is taken for granted as one of the ministries of the church.
How might this episode throw light on the outreach and service activities our congregations are engaged in? At the very least, it may suggest that we expand our repertoire of ministry. As my initial skepticism showed, it is easy to dismiss certain forms of witness because they don’t match our experience or might conflict with our own prejudices.
In Winnipeg, where I live, our witness may well take the form of a march protesting the violence of “war on terrorism.” It may mean bringing together Muslims and Christians to talk about the walls of hostility that divide us. It may mean taking on demons of militarism and consumerism as we write to our government leaders and simplify our Christmases. I laud mission committees and individuals who are active on those fronts; I’m often in those trenches myself.
Confronting a range of demons
But Fantahun taught me that if we are attentive to our world, God may also take us beyond these forms of witness. My time in Ethiopia made me more open to exorcism, for example, as a form of prophetic ministry—though it’s still way outside my comfort zone. If God is calling my congregation to touch the lives of people for whom the spirit world is where they “itch,” can we learn how to do it? A few years ago, as a pastor, I sent a recent immigrant to the Pentecostal church where they deal with “that kind of thing.” After my time in Ethiopia, I know now that that was an evasion.
But my encounter with the terrorist metaphor also forced me to consider other demons that we find closer to home. The books of therapist M. Scott Peck have taught me that the contemporary North American equivalent to “evil spirits” may be the vast arena of compulsive behavior. Our society, and sometimes our own churches, are awash in behaviors and habits that people find hard to control. The most obvious are alcoholism and drug addiction. But they also include enslaving patterns in our work ethic, our sexuality, our buying, our entertainment. Are these “terrorists” on the agenda of our mission and service committees?
To expand the borders of what we mean by prophetic witness is not to sideline the social justice ministries Mennonites tend to be good at. Our world needs those as badly as ever. But we dare not let them eclipse new responses God might be calling out in us as we listen to the heart-cries of our neighborhoods. We dare not let tried and true ministries become our new comfort zones. It is critical for us to stop, listen to the cultural and spiritual rhythms of the people God has called us to serve, pray for God’s direction, and bravely enter where prophets are needed.Byron Rempel- Burkholder is managing editor of Leader. Last summer he and his family lived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, doing volunteer work at the college of the MesereteKristosChurch, a member of the Mennonite World Conference.