It is an alarming experience to be, in your person, representing Christianity to the natives.
― Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa
In the early decades of the 20th century, Karen Blixen-Finecke–who wrote under the name of Isak Dinesen–traveled to Africa with her husband, Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, to operate a coffee farm near Nairobi. Because her husband was more interested in hunting than farming, Karen was generally left on her own to navigate the world of coffee farming and to learn about and tend to the native Kikuyu people who lived in the area and worked on the farm. She provided the Kikuyu with medical services and a school for their children, and she often served as the sole Christian witness in their midst. Ultimately, after struggling to keep the farm afloat, Karen decided to return to her home in Denmark after appealing to the colonial authorities on behalf of the Kikuyu who’d made their homes and livelihood on the farm.
Years ago, I traveled to Nigeria with a Christian mission team. Half of our team were medical professionals who offered eye care and performed cataract surgeries, and half of our team were educators who helped to organize two libraries, one in a secondary school and one in a seminary. We spent three weeks living and working in both rural and urban settings, sleeping under mosquito nets, and enjoying the hospitality of so many Nigerians. But unlike Blixen, we weren’t solely responsible for representing Christianity to the natives, for there were many native Christians in our midst, and their witness to us was undoubtedly more powerful and lasting than ours to them. Even to this day, their Christian witness humbles me as I recall the joy and gratitude they demonstrated in their daily activities.
Honestly, I’ve found myself in many situations throughout my life that have made me wonder if I were representing Christianity to the natives. That is, I found myself immersed in and challenged by a cultural shift towards a more progressive form of Christianity that purports to be a kinder, gentler, more inclusive faith, an improvement on the orthodox faith that many in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant churches have held for centuries. And I’ve thought hard about the position that Karen Blixen-Finecke found herself in as she lived among the Kikuyu people, about the responsibility she must’ve felt to witness well. I’ve thought about this because I, too, feel a tremendous responsibility to be a true and faithful witness for my faith. There is no greater privilege and no greater challenge than to defend orthodoxy.
People who are much smarter, much more experienced and studied than I am have written about and spoken in defense of an orthdox Christian faith since almost the beginning of the church. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul writes to many churches, warning them of the errors of their thinking and practices, and reminding them that the gospel message must not be altered. He writes to the Galations to set them straight about the Judaizers in their midst who were preaching an altered gospel that added a “works” requirement for their salvation. Even a few years after Christ had been crucified and resurrected, the orthodox Christian faith was being tested and altered. Paul and his fellow apostles were powerful witnesses intent on representing Christianity to the natives–sadly, even to the natives who’d previously received and accepted the good news of the gospel.
I’m painfully aware of a common accusation that those who hold an orthodox faith are intolerant, exclusive, and harmful individuals: Pharisees or stuffy academics who rarely leave their ivory towers. The continued challenge of my Christian witness has been to hold firm to the orthodox Christian principles and practices of my faith while acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with my God [Micah 6:8]. I know some insist that orthodox believers–those who subscribe to the essentials of Christian faith as revealed in scripture and common creeds–can’t be truly just or merciful or humble. They argue that if they were truly just and merciful, they would wouldn’t be exclusive and intolerant. If they were truly humble, they wouldn’t proclaim their faith so boldy and certainly. Still, through the trials of my own faith, I’ve only had to close my eyes for a moment. In the stillness of that moment, I can see a cloud of witnesses, some of whom died to defend orthodox Christianity. I see Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Corrie Ten Boon, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Joan of Arc, Maximilian Kolbe, Ester John, and Archbishop Oscar Romero. I see my father and mother and a whole host of friends from several communities and churches. I see the early martyrs: Stephen, the apostles Peter and Paul, and St. Ignatius of Loyola. When I open my eyes, I’m chastened by the devotion and selflessness of these witnesses. Here are frontline defenders of the faith with boots on the ground and eyes turned to Jesus.
In his book, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith, pastor and writer Timothy Keller, writes:
When a newspaper posed the question, “What’s Wrong with the World?” the Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response: “Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton.” That is the attitude of someone who has grasped the message of Jesus.
The power and beauty of Christian witness is founded, first and foremost, on humility. It’s founded on the paradoxical reality that I am both the problem and the potential solution. That is, like writer and Christian apologist, G. K. Chesterton, I am truly what’s wrong with the world. I hope, however, to also become what’s right. I realize that I can never become what’s right in the world on my own. Wholly dependent upon God’s wisdom and grace, witnesses throughout the ages have demonstrated the type of humility that God uses and blesses.
After church this morning, I had the opportunity to speak to many people, expressing how grateful I was to be in the midst of such a cloud of witnesses. These are folks who witness well as they hold fast to an orthodox faith, living and loving with integrity and humility. When I close my eyes tonight, I will see their faces and give thanks.
