The Poisonwood Bible: Reminders of a Colonized Gospel

On a recent trip to the west coast, I pulled out a book to help pass the time during flights and layovers.  It was a novel that had been recommended by several friends over the years: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.  People who knew I had been to Africa several times and had "inherited" a Congolese son-in-law in recent years thought I should read this.  They were certainly correct ... I wish I had read it years ago, but I'm also glad for the recent timing of engaging this masterfully disturbing and challenging work.

In short, the book is a work of historical fiction involving a missionary family from Georgia that travels to a village in the Congo, fueled by the father's passion to save Africa for Jesus.  It powerfully unpacks the destructive realities of western colonialism and the distorted understanding of gospel/mission fueling its rise in Africa. Underneath the story is an accurate representation of the cultural-social-political situation of the Belgian Congo in the 1960's and the ongoing impact of colonizing power.  It is a story of complicity in the exploitation of people and place.

I want to mention here only a couple of things that I found instructive.  First, there is an understanding that emerges in the main characters of shared participation in brokenness and evil and injustice.  One of main characters gives voice to this.  At one point she says: "Tall and straight I may appear, but...inside...[I'm] a crooked little person trying to tell the truth.  The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes."  Later, speaking of having an abusive, misguided father, she writes: "We are the balance of our damage and our transgressions.  He was my father.  I own half his genes, and all of his history.  Believe this: the mistakes are part of the story."  I am grateful, as we reenter the drama of holy week, that a cross stands at the center of a world encompassing story, a reminder that God in Christ has addressed and absorbed in himself our participation in unspeakable violence.

Second, in light of the last post (in January), the presence of a colonized (and colonizing) gospel lingers in our own cultural context.  It comes in the form of white privilege masked as well-intended charity.  The fact that we have an African-American president and a quickly diversifying population has not yet greatly altered social, political decision-making systems favoring the Anglo population, especially at the local level.  Take another look at key social indicators in West Michigan...and you will find huge disparities related to economics, education, safety, and health...in spite of the presence of nearly 4000 nonprofit organizations in Kent County alone.  This again raises important questions for many of us: What is our understanding of gospel (and "mission")?  How are we complicit in systems of injustice?  Which of our assumptions need to be challenged so that "good news" is actually heard and experienced by all neighbors/citizens?  Why are we hesitant to address unequal power relationships in our own programs/ministries?

This is all messy business.  The Poisonwood character mentioned above reflects on her (and her family's) engagement with another culture: "We constructed our lives around a misunderstanding, and if I ever tried to pull it out and fix it now I would fall down flat.  Misunderstanding is my cornerstone.  It's everyone's, come to think of it.  Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet.  They are what we call civilization."  Do you agree?  Given our entanglement with "illusions," how might the truth of God's restoring purposes in our world subvert deeply embedded error and challenge our own imagination(s) for life and "ministry" in neighborhood places?