Peace Child

The famous missionary book by Don Richardson, Peace Child, was popular among evangelicals during my college days and it continues to be a powerful illustration of what Richardson calls, "redemptive analogies."

The cannibalistic and head-hunting tribal cultures in what was then Dutch West New Guinea were a challenging mission field. The Richardsons lived among the Sawi. It was an effort just to learn the complex language.

But when he was able to tell them the story of Christ, they laughed at the betrayal of Judas. Because of their cultural values, Judas appeared to be the hero and Jesus the dupe.

But how to communicate the message of Christ in such a different culture? Richardson says that all cultures have some kind of practice or custom that will provide the redemptive analogy if the missionary will prayerfully look for it. The analogy for the Sawi culture was the practice of the "peace child."

In order to negotiate peace between warring tribes, the leaders hand over one of their own children to the other tribe for safe-keeping. This ensures the negotiated peace between the tribes is maintained.

Of course, Richardson could then use this custom to talk about how God sent His Peace Child to us. This resulted in many conversions and the ultimate success of the mission work.

As a church-planting pastor in North America, this example may seem exotic and irrelevant. But it is highly relevant to our evangelistic work in the West.

The culture around us is changing. And the message of the church has often become marginalized and labeled as irrelevant. The Evangelical church in particular is often seen as full of hypocrites (see unChristian, by Kinnaman and Lyons for example).

The apostle Paul tells us that he changed his approach to his mission depending on the cultural context.

"To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some" (1 Cor. 9: 20-22).

The job of the church remains the same. To incarnate ourselves in the culture to which we are called. And once there, to look for those redemptive analogies that will help us to bring the unchanging message of salvation to the shifting world-views around us. How are you doing with that task?