If you’re my age (41) or older and grew up in the church, then
you probably read stories as a child of missionary heroes from
yestercentury who traveled to unexplored regions carrying the
message of the Gospel. The people whom the missionaries
encountered were “savages.” These “uncivilized” people groups
ran around naked, offered up their children in fire to idols,
and practiced cannibalism.
Today, there just aren’t many missionaries who can tell stories
of encounters with Stone Age tribal practices. Your typical
missionary conference speakers will be a roughly equal mix of
Christ’s ambassadors to villages in Africa, church planters in
urban Asian settings, and campus ministers at the local public
universities. They’re doing a great job and need our continued
support.
However, our mindset about missions must be reshaped so that we
can clearly see Bel Air and Baltimore and Maryland and the
United States for what they’ve become: regions full of savage,
uncivilized people groups.
On billboards and store posters, in magazines and internet
sites—and if it’s warm enough outside—exposed flesh is the
norm. Women and girls circulate in our society, virtually and
veritably, essentially without clothes on. What many call
fashionable outerwear, I call a loincloth. These women and
girls are uncivilized savages.
The males of the species live in subterranean mancaves, devoting
huge portions of their time, energy, emotions, and money to
entertainment in the forms of video games, movies, and sports.
The hungry, needy, and oppressed are ignored while the cavemen
wildly dance and celebrate the latest touchdown. These men are
uncivilized savages.
Especially in the inner cities and college towns, but also often
enough out in the suburbs, young mothers and fathers offer up
their unborn children to the demons in abortion clinics. They
believe that sacrificing their babies will bring them, the
parents, some future benefit: freedom from responsibility
(irresponsibility), more available cash to spend on self, etc.
These young people are uncivilized savages.
Researchers tear apart the cells and bodies of very young human
preborn children and inject these stolen parts into other
people, who consume the flesh of these innocent children in the
(still unsuccessful) effort to cure their own diseases. The
doctors and scientists who perform or utilize these barbarities
are uncivilized savages.
The deepest, darkest jungles of savages cover our country and
can even be found in my neighborhood. We must be, and we must
send, missionaries throughout Western Uncivilization.
February 7, 2011
