thailand, family, God

foreign missionaries are sometimes invited by the local church or denominational leadership. but that’s for countries with developed church leadership; the first missionaries or missionaries to “unreached” people groups are rarely invited or even wanted;

so, what should we do? try sending a team of people to offer free medical service? not to afghanistan! the taliban agreed to free all the remaining korean hostages, and the korean gov’t agreed to pull out its remaining 200 soldiers as it had originally planned anyways, and also not to allow other korean christians in the country.

i understand that the afghan gov’t doesn’t have full control over what goes on inside its borders; that’s a reality that we should accept; i also don’t encourage anyone of any religious background to go there for any reason.

still, given that someone or some group feels convicted to go there to love the people there– remember that the korean gov’t insisted that the hostages were there only to provide free medical help, how can this incident help them to realize that they were mistaken? i mean, what goes on inside a person’s mind who now has to say, “oh, my mistake, it wasn’t God convicting me to go there”?

i know it’s not that simple; but it seems that terrorism pays well. God is great!

nothing profound to say about this big concept; but a couple of pictures to illustrate my question:

timothy really likes whales; so he opened up all his bibles and compared the stories and pictures of jonah and the whale; i was excited to see his systematic mind.

displayed at baiyoke II, the tallest bldg in bangkok. hinduism serves as a backdrop for thai culture as well as religion. how much of it is “religious” or “cultural” i don’t know.

whether inside the church culture or elsewhere, individuals and institutions don’t seem to be fully aware of the distinction between culture and religion; should there even be one? in usa many issues are being discussed “rationally” (or culturally?) but with “religious” perspectives excluded; for example, we can’t use the bible to say anything about gay rights; but others can say anything to say whatever they “feel” is “rational” about such complex issues. my question is this: how are culture and religion to be distinguished and/or related? i’m at this point going to start with an assumption that they are actually one and the same, a false dichotomy (probably made by christians). i mean, what is the “rational” basis for including atheistic perspectives but excluding theistic perspectives for social or political discussions?