Pensees: The Wisconsin Tribe

The Wisconsin Tribe

The missionary part of me feels compelled to write to my more civilized supporters and prayer warriors about the ignorance and barbarity of the village tribe just up the road from me. These poor people live in such Christ-less darkness that they mindlessly slog through life under the tyranny of their rituals and the delusion that their concerns are the zenith of human issues. Their parochial and pagan emotions flare and settle, erupt and subside, under the tyranny of their superstitious beliefs. Thus, one tribal father duct taped a Green Bay Packers jersey to his son who, acting intuitively as the human mind is inclined to do before it is suppressed by fear and village groupthink, resisted that notion that wearing the religious paraphernalia at the specified time would appease the Cheesehead deity and bring favor on their demi-god warriors.

We don’t have to go to the Amazon or to Africa to find ignorance and darkness. It is all around us. As a missionary, however, I must contextualize as much as I can with these tribes to which God has called me. Some missionaries disagree with the level of my contextualization. For example, I did allow my son to wear the insignia of one of the local tribes known as the Chicago Bears. I nearly lost support over the matter, but I was able to persuade my more thoughtful supporters that I felt like we had gotten through to the natives that it was possible to retain part of their culture without conceding to the deeper and darker forces of village idolatry that one might expect to see at Soldier Field on any given pre-post-season Lord’s Day.

But the tribe north of us is much more difficult. Known to paint their bodies, adorn bizarre ritualistic headcoverings, and stand half-nude in sub-freezing weather worshiping their demi-god warriors, some of them will not hesitate to violently duct tape to the bodies of their children the marks of their tribe.

It is hard for us who are more civilized to understand why these poor lost souls are this way. But we must not think that we are better. These poor souls are just as human as we are. It is foolish for a missionary to think that he is somehow superior to these pitiful pagans because they do not appreciate soccer, Mozart, and imported tilapia. To watch them gnawing on brats and chugging lukewarm beer as they huddle around their tailgates so entranced by the religious fervor that their minds and bodies are completely oblivious to the fact that it is -2 degree weather is enough to make any sincere missionary despair at the contemplation of his huge task. But he must reach them.

I will not impose soccer or Mozart or real food on these precious souls. Those things are peripheral. Instead I will enter as much as I can into their culture without sinning against my conscience or causing a regenerate native to stumble and with self-control smile and celebrate when their village warriors are successful.

Go Packers!

Now in all seriousness: Isn’t it sad that we don’t recognize the pagan and lost condition of simple people all around us? If only these people in the news story and others like them had the fragrance of Christ in their homes. We have much to do.