by Margaret Rodgers

I spent a week last month at the CMS Summer School. It’s been some time since I did so and I found myself wondering why I had left it so long to attend again. It was a stimulating week, rich in biblical teaching and opportunity for fellowship with friends and missionaries both past, present and about-to-be.
With over 3000 adult attendees and more than a thousand children and youth in the young people’s program, it was a week that must have given, among other things, a strong boost to the Katoomba economy.
I quickly re-learned three things. First, apply insect repellent each morning to keep away the ubiquitous, bothersome flies. Second, when you meet a friend chat immediately, because in that throng there was no guarantee you will meet again.
Third, and importantly, I was reminded that CMS must be viewed as the paramount resource for cross-cultural mission strategy and dialogue in the Anglican Church. What other group of Australian Anglicans can bring together so many individuals with cross-cultural experience? Theirs is an experience, coming from living in the midst of a culture, being part of it and being a neighbour – not simply knowledge derived from research in books and journals, or short-lived tourist trips.
The morning sessions, held after Don Carson’s lengthy yet spiritually enriching Bible Studies, provided opportunity to hear missionaries expand on their diverse levels of mission expertise.
At the first of these missionary sessions, it was my good fortune to hear from Iris and Barry George, just returned from Egypt, and Paul and Sandra King, involved in student ministry in France.
Much of the talk focused on ministry in a Muslim setting and other related topics, such as the French government’s plans to ban the wearing of Muslims headscarves and other religious items, probably including crosses, in schools – an act of a secular nation with total separation of church and state.
Barry and Iris George were formerly ministering in Malaysia, but they were invited to undertake a chaplaincy to an expatriate congregation in Egypt by the Bishop, Dr Mouneer Anis.
Iris described how they would walk along the street, with Barry in his usual jovial manner greeting everyone, while she walked quietly along with her head bowed. Listeners were told that those wanting some insight into the place of women in the Muslim world could do no better than read Norma Khouri’s book Forbidden Love, a powerful and distressing memoir of a young woman who was victim of an honour killing by a male member of her family.
Malaysia provides ministry experience in a culture dominated by Muslims, and that must have given a certain familiarity of feel to the Georges in the Egyptian context, though the Middle Eastern Islamic setting must be vastly more complex.
This is displayed in the statement issued by Bishop Mouneer Anis after the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop in New Hampshire last November. The Bishop included this paragraph in his release: “We stand with the historical churches that uphold the apostolic teaching. We also share the same understanding of this issue of practising homosexuality with our Muslim brothers and sisters with whom we live in the Middle East.”
He obviously needed to assure Muslim leaders of Egyptian Christian adherence to the ages-old Christian teaching of sexual morality.

Likewise, Christians in the Middle Eastern context have to minister sensitively so they do not merit the accusation of ‘proselytism’ in their evangelism.
Just before Summer School I read an interview with John Stott, published in the September 2003 issue of Christianity Today. He discussed the difference between evangelism and proselytism, words he said are not synonymous. We often hear this criticism of biblical evangelism from Orthodox Christians, leaders of other faiths, and politically correct secularists.
Stott says Christians should understand proselytism as ‘unworthy witness’. Quoting a 1970 document, he said proselytism takes place whenever our motives are unworthy (that is, concern for our own glory, not God’s), whenever our methods are unworthy (eg: physical coercion, moral constraint or psychological pressure), and whenever our message is unworthy (whenever we deliberately misrepresent other people’s beliefs).
In contrast, evangelism is “to make an open and honest statement of the gospel, which leaves hearers entirely free to make up their own minds about it.”
In our context, these are insightful remarks to ponder concerning our own gospel witness in the diverse ethnic culture that is Australia today.
See you at Summer School next year.