From Value Competition to Truth Proclamation
The term Lesslie Newbigin employs to denote our
contemporary western culture is “a pluralist society.” We
live in modernity that has the elements of postmodernity.
Postmodernity is approaching as our era is the end of
modernity, yet our era is not what one can call
postmodernity.
A pluralist society is where we talk about “values”
instead of speaking about “true” and “false.” “Values,” as
we understand them, are not “facts.” They are a matter of
personal choice. They are an expression of what we want, of
the will. The pluralist society thus becomes a battleground
for conflicting wills. We do not seek to convince one
another of the truth of what we believe, because truth is
unknowable. We can only fight for space to practice our
chosen values.
From cultural perspective, there is a sense that the
recent Iraq war issue is a new kind of challenge in today’s
plural world. Never before it was not so much difficult to
distinguish justice from injustice. Now, in this time of
confusion people wonder who has the final authority to say
what is right and wrong. Suddenly, the world seems to have
lost the universal criteria of good and evil.
What has come with war in Iraq is war on the war. The
public opinion about war in Iraq varied depending on what
side of value was emphasized. Some had genuine anti-war
value. But many others, especially the Communist activists
in other parts of the world, had simply the value of
anti-Americanism. The anti-war activists kept talking about
their anti-war value. But they said nothing about the fact
of Iraqi people suffering under Saddam Hussein’s tyranny.
Many Christian leaders in America faced the question:
"How are we to understand what is going on with God when
Christian people offer up prayers in support of different
sides of an important concern?” This challenge was even
greater for the preachers from other countries. While it is
America that assumes the leadership of the world, people
from other countries tend to speak more of the international
politics than average U.S.A. citizens. And some people from
countries such as France, Germany, Russia, China, and Korea
saw the Iraq War from the perspective their national
interest. This challenge was even greater in South Korea due
to the attack of psychological warfare from North Korea.
Thus, when the Korean government agreed with the U.S.A.
to send non-combat troops to Iraq last March, the
anti-American activists organized anti-war rallies. When a
group of pastors (many of them being liberal) spoke out in
support of their anti-war position, it was inevitable for
conservative preachers had to also speak for giving a
biblical guidance or a clear direction for such important
national issue. What happened was the Korean preachers were
divided over the issue. One group of preachers condemned
America while the other group of preachers defended American
position for just war.
There was a group of pastors who attacked the war in Iraq
without seeing the situation of the Iraqi people under
Saddam Hussein. The other pastors, however, held the
position that there are kinds of wars biblically justified.
While it is important that Christian message should be
relevant to modern world, what matters is the division of
Christian leadership over the issue. That this division
affects a preacher’s spiritual authority was one way that
the plural society impacts on the mission of the Church.
It is noted that some of the liberal pastors take
extremely anti-American position. For example, pastor Kun-soo
Hong is suspected to be a North Korean spy from his
anti-American activities. If not a spy, he is a Communist
activist in South Korea. Whether who really he is, it is
observed that liberal theologians and pastors tend to
embrace serious anti-American bias. Something must have gone
wrong because their liberation theology in this part of the
world is to speak of liberation from American imperialism.
It is especially Minjung theologians among the liberal
camp who hold this anti-American bias. They claim that the
theology is a contextual theology in Korean context. But the
theology contains too much the Marxist worldview to be a
theology. Minjung theology is one illustration that both
liberal theology and contextualized theology can do
tremendous harm both to Christianity and society in Asia
and/or in two-Third countries. This is indeed a grave in
South Korea where some liberal pastors are supporting Mr.
Evil or the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. What madness!
But because the madness is the case now, the conservative
reaction is inevitable.
The word “liberation” appears to be carrying a Christian
value. But the word has too much left-wing political
connotation. It is right to say that people need to be
liberated. But from where? This liberal pastors speak of
political liberation rather than spiritual liberation. There
might be a particular situation where political liberation
needs to be addressed in a Christian message. But those
liberal pastor’s anti-American bias come to a strange logic.
It will make sense if they preach that the persecuted
Christians need to be liberated from the oppression of the
Communist regime. Instead, they support the atheistic
Communist regime even justifying their nuclear weapon
program.
There are really false prophets and false teachers in our
world. There are a group of liberal pastors who speak for
the evil oppressor of Christian faith, who support even the
enemy of their country, thus causing spiritual confusion as
well as social and political problems. These false ones
present anti-Americanism as a social or political value. Not
that American politics is perfect. But the problem is that
these liberal or pro-Communist religious leaders are
captured by serious bias, and thereby wrong beliefs and
wrong cause.
Indeed, ideological pluralism is the challenge now the
Korean Church faces as the Korean society has become a
plural society.
One important lesson from Lesslie Newbigin’s insight is
that the Church should not promote “values.” In his A
Word in Season he states that a plural society is where
one talks about “values” instead of speaking about “true”
and “false.” “Values,” as we understand them, are not
:”facts.” They are a matter of personal choice. They are an
expression of what we want, of the will. The pluralist
society thus becomes a battleground for conflicting wills.
We do not seek to convince one another of the truth of what
we believe, because truth is unknowable. We can only fight
for space to practice our chosen values (1994:162).
There is something this insight implies for our fight
against anti-Americanism. At this time anti-Americanism has
become more a biased theory rather than a sentiments. And as
a biased theory, anti-Americanism is a value against Pax
Americana. A common reaction to anti-Americanism,
especially in South Korea, has been presenting pro-American
value. But Newbigin helps us to see that value competition
might not be the best strategy for fighting
anti-Americanism, that better strategy is exposing the
falsehood of those anti-American propaganda. And the mission
of the Church in this context is to proclaim the truth.
 ©
This unpublished article was written on
May 14, 2003.
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