September 2022 Village Trip, Part 2
This post is part 2 of a series about Jason’s trip to the Mubami people in Papua New Guinea in September 2022. In this Post: A foreign cult rears its head deep in the jungles of PNG, syncretism surfaces in the church, and the Mubami get a taste of God’s Word in their language.
What does it mean to be saved?
If you dig deep enough in just about anyone’s theology, you’re bound to find something a little off sooner or later. We’re all human, after all, and while we genuinely strive to know God and his Word, our best efforts are tainted by our sinful nature and our preconceptions of what we think God ought to be like. That’s true even of those of us who have been raised in Christian homes, in cultures heavily influenced by Christianity, and with a plethora of trustworthy Bible translations and study helps in our native language.
Imagine if you had none of that. What would your theology be like then?
During the first few days of my trip to the Mubami I heard a lot of stories and had a several conversations which revealed the deep need that still exists in this area for evangelism and discipleship. One of the first indications that something was theologically amiss was a discussion I had with one of the pastors in the area. He was explaining to me their normal church calendar for the year, and he noted that they normally baptize the baptismal candidates on Christmas day. I’ve never heard of a church doing that, but I thought it was a neat idea and probably makes for a very memorable and meaningful baptism and Christmas service.
But it got me thinking—just what are the qualifications for baptism and church membership as they understand them? Even in cultures like the US where we have lots of resources and a Bible in our language, there’s often misunderstandings and disagreements on the particulars of baptism, especially between denominations. But it was clear to me from the conversation that the intention was to baptize those who were believers (they don’t practice infant baptism and those who are clearly living in sin are barred from baptism) and they did so in the river (full immersion), so the method of baptism really wasn’t the issue for me. What I was most curious about was not baptism, per se, but “What constitutes a believer? How do you distinguish who is a true believer from those who aren’t?”
So, I asked. The pastor started by telling me that someone is eligible for baptism once they tanim bel, or “repent.” But, knowing there’s a good bit of confusion in Papua New Guinea (PNG) on what constitutes true repentance, I dug further.
“And what does it mean to tanim bel?”
He responded by saying that if someone is a criminal, thief, smoker, or bad person, they need to make a commitment to stop doing those things and start coming to church. If they hold true to their commitment, after some period of time, they are eligible for baptism.
“And what if they aren’t a thief, don’t smoke, and they go to church already? What if they’re generally a pretty good person? Do they still need to tanim bel?” I asked.
“No, they don’t need to tanim bel, they can just get baptized and join the church,” he replied.
Suddenly I began to wonder how many people sitting in church every week thought that the essence of the Christian life is just to live a good, moral life and stop smoking. (Oddly enough, smoking seems to be pretty near the top the list of serious moral sins in the minds of most Mubami.) And furthermore, I began to wonder how many people are avoiding church because they know they’re not ‘good enough’ to attend church because they just can’t kick the habit.
To be fair, many people in churches in the US can’t make a good theological distinction between the means of salvation and the evidences of salvation. Many churches preach a works-based gospel of moralism—if you just live a good life, you’ll go to heaven. And the Bible does, indeed, have a lot to say about the necessity of righteous living for salvation. There is a “holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14, ESV[1]) and “faith apart from works is dead.” (Jas. 2:26)
But holy living is the fruit, not the seed. It’s the evidence, not the cause. We are saved “by grace, through faith…for good works.” (Eph. 2:8-10) The prepositions and the logical order are crucial, and right belief is of utmost importance. “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” (Romans 10:10, ESV) Salvation begins with heart transformation and belief in Christ, then works itself out in a changed life.
Holy living is the fruit, not the seed. It’s the evidence, not the cause. We are saved “by grace, through faith…for good works.” (Eph. 2:8-10)
I had the opportunity to share the gospel with him and a group of other men that day, but communicating such subtle nuances is rather difficult in Tok Pisin, which has quite a limited vocabulary for such matters,[2]and I wasn’t persuaded that he’d fully understood my meaning. I don’t doubt the sincerity and belief of this pastor or any of the others whom I know well. I think they are genuine believers who sincerely desire to lead their people to know the Lord. The problem is that evangelism and conversions in such a context will probably only happen accidentally. My primary concern is for the “people in the pews.” After all, “a mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pews.” (…well, figuratively speaking, that is; none of the churches in the area have pews or chairs; people sit on the floor…😂)
Syncretism
This wasn’t the only theological issue that arose during my time with the people. On several occasions, I heard tumbuna stories, ‘ancestral stories,’ that gave me some concern. One the one hand, PNG has a rich culture of such stories and they provide a unique insight into the culture and worldview of the people. Anthropologically speaking, I desire to document and preserve those stories because they are part of what make the Mubami people unique from other nearby groups. PNG wouldn’t be PNG without its tumbuna stories, and I have no desire to eliminate them from their cultural heritage. But there needs to be a distinction between fiction and fact, and that distinction is clearly lacking. On multiple occasions, I heard stories of origins–origins of people, animals, trees, plants, etc.–which clearly depicted the creation of various elements of the universe but with no reference to the Creator. In these stories, people turned into trees, animals turned into people, and so on. While it would be easy to dismiss these as harmless fables, they were not told as such. These stories were presented time and again as “true” stories, even when they blatantly contradicted the biblical story of origins and they were told by pastors, church leaders, and laypeople alike.
Of course, we have atheistic stories of origins in the West as well–we just cloak them with scientific terminology. And, at the end of the day, any story of origins that doesn’t reference God as the Creator and Sustainer of all creation is just that–a story. A fable. Fiction. But, at least in most of the churches I’m familiar with, we’ve had generations of rooted and grounded believers to challenge our theological blind spots and confront us when our beliefs wander from a biblical foundation. The Mubami people do not have the benefit of such a Christian cultural heritage. For many of them, hearing the truths of Genesis 1–that God is the Creator of ALL things in nature–is revolutionary. Some of the elders in the community were children when the first missionaries came and told them the gospel! And, since there hasn’t been much sustained, biblically grounded mission work amongst them since the gospel first came in the 1950’s and 1960’s and they haven’t had a vernacular Bible translation to test their beliefs against, these basic stories of the Bible are still brand new for many.[3]
The Mubami people do not have the benefit of such a Christian cultural heritage. For many of them, hearing the truths of Genesis 1–that God is the Creator of ALL things in nature–is revolutionary. Some of the elders in the community were children when the first missionaries came and told them the gospel!
I decided initially not to directly challenge or confront these beliefs just yet, since I am still primarily in the learning and observation mode. PNG culture is very different from Western culture, and it takes some time to learn their worldview and beliefs sufficiently to make a good, contextualized appeal. It’s always a careful balancing act that we walk as missionaries, desiring to get gain the trust of the people and get them to open up to you while also speaking truth into their life that often contradicts deeply held beliefs. If you criticize their beliefs too soon or in the wrong way, people will simply stop telling you what they believe. Oftentimes in traditionally animistic areas, such as PNG, people will pay lip service to Christianity to make the missionary happy while continuing to hold their traditional beliefs in secret and practice them when the missionary isn’t looking. The result is syncretism, and it’s very prevalent in PNG.
That being said, I began to feel a burden to preach on Creation. I would have to do so carefully, not directly calling out any particular tumbuna story so as not to cause them to withdraw and stop revealing things to me, but with enough clarity that the Holy Spirit could begin to work in their hearts to reveal the tension between their worldview and that of the Bible. I knew they would ask me to preach, as they always do when I visit the area, so I began thinking about how I would do that.
A Foreign Cult…Here? Really?!?!
As I was contemplating all this, I received a visit from a Mubami man from another village, who happened to be in the area at the time. Sam[4] spoke relatively good English, so it was easy enough to hold a conversation with him. Early on in the conversation, I began to suspect that something was off, but I couldn’t tell exactly what. He spoke of a particular Christian minister from another country quite reverentially, almost as if he thought him to be a prophet, and there were a number of other ‘red flags’ that came up in our conversation. When I was alone later and had some limited internet access, I googled the man and church of whom he’d spoken and confirmed my fears. This “prophet,” as his followers call him, started a non-Trinitarian, Sabbatarian cult a few decades ago and have spread their influence and literature all the way across the world, even to the remotest regions of PNG. My heart broke as I realized this poor man had been duped by a cult before he even really had a chance to hear the true gospel and I was simultaneously incensed at the heretical cult leaders who had propagated such twisted views of Scripture. I couldn’t help but think of Jesus’ rebuke to the Pharisees:
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”
Matthew 23:13–15, ESV
The Need for Scripture
All of these conversations had the combined effect of reviving a deep burden within me to reach the Mubami people with the Good News of Christ. It would be unfair to say that there is no gospel presence amongst the Mubami. The pastors know enough to desire Scripture in their tongue, which is to say that they know enough to know that there are many things they don’t know. But many of the truths of Scripture are yet to break in upon them. And, in the absence of clear biblical teaching, they have done what all people do–fill in the gaps with their cultural beliefs.
I knew that I needed to start in the beginning, with creation. But I also knew that Tok Pisin or English wouldn’t fully communicate. At the same time, I had been learning a lot of nature words and my Mubami vocabulary was improving, so I decided to do a trial run translating a small scripture portion–Genesis 1. Now, it should be pointed out that, at this early stage in our translation program, we aren’t ready for “official translation.” There are a number of steps we need to make in order to be ready to officially start translating Scripture in earnest, including designing an orthography (alphabet), for one thing.
Nevertheless, burdened by the need to communicate the Creation story in the vernacular and revive interest in Bible translation, I gathered a few Mubami speakers and we began to draft Genesis chapter 1. It wouldn’t be suitable for publication at this point, but I hoped it would at least communicate the story of the Creation during my upcoming sermon on Sunday. On Friday, a small group of us gathered–just 3-4 men, one of their wives, and myself. Bibles, even in English, were scarce as the jungle is not kind to paper, and especially so to the cheaply bound paperback Bibles that are in their price range. But a couple of guys had a tattered and worn Good News Bible (GNB, a more dynamic style translation targeted towards non-native English speakers) and I had an English Standard Version (ESV) and a Tok Pisin Bible (TP), so we worked from those as well.
Some young Mubami men helping me to translate Genesis 1 into their language.
Having a variety of translations and translation styles proved quite helpful. The GNB was easier to understand for those that knew some English, and the Tok Pisin was helpful for those who didn’t know English. But my more literal ESV kept us exegetically rooted in the underlying Hebrew, which I could also consult on the Logos app on my phone and computer when we needed more clarity.
We took a few verses at a time, and I would read the passage in English and Tok Pisin, explaining any important or unclear portions. Then, they would read the GNB and Tok Pisin themselves to get a good grasp on the overall meaning, and they started drafting. As they finished a verse or two, they would read them back to me in Mubami. I would ask questions about the key terms, and we would collectively explore options for how to render them in their language. We spent a while talking about how to render “In the beginning,” since we didn’t want it to sound like a tumbuna story. (Just imagine, for example, how it would sound if your English Bible began, “Once upon a time…!” yikes!) Once we all were confident we had adequately captured the meaning of each verse or section, we moved on to the next.
Dandy and Namu (background), my host family, helping to translate Genesis 1.
It was slow going. The first day, we worked for 2-3 hours and drafted just five verses, but I was learning a lot of new vocabulary and getting the chance to do an in-depth Bible study with these men and women, so I loved it. They seemed to enjoy it too, although after 2-3 hours, we were all pretty brain-dead! The next day (Saturday), we continued drafting at a slightly quicker pace, finally having found a rhythm that worked, and by dusk we had drafted and revised verses 1-18. I had ambitiously hoped to finish all of Genesis 1, but realistically, I was quite happy with our progress. Frankly, finding the right words for the “image of God” concept would be extremely difficult at this stage in my language and culture learning, if not impossible, so I was content to stop where we did for the time.
Reconnecting with Old Friends
Besides that, a bunch of people had just arrived in the village from their bush camps and I needed to take the time to reconnect with them. Rex, Willie, and many other men had been out in their bush camps hunting game and harvesting sago for the past several weeks, so I had not yet seen them. But, when I arrived in Sogae, some young men took the news to them, so they came back Saturday evening so that they would be there in the village for church on Sunday. I had missed Rex, Willie, and the others, and I was very glad to see them again. Rex brought me a Coke from the logging camp upriver (he remembered that we liked them!) along with some noodles, freshly cooked fish, and a bowlful of food that I couldn’t possibly finish. A large group of 30-40 people had gathered underneath the house to visit and witness the reconnection.
Left to Right: Me, Rex, and Willie and a couple of kids
After chatting for a while, the topic of the translation came up and Rex carefully read over the 18 verses we had drafted. He smiled and then suggested that I read it to the crowd that had gathered. I clumsily and slowly read the Mubami translation of Genesis 1:1-18, with Rex and others politely chiming in now and then to correct my pronunciation. The group of 30-40 people stood around silently, silhouetted in the darkness by the lone LED light under the house, eagerly listening to every word. The normal village noise was gone and you could’ve heard a pin drop. When I finished, groups of people chattered incomprehensibly with one another and the crowd began to disperse. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but people seemed to have enjoyed hearing the verses we translated.
After the crowd had dispersed, my host family told me that there had been a number of people in the group who were not from Sogae and who did not typically go to church. One such young man, they said, had left in his canoe after hearing the verses read to paddle downriver to his village and planned to bring a group of his friends with him the next morning for church service so they could hear the Bible read in their language!
That night as I went to bed, I prayed for God to speak through his Word the next day. While delivering God’s Word is always a joyful burden, it was even more so knowing that there would be those present the next morning who definitely needed to hear that they had a Creator and were created with a purpose. So, I prayed fervently that night that God would be pleased to speak through his Word and call some to repentance and faith in Christ. I went to bed that night anxiously wondering what tomorrow would hold in store.
Notes
[1] All Scripture from the ESV, The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016.
[2] Tok Pisin, as a pidgin language, has a very limited set of prepositions. The preposition long is the primary preposition and has a very broad range of meanings that covers most English prepositions, including ‘by,’ ‘through,’ and ‘for.’ So, communicating “by grace, through faith, for good works” literally would end up quite confusing: “long grace, long faith, long works.” It’s very difficult to distinguish between cause, result, and purpose! The Tok Pisin Bible, therefore, has to creatively talk around these Another illustration of why the Mubami people need a Bible in their own language!
[3] This is one of many reasons I struggle with the concept of “reached” and “unreached” in modern missiology. When we do quick surveys and glances at people groups and then classify them as “reached” on the mere basis that they have churches that use Christian vocabulary, we miss a lot of important nuances and likely categorize them wrongly. Then, on the basis of these incorrect categories, we deprioritize them in our missions strategy in favor of people groups who are “unreached.” But in what meaningful sense can we call a group of people “reached” when even the professing Christians among them lack the most basic understanding of the gospel and the story of the Bible and have no Bible translation they can really understand? The “reached” vs. “unreached” paradigm seems overly simplistic in such a context.
[4] A pseudonym to protect the identity of the individual. Personal identifying information and some details have been slightly altered or omitted to protect the identities of the individuals in these stories.