4/17/12 - The Broken

This last week, I saw the George Fox U. conceived, written, and performed play The Broken about the relations between missionaries, locals, and transnational corporations in Papua New Guinea. It gave me a lot to think about, but I'm not sure exactly how to organize my thoughts. So I guess, I won't. Here are my thoughts:

• Where on earth does Jesus fit here? Why is it so complex? PNG is one of the most Christian nations in the world, but has a lot of their cultural heritage mixed in with that. But long before the Christians came to PNG, they were a society trying to live like Jesus in many ways. Now, "an eye for an eye" was the law there, in the most literal sense, but they are also very giving people. If you ask, they will give, without question. Then we brought Jesus to them, and they are in some ways worse off then before because of tense relations between natives and nonnatives.
• Are multinational companies evil? Are they evil in other countries? I think that megacorps are very dangerous. I don't believe a company can be evil or good per se, because they are made up of many different people. Some have more power, knowledge, and influence then others, so their capacity for good and evil, as well as knowledge and wisdom to do either varies. Therefore they are probably both. The problem is, with so many working parts, its easy to be part of, buy from, or benefit financially from companies that do a lot of evil things, and that is amplified by globalism. One company might have great policy here in the U.S., but what effect are they having on the inhabitants of the countries they gather resources from. Are we "helping" them when we change their culture, and modernize them? Is that what they really want? Just because a government wants the money involved doesn't mean that it's right for the people. If Jesus was a corporation... how would he act? Corporation comes from "corpos" or body, and Jesus says how the body of Christ should act, so I guess, corporations should act as the church does (or rather should). An ideal we will never see, I suppose.
• Why do Christians build fences? In the play, they were so eager to lean on the Lord to provide for them financially, but after some rape issues, they didn't trust God at all with their security. The  security they hired resulted in separation, suspicion, and eventually deaths. This opposed their mission entirely! What's the point? How can Christians do more good than harm in the cultures that are still largely secluded from the world.