Unanswerable Questions

In trying to help Africa, have we merely imposed our identity on them? We say we are trying to lift them out of poverty, but why have we made poverty the enemy? Why is our way of life preferable to theirs? Perhaps it is us who needs to be taking notes from them.

I know the different arguments, the different things we have to offer them: the value of the individual, longer life through medicine, food security, education. No one in western culture ever questions the value of these things because they are so ingrained us as things to value and promote. But why? Have we merely lost sight of the value of the alternative: the value of the corporate body, embracing death (even at a young age) as a natural and good part of life.

Perhaps our desire to impose our culture and standard of living on the rest of the world is us trying to justify that standard of living. A basic capitalistic principle is that an economy can grow, and everyone benefits from it. We are trying to grow it so much that our ways no longer seem exorbitant. Everyone can and should live as we do right? It’s what’s best for everyone, we say.

Well, I’m not buying it. So many of the things we assume are just that, assumptions. I’m waiting for someone to show me real justification for all the work we do abroad in developing countries from a biblical, scholarly perspective. Not one that says “Hey, these are good things I value, where can I find them in the Bible?” With that as the starting point, you can find anything you want. But what I really want to know is can a Bible scholar with no agenda come to our conclusions about development on his own.

Honestly, I don’t know if we will ever know. Scholars of the Bible will always have a culture they are assimilated to. They will hold values and ideas necessary to exist within that culture, and they won’t be able to see a world without it.

Disclaimer: These are my questions, my doubts. I still want to do what is called development work. To inspire people to be as good as they can be. But I can’t help but think of all the questions I can’t answer and haven’t ever heard anyone else try to answer.