Recommended Reading: AI Is Into the White Savior Complex

One of the more public-facing uses of AI (artificial intelligence) is in creating images. There are several websites that will allow you to enter prompts and receive back AI-generated pictures. These images are created by computers based on patterns detected in an existing trove of images on the internet.

As reported in this NPR article, researcher Arsenii Alenichev decided to test AI image generation on an issue related to global health. While existing images of white, Western doctors treating black, African children abound, Alenichev wanted to see if he could get AI to generate the opposite: images of black, African doctors treating white, Western children. In short, he couldn't.

Although Alenichev's results were not intended to be scientific, they do point to two important findings that are relevant to Christian mission:

1. These results show how prevalent the white savior trope is. There are so many existing images of wealthy, white, Westerners helping poor, black, Africans (and others who are not wealthy, white, Westerners) that imagining the reverse is nigh impossible, even for extremely powerful computers. But if we (humans) can only imagine help and mission flowing in one way (from wealthy, white Westerners to others), it is impossible to create reciprocal mission relationships that are based on mutuality. We are locked into patterns where wealthy, white Westerners are givers and everyone else, especially poor, black Africans, are receivers. There is no mutuality possible in such a scenario. We need to expand our missional imaginations.

2. While artificial intelligence has a wide range of potentially beneficial applications, it cannot overcome the human biases that shape the world as it is. Because artificial intelligence operates by assimilating content from the internet (and elsewhere) and detecting patterns in that content, it is constrained by the pre-existing biases and prejudices that are part of existing content. That content is overwhelmingly made by Westerners and thus reflects the national, social, racial, economic, and other biases common on the West. Computers might save us from some things, but they won't save us from the biases in our hearts. We will need to continue to rely on the Holy Spirit to carry out that work.

Health Mission and Learning Across Contexts

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. It is an adaptation of remarks made to the All People's Conference hosted by United Methodist Church and Community Development for All People. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

In reflecting on my understandings of biblical and Wesleyan theologies of health and healing, I think about a number of insights offered up by those theologies—that health is multifaceted and not confined to physical health, that individual health is connected to communal and national health, that there is a connection between health and sin including injustice, and that healing involves healing relationships.

Yet, such theology is not my area of expertise, so when asked to reflect publicly on the practice of health mission, I want to talk about something that does directly connect to my expertise: the importance of learning cross-culturally and across contexts, including learning about health and healing around the world.

Some quick definitions first:

A context is the setting where people live, work, and go about their lives. It can be a neighborhood, city, region, etc. Contexts are characterized by unique socio-economic, cultural, ethno-racial, political, historical, and other traits. So, each context in unique in some way, even as it also shares some things with other contexts.

A culture is a way of thinking about the world shared by a group of people. There can be local, regional, and national cultures; cultures shared by different ethnic or racial groups; cultures for groups defined by common interests; etc. A culture is characterized by a common set of beliefs, assumptions, and values. Cultures are an important part, but not the only part, of what makes a context unique.

First, I want to argue that learning across cultures and contexts is intrinsic to the practice of Christian mission. My definition of mission, which I lay out in my book Crossing Boundaries, is that mission is “cultivating relationships across boundaries for the sake of fostering conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news.”

This definition mentions “relationships across boundaries,” and that means connecting to others across contexts and cultures. There are many types of boundaries—cultural, linguistic, geographic, political, socioeconomic, etc. But whatever type of boundary is involved, mission involves interacting with people who are different from us.

This definition of mission also mentions “conversations in word and deed about the nature of God’s good news,” and that means that mission involves talking and working with those who are different from us and learning from them in the process, just as we hope to share something with them at the same time. This learning goes both ways, as a good conversation does, and cannot be one-sided in which we only talk but do not listen and learn as well.

This process of learning through mission helps us better understand God and God’s good news because others will have different experiences of God than we do, different ways of thinking theologically, different conclusions that they reach from reading the Bible, and different senses of what would be good or new or life-giving within their own lives. Thus, when we engage in mission, we encounter these other ways of thinking and we thereby gain new insights into the ways in which God loves and redeems the world.

And while our ultimate goal in mission might be mutually learning more about God, along the way we are certain to learn about other things as well—we are going to learn about our mission partners’ lives and the ways in which they think about and experience the world around them. Learning about those other aspects of our mission partners’ lives and ministries is essential to being able to really understand what they can teach us about God.

Learning from those who are different than us can happen in a variety of settings. There are differences in cultures and contexts within the United States—southern Louisiana is different than rural Maine is different than metro San Francisco—and I’m sure that you’ve encountered and hopefully discussed some of those differences among contexts already during the conference. Cultures and contexts also differ internationally, often to a greater degree than they do within a single country such as the United States. So, while it is good to learn across contexts within the United States, it is also good to learn across contexts internationally.

The importance of learning across contexts applies to the field of health, both as a form of mission and ministry, and as an important aspect of health work itself. In fact, there is probably more learning across contexts in health than in many other fields. “Global health” is a field of study in prestigious medical schools that examines what we can learn about health and healing across countries, contexts, and cultures. For instance, the United States spends twice as much as on health care than other affluent nations and yet has the lowest life expectancy and highest suicide rate of any affluent country. Why do we spend more and end up less healthy? That sort of question can only be answered by learning across contexts.

But the United States can also learn from less affluent countries. Many think of health as being “better” in developed countries, and it’s true that there is a correlation between the relative income of a country and some of its health outcomes, especially as they relate to maternal and child health and certain infectious diseases.

But wealth is not the only indicator of health outcomes, and even to the extent it is, that does not mean that those in affluent countries have nothing to learn from those in developing countries. Education and women’s rights are also important indicators of a country’s health outcomes, and these vary within income brackets. Countries with better educational and women’s rights outcomes should be models for others. And affluent countries have more of certain types of diseases, especially mental health issues and chronic diseases related to diet or a sedentary lifestyle. Thus, the question, “Why is there more depression in the United States than in Mozambique?” is just as fair to ask as the question, “Why is there more malaria in Mozambique than in the United States?”

Moreover, there are many different models for arranging a health system, and developing countries often take innovative approaches to their health systems in ways that affluent countries can learn from. Remote access to health services is one such area. For example, the Gates Foundation has partnered with health providers in Malawi and Ghana to expand access to health care information and advice via cell phones, especially in rural, hard-to-reach areas. The challenge of providing health services in rural, hard-to-reach areas applies in the United States just as it does in Malawi.

Public health is another area in which developing countries can serve as models. Many countries in West Africa learned significantly from their experience with the Ebola epidemic in 2014. Experts cite African nations’ long experience with confronting public health epidemics such as Ebola and AIDS as a primary reason why Africa has been one of the regions of the world least affected by the coronavirus pandemic. In a Washington Post opinion piece about African success in combatting coronavirus, Karen Attiah says, “This pandemic has coincided with a global movement challenging anti-Black racism and white supremacy. This should have been a moment for media outlets to challenge corrosive narratives about Africa and the idea that Africans are not capable of effective policy-making. We could be learning from the experiences that Africans and their governments have had with pandemics and viral diseases, including Ebola and AIDS.”

Beyond outcomes, there are a wealth of different ways of thinking about health and healing in cultures across the world, and these various views also represent resources for learning, sharing, and developing our own perspectives on disease and healing. For instance, in many cultures outside of the West, the psychosomatic nature of disease is much better understood—that disease and healing are not only about what happens in the body, but about the ways in which the body, spirit, emotions, and social setting are out of harmony or in harmony.

And while people in the United States have been recently focused on the connection between diet and health, there are literally millennia of thinking about this issue in other cultures around the world that can offer potential insights.

For all these reasons, there are a variety of things we can learn from others around the world about health and healing.

And when these others are mission partners or are fellow Christians or even fellow United Methodists who are confronting the same sorts of challenges in their mission work and ministry that we are in ours, the potential for learning is that much greater, and it extends not only to health per se but about our shared faith and how health intersects with our faith and our practices of mission and ministry. There is much to be learned, even as we ourselves have things to offer and teach in return.

Thomas Kemper: Mesas Redondas para la Visión y Práctica Misionera Metodista Unida, Parte I

La publicación de blog de hoy está escrita por Thomas Kemper y traducida por Pedro Zavala Chaparro. El Sr. Thomas Kemper actualmente se desempeña como Secretario General de la Junta General de Ministerios Globales de la Iglesia Metodista Unida (GBGM). Esta es la primera de dos partes.

“Las Mesas Redondas para la Misión representan un proceso consultivo para reunir una red de socios comprometidos, en expresiones particulares de la misión de Dios. Pueden centrarse en un área geográfica específica, en un tema o en un proyecto".[1]

Las Mesas Redondas para la Misión son cada vez más valiosas y su realización cada vez más frecuente, en la visión y práctica misioneras de la Iglesia Metodista Unida y su Junta General de Ministerios Globales. Las razones principales son obvias. Las Mesas Redondas para la Misión responden a la necesidad de una asociación misionera, de colaboración, con un sentido de mutualidad, en un mundo en el que las iglesias fundadas en la misión, especialmente en el Sur y Oriente Global, se ven a sí mismas como verdaderos socios y líderes en la misión global. En un panorama en el que la misión ecuménica es una posibilidad y también una necesidad.

El modelo es adaptable para la planificación y evaluación estratégica de la misión, que abarca desde la divulgación del servicio social local, hasta los principales ministerios nacionales o regionales. Considero importante mencionar, que las mesas redondas son herramientas esenciales para: el inicio de nuevos esfuerzos misioneros, la evaluación del momento en el que se encuentran, mirar la estabilidad de las iniciativas misioneras en maduración, así como en el diseño de futuras estrategias. Las mesas redondas también pueden ser valiosas para la colocación de misioneros. El valor radica en lo poderoso de las dinámicas positivas resultantes. Las mesas redondas se alejan del patrón bilateral tradicional de envío y recepción de misioneros, a una de relaciones multilaterales y responsabilidad compartida entre los participantes.

Compromiso personal y aprendizaje
Mi entusiasmo por la misión a partir de mesas redondas nació gracias a la combinación de experiencias personales y el estudio de la historia de la misión.

Mi esposa Bárbara y yo fuimos a Brasil como misioneros adultos jóvenes, no mucho después de graduarnos; enviados por la organización misionera de la Iglesia Metodista Unida en Alemania, nuestro país de origen. El pensamiento predominante de aquella época entendía a la misión como una exportación del norte y el oeste, realizado por misioneros europeos y norteamericanos. Algunas partes del trabajo, no todo, aún tenían una fuerte capa de colonialismo. El sistema de entrega generalmente involucraba una "Junta de Misión" en Nueva York, Londres o Frankfurt, con una planificación y una supervisión típica, que se desenvolvía de arriba hacia abajo.

Este patrón tradicional simplemente no funcionó en São Paulo, donde nos asignaron. No se tuvo en cuenta las aspiraciones y talentos de la población local, así como las realidades competitivas de las comunidades multirreligiosas ahí presentes. Nos encontramos sentados para sesiones de estrategia de misión con metodistas brasileños, hermanas católicas romanas, predicadores pentecostales, comerciantes, funcionarios gubernamentales y gente de la calle. A menudo, la atención estaba en lo que podríamos hacer colectivamente para abordar las realidades de la pobreza y la injusticia, en una de las ciudades más grandes del mundo. Un recuerdo duradero proviene del sentido de participación activa en toda nuestra mesa, que a veces se convertía en una olla hirviendo, gracias a lo que cada uno contribuía. Todos estaban comprometidos a pesar de las diferentes capacidades económicas y las complejidades organizativas de las agencias misioneras.

No me malinterpreten. Necesitábamos la participación y el apoyo de las juntas de misiones en Frankfurt, Londres y Nueva York, pero como socios, en vez de ser solamente supervisores.

En São Paulo experimenté la dinámica de lo que ahora llamamos "misión desde los márgenes".[2] La anterior, frase maravillosa agregada a nuestro vocabulario en el año de 2013 por la Comisión de Misión Mundial y Evangelización (CWME) del Consejo Mundial de Iglesias, una unidad ecuménica. El trabajo anterior me ayudó a comprender la necesidad de las asociaciones misioneras y de las mesas redondas para el trabajo de misiones.

La comisión, originalmente el Consejo Misionero Internacional, surgió de la primera Conferencia Misionera Mundial celebrada en Edimburgo, Escocia, en 1910. A esa reunión histórica asistieron principalmente protestantes, varones, blancos de Europa y América del Norte. En ella se reflejaba la creencia de que todo el mundo podría ser convertido a Cristo, en una generación con suficientes jóvenes misioneros. Pero las posteriores conferencias de misión mundial de CWME se volvieron sustancialmente más diversas en sus composicones geográfica, raciales y de género, y considerablemente más realistas en expectativas. La conferencia CWME 2018 en Arusha, Tanzania, celebró el fuerte testimonio de la misión de las iglesias africanas sobre el tema "Llamados a transformar el discipulado".

Por otra parte, la Conferencia Mundial de Misiones de 1947 en Whitby, Ontario, Canadá, tuvo especial importancia en sentar las bases para una nueva comprensión de la colaboración y la planificación de la misión representada por las Mesas Redondas para la Misión. Siempre me ha entusiasmado leer los documentos y las actas de Whitby, que considero como el punto de partida para el concepto de asociaciones misioneras y la práctica de convocar mesas redondas.

Socios en la Misión y la obediencia a Dios
Whitby fue la primera Conferencia Misionera Mundial celebrada después del final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y a la vez no fue una de las reuniones más conocidas. No obstante, considero que es una de las más importantes, especialmente en términos de relaciones entre lo que en 1947 se llamaría "iglesias más antiguas" e iglesias "más jóvenes". Así como en términos de la promoción de la mutualidad en la misión, como se aprecia en las Mesas Redondas para la Misión. El tema era "El testigo cristiano en un mundo revolucionario". El anterior, reflejo de los tiempos, a medida que se redibujaba el mapa colonial, incluso mundial. La declaración final de la conferencia se intituló, "Nuestra lealtad suprema: la 'supernacionalidad' de la misión". El anteior no es para soprendernos, dado el comportamiento de las naciones supuestamente "cristianas", durante las dos guerras mundiales recientes. Así como el desarrollo del Holocausto que surgió en la tierra de Martín Lutero y la Reforma Protestante. La historia para contar a las naciones no era la misma en 1947 que en el Edimburgo de 1910.

En Whitby, los delegados de las iglesias más antiguas y más jóvenes pasaron tiempo reuniéndose por separado, para evaluar situaciones de posguerra y así explorar las diversas aspiraciones. Cuando se compararon dos listas de inquietudes se percataron que tenían una gran similitud, y más de un documento conjunto fue el resultado de esas sesiones de trabajo y escucha. El título del documento era "Asociación de las Iglesias más jóvenes y mayores en obediencia a la Comisión de nuestro Señor". Este fue uno de los primeros avales del concepto de asociaciones misioneras, concebido como igualdad, respeto mutuo y en obediencia a Dios. El documento final de Whitby es extraordinario para su tiempo, o incluso para cualquier otro, que trata tanto de la política, como de la práctica en las relaciones entre iglesias más jóvenes y más viejas en una familia de fe.

Además, el documento reconoció que algunas iglesias jóvenes habían "alcanzado una etapa avanzada de desarrollo". También expresó la esperanza de que esas iglesias "eliminaran de una vez por todas, el sentido de dependencia hacia las iglesias más antiguas. Y de igual modo a mantenerse firmes, en la verdadera base de la igualdad espiritual absoluta y de su derecho a administrar sus propios asuntos, a enmarcar sus propias políticas, bajo la guía de Dios, el Espíritu Santo. También a dar su propio testimonio distintivo en el mundo, como el instrumento por el cual Dios quiere llevar a Cristo a toda la población de las tierras en que habitan".[3]

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[1] Informe de la Junta General de Ministerios Globales, a la Conferencia General de 2016, Advance Daily Christin Advocate, vol. 2, p. 812.

[2] Comisión de Misión Mundial y Evangelización, "Juntos hacia la vida: Misión y evangelización en paisajes cambiantes", septiembre de 2012, págs. 14 y siguientes. En línea en https:/ www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/commissions/mission-and-evangelism/together-into-life-mission-and-evangelism-in-Changing-landscapes.

[3] C.W. Ranson, ed. Renovación y avance: testimonio cristiano en un mundo revolucionario. Londres: Edinburg House, 1948, p. 175.

Jacob Dharmaraj: Mutuality to Mutual Aid in Mission: The Return of A Deep-Rooted Model, Part 2

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Jacob Dharmaraj. Rev. Dharmaraj is President of the Retired Clergy and Spouse Association of the New York Annual Conference. It is the first of a two-part series. For part one, click here.

Part II: The Church’s Required Response: Mutuality to Mutual Aid
Amidst the current crises of COVID-19, the church today is called to respond in at least two ways: by offering Trauma Informed Care (TIC) and by moving from mutuality in mission to mutual aid in mission. In both these ways, the church can walk alongside the traumatized, as they journey through loss, grief, and change, by offering not pieties but grace, reassurance, and compassion, not mere instruction and charity.

One thing COVID-19 has taught those of us who serve the church is that loss endures, even as grief departs. Our recoveries are always partial. Grief is a long-term project.  Grief is circular, until suddenly it abates. Those who have been abused by the system during times of crisis will remember for a lifetime.

Researchers and psychologists have found, in past crises, the deepest traumas surfaced only after they had ended. The trauma is well contained whilst people are actively engaged in fighting and protecting, but the problems transpire only afterward. The scars of this crisis will linger for generations.

Therefore, the current context calls for spiritual leaders to retool themselves and their churches to offer what other organizations cannot offer.

TIC creates a culture that empowers and enables the vulnerable and victimized. TIC offers frameworks, structures, rituals, and prayers. TIC is not an intervention. It does not follow prescribed methods or actions. It is rooted in empathy. It creates a more helpful and therapeutic environment through compassion and solidarity that would promote safety, inclusion, dignity, values, and respect.

More important are monitoring and managing how to move past biases and bring about holistic healing. During stressful times, when resources are in short supply and needed equipment becomes scarce, many professionals make ethical decisions on an hourly basis. Some of them are sincere and straightforward. Other times certain extraneous factors such as age, gender, race, and class come into play. Who will be the guardian here and who has the ultimate power to make the split-second decision? It is impossible to monitor or remediate every situation. Knowing what is just and ethical to do in a given context and being able to apply them to crucial situations are two different things.

TIC advances a culture of safety, empowerment, and curative. Recognizing power differentials, acknowledging that flashbacks of past abusive episodes can affect the victims, and understanding the reason why some avoid therapeutic care is the first step. Too often trauma survivors who seek out support find themselves re-traumatized by the very systems designed to help them.

In the midst of this practice of TIC, one fundamental change that will happen in the area of mission theology is a shift from a theology of mutuality, which many, including me, advocated for the last quarter of a century, to a theology of mutual aid.

Mutual aid is defined primarily as a concept of providing each other support, either through resources or services, for the sake of mutual benefit.  The hallmark of mutual aid is that support flows between peers, neighbors, colleagues, community members, horizontally rather than from the top-down, as it would hierarchically from a government agency or a mission institution to those in need.

Charity funds or bureaucratic allocation of resources have no room in mutual aid, as they are deeply entrenched in processes and frameworks that often mean handouts or strings attached with inflexibility: for example, donated funds or resources to be used only for elderly, children, mothers, etc.

Mutual aid is neither hierarchical nor charity based. It is horizontal, mostly volunteer-run. It is driven by the emerging or immediate needs expressed by the members of the community. Bureaucratic and middle agents are eliminated as survival needs and shared understanding take priority over all others. People in the community, not the elected or appointed leaders of an organization, take responsibility for caring for one another. 

Mutual aid is deeply rooted in counter-cultural theory, invariably so during times of major crisis. Since TIC is as much about social justice as it is about spiritual, emotional, and physical healing, it enables mutual aid as an effective tool to do the right thing in the right place in short order.

When structural or siloed institutions are absent or fail, human altruism and community selflessness come as the vanguard. During crisis time, already vulnerable communities experience what is known as intersectional vulnerabilities. COVID-19 has again proven that some people and communities are more vulnerable. They need greater support from members of their own communities and those community organizations that work with them with sharpened advocacy skills and agility of movement.

It will take a long time before we will call ‘business as usual.’ Until then, the members of the faith community have a vital role to play, despite their own vulnerability. What we need today is the learning, training, and practice of trauma-informed care with a willingness to migrate from mutuality in mission to mutual aid in mission.