Faith of their fathers

One man's father had owned a small trucking business, picking up milk from dairy farms. One day he had stopped his truck at the end of a farmer's lane and was walking back toward the back of the truck. A car came up the road, too fast, and pulled out around the truck, crushing the man between the two vehicles. He survived but spent some time in recovery, had back pain and wore a back brace off and on for some years.

Then the man relating the story said something else. Years later, after his father had died of old age, his mother mentioned that she was convinced his father had recognized the driver of the car but had never told anyone who it was, not even her. He had decided to forgive the driver.

Then the other man told a story about his father, a farmer, that had occurred during the Great Depression. The farmer had borrowed money from an uncle to buy a farm, but the crops had failed for several years in a row, and he was having trouble making payments. The farmer decided to move his family to another province to seek other work, at least for the winter. He made arrangements with his uncle to look after the farm and said that if he wasn't back by a certain day in the spring, the uncle could keep possession of the farm.

Things weren't much better in the other province, and in the spring the farmer decided to move his family back to the farm. However, they encountered delays on the road, and they arrived at the farm one day too late. As the farmer drove onto the yard of the farm, he was met by his uncle's son brandishing a pitchfork. The cousin informed the farmer that he and the uncle had taken rightful possession of the farm and that the farmer should get off the land.

The farmer chose to accept his uncle's decision and the letter of the agreement; for the sake of familial relations, he left. In time, the family which kept the land became prosperous. The farmer who had been deprived of his land by a delay on the road, struggled financially all of his life. But, over the years, the two families lived in mutual respect and peace, and in time a genuine spiritual friendship formed between the farmer and his cousin.

Both of the fathers were Christians. One was a Mennonite. The other was not. One came from a peace theology tradition. The other did not. I am convinced that the only peace theology that is worth anything is the one that is lived.

The field

This is true, of course. Yet, as a historian, I am aware that this sort of human migration has occurred before. The Roman Empire was flooded by immigrants from all of the outlying areas that Roman armies had conquered. People flowed to the centre of power. In fact, some historians suggest that the influx of people with less culture and weaker values (or, at least, different values) caused the fall of the Roman Empire.

Great Britain has seen a similar influx of Indians, Africans and West Indians in this century--people from all the areas that had been made colonies by British military conquests and incorporated by force into the British Empire. Again, people flowed to the centre of power and the hub of the dominating culture.

Thus, I have mixed feelings about the current influx of people into North America. It means that we are now the centre of power, and ours, for all of its flaws and moral failures, is the dominating culture in the world. We are the builders of empire. It probably also means that we have reached a peak as a civilization and are likely to experience a decline in the future. Be that as it may, the result is the same. We do have a great opportunity to evangelize the world now. God did not create the evils of empire, but He uses empires for His own purposes. He used the Roman Empire to hasten the spread of Christianity in the first century A.D., and He seems to be using our empire in a similar way now. As Joseph, himself an immigrant from an outlying area to the centre of empire and culture, said: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good . . . the saving of many" (Genesis 50:20).

Return to the M.B. Herald Vol. 35, No. 18 Home Page