by Stefanie A. Bohde | Aug 21, 2012 | Commentary |
When Alissa was only 16 years old, she met an older man at a Dallas convenience store. In the amount of time that it took for her to step inside for a Diet Coke and a pack of Newports, the man talked Alissa into giving him her phone number and walked her back out to the car, even opening the driver side door for her. Over the next few weeks he wooed Alissa, taking her to expensive restaurants and complimenting her fragile beauty. Those first few weeks were filled with expensive gifts and a promise of a better life. When Alissa’s new boyfriend asked her to move in with him, she said yes without hesitation, her eyes filled with the promise of safety and security.
Instead of finding security in her new home, Alissa slowly broke to her new boyfriend’s control. He began to beat her, forced her to watch porn so that she might become a “better lover,” and even made Alissa get a tattoo of his nicknames, further branding her as his own. Soon, this man convinced her to begin escorting other men on dates and having sex with them for money. Further expanding his enterprise, he posted prostitution advertisements on the Internet and demanded that Alissa have sex with the men who responded to the ads. This boyfriend turned pimp easily kept Alissa in line. With an assault rifle in the closet and a combination of verbal and physical abuse, he brandished complete control over his captive.
It was only much later that Alissa’s “boyfriend” pled guilty to trafficking (adapted from the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report 2011).
Alissa’s story serves as a mirror for countless others throughout the United States every day. The United States legal system defines sex trafficking as, “commercial sex acts induced by force, fraud, or coercion or commercial sex acts in which the individual induced to perform commercial sex has not attained 18 years of age.” The Polaris Project reports that though the number is largely indistinguishable, hundreds of thousands of US citizen minors are believed to be at risk for commercial sex exploitation. The same report noted that 40 to 70 percent of youth runaways fall into prostitution as a way to meet their essential needs. Most often, girls are only 12 years old at their time of entry and boys, only 11. In all, it’s been estimated that there are between 100,000 and 300,000 prostituted children in the United States.
The Pervasiveness of Human Trafficking
Human trafficking doesn’t only exist within the confines mentioned above or the boundaries of the United States. According to the Polaris Project, examples of human trafficking cases cover everything from sex trafficking in India and Latin America to exploitation of the workers in the shrimp industry in Thailand to the use of child soldiers in Burma. To further put things in perspective, it’s estimated to be a $32 billion industry and impact 161 countries across the globe.
We generally believe we’re safe here in the United States. We teach our children the basics — don’t talk to strangers, don’t take candy from anyone you don’t know, only play where we can see you. Yet, Alissa’s story is one that follows a common pattern learned by traffickers in the sex trade industry. When examined more closely, many follow similar recruiting and “seasoning” strategies designed to sell the illusion of love and security before conditioning their victims with a new lifestyle and belief system of blind obedience and abuse.
We’re making steps towards recognition. According to 2011 Human Trafficking Hotline Statistics, “2,945 victims of human trafficking were connected to services and support.” Of that number, “calls from self-identifying victims increased by 61 percent,” showing that the hotline number is reaching those people that need it the most.
These statistics help show that there is an increasing awareness and response to the human trafficking crisis. Just this past summer, a child prostitution crackdown — dubbed “Operation Cross Country Six” — occurred from June 21 to June 23 in 57 cities across the nation. Local and federal law enforcement officers worked with the FBI to arrest 104 suspected pimps in the operation. They also freed 79 children who were being forced to work as prostitutes. These children were found at hotels, truck stops and storefronts, some barely over 13 years old.
Overall, prostitution isn’t what it often seems. It isn’t a thrilling lifestyle chosen by women (or men) to expand their sexual portfolio or cash in on ritzy perks. As evidenced above, most barely even have a choice in the matter. Take Patricia’s story, for instance. As a child of Chicago’s South Side, she had witnessed her share of poverty and crime. Her father was a pimp; her mother, a prostitute. When Patricia was a suitable age, her father tried to purchase her. Finding this out, her mother took her and ran. Patricia was later molested by her mother’s boyfriend and forced out onto the street at only 12 years old.
With nowhere left to turn, Patricia engaged in “survival sex” for nearly two decades — very often by no choice of her own. With the help of advocacy groups like the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, Patricia has worked hard to find a rhythm of normalcy in her life. Today she works in the food service business at her first job outside of prostitution.
Shining a Light on the Issue
A wide range of other organizations in the United States exists to bring awareness to the injustice of human trafficking and provide education and empowerment. Nicole Marrett, the owner and founder of Radiant Cosmetics, seeks to raise awareness by raising funds for victims and those involved in leading the movement forward through her cosmetic sales — 20 percent of her company’s profits go toward assisting victims and educating the public on the issue.
Marrett first dreamed about starting this social venture while spending time in Thailand for missions work with the World Race. “I became friends with a prostitute in Thailand, and my heart broke for this woman,” said Marrett. “Walking Bangla Road, home to over 200 bars and countless women who’ve been trafficked, I felt alive. A vision began to form.”
It was from that vision that Radiant Cosmetics sprung forth. With 80 percent of the sex trade industry comprised of women and young girls, Marrett hopes to rally this generation of women to fight for their fellow sisters, “one lipstick at a time.”
Many in the Christian community have been instrumental in calling attention to the sex trafficking issue. In fact, many local churches have added groups ministering around the issue to their missions budgets. And Christian academia has realized the important role that education and empowerment must play in fighting trafficking. Earlier this year, Moody Bible Institute announced a new four-year undergraduate major designed to equip students to work with victims of sexual exploitation. During their time in the program, students will learn about contributing factors (both societal and spiritual) and familiarize themselves with human trafficking organizations in the area. They’ll also have the opportunity to participate in a six-month, off-campus internship between their junior and senior years. Internships can either be with domestic or international organizations, depending on the student’s preference.
Courtney Fillmore, an incoming Moody Bible Institute student, is entering the program this fall. She heard about it from a friend who knew of her passion to fight this injustice.
“Last year, God led me to spend three months in Thailand with Youth With A Mission (YWAM). It was here that I saw first hand the tragedy that is sex tourism, sex slavery and human trafficking,” said Fillmore. “We would go into bars at night and just talk to the women that worked there. It changed my life. I knew that I couldn’t go back to America and continue to ignore the issue.”
Since being back in the United States, Fillmore states that she’s seen how human trafficking is just as prevalent here as it was in Thailand — maybe not as outwardly noticeable, but flourishing just the same. It’s a filigree of secrets and lies, a cobweb in a dark attic corner. Women like Alissa may be our neighbors, students, waitresses that top off our cup of coffee every morning. But darkness can’t survive once it’s brought out into the light. And just as Fillmore has refused to ignore the issue, it’s up to us to respond to the crisis.
How You Can Help
For more information on how you can directly take action, please visit The Polaris Project to find info about volunteering, attending events, advocating on the state or federal level, or even reporting cases of human trafficking.
Recommended Resources
For further reading on this topic, please check out these recent books:
• Escaping the Devil’s Bedroom: Sex Trafficking, Global Prostitution, and the Gospel’s Transforming Power by Dawn Herzog Jewell
• The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today by Kevin Bales & Ron Soodalter
• Forgotten Girls: Stories of Hope and Courage by Kay Strom & Michele Rickett
• Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade — and How We Can Fight It by David Batstone
• Somebody’s Daughter: The Hidden Story of America’s Prostituted Children and the Battle to Save Them by Julian Sher
• God in a Brothel: An Undercover Journey into Sex Trafficking and Rescue by Daniel Walker
• Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale by Rachel Lloyd
by Debra Dean Murphy | Mar 1, 2011 | Feature, Headline News |
As Americans were complaining about all the snow this winter, arguing about the value of NPR and PBS, and learning that we suffer from an “enlargement of self,” the Japanese were dying by the thousands as solid ground gave way and the sea roiled and raged, consuming whole cities.
The raw, elemental power of nature can shake us from our preoccupations like nothing else. (Though a few million of us will obsess about Division 1 basketball over the next few weeks — the men’s game, of course, never the women’s — elevating it to an importance that borders on the obscene.)
The indiscriminate destruction caused by earthquakes and tsunamis messes with our sense of cosmic justice. It shatters our romantic views of nature and of divinity — the silliness we often succumb to when we credit God with a beautiful sunset or a striking cloud formation. It silences, thankfully, if only for awhile, the bad theology of Everything Happens for a Reason. (That the Japanese are the only people to have suffered a nuclear attack and are now at grave risk for prolonged radiation contamination is a particularly cruel irony that ought to leave us in stunned silence).
This kind of “natural” devastation also reminds us of how little control we really have in this life, despite our considerable efforts to manage, contain, and forestall the unforeseeable. We know this in personal, intimate ways-a loved one stricken with cancer, say — but we seem so willing to buy into the lie that as a collective — a nation-state, say — we can preempt disaster with our cleverness and moral resolve (and a few billion dollars).
A decade of rhetoric about “homeland security” has trained us to think that we can make our country safe from outside attack, that, indeed, we must value and pursue security above all else. Politicians routinely campaign on such ideas, counting on an edgy, fearful electorate to latch on to any promise to keep us from harm — no matter how dubious or contrived.
But life is fragile, peace is always precarious, and the earth itself no respecter of persons or property. One gigantic wave and whole populations are decimated; one seismic shift and time itself is altered.
If there’s a lesson in this most recent tragedy (and it’s generally a bad idea to go looking for one), it’s that humans exist in a complex, interdependent web of relations with each other and with a planet that is sometimes inhospitable to our habitation of it. It was as instructive as it was terrifying to anticipate and track the waves that washed up on the California coast as the tsunami made its inevitable way westward. What happened in Japan didn’t stay in Japan.
Because corporations have written the dominant narrative of our time — that we exist to consume their products and that this is made possible by the easy flow of capital, goods, services, and labor across increasingly permeable borders, we might think that it is free-market capitalism which binds us together, making us “one world.” But in fact the earthquake and tsunami have revealed our common humanity and common destiny, reminding us that we have always been linked to our neighbors near and far, and that consumerism won’t save us but acknowledging our mutual dependence and shared vulerability just might.
______________________________________________________________________
Helping Japan
If you’re looking for a way to help the earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan, here are a few faith-based organizations and ministry efforts that are working to provide food, supplies, and direct emergency relief. If you know of other trustworthy organizations that should be added to this list, please let us know in the comments section below or at our Facebook page.
• World Vision
• World Relief
• The Salvation Army
• Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
• Convoy of Hope
by Edward Gilbreath | Jul 1, 2009 | Headline News |
Soong-Chan Rah
If spiritual renewal breaks out in a forest and no American Christians are around to witness it, does that mean it never happened?
Pardon the paraphrase of the old philosophical riddle, but this probably sums up the thinking of many in the evangelical community in years past. But the times are a-changin’. According to Soong-Chan Rah, author of The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (IVP), if the American church is going to be a relevant participant in the future of global Christianity, it had better recognize the church’s new multicultural reality. And the future is now.
Today African, Asian, and Latin American believers make up 60 percent of the world’s Christian population. According to researchers, the United States and Europe will soon no longer be the center of evangelical activity in the world. With this in mind, Rah calls the North American church to break free of its de facto allegiance to a Western, Eurocentric, and white American mindset and to embrace a new evangelicalism that is global, diverse, and multiethnic.
Soong-Chan Rah is a pastor, theologian, and activist who has (how to put this lightly?) ruffled a lot of feathers over the years by calling attention to issues of racism and cultural insensitivity in the evangelical community. Those familiar with the Rickshaw Rally incident and the Zondervan/Youth Specialties controversy, both covered in his book, will know exactly what we’re talking about. But his passion for reform is surpassed by his compassion and concern for the health of the church.
For years Rah led Cambridge Community Fellowship Church, an urban, multiethnic, post-modern congregation in the Boston area. Now a professor at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, he has inspired many a spirited discussion among Christians with The Next Evangelicalism, a book he confesses is intended to provoke its readers. One Christian radio station abruptly canceled its interview with Rah on the day of the broadcast after the host took a closer look at the book.
Rah doesn’t pull any punches in his critiques of the evangelical movement, but he hopes any discomfort he creates will motivate his readers to pursue positive change. He recently responded to questions from UrbanFaith readers.
How do you respond to those who suggest that your challenges to the church do more harm than good?
Soong-Chan Rah: I understand that this is a challenging topic for American Christians, and I know that I can come across sometimes as pretty intense about these issues. I am concerned that some folks will dismiss my book as an angry rant or will consider it to be excessively critical. I state early on that my intention is the reform of the church, rather than the downfall of the church. My hope is that we would bring out into the open the issue of race and racism in the American church — particularly given the changes in the demographics of American Christianity.
Practically speaking, do you think the strong tone and language of your book will change the mind of someone who isn’t already passionate about diversity in the church?
One of the questions I often grapple with as a pastor and as a professor is, how do people change? How do they grow? Particularly when I teach a course on discipleship, this question seems to emerge repeatedly. My theory on spiritual growth is that growth does not occur without the combination of two factors: the creation of a safe place coupled with the introduction of discomfort. Having just one of the two factors is not sufficient for growth. If you only create a safe place, you can become too comfortable and feel no need to change and grow. If you only have the presence of discomfort, you generate too much stress to allow for growth. Both a safe place and discomfort must exist to move towards growth. My book is an attempt to introduce a bit of discomfort to the overly comfortable culture of American evangelicalism.
Won’t ethnic-specific churches suffer from becoming multicultural, particularly those that serve immigrant populations?
I don’t hold the position that all churches in the United States have to be multiethnic. I believe that there is still a place for ethnic-specific churches, particularly among the immigrant communities. The need for language-specific churches still exists. Racism in America still necessitates the existence of the African American church. We are still many years away from multiethnic churches being the norm in American Christianity. We don’t want to mandate that the church enter into an era that we are not prepared for. I would want the church in America to be prepared and moving towards that multiethnic reality. I think, however, that we need to take a hard look at what we are doing and what cultural captivity we need to break off in order to enter into this multiethnic reality.
On the local church level, how will minority and immigrant groups maintain the kind of close-knit community that gives them encouragement and empowerment?
Part of the success of the immigrant church in America is the ability to develop a strong community in the context of suffering and difficulty. Throughout the book, I talk about the “language of primary culture,” which is the type of personal relationships that many ethnic churches develop and maintain. I think the ethnic churches will benefit from interacting with secondary cultural dynamics (usually Western cultures), as long as their primary culture is not obliterated by coming into contact with secondary culture. Maintaining the positive primary cultural dynamic of ethnic and immigrant churches is more likely to happen if we understand these dynamics to be an issue of relationships and power rather than simply an issue of culture.
You seem to suggest a connection between the Korean/Korean American church and the African American church. Where does this come from, and why do you establish such a connection?
Actually, I’m not the first to make this connection. Theologian James Cone makes this assertion in the commonality of suffering that is found in the Black church experience and the experience of the Korean community. As a Korean American, I do think there is a powerful common thread in both the Korean and Black communities in the stories of tremendous victory amidst great suffering and persecution. Both communities have experienced oppression (slavery, Jim Crow laws, racism, conquest, persecution, etc.), but both communities have experienced God in very deep ways in the context of great suffering. I talk about the contrast between the theology of celebration and theology of suffering in chapter seven. I think both communities have experienced the theology of suffering, and we have embraced an ecclesiology that reflects that suffering.
How do ethnic minorities begin a conversation amongst themselves about reaching out to other racial and ethnic groups?
I feel that dialogue across the races and ethnic groups is an absolutely necessary element of the Next Evangelicalism. Part of freeing the church from Western cultural captivity is the ability to move beyond a conversation that puts Western cultural values at the center or considers Western expressions of faith as normative. One of the ways we can facilitate this dialogue is by having a stronger sense of identity for every ethnic group. For example, it may be difficult for African Americans to relate to Asian Americans if Asian Americans are simply parroting the values of majority culture. Part of engaging in an authentically cross-cultural dialogue is the ability to define one’s own identity in the context of others. In other words, we need to know who we are if we are to truly talk to one another and move the conversation further along.
As I wrote the book, I realized that my style of writing might surprise some who had a particular assumption about the Asian American community. I felt that it was necessary to assert a strong identity that would provide a strong voice in the dialogue about what the next evangelicalism could look like. I hope that my book offers an encouragement to many non-white voices to assert a strong identity and voice in the dialogue — an identity that God delights in rather than seeks to wipe out.
You offer a blistering critique of the emerging church movement, suggesting that it is overhyped and lacks diversity. Is diversity possible in the “emerging” or “emergent” churches”? It seems as if Christians involved in that movement are extremely cultural bound, even more so than “mainstream” evangelical Christianity?
Yes, there is always hope. Any organization can change and adapt if they desire, and if they are willing to pay the price. There is also the importance of self-awareness. I think when there is a new thing that comes up, its advocates should exercise enough self-reflection to say, “We’re saying some really exciting things, but what are the unintended negative consequences of what we are saying? What are our blind spots and the areas that we need to grow in?”
What challenges or exhortations would you issue to the young “justice and reconciliation” minded folks, particularly those that are part of the “emergent” or “new monastic” crowds?
I think it is critical that we are willing to hear the stories and receive input from various points of view. I think even a new thing like emergent or new monastics can get stuck in a vacuum and not recognize that there are divergent voices that can contribute to the dialogue. I would encourage any new movements to consider and hear from disparate — and even oppositional — voices.
If you were a mentor to one of these young “justice and reconciliation” Christians and they asked for specific, clear advice on what type of church to attend and how to engage “the Next Evangelicalism,” what would you say?
First of all, I would encourage them to broaden their reading list. I would begin with works of fiction. I find that works of fiction tend to communicate the best insight about a culture. There’s a variety of novels that I’d recommend: Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease; Chang Rae Lee’s Native Speaker; Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake; Khalid Hosseini’s The Kite Runner; Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta. There also are a number of nonfiction works that provide insight into different cultures: Eldin Villafane’s The Liberating Spirit; One Church, Many Tribes by Richard Twiss; Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum; Yellow by Frank Wu.
I would look for places of interaction across cultures. Many of us may find these opportunities at our place of work or in our neighborhood — it’s probably our church and Christian world that is more likely to be segregated. I would encourage the building and deepening of healthy cross-cultural relationships in your current context. My recommendation has been to seek out mentors or spiritual leaders from a different ethnic/cultural background. There will be different contexts (single-ethnic churches that are of a different ethnic background from you, or multi-ethnic churches with a diverse staff) where you may be able to find cross-cultural mentors. These relationships should not be forced, but it really needs to have the foundation of a genuine relationship and commitment. In other words, there are no quick solutions, and it’ll take time to build the relationships and connections that will broaden your world.
It seems that often the conversation is how white churches can become more diverse, which can come off as an expression of white dominance or perpetuate the phenomenon of “white guilt” as a motivator. Would you suggest that some white and minority churches serving in the same neighborhood merge rather than having white churches glibly trying to be diverse?
The idea of a “merger” is a lofty concept that is very difficult to pull off. It is very hard to pull off the equality of power, or even an understanding of how power dynamics work, in the different cultural contexts required for a successful merger.
I think there needs to be a clear understanding of the reality of power distribution before engaging in talks about a merger. One of the most ignored aspects of any discussion on multi-ethnicity is the aspect of power. Those who have the power are oftentimes the ones who are unwilling to discuss the issue of power and dominance. Part of white privilege means the capacity and ability to not talk about the issue of power and the wielding of that power. I think one of the great things that a majority culture church can do in preparing for multi-ethnicity and diversity is to become more aware of white privilege. Instead of taking the lead and trying to fix the problem and create diversity, it might be better to be in a place of listening and preparation — particularly in the practice of yielding power.
1.) How do predominately white organizations (Christian colleges and seminaries, Christian magazines, etc.) become multicultural without somehow developing the sense that they — white Christianity — are the impetus for multiculturalism?
2.) How willing do you think evangelical seminaries are to embrace both contemporary and historical ethnic minority theologians and scholars? Will these theologians be in the primary fold of essential theologians, or will it be a tag on (i.e. solely having a course on African American theology rather than adding these theologians to the basic theology courses)?
Great questions. Again, the main issue is the issue of power. Are white institutions willing to yield decision-making power, theology-shaping power, curriculum-shaping power, culture-shaping power to non-whites? Will predominantly white organizations be willing to share power — and initially that will require a yielding of power — with non-whites? Any discussion about diversity will need to engage in a discussion about power. Otherwise, we reduce our efforts to tokenism.
For more information about Soong-Chan Rah and The Next Evangelicalism, visit his website: www.profrah.com. Special thanks to Joshua Canada, Joel Hamernick, and Ariah Fine for their questions to Professor Rah.
Bonus Questions
What led you to leave Boston for Chicago?
Soong-Chan Rah: Leaving Boston was a very difficult decision. One of the most difficult decisions in my life and it was certainly the most difficult decision that we faced as a family. We had a great community in Cambridge, and our family has always been committed to incarnational and local expressions of ministry. The church in Cambridge was a church that I planted, and it still holds a very special place in my heart. Aside from my family, I think planting the church is the best thing I’ve been able to on earth so far. I also had deep and meaningful relationships with peers and mentors throughout the city who were some of the most formative mentors in ministry.
A few years ago, I was offered the opportunity to join the faculty at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago. It meant a significant change: moving from the East Coast to the Midwest, shifting from being a local church pastor to a seminary professor. I was beginning to sense God’s calling into a ministry that connected the academy to the local church. Being on the faculty of my denominational seminary would strengthen my ability to integrate my academic interests and study with my experience and heart for the local church. While it was an extremely difficult decision, I felt that the church was at a place where a new lead pastor would be a good opportunity and that God was calling our family to be part of a new venture at North Park Seminary.
What church do you currently attend?
Our family has always believed in neighborhood churches. I really don’t like the idea of driving a great distance to attend church (bad for the environment and bad for the family). We attend Immanuel Covenant Church on the north side of Chicago, about three blocks from our home (which is about three blocks from the seminary where I teach). Our home, my place of work, our kids’ school, and our church are all in the 60625 zip code of Chicago, which is one of the most diverse zip codes in the United States. We were told that our kids’ school has over 50 languages and over 70 different nationalities.
Our church reflects that diversity. The church at one point had been a Swedish immigrant congregation. Less than a decade ago, the church was overwhelmingly white. Now it’s home to 15 different first generation immigrant groups — including Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Korean, Chinese, Mexican, etc. There is no clear majority at the church. Furthermore, we have a joint worship with a Filipino congregation adding to the diversity. There is great diversity in the church and that creates many challenges. But we have loved the community at this church and appreciate the genuine effort by the church to reflect the diversity of our neighborhood.
Are you still a Boston sports fan, or have you transitioned over to Chicago teams? If so, Cubs or White Sox?
I’m very loyal to my sports teams. I grew up in the inner-city of Baltimore, so I’ve been an Orioles fan since I was about 8 years old and haven’t changed my loyalties in over 30 years. I still follow the Orioles via fan websites and online games. While I was in Boston, I developed an affinity for the Red Sox (especially since they gave me a free clergy pass to the regular season games). I’m thoroughly convinced that it was the prayers of the clergy members who received free tickets to Red Sox games that led to Boston’s breaking of the curse and their winning two World Series championships. In contrast, when we moved to Chicago, I wrote to the Cubs asking if they had a clergy-pass program. They replied that they didn’t. So it’s a 100 years and counting for the Cubs.
