I got to thinking last night after I wrote my last entry, that some of the things I've said might need more flushing out.
One thing is regarding the motivation for the apparent deviations from Scriptural honesty that the mission was permeated with. If they were very altruistic in their motivation, they might have taken on this behavior simply to avoid causing further suffering for the believers they worked with in religion-averse countries. If this is the case, is this motivation enough to legitimize their protective measures?
However, it is also possible that they weren't so completely altruistic, and also wanted to protect their own behind. Most people would probably say that this isn't as noble a reasoning as the above suggestion. And, as such, isn't quite as easily justified.
But another possibility is that they weren't just trying to protect themselves and the believers they worked with in-country (i.e., in Eastern Europe), but also the assets of the ministry that "belonged to God" and that "others had entrusted them with". This might be seen to placate any protests of self-interest suggested in the second reasoning above.
We're not done yet, though: Is there any kind of reasoning, in God's eyes, that justifies deceit and other such tactics? Before I was talking about how you and I might see these types of reasonings, but now I'm bringing God into the picture, which seems like a reasonable thing to do since we're talking about Christian missions and not, say, the CIA or US military (I don't believe the USA is a Christian country or the second Israel; I don't believe that there is a Christian country or second Israel anywhere).
There's another issue that is sure to come up in these kinds of discussions, and that is What is the role of acting by faith? How can we live by faith but do so without 'testing God'? What does it mean to being 'responsible' stewards? I'm looking at these all together, as one basic issue of trusting God but at the same time doing our part.
It is my belief that if God gives us something to do (and it truly is His wish, His calling), then it is our part to obey. But He can't ask us to do something that otherwise involves sin, because sin is something that is contrary to God's will. Do you see what I mean? Sin and God's will are diametrically opposed.
So if God really and truly has called someone to do something, it is the person's responsibility, relying on God the whole time for everything, and leaving the results in His hands. There are many ways to mess up along the way, including not doing everything or doing more than He wants, doing it in a way that is otherwise sin, etc. The aspects of trying to obey God that actually entail acting in disobedience to Him are still sin, even if the intentions are good.
Another issue is that even if taking some precautions was within God's will (and not contrary to them), is it possible to take the wrong precautions or too many precautions? That is, if it was okay (per God, not people) to take certain precautions, would it still be wrong (or sin) to go way overboard and become obsessed with precautions so that the whole nature of the organization was changed in keeping with precaution measures? Wherein lies the truth, pray tell.
***
Without further ado...
Section title: "Individual Factors"
"After reviewing the literature concerning organizational withdrawal, Porter and Steers (1972) concluded that the available evidence indicates that those individuals who leave the organization manifest personality characteristics near the polar extreme of various continue (e.g., anxiety, aggressiveness, self-esteem, etc.). The implication for the socialization process is that new members clustering near the middle of the various personality dimensions will be more susceptible to the organizational socialization process in terms of the outcome, remaining with the organization." (p. 98)
Yikes! I suppose this is probably true for me, although I'd have to go back to those original research articles to see what the continua are to think about which might apply to myself. I suppose I don't lend myself to the golden median, however.
I did have to take at least one personality test before joining the mission, to help determine who I might work with best.
***
"Schein and Ott (1962) noted that the attitudes one holds about the legitimacy of the organization's attempt to influence certain behavior may determine the boundaries of the socialization outcomes. Their study, an attitude survey, revealed that the more job-related the area of influence, the more it was considered legitimate for the organization to attempt influence." (p. 98)
As we've discussed before, the Vienna mission was pretty much a total institution, probably more so than most other missions, so they undoubtedly recognized precious few boundaries in their attempt to socialize newcomers, although I think there was some variance in what exactly those boundaries were depending on the individual's position within the organization. The only people who had secretaries in the organization were leaders (although sometimes secretaries also served other members of the department), and leaders had access to the most information, secretaries could, by association, so the justifiable life spheres needing socialization be commensurate with that fact. Also, the secretary also shared a lot of the people contacts as her boss, including some relations that others might not be privy to, like board members and the like.
But since I'm a thinker and don't take well to others trying to dabble with my basic values and beliefs (especially not coercively), although I didn't know this about myself yet because this was the first time I'd ever experienced it - talk about a baptism by fire! - I thought that the mission way over-reached the acceptable socialization bounds. As far as I was concerned, if they had so much distrust of me they shouldn't have accepted me in the first place. I thought I'd already past that test, although I probably wouldn't have been so succinct about this at the time.
***
I can't believe how late it is and I have to run!
