Anyway, after some things I've written and thought about, I thought it might be appropriate to deal with this one issue very briefly. In my family, the men, following my father's lead, have all taken the position that public opinion is of paramount importance. I hope you can tell by now that I'm not so much of that mindset. As a matter of fact I'm more of the turn-the-tables-of the-money-changers ilk. That is, let's call a spade a spade and fix the problem rather than continue on playing some charade or other. In any case, don't count on me to play along, so if you want to play, you'd better keep me at arm's length because I'm not the playing type.
Now my talking like that is not necessarily just all hypothetical, because I have two brothers who seem to enjoy making sure the public have one view of them even while they know they live differently. That's why, for example, no one knew that my one brother had a temper - because it was delegated to private family affairs.
But what does the Bible have to say about this kind of thing?
Well, actually, I'm not sure I understand them enough to say for sure. With dad I think, if I understand him correctly, it was that when mom had her first breakdown she was an embarrassment to him and so from then on there became a need for there to be a discrepancy between what really went on behind closed doors at home and was the public saw. If there was a difference like (between public fiew and their familial relatioship) that before her breakdown, I don't know about that.Dad may also have resented her holding him back too, I don't know. We as children were told not to tell other people about mom's emotional problems.
My brother back home, in his relationship with mom made sure everyone knew how much he was sacrificing and doing for her and how hard she was making it for her. So then it made it look like she was such a problem and so unthoughtful or something. Then behind closed doors he would yell at her and criticise her and call her names, basically, emotionally and verbally abuse her.
Luke 12:2
Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.
This verse is good for anyone to remember who does things "in secret", including the mission in Vienna and how they treated me.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
This, of course, is true for all of us, every single one of us, believer included, because we're going to be judged to receive crowns and for our positions in heaven. So if someone is terribly concerned about what others think and has a dual standard regarding what goes on in public and what goes on in private and what should be kept secret, knowing that if secrets were to be "leak out" the Christian world might not approve and you might have some explaining to do or you might have to change some ways. So you'd rather maintain the status quo and pay the piper later... at the judgement seat. Well, and you just may have to do that. So it might be wise to consider whether or not there are any double standards lurking in your families, in your missions.
John 3:19
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Now I'm not saying that any of the people I'm talking about aren't saved, but in their walk, at least in certain spheres, since they have this secret inner world (family, mission) that members have strict instructions as to how they are to talk about to the rest of the world, so they seem in this instance to love darkness rather than light. They seem to love their world of secrecy and darkness from which the world is cut off - but which, I might mention, God is NOT cut off. God know all your little secrets and what goes on behind closed doors.
How much better to have a clear conscious and love the light? That is the one thing I have always, from day one ever since I left Vienna, said, that I left with a clear conscious, which is something I could not have said if I had mired myself in their ways. So I never regreted that. Of course, I still went through a lot of agony, which I've discussed elsewhere and I'll get to later on too. But that's a different issue altogether.
So whether you're my family members, the men in my family, or the Vienna mission, you need to know that God knows what you're doing and what you've done, whether or not people know or knew, and one day you're going to face God for how you've acted. So you may think you can fool people, and you may well be able to, but you can't ever fool God. Ever.
You still have a choice, however. Are you going to continue in darkness? For missions, deception is a sin and lying is something God can't even do. I don't even want to try to address my brothers. They're going to have to figure their own way out.
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Back to the text...We're in the section titled "Organizational Obedience" where the author is still creating propositions relevant to organizational citizenship behavior. In this section she pairs organizational rights and responsibilities to create "organizational obedience". For example...
"Those with Gesellschaft relational ties are likely to be minimally compliant, because they see rights and responsibilities related only instrumentally. On the other hand, those with normal or covenantal Gemeinschaft relational ties are likely to obey the spirit as well as the letter of the law, due to their sincere respect for the organizational rationality." (p. 259)
The covenantal Gemeinschaft relational ties are what one would have found in the Vienna mission, and I don't think anyone would really argue with that. Except I never really reached that level because I could never accept the mission's values and norms en toto, and that was part of my not internalizing their values and norms. Of course, I did in part, but that was not at all adequate. They wanted all or nothing, because to have a partial acceptance meant that you were left critiqueing the organization over the part you didn't accept and that was not okay. Very not okay. So I was in the doghouse like most of the time I was there, if not the whole time. (Of course, there may well have been other things going on, so I don't want to make it look like that was the only reason I was singled out, because I doubt it was.)
Okay, so all those others who did have the covenantal Gemeinschaft relational ties with the mission did (once they were socialized) obey the spirit as well as the letter of the law and did, as far as I knew, have a sincere respect for the organizational rationality.
I think this "organizational rationality" thing deserves some discussion. First of all, I remind you that we're talking mostly (although not entirely) about theologians with Th.M. and some Th.D. degrees. So these people should have been able to think more or less clearly about "organizational rationality." Or at least about organizational morality. The thing is that these new missionaries respected the mission for the following reason, I suspect: 1) for the qualities of missionaries (in their view); 2) for the quality of the mission and/or number of missions comprising the mission - as it was made up of member missions; and 3) conceded to others because of their lack of lack of skill/knowledge regarding work in Eastern Europe/closed countries. So these things compelled these missioneries to sincerely respect the organization's rationality, which resulted in their obedience.
I, on the other hand, failed to see the organizational rationality. The thing was that, first of all, I came knowing German and Russian and having spend a couple months a few years prior in Austria, not to mention other German speaking countries and cities. I had also worked with other missions and had done research with a well known research center and worked in a specialiced library, had traveled on my own and made contacts on my own and learned of various ministries to that part of the world on my own. And I had written to a whole slew of missions trying to select a mission and had gotten a real eye opener in the answers I received.
So when I came to the Vienna mission and saw what I saw, knowing what I knew from other groups. I knew that I couldn't accept their rationality and that their rationality wasn't a given just because their missionfield was Communist. I didn't buy it. I didn't buy it because I didn't think it was Christian and I didn't buy it because they were using tactics similar to those used by the Communists. (The Communists did used psychology to reeducate their political activists, I'll remind you.) So no I didn't enter into the covenantal Gemeinschaft relationship ties, but leaving felt painful like I was leaving a cult under bad conditions. However, the upbeat letter from the director and assistant director which was so sickening syrupy sweet that I received some six months after I returned home from leaving Vienna made it sound as if everything was just hunky dory. Yeah right. Barf.
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I think that's all for now. I've got to get going.
