Christians, Justice and Tibet by John Scawen
Christians, Justice and Tibet brings into sharp focus the connection between our choice of lifestyle and injustice half a world away. A challenging, uncomfortable, must-read manifesto for "positive deviancy". This is a fascinating and provocative analysis of Christian witness and lifestyle in the light of the author's deeply-felt engagement with the people and places of Tibet. John Scawen creatively combines biblical reflection, cultural and political history with personal narrative to provide a highly original Tibetan-eye perspective on patterns of behaviour and thinking that many Western Christians take for granted but that need to be robustly challenged. |
This book is exceptional in how it draws together the two important themes of loving our neighbour and seeking justice. For too long these have been considered in isolation. Drawing on personal observations and experience of cross-cultural development work, the author of this unique book makes some very useful, practical suggestions on how we can move forward. A short book that definitely is worth reading! If all that you know about the Tibet versus China issue comes from short sound bites on the evening news, then you should read this book. John Scawen offers insights and opinions from his eight years of development work on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. He has worked alongside Tibetans, eaten in their homes, slept in tents on the grasslands, heard first hand of the painful effects of modernization on cultural Tibetan areas. In this book he asks provocative questions, stirs a sometimes unsettling debate, and ultimately asks of us, "How can I be a good neighbour to my Tibetan brothers and sisters?" |
Foreword:
Having travelled in China on several occasions to help train the burgeoning mission movement, I am left with questions about what really goes on under the surface in that great land, especially concerning ethnic minorities. Through the eyes of Rinchen, a youngTibetan man, this book takes the reader beneath the surface to identify the less understood issues and to suggest the direction in which hard answers are to be sought.
While compellingly written and passionately expressed, it is not a comfortable read for the mission leader. Its stance as a ‘positively deviant' message gives it the potential of being spiritually prophetic or even politically subversive; perhaps, inevitably, it will be seen as both.
National Director of a Christian Organisation
Having travelled in China on several occasions to help train the burgeoning mission movement, I am left with questions about what really goes on under the surface in that great land, especially concerning ethnic minorities. Through the eyes of Rinchen, a youngTibetan man, this book takes the reader beneath the surface to identify the less understood issues and to suggest the direction in which hard answers are to be sought.
While compellingly written and passionately expressed, it is not a comfortable read for the mission leader. Its stance as a ‘positively deviant' message gives it the potential of being spiritually prophetic or even politically subversive; perhaps, inevitably, it will be seen as both.
National Director of a Christian Organisation