Jerram Barrs Interviews Patricia Green on Forced Prostitution and Human Trafficking, A Worldwide Problem

For the past fourteen years, Patricia Green Director of Rahab Ministries, has worked in Bangkok, Thailand, with women and children who have been sold into sexual slavery. Ms. Green and the other Rahab Ministries workers seek to bring these oppressed people out of prostitution, by the grace of God. Ms. Green recently visited the campus of Covenant Seminary to help students become more aware of the need to seek justice on behalf of these women. The following is an interview with Ms. Green that Professor Jerram Barrs led during her visit.

Patricia, it is a wonderful privilege to have you here with us today. Before I ask some questions about Rahab Ministries we are anxious to hear how the Lord brought you to a point where you became involved in the lives of these women.

I am a social worker and community psychologist by training. For many years I worked with women who are social outcasts in New Zealand.* I came to a time in my life where I was feeling a bit restless and heard of an opportunity to go with a group to Thailand. On this trip, God opened my eyes to what was happening with prostitution in Thailand which in some ways is the hub of sex tourism and human trafficking. Our group was staying in a cheap guesthouse in a backpacking area of Bangkok, and the staff there were young Thai people brought down from the northeast by the hotel manager. One of our team spoke Thai well, so we talked with these people. Then the pimps came, and I saw money change hands over the desk, and I saw these people taken away with their little boxes of belongings. Even though I knew that they were going to be abused and used, maybe for years, there was absolutely nothing I could do. I could not even say anything, because I could not speak the language.

Because evangelicals have too closely aligned themselves with political agendas, instead of the Scripture-derived social mission of the church, two camps have emerged over the past few decades. On the one hand, you have the "Christian-means-Republican" camp where many biblical imperatives are pursued through legislation and government force, and on other hand, you have the pathetic economics and theocratic biblical theology of prophetical left in the likes of guys like Bono, the One Campaign, and so on.

Over a month ago I sent a letter into the Seattle Times responding to one of the local news columnists. Unfortunately I had to condense my original letter from 800 words down to 200 words. So below I have included my full letter. To read the column first you can follow this link – "Having to Make this Choice." To read more about my friends and their little girl please visit the Noelle Hermes Foundation. I just want to encourage folks to engage in the culture that surrounds in a way that may show inconsistencies where eventually the light of the gospel may be proclaimed. Ultimately the gospel is central but there are times where walls need to be broken down as well.

Why Does America Have Orphans If It Has Christian Churches?

America has nearly 115,000 orphaned kids in foster care waiting to be adopted. Some wonder how this is possible in a country with Christian families. Surely, there are 115,000 missional families in America, right? Missional families, for example, embrace the redemptive mission of God and practice "true religion" in their local communities (James 1:27). Missional Christians in America could eliminate the foster care system tomorrow if we would stop "shootin' up" with the American Dream (heroine) in order to get high on a lame life lived for the sake of comfort and ease.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world," writes James (1:27). As a matter of fact, the Bible has over 40 verses mandating God's people to look after orphans and the fatherless for various reasons.

According to the American Religious Identity Survey, conducted by the City University of New York, there are over 224 million Christians in the United States. So, why are there 115,000 orphans in a country that has over 224 million Christians?

In the thinking of many Christians, the notion of racial reconciliation does not have a direct relationship to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We may agree that Christians of different ethnicities ought to get along, but many would also be hesitant to recognize a demand in the gospel along this line. After all, the thinking goes, the gospel is the message that all people need to "get saved." Each individual human is alienated from God because each of us is a sinner, and we need to ask Jesus into our hearts so that we'll go to heaven when we die. And, while we might agree that it would be nice if there were all sorts of races in heaven, and we probably should do our best to get along here on earth, if we don't, we can be thankful that this is no threat to the gospel.

I will argue in this article that this is not a proper understanding of the gospel message, and that rightly grasping the gospel entails a commitment to reconciliation of all types—including, perhaps most specifically, ethnic, or racial, reconciliation. Let me first offer a definition of what I mean by "racial reconciliation": Seeking to foster fruitful community life across racial and social boundary lines—lines of division that seem to be "normal" in some sense but have been perverted by Satan and human sinfulness, so that communities do not regard each other with respect and dignity, seeking mutually fruitful relationships, but with suspicion and fear, which lead to exploitation and manipulation of all types.

Revelation 5:8-14

The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. ⁹ And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. ¹⁰ You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth." ¹¹ Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, ¹² saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing." ¹³ And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." ¹⁴ And the four living creatures kept saying, "Amen." And the elders fell down and worshiped.

HEROES AT A DISTANCE

Greater distance in time between us and our heroes makes admiration easier. This is one reason why some Evangelical Christians stumble over Martin Luther King Day, but not over President's day. King is too close, and his warts can still be seen at the distance of 33 years. But George Washington stands 201 years away from us and through the haze of time we do not see so clearly that his Anglican faith was largely a social convention; that he seems never to have taken communion. John Adams, the second president was skeptical of traditional Christianity. Thomas Jefferson, the third president scoffed at the notion of the Trinity and the deity of Christ. And James Madison, the fourth president drifted toward the deism typical of men of his standing in Virginia in the early 1800's. (Mark Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992], pp. 133-135, 404). But from a distance we don't feel the same indignation about the flaws of our heroes that we feel when they are so close that their sins feel threatening.

A popular modern phrase, used most often in politics, is "flip-flopping." To be perceived as a "flip-flopper" is to be seen as weak and lacking in deep convictions. I am not sure who created this much-used phrase. but the Republicans used it very successfully against John Kerry in the last presidential election. Somehow the word conjures up a sense of opportunism, of outright compromise, or moral spinelessness.

In a recent issue of Martin Marty's, Sightings (Monday, January 8), the esteemed historian and religion writer refers to these changes we call "flip-flops" as "about faces" or "180-degree turns." When a politician changes a position, especially on an issue crucial to some people, it creates quite a stir. Steve Chapman, writing as a pro-life columnist for the Chicago Tribune in a December article, cited Governor Mitt Romney's change of view on abortion as a case in point. It is a fact that Mitt Romney was pro-choice for some years. Now he wants to assure his conservative political base that he is strongly pro-life. In Romney's words, "I'm in a different place than I was in 1994." Even his strongest critics admit that he has sincerely changed and that his actions have demonstrated this consistently. For the record, Ronald Reagan changed his view on abortion, as did George H. W. Bush, both having been pro-choice at one point before becoming pro-life. And Jesse Jackson and Al Gore also changed their views, from being pro-life at one point in the past, to their present pro-choice position.

JONATHAN EDWARDS AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Social issues per se, or culture, are not prominent in Edwards' writings. Discussions of social issues and public policies and programs have about as much place in his writings as they do in the New Testament. Which does not mean that what he wrote was irrelevant to public life and culture, any more than that the New Testament is irrelevant. It was relevant - and is relevant - the way physics is relevant to space travel and bridge building. And the way microbiology is relevant to a ten-day round of tetracycline or the purification of drinking water.

It mattered to Jonathan Edwards, just as it should matter to us, whether a culture is diseased and scarred by fraud and bribery and wife-burning and witchcraft and foot-binding and marital unfaithfulness and teenage promiscuity and pervasive pornography and vigilante justice and rape and murder and theft and sloth and misogyny and pedophilia and dozens of forms of insolence and arrogance. Jonathan Edwards could not imagine a Christian being indifferent to the morals and manners of his own city or country. He said,

The spirit of charity, or Christian love . . . disposes a person to be public-spirited. A man of a right spirit is not a man of narrow and private views, but is greatly interested and concerned for the good of the community to which he belongs, and particularly of the city or village in which he resides. . . . And a man of truly Christian spirit will be earnest for the good of his country, and of the place of his residence, and will be disposed to lay himself out for its improvement.

1 Peter 1:1-2; 4:7-10

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen ² according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in fullest measure.

Last week we saw that Christians are aliens in the world. Verse 1: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens . . ." Our first and primary citizenship is in heaven not the United States. Our first a primary constitution is the Bible not the U.S. Constitution; our first and primary King and Commander in Chief is Jesus Christ and not President Clinton, and the dominant cravings of our heart are not for the treasures and tributes of the world, but for the kingdom of God.

We are aliens. The language and values and customs and expectations of this world feel foreign to us. Something really radical has happened to us. Peter says in verse 3: God has caused us to be born again to a living hope—for another world, another, greater kind of existence. Paul put it this way: "You have died and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you will appear with him in glory" (Col. 3:3-4). Jesus called us to live like aliens—to fix our minds on radically different priorities than the nations:

Pure and Undefiled Religion: A Balance of Priorities
For those who believe the Bible, and do their best to live by it, the most significant question regarding abortion is not whether abortion is right or wrong (this should be clear), but whether the Bible commends us to do anything about it. Some have argued that pro-life involvement is "fringe" work, a distraction from the true call of the church; others believe that a person's entire spiritual health can be measured by their efforts to save unborn children. Some maintain that evangelism is the only legitimate means of producing the change necessary to end abortion; others have placed pro-life activism on par with evangelism. So what is a biblically minded person to do amidst so many conflicting opinions? On what side of the "pro-life" spectrum are Christians called to land? It's a difficult question. Let's begin with James 1:27.

Pure and undefiled religion is this, to visit widows and orphans and keep yourself unstained from the world.

This remarkably concise definition of true religion should immediately make it clear (among other things) that God has a unique concern for orphans, and by implication, a unique concern for children who are to be aborted. Lest you miss the connection, here it is. Since God compels believers to care for children whose parents have been killed, wouldn't He also compel us to care for children whose parents want to kill them? Whereas the orphan is bereft because his parents are dead, the unborn child on the way to the abortion clinic is bereft because his parents want him dead, and that's a worse condition to be in. By reasoning from the lesser to the greater, we can be fairly certain that God's concern for orphans also mandates concern for unborn children. With that in mind, let's continue to the real application of James' statement.

According to this text, "pure and undefiled religion" (which is what we're all after!), consists of two things. Visit those in need, and keep yourself unstained from the world. It is a combination of doing and being, a union of meeting needs and walking in purity. The first aspect is "visiting". Visit the widows. Visit the orphans. Get up. Get out. Do something in the service of love to alleviate suffering in the lives of those around you. The second aspect is, "keep yourself unstained from the world". Be holy. Be sanctified. Renew your mind. Live a life of humility. Be above reproach. Essentially, James 1:27 declares that the application of our religious life (as it relates to abortion and to everything else) must always play out in two fields. As John Piper argues, in his sermon "Visiting Orphans in a World of AIDS and Abortion" (where much of this reasoning comes from), there is a horse to ride, biblically, and it is easy to fall off the saddle on one side or the other.