The author, a Christian minister, shares a story about a young girl named Eva who was exploited and abused by a gang. After encountering the gospel, Eva found hope and a renewed sense of purpose, but the story highlights the need for addressing systemic social injustice in addition to personal transformation.
He was a Christian minister. And he tells about the fact in 1957, excuse me, in 1957 he was I guess a student and worked in a church in an inner city area of some mid-western city. And he worked for a...
— Episode: A Woman, a Slave and a Gentile
Episode: A Woman, a Slave and a Gentile
The author, a Christian minister, shares a story about a young girl named Eva who was exploited and abused by a gang. After encountering the gospel, Eva found hope and a renewed sense of purpose, but the story highlights the need for addressing systemic social injustice in addition to personal transformation.
He was a Christian minister. And he tells about the fact in 1957, excuse me, in 1957 he was I guess a student and worked in a church in an inner city area of some mid-western city. And he worked for a church, he worked for a youth ministry for the summer.
He says, I was working with poor teenagers in a government housing project when 14 year old Eva began coming. She was exceptionally beautiful but her life was a wreck. Crime and drugs all through her broken extended family. She felt she had no future. The school she attended was terrible. Teachers literally did nothing but discipline. She had almost no reading and writing skills at age 14.
He says, early in my ministry I arrived at a hospital room where a woman in my church had just given birth. I had been told that there were problems with the birth. A couple sat in the hospital room waiting for the doctor. The doctor appeared shortly after I arrived and he sat down and he said to the new parents, you have a new baby boy, but there are some problems. Your child has been born with Down syndrome. And your baby also has a rather minor and correctable respiratory condition. My recommendation is for you to consider just letting nature take its course. And then in a few days there shouldn't be a problem.
The couple seemed confused by what the doctor had told them. If the condition is easily corrected, then we want it corrected, said the husband and the wife immediately nodded in agreement.
You must understand that studies show that parents who keep these children have a high incidence of marital distress. And is it fair for you to bring this sort of suffering upon your other two children? Said the doctor. At the mention of the word suffering, it was as if the doctor had finally begun speaking the woman's language. And she said, our children have had every advantage in the world. They have really never known suffering. They've never had the opportunity to know it. I don't know if God's hand is in this or in what way is God's hand is in this, but I could certainly see why would make perfect sense for a child like this to be born into a family like ours. Our children will do just fine. As a matter of fact, the more I think about it, it's a great opportunity for us. The doctor looked absolutely perplexed. He abruptly departed. I followed him out into the hall. He turned to me and said, Reverend, I hope that you can talk some reason into them. He said. And Willamon finishes this way. The couple was using reason, but it was a reasoning that was far into the doctor. For me, it was a vivid depiction of the way in which the church at its best is in the business of teaching a different language from that of the world. The church through the story of Jesus teaches a different language whereby words like suffering, words that are unredeemably negative in our society, change their very substance. Here was a couple who had listened to the ultimate story, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus for them in which suffering could be reasonably redemptive.