Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Are you a witch doctor?

Published by

Matt Stone

2007-11-06

Are you a witch doctor? I bumped into Mike Frost over dinner the other week when he raised this interesting question, but first let me explain, I get enough people reading my stuff out of context as it is.

I thought I’d have a wander down to the food hall at Morling College, where I am studying Christian counseling, before the start of the evening lectures. I wanted to catch up with Kalessin to talk shop and found him already there, in conversation with Mike Frost. In the course of the conversation the three of us eventually came round to issues of missional leadership and I shared some of the stuff I had been working through, in terms of me thinking through taking up leadership of the discipleship ministry at Pendle Hill Baptist Church next year, and my struggles with this given I prefer to work from the periphery, not the centre.

This was when Mike raised the interesting question. Apparently he’d been reading this missional book where it differentiated between two types of leaders, the tribal elders who lead from the centre, and the witch doctors who lead from the periphery. Sociologically this is not unlike the distinction between the priests and the prophets in Israel I expect. It instantly struck a chord with me as you might imagine. And I wonder how many missional leaders are the “witch doctors” of the wider Christian movement. The crazies who ask interesting questions that help the tribe to rethink their position in the world.

The question before me now is, how can the witch doctors and the tribal elders work closer together, given we both have the interests of the tribe at heart.

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15 responses to “Are you a witch doctor?”

brad

2007-11-06

yo! matt! still churning brain cells to process dynamic tension in ascend/descend apologetics/theology etc. who knows when something will pop out on that.
meanwhile, good question from mike, and the distinction about leading from the center versus periphery. would love to know what book he is reading; i have been working to recall my knowledge of tribal dynamics from American Indian tribes; interesting stuff there, too.
anyway, there are some tribes which have sort of an anti-leader as well, the equivalent of a scapegoat, who lives outside the village and takes on certain functions as the official outsider.
so, i think i’m either the W.D. variety of leader, or the scapegoat anti-leader, or some postmodern combination of both. (when all else fails, use the ‘pomo’ word to bring about nods of feigned understanding or frantic grimmaces of disdain. either way, it serves to throw everyone off!) at any rate, i’m at the periphery.
i wonder if the book mike has been reading has any references to the Kingdom-cultural equivalent of shaman, who, i’m assuming, takes on some ‘Protector’ roles that do not fit with either the priest or prophet parallels.

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John W. Morehead

2007-11-06

This is a great way to look at the issues, Matt. I’ve been accused of being a witch anyway, most recently by Dwayna Litz of Lighting the Way, due to my recent posts on death festivals. So I might as well explore this way of looking at the issue of leadership.
Seriously, I think this raises interesting issues in that those “leading” from “the fringes” of the church feel like outcasts at times. At least I do. How can we be perceived has having something of value to say as we raise the hard questions for the church, and work cooperatively with those leading in more traditional ways from the center?

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Peggy

2007-11-06

Yes, Matt and Brad and John…how do we who seem to live and lead at the edges work cooperatively with those leading from the center?
I, of course, would say that we need to move everyone to the edge so that Christ (with the Father and the Holy Spirit, of course) could be at the center…but that is why I am currently at the edge, isn’t it ;^)
I think I’ll have to come up with a new chart of this…riffing from the Frost/Hirsch APEST model of both leaders and followers…Matt, I’ll send you a rough draft.
Hmmm….indeed!

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Steve Hayes

2007-11-06

Strictly speaking, however, a witchdoctor is someone who helps to solve problems caused by witchcraft, smells out witches, removes hexes and provides protection against them.
Is that really how you see your ministry?

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brad

2007-11-06

Hi Steve.
That’s a fair question.
No, I don’t see myself as a witchdoctor in the strict sense that you define. However, I do see the witchdoctor and the shaman as people who play an analogous role outside the Christian community to what we should have gifted and mature disciples doing inside the Christian community.
In the Kingdom, the parallel role involves such practices as deliverance, discernment, intercessory prayer, spiritual warfare, advocacy, and other such biblical spiritual disciplines required to lead, protect, and challenge the flock.
My own ministry overlaps with that list somewhat. I frequently serve as a “cautionary critic” who warns and challenges disciples against a too-small or too-formulaic view of who God is, how He is at work, and how we should respond. This is important, as it is easy for all of us to fall into formulas for evangelism, spiritual transformation of self and society, culture, politics, etc.
In my understanding, such formulas embrace what is the essence of magick; it is a rote-and-ritual way of attempting to exercise control over natural and spiritual forces. We simply cannot force God to do our bidding … but through formulas, we act as if we can. When I/we see such things, aren’t we responsible to say and/or do something about it? So, that’s what I do …

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Matt Stone

2007-11-07

Brad, your comments have inspired me to write a follow up post since I can’t fit everything I would say here.
Maybe I should write something on magic too but that would take another lengthy one!

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Matt Stone

2007-11-07

Steve, hopefully it is now clearer that I am invoking the witch doctor metaphor in terms of sociological function, not in terms of magic use. He is a leader who sits on the periphery of institution rather than at the centre, who takes his marching orders directly from the transempirical rather than indirectly as a guardian of custom and organizational harmony.
PS. Ladies, I use male gender language in keeping with the metaphor, but have no intention of excluding you from the implications of it.

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nic paton

2007-11-07

Bradford Keeney in his book “Shamanic Christianity” gives an interesting view of the shaman as Holy Fool, subverting the serious and thus discovering a doorway to the divine.
Brad – I like the “cautionary critic” who subversively errs on the side of the generous.

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Matt Stone

2007-11-07

I’ve read “Shamanic Christianity”. Thought provoking but to be honest I find it way to syncretistic for my tastes. Slips more into the real “witch doctor” arena, whereas above I was only invoking the image metaphorically.
You might find it interesting hear though, that Mike Frost’s old book “Jesus the Fool” has recently been re-released. Should have mentioned that before I suppose. Same essential idea but much more in keeping with Christian Orthodoxy.

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Kalessin

2007-11-07

Matt wrote,

PS. Ladies, I use male gender language in keeping with the metaphor…

Are you a “warlocknurse” then?
(WWTNRSVD?)

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Peggy

2007-11-07

Kalessin…Interesting…but men and women are both doctors and nurses, at least in my neck of the woods! ;^) And I don’t get hung up on language….
Matt…man you are going way too fast for me with this burst of blogging! And I have a blog of my own to keep up with! AAUGH!!!
luvyerwork, bro….

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Matt Stone

2007-11-08

Yes I was thinking I should try and wind it back a bit more. Would you believe I have already been trying to space things out?

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Matt Stone

2007-11-08

Actually, I would like to issue a correction to the original blog post above as it is now obvious I have incorrectly relayed some of it. Full story is Mike Frost wasn’t reading the book about the witch doctor but was speaking to another missiologist who was reading it and who raised the interesting questions. Mike has passed on the name to me today. I’ll contact him and see if he can point us in the right direction regarding the book.

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Peggy

2007-11-08

I can relate, though…the number of posts I’ve written myself needs some…well…restraint! ;^)
Blogging, like everything else in my life, comes in seasons–to which I just need to go with the flow!

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Steve Hayes

2007-11-09

Matt,
Some years ago Ralph Winter made a similar distinction between two different kinds of Christian ministry.
He distinguished between the local church and the apostolic band; the three-fold ministry and the five-fold ministry; the settled community and the itinerant ministry.
I think his distinction is much the same as what you have been talking about, but it expresses it in terms of the Christian community and Christian history.
I think trying to make analogies with tribal societies puts one in a certain amount of difficulty. There are, of course, Christians who live in tribal societies, but the ways in which Christian communities relate to tribal societies vary tremendously as well.
But when you start relating it to Christians who live in altogether different kinds of societies, like urban societies, the analogies can stretch to breaking point, and sometimes beyond.
What is the “shaman”? Would one count the Anglican priest who used to hang around the undertakers on his days off, in the hope of picking up funerals (and the fees) of the unchurched?
Witchdoctors and “shamanic” types basically have clients or customers rather than flocks or congregations, so yes, they differ from pastors, and also, in most respects from prophets as well.
The nearest equivalent to the witchdoctor or shaman in urban society is the psychotherapist (and perhaps it is in recognition of this that they are called “shrinks”).
I once, when I was in Namibia, received a letter from a group of concerned psychotherapists in Chicago, who felt they ought to be do gooders in the Third World, and asked about the possibility of sending psychotherapists to Namibia. I replied saying that it would probably be about as effective as sending witchdoctors to Chicago to help wealthy suburbanites. Both groups depend heavily on a social construction of illness and healing, and outside their social milieu their interpretations make very little sense.
But I did meet an Anglican priest who came pretty close to that kind of shaman. He was from Durban, went to the USA and did a course for a year at the Menninger Foundation’s Institute of Religion and Psychiatry. When he returned he lamented to me that South Africans did not have a culture of paying for counselling, so he would not be able to use his training, which was based on charging fees of so much per hour. That sort of thing was quite normal in American culture, at least among the middle class.
Now about that counselling course you’ve been attending…

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