Redefining the Messiah Complex

For those of us who work in the world of faith-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs), we're well accustomed to the snubs and not-so-subtle criticism of our “secular” NGO peers. All too often, we're seen as nothing more than the offspring of those overly zealous missionaries of old who partnered all too well with historical colonialism. As a result, we constantly are attempting to distance ourselves from this characterization of the Bible-thumping fundamentalist who triumphantly arrives to save the poor from their poverty and the ignorant from their ignorance. 

Unfortunately, the Messiah complex mentality that typified the majority of those first outsiders who arrived with the “good news” — that turned out to be bad news for so many traditional cultures around the world — isn't simply a remnant from the past, but a mentality that is still very much present and influential. 

In today's world, the Messiah complex mentality takes two distinct forms: There are proselytizing and charismatic religious groups, convinced that their way of thinking and believing is the only correct way — that they are the bearers of ultimate, dogmatic truth and that it is their duty and vocation in life to convince those of us on the wrong side of conviction to join them on the right side. 

And then there are other groups who feel perhaps a bit uncomfortable with the colonial legacy of missionary zeal, but who nonetheless are convinced that they have something good and exclusive that needs to be shared or given to the rest of the world. Most often, these groups take the guise of faith-based NGOs whose assistance-based programs are focused on helping the poor through the good intentions and generous donations of the more affluent. Their understanding of "poverty" is synonymous with "any lifestyle that differs from the typical consumption of Western countries," and they have mastered a publicity machine where pictures of slender, barefoot, brown-skinned children touch the heartstrings and wallets of their mostly white-skinned donors.  

Yes, the Messiah complex mentality is still alive and kicking, and for those of us faith-based NGO workers who have taken up residence around the world, we loathe the comparison. In order to escape this identity, most faith based NGOs have found refuge in professionalism. 

To distance ourselves and our work from this mentality, we've determined that it is necessary to follow dutifully the professional norms and standards set forth by the hierarchy of the NGO world. We may maintain our faith-based vision and mission statements, but the actual work we do is largely shaped by the yardsticks of log-frames, planning, monitoring and evaluation schemes, and results-based management techniques established by this hierarchy. 

Perhaps this drive towards professionalism was necessary. In a sense, it helped many faith-based NGOs rethink issues of poverty and development. But at the same time, we've left behind a part of our identity that differentiated us from the rest of the NGO world and also held the possibility of something deeper and more meaningful. 

Father Rogelio Ponseele is a Belgian priest who for the last half decade has been living in a forgotten corner of northeast El Salvador. He came during the violent decade of the 1970s and has been there ever since, living alongside the peasants in the poorest villages of the country and sharing the reality of the communities where he has lived and worked. When the civil war came, that decision to be a part of the people led him into the mountains to walk with his neighbors who were seeking to build a country of justice, inclusion, and peace.  Father Rogelio is older now and many groups of college students and North American volunteers doing their semester long immersion into the reality of Central America come to visit him and hear his story. 

During one such visit, after hearing Father Rogelio recount the many years of walking beside the people of El Salvador, a young man majoring in international community development at a prestigious North American university asked: “When you first came to El Salvador, how long were you considering staying here?"

Father Rogelio laughed to himself.

“I didn't come for a visit. I came to stay, to be part of the community and the difficult reality of the poor of El Salvador,” he said.

That answer was beyond the realm of understanding of those college students. Unfortunately, it is also not very well understood or embodied by those of us currently working in faith based NGOs. On our quest to professionalize the work we do, we've come to define our lives and mentalities by unconstrained mobility and infinite opportunity. There isn't a country in the world where some faith based organization doesn't work, and once we get our foot in the door and establish our professional capacities, we can go anywhere in the name of Jesus and international development.

But correspondingy, there seem to be fewer and fewer folk who enter the faith-based NGO world because of ideals or values related to serving the poor, fighting for justice, or building peace. In short, there is less and less “mystic” within the faith-based NGO world.

Gustavo Gutierrez, the Peruvian theologian who began the liberation theology movement in the Latin American church, writes of this mystic when he says, "The preferential option for the poor is much more than a way of showing our concern about poverty and the establishment of justice. At its very heart, it contains a spiritual, mystical element, an experience of gratuitousness that gives it depth and fruitfulness.”

Regrettably, we seem to have lost that “mystical element” because the root of our decision to work for development or justice or peace no longer grows from a preferential option to identify with the poor and incarnate ourselves amongst their reality. The gratuitousness of walking with the poor their path to liberation has been replaced by baseline studies, needs assessments, and project indicators that too often objectify the communities where we work but do not commune.

Consequently, our work has also lost the “depth and fruitfulness” that comes with the mystic of becoming part of the communities where we live and work and assume their reality. 

There is no short-term course or training that can take the place of living in one place and learning from that place, its people, and its reality.

By committing ourselves to professionalism above all, the faith-based NGO world has been reduced to just another cog in the machine of international development. What we need is the courage to redefine the Messiah complex — to revisit the fundamental and underlying purpose of our decision to live and work amongst the poor. 

The essence of this new type of Messiah complex can be seen in the promise offered in Deuteronomy 15:4:

“There will be no poor among you; for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess.”

This promise is also an invitation to those of us who work in the faith-based NGO sector. It is an invitation not just to work towards a society where there will be no poor amongst us, but also an invitation to participate in the inheritance of a community that is walking together towards that ideal. 

It is an invitation to move beyond our role as privileged outsiders “helping” underprivileged communities and move towards a rightful belonging to those communities. 

In the end, it is an invitation to let go of a little bit of our professionalism in order to fully participate in communities where the real work of the construction of the Kingdom of God is taking place. 

And that is what the original Messiah was all about.