Ashley Barker & John B. Hayes GO Alliance , 2002

“After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up from your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and I show you how far the rabbit hole goes.”

Submerge opens with these words from the 1999 film The Matrix, marking the author’s resolve to locate faith within the cultural and intellectual frameworks informing young people. In asking how we may see beneath “the barrage of constructed images vying for our souls”, Submerge seeks to develop a coherent vision for the salvation of our world, fully informed by intellect and Christian faith. Its recognition of the dimensions of world poverty puts this book at the confronting cutting edge of theology – “consider the environmental, spiritual and social implications of a world (by 2025) where the urban poor will number the same as the entire world population of 1970.”

Barker and Hayes argue the real context for incarnational ministry is urban poverty. They have both sought to live this mission among the poor, Barker through his Urban Neighbours of Hope missionary order based in Springvale in Melbourne, and Hayes through his order Innerchange, which has expanded to work among the poor in five countries since its 1983, beginning in Los Angeles.

Ashley Barker and his wife Anji and daughter Amy have this year moved to Bangkok to live with people living with HIV/AIDS, following a conscious identification that this is the place where they can most fully serve the work of Christ.

Submerge is the powerful intellectual, emotional and structural explanation of how Barker and Hayes think and work. Setting their mission firmly within Christian tradition, these men ask why so many passionate people give up on social change and retreat into private life.

Their answer, recognising the seductive power of the capitalist matrix, is the lack of structural mechanisms of support for mission. They search for such support by looking to the great saints -Paul, Patrick, Benedict, Francis, Ignatius – and the Protestant missionaries of the 19th century for guidance.

The key lesson is that “throughout history Christianity has been at its strongest when there are groups that can nurture high specific commitments which then initiate and support more open and inclusive Jesus-centred movements.”

From Benedict, the rule: “Knowing what is expected provides security and boundaries. Too often radical communities defined their community on the basis of personality rather than common commitments.”

From Francis, the mendicant love of the poor: “To keep choosing voluntary poverty creates a spiritual and emotional freedom like little else.”

Looking at the different waves of committed communities since Christ, Submerge observes that mission has been repeatedly subverted, most severely in the colonial period, when “institutions started as a tool to liberate the masses . became a tool of institutionalising western culture and Christ”.

A result and sign of the collapse of former models of mission today is that “people want to keep their options open rather than give themselves unreservedly to a professional institution.”

Missionaries suffer poverty, neglect, burnout, insecurity, stress, doubt, conflict, and even persecution. Submerge analyses these problems to define four key dimensions of mission built around sharing life with the poor.

Of course the barriers to such work are immense. Submerge cites in this context the passage from Luke 14 in which Jesus says the only proper motivation for hospitality is to gain the blessing of God.

Saying, “It takes a community to reach a community,” the authors emphasise the need for intimacy with God and a centred life. A key is that “being part of an order means taking an enhanced view of personal development” with systematic attention to character formation for prophetic mission.

Orders provide common practices with mechanisms for evaluation and support as part of a specialised connected community. A major argument of Submerge is that mission without order is unsustainable.

Submerge concludes, “In the words of liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, we want the poor to be able to say ‘we drink from our own wells'”. In following through this objective the authors show a scorching analytical honesty about the situation and prospects for Christianity. I commend Submerge for your reading, prayer, financial support and hopefully change in life. Call Urban Neighbours of Hope, (03) 9547 1129 to order a copy.

Robert Tulip works with the AusAID PNG aid program