Dr. Christian Academic is currently evangelizing Indonesia

I love how academic Christians fly off to country X, speak to 14 people in a hotel meeting room, then come back and talk about it like they're a modern day apostle Paul. And they usually characterize the trip as: "I preached the message to Indonesia." Rather than saying: "I flew into an airport in Jakarta and talked to fourteen people in the Jakarta Holiday Inn, then I got back on the plane and flew back home."

Why am I mocking them? Because they're playing dress up. They're taking the most comfortable route with the least resistance, giving a 'talk' (that will have the impact of reading an article in a journal, if that), and then making like they are from the apostolic era.

"Jakarta!" his neighbor says, "that sounds exotic...and dangerous! Did you have to cut your way through dense tropical forest to get to a tribe that's never heard the Gospel?"

"No comment," Dr. Christian Academic says. "It's not my place to even give the false impression I may be boasting, so I'll just give you a no comment. And God bless."

These are not exactly holy men, are they? They don't exactly bring much with their presence. In fact, they are more likely to exaggerate their state of being undeveloped and shallow and ordinary but then to justify their state by saying Christianity isn't about coming on like a holy man. Well, how about *being* a holy man? Why do you accept a position of teacher and leader in Christian institutions and among Christians if you are no different than anyone else? If you are as shallow and undeveloped as anyone else? I don't think the Jakartans expect to see great antlers on your head, or a visible halo; but how about a human being whose understanding of the faith is larger and deeper than the average dope in a seminary?

Someone not interested in playing dress up. Someone not interested in the fake impression his trip will make on the naive.