Stealing the word of God
February 28, 2008
I recently paid a visit to Psah Toul Tom Poung, the main tourist market in Phnom Penh, to buy some new clothes for the kiddies. It was a relatively uneventful affair. We plowed our way through a morass of people, rummaged through heaps of clothes, made our purchases, and departed. As usual, the last few vendors near our chosen exit were vendors selling bootleg DVDs, VCDs, CDs, and software. Windows Vista? Adobe Photoshop? Quickbooks? All these and can be yours for just a dollar. Two dollars if you don’t bargain.
For better or for worse, the sight of such brazen disregard for the law and ethics has long since lost its ability to enrage me. So it is that I surprised myself by the degree of disgust and anger that engulfed me when I saw one particular software package on display … Bibleworks 6.0.
There is something seriously, deeply, disturbingly wrong about buying bootleg Bible software.
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The reason I was filled with such disgust is that the market vendors, who are probably animistic Buddhists, realized that there was an untapped market for media specifically targeting the huge missionary community. Though our purchases of their software may bless the vendors financially, I fail to see how we are revealing anything about our God who calls us to be holy as he is holy.
Anita responds:
More than disgusting me, it saddens me that we missionaries are ruining our own witness by encouraging illegal activity. Are we any better than the “pagans” we are trying to “convert”?
Um, no. Welcome to reality. What took you so long to get here?
March 1, 2008 at 12:30 am
I first read your comment at Danny’s blog and then decided to take a quick look at yours. I just don’t get what you’re trying to convey in your comment. Are you agreeing with Danny about the problem of buying bootlegged stuff? Or are you just making an anti-missionary statement?
March 1, 2008 at 10:48 am
Kevin, although I am the author of the these words, I did not post that comment on Vlady’s blog. Maybe it’s an automated thing, I’m not sure. But it wasn’t me.
In regards to Vlady’s post, I thought it was curious that people whose professed mission is to “spread the word of God” were offended at the buying and selling of software in service of that mission. That was the whole reason of making the software, right? To spread the word? Putting profit before the prophet seems a tad hypocritical.
But reasonable people could disagree about such things. The holier-than-thou stuff, though, is clear cut. The notion that Christians are morally and spiritually superior to the “pagans” is incredibly offensive.
March 2, 2008 at 1:22 am
Yeah, you’re definitely right that a holier than thou attitude is incredibly offensive. There is nothing in Christian teaching or the Bible that gives Christians license to feel they are superior to others in any way. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The gospel is that God loves the selfish and sinful, and we recognize that that’s who we are. God also has a very deep compassion for the poor and oppressed, and so we do too. In fact, Jesus’ constant teaching was that we should put all others ahead of ourselves, that we should suffer for others as he did, and that the “first will be last.” Knowing Anita and Danny as I do, I think Anita is using irony in her comment about pagans and converts and giving a nod to the fact that some people of faith do feel superior, and yet their actions betray them. I know for a fact that they do not see Cambodians as merely pagans to be converted, but as human beings to love and serve and learn from.
And as for the software, it really wasn’t made to spread the word per se, but to be a tool primarily for scholars and academics. It would be useless in the hands of most Cambodians, and the missionaries could buy it legally online. But it’s a gray area.
Anyway, thanks for responding. That’s what blogging is for.
March 2, 2008 at 3:43 pm
FYI, when WordPress blogs reference each other (even old posts of the same blog) the software usually posts a trackback comment, automatically. Not sure about other blog software.
March 2, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I say buy as many bootlegged DVD’s and CD’s as you can carry. Look, if a person or company cannot protect it’s intelectual or physical property, it’s going to go missing. That’s the way of the world. And it will never change. Independent of faith, or faithlessness.
I’ll need to buy the $2 Bible software to make sure, but I don’t think I’m going to Hell. Not for intellectual property infringement anyway.
In this town, buying a legitamate CD would be as stupid and wreckless as stopping at a stop sign.
No, I am going to Hell for being a poor speller.
March 3, 2008 at 4:52 am
A POV, I love it! You can be the test case for whether or not buying it will send you to hell. We just have to figure out a way for you to blog from hell.
March 3, 2008 at 11:16 am
Are we any better than the “pagans” we are trying to “convert”?
Actually the ‘pagans’ (in this case Buddhists) have always had an official policy to give the Dhamma away for free - the Buddha himself insisted that one should not materially profit from the Truth and that it should be freely available to all.
I’m not sure who owns the copyright/intellectual property rights on the Bible - God, surely? - but clearly the answer to the rhetorical question is that, ‘no, you (arrogant missionary) Christians are no better at all’.
March 5, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Great quandry, but not my problem to solve.
Sure, watches, purses,shoes, music and more are knock-off’s.
Knock-offs are pandemic. This is the originating prviders problem, not mine, our yours.
April 2, 2008 at 5:28 am
The people buying and selling illegal copies of BibleWorks are not stealing the Bible, they are stealing the ox used to deliver it. Each copy that is sold makes it that much harder for us to stay in business and provide these tools. And believe me, in today’s economy, it is very hard. I am amazed that Christians would think that is OK. What a wonderful testimony ro unbelievers! How would you feel if theft like this became the final straw that broke our company’s back? “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.” (Eph. 4:2