Watering Down Protests

Protesting is a little different in Santiago, Chile. “The anarchists decide to take over our campus about three our four times a year,” said Cesar from the University of Chile. “We’re surprised it has not happened yet this year,” he added, “It’s very normal.”

May 1 was the holiday for the International Day of the Workers. As usual in Chile, the peaceful labor union marches were interrupted by occasional rioting.

There are always a number of young people who take it upon themselves to try and break things (obviously windows are just symbols of capitalist oppression) and fight the cops that are employed for crowd control. They do it in the name of labor, sometimes socialism and occasionally anarchy, but I don’t think the real workers appreciate it very much. It confuses the legitimacy of the unions with the chaos of the troublemakers.

“Every year, it’s always the same,” a local mother sighed as she watched the news. “They get together, throw rocks and someone gets hurt.”

Chile’s civil police, the carabineros, are pros at dealing with this sort of thing. They even have a special crowd control tank with a high powered water hose as a turret. It’s called a guacon, named after a breed of spitting llamas. When an impromptu protest breaks out downtown and stops traffic, the guacon cut things very short. I guess it’s hard to protest when you’re soaking wet.

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As I read the above online article about "Watering Down Protests", my thoughts turned to the tendency of ministries, churches, and Christians to "Water Down the Gospel".

We would ask that you pray that our family will not water down the Gospel, but share, in a loving way, the truth of the Cross of Christ, His burial, and His resurrection. While using water to stop protests is evidently effective, we know that watering down the Gospel is not effective in the hearts and lives of people. The true Gospel and Biblical truth is the only way to be effective in changing Chilean lives and families.

Please continue to pray for our family as we desire to minister effectively in the needy country of Chile.