From the President: WWD2: Why We Do What We Do
By Dr. Chris Seiple on 01 September 2006
Last week, my wife, Alissa, and I found out that our first child is a boy. Although seeing his heartbeat at six weeks is once and forever the most powerful thing we will ever witness, finding out the child’s gender has somehow made everything really real. We are going to be parents.
As this reality sinks in, the questions of inadequacy flood our minds. What do we know about being parents? Will we do a good job? Will our son respect us? And, as we bring this life into the world, what kind of world will influence his life?
My father spent eleven years at World Vision where he worked to save the lives of children. When he and my mother founded the Institute for Global Engagement, however, they birthed an organization that works for all of God’s children — no matter their age, creed, caste, color, or culture — to be treated with respect because of their inherent dignity.
In other words, World Vision works to save a child’s life, and IGE works to give that child a life. They are two branches of the same root, which acknowledges that we are all made in the image of God. All of us have a responsibility to help build a world that not only provides for the basics of human security, but also provides a social environment of respect for freedom of conscience and the freedom to believe, or not believe, in God. This is the kind of world I want our son to grow up in — a world where he is respected for who he is, no matter the decision he ultimately makes, on his own, about faith.
Today I am in Hanoi, Vietnam, to participate in the first conference on religion and the rule of law in Vietnamese (and Southeast Asian) history; a conference with participants from twelve nations that IGE is co-sponsoring with the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences, Emory Law School, and Brigham Young Law School. The conference will end with IGE signing an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with the Vietnamese to institutionalize a number of steps forward on religious freedom. To mark the event, the American ambassador to Vietnam will host the conference participants in his home for a reception. Meanwhile, as I write, a delegation of American pastors, press, and businessmen are finishing up a visit to the Central and Northwest Highlands — previously the most persecuted regions of Vietnam.
These events were impossible to imagine just two years ago. While there is a long way to go, we need to applaud these steps toward a more robust religious freedom even as we exercise due diligence to verify them.
Why does IGE engage the government of Vietnam, a government that the U.S. government has designated as a “country of particular concern” for religious freedom violations against Christians? The answer is as simple as a six-week old heartbeat: the peoples of Vietnam are also children of God, made in his image. He is a sovereign God that forgives them as much as he forgives us, a God that is already at work in that society.
At IGE it is our belief that God wants us to wisely and transparently come alongside his children there, working with Vietnamese leaders to ensure that Vietnam’s kids can grow up in an environment where they can freely choose the belief system they want, and be respected for it. This is why IGE does what it does.
I hope our son will be proud.
Last updated 15 September 2008