Seeing people through God's lens
Seeing people through God's lens
25 August 2017
Marcus Hutchins is one of the presenters at this year's annual Tri-territorial Thought Matters Conference, to be held in New Zealand next month.
Reducing the gap between what we believe as followers of Jesus and how we live in relationship to others, is both a professional and personal passion for Marcus Hutchins, Projects and Development Coordinator for the Social Program Department in the Australian Eastern Territory.
It’s why he’s heading to New Zealand next month for the Tri-Territorial Thought Matters Conference to present his paper entitled Helpful and Unhelpful Understandings of Others.
Marcus will join academics, practitioners, officers and soldiers at the annual conference gathering around the theme of Hospitality – Engaging the Other, which will be held next month at the Booth College of Mission, in Upper Hutt. 
Marcus’ paper emerged from a project called “The Fundamentals”, a training program and tool designed to bring transformation to communities through challenging how we see those who are different from us.
His paper will explore the project’s theological foundation and its practical implications for employees, officers and volunteers representing a range of corps and social centres.
At the heart of his paper is the assertion that seeing people in light of our Christian faith and Wesleyan theological heritage, is to see them through the lens of being God’s image-bearer.
“My background is in theology and social work,” says Marcus, “and I am passionate about seeing what we believe form the basis for how we do our work in the community. To see all people through the lens of the image of God is a profound message in a 21st-century context, because it leads us to the belief that every single person is of equal significance, value and dignity.
“To see people as the image of God means we start where the Bible starts. The narrative arc starts with people living harmoniously with God, not with original sin. If we start with original sin, then we see people through the lens of being sinners and of Jesus’ main identity as the guy who deals with my sin.
“To see all people as image-bearers doesn’t take away the reality that the fall has resulted in the state of humanity as sinful but challenges us to ‘see the person first’ as one who bears God’s image into the world. This helps us to put into perspective sin, the cross and salvation and live out healthy forms of engaging the other.”
Marcus says that a key part of his presentation will be exploring how this lens will shape our language towards others.
“We shouldn’t collapse a person’s circumstance into their identity. For example, we do this when we refer to someone as homeless rather than speaking of them as a person who is experiencing homelessness. I believe when we see people through the lens of being the image of God first, it makes a big difference to how we interact with and treat others.
“This approach doesn’t seek to answer the social debate around things like homelessness, addictions, divorce, single parenting, religious, gender or sexual identity. What it does do is help us to actually see the person across the table from us, even though they are different to us, and may be someone with whom we disagree. It helps us to see one another.
“It helps us to say genuinely and without question – to every person that walks into our churches regardless of status, sexual orientation, gender, race ethnicity, age – you are welcome.”
Marcus said Jesus was the ultimate model of this throughout the gospels.
“You see it in his interactions with people like Zaccheus. The crowd refer to him as tax collector, robber, thief, but Jesus refers to him by name and later we read that salvation comes to this house.”
Marcus hopes his paper will create conversations that “give impetus for change in how we view one another and ultimately how that would lead to more meaningful relationships” as individuals and communities.
“You can’t separate the self from the community. To do so makes this an individualised framework, which ignores our understanding of God as trinity, as community. In a world that is fallen and broken, we are going to see people make choices that are distorted and that is going to impact those around them. Our task as individuals within communities is to model what it means to treat people as being made in the image of God.”
The Thought Matters Conference, to be held from 29 September-1 October, will include representatives from the Australia Eastern, Australia Southern and New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga territories.
Register for the conference HERE.
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