Why Giving a Suffering Answer to a Risk Question Isn't Helpful Part 2

Conceptual Thinking Vs. Situational Thinking 

Cross-cultural Risk is an event, a situation with a great amount of uncertainty. It is a question asking about the calling and meaning of my life, my death, and my work.

In my book, Facing Danger, I've defined cross-cultural risk as: 

"Potentially losing my life for the sake of the Gospel."  However, I quickly realized I left out the other half of risk:   GAIN. 

When we risk, we have the opportunity for loss OR gain for the sake of the Gospel.  This is the definition we use in our RAM Training and will eventually make it into Facing Danger 2nd 2nd.


The longer definition is: 

We choose and are called to go or remain in a situation where we are willingly exposing ourselves to laying down our lives which we do for the advancement of God's kingdom. Faith-based risk refers not just to the external aspects of danger, but must include what is happening internally about God, others, and oneself.(1)

When we enter this type of situation, it is crucial to engage in what is termed, "Situational Thinking." In the West, we are used to primarily "Conceptual Thinking" to engage in problem solving. Please be clear - BOTH are needed in tension in the risk situation.


How are conceptual thinking and situational so different?(2) Conceptualizing a problem is not the problem itself and often distorts it. "It is one thing to entertain or comprehend a certain concept; it is another thing to experience an actual situation and to perceive a real problem"(3).

As Heschel himself says, 

Too often speculation becomes analysis-by-long-distance of sounds transmitted over a poor connection. We formulate and debate the issues while oblivious to, alienated from the experiences or the insights which account for our raising the issues. The predicament of much of contemporary philosophy is partly due to the fact that ongoing conceptualizations have so far outdistanced the situation which engender [theologizing] that their conclusions seem to be unrelated to the original problems.(4)

As a mom choosing multiple times to return to Afghanistan with my husband Neal and our little children, I needed to process what it meant for me to go to a place and a people group where foreign aid workers were under constant threat of kidnapping and being killed.

My problem was far beyond the concepts of risk, it went far beyond spiritual platitudes. My problem never got easier, only harder the more I knew and experienced the risks. Each time, an altar in my life was needed, and God gently led my through.

My problem of risk was deeply personal and extremely painful. It was isolating and lonely for both Neal and me. I rarely felt understood or empthasized with. My problem involved myself and those I loved the most. My problem involved making potentially life-shattering decisions for three little people who had no say in the matter but for whom I was (and am) 100% responsible.

Was I lacking eternal perspective? No. I knew the big vision of the unreached people groups, and the desire to see more people in eternity with God. And this is what keeps me going on the days I just wanted to go home.

But while the big picture is necessary, and is what gets us to the field, more is needed to help us thrive through risk, through the problem of the human situation, the ultimate questions, than simply the answers found in traditional dogma, creed, and the ultimate vision.

Conceptual Thinking is:

• Detached analysis; thinking about concepts rather than the situations that account for them; thinking about phenomena in a purely speculative way.

• An adequate way of dealing with intellectual questions, but not existential ones.  It is a detached way of viewing a problem. 

• Most discussion on risk only engages in describing risk as a phenomenon to be studied. And since most of those writing about risk have rarely experienced the risk of laying down their lives, the primary focus of their writings has been on the concepts of risk from a cognitive approach, utilizing a proof text or anecdotal approach of Scripture. 

• Too often, conceptual thinking wrongly is indifferent or personally unbiased to the situation, While conceptual thinking is needed, it must be balanced with careful reflection as part of situational thinking to understand and explore all aspects of the phenomena of risk. 

Situational Thinking: 

• Deals with situations by way of concerned involvement; thinking about situations not only the concepts that arise from them;  

• Risk is an existential problem (existence, and the meaning of existence). This is not to be confused with existentialism, but it is to be understood in terms of possibly being killed, martyred, the annhilation of existence, forces much more than thinking about a situation to the top - emotions, core questions, meaning of life, death, and work, are all issues that very often need to be acknowedged and addressed again, often right in the middle of the risk situation. 

• The situation of a risk situation forces us to face what we are willing to die...or not die for. In this way, Conceptual thinking only goes so far. It only addresses the problem from a rational and reductionistic viewpoint, and so does not minister to the heart and soul of the person in risk. 

 Our first goal then, in considering risk, is to place ourselves in the situation like I described risk was for me, and try to understand what the needs, the problems, the emotional, spiritual, and mental dilemmas are. But no one answer will suffice. Everyone's pain, past trauma, and core questions are different and unique.

We must engage with each unique personality without judgment, in order to empathize with them and understand them, so we can point them on the right path in risk.


1. Hampton, Facing Danger, 2016, Chap. 8, p.112.
2. The following are notes I've excerpted, paraphrased, and applied to risk from John Merkle's discussion of Heschel's Philosophy of Religion approach, found in Merkle's book, The Genesis of Faith, p.32.
3. Ibid., p.35.
4. Heschel, Who is Man, 1965, 1.