CHAPTER 3: POWER, PRESTIGE AND POSSESSION: TWO APPROACHES TO HOPE
3.5 Buchan on hope
needs. They usually have a strong punitive need and a false moral superiority (:36).
and describes the crowds before the altar as “people looking hopeless, people carrying huge burdens” (:62). He suggests that a meeting has been successful when “people who came with no hope had hope” (:103). He describes his mission in this way:
What is the aroma, the fragrance of Christ? Surely we become the aroma and fragrance of Christ when we start to preach faith, love and hope. That’s what people are looking for in these last days…
When people do not know what to do, they do not want to listen to a message of negativity, doom or gloom. They want to hear a message of hope…
We have to tell people that we’re living in the last days and it’s going to get progressively tougher, but Jesus has promised us that He’ll never allow us to be tempted above that which we’re able. Therefore, if we keep our eyes fixed on him, the author and the finisher of our faith, He’ll make a way for us where there seems to be no way. When you share this good news with a dying people there is suddenly new life, new hope, new opportunities that are given birth (2006a:86- 87).
“We believe that Jesus gives people a reason for living,” says Buchan “there are so many people in what seems to be hopeless situations.” (1998:125)
So instead of describing academically what hope is about Buchan does his theology in a rather postmodern way – he tells stories. And his stories are stories of people
responding to God in faith, and finding their prayers and needs answered. Faith, Buchan reminds us, is the substance of things hoped for (2006a:220), and indeed, after reading these stories the reader is left with a profound sense of hope, as Dale testifies in Jesus…
a farmer… and miracles: “My faith is being sorely tested. Reading Faith Like Potatoes has lifted my spirits and I know that God can do the impossible.” (2002:40). So hope is communicated via the story of faith, first and foremost being his own story, which Dale found so compelling – the story which propelled Buchan to international fame: Faith like Potatoes (1998).
This autobiography is an exercise in hope as he tells of how, in moments of desperation, God comes through for him again and again, whether in his personal life, on the farm,
or in ministry. He tells, for example, of how God undertakes for him in farming, not only by providing the correct growing conditions for his crops, whether potatoes or maize, but also in emergencies. He tells the story of how God sent rain to extinguish a veld-fire which threatened to engulf the farm:
The sky was clear, the wind was blowing and there wasn’t the slightest sign of rain. All the same, I closed my eyes and said a simple prayer… Less than five minutes later we heard a mighty clap of thunder!… The impossible had
happened… A few minutes later a gentle drizzle began to fall over Shalom [the name of his farm] and I watched in awe as the rain doused the raging fire.
(1998:42-43)
And how God has made a difference when everything seemed hopeless: He tells of his first revival meeting in Ladysmith and the negative reception he received from the pastors in town:
The first meeting was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. and at 6:45 p.m. the hall was empty. [Later] I went upstairs again and peeped into the hall – it was half full.
That first night six people came forward… By the end of the week, 50 or 60 people were coming forward each night. (:75-76)
He tells of how God works in the life of people, for example the story of Mike, a “hard- drinking, smoking, sports-loving man, and a good organiser” (:124) who, under
pressure, agreed to help set up their meetings but was clearly anti-evangelism.
There was a moment of silence, then 26 men got up and walked up the aisle; the third man was Mike Francis… From the night of his conversion he gave up both smoking and drinking and never looked back… When I see things like that
happening, it builds up my faith in the Lord Jesus, who has the power to transform lives (126).
In Faith Like Potatoes Buchan tells of God’s plan for him to buy a truck to use to evangelise into Africa, he summarises the call in this way: “We had no idea where we would find such a vehicle or how we would finance it… but that didn’t matter. William
Carey… said, ‘Attempt great things for God and expect great things from God’… At Shalom we have a saying that if your vision doesn’t scare you, it isn’t big enough.”
(:145). He shares more details for the struggle to get the truck in his second book The Seed Sower. Funds had started to dwindle, however they believed that the vision had come from God and God would provide.
“Carry on,” we told the people working on the truck. “God will make a way…”
The truck builders called me around April. “The truck is complete and we need you to fetch it.”
The outstanding balance, they informed me, was R192 000. “It is the end of our tax year.” They said, “and you need to pay us within ten days…”
Ten days? Where would I find that kind of money in ten days?
There are times when your faith is tested to such a degree that you just have to go ahead in blind faith… We must know and understand the leading of the Lord in order to stand on His word in times like this. Now it was my turn, once again to stand firmly on the word. “God, you said it – I believe it – and that settles it.”
(2001:44, 49-51)17.
Buchan received a cheque for the full amount just days before it was due (:51).
Jesus… a Farmer… and Miracles is a book of testimonies of those who were hopeless, but who have found hope in Jesus through his ministry. In it Buchan presents the stories in their own chapters, each chapter being prefaced with a scripture verse relevant to the particular story – and often dealing with hope. And so for example he quotes Mark 9:23,
“Jesus said to him, ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes,’”
(2002:32) and Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” (:111)
Buchan leaves the reader – and the member of his congregation – feeling hopeful that
17 The story of obtaining and paying for the truck is told over two chapters, “The Vision Becomes a Reality” and “The Miracle of Provision.”
God CAN.
When we pray for the deaf, by faith, we ask them to remove their hearing aids, and stand on the other side of the auditorium, facing the wall so we may test their healing. We switch off the microphones, and call their names out very quietly.
The people watching get very excited as they see formerly deaf people
responding… Faith is strengthened as people see healings taking place. It is a real faith building experience to see people who have been carried onto the platform, often in wheelchairs, get up and walk (2004:229-230).
“Never become discouraged when the healing process seems to take a long time,” he says. “Trust God and ‘keep on keeping on’ until the process is complete.” (2002: 113).
For Buchan, being a Christian is not complicated and doesn’t require academic discourse. As mentioned above, he believes the Bible as it is written, and if the Bible says something, then it must be true. His job as a Christian is simply to believe what is written and then to act on it. One of his earliest experiences after becoming a Christian is the fire on his farm described above. He explains how he knew what to do in this way: “Just then a scripture flashed into my mind: “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours (Mark 11:24)” (1998:42). Over the years this has become his mantra. In everything, if he believes God is telling him to do something, he does it and trusts that there will be results. Buchan’s theology is to believe what the Bible says, and when he does that, as far as he is concerned, he experiences miracles, and therefore has no reason to doubt that God will do it again.
This creates for him a sense of hope. This describes the way he has lived his life since that first experience, and the way he encourages others to live their lives, and as his followers hear these stories of Buchan’s faith being fulfilled, they too come to believe that their hopes will be fulfilled. The danger, as noted by Oosthuizen above, is that when their hopes are not fulfilled, his followers blame themselves for not having enough faith (Stan*, interview by Neil Vels, 7 December 2011 in Standerton).
So Buchan clearly communicates that people do not need to hear carefully reasoned theologies about hope, but rather need to be reminded that hope can be real through the stories of the faith of others.
4 Richard Rohr