You may remember the series of posts I ran last year about cheating in Chinese culture, including pastors within the Chinese church. Well, it turns out students in India and China have something in common.
According to one Indian student, cheating “is our democratic right!…Cheating is our birthright.”
If you want to read the rest of the article, check out the article posted by the BBC, “The students who feel they have a right to cheat.” As I read through it, I recalled many conversations I’ve had with Chinese students.
Here are a few quotes:
- “If you really want to know the truth,” she added, “there’s no point in studying properly. You just need to buy one of the cheat books sold in the bazaar and learn the answers.”
- “In my first year doing history I tried to study properly, but my seniors just told me: ‘Buy the cheat books.'”
- The question is, what’s the solution? When pro-cheating rallies were held in Uttar Pradesh in the early 1990s, the state’s chief minister gave in to demands and repealed an anti-copying act – he actually allowed students to cheat.
These stories raise questions about for the church. Of course, we want people to speak the truth and not lie or cheat. However, we also need to think about how we might contribute to the systemic solutions to the problem. How might Christ’s followers use their own education, experience, and vocations to improve things like education?
Does not this sort of work characterize what could be called “missional” living?
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