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Given the shared interest, I thought I’d use Luba Lukova’s social justice posters as jumping-off points for some posts. By way of giving credit where credit is due, following is some more about the posters:
Social Justice 2008 is a powerful portfolio that features 12 thought-provoking posters by world-renowned artist and designer Luba Lukova [with] themes that include peace, war, ecology, immigration, privacy, health coverage, media, corruption, censorship, and Sudanese poverty. …Lukova’s portfolio captures many of the complex issues our society faces…and yet each poster speaks to the viewer in an accessible and honest way.
Starting with the income gap, I’ll revisit my particular dumbfounderment at one of the 2008 Presidential election’s later attacks. While a background in political science tells me that seizing upon the idea of “spreading the wealth” in the United States is sure to play well, my Christian identity was stunned by some of the response to this attack.
I’ve always been a bit confused how some seem able to find a basis in Christianity for capitalism when the book of Acts is perhaps as close to a socialist manifesto as many Christians will ever read. The problem with any man-made economic system, of course, is that it necessarily involves men (in the generic use of the term, of course). While communism may look great on paper, it falls apart when sinful human beings enter the equation.
Never mind Acts – if you really want to talk about “spreading the wealth,” how about that Jubilee Year, where everyone is freed from their debts and bondage? I dare say that looks pretty good to a lot of Americans right about now. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s a book by Frank Tupper, the title of which, A Scandalous Providence, always reminds me of the scandal involved in so much of what God does and how He chooses to work. It’s part of what makes so many believe, for no human would have dared propose such a plan!
Perhaps nothing is more scandalous than the sheer being of the incarnate Christ, the amazing condescension of which cannot be described better than Paul does in his letter to the Philippians:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
It seems more than enough for God to condescend to become man, but as a baby who Isaiah tells us will grow not even to have any “form nor comeliness…no beauty that we should desire him”?
I don’t know that there’s anything new I can say regarding Jesus’ birth, but the implications of so humble a birth never cease to amaze me. And it’s not just that there was “no room in the inn,” and other such familiar parts of the Christmas story, but the incredible scandal of God’s genealogy, as it were.
Mind you, even the fact that there is a “genealogy of God” brings us back to the initial scandal of God condescending to enter into this sinful world and have an earthly lineage, but then what a lineage He chooses! The rest of us have no choice in the matter of our ancestry, and generally shy away from those questionable branches of our family tree, but God allows the scandal to be Exhibit A.
Genealogies of the time did not include women, so when we come across the five mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy, it is important to try to understand the significance. After all, every author is intentional with what is and is not included in a narrative — how much more God! So what women were so saintly as to be included in this lineage?
- Tamar, who had to trick her father-in-law into sleeping with her to gain justice;
- Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute;
- Ruth, the Moabitess;
- Bathsheba, who is not even mentioned by name, but as the one “who had been Uriah’s wife,” just so everyone’s clear about the circumstances of Solomon’s birth; and
- Mary, a young woman found to be pregnant out of wedlock.
And so we see the scandal inherent in the very being of Christ. Or perhaps, we just see our own prejudices and lack of grace in a clearer light. From the beginning, God’s plan of salvation has been open to all who would believe, as evidenced by the multiple ethnicities that make up Christ’s heritage. Truly, God is no respecter of persons (Romans 2:9-11; Acts 10:34,35), despite our best efforts to put Him in boxes of our own making.
Having read a great article on Christianity Today’s website yesterday entitled, “How to Have a Merry Christmas; And it doesn’t require you doing another blessed thing,” I was reminded of what Christmas has to say regarding what I tend to believe is one of the most dangerous myths Christians not only believe, but promulgate: “God helps those who help themselves.”
I’ll come back to my “Top 10 Myths U.S. Christians Believe” in subsequent posts, but the idea that “God helps those who help themselves” is patently unbiblical and extremely dangerous from a theological standpoint.
The whole of the Gospel is based on the idea that we cannot help ourselves. Salvation is through Christ alone. It is only in the recognition of one’s unworthiness and inability to save oneself that acceptance of God’s plan of salvation is possible.
It will be said that even in God’s provision of salvation, man must believe, but what does that mean? Paul tells us that we are saved by grace through faith, but that even that faith is not our own, but a gift of God. Indeed, we can do nothing of ourselves, that we might have no reason to boast. (Ephesians 2:8,9)
So where does this myth come from? I have encountered sincere Christians who truly believed this was somewhere in the Bible, but this couldn’t be further from the Biblical record. The Bible exhorts us time and again to rely upon God’s leading, showing us at least as many times how man can mess things up when trying to “help himself.” (After all, isn’t that why we need a plan of salvation in the first place?)
And so I’ll leave it at the Christmas connection for now, for what could demonstrate this point better than God coming as an infant, wholly dependent upon parents that were a product of His own creation marred by generations of sin? Christ did not come as a self-sufficient being, nor did He enter into public ministry until He was well into adulthood. As the aforementioned article concludes,
We sabotage our faith—and make our faith a dreary, oppressive enterprise—if we forget that through Jesus we now have a relationship with the Father…. And that when Jesus calls us to love God he means first and foremost to bask in that love just as we would happily lie in the arms of our beloved. And that to abide in Christ really means to rest in his presence, like sitting in the glow of a warm fire on a winter night.
Addicted doers worry mightily that this will lead to indolence, to a religion in which people sit around pining after spiritual highs. I don’t know. I’ve never known an emotionally healthy couple, madly in love, whose relationship did not give them more zest than ever to do, to give, and to serve others—and with a joy that can be described as merry. And it all begins with love.
[12/24 update: related blog post I just came across…Everyday Theology: God helps those who help themselves]
‘Tis the season for giving…for our annual provision of any number of “baskets” for the less fortunate…for our reserving for ourselves the “more blessed” position of giver, as Robert Lupton asserts in Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life: Rethinking Ministry to the Poor
There are definite power dynamics in the way we tend to “do charity.” Even the phrase used in the previous paragraph — “the less fortunate” — implies a relationship between those that have to give and those in need…the “haves” and the “have-nots,” if you will.
There is blessedness in this kind of giving, to be sure. But there is also power in it — which can be dangerous. Giving allows me to retain control. Retaining the helping position protects me from the humiliation of appearing to need help. And, even more sobering, I condemn those whom I would help to the permanent, prideless role of recipient.
When my motivation is to change people, I inadvertently communicate: Something is wrong with you, but (quite subtly) I am okay. If our relationship is defined as healer/patient, then I must remain well and they must remain sick in order for our interaction to continue. Since one does not go to the doctor when he is well, curing, then, cannot long serve as the basis for any relationship that is life-enhancing for both participants. …
These relations of power are exacerbated through the ways we tend to meet peoples’ needs — by having them stand in line for all to see to receive a Thanksgiving basket; by establishing limits on the number of items to be obtained from a community clothes closet; by investigating the “worthiness” of requests for assistance.
Anyone who has been given the unfortunate task of dispensing free (or nearly free) commodities will soon have familiar war stories to tell. Something seems to go wrong when one with valued resources attempts to distribute them to others in need. The transactions, no matter how compassionate, seem to go sour in the gut of both giver and recipient. A subtle, unintentional message slips through: “You have nothing of worth that I desire in return.” The giver remains protected by his one-up status while the recipient is exposed and vulnerable. Little wonder that negative attitudes surface. It becomes hard to be a cheerful giver — and even harder to be a cheerful recipient.
Ancient Hebrew wisdom describes four levels of charity. The highest level is to provide a job for one in need without his knowledge that you provided it. The next, lower level is to provide work that the needy one knows you provided. The third level is to give an anonymous gift to meet an immediate need. The lowest level of charity, to be avoided if at all possible, is to give a poor person a gift with his full knowledge that you are the donor….
Betterment to Development
…the first year I sat in living rooms with needy neighbors when the gift-bearing families arrived, I observed something I had never seen before. The children, of course, were all excited at the sight of all the colorfully wrapped presents. The mothers were gracious to their benefactors but seemed, to me at least, to be a bit reserved. If there was a father in the home, he simply vanished. At first sight of the gift-bearers, he disappeared out the back door. It dawned on me that something other than joyful Christmas sharing was happening here. Although the children were ecstatic, the recipient parents were struggling with a severe loss of pride….their impotence as providers was exposed before their children. The mothers would endure this indignity for the sake of their children, but it was often more than the fathers could take. Their failure as providers was laid bare. It was destroying what shreds of pride they were managing to hold on to.
It was obvious that this charity system had to change….
Is it any wonder that community is so hard to foster within such a system of charity? Within a system that does not recognize what both parties have to offer the other, both having God-given gifts to share for the betterment of all with whom they come in contact?
It is disquieting to realize how little value I attribute to “the least of these,” the ones deemed by our Lord to be “great in the Kingdom” (Matt. 5:19, NIV). I have viewed them as weak ones waiting to be rescued, not bearers of divine treasures. The dominance of my giving overshadows and stifles the rich endowments that the Creator has invested in those I have considered destitute. I selectively ignore that the moneyed, empowered, learned ones will enter this Kingdom with enormous difficulty.
It seems to me that before we get too far down this blog road, I should add a precautionary note that I don’t easily conform to preconceived notions. On my “About” page, I’ve already given fair warning that these posts will come primarily from a place of faith. That being said, the “social justice” note in the heading is likely to make conservatives cringe for some unbeknownst reason.
At a time when too many have moved to extremes, what is sorely missing is civility in discourse. Several years ago, I offered testimony in opposition to school prayer legislation being considered at the state level. While I changed none of the proponents’ minds, they thanked me for my testimony and we were able to appreciate one another’s very different points of view, respecting that both had been arrived at from a genuine faith journey. I would that more people had the opportunity to experience such respectful agreement to disagree instead of the extremes and demonization presented on the nightly news.
And so, I invite such reasoned discourse in response to any and all blog posts. I don’t expect that all will agree with what I have to say (nor would I want such a boring state of affairs), but I do expect that reasonable discussions can be had to further the thinking of all.
This blog is intended for thinkers. Much of the impetus of my starting this is that I found my emphasis on social justice and the desire for the church to be “relevant” was getting so far out of balance that I was neglecting the central salvific message of the Gospel. It is my hope, then, that those inclined to lean too heavily upon their own understanding would seek the wisdom of God — and in Him find so much greater an Intellect to sharpen your own — and that those inclined to think religion and scientific inquiry anathema would be reminded that God is the omniscient One who created us in His image and tells us to “let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)
On Social Justice, and other musings... 