To modern society's credit, it has become increasingly popular to talk about injustice and to try and find ways to fight against and eradicate oppression. Strategies and methods for tackling these various problems vary, as does their effectiveness. One important thing to understand is that most injustices are not isolated things, but are symptoms of deeper problems.

Poverty is a particular concern of many people today. As I mentioned in my last post, a lot of proposed solutions to the problem of poverty are limited to the distribution of material goods, such as money and food. But, we need to understand, as Harvie Conn and Manuel Ortiz argue in Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City, and the People of God, that 'injustice and oppression are at the root of most poverty in this world' (p. 328). That is, there are systems and structures in our societies and cultures that are unjust, and that are a direct cause of problems like poverty.

When we understand the poor to be people who do not have enough food or enough clothes or enough money, our solutions will aim at alieviating those immediate problems. However, we need to have a broader understanding of the poor, and the Old Testament can help develop this. In their book, Cities: Missions' New Frontier, Roger Greenway and Timothy Monsma write, 'A careful examination of the Hebrew words translated "poor" reveals a much wider meaning than we might have expected. The poor are those who are forced into submission, reduced to subservience – the oppressed and the violated' (p. 173).

You cannot read the Bible, even cursorily, without noticing the frequent repetition of the command to care for the poor. God has always entrusted his people with this responsibility. Society in the time of Old Testament Israel, when they lived according to God's law, was the epitome of justice, a society free from the structures that oppressed people. The same could not be said of the pagan nations surrounding Israel, whose autocratic rulers demanded total obedience from their subjects and subjected them to endless tyranny. Yahweh demanded total fidelity as well, but in submitting to his rule of love, humanity flourished. And Israel was charged with embodying this rule of love toward everyone who lived within her borders.

As the church, this will help us begin to think about how to deal with poverty in our communities and cities. As we work in our neighbourhoodsand seek to bring shalom to the city, we must remember that bearing witness to the rule of Christ over all of life involves a committment to 'act justly and love mercy' (Micah 6:8). We want people to acknowledge Jesus as their Lord, but that mission involves more than just addressing their hearts. That is certainly a major part of it, but it goes hand in hand with embodying an alternative reality that reflects the love of Jesus and that manifests itself when we fully submit to our King.

Doing this will bring us into direct confrontation with the economic, political, and religious systems that govern our communities and cities. However, as Robert Linthicum has said, 'If the church does not deal with the systems and structures of evil in the city, then it will not effectively transform the lives of that city's individuals' (Empowering the Poor, p. 11). Viv Grigg, who has spent many years living in the slums and among the poor of cities like Manila, Calcutta, São Paulo, and Los Angeles, says,

The cause of the poverty of the slums has to do not only with the spiritual condition of the slum dweller and the lack of resources among the poor. It has to do also with oppression and the political and economic structures of society that operate in favour of the rich. Holistic ministry cannot avoid confronting the principalities and powers that perverty and corrupt the structures of society in ways that bring abundance to the few and grinding poverty to the many... If the poverty of your squatter area is caused by oppression, the pastoral response will involve actions that may conflict with the interests of those who oppress (Cry of the Urban Poor, pp. 176-178).

So, the question then is, how do we do this?

Another long distance conversation (though only 1300 miles this time) spawned a post again yesterday over on Lon Wong's blog. He tweeted over the weekend asking what Jesus might say to suburbia, and I replied back with Matthew 25:42-43:

For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.

After some discussion, Lon has posted a response to our conversation, a bit of an interaction with some of the things I said in the course of talking about the question he raised. Check it out here.

I posted this over at GoingtoSeminary.com yesterday, and feel it is worth posting here as well. Check out this website, an absolutely incredible journey into the sights and sounds of four of the world's major urban slums. I saw this site mentioned on the Culture Making blog yesterday. Here’s how they describe the site:

Norwegian photojournalist Jonas Bendiksen has spent a good deal of time in Indian, Kenyan, Indonesian, and Venezuelan slums, and his website, The Places We Live, features dazzling 360-degree photos of homes and shanties, navigable and altogether immersive, along with audio recordings made by the inhabitants. Prepare yourself to gape, gasp, laugh, cry, and experience every emotion in between.

If you’re not able to travel to a developing country and witness the urban slums firsthand, you can’t do much better than this. The tug on your heart is powerful, and it gives renewed meaning both to the call of Jesus to serve those who are sick, in need of food and clothing (Matt. 25:31-46), and to James’ definition of religion (James 1:27). 1,000,000,000 (yes, that’s billion) of your neighbors on this earth live in urban slums. Use this opportunity to become more familiar with the places they live.

I know it's a long section of quotes, but I ask that you read the entire thing. It is worth your while. This is the concluding remarks to Abraham Kuyper's speech, "The Problem of Poverty," that he delivered at a Christian social congress in the Netherlands in 1891. Hear the words, imagine the force and conviction with which he would have delivered these---of course, I don't know what he sounded like, but I imagine an impassioned imploring of the crowds at this point.

And, naturally, only a Dutchman could use the illustration of a dike effectively.

The goal that God has in view will never be reached by means of legal measures designed to improve social conditions. Rules alone will not cure our sick society, the medicine must also reach the heart of rich and poor. Sin is such a tremendous power that it mocks all your dikes and sluices, and in spite of our legal regulations, it will again and again flood the field of human life with the waters of its passion and selfishness.

...Because we are conscious beings, almost everything depends on the standard of values which our consciousness constructs. If this present life is all there is, then I can understand that a man would desire to enjoy it before he dies, and would find the mystery of suffering wholly insoluble. Therefore, it is your calling, confessors of our Lord Jesus Christ, to place life eternal in the foreground for both rich and poor, and to do so with a gripping and soul-piercing earnestness. Only he who reckons with eternal life knows the real price of this earthly life. If external possession, if material good, if sensual pleasure is the whole of what is intended for man, then I can understand the materialist and do not see how I could properly reprimand the Epicurean. Therefore, it is your duty, children of the kingdom, to seize every occasion and means to impress on rich and poor that the peace of God is a much richer and holier treasure, and that the spiritual welfare of man is of much higher worth.

...[A Christian], even of the lowest classes, knows how much the fear of our God can do for those who have only a meager portion of worldly goods...He will have thanked God for the bountiful share of a happy life and joyful heart that is theirs despite their limited means...For those of us more liberally endowed, all of our life, too, should be a single unbroken pronouncment of these holy principles. You who have received more may not wantonly fling these principles in the faces of the poor through your immoderate attachment to earthly goods---by giving the impression that enjoyment of luxury means more to you than anything else. Far worse, you should not grudgingly, with a heavy heart, distribute in the name of the Lord what you have received from him as your landlord. For then the less fortunate has no faith in your preaching, and he is right. Every man's inner sense of truth rebels against a theory of eternal happiness that serves only to keep Lazarus at a distance here on earth.

There cannot be two different faiths---one for you and one for the poor. The question on which the whole social problem really pivots is whether you recognize the less fortunate, even in the poorest, not merely a creature, a person in wretched circumstances, but one of your own flesh and blood: for the sake of Christ, your brother. It is exactly this noble sentiment that, sad to say, has been weakened and dulled in such a provoking manner by the materialism of this century...This is holy ground, and he who would walk on it must first loosen the sandals of his egotism. The only sound permitted here is the stirring and eloquent voice of the merciful Samaritan whispering in our ears. There is suffering round about you, and those who suffer are your brothers, sharers of your nature, your own flesh and blood. You might have been in their place and they in your more pleasant position.

The gospel speaks to you of a Redeemer who, although he was rich, became poor for your sake so he might make you rich. The gospel leads you to kneel down in worship before a child born to us, but born in a stable, laid down in a manger, and wrapped in swaddling clothes. It points you to God's Son, but one who became the Son of Man and went through the country, from wealthy Judea to the poorer, despised Galilee, addressing himself to those who were in need or oppressed by sorrow. Yes, it tells you that this singular Savior, before he left this earth, stooped before his disciples in the clothes of a slave, washed their feet one by one, and then stood and said, 'For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you' (John 13:15).

...Divine compassion, sympathy, a suffering with us and for us---that was the mystery of Golgotha. You, too, must suffer with your suffering brothers. Only then will the holy music of consolation vibrate in your speech. Then, driven by this sympathy of compassion, you will naturally conform your action to your speech.

...Our [society] must recognize Christ as its Savior. I close, therefore, with a prayer, a prayer that I know lives in the heart of each of you, that even if this rescue should be delayed, and even if the stream of unrighteousness must rise still higher, may it never be possible to say of the Christians of [any country on earth] that through our fault, through the lukewarmness of our Christian faith, whether in higher or lower classes, the rescue of our society was hindered and the blessing of the God of our fathers forfeited (72-79).

There is very little, if anything, to add to that except for an "Amen!" in affirmation of these words. This is, in reality, nothing new. Faith without deeds always has been and always will be dead. Grace is to evoke love from us, love for God and for neighbor. As Christ has served us, so we must do likewise that the world might know and confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

*photo courtesy of Andrewb47.

I have a few posts working their way down the assembly line for the next week. But for now, for the purpose of not remaining silent for too long, I again offer some words from Kuyper, words that are intended to challenge us.

A charity which knows only how to give money is not yet Christian love. You will be free of guilt only when you also give your time, your energy, and your resourcefulness to help end such abuses for good, and when you allow nothing that lies hidden in the storehouse of your Christian religion to remain unused against the cancer that is destroying the vitality of our society in such alarming ways. For, indeed, the material need is appalling; the oppression is great. You do not honor God's Word if, in these circumstances, you ever forget how the Christ (just as his prophets before him and his apostles after him) invariably took sides against those who were powerful and living in luxury, and for the suffering and oppressed.
--- The Problem of Poverty, 62.

He speaks here against the socialist movement of his time in Europe, but the words remain helpful and challenging today.

The church influenced society by instituting the equality of brotherhood (in contrast to differences in rank and station) both by abolishing all artificial demarcations between men and by joining rich and poor in one holy food at the Lord's Supper. The communion service is a symbol of the unity that binds us together not only in our common humanity but, more important, as those who have collapsed under the same guilt and have been saved by the same sacrifice in Christ.
– Abraham Kuyper, The Problem of Poverty (ed. James W. Skillen), 41.

What Skillen adds as an endnote to Kuyper's words is also noteworthy. He notes that the church must engage in a mission that is all-encompassing. For "the church was organized not only to seek the eternal welfare of its followers, but also to remove social injustices. Exactly because of its divine simplicity, this organization brought forth a double fruit. It follows that the church forsakes its principle when it is only concerned with heaven and does not relieve earthly need" (87).

With the recent expansion of the Schengen Zone further eastward, one of the big concerns has been border security. Mardell has been riding along with authorities on the Slovak and Polish borders to see how this is carried out, and to get the stories from those caught trying to come into the EU. The situation is comparable to the many people attempting to get across the border into the United States (there is a tendency here in the US to refer to these people as “illegal immigrants”. From a technical standpoint, this is accurate. But I thoroughly despise this sort of categorization and dehumanization of people groups. They are first and foremost people).

Human history has always been about people trying to achieve something better---better lives, better education, better political structures, you name it. The stories of the people Mardell has been talking to are no different. They know what’s on the other side of the borders, and the things they go through to get there are remarkable.

Sitting on the other side where these people want to be, it’s easy to be supportive of some initiatives (though not all) to keep people from entering other countries and regions illegally. They take away jobs, dip into health care resources, and hinder the opportunities of those seking to immigrate legally, for example. Yet in states like California, the economy (specifically the agriculture sector) is so dependent on people that have immigrated illegally, that if they were all forced to leave, the economy would fall to pieces. There is, therefore, no simple solution.

One of the ethical questions that churches and Christians have had to deal with recently is whether or not to offer aid to people who have immigrated illegally to other countries. Brooke Levistke of the Acton Institute wrote a commentary on the issue back in July illustrating the complexities of the situation. While Christians are called to uphold the rights of humanity (Gal. 5:14), they are also to submit to the governing authorities that God has placed over them (Rom. 13:1). You can liken this situation to some degree to the Jews in Europe during the Holocaust, but one of the differences here is that people who have illegally immigrated to countries such as the US or regions such as the EU are not necessarily facing a life or death situation. What the concern of Christians needs to be here is that these matters are handled justly, and to that end should work closely with policymakers to ensure that the rule of law and the rights of man are upheld simultaneously.

The idea of change is resisted by a lot people. Since I have not been to Europe, I cannot speak as much to it there, but I know that Americans have a tendency to resist it. I do not think this is entirely negative; it is important to hold to certain beliefs and ideas that are constant and that a society, culture, and nation can be built on. However, this resistance to change in America has caused them to perpetually turn inward, and thus create a great problem of unawareness of what is outside of their own borders. The consequent tendency then is to resist anything different from what they are used to. As an example, I find a tendency among a great deal of people here to be critical of the idea that the US might one day be bilingual. It certainly is a long way off, but I fail to see why this would be a negative thing. Being aware of and learning from different cultures and traditions is only beneficial. I believe the same for Europe, whose countries have historically been fiercely nationalistic and exclusivist.

I may have wandered a bit, but my point is this: expanding borders in places like the EU and the issue of illegal immigration here in the US brings the world to our doorstep and demands a greater global consciousness. I think we do ourselves a disservice if we ignore all of this and build a hedge around ourselves for protection. Politically, I honestly do not know what to do. But as a Christian, I know that we need to fairly and justly consider the plight of people who are looking to reap the benefits that God has so graciously bestowed upon us.