Barney Wiget's Blog, page 16

Blessed are the Merciful

I’ve been doing brief devotionals this week from my book: What on Earth? for Red Letter Christians Wake Up.

BTW, if you’ve read the book, I’d sure appreciate you writing a review on Amazon. It’s quick and easy.

Be honest. If it’s not your cup of tea or you disagree with its theme, feel free to say so. Maybe it’ll help me think through my convictions or be a better writer in the future.

Have You Read It Yet?

If you have read it, pleeeeaaaase review it on Amazon. It’s easy and it helps a lot. Thanks!

Here’s how to write a review on Amazon in 5 minutes or less

Find my book on Amazon HERE

Scroll down to “Customer Reviews” and click on “Write a Customer Review” (It’s on the left in a box below “Review This Product”)

Click on THE STAR that reflects your view of its “Overall Rating” (In case you need to know, the farthest star on the right is the best!)

Then in the box: “Add a Headline” say something good (or bad as the case may be).

Add a photo or video if you want. (I never do.)

Lastly, write something in “Add a written review.” It can be, but doesn’t have to be long. Just a few choice words to describe what the book meant to you. Be honest. If it’s not your cup of tea or you disagree with its theme, feel free to say so. Maybe it’ll help me think through my convictions or be a better writer in the future.

I really appreciate you taking the time to do this!

Changed Hearts Change the World

“Changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks, but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross.” Henri Nouwen

Social radicalism apart from faith “has been like a cut flower without nourishment, without any sanctions deeper than human courage and good intentions.” Walter Brueggemann[i]

For the first three hundred years or so, the Sermon on the Mount was so fundamental to the Christian community’s way of life that it was their most often-quoted portion of Scripture. But when, under Roman Emperor Constantine, Christianity was largely co-opted by the state, the Sermon’s interest among adherents of the faith declined. “The revolutionary Sermon began to lose its central place in the Church’s teaching because it threatened those in power and subverted the authority of the empire.”[ii] 

Jesus overturned more than Temple tables; he upended cultural norms, challenged authorities, undermined the establishment, and shook up most everything and everybody in his wake. Many embraced his counterintuitive Kingdom ethic. Others, unwilling to relinquish their social privilege and political clout, engineered charges against him and lynched him as a criminal and insurrectionist. He taught his followers that in spite of facing a similar fate, they were to love and pray for their persecutors.

When Jesus moves in, he dismantles our personal ethics and replaces them with his inverted ones. But he doesn’t stop there. He saves our souls and through us seeks to improve society. He destabilizes the defective foundation on which modern society is built and substitutes it with sturdier material. He was and is the kind of Carpenter that repairs the soul and renovates society.

When we say that we aspire to be like him, are we just talking about being clean-talking, drug-free, conservative-voting polite citizens. Or must we have something more in mind? Joshua Ryan Butler says: “Jesus calls us to holiness and justice. Holiness involves dealing with the spark, the poisoned well, the root in our own hearts. Justice involves dealing with the wildfires, the raging rivers, the wicked trees in our world.”[iii]

Besides Jesus, the most disruptive folk whose stories are told in the Scripture would have to be the prophets. All those “seers” from Elijah to John the Baptist, saw something and said something aimed to upset the status quo. As they rowed against the current, they alerted all those floating by on their merry way downstream of their destructive ways, a ministry for which they paid dearly.

Jesus promised a blessing to his persecuted followers because they are treated like “the prophets who were before [them].”[iv] The implication is that his followers are, on some level, the progeny of the prophets. Martin Luther King Jr. thought so when he said that the Church is “the conscience of the state … the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool.”[v]

Though it comes with a price tag, that “prophetic zeal” to speak truth to and about power is something the Church needs to recapture. In a self-satisfied secular culture “prophets” aren’t particularly popular. People tend to hush an active critical conscience. Nevertheless, I agree with King (and the King) that it’s time for us to disrupt the dysfunctional. As we strive toward a more perfect union, lawmakers and the media who frame public issues need the Church to hold them accountable to the sort of eternal values reflected in the Sermon on the Mount.

Some will have to de-construct their theology more than others in order to exhibit a Kingdom lifestyle. I find myself constantly adjusting my perspective as the Spirit patiently walks me through the story again with greater clarity.

As I’ve indicated, we can’t afford to bifurcate the spiritual and the social implications of the gospel. “An individual gospel without a social gospel,” said the great 20th century missionary to India E. Stanley Jones, “is a soul without a body, and the social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul. One is a ghost and the other a corpse.”[vi]

One of America’s most prolific evangelists, Charles Finney, saw no disparity between spiritual regeneration and social reforms. His revivals and antislavery work were never mutually exclusive efforts. He denounced slavery from the pulpit and used his altar calls not only for salvations but also to enlist his converts into the work of abolitionism. He wouldn’t allow slaveholders to take communion at his New York churches and considered the destruction of the slave system as a major prerequisite for the coming of the millennium.

Splitting the two leads to a warped reading of Scripture and tempts us to domesticate the gospel. Any gospel without feet isn’t the gospel at all. “Prayer and evangelism without social action,” writes Father John Bettuolucci, “leads to pietistic withdrawal from the realities of the human condition and an escape from social problems rather than a confrontation and challenge to change.”

Jesus saves us from our personal sins but doesn’t overlook our sociopolitical transgressions. We can’t quarantine him inside our sanctuaries, giving him permission to save souls, while demanding that he leave the affairs of running the world to us! “No one can demand that religion can be relegated to the inner sanctum of personal life,” says Pope Francis, “without influencing societal and national life, without concern for the soundness of civil institutions, without a right to offer an opinion on events affecting society.”

It’s true that the cross is at the core of it all, the crux of his-story. Nevertheless, Jesus came to do more than die. Read the gospels again and you’ll see that he also came to live and to show us how to live. He came to demonstrate down-to-earth Kingdom that came from heaven. “Jesus doesn’t want to be reduced to Secretary of After-life Affairs.[vii] He wants to reign over everything and everyone. Here. And now.

Although the Bible is not a manual on politics, it does offer us principles that structure our moral reasoning, which in turn affects our politics. Jesus teaches us in this Discourse (and in others) to integrate his truth into public life with morally compelling and biblically founded convictions.[viii]

Imagining the social implications of Christianity doesn’t devalue spiritual realities. It means that those realities have social repercussions. Martin Luther King preached that a church that refuses to participate in the struggle for justice will be known as an “institution whose will is atrophied.” But if that church will engage in the fight to free itself “from the shackles of a deadening status-quo . . . it will enkindle the imagination of mankind… and imbue them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice and peace.”[ix]

The Kingdom of Heaven insinuates itself on earth to make it more like heaven. “As participants in the civil community,” writes Miroslav Volf, “Christians strive to bring it into greater conformity to the character and rule of Christ.”[x] Through our holy nonconformity, the citizens of the counterintuitive Kingdom nudge the social order toward its originally intended form. Our influence reaches beyond getting people to say a “sinner’s prayer” and sign up for a new-believers class. Spirit-saturated subversives function, as we’ll see later, as “salt” to rescue souls and societies from decay and as “light” to illuminate the path to a better humanity.

Sanctified Subversives

Oscar Romero said that the gospel is “subversive because it does indeed touch the foundations of an order that should not exist, because it is unjust.”

Admittedly, the word “subversion” carries a decidedly un-christian connotation. When I first came across it in a biblical context I recoiled. It felt too aggressive, more hostile than biblical. But though it normally refers to an attempt to overthrow or undermine a government by working connivingly from within, that’s neither the mission of Jesus nor the commission he gave the Church. We don’t plunder governments or crash cultures. The Kingdom we preach works quietly to transform the world one person at a time and one social ill at a time. Our influence isn’t derived from wealth, social position, or military power. Instead it comes from Christian love, prophetic witness, generosity, and sacrificial service.

The Latin origin of the term, “subvert” means to “turn from beneath.” It usually refers to bringing change from underneath a secretive cover. But Christ’s followers influence others from beneath them as servants. He calls us to turn things upside-down from below.

A South African Dutch clergyman told missionary evangelist E. Stanley Jones: “You preach a very troublesome gospel. We preach a Kingdom in heaven that upsets nothing on earth. You preach a Kingdom of God on earth that upsets everything!” Jones writes: “I would upset everything on one level––the level of this unjust and unworkable world order, to set up everything on the level of a higher order, the Kingdom of God. In watering a dusty road, you have to have to raise a lot of dust in settling it.”[xi]

It is our mission to partner with God to create a society that more closely reflects Jesus’ vision of his Kingdom. Our tactics are not to declare war on it, blend into it, or sequester ourselves from it in Christian bunkers. Rather, as Spirit-saturated insurgents we lovingly disrupt the world at its foundations and show our neighbors a better way. “[Our] union with Jesus allows [us] now to be a part of his conspiracy to undermine the structures of evil, which continue to dominate human history, with the forces of truth, freedom, and love.”[xii]

While we have no right to insist that pre-Christians live like Christians, we must model and recommend what we know to be socially advantageous for the community as a whole. To the exiles in Babylon the Lord said: “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7) Their orders were not to take over Babylon or isolate themselves from it, but to influence it from within. As we bring our best and seek the best for our generation, everybody wins!

Jesus was a culture-changing, foot-washing troublemaker! Instead of royal symbols of sword and chariot he chose a servant’s basin and towel. He had all the power of heaven at his disposal, but rather than vaunting himself to dominate, he bent low to wash the feet of those who should’ve been washing his. The irony of the “meek” inheriting the earth is the essence of Kingdom disruption. He disrupts the top-down system from the bottom up.  

He then passes the basin and towel on to us to influence our social order with the same spirit of servanthood. By selfless servitude he subverts the conventional wisdom of the world and requires us to do the same. We don’t grope for power, attempt to control reality, or expect the world to understand us, let alone serve us. We love them past their insults and threats and continue to sow seeds of justice and mercy.

“Newness happens in the world,” says Walter Brueggemann, “when long silenced people get their voice enough to sing dangerous alternatives.”[xiii]

[i] Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 65.

[ii] Greenfield, Subversive Jesus, 99.

[iii] Butler, Skeletons, 32.

[iv] Matthew 5:11–12

[v] https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

[vi] Jones, The Unshakable Kingdom, 189.

[vii] http://www.craiggreenfield.com/blog/over-spiritualized-gospel

[viii] The Bible doesn’t provide a governing blueprint on every policy or how to legislate our convictions into law. A crystal clear “Christian” answer to all things political doesn’t exist. As we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling,” we’ll tremble to find discretion and wisdom as we seek to advance God’s just Kingdom in our own time.

[ix] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/knock-midnight

[x] Volf, Public Faith in Action, 7.

[xi] Jones, A Song of Ascents, 105.

[xii] Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 207.

[xiii] Present day examples of people that have found their voice to sing dangerous alternatives are innumerable. Here are a few that come to mind:

Catholic Charities – https://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/our-ministry/Word Made Flesh – https://wordmadeflesh.org/new-monasticism-new-friars-and-the-third-order-61/Alongsiders International – https://www.alongsiders.org/Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service –  https://www.lirs.org/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjpjkBRDRARIsAKv-0O27IjggfcN9dlVgAxTNlmLlKqHEyGy2ce6B2VLhpsIYtdVKqplrXVAaAixQEALw_wcBInternational Justice Mission – https://www.ijm.org/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjpjkBRDRARIsAKv-0O1H0u83u__Apy-Fs7c9QJQQfqBqBvzWTgTtgeK01DLryXtkBhIdk-QaAvnBEALw_wcBCompassion International – https://www.compassion.com/Christian Community Development Association – https://ccda.org/The Simple Way – http://www.thesimpleway.org/Church of the Savior in Washington D.C. – http://inwardoutward.org/

*This is chapter six in my book: WHAT ON EARTH? Considering the Social Implications of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount

People of the Presence

“How can we pray to Him without being with Him? And how can we be with Him without thinking of Him often? And how can we think of Him often without forming the holy habit of being in His presence?” Brother Lawrence in Practicing His Presence

Have you read this? If not, I hope you will. If you have, read it again. And may it ignite in you an insistent and persistent passion to be a person of the Presence.

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Shalom To Go!

“Blessed are the shalom makers for they shall be called children of God.” Matthew 5:8

In my research for my book on the Sermon on the Mount, I became fascinated with the rich implications of the word “shalom,” which appears over 500 times in the Old Testament. I’m convinced that the New Testament writers had shalom on their minds when they wrote about “peace.” Our word “peace” is inadequate to describe the richness of the Hebrew term. Shalom is peace on steroids.

The 1st thing that usually comes to mind when say “peace” is something along the lines of euphoric feelings or a pause between arguing parties or wars.  I believe if you asked God for one word to describe his vision for the world he’d say: “Shalom!” Understanding shalom is key to understanding God’s agenda; what we should be doing and how we should be doing it while on the earth as his Kingdom ambassadors.

I admit it, I’m obsessed with “shalom.” I like the word, I like how it sounds, and I like what it means. Mostly I love when it is and hate it when it isn’t!

Before we were put here, the Father, Son, and Spirit had perfect eternal harmony when they decided to share it with us for us to steward. He bequeathed on us the job of shalom makers. We had it for a short time in the garden, but gave it away. Ever since, we’re trying to recover it and share it with those around us.

Shalom affects everything spiritual, relational, social, political, economic, environmental, and cultural. When shalom is, everything is as it ought to be for the good of all! Let’s not forget the “good of all” part.

After his resurrection Jesus said to his disciples, “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I send you.” We shouldn’t imagine that he meant: “Ya’ll feel better now. I’m back!” Instead, he was commissioning them: “As you go into the world, bring shalom with you! Spread it around so everyone can taste and see how good it is!” This is shalom to go!

In the Coventry Cathedral in Coventry, England hangs the 2nd largest one-piece tapestry in the world, called the “Christ in Glory” tapestry. It’s 75 feet tall by 38 feet wide and weighs over a ton! You don’t just throw something like that together. It took the artist 11 years to draw it and a team of 12 people 2 years to weave it! It is a gorgeous depiction of Christ surrounded by the four living creatures mentioned in the book of Revelation.

Tim Keller teaches that society that embraces shalom is like a tapestry of thousands of interrelated threads as opposed to a pile of random strands thrown together on the floor. One is a tapestry of interconnected people working toward the common good and the other a tangled mess. 

Shalom is a compilation of thousands of threads related to one another in a million ways. Each has to go over, under, around, and through the others at a multitude of points. When it doesn’t, the fabric tears and its beauty diminishes. When we’re interwoven among one another, you have shalom or “community” if you prefer. Martin Luther King used to say that we all share in the “network of mutuality” and the “garment of destiny.”

When it frays who would you suspect are the first to fall through the tears? The weaker members, those with no agency or social capital, those on margins.

In such case, shalom makers insert themselves into the tears and reweave the frayed areas. They see where the garment is torn, where the network is broken down, and they join with other shalomers to repair it to its strength and beauty!

A “rising tide lift all boats” because they’re all in the same water. What affects one, affects the rest of us. Shalom makers know this and are willing to disadvantage themselves for the advantage of the disadvantaged.

Shalom benefits the good of all or it’s not shalom at all. When you find an enormous discrepancy between the opportunities for the rich and the poor or the white and the black or men and women, shalom is AWOL and needs to be relocated.

Loving peace and making peace are not necessarily the same thing. You can love peace and be content to enjoy it for yourself, while at the same time neglecting the responsibility to advance it in the world. Some people treat their peace like it’s all that matters. But shalom is meant to be shared.

The prophet Jeremiah had a lot to say about sharing shalom in his letter to his countrymen exiled in Babylon. “Seek the shalom of the city where I have caused you to be carried away for in the shalom thereof shall ye have shalom.” (Jeremiah 29:7 – Orthodox Jewish Bible) If they shalomed Babylon they too would be shalomed!

As foreigners and exiles (1 Peter 1:1; 2:11) our assignment is to share shalom with our Babylon, i.e., America. America and every other country in the world is the progeny of Babylon. We may well be the best Babylon, but Babylon we are!

Let’s be clear, perfect shalom will only be fully realized at the return of the Prince of Shalom (Isaiah 9:6), but on any given day you can witness shalom makers praying and working for its slow but steady advance on foreign soil.

God wants to be the shalom we want to see, to make us better in Babylon while making Babylon better through us!

A lot of Christians just want to get the hell out of Babylon (through rapture or moving to Idaho). But as ambassadors to Babylon, we’re on a shalom-making mission to remove as much hell out of Babylon as we can and replace it with Kingdom of Heaven!

Don’t horde it… Take your shalom to go!

New and UNimproved Christian Variants

As we’ve discovered in the last few years, viruses often morph into any number of variants. Some are less virulent than the original disease, while others can be even more deadly. Some variants, like Omicron and Delta, while less likely to land you in a hospital bed breathing through a ventilator, are more contagious than other versions of the virus. We’re all weary of vaccinations, masks, distancing, and obsessive hand washing, nevertheless we’ve done what we’ve had to in order to stay as well as possible.

Since I came to Jesus 50 years ago I’ve seen way too many “variants” of Christianity to count. Many “winds of teaching” have blown through in these years, due to the “cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14). I’ve heard some of the weirdest teachings, seen some of the most bizarre spiritual practices, and witnessed some of the most outlandish moral behaviors by people who identified as Christ followers.

But, as with the Coronavirus, new and unimproved variants of “Christianity” keep cropping up, more contagious, and in some cases, even more virulent than the one before. Sometimes they are hardly recognizable as remotely related to the faith that Jesus died to purchase. It’s concerning to say the least.

It used to be that we debated Calvinism versus Arminianism, whether or not to speak in tongues, or if the “rapture” was going to occur before, during, or after “the tribulation.” And usually, the debates were civil and mostly edifying. But these are different times.

Now some “Christian” groups advocate such stupid and wildly unbiblical ideas as a violent civil war! Some people spend way more time with cable “news” than in prayer, Bible reading, and fellowshipping with other saints. No wonder their theology is infected with every new variant that appears on the scene. John Wayne-ism is more popular than the “meek and lowly” Jesus of the Gospels. People send out Christmas cards with photos of their families holding assault rifles as though the Son of God born in a borrowed stable to dirt poor parents could be represented in such a contradicting way. And these are just a few of the disturbing new variants of noxious versions of Jesus and his story.

What ever happened to discernment? Does anyone read the Bible anymore? Consult with God once in a while? Have any accountable relationships these days? Who will warn the Church of the toxicity of these new variants? And who would listen even if they did?

“Watch out that no one deceives you… many false prophets will appear and deceive many people… false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time.” Matthew 24:4, 11, 24, 25

It doesn’t matter much to me if you speak in tongues, ascribe to a Calvinistic approach to salvation, or whether or not you baptize babies. It seems like we’ve come to terms on some of those issues. We learned to disagree agreeably and go about the work of the Kingdom together in spite of our divergent opinions.

But these new variants, in my humble opinion are more deadly to their adherents and damaging to our testimony in the world. Onlookers didn’t care if we were pre-, mid-, or post-tribulation rapture. They weren’t even aware that we disagreed about whether or not the atonement is “limited.” But what do you think they think when they see people under the banner of Christ dressed in fatigues marching down the street carrying assault rifles or breaking into the capitol building carrying Jesus signs? If I were an unbeliever, I’d think, “I should keep an enormous distance from those addled people, whose religion has robbed them of critical thought.” I’d wonder if there were a vaccine against this virus that would keep us all safe from what seems to be growing into a religious pandemic.

“The time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4:3-5

Friends, I appeal you to safeguard yourself and those around you from inhaling these new variants. It might not kill you or even land you in the hospital, but it is deadly, if not to you, to others watching you. Read the Bible carefully as if for the first time. Begin again with the Gospels. Immerse yourself in Jesus’ story, his character, his ways. Spend time with him and let him drench you in grace and truth. Hang out with some critical thinking, God-loving, obedient saints who can help you (and you them) to cultivate a spiritually healthy life. Develop the essential tool of discernment. Learn to weed out what is poisonous to your faith and plant seeds of truth that will in time bear good fruit from which others near you may find nourishment.

“Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.” 2 Peter 3:18

“Social Justice” and “Systemic”: Christian or Not?

“We don’t have two gospels. We don’t have a spiritual gospel and a social gospel, or a salvation gospel and a social justice gospel. . . Jesus binds the spiritual and social into a seamless fabric that shouldn’t be torn in two.” Donald Kraybill

The other day a friend told me that “social justice” is inextricably connected to a “social gospel,” which offers salvation on the basis of good works. Nothing could be further from the truth, at least for me. An editor with whom I consulted on my most recent book on the Sermon on the Mount told me that a lot of Christians won’t give the book a second look with the word “social” in the title. Though I knew he was right, I kept it in anyway. Another alt-right friend urged me to find some alternative to the phrase social justice in all of my speech and writing because it makes me sound like a socialist. He meant well, but in light of Scripture and in good conscience I couldn’t comply.

People keep telling me that creation care, social justice work, and the like are OK, but the Christian’s primary, if not ONLY mission, is to preach the Gospel and introduce people to Jesus. If you know me, you know that I’m quite committed to doing all I can to bring others to salvation in Christ. In fact, I’m on my way back up to San Francisco’s Tenderloin this weekend to preach on the street and share God’s good news. Sharing Christ, especially with the marginalized, is a passion of mine.

But to imply, if not outright say, that preaching and presenting Christ with others is the sum total of our mission on earth is what I call “misinformation.” (See this…)

If there were time and space here to list all the biblical passages on our calling to serve the poor and address its causes, you probably wouldn’t take the time to read it. I mean, it’s all over the Bible, where the poor are mentioned in over 2,000 passages! Check out these few from only the Gospel of Luke: 1:53, 6:24, 12:16, 12:31, 14:12, 16:1, 16:19, 16:21, 16:22, 18:24, 18:25, 21:1…

It’s not charity, as in giving money or food to the unhoused (which I also do, BTW) to which I refer. I’m talking about the larger and more sustainable work of ongoing justice. I’m fully aware that some of you can’t read the phrase “social justice” without slipping into a panic attack and accusing me of espousing a “social gospel,” which is something altogether different. Many of my Christian friends are somehow unable or unwilling to believe our mission includes doing justice. Loving mercy and walking humbly with God (Micah 6:8) made the cut, but justice has somehow mysteriously lost its place in the work of the Kingdom.

Don’t get me wrong, I acknowledge the multitude of generous followers of Jesus who serve the poor in their preferred ways. But when it comes to addressing systemic causes and exasperating factors of poverty, they seem to draw the line. Oops, there’s that other term that raises the heart rate of many in my tribe: “systemic.” (So as to keep this within readable length, allow me to address the systemic another time soon.)

As they don’t directly win people to Jesus, some of the usual suspects––creation care, economic equity, racial justice, etc., don’t appear to be “spiritual” enough for many of my friends. I guess they conflate those sorts of efforts with the evils of politics or confuse them with a “social gospel” that denies the reality and necessity of new birth. They mistake them as an attempt to replace the Gospel message with “polishing the brass on the Titanic” before it sinks.

I’m not willing to bifurcate the spiritual and the social implications of our mission on earth. Some streams of Christianity emphasize prayer and evangelism, while others focus their attention on social justice. Why do we need to separate these streams and overlook one or the other. God’s vision includes both streams into one rushing, raging river!

“An individual gospel without a social gospel,” said the great 20th century missionary to India E. Stanley Jones, “is a soul without a body, and the social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul. One is a ghost and the other a corpse.” Translation: It’s not one or the other. It’s both.

Any gospel without feet isn’t the gospel at all. For instance, one of America’s most prolific evangelists, Charles Finney saw no disparity between spiritual regeneration and social reforms. His revivals and antislavery work were never mutually exclusive efforts. He denounced slavery from the pulpit and used his altar calls not only for salvations but also to enlist his converts into the work of abolitionism. He wouldn’t allow slaveholders to take communion at his New York churches and considered the destruction of the slave system as a major prerequisite for the coming of the millennium. I assume he was censured in some “spiritual” circles for this. I can hear it now: “That’s political. Just preach the Gospel, brother!”

“No one can demand that religion can be relegated to the inner sanctum of personal life,” says Pope Francis, “without influencing societal and national life, without concern for the soundness of civil institutions, without a right to offer an opinion on events affecting society.”

Instead of going on and on about this, let me just cite one of a multitude of contemporary faith-based initiatives that addresses a systematic injustice, in this case, related to creation care. The mission of “A Rocha” (see below) is about serving the poor who are disproportionately affected by the warming of the planet. Check your pulse again if you’re inclined to politicize climate change away. (BTW, you don’t have to believe that the planet is warming due to human factors to concede that it is indeed warming. I’ll address climate care from a biblical vantage point in a future post. Something for you deniers to look forward to.)

Got questions? Rebuttals? Feel free to share.

And speaking of sharing, feel free to share this post with your friends!

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5-Minute Meditations on the Sermon on the Mount (Chapter 12 of WHAT ON EARTH? a book by Barney Wiget)

Chapter 12 of WHAT ON EARTH? / The “Ouchless” Church

Suggestions for Personal Reflection, Group Discussion, and Taking Action for:

What do you think of the statement by Brene´ Brown? “I wanted faith to work like an epidural; to numb the pain of vulnerability.  As it turned out, my faith ended up being more like a midwife – a nurturing partner who leans into the discomfort with me and whispers ‘push’ and ‘breathe.’”What is your opinion about the often-repeated claim that “Everything that happens is sovereignly ordained by God”?“He turns our mourning into dancing.” Cite an example when he did this in your own life.

Is “Social Justice” and “Systemic,” Christian?

“We don’t have two gospels. We don’t have a spiritual gospel and a social gospel, or a salvation gospel and a social justice gospel. . . Jesus binds the spiritual and social into a seamless fabric that shouldn’t be torn in two.” Donald Kraybill

People keep telling me that creation care, social justice work, and the like are OK, but the Christian’s primary, if not ONLY mission, is to preach the Gospel and introduce people to Jesus. If you know me, you know that I’m really into doing all I can to bring others to salvation in Christ. In fact, I’m on my way back up to San Francisco’s Tenderloin this weekend to preach on the street and share God’s good news. It’s a passion of mine.

But to imply, if not outright say, that preaching and sharing Christ with others is the sum total of our mission on earth is what’s called “misinformation.”

See this: Is Justice a Gospel Thing?

If there were time and space here to list all the biblical passages on our calling to serve the poor and address its causes, you probably wouldn’t take the time to read it all. I mean, it’s an enormous theme in Scripture, where the poor are mentioned in over 2,000 passages!

Check out these few from only the Gospel of Luke: 1:53, 6:24, 12:16, 12:31, 14:12, 16:1, 16:19, 16:21, 16:22, 18:24, 18:25, 21:1…

It’s not charity, as in giving money or food to the unhoused (which I also do, BTW) to which I refer. I’m talking about the larger and more sustainable work of ongoing justice. I’m fully aware that some of you can’t read the phrase “social justice” without slipping into a panic attack and accusing me of espousing a “social gospel,” which is something altogether different. Many of my Christian friends are somehow unable or unwilling to believe our mission includes doing justice. Loving mercy and walking humbly with God (Micah 6:8) made the cut, but justice has somehow mysteriously lost its place in the work of the Kingdom.

Don’t get me wrong, I acknowledge the multitude of generous followers of Jesus who serve the poor in their preferred ways. But when it comes to addressing systemic causes and exasperating factors of poverty, they seem to draw the line. Oops, there’s that other term that raises the heart rate of many in my tribe: “systemic.” (So as to keep this within readable length, allow me to address this another time soon.)

As they don’t directly win people to Jesus, some of the usual suspects––creation care, economic equity, racial justice, etc., don’t appear to be “spiritual” enough for many of my friends. I guess they conflate those sorts of efforts with the evils of politics or confuse them with a “social gospel” that denies the reality and necessity of new birth. They mistake them as an attempt to replace the Gospel message with “polishing the brass on the Titanic” before it sinks.

We mustn’t bifurcate the spiritual and the social implications of our mission on earth. Some streams of Christianity emphasize prayer and evangelism, while others focus their attention on social justice. Why do we need to separate these streams and overlook one or the other. God includes both streams into one rushing, raging river!

“An individual gospel without a social gospel,” said the great 20th century missionary to India E. Stanley Jones, “is a soul without a body, and the social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul. One is a ghost and the other a corpse.”

Any gospel without feet isn’t the gospel at all. For instance, one of America’s most prolific evangelists, Charles Finney saw no disparity between spiritual regeneration and social reforms. His revivals and antislavery work were never mutually exclusive efforts. He denounced slavery from the pulpit and used his altar calls not only for salvations but also to enlist his converts into the work of abolitionism. He wouldn’t allow slaveholders to take communion at his New York churches and considered the destruction of the slave system as a major prerequisite for the coming of the millennium.

“No one can demand that religion can be relegated to the inner sanctum of personal life,” says Pope Francis, “without influencing societal and national life, without concern for the soundness of civil institutions, without a right to offer an opinion on events affecting society.”

Instead of going on and on about this, let me just cite one of a multitude of contemporary faith-based initiatives that addresses a systematic injustice, in this case, related to creation care. The mission of “A Rocha” (see below) is about serving the poor who are disproportionately affected by the warming of the planet. Check your pulse again if you’re inclined to politicize climate change. (BTW, you don’t have to believe that the planet is warming due to human factors to concede that it is indeed warming. I’ll address climate care from a biblical vantage point in a future post.)

A Rocha: The international family of Christian conservation organizations

Got questions? Rebuttals? Feel free to share.

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5-Minute Meditations on the Sermon on the Mount (Chapter 10 & 11 of WHAT ON EARTH? a book by Barney Wiget)

Suggestions for Personal Reflection, Group Discussion, and Taking Action for:

Chapters 10 & 11 of WHAT ON EARTH?  / The Groan of the Godly & The Collective “Ouch!”

Explain how the first Beatitude leads to the second.We contend that tears shed in grief, uncertainty, confusion, and fear can be “good tears.” Agree or disagree? Why?Where else in the Bible do you find “lament” practiced or advocated?Have you ever felt like I did when, after some national tragedy, the Sunday worship service gave no opportunity to grieve with your fellow worshippers?In the world today, what causes you to mourn most?

Keep an eye out for Chapter 12!

Talk soon.