Leslie Newbigin begins one of his books describing what it was like when he first visited India. He entered a sacred temple that was full of various idols and as he was wandering around, he noticed that in the midst of these, among them, was a statue of Jesus. Hmm, he thought, they really didn't understand the Bible. They had taken in Jesus and placed him alongside all these other gods, not realizing that this was not possible since Jesus taught us there was only One God. Then Newbigin describes what it was like to return to his birthplace, England, many years later and to find there ... the same assimilation ... Jesus among and alongside the values of Western culture.

I think that is what Tim Keller does a good job of challenging in this book. In the bible God identifies with the powerless as the defender of widows and father to the fatherless (Ps 68). He describes the bible's continual mention of the "quartet of the vulnerable - widows, orphans, immigrants and the poor." Over and over the Bible combines two things that our society separates and even breaks into two parties ... social morality and private morality. The Democratic party tends to hold up its openness in questions of morality, while actively working to address social evils; the Republican party tends to hold up its conservative values in questions of private morality, while embracing rugged individualism and almost social darwinian views of public goods (survival of the fittest).

Keller says that when we approach the poor and aid to the poor we often ask questions like "But what if they squander the money?" or "What if they don't learn to do better?" and Keller turns it around saying what if those were the things Jesus said to himself instead imparting grace through his death. He says that being "poor in spirit" helps in this way --"When you come upon those economically poor, you cannot say to them 'Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!' because you certainly did not do that spiritually." (103)

He even goes a little ways in to the practical wisdom of aiding the vulnerable. He says there are three ways we can help or take part: Relief, Development and Social Reform. All three are important and it misses the bigger picture to think our society doesn't need all three. Relief is temporary shelter, food, clothes, foster care, etc. Development is what people need to move beyond dependency. And Social reform is the work it takes when you want to move an entire neighborhood to self sufficiency. (114-115)

Another roadblock inside of churches and with church people to being more interested in Social Justice ... to really seeing it as part of our duty is that church people get hung up on evangelism. What I mean is that they think churches should only concern themselves with souls ... not bodies. Often they don't say it in quite this gross a fashion (thought sometimes they do!), but the push back on all this as something the government should do (and even that is hollow because often those same people are part of the political party who wants to decrease government spending on welfare). Then of course there is a big section of the church that sees social justice as evangelism.

Keller says they are two different things, both important and connected, but not the same. He says that the problem with the first view (the one that says the church should only concern itself with teaching and preaching) is that it creates a credibility issue for the church. It is "God loves you" and "Jesus saves" when the deeds say ... even if we, the church, don't and won't. Deeds can contradict words or substantiate them. (138-143) With this is an idea that human beings are integrated wholes (body and soul). "When we say that caring for physical needs will detract from evangelism" we must be thinking only of doing evangelism among people who are comfortable and well off." (142)

At the very end he tackles a very interesting topic of how society can even talk about justice without religious language. There is an opening for the church to be part of a much bigger and needed conversation if it will embrace the Bibles concern for the vulnerable.