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Christians and the Millennium Development Goals: Bono celebrates and cautions

 “The poor you will always have with you,” is the proof-text I heard a conservative political commentator use this week. He had a series of pies on a table in front of him and proceeded to illustrate how those who work harder should get bigger pieces of the pie and those who work less get smaller ones. “It’s simple,” he said. “There isn’t enough to go around if everybody expects to be given the same amount as I have, we’d run out of pieces of pie. After all, ‘the poor you will always have with you.’”

This defeatist type of theology will keep the poorest of the poor subjugated to the powerbrokers of the West indefinitely. There are many Christians, particularly Evangelicals (I’m in that camp) who believe that the world is rapidly going to hell-in-a-hand-basket, that the creation is evil, and that things will only get worse. This framework is driven and reinforced by the notion that history has to play out this way before the return of Christ, in fact, (as the rationale goes) we may actually hasten his coming by encouraging the crisis rather than mitigating it (i.e. the recent rise of the genre of Christian horror/fiction via the Left Behind series, the desire of more than a few for a full blown war in the Middle East, and the apathy toward care for creation).

However, if God is at work in the world and has not abandoned us (or more likely, has not abandoned those on the planet who have been abandoned by us), and if the missio Dei, the “mission of God,” is to bless all nations through his people, then our call must be to engage the culture and be a kingdom people.

This is why Bono’s message in the New York Times this week is so important. His Op-Ed piece, "M.D.G.'s for Beginners... and Finishers," is a wonderful, brief primer on the Millennium Development Goals project. As the superpowers descend on the United Nations this week for a summit, Bono reminds us of two things: much has been accomplished and there is good reason to celebrate, and, we are behind in meeting these goals – there’s lots of work to be done and everyone must participate.

These are common themes of Bono’s these days. If you caught one of the recent U2 concerts on the 360 Tour (they’ll swing back through America next summer), you would have participated in a grand celebration of grace and life and heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu offer his deepest and humblest “thank you” for all that’s been done for the continent of Africa. “Because our voices were heard millions more of our brothers and sisters are alive thanks to the miracle of AIDS drugs and malaria drugs. Ahhhh!” (See my earlier post for his full speech, and the video is a must-see.) 

Bono is also careful to root his message of hope and action in scripture (not in proof-texts, but in good solid biblical texts). In an often repeated speech at the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast he reached back into Leviticus to remind us that God’s year of Jubilee was a 50-year cycle of forgiveness, debt-relief and restitution. Bono went on in that speech to rightly demonstrate the importance of this theme for Jesus’ own ministry. Jesus’ first message was a proclamation of the Lord’s favor, the year of Jubilee (Luke 4).

As Christians we have the remarkable privilege, as well as heavy burden, of ministering the kingdom – the whole kingdom – of God to the whole world, not in a patronizing, colonizing way, but in a way that reaches out, touches and shares life with those who have been abandoned and disenfranchised. If that conservative commentator who so flippantly quoted scripture would have checked the gospel of Mark more closely he would have found the rest of the verse helpful: “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them…” (Mark 14:7).

Cal Thomas, Terry Jones, and the misuse of scripture

I’ve agreed with conservative political commentator Cal Thomas in the past (like when he challenged Evangelicals to give up the notion that political power equals influence), but not this time. In his Miami Herald opinion piece, “Root out, defeat evil here at home,” he cites biblical mandate to purge and eradicate evil (i.e. radical Islam, terrorism) in America. 

While violent extremism of any kind in America must be dealt with, its Thomas’ use of scripture for providing the political rationale to do so that I object to. He uses Deuteronomy 22:21, “You must purge the evil from among you,” completely out of context for the personal justification of his own argument.

This verse is one of the purity laws given to the Hebrew people of the Old Testament after they fled from their captors and wandered aimlessly in the dessert for 40 years. After hundreds of years of slavery the people had no center, no identity and no code/law/manifesto for retaining their Hebrewness. The ten commandments and associated laws were a gift from God to help the people through their adolescence. This is why the psalmist can confidently say, "Oh how I love the law of the Lord!"

The particular verse that Thomas uses is an instruction for sexual purity. God is telling his people to remove the prostitutes and sexually deviant from their midst. That actually might have some value if we are applying the message accurately in today’s North American context. If Thomas were to read the whole passage he would also find that men who rape women are deserving of the death penalty, a remarkably equalizing prescription for a patriarchal prehistoric time. This scripture has nothing to do with how we are to treat foreigners, enemies and people of other faiths.

If we look in Deuteronomy, the same book as Thomas, for principles related to dealing with the foreigner we find plenty of guidance. The Hebrew people were consistently told (here and later in the prophets) to care for and include the widow, the orphan and the alien/foreigner/stranger. Deuteronomy 27:19 says, “Cursed is anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan and the widow.” Deuteronomy 31:12 calls for the inclusion of all people, specifically of aliens, when gathering the community together. Later in Exodus 22: 21-22 we find, “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt. Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan.” Zachariah 7:10 says, “Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien, or the poor. In your hearts do no think evil of each other.” Jesus affirms this in the New Testament with “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).

Violent extremism in America is unacceptable, but Thomas’ conclusion based on the misuse and bad interpretation of scripture is dubious and equally unacceptable. Rooting out and defeating evil here at home cannot be justified using “purge the evil among you” as it’s found in Deuteronomy. In using the bible for a proof-text of his own political beliefs, Thomas is just as dangerous as the would-be Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones.

Terry Jones is not the one we should be focusing on

 Terry Jones got a lot of publicity for himself and his church last week. That's too bad. They're just a group of oddball extremists who once again tarnished the image of churches in America by threatening to burn a copy of the Koran, the Muslim holy book. Groups like this are not representative of the Christian faith yet they are singled out and highlighted constantly.

I'd like to suggest that most committed Christians in America belong to churches that quietly and faithfully engage in the work of the kingdom of God. The average-sized congregation in the US is 100-200 people. These congregations will never garner the news coverage or attention that megachurches and heretics will receive, but many are working and ministering in their communities in remarkable ways.

In the following article I ask, "Are Christians hate-filled hypocrites?" Thanks to my friend Dr. Brad Wright for writing a fine book and providing more than a bit of inspiration here.

Teaser:

Terry Jones, a pistol-packing pastor more cult leader than clergy, has once again cast a dark shadow on American Christianity and gained the attention of the world. Jones convinced his small congregation, the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., to collect and burn copies of the Koran on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Fortunately, amid condemnations from President Obama, Gen. David Petraeus, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck—when have we ever heard these ideological adversaries agree on anything?—and a host of Christian leaders, the book-burning was cancelled.

Had the rally gone on the consequences could have been dire...

Here is the full article.

The Perfect Pastor

In my Intro to Youth Ministry class this morning we spent the session talking about God's call to ministry. We asked questions like "How does one know he/she is called to ministry?" "What role do emotions, giftedness and community play in discerning the call?" and "How does a church call a pastor?" 

It's been said that when a church calls a pastor they spend a weekend (or however long the candidating process is) talking about all the things they like in a candidate and then all the following years complaining about everything they don't like. Most churches put pastors on pedestals and have such high standards that Jesus himself wouldn't be qualified (or if he was he probably wouldn't be interested).

Most churches engage in a fierce cycle that goes something like this: pastors love power and control so they continue to do all of the work and make all of the decisions, and congregations require that the pastors serve them and meet their needs thus alleviating themselves of any responsibility for the ministry and work of the kingdom. Thus, the professionalization of the pastoral role reinforces the apathy of the laity and vice-versa.

Congregations continue to search for the perfect pastor. Here's a humorous piece I use in class about a generic church that is doing just that. I pulled this article by Clint Heacock from Relevant Magazine a couple of years ago. It's no longer on their site so I include it here as an doc file. This fictitious church business meeting is way too familiar.

Teaser:

Thank you all for coming to the meeting tonight.

As you all know, we've been two long years without a head pastor, ever since we had to let Pastor Jesus go. You all remember how we voted on that issue. Quite simply it wasn't working out, either for Him or for us.

But now we are certain that God has answered our prayers! After reviewing the resumes of literally dozens of potential pastors, we have found one that we think could be a great fit for our church.... 

Here's the full story.