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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781433537035 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Crossway |
| Publication date: | 07/31/2013 |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Case for Social Involvement
I stood in Sector 12 among small, squat houses roofed with plastic weighted down with rubbish. With me was Dr. Kiran Martin, director of ASHA, a Christian organization working in the slums of Delhi. Around us a crowd gathered, eager to talk. Most of the men had jobs — railway workers, construction site laborers, balloon sellers. Some of the one-room houses had a television, the electricity tapped off from the mains. There was a communal toilet block, above which ASHA has a small clinic. When we asked if anyone ever escaped the slum, the answer was no. The only jobs available are low paid with long hours. Most people cannot even read bus numbers. Alcoholism and crime are common. People are subject to slum landlords — protectors and oppressors at one and the same time. Standing there, I realized that the problem for these people was not simply lack of material possessions but powerlessness.
When Kiran Martin graduated as a doctor, she had the opportunity for a well-paid job and a comfortable life. Instead, starting with just a table and chair, she has given herself in the service of the poor. Several years on, ASHA impacts the lives of 150,000 slum dwellers, empowering communities by training health workers and lobbying government to improve slum conditions. Kiran Martin has invested time in building relationships with slum landlords, hosting an annual meal for them. She persuaded them to see that it was in everybody's interest to tackle some of the problems that were oppressing the slum dwellers. In the same way, she has built relationships with local government officials so that they have been willing to trust resources to ASHA. Through patience and allowing officials to share the credit for achievements, ASHA has also been able to negotiate government-funded slum redevelopments. Now the government's new housing policy has adopted the model used by ASHA to transform slums into established communities.
But that is not all: in Sector 12 there is now a church of twenty-five converts from Hinduism. This is an area known for its Hindu extremism. But everywhere Kiran Martin walks in the slums, she is greeted warmly. Church planting that had proved impossible in the past was now possible because of the trust and respect built by Kiran Martin in Christ's name.
The Example of William Carey
I visited Kiran Martin's work in Delhi in 1993. Two hundred years before, in 1793, William Carey arrived in India. Ruth and Vishal Mangalwadi begin their appreciation of Carey with a fictional quiz. They imagine a competition for Indian university students in which the question is asked: "Who was William Carey?" The first reply is that William Carey was a botanist who published the first books on the natural history of India, who introduced new systems of gardening, and after whom a variety of eucalyptus was named. Next, an engineering student says William Carey introduced the steam engine to India and began the first indigenous paper and printing industries. Another student sees Carey as a social reformer who successfully campaigned for women's rights; another as a campaigner for the humane treatment of lepers. An economics student points out that Carey introduced savings banks to combat usury. Carey is credited with starting the first newspaper in any oriental language. He conducted a systematic survey of Indian agricultural practices and founded the Indian Agri-Horticultural Society, thirty years before the Royal Agricultural Society was established in England. Carey was the first to translate and publish the religious classics of India and wrote the first Sanskrit dictionary for scholars. He founded dozen of schools, providing education for people of all castes, boys and girls. He pioneered lending libraries and wrote the first essays on forestry in India. To a significant degree he transformed the ethos of the British administration in India from colonial exploitation to a genuine sense of civil service.
And so it goes on with Carey's contribution to science, engineering, industry, economics, medicine, agriculture and forestry, literature, education, social reform, public administration, and philosophy all being celebrated. Yet most of us know William Carey as the cobbler from England who became a pioneer missionary and evangelist. Who was the real William Carey? The answer is that Carey was all these things and more.
The Example of Early Christians
Christians have a long history of being involved in social issues — care for the poor; involvement in the arts, science, and culture; participation in civil society; campaigning in the political arena. Tertullian, the North African theologian, writing at the end of the second century after Christ, famously described how his fellow Christians shared with each other:
If he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it he wants to and only if he is able. There is no compulsion; all is voluntary. These gifts are, as it were, piety's deposit fund. For they are not taken and spent on feasting and drinking-sessions, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of needy boys and girls without parents, and of house-bound old people. ... People say, See how they love one another. ... One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. We have all things in common except our wives.
Writing in a similar vein at about the same time, Irenaeus said:
Instead of tithes which the law commanded, the Lord said to divide everything we have with the poor. ... Those who have received freedom set aside all their possessions for the Lord's purposes, giving joyfully and freely and not just the least valuable of their possessions.
Basil the Great, writing in the fourth century AD, warned his readers:
The bread which you keep, belongs to the hungry; the coat which you preserve in your wardrobe, to the shoeless; the gold which you have hidden in the ground, to the needy. Wherefore, as often as you were able to help others, and refused, so often did you do them wrong.
During this period the church was seeing significant and widespread growth. About half a million new members were added every generation. By the beginning of the fourth century the numbers had risen to five million — about 8 percent of the Roman Empire — despite periodic persecution and constant revilement. These twin factors of gospel growth and persecution led to the first apologetics. These were not only appeals for toleration but also for conversion. One of the most prominent early apologists was Justin Martyr. Justin was from a pagan background, but, being born in Samaria, he probably would have been familiar with Judaism. He spent some time wandering around the Mediterranean looking for a worldview that made sense to him. He was finally converted through a chance encounter with an old man on the shore near Ephesus. After his conversion he became an evangelist and, although traveling widely, spent most of his life in Rome, where he was martyred in AD 163.
Justin wrote an Apology addressed to the emperor some time after AD 151 in which he attempted carefully to explain Christianity in a context where it was being misunderstood. Typically the apologists like Justin who wrote to a Roman audience focused on the civil consequences of Christianity. Describing the supposedly secret gatherings of Christians, Justin says: "They who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need."
Justin recognizes that in one sense Christianity is subversive. It operates with a set of values that is contrary to elements of Roman society and culture. So he is not afraid to argue for the moral superiority of Christianity. The concern of the early church was not confined to other Christians. The Christians, for example, would collect unwanted children, left on the city rubbish dumps to die, and rear them themselves. Justin says: "But as for us, we have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the act of wicked men; and this we have been taught so that we should not do anyone an injury and so that we should not sin against God." Justin describes how many of the children exposed were taken to be brought up as prostitutes, and this he strongly condemns. He says to the emperor: "You even collect pay and levies and taxes from these [prostitutes] whom you ought to exterminate from your civilized world. ... You charge against us the actions that you commit openly and treat with honour." Justin does not hesitate to condemn social injustice and call on the emperor to change his policies. What is striking about this is that it comes in the context of a plea for tolerance toward Christians.
Nevertheless, although elements of Christianity run contrary to the values of Roman society, Justin wants to show that Christianity is good for society. "We are in fact of all men your best helpers and allies in securing good order." He says that Christians live under God's eyes so they do what is right even without the sanction of the civil authorities. He points to the changed lives of Christians and describes Christ's teaching on marriage, love for enemies, generosity, honesty, and paying taxes.
We used to value getting wealth and possessions above all things, but now we bring what we have to a common fund and share with every one in need. We used to hate and destroy one another and were racists. But now, since the coming of Christ, we live in harmony with others of different races and pray for our enemies.
The life of the early church described by Justin, the pioneering work of William Carey, and the contemporary ministry of Dr. Kiran Martin are just three examples of Christian involvement in social issues and political reform. But is social involvement a legitimate activity of Christians? Does it have biblical and theological support? This chapter sets out the case for Christian social involvement, offering three interrelated reasons: the character of God, the reign of God, and the grace of God.
1) The Character of God
The psalmist describes God in the following way:
[He] executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. (Ps. 146:7–9)
Social involvement is rooted in the character of God. He is the God who upholds the cause of the oppressed, who provides for the poor and liberates the prisoner; he sustains the marginalized and the vulnerable.
Our understanding of poverty is fundamentally related to our understanding of God. It is a question of what kind of God we worship. According to Ron Sider, concern for the poor is not "merely an ethical teaching": "it is first of all a theological truth, a central doctrine of the creed, a constantly repeated biblical teaching about the God we worship. The biblical insistence on God's concern for the poor is first of all a theological statement about the Creator and Sovereign of the universe." Commenting on Deuteronomy 10:12–17 Vinoth Ramachandra says:
Among Israel's neighbours, as indeed in the ancient cultures of the world (including Indian, Chinese, African and South American civilizations), the power of the gods was channelled through the power of certain males — the priests, kings and warriors embodied divine power. Opposition to them was tantamount to rebellion against the gods. But here, in Israel's rival vision, it is "the orphan, the widow and the stranger" with whom Yahweh takes his stand. His power is exercized in history for their empowerment.
It is sometimes said that God is "biased to the poor," or people speak of his "preferential option for the poor." But such statements are open to misunderstanding. It is not that God is prejudiced in some way, still less that the poor are more deserving because of their poverty. Rather, because he is a God of justice, God opposes those who perpetrate injustice, and he sides with the victims of oppression. Vinoth Ramachandra comments: "In a sinful world where life is biased towards the wealthy and the powerful, God's actions will always be perceived as a counter-bias." In situations of exploitation it is the cause of the oppressed that God upholds.
And God expects us to do the same:
Open your mouth for the mute,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
defend the rights of the poor and needy. (Prov. 31:8–9)
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:23–24)
To walk in the ways of the Lord, says Chris Wright, is the summary of Old Testament ethics. The God who "upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry" expects us to walk in his ways. He expects his people to share his concern for justice. Again and again the indictment of the Old Testament prophets against God's people was both that they had turned from God to idols and that they had not upheld social justice (Amos 5:11–12). In Isaiah the people of God complain that God does not hear their prayers or respond to their fasting. It seems as if God is indifferent. But the problem, says Isaiah, is the indifference of the people to the cries of the poor:
"Why have we fasted, and you see it not?
Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?"
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,
and oppress all your workers.
Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day for a person to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a reed,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
and a day acceptable to the Lord?
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (Isa. 58:3–7)
God will not hear his people when they ignore the claims of the poor (Isa. 1:10–17). The appropriate response to the God who upholds the poor is for us likewise to uphold the cause of the poor. This is the truly religious activity of those who follow the God of the Bible. This is what it means to know God. Addressing King Jehoahaz through the prophet Jeremiah, God reminds him of his father Josiah: "He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? declares the Lord" (Jer. 22:16). In a similar way James says: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (James 1:27). Part of Job's argument is that he has cared for the poor and therefore his suffering is undeserved (Job 31:13–28).
God's concern for the poor was embodied in the Mosaic law. "I command you, 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land'" (Deut. 15:11). Numerous laws safeguarded both the needs and the dignity of the poor. The law of gleaning stated that landowners were to leave produce missed by the initial harvest so it could be gathered by the poor, enabling the poor to provide for themselves without being dependent on charity. Interest was not to be charged on loans to the poor so that people did not profit from their misfortune. And when a coat or millstone was taken as a guarantee for a loan, it was to be returned when it was needed. Calvin argues that the eighth commandment forbidding theft involves an obligation to assist those "we see pressed by the difficulty of affairs ... with our abundance." Jesus summed up the law as to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:34–40).
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Good News to the Poor"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Tim Chester.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments 9
Introduction 11
1 The Case for Social Involvement 15
2 More Than a Private Faith 39
3 The Case for Evangelizing the Poor 55
4 Social Involvement and Proclamation 67
5 Social Involvement and the Kingdom of God 81
6 Good News to the Poor 91
"Land of Milk and Honey" by Stewart Henderson 109
7 Good News to the Rich 111
8 Welcoming the Excluded 133
9 Strengthening the Powerless 151
10 Following the Crucified Lord 165
11 Can We Make a Difference? 181
"Jesus, Jewel of the Poor" by Stewart Henderson 193
Further Reading 195
Selected Bibliography 201
General Index 207
Scripture Index 211
What People are Saying About This
“Good News to the Poor is good news for readers thinking through the relationship of evangelism to social action. Tim Chester rightly emphasizes the centrality of the gospel as he compares dependency-creating welfare with dignity-embracing development.”—Marvin Olasky
“The Christian church has at its best been known for its exemplary love and sacrificial service to ‘the least of these’: the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized. Tim Chester shows that gospel proclamation and tangible acts of love, service, and mercy toward our neighbors should not be pitted against each other—God’s grace motivates action, and words and deeds go together.”—Justin S. Holcomb, Episcopal Priest; Adjunct Professor of Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando; coauthor, Rid of My Disgrace and God Made All of Me; editor, Christian Theologies of Scripture
“Tim Chester provides a timely reminder that Christianity at its best is actually a well-balanced combination of social action and gospel proclamation. This book does an excellent job removing the perceived wall between these two camps. Chester challenges the Christian church to work for justice and peace in the process of calling individuals to conversion and the new birth. This book is a much-needed call for a renewed understanding of the Christian calling.”—Ben Peays, Executive Director, The Gospel Coalition
“What’s the relationship between the gospel and social action for the believer? I’ve been asked that question many times over the years, and it is one we must answer well. If we do not get the relationship between the gospel and social action right, we will likely end up undermining both of them. This is why Tim Chester’s Good News to the Poor is an essential book for Christians. He argues persuasively and winsomely that gospel proclamation and social action are inseparable.”—Dan Cruver, Director, Together for Adoption; author, Reclaiming Adoption: Missional Living Through the Rediscovery of Abba Father
“A vital challenge to gospel people to follow in the footsteps of William Carey. Consistent, mission-minded evangelicals have always refused to choose between a commitment to gospel proclamation and an active concern for the poor. Tim Chester digs deep into the Bible to show us why both are vital and what it means to be Christ’s people in a world of need.”—Keith Walker, Director, SIM-UK/N. Europe
“This important, well-written book is a must-read for those looking for a way to integrate word and deed to advance God’s purposes in our needy world.”—Tom Sine, author, Living on Purpose: Finding God’s Best For Your Life