The Money Pit: Gospel Revisited

The Headlines are pouring in from around the world: "500 point market 'adustment' evaporates billions." "Major banking institutions disappear overnight." "Government bails out major insurance company." Global Economy. Foreclosure crisis. Consumer Debt. Energy Consumption declines with economic downturn... etc. etc.

"Yes, yes, all very interesting, author, but you're here to talk about spiritual things, So please, a little Bible study?" Since you asked... here we go:

James 5:1 tells us that we who are rich will have our own share of miseries so that, rather than rejoicing in our riches, perhaps we should acknowledge that they've often come at the cost of unjust treatment for those who live elsewhere, far away from our sight lines, working for wages that fail to provide adequately, and lacking access to clean water, health care, or basic education.

I Timothy 6:10 reminds us that the love of money is the root of all evil, and that those who leave their love of Christ behind in the pursuit of riches fall into a ditch somewhere along the way, finding themselves filled with grief. The might just mean that all that speculative buying of real estate, rooted as it is, in the desire to get rich quickly, might actually be as serious of a spiritual problem as sleeping with your neighbor's wife. Of course, we evangelicals don't see it that way because we've often elevated workaholism and the acquisition of wealth by any legal means to high art, so that men and women guilty of these sins are put on boards, honored for their wisdom, and courted for their donations. This is not to say that all wealth is evil, but Timothy pleads with us to avoid the pursuit of more than we need, and you can learn about that in I Timothy 6:8. My desire to acquire more than I need might just be making a contribution to the present global crisis... might just be sin.

Jesus had a lot to say about money too; in fact, he spoke more about money than heaven or hell. He told us to live like birds and flowers, intent on declaring and displaying the glory of God, working at our callings, and leaving the results and provision in God's hands because, as He said, God will take of us. You can read about all that stuff here.

Before Jesus, John the Baptist was on the scene offering a foretaste of Messiah's coming. Interestingly, when people asked what they should do to be saved, he said nothing about praying the sinner's prayer, nothing about atonement, nothing about getting to go to heaven when you die. These elements of the gospel aren't illegitimate, but they're only part of the story. John the Baptist told people that if they were going to follow Jesus they needed to change their financial priorities. You can read about that here

Shall I continue? We could talk about caring for the poor, speaking to the power structures that oppress the poor, assessing our own lives to see if our economic ethic of operating in our own self interest by always paying the cheapest price for a product is in keeping with Jesus pirorities, or Adam Smith's, whose economic gospel has framed our buying and selling in America for two centuries.

It turns out that this present economic crisis is, indeed, not only a crisis, but a spiritual opporutnity, if we will but open our eyes to see the economic implications of Jesus kingdom ethic, adjust our own lives towards generosity, and see that when core values of a culture are shaken, there's a glorious opportunity to rebuild on a better foundation. It's an opporunity that many might take advantage of if the church is able to offer an alternative to the gospel of Adam Smith. For some of us though, we'll be unable to offer an alternative until we see our complicity with the structures that are presently melting, and repent.

I've written more on this subject in the chapter on generoisity, offered in o2: Breathing New Life into Faith. May we pray for eyes to see and hearts to respond in the midst of these amazing days.

I was hungry and you fed me...

This simple word of Jesus may just become the defining challenge of the next decade. Throughout the world, front page news during the past week has been addressing the growing global food shortage. It's a problem that has been created by the perfect storm of erratic climate changes and drought, rising energy prices, and the growing prosperity of the working class in both India and China. This growing middle class is aspiring, of course, to live like Americans. After all, when we harvested cheap labor overseas, we did so with the promise that their increased prosperity would result in increased purchasing power.

This has resulted in nearly two billion people seeking to eat higher up on the food chain, so that lands previously given over to grains for human consumption are now directly or indirectly being used for the raising of animal protein. Add to this a further removal of grain acres, now given over to the raising of ethanol, and you can see that there's just not as much rice as there once was. All this has let to basic agricultural commodities rising in price between 40 and 300 percent over the past year.

Even a small rise in prices has the effect of pushing countless families over the edge, into starvation. According to several sources, the roots the problem go deeper than just the issues articulated above. There are more fundamental systemic issues that need to be addressed:

1. industrial farming, for all it's promises offered at the inauguration of the Green Revolution back in 1975, has failed to deliver on it's promises to end world hunger. Though production has risen temporarily, the rise has been based on an addiction to a petroleum based agricultural economy, unsustainable over the long haul.

2. The Green Revolution consolidated land holdings in the hands of a few farmers or companies, withholding economic aid to small family farmers. This has resulted in a loss of efficiency as single crops now dominate large swaths of the landscape, depleting the soil, and demaning ever increasing chemical assistance to maintain levels of production.

3. Food now travels great distances for consumption as well. This has the effect, in poor countries, of favoring the growth of expensive export crops, creating shortages of basic nutrients in the home country. Countless examples of this are offered in Reclaiming America, by Richard Austin, out of print now I believe, but available if you try hard (and in our church library).

Austin says it well: "Our food donations may keep some starving people alive, but our policies do not help them to provide for themselves. We may show mercy at times of crisis, but we aboid the truth of why people starve."

What is needed is a deep economic policy shift, as spoken of here. Perhaps we need to be honest enough to confess that a purely unrestricted free market economy might fall short of garnering support because the policy changes that are needed will necessarily lead the wealthy of the world to embrace some measures of expense, inconvenience and sacrifice. And yet, the crossroads at which we stand is not economic only. It is moral. And if Jesus has anything to say about it, it is spiritual as well. What's needed:

1) an assessment of our lifestyles...
2) a discussion among Christians about the systemic roots of global hunger
3) commitment to concrete changes - both individual and collective

"New Notions of Salvation"" Clarified

"This rise, I believe, has to do with new notions of salvation." Can you give examples of these new notions? You sort of left that comment hang on it's own and i'm wondering if you can elaborate?

This was posted as a response on the previous entry and deserves an answer. In order to do so I'll refer you this article about the genocide in Rwanda. The reality that this country was, at the time of the genocide, the most Christianized nation in Africa, begs the question: "How can a 'Christianized' people participate wholeheartedly in one of the most intensive periods of genocide in human history? The answer is found, I believe, in an inadequate declaration of the gospel. People may come to Christ for assurance of heaven, or for personal betterment, or for an answer to some problem, having heard that Christ meets us and addresses these matters. While this is all well and good, the problem is that such a privatized declaration of the gospel misses huge swaths of God's redemptive story, leaving much in our lives fundamentally unchanged. Thus, given the right circumstances, the hatred seething under the surface (between tribes, or classes, or genders, or sexual orientation) pushes to the surface among card carrying believers, resulting in horrible ugliness. The Rwandan example is illustrative of the great need we have to articulate the full implications of the gospel - to declare, as it were, the 'new' notions of salvation. By 'new' here, I don't really mean 'new', but rather 'new to a certain generation' by virtue of the fact that some notions of salvation had been buried.

"Yes... the poor Rwandans... blind to their tribal hatreds!" Ah, but you see, that's the very spirit of things that is dangerous, because we surely have blind spots too (could they be related to materialism, individualism, environmental degradation...???) We too need 'new notions of salvation.' To the degree that we fail to embrace the full implications of the gospel, we paint a distorted picture of Christ's character. It happened during the Crusades, during the Inquisition, during duplicity with unjust regimes, during slavery, during genocide... and it's happening today. Thankfully, we're beginning to see where, with John Newton, we once were blind.

The evangelical fissure is good news

There was an interesting article in yesterday's Seattle Times about the political fragmentation of evangelicals. Gone are the days when the word evangelical was synonymous with Republican. In part, this is because the Republican party used evangelicals to gain votes and then consistently failed to deliver on the social issues they heralded.

A second reason has to do with the entrenchment of the old school evangelicals like Dobson, who can't get over the conspiracy theorist notions that environmentalists are intent on the destruction of our democracy, and that the only issues worth caring about are low taxes, abortion, and the definition of marriage. People in this school are incensed that McCain is doing so well, and some of them, including Dobson, have vowed to not vote at all if McCain wins.

But perhaps the biggest reason of all, and certainly the most heartening, is the theological shifts among evangelicals, illustrated by the likes of Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. These two pastors of American mega-churches have embraced critical social issues, especially in the realms of addressing global poverty and the AIDS crisis. They're mobilizing their congregations to make an enormous difference in Africa and other places across the globe and are even beginning to talk about environmental responsibility. It's as if all of the sudden the messages of the Old Testaments prophets, and James in the New Testament have risen to a place of prominence unknown throughout the modern evangelical movement.

This rise, I believe, has to do with new notions of salvation. Appropriately, this month's Leadership magazine, a journal for those in ministry, is themed around the question: "Is the Gospel too Small?" For many years the answer was yes, but it appears that things are changing.

So this year people who love Christ, claim the Bible to be the words of the God and the true source of authority, and believe in heaven and hell, will be voting across the board, because no single party embodies the ethic of Christ. This is a good thing, because these past two decades of sleeping with one party has not only created arrogance and complacency, but worse: it's created a theological blindness that has morphed the gospel into something other than what Jesus claimed it to be.

The evangelical fissure is good news

There was an interesting article in yesterday's Seattle Times about the political fragmentation of evangelicals. Gone are the days when the word evangelical was synonymous with Republican. In part, this is because the Republican party used evangelicals to gain votes and then consistently failed to deliver on the social issues they heralded.

A second reason has to do with the entrenchment of the old school evangelicals like Dobson, who can't get over the conspiracy theorist notions that environmentalists are intent on the destruction of our democracy, and that the only issues worth caring about are low taxes, abortion, and the definition of marriage. People in this school are incensed that McCain is doing so well, and some of them, including Dobson, have vowed to not vote at all if McCain wins.

But perhaps the biggest reason of all, and certainly the most heartening, is the theological shifts among evangelicals, illustrated by the likes of Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. These two pastors of American mega-churches have embraced critical social issues, especially in the realms of addressing global poverty and the AIDS crisis. They're mobilizing their congregations to make an enormous difference in Africa and other places across the globe and are even beginning to talk about environmental responsibility. It's as if all of the sudden the messages of the Old Testaments prophets, and James in the New Testament have risen to a place of prominence unknown throughout the modern evangelical movement.

This rise, I believe, has to do with new notions of salvation. Appropriately, this month's Leadership magazine, a journal for those in ministry, is themed around the question: "Is the Gospel too Small?" For many years the answer was yes, but it appears that things are changing.

So this year people who love Christ, claim the Bible to be the words of the God and the true source of authority, and believe in heaven and hell, will be voting across the board, because no single party embodies the ethic of Christ. This is a good thing, because these past two decades of sleeping with one party has not only created arrogance and complacency, but worse: it's created a theological blindness that has morphed the gospel into something other than what Jesus claimed it to be.

Does Jesus care?

By the time most of you read this the US stock market will be in the midst of a terrible free fall. Though the markets don't open for an hour, this article in the NY Times, explains that the tremendous declines in markets globally, both Monday and Tuesday, have created a pent up demand for selling. What will this mean for you and I? I don't know, but the global crisis, this time, is a result of the American economic crisis, and the American crisis has at least two addictions at the root:

1. Oil - Up 74% in the past year, this single commodity drives the US economy, affecting the price of everything we buy, from construction materials, to toys, to the food we buy. And though its not an absolute truism, it's generally true that the farther something comes from home, the more energy it has consumed to get to you. Read the labels on your clothes, manufactured in places with cheap labor. They're not as cheap as they once were because getting them here costs more - same with food - and of course the cost of driving a car - and heating oil. All those dollars spent on the basics of transportation and keeping the house warm are dollars not spent elsewhere. Thus the wealth, globally, continues to flow to those with oil or better fiscal habits than us, many countries of which are now using their wealth to diversify.

2. Credit - Buy a house with no money down, turn around and sell it in a year. Make loads of money! That's so 2002! Our efforts to keep the economic machine well oiled created an unsustainable addiction to credit, which created an unrealistic inflation of house prices. It now appears that its time to pay the piper, and many can't, leading to record foreclosures.

Does Jesus care about any of this? Well that's a question for a book rather a blog, but the answer is yes, only louder; something like this: Y-E-S!! For centuries the developed world has harvested the natural resource wealth and cheap labor wealth of the powerless across the globe. Slavery, colonialism, and more recently the economic globalism that keeps 'our best interests' in mind, have contributed to the oppression, suffering, and deaths of untold numbers. Of course, one can't read the prophets of the Old Testament, the words of the Jesus, or the words of Paul without realizing that this reaping bounty and enjoying luxury at the cost of other's well being is unacceptable to God. And the odds are that all of us who are reading this have blood on our hands.

I wonder if we who are the church should constitute a different economic model, one based on simplicity, interdependency, and deeply intentional care for both the poor and the earth as the foundations for our economic practices. "The Amish" you say? No (though we could learn a great deal more from them than we could criticize); more yeasty, more interwoven with the larger culture. How about co-housing, and health clinics for the army of uninsured and underinsured? How about living closer to work, using public transportation, and buying more locally? How about real commitments to a change in how we do energy here in America? The list could grow...and will...as the crisis grows. And maybe the crisis will be the only way we'll change at all.

Digest Amazing Grace

Don't just watch it. Watch it and learn a little history so that you know that there was a time when someone, on the basis of Christian conviction, stood against the overwhelming tide of a Christian nation in order to bring the social implications of the gospel to bear on society. Here was a person who understood the gospel's implications on:

1. the slave trade - that the dignity of each human is more valuable than the economic advantages of a few, gained by oppression.

2. the rush to war - that the lives of soldiers are vital enough, valuable enough, that all means of diplomacy should be fully exhausted before attempting war.

3. politics - that Christ and His kingdom reign, which invites justice for all, and the end of oppression for all people, must be a vision which spills out beyond the walls of our private lives and into the world we live, through art, literature, politic, music, education, health care reform, and more.

4. patience - because the real emancipation came 22 years after the first introduction of the issue in the House of Parliment. Between start and finish there were setbacks, opposition, discouragement, challenge. But William and others "ran with patience" the race that was set before them. So should we.

Each of the four elements above have very real application in the present, and so it seems to me that this a movie for our day. There's a scene in a worship service, where the pastor begins to speak about the necessity to end the slave trade and people walk out. "Give us salve for our spirits. Tell us we're forgiven. Keep it on a spiritual plane. But don't speak to us about the implications of the gospel on our pocketbooks, or our energy consumption, or the dangers of nationalism." Such mindsets among the faithful too often keep the salt and light of the gospel from becoming visible.

But Wilberforce kept going, holding forth the torch of truth in the midst of hostility. It's an encouraging example to me.

Wilberforce said: "I have two concerns: The suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of society"

Stop Asking, Start listening!

Did you hear the one about the governor of Georgia? He said, "We've come together for one reason only: to pray up a storm" He's asked his state to pray for rain in order to put an end to the water shortage that's unfolding there. He's even trying to suspend the endangered species act so that he can divert waterflow that otherwise would have headed to Florida in order to preserve the mussels that are endangered there. After all, a million-gallon mountain of artificial snow is surely more important than an entire species of crustacean, right?

Maybe not. Maybe, rather than simply praying for rain, the good governor should consider the possibility that his state is wasting water on vain and superficial projects at a time when droughts are on the rise and conservation is appropriate. It reminds me a bit of Joshua, who was praying after his army suffered a defeat at Ai. God's response to his pious prayers is a bit surprising: So the LORD said to Joshua, "Rise up! Why is it that you have fallen on your face?

In other words, God has this funny way of stripping our piety away from us and revealing our true agendas. Perhaps instead of continuing to ask God to simply bless us in our endeavors, we need to spend a bit of time allowing ourselves to be reshaped by His ethics. This certainly applies to our relational ethics, but let's not stop there. How about our environmental and economic ethics. I've been immensely impressed during my travels in Europe by things like solar energy farms (entire fields with solar panels collecting and distributing energy), wind farms, and commitments to allowing people who establish a solar collection capability in their homes to sell their excess back to the grid, thus encouraging conservation. All this from 'post Christian' Europe, while America continues to resist making the sacrifices and movement towards simplicity and alternatives, which would eventually enable us to be part of global solutions.

But I digress. My point here is simply that we need to make certain in our praying that we're not simply asking God to bless our own personal agendas, but rather that we're taking time to listen as well, so that we might hear from God and adjust our lives according to His story.

Stop Shopping!

I know that I'm told it's my patriotic duty to shop. I know that I'm told 'the terrorists win' if we don't keep the fuels of the economy burning. I know that people's livelihoods are ostensibly at stake if I don't get into the malls today and buy all things that, prior to today, I've lived without but which will undoubtedly make my life so much fuller and richer as soon as I purchase them.

And yet I'm not buying anything today, except perhaps food. I'm trying to make a statement that there is an alternative view to the patriotic shopping and the paranoia of what will happen to the world if we don't buy things we don't need. Our addiction to things has a pretty dark underbelly:

1. our things pollute the earth, both in the production, their use, and their demise. If you still the earth is doing fine while we pump carbon into the air, you're living in a dreamland. One person writes, on the Buy Nothing Day website: Driving hybrid cars and limiting industrial emissions is great‚ but they are band–aid solutions if we don’t address the core problem: we have to consume less. This is the message of Buy Nothing Day

2. while we max credit cards to buy things we don't need, the majority of the world lives in abject poverty. Wouldn't it be more fun, and more meaningful, to invest our wealth in alleviating poverty, both locally and globally. In fact, why not go crazy, and contribute to a water project in Africa this Christmas instead of buying stuff. The growing gap between the rich and the poor is, according to Jimmy Carter and many others, the largest problem on earth. And of course, let's not forget that caring for the poor was the one thing that the apostle held dear as a practical expression of the gospel.

3. the economic model upon which we all depend is, if the truth be told, unsustainable. If you must buy something, maybe invest in a book like Deep Economy, and ponder how we can, both individually, nationally, and locally, change our ways, and what you can do to contribute to that.

4. it's a pity that our shopping habits, and the retailers frenzy to be 'first' now has shops opening at midnight. You're pie not yet digested, you propel yourself into the mall to save $50 on your new flat screen. Wouldn't it be nicer if everyone got enough sleep?

I don't want to sound self-righteous. I'm going to the movies today to watch a prince escape cartoon land, and live out his adventures in New York City. Consumption isn't a zero sum, all or nothing game. It's also not invitation to guilt or stoicism. Rather, it's worth considering, as Chesterton writes, that thrift is joyful, creative, better for the environment, and leads to opportunities to live generously. This is what he says: "Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than extravagance...thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste...if a man could undertake to make use of all the things in his dustbin, he would be a broader genius than Shakespeare." --Such living is of course, closer to the spirit of the Jesus whose coming we're intending to celebrate!

Is there anyone else planning a less consumerist Christmas?

Page 2 - third paragraph

If you want to understand a little bit about the dilemma facing the evangelical movement, this article is an excellent place to begin. Though lengthy, it addresses the shifting landscape of evangelical politics. If you can only read a little bit, please read the 3rd paragraph of this page because if offers an encapsulated view of generational shift that has occurred. In short, there's been a broader consideration of ethical issues, so that economic, justice, health care, and environmental issues have been elevated from the basement to the main floor in the ethical mansion.

Behind this, there's been a bit of shift theologically. In brief, the shift has less to do, in my opinion with post modernity than with eschatology (the theology of end times matters). Rather than a fatalistic withdrawal from culture, as was so typical in the "Left Behind" fixation on dates and times of Jesus return, and the rapture, there's been a growing commitment to embody, NOW, in this present time, a measure of hope, justice, and all the rest Jesus spoke of in his own mission statement. This makes sense, since Jesus said that we'd do the same things He did, and since Paul explains that we're the visible expression of Christ's life.

So here we are, on the cusp of an important political season as Americans, and I might simply say that it's refreshing to see the conversation expand to include subjects of justice, mercy, and the environment among Jesus' followers. Couple this with the reality that the Republican primary candidates don't really fit the evangelical mold, and we have the makings for a very interesting election year.