silence encourages the tormentor

Many Christians’ understanding of poverty is truncated and sorely lacking. This really should not be the case given the enormous amount of scripture that is available to inform how we think about poverty. For one of my classes, I am writing a paper on the Psalms and wisdom literature’s treatment of the poor and oppressed and I thought I would publish some of my findings here for your thoughts and reflection. A few caveats are in order:

First, There are many words used in the scriptures to describe those who are poor and oppressed. To capture this, I also included verses that used the words hungry, weak, fatherless, orphan, widow, needy, and helpless. Second, I have done this study in the English language, which is not as thorough as if I were studying the Hebrew, however, I still think it is constructive. I’ll leave the Hebrew study as something to aspire to for another day–not to mention looking at what other parts of scripture have to say (like the prophets!)

As I studied the Old Testament Psalms and wisdom literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Job, and Lamentations), I was able to inductively pull out several recurring themes, which are listed below. Obviously, these ten themes overlap and are intertwined. However, it is helpful to list them distinctively because almost every single verse found in the Psalms and wisdom literature that addresses poverty can be categorized according to these ten themes.

Themes:
1. Many who are poor and needy are oppressed victims of injustice. Injustice causes and perpetuates poverty. God hears and sees the plight of the poor and needy and defends their cause. His people ought to do likewise. (Psalm 9:9; 10:14,17-18; 12:5; 14:6; 35:10; 68:5-6; 72:4,12-14; 82:2-4; 102:17; 103:6; 107:8-9,41; 113:7-9; 140:12; 146:7-9; Proverbs 13:23; 22:22-23; 31:8-9; Job 5:15-16; 34:28 )
2. Poverty can also be a spiritual or emotional condition. (Psalm 40:17; 70:5; 86:1; 109:22; 24:33-34)
3. Laziness can be a cause of poverty. (Proverbs 10:4; 14:23; 20:13; 21:17; 28:19)
4. The poor lack resources, friends, and relational networks – they are destitute, ignored, invisible, and abandoned, which perpetuates their poverty. (Proverbs 10:15; 13:8; Proverbs 14:20; 19:4,7)
5. Those who are kind and generous to the poor are promised blessing. (Psalm 41:1; Proverbs 11:24; 19:17; 22:9; 28:27)
6. Those who refuse generosity to the poor will themselves be refused generosity. (Proverbs 21:13; 28:22, 27)
7. Rich and poor operate on a level playing field, because the Lord is the creator of them both. This is the ultimate equalizer. (Proverbs 14:31; 17:5; 22:2; 29:13; Job 34:19)
8. The amount of care someone has for justice for the poor is a measure of his/her righteousness. This is especially applied to rulers. (Proverbs 28:3, 29:14,6; 31:4-5; 31:20; Job 29:12,13,16; 30:25; 31:16-23)
9. Oppression of the poor—or turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the poor—is the mark of a wicked person who ultimately faces punishment. (Psalm 10:2,9; 14:6; 37:14; 94:3-6; 109:16; Proverbs 22:16; 29:6; 30:14; Job 20:19; Job 24:3-5,9,14,21)
10. It is better to be a righteous poor person than a wicked rich person. (Proverbs 16:19; 19:1; 28:6, 11; Ecclesiastes 4:13-14)

I was going to list all of the Psalms and wisdom literature verses that mention poverty in this post, but in a word document the list is eleven pages, so that would be overkill. Instead, I published them on a new page on this blog called “Psalms and Wisdom.” Check it out

What are your thoughts about this list of themes? What do you think this means for the people of God today?

How would you define hospitality? What does it mean to be hospitable? A friend recently pointed me to a book called Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (C. Pohl, P. Buck). I am intrigued by the research presented in this book and the challenge that it presents to contemporary Christians as we think about the Christian practice of hospitality. Allow me to outline some of the main points:

- The authors begin by showing how the distinctively Christian contribution to the hospitality tradition is its emphasis on welcoming the stranger who is vulnerable, poor, and needy. The most vulnerable strangers are those people who are disconnected from relationships with family, church, economy, and civic community. Jesus’ teaching reinforces this.

- Shared meals and the Eucharist are at the center of Christian hospitality - Eating together expresses acceptance and equality. Christian hospitality is the setting for crossing social boundaries and for healing cultural divisions.

- Unfortunately, after the Middle Ages, hospitality became synonymous with “entertaining” - a way of displaying wealth and reinforcing power and status. It is crucial to distinguish between “entertaining” and “hospitality.” We have collapsed the meaning of these as well - “Having friends over” has more to do with entertaining, though we have come to call this “hospitality.” The true tradition of Christian hospitality is about inviting in the stranger, particular the stranger who is poor and vulnerable. Sadly, Christian history is splattered with failures in hospitality and terrible expressions of exclusion.

- The loss of community and the emphasis on privacy today make it essential that we create threshold places for building relationships with strangers.

Pohl and Buck have so much more to say, but I was particularly challenged by how many of us in the church today equate “entertaining” with “hospitality,” when, truly, we have lost the true meaning of “hospitality” in the Christian tradition. One of my professors asked us recently in class, “How often do you have needy strangers in your home?”

What do you think about Pohl and Buck’s main points here? Are you challenged by
their findings? Do you agree that there is a sense in which we need to recover hospitality?

This weekend I am attending The Ethnic Ministries Summit which occurs each year in a different US city, and this time, it’s right here in St. Louis, April 10th-12th. Speakers include John Perkins, Nicholas Venditti, Franklyn Richardson, as well as my seminary profs Jerram Barrs and Dan Doriani.  They are all speaking on the relevant topic of equipping ministries to “reach out and minister to the world that has come to our door.”  Since I am very interested in some day working among immigrant/refugee communities in the U.S., I am excited about this conference.

I’m taking the class for credit, so class reading includes David Claerbaut’s Urban Ministry in a New Millennium. I thought I would post some quotes for food for thought.  This quote helps to shed some light on the age-old battle among Christians between evangelism vs. social concern.  Its coming back as a relevant matter of debate.  Claerbaut says,

“Urban ministry has faced controversy.  For decades Christians, especially evangelicals, have battled over the issue of evangelism versus social concern.  These two ministries have often been viewed as opposed to one another.  Those who espoused evangelism felt that to care for temporal needs was to be concerned with the part of the person that would die anyway.  What was needed was concern for the eternal soul.  Those who espoused social concern argued that soul-winning may be of value, but in a world in which people are not eating properly, are housed in substandard conditions, are jobless, and do not receive adequate health care, presenting Christ remains an abstract answer to a more immediate need.  David Moberg states that when the church remains silent on difficult social issues, ‘it renounces its claim that it ministers to the whole man.”  And yet, as he unconditionally warned, social services should not be used as ‘bait’ to win souls.  And so the debate has continued.  Many conservatives see social activists as apostate, whole those who have social concerns are tempted to become non-spiritual in their efforts.

“This is a sad situation for all involved.  as John Perkins said so prophetically, neither the liberal nor the evangelical church has functioned as a complete church.  Much of their energy has been drawn away in criticizing each other, and the result has been less-than-effective spiritual ministries.  In fact, resistance to social concern among some Christians has had a large part in the tendency of churches to abandon the city.  Rogern Greenway laments that, ‘by their locations, their architecture, their liturgy, their sermons, and their entire program, urban Protestant churches have conveyed the message to the masses that these churches are not for them.’

“Humans were created to be whole persons, with physical, mental, relational, and spiritual dimensions.  Deprivation in any of these dimensions has a deadening effect on the others, since all parts are interrelated and interactive.  Suffering physically makes it difficult to function well psychologically and interactively.  Sever emotional disabilities are sometimes translated in physical disabilities.  Loneliness is detrimental to psychological and physical health.  A spiritually sterile life is often revealed in depression, isolation, and a low energy level.  Just as theologically we cannot divide people into component parts, so also in ministry we must not dissect but rather serve whole persons.  The soul without the body is a ghost; the body without the soul is a corpse.”

Thoughts?

I recently came across this article by Tim Wise called “White Racial Preference: Whites swim in racial preference.”  This is not the entire article, but significant excerpts from it. I think Wise provides some interesting perspectives, particularly now given the rampant and heated discussions on race around our country.  Feel free to interact.

Ask a fish what water is and you’ll get no answer. Even if fish were capable of speech, they would likely have no explanation for the element they swim in every minute of every day of their lives. Water simply is. Fish take it for granted.

So too with this thing we hear so much about, “racial preference.” While many whites seem to think the notion originated with affirmative action programs, intended to expand opportunities for historically marginalized people of color, racial preference has actually had a long and very white history.

Affirmative action for whites was embodied in the abolition of European indentured servitude, which left black (and occasionally indigenous) slaves as the only unfree labor in the colonies that would become the U.S.

Affirmative action for whites was the essence of the 1790 Naturalization Act, which allowed virtually any European immigrant to become a full citizen, even while blacks, Asians and American Indians could not.

Affirmative action for whites was the guiding principle of segregation, Asian exclusion laws, and the theft of half of Mexico for the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny.

In recent history, affirmative action for whites motivated racially restrictive housing policies that helped 15 million white families procure homes with FHA loans from the 1930s to the ’60s, while people of color were mostly excluded from the same programs.

In other words, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that white America is the biggest collective recipient of racial preference in the history of the cosmos. It has skewed our laws, shaped our public policy and helped create the glaring inequalities with which we still live.

White families, on average, have a net worth that is 11 times the net worth of black families, according to a recent study; and this gap remains substantial even when only comparing families of like size, composition, education and income status.

A full-time black male worker in 2003 makes less in real dollar terms than similar white men were earning in 1967. Such realities are not merely indicative of the disadvantages faced by blacks, but indeed are evidence of the preferences afforded whites - a demarcation of privilege that is the necessary flipside of discrimination.

Indeed, the value of preferences to whites over the years is so enormous that the current baby-boomer generation of whites is currently in the process of inheriting between $7-10 trillion in assets from their parents and grandparents - property handed down by those who were able to accumulate assets at a time when people of color by and large could not. To place this in the proper perspective, we should note that this amount of money is more than all the outstanding mortgage debt, all the credit card debt, all the savings account assets, all the money in IRAs and 401k retirement plans, all the annual profits for U.S. manufacturers, and our entire merchandise trade deficit combined.

Yet few whites have ever thought of our position as resulting from racial preferences. Indeed, we pride ourselves on our hard work and ambition, as if somehow we invented the concepts.

We strike the pose of self-sufficiency while ignoring the advantages we have been afforded in every realm of activity: housing, education, employment, criminal justice, politics, banking and business. We ignore the fact that at almost every turn, our hard work has been met with access to an opportunity structure denied to millions of others. Privilege, to us, is like water to the fish: invisible precisely because we cannot imagine life without it.

Very telling is the oft-heard comment by whites, “If I had only been black I would have gotten into my first-choice college.”

Such a statement not only ignores the fact that whites are more likely than members of any other group - even with affirmative action in place - to get into their first-choice school, but it also presumes, as anti-racist activist Paul Marcus explains, “that if these whites were black, everything else about their life would have remained the same.” In other words, that it would have made no negative difference as to where they went to school, what their family income was, or anything else.

The ability to believe that being black would have made no difference (other than a beneficial one when it came time for college), and that being white has made no positive difference, is rooted in privilege itself: the privilege that allows one to not have to think about race on a daily basis; to not have one’s intelligence questioned by best-selling books; to not have to worry about being viewed as a “out of place” when driving, shopping, buying a home, or for that matter, attending the University of Michigan.

So long as those privileges remain firmly in place and the preferential treatment that flows from those privileges continues to work to the benefit of whites, all talk of ending affirmative action is not only premature but a slap in the face to those who have fought, and died, for equal opportunity.

The Tsunami in Asia, Hurricane Katrina, flooding in Mexico - The world is often faced with devastating disaster crises, which cry for the work of disaster relief. To help us think more helpfully about disaster relief, Rich Moseanko (relief director for World Vision) addresses myths about disaster relief among the American public. Feel free to respond and interact with them:

1. Americans can help by collecting blankets, shoes and clothing

The cost of shipping these items – let alone the time it takes to sort, pack and ship them – is prohibitive. Often, those items are manufactured for export to the U.S. from these same countries. It is far more efficient to purchase them locally. Cash is the better solution.

2. Helping the living always has priority over burying the dead.

In refugee camps and epidemic situations where people die of diseases, it is essential to dispose of the bodies within a short period of time. If they died of other causes such as drowning, they are less of a health risk but pose an impediment to relief efforts and delay the mourning process.

3. The United States must airlift food and medicines to the disaster site

Food is virtually always available within a day’s drive of the disaster site. Purchasing the food locally is more cost-efficient, and it ensures that the food is appropriate to local residents’ tastes and religious requirements. Medicines are often available within the country, too. India, for example, has a large pharmaceutical industry. Because medicines are high-value, low-weight commodities, in some cases they canand must be airlifted in to save lives.

4. If I send cash, my help won’t get there

Reputable agencies send 80 percent or more of cash donations to the disaster site; the rest goes for administration, operating expenses and monitoring the efficiency of their own operations. Donors have a right and a responsibility to ask aid groups how they will be using those donations, and what will be done with donations raised in excess of the need.

5. Once someone survives the immediate disaster, he or she is safe

The immediate catastrophe kills quickly; survivors can face a slower death from hunger, disease and even criminal predators. While emergency medical teams certainly are needed for people injured in a disaster, the best way to keep survivors healthy is to provide clean water and adequate sanitation. Cholera and dysentery can result from drinking contaminated water; malaria-spreading mosquitoes breed in standing water.

6. Developing countries depend on foreign expertise

While specialized assistance is always welcome, most relief and recovery efforts are accomplished by local aid groups, police, firefighters and neighbors before international teams arrive. Also, in recent years most governments have established disaster preparedness plans.

7. Relief needs are so intense that almost anyone can fly to the scene to offer help

Professionals with specialized skills and overseas disaster experience are often deployed to disaster sites. Volunteers without those skills can do more harm than good, and siphon off critical logistics and translations services. Hiring qualified disaster survivors is much more cost efficient and provides much needed employment.

8. Survivors feel lucky to be alive

Shock, trauma and the mourning for loved ones who died are common among disaster survivors. Often, they wish it was they who died instead of their loved ones. Treating these emotional needs is an essential component of relief efforts.

9. Insurance and governments can cover losses

The vast majority of the world’s population has never heard of an insurance policy, let alone are able to purchase one. Further, governments of poor countries can barely meet ongoing social service needs, let alone provide a safety net like FEMA. Disaster survivors must bear these costs alone.

10. People are helpless in the face of natural disasters

The United States is proof that tougher building codes, early warning and disaster preparedness can save lives. Even in poor countries, communities are taking steps to mitigate the loss of life in future emergencies.

Missiologists and development workers generally agree that damage has been done by rich westerners in poor countries in the last few centuries because the poor communities become dependent on the rich communities - on the funds, resources, leadership, and direction that the rich communities provide. Thankfully, in the last several decades, many organizations are making a conscious effort to move past dependability to sustainability. Rather than creating dependence, missionaries and development workers want to empower the communities where they minister to sustain the work themselves - i.e. churches in Africa planted by western missionaries are not dependent on western pastors, or funds from western churches, but they become communities that can sustain themselves. Raising up indigenous leadership, launching micro-enterprise economic development projects - these are ways of creating sustainability.

In a recent class I attended taught by Bill Yarbrough (Regional director of Latin America and Africa for MTW), he challenged us to even think beyond sustainability. He suggested that our goal to should be to foster Interdependency. If richer, western churches partner with (or plant) churches in poor areas–even in a way that is sustainable–are we both realizing that we are dependent on each other?  He argued that this is the best way of operating in the Body of Christ. Everyone has needs.  We need each other to figure out how to do things best together. We need to be asking what do we both bring to the table to help each other?  What can we learn from each other? If we are rich, we need to learn from those who are in a different socio-economic group that us.  If we are primarily white, we need to learn from those who are of different ethnicities and cultures. Are we leaning on the weak even if they are leaning on the strong?

Thoughts?

I am.

* The region has still only seen 9,000 of the 26,000 peacekeeping troops promised.

* The World Food Program will most likely have to quit its Humanitarian Air Service (transports supplies and aid workers by air around the region) due to lack of funding.

* Fighting has actually increased in western Darfur

* And the most recent development: Food aid deliveries to the Darfur region have been cut in half due to bandit attacks on aid delivery trucks.

Over 2 million people rely on emergency aid due to this ongoing conflict. Things are not getting better, they are getting worse. Though many powerful countries are claiming to be helping Sudan overcome this crisis, why is it that they still lack troops and have no funding???

A few weeks ago, I watched the movie Trade, which follows the story of a young Mexican girl who is kidnapped by organized sex-traffickers in Mexico City and smuggled up to New Jersey to be sold in a secret online auction. The movie follows her brother as he embarks on a frantic search for his sister, to rescue her before she is sold and lost in an underground world from which there is virtually no escape. The directors brought in another aspect of the sex trade as well - a young Polish woman in her 20s who applied to a perfectly legitimate looking agency to become a nanny in Mexico. When she arrived in Mexico City, she was kidnapped by the “agency” workers and forced into sexual slavery as well. I won’t spoil the movie for you if you would like to see it, but I will caution you - there are some very difficult and disturbing scenes. The excutive director of the UN office of Drugs and Crime commented on the movie Trade: “This brutally honest movie may upset you, or make you angry, or disgust you. It will certainly not leave you indifferent to a crime that is hidden, yet widespread - the crime of buying, selling and exploiting human beings also known as human trafficking.”

This is the reality of our world today. Slavery is alive and well. The sex-trade is an international multi-million dollar business, completely built around exploiting the weak and vulnerable. Millions are trafficked across borders each year. It is difficult to estimate the number of women and children who are trafficked into the U.S. each year, but it is somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000. This is not a distant, far-off issue. It is homegrown and very near.

The UNODC has identified Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the United States as the most common destinations for sex-traffickers.

Global mobilization and the internet are useful tools for sex-traffickers, since western men often seek children and women from exotic, far-off places. Online auctions are a popular way to purchase sex slaves.

For ways to be involved in combatting the global sex-trade, see:

antislavery.org

International Justice Mission

unodc.org

Campus Coalition Against Trafficking

“God is merciful, loving, and gracious, BUT He is also just.”

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that phrase, or something like it. I have a problem with this statement. My problem is that it seems to pit God’s attributes against each other in an inappropriate way. There is a rhetorical assumption that, on one hand, God is merciful, loving, and gracious (positive) and on the other hand just (negative). Further, when God’s just character is described in this way, the purpose is usually to understand “justice” as a primarily punitive term: “Yes, God is kind, merciful, and gracious, BUT he also must punish sinners because He is just.” While this is true, if it is the primary way we talk about what it means that God is just, then we are missing the beautiful truth about God’s justice presented in the scriptures.

The scriptures do not pit God’s mercy, grace, and kindness against his “justice.” In fact, quite the opposite. God is merciful, gracious, and kind BECAUSE He is just. A preliminary survey of where the Bible speaks of “justice” bears this out:

Justice is connected to “righteousness” (Job 37:23; Psalm 33:5; Psalm 106:3; Psalm 21:15; Isaiah 51:4-5; Amos 5:24)

Justice is connected to faithfulness (Psalm 37:28; Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 111:7)

Justice is connected to love (Psalm 101:1)

Justice is connected to grace (Amos 5:15)

Justice is connected to mercy and humility (Micah 6:

Justice is connected to mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23)

Justice is connected to forgiveness (1 John 1:9)

Rather than understand God’s “just” character to be primarily about punishment and judgment, the scriptures show that God’s justice has everything to do with his mercy, grace, and compassion.

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Isaiah 30:18

Having seen how God’s justice is intricately connected to his grace, mercy, compassion, faithfulness, love, and righteousness, it should not surprise us that over and over again in the scriptures, “justice” is mentioned in conjunction with the poor, oppressed, needy, fatherless, widow, and immigrant. For a few of these verses, see Deuteronomy 10:18; Isaiah 1:17; Proverbs 31:9; Psalm 146:7. God calls his people to be characterized by their justice, especially towards the poor, needy, and marginalized. And God himself is worshipped as the one who shows justice to the poor.

Certainly God’s justice has much to do with punishing sinners, however, let us not consider God’s just nature to be the “negative” part of His character. God’s just nature is deeply embedded with grace and compassion, particularly towards those who are needy, and to this kind of justice, he calls his people.