So I will be honest and admit it, I struggle being an American. I have not read many seminal books that discuss issues of global poverty and oppression. I have not really done a whole lot of thinking on the issues. But I have studied the Bible a little bit and have found that many American Christians ignore some of the basic teachings of the gospel in order to satisfy the American dream inside of them.
This past Tuesday in chapel at OCC we had a good message. However, there was one part of the message that made me incredibly angry. If this part were at the end of the message I would have been more angry leaving, instead it was at the beginning and ended up making me stop listening well. The statement was something that I hear a lot from Christians in America. Here it is: "God cares more about a person's soul than anything else. Therefore our primary mission as the church is evangelism and not social justice." This is not an exact quote.
Sounds good right? Well not to me. The Greek word for soul psuke is often translated "life" in the New Testament. This is not saying that the person's life is their soul, rather that a person's whole being is included in the soul. In this sense God does care about the soul more than anything else, because the soul encompasses the whole person. What I am really ticked off about is this subordinating of taking care of the poor and disenfranchised that I see in many white, middle-class, conservative, American Christians. When all of my physical needs are taken care of, then I do not have to worry about anything except my "soul." Keep in mind when most American's think of a soul they are not thinking of the entire life, but some ethereal entity of humanity. I would have to say that the majority of these sayings from us rich American's come out of ignorance, not because we do not know, but because we choose to not know. We choose to think that all God cares about is whether or not someone is going to heaven, and we forget that we are to pray for God's heaven to come to earth. "Our Father in heaven hallowed by your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..." Ironically, the offering appeal that was taken up after the sermon was for people who are going to Haiti to help out at a Christian school. In the offering appeal it was mentioned that children in Haiti are so poor and malnourished that they eat goat poop. But God cares more about their soul? Please.
Later Tuesday night I dinner at a friend's house and there were some people there with whom I am not as close. Somehow our conversation got awkward. My friend whose house I was at has a friend who is a woman considering plastic surgery, for no other reason than that she thinks she would look better. We were discussing whether this is wrong or not. I began to explain a simple fact that if for one year the people of the US did not buy make up or clothing that the amount of money saved could provide food, water, clothing, education, and medical help for everyone in the world. In the middle of my explanation a person there said, "Don't give me the Bible college guilt trip..." Kids are eating goat crap, and an affluent Christian American woman wants a boob job to look better. What is wrong with us? A Christian woman thinks she needs bigger breasts because our society has told her so. Our society built off of pornography and lust has told her that she needs to conform to a certain man-made image that is not imago dei. We have told a good person that she is not pretty enough and she needs to spend money and becoming more and more pretty so that she can be loved and fulfilled. Children are eating clay because there is not enough food.
The Christian's goal is to bring total and complete humanity back to people. In a critique of an article I wrote for one of my classes I said that the church should hail the cause of social justice. My professor's response was only a question, "Do you really believe this? Shouldn't the church worry about evangelism?" How mad this makes me I cannot describe in kind language. There are over 2,000 verses in the Bible that speak about taking care of the poor. 2,000!!! Yes I believe that the church should preach social justice. Why wouldn't I? I wouldn't if it were to cost me my comfort and my stability. I would if it were to make me seem more "liberal" than what is socially acceptable. Jesus was homeless! Now that my rant is kind of over, I will explain what I think needs to happen.
In creation we were created in the image of God (imago dei) according to Genesis 1:27. We were made like God. The only image of God we have thus far in Genesis is creator/organizer. We were created with a desire to create and to organize. This has been tainted by sin. We have lost our original image and have taken on another. But thanks be to Christ who has made us truly human again. Now that we are truly human, we can create. We can imagine and invent and organize and sort and all sorts of wonderful things. But our task is to help other people get to the point where they can do just that create. Children cannot be children when they have to eat goat crap. What the hell has infiltrated the church to make people think that God doesn't care as much about children eating fecal matter as he does about whether or not they are going to heaven? Our task as Christians is to restore people to God (2 Corinthians 5). Being restored to God is something that encompasses all of existence. It is not just your non-tangible soul, but all of who you are and are meant to be. Yes the church should speak out against human trafficking, yes the church should speak out against poverty (especially here in America where we do not struggle with anything but over eating), yes we should give people a cup of cold water in Jesus' name. Why do have to get defensive when we are confronted with the problems of poverty? Could it be because we have too much and give far too little?
1 comment:
I feel bad for valentines dinner
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