Voice Box

The Hole in our Gospel - Chapter 17 - AWOL for the Greatest Humanitarian Crisis of All Time

What do you think of when you hear the words social issue?

Many of us think of those topics of conversation that we hope won't come up at family gatherings.  Many of us think of those agendas that divide political parties and religious denominations.

But let's think of those issues which affect everyone on this planet with appalling violence and need.  Let's think about the ways that indigenous people have suffered under colonial expansion; let's think about slavery - transAtlantic and modern-day; let's think about dictatorships and oppressive regimes.  How can we allow division over so-called social issues distract us from being present and powerful in the fight against these and other injustices.

Dr. King says it well: all too many... have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.

Part of the problem is that we have spiritualized - no, overspiritualized... maybe hyperspiritualized - the message of the gospel.   We have, as Stearn provocatively puts it, allowed faith to kill works because of an allergic reaction to what some might call the social gospel.  We have so feared slipping into a merit-based system reminscent of medeival, imperial Catholicism that we have diminished, even destroyed, the role of our doing the gospel.  This aversion to works, as it were, has found us AWOL, absent without leave, for the great crisis that is global poverty and its hitmen. 

The social gospel and the spiritual gospel.

What about the whole gospel?

Please join this Advent book club by reading The Hole in our Gospel
and this blog every day until Christmas.

 

enduring strength (Advent 3 sermon on Matthew 2:1-12 and Micah 5:1-5

You can listen to my sermon from Sunday here:

Enduring Strength

The Hole in our Gospel - Chapter 16 - The Great Omission

One of the richest parts of my weeks - and sobering and humbling - is the moment of public confession each Sunday at UALC: Mill Run Xalt.  It is especially rich to confess not only those fragmenting and destructive thoughts, words, and deeds known and done, but also - and especially - unknown and undone.  These are sometimes called sins of omission.

Now we have a responsibility to do something because we know about the plight of the poor on our planet.  To leave things undone and act like these stats and stories are unknown is, simply put, sin.

What is at risk is a faith that is empty, or as St. James calls it dead, or in the words of the prophet Isaiah, God calls an empty faith a charade, trivial, sickening.  God will not look at or listen to an empty faith.

I'll never forget the first time I read that God cares more about apathy than morality.  Brennan Manning boldly proposed this in his book The Ragamuffin Gospel.  What do you think?  What does God care more about?  Apathy?  Or morality?

What God wants is to see authenticity producing action... and action proceeding from authenticity.

This is why the word gospel is both a verb and a noun.  The word gospel comes from the Old English godspel which is glad tidings or good news.  In the Greek New Testament the word is euangelion,  a compound word from eu meaning good and angelion meaning message.  In one of the most beautiful moments in the Christmas story, the word appears as both a verb and a noun.  The angel says basically, 'I good news you good news!'  The gospel, the good news of the risen Christ, is something to be and to do.  It is authenticity producing action and action proceeding from authenticity.

Is your faith authentic?

How will you act on it today?

Please join this Advent book club by reading The Hole in our Gospel
and this blog every day until Christmas.

The Hole in our Gospel - Chapter 15 - A Tale of Two Churches

Stearns gets into some theology in this chapter.  It is a particular study of the church known as ecclesiology, from the Greek word ekklesia, used often in the New Testament to refer to the assembly of Christians.  There are two ways to think of the ekklesia.  There is big-C Church, meaning the global and historic expression of the people of God. There is also the little-c church, meaning the local and particular expressions of the people of God - this is where you go, when you say, 'I'm going to church.'

With this in mind, Stearns tell us a parable.  A story of two churches.  The Church of God's Blessings.  And the Church of the Suffering Servant.  These parables are worth spending some time on.  Reading them slowly.  Reading them prayerfully and carefully.  If you go to church, what kind of church do you go to?  The Church of God's Blessings?  Or the Church of the Suffering Servant?  Or is your church of a different sort?

This chapter ends with a provocative statement fomr an African pastor, Morgan Chilulu.  Pastor Chilulu says this...

'A church that lives within its four walls is no church at all.'

So, do you go to church?  Does your church have walls?

Please join this Advent book club by reading The Hole in our Gospel
and this blog every day until Christmas.

The Hole in our Gospel - Chapter 14 - Finally, The Good News

There have been several chapters in Stearns' book and several days on this blog that are chock full of, well, let's be honest... bad news.  Christians in the West are notorious for ignoring (or being ignorant of) the day-to-day struggle of many people on our planet.  We had to get honest about that.

But there is hope.  There is good news.

Why?

Because everyone person on this planet is made in the image of God.  Because one of these challenges has a solution.  Yes, they are complex, but they are not impossible.  And every one of us can make a difference.

So what action, what strategy can we put to this hopeful good news?

The Millenium Development Goals adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations just over 10 years ago in September 2000 help to focus the energy of our resources and the focus of our relationships in bringing good news to the world's poor in practical and tactical ways.  The resolution laid out 8 goals by the year 2015:

1. Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainabiliy
8. Develop a global partnership

These are not only political and social issues.  These are moral and spiritual and relational issues as well.  Our whole selves and our whole communities need to engage.

I am honored and humbled to be part of an organization, Doma International, that has built many programs with these goals and priorities in mind. 

We are working on goals #1 and #2 by providing numerous, well-balanced meals to the children receiving a primary education at PACE Children's Center in Uganda.  We are working on goal #3 in every nation and on every project where we are active, but especially among the ladies of CATCH who are leaving a life of forced prostitution and drug addiction to rediscover new lives.  We are working on goals #4 and #5 in our Prenatal and Early Childhood Care Center in the remote Ethiopian village of Bora where it is estimated that 1 in 4 or 5 women will die from childbirth related causes, and in Ethiopia nearly 80 in 1,000 children will die early in life.  All of these communities - orphaned teen moms in Russia and Ukraine, vulnerable moms in rural Ethiopia, and survivors of human trafficking - are infect or affect by HIV/AIDS.  We are working on goal #6 among these populations.  We are working on goal #7 as the Care Center we are establishing in Bora is being built using the most innovative and sustainable construction and energy practices.  Finally, none of this has been done solo, as is unfortunately often the case among nonprofit organizations, even (and especially) Christian ones.  We are working on goal #8 in our various organization partnerships on three continents.

These problems have solutions.

These goals are attainable.

Join us.  Live the good news.

Please join this Advent book club by reading The Hole in our Gospel
and this blog every day until Christmas.

The Hole in our Gospel - Chapter 13 - Spiders, Spiders, and More Spiders

But it's not only Hunger and Malnutrition, Lack of Access to Clean Water, and the trinity of deadly Diseases - Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS - that is killing poor people around the world. 

There are more spiders stalking this complex web.

Economic opportunity.

It's difficult to have clothes, food, shelter, and healthcare when you have no money.  It's difficult to make money (at least safely and legally) when you don't have a job.  It's difficult to get a job when there are no jobs.  In the poorest places on the planet, the economies are so fragile and informal that the job market is nearly nonexistent.

Illiteracy and lack of education.

Speaking of jobs, lack of education and high rates of illiteracy make it difficult for poor people to get the few jobs that might be available.  Only 59% of African children attend primarily school and only 1 in 3 will complete it... not to mention secondary school or undergraduate and postgraduate work.  Child labor, lack of development, living rurally and remotely, and the day-to-day challenges of survival are among the reasons that many poor people never receive an education.

Gender inequality.

According to Stearns, the single most significant thing that can be done to cure extreme poverty is this: protect, educate, and nurture girls and women and provide them with equal rights and opportunities - educationally, economically, and socially.  And according to former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, no tool for development is more effective than the empowerment of women.  This is one of the reasons that Doma International exists. 

War

One of the most shocking places I've ever been (and I've been a lot of places) was an IDP (internally displaced persons) camp in northern Uganda.  These were women and children - and some men - who had been driven from their homes and towns (sometimes running for their lives).  War and civil war, riots and unrest produce and agitate the realities of poverty.  The world spends $1.2 trillion ($1,200,000,000,000) each year on making war.  The US accounts for half that amount.  That is twelve times greater than the amount spent on development ($104 billion).  War is at times necessary.  But peacemaking is always necessary - and blessed.

Tomorrow's chapter is called 'Finally, The Good News'.  Looking forward to that?

Please join this Advent book club by reading The Hole in our Gospel
and this blog every day until Christmas.

friday listening party: Owl City sings about fireflies and Christ

You know this song by Owl City...

 

But have you heard this?

 

By the way, it was written by Keith and Kristyn Getty.

The Hole in our Gospel - Chapter 12 - The Horsemen of The Apocalypse

Poverty is complex.  We admitted that yesterday.  So what is it that actually kills poor people?  Stearns identifies what he calls the 'horsemen of the apocalypse', these are the henchmen, the hitmen, the assassins.  They are Hunger and Malnutrition, Lack of Access to Clean Water, and Disease.

Hunger.

One in seven people do not have access to a healthy, sustainable diet.  About 25,000 people die each day of hunger or related causes.  This is shocking, but what makes it horrifying is the disparity and unequal distribution of this risk.  Those living in the Western, developed world are not at risk for death by hunger in the same way (or at all) as those living in the Southern, developing world. 

Lack of Access to Clean Water.

I don't often think twice about using water: tending my garden, making coffee, cooking, showering, brushing and flushing.  And now, at this time of year, keeping green needles on a 9 foot Douglas Fir in my family room.  And all this water I'm using is clean, free from bacteria.  Imagine living with limited access to water, and the water you can get your hands on is teeming with deadly bacteria, parasites, and waterborne diseases.  A child dies every 15 seconds from a waterborne disease.  So, what do parents do?  Watch their child die of thirst or of diarrhea?

Disease.

Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS kill children and cut life expectancies in much of the developing world.  Some historians even believe that half of the people who have ever lived have died of malaria.  I've never suffered from malaria, though I have friends, Americans and Africans, who have.  Though I have suffered from malaria medication - nausea and mood swings.  But even so, I've had the privilege of prevention.  When I was in Uganda a couple years ago, I asked a local leader if malaria was a problem for his community.  He said, 'for all of us, all the time.' Five million people each year die from these three diseases, nearly all of them in the world's poorest countries.

These are the horsemen of the apocalypse.  These are the assassins trained in the complex system of global poverty.  This is the section of Stearns' book that can give you nightmares.  But we must patiently and honestly walk into the haunted house together.  I promise you, there is hope.  We will sink our teeth into practical and tactical ways to address these and other issues.  Keep reading.

Please join this Advent book club by reading The Hole in our Gospel
and this blog every day until Christmas.

The Hole in our Gospel - Chapter 11 - Caught in the Web

So, what is poverty anyway?  What does it mean to be poor in America?  What does it mean to be poor in Africa?  These are important questions to answer.  Does not having a smart phone make you poor?  Or is it that you don't have access to clean water?  Or are there other lines and litmus tests to determine one's level of poverty?  Surely, there are. 

Most of us consider poverty to be the-absence-of-basic-things in one's daily life - basic things like health care, a steady job, housing, healthy meals, sanitation, clean water, security, and so on.

But be sure that poverty is not simple.  It is quite a complex reality.  In fact, I will admit that the longer I live and work and serve and lead among 'poor' communities in the States and around the world, the issue seems to get even more and more complex.

In addition to the-absence-of-basic-things, issues of justice and identity quickly become part of the realities of poverty.  Justice is balance, equity, fairness, assurance, security.  In many poor communities, justice is missing or messed up.  And one's identity suffers too.  When people think of themselves as less because they have less, the cycle will trap generations and nations.  In many poor communities, identity has been marred or messed up.

What those-who-have-a-presence-of-basic-things need to understand is that those-who-have-an-absence-of-basic-things do indeed have assets and strengths.  Identifying and cultivating and utilizing and celebrating those assets and strengths is a key strategy to effectively introduce justice and identity in communities where it is missing, marred, or messed up.

What, then, is the definition of mission?  I've come to most often define it as exchange.  Mission is exchange.  It is a two-way street where two communities who have different things and different assets and different strengths link up and live together - in proximity or across oceans.  Mission is exchange.

Please join this Advent book club by reading The Hole in our Gospel
and this blog every day until Christmas.

The Hole in our Gospel - Chapter 10 - What's Wrong With This Picture?

Yesterday we were met face to face with a horrifying and mind boggling statistic.  26,500 children die every day from preventable causes related to their poverty.  If people in Franklin County (in central Ohio were I live) were dying at the same rate, the county would be empty in a month and a half. 

But statistics have their limits.

They enable us to depersonalize and distance ourselves from the reality.  When people become numbers, the names and faces and stories can be missed.

But while we're talking statistics, let's be honest about our world and the poverty that affects so many.

There are 6.7 billion people on the planet, only 4.5% of whom live in the U.S.  The majority of the people on the planet are not American, not white, and not Christian.

Now about money... the average American makes $105 per day while 2.6 billion people live on less than $2 per day and 1 billion live on less than $1 per day.  And not only is there in income disparity on our planet, but there is also a consumption disparity.  The richest 20% consume over 80% of the world's goods.  The discrepancy is immense.

So what should we do about this? 

The biblical writers had some ideas about the issue here, here, here, here, here, and here.