Because we must hear and obey the word of God in a specific context, many Christians are seriously asking after the divine command for them in a world largely poor and hungry. A "theology of liberation" is in the air. Latin American and black theologians have pressed for a radical understanding of what it means to do the truth in a situation of oppression and suffering. We dare not, as Hugo Assmann has warned us, reduce their efforts to a "consumer product," a new toy on the theological playground of affluent, Western thinkers. Instead we are summoned to enter into the same struggle, to hear the word of God ourselves in a world of poverty and dire distress.
Evangelicals have often been rather more inclined to defend the gospel than to practice it. Yet a defending of the gospel which is not matched by a living of it is hollow and inauthentic. The "theology of liberation" is in reality God's instrument for the refinement of our own commitment to the gospel, and has led many to reflect on the need for the liberation of North American Christians. Before issuing such a call, there is a theological assumption to be stated and accepted. All believers in Jesus Christ have been summoned to a life of radical discipleship, oriented to his cross (Mark 8:34). Although the point is familiar and obvious, grounded in the most certain and lucid commands of our Lord himself, it is here that many of us become stalled. We do not wish to think that the gospel might have radical, life-changing implications for the entire range of our existence. Nevertheless, according to the New Testament, it most certainly does.
Paul describes the "reasonable" service of the Christian believer in terms of the presenting of our bodies to God as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1). Such a metaphor can only be termed "radical," calling as it does for a total, unreserved commitment of the whole of life to God. We are invited to respond to Christ on no other terms than these.
Furthermore, the general shape of our discipleship is also made unmistakably clear as an orientation to the cross of Jesus, a life patterned in accordance to the normative event of the gospel. In the cross, as Peter says, Christ has left us an example that we should follow in his steps (1 Peter 2:21). Because he was among us as one who serves, we are to be present in the world after the manner of servanthood. The presence of a community following this rule is, according to Jesus, a primary mark and sign of the truth of the gospel and the coming of the kingdom of God, a city on a hill which cannot be hidden, the pilot project of an entirely new order. The call for the liberation of North American Christians is based on the well-founded assumption that radical discipleship in the mode of servanthood is a primary demand of the gospel. It is so plainly scriptural that it can scarcely be denied in principle.
Christian discipleship in this mode does not take place in a vacuum. It has to be fleshed out in the particular cultural setting where we are, in relation to a critical reflection on our social, political and personal situation, in which we are expected to act responsibly before God. Just as our Lord in the incarnation identified with the needs and condition of people in his day, so we are sent to shine as lights in the world of our day, addressing its central concerns as we proclaim good news.
As soon as anyone undertakes to analyze the worldly context in which we live, personal assumptions and perceptions rise swiftly to the surface to influence the mental image. Nevertheless, such a judgment has to be made, and on the particulars of which I am thinking there is already widespread agreement. The global context of discipleship is simply grim and beset with crises on a colossal scale. We are being reminded from every quarter of the awful disparities in wealth between nations, of the enormous investments in deadly armaments and of the frantic consumption and irresponsible pollution of the earth's limited resources. The North American context, on the other hand, in relation to the global one, sees itself as a safety island, unaffected by these harsh realities, and largely indifferent to cries for help issuing from the third world. One need not be an economist or ecologist to sense the enormity of the world's crises, nor an ethical philosopher or theologian to feel shame and outrage at the moral callousness involved in our collective North American behavior. Let us consider two items.
North Americans -- and Christians are not an outstanding exception -- are continuing to consume the products of earth at indefensibly high rates and appear to be firmly set on reaching even higher levels, at the very time when it is a matter of public record that unaccounted millions are seriously malnourished and even starving. To put it most mildly, we are insensitive to the cries of the world's poor. Like the rich man with Lazarus at his gate, we are largely indifferent to the distress of the needy. Like ancient Sodom, we "have surfeit of the food and prosperous ease, but do not aid the poor and needy" (Ezekiel 16:49).
Of course humanitarian aid has not been wholly lacking. Mission and relief agencies in particular have faithfully tried to channel funds to needy situations. Even the U.S. and Canada have been active in aid to the poor countries. But it should be recognized that, although these gestures are good, the effort hitherto has been meager and half-hearted. A serious attempt to assist the world's poor has not been made except by a very few, and we stand condemned as pretty largely indifferent to the problem. How then do we suppose we shall escape the wrath of God, we who hold down the truth in unrighteousness? God's word warns us: "Those who close their ears to the cry of the poor will themselves cry out and not be heard" (Proverbs 21:13). How can we deny that the attitude of North Americans in general is callous, pleasure seeking, and hardhearted in the face of the world situation? Are we not behaving in a merciless manner that is both globally irresponsible and morally depraved?
As if that were not enough, to this relative absence of tenderheartedness must be added a shocking lack of justice and fair play. The fact that we control a disproportionately large share of the world's real wealth is partly due to our domination of "world trade," a new economic colonialism by which we have repatriated large profits from countries which have only some basic raw material to sell and a large supply of cheap labor. In every way they are disadvantaged in relation to our superior economic leverage and technical development. We are rather like the fat sheep in Ezekiel's pathetic picture which "push and thrust at the weak until they are scattered abroad" (Ezekiel 34:21). We, the wealthy six percent of the earth's population, cluster around the well of the earth's resources and drink deeply from it, while the vast majority of peoples are shunted aside lapping up the trickles that spill from our cups.
Why do we act in this way? What can account for such behavior? Suppose a visitor arrived from outer space, and discovered a small group of people feasting on abundance while the majority was in need; found them pursuing policies which drove the poor deeper into despair; and saw them refusing to accept even a slight lowering of their standard of living out of considerations of mercy and of justice. What would he think? Surely he could only conclude that this small but favored minority was in a condition of bondage to the godlike power of materialism and comfort over them, which had closed their hearts and minds to the most elementary demands of justice and mercy. Although God's word is unequivocally clear in such matters, it would seem that "the cares of the world, the delight in riches, and the desire for other things have entered in, and choked the word so that it proves unfruitful" (Mark 4:19).
The word of God is choked in the churches of North America. Our comfortable life and culture have blinded our eyes to the scriptural teaching about tenderheartedness, stewardship, and justice. I see no way to deny, though I wish it were not so, that the context in which the Bible is to be responsibly read and applied today is that of a suffering and poor world, containing a small pocket of affluence, in which the privileged, among whom are to be counted, most North American Christians are largely indifferent to the hungry millions at their gate. If the Bible is to be believed, and if this situation is not changed by the costly repentance of these favored few, all we can expect is the wrath and indignation of the God who regards the needy and hears their cry. Where is there mercy and justice among us?
I am convinced that God does not desire to pour out wrath on the peoples of North America, but wants the church as a significant remnant on this continent to experience liberation from bondage to Mammon and enter into lives of credible and costly discipleship. In order to spell out some of the implications of this liberation, we will consider what it may mean to us as individuals, as congregations, and even as nations, to obey God's command to us today.
Although we can think globally, we can only really act locally. The watchword has to be downward mobility. The per capita consumption in the West, when measured against the limited resources of spaceship earth and placed into relation with world poverty, is obviously too high. Our lifestyles must be simplified, and our consumption scaled down. In line with the "Macedonian example" which Paul related to the Corinthian church (2 Corinthians 8-9), we must begin to share goods in a way that cuts into our standard of living, so that the voluntary self-impoverishment of Jesus may be fleshed out among us, and there may be a semblance of "equality" created.
It is simply a matter first of tenderheartedness: how can we live affluently with the eyes of the poor upon us? And secondly, a matter of justice: what gives us the right to accept the privileged position of the world's upper classes consuming far beyond our fair share and as a result accentuating the desperate plight of the poor? "Downward mobility" has nothing to do with asceticism, which despises comfort, good food, and adequate shelter. These things are good, and we wish they were the lot of all people. Life cannot be fully human without a satisfactory physical base beneath it. But an overabundance of these things in a world where our excess is confronted by extreme want is not good or right.
I believe that God is calling North American Christians to a life which is simpler -- simpler in diet, in housing, in entertainment, and so forth, a life that celebrates God's jubilee, God's good news for the poor, and a righting of economic wrongs. Let us accept for ourselves the spartan life which we have asked missionaries to live in our stead in the past, and incorporate into our evangelical spirituality dimensions of practical mercy, simplicity, and justice.
Jesus promised that those who lose their lives in costly discipleship will find them again. It belongs to the paradox and irony of the gospel that precisely this commitment to a simpler way results in a full and a better life in the end. Against the Madison Avenue lie, Jesus said pointedly, "A person's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." God is calling us as individual believers to test the truth of these words in our day. How else can a Christian be said to carry the cross in a hungry world?
To be a Christian at all is to have been joined by the Spirit to the body of Christ, a fellowship in the context of which the tender plant of our individual Christian freedom is to be nurtured, challenged, and directed. It is very difficult for an individual believer to be radical in his or her obedience if his or her congregation or fellowship circle remains indifferent and complacent. The anemic commitment of local congregations in North America to issues of human need and social justice is most discouraging. Instead of being seedbeds nurturing prophetic concerns they have become safety islands from which these concerns are often excluded.
And all this is paralleled ironically by a considerable interest in "church growth." Surely the mere numerical growth of congregations, if it is resulting in the proliferation of pseudo-disciples who can hardly distinguish the cross from the flag, is a very mixed blessing. The "church growth" most urgently needed in North America is growth in the knowledge of the biblical God, who loves justice and mercy, and who calls us all without exception to costly discipleship. We are most definitely in favor of quantitative evangelization and are opposed to its being substituted by or changed into the struggle for social justice. But what we must insist on is a radicalizing of evangelism so that it is more than an individualistic and spiritualistic exercise and involves calling people to accept the full and undiminished lordship of Jesus.
The New Testament congregations nurtured people in radical discipleship. They shared with each other so that economic needs were met, and practiced spiritual gifts that led them to feed and house those who were hungry and homeless. When the Spirit first fell, their economic thinking was so radicalized that they sold their possessions, pooled their resources, and moved in the direction of a social order in which there was justice and equality.
Since that time, there have been some sterling examples in the experience of the churches where God's people have ventured out in faith, risked their own comfortable security, and expended themselves in Jesus' name on behalf of the needy. Let us build up congregations that proclaim the jubilee of God's justice, that stand for the ongoing servant presence of Jesus in the world, that cross over the road, and stand by the needy neighbor in his or her plight. Until we move in this direction, we are not really loving God and the neighbor as Jesus commanded us. Judgment begins with the people of God. We are being weighed in the balances. God is inspecting the vineyard which God planted to see what fruit is yielding. It is time for all of us in our congregations to take stock and bring our priorities into line with the stated purposes of God for the church.
Jesus has called his church to be a servant people ministering to all the needs of humanity. Much progress in social history has come about through the impact of radical biblical ideas upon the human spirit. Yet, sadly, as we have become successful and established, we have come to identify with the interests of the ruling classes and the established order, producing materialistic middle-class Christianity, a church no longer willing to care for the needy and hear their cry. Against such a church God and humanity will arise in protest and disgust. Let us repent and return to our radical roots.
All Christians can agree that God's word contains principles that are politically relevant and need to be injected into present day discussions and decision making. I will list three of them: stewardship, neighborliness, and justice.
First, since God has given the earth to all people as a sacred trust, it follows that no group has the right to exhaust the earth's limited resources in a lifestyle of unbridled consumption and as a result severely pollute the creation because of their insatiable greed. We must call for a global ethic based on the creational principle of stewardship. It is not enough to ask what will benefit our country. We must also ask what is just and right from a global perspective.
Second, because God has made humanity of one stock, in personal relationship and mutual interdependence one with another, it follows that no group has a right to live in a wasteful and selfish way while huge numbers of others lack even the basic elements of a decent standard of living. We have no right, for example, to feed huge quantities of our grain to cattle at the very time when millions perish for want of bread. People born into God's world have an inalienable right to eat, and it is a basic ethical obligation of ours to secure that right for them if we can.
Third, in terms of justice, it is simply intolerable that less than ten percent of the human race should have a corner on the majority percent of the world's real wealth. A "new international economic order" is essential as a matter of fairness. So long as the desire for profit motivates the world economic system, the needs of the poor cannot be met. Such a system serves only those who can command resources and enter into the market as purchasers. We have come to the point where, in the name of simple justice, human need must be put before profit and resources must be shifted from wasteful, destructive projects into human development.
In the mid-1970s, Barbara Ward estimated that only one-half of the world's annual expenditures on armaments ($100 billion) would fund all the works of mercy and peace for an entire decade and result in significantly alleviating all of the major problems obstructing the prospect of a decent kind of life for the world's peoples. With such self-righteousness we have looked down on the minority of whites in African former colonies, and we wonder what stops them from sharing the blessings of a well-endowed country with their black majority. Why don't they move toward a social order which would be fairer and in every way wiser even from the viewpoint of simple survival, we ask?
But we really need not wonder about it when we in North America are every bit as reluctant to give up our position of affluence on behalf of the hungry billions and seem as intent as they are on global suicide rather than facing the awful prospect of justice. Nevertheless it is no exaggeration to say that if we refuse to face up to global injustice today, tomorrow's world is likely to be horrible and violent beyond imagination. The Bible offers politically relevant criteria that need to be injected into the processes of planning and governing. God is calling for political obedience. For the first time in history, the necessities of the situation and the obligations of the gospel practically coincide. Loving the neighbor has never before been so much a matter of political common sense. It is a time of God's testing. The handwriting is on the wall. Let us arise and seek God's kingdom and God's justice.
Evangelicals of late have been more inclined to defend the gospel than to do it. Before us there is a costly decision: whether to break with the false god Mammon and follow after Jesus, or to go back and turn aside because we have great possessions. Jesus said it was hard for the "haves" to enter the kingdom of God because of the demands the gospel makes upon them. False gods do not give up their captives without a struggle. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against the fallen powers of darkness. Liberation will only come through the miracle working activity of the Spirit of God in our lives.
But if that is what we want, and if we are willing to repent and really change at deep levels, then we can experience liberation. We are being weighed in the balances. Will we be faithful and wise stewards pursuing the will of the Lord or faithless, disobedient servants who will in the end be punished and placed with the unbelievers?
Clark Pinnock was a Sojourners contributing editor and professor of theology at Regent College when this article appeared.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!