Good news to the poor

The Gospel Through Social Involvement

Tim Chester

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781844747214
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Christentum

How do we respond to the silent appeal in the dark eyes of the child in the charity catalogue, or the blanketed figure in the cold shop doorway? Should we share the gospel with them, or a bowl of soup?
Throughout history, men and women such as Wilberforce and Shaftesbury, Carey and Booth have recognized a call to help the needy. Others have argued that our first task is evangelism, that Christians should not meddle in politics, that social action is a distraction. Do we serve Christ through preaching his Word, or should we use words only when necessary?
Tim Chester argues passionately that evangelism and social action are inseparable, as two arms of the church's mission. He presents a biblical case for truly evangelical social action, that is shaped and inspired by the gospel. He shows how social activity is a response to evangelism, a bridge and a partner to it. He urges conservatives not to marginalize those who uphold the cause of the oppressed, and those involved in social action not to neglect the preaching of the Word.

1. The case for social involvement

I stood in Sector Twelve among small, squat houses roofed with plastic weighted down with rubbish. With me was Dr Kiran Martin, Director of ASHA, a Christian organ­iza­tion working in the slums of Delhi. Around us a crowd gath­ered, eager to talk. Most of the men had jobs – railway workers, con­struc­tion site labour­ers, balloon sellers. Some of the one-room houses had a tele­vi­sion, the electric­ity tapped off from the mains. There was a com­mu­nal toilet block, above which ASHA has a small clinic. When we asked if anyone ever escaped the slum, the answer was no. The only jobs avail­able are low-paid with long hours. Most people cannot even read bus numbers. Alcoholism and crime are common. People are subject to slum land­lords – pro­tec­tors and oppres­sors at one and the same time. Standing there I real­ized that the problem for these people was not simply lack of ­material pos­ses­sions, but pow­er­less­ness.

When Kiran Martin grad­u­ated as a doctor she had the oppor­­tunity of a well-paid job and a com­fort­able life. Instead, start­ing with just a table and chair, she has given herself in the service of the poor. Several years on, ASHA has an impact on the lives of 150,000 slum dwell­ers – empow­er­ing com­mu­nities by train­ing health workers and lob­by­ing govern­ment to improve slum con­di­tions. Kiran Martin has invested time in build­ing rela­tion­ships with slum land­lords, hosting an annual meal for them. She per­suaded them to see that it was in everybody’s inter­est to tackle some of the prob­lems that were oppress­ing the slum dwell­ers. In the same way, she has built rela­tion­ships with local govern­ment officials so that they have been willing to trust resources to ASHA. Through patience and allow­ing officials to share the credit for achieve­ments, ASHA has also been able to nego­tiate govern­ment-funded slum rede­vel­op­ments. Now the government’s new housing policy has adopted the model used by ASHA to trans­form slums into estab­lished com­mu­nities.

But that is not all: in sector 12 there is now a church of 25 Hindu con­verts. This is an area known for its Hindu extrem­ism. But every­where Kiran Martin walks in the slums she is greeted warmly. Church plant­ing that had proved impos­sible in the past was now pos­sible because of the trust and respect built by Kiran Martin in Christ’s name.

The example of William Carey

I visited Kiran Martin’s work in Delhi in 1993. Two hundred years before, in 1793, William Carey arrived in India. Ruth and Vishal Mangalwadi begin their appre­ci­a­tion of Carey with a fictional quiz. They imagine a com­pe­ti­tion for Indian uni­ver­sity stu­dents in which the ques­tion is asked: ‘Who was William Carey?’ The first reply is that William Carey was a bot­a­nist who pub­lished the first books on the natural history of India, intro­duced new systems of gar­den­ing and after whom a variety of euca­lyp­tus is named. Next an engi­neer­ing student says William Carey intro­duced the steam engine to India and began the first indig­e­nous paper and print­ing indus­tries. Another student sees Carey as a social reformer who suc­cess­fully cam­paigned for women’s rights. Another as a cam­paigner for the humane treat­ment of lepers. An eco­nom­ics student points out that Carey intro­duced savings banks to combat usury. Carey is cred­ited with start­ing the first news­paper in any orien­tal lan­guage. He con­ducted a system­atic survey of Indian agri­cul­tu­ral prac­tices and founded the Indian Agri-Horticultural Society, thirty years before the Royal Agricultural Society was estab­lished in England. Carey was the first to trans­late and publish the relig­ious clas­sics of India, and wrote the first Sanskrit dic­tion­ary for schol­ars. He founded dozen of schools, pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion for people of all castes, boys and girls. He pi­oneered lending librar­ies, wrote the first essays on forestry in India. To a significant degree he trans­formed the ethos of the British admin­is­tra­tion in India from colo­nial exploi­ta­tion to a genuine sense of civil service.

And so it goes on with Carey’s con­tri­bu­tion to science, engi­neer­ing, indus­try, eco­nom­ics, med­i­cine, agri­cul­ture and forestry, lit­er­a­ture, edu­ca­tion, social reform, public admin­is­tra­tion and phi­los­o­phy all being cel­e­brated.1 Yet most of us know William Carey as the cobbler from Northamptonshire who became a pioneer mis­sion­ary and evan­gel­ist. Who was the real William Carey? The answer is that Carey was all these things and more.

The example of early Christians

Christians have a long history of being involved in social issues – care for the poor, involve­ment in the arts, science and culture, par­tic­i­pa­tion in civil society, cam­paign­ing in the polit­i­cal arena. Tertullian, the North African theo­lo­gian, writing at the end of the second century after Christ, famously described how his fellow-Christians shared with each­ other:

If he likes, each puts in a small dona­tion; but only if it he wants to and only if he is able. There is no com­pul­sion; all is vol­un­tary. These gifts are, as it were, piety’s deposit fund. For they are not taken and spent on feasting and drink­ing-ses­sions, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of needy boys and girls without parents, and of house-bound old people...People say, See how they love one another...One in mind and soul, we do not hes­i­tate to share our earthly goods with one another. We have all things in common except our wives.2

Writing in a similar vein at about the same time, Irenaeus said:

Instead of tithes which the law com­manded, the Lord said to divide ­everything we have with the poor...Those who have received freedom set aside all their pos­ses­sions for the Lord’s pur­poses, giving joy­fully and freely and not just the least val­u­able of their pos­ses­sions.3

Basil the Great, writing in the fourth century AD, warned his readers:

The bread which you keep, belongs to the hungry; the coat which you ­preserve in your ward­robe, to the shoe­less; the gold which you have hidden in the ground, to the needy. Wherefore, as often as you were able to help others, and refused, so often did you do them wrong.4

During this period the church was seeing significant and wide­spread growth. About half a million new members were added every gen­er­a­tion. By the begin­ning of the fourth century the numbers had risen to 5 million – about 8% of the Roman Empire – despite peri­odic per­se­cu­tion and con­stant revile­ment. The twin factors of gospel growth and per­se­cu­tion led to the first apol­o­get­ics. These were not only appeals for tol­er­a­tion, but also for con­ver­sion. One of the most prom­i­nent early apol­o­gists was Justin Martyr. Justin was from a pagan back­ground, but, being born in Samaria, he would have prob­ably been famil­iar with Judaism. He spent some time wan­der­ing around the Mediterranean looking for a world­view that made sense to him. He was finally con­verted through a chance encoun­ter with an old man on the shore near Ephesus. After his con­ver­sion he became an evan­gel­ist and, although trav­el­ling widely, spent most of his life in Rome where he was mar­tyred in AD 163.

Justin wrote an Apology addressed to the Emperor some time after AD 151 in which he attempted care­fully to explain Christianity in a context where it was being mis­under­stood. Typically the apol­o­gists like Justin who wrote to a Roman audi­ence focused on the civil con­se­quences of Christianity. Describing the sup­pos­edly secret gath­er­ings of Christians, Justin says: ‘They who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is col­lected is depos­ited with the pres­i­dent, who suc­cours the orphans and widows and those who, through sick­ness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strang­ers sojourn­ing among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.’5

Justin rec­og­nizes that in one sense Christianity is subversive. It oper­ates with a set of values that is contrary to ele­ments of Roman society and culture. So he is not afraid to argue for the moral super­ior­ity of Christianity. The concern of the early church was not confined to other Christians. The Christians, for example, would collect unwanted chil­dren, left on the city rubbish dumps to die, and bring them up them­selves. Justin says, ‘But as for us, we have been taught that to expose newly-born chil­dren is the act of wicked men; and this we have been taught so that we should not do anyone an injury and so that we should not sin against God.’6 Justin describes how many of the chil­dren exposed were taken to be brought up as pros­ti­tutes and this he strongly con­demns. He says to the Emperor, ‘You even collect pay and levies and taxes from these [pros­ti­tutes] whom you ought to exter­mi­nate from your civ­il­ized world...You charge against us the actions that you commit openly and treat with honour.’7 Justin does not hes­i­tate to condemn social injus­tice and call on the Emperor to change his pol­i­cies. What is strik­ing about this is that it comes in the context of a plea for tol­er­ance towards Christians.

Nevertheless, although ele­ments of Christianity run contrary to the values of Roman society, Justin wants to show that Christianity is good for society. ‘We are in fact of all men your best helpers and allies in secur­ing good order.’8 He says that Christians live under God’s eyes so they do what is right even without the sanc­tion of the civil author­ities. He points to the changed lives of Christians and describes Christ’s teach­ing on mar­riage, love for enemies, gen­e­ros­ity, honesty and paying taxes.9

We used to value getting wealth and pos­ses­sions above all things, but now we bring what we have to a common fund and share with every one in need. We used to hate and destroy one another and were racists. But now, since the coming of Christ, we live in harmony with others of different races and pray for our enemies.10

The life of the early church described by Justin, the pio­neer­ing work of William Carey and the con­tem­po­rary min­is­try of Dr Kiran Martin are just three exam­ples of Christian involve­ment in social issues and polit­i­cal reform. But is social involve­ment a legit­i­mate activ­ity of Christians? Does it have bib­li­cal and theo­log­i­cal support? This chapter sets out the case for Christian social involve­ment, offering three interrelated reasons: the char­ac­ter of God, the reign of God and the grace of God.

1. The character of God

The psalmist describes God in the fol­low­ing way:

He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.

The LORD sets prisoners free,
the LORD gives sight to the blind,

the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.

The LORD watches over the alien
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

(Ps. 146:7–9)

Social involve­ment is rooted in the char­ac­ter of God. He is the God who upholds the cause of the oppressed, who pro­vides for the poor and lib­er­ates the pris­oner; he sus­tains the mar­gi­nal­ized and the vul­ner­able.

Our under­stand­ing of poverty is fun­da­men­tally related to our under­stand­ing of God. It is a ques­tion of what kind of God we worship. According to Ron Sider, concern for the poor is not ‘merely an ethical teaching’: ‘it is first of all a theo­log­i­cal truth, a central doc­trine of the creed, a con­stantly repeated bib­li­cal teach­ing about the God we worship. The bib­li­cal insis­tence on God’s concern for the poor is first of all a theo­log­i­cal state­ment about the Creator and Sovereign of the universe.’11 Commenting on Deut. 10:12–17 Vinoth Ramachandra says:

Among Israel’s neigh­bours, as indeed in the ancient cul­tures of the world (includ­ing Indian, Chinese, African and South American civ­il­iza­tions), the power of the gods was chan­nelled through the power of certain males – the priests, kings and war­ri­ors embod­ied divine power. Opposition to them was tan­ta­mount to rebel­lion against the gods. But here, in Israel’s rival vision, it is ‘the orphan, the widow and the stranger’ with whom Yahweh takes his stand. His power is exer­cised in history for their empow­er­ment.12

It is some­times said that God is ‘biased to the poor’, or people speak of his ‘pref­e­ren­tial option for the poor’. But such state­ments are open to mis­under­stand­ing. It is not that God is prej­u­diced in some way, still less that the poor are more deserv­ing because of their poverty. Rather, because he is a God of justice, God opposes those who per­pe­trate injus­tice and he sides with the victims of oppres­sion. Vinoth Ramachandra com­ments: ‘in a sinful world where life is biased towards the wealthy and the pow­er­ful, God’s actions will always be per­ceived as a counter-bias’.13 In sit­u­a­tions of exploi­ta­tion it is the cause of the oppressed that God upholds.

And God expects us to do the same:

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.

Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.

(Prov. 31:8–9)

Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.

But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

(Amos 5:23–24)

To walk in the ways of the Lord, says Chris Wright, is the summary of Old Testament ethics.14 The God who ‘upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry’ expects us to walk in his ways. He expects his people to share his concern for justice. Again and again the indict­ment of the Old Testament proph­ets against God’s people was both that they had turned from God to idols and that they had not upheld social justice (Amos 5:11–12). In Isaiah the people of God com­plain that God does not hear their prayers or respond to their fasting. It seems as if God is indifferent. But the problem, says Isaiah, is the indifference of the people to the cries of the poor:

Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.

Your fasting ends in quarrelling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.

You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.

Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?

Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?

Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?’

(Is. 58:3–7)

God will not hear his people when they ignore the claims of the poor (Is. 1:10–17). The appro­pri­ate response to the God who up­holds the poor is for us like­wise to uphold the cause of the poor. This is the truly relig­ious activ­ity of those who follow the God of the Bible. This is what it means to know God. Addressing King Jehoahaz through the prophet Jeremiah, God reminds him of his father Josiah: ‘“He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the LORD’ (Jer. 22:16). In a similar way James says: ‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and fault­less is this: to look after orphans and widows in their dis­tress and to keep oneself from being pol­luted by the world’ (Jas. 1:27). Part of Job’s argu­ment is that he has cared for the poor and there­fore his suffering is unde­served (Job 31:13–28).

God’s concern for the poor was embod­ied in the Mosaic law. ‘I command you to be open-handed towards your broth­ers and towards the poor and needy in your land’ (Deut. 15:11). Numerous laws safe­guarded both the needs and the dignity of the poor. The law of glean­ing stated that land­own­ers were to leave produce missed by the initial harvest so it could be gath­ered by the poor, ena­bling the poor to provide for them­selves without being depen­dent on charity. Interest was not to be charged on loans to the poor so that people did not profit from their mis­for­tune. And when a coat or mill­stone was taken as a guar­an­tee for a loan it was to be returned when it was needed. Calvin argues that the eighth com­mand­ment for­bid­ding theft involves an obli­ga­tion to assist those ‘we see pressed by the difficulty of affairs...with our abundance’.15 Jesus summed up the law as to love God and to love your neigh­bour as your­self (Matt. 22:34–40).

Concern for those outside the Christian community

It is some­times said that concern for the poor in the Bible is com­manded only within the cov­e­nant com­mu­nity – whether the nation of Israel in the Old Testament or the church in the New Testament. And indeed with many texts often cited in support of social involve­ment, this is indeed the case. The fate of people in the parable of the sheep and the goats turns on how they have treated ‘the least of these my brothers’ – a ref­er­ence to the Christian com­mu­nity (Matt. 25:31–46). Examples of the care of widows in the New Testament are within the Christian com­mu­nity (Acts 6:1–7; 1 Tim. 5:3–16). The command to love is focused on the people of God because we are to be a com­mu­nity of love reflecting the loving nature of our ...