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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

'We Are Not Commanded To Be a Docent in the Art Museum ....

... We Are Commanded To Love the Poor.'

A while ago I posted something about a Facebook petition asking the Vatican to sell its treasures to feed the poor. Everyone was against me on that one :) but when I saw the title of this article below from Christianity Today, I had to post it, though it isn't about the Vatican or its treasures. It's an interview with Richard Stearns about his book, The Hole in Our Gospel: What Does God Expect of Us? ......

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'We Are Not Commanded To Be a Docent in the Art Museum. We Are Commanded To Love the Poor.'

So what is the hole in the gospel?

We look at the gospel as almost a transaction between God and us. We say our prayer and our sins are forgiven. We get the fire insurance policy and we put it in our drawer.

Meanwhile, we are retreating behind the walls of our churches. Our church bulletins read like the table of contents for Psychology Today: support groups for pornography addictions and eating disorders, Taekwondo aerobics, and on and on. Our churches are increasingly meeting all of our needs but decreasingly going out to change the world.

The gospel was meant to be a social revolution. It began with a transaction between man and God. It began with this exchange we call atonement. But it wasn't meant to end there. It was meant to send us out as the vanguards of the social revolution, the salt and light that Jesus talked about that would transform the world. And my conclusion, after all of my experiences in 23 years in the corporate world, 10 years at World Vision, and visiting 50 countries, is that we've fallen short.

Do you think that's particularly an American problem?

I don't think it's uniquely American. I think what is unique about the American church is the incredible wealth and resources that we possess and control.

While we're going into our huge megacathedrals in the United States, African churches are suffering greatly. Our brothers and sisters in Christ are meeting under trees. They are dying of HIV and AIDS. Their children are dying because of unsanitary water, lack of health care, and lack of nutrition. This disparity in the body of Christ alone is appalling. I am sure it breaks the heart of God that Christians aren't even taking care of Christians as we could, let alone taking care of non-Christians.

It's not that churches are doing nothing. Obviously we all know churches that are doing wonderful things. Most of our churches have missions programs and programs focused on things like Darfur.

The United States is still the greatest missions-sending country in the world.

Most of it is evangelism. It's not poverty reduction. It's not justice. Many missionaries get involved in those other things in the course of their work, but we are doing little internationally. We are not a poor nation. But we don't tithe, so money is always scarce for this work.

What is the most compelling statistic that haunts you?

About 26,000 children under the age of 5 die every day of causes related to their poverty.

That is the equivalent of 100 planes filled with children crashing every day. If one jet liner crashes in America, it makes world headlines. There is an immediate flurry of activity: Why did it happen? What does the "black box" say? Is there a safety issue with the airplane? Was it a pilot error? And we start to learn about the lives of the people that died.

But where are the headlines? Where are the hearings, the acts of Congress, the things that would happen if a hundred jet liners were crashing every day?

If you looked at the death certificates of those children you would probably read words like starvation, respiratory infection, malaria, maybe HIV/AIDS. But you could easily cross that out and write apathy as the cause of death. The deaths were largely preventable, but those who could have prevented the deaths chose not to. I know that's harsh but I've seen and I know that it is possible to change the equation. It's the sin of our generation. The sin of my parents' generation in the United States was racism. The sin of our generation will be apathy.

Some of our readers would say there are a lot of fervent Christians who are involved in issues like abortion, sex trafficking, and religious freedom. Are you arguing that poverty should be a higher priority for them?

As Christians we have to have a list of priorities. Sometimes I think we get our priorities turned upside down. If Jesus were living today and tithing, what would his check register say? I am pretty sure [his money] wouldn't be going to the symphony. I am pretty sure it wouldn't be going to his alma mater as a first priority. I think it would be going to the least of these.

I think abortion is on that list. I think it breaks his heart. But how can you care about abortion and not care about the 26,000 children that die every day of preventable causes? It dwarfs the abortion problem in America. Five times as many children die around the world of preventable causes than die in abortions.

We are told we have the mind of Christ. It is hard to know the mind of Christ. But it would certainly be compassion for the sick and the lame and the broken and the poor, and I think you could argue that Jesus put them above all else in his concern.

John Green runs a ministry in Chicago for male prostitutes. And he offers them a variety of social services to help them move out of that lifestyle—job counseling, psychological counseling. Still he says that the greatest injustice he could practice would be to fail to tell them about Jesus. What do you think about that?

I agree. You could argue the mainline churches have been all about works whereas the evangelical churches have been all about faith and belief. Another way to frame the faith-and-works debate is truth and love. Truth is about what we believe is the right thing and love is about what we are doing about it. If you have love without truth, it's misguided love. If you have truth without love, what good is truth? I once had a pastor that said it's not what you believe that counts. It's what you believe enough to do.

I say within World Vision, if we offer bread but don't offer the Bread of Life, if we offer water but don't offer Living Water, then we are no better than the ones that we might criticize who offer only words.

Are you at liberty to do that when you are on the field for World Vision?

It varies a great deal by context. Much of sub-Saharan Africa is overtly Christian, and we have Bible schools and Bible-based AIDS curriculum. But in Mauritania or Banda Aceh or parts of China, we have to be very guarded about expressing our faith. In Mauritania the penalty for proselytism is death. So we plant seeds, we try to love people. As you probably know, in a place like Mauritania we hire Muslims. Our leadership is Christian but we have mostly Muslim staff. We try to witness to the staff through our lives and deeds and words. When I look at places like that, where Christian missionaries can't go or can't go freely, I think we are preparing the ground for a future day by showing them (hopefully) the face of Christ in human form so that they have a different understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

How do you deal with people who say, "You're right. Poverty is a huge problem. It is very discouraging. But it's just way too big for me to make any difference."

Poverty is big. It's ugly, it is difficult to address. But it is not hopeless because God doesn't ask you to save the whole world. He just asks you to do that which you can do, to put your piece of the puzzle in the jigsaw puzzle.

Imagine that your child is one that is going to die of starvation this month. Then imagine an American family saying, "Oh, it is hopeless. Poverty is too big. Hunger is too big. We are going back to our bridge club." If that's your child that their intervention could have saved, it means everything to you.

There's that Stalin quote: "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." And he understood that so well as he exterminated millions. But we have to see the one death as a tragedy. And we have to say, I can prevent maybe one tragedy, maybe two, maybe five. If I can prevent five tragedies, my life will have been worth living.

Here is the irony: The people that give us a dollar a day to sponsor a child, it's one of the last things they will cut because there is a little girl or a little boy at the other end of that dollar. And they'll cut out a lot of things before they'll cut the legs out from underneath that child they sponsor. Ironically, many of the millionaires who give us gifts of $100,000 a year can't give this year because their $20 million fortune is only worth $10 million. The irony of the widow's mite is that the people that can't really afford it keep giving and the people who could afford it feel like they can't.

You say in one chapter that the church has always been on the wrong side of the great social issues. On the other hand, you say we're in the middle of the greatest humanitarian crisis of all time and you wrote a book obviously thinking you could help to change that. What gives you hope that the church can get it right this time?

The church has done a great deal of good in the world and continues to do a great deal of good in the world. If all Christian ministries were removed from the world, all the salt from the meat, our world would be a far worse place than it is. If you look at the hospitals and the homeless shelters, the drug rehabilitation programs, the divorce recovery programs, the feeding programs around the world and ask who's doing that, it's mostly Christians. Our share of doing good is probably pretty high. I hate to be controversial, but I think we're doing more good than the other world religions in terms of our social conscience and our social action. To say it a little crassly, we may be the smart kid in the dumb class.

But are we doing that which we are capable of? Are we living up to our ability to change the world as Jesus kind of envisioned? We are getting a C in a course that we ought to be getting an A in.

You have to believe in the inherent goodness of the church, that when confronted with the right facts in the right way, it has great capacity for good. When I speak on issues like HIV or poverty, I never have anybody come up afterwards and say, "This is all bogus. You guys got it all wrong." I always have people coming up and saying, "We need to do more. What can we do?" Have faith that when confronted with the truth, true followers of Christ, will usually do the right thing. Or at least be motivated to do the right thing. Sometimes it is a lack of knowledge and awareness of the truth.

If I volunteer to help coach my kids' soccer team, or if I volunteered to be a docent at the art museum, it sounds like you wouldn't be happy about that. But such activities are helping the community in other ways—they're just not helping the poor as such.

It gets back to priority. There are certain things that really are not optional. We are not commanded to be a docent in the art museum. We are commanded to love the poor. To bind up the brokenhearted, to care for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. Those are pretty strong commands in the Bible. So you almost have to do those first.

It could be maybe you are a great writer and so you write about these things. It could be that you're a talented musician; we have these artist associates that go around for World Vision and use their music as a way to attract people to a ministry to the poor.

It's a balance thing. You can say, "Well, Rich what are you doing about abortion?" Well, I'm not doing much, frankly. I've given to crisis pregnancy centers over the years, but my thing is what World Vision is all about. I do think that God calls us to different things. Someone else might be called more to evangelism. But there are some things that all Christians have some responsibility to do. Evangelism would be one. Caring for the poor would be another. We are all called to love God, we are all called to love our neighbor, and we are all called to the Great Commission. We are not all called to be a docent, but that's a worthwhile thing to do. But not if it excludes the other things.

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9 Comments:

Blogger Mrs. Geezerette said...

This is a good article. I know I do not do enough for the poor and others in need. I get so wrapped up in the needs of our family members that I forget there are people beyond our family that need help too.

I know what you mean about the church and its opulence. It does look awfully hypocritical for the church to hang onto these treasures when they could sell them and do something worthwhile with the money, something that would help people who need help.

What kind of argument would one give in support of the church keeping its treasures?

9:11 PM  
Blogger crystal said...

Hi SusieQ,

When I brought up the subject before, I think some people commented that they believed the Church should be a kind of cultural custodian of art, etc (jump in anybody if I'm not remembering right).

But I have to say I think the Vatican selling off some art to use towards helping the poor would be a good idea. It's not as if there are not many other museums around the world, and hopefully they could sell the art to those other museums and not to private collectors. I think living things are more important than dead things, even if those dead things are priceless works of art.

12:01 AM  
Blogger Mike L said...

A lot of thoughts ran through my mind as I read this article, and I am not so sure that I completely agree with it. Seems that there was the situation when someone washed and anointed Christ's feet, and Judas complained that the oil could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Christ's response was not sympathetic to that idea if I remember right. That incident does give some credence to the idea that the beauty of the churches, etc., as an honor to God is appropriate.

I also suspect that if all the rich gave all their wealth to the poor, you would see little change in the poor, and a great increase in poverty. True wealth is productivity, which in turn produces more wealth.

I think the article pointed out that what really counted was the the small donations that kept on coming. If the Vatican sold all its treasures the money would quickly vanish into the black hole of poverty. Perhaps a much greater effect could be had if the Vatican charged a small amount to visit its museums and donated that to the poor.

You might try getting the book "Sugar Beach" which is the autobiography of an African woman describing the fall of her country. I think one realizes that all the money in the world will do no good until the people receiving it are ready to do something on their own. The article mentions the problem of HIV/AIDS, and I think this is a good example. Condoms might be a helpful stop gap, but until the men change their attitude that a woman is something to be used and discarded, that sex with a condom is acceptable, condoms will not solve the problem.

I suspect that there is culture of poverty, and until that culture is changed, no amount of money is going to help.

Those are a few of my thoughts, I may come back with more, or change them as I think about it. And it is certainly an article worth thinking about. Far more controversial is that the central concept of Christianity is helping the poor. I am not at all sure that I agree with that. Be interesting to see what others think. Seems like it eliminates the really poor from being Christians.

Hugs,

Mike L

7:16 AM  
Blogger crystal said...

Mike,

Maybe it's just because I've always been on the edge of becoming poor, but this whole discussion makes me so angry. Do people who have no money worries really not know how awful it is to not have enough? Do they just not care? Do they think they are immune to poverty and so they can look the other way with impunity and tell themselves the poor will always be with us? Imagine watching your child starve to death, knowing someone could save them, but would rather not "throw bad money after good"? I could try to dredge up the many scripture passages that tell us to help the poor (and don't mention supporting art museums or gilded liturgical gear) but I guess there's no point.

11:10 AM  
Blogger crystal said...

Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. Didn't get much sleeo last night and I'm cranky.

1:42 PM  
Blogger Mike L said...

I don't think you are being rude Crystal, and I do understand where you are coming from. I don't have answers to the world's problems, I don't have the wealth or knowledge or power to solve the problem of poverty.

Perhaps foolishly I spent my life working, and I guess to many I wasted money that I could have given to the poor on such things as cars, houses, food vacations, computers, etc. But had I not done this, and many others like me, there would have been a hell of lot of others joining the poor. The contractors that built my house, the factory workers that built my car, the dealers that sold it to me, the mechanics that repaired it, the farmers that raised my food and all those that earned their money by transporting it to the stores so that the clerks could earn a wage to buy their food. What a wast my life was.

Should I give everything I have to the poor and impoverish Susannah also? We plan to travel to Alaska in the spring, should we not do that and instead give the money to the poor? What about all the people that we would help support as we spent our money traveling?

Susannah and I have enjoyed beautiful churches, wonderful museums, good books, lovely music. I guess we stand condemned for this when it could have ended up in someones living room and the money sent to the poor.

Susannah and I have tried to be generous to help others that have less than we have. But I guess we stand condemned because we have not done enough. Perhaps the world will be richer when we pass on.

3:43 PM  
Blogger crystal said...

Perhaps the world will be richer when we pass on.

Who's cranky now? :)

I don't think the idea is to take away art and music and computers and vacations, etc.

Somehow there must be a way to find a balance between having a good life with the benefits of culture, and sharing some of what we have with people who don't even have food, water, shelter, medicine, etc.

But I was mainly referring to the wealth of the Church. That guy in the post said 25,000 children die every day because of poverty. It's not like it would mean the end of civilization as we know it if the Vatican sold some artwork - I think the Louvre and the British Museum and the Uffizi Gallery and the Prada, etc, would still be there to take up the slack.

4:30 PM  
Blogger cowboyangel said...

Don't think anyone can say with certainty that Jesus wouldn't give to the symphony. That's just Stearns' Jesus. Jesus might give to the symphony so they could play for poor people who couldn't afford to hear them normally, so they could have some beauty in their otherwise miserable world. Who knows?

He has some good things to say - I agree with much of it, especially about the churches. It's pretty sick for so many Christian churches to be so opulent in the face of so much poverty. And I agree with you on the Vatican. I don't know why they couldn't sell off half their holdings to help the poor. How much of that wealth came from the slaughter of indigenous people in the Americas to begin with? It was always hard when I lived in Spain to look at some of the opulent cathedrals, knowing the history behind much of it. I still can't believe Colon/Columbus is buried in the cathedral in Sevilla. So with that kind of history, what do you expect? Why would the Church suddenly change its ways? They've been tied into the powerful and the elite of the world almost since the beginning.

And I can't see any other Christian institutions giving away their possessions to follow Jesus either. In this country, what's called Christianity is really some weird American civil religion mixing capitalism, Jesus, and worship of the individual. The more people go to church, the more they support torture. What does that tell you about Christianity in this country? You have people within all of these institutions doing what they can for the poor, but the institutions themselves are too tied up in the glory of the world and man's power. That's not really new.

But poverty is a complex issue, and just throwing money at it won't help either, as Mike said. And, to be honest, a lot of giving is more about the person giving than it is about the people who need help. It makes us feel better and assuages our guilt. I don't know how much it actually helps. But once you start poking your nose into really changing things, you're "political" and often an enemy of the good Christian torturers.

Whatever. I'm in a mood.

7:30 AM  
Blogger crystal said...

William,

Yeah, I was reading about this history of the Vatican Museums, read it all began when Pope somebody (can't remember who) first bought the recently found Laocoon statue and decided to show it to the public. I think we're so used to it by now that no one wonders how a church got into the museum business.

The thing with museums that have so much ancient art is that much of it was "liberated" from its country of origin before there were laws against that. And if the Vatican museum is at all like the New York museum of natural history, only a fragment of all the stuff it has ever is on display - most of it sits in storage, benefitting no one.

But I'm ranting again :)

There must be "smart" ways to help with poverty, to do away with what cuses it, and those ways will take money. Bill Gates is sort of trying this, I think, although I wonder about his motives and methods.

10:39 AM  

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