Words'nTone

Yes I know it’s March 9th and I haven’t posted since February 28th; it has been busy and crowded these last few weeks.  I spent March 2-5 in DC at our Community Action national legislative conference.  I took the train down to DC from CT this time—what a wonderful trip.  Should have been taking the train for all these trips to DC.  In the midst of doing “homework” (you know office work), I spent time looking out the window.  I loved seeing the homes and factories and neighborhoods, and the people just in eye-reach of the train.  I keep thinking after seeing so many homes and dwelling places—do we really have that many people living here.  Yes, over 300 million now.  But I kept thinking, There are real people living in those homes.  Most of the homes were blighted or concentrated.  I was awestruck at the conditions, wondering about the lives that live among these homes and neighborhoods 24/7.  I wondered what impact there is on the kids; how many will be able to escape to a better life.  I don’t mean a life in the burbs—heavens no!  Just a meaningful life, personally, family, college, work.  I wondered what are we promoting as a civil society, so vast with resources and the capacity to do so much better, in allowing such concentrations of poverty and blight to exist—and to let children and youth remain trapped in it.

The train ride and my ability to see “America” as it is for hours at a time caused me to reflect on my regular mode of transportation—flying.  I kept thinking that most non-poor, especially among the evangelical community, are living life like flying in an airplane as opposed to taking the train.  Flying doesn’t let you see things as they are in everyday life; the train ride does.  Soaring high above it all, the impact of everyday life is not seen, almost avoided, out of eye-reach, small, minute.  Flying offers a distant, disconnected view of everyday life.  Sure the landscapes are beautiful from 22 thousand feet—I’ll admit that.  But the train ride showed me everyday life as it is—rolling by my eyes with enough time to think about the lives behind the homes, streets, the neighborhoods.  The train ride made me think about the separation we build into our lives to keep us at a distance to the concentrated areas of poverty.  I think I’ll be taking the train more often now.

2009 Christmas was Christmas present-lite, for obvious reasons.  But we were going to my dad’s in South Carolina for our first Christmas in over 50 years.  We wanted to bring something for household.  I decided for my brother the “End of the Spear” DVD.  The DVD is a movie about the real event of the missionary-martyrs we often hear about in sermon illustrations at church.  The Director of the “End of the Spear” tells us that the Waodani tribe of the eastern rainforest of Ecuador, at first, did not want to allow them to be portrayed on film, especially the events of January 1956.  As the shot at Concord was heard around the world (April 19, 1775,), there was a true sense that the spears piercing into the five missionaries on that river sand bar in the jungles of Equator, too, were heard around the world.  Many Christians know the story as repeated in sermons, Sunday school, college chapels, and missionary stories: Missionaries Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, and Roget Youderian met the end of the spear in a deceitful twist of what was to be a fruitful missionary journey to bring the Good News to one of the most violent tribes of South America in 1956.  When the Waodani tribe, now many years later, and many who follow “God’s carvings” as the Waodani call the Bible, said no at the invitation to retell their story on film, Steve Saint began to explain to them about the violence in America.  He explained the incident at Columbine where, for no real reason, students had murdered their fellow classmates.  After hearing some of America’s violent stories, Mincayani, the actual one who had killed Steve’s father in 1956, noted that the stories of violence in American was just like how the Waodani had lived before following “God’s carvings.” The tribe then agreed: if their story could help us in the U.S. stop killing and live in peace, they saw telling their story through film as a good thing.  The truthfulness of the Gospel is an objective fact of history; its power can even be applied to the wildest, most violent, hate filled tribe in the deepest parts of the jungle.  Perhaps, it can be applied here, in the US, in our own schools, neighborhoods, and communities.

Writing projects sometime have a mind of their own—taking you places you didn’t expect to go.  At the previous 5 posts to this drawn-out thread indicates, I have draw some conclusions about my political leanings, about taxing and taxes, and about political rhetoric.  In particular, I have concluded that I can no longer be a registered republican—certainly not because I am not conservative in my political views, for the most part I am, in particular in my view of the constitution, limited government, and policy related to taxes and business.  Nonetheless, it is the affiliation that is at heart—I cannot find myself affiliated by commitment to a political party: neither major parties represent my views on my relationship to the world around me, particularly to the poor.  Neither party offers solutions that are biblical enough for me to sign my name to, actually.  Although simplistic, but certainly not naïve, the political action arena and too much of the business associated with the issues of social action and poverty seem more about power—who has it, who controls it, and making money off it—for me to align myself in a political affiliation.

Now perhaps more naïvely so, it seems to me that Christians should not be too quick on affiliating with a party.  I know some Christians turn to the Conservative Party, or the Libertarian Party (which I now seem closer to in basic philosophy, except this party, too, undervalues the role of government in addressing the issues of generational poverty), and even some Christians seem to now pump the so-called Tea Party as a political home.  I think as an independent, non-affiliated citizen-voter, I have power to give away (which seems a more biblical view of political power), so that politicians and parties need to win my vote and support.

Many Christians won’t be a democrat because as a party they are pro-abortion—that seems clear enough for me, and personally, understandable.  But simply because a party (in this case, republican) is via platform and rhetoric pro-life should not be enough to sign on.  Because both parties seem to have enough to make my Christian-skin feel uncomfortable at this time, an independent position seems best for me.  Candidates will have to win me over—and I will be specific on my questions to them regarding their positions and actions on behalf of the least vulnerable among us.  Rhetoric will not be enough.  Power is to be given away—not grabbed.  I see too much of that now.  How do I perceive their hold on power?  These will be some of the criteria for my support and vote.  I am committed to be a more thinking Christian when it comes to politics, political support, and voting.

I am going to get in trouble here, but that’s the way it goes.  Shouldn’t surprise regular readers of Words’nTone.  You can search the New Testament high and low and you will not find the Gospel writers (Luke, James, Peter, or John, even Paul) dwelling on the subject of evangelism.  I know to speak against or downplay evangelism (that is, contemporary, individualistic, personal evangelism) is like committing sacrilege—and it certainly would not make one a popular candidate for a pastoral position in today’s modern church.  (Maybe that’s one reason the a pastoral position continues to allude me.) I have been a student of the Bible for over 31 years, not just over three decades.  I have a Masters in New Testament Theology (with a Greek concentration).  I have been a New Testament and Greek Professor at a Bible College and Graduate school, and have pastored churches for about ten years.  And I still get strange looks and condemning comments when I ask where are the commands to evangelize.  Of course I appreciate the passion of those who are committed “verbal witnesses,” who make it part of their daily lives to share Christ with others.  I am moved by the commitment of those who weekly participate in programs like Evangelism Explosion and witnessing teams.  But as a formal command to share the Gospel or for a church to develop and plan for evangelism (and to tell people in the pews it is their job, their responsibility to do the work of evangelism), there is a lack in New Testament scripture of such a perspective and application.

Go make disciples (Matthew 28:19), of course.  The general call to preach the gospel to all creation (Mark 16:15), this is there, too.  The promise of being Christ’s witness to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), yes, indeed that is there as well.  Some will think these are enough to suggest each individual Christian is responsible to evangelize.  My issue, however, is we all too often attach “witnessing” and “evangelism” to growing my church, our individual local congregation.  There is that expectation, as if the burden to bring “in the numbers” is a people-of-the-pew responsibility.  But go ahead, read each New Testament Letter and find me one place where Paul, James, Peter or John (or Luke for that matter) commands those individual churches to get busy evangelizing, or calls for individual Christians among the congregations to go out and bring people in.

Why I am even bringing this up?  Don’t I care about people going to hell?  Why wouldn’t I emphasize evangelism?  What’s wrong with me?  I think this cognitive approach to spreading the Gospel is an excuse for actually not doing the work of the Kingdom.  I believe church leadership uses this “place-the-burden-on-the-pew” approach to evangelism to replace their responsibility for fulfilling true leadership and the call of pastoring.  New Testament writers seems to be more concerned about expanding the influence of Jesus, His kingdom and His righteousness than making a series of individualistic, building-centered church bodies just increase their body-count (i.e., attendance numbers).  I’d like to see more biblical theology on church growth (and not just social trends and sociological studies—all good and could be useful, but not just for numerical church growth).  The church is called to be an expanding temple of Christ—moving outward, expanding outward to encompass more territory demographically and geographically.  As we seek to develop plans for evangelism, church leadership is to, well, lead (and that means do, people, do, not just talk or preach), and whole congregations should implement ways to expand the kingdom, which includes it social dimensions, not just its personal application.  It seems to me that the New Testament writers spent their writing time disciplining and assisting the local church communities to be better “Cities” on their respective “hills” and evoking the church’s leadership to lead in developing in this type of evangelism, that is, the growth and advance of the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness.

“There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the morés of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

“Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent—and often even vocal—sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” (1963)

My daughter never ceases to amaze me.  In a recent homework assignment she analysis two pieces of literature from two government antagonists and advocates for civil disobedience—Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr.  Both these men, according to my daughter, Amanda, challenged “the ‘rightness’ of government laws and its justice system through civil disobedience.” These two essays reflected these sentiments: Thoreau in his essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” (1849) and King in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963).  She utilizes these essays and how each of these recognizable civil antagonists provoked others to be persuaded by their point of view.  She summarizes the essence of these men’s conflict with Governing laws and the laws of personal morality:

“Humanity is ruled by a large range of moral law, which dictates the difference between right and wrong.  However, society is ruled by a government that dictates what is considered right and wrong according to laws.  These laws set the standards by which a society functions and the penalties for breaking the laws.  When the law of society clashes with the moral individuality of humanity, it is only fair that one should be able to ask if the government’s laws are sound and morally correct.”

My Amanda contends that Luther, rather than Thoreau, has a better persuasive essay, for in the end both use appeals to justice, both from two very different angles.  Thoreau because of how what he considered unjust laws affected him—he pushed his argument from an individualistic point of reference; whereas Luther, on the other hand concentrated on what is just for all people, especially those marginalized in places of concentrated poverty.  I, too, read Thoreau, not in high school, but in college and I told Amanda I always felt he was a whiner.  He complained about what he didn’t like personally.  He would no more want you or his neighbor to exercise their personal morality if it somehow placed him in conflict with his own.

I never read King until I was a Christian, out of college and grad-school and working in a Community Action Agency.  King on the other hand, despite any personal failings, didn’t complain for himself, but identified what ought to be just for all.  My daughter’s brief essay contrasting these two firebrands draws out King’s poignant comment to the Church:

“King’s essay is exceedingly more personal than Thoreau’s.  Within this letter there is also a hint of logical appeal, for example when his is talking to the church and how disappointed he is with their role in segregation, King ‘logically’ states that if the church does not ‘recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed and an irrelevant social club…’ (King).  This logical appeal attempts to get the church to think about the consequences of their actions and inaction, drawing the point that it may be their downfall to not aid in the termination of segregation.”

I was amazed at both the reference in the Letter and that my daughter would draw out her own attention to the Church’s culpability in following unjust laws (and allow and not confront structural sin that leave many poor and marginalized around us).  She ends her own argument that King was more persuasive than the selfish, bellyaching, whining Thoreau:

“In comparing King’s letter to Thoreau’s essay—both on civil disobedience— it appears that King’s letter is more effective in its use of emotional appeals and ability to draw in the audience with a convincing tone and persuasive argument.  King is fighting for something he believes to be right and the reader can feel his passion simmer throughout the letter.  King also is more effective in the way he establishes his authority.  In the letter he gives a brief introduction of who he is and his purpose for being in Alabama.  Thoreau, while demonstrating a well thought through and logical argument, still fails to truly captivate the reader.  At the closing of his essay it appears as though he is just bitter for being placed in jail.  Thoreau was not prepared for the consequences of his actions.  King, on the other hand, was convinced that suffering the consequences of his actions was part of his argument.”

Perhaps one reason the Church fails to captivate the public is that we argue like Thoreau—we’re only complaining about what affects us, selfish, moralizing whiners who just don’t want what is unjust toward us.  We ought to reflect more King’s argument and stop being “an irrelevant social club,” and realize that whatever suffering as Christians we are to endure on behalf of others is part of our apologetic, part of our argument for Christianity and that Christ is alive and the true King over all things in heaven and on earth.

Populist rhetoric favoring the poor over the rich and the government over the private sector hurts the poor
In the history I have studied and in recent and current history I have lived through and observed, one would think we would have learned that populous political rhetoric might win over the marginalized masses to ensure a change of who is in power, but actual governing leadership by populous politicians never have produced the utopias or “equalized” societies they promise—just consolidated, concentrated, and centralized their own elite status and power. In fact most such politicians once in governing power tend to be intolerant of competition, violent and aggressive against those who disagree, and tyrants over those they govern—even those masses they appealed to for power in the first place. If someone knows of one such governing politician that has actually brought their marginalized out of poverty and blight, please let me know.

Although it is rare for a politician truly to advocate for the poor and mean it and actually do something about poverty (I mean this—who, really, which one has? The list is short, very short), all render lip service and find ways to endear themselves to the poor, while at the same time ensuring the wealthy stay close and friendly.

I told my daughter just earlier this month, I could never be mayor of my urban city (or a legislator who represents it), for I would feel it was my obligation to make sure not one child goes to bed hungry. I couldn’t go to bed knowing that I had the power to do something and didn’t. No one wins elections and especially reelections on that platform. I heard a Connecticut Congressman say once, his constituency is so diverse, for he must find a way to please the billionaire and help the poor who don’t have enough money for food. For me, that’s an easy call—introduce the billionaire to the poor, make sure that happens. As a Christian (which the Congressman stated he was), it is not the politician’s obligation to please the billionaire, but it is his biblical obligation to advocate for the poor. However, it is even worse when a politician (and I don’t necessarily mean this CT Congressmen referenced here) sounds like he or she is an advocate for the poor, but in the end does little to truly promote the eradication of the conditions of poverty.

So on the one hand, political advocates for the poor in the end rarely come through for those whom they are advocating. (Just shifting financial resources doesn’t ameliorate poverty—or it would have happened already. Just throwing money at poverty and the poor doesn’t fix it either.) On the other hand, the politicized rhetoric and class envy in political speech does little good in the end for the poor. In fact it makes that separation stronger; it actually creates resentment by the non-poor against the poor; it makes it seem it’s “us with money” verses “them who want to take our money” and makes the non-poor wary of government funds and programs that shift resources and their money toward the poor. Most of the time politicized rhetoric in the form of class envy is used to produce resentment among the poor, the marginalized, and those who form the low-income populations, the “have-nots” (for a get out the vote). This resentment is to produce political power to shift money and resources to them, to promote spread-the-wealth policies (which isn’t a solution), particularly a power that comes in the form of voter-blocks toward the politician creating that class envy with their political rhetoric. But in the end it doesn’t work, for it also has the consequence of making the non-poor resentful of the poor—which in turn creates another block of voters with interests to protect themselves from government take-over in any form—which in the end just shifts power back to those alienated from those who live in poverty.

I’d go back to introducing the billionaire to the poor. I’d help the non-poor to learn more about poverty, its causes, and how some—maybe not all—of their wealth was created through the assistance of government (whether federal, state or municipal) in the first place (in order to take some of the self-righteous wind out of their own bravado). I have been to at least one “how to end poverty” or “how to help the poor” or “how to bring economic stability and jobs to the poor” workshops and/or conferences each year for the last thirteen years. I love the people who go—they are my colleagues and friends whose jobs are to everyday advocate for the poor. But I have always thought we’re the wrong group to have this discussion—at least wrong to be the only ones in the room. We need the billionaires in that room; we need the business leaders, entrepreneurs, the educators. Solutions to the problems start with the potential solutions being understood and owned by those who could make it happen, or at least to provide the resources and creative energy.

Populous political rhetoric, in the end, hurts the poor by either those offering the rhetoric, but not truly producing the promises, or through the dividing resentment and backlash created in those who are non-poor. There seems to be a better way. There must be.

Extreme and Undisciplined Spending on Social Programs Paves the Way for Zero-lining Important Social Service Programs

For eight years I had to face that a republican president kept zeroing out line items associated with supporting urban renewal, rural blight, and supportive services to the economically vulnerable and the poor. I argued with the best of my liberal leaning colleagues to restore such cuts in the federal budget. I also watched as my own State Governor over the years, especially in these economically turbulent times, attempt to balance the State budget on the backs of the same economically vulnerable populations. I understand it’s a tough call—and most conservatives believe these government funded support and urban/rural economic development for those living in areas of concentrated poverty are simply not the government’s business. But, and as I have discussed elsewhere in this blog and in my papers, it’s not a fair assessment to say the non-poor have not received similar government-funded assistance (see some previous posts—social construction 4 and social construction 5, as well as NIMBY-BANANA-LULUS). Certainly we can be more creative than always assuming it’s the right and prudent thing to do—that is cut out what helps the economically vulnerable and the poor.

Now we have an administration in office that seems to spend a lot on social services and the poor. Stimulus funds and funding for long established Government budgeted items have poured out in abundance. After many years in the wilderness of cuts and restraint (under Reagan, H W Bush, G W Bush, and even under Clinton), this is make up time and the dollars have flowed out of Washington. As someone who is indeed conservative, I still see, however, the value in much of this spending. However, two things make for a future of cuts and decreases in these areas once there is a change in power to right-leaning Congresses, Senates, and the Oval Office:

1. Most conservatives don’t know the poor, nor interact with the poor, and are geographically and through daily social habits separated from the economically vulnerable, and only see the spending as reckless and undisciplined.

2. Perception is many times 100% reality for those who don’t know the whole picture.

The unrestrained and undisciplined spending that is flowing from Washington under democrat controlled Congress, the Senate, and the Oval Office will be met with resistance once the power shifts. My fear is that there will be a stronger will and a more powerful ability to zero-out those important items in the federal budget aimed at helping those living with the affects of poverty. Those of us in the social service world and who work within Social Action need to be better at demonstrating what we do and how it benefits everyone. At the same time I think there needs to be more discipline in showing the outcomes of social spending and more argument in showing how the non-poor have benefited from the very government they now want to restrain in helping those living with poverty. Somehow we need to be able to see that helping those who are poor and economically vulnerable isn’t a right-left, red-blue, private-public thing. We’re smarter than that. Well, I certainly hope we are.

Typically, everyday you’ll find me reading and researching three subject areas—the fun part is linking them all together.  I am getting a little ahead of myself here.  I just spent the last six months researching and getting a paper done to present at this past November’s annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society.  They met in New Orleans.  A great setting to present a paper on the issue of poverty.  And then, this past Thursday the new issue of the Africanus Journal was posted, along with an article of mine on the topic of evangelism and social action called “Wasted Evangelism,” based on the Sower who sows parables in the Gospel of Mark.  My colleagues at work, obviously proud of their co-worker (which I am humbled by), they wondered when I had time and why I wrote academic papers like this for a hobby, a past time.  Some curiosity at the religion stuff mixed in too.  Most know I have a personal faith in Christ and have been an ordained pastor, so it’s not too hard to make the connection.  But a full fledged academic pursuit with resulting paper—that’s harder to fathom.

I do it to see if I can.  Really.  Back in 2005, I attended an Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting in Valley Forge, PA.  (The annual meetings float around to different major cities each year.) I hadn’t been to a meeting since 1996.  Mostly I had been redirected in my vocation and employment away from full time church and academics to community action and social services.  The academic, evangelical setting didn’t seem a matched for those intervening years, 1996-2005—so I didn’t go.  Then an annual meeting was set for Valley Forge, a two-hour drive.  I wanted my wife to see and experience my old life a little, maybe meet some of my former colleagues and friends from that time of my life—I was in church work and Christian higher education from 1986-1996.  And it was close by.  So we went—made all the introductions and we had a great time.  She even enjoyed some of the “academic” papers herself.  I wanted to reintroduce myself into the ebb and flow of the ETS and academic world, and start going to annual meetings again.  But I wasn’t going unless I could present papers—way too expensive a trip and stay unless I was justifying it with a paper to present.  So I undertook the attempt for the 2006 meeting in DC.  And I was able to research and write and present a halfway decent paper on Mark 12, “Widows in Our Courts.”

I wanted to see if I still had it in me to write at this level—and I did.  So in 2008 I wrote another paper to present (“Wasted Evangelism” on Mark 4) and again in 2009 (“Idolatry and Poverty”).

I spend almost every day reading books and papers and essays on the issues of poverty and social action, workforce development and preschool development, and biblical studies.  Synthesizing the three is my goal.  Relating the Church, especially the evangelical church and church-life to such topics as poverty, workforce development, child development, and social action.  The church needs to do this in order to make our proclamation and action both biblical and relevant to the needs around us.  So I do this because now I know I can and we must as evangelical confessing Christians.

My next paper is on Mark 1:17, “Designed for Discipleship: Disciples as God’s Instruments of Judgment.”

Low taxes often means more revenue into the government

I like low taxes.  I believe most people do—even those who want to tax everything in sight.  They just want other people’s income to be taxed more; not theirs.  The politicians who make the laws know the loopholes, and recently we discovered that many just don’t pay their own taxes anyway (until they get caught).  Historically when the Federal government reduces taxes, revenues go up.  Of course this also depends on Federal spending and inflation.  The reduction of the capital gains tax as well causes revenues to increase (for many reasons); in fact the 2003 cuts to capital gains under President Bush doubled the revenue from this particular tax.  When will politicians ever get it right—raising tax rates are never the best way to raise revenue; in fact, tax revenues correlate with economic growth, not tax rates.  Address economic growth and job creation and unemployment and you will see revenues increased.  (It’s all about jobs, stupid!) This is what should be concentrated on—whether there are tax cuts or not.  It is not that tax cuts directly increase revenue.  Tax cuts leave earned cash in the hands of people to spend, which in turn spurs on economic growth.  Overall this leaves more financial resources and capital in the hands of those who expand, build, create, and improve business and jobs, which in turn places more financial resources in everyday people’s power to spend.  This is what increases revenue when taxes remain low.

For me, its not just about increase in tax revenue but about creating the potential for job expansion and creation and what any increase in revenue is spent on that matters to me.  There is no way in a short blog post I can analysis the Federal budget in any meaningful way, but I can target my thoughts on two things: jobs/employment and the economically vulnerable.  Republicans miss out on opportunities to address concentrations of poverty and the issue of unemployment (lack of job skills and work history, poor education, employment barriers, and the lack of employment opportunities).  Meanwhile, democrats continue to act as if more taxes and time will fix the problems of the poor and unemployment and the lack of employment opportunities.  Both are wrong.  Both utilize the power of taxes and taxing erroneously.  As the tax laws and various Acts of Congress in the post-WWII era helped to establish the movement of wealth and resources, including human capital, away from central-urban cities and into the regions of exurbia, new and created laws could bring restoration and wealth creation in urban centers.  There has been some success in the Laws that create Enterprise and Economic Empowerment Zones in urban areas, as well as the Earned Income Tax Credit.  My only issues with the EITC is that it should be utilized for promoting employment preparation or advancement and education.  Certainly not home ownership—this leads to economic ruin for everyone!  Just paying bills with EITC is like buying fish to eat rather than teaching to fish—if you get my point.

Tax revenue, as long as it’s about power, is harmful in the end.  Just makes politicians, well, powerful and their status high.  That’s all.  After reviewing the numerous ways the tax system and laws were used to create outward exurban expansion and wealth, along with the deterioration of and depletion of resources in the urban centers post-WWII, I have concluded that creative people with a desire to actually enrich and change and ameliorate the conditions of poverty in the central-cities can if they have the will.  Everyone likes low taxes, but it is all about creating economic and job opportunities, especially within areas of concentrated poverty, that counts in the end.  This view and intention would do more to stop and prohibit general poverty in our urban centers.  Just making taxes low or cutting social spending or decreasing the safety net type of infrastructure doesn’t address the causes of poverty, but neither does just throwing more money at the problem—rather than actually addressing the causes.  Advocates for the poor should target their advocacy on causes and solutions, not just taxes and taxing.

My renewed independence
I have the form.  I will fill it out by the end of December: I am reregistering as an independent with no party affiliation.  I have told a few people, all of which are within my social action network—and the first thing is a smile, an “about time,” and then the assumption that I am moving from being a republican to a democrat.  Sorry.  That, too, rubs the wrong way on my soul after I produced the New Orleans paper on “Idolatry and Poverty.” Rarely has a research project or academic study affected me as this one particular paper.  A line in my paper haunts me—its not a great sound bit or a great piece that will etch itself into the long stretch of history, but writing it affected me:

Non-poor Christians are in danger of idolatry when finding themselves in need of affirming “this worldly” system and its institutions in order to be at home, plotting their lives on the societal map provided by institutions and specious freedoms in order to relate—comfortably, plausibly, securely—to the overall web of acceptable meanings in society.

A line afterward was removed from my draft because I didn’t want the paper to spiral down and degenerate into Christianese on politics.  But I wrote something like, “We as Evangelical Christians seem to continually affirm our faith through party affiliation and not the Word of God, confusing our faith with our politics.” I don’t think over the past ten years I have confused my political views and party affiliation with Republicans with my faith in Christ.  In fact when I returned from serving in the Air Force in Korea way back in 1981, I registered as an independent after growing up and basically voting republican for my whole life (all of my 23 years!).  Although I identified myself as a conservative and politically as a republican I maintained that Independent political party status until I moved back to Connecticut with my daughter in 1996, when I registered as a republican in order to vote in the primaries.  Some states allow crossovers; CT is not one of them.  I remained a republican, even was invited to work on a candidate’s primary bid for the republican spot for our city’s mayoral election, and joined the Republican Town Committee as a member, serving three terms.  It was in my blood to be a republican by party affiliation—heck, my mom danced with Barry Goldwater at a fundraiser when he was the Republican candidate for President back in 1964.  And if you would have asked me as a young Christian in my twenties and even through my thirties whiche party best represented evangelical Christians, I would have said the Republican Party.

But the Word has been pulling me into another frame of thinking.  The Democrat Party is not the home of biblically minded Christians either.  This is where it gets tough as a thinking Christian, one who wants desperately to have God’s Word and Spirit form and reform and mold one’s thoughts and beliefs and actions.  Although I might act and vote in a certain pattern, associating with party affiliation tends to align one with all of its values and expressions—and I can’t do that as a Christian.  This is particularly clear in regards to how one (I!) thinks about the issues of poverty and the poor.  I wrote in my paper, “Christian approaches to poverty tend to align with political views, party affiliations, and social-locations.” The alienation and marginalization that most republicans display and affirm of the poor is simply not Christian (no matter what their view on taxes or private property is).  And to counter in the other direction, centralization of power into any form of Government tends to be abusive and elitist, and thus the Democrat party cannot be “home” to the Christian either, for such a view of Governing power seems at odds with Scripture as well.

So, although this thought and direction needs more exposition and argument, here I only wanted to reveal that I am moving from my Republican Party affiliation to a non-party, independent political registration (not the Independent Party, but unaffiliated and independent of party).  This does not mean I take the position that Christians ought not to be involved in politics or vote—nothing could be farther from the truth.  In fact, politics is all about power.  Most want it for the power they get, the power they receive and obtain.  Biblically, power is something that is to be given away—ah, there is that principle of incarnation and the cross (Phil 2:1ff).  As a person in this Country, who is a Christian first, who is unaffiliated, I actually would have the position where I can give power away to those who need it most, the poor, and to the politician (through my vote) who convinces me they have the interests of the poor in mind as they will govern.

In the first post of this thread, closing my conclusions on my ETS paper, I offered a rewrite on the conclusion of my paper (Show me what kind of association you have with those living with the affects of poverty, and I will tell you what kind of god you worship). As most of my regular readers know I am working and finishing up a paper that I will present at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society that meets in New Orleans this month. The paper, “Idolatry and Poverty: Where the Public vs. the Private Isn’t Enough,” draft of which I have post on this site. I went into this project thinking I knew the outcome; already knowing what I expected to find out. After a year of research, having read and reviewed countless articles and books, I didn’t find exactly what I thought I’d find; I ended up discovering something slightly different.

In Rhode Island last year, I explained to my Evangelical Theological Society study group, “Other Voices,” that I feel, often, alone in any room. No matter where I go, I find I am almost always alone in the room, among colleagues, at church, among friends, at political activities. Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of friends and family, and people are generally nice to me and often agree with parts of my thinking. So this isn’t about people as much as it is about what I believe to be important and true. I can be in a room of my professional peers and I’d, almost always, be alone; or in a room of friends or workmates, and again, be pretty much alone as a conservative, who believes in the original intent of the constitution, who works in the social service world on behalf of the poor. I am a conservative, “right wing” evangelical, a hawk regarding the military, a strong advocate of reasonable military preemptive action, low-taxes with minimal government, strong on business and the free market, who also believes that the issues of poverty are of national interest and deserve action at all levels of society, including government. Dealing with the issues of poverty is more than individual charity, for there is personal as well as structural sin, quality of life doesn’t mean just suburban life, but is a matter of well-being and economic self-sufficiency (or at least as much self-sufficiency as possible for individuals and families).

And particularly for the non-poor, conservative Christian there needs to be a different framework for thinking about poverty; one which is neither right nor left (although I am not that naïve to think one can totally be non-political or without a tinge from blue-red); one that doesn’t simply finds its basis in a political allegiance or socio-economic social location.

While writing my paper on “Wasted Evangelism” and Mark 4 for the Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting in 2008, I discovered that virtually every single reference in the Old Testament regarding the poor, the economically vulnerable, or the issue of poverty was juxtaposed with texts about idolatry. Vertically every Pentateuchal or Prophetic text dealing with the poor also, in the immediate context or flow of thought, had a reference to idolatry in some form or another—there is an idolatry-poverty juxtaposition that is consistent throughout the Old Testament. This intrigued me to do some further investigation. Here are a few things I learned and discovered along the way and in doing this paper:

• Because of the references to the poor and poverty in the Old Testament have as their basis the prohibition against idolatry, particularly the idea of God vs. the gods, the issue of poverty for the Christian is raised to the level of apologetics, placing it directly into the very nature discipleship and evangelism.



• The non-poor Christian living in the suburbs didn’t do it on their own as they claim—they had help over the years, particularly in Government aid, policy, and regulations.



• As long as there are zoning codes and laws supported by political conservatives, I will not believe those same conservatives actually believe in the free market—they believe in a controlled free market with rules and regulations that support their social location and place and property as they see fit (not as the market sees fit).



• The original Ten-Words, often referred to as the Ten-Commandments, have more to do with the issues of poverty than simply the piety of those who claim adherence to their so-called original intent.



• Political alignment is a faulty framework for thinking and dealing with the issues of poverty, and for the non-poor Christian in particular, it is a faulting and idolatrous construction of reality.



• Social action isn’t an option for the evangelistic efforts and life of the church community; it is by definition of the Gospel as presented by Mark, part of it—so much so that not to provide social action as a believing community is to be disobedient to the Gospel.



• Those living in and enjoying the benefits of exurban life have stolen and are “stealing” (as the original 8th commandment is to be read) from those who live in urban centers and are guilty of the original intent of the 10th commandment to not covet.



• This private vs. public dichotomy where the choice is between individual charity and government or public is a faulty framework for Christians to think about poverty, which supports both the idolatry of individualism and idolatry of the state rather than truly addressing the issues of poverty.



• And one wild and crazy thought—imagine thousands and millions of suburban, non-poor evangelical Christians moving out of their exurban comfort-zone and into urban–centers all across this nation. Imagine. Do you know what kind of impact that would have on urban centers, on urban school districts, on municipal, State, and Federal politics—and zoning laws? Imagine.

The previous posts on Vain Spirituality and Justice might leave the impression that I am against capitalism.  Well, don’t misunderstand me.  I am not against capitalism; what I am for is making sure everyone in a capitalistic, upperly mobile society has access to the benefits of its resources and that everyone is given or has the means to make oneself and family self-sufficient.  As a Christian who takes the Bible seriously, I don’t care what type of socio-economic system we live under—whether it be socialism, communism, aristocracy, oligarchy, tribal, or monarchy.  Every socio-economic system has its weaknesses, inclinations, outcomes and unintended consequences.  Economic systems that utilize a central planning model, whether it be forms of communism, fascism, or socialism, have been and continue to be disastrous, most notably in the darkest corners of our planet.  Capitalism, on the other hand, although definitely a prosperous economic system, breeds a strange acceptance of greed and consumerism that is proving unhealthy, and equally dangerous to culture.

And we should note, every system still has winners and losers—and I believe it is the Christian community who should act as a prophetic voice in whatever system to ensure that the losers, that is those who do not have access to power are spoken for and given a voice in order to have access to what is necessary to enjoy the benefits of the land and ameliorate both personal poverty and the causes of poverty.  It seems foolish and shortsighted to me that much of the Christian (and mostly evangelical) community is so aligned with the present system of capitalism that we confuse it with the Kingdom of God.  We preach against individualism and then defend a system built on the premise of individualism; we scorn commercialism and its damage to our culture and churches and then defend the very system that promotes it.  We want it both ways.  But we cannot have it both ways.

I am not against capitalism, but I am for the Christian community to live in such a way that all of Scripture is taken seriously, not that which protects our place and status in this upward mobile socio-economic system and not that which puts at risk the economically poor (right here in America) that do not have access to power and the means to provide what is necessary for self-sufficiency.  Don’t get me wrong—I find that the capitalistic system is best to ensure expanded economic growth; but it does have its weaknesses and such prosperity blinds the Christian community to its responsibility toward the poor, which is both private as well as public.

If I were an alien—from say a remote planet or even remote island on the planet, let alone just a foreigner from a non-US territory—and I happened to stray a shore, passing very unfamiliar structures and signs, and then happening upon a TV somewhere-someplace in America, and being captivated by what I would later come to know as the Senate hearings on Surpreme court nominations …what would I have seen?  What would I have come to know about life in America?  What would I come away with that is important to Americans—well at least important to the questioning Senators?  I would surmise that American society is built on whether a female of the American species could kill their unborn or not.  One of the inquisitors stating, “…women all over America have come to depend on” the right to unrestricted abortion.  No wonder Abortion Rights are the most important reason to vote against a “conservative” Supreme Court nominee and to support a “liberal” one.  Parable aside, I also find it funny, ironic, and constitutionally selective when I hear the same anti-life politicians say that the Second Amendment (right to bear arms) is a static, militia oriented, proscription that can’t be applied to the individuals as a right to own a gun, but yet find a flexible—“the founders couldn’t have known, but made a flexible, fluid, living”—constitutional right to privacy to cover a woman’s right to NOT continuing bearing a child that she has inside of her womb.  When the brave founding father, facing certain death for his stand against England’s tyranny shouted for all American History to hear, “Give me liberty, or give me death,” I don’t think he meant, as Ann Coulter once wrote, that the modern cry for a faithful understanding of the fight for freedom is captured in “Give me liberty or give me the right to have unprotected sex with men I don’t want to have a child with.” I didn’t realize that the American experiment is a course in defining personhood backwards…I thought we made great gains forward in the experiment on this matter…we made gains in determining that we ought not to have slaves and that people of color (from all different races and ethnic lineage) are indeed full persons will inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Now we have Senator’s wanting a selective “living constitution” which diminishes the personhood of the unborn “fetus” and believes passionately (because that’s where their financial support comes from) that in order to have true liberty one must be free to destroy the life, if one chooses, that is the most innocent and of need of the most protection.  Give me liberty or deny me the right to kill the unborn.  Sad.  Very sad.

We are down visiting my father (whom I met for the first time in 50 years last Easter, ’08).  My brother (who I didn’t know even existed until last year) was shopping for my Dad who wanted each of us to have special Easter Presents (I got a GPS!).  He had planned some skateboard stuff, but though a xbox or gameboy or something would be better.  SO he asked me.  I told him I don’t buy anything for them that shirks their world.  So that was off the table—eventually it was a camcorder they’d get for filming their outdoor skateboard adventures.  That I can live with.  I, on the other hand, do enjoy buying presents for all my kids.  I am always asking for wish lists (minus electronic games of course), and I might even buy the choices listed, but I actually try to be a little more creative then their limited wishful thinking want-list.  I try to match up toys and things that my kids will both enjoy and learn from.  No, I don’t buy just educational toys.  My kids gave me their lists after much prodding.  But, for me the lists contained too many things that just distract and subtract—there is always a heavy concentration on video games, xboxes, gameboys, and fantasy playing cards (you know those Yugio-like stuff).  I know some parents see these things as evil and wouldn’t buy them for their kids out of conviction.  My concern goes deeper.  They aren’t evil or sinful in and of themselves, but they are toys and games that subtract and distract from more important things.  These are toys that seem to cause children to be addicted to playing them, especially at the expense of other things.  This is what bothers me.  These types of games narrow their world—shrink it.  They get caught up in playing them to the neglect of weightier matters—like homework, studying for tests, and well, playing with others.  (Adults have toys like this, too.) Toys and things that make it appear one is happy and having fun, but in the end leave one impoverish in someway.  I usually don’t get these types of thigs from their wish-lists, but I know they’ll like what I got them (usually).  I can’t help but think of Malcolm Muggeridge’s comments that

“The real paradox of our time is not poverty in plenty, but unhappiness in the pursuit of pleasure.”

Parents can disagree with me, but I refrained from encouraging my kids from playing with thing that shrink their world.  Muggeridge finishes that quote and goes on to say,

“We have everything that we want materially, and it ought to make us happy, but for some reason it doesn’t.  It should be the case that…where all these material things are most available, where the pursuit of happiness is most ardently undertaken should also be the place where human beings are most happy…In fact, it’s not so. Something has gone wrong. It hasn’t worked.”

“When it was virtues which were being pursued, and good character was the desired end, then the words used in [popular advice] manuals were typically citizenship, duty, democracy, work, building, golden deeds, outdoor life, conquest, honor, reputation, morals, manners, integrity, and above all, manhood. As the shift to focusing life around personality occurred, the language in these manuals also changed. Now, words the most commonly used were fascinating, stunning, attractive, magnetic, glowing, masterful, creative, dominant, forceful. It was a shift away from the older moral concern with personal restraint and sacrifice to the new concern with self-realization and self-expression. It was a shift away from one’s inner moral fabric and toward how one felt or how one appeared to others. Now, it was becoming important to express one’s uniqueness, to stand out in the crowd, and to know how to use one’s personality as one navigated through life’s stormy channels or came upon its opportunities. This ‘shift from character to personality,’ wrote Philip Cushman, ‘reflected a profound change in the cultural terrain of the era. The self was in process of being configured into a radically different shape’” [Referred to by David F. Wells in his book, Above All Earthly Pow’rs, p 50].

We can almost tell how old a person is, or more so, how mature a person is by the words they use. We know repeated “No” means babyish; “mine” toddler; “my right” immature, but still young and immature. The same is true of society. We are using a vastly different set of words to talk about ourselves, our personhood, and our place in this world than we did, say, even sixty years ago. What stands out here for me is the observation that we have moved from away from language of “personal restraint” and “sacrifice” to the language of “self-realization” and “self-expression.” A shift away from “character” to “personality.” Please don’t tell me this doesn’t make it difficult to develop a responsible citizenry, and even more so, near impossible to mature a congregation of Christians. It seems we cater to the heart in our preaching, but expect the sacrifice of our wills. In the pursuit of being relevant, the church has adopted the language of the postmodern (immature) world but expects the obedience and responsibility shaped by the language of Scripture. I don’t think we can have it both ways. We try, though.